26 de julio de 2026
Statement and words by the FLTI to the 64 International Antiwar Assembly of Japan en Tokyo
To the 64th International Antiwar Assembly in Japan
To the comrades of the Revolutionary Communist League of Japan - Revolutionary Marxist Faction (JRCL-RMF)
To the Zengakuren Revolutionary Youth
Comrades,
We fraternally salute your International Revolutionary Antiwar Assembly.
US imperialism is in decline. This decline was accelerated by its brutal crisis and the collapse of its economy in 2008, a crisis that exposed it to the entire world. After its defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it lost control of the oil routes, it has returned like a hurricane to the global economy, retaking its spheres of influence by fire and sword.
Imperialist Europe had closed in on itself and, using cheap Russian gas in a single market, increasing its productivity around the Franco-German axis.
With the war in Ukraine and the Russian invasion of that oppressed nation, the US fractured Europe, which was closing its market to them and competing in key international production sectors. Taking advantage of Putin's occupation of Donbas and Crimea, US imperialism crippled the imperialist powers of Maastricht. Thus, the US entered the race to challenge Moscow.
China flooded the world market with cheap products. US imperialism quickly declared a trade war.
Now, inter-imperialist struggles have intensified. Wall Street is once again trying to regain control of oil routes in the Middle East. It is doing so by propping up its gendarme, the Zionist-fascist state of Israel, annihilating the Palestinian nation, and now going after Iran and the entire region.
The US is returning to the world stage to recover what it lost. Therefore, the first thing the imperialist beast did was to set foot in its "backyard," Latin America. With Trump's Gestapo ICE a war began to deport, persecute, and imprison more than 30 million migrant workers from Latin America, Arab countries, etc., who do the worst jobs in the US.
Meanwhile, the Latin American “Bolivarian” bourgeoisies, self-proclaimed “anti-imperialist,” surrendered to imperialism long ago. Imperialism is their boss and senior partner in the region's business. This allowed Trump to seize Venezuela, which was surrendered keyless by its “Bolivarian bourgeoisie” lackeys, who sold out the nation's enormous oil reserves. This is the same thing Trump is now trying to achieve through bombing Iran.
All the native bourgeoisies of Latin America, falsely called “progressive,” did the same. Their governments merely accelerated the attack against workers and the selling out of their nations to imperialism, a process now being completed by Trump’s direct agents.
But the working class, from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, has done nothing but fight and resist. If imperialism advances, it is because of the betrayal of their leaderships.
In the US, the working class was also at the forefront of the struggle against the genocidal attack by US imperialism in Palestine and throughout the Middle East.
The native bourgeoisies are enemies of any revolutionary struggle of the working class, without which it is impossible to defeat imperialism in the semi-colonial countries. Imperialism is expelled by expropriating its banks and transnational corporations that plunder oppressed peoples. Native bourgeoisies know that if such a revolutionary process develops, their own property is also at risk.
It is thus more than clear that the struggles for national liberation must be led by the working class, leading its allies in the countryside and the city, fighting with the method of revolution and uniting with the workers in the imperialist countries; otherwise the oppressed peoples will again find themselves occupied, colonized and bloodied throughout the planet, and the working class of the core countries will suffer cruel defeats.
One more example that proves this, as if it were necessary, is the subservient role of the new Stalinist Cuban bourgeoisie, whose country is criminally blockaded by US imperialism. Far from leading the fight to defeat the blockade by relying on the struggle of the working class and poor peasants of Latin America, this bourgeoisie has been surrendering every revolutionary offensive around the continent.
Today, the new Cuban bourgeoisie desperately seeks to make a pact with imperialism and crushes its own working class, deepening capitalist restoration, demonstrating to US imperialism that they, being in power, are the best guarantee of US’s business interests; however, they have ceased to be useful. Now the US is going for everything.
What a paradox. In the 1960s, Che Guevara, beyond any political or programmatic differences we Trotskyists may have with his ideas, articulated a great truth: to break the blockade of Cuba, the revolution had to be extended to the whole Latin America, and so he went to fight in Bolivia, a matter that ultimately cost him his life.
Comrades,
If the US has launched this counterrevolutionary colonizing offensive over Latin America, disciplining its “backyard,” it is because it is preparing for greater adventures on the planet.
Now, as we have already said, US imperialism is going after all the oil routes. With their trade wars, they are targeting China and Russia, disputing them openly with European imperialist powers, like England and France, which have already warned that if the Strait of Hormuz is not opened, they will march with their warships to free their ships.
All of them, along with Zionism, have imposed a true genocide on the Palestinian nation.
The limit to the imperialist powers' ability to fully pursue their plundering wars in semi-colonial countries is that they have not defeated the working class in the core countries. They fear another Vietnam or Iraq, where they were defeated "at home."
This is why the savage imperialist offensives, as seen in Gaza, yesterday in Syria, today in Lebanon and Iran, are wars of demolition, since imperialism cannot fully deploy its infantry and troops in the territory it seeks to occupy. It knows that the arrival in the US or Europe of thousands of dead soldiers would provoke an uprising of the exploited in their own home.
Therefore, the military technique used by imperialism is the war of demolition, aiming to leave not a single building standing in order to force its adversary’s surrender. Not even Hitler went this far.
Comrades,
The cowardly bourgeoisies of Middle East created the worst conditions to their peoples and working class to win the struggle against imperialism
After more than two years of massacres and genocide and a heroic resistance in Gaza, it has been left isolated and its people starved and massacred.
The cowardly bourgeois PLO in the West Bank crushed and defeated tens of thousands of anti-imperialist young Palestinian that sought to fight in Gaza. With its collaborationist policy, the PLO has let thousands of settlers to occupy the lands and houses of the Palestinian people.
The bourgeois leadership of the Hezbollah millionaires left millions of Palestinian in southern Lebanon isolated so they don’t enter the fight with their brothers and sisters in Gaza, and stopped the bombings on Tel Aviv.
The same thing happened with the clerics of Iran. As a “goodwill gesture”, they suspended every attack on the State of Israel after the so-called “12 days war”.
Thus, Gaza was left isolated for months so Zionism, with the US, could impose the massacres. The West Bank was then doubly subjected and Lebanon was trampled by the Zionist jackboot and the lackey bourgeoisie of Beirut. The “Greater Israel” was underway. The new tyrant in Syria bowed to the US.
Once again, the US can use Zionism with its full firepower in Middle East to defend its businesses and plunder. It couldn’t do it in 2011, when the Maghreb and the Middle East were shaken by a mass revolutionary offensive that threatened to reach Jerusalem.
At that time, US imperialism had to call on the butcher Putin and even the Iranian clerics themselves to massacre the heroic Syrian revolution. All the cowardly Arab bourgeoisies crushed their own rebellious peoples and dismantled their revolutionary uprisings. That is why imperialism can now attack again in the Middle East to regain control of the oil routes.
Comrades,
If the US today can attack Iran it’s because Gaza was defeated, the West Bank was subjected and southern Lebanon was crushed.
The task to defeat the Zionist-fascist beast and imperialism in the entire Middle East means to re-take the revolutionary Intifada, like that of 2011-2017, and lead it to victory. The enemy is in Tel Aviv and the head of the snake is in Wall Street.
The Palestinian masses resist in the last line of the trench…
In its attempt to recover the oil routes, the US now goes for Iran. They don’t need this agent anymore. They do not longer accept middlemen to manage their businesses in the region.
The Iranian bourgeoisie has shown that its Islamic Guard, as yesterday they did in Syria, knows to keep order inside Iran smashing its own proletariat.
Thousands of political prisoners of the working class and the youth in Iran are in the jails of the theocracy, suffering torture and executions. Millions of workers that fought for improving their living standards were persecuted and brutally suppressed. The war that the theocracy is fighting and the negotiations it is doing are to demand that the Iranian bourgeoisie continues managing the businesses of the big imperialist oil companies in the region as junior partners.
The proof of this is that the theocracy could’ve bombed the US fleet but the clerics didn’t fire a single missile. They could’ve retaken the missile attacks on Zionism bombing Tel Aviv therefore clearing the way for the masses in Lebanon to attack Jerusalem, and they didn’t do that either.
To defeat imperialism and its aggression on Iran, to recover Gaza, the hands of the working class must be untied from the bourgeoisie and the reformist leaderships, so it can return to fight.
In Iran, we need to conquer the freedom of the political prisoners of the working class. One man, one gun! For the return of the shora, the workers’ and soldiers’ councils that in 1979 revolution toppled the Sha Reza Pahlevi and were crushed later by the Shiite clerics!
Let’s seize the BP (British Petroleum) and Chevron, which pump oil for imperialism guaranteed by Al Sadr’s Shiite bourgeoisie in southern Iraq!
Generalize the Intifada! Attack Tel Aviv again! Sink the US fleet!
Open the way for the masses in Lebanon! We need to re-take the weapons!
Open the way for the youth in Jenin, Nablus and Bethlehem! Gaza must not be defeated! This is the way to free Tehran and smash the US in the Strait of Hormuz!
Let’s attack the imperialist property of the oil companies and the bankers and place it under workers control!
Open the way for the uprising of the US working class and the workers all across the imperialist Europe to besiege Zionism and imperialism, and to prepare the International Revolutionary General Strike!
Comrades,
Against Putin’s occupation of Ukraine, another great battle of the world working class is defined in Europe
Putin must be crushed and defeated in the territory of the Ukrainian nation he occupies. The people who oppress other peoples cannot liberate itself. Everyone who rejects fighting against the occupation of a subjugated country is an accessory of the invading and plundering oppressor. This is the starting point of every revolutionary struggle of the proletariat that is fighting for the national liberation, which could only be victorious if the working class leads it at the head of its allies, the oppressed in the countryside and the city, attacking the property of the capitalists and oppressors.
Putin, the gendarme of the imperialist businesses in Eurasia, the one who is the guardian of the imperialist oil companies in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the one who guards the businesses of imperialism in Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc., is now seeking to obtain the conditions in the military terrain to make a pact with Trump for US businesses in Ukraine and split that subjugated nation.
A Putin’s victory in Ukraine, against what their followers of the world Stalinist left say, will mean that not only his fierce dictatorship would be reinforced, both in Russia and on the peoples he oppresses on behalf of imperialism. It will also be a victory of Trump and the US in their path to reach Moscow and seize all businesses, especially the raw material wealth.
Meanwhile, they intend the workers of the world to believe that allied with England, France, Germany and the European Union, Ukraine will be able to defeat the invasion and the usurpation of its territory in Crimea and Donbass. Nothing further from the truth.
Ukraine has a 140 thousand million dollars debt for buying weapons. These funds will be collected by keeping Ukraine’s black earth, minerals, gas and starving the Ukrainian people. It had already given its productive apparatus to the imperialist transnational companies of war to produce weaponry.
As the current demonstrations taking place in the main cities of Ukraine, it is clear that with the Zelensky government there is no way of defeating Putin or liberating the subjugated nation from the ongoing imperialist plunder.
This is a government of the big capitalists who are dumping the entire crisis of the war on the masses which are dying on the front lines, while they amass enormous fortunes. They do this through price increases, wage freezes, and unleashing a decisive attack on the gains of the working class.
This government has liquidated all the democratic liberties and imposed the government of the bourgeois generals and the capitalist oligarchs. They cannot lead the masses in a national liberation war. It over-exploits the people while it has forbidden any kind of freedom of organization and expression of the workers and the people who really fight in the front against the invasion.
The conflict in Ukraine has become a chronic war, where its partition and borders have been defined by means of trenches at the cost of the blood of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian workers and youth, and also of Russian workers and youth, who by the millions refuse today to go and fight in Ukraine.
Under the Zelensky government, the working class has its hands tied-up to intervene decisively in this war. That oligarch government has only been capable of... making profits by suffocating, oppressing, exploiting, and wiping out all expressions of those who are truly fighting against Putin's invasion, of those who are neither the generals, nor the commanders, or that caste of Ukrainian army officers who are servants of the war companies of Maastricht Europe and Wall Street.
It is the Ukrainian workers and people who fight and die; and their generals and their government hand them over, which has been proven, we insist, by the thousands of Ukrainian workers and youth who take to the streets.
The working class holds the key to end this war of attrition and occupation imposed by Putin in order to divide Ukraine, and by imperialism to finish colonizing it on the basis of Ukraine's defeat.
Enough of forced conscription! Enough of this bourgeoisie subservient to imperialism that profits from the dead in the battlefront!
Make way for the working class and soldiers! For workers' control of production! Open the companies’ books! For factory committees! For soldiers' committees to elect their leaders and impose control over the general staff conducting the war!
For workers’ and soldiers’ councils that take into their own hands— by city, by region, and in a coordinated and centralized way throughout the whole Ukraine— the struggle for the defeat of the occupation, whose first task must be to expropriate the capitalist and imperialist companies that are making fabulous profits in Ukraine out of war and the hunger of the fighting people, and to prevent any imperialist attempt to plunder Ukainian resources!
Such a measure would be like an electric shock that would strike as a call to the workers of Europe to follow the path of their Ukrainian siblings: that in order to defeat their executioners, they must free themselves from all capitalist tutelage and take the struggle into their own hands. That is the way to crush Putin's invasion of Ukraine and put an end to the imperialist, counter-revolutionary governments of NATO. There are no shortcuts.
A government of Ukrainian workers' and soldiers' councils would unleash all the forces of the workers and the people of Ukraine in a decisive struggle against the Russian occupation, because they would see that in the conquest of their national independence lies the future of their family, their freedom, their housing, their wages, their lives.
Such a government would be viewed sympathetically, and as their own, by the punished and massacred workers in the areas occupied by Putin in Crimea and Donbas.
Things would be very different. Forced conscription would be for the sons of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, who don't have any of their own on the front lines.
The alternative is clear: a Soviet and independent Ukraine, or one divided and occupied by Putin and plundered by imperialism.
A proletarian and revolutionary leadership of the workers' and soldiers' councils in the war would also be a very hard blow to Putin's back, who blames Lenin and the Soviet revolutionary regime for having granted the Ukrainian nation the right to self-determination unconditionally.
With a proletarian program for the war, Ukraine would quickly garner the solidarity of the international working class, and the European working class in particular, similarly to the one received by the masses in Palestine and the Middle East.
Workers in Ukraine do not and will not reject any economic or military aid from wherever it comes, but without accepting any kind of political conditions or financial usury, and under the control of its workers.
We revolutionaries condemn the campist policy of international Stalinism and reformism of subjecting the working class to the bourgeoisie during war, when in fact it only exacerbates the class struggle.
We are defenders of every oppressed nation attacked by any imperialist bandit, because we know that the victory of the bandit will subdue the oppressed nation with double and triple chains; and we are anti-defense and we shout that "the enemy is at home!" when the imperialist powers war among themselves to dispute the wealth of the planet.
Comrades,
We, the conscious workers, cannot turn a blind eye to the brutal plunder and super-exploitation of the working class in Africa, the Black Continent, martyred a thousand times over, just like the workers of China and throughout the Pacific.
Hundreds of thousands of children harvest cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the imperialist powers that plunder its riches, as do France and England in Nigeria and South Africa itself. US pirates are targeting the latter to control the Atlantic shipping lanes from there.
In the Sahel, native bourgeoisies are attempting to co-opt the anti-imperialist struggle.
Huge uprisings of the starving are unfolding in Mozambique, while the bourgeoisie incites fascist pogroms, as in South Africa, to expel Zimbabwean immigrants whom they accuse of stealing their jobs.
Diseases like Ebola and others already eradicated from the planet are returning to the African continent as imperialist plunder intensifies.
Let us swear in this Anti-War Assembly that it is imperative to crush the war declared by the imperialist powers against the Black working class in Africa, within the US, and in Europe, turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard for migrant workers.
Comrades,
The defeat of imperialism in the ongoing wars rests in the hands of the international working class.
Either imperialism is defeated in these military adventures, or they will spread across the globe in fierce disputes over raw material resources and it will begin as World War II ended: with nuclear bombs.
The widespread rearmament of European and US imperialist powers demonstrates that capitalism in its decaying phase can only develop destructive forces, which is the most profitable business with which it seeks to overcome its crisis.
The working class needs a revolutionary leadership at its head that advances a revolutionary strategy for victory in wars, in mass insurrectionary struggles and in heroic battles of resistance, fighting for the international socialist revolution.
This is the program and strategy for which we Trotskyists fight to refound the Fourth International founded in 1938.
From here, we call for the immediate setting up of a movement to reunite the revolutionary and internationalist forces of the world working class. This task cannot be postponed. The battle of life or death is getting rid of the reformist, corrupt, and treacherous leaderships the exploited masses of the world. They are the ones who, hiding behind labels such as “anti-fascist,” “new left,” etc., subject the masses to the bourgeoisie. It´s a battle of life and death.
Comrades of the JRCL-RMF,
We have stood with you in the righteous trenches of every battle of the international proletariat. We know and salute your struggle, which finds you at the forefront of the Japanese proletariat in the streets, confronting imperialism and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people, the Iranian nation under attack, and the invaded and plundered Ukrainian nation.
The last word has not been said. We must stop the path toward war with the victory of the socialist revolution!
For reformism, Stalinism, and other renegades of Marxism, this is a task "of the future"; it is merely a "future perspective."
For us it is a matter of life or death because only by fighting for the revolution can we prevent the path to war and barbarism.
Once again in the 21st century, the alternative is: SOCIALIST REVOLUTION OR WAR AND BARBARISM!
Carlos Munzer, Eliza Funes , James Sakala and Milenka López
For the International Coordination Secretariat of the Collective for the Refounding of the Fourth International / FLTI
Florencia Cerillos on behalf of the Editorial Board of the newspaper “The International Workers’ Organizer” |
