March 20, 2022

On the 11th anniversary of the Syrian revolution…
Revolutionary day of action about the Ukrainian question

From Italy, speech of the comrades of Avanzata Proletaria  (Proletarian Outpost)

First of all, he wants to thank the International Leninist Trotskyist Faction for "the opportunity to allow me to participate in this meeting."
He accompanies the applause that has been given to the comrades from Syria and on this 11th anniversary he says again “long live the Syrian revolution”.

 "I speak to you from a country that is, although it has not publicly admitted it, today at war. I say that it is at war because not only has it sent weapons to Ukraine, but from a support of 25 billion euros a year that they used to give it, they increased the support to 38 billion euros a year. In Parliament, only 19 deputies (vs. 630 who supported it) have voted against this increase.
While all the newspapers have been against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they have in turn tried to seek a more active military support from Italy, a more active Italian Army movement. At this moment there are 1,500 soldiers on the border of Poland and Ukraine and they continue to send arm supplies to provide the Army. The Ministry of Defense has issued an alert to the Army and generals for a possible deployment of troops.
Two days ago, at the Pisa airport in Tuscany, some workers blocked and stopped the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, which were hidden as humanitarian aid.
The Italian left is divided. There is a whole sector that is in favor of a NATO intervention. And on the other hand there is another sector that is Stalinism, which divides the world into two camps, Russia against the US, which is against intervention, hiding behind the pacifist policy that they carry out.

Italy's largest union, the CGIL, Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, (Italian General Confederation of Labour) which is the equivalent of France's CGT, has said absolutely nothing. They haven't even made an hour of strike against the war. Some smaller unions have called for mobilizations. But there is no unification of the unions and none has called to stop the production or shipment of weapons at any time.

An example, on March 8, which was International Women's Day, one of the unions that is small but which is one of the most combative, within its demands they named the question of the war in Ukraine, but it was totally lost and diluted along with other points that are specific to March 8 such as gender issues. This totally downgraded their position on the Ukraine issue. The campist left, Stalinism, first when the revolution started in Syria, were against it, and when Putin intervened and started bombing, they stopped talking about it directly. Basically, this is the situation in Italy.