When the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took the decision in September 1979 to build new missile bases and to deploy the new 572 American missiles in Europe at the end of 1983, they did not expect such a massive response by the peoples and workers all over Europe.
But last autumn, there were more than three million of us demonstrating against cruise, Pershing, and NATO. There will be still more of us out this year to force a retreat on Reaganthe-warmonger and the capitalist governments that have agreed to his crazy demands.
No to NATO! No to War Budgets!
Ronald Reagan and his NATO allies were the instigators of the arms race now threatening the whole of humanity. They are the chief warmongers.
They are perpetrating their criminal acts in Africa and the Middle East, in Chad and Lebanon. In Central America in particular, American imperialism is supporting the dictatorships ensconced there, is preparing for war against Nicaragua, and is already giving direct aid to the Somocista mercenaries. It has no qualms about drowning in blood peoples that are fighting for their freedom.
The imperialists can cynically contemplate transforming the European continent into a battlefield and are prepared to cause tens of millions of deaths.
They think that one of the ways out of the capitalist crisis is gigantic arms spending. The fundamental aim of this is to maintain the domination of the bourgeoisie.
They are following a policy of militarization that is inextricably linked to the austerity policies being imposed by all the capitalist governments in Western Europe.
While there is still time we have to act to stay the hands of these murderers!
Workers must struggle first of all in each imperialist country to disarm their own bourgeoisie.
Reagan can do nothing without the agreement of the governments concerned. The primary objective of the demonstrations this autumn must be to force them to refuse to deploy the NATO missiles. They must be presented with a choice: to abide by the unambiguously expressed wish of the people or resign.
Not one single new American missile must be deployed. Not a single new NATO base must be built, and those that already exist must be dismantled. This is the simple and forceful October 31, 1983 message of the astounding mass antiwar movement that has developed in capitalist Europe. Solidarity with the peace movements in
Eastern Europe
For their part, the first demonstrations of the independent peace movement in Eastern Europe, in the USSR, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, and above all in the German Democratic Republic, constitute an opposition to the military policy of the bureaucracy, which denies every elementary democratic right to the masses and particularly “the right to work for peace in an independent fashion.”
In addition, the Soviet bureaucracy has not hesitated to respond to the deployment of American missiles by the threat to deploy new missiles in Eastern Europe, in contempt of the sovereignty of the people. This policy can only cut down the mobilization of the antiwar movement in the West.
This is why we stand in full solidarity with those in Eastern Europe who are struggling against the arms race and its murderous implication. They reject a militarization policy which weighs more and more heavily on the economy of the Soviet Union and the other member states of the Warsaw Pact. They reject a militarization policy that is contributing to the deterioration of the conditions of existence for the peoples living under the yoke of bureaucratic dictatorship.
By demanding the right to organize independently, by demanding the right to know and give an opinion about decisions regarding armament and military spending, the independent peace movements in Eastern Europe are challenging the bureaucratic order.
The growth of mobilizations in these countries will stimulate the whole of the antiwar movement in the capitalist countries and at the same time strengthen the struggle against the imperialists — the chief warmongers.
All together in the autumn mobilizations
The American imperialists have every interest in giving the impression that they are negotiating. In this way, they can better conceal their aggressions and their huge war effort. At the same time, they can retain, through secret diplomacy, at the least cost, a decisive military superiority that enables them to threaten the peoples fighting for their liberation.
The antiwar movement can have confidence in neither the capitalist government nor the Kremlin bureaucrats. Both sides negotiate in secret and on the backs of the masses.
The united action of young people and workers does more for peace than interminable negotiations behind closed doors around a baize-covered table. Only powerful demonstrations independent of the state, in the East and West, based on the active strength of the workers movement, can put an end to the inexorable course of the arms race and nuclear terror. The demonstrations this autumn, a few weeks before the first scheduled deployments of U.S. missiles in Europe, will be crucial. So, no possibility can be neglected to build these actions and assure their success, since they will weigh heavily in the balance when the capitalist governments have to take stock. The Fourth International and its sections in Europe will lend all their forces to this struggle against militarization and capitalist austerity, for peace and socialism. From Comiso in Sicily to Greenham Common in Great Britain, no to the deployment of cruise and Pershing missiles! Out with the NATO bases! Dismantle the American forward bases in Europe! Down with the dictatorship that makes Turkey a fortress maintained by imperialism in the region! No to the French and British nuclear strike forces, which are part and parcel of the imperialists’ military array! For a nuclear-free Europe, from Poland to Portugal, from Sicily to Scandinavia! For a massive reduction in military budgets, complete nationalization and reconversion of the arms industry — jobs not bombs! Support the democratic rights of soldiers conscripted into the bourgeois armies; support the workers who are victims of special laws on employment and trade-unionization in the armament industry!
End imperialist intervention in Central America!
United Secretariat of the Fourth International