El ministro de Deporte de Rusia, Oleg Matitsin, propuso hoy celebrar en su país los primeros Juegos de la Organización de Cooperación de Shanghái (OCS), informó la agencia Sputnik.
Matitsin, quien intervino este miércoles en una reunión de jefes de departamentos responsables del desarrollo de la cultura física y el deporte la OCS, precisó que Rusia podría ser la sede de esos juegos, de forma coordinada con la nación que ostente la presidencia de la organización.
La reunión se celebró en Nueva Delhi con la asistencia de los dirigentes de los ministerios de deporte y de otras organizaciones deportivas de la India, China, Kazajstán, Kirguistán, Pakistán, Rusia, Tayikistán y Uzbekistán.
Los participantes de la cita debatieron también la iniciativa de crear una asociación de las organizaciones deportivas de los países de la OCS, promovida por el presidente de Rusia, Vladimir Putin, en la cumbre de Samarcanda.
«Tal asociación se orientaría a fortalecer los vínculos en materia de desarrollo de las modalidades deportivas olímpicas, paralímpicas, no olímpicas y tradicionales y contribuiría a la celebración de las actividades deportivas entre los Estados miembros de la OCS», dijo Matitsin.
La parte rusa elaboró el proyecto de reglamento sobre un grupo de trabajo, que sería un órgano de funcionamiento permanente, encargado de los preparativos de diversas actividades deportivas, incluidos los Juegos de la OCS, agregó.
El ministro invitó a las delegaciones de los países presentes en esta reunión a participar en las actividades que se celebraran en el territorio de Rusia, tales como el Festival Internacional del Deporte Universitario (Ekaterimburgo, 2023), y los Juegos del Futuro (Kazán, 2024).
Vos Excellences, Mesdames, Messieurs les Officiels, Mesdames, Messieurs, Je vous remercie, au nom de ma famille et de mon père, l’Amiral de Gaulle, de nous inviter pour la célébration de votre fête Nationale.
Nos peuples sont liés par de longues années d’amitié et par le sang versé contre les Nazis. C’est l’occasion pour moi de répéter que la relation franco-russe était pour le Général de Gaulle d’une importance toute particulière. La France et la Russie sont proches l’une de l’autre mais aussi unies par la conscience de leur communauté d’intérêts et de destins.
Plus encore, la Russie était vue par mon grand-père comme l’allié de revers indispensable à sa sécurité mais parce qu’elle participait à sa conception de l’équilibre de l’Europe et de sa place de l’Europe dans le monde. Le Général disait même : « La décision funeste de Napoléon d’attaquer Alexandre 1er est la plus lourde erreur qu’il ait commise. Rien ne l’y forçait. C’était contraire à nos intérêts, à nos traditions, à notre génie. C’est de la guerre entre Napoléon et les russes que date notre décadence. »
Je viens ici pour affirmer une nouvelle fois haut et fort, qu’il est de l’intérêt de la France de garder de bonnes relations avec la Russie et de dire qu’il faut que nous travaillions ensemble en vue d’aider à l’union et à la sécurité de notre continent, ainsi qu’à l’équilibre, au progrès et à la paix du monde tout entier.
Chacun reconnaît aujourd’hui la responsabilité des États-Unis dans le conflit actuel, le rôle funeste de l’Otan qui s’élargit sans cesse et la politique inconsidérée du Gouvernement Ukrainien. Ce dernier, fort de belles promesses et nourri d’illusions américaines et européennes, a conduit une politique très condamnable à l’égard des populations russophones du Donbass, multipliant discrimination, spoliation, embargos et bombardements. Les Occidentaux ont malheureusement laissé faire Zelenski, ses oligarques et les groupes militaires néo-nazis s’enfermer dans une spirale de guerre.
Cet aveuglement est lourd de conséquence pour le peuple ukrainien. Mais ne nous y trompons pas : que veulent les Américains si ce n’est provoquer une nouvelle confrontation Est-Ouest, dont le seul but est d’affaiblir et de diviser l’Europe pour imposer leurs directives, leur économie et leur système ? Depuis la première guerre mondiale, les Américains ont conclu un pacte pour établir un équilibre nécessaire des forces en Europe et s’associer à la sécurité du continent européen. Ce n’est pas en organisant une escalade militaire systématique en Ukraine, qu’ils respecteront leur engagement, ni leurs grands principes de liberté et de démocratie !
Les États-Unis sont dans l’erreur, l’Otan est dans l’erreur, dont l’expansionnisme débridé et irréfléchi conduit inexorablement au déséquilibre du Monde et à l’injustice. Les belles promesses des Américains de ne pas élargir l’Otan à l’Est, ni au Nord, n’ont pas été respectées. Les accords de Minsk n’ont pas été respectés.
La réalité, c’est que les Américains n’ont jamais accepté, ni l’Occident avec eux, qu’après la difficile transition de 1991 et la reconstruction qui a suivi, que la Russie ne s’intègre pas dans son monde unipolaire. Les Américains ni l’Europe, n’ont jamais accepté que la Russie se transforme selon le modèle occidental, à son image.
A cause de cela et d’emblée, le Président Poutine fût perçu comme un dictateur, alors que c’est un grand leader pour son pays !
Les États-Unis n’ont jamais non plus accepté la perte du rôle du dollar comme monnaie prépondérante dans le règlement des échanges internationaux dans le monde. Le pire est, que dans cet aveuglement, ils ne font que renforcer, en déplaçant les intérêt économiques et financiers à l’Est, la position de la Chine et de la monnaie chinoise qu’ils veulent aussi combattre ! Les sanctions, qui sont celles de la politique du faible, sont inopérantes, sauf à affaiblir les Européens et autres nations du monde. Les Africains eux-mêmes, par l’intermédiaire du Président de l’Union Africaine, Monsieur Macky Sall, s’en inquiètent considérablement.
En provoquant une crise économique profonde, systémique et durable qui nous touche déjà tous, du prix du pain, au chauffage et aux carburants mais aussi par la pénurie agro-alimentaire, des matières premières et des métaux industriels qu’elle entraîne, les Américains affaiblissent les Européens à leur profit. Aura-t-on oublié que depuis au moins un siècle, toutes les crises financières majeures viennent des États-Unis ? « Notre dollar, votre problème » disait Henry Kissinger. Les Américains nous tiennent toujours par leur endettement, qu’ils exportent.
En imposant aussi un modèle culturel et social qui repose sur le culte de la jouissance et de la consommation, les Américains sapent le socle de nos valeurs traditionnelles et les deux piliers de la civilisation que sont la famille et la tradition.
L’Europe et bien sûr la France ont tout à perdre à s’enfermer dans cette escalade militaire et idéologique voulue par les États-Unis et l’Otan. Charles de Gaulle le disait : « l’Amérique ne fait pas partie de l’Europe. Je crois l’avoir découvert sur la carte. »
De la conjoncture actuelle, terrible et redoutable, La France peut et doit jouer un rôle capital. La France et la Russie sont toutes deux filles de l’Europe. La France ne doit pas oublier qu’elle est l’ainée des nations européennes et qu’aucune n’a derrière elle une aussi longue trainée de gloire. Mon grand-père a toujours soutenu et défendu l’impérative nécessité, même aux moments les plus difficiles de l’histoire, de construire et préserver une relation forte et partagée avec la Russie.
Il aimait la Russie. Nous aimons, ma famille et moi, la Russie et son peuple. Le peuple russe, dont le droit de propriété est si injustement bafoué partout dans le monde. Cela me rappelle les pires moments de l’occupation et du régime de Vichy en France. Et les artistes, les sportifs russes, sont-ils aussi responsables ?
Cette politique systématique et aveugle de confiscation et de discrimination du peuple russe tout entier est scandaleuse et me choque considérablement.
Permettez-moi de citer encore une fois le Général de Gaulle : « En France, on n’a jamais considéré la Russie comme un ennemi. Je suis pour le développement de l’amitié franco-russe et je n’ai jamais envoyé et je n’enverrai jamais des armes aux gens qui se seraient battus contre la Russie soviétique. »
Les Américains donnent de l’argent (et des armes), nous les payons en parts d’indépendance. Je regrette que le Gouvernement français se commette dans cette soumission à l’Otan et donc à la politique américaine.
Je déplore, que de par la volonté de certains présidents français, la France se soit dissoute dans l’Otan. Or, le Général de Gaulle s’est toujours efforcé de maintenir l’indépendance de la France dans le commandement intégré de l’Otan.
L’Otan absorbe l’Europe. Depuis, les Américains ne parlent plus à la France et ne nous considèrent plus comme une nation forte et indépendante.
Faut-il rappeler le camouflet récent subi par la France dans la rupture brutale et unilatérale du contrat d’achat des sous-marins australiens par l’Australie, Membre du Commonwealth et qui fût orchestré par les anglais et les américains ? La France peut-elle se contenter, outre sa perte de souveraineté, des trois jours d’avance en munitions et en carburant que lui octroie l’Otan ? Je ne comprends pas la politique du Président français.
Fort de ses convictions, de son armée et de la force de dissuasion qu’il a lui-même construite au grand dam des Américains, le Général de Gaulle a eu la détermination de sortir de l’Otan, tout en restant comme membre de droit de l’Alliance Atlantique. Je souhaiterais que le Président français ait ce courage et cette volonté, plutôt que de subir les affres de la pensée unique et de la politique commune imposée par les Américains, qui le rendent dépendant.
De la même manière, je ne me reconnais pas dans la France d’aujourd’hui, dans cette politique du « en même temps », qui nous affaiblit. Je ne me reconnais pas dans l’abandon actuel des valeurs, de notre histoire, de notre culture, de nos grands principes de liberté, du devoir et de la sécurité.
Le Général de Gaulle écrivait. « Il existe un pacte vingt fois séculaire entre la grandeur de la France et la liberté du monde. » Notre but est et doit rester d’établir une entente européenne entre l’Atlantique et l’Oural. Au milieu des alarmes du monde et des dangers de la crise actuelle, la France peut et doit, à nouveau, peser de tout son poids et chercher un arrangement avec les pays belligérants et la Russie en particulier.
On ne fait pas la guerre tout seul !
C’est une conviction que les idéologies, donc les régimes qui les expriment, en Ukraine comme ailleurs, ne sont que de passage. « Seuls comptent, appuyés sur les fondements politiques, la patine des siècles et la capacité des pays à rester grands ».
Comme le disait le Général de Gaulle en 1966 lors de son deuxième voyage en Russie : « La visite que j’achève de faire à votre pays, c’est une visite de la France de toujours à la Russie de toujours. »
en Anglais, la chronique d’un nazisme ordinaire, celui du nationalisme ukrainien depuis les années 1930, que les États-unis et la Grande-Bretagne ont soutenu dès la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, inspiration et moteur idéologique à peine voilés de l’Ukraine moderne
en Anglais, elle est en effet inévitable, à moins d’une nouvelle guerre mondiale dont personne ne sortirait vainqueur. J’y résume en première partie les causes de la crise actuelle. Oui, l’Occident est devenu l’empire du mensonge [Maria Zakharova] et de l’injustice
la presse française n’est pas tendre avec Pierre de Gaulle. Voici en Anglais, une chronique de la censure, des mensonges, du blanchiment des nazis ukrainiens et de leurs crimes de guerre, par une presse au service d’une alliance atlantique, qui livre en Ukraine une guerre par procuration contre la Russie. S’il existe, dans les pays anglo-saxons ou en Allemagne, de vrais journalistes qui ont le courage de témoigner d’une réalité cruelle, la presse française s’illustre par une servilité, qui n’est pas sans rappeler les travers nationaux soulignés autrefois par l’État fasciste de Philippe Pétain, qu’Emmanuel Macron souhaitait d’ailleurs réhabiliter pour le 11 novembre 2018.
The EU regional Ambassadorial is taking place in Tbilisi on 14-15 March. The Ambassadorial is attended by the Heads of the EU Delegations in the Eastern Partnership countries, Central Asia, Ukraine, Turkey, as well as senior officials from the EU External Action Service and the European Commission, as well we colleagues EU officials from Moscow, Ankara, OSCE, etc.
Speaking to journalists, Michael Siebert, Managing Director for Russia, Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Regional Co-operation and OSCE, explained the objectives of the Ambassadorial, involving discussing EU policy towards the countries of the region, accession of some countries to the EU, communications, connectivity, bridging across the Caspian sea and other topics.
Asked about the EU’s intention to adopt a law similar to the one rejected by Georgian society last week, he said that he could understand that this was a topical issue in Georgia, as last week Georgia had “fortunately” rejected the law that would regulate NGOs….
He also noted: “I have seen many videos in the last week where European flags have been waved in very courageous moments. I have seen this woman waving European flag against the water cannons, so this is the picture that stays in my head.”
***
Mr. Siebert noted the full programme of the visit, saying that in addition to the Ambassadors’ meeting itself, “we also have bilateral consultations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and nine opposition parties, all parties in Parliament, and more, with civil society organizations”.
He stressed that “these stakeholders are a very important part of a vibrant civil society and a necessary ingredient of any democracy, and very much needed to move Georgia forward towards the EU”.
Another ambassadorial participant, Katarina Maternova, Deputy Assistant of the European Commission’s Directorate for the Eastern Neighbourhood, echoed her colleague’s remarks….
Ms. Maternova emphasized that later this year Georgia, along with Ukraine and Moldova, will be in included in the enlargement package….
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III commends the results of the 10th Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting which brought together about 50 nations.
“We’ve just completed our 10th, highly successful meeting of Ukraine Defense Contact Group,” Austin said during a press conference at the Pentagon following the discussions on Wednesday….
He emphasized that the allies and partners representing countries from all over the world “reaffirmed our unity and resolve in supporting Ukraine….”
***
According to him, that includes delivering armored capabilities to the battlefield and ensuring that Ukrainian soldiers get the training, spare parts and maintenance support for the delivered equipment.
***
In particular, Sweden announced that it would provide Ukraine with 10 Leopard tanks and key air defense components. Norway is partnering with the US to donate two NASAMS systems to Ukraine. The Netherlands initiates new contracts to ensure the delivery of new weapons to the battlefield in Ukraine. In addition, Slovenia announced a contribution that will help “meet several of Ukraine’s priority requirements, including armor.”
***
Therefore, Austin continued, the international coalition will help Ukraine sustain the tanks, IFVs, and other armored vehicles, and continue training the Ukrainian military on new types of weapons.
As reported, the 10th meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Ramstein format was held online on Wednesday.
A Spanish journalist has been rotting in a Polish prison for the past year. And nobody knew or cared, Stephen Karganovic writes.
Those who watched Duran associate Alex Christoforou’s podcast the other day [at 18 to 19:45 minutes] must have been as taken aback as I was by Alex’s revelation of the unsavoury fate of Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzales in European “values” stronghold Poland.
Gonzales, a Spanish (another “EU values” country) citizen, it turns out has been rotting in a Polish prison for the past year. Not a week, not a month or even a couple of months, but for just over a year. And nobody knew or cared. He is not being detained on any specific charges to which he could mount a legal defence. He is listed simply as “under investigation” for the somewhat vague offence of being an agent of Russia. If that is what indeed he is, so far it seems no judicially cognisable evidence to support such an allegation has been produced by the Polish authorities. After just over a year that Gonzales has been kept in prison, the Polish “investigation” has failed to turn up any incriminating facts that might form the basis for even a flimsy indictment. As a result, no charges have been filed and no trial is in prospect for Gonzales. As trite as that may sound, it is also disturbingly accurate: in the Europe that, with its gallant overseas allies, fights for democracy in Ukraine, European journalist Pablo Gonzales is languishing in a Kafkaesque predicament.
In his expose, Alex Christoforou asks the natural question, “Where is the Spanish government in all this?” [at 19:20 minutes]. The answer is bound to disillusion everyone who imagined that in situations such as this morality had any influence over political decisions. It all comes down to the odious principle of raison d’état. Spain has issues with Catalan and Basque troublemakers and is loath to create a precedent that would provide foreigners a pretext to meddle in the way it treats its prisoners. For Spain the convenient solution therefore is to downplay the incarceration in Poland of one of its own citizens and hope that no one will notice.
Thankfully, Alex Christoforou did. And he informs us that since February of last year, in Poland, Spanish and EU citizen Gonzales has been kept in solitary confinement in an EU country, his wife and children have been denied all but a few brief visits, his lawyer’s efforts to communicate with his client have been systematically thwarted, and that, scandalously, the prisoner has been left essentially without consular protection. The Spanish government has signalled its disinterest to Gonzales’ Polish jailers.
As for the international media silence, broken belatedly by Christoforou, it has been shameful. It would perhaps be too bold to expect a moral colossus like Greta Thunberg to bother taking up Gonzales’ cause, but how about Amnesty International? This sordid case, replete with human rights violations of every imaginable sort, would seem to be right up their alley. On the AI website we read the following unctuous lines: “Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights … Amnesty International finds the facts, exposes what’s happening, and rallies people together to force governments and others to respect everyone’s human rights.” Well Amnesty, do something then.
Pablo Gonzales would undoubtedly appreciate a smidgeon of attention and support from a Nobel Prize winning human rights conglomerate such as Amnesty International. A quick check of the AI website, however, while producing an appeal for financial donations laced with a tear-jerking reminder that “after one year, Russian missiles are STILL raining down on families and children in Ukraine . .. Help us document human rights violations and war crimes – your gift will be matched,” does not mention Pablo Gonzales. And what was that about “after one year”? Ukrainian missiles have been raining down indiscriminately on families and children (it is a moot point whether Ukrainian or Russian, all the victims are human beings); not, however, since last year but since 2014, and at last count killing about 15,000 people. But Amnesty International’s eagle eyed human rights monitors missed that, just as they missed the plight of NATO and EU Poland’s prisoner of conscience, Pablo Gonzales.
It turns out that Pablo’s case is not unique.
In Serbia, there is another “prisoner of conscience” and hardly anyone has heard of him, either. He is also a journalist, like Pablo Gonzales, and is similarly doing time without any charges or judicial procedure. His name is Dejan Zlatanovic and he is rotting not in an EU but a Balkan dungeon. True, unlike Poland Serbia is not a part of EU and strictly speaking is not obligated to adhere to EU “values,” whatever they are. But as an aspiring EU member, it could at least try. Unfortunately, as the treatment of Zlatanovic shows, it is trying and succeeding remarkably well, except not by adhering to those values in beautiful theory but by copy-pasting the deplorable Polish practice.
In essence, what happened in Serbia is the following. On February 15, 2023, Serbian police arrested Dejan Zlatanovic, editor of internet news portal Srbin-Info, for a remark he made at a protest rally in Belgrade. Denouncing the possibility that government officials might sign an agreement to recognize the secession of Kosovo, and under the naïve impression that public expression of his views was constitutionally protected speech, Zlatanovic remarked: “Whoever signs is sure to be killed.” The reference was to an entirely reasonable apprehension shared by many Serbs, both those who attended the rally and those who did not. They suspect that high government officials are preparing to sign off on a European “peace” plan which requires Serbia to recognize the secession of NATO occupied Kosovo, considered the heart of Serbian identity, culture, and spirituality.
Both in the original and in translation, Zlatanovic’s remark was general and did not mention any political functionary by name. Furthermore, even on the strictest reading it could not even remotely be framed as a threat, imminent or implied. Rather, it contemplated the possible outcome of a hypothetical action. To anyone with a legal background, that much is clear. But for saying publicly only that and no more, as he was being arrested Zlatanovic was beaten to a pulp by the police, which cared not for the fact that he is a congenitally handicapped person.
The actual moments of Zlatanovic’s arrest can be heard in a mostly audio recording where he screams in anguish “Vucic’s thugs are kidnapping me!”
Zlatanovic has been kept in detention ever since. Apparently being applied is the “values” manual from the Gonzales case. No formal charges have been filed. Zlatanovic’s open ended incarceration was decreed on the basis of police authorities’ gratuitous interpretation that his statement constituted a direct threat to assassinate the country’s President and to violently overthrow the government. So far, a month into the illegal detention, no court hearing to present charges and air the evidence has been held, so it is uncertain what Serbian judges, who presumably do have some legal training, might have to say about the police interpretation of the prisoner’s words.
But is anyone listening? Another quick check reveals that on the website of Amnesty International there is no record of Dejan Zlatanovic or comment about his case.
The operational similarities that connect these two cases of human rights abuse are striking and they do no honour to the governments involved, the “values” hypocritically invoked, or the international advocacy organizations pretending not to notice.
Patrick Lancaster: Heute Morgen beschoss die ukrainische Armee Apartments im Petrovskij-Bezirk von Donetsk mit vom Westen gelieferter Munition. Ein 14-jähriger Junge wurde verletzt.
The intellectuals cast a veil over the dictatorial character of bourgeois democracy not least by presenting democracy as the absolute opposite of fascism, not as just another natural phase of it where the bourgeois dictatorship is revealed in a more open form
– Bertolt Brecht
Time and again we hear that liberalism is the last bulwark against fascism. It represents a defense of the rule of law and democracy in the face of aberrant, malevolent demagogues intent on destroying a perfectly good system for their own gain. This apparent opposition has been deeply engrained in contemporary so-called Western liberal democracies through their shared origin myth. As every school child in the U.S. learns, for instance, liberalism defeated fascism in World War II, beating back the Nazi beast in order to establish a new international order that—for all of its potential faults and misdeeds—was built upon key democratic principles that are antithetical to fascism.
This framing of the relationship between liberalism and fascism not only presents them as complete opposites, but it also defines the very essence of the fight against fascism as the struggle for liberalism. In so doing, it forges an ideological false antagonism. For what fascism and liberalism share is their undying devotion to the capitalist world order. Although one prefers the velvet glove of hegemonic and consensual rule, and the other relies more readily on the iron fist of repressive violence, they are both intent on maintaining and developing capitalist social relations, and they have worked together throughout modern history in order to do so. What this apparent conflict masks—and this is its true ideological power—is that the real, fundamental dividing line is not between two different modes of capitalist governance, but between capitalists and anti-capitalists. The long psychological warfare campaign waged under the deceptive banner of ‘totalitarianism’ has done much to further dissimulate this line of demarcation by disingenuously presenting communism as a form of fascism. As Domenico Losurdo and others have explained with great historical precision and detail, this is pure ideological pap.
Given the ways in which the current public debate on fascism tends to be framed in relationship to purported liberal resistance, there could scarcely be a timelier task than that of scrupulously re-examining the historical record of actually existing liberalism and fascism. As we shall see even in this brief overview, far from being enemies, they have been—sometimes subtle, sometimes forthright—partners in capitalist crime. For the sake of argument and concision, I will here focus primarily on a conjunctural account of the non-controversial cases of Italy and Germany. However, it is worth stating at the outset that the Nazi racial police state and colonial rampage—which far surpassed Italy’s capabilities—were modeled on the United States.
Liberal Collaboration in the Rise of European Fascism
It is of the utmost importance that Western European fascism emerged within parliamentary democracies rather than conquering them from the outside. The fascists rose to power in Italy at a moment of severe political and economic crisis on the heels of WWI, and then later the Great Depression. This was also a time when the world had just witnessed the first successful anti-capitalist revolution in the U.S.S.R. Mussolini, who had cut his teeth working for MI5 to break up the Italian peace movement during WWI, was later backed by big industrial capitalists and bankers for his anti-worker, pro-capitalist political orientation. His tactic was to work within the parliamentary system, by mobilizing powerful financial supporters to bankroll his expansive propaganda campaign while his black shirts rode roughshod over picket lines and working-class organizations. In October of 1922, magnates in the Confederation of Industry and major bank leaders provided him with the millions necessary for the March on Rome as a spectacular show of force. However, he did not seize power. Instead, as Daniel Guérin explained in his masterful study Fascism and Big Business, Mussolini was summoned by the king on October 29 and was, according to parliamentary norms, entrusted with forming a cabinet. The capitalist state turned itself over without a fight, but Mussolini was intent on forming an absolute majority in parliament with the help of the liberals. They supported his new electoral law in July 1923 and then made a joint slate with the fascists for the election on April 6, 1924. The fascists, who had only had 35 seats in parliament, gained 286 seats with the help of the liberals.
The Nazis rose to power in much the same way, by working within the parliamentary system and courting the favor of big industrial magnates and bankers. The latter provided the financial support necessary to grow the Nazi party and eventually secure the electoral victory of September 1930. Hitler would later reminisce, in a speech on October 19, 1935, on what it meant to have the material resources necessary to support 1,000 Nazi orators with their own cars, who could hold some 100,000 public meetings in the course of a year. In the December 1932 election, the Social Democrat leaders, who were far to the left of contemporary liberals but shared their reformist agenda, refused to form an eleventh-hour coalition with the communists against Nazism. “As in many other countries past and present, so in Germany,” wrote Michael Parenti, “the Social Democrats would sooner ally themselves with the reactionary Right than make common cause with the Reds.” Prior to the election, the Communist Party candidate Ernst Thaelmann had argued that a vote for the conservative Field Marshal von Hindenburg amounted to a vote for Hitler and for war. Only weeks after Hindenburg’s election, he invited Hitler to become chancellor.
Fascism in both cases came to power through bourgeois parliamentary democracy, in which big capital bankrolled the candidates who would do its bidding while also creating a populist spectacle—a false revolution—that marshaled or suggested mass appeal. Its conquest of power took place within this legal and constitutional framework, which secured its apparent legitimacy on the home front, as well as within the international community of bourgeois democracies. Leon Trotsky understood this perfectly and diagnosed what was going on at the time:
The results are at hand: bourgeois democracy transforms itself legally, pacifically, into a fascist dictatorship. The secret is simple enough: bourgeois democracy and fascist dictatorship are the instruments of one and the same class, the exploiters. It is absolutely impossible to prevent the replacement of one instrument by the other by appealing to the Constitution, the Supreme Court at Leipzig, new elections, etc. What is necessary is to mobilize the revolutionary forces of the proletariat. Constitutional fetishism brings the best aid to fascism.
Once its power was secure, however, fascism revealed its authoritarian face, transforming itself into what Trotsky referred to as a military-bureaucratic dictatorship of the Bonapartist type. It unflinchingly set about—at a rather different pace in Italy than in Germany—completing the task it had been hired to accomplish by crushing organized labor, eradicating opposition parties, destroying independent publications, putting a halt to elections, scapegoating and eliminating racialized underclasses, privatizing public assets, launching projects of colonial expansion and investing heavily in a war economy beneficial to its industrial supporters. In establishing the direct dictatorship of big capital, it even destroyed some of the more plebeian and populist elements in its own ranks, while crushing many confused liberals under the juggernaut of repressive class warfare.
It was not only within Italy and Germany that bourgeois democracy allowed for the rise of fascism. This was also true internationally. Capitalist states refused to form an antifascist coalition with the U.S.S.R., a country that fourteen of them had invaded and occupied from 1918 to 1920 in a failed attempt to destroy the world’s first workers’ republic. During the Spanish Civil War, which historians like Eric Hobsbawm have characterized as a miniature version of the great mid-century war between fascism and communism, Western liberal democracies did not officially support the left-leaning government that had been elected. Instead, they stood idly by while the Axis powers provided massive support to General Francisco Franco as he oversaw a military coup d’état. It is highly revealing that Franco, a self-declared fascist who is often sidelined in discussions of European fascism, understood with remarkable clarity why the epiphenomenal characteristics of fascism would differ considerably based on the precise conjuncture: “Fascism, since that is the word that is used, fascism presents, wherever it manifests itself, characteristics which are varied to the extent that countries and national temperaments vary.” It was the U.S.S.R. that came to the aid of the Republicans battling fascism in Spain, sending both soldiers and materials. Franco would later return the favor, so to speak, by deploying a volunteer military force to fight godless communism alongside the Nazis. Franco would also, of course, become one of the great postwar allies of the United States in its fight against the Red Menace.
In 1934, the United Kingdom, France and Italy signed the Munich Agreement, in which they agreed to allow Hitler to invade and colonize the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. “The sheer reluctance of Western governments to enter into effective negotiations with the Red state,” wrote Eric Hobsbawm, “even in 1938-39 when the urgency of an anti-Hitler alliance was no longer denied by anyone, is only too patent. Indeed, it was the fear of being left to confront Hitler alone which eventually drove Stalin, since 1934 the unswerving champion of an alliance with the West against him, into the Stalin-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, by which he hoped to keep the U.S.S.R. out of the war.” This non-aggression pact was then disingenuously presented in the Western media as an undeniable indication that the Nazis and communists were somehow allies.
International Capitalism and Fascism
It was not only large industrialists and bankers, as well as landowners, within Italy and Germany that supported and profited from the fascist rise to power. This was equally true of many of the major corporations and banks whose headquarters were in Western bourgeois democracies. Henry Ford was perhaps the most notorious example since in 1938 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle, which was the highest honor that could be bestowed upon any non-German (Mussolini had received one earlier the same year). Ford had not only funneled ample funding into the Nazi Party, he had provided it with much of its anti-Semitic and anti-Bolshevik ideology. Ford’s conviction that “Communism was a completely Jewish creation,” to quote James and Suzanne Pool, was shared by Hitler, and some have suggested that the latter was so close ideologically to Ford that certain passages from Mein Kampf were directly copied from Ford’s anti-Semitic publication The International Jew«.
Ford was only one of the American companies invested in Germany, and many other U.S. banks, firms and investors profited handsomely from Aryanizations (the expulsion of Jews from business life and the forced transfer of their property into ‘Aryan’ hands), as well as from the German rearmament program. According to Christopher Simpson’s masterful study, “a half-dozen key U.S. companies—International Harvester, Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, and du Pont—had become deeply involved in German weapons production.” In fact, American investment in Germany sharply increased after Hitler came to power. “Commerce Department reports show,” writes Simpson, “that U.S. investment in Germany increased some 48.5 percent between 1929 and 1940, while declining sharply everywhere else in continental Europe.” The German subsidiaries of U.S. companies like Ford and General Motors, as well as several oil companies, made wide use of forced labor in concentration camps. Buchenwald, for instance, provided concentration camp labor for GM’s enormous Russelsheim plant, as well as for the Ford truck plant located in Cologne, and Ford’s German managers made extensive use of Russian POW’s for war production work (a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions).
John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles, who would later respectively become the Secretary of State and the head of the CIA, ran Sullivan & Cromwell, which some consider to have been the largest Wall Street law firm at the time. They played a very important role in overseeing, advising and managing global investment in Germany, which had become one of the most important international markets—particularly for American investors—during the second half of the 1920s. Sullivan & Cromwell worked with nearly all of the major U.S. banks, and they oversaw investments in Germany in excess of a billion dollars. They also worked with dozens of companies and governments all over the world, but John Foster Dulles, according to Simpson, “clearly emphasized projects for Germany, for the military junta in Poland, and for Mussolini’s fascist state in Italy.” In the postwar era, Allen Dulles worked tirelessly to protect his business partners, and he was remarkably successful in securing their assets and helping them avoid prosecution.
Whereas most liberal accounts of fascism focus on its political theater and epiphenomenal eccentricities, thereby avoiding a systemic and radical analysis, it is essential to recognize that if liberalism allowed for the growth of European fascism, it is capitalism that drove this growth.
Who Defeated Fascism?
It is not surprising that the bourgeois democracies of the West were extremely slow to open the Western front, allowing their erstwhile enemy, the U.S.S.R., to be bled by the pro-capitalist Nazi war machine (which received ample funding from White Russians). In fact, the day after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Harry Truman flatly declared: “If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don’t want to see Hitler victorious in any circumstances.” After the U.S. entered the war, powerful officials like Allen Dulles worked behind the scenes to try and broker a peace deal with Germany that would allow the Nazis to focus all of their attention on eradicating the U.S.S.R.
The widespread idea, at least within the U.S., that fascism was ultimately defeated by liberalism in WWII, due primarily to the U.S. intervention in the war, is a baseless canard. As Peter Kuznick, Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton reminded listeners in a recent discussion, 80% of the Nazis who died in the war were killed on the Eastern Front with the U.S.S.R., where Germany had deployed 200 divisions (versus only 10 in the West). 27 million Soviets gave their lives fighting fascism, whereas 400,000 American soldiers died in the war (which amounts to approximately 1.5% of the Soviet death toll). It was, above all, the Red Army that defeated fascism in WWII, and it is communism—not liberalism—that constitutes the last bulwark against fascism. The historical lesson should be clear: one cannot be truly antifascist without being anti-capitalist.
The Ideology of False Antagonisms
The ideological construction of false antagonisms, in the case of liberalism and fascism, serves multiple purposes:
+ It establishes the primary front of struggle as one between rival positions within the capitalist camp.
+ It channels people’s energy into fighting over the best methods for managing capitalist rule rather than abolishing it.
+ It eradicates the true lines of demarcation of global class struggle.
+ It attempts to simply take the communist option off the table (by removing it entirely from the field of struggle, or disingenuously presenting it as a form of ‘totalitarianism’).
Not unlike sporting events, which are very important ideological rituals in the contemporary world, the logic of false antagonisms amps up and overinflates all of the idiosyncratic differences and personal rivalries between two opposing teams to such an extent that the frenzied fans come to forget that they are ultimately playing the same game.
In the reactionary political culture of the U.S., which has attempted to redefine the Left as liberal, it is of the utmost importance to recognize that the primary opposition that has structured, and continues to organize, the modern world is the one between capitalism—which is imposed and maintained through liberal ideology and institutions, as well as fascist repression, depending on the time, place and population in question—and socialism. By replacing this opposition by the one between liberalism and fascism, the ideology of false antagonisms aims at making the fight of the century into a capitalist spectacle rather than a communist revolution [end]
Ucrania irá a la bancarrota si deja de recibir “limosnas” de Occidente, según el exprimer ministro ucraniano Nikolái Azárov.
“Ahora todos los impuestos recaudados por el Estado se destinan a gastos militares. El país se está degradando, porque si cesan estas limosnas occidentales, Ucrania entra en bancarrota de forma inmediata y automática”, escribió Azárov en sus redes sociales.
El exmandatario señaló que la mayor parte del déficit presupuestario ucraniano la cubren EE.UU. y la UE, pero aun así, al país le siguen faltando 10.000 millones de dólares.
“La posible emisión de grivnas y el crecimiento de la inflación, la provisión de los gastos sociales prioritarios del presupuesto estatal —pensiones y salarios de los empleados estatales— dependerán de la oportuna recepción de fondos de Occidente”, añadió Azárov.
Según el presupuesto de Ucrania para 2023, el déficit ronda alrededor del 20 % del PIB del país, detallan medios locales.
Este mes, según Azárov, el gasto militar aumentará en más de 500.000 millones de grivnas (unos 13.540 millones de dólares), el “mayor incremento presupuestario de la historia de Ucrania”.
“No podemos modificar nuestras finanzas sin consultar a Occidente”
Los funcionarios ucranianos han declarado en repetidas ocasiones que dependen de Occidente para cubrir su déficit presupuestario. El jefe de la comisión de finanzas de la Rada Suprema, Daniíl Guétmantsev, admitió que Kiev no puede disponer de ese dinero sin la aprobación de Occidente.
“Los gastos de Ucrania están financiados a medias por nuestros socios. Por tanto, no podemos modificar nuestras finanzas públicas sin consultarles. Difícilmente podemos aceptar algo que contradiga su visión”, afirmó el funcionario a Obozrevatel en enero.
Die Stimmen werden immer lauter, die sich widersetzen. Die Rufe nach Frieden und Abrüstung werden hörbar, und die Menschen, die sich für eine friedliche Lösung des Ukraine-Kriegs aussprechen, werden sichtbar. Zehntausende kamen zur großen Friedenskundgebung am Brandenburger Tor. Über 700.000 Menschen haben das „Manifest für Frieden“ von Sahra Wagenknecht und Alice Schwarzer unterschrieben. Dessen Forderungen sind einfach: Friedensverhandlungen statt Waffenlieferungen. Waffenstillstand statt Tod und Elend. Eine Mehrheit der Bürgerinnen und Bürger unterstützt diese Forderungen – doch die Bundesregierung behält ihren Kriegskurs bei.
In Deutschland bahnt sich eine soziale und wirtschaftliche Katastrophe an. Die Preise schießen durch die Decke, aber Löhne und Einkommen halten nicht mit. Die von Bundeswirtschaftsminister Habeck verkündete „Transformation“ führt schon jetzt zur Stilllegung von zahlreichen Betrieben. Es droht eine weitgehende Deindustrialisierung. Die zusätzliche Abwanderung großer Konzerne in die USA vernichtet Millionen von Arbeitsplätzen. Die geplante zusätzliche Hochrüstung der Bundeswehr verschlingt 100 Mrd. Euro, die im sozialen Bereich fehlen. Das Bürgergeld ist nur ein neuer Name für Hartz IV. Die Eskalation im Ukraine-Konflikt, die von den Waffenlieferungen gefördert wird, hat die reale Gefahr eines Atomkrieges verschärft.
Das hat Gründe. Krieg und Krise sind ein Bombengeschäft. Die NATO-Rüstungsindustrie lässt die Sektkorken knallen. Energiekonzerne verbuchen Rekordgewinne. Trotz breiter Proteste der Bevölkerungen in vielen europäischen Ländern werden so Forderungen nach einer ernsthaften diplomatischen Initiative mit Verweis auf die Verhandlungsunfähigkeit Russlands von vornherein boykottiert. Ein unterschriftsreifes Waffenstillstandsabkommen aus dem April 2022 zwischen der Ukraine und Russland wurde aufgrund der Intervention der NATO-Staaten USA und Großbritannien im letzten Moment verhindert. Man sähe es lieber, dass die „Ukrainer weiterkämpfen und sterben, als einen Frieden zu erreichen, der zu früh kommt.“
Es ist völlig klar: Die Zeche für Krieg, Sanktionen und Krisen zahlen die Bevölkerung, die einfachen Leute, die Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter, Handwerkerinnen und Handwerker, Angestellte, Arbeitslose, Rentnerinnen und Rentner, die kleinen Selbstständigen, Kleingewerbetreibenden, Geflüchteten und Armen. „Das machen wir nicht mit!“, sagt die Initiative für Frieden und Abrüstung Dahme-Spreewald, die dem Bündnis Heizung, Brot und Frieden angehört.
Im Aufruf zur Kundgebung am 16.3.2023 wird gefordert, dass die Lebensmittelpreise und Mieten gesenkt werden müssen und Löhne und Einkommen hingegen erhöht werden sollen. Daher sollte die Schaffung eines bundesweiten Mietendeckels und eine sofortige umfassende Deckelung der Gas- und Strompreise mindestens auf Vorkrisenniveau die unmittelbare Folge sein. Dafür müssen die Energiewirtschaft in öffentliche Hand übergehen und Krisengewinne konsequent hoch besteuern werden. Dies muss einhergehen mit dem Stopp der unsinnigen und selbstzerstörerischen Sanktionspolitik und des Wirtschaftskrieges gegen Russland und mit der Zurücknahme der Hochrüstung der Bundeswehr. Friedensverhandlung sollen jetzt stattfinden.
Durch die sozialen Proteste konnte die Gasumlage gestoppt werden. Doch an dieser Stelle dürfen die Proteste nicht nachlassen, da die Bundesregierung sich auf einem Kriegskurs befindet. Nein, das ist nicht unser Krieg! In diesem Krieg haben wir nichts zu gewinnen, aber alles zu verlieren – im Zweifel sogar unser Leben und das unserer Kinder.
Die soziale Demagogie von Nazis sowie Rassismus haben bei diesen Protesten in unseren Reihen keinen Platz. Faschisten und Kriegstreiber müssen daher draußen bleiben. Das gilt insbesondere für AfD, III. Weg, Reichsbürger und sonstige „Wölfe im Schafspelz“, die Frieden heucheln und doch lieber den heutigen als morgigen NATO-Bündnisfall für den Einsatz deutscher Soldaten im Kriegseinsatz sehen möchten und denen Waffenlieferungen und Hochrüstung viel zu langsam vonstatten gehen.
Dazu rufen auf:
Bündnis „Heizung, Brot und Frieden“ und
Initiative für Frieden und Abrüstung Dahme-Spreewald mit:
SHIA e.V. – Landesverband Brandenburg
VVN BdA Kreisvereinigung Dahme-Spreewald
Gemeinsame Unabhängige Bürgerliste im Landkreis Dahme-Spreewald
Die-Linke-Fraktion in der SSV Königs Wusterhausen
Bürgerinitiative Soziales Wohnen
DKP GO Fürstenwalde
IG BAU Königs Wusterhausen
Die Linke Dahme-Spreewald
ver.di Königs Wusterhausen
UBL-UFL-Fraktion in der SVV Königs Wusterhausen
Die Linke Wildau
Die Kundgebung findet am Donnerstag, dem 16.3.2023, um 17.00 Uhr am Brunnen in der Bahnhofstraße Königs Wusterhausen statt.
Stephen Karganovic
Der Friedensstifter 