International Viewpoint Archive

The Fourth International’s English-language review, from 1982

Kosovo: Problems of the US Peace Movement

· International Viewpoint No. 311, April 1999 · p 12 · 611 words

Eastern Europe United States

Problems of the US peace movement

Stop the US/NATO war!

Te is also vital for the more and more desperate populations of the se underdeveloped world and the workers of the advanced countries

W themselves, threatened by the re lengthening shadow of world

Pr depression.

ce

However, the kind of mass et movement necessary to stop in capitalist intervention cannot be st built in association with decaying th

Stalinist forces and their various

CO chauvinist, fascist-like allies, such as the Serbian tribalists and cheerleaders for genocide that have put se their poisonous imprint on the first pc demonstrations in the United States against the bombing of Yugoslavia.

de

In San Francisco, some organisers of the first demonstration against th the bombing led a chant from the pc platform, apparently in deference

SI to their Serbian allies, of "Kosovo is

CO

Serbia." The banner at the front of

Ev the crowd was the flag of the

Yugoslav monarchy and the

Wa counterrevolutionary Chetnik forces of the World War ll period.

WI

This is scandalous. The movement th against imperialist intervention is re too important to let it be discredi-

W ted and destroyed by sectarian ar hangovers of Stalinism.

in must build a mass,

We independent movement unconditioan nally opposed to the U.S. and NATO a war effort and in solidarity with the st right of self-determination of oppressed peoples-including the people of Kosovo. * h fa

Source: Socialist Action (USA) newspaper, April 1999.

Se www.socialistaction.org

The following leaflet was distributed by the US group Socialist Action With characteristic ruthlessness and with extraordinary cynicism and hypocrisy, the United States and its capitalist allies have launched a murderous bombing campaign against the Yugoslav Federation.

This assault is designed to demonstrate the power of the imperialist war machine and its readiness to punish any state or people that does not accept its domination.

The United States and its allies are supremely indifferent not only to the fate of the masses of the Serbian people, who are not responsible for the policies of their rulers, but to the fate of the Kosovar Albanian people in whose name this campaign of blind destruction has been launched.

It is the duty of all Americans who respect democratic and humanitarian values to oppose the actions of the government that claims to speak in their name.

The military action launched by the United States and its allies against Yugoslavia represents a grave escalation of intervention by the Western capitalist powers into the conflicts created by the decay of 12 International Viewpoint #311 May 1999

Stalinism and the process of capitalist restoration in the former Soviet bloc. It poses a real threat of a chain reaction of major wars.

It is clear that the capitalist powers are going to try to intervene in the growing chaos of the former Soviet bloc, given their historic stake in assuring that the process of capitalist restoration continues. This process itself is fuelling greater and greater conflicts, as it leads to the impoverishment of these countries and destroys their economic autonomy.

There is thus no way that Western intervention can mitigate these conflicts. By its attempts to impose the capitalist system, with its inequalities and competition, the West can only exacerbate the problems. It cannot promote democracy by fostering a system that defends exploitation and sets people to fighting each other for increasingly scarce goods.

The fight against the intervention of the capitalist powers in Eastern Europe is important for defending the coming workers' struggles against capitalist restoration that are the only hope for peace, democracy, and economic progress in that part of the world.

The revival of socialist perspectives in the non-capitalist countries

← Kosovo: Letter from Yugoslavia (2) · Kosovo: The Problem Is Social! →

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