IN can be contacted c/o CP 266, Succ "C", Montreal, QC, Canada, H2L 4K1

The Balkan region is sinking hour by hour, day by day, into absolute horror. The infernal war machine has brutally reminded us of the true content of the "New World Order" proclaimed at the beginning of this decade. It's the order of murderers, gangsters, vultures: the order of a class of butchers.

One thing is sure, this conflict has nothing to do with so-called "international law" or humanitarian concerns. It has nothing to do with the defense of culture or of a few monasteries or mosques in Northern Kosovo. This war is not the product of any single leader or state that's more aggressive than the other. It's rather the reality of the aberrant laws and logic of the market - of global capitalism.

Three words can sum up what opposes Albanian and Serbian capitalists in northern Kosovo: coal, iron, and gold. One word fully characterises the humanitarian pretensions of the NATO bosses: Hypocrisy! The same propaganda machine that is shedding crocodicodile tears about the fate of the refugees and ethnic cleansing, pretends to ignore years of even more massive cleansing and massacres in Turkey, in Indonesia, and elsewhere; massacres that they finance and support more often than not.

What the NATO forces are doing in the Balkans is defending economic and strategic interests in the manner of a pack of wolves, each fighting with the other to grab the biggest chunk. War is a continuation of politics...The blood debt that humanity must pay because it still hasn't been able to get rid of this barbaric and obsolete system that is capitalism.

Faced with this unfurling of atrocities, workers' consciousness is still extremely low. The population of each bloc is drowned by a media barrage presenting the other's camp as ogres, fascists, blind terrorists. The intervention of the still weak revolutionary forces is crucial for an even modest development of a class perspective on these deadly events. The "official left" (socialists, pseudo-communists, greens, social democrats) have nothing to offer the working class if not bullets and blood. It's part and parcel of the majority of the governments leading the massacre! The leftist groups give the impression of struggling against the war! But on closer observation, behind the inflammatory rhetoric, there is invariably the defense of nationalist poison (not always the same), of a state or an imperialist camp. Most of the time, , it's in the name of a murky "right to self determination", unrealizable in this period of capitalist decadence. There is no progress possible in the framework of a greater Albania, or a greater Serbia, or an imperialist protectorate. The only possible way out of this escalating chain of war and massacres, of this "New World Order", is that the international working class massively occupies its own terrain, the terrain of the class struggle! It is the way that the workers put an end to the butchery of 1914. And there's no other way out...In this spirit we make it our duty to publish two documents from the two largest organizations of the communist left, the current of real internationalist communism. The two documents are dated March 25, 1999, but they keep at the moment of this writing all their relevance.

Down with the war!

Down with capitalism!

Workers of the world unite!

Internationalist Notes, Montreal April 16, 1999

The ICC held its 13th Congress at the beginning of April, at a time marked by the acceleration of history, as dying capitalism confronts one of the most difficult and dangerous periods of modern history, comparable in gravity to the two world wars, the upsurge of the proletarian revolution in 1917-19, or the Great Depression of 1929. The seriousness of the situationiousness of the situation is determined by sharpening contradictions at every level:

* Imperialist tensions and the development of world disorder;

* A very advanced and dangerous period in the capitalist crisis;

* Attacks on the international proletariat unprecedented since World War II;

* An accelerated decomposition of bourgeois society.

Aware of the enormous responsibility that this situation imposes on the proletariat, the ICC focused the debates of the Congress in order to trace the clear perspectives that this moment of history demands. Only by developing its combativity and its consciousness can the proletariat put forward the revolutionary alternative which alone can ensure the survival of human society. But the most important responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Communist Left, to which the organisations of the proletarian camp belong. They alone can transmit the theoretical and historical lessons which, with the method of marxism, are vital if the revolutionary minorities emerging today are to apply themselves to the construction of the class party of tomorrow. In a sense, like Bilan during the 1930s (1), the Communist Left is today forced to understand an unprecedented historical situation. What is at stake today demands both a profound attachment to the theoretical and historical method of marxism, and the revolutionary audacity to understand situations whions which will not fit the schemas of the past.

With this in mind, the ICC undertook its 13th Congress so as to contribute fully, through its analyses, its positions, and its intervention, to the proletarian response to a serious world situation on the eve of the next millenium.

The international situation: a growing tendency towards chaos

The debates on the analysis and perspectives of the international situation formed the central focus of our 13th Congress (see the resolution on the international situation published in the International Review no.97). It could not be otherwise. The war in the Balkans had broken out only a few days earlier (2). The Congress clearly established that this new war is the most important event on the imperialist scene since the collapse of the Eastern bloc at the end of the 1980s. The present war and its destabilising effects, on both a European and an international level, illustrate once again the dilemma facing the United States today. The tendency to "look after number one", and the increasingly explicit defence of their imperialist interests by the US' one-time allies, force it more and more both to display and demonstrate its immense military superiority. At the same time, this policy can only lead to a further aggravation of the chaos that reigns already in the world situation.

Thus the Congress concluded that the war in ex-Yugoslavia is a further step in tin the development of the irrationality of war within decadent capitalism, directly linked to its phase of decomposition. This confirms a fundamental thesis of marxism: for declining 20th Century capitalism, war has become its mode of existence.

The increase in chaos, the permanent tests of strength between the great powers, is fed by a worsening of the capitalist crisis, which has accelerated since the end of the 1960s when the period of reconstruction following World War II came to an end. At the beginning of the present decade, the ruling class masked the crisis by presenting the collapse of the Eastern bloc as the final victory of capitalism over communism. In reality, the bankruptcy of the East was a key moment in the deepening of the world capitalist crisis. It revealed the bankruptcy of one bourgeois model for managing the crisis: Stalinism. Since then, other "economic models" have bitten the dust one after the other, beginning with the world's second and third industrial powers: Japan and Germany. They were followed by the Asian "tigers" and "dragons" and by the "emerging" economies of Latin America. Russia's open bankruptcy confirmed the inability of Western liberalism to regenerate the countries of Eastern Europe. The ruling class has presented this disaster as severe, but nonetheless limited to a temporary recession due to specific circumstances. In reality, what these countries are suffering is a depression eevery bit as brutal and devastating as that of the 1930s. And this is only the prelude to a new open recession world wide.

As for the class struggle, our congress concluded that despite the weight of decomposition determined by the dead end in which capitalism finds itself, and despite the historic retreat in proletarian combativity and consciousness as a result of the collapse of the Russian bloc in 1989 - which a disgusting bourgeois campaign identified with the death of communism - the proletariat is not defeated historically. Although time does not play in its favour, in that it is unable to prevent the spreading rot of a decomposing social order, the end of the decade has been marked by signs of a renewed combativity. To confront this the trades unions have had to begin to control, isolate, and sabotage the movements of struggle, and the ruling class has had to revive its "black-out" policy on news of struggles internationally, to avoid spreading the "bad example" of workers' resistance.

Despite all the difficulties that continue to weigh on the working class as a result of the decomposition of capitalist society, the 13th Congress considered that in the long term, there are good reasons to believe that there are many aspects of the situation which are favourable to a new development of consciousness in the working class:

* The advanced state of the crisis itself, pushing the proletariaariat to reflect on the need to confront and go beyond this system;

* The increasingly massive, simultaneous and generalised nature of the attacks, which will pose the need for a generalised class response;

* The omnipresence of war, destroying illusions in a "peaceful" capitalism. The present war in the Balkans, close to the vital centres of capitalism, will have a significant impact on the consciousness of the workers, in that it expresses more sharply than ever the disastrous future that capitalism offers humanity;

* The increasing readiness of an undefeated class to fight against the decline in its living conditions;

* The entry into struggle of a new generation of workers, their combativity intact and able to learn from the generation whose struggles have developed since 1968;

* The emergence of discussion circles or groups of advanced workers, which will try to recover the immediate and historic experience of the workers' movement. In this perspective, the responsibility of the Communist Left will be still greater than in the 1930s, above all in a situation where the ruling class, fully aware of the danger of the proletariat rediscovering the ties to its own history, has developed a whole campaign to denigrate the past and the present of its class enemy.

Worried by the proletarian danger, the ruling class has placed the social-democracy in government inment in 13 out of the 15 countries in the European Union, and in the USA. It needed to revive the electoral mystification and the democratic alternative after long years of right-wing government, especially in key countries like Britain and Germany. But above all, given the need to increase the attacks against the working class, the left has the advantage over the right of proceeding in a much less provocative and more skilful manner.

In conclusion, the 13th Congress made clear that the left's arrival in power in these countries is an expression of the fact that the bourgeoisie is well aware of the danger that a working class conscious of its historic role would represent, which justifies all the preventive actions aimed at limiting the development of its combativity.

The ICC's activities determined by the new period

The 13th Congress carried out an evaluation of the ICC's activities, in the light of an unprecedented, particularly dangerous and difficult, historic situation, at a moment when the great powers are deploying their arsenal of death in the very heart of Europe.

The balance sheet of activities drawn up by the Congress was a positive one. This is nothing to do with self-satisfaction, but an objective and critical evaluation of our activity. The 12th Congress had considered that the ICC should return to an equilibrium in its activities, after more than three years of fighting to restore its its organisational tissue to good health. In accord with the mandate of the 12th Congress, this "return to normal" has been concretised by:

* An opening towards the proletarian political milieu and our contacts, while continuing the combat against parasitic groups and elements;

* A political and theoretical strengthening, with the ability to give our propaganda a historic dimension, basing it on marxism and the experience of the class;

* A strengthening of the "party spirit", which is the only way to strengthen the revolutionary organisation.

The strengthening of the organisation has also been concretised by the ability of the ICC to integrate new militants in seven territorial sections (notably the section in France). The ICC's numerical strengthening (which will continue, since other sympathisers have recently posed their candidature to the organisation), thus gives the lie to the slanders of the parasitic milieu accusing the organisation of being a "sect turned in on itself". Contrary to the denigration of our detractors, the ICC's fight to defend the party spirit has not discouraged those elements searching for class positions, but on the contrary has allowed them to clarify politically, and to come closer to the organisation.

The ICC has developed a serious and serene intervention, inspired by a long-term vision, with a view to a rapprochement with the groups oroups of the proletarian political movement. This activity has been extended to our contacts and sympathisers, whose concerns must be answered seriously and in depth, and who must be able to overcome their misunderstandings and suspicion of organisation. This orientation of the ICC springs not from any megalomania, but from the demands of the situation, which require the proletariat and its revolutionary minorities to assume their responsibilities.

The defence of the proletarian movement has led the ICC to combat the counter-offensive of the parasitic elements, notably by publishing a two-volume pamphlet on The so-called paranoia of the ICC, and by holding an "international" public meeting in Paris in defence of the organisation, joined by several of our contacts. The organisation has thus deepened the question of political parasitism, by adopting and publishing the "Theses on Parasitism", which we believe are a weapon for all the groups of the milieu in understanding this issue historically and theoretically. For the ICC, the defence of the proletarian movement has meant developing a policy of discussion and rapprochement, including common interventions with other groups of the milieu against the bourgeoisie's anti-communist campaigns during the anniversary of the October Revolution. The same approach has been adopted in our intervention towards the emerging political milieu in Russia.

The 13th Congress cononsidered that our intervention towards the "political swamp" should be more determined. This indeterminate "no man's land" between bourgeoisie and proletariat is an inevitable passage for all those elements of the class moving towards an awareness of communism. The organisation must not wait for these elements to "discover" it, it must address and carry the struggle to the bourgeoisie within the swamp itself.

This reinforcement of our vision of the proletarian political milieu is a result of our political and theoretical strengthening. The Congress insisted that this latter should not be considered a separate activity, an extra. In the present situation, and given our long-term perspective, it should form the bedrock of our activity, reflection, and decision.

This positive balance sheet of our activity is thus based on a clearer understanding of the fact that questions of organisation are determinant for all other aspects of our activity. In this sense, the ICC is fully aware that it must continue its efforts to acquire the "party spirit", especially by struggle against the effects of the dominant ideology on militant commitment. During its 25 years of existence, the ICC has paid the price for the break in organic continuity with the revolutionary organisations of the past. Although we consider that this experience has been positive, we know that nothing is gained forever in this domain, above all in the presesent period of decomposition when the organisation's efforts to imbue its functioning with the "party spirit" are constantly undermined by society's tendency towards "look after number one", nihilism, irrationality, which are expressed in organisational life by individualism, suspicion, demoralisation, immediatism, and superficiality.

The 13th Congress set the ICC's activities (press, distribution, public meetings) within the perspective of the sharpening effects of decomposition, but also an acceleration of history with an aggravation of the crisis and a tendency towards renewed combativity in the proletariat. The ICC, and the whole proletarian milieu with it, emerges from this Congress better armed to confront this historic situation.

International Communist Current

1) Review of the Italian Communist Left during the 1930s. See our book on the subject.

2) See our international leaflet, published on the front page of the previous issue of World Revolution and distributed in all the countries where ICC sections exist, as well as Canada, Australia, and Russia.

The bombing of the population of ex-Yugoslavia by the major powers under the aegis of NATO represents a serious escalation of capitalist barbarism. It is accompanied by a cacophony of voices attempting to hide the imperialist nature of the war. There are the voices of those who justify the bombings and try to cover the sordid and bloody self the sordid and bloody self-interest of the major powers under a veil of humanitarianism. There are the voices of those who condemn the NATO attack in order to defend the 'little' ethnic murderer, Milosevic, against the high tech slaughter of the US and European powers. There are the voices of the pacifists who appeal for a peaceful capitalism, as if the spirit of competition weren't an intrinsic aspect of bourgeois rule that leads inevitably to the use of armed force as one country tries to impose its own imperialist interests at the expense of the others. But amid this barrage there is a clear and sane voice raised against the war and all its bourgeois protagonists, that of proletarian internationalism. This position in relation to imperialist war is the foundation stone of the international working class movement and the litmus test for revolutionary organisations. Its intransigent defence marks out the currents of the communist left from those of the radical bourgeoisie, who masquerade as friends of the working class while inviting them to massacre their class brothers in other countries in the name of siding with whichever imperialism they identify as the 'lesser evil'. This song is as old as capitalism! The essence of proletarian internationalism is expressed in the words of the Communist Manifesto, drafted by Marx and Engels in rx and Engels in 1848: "The workers have no country ... Workers of all countries unite!" It affirms the nature of the working class as an international class, no part of which has interests which are in conflict with any other sector in any other country. As such the proletariat has no interest in the victory of either side in wars between capitalist powers for the extension of their spheres of influence and for world domination. On the contrary, it is always expected to pay for the war by dying on the battlefield and by increasing productivity for the war effort. It is always the victim and never a victor while this system of death and poverty has not been overthrown once and for all. When the socialist parties of the Second International betrayed the principle of internationalism by supporting participation in the First World War and played a prominent role in mobilising the workers for the carnage, the International was lost to the working class. But the revolutionary minority regrouped around the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Spartacists in Germany, defended an internationalist position by opposing the war and calling for the workers to defend their own class interests. In the same way, with the onset of the second imperialist carnage, whereas the Trotskyist current passed over to the bourgeois camp by supporting the USSRporting the USSR and the democratic front in the name of opposing fascism, there remained fractions of the Communist Left who maintained the principle of internationalism and have continued to denounce it as an imperialist war. It is the organisations that are descended from this political current that have responded to the NATO bombings by taking up the only consistent and communist position: - condemning the carnage as an imperialist war; - calling on the working class not to defend any of the bourgeois factions involved; - condemning, implicitly or explicitly, the demands of the leftists for the workers to defend the 'lesser evil' or 'self-determination in Kosovo' and, - against the myth of pacifism, affirming that only the working class can offer an alternative to capitalist barbarism through its own struggle as a revolutionary class, whose historic destiny is to destroy the exploitation of the bourgeoisie and create a new society without classes and without exploitation. The titles of the leaflets produced by the various groups of the communist left, immediately after the start of the bombing of Kosovo, testify to the unity, in action, of the internationalists in the denunciation of the war (1): "Capitalism means imperialism, imperialism means war" (IBRP); "The Kosovo war "The Kosovo war is a war of capital" (Programma Comunista); "No to imperialist intervention in Yugoslavia! Down with all nationalism and all bourgeois oppression!" (Le Proletaire); "The real opposition to military intervention and war lies in the class struggle of the proletariat, in its class and internationalist reorganisation against all forms of bourgeois oppression and nationalism" (Il Comunista); "Down with the imperialist war" (Il Partito Comunista); "Capitalism is war, war on capitalism!" (ICC).

Although there is unity on the denunciation of the war, there is not complete agreement between all parts of the communist left on how to analyse the general imperialist situation. However, the leaflets show a global agreement of these different organisations on the fact that the aerial bombardment by NATO expresses an attempt by the American bourgeoisie to impose its hegemony and to respond to the attempt to contest its authority, and, in particular, to block the efforts of European powers to play an autonomous imperialist role. Whatever the differences or nuances of analysis, there is unity among all the diverse organisations of the Communist Left on opposition to the imperialist war, which must play an essential role in the deal role in the development of proletarian consciousness on the bankruptcy of this system of exploitation. This clearly demarcates the internationalist position from those of the left of the bourgeoisie with all its radical and perfidious language intended to trap the working class. This is why the ICC has written to all the internationalist groups quoted above, on the 29th March, to propose to meet "in order to elaborate a common call against the imperialist war, against all the lies of the bourgeoisie, against all the pacifist campaigns and for the proletarian perspective of the overthrow of capitalism." "This is the first time for half a century that the main imperialist gangsters have conducted a war in Europe itself, which means the principle theatre of the two world wars and at the same time the main proletarian concentration in the world. This is the gravity of the present situation. It imposes on communists the responsibility to unite their forces in order to make the loudest possible voice for internationalist principles, in order to give these principles the greatest possible impact that our weak forces will allow." With the development of the situation after several weeks of war, such an appeal is still up to date. ICC 23.4.99

1. The organisations referred to are: - IBRP (International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party): Battaglia Comunista, CP 1753, 20100 Milano, Italy and Communist Workers Organisation, PO Box 338, Sheffield, S3 9YX - International Communist Party: Programma Comunista, IPC casella postale 962, 20101 Milano, Italy - International Communist Party: Le Proletaire, Editions Programme, 3 rue Basse Combalot, 69007 Lyon, France - Il Comunista, CP 10835, 20110 Milano, Italy International Communist Party (Il Partito Comunista): Edizioni PC, casella postale 1157, 50100 Florence, Italy and Communist Left, ICP Editions, PO Box 52, Liverpool, L69 7AL

The nail bombs planted in Brixton, Brick Lane and Soho were vicious attacks aimed at terrorising the population. Such atrocities are typical of the vile ways that the servants of capitalism use in attempts to intimidate people and make them live in fear.

In denouncing this terrorist brutality we reject entirely any claim to sympathy from all those mouthpieces of the bourgeoisie who have rushed to deliver their condemnations as utter hypocrisy. Jack Straw said of the Soho bomb that "this is a terrible outrage committed by people with no humanity". William Hague said it was "appalling and barbaric". After the Brick Lane bomb John Tyndall of the extreme-right British National Party said that those responsible should be hanged.

What hypocrisy! Not just from Tyndall, but from all the other voices of the bourgeoisie. They pretend they care about what happens to people on the streets of London as British aircraft continue bombing raids on Iraq and Yugoslavia. We entirely reject any claims from the bourgeoisie that it has 'sympathy' with the victims of the atrocities - whether in London, Belgrade or Baghdad. We remind the working class in Britain particularly that the British bourgeoisie, with a long history as "people with no humanity", has been at the forefront of the development and sale of armaments, particularly in the fields of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.

The British bourgeoisie also has a long history of using fascism to justify its actions. During the Second World War the 'fight against fascism' and the 'defence of democracy' were used in the mobilisation in the Allied countries against the Axis powewers. Today, with the bombing of Iraq and Yugoslavia, Saddam and Milosevic are portrayed as dictatorial, anti-democratic figures who pursue the same sort of policies as Hitler with their persecution of, respectively, the Kurds and the Kosovan Albanians.

On the 'home front' the propaganda against the nail bombers doesn't only focus on their disgusting weapons, it depicts them as enemies of democracy. In the immediate aftermath of the Soho bombing the Labour Left, in particular, used their antifascist credentials in the defence of the capitalist state. Paul Boateng denounced those who were intent on attacking democracy and insisted that no one could be allowed to overthrow the democratic capitalist state. Ken Livingstone called for the beefing up of the state and the reorientation of the security services. They all made it quite clear that anyone who challenged bourgeois democracy - not just fascists - would be subject to the full force of the capitalist state.

Who benefits from the bombs?

In WR 222 we wrote about the use of the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and how the bourgeoisie would use its report to strengthen the police and other parts of the state's apparatus of repression. It is useful to recall the very first of the inquiry's 70 recommendations which expressed the need of the bourgeoisie "to increase trust and confidence in policing amongst minority ethnic communities".

In the aftermath of the first two nail bombs there was a widespread increase in overt policing. The complaints of liberals and 'community leaders' against the police were that they have not done enough, that they didn't do anything to prevent the Brick Lane bomb after warnings were received, that they have done more following Jill Dando's murder than they ever did when Stephen Lawrence was killed. When asked to adopt a higher profile the police don't need to be asked twice. But the strengthening of the state doesn't only mean increasing the number of police in the street. It has also meant drawing attention to the more than a million CCTV cameras watching public spaces in Britain. In addition, the police, their various liaison committees and their allies among 'community leaders' have appealed for people to be "eyes and ears" for the police.

So, the repressive powers of the capitalist state have gained the most from the nail bomb campaign. What then of the various fascist groups that have been blamed or claimed responsibility for the bombs, such as Combat 18 and its split-off the White Wolves? Combat 18 - a splinter from the BNP - was lead for some time by a Special Branch informer. From the first claims concerning the Brixton bomb there has been much coverage concerning the infiltratation of fascist groups by security services, Special Branch, Searchlight magazine etc. The press talk of 'infiltration', but the example of Northern Ireland show what that amounts to in practice. Various trials of loyalist 'infiltrators' have shown that the security services' agents are not passive observers but actually call the shots. The most dramatic example of the work of British government agents was the co-ordination in 1974 of the loyalist bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan which brought the worst carnage in the last 30 years in Ireland. This ensured the strengthening of repressive powers in the Irish Republic.

In Britain we do not need to delve too deep into the murky world of the fascist right to see that the degree of state infiltration probably means a high degree of state control of nazi groups. Today nail bombs have been used to intimidate and frighten the population and to strengthen the democratic state. The apparatus of the state is being prepared, above all, for future repression against the working class, its struggles and revolutionary minorities. The terrorism of the fascists and the repressive powers of the democratic state are two complimentary weapons of decadent capitalism. Bo 1/5/99

What is the real reason for the NATO bombing, the daily deluge of fire that is falling on Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo? What is the real reason for this war which, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, involves the direct military presence of the great powers on European soil, only a few hours plane ride away fromours plane ride away from London?

We are being told that this monstrous barbarity is a 'humanitarian' action aimed at defending and even saving the Kosovan people.

It was the same with the Gulf war: we were told that the massive military intervention by the great powers was the way to help populations who were being crushed under a dictator's heel. The media and the politicians pretend to be indignant about the horrors of the 'ethnic cleansing' ordered by Milosevic. They pretend to be moved by the discovery of new mass graves in Kosovo. They shed crocodile tears about the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the massacres, parked like cattle in filthy camps where women, children and the old wait for aid or for provisional visas, daily falling prey to hunger, cold and disease.

But the 'humanitarian' argument put forward by the governments and the media is nothing but a hateful lie.

The reality is that the military intervention unleashed by the great powers in ex-Yugoslavia is dictated purely and simply by their sordid imperialist interests. Behind the facade of unity between the main powers involved in the conflict, each national bourgeoisie is playing its own game, each imperialist shark is trying to defend its own sphere of influence or to undermine those of its rivals in a Balkans region which has been a strategic bone of contention for over a century.

The real question for them is which imperialist pist power will win the prize and succeed in establishing its control over the Kosovo protectorate which will result form the eventual dividing up of this territory - just as in 1996, the question was which one of them would draw the most benefit from the carving up of Bosnia. (see the article below).

The hypocrisy and cynicism of the great powers

The real motive for this war is neither the search for peace in Europe, nor any defence of the 'rights of man', Neither is it an attempt by the great powers to call a halt to chaos, as bourgeois propaganda claims.

The reality is that the 'democratic' powers don't give a damn for the Kosovo population. They care nothing about the massacres or the fate of the refugees. This disgusting contempt for the populations who are being taken hostage and victimised by the war is shown in the very language of the media, the politicians and the military men, who talk about 'collateral damage' or 'accidents' when referring to the thousands of civilian casualties - among both Serbs and Albanian refugees - already caused by the NATO bombing.

The same contempt is shown by 'socialist' or 'democratic' politicians like Clinton, Blair and Jospin who call on us to send food and blankets to the refugee camps, but who make sure that only a few token Kosovars are admitted into America, Britain or France.

Their hypocrisy about the 'ethnic cleansing' is no less nauseaauseating. The American and British governments have been up to their necks in supporting regimes who have carried out similar kinds of massacres, in Indonesia against the Chinese, or in Turkey against the Kurds (Turkey is meanwhile an honoured partner in the anti-Milosevic alliance). And as for France: a report - "No witness must survive" - has just been published (see Le Monde, 2 4.99) which confirms that the genocide in Rwanda carried out by the Hutu government - which left 500,000 Tutsis dead in 1994 - had been planned since February 1993 with the complicity of the French.

This vile double-standard applies to the Milosevic regime itself. Today he is the 'evil dictator of Belgrade', on a par with the 'butcher of Baghdad'. But in 1991 the USA, France and Britain all backed Milosevic as a way of blocking German ambitions in Croatia. And Britain and France continued to back him covertly against the growing presence of the US, which had switched to supporting Bosnia. Meanwhile the ethnic cleansing was being carried out by all the local nationalist cliques - Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian - all of whom were supported by the great powers in one way or another.

A campaign of intoxication directed against the working class

But what about the increasingly numerous criticisms of the way the intervention is being carried out that are being raised by the media and by bourgeois politicians? We are toltold for example that Milosevic's ability to hold out has been underestimated, or conversely that NATO overestimated the capacity of the bombing to dissuade Milosevic. Or again that the intervention took place too late because Serbia had been planning the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo for three months.

These arguments actually show that the cynicism and hypocrisy of the democratic bourgeoisies knows no limits. The 'sacrifice' of the Kosovo population was not only foreseen but also required by the great powers. For two years the great powers have been fully informed about this repression against the Kosovo Albanians and they knew very well that in reprisal for the bombing the repression would be stepped up even more. Indeed it's thanks to the suffering of these populations that the 'Allied Forces' have to a large extent made public opinion (according to the polls) more in favour of military intervention, whereas at the beginning it had been somewhat reticent about the bombing. And what's more, it's these very 'unforeseen difficulties' that will be used as a pretext for further increasing the forces and material being deployed in the region.

If NATO waited so long to intervene, even though the repression has been going on for over two years, this has nothing to do with any scruples about unleashing war and destruction. It was solely because most of the 'allies', in particular r the USA, were happy to let Milosevic do their dirty work by subduing the Kosovar rebellion, and thus blocking the ambitions of their German rival - Germany being the power most interested in the independence of Kosovo and the project of a Greater Albania. This is the same method used during the Gulf war, when the American bourgeoisie first cynically pushed for the rebellion by the Shi'ite and Kurdish minorities in Iraq, and then left them open to being crushed by Saddam Hussein, since the last thing the US wanted was a Kurdish state or another pro-Iranian state in the region.

In fact, the whole current campaign about the 'errors' or 'difficulties' of NATO, on the 'ineffectiveness of air strikes' and their 'inability' to make Milosevic back down, has above all the aim of conditioning public opinion, of psychologically preparing the population in the central countries, and the working class in particular, for a new escalation in this imperialist conflict: in short, for the land offensive. It's true that this widespread questioning of NATO also expresses the efforts of America's European rivals to undermine the absolute authority of the White House. But at the same time all the national bourgeoisies have a need to make the proletariat swallow the pill of military escalation. This is why they are already announcing that 'this war will be long and bloody' and are artificially inflating the number of men needed for the groound combats so that there will be feelings of relief when the actual numbers are announced. The bourgeoisie needs to put so much effort into preparing the terrain because it knows that the only obstacle to the acceleration of its march towards war is the proletariat of the central capitalist countries.

The working class will very soon be faced with the fact that with the deployment of the land armies, thousands of sons and daughters of workers will be killed in the fighting. And it's also mainly the working class that will pay the colossal bill for the war. When we know that the cost of the war is already being estimated at $200 million a day (half of that being borne by the US alone), we can imagine what new 'sacrifices' the bourgeoisie is going to demand, and how much the increase in military budgets will mean a decrease in social spending.

But the working class is not merely a victim of war. It's the only internationalist class in society. The only social force which, by fighting tooth and nail against the redoubled attacks by the ruling class on its living conditions, can hold back the slide into military barbarism. It's the only class historically capable of destroying this system of death and opening the door to a different future for human society.

CB 22.4.99