FRANCE In the run-up to the October 22nd rally against war!

In France the POID is preparing an international rally against war on 22 October. To organise for this rally throughout the country, its newspaper La Tribune des Travailleurs publishes weekly articles of analysis and information on the international level.

By ordering the mobilization of 300,000 reservists to be sent to Ukraine, Putin has taken the war to a new level. 

The offensive of the Ukrainian army, over-armed by NATO, has driven the regime of corrupt oligarchs that rules Russia into this headlong rush. 

For, by decreeing mobilization, Putin is bringing the war into every Russian home, provoking anguish, but also rejection of it and the first sparks of revolt. 

With the mobilization, the evocation of the nuclear weapon and the annexation of the Ukrainian territories he occupies, Putin is also taking the conflict a step further towards general conflagration. 

These provocations will inevitably lead to provocations by NATO, and so on. For Putin is not solely responsible for the war, contrary to Biden’s assertion that « No one but Russia sought the conflict. » 

U.S. imperialism and its armed wing, NATO, which – with $14 billion to equip the Ukrainian army – is waging a « proxy war » against Russia (a step in their preparations for war against China), bear an overwhelming responsibility. 

So do the European governments, including Macron’s, all aligned with NATO (thousands of French soldiers, for example, are stationed in Romania and the Baltic states). They too are delivering tons of weapons to Ukraine… and making the workers of their own country foot the bill. 

It is the capitalist system that is the chief warmonger. Ultimately, it is against this system and the governments that are subservient to it that the peoples of the world are rising up, from Sri Lanka to Iran. 

To oppose the war, Russian workers and youth have no other choice but to stand up to Putin’s regime. 

Similarly, workers in the US and Europe can stop the escalation of war only by fighting their own war-mongering governments. They have the right to demand that the organisations that claim to speak on their behalf break with these governments. 

This is the meaning of the international anti-war meeting on October 22, where activists from all over the world will speak under the same banner of struggle against war and exploitation, for the Workers’ International.

Dominique Ferré