The campaign to expand NATO into Eastern and Central Europe - incorporating Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into the ranks of the Atlantic imperialist alliance, and at a later stage including republics of the former USSR like the Baltic states and Ukraine - means war preparations by Washington against the Russian workers state are well on their way.

The recent statement by Russian president Boris Yeltsin - a proimperialist politician - that the looming clash is the most serious confrontation between the two powers since the October 1962 (Cuban missile) crisis shows the stakes involved.

The Clinton administration has realized that the only way to destroy the social relations created by the October 1917 Russian revolution, and open up the Soviet republics to profitable capitalist investment, is through direct military confrontation. Washington is acting on this conviction. The U.S. rulers hope that by speeding the day when they can accomplish this goal they may come out of the depression their world market system has plunged into since the opening of the 1990s and enter a new period of capitalist expansion. Other imperialist powers share Washington's view on this matter.

The Swedish imperialists stand on the front-lines of this war drive. Both Carl Bildt and Goran Persson, the former and present Swedish prime ministers, have cooperated with Washington to establish Stockholm as the dominant imperialist power in the Baltic Sea region - especially vis-a-vis Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania . This area is one of the most strategic areas in the world from the military point of view. During the "cold war" Moscow concentrated many of its military installations in the Baltic republics to counter an attack from NATO.

Finland is the imperialist country with the longest border with Russia. And Sweden is the strongest imperialist power in Scandinavia. That's why Washington has placed both Stockholm and Helsinki high on its list for possible NATO membership in the near future.

Before they can defeat working people in Eastern Europe and Russia and reestablish the complete domination of the wages system there, however, the imperialists have to go through workers and farmers in their home countries.

That's why, as the capitalist powers intensify their military provocations against the workers states, we see increased attacks on democratic rights such as the ones unfolding in Sweden now. The right to asylum, the right to demonstrate, freedom of association, freedom of the press, and the right to strike are under assault. What most workers perceive as social rights - unemployment benefits, sick leave payments, and retirement-pensions - are being undercut.

In Sweden, these attacks have come both from the former conservative and the current social democratic regimes. Their purpose is to break down human solidarity between working people and make it harder for us to defend our rights. These attacks have also opened up space for extraparliamentary activity by rightist forces, such as the newly formed network Peoples Will and Mass Immigration that is pushing for new restrictions on the rights of immigrants. They have also fueled the cynical exploitation of the aversion for child pornography to push for the introduction of arbitrary house searches. These political campaigns pave the way for the rise of incipient fascist movements, an important feature of any drive toward war.

These war preparations also frame the maneuvers by the Swedish bourgeoisie on the customs union, monetary union, and a military pact within the European Union. The Swedish rulers want to expand the EU to the east, especially to include the Baltic states, while they have a "wait and see" attitude toward the projected monetary union. The majority of the Swedish ruling class firmly opposes Paris's course of pushing for a greater military role for the Western European Union as an alternative to NATO. Stockholm is currently allied with London and Washington - the dominant power in Europe on the economic and military front. On the other pole of the interimperialist rivalry, Paris, in the first place, and Bonn, to a lesser degree, are pushing for the monetary union and a military pact within the EU.

Mounting tensions among the competing powers in the European Union may sooner or later lead to the brake-up of the EU.

That's why the current campaign by several groups on the "left" for a referendum on Swedish withdrawal from the EU can become a realistic alternative for the Swedish rulers themselves. This petty-bourgeois nationalist effort will only bind working people and youth in Sweden to Swedish imperialism's attempts to strengthen its ties with Washington, as both powers intensify military provocations against the Russian workers state.

The campaign for Swedish affiliation to the European Monetary Union (EMU), which is advanced by the Metalworkers union leadership among others, also revolves around reactionary nationalistic themes. It is aimed at strengthening the Swedish capitalists' position in face of tougher competition for markets in Europe and North America. These two campaigns are objectively part of the war drive against Russia because they seek to draw working people and youth in Sweden to support the interests of the ruling class and weaken our ability to defend our rights, oppose austerity, and independently stand up to imperialism and war.

Working people must raise our voices to loudly oppose any restrictions on democratic rights, reject identifying with either the pro- or anti-European Union campaigns, and demand: Swedish, U.S., and other imperialists hands off Russia!  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home