Washington and its rivals in Europe, like wolves in sheep's clothing, are attempting to use the atrocities carried out by Serbian government forces in Kosovo as a pretext to intervene, as they earlier did in Bosnia. Once again, their actions have nothing to do with "humanitarian" missions. The Clinton administration has organized its military intervention in Bosnia to deal blows to its imperialist competitors in Europe, blocking them from getting a firmer economic foothold in the Balkan country. The partition of that Yugoslav republic and its occupation by tens of thousands of NATO troops was the first imperialist attempt coming out of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf slaughter to use direct military force to try to crush working-class resistance in one of the workers states in Europe.

Capitalism has not been restored in any of the republics of the former Soviet Union or the other workers states, where nationalized property relations, monopoly of foreign trade, and economic planning, however deformed, still exist. The imperialist powers can only open up these countries for capitalist exploitation through force. They face the challenge of crushing the kind of resistance waged by tens of thousands of students and others in Serbia that began in late 1996, the armed revolt in Albania last year, and the escalating battles for independence now being fought by working people in Kosovo.

The U.S. rulers' occupying army in Yugoslavia, combined with their drive to expand NATO eastward, are part of their efforts to encircle the workers state in Russia. The U.S.-led war moves against Iraq highlight this fact, by taking a step to integrate the regimes in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic as military components of NATO who U.S. secretary of state [Madeleine] Albright says "are building stronger, leaner, more professional armed forces."

The employer class is preparing the military force it hopes can overturn state property relations and reestablish capitalism - the "rule of law" as they sometimes put it - in Russia and elsewhere in the region. The 500 U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division participating in joint exercises in the Caspian Sea region last year was one example of these military moves.

More than 45 years ago workers and peasants led a revolution in Yugoslavia that broke down national divisions as they fought to win land, democratic rights, and better social conditions. They forged unity in a mighty struggle that overthrew the local landlords and capitalists, as well as the yoke of the imperialist powers in Europe and the United States.

A petty-bourgeois social caste carried out a political counterrevolution against workers and farmers there, consolidated bureaucratic control, and established a police- state apparatus to maintain the privileges of the caste. The policies of this bureaucratic layer perpetuated disparities in social conditions of workers and peasants and reinforced national oppression and regional divisions.

Under the pressures of a deepening economic stagnation of world capitalism, the Stalinist murder machine that had dominated Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in the beginning of this decade. Various wings of the petty-bourgeois caste that ruled the country, including Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, have used nationalist demagogy to grab territory and resources for themselves to maintain or augment their privileged way of life.

The national struggle in Kosovo is dealing a blow against decades of bureaucratic misrule in the Yugoslav workers state.

Forging a working-class leadership with a clear political perspective - independent of any wing of the bureaucratic caste or any capitalist forces - is the only way forward for workers and peasants in Kosovo and the other republics in Yugoslavia. Calls for imperialist intervention weaken working- class solidarity in the Balkans.

That's why working people in the United States and the world over should demand:

No to military intervention in Kosovo!

Lift the sanctions against Serbia!

All imperialist troops out of Yugoslavia now!  
 
 
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