The following resolution was passed unanimously by the tenth party congress of the CPGB-ML.
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This congress salutes Russia’s important role in fighting against the incessant provocations and aggression of imperialist nations.
This congress understands that Nato was formed as an alliance of imperialist states to counter the rise of socialism and the anticolonial movement, which were the main threats to the ability of western European nations and the USA to extract superprofits from the oppressed nations of the world. In particular, Nato was a military alliance directed against the USSR after it had defeated the second military attempt to crush it – Nazi Germany – and had won even greater prestige and respect from workers around the world, much to the chagrin of the imperialists.
Although touted as a ‘defensive’ alliance, Nato began a programme of aggressive expansion and open hostility after the destruction of the USSR and eastern bloc with the criminal bombing of Yugoslavia. It set about wreaking havoc across the world almost entirely unchecked, seeking new markets, new sources of labour-power to exploit, resources to plunder, and rival industries to crush.
Russia draws the rabid hatred of our bourgeoisie because, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, it began a process of re-establishing economic independence rather than remaining a supine colony for the vultures of western capital to exploit at will.
The military actions taken by Russia have been a direct response to imperialist aggression, which funds colour revolutions and terrorism in countries it seeks to destabilise and control economically. The majority of Russia’s military activity has thus occurred within the former states of the USSR, in the case of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Ukraine, or within states that had an existing friendly relationship with the USSR in the case of Syria, Mali and Burkina Faso.
Although this congress has no illusions about the bourgeois nature of the Russian state and economy, Russia is not an imperialist nation and it is currently playing a significant anti-imperialist role in the world. It was not protestors outside Downing Street that stopped British or Israeli bombs and missiles being launched at Syria, it was the presence of the Russian armed forces and anti-aircraft batteries.
This congress holds that it is incumbent upon us to defend Russia from imperialist aggression and propaganda, as it is still, along with China and Iran, one of the great prizes that imperialism seeks to conquer in order to try to breathe new life into its moribund system.
This congress says: Hands off Russia!
