Statement of the YCL Executive Committee on today’s 70th anniversary of the founding of NATO.
On the 70th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Young Communist League condemns the bloody legacy of the imperialist alliance and calls for Britain’s immediate withdrawal.
One of the greatest myths propagated today is that NATO is a defensive alliance determined to uphold peace and democracy in Europe, North America and the wider world. The history of NATO and its role in the world today tell a very different story.
In our schools, colleges and universities, and in the mainstream media we are told that NATO was established to resist the aggression of the Warsaw Pact led by the USSR in Eastern Europe. This is despite the fact that NATO was established in 1949, 6 years before the formation of the Warsaw Pact.
Since its establishment NATO has been the vehicle of US imperialism and its European partners, especially Britain. The alliance has been used to attack countries which threaten the interests of transnational companies and to stifle socialist advance.
During the so-called Cold War against the USSR, People’s Democracies of Eastern Europe and national liberation in the third world, NATO led and coordinated nuclear proliferation, sabre rattling and war games aimed at the ultimate destruction of the socialist camp.
Since the destruction of the USSR and the temporary reversal of socialism in Eastern Europe, NATO has been emboldened. NATO more and more chooses outright intervention in the interests of US imperialism and big business. Since 1990 NATO has unleashed bloody conflicts in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya.
Today NATO is one of the biggest threats to the youth of Britain, Europe, the world and all humanity. NATO continues to be a vehicle for imperialist intervention globally. NATO is, and always has been, a nuclear first strike alliance, not a defensive one. NATO stands ready at all times to unleash a nuclear armageddon that would end life on our planet.
Donald Trump is currently pressuring NATO powers to increase defence spending and more specifically spending on US arms and weapons systems. This highlights the leading role of US imperialism and the reliance of its bloated military industrial complex on war and maintaining a constant arms race.
Those in Britain who still cling to the European Union but claim to stand for peace must also critically assess their own stance. The EU’s ‘ever closer union’ includes the creation of an EU army which will be closely intertwined with NATO. Since the Brexit vote increasingly bold steps are being taken by the EU bureaucracy to achieve this. The two organisations have 22 members in common.
Far from upholding peace and democracy, NATO is the naked and unbounded aggression of imperialism in its final phase. All socialists and democrats must support British withdrawal and the dissolution of NATO. We should have no hand in manoeuvrings and sabre rattling between the US-EU and Russian imperialism. Too much is at stake.
Communists call for a foreign policy which is based on peace, cooperation and international development, not war and extortion. This will only be possible out with NATO and the web of US imperialism.
Join the struggle for lasting peace!
Executive Committee
Young Communist League
4 April 2019
London, Britain
