New World Order Must Be of the Peoples' Making
TML: CPC(M-L) has said there is a problem with putting Russian military action in Ukraine and U.S./NATO warmongering and expansion in Eastern Europe on a par. Can you please elaborate on this?
Pauline Easton: Yes, of course. Thank you for the question. We have received many letters this week, some skeptical or outrightly opposing the stand we have taken but others -- in fact most of them -- supportive and grateful for the call to oppose the U.S./NATO warmongering, disinformation and lies in order to reach warranted conclusions.
One message we received from northern Europe reads:
"Anti NATO voices are very lonely, few and far between this week. All the ideological prejudices are up and running with bursts of hysterical misinformation. Same prejudices as in the height of the Cold War but without open anti-communism and with the chatter of social media to cause confusion. NATO egged on Russia and now...even the 'far left' here suddenly wants NATO everywhere and the man committed to an asylum."
It is reminiscent of how they demonized Saddam Hussein. The anti-war movement was supposed to make him the issue rather than oppose what the U.S. was doing. The anti-war movement took a clear position that our responsibility was to oppose what the U.S. and its so-called coalition of the willing were doing and leave the people of Iraq to deal with Saddam Hussein. And you see the lengths to which the U.S. forces lied, what they did to humiliate Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi people who could not defend themselves and the suffering they imposed on the people and destruction of their cultural heritage in the name of peace, freedom and democracy.
TML: Some people are caught up in social media hysteria and allegations that Russia is targeting civilians. They express their sympathy by calling for Russia to get its troops out of Ukraine. They think opposing "Russian aggression" is how to achieve peace.
Pauline: Yes, unfortunately this is what the U.S. put forward in the UN resolutions. The U.S. and NATO seem to have adopted all the anti-war movement's positions, including opposing the use of force to settle conflicts. They will nonetheless reveal what they stand for.
In the 1989-91 period, the U.S. and big powers of old Europe, along with Canada and some of the countries in eastern Europe which the U.S. took under its wing, were euphoric. Democracy had triumphed, they declared. They decreed that European values had to be espoused by all countries in the world. Hardial Bains wrote an essay at that time titled Era. He wrote:
"... the slogans put forward by the various forces did not quite match their character. The right wing called for democracy, its sworn enemy. The working people called for the rule of the new forces, which could only go against their own interests. Soon the real character of all the forces will reveal itself. While it is true that no force can act in the old way, it is also true that no force can hide its true character. Words will once again assume their true meanings and the real quality of things and events will emerge." (April 25, 1991)
What he wrote then is indeed a feature of this new phase of this defining historical moment as well. The real character of all the forces will reveal itself. Words will once again assume their true meanings and the real quality of things and events will emerge. In the 1989-91 period, the euphoria of the U.S. and its allies claiming democracy had triumphed was soon exposed as the rich got richer, the poor poorer under the weight of the neo-liberal anti-social offensive. Wars of destruction were unleashed by the U.S. which declared itself the sole superpower. So too today, the U.S. ruling circles and those of their allies are euphoric, drunk with the belief that the whole world stands with them. The pressure to conciliate with what they are doing is enormous. Doing so, however, will not bring about peace, not even in the short term to stave off a greater war.
We sympathize with those who are against the suffering of civilians in all wars but when the issue is to turn things around in favour of the peoples, this is not enough. Not a few in Canada, even within the official circles, trade union movement and even anti-war circles, among others, are learning through the experience of finding themselves inadvertently supporting the U.S./NATO warmongering agenda that they have to take responsibility for what they are supporting. All of us have this task whether we like it or not. It is the call of history, not a matter of anyone's beliefs, right or wrong.
TML: Please elaborate.
Pauline: The official circles are fomenting hysteria and giving the World War Two Nazi collaborators' salute Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes! and even apologizing for it by saying it does not have a neo-Nazi meaning today. The racists and white supremacists in the U.S. and Europe, as well as Canada, who give these slogans are euphoric. Like Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, they seem to think that they have won the war to crush Russia and back the U.S. aim to impose its dictate over Europe and dominate the world. At their own peril they forget that in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and within the heartlands of imperialism itself -- in the U.S., Europe and in Canada and in Oceania -- the peoples are striving for a freedom, democracy and peace which favour them. This is the preponderance of the world's peoples. They are the ones who are favoured by making sure governing authorities are on par with the conditions. They are laying their claims on society to bring in governing institutions which accord with the conditions, institutions which will favour the people and affirm their right to be. The people are fighting those who are striving for world domination at their expense.
This is what is taking place and has to be taken into account.
TML: CPC(M-L) held consultations with its members nationally, regionally and locally no sooner Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine on February 24. The Party analyzed the unfolding events and said the causes and lessons must be found in the "New World Order" established by the U.S. and big powers of old Europe in 1991, in which Canada and some of the countries of eastern Europe participated. Please elaborate.
Pauline: In November 1990, 34 countries, including Canada, got together in Paris at the Summit of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), to sign the Charter of Paris for a New Europe (Paris Charter). (In December 1994 the CSCE became the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE). The Paris Charter basically declared that adherence to U.S. definitions of a free-market economy, multi-party elections and human rights is the precondition to establish relations between countries. They described this as the "new world order." It enshrined acceptance of European "values" as the touchstone to judge whether a country is friend or foe. Recently declassified documents from the Clinton Presidential Library confirm that arguments began then within official circles to "update and realign the entire architecture of relations between the United States and Europe." One researcher points out: "Russia-firsters were concerned that NATO enlargement would aggravate Russian insecurities; Russia skeptics supported enlargement because they believed NATO needed to capitalize on Russia's temporary weakness."
The declassified documents show that the emergence of the U.S. initiated Partnership for Peace (PfP) for NATO in 1994 "was a compromise between both camps." The PfP initiated the expansion of NATO to include members of the former Warsaw Pact which had been disbanded when the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991.
In other words, the plan to target Russia was not hidden and it has been pursued ever since.
In 1995 President Clinton visited Kyiv to celebrate Ukraine's declaration that it had adopted a market economy and given up its nuclear weapons.
Through the PfP, countries were permitted to join NATO once they showed they had established conditions which adhered to the Paris Charter and they had indebted their countries sufficiently to pay for their military contributions to NATO. This meant they had compromised their sovereignty by submitting to the U.S. and subordinated their economies to financial institutions under U.S. control. Since then, the all-sided crisis with economic crisis at the base has deepened both in the U.S. and on the world scale. The trend of the rich becoming richer and the poor poorer is rapidly revealing unsustainable results for the impoverished and for the structures of the so-called democratic institutions based on inequality, racism and police powers. The oligopolies which represent supranational interests, which operate through cartels and coalitions, have taken over the decision-making powers in various countries. The more they fight over control of the executive power in the United States, the more the U.S. has launched wars of aggression and occupation abroad in repeatedly failed attempts to unify its military and civil bureaucracies at home and prevail against its rivals abroad, including those within Europe as well.
This problem is getting worse for the U.S., not better, no matter how many countries are forced to submit to its striving for domination. In the one short year since Biden came to power, his administration has already suffered three foreign policy failures, the first its humiliation in Afghanistan, the second, its failure to impose regime change in Cuba in July 2021 and now the third, its failure to force Russia to submit to the U.S. threat of use of force, backed up by deployment of its own troops and weapons as well as those of other NATO countries. And this does not even take into account the assault on the Capitol on January 6 which was certainly an exposure of the inability of elections and the so-called democratic institutions to ensure a peaceful transition of power.
The current war in Ukraine arises because Russia could no longer afford to tolerate the U.S. attempt to isolate, encircle, humiliate and crush it using Ukraine as a forward base since 2014. No country can tolerate having its security threatened every day. How can economic and commercial relations, diplomatic relations, cultural relations and relations in all spheres of life be expected to be conducted peacefully when such things take place?
When all of this is the case, it is not helpful to put what Russia is doing and what the U.S. is doing on par. One of the main causes of the anarchy and violence worldwide is the U.S. striving for world domination. It has about 750 military bases abroad, uses NATO to force countries to submit to its will, mobilizes the dregs of World War II fascist forces, along with private contractors who hire these dregs along with highly paid mercenaries, and carries out wanton wars of destruction against countries of Asia and Africa, as well as Yugoslavia and in Latin America and the Caribbean. The imposition of the U.S. "new world order," in the existing conditions of disequilibrium, is increasing anarchy and violence and giving rise to yet more dangers. The "war on terror" and all the crimes committed in its name is but one example. As well, the tremendous human productive powers that have emerged worldwide are outside the control of the narrow private supranational interests as well as the U.S. That which they cannot control the U.S. acts to destroy, engendering yet more violence and wars of destruction. What is needed is control of the productive powers by the peoples in a manner that serves the human and natural environment.
Without addressing these problems, nothing either Russia or the U.S. do will bring about the peace, freedom and democracy the peoples aspire to. What is needed is a new world order of the peoples' own making. Nonetheless, in the current context, the arguments given by Cuba, Syria and others, including China, Vietnam, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mexico and Venezuela are consistent with what the conditions are calling for.
TML: It looks like the U.S. is having difficulty predicting the outcome of its various actions, like those against Cuba and the defeat in Afghanistan. How is this impacting the current situation?
Pauline: The anarchy and violence are so extensive, nothing is predictable. On the basis of what standards can things be measured when the narrow private interests do whatever they like? The existing institutions of liberal democracy have been undermined to such an extent, there is no rule of law, just police powers concentrated in the hand of executives. The U.S. intelligence agencies and those of its "five eyes" allies, as well as others, can no longer predict the outcome of elections, let alone the military adventures and brinkmanship. These failures include the intense rivalries in the U.S. Today talk about civil war is not if but when. There is broad disinformation to keep the public off-balance. Legislation grants the use of police powers in the name of "war on terror," opposition to "hate propaganda," and the "dangers posed to national security" and the like.
The "war on terror" and emergency legislation was and continues to be a component part of the "new world order." Every day exceptional circumstances are declared which require permanent emergency and war powers in the hands of the executives of countries, states and private institutions. The violations of the constitution and rule of law have given rise to much opposition.
The U.S. hegemon and its NATO allies, for which Canada does yeoman's service, have concocted what they call the "rules-based international order" where they make the rules as they go along. The result is more anarchy and violence which suits the oligopolies, which can intervene with impunity, playing all ends against the middle in order to sweep up the spoils. But it also means that intelligence agencies, as well as polling firms and think tanks, can no longer predict outcomes. Meanwhile, the "rules-based international order" is for purposes of testing the capacity of rivals to resist and using the threat of force to get them to submit. It is also for purposes of testing the waters to see how the people will respond to U.S. demands, how far the U.S. can divert and divide their movements for the affirmation of their rights.
Revanchist forces in the United States, Canada and Europe have their origins in the days of World War I when the Czarist, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and British empires came crashing down. They blame the Great October Revolution for their expropriation and loss of aristocratic titles which the "new world order" was supposed to restore. They were especially virulent against the communist Soviet Union which enforced their expropriation and now against Russia and its president which keep what they covet under Russian control.
The main feature of the "new world order" imposed by the U.S. and the big powers of Old Europe is that the Russian Federation, China and all countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe as well must submit to the U.S. and declare that the U.S. now rules supreme. Everyone, especially China and the Russian Federation, must prostrate themselves before the U.S.
From this content of "indispensable nation," with all others considered dispensable, flows all the crimes in the name of high ideals and the racist promotion of the alleged superiority of U.S. and European values.
The sanctions against Russia and others have the aim of ensuring one economic system prevails, dominated by one World Bank, one International Monetary Fund, one World Trade Organization -- all under U.S. control. The precondition for this "new world order" is that everyone must submit to these institutions. The irony is that after years of applying financial, commercial and economic sanctions and not achieving their aim, their strengthening of the same at this time is not likely to do so either.
On the contrary, it may well lead to the creation of functional alternative systems independent of the U.S. dollar. It could well lead to the humiliation of the U.S., not Russia, China and all the other countries who are seeking to trade on the basis of rules which apply equally to all, not ones set and monitored by one-sided self-serving U.S. interests.
The U.S./NATO warmongering to justify the encirclement of Russia in the hopes that it will buckle under and submit to U.S. dictate has nothing to do with helping the people of Ukraine in any way, shape or form; nor with the collective defence of Europe; nor any principle of any kind. Every action carried out by the U.S. and NATO, including Canada since they proclaimed their "new world order" violates the right to be of all the nations which comprise Europe, not just the biggest of all, Russia itself.
Far from being a force which upholds human rights, peace and democracy, the U.S. has resuscitated the descendants of Nazi collaborators which, in the Nazi tradition, it calls "freedom fighters," and engages them in systematic counterrevolutionary activities -- in Ukraine, Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere, especially all over Asia, Africa and Latin America -- where they incite insurrections for purposes of fishing in waters they themselves trouble.
The U.S. and its "allies" and "coalitions of the willing" also violate, with impunity, the right to be of all the countries of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and have integrated Canada holus bolus into their war economy and war machine.
It is because of their "new world order" that, on the world scale, the consciousness among the peoples is deepening, not only about the economic problems that they face -- every kind of deprivation, every kind of insecurity -- but in terms of genocide and discrimination against various peoples deemed to be inferior and classes of people whose oppression and enslavement the rulers justify. There is also the intensification of exploitation on the basis of domination of one country by another, in addition to the problems of the environment, quality of life and so forth. This consciousness is developing everywhere. Nowhere have the peoples given up the struggle for their rights.
This too is a feature of the U.S. imperialist "new world order." The peoples are fighting; they are increasingly basing themselves on their own thought-material and seeking the vantage point which goes to their advantage, not that of the imperialists and all reaction. The peoples are resisting; they are honing their skills in organizing so that they establish modern arrangements and institutions which serve them. Within this, the champions of the U.S. "new world order" do everything within their power to make sure the peoples do not establish their own perspective which permits them to activate their own human agency so as to intervene in the situation in a manner which favours them.
Today, even as the conflict escalated, while the U.S., Canada and other NATO warmongers condemned the military actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, U.S. armed drones bombed Somalia and launched a missile attack against Syria. Where was the condemnation? Why are the lives of some in Europe worth more than those of the entire rest of the world? The U.S. resolutions put forward in the UN only demand that Russian troops get out of Ukraine, ignoring the fact that Russia's demands for its security to be provided with a guarantee are not on par with the hegemonic aim U.S. troops are fighting for all over the world.
Official adoption of neo-Nazi banners and slogans which they claim support the Ukrainian people go hand in hand with virulent U.S. and Eurocentric chauvinism and outright racism, seen in their statements and abandonment and mistreatment of Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean in Ukraine, in Europe and the United States itself. Meanwhile, the Biden administration's 200th illegal deportation flight sent 129 Haitians to Port-au-Prince, who are among the more than 2 million people deported since Biden took office.
TML: Anything you would like to say to conclude?
Pauline: CPC(M-L) calls on its members to step up the work to caution Canadians against falling into the traps laid for them by the official circles which play on their concern over the casualties of war and personal prejudices against Russian President Vladimir Putin. This includes the trap of supporting calls which gravitate towards the humiliation of Russia by putting what Russia is doing on par with what the U.S. and NATO are doing.
Humiliating and crushing Russia will not resolve the disequilibrium which exists on the world scale in a manner which favours the peoples. Supporting the anti-Russian Ukrainian regime in which neo-Nazis have been financed, armed, trained and unleashed to lead the killing spree against Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who are one-third of the population, will not bring peace. The U.S. is trying to turn world public opinion in its favour by calling Russia an aggressor which is not a proper use of the definition of what constitutes aggression coming out of the Nuremberg Trials which were held after World War II. It is important to not permit the United States and its NATO and other allies to declare themselves champions of peace, freedom and democracy.
The New World Order must be of the peoples' own making. This is the call of history.
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