The long-running conflict in South Ossetia entered a more violent stage on August 8, 2008, when Georgian troops carried out an open aggression and intruded into South Ossetia, shelling the city of Tskhinvali with Grad missiles. The bourgeois regime of Saakashvili is trying to keep the illusion of Georgia’s national unity at all cost, without consideration for how many lives this may cost. Russia, which also got involved in this conflict, is sending a large number of military resources to the area of military action. There are already many victims on both sides.
Both in Russia and in Georgia, the governmental authorities are trying to use the conflict for their own benefit and this also includes promoting nationalistic hysteria, drawing the working-class peoples’ attention from internal problems and from class struggle. As rightly noted in the declaration of the Central Committee Secretariat of the PKRP-RPK [Russian Communist Workers Party-Russian Party of Communists], working peoples’ attention is drawn away from real problems by shouts of ‘Support our country!’ The RCYL(B) condemns this attempt to set working people of different countries against each other by using nationalistic feelings. Lenin wrote that ‘people have always been, and will always remain dumb victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to discern class interests behind the various moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises’.
It is obvious that the Georgian authorities and capitalists, who are dependent upon the imperialists of the USA and the European Union, are interested in solving the issues of their territorial unity as soon as possible in order to become a part of NATO and turn Georgia into an alternative route for transporting oil and gas into Europe around Russia.
Naturally, the Russian capitalists are not happy with this scenario. The Russian authorities would like to have a presence in the region and a weak Georgia and unsettled national issues serve this purpose well. Many ‘patriotic’ statements can be heard about protecting Russian citizens in South Ossetia, but people for some reason forget that when for a week in the beginning of August there was shooting from both sides, the Russian government didn’t even think of protecting its citizens. The so-called peacekeepers didn’t intervene in the conflict, allowing the Georgian government to think that it may take more radical actions. Nobody remembered about ‘enforcing peace’ either. Moreover, the Russian government has still not used the powerful economic leverage that it has and that can have a significant influence on Georgia. We believe that the current situation, when the government in South Ossetia is formally Georgian but actually dependent on Russia, is directly beneficial to the Russian capitalist class. lf the Russian government was really interested in solving this problem, it would recognize South Ossetia’s independent status and act on the possibility of stopping the war before it began. Instead of doing this, the Russian government is engaging in a furtive political game, trying to use the situation for its gain.
RCYL(B) considers the war in South Ossetia an imperialist war, which does not serve the purposes of justice and which is conducted for the benefit and profit of capitalists of different countries. The people of Ossetia became a victim of a struggle between two capitalist cliques. Neither Georgia nor Russia is really interested in an actual resolution of the issue of South Ossetia independence. RCYL(B) does not support either of these countries in this war. We respect the right of the people of South Ossetia to self determination, which has been expressed in a referendum. National borders should not serve as an interference in the struggle of working people against capitalists.
RCYL(B) condemns the aggressive actions of the Georgian government, which will lead to a new and possibly a lengthy conflict in the Caucasus. The Russian government is also responsible for this war: it has provoked Georgia into an open and armed conflict by its inconsistent actions and supported an unstable situation in South Ossetia.
Once more Lenin’s words that in a capitalist order the rearrangement of the spheres of influence can only take place by war have proven to be right. All responsibility for this new war lies with capitalism and more particularly, the government of Georgia, as well as American, European and Russian imperialists. The ‘peace enforcement’ that Russia speaks about is nothing but the regular ‘patriotic’ rhetoric, which is meant to veil the real interests that the capitalists are pursuing in an imperialist war from which the working people of all countries can not benefit.
The Revolutionary Communist Youth League (Bolshevik) calls for an immediate end to the war in South Ossetia, the withdrawal of Georgian and Russian troops from the region and for the granting of guarantees of South Ossetia’s inviolability by both countries. Georgia must restore the villages, utility systems and infrastructure destroyed by its troops. All sides to the conflict must ensure the return of refugees of all nationalities to their homes.
RCYL(B) demands that the Russian and Georgian governments and the international community immediately recognise South Ossetia’s independent status.
No support to the governments of Georgia and Russia in the South Ossetia conflict!
10th August 2008
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