Conference Participants’ Contributions

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 01.060

    Block “Danger of a World War: Red Alert!?”

    by European Coordination of ICOR

    Lenin wrote “Socialism and War” in the second year of the First World War in July–August 1915. It was published for the first time in Geneva in autumn 1915 by the “Sozial-Demokrat” publishing house. His remarks are of greatest importance, especially in today’s times of the heightened danger of a Third World War, with numerous imperialist wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Yemen... The military build-up has reached a new record value of 2.718 trillion US dollars (about 2.4 trillion euros). (Figures from the peace research institute SIPRI, Sweden). US imperialism leads military spending by a wide margin, followed by the imperialist countries China, Russia and Germany. Worldwide, around 100 states increased their defense spending last year.

    In view of the great concerns of the workers and the masses, a growing desire for peace and rejection of the war economy, Lenin's writing currently provides a firm orientation for proletarian internationalism and the socialists’ position on war. And it begins in the first lines with the clear realization:

    that wars cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and socialism is created…. (p. 299)*

    The very title of his work shows that wars can only be abolished through the path of socialist revolution. Here the revolutionaries, socialists and Marxists-Leninists have an important job to do convincing people!

    Lenin sets out this position of the Marxists/socialists in irreconcilable struggle against the development of many social-democratic parties towards social-chauvinism at the beginning and during the course of the First World War. It culminated in support of each for their own belligerent government. But he also opposed all petty-bourgeois pacifist ideas. While he sharply condemns every barbaric capitalist and imperialist war, he writes that the socialists

    regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by an oppressed class against the oppressor class, by slaves against slaveholders, by serfs against landowners, and by wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as fully legitimate, progressive and necessary. (ibid.)

    The distinction between just and unjust wars, between wars to replace capitalist exploitation and oppression and those to maintain them! This requires a concrete analysis of the concrete situation using the dialectical-materialist method. Lenin applies this very vividly to the role of tsarist Russia and the tasks of the Russian revolutionaries.

    War is the continuation of politics by other (i.e.: violent) “means” (p. 304)

    This statement by Clausewitz is, according to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the only correct guideline for assessing a war.

    Lenin was particularly concerned with criticizing social-chauvinism. He writes:

    Social-chauvinism is advocacy of the idea of “defence of the fatherland” in the present war. This idea logically leads to the abandonment of the class struggle during the war, to voting for war credits, etc. (pp. 306 f.)

    And he calls to mind that in 1912 socialists of all countries had declared and committed themselves to regard

    the impending war in Europe as the “criminal” and most reactionary deed of all the governments, which must hasten the downfall of capitalism by inevitably engendering a revolution against it. (p. 309)

    What then followed was the capitulation of the majority of the social-democratic parties. They sided with their own governments and their own bourgeoisie.

    This betrayal of socialism signifies the collapse of the Second (1889-1914) International…. (p. 309)

    Today, too, some revisionist parties, in particular, justify wars and preparations for war. For example, when Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine is justified. But also when the Ukraine and its imperialist allies of NATO, EU imperialism ... are justified. Demagogically, antifascist motives for waging war are attributed to both Russia and Ukraine!

    Lenin mentions both the economic basis and the ideological-political content of opportunism and social-chauvinism. Economically, it is the striving for a share of the profits; ideologically-politically, it is the desire for cooperation between the classes instead of class struggle, renunciation of revolutionary means of struggle, support for one’s “own” government in a difficult situation instead of exploiting these difficulties for the revolution.

    In the chapter “The Marxists' slogan is a slogan of revolutionary social-democracy”, Lenin finds clear words for the revolutionaries, socialists and communists - also and perhaps especially - in the present day:

    Convert the imperialist war into a civil war; all consistently waged class struggles in wartime and all seriously conducted “mass-action” tactics inevitably lead to this. It is impossible to foretell whether a powerful revolutionary movement will flare-up in connection with, during or after the first or the second imperialist war of the Great Powers; in any case it is our bounden duty to work systematically and unswervingly in this direction. (p. 313)

    Only in this way was it possible that the October Revolution became the successful answer to ending the First World War, that in Germany and other countries workers, peasants and sailors chased the warmongers out of their palaces in 1917/1918, overthrew monarchies, and won a series of democratic rights and freedoms!

    In the chapter “Pacifism and the peace slogan” Lenin calls for unconditional, patient and persuasive work among the masses, the workers, their trade unions, among the youth… And that we must develop a keen instinct:

    The temper of the masses in favour of peace often expresses the beginning of protest, anger and a realisation of the reactionary nature of the war. It is the duty of all Social- Democrats to utilise that temper. They will take a most ardent part in any movement and in any demonstration motivated by that sentiment, but they will not deceive the people with admitting the idea that a peace without annexations, without oppression of nations, without plunder, and without the embryo of new wars among the present governments and ruling classes, is possible in the absence of a revolutionary movement. (pp. 315 f.)

    We see this as an important challenge for our Zimmerwald Succession Conference: to give impetus to a growing, anti-imperialist and antifascist peace movement – worldwide! All in the spirit of the concluding words of Chapter 1:

    “No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations” (Marx and Engels). A proletariat that tolerates the slightest coercion of other nations by its “own” nation cannot be a socialist proletariat. (p. 317)

    Long live international solidarity – Workers do not shoot at workers –

    Workers of all countries, unite

    * All quotes from “Socialism and War” taken from Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 21.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 01.040

    Block “Danger of a World War: Red Alert!?”

    by Rubén Tzanoff, Socialism and Freedom – International Socialist League

    Dear comrades,

    1. The Zimmerwald and Kiental conferences were historic turning points where Lenin drew red lines to reformism, internationalism in words, and patriotic nationalism.

    We therefore welcome and thank you for inviting us to this conference as a contribution to the exchange of views and internationalist action.

    2. Today we see armed conflicts on almost all continents. I will mention only two.

    The Palestinian people are resisting a genocidal war, ethnic cleansing, premeditated, calculated starvation and colonization carried out by the state of Israel with the approval of the imperialist powers. We support the resistance, call for unity in mobilizing it, and demand: Complete break of governments with Israel and immediate release of humanitarian aid.

    And we say very clearly: the only just peace will come with the defeat of the Zionist state and a united, secular, democratic, non-racist and socialist Palestine. And that will only be possible with the socialist revolution in the entire Middle East.

    3. In Ukraine, the war has a dual character. On the one hand, there is the right to defend sovereignty against the invasion by Russian imperialism. On the other side is the inter-imperialist dispute between the USA and Russia. Our comrades in Ukraine are defending their country against the invasion while denouncing NATO and Western imperialism and rejecting agreements behind the backs of the people. They do this from a position of political independence vis-à-vis the neoliberal and pro-imperialist government of Zelensky.

    4. These conflicts do not constitute the Third World War. They are local or regional wars in which global imperialist interests definitely play a role. For this reason, the war drums are getting louder and louder.

    There are three reasons for this:

    First, the tenure of Trump, a brutal imperialist who wants to impose structural changes to reorder the world in favor of the US, but in doing so only creates more worldwide disorder.

    Secondly, the deepening of the dispute over world domination. The USA is still the strongest power, but has lost weight as a worldwide apparatus since the decline of its Stalinist partner. China is advancing as the major new imperialism. And Russia is also contending, albeit on a different level.

    Thirdly, the continuation of the capitalist crisis that began in 2008 is fueling fierce competition for markets, resources and spheres of influence.

    5. For the time being, the big powers do not want to provoke a world war. And they know that the nuclear arsenal could destroy the planet and that no one would win. But they are also preparing, arming themselves and multiplying their military spending.

    If the crisis and the conflicts intensify, a new global war could break out, because the imperialists resolve their major conflicts with the massive destruction of the productive forces and the massacres of the working class.

    6. Our immediate policy is unity of action against rearmament and for resources to be used for social needs and not for war purposes.

    And if war breaks out between the powers, our response, as Lenin taught us, must be revolutionary defeatism: to convert the imperialist war to a socialist revolution.

    We do not take sides with any of the imperialist camps. Neither the USA nor China nor Russia are progressive.

    7. And we need a political way out that is not the popular front. We need a united front of workers in mobilizing and building revolutionary socialist organizations.

    8. The re-formation of the revolutionaries is the task we set ourselves in the International Socialist League. With a draft manifesto and a program of principles that we have so that the workers and the people govern and go forward to the socialist revolution.

    We give priority to political agreements without hiding the differences, which we discuss patiently and democratically with the method of democratic centralism. With the aim of building together a new revolutionary tradition that respects the different political origins.

    A New International is needed that measures up to the historical alternative: socialism or barbarism.

  • Zimmerwaldkonferenz 2.0: Einleitungsbeitrag 02.030

    Block “Faschismus und Kriegsvorbereitung Hand in Hand”

    von Dhruba Mukherjee, Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)

    Imperialism, Fascism and People’s Resistance

    Fascism is a twentieth century phenomenon. Marx and Engels did not witness it. Lenin also did not witness the full blown form of fascism though Clara Zetkin did present a report on fascism to the Komintern in 1923. We know that the First World War broke out from conflict over share in the world market. In the war one imperialist camp emerged victorious, but the war could not solve, but exacerbated the acute economic crisis that eventually engulfed the entire capitalist-imperialist world in the Great Depression. The end of the war was also marked by the successful Bolshevik Revolution that led to the establishment of the first working class state in the world, Soviet Russia. The revolution sent shivers down the spine of the bourgeois class. These two factors – acute economic crisis of capitalism and the mortal fear of socialist Revolution gave birth to fascism. Fascism thrived on the low level of political consciousness of the people. Comrade Shibdas Ghosh, the Founder General Secretary of our Party SUCI(C) and a great Marxist thinker, analysed that politically, fascism may be characterized as the all-out counter-revolutionary upsurge of the capitalist class against proletarian revolution, and the ideological-cultural foundation of fascism was laid by a peculiar fusion of spiritualism and technological aspects of science. Fascism first appeared in Italy and its most brutal form was manifested in Nazi Germany. To win mass support fascism made use of the bogey of National Socialism, though its main target of attack was communism. In fact, the imperialist powers UK, USA and France had given a lot of leeway to Nazi Germany in the beginning with the design that the German military might could be directed to destroy their principal enemy, the Soviet Union. Fascism used rabid national chauvinism as a weapon to garner people’s frenzied support and turn them away from the path of class struggle. Ultimately, the aggression of the fascist Axis powers with Nazi Germany in the lead led to the Second World War. The war ended with the defeat of the Axis powers, the main credit for which must go to the Soviet state led by Stalin and the supreme sacrifice of the Soviet people. But, as Comrade Shibdas Ghosh cautioned more than 60 years ago, though the fascist powers were defeated, fascism remained in the political-administrative set-up of all capitalist countries, advanced and developing. The distinguishing features of fascism, namely economic centralization, maximum concentration of political power in the state, administrative rigid firmness, cultural regimentation, national jingoism and identification of the state with the interest of the monopolists, thereby making the state subservient to the interest of the monopolists were discernible, of course in varying degrees, in all the capitalist countries of the world. He further said, “The appearance of fascism in a ‘democratic’ form through the two-party parliamentary system of government is certainly a post-war social phenomenon, having no historical precedent. Because of its seemingly democratic appearance it is, at the same time, the most deceptive. And in fact, it has been able to deceive many …… who try to recognise fascism by its form and not by its content or its distinguishing features.”

    Today the entire capitalist-imperialist world is enmeshed in a deep economic crisis, and militarization of economy has become a compulsive necessity of the imperialist/fascist powers for artificially stimulating the sagging economy, as a measure to tide over the crisis. Thus, engineering partial and local wars, invading weaker countries, and inciting one country against another, or one community against another have become necessary for capitalist-imperialist countries to minimize stockpiling of arms and economic stagnation and keep the military-industrial complexes running.

    In today’s world we find that rabid, right-wing fascist forces are in the ascendancy. Fascist Zionists, with the backing of the imperialist powers are going on relentlessly with their genocidal war against the Palestinian people. In my country India the NDA government led by the BJP and Narendra Modi is manifesting its fascist character increasingly with every passing day. They are destroying democratic institutions, drastically curtailing civil liberties and democratic rights of workers and peasants, enacting draconian laws to imprison anyone voicing opposition to the government or organizing or participating in democratic movements. They are fostering blindness, fanaticism and anti-science, obscurantist ideas among the people, instigating communal divide and anti-Muslim hatred, fanning national jingoism, and whipping up war hysteria. Prime Minister Modi is projected as the Supreme Leader (recall Hitler as Fuehrer). The silver lining is the crystallizing of people’s resistance. The militant farmers’ movement uniting all farmers’ organizations and extending for over a year succeeded in forcing the government to withdraw the anti-farmer laws. The united consortium of trade unions called for a General Strike to press forward their demands, and it was a resounding success. All over the country protest movements are growing.

    We are of the view that the need of the hour is to build up broad platforms of all anti-imperialist, anti-fascist forces with communists at the core in all countries, for organizing militant mass movements against capitalist exploitation, imperialist war maneuvers, fascist culture and fascist onslaught in every sphere of life. We need to strive for a global coordination of such movements. Only such global movements can stop imperialist wars and force them to backtrack from their anti-people policies. This conference is a step in that direction.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 03.040

    Block 3 “How do we strengthen the global movement against fascism and war?”

    by Oleg, Russia

    We welcome all participants in this important conference, which aims to elaborate a strategy of all truly internationalist proletarian forces under the conditions of an intensified inter-imperialist confrontation. We thank the direct organizers of this event for the great work done in these difficult times. And we thank the organizing committee for the opportunity to speak on this burning issue.

    First of all, we would like to report briefly on the situation in Russia. In economic respect, it differs from what both the West and the Kremlin's propagandists say. The situation in the country is deteriorating, but not as rapidly as it is portrayed in the Western mass media. We see rising inflation, the deterioration of infrastructure and technology (which is particularly noticeable in air transport) and a shortage of personnel in some sectors.

    In political respect, the situation is noticeably worse. In most regions, all public political activities are banned with the exception of official events. New laws are constantly being passed that restrict the basic freedoms of citizens. One of the most blatant examples of this trend is the law banning “targeted searches” (in effect, the viewing) of information materials with extremist content. The lists of such materials are drawn up by courts without a public hearing of the persons concerned. As a result, citizens only find out that this or that material has been placed on the banned list when they are called to account. For example, poems by the communist poet Boris Gunko were included in this list, as well as leaflets from the national trade union “Rabochaya Assotsiatsia” (Workers' Union), with which left-wing forces actively cooperate. Another example of repressive legislation is the law that makes it possible to classify an entire organization as extremist on the basis of the criminal prosecution of just one of its members.

    Regardless of whether or not those in power can agree to cease the hostilities today, it is clear that in all imperialist countries the arms race is on and chauvinist and xenophobic sentiments are being whipped up. This means that a ceasefire would only be a pause in a new round of armed conflict – a round that would turn out to be even bigger in terms of the number of actors and victims involved.

    Under these circumstances, it is important to adapt Lenin's words, “Outside of socialism there is no deliverance of humanity from wars, from hunger, from the destruction of still more millions and millions of human beings.” to today’s conditions. It is important not only to proclaim the communist idea as an alternative to worldwide carnage with the risk of destroying all humankind. It is important to present a concrete plan and to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the communist idea, of the international communist movement.

    It is precisely the visible effectiveness and single-mindedness, the clear objectives – these are what communists and leftists often prefer to replace with so-called ideological correctness. Clarity and consistency of a position, however, are based on practice, which is and will always remain the criterion of truth. This has been clearly demonstrated by the military conflict, when people who proclaimed (and continue to proclaim) their “orthodoxy” and “consistent internationalism” at every turn, in actual fact wandered into the camp of national patriots and chauvinists. And it is precisely the practical results that attract attention and a willingness to participate in the class struggle of the most advanced representatives of the proletariat.

    The basis for practical results is an autonomous infrastructure of political organizations and proletarian forces that is highly independent of the ruling class. In this respect, we consider it important to learn from those contemporary communists who have made the most progress on this front – in Europe, these are primarily the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany and the Communist Party of Greece.

    It is extremely important to strengthen international solidarity. The communists have no defenders in the imperialist establishment. Our strength lies in the worldwide support of those who fight not only with words but with deeds for a world without exploitation, oppression and alienation. In this regard, we consider the initiative for a broad unification of progressive forces around the world within the framework of an International United Front to be extremely important and useful.

    The importance of ideological and organizational dissociation from the social-chauvinists should be particularly emphasized. A temporary truce by the imperialists could tempt some comrades to reconsider their attitude towards those who sided with “their” imperialism at a critical moment, justifying this with a necessary unity of the left in the situation of its weakening. However, this is a path to a dead end, to strategic weakening and decay. This does not mean that one should not cooperate with wavering elements in the social-chauvinist organizations, especially the large ones. However, ideological and organizational independence must be maintained.

    In this way, the international communist movement can emerge from the crisis and successfully confront the onslaught of a new world war and of worldwide reaction.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 03.060

    Block 3 “How do we strengthen the global movement against fascism and war?”

    by ZORA

    Hello everyone, I send warm greetings to this Zimmerwald Conference 2.0. As you can see, I'm not in Zurich myself, I'm currently in Tunisia. I am also reporting from here on the Global Flotilla, preparing for this mission together with the others, sending a thousand greetings from here of course to all those who are now at this Zimmerwald Conference, with very warm greetings also from all those who are preparing here together for the mission to sail to Gaza in a few days' time. We are, of course, also preparing for this by welcoming the flotillas, all the boats that have already set sail from Spain, and of course we are also getting a particularly political impression of this whole mission from here.

    From here we are also following the news that reaches us from Gaza every day. So we see what Israel is doing in Gaza right now. We see how Israel is systematically starving, murdering and shooting people in Palestine while they stand in queues to get some drinking water or food.

    And of course, all of this motivates us to be part of the Global Freedom Flotilla and to be part of the boats, the crews that are personally making their way to Gaza. It is also important for us to send a message from here, to send greetings from here, because the Zimmerwald Conference is, of course, directly related to the genocide that is currently happening in Palestine. Because this genocide in Palestine is not detached from everything we see around the world every day.

    The genocide in Palestine, the war in Palestine, everything that Israel is currently doing in Palestine, Israel is doing not only out of malice, but out of an imperialist logic. And we have to name this and analyze it in the same way. And that is why it is all the more important that the topic of Palestine is given precisely this role at this Zimmerwald conference and also finds its place there.

    For us as revolutionaries, it is, of course, essential that in times of imperialist wars we never take sides with two imperialist states, two states of the bourgeoisie. It is clear to us that we stand consistently and unbroken on the side of the oppressed peoples. This is the Kurdish people as well as the Palestinian people.

    But these are also all the peoples in the Middle East who are being oppressed. These are the women in Iran who have been fighting for their freedom day after day, especially since the murder of Jina Amini. But these are also all the peoples, all the people, all the oppressed in Congo, in Sudan, all over the world where we are experiencing humanitarian crises, where we really feel the excesses and the effects of imperialist wars and imperialist power relations.

    Therefore, yes, this message here from Tunisia, I think it is very appropriate. I am also here deliberately as part of a women's organization, because it is also very, very important for us as women to consciously oppose the war in Palestine. But I am not only here as a young woman ready to sail to Gaza for the freedom of Palestine, but I am also setting off in the knowledge that I want to win freedom for all oppressed peoples.

    And certainly I am not the first woman in history to do that. For one thing, there are many, many strong women here who are fighting with us. But we are also doing this, or I am doing this, mindful of the history of hundreds of women who have fought before us.

    I would also like to mention Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, especially Clara Zetkin, who convened conferences of women, of socialist women against war, over 100 years ago, because they also recognized that we, especially as women, must oppose this war as best we can. We must consistently fight against the war because every imperialist world war is fought out on the backs and heads of the oppressed, the workers, male and female. The imperialists wage their wars, but we are the ones who suffer.

    These are us women, these are LGBTI people, these are all those who are oppressed, who are exploited. So it is up to us to fight against these wars with our special energy and power. I think it's great that this Zimmerwald Conference is taking place.

    I also think it's great that it's taking place at virtually the same time as the start of the Global Summer Flotilla. As I said, these are two topics that complement each other very well, and it is also very important that these struggles be brought together. Of course, we are also fighting conscious of Lenin, conscious of everything that Lenin gave us 100 years ago.

    Because these things also guide us today. His analyses of imperialism are also fundamental to our theoretical work here.

    So in conclusion I wish you a very successful conference. I would have loved to have been there, but I look forward to hearing all about it after this mission.

    Best wishes to you all, and to a successful conference.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory speech 03.020

    Block 3 “How do we strengthen the worldwide movement against fascism and war?”

    by Baghdad Fatafta

    Dear audience, dear ladies and gentlemen,

    I am speaking to you today not only as a Palestinian lawyer, but as a human being who experiences every moment of this conflict and feels the injustice that surrounds us. I am speaking to you from the West Bank, which may seem peaceful to some, but is in fact living in the eye of the storm.

    Gaza... the wound that won't heal

    Let me begin with Gaza, which has become a wound in the heart of every free person in this world. What is happening there is not just a war, but genocide in the truest sense of the word. No living conscience can comprehend the extent of the destruction and death that is afflicting children, women, and the elderly. Hospitals are being bombed, schools destroyed, and dreams buried under the rubble. The world's silence in the face of these atrocities is a disgrace to humanity.

    The West Bank: silent occupation

    In the West Bank, the occupying power is quietly continuing its expansion project, far from the flashing cameras. The E1 project is not just an engineering plan, but a dagger into the heart of the future Palestinian state. It aims to isolate Jerusalem from its Palestinian surroundings and cut off the West Bank. What is happening here is the implementation of apartheid on the ground, where land is stolen, illegal settlements are built, and our freedom of movement and our right to live in dignity are restricted.

    Prisoners: Willpower behind bars

    We cannot talk about our struggle without mentioning the prisoners and detainees. They are symbols of steadfastness and carry the burden of an entire cause on their shoulders. They are imprisoned for defending their land and their freedom, and they suffer behind bars under harsh conditions and constant violations. Their cause is the cause of all Palestinians and reflects the extent of the injustice under which we live.

    An appeal to humanity

    I stand here today to tell you that rejecting war and fascism is not just a slogan we repeat at conferences, but a moral obligation to humanity. We must tear off the masks of fascism and make the voice of truth heard loud and clear. Silence in the face of injustice is complicity.

    As a lawyer and human rights activist, I urge you to take real and practical steps. Condemnation and denunciation are not enough. We must work to hold the perpetrators of these crimes accountable, support the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, and exert pressure to end this ruthless aggression.

    In closing, I reaffirm my belief that light will triumph over darkness and that the will of the people for freedom and justice is an invincible force.

    Thank you.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory Speech 02.020

    Block “Fascism and preparation for war hand in hand”

    by Andreas Buderus, “Sagt NEIN!”/“Say NO!”

    ‘Reason of state’ means war – Our answer is resistance – Zimmerwald

    Comrades, a spectre is haunting the world. It is the spectre of increasing agony, ignorance and numbness in the face of escalating destruction of our shared world, global war, hunger, displacement and flight, frenzied libertarianism, militarism, authoritarianism and resurgent fascism worldwide.

    It is currently the Russian and Ukrainian, the Palestinian and Israeli workers who are being used as cannon fodder in the wars. But it is also the wage earners here in Germany, in Europe and worldwide who today already are paying for the war policy of those in power and suffering from its economic consequences, albeit still and predominantly at a comparatively ‘bearable’, because ‘privileged’ level, from a global perspective. In Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and the whole of Europe, it is job and real wage losses; in the global South, economic collapse, widespread precarious employment, impoverishment; climate, refugee and famine catastrophes.

    The capitalist logic of exploitation more and more blatantly reduces people to mere resources and standardized consumers of products with no real use-value and shows no consideration for actual human needs, rights or even individual and collective life and survival.

    However, the global war is not just a project of governments or out-of-control tyrants. The global imperialist war is everywhere a project of society as a whole: from the think tanks of the extreme Right to parliaments and factory floors. From the daily news to social media to universities, vocational schools, elementary schools and kindergartens. From military exercises to war preparation of hospitals in the context of civil-military cooperation, to tax policy.

    The German war government 2.0 is driving this project forward with full force. Not only through arms deliveries to Ukraine, Israel and other warring parties and unlimited special debt for armaments, but also structurally, through language, and ideologically. When ex-Blackrock manager and current Chancellor Friedrich Merz justified Israel’s attack on Iran by saying that Israel had “done the dirty work for us,” it was not a lapse. It was open acknowledgement. A program. The program of a nascent great power that knows the depicted horror of the prevailing conditions as a political necessity and openly propagates it; the announcement of a nation that wants to become a leading European and global power once again – whatever the cost; or in the words of War Chancellor Merz: “Whatever it takes.” In the face of this chutzpah, every thinking and feeling person must shudder and cry out… Far too few have done so to date.

    The history of capitalist society shows that war exacerbates and accelerates the authoritarian reorganization of bourgeois class rule. This dynamics can be observed worldwide today – in Israel and Palestine, in Ukraine, in Russia, China and the USA; as well as in the states of the European Union, each with different historical characteristics and at different speeds.

    The new authoritarianism is not the product of a coup, but of the ‘reason of state’. With the call for “defensive capacity,” for “national unity,” for “war readiness.” What is being organized and orchestrated here by politics and the media is not a classic Prussian Wilhelmine-style authoritarian state decreed from above – but an authoritarian alliance encompassing all areas of society: corporations, politics, government, media – and – not to forget! – the voluntary allegiance of a significant proportion of the population, right down to the still often privileged sections of the metropolitan working class, which increasingly no longer even subjectively perceives itself as such.

    Today's formation of the authoritarian state is characterized by the collaboration of bourgeois and liberal self-proclaimed ‘democrats’ with the extreme Right, and thus more or less ‘insidiously’ enforces the fascistization of society internally, as the other side of the imperialist war externally, and seemingly within the framework of bourgeois democracy.

    We are living at a time when capitalism is shedding its democratic masks of bourgeois constitutionality and ‘decency’ at an increasingly faster pace even in the metropolises of the global North. The authoritarian state is replacing the social state. Militarism is replacing class compromise. The neoliberal promise “If you work hard, you'll do well” is being replaced by the command: “Function. Or go down.”

    That’s why we have to think in terms of work. Of everyday life. Of production. Of logistics. Of nursing and care. Of school. Because fascism and war only function if we function. And that is why our answer is not a moral one. It is material. It is: Refusal. Blockade. Strike.

    If we refuse the war logic of those in power and stop work – in the places where the war is being made – then we also cripple the ability to carry it out.

    Today – 110 years after the first Zimmerwald Conference – we stand at a historically similar point. Socialists and anti-militarists also met in 1915 to counter the imperialist slaughter with a socialist perspective.

    But Lenin rightly criticized: They remained half-hearted. They appealed instead of organizing. They condemned the war, but they did not break with the supporters of the war.

    We take this criticism seriously.

    Our answer as ‘Sagt NEIN!’ is therefore resistance – specifically:

    1. No truce with German or any other imperialism. Whether SPD, CDU, FDP or Greens – anyone who pursues rearmament and military preparation, supplies weapons, or advocates national war aims or relativizes them is part of the problem.

    2. Get war production out of our workplaces. No ‘green capitalism’ that mutates into a war economy. No involvement in drones, tanks, AI armaments or military logistics. Conversion now – not someday!

    3. Building of resistance structures against the war order. Not symbolically - but practically: whether it’s a warning strike in a port, refusal of arms production in metal processing, refusal to drive buses and streetcars with Bundeswehr advertisements or to deliver pizza boxes with war propaganda, teachers who do not allow Bundeswehr youth officers to teach in their classes, or work-to-rule and non-participation in training courses on civil-military cooperation and triage in the healthcare sector: Every breach counts!

    3. Building of resistance structures against the war order. Not symbolically - but practically: whether it's a warning strike in a port, refusal of arms production in metal processing, refusal to drive buses and streetcars with Bundeswehr advertisements or to deliver pizza boxes with war propaganda, teachers who do not allow Bundeswehr youth officers to teach in their classes, or service by the book and non-participation in training courses on civil-military cooperation and triage in the healthcare sector: Every breach counts!

    4. Support conscientious objectors, deserters and refugees. Solidarity with all those who escape war, autocratic rule, political persecution, hunger and the climate crisis by fleeing – whether from Russia, Israel, Sudan, Palestine or wherever. No extradition, no internment, no intimidation!

    5. Resistance against fascistization of everyday life and discourse. No to agitation against refugees, migrants, the unemployed, climate activists, antimilitarists, antifascists and queer people. No to militarization and armament of the police, to restriction of the right to demonstrate and strike, to war services and forced services, and to militarization of education. An end to their reason of state!

    6. For a new proletarian internationalism. No closing ranks with ostensible or claimed “geopolitical alternatives” such as Russia, China or BRICS. They are not anti-imperialists – but imperial blocs in their own right. Our side is that of the exploited and oppressed – not that of the state apparatuses!

    The trade unions do not belong at the concerted round table of the war governments – they belong on the side of the international working class.

    We say: The main enemy is in our own country; not only there, but wherever war is waged in the name of capital, nation, God or progress.

    We need a broad, militant, practical, international, anti-militarist internationalist movement – which strikes the war where it is most vulnerable: in production, in logistics, at work. Because if we refuse – collectively, visibly, resolutely – then the system will begin to totter. And that is exactly the point: Not to make war ‘more bearable’ by making it ‘conform (more) to international law’, but to end it once and for all and make it impossible in the future!

    For a new international of resistance against capital, militarism, war and fascism. Rethink Zimmerwald – class-based, revolutionary, irreconcilable!

    We were. We are. We will be.

    A luta continua!

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 01.030

    Block 1 “Danger of a World War: Red Alert!?

    by Irtefaa al-Qubati, Organization for Humanitarian and Environmental Development

    Subject: Environmental crisis and human rights in times of conflict

    Hello everybody,

    First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Consultative Committee of the United Front and all the organizers for inviting me to participate in the Zimmerwald Conference 2.0. It is a great honor for me to be here today as a representative of Yemen, representing the voice of workers and the environment in this region, which is facing extraordinary challenges.

    As a trade unionist and environmental activist, I am convinced that labor and environmental issues are closely linked. The exploitation of workers and the destruction of the environment are two sides of the same coin. But our struggle is not just a struggle for principles, it is a daily struggle against challenges.

    As a woman and activist, I have been threatened in my work and shot at with live ammunition. The road has not been easy; my house was bombed and my children were terrorized. Despite all these difficulties, I remain firmly convinced that protecting the environment and protecting people are one and the same thing. This conviction has led me to work directly on the ground. Due to the conflict, the landfills became unusable, leading to a real environmental catastrophe. Our groundwater is polluted, our fields are destroyed, and every house is affected by poisoning and disease.

    I cleared away the remnants of war because they pose a great danger to the environment and people's health. I also worked to reopen universities so that education could continue, because that is important for development and awareness. Amid all these problems, women in Yemen are an important force in the struggle against climate change and for peace. They have experienced all these problems and continue to fight, just like men, to build and protect society. Women are the true peacemakers. They are doubly affected and bear the burden of war, whether through the loss of loved ones, the destruction of their livelihoods, or the threats they face. That is why it is important for organizations to advocate for the protection of women and support women-led institutions, because empowering women means empowering society as a whole.

    That is why I am delighted to announce the presentation of the documentary film “Climate Action Under Siege”. This film shows how women are raising awareness of the environment and saving people from death by pollution. It is a vivid testimony to the resilience and power of women to make a difference even under the most difficult conditions.

    Protecting the environment is not only an ecological issue, but also a humanitarian, peace, and human rights issue. Let us join together in supporting the efforts of women in Yemen and around the world to achieve a clean environment and a sustainable future.

    Thank you very much.

    Link to the documentary “Climate Action Under Siege”

    https://www.facebook.com/share/v/159mqmfTbk/

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 01.050

    Block 1 “Danger of a World War: Red Alert!?”

    by Gabi Fechtner

    What positions does the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany put forward?

    1. We distinguish between just and unjust wars.

    Imperialist wars are fundamentally unjust. In today’s open world crisis, an accelerated destabilization of the imperialist world system, the imperialists have switched to an openly aggressive military and foreign policy and are preparing a nuclear world war. This is what the NATO decision to spend five percent of gross domestic product on armaments stands for.

    2. We oppose all imperialists.

    The USA is the main warmonger worldwide; new imperialist countries are pushing to the fore more and more aggressively. Strategically, the USA is concentrating on its main competitor, China. In the struggle between old and new imperialist countries, entire regions are being reorganized. The first flashpoint is the Ukraine war, in which the imperialist camps of NATO/EU and Russia threaten to get involved in open war with each other. The threat of world war has become acute! A second flashpoint is the Middle East. With the backing of the USA and German imperialism, Israel is pursuing the goal of an imperialist Greater Israel. For its brutal genocide in Gaza, it demagogically used the attack by fascist Islamist Hamas, which has the backing of Iran, Qatar and Turkey.

    3. The material basis is the world economic and financial crisis and the crisis of the reorganization of international production. Whereas for decades the imperialists focused mainly on economic penetration, their rivalry has taken on the character of a battle of annihilation. This battle has gained unprecedented intensity due to the increasing number of imperialists on the playing field and the world economic and financial crisis.

    4. The imperialist war must be transformed into a civil war.

    Only the proletarian revolution, socialism, can eradicate imperialist wars at their root. The October Revolution in Russia in 1917, the November Revolution in Germany in 1918 put an end to the First World War; the Allies under the leadership of the socialist Soviet Union put an end to the Second World War.

    5. We stand for revolutionary defeatism.

    The working class and broad masses must stand up in their countries for the defeat of their imperialist government and its monopolies. The workers must ultimately take up arms against the imperialists in their own countries. German imperialism remains the main enemy of the workers and masses in Germany. It raises a chauvinist claim to supremacy within the framework of EU imperialism. The conversion to a war economy has begun; roads and bridges are being made suitable for tanks; bunkers and underground hospitals are being built. The burdens of war and crisis are being shifted onto the masses.

    6. Workers do not shoot at workers.

    Today, social-chauvinism is booming. Everyone presents themselves as progressive or even anti-imperialist. But an imperialist does not change his class character just because he fights against another imperialist!

    We, on the other hand, promote international working-class unity through international conferences of miners, automotive workers, dockers and through mutual solidarity visits.

    7. The perspective is the united socialist states of the world.

    We need genuine socialism today.

    It must draw lessons from the revisionist betrayal of socialism starting from the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU in the Soviet Union. Overcoming modern anticommunism has become a central issue in the struggle over the mode of thinking of the masses. The MLPD is working comprehensively to draw the lessons for socialism on the basis of the proletarian mode of thinking.

    8. The strategy and tactics must be expanded as long as the phase lasts in which all imperialists are preparing a world war and are relying on fascism as a form of rule internally.

    The struggle against this becomes part of the strategic goal of this stage. We need an antifascist front – we need to work on this worldwide and in our countries, to unite the forces, from religion to revolution, against fascism, war and global environmental catastrophe.

    9. The struggle over the mode of thinking, as against modern fascism, is becoming particularly important.

    Today there are no calls to defend the fatherland; instead it is hypocritically said that we must arm ourselves in order to prevent war; as a result, 76 percent of the people in Germany agree to an “increase in defense spending.” We need to focus our work on raising mass awareness.

    10. It is of crucial importance to strengthen the revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist parties, to intensify their coordination and cooperation and the revolutionization of the struggles.

    Only they can lead the working class, which will take the lead in these struggles worldwide and ultimately against the entire imperialist world system. The workers’ party MLPD has party groups in 107 of the 500 largest enterprises in Germany.

    Forward with the worldwide coordinated struggle against a new world war!

    Forward to a broad antifascist front!

    Forward to the united socialist states of the world!

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 02.060

    Block “Fascism and preparation for war hand in hand”

    by Nako Stefanov, Prof., Doctor of Science in Philosophy, PhD in History,

    Chairman of the Bulgarian National Peace Council

    Europe – Time for dialogue,

    Europe – Zone of Peace!

    We live in a time of dangerously increasing turbulence, characterized by flare-ups of armed clashes in key points of the globe. The year 2025 became particularly saturated with military conflagrations – the genocidal tragedy in Gaza, the India-Pakistan conflict, the Israeli and the US attacks on Iran, the clashes in Thailand and Cambodia… And above all, the ongoing large-scale clash of the West with Russia on Ukrainian soil.

    It is no coincidence that the group of analysts from so-called "Doomsday Clock" announced that humanity has today approached “89 seconds to midnight”, i.e. to the beginning of the global thermonuclear Armageddon. Even during the “Caribbean Crisis” in 1962, people were not so close to the destructive end of humanity.

    Against the background of this merciless for the human race dynamics, we are witnessing how in a number of countries of the European Union /EU/ and in Great Britain, voices with militaristic rhetoric, directed against the Russian Federation, are increasingly heard. Instead of the so-called “political elites” of Europe, which was the battlefield of two devastating world wars, to learn from these gigantic tragedies, we see exactly the opposite.

    We are witnessing open revanchism and militarization, requiring huge funds. Thus, instead of efforts being directed towards the much-needed increase in the well-being of citizens in European countries and towards innovative development, in the capitals of leading European countries – Berlin, Paris, London and others, the drums of war are sounding louder and louder.

    Such a position of the warmongers is in complete contradiction with the views of the majority of the peoples of Europe. Therefore, in our opinion, it is necessary to create a All-European Peace Front as an alliance of organizations and individuals opposing war. One of the first tasks of this front is to call for a All-European dialogue for peace and security. A dialogue must be sought in which the interests of all countries are taken into account. It is necessary to reduce the growing tension, to seek sustainable peace and mutually beneficial friendly relations between all European peoples. At the same time, the Pan-European Peace Front can make such an appeal for a World Dialogue for Peace and Security.

    It is extremely important that these calls are supported by mass protest actions against the warmongers. But protests are a necessary but not sufficient action. In our opinion, a positive alternative must also be developed, for which legislative coverage must be found. Referendums must be organized in the countries in order to turn the respective countries into “Zones of Peace”. This process can start at the municipal level, i.e. to create a municipal “Zone of Peace”. Then it must reach the national level. And ultimately, the “Europe – Zone of Peace” project must be implemented!

    The countries where national referendums have gathered the majority of votes should address the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council with a request to recognize their status as “Zones of Peace”. The parameters of the “Zone of Peace” concept must be formulated in detail. Foreign military bases and offensive weapons should not be located in such “Zones of Peace”, and any aggression against such countries should be recognized as a crime against humanity. In our opinion, this should be part of the important steps that will not allow Europe and the world to burn in a nuclear apocalypse!

    Thank you for your attention!

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Welcome 01.040

    Peter Nowak, idea provider

    Personally, I would characterize myself politically as a soviet/council communist. But in a time of new capitalist war, it is necessary to put differences aside. The capitalist state reacts with repression to all attempts at decisive anti-militarist practice. This became clear at the end of August in Cologne, when an anti-militarist camp was initially banned. A court lifted the ban. However, the final demonstration of the anti-militarists through Cologne was attacked several times by the police and finally broken up. Several hundred people stood in police kettles often for several hours and underwent identification procedures. A state that wants to wage war ensures graveyard peace on the home front with repression. These are conditions that resolute anti-militarists have to deal with today. This makes a new Zimmerwald all the more necessary. The Zimmerwald Conference in the middle of the First World War was deliberately organized in so-called neutral Switzerland. Switzerland was not neutral, it was just not a party to the war. Socialists, anarchists, pacifists. It was an alliance in an age when all the capitalist countries, Germany and all the others, were waging war against each other, and a large part of the workers' parties, which had previously propagated the fight against militarism, had joined the home front. The Zimmerwald Conference thus was a ray of hope. Unfortunately, it is little known today, even though it had its anniversary in 2015.

    However, the Zimmerwald Conference had given rise to the Zimmerwald Left, which included Lenin and the Bolsheviks, but also anarchists and communists who later took different paths. They held the position of revolutionary defeatism. In contrast to pacifism, they did not reject all wars. Rather, revolutionary defeatists called for struggle against capitalism as the cause of war. Soldiers from the working class were called upon to turn their guns around and point them against the organs of the capitalist state. The October Revolution in Russia, in particular, boosted the positions of the Zimmerwald Left in many countries, including Germany. After all, one of the first measures taken by the revolutionary soviet councils was the decree on peace. The Soviet Union unilaterally ended the war and called on the soldiers of all countries to fraternize with each other and turn their guns on the exploiters of all countries. The calls did not go unheeded by the workers in Germany. Richard Müller, a leading activist of the Revolutionary Shop Stewards, a self-organized Berlin workers' organization in the factories during the First World War, described how rejection of the war increased and the call to do it like Russia grew in the course of 1918. The opponents of the Zimmerwald Left were reformists like Kautsky and Bernstein, who wanted to return to the conditions of pre-war society after the war. But the Zimmerwald leftists said there was no going back, because capitalism always produces new wars. We have to abolish this very capitalism. This gave rise to revolutionary movements such as the October Revolution in Russia, but also the soviet movement in Hungary, Germany and many other countries. Many of these revolutionary awakenings failed, but it is important today to come back to Zimmerwald. When we meet again in Switzerland 110 years later, we should ask how we can build on this after more than 100 years. Three points are important to me.

    What the Zimmerwald Left analyzed also applies today: In a world of capitalist sides, there is no side for the workers to take. Rather, the slogan on all sides should be: It's not our war - it's not our battle.

    Secondly. We must not only fight the capitalist war, but also the capitalist peace, because new wars emerge from it again and again. As in 1915, the same applies today: there is no going back to the capitalist peace, which is described with euphemisms such as a rules-based international order.

    And one more thing should be clear:

    Only the workers, who constitute the vast majority of the population, can end the war. There have already been some hopeful examples in recent years in France, Italy and Greece, where workers have blocked the shipment of military equipment. There are also movements in Germany against the conversion of civilian production into arms production, for example in Görlitz, Osnabrück and Berlin-Wedding.

    110 years after Zimmerwald the following still holds true:

    International class struggle against capitalist wars! In this spirit, may this conference in Zurich be the starting point of an international movement against capitalist war and capitalist peace.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 03.070

    Block 3 “How do we strengthen the global movement against fascism and war?”

    by Silke Treusch

    Let’s not allow ourselves to be used for imperialist interests.

    When the Ukraine war broke out, various trade unions in Switzerland called for a big demonstration in Zurich in which 40,000 people took part. The speeches clearly condemned imperialism on the part of both the EU/USA and Russia. It took less than a week for the European Trade Union Confederation to blow its horn: anyone who continues to talk like this will have their funding cut - a call that echoed as far as Latin America.

    What must we do to mobilize the multitudes of working people organized in the trade unions against the war?

    Give anticommunism no chance

    It was already evident at the demonstration that people were backing down in the face of anticommunism. Unionists who until then had no fear of contact with communists called for them not to walk in the trade union block. Red flags could only be seen sporadically during the demonstration.

    Anticommunism, nationalism and chauvinism are two sides of the same coin.

    It is therefore only in the interests of capital to exclude communists, as they have always been active opponents of imperialist wars.

    Repression is also on the rise in Switzerland

    Since then, silence has prevailed. The genocide in Palestine or the war in Ukraine are only discussed behind closed doors. Unionists in companies are being told, even threatened under labor law, to keep their mouths shut and not to sign any public calls.

    This is, of course, a fatal situation, because workers of all countries must learn to organize themselves in their countries on an internationalist basis. My conclusion: class consciousness is more than underdeveloped, and it is our task to raise and support it.

    Foreign wars are prepared internally.

    The state is a service provider for international monopolies and will destroy the achieved social gains to finance the war. War is the continuation of politics by other means. Stop the Federal Council's “Relief Package 27”! Stop the theft of 6.3 billion Swiss francs from the people's pockets for the military build-up and imperialist war preparations!

    The words “working class” and “class consciousness” have been deleted from the vocabulary because the working class is said to be a relic of times long past. The task of trade unions is said to be to prevent the worst from happening and not, under any circumstances, to take a political stance, as the workers are too diverse in their political attitudes.

    Trade unions must develop into fighting organizations and be led by the rank and file.

    We have to fend for ourselves - no one else will

    There is a further point: the thinking in terms of representatives: "the union will handle it for us," meaning the functionaries in the union apparatus and elected executive committees. As long as our colleagues don't learn to fight for themselves, to stand up for their interests, it will be difficult to develop class consciousness on an antifascist basis. Only in this way can we create a strong antipole against imperialist wars.

    Join the anti-imperialist alliances.

    As long as colleagues trust the trade union apparatus to defend their interests, this will lead them up a blind alley, and the danger is great that a chauvinist course will be pushed through and the own government’s interests will not be touched.

    This is because the entanglement of political reformist parties with trade unions and their influence in politics and business is great. And so ultimately this helps fill the war chest, as happened when the SPD approved the war credits before the First World War and the Zimmerwald Conference came together to oppose this course.

    Robert Grimm was once the official initiator of the Zimmerwald Conference. The struggle over the road to a peaceful world, and over the socialist road, was already a hot debate at the time. Contrary to the experiences of the decades preceding the Second World War, Grimm concluded the so-called peace agreement with the metal industry in 1937. Strikes were no longer allowed and the policy of domestic peace was adopted. A fatal decision that still bears fruit today.

    Class consciousness must be promoted in such a way that workers once again understand that they have their own class interests, indeed that there are different classes. To this end, the trade unions must be fighting organizations and not allow themselves to be harnessed to one or another party of capital. Workers of all countries, unite!

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 01.010

    Block 1 “Danger of a World War: Red Alert!?”

    by Frank Hammer

    Before offering my assessment of the danger of a world War, it’s important to contextualize this moment in the US. The Trump MAGA capitalists are rapidly transforming the US into a militarized fascist police state, heading towards a Trump-led coup d'état. The buildup of the “military-industrial-tech” complex is taking place in tandem with rising threats of martial law in our cities. With these developments in the US, the threat of world war needs to be taken very seriously.

    The US military budget has grown exponentially over the past few decades, under both parties of capital. Biden increased military spending when he took over from Trump 1.0 in 2017 to $770 billion.

    4 years later, Trump now elevated that number to over $1 trillion for fiscal year 2026, $150 billion more than requested by the Pentagon. While the “liberal” establishment daily denounces Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” it fails to denounce the massive new military spending. The capitalist media is predictably silent.

    The $1+ trillion represents a 13% increase over 2025 and amounts to nearly 63% of all US government spending. The monies will be spent on many spheres – outer and inner space, on land and across the oceans, and include cyber and nuclear war modernization. It will be invested in the 500 domestic military bases and 850 bases abroad. The dollars will further militarize the US industrial base and the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, and further finance the proxy war in Ukraine and Zionist genocide in Gaza.

    Some of this money is just a “down payment” toward the creation of an American version of Israel's "Iron Dome," called the "Golden Dome." Portrayed as a missile “defense” system, the dome represents an enabling tool for renewed US global aggression allegedly impervious to counterattack. It is utter and complete foolishness that will compel adversarial powers to escalate likewise.

    In addition, NATO countries have been successfully pressured to increase their military spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, 3.5% on troops and weapons, and the rest on adapting roads, bridges, and ports for use by military vehicles, and on cyber-security and protecting energy pipelines. NATO nations together currently spend half that amount. The main target of this escalation is China, which is portrayed as the number one enemy. By contrast, China spends 1.7% of its GDP on military spending.

    The potential outcome is a nuclear war which will devastate civilization and trigger a “nuclear winter,” leading to the extinction of life on earth. In the words of the Zimmerwald manifesto 110 years ago: “All civilization, created by the labor of many generations, is doomed to destruction.”

    Our organizational name incorporates “fascism and war as well as Environmental Destruction.” Militarization is integrally tied to environmental destruction. As the planet degenerates into greater chaos due to escalating climate catastrophe driven by the capitalist profit motive, the resulting destruction will escalate tensions between and within nations, leading to further military escalations.  The military escalations will in turn, in a vicious cycle, contribute to environmental destruction.

    The U.S. military significantly contributes to the climate crisis as a major consumer of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emitter, more than entire industrialized nations like Portugal and Denmark. Its operations, from fuel consumption to infrastructure damage during conflicts, exacerbate global warming and climate change. Our international united front must deepen its commitment to protecting our environment and rapidly win the environmental movement to an anti-imperialist, and anti-fascist united front.

    Comrades, the systemic addictions inherent in capitalism and imperialism are hurtling humanity toward dark times. The working classes and all anti-imperialist forces must build a united movement to remove from power the dangerous addicted predators who are responsible.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 02.050

    Block 2 “Fascism and preparation for war hand in hand”

    by Jovino Nuñez, ICOR Latin America & Communist Party (ML) Dominican Republic

    Revolutionary action is needed against reactionary wars

    We have often said that wars are inherent in imperialist powers and class-divided societies. Consequently, in order to prevent them, it is necessary to defeat both the imperialists and the ruling classes in every bourgeois society.

    International solidarity plays a fundamental role in this struggle to defeat the empires and establish a new society. The bourgeoisie of nations under the tutelage of imperialism can count on its conditional support and that of the global reaction, which is why their defeat is difficult, especially when revolutionary forces cannot count on the bonds of solidarity of friendly parties in other latitudes.

    The current wars and threats of new confrontations on an ever-larger scale provoke rejection by large sections of the population, who see them as nothing more than battles between imperialist nations over conflicting interests, in which the working class has nothing to gain.

    This resistance of “No to war and yes to life” is gaining more and more strength and clarity among the broad masses who suffer most from the deepening poverty and social inequalities that these wars leave behind.

    Even if it is true that fascism and conservatism seem to be gaining ground worldwide, it is no less true that there is a corresponding awakening of democratic and revolutionary sentiment with increasingly clearer progressive nuances.

    Capitalism stokes massive hate and violence, incites racism, and promotes racial and class divisions. America is experiencing such perversity under the fascism imposed by Donald Trump with the mass deportation of migrants from all parts of the world, but especially from Latin America. And Palestine has been experiencing this for decades under the constant harassment of Israeli Zionism, as have other regions of the world that are subject to the greed of empires.

    But discontent is growing within the monster's own tentacles. As I write these lines, unprecedented days of mass protest are taking place in various cities across the United States, led by Latin American workers and migrants.

    From all this, we can conclude that the war against wars is underway. All that is needed now is higher levels of coordination, integration, and agitation. Revolutionary action is needed against reactionary wars.

  • Zimmerwaldkonferenz 2.0: Einleitungsbeitrag 03.010

    Block 3 „Wie stärken wir die weltweite Bewegung gegen Faschismus und Krieg?“

    von ATIK

    Dear friends,

    Holding the Zimmerwald Conference 2.0 today, which we as the UF have long planned, will be an important step for the struggle of the working class and the oppressed peoples. This is because the contradictions between the imperialist powers are deepening, and as a result, the danger of a new world war is growing. The only force capable of stopping these wars is the united struggle of the world’s working class and oppressed peoples. For this reason, the conference we are holding today, even if modest, will make an important contribution to this struggle.

    Contradictions Between Imperialist Blocs Are Deepening

    At present, contradictions between the imperialist blocs are sharpening in many regions, particularly in Ukraine, Iran, Syria, and Palestine, showing the objective conditions of a looming new imperialist war threatening the peoples of the world. Yet, through various manoeuvres, they are trying to buy time to prepare.

    Who Are These Blocs, and Which Countries Do They Consist Of?

    The first bloc is the Atlantic bloc, formed by the USA–UK–EU. This bloc represents the political and military framework of the post-1945 capitalist world order under the leadership of US imperialism. NATO is its military arm, the IMF and World Bank form its economic architecture, and the United Nations serves as its instrument of “legitimacy.”

    On the class level, this bloc represents the most organised, aggressive, and war-mongering section of the global capitalist class. Concentrated in strategic sectors such as high technology, finance, energy, and the arms industry, this class has sought, through neo-liberal policies, to maximise the exploitation of labour and resources in semi-colonial and colonial countries. In this sense, the bloc is not merely a foreign policy choice but the expression of an accumulation and domination mechanism at the very core of the global capitalist system.

    The second bloc is the Eurasian bloc, led by Chinese and Russian imperialism. Initiatives such as BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank constitute the political and economic infrastructure of this bloc.

    China, having transformed from a producer based on cheap labour into a technological powerhouse, aims through the Belt and Road Initiative to control global markets and energy corridors. Russia, meanwhile, acts as an imperialist power seeking to establish balance through energy exports, military strength, and its geopolitical position. Both powers pursue militarist and expansionist foreign policies to defend and expand the interests of their respective capitalist classes.

    The class character of this bloc likewise prioritises the interests of its own bourgeoisie, enforcing repressive policies against the working class.

    The US “Indo-Pacific Strategy,” along with military alliances such as AUKUS and QUAD, seeks to encircle China, pushing China closer not only economically but also strategically towards Russia. Moves such as expanding BRICS and promoting trade in local currencies reflect the economic dimension of this rapprochement.

    This alliance, of course, is not entirely homogenous. China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union sometimes overlap but at other times clash. Yet, their common ground lies in the will to establish an alternative power centre against Western financial and military dominance.

    Both blocs, in seeking to overcome their accumulation crises, pursue expansionist policies both militarily and economically. Their rivalry is therefore not merely a conflict between two states but a collision of global capital accumulation processes. Every crisis in Ukraine, Taiwan, Africa, or the Middle East reflects this contradiction. Moves made in these regions mean harsher, more open, and more direct preparations for conflict between the blocs.

    As a result, in recent years, elections worldwide have signified not merely government changes but transformations in regime form. These transformations are driving the global system into increasingly racist, fascist, and militarist directions.

    Over the past decade, elections in many parts of the world have shown how the collapse of liberal policies has been enabled “through democratic procedures (elections).” From the US to Germany, France to India, Israel to Latin America, the global picture demonstrates how the crisis conditions of the imperialist-capitalist system are reactivating racist and fascist reflexes.

    This rise in fascist-authoritarian tendencies is not merely a tool of domestic politics. It also enables the transition to war economies, the creation of internal enemies through migrant-bashing, and the masking of class conflicts through identity conflicts.

    Whether these inter-bloc contradictions develop directly into a world war depends not only on the intentions of the imperialist centres but also on their capacity to manage them. Yet historical experience shows that the depth and complexity of the structural crisis of the imperialist-capitalist system points to war as the ultimate means of resolution. At this point, the objective conditions for a third world war are in place.

    The Only Force That Can Stop Imperialist War Is the International Proletariat and the United Struggle of the Peoples of the World

    All the statements made by the imperialist powers regarding “world peace” are false. Whenever they speak of peace, know that, as in Ukraine or Syria, they are preparing for new unjust wars. For imperialism means war. By its very class character, imperialism is hostile to genuine peace. And real peace can only be achieved by consigning imperialism and its accomplices to the dustbin of history.

    The historical and contemporary experiences of the working class point precisely to this truth. This reality demands that workers and oppressed peoples engage in uncompromising struggle against imperialism and all forms of reaction. Economic crises and unjust wars triggered regionally by the imperialists have made life unbearable for the peoples and oppressed nations of the world.

    In the face of such attacks and destructive policies, the duty of the social opposition is to expand the united struggle against imperialist war, rising fascism, oppression, and exploitation.

    For this, broad-based anti-imperialist and anti-fascist fronts must be built globally. Such steps must not damage practices that bring together anti-imperialist and anti-war forces and national liberation movements. On the contrary, they must be taken with the perspective of uniting the broadest masses. To gather the masses in their widest form, unity must be built from the local towards the centre. This unity must encompass all forces opposing war and ecological destruction, trade unions defending workers’ rights, democratic mass organisations, national movements waging liberation struggles, women’s movements fighting for equality, LGBT+ forces, and youth movements, among others.

    In creating such an anti-imperialist, anti-fascist front against the danger of imperialist war, the role of international proletarian forces is crucial. To fulfil this historical role, a minimum level of revolutionary practice is required, demanding the organisational unity and solidarity of international proletarian forces. Every step in this direction will be the greatest guarantee for the united struggle of anti-imperialist, anti-war forces and national liberation movements.

    Furthermore, it is essential that anti-fascist and anti-imperialist forces struggling internationally exchange experiences and strengthen solidarity. In this respect, joint campaigns must be organised wherever possible that expose imperialist aggression and support social and national liberation struggles.

    Of course, the fundamental duty of forces waging the struggle of the working class and oppressed peoples is to advance social struggle in their own countries. Just as Karl Liebknecht said: “The main enemy is in our own country.” For every blow struck against imperialism and world reaction in any part of the globe, every position won, is a contribution to the struggle of the international proletariat.

    With the hope that the Zimmerwald Conference will assume a modest yet meaningful role worldwide against the danger of imperialist war and rising fascism…

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Welcome 00.020

    Welcome speech ATIK – Switzerland

    On behalf of ATIK, I would like to welcome you once again to the “Zimmerwald Conference 2.0.” I would like to quote Chairman Mao Zedong: “There is chaos under heaven,” and precisely at this time, when we are rapidly approaching a third imperialist war of division, this conference is an important sign of our struggle against it.

    We see it in the media, we notice it at work, in political work, how war is brought into our society day after day.

    The imperialists are preparing intensively for a world war. Whether in the military or in schools, where young people are now also being psychologically recruited for the military, where there is now also heavy investment in weapons and, above all, where foreign policy is being pursued brutally.

    We are also supposed to support the imperialist powers, for example in the genocide in Gaza, where 60,000 people and many more are being killed, starved, and displaced.

    I would like to continue with the quote from Mao, where he says: “The situation is excellent.” Why is the situation excellent? It is precisely the time when socialists must take advantage of these contradictions and organize themselves.

    110 years after the Zimmerwald Conference in 1915, we must ask ourselves today: Do we just want to protest against this war, or do we want to organize a revolution? That was the crucial question at the first conference, and that is why we are also here today. We are in a situation where the question of barbarism or socialism is more important than perhaps ever before, or since the Second World War. We are here to organize ourselves, to strengthen internationalism.

    That is why we are happy and proud to be part of this conference. I would like to express my sincere gratitude for being able to participate.

    Down with imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and fascism; long live the international proletariat.

  • Zimmerwaldkonferenz 2.0: Einleitungsbeitrag 03.030

    Block 3 “Wie stärken wir die weltweite Bewegung gegen Faschismus und Krieg?”

    von Roberto Luzzi

    We are in a stage of a new global inter-imperialist war preparation – the ongoing horrific genocide in Gaza by the US-Israel axis supported by the European Union, and the massacre in Ukraine between Russia and NATO are the first chapters in this apocalyptic perspective. The "Preparedness 2030" EU plan openly announces it . Other countries, from the US to Japan to China and India follow suit.

    Preparation in military hardware but also in psychological software:

    "Our countries are threatened,

    our freedom is threatened;

    WE must DEFEND ourselves"...

    In order to oppose this general tendency, the rearmament policy, this war psychology and ideologies,

    first of all we must unconditionally side with the Palestinian people and resistance and firmly stand for revolutionary defeatism on both sides in the Ukraine war.

    Secondly, in our approach to the masses, we must reject and break down the term “WE”(the Nation) into "US", the working people, proletarians, and “THEM”, the bosses, capitalists, landowners, those who need war and their state. THEY threaten our lives with their policies of

    Consequently, we must denounce our governments adopt peace policies as befitting the bosses' interests, and struggle for their overthrow and for a worker's government; and seek our allies among workers in other countries, fighting against capitalist, warmongering governments.

    In junctures like this we must beware the demagogic use of the ‘peace’ propaganda by the ruling classes.

    In Italy in 1914 a majority of the bourgeoisie thought it could gain most through neutrality and for this reason it played as ‘pacifist’.. But when in 1915 a majority of the bourgeoisie decided it could gain more from participating in the war, a warmongering campaign was launched by the bosses' press in the name of irredentism and the democratic peace movement was wiped out by the interventionist movement... Even in the trade unions many pacifists suddenly changed into war-enthused patriots. Italian peasants and workers paid that defeat of the internationalist movement with 600,000 lives. The bourgeoisie won high war profits and some territories.

    The Zimmerwald Conference marked the beginning of the internationalist rescue as it promoted class struggle and international unity of proletarians against the war of capitalists, thus preparing the transformation of inter-capitalist war into civil war and revolution. Only the October Revolution put an end to the war!.

    Drawing from the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences, we must work in order for the sincere yearning for peace, the refusal of the horrors of capital’s wars, which exist in the working masses and the youth, to become an anti-war, anti-capitalist, revolutionary movement, and above all an internationalist movement connecting anti-war, revolutionary forces all over the world to build a proletarian "camp" against the warring imperialist camps.

    Peace cannot come without revolution, without deep social change, establishing a society without exploitation and oppression.

    it’s a difficult task, that will face harsh repression, but the only one worth fighting for.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Welcome 00.010

    Welcoming speech MLGS – Switzerland

    Dear guests, dear friends of peace, dear comrades,

    On behalf of the Marxist-Leninist Group Switzerland, we would like to welcome you to the Zimmerwald Conference 2.0 in Zurich's Dorothea Sölle Hall! Dorothea Sölle was a German Christian, but above all, a peace activist. Up here is the Clara Ragaz Hall. She was the co-founder of the religious socialist movement and a peace activist. We would also like to thank the Reformed Church for providing us with the hall.

    After 109 years and a few months, we began organizing the conference. The first conference took place in Zimmerwald in the Bern-Mittelland District in 1915, one year after the start of World War I. It was disguised as an ornithological congress. However, since Zimmerwald is a bit too small to accommodate so many people, we decided to hold this historic event here.

    We are living in a time that resembles the years before the first Zimmerwald Conference. Many of the questions from that time are being asked again today. Those in power of the world are filling their war arsenals! They are fascistizing the state and building fascist organizations—fascism and war are two sides of the same coin. They are preparing the masses for the great spectacle of war! And they are prepared to drive the masses like cattle to the slaughter for their own profit. Tanks are driven in front of schools to win even children for their war, and pensioners are being called back into the military. Billions are being spent on armament, and the armies of the world are being made fit for war! In order to finance their war for profit, those in power are also waging social war against their own peoples and the working class. Massive austerity programs are being imposed on the people in support of the army. Even before the war they must bleed !

    Today, we must focus our attention on building a worldwide movement against fascism and war, as well as in the individual countries, and work towards this goal. On 27 September, we will be holding a nationwide meeting in Switzerland to build a new peace movement.

    The masses are already paying a heavy toll in blood in many wars. In the Ukraine/Russia war 1 million fathers, mothers, and children have already died; in Palestine more than 60,000; in the Congo, Sudan, and everywhere on the battlefields of the world, people are dying and being crippled. The blood of the workers of the world is flowing for the profits of those in power of the world! But it is a massive underestimation to call this a world war already; these are only the preliminaries to an even more massive and global war among the imperialists for raw materials and world supremacy.

    Today, we will discuss many issues critically and in solidarity. Chauvinism within our own ranks, for example, is a millstone around the neck of proletarian internationalism! We have often asked ourselves: Where are the Kurds at the Congo demonstrations? Where are the Palestinians at the Kurdish demonstrations? Where are the Congolese at the workers' strikes? Why does everyone cook their own national soup without looking beyond their own horizons? International solidarity should not be a one-way street!

    Lenin explained in “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination”:

    “The Socialists of the oppressed nations, on the other hand, must particularly fight for and maintain complete, absolute unity (also organizational) between the workers of the oppressed nation and the workers of the oppressing nation.”

    This is what Lenin understood by proletarian internationalism, also in the national liberation struggle!

    We are glad that so many people are here today and that we can discuss our task. As early as 1915, the policy of civic truce was rejected, and we must also conduct this discussion today. As Erich Weinert wrote: "Workers, hearken, they are going to war And they yell: 'For nation and race!' This war is the rulers of the world's Against the working classes!” – workers and peoples must reach across the trenches, whether Russian or Ukrainian, Palestinian or Israeli, black or white. They must wage a common struggle for the defeat of their respective rulers and for the victory of the proletariat and socialism. Because workers do not shoot at workers!

    Forward with the united front against fascism and war!

    Workers of all countries, unite!

    Forward to the Zimmerwald Conference 2.0!

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory speech 02.040

    Block “Fascism and preparations for war hand in hand”

    by Renate Dillmann

    Dear participants of the Zimmerwald Conference 2025,

    If you look back to 1915, at first you see striking similarities.

    Once again, states are fighting in a major war for supremacy in Europe.

    Germany and its German EU want to rise to become the dominant power in Europe— it is above all that Russia stands in the way of this.

    For this struggle German society is supposed to be made fit for war by 2029. A lot needs to be changed in Germany to reach this goal. The Federal German Army is being rearmed, and arms factories opened. More soldiers are needed, so conscription is being introduced in a new form. All of this has to be paid for, and the citizens will have to foot the bill in the form of higher prices and reduced social benefits; young people are expected to give up a year of their lives to serve the state – and when the going gets tough, considerably more.

    A very essential prerequisite for this to succeed is to generate the appropriate understanding among the public. Most people may well be good Germans, proud of their country, a point to which I will return in a moment. But it is quite a step from waving German flags at the European Championships and World Cups to serving in the trenches. So, appropriate mobilization is organized – in schools and in public. These are crucial components in creating a miltary readiness, and Pistorius is absolutely right about that.

    The leading German media are happy to contribute what they can voluntarily.

    There was no outcry when Pistorius was quoted when he spoke about being “fit for war”. There were no voices coming from the major German editorial offices saying that, given such a tense world situation, compromises, arms restrictions, or diplomacy should be sought in order to avoid war and even a nuclear catastrophe. Quite the contrary. Shortly afterwards, the editors-in-chief of Der Spiegel addressed their readers and announced that in future they would be brought down from their, what Der Spiegel terms as “pacifist neer-never land.”

    Let's turn to the public that is to be made fit for war. At this point, a big difference to the situation in 1915 has to be stated. There is little to no sign of a workers’ movement like the one that existed back then – not even a reformist one. The workers of that time, who were suspicious or even hostile toward their state, have since become loyal state citizens. Even if I'm not going to make many friends here, I think it's necessary to state this unemotionally and not talk ourselves into believing in some dawn on the horizon that doesn't exist.

    Unlike the First World War, and unlike the Second, the third will take place without an organized workers’ movement – at least if things remain as they are now.

    Unfortunately, those who live from wage labor are now very much in agreement with the established parties and the leading national media in their patriotic thinking – and those who are not vote for the AfD and not for left-wing parties. According to surveys, 76 percent are in favor of more armament, even if it means more debt.

    How can this be explained? In short: Of course, dependence on wages still means objectively exploitation: those who generate wealth in this society with their labor have very little to show for it. Now they are even expected to “defend” this system, which is harmful to them, militarily, i.e., first economically and ultimately with their lives.

    Subjectively, however, those who are dependent on wages (even if they are dissatisfied) are very much in agreement with politicians and the media on one central point: economically, they are in favor of a growing economy, and politically, they are in favor of their own nation and its assertion both internally and externally.

    They are because of their practical dependence on jobs where they can earn the money they need in this society to make ends meet, even if only barely. And they are because of their resulting need for the state, because without the constitutional protection and without the material benefits of the welfare state, life in a capitalist competitive society is even more miserable than usual, especially for them.

    It is not surprising that the beneficiaries of the nation—economic and political elites—are in favor of this country and its success. But even those who depend on wages treat their forced dependence, which they did not choose, but with which they must and want to cope, as a good reason to support this country. They wish it success (and presumably for themselves) – and are therefore willing to stand up for this country.

    This is the basic patriotic sentiment of the majority of the population – and this is the solid foundation, the basis for them to intellectually understand national calculations (as prescribed by politics and the press). I consider it essential to realize this, especially with regard to the necessary work in factories, if one wants to achieve the position “Say NO! to war, rearmament, and truce.”

    How the story ends this time will depend on whether wage earners once again embrace the concerns of the nation at the cost of a world war and make the sacrifices demanded of them, both materially and mentally. Or whether they change their minds.

    What must be done? Enlightenment about the state's calculations, criticism of the national mainstream media and their bogeyman reporting, but also criticism of the loyalty that wage earners show to national politics and the economy in peacetime, practical resistance where possible – all of this is necessary if we want to prevent wage earners from ultimately going to war for conditions that already harm them every day.

    So much on my part. Warmest greetings to Zurich.

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Welcome 00.050

    Gabi Fechtner, Initiator

    Dear comrades,

    Dear guests,

    Exactly 110 years ago, from September 5 to 8, 1915, in the middle of the First World War, 114 kilometers away from us a conference took place that was to make history. Four carriages arrived in the tranquil village of Zimmerwald near Bern on September 5, 1915. From them emerged 38 leading socialists from all over Europe, disguised as an ornithological society. Who would have guessed that the supposed bird watchers were actually opponents of the imperialist war with different world views and political positions, from eleven countries. Among them was none other than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the Socialist October Revolution in Russia in 1917.

    I am delighted today that the idea of organizing a Zimmerwald Conference 2.0 has now become a reality. And that so many different people are taking part. We didn't want to be presumptuous with our idea and claim to be the successor to a conference with the brilliant Lenin. But the times in which we live make it almost imperative that a conference of all forces fighting resolutely against a Third World War should take place again. Forces that consistently reject any kind of defense of an imperialist war, defense of the fatherland and a policy of domestic truce, the justification of imperialist policies. Zimmerwald was born out of criticism of the Social-Democrats’ betrayal of the agreements reached at the Stuttgart Conference in 1907 and the Basel Conference in 1912, which had resolved that in the event of an inter-imperialist war they would “do all they can to prevent the breaking out of war, using for this purpose the means which appear to them the most efficacious” (Peace Manifesto, Basel Conference 1912). With the rise of social-chauvinism, these promises were betrayed by almost all social-democrats. Only the Bolsheviks in Russia, smaller parties in France and the Netherlands, for example, or Spartacus in Germany retained their backbone in opposition to the now fashionable policy of domestic peace. These forces met in Zimmerwald.

    Our conference will connect the lines between the past of the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915, the present of the preparation of a Third World War by all the imperialists, and the future, for which we will make forecasts, organize ourselves better and coordinate and revolutionize our struggle. In his Bern speech one year after Zimmerwald, Lenin summarized the significant features: “Neither Russia, nor Germany, nor any other Great Power for that matter has any right to claim that it is waging a “defensive war”; all the Great Powers are waging a capitalist imperialist war, a predatory war…. The Basle Manifesto … castigates the governments and the bourgeoisie of all the Great Powers, without exception. It says … that the workers consider it a crime to shoot at each other, and that the horrors of war and the indignation these would rouse among the workers would inevitably lead to a proletarian revolution. … We find that the socialist and labour organisations are now split into two big camps in all countries of the world. The smaller section, the leaders, functionaries and officials, have betrayed socialism and have sided with their governments. The other section, to which the mass of class-conscious workers belong, continues to gather its forces and to fight against the war and for the proletarian revolution.”

    If these guidelines had been observed by all progressive people, the struggle against the First and Second World Wars would have gained incomparably greater strength and could even have prevented them. At the same time, Lenin subjected the Zimmerwald Manifesto to a dialectical critique. He qualified it as a “step towards an ideological and practical break with opportunism and social-chauvinism” and at the same time criticized its inconsistency. The manifesto shied away from the ideological struggle against opportunism in the working-class movement by attacking only the capitalist press for the lie about “defense of the fatherland.” But not the “socialist” press which supported it. Lenin polemicized: “To make the masses see things in a clearer light, the manifesto says that in the present war the defence of the fatherland idea is a capitalist lie. The European masses, however, are not illiterate, … and still hear that same lie from hundreds of socialist papers…. Disregard the capitalists’ lie about the defence of the fatherland, the manifesto tells the workers. Well and good. Practically all of them will say or think: the capitalists’ lie has long stopped bothering us, but the lie of Kautsky and Co. …”

    We will realize the principles and basic lines of Lenin and Zimmerwald, learn from shortcomings. But we will also deal with the development of the imperialist world system, which has become much more complicated. The MLPD has analyzed, and is of the opinion, that there are now about 40 imperialist countries. A significant number of these are new imperialists who, as we know from our experience with German imperialism, advance in a particularly aggressive manner and strive for new markets, spheres of influence, raw materials and political power. The old imperialists react no less aggressively, as the USA or Israel make clear. The tendency towards world war goes hand in hand with the internal form of rule of fascism. All imperialists have developed a more or less skillful system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking in order to win the masses over to their course. This is how they work with modern fascism today. They lure the masses with the petty-bourgeois social-chauvinist, petty-bourgeois anticommunist or even petty-bourgeois fascist mode of thinking for the interests of their monopolies. This can have a temporary effect. We have to acknowledge that it is very confusing for people when a former “peace party” like the Greens in Germany mutated into a warmongering party with the start of the Ukraine war. Or the fascist AfD, on the other hand, demagogically presents itself as a peace party because it partly represents the interests of the imperialists of Russia or China. Or supposed communists such as those from the DKP suddenly characterize Russia and China as “objectively anti-militarist” because a multipolar world in which various imperialists fight for world domination is supposedly progressive. It is the principle of defense of the fatherland, which, however, uses clever methods to appeal to and fuel the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking, such as egoism or skepticism of the masses.

    I am firmly convinced that humankind does not want to perish in the barbarism of an imperialist, nuclear Third World War. The question is more acute than it has been for decades: socialism or barbarism. Our conference will be successful if it strengthens us for the struggle over the mode of thinking of the masses, unites us and provides us with suitable arguments. The struggle over the mode of thinking, a proletarian culture of debate, will also decide among us whether we can send a clear signal with this conference. The conference came about in the spirit of Zimmerwald: different forces exchanging views and listening to each other.

    When Peter Nowak called to mind the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915 at a conference of the New Peace Movement three years ago, I was immediately electrified. Perhaps my experience was that in recent months different camps and forces have been moving closer together again. Aware of the epoch-making historical changes, of the crossroads humankind is facing. So the idea was one thing, the other was that the time was ripe for its realization. I wish the Zimmerwald Conference 2025 success and that it will send the signal that Lenin characterized in his Bern speech: “the rallying of the working class forces is truly under way in all countries of the world. … This is an earnest of the proletarian revolution against capitalism that is bound to follow the European war.”

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 02.010

    Block 2 “Fascism and preparation for war hand in hand”

    by Guanqi Xiang from China

    On the dangers of world war and the responsibility of communists

    The danger of a Third World War is clearer today than ever before for people all over the world.

    Lenin left us the famous statement that imperialism is war.

    The origin of the war and the danger of a possible outbreak of the Third World War lie in Ukraine.

    The conflict between the Western bloc, led by hegemonic American imperialism, and the Eastern bloc, led by neo-tsarist Russian imperialism, is the deep-seated reason for the possibility of this war breaking out. Russian imperialism's war of aggression against Ukraine will be the direct trigger for the outbreak of the Third World War.

    Chairman Mao once predicted the danger of a Third World War: “Either the revolution will prevent the war, or the war will give rise to revolution.” However, Chairman Mao's views are not dogmas and must be applied flexibly and correctly in practice. Everything depends on time, place, and conditions.

    Putin is the most despicable and abominable traitor to the communist movement; Putin has practiced and continues to practice the worst form of capitalism, the dictatorship of the fascist bourgeoisie; and Putin is an ideological and theoretical foundation of Great Russian chauvinism as a hegemonist. Based on such scientific analyses, it is clearly foreseeable that Putin and Russia will not accept peace negotiations. What they need is the surrender of Ukraine.

    And on the Ukrainian side, there will be no surrender to Putin, the Russian aggressor, not only by the current Zelensky government, but above all by the Ukrainian people. The West, too, because of its own interests, will not agree with the Ukrainian government, but on the contrary will continue to increase its aid to Ukraine.

    Based on such analyses, we believe that there is only one future for the Russian-Ukrainian war, which will continue to escalate and ultimately lead to the Third World War.

    What should we communists do in this situation?

    1. Highlight the danger of a Third World War and the fact that this danger stems from imperialist rivalry, propagate Lenin's idea that “imperialism is war,” and launch a popular movement against war in every country in the world.

    2. Criticize Putin's and Russia's crimes of aggression and demand that Putin and Russia end the war of aggression and withdraw their troops completely and unconditionally from Ukraine.

    3. Call on genuine Russian communists who take an internationalist stance against the war of aggression waged by Putin and Russia.

    The Communist Party of Russia under Zyuganov has turned into a revisionist party. True communists should rebuild the Communist Party of Russia under the leadership of Leninism.

    If we are unable to prevent the Russian-Ukrainian war from developing from a local war into a world war, then the historic task facing communists will be to once again set socialist revolutions in motion throughout the world. To achieve this, communists in all countries must begin making such ideological and organizational preparations from now on.

    This is the only correct way forward for a fundamental solution to abolish war.

    Long live the victory of socialism!

    Chinese Communists (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)

    7 June 2025

  • Zimmerwald Conference 2.0: Introductory contribution 01.020

    Block 1 “Danger of a World War: Red Alert!?”

    by Dietmar Breme

    Dear comrades,

    110 years after the Zimmerwald Conference, 80 years after liberation from Nazi fascism, and 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, humanity stands on the brink of nuclear annihilation.

    Two hotbeds of war are already burning.

    Eastern Europe (the war in Ukraine); the Middle East; and East Asia (Taiwan, the South and East China Seas; Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula could become the third hotbed of war).

    When pacifists, socialists, and social-democrats, Bolsheviks, and a group around Lenin met in Zimmerwald in September 1915, the first imperialist world war had already been raging for a year. None of those present at the time could have imagined the suffering that would accumulate by the end of the war.

    Twenty million dead, millions seriously injured, millions of war cripples, inflation, hunger, and misery.

    Only 21 years later, it was Germany again, fascist Nazi Germany, that unleashed a devastating, barbaric Second World War, with all its consequences and repercussions. Between 60 and 70 million people died, including 27 million Soviet Russians. Systematic persecution and brutal murder of the Jewish population in Europe (6 million dead). Organized by the fascist German state, financed by German finance capital, including Deutsche Bank, and “logistically” supported by German industry, from the Reichsbahn to IG Farbenindustrie AG.

    It should never be forgotten that a certain Hans Maria Globke, a staunch Nazi who played a key role in interpreting Hitler's racial laws, became one of the most powerful men in the Federal Republic under Adenauer in 1949. He is representative of many Nazi war criminals who shaped the reconstruction of West Germany after 1949.

    110 years of the Zimmerwald Conference. After 110 years, comrades, peace activists, anti-militarists, and anti-fascists are now meeting in Zimmerwald, Switzerland, to “make the impossible possible.” That is why this conference is so incredibly important. To talk, to discuss, and perhaps to agree on the most important things. To find and organize a working platform that serves world peace.

    There is no alternative to mobilizing all democratic and progressive forces worldwide to prevent an impending third world war. This war will be fought with nuclear weapons and will originate in Europe. The result will be the destruction of the entire world population. Ideological bias must not prevent us from working together consistently and powerfully.

    So we don't have much time left to stop the most aggressive militarists in the world. The cause of this inhumane, exclusively profit-oriented policy is imperialism and its military-industrial complex. That is the main cause that must be fought.

    The dockworkers in Piraeus, Marseille, Genoa, and elsewhere have proven what unity and solidarity can achieve.

    Powerful demonstrations in London, The Hague, Athens, Tel Aviv, Berlin, and all over the world against the genocide being carried out by Israel and its accomplices in the Gaza Strip, against the systematic “extermination” and expulsion of the Palestinian population, have not only sent a clear message. Murderous weapons and sophisticated military technology should no longer be supplied.

    Perhaps we will reach a point where the production of weapons of mass destruction can be prevented worldwide and stopped forever.

    At the end of my speech, I would like to draw your attention once again to Germany.

    In 1935, Joseph Roth wrote to Stefan Zweig: “And I will be proven right, because Hitler will not last much longer... and a new German Reich will come, slowly but surely.”

    Germany is still one of the strongest economies in the world. When this Germany now demands, in Goebbels-like fashion: “We must become fit for war again” (Defense Minister Pistorius), and when Foreign Minister Wadepuhl asserts: “Russia will remain our enemy forever,” and if it is then decided to spend almost 5% of GDP on armament, almost half of the federal budget by 2035, 3.5% by 2029! Plus an additional 1 trillion for armament, plus 500 billion for (military) infrastructure – then it becomes extremely dangerous.

    When “green steel” becomes olive green steel, when the aircraft and automotive industries are converted to arms manufacturing and war production, and when

    Rheinmetall shareholders pop champagne corks every day, it can only mean that Germany once again poses a major threat of war.

    The planned deployment of medium-range missiles in Germany in 2026 is another serious step toward war. That is why the Zimmerwald Conference in 2025 must be a great success.

    “Let us be realistic, let us attempt the impossible.” (Che Guevara)

    Warm greetings from Gelsenkirchen,

    Dietmar Breme

    Gelsenkirchen, 10 August 2025