A dream of capitalists: “United States of Europe”
In order to make a true interpretation on the European Union debate which has taken place during the recent years both in the bourgeois milieus and also in the left circles, it will be useful, first of all, to express an important point. It is necessary to make a distinction between two different subjects, the European Union (EU) in its concrete existence with an uncertain fate, and the “United States of Europe” that has not been realised in any ways though it was talked so much. In fact the capitalists’ dream of “United States of Europe” has an old history and was turned out to be nothing in every time before the ruling laws of capitalist system. The European Union, with its realised and realisable aspects, is a temporary economic union established between various capitalist countries. And the formation of this kind of unities is always possible. Yet, it is not possible, on the base of capitalism, to overcome the divisions in the form of nation-states and to reach a peaceful fusion of those European states. This kind of a fusion can only be achieved under the government of the working class, on the base of United Workers’ Soviets of Europe.
It is known that, the debate over the “United States of Europe” has enlivened in the conjecture of World War I. However the history of this idea goes further in the past. For example in the period of French Revolution, dream of an Europe, integrated from the point of view of economic relations and of cultural-historical base, was considered by bourgeois ideologues. In the following years, founders of Marxism too had come face to face with that debate of “Europe, united over the capitalist base”. This bourgeois dream was also defended by some organisations extending into the working class. One of the ideas that were proposed by Peace and Freedom Union constituted in 1867 in Switzerland by petty-bourgeois republicans and liberals was to establish the “United States of Europe”. The Union adopted the thesis that wars in Europe could only be prevented by that way. Marx and Engels criticised this pacifist attitude that was creating illusions in the working class about the nature of both internationalism and of capitalism. For example Engels referred this subject in 1875 while he was criticising German social-democrats’ Gotha programme.[1] Lasallites were setting up a hope of “union” belonging to liberal bourgeoisie, a hope of capitalist “United States of Europe” against the working class internationalism; whereas German workers leading the European workers movement had taken an internationalist attitude against the war. With supporting each other under hard conditions as in big strikes, they gave samples of the route that must be followed.
Kautsky and the “United States of Europe”
The Second International too adopted the slogan for a “United States of Europe” on a bourgeois base. For instance, Otto Bauer was uttering that the United States of Europe was not a dream and the European nations would reach that goal as an inevitable result of capitalist development.
In Lenin’s phrase, hand in hand with their imperialist bourgeoisie, socialist-masked social-chauvinists in European countries were trying to build an imperialist Europe over the shoulders of Asia and Africa.
In the period of First World War, the idea of “United States of Europe” was brought into agenda at a level enough to have an important repercussion. Let’s remember briefly the conditions at that time. In a world dragging towards an imperialist war, militarism was rising and a feverish preparation for re-sharing the world was being made in the big capitalist countries. The most concrete indicator of this was the increased expenditures on armament. The situation was forcing Marxists to be prepared ideologically, politically and organisationally in a revolutionary manner against the approaching war. Just at such conditions, Kautsky, admitted as the foremost Marxist authority of that period, began to develop analysis that would cause pacifist attitudes against imperialist wars.[2] He proposed the idea that armament and wars could not be assumed as an unavoidable product of imperialism. In order that the conflicts of interest between imperialist countries not to cause a war, he was advising European bourgeoisie to behave reasonably. He was uttering that agreeing with each other and exploiting the rest of the world altogether would be more suitable both for their interests and for restricting the manoeuvre area of reactionary Tsarist Russia. Kautsky, claiming that the “United States of Europe” established on a base of bourgeois parliamentarism would open a period of permanent peace, was writing the followings in his article dated 1911:
“… the realisation of such understandings betokens no guarantee for the permanent duration of the peace, which shall for ever ban the spectre of war. Therefore there is today only one way: The union of the States of European civilisation in a confederation with a universal trade policy, a federal Parliament, a federal Government and a federal arm – the establishment of the United States of Europe. This attained, something enormous would have been achieved. These United States would possess such overwhelming power that, without any war, they could compel all other nations, so far as these did not willingly do so, to join them, to disband their armies and give up their fleets. But with this would also disappear every necessity for the new United States themselves to be armed. They could then not merely give up all further armaments – the standing army, the warships for attack – the abandonment of which we to-day demand, but also every means of defence; even the citizen army itself would no longer be necessary. Thereby would the era of eternal peace be securely founded …”[3]
In this way the debate, whether an economic union achieved between European countries would be able to abolish the competition struggle between imperialist powers of the Continent, has fallen on the agenda since that times. According to those who consider and defend the economic unity of Europe as a lasting and progressing formation, steps taken towards the unity would have given the division of Europe into nation-states to an end and integrated them under in the frame of “United States of Europe”. Debates going on this axis had inevitably found its reflections among the revolutionary Marxists of the time and Rosa, Lenin and Trotsky assumed their own attitudes on this question.
Rosa and the “United States of Europe”
Rosa, as early as 1911, uncovered the real economic character of the capitalist United States of Europe project, which was supported among the German social-democrats by Ledebour and Kautsky. From one aspect this project was utopian because the modern nation-state was a historical product of economical development and it was impossible to overcome it by voluntary decisions. Although the concept of Europe was reflecting a geographical and, to a certain extent, a historical-cultural union base, the “United States of Europe” that was considered as a lasting economic union which would integrate nation-states under a single roof, could not get along well with the inherent realities of capitalism because of two reasons. Firstly, as long as the capitalist states continue to exist in Europe, a complete abolishment of the contradiction and the competition between them was not possible. Secondly, a European capitalism in which the economical relations would intensify solely on a continental scale could only be supposed as a speculation of mind. Because, in reality, capitalism was a world system and Europe was not an isolated and self-sufficient economic unity within this world economy.
Another more important point on which Rosa was attracting attention about this utopian project was the sly imperialist intentions that were tried to cover with the lies of “peace epoch” by the European imperialist powers. In spite of all radical masks, capitalists’ “United States of Europe” project could not offer any progressive solution to the working class. Whenever the bourgeois politicians defend the “Europenity” idea -unity of European states-, this was accompanied in each case by the bare or hidden denigration against “yellow danger”, “black continent” or “inferior races”. Shortly, the “United States of Europe” defended by bourgeoisie could not go beyond the point of being an imperialist abortion.
“And now if we, as Social Democrats, were to try to fill this old skin with fresh and apparently revolutionary wine, then it must be said that the advantages would not be on our side but on that of the bourgeoisie”[4] says Rosa. Because, whichever “revolutionary” cover was used, a “United States of Europe” project that remains under the frame work of capitalist social order would mean, from the economical point of view, a tariff war with the USA. Therefore political results of this project would not be the “peace” but, on the contrary, imperialist conflicts and wars. Thus, Rosa was raising the voice of revolutionary Marxism against people such as Kautsky who was telling liberal “peace” tales to the working class while the world was actually being dragged into a hellish war. She kept this attitude till end. She referred to the same subject in “Thesis On the Tasks of International Social-Democracy” in the well-known Junius pamphlet in 1915. Eighth article of the thesis explains clearly that the world peace could be assured neither through unbiased courts of capitalist diplomats, diplomatic “disarmament” treaties nor utopian or, in fact, reactionary projects like the “United States of Europe”. Because, as Rosa expresses, “imperialism, militarism and war can never be abolished nor attenuated so long as the capitalist class exercises, uncontested, its class hegemony. The sole means of successful resistance, and the only guarantee of the peace of the world, is the capacity for action and the revolutionary will of the international proletariat to hurl its full weight into the balance.”[5]
Lenin and the “United States of Europe”
In October 1914, Lenin too referred to the United States of Europe question that caused various debates at that time, in The Manifesto of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Manifesto defended the slogan of republican United States of Europe against Europe under the reactionary oppression of monarchies. It says that “The formation of a republican United States of Europe should be the immediate political slogan of Europe’s Social-Democrats.”[6] However, social-democrats had to be very careful when they were defending this slogan. Because the bourgeoisie who was ready to promise everything in order to drag proletariat into the general stream of chauvinism was also using the United States of Europe slogan for its own interests. Therefore proletariat had to be absolutely clarified about the fact that this watchword would be a lie and a meaningless slogan unless the German, Australian and Russian monarchies were liquidated.
In Bern Conference of the RSDLP Sections Abroad, the United States of Europe question was again considered and this time Lenin expressed some doubts. Debate about the slogan for a “United State of Europe” was going on along one-dimension and getting a solely political character. But the question had also got a more important dimension, an economical meaning. So the Conference decided to postpone debates for studying the economic side of the question in party press. Then Lenin published his article named “On the Slogan for a United States of Europe” in August 1915 for this reason.
According to this article, the slogan for a “United States of Europe” was formulised directly as an immediate political slogan in the Central Committee’s Manifesto. However, to avoid any misunderstanding it was not satisfied with only mentioning about republican United States of Europe and emphasised especially that this aim would be a false and meaningless one “without the revolutionary overthrow of the German, Austrian and Russian monarchies”. That’s why there was no problem in the political content. But this slogan had a problem from the standpoint of economical content. Lenin concluded that the “United States of Europe” under capitalist relations was economically either impossible or a reactionary target. It was impossible because in the capitalist system the nation-state, just as the private property, was not a temporary fact but a fundamental expression of capitalist contradiction. It was reactionary because rival European imperialist forces like France and Germany were trying to carry out this unity by means of imperialist wars and military aggressiveness.
In his article, Lenin refers to economic basis of the matter and lists the main lines of the subject that will be treated subsequently in detail in his book called Imperialism. First of all, capital has assumed an international and monopolist character and the world has been carved up by a handful of great powers. A repartition could only be took place according to the power balance between big capitalist countries, and this balance changes with the course of economic development. “Under capitalism, there are no other means of restoring the periodically disturbed equilibrium than crises in industry and wars in politics.”[7]
Lenin, thus explained that an absolute interest unity that would put an end to division of European countries into nation-states was not possible. Hence a permanent unification was also impossible. Therefore, the thought of preventing wars by means of a “United States of Europe” under capitalism was completely unfounded. Temporary agreements between capitalists and between states were possible and the suppositions about a European union could be considered only in this content. However, such an agreement could express a positive meaning only for European bourgeoisies’ interests. What about the interests of the working class?
Lenin was uttering that an agreement between capitalists would mean a jointly suppressing socialism in Europe and a jointly protecting colonial booty against Japan and America. Compared with the United States of America, Europe as a whole was in an economic stagnation. On these economic conditions a United States of Europe would result an organisation of reaction also in point of retarding America’s more rapid development. Therefore, the times when the cause of socialism was associated only with Europe had gone for ever. Thus, after investigating the question of United States of Europe from various aspects, Lenin ended his article as follows: “after repeated discussions … the Central Organ’s editors have come to the conclusion that the slogan for a United States of Europe is an erroneous one.”[8]
Other than its impossibility, the idea of a United States of Europe emerged from the extension needs of European monopolist capital is imperialist and reactionary for working class. For this reason, points emphasised in Lenin’s article titled as On the Slogan for a United States of Europe are completely true and corresponding to the concrete reality. However, the critical attitude of Lenin, in the same article, towards Trotsky for his defence of the slogan for a United States of Europe is strange. Because, Trotsky does not defend a United States of Europe on a capitalist base. On the contrary, the United States of Europe which Trotsky defends is a Europe unified under a workers’ power. True person that was addressed by Lenin’s criticism could only be Kautsky. And thus Lenin too was criticising Trotsky as he was thinking that Trotsky had been inspired by Kautskist thoughts. However, as can easily be understood from Trotsky’s thought on the United State of Europe, his approach has nothing in common with Kautskist political attitude.
Another point that must be clarified in Lenin’s article causing various debates is in regard to the strategy of proletarian revolution. It is known that Stalinists, in order to strike “Trotskyism”, have been trying to use this article as evidence regarding the “socialism in one country”. Yet the truth of the matter is that those lines being distorted by Stalinists are not about the construction of socialism but the conquest of the power. In regard to the impossibility of constructing socialism in one country, the light of revolutionary Marxism is so shining that it will be completely useless to try to find essential and important differences between Lenin and Trotsky.
Lenin deals with the slogan for a United States of Europe adopted by Trotsky from the point of its meaning under a workers’ power too. As he thinks that this approach would mean to defend simultaneous revolutions on the whole European continent, Lenin declares that such an approach is false. Because, according to Lenin, the European working class, in this case, would be obliged to wait for a simultaneous revolution and realisation of the goal of United States of Europe. However, it is possible to overthrown the capitalist state at first in a several or even in one country. And when it comes on the agenda, this probability points to a mission that must be fulfilled.
But it is not true to say that defending the goal of United States of Europe Trotsky, in regard to the conquest of political power, has been taken a “waiting” attitude which was completely different from that of Lenin. Because the fact which Trotsky tried to express insistently was not that the power could not be conquered by proletariat in one country, but that workers’ power could not be protected and socialism could not be built in one country. Likewise, Trotsky explains that there were no essential differences on this subject between himself and Lenin and quotes the following lines from “1915 Peace Program” as proof: “Not a single country must ‘wait’ for the other countries in its struggle. It will be useful and necessary to repeat this elementary idea so that temporizing international inaction may not be substituted for parallel international action. Without waiting for the others, we must begin and continue the struggle on national grounds with the full conviction that our initiative will provide an impulse to the struggle in other countries.”[9]
Trotsky and the “United States of Europe”
In some articles written by Trotsky during the First World War, there is the slogan for a United States of Europe having neither monarchies nor permanent armies.[10] He thinks that a Europe which has not been divided by tariffs and national borders would be a positive step with respect to transition to socialist organisation of the world economy. He tries to associate this slogan directly with the revolutionary struggle of working class aiming the conquest of power. However, because of some reasons such as usage of this same slogan by bourgeoisie and especially distortions made by Kautsky, this subject has followed a very controversial course. In addition, at the beginning Trotsky, too, could not clarify sufficiently that by this slogan he had defended essentially a working class power in Europe. This situation caused Trotsky to be misunderstood and considered as if he defends a bourgeois democratic United States of Europe. Yet Trotsky puts forward the idea that the proletariat must stand against the imperialist war with a social revolution programme. He raises the working class’ peace programme against smashing of Europe by bloody conflicts between imperialist powers. He defends that a peace programme which would give an end to the destruction of productive forces, to imperialist wars and to savage militarism, could be implemented only on the base of a Europe unified and integrated under a workers’ power.
Thus, just as Lenin, Trotsky too was rejecting the possibility that a capitalist United States of Europe could be realized. Against the distorting efforts of his primary articles related to the slogan of the United States of Europe, he reminds that he did not defend a United States in a capitalist frame even in 1914: “That was also my approach to the question when I advanced the slogan of the United States of Europe exclusively as a prospective state form of the proletarian dictatorship in Europe”.[11] Since that time, he had been defending the following idea: “A more or less complete economic unification of Europe accomplished from above through an agreement between capitalist governments is a utopia. Along this road matters cannot proceed beyond partial compromises and half measures”.[12] He was calling attention to an extremely important reality by saying that an economic unification of Europe would in fact entail colossal advantages both to the producer and consumer and to the development of culture in general. However, such a unification could be succeeded only by the revolutionary struggle of European workers. Therefore, the realisation of the goal of workers’ United States of Europe was becoming a revolutionary task of the European proletariat in its struggle against the imperialist protectionism, the nationalist isolationism and the militarism as an instrument of these all.
Since the formulation of a “United States of Europe without monarchies, permanent armies and secret diplomacy” he propagandised in Peace Programme had caused various speculations, he had to return this subject in the following years. In the extended version of his article dated 1923, he treated the claims of his opponents who were distorting his views by setting forth that this slogan could acquire a reactionary and an imperialist content under certain conditions. In fact, he was trying to clarify an important point which is related to the essential character difference between two lines starting from the era of Marx and Engels and reaching till now, with respect to organise, secure and develop the working class power.
The petty-bourgeois socialism is, in essence, a national-developmentalism covered with a bit of revolutionary phrases. Whereas the proletarian socialism stands over a scientific and a wide scoped base, completely free from the obsession of national borders reflecting the interest of bourgeoisie. In general, proletariat does not have any interest in the division of world into nation-states. Moreover, in capitalist Europe, the bourgeoisies’ relatively revolutionary nationalism epoch has finally ended. Revolutionary Marxism does not stand for the national market and tariffs against the process advancing in the direction of economic integration. If the continents’ imperialist powers support some kinds of unifications for their interest, revolutionary working class will make a stand against this with the goal of creating a united soviet government of workers, not with the flag of “national defence”. This is the main line of what Trotsky tried to argue in his Peace Programme.
A United States of Europe on a capitalist base is really impossible. However let us imagine for a while an integrated Europe not divided into nation-states and tariffs. This assumption would mean a broader material basis for socialism objectively. Therefore Trotsky was saying that: “If the capitalist states of Europe succeeded in merging into an imperialist trust, this would be a step forward as compared with the existing situation, for it would first of all create a unified, all-European material base for the working class movement.”[13]
It is no doubt that economic and political development of the world tends to gravitate toward a unified world economy. For this reason, Trotsky reminds that the question of “Why a European Federation and not a World Federation?” might be asked against arguing the slogan for a United States of Europe. However, if we take into consideration the concrete situation of that period, it could easily be seen that such a question would be an abstract and a dogmatic one. Because, the concrete problem that must be solved was concerned not with the future socialist economy of the world but with finding a revolutionary way out of the present Europe impasse. Europe is not only a geographic term; it also reflects an economic and cultural-historic community. In the First World War, even after the intervention of the USA, it was Europe that was the arena of war. Saying that “the revolutionary problems confront first of all the European proletariat”, Trotsky explains that setting forth the slogan of the United States of Europe was not depend on his choice but on the Marxist analysis of the concrete situation.
The slogan for a United States of Europe defended by Trotsky with a proletarian content since 1915s was rejected by Lenin and Bolshevik Party for a period. But following the October Revolution this attitude had changed in a certain degree. Because it became clear for the Marxists that the meaning of this slogan was to create the workers' united Europe in connection with advancing the world revolution. Thus, the article named “Is the Slogan of ‘the United States of Europe’ a Timely One?”[14] written by Trotsky in 1923 on the Ruhr Crisis[15], was adopted officially by the Executive Committee of the Comintern in spite of a considerable opposition. Trotsky made the following consideration about the matter in 1928: “It was no mere accident that, despite all prejudices, the slogan of a Soviet United States of Europe was adopted precisely in 1923, at a time when a revolutionary explosion was expected in Germany, and when the question of the state interrelationships in Europe assumed an extremely burning character. Every new aggravation, of the European and indeed of the world crisis is sufficiently sharp to bring to the fore the main political problems and to invest the slogan of the United States of Europe with attractive power.”[16]
As Trotsky explained in his article on Ruhr Crisis, Europe was smashed, cut up, divided, exhausted, upset, disorganised and Balkanised and transformed into a madhouse. The need of the productive forces for a broader arena of development that was not hampered by tariff walls was laying at the bottom of the war. The aggressive methods adopted by the ruling bourgeoisie to overcome obstacles created by the national frontiers were causing disintegration to be more severe and millions of people to die. Another bourgeois attempt for organising the unity of Europe over this base, for example the rising militarism in Germany, would cause either collapsing of European civilisation or the counter-revolutionary domination of American imperialism over the globe.
In these circumstances, only the proletariat could rescue Europe from disintegration. But, while the revolutionary wave was withdrawing, in order to join workers and toilers under the revolutionary flag of the proletariat, it was necessary to set forth transitional slogans which could gain masses for the goals of struggle. At that period, the Comintern had proposed “a workers’ and peasants’ government” as the slogan of united front. Trotsky insisted on the idea that this slogan had to be incorporated with the call for a United States of Europe that would be realised by the workers’ own efforts. Only such an orientation could save Europe from an economic decay and from enslavement to American capitalism. The slogan of the United States of Europe must be regarded as a step toward the dictatorship of the proletariat. “The United States of Europe –a purely revolutionary perspective– is the next stage in our general revolutionary perspective”, said Trotsky.[17] Commenting the slogan not as founding directly the dictatorship of the proletariat but as a step on the way towards it could be seen as if it might create some confusion; yet this was not an important problem.Because this approach was not erecting various governmental stages before the revolutionary power of workers, and was only aiming to advance mass struggle to the goal of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Advancing of revolutionary struggle would already raise this slogan to its real content.
On the other hand, although it was not possible to impose apriori a sequence on the process of world revolution, it was absolutely possible that course of events might cause Europe to get ahead of America. For Trotsky, the events in Europe were important from this point of view and it was extremely probable that these events could affect America. Trotsky was thinking that a probable revolution in Europe would absolutely break the self-confidence of American capitalist class and accelerate the process of conquering the power by American working class. He was not stopping at the point of arguing the idea of European Federation realised under a workers’ power, and by defending probable workers’ Soviet federations in the Middle East, Balkans etc. he was trying to embody the goal of World Soviet Federation. He was considering that, for a united Europe, Soviet Union might form a reliable bridge reaching over to Asia. Thus, together with Soviet Union, the united Europe could constitute a centre of attraction for the oppressed peoples of Asia. The revolutionary block of European and Asian peoples could confront the threat from the USA. A non-unified Europe could not achieve this.
The slogan for a United States of Europe that was adopted by the Comintern in 1923 was able to last its validity only till 1926. In a pamphlet titled as “the Socialist United States of Europe”, written by John Pepper and printed in 1926 by the official publishing house of the Comintern, the followings were said: “It is very important that we not only have a critical position towards this bourgeois-social democratic demand (‘Pan-Europe’), by demolishing its fraudulent pacifist contents, but that at the same time we set up against it a positive slogan which can actually be the comprehensive political slogan for our transitional demands. For the next period the slogan of the United States of Socialist Europe must serve as the comprehensive political slogan for the European communist parties.”[18] However these were the last ones for this kind.
The goal of founding workers’ United States of Europe got its share amply from Stalinist attacks associated with the establishment of absolute domination of Stalinism in the Soviet Union and in the Comintern. Because it is impossible to comport a goal directly related to the world revolution with the Stalinist theory of “socialism in one country”. Trotsky explained that the ideology of socialism in one country would inevitably cause blurring the reactionary role of nation-state, which has already become tight for productive forces, reconciling with it, idealising it, and thus reducing the importance of revolutionary internationalism. In very deed, this Stalinist ideology is a defence of nation-state covered with a socialist jargon. That’s why everything related to the perspective of world revolution, including the goal of a United States of Europe based on workers’ soviets was eliminated from the Cominterns’ draft program published in 1928 with the signs of Stalin and Buharin. In an environment where criticisms were forbidden and opposing voices were silenced, draft program was adopted in the sixth congress of the Comintern without an important change. Trotsky was criticising Stalinist attitude which finds its expression in the draft, and adding that there was no acceptable reason for the elimination of United States of Europe approach, which had a content of soviets’ power, from the program of the world communist movement.
Trotsky has continued to defend resolutely the perspective of the world revolution against hostile attitude of the leadership of Stalinist Comintern towards this perspective. In an article titled as “Disarmament and the United States of Europe” and published in 1929, Trotsky once again set forth clearly that Europe had to be united under a revolutionary workers’ power. As Trotsky indicated, the productive forces have definitely outgrown the framework of the national state and now they have to be conceived only on a world scale. In fact, the imperialist war had grown out of the contradiction between the productive forces and national boundaries. There is no doubt that socialism can not attain its full development even in the limits of a single continent. Therefore, “the Socialist United States of Europe represents the historical slogan which is a stage on the road to the world socialist federation.”[19]
Just as Lenin, Trotsky had also carried out a lasting struggle to save working class from the evil of social-chauvinism raised during imperialist war especially in European countries. In a document of the Fourth International dated 1940, he reminds its main mission to the European working class being dragged once again into an imperialist war: “Against the reactionary slogan of ‘national defense’ it is necessary to advance the slogan of revolutionary destruction of the national state. To the mad-house of capitalist Europe it is necessary to counterpose the program of the Socialist United States of Europe as a stage on the road to the Socialist United States of the World.”[20]
Enormous rising of American imperialism, on the one hand, sharpened the contradictions among capitalist European countries worrying about a bigger share from the world market; on the other hand, it also incited bourgeois dreams of confronting the USA by uniting. Trotsky, in one of his article, was expressing brilliantly the exact material source of this bourgeois dream about a United States of Europe: “If the capitalist world were able to endure several more decades without revolutionary paroxysms, then these decades would unquestionably witness the uninterrupted growth of American world dictatorship.”[21] However, this process would inevitably sharpen contradictions between USA and Europe. Because, the USA would force Europe to strive for an ever increasing rationalisation and at the same time would leave Europe an ever decreasing share of the world market. Thus, the competition among European countries for a bigger share of the world market would inevitably become aggravated. At the same time, under the pressure of USA, capitalist powers of Europe would also try to unite their forces.
As we are finishing the subject of the United States of Europe, it seems that there is not a lot of things that must be added to Trotsky’s words. In the imperialist world wars that transform the world into a hell, the working class had suffered two times from following the liberal bourgeois lies. And today American imperialism is declaring war all around in order to become unrivalled sovereign of the world. Neither “United Nations” nor “European Union” is able to prevent this madness. On the contrary, all present unions of the imperialist system are dragging into deep crisis in the period of a new sharing war. American imperialism claims to introduce a new “order” to the world on lines of the interest of its own oil and arm barons. We will see whether the European Union, supposedly proceeding in a road to become a capitalist “United States of Europe”, can exist as a “unity” even at the present level. The allegation that capitalist Europe can represent an anti-war and a democratic choice against the aggressive USA will inevitably collapse once again with a big uproar. In the imperialist epoch, the argument that democracy and peace can be achieved by the capitalist Europe is a poisonous lie for the working class. A democratic and peaceful world can be achieved only and only by the revolutionary power of the working class. Therefore the sole salvation for our world being under the invasion of imperialist aggressors is the proletarian world revolution that will sweep away capitalism from our planet. The slogan of the United Workers’ Soviets of Europe as a part of Workers’ Soviets of the World, which will be a gift of this revolution to humanity, is still valid.
[1] Engels to August Bebel In Zwickau, March 18-28 1875, (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/75_03_18.htm)
[2] One of the important reason of our calling attention to these matter that was discussed several years ago is that, in fact, the present attacks on Marxism under the mask of “new ideas” are not a new phenomenon and are nourished from the ideas of old renegades like Kautsky. For instance, the thesis that was suggested by Toni Negri in his book, the Empire, which has became a famous book thanks to European left intellectual circles, is nothing but another version of the Kautskist theory of “continuous peace epoch beyond imperialism”.
[3] Kautsky, War and Peace (29 April 1911), (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1911/04/war1911.htm)
[4] Rosa Luxemburg, Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, “Peace Utopias” (May 1911),Pathfinder Press, 1999, p.352
[5] Rosa Luxemburg, ibid, p.450
[9] Trotsky, The Peace Program, Works, Vol.III, part 1, p.89-90, Russian ed. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti01.htm#n5)
[10] For example, the War and the International (1914), and the Peace Program (1915)
[11] Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin, (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti01.htm)
[12] ibid.
[13] Trotsky, The Programme of Peace, (http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch11.htm)
[14] Trotsky, The First Five Years of the Communist International, vol.2, Monad Press, 1977, p.341-346
[15] The crisis broke out as a result of occupation of Ruhr region by France. The Ruhr region of Germany is rich in mineral and coal deposits.
[16] Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin,(http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/3rd/ti01.htm)
[17] Trotsky, The First Five Years of the Communist International, vol.2, p.346
[18] quoted in, Trotsky, The Third International After Lenin
[19] Trotsky, Disarmament and the United States of Europe, (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1929/10/disarm.htm)
[20] Trotsky, Manifesto of the Fourth International on the Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution, in Writings of Leon Trotsky, Merit Publishers (June 1969), p.34
[21] Trotsky, Disarmament and the United States of Europe, (http://marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1929/10/disarm.htm)
link: Elif Çağlı, “The United States of Europe”?, 12 April 2003, https://marksist.net/node/1859