The following greetings were sent by the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists (a Trotskyist organization in Russia and the former Soviet Union that has declared its political support for the International Committee of the Fourth International) to a meeting on “The war in Ukraine and how to stop it” held March 20 at the University of Sao Paulo by the Socialist Equality Group (Brazil), which is in political solidarity with the ICFI.

The Young Guard of the Bolshevik-Leninists welcomes the antiwar meeting by our Brazilian comrades from the Socialist Equality Group.

We support its holding as an event of great importance for the building of a mass antiwar movement that stands for socialist internationalism.

The relevance of the meeting is beyond doubt. The world is on the brink of World War III because of the imperialist policies of the NATO countries, especially the United States.

This policy has already led to the war in Ukraine, which has taken hundreds of thousands of lives of Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities affected by this war. And these are only the immediate victims of the war.

The Putin regime, dreaming of equal relations with its 'Western partners,' decided to play Russian roulette on February 24, 2022, which only accelerated the imperialist offensive of NATO.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism in its former republics, the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchies, each in its own way, hoped to integrate into the world capitalist system.

The Ukrainian oligarchy chose the “European path,” culminating in the 2014 Western-backed coup d'état. The Russian oligarchy, on the other hand, has always sought to have a benevolent relationship with imperialism, without giving up its own position in terms of being able to exploit the Russian working class and the country's natural resources.

In the final analysis, both the Putin government and the Zelensky government are based on maintaining a capitalist system whose essence is the exploitation of Russian and Ukrainian workers.

The rhetoric by both sides is accompanied by their professed desire to “secure national interests,” but what is really at stake for these regimes are the oligarchic interests of the ruling classes of both countries.

There is no way out for the working class if it bases its position on bourgeois nationalism. Only the perspective of the unification of the international working class in a struggle against war, imperialism and the capitalist system as a whole can provide a way forward.

The contribution of the Brazilian working class to the development of Brazil and the world (all the wealth of Brazil and all of humanity are the product of the labor of workers)

The Brazilian working class makes a great contribution to the development of the productive forces of all mankind. It must realize that the main obstacle to the further development of the whole world, and of Brazil in particular, is the current system of capitalist production.

The war in Ukraine has brought damage not only to the immediate participants in this conflict, but also to the whole world. The capitalist countries, against the background of rising international tensions, have chosen the path of militarization in order to be ready for a new redistribution of the world.

But they have chosen to extract the means for this militarization from the products of the labor of the international working class. And the Brazilian working class is no exception in this matter. It faces the same problems as workers around the world: worsening working conditions, falling real wages, cuts in social spending, and the threat to life and health from the COVID-19 pandemic and other diseases.

And now the danger is posed that the whole world may be engulfed in the flames of a new world war, unlike anything we have seen before. For this war could well turn out to be nuclear and would pose a threat not only to all the achievements of human society, but also threaten its very existence.

The workers and youth of Brazil must once and for all put an end to the illusions in the present Lula government, which is based on the suppression of the struggles of the working class and the realization of the interests of the Brazilian oligarchy.

Lula's government is a bourgeois government defending bourgeois interests and representing them on the international scene.

It already seeks in every way to limit the strike movement in Brazil, to abolish COVID-19 surveillance, and to prepare the country for new laws in the “interests of Brazilian business.”

The threat of a fascist coup by Bolsonaro has been ignored. Lula would rather provide a cover for the far-right than be a valid defender of the democratic rights of Brazil's working class and youth.

But Lula's government has tried to maintain stability, including with the help of the union bureaucracy. The unions have tried, through various means, to keep the working class off the streets.

The trade unions seek to divide and suppress the working class. Their role consists in buying time for the capitalist government, so that it can prepare either retaliatory repressive measures or petty handouts that do nothing to resolve the crisis situation.

The working class and the youth of Brazil must turn to the lessons of their own history of successes and failures in the workers’ class struggle. It is important to turn to the history of the trade union movement of the early 20th century, the military dictatorship of 1964, and the labor movement in the 1980s that led to the fall of the military dictatorship. Finally, it is necessary to assimilate the consequences of globalization for the international struggles of the working class.

A genuine revolutionary movement of the Brazilian working class and youth against war, imperialism and the whole capitalist system is possible only on the basis of the lessons of history, an understanding of the nature of the current regime and of the reactionary role of the trade unions.

We support this meeting as a step toward building a revolutionary party of the Brazilian working class. A party that will defend the independent position of the working class, and act in solidarity with the working class around the world through the International Committee of the Fourth International.

With revolutionary greetings,

The Central Committee of the Young Guard Bolshevik-Leninists