The United $tates of Amerika is bombing the territory of Afghanistan. It is a fresh (and, one is led to believe, not the last) case of the u.$.a. launching missile strikes against the territory of a sovereign state without declaration of war. An act of revenge or a show of strength? If it is revenge, then one is bound to ask: against whom? Simple Afghan peasants – who definitely had not the slightest suspicion of the September 11 terrorist attacks – are dying for the buildings in New York City that were destroyed by nobody knows whom. Whatever our attitude to the Taliban regime, neither it, nor the mythological figure that is Bin Laden have assumed responsibility for the September 11 events in the u.$.

The Russian Maoist Party considers the bombardment of Afghanistan by the u.$. military to be a blatant act of aggression against a sovereign state. Against a regime that is quite far from us both ideologically and politically, but which, nevertheless, enjoys the support of a certain part of the country’s population. To be sure, we want to see Afghanistan as a secular democratic socialist state and we want it to get rid of religious hysteria. But this is not to be accomplished by Western bombardments and/or by the establishment of a puppet regime à la Babraq Karmal, financed by the CIA or the u.$. State Department. We want the people of Afghanistan to decide its own destiny.

An exaggerated passion for so-called “geopolitics” prompts many Left activists to endorse this or that group of Afghan islamist generals opposed to the Taliban regime. And, although this support is extended under the pretext that such forces are allegedly more “Westernized” or that, under their rule, Afghanistan may become more democratic and have the opportunity to solve some of its most burning social and political problems, this is far from being the case. The coming to power of a motley alliance of groups, all of them lieges to various feudal lords (ranging from Iran, Pakistan and the u.$. to Uzbekistan and other similar “…stans”), will result in nothing but new decades of senseless and bloody civil war.

In their struggle against capitalist oppression, the proletariat and the people of Russia have nothing to gain either from the terrorist attacks in Amerika, or from the bombardment of Afghanistan, or from the establishment of a new vaguely pro-Islamic regime in the latter country. Therefore we believe that, in the current situation, all leftist forces must rally to the support of the Afghanistan Liberation Organization (ALO) – the most progressive and democratic structure of Afghan society, the only force capable of restoring peace and tranquillity in the territory of that country.

Death to imperialism and religious obscurantism of all brands!
Long live socialist democracy!