Ukrainian sisters and brothers! This is our voice from Afghanistan, from the war-torn Middle East, from refugee camps, from exile and homeless camps, from the roads and pathways we have been walking for more than forty years. It is unfortunate that you too have been forced to leave your home and follow the same path. We strongly condemn the Russian imperialist army’s invasion of your country. This tragedy and criminal act is neither to be forgiven nor forgotten.
Forty-three years ago, the fathers and grandfathers of the same army invading your country invaded Afghanistan, armed to the teeth, albeit under a different name and flag. The revisionists transformed the Soviet Union into a state-capitalist country after 1956. They developed it into an imperialist-capitalist power, invaded and occupied Afghanistan in the name of “proletarian internationalism” and “world revolution” in 1980.
We also experienced the same bombings and rockets that are now falling on your head, killing you and destroying your cities and homes! Many people were suddenly attacked and killed by the Russian rocket launchers. Many villages disappeared with their living and dead. There is no family in Afghanistan who has not lost one or more members to the war. Forty-three years have passed since that invasion and there are still mothers waiting for their children to return! The wounds of this tragedy have not yet healed.
Dear Ukrainians! We, the people of Afghanistan share your grief, we share your pain! Today only the people of the world will truly understand your pain, not the variety of capitalist- imperialist powers, under the banner of NATO! You should not rely on them. They are not much better than Putin and imperialist Russia in their crimes, occupation and plunder. Unfortunately, we, the people of Afghanistan, have also experienced the bombs and rockets of NATO and the United States falling over our heads. We have seen how the West and NATO, in the name of homeland and liberty in competition with Soviet social-imperialism (1956-1991), began arming and supplementing the Islamic fundamentalists of the Mojahadin movement, promoting them hand in hand with the Taliban. We, the people of Afghanistan, have suffered under the Islamic fundamentalists who were supported by the CIA, the British MI6 and the Pakistani ISI in collaboration and competition with each other. And later Afghanistan was invaded by NATO under the banner of the “free world,” “democracy,” “women’s liberation” and “civilization.” They also bombed Afghanistan again and again, and destroyed its villages, burned down wedding ceremonies and appointed puppets like Ghani and Karzai. But we have all seen how the leaders of NATO and the United States and the “free world” twenty years later sat together with the Taliban and handed the fate and lives of 30 million Afghans over to the Taliban’s whip and reactionary tyranny!
Local children look at a U.S special forces member during their raid on a tiny farming village in Konar province, northeast of Kabul. U.S. forces and their Afghan clients terrorized people with such raids or dead-of-night house searches. Photo: AP
NATO and the United States, like Russia and China, are your enemy and the enemy of mankind. Do you think any of our lives mean anything to them and their economic, political, military and security plans? If you are still doubtful, look at the fate of Afghanistan or Iraq. For years Iraq experienced schemes of “oil for food.” Later it was subjected to direct attacks which resulted in killing of thousands of Iraqi children.
In Yemen, U.S. and NATO allies have been bombing cities and civilians with the latest heavy weapons for more than five years now, killing tens of thousands of children. Palestine has been occupied for decades by the Israeli regime, an ally of NATO, Russia and the United States. They have driven the Palestinian people from their homes. Don’t be fooled by NATO and U.S. imperialism. Learn from our tragic experience before Ukraine turns into Libya, Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan and becomes the battlefield of imperialist wars. Stop it before it is too late!
Ukrainian brothers and sisters! Don’t look for hope from any imperialist powers, whether the United States, Russia or the European Union and China. This hope is a groundless illusion! For 43 years the people of Afghanistan have been burning in the fire of imperialist wars that were not ours! The war in Ukraine is not your war either! This war is the result of economic and political competition for re-division of the world between the imperialists. The root cause of these wars is not the tyranny of criminals like Putin and the massacre and tyranny of his evil militias and army. The root cause of these wars, the basis of all this bloodshed and catastrophes is the imperialist capitalist system. It is their very nature to be crisis-ridden and belligerent against the lives and interests of the majority of humanity. This is a system of exploitation and oppression that has brought poverty and hunger to eight hundred million people on our planet. A billion people live in slums and absolute poverty. Millions of children are forced out of school and have to work. Millions of women are forced to go through sex and pornography “industries” or face violence, oppression, and humiliation. This is the system that threatens the entire environment and life on our planet. The fire and terror that is burning the borders of Russia and Ukraine this morning can reach the whole of Europe and even the rest of humanity. The rivalry and fight between these imperialists that unleashed the two world wars of 1914 and 1939 may strike the world again on a much larger and more horrifying scale, including with their nuclear weapons.
People of Ukraine, Russia, revolutionaries and freedom seekers/lovers around the world!
All of our lives are constrained by the capitalist imperialist system with its inevitable effects: war, exploitation, oppression, discrimination, poverty, hunger and so on. The hour is late and we don’t have much time to react! Life on the entire planet Earth is on the brink of catastrophe. The capitalist system cannot be reformed! Its dynamics, basic and inherent laws cannot be reformed, modified or controlled! This system is inherently catastrophic, warlike, and wretched. Within the framework of the capitalist system and its metabolism and functioning, man and humanity are ruined and doomed to bloodshed and suffering.
The only solution is to get rid of the catastrophe of the capitalist-imperialist system through genuine communist revolution and nothing less! Without this revolution, without a fundamental transformation of the system of capitalist production, without the destruction of the class system and the exploitation of people, without stopping the anarchic and crisis-ridden laws of capitalism, one cannot lead a dignified life for people nor can we create a peaceful society and world without war and misery. But for this revolution, we and you need a liberating theory, knowledge and insight that analyzes the root cause of all the tragedy and bloodshed, and proposes a fundamentally different solution. This knowledge and theory is not the phony communism which took power in the Soviet Union since 1956, occupying Afghanistan and fattening a class of state capitalists into the party and government of Russia.
A new communism has been built on and gone beyond what Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong brought forward. Today we need the new communism, formulated, synthesized and authored by Bob Avakian. This is a new horizon for revolution for the liberation of humanity and building socialism around the world—from Afghanistan to Russia, Ukraine to Yemen, Palestinian and Rohingya and Uyghur peoples, etc.
This new communism is free from the past errors, shortcomings and misunderstandings that arose in Marxist theory and practice in the socialist states of the Soviet Union (1917-1956) and socialist China (1949-1976). The new communism has advanced and supplemented the theory of communism in various fields. A scientific leap forward has been made in the understanding of reality of our world’s fundamental problem and its fundamental solution. The main sources of this science and theory can be found on the website (revcom.us) and on the Internet in different languages (English, German, Turkish, Spanish, Persian/Farsi, etc.).
We, the communists of Afghanistan, in this very difficult moment, amid the rise of the Taliban and a new round of tragedy and terror upon our people, took up the new communism and are trying to build a new communist party, create a victorious and revolutionary strategy, and build a movement to usher a communist revolution in Afghanistan.
Our appeal from the internationalist communists of Afghanistan to you, Ukrainian and Russian brothers and sisters, is to not stand by your own governments, which are either Putin-led imperialist capitalist governments or pro-Western and imperialist reactionary NATO governments led by Zelensky, but rather to embrace the defeats of our “own governments” and instead, mobilize the people for a revolution against the whole imperialist capitalist system.
In the midst of this horror, of war and destruction and the fragmented world, it is really possible to bring forth a movement for communist revolution with the aim and under the banner of the new communism and proletarian internationalism.
Down with Russian invasion of Ukraine!
Down with U.S. and NATO imperialism!
Long live the communist revolution! Long live proletarian internationalism!
The New Communism Movement of Afghanistan (JAKNA) March 14, 2022