The Internationalist Anti-War Conference of Athens, held from July 22 to 24, concluded with a very important Declaration. The conference was organized on the initiative of Communist Liberation (Kommounistiki Apeleftherosi) and attended by organizations from a number of countries, both through delegations in Athens and via online connection.
The declaration is detailed and specific, highlighting an elevated level of agreement, while also including joint practical actions and promoting the overall effort to build a network of revolutionary workers’, anti-capitalist, and left-wing organizations, with its primary duty being the struggle against imperialist wars and the comprehensive capitalist offensive.
Read declaration in Greek here
DOWN WITH IMPERIALIST WARS
FOR INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ REVOLUTIONARY UNITY
We have entered a new era of wars, as the struggle for global hegemony between the various capitalist powers is intensifying. Global capitalist architecture is being reshaped violently. «War capitalism» constitutes a a solution driven by the crisis of the global bourgeoisie. Ukraine, Palestine, Iran and the Middle East/Western Asia are, for the time being, the principal battlefields of a new stage in the imperialist confrontation which is escalating into a new world war. Old world order is dying and, before a new one emerges, we live in a «world of monsters».
In this world, peoples are – as always – the main victims. Not only in the battlefields, but in their daily lives as well. War and war economy are used as a pretext for the new wave of brutal attacks against them. Against our working conditions, which are deteriorating fast, in the name of the «national interest» and the competitiveness of the capitalists. Targeting public goods and our needs, which are under attack. Against our democratic rights, as our protests, strikes and movements tend to be characterized illegal.
We are also viewing a continuation of the frenzied bourgeois attack on our working class, with a massive influx of permanent neoliberal counter-reforms, chauvinism, racism, and sexism. It is in this context that we should view the support of important sectors of the bourgeois to the parties of the extreme right that are reaching electoral and governmental positions in many nations, and that represent an strategic option for capital in this historical phase of imperialist decay.
Until now, we have to admit that this is occurring without an adequate unified fightback movement of the proletarian masses and has therefore led to a certain degree of paralysis and disgregation, also of the previous reformist class consciousness, within the ranks of the working class.
Even so, however, their plan regarding the elimination of the threat represented by the so-called «internal enemy», has not yet been fulfilled. This is the real reason behind the global anti-communist campaign launched by Trump, the competition among European governments over which of them can suppress every form of protest and dissent most effectively, and the rise of authoritarian regimes all over the world.
The outcome of this «existential fight» of our times has not yet been determined. Our war is different from their imperialist wars. We have a choice. It is a choice that the peoples of the world have to make if humanity is to avoid descending into the abyss of war. We are determined to do whatever we can so that the international working class emerges victorious. The global rebellion against the Zionist genocide in Gaza, popular rebellions in Latin America and Asia, general strikes in Europe, the rejection of Trump’s reactionary agenda and his war against the enemy within, are all examples of the path we are called to follow . Breaking with this unholy alliance is one of the fundamental tasks of revolutionary communists. It is our obligation to intervene in the mass movements in the most decisive way, defending the a fundamental idea: The main enemy is at home!
Revolution and communism are used as a boogeyman by Trump and the reactionary leaders of the world in a hysterical maccarthyist campaign, but even capitalist surveys show that socialism and communism are growingly supported, as a general, ideal reference, by millions sick of the disaster of living under the decadent final stage of capitalism. They still represent the «youth of the world», a future that is worth fighting for.
- In Ukraine, the war has long entered its fifth year, with hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, with millions of refugees and displaced. Long prepared by the United States and the EU, the war that broke out between NATO and Russia on Ukrainian soil marked the point of no return in the shift of global inter-capitalist conflicts from an economic-commercial to a strategic-military level.
This is a war against the Russian and Ukrainian proletarians, and – at the same time – against the proletariat of all countries. It is a horrendous slaughter, for the purposes of domination rather than liberation, of Russian, Ukrainian, and other nationalities enlisted to serve either front.
It is no coincidence that in Ukraine, there are hundreds of thousands of deserters and draft evaders from recruitment. There are thousands of incidents of resistance to recruiting gangs, and several demonstrations by wives and mothers of recruits, with explicit calls for defeatism (“Point your guns at those who put them in your hands,” read a banner on a building on the outskirts of Kharkiv). Similar phenomena have also occurred on a smaller scale in Russia, where mass discontent with the war itself and its consequences appears to be growing. We stand with them, for revolutionary defeatism, for the fraternization of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers against the bloodshed, the overthrow of the puppet Zelensky and Putin’s capitalist-military regimes and for workers’ power.
- In Palestine, the genocide committed by the terror state of Israel against the Palestinian people is ongoing and intensifying, despite the “truce”. Following the October 7 Palestinian offensive, Israel launched a comprehensive genocidal campaign aimed at the total liquidation of Palestine, targeting not only Gaza but also systematically attacking the West Bank as well. This horrific genocide unfolded before the eyes of the entire world, actively reinforced by the overt complicity of European imperialist powers alongside the US.
The heroic resistance of the Palestinian people is a lesson and an inspiration for all of us, for the revolutionaries all over the world. The Palestinian cause is incompatible with the genocidal State of Israel. The defeat and dismantling of the Zionist state and of imperialist domination are indispensable conditions for the establishment of a united, secular, democratic, and socialist Palestine in which Muslims, Jews, Christians, and all other peoples can live together from the river to the sea, guaranteeing the right of return.
- In the Middle East/Western Asia, the war against Iran, Lebanon and other countries is continuing. The destruction of existing states, the establishment of collaborationist regimes, the control of energy resources and trade routes and the elimination of every force capable of resisting US-Zionist domination constitute different components of a single strategic project.
In Iran especially, which occupies a decisive position in the strategic balance of the Middle East, US-Israeli imperialism made a historic strategic miscalculation), assuming that its regime would rapidly collapse. However, Iran has essentially won a first battle in the war, achieving a great level of strategic deterrence. This has dealt a massive shock to Trump and the US, as well as to Netanyahu and the Zionist state, which may well make them even more aggressive in the wider region as they seek to minimize the consequences of their strategic failure in the war.
Earlier this year, prior to the US-Israeli imperialist aggression, the Iranian people had unleashed a massive popular uprising against the poverty induced by the USA sanctions and the reactionary and austerity policies of the Iranian regime. Yet, this spontaneous rebellion was brutally suppressed. The overthrow of the bourgeois state and the clerical regime can only be achieved through the organized, self-emancipatory struggle of Iranian workers, youth, women, and oppressed nationalities of Iran. Never at the hands of imperialism and its Zionist lackey. On the contrary, they must be rejected and defeated in order to pave the way for social revolution.
Cyprus has also, throughout its modern history, been a victim of imperialism: through its use as the largest British military base in the region (with 3% of the island’s territory remaining under British sovereignty), and through the partition of the island, which was the result of imperialist interventions and the nationalism of the ruling classes of Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus. Recently the level of this policy of imperialism is increasing. Cyprus is not an aircraft carrier for imperialists! For a united, federal, socialist Cyprus through the common struggle of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers!
Cyprus is not a base for imperialists! Cyprus’s destiny will be determined by its own people!
- In Latin America, there is an ongoing offensive aimed at aligning the region with the US interests, securing greater autonomy in the supply of raw materials essential to the US economy and defense (lithium, rare earths, etc.) and blocking the advance of rival powers. One of these objectives is to prevent China’s advance into the Latin American economy, to the detriment of US monopoly interests.
The US plan was detailed in December 2025, updating the Monroe Doctrine (1823, «The Americas for the Americans»), now called the Donroe Doctrine, to regulate and control Latin America. Less than a month later, on January 3rd this year, American forces invaded Caracas, carrying out bombings and massacring the guard, largely made up of Cuban soldiers, and abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, taking them as hostages to a US jail.
At the same time, the US stepped up its offensive against Cuba, reimposing a economic criminal blockade – particularly on oil – and cutting off supplies previously sent from Venezuela, and from other countries. The overthrow, by any means, of the Cuban government and the conquests of the Cuban Revolution is the publicly declared aim of the Trump government and CIA. We declare our complete opposition to this new imperialist offensive against the island, our unconditional solidarity with the Cuban people, and, at the same time, we firmly stand against the reforms of capitalist restoration by the Cuban government.
On the other hand, the victory in different elections of the Latin America right and extreme right (partially as a result of the disillusionment with the Pink Tide) does not signify a retreat of the popular movement; on the contrary, it is accompanied by the fights of the Argentinian working class and youth against Milei, in the demonstrations of the Chilean youth against Kast’s government and especially in the indefinite strike and road blockades carried out mainly by tens of thousands of workers and peasants in Bolivia. This historic event lasted more than 50 days and featured mass marches and clashes with police, military/paramilitary forces and sent a deep shockwave across the continent, and for Trump and the national bourgeoisies aligned with his reactionary and warmongering agenda.
- The decline of the US is accelerating, despite the efforts to reverse it and to reshape the equilibrium. The global offensive waged by the Trump administration is a part of its attempt to halt the US decline as a hegemonic imperialist power. Nevertheless, it is already obvious that the US is no longer able to achieve its goals without facing meaningful resistance, even serious blowback.
The difficulties Trump has encountered in his ‘economic’ wars (tariffs, blockades, etc.) and diplomatic/military adventures have forced him to give a new form to his reactionary and warmongering plans. The new U.S. National Defense Strategy acknowledges the setbacks of American global dominance and attempts to tighten control of the western hemisphere to assure new resources for the central struggle. The decline of the US can’t be understood solely in military and geopolitical terms. We must also take into account the evolution of the US capitalism itself – of which Trump is the result and not the cause. This does not mean that the US has already succumbed. It still possesses the power of the dollar, which remains the dominant currency in the world. It has the most powerful military machine in world history, with military spending three times greater than that that of China. This attempt to counter global decline in hegemony through military power demands the possibility of mobilizing their own population massively as soldiers. This requires a political change of regime, which Trump has been advancing on with a fascistic offensive that includes militarization, sending armed forces to cities ruled by opposition, forming ICE shocktroops that kidnap migrants and take them to concentration camps and modifying electoral laws and threatening the conditions of the upcoming election. The working class of the US is a target of Trump’s offensive, just as Latin America or the Middle East. It is also one of the greatest sources of resistance, as is seen in the mass struggles, demonstrations, strikes and direct action. The general strike that is being debated in the vanguard of the US would be a powerful weapon against this offensive, internationally and domestically.
- China is constantly strengthening its position and expanding its sphere of influence across the globe, shaping its own geopolitical space. Its resilience against the Trump tariff offensive proved that Beijing has powerful and sufficient weapons to withstand any pressure and retaliate effectively. Chinese capitalism has achieved an enormous accumulation of capital in the last decades, through the exploitation of the world’s largest working class. However, its economy is also under threat from the global capitalist crisis of overproduction, with the spectre of bankruptcies and the collapse of capitalist enterprises looming. At the same time, it is steadily strengthening its military. Xi Jinping now stands as the leader directing China’s global expansion through the modern Silk Road – the Belt and Road Initiative. This course inevitably leads China and its allies into confrontation with the “old” Western capitalist powers, and developments across the globe will be shaped, to a significant extent, by the outcome of this conflict.
At the same time, Russia, India and other «middle powers» of our era, formally grouped within the BRICS, understand that as the US is losing its grip, these states can bargain, demanding their share But neither this attempt nor these powers constitute anti-imperialist forces. To achieve that, their governments and regimes are determined to use any available means, including war against their less powerful neighbors – while, at the same time, they are oppressing their own peoples. Therefore, they can’t be regarded as less aggressive and threatening, let alone as allies in our struggle.
- The European Union has lost the initiative and sees its position weakened, both within the West and globally. This reality has triggered, among other things, a profound political crisis in most European countries, also fueled by the Trump administration’s offensive and China’s economic and commercial penetration into Europe. In this context, the entire European capitalist world has embarked on a disastrous race to war, and in the immediate future, for a war economy that is also presented as a solution to industrial decline and economic stagnation.. This trajectory will exact a heavy toll in blood and tears from the proletariat of Europe and the peoples targeted by European capital – a capital eternally thirsty for profit and massacre. Governments and politicians from the entire political spectrum (conservatives and far rightists, social democrats and liberals) serve, with their differences and nuances, the same scenario. «The message we send to the world is this: Yes, peace is our goal. Yes, we cherish freedom and the rule of law. Yes, we stand ready to fight to defend them. Always, and at the cost of blood if necessary», as Macron recently said. The attempt to create a more «European NATO», in the face of the US disengagement from Europe, is another proof of their willingness to use “whatever it takes” to recover lost ground.
Even the reactionary campaigns against the immigrant proletariat by the most extreme right – despite their «anti-establishment» claims – serve perfectly as a catalyst for the regimentation and militarization of European societies (from schools to universities, from workplaces to the mass media). They have been used to divide the working class and as an alibi to increase police control and, of course, to criminalize the combative left that fights their plans.
- Cracks of resistance and struggle emerged within this dark landscape , bringing popular needs and demands to the forefront. The broad and powerful wave of international solidarity sparked by the resistance of the Palestinian people has led to various solidarity initiatives: From March to Gaza and Global Sumud Flotilla to the general political strike in Italy, with hundreds of thousands of proletarians taking to the streets and the 24-hour international strike across more than 20 European and Mediterranean ports. As well as the demonstrations and protests within the US and around the world against the war on Iran.
Even in the US, the «heart of global capitalism», thousands of people – mainly students – protested the genocide committed against the Palestinians and opposed the war against Iran. This has prompted the Trump government to brand them as “far-left extremists” or even “terrorists”, outlawing organizations like Antifa and deploying ICE to terrorize neighborhoods, cities and states.
The “peace proposals” put forward by Trump and other capitalist leaders are a farce designed to cover up the growing scale of their savage warmongering. This is demonstrated in practice by the “peace agreement” imposed on Gaza, which establishes a Trump-Zionist protectorate whilst the massacre of the Gazan masses continues. The same applies to the agreements signed by Trump with Iran, which do nothing to stop the bombings and attacks in Iran and Lebanon. To achieve genuine peace, it is necessary to overthrow imperialism and establish working-class power.
9.This latest major mass movement has brought to the forefront the need to defend a consistent policy of class independence and internationalism. Popular fronts, as seen in various Latin American countries, as well as in France and other European countries, are not the answer we need in this new era of war and exploitation of the working class. In reality, they represent fronts of class collaboration and paralyze the struggle for workers’ demands. The capitalist class takes advantage of the «certainty» that the political and trade union bureaucracies will play a demobilizing role, in order to push through its regulations and attacks against the working people.The strategy of class collaboration to “stop” the extreme right and the reactionary agenda is a dead end and paves the way for further disasters. Popular fronts seek — essentially through parliamentary channels and the exercise of government administration, without breaking with the bourgeois state and the rule of the bourgeoisie — to implement a new ‘social order’ that is impossible under today’s conditions, thereby disarming the working class.
We must wage a consistent class struggle for the demands of the workers and the popular masses. We must build united fronts of the working class to fight for our rights and put an end to capitalist exploitation by establishing workers’ power . The struggle for a dignified life, democratic rights, national liberation, and lasting peace therefore can’t be separated from the struggle to overthrow bourgeois rule.
- The workers’ parties that claim to be revolutionary Marxists must fight for the independence of workers’ organizations from all forms of bourgeois nationalism and the pseudo-progressive «popular fronts». Only by fighting against imperialism and capital, while distancing itself from the center-left, various social-democratic factions and bourgeois nationalism, can the revolutionary left grow and develop into an alternative in the struggle for workers’ power.
The irreplaceable tasks of the vanguard and revolutionary organizations is to incite the struggle against rearmament and the war economy, to unite the various fronts of the struggle and to promote revolutionary defeatism against the capitalist and imperialist governments of our own nation -that is to say, the overthrow of the governments responsible for war and famine, and of all the powers and blocs in conflict- along with a consistent proletarian internationalism. Theirs is the work of preparing for the revolutionary rupture, for the deployment mobilization of the organized proletarian masses, which alone can save humanity from the catastrophe of a new world war between the major capitalist powers. For revolutionary workers parties in each country and a revolutionary workers international.
In this context, the signing parties agree:
- Not a single bullet, a person, or a penny for capital’s wars.
- Down with the US-Israel aggression against Iran, Lebanon and the peoples of other countries in the Middle East.
- Victory to the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people! Freedom for Palestine from the river to the sea and return of all of the refugees!
- Solidarity with the people of revolutionary Cuba, to break the murderous US blockade.
- Disengagement from all imperialist plans and alliances. Dissolve NATO and close of all NATO military bases. Down with the imperialist EU of war and exploitation.
- No to the war economy. Reallocate the entire military budget to healthcare, education, workplace safety, housing, and the restoration of devastated ecosystems.
- No to the various forms of the state of emergency and the repressive laws Freedom for all those imprisoned because of fighting for democratic and workers’ rights
- International unity of the oppressed and exploited masses against capital’s imperialist wars and the police state that works to prepare and sustain them.
- Down with the governments of hunger and war, for workers’ power!
Proletarians and exploited of the world, unite!
PROGRAMME OF ACTION
- We endorse the international days of action against the war on 21–22 November, based on the political content of the Athens Anti-War International Declaration
- We are working within the labour movement to ensure that, wherever possible, these days of action are accompanied by general strike and co-ordinated labour actions to stop the war machine (blockades in ports, railways, factories connected with military or Israeli interests).
- We are organizing a Web Conference of the Youth organizations/collectivities against war in September/October 2026.
- We are organizing a Web Conference against the repression of the pro-Palestine movement in the winter of
- We are organizing a campaign to present the Athens Declaration to our countries (brochures, events etc)
- We will continue our efforts to establish a permanent online network for dialogue among revolutionary organizations through com
- KA – Communist Liberation (Greece)
- PO – Workers Party (Argentina)
- TIR – Revolutionary Internationalist Tendency (Italy)
- SEP – Socialist Workers Party (Turkey)
- Independence Path / Bağımsızlık Yolu Partisi (Workers’ Party) – Turkish Cypriot Community, Cyprus
- UFCLP – United Front Committee for a Labor Party (United States)
- GAR – Revolutionary Action Group (Mexico)
- Fuerza 18 de Octubre (Chile)
