We condemn Sweden's accession to NATO and fight against it!

Sweden's accession to NATO is now only a matter of formality and we find ourselves facing a new reality, one where Swedish imperialism has made the step to seek membership in the strongest and most important imperialist alliance of our time.

Due to this situation we find ourselves in we want to highlight a number of factors concerning imperialism and NATO, which are also important for how we organize against NATO:

• Imperialism is capitalism at its highest stage. Imperialism is monopoly capitalism and is characterized by concentrated ownership, powerful finance capital and the ever-increasing importance of capital exports.
• The growth of every capitalist country forces it beyond its borders to seek the most profitable investments; when these are no longer to be found within the country’s borders, capital sets its sights on foreign countries. This is the basis for the export of capital.
• Capitalism works the same in all countries, big and small. This means that capital seeks its way outside of each country and that each country's capital seeks the most profitable investments. When countries’ capital faces off against each other, the world is partitioned, both between companies but also between the capitalist countries.
• This is the reality we find ourselves in now. The world has been partitioned, but the need for growth is as strong as ever. This leaves one solution: to divide the world anew - to appropriate that which others have. Here we find the background to the war in Ukraine.
• NATO is currently the strongest syndicate of capitalist states. Its purpose is to strengthen the capital of the member states in its contest against capital in other parts of the world. Against common enemies, the capital of some countries can cooperate.
• Toeach imperialist alliance each country brings its own interests. This means that every imperialist alliance, every alliance to consolidate its capital’s exploitation of the world, carries within it a series of contradictions that come from the special interest of each country and each capital. Therefore, every imperialist alliance is provisional and fleeting, while a given country's membership in such an alliance does not imply national subordination or occupation, but rather how each country’s capital seeks to gain advantage.
• As Sweden and Finland now apply for membership in NATO, it is not because they have been tricked, that our politicians have been bought by foreign powers or that they are lapdogs. They act in the interestof their own capital. This is necessary for them asinternational contradictions have intensified and the need to secure the global interests of Swedish and Finnish capital has increased. However, they cannot achieve this by themselves, but rather must seek cooperation to secure their goals.
• All this entails significant risks not only for the working people of Finland and Sweden, but for all the working peoples of theworld, as both countries’ membership will mean a further escalation and a further sharpening of the contradictions that characterize the capitalist system. Imperialist war draws closer to our doorstep and Swedish capital draws itself closer to war.

Based on our analysis, which can only be summarized here, we must draw certain conclusions regarding the politics we bring to bear against NATO and against imperialism:

• Our struggle against NATO cannot be free from principle and it cannot seek the greatest possible unity with other political actors, as that would mean acceptance of views that in various ways take a stance for their own country’s capital, or for foreign capital. A movement against NATO must be based on the realization that the working class has nothing to gain from allying itself with any country's capital, and that an actual movement against NATO must be based on an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist position.
• We cannot accept slogans about neutrality, as these cannot but become illusory when taken out of context of capitalist reality. Neutrality, as it previously appeared, cannot be brought backsince it existed in a specific historical period, where the line of struggle was drawn between socialism and capitalism. This is no longer the case, which is why a slogan upholding neutrality is also a slogan that upholds the possibility of peace under capitalism. This possibility does not exist, as the capital of each given country must constantly expand beyond the borders of its own country; there is no option to say “stop", to stop and be content with your current placement within the imperialist system. That is why the slogan of neutrality is an illusion, it is simply not a possib
• We cannot wage a struggle against NATO based on ideas of the loss of national sovereignty. It is our own national bourgeoisie that, based on its own interests, chooses to join NATO; this is not a matter of occupation or an attack from a foreign power, but a matter of the Swedish bourgeoisie acting on the basis of its own interests. It is thus not a matter of the loss of national sovereignty, but a matter of our country's accession to an imperialist alliance. To claim that national sovereignty is being lost means opening the door to the precedence of national antagonisms over social antagonisms. In short, one puts the national struggle before the class struggle.

Our struggle against NATO must be principally anti-capitalist. This means:

• …that it first and foremost traces the development to the way capitalism-imperialism works, that the capitalist system is not relegated to being a secondary, background issue, and that the question of NATO membership is not taken out if its essential context and placed in a vacuum.
• …that we cannot be part of constellations through which we are forced to accept and stand for political slogans that obscure reality, rather than reveal it; which create illusions instead of dispelling them.
• …to reveal how capitalism breeds conflict and that war is inevitable under capitalism, and how alliances such as NATO are a product of capitalism, while also being inevitable under capitalism- capitalist states will always form alliances among themselves in their struggle for supremacy.
• …to show that the only possible solution is socialism, a completely new social system where profit is no longer the driving force, but where rational planning based on human need drives development - socialism is the only solution to the barbarism that is capitalism.

Based on these principles we form our opposition and our struggle against NATO. The Swedish Communist Party therefore says no to NATO and imperialism and condemns every action that Swedish imperialism takes to secure the defense of its interests all over the world, at the expense of all the world’s people.