At the 39th Congress of the Communist Party of Sweden, the following statement on the Imperialist War in Ukraine was adopted:
We condemn the imperialist war in Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine followed years of mounting tension and low-intensity conflict, particularly in eastern Ukraine. The situation escalated significantly after 2014, when the country’s pro-Russian president was overthrown and Ukraine began aligning itself with the West. Three years have now passed since Russian tanks crossed the border in an effort to reverse that shift, and there is still no end in sight. Western countries, including Sweden, continue to pour in money and weapons, doing everything they can to prolong the war.
The war is a symptom of how capitalism works and clearly illustrates the consequences of capitalist development.
In a system where all capitalist countries are driven to expand, they inevitably collide. The competition for natural resources, markets, labour, industry, trade routes, and strategic footholds intensifies. This drive for expansion is fundamental to every capitalist economy and every large-scale capitalist enterprise, which sees constant growth as essential for survival. Any company that stands still is quickly overtaken by its competitors.
This is true for every capitalist economy, whether Swedish or Russian. All capitalist politics derive from this reality. In the competition for expansion, repression inevitably tightens, and ideological battles grow more intense, fuelling a surge of nationalism in every country. That is why we reject any attempt to reduce the conflict in Ukraine to Russian delusions of grandeur or uniquely authoritarian Russian policies. Instead, we emphasise the economic forces that propel this type of politics.
That is why we call this war imperialist. It is no defensive war for the Russian minorities in eastern Ukraine, just as little as the Ukrainian side’s war, backed by Western capitalism, is a defence of democracy or Western values. This is a war over profit and for gaining advantages over the competition. We refuse to be fooled by the ideological warfare from either side and instead focus on the core issue.
Based on our understanding of how the capitalist economy operates, we also know this war risks being the beginning of broader imperialist conflicts, as the drive for capital expansion will not go away, no matter the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
In this war, just like in all imperialist wars, it is the people who pay the highest price. Workers on both sides fight each other for the benefit of their respective capitals. This is the core reality of imperialist wars.
Against this increasingly grim scenario, we put forward socialism, which offers the only way to prevent wars by replacing the capitalist economy with a socialist planned economy. In a socialist economy, there is no pressure to constantly expand. Instead, the conditions exist for real development that benefits all peoples.
Therefore, Sweden’s communists condemn the imperialist invasion of Ukraine. It is a war driven by the Russian capital’s push for expansion, just as, on the other side, it is a struggle for the expansion of Western and Ukrainian capital, at the expense of the people. In the global battle for dominance, capital sends workers to die. That is why we organise and fight for socialism, which is the only salvation for working people across the world.
Communist Party of Sweden
