RECENTLY, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin. Ahead of his trip, the Times reported Macron as saying that “the geopolitical goal of Russia today is clearly not Ukraine but to clarify the rules of cohabitation with Nato and the EU.”

What a contrast with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss who, on the same day and using the rhetoric of war, stated that “the depths of Russian attempts to subvert and threaten Ukraine are clear. Russia’s actions show their claims to have no plans to invade are false. We and our allies stand united in support for Ukraine and our resolve to raise the cost to Russia if they take further action.”

The belligerence of Truss echoes and mimics that of US imperialism which continues to ratchet up the tension and is pouring vast quantities of arms and military forces into Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states.

How absurd are the claims that the deployment of troops by Russia within its own borders pose a threat to world peace, while Nato deploys thousands of military personnel to confront Russia from as far afield as Canada and the US. This includes fighter jets from Denmark, Netherlands and Spain and Nato warships in the Black Sea.

The Nato-led imperialist war drive also includes vast quantities of military hardware and troops deployed into the region by Britain. All this is in addition to the 70,000 US troops already stationed permanently in Europe.

In Poland on February 7, Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg hinted at longer-term military commitments to eastern Europe, provocatively declaring that “if Russia really wants less Nato close to the borders, they get the opposite.”

This exemplifies Nato’s uninterest in finding common ground with Russia.

In Britain, our priority must be to oppose bipartisan support in the Westminster parliament for these aggressive measures; to oppose Nato expansion and call on the British government to de-escalate the crisis.

The Stop the War Coalition is organising meetings across the country in support of these demands and they should be fully supported.

For Nato and the military-industrial complex, the crisis is a win-win situation. Nato’s war psychosis is drawing Finland and Sweden closer into its orbit and possible membership. Last year, global military spending rose to close on $2 trillion — a 2.6 per cent increase in real terms — and the current crisis alongside ongoing US hostilities towards China and Iran will only worsen that trend.  

How obscene is the logistical ease with which military forces and hardware are rapidly deployed across the world, compared with the catastrophic failure to distribute Covid-19 vaccines and medical equipment to low-income countries (where only 9 per cent of people have received a vaccine dose).

An exception to this inhumane situation is socialist Cuba.

In 1962, US president John F Kennedy signed “Proclamation 3447 — Embargo on all trade with Cuba.” It came into force on February 7, 60 years ago this month.

That proclamation was a declaration of economic warfare which endures to the present day, causing immense economic damage to the Cuban people. Apart from two short periods of partial respite under presidents Carter and Obama, successive US administrations have sustained and tightened the blockade, even though it has been rejected almost unanimously by the international community.

In Chile, following the critical defeat of the hard-right candidate, the female-majority Cabinet appointed by President-elect Gabriel Boric includes three Communist Party ministers: Jeanette Jara (welfare and labour), Camila Vallejo (government spokesperson) and Flavio Andres Salazar (science and technology).

The symbolism of an anti-neoliberal government in office 50 years after Pinochet’s military coup cannot be overstated.

However, despite his massive personal mandate, Boric’s government faces a major challenge in building a majority in the Chilean congress — where it holds only 37 of 155 seats — for its radical policies, in the face of inevitable hostility from corporate, domestic and international opponents.

In Spain, the left coalition and its Communist Party labour minister and deputy prime minister Yolanda Diaz have won parliamentary support by one vote to enact new labour laws which improve job security and restore collective bargaining.

This shows the important role Communists can play as parliamentary representatives under capitalism — even when starting from a minority position.

It didn’t require a 280-page report by Amnesty International to know that Israel’s system of dominating, segregating and expropriating Palestinian people is tantamount to apartheid. Nonetheless, the highly critical report will give encouragement to the Palestinian struggle for statehood, strengthen the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions call and build support for resistance to the occupation, particularly on behalf of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners imprisoned without charge or trial.

The 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when 14 civilians were shot dead by the Parachute Regiment in Derry, reminds us of the brutality of British imperialist occupation and our own ruling class, in our own lifetime. So, too, does the report of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland about the “collusive behaviour” of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 11 murders carried out by Loyalist death squads in the early 1990s.

As the Communist Party of Ireland said in response to the DUP collapsing the Stormont executive: “Unionism has always been the agent adopted by the British for playing the sectarian card, and the DUP are more than willing to use sectarianism to advance their goal. It is clear that there can be no democratic internal settlement with political structures created by and dependent upon British imperialism.”

While the Tory Party soap opera around 10 Downing Street plays out, the struggle for a change of government and policies in Britain must be stepped up.

Michael Gove’s much-delayed “levelling-up” White Paper was published last week. The current and previous governments stand condemned by its analysis of the serious regional economic, educational, health and social inequalities which plague Britain.

There appears to be a political consensus — apparently including Gove himself — that there isn’t much money behind it and the White Paper’s “two missions” are unlikely to be achieved. A recent IPPR study noted that allocations in 2021 from the levelling-up fund added up to £32 per person in the north of England; this compares with a drop of £413 per person in council spending on services during the austerity decade.

The White Paper represents the latest example of the British government failing to capitalise on the opportunities presented by EU exit for large-scale state investment in working-class communities and regional industrial policies.

At the same time, the Tories press on with their “hustler mayor” model of local democracy focused on building institutional capital with the aim of attracting direct foreign investment. This further weakens the powers of elected councillors by subordinating them to directly elected mayors, reorganising councils on a scale more remote from local communities and promoting private-sector led partnerships.

The labour movement should make the case for a better political settlement in the English regions, based on democratic accountability and the necessary central government funding to meet social need rather than merely serve business interests.

The cost of living crisis is becoming more acute by the day. Perhaps it can be more accurately described as a crisis of everyday living.

The state is imposing real-term pay cuts on five million public service workers, increasing payroll taxes, holding down state pensions and social security benefits; we see new coercive workfare policies, five million people living in food poverty, five million on NHS waiting lists, rising energy prices and so on.

Marxist political economy enables us to identify the cause and provide the solutions to the crisis of everyday living.

Oil company BP has reported a rise in profits to £10 billion in 2021. Until 1979, BP was majority state-owned. The rampant profiteering of the energy companies is rooted in the privatisation of public utilities in the 1980s and early 1990s. The solution is to revert to public ownership.

Similarly, today's “fire and rehire” practices are the consequence of four decades of anti-union laws. The solution is to repeal the legislation.

There is plenty of evidence that industrial struggles are growing — in the main locally but in a few disputes via national coordination — led by the UCU in higher education, RMT in transport and public-service unions against NHS private contractors.

But in large national bargaining units, we are seeing serious problems with low unionisation and a failure to overcome statutory ballot thresholds in disputes where thousands of workers are involved. The failure of local government unions to secure even a 20 per cent turnout is a measure of the problem.

The challenge to build stronger workplace organisation needs to be addressed if the necessary riposte — that of large-scale industrial action — is to be given to the governor of the Bank of England and other capitalists seeking to impose pay cuts on workers.

We are witnessing the stirrings of resistance on jobs, pay and energy prices. It reminds us of 2010-11, when a mass anti-austerity movement was built from the student struggle against tuition fees, UK Uncut and large-scale strike action in defence of public-sector pensions.

As we come out of two years of a demobilising pandemic, the Britain-wide protests on the cost-of-living crisis called by the People’s Assembly mark a welcome resurgence of extra-parliamentary struggle and protest in Britain. The Communist Party will work tirelessly to deepen and widen that struggle by supporting the Stop the War Coalition meetings against war in Ukraine and Nato expansion, promoting the Cuba Solidarity campaign against the US blockade and mobilising for the People's Assembly protest rallies.