Thread by @DavidNorthWSWS

The April 1949 edition of the "Fourth International" - the theoretical journal of the world Trotskyist movement - published a statement on the founding of the North Atlantic Alliance (which was to become known as NATO). It stated: 1/
marxists.org/history/etol/n…

"Four years after the collapse of Hitler’s 'New Order' a new balance of power is being forged on the old continent. 2/

"At the head of the coalition, for the first time in. modern history, stands a non-European power – American imperialism, chief victor in the recent war, inheritor of the mantle of the British Empire, unrivaled pretender for the role of master of the world." 3/

The Pact "is not just another military alliance. The coordination of weapons and the unification of the military staffs...under a centralized command cannot be achieved without the regimentation of all economic and political life in harmony with this martial plan." 4/

"In effect," the statement warned, "the political form of this coalition can be nothing else than a world-wide military dictatorship taking its orders from the Brass Hats in Washington." 5/

The Trotskyists were not overawed by the post-World War II reorganization of imperialist militarism under the direction of Washington. They wrote: 6/

"The general staffs have carefully calculated all contingencies and eventualities – all but one. That one is the alliance of the peoples of the world who above all want peace. 7/

"Not the maneuverings of the Kremlin, but the class struggle in Shanghai and Indonesia, in Milan, the Ruhr and Detroit will prove the Achilles heel of this unholy compact of death, reaction and dictatorship." 8/

This farsighted and even prophetic analysis of the implications of NATO's founding is now being fully confirmed. 9/9