Socialist Action Group – GAS (romanian section of IsP)
On the morning of June 5, a maritime drone reportedly self-destructed at the Port of Constanța after being discovered in the civilian area. This explosion was not an anomaly, but the predictable result of a capitalist war being waged a few hundred kilometers from the shore. Such “accidents” are a statistical certainty given the proximity of the front line; drifting mines, stray drones, and the floating wreckage of war. As long as the war continues, it will continue to claim victims regardless of borders.
The Romanian and regional working classes have no stake in which imperialist bloc dominates the Black Sea trade routes, energy corridors, or grain logistics. Workers finance the rearmament with loans granted on the promise of continued exploitation and subsequently bear the consequences of the war. We stand in solidarity with Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, and Turkish workers, who share the same interest: ending this war.
The Romanian national bourgeoisie, the Russian arms industry, Ukrainian war capital, Romanian port and logistics capital, and Western arms manufacturers are profiting from the war. Meanwhile, tomorrow’s reconstruction is itself a prize contested between American and European capital, from the roughly $800 billion framework coordinated by BlackRock to the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. Thus, all have an interest in the continuing conflict.
The continuation of the war means, first and foremost, the slaughter of the working class for the economic interests of the Russian or American ruling class. In Ukraine, workers are prohibited from organizing independently. The right to strike has been suspended under martial law. Contracts with unlimited working hours have been legalized. Employees of firms with fewer than 250 workers have been exempted from the Labor Code. These measures only serve to intensify exploitation. In Russia, workers who protest the war are imprisoned or, in some cases, sent to the front lines. Protests are suppressed by state forces. Meanwhile, high inflation is eroding workers’ living standards while banks are posting record profits. The combined pressure of austerity and inflation—meaning a real decline in wages—is pushing young people into a labor market where unemployment is rising to over 6% nationally and nearly 30% among young people. This reserve army of labor creates competition for jobs and keeps the price of labor—that is, wages—low. All of this, of course, benefits employers throughout the region.
President Dan (of Romania) portrays the situation as a matter of protecting human lives and a direct consequence of Russia’s aggression. However, this second assertion implies an obvious “solution”: increased spending on armaments and more military bases. We already know how this threat will be used: to justify the very mechanism that produced it. The Navy is carrying out a 1.7 billion-lei drone program and installing V-BAT (maritime unmanned aircraft) systems on the frigates Regele Ferdinand, Regina Maria, and Mărășești. Romania has also committed to increasing military spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 and signed a 16.68 billion-euro SAFE (Security Action for Europe ) loan—the second-largest allocation in the EU. This 45-year debt will be paid by today’s workers’ children. The Navy describes its primary mission as keeping open the trade corridors through which 10,000 ships have passed since the start of the war. The fleet defends the flow of goods and profit. The lawmakers who claim to want peace are lying. Some want peace “through war,” while others oppose the conflict only because the opposition supports it. Once they come to power, they will continue the same trend. The only ones who could truly change the situation are the working people.
Every leu spent on drones is a leu taken away from hospitals, schools, and pensions. While the military budget rises, wages and pensions are frozen and taxes are increasing. The state is condemning people to premature death by allocating its resources the way it does. Today’s rearmament is tomorrow’s austerity, which kills without firing a shot. This is why the immediate task is to push for total transparency regarding the use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes. This pressure cannot come solely from directly affected unions, such as Trans-Conex (the main federation of trade-unions in the port of Constanța) at the port or the Unified TAROM Union (the union of the national flight agency in Romania), whose commercial flights have transported military components to Israel. It must also come from workers in general, who can show solidarity with these unions and take independent action. This requires close collaboration between Romanian unions and organizations such as USB (Unione Sindicale di Base, a militant left trade union in Italy), CGIL (one of the biggest trade-unions in Italy), and local CGT (the main confederation of trade unions in France) unions to coordinate concrete actions and collective organizing against the involvement of workplaces in military operations.
The victims in Galați and the evictees in Constanța are not collateral damage; they are the inevitable result of Romania’s integration into capitalist warfare. We are against the rearmament budget and the 5% spiral, the bases, and Romania’s role as a logistical platform for war. We stand in solidarity with Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Turkish, and Bulgarian workers and oppose all belligerent and “host” states. The true protection of the people of Constanța lies in Romania’s withdrawal from the machinery that brought the drone to the port, not in becoming another part of it. another cog in that machine.
