Sounding Exactly Like His Soviet Predecessors, WFTU Leader Tells Syrians Cold War hasn’t Ended

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 21 – Yevgeny Kulikov, head of the Union of Trade Unions of Russia and the Eurasian Bureau of the Moscow-controlled World Federation of Trade Unions, tells the Syrians in language identical to that used by his Soviet predecessors that the Cold War did not end with the demise of the USSR but continues to this day.

            Speaking at a Solidarity Forum with the workers of Syria, he notes that in the last year, the WFTU has established a Eurasian Bureau in which are represented the class trade unions of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries of the former USSR,” and addresses them just as a Soviet official would have (forum-msk.org/material/news/15939131.html).

            “We have carefully observed how the people of Syria in a self-sacrificing way have struggled for its independence, defending their country from the intervention of the forces of the US, its hirelings and also the ISIS bands and various terrorist groups generously sponsored and rewarded by the West,” Kulikov says

            He continues: “the history of Syria as that of other Arab countries gives us class trade unions an unforgettable lesson that all the activity of the West  is directed at undermining and destroying entire states with the goal of gaining access to resources of these countries, transportation corridors” and so on to reduce the wages of workers everywhere. 

            “In this struggle are guilty not only the armed forces and capitalists of the US and NATOO countries but also their agents from the International Confederation of Trade Unions, the AFL-CIO which supports ‘humanitarian’ intervention and bombing of Libya and interference in the affairs of near eastern countries, including Syria.”

            Kulikov continues: “The Russian people extends the hand of help to the fraternal people of Syria and now in a single line with them struggles with interventionists, terrorists and those who under various masks who spread violence.  In the course of some many years of struggle, the Syrian army has been able to stand up to this and clear 99 percent of the country’s territory.”

            “In the name of Russian trade unions and the Eurasian Bureau of the WFTU, I declare our solidarity with the workers of Syria and its trade unions who have entered the WFTU,” the Russian unionist says in language any Soviet trade unionist would have used and found entirely congenial.

            But Kulikov then went even further, declaring that “the Cold War did not end along with the collapse of the USSR! Today, transnational corporations ever more decisively define international relations, seek to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, and gives to the political climate of the entire world.”

            A graduate of the Higher Party School for communist leaders could not have said it better.