Dear Conn Hallinan,

We have read your article "NATO and the New Cold War" with interest. It is rare to find any reference to these developments on the Eurasian landmass either in the media or in political discourse. That in itself makes the article important. We agree that NATO was and is an aggressive and aggressor formation and that the Warsaw Treaty organization (WT) was set up to forestall NATO aggression as is the CSTO today.

However, more than just a defensive military organization the WT advanced a positive program that rejected the division of Europe into military, economic and ideological blocs, upheld international law and the charter of the UN and favored the establishment of a system of collective security for the entire European continent and for the world. The WT was the guarantor of the peaceful development of Europe for 45 years. Its principles remain the cornerstones of Russian foreign policy today and, as you point out, of the SCO countries as well.

The fact is that the USSR, PRC, CMEA and SCO of today have always given priority to 'raising the material and cultural life of the people' Military expenditures have been understood to be an undesirable burden, diverting capital, labor and resources away from improving the lives of the people and justifiable only to ensure the maintenance of those improvements.

Kommersant (Russia’s daily online) reported 7-25-08 the view of Nikolay Bordyuzha (General Secretary of CSTO).

'One of the current highlights for CSTO is building up friendly and strategic relations with the states of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). “We have reached rather high level of cooperation with SCO and our main task is to consolidate efforts for ensuring security.”'

The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) was the expression of the effort to build socialism in the USSR and to advance to socialism in the people's democracies. The leading form of property relations in both the CMEA and the SCO was and is socialist. The SCO and the CSTO are importantly, continuers of the CMEA and the WT.

Of course, the big advantage of the SCO/CSTO complex over the CMEA/WT is that the former now covers the Eurasian land mass from the Polish and Ukrainian borders to the Pacific coast of China and can be neither ignored nor isolated politically or economically. Today it is much more able to interact productively with the rest of the world than either the CMEA/WT or the PRC were able to do separately. This is a big step forward on the road to communism, because that future belongs to those who pursue free trade, the breaking down of national boundaries, and global economic integration and development.

The crises in NATO and in the EU are more fundamental than disagreements over military adventures. They include the intensification of economic contradictions between the US and the European capitalist powers and the contradiction within the EU between the economic sectors that support the afore-mentioned forward-looking program and those who are attempting to turn the EU into an aggressive and protectionist economic bloc. In both cases the conflicts stem from the basic economic law that propels capitalism -- the maximization of profit.

In contrast the SCO was founded on the basis of already-existing socialist economic relations, giving primacy to economic relations and economic integration. It has evolved as a superstructure to further unfetter economic integration and development. Unlike the EU, the SCO enjoys unity based on free trade, both internally and in respect to non-members.

The SCO points the way to the future. The US and NATO are still trying to resurrect the past. The EU is faced with a stark choice, as are the people of the US and the rest of the world - to go forward to an integrated, developed and peaceful, socialist world or fall back into stagnation, isolation, and war.

In the event that you are interested in our web site, www.communistcentury.com, we would very much welcome any response to it, or to this letter.

Sincerely,

Editorial Group of Communistcentury.com