People are too trusting!

America and Iran were at the very brink of a military exchange. It may all be a false alarm and the USA will not go to war with Iran but one thing is for sure, the defence industries in both nations will receive increased budgets from their governments and the armament businesses will profit even more.

The real roots of all modern war can be seen in the class system of society. The narrow interests of each “national” capitalist class conflict one with the other. It is vital for people to understand that this or that diplomatic deal or agreement on the production of enriched uranium, it is not the cause of any potential conflict. An accident can cause war if all the other conditions for war are present. But there is no such thing as an “accidental” war. The only way to end the possibility of such madness as war is to end the system which inevitably leads to these horrors. The capitalists set the workers of one country against the workers of another country in order to strengthen their hold on the resources throughout the world. The capitalists wage war in order to share out the spoils. Thus those who speak about the present threat of war with Iran in terms of the defence of freedom are lying. Why should we believe the mere say-so that the pecuniary interests of the industrialist or oil trader. We should seek the answer to why has the beat of war-drums begun? What are the reasons behind it? Wars have a variety of immediate pretexts. However, the present danger of war has its own particular cause: this war was generated by capitalism. Capitalism is the name given to an economic system in which capital, factories and land are divided up among a comparatively small group of people in the country, while the rest possess only their workers' hands with which to feed themselves, and these they sell to the boss—the capitalist, the manufacturer, the landed proprietor. As the capitalist economy develops in each state, capital begins to feel cramped in its own country. In order to increase profits and interest, capital requires that the market expand, requires new spheres of influence, places where it can invest its accumulated capitals and from which the manufacturers and industrialists can obtain “raw materials” such as oil and ore. Each power thinks only of how it can bring under its control its neighbours and markets of other countries, either by diplomatic deception, by bribing the governments and capitalists in the weak and dependent countries, or by the brutal force of arms.

To begin with, the rival powers try to resolve the dispute by “diplomacy” in which each strives to trick or outwit the other. Even in times of peace, the negotiations conducted by the diplomats never cease. If the diplomats do not succeed in outwitting each other, they immediately issue threats of force. Behind the diplomats, there are the war-planes and missiles, and therefore there is no stable peace among the states, but only “armed peace”, that is, a period of peace during which the state intensified its preparations for war. Neither the workers nor the people as a whole know anything about the negotiations conducted by the diplomats. These negotiations are conducted “confidentially”. However, the capitalists and the bankers and the corporations—those on whose behalf this “aggressive policy” is being pursued, always know how the diplomats are faring. If they begin to suspect that their own diplomats have failed to defend their financial interests, that the negotiations are working to the advantage of the capitalists of another power, they immediately raise the alarm: “Help! The homeland is at risk! Forget the humiliations of the past! Protect the nation! Go and die for the glory of the flag.” The government heeds the cry raised by the capitalists. It cannot fail to heed it, for the government itself is made up of capitalists. The government serves them, protecting their profits and theft. In order to please its capitalists, the government begins to “hector” to its neighbour, and the negotiations being conducted by the diplomats become more “heated”. Before we know it, war has begun! The people, however, cannot be told the truth that the conflict is because of the manufacturers and industrialists, our bankers and oil businesses, want large profits. The fight is to ensure our capitalists the “right” to rob some country. That would be “awkward” for the media to explain. The people will not sacrifice for such a cause. So invent some tale or other such as “Let us free our neighbours from despotism!” The capitalists, the oil executives and bankers sit in their board-rooms, pocket the profit on the sale of arms, and benefit from the rise in oil price and await the outcome of the war. Meanwhile the peoples' lives suffer. And for what? To provide a better, sweeter, richer, more luxurious life for their own native exploiters, bosses, industrialists, landowners, manufacturers, whether they be American or Iranian.

The dispute among the capitalist states are not conducted on behalf of the people, but at the behest of the ruling elite, and these property owners push their states onto the path of an expansionist or protectionist or isolationist policies. It is they who decide whether or not there will be war. And the people? They need to know only one thing: You will be the collateral damage.

Working people possess so little knowledge. They have not yet understood where their own interests lie, and the capitalists and the servants of the government make use of this. Thus the primary reason for the moves towards war is the struggle between national capitals on the world market. American capital is fighting to dominate the Middle East and Iran excluded from its share, resists. Capital clashes with capital, fights against capital, each seeking to expel the other. Each desires mastery for itself, to retain its “monopoly.” The more bitter the struggle becomes. War becomes unavoidable. For as long as there exist capitalist property owners who hold state power in their hands, wars will continue. The aim of these wars will be the same, namely, to secure better profits for the nation's industrialists and businessmen. Does such an aim deserve that blood be shed in its name? Are our fellow-workers acting wisely when for such a cause they call for the destruction of fellow-workers from another country, destroying towns and devastating cities? Have the workers come to “love” their own exploiting tyrant masters so much that they are willing to be complicit in war crimes to defend their profits and interests of their ruling class.

Once the true cause of war, its purpose, has been understood, another question arises: what is to be done? How can the slaughter be stopped? How can the people be spared new conflicts and disputes among the capitalists, new wars, in the future? while capitalism continues to exist, while there is private ownership of land, factories, plants, etc., upon the earth, while citizens continue to be divided into the haves and the have-nots, into capitalists who have seized state power and hired workers without rights, while capitalists continue to fight amongst themselves on the world market for the sake of their profits, wars are inevitable. Wars will only end when the power of the capitalists has been smashed, when the owner-exploiters are no longer able to harm the people and push them into bloody conflicts. War is generated by the unjust inequitable capitalist structure of society. In order to put an end to war, the structure of society must be changed. In order to put an end to war, all the factories, all the plants, all the industrial enterprises must be removed from the capitalist masters: the land must be taken from the landowners, the mines from private proprietors, the banks from the capitalists, and all this wealth must become common property. In order to put an end to war, a new and juster socialist world must be won for the people. Then neighbouring peoples will not seek to destroy each other, then there will be no need for aggression. There will no longer be the chief culprits of war —a clique of capitalists destroying millions of people so that after the war their purses will be fuller! This is the main task facing the workers. My enemy is in my own country, and this enemy is the same for all the workers of the world. The enemy is capitalism, this enemy is the rapacious, corrupt class government. This is the way forward for the victory of the workers” cause, for the replacement of capitalist society by a just and better word based on the socialist solidarity of the workers of every country.

Adapted from Kollontai here