Monday, February 28, 2022

Еще одна война для осуждения


Российская Федерация начала полномасштабное нападение на Украину.

Всемирное социалистическое движение не волнуют так называемые права и неправа этой войны, были ли нарушены тонкости международного права или был проигнорирован суверенитет Украины. Как рабочие, мы с болью осознаем, что именно наши братья и сестры по классу заплатят кровавую цену за геополитические игры, разыгрываемые великими державами.

 

Украина не является "демократией", как это любят представлять западные политики и СМИ. На самом деле, политическая и экономическая надстройка Украины не сильно отличается от российской. Поэтому аргумент, что она "демократическая", а Россия - нет, и что "мы" должны поддержать ее, чтобы защитить "демократические ценности", является ложным.

 

История конфликтов между государствами оставила в наследство антагонизм между различными группами, поэтому они отождествляют себя со своим "национальным государством" и интересами его правителей, а не со своими собратьями по классу в других странах. Украинский национализм имеет уродливую историю. До Первой мировой войны территория нынешней Украины была разделена между Австро-Венгерской и Российской империями, а после нее - между Польшей и Советской Россией. Львов, центр прозападной фракции в Украине, был крупным польским городом. В этот период украиноязычные жители подвергались дискриминации со стороны польского правительства. В соответствии с нацистско-советским пактом польская часть была аннексирована Россией, включая Львов. Когда Германия вторглась в Россию в 1941 году, многие жители этой части приветствовали немцев как освободителей, а многие сражались на стороне Германии. Некоторые служили охранниками в концлагерях. Беда наших товарищей, живущих в Восточной Европе, в том, что история подбросила им плохую руку - у них нет выбора, кроме как быть под доминированием либо ЕС-США, либо России. Похоже, что население Украины все еще разделено по вопросу о том, кто из них будет доминировать, что дает обеим сторонам пешки для игры в своих интересах.

 

И снова мы должны заявить, что не стоит  пролить даже одну каплю крови трудящихся в этом капиталистическом конфликте о том, какой блок может претендовать на оспариваемую территорию как часть своей сферы влияния. Будь то украина или отколовшиеся республики Донецка и Луганска, это не стоит того, чтобы жертвовать жизнями наших собратьев по классу. Какая разница, какой паразитический класс претендует на владение тем или иным клочком грязи?

 

Капитализм действует по своей собственной логике, и противостояние между капиталистами - это нормальный процесс, происходящий с момента возникновения капиталистической системы.

 

Всемирное социалистическое движение осуждает позицию всех тех, кто готов видеть города и поселки, усеянные трупами сотен и тысяч мужчин, женщин и детей.  Ради чего? Чтобы предотвратить то, что по большому счету будет просто сменой правителей. В отличие от других, мы готовы представить себе потерю Украиной своей "независимости", если это означает, что наши собратья по классу в Украине и Донбассе не будут принесены в жертву таким надуманным понятиям, как "демократия" и "свобода".


English Translation 

SOCIALISM OR YOUR MONEY BACK: Another War To Condemn

The Other Ongoing Crisis

 


While the media attention is focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, let us not forget the other crisis - on-going and never relenting climate change.

The IPCC report is also "a dire warning about the consequences of inaction," said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by 270 scientists who assessed over 34,000 studies, the report singles out Africa, Asia, Central and South America, small island nations and the Arctic as areas that are especially being impacted by heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas — weather extremes that are also driving biodiversity loss and mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals.

In Africa, for example, climate change has caused a 34% reduction in agricultural productivity since 1961, which is more than any other region, according to the report. Future warming is expected to shorten growing seasons and worsen water stress

"Somalia has been the hardest hit by climate change in the globe," said Walter Mawere, the advocacy and communications coordinator for humanitarian NGO Care International in Somalia. He describes over 2,400 camps for the internally displaced in the country that are filling with families fleeing an ongoing drought, and previous extreme flooding. "The flooding has left 70% of the population without access to clean water," he explained.

Currently, however, more than 90% of climate funds go to mitigation rather than adaptation — which is "way below most estimates of the cost of adaptation needed today to manage the risks of climate change over the next ten to 20 years," said IPCC report lead author Mark New, who is director of the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town. 

Meanwhile, only about 10 to 15% of available adaptation finance is made available to climate vulnerable local communities, according to New.  Camilla Toulmin, Senior Fellow, International Institute for Environment & Development. The world's poorest people "contribute least to the problem of climate change" yet suffer the most devastating impacts, she added.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the average per capita carbon footprint in 2020 is around 0.1 tons per year compared to up to 15 tons in Australia, Canada and the US.

IPCC depicts unfolding climate emergency | Environment | All topics from climate change to conservation | DW | 28.02.2022

Solidarity

 


More than 500 people have been detained in Belarus for protesting against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the country’s most prominent human rights group.

The Viasna human rights center released the names of 530 people detained Sunday across Belarus, where demonstrations against the war spanned at least 12 cities.

In the capital of Minsk, demonstrators marched in different parts of the city carrying Ukrainian flags. A large pile of flowers kept growing at the building of Ukraine’s Embassy.

The authoritarian Belarusian government has supported Russia in the conflict.

 From Moscow to Siberia, Russian anti-war activists took to the streets again Sunday to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite the arrests of hundreds of protesters each day by police. Demonstrators held pickets and marched in city centers, chanting “No to war!”

 In St. Petersburg, several hundred gathered in the city center

In addition to street protests, tens of thousands of people in recent days have endorsed open letters and signed petitions condemning the invasion. Celebrities and famous TV personalities spoke out against it, too. One online petition, launched hours after Putin announced the attack, has gathered over 930,000 signatures in four days, becoming one of the most widely supported petitions in Russia in recent years.

According to the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests, police detained at least 2,710 Russians in 51 cities for anti-war demonstrations Sunday, bringing the total of those detained over four days to nearly 6,000.


The love for the land of your birth is absurd


 "There is nothing more absurd and at the same time more harmful, more deadly, for the people than to uphold the fictitious principle of nationalism as the ideal of all the people's aspirations. Nationality is not a universal human principle; it is a historic, local fact...We should place human, universal justice above all national interests."  Bakunin


For the Socialist Party socialism will be a world without frontiers, a world in which there will be no such thing as nations or national boundaries. As long as workers think in terms of “our country,” it is logical for them to be prepared to defend it.



Nationalism is skilfully masked by socialistic phrases, but it is all the more harmful for that reason. Protected by the language of socialism, it is less vulnerable and more tenacious. It spreads mutual distrust among the workers of different nationalities.


Nationalism remains one of the main features of the capitalist societies. The capitalists have used the tool of division many times. Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realise that nationalism is too narrow and limited a concept to meet the necessities of our time. Presently, people are divided into “nations” and “peoples.” Our goal is to make all people see that these separations distract them from uniting with each other. There is only one humankind. The love of one’s “own” nation—for any reason—is the exact opposite of the political solidarity amongst all people we want to achieve. Patriotism and international solidarity are mutually exclusive. Nationalists will, sooner or later, turn out to be our opponents as their goal is, in the end, not the liberation of all.


The Socialist Party offers up a vision of a future for a humanity free of national prejudice and chauvinism. All the talk in the world about “unity” is so much clap-trap, unless it is clearly stated what the workers are to unite for. Let all those who talk so glibly about “unity” take note that, as the fundamental problem confronting the workers is how to get rid of their exploitation and poverty, the basis for the organisation of the workers, must be the ending of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.


The Socialist Party insists that the first step to unite the working class is to teach the workers that socialism is their only real hope.


The Socialist Party believes in waging a class war — fighting for the working class against the wealthy classes who exploit their labour for profit, and ultimately fighting for a society where class does not exist. Most of the time, this is not a literal war and does not involve physical violence, but rather involves other forms of actions, a battle of ideas. We link our support to the emancipatory aims that we fight for with arguments.  We don’t have anything in common with people whose critique of capitalism consists of making bankers personally responsible for all evils caused by it, nor with those who want to sustain an imaginary “purity of race,” or those who only dislike dominance when it is exercised by the wrong people for we have no problem with “foreign” domination, but with domination per se. 


Capitalism’s influence is a global one. The socialism we struggle for, which will finally have production follow needs, is unthinkable to establish in a single country. It would take little time any attempt at setting up conditions for a better life for all to be thwarted. And in a world economy based on the division of labour, one would have to support the policies of competition and exchange to gain access to things one could not produce or harvest in one’s own region.


The most common objection we hear to our position of being anti-nationalist is that, in the end, this is “our country” as well. It is “their” country. And once “our country” decides another country be the “enemy,” you will be called upon to kill others or be shot. 


Nationalism is a choice: You may either follow the national government blindly, or you may think for yourself. You may embrace the flag in times of war and peace when the army marches in defence of “national interests”. Or you may look behind the flag and see who is trying to pull your strings and manipulate your emotions. As to defence of “our” country, we should consider, before we side with the arms dealers who helped shape the World as it is today who ultimately are responsible whether our interests really lie with them, or whether they are just as much our enemy as the Banderite or Pro-Putin fanatics.

 

NO WAR BETWEEN NATIONS, NO PEACE BETWEEN CLASSES!

Sunday, February 27, 2022

The Socialist Party and Peace

 

First published on the sister blog, Socialist Courier, Sept 2017

 The Socialist Party does not deny the sincerity of many anti-war peace campaigners. The courage of many of those involved in peace movements cannot fail to impress. The energy and ingenuity they display in tackling a job they consider important provides further proof that once working men and women get on the right track capitalism’s days are numbered.

All sorts of appeals are made to the Socialist Party to join forces with these anti-war organisations, but it declines any alliance. Not because we do not yearn for the cessation of the war. By no means so. Members of the Socialist Party above all others understand the horror of war. But we cannot associate with the various "Peace" and "Stop the War" movements.

Firstly, because we stand for socialism and they do not. Because we refuse to associate with those who support the capitalist class during "peace" time and who fight for the subjection of the working class. Therefore we cannot ally ourselves with these capitalists and clergymen and politicians. We refuse to lower the socialist red flag to march alongside our class enemies.

The second reason we cannot unite with the stop the war movement is that they simply cannot succeed and are impotent so it would be foolish to join in futile campaigns. Appeals to governments are the general methods yet they leave in power the makers of wars, the capitalist class. They intend to let the profit-making system which itself produces commercial rivalry and inevitably international warfare to continue. Supposing that nuclear weapons could be banned. If two nations, possessing the necessary technical knowledge and possessing the components, should quarrel seriously enough over the things wars are really fought for— markets, sources of raw materials, strategic Bases, etc—and even supposing they commenced fighting with “conventional,” “moral” weapons, would not the losing side set its scientists to producing nuclear weapons in order to stave off defeat? If history is anything to go by, the side which was winning would use the nukes and justify this by claiming it had brought hostilities to a speedier conclusion

Surely it is no longer doubted that wars are born of the fight for spoil between capitalists. Under capitalism, even in times of peace, states are always in competition with each other over markets, sources of raw materials, investment outlets, trade route and other economic and strategic questions. When it comes to negotiating over these differences the existence of a powerful armed force in the background is an important factor in the relationship of forces which decides the outcome. So each state is obliged to try to obtain the most modern and most effective (destructive) arms that it can afford, irrespective of whether or not it is actually involved in a conflict at home or abroad.

The level of a state’s armament is part of its negotiating strength and general credibility. This is why there is always a vast international market for arms of all sorts which no capitalist country which has an arms-producing capacity is going to refuse to supply for “moral” reasons. This is especially so in the current period of economic crisis when every little export helps. 

The Socialist Party fights for the removal of a system of society that works out to the detriment of the many. The crusaders for peace are out for an alteration in the method of government whereby the wars between capitalist countries can be reduced or abolished. Socialism declares in favour of a new system wherein capital and capitalist governments cease to be. Peace propagandists by no means unite in condemning capitalist society, and they are mostly opposed to a change in the system altogether. What is the Socialist Party's attitude to war? It is that war as we know it is produced in the main by the conflict between the interests of capitalists of various nations. It is born of the rivalry between sellers of goods for profit, and it can only die when selling for profit is abolished. In other words, the socialist theory holds and capitalist practice proves that only by ending the entire capitalist system can war with all its attendant horrors cease. If you wish to stop all wars you must stop all capitalist competition and to do this you must work for socialism.

Capitalism generates wars because it is organised in such a way that its wealth can only be produced and distributed by a process of competition. The industries of capitalism are the private property of a small class of persons, and wealth is produced primarily for sale with a view to profit. A capitalist enterprise requires markets, trade routes, supplies of wage labour, raw materials, places to invest capital, and the power of a state to protect these interests. The foreign policy of a capitalist state attempts to acquire these needs in its relations with other countries. The rub is that there are several capitalist states in the world competing intensively for the same needs, and the size of the planet is limited. They must necessarily come into conflict with one another; and if the conflict cannot be settled or negotiated to the satisfaction of all parties concerned, they go to war. In competing for their essential business needs, capitalist countries seek control over territories in which they can sell goods, and from which they can extract profit and raw materials.

The Socialist Party would point out that the war is part of a whole related pattern of social problems generated by capitalism; and because it is part of a related pattern, the war cannot be attacked in isolation from the rest of the pattern or from its roots in the needs of capitalist society; the only way this problem, and others like it, can be permanently solved is to establish a system of society in which the means of production are owned and democratically controlled by the whole people, and goods are produced for use and not for competitive exchange and profit.


The whole point of modern war is that it comes from the capitalist social system. The only way to prevent war is to establish socialism. If capitalism is to be overthrown women and men have to work together for socialism. Common ownership will foster new kinds of relationships between human beings. Women and men will, at last, be free to live life as they choose, to cooperate with each other in building a future in which we will no longer be exploited for profit. 


Stop the War

 

100,000 protesters in Berlin

Quote of the Day

 "In peace sons bury their fathers, in war fathers bury their sons." - Herodotus

Russians Protest the War (video)


 

The UK Workers and the Squeeze

 UK households could suffer the biggest annual decline in their living standards since the 1950s as the Russian invasion of Ukraine pushes up global energy prices, experts have warned.

“In time the conflict will also broaden and deepen the living standards squeeze here at home,” said Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation thinktank. “The chances of low- and middle-income households getting some respite from the growing squeeze on living standards later this year are receding rapidly.”

With inflation already at the highest rate for 30 years, analysts said a sustained rise for wholesale oil and gas markets would further add to the squeeze on families from soaring utility bills.

With growth of workers’ pay, benefits and other sources of income failing to keep pace, real household income could fall by 3.1% this year, “comfortably the largest calendar year fall since at least 1956”

The hit to living standards is expected to affect poorer households most, as lower-income families spend proportionally more on essentials such as energy and food than richer households.

UK households face biggest fall in living standards since 1950s, say experts | Inflation | The Guardian

What garden of England?

 People from the poorest areas die on average 19 years younger than those from the wealthiest. While there are multiple factors of deprivation that contribute to that morbid inequality, recent research has found that “living in areas with higher amounts of green spaces reduces mortality”, particularly from cardiovascular disease. And a study published in Environment International this week found that children living in areas with higher air pollution and very low levels of green space might have up to 62% increased risk of developing ADHD.

Homes in the poorest areas of England have less than a third of the private garden space enjoyed by those in the richest, giving those residents a mental and physical health disadvantage that leads to worse outcomes from the cradle to the grave.

In the richest 10% of areas in England, properties had 379m sq on average, compared with 114m sq in the poorest 10%. 

Across England, 12% of properties in the poorest areas had no garden space, compared with 8% in the richest. However, the lowest levels of garden access were found in the third-poorest group, where almost 15% lacked private outdoor space.

In Somers Town, north London, among the 20% mostdeprived areas in the country, according to ONS figures, eight in 10 properties had no private outdoor space. In Ladywood-Summerhill, Birmingham, which is also among the poorest 20% of areas nationally, more than half of addresses had no garden. Those with the very lowest levels of private outdoor space were in city-centre locations. The neighbourhood with the least access to garden space in England was in central Birmingham, where just 2% of addresses had outdoor space.

 There are significant mental health benefits from access to green space. People who are more connected with nature are usually happier in life and more likely to report feeling their lives are worthwhile. And experiencing biodiversity, through bird species richness, plant species richness, habitat diversity and butterfly richness, is related to improved wellbeing, increased positive mood and lower levels of anxiety.

2014 review of evidence found that people “who are more connected to nature tended to experience more positive affect, vitality, and life satisfaction compared with those less connected to nature”. Natural England has estimated that if everyone in England had good access to green space it could reduce NHS pressures.

Poorest areas of England have less than third of garden space enjoyed by richest | Inequality | The Guardian

The International Peace Movement (video)

 The online anti-war rally was held with 2000 participants on Saturday

A report

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/26/anti-war-coalition-holds-online-rally-peace-ukraine

Video of the Zoom event including Jeremy Corbyn’s contribution.

This blog may not agree with all the analyses and the sentiments expressed by the speakers but believe that other voices should be heard.



War Fever


 “The boundaries of states are accidents of history. Ukraine’s certainly are. There never had been a Ukrainian national state until 25 years ago, and the boundaries of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were never intended to define a nation state...Putin is not acting from a belief in self-determination, but from naked Russian nationalism. That is what is so amusing about the deluded left wingers supporting him against the nationalists of Kiev.” Former-ambassador-turned-activist, Craig Murray, 2014


As socialists, we re-affirm that all peoples should seek their emancipation as human beings. They should unite to abolish the division of the world into so-called nation-states and we call upon the workers to organise consciously and politically to use the power at their disposal to bring the bloodshed to a standstill; and secure the space we need in order to build the co-operative world socialist commonwealth of which we will all be free and equal members - citizens of the world, not subjects of nation-states. It is vitally important today to remember that socialists must be the standard-bearers of civilisation - the defenders of political democracy and peace. Rubble and ruins don't make a good basis for building socialism. Voices raised against war shows that there is hope.

We place on record our horror that capitalism has once again provoked the orgy of death and destruction known as war that is taking place in Ukraine. We extend the hand of friendship to our fellow workers who have been designated as targets for destruction.

We don’t care who began it. We don’t care which nation or leader is to blame nor care what weapons they use. Once again the world is faced with human tragedies. Once more pictures and accounts of victims of a war not of their making confront us across the media. 

In Ukraine, the diplomats of the international community" were slow to seriously negotiate for fear of jeopardising their political and economic interests. Ordinary people became pawns in a power play. Massive propaganda exercises are employed by the state to stoke people's fears and anxieties that stem from their poverty and insecurity. This is because people have a healthy horror of war. They know war means death and destruction. Death not only of the soldiers on both sides but also of women, children and old people as collateral damage.

To abolish war and build a truly sustainable global peace, we require a plan in which we can all participate. Many people have been tirelessly working for peace but what is their actual plan to accomplish the objective? Many people's gut reaction is simply that war is crazy. Socialists share this anti-war sentiment. It is one of the reasons why we are real socialists and propose a unified world community, without frontiers, based on all the Earth's resources, natural and industrial, becoming the common heritage of all humanity and being used to satisfy people's needs instead of for profit. We concluded that capitalism means war and that therefore to get rid of wars and the threat of wars – and the constant preparation for war represented by maintaining armed forces – you have got to get rid of capitalism.

"Nationalism is an infantile disease...It is the measles of mankind." Albert Einstein once said. Others would say it is more like Alzheimer's, as memories of the past are forgotten.

Like many movements, the 2014 Euromaidan protests were a complex phenomenon. Different tendencies were discernible within it and to a certain extent, they conflicted with one another.

One part was a movement of citizens of all ethnic affiliations against a corrupt, unresponsive, incompetent and oppressive government. As such it had the potential to spread throughout the country and to become a truly nationwide movement. Citizens in Eastern Ukraine often expressed sympathy for this particular aspect of the Euromaidan.

However, there was also an ‘ethno-national’ element with an increasing assertive Banderites declaring Ukraine was not Ukrainian enough – and this was perceived as a threat in the Russian-speaking regions of the Donbas region.

Euromaidan was a popular uprising. True, it was confined to one half of Ukraine, and an equally popular counter-uprising soon followed in the other half. But the popular uprising was cut short and usurped by an attempted power grab on the part of an armed ultra-nationalist minority. Both Russian and American intelligence services were involved in some way or another.

What sort of memories do people have? The real sickness in this world is caused by the rivalries of the ruling class who control all media outlets, the ignorance of the masses who support them and the divisiveness of nationalism. Nationalism, like any disease, can be diagnosed, but there remains no immediate prognosis and past treatments have failed as remedies. Nationalism feeds on fear and insecurity, alienation and ignorance which themselves can lead to irrational passions. These are the factors preventing us from working together to repair our broken planet. 

The only war that need concern us is the class war. We advocate a war on war, to be waged on the battlefield of ideas—for the hearts and minds of the world's people. And once we unite there will be no force that will stop us from taking the Earth into our common possession.

Saturday, February 26, 2022

No War

 Anti-war protests in Russia continue despite police repression. 

A total of 2,692 people have been detained in anti-war protests in Russia in the last three days.

Amnesty International accused Russian forces of "indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas and strikes on protected objects such as hospitals," citing three examples, including an attack on Thursday near a hospital building in Vuhledar, in the eastern Donetsk region. That attack killed four civilians and wounded ten more, Amnesty reported.

The War for Demockracy

 


The Socialist Party has been criticised for presenting an "overly" simplified explanation for the cause of war, and in particular, the present one in Ukraine. The Socialist Party has always maintained that capitalism and war are inseparable. Capitalism’s war-drums are never silent. They are always beating in the background. At certain times they become very much louder as now the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

 

With each outbreak of war, politicians and the media look back to this or that turning point and say that if only the diplomats had acted differently, with more foresight, then war would not have happened. Each group of capitalists, ruling in a particular country, does whatever it thinks is best for its own interests. Lots of advice is given, but the decision rests with each country's ruling class.

 

There is no such thing as an ideal foreign policy. In international geo-politics there is no policy that will suit all times and all circumstances. The view taken by the “wise-after-the-event” pundits assumes that a government is a free agent, able to follow any policy that the international situation may seem to call for. It ignores the forces behind the government which determine the government’s attitude and limit its freedom of action; the public opinion of voters have to be considered, but more importantly, the commercial, industrial and financial groups whose demands on foreign policy are coloured by their business interests and so regards the deterrent effect of the initial weak economic sanctions imposed on Russian banks and oligarchs, there was no deterrence.

 

It also assumes too, that if one government gave a certain lead in international affairs other governments would respond in a simple reciprocal way, determined either by fear of opposing a strong group of powers or by the mutual desire to maintain world peace. Summits of statesmen and the counsel of international bodies may control minor disputes and delay the major ones, but they have not succeeded in the past and will not succeed in the future in preventing war.

 

Lying is the trade of politicians and the military. Workers are lied to from the cradle to the grave with distortions of history and nationalist myths. The entire capitalist edifice depends on the promotion of lies, half-truths and the distortion of facts. So powerful is the distortion machine that it takes all our powers to separate the lies from a resemblance of the truth. Capitalism is a war-prone society in that built-in to it is a perpetual conflict between rival states.

 

In wars, workers have been persuaded to identify with their masters' cause in the mistaken belief that they were fighting for a higher "national interest". In Russia and in Ukraine it is the same message - patriotism and loyalty are what is expected. Working people have nothing to gain from fighting the battles of a class whose interests are opposed to our own. World peace is something only to be achieved through socialism. Only by ending the exploitation of man by man can we strike at the roots of war.

 

The Socialist Party advocates the slogan "One World" as a concise description of the society we are striving forunited humanity, sharing common interests and also sharing a global administration. This is our alternative to the way that capitalism divides the planet into rival states and sets one people against another. It is the ruling class who decide when and where wars shall be made. The workers pay for them in blood and in suffering. There is no such thing as a "surgical strike" or “precision bombing”. There will always be “collateral" damage on civilians.

 

Many in the anti-war movement possess a genuine desire for peace and are against war “in general”, but they will find that this or that particular war is justified because it is for democracy”, “against a dictator”, “ for humanitarian purposes”, “to uphold international law”, or for some other "noble" purpose.  The peace advocates change from “anti-war” to propagandists for “pro-war.” 

 

It is important that workers oppose war, however, it is just as equally important that we recognise why armed conflicts between nations arise and in whose interests wars are waged. If you think about it you'll be hard-pressed to think of a single war that did not have its roots in the desire of a small elite to profit. All wars and the conflict in Ukraine is no exception tend to be fought over spheres of influence.

 

To end wars and the need to demonstrate against each war as one war succeeds another – capitalism has to be ended and replaced. The choice is to protest endlessly against each and every new war which inevitably arises or campaign for a new world of common ownership, democratic control, peace and human welfare. 

 

We can bomb the world to pieces but we cannot bomb it to peace.