Building a War-Free World

 “The fraternisation of the workers of the world is for me the highest and most sacred thing on earth; it is my guiding star, my ideal, my fatherland. I would rather forfeit my life than be unfaithful to this ideal!” - Rosa Luxemburg

Capitalism is a dangerous society. We live in a harsh, brutal society. Every day we read on the media about poverty, hunger, war and crime. The Socialist Party is true to itself and the working class and makes its stand staunchly in favour of the class war, the only war that can put an end to all war, and quite as staunchly against every war waged by the ruling class to rob and kill and enslave the working class. Uncompromising socialist opposition against war, against those who caused it, who profit by it, who want to continue to support the war. The first step in the struggle against war is a clear understanding of the nature and causes of war.

Capitalists of every major nation are faced with the following situation: In order to sustain the system which sustains them, they must find continuous outlets for capital investment and re-investment; but the domestic market, provided by the capitalist mode of production within any single nation, is not, sufficient to re-convert into capital values the values of commodities turned out even by existing capital equipment, much less of new. 

Consequently, the capitalists of each nation are forced to seek outlets for capital investment (and likewise consumer markets) beyond the national borders. Since the world is limited in extent, since the areas available for new forms of capital expansion and exploitation are growingly restricted, conflict is not only likely but inevitable. The battles of the capitalists have been fought out on a worldwide scale. Into the satellite states, economic blocs, spheres of influence, flow the surplus capital funds, expecting to be set to work at making profits. capitalist society is continuously at war, first trade wars, later proxy wars, then open hostilities. It is war all the time, changing only in the form it takes, in the degree of violence.

The new war crisis is no longer a matter of prophecy and prediction. It is already here, inaugurated by the launching of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We have entered the period of the armed conflict of the imperialist powers for a re-division of the world. This does not, of course, mean that open world war is scheduled to begin immediately. Delay, hesitation, manoeuvering are still, for the moment, possible. What it means is that the approach of the world war has now become the decisive and determining diplomatic factor in international and national developments.

The problem of war is the supreme test for the working class and the party of the working class. Once again it is the war crisis that strips bare the pretenders within the working class, the left-wing patriots. The construction of a new society which will wipe war and the threat of war from the face of the planet can be achieved only by the action of the international working class. A brief study of the nature and causes of modern war is sufficient to prove that war is an essential part of capitalism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and must lead to war. War is not the cause of the troubles of society. The opposite is true. War is a symptom and result of the irreconcilable troubles and conflicts of the present form of society, that is to say, of capitalism. The only way to fight against war is to fight against the causes of war.

 Since the causes of war are part of the inner nature of capitalism, it follows that the only way to fight against war is to fight against capitalism. It follows that the only possible struggle against war is the struggle for the workers’ revolution, for a world socialist society.  The capitalist nationalist system breeds wars, and we shall have to build a cooperative commonwealth in order to be secure in peace. On the question of war, every responsible person must be completely serious. No evasions, no half-truths can be accepted. The only answer to war is the full answer, with no sugar-coating. The great aim of the World Socialist Movement is the abolition of war. Modern warfare threatens not merely suffering and death to working people, but if it turns nuclear, the actual destruction of human civilisation, the thrusting of humankind back into barbarism. No one can doubt this to be literally true.

The camouflage that war carries – appearing as due to “national” or “cultural” differences, as follows – must not be allowed to hide the fundamental conflicts which are the true source of modern war. Though these other factors may provide the final push that sets open war going or may modify the character of a war, there is nothing in their own nature that must necessarily lead to war. They are the tools of the forces making for war, not the cause of these forces.