Do Not Be Silent

 “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” — Ernest Hemingway, writer

 It is a sad thought that such a war has only been possible because of the political backwardness of the international working class. Had the pronouncements of international solidarity made in past years been backed by a sound knowledge of the workers’ slave position in a capitalist society, and the socialist solution to it, war at this time would have been impossible. 

 Why does this madness persist? Why do major wars turn up every few years and small wars always go on? Because of the present private property basis of society with the accompanying necessity of buying and selling. Under capitalism, the capitalists must sell or sink, and therefore where diplomacy fails they force their way into markets by means of war or cut out their competitors in that way.

There is only one solution for this recurring disease of war, and that is to convert the means of wealth production from privately owned means into the common property of the whole of society to be used for the equal benefit of all.

It is not too late, even now, for the common people of this and other lands to halt in their mad stampede to the slaughterhouse and ask themselves WHY?

Many people believe they have got the answer. “Liberty and democracy are at stake," they say; “that precious freedom for which our forefathers fought.” Others maintain that “Putin and the Russians  must be stopped, else they will seek to dominate the world.” With such fine-sounding phrases do working-class men and women delude themselves, blindly ignoring what happened when very same slogans lured millions to a horrible death in earlier wars?

That is the great tragedy of today: the workers have not yet learned their most important lesson, the lesson of CLASS. They allow themselves to be lined up as Britons, Russians, Germans or Ukrainians, never as workers and capitalists. Yet all the oligarchs have so much in common with one another. Capitalism puts everyone in his place, not according to language or nationality, but according to the economic position. That is the fundamental fact for the workers to consider, and all other questions mean little in comparison.

Remembering this, you must understand why the Socialist Party will not support a capitalist war to prevent Putin from grabbing parts of Europe. For Europe has no more meaning for the worker here, or anywhere else, than has the gold in the Bank of England. We know it is there and are told that it belongs to us. But we have never been able to make any use of it, for the simple reason that it does not belong to us at all: any more than the street we live in.

Should the Ukrainian worker then put up no resistance at all to the Russian invasion? They at least have some liberties left, and surely to kneel before Putin would mean the suppression of all freedom. We will agree without hesitation that democracy is worth preserving. But is it going to be preserved by lining up under the banner of nationalism in a war that will kill many thousands?

We do not teach passive acquiescence any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We teach the struggle for socialism.

And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. For in its development we can play a more and more effective part. As the World Socialist Movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists, whether they be of so-called “peace" or even those of war. Let there be signs today that more and more workers are becoming class-conscious enough to understand the real causes of capitalist wars and see how quickly our rulers would forget their international quarrels.

We want to remind those people of what happened during the last war in one country—Russia.

The workers and peasants there were not socialists. But they refused to fight and turned their attention to their real enemy at home. And what was the result? Not only did they drive out a most reactionary regime, but their move helped to play a decisive part in the collapse of German imperialism, and thus hastened the end of the war. How much better could a strengthened Socialist Party in this country play its part in bringing home to workers everywhere die madness of fighting each other in the interests of the class that oppresses and exploits them.

Quite frankly, facing the matter realistically, we see no immediate prospect of the workers becoming socialists in sufficient numbers to come to real grips with the capitalist class in a challenge to the latter’s political power. The talk of a socialist peace, although supremely desirable and necessary, would therefore seem to be Utopian at the moment. If the working class becomes alive to the realities of the war issue they will see that their first task is to stop the blood-letting, and finally to gain political power for themselves and establish socialism throughout the world and thus end all wars.