“The world is ruled by neither justice nor morality; crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is ruled by power and power is obtained with money. To work is senseless, because money cannot be obtained through work, but through exploitation of others. And if we cannot exploit as much as we wish, at least let us work as little as we can. Moral duty? We believe neither in the morality of man nor in the morality of systems.” ― Tadeusz Borowski, ‘This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.’
The capitalist class are men who have traded their souls for the accumulation of profit. The world is not ruled by justice or morality, it is ruled by power. Capitalists control presidents and parliaments. They disdain the opinions of the common people of the world. They ridicule the organizations that have been established to protect the Earth and promote peace. Their end determines their actions; their laws supersede all others.
The wars the State wages may seem a complete waste of taxpayer money to the individual capitalist but things look a bit different if we consider the capitalist class as a whole. Tensions between nations are always present over shifts in political allegiances between countries that may benefit some better than others. Global politics is a macrocosm of the local economy, with each company vying to get as much of the business as it can, such as trade, material resources and opportunities for future economic growth. Capitalism generates its own war-like behaviour where capitalists will go to any lengths to vanquish the enemy (i.e. foreign competitors). We may find this behaviour deplorable from the standpoint of human decency, but it does have its own necessity. And there is a similar capitalist logic at play when nation-states jostle and throttle each other for access to markets and resources, despite such behaviour being the height of idiocy from the perspective of humanity as a whole.
When one risks life and limb in a war, a rational person needs a good reason for the possible sacrifice. To make somebody even wealthier is not a very good motivation. Working people require something much more to go to war and face death. They have to believe in a worthy cause greater than themselves as individuals to fight and die for.
Countries will try to instil a national identity, loyalty and patriotism. When that may not be enough, an appeal to God may be called for, with the government declaring they hold a divine mission to conduct a “Holy Crusade”. It offers a cloak of respectability for what can only be described as inhuman, brutal behaviour. It is imperialism by another name and the aim remains the same – economic, military and political domination of the world. The Ukrainian invasion is reducing the Russian economy to ruins but national chauvinism can blame it on the Western sanctions whilst taking pride that Mother Russia is standing up to the eastward march of Western imperialism.
Ukraine was once the breadbasket of Russia and then the USSR. Since the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the 2014 coup which was largely funded and supported by the West, it has become the centre of a struggle for influence. There is nothing like atrocities to reinforce the identity politics of one group against another. This is obviously an inter-imperialist war. Yet working people are lining up to back the claims one side or another. The Socialist Party holds a class position, condemning both sides and calling for workers’ unity. Nationalism is everywhere in the ascendant and its dangers cannot be underestimated but it is largely in the ascendant because we have been losing the class war. We take a class position which is to oppose all capitalists. In the question of nation or class, there can be no compromise since class war is the only way to halt the wars that capitalism is already waging and is also preparing. All those who look for a progressive nationalist cause in Ukraine are traitors to the class war and that’s why we oppose them all.
A socialist society would have no “nations” and no borders. There would instead be world administration. The class war is our war and our only war. We have no interest in championing any wars for ruling class conquest and plunder. In all these wars the workers are slaughtered while their masters get fat on the spoils of conquest. The time has come for the workers to cease fighting the battles of their bosses and to fight their own, to cease being slaughtered like cattle for the profit of the ruling class and to line up in the class struggle regardless of race or nationality for the overthrow of class rule and for the emancipation of their class and humanity.
Your Country Need You,
Ye hardy sons of toil.
But will Country need you
When sharing out the spoil?
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