IT IS THE SAME IN EVERY WAR
The bloody butchery of world capitalism had been unleashed in Ukraine. Working people in their masses were being sacrificed as human offerings to the insatiable god of Mammon. The recruiting sergeants pour forth the propaganda of nationalism. Those who once waved the red flag in peacetime and carry their national flags in war. It is easy to favour peace when there is no war. But, because they adhere to the ideology of capitalism and do not recognise it as a world system based upon a clear class division between capitalists and workers, the phoney socialists abandoned the internationalism of the working class in favour of the interest of capitalist nations. We have been asked to support “wars for democracy” and “wars of national liberation” and “wars for self-determination”.
In every case the World Socialist Movement has refused to support the view that the workers’ interest can be advanced in any way by means of capitalist war. It is not only in peace that we have spoken of peace, but in war too, even though the consequences for our members have not been easy or comfortable. War has only one cause, so it has only one possible solution: world socialism.
We hold that the working class must march to its emancipation from wage-slavery and the domination of the capitalist class, by the conquest of political power. In the Britain the means to accomplish this are already in the hands of the workers, the workers have the overwhelming majority of the votes at their disposal when an election takes place. Hence the great, immediate, and pressing work requiring to be done is the education of the working class to an understanding of socialism to a realisation of their slavery and the method of their emancipation.
The working class are slaves to the capitalist class. While the workers produce all existing wealth by applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, this wealth, and the instruments necessary for its production, along with the great storehouse of Nature’s materials -the earth- are owned and controlled by the master class under a system of private ownership that necessitates the selling of the bulk of the products upon the markets. But while powers of production increase by leaps and bounds, the markets grow but slowly. Hence the struggles between the various groups of capitalists for the control of these markets and the routes thereto so that they may dispose of the commodities the wage-slaves have produced. Practically all the wars of the last three centuries, from the struggle against the Dutch and Portuguese in India to the present carnage have had their essential causes rooted in the demands of the various groups of capitalists to control these markets and routes.
The workers’ share of these conflicts has been to slaughter each other in their masters’ interests, to find a grave if killed, or be offered the degrading and comfortless shelter of the workhouse if disabled or maimed. The hardship, misery, want, and suffering following these wars fall always upon the working class.
No matter which group of the masters win the struggle, the workers remain enslaved. The division of interests is not between the peoples of the world, but between the classes – the master class and the working class. Not, therefore, in their fellow Workers abroad, but in the master class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found.
What interest have the workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none.
Every socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow workers. All those who on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist.
Moreover, where the working class have the necessary means – the franchise – for their emancipation within their grasp it is clearly an anti-socialist and treacherous act to urge them to use those means for the purpose of placing political power in the hands of the masters. The flimsy excuses so often used to cover up such acts of treachery to the working class merely add evidence to support the truth of this statement.
Applying these tests of real understanding of socialist principle and correct action to the organisations in this country claiming to be socialist, we find all of them except the Socialist Party failing to stand that test. The so-called Labour Party is ready at all times to make political bargains with the capitalists and to urge the workers to place power in the hands of the masters.
THE SOCIALIST PARTY alone takes up the socialist position. THE SOCIALIST PARTY places on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home. Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and socialist fraternity.
We declare that there was nothing in the conditions of any country which justified socialists voluntarily supporting either side in the war, and record our condemnation of such action as a betrayal of socialist principles arising from lack of political knowledge and unsound political organisation.
So, with our own hands clean and our every action in accord with the CLASS struggle and the solidarity of the interest of the working class the world over, we bring before the international proletariat our DEMAND FOR PEACE without any change of attitude or re-adjustment of policy. We stand for PEACE without reference to terms, since the fruits of capitalist war are the masters’, and only the pains and penalties of the Workers’.
To the socialists of other countries we extend our fraternal greetings. As soon as conditions will permit us to do so we shall endeavour to join forces with our comrades for the purpose of establishing a global socialist movement where socialist policies shall be decided, where mis-leaders and tricksters who use the name and fame of socialism will be exposed and denounced, where the message of socialism will be sent forth to the toilers of all countries in clear and unmistakable terms, where the gage of battle against the capitalist class will be thrown down to the clarion call:
“WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS; YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.”
Negotiate Not Escalate
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