How to End Wars

 The basis of capitalism is production for profit, so in its remorseless drive for profit it leads to trade wars and eventually military conflict. It is the nature of the capitalist beast to maim and kill and all attempts to civilise it are doomed to failure.What of the workers? They have almost nothing to lose, except their lives and their health, and these they lose in war: not in the outcome of war, but in war itself, whatever the outcome. The working class have no interest at stake which warrants their supporting war. Whatever strength they have to influence the issue of war and peace should be thrown against war, no matter what the circumstances of the particular conflict may be. The question put by war-makers, “Are you in favour of peace at any price?" has no meaning to workers who understand their class position. The price of losing a war or of surrendering without waging war is not paid by the working class, but by the capitalist class. What difference does it make to the working class whether the Ukrainian or Russian oligarch dominate? Will they be poor, or suffer from unemployment? Indeed they will, for they do already everywhere. Workers then should throw their weight against war.

It can be said quite categorically that no wars have been about poverty. No nation on earth mobilised its armed forces, because children under the age of five are dying every day from preventable causes and could be saved by a small fraction of the wealth required to maintain the world's war machines. None of the wars that have occurred this century have been concerned with any of the problems that permanently confront the majority of people in every country - the working class. And yet, despite the incontrovertible fact that wars have nothing whatsoever to do with working people’s interests, it is the workers that, almost exclusively, is called upon to do the suffering, the killing and the dying. It sounds incredible that we workers can be conned again and again into risking our lives when it is patently obvious that we will not be the beneficiaries of victory and that we have not got anything an enemy would want to fight for. Yet the majority of workers will, never be in favour of peace against capitalist wishes while they (the workers) are prepared to support capitalist government, because they will always be ready to accept capitalist reasons for waging a particular war. As with all wars, and threats of war, the conflict in Ukraine is about the squalid interests of the owning class in our society. It is about the ownership and control of wealth; it is about resources, markets or areas of strategic importance. We appeal to workers in all lands to refuse to slaughter one another for and at the behest of, our capitalist masters. We appeal to you to unite with us in the struggle to overthrow the system of capitalism which not only causes war but all the other social problems which our class endures throughout the world.

The Socialist Party having no control over weaponry and armament industry now controlled by the capitalist class, cannot affect and has no concern with the purely capitalist question whether the British capitalists should supply Ukraine with arms to protect their property against foreign capitalist powers. The cause of war is world capitalism, the profit system, and it is that which will have to be removed. If it is not acceptable to see welfare services cut back while Britain spends more than a million pounds an hour on arms, then we must withdraw our support not just from Conservative politicians, but from all of the representatives of the profit system. And that applies equally to the Labour Party.

The Socialist Party in line with working-class interests is not concerned with the outcome of any war between capitalist groups over the right to appropriate the proceeds of the exploitation of the working class.

The Socialist Party knows that war means death, injury and destruction to the working class and, knowing that wars between capitalist groups do not involve any working-class interest does not support any wars iunder any circumstances whatever.

The Socialist Party has one object—socialism—and to attain that object knows that the organised working class must gain control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces. When such control has been achieved the working class will know how to use the armed forces for so long as it may be necessary to defend socialism against a violent non-compliant minority or an undefeated foreign group of capitalists.