How to get Peace

 

The world is dominated by a system based on conflict – conflict over resources of all kinds, conflict between competing property interests and the states that represent them. Modern wars are not fought over such issues as democracy or the spread of Islam. Wars are fought over such issues as who shall have control over the oil wells and the pipelines.

Supporters of the anti-war campaign are well motivated the peace activists need to learn just what is involved in keeping people free from war. If they really care about people they will want to campaign for their enlightenment; for an absence of war—in a word, for socialism. The truth is that capitalism is war-prone. The urgent task before us, therefore, is its abolition. Like many other problems thrown up by capitalism, war has produced people intent on solving or ending it within capitalism, not recognising that this and the other problems are inevitable under the present social order. Peace Pledge Union, CND, Greenham Common, and Stop the War Coalition are examples in capitalism’s history to illustrate the futility of challenging the State war machine through anything less than a policy of socialism. Wars arise out of conflicts over the control of resources. Doesn’t this mean that an end has to be put to such conflicts? And how can this be done without placing resources under the control of a global community – that is, without establishing world socialism? The Socialist Party points out that the problem of war is inseparable from the system of society in which we live. This system produces poverty, insecurity, disease, and all the vicious things that stem from those, and it gives rise to the wars for which governments are constantly preparing.

The Socialist Party isn’t critical of those who seek peace just to be awkward, or to be politically correct but disapproval of war has all been expressed before. They have all had no effect. Every method of getting real peace and disarmament has been tried except socialism. Time and time again the Socialist Party has demonstrated that war stems from capitalist struggles for markets, trade routes, sources of raw materials, and places of strategic importance. All these spring from the production for sale, with a profit motive for a small section of society, the capitalists. This in itself works against the interest of the overwhelming majority of society, the working class.

War can solve no working class problems. The effects of war are wholly malevolent. Capitalism gives rise to war and socialism is completely opposed to capitalism and to its wars and what they represent. To get rid of capitalism and to establish socialism is the task of the working class of the world. They must understand what socialism is, and organise politically to bring it into existence. No leaders or groups of leaders can do the job for them, but the working class alone. So instead of wasting our time on slogans such as “Stop the War” we have a slogan instead “Don’t die for Capitalism, live for Socialism.”

The Socialist Party’s immediate task is to impart socialist knowledge and class consciousness to fellow workers, the typical peace campaigner’s immediate work is to attempt, by any means, to end the war. Their views arise, in general, from looking at the war in isolation and not realising that peace of any description, as it will leave the capitalist basis of society intact, will carry with it the seeds of a future war. They ignore the fact that so long as we have capitalism, with its competitive struggle over commercial matters, such as trade routes, sources of raw material, control of relatively undeveloped areas of the world, so long will we have war. While the working class lack socialist ideas and support capitalism they will support the wars that occur; this support is given because war, at the time of crisis, is presented to them as the only possible policy for "their" government to pursue. Lasting peace cannot be gained without socialism. Socialism is an urgent necessity, a practical and immediate policy for to-day, and we have yet to be shown how by deferring it until some future date the working class can benefit. Capitalism can last only as long as the majority of the workers are prepared to preserve it, and as long as it lasts the economic rivalries will continue to lead to military conflicts. Simply being opposed to war is insufficient as it cannot achieve its purpose—peace—because it cannot rid the world of capitalism. Only from the workers' class-conscious political activities can socialism be achieved, and war be banished from the earth forever.