Forget the Matrix, we’re living in an Alice in Blunderland times. At the bottom of the rabbit hole America has drunk from the bottle labelled peace, and the European Union and the UK has drunk fro the bottle labelled war.
Or perhaps the Mock Turtle’s song would be more appropriate; Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?’ EU, UK and Ukraine.
‘ Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.’ America and Russia.
Or
perhaps those advocating for more war have adopted George Orwell’s
1984
slogan, War is Peace.
The position of the SPGB (The Socialist Party) has consistently been clear since its inception in 1904. Workers have no country and the slaughter by the working class of one or more state/s of the working class from a different state/s is one of the most pernicious impacts of, and orchestrated by, capitalism.
States have always entered into strange alliances when it suited their political, strategic, military objectives. The USA voting with Russia and North Korea in opposing a United Nations resolution which supported Ukraine and opposed Russia was not on the bingo card in 2024.
A conspiracy theory gaining ground at present is that Starmer’s One Hundred Year Pact recently signed with Ukraine gave Britain access to the natural resources of Ukraine that the President of the United States is desperate to get hold off. Ostensibly to repay America for the billions of dollars it has already supplied to Ukraine in aid over the period of the conflict. Peace means the USA saves in resources sent to Ukraine and future exploitation of Ukrainian resources for the American capitalist class. This is not to say that whatever the motives it is obvious that a peaceful settlement to the conflict needs to take place sooner rather than later.
Scepticism is always the response when politicians or others say everyone in the country supports this proposal or action. Therefore, reticent though we are to issue that sort of blanket speaking it does see fair to say that the majority of the working class do not support the continuation of the conflict. It is the ‘leadership’ of the European Union and the UK who appear to wan to desperately the war to go on.
Capitalist states are rapacious. The UK is nowhere near as powerful as the USA economically or militarily. The legacy media is, and has been for some time, publishing articles of a propaganda nature. The latest is in The Sun detailing how Europe ‘stacks up’ against Russia without the backing of America.
Two quotes: ‘Putin has thrown his troops into the meat-grinder in Ukraine and has been willing to take huge casualties for inches of land.’
‘America has some 3,700 active nuclear weapons while Europe's only two nuclear powers, the UK and France, have just over 500 together.
Importantly, that's enough to lay waste to Moscow and St Petersburg and all of Russia's most critical and cherished sites.’
The first ignores the geo-political causes of the conflict. Whilst everyday Russians have suffered huge losses of killed and wounded the Ukrainians forced to take part have suffered considerably more.
The inches of land is a sizeable part of Ukraine.
The second verges on the insane and delusional. If nuclear weapons were to be used there wouldn’t be anything left of the UK and France. Or of large parts of Europe.
The Mail Online, 24 February 2025, ran a ‘story’ about a Russian submarine which fired a nuclear missile at the UK and the horrific situation that resulted. Is this a softening up of the population to agree to any egregious actions the UK might undertake?
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/html_modules/DeepDive/2025/nuclear%20war/Nuclear%20War_v9/aftermath.html
Are ‘leaders’ blundering toward a third world war because the alternative, incompetence and stupidity, doesn’t bear thinking about.
And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?
Don’t complain, stay on gravy train. Next stop’s Ukraine.
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates.
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! We're all gonna die!
Apologies to Country Joe McDonald for alteration to his excellent anti-war song.
WORLD SOCIALISM AGAINST WAR
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