The civil war in Syria took on a new turn when the US in revenge for an alleged chemical weapon attack on civilians launched scores of Tomahawk missiles against the Syrian government.
You don't create peace by making war.
We cannot just decide to end war. What we can do, though, is decide to establish a society in which war is inconceivable. Wars can be stopped forever by simply removing the reasons for their existence. What is needed is a clear analysis of why humans go to war. It is never too late, even now, for people of this and other lands to ask themselves WHY? Many people believe they have got the answer. “Liberty and freedom is at stake," they say; “that precious freedom for which our forefathers fought.” Others maintain that “dictators and despots must be stopped, else they will seek to dominate the world.” With such fine-sounding sentiments do men and women delude themselves.
It is not because of our genes, our natures or our beliefs. It is because capitalists make themselves richer and more powerful by obtaining more and more markets and trade routes and exploitable populations and raw materials. And until capitalism is abolished, its ruthless, competitive drive for profits will condemn workers to die needlessly in wars. Conflict over access to and control of vital resources by competing nations have for the past one hundred years been rendered respectable by the cloak of capitalist ideology. They are no longer capable of being so masked.
Since the formation of the Socialist Party in 1904 our opposition to all wars has clearly distinguished us from other organisations claiming descent from Marx and Engels and the early socialist pioneers. For the Socialist Party, capitalism and war are inseparable. There can be no capitalism without conflicts of economic interest. Our consistent view has been that it is the duty of socialists to oppose the wars of the ruling class of one nation with the ruling class of another, and refuse to participate in them. So long as the working class continues to support capitalism so long will its wars, and preparations for war, continue.
Because wars are the outcome of economic and strategic conflicts between the capitalists of the various nations any attempt to abolish war while those economic conflicts remained will be futile. And as such, anti-war campaigns from the working class standpoint is absurd. Just as the class struggle cannot be abolished save by abolishing classes, so it is impossible for capitalist nations to get rid of the grim spectre of war, for Capitalism presupposes economic conflicts which must finally be fought out with the aid of the armed forces of the State. The only solution to war is to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism. We do not single out one or two aspects of war – atomic or chemical weapons, or land mines or cluster bombs or white phosphorus shells or the use of child soldiers – we oppose the system that give rise to these things.
The great tragedy of to-day: the workers have not yet learned their most important lesson, the lesson of CLASS. They allow themselves to be lined up as Britons, Americans, Russians or Chinese, never as workers and capitalists. Capitalism puts everyone in his or her place, not according to language or nationality, but according to the economic position. That is the fundamental fact for the workers to consider, and all other questions mean little in comparison. When socialists allow themselves to be recruited for a war they do not only commit suicide physically but ideologically as well. For they renounce completely the fundamental axiom of socialism, namely, the directly conflicting interests of workers and capitalists, a conflict that, so far from being abrogated during a war, stands out in sharper contrast than ever.
For that war, although it will be fought mainly by the workers, will not be RUN by the workers; it will be run by the ruling class, and their method will be to crush ruthlessly any attempt to express any working class opposition, whether in the factory or politically. In other words, the workers will have to place themselves wholly under an iron control of militaristic capitalism, and who is going to argue that if and when such a war is ended workers can start again where they left off? The tactics advocated for the defence of democracy in the War Against Terror has led to the severe curtailment of civil liberties and the establishment of a virtual dictatorship.
We do not preach passive acquiescence to populism and fascism any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the Class Struggle for Socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists, whether they be of so-called “peace" or even those of war. Let there be signs to-day that more and more workers are becoming class-conscious enough to understand the real causes of capitalist wars and see just how quickly our rulers forget their internecine quarrels.
We want to remind those people of what happened during World War One in one country—Russia. The workers and peasants there were not socialists. But they refused to fight and turned their attention to their real enemy at home. And what was the result? Not only did they drive out a most reactionary regime, but their move helped to play a decisive part in the collapse of German imperialism, and thus hastened the end of the war. How much better could a strengthened Socialist Party in this country play its part in bringing home to workers everywhere die madness of fighting each other in the interests of the class that oppresses and exploits them. Let British workers set an example to their fellows in all lands by proclaiming that the interest of the working class is in internationalism, not in wars for markets.
We call upon you, fellow workers, to help us. Are you ready take the first steps to end war?
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