End War - End Capitalism

So long as there remain capitalists with the need to realise profits they will find themselves involved in the conflicts which are the inevitable results of capitalism.

 Our chief aim must be to warn the workers against allowing themselves to be misled by the lies of the press and the capitalists, and to remember that the worker in enemy countries is just as much a victim of capitalist oppression as they are. The war to end war is the class war. The war to end wage-slavery, to end capitalism with its evils of misery and degradation. You are called to fight in it; you cannot escape; you must take part. And until that war is ended we do not want peace—because such peace will be the peace of the beggar and the slave.

People would never support a war fought, that is, for the interests and advantages of the governing class; a war fought to protect or extend capitalist profits, and colonial  possessions Unfortunately, no ruling class ever admits going to war for such sordid objects. Every war has to be a “righteous"war, every war is for humanitarian” purposes, for “freedom”.

The causes for the war are to be found in the very process of capitalist production, distribution and exchange which creates the need for business to seek to establish control over markets, sources of raw materials and areas for exploitation.  This search comes up against the existing state boundaries which are in fact mainly based upon other and rival commercial interests. Those industrial and financial interests  first in the field have secured the main territorial advantages. The late-comers are driven to contest the advantageous positions established.

This process, unavoidable so long as capital rules, creates ceaseless conflict. The struggle does not begin when a government – serving its national corporations  – declares war on another state. It goes on all the time, taking many forms; some open, some concealed. Diplomatic intrigues, negotiations and manoeuvres, agreements and alliances between states, subsidised economic warfare, small wars waged ostensibly between small powers, actually as proxies on behalf of great ones – all these are manifestations of the same conflict. The formal declaration of war – nowadays more and more dispensed with – is merely the continuation of this same struggle in a sharper, more open form.  Victory by one group is not the end this struggle. The losses of one group are the gains of another; the temporary cessation of one conflict gives rise to the sharpening of other conflicts. War strengthens the ruling-class grip on the people.

Our policy on war  is an immediate peace to save workers lives and the little freedom we have, had handed down to us, so that the war of classes may be fully prosecuted until we have  accomplished the Co-operative Commonwealth. The duty imposed on members of the Socialist Party is that of refusing to participate in war or the preparation for war. It is necessary to point out that the fight against war is inseparable from the fight for socialism. Only the class war for the overthrow of capitalism can end wars by ending the cause of war - capitalism.