Most people are opposed to war. War is so terrible in its
methods and results that only a small number of deviants or professional
soldiers or completely ruthless financiers can support it. Even the practical
politician, at least, must pretend to themselves that they are against war. But
we have seen that wars do not result from what people wish and believe; and
that being against war does not prevent people from acting in a way that helps
bring war about.
The aim of the pacifist is to bring about a state of affairs
in which war will not exist. The goal of pacifism is a warless society BUT under
exactly the same form of production and in the same social conditions as at
present. War is inseparable from capitalism it follows that the “abolition” of
war is possible only through the overthrow of capitalism and the building of
socialism. The pacifist would rather we first get rid of war, then talk about
socialism. Pacifism spreads illusions about the nature of war and of the fight
against war (advocating disarmament, conscientious objection, non-aggression
treaties, UN mediation, etc., as solutions), and thus prevents a real struggle
against war, which can be based only on a true understanding of the nature and
causes of war. The UN will keep peace as long as peace is to the interests of
the powers that control the UN. Pacifism turns aside the working class from its
struggle for power, the only genuine way to fight war. In this way it redirects
the revolutionary struggle against war into “safe” channels.
The goal of socialists is a society without exploitation,
the society in which the demand for the complete abolition of private property
in the means of production will be realised. This condition of human society accomplishes
the objective of permanent warlessness. War must be made impossible by
destroying its deepest and best hidden roots. Socialists are not satisfied with
destroying the poisonous fruit - war. Socialist anti-war activity is only part
of the general struggle for emancipation of the working class. Pacifists believe
that the struggle against war can be carried on independently of the class
struggle.
Before being able to combat an evil, one must know its
cause. Thus, seeking the primary cause of war is the first step in preventing
it. Even a brief study of the nature and causes of modern war proves that war
is an essential part of capitalism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and
must lead to war. The only way actually to get rid of the high fever is to
remove the cause of the fever –if it is a diseased appendix then take it out.
The same thing is true for war: the only way to get rid of war is to remove the
cause of war. War is not the cause of the troubles of society. The opposite is
true. War is a symptom and result, of the irreconcilable troubles and conflicts
of the present form of society, that is to say, of capitalism. The only way to
fight against war is to fight against the causes of war. Since the causes of
war are part of the inner nature of capitalism, it follows that the only way to
fight, against war is to fight against capitalism. But the only true fight
against capitalism is the struggle for socialism. It therefore follows that the
only possible struggle AGAINST war is the struggle FOR the socialist
revolution.
There is no “separate” or “special” struggle against war.
The struggle against war cannot be divorced from the struggles of the workers. No
one can uphold capitalism – whether directly, as an open adherent of the
capitalists, or indirectly, from any shade of liberal or reformist position –
and fight against war, because capitalism means war. To suppose, therefore,
that the Socialist Party can work out a common platform “against war” with non-socialists
is based on a misunderstanding. Pacifists are not merely powerless to prevent
war; in practice it acts to promote war, both because it serves in its own way
to uphold the system that breeds war, and because it diverts the attention away
from the real fight against war. There is only one policy against war:
advocating socialism. By overthrowing capitalist economy and supplanting
capitalism with a socialist economy, it will remove the causes of war. With socialism
there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war. The
expansion of the means of production, under the common ownership and democratic
control of society as a whole, will proceed in accordance with a rational plan
adjusted to the needs of the members of society. Socialism will remove the artificial
limits on consumption, and hence permit the scientific and controlled
development of production. Thus, with socialism, war will disappear because the
causes of war will have been removed.
Pacifism aids war by spreading illusions about the nature of
war and the fight against it; by shifting the energies of honest opponents of
war to a fictitious fight against it; by sugar-coating the realities of
capitalist society and thus making them – including war – more palatable; by
subordinating the working class to middle class individuals and ideas; by
preparing the betrayal of the masses in the next war, when outstanding pacifist
leaders will decide in the crisis that, this war is different – is for
democracy, culture, God, or what not – and call for support of the government.
No, the pacifist way is not the way to fight war. War and militarism must be
approached by the working class from a class standpoint. War is a manifestation
of capitalist society. War remains as long as capitalism remains.
The Socialist Party is against any and every war undertaken
by the capitalist state and is the implacable enemy of the capitalist state –
the political representative of the class enemy – on every occasion. We support
only one particular kind of war – the class war – since only through the class
war can capitalism be overthrown and the causes of war thereby removed.
All across the globe people have always been fighting for
peace between nations. However, the preaching of peace does not necessarily
further the cause of peace. Pacifism as a policy may look plausible so long as
peaceful relations prevail but it collapses like a pricked balloon as soon as
hostilities are declared. In previous periods many professional pacifists have
turned into fanatical war supporters once the ruling class has plunged the
nation into battle.
The Socialist Party is not a pacifist organisation. Indeed,
we are opposed to pacifism, the reason being that pacifism is completely
ineffective as an instrument for preventing war. This has been shown again and
again. Pacifism’s weakness lies in its failure to diagnose the causes of war.
Pacifism tends to regard war as simply the product of misguided foreign
policies or the ations of aberrant politicians. In reality war has much deeper
roots. Its main cause in the modern world is the capitalist system, which
subordinates all production, and with it the whole of society, to the struggle
for capital accumulation, which by its very nature is competitive. If pacifism
succeeded in converting a huge majority to ‘non-violence’ it would still not be
able to prevent war. The only way to abolish war is to abolish the system that
generates it, and replace competitive production for profit by collective,
cooperative, production for need. By counter-posing the struggle for peace to
the struggle for socialism pacifism encourages the idea that mere could be a
violence-free, war-free capitalism. The pacifists proceed on the utopian
premise that the laws of capitalist competition can be nullified by the
cooperation of people of goodwill who can prevail upon the capitalist class to
refrain from war-making. Pacifists oppose the development of the class struggle
in favour of class peace at almost any price. Pacifist ideology disorientates
anti-war movements.
The task of the Socialist Party is to direct anti-war
protest into class-war. It seeks to promote socialism by the workers.
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