War against war

One of the greatest aims of the socialist movement is the elimination of war. It has become almost commonplace to realise that modern war threatens not merely suffering and death to vast millions, but the actual destruction of human civilisation, returning mankind back into the stone-age. It is the socialist movement alone that has a solution to offer. The first step in the struggle against war is a clear understanding of the nature and causes of war. A mere horror at the dreadfulness of war – which is shared by the great majority of men – is useless, and worse than useless.

The Socialist Party points out that so long as capitalism endures, wars will come, that war under capitalism is not an “accident” or an “exceptional event” but an integral part of the very mechanism of capitalism. War is just as much a part of capitalism as are economic crises. You cannot have capitalism without having periodic crises, and you cannot have capitalism without periodically having wars. The causes which bring about wars, the inescapable need for every advanced capitalist nation to attempt to expand its markets, gain cheaper sources of raw materials, find new outlets beyond the internal market for capital investment, can none of them be eliminated without eliminating capitalism itself. The driving force of the capitalist mode of production is the necessity for the continual accumulation and expansion of capital. This necessity is inescapable. Capitalists must constantly attempt to expand capital, in order to maintain profits. Every capitalist government, including the UK and U.S. Governments are therefore committed to war as an instrument of foreign policy by the very fact that they are capitalist. To ask them to renounce war is like asking a someone to give up oxygen. Modern war is neither accidental nor due to the evil of human nature nor decreed by the Gods. War is of the very essence of capitalism, as much a part of capitalism as wage labour. To speak of capitalism without war is like speaking of a human being without lungs. The fate of the one is inextricably hound to the fate of the other.

It follows then that the struggle against war is simply an aspect of the struggle against capitalism and for socialism. The inner conflicts of capitalism lead and must lead to 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. It therefore follows that the only possible struggle against war is the struggle for the socialist revolution. The Socialist Party is absolutely clear on this point. No one can uphold capitalism and fight against war, because capitalism means war.

This is the truth of the matter. If capitalism necessarily brings about war, you obviously cannot get rid of war without getting rid of capitalism. To divorce the struggle against war from the struggle against capitalism is in reality to give up the struggle against war, so far as any possible effectiveness is concerned. Many people claim to be working for peace; but at the same time they do work against capitalism. To these persons we must say: You are fooling yourselves. Which do you really want – peace or capitalism? You cannot have both. If you are unwilling to end capitalism, then your striving for peace is futile which helps no one but the war-makers.
 the overthrow of capitalism itself is the only conceivable means for stopping war. Socialism, and it alone, will end war because socialism and it alone will eliminate the causes of war. The socialist revolution, when the question is finally and fully understood, is the only anti-war policy.
 

An accident or incident can perhaps cause war if all the other conditions for war are present. But there is no such thing as an “accidental war”. The only way to end the possibility of such madness as fascism and war is to destroy the system which inevitably leads to these horrors. The Socialists Party has always claimed that at the bottom of all modern war there is an economic cause. Economic causes are the root of wars. But today with nationalism as the cloak behind which the economic causes work and it is easier than ever to obscure this fact. Nationalism is the cover for the diplomatic intrigues and machinations of politicians and capitalists.

The socialist revolution can and will eliminate war because, by overthrowing capitalist economy and supplanting capitalism with socialism, it will remove the causes of war. With socialism there will no longer exist the basic contradictions that lead to war. Artificial economic barriers based on national boundaries will be removed. The expansion of the means of production, under the owner-ship and control of society as a whole, will proceed in accordance with a rational plan adjusted to the needs of the members of society. Thus, with socialism war will disappear because the causes of war will be done away with. Since the victory of socialism, and this alone, will defeat war, every step on the path to socialism is a blow at war. In the struggle against war, properly understood. The Socialist Party does take a merely negative pacifist position of being against “war in general”. We are actively for the victory of the working class in the class war, since only through such victory can war in general be done away with. The only true struggle against war requires at every stage the utmost clarity. Working people of every land must understand who their enemy is. They must understand that the enemy is not the people of Russia, or China, or Iran, or of any other nation against whom the government may wage war, but that the real enemy of every country is the enemy at home – the capitalist class and its government of “the home land”. Workers must understand that any war which “their” country undertakes will be a war to serve the interests of capital, no matter what noble talk about “democracy” or “peace” or “self-defence” or “collective security” is used to justify it. And therefore workers must oppose to the utmost any and every conception of patriotism, nationalism, or support of the government for the conduct of any war.