Our Declaration of Peace

 

Once more our fellow workers are faced with the prospect of being inflicted with brutal warfare. On this occasion, it is a war to control Ukraine. 

The fight against war is inseparable from the fight for socialism. And this is very important to know to those who want to fight for our lives and our peace, against the war. We must strike at its root, not its branches.

 Only through our own organisation and our own struggle will working people gain possession of their own lives and the means to free and save themselves from being sacrificed and slaughtered. As there are different kinds of tyranny and exploitation, our organisations must also be varied with various ways of struggle. But it is obvious that all these organisations must share a common goal: the abolition of the plutocratic oligarchy and the liberation of the people. The only way to fight militarism is to fight capitalism. The capitalist nationalist system breeds wars, and we shall have to build a cooperative society, where things are no longer produced for profit, but for use, in order to be secure in peace. This struggle is known as the class war, and this is the only war in which workers should engage.

The Socialist Party deplores war and the ruin in its wake. War is part and parcel of the capitalist system. War is a feast for the dogs of war. There is only one war that is just — and that is the war of the oppressed class for its liberation. All other wars are predatory wars for the securing seizure of territories and markets for the profits of the exploiters, but they are fought with the bodies of the workers. We cannot stop war altogether. It is not possible to prevent the coming of war as long as capitalism lasts. However, war can on some occasions be postponed. forcing governments to refrain from immediately carrying out war plans. The fight against the war is a political fight. The working class must be stirred by protest meetings and demonstrations.

 In a war, the Socialist Party does indeed take sides, but it’s the third side. It’s the side of the workers, against the owning class that exploits them and also against the owning class that hopes to exploit them. 

Our position is not people against people but class against class. 

The Socialist Party has only one programme to prevent war: the programme of social revolution. That means that our struggle to end war is not something unique and separate from our normal, mundane socialist activities but is an intimate part of those activities. We do not create a permanent organisation to fight a war with a special platform for that. The inference of many well-meaning and sincere campaigners is absolutely clear that wars can be stopped without a socialist revolution. No socialist can accept such an idea and we cannot lend our name to something which we know is wrong and which must inevitably confuse. War is not the cause of the troubles of society. War is a symptom. The only way to fight against war is to fight against the causes of war. Since the causes of war are part of the 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 viable struggle against war is the struggle for the socialist revolution. No one can uphold capitalism and fight against war, because capitalism means war. 

The only war worth fighting is for a world socialist society.

No War Between Peoples - No Peace Between Classes