Tag: war

‘It’s Capitalism stupid!’

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Paradigm Lost?

Has everything suddenly changed?  How can the pot we were watching so intensely suddenly seem to be boiling? Aren’t such turnarounds, back stabbings, treasons and betrayals usually carried in behind our backs, closed doors or dead of night?  Is such change too unbelievable to be true?  Yes, of course it is.  Everything changes but capitalism!

Imperialism’s ‘great game’ never went away, it briefly froze in the headlights of the Cold War.  What has changed is the 80-year consensus since the last great world war (2) on how business is done.

Since the end of the Cold War the pieces on the chess board of the power-bloc competition have moved slowly but inexorably towards this point – where some piece or other has to fall to progress towards the end game.

Republican Elephant goes to town…

Trump is the backlash to 40 years of neoliberal economic experimentation.  The acceleration and integration of forces of production and distribution that temporarily masked capitalisms drive to hegemonic monopoly.  Far from receding, the danger of war has just increased exponentially.

The previous way of doing things aka a ‘world order’ (sovereignty, alliances, mutual agreement and international standards etc) has paradoxically left the ‘mono-polar’ world’s only truly ‘superpower’ constrained against its best interests – a ruthless unfettered challenge to its only true rival, an ascendent China in the east. 

What we are seeing is not about Ukraine, Russia or for that matter, Europe.  It is about the pacific frontline between rival organisers of capital.  The writing has been on the wall since the post Reagan era when the US abandoned the idea of a military strategy based on a simultaneous conflict on two continental fronts.  Slowly but surely the centre of gravity has been shifting. 

Every US administration has signaled this for a generation or more.  Trump has had both the momentum and audacity to move the dial.  His position on Ukraine and Russia is neither appeasement nor surrender, it is a strategic realignment. 

While Europe has expected the US to engage in the western hemisphere in time of threat, the US could not count on such reciprocation in the east, even if Europe were able – which it isn’t.  And it is increasingly clear that the western focus is not US capital’s prime concern.

Trump could have pulled a blinder.  Hiding behind the façade of his own hyperbole he could be on the verge of decoupling Russia from China, silencing the Western Front and force Europe to pay.  Sentiment and semantics have no role in this ruthless tour-de-force of realpolitik.

Starmer Chameleon..

To see the cringeworthy homage paid by the Kings socialist emissary Sir Kier at Trumps Republican court was like watching Idi Amin being celebrated as the ‘last king of Scotland’, while the following public castigation of Zelensky added to the theatre with his refusal to sign up to his tormentor’s extortion. 

The outcome, however, is possibly cast. This fortuitous yet diversionary chapter from the US point of view, war in Europe, will close with preparation for the conflagration to come with China the next bloody project.

A European volte-face changes little.  An armed peace is as austerity driving as war and the threat remains.  Besides, the moving of a global battlefront in the era of nuclear warheads and ICBMs is no more significant than a dinosaur ducking to avoid a meteorite.

In My Name..

For our class, everywhere and without frontiers, the challenges and tasks remain the same.  Capitalisms existential threat – through war most immediately or climate catastrophe should that fail requires the same unyielding response.  Fight it where we find it – on the ‘home front’. 

If global power politics feels complex, our daily encounter with its consequences is very familiar! Austerity; cuts to Health and Social Services; food banks, travel costs that keep us geographically confined; poor housing that is killing us; exploitation through rent, low wages, inflation and debt.  This is what they call peace!

Fighting this peace is our daily struggle.  This Class War, at first for bread and then to live is by its nature a fight against their wars!  If we won’t let them kill us at home, we can stop them killing us, or those like us, abroad.  Resistance begins at home.  It grows with a conversation.  It spreads through discussions and shows itself in actions and solidarity.

The drive to war was never more a European affair than the Class Struggle.  The opposition to war globally, everywhere is our Class War!

Article by Dreyfus

Fundraising for deserters and war refugees (AMI)

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“The war massacre in Ukraine continues, affecting populations on both sides of the war line. While Putin’s army bombs Ukrainian cities, the Ukrainian government has turned them into prisons for a significant portion of the local population. People are being maimed, imprisoned, raped and murdered as a result of the actions of the rulers in the Kremlin and Kiev. Let’s not look away. Let’s support those who are affected.

War and nationalist propaganda are deceiving and manipulating us, while at the same time obscuring important facts. Among other things, for example, the fact that the State borders in Ukraine are closed to men of conscription age. They are guarded by the army, which sends men to prison, shoots them and drowns them in the river when they try to cross the border to safe place. Army gunmen also chase men in the streets to drag them to the front and use them as “cannon fodder”. Yes, this is the same Ukrainian army that is praised by many as if it was a noble form of liberation institution. If we look to Russia, we can see a similarly disturbing reality. For the slightest protest against the war, people end up in prison; forced mobilization has obliged many proletarians to flee or go into hiding. Deserters, saboteurs and conscientious objectors are massacred, judged and imprisoned in Russia, as well as in the Ukraine.

We do not care how the bourgeoisie justifies this aggression against the working class in Russia and Ukraine. It is necessary not only to condemn and criticize it, but also to give practical support to those who are concerned, i.e. deserters, rebels, saboteurs, refugees, those who avoid forced conscription to the front and many others. It is necessary to stand consistently against Putin’s aggressors, as well as against aggressors acting at the instigation of the Ukrainian Government.

What can we do, we who currently live outside the war zone? At the very least, we can share resources with those who desperately need them. The Anti-Militarist Initiative (AMI) is therefore launching a public fundraising campaign starting the 1 February 2025. The money raised will support proletarians from Russia and Ukraine who are trying to avoid mobilization, who have deserted, who face repression or are trying to save their lives by fleeing a war zone.

How to Support the Fundraising?

1) You can deposit money into the account.

Payment details:

“IBAN: CZ1955000000001024164477
Account holder: Historický spolek Zádruha, z.s.
Bank: Raiffeisenbank
bank code: 5500
Swift code: RZBCCZPP

2) It is also possible to arrange to hand over the money in person in cash.

3) Fundraising gigs, solidarity parties and dinners, etc. are welcome.

4) Sharing information about the fundraiser is an important part of the fundraiser. It can be translated into different languages, and sharing a flyer or poster, publishing the appeal on websites, social networks, magazines etc. is also welcome.

5) We plan to successively publish statements from collectives and individuals who have supported the fundraising. They will explain their motivations and reflections on anti-war resistance. Write your own contribution.

Fundraising for deserters and war refugees

Interview with an anti-militarist from Odessa

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The following interview was carried out by comrades from the Československé anarchistické sdružení – CAS a Czech Internationalist Anarchist Group.

1)Please introduce yourself briefly to the readers of our magazine. Are you from Ukraine, where you were born and spent your youth?

Hi. My name is Vadym Yakovlev, I’m Ukrainian queer writer and journalist and I’m against the war and nationalism. I was born in Odesa, the largest southern multicultural city in Ukraine, a few months before the collapse of the USSR. My mother is Ukrainian and my father is Russian. Their fathers were military. My father worked in a factory. With the collapse of the USSR, the factory was closed, and my father lost his job. It affected my family and my childhood. I grew up in Odesa, but one year before I escaped Ukraine I was living in Lviv, the biggest city of the Western part of Ukraine. At home my relatives spoke Russian and Ukrainian, so I never focused on issues such as national identity. My family was an unhappy international family that lost a lot with the collapse of state communism in Ukraine. I guess all of that influenced me a lot in my search of my true political views and my desire to do something that can have influence on society.

2)You left Ukraine, what led you to this decision?

On the one hand, I could no longer work in Ukraine because of my political beliefs. The Ukrainian intelligentsia, journalists and artists as a community with the beginning of the war decided to become privileged elite propagandists in the service of the state. I didn’t want to be a propagandist, so I lost the opportunity to publish my articles. And if you publicly express in Ukraine the views I have, authorities can put you in the jail. On the other hand, of course due to my views, I didn’t want to go to war on the frontline. That’s why I escaped.

3)What is your attitude towards war and antimilitarism?

Much of my work in Ukraine was related to my anti-patriotic beliefs. My articles and participation in art projects were very often devoted to criticism of Ukrainian patriotism, Ukrainian nationalism and the mainstream privileged “pro-Western” and pro-war civil and cultural Ukrainian elite. I have always been interested in anti-war art and anti-war activism. Since 2022, I had to start doing this, even at the cost of losing the opportunity to stay and work in my native country and the loss of close friends who abandoned me because of my beliefs.

4)The war in Ukraine changed a lot of things. Are you in touch with your friends back home? What are their attitudes towards the war? How do they live

As I said in answer to the previous question, I lost most of my friends from the privileged art scene and the journalist-activist community. Almost all of them became propagandists, receiving support from the state and Western foundations. I also lost touch with the majority of the Ukrainian leftists, who are supporting militarism, nationalism and NATO. This type of leftists is supporting by the state and Western foundations too. But I’m still in touch with my friends, who are don’t work with the state and have nothing to do with privilaged classes. They support me and my anti-war views. A lot of them, if they are men, are living an awful life now, cause they have to hide all the time at their apartments in the fear of getting outside. Ukrainian army is kidnapping people from the street and sending them on the frontline without their permission. And majority of people with man gender marker in the documents are not allowed by the law to left the country.

5)Have many people, including anarchists joined the army and left antimilitarism? And not much is known about them? Maybe they are afraid. Do they exist? Are you in contact with them?

Regarding anti-war anarchists in Ukraine, we have anti-war collective called Assembly. They are from Kharkiv and have their own website where they are publishing anti-war and anti-conscription texts. This group of anarchists is anonymous and they hide the names of their team members. This is the only way to conduct any anti-war activity in Ukraine. There was only one Ukrainian organization that did not hide the names of its members and openly spoke out against the war – Ukrainian Pacifist Movement. The Security Service of Ukraine accused them of support of Russia and sent its leader to court. After that, the organization significantly softened its public position, fearing prison. Many Ukrainian leftists sided with the war, it seems to me, because of conformity. They are afraid to express their real position or simply don’t even have one, as it seems to me, and just are following mainstream trend. But these are just my assumptions. In Ukraine, as an authoritarian militaristic country, it is extremely unsafe to be against war.

6)What about Ukrainians in exile? Are they doing any anti-war activities? Are they organizing in workplaces?

Lately, many Ukrainian anti-war initiatives have appeared abroad. For example, Ukrainians are now organizing demonstrations against mobilization and human rights violations in Ukraine. These demonstrations are taking place in Germany, Italy, and France. Often, these actions are organized by Ukrainian leftists who have nothing to do with the pro-war Ukrainian left mainstream such as the so-called “Ukrainian anti-authoritarians” or Solidarity Collectives. All these groups of anti-war Ukrainian leftists are not financed by anyone, they are a personal initiative of convinced and active young people. There will be more of these actions, and I am in active communication with the organizers and members of this initiatives, this is very inspiring! In addition, in the West there are a certain number of Ukrainian scientists and artists who are against the war and who are constantly being marginalized and silenced here in the West.  But we have all been silenced for too long, our voices have been erased for too long, and now we are increasingly trying to build horizontal connections at various levels, organizing an anti-war front here abroad against the war and the propagandists. There are many more of us than even we think.

7)The media is silent about the forced mobilization of the Ukrainian government. Rarely does information about deserters leak out? What can you tell us about it?

Nobody knows the exact number of deserters from the Ukrainian side, but according to official and unofficial statistics, there are about 150-200 thousand people! These are huge numbers. The official Ukrainian media are controlled by the state or the Security Service of Ukraine. Ukrainians mainly consume information from anonymous news channels on Telegram or TikTok. It is there that videos of violence against civilians by the Ukrainian army are constantly published. These videos, full of terrible scenes and evidence of human rights violations, do not make it into the official media. The Ukrainian authorities are constantly trying to find the authors of anonymous Telegram channels who criticize the actions of the Ukrainian army or advocate for peace, and put them in prison. Sometimes the authorities succeed. The Ukrainian government, police and the Security Service of Ukraine do not hesitate to use any methods to silence alternative voices. For example, the police recently arrested the mother of a blogger who is abroad and speaks out against forced mobilization, for publishing his post! There are also unofficial ways to shut up dissenters. I remember one teenager who had his own channel on Telegram, where he criticized Ukrainian nationalism and mobilization. He identified himself as an anarchist. Fascists came to his home for a “conversation”, after which he publicly renounced his beliefs. But the pro-war Ukrainian leftists, who are propagandists and accomplices of all these crimes against Ukrainians, will never tell you about such things.

8)Do you have acquaintances who have deserted or evaded the draft? How can we in Czechoslovakia help them?

I know people who have illegally fled the country, and I have many acquaintances and friends in Ukraine who are hiding from the army and conscription. Perhaps, over time, it will be necessary to create initiatives to help such people within the framework of anti-war Ukrainian movements abroad, which have only just begun to emerge. If such initiatives appear, I hope that there will be people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia who will want to help these Ukrainians.

9)What message would you give to Ukrainian and Russian workers at home and abroad?

The only thing I want to convey to those who are not part of the privileged classes (and this is not only the proletariat), regardless of their nationality and location: never trust those who build their happiness on your exploitation, marginalisation and systemic discrimination, and especially do not be fools and do not participate in their wars, it is simply stupid!

10)Thank you for the interview and if you have anything else to say, we would be happy to.

Thank you, comrade, for interviewing me.

Please see my Facebook page for more: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100013291847024

Martin (CAS)

How many more corpses do you need to understand what’s going on?

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An article by Lukas Borl – https://lukasborl.noblogs.org

The Russian and Ukrainian state sends people to war to defend the rule of the Russian and Ukrainian bourgeoisie. The Israeli state and Hamas do the same for their own local bourgeoisie. People are dying by the thousands under the flags of “their” states and nationalist movements. They murder each other for the sake of “their own” rulers, for the business of “their own” bosses, for the property and power of “their own” bourgeoisie. “We are defending the survival of our own nation”, these people shout, while running towards their own destruction on the field of war. “We are fighting for the right to national self-determination” they chant in chorus, while overlooking that everywhere in the world it is the bourgeoisie that dictates the conditions of our lives. There is no self-determination anywhere. The bourgeoisie in Ukraine determines (i.e. imposes and dictates) the conditions of the local proletariat, the bourgeoisie in Russia does the same to the local proletariat. The various bourgeois factions around the world are uniting in transnational alliances to compete with their rivals. How can anyone believe the delusion that by waging war for one of these factions the working class can gain the possibility of self-determination? So, if the proletariat in the Ukraine, Gaza or Israel sacrifices enough lives on the front, the bourgeoisie will give it as a gift the voluntary surrender of its own power and will no longer exploit the proletarian masses?

War between states will never bring us the opportunity to determine the free conditions of our lives. Even if the “smaller and weaker” or “invaded” state wins the war with the help of the allies, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie will be preserved. Being exploited by the local bourgeoisie and oppressed by the local state is no victory. It’s not something we should sacrifice our lives for. Yet some are willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives for the illusion that the victory of one state is important for the future liberation from all states. It’s one of the many oxymorons of these people. In the name of fighting against states, they urge us to defend a particular state and its nationalist/democratic ideology. In the name of fighting against war, they tell us that we must engage in war. How many more people have to die on the front for these oxymoron lovers to realise that war between states cannot bring peace, that against tyranny of states cannot be fought by collaboration with states, that capitalist exploitation cannot be fought by working class alliances with capitalists?

Warmongers on both sides of the war line use economic, violent and ideological pressure to mobilize people for war. If we proclaim the struggle against all factions of the bourgeoisie, including the struggle against the bourgeoisie of the “invaded” states, they accuse us of aiding the more aggressive, dictatorial, imperialist states, as if it were not perhaps obvious that we are also waging the struggle against them at the same time. They believe that collusion with this or that local bourgeoisie and state is a question of survival. They do not take into account that the same bourgeoisie they defend does everything to avoid being conscripted to the front itself, while the state authorities forcibly dress the proletarians in uniforms and drive them to their deaths in the front struggle. They sees that, the “friendly” bourgeoisie, uses the state to close the borders to men who want to travel to safety. They fail to see that the bourgeoisie is not concerned with saving the lives of the entire bombed population, but with forcing the proletarian part of the population to shed blood to save their own power, property and sphere of economic influence. When it comes to saving lives in a war zone, the proletarians certainly have to look for other options than enlisting in the army.

Whether the warmongers are capitalists, nationalists or the left of capital, they are all terrified by the idea that the enemy state will win the war, but they are not at all terrified by the corpses of proletarians that war always “produces” on both sides. No matter what banner they stand under, no matter what ideological label they put on themselves, we must repudiate all warmongers. When the question is put to us as to which side we take in the war, we clearly answer that we take the side of the proletariat in Ukraine, Russia, Gaza, Israel and all over the world. We do not choose the side of this or that state in the war, but the side that organises against states. We do not stand aside while war massacres our class brothers and sisters. We stand on the side of those who rebel against the war and resist all efforts to drag us into the war. The only way to stop wars is to undermine the ability of all states to continue to wage war.

The aim of ‘revolutionary defeatists’ today is not that one side should win and the other lose but to draw a clear line between the capitalist perspective which entails ever more war and misery, and the proletarian revolutionary perspective, which entails humankind’s liberation. There is no compromise between them possible.

Internationalist perspective

https://lukasborl.noblogs.org/how-many-more-corpses-do-you-need-to-understand-whats-going-on/#more-1958

Capitalism’s ‘Social-Peace’ is Class War!

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“War Is Peace!” – George Orwell ‘1984’

Hundreds of thousands have marched repeatedly in London and across these islands against the carnage of the Gaza war.  Many expressing their impotent outrage at the suffering. 

Most however as partisans of one capitalist state solution or another, blind to or ignoring of their own experience of the state’s relationship to war and our class.  How’s that working?  It isn’t. It is instead weaponised turning communities against each other as alleged hate speech. 

Without open class conflict it can achieve nothing that doesn’t suit the interests of the rival belligerents and their respective capitalist bloc sponsors. And why one war but not another?

It’s hardly surprising that people are fatigued by their exposure to the horror of war.  A sense of powerlessness threatens to overwhelm us. Easier to imagine that it could never be us rather than acknowledge the blood is spilling on our doorstep.

We are daily witness to such horrors that t it seems beyond our imagination. How could this be? What could it be like? Could it ever be us?

If we want to conjure an image of what Ukraine might be like think of towns like Cannock or Whitby or Newport reduced to rubble. If you think of Gaza imagine somewhere between the size of the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man flattened by the bombs of the proud capitals of ‘democracy’.

Beyond where we want to go are the shocking memories of Sarah Everard at the hands of a serving police officer. Think of the tens of thousands raped, murdered, slaughtered by proud men in uniforms endorsed by their governments!  ‘Democratic’ or otherwise makes little difference to the victims.

This is neither far away or long ago but now, no further than a holiday you may have thought of in Gran Canaria or Cyprus. And these are only the wars the media is reporting on, much of the rest of the world is aflame: Sudan; Ethiopia; Congo; Myanmar, to name a few.

The war is no further away than the nearest arms or components factory.  No further than the nearest logistics depot, transport hub, communications centre.  The war is where the ports and airports are, the military bases and their reserve volunteers’ stations.

It is the rail networks and motorways, the towns, estates, cities and factories where we as workers’ pay the price of war in widening poverty and worsening austerity.  Worsening conditions, lower pay and the threat of military call up or conscription.

In truth we cannot move without being at war and when we notice it, the rhetorical guns blaze “disrupter, extremist, terrorist!”  We are already, through our toleration of their economic planning and its social and political consequences, being partially conscripted by capitalism and its state actors into its destructive rivalry.

The blood and treasure of our labour is being stolen and squandered to steal the treasure of the labour of others like ourselves!

Where we notice and try to act our protest and resistance is squandered too.  Marshalled by capitalisms loyal ‘left wing’ opposition into the passivity of marches to support or oppose one side or the other.  The abattoir or the slaughterhouse!

This is not peace! It is capitalisms ‘Social-Peace’ of order, discipline, defamation and control.  The bloodied Home-Front of their fratricidal wars next door.

If in doubt of the violence of their Social-Peace, reflect on the defeated strikes, the disaster of the care sector, Covid and the collapsing health services, the 25% annual increase in rough sleepers and the lengthening food banks queues!

This is their war against our class at home while they openly talk of expanding their wars abroad fed by enforceable military service.  If it achieves nothing else, it creates fear and a misplaced gratitude for the devil you-know – their Social Peace.

Here and abroad, it is capitalism and its state that is the disrupter, the extremist, the terrorist!  Don’t just march, organise and act:  this ‘Warfare State’ is the enemy at home and our resistance to it, our struggle with it, our ‘Class War’ is our necessary, best and urgent response against it!

Article by Dreyfus

ANTI-WAR CONGRESS 24th May to 26th May (Action Week Against Wars – Prague):

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From 20 to 26 May 2024, groups and individuals from different parts of the world will meet in Prague to coordinate anti-war activities as part of the Week of Action https://actionweek.noblogs.org/.

The series of events will also include an anti-war congress, which will take place from Friday 24 to Sunday 26 May 2024. Campaigns, direct actions, projects, publications and analyses related to the issue of war will be presented at the congress.

Among other things, this internationalist event will serve as an open assembly that will try to combine theoretical background with practical activities. We consider it necessary, in the process of resistance to war, to develop an anti-capitalist practice which seeks to preserve political autonomy. In concrete terms, this means that we want to organize outside the political parties, outside the structures of the states, and against all states.

We are particularly interested in the ways how we can oppose all the harsh conditions to which we have been exposed and subjected during interstate wars and capitalist peace. We are interested in ways to sabotage wars, how to deprive our enemies of resources, how to undermine the ability of states and their armies to continue wars. Which way to go and what is to be done? How to join forces and get organized?

We will look for answers based on class, not national differentiation; answers that take into account the sheer contradiction between rank-and-file soldiers and officers, between wage laborers and bosses, between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. We will look for ways to make soldiers in uniform of any state army identify themselves with the social struggle of their brothers and sisters on the other side of the front line, and not in the murderous orders of their officers. We will also look for ways to oppose false friends, all those who seek to transform the class struggle into a national or religious struggle for a new state, a new capitalist space, better adapted to their needs.

We support the internationalist community affirming the struggle against the bourgeoisie of all warring sides, against the armies of all states, against the capitalists of each country. Current manifestations of resistance, however contradictory and fragmented they are, undoubtedly contain the seeds of a social polarization that can turn wars between states into class confrontation.

What is meant is the confrontation between the defenders of the nation, the states and capitalism on the one hand, and the social class on the other, which is beginning to realize that defending the nation to which it is bound in chains only serves the interests of those who exploit it.

Direct action against wars now takes various forms, more or less targeted, more or less organized. Let’s strive for a qualitative shift whereby individual acts of resistance break out of their isolation through interconnection and coordination.

The common enemy in every epoch is, first of all, capitalism, and therefore every state that structures it, the army that defends it, the bourgeoisie that embodies it. The only way out of the nightmare of capitalist wars and capitalist peace is a collective awakening: we must see and sabotage the whole machinery of war, overthrow its representatives and reclaim our power as creators of the world. We call on groups and individuals interested in participating in the anti-war congress in Prague to contact us well in advance with proposals for the program. Together against capitalist wars and capitalist peace! https://actionweek.noblogs.org/post/2024/02/28/anti-war-congress-prague-24-to-26-may-2024/#more-490

The Coming War We Must Resist

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“My fellow Americans, I…will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” – President Ronald Reagan 1984.

A 20 year truce until war breaks out, suggests a senior NATO commander.  As General Foch described the end of the First World War in 1919, “This is not peace…. It is an armistice for 20 years.”  World War Two in Europe began in 1939.

The worst global crisis since the Second World War, as Gaza witnesses more deaths than in the London Blitz.  The UN is considering legal action on ‘Genocide’, the concept itself defined by the annihilation events of that last great international conflagration.

This is not history on the edge of repeating itself, nor the consequences of a lesson unlearned.  The current crisis is a continuation of the drive inherent in Capitalism for domination of our Class through control of global markets for profit.  This rivalry and the destruction it demands, once again puts us on the brink of extinction.

These are not paranoid conspiracy theories, but the words of our rulers and their military class themselves.

UK Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps said on 15th January that we are “moving from a post-war to pre-war world…. The enemies are gathering all around us, we need to make sure we lead our allies in the conflicts to come.”

Two days later, Admiral Bauer, of the Royal Netherlands Navy, said that preparation “starts there. The realisation that not everything is plannable and not everything is going to be hunky dory in the next 20 years.”

Within a week, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing UK Chief of the General Staff chipped in that ordinary citizens should be “trained and equipped” to fight in the military in the event of a war with Russia.

Shapps’s ex-army predecessor, Tobias Ellwood, said the military chief should be “listened to carefully….  What’s coming over the horizon should shock us. It should worry us and we are not prepared.”

It took a few days for coverage of this to emerge in the popular press, and politics and military might not yet be exactly on the same page.  Though let’s not delude ourselves, the preparation for global war has begun. Not just by parts of the globe lighting up with bombs from one side or the other, but in the propaganda, softening us up for more sacrifice beyond austerity, militarisation and even conscription.

Since these comments we have seen the dial, already high, turned up dramatically with speculation, as we have suggested before, that an attack on Iran itself from the US (or franchised out to Israel?) is now in open debate.

While any revolutionary class based opposition to these drives to war may seem a long way off, the steps towards that war are now seemingly uncomfortably close.

There’s been no shortage of wars since 1945, and no shortage of bodies.  Conservative estimates are around 90 million dead from 1945 to the present day.  As many as died in both world wars put together.  Yet we are led to imagine that this has been an era of relative peace.

This alleged bloody peace has been a prolonged and inevitable preparation for the next round of global imperialist conflict. The Eurasian frontier from the Indian Ocean to the arctic sea is aflame or bristling in preparation.

Whilst we are being encouraged in the West to see ‘our side’ as the benign party in the coming conflict, we should recall that it is precisely ‘our side’ that is the major obstacle in calls for an end to the bloodbath in Gaza.  This while US arms sales abroad reached a record of a quarter of a trillion dollars last year.

As for Yemen, they would hard pressed to spot the difference between the bombs and missiles being dropped by the British and Americans from the British and American missiles dropped on them by the Saudi led coalition over the last 9 years.

For most of us, the daily alienation of poverty and wage labour, the struggle to survive with dignity in a hostile sea of austerity and assault has inoculated us against the memory of war and its emerging threat.

For those who don’t remember the Second World War, (spoiler alert) Hitler dies… and with him it was hoped the atrocities of Nazism moved from the naive plain of beyond imagination to the impossible.

In recent years however, fascism has moved from an historic aberration via the theoretically possible to the conceptually plausible.  In reality, in some countries, fascist parties already have come to power, however they are practically choosing to understate themselves for the sake of acceptability at the moment.  Nationalism, Nazism and the Alt-Right are making themselves and their quest for conflict known all over Europe and America.

From Italy to Hungary, to key opposition groups in Spain, France, and Germany, fascism in reality never lost its potential.  It’s just a clever word for capitalism and its state operative, believing that they have the whip hand and can abandon the pretence of tolerance and democracy.

It requires a mixture of populism, a desperate ruling class retreating to narrow national chauvinism, unchallenged by a weakened working class.  Our class so conspicuously on the back foot since the banking collapse of 2008 failed to resist when capitalism called for us to rally behind austerity – that is to say the increasing repression and impoverishment of us as workers – in the ‘national interest’.

Austerity, in so many ways driven by war and global rivalry, not to mention climate change causing mass migration, is being weaponised into a call for sacrifice for the sake of preserving the nation state and capitalism.

In the face of this, the bosses have become emboldened as we have been weakened.   “..(Our) class is divided because it is weak, not weak because it is divided”. – Anton Pannekoek

Us versus them, ‘our’ state versus its external threat is a key ideological weapon aimed against the unity of our class.

We can see this in the barbarity and deafness of the state of Israel; Hamas’s intransigence, Putin’s relentless sense of impunity and in the threat of a second Trump presidency, despite his populist coup attempt.

In the face of this threat of war and calls for conscription, our unity now is more important than ever.  The last 2 years of workplace and industrial struggles have again shone a light on those on the political left, the Labour Party and the organised labour movement, who would seek to weaken and divide us further.  Warmongers all for one side or the other – watch Labour’s promises on defence and security as the election approaches!

Enough of disunity and defeat!  The generation that could witness our extinction is already here and the fight against the coming war is our most urgent task.  Damn their oppressive and hopeless ‘social peace’ and their drive to war!  Against their clamour and calls for national unity! 

We must prepare to fight and unify on every front of the class struggle.  Our very survival depends on it!

No war between peoples – no peace between classes!  No War but the Class War!

Article by Dreyfus

Israel and Anti-Militarism

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Murderous conflicts occurring through the system of capital and state continue, intensify and now threaten to engulf entire regions.  Both the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East drag on into another year and become increasingly barbarous.  Starvation, mass killings, ethnic cleansing, kidnappings, humiliation and torture are clearly encouraged by the powers that be.  The war in the Middle East, as well as in Eastern Europe, increasingly involves power and imperial blocs taking up their battle positions. This, despite the war focused on Gaza supposedly being “over by Christmas” (how many times have we heard that before?)!

As such, effective resistance often demands great bravery on the part of members of our class, their companions, supporters and friends.  In this context, a number of us now know the names, Tal Mitnick and Yuval Dag. 

Tal Mitnick is an 18-year-old vocal member of ‘Mesarvot’ (‘We Refuse’), which numbers a few hundred.  Tal became the first open objector to serving in the IDF since the start of the current conflict and cited his opposition to the attacks upon the collective population of Gaza as a reason.  For Tal considers the attacks, a “murderous revenge”, that does nothing to address the root cause of the conflict. 

Meanwhile, Yuval Dag is a 21-year-old who served 64 days in Neve Tzedek military prison in Tel Aviv last Spring.  He was supported as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International and has if anything, become increasing vocal in his criticism of the situation throughout the Middle East and in Gaza and the West Bank, in particular, since then.

In Israel, military conscription is mandatory and is seen as, “defining you as a somebody in Israeli society”.   There is also a saying that, “a nation building an army is a nation building itself”.  This lays bare the shared roots of nationalism and militarism, as part of the cancerous ethos of state and capital. 

Dissent in Israel does have quite a lengthy tradition.  However, outside of the ruling class, nationalist religious zealots, and their supporters (who often get a pass on risking their necks), people there trying to avoid military service lately face massive obstacles and are at the least pressurised to keep quiet – or else! For in the wake of the attacks of 7th October last year, the state in Israel and unfortunately among a substantial part of the wider society, has been engaging in a bitter offensive against any who dare to even think about resisting the cry to take up the fight for nation, religion, and the exploitative and oppressive current system.  This reflects a call by the master class that increasingly imperils our class and humanity itself.

It is likely then that for such reasons, reports of actual open opposition to the draft in Israel during the Gaza war have not been noted or publicised until very recently.  However, in the last month, pieces on Mitnick, Dag, their friends and supporters have appeared.  Of note too, these reports describe their increasingly determined stance, where they have made comments strongly alluding to the importance of internationalism among our class.  Mitnick has appeared in embracing both radical anti-authoritarian and anti-militarist perspectives.

The bravery of these people in doing this is laid bare by the fact that Mitnick faces at least 30 days (and likely substantially longer) in jail after being sentenced in late December 2023, and will no doubt be bitterly ostracised when is freed.  Meanwhile, Dag, though being imprisoned last year and from a nationalist family, has not kept quiet, and vocally supports Mitnick and fellow conscious workers for their anti-militarism.  There are others starting to do the same.

The names of those openly resisting is now increasing.  Sofia Orr (18 yrs old) and Iddo Elam (17 and also from the ‘Mesarvot’ group) have gone public in stating their opposition to being drafted (the former in the face of being ‘called up’ next month). All have described the importance of having a network of friends and supporters around them, now more than ever. 

Iddo has stated that “one massacre doesn’t justify another” and then gone on to say that they are now steadfast in their “rejection of the entire current system”.  Iddo and Sofia fear both for their friend Tal in prison and of the same fate whilst receiving death threats awaiting themselves.  However, being members of a group showing solidarity with each other has galvanised their collective determination.

Their numbers may appear still relatively few as yet, but they could increase notably further as the murderous battles continue, the reality of the current system perhaps becomes transparent to many more and if the internationalist word spreads.  Importantly, as noted above, some appear to be starting to embrace a class struggle, emancipatory position, as opposed to a liberal pacifist one.  It is greatly encouraging to see that revolutionary No War But the Class War graffiti has now been spotted in the local urban streets around Tel Aviv.

All is vital to stop the nightmare of war, famine, poverty, nationalism, ethnic cleansing, barbarity, torture, the growing threat of theocrats, as well as the daily dose of oppression, alienation and exploitation.  The anti-militarist class war is the only war which will unite us as an international working class to prevent a death spiral, to liberate ourselves and to finally live in harmony with this planet.  Total respect to those resisting and to those who share the struggle in solidarity!

Article by Bloque

ACTION WEEK / PRAGUE / 20 – 26 MAY 2024

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From 20 to 26 May 2024, Prague will host the Action Week, whose motto is:

“Together against capitalist wars and capitalist peace.”

Each weekday during this week will see a different event. There will be presentations, discussions, fundraisers, protests and various types of direct action. Then the end of the week will be devoted to a bookfair and an internationalist conference, where we will try to shift from theoretical matters towards the coordination of concrete anti-war activities.

The overarching theme of the days of action was not chosen at random. It is a topic of global importance. The inter-state wars that have escalated in the last few years are bringing humanity closer to the possibility of another world war breaking out. Millions of people are already being sacrificed in wars and the situation will get worse if there is no adequate response. Therefore, in the spirit of proletarian internationalism and revolutionary defeatism, we seek to give individuals and groups from different parts of the world the opportunity to meet, to associate and to coordinate their joint efforts.

The bourgeoisie and its allies talk about war so that they can turn us into cannon fodder or into those whose life energy keep the wheels of war production spinning.

For our part, let’s talk about how to sabotage the war, how to prevent the proletarians from being sent to the slaughter, how to block the supply and transport of weapons, how to organize desertions, mutinies and fraternization among the proletarians in uniform on both sides of the front line, how to turn our guns against the organizers of the massacre, i.e. against “our own” bourgeoisie and its lackeys…

Let’s talk about how to turn the imperialist war into a revolutionary war for the abolition of the class society of capital based on misery.

Our only answer to the capitalist war is revolutionary defeatism, that we organize ourselves and work for the overthrow of “our own bourgeoisie” and therefore of the world bourgeoisie and capital as a whole.

Let’s discuss and share this call, let’s get organized.

THIS CALL IS ADDRESSED TO:
  • To anyone in the world who is struggling against the attacks of capital, against all wars and against all bourgeois states with the aim of destroying capital and all social relations resulting from it, as well as all forms of exploitation.
  • To all those who are aware that there is no such thing as a just war or a defensive war. There is no camp that represents barbarism while the other represents civilization, there is no camp that is more aggressive than the other, and there is no democratic camp against a dictatorial or fascist camp. All wars are capitalist wars, where different bourgeois factions are pitted against each other. Every war is a war of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat!
  • To those who do not support either faction of the bourgeoisie against the other, but fight against each of them. Those who do not defend or participate in inter-class fronts.
  • To those individuals, and groups, who fight against the policy of “defense of the national economy”, and “sacrifice in favor of the war economy”, to those who do not accept the expansionist tactics of their own bourgeoisie, even if it faces an economic, political or military attack.
  • To all those who do not consider themselves pacifists but revolutionaries. To all those who do not aspire to a bourgeois peace where the exploitation of our labor force can continue in slightly different conditions.
  • To all those who want to turn the inter-bourgeois war into a revolutionary war, the war between states into a struggle for the destruction of all states.
  • To all those who recognize in their practice that the proletariat has no fatherland to defend. Our enemy is not the proletarians driven into the trenches on the other side of the front, but the bourgeoisie – in practice, above all, the bourgeoisie “in our own country”, “our own” bourgeoisie, the one that directly organizes our exploitation.
  • And finally, to those who, according to their strength and situation, fight against the bourgeoisie by promoting the development of the proletariat as a revolutionary class and contributing to the building and development of proletarian internationalism.
THE FOLLOWING GROUPS AND PROJECTS WILL BE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE ACTION WEEK:

https://actionweek.noblogs.org/post/2023/12/29/action-week-prague-20-26-may-2024/