Attitudes towards wars in capitalism

[Sotionov]

I know that there is a difference of opinions about national liberation, some supporting it as a struggle against imperialism, some oppossiting and saying that a socialist revolution is the right way to direct the efforts of the people.

There was also a division among leftists about the world wars- should a leftist engage in anti-militarist activism or join the fight by helping the defensive side.

Althougth I, being an anti-hierarchist, don't consider them socialist, I do find Yugoslav Partisan relation to war interesting. Namely- joining the fight against the aggressor but instead of joining the official troops, organizing one's one troops with the idea that if the defence agains the aggressor turns successful, the war can then be turned into a revolutionary one. Of course, such a scenario neccessitates an already existing large support among the people, and even though I would support such a thing in a war situation, I don't know what I would do in a situtation where this idea would be unrealizable due to the lack of popular support for it.

What are the arguments for anti-militarist position, what are the arguments for the defensist position? What are your opinions on the topic?

[Dabrowski]

What determines the attitude of the revolutionary is class.

What are the class natures of the forces involved? In a war between a country where the bourgeoisie rules and a workers state where the capitalists do not rule, we unconditionally militarily support the workers state.

If both sides are capitalist, is it a war to secure the domination of an imperialist state over its colonial slaves? Then we are with the slaves.

Is it a war between two big capitalist-imperialist powers over the division of the spoils of empire? Or a war between subordinate and semi-colonial powers over who will get to be the local satraps of imperialism? Then we are for the defeat of both sides.

Whatever the military position the proletariat must organize independently, placing no confidence in and giving no political support to alien class forces. The task is always to prepare the workers to take power in their own right. Until this is achieved, wars are a fact of life and we are not indifferent to the facts of life.

[subcp]

Revolutionary defeatism is the option formulated at the dawn of the 'imperialist epoch' and supported by Lenin- that the working-class doesn't take sides but agitates against the governments of all belligerent states, aiming to turn the imperialist war into proletarian revolution. The anarcho-syndicalist group KRAS in Russia put out a good recent example of a revolutionary defeatist position.



NO TO THE NEW CAUCASIAN WAR!

The eruption of military actions between Georgia and South Ossetia threatens to develop into a large-scale war between Georgia supported by NATO on the one hand, and the Russian state on the other. Thousands of people have already been killed and wounded - principally, peaceful inhabitants; whole cities and settlements have been wiped out. Society has been flooded with muddy streams of a nationalist and chauvinist hysteria.
As always and everywhere in conflicts between states, there is not and cannot be a righteous side in this new Caucasian war - there are only the guilty. The embers which have been fanned for years now have caused a military fire. The Saakashvili regime in Georgia keeps two thirds of the population in poverty, and the greater internal discontent in the country this causes, the more it desires to find a way out from the deadlock in the form of a ‘small victorious war' in the hope that it can write everything off. The government of Russia is full of determination to keep its hegemony in the Caucasus. Today they pretend to be the defender of the weak, but their hypocrisy is abundantly clear: in fact, Saakashvili only repeats what the Putinist soldiery did in Chechnya 9 years ago. Ruling circles of both Ossetias and Abkhazia aspire to strengthen their role as exclusive allies of Russia in the region, and at the same time to rally the impoverished population around the tested torches of the ‘national idea' and ‘saving the people'. Leaders of the USA, the European states and NATO, on the other hand, wish to weaken the influence of their Russian rivals in the Caucasus as much as possible to ensure control over fuel resources and their transportation. Thus, we became witnesses and victims of the next coil of the world struggle for power, oil and gas.



This fight does not bring to working people - Georgians, Ossetians, Abkhasians or Russians - anything, except for blood and tears, incalculable disasters and deprivation. We express our deep sympathy to the friends and relatives of the victims, to the people who have been left without a roof over their head and without any means of subsistence as a result of this war.



We shouldn't fall under the influence of nationalist demagogy which demands unity with ‘our' government, flying the flag of ‘defending the homeland'. The main enemy of the ordinary people is not their impoverished brothers and sisters on the other side of the border or of other nationalities. Their enemies are the rulers and bosses of all kinds, presidents and ministers, businessmen and generals, those who generate wars for the sake of multiplying power and riches. We call on the working people in Russia, the Ossetias, Abkhazia and Georgia to reject the bait of nationalism and patriotism and to turn the anger on rulers and the rich on both sides of the border.
Russian, Georgian, Ossetian and Abkhazian soldiers! Do not obey the orders of your commanders! Turn your weapons against those who sent you to war! Do not shoot the soldiers of your ‘opponents' - fraternise with them: a bayonet in the ground!
Working people in the rear! Sabotage military efforts, leave to go to meetings and demonstrations against the war, organise yourselves and strike against it!
No to the war and to its organizers - rulers and rich men! Yes to solidarity of working people across borders and the front lines!



Federation of Education, Science and Technical Workers, CRAS-IWA

(August 2008)