"Only a bourgeois who believes that a war started by the governments must necessarily end as a war between governments and wants it to end as such, can regard as “ridiculous” and “absurd” the idea that the Socialists of all the belligerent countries should wish for the defeat of all “their” governments and express this wish. On the contrary, it is precisely a statement of this kind that would conform to the cherished thoughts of every class-conscious worker, and would be in line with our activities towards converting the imperialist war into civil war." (V. I. Lenin, Socialism and War, 1915)
It has been more than a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Thousands of bodies litter the landscape as the war machine is in full swing on both sides. As the US and NATO continue funneling money into Ukraine, and as Russia maintains the offensive, workers are facing an escalation of conflict creeping up slowly around the world. China’s sabre-rattling of Taiwan, Nigeria’s plans to invade Niger, as well as the recent firefights between Armenia and Azerbaijan all spell doom for the world and the working class. And yet, despite bourgeois in-fighting, workers remain determined to cling onto nationalism, whether it be in the form of agitating for the armament of Ukraine, or for seeking peace via diplomacy with Russia. Both of these positions – defencism being the former, pacifism the latter – bargain on the level of conceding to the bourgeois state, and as shown to us time and time again, provide nothing for the workers but their continued subjugation to the dying system of capitalism.
But pacifism aims to promote peace! Diplomacy and de-escalation are meant to draw leaders of the world against this madness and towards demilitarisation! Except that at no point in history has this ever done away with the latent tendency towards imperialism – towards the accumulation of capital becoming so gluttonous that the only way to create more value when the ensemble production of the world is not enough, is to destroy it – through bombs, guns, and fire. Ever since World War I, pacifism has been nothing but the moral reflex of the bourgeoisie towards the preservation of their system, providing a sigh of regret to relieve the workers who are forced under threat of death to march to the front. Just as it fragmented true revolutionary organization of the workers then, so too does it rear its ugly head today.
Instead, there is only one clear alternative, one clear solution to this madness that continues to grip the world. Workers around the globe must assemble on an international platform and mobilise for the defeat of their nations as part of their revolutionary objective to overthrow capitalism once and for all! Workers must agitate against domestic war efforts through the combined strategy of strikes, stoppages, and slowdowns. Workers in Russia taking to the streets can cease the rain of hell upon their Ukranian comrades, but only if those Ukrainian workers do the same in turn, alongside workers in China, Taiwan, Niger, Nigeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, etc. As the Bolshevik Revolution has shown us, only the mass organisation of the working class can provide an effective opposition to war. In the same breath, its failures demonstrate the need for international cooperation, for any localized revolution will be doomed to fail.
Pacifism and defencism therefore grease the wheels of the bourgeois war machinery. If workers opt to pick their nation as the righteous one, the one for which they will march in step to fight for or to act as the diplomatic arm for, then all such efforts will yield nothing but disillusionment and their own destruction. As long as workers remain isolated, then no platform of revolutionary defeatism will ever take hold, and as such a necessary step is for workers to oppose pacifism and defencism. Neither NATO nor Russia, No War But The Class War!
-- Klasbatalo