10.10.2001

Pacifism disarms

George W Bush has pledged a "sustained, comprehensive and relentless" campaign - "I don't care if it takes a year or a decade".

As we know only too well, war has a tendency to escalate. What begins as a policing operation or a punishment can end up engulfing whole regions, or indeed the planet. Today it is Afghanistan. Tomorrow it will be Iraq. The day after another 'rogue state'. Imperialism - like ourselves - is entering unknown territory. Therefore, this is a critical test for the left - most notably, the Socialist Alliance. We have to get things right. Not to do so could have untold negative consequences for our movement.

War is a continuation of politics by other, violent, means. In our period of history, the period of declining capitalism and immanent communism, war, all wars, express this underlying fact.

The October Revolution in 1917 began to die as soon as it was born. Nonetheless the overthrow of capitalism and vision of a higher, global, social order cannot be wiped from the collective memory of the working class. In October 1917 lies our answer to a capitalism which is mired in economic stagnation in the North American, EU and Japanese metropoles and is directly or indirectly visiting wars upon the wretched, vulnerable and impoverished 'third world'.

Moribund capitalism is leaving much of the world to rot. Africa is in visible decay: riven with the AIDS epidemic, sucked dry by chronic indebtedness, what remains is fought over by cleptocratic elites. Petty wars bring famine. Coup follows coup. Warlordism eclipses civil society. All that stops the descent into total barbarism is the drip feed of US and EU 'development' funds - themselves plundered by government ministers and bureaucrats alike. What the global system of capital offers the so-called 'third world' is no longer any kind of civilisation. Indeed Afghanistan holds before the entire 'third world' a mirror of its future. Afghanistan is the new world order?s heart of darkness.

Under these circumstances what distinguishes revolutionary socialists and communists who stand in the Leninist tradition from others who are also outraged by the Bush-Blair 'war on terrorism' and its cynical new world order agenda is that we see the need to retaliate: not with pacifistic calls to abide by international law or by rejecting war as such. ?No to war? say the Socialist Alliance. Rather we retaliate with preparations for the revolutionary overthrow of capital itself. Given the objective circumstances in Britain today, that means propaganda. We must bring to the attention of the anti-war movement and crucially the working class the lessons of October 1917 - crystallised at the various stages into slogans, demands and statements.

Before the deed must come the word. So our message must be clear. Honesty too is essential. We want to see the working class armed in order to defeat, expropriate and disarm the capitalist class. This perspective, and only this perspective, offers a viable way forward out of the impasse created by the objective development of moribund capitalism. Only after the working class has disarmed the capitalist class can we reject war.

Have the forces of socialism carried out their duty to tell the truth? It cannot be said that they have. 

The Stop the War Coalition does not venture beyond the bounds of pacifism. Capital and the need to fight it as the cause of modern war is entirely absent: "The attacks are acts of war wholly outside all accepted legal, democratic and civilised norms. They will outrage people across the world. Military action in no way assists the apprehension of the perpetrators of the atrocity of September 11. It will not deter terrorism, nor make anyone anywhere safer". That just about sums up where the Stop the War Coalition and its SWP hegemons are at. It is as if Seattle, Nice and Genoa never happened

We say the anti-capitalism movement and the anti-war movement must be merged. The anti-war movement must become anti-capitalist. Its organisational form - the Socialist Alliance.

Unfortunately, this prostration before pacifism - and forgetting about anti-capitalism - is a worldwide phenomenon. In Delhi, supporters of the Socialist Unity Centre gathered outside the American embassy to protest against US imperialism because it has attacked Afghanistan 'without offering proof' that bin Laden had been involved in the September 11 atrocities. So, if imperialism does provide incontrovertible evidence ..

In the same spirit, Robert Hue, general secretary of the French Communist Party, advised: "Any riposte, especially if it involves the use of force, must take place within a United Nations framework". In a similar pacifistic fashion, ex-?official communist? Gregor Gysi, leader of the Party of Democratic Socialism, whimpered: ?This is war and war is always the wrong answer.? No, war is not always wrong. We do not want a UN war, but we do want a class war.

The anti-war/anti-capitalist  movement needs to fight the battle of ideas on all fronts - which by definition includes bin Laden and his Taliban allies. We must be militantly opposed to imperialism but show no softness towards reactionary anti-imperialism. To do otherwise would lead down a very dangerous road. Our enemy?s enemy is most definitely not our friend.

We say, the main enemy is at home - whether you live in London, New York or Kabul.

Eddie Ford