*From The Archives- Proletarian Revolution And The Fight Against War

Click on the title to link to a "Workers Vanguard", newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S, article on the subject mentioned in the headline.

From The Archives *HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE

COMMENTARY

FORGET DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS AND GREENS- BUILD A WORKERS PARTY

The election cycle of 2006-2008 has started, a time for all militants to run for cover. It will not be pretty and certainly is not for the faint-hearted. The Democrats smell blood in the water. The Greens smell that the Democrats smell blood. Various parliamentary leftists and some ostensibly socialists smell that the Greens smell blood. You get the drift. Before we go to ground let me make a point.

The central issue in the 2006 elections is the Iraq quagmire. As we enter the fourth year in the bloody war in Iraq many liberals, and some not so liberal, in Congress and elsewhere are looking to rehabilitate their sorry records on Iraq and are having a cheap field day. As militants we know that the only serious call is- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal of all U.S. and Allied Forces Now (or rather yesterday). Many politicians have supported a pale imitation of this slogan-now that it safe to do so. These courageous positions range from immediate withdrawal in six months, one year, six years, etc.. My personal favorite is withdrawal when the situation in Iraq stabilizes. Compared to that position, Mr. Bush’s statement in May, 2003 that the mission in Iraq was accomplished seems the height of political realism. Hold on though.

After the last slogan has faded from the last mass anti-war demonstration, after the last e-mail has been sent to the last unresponsive Congressman, after the last petition signed on behalf of the fellowship of humankind has been signed where do we stand in 2006. When the vast majority of Americans (and the world) are against the Iraq war and it still goes on and yet the “masses” are not ready for more drastic action we need some immediate leverage.

The only material way to end the war on the parliamentary level is opposition to the continued funding for the occupation. For that, however, you need votes in Congress. Here is my proposal. Make a N0 vote on the war budget a condition for your vote. When the Democrats, Republicans, Greens, or whoever, come to your door, your mailbox , your computer or calls you on the telephone or cell phone ask this simple question- YES or NO on the war budget.

Now, lest I be accused of being an ultra left let me make this clear. I am talking about the supplementary budget for Iraq. Heaven forbid that I mean the real war budget, you know, the 400 billion plus one. No, we are reasonable people and until we get universal health care we do not want these “leaders” to suffer heart attacks. And being reasonable people we can be proper parliamentarians when the occasion requires it. If the answer is YES, then we ask YES or NO on the appropriations for bombs in the war budget. And if the answer is still YES, then we ask YES or NO on the appropriations for gold-plated kitchen sinks in the war budget. If to your utter surprise any politician says NO here’s your comeback- Since you have approximated the beginning of wisdom, get the hell out of the party you represent. You are in the wrong place. Come down here in the mud and fight for a party workers can call their own. Then, maybe, just maybe, I can support you.

I do not believe we are lacking in physical courage. What has declined is political courage, and this seems an irreversible decline on the part of parliamentary politicians. That said, I want to finish up with a woefully inadequate political appreciation of Karl Liebknecht, member of the German Social Democratic faction in the Reichstag in the early 1900’s. Karl was also a son of Wilhelm Liebknecht, friend of Karl Marx and founder of the German Social Democratic Party in the 1860’s. On August 4, 1914, at the start of World War I the German Social Democratic Party voted YES on the war budget of the Kaiser against all its previous historic positions on German militarism. This vote was rightly seen as a betrayal of socialist principles. Due to a policy of parliamentary solidarity Karl Liebknecht also voted for this budget, or at least felt he had to go along with his faction. Shortly thereafter, he broke ranks and voted NO against the war appropriations. As pointed out below Karl Liebknecht did much more than that to oppose the German side in the First World War. THAT , MY FRIENDS, IS THE KIND OF POLITICIAN I CAN SUPPORT. AS FOR THE REST- HOLD THEIR FEET TO THE FIRE.


EVERY JANUARY WE HONOR, LENIN OF RUSSIA, ROSA LUXEMBURG OF POLAND AND KARL LIEBKNECHT OF GERMANY AS THREE LEADERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT. HERE’S WHY WE HONOR LIEBKNECHT.

In honor of the 3 L’s. The authority of Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, and Luxemburg, the Rose of the Revolution, need no special commendation. I would however like to comment on Karl Liebknecht who has received less historical recognition and has had less written about him. Nevertheless, Karl Liebknecht apparently had the capacity to lead the German Revolution. A man whose actions inspired 50,000 Berlin workers, under penalty of being drafted to the front, to strike against his imprisonment in the middle of a World War is self- evidently a man with the authority to lead a revolution. His tragic personal fate in the aftermath of the Spartacus Uprising of 1919, being killed by counterrevolutionaries aided by his former comrades in the German Social Democratic Party, helped condition the later dismal fate of the German Revolution in 1923.

History has posed certain questions concerning the establishment of socialism that remains unresolved primarily to due the crisis of leadership of the international labor movement. Although Liebknecht admittedly was not a theoretician I do not believe that someone of Lenin's or Trotsky's theoretical level was necessary after the Russian experience. What was necessary was a leadership that assimilated those lessons. Liebknecht, given enough time to study those lessons, seems to have been capable of that. A corollary to that view is that one must protect leading cadre when the state starts bearing down. Especially small propaganda groups like the Spartacus with fewer resources for protection of leadership. This was not done. If you do not protect your leadership you wind up with a Levi, Brander or Thalheimer (successively leaders of the German Communist Party in the early 1920’s) who seemed organically incapable of learning those lessons

One of the problems with being the son of a famous politician is that as founder of the early German Social Democratic Party Wilhelm Liebknecht's son much was expected of Karl, especially on the question of leading the German working class against German militarism. Wilhelm had done a prison term (with August Bebel) for opposition to the Franco-Prussian War. As for Karl I have always admired that famous picture of him walking across the Potsdam Plaza in uniform, subject to imprisonment after lost of his parliamentary immunity, with briefcase under arm ready to go in and do battle with the parliamentary cretins of the Social Democratic Party over support for the war budget. (THIS PICTURE CAN BE GOOGLED) That is the kind of leadership cadre we desperately need now. REMEMBER HIS FAMOUS SLOGANS- ‘THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOME’-‘NOT ONE PENNY, NOT ONE PERSON (updated by writer) FOR THE WAR’. Wilhelm would have been proud.


THIS IS PART OF A SERIES OF ARTICLES OF OCCASIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE 2006-2008 ELECTION CYCLE UNDER THE HEADLINE- FORGET THE DONKEYS, ELEPHANTS, GREENS-BUILD A WORKERS PARTY.

On the 16th Anniversary Of The Iraq War-From The Archives- *AS WE APPROACH THE 5TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE IRAQ WAR...

Click on the title to link to an "Under The Hood" (Fort Hood G.I. Coffeehouse)Web site online article about the "Oleo Strut" Coffeehouse, an important development in the anti-Vietnam War struggle. Hats off to those bygone anti-war fighters.


IMMEDIATE UNCONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL OF ALL U.S./ALLIED TROOPS AND THEIR MERCENARIES FROM IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN!

Yes, today is only March 1st and thus not really the 5th Anniversary of the start of the Iraq War but do we really need to wait until then to know that we will be in Iraq, in full force, come the 20th of the month? Hell, no. That said, this year we do not even have the ‘hope’ (or better said, the illusion) that this war is going to end any time soon. The latest maneuvers by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid only highlight that sad conclusion.

This week, the week of February 25, 2008, the Democratically-controlled Senate attempted to bring the question of funding for the war and some timetable proposals to the Senate floor. This time the Republican minority cynically permitted debate for its own purposes. Those purposes included letting presumptive Republican presidential nominee Arizona Senator John McCain and others tout the success of last year’s military surge strategy. However, at the end of the day the Republicans turned down any chances to vote on the issues presented. This is where Senate Minority Leader Reid had his finest hour. He knew, as he did last, year that he did not have the votes to pass any legislation. This, my friends, is the height of parliamentary cretinism.

However one may interpret Senator McCain’s remarks about an American presence in Iraq for 100 years today who can say that is an outlandish figure. Unless we do something about it. As for those prospects? My propaganda tactic of trying to link up the civilian anti-war movement with the rank and file soldiers in Iraq has proven thus far to be just that. Propaganda. Last year, better two years ago it made sense. Under today’s military and political conditions it gets us no closer to ending the war than any other potential anti-war strategy. We better go back to the basics. A little class struggle in these hard economic times, or at least propaganda for it, will go a long way. As I, and many, many others have said it is far easier getting out of war that into it. That said, we still need to get the hell out. Immediate Withdrawal of All U.S./Allied Troops and their mercenaries from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Below I have reposted, as much as it pains me, a comment I made as we approached last year's 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War. Damn.

COMMENTARY

WRITTEN ON MARCH 20, 2007 THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICAN INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF IRAQ.

This will be short and sweet for four years of war without an effective extra-parliamentary (or for that matter, parliamentary) opposition in an unpopular war led by an unpopular President speaks for itself. That said, the slogan Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal from Iraq by the United States and its rapidly dwindling coalition forces retains its validity. As does the fight for a straight no vote on the war budget. And, finally, as does the validity of the desperately necessary fight to form anti-war soldiers and sailors solidarity committees. Otherwise this time next year we will be writing about the fifth year of the war. Forward.

*The Latest From The "Citizen Soldier" Website- Troops Out Now!

Click on the headline to link to the "Citizen Soldier" Website for an update on their activities.

Markin Comment:

Remember that the short way home for us, as we continue to struggle valiantly if somewhat alone- build anti-war soldiers and sailors soldarity committees now!

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-*From The Archives Of Bolshevik Anti-War Work- V.I. Lenin On Imperialist War And The Tasks Of Socialists

Click on the title to link to an "American Left History" blog entry, dated December 6, 2009, "*From The Front Lines Of The Anti-Afghan War Struggle- On The Slogan- “Down With The Obama Government”- A Commentary."


V. I. Lenin
The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War

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Published: Sotsial-Demorkrat No. 43, July 26, 1915. Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demorkrat.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 275-280.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2003 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text • README --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
During a reactionary war 9 revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.

This is axiomatic, and disputed only by conscious partisans or helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists. Among the former, for instance, is Semkovsky of the Organising Committee (No. 2 of its Izvestia), and among the latter, Trotsky and Bukvoyed,[2] and Kautsky in Germany. To desire Russia’s defeat, Trotsky writes, is “an uncalled-for and absolutely unjustifiable concession to the political methodology of social-patriotism, which would replace the revolutionary struggle against the war and the conditions causing it, with an orientation—highly arbitrary in the present conditions—towards the lesser evil” (Nashe Slovo No. 105).

This is an instance of high-flown phraseology with which Trotsky always justifies opportunism. A “revolutionary struggle against the war” is merely an empty and meaning less exclamation, something at which the heroes of the Second International excel, unless it means revolutionary action against one’s own government even in wartime. One has only to do some thinking in order to understand this. Wartime revolutionary action against one’s own government indubitably means, not only desiring its defeat, but really facilitating such a defeat. ("Discerning reader”: note that this does not mean “blowing up bridges”, organising unsuccessful strikes in the war industries, and ·in general helping the government defeat the revolutionaries.)

The phrase-bandying Trotsky has completely lost his bearings on a simple issue. It seems to him that to desire Russia’s defeat means desiring the victory of Germany. (Bukvoyed and Semkovsky give more direct expression to the “thought”, or rather want of thought, which they share with Trotsky.) But Trotsky regards this as the “methodology of social-patriotism"! To help people that are unable to think for themselves, the Berne resolution (Sotsial Demokrat No. 40)[1] made it clear, that in all imperialist countries the proletariat must now desire the defeat of its own government. Bukvoyed and Trotsky preferred to avoid this truth, while Semkovsky (an opportunist who is more useful to the working class than all the others, thanks to his naively frank reiteration of bourgeois wisdom) blurted out the following: “This is nonsense, because either Germany or Russia can win” (Izvestia No. 2).

Take the example of the Paris Commune. France was defeated by Germany but the workers were defeated by Bismarck and Thiers! Had Bukvoyed and Trotsky done a little thinking, they would have realised that they have adopted the viewpoint on the war held by governments and the bourgeoisie, i.e., that they cringe to the “political methodology of social-patriotism”, to use Trotsky’s pretentious language.

A revolution in wartime means civil war; the conversion of a war between governments into a civil war is, on the one hand, facilitated by military reverses ("defeats") of governments; on the other hand, one cannot actually strive for such a conversion without thereby facilitating defeat.

The reason why the chauvinists (including the Organising Committee and the Chkheidze group) repudiate the defeat “slogan” is that this slogan alone implies a consistent call for revolutionary action against one’s own government in wartime. Without such action, millions of ultra-revolutionary phrases such as a war against “the war and the conditions, etc." are not worth a brass farthing.

Anyone who would in all earnest refute the “slogan” of defeat for one’s own government in the imperialist war should prove one of three things: (1) that the war of 1914-15 is not reactionary, or (2) that a revolution stemming from that war is impossible, or (3) that co-ordination and mutual aid are possible between revolutionary movements in all the belligerent countries. The third point is particularly important to Russia, a most backward country, where an immediate socialist revolution is impossible. That is why the Russian Social-Democrats had to be the first to advance the “theory and practice” of the defeat “slogan”. The tsarist government was perfectly right in asserting that the agitation conducted by the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group in the Duma—the sole instance in the International, not only of parliamentary opposition but of genuine revolutionary anti-government agitation among the masses—that this agitation has weakened Russia’s “military might” and is likely to lead to its defeat. This is a fact to which it is foolish to close one’s eyes.

The opponents of the defeat slogan are simply afraid of themselves when they refuse to recognise the very obvious fact of the inseparable link between revolutionary agitation against the government and helping bring about its defeat.

Are co-ordination and mutual aid possible between the Russian movement, which is revolutionary in the bourgeois- democratic sense, and th socialist movement in the West? No socialist who has publicly spoken on the matter during the last decade has doubted this, the movement among the Austrian proletariat after October 17, 1905,[3] actually proving it possible.

Ask any Social-Democrat who calls himself an internationalist whether or not he approves of an understanding between the Social-Democrats of the various belligerent countries on joint revolutionary action against all belligerent governments. Many of them will reply that it is impossible, as Kautsky has done (Die Neue Zeit, October 2, 1914), thereby fully proving his social-chauvinism. This, on the one hand, is a deliberate and vicious lie, which clashes with the generally known facts and the Basle Manifesto. On the other hand, if it were true, the opportunists would be quite right in many respects!

Many will voice their approval of such an understanding. To this we shall say: if this approval is not hypocritical, it is ridiculous to think that, in wartime and for the conduct of a war, some “formal” understanding is necessary, such as the election of representatives, the arrangement of a meeting, the signing of an agreement, and the choice of the day and hour! Only the Semkovskys are capable of thinking so. An understanding on revolutionary action even in a single country, to say nothing of a number of countries, can be achieved only by the force of the example of serious revolutionary action, by launching such action and developing it. However, such action cannot be launched without desiring the defeat of the government, and without contributing to such a defeat. The conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war cannot be “made”, any more than a revolution can be “made”. It develops out of a number of diverse phenomena, aspects, features, characteristics and consequences of the imperialist war. That development is impossible without a series of military reverses and defeats of governments that receive blows from their own oppressed classes.

To repudiate the defeat slogan means allowing one’s revolutionary ardour to degenerate into an empty phrase, or sheer hypocrisy.

What is the substitute proposed for the defeat slogan? It is that of “neither victory nor defeat” (Semkovsky in Izvestia No. 2; also the entire Organising Committee in No. 1). This, however, is nothing but a paraphrase of the “defence of the fatherland” slogan. It means shifting the issue to the level of a war between governments (who, according to the content of this slogan, are to keep to their old stand, “retain their positions"), and not to the level of the struggle of the oppressed classes against their governments! It means justifying the chauvinism of all the imperialist nations, whose bourgeoisie are always ready to say—and do say to the people—that they are “only” fighting “against defeat”. “The significance of our August 4 vote was that we are not for war but against defeat," David, a leader of the opportunists, writes in his book. The Organising Committee, together with Bukvoyed and Trotsky, stand on fully the same ground as David when they defend the “neither-victory nor-defeat” slogan.

On closer examination, this slogan will be found to mean a “class truce”, the renunciation of the class struggle by the oppressed classes in all belligerent countries, since the class struggle is impossible without dealing blows at one’s “own” bourgeoisie, one’s “own” government, whereas dealing a blow at one’s own government in wartime is (for Bukvoyed’s information) high treason, means contributing to the defeat of one’s own country. Those who accept the “neither victory-nor-defeat” slogan can only be hypocritically in favour of the class struggle, of “disrupting the class truce”; in practice, such people are renouncing an independent proletarian policy because they subordinate the proletariat of all belligerent countries to the absolutely bourgeois task of safeguarding the imperialist governments against defeat. The only policy of actual, not verbal disruption of the “class truce”, of acceptance of the class struggle, is for the proletariat to take advantage of the difficulties experienced by its government and its bourgeoisie in order to overthrow them. This, however, cannot be achieved or striven for, without desiring the defeat of one’s own government and without contributing to that defeat.

When, before the war, the Italian Social-Democrats raised the question of a mass strike, the bourgeoisie replied, no doubt correctly from their own point of view, that this would be high treason, and that Social-Democrats would be dealt with as traitors. That is true, just as it is true that fraternisation in the trenches is high treason. Those who write against “high treason”, as Bukvoyed does, or against the “disintegration of Russia”, as Semkovsky does, are adopting the bourgeois, not the proletarian point of view. A proletarian cannot deal a class blow at his government or hold out (in fact) a hand to his brother, the proletarian of the “foreign” country which is at war with “our side”, without committing “high treason”, without contributing to the defeat, to the disintegration of his “own”, imperialist “Great” Power.

Whoever is in favour of the slogan of “neither victory nor defeat” is consciously or unconsciously a chauvinist; at best he is a conciliatory petty bourgeois but in any case he is an -enemy to proletarian policy, a partisan of the existing ·governments, of the present-day ruling classes.

Let us look at the question from yet another angle. The war cannot but evoke among the masses the most turbulent sentiments, which upset the usual sluggish state of mass mentality. Revolutionary tactics are impossible if they are not adjusted to these new turbulent sentiments.

What are the main currents of these turbulent sentiments? They are: (1) Horror and despair. Hence, a growth of religious feeling. Again the churches are crowded, the reactionaries joyfully declare. “Wherever there is suffering there is religion," says the arch-reactionary Barr s. He is right, too. (2) Hatred of the “enemy”, a sentiment that is carefully fostered by the bourgeoisie (not so much by the priests), arid is of economic and political value only to the bourgeoisie. (3) Hatred of one’s own government and one’s own bourgeoisie—the sentiment of all class-conscious workers who understand, on the one hand, that war is a “continuation of the politics” of imperialism, which they counter by a “continuation” of their hatred of their class enemy, and, on the other hand, that “a war against war” is a banal phrase unless it means a revolution against their own government. Hatred of one’s own government and one’s own bourgeoisie cannot be aroused unless their defeat is desired; one cannot be a sincere opponent of a civil (i.e., class) truce without arousing hatred of one’s own government and bourgeoisie!

Those who stand for the “neither-victory-nor-defeat” slogan are in fact on the side of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists, for they do not believe in the possibility of inter national revolutionary action by the working class against their own governments, and do not wish to help develop such action, which, though undoubtedly difficult, is the only task worthy of a proletarian, the only socialist task. It is the proletariat in the most backward of the belligerent. Great Powers which, through the medium of their party, have had to adopt—especially in view of the shameful treachery of the German and French Social-Democrats— revolutionary tactics that are quite unfeasible unless they “contribute to the defeat” of their own government, but which alone lead to a European revolution, to the permanent peace of socialism, to the liberation of humanity from the horrors, misery, savagery and brutality now prevailing.


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Notes
[1] See p. 163 of this volume.—Ed.

[2] Bukvoyed-D. Ryazanov.

[3] This refers to the tsar’s manifesto promulgated on October 17 (30), 1905. It promised "civil liberties" and a “legislative Duma”. The manifesto was a concession wrested from the tsarist regime by the revolution, but that concession by no means decided the fate of the revolution as the liberals and Mensheviks claimed, The Bolsheviks exposed the real meaning of the Manifesto and called upon the masses to continue the struggle and overthrow the autocracy.

The first Russian revolution exerted a great revolutionising influence on the working-class movement in other countries, in particular in Austria-Hungary. Lenin pointed out that the news about the tsar’s concession and his manifesto, with its promise of “liberties”, “played a decisive part in the final victory of universal suffrage in Austria”.

Mass demonstrations took place in Vienna and other industrial cities in Austria-Hungary. In Prague barricades were put up. As a result, universal suffrage was introduced in Austria.

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-*Political Journalist's Corner- John Reed On Karl Liebknecht-Honor The Three L's

Click on title to link to the John Reed Internet Archive's 1919 "The Revolutionary Age" article by John Reed about his remembrances of the martyred great German communist leader, Karl Liebknecht.

On The 100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-Political Journalist's Corner- John Reed On Karl Liebknecht-Honor The Three L's

Click on title to link to the John Reed Internet Archive's 1919 "The Revolutionary Age" article by John Reed about his remembrances of the martyred great German communist leader, Karl Liebknecht.

The Latest From The United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!-REPORT ON UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COALITION CONFERENCE

Click on the headline to link to the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) Website for more information about various anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist actions around the country.

Markin comment:

Every once in a while it is necessary, if for not other reason than to proclaim from the public square that we are alive, and fighting, to show “the colors,” our anti-war colors. While, as I have mentioned many times in this space, endless marches are not going to end any war the street opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as protests against other imperialist adventures has been under the radar of late. It is time for anti-warriors to get back where we belong in the struggle against Obama’s wars. The UNAC appears to be the umbrella clearing house these days for many anti-war, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist actions. Not all the demands of this coalition are ones that I would raise but the key one is enough to take to the streets. Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops, Mercenaries, Contractors, Etc, From Afghanistan! Hands Off Iran!

BostonUNAC.org | 781-285-8622 | BostonUNAC(S)gmail.com

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REPORT ON UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COALITION CONFERENCE

MARCH 23-25, STAMFORD, CT

By Marilyn Levin, Co-Coordinator, UNAC

As the United States, in its desperation to control world resources and maintain its power, threatens to attack Syria and Iran, works to stifle popular resistance movements, slashes our standard of living, poisons our environment, and systematically dismantles the Bill of Rights, well over 500 antiwar and social justice activists gathered in Stamford, CT, March 23-25 to lay out an Action Program that can challenge the NATO/G-8 Agenda for war, austerity, and repression. Many participants praised the breadth and depth of issues and the caliber of the speakers and presenters in 50 workshops, six plenary panels, and keynote addresses by environmentalist Bill McKibben, historian and commentator Vijay Prashad, economist Richard Wolff, and Muslim Peace Coalition founder Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid. National antiwar leaders Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright, and David Swanson also played a significant role.

The diversity and youth of participants was significant for a large national antiwar conference in recent times. Much of this was attributable to the organizing efforts of the Muslim Peace Coalition, assembled due to the initiative of a number of important clerics and community leaders, brought busloads of Muslim activists to the conference from New York and DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), a group who brought many South Asian immigrant activists. The MPC organized what amounted to a mini-conference within the UNAC conference, with three workshops, a keynote by Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, and a meeting of the MPC that drafted a conference action proposal that passed unanimously calling for a mass mobilization and demonstration in NYC on June 16 to protest against “the violation of the civil and human rights of all people”, particularly the NYPD spying and the NDAA’s authorization of indefinite detention, and the wars at home and abroad.

Comparing the attendance at our first conference to this one shows a significant improvement in composition that indicates the achievements of UNAC and changes in the broader movement. The Albany conference in the summer of 2010 was larger, a huge success, and launched a new national coalition, but the composition was narrower. Most were involved in the traditional peace movement and there were fewer youth and people of color. The contrast today showed the changes and gains we are making. There were more students, youth from the occupy movements and members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

A number of important African-American political leaders lent their prestige to the conference. There was a special lunch program -- The War at Home on the Black Community: Mass Incarceration, Unemployment, Stop and Frisk, that featured Dr. Khalilah Brown Dean, a researcher on Black incarceration; Larry Holmes, a leader of the International Action Center; and Black Agenda Report staffers Glen Ford, Nellie Bailey, and Bruce Dixon. Highlighting the New Jim Crow and the pervasive racism that generates it, as exemplified by the murder of Trayvon Martin and the community response, points to the necessity for a new civil rights movement. There were also workshops on antiwar organizing in the Black community, organized by Ana Edwards of the Virginia Defenders, and the contradictions of the imperialist’s agenda for full spectrum dominance with a BAR panel. Black Agenda Report Executive Director Glen Ford spoke on a plenary panel and introduced the Action Program to the conference. This conference recognized the fact that opposition to the war at home on the Black community must remain visible and at the center of antiwar organizing in the U.S.

Labor was not a large component but there were leaders of important labor actions of the Longshore and Warehouse Union on the West Coast - Mike Fuqua, a Longview strike leader and Clarence Thomas, ILWU Local 10 Executive Board -- and Andrew Murray, British leader of a huge strike action in England as well as a national leader of Britain’s Stop the War Coalition. The connection of labor and the Occupy movement in confronting the economic attacks on working people and youth was stressed.

There were leaders of Puerto Rican and Colombian major student strikes and a Honduran presence. DRUM (Desis Rising UP and Moving) and the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights played a significant role in the conference in involving South Asians and immigrants and highlighting their struggles.

The continuing struggle to “Free Palestine” was emphasized with two workshops, Andrew Dalack, speaking for USPCN (US Palestine Community Network), and resolutions to support BDS, the Global March to Jerusalem on Land Day, and organizing a Palestine Contingent for the march against NATO on May 20.

The focus on NATO/G8 and the importance of building the national mass mobilization called for Chicago on May 20 and winning our fight for the right to protest at these major events was evident throughout the conference. There were conference plenary panels on the Shifting Strategies of Empire, Our Response to the NATO/G-8 Agenda of War and Austerity, and a NATO/G-8 Protest Organizing Session aimed at organizing broad national participation in Chicago. Joe Iosbaker and Pat Hunt, central organizers of the NATO/G-8 protests, reported on plans for the mobilization and emphasized the national character of the Chicago actions and the fight for our rights to protest.

UNAC recently placed a full-page ad signed by hundreds of supporters of civil liberties across the country and around the world demanding that permits for May 20 be granted by reluctant city officials. The national coalition that UNAC helped form and actively builds, CANG-8 (Coalition Against the NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda) and attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild and the ACLU spent months effectively countering city official measures and media hype designed to discourage participation in the massive mobilization of antiwar and social justice forces that are expected to be in Chicago on May 20. In fact, as of now, the right for a permitted march and rally within "sight and sound" of NATO's war-making gathering has been won. In spite of the administration’s aims to stifle protest, the May 20th mobilization is steadily gaining wide support, including endorsements from Occupy Chicago, the National Nurses Union, and Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, headquartered in Chicago. An impressive list of speakers for both the rally and the People’s Summit called for May 12-13 will be announced shortly. An international delegation will be attending as “observers” to document the peaceful character of the march.

The significance of the new Occupy Movement and relating the economic crisis and war economy were addressed by speakers and a number of workshops. Leaders of the struggles against drones and nuclear power and weapons led several workshops.

The expanding assaults on human rights and civil liberties was featured in many workshops dealing with Guantanamo, torture, indefinite detention, Islamophobia, the use of law and prisons for social control, and the curtailment of our rights to protest.

It was striking that there seemed to be consensus that US imperialism was the central unifying cause of the worldwide atrocities of never-ending war, austerity and repression and that this system of rule by the 1% must be defeated if a new order representing the interests of the 99% can be fostered. This theme was stressed repeatedly. Another striking feature was that in an election year, where traditionally the political emphasis of much of the left has been to defeat Republicans and avoid mass action, there was strong criticism of Obama and the Democratic Party administration as servants of the rich and just as culpable for the wars at home and abroad. The current election cycle was not a major concern at the conference.

The contentious issue in 2010 was over the demand to End All US Aid to Israel, along with support for BDS and the Right of Return. That is generally accepted now and taking this strong stance built our stature and connection to the Palestine solidarity movement.

The controversial issue this year was over what position to take on Iran. There was total agreement on all sides re: nonintervention of any sort by the U.S. and its allies and self-determination for Iran. But many groups in UNAC and in the broader antiwar movement have different assessments of the government of Iran ranging from supportive to harshly critical and different perspectives on whether or not to address any criticisms at a time when the government faces sanctions and threats of attack. Cognizant that UNAC is a mass action and united front coalition, the conference voted by a 2/3 majority to re-affirm UNAC’s fundamental U.S./NATO "Out Now!" position and support of the right of self-determination of all oppressed peoples and nations, including Iran. (See Resolution on Iran.) Of course, all component groups of UNAC are free to express their differing views through their own publications, spokespersons, and actions.

The Action Program introduced by the UNAC Coordinating Committee was well-received and accepted as the working document of the conference. It begins WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT, AFFIRM THAT: The history of all successful social movements demonstrates that the few, the one percent, NEVER yield to the MANY unless the MANY are organized democratically, independent of the institutions of the status quo, united in struggle in massive numbers and confident in victory.

The final Action Program, as amended and passed by the conference, listed 18 actions. Building the national march protesting NATO and the G-8 in Chicago May 20 as the central mass action priority for the spring, along with the People’s Summit May 12-13, were emphasized. Other actions endorsed included May 1st immigrant rights actions, protests at the RNC and DNC stating, "No to the Democratic and Republican Party Agendas,” actions to support the Occupy movement and other antiwar and social justice events, support for Bradley Manning, building the national march for human rights and liberties in NYC on June 16, support for BDS against Israel, and emergency actions around threats of war or initiation of armed conflict.

A strong and united national movement that relates to the global struggles against imperialist crimes is even more essential today. We can no longer be a “single issue” movement, as the Empire operates on all fronts against the 99%. However, the struggle to end war and repression, the major tools they use to maintain dominance and social control, must be at the core of our work.

UNAC is a major national antiwar and social justice coalition. In this time of never-ending war, our collective efforts to build strong actions to challenge the war, austerity, and repression agenda of the 1%, are critical. Where would we be if there was no visible, unified antiwar movement in the U.S. today? What hope would people around the world suffering from wars, poverty, and police-state repression have if U.S. imperialism meets no resistance? UNAC is creating important alliances and organizing and supporting the kinds of actions that are essential to grow and win victories. Please participate by asking your organizations to apply to join UNAC, support us financially, and build the actions that that were approved at the conference.

___________________________________________________________________


Resolution adopted by the March 23-25 UNAC conference on Iran and related issues:

U.S./NATO Troops Out Now! No to Imperialist Wars, Occupations, Sanctions, Embargoes!

Self-determination for All Oppressed People!

The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) was founded on the principle of self-determination for all oppressed nations and peoples. We demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S./NATO troops, mercenaries and drones from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Libya. We have every confidence that, free from imperialist intervention of every type, the oppressed nations and peoples of the world are fully capable of building societies that represent their interests as opposed to the imperial exploiters, neo-colonialists and would-be subjugators.

We have seen the horrific consequences of U.S. wars, "humanitarian" interventions, starvation sanctions, crippling embargoes and targeted assassinations. All have been employed to justify renewed imperialist conquest.

It is our task and obligation as antiwar and social justice activists within the United States to prevent the U.S./NATO's enormous military, economic and media power from imposing its will on the oppressed of the world in order to benefit the interest of the U.S. power elite – the 1%. UNAC opposes any form of U.S. military or economic intervention, sanctions, sabotage and assassinations in Iran and Syria, in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Africa in general and in all other countries, regions and continents where the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department or their allies seek to impose their will.

The Business of America is War - by Stephen Lendman

The Business of America Is War

The Business of America is War - by Stephen Lendman

Noted trends analyst Gerald Celente said it, and it's true. In fact, America's business is war, more war, multiple wars, permanent wars, pillaging one nation after another for wealth, power, and dominance, while homeland needs go begging.

America never was and isn't now the "land of the free and home of the brave." In fact, it's become a "Let 'em eat cake" society.

Whether or not Marie Antoinette actually said it, France's 1789-99 revolution was very real, delivering guillotine justice, not promised "Liberte, Egalite, and Fraternite," a status now destroying what's left of American freedom, heading for the trash bin of history if not already there.

Earlier articles discussed Washington's wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen, as well as numerous proxy ones in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and at home against Muslims, Latino immigrants, and working households.

Combined, they represent a shocking contempt for rule of law justice, democratic values and humanity, notions now mere artifacts long ago abandoned to advance America's imperium.

As previous articles explained, out-of-control imperialism is heading America for tyranny and ruin. In her 1951 book, "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Hannah Arendt said it's "never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within."

She called it dictatorship based on:

"(1) an elaborate ideology;

(2) a single mass party;

(3) terror;

(4) a technologically conditioned monopoly of communication;

(5) a monopoly of weapons; (and)

(6) a centrally controlled economy."

Duplicitously called a democracy, today's America nearly qualifies:

(1) Its ideology is concentrated wealth and power.

(2) It's governed by a two-party duopoly - the money or property party, excluding alternative choices.

(3) It's the world's leading purveyor of state terrorism, waging global wars against nations, groups or individuals, including targeted assassinations of its own citizens.

(4) Major media managed news gives it dominant (not monopoly) communication control, but efforts to subvert Internet discourse and debate may undermine its free and open content.

(5) Corporate-run society makes it centrally controlled for bottom line priorities, excluding other choices.

In her book, "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil," Arendt said crimes of state aren't committed by fanatics or sociopaths, just "terrifyingly normal" (people)....neither perverted or sadistic....who accepted the premises of their superiors and their state" to continue current and/or longstanding policies.

In his book, "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Ward Churchill agreed, explaining what he called the "technocrats of empire," functioning as "little Eichmanns," banally serving imperial interests, no matter how lawless or evil. They could say "no," of course, but go along to get along, including at the highest levels. For them, it's to share spoils, no matter the harm or human misery globally.

Churchill's many books and writings discussed 500 genocidal years against America's indigenous peoples, as well as its global imperial apparatus. Touching the right nerves persuasively, the University of Colorado disgracefully fired him in summer 2007, a pattern repeated elsewhere against other activist professors, notably targeting Israeli critics like Norman Finkelstein, Joel Kovel, Denis Rancourt, and Sami Al-Arian among others.

Al-Arian was also lawlessly arrested, tried, acquitted, imprisoned, brutalized, then freed, but remains under house arrest awaiting dismissal of spurious charges against him.

Imperial America's War Machine

The empire never sleeps or tolerates anti-war activism, threatening its quest for unchallengeable "full spectrum dominance" over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.

September 11, 2001 served as pretext to consolidate power, destroy civil liberties and human rights, and wage permanent wars against invented enemies for global dominance over world markets, resources, and cheap labor - notably at home and throughout
Eurasia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia at the expense of democratic freedoms and social justice.

In its 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), the Pentagon called it the "long war." Dick Cheney said wars won't end in our lifetime, and former CIA Director James Woolsey said America "is engaged in World War IV, and it could continue for years....This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us."

In his 1990 address to a joint session of Congress, GHW Bush called it a "New World Order," preparing the public for Operation Desert Storm and years of war and occupation of Iraq, perhaps knowing Serbia/Kosovo, Afghanistan, and other targeted states would follow.

Obama is America's latest warrior president, succeeding numerous past ones, including Washington, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, and GW Bush preceding him.

Today's stakes, however are far greater and riskier because of Pentagon grand plans, including militarizing space as a platform for future wars. A previous article explained, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/09/americas-grand-strategy-militarizing.html

It discussed plans to position nuclear, other state-of-the-art weapons, and delivery systems to wage multiple wars from space anywhere on short notice. Under Obama, the policy remains in place. His May 2010 National Security Strategy:

"reserve(s) the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend our nation and our interests." In other words, to wage preemptive wars, using first-strike nuclear and other destructive weapons "to keep the American people safe (and advance the nation's) values and ideals," pursuing unchallengeable global/space dominance, ruling by intimidation and war, making the world safe for capital.

During the Cold War, MAD (mutually assured destruction) held both sides at bay. Today's strategy includes "more flexible options (for) a wider range of contingencies (with weapons) to optimize performance." It means destroy an adversary's capabilities preemptively, then target others to eliminate all challenges to US dominance.

With America on a nuclear hair-trigger, it reinvented MAD in new form, threatening potential global nuclear winter, defined as "a long period of darkness and extreme cold that scientists predict would follow a full-scale nuclear war, a layer of dust and smoke in the atmosphere cover(ing) the earth and block(ing) the rays of the sun, (causing) most living organisms (to) perish."

Anti-nuclear expert Helen Caldicott says "one single failure of nuclear deterrence could end human history (quickly). Once initiated, it would take one hour to trigger a swift, sudden end to life on this planet." Only nuclear disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons can stop it, what's never discussed or considered.

On January 17, 1961, Dwight Eisenhower coined the phrase "military industrial complex" in his farewell address, saying:

"....we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

As he prepared to leave office, he could hardly imagine the difference 50 years would make, transforming fortress America into a colossus, waging permanent global wars, spending unconscionable amounts on militarism and threatening planetary survival in the process.

On April 17, 2010, Independent Institute analyst Robert Higgs said annual "defense-related spending greatly exceeds the amounts budgeted by the Department of Defense," presenting FY 2009 data, the most recent figures available.

The official $636.5 billion spent way understated a growing annual total even Higgs can't fully identify, given enormous black budgets and hidden add-ons, likely totaling hundreds of billions of dollars. What's known for FY 2009, however, in billions of dollars includes the following:

-- Department of Defense: $636.5

-- Department of Energy (nuclear weapons and environmental cleanup): $16.7

-- Department of State: $36.3

-- Department of Veterans Affairs: $95.5

-- Department of Homeland Security: $51.7

-- Department of the Treasury (for Military Retirement Fund): $54.9

-- Half of NASA's budget: $9.6

-- Net interest attributable to past-debt-financed defense outlays: $126.3

Total: $1,027.5 trillion

Moreover, the National Priorities Project's analysis of FY 2010 discretionary spending showed 62% spent for military-related purposes, including 4% for veterans' benefits.

For FY 2012, the House approved $690.1 billion, an 8.4% increase (though below the $725 FY 2011 budget, a temporary drop, likely compensated for with add-ons). The Senate will approve a similar amount. If the entire $1,027.5 trillion increases by the same amount, it raises known FY 2012 defense-related spending to $1,113.8 trillion.

In fact, with supplemental and hidden add-ons, as well as Pentagon, intelligence, and other unknown amounts, the grand total likely exceeds $1.5 trillion, a figure rising most years while popular needs go begging.

Higgs also cites the unreliability of official numbers. He believes it's more accurate to take the Pentagon's basic budget and double it because as much as 40% of it is black or hidden. Moreover, as Pentagon power grows, more spending accrues to congressional districts. As a result, Congress willingly goes along as jobs are allegedly created. In addition, generous campaign contributions follow - bribes to keep funding the war machine.

Congressional Affirmation of Permanent War

The current House bill, HR 1540 includes a worrisome/duplicitous Sec. 1034: Affirmation of Armed Conflict with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Associated Forces, affirming:

"(1) the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces and that those entities continue to pose a threat to the United States and its citizens, both domestically and abroad;

(2) the President has the authority to use all necessary and appropriate force during the current armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40);

(3) the current armed conflict includes nations, organization(s), and persons, who --

(A) are part of, or are substantially supporting al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners; or

(B) have engaged in hostilities or have engaged in hostilities or have directly supported hostilities in aid of a nation, organization, or person described in subparagraph (A); and

(4) the President's authority pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force....includes the authority to detain belligerents, including persons described in paragraph (3), until the termination of hostilities."

In September 2001, Congress approved the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for "the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States." Still in force today, it began the "war on terror," giving George Bush carte blanche authority to wage global wars in violation of international and constitutional laws. A 2002 AUMF against Iraq followed.

The House (and likely the Senate) FY 2012 Defense Authorization bill affirms that authority, letting Obama as commander and chief, wage wars anywhere at his discretion. He's taking full advantage, duplicitous congressional posturing notwithstanding.

On June 24, in fact, House Republicans and 70 Democrats rejected support for Obama's Libya war, but defeated a measure to defund it. In other words, they authorized war at the same time symbolically rejecting it, exposing their gross hypocrisy.

America's Permanent War Agenda

In inflation adjusted dollars, annual defense spending more than doubled under George Bush and keeps rising under Obama despite growing budget cutting pressures, given a much greater national debt burden than reported.

Officially it's nearly $14.3 trillion (headed for an estimated $15.5 trillion by September 30), exceeding 100% of GDP at that time. Omitted, however, is another $7.6 trillion owed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other government agencies, besides future trillion dollar or more amounts added annually.

It hardly matters, given the military/industrial complex's power to demand what it wants and get it. Today, in fact, it comprises:

-- defense, technology, energy, financial, private military contractor (PMCs), and other corporate interests;

-- Congress;

-- America's media;

-- prominent think tanks and other pressure groups;

-- various others benefitting from militarism; and

-- the Pentagon colossus, a frightening power unto itself, threatening humanity's survival.

The Defense Department's FY 2010 Base Structure Report shows how large it's become, even with important information omitted:

DOD is the world's largest landlord with over 539,000 facilities (buildings, structures, and linear structures) located on nearly 5,000 sites, covering more than 28 million acres and over two billion square feet of space in America, its territories and overseas. In fact, these numbers way understate much higher totals as many Pentagon facilities are secret and/or unreported.

They include over 1,000 overseas bases in 150 or more countries, as well as additional secret ones shared with or leased from host countries. As of April 2009, Congressional Research Service data includes 1,402,000 total active duty US military personnel worldwide, 73,000 National Guard, and 208,000 Selected Reserves, for a 1,683,000 total.

Add to them America's private military contractor (PMC) army, corporate mercenaries profiting from US imperialism. They perform a wide range of functions from combat to consulting to logistics, virtually anything once done by the Pentagon. Moreover, America's intelligence agencies, State Department, Homeland Security, and other branches also use PMCs.

Overall, they're unregulated, unaccountable, and often out-of-control, involved in some of the most controversial aspects of war from over-billing to ritual slaughter of unarmed civilians. Yet they're not prosecuted, convicted or imprisoned, just rewarded with fat contracts costing far more for services military personnel once performed. Moreover, the more they're used, the greater they influence war making, sustaining their bottom line priorities at the expense of a free society and vital homeland needs.

America's New Military Industrial Complex

On March 1, 2003 Business 2.0 magazine writers Ian Mount, Matthew Maier and David Freedman headlined, "The New Military Industrial Complex" for digital age war, describing the Pentagon's "revolution in military affairs (RMA)," comprised of "faster, lighter, smarter" cutting-edge technology warfare. Readying for it, they're building an unchallengeable high-tech arsenal, more advanced now than then.

The old one remains and gets huge contracts for new and more traditional weapons. The result is an influential "iron triangle" of Congress, the Pentagon and defense industry. Besides major media support, conservative think tanks also like:

-- the Project for a New American Century (PNAC); its "Rebuilding America's Defenses" scheme promotes US global hegemony;

-- the Center for Security Policy (CSP) headed by super-hawk Frank Gaffney endorses a policy of "Peace through Strength" and perpetual wars for perpetual peace;

-- the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) composed of hard right leaders and members, "fighting terrorism and the ideologies that drive it;"

-- the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), focusing on defense issues, tied to the nuclear weapons industry; and

-- the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), emphasizing national security and "advancing (US) global interests;" specializing in crisis management, it's connected to the highest levels in government and the Pentagon.

The nation's 16 intelligence agencies, including CIA, NSA, DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency), FBI, Army, Navy and Air Force Intelligence, DHS (Department of Homeland Security), and Department of State comprise another component destroying a free society. They comprise a multi-billion dollar funded, largely off-the-books, clandestine anti-democratic network. Interconnected with thousands of private contractors, they're tied to world governments and their intelligence services.

Moreover, they comprise a government/military/industrial/intelligence service/media/think tank colossus, waging global wars, bankrupting the nation, wrecking the remnants of a free society. Plagued by the same dynamic that doomed past empires unwilling to change, they also pursue the misguided notion that militarism sustains growth.

In fact, it erodes it by sacrificing industrial America, shifting production and other high-paying service operations abroad to focus on war making. As a result, essential homeland needs go begging, including healthcare, education, job creation, and the nation's infrastructure, crumbling from years of neglect.

In his farewell address, Eisenhower said:

"Every gun that is made, every war ship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, from those who are cold and not clothed."

In his November 2003 Harper's article titled, "The War Business," Chalmers Johnson said:

"(M)unitions and war profiteering have (become) the most efficient means for well-connected capitalists to engorge themselves at the public trough." Even Wall Street profits hugely. "To call these companies 'private,' though, is mere ideology. (Weapons and) munitions making in the United States today (and related industries profiting from them are) not really private enterprise. It is state socialism."

They also destroy constitutional freedoms, what George Washington in 1796 warned about, saying "overgrown military establishments (are) inauspicious to liberty." Johnson called it America's future, now more the present, saying, "When war becomes the most profitable course of action, we can certainly expect more of it," sacrificing a free society for private interests reaping short-term gains.

In his book titled, "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," Andrew Bacevich discussed America's "trinity," its global military presence, power projection, and intervention, creating a "permanent national security crisis....propell(ing) the United States into a condition approximating perpetual war." However, "(no) evidence exists - none - to suggest that US efforts advance the cause of global peace," just the opposite. As a result, "(o)ver the horizon, a shipwreck of epic proportions awaits."

It's coming perhaps when least expected. Nations that live by the sword, die by it. America is no exception, nor any other.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Obama Math- One Hundred Thousand Minus Thirty Thousand Equals Seventy Thousand And Draw Down- Our Anti-War Math- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan

Click on the headline to link to an article analyzing American President Barack Obama's announcement of his long awaited troop draw down plans for Afghanistan. No heavy math-lifting involved.

Markin comment:

No one ever said that math, even simple arithmetic, was a qualification for the American imperial presidency. For that matter that skill is not required in order to be a revolutionary opponent of that presidency, although it helps. As noted in the headline Obama’s math is skewed, skewed by the hard fact that his politically calculated decision to draw down thirty thousand troops still leaves him coming into the 2012 American presidential war/circus with troop levels higher than on day one of his administration. Some “peace” candidate. So here is the solution, everybody knows zero, or at least when they have nothing, nothing in their pockets, nothing to pay the rent or mortgage with, nothing to take care of life’s bills with. So today’s a big step math day. Obama- Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops And Mercenaries From Afghanistan! No dough, no person-got it.

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917) -Dead Chauvinism and Living Socialism-HOW THE INTERNATIONAL CAN BE RESTORED (1914)

Markin comment:

It would seem almost unnecessary to comment on Lenin’s Bolshevik positions on imperialist war, as exemplified by his analysis of the war that he actually had to fight against, World War I. Those positions reflected his understanding that with that war the nature of capitalism had changed, definitively, from a progressive step for humankind to just a squalid, never-ending struggle among “thieves” for control of the world’s resources. It would have seemed almost unnecessary to mention this, that is, for earlier leftist generations who were familiar with his various slogans centrally-“the main enemy is at home” (adapted from German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht-“not one penny, not one man for the imperialist war”- “turn the guns the other way” (toward your own rulers)-and, specific to Bolsheviks- “fight for a new workers international, the Third International” (to replace bankrupt Second International).

Now, especially after the past several anti-war rallies that I have attended, I am not sure who among the attendees is familiar with his work. With all the pacifist, stop war in general, peace now, let all men and women be brothers and sisters rhetoric ringing in my ears I have to assume not. More importantly, I do not see such slogans (or anything close to them) emblazoned on any banners lately. Thus, in a month when we of the international communist movement honor Lenin anyway (along with the aforementioned Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the revolution) this series will try to familiarize those who seek a better struggle against imperialist war than is being presented now with “red” anti-war positions.
*******
V. I. Lenin
Dead Chauvinism and Living Socialism
HOW THE INTERNATIONAL CAN BE RESTORED


Published: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 35, December 12, 1914. Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demokrat.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 94-101.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2002 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text • README


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For decades, German Social-Democracy was a model to the Social-Democrats of Russia, even somewhat more than to the Social-Democrats of the whole world. It is therefore clear that there can be no intelligent, i.e., critical, attitude towards the now prevalent social-patriotism or “socialist” chauvinism, without a most precise definition of one’s attitude towards German Social-Democracy, What was it in the past? What is it today? What will it be in the future?

A reply to the first of these questions may be found in Der Weg zur Macht, a pamphlet written by K. Kautsky in 1909 and translated into many European languages. Containing a most complete exposition of the tasks of our times, it was most advantageous to the German Social-Democrats (in the sense of the promise they held out), and moreover came from the pen of the most eminent writer of the Second International. We shall recall the pamphlet in some detail; this will be the more useful now since those forgotten ideals are so often barefacedly cast aside.

Social-Democracy is a “revolutionary party” (as stated in the opening sentence of the pamphlet), not only in the sense that a steam engine is revolutionary, but “also in another sense”. It wants conquest of political power by the proletariat, the dictatorship of the proletariat. Heaping ridicule on “doubters of the revolution”, Kautsky writes: “In any important movement and uprising we must, of course, reckon with the possibility of defeat. Prior to the struggle, only a fool can consider himself quite certain of victory.” However, to refuse to consider the possibility of victory would he “a direct betrayal of our cause”. A revolution in connection with a war, he says, is possible both during and after a war. It is impossible to determine at which particular moment the sharpening of class antagonisms will lead to revolution, but, the author continues, “I can quite definitely assert that a revolution that war brings in its wake, will break out either during or immediately after the war”; nothing is more vulgar, we read further, than the theory of “the peaceful growing into socialism”. “Nothing is more erroneous,” he continues, “than the opinion that a cognition of economic necessity means a weakening of the will ... . The will, as a desire for struggle,” he says, “is determined, first, by the price of the struggle, secondly, by a sense of power, and thirdly, by actual power.” When an attempt was made, incidentally by Vorwärts, to interpret Engels’s famous preface to The Class Struggles in France in the meaning of opportunism, Engels became indignant, and called shameful any assumption that he was a “peaceful worshipper of legality at any price”.[1] “We have every reason to believe,” Kautsky goes on to say, “that we are entering upon a period of struggle for state power.” That struggle may last for decades; that is something we do not know, but “it will in all probability bring about, in the near future, a considerable strengthening of the proletariat, if not its dictatorship, in Western Europe”. The revolutionary elements are growing, Kautsky declares: out of ten million voters in Germany in 1895, there were six million proletarians and three and a half million people interested in private property; in 1907 the latter grew by 0.03 million, and the former by 1.6 million! “The rate of the advance becomes very rapid as soon as a time of revolutionary ferment comes.” Class antagonisms are not blunted but, on the contrary, grow acute; prices rise, and imperialist rivalry and militarism are rampant. “A new era of revolution” is drawing near. The monstrous growth of taxes would “long ago have led to war as the only alternative to revolution ... had not that very alternative of revolution stood closer after a war than after a period of armed peace...”. “A world war Is ominously imminent,” Kautsky continues, “and war means also revolution.” In 1891 Engels had reason to fear a premature revolution in Germany; since then, however, “the situation has greatly changed”. The proletariat “can no longer speak of a premature revolution” (Kautsky’s italics). The petty bourgeoisie is downright unreliable and is ever more hostile to the proletariat, but in a time of crisis it is “capable of coming over to our side in masses”. The main thing is that Social-Democracy “should remain unshakable, consistent, and irreconcilable”. We have undoubtedly entered a revolutionary period.

This is how Kautsky wrote in times long, long past, fully five years ago. This is what German Social-Democracy was, or, more correctly, what it promised to be. This was the kind of Social-Democracy that could and had to be respected.

See what the selfsame Kautsky writes today. Here are the most important statements in his article “Social-Democracy in Wartime” (Die Neue Zeit No. 1, October 2, 1914): “Our Party has far more rarely discussed the question of how to behave in wartime than how to prevent war .... Never is government so strong, never are parties so weak, as at the outbreak of war .... Wartime is least of all favourable to peaceful discussion .... Today the practical question is: victory or defeat for one’s own country.” Can there be an understanding among the parties of the belligerent countries regarding anti-war action? “That kind of thing has never been tested in practice. We have always disputed that possibility ....” The difference between the French and German socialists is “not one of principle” (as both defend their fatherlands) .... “Social-Democrats of all countries have an equal right or an equal obligation to take part in the defence of the fatherland: no nation should blame the other for doing so ....” “Has the International turned bankrupt?” “Has the Party rejected direct defence of its party principles in wartime?” (Mehring’s questions in the same issue.) “That is an erroneous conception .... There are no grounds at all for such pessimism .... The differences are not fundamental .... Unity of principles remains .... To disobey wartime laws would simply lead to suppression of our press.” Obedience to these laws “implies rejection of defence of party principles just as little as similar behaviour of our party press under that sword of Damocles—the Anti-Socialist Law.”

We have purposely quoted from the original because it is hard to believe that such things could have been written. It is hard to find in literature (except in that coming from downright renegades) such smug vulgarity, such shameful departure from the truth, such unsavoury subterfuge to cover up the most patent renunciation both of socialism in general and of precise international decisions unanimously adopted (as, for instance, in Stuttgart and particularly in Basic) precisely in view of the possibility of a European war just like the present! It would be disrespectful towards the reader were we to treat Kautsky’s arguments in earnest and try to analyse them: if the European war differs in many respects from a simple “little” anti-Jewish pogrom, the “socialist” arguments in favour of participation in such a war fully resimhle the “democratic” arguments in favour of participation in an anti-Jewish pogrom. One does not analyse arguments in favour of a pogrom; one only points them out so as to put their authors to shame in the sight of all class-conscious workers.

But how could it have come to pass, the reader will ask, that the leading authority in the Second International, a writer who once defended the views quoted at the beginning of this article, has sunk to something that is worse than being a renegade? That will not be understood, we answer, only by those who, perhaps unconsciously, consider that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and that it is not difficult to “forgive and forget”, etc., i.e., by those who regard the matter from the renegade’s point of view. Those, however, who have earnestly and sincerely professed socialist convictions and have held the views set forth in the beginning of this article will not be surprised to learn that “Vorwdrts is dead” (Martov’s expression in the Paris Gobs) and that Kautsky is “dead”. The political bankruptcy of individuals is not a rarity at turning points in history. Despite the tremendous services he has rendered, Kautsky has never been among those who, at great crises, immediately take a militant Marxist stand (recall his vacillations on the issue of Millerandism[2]).

It is such times that we are passing through. “You shoot first, Messieurs the Bourgeoisie!”[3] Engels wrote in 1891, advocating, most correctly, the use of bourgeois legality by us, revolutionaries, in the period of so-called peaceful constitutional development. Engels’s idea was crystal clear: we class-conscious workers, he said, will be the next to shoot; it is to our advantage to exchange ballots for bullets (to go over to civil war) at the moment the bourgeoisie itself has broken the legal foundation it has laid down. In 1909 Kautsky voiced the undisputed opinion held by all revolutionary Social-Democrats when he said that revolution in Europe cannot now be premature and that war means revolution.

“Peaceful” decades, however, have not passed without leaving their mark. They have of necessity given rise to opportunism in all countries, and made it prevalent among parliamentarian, trade union, journalistic and other “leaders”. There is no country in Europe where, in one form or another, a long and stubborn struggle has not been conducted against opportunism, the latter being supported in a host of ways by the entire bourgeoisie, which is striving to corrupt and weaken the revolutionary proletariat. Fifteen years ago, at the outset of the Bernstein controversy, the selfsame Kautsky wrote that should opportunism turn from a sentiment into a trend, a split would be imminent. In Russia, the old Iskra,[4] which created the Social-Democratic Party of the working class, declared, in an article which appeared in its second issue early in 1901, under the title of “On the Threshold of the Twentieth Century”, that the revolutionary class of the twentieth century, like the revolutionary class of the eighteenth century—the bourgeoisie, had its own Gironde and its own Mountain.[5]

The European war is a tremendous historical crisis, the beginning of a new epoch. Like any crisis, the war has aggravated deep-seated antagonisms and brought them to the surface, tearing asunder all veils of hypocrisy, rejecting all conventions and deflating all corrupt or rotting authorities. (This, incidentally, is the salutary and progressive effect of all crises, which only the dull-witted adherents of “peaceful evolution” fail to realise.) The Second International, which in its twenty-five or forty-five years of existence (according to whether the reckoning is from 1870 or 1889) was able to perform the highly important and useful work of expanding the influence of socialism and giving the socialist forces preparatory, initial and elementary organisation, has played its historical role and has passed away, overcome, not so much by the von Kiucks as by opportunism. Let the dead bury their dead. Let the empty-headed busy-bodies (if not the intriguing lackeys of the chauvinists and the opportunists) labour at the task of bringing together Vandervelde and Sembat with Kautsky and Haase, as though we had another Ivan Ivanovich, who has called Ivan Nikiforovich a “gander”, and has to he urged by his friends to make it up with his enemy.[6] An International does not mean sitting at the same table and having hypocritical and pettifogging resolutions written by people who think that genuine internationalism consists in German socialists justifying the German bourgeoisie’s call to shoot down French workers, and in French socialists justifying the French bourgeoisie’ call to shoot down German workers in the name of the “defence of the fatherland”! The International consists in the coming together (first ideologically, then in due time organisationally as well) of people who, in these grave days, are capable of defending socialist internationalism in deed, i.e., of mustering their forces and “being the next to shoot” at the governments and the ruling classes of their own respective “fatherlands”. This is no easy task; it calls for much preparation and great sacrifices and will be accompanied by reverses. However, for the very reason that it, is no easy task, it must be accomplished only together with those who wish to perform it and are not afraid of a complete break with the chauvinists and with the defenders of social-chauvinism.

Such people as Pannekoek are doing more than anyone else for the sincere, not hypocritical restoration of a socialist, not a chauvinist, International. In an article entitled “The Collapse of the International”, Pannekoek said: “If the leaders get together in an attempt to patch up their differences, that will be of no significance at all.”

Let us frankly state the facts; in any case the war will compel us to do so, if not tomorrow, then the day after. Three currents exist in international socialism: (1) the chauvinists, who are consistently pursuing a policy of opportunism; (2) the consistent opponents of opportunism, who in all countries have already begun to make themselves heard (the opportunists have routed most of them, but “defeated armies learn fast”), and are capable of conducting revolutionary work directed towards civil war; (3) confused and vacillating people, who at present are following in the wake of the opportunists and are causing the proletariat most harm by their hypocritical attempts to justify opportunism, something that they do almost scientifically and using the Marxist (sic!) method. Some of those who are engulfed in the latter current can be saved and restored to socialism, but only through a policy of a most decisive break and split with the former current, with all those who are capable of justifying the war credits vote, “the defence of the fatherland”, “submission to wartime laws”, a willingness to be satisfied with legal means only, and the rejection of civil war. Only those who pursue a policy like this are really building up a socialist International. For our part, we, who have established links with the Russian Collegium of the Central Committee and with the leading elements of the working-class movement in St. Petersburg, have exchanged opinions with them and become convinced that we are agreed on the main points, are in a position, as editors of the Central Organ, to declare in the name of our Party that only work conducted in this direction is Party work and Social-Democratic work.

The idea of a split in the German Social-Democratic movement may seem alarming to many in its “unusualness”. The objective situation, however, goes to show that either the unusual will come to pass (after all, Adler and Kautsky did declare, at the last session of the International Socialist Bureau[7] in July 1914, that they did not believe in miracles, and therefore did not believe in a European war!) or we shall witness the painful decomposition of what was once German Social-Democracy. In conclusion, we would like to remind those who are too prone to “trust” the (former) German Social-Democrats that people who have been our opponents on a number of issues have arrived at the idea of such a split. Thus Martov has written in Gobs: “Vorwarts is dead .... A Social-Democracy which publicly renounces the class struggle would do better to recognise the facts as they are, temporarily disband its organisation, and close down its organs.” Thus Plekhanov is quoted by Gobs as having saidin a report: “I am very much against splits, but if principles are sacrificed for the integrity of the organisation, then better a split than false unity.” Plekhanov was referring to the German radicals: he sees a mote in the eye of the Germans, but not the beam in his own eye. This is an individual feature in him; over the past ten years we have all grown quite used to Plekhanov’s radicalism in theory and opportunism in practice. However, if even persons with such “oddities” begin to talk of a split among the Germans, it is a sign of the times.


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Notes
[1] In its issue of March 30, 1895, Vorwärts published a summary and several extracts from Engels’s preface to Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, omitting very important propositions on the revolutionary role of the proletariat, which evoked a vehement protest from Engels. In his letter to Kautsky of April 1, 1895, he wrote: “To my astonishment I see in the Vorwärts today an extract from my ‘Introduction’, printed without my prior knowledge and trimmed in such a fashion that 1 appear as a peaceful worshipper of legality at any price” (Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1955, p. 568).

Engels insisted on the “Introduction” being published in full. In 1895 it was published in the journal Die Neue Zeit, but with considerable deletions, these at the instance of the German Social-Democratic Party leadership. Seeking to justify their reformist tactics, the leaders of German Social-Democracy subsequently began to interpret their version of the “Introduction” as Engels’s renunciation of revolution, armed uprisings and barricade fighting. The original text of the “Introduction” was first published in the Soviet Union in 1955 (see Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Moscow, 1962,Vol. I, pp. 118-38).

[2] Millerandtsm—an opportunist trend named after the French "socialist" Millerand, who in 1899 joined the reactionary bourgeois government of France and helped the bourgeoisie in conducting its policy.

The admissibility of socialists’ participation in bourgeois governments was discussed at the Paris Congress of the Second International in 1900. The Congress adopted Kautsky’s conciliatory resolution condemning socialists’ participation in bourgeois governments but permitting it in certain “exceptional” cases. The French socialists used this proviso to justify their joining the bourgeois government at the beginning of the First World War.

[3] See F. Engels, Socialism in Germany, Section I.

[4] Iskra (The Spark)-the first all-Russian illegal Marxist newspaper, founded by Lenin in 1900. It played a decisive part in the establishmeat of the revolutionary Marxist party of the working class. The first issue appeared in Leipzig in December 1900; it was subsequently published in Munich, in London (from July 1902) and in Geneva (from the spring of 1903). On Lenin’s initiative and with his direct participation,the fskra editorial hoard drew up the Party programme, which was published in Iskra No. 21, and prepared the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. which marked the beginning of a revolutionary Marxist party in Russia. Soon after the Congress, the Mensheviks, helped by Plekhanov, gained control of Iskra, so that, beginning with issue No. 52, Iskra ceased being an organ of revolutionary Marxism.

[5] The Mountain (Montagne) and the Gironde-the two political groups of the bourgeoisie during the French bourgeois revolution of 1789. The Montagnards, or Jacobins, was the name given to the more resolute representatives of the bourgeoisie, the revolutionary class of the time, who stood for the abolition of absolutism and the feudal system. Unlike the Jacobins, the Girondists vacillated between revolution and counter-revolution, and sought agreement with the monarchy.

Lenin called the opportunist trend in Social-Democracy the “socialist Gironde” , and the revolutionary Social-Democrats the “proletarian Jacobins” , “the Mountain”. After the R.S.D.L.P. split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Lenin frequently stressed that the Mensheviks epresented the Girondist trend in the working-class movement.

[6] Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich-characters in Gogol’s Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarrelled with Iran Nikiforovich. The quarrel between these two provincial landowners, whose names have become proverbial, started on a most insignificant pretext, and dragged on endlessly.

[7] The International Socialist Bureau-the executive body of the Second International, established by decision of the ParisCongressof 1900. From 1905 Lenin was member of the LS.B. as representative of the R.S.D.L.P.

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917) -A German Voice on the War(1914)

Markin comment:

It would seem almost unnecessary to comment on Lenin’s Bolshevik positions on imperialist war, as exemplified by his analysis of the war that he actually had to fight against, World War I. Those positions reflected his understanding that with that war the nature of capitalism had changed, definitively, from a progressive step for humankind to just a squalid, never-ending struggle among “thieves” for control of the world’s resources. It would have seemed almost unnecessary to mention this, that is, for earlier leftist generations who were familiar with his various slogans centrally-“the main enemy is at home” (adapted from German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht-“not one penny, not one man for the imperialist war”- “turn the guns the other way” (toward your own rulers)-and, specific to Bolsheviks- “fight for a new workers international, the Third International” (to replace bankrupt Second International).

Now, especially after the past several anti-war rallies that I have attended, I am not sure who among the attendees is familiar with his work. With all the pacifist, stop war in general, peace now, let all men and women be brothers and sisters rhetoric ringing in my ears I have to assume not. More importantly, I do not see such slogans (or anything close to them) emblazoned on any banners lately. Thus, in a month when we of the international communist movement honor Lenin anyway (along with the aforementioned Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the revolution) this series will try to familiarize those who seek a better struggle against imperialist war than is being presented now with “red” anti-war positions.
****
V. I. Lenin
A German Voice on the War


Published: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 34, December 5, 1914. Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demokrat.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 92-93.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive 2002 (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text • README


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“In a single night the aspect of the world has changed... . Everyone puts the blame on his neighbour, everyone claims to be on the defensive, to act only in a state of urgent defence. Everyone, don’t you see, is defending only his most sacred values, the hearth, the fatherland... . National vainglory and national aggressiveness triumph... . Even the great international working class obeys national orders, workers are killing one another on the battlefields... . Our civilisation has proved bankrupt... . Writers of European fame are not ashamed to come forth as ragingly blind chauvinists... . We had too much faith in the possibility of imperialist madness being curbed by the fear of economic ruin... . We are going through an undisguised imperialist struggle for mastery of the world. There is no trace anywhere of a struggle for great ideas, except perhaps the overthrow of the Russian Minotaur ... the tsar and his grand dukes who have delivered to the hangmen the noblest men of their country... . But do we not see how noble France, the bearer of ideals of liberty, has become the ally of the hangman tsar? How honest Germany ... is breaking its word and is strangling unhappy neutral Belgium? ... How will it all end? If poverty becomes too great, if despair gains the upper hand, if brother recognises his brother in the uniform of an enemy, then perhaps something very unexpected may still come, arms may perhaps be turned against those who are urging people into the war and nations that have been made to hate one another may perhaps forget that hatred, and suddenly unite. We do not want to be prophets, but should the European war bring us one step closer to a European social republic, then this war, after all, will not have been as senseless as it seems at present.”

Whose voice is this? Perhaps one coming from a German Social-Democrat?

Far from it! Headed by Kautsky, the German Social Democrats have become “wretched counter-revolutionary windbags”,[2] as Marx called those Social-Democrats who, after the publication of the Anti-Socialist Law, behaved “in accord with the circumstances”, in the manner of Haase, Kautsky, Südekum and Co. today.

No, our quotation is from a magazine of petty-bourgeois Christian democrats published by a group of kind-hearted little churchmen in Zurich (Neue Wege, Blätter für religiöse Arbeit,[1] September, 1914). That is the limit of humiliation we have come to: God-fearing philistines go as far as to say that it would not be bad to turn weapons against those who “are urging people into the war”, while “authoritative” Social-Democrats like Kautsky “scientifically” defend the most despicable chauvinism, or, like Plekhanov, declare the propaganda of civil war against the bourgeoisie a harmful “utopia”!

Indeed, if such “Social-Democrats” wish to be in the majority and to form the official “International”(= an alliance for international justification of national chauvinism), then is it not better to give up the name of “Social-Democrats”, which has been besmirched and degraded by them, and return to the old Marxist name of Communists? Kautsky once threatened to do that when the opportunist Bernsteinians[3] seemed to be close to conquering the German party officially. What was an idle threat from his lips will perhaps become action to others.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] New Ways, Pages for Religious Work.—Ed.

[2] See Marx’s letter to F. A. Sorge of September 19, 1879.

[3] This refers to the followers of the revisionist Bernstein, leader of the opportunist trend in German Social-Democracy, which arose at the end of the nineteenth century.

From The Lenin Internet Archives- Lenin And The Fight Against Imperialist War (1914-1917) -The Position and Tasks of the Socialist International (1914)

Markin comment:

It would seem almost unnecessary to comment on Lenin’s Bolshevik positions on imperialist war, as exemplified by his analysis of the war that he actually had to fight against, World War I. Those positions reflected his understanding that with that war the nature of capitalism had changed, definitively, from a progressive step for humankind to just a squalid, never-ending struggle among “thieves” for control of the world’s resources. It would have seemed almost unnecessary to mention this, that is, for earlier leftist generations who were familiar with his various slogans centrally-“the main enemy is at home” (adapted from German revolutionary Karl Liebknecht-“not one penny, not one man for the imperialist war”- “turn the guns the other way” (toward your own rulers)-and, specific to Bolsheviks- “fight for a new workers international, the Third International” (to replace bankrupt Second International).

Now, especially after the past several anti-war rallies that I have attended, I am not sure who among the attendees is familiar with his work. With all the pacifist, stop war in general, peace now, let all men and women be brothers and sisters rhetoric ringing in my ears I have to assume not. More importantly, I do not see such slogans (or anything close to them) emblazoned on any banners lately. Thus, in a month when we of the international communist movement honor Lenin anyway (along with the aforementioned Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, the Rose of the revolution) this series will try to familiarize those who seek a better struggle against imperialist war than is being presented now with “red” anti-war positions.
*******
V. I. Lenin
The Position and Tasks of the Socialist International

Published: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 33 November 1, 1914. Published according to the text in Sotsial-Demokrat, checked against the manuscript.
Source: Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [197[4]], Moscow, Volume 21, pages 35-41.
Translated:
Transcription\Markup: D. Walters and R. Cymbala
Public Domain: Lenin Internet Archive (2005). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Other Formats: Text • README


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The gravest feature of the present crisis is that the majority of official representatives of European socialism have succumbed to bourgeois nationalism, to chauvinism. It is with good reason that the bourgeois press of all countries writes of them now with derision, now with condescending praise. To anyone who wants to remain a socialist there can be no more important duty than to reveal the causes of this crisis in socialism and analyse the tasks of the International.

There are such that are afraid to admit that the crisis or, to put it more accurately, the collapse of the Second International is the collapse of opportunism.

Reference is made to the unanimity, for instance, among French socialists, and to the fact that the old groups in socialism have supposedly changed their stands in the question of the war. Such references, however, are groundless.

Advocacy of class collaboration; abandonment of the idea of socialist revolution and revolutionary methods of struggle; adaptation to bourgeois nationalism; losing sight of the fact that the borderlines of nationality and country are historically transient; making a fetish of bourgeois legality; renunciation of the class viewpoint and the class struggle, for fear of repelling the “broad masses of the population”(meaning the petty bourgeoisie)—such, doubtlessly, are the ideological foundations of opportunism. And it is from such soil that the present chauvinist and patriotic frame of mind of most Second International leaders has developed. Observers representing the most various points of view have long noted that the opportunists are in fact prevalent in the Second International’s leadership. The war has merely brought out, rapidly and saliently, the true measure of this prevalence. There is nothing surprising in the extraordinary acuteness of the crisis having led to a series of reshufflings within the old groups. On the whole, however, such changes have affected only individuals. The trends within socialism have remained the same.

Complete unanimity does not exist among French socialists. Even Vaillant, who, with Guesde, Plekhanov, Hervé and others, is following a chauvinist line, has had to admit that he has received a number of letters of protest from French socialists, who say that the war is imperialist in character and that the French bourgeoisie is to blame for its outbreak no less than the bourgeoisie of any other country. Nor should it be overlooked that these voices of protest are being smothered, not only by triumphant opportunism, but also by the military censorship. With the British, the Hyndman group (the British Social-Democrats—the British Socialist Party [2]) has completely sunk into chauvinism, as have also most of the semi-liberal leaders of the trade unions. Resistance to chauvinism has come from MacDonald and Keir Hardie of the opportunist Independent Labour Party.[3] This, of course, is an exception to the rule. However, certain revolutionary Social-Democrats who have long been in opposition to Hyndman have now left the British Socialist Party. With the Germans the situation is clear: the opportunists have won; they are jubilant, and feel quite in their element. Headed by Kautsky, the “Centre” has succumbed to opportunism and is defending it with the most hypocritical, vulgar and smug sophistry. Protests have come from the revolutionary Social-Democrats—Mehring, Pannekoek, Karl Liebknecht, and a number of unidentified voices in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland. In Italy, the line-up is clear too: the extreme opportunists, Bissolati and Co. stand for “fatherland”, for Guesde-Vaillant-Plekhanov-Hervé. The revolutionary Social-Democrats (the Socialist Party), with Avanti! at their head, are combating chauvinism and are exposing the bourgeois and selfish nature of the calls for war. They have the support of the vast majority of progressive workers.[4] In Russia, the extreme opportunists of the liquidators’ camp[5] have already raised their voices, in public lectures and the press, in defence of chauvinism. P. Maslov and Y. Smirnov are defending tsarism on the pretext that the fatherland must be defended. (Germany, you see, is threatening to impose trade agreements on “us” at swordpoint, whereas tsarism, we are expected to believe, has not been using the sword, the knout and the gallows to stifle the economic, political and national life of nine-tenths of Russia’s population!) They justify socialists participating in reactionary bourgeois governments, and their approval of war credits today and more armaments tomorrow! Plekhanov has slid into nationalism, and is endeavouring to mask his Russian chauvinism with a Francophile attitude, and so has Alexinsky. To judge from the Paris Golos,[6] Martov is behaving with more decency than the rest of this crowd, and has come out in opposition to both German and French chauvinism, to Vorwärts, Mr. Hyndman and Maslov, but is afraid to come out resolutely against international opportunism as a whole, and against the German Social-Democratic Centrist group, its most “influential” champion. The attempts to present volunteer service in the army as performance of a socialist duty (see the Paris declaration of a group of Russian volunteers consisting of Social-Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and also a declaration by Polish Social-Democrats, Leder, and others) have had the backing of Plekhanov alone. These attempts have been condemned by the majority of our Paris Party group.[7] The leading article in this issue[1] will inform readers of our Party Central Committee’s stand. To preclude any misunderstanding, the following facts relating to the history of our Party’s views and their formulation must be stated here. After overcoming tremendous difficulties in re-establishing organisational contacts broken by the war, a group of Party members first drew up “theses” and on September 6-8 (New Style) had them circulated among the comrades. Then they were sent to two delegates to the Italo-Swiss Conference in Lugano (September 27), through Swiss Social-Democrats. It was only in mid-October that it became possible to re-establish contacts and formulate the viewpoint of the Party’s Central Committee. The leading article in this issue represents the final wording of the “theses”.

Such, briefly, is the present state of affairs in the European and the Russian Social-Democratic movement. The collapse of the International is a fact. It has been proved conclusively by the polemic, in the press, between the French and German socialists, and acknowledged, not only by the Left Social-Democrats (Mehring and Bremer Bürger Zeitung ), but by moderate Swiss papers (Volksrecht ). Kautsky’s attempts to cover up this collapse are a cowardly subterfuge. The collapse of the International is clearly the collapse of opportunism, which is now captive to the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie’s stand is clear. It is no less clear that the opportunists are simply echoing bourgeois arguments. In addition to what has been said in the leading article, we need only mention the insulting statements in Die Neue Zeit, suggesting that internationalism consists in the workers of one country shooting down the workers of another country, allegedly in defence of the fatherland!

The question of the fatherland—we shall reply to the opportunists—cannot be posed without due consideration of the concrete historical nature of the present war. This is an imperialist war, i.e., it is being waged at a time of the highest development of capitalism, a time of its approaching end. The working class must first “constitute itself within the nation”, the Communist Manifesto declares, emphasising the limits and conditions of our recognition of nationality and fatherland as essential forms of the bourgeois system, and, consequently, of the bourgeois fatherland. The opportunists distort that truth by extending to the period of the end of capitalism that which was true of the period of its rise. With reference to the former period and to the tasks of the proletariat in its struggle to destroy, not feudalism but capitalism, the Communist Manifesto gives a clear and precise formula: “The workingmen have no country.” One can well understand why the opportunists are so afraid to accept this socialist proposition, afraid even, in most cases, openly to reckon with it. The socialist movement cannot triumph within the old framework of the fatherland. It creates new and superior forms of human society, in which the legitimate needs and progressive aspirations of the working masses of each nationality will, for the first time, be met through international unity, provided existing national partitions are removed. To the present-day bourgeoisie’s attempts to divide and disunite them by means of hypocritical appeals for the “defence of the fatherland” the class-conscious workers will reply with ever new and persevering efforts to unite the workers of various nations in the struggle to overthrow the rule of the bourgeoisie of all nations.

The bourgeoisie is duping the masses by disguising imperialist rapine with the old ideology of a “national war”. This deceit is being shown up by the proletariat, which has brought forward its slogan of turning the imperialist war into a civil war. This was the slogan of the Stuttgart and Basle resolutions, which had in mind, not war in general, but precisely the present war and spoke, not of “defence of the fatherland”, but of “hastening the downfall of capitalism”, of utilising the war-created crisis for this purpose, and of the example provided by the Paris Commune. The latter was an instance of a war of nations being turned into a civil war.

Of course, such a conversion is no easy matter and cannot be accomplished at the whim of one party or another. That conversion, however, is inherent in the objective conditions of capitalism in general, and of the period of the end of capitalism in particular. It is in that direction, and that direction alone, that socialists must conduct their activities. It is not their business to vote for war credits or to encourage chauvinism in their “own” country (and allied countries), but primarily to strive against the chauvinism of their “own” bourgeoisie, without confining themselves to legal forms of struggle when the crisis has matured and the bourgeoisie has itself taken away the legality it has created. Such is the line of action that leads to civil war, and will bring about civil war at one moment or another of the European conflagration.

War is no chance happening, no “sin” as is thought by Christian priests (who are no whit behind the opportunists in preaching patriotism, humanity and peace), but an inevitable stage of capitalism, just as legitimate a form of the capitalist way of life as peace is. Present-day war is a people’s war. What follows from this truth is not that we must swim with the “popular” current of chauvinism, but that the class contradictions dividing the nations continue to exist in wartime and manifest themselves in conditions of war. Refusal to serve with the forces, anti-war strikes, etc., are sheer nonsense, the miserable and cowardly dream of an unarmed struggle against the armed bourgeoisie, vain yearning for the destruction of capitalism without a desperate civil war or a series of wars. It is the duty of every socialist to conduct propaganda of the class struggle, in the army as well; work directed towards turning a war of the nations into civil war is the only socialist activity in the era of an imperialist armed conflict of the bourgeoisie of all nations. Down with mawkishly sanctimonious and fatuous appeals for “peace at any price"! Let us raise high the banner of civil war! Imperialism sets at hazard the fate of European culture: this war will soon be followed by others, unless there are a series of successful revolutions. The story about this being the “last war” is a hollow and dangerous fabrication, a piece of philistine “mythology”(as Golos aptly puts it). The proletarian banner of civil war will rally together, not only hundreds of thousands of class-conscious workers but millions of semi-proletarians and petty bourgeois, now deceived by chauvinism, but whom the horrors of war will not only intimidate and depress, but also enlighten, teach, arouse, organise, steel and prepare for the war against the bourgeoisie of their “own” country and “foreign” countries. And this will take place, if not today, then tomorrow, if not during the war, then after it, if not in this war then in the next one.

The Second International is dead, overcome by opportunism. Down with opportunism, and long live the Third International, purged not only of “turncoats”(as Golos wishes), but of opportunism as well.

The Second International did its share of useful preparatory work in preliminarily organising the proletarian masses during the long, “peaceful” period of the most brutal capitalist slavery and most rapid capitalist progress in the last third of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. To the Third International falls the task of organising the proletarian forces for a revolutionary onslaught against the capitalist governments, for civil war against the bourgeoisie of all countries for the capture of political power, for the triumph of socialism!


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Notes
[1] See pp. 25–34 of this volume.—Ed.

[2] The British Socialist Party was founded in 1911, in Manchester, as a result of the Social-Democratic Federation merging with other socialist groups. The B.S.P. carried on its propaganda in the Marxist spirit, was “not opportunist, and . . . was really independent of the Liberals” (see present edition, Vol. 19, p. 273 Its small membership, however, and its isolation from the masses gave it a somewhat sectarian character.

During the First World War, a sharp struggle flared up in the party between the internationalist trend (William Gallacher, Albert Inkpin, John Maclean, Thomas Rothstein and others) and the social-chauvinist trend led by Hyndman. On a number of questions a section of the internationalists held Centrist views. In February 1916 a group of party members founded the newspaper The Call, which was instrumental in uniting the internationalist elements. When, at its Salford conference in April 1916, the Party denounced the social-chauvinist stand held by Hyndman and his followers, the latter broke away from the Party.

The British Socialist Party acclaimed the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, its members playing a prominent role in the British working people’s movement in support of Soviet Russia, and against the foreign intervention. In 1919 the majority of the local Party branches (98 against 4) declared for affiliation to the Communist International.

The British Socialist Party and the Communist unity group played the leading part in founding the Communist Party of Great Britain. At the first Unity Congress of 1920 the overwhelming majority of the B.S.P. branches merged in the newly founded Communist Party.

[3] The Independent Labour Partya reformist party founded by the leaders of “new trade unions” in 1893, when the strike struggle revived and there was a mounting drive for a labour movement independent of the bourgeois parties. The Party included members of the “new trade unions” and a number of the old trade unions, representatives of the professions and the petty bourgeoisie, who were under Fabian influence. The Party’s leader was James Keir Hardie.

From its early days the Independent Labour Party held a bourgeois-reformist stand, concentrating on the parliamentary forms of struggle and parliamentary deals with the Liberals. Characterising this party, Lenin wrote that it was “actually an opportunist party that has always been dependent on the bourgeoisie” (V. I. Lenin, On Britain, Moscow, p. 401).

When the First World War broke out, the Party issued an anti-war manifesto, but shortly afterwards took a social-chauvinist stand.

[4] See Note 20 in Position and Tasks of the Socialist International.

[5] For liquidators see pp. 333-34 of this volume.

[6] Golos (The Voice )—a daily Menshevik paper, published in Paris from September 1914 to January 1915, which followed a Centrist line.

In the early days of the war of 1914-18 Golos published several of Martov’s articles directed against social-chauvinists. After Martov’s swing to the Right, the newspaper came out in defence of the social-chauvinists, preferring “unity with the social-chauvinists to drawing closer to those who are irreconcilably hostile to social chauvinism” (p. 113 in this volume)

In January 1915 Golos ceased publication and was replaced by Nashe Slovo (Our Word ).

[7] The Paris group or group for aid the R.S.D.L.P. was formed on November 5 (18), 1908. It separated from the common Menshevik and Bolshevik Paris group, to unite Bolsheviks alone. It was later joined by pro-Party Mensheviks and Vperyod supporters.

During the war the group consisted of N. A. Semashko, M. F. Vladimirsky, I. F. Armand, S. I. Gopner, L. N. Stal, V. K. Taratula, A. S. Shapovalov and others. Led by Lenin, the group took an internationalist stand and waged a vigorous struggle against the imperialist war and the opportunists.