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A
Pubblication of the International Communist Party (ICP)
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Redazione:
Casella Postale 962
20101 Milano
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send
your mail to: il programma comunista,
casella postale 962, 20101 Milano - Italy
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AGAINST
THE IMPERIALIST WAR,
PACIFISM OR REVOLUTIONARY DEFEATISM?
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As the use of words yields to the use of arms, a few concepts
must be urgently re-stated:
• imperialist war is the inevitable
consequence of contradictions that are all to be found within
the capitalist mode of production grounded on competition,
the market, the extraction of plus-value - in a word on
everyone waging war on everyone else;
• in a deeply critical phase such as the one that began
halfway through the '70s, the problem of raw materials (the
control of areas rich in them and the routes along which
they are moved) becomes of prime importance, so that all
countries are affected by it, with no exceptions;
• the new US attack in the Gulf - following the one
in 1991 and subsequent attacks in Kosovo and Afghanistan
- corresponds exactly to this logic of control (and containment
and exclusion of other countries just as interested
but not yet in a strong enough economic or military position
to challenge the strongman of imperialism);
• we must not talk in over-simplified terms about an
'oil war' (or cry scandal at the connections between some
puppet or other and other some oil multinational or other)
but about a clash between imperialist forces equally driven
by the crisis, which is a prelude - when the time is ripe
-to a new world war.
It is thus truer than ever that any reply to the prospect
of imperialist war that fails to envisage the necessity
of a fight (long and difficult) against this mode of production,
against capitalism as an economic and social system, is
not only destined to fail but itself becomes a tool (no
matter how involuntary) of political disarming and disorientation,
of illusion and frustration. It is not useless moralising,
whining, praying, appeals, signatures, petitions, waving
of rainbow flags and white rags, round tables and famous
names that are needed, if we really want to fight the slide
downwards, through major and minor clashes, leading (not
because of the evil of individuals but determined by material,
economic, conditions) to new, worldwide slaughter.
We need to return to a class and not an inter-class
perspective, where the historical interests of the world's
working class come first. This is the only social force
truly able - when guided by revolutionaru Marxism - to put
a spanner in the works of imperial warfare (the latest and
acute expression of the same war that is waged every day
in workplaces, amidst growing exploitation, the despair
of endless migration, the misery of unemployment).
• Refuse all solidarity with the world's ruling
class and thus first and foremost with your own
bourgeoisie in whatever form it takes
• Refuse all support for "the superior needs
of the country" with the excuse of "the exceptional
circumstances" and refuse to sacrifice your own immediate
interests (living and working conditions, wages, hours,
pensions, medical care) to what become "the demands
of the national economy"
• Refuse to side with any of the forces at war or
to support the "pacifism" of one country or
another or one political force or the other, the faces
of national capital which are only playing for time because
they are not yet ready to join the fight
• Proclaim an indefinite general strike without limits
of time or space, as a means of blocking the war effort
by your country's bourgeoisie and to show the true face
of all those forces (political and trade unionist) that
declare they are against war but in practice have the
interests of the country's national economy at heart (and
are thus preparing for war in the long term)
• No pacifism, no excuses, but revolutionary defeatism!
There is no other way to stop the imperialist war or
to sabotage it when it is already spreading.
21.3.2003
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