From a council communist collective in Düsseldorf: War on war

French, German, Russian, Dutch, Spanish.

War on war!¹

The war over Ukraine is a result of imperialist competition between states. It is idle to determine who is the “guilty” one, who is the “weaker” one. For the calculations of the states, such moral questions are irrelevant, but for the propaganda they are extremely important.

The fact check: The USA and its allies have watched with satisfaction as the territorial remnants of the Soviet Union (SU) degraded from highly industrialised regions to suppliers of raw materials. Only the production of military goods remained world-class. As a result, numerous former Eastern Bloc states and SU republics were admitted to the EU and integrated into the NATO military alliance. The threat to Russia was additionally increased by the cancellation of important disarmament agreements on the part of NATO. The world political competitor seemed to be defeated.

A state cannot resign itself to this. Russia wants to assert its global standing, which it still has with its nuclear force, draws “red lines”, threatens war and – even if it risks self-destruction² – ultimately carries it out.

Every state that is on a war course needs the consent of large parts of the population. The acceptance of additional hardship or a radical change of policy sign from peace propaganda to war agitation cannot be taken for granted. Thus, a 24-hour indoctrination by the media and representatives of the state is taking place. Those who cannot be persuaded in this way are excluded from the “people’s community” with gentle or fierce pressure. This happens in the West as well as in the East.

The victims of state competition – in peace as in war – are always the common people, the wage labourers. Their cheap labour power creates the means for the assertiveness of the states, they have to bear the burdens of war preparation and war, they are allowed to be massacred in the battles.

There is therefore no identity between the interests of the state and the needs of the population for a good and carefree life. It is a fatal error to see the state as a service provider for the well-being of the people.³ It is exactly the other way round. The mass of the population has only one task – and this becomes particularly clear in times of crisis – it must, to its detriment, subordinate itself to the welfare of the state and, through its work, ensure that the state is provided with the necessary means for its violent enforcement both internally and externally.

And the harm that the citizen of the state risks in shoulder-to-shoulder with those in power can go as far as his premature demise:

Thursday, 3 March, “Moma presenter Til Nassif  spoke in an interview [on German television] with Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kiev. Nassif wanted to know if Klitschko was afraid that he might not survive the Ukraine war – who answered dryly, with a shrug of his shoulders: ‘It’s an honour to die for your country.’” (Focus-Online)

The war is not only murderous, but also suicidal. That is why there are never good reasons for war for large sections of the population! On 10 March, a desperate Ukrainian woman expressed herself on ZDF’s Morgenmagazin:

“Pain, I feel pain. These are cities full of heroes: Kharkiv, Kherson, Kiev. But we don’t want to be heroes, we just want to stay alive.”

One should not take sides with the competing world of states. In every respect, such an attitude is to one’s own detriment. The competing states themselves are our enemies.

Rätekommunistisches Kollektiv Düsseldorf

______________________________

¹      Title of an anti-militarist writing by Ernst Friedrich. “Called up in the First World War, he refused military service on grounds of conscience. Because he resisted putting on a uniform, he was assigned to an observation ward for the mentally ill.” (Wikipedia)

²      The Ukrainian state does not calculate differently!

³      The West justifies its steadfastness against Russian claims with the safeguarding of freedom and democracy. Here, freedom of property is understood to mean the division of society into profit-oriented owners of the means of production and those who are dependent on them for wages. Democracy enables unrestricted rule on the basis of the periodic consent of the population.