Socialism and War

Who would not want to rid humankind of war once and for all? Humans have always dreamed of ridding themselves of this scourge. But as Lenin recalled in 1915, to clarify the position of communist internationalism in the face of the ongoing imperialist massacre: “Socialists have always condemned wars between nations as barbarous and brutal. Our attitude towards war, however, is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeois pacifists (supporters and advocates of peace) and of the anarchists”, entrenched behind an empty anti-militarism on principle. Above all, he goes on to point out, “We differ from the former in that we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within a country; we understand that wars cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and socialism is created; we also differ in that we regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by an oppressed class against the oppressor class, by slaves against slaveholders, by serfs against landowners, and by wage-workers against the bourgeoisie, as fully legitimate, progressive and necessary”.
Communists, therefore, are not pacifists. They value wars for the concrete role they have played – or may yet play – in the very long and bumpy road that humanity has travelled, and which must lead it out of its original animal condition.
On the basis of that criterion – linked to the necessity of studying “each war historically (from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism) and separately” – Lenin considered that the war unleashed in 1914 was “an imperialist war” and ruled out that it was the task of the socialists to support one “robber” against another. Instead, the socialists were to “take advantage of the struggle between the robbers to overthrow all of them”, rejecting in the first place the specious argument wielded by the “social-chauvinist” parties who, in the failure of the Second International, supported the “defence of the fatherland” against the aggression perpetrated by the German armies against Belgium. “The German imperialists have brazenly violated the neutrality of Belgium, as belligerent States have done always and everywhere, trampling upon all treaties and obligations if necessary”.