No War But The Class War!

Are you fed up of the bosses' endless attacks on our living and working conditions, the fake promises of politicians, escalating imperialist war and genocide, and the generally miserable life and/or death capitalism is promising us?

 

🚩 We are a group of students at UoL promoting/interested in internationalist communism (anarchist communism, Italian Communist Left, council communism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc),  working to spread this revolutionary perspective in our community. Anyone is welcome to our WhatsApp community and public events (public meetings, reading groups, education sessions), and anyone who agrees with our basic points is invited to join us. You can also read our publications and reports of previous events on our blog.

 

What is internationalism? These our Basic Points, which define our perspective:

1. Internationalism/Revolutionary defeatism - No support to any bourgeois factions in any country or any war. No support for any nation-state, state in formation, or 'lesser evil'. We always stand for the independence of the working class and world revolution.
   
   There are over 56 wars ongoing around the world, where the bosses compete for control of markets and raw materials by sending workers to massacre eachother. Following escalations in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, they are now gearing up for world war with massive rearmament schemes. World imperialism (and the oppression and war that comes alongside it) is a fundamental feature of modern capitalism: no country can escape it. 'National liberation' is really a cover for this. New states or governments only ever become subjects of imperialist powers or powers themselves, ready for a new round of slaughter. The only real anti-imperialism is anti-capitalism.
    
2. Communism - Capitalism is defined by its two classes, where a class of capitalists own the means of production, which are operated by a working class who sell their labour for a wage. The working class needs to take control of society and abolish private property, wage-labour, production of goods to be sold, and the state in order to establish a moneyless, stateless, classless society, where production is for human need, not profit.
    
3. Class struggle - For the self-organised struggle of the working class (i.e. the formation of mass assemblies and strike committees), the expansion of our currently isolated and fragmented struggles, and the revolutionary politicisation of workers defending themselves from capitalist attacks.
   
   The world working class has the power to overthrow capitalism: that starts from the defensive, or 'economic', struggles workers throw up against the political and economic attacks the bosses are facing us with. During the latest wave of attacks, workers have started to fight back on a scale that hasn't been seen for decades (including at UoL). However, strikes and other actions have remained isolated and divided between workplaces, sectors, and union memberships. Workers need to take this into our own hands, by holding mass assemblies open to all workers (or strike committees elected by them) to coordinate our struggles and unite across all boundaries. Moreover, we have to move our struggles beyond merely defending ourselves and start questioning what kind of world we want to live in.
    
4. Against reactionary divisions of the working class - Ideas of prejudice and fear-mongering (racism, sexism, LGBTphobia, nationalism, etc.) are sowed into the working class in order to divide us through infighting and justify our oppression. This distracts from the real enemy - the bosses - and diminishes class consciousness and our ability to fight back. In fighting to defend our rights under a system that can strip us of them at any point, a system focused on profit above need, we will never win. We will only be able to finally abolish the suffering that reactionary oppression inflicts through revolution.
    
5. For working class self-defence - against the physical attacks on workers (raids, racist and anti-immigrant attacks, and deportations), whether they’re from fascist mobs or the state. The fightback must be anti-capitalist, class-based, and organised on the lines of class solidarity and coherent strategy, rather than moralism and support for bourgeois democracy.
   
   Fascism and 'democracy' (of the moneybags) are just two different approaches the bosses can take to ruling us. Fighting fascism with the democratic bosses means fighting for democratic capitalism, not attacking the system - the very system which weaponises fascism against the working class in the first place.
    
6. Against ‘leftist’ diversions of the working class - In all their various forms (social democracy, Corbynism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, etc), they spread the illusion that state capitalism is socialism whilst crushing revolutionary forces, and redirect the working class onto safe terrain.
   
   State capitalism - the nationalisation of parts or all of the economy - only changes the boss, not the nature of the capitalist system. Neither do social welfare concessions granted to appease workers, such as price controls and benefits - all of which will eventually be rolled back as part of capitalism’s inherent infinite growth drive.
   
   Trotskyist parties (SWP, Socialist Party, RCP, etc) and Stalinist parties (such as the CPB and the Eastern Bloc ruling parties) pose as revolutionary socialist parties, but just like the social democrats (Labour, Corbyn, Greens, etc), their 'socialism' doesn’t envision a world outside of capitalism, just capitalism run differently.
    
7. Bringing internationalist students into wider class politics and out of the campus bubble.
   
   The university campus is only one workplace, while the working class and its militants are everywhere. We oppose short-sighted student activism, which treats campus as its own little world. We aim to participate together in internationalist activities (attending pickets, meetings, protests, etc) both on campus and in our wider communities, alongside other internationalist individuals and organisations - particularly, to introduce students who are just starting out in revolutionary politics.
    
8. For the collaboration of genuine internationalists - whether anarchist-communist, Marxist, syndicalist, or otherwise.
   
   The capitalists are driving us towards world war and climate catastrophe. With imperialist tensions reaching war in Europe, massive cuts continuing at home, and a working class only just beginning to relearn how to fight, the situation could not be more urgent. Promoting this perspective and helping the class fightback are essential tasks for all revolutionaries. Without making space for the false friends of the working class, we will put aside our minor differences and join forces to amplify our efforts, as our comrades have in No War But the Class War (NWBCW) Committees from Liverpool to South Asia.