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| Volume 48 Number 17, June 9, 2018 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
For An Anti-War Government!
The British Working Class and People and Its Marxist-Leninist Party
Must Set Its Line of March and Keep the Initiative in Its Own Hands
At the beginning of the year, the Party hailed the struggles of the people of the world against the imperialist powers, their wars of aggression, their nuclear blackmail and the destruction of all that people hold dear as marks of humanity and civilisation. We hailed the Cuban people, who are solving the problems in being their own decision-makers in the face of the savage US-led blockade. We hailed the Korean people who are fighting to defend their own chosen path and avert nuclear holocaust in the face of US-led hostility and sanctions, which amount to an act of war against the DPRK.
As a fighting contingent of the struggles of the people world-wide, the British working class and people and its Marxist-Leninist Party must set its line of march and keep the initiative in its own hands. It must settles scores with the old framework of action and thinking engendered by the Cold War and instead establish a new reference point, one which centres on the necessity for the alternative and calls for all to join in fighting for an anti-war government in Britain as a contribution to this struggle of the world’s people.
At this time, the fight for an anti-war government in Britain is being taken up for solution by the anti-war movement and democratic and peace-loving people across Britain. There is widespread opposition to the pro-war governments of Theresa May and Trump and their warmongering activities right across the world to the devastation and misery they are causing and the great danger of even unthinkable catastrophes that they are planning.
The vital question for the working class and its political leadership is to assess how to move forward to achieve the aim of the anti-war movement for an anti-war government. What must be considered is the fact that society is saddled with old forms of political representation, political institutions and a state power that are used to impose the present pro-war government and its militarisation of the economy and society. The fact that Theresa May could bomb Syria without even any reference to the Cabinet is the most recent example. The calls for “tougher rules” to stop the Prime Minister going to war without consulting Cabinet, or even calls for a “War Powers” Act are not going to stop the ruling elite and its dangerous pro-war direction.
Today the necessity is for a new form of government in which people take decisions in their own name. This new form must express the will of the people and not its negation. What must be ended is the situation where people have to hand over their decision-making power to others. Decision-making power is handed over to those who then betray their interests, or at the very best are forced to compromise and prevented from upholding them. This is done by the present political and state forms which ensure the dominance of private interests of the big corporations in society and a state power in their service which enforces its police power, and not the will of the people.
The stand of an anti-war government, based on internationalist principles and established by the people themselves, would be to end British intervention abroad, end the stationing of British troops on foreign soil, end the arms trade for reactionary ends, abrogate those treaties which are unequal and in favour of exploitation, oppose spurious pretexts for war and intervention such as the so-called “right to protect”, end warmongering alliances and remove US bases themselves from Britain.
The conception of an anti-war government is one which encompasses all aspects of society, its economic base, which must be based not on militarisation and austerity and the imposition of the social irresponsibility of private interests, but on identifying the needs of all the collectives of the people, and thereby establishing the ever growing progress and prosperity and well-being of the people.
People cannot cannot have illusions that they should hand over the initiative to any other force. It is the people who are the guarantors of peace, and must take the fight to bring into being an anti-war government into their own hands. We call on everyone to join in this movement, and to settle scores with the warmongers, to avert the danger of war, put an end to the militarisation of the economy, and fight for peace as part of fighting for the renewal of society, empowering the working class and people, defending the rights of all and establishing the institutions of the New.
Rtuc's Blog 