That the Russian Government is a menace to the peace of the world, is a fact as much recognised by socialists as by all those who support the war. No socialist will deny that all the Putin regime stands for is repugnant and revolting to every ideal. The suppression of free expression of opinion, the arrests and the persecution of dissenters arbitrarily deemed out of sympathy with Russian nationalism, are things indicative of a form of social life that must befoul the finer feelings of all those worthy to be classed as genuine human. Intellectual development cannot be where such conditions are prevalent. There must be no mistake of the Socialist Party’s hatred for Putin and his elite entourage. It stands out to us calling aloud for destruction. But when we have said all this we have but touched the outer edges of the problem presented by the existence of the present Russian government. That government, like that of any other throughout the world, owes its origin and maintenance to definite historical and social causes, in which we include such mass ideology as that upon which all governments largely depend for their existence.

The basic condition for the rivalry between modern states is the quest for profit on the part of those who own all such resources of the earth. The people who own these vital forces of human life are, in broad outline, represented by those who are in control of the machinery of government. Whether such government be democratic or a dictatorship in form, the above statement applies with equal force. It cannot be too often stated that the method of government in all capitalist countries is a sort of by-product of the same general mode of wealth production and distribution. We leave aside for the moment whether the democratic or dictatorship form of the state in capitalist countries is more favourable for working-class expression and development. One point here is, that in democratic Britain, France and America, as in dictatorship Russia and China, wealth is produced primarily for profit. Therein is to be found the secret of the world situation in modern times. Profit represents–is in fact–the unpaid labour of the workers. Every worker must realise that after he has spent his energy in producing things for the capitalist, and after all materials and other items have been provided for, there is a surplus above the amount he gets in wages. When this surplus fails to materialise, capitalist production normally ceases. We describe the surplus wealth taken by the capitalist as surplus value. The worker labours for the capitalist (when he is permitted to do so) for wages, and the capitalist puts him to work to realise the difference between the wages paid and the value of the worker’s product of labour. “It is this sort of exchange”, says Marx, “between capital and labour upon which capitalistic production, or the wages system, is founded, and which must constantly result in reproducing the working man as working man and the capitalist as capitalist.”

The perpetuation and expansion of the capitalist’s pursuit of surplus-value gave rise to the imperialism underlying modern war. For capital to grow to maturity it must break down national boundaries and seek the world for its sphere of activity and gratification. Hence the conflicts between national groups of capitalists are represented by their respective governments backed by armed force.

The phrase, “the workshop of the world”, at one time so aptly applied to this country, indicates an ideological landmark, not merely in the economic history and development of England, but also in that of the other leading capitalist powers. Those who were once the customers of “the world’s workshop” became, in the very nature of the capitalist process, its competitors for markets, trade routes, spheres of influence, and the occupation of strategic positions, or the acquisition of raw materials. The real issue before the working class of the world is one of ending its exploitation and all that such entails.

If the present war is allowed to run its course until one or other of the combatants is crushed, are we likely to witness, if we are still alive, the downfall of the autocratic form of government in Russia or the restoration of some form of democratic social life in Ukraine?  

The Russian workers must, it seems, be the means of effecting the downfall of the Putin government.

For ourselves, we, as socialists, would render them any service which would assist in their accomplishing the overthrow of their despotic ruling gang if only to gain for them the immediate means of being able to give expression to their social and political aspirations without fear of being murdered or placed in a concentration camp.

Until the working-class movement in Russia or anywhere else can gain the means of emerging from underground into the daylight, their chances of finally freeing themselves from capitalism through socialism are well-nigh hopeless. To assist in the war against Russia is not the way by which this can be accomplished, we should be slaughtering the very people we desire to liberate from the yoke of the oligarch dictatorship. Moreover, our action then would assist Putin and his accomplices to bury still deeper the opposition to his rule. We find no valid reason for the support of this war, as we found none for in previous wars, which left us, of the Socialist Party, more isolated in our opposition than we are today.

THE WAGE SQUEEZE

 Average wages in Britain have fallen at the fastest rate since 2014 as annual pay growth fails to keep pace with rising inflation amid Britain’s cost of living crisis.

The Office for National Statistics said that annual growth in regular pay, excluding bonuses, fell by 1% in the three months to January after adjusting for its preferred measure of inflation – the biggest fall since July 2014.

Average total pay including bonuses rose slightly by 0.1% amid a bumper bonus season in the finance sector.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, said, “Working people deserve financial security and a wage they can live on. But instead, they are facing the steepest decline in real pay for eight years, and a cost of living crisis that will get worse if the government doesn’t act now. Energy bills will rise at least 14 times faster than wages this year. Household budgets are already stretched to the brink and can’t take any more.”

“It doesn’t matter that a record number of people are now on UK payrolls or that there is still a record number of job vacancies, people in work are feeling the pinch and it’s going to get worse,” said Danni Hewson, a financial analyst at the stockbroker AJ Bell.

Nye Cominetti, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said the pay squeeze was unlikely to end soon. “Overall surging inflation will wipe out any wage gains in 2022,” he said. “Britain’s real pay squeeze, which started as far back as summer 2021, will get deeper in 2022, and is unlikely to end until summer 2023.”

UK wages fall at fastest rate since 2014 as cost-of-living squeeze bites | UK unemployment and employment statistics | The Guardian

Half of low-paid workers in the UK are given less than a week’s notice of their shifts, according to a study highlighting an “insecurity premium” for employees paid close to the minimum wage.

The Living Wage Foundation said 50% of people earning less than £9.90 an hour around the UK or £11.05 in London were told details of their work schedules with less than seven days before they were due to begin.

In contrast, about 32% of all UK workers in full or part-time jobs are given less than a week’s notice of their shifts.

Lower-paid workers were, therefore, more likely to pay a financial price – an “insecurity premium” – because of the added costs of childcare and travel when shifts were cancelled or changed at short notice.

Almost half of shift workers lose out on £30 or more a month because of last-minute changes, according to the study, leading almost a third to increase their reliance on credit cards and borrowing to make ends meet.

“We’ve long known that it costs to be poor, but this research shows it’s even more costly to be both poor and in insecure work,” said Katherine Chapman, the director of the Living Wage Foundation. “In an unfolding cost-of-living crisis with energy bills set to rise even further, low-income households are facing ‘heat or eat’ decisions.”

A separate study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank showed a growing proportion of Britain’s lowest earners are missing out on stronger earnings growth for employees on the minimum wage in recent decades.

It found pay growth for the lowest-paid tenth of workers in the country had been twice as fast as for a worker on average pay between 2011 and 2019, helped by inflation-beating increases in the “national living wage”. However, it warned a quarter of the lowest fifth of earners are self-employed and not covered by the legal pay floor.

It said median earnings for those born in the 1980s were no higher than they were for those born in 1960 by the same point in their careers, spelling the end of steady growth in median living standards through the 20th century.

Mark Franks, the director of welfare at the Nuffield Foundation, which funded the research, said: “Policies such as the minimum wage and tax credits have helped many low earners, but they have not been sufficient to fully protect all low-paid workers, including those among the growing number of self-employed. This, in combination with sluggish pay growth and factors such as rising prices and a lack of access to stable housing, has left many individuals and families in vulnerable circumstances.”

Half of UK low-paid workers given less than a week’s notice of shifts | Business | The Guardian

Russia’s Channel One, protester Marina Ovsyannikova, recorded a video in which she called events in Ukraine a “crime”.

“I’m ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies,” Ovsyannikova, an editor at the channel, explained.

She called on the Russian people to protest against the war, saying that only they could “stop the madness”.

Ovsyannikova is now in police custody.

 While the world’s attention is upon the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Yemen continues.

More than a dozen U.N. agencies and international aid groups said that 161,000 people are likely to experience famine over the second half of 2022 — a fivefold increase from the current figure.

“These harrowing figures confirm that we are on a countdown to catastrophe in Yemen and we are almost out of time to avoid it,” said David Beasley, head of the World Food Program, appealing for immediate funding to “avert imminent disaster and save millions.”

“More and more children are going to bed hungry in Yemen,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director. “This puts them at increased risk of physical and cognitive impairment, and even death.”

19 million people in Yemen — out of a population of more than 30 million — are likely to unable to meet their minimum food needs between June and December, up from 17.4 million.

Also, 2.2 million children, including 538,000 already severely malnourished, and about 1.3 million women, could be acutely malnourished by the end of the year, the report said.

Yemen depends almost entirely on food imports, with 30% of its wheat imports coming from Ukraine, the U.N. agencies said.

“Peace is required to end the decline, but we can make progress now. The parties to the conflict should lift all restrictions on trade and investment for non-sanctioned commodities,” said David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen.

‘Harrowing figures’: Yemen report says 161K to face famine | The Independent

There have also been anti-war protests in Russia – where police detained more than 800 people on Sunday.

The OVD-Info NGO, which monitors arrests during protests, said police had detained 817 people during demonstrations in 37 cities in Russia.

Law enforcement in Moscow said they had detained approximately 300 people in the city centre for breaches of public order.

 “The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

 “The prospect of nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is now back within the realm of possibility,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

 Humanity calls for peace, freedom and human dignity. A man-made war against innocent people has no place in global affairs. The unwarranted war in Ukraine must stop on all sides. We, the working people of the world call for an immediate halt to all war. 

People who want to understand the modern world and why it erupts periodically into wars must forget the Putins and their ilk, they must tear away the political coverings with their smoke-screens of propaganda. Then they will see the process of production, the only basis of life, the making and growing of food, the milling and the mining, yes, and the moulding of guns. For the class that owns the world does not want to lose it, they quarrel with each other for bigger slices of it, and, finally, they are afraid of having to give it up altogether. Shorn of their political trappings, nations are merely the geographical incarnations of national capitalist enterprises competing with each other for commercial supremacy.

What are the essentials required by capitalists in their hunt for profits?

Firstly, they must have access to raw materials (minerals, oil, etc.).

Secondly, a working-class willing to labour for them, and

Thirdly, an entry to markets where they can unload their goods at a profit.

In all three essentials, the European Union are a good first while Russia is the runner-up loser. The reasons for this are historical and need not concern us here. Nor need we explain why Russia has been left behind in economic development and is now forced to combine brutal imperialism with a belated sprint to bring its economy into the competition.  

 The purpose of this article is to expose the mercenary nature of this war, which the allies of Ukraine’s government claim are being fought for “principles of international justice,” “rights of national sovereignty” “freedom,” etc. All of which may be good propaganda with which to get factory-fodder to become cannon-fodder. The working class everywhere have still to learn that violence in language and method are often used by movements that are most reactionary.

Two main arguments are presented in order to obtain working-class support for this war:

(1) That the workers’ standard of living is bound up with the maintenance or increase of the national boundaries of their respective countries.

(2) That this war is a struggle against a particularly obnoxious and reactionary regime, whose removal would mean the release and triumph of progressive and democratic ideas.

But the removal of reactionary governments by means of war does not ensure progress or democracy. For it ignores the mass-mentality that alone can help them to power. Let Putin be overthrown tomorrow and you are still left with millions of Russians whose minds cannot as yet grasp the advantages of free expression of political views. Bombs and bullets can never be the means of enlightenment.

The oligarchs, they possess more wealth than ordinary people can ever dream about. They enjoy luxury and privilege and wield enormous power.  They are no better than the common person. They are no wiser, no smarter, nor do they work harder yet they rule over us. We create their wealth and without us they are nothing. Yet we are scared to challenge and topple our oppressors because we fear them and so we remain obedient and compliant to their demands. To control us them they turn against you and me against one another. They pit us against each other along national and racial lines. Workers must be made to feel threatened by competing workers. Our aims in life are different to theirs. If we create solidarity with each other and decide to co-operate rather than compete against each other, we can start to talk about revolution. The problem is that working people are not administering the world. They are and we got to change that.

 There can be no place for the present narrow patriotism, the bigoted nationalist chauvinism that serves the oligarchs so well.

Nationalism serves as a powerful wedge, weakening the workers’ movements and preventing them from uniting against capital. It  retards the process of building class unity and consciousness. The Socialist Party opposes this war, as it opposed all wars, for its butchery, its bestiality and the hardships it brings to working people, whose struggles for existence are already a crying indictment of a world where the powers of production are only equalled by the powers of destruction.

The overwhelming majority of the working class do not see things our way, however little enthusiasm they may have for waging war. True, there are a number of small movements, that, for various reasons, are opposed to war. There are pacifists, whose genuine opposition springs from religious or humanitarian grounds, and the left-wing, who now claim to be making a socialist appeal. None of them takes the stand of the Socialist Party whose case is based on an understanding of the social system that causes wars. Nor can there be any comparison for consistency.

One thing is certain. Revolt against war itself can have no lasting achievement. The Bolsheviks came to power out of the chaos and discontent caused by World War One and we saw this very Party lead the Russian masses into a new era of aggression and invasion

The time is past for any half-measures. Capitalism has reached a desperate moment. Scarcely a year has gone by without bringing to the world further chaos in the shape of war and ethnic persecution whose magnitude brought governments toppling from their seats of power.

This is why the attack on war and the war-mongers must be aimed at capitalism itself. The World Socialist Movement alone can point the way to peace.

NO WAR

Paula Garb, a longtime activist who lived in the Soviet Union for 20 years and worked as a peacemaker during conflicts in Georgia and other areas of the post-Soviet bloc, said:

“It does seem as though maybe there is 50 or 60 percent of the whole country which may not be happy about the conflict, but are just accepting the Russian government’s narrative. Thousands of people are willing to be activists, but it may not be enough — yet.”

The Russian People Are Not the Russian Government, Activists Remind Us (truthout.org)

PEACE