ON WAR

A few days ago, General Gerasimov reported to the Federation Council on the forthcoming NATO escalation along Russia’s western frontiers. Apparently, the British drone manufacturing plant in Narva has inclined many toward the opinion that “the Fatherland is in danger — drain the budget!” On this occasion, Peskov and Medvedev called upon the army and the population to prepare for war through to complete victory. State television channels raised the alarm: “Russia is in danger — victory at all costs!” Moreover, this alarm was amplified by the so-called “patriotic opposition.” Listening to those sounding the alarm, one might think that conditions have arisen in Russia resembling those of Soviet Russia in 1918–1920, when fourteen foreign powers formed an alliance against the young state with the aim of restoring the capitalist order that had been abolished by the October Revolution (land, plants, factories, and banks that had been in private or semi-state hands were, as a result of the Revolution, transferred for the benefit of the people; after this transformation, the private appropriation of profit from the social product ceased to exist).

And if Russia’s present international position truly corresponded to that situation, if we were indeed confronted by a special coalition whose sole purpose was to destroy, through bloodshed, the freedom won in blood, there is no doubt that every honest person would rise as one in its defence. For it is self-evident that freedom won by blood must be defended with arms in hand against every counter-revolutionary assault, no matter from where it originates. But is that, in fact, the case today?

That war was a war of capitalist powers against a young workers’ state — the capitalists feared the very fact of its existence; they feared that the workers of their own countries would see the example and ask: why not here as well? That is precisely why the Red Army soldiers fought so selflessly against the interventionist forces — they were defending their freedom.

The same thing was repeated in 1941 — international capital, in the form of Hitler’s Germany, hurled itself against the Soviet Union with a single objective: to destroy the workers’ state, restore capitalism, and turn the country into its colony. And the Soviet people once again fought with selfless determination — because they knew what they were fighting for.

The present war is not of that character. The present war is an imperialist war. Its principal objective is control over territories, transport corridors, markets, and mineral wealth. Some seek control over the gas and grain belt of Eurasia; others seek markets and military bases along foreign frontiers. Both sides strive to seize what they consider own, regardless of what the population of the occupied or “liberated” country may think about it.

And for precisely that reason, Russia’s present position gives no grounds for sounding the tocsin and proclaiming: “Russia is in danger — victory at all costs!”

We have seen this more than once. As soon as the authorities require a war, the same machinery is set in motion: state channels sound the alarm, the “patriotic opposition” demands still more blood, while those who call themselves left-wing trail behind, sanctifying someone else’s war with someone else’s words. Patriotic smoke clouds people’s vision, and they cease to see the simple question: who benefits from this?

When the smoke clears, the real objectives become visible: pipelines, ports, control over the post-Soviet space, and the redivision of markets. Not freedom, not the people — money and power. In a country where the authorities openly profess Orthodox Tsarism, wage war beneath imperial eagles, and rehabilitate Stolypin, there is no genuine left-wing force — and this is no accident. Its role has been assigned to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the modern Zubatovites. A century ago, “Zubatovism” referred to police socialism: the Tsarist security apparatus itself created workers’ organisations in order to channel class anger into a safe direction and prevent it from becoming revolutionary. Today the same construction exists, only in a cruder form. The CPRF receives more than 1.6 billion roubles from the state budget every quarter (£16.59 million), Zyuganov has sat in the Duma for thirty years, the faction votes for military budgets and calls them “Budgets of Victory,” while Zyuganov himself, after February 2022, publicly supported the war and Alexander III, appealing to the President of Russia with the request to “prevent a repetition of the Revolution of 1917.”

What should be added to this picture?

The purpose of this “construction” is the same as under Zubatov: to leave the working man with nowhere to go, to ensure that the word “communist” evokes a smirk rather than hope, and to ensure that class anger either marches beneath the imperial tricolour or dissolves into nothingness. What, then, should be the attitude of honest people toward this war? What are the practical paths toward its earliest possible end?

First and foremost, one thing is beyond dispute: the naked slogan “Down with the war!” is entirely unsuitable as a practical path, for, remaining within the limits of abstract propaganda for peace, it provides no real means of influencing the forces engaged in the conflict.

One cannot but welcome the appeals of those who still dare to speak of stopping the war — appeals addressed to peoples, to soldiers, and to common sense. Such voices, if they reach the broad masses, will undoubtedly return thousands of people to a simple question: what, in fact, are our sons dying for? Nevertheless, it must also be recognised that the call to “stop the slaughter” alone is insufficient. For so long as people have not understood the predatory character of this war and its true objectives, such an appeal will hang in the air.

We need hardly mention that the demand for peace in exchange for a prior change of regime — whether in Moscow, Kyiv, or Washington — in practice postpones the cessation of the slaughter indefinitely. In doing so, it inevitably slips into the position of “war until final victory,” for no one knows when the peoples will succeed in changing their governments, or whether they will succeed at all in the foreseeable future.

Where, then, is the way out?

The way out lies in exerting pressure upon all the warring sides with the demand that they immediately open peace negotiations. Workers, soldiers, and all those to whom this war has brought nothing but grief must demand of their governments, openly and for all to hear, that they sit down at the negotiating table on the basis of the right of peoples to determine their own destiny.

Only under such conditions does the slogan “Down with the war!” avoid the danger of degenerating into empty pacifism. Only then can it develop into a powerful political campaign, tearing the mask from the imperialists on both sides and revealing the true underlying motives of what is taking place.

For even if only one of the sides refuses negotiations, that refusal itself becomes an instrument of exposure. The peoples will see with their own eyes the predatory character of the war and the blood-stained face of those whose greedy interests are served through the sacrifice of their sons’ lives.

To tear the mask from the imperialists, to reveal before millions the true foundation of this war — that is what it means to declare a genuine war upon war itself. For so long as the Russian worker believes he is fighting against NATO, he is fighting for Sechin and Rotenberg. So long as the Ukrainian worker believes he is fighting for freedom, he is fighting for the IMF and transnational capital.

An imperialist war cannot be ended by negotiations — it can only be transformed. It must be transformed from a war of peoples against one another into a war of peoples against those who unleashed this slaughter and profit from it. The demand for peace negotiations is not a final objective but an instrument of exposure: when those in power refuse negotiations, they reveal their own face.

And a people who have seen that face will no longer remain the beaten and naïve slaves of another men’s gold bullion that they were yesterday.

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Release Date: June 11, 2026
Editorial Board “The Eastern Post”
Publisher: The Eastern Post, London-Paris, United Kingdom-France, 2026.

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