War and Imperialism

We understand that the causes of war overwhelmingly emerge from the need of imperial nation states to gain access to new markets and secure capitalist profitability. This is to compensate for falling profitability within imperial nations and the need to hyper-exploit weaker nations and their working-class. The disastrous wars in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan have not resulted in greater economic and international stability, but resulted in ruin, reaction, misery and human displacement. 

The ability of the imperial west, led by the US, to expand into and plunder weaker economies is encountering resistance from rival powers, notably China. This quickening development of a multipolar international order is laying the basis for more proxy wars and destabilisation efforts. It is the working-class from all nations who will suffer the most as violent conflicts continue to unfold. 

As conflict and the drive towards war becomes increasingly inevitable, there is a need for a devoted anti-war organisation with serious roots in the working-class to emerge. Rise understands that only an empowered and organised working-class can stop imperialist war, both through its industrial potential and rejection of petty nationalist rivalries promoted by capitalists and their representatives within the state and media. 

Nations within the western imperial core such as the USA and Britain are sinking further into economic and political crisis. Rise rejects the notion that the working class of any nation should suffer as a result of this crisis. Alongside reorganising to defend and expand our own power as workers, we need to be ready to offer a robust challenge when capitalists prepare for yet more war and efforts to destabilise nations which resist becoming hollowed out vassal states for imperial looting and conquest.

1. We need to replace the capitalist system which makes war inevitable with a socialist system based on working-class international solidarity.
2. We need to develop a vibrant working-class anti-war movement that is organised and able to use its labour power to frustrate or stop the breakout of war. We must move beyond simply appealing to MPs to change policy. War and imperialism are not simply bad choices made by politicians, but they are inseparable from the capitalist system’s need to expand. We can only stop war by the working-class internationally challenging the system of capitalism itself.
3. Rise stands in solidarity with nations around the world resisting imperialism trying to build socialist societies such as Bolivia and Cuba. We also support the national liberation efforts such as the Palestinians in their fight against western funded war and terror.
4. We reject Britain continuing to manufacture destructive weapons and arms which are used to kill and oppress. We need to organise and plan a way to transition these industries into new forms of production which are socially necessary and enrich lives rather than destroy them.