One hundred years after World War I, and 75 years after World War II, the world capitalist system again threatens humanity with a catastrophe.
Accelerated by the global economic breakdown of 2008, the imperialist powers are resorting to war to try and overcome their internal problems and take control of vital markets and resources against their rivals.
In the last months, the world has watched Israel wage a murderous war against Palestinians in Gaza with the full support of the imperialist powers. Britain and the United States are again conducting military action in Iraq, using the crisis they created through their criminal invasion in 2003. Their actions target Syria and Iran, threatening to ignite a wider regional war in the Middle East.
The right-wing coup engineered by the western powers in Ukraine has led to a bloody civil war that is being used to step up NATO provocations that threaten war against Russia.
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) insist that the building of a new socialist anti-war movement is an urgent necessity. Mass opposition to the outburst of militarist violence presently finds no political expression. Instead, the pseudo-left groups and former pacifists have become cheerleaders for “humanitarian” intervention in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere—or they do nothing.
Opposition to war is a revolutionary task. Capitalism and the nation-state system are the root cause of war. The danger of a third nuclear conflagration can only be prevented through a struggle to abolish the profit system and reorganize society on the basis of socialism.
The IYSSE is organizing a series of meetings at the start of the new university term to discuss the implications of these developments and begin constructing such a movement.
Liverpool
Thursday September 25, 7pm
Guild of Students (Elizabeth Gidney 2)
University of Liverpool
L3 5TR
Bradford
Monday September 29, 7pm
Gumption Centre
Glydegate (opp. Media Museum)
BD5 0BQ
Manchester
Monday September 29, 7.00 pm
Friends’ Meeting House (behind Manchester Central Library)
6 Mount Street
M2 5NS
London
Wednesday October 1, 7.00 pm
Student Central (University of London Union)
Malet Street
WC1E 7HY
(nearest tube stations: Goodge Street/Russell Square )