The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei will distribute the following statement at the anti-war demonstration in Berlin on 3 October.

Never before has the threat of nuclear annihilation been as great as it is today. It is high time to stop the unbridled escalation of the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine by the NATO powers.

For months, Biden, Scholz and their allies have been crossing one red line after another. They want to provoke a reaction from Russia and Iran that will give them the pretext to intervene in the two wars with their own troops, weapons and aircraft. With the same ruthlessness with which they are bombing Palestinian refugee camps today and using Ukrainian soldiers as cannon fodder, they will drop atomic bombs on Iranian and Russian cities tomorrow.

After the NATO powers have spent over 200 billion euros to fuel the proxy war against Russia, and every bomb that falls on Gaza and Lebanon bears the inscription “Made in the USA”, no one can seriously believe that these wars are about defending democracy and freedom or protecting Jewish life.

For over thirty years, the USA has been trying to compensate for its declining weight in the world economy through military force. That is why it has bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and numerous other countries to pieces. With the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, it is continuing this struggle for world domination, the central aim of which is the emerging economic power, China. In US military circles, the question is no longer whether, but only when it will wage a war against nuclear-armed China—the consequence of which would be the destruction of humanity.

Germany, whose hands were tied for a long time after two criminal world wars, is also pursuing an imperialist war policy again. With German reunification on October 3, 1990, celebrating its 34th anniversary today, it returned to its old aggressive policy. The German government is not a vassal of the USA, but pursues its own economic and geostrategic interests—also vis-à-vis the USA.

Germany is the second largest arms supplier to Ukraine after the USA and its largest financial backer. Eighty-five years after Hitler’s campaign of annihilation against the Soviet Union, German tanks are once again rolling against Russia. Germany is also playing a key role in the genocide in Gaza and the escalation of the war in the entire region.

In order to implement this insane rearmament, spending on education, housing and health is being slashed and unprecedented social cutbacks are being carried out. At the same time, democratic rights are under attack. Demonstrations and organisations are being banned in order to suppress the enormous opposition to the madness of war. This is accompanied by an unspeakable anti-refugee campaign. Of all people, the desperate individuals and families who are fleeing from NATO wars are being made scapegoats for the hated pro-war policy.

The extreme brutalisation of foreign policy is not the product of personal mistakes by individual politicians, which can be corrected by pressure from the streets. This is refuted by the fact that all capitalist parties support massive rearmament and the pro-war policy and that a deafening war propaganda is running on all media channels.

It is the profound international crisis of capitalism that is driving the imperialist powers to war. Private ownership of the means of production and the nation-state system, on which capitalism is based, are incompatible with the international character of modern production, which unites millions of workers around the world in a single social process. The hunt for profits, markets and raw materials by the big corporations and banks can no longer be settled by peaceful methods, as was already the case in the First and Second World Wars. The wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are part of a global struggle for the redivision of the world.

Berlin and Washington are not satisfied with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the reintroduction of capitalism. They also want to split apart Russia and gain unrestricted control over its vast raw materials, a goal already pursued by Hitler. That is why NATO has continued to expand eastward, until Putin reacted with a reactionary and desperate attack on Ukraine. He hoped this would force NATO to the negotiating table, but it achieved the opposite.

The only way to stop the wars and avert catastrophe is to mobilise the international working class—those who create all of society’s wealth and are hardest hit by the pro-war policy—against capitalism.

A powerful objective basis for such a movement is developing: all over the world, protests and strikes are breaking out against mass layoffs and wage cuts, which are increasingly escaping the paralysing influence of the trade unions. The central task is to link these struggles with the fight against war.

The organisers of Wednesday’s demonstration reject this perspective. They do not want a movement against the government and its pro-war policy, but rather to cover up this policy or to direct it somewhat differently. They limit themselves to making toothless demands on government to stop supplying weapons to Israel and Ukraine and to seek negotiations. This is equivalent to asking a wolf to become a vegetarian.

The Left Party has repeatedly supported NATO’s war against Russia. In its call for Wednesday’s demonstration, it demands “respect for international law by all” and the “withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine”—the stated goal of the NATO intervention. A year ago, all members of the Left Party voted in favour of the Bundestag (parliamentary) resolution that offered Israel “every support,” gave the green light for the genocide in Gaza and called for tougher action against Iran.

In addition to representatives of the Left Party, Ralf Stegner, a member of the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD), spoke at the rally. Stegner has not only supported all the German government’s wars, but has also enthusiastically welcomed the “special fund” for the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) of over 100 billion euros.

Sahra Wagenknecht, who split from the Left Party to form the BSW, also supports German militarism. She criticises the war in Ukraine not from an anti-militarist, but from a nationalist point of view. She believes that German imperialism should pursue its interests more independently of the USA. The BSW programme explicitly demands “adequate funding”for the Bundeswehr and an “independent Europe” with a “stable security architecture.”

It is fitting that at the demonstration, Wagenknecht shared the podium with her friend Peter Gauweiler, the far-right Christian Social Union (CSU) member of the Bundestag. In the 1990s, Gauweiler had mobilised against an exhibition documenting the crimes of the Nazis’ army, the Wehrmacht, in World War II. Then he turned against the euro for nationalist reasons. Today he is calling for the election of the fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump in the USA.

These political forces are not allies in the fight against war, but opponents. Only the independent mobilisation of the broad masses of people around the world against capitalism can prevent a relapse into barbarism. Such a movement must be based on the following principles:

·        It must be based on the working class, the social force that creates all the wealth and has to bear the full brunt of war. It must link the struggles for wages and jobs with the struggle against war.

·        It must be directed against capitalism and requires a socialist perspective, because you cannot seriously fight against war without putting an end to the dictatorship of finance capital and the economic system that is the cause of militarism and war.

·        It must be independent of all capitalist parties and organisations, especially those that talk peace but support the policy of war.

·        It must be international, uniting workers across all borders and opposing imperialism with the enormous strength of the working class in a global struggle.

The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) fights for this perspective together with its sister parties of the Fourth International around the world. Discuss these perspectives with us and become a member of our party.