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Down with imperialism! No to militarism! For books, not bombs!

Down with imperialism! No to militarism! For books, not bombs!

Following Fiona Lali’s inspiring election campaign, the RCP is launching a new national campaign to mobilise young people against British imperialism, and to overthrow the warmongers responsible for death and destruction. Get organised today!

War, said the military theoretician Clausewitz, is the continuation of politics by other means.

By this he meant that war isn’t caused by mistakes or madness. It’s not an abnormal state of affairs. War is a natural part of politics in a capitalist, imperialist system where nations compete for profit.

That’s why there have been 285 armed conflicts since the end of the Second World War – with around 30-50 raging every single year.

Of those, well over 200 were initiated by the world’s most powerful imperialist country, the United States of America, on a mission to defend the markets, spheres of influence, and profits of its multinational corporations.

Today, capitalism is in crisis and profits are harder to come by. While the profit pie is shrinking, however, others are demanding a bigger slice. China and Russia are flexing their muscles. And smaller nations like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are looking to satisfy their regional imperialist impulses.

Servant to US imperialism

As for British imperialism, it is tied-up entirely with the USA – a key trading partner.

The US provoked the current war in Ukraine, which Britain has enthusiastically supported. Similarly, the US unconditionally supports Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and Britain faithfully follows suit.

There is almost no situation in which Britain has a foreign policy independent of the USA.

This has been made clear over the last week at the latest NATO summit, in relation to the UK’s new Labour government. ‘Sir’ Keir Starmer and his sidekicks have proven themselves to be faithful servants to the British establishment, and in turn to Washington.

To remain a useful cog in the machine of US imperialism, the British imperialists need to upgrade their capabilities. Earlier this year, top military commanders said that the British army is about four times smaller than it needs to be to fight a war.

This is why Starmer, like the Tories before, has committed to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP – although military chiefs are demanding it be increased to 4 or 5 percent. They’re also renewing the Trident nuclear weapons system at a cost of around £200bn.

Britain has given £12.5bn to Ukraine since February 2022, including £7.5bn in military aid, to carry on and prolong the war. And since 2008, the UK government has licensed arms sales to Israel worth £574m.

Militarisation of education

The imperialists’ tentacles stretch deep into our education system.

For a start, curriculums are designed to indoctrinate children of the exploited and oppressed to support their exploiters and oppressors. Nowhere is this clearer than when it comes to the history of the British Empire, or the role of imperialism today.

Although some criticisms of this history are offered ‘for balance’, we are left almost completely in the dark about the real blood-soaked legacy of British imperialism and its many crimes.

Military recruiters are welcomed with open arms into schools, colleges, and universities, as they desperately try to plug the gaps in their dwindling ranks.

Scandalously, over £1 billion is invested by universities in the arms industry, as cash-strapped institutions seek profits to fill the hole left by austerity. Meanwhile, more than 100 universities collectively invest over £455 million in Israeli companies that directly contravene international law.

And many university departments are intimately tied-up with Britain’s war industry. Companies such as BAE systems and Rolls-Royce sponsor entire departments, for example, in exchange for access to cheap student labour and research facilities.

Healthcare, not warfare

All this militarism is desperately unpopular. A poll in May found that 55 percent of people think the UK should stop selling weapons to Israel. There is no desire amongst young people to serve in the armed forces. And there’s been no majority support for British involvement in any conflict since the Second World War.

Public services in Britain, meanwhile, desperately starved of cash, are at breaking point.

A fifth of local authorities believe they will go bankrupt in the next year. The NHS needs an extra £38bn over the next five years to keep functioning. And universities could go bust in the short term due to lack of funding.

Yet the capitalists and their political representatives continue to find money for warfare, but never for healthcare. And they spend money on bombs, but not on books.

Overthrow the warmongers

Revolutionary communist Fiona Lali boldly agitated around these points in her recent election campaign in Stratford & Bow. And before this, RCP comrades raised similar demands – to end the complicity of UK universities in Israel’s genocidal slaughter in Gaza – during the student encampment movement that spread across the world this spring.

Now is the time to develop and extend the movement against this parasitic militarism, which is sucking the life out of society to prop up the profits of British and US capitalists.

We want to kick imperialism out of our schools and campuses. Out with the army recruiters and merchants of death! Put the accounts and curriculums under staff and student control, so that we can decide where the money goes and what gets taught!

We want to dismantle Trident and the aggressive NATO military alliance.

We want to put the British defence and weapons industries under the democratic control of the working class, who can repurpose them to produce socially-useful things, instead of weapons of mass destruction.

We want to nationalise – without compensation – all the banks and big businesses that finance conflict and make juicy profits out of war.

And we want to kick out all the bellicose politicians who sabre-rattle and stir up clashes across the world, in the interests of the capitalists.

Not one penny, not one bullet, and not one shred of political support should go from Britain to imperialist warmongers anywhere.

Educate, agitate, organise

This campaign should start today.

We must educate ourselves on imperialism and capitalism. Lenin’s writings are the best place to start, followed by a study of world relations and imperialism today.

We must tell the truth about the sordid history of British imperialism, the crimes of which are too long to list.

We need to agitate among friends and colleagues, on campuses and in classrooms. We need to turn our political education into discussions, slogans, and persuasive arguments to win people over.

And we need to organise meetings, encampments, and occupations: starting small if necessary, but growing into a mass movement.

We need to connect with and win over workers in the arms and transport industries, who – if organised and prepared to fight – can stop the imperialist war machine in its tracks.

We have the summer to get educated, before hitting the new academic term to mobilise en masse.

Kick out the war criminals! For books, not bombs! We have a world to win!

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