NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/10375

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Subject: The War at Home & Abroad:Marcy
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THE WAR AT HOME AND ABROAD

By Sam Marcy

Every incoming U.S. administration faces the problem of the
relation between domestic and foreign policy.

The capitalist media foster the impression that there is an
inherent separation between an administration's foreign and
domestic policy. But invariably, the ruling class reveals certain
preferences with respect to the allocation of funds and resources
in one or another direction. The conduct of an administration in
foreign affairs and military expansion reveals its proclivities in
the struggle at home.

The peace-loving masses, on the other hand, are opposed to war as
a solution for political and diplomatic problems. They think the
government should concentrate on uplifting the standard of
living--a fair and reasonable stance.

The relation between domestic and foreign policy and the pursuit of
peaceful solutions instead of war have always been proper domains
for democratic discussion. Or at least that's the way it should
be--if we could ignore the factor of class war and the element of
class exploitation.

CLAUSEWITZ' MILITARY THEORIES

The questions of war and peace have occupied the attention not only
of politicians but of military leaders. A considerable number have
concocted military theories regarding the prosecution of war and
the imposition of peace. One of the most important writers on
military strategy--whose theories have had wide influence in both
the 19th and 20th centuries--was Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831).

Clausewitz was not an armchair general. He participated in military
campaigns against the French revolutionary army, and spent many
years on garrison duty. That enabled him to devote a large amount
of time to educating himself.

Like other Germans, Clausewitz entered the Russian service on the
eve of Napoleon's invasion of Russia. He distinguished himself
there and subsequently became a general in the Prussian army, where
he was appointed head of the war college.

He used much of his time to study military strategy and write his
famous work "On War." This book was subsequently translated into
many languages.

Clausewitz attracted the attention of not only Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels, but also later of V.I. Lenin, who studied his
work while in Switzerland during the first imperialist world war.
In Lenin's writings against the imperialist war, he frequently
quoted Clausewitz. In particular, he repeated Clausewitz' famous
generalization: "War is nothing but a continuation of political
intercourse with the admixture of different means."

Lenin often abbreviated the sentence to read: "War is nothing but
a continuation of politics by other means."

ECONOMICS DRIVES POLITICS

What is politics? It is concentrated economics.

Any country's economy is in the hands of the class that owns the
means of production. The ownership of the means of production
determines a ruling class's politics and its relation to the
oppressed class.

It is impossible for a ruling class to conduct a war abroad without
also conducting a war at home. If politics is the concentrated
essence of economics and the economy is in the hands of a specific
ruling class, the war the ruling class is conducting abroad is
merely a continuation of the war it is conducting at home.

This is what we have to learn once again relative to the incoming
Clinton administration.

NOW THEY'RE CLINTON'S WARS

Clinton is already involved in conducting wars against Somalia,
Yugoslavia and the Haitian people. He participated in the decision
to send a flotilla of warships to block Haitian refugees from
coming to the U.S. after he had encouraged them to do so and
promised them justice. Above all, Clinton is now conducting the war
against Iraq.

The wars being conducted abroad by the Clinton administration and
the ruling class that Clinton now heads politically are an
extension of the domestic policies pursued at home--what Clausewitz
called "a continuation" of what is being done so cruelly at home.

The war at home takes the form of a massive assault on the living
standards of the masses by means of a vast and complex
restructuring of capitalist industry. It has mercilessly and
ruthlessly thrown out millions of workers over the years--and
continues to do so at a more rapid rate than ever.

It should go without saying that the racist character of the wars
abroad is also a continuation of the racism practiced at home.

It is no wonder that Marx, Engels and Lenin valued the writings of
Clausewitz. This was not because he was sympathetic to the
oppressed. Far from it! But he bluntly summarized the nature of war
without in any way embellishing it. Clausewitz demonstrated that
wars are not fought for their own sake, but are a continuation of
the politics of this or that warring group.

WHAT'S BEHIND IMPERIALIST WAR

In his revolutionary writings against the world war of 1914-18,
Lenin ceaselessly pointed out that capitalist war is a function of
imperialism. By imperialism he meant more than military aggression.
He showed in his book "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of
Capitalism" that imperialist wars grow out of the monopoly
character of capitalism, which itself grew out of an earlier
competitive stage of capital.

Lenin demonstrated that the growth of monopolies generates
aggressiveness in the struggle for world markets. That is true even
more now than in Lenin's day, when competition among smaller
capitalist units and establishments was the rule rather than the
exception. Lenin understood the direction of capitalist development
toward monopoly, however, and particularly promoted the concept of
the relationship of the big banks to the capitalist state.

The capitalist state is not a mere arbiter between small,
struggling capitalist competitors. On the contrary, the capitalist
state is the captive of the very largest and most powerful
capitalist monopolies. More often than not, they have the most
direct influence in the inner councils of the state.

Marx and Engels wrote in 1848 in "The Communist Manifesto" that the
government--that is, the state--was the executive committee of the
ruling class. This generalization was all the more remarkable at
that time, because the feudal and aristocratic elements still
retained their hold in some European countries, including Germany
and Italy. For the bourgeois state to become the executive
committee of the whole ruling class, it still needed considerable
development.

But it was not long in coming. Compared to the period of 1848, the
modern capitalist state demonstrates wholesale degeneration into a
tool of the largest corporations--especially those with the closest
possible relations with the military industries.

MONOPOLY RULE STIFLES DEMOCRACY

In this light, expecting more democracy from the capitalist state
is utopian. On the contrary, both monopoly finance capital and the
capitalist state are continually veering in the direction of
rampant reaction.

It's not only the latest developments of the union of finance with
capitalist industry that demonstrate this. It was shown as long ago
as 1912, when Rudolf Hilferding wrote the book "Finance Capital."
In it, he analyzed the basic trends inherent in capitalist
development in that period, which undoubtedly helped Lenin to
formulate his own position.

Interestingly enough, Lenin made sure to critically appraise
Hilferding's book in relation to his remarks about the labor
movement. Hilferding didn't explain the basis for the opportunism
that had grown up during the period, when working-class
organizations were growing in breadth but at the same time were
losing their militancy and revolutionary perspective to some
extent.

REVOLUTIONARY DEFEATISM

In a war among imperialist powers, it is not adequate to merely
oppose the war. That doesn't provide the masses with a realistic
program to stop the carnage. Working class revolutionaries have to
explain to the masses that the lesser evil in such a situation is
the defeat of their own imperialist ruling class--their direct
oppressors.

Revolutionary defeatism was the successful program pursued by the
Bolsheviks in World War I. It was on the basis of revolutionary
defeatism that they won over the soldier masses who hated the war
and the officer caste and who wanted to return to their homes and
farms. These soldiers, most from peasant families, mutinied and
then fought alongside the workers in ousting the government of the
oppressing Russian landlords and capitalists. They then appealed to
the German soldiers to do the same to their own ruling class.

If each proletarian party promotes a policy of revolutionary
defeatism, then there is the possibility of developing genuine
proletarian internationalism among the workers of the belligerent
imperialist countries instead of allowing the ruling classes to
promote rampant chauvinism.

Suppose, for instance, there were another imperialist war between
the U.S. and Japan. It would be correct for the workers' parties in
both countries to advocate and promote the defeat of their
respective ruling classes and the strongest solidarity among U.S.
and Japanese workers.

WHAT CLASS STRUGGLE BOILS DOWN TO

It has often been said that Karl Marx discovered the class
struggle. But Marx himself denied this.

He repeatedly said that the class struggle was known to bourgeois
writers and to earlier societies that described the class struggles
of their time.

What Marx did was to show that the class struggle is connected with
the material interests of the classes. It is not about abstract
theories or morals, not just about liberty or freedom. The class
struggle concerns the material interests of each class.

The struggle is between the possessing ruling class, which owns the
means of production, and the working class, which is subjected to
exploitation and oppression precisely because the means of
production are in the hands of the exploiters.

Marx said this element of the class struggle--the struggle over the
means of production--ultimately would lead to the dictatorship of
the proletariat. In "The State and Revolution," Lenin took great
pains to explain that means the rule of the working class. It has
nothing to do with the imposition of an autocratic or totalitarian
authority over the workers. Rather, their freely elected
representatives administer the workers' state.

Most important, as Lenin further elaborated, the dictatorship of
the proletariat is a transitory period. As the working class
develops the means of production and strengthens its position in
society, the proletarian dictatorship will dissolve--wither away,
so to speak--into a classless society, or communism.

                               -30-

Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 West 21st
Street, New York, NY 10010; e-mail: [e-mail] or
[e-mail].


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