Wobbly Times number 11

Oh...in answer to the question, "What did you do in the war, daddy?" , I have the following answer, to be found here.

"War? What is it good for?" Well that depends, mostly on which class you're in. All wars are fought by workers and peasants for their masters in the ruling class. It's in the class interests of those who control the State to maintain the power of that State and yes, to project it into other States; to defeat other States and, if possible, to take control of all or part of the wealth through war. That's what war between States is about....mostly. There are also working class concerns in winning a war which their rulers send them out to fight in. For example, it was in workers' class interests to have the fascists lose the battle for world hegemony aka WWII. Of course, we got the Cold War and the continuance of class rule and threat of nuclear annihilation (all of which continues today, although the names have been changed to promote an innocence); but we avoided the worst of the excesses of capitalist dictatorship gone mad with social Darwinist ideas and actions. I mean, learning Japanese would be an honourable, difficult, admirable thing for an Australian to do these days; but think about what a Japanese victory in WWII would have meant in terms of having to learn the Japanese language. Thanks to the workers of the world who were on the side of the anti-fascists in WWII!

War within States, civil wars are usually competitions between rival ruling classes in conflict. Again though, we need to be careful in totally condemning them all e.g. the U.S. Civil War. This war resulted in ending chattel slavery in the USA and therefore was in the interest of the workers to see the Union defeat the Confederacy. In the Spanish Civil War, it was in the class interests of the workers of the world to see Franco's undemocratic Nationalists defeated.

But, for the most part, wars, including civil wars tend to be good for, "Absolutely Nothing!" from a class conscious worker's point of view.