Class-struggle road to end war in Ukraine

Editorial
March 21, 2022

Angered at the death and destruction raining down on the people of Ukraine by Moscow, and inspired by the ferocious resistance of the Ukrainian people, many protesters support calls for the U.S. rulers to impose ever-tightening sanctions and no-fly zones.

But regardless of their crocodile tears, the U.S. capitalist rulers and their government aren’t motivated by the fight of the Ukrainian people for sovereignty. Everything they do abroad is aimed at advancing their class interests in a ceaseless conflict with rivals for markets and political domination. U.S. government foreign policy — under Democrats and Republicans — is an extension of the bosses’ insatiable drive for profits at home in a class struggle to drive down workers’ wages, conditions and rights.

Imperialist intervention will not create better conditions for struggles against the war by workers and farmers in Ukraine, or Russia. That is not the U.S. rulers’ goal. The last thing they want is to strengthen the self-confidence and power of working people.

Reviewing past struggles against imperialist war — like the fight against the U.S. rulers’ war against the Vietnamese people who were fighting for national independence — is highly instructive. The courageous struggle by the Vietnamese, and the carnage inflicted both on them and on the U.S. workers sent as cannon fodder there, fueled growing mass protests here and worldwide that won more and more workers, including those in uniform, to oppose that slaughter. At a certain point, the U.S. rulers had to back off or face a growing class struggle at home.

Punishing sanctions against Moscow, however, land hardest on workers and farmers. They’re an obstacle to building the unity of working people in Ukraine and Russia, and growing collaboration against capitalist exploitation and war.

However the course of Putin’s murderous war on Ukraine unfolds, as long as capitalists hold power in the U.S., Russia, or anywhere, there will be no peace. Their declining system, based on oppression and exploitation, will breed deeper, more violent conflicts, with a greater danger nuclear weapons will be used.

Only the working class and its allies are capable of waging a struggle to wrest power from the ruling class, disarm them, and end the threat of more wars. The Socialist Workers Party exists to educate and organize working people to carry that out. Join SWP members campaigning with the statement by Jack Barnes, the party’s national secretary: “Defend Ukraine’s independence! For defeat of Moscow’s invasion! U.S. troops, nuclear arms out of Europe, all of Europe!”