The U.S. rulers’ 1991 war on Iraq, and their inability to decisively win it, sounded the opening guns of World War III. It announced that the world order born out of Washington’s emergence as the top dog in World War II was coming apart. That the rulers’ clashes for markets, resources and influence would only sharpen.
That reality has become more apparent ever since. Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom was orchestrated by the reactionary Iranian rulers, escalating their decadeslong drive to destroy Israel and annihilate all the Jews. Alongside Moscow’s war to obliterate Ukraine, it marked a further turning point in the rulers’ crisis, deepening the threat of a nuclear catastrophe.
The reality of the imperialist epoch, its breakdowns and sharpening conflict, and the horrors it unleashes on working people are out of the control of the U.S. rulers and their rivals. But the working class — here and worldwide — has the capacity to end imperialism’s exploitation and predatory wars once and for all.
Tied to their dog-eat-dog competition and inevitable conflicts is the capitalist rulers’ relentless drive to profit by stepping up their exploitation of workers. But today the low point of labor resistance is clearly behind us. From strike battles reported weekly in the Militant, to the victorious United Auto Workers union drive at Volkswagen, the assaults by the bosses are breeding class struggle.
In the course of these battles, workers begin to acquire self-confidence and class consciousness. We learn that the claims by Democrats and Republicans and “independent” capitalist candidates like Robert Kennedy Jr. that they govern for “all Americans” are a lie. They all serve the bosses. The conflict between the capitalist rulers and the tens of millions of working people underlies all political questions.
“Whether or not the unthinkable horrors of a third imperialist world slaughter are unleashed will be decided by mighty class battles and their outcome in the coming years,” writes Jack Barnes, Socialist Workers Party national secretary, in “Washington’s Assault on Iraq: Opening Guns of World War III” in New International no. 7. “It is in our hands, the hands of the workers of the world to prevent the calamities that imperialism is marching, and stumbling, toward.”
The conquest of power by workers and farmers in Russia in 1917, led by V.I. Lenin and the Bolsheviks, showed the kind of leadership that is needed for our class to overturn capitalist rule, take political power in our own hands, uproot exploitation and begin putting an end to national oppression, Jew-hatred and war.
In 1959 Cuba’s socialist revolution demonstrated once again that working people could forge proletarian leadership of the highest caliber and transform both society and ourselves.
The Socialist Workers Party seeks to emulate the course set by the leadership of these two great socialist revolutions. Join in campaigning for and building a party to lead the fight for workers power in the U.S. to end forever the capitalists march toward fascism and a third world war.