LONDON — “The celebrations of Victory in Europe Day marking the end of the second imperialist world war there, in London, Moscow and elsewhere in the past few days are not about history,” Communist League leader Catharina Tirsén told a May 10 Militant Labour Forum here entitled “The Opening Guns of World War III.”
“They’re about today and the future,” she said. “They’re not about peace, but about preparations for war.”
The meeting coincided with days of government-sponsored events marking 80 years since the victory of the capitalist rulers in Washington and London, allied with Joseph Stalin’s regime in Moscow, over their rivals in Berlin, ending the imperialist slaughter in Europe.
These celebrations are aimed at lining working people up behind Britain’s ruling class, Tirsén said, with Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer calling the outcome of the war “the greatest victory in the history of this great nation.”
Tirsén noted that global military spending went up 9.4% last year, the highest increase since the end of the Cold War. Britain increased its spending by 2.8% to $81.8 billion, making London the sixth-biggest buyer of weapons of war in the world. The U.K. government is planning a further $17.8 billion increase this year as it prepares to defend the British rulers’ predatory interests in today’s conflict-ridden world.
“Almost 35 years ago, the communist movement called the Washington-led assault on Iraq ‘the opening guns of World War III,’” Tirsén said, “because we could see sharpening rivalry between imperialist powers,” more so than at any time since the end of the last world war.
“That rings truer to millions across the world today after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews in Israel,” she said. It’s reinforced by trade conflicts between capitalist powers worldwide, economic stagnation across Europe, and sharpening tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Class struggle vs. class collaboration
“World War II was not a war against fascism,” Tirsén said. “On London’s part it was about defending British imperialist interests against its rivals in Germany, Japan and Italy — as well as against its allies — and to maintain control over its empire.
“The British rulers and their American allies hit working people in Germany and Japan hard, firebombing Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo and other cities. London supported Washington’s dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” she said. At the same time, London rejected bombing railway tracks leading to the Nazi death camps, which could have saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews and others.
Tirsén pointed to the full-throated backing for British imperialism’s war efforts by the Communist Party at the time. After Japan’s surrender the Stalinist party’s paper, the Daily Worker, hailed the statement by Clement Attlee, leader of the just-elected Labour government. “The mighty forces of the United States and the British Commonwealth and Empire and other Allies were brought to bear. … Peace has once again come to the world. … Long live the King!” Attlee said. The Daily Worker also supported the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Continuing the Communist Party’s course of collaborating with the ruling class today, the Morning Star described World War II May 8 as “The Victory Over Fascism: A People’s War.”
Tirsén said the Communist League presents an opposite course.
“We are the anti-war party in the working class,” she said. Starmer is trying to convince workers they have a stake in the rulers’ war preparations, saying his government will “return Britain to warfighting readiness.” Its war spending program “will be felt directly in the pockets of working people,” Starmer claimed.
“This is an illusion for workers,” Tirsén said. “This is not an expanding economy. Apart from the fact they’re building an economy of destruction, not production, how can we expect that the bosses will achieve these goals without increasingly imposing long working days and low wages? ”
She said more workers are resisting these attacks, pointing to the strike by refuse workers in Birmingham. Meeting participants who had visited the picket lines described the support strikers are winning, as well as wide-ranging discussion among them about many of the questions addressed in Tirsén’s presentation.
“Millions of working people around the world are being drawn into politics in face of imperialism’s march toward fascism and war,” Tirsén told the meeting. “To workers we meet on the job, as we build solidarity with union struggles, and as we introduce the Communist League and the Militant, we say: ‘Join! Become a member!’ The working class needs a party of its own, whose members have been tested in the class struggle.
“We’re building a party that will lead the working class to take power out of the hands of the capitalist rulers, the only way to stop imperialism’s march toward World War III. Becoming a member of the CL is the best thing you can do.”