“The crisis of capitalism today is driving the imperialist powers toward a new and even more devastating third world war,” explains the Socialist Workers Party National Committee in its Jan. 3 statement “Condemn Washington’s Attack on Venezuela’s Sovereignty! US Out Now!” printed on the front page.
The imperialist epoch was announced by the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American war and its seizure of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines at the end of the 19th century. It has been marked by ferocious competition among national ruling classes for markets, resources and labor, with persistent deadly wars of conquest and world wars. With the world already divided among a handful of the strongest powers, the only way it can be redivided is through a new worldwide imperialist slaughter.
Between 70 million and 85 million working people were killed in the last world war.
In the course of capitalism’s financial breakdowns, social catastrophes and wars, Jew-hatred becomes a crucial issue for the working class — from the Nazi’s Holocaust during World War II to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom in Israel and the recent murders of Jews in Australia. Contrary to the illusions spread by the U.S. capitalist rulers, Jew-hating violence will be promoted most virulently by the strongest imperialist powers.
The promotion of Jew-hatred and fascist thuggery is tied to the rulers’ response to expanding union and working-class struggles, to workers’ growing class consciousness and to the forging of proletarian parties capable of leading the fight to end capitalist rule.
With the deepening crisis of capitalism, it’s impossible for the rival imperialist rulers to bring peace to the world. “There Is No Peace” was the Militant’s banner headline when World War II ended after the U.S. rulers’ nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. We told the unvarnished truth about the imperialist epoch.
Today there is no rival power capable of replacing Washington’s waning worldwide supremacy. Each of the world’s capitalist governments are tied together in their decline, as conflicts among them sharpen.
After letting their armed forces decay for years, governments across Europe are rushing to expand their militaries. Washington’s invasion of Venezuela was followed by President Donald Trump’s renewed threats to take control of Greenland. And the U.S. rulers are stepping up threats against Cuba, hoping to crush its socialist revolution.
The Cuban Revolution shows there is an alternative to a future of fascism and world war. It shows that with leadership, working people are capable of taking power and wielding it in the interests of the toilers worldwide. The deeper the crisis of the imperialist system, the more the U.S. rulers fear that example.
Working people need to study and emulate what was accomplished by the workers and farmers of Cuba. Led by Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement, they overturned the U.S.-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in 1959. Defying the dictates of Washington, working people took control of Cuba’s factories, banks and fields and began running society to meet human needs, not capitalist profits. And in the process they transformed themselves, joining struggles against imperialist oppression from Vietnam to Guinea-Bissau.
As the Militant explained in 1945, “Only world socialism can save mankind from atomic destruction in another imperialist war.” Proletarian parties can and must be built in the course of today’s union battles and the deeper struggles to come, and in the fight against the U.S. rulers’ war moves, from Venezuela to wherever their next predatory intervention takes place. Be part of that fight. Join the Socialist Workers Party!
