Marxism and pacifism

The Marxist approach to war differs radically from the pacifist approach. In his classic pamphlet, Socialism and War, Lenin distinguished between the Marxist and pacifist oppositions to war:
Socialists [Lenin wrote] have always condemned wars between nations as barbarous and brutal. Our attitude towards war is fundamentally different from that of the bourgeois pacifists … in that we understand the inevitable connection between wars and the class struggle within a country; we understand that wars cannot be abolished unless classes are abolished and socialism is created; we also differ in that we regard civil wars, i.e., wars waged by an oppressed class against the oppressor class, by slaves against slaveholders, by serfs against landowners, and by wage workers against the bourgeoisie, as fully legitimate, progressive and necessary. We Marxists differ from pacifists … in that we deem it necessary to study each war historically (from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism) and separately. There have been in the past numerous wars which, despite all the horrors, atrocities, distress and suffering that inevitably accompany all wars, were progressive, i.e., benefited the development of mankind.1
We Marxists reject an absolute position on war. We examine each war concretely and separately, locating each in its distinct historical context. We disagree with pacifists that all war is bad, immoral and harmful to those who engage in it. Those are ahistorical, moralistic dogmas divorced from material reality. Indeed, from our working-class viewpoint, rejecting necessary or liberating violence is inherently immoral. A gun used in war by a Warsaw Ghetto fighter aimed at a German soldier was an instrument of liberation. The same gun in the hands of a German soldier aimed at a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto was an instrument of Nazi terror. An abstract disgust with guns and violence cannot see this truth — only politics and class morality can.
We Marxists don’t equate the violence of the oppressor with the violence of the oppressed. We don’t agree with pacifists that the violence of oppressed people or workers’ revolution debases the human spirit by practising hatred, and that it should be replaced by a strategy of winning over enemies through nonviolent reconciliation, Christian love or moral witness. Pacifists preach peaceful reconciliation of differences between oppressor and oppressed — “nonviolent conflict resolution” — not the class hostility and hatred workers should feel for their exploiters.
Ruling classes have never in all of recorded human history paid the slightest attention to pacifist or moral pleadings to peacefully give up their wealth and power. Pacifists consequently direct their appeals to the oppressed, which disarms and weakens successful resistance and contributes to the maintenance of the system which causes war.
The Marxist approach to supporting or opposing a particular war draws heavily on the early 19th century Prussian writer and soldier, Carl von Clausewitz, arguably the greatest theoretician of war. Clausewitz’s starting point was the famous proposition that “war is politics continued by other [that is, violent] means” This, Lenin noted, “was always the standpoint of Marx and Engels, who regarded any war as the continuation of the politics of the powers concerned — and the various classes within these countries — in a definite period”.2 Lenin later expanded on that idea, saying that we have to look at “the class character of war: what caused that war, what classes are waging it, and what historical and historical-economic conditions gave rise to it …”3
As Marxists, we attempt to analyse all of the political aspects of a war: the real policies (not the stated ones) of which the war is a continuation, and the policies of the classes waging the war. To fully understand the politics of the war, we have to examine all of the belligerent powers, not just one. If we agree with the politics that have led to the war, then we continue to support the struggle for those politics, even when they are continued through violent means, through war. Conversely, if we are political opponents of those policies, of the policies of the ruling classes and governments involved, we don’t put aside our political opposition when the struggle is continued by other, violent means. We remain opponents of the politics that led to the war, and therefore of the war itself.
This key unlocks the mystification that surrounds war. It makes plain the method that we use to decide which wars we consider just, progressive and worthy of support, and which we consider reactionary, unjust and not worthy of support. We are for wars we can support politically — we are in favour wars of national liberation, wars for democracy, and revolutions and civil wars of the oppressed against their oppressors. We oppose those wars whose politics we reject: wars for the defence or expansion of the wealth, power and privileges of the exploiting and oppressor classes. It is our politics, political analysis of real events and political judgment on the dynamics of the forces and events propelling any war, placed in their historical, economic and class context, that determine our position on each, separate war.