The Continuation of Class Struggle by Other Means Part two: When do workers go to war?
Alan Freeman
Abstract
This article presents a Marxist analysis of war as a specific form of class struggle, asking the central question: when and why do workers go to war? Building on part one, which examined why capitalists make war, Alan Freeman explores the historical conditions under which workers either fight for the interests of their oppressors or for their own liberation. The paper traces this dynamic from the First and Second Internationals through the rise of Social Democracy, its capitulation to imperialism during World War I, and the subsequent emergence of Communist anti-imperialism. Freeman argues that capitalist wars are organized competitions for power and profit, while workers’ wars — such as revolutionary and anti-colonial struggles — represent conscious acts of class self-determination. The analysis extends through the Russian Revolution, the defeat of Nazism, and into the contemporary imperialist order, revealing how imperial corruption of the Western labor movement underpins its complicity in modern conflicts. Against the liberal myth of “extremism,” the article reasserts that revolution is not inherently violent but a necessary transformation of the state in defense of humanity. Freeman concludes that the working class remains the only social force capable of ending imperialist war, provided it acts independently of the capitalist class and in solidarity with the global majority.
Keywords
Marxism, class struggle, imperialism, Social Democracy, anti-imperialism, war, Nazism
