We need a revolution to put an end to today’s wars

It took working-class revolutions in Russia and Germany to end the First World War after four years in which 45 million people were killed and the lives of hundreds of millions upended.

World War One was the culmination of decades of rivalry between European capitalist states, in particular Britain, France and Germany. In a lecture delivered in May 1917, Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin argued: “The present war is a continuation of the policy of conquest, of the shooting down of whole nationalities, of unbelievable atrocities committed by the Germans and the British in Africa, and by the British and the Russians in Persia”.

The European states had competed for markets, trade routes, raw materials and labour—just as the companies within their territories competed for profits. Long before 1914, the year the war broke out, most of the world had been carved up between them.

Britain and France had divided up Africa and most of Asia, soaking the land in blood. Britain’s sprawling empire was economically and militarily superior, but it faced emerging rivals. Germany was the most important of these. Although it had a far smaller colonial footprint, Germany had developed new technical and organisational methods to build its economy, linking businesses into cartels and trusts that allowed for rapid expansion through the pooling of resources.

Britain used its enormous navy to constrain Germany’s access to overseas markets and colonial possessions. But by 1914, Germany was no longer prepared to tolerate British naval control. Polite negotiations could not overcome the reality: for any European state to continue to expand its power, others had to have theirs reduced. The violence previously inflicted in the colonies was now unleashed in the heart of “civilisation”.

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Habsburg throne, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist. Austria formally declared war one month later. Within seven days, all of the European powers threw themselves into the war: Russia, France and Great Britain on the Serbian side; Germany in alliance with Austria-Hungary. As the war progressed, more countries joined in. Germany’s alliance, called the Central Powers, invaded Belgium and drew in Ottoman Turkey. Britain, France and Italy became known as the Entente. The war now consumed the world.

A year into the conflict, Polish-German communist Rosa Luxemburg described in her Junius Pamphlet the evil being wrought by the capitalist war-makers:

“Business is flourishing upon the ruins. Cities are turned into shambles, whole countries into deserts, villages into cemeteries, whole nations into beggars, churches into stables; popular rights, treaties, alliances, the holiest words and the highest authorities have been torn into scraps ... Shamed, dishonoured, wading in blood and dripping with filth, thus capitalist society stands.”

Peace negotiations wouldn’t end the fighting, nor would anti-war marches alone. Each country’s ruling class had too much to lose: their future position in the geopolitical order, their alliances, their access to the world’s resources, their wealth and status.

Not even the revolutionary overthrow of the Russian tsar in February 1917 could pull Russia from the war. The new pro-capitalist provisional government, which replaced the monarchy, remained committed to the war even though it ran the risk of another revolution. But the government knew that to withdraw would be to undermine the state’s future.

In the May lecture referred to above, Lenin argued:

“The war which the capitalists of all countries are waging cannot be ended without a workers’ revolution against these capitalists ... So long as the government of the capitalists has not been replaced by a government of the revolutionary working class, the government is doomed merely to reiterate: We are heading for disaster.”

Revolutions in Russia and Germany finally ended the war. In October, Russian workers and soldiers, led by the Bolshevik Party, overthrew the provisional government and replaced it with a workers’ government.

The revolutionaries withdrew Russia from the war, signing a peace treaty with the Central Powers on 3 March 1918. That entailed a sacrifice: allowing annexations and giving away important industrial and farming land, putting the chances of building socialism in Russia in peril.

But the revolutionaries hoped that this radical act would demonstrate the internationalist spirit of their new state, and encourage the working classes across the world to launch their own revolutions against the war and for socialism. Leon Trotsky summed up the Bolsheviks’ attitude in a February 1918 speech, delivered shortly before signing the treaty:

“We are leading our army and our people out of the war, in anticipation of an imminent time when the oppressed peoples of all countries will take their fate into their own hands, in the way that Russian workers have done.”

German workers and soldiers answered the call. Throughout 1918, mass strikes and demonstrations against the war shook the German government. A mass revolutionary movement flowered across Germany in November. Workers created revolutionary councils, inspired by the flowering of democracy in Russia’s new workers’ state.

Through these councils, they took over the running of their workplaces, then entire cities. Sailors organised mutinies, refusing to launch their battleships against the British fleet. They joined the councils and made joint plans with the workers. Soldiers’ councils took charge of battalions comprising tens of thousands of men. Historian Pierre Broué gives a sweeping account of this revolution in his book The German Revolution, 1917-1923.

Only five days into the revolution, the German government collapsed. A new revolutionary republic was declared on 9 November. Two days later, the European leaders rushed to sign a set of deals to end the war.

This history should be a clarion call: we need to rebuild socialist parties everywhere that can lead revolutions against the capitalists and end their barbaric wars forever.

Over the past three years, Europe and the Middle East have again become theatres of major war. Russia’s assault on Ukraine is now in its third year, and Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza. Both of these wars could yet become wider conflicts. An even greater threat looms on the horizon. The United States and China are preparing for a conflict that could again draw in other major powers from across the world. Australia is positioning itself as the key military ally of the United States in Asia.

As in 1917-18, we will need revolutions to bring a stop to this imperialist madness.