Dear friends,

we are meeting today at this anti-war conference to discuss the escalating war situation in Europe and the Middle East. All major imperialist powers have declared that they are preparing for a major war with Russia and China, regardless of the outcome of the current war in Ukraine. Germany is at the forefront of war preparations against Russia and China. After many decades of German post-war imperialism selling itself as a peace power, it is now once again arming itself for war; this is the essence of Chancellor Scholz’s turning point.

But we also want to discuss here how we can contribute to building a broad mass movement against war and social war to end the bloody wars in Ukraine and Palestine/Lebanon. In Europe, war-weariness and resistance are growing. People do not want war.

It is about stopping the war  path of the Western imperialist powers towards a world war. For this we need partners in trade unions, but also in political parties who are against the war. We need masses on the streets, but we are not there yet. We must warn in all clarity of the dangers of a new world war, which is unleashed by imperialism. The preparations for war go hand in hand with an unprecedented attack on the welfare state and political freedoms. We say loud and clear that war and preparations for war are sweeping away the welfare state. All the social and democratic achievements of the working class are at stake. We are already witnessing the dismantling of democracy and the growth of repression in numerous European countries. They want to use laws to expand the apparatus of repression to suppress protests against their war, and not only in Germany.

We can help develop and contribute to a powerful peace and anti-war movement.

In addition to a mass movement against the war, political leadership is also central. We must address the question of the lack of political leadership and its construction as well as the construction of an anti-war movement with mass character. The question of political leadership is still of central importance for humanity today. Such a leadership must ultimately link the struggle against imperialist war and social war with the question of capitalism. It is the great crisis of capitalism. Today in the form of the decline and exhaustion of the neo-liberal globalised model, which leads to war. In the case of Germany, the phase of stable development on the basis of cheap resources supplied by Russia has come to an end. But German imperialism needs Russian raw materials like it needs air to breathe. The recent aggressiveness of German imperialism is rooted in its willingness to go to war for Russian raw materials. The words of Jean Jaures, spoken on the eve of the First World War, are as true as ever: ‘Capitalism bears war within itself like clouds bear rain’.

The situation for the leadership is dramatic in view of the fact that today we are confronted with the fact that social-democratic parties, and the trade unions they control, have once again gone over to the war camp, as they did in 1914, and have taken the side of their own imperialism – today extended by their vassalage to the USA. But the same also applies to many former left-wing parties that have positioned themselves to the left of social democracy. Many of them, like the Scandinavian Left, have switched to the NATO camp or, like the German Left Party, are on their way there. At their most recent party conference in October 2024, they made decisions that lead them to accept NATO.

The Left Party in Germany has neither taken a decision in favour of an immediate ceasefire without preconditions nor called for an end to the economic war in the form of sanctions, which is leading to the deindustrialisation of Europe, particularly Germany. Millions of jobs are at risk as a result of the EU’s economic war against Russia. The Left Party in Germany says that a ceasefire must be conditional on the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. This is exactly the NATO narrative, which says that the war will quickly come to an end if the Russians withdraw from Ukraine. However, this is unrealistic and the killing will continue. Because one thing is clear today: NATO wants to escalate to a world war. That is why we need an immediate unconditional ceasefire. Everything must then be negotiated. This includes the territorial question and the right of self-determination of Ukrainians and Russians. A resolution of the European Parliament calls for the massive attack to be carried out deep into Russian territory. Parties of the European Left have agreed to this request. A representative of the German party Die Linke (The Left) also voted in favour of this resolution. The apparatus of  Die Linke did not criticise her. This is a declaration of bankruptcy. And the supposedly most ‘left-wing’  flank within the party Die Linke, the anti-capitalist left, provides a theoretical basis for the war, because Russian imperialism is the most aggressive.

Die Linke has also not taken a clear stand on Israel’s war of extermination against the Palestinians. Germany is at the forefront of the two wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. As the second largest supplier of weapons and financier of Netanyahu, behind the US government, German Chancellor Scholz is responsible for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people and for the escalation of the murderous Middle East war. Anyone who expects  Die Linke to take a clear position in favour of the Palestinian people’s struggle for the realisation of their right to self-determination, against occupation, land theft and repression, will not get it.  Die Linke would rather discuss the alleged anti-Semitism of the Left.  Die Linke is reversing the roles of perpetrator and victim. Israel is not the victim. Israel is pursuing a colonialist and racist policy towards the Palestinians, and this is the cause of the continuation and radicalisation of the conflict.

I speak as a member of the socialist wave Was Tun?! (What’s to be done?), which emerged from the debates in the  Die Linke, particularly around the question of war. We have fought within  Die Linke against the abandonment of left-wing anti-imperialist positions. Most of us have left  Die Linke, myself included.  I was a member of  Die Linke for 33 years and was a member of the party executive. Many of us joined the alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), while others are still fighting within  Die Linke. We continue to work as a current because we are convinced that a political force is needed that fights for an alternative beyond capitalism in the long term and, in the short term, works to build a broad anti-war movement. Many of us from Was Tun?! were actively involved in preparing the big demonstration on 3 October in Berlin. Was Tun?! members have been involved in the EVK from the start. We support the BSW in its clear stance against the war and in the fight against the social war. In some questions, we would like to see more programmatic clarity from the BSW.

Dear friends,

the  Social-Democratic (SPD)  Defence Minister Pistorius predicts that there will be a major war with Russia by the end of this decade. The leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) demands that Russia be given an ultimatum and hit hard with all weapons. Moscow should also be attacked with these weapons. This is madness and means a nuclear war.

With the BSW, a party has emerged that is clearly positioned against war, as well as against the social war. The successes of the BSW have also had an impact on the SPD. Under Chancellor Scholz, German social democracy has become an open war party, but it  faces opposition from the BSW and from the people who voted for the BSW. The BSW’s successes in the East German state elections are also making themselves felt internally in the SPD. In the state of Brandenburg, for example, the SPD had to accept a peace clause in the preamble to its coalition negotiations with the BSW, which is causing the leadership of  the SPD a great deal of headaches and is triggering gasps among the elites of the German bourgeoisie. The elites‘ hatred for Sahra Wagenknecht is enormous, and they express it in the media. Sahra Wagenknecht and the BSW say,  ’We promised during the election campaign that we would only participate in a state government that takes a position on the question of war and peace, which is so important to so many people and decisive for many of our voters.’ The same applies to social issues, such as health, good pensions, and the defence of freedom of expression. And it must be said that, under pressure from the BSW, peace-oriented forces are once again emerging within the SPD.

We say:

• End the wars in Ukraine and Palestine!
• Immediate and unconditional ceasefire, no arms deliveries to Israel and Ukraine!
• End the destructive sanctions policy against Russia!