Ian Dale is a journalist and radio show host on LBC. He defends the West’s response to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. He defends the killing and destruction in Ukraine and he defends the military assistance the West have given Ukraine over the last three years. Furthermore, he pushes propaganda that it is all the fault of evil Mr Putin and nothing to do with NATO.
Several callers to his show are fed up with his belligerent attitude to the war and the million deaths that have occurred there. So once in a while a caller suggests that if he is so in favour of the war in Ukraine, he should leave the safety of his chair and go out to fight (LBC 16/2/2025).
Dale’s response is to dismiss this as a fatuous argument. Why is it a fatuous argument? Surely those who want war should be the first to the recruiting office. Why leave it for others to do the fighting and killing. Isn’t it just cowardice? After all, why doesn’t Dale want to fight? Why is he leaving it to workers in Ukraine and Russia to kill each other? He gives no reasons to the caller to his show and dismissing him out of hand is no reason at all
And then there is the generals. They are keen to send workers to die for the capitalist class although they wrap it up in nationalist jingoism of fighting for “king and country”. A former Nato commander, General Sir Richard Shirreff, has said Britain must prepare for war with Russia and should consider bringing back conscription (The i Paper, February 21 2025). All from the safety of his retirement home in Tunbridge Wells.
Socialists do not want any workers to fight in capitalism’s wars. Not Dale or other members of the working class, Socialists say that workers in Russia and Ukraine have identical class interests. And one of those interests is not to get involved in the disputes between capitalists and their politicians. The last thing socialists want is for workers to kill each other. We want them to become socialists and to democratically and politically abolish capitalism and establish socialism.
War is divisive. It divides the working class when there should be class unity. We suggest to workers do not get involved in the interests of the capitalist class and their politicians like Keir Starmer, one of many Labour leaders who have actively supported wars in the past with detrimental consequences for the working class.
Of course, not all capitalists want to go to war. At the beginning of the Crimean War (185) industrialists and their free market supporters like Richard Cobden and John Bright were against the war due to the heavy burden of taxation while the landed aristocracy and workers were calling for war against Russia. There were capitalists who opposed the First World War and powerful forces within the ruling class, like Lord Halifax, who opposed Churchill and the war with Germany in 1939.
Starmer recently led a charge of European leaders to fill what is left of Ukraine with military personal. He said that he is “willing and ready” to put British “boots on the ground” in Ukraine. He voiced this war mongering in the conservative ‘Daily Telegraph’. He wanted Britain to act as “bridge” between the United States and Europe. It is doubtful if such a bridge is forthcoming. Trump’s bridge goes towards the Kremlin.
Of course, Starmer would be leading from the rear in the safety of the Downing Street bunker. Starmer, like Dale will not be doing the killing. Yet he received political resistance of parachuting a European army into the Ukraine. The German leader was not impressed at Starmer’s naivety and the Italian leader tilts towards Putin as does the German AfD who are expected to do well in the forthcoming German elections.
Starmer took his war proposals to Trump in the USA having but British capitalism on a war footing by slashing the International Aid Grant to boost spending on a potential future war with Russia. At their meeting in Washington, Trump did not give any assurance of the US acting as a “military backstop” . Trump wants access to the minerals in Ukraine and unlike Starmer, he is a capitalist with a capitalist’s instincts for a deal. Minerals, oil and gas for the US is Trump’s objective.
Wars have nothing to do with the security of the working class. Workers have nothing to sell but their labour power or ability to work. They own no trade routes, no minerals, and have no strategic points of interest to defend. The security Starmer is talking about is the security of the private ownership of the means of production and distribution and the capitalist interest in trading on the world market without interference of other countries.
Wars are fought over raw resources of which there is plenty in Ukraine, lithium in particular. Trump now wants the money back as he sees Ukraine’s fight as a lost cause. As Mining.com noted:
“Various reports have suggested that Ukraine has mineral deposits worth upwards of $10 trillion…Rare earth elements — which play a key role in Defense and other high-tech industries — have become a particular focus for Trump as he seeks to secure supplies of critical minerals. The President said [on the 3rd February] he wanted the equivalent of $500 billion worth of rare earth”.
Trump demands the rare-earth minerals from Ukraine for what it has received in weapons whereas. Ukraine thought the arms were free gifts not a loan with strings attached. This, like all capitalist wars, was not about ‘freedom’, ‘democracy and sovereignty’ but a battle for raw materials, trade routes and spheres of strategic importance; these are the only concerns of the capitalist class and its politicians. Russia now has a buffer zone in the Donbas between itself and Western Ukraine. It also has access to the vast mineral deposits in the Donbas region. The same applies to the Crimea with the added importance for the Russian naval fleet in the region.
Workers should remember this from Marx “Workers have no country”. And in particular, they have no country to die and kill for.
This is what we said about war and the working class in our Manifesto of 1914 and 1939. It remains just as pertinent today:
‘Having no quarrel with the working class of any country we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overflow of Capitalism and the triumph of Socialism’.
