SEATTLE (USA), October 4— “Of course this is part of preparing for more war,” said a friend. She had just learned that JetZero, a California-based startup company, is building a blended wing-body jet. The company has broken ground on a huge plant in North Carolina. Its first flight is planned for some time in 2027.
JetZero emphasizes all the money that can be saved on fuel from this new jet because of its shape. However, aeronautic and economic analyst Bjorn Fehrm says the promised fuel savings have yet to be proven. He sees the aircraft as a better fit for the US Air Force, which awarded JetZero a $235 million dollar contract in 2023.
Our friend is right. War is what they are really planning for. All technology being designed and manufactured these days is for war. Billions of dollars are being slashed from the budgets of important medical research, education, and culture in the US and diverted to prepare for world war.
Friends who work at Boeing were angry when they heard this. One said, “I am glad you are writing about this. We need to know about these war preparations.”
Workers produce everything sold by the capitalists. Workers build the factories and workers are forced to fight their wars. And those workers and soldiers have always fought back and rebelled.
The US had to get out of Vietnam because its soldiers and sailors organized rebellions and killed their own officers while the Vietnamese masses continued to fight US imperialism fiercely.
Mass rebellion by sailors on the Russian battleship Potemkin in 1905 sparked a revolution. That revolution was defeated. But only twelve years later, soldiers, sailors, and workers in war industry led the 1917 revolution that ended the tsar’s rule.
Irish workers came to the US in the 1800s to escape famine and persecution from the English. When they arrived, many were immediately inducted into the US army and sent to fight in the Mexican-American War. Recognizing that Mexican workers were fighting against the same persecution and exploitation, hundreds deserted and joined them. These soldiers are considered heroes in Mexico and Ireland.
The unions at Boeing continue to be concerned only with bread-and-butter issues such as pay and retirement benefits. But industrial workers can wield great power because of their importance to the war industry.
Internationally, many industrial workers are angry about the ties to war. Dockworkers’ unions in France, Greece, Basque Country, Turkey, Morocco, and Italy are calling an international day of action on October 30 against war and militarization. They are demanding an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and the US-Israeli wars of aggression in the Middle East, including Iran. Together, these unions represent workers at forty ports.
We should seek ways to reach these militant anti-imperialists with our call to mobilize masses for communism. The capitalist ruling class will inevitably turn to war to increase their domination of the world’s resources and our labor. These wars will never end until capitalism and all of class society is wiped off the face of the earth.
Red Flag is full of stories of the working class fighting battles all over the world. We support them and we must organize more rebellions in the US.
We must prepare now to eventually destroy capitalism and replace it with a communist world where there will be no nations, no exploitation, no wage slavery, no bosses! We invite you to join us.
Read Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Crucial to a Communist Workers’ Revolution here