Soldiers: Key for Communist Revolution here ⊠Israeli Refuseniks Should Fight for the Working Class here âŠ
The rebellion on the battleship Potemkin, led by revolutionary sailors, played a leading role in the 1905 revolution and paved the way for the success of the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Soldiers: Key for Communist Revolution
(Speech at the International Communist Conference, December 2023)
Raise your hand if you believe that one day weapons will be needed to overthrow the capitalists! (Many hands up) Those who know how to use a rifle or a machine gun, keep your hands up! (Fewer hands)
I never thought I would wear a soldierâs uniform, especially an US soldierâs uniform.
So it was a big surprise when ICWP asked me if I was willing to join the US military to do communist political work. With comrades, I had distributed Red Flag to soldiers, but never thought that I could be one.
I remember the first time they asked me. After a good speech about the importance of military work and the impact of having soldiers alongside workers, the only thing I could think at that moment was âF*** that!â
They were comrades that I respected a lot, so I just said Iâd think about it. I hoped that would be the end of it. But every time I participated in something with ICWP, someone was talking to me about the idea. They started giving me literature from Russia, China, and Vietnam, that highlighted the importance of having soldiers by your side during revolutionary movements.
Over time, the idea began to grow in my mind. More and more I found myself thinking about military work, but I still wasnât convinced. I was about to graduate from a community college, I had a good job. I didnât see the point in leaving the âgood lifeâ I had built for myself.
What finally convinced me was meeting with other comrades who had joined the army and done the work. Listening to their experiences and seeing that there is a long history in our party of work to advance communist ideas in the military, I was inspired.
To be honest, meeting them helped me with my fear. I saw myself in them. They were exactly like me, students and workers equally tired of the capitalist system. Thatâs when I decided that if I was willing to fight for communism, I would probably have to fight one day and if I was really willing to fight, I couldnât be afraid of the work that needed to be done.
Since I decided that I was willing to do what I could to fight for a communist world, I only had to do the hardest thing⊠ask my mother for permission. I mention that so that parents can begin to struggle with themselves with the idea of their son or daughter joining the armed forces to do communist military work. Although my parents werenât very happy about having their son in the army during wartime, they gave me all their support, and that was a great help to me.
As you can imagine, I wasnât able to join the army and immediately start talking to anyone and everyone about communist ideas. Itâs a process. But one of the things that gave me confidence was a question a sergeant asked us.
We were a group of about thirty. The sergeant asked, âWhoâs here because youâre patriotic?â Only three or four raised their hands. He asked, âWhoâs here because you need money for college?â About fifteen raised their hands.
âOK. Whoâs here because you need to work to support your family?â Another ten raised their hands. And finally, âWhoâs here because it was your only option?â One or two raised their hands.
The sergeant wanted to teach us that although we all had our own reasons for being there, we were a team. But what I understood at that moment is that capitalism had created a ton of misery in the form of unemployment, legal and of course monetary punishment to channel all these people into the armed forces.
During my time in the army, I spoke to many soldiers about communism and each of them responded well. They always had questions, and many took our newspaper Red Flag.
My favorite anecdote was one time during military training, While my group was waiting for our turn, I began to explain a little about dialectics to some fellow soldiers. While I was explaining negation, I noticed that the rest of the group came closer and began to pay attention. No one said anything, but they were listening. I had to stop when it was our turn and thatâs where it ended.
I didnât think any more about that conversation. During free time at the end of the day, I saw a group of ten soldiers walking towards me. They were from the group I had been doing the training with. One said, âWeâve been looking for you. We want to hear more about dialectical materialism.â
I hope that after listening to my story youâll start to think about whether youâre willing to do your part in the military work so that we can win a communist world one day. I also hope youâll struggle with friends of military age to think about doing this type of work.
Raise your hand if youâre ready to join the military! (Four or five young people raised their hands. The ICWP collective that they are a part of is following up with them.)
Read our pamphletÂ
“Soldiers, Sailors, Marines: Crucial to a Communist Workersâ Revolution” here
Israeli Refuseniks Should Fight for the Working Class
January 23, 2024: Eighteen-year-old Tal Mitnick has gone back to prison to serve a second thirty-day sentence for refusing Israel âDefenseâ Forces (IDF) enlistment. He completed his first sentence on Friday and refused induction again today. He is the first conscientious objector imprisoned since October 7.
Even Israeli government censorship hasnât prevented reports of its fascist atrocities from spreading. And of IDFâs deadly incompetence, including its shooting of three Israeli hostages waving a white flag. Tal Mitnick was already active in a support network of Israelis who refuse to enlist or participate in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Israel has âuniversalâ military conscription, but most non-Jews are exempted. Sixty-nine percent of Jewish men and fifty-six percent of Jewish women are drafted at age eighteen. Most arenât trained as fighters. All are trained to conform to Zionist ideology. The ultra-orthodox and absolute pacifists are legally exempt. But most refuseniks get shorter sentences than Tal.
Talâs refusal, the publicity around it, and the harsher sentence show both growing opposition to the genocidal assault on Gaza and the intensifying fascism of the Israeli ruling class.
Draft Resistance or Revolt?
Jews in Israel and in the US have deep connections (despite significant political differences). Draft resistance in Israel today recalls opposition to the US draft during its war on Vietnam. For example, young people in Israel are publicly burning their draft letters as US draft resisters did in the 1960s.
Hundreds of thousands of US youths resisted the draft. Tens of thousands fled to Canada and Sweden. But the ruling class drafted other young men, overwhelmingly working-class and disproportionately Black or Hispanic, who couldnât afford to escape it by attending college full-time.
The genocidal war on Vietnam continued until rebellion within the armed forces made it impossible for the US to field a reliable military. Soldiers refused to obey orders and even killed their officers to avoid combat. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese masses continued to fight fiercely. US imperialism was forced to withdraw.
The rulers never fight their own wars. Instead, they arm working-class youth (often the most oppressed) and send them to kill their class siblings. But they donât always comply!
In a revolutionary situation, soldiers and sailors can either support the rulers in murdering other workers or join with their class siblings to overthrow the rulers.
The collapse of the Tzarist army and navy in full-scale armed mutiny was crucial to the proletarian revolution in Russia at the end of World War I. Bolsheviks mobilized soldiers in the barracks and sailors in the ships to join with urban workers to topple the Tzar and seize state power. No revolutionary movement can succeed without taking seriously the role of soldiers and sailors.
If Tal Mitnick and his comrades want to end the Zionist military occupation and genocide in Palestine, they need to look at root causes and at strategy. Only a revolutionary communist movement uniting all workers in Palestine/Israel can achieve that goal. If you agree, join the International Communist Workersâ Party! Together we will plan to organize IDF soldiers to turn the guns on the fascist rulers and fight for communism