Is World War Impending? here ♦ Warning of World War Has a Long Lineage here ♦
Is World War III Really “Impending”?
Red Flag/Bandera Roja keeps warning readers that World War III will happen sooner rather than later. I think this is a mistake.
For example, an article in V. 15 #9 said that the invasion of Lebanon is “another step in an unfolding third world war” and that the world is “teetering on the brink of nuclear confrontation.” A headline in the previous issue read, “The End of the Petrodollar Brings World War III Closer.” It says that the transition from US to Chinese domination “will not be peaceful. It will take World War III.”
I came across an old issue. Same talk of “impending war.” I also found the headline “War ‘Games’ in the South China Sea: US, Chinese Bosses Prepare for World War III.” The issue? V. 1 #14. From 2010, almost 15 years ago! We’ve been predicting that WWIII is “impending” for a decade and a half. Anyone who took our predictions seriously must have long since decided they’re bogus.
It is not at all certain that WWIII is just around the corner, and we shouldn’t predict it. Every time our prediction fails, we lose credibility, and this keeps happening.
This prediction has a long history. In 1951 the US Communist Party produced an influential petition to the UN called We Charge Genocide. In it they predicted the return of fascism and WWIII.
When our US predecessor, the Progressive Labor Party, split from the Communist Party in the 1960s, they took “impending WWIII” with them. I remember as a youth reading (in 1976!) an article in their newspaper arguing that the Star Wars movie was propaganda for the coming third world war.
We should end this harmful practice. When we are firmly convinced that WWIII is imminent we should say so. Until then, we should say only that the bosses might launch WWIII, but we can’t predict when or even if.
I believe the root cause of this practice is the hope that alarming WWIII predictions will shake up workers and lead them to join the party. As if the wars in Gaza, Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, etc. aren’t shocking and destructive enough.
Has seven decades of predicting impending WWIII worked? Do we know even one person who has joined ICWP because they have been convinced that WWIII is around the corner?
These predictions cause two emotions, fear (that war will happen) and guilt (for not doing anything about it).
Capitalism already inflicts enough fear and guilt on workers, and they don’t need any more. If we (like churches) make them feel fearful and guilty, they’ll simply start avoiding us, and certainly not join us.
—Comrade in Canada
Warning of World War Has a Long Lineage.
The comrade in Canada raises an interesting point.
“And, finally, the only war left for Prussia-Germany to wage,” Engels wrote in 1887, with the experience of the Paris Commune behind him, “will be a world war, a world war, moreover, of an extent the violence hitherto unimagined. The war will push us [communists] into the background for a while. But in the end of the tragedy you [capitalists/imperialists] will be ruined, and the victory of the proletariat will either be achieved or inevitable.”
The horrors of World War I ended with the triumph of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, accompanied by a massive revolutionary upsurge throughout Europe. The even greater horrors of World War II ended with the triumph of the communist-led revolution in China and a massive upsurge of anti-imperialist struggle worldwide.
In our PL days, we used to argue you [capitalists] may start your wars; we [the working class] will end them. I agree with the comrade that just warning of world war is counterproductive. The trouble with our PL days is that our commitment to the idea of communism (not socialism) was too superficial.
Also, although the comrade doesn’t spell this out, I think we can be mechanical and formulaic in our warnings. The capitalist class are ruthless. But, especially after the experiences of the Bolshevik and Chinese communist-led revolutions, they do fear the working class. The horror of nuclear war, the chaos and anger that climate change disasters will unleash, and the ineptitudes of bourgeois political leaders all influence their decisions. They suggest opportunities for us to build a vision of a revolutionary and new communist alternative.
Our job is not only to warn about the danger of World War III but to emphasize and describe how the on-going dismantling of the present system, the exhaustion and tragedy of the masses, will create conditions for the sweeping revolutionary struggles needed to create a new and healthy communist world. And to do the work of organizing in the factories, barracks, schools, and neighborhoods for the revolution that will allow us to build that new communist world on the ashes of the old.
—Comrade in the USA