Poem: There Will Be War Again here ♦ Letter: Need Communist Organizing in the Bosses’ Armed Forces here ♦
There Will Be War Again
Regino Pedroso, Nosotros, 1933 (adapted 2025)
There will be war again in Europe or Asia.
The United States will enter the conflict,
and we, the strong and the agile,
will be forced to leave the fields,
we will abandon the factories in droves
and become soldiers.
The song of the hammer will fall silent on the anvil.
fragmented by peoples, by flags, and by races,
they will take us to the barracks,
they will take us to battle.
but we will go unanimous to death!
There will be war again.
We will have prodigious harvests of riches
and harvests of dead.
There will be war again.
We will go to it, young people,
with the anthem on our lips…
But we will return — those who return! —
in long caravans of invalids.
Once again, we will fill the cities and workshops
with our songs.
We will have died abroad,
and we will return as slaves.
The same free flags will wave,
and we will remain slaves.
We will be victorious heroes,
but we will be hungry;
there will be bread and riches,
but we will be hungry!
Fertilized with the blood of brothers,
the cane will be tall and juicy; it will yield golden honey;
but we will be hungry.
The beautiful and great homeland will be there,
and we will wander…
We will continue as before, hungry,
—an immense defeated flock—
before the great canvases of twilight.
Until one day,
—now people without races or borders, only proletarians—
before the deaf anvils and dead engines,
we will ask ourselves with brutal anxiety
If we have fought for anything!
And on that day, learning from past wars,
we will once again set out
towards the battlefields
but this time as communist men and women
without nations, with the International on our lips
and communism in our minds and hearts.
With rifles in our hands, we will be soldiers again
but this time communist soldiers
forging with fire, courage, and love
the communist world that is our salvation.
And there we will rejoice, yes!
We have fought for something!
Need Communist Organizing in the Bosses’ Armed Forces
“Did you hear what the president of Colombia just said?” A friend texted me excitedly. “It reminded me of the discussion we had that time at your house.”
I hadn’t heard. So I did a quick search. In New York City for the UN General Assembly, President Petro of Colombia had spoken at a rally against the genocide in Gaza. He called on “soldiers of the army of the United States not to point their guns at people” and to “disobey the orders of Trump, obey the orders of humanity.”
My mind flashed back to that conversation with my friend many months ago. He is active in supporting Indigenous people’s struggles in Central America. Sometimes the repressive forces backed by US imperialism seem too powerful to defeat. Is revolution even possible? I had talked about the critical importance of organizing for communism inside the capitalist and imperialist militaries. And some of our comrades’ experiences doing communist military work.
I texted back that I had just seen Petro’s comments. That refusing to fight for US imperialism is a good thing. That some Israeli military personnel are refusing repeat deployments in Gaza. But that it’s still a jump from “refusal” or “resistance” to the communist revolution we need.
My friend reads Red Flag and respects our party. Many other people respect him— including me. We have our differences. But as contradictions sharpen globally and locally, I think many like him will be taking communist ideas more seriously. Our party must be ready for them.
—Older comrade
Read our pamphlet: SOLDIERS, SAILORS, MARINES, CRUCIAL FOR COMMUNIST WORKERS’ REVOLUTION here