We are publishing a statement by militants in Athens who have supported fundraising for deserters and war refugees. In this text you can read about their motivations for supporting desertion.
Deserters of all nationalities unite!
When the leaders speak of peace
The common folk knows
That war is coming.
When the leaders curse war
The mobilization order is already written out.
Those at the top say: peace and war
Are of different substance.
But their peace and their war
Are like wind and storm.
War grows from their peace
Like son from his mother
He bears her frightful features.
Their war kills
Whatever their peace
Has left over.
On the wall was chalked:
They want war
The man who wrote it
Has already fallen.
Those at the top say:
This way to glory.
Those down below say:
This way to the grave.
From A German War Primer
Bertolt Brecht
For the last years, war and the danger of its generalization has been constantly around. We are painfully aware of it from the cuts in our wages, be they the result, of the rise of the prices of energy and imported goods or the increase in war budgets.
Especially these days, the war-mongering in Europe has reached a fever pitch. The frenetic rearmament of Europe (see ReArm Europe) will aggravate the present situation of the working class in all European countries, but for countries like Greece the consequences will be tragic. The already tottering welfare state will disappear, leaving the proletariat with incalculable losses. The 28 billion euros that the Greek state is planning to pay over the next 12 years to the Israeli war industrial complex to purchase weapons systems will bring new austerity cuts, adding to the losses of the last 15 years.
The armaments gurus tell us that there is no way to defend the continent without cuts in social spending. Having dealt a series of blows to the post-war welfare state, capital and its state have decided that it is time to abolish it, at the same time as the bourgeoisie is reaping record profits from a defence industry working at full capacity.
As the leftist political spheres are dominated by anti-imperialist rhetoric that supports one state as the “good” one against the “bad” one, we view wars as primarily the exporting of class contradictions within each nation to the sphere of national warfare, with the ultimate goal of forging national unity.
For us, the world is divided into classes, not into races or camps: we refuse to demonise peoples and countries and pledge no allegiance to nationalism of any kind. We have been taught that the interests of the class of the multinational proletariat cannot be lined up behind the bourgeoisie classes of one or another state or country, no matter how much nationalist anti-imperialist jugglery divides them into “immediate” and “long-term” and promotes orderly alliances on the basis of a supposedly linear course, starting with “national liberation” and “national integration” and leading… later to the “hegemony” of the class within the independent nation-state. Historically, the nation-state formations that emerged after the “victory” of the national liberation and anti-colonial struggles were the new prisons of the nationalized proletariat.
People should be united on the basis of their social condition, not their identity. This old world needs to disappear, and there cannot be any possibility whatsoever for us to retain these deadly junk of nations, nationalities, races and religions. We have to break up the framework of the nation-state, with its minorities and majorities, and replace it everywhere with communes and councils.
But until that moment comes, we stand with all those who do not take up arms and refuse to become food for the cannons of the bourgeoisie and to murder their class brothers and sisters.
Fully aware that the reasons for the act of desertion can be many and contradictory, we stand with the thousands of Ukrainians who are crossing the border to avoid conscription, with the Russians who are hiding from the draft, with the Palestinians who, in the face of the endless destruction unleashed on them by the Israeli state, have found the courage to demonstrate against Hamas and demand an end to the war. We stand with all those of the Israeli proletariat who are protesting and demanding an end to the collective punishment and weaponization of the starvation of the Palestinian proletariat. We stand with those of the Israeli working class who demand an end to the relentless assault on Gaza, an end to apartheid, an end to the occupation.
WE SUPPORT DESERTERS because
- Action of desertion has a significant impact on sabotaging the war machine of the capitalist state, which in turn affects its capacity to conduct military operations.
- Despite the state propaganda, leaving the battlefield and refusing to participate in massacring the working class is a courageous act. The consequences of such a choice are devastating, as those who leave their posts are subjected to persecution, social stigmatization, imprisonment and in some cases execution. Stopping war, however, is only possible if these practices are implemented on a mass scale within a broader process of class conflict. Sadly, even within the anti-capitalist milieu, there are many individuals and groups who try to portray desertion as either a futile or absurd act, or who often argue that participation in the war is a prerequisite for “liberation” from the occupying power.
- It is crucial to establish networks on an international scale to provide material assistance to deserters. The issue is to ensure the conditions that would guarantee their safety in the act of desertion. In fact, one of the key issues at stake in class struggles within countries at war is the demand for the opening of borders, including for deserters. It is also necessary to provide information on safe methods of escape and communication with the proletarians of other countries which are not at war and to which deserters could take refuge.
- We don’t want to die to save a nation. We stand for mass desertions and fraternisation of all sides at the front, while, back home, engaging in autonomous proletarian struggle, sabotage and strikes in the factories of armaments, railway stations and ports!
We support in every way the deserters from all fronts!
The proletariat has no country!
Down with the armies, down with the war!
No to the deployment of european or any troops at all in Ukraine!
Some Internationalist Communists from Athens
27-3-2025