Millions of people around the world are taking to the streets to protest against the genocide in Gaza and the threat of world war. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party—SGP), in close cooperation with our comrades in France, the UK, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia, is participating in the European elections to give voice to this opposition and develop it into a powerful movement against the root cause of war, capitalism.

By supporting the genocide in Gaza, all of the imperialist powers are clearly demonstrating that they are prepared to commit unspeakable crimes in defense of their global economic interests and to subjugate the oil-rich Middle East. They are reacting to the mass opposition to the bloodbath by abolishing basic democratic rights and agitating against refugees and immigrants. In Germany, peaceful demonstrations are being banned and entire districts are being put under siege.

This shows one thing above all: It is not possible to prevent a third world war and defend democratic rights and past social gains by appealing to the government. The interests of the vast majority of the people can no longer be reconciled with the greed for profits and imperialist appetites of the ruling class. To end war and inequality, the working class must intervene independently into the political process, break the power of the banks and corporations, and place them under democratic control.

That is our goal. We are building an international party that will unite workers around the world in the struggle against capitalism and war: the Fourth International. If you are eligible to vote in Germany, sign up now to support our participation in the European elections. Make as generous a donation as you can to our election fund and register to actively support our campaign and build the SGP as the new mass party of the working class.

Stop the genocide in Gaza!

The radical right-wing Netanyahu government is committing genocide in Gaza. The entire population is being held hostage, starved, terrorized and subjected to constant bombing. According to official figures, 6,000 children were killed just in the first 60 days of the war, 10 times as many as in the more than 600 days of the war in Ukraine. The forced displacement of three quarters of the population and the systematic destruction of the healthcare system will lead to the severest of epidemics among the 2.2 million Palestinians. According to the United Nations, 600,000 people face starvation.

This indescribable cruelty is not the responsibility of the Netanyahu regime alone. It is the direct result of the intervention of the imperialist powers, especially Germany and the US, which support and arm Israel. Chancellor Scholz and President Biden regard the elimination of the Palestinians as a prerequisite for waging a more comprehensive war against Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as against Syria and Iran. As in the illegal wars of aggression against Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, the imperialist powers are pursuing the goal of bringing the oil-rich region under their control.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the security of Jewish people in the region, who are themselves endangered by this imperialist policy. It is the height of cynicism for the German government to seek to justify its great power policies and support for genocide by claiming to be fighting against antisemitism.

It is not the millions of workers and young people who express solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians that are taking up the fascist traditions of the Nazis, but the ruling class, which is once again rolling out German tanks against Russia, declaring genocide to be state policy, and arming the Bundeswehr to an extent not seen since Hitler.

In order to suppress the growing opposition to this hated policy, the coalition government is donning the moth-eaten garb of fascism. It is inciting hatred against refugees and immigrants and abolishing basic democratic rights. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is being courted and right-wing extremist terror networks among the police and the secret services and within the army are being shielded by the highest authorities.

But the toxic nationalism of those in power is countered by a powerful international movement. Millions of people around the world have demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza in recent weeks, despite the propaganda from the politicians and the media, and have indicated how strong and globally networked the working class is today. This movement must be expanded and armed with a socialist perspective.

We demand:

• An immediate end to the siege of Gaza and the complete demobilization of the Israeli army!
• The holding of Netanyahu, Biden, Scholz and all other war criminals accountable for their war crimes!
• The fight to unite Palestinian and Israeli workers in the struggle for a common secular and socialist state!

No to World War III!

The genocide in Gaza is another front in an expanding global war. In Ukraine, NATO is waging a proxy war against Russia; in the Middle East, it is targeting Iran and its allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon; and in the vast Indo-Pacific region, the US and its allies are preparing for war against China. As in 1914 and 1939, world war is about the redivision of the world between the imperialist powers.

Germany’s ruling class is directly following on from its war aims in the two world wars of the last century. It wants to bring Ukraine under its control and subjugate Russia in order to appropriate the enormous natural resources in the east. While it reduced Europe to rubble 80 years ago, it is now threatening the nuclear annihilation of the entire planet.

Imperialist militarism is not only directed against Russia and China. The old enmities between the NATO powers are also resurfacing—between Germany and the US, but also within Europe. As Berlin attempts to organize Europe under its leadership, conflicts with France, Britain and Poland are growing.

The propaganda used to justify the return of German militarism is taking on ever more absurd forms. The government’s support for the genocide in Gaza shows that its talk of fighting for “freedom” and “peace” in Ukraine is mendacious through and through. It justifies the worst Israeli war crimes by referring to “German responsibility” for the crimes of the Nazis, while in Ukraine it works with the political heirs of Nazi collaborators as well as with avowed fascists and antisemites to once again wage war against Russia, where millions fell victim to the Nazi war of extermination. “German responsibility” for the 27 million murdered Soviet citizens is never even mentioned.

The only legitimate conclusion that can be drawn from Nazi Germany’s war of extermination and the Holocaust, the worst crimes in human history, is this: The working class must never again permit war and fascism, and must eliminate once and for all the root of this horror, capitalism.

The fight against war must also be directed against the Putin regime. NATO provoked the war in Ukraine, but that does not justify Russia’s reactionary military action. The Putin regime represents the interests of the Russian oligarchs, who plundered the socialised property of the Soviet Union and are now outraged that the imperialist robbers want to seize it for themselves.

We demand:

• Stop the NATO war in Ukraine! No sanctions or arms deliveries!
• Two world wars are enough! Stop the warmongers!
• €100 billion for daycare centers, schools and hospitals, instead of for armaments and war!

For a united, socialist Europe!

Every area of social life is subordinated to pro-war policies and the profit greed of the rich. While arms spending is going through the roof, the healthcare budget was cut by two thirds last year in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Further cuts are now being prepared. Horrendous inflation is decimating workers’ wages and hundreds of thousands are losing their jobs.

Millions of people are already living in abject poverty and have to struggle every day to make ends meet. In Germany, the proportion of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion has risen by 3.6 percentage points in the last three years, according to the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat), and now stands at 20.9 percent, or 17.3 million people. The EU average is 21.7 percent. At the same time, the wealth of the super-rich is exploding. More than a million lives have been sacrificed in Europe alone during the coronavirus pandemic in order to avoid diminishing profits.

Resistance to social devastation is growing throughout Europe. The continent is experiencing an upswing in strikes and protests. Workers in all countries are making similar demands and linking them to the fight against war. These struggles cannot be resolved within the national and trade union framework, through negotiations with one capitalist government or another. They require an international perspective.

The genocide in Gaza has brought millions to their feet across Europe.

In recent weeks in London alone millions have demonstrated against Israel’s war. Hundreds of thousands have also taken to the streets in France, Spain and Germany. But the support of all of the governments for genocide in Gaza and repression of opposition to it shows that workers cannot win their demands without toppling the governments and taking power.

Unions play a central role in defending the governments and suppressing workers’ struggles. They isolate workers’ struggles by country and sector and enforce cuts in real wages and layoffs. The SGP supports the formation of independent rank-and-file action committees that speak for the shop floor, not the bureaucrats, and unite workers across all borders in the struggle against cuts and war. These committees must take the direction of strikes into their own hands. They must be developed as new bodies through which workers can engage in a political struggle for power.

Such a movement must be directed against capitalism itself. The Ukraine war has shown that the peaceful unification of Europe under capitalist conditions is a reactionary illusion. The European Union (EU) is arming itself to the teeth, waging war against Russia, supporting the genocide in Gaza and serving as an instrument for attacks on workers across the continent.

The reactionary character of the EU is particularly evident in its refugee policy. “Fortress Europe,” which is being continually expanded with walls, barbed wire fences and inhumane detention camps at the external borders, is bringing death to thousands of refugees. According to official figures, more than 28,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean in the last 10 years. This is a deliberate policy of murder to deter refugees fleeing war, destruction and misery. At the same time, the politicians and the media are trying to make refugees and immigrants the scapegoats for the deep social crisis and strengthen far-right and fascist forces.

Workers must counterpose to the EU of the banks and corporations, of mass death and war, the perspective of a United Socialist States of Europe. War cannot be ended, human lives cannot be saved and wages cannot be defended without breaking the power of the banks and corporations and placing them under democratic control. Instead of shooting at each other, workers in Russia and Ukraine and workers across Europe must fight with this perspective against the warmongers at home.

We demand:

• Lives instead of profits!
• Defend all jobs! 30 percent more pay for all and automatic compensation for inflation!
• Expropriate the rent sharks, energy companies and war profiteers without compensation!
• Against the EU of the banks and corporations, of mass death and war! For the United Socialist States of Europe!

Workers need their own party!

These demands cannot be realized by appealing to the ruling class and its political parties, because all capitalist parties stand behind war and social devastation. On October 12, all members of the Bundestag (federal parliament), from the AfD to the Left Party, backed Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians.

The Greens, who speak for wealthy middle-class layers like no other party, were pacifists for as long as this was in line with Germany’s great power interests. Since they helped organize Germany’s first war of aggression since Hitler, against Serbia in 1998, they have become the most aggressive militarists.

The Left Party also supports the imposition of sanctions against Russia and the government’s pro-war policies. Emerging from the Stalinist state party in the former East Germany, this party embodies the concentrated contempt of the state apparatus and its oppression of ordinary workers. Wherever it governs or co-governs at the state level, it implements the same reactionary policies as the other capitalist parties. Its sister parties—Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain—have pushed through the EU’s austerity measures and war policies in the face of massive resistance.

Sahra Wagenknecht’s split-off from the Left Party has nothing to do with anti-militarism. Her group criticizes the war against Russia exclusively from a nationalist standpoint and holds that German-European rearmament must be organized more independently of the US. It fully supports the genocide in Gaza.

Wagenknecht’s aim is to stabilize the rotten capitalist system and channel the growing opposition to it along nationalist lines.

Only the SGP fights consistently against militarism, fascism and war. We do not seek lucrative posts, but use the European elections and seats in parliament to oppose the war parties. We warn of the enormous dangers and organize resistance against them.

In doing so, we base ourselves on the perspective of international socialism. As the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, we stand in the traditions of Marxism—of August Bebel, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, of the Russian October Revolution and of Leon Trotsky’s Left Opposition to Stalinism.

It is time to take action and build a new mass socialist party that will eliminate capitalist evils once and for all. We call on everyone who does not want to put up with the genocidal war policy, the obscene social inequality, the destruction of the health and education systems and the devastation of our planet: Share this statement as widely as possible. If you are eligible, sign up to support the candidacy of the SGP today and become a member of our party!