I have a friend who's a actually becoming more and more leftist and lately even communist but not yet fully Marxist. I'm trying to help him shed lib ideas. He specifically asked me if we could have a talk at some point on war. He's confused about the war propaganda. Like just a vague "Haven't things changed maybe because of Russia? Maybe we in Europe need to boost defense now etc."
I want to introduce him to Lenins Idea of revolutionary defeatism, because I think it applies to our historical moment. A revolutionary can not but desire the defeat of his imperialist government. Also Liebknechts line:"the main enemy is at home". The main task for leftists in imperial core countries is to fight the imperialists we can actually effect: the ones right here. You can be happy about any success of comrades in Russia fighting their oligarchy, but don't get roped into supporting western oligarchs' NATO wars.
We both care about trans and queer issues a lot, so he will bring up fears of evil Russia conquering part of Europe and rolling back queer rights. I can contextualize by bringing up the moral track record of western countries (like the ongoing genocide). But is there a more direct answer? Also just in general, I'm not sure if I'm missing an obvious angle or argument. Anything you would definitely mention on war? Suggested reading?
I might have to get into the specifics, of how the war developed historically, but there will be a lot of propaganda to unravel, so ideally, I'm looking for a concise argument, that can pierce the propaganda and illuminate the truth. Hope that's not too much to ask ;)
Capitalism requires constant growth to survive, yet the entire world is now part of a capitalist economy. The only way for markets to expand is to break things so capitalists can profit from rebuilding. War becomes very profitable then, because all the destruction creates new opportunities that wouldn't have been available before. First and obviously, weapons manufacturing has been making massive profits from Ukraine. Secondly point to Trump's mineral deal, where the government was so weak it agreed to humiliating terms that give away 50% of their natural resources for more military support. Similarly, Ukraine was made to open up it's agricultural land to big corporations to sell. Post socialist states are the biggest targets for war profiteering because often they have some government control over key economic resources, which capitalists would love to open to the private sector. Iraq is another example of destroying a country so the capitalists can get fire sale prices.