The Left has a long and proud history of anti-militarism. One cannot help but look back in admiration at the American Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs who went to prison after making an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio in 1918. Meanwhile in Germany Rosa Luxemburg’s “Junius” pamphlet, written during that same bloody decade, is one of the most powerful anti-war essays ever written.
But while we can take pride in the courage of such figures as Debs and Luxemburg, we also know that there are times when we must support the use of arms — either to win a war or prevent one. And the Left has a proud tradition there as well. For example, while capitalist politicans in France and Britain called for non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War, all the main factions of the Left, from anarchists to Communists rallied to the defence of the Republic and against fascism.
During the Second World War it was right for the Labour Party to support a massive increase in Britain’s defence spending. Without that effort, Germany would have won the war. And when that war was over and the threat of Soviet expansion seemed quite real, the Labour Party was again right to support the formation of NATO.
In the last several years the world has become a much more dangerous place thanks in large part to Vladimir Putin and the fascist regime he heads. Putin made a name for himself by unleashing a merciless assault on Chechnya, not hesitating to stage faked attacks in Moscow to whip up support for his war. In 2008, his forces stormed into Georgia, seizing a fifth of the country’s territory, which it holds to this day. And in 2014, his troops launched a war of aggression against Ukraine, a war which grew massively more dangerous with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Nearly all governments in Europe, ranging from the Social Democratic ones to those on the right, are now in agreement that it is time to ramp up the continent’s defences against the Russian threat. The countries most strongly supporting that change are those facing the most immediate danger, including Poland, Finland and the Baltic states.
As Donald Trump has embraced the foreign policy of “America First”, deliberately choosing to echo the movement led by pro-Nazi figures including Charles Lindbergh, the threat to Europe has grown much greater and more immediate. Europe needs to prepare for a world in which the United States has withdrawn back into itself.
It is 1940 and blitzkrieg has been unleashed.
There are those in Europe who oppose increases in defence spending. These include the government of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and the neo-fascist Alternative für Deutschland. Most of the European Left already understands that increases in defence spending are essential to ensure the continent’s security — and to deter Putin from further aggression.
It can be argued — and has been argued in this newspaper — that a massive increase in defence spending is not needed to provide aid to Ukraine. But this misses the point. It is not just about defending Ukraine today; it is about defending Europe tomorrow. Thanks to Donald Trump, Putin is feeling more confident than before, his appetite for war undiminished and perhaps even growing.
For everything there is a season. There is a time to condemn military action, and it was brave and correct for Eugene Debs and Rosa Luxemburg to do so during the First World War. But there is also a time when, faced with an aggressive threat like the fascist regime of Putin, the Left must stand firm and rally behind the slogan made famous during the Spanish Civil War: No pasarán!
This article appears in this week’s edition of Solidarity.