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      OUR HERITAGE


      Excerpts from the article “The Struggle Against New Imperialistic Wars” written in 1922
      by CLARA ZETKIN
      German Marxist theorist, activist, and organizer of the first International Women’s Day in 1911

      The danger of war is increasing rather than decreasing. But even among the bourgeoisie there is opposition to war. Commercial capital cannot find its markets in other countries without first sending armies to these countries, but financial capital can exploit its forces only through the political dominance in the countries in which it invests its money, and this can only be got by military conquests, and therefore the policy of the governments is for war all the time. War shows the crisis of capitalism. As war becomes a permanent institution, it exposes the critical character of the position in which capitalism finds itself, and this proves the necessity for the abolition of the present ruling powers and the creation of a new society...

      The working class must get all the means of life into its hands, and this must be preceded by getting the means of death out of the hands of the capitalist class. This is only to be got by struggle. The class struggle alone can be a struggle against war. Pacificism is not a struggle against war...

      We must reconstruct the working class state at the expense of capitalism. Capitalism is doomed. Our struggle and our tactics must be directed towards the great goal, to organize the powers of the workers; to inspire them for the struggle and to develop it, so that when capitalism calls again for war the working class of the world can answer with a call for world revolution.





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