In his book, The Conquest of Violence, the anarcho-pacifist Bart de Ligt writes about the necessity of anti-militarist action by trade unionists. He notes that the modern capitalist system requires imperialism and forever wars to function properly. Therefore, in the interest of solidarity and bleeding out the war machine, workers must strike at necessary locations of production & distribution that keep it running. Though Ligt is by no means unique in this analysis – it was said much more famously by Lenin – he is among the few to discuss the power of the shop floor in fighting imperialism.

One of the things syndicalist theory has lacked greatly is a theory of anti-imperialist methods. Ligt puts forward a good first start, but tragically neither he nor others have put forward anything further. And in his own time, this was more than likely an apt theory. After all, the capitalist system had not yet formally globalized, which meant that the war machine in one country was more or less isolated from the war machines of the others. It’s allies, sure, could help pick up production and distribution, but this was only doable on the grounds that the local bourgeoisie and their politicians felt that maintaining the war machine of one country was necessary for them to do. Even then, if workers were militant and organized enough, this would become a challenge.

And this is the basis of contemporary syndicalist anti-imperialism that we have to work with now. Though automation and globalism have changed the way war works, the fundamental idea Ligt espoused remains the same. Capital is fueled with the blood of the Third World, and then lubricated with the blood of the First World. Because capitalism can never hit full automation, it is impossible for the entirety of the war process to be without human input. Of course, we can work towards decreasing the numbers of people in the armed forces – and frankly the welfare reforms of the social democrats will decrease the incentive to join, since we know the military preys on the desperately poor – but with drone warfare and other such things, there is only so much that a decrease in recruits will do. We must cripple the war machine at both the point of recruitment and production.

Regarding the former, though the reforms proposed by the social democrats would do much (and in fact benefits us in the short term), these reforms are insufficient for two reasons. The first is simple. We know from the Reagan/Thatcher years that the welfare state is still bound up in legislation that the capitalists will fight tooth and nail to dismantle. We see that the British right has recently gotten ballsy enough to lightly suggest the privatization of the NHS, something that was previously unthinkable, even under Thatcher.

The second reason is a much more important one. Because social democrats are capitalists at worst, they neglect to analyze where this national wealth came from. They are content simply to say that X billions of dollars is present in the country and should therefore be used by the state for the common good of the nation. But in order for one country to be very wealthy (as is our case), it must follow that other countries are poor, and kept poor through imperialism and neocolonialism. The wealth of white America, as we well know, is in contrast to, and in consequence of, the poverty of Black America. The gated community does not exist without the dilapidated slums.

Speaking on social democracy’s revolutionary form, Marxism-Leninism, we know from history that any claim to “anti-imperialism” is largely for show. China has been an imperialist power for decades, as was the Soviet Union. State power is the precondition, ultimately, for all imperialist action. In order to maintain itself, the state must inevitably engage in expansionist, irredentist, and ultimately imperialist activity. Just because the party in power waves a red flag and assumes the mantle of communism, does not make it impossible for it to force itself politically and economically (for it’s own interests) on another country or another people.

What can we syndicalists do to fight imperialism? The organization on the shop floor, and the use of direct action (up to and including the strike) in response to the boss working with the war machine is obvious, but there is much more. We have to recognize the ugly truth that many workers’ wages, and therefore living, is dependent on war, and in a very direct way. For a factory worker in a place making landing gear for B-52s, an anti-war stance makes no sense whatsoever. Even if they did organize, one of the largest clients the factory has would take their business elsewhere, and this worker could be thrown to the streets for matters beyond their control. This is all without getting into the psychological factor at play, wherein this worker has had to be numbed to the knowledge that they are complicit in murder.

To combat this threat, we have to first pull people away from their immediate economic dependence on this kind of arrangement. To this end, the union needs to get out into the community and begin forming infrastructure & democratic councils independent of the capitalist system. Community gardens, breakfast programs, and other forms of mutual aid, will act as a method by which we can not only pull people away from the system, but then open up otherwise unorganized (and most likely unemployed) working people to the cause. We in America already have a blueprint for this, in the form of the community services done by the Black Panther Party in it’s heyday. These organized workers can then fight the bosses on a much more level playing field, knowing that the community has their back. This also has the domino effect of ripping away the pain of want that is necessary for the military when they prey on the poor.

In addition to community & shop floor organization, the unions need to be prepared to organize, or help organize, demonstrations against the machine. What form this comes in will be a matter of context, but such demonstrations serve a specific purpose in propagandizing. Like all on the ground activity where the rank and file is present, it creates a loud and direct line to the masses. Anyone unaffiliated with the organization can find out more and hopefully be recruited. While an internet presence would of course be key, it cannot be the main outlet for this protest – even the most powerful events in history where social media played a key role had an on the ground manifestation. Revolution is not a hashtag, not a trend, and not an Instagram post.

If revolutionaries in the First World are serious about ending capitalism, they must first deal with the lubrication of the war machine. War must be made so politically toxic and so unwageable without the most fascistic violence at home as to become unthinkable without the possibility of revolt. Death to Empire! All power to the people!