"The competition between the various States obliges them [...] to take compulsory military service more and more seriously and, ultimately, to familiarise the entire people with the handling of arms, thus making them capable of ensuring that their will triumphs at a given moment. [...] And that moment comes as soon as the mass of the people [...] has a will. At that point, the dynastic army is converted into a people’s army; the machine refuses service, militarism perishes from the dialectic of its own development[1] .

Ukraine’s war of national self-defence has brought the issues of militarism, rearmament and military questions in general back to the fore. On this occasion, it is undoubtedly time to breathe new life into these issues by reflecting on a transitional alternative way of thinking. This is the purpose of the modest ’Partis pris dossier we are publishing in issue 11 of Adresses. Six texts caught our attention: “Left-wing isolationism: the road to political insignificance in the debate on European defence” and “Rejecting the false dilemma between social justice and national security” by Hanna Perekhoda, “Denmark: the left facing the end of the alliance with the United States” by Michael Hertoft, “How to manage Europe’s defence dilemmas?”by Christian Zeller, “Trump and Putin: an authoritarian alliance that puts us all at risk” by Li Andersson and “Supporting Ukrainian resistance, not monstrous rearmament plans” by Simon Pirani.

On 26 February, Hanna Perekhoda published an article entitled “How to finance European defence (and how not to)[2]”. In it, she pointed out that the United States’ abandonment of Ukraine, the “last line of defence for European security”, would force European states, which had long taken refuge under the American umbrella, to rethink their defence systems. This has now been achieved. The remilitarisation of Europe is underway. At least, the idea is gaining ground in several capitals. There will be no shortage of criticism of the choices and policies of the Member States and the European Union, past, present and future. That is not the purpose of this article .[3]

The real question, again according to Hanna Perekhoda, is “whether the European Union , and in particular the Left[4] , has a concrete programme for dealing with this crisis”. If it persists, she continues, in “deploring militarisation without proposing solutions to the very real threats we all face”, it will be abandoning “society in favour of its own ideological purity”. This is what we might call the establishment of a mental Maginot Line. We know what usually happens to Maginot lines. Added to this is a more or less surprising phenomenon, the union of the pacifist, munichist and cryto-putinist lefts who, de facto, are campaigning in concert with a far right that is both philo-putinist and philo-trumpist, on a classic leimotiv: butter rather than guns, peace now and whatever the cost (to Ukrainian freedom). Let’s hear from Hanna Perekhoda:

The most dangerous and negative approach would be to cut social spending to finance increased military spending. This is the route that neo-liberals are already proposing: cutting health, education, pensions and social protection budgets in order to reallocate these funds to defence. However, it is clear that weakening social protection would exacerbate inequalities, fuel social tensions and ultimately destabilise democracies. At a time when far-right populism is gaining ground, imposing austerity would rapidly strengthen anti-democratic forces. Given Russia’s and the United States’ obvious support for these forces, such a measure is exactly what Trump and Putin are hoping for. Another solution would be to raise taxes on the ultra-rich and multinationals. Those who have benefited most from democracy should contribute most to its defence. The introduction of progressive wealth taxes, energy taxes and stricter corporate tax regulations could generate revenue without harming ordinary citizens .[5]

Hanna Perekhoda notes that it would only be fair if the confiscation of the €300 billion in frozen Russian assets financed the defence of Ukraine, but that “justice is a dangerous concept” for those who uphold the established order. Implementing justice would “jeopardise the very foundations of capitalism [...], an unthinkable scenario for those who profit from its injustices”.

Finally, she writes in the article published in these columns, we must “reject the false dilemma between social justice and national security”. If the Left wants to remain credible, it must “adopt a clear position on defence issues”. Otherwise, it would simply be letting the right dominate the debate. In his article (“How to manage Europe’s defence dilemmas”), Christian Zeller reminds us that it is possible both to fight against rearmament and to help Ukraine militarily[6] . Li Andersson takes a similar line, insisting on the need to think terms of “Europe’s strategic autonomy[7]”. The debate is open, with nuances and divergences emerging while opening up wide areas of agreement.

It is no doubt worth pointing out here that the world’s democratic and progressive forces will pay a heavy price if the Russian Federation wins, and that conversely it is the Russian Federation’s military defeat that will bring about the fall of the Putin dictatorship.

In the columns of Europe solidaire sans frontières, parodying Clemenceau, Pierre Vandevoorde writes: “The army is too serious a matter to be left to the military[8] .” We could even say, by extrapolating a little what he writes, that it is too serious a matter to be left to bourgeois politicians. Echoing the warnings issued by Hanna Perekhoda, he reiterates that the left should campaign for the arms industries to be placed under public control. He insisted on need to open up “reflection and debate” on the military question by reviving the experience of the soldiers’ committees of the 1970s, in the light of “what the Ukrainian experience teaches us”. We need to revisit the issues of trade union rights in the army, the end of the professional army and the introduction of genuine civic military training.

For its part, the Belgian Anti-Capitalist Left opened the debate by publishing a statement entitled: “Confronting the Trump-Musk-Putin axis and the authoritarian neo-liberal governments of Europe: for an anti-capitalist and internationalist security policy”. The “lessonsof the Ukrainian war of self-defence are immediately apparent: the type of weapons and the ends, means and objectives to be defended. The Gauche anticapitaliste urges”the whole of the social movement and the forces of the left to take seriously the issues of security so as not to leave them in the hands of the extreme right or the neoliberal right“. Speaking out against the”ReArm Europe plan, which gives the arms industry and the market the keys to our defence policy“, the organisation calls for an end to arms sales to dictatorial and colonialist regimes, for”the socialisation and planning of the arms sector [...] under democratic control“and for existing resources to be sent to help the Ukrainian resistance. The”independent and internationalist military policy“emphasises the need”complete defence and strategic autonomy from the United States“, which implies implementing”an independent Starlink programme, halting purchases of the F35, etc.“. Finally, the army must be democratised and placed”under citizen control".

It is interesting to compare the observations made by Zahar Popovitch following the defeat of the Russian army outside Kyiv in 2022 with what Philippe Guillaume wrote in 1949 in the columns of Socialisme ou barbarie. The Ukrainian activist notes that “the Ukrainian armed forces had set records for efficiency” in the use of the weapons at their disposal. Why? Part of the answer, he points out, may lie in the fact that Ukrainians are using all these tools more creatively and effectively. In the aftermath of the Second World War, Philippe Guillaume recalled that the proletarians who were mobilised (particularly Americans) quickly assimilated the use of the new weapons available to them. In his view, “the industrialisation of war and technological progress only increased the autonomy, efficiency and, by extension, the self-confidence of the combatant”. We have to realise,“he wrote,”that progress is so rapidly overturning the conditions of war“that it is shaking up specialists, headquarters and combatants alike. Pushing the reflection to its ultimate possible consequence, he noted that”the assimilation by the masses of the technique of warfare objectively turns against the exploiters even before the exploited consciously use their weapons against them."

Recently, two authors who cannot be suspected of having the slightest connivance with us headlined their article: “What the Pentagon could learn from the war in Ukraine[9]”. In their plea to the Pentagon to review its weapons systems procurement procedures, they agree with Philippe Guillaume, seventy-five years on, in pointing out that the Ukrainian soldiers had transformed the conditions of production and use of military equipment by integrating civilian equipment (particularly drones).

The collective intelligence of society is essential to the defence of a country under attack that knows why it is fighting, and essential to the production of the weapons it needs. The war in Ukraine has reminded us of this.

National defence, defence of capital

Some thirty-five years ago, with our friend Jean-Jacques Ughetto, now deceased, we tried to open a ’Point de mire collection at Syllepse under the subtitle ’Critique et pratique des systèmes militaires’ (Criticism and practice of military systems). Needless to say, it was a resounding flop[10] . The idea was born at the end of the cycle opened by the democratic mobilisation of encamped youth (1972-1982), to which Pierre Vandevoorde refers. This was built around the democratic issue perfectly encapsulated in the slogan: “Soldier, under uniform you remain a citizen” or its variation, “Soldier, under uniform you remain a worker”.

To explain why three militants of the revolutionary left were embarking on such an editorial adventure, we pointed out that “the questioning of defence, its purpose and the means it uses” was linked to “our past experience as conscripts determined to remain full citizens in uniform”. Indeed, the fight to impose democratic freedoms on Europe’s armies[11] , to establish the right of association, particularly trade union rights, had also made it possible to demand that the Grande Muette clearly state its missions to society.

If it had just been the flop of an editorial project, there would be no point in mentioning it here. But in reality, this ’floprevealed :

1) the disinterest of the revolutionary left in military questions, since propagandist anti-militarism and the litote of “revolutionary defeatism[12]” were enough for its political [13] ;

2) the renunciation by the parliamentary left in power from 1981 onwards of both the introduction of democracy to the armed forces and the consideration of the latter as a political and social issue.

The reflection to which we hoped to contribute was aimed at helping all citizens to “reappropriate the problems of defence”, an approach which implied attempting to develop “an alternative defence problematic necessary to any project for the transformation of this society”.

One of the strategic issues at stake in this discussion was not to leave the social strata in uniform isolated in the face of the reactionary currents that reigned supreme in the barracks. In addition, non-commissioned soldiers and lower ranks were often from working-class backgrounds. What’s more, thinking about an alternative defence could not do without the skills and experience of the soldiers themselves. We therefore thought it vital to build an alliance with these “workers in uniform” and win them over to an emancipatory project to which they would make their own contribution. It was an approach that had to start from their immediate needs in terms of their living and working conditions, in a word their social interests, and which found its political condensation in the trade unionism of the armed forces.

At a time when the Russo-Soviet empire was collapsing, it was time to (re)put a simple question on the public agenda: defend what, how and against whom. At a time when armies were being shaken by social and mission crises, it was necessary to question “history, debates and implementation” and to examine “what technology and social upheavals meant” for the organisation of armies. We had read with some avidity Guy Brossollet’s Essai sur la non bataille[14] and Horst Afheldt’s book, which drew on it to develop a non-suicidal defence in Europe[15] . They concluded that defence systems organised around a centralised standing army were dangerous and unsuited to the world at the end of the 20^th century. They put forward proposals for armed forces that were integrated into the population, decentralised, democratic and de-hierarchical, based on mobile structures equipped with high-performance ultramodern weaponry .[16]

From this point of view, the editorial project of the “Point de mire collection is worth recalling. The statement of intent began as follows:”Debates in our country on defence issues often get bogged down in a quantitative approach: “Debates in our country on defence issues often get bogged down in a quantitative approach”. On the other hand, beyond their justified denunciation, both the doctrine and the organisation of the armed forces - which at the time was based on the triptych of nuclear forces, manoeuvring forces and intervention forces - remained little subject to alternative thinking[17] . It should be remembered that this was a time of what the doctrinaires of the established order called “operational territorial defence”, which was designed, according to André Fanton, Secretary of State for Defence, “to avoid any return to the events that shook the nation in May 1968”. We continued our presentation of the collection by noting that it was often forgotten that defence policy was both “socially determined” and “amnesiac”. In fact, people were more or less deliberately ignoring “the different forms of military organisation” that societies had adopted at certain points in their history. It was revealing, moreover, that the celebrations marking the bicentenary of the Great Revolution were delightfully oblivious to the realities of the armies of Year II .[18]

The neo-fascist axis that is taking shape is destabilising the economic and social policies of those states and political forces that more or less explicitly placed themselves under the American umbrella. This new situation casts a harsh light on the vacuum we have allowed to develop in our ranks on military issues[19] . What alternative proposals could the internationalist and democratic left put forward for debate?

Ukrainian lessons

But what is happening in the Ukrainian army should be of concern to the left. It is not uncommon in Ukraine to see fatigues at social protest rallies and non-commissioned soldiers speaking out in the press about their conditions of service to denounce abuses. The trade union movement, which has thousands of members in the armed forces, maintains permanent links with its members in uniform. Ukraine’s leading trade union confederation, the FPU, has just published a booklet entitled Rights and Guarantees for Mobilised and Demobilised Military Personnel. A union of LGBTQIA+ soldiers defends the rights of “gays in uniform”. An association of female soldiers, Veteranka, is fighting for the rights of women in the armed forces. The issue of trade union rights in the armed forces is openly discussed at a time when the country is at war. Yana Bondareva, who runs a hotline for soldiers set up by the socialist organisation Sotsialnyi Rukh, explains that “the creation of trade unions for military personnel would be an important step towards protecting their rights and social guarantees. Military personnel have the right to be represented in matters of pay, conditions of service and medical care”. The Land Forces Academy in Lviv held a democratic election to appoint its director. Five candidates stood for election. There are many examples of transformative democratic movements in the Ukrainian army. They express the deep aspirations of the Ukrainian people who, in their struggle for national liberation, are contaminating the military sphere. And they add a "military efficiency to the Ukrainian army in combat that is recognised even by Western headquarters and experts, who are hostile to any hint of democracy in the barracks.

Social and political democracy in the armed forces appears to be an indispensable element in military combat. Military strategy has been turned upside down. Command methods are being called into question. The indispensable and necessary military discipline in action, on the ground in confrontation, is being rethought. A new military art is emerging. For the Left, remaining deaf and blind to these “military revolutions” underway on the ground will lead at best to impotence and at worst to political defeat in the face of the manœuvres of the dominant classes on rearmament. The emancipation camp must challenge the bourgeois leadership’s monopoly on the management of defence issues. In this perspective, support for Ukraine’s resistance forces us to listen to the Ukrainian military school.

Patrick Le Tréhondat and Patrick Silberstein

Notes

^[1]. Friedrich Engels, Anti-Dürhing, Paris, Éditions sociales, 1977.

^[2]. A Europe of solidarity without borders, 26 February 2025.

^[3]. On the subject of military budgets, see Miguel Urbán, “ReArm Europe et la militarisation des esprits”, Réseau Bastille, 21 March 2005.

^[4]. Emphasis added.

^[5]. Hanna Perekhoda, “How to finance European defence (and how not to)”, Europe solidaire sans frontières, 26 February 2025.

^[6]. In an interview published by the Aplutsoc website on 11 June 2022, Vladislav Starodubtsev exclaimed: "You want a good way of demilitarising Europe and the USA? Easy, just give them to Ukraine!

^[7]. See Li Andersson, “Trump and Putin: an authoritarian alliance that puts us all at risk”, in this issue of Adresses.

^[8]. Pierre Vandevoorde, “Une invite à la réflexion (France) : l’armée, c’est trop sérieux pour rester l’affaire des militaires”, Europe solidaire sans frontières, 6 March 2025.

^[9]. Jon Schmid and Erik E. Mueller, “What the Pentagon might learn from Ukraine about fielding new tech”, Defense News, 14 February 2025.

^[10]. Two titles have been published: Patrick Le Tréhondat, Patrick Silberstein, Jean-Jacques Ughetto, Crises et surprises dans l’institution militaire, Paris, Syllepse/Périscope, 1990; and a reprint of Pierre Naville’s 1961 essay, L’armée et l’État en France.

^[11]. The European Conference of Conscripts’ Organisations (ECCO) was founded in Malmö, Sweden, in 1979. Created on the initiative of the Dutch conscripts’ union (VVDM), this organisation - on whose board we participated in the capacity of Information for Soldiers’ Rights - brought together conscripts’ trade union organisations, both legal and clandestine, from several European countries. It should be noted that in the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries, conscripts’ organisations maintained close relations with non-commissioned officers’ and officers’ unions. For our part, despite the clandestine conditions under which army trade unionists operated in France, we were able, particularly within the framework of the Ligue des droits de l’homme (Human Rights League), to share our concerns with professional soldiers who were also looking for a “different kind of defence”. As a reminder, in 1975, no doubt in order to ease up, the very official magazine Armées d’aujourd’hui had the audacity to publish an article entitled “La tentation syndicale” (“Union temptation”).

^[12]. Conceived within the framework of an inter-imperialist confrontation like that of the First World War, revolutionary defeatism obviously cannot be applied in a war of national liberation as in the case of the Ukraine. More to the point, this policy must be implemented in Russia, whereas in Ukraine it is Trotsky’s 1940 recommendation that must be applied.

^[13]. Yesterday, the abolition of conscription and the transition to a professional army were carried out in a kind of relieved silence. The blood tax would henceforth be paid only by the poorest sections of society. Today, as Michael Hertoft writes in the article we are publishing, some people think that “disarmament is by definition left-wing, and that the left must oppose any production of weapons, any use of weapons, and must therefore be a kind of pacifist.” While this, he writes, is a vision that has the advantage of being morally sound, easy to defend and reasonably logical, it has the great weakness of not responding to the problems that “we” face - for example, how a country can defend itself when attacked by an imperialist superpower. The demand for “peace” has thus been used to refuse to show solidarity with Ukraine by sending arms.

^[14]. Guy Brossollet, Essai sur la non bataille, Paris, Belin, 1975.

^[15]. Horst Afheldt, Pour une défense non suicidaire de l’Europe, Paris, La Découverte, 1985.

^[16]. The Milan anti-tank missile was then presented as the paragon of military reorganisation against tank units. Since then, drones, mobile phones, long-range guided artillery, Javelin missiles and many other innovations have arrived on the battlefield. It’s worth noting with a chuckle that in the early days of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Washington Post pointed out that it was partly because of the decentralisation - described as a “shortcoming” - of its army that Ukraine could not be admitted to NATO... As the Russian failure over Kyiv loomed, the daily’s military specialist wrote that in the “disparate pockets of resistance”, “battalion-level units were fighting independently”. This, he wrote, “may be a blessing in disguise that is helping them now because they are not dependent on centralised command and control systems”.

^[17]. The Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU) is undoubtedly an exception in this desert. Opposed to “the installation of a professional army”, the PSU had debated the idea of a “popular defence”.

^[18]. On the subject of military alternatives, see, among others: Jean Jaurès, L’armée nouvelle (Gallica); George Orwell, Le lion et la licorne (La Murette, RN, 2022); “L’armée des hommes libres”, Réseau Bastille; Patrick Le Tréhondat, “La question militaire et l’autogestion”, Autogestion; Peter Thatchell, Democratic Defense, London, Heretic Books, 1985 ; and of course Leon Trotsky’s reflections on “proletarian military policy” (Vincent Présumey, “La politique militaire prolétarienne sort du placard”, Aplutsoc, 21 August 2022); Patrick Silberstein, “Armée, lutte des classes et guerre civile : éléments pour une stratégie autogestionnaire”, Mise à Jour, no. 2-3, 1984; Collectif, “Penser la guerre”, ContreTemps, no. 39, 2018. On the influence of technical development on warfare, Jean Péré, La guerre et ses mutations, Paris, Payot, 1961; John F.C. Fuller, L’influence de l’armement sur l’histoire, Paris, Payot, 1948; B. H. Liddell Hart, Stratégie, Paris, Perrin, 1998. It goes without saying that more recent books and articles, in particular Michel Goya’s L’ours et le renard (Paris: Perrin, 2023) and his blog La Voie de l’épée (The Way of the Sword), deserve to be taken into account in ’left-wing military thinking.

^[19]. It is not our purpose here to discuss the choices made by the PCF and France insoumise on defence issues. Even so, it’s hard not to quote the insoumis leader who, refusing any support for the Ukrainian resistance, occasionally reaffirms that the mission of the French army is to defend “our” borders “on the Oyapock and the Maroni, in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, in the Antarctic and the Pacific”.

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