To the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces
Comrades in uniform,
Enlisted ranks of the U.S. Armed forces must recognize we are workers in uniform! In this epoch of imperialism, we are driven into the trade of warcraft because the ruling capitalist class needs us to secure its economic interests abroad. Capitalism in terminal crisis and decay cannot provide adequate quality and safe jobs for us all! In the main, we join the military as the employer of last resort! The ruling class will not fight their own wars; rather, they snicker with delight at their historic ability to mobilize one half of the working class to oppress and kill the other half both abroad and at home.
All wars are Class Wars! The bosses demand we kill our own class sisters and brothers.
Our fight must be to turn the guns around against our own ruling capitalist class!
The capitalist state and its flag waving politicians demand we fight wars against our own class, other workers in uniform and civilians abroad and now also at home. Corporate media works overtime to whip up the population with national chauvinism, racism and patriotic fervor so we will go willingly to shed blood, secure superprofits for the financiers, bankers and their class of parasitic leeches. With the capitalists in power all war is the class war of the capitalist class against the working class, internationally and at home.
The working class must have our own military policy.
Workers are not foolish pacifists who think admonishing the warmakers for their greed and genocides will shame them into becoming enlightened peacemakers! Indeed all the religious peacemakers line up to bless the soldiers as they march us off to war on both sides of the front lines. Only when we abolish capitalist class rule will the wars end! And that will not be accomplished singing hosanna or praying to imagined deities, but only by class conscious workers fighting capitalist oppression and exploitation with mass general strikes and workplace occupations defended by workers under arms!
Domestically our class needs a program for workers to organise self defence against the ruling class and its fascist forces, and we call on soldiers not to attack workers who are not in uniform, but to join the class war. In the trade unions and organizations of oppressed peoples we must build self defense guards and we call on trained service members and veterans to support, train and arm the workers in the factories, workplaces and working class communities! Without these guards the ICE and other state forces of reaction will victimize entire non-white populations. Indeed they do not and will not hesitate to beat and kidnap white workers who assert basic rights to protest and fight back!
Abroad that means to refuse all orders to fight the ‘enemy’ by means of strikes and mutinies against the officer corps. Troops need unions that affiliate with the international working class and raise our class interests instead of those of corporations, i.e. what the brass and the pentagon serve.
Working class youth join the military as the employer of last resort! Flag waving patriotism and national chauvinism promoted by corporate media, the schools, church and the twin parties of the capitalist class, hides from working class people the fact that our true enemy is the ruling capitalist class at home. The same capitalist class that sends us to kill workers and civilians abroad now wants us to point our guns at workers and civilians at home.
No to imperialist war—yes to class war against our own ruling class.
No to blind obedience—yes to revolutionary discipline.
No to dictatorship of capital—yes to workers’ democracy.
You signed up to serve the people, to defend democracy and freedom. But ask yourself—whose freedom are you really protecting? The democracy you pledged to protect is under siege, not from foreign powers, but from the ruling class that sends you to fight wars for oil, profit, and empire while denying justice, healthcare, and a future to the people at home.
While you put your life on the line, the ultra-rich get richer, and democracy is sold off to the highest bidder. The worst enemies of this country aren’t across the ocean. They’re sitting on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms, the White House, Mar-a-Largo and Capitol Hill, cashing in on your sacrifice! Trump, Musk and oligarchs are using your military power to protect their crypto scams, tax breaks and government contracts, enriching themselves at your families’ expense. They profit while you bleed. They rule while your families struggle. Service members’ family benefits are tied up in red tape, denied and diminished and our health care is cut, even as the Veterans Administration is underfunded and under assault by DOGE.
Trump’s Presidency Threatens Your Rights
Donald Trump and his inner circle are laying out plans that would turn the military into a weapon against the American people. These plans include:
- Abolishing the Posse Comitatus Act — a critical law that protects the U.S. public from being policed by the military
- Using the military to suppress protest and dissent inside the U.S.
- Ordering troops to violate the Geneva Conventions, including the treatment of prisoners and civilians. The torture and horrors of Guantanamo and other CIA black sites are being outsourced to El Salvador where even innocents are denied due process!
- Creating a politicized, loyalist military force under personal dictatorial control.
- He is actively recruiting fascist “Proud Boys” “Oath Keepers” and “Three Percenters” to carry out illegal raids wearing balaclavas and denying due process to detainees!
The Posse Comitatus Act exists to protect democracy by keeping the military out of civilian law enforcement.There are no circumstances where you should be employed as goons ejecting refugees in the name of securing the borders!
The Geneva Convention is not optional. It’s the international standard for humane conduct in war—and you are bound by it under U.S. law. Your “Commander-In-Chief” dreams out loud of having you finish the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians so as to build a middle east Riviera on the ruins, possibly even financed with your parents’ social security money! The orders of a robber baron can’t be justified, however “legal” they may be spun!
Obeying illegal orders makes you liable. History has shown: “I was just following orders” is not a defense. Fascists were hung by the neck until dead after using this defense at the Nuremberg trials!
Let’s be real: the rank and file of the U.S. military doesn’t reflect the billionaire class—it is made up of the working class. More than 80% of enlisted personnel come from working-class and low-income backgrounds. In fact, only a tiny fraction—less than 1%—come from millionaire or elite families. They don’t send their sons and daughters to the frontlines. They send you, and when you come home, you’re often treated like you no longer matter.
People of color carry an especially heavy burden. Black and Brown Americans make up over 40% of active-duty troops, despite making up a smaller percentage of the U.S. population. Meanwhile, the same system that sends you into combat disproportionately targets your communities with poverty, racist policing, and disproportionate incarceration while “white collar” criminals like Trump, a convicted felon and rapist, laugh in the face of court orders.
And what happens when you come back? For too many veterans, the answer is: neglect. The government always finds money for war, but never enough to take care of its soldiers after the fact. The VA is constantly underfunded, and care is slow or inaccessible. Every day, 17 veterans die by suicide. Rates of PTSD, opioid addiction, homelessness, and joblessness are off the charts. And this country still hasn’t seriously addressed the trauma many soldiers carry—especially women, who report rampant sexual abuse and assault within the ranks, only to be ignored, silenced, or retaliated against when they speak out. If a rape victim, or for that matter any pregnant woman in the service or in a service family who does not want to carry to term can be denied the right to choose in a Gilead state where abortion and abortion pills are illegal. Imagine being transferred from a free state to such a theocratic anti-choice state, like Texas!
You deserve better. All of us do.
That’s why we’re calling on you to fight for a new mission: one that’s not handed down by generals or politicians, but built from the ground up by you, your fellow enlisted ranks, and the working-class communities you come from.
Reject illegal or immoral orders. You didn’t sign up to turn weapons on civilians, to break strikes, or to suppress protests for justice. You don’t have to be a pawn in someone else’s game. You can choose to stand with the workers and oppressed. We call upon you to refuse illegal and unjust orders—those that target civilians, prop up dictatorships abroad and backstop police repression at home. Your loyalty must not lie with generals, presidents, or billionaires, but with the workers, the oppressed and in particular with the refugee and immigrant working families escaping dictatorships and economic super-exploitation by U.S. and allied imperialisms.
It is time to reclaim your potential power—not only as soldiers, but as Workers in uniform and as workers with a common cause with the oppressed and exploited worldwide. Organize your own union and a Come Home Now movement to close all the foreign bases! DEFEND WORKING CLASS INTERESTS AT HOME NOT CAPITALIST INTERESTS ABROAD!
You are not just “troops”—you are part of the working class in uniform, and you have enormous power. If you organize, if you unite with fellow workers, you can help bring down the system that uses and discards you. A system that makes war for profit, exploits labor, and treats human beings like disposable scrap.
Elect your own leaders. You have a right to say who leads you and how. We urge you to elect your own officers, those accountable to the ranks, not the Pentagon brass. This is your right and your duty—to replace the chain of command of profiteers with the voice of the democratic soldier.
Form Soldiers’ Councils—democratic assemblies where you and your fellow troops can make decisions together, allied with workers, the poor, the oppressed, and all those struggling against the boot of capital. Link arms with striking workers, anti-racist fighters, Indigenous and immigrant communities, and all those who face the wrath of this system daily.
We’re talking about building something entirely different: a workers’ state—where the economy is run democratically by the working class, not for profit but for human needs. A society where production is planned by workers, and wealth is shared—not hoarded. Where no one goes hungry so that billionaires can buy another yacht, island, senator or president!
This fight isn’t about one country—it’s international. Your brothers and sisters are not just here, but in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Haiti, in China, in every country where people are struggling for a life of dignity.
You already have the skills—discipline, strategy, strength. Now it’s time to develop class consciousness. Know your power.
No more dying for the bosses. No more silence in the face of injustice. No more orders from a system that sees you as cannon fodder.
Stand with the workers of the world. Organize. Resist. Reclaim your future.
Soldiers Must Refuse to Be Used Against Striking Workers, Protesting Students, Refugees and Immigrant families.
When Trump attempts to deploy troops against civilians, to crush protests, or to carry out mass roundups or political repression:
You have the right—and the duty—to disobey illegal orders
You must stand by the working class—not the plutocracy and their capitalist dictatorship
Organize within the ranks. Elect leaders from below. Form Soldiers’ Councils.
Unite with the working class and oppressed communities.
Don’t be used as a private army for billionaires, racists, or would-be tyrants.
Protect the working class. Defend democracy. Organize for justice.
For a new, revolutionary workers international, a world party of socialist revolution. We fight for a Workers’ Republic, we organize for a Red Army of Labor, for international socialism—prepare to take your place in history.
