The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) won 63 votes—4.6 percent—in this year’s elections to the student parliament (StuPa) of Berlin’s Humboldt University (HU), entering the body with all three candidates it fielded.

The result is the expression of a conscious political vote. The IYSSE stood as the only slate with a socialist programme against the genocide in Gaza, the war of aggression against Iran, the danger of nuclear war and the growing militarisation of the universities. In a political environment in which all other university groups either remained silent on these central questions or openly supported the government’s war policy, more than sixty students voted for a socialist programme against it.

The IYSSE’s campaign extended across the entire semester and brought the central questions onto the campus in a series of events: the escalation of a third world war and how it is being prepared at the universities.

It began during the semester break in March with a lecture by David North, chairman of the international editorial board of the WSWS, under the title “American Imperialism and the oppression of Iran.” At the event, attended by 80 people, the IYSSE took an unequivocal stand against the criminal war on Iran and revealed its historical roots.

North argued that the ongoing US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran was not a whim of Trump or the result of Israeli lobbying influence but represented the logical culmination of decades of imperialist policy. More than seven decades of American interference—from the CIA coup against Mossadegh in 1953 to the recent carpet bombing—form the historical background and make clear that the war is not about “democracy” and “human rights,” but about the imperialist subjugation of the region.

At the end of April, the IYSSE launched the summer semester with another event against the Iran war. There they warned that the agreed ceasefire was not a peace process, but merely a breathing space for the imperialists to reload before the next attack. The IYSSE explained the international context to the conflict—the connection to the genocide in Gaza, the war in Ukraine and the global confrontation of the USA with Russia and China.

The contribution by Johannes Stern, editor-in-chief of the German-language World Socialist Web Site, made clear that the wars currently raging in various parts of the world are not mutually independent regional conflicts, but fronts of a developing world war.

The significance of these questions for Humboldt University was made clear by the IYSSE at their third event two weeks later. There, Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP) chairman Christoph Vandreier delivered a lecture critically analysing Professor Jörg Baberowski’s new book. Vandreier showed how the Humboldt professor of Eastern European history openly courts openly fascist positions in it and is mobilising for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to participate in government—a direct continuation of the historical falsification and ideological war preparations that the IYSSE have been fighting against at Humboldt University for a decade.

At the end of May, the IYSSE organised an event calling for the release of the Ukrainian Trotskyist Bogdan Syrotiuk. The 26-year-old socialist is sitting in a Ukrainian prison because he opposes the war and stands for the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian working class. The IYSSE made his case a central issue at Humboldt University and reported on the growing international support for his release. Syrotiuk’s imprisonment is symbolic of the character of the war in Ukraine: a reactionary war in which the ruling class responds to socialist resistance with imprisonment.

At their final event, a week before the election, the IYSSE brought all these questions into direct connection with their election campaign at the university. After IYSSE lead candidate Tamino Wilck outlined the escalation of war, Sven Wurm showed how the IYSSE has been waging a struggle against it at the university for over ten years.

On the Monday before the election, the IYSSE took part in a panel discussion with other candidates. Nowhere else did it become so clear what distinguishes the IYSSE from all the other slates. The IYSSE was the only on to raise the government’s pro-war policy, the danger of a world war, the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the war of aggression against Iran.

In his opening statement, Tamino made it unmistakably clear that the struggle against war and imperialism stands at the centre of the IYSSE’s election campaign and that what matters now is to build a movement against it. All the other slates—including the nominally left-wing ones—confined themselves to matters of university policy and did not even mention the growing militarism.

During the election campaign, the IYSSE distributed flyers and held information stalls at numerous institutes. Many students welcomed the fact that the IYSSE is waging the struggle against militarism and right-wing ideology at the universities. In particular, the right-wing propaganda of Jörg Baberowski, which the IYSSE has consistently exposed and made known among students, met with widespread revulsion there. Many students asked what can be done about it. The IYSSE explained that the fight against right-wing propaganda at the universities can only be waged through a struggle against militarism and its root, capitalism, and that students must orient themselves towards the working class.

On the basis of this, the IYSSE received almost 5 percent of the votes and 3 seats. The IYSSE will use its mandate to carry these issues into the student parliament and to ensure that a socialist perspective against war finds a hearing on campus. We call on all voters and supporters to join this struggle and to build the IYSSE. Register using the form below.