A correspondent (Mr. J. C. Carr, Salford) puts several questions. Two of them, and our answers, are printed below. Others will be dealt with as space permits.
Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain.
The S.P.G.B. naturally does not agree with imperialist war, but what would you do if Hitler and Mussolini were to attack this country? Would the workers he expected to stand still with their arms tied as it were behind their backs?
Reply.
The answer, of course, is yes! Why ever not ? Hitler and Mussolini (which means the German and Italian sections of the robber class) would have only one object in threatening war against the British section of the robber class, that is, to plunder them right and left of the wealth they have accumulated and are now accumulating by the exploitation of the working class in the British Empire. The British ruling class would howl with pain and fury, but if the British workers stood still and declined to get all worked up over the thieves' quarrel the British would have to buy off their German and Italian rival bandits by handing over some of the spoil. For example, they would have to hand over lumps of the overseas Empire and, perhaps, pay colossal “reparations," thus reversing (as far as Germany is concerned) the process going on after 1918. But why should the workers worry about that? They might even find, as German workers in the post-War years, that unemployment would decline, while deliveries of goods were being made to the foreign powers, and also that when a ruling class has its hands full dealing with a stronger foreign power it is apt to be much less dictatorial and much more accommodating to its own subject class. It needs their loyal support and has to pay for it.
To put the matter in proper perspective, it should be observed that the German and Italian Governments would not want to add to their burdens by actually occupying Great Britain, but even if they did temporarily do so (as the British and French occupied German territory after 1918), it would perhaps be a trifle irritating, but the working class would go on living (or partly living) just as usual.
Moreover, and this is important, if the British workers behaved sensibly and refused to fight for their masters, Hitler and Mussolini would find their difficulties multiplied at home. German and Italian workers may be war-mad and imperialism-mad for a while (but their record is no worse and is, indeed, a trifle better than that of the British workers), but when they found that stories of Germany and Italy being threatened by British workers were false they would begin to turn their attention to their own wrongs once more.
Ed. Comm.
Would arms be useful to the workers?
Question.I suppose you would say don’t re-arm for the capitalists. Did the possibility ever strike you that arms would be useful things to seize and capture for the establishment of the workers’ State?
Reply.
Regarding the first part of the question, our answer can only be that it does not matter what we say about re-armament at the present time. The British workers, because they are not Socialists, returned the present Government to office at the last election with power to re-arm, and the capitalists are going on with it, no matter what anyone says.
Regarding the main part of the question, the possibility of gaining control of the armed forces of the State struck the S.P.G.B. so forcibly and so early that it was embodied in our Declaration of Principles when they were formulated in 1904. But it all presupposes several things. For the workers to have arms means nothing whatever apart from the ideas in the workers' minds. In 1914, when many British workers were war-mad, they did not want arms in order to establish Socialism, but in order to kill their fellow-workers abroad and, incidentally, to kill members of the S.P.G.B. at home.
So, until the workers want Socialism, having arms will not help. When the workers do want Socialism then they will indeed be able to gain possession of the armed forces, along with the rest of the machinery of Government, by means of the vote, just in the same way that Hitler and Mussolini and the British ruling class have done.
We are reminded of the story (it is related by men who are now members of the S.P.G.B.) of how in 1919, just after the War, they were so disillusioned that they listened readily to some organisation preaching armed revolt. They discussed it before demobilisation and as soon as they had handed in their rifles, on being demobilised, they rushed round to a meeting of the organisation to consider ways and means of getting arms!
It shows the absurdity of the idea, for in practice the soldier has no more control of his gun than the worker has control over his employer’s factory. While the workers as a whole are prepared to vote the capitalist class into power it is they, through the State, who control the soldiers’ guns and everything else.
Ed. Comm.
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