They shall not want (1964)

From the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

We watched the crippled war veteran, a pathetic parody of a human being, struggle up the narrow Cornish street. A worn-out accordion, strapped to his chest, lurched dangerously as he limped along, and a battered trumpet gleamed in his hand. Although the ragged old coat barely covered him, he proudly wore his medal-ribbons on the front of it. This, then, was what he had to show for his war service: a mutilated body and a few worthless ribbons.

In contrast to the warm summer day, I considered what the gloomy history of this individual must be. Having gone off enthusiastically to light the “enemy”, he had discovered that on his return home he was not given the hero’s welcome reserved for the generals. As a cripple his wealth-creating capacity was destroyed, and, being no more use to his masters, he had been thrown aside like a broken lamp-bulb.

The tragedy is that this must have happened all over the world. In Germany and Italy, as much as Britain, men went home disabled after fighting for the interests of their capitalist masters. And instead of gratitude for their suffering they found only indifference and rejection.

And what of those more fortunate than this old cripple, the soldiers who escaped injury. Were they any better off on their return home? Sadly, no. “Their” country, they found, still belonged to the privileged ten per cent who did not have to work to live. The armed war had only been replaced by the economic war. Members of the working class of all countries had found that after five long years of fighting for something belter, there was still the same struggle to get a job, to keep it, and to make a week's wages last a week.

But have we learnt anything, since the last war, about the needless suffering of people like this disabled old man? Has the working class recognised that it has no interest in wars which are caused by conflicts between different groups of capitalists? Has it realised that the only answer to the problems of poverty and insecurity is a Socialist world in which wealth would flow abundantly?

Asking myself these questions, I noticed the old cripple had stopped at a suitable spot and begun to play his accordion. The notes came out, irregular and uncertain “The Lord's my shepherd,” he gasped, “ 1 shall not want.”

Keith Graham