War and Increased Production (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over a year has passed since military operations on a large scale were temporarily suspended and the economic struggle between sections of the capitalist class was resumed with renewed vigour, reinforced by the enormous speed up in productive operations by the application of war-time discoveries to peace-time production. The Conservatives and the Labour Party are at one in claiming a heartfelt desire for lasting peace, but the seeds of fresh wars are being sewn with a prodigal hand.

U.N.O.

Between the last Government and the Labour Government there is a continuity in foreign and domestic policy; support of the United Nations Organisation, an intensive drive for export trade, and a campaign for increased production per worker. At the Trade Union Congress these were also the principal issues and the Congress gave its support, even if somewhat grudgingly, to the Labour Party’s programme.

The United Nations Organisation bears a misleading title; firstly, because it is not united, and secondly, because it only includes some of the nations, many are still excluded from its charmed circle. It is completely dominated by the deliberations of four governments, England, Russia, the United States, and France, who watch each other suspiciously, spitting and scratching like angry cats most of the time; harmony is the one thing that is conspicuously absent from their conferences. Referring to the draft Peace Treaties that had so far emerged, the Manchester Guardian (10/7/46) commented: “Each one is a compromise between rival powers who openly fear and distrust each other.” Mr. Ernest Thurtle, Labour M.P. for Shoreditch, wrote in the Sunday Express (1/9/46): “Let me confess that I, along with other Labour candidates at the General Election, in stressing the importance of good relations with Russia, avowed confidently that a Labour Government would win the co-operation of the Soviet. We believed that. How wrong we were! ” Finally the News Chronicle (18/10/46) reports the following item from Washington, from the United Nations Organisation itself: "Sir John Boyd Orr, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, said here to-day that there was only a fifty-fifty chance of avoiding a third and disastrously final World War.” Thus the early operations of U.N.O. are anything but encouraging. In fact a fatalistic feeling is seeping into people’s minds that another war is inevitable; even Mr. Churchill is abandoning his flummery and returning to his anti-Russia bias, in spite of the fact that the United States, France, or some not yet obvious power, may be the next "aggressor.”

All over the world shipping lines, air lines, oil lines, spheres of influence and markets are subjects of bitter diplomatic strife between capitalists of leading and smaller countries. In these, circumstances can there be such a thing as a United Nations policy that will outlaw war? While the present organisation of society exists the answer is emphatically no, and the reason is not hard to understand as the impotent League of Nations bore witness.

The Basis of Wars.

Capitalism is a system whose roots are embedded in conflict. We have to face the fact that goods are produced to-day, under a Labour Government just as under a Conservative Government, for the sole purpose of profit; this profit is only realised when the goods are sold, and in order that they may be sold they must be marketed in competition with each other. Competition determines that goods shall be produced as cheaply as possible, and this in turn means that as much production as possible shall be extracted from the workers at as small a cost in wages as the workers are prepared to accept, which also includes obtaining raw materials from the cheapest source of supply. These conditions are the basis of wars. The hectic scramble for markets and sources of supply, as well as trade routes, culminates in war when threats and diplomatic jiggery pokery fail to give sections of the capitalists, in their internal strife, the sought-for supremacy in the limited markets of the world.

Work Hard For The Dole Queue.

The real object of the campaign for more production is to capture markets for the British capitalist, as well as increasing the profit obtained from the workers’ toil. When Mr. Eden spoke at the Metropolitan Music Hall on November 2nd, he put the capitalist outlook clearly: “We shall soon be exposed to international trade competition that may be even more serious than before the war. The sellers market will not last for ever. The only solution to these problems is to increase production per man-hour throughout British industry.” But will this solve any of the workers’ problems? In June, 1919, Sir Walter Runciman wrote in the Daily News (30/6/1919): “Now that peace is signed, the first necessity for the British Empire and for the world is to get trade going everywhere. . . . Only by a full stream of trade can the flow of goods between all peoples wipe out hunger, misery and unemployment, and probably anarchy.” The Labour Party then, as now, blindly swallowed the bait. Subsequently London was placarded with posters (some of you may remember them) displaying the faces of prominent members of the Labour Party with the phrase, in large letters, “PRODUCE MORE.” Two years later the inevitable happened; the markets were over-stocked, production slowed down, the workers had worked themselves out of jobs and “hunger, misery and unemployment” stalked the land. We have no hesitation in prophesying a similar result from the present campaign; it is a foregone conclusion. Not only will the export drive in itself help to saturate the market, but the exporting of plant and machinery will do what it has always done, help the capitalists of other lands to participate in the work of over-stocking the markets all the more rapidly. Capitalists are always exporting their own trade competition in this way, and, although they know it, the lure of profit is too much for them. When the struggle for markets has reached the peak of intensity the shadow of war becomes ominous; capitalists will not lose the privilege of reaping the results of the exploitation of workers without the resort to armed conflict, particularly as these same workers may be pursuaded to risk their lives in their masters’ battles. Terrible though the prospects of the last war were, the capitalist class of the world did not hesitate; in spite of the threat of rockets and atom bombs you may be assured that they will not hesitate next time, as the present concentration on large scale means of destruction makes clearly evident. The profit motive kills all human feelings and excuses the most fiendish brutality.

New Frauds For Old!

In 1919 the League of Nations was constituted with the avowed object of preventing war; now it is the United Nations. One of the provisions of the League was the necessity of unanimity before action could be taken; the same provision binds the action of the United Nations and the resulting futility has already been demonstrated, particularly by the actions of the Russian delegates. The United Nations has only the power of the governments that decide to hang together, and this decision is determined by the economic interests of the governments concerned; the League of Nations was in a similar position and fell to pieces when the unity dissolved into war. When different governments lined up in opposition, which neither League nor United Nations can prevent, the mighty edifice of the League collapsed like the house of cards it was. When the conflicting trade interests of capitalist sections reach a point where each is prepared to gamble on the outcome of war, all fine phrases about world unity are drowned in vituperating the other fellow for pulling the trigger. The Labour Party issued a leaflet (“The Citizen”) in September, 1933, on the back of which they said: "At this period of unrest the Labour Party affirms its unshaken belief in the policy of arbitration and in the machinery of the League of Nations.” Now, in spite of the catastrophe that overtook the world in 1939, they are backing a similar sham solution for war to the joy of the exploiters of labour.

The Only Solution.

There is only one solution to the problem of war, removal of its cause. War arises out of the private property basis of capitalism, which drives capitalist sections into conflict over the disposal of the wealth produced by the worker. This conflict will only disappear when the workers of the world take possession of the means of production and distribute products freely wherever they are needed. Then there will not be markets to fight for because buying and selling will have been abolished. Socialism is the only solution to the problem of war in the modern world.

The War Situation: From the Rhine to Abyssinia (1936)

From the April 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Keeping up with current affairs has become very largely a question of following the moves in the threatening conflict between the Powers. Hitler, unable to keep his pledges of prosperity for the German workers, shatters the superficial harmony of the concert of Europe with the diversion of sending troops into the Rhine provinces. At once the millions of half-starved wage- slaves of the European continent turn their eyes away from their own problems to gape in admiration or fear at this circus marvel. Hitler qualifies for the role of Europe’s bogeyman, following the footsteps of Napoleon, Metternich and Kaiser Wilhelm II. The world has indeed moved little since 1914. Busily preparing for war and manoeuvring for position, the politicians are conducting a long-distance mouth-and-pen duel about the sanctity of treaties. Hitler in the one gesture tears up Locarno, and promises solemnly to keep the next treaty. England, Belgium and France—who pledged themselves to disarm under the Versailles Treaty—indignantly condemn Germany for rearming. Guilty themselves of defaulting on their debts to America, they are horrified at the threat that action against Germany may be followed by default on Germany’s foreign debts. Turning from the capitalist Governments to the Labour Parties, there, too, little has altered. Immediately before 1914 and immediately after 1918 the Labour leaders and Labour Parties took solemn oaths against participation in war. How they broke their oaths in 1914 is a matter of common knowledge. How they propose to do it in a future war has not yet been fully realised. If will be by the slim device of distinguishing between a war waged by “Allied Governments” and a war waged by Allied Governments calling themselves all or part of the League of Nations. The Government’s “Statement Relating to Defence” recognises (as Mr. Lloyd George recognised in the last war) that rearmament “will require the most careful organisation and the willing co-operation both of the leaders of industry and of Trade Unions if our task is to be successfully accomplished.” The assistance asked for will, of course, be forthcoming.

The Government spokesmen in the House of Lords discussed the various problems arising, and Lord Strabolgi (formerly Commander Kenworthy), Labour Peer, hastens to assure the Government that they can count on Labour support in a future war.

  The governing majority of the Labour Party were prepared to support this country in a war for its defence if it was in harmony with our obligations under the Covenant of the League of Nations. Since 1914 there had been a tremendous change in the country.
  They had now a great labour political movement. Unless they carried that labour political and industrial movement with them they could not get the united nation one would hope for in the case of some terrible emergency in the future. They would only get that if they tried to build up the system of collective security and if the defensive preparations were based on providing the means for this nation to play its part as one State-member of the League of Nations.—(Times, February 28th.)

The condition mentioned by Lord Strabolgi is that the Government shall try to build up the system of so-called collective security under the League of Nations. The Government, naturally, has no intention of declining a condition so innocuous. On March 13th we find Mr. Duff Cooper, M.P., Minister for War, relating in the House of Commons that

  So far as we can see into the future, if ever we are involved in a war again on the Continent, under whatever Government it may be, it will be a war according to the policy which now has the support of the vast majority of our people, a war on behalf of and in support of the principles of collective security, that is to say, it, will be a war fought with allies, and I hope many allies.—(Hansard, March 12th, col. 2356.) 

There will be little point in saying at the outbreak of any future war that the Labour Parties have deserted their principles, for their principles now lead straight into wars labelled “League of Nations Wars.”

What the League did for Abyssinia.

However, the present diplomatic turmoil does not mean war. It may turn out to be the overture to a war in the not very distant future, but the curtain is hardly due to go up yet. Let us, then, turn from the war which isn’t yet to the war that is still in progress between Italy and Abyssinia. Everywhere, except in the “news” departments of the Daily Worker, Herald, and various other journals, the badly-armed Abyssinians have been unable to withstand the overwhelming armaments of the Italians. The Emperor of Abyssinia now speaks with bitterness about the League Powers for failing to give him any material help. The Times correspondent in Addis Ababa writes : —

  What he considers the disgraceful procrastination of the League in applying the only sanctions which could stop the war—which he has described in interviews with me as financial assistance to the victim of aggression and an embargo against the aggressor on all materials neccesary for war—combined with the fact that whenever the League looks like being effective some obstructive measure in the disguise of conciliation is regularly introduced, is beginning to alter His Majesty’s outlook. He is becoming slowly an Ethiopian of the old warlike type, eager to get into the fighting and either destroy the Italians or die like a Negus.—(Times, March 16th.)

The Emperor’s Committee in London appeals to England “Please stop the murder, massacre, and

slaughter of the innocent and defenceless people of Ethiopia by helping them to acquire proper means of defending themselves. . .” (Manchester Guardian, March 5th.)

As Socialists we are not concerned with whether Abyssinia should be exploited by the native ruling class or by the Italian capitalists; but we sympathise with the tribesmen hounded into war by the Negus and the Italian conscripts led to death by Mussolini’s Government. We would ask the well- meaning supporters of the League and of Sanctions, who, six months ago, helped to mislead the Abyssinians into relying on League and Labour Party help, what they have to say now? What have they done except prolong the useless slaughter? What, indeed, could they do, unless the British ruling class themselves took or threatened armed action, i.e., war against Italy? Giving new names to war has not altered the capitalist world. The capitalist class set the armed forces in motion only to defend capitalist interests. Those who ignore this fact and imagine that the League is above and beyond the motives of those who control it are misleading the workers and playing into the hands of capitalist war-makers.

P. S.

Danger: diplomats at work (1985)

Editorial from the February 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year, which will see the fortieth anniversary of the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, began with what we were told was an auspicious event. In Geneva the Russians and the Americans met to open negotiations about opening negotiations about a future treaty on arms reduction. To be accurate, it was not the "Russians" and the "Americans" who met, in the sense that the negotiations concerned the interests of the majority of the people of those countries. It was representatives of the state powers of those countries, principally in the persons of Gromyko and Shultz, who went to Geneva — and in each case the state power exists to look after the interests of the owning, privileged class of the nation. So it was really the ruling capitalist classes of Russia and America who sent their representatives to talk about how they might reduce their respective capacities to destroy each other and much else of the world at the same time.

At such events it is common for the politicians concerned to make carefully calculated, coded gestures from which the commentators can dredge up a few apparent portents for the future. Such a gesture was Gromyko's hesitant use of the English language to announce the Russian government's attitude towards the negotiations. If this hardened man of the Kremlin was prepared to put himself out to master a few words of English, speculated the media, surely his government must be seriously committed to the fruitful outcome of the talks. Did those halting words signal new hope for this harassed world? There was much relief and praise for the assembled politicians; here, we were encouraged to believe. were high-ranking diplomats earnestly searching for a reduction in world tension, to ensure that there will never again be another Hiroshima. Clearly, this was what is called statesmanship and we should all be thankful for it. even if those same diplomats have in their time managed to stomach the needless death or the slaughter of millions of people.

But if this was statesmanship then it was a case in which its practitioners first organised the building up of a vast arsenal of globally destructive weapons, to the point at which a nuclear war in space is in prospect, before they tentatively began to explore how that arsenal might be reduced — or rather how it might be reduced without putting their interests at risk. This exploration allows the "statesmen" to pose as the saviours of humanity, if we can forget that they agreed to the build-up of the arms in the first place. And if we can forget that, whatever they might announce in their self-congratulatory communiques, they have no realistic hope or intention of exploring the elimination of nuclear weapons, nor of "conventional" arms, nor of the cause of war itself.

Even at that, the politicians have approached the matter with extreme caution. Shultz warned that "a long and arduous process lay ahead" and Gromyko said that the talks were "only a step compared to the immense tasks that are to be addressed in the course of the negotiations on space and nuclear arms . . ." The reason for this caution is obvious; there are vastly important interests at stake in these talks, expressed in the scale of the spending on armaments by the social class whose interests are represented by Shultz and Gromyko. There is good reason, if we accept the priorities of capitalism, for this spending for it goes to protect and expand the powers' standing in the world's economic, commercial and political conflicts. It goes to protect the capitalists' markets and to conquer others for them; it goes to secure their hold on cheap sources of raw material; it goes to establish and maintain their grip on areas of domination such as the Russians have in Eastern Europe and the Americans have over much of the Far East. Expending huge amounts of energy and resources in protecting those interests is considered justifiable even though tens of millions die of famine each year, or of avoidable diseases, or rot in slums, or wither away through neglect and lack of medical care.

Capitalism is lavish with the means of destruction because it is a social system which must operate through competition and conflict; co-operation and harmony are foreign to its nature. The basis of this society—the class ownership of the means of production and distribution — ensures that wealth is produced as commodities, as objects and services intended for sale on the market as opposed to the satisfaction of human needs. Cheap production is important to the capitalist class because it can make their goods more competitive in the markets; thus they must always be concerned to find and exploit the most abundant fields of raw materials, as they have in the North Sea. Access to hungry markets is also vital to their interests for it is there that they can most easily sell their products, with a better chance of getting the highest price. These are aspects of that continuing competitive struggle which is responsible for the world's armed forces and the weapons with which they fight, which are now capable of reducing millions of us to nuclear vapour.

There is no solution to this terrifying situation as long as the basis of capitalism is unchanged. But to change this basis would be to abolish the system and when we have done that there is only one society which can replace it. Socialism will be founded on the world-wide, communal ownership of the means of life. Its wealth will not be produced for sale, for the profit of a minority, but for the consumption and the benefit of the entire people of the world. Competition will be replaced by co-operation. There will be a full participation in all society's activities. especially its productive work, and free access by all to its wealth. On that basis there can be no cause for conflict: common ownership and free access will bring a world of human harmony. And all of this will be organised and operated at the democratically formed will of the people.

That, in brief, is socialism. It is the only way to abolish the problems which at present plague the world and which hamper human progress. It is the only political objective worth the workers' attention. Beside the certainty of the security and abundance of socialism, the false promises of capitalism's leaders are as rancid crumbs. However the diplomats bargain and dissemble they cannot negotiate away the realities of capitalism. The world awaits its appropriation by the working class.

Steel and Gold. (1909)

From the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

"M. Hanotaux, who has been French Minister of Foreign affairs since 1870, has been talking out of school. He has been telling the readers of the “Journal” that the Near East tangle will be set straight peaceably and why there will be no war.

 ‘Protocols [he says] are only so much paper. Behind their fragile tissue lurks the real thing. If an agreement has been arrived at it is because certain interests have received adequate satisfaction, or because some pressure stronger than the will of princes, stronger even than the will of peoples, has been brought to bear upon Governments and reduced them to silence.’

That pressure, we are invited to believe, is the pressure of gold, and the power that is stronger than princes, Cabinets, and peoples is “high finance.” There will be no war in the Near East because Russia alone cares to make war and she dare not. She dare not because she is about to launch a collossal loan. “How can the bondholders be in a happy and generous frame of mind if the ground trembles beneath their feet ? There is but one solution, and that is peace.” And M. Hanotaux sums up the situation in the words—“Europe buys her peace as she did in the days of the Vikings.” It has been said pretty often that the modern arbiters of peace and war are the international financiers, and that, somehow, nations fight so long as it pays the loanmongers, and keep the pace so long as it pays the loanmongers. But hitherto these things have been said by Radicals or Socialists or anti-militarists, and official persons have been faithful to the magniloquent phrases about "the will of the people’’ and “vital national interests." M. Hanotaux is, we believe, the first man who has sat in a Cabinet, and certainly the first man who has occupied that Holy of Holies a Foreign Office, to say that in the realm of international affairs money and power are identical, and that all the apparatus of the chancelleries is only the mask behind which the financier works.”

—Manchester Guardian, 24.12.08. 

Visions of an Egyptian Campaign and a South African War, and smaller bickerings in different parts of the globe arise where the influence of financial interests are obvious testimony to the truth of the statement contained in the above.

The March From Rome - Part 1 (1943)

From the February 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Italian capitalism achieved its local unity by the year 1870, which was fairly late for a European State, and was therefore late in the scramble for expansion. The motive force, in material, for easy expansion in the latter half of the nineteenth century, was coal and railways. Italy's almost total lack of coal made her capitalist growth and expansion semi-dependent upon coal from abroad, mainly Britain. Labour reformists who misled the workers by calling State subsidies and grants "Socialist" may note that in the seventies the Italian Government passed many tariff laws and made regular subsidies to newly growing industries in order to help on her growing capitalism. In spite of the various handicaps, Italian capitalism made good progress. From the nineties to the outbreak of the world war (1914), her imports and exports had risen from £90 millions to £240 millions. The export of silk grew until Milan ousted the French exporters of Lyons and became the foremost silk market in the world. This “prosperity” manifested itself internally in the establishment of military conscription and an ambitious policy externally. Like her French neighbour, she had to be careful where she trod, for powerful Imperialist rivals already existed with older and more stabilised capitalisms. In 1880 she completed her first small arms factory and a naval programme was arranged, French capitalists obtaining the contracts. In 1884 Italy laid down an eight years' plan or military programme to cost round £10 million. Ignorant Communists refer to planning as being a "Socialist" discovery and boost Russia's five years' plan as though it was original. By now Italy was swept into the general current of aggressive Imperialism and began to look round for "safe" conquests. Her geographical position gave her two ways of expansion: (1) Northwards in an Alpine direction; (2) Southwards, in the Mediterranean and North African coast. Both directions, however, were difficult. Northward, the Austro-German bloc barred her way; southward, the French in Algeria and Tunis, and the British Navy dominated the African coast route to Egypt.

The French invasion of Tunis aroused antagonisms among the ruling class in Italy (not through any noble motives) because they were just too late. Diplomacy under capitalism is more than "the art of lying." It is the art of "duplicity." For some years Italian jingoes had been clamouring for the return to Italy of the Italian provinces still in Austrian hands—Trieste, Istria, Trentino. As a reply to the French occupation of Tunis, she joined Germany and Austria in the Triple Alliance, surrendering her claim to the Italian provinces, in return for help in her Mediterranean-Africa ambitions. A military alliance was signed for five years. The Alliance, however, did not guarantee any assistance if Italy was attacked by a fourth Power.

Dead sea fruit. 
Towards the time when the treaty would end France and Russia asked Italy to leave the Alliance with a view to a new one aimed at Britain in return for which they both offered help to regain the Austrian held provinces Italy had previously bawled about and then relinquished. Yon can't teach old dogs new tricks. British capitalism, well versed in all the moves of the game of diplomacy, adroitly gave Italy an assurance of help if she was threatened in the Mediterranean (by someone else). Thus by playing on other capitalists' interests, Crispi secured for Italian capitalism n free period for an aggressive expansionist policy. All that was necessary was to avoid poaching on other capitalist, preserves. Beaten by the French in Tunis, she went a bit further afield, and in 1885 got Massawa, etc., on the Red Sea (Eritrea). These places were of very little use in themselves, but good jumping-off grounds for an assault on the fertile rich land of Abyssinia. Italy made war on this country but was smashed in 1887. She was able to expand here, as her rivals, French and British, were at logger- heads in the area of Egypt. Italy's defeat in a frontal attack did not,. however, deter her from her aims; it was merely a question of learning the tricks of the trade. By playing off one native leader against another (fifth column work long ago) she succeeded in establishing a “protectorate" over a part of Somaliland. With the death of the Emperor of Abyssinia came Italy's chance. They successfully championed Menelik, one of the claimants to the throne. For this Italy was granted part of the territory and the "privilege" of supplying such arms and loans as Abyssinia (or its slave owners) might need. Italy also established by bribes a number of “Quisling" groups among the native chiefs in Tripoli (for use later on). At this time German capitalism was becoming dangerously strong and France becoming increasingly apprehensive. Germany's policy aimed at keeping Italy “outside" the French orbit. This fear increased when in 1893, at the German Grand Army manoeuvres, there appeared the Italian Crown Prince. French finance quickly replied by liquidating her Italian securities (£40 millions). This created a financial panic in Italy. These European relations, internal disorders and economic depression, forced the Italian Government to turn the people's minds elsewhere, and capitalist hopes too, so attention was again given to East Africa.

Menelik now double-crossed his Italian ally, rallied the native chiefs, and at Adawo, March, 1896, smashed the Italians and pushed Italian capitalism out of it. Italy now had to seek help in Europe.

In 1895 German financiers established in Italy the Commercial Bank with £200,000 capital; by 1914 its capital had reached £6 millions. The economic crisis resulting from the Abyssinian failure, plus the falling price of government bonds, compelled Italian capitalism to end her tariff war and become “Liberal" and pursue a policy of peace, retrenchment and reform. "Liberal" capitalism, however, is only a phase, and as Italy did not live in a vacuum, she was subject to the laws of capitalism and its inherent contradictions. Capitalist Imperialism cannot leave any part of the world outside its orbit for ever. Each capitalist as an individual and each section of capitalism fishes in troubled waters for gain at each other’s expense. It is against the workers that capitalists unite as a class. Hence, in 1900, during a German financial crisis, France became the financial pool for Italy. Paris bought up some £5 million worth of Italy's national debt, giving France a lever against Germany and making her Italy's banker. Agreements were now reached for "spheres of influence," and thus dealt a smashing blow at the Triple Alliance. The culminating stroke was delivered when at this time was formed their Entente-Cordiale, bringing Britain and France together. Italy, dependent for coal on Britain and for money on France, moved further away from her alliance with Germany. In return for a free hand in Tripoli, Italy agreed not to obstruct French policy in Morocco, The treaty of November, 1911, securing to France the “protectorate" over Morocco, was the signal for Italy's bid for Tripoli. She entered this war with Turkey full of confidence.

Lew Jones

(To be concluded.)

Link to Part 2

The Next War (2019)

The Cooking the Books column from the September 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘In the next war, we’ll need the Royal Marines’ was the heading of an article by Roger Boyes in the Times (17 July), subtitled ‘Other nations are scaling up for an amphibious conflict over trade but Britain is ill-prepared.’ He quoted Hannah Arendt about the age of imperialism being when ‘businessmen became politicians and were acclaimed as statesmen, while statesmen were taken seriously only if they talked the language of successful businessmen,’ adding: ‘These times are back.’

Socialists have always contended that the underlying cause of war is the competitive struggle for profits that is built-in to capitalism and which leads to conflicts between capitalist states over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets, and strategic points and areas to protect these. Normally, this competition is peaceful and differences are settled by diplomatic means in arrangements which reflect the relative strengths of the states involved. Here might is right, and not just economic might but also the military force at a state’s disposal. This is why all states try to equip themselves with the most up-to-date and deadly weapons that they can afford.

War is only resorted to as a last resort, when those in charge of a state judge that its vital interests are at stake. After all, war is costly and risky for a capitalist state. On the other hand, sabre-rattling, as a threat to go to war, is a normal part of diplomacy. Economic sanctions, in which states try to impose a mediaeval-type siege on the population of a whole country, have more recently become an alternative to actual war.

All that happened after the end of the stage of capitalism Arendt commented on was that ‘statesmen’ found it politic to speak of war as being fought for ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’ and other such lofty ideals, in order to disguise the real reason from populations less likely to support a war over such a sordid thing as trade. Now, it seems, they don’t feel the need to do this so much.

Boyes, who is the paper’s diplomatic editor but who sounds more like its war correspondent, was mainly concerned in the article about conflicts over trade routes, mentioning in particular three strategic sea lanes:

• The Strait of Hormuz which controls the entrance to the Persian Gulf ‘through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes.’
• The Bab el-Mandeb Strait between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, through which all shipping using the Suez Canal has to pass.
• The Malaccan Straits ‘through which 80 per cent of China’s imported oil passes from the Indian Ocean into the South China Sea.’

There is already a war going on in the Red Sea area, on one side of which is Yemen where America’s allies, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are fighting against local militias serving as Iran’s proxies, with, as always in wars, devastating effects on the local population. The main flashpoint at the moment, however, is the straits of Hormuz which Iran is threatening to close in retaliation for the crippling economic sanctions imposed on it and the US is mobilising a war fleet to keep them open if needed.

Boyes views this as normal: ‘Proximity to the sea lanes that define global trade has become something worth fighting for.’ Actually, from a capitalist point of view, it always has been, but in expressing this Boyes is at least being honest, while at the same time confirming the socialist case on why wars happen – and why we say that defending trade routes is not worth a single drop of working class blood.

The Passing of Lenin. (1924)

From the March 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the significant facts brought into prominence by the great war was the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class of the Western World.

A gigantic field of operations and colossal wealth at their disposal, failed to bring out a single personality above the mediocre, from England and Germany down the list to America and Roumania.

The only character that stood, and stands, above the Capitalist mediocrities, was the man lately buried in Moscow – Nikolai Lenin.

The senseless shrieks of the Capitalist henchman against Lenin was itself evidence of their recognition of their own inferiority. All the wild and confused tales that were told by the agents of the master class (from Winston Churchill to Mrs. Snowden) to suggest that Lenin was “the greatest monster of iniquity the world has ever seen,” largely defeated their object, to every person capable of thinking clearly, by their sheer stupidity and extravagance.

One result of this tornado of lies was to cause a corresponding reaction on the other side. The various groups of woolly headed Communists, inside and outside of Russia, began to hail Lenin a new “Messiah” who was going to show the working class a new quick road to salvation. Thus does senseless abuse beget equally senseless hero-worship.

From sheer exhaustion the two-fold campaign has died down in the last year or two, even the “stunt” press only giving small space to Lenin and Russia.

Lenin’s sudden death, despite his long illness, has brought forward a flood of articles and reviews entirely different in tone from those that greeted his rise to power.

The shining light of modern Conservatism – Mr. J. L. Garvin – does not know whether Lenin was famous or infamous, whether he was a great man or a great scoundrel, so, wisely, leaves the verdict to posterity to settle.

A Fabian pet, Mr. G. D. H. Cole, in the New Statesman, for the 2nd February, makes the claim that Lenin’s great work was the “invention of the Soviet”! It is difficult to understand how the editor of a journal, supposed to be written for “educated” people, should have allowed such a piece of stupid ignorance to have passed his scrutiny. The word “Soviet” – that seems to have mesmerised some people – simply means “Council.” Every student of Russia knows that the “Council” has been an organic part of the Russian Constitution since the middle of the 16th century. But there may be another explanation of Mr. Cole’s attitude. As one of the leaders of that hopeless crusade to turn back the hands of the clock (known as “The Guild System”) he sees around him the ruins and the rubbish of the various experiments in this system and maybe he hopes by claiming Russia as an example of “Guildism” to arouse some new enthusiasm for further useless experiments. His hopes are built on shifting sands.

Michael Farbman, in the Observer, Jan. 27th, 1924, takes a more daring and dangerous line. He claims to understand Marx and Marxism, and yet makes such statements as:-

  “When Lenin inaugurated the Dictatorship of the Proletariat he obviously was unhampered by the slightest hesitation or doubt as to the efficacy of Marxian principles. But the longer he tested them as a practical revolutionist and statesman the more he became aware of the impossibility of building up a society on an automatic and exclusively economic basis. When he had to adopt an agrarian policy totally at variance with his Marxian opinions, and when later he was compelled to make an appeal to the peasants’ acquisitive instincts and go back to what he styled ‘State Capitalism,’ he was not only conscious that something was wrong with his Marxian gospel, but frankly admitted that Marx had not foreseen all the realities of a complex situation. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the greatest value of the Russian Revolution to the world Labour movement lies in the fact that it has replaced Marxism by Leninism.”

The above quotation has been given at length because it not only epitomises Mr. Farbman’s attitude but also that of many so-called “Socialists.”

It will, therefore, be a matter of astonishment to the reader unacquainted with Marx’s writings and theories to learn that almost every sentence in that paragraph either begs the question or is directly false.

In the first sentence we have two assertions, One that Lenin established the “ Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” the other that this is a “Marxian principle.” Both statements are deliberately false.

Lenin never established any “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” – whatever that may mean – but only the Dictatorship of the Communist Party which exists today. In the whole of Marx’s writing that he himself saw through the press the phrase Dictatorship of the Proletariat does not occur once! This, of course, Mr. Farbman knows well. The next sentence contains a phrase that Mr. Farbman may know the meaning of, but which is idiotic nonsense from a Marxian standpoint. To talk of a Society “on an automatic and exclusively economic basis” is utterly in opposition to all Marxian teachings.

If Lenin ever made the statement attributed to him in the sentence that follows – “that Marx had not foreseen all the realities of a complex situation” – which is at least doubtful as no reference is given, that would only show Lenin’s misreading of Marx.

But the last sentence is a gem. Not only has the Russian revolution not displaced Marxism by Leninism (for as showed above Marxism never existed there) – it has displaced Leninism by Capitalism.

To understand Lenin’s position, both actually and historically, it is necessary to examine the conditions under which he came to the front. Early in 1917 it was clear to all observers that the corruption, treachery and double-dealing of the Czar and his nobles had brought about the collapse of the Army. (See M, Phillips Price The Soviet, the Terror and Intervention, p. 15; John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, etc,).

This was the most important factor in the whole Russian upheaval, and is the pivot upon which all the rest turns.

The Romanoffs and their crew had fallen from power when an efficient armed force was no longer at their disposal. Kerensky, who replaced them, tried to keep the war going without men or munitions. Lenin obtained permission to leave Switzerland for Russia and tried to stir up a revolt in March, 1917, but this failed, and he had to fly to Finland. Confusion grew, and finally it was decided to take steps to call a Constituent Assembly to draw up a new Constitution for Russia. The Bolsheviks hailed this move and loudly protested against the dilatoriness of Kerensky, who was afraid of losing office. At the same time the various Councils of peasants, workers and soldiers began to send representatives to Petrograd for an All-Russian Congress. At once a struggle began between the Kerensky section – or Mensheviks – and the Lenin section – or Bolsheviks – to obtain the majority of representation in this Assembly. For days the struggle continued and almost to the last moment the issue was in doubt, but the superior slogan of the Bolsheviks – “Peace, Bread, Land” – finally won a majority over to their side.

A day or two before this Lenin had come out of his hiding place and placed himself at the head of the Bolsheviks.

The first thing Lenin did when in office was to keep his promise. He issued a call for peace to all the belligerents on the basis of’ “no annexations, no indemnities.” This astonished the politicians of the Western Nations to whom election promises are standing jokes.

It was at this point that Lenin made his greatest miscalculation. He believed that the working masses of the western world were so war weary that upon the call from one of the combatants they would rise and force their various Governments to negotiate peace. Unfortunately these masses had neither the knowledge nor the organisation necessary for such a movement, and no response was given to the call, except the snarling demands of the Allies that Russia should continue to send men to be slaughtered. This lack of response was a terrible disappointment to Lenin, but, facing the situation, he opened negotiations for a separate peace with Germany. And here he made a brilliant stroke. To the horror and dismay of all the diplomatic circles in Europe he declared that the negotiations would be carried on in public, and they were. Thus exposing the stupid superstition still so beloved of Communists here, that it is impossible to conduct important negotiations in public.

Of course the conditions demanded by the Germans were hard. Again and again Lenin’s followers demanded that war should be re-opened rather than accept these conditions. Radek reports a conversation (Russian Information and Review, January 26th, 1924):-

  “The mujik must   the war. ‘But don’t you see that the mujik voted against the war,’ Lenin answered. ‘Excuse me, when and how did he vote against it?’ ‘He voted with his feet; he is running away from the front.’”

Large tracts of territory were detached from the Bolshevik control, and the greatest blow was the separation of the Ukraine, whose splendid fertile soil would have been of immense value for the purpose of providing food.

Still the problems to be handled were enormous. The delegates to the Constituent Assembly had gathered in Petrograd, but Lenin, who shouted so loudly for this Assembly when out of office, was not running the risk of being deposed now he was in office. He had the gathering dispersed, and refused to let the Assembly meet. Sporadic outbreaks among the peasantry were a source of continual trouble, particularly as the Bolsheviks had only a poor force at their disposal. The signing of the Armistice however solved this problem. The Communists are fond of claiming that Trotsky organised the “Red Army.” This claim is absurd, for Trotsky knew nothing of military matters. The upheaval in Germany, after the signing of the Armistice, threw hundreds of German officers out of work and Lenin gladly engaged their services, at high salaries, to organise the army. By the offer of better food rations, better clothing and warmer quarters plenty of men offered themselves for enlistment. The main difficulty however was not men but munitions.

Lenin and his supporters expected that the victorious Allies would turn their combined forces on Russia. But the Allies were so engrossed in trickery, double-dealing and swindling each other over the sharing of the plunder that they largely ignored Russia. Still to show their good will and kind intentions they subsidised a set of thieving scoundrels – Koltchak (assisted by that British hero “Colonel” John Ward), Deniken, Wrangel, Yudenitch, etc., to invade Russia for the purpose of taking it out of the control of the Russians.

It was a most hopeful undertaking, this sending in of marauding bands! The peasant, who had just got rid of his age-long enemy the landlord (sometimes rather summarily) was expected to assist in restoring that gentleman. To help them in reaching a decision, these marauding bands, with strict impartiality, plundered friend and foe alike. The only result of these various raids was to unify the mass of the people in Russia in accepting the Bolshevik rule. Slowly the Russians began to gather arms. Their army was already in good order, and although the enormous distances and lack of transport prevented them reaching many places, yet whenever the Red Army met the looting bands mentioned above the latter were defeated, with monotonous regularity.

Of course compared with the battles on the western front these engagements were mere hand skirmishes, as neither side had any heavy artillery, high-velocity shells, poison gas, nor bombing aeroplanes.

A greater enemy to Leninism than any of these gangs, however, and one which had been exerting its influence for some time, now greatly increased its pressure, this was the individualistic conditions of the peasant, combined with the wants of the townsmen. Various decrees had been passed forbidding private trading in the towns and villages (apart from special licences) but the Bolsheviks had never dared to enforce these decrees in face of the food shortage. The result of this increased pressure was the famous “New Economic Policy,” that caused such consternation in the ranks of the Communist parties. In this country Miss Sylvia Pankhurst nearly died of disgust when the news arrived.

But once more Lenin was right. He recognised the seriousness of the conditions and tried to frame a policy to fit them. His own words describe the situation with great clearness:-

  “Yet, in 1921, after having emerged victoriously from the most important stages of the Civil War, Soviet Russia came face to face with a great – I believe, the greatest – internal political crisis which caused dissatisfaction, not only of the huge masses of the peasantry, but also of large numbers of workers.
  “It was the first, and I hope the last, time in the history of Soviet Russia that we had the great masses of the peasantry arrayed against us, not consciously, but instinctively, as a sort of political mood.
  “What was the cause of this unique, and, for us, naturally disagreeable, situation? It was caused by the fact that we had gone too far with our economic measures, that the masses were already sensing what we had not properly formulated, although we had to acknowledge a few weeks afterwards, namely, that the direct transition to pure Socialist economy, to pure Socialistic distribution of wealth, was far beyond our resources, and that if we could not make a successful and timely retreat, if we could not confine ourselves to easier tasks, we would go under.” (Address to the Fourth Congress of the Communist International.) (Italics ours.)

The most significant phrase in the above statement – the one we have underlined – now admits at last that Marx was right, and that the whole of the Communist “Theories and Theses” are rubbish from top to bottom.

Mr. Brailsford, the £1,000 a year, editor of The New Leader, in the issue for January 25th, 1924 says:-

  “Alone in the earthquakes of the war period, this Russian revived the heroic age, and proved what the naked will of one man may do to change the course of history.”

What knowledge! What judgement! What intelligence! Where has the “course of history” changed one hair’s breadth owing to Russia? And the above specimen of ignorance, that would disgrace a school child, is considered worth £1,000 a year by the I.L.P.! Doubtless the measure of their intelligence.

The chief points of Lenin’s rule can now be traced out. He was the product of the “course of history” when the breakdown occurred in Russia. At first – nay even as late as the publication of Left-Wing Communism (p.44) – Lenin claimed that it was “a Socialist Revolution.” He also claimed that the Bolsheviks were establishing “Socialism” in Russia in accord with Marxian principles. Some of the shifts, and even deliberate misinterpretations of Marx’s writings that Lenin indulged in to defend his unsound position have already been dealt with in past issues of the Socialist Standard and need not detain us here. To delay the victorious Allies taking action against Russia, large sums were spent on propaganda in Europe by the Bolsheviks. “Communist” Parties sprang up like mushrooms, and now that these funds are vanishing, are dying like the same vegetable. Their policy was to stir up strife. Every strike was hailed as the “starting of the revolution.” But somehow they were all “bad starts”!

When the Constituent Assembly was broken up by Lenin’s orders he had the Russian Soviet Constitution drawn up. He realised that if the Bolsheviks were to retain control this new Constitution must give them full power. We have already analysed this Constitution in detail, in a previous issue, but a repetition of one point will make the essential feature clear. Clause 12 says:-

  “The supreme authority in the Russian Soviet Republic is vested in the All Russia Congress of Soviets, and, during the time between the Congresses, in the Central Executive Committee.”

Clause 28 says:-

  “The All Russia Congress of Soviets elects the All Russia Central Executive of not more than 200 members.”

Innocent enough, surely! But – yes there is a but – the credentials of the delegates to the All-Russia Congress are verified by the officials of the Communist Party and at every congress it turns out – quite by accident of course – that a large majority of the delegates are members of the Communist Party. The others are listened to politely, allowed to make long speeches, and then voted down by the “Block.” This little fact also applies to all “The Third Communist International Congresses,” and to all “The International Congresses of the Red Labour Unions.” No matter how many delegates the other countries may send, the Russian delegation is always larger than the rest combined.

By this “Dictatorship of the Communist Party” Lenin was able to keep power concentrated in his own hands.

Lenin made desperate efforts to induce the town workers to run the factories on disciplined lines, but despite the most rigid decrees these efforts were a failure. The Russian townsmen, like the peasant, has no appreciation of the value of time, and it is impossible to convert a 17th century hand worker into a modern industrial wage slave by merely pushing him into a factory and giving him a machine to attend. Lenin’s experience proves the fallacy of those who proclaim that modern machines, because they are made “fool-proof” in some details, can be operated by any people, no matter how low their stage of development.

Another idea was tried. A number of minor vultures on the working class, of the I.W.W. and Anarchist “leader” type, had gone to Russia to see what could be picked up. There were 6,000,000 unemployed in America. Lenin called upon these “leaders” to arrange for the transport of numbers of mechanics and skilled labourers to form colonies in Russia, with up-to-date factories and modern machinery. These “leaders” pocketed their fees and expenses, but the colonies have yet to materialise.

Such was the position up to the time of Lenin’s illness.

What then are Lenin’s merits? First in order of time is the fact that he made a clarion call for a world peace. When that failed he concluded a peace for his own country. Upon this first necessary factor he established a Constitution to give him control and, with a skill and judgement unequalled by any European or American statesman, he guided Russia out of its appalling chaos into a position where the services are operating fairly for such an undeveloped country, and where, at least, hunger no longer hangs over the people’s heads. Compare this with the present conditions in Eastern Europe!

Despite his claims at the beginning, he was the first to see the trend of conditions and adapt himself to these conditions. So far was he from “changing the course of history” as Brailsford ignorantly remarks that it was the course of history which changed him, drove him from one point after another till today Russia stands halfway on the road to capitalism. The Communists, in their ignorance, may howl at this, but Russia cannot escape her destiny. As Marx says:-

  “One nation can and should learn from others. And even when a society has got upon the right track for the discovery of the natural laws of its movement – and it is the ultimate aim of this work to lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society – it can neither clear by bold leaps nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs.” (Preface Vol, I. Capital.)

The Bolsheviks will probably remain in control for the simple reason that there is no one in Russia capable of taking their place. It will be a question largely as to whether they will be able to stand the strain for the task is a heavy one, and they are by no means overcrowded with capable men. But this control will actually resolve itself into control for, and in the interests of, the Capitalists who are willing to take up the development of raw materials and industry in Russia. The New Economic Policy points the way.

The peasant problem will take longer to solve because of the immense areas, and lack of means of communication. Until the capitalists develop roads and railways the peasants will, in the main, follow their present methods and habits. When these roads and railways are developed, modern agriculture will begin to appear worked at first with imported men and machines. But then Russia will be well on the road to fully developed Capitalism.

The Communists claim that Lenin was a great teacher to the working class the world over, but with singular wisdom they refrain from pointing out what that teaching was. His actions from 1917 to 1922 certainly illustrate a certain lesson that is given above, but the teacher of that lesson was Karl Marx.

Jack Fitzgerald

The Struggle for Markets. (1924)

From the March 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

In January, 1924, the Manchester Guardian quoted an Exchange Washington message as saying, “Following a Conference with oil owners, President Coolidge has ordered two battleships to proceed to Mexico.”

It has been stated that the United States of America came into the great war to fight for, besides other things, the rights of small nations. The knowledge obtained in the great war about such rights, as can be seen from the above telegram, has now been put to practical use by President Coolidge. That the U.S.A. President has consulted American owners of oil wells in Mexico, instead of representatives of the Mexican people, is probably not an oversight on the President’s part, A person so high up as the U.S.A. President, cannot be expected to consult a low down greaser as to what is good for him. Other messages from the same source as the above telegram, state:

“A squadron of the U.S.A. Navy has been sent to scare the rebels from blockading the oil port of Tampico,” and again, “ It is understood that American troops are destined for the Gulf and oilfields, where extensive foreign interests were recently invaded by Huertaists.”

That these foreign interests happen to coincide with the interests of the American Standard Oil Co. is probably a happy accident. One more phase in the struggle between the Standard Oil Co. of America and the. Royal Dutch Shell is being fought out in this struggle for the exploitation rights of the Mexican oil wells.

Further Exchange Washington messages state: “That the U.S.A. have allowed armaments to be sold to Gen. Obregon’s troops, and have placed an embargo on the supply of munitions to the enemy,” who is in this case Gen. de la Huerta. “Gen. Obregon’s troops have been allowed to march on American soil in order to outmanoeuvre the enemy.” The violation of American soil by foreign troops does not seem to Have scared America’s patriots. Patriotism and the large dividends which the American Standard Oil Co. have given to its investors, evidently in this case, go hand in hand. This, however, is in the U.S.A., where, as every Englishman knows, graft, big business and Government go together. In England there has been a change of Government. The late Tory Government persistently refused to recognise Soviet Russia. The first plank in the new Labour Government’s programme, and which they have already carried out, was the recognition of Soviet Russia. That Russia has possession of oilfields, which, if concessions could be obtained for their exploitation, would be the means of obtaining a monopoly in the future, as well as huge profits which follow; that Russia is a possible huge market for British textile goods; that Russia has an abundance of raw materials which could be manufactured in Great Britain is only incidental to the fact that though leading members of the present Government have denounced Soviet rule in the past, they have now condescended to shake hands with murder, as the Daily Mail once had it.

The Manchester Guardian, the organ of the British textile industrialists, has for months past advocated the full recognition of Russia. It advised the Liberal and Labour Parties to come together for this end. This has come about. Leslie Urquhart, Chairman of the Russian Asiatic Corporation, has, as was pointed out in the Leader, of our November issue, largely blamed the late Tory Government for his failure to obtain favourable concessions from Russia, for his Company. England has beaten other countries in the diplomatic recognition of Russia, in its haste to obtain first chance in the Russian market.

The prospect of a large market for British goods and the possibility of concessions to exploit the Russian workers and mineral wealth of Russia has been too much for the cupidity of the Capitalist class.

Can it be that big business does influence Government policy in England?

The scramble for markets is becoming ever keener. For the markets that now exist are becoming less able to swallow the gigantic output of modern industrial production. More, and more, countries are becoming competitors for the markets that at present exist. In the East, India and China are gradually becoming sufficiently industrialised to produce enough goods for their own needs. Japan, having a superabundance of goods, which it desires to get rid of has long since begun a policy of annexing suitable territories in which it can dump its goods. In the Chinese market Japan has come up against other countries on the same game, namely America and England. A consortium of powers had to be formed in order to prevent war, and if possible, to divide the spoils equally.

Force will soon be the only method by which these countries can dominate markets.

To use force means war; on the other hand, unless markets are found under the present system, it means greater unemployment and poverty for you English fellow worker. Out of the two evils which are you to choose? Choose neither of them, fellow worker; instead, study the principles of the Socialist Party on the back page. If you understand and approve of them join the Party and help us to eliminate war, unemployment and other evils which are the result of the Capitalist system in which we live.   

H. A.

50 Years Ago: German Withdrawal from Disarmament Conference (1983)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most of the comments in the English Press and in the speeches of politicians affect horror at the action of Germany and its leaders. But on the ground common to all the defenders of capitalism in the various nations, Hitler's action has full justification. The Versailles Peace Treaty, under which Germany’s armed forces were reduced to the minimum considered necessary to protect capitalism internally, pledged the Allies definitely an explicitly to disarm themselves. That pledge has not been kept and none of the political leaders who made it ever believed that it would be kept. That is why the Russian Government could call their bluff by offering to disarm completely if and when the others would do the same. That is why Hitler can now say that Germany does not want big armaments, only equality with the Allied Governments, either universal disarmament or armaments all round.

Not one of the powers dare dispense with armaments; and that not solely because of their desire to defend frontiers and interests abroad, but because the ruling class everywhere dare not face its own dispossessed class without the protection of armed forces. That is the dominating fact in Germany as it is in the USA, Russia. Britain. Austria and the rest, and it is the one thing nobody ever mentions at disarmament conferences. Hence the unreality of it all. These representatives of capitalism gather together in Geneva to profess their mutually peaceable inclinations, to swear their undying hatred of war, and to reiterate year after year that they are all agreed on speedy disarmament. Every kind of formula is debated and accepted, every kind of scheme for disarmament is applied, and the one thing that never happens is disarmament.

(From an editorial "The War Scene: Tragic Farce at Geneva and Moscow”, Socialist Standard, November 1933.)

The Saviours of Russia (1918)

Editorial from the September 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

The hand of the capitalist is slowly but surely revealing itself in Russian affairs. It will be remembered with what haste the capitalist Governments rushed to congratulate their triumphant (as they thought) fellow thieves upon their overthrow of the monarchy. They did not then stop to lecture on the enormity of “internal dissention” in the midst of war. No, they tumbled over each other in their anxiety to deliver their congratulations — because the “victors” were of their own kidney.

They made a mistake, however. In the ultimate it proved to he more than the revolutionary capitalist class in Russia could do, once they had broken the tyrannical organisation which had kept the conscripted forces in subjection, to regain for themselves control of those forces. It was not for the want of trying that they failed. They soon got busy butchering soldiers who refused to go on with the war which they had not made, which they had never wanted, and which they realised could bring them no benefit. So the revolutionary capitalists, who were never for a moment strong enough to establish their authority over the forces and powers of State, were “recognised” and accepted by their fellow capitalists as the “representatives of the Russian people,” as the Russian people, as the natural successors, quite as a matter of course, to Bloody Nick and his crew. That they had no power as a Government made no difference.

How different, however, was the conduct of the capitalist Governments toward the Bolsheviks when the latter took the reins from the palsied grasp of the “triumphant bourgeoisie"! Their accredited envoys received only “unofficial recognition, for the purpose of communication.” The London representative was even permitted to be turned out of his office, and the law was strained order to prevent that Russian representative enjoying the use of the premises he was in perfectly legal possession of.

Thus it is seen that from the very commencement the capitalist governments have been bitterly antagonistic to the Bolshevik Government. They have refused to receive their accredited representatives, they have declined to recognise them as a government, they have deprived their ambassadors or envoys (of course, they will quarrel over the terms) of the common means and conveniences for carrying on their work, even to the extent of interrupting their communications.

Nor is this by any means the worst. Fearful that if the Bolshevik enterprise should meet with success it might prove contagious, they have determined to crush it and restore their friends and allies, the Russian capitalists, to dominance. So we have a “league of nations” in being against the Bolshevik Government. Under the plea that they are going to save Russia from the Germans they invade the country at various points. “We come as the friends of Russia,” they declare, and disown any intention of interfering with “the internal politics of the country.”

But the shallow falsity of all these claims is quite easy to see. No efforts of the Allies in Russia can “save Russia from Germany,” for the force which they can send into that country must be expended, not against Germany, but against new enemies the allied invasion must necessarily raise up—the Bolsheviks themselves. Hence the effort of the Allies can only be on the one hand a provocative of further opposition to them, and on the other hand a subtraction from the forces operating in the regions where the question of the German exploitation of Russia really will be decided—in the main theatre of war, the West European front.

As to the claim that they go into Russia as “the friends of Russia,” this must be translated into “the friends of Russian capitalists” if it is to have any truth at all. It is only by the continued exploitation of the Russian working class that the Allied capitalists can ever hope to recover the many millions which they have advanced, both before and since the outbreak of the war, to Russia, with the object of strengthening her against Germany. It is only by setting up capitalist domination anew in Eastern Europe, that they can maintain that counterpoise to industrially advancing Germany, that thorn in the side of the double eagle, which is so necessary if they are to retain their place in the world markets. It is only by securing the downfall of the Bolshevik regime, by throwing upon that movement the odium of failure, that they can stave off their own demise, as a class proven to be useless, for any considerable period. These are the reasons which underlie their actions, which bring Allied soldiers to the Murman coast, call Japanese troops to Eastern Siberia, and turn even Chinese artillery on Bolshevik workmen.

Now with regard to the ludicrous statement that there is no intention of interfering with Russian internal politics. Everyone knows that it is openly admitted that one of the main objects of the Allies in invading Russia is “to save Russia from the Bolsheviks.” The capitalist Press has made no secret of it. Capitalist agents, both here and in Russia, have striven for it. In particular one may instance Dr. Harold Williams, when special correspondent to the "Daily Chronicle” in Petrograd, and since his return to this country. His filthy diatribes against the Bolsheviks leave no doubt as to their object—the overthrow of those against whom he inveighed.

What sort of game has been played is unwittingly revealed in an eulogy of Capt. Cromie which appeared in the “Daily Chronicle” on Sept. 14th, wherein, after retailing some of Cromie’s activities in favour of the capitalist interests, it is stated that, he went to Petrograd and strove to hold the forces of “sanity and reason” together. Needless to say, in the capitalist view, neither sanity nor reason can reside in Bolshevik craniums, and to scheme their overthrow is not interfering in internal politics of course!

The First World War and its Aftermath (2018)

From the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

At 11 am on 11 November 1918 Germany signed an armistice which ended four years of unremitting carnage. From 28 July 1914 to 11 November, over 9 million soldiers and 6 million civilians perished. The First World War is sometimes seen as an historical accident triggered by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand. Yet from the nineteenth century onwards growing rivalries between the major capitalist powers created tensions that were bound to erupt into war.

Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 led to the unification of Germany in 1871. The new German state then entered into an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Russia, known as the League of the Three Emperors, to contain French power. Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and increasing Russian influence in the Balkans brought this alliance to an end. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy then formed the Triple Alliance. To counteract this France entered into an alliance with Russia. Britain later joined France and Russia to form the Triple Entente.

Germany, since unification, had become a major economic and industrial power. Its rulers sought to compete with other major powers in world markets and seek colonies that would be sources of raw materials. To achieve this, they sought to expand their military capacity and, therefore, they proceeded to build up their navy. This inevitably led to rivalry with Britain in the control of global sea routes. Germany, Russia, France and Italy increased the size of their standing armies.

Instability arose in the Balkans as competing powers vied with each other to grab the spoils from the declining Ottoman Empire. Austria-Hungary earned the enmity of Russia and Serbia when it formally annexed the former Ottoman province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Germany also had a strategic interest in the region. The route of the proposed Berlin-Constantinople railway would travel through Vienna and Belgrade, and therefore Germany would require some control or influence over Serbia. This would bring conflict with Russia.

Austria-Hungary’s rulers used the occasion of the Archduke’s assassination to bring Serbia, which they suspected of promoting pan Slavic nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina, to heel. They delivered an ultimatum that they calculated would be rejected. Serbia accepted most of the conditions, but had reservations on others. Thereupon, they declared war on Serbia with the backing of their German ally. The Russian leaders retaliated by mobilising their forces, arguing that it was their duty to protect their fellow Slavs. But their real fear was that an Austrian victory would result in further Austrian and German encroachment of the Balkans, which would threaten to undermine their trade through the Bosphorus Straits.

The German rulers in turn demanded that Russia demobilise its forces, whereupon Russia refused and they declared war on her. A couple of days later Germany declared war on Russia’s ally, France. In order to avoid the highly fortified border with France, the German leaders decided to move their forces through Belgium. When the Belgian government refused free passage, the German military launched an invasion. Ostensibly the United Kingdom was committed by the Treaty of London 1839 to defend Belgium, and this was the reason given for declaring war on Germany. However, the British rulers main concern was the safeguarding of their trade routes to their empire, and followed a policy of ‘splendid isolation’, whereby Britain would intervene only in European affairs when there was a shift in the balance of power between the competing nations to their disadvantage. The German invasion of Belgium was deemed to be such a moment. The British government also drew on workers from the Dominions and Empire – India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand — to fight for them.

Bribery was used to entice other countries into the War. Rumania was promised Hungarian territory if they joined the ‘allied powers’ — Britain and France. Bulgaria preferred the offer from Germany, that it could have Macedonia, and so joined them. Italy was promised the Austrian regions of South Tyrol and Trieste and Northern Dalmatia by the allied powers. Italy turned her back on her former allies, Germany and Austria-Hungary, and joined the latter. Japan also joined the allied powers in the hope of acquiring Germany’s Chinese possessions.

In 1917, in a bid to end the war quickly, German forces intensified their blockade of Britain’s ports, which had been a source of friction with the United States for some time, and resumed attacks on shipping. Many American ships were sunk with a great loss of life. This, along with a telegram from the German Foreign Minister requesting support from the Mexicans in exchange for assistance in retaking US territory lost in the Mexican-American War, prompted the US government to declare war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Also, US capitalists made money out of providing financial loans to Britain and France and therefore saw it as in their economic interests to support the allied powers.

Workers did the fighting

When the capitalists of different nations fall out and go to war, they don’t normally do the fighting themselves, but get their respective working classes to do it for them. This requires an appeal to patriotism and jingoism, whereby politicians toured the country whipping up enthusiasm for the war. One successful orator was Horatio Bottomley, the so-called People’s Tribune but in fact a discredited bankrupt before the war. For all his efforts in bringing in recruits, he managed to rake in £78,000 which he spent on racehorses, women and champagne. For those young male workers who were of military age and not seduced by the clarion call to arms, young women were employed to stick white feathers on them.

The capitalists and their politicians did not garner support on their own. They had the backing of the so-called ‘workers representatives’, the Labour and Social Democratic parties, which abandoned their proclaimed commitment to the international working class and rallied behind the war efforts of their respective ruling classes. The German Social Democratic representatives in the Reichstag gave a spurious ‘Marxist’ justification for voting for war credits. A victorious Germany, they argued, would overthrow the backward Tsarist regime and capitalism would develop rapidly in Russia. Expansion in industrial production and the growth of the Russian working class would speedily create the conditions for the establishment of socialism. Trade unions showed their support by co-operating with the employers to ensure maximum production and the curtailing of any strike action. The suffragettes suspended their campaign and joined the war effort. However, there was opposition to the war from Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Sylvia Pankhurst and of course, the Socialist Party.

The capitalist class couldn’t rely on jingoist appeals alone, they needed high ideals as well. The British capitalist class claimed to be fighting for ‘the liberty of small nations’. Although this noble ideal seemingly applied to Belgium, curiously it did not apply to Britain’s colonies, certainly not in the case of Ireland, where the Easter rising in 1916 was ruthlessly suppressed. Another great ideal was ‘to make the world safe for democracy’. Oddly, censorship and restriction of war reporting was required for this one. Many would consider the Russian Tsar to be a strange bedfellow.

It would seem that it is not enough for the capitalist class that their workers were facing the bullets and bombs on the battle fronts, for they appeared to be dissatisfied with the workers’ performance on the home front. In the UK, many blamed the munitions workers for the shortages of shells needed for the war effort, that they were too busy boozing in the pubs. Restriction in pub hours were introduced which survived until the 1990s.

Discontent

From 1916, with increasing hardship and seemingly no end in sight to the war, many workers became disillusioned and there were grumblings about this being a businessman’s war. Strikes, protests and riots erupted. The situation in Russia was particularly dire, where peasants were taken off the land to fight on the front line, resulting in acute food shortages in the cities. This was exacerbated by poor communication infrastructure and corruption. Food riots ensued and mass desertions from the army took place. Workers councils emerged in the cities and organised strikes. In March 1917, the Tsar was forced to abdicate and a provisional government headed by Kerensky took his place. However, they attempted to keep Russia in the war, which only increased the discontent and their power was challenged by the Petrograd Workers Council. The German leaders saw an opportunity to take Russia out of the war. They allowed Lenin to travel through Germany in a sealed train to Russia. Once there, Lenin was able to gain support for the Bolsheviks in the Workers Councils. In November 1917, the Kerensky government was overthrown by an uprising led by the Bolsheviks. Not long afterwards, they negotiated a peace treaty with Germany at Brest Litovsk.

Now that Russia was out of the war, the German military could reinforce their forces on the Western front. Although this gave Germany an added advantage, they were still unable to deliver the knockout blow to their opponents. However, the working class discontent that brought down the Tsarist regime was also being visited on Germany. On 29 October 1918, a mutiny by sailors sparked a general workers and soldiers uprising which finally forced the German government to seek an armistice which was signed on 11 November 1918. The Kaiser abdicated on 28th November 1918.

Aside from mass human slaughter, what was the legacy of the war? It could be seen as the ultimate triumph of capitalism, as the vestiges of the feudalistic empires were swept away. The Austrian-Hungary Empire collapsed and metamorphosed into separate capitalist nation states. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated and the French and British ruling classes carved up its territories among themselves. Germany became a modern capitalist state under the rule of the Social Democratic Party. Russia evolved into an authoritarian state capitalist country. The Third International was launched during the Russian civil war in 1919 to support the Bolshevik regime and superseded the Second International which was dissolved in 1916. It became a mouthpiece of the Bolshevik regime and promoted the idea that communism equates with state capitalism and that it can only be brought about by violent revolution led by a vanguard party. This served to confuse workers as to what socialism really is and has played a part in holding back the genuine socialist movement.

With working class men being sent to the front, more women had to be brought into the munitions factories and offices to keep production going. They remained a part of the workforce after the war ended.

The phrase ‘The war to end all wars’ must be one of the sardonic statements of all times. Far from ending wars, the First World War sowed the seeds for further conflicts. The punitive measures of the Versailles Peace Treaty helped foster a sense of grievance, a feeling that Germany had been stabbed in the back. German nationalists, including the Nazis, exploited this for their own ends. Furthermore, the heavy reparations led to economic instability, such as the hyperinflation of 1923, which provided the fertile soil for aggressive nationalists like the Nazis to flourish. The increasing hostility between the Western Powers and the Bolshevik regime presaged the Cold War, which came to dominate the twentieth century. The League of Nations was set up to prevent further wars, but was powerless to do so, as it could not deal with the underlying cause — competition between capitalist powers for world markets and sources for raw materials. Wars are inevitable within capitalism.

Oliver Bond

"Peace In Our Time." (1921)

Editorial from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several years ago a Conference was called together in Holland to consider the important question of Peace. Representatives of the ruling class in various nations (the territory-stealing, maiming and murdering sections of society) gravely discussed the best means of abolishing war, or, with sardonic humour, how to make it more humane. Sonorous sounding resolutions were put forward but—not passed. Each representative declared that his nation was simply bursting to abolish war, and if only the other nations would at once disarm—to show their good faith—his nation would at once follow suit—or—er—nearly so.

For by some curious freak of Fate each nation had had some particular cause for retaining one or other items in their armaments which, for practical reasons, they could not give up.

The net result was that after passing a few minor and ineffective resolutions, the Conference dissolved. And the cause of their failure was simple. Despite the old adage about “Honour among thieves," this particular Conference of cut-throats found it was impossible for them to trust each other, and so the efforts to reach an agreement upon the reduction of their general costs of throat-cutting ended without result.

1914-18 gave a lurid example of their brotherly love. It also showed how utterly ludicrous were the prophecies made by the various experts, French, English, and German, as to the length of time to which a vast war could be continued, and the absurd under-estimate of the quantities of munitions required to carry on such a war. The staggering loss of life and enormous destruction of wealth has shaken, to some extent, the complacency of the master class. The gigantic amounts the various sections of this class owe to each other—on paper, threatens arithmetical indigestion in their ledgers. So they are looking for a way out of their difficulties. A bright idea strikes one of these sections. “Let us call a Conference.” Carried away by the startling originality of this suggestion, the others agree, and date and place of meeting are decided.

For this resurrected farce a new stage is found, and Washington displaces The Hague. One or two new turns are introduced and a fresh song is sung by a chief comedian, but otherwise the farce remains, in all essentials, as originally produced.

For several years a fierce debate has been waging among naval experts on the relative value of the big gunboat usually known as the “Dreadnought.” Far from settling this problem, the naval activities of the war only intensified it. But while the “big” boat and “little” boat men are wrangling over their respective pet theories science has carried the question of armaments into new channels. The enormous development of the aeroplane and airship, along with the sudden introduction of poison gas, has given an almost entirely new aspect to the problems of war. The smartest agents of the master-class recognise this, and so the new comedian is ordered to appear and sing his latest song, entitled “ Let us scrap our Dreadnoughts ere they grow to old. ”

America, practically self-sufficing and protected by great sea spaces, starts the song. England and Japan, to whom naval activity is still of large importance, join somewhat stutteringly in the chorus. Then while the audience rises and cheers in a frenzy of enthusiasm, the actors retire behind the curtain to discuss the serious business of the day—how to carry out their burglary of China and the rest of Asia without strangling each other in the division of the “swag.”

Only a sunny optimist would imagine that burglary is going to be abolished by burglars.

Honesty may be the best policy, but they have found the second best very profitable up to the present. Modern wars are the results of the conflict of economic interests between various sections of the capitalist class. As these sections diminish in numbers, they increase in power, with the result that when conflicts do arise they are on a scale undreamt of before and with a slaughter roll staggering to contemplate.

Is there a solution?

Yes! But it will not be found at The Hague or Washington. It depends upon the understanding of the working class. When this class sees clearly that in peace or war they are but slaves to the master class, that this slavery is due to the masters' control of political power, and that this power is placed in the masters’ hands by the workers, the end of Capitalism is at hand.

By organising to take control of this power the workers will be able to establish the social ownership of the means of life, and so abolish the division of economic interests that results in war, misery, and increasing insecurity of life.

Then a real Peace Conference will have been called.