New Party Pamphlet: War and the Working Class (1936)

Party Notice from the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Do you know why modern wars occur?

Do you know what is the Socialist attitude towards war?

Do you know that the S.P.G.B. was the only political organisation in Great Britain which proclaimed its Socialist opposition to the Great War immediately it broke out and kept to that attitude throughout the War?

Do you know what attitude you as a worker should take up towards war?

For answers to these and other questions read

"WAR AND THE WORKING CLASS” .

36 pages, 2d. Post free 2½d.

Blogger's Note:

The text of this pamphlet is available on the SPGB website.

Reproduced below is the preface from that pamphlet.

War and the Working Class

The Socialist Party States the Case

Preface

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, like a voice crying in the wilderness, has always maintained that capitalism and war are inseparable.

There can be no capitalism without conflicts of economic interest. From these arise the national rivalries and hatreds, the fears and armaments which may at any time provoke war on a terrifying scale. Most people do not take the Socialist view. Even when faced with the Great World War of 1914-18 human hopefulness everywhere refused to accept what appeared to be a doctrine of despair. To say that capitalism must produce tense international situations from which war may burst at any crisis seemed like the passive acceptance of a series of wars, each more horrible than the last. So in the midst of the last Great War the peoples of all lands cherished a belief in a new world freed from fear and from war. It was left to the S.P.G.B., in its official organ, the Socialist Standard, in November, 1914, to insist on the bitter truth: “… the facts point irresistibly to further great wars. They indicate that no sooner will the present struggle have ceased than diplomats will be at work forming new alliances, and the Krupps and Armstrongs busy evolving fresh ‘surprises’ and mightier means of war. . .”

Nobody will now deny that the world is as ripe for war as in 1914. The diminishing number of those who can believe in the League of Nations since the Abyssinian fiasco carry on a disheartened struggle. The Conservatively-minded preach armaments and still more armaments, “to ensure peace and security”, while those who claim to stand for progress can think of no solution more hopeful than to restore Colonies to German capitalism – in other words to return to the state of affairs out of which the last war arose!

Only the Socialist can look realities in the face and not give way to despair. Our message is one of hope—of coming triumph. You have the choice of roads, a choice which all humanity must make. The one road is the road of blood and tears, of capitalism and war. The other is the road to Socialism. Only by ending the exploitation of man by man can we strike at the roots of war.

Executive Committee, S.P.G.B. August. 1936.

Detestable years. (1916)

From the November 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earth is sick

And heaven is weary of the hollow words

Which states and kingdoms utter when they talk

Of truth and justice.

—Wordsworth.

The rough, black years tower over the nations and no man can escape their might. Whatever our work or inclinations we cannot be free of the net of this war. The old man shut in his house is caught in the mesh, just as the young man who battles for a noble cause in public. Old occupations are away, old impulses are put to sleep, old schemes, wishes are battered and injured ; good sentiments are rare and broken. Malice, fraud, cruelty and ambition are feeding fat, while misery follows misery close as thunder clouds when there’s rain and lightning,

Yet it seemed as though the transition from quietness to bloodiness was only a matter of hours. It seemed scarcely an hour before this shadow fell on Europe that the lands were sparkling with new hopes : from end to end of this kingdom the workers listened in contentment to the sweetness of the parliamentarians, to the masses of clerics, and to the sovereign officials of trade unions. For there had come a leader among men, one above all, one with a gentle, sorrow-sodden heart in which he kept ancestral Celtic fire. I have heard that he was a Welshman. We were told that every fibre of his body thrilled with the misery of the poor, whose mourning was as an everlasting dirge in his sympathetic ear ; we learned that a sweeter heart, more in unison with the poor, never beat in old England. Over the land there was hope, and, despite the fact that his Celtic wit looked stale and cold in print, that acres of corn were too largely introduced into his speeches, that there was a superabundance of stars and too many unnecessary rainbows in his answers to questions, he must be given credit for a most astonishing thing. It is this. Although on the introduction of his Health Insurance Bill the vast bulk of the heavenly angels were indifferent to it, he did manage to interest in his proposals one Angel of Light with a less stern heart than his or his companions in Paradise. Forthwith this celestial spirit, on the invitation of the Cabinet Minister, arrived on a sudden at Kings X, incognito, and was about to start on a tour of the slums, when the world shook in the fever of war and the traffic in metals and men started. Ever since the election of the Liberals we had awaited the coming of this luminous visitor, so it was a pity that, when the diplomats let slip the dogs of war and the clownish thwacking of the drums commenced, the burning guest should spend the night, among old friends, in a rent-collector’s office. The angel’s host, the gentle Welshman, has become War Minister.

The war seemed to happen in a moment of noble indignation against the crimes of Germany. It seemed so, yet it was not so. Long before the war’s outbreak stealthy preparations were being made for the carrying on of the war with Competitor Germany. The first thing to be done was to inspire the people with confidence in the politicians. So certain gentry were boomed and praised in all ways so they might use their inflated prestige, on behalf of the masters, during any crisis. Principally through the means of sneaking newspapers virtuous reputations were gained, and are at this moment proving of value to the capitalists. It would seem that so long as a man is a reactionary with influence it does not matter what his other characteristics are. If he is ignorant then he is named sound and democratic ; witness Will Thorne. If he is cruel and unflinching then he is praised as unbending in the people’s cause ; witness Kitchener. If he is a chatterer then he is an orator ; witness the Welshman. If he is silent then it is the quietness of strength ; witness the Prime Minister. With several newspapers at his back, with a thousand lies ready at hand, the most foggy idiot, the worst shivering coward may gain a reputation for soberness, dignity, wisdom, truth, and courage.

The virtues of the hierarchy having been, planted, nourished, and a false impression of them established in the minds of the people, the politicians could turn their attention to other items of preparation. Before this war the Socialist enlightened the workers as to the worst which capitalism can do. It was not the worst to deal you out shillings from the pounds you earned, or to defraud you in the workshop or domineer over you there, or to tire your body, or to exhaust your brain. The level of life was bad but the level of life was not the worst. While you took your shillings contentedly, and derided the Socialist for fighting phantoms of evil of his own creation, other forces were sleeplessly and silently working towards this volcanic carnage on the Continent. Middling folk with power were forming treaty on treaty which have now contributed to this wreck of the nations, this modern mockery of civilisation. The worst Russians were unearthed to do vile business abroad, the most sugary Japanese too. Greedy eyes were wandering over the mines of the world : they were listed in secret catalogues. Constantinople has been secretly valued ; the riches of Morocco have been estimated ; Albania and Montenegro figure in the hidden sheets ; the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine are totalled in the chronicles ; Finland and Persia have wealth which cannot be overlooked by the avaricious. There are diamonds here, salt there, mines elsewhere. Ports, coasts, mountains, rivers and valleys of value to the masters of one land are exploited, guarded, and locked by the ships and guns of alien authorities. All the lands concerned in this war were filled with growth and rush, avarice, hate, and rotting commodities. That is the natural result of the principles of competition in modern societies, and they are the reasons for the present clash of arms. All this chatter of liberty and honour, of which we are sick, is like fat wrapped over the old skeleton of profit.

Each of the fighting nations prepared for the inevitable conflict by a combination of forces similar to that of England’s. Each erected barriers of soldiers and floated nets of ships, and in each country the workers have been cunningly engulfed to effect an interchange of vineyards and mines, cities and seas, which will in no way change their condition of wage slavery.

These then were the martial circumstances and commercial facts with which the war opened. During the early days of the campaign we might have expected that the avarice of the masters would have been redeemed by some show of skill, and their scoundrelism equalled by their judgment. It was not so. They were bigoted in their ideas and stuck to their hum-drum, traditions. In the more noble occupations of life men of genius are not trammelled by tradition. Shakespeare disregarded almost all the laws of Athenian Drama and sang his own mighty plays to perfection. In France, rough Francois Millet was unworried by any remembrance of the smooth Italian Primitives. Walt Whitman was not troubled in his mind over the metres of the past poets. Neither is the Socialist to-day deceived by the conclusions of Ricardo, or Mill, or Ruskin. In all such work vast ideas, find new vast expression. It is always so with true genius. It has not been so with the main men in this war, for they have not even the evil spark of military genius, but are prompted, solely by ambition, which mimics talent and is separable from it. Their strategy has been as befogged as their motives are villainous. It is sufficient for such contemptible folk that the Sea of Mamora is held by the opposition forces, that its waters lead to the rich markets of Constantinople, in order to send hostile vessels into it. The peaks and dells of Gallipoli are similarly owned so they must be scaled and stormed. Every effort where prudence was needed has been marked by stupidity ; every hostility where, from their point of view, vigour was required has been marked by idleness and waste.

None of our eyes are closed to the terrible things around us and yet we remain hopeful. We proceed with our work and hope in it. The masters may imprison and murder our comrades but they can never destroy our principles ; for the principles of Socialism are not the fruit of our lives but are the fruit of those forces of capitalism to which they are eternally opposed. No matter how many of our comrades are shot, no matter how many Welshmen speak, no matter how many wars are waged, our principles remain indestructible. For the Socialist at least, then, despair does not exist apart from hope ; though suffering is here it is not separated from joy. For the Socialist there is one hope, one joy, and one annihilation. None of us will suffer a miserable death till our immortal principles are dragged to an impossible grave. Meanwhile we look with hope and joy to the time when the workers will acknowledge and establish the principles of Socialism ; to the time when nation on nation will be rescued from the littleness of nationalism ; to the time when manliness, womanliness and brotherhood will develop and this painful wilderness of war, of cold faiths, and watery charities be destroyed. Then every waggon which knits the hamlets together will carry other messages than those of sadness ; every centre of throbbing looms, every acre of corn, every accumulation of houses, will help in our fight against cold and hunger. We shall be free of the profiteers, so every ship which sails will elsewhere deliver happiness, while each new ship which visits us will deepen our wealth. These, then, are some of the beauties and benefits of international co-operation, upon which we look and know well. Yet the deeper we penetrate into our philosophy the more the loveliness of our prospect increases. What we know of Socialism is worthy of our life-long devotion, but depending from such principles of Liberty must be great comradeship and calm which we know not of, of which we may sit and dream, and before which the visions of Bunyan seem garish and Milton’s golden dreams grow pale.

H. M. M.

Economic causes of Gulf conflict (1990)

From the November 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Prussian militarist Clausewitz declared that war was “nothing but the continuation of politics by other means”. He would have been nearer the truth if he had said that war was the continuation of economics by other means. Since the onset of capitalism five hundred years ago wars have been caused by conflicts of economic interest over sources of raw materials, trade routes, markets, investment outlets and strategic points and places to secure and protect these.  The threatening war in the Middle East is no exception to this rule, and in fact strikingly confirms the socialist analysis of the cause of war.

Although it is rather obvious that what is at stake is oil, both sides try to play this down. Bush and Thatcher say that Saddam Hussein is a dictator whose expansionist ambitions must be checked in the interests of world peace. Saddam Hussein says that he has struck a blow for Arab Nationalism by eliminating a state tailor-made by Western imperialism to suit its interests. Saddam Hussein is a dictator and he has taken over a state created by Western imperialism, but it is not for these reasons that the West is preparing to go to war. The Western powers tolerate dictators when it suits their interests. In fact they tolerated, financed and armed Saddam Hussein himself when they needed someone to prevent Iran under Khomeini coming to dominate the Gulf area and threaten their oil supplies. And they tolerated the Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor in 1975 as they had that of Goa by India in 1961 without shrieking that world peace and order were threatened. The difference was that, while in East Timor and Goa only carrots grew, Kuwait is situated right in the middle of the world’s largest and lowest-cost oilfields.

Oil and Empire

British imperialism made Kuwait, which remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, a “protectorate” in 1899. This was done not for its oil resources, which nobody even suspected existed, but for its strategic position.

At the time Imperial Germany, already squaring up to Britain in the inter-imperialist rivalry which eventually broke out as the First World War, was planning to build a railway that would extend from Europe through Turkey and Mesopotamia down to the Persian Gulf. This was the Berlin to Baghdad railway of history book fame and, if completed, would have represented an alternative and rival to the British-controlled Suez Canal as a trade route to and from the Indian Ocean and the Far East. Kuwait, a small port and pearl-fishing centre at the northern end of the Gulf ruled by a sheik called Al-Sabah, was the likely terminus for the German project. So it was “protected” by British imperialism, to thwart German imperialism.

Oil, however, was soon discovered near Kuwait, first in Persia and then in Mesopotamia. Britain acquired complete control of the Persian oilfields but those of Mesopotamia had to be shared with Germany. As Turkey had entered the First World War on the side of German imperialism, the British and French imperialists made plans to carve up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves in the event of victory. A secret agreement in 1916 gave what is now Syria, Lebanon and the northern part of Iraq to France, and Palestine and what is now Jordan and the southern part of Iraq to Britain.

Almost as soon as the agreement had been signed, someone in the Foreign Office realised that a ghastly mistake had been made: northern Mesopotamia contained the oilfields of Mosul and Kirkuk. The French were persuaded on some pretext to agree to a rectification, and after the war the spoils were divided along the lines of today’s Middle Eastern states. Iraq is just as much an artificial creation of Western imperialism as Kuwait, though its ruling class ought to be grateful that perfide Albion outwitted French imperialism, otherwise its northern oilfields would be in Syria.

Britain creates Kuwait

Kuwait remained a British protectorate when Iraq became an independent state in 1932, but the new Iraqi rulers were not happy about being deprived of a secure outlet to the Persian Gulf. A glance at a map of Iraq will show that it only has two possible outlets to the sea. The first is via the Shatt al Arab river, but this is shared with Iran. The second is via an inlet to the west, access to which is controlled by two islands belonging to Kuwait.

At one time—in the fifties when Iraq under a pro-Western king and government seemed firmly anchored in the Western camp through its membership of CENTO, the Middle Eastern equivalent of NATO—British officials considered making some concessions to Iraq on this issue, but this was blocked by the Al-Sabah dynasty. The Emir of Kuwait, which since 1946 had become an oil-producing area with huge reserves, proved to be the better judge of his interests. On 14 July 1958¸ the king of Iraq and his pro-western prime minister were overthrown and killed in a military coup led by pro-Nasser army officers. The British Foreign Minister, Selwyn Lloyd, rushed to Washington to discuss the crisis. On 19 July he sent a secret telegram, recently released under the thirty-year rule, to Macmillan, the Prime Minister, in which he reported:

I am sure that you are considering anxiously the problem of Kuwait. One of the most reassuring features of my talks here has been the complete United States solidarity with us over the Gulf. They are assuming that we will take firm action to maintain our position in Kuwait.  They themselves are disposed to act with similar resolution in relation to the Aramco oilfields in the area of Dhahran, although the logistics are not worked out. They assume that we will also hold Bahrain and Qatar, come what may. They agree that at all costs these oilfields must be kept in Western hands. The immediate problem is whether it is good tactics to occupy Kuwait against the wishes of the ruling family.

Selwyn Lloyd went on to discuss the options, including turning Kuwait from a protectorate into a colony, i.e., annexing it as Iraq has just done, but rejected this in favour of another option:

On balance, I feel it very much to our advantage to have a kind of Kuwaiti Switzerland where the British do not exercise physical control. (Independent, 13 September).

This was the solution eventually adopted and in 1961 Kuwait was granted “independence” in the sense of no longer being subject to direct “physical control” by Britain. Iraq immediately moved its troops up to the border—and British troops had to be rushed in to prop up the artificial Middle Eastern “Switzerland” that their government had just set up.

Kuwait survived and its rulers prospered. Thanks to revenues from oil, the ruling Al-Sabah dynasty became one of the richest families in the world, overtaken only by fellow oil nouveaux riches the Saudi royals and the Sultan of Brunei, and far surpassing other dynastic billionaires like the Queen of England and Juliana of the Netherlands.

The Shatt al Arab War

Iraq meanwhile also developed its oil resources and revenues, which were mainly used to build up its armed forces so strengthening the grip of the military on the state. Iraqi politics came to consist of coups and plots and counter-plots amongst the leaders of the armed forces. Out of these Saddam Hussein emerged as top dog in 1979.

The current Iraqi regime, though in fact a military dictatorship pursuing the national interests of Iraqi capitalism, has as its ideology the Pan-Arab Nationalism of the Baath party. Iraq, however, is by no means purely an Arab country since up to a quarter of its population speak Kurdish rather than Arabic, and the attempt to impose Baathism in the 1970s led to a revival of the armed revolt of Kurdish nationalists in the North of the country, where the oilfields of Mosul and Kirkuk are situated—which explains why Iraq has been prepared to use all means, including, more recently, poison gas, to retain the area.

This revolt was encouraged as a means of weakening Iraq by the Shah of Iran, whose country had a long-standing dispute with Iraq over the control of the Shatt al Arab river. The dispute went back to the time of the first commercial exploitation of Iranian oil before the First World War and concerned Iran’s demand for access and protection for its bordering oil wells and installations.

The Shatt al Arab is the name of the river formed by the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris. From the Iranian town of Khorramshahr to the sea it forms the frontier between Iraq and Iran. Safe, free navigation in this waterway is absolutely vital to Iraq as its main port, Basra, can only be reached via the Shatt al Arab. Without this, Iraq becomes virtually a land-locked country, dependent on other countries for the transit of its imports and the export of its main product, oil. Its vulnerability in this respect was well illustrated by the ease and speed with which the pipelines via Turkey and Saudi Arabia were closed to enforce UN sanctions (and by the fact that a third pipeline via Syria had long been closed by the Syrian government for political reasons).

The Shah’s strategy worked and in 1975 a treaty was signed between Iraq and Iran under which Iraq ceded control of the eastern side of the Shatt al Arab to Iran in return for Iran withdrawing its support for the Kurdish nationalists. When, however, the Shah was overthrown in 1979 and Iran began to slip into chaos, the tables were turned. The Iraqi ruling class decided to use the occasion to attack Iran and regain control of the whole of the Shatt al Arab and perhaps more. So began, in 1980, one of the longest and bloodiest wars of modern history. The war lasted eight years and led to the death of about one million people—all for control of a strategic commercial waterway.

The Western powers were happy to let the war go on, using Iraq to block any Iranian take-over of the Gulf region. When, however, Iran began to attack shipping in the Gulf in 1987, the West was forced to send its own taskforce of warships and warplanes to the area to protect the free flow of its oil supplies.

Why Iraq invaded Kuwait

The war ended in 1988¸ in a stalemate, with Iraq in control of some Iranian territory but with the port of Basra blocked. This put pressure on Iraq to turn to its other possible outlet to the sea: that blocked by Kuwaiti control of the islands of Warba and Bubiyan.

The Iraq-Iran war strikingly confirmed a point made in 1938 by the Iraqi Foreign Minister in discussions with his British counterpart:

Iraq would like to rent a piece of land from Kuwait for establishing a deep harbour and connecting it to the Basra railway line, since Iraq could not guarantee navigational safety on the Shatt al-Arab in the case of an Iraq-Iran dispute. (Quoted in press release on “The Political Background to the Current Events” issued by the Iraqi Press Office, London, on 12 September,  pp 16-17).

The present Iraqi Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz, has made it quite clear that Iraq’s motives for taking over Kuwait were economic, commercial and strategic. In a letter on The Kuwait Question sent to all foreign ministers on 4 September he denounced Britain for having created and sustained since 1899 an “artificial entity called Kuwait” which cut off Iraq from “its natural access to the waters of the Arab Gulf”, and went on to say that all Iraqi governments since the establishment of the state of Iraq in 1924 had insisted that Iraq must have Kuwait

to guarantee its commercial and economic interests and provide it with the requirements necessary for the defence of its national security.

King Hussein of Jordan brought out the same point, in a message broadcast on the American TV network CNN on 22 September, when he said that Iraq had been seeking 

“an agreement with Kuwait that would secure it an independent access to the sea which it considers of vital national interest.”

The phrase “vital national interest”, invoked by both sides in the threatening war, is the key as in the mealy-mouthed language of diplomacy this refers to issues over which states are prepared to go to war in the last resort.

Iraq emerged from its war with Iran with a huge financial debt and a desperate need for money to pay for reconstruction. With oil revenues as virtually its only source of income, Iraq favoured using the OPEC cartel to push up the price of oil by restricting its supply. Since this was in the interests of a number of other OPEC members, including Iran, some move in this direction was agreed. However, two countries in particular—Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates—failed to apply this. They consistently exceeded their quotas, so preventing the price of oil from rising.

The reason why the emirs and sheiks and sultans of the Gulf pursued this policy was not short-sightedness or cussedness. It was because it had become in their economic interest to do so. The Al-Sabah family had not wasted all its riches on horse-racing, gambling and gold-fitted bathrooms. Most of it had been re-invested in capitalist industry and finance in the West, so much so in fact that a large part of Kuwait’s income came from these investments. In other words, the Kuwaiti and other Gulf rulers had become Western capitalists themselves and not just oil rentiers—with the same interest in not having too high a price for oil.

Iraq regarded this refusal to take steps to raise the price of oil as a plot to prevent it recovering from the war. Combined with their long-standing claim to Kuwait as a means of obtaining a vitally-needed secure trade route to the sea, this decided the Iraqi ruling class to take military action. On the night of 1/2 August Kuwait was invaded and later annexed. As an additional bonus, the Kuwaiti oilfields when added to the Iraqi ones make Iraq potentially almost as big a producer sitting on as big reserves as Saudi Arabia.

Why the West is going to war

Bush, and Thatcher who happened to be in America on a lecture tour, reacted quickly, issuing an ultimatum to Iraq not to move further down the coast and take over the Saudi oilfields and dispatching a battle fleet to the Gulf for the second time in three years.

Iraq probably had no intention of invading Saudi Arabia, but America had every interest in finding an excuse to send troops to protect the Saudi oilfields. Since 1950 these had been an American preserve: under an agreement with the King of Saudi Arabia European oil companies were excluded and US ones, grouped together as ARAMCO, given a monopoly. In preparing for war by dispatching troops to the Gulf, Bush is applying the policy enunciated by Carter in his January 23 1980 State of the Union message:

Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It will be repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force.

The Gulf, he explained, was of “great strategic importance” because “it contains more than two-thirds of the world’s exportable oil” and because the Strait of Hormuz at its mouth is “a waterway through which much of the free world’s oil must flow”. At the time the immediate threat was seen as coming from Russia which had just invaded Afghanistan, but the Carter Doctrine applied equally to threats to American oil supplies from other states like Iran and now Iraq.

In Britain the Sunday Times (12 August), which has called for war since day one of the crisis, has been equally frank:

The reason why we will shortly have to go to war with Iraq is not to free Kuwait, though that is to be desired, or to defend Saudi Arabia, though that is important. It is because President Saddam is a menace to vital Western interests in the Gulf, above all the free flow of oil at market prices, which is essential to the West’s prosperity.

If war breaks out in the Middle East, the issues at stake will be purely economic and commercial: access to the sea and a high price of oil, on the one side, and control of oilfields and a low price of oil, on the other. Neither of which are issues justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood.

Adam Buick

Blogger's Note:

Within this article there were the following pieces which were placed in quotation boxes.

The Carter Doctrine

"Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States. It will be repelled by use of any means necessary, including military force".

Iraq's interest in Kuwait

"Britain perniciously severed a part of Iraq in a manner that deprived [it] . . . of its natural access to the waters of the Arab Gulf . . . All successive Iraqi governments have continued to demand the return of this severed part of Iraq and historical and geographical justice be done to Iraq to guarantee its commercial and economic interests and provide it with the requirements for the defence of its national security". 

— Tariq Aziz, Iraqi Foreign Minister, 4 September 1990.

Neither Washington nor International Socialism but Baghdad, says SWP

"We call for the withdrawal of Western forces from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. And if war breaks out nonetheless we are for the defeat of America and the victory of Iraq".

— John Molyneux, Socialist Worker, 25 August 1990, urging Iraqi workers to go and die to secure a safe trade route to the sea for Iraqi capitalism.

Marine refuses to fight for cheap oil and American profits

While something akin to war fever has gripped the United States, some American soldiers have refused to go to the Middle East . . . The most outspoken objector so far is Marine Corporal Jeffrey Paterson in Hawaii who said he would not fight for "American profits and cheap oil" and is in a military prison for refusing to go to the Middle East.

[Guardian, 7 September 1990.]

Letter: Betrayal (2014)

Letter to the editors from the September 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Betrayal

Dear Editors

As usual I found the article on ‘The Economic Causes of the First World War’ authoritative and convincing. I was, however, surprised that you made no reference to the betrayal by the reformist left in Germany of the ‘Second International’. There, of course, can be no doubt that this organisation never possessed a majority with socialist consciousness but I think it is important to highlight the inevitable consequences of reformist leftist policies. An early, and quite possibly the greatest, example of betrayal of the working class by leftist leaders needs to be emphasised because without this historical reference the rise of such monsters as Tony Blair would be inexplicable. The fact is that if 100 years ago the German members of the Second International had refused to allow the finance of the war it could not have began. I fully appreciate that the underlying economic tensions made some kind of major international conflict probable but this can never excuse the actions of the reformists that helped make the war inevitable.

Andrew Westley, 

Cambridge

Reply: 
This might be a matter of emphasis and interpretation, but we certainly agree that the pro-war vote of the German Social Democrats was a betrayal of working-class interests, and a milestone in the tragic journey towards out-and-out reformism within European Social Democracy. --Editors.

Conscripted from the Press. (1917)

From the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Strange as it may seem, there are good grounds for believing that the efforts of M. Kerensky to restore order are not viewed altogether with disfavour by certain influential persons in Berlin. These latter fear that a nation given over to the sway of Anarchy would make a bad neighbour.”—”Reynolds’s Newspaper,” 5.8.17.

In other words the German capitalist class is afraid that the German working class may become “infected” and revolt against the conditions which are the cause of their misery, poverty, and degradation. Bismarck thought the same in 1871 when he helped Thiers and the French ruling class to crush and avenge in torrents of blood the workingmen’s Commune of Paris. Despite their differences, the international parasite class are solid against the working class. When will the converse be also true?

* * *

“The Japanese are working hard in anticipation of the coming peace. When the war is over they will flood the markets with much of the cheap goods that before could only be produced in sweated Germany”.—”Reynolds’s Newspaper,” 5.8.17.

And yet some fools talk about this being the “last war” ! Was not the industrial efficiency and consequent cheap production of Germany the cause of her phenomenal commercial progress which was the chief of the immediate causes of the war ? The capitalist class of England as well as that of Japan are wide awake to their opportunities, as can be seen in their schemes for the better co-ordination of scientific research with industry, and the more efficient education of the workers.

Greater efficiency in production—bigger-profits—a larger surplus of goods for export—more competitors (Russia will rapidly develop)—fewer markets, leading to—a wild scramble to capture them, and consequently—more wars. To those with eyes to see the ferment of future conflicts is even now in virulent progress. The question is, how long will the workers stand it.

Although it is the workers who are to be “educated,” it is not they and their interests which are considered in the Government’s education proposals, but those of their capitalist masters, as I have above indicated. Mr. H. Fisher, when introducing his Education Bill, carelessly admitted this. He said :

“In asking the employers of this country to assent to these changes—abolition of half-time and the further regulation of employment during the period of elementary school life—I feel that I am asking them to submit to a readjustment of the organisation of their industries which in some cases will be troublesome to effect. But I rest my appeal upon the broad grounds of national advantage.”—”Times,” 11.8.17.

In other words some of the capitalists are requested to sacrifice their immediate interests for the sake of the prospects of that class as a whole.

* * *

When Herr Michaelis, the new German Chancellor, was a lecturer at a law school in Tokyo (1897) he said :

“Practically we have at the moment in the world only one real opponent and enemy, that is the Englishman. Nowadays wars of nations are only fought on economic grounds, and our economic development is opposed by the Englishman. We bubble over in Germany, we must get outside. Wherever we want to go, there stands the Englishman, with his legs apart and shameless, in the door to bar our way.”—”Times,” 9.8.17.

The Chancellor means by “Englishman” the English capitalist, who certainly has grabbed most of the corners of the planet worth having, greatly to the discomfiture of his foreign competitors, especially the German capitalists.

Michaelis has no illusions about the cause of the war ; neither have we. Workers ! study our principles thoroughly, and when you realise the sordid reasons for the wars you slaughter and are slaughtered in you will know also how to end them.

* * *

Whether “ideal” or economic aims are at the root of China’s entry into the war will be seen from this cutting from the “Daily Chronicle,” 7.8.17 :

“China will benefit financially by throwing in her lot with the Allies. Automatically, her obligation will cease to pay Germany her share in the Boxer indemnity amounting to half a million sterling a year. A similar fate would also befall the payment on the German shares of the five Anglo-German railways and other loans granted during the last 20 years.”

* * *

The truth of the Socialist contention as to what determines wages was admitted by Mr. Prothero, M.P., Minister of Agriculture, when he moved as part of the wages clause in the Corn Production Bill, that—

“In fixing minimum rates under this section the Agricultural Wages Board shall so far as practicable, secure for all able-bodied men wages which, in the opinion of the Board, are adequate to promote efficiency and to enable a man in an ordinary case to maintain himself and his family in accordance with such a standard of comfort as may be reasonable in relation to the nature of the occupation.”—”Times,” 7.8.17. 

The italics are mine.

Wages are not, and never have been, determined by what the worker himself produces, but by what it takes to produce the worker. Like the chattel-slave of old, he receives enough on the average to keep him in such a condition as will make him a profitable instrument of production.

“Just like a horse or a cow,” you will say. 

Exactly so, except that you can be starved when you are not required for work, while a horse or a cow must be fed.

H.

Blogger's Note:

'H' was the pen-name for Edgar Hardcastle (E. Hardy) for nearly 70 years in the pages of the Socialist Standard, but there's no guarantee that the 'H.' in the September 1917 Socialist Standard was Edgar Hardcastle. My reasoning is threefold:

• Edgar Hardcastle would only have been 16 or 17 in 1917.
• According to the early membership records Edgar R. Hardcastle joined the Tooting Branch of the SPGB in March 1920.
• According to his Marxist Internet Archive's page. Hardcastle's first article in the Socialist Standard was in the February 1921 issue. In his first few articles in the Socialist Standard, he signed off with his initials of E.R.H. or E.H.

The Nature of War (1953)

Pamphlet Review from the September 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Must Man Wage War ?” by F. A. Crew. Thrift Books No. 18.
 C. A. Watts & Co., Ltd. 1952. Price 1/6.

After the news of the Atomic Bomb in 1945. scientists in general, and atomic physicists in particular, got rather hot under the collar because they had done the pioneering research work which led to that horror of horrors; now with the possibility of bacteriological warfare the biologists are searching their consciences. Professor Crew has much experience of both warfare and scientific research, as he served in the army in the first world war, was Director of Medical' Research at the War Office in the second, has been in the Territorials for 36 years, and since 1928 he has been a university professor of biology. He uses this experience and the data which is available on recent wars to analyse many aspects of war in this book. He has done this because, in his own words, “I have come to wish to be a citizen of the world, not of the world as it is but as it could be ” (preface). He divides his study into three chapters on the biological aspects of the causes, conduct and consequences of war.

The Cause of War

There are some people who suggest that warring is inherent in human beings, because we are born aggressive, and therefore there will always be wars. However the professor does not fall for that fairy tale, pointing out that,

“Aggressiveness may be inborn, but this attribute is expressed only when specific outside pressures are brought to bear upon the developing individual. He may be prepared to display aggressiveness, but there is no intrinsic need that he should ever be called upon to do so.”— (Page30.)

After examining the way people are brought up, and how aggression is fostered in this bitterly competitive world, he comes to the conclusion that,

"He can develop in a competitive world where men, wanting the same thing, fight for it ; or he can find himself in a world in which all things are shared."—(Page 32.)

When such arguments are pointed out to some people they will reply that although that may be true of “us civilised people,” there are other peoples, such as the Indians, for example, who are readily classified into warrior and non-warrior types, into those who by virtue of their genetic endowment come to display those attributes which distinguish the fighting man, and those who, because of a different genetic constitution, are inevitably timid and cowardly, and thus are unsuited for a military career. To such people, the professor, who is a specialist in genetics, the science of inheritance, replies simply,

“There is no evidence which proves beyond all doubt that one ethnic, political, or social group is, for purely genetic reasons, superior to another in respect of military attributes."—(Page 20.)

Having brushed away these mental cobwebs, he considers the structure of society, noting that in modern society,

"Certain groups exist which are in no way productive but live on the surplus created by the productive groups. The maintenance and reproduction of non-productive groups can only be achieved, therefore, by the maintenance and extension of power, of their dominion over the productive groups."—(Page 15.)

He goes on to point out that war began in earnest with class society and is inherent in a class society, concluding that,

"Wars are no longer waged for material things required for subsistence; they arise out of the productive relationships of groups concerning the acquisition of surplus."—(Page 36.)

This is because the ruling class, which is unproductive and lives on the surplus produced by the large majority of society, has something to gain from victory or lose by defeat, but the vast majority, the working class, gain nothing from war but sorrow, loss, and mutilation. However without their willing participation wars could not occur. Why then do they allow themselves to be persuaded to support it?

Noting that in capitalist society there is much human unhappiness, for millions of people spend most of their lives performing tasks which are both dull and tedious, giving neither physical nor mental satisfaction, and so live lives that are drab and featureless, he concludes that,

"Wars are made possible because the lives of so many individuals in the modem State are so grey and so dull, so complicated, and so unsatisfying.... War promises that which the individual has sought in peace and failed to find. It fills a life which has been empty. It unifies a people,... in short, war remains possible because in peace there so little to satisfy the creative urge of the mature and skilled and to enlist the energies of adventurous, restless youth.”—(Pages 34-5.)

The Conduct of War

Chapter 2 starts with an analysis of the way people are prepared for war, and then goes on to a description of a number of aspects of modern war. For example, he points out that in wartime hospitals are emptied of the tuberculous so that those injured by bombing, or on active service, can have the beds, and that in the army the men are exposed to conditions that lower their general well being, so making them prone to diseases such as tuberculosis. The result is that during the war the number of people suffering from this disease increased tremendously.

As germ warfare has been in the news in recent years and much has been written of it, but little substantiated, the following comments by an expert biologist are of interest.

“That it is possible to manufacture weapons of great lethality out of existing biological knowledge is beyond all reasonable doubt; that such a weapon already exists is highly probable} . . . the biological bomb could be used in such a way that it would surpass the atomic bomb itself as a weapon of mass terror; it is cheap; it could be produced in complete secrecy, no vast plant tucked away in the remote desert being required for its manufacture.

"Certainly it is not beyond the ingenuity of man to produce such a weapon. It must presumably take the form of a package of exceptionally virulent pathogenic micro-organisms or of parasites of one kind or another which, being deliberately let loose in the enemy’s country, initiates an epidemic among the human population, its animals of economic importance, or its crops."—(Pages 65-6.)

Some Consequences of War

There are some people who think that war is beneficial to the human species because it is eugenically selective. They think that the “stronger” eliminate the “weaker” so the “fitter” or “better” only survive, and in this way humanity rids itself of inferior types. On the other hand there are others who suggest that in war it is the most worthy who are the first to be killed, so that it is the “better” who are killed and the inferior types that survive in most cases. They suggest that it is because war claims the “cream of the youth” that economic crises and other evils of capitalism occur, as those left cannot cope with the difficult problems that occur. The professor points out that neither view is sound. The first because tactics and weapons are far more important in war than any possible slight difference in biological make-up; the second because it has never been established that it is the “betters” who are killed off. With the mass attacks on civilian populations, which have become commonplace in recent times, such arguments are rapidly losing any appeal that they may have had in the past.

He discusses colonisation by conquest and points out that in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, Britain France and Germany each gained by conquest millions of miles of territory, and so extended their domination over millions more people. However, in the twentieth century all the lands of primitive peoples have been colonised, so war is between nations of more or less equal technological development, who come into conflict over raw materials and markets. Since the Great Powers are highly industrialised they produce weapons of a new and more terrible type, and so war becomes more and more horrible.

What of the consequence for the working class? He says that more than 27 million people were killed, by war, between 1914 and 1918. Some of these on the battlefield, but many by the general lowering of resistance to disease that occurred through worry, anxiety, long hours of work, and lack of nourishing foods. For example, the influenza epidemic of 1918 was greatly aggravated by war conditions, and even after 1921 the mortality rates were considerably higher than would have been expected if the war had not occurred. Having mentioned the 8,000 T.B. patients discharged from sanitoria in the second world war, and its disastrous effects, he goes on to consider how war breaks up homes and so leads to an increase in crime, and considers the statistics on the lack of housing. Then, with a few well chosen examples, he shows that although the British working class got nothing but misery, disease, violence, and premature death, from war, the plight of the workers of the other countries of Europe was even worse. Such is the lot of the worker in capitalist society; be always gets the dirty end of the stick!

The Prevention of War

After this powerful indictment of war he considers that,

"The prescription for prevention is the complete transformation of the social inheritance and of the social structure, which by its very nature must periodically yield warring. . . .  A unified world must be created in which in peace the needs of the bodies, the intellects,, and the emotions of all shall encounter the means of satisfaction." —(Pages 36-7.)

He concludes that,

“The only remaining obstacles to the achievement of this aim are those that reside in the minds of men."— (Page 38.)

He states that he will work actively to oppose war.

So far, so good, but how are we to go about this? Professor Crew gives no consideration to that very practical question. However, from the analysis we see that to prevent war, capitalism, the society of classes and therefore of wars, must be replaced by socialism, the society of human beings where war cannot exist. To do this it is necessary for the majority of the people of the world to understand capitalism and desire to introduce socialism. The change in human society will then be made by sending a majority of socialist delegates to the parliaments of the different countries with the mandate to make the required legislation, for parliament is not merely a “gas-house,” but is the seat of power. Then the power will be transferred from the ruling class, the capitalists, to all mankind. Such is the nature and purpose of the socialist revolution. The Socialist Party is the instrument fashioned by members of the working class, to carry out this historic task. 

Conclusion

The terminology used in this book has not the precision of the Marxist terms that the socialist is familiar with. Often the word State is used when country would be more accurate, nation is used when peoples are meant, and the capitalist, or ruling class, are often referred to as power groups. The author does, not seem to be sure of his analysis of the state capitalisms of Russia and Yugoslavia. As to formulating organised action on the basis of this analysis of society the writer gives us no lead, and in the preface he even supports the present armament drive and the present warfare in Korea!

However, this text of 81 pages is a powerful indictment of war, and the capitalist society that breeds it. Therefore it should be on every socialist’s bookshelf next to “The Socialist Party and War,” for it treats certain aspects of war for which there was not room in that pamphlet. We are glad that priced at 1/6 it is within reach of all workers.

R.J.J.

Labour's bloody war record (1985)

From the October 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

War is mass murder, made glorious by legality and respectable by morality. Our century has seen more deaths from war than any other; it has witnessed the sophistication of the instruments of mass destruction to a point where total human annihilation is not a deranged fear, but a prospect ever more probable. Surrounded by the wounded of past battles and the cries of the present victims of military competition, workers in 1985 look towards the future in the knowledge that the next big war could be the last one. Clichéd an observation as it has become, we are on the brink of destruction.

The urgent task before us is to avoid another war not just a nuclear war or a world war. but any war. The only way to make war impossible is to destroy its cause: the system of society in which production is for sale on the market with a view to profit and in which the endless competition between companies and nations over markets, trade routes and raw materials inevitably breaks out into violent conflict. It is the worldwide profit system which makes war necessary and that hideous necessity will never be eradicated while capitalism is left intact. That is why the only genuine anti-war party is the Socialist Party; and why all parties which stand for capitalism are pro-war parties.

Does Labour stand for war?

Certainly, the Labour Party did not set out to become a pro-war party. When it was formed in 1906 its founders, like many Labourites today, thought the Labour Party possessed the moral strength and reforming zeal required to make wars impossible under Labour governments. It was to be the party of peace and many doubtlessly sincere workers gave it their support, having witnessed the miserable slaughter which British militarism had inflicted on the working class in the nineteenth century. Here was to be a party which, when elected to form a government, would refuse to support the old imperial policies. The Tories and the Liberals had led the workers to the trenches for the sake of enriching the capitalists; Labour was for peace. "The Army and Navy do not exist to defend working people" stated Labour MP. Philip Snowden, in the House of Commons in June 1913. Ten years later the ILP’s Socialist Programme was adopted, stating that as soon as there was a Labour government it would "take the initiative in making positive proposals for immediate universal disarmament" According to Snowden, this would be achieved by a Labour government negotiating "a general reduction of armaments. leading to universal disarmament". (If Labour Rules, 1923.)

Within a year of those promises the Labour Party was elected to office as a minority government. At last it had the chance to show workers what it meant by peace policies.

Labour and the Great War

Before turning to the war record of the first Labour government. let us recall the role of the Labour Party in 1914 when British workers were called to sacrifice themselves in a war which even most modern historians recognise to have been over nothing but capitalist economic interests. As a party which was "for peace" did Labour urge workers not to fight? On the contrary, no sooner had the war been declared than the Labour Party placed itself "at the disposal of the Government in their recruiting campaign' (Labour Leader, 3 September 1914.) Later in the war. in an interview with the Manchester Guardian, W.F. Purdy declared that

As Chairman of the EC of the Labour Party I am not going to meet or sit in conference with the representatives of the enemy countries while we are at war. I mean to carry out the policy of British Labour as laid down by our representative gathering. That policy is to pursue the war to a successful termination, which means to a complete victory over the enemy. (7 June 1917.)

That was the policy of the so-called peace party when its credentials were put to the test: it wanted the war to be won by the capitalists of Britain at the cost of the lives of the fighting workers. And Labour's leaders lost no time in recruiting workers to the cause of killing other members of their class. Arthur Henderson, the Labour member of the war-time government, contributed an article to The Times Recruiting Supplement in which he wrote:

A clarion call has been sounded, the nation's imperative and essential need has been proclaimed. and under the leadership of the Sovereign the young manhood of our country is generously responding and volunteering for national service ... (3 November 1915.)

Keir Hardie not only addressed meetings to recruit workers to the killing organisation, but urged workers at home to work with a greater sense of dedication to the country:

A nation at war must be united . . With the boom of the enemy's guns within earshot the lads who have gone forth to fight their country's battles must not be disheartened by any discordant note at home (Merthyr Pioneer, 14 August 1914.)

George Lansbury, who made a great noise about being a pacifist before the war began, refused to print any anti war letters or resolutions in the Daily Herald. And Ramsay MacDonald who was described in a recent public debate by Richard Balfe MEP as the leading Labourite to oppose the First World War. wrote a letter to the Mayor of Leicester stating that

Should an opportunity arise to enable me to appeal to the pure love of country which I know is a precious sentiment in all our hearts I shall gladly take that opportunity. If need be I shall make it for myself. 1 want the serious men of the Trade Union, the Brotherhood, and similar movements to face their duty To such men it is enough to say "England has need of you". (Daily Chronicle. 14 August 1914.)

Which is not quite the same as saying "Workers of all lands unite ". In 1914 the Labour Party acquired its first bloodstain. Those who recruit workers to kill and die are no less culpable for the consequences of such action than the most dedicated warmonger-. at least the red. white and blue Tory nationalists did not pretend to be advocates of peace and socialism.

The first Labour government

Before forming a government, the Labour Party adhered vaguely to the contention that war could only be abolished by ending the social system which is its cause. In The Labour Leader of 14 December 1916 Ramsay MacDonald wrote that an "order from which war issues as an inevitable offspring has to be destroyed before we have satisfactory guarantee of peace". But MacDonald and his party did not understand the nature of the order which necessitates war (capitalism) and therefore ended up running it. MacDonald appointed Lord Thomson as Air Minister and. so successful was his work as organiser of British militarism, that his Tory successor, Sir Samuel Hoare, made a speech six days after the defeat of the Labour government in which he could state:

The citizens of London can rest assured that the air defence of these shores is substantially better than it was twelve months ago. (Speech at London Guildhall, 10 November 1924.)

It has been argued by apologists for the Labour Party that those first two governments were not real Labour governments because they only had a minority in the Commons. Having a minority of MPs is no excuse whatsoever for doing the dirty work of running capitalism's war machine. Supposing for one moment that the minority of Labour MPs had been socialists, it would have been quite possible for them to refuse to vote in favour of any military expenditure to disrupt in every way possible any parliamentary efforts to strengthen or preserve the war machine. This is what a minority of socialist MPs would no doubt do if they found themselves elected to parliament before a majority of workers have opted for socialism. But the Labour Party’s opportunism led them to abandon their verbal commitment to peace and to administer that "order from which war issues as an inevitable offspring".

World War Two and after

In 1939 Britain went to war, not for democracy or to save the Jews from persecution by the Nazis (if the former was the reason it was odd that Britain’s ally was Stalinist Russia. and if the latter it is strange that the British government had been so willing to tolerate Nazism for six years), but to protect British markets, trade routes and raw materials against expansion by the Fascist powers. Speaking in the House of Commons on 9 June 1939, Labour MP Manny Shinwell stated the real reason for the war cry:

Clearly the Government must make up their minds what is their objective in relation to foreign trade. Is it to capture our lost markets, no matter where they are . . . or are we to allow Germany . . to prevent this country from re-establishing herself in foreign markets?

It was an economic war over who got what that is to say, which set of national capitalists. For workers the war was unworthy of support. But, like in 1914, the Labour leaders were ever ready to act as recruiting sergeants for British capitalism.

After the war had wasted the lives of millions of workers who owned and controlled no markets, contrary to Shinwell's possessive adjectives, a Labour government was elected with Clement Attlee as Prime Minister. In the Daily Herald on 19 May 1945 Attlee was reported as stating that "We can prevent war; we can abolish poverty". The claim that the Labour government could abolish poverty has been shown to be ridiculous. But what of its promise to prevent war?

In 1945 Attlee sent a Labour observer to the atomic bombing of Japan There is no evidence of any government effort to prevent this barbaric act. Attlee commented:

. . . the use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima brought the war to a sudden end. It was, of course, an immense relief. (As It Happened, p.150.)

Over 100,000 workers dead and the Labour Prime Minister felt "immense relief". Then Attlee’s government commenced work on producing a British atomic bomb. The British atomic/nuclear programme was not initiated by the wicked Tories, but by the "peace-loving" Labourites. How flattered the Labour MPs must have been when, on 24 October 1952, after the Tories had defeated Labour in a general election. Winston Churchill stated in the House of Commons:

All those concerned in the production of the first British atomic bomb are to be warmly congratulated on the successful outcome of an historic episode and I should no doubt pay my compliments to the Leader of the Opposition and the party opposite for initiating it. 

Every member of the Labour Party in 1985 should consider that compliment seriously.

The Labour government helped to set up the NATO alliance, which has since become one of the two major war organisations in the modern world (the other being the Warsaw Pact). In recent years, despite Labour Party pretensions to becoming a more peace-loving party, every time British participation in the NATO murder machine has been questioned at Labour Party conferences there has been an overwhelming majority in favour of retaining British membership.

In order to support its militarist policies the Attlee government increased armaments expenditure from £692 million in 1948 to over £1 billion in 1951. In 1938, in the heat of war preparations, there were 380,000 members of the armed forces; by 1951 there were over 700,000. If, as we have quoted Snowden as saying, "the army and navy do not exist to defend working people", it does not require much intelligence to see that Labour's increase in the cost and size of Britain's army and navy was in order to benefit the non-working class — the capitalists.

Far from preventing war, the Attlee government positively supported it. They gave military support to the Dutch capitalists in their war to retain possession of Indonesia. In the House of Commons on 18 February 1947, the Labour Minister of War, Fred Bellenger, stated:

Arms of the appropriate nature were provided for Dutch units in Indonesia on a normal basis for a force numbering 62,000. We are in the process of providing similar arms for a further 19,000 Dutch troops.

Similarly, the Attlee government played its full part in the Korean bloodbath, with Labour Minister Herbert Morrison, stating that entering the war "was the only way to preserve peace" (The Times, 3 July 1950). The same government was the first in Britain to impose peace-time conscription.

Unlike in 1924 and 1929. the 1945-51 Labour government could not fall back on the excuse that it was a minority government. They had a big majority and quite intentionally carried out their appalling war policies. By 1951 any worker in any doubt about Labour’s pro-war stance had nothing to blame but self-imposed historical blindness. Whatever other claims they might want to make, the Labour Party could no longer pretend to be any less bloody in the pursuit of capitalist competition than their Tory rivals. To blame but self-imposed historical blindness. Whatever other claims they might want to make, the Labour Party could no longer pretend to be any less bloody in the pursuit of capitalist competition than their Tory rivals.

Labour as an efficient party of war

We need not waste much space on the Wilson-Callaghan Labour governments (1964-70 and 1974-79). Even Labour's most naive idealists make few claims for the "socialist" nature of these governments. If in the 1920s Labour's war policies could be blamed on the government's minority status, and in the 1940s they could claim to be inexperienced, by the age of Harold Wilson the Labour Party had become no more or less than a party out to serve capitalism, but to serve it better than the Tories. By the 1960s Labourites were not shocked when their party initiated horrific war policies this is what they expected and anyone who refused to endorse war could have nothing to do with supporting the government. Many Labourites got into the habit of disowning Labour's war policy — they were for Labour, but "we don't support the nasty bits; we are working for a left-wing leadership which will make labour against war".

This is a wholly untenable position. Firstly, one cannot support actively the election of a government and then disown it when it gets its hands dirty with working-class blood. To do so is like collecting funds for the IRA and then disassociating oneself from the bombing of pubs full of workers. Those who feed the beast are culpable for those it slays. Secondly, there is no way that a so-called left-wing leadership of the Labour Party will be any different from previous ones. A party which is going to run the system, which means dancing to the tune of the British capitalists, cannot ignore the defence of their master s capital. That is why Michael Foot, veteran CNDer, became leader of the Labour Party, feeding thousands of Labour leftists with the hope that he would lead his party away from war and then proceeded to play down his party's semi-anti-nuclear policy and make endless statements during the 1983 general election about how a Labour government would be fully committed to NATO and all the old war policies. Again, that master of opportunist compromise. Neil Kinnock, has made it plain that all of his leftist posturing in the past will count for nothing if ever he is given the chance to serve the capitalist class as their Prime Minister.

The Wilson governments supported the American capitalists in their war in Vietnam. After the Pinkville Massacre George Brown, then Labour s deputy leader, declared that "the Americans should stop weeping and get on with the Vietnam war". (Evening Standard, 21 November 1969.) It was Callaghan. as a minister under Wilson, who intensified the war in Ireland by sending British troops there, thus giving sectarians the perfect reason to take up arms and recruit members to. the cause of violence. And it was the last Labour government which developed the British nuclear submarine programme — doing so without even taking the matter to parliament. Today Labour can be seen as an efficient party of war. Should it come to power again few generals will be contemplating the need for a military coup: the honoured killers of the British armed forces now know that Labour is a party with which they can work quite well. Indeed, it is an irony that the policy of the Labour Left is to expand the conventional armed forces — of the kind used during the Falkland war, which almost every Labour MP supported — and to attack the Tories for running down Britain’s military arsenal. For example, the Labour Party is pledged to expand the British navy; when the Chatham naval dockyards were closed down Labour MPs were attacking the Thatcher government for being traitors. This supports a comment made by an American political journalist in the New York Times in April 1963:

Labour's main point of difference with the Conservative government is a feeling that Britain is not making sufficient contribution to NATO in conventional terms.

Is it not at least possible that some of the millionaires who are making their profits out of armaments manufacture are hoping for another Labour government?

The hard fact which must be laced by Labourites is that they will never eradicate war and the grotesque preparations for it without making war unnecessary. While there is capitalism war is necessary and bombs will not be banned in response to the chants of the pious. The question which should be on the minds of all Labour Party supporters is: Is it worth supporting a party which has repeatedly participated in the killing business in the hope that its rhetoric will drown out experience, or is it urgent to throw aside the dogmas of Labourism for the sake of doing some serious, conscious organising to get rid of the system which will destroy us if we do not destroy it first?

Steve Coleman

End capitalism to end war (1986)

From the Winter 1986-7 issue of the World Socialist

Recently two leading war protestors, who are also "leftists" were given space in the Times/Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia, to update the age-old "guns versus butter" controversy which flares up during every economic depression.

Nobody is ecstatic about the immense financing of weapons of destruction while people starve in Third World countries. However, such contradictions are inevitable where the human race is torn into two antagonistic classes, the exploiters and the exploited. The world is organized as a predatory system, not as a humanitarian one. The means of production and distribution, whether operated privately or under the aegis of the state, are monopolized by about 10 per cent of the population and are used by them to accumulate capital by exploiting the other 90 per cent. Production is for sale/profit and "no profit, no production" the basic economic law.

The human race is further divided into competitive, geo-political units called nations, for administering this dog-eat-dog system. Commodities accumulated in one country from the exploitation process come into conflict on the international market with those from other countries. The struggle is also for trade routes and exploitable populations. During a world depression the struggle intensifies. Fewer workers are needed. More armaments are required. The profit priority is King.

It is a myth (and not a new one) to think that if money was not spent on arms, it could be used to feed the destitute. The economic laws of capitalism (including the state variety of Russia and China) dictate that money be invested to reap profits by appropriating the unpaid part of the labor of the producing class, not by feeding hungry people.

The two "leftists" were probably no more appalled than Gorde Hunter, the "rightist", when he reported in the Times/Colonist that Ethiopia was air freighting 5 tons of fresh fruit and vegetables weekly to London, England, probably at high prices to rich consumers. This report is understandable in the light of capitalism's market laws. The starving people in that country have no legal (money) right to an adequate diet. The profitability of that food has to be realized through exchange for cash.

Likewise, in the United States, destitute people sleep on the streets. In the USSR elderly women wait in line at 7.00 a.m., outside grocery stores in subzero temperatures for rationed food in limited supply. While the ruling Russian élite revels in luxury.

People are led into wars

Both the aforementioned Times/Colonist writers (one was a member of the New Democratic Party, the other seemingly a closet Leninist) seemed to realize that the arms race does not exist in isolation from other social issues and that the solution for one is the answer for all. This is a forward step. But both referred to national political leaders being at fault, one urging the peace movement to work for a change in attitude by those "who are set in authority over us".

It is precisely because the function of leaders is to wield the authority of the ruling class over the mass of ordinary people that there is only one kind of leader regardless of attitude. Trusting leaders is like trusting the Mafia to guard the bank. And such trust, or faith, arises from ignorance.

Leaders use ideologies to conceal the sordid commercial conflicts between nations. "Communism" versus "Democracy" is used by the two super-powers on their people to justify the cold war and the development of today's military insanity. Fear and hatred for "the other side" is instilled in workers' minds, as in other wars.

Likewise, if the super-powers could agree to a freeze on more nuclear weapons, their respective leaders could tell their workers (who are discouraged from thinking) that the danger of a holocaust was gone. Or if they reduced the number of missiles by 50 per cent Meaning that humanity could be blown off the earth only half as many times as before. Also, how about a few more crumbs allowed to fall from the banquet table to prove that progress is being made against poverty? The majority can be deluded on war if they can be made confused about society.

The disarmament movement is based upon a dangerous and perhaps fatal illusion, lulling millions into a false sense of security in the belief that something is being done. The movement also allows itself to be manipulated by the political ideology of the rulers of this divided, antagonistic world social system of selling and profits which can no more avoid war than a tiger can subsist on hay.

For instance, a basic ingredient for every war has been the mental conditioning of the workers of each country into believing that "our freedom", "our democracy", "our fatherland" was at stake or that "our country" would be invaded by evil people (who are always on the other side). This is just ruling class ideology since there is no evidence that the workers of the world own any country. Yet there has not been a peep of protest or informed rebuttal from the peace groups about the war potential in working class nationalist, chauvinist indignation over a US firm manufacturing EXPO emblems or a US icebreaker going through "our" Arctic waters. In fact the peace activists themselves use the possessive expression when referring to whatever country they live and are exploited in.

The only way to end nuclear weapons

Nuclear weapons can only be ended when wars end, which cannot happen until world capitalism is replaced by Socialism. All night vigils in the rain, those three tipis and three or four pup tents at Nanoose Bay where pacifists were trying to stop renewal of a Canadian-US agreement for the US to test torpedos, or banging pots and pans in Esquimalt Harbor, Victoria, where US warships dock not saying whether or not they carry nuclear missiles, are activities which are as impotent as they sound.

War protestors are in the position of beggars asking governing politicians to do something vital in the interests of society, but which would clash with the interests of the owning class. Not much chance. Beggars can't be choosers.

A familiarity by the majority of the cause of war and a commitment to build the new society is the only guarantee that war will not occur and that nuclear weapons will not be used.

Socialism will involve the basic change in social organization from class ownership to common ownership and democratic control by and in the interest of the whole human family. Work will be carried out on the basis of voluntary co-operation to produce society's needs. Consumption will be free according to individually determined requirements. No minority class, dictating through the state, will impose forced labor on a subservient class to keep parasites rich and idle. The social cause of war will be removed since profit-making, competition, buying and selling and allied activities will end.

George Jenkins (Canada)

The Jamaica Plan for World Peace (1952)

From the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard has received a circular from the United Nations Association of Jamaica containing details of yet another plan for world peace, which the Association thinks we must strive to attain by means of a world peace referendum, in which the peoples of the world could declare that they want peaceful settlement of differences by negotiation, reduction of armaments, and a ban on the use of the atom-bomb, hydrogen-bomb, germ-warfare and other weapons of mass destruction.

This kind of plan is not new. There were a number of them before the second world war. Two that spring to mind are the Peace Ballot of the Peace Pledge Union and Canon W. H. Elliott's League of Prayer, to which belonged five and a half million people all praying that the nations might be guided "as one family into the ways of peace.” Since the last war we have had Communist-sponsored Peace Conferences; a rival non-Stalinist peace conference is reported as planned in Yugoslavia; the publisher Victor Gollancz has been trying to get people together with the object of "halting the drift" to a third world war; and now the Jamaica plan has appeared.

These attempts failed to stop the second world war.

And our experience teaches us that they will also fail to prevent yet other wars. No one questions the sincerity of the people who sponsor them and take part in them. And it is undoubted that people will support them in large numbers. This is not surprising. For if a hundred people are asked if they prefer peace or war, at least ninety-nine of them will say that they prefer peace; and therefore they are willing to sign petitions for peace, or vote for it in referendums. This general desire for peace among the peoples of all countries is well known; so much so as to render almost ludicrous the solemn statement made by a Russian in the new English language paper published in Moscow: she said, referring to a recent visit to England, that "there is no doubt that the average man is very much concerned about peace.” (News, July, 1951.) Why is it that this general desire for peace has such little effect on world affairs?

The reason is that the simple question, "Are you for war or for peace? ” never in fact arises outside the pages of the latest peace pamphlet. For what the organisers of these petitions and referendums ignore is that the world to-day is divided into a number of separate states, which all have capitalist economic systems, whether the private-enterprise brand or the State-owner- ship brand is more in favour in any particular country. And these states, by virtue of the fact that they are capitalist, have interests at variance with those of other states. They must all safeguard their sources of raw materials; they must safeguard their markets; and they must safeguard and improve their strategic position in the world so that they may be able to defend themselves successfully when the next war comes. Now there are not enough raw materials in the world to satisfy all the states at the same time; more important still, there are not enough markets (other than government buying of armaments) to be able to take up continually all the products of capitalist industry when it is going at full blast; and in the all-pervading atmosphere of insecurity^ and mistrust which arises from these continual conflicts' in the economic sphere, two or more states often find themselves contending with each other over the control of some small country or island which both sides consider is vital to its safety in a future war. Each state, then, filled with suspicion at the activities of other states, tries to defend itself by building up more and more armaments. Finally there comes a time when a state sees its interests so clearly threatened by another state that it has to resort to arms to defend them, and history has to record the outbreak of yet another war.

This is half the answer to the question, “Why is the general desire for peace ineffectual in preserving it?" The other half is to be found in the fact that in each state the organs of propaganda—press, cinema, radio—are in the hands either of private capitalists, who naturally support the interests of their own state, or (in the more recently organised capitalist systems) in the hands of the state itself. And when war becomes imminent, the press and the radio do not pose the simple question, “ Peace or war? ” to the populations whose opinions they influence; they put the question in the form, “Are we tamely to submit to the enemy aggressors and imperialists, and allow our friends and ourselves to be attacked, or are we to defend ourselves and our interests in other countries?” And the effectiveness of the organs of propaganda is seen in the fact that at any rate at the beginning of a war, the great majority of the population of any country is wholeheartedly behind its government.

In peace time, no one is more vociferously peace- loving than are the heads of states. “ Our main purpose,” said Mr. Morrison in the article which Pravda printed on August 1st, “is to avoid war, to preserve peace.” Pravda replied that the real champions of peace are the Russians. But in reality there is no state, on either side of the Iron Curtain, whose main purpose is to avoid war and preserve peace. All states believe that there are some things more important than peace. For example, in the “Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),” the author (Stalin) distinguishes between two kinds of war:

“ (a) Just wars, wars that are not wars of conquest, but wars of liberation, waged to defend the people from foreign attack and from attempts to enslave them, or to liberate the people from capitalist slavery, or, lastly, to liberate colonies and dependent countries from the yoke of imperialism; and

“ (b) Unjust wars, wars of conquest, waged to conquer and enslave foreign countries and foreign nations.”

The definition of "just wars”—wars of defence against attack or to liberate dependent countries— could be stretched to cover any and every war any country was engaged in. And” just wars” are preferable to peace, if the choice has to be made, according to them.

President Truman, though going into less dialectical detail, comes into the same conclusion. “President Truman said tonight that ‘freedom and justice are more precious* to the American people than peace.” (Daily Express, 11/1/1951.)

Events would show us this even if the speeches and writings of the leaders of states did not. When war broke out between North and South Korea, the U.S.A. thought it more important that South Korea should be kept within what it calls “the free world” than that peace should be preserved. And when the North Koreans were retreating rapidly before their enemies, China thought it more important that North Korea should be kept within what it calls “the democratic world” than that peace should be preserved. Whatever Mr. Morrison may say, all states have ends which to them are more important than the preservation of peace.

The Jamaica Plan for World Peace, and all other plans of the same kind, ignore all these facts. The Jamaican circular calls on the peoples of the world “to deliver an irrevocable mandate for peaceful negotiation of differences between nations.” This rather reminds one of the people in a tropical village delivering “an irrevocable mandate” that the tigers in the nearby jungle shall settle their differences peacefully by negotiation. One can stop the danger of fights between tigers by shooting the tigers; and one can stop the danger of war by getting rid of the capitalist system. Until we do that we will have wars. If you support these schemes which leave out of account the great central fact of the existence of the capitalist system, you are wasting your time. The only way to put an end to war is to bring about the establishment of a socialist society.

Alwyn Edgar