By the Way. (1917)

The By The Way Column from the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

As everyone knows, our masters declared war in 1914 in order to uphold tbe cause of “right” against “might,” and to “put an end to militarism.” Have not the Daily Distresses and the Scaley Crocodiles told us so ? Those of us who have managed to survive until the year of disgrace 1917 know how successful our rulers have been in the before-mentioned noble ideals. With our pedigree and birth hanging up in the workshop and factory, and the voluminous documents we have to carry about with us in order that we may have the “liberty ” to walk about, we cannot but rejoice to think that the employing class have engaged in such a lofty task as the “ending of militarism.”

If further information on this subject was required plenty is at hand. The “right” against “might” theory has been seen in the bamboozling methods obtaining in the early days of recruiting right down to the passing of the unfit under the system of conscription. How “might” has prevailed against “right” is to be found in the violation of pledges to the “Widows’ Sons,” the agreement that youths under 19 should not be sent to the front, and so on.

Having thus touched on the subject of “right,” I come now to the question of “truth.” Recently Mr. Macpherson gave evidence before the Select Committee on the Military Service Act (Review of Exemptions), and in the course of the examination he endeavoured to draw a distinction between a “secret” and a “confidential” document. How “militarism” has triumphed here may be gathered from the following :

“Mr. Shortt, K.C., reminded him [Macpherson] that in January he had told the House that no secret instructions had been issued with regard to rejections, and he replied that he had done so on more than one occasion.

Asked whether he had made inquiry as to the issue of such instruction without his knowledge before that time he answered : “Yes. Any question affecting recruiting would be taken from the Blue Book circulated among the members by the Department of the War Office called C. 2. It would be sent to the Director of Recruiting, and I am compelled to rely upon any information I get from that Department.

The Chairman : You now know of the secret instructions sent out by Sir A. Keogh in 1916?—”I heard of that for the first time since this Committee has been sitting, and never saw the letter except in print. It would not come before anyone on the civil side of the War Office. It was sent out by Sir A. Keogh, acting, no doubt, on instruction.”

In answer to Mr. Pringle, who asked if he had been deceived, he said it was not a question of being deceived or misled. He gave the answer he received.

Mr. Shortt, KC.: “If you had known that this document existed, would you have given the same answer?”—He admitted that he would not.

It all depended upon the view the military authorities took. They distinguished between a “secret” document and a “confidential” one. His mind did not go to the niceties of these documents, but in military circles there was a great distinction . . .

Mr. Shortt, K.C., said that in case the Committee had more military witnesses, they would like to know what the military people called “secret” and “confidential” documents. To my lay mind the term “secret document” would certainly cover this letter.—”Daily News,” August l0th, 1917.”

The sublime ignorance of the Under Secretary for War on this and kindred subjects is truly amazing, and the endeavour to hide by such a shuffle the mean and despicable attempts of his department to obtain recruits shows how arrogant militarism has become.

* * *

In spite of all the big talk that we have heard since the beginning of the war in connection with the discharged soldiers and sailors and a grateful country’s treatment of them, signs are not wanting that large numbers are being left to “go the same way home.” Once again the soothsayers are wrong. From a news item I learn as followeth : “A national disgrace: 21 discharged fighting men in Portsmouth Workhouse.”

“It was reported yesterday to the Portsmouth Guardians that there were 21 discharged men from the Army and Navy in the Workhouse as casuals. Eleven had been discharged from the services as medically unfit.

It was considered a national discredit that such things should exist. One speaker said that men discharged as medically unfit were left to roam about the country. It was also stated that there were men back from the front discharged with pensions of 4s. and 5s. a week only.

Manchester Guardians yesterday protested in the strongest possible manner against the scandal and disgrace of pauperising sailors and soldiers who have lost their reason on active service. The Government were pressed to provide for such men without bringing them into contact with the Poor Law.”—”Daily Chronicle,” August 23rd, 1917.

One is now reminded of the poster which was lavishly displayed two years or so ago, depicting the cottage standing in its own grounds with, the words “Isn’t this worth fighting for ?” At this juncture it seems to be a case of ” What do you lack, Sonny ?”

* * *

From another source there is to hand a case slightly different in detail, but illustrating the same fact that when a man is no longer of fighting value it does not matter to our benevolent bosses what becomes of him and his family. This case stands out more prominently than some for the reason that the man had many years’ service to justify a claim for considerate treatment. However, let me quote :

“’S.B.’, an ex-corporal in the R.G.A., who had served 14 years when the war broke out, writes:

I volunteered for the front in September, 1914, and was sent across for the defence of Antwerp. Later on I fought near Ypres, and was striken with malaria, which I originally contracted in India in 1905. I was invalided home, and became instructor at my depot until 1916, when I had to report sick.

Last August I was discharged medically unfit. I had been removed from hospital totally disabled on a pension of 4s. 8d. a week, with a wife and four children. After eight months the pension was increased to 9s. and 4s. 6d. for the children, or 13s 6d. in all. I am still in bed, and am still applying to Chelsea for the total disablement pension. Last Tuesday they asked for my record, though I have written them every week for a year. As one of the “first hundred thousand,” I think I deserved better treatment.”—”Daily News,” August l0th, 1917.

How’s this for generosity ? Six people committing suicide on 13s. 6d, a week ! Verily the workers are a long-suffering lot. When will they arise from their slumbers and proceed to end this hellish system of capitalism with all the evils that arise therefrom ?

* * *

A newspaper correspondent writing from the front a few days ago gave a description of the fighting which had just taken place. He wrote : “This area north-west of Lens has already seen some of the bloodiest struggles of this war, but none perhaps so bloody as it saw this morning.”—(Perry Robinson in the “Daily News,” 22.8.17.) Of course, the usual reference to the heaps of German dead appeared, though what satisfaction this can be to those who, by a geographical accident, were born on British soil, and have lost a relative, none but the arm-chair prosecutors of the war can appreciate.

* * *

The pantomime performance of the Labour Party would indeed be a fit subject for hilarity were it not for the seriousness of the workers’ position, which is supposed to reside in their keeping. As in the days before the war the Labour Party, or at least a portion of that party, move amendments or resolutions, as the case may be, and then vote against them. Recently the Corn Production Bill was before the House, and embodied in it was a proposal of 25s. a week wages for agricultural workers. Some of the Labour members moved an amendment to increase the wage to 30s., yet, strange to say, another member of that party, Mr. G. H. Roberts, who has just been rewarded for faithful service to the capitalist government, voted against the 30s. amendment. One wonders whether the agricultural workers of Norfolk will keep their eyes on “their” member in future.

The Scout.

H-Bomb diplomacy (1961)

From the October 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well, it had to happen. Of course, on all sides there was dismay, or fear, or anger, when first Russia and then the United States announced that they were going to resume testing nuclear bombs. And who wouldn’t feel like that. Ever since the atom bomb came mushrooming onto the world scene, there has been no lack of scientists to tell us how bad it is for our health to have the things tested. True, there is disagreement on the extent of the danger from the tests (the testing governments, as we may expect, like to play it down), but nobody has yet been able to say that they are anything but dangerous. But now the big tests have started again, and the fact is—it had to happen.

Because, as now seems fairly obvious, the nuclear powers agreed to stop tests in 1958 only after they had completed a significant stage in their nuclear weapon build up. At the time, we remember, the United States and the Soviet Union packed in a lot of tests, pushing themselves hard to beat the deadline. (Russia just failed to make it). These tests, with their predecessors, must have yielded enough knowledge for the nuclear powers to mull over whilst they were busily developing other aspects of their weapons. We all know that they have been polishing up on rocketry, perfecting their accuracy and boosting their range. Now, they are at the stage which demands further bomb tests, if the work of the last three years is not to be wasted.

The big snag is that, for political reasons, neither side wanted to be labelled as the one which started it all again. Over recent years, Russian foreign policy has often shown itself sensitive to such things. Perhaps Khruschev did not want Russia to be the country to break the test ban. Perhaps he held off as long as he could, until his hand was forced. There certainly seems to be in Moscow a belligerent, military pressure group which regards Khruschev’s policy as too conciliatory to the West, just as America and this country have their hotheads who are all for a showdown. We saw some of the work of the Moscow group when Khruschev was forced to break up the last Summit meeting in Paris. If these people have had their way again, that would explain the brusque manner in which the Kremlin announced the resumption of tests.

So it might have been a clever waiting game, with each side needing to test but reluctant to make the first move for fear of the political repercussions in countries like India and on the African continent. There is no reason to blame the U.S.S.R. for losing the game, nor to suppose that the Americans held out for humanitarian reasons. For when it came to it, they were just about as ready to let off their bombs again as were the Russians. We know that all capitalist countries like to describe their policies as being inspired by zeal for human benefits. But that simply does not even start to wash as far as nuclear weapons go. There is one certain way in which Russia, America and the rest could serve human interests, and solve the problem of nuclear warfare at the same time. They could destroy all their weapons and refuse to make any more.

That sounds like a pipe dream. In fact, it is a pipe dream. Capitalist nations build up their armouries because they must always strive for military supremacy, to defend the economic and commercial interests of their ruling class. Britain wants a base in Cyprus so that she can keep troops and weapons there, handy to move into Kuwait or any other trouble spot in the oil rich, economically vital Middle East. The United States wants its missile bases on the Continent, its Polaris ships in Holy Loch, because they cannot allow Russian capitalism to expand freely into Europe. Now these competing economic interests are an essential part of capitalism; if Russia and America were to settle their differences tomorrow, the day after we would have some other powers at loggerheads. Once you have such competition, you have armed forces. Once you have armed forces you have weapons, with each force trying for the weapon which will make it the most powerful of the lot. That sounds too simple for words, but it is in fact the reason behind the horror story of the development of weapons. That is the story to tell the unilateral nuclear disarmers, because it is the hundred per cent. reason for not being one of them.

Perhaps without realising it, Khruschev and Kennedy have punched a big hole in the case of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Let us suppose that the C.N.D. had its way, and that the governments of the world agreed to renounce the use and manufacture of nuclear weapons. All the diplomats would gather at Geneva, or some other equally pleasant place, to sign the instrument of renunciation. There would be moving speeches about a new era of human welfare, a better chance for children yet unborn: we all know what to expect on such occasions.

But the sombre fact is that, after the fine words have evaporated, treaties and agreements are worthless to the governments of capitalism. Germany’s signature to the 1919 treaty which disarmed her was worthless. The powers which signed the Locarno Treaty of friendship in 1924 were very soon at war with each other. The post war problem of Berlin is chock full of agreements which have been broken or ignored. And in the same way, now that it suits their purpose to do so, the nuclear powers have ignored their 1958 agreement to ban tests. There is no evidence to suggest that they would behave any differently about an agreement to renounce nuclear bombs completely.

There is nothing necessarily dishonourable in this. The diplomats in themselves might be men of sensitive’ integrity. It is the disputing nature of capitalist society which forces them to make, and break, their pledges. However deep in the mud they may lie, or however thick on the pavement they may sit, the unilateralists will never get around that problem.

In fundamentals, the policies of capitalist governments never change, although in more superficial matters there are opportunities to alter their immediate policy, and they often do so. For example, there is a lot of evidence that since Stalin’s death the Russian ruling class has tended to adopt a less belligerent attitude towards their opponents. Stalin, whatever else can be said of him, was one of capitalism’s strong men; his successors have shown a more subtle touch. That is what has made Moscow’s tough attitude on the tests that little bit more chilling.

How serious is it, then? Travellers from the United States and from Eastern Europe tell the same story — of people all in a panic about war. But we should keep the bomb tests in their perspective, and remember that weapons are not in themselves the cause of war. The next conflict will spring from the disputes of capitalism — from the Koreas, the Kuwaits, the Berlins. In the meantime, with their bomb tests, space shots, sub-Arctic submarines and the rest, the powers are only taking the normal capitalist precaution of arming themselves as destructively as they can.

Yes, the tests had to happen again. That may sound crazy, but that’s the way it is. Because for the majority of people, happy to keep capitalism going, that is the way they want it.

Ivan

Fools learn by experience. And so do other people. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

What We Have Left Behind.

It was the custom, but a short while ago, to attribute to savage life a setting of perennial violence and promiscuous murder. It was the custom, in days yet no further from us than their rose-scents endure, and their laurels keep their freshness, to acclaim our exalted civilisation, and to gasp at the completeness of our conquest of ourselves by ourselves, and our triumph over external conditions—with the aid of God, and of parson, and of men like Mr, Lloyd George, and Lord Kitchener, and Mr. Berry, the celebrated hangman, of course. It was the custom to search the world for the Molochs of other worships and the Juggernaut cars of other civilisations, and to use them as pin-flags to mark the course we have followed and the giddy heights we have achieved above them.

Who does not remember for what bloody butcheries and devastating conquests excuse has been found in the tyranny of native rulers and insecurity of native life ? The “poor black” could never be sure, when he put his head out of his kraal in search of his morning paper, that some earlybird with a highly developed sense of humour and a capacious knife was not going to tumble that head into the milk-can. And it was suspected that, hidden away in the fastnesses of primitive forests, woolly-headed, dusky Camp­bells and Booths and other bogey-men were mixing up the trade of restaurateur with that of juggler, and administering the Communion with such grim realism as rendered superfluous the pronouncement “This is His flesh.” Such offences against the nostrils of “our common humanity” invariably called aloud for expeditions composed mainly, after its human components, of those well-known civilising agents, bullets, bibles, and booze (three out of the famous “Four B’s” of Christian pioneering—the missionary was the fourth).

Love’s Labour Lost.

Many an expedition, armed to the teeth for butchery, has left our shores on the pretext that the barbarities of little-known people shock the world and are a danger to civilisation ; many an expedition, reddened to the ears with butchery, has justified its orgy of rape and murder by grim tales of mountains of skulls discovered in some dusky potentate’s backyard. Civilised ruling classes have been touched to the tenderest cores of their tender hearts by savage brutality, and have expended much blood and treasure to correct the idiosyncrisi.es of the Mahdis, and clear up the messes of the King Coffees,

And now what a spectacle the Christian rulers of Christian lands present to the astonished eyes of savagedom !

All former hates and blood-lusts pale into insignificance compared with the consuming passions that run riot through the breasts of “civilised” men ; all former wars become mere local disturbances by comparison with this ghastly struggle which is turning countries into cemeteries and civilisation into an instrument of bloodshed; all former barbarities, whether of African despot or Asiatic ravager or European money-hunter, are eclipsed by the callous brutality of the means by which all the combatants alike seek to put out the lifespark of men in this last great crime which reveals the true visage of capitalism.

What irony survives the shock of events ! It was the complaint of multitudes, when we Socialists delivered the Socialist message in the pre-war days, that any attempt to establish society upon a basis of common ownership must lead to bloodshed. The fear of such a contingency has closed to our message the ears of many whose logical faculties could permit no other escape from the general truth of our conclusions, but who had not yet appreciated the veracity of Mr. Churchill’s dictum : “There are worse things than bloodshed.”

If Blood be the Price—

But to those who feared so much the giant figure behind the Socialist banner what has capitalism presented—and what has it yet to present ? In the first year of war about 85,000 British lost their lives in operations by land and sea, and a month later a military member of the House of Commons told us that “we have hardly yet wet our shoes.” A Paris journal. “L’Oeuvre,” in an estimate widely quoted by the Press of this country, states that up to the end of last February, that is when the war had been in continuance only half the time that it has now. France had lost in killed alone 304,000 men, Russia 850,000, Germany 975,000. Austria 1,400,000, while the total losses in killed of all the belligerents exclusive of Turkey were 3,689,000.

If we had not wet our shoes in September we had not even soiled them in February. Since then there has been colossal fighting on the eastern front and terrible work and suffering in Gallipoli ; since then there has been a costly attack and advance in France, while in addition Italy has entered the arena and made some progress in running up a tragic bill. What, then, must be the appalling death-roll now, with this second seven month’s lighting added to the first ?

Nor is it only in this direction that the war is robbing Socialism of its terrors. Many people in the past have stumbled over the idea that it is only the free play of capitalist competition that makes the world go round, and that without this stimulus to endeavour the means of production, wonderful as they are, would not suffice to support the race, and chaos and ruin would at once overtake us. But what do we find ; where does the war demonstrate the truth to be ?

It is revealed in practice that military strength —which to-day more than ever resolves itself into the largest, and therefore the most econo­mical output of wealth—is in inverse ratio to the free play of capitalist competition. It is seen that, so far from true is it that the ordinary private enterprise of interested capitalists, spurred on as it is by an unparalleled opportunity for gain, means efficiency, that it means, on the contrary, misdirection, waste, and chaos which must prove fatal to those foolish enough to rely upon it.

The Failure of Private Enterprise.

It is here that the scientific German has scored heavily over the short-sighted fools who have fondly imagined that private enterprise under the stimulus of competition would suffice for nearly all things in peace and in war. For years the German rulers have had arrangements made for a wide abandonment of the competitive processes of production in event of war. At the annual military manoeuvres a large number of German factories have been put under State control and run for a fortnight under war conditions. Whatever miscalculations the Germans made as to the requirements of modem warfare, they may, at all events, take credit for recognising from the first, and long before the outbreak of hostilities, the truth of the Socialist contention that the boasted private enterprise, under the stimulus of the competition generated by the lust for profit, is a drag upon production and a fertile source of chaos and inefficiency.

Germany acted upon this knowledge, and as a result our masters are forced to confess that, other things being equal, the only effective reply is to themselves abandon private enterprise for the time. In other words, they are forced to admit that capitalist production by private enterprise is a failure, and that only production organised on a basis from which the attributes of private enterprise are eliminated can enable them effectually to deal with a situation of their own making. To this extent, therefore, the evidence of the war is a triumph for Socialist theory which we shall know how to make good use of when the war has run its course.

Some further lessons.

But another aspect of the same question provides a useful lesson and further vindication of Socialist claims. When the war broke, out the financiers and capitalist economists showed that it could not last longer than a year. The upheaval of finance, the disturbance of trade, the disruption of production—these potent factors were to cool the ardour of the most warlike in a matter of nine to twelve months, and bring peace because the resources of mankind could not support war on the colossal scale for a longer time. By all the calculations of capitalist economists, based upon the soundest of capitalist theories, the Teutonic allies, with so much of their own manhood removed from the production of the necessaries of life, with their imports and exports almost completely cut off, should have reached bankruptcy and starvation and military paralysis long before this. Yet the prognostications of the wise men, who have imagined that the only possible basis for the activities of civilised man is money, and therefore solvency, and who have stoutly denied the Socialist assertion that an enormous proportion of the human energy under capitalism is run to waste these prognostications are pulverised by the peculiarly healthy vigour of the Austro-German entity.

Of course, the seers did not realise that a country organised for war could eliminate private enterprise and profit-hunting to any extent that its government thought necessary and its capitalist element was prepared to submit to, and thus organised on a temporary basis foreign and even antagonistic to capitalism, could go on with the war in defiance of financial dictums and capitalist economic theories, to the first of which the capitalists of that country are answerable only when the normal conditions of capitalism return, and the last of which they blast for ever.

But so it has been. The rulers of the German nation have found it possible to engage over ten millions of their seventy millions population in the direct prosecution of the war in the actual fighting forces, and in the production and transport of munitions and other requisites of war. We may put the ordinary working strength of Germany—the number, that is, following any occupation (the housewife’s duties excepted)—at from eighteen to twenty millions. We find, therefore, the remarkable spectacle in a capitalist country “organised for war,” of more than one half the working population (and the most physically efficient half at that) engaged in providing the forces and means for carrying on the conflict.

It is just this that has upset the calculations of the prophets. Plain soldiers, unhampered by economic theories and financial superstitions, knew that of the conditions essential to the carrying on of war, solvency was not one. Hence they made preparations “for three years or for the period of the war.” But the theorists have had a rude awakening. It comes as a surprise to them to find that while the ordinary processes of capitalism were suspended, and to the extent that they were suspended, bankruptcy was a word without significance. It comes as a shock to them to find that the country best organised for war is forced, when up against the military resources of the greater part of capitalist civilisation. can gain additional strength only by the wider abandonment of the principles of private enterprise, and the substitution therefor of organisation on a basis which, while far as the poles asunder from Socialism, contain this element in common with Socialism, that production for profit, with its wasteful competition, gives place to production for use, with its concomitant economical co-operation.

Thus is proved the Socialist contention that capitalist production, on normal capitalist lines, notwithstanding that such vast wealth results, is an insanely wasteful process. The very fact that the capitalists themselves are compelled at a time of stress to reject it in fields essential to the prosecution of the war speaks volumes. In this, when the war is finished, Socialist propagandists will find a powerful object-lesson to put before their fellow-workers.

It is more than possible that the war will provide even more important lessons for the working class than any here outlined so far. We all know how much the governments of the “quadruple entente” are building upon a revolt among the working class of the “enemy” countries. The contingency is not by any means remote, since it might suit the book of the Teuton mili­tarists, should they be unable to stave off defeat in the field, as well as it would suit the purpose of our own masters and their allies. We should then probably see the erstwhile capitalist foes united in a bloody suppression having for its object the striking with terror anew the working class of the world.

But for the moment the lessons of the war are these: Firstly, that the evolution of capitalism, so far from freeing us from the bloody violence alleged to attach to savage existence, tends to make wars more colossal as the improvement in the means of production sets free a larger proportion of the workers for war, and more cruel as the conquests of science place new means of butchery at the disposal of our respective masters. Secondly, the war demonstrates how small a proportion of the energy of any community, with modern instrument of labour, suffices to supply the necessaries of life for the whole. Thirdly, the war reveals that private enterprise and production for profit, so long and so sternly condemned by all Socialists, is not good enough even for the capitalists when the exigencies of a vital war make it imperative for them to make the most of their resources.

These lessons of the war will go far in the hands of those who have taken up the Socialist position, when the butchers shall have decided their quarrel by the old test seeing who can pour out working-class blood the longest. They will, added to the grudging return which the capitalists of this country are already preparing for their disabled warriors, open eyes even that German bullets have rendered sightless forever. Then, with the utter wantonness of this colossal destruction of life revealed in the worsened conditions of those who are everywhere bearing the brunt of the fighting and the bulk of the suffering the working class—and with the many false friends of labour exposed and discredited for all time by their attitude during this crisis, the cause of the working class will flourish with vigour that will relieve and compensate for this dark and savage outrage upon our class.

A. E. Jacomb

Socialist Sonnet No. 205: They & We (2025)

 From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

They & We

 THEY are belligerent, perfidious.

Whereas, WE are civilised, trustworthy,

Favouring an open society,

Which is why THEY connive to confound us,

Fashioning munitions, missiles and drones

To advance their ambitious aggression,

Engineering international tension;

Hostility’s the marrow in their bones.

It’s only to keep our borders secure

WE maintain peace with military might,

Only slaughter when WE decide it’s right

To do so, certain our motives are pure.

But, who are THEY? Who WE? It’s surely clear

There’ll be neither once borders disappear.

 

D. A.

By the Way. (1916)

The By The Way Column from the September 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

In carefully perusing the daily press unique opportunities are afforded the student of current events to observe the amazing contradictions recorded there from time to time. When one bears in mind the statement which has been repeated on so many occasions that the present conflict is a war of liberty and to secure the rights of small nations, etc., etc., it is exceedingly difficult to reconcile this view of things with the violation of all the pre-existing conditions. One is obliged to ask : What of the suppression of various newspapers, the placing under arrest of those against whom no charge has been preferred, the threatened deportation of political refugees, and a hundred and one other similar questions.

In view, therefore, of these things one wonders when the workers will take the blinkers from off their eyes and endeavour to see things as they actually are, instead of seeing them as labour leaders and other hirelings of the master class represent them to be. A few weeks ago a new and freakish organisation, the British Workers’ National League, organised a demonstration, and, according to a comic cuts or picture paper report, we read that Mr. G. Wardle, M.P., delivered a rousing speech from which I cull the following:

“I believe that out of the evil of this great war there is arising for the democracy of all the countries a new era. Oppression and militarism are already dead. The people of the Allies are all determined that as a final result of this great struggle there shall be throughout the world a better day for all men—the day of liberty, the day of democracy, the day of the people.—”Daily Sketch,” July 15th, 1916.

Doubtless the remark “a new era” is perfectly true. An era of intensified suffering for many, an era of desolation for many thousands of homes and an era of struggles for those left behind to make a miserable pittance stretch over the weekly period. The sentence “oppression and militarism are already dead” is decidedly rich, but maybe Mr. Wardle has just awakened from a long sleep. Oh, the pity of it !

* * *

Perhaps the before-mentioned gentleman in his wakeful moments may have been in the House a few days later when a question was asked regarding the punishment meted out to a driver in France for very slightly exceeding the speed limit, and who was “awarded 90 days’ field punishment, entailing being strapped to a wagon in full view of the troops for two hours a day, and a loss of 90 days’ pay, and the loss to the man’s wife of his allotment.” The official reply was “that the court-martial was quite within its rights in awarding the punishment named. Very strict regulations have been laid down to prevent reckless driving in France the authorities there having had their attention called to a number of cases where children had been injured owing to that cause.” One week after this case was again referred to and the same minister replied “that the G. O. C. remitted a month of the sentence, and it was afterwards wholly remitted. The effect of this was to restore to the man his pay, and also the allotment to his wife. The War Secretary did not see his way to make any alteration in the law in respect to field punishment.” (Quotations from “Daily Chronicle,” Aug. 2nd and 9th, 1916.) The headlines referring to this case are also an interesting study. On the first occasion I notice, “Field Punishment. Strapped to a wagon for two hours a day.” Second, “Degrading punishment of soldiers.” Sooner or later it may possibly dawn on the hon. Mr. G. Wardle that “oppression and militarism” are far from being “dead.”

* * *

A good illustration of precept and practice was brought to the notice of the House the other day on the subject of the soldiers’ pensions. In the course of the debate Mr. Will Crooks told of a soldier discharged with a pension of 7s. 6d. a week, and the letter he received from a lady who knew of the case. An extract is highly interesting reading. It runs as follows :

“I heard you speak in ——. You said that every wounded warrior would be properly looked after by his country. You are a liar (laughter.) And you knew you were a liar when you said it. (Renewed laughter.)”—”Reynolds’s,” August 20th, 1916.

The agitation which is gradually growing on this question is, of course, somewhat serious, particularly to the labour members who in the earlier days of the war placed themselves unreservedly at the disposal of the powers that be and stumped the country in aid of “voluntary enlistment,” the while telling the workers that a grateful country would look after those broken in the war. The columns of cases of hardship grow day by day and these patriotic labour leaders are now seeing that the promises so glibly made are being falsified by later events, and thus tend to place in jeopardy their future career. Hence the vim and vigour they are placing in their united efforts to obtain some measure of recognition for a more generous scale of pension. To show I am not exaggerating the position let me quote another labour man (Mr. G. N. Barnes) in an interview with a representative of “Reynolds’s.” Pointing to a sheaf of correspondence on his desk, he said:

“These things are getting on my nerves. I simply cannot sleep for them. They all refer to the same subject—men broken since they joined the Army and discharged without the slightest provision made for them or their families in the immediate future.” (Same paper, same date.)

One could fill an issue of the Socialist Standard quite easily with cases taken at random from our masters’ Press. Only the other day the “Daily Express” devoted a portion of its front page to the case of a man who was disabled and, owing to the gratefulness not having reached maturity, was obliged to take out a barrel organ in order to maintain a wife, three children and himself. Such is the generosity of our masters. War time or peace time we are sucked like an orange and then discarded.

* * *

In my perambulations recently I noticed several exhortations to “postpone your holidays,” which advice in many cases, including my own, is superfluous, or as Cabinet ministers would reply: “the question, therefore, does not arise.” But about the same time I read :

“The Hon. Mrs.——left for Kilmarnock.

Lord——left for Rufford Abbey.

The Earl of——left for Burton-on-Trent.

Lady——left for Edinburgh.

Etc., Etc.”——Evening News,” August 8th, 1916.

In no case did I notice that anyone left for—munition works. No, that is left for we workers!

* * *

I have been much interested of late in reading about cases before local Tribunals. Just picture the scene for yourself. Council chamber, and local bumbledom (all impartial gentlemen) with all the pomp and circumstance attaching to their high office, about to hear claims for exemption from military service. Recently I came across the following under the heading of “Wisdom of Mr. Solomon” :

“At the Aldershot Tribunal, Mr. Robertson, the chairman, asked : “What is a linotype operator?”

Mr. Solomon (a member of the Tribunal and a camp furnisher) : “One who lays lino on the floor.” —”Evening Standard,” August 11, 1916.

Were it not for the fact that I read this again in a morning newspaper I should have taken it an a joke on the part of the “Evening Standard.” What an exhibition of profundity ! And is this a specimen of judges of domestic or conscientious objections ?

* * *

It appears as if one of the results of the war will be to crush out of existence as such the small capitalist, and force him into the ranks of the workers. That there is some legitimate ground for this belief is evidenced from time to time in the papers. A recent illustration is to hand in an announcement issued the other day that the London Unionist members received a deputation from the small shell makers round London, who converted their plant, formerly used to make sewing machines, bicycles, etc., to the national uses.

“They complain that the subsequent establishment by the Government of great arsenals which can be run more economically has cut into their production, and that they are threatened with bankruptcy.”—”Daily News,” August l0th, 1916.

Here, then, we observe the pathetic wail of the small capitalist who is threatened with death and destruction—not as a result of the establishment of Socialism, which has been asserted by some to he the end of all things, but by the development of capitalism in itself.

* * *

A question regarding the cost of pauper indoor maintenance was recently asked in the House of Commons. The questioner desired to know “the average cost per head of pauper indoor maintenance on 31st March, 1913, 1914, 1915, and 1916 respectively ?” The reply was as follows: “The estimated average cost per indoor pauper in England and Wales for the year ended March, 1913 was £32 12s. 10¾d., and for the year ended March, 1914 £34 9s. 4¾d. Complete returns for the later years are not yet available.” (Official Report, Cols. 2488-9, Aug. 22nd, 1910.) An old age “pension” of 5s.per week, or £13 per year, is a grand thing for the capitalist class. The economy campaign commenced before the war. See what you save the master class by holding out your hand for a dollar a week to spend the evening of your days in your own chimney corner,

* * *

A case of exceptional hardship was given some prominence in a recent issue of a Sunday paper. The facts, according to the report, briefly stated are :

“The breadwinner in a military gaol because he remained with his wife when she was in the valley of the shadow.

Separation allowance; stopped.

Windows and door of the tenement removed by landlord’s agent.

Every pawnable possession gone for food. Parish rations.”

The item of news goes on to say that “some may be uncharitable enough to say that her husband should not have overstayed his leave, and then all this trouble would not have befallen his innocent wife and children. But there is no true man who, in similar circumstances, would not be where Private Price … is to-day. About nine weeks ago Mrs. Price risked her life to bring another little Briton into the world.” It continues by stating that the husband obtained leave to be near his wife, whose recovery was not rapid, and that he was confronted with the following dilemma :

(1) Return to duty and leave his wife with children to care for, and without relative or friend to aid her.

(2) Stay with her and chance the consequences.

“He chose the latter and when he returned to barracks was awarded 56 days’ detention.” We are further informed from this Press report that a representative of the “Illustrated Sunday Herald" visited the woman and her children “at their cheerless home” and “he found a spectacle which for sheer desolation and grief could not be found elsewhere in London.” A reference is made to the family subsisting on the following parochial fare:

1 tin of treacle.

1 tin of condensed milk.

2 loaves of bread.

1 lb. of rice.

issued every two or three days”—“Illustrated Sunday Herald,” Aug. 6th, 1916

This from a capitalist paper in every sense of the word patriotic is a striking commentary on the patriotism of our masters.

* * *

The answer to the question with regard to the employment of soldiers at the Llanelly Steel Works, their rate of pay, etc., came somewhat as a shock to some of the labour men in the House when it transpired that these men were doing civilian work for soldiers’ pay, the War Office appropriating the difference. So concerned were the Labour Party that they met to discuss Dr. Addison’s reply, and

“Mr. C. W. Bowerman, M. P., said yesterday that Dr. Addison’s own confession rendered it impossible for labour to ignore such a serious infraction of the arrangements which had been previously made, and he predicted that if parliamentary action did not avail Labour would consider other ways of stopping it.”— “Globe,” August 9th, 1916.

Is this Industrial Conscription ? At last the Labour fakirs wake up, and, they bark. To interfere with the freedom of the men in the matter of the disposal of their labour-power is poaching on the fakirs’ preserves, and if anything like that’s a doing, why, they have got to be paid THEIR price.

The Scout.

Material World: Standing by your trained killers (2025)

The Material World Column from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 2020, the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force published its long-awaited findings on the behaviour of the nation’s special forces in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. It became widely known as the Brereton Report, after Major General Paul Brereton, the investigation’s lead.

Its findings were simple: Australian special forces had committed murder in Afghanistan. Thirty-nine cases were identified. The report found evidence of collusion to cover the atrocities up. Troops carried ‘throw down weapons’ to plant on their victims, to claim they were actually insurgents and the slaying was within the terms of engagement. New recruits were ‘blooded,’ ordered by their officer to kill prisoners to get their first kill. The report identified 25 individuals responsible, and stated that no-one above the rank of sergeant was involved or had knowledge of these atrocities.

So far, only one man has even been charged with murder, and is still awaiting trial. The Office of The Special Investigator, set up by the Australian Government, has noted the difficulty in reliably investigating the incidents, especially with the Taliban in power.

It is likely that only political obsessives in Australia, let alone around the world, will have even heard of the very serious findings of the report. It is unlikely that the culture of the Australian forces evolved on its own.

The British government, for its part, sprang into action and passed The Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021, which created a

‘presumption that it is to be exceptional for a prosecutor to determine that a Service person or veteran should be prosecuted for alleged offences on operations outside the UK […] These measures do not apply to allegations of sexual offences, torture, crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes’.

(Although the law as originally drafted would have included them – tinyurl.com/spgbBRE3).

The BBC has been picking up stories of abuses by British forces. The 2022 Panorama programme, ‘SAS Death Squads Exposed: A British War Crime?’ observed that: ‘British special forces killed hundreds of people on night raids in Afghanistan’, and asked, ‘but were some of the shootings executions?’ More recently, the episode ‘Special Forces: I Saw War Crimes’ (May 2025) relayed stories from service personnel:

‘Killing of detainees “became routine”, the veteran said. “They’d search someone, handcuff them, then shoot them”, before cutting off the plastic handcuffs used to restrain people and “planting a pistol” by the body, he said’.

And:

‘The testimony, as well as new video evidence obtained by the BBC from SAS operations in Iraq in 2006, also supports previous reporting by Panorama that SAS squadrons kept count of their kills to compete with one another.’

The story sounds almost exactly the same as the Australian one.

The BBC has, inevitably, received pushback for this reporting from the usual ‘support the troops’ types, usually of the ‘so what, war is hell’ variety, or ‘who are we to judge the actions of soldiers under pressure’. But the main response has been crickets. There has been no full bore coverage or outrage on the front pages of the national press. The stories have been simply left to sink down into the archives to be quietly forgotten.

This is the propaganda tool of ‘worthy versus unworthy victims’: the crimes of the British state will receive less attention than the crimes of official enemies. A genuinely democratic press interested in holding authorities to account for the citizenry would operate on the opposite principle.

This is hardly new. In her book Legacy of violence Caroline Elkins explores what she calls ‘legalized lawlessness’ which involves ‘legalizing, bureaucratizing and legitimating of exceptional state-directed violence when ordinary laws proved insufficient for maintaining order and control.’

One example she gives is of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in India in 1919. The event saw Brigadier General Dyer order his troops to open fire on a crowd, killing around 400 and wounding around three times as many. Despite the outrage around the world, Dyer stood by his actions, as producing a salutary terror to prevent an uprising.

His only punishment was dismissal (though the press and well-wishers raised a substantial sum of money for him). In a debate in the House of Commons on the incident, Winston Churchill depicted it as ‘a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation’, that is, as an exceptional one-off, out of character with the spirit of the British army.

The House of Commons passed a resolution of censure of Dyer, but the House of Lords passed a motion condemning the lower house’s resolution. In that debate, Elkins quotes one noble peer, Viscount Finlay stating:

‘One of the mainstays of our Empire has been the feeling that every officer, whose duty it was to take action in times of difficulty, might rely, so long as he acted honestly and in the discharge of his duty, upon his superiors standing by him’.

Looking at Elkins’ narrative, this is a recurring theme: violent excesses by imperial forces are met with official investigation and sanction, only for the perpetrator to be let off after a vociferous public campaign. The most recent example of this being Sergeant Blackman, who was convicted of murder in Afghanistan.

After a strenuous campaign, the charge was downgraded to manslaughter, and he was released after serving four years in prison. Appeal judges accepted he had a stress-related mental illness leading to diminished responsibility.

The British state has opened a public enquiry under Justice Haddon-Cave. This will likely be a full and conscientious enquiry that will shed some light on the operations of the British forces in Afghanistan. The most likely outcome will be that junior heads will roll (gently), and the report will join others on the shelf, forgotten except by historians

The interests served by the British state create a need for killers, and it is unsurprising when they cross the line. What is harder to understand is the minds of people who will determinedly keep violence and slaughter available as a policy option.

Pik Smeet

Editorial: Russia and the Straits. (1916)

Editorial from the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

That element of comedy which relieves almost every tragic situation, appears at last in the ultra-tragic situation on the Continent. For generations the British policy of preserving the “balance of power” in Europe has led our chivalric masters to adopt an attitude of protection and support toward certain ”small nations,” which wet-nurse attitude has afforded fools and sycophants a splendid opportunity to erect and nurture a theory of British love of “right” and “justice” that has precious little foundation in actual fact. What monumental sacrifice was undertaken in our grandfathers’ time (and at our [the working class] grandfathers’ expense) to argue Russia into a right state of mind concerning the sacredness of Turkish soil, and what farce has since been played, over the reeking graves of butchered “small nations,” to maintain in his pestilential power the “sick man of Europe,” whose rotten carcass happened to bar the way of Russia to the Mediterranean ! And what British blood has deluged the plains of Flanders and the Low Countries to maintain their “inviolable rights” (in fiction) because (in fact) their acquisition meant a disturbance of power, military and commercial, that did not recommend itself to British chivalry !

And now Time, like the corner-men in the Nigger minstrel troupe, supplies the comic relief without which both the “Spanish onion” song and the high tragedy of international politics are insufferable. British policy is on the horns of a dilemma. Cherished traditions come in conflict. The Russians want the Straits of Gallipoli and the Germans want Belgium. It is deucedly awkward, don’t-ye-know, and if that wild scramble to the Peninsular had only succeeded the situation might have been saved. The Turks might have capitulated on terms that would still have left them masters of their fate, guardians of the “holy places,” benefactors of the Armenian and other poor devils who would be so much better off under the rule of the gentle Russian. But the Churchillian “gamble” fell through. The paeans which eulogised the marvellous way in which the British caught hold of the turkey at Gallipoli were outdone by the chants praising the clever way they let it go again, and the attempt to save the “sick man of Europe” from himself and the Russian bear collapsed. And now British chivalry has had to decide between Germany and Russia.

The problem was brought within reach of the minds of British statesmen by one or two existing facts. In the first place, Germany, the enemy of the moment by reason of her superior industrial development, had already gained such ascendency in Turkey as rendered her conquest eventually of the historic sea outlets a foregone conclusion—and better Russia than Germany. On the other hand opportunity was ripe for Russia, who found herself provided with both the excuse and the means to carry out her long-cherished aspirations. She had only to divert her strength to the purpose, leaving the other occupants of the cockpit largely to fight themselves to a standstill, and she would soon have accomplished what her great love for Christianity has impelled her to essay more than once before. The knowledge of these things, no doubt, helped to maintain that united front, that common effort on behalf of international freedon, those bonds woven out of love of honour and justice and the rest ; but that delegates should find it necessary to come from Russia in order to make bargains in the matter of plunder speaks volumes concerning the real nature of those bonds and the difficulty of keeping them intact.

War fair (1982)

From the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

One feature of the Falklands conflict which caused the jingoists to boil over with ill-directed wrath was the fact that some of the armaments used by the Argentine forces had been made in Britain or EEC "partner" countries. Some details are given in a recent New Statesman article by Duncan Campbell, under the extremely confused title of "No Lesson Learnt" (21 June 1981). Campbell tells us how

Ferranti workers in Edinburgh and Manchester made the Isis bombing sights with which the Argentine Skyhawks were fitted . . . Their French counterparts at Bourges made the Exocets. Sterling Armaments of Dagenham sold the Argentines some 100 submachine guns seven years ago, which turned up at Goose Green.

Later in the same article, we learn that Sterling Armaments and Ferranti were among the exhibitors at last month's British Army Equipment Exhibition, a bi-annual international arms sale held at Aldershot. Campbell writes:

In 1976. just three months after we had broken off diplomatic relations .  . . two Argentine generals came to Aldershot. In 1978 ten officers came. In 1980. after the restoration of diplomatic links, five generals visited Britain. The Ministry of Defence even paid their air fares . . . Every other military dictatorship from Turkey to the Americas got the same treatment.

Unexpectedly, no reformist cries for "control" appear in the text, although the title does hint at a belief in such "solutions". On a note of unusual realism. Campbell signs off by saying: "There is no sign from Britain or anywhere else in Europe that the Falklands war will have changed the world of arms dealing”.

Those who express patriotic anger at such revelations are probably unaware that history provides many examples of arms sales to the "enemy", and of those not directly involved in a conflict selling the machines of death to both sides. Even in the Middle Ages, mercenary soldiers took whichever side could offer them employment at the time. After the Industrial Revolution, however, the arms trade gathered pace.

Alfred Nobel, like many of the early giants of this business, was a complex character. Idealist, pacifist and admirer of Shelley (in whose style he enjoyed writing poetry), he was also a ruthless financier obsessed with the science of explosives. He is. of course, best known as the originator of the Nobel Peace Prize, a fitting testament to his contradictory nature: fewer people realise that he was one of the earliest to subscribe to the deterrent theory. At the Berne Peace Congress of 1892 he explained his viewpoint to Bertha von Suttner, Austrian aristocrat, authoress and pacifist, who had earlier applied to be his private secretary: “My factories may end war sooner than your Congress. The day when two army corps can destroy each other in one second, all civilised nations will recoil in horror from war” (The Arms Bazaar, Anthony Sampson). Nobel's nightmare vision of destructive power is now all but come to pass, but with no sign of the response for which he apparently hoped. However this philosophy provided an excellent justification for a man who had made his fortune out of the arms race. Sampson believes that Nobel was Bernard Shaw's model for the character of Andrew Undershaft in his play Major Barbara. Undershaft, however, explicitly rejects the deterrent theory when his son-in-law puts his point of view to him: "I am obliged to you for making the usual excuses for my trade, but I’m ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments". There have been both types in the arms trade. Whether the capitalist provides his own justification or relies on others makes very little difference.

Alfred Krupp was a less complicated person than Nobel. In 1866 he insisted, against the wishes of Bismarck, on exporting guns to Austria, which were very soon in use against Prussia in the Austro- Prussian War. Shortly afterwards, despite having just raised a loan from the King of Prussia. Krupp tried to export his guns to France and failed only because the complacency of the French generals stood in his way. At the turn of the century Sir Basil Zaharoff, in his role as master salesman for Vickers, had considerable success travelling between opposing Balkan states — Greece and Turkey — to escalate orders from both sides. In the First World War the Maxim gun, sold by Sir Hiram Maxim to Germans, Austrians and Italians, was the prototype for the guns which fired from all sides on the Western Front. In Russia, Krupp guns fired on German soldiers and the Belgian army had been stocked from the same source. At sea both sides fired shells with Krupp fuses, and after hostilities ceased Krupp’s successfully sued Vickers for payment of royalties on its shells.

All this nefarious traffic inevitably spawned pressure for control on arms sales and for nationalisation of the industry. Even staunch capitalist defenders of “free enterprise” did not wish to see organisations from within their own territory supplying arms to a potential enemy. Whatever the views of the individuals involved, the development of capitalism led inevitably to attempts by the state machine to interfere with the freedom of the private arms manufacturers to sell to whomsoever their immediate interests dictated. The League of Nations, as ineffective before World War One as the United Nations has been since 1945, passed resolutions such as that of December 1933: “That it is contrary to the public interest that the manufacture and sale of armaments should be for private profit”.

The United States Congress, following the report of the Nye Committee of investigation into the arms business, passed in August 1935 a Neutrality Bill which compelled the President, in the event of war between foreign countries, to apply an arms embargo. The hearings of the Nye Committee were freely quoted by the British Labour Party in support of its demands for nationalisation, yet the ineffectiveness of control “remedies” had already been revealed during the Manchurian crisis of 1931. In that year Japan invaded Manchuria, then part of China, in the face of condemnation from Britain and the League of Nations and a boom in British arms exports to both sides ensued. For a couple of weeks the British government imposed an arms embargo. Duff Cooper, then Financial Secretary to the War Office, described the situation thus: "In a fortnight we took off the embargo, but during those weeks we lost a great many orders. China and Japan did not get less munitions, but men in this country got less work, less food, less employment". Thus Duff Cooper, like Alfred Nobel, used an argument more common today than in his own time. The concern of the capitalist over loss of profit is. with varying degrees of hypocrisy and cynicism, masked as sympathy for the workers thrown onto the streets as a result of unemployment. More recently the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East turmoil in general have provided further examples of duplicity. French pressure in 1969 forced Dassault, previously a generous supplier of Israel, to sell Mirage jets to Libya. Significantly the main reason was the need to ensure continuing supplies of oil.

Why does this destructive absurdity continue? The answer lies in the nature of the capitalist system itself. Unsold stocks of any commodity are a dangerous embarrassment to the owners of the means of wealth production. If the value embodied in these goods cannot be converted into cash, profits are lost and, in some cases, bankruptcy results. In the last resort this desperate pressure to sell in the face of cut-throat competition from rivals drives capitalist governments into war. This pressure of course applies in the final analysis as much to government controlled industries.

Under capitalism alliances between stales are often of a transitory nature. Japan was an ally of Britain and America in 1914-18, but fought against them in 1941-45. And despite the long-standing Falklands dispute, Argentina was not regarded as an enemy until the time of the invasion. Despite recent technological advances in the means of destruction, some comparatively old weapons are still effective, particularly in small scale wars. The Canberra bomber, the design of which started as early as 1945, helped India "liberate” Bangladesh in "Mrs. Gandhi’s War” in 1971. This aeroplane and the Lightning (1960) are much in evidence in South American air forces and are indeed not yet completely phased out of the RAF. The variability of capitalist alliances and the long life of some weapons obviously increase the danger of supplying a potential enemy with the means to hit you hard. Weapons bought with one purpose in mind can easily be put to another use. The guns from Sterling Armaments which turned up seven years later at Goose Green may well have been purchased for domestic rather than "anti-colonial” use. Campbell reports that "five were fitted with silencers, which reduce the performance of the bullets too much for conventional military use”. Probably they were intended for use against workers at home rather than abroad.

There is however yet another reason why, even with government control of arms production, sales opportunities abroad cannot be lightly spurned, even if embarrassment is risked in the process. The capitalist class has the problem of how to maintain in peacetime the capacity to produce armaments in an emergency. To convert too many factories to other products such as kidney machines would clearly put this capability at risk. In February 1935, Bernard Baruch, adviser to Franklin Roosevelt, spelled out his government’s policy with brutal frankness:

The only expedient yet used is for the governments of industrial countries at least not to discourage (and I fear almost universally to encourage) the manufacture of lethal weapons for exportation to belligerent countries actively preparing for war. but which have an insufficient munitions industry or none at all. Without specific evidence 1 still conjecture that the Nye investigation will disclose that our Government has not operated on a different policy. To put it bluntly, this is a method of providing a laboratory to test killing implements and a nucleus for a wartime munitions industry by maintaining an export market for instruments of death. Of course, it is absolutely indefensible and we could not be put in a position of excusing it.

This really says it all.

E. C. Edge

So They Say: Fair Play in War (1976)

The So They Say Column from the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fair Play in War

A certain mental agility, not to say an outright contortion of sanity, is part of the stock-in-trade which our “superiors” find necessary to employ in order to explain (away) the irritatingly persistent difficulties which arise from the private-property system and what they intend to do about them. We say agility, because that is what it takes to face several directions at one time. The progress of Mr. Jimmy Carter in the US primary elections for example, is surely evidence enough that the days of the two-faced politician are over: now it is essential for them to display at least three or four.

However, fleet footwork is not the sole preserve of the professional shadow boxers; the affliction spreads further afield. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute produced a recent report — Medical Protection Against Chemical Warfare Agents — dealing with nerve gases. We put aside for the moment the fundamental flaw in its viewing “protection against” as of greater importance than the reasons for the existence and development of killer gas. The Institute has been investigating “a non-woven synthetic textile, coated on the outside with a repellant, and has a layer of activated charcoal on the inside” which may offer protection. Such treated material could be used in “gas masks and combat jackets.” They acknowledge some drawbacks.

Even if some of the new drugs could be incorporated into military auto-injectors [protective clothing], all that can realistically be said of the new methods of treatment is that they will provide more time than is available with the existing treatment to move poisoned individuals to medical facilities. While this is a valuable step forward, in times of war, it is unlikely that medical facilities would be able to cope with the vast number of casualties.

Daily Telegraph 5th June 76

Capitalism turning the knife in the wound; insufficient medical facilities on one side struggling to cope with the over-efficient work of other “medical facilities” who have been developing the gas. However the monster has its scientific counter-balance, the problem being

Clothing capable of giving full bodily protection to the skin and to the respiratory system, is so cumbersome that soldiers wearing it would be brought to the point of military uselessness.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute seem to be waiting for the day when “our boys” in the improved carbon jackets can withstand nerve gas for long enough to become militarily useful. This is what they appear to project but these “peace artists” paint a gloomy picture. The answer to the techniques of killing does not lie in double, or triple-think, but in the abolition of the social system which produces war. That is a solution within the realms of possibility.

Divide & Rule

Five members of the Felixstowe Conservative Association face expulsion from their local Conservative club because they campaigned for an Independent Labour candidate at the local elections in May. Their story is that they wanted to divide the Labour vote, allowing a Conservative candidate to top the poll in a previous Labour stronghold. Although the plan succeeded, their local treasurer was not impressed, “as far as we’re concerned they’ve worked for the opposition”. However the five are unrepentant:

We’ve succeeded in getting a Conservative elected in Labour’s safest ward in the only way that it could be done . . . and believe there was the strongest justification for what we did.

Daily Telegraph, 1st June 76

No doubt they all threw up their hands in horror and shouted “Cheat!” with the rest of their cronies some days later when Labour MPs broke “pairs” and entered the lobby to avoid a government defeat in the Commons.

Virtue of Necessity

Disquiet is growing among both teachers and students over the contradictions which face them when trying to apply a “text-book” analysis to capitalism in the expectation of a logical answer. On the one hand there are student teachers who are occupying their colleges, or marching, in protest against the likely failure of an estimated 15,000 of them to find teaching jobs. Against this there is the President of the Association of Head Teachers (Scotland) referring to “overlarge classes” and concluding: “We need these extra (not “surplus”) teachers.”

On the other hand there will be, according to figures given at the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers, the likelihood of 250,000 school leavers without jobs this summer, while the Lord Privy Seal, among other notable onlookers, is calling for “more sheer hard work before we are anywhere near out of the wood” in the Times of 10th June. The contradictions have encouraged the self- styled experts to exhibit some of their “departmental” reasoning in the letter columns. The President of the National Union of Students writing to the Daily Telegraph on 5th June argued that the government had “a golden opportunity to improve the pupil-teacher ratio.”

The Government has already spent £50 million training this year’s jobless student teachers for the dole queue. How can our economy benefit from miscalculation and wastage of human resources on such a massive scale?

“Our economy” and “wastage of human resources” gives away the extent of the NUS’s ‘“revolutionary leanings.” These refrains are music to the ears of the ruling class — it is only the tempo upon which they disagree. However the difficulty may be overcome according to the Headmaster at University College School, London. Unemployed teachers and unemployed school leavers? Apply a little thought and you come up with the following:

Here, surely, is a great opportunity for unemployed teachers to set an example giving themselves experience of the kind of work which many of their future pupils will have to do. Industries, businesses, hospitals, hotels, schools and institutions of one kind or another ail have vacancies for what is mis-termed “menial employment” . . . If unemployed teachers give a lead showing that a job well done, however “menial” can be rewarding and satisfying then the unemployed school leaver might be inspired to follow.

Times 10th June 76

We had a fancy that the man of learning may have been glancing through “The Charge of the Light Brigade” shortly before penning his letter, but there is a difference. He sees the officers turning home before long in order to continue the good work. Having gained an experience of “menial” jobs, he argues, “in the long run they would be much better teachers.” And what of the others? The school leavers who were “inspired to follow.” Ah yes, with luck wage slaves also — but that is what capitalist education is about.

Dear Sir

Reinforcing this last point was the response to the new GCE examination in the “business use of English.” The Managing Director of Adpower Ltd., a “specialist staff consultancy,” had some pertinent observations to make.

Many (school leavers) are unable to get a job in the professions or in industry because they are incapable of filling in a job application form (even ours which are deliberately kept simple) . . . College leavers have simply not been prepared for the next stage in their lives — getting a job. If this new GCE examination lives up to its expectation of training young hopefuls how to speak and write commercial English, then the Associated Examining Board must surely have the backing of everyone in commerce.

Times 10th June 76

Dear Capital, Assuring you of our best attention at all times the “young hopefuls” remain therefore your most obedient servants, etc. etc.

Alan D'Arcy

Letter: WOMD (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the May 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

WOMD

Dear Editors

The two big lies which Blair and Bush used to “justify” the destruction of Iraq’s civilisation and infrastructure and the slaughter of thousands of its citizens are now for all to see.

Lie number one was possession of weapons of mass destruction (WOMD) by Iraq.  Before the war, the regime couldn’t win.  Complying with demands to destroy stocks of WOMD would “prove” it had been in breach of UN resolution since 1991.  Non destruction of alleged stocks would “prove” it continued to be in defiance.

Now it is Blair’s and Bush’s turn to be hanged by their logic.  If after invading and occupying Iraq, there still cannot find WOMD, then what shocking, disgusting deceit have they spun.  If they do find any evidence of WOMD, then lie number two is also torn to shreds, that Saddam’s regime was a dangerous threat to its neighbours and even to Britain and America.  If ever they were going to be used, it was when the life of the regime itself and the  capital Baghdad were under threat from the new crusaders.  They were not.

However, I would not at all be surprised to learn of a little “gardening” activity by the occupation forces in the next few days or weeks and the “discovery” of suspicious munitions, workshops and documents.  Watch out too for the next big lies that most of the evidence was slipped out to Syria, alongwith much of the Iraqi leadership, as part of the softening up process for preparing the public for the next stage of this permanent murderous war.

The real possessors of WOMD are the ruling elites of Britain and America.  They not only have them, they are using them to inflict agonising pain and suffering and carnage on ordinary working people.  We too need to declare a war on such people and their weapons, but a class war, a real war of liberation, a war for emancipation, a war for socialism.

Andrew Northall,

 Isham, Northants

50 Years Ago: War, Crime and Punishment (2003)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently two young soldiers were convicted at Berkshire Assizes of robbery with violence. Instead of sentencing them straight away the judge gave them a choice – volunteer “unconditionally” for Korea or go to gaol. After they had a night to think it over their counsel told the judge: “They are eager to take advantage of your lordship’s leniency, and volunteer for overseas service.”

An editorial in the Daily Mirror (9th May) strongly criticised the judge’s action. The Mirror asks how the choice of the convicted men could be unconditional in such circumstances,. But there are other aspects of the matter that should be brought out, and the main theme of the editorial (An Insult to the Army) is of little consequence compared to the deeper questions concerning the cause of crime and war in our present society.

The comments of the judge Mr. Justice Hilbery are indicative of the conventional attitude to crime. “You have been convicted of a very grave crime. When you robbed and attacked as you did each was not showing his true nature. Each of you is a better fellow than that. See active service and turn yourselves into men of courage.”

From this it would appear that when people rob and attack others without the sanction of the law they are not showing their “true nature.” If, on the other hand, they take part in organised attack and robbery against other nations (for what else is war?) then they are turned into “men of courage.”

The Daily Mirror believes that the men risking life in Korea are undertaking a high and honourable duty, and that it is not for courts to confuse military service with crime and punishment. In extenuation of the courts it should be pointed out that in the circumstances the confusion is pardonable. “War crime” is a name given, by the nation in a position to inflict punishment, to certain of the “military services” performed by the forces of other nations.

[From an article by “Stan”, Socialist Standard, June 1953.]

Soliloquy on monotony (1951)

From the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Variety is the spice of life we are told but deadly monotony characterises the speeches of our politicians when with outworn phrases they seek to hornswoggle the workers into accepting the idea of another shooting war (defence, of course). The whole bunch of phrases could be collected and broadcast on a gramophone record whenever it was deemed necessary to jerk us to attention.

Whether it be the precise enunciation of Mr. Attlee; the gusty rodomontade of Mr. Churchill; the golden voice of Mr. Bevin splitting infinitives and shedding aspirates right and left, or the nasal twang of Mr. Truman, they all use the same hackneyed phrases and raise the same bogeys. It is true the bogeys differ as the various powers reshuffle. Late enemies become comrades in arms and vice versa with startling rapidity but “san fairy ann,” its all one in a capitalist world.

How many times have we heard that “our way of life is in danger?” (Our lives being such a giddy whirl, we sob ourselves to sleep over this threatened catastrophe). “Our hard-won liberty is at stake,” “Civilisation itself is in danger.” “To ensure Peace we must prepare for War.” “Our whole economic structure is threatened. We must stand firm against aggression.” “The democratic countries must unite, there must be no appeasement; we must defend the rights of small nations,” “The free world must buttress its defences and combat aggression.” “We must fight for freedom and human rights.” And so on till the cows come home.

Monotony also characterises the lives of the workers the world over, and whilst on the subject we must admit that our Socialist message suffers from that complaint. By its very nature it cannot vary. But it differs in this respect from the messages of present day politicians—it holds out hope of peace and plenty, not war and want.

F.M. Robins

Capitalism's code of killing (1993)

From the December 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has always maintained the mythology of the ’just war’, and the church has always been the leading standard bearer for state-sanctioned murder.

It’s not all that long ago since boys’ adventure stories were about swashbuckling heroes meeting in battle on more-or-less equal terms. Raphael Sabbatini's Captain Blood or Maurice Walsh’s David Gordon were fairly typical of the type: brave men opposing one another with courage and resolution and a determination not to take unfair advantage in battle.

Such romantic nonsense is out of place against the background of modern weaponry that denies the killer the agony of watching his victim die. War was never romantic nor "fair"; individual hand-to-hand combat with pikes, lances or swords must have been hell and the science of gaining an unfair advantage over an opponent, then as now. was known as strategy.

Because war and preparation for war is a permanent feature of capitalism that accounts for massive investments of personnel and finance and because it is an utterly foul business, governments are obliged to "respectabilize” it. Thus, something of the old romanticism prevails in what is offered as history. In every' walk of life, parents, schools, churches, participation in war is elevated in the public consciousness and emotive key words, like bravery, heroism, sacrifice, dedicated, proud and patriotic are part of the lexicon of glorification used to transmute the most utterly debased acts of human savagery into something necessary and noble.

Even the "enemy" is not completely damned lest condemnation provoke interest and enquiry. His leaders can be mad or bad and his courage, dignity and honour can rarely be accepted as on a level with "our boys". Nevertheless, there is a decorum that embellishes the obscenity of war. almost a mystique to lighten the haunting futility of death and this can be extended to the enemy.

Thus, it is expected that "we" and our "enemy" will reciprocate in showing a respect to corpses that must be denied to the living. The Luftwaffe pilot shot down while slaughtering women and children in London, the RAF man show down over Dresden while carrying out Churchill’s plan to kill as many German civilians as possible, the hyped-up John Wayne dropping a 2.000kg bomb on a Baghdad street, the heroes who made history at Hiroshima; if, in death, any of these falls into the hands of "the enemy", then they will be accorded the ritual firing of rifles and blowing of bugles over their graves. The exercise gives dignity to those who work at killing and promotes the notion that they died bravely in pursuit of a noble calling.

Appalling reality

But, in the reality of war. battles are won by the gaining of unfair advantage. Obviously, a completely fair fight could have no winner and it is, thus, imperative to the opposing sides to deceive their opponent and. where possible, to introduce weapons of greater destructive capacity and to amass greater concentrations of men and materials.

Spying, with its underscore of lies, deceit, blackmail and, not infrequently, murder, is a legitimate adjunct of war; striking at the enemy’s homeland and slaughtering innocent civilians demoralizes the enemy, impedes his movement and his production of munitions and is, therefore, condoned on the grounds of saving lives. The watchword in war must be "Victory!", untrammelled and uncompromised by considerations of everyday moral rectitude. The Roman Catholic church articulates the provisions for waging a "just war" and one of these stipulates a favourable chance of winning. In common with other bodies, the churches deplore war but lend their services to succour the participants and, often, to plead with their god for the vanquishing of "the enemy".

It is remarkable that decent people who deplore violence and who might be in the forefront of those demanding stiffer sentences and the return of the death penalty for people engaged in violence are often the most vociferous supporters of armed forces and patriotic aggression. How can any rational human being defend the idea of training great masses of people to kill and arming them with guns, bombs, nuclear weapons and the rest of the obscene array destructive equipment that governments provide for the killing business?

The answer we get from apologists for state violence is that it is made necessary by the nature of our society and the fact that our potential enemies have armed forces. The latter simply acknowledges that the effect lies in the cause — because there are armed forces, we must get armed conflict. Pressed, then, to consider an alternative form of society that will not contain the seeds of conflict, these apologists are usually revealed as the most trenchant defenders of the present system.

But there are other aspects of the killing business that create a real dilemma for the upholders of the political and economic status quo with its competition and built-in propensity for conflict and war. Among these is the problem of political terrorism.

In Northern Ireland, for example, people like Archbishop Eames of the Church of Ireland frequently grab headlines with condemnations of terrorists. There are many other churchmen, politicians and others who echo Eames’s sentiments and we name him only because he is the most forceful and frequent person to condemn violence. Like the others. Eames does not condemn all violence or dissociate his church from bodies established and maintained to excel in the use of the most calculatingly efficient means of inflicting death and injury.

Forthrightly and correctly — he condemns the terrorist who leaves a bomb in a hold-all in a public place; he condemns the gunman and his organization and he argues that such behaviour is anti-Christian and that, despite the claims of loyalist killers, they are not acting for the Protestant community.

But Archbishop Eames has yet to go on record condemning governments for having armed forces, he does not condemn gunmen acting for the state and he is silent when a massive bomb is dropped on a city by a sophisticated flying machine using the most advanced technology to conceal its presence and its purpose, and, of course. Eames does not tell members of the state armed forces that their behaviour is anti-Christian.

Psychological scars

In fact the Archbishop, like his competitor colleagues in the other churches and, indeed, most of those in the forefront of the various well-intentioned peace groups, is not opposed to violence and killing. He may be moved to sadness by the lunacy of human beings killing human beings but he only condemns and disowns such behaviour when it is illegal.

Effectively, this reduces the Christian — and, it must be said, the general — concept of so-called moral reasoning to the politics of the head count and this, in turn, must raise very serious questions about the nature of capitalist democracy and the manipulation of "public opinion" by a minority-controlled public power of persuasion.

The question is particularly crucial for those of us who live in Northern Ireland, where the violence which spawned the ruthless Provisional IRA was initialed by a repressive elected government some twenty-five years ago. Now. with violence an everyday occurrence and selective condemnations ritualized by, among others, the very people whose behaviour and political ambition made it inevitable, the hypocritical utterances of people with a ready recourse to a microphone or TV camera can itself fuel violence.

Random killing

Recently, with an upsurge in the random killing of catholics by groups of loyalists operating under various fine sounding titles, a new strain of hypocrisy has emerged — from Sinn Fein, who articulate the political thinking of the IRA. According to this source, killing people because of their job or their overt political altitudes is a legitimate pursuit. On the other hand, if protestant terrorists, in order to exert political pressure, identify their targets on the basis of perceived religion, that is breaking the rules and must, therefore, be evil.

But is it? If you can departmentalize your thinking of the question you might conclude that killing someone is deplorable but sometimes necessary and proper providing the killing is within the confines of a particular code. But who determines the nature of the code and on what basis is it justified? Who is it says that it is permissible to kill perhaps millions of people in another country with a nuclear bomb because that country, or the authority within it that controls armed force, is threatening "our" markets, trade routes or sources of raw materials but it is wrong to kill people who represent an authority that abuses you or unfairly frustrates your political aspirations?

In the ease of the Provisional IRA, apart from the spurious claim to the democratic succession of Sinn Fein’s 1918 all-Ireland electoral victory, the historical morality of violence is often advanced, it is true, of course, that most states owe their existence and their power to the violence, often illegal violence, by which they were established. The "morality" of that argument is that violence is the justification of violence.

Special condemnation

As for preserving a social condemnation for the random killings carried out by loyalist gunmen, it might be asked by what logic it is permissible to shoot a bricklayer because the only way he can make a living is by selling his skills to "the enemy" but wrong to kill at random in order to frustrate a perceived harmful political design.

This is a part of the maze of contradictions you get into when you accept violence at any level. Nor can the question be resolved legalistically for, in every case, the lawful executive is itself not only an agent, real or potential. of the most ruthless violence but. in its role as what Marx referred to as "the executive committee of the ruling class". "Lawful government" is the constant agent of the many other forms of, frequently obscene, violence perpetrated on the working class.

Condemn all violence

Socialists condemn all wars and all political violence. That might seem a simplistic way of avoiding comparisons and condemnations of one form of violence as opposed to another. But it is not a simplistic formula; it is the inescapable logic of the fact that while members of the working class are pitched against one another in wars and so-called national liberation struggles, working class interests are never at stake.

All wars and violent political struggles arise directly or indirectly out of the competition and conflicts of capitalism though such conflicts are usually filtered through an ideological disguise in order to conceal their nature and as a means of enlisting working-class support.

The only struggle that concerns socialists and should concern the working class is the class struggle — the struggle between those who produce all wealth and own virtually none and those who produce nothing and own virtually everything. That struggle, we hold, can be resolved democratically when we have divested ourselves of the fictions that allow us to be enlisted as killers.

Richard Montague