The New "Socialism." (1917)

From the November 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

More Wobbles From America. 

The Manifesto of the Nationalist “Socialists” on Militarism is one of the most demoralising documents that so-called Socialists have ever penned. For the information of readers who do not read American papers it is printed verbatim. It is taken from the official “Socialist Party Bulletin.”

Adolph Kohn

“DEMOCRATIC DEFENSE.”

"A PRACTICAL PROGRAM FOR SOCIALISM."

"First: We declare it our conviction that there is a difference, even from the point of view of revolutionary Socialism, between democratic and autocratic governments. To refuse to recognize the difference is to be idealist in the bad sense of the word—to take formulas and abstract ideas in place of realities. We believe that liberal institutions have their value, as making it possible to agitate for Socialism and to progress toward Socialism without destructive internal conflict. Socialists have proven this attitude in Europe by combining with bourgeois parties in order to obtain democratic reforms. As a political party, relying upon the vote, we necessarily believe in, support, and defend constitutional government ; leaving it to anarchists and anti-parliamentarian syndicalists to proclaim the unreality of any distinction among capitalist governmental systems.

“Second: We declare it impossible for democratic nations to disarm, or even to weaken their defenses, in the presence of autocratic nations. If we could have the full revolutionary Socialist program in America tomorrow, we might be called upon to defend it against nations which were organised for aggression under military and aristocratic rulers; precisely as revolutionary France was called upon to defend her ideals against the rest of Europe. It is futile to talk or appealing to the workers in countries where the workers are unorganized and without power, and would not even be permitted to know of our appeal.

“Third: We declare that the proper aim of Socialist world-politics at tire present time is an alliance of the politically advanced nations for the defense of the democratic principle thruout the world. If, at the conclusion of the present war, any of the autocratic nations should become democratic, they would of course be welcomed into such an alliance. Thus only can progress toward world peace be secured, and gradual disarmament made practicable.

“Fourth: As a means to the working out of this program, we declare for the democratization of diplomacy. We would have the world-policies of America precisely declared. We would provide that diplomatic communications should be published, and a more immediate control of foreign relations insisted upon by the people.

“Fifth: Pending the securing of a world peace by an alliance of democratic nations, it is necessary that the United States should maintain an army and navy. We Socialists are not sentimental or religious non-residents. We are willing to fight for democracy, and we prove it by the instant sympathy we give to people who are fighting for democracy whether in St. Petersburg or Colorado. To refuse under any circumstances to vote for military supplies, as has been required by a recent party decree, is to be sentimental rather than scientific, Tolstoian rather than Marxian.

“Sixth: If we must have an army and navy, the question becomes, what kind of an army and navy shall we have? We declare that the proper program for the American Socialist movement is the common ownership and democratic control of the instruments and means of defense. We believe that there is no danger to democracy in a citizen army and navy, controlled by the people. The danger lies in an incompetent army and navy controlled by a few politicians and a munitions lobby, a hired army of wage-slaves, officered by a class, and serving as a support to the aristocratic tradition.

“Seventh: The true Socialist formula is: No private profit from military supplies. In times of emergency, of course, munitions must be bought wherever they can be found. But under ordinary conditions Socialists should favor the nationalization of munitions manufacture. One of the principal menaces of militarism lies in the lobby.

“Eighth: We declare for the democratization of the military service. We would democratize West Point and Annapolis by providing that admission to government military and naval schools should be thru the ranks, as a reward for physical, mental and moral efficiency demonstrated in the service. We would have social equality the ideal in both army and navy: there is no reason why that spirit of comradeship which is found in the trenches should not be practicable in the training-camp.

“Ninth: We. declare for the modernization of the military service. Military training is not of necessity futile—it is only stupidity and traditionalism which make it so. The ability to march in a series of perfectly straight lines, which is an important end of the present West Point system, has nothing whatever to do with efficiency in modern warfare. The first essential is that the man should be a part of an organized body, feeling and acting as an organism: that he should be physically fit, able to march long distances and to stand the rigors of the outdoor life; and that he should understand the use, not merely of weapons, but of all kinds of machinery. Training to these ends can be obtained in the forestry service, in railroad work, in the harvest fields, in the police and fire departments, in emergency work in floods, storms land accidents; it can be obtained in football, polo and other organized games, in gymnastic work, manual training and camp-life. Our military training should be made the physical culture part of our public school education. It should be begun in childhood, thru the work of the Boy and Girl Scouts; it should be continued thru youth, when hunting, boating and outdoor activities are the greatest joys in life. Such training could be made so interesting that it would he regarded by everyone as a privilege rather than a duty.

“Tenth: We declare that service in such a modern, democratic defense force should be part of the discipline and duty of every citizen, both male and female. To use only volunteers in national defense is to kill off the men of courage and character, and to breed from weakness and incompetence; and this is national suicide. A vital military system should be an organic part of the national life, and as Socialism and democracy bring us towards the World Federation, and put war farther into the background of human possibilities, our military organization would naturally be turned to the ends of peace. The Socialist movement would know how to employ such a disciplined army—in the reconstruction work of industry, the tearing down of the slums and the building of the co-operative Commonwealth.

W. J. Ghent,

Charmian London,

Charles Edward Russell,

Mary Craig Sinclair,

Upton Sinclair,

George Sterling,

J. G. Phelps Stokes,

William English Walling.

“(Walling signs with the reservation of paragraph ten, which he would favor only in case a large land army were needed. Mrs. London states: 'Jack London would have signed it, I know.’) ”

#    #    #    #

We may possibly offer some criticism of above on our own account next month.—Editors “Socialist Standard.”)

Blogger's Note:

The above manifesto was replied to in the December 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard by Jack Fitzgerald, Socialism's Traducers. 

Reprisals. (1917)

From the November 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The topic of the hour, in the tube, tram, cookshop, four-ale bar and at the workshop bench, is “Reprisals.” For the moment the real issues of this colossal tragedy are put upon one side, and one hears from the lips of jaded workers who have never known what “Peace” really is, such catch phrases as are current in the Press and also the ludicrous ejaculations that are reported as being uttered by the Godhead of the British Empire—Mr. George (the Commoner not the King—namely: “Give them a dose of their own medicine! ” “Give them Hell! ” “Bomb German women and children!” and other equally nauseous expressions indicative of the state of mind of the world’s peoples in this, the twentieth century of “Christian civilization.”

It is not necessary to discuss whether air raids on Southern Germany will prove an efficacious preventive of air raids on England, though, of course, thinking workers who know the cold-blooded contempt in which our masters hold us, will realise that they do not consider the lives of working-class women and babies at all, but desire only to damage the German master-class property in return for the damage done to their own here. As General Smuts stated: “London is the nerve centre of the British Empire,” and the axle on which turns the wheel of Armageddon, which the Germans will continue to attack, regardless of the fact that Allied airmen are bombing German towns. Thus members of the working dam unfortunate enough to be dwelling in the danger zone need not be grateful to their masters for blowing to pieces German women and children, also of tbs working class, but should rather bestir themselves to think about the present state of affairs.

Gothas may come over and bomb Shoreditch and the Allied aeroplanes may fly over the next night and bomb Baden; Caprionia may bomb Pola and the Austrians in return may bomb Venice; raids and their consequent reprisals may be the next phase in the war, but why, oh why, should the working class think they have any cause for satisfaction ? Does the murdered Shoreditch baby revive and live anew when a Baden baby is slaughtered? Will the babies of Pols rise refreshed and sing the National Hymn of Austria on learning of the fate of the Venetian babies ? No! All that will result will be that workers, as they always suffer, from the ghastly effects of a rotten social system; and that the capitalist class in their fight for commercial supremacy, one section over the other, will go on shedding blood other than their own, until their objects are attained.

What reck they so long as their Argosies reach new-won markets, even if the seas upon which they ride are of human blood? No! friends of the working class, “Reprisals” are not measures to safeguard your lives: yon are too cheap to be worth that trouble.

But apart from Reprisals, the present war, as I have stated, is entering upon a new phase. The Press calls it the “Air offensive". It is a phase that is fraught with solemn bodings to the workers of the world. The science of warfare has progressed in astonishing leaps and bounds. The Zeppelin, the most effective air weapon in the earlier stages of the war, is already spoken of as out of date and innocuous. New inventions of lethal intent have crowded across the stage of war in a progressive stream; new explosives, new guns, new gases; tanks, U boats, Gothas, '75s and a host of others that make one shudder to think of what the war of the future will be like.

That is the question for the working class to consider. The capitalist system has culminated in this state of affairs, when it is death to look out of one's door at the moon; when chaste women and prostitutes shelter together in cellars, and parsons rub shoulders with honest men in underground places.

But the science of warfare will not stop there. The international capitalist gang will be always squabbling and coveting the world's markets, so long as they remain in control of the world's wealth. And wars will come and go, each one more terrible than the last.

Think then, comrades of the international proletariat, of the heritage you are leaving to posterity, of the death that falls from the skies, strikes from below the surface of the seas, and creeps over the landscape in a cloud of gas. It is not for you to shriek for reprisals on yourselves, but to act, at once, on class-conscious lines, organise for Socialism and overthrow for ever the tyrant that stands with his foot on your neck pressing you down into the bloody mire. Don't worry yourself as to whether that foot wears a jack-boot or a patent leather one, but arise and fling it off. Join with our comrades of all lands in building a new world above the ruins of the old, a world where national boundaries shall be unknown and wars be things of the past.

 Stanley H. Steele

British Red and Prussian Blue. (1917)

From the November 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the finest of modern novelists and writers on Art —Mr. George Moore—speaks in one of his books of the "colour" of the mind of a certain celebrated artist. He means that which tinges his mental vision and steeps his habitual outlook in a certain definite and personal hue: liras producing characteristic “colour schemes.’’ This peculiarity of mental colouration is not limited to artists, however, nor to colour schemes done. Everyone’s outlook on Life is personal and self-coloured, and that of the capitalist class is entirely different from that of the workers: in fact, in complete opposition in interest and purpose. Further, the British capitalists, when they are Imperialistically minded, think in terms of Empire—the one and only British Empire!— "on which the sun never sets."

Hence has arisen that phrase expressive of bombastic Imperialism: “The All-Red Route." This was, as some may know, coined to denote the trail of British capitalist enterprise: “Our Possessions” as the school-books have it.

It is a long, long trail, too, and engirdles the Earth! It is invariably coloured “Red" on the map, and this colouration is grimly and ironically appropriate. For the capitalist class of Britain in their insatiable greed for wealth and dominance in the world-markets have steeped these territories and lands in many cases in the red blood of British soldiers and workers of this and the captured lands. Listen to this!—

  If there be a God then what he would like me to do is to paint as much of the map of Africa British Red as possible; and to do that I am elsewhere to promote the unit? and extend the influence of the British Race.—Cecil Rhodes. (See “Review of Reviews," April, 1902.)

Look into the average school geography book and see there what is owned and controlled by the British capitalist class, and what they have coloured “British Red" on the map. The robbery with violence of the rights of the people of other nations, the crushing of “small nationalities” under their ruthless heel, has culminated in a long chain of “possessions" and “dependencies." According to the facts, served up in the schools to engender a pride in “ Our" Empire, some of these portions of the globe have been “occupied" by us, others “annexed" or “acquired." Some have “capitulated," been “taken possession of” or “settled." What a lot do words sometimes signify! “Annexed”! “Settled”! Sometimes the heights of perfect candour are reached, and then we read that a certain place or colony was “captured” or “conquered.” We are told in McDougall’s “The Colonies and India," that these territories have been won by the sword, by settlement, by treaty,. and by purchase. In the introduction we read: 

  But after the battle of Plassy in 1757 the power of the French was destroyed in Bengal, and from that time the British power advanced rapidly! "Leagues of native princes against the British m the south only led to a further extension of British dominion."

Later, re South Africa, we read : “After wars with native Kaffirs, Zulus and Raautos, British territory was greatly enlarged! And so on, ad nauseam.

Our capitalists have, for many years, been “thinking Imperially.” They have been planning and scheming to colour the map with as much “British Red” as possible. The pride of Empire sheds its glow over many of their own wage slaves. These latter, lacking class-consciousness and political knowledge, think that they also should be proud of these “achievements" of the “Empire-builders." Ye gods! Is there anything to be proud of that men of their own nationality should have “subjugated" the men of another—and by means of brute force, cunning, diplomatic twisting and intrigue ?

What profits it the worker, who is a wage-slave in his “own" country, that the wage-slavery of which he is the victim at the hands of the British ruling class should be extended to workers of other lands ? If it were not so tragically ironic it would be a matter for Homeric laughter!

So matters have continued. The British Empire, like an octopus, has spread its tentacles to greedily clutch whatever it can, and enlarge its domain for capitalist exploitation. Other nations look enviously on and wish to emulate their rivals’ achievements. “We also must colonise, must expand somehow—no matter what the cost," they think. Germany desires “World-conquest," and to colour the map Prussian Blue. It would delight the Teutonic capitalists. The sight of great colonies coloured “British Red" is like a red rag to a bull: an incitement and an offence. The greed of gain dominates their thoughts to the exclusion of all other interests. Flaunting Imperialism induces similar desires; desires lead to action, and they in turn lead to “colonisation. ’

Now we were told earlier in the “Great War,” by that notorious political twister, Lloyd George, of the dire results to the British worker if our present capitalist made enemies won the war. “God help Labour if Germany wins!” so said the wily Welshman. We who are Socialists, know the frothy folly of such a remark. What is more, Lloyd George himself must know that the workers will not and cannot be worse off economically and otherwise under capitalists of the Hun kind than of the Brit-Hun type. They will still he wage-slaves, selling their labour-power of hand and brain for their daily bread. The same precariousness of livelihood, menace of unemployment and want, would threaten them. Their wages would continue, on the average, to only just suffice to keep them efficient. What matters, then, the nationality of their exploiters? Brazen lies of politicians flow as frenzy from their lips as do their innumerable pledges. Listen to Lloyd George:

   There is no section of the community that has such an interest in the victory of the Allies as the workers of the world  . . .  It is this federation of free nations (the British Empire) that has presented such a formidable obstacle to the collective aims of German Militarism.—“Daily Chronicle,” 16.8.17.

And now finally:

  He [Lloyd George] had always believed in telling the truth, the whole truth, to his fellow countrymen, because he knew that was the way to get the best out of them.—The “Star,” 7.9.17.

There is nothing like truth: it is so refreshing! Had the politicians, diplomats and capitalists of Europe on the eve of war declared the truth, and told why they contemplated letting hell loose by declaring war, then in verity there would have been no war. The whole cunning, despicable and sordid business is clothed in lies: lies of foreign offices and shameless falsehoods of parliaments, pulpits, and the prostitute Press of capitalism! Ana the workers, who in the past have largely ignored Socialism and lapped up the lies their masters feed them with, thought it was their war! What interest have they in capitalist wars? Their portion is to be riddled by the machine gun as they go “over the top " to bayonet their capitalist-made foes, or blown to pieces in a “big push.” You pick up the paper and read that yesterday over 1,000 men were killed amongst the English alone, and in the same edition we read in reference to that day’s warfare, “ Haig states there is nothing to report"! Capitalism in warfare or in days of much-vaunted “Peace" is the same, and the same barbaric ruthlessness is displayed by the master class the world over.

Germany in her dream of world-conquest wants to colonise, but she is face to face with the fact that her rivals have “got there first," and established “ the Empire." Hear what Sir A. Stanley, speaking recently, said :

  Had the system of peaceful penetration carried on by the Germans before the War continued for a few years more it would have meant the industrial destruction of this country. Neither this nor any other Government would ever tolerate a continuation of that policy. —“Daily Telegraph,” 21.7.17.

So it appears they thought the time was ripe, and their rivals also. Shortly after—thanks to capitalism—the curtain was raised and revealed the beginning of the most tragic drama and orgy of militarism the world has seen! Of course it is all put down to the Kaiser in this country! In Berlin they say: “England is alone the enemy.” So we see the real cause is purposely obscured, but not to the Socialists!

Perhaps the quotation herewith will prove illuminating and show how frank are some who aid and abet. Mr. Harold Fraser Wyatt, of the Imperial Maritime League, writing in the “Nineteenth Century and After," (Sept., 1914), says:

  Efficiency for war is God’s test of the nation's soul. Victory it the result of efficiency, and that efficiency is the result of a spiritual quality . . . And the efficiency or inefficiency of its armaments is the determining factor in a nation's success, or of a nation’s failure at that culminating moment of long processes of commercial and diplomatic rivalry —the moment of War.

Comment is needless. Again :

  The problem of the British Empire is—How is the British Empire to triumph over the world.— Colonel Charles Ross, D.S.O. (“ Representative Government and War," p. 361.)

Finally:

  The British Empire stands face to face with the world; and if she is to exist her armaments must be increased to such an extent as will enable her to contend if necessary with the whole world.—Ibid, P- 375.

The present war is obviously a thieves quarrel of the most sordid, mercenary, and disastrous kind that has ever afflicted the long-suffering and exploited workers. It is the outcome of our masters in this and other lands "thinking Imperially," the fruit of their efforts in Empire-building, struggling for world markets, and of their vaunted “diplomacy" and “commercial integrity.”

But Lloyd-George is optimistic as ever. Recently he spake thus:

  Our footprints may be stained with blood, but we will reach the height, and in front of us see the rich fields and plaint of the new world we have sacrificed so much to reach."—The “Star," 7.9.17.

One thinks, as one reads the last portion of the above, of two names and all they connote— names written large in “British Red”—“Gallipoli" and “Mesopotamia"; and again one thinks!

German Lloyd Georges make similar speeches, throw out the same sops to aid the prosecution of the war to a “victorious conclusion." But the time is coming, aye, and soon! when no rhetoric will stay the disillusionment of the masses, when the Socialist Party will be completely vindicated. Not once have this party confused the issue. All along they have pointed out the capitalist nature of the present European struggle, maintaining that abundant proofs are to land of the real object for which it is being waged.

Workers, it matters not to you under whose rule you are, nor whether Empires rise or fall. Dynasties may topple and “Democracies” arise, yet if wage-slavery continues, these changes leave your position absolutely unaltered as a class!

To abolish poverty and unemployment, wage-slavery and war, and the thousand evils of the capitalist system, is within your power. It is you alone who can effect your emancipation. Organise to capture the powers of government and completely control the destiny of your class - the wealth-producers of the world. Your only enemy is the international capitalist class. You alone can achieve the greatest purpose the mind of man has evolved—International Socialism!

Under that system alone can come about the brotherhood of man, liberty, comfort, and peace for all. Hail the “Socialist Commonwealth of the World."

G.

Socialism and Science. (1917)

From the November 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Science Leads Capitalism To Its Doom

From the start of the great war up to the present day much has been said and written about German science and organisation. The extremely rapid advance upon the forts of Namur and Liege, where guns of unheard-of calibre and deadliness were used, and the subsequent sweeping descent upon Paris, were admitted by even Allied military critics to be remarkable examples of scientific military achievement. Realising that only by resorting to science could such methods be successfully met, Allied effort was unanimously directed to scientific research. So we see new departments set up in this country, specially staffed, to investigate new inventions likely to be of service in combating the scientist across the Rhine.

But turning from science in the service of Mars to science in applied to industry, we see again astonishing results. As far back as 1909 Mr. Balfour delivered an address at Manchester University upon the subject of science in its relation to economic affairs and as a basis for present-day education. The concluding words of bis speech are worthy of perusal. He said:

  The great advancement of mankind is to be looked for in our ever-increasing knowledge of the secrets of nature — secrets, however, which dare not to be unlocked by those who pursue them for purely material ends, but secrets which are open in their fullness only to men who pursue them in a disinterested spirit. The motive power which is really going to change the external surface of civilisation, which is going to add to the well-being of mankind, which is going to stimulate the imagination of all those who are interested in the universe in which our lot is cast—that lies after all with science. I would sooner be known as having added to the sum of oar knowledge of the truth of nature than anything else I can imagine. Unfortunately for me, my opportunities have lain in different directions.

If Mr. Balfour has been unfortunate in that his opportunities have lain in a different direction, those opportunities have assuredly brought greater material fortune than generally falls to the lot of scientists. The life stories of Linnaeus, John Kay, Lavoisier, Marx, and countless others demonstrate the usual reward of the men of science. The capitalist system stands condemned if only by reason of its brutal crimes against its men of genius.

To day we hear unceasing talk of the need in this and other countries for improved industrial methods, and of the necessity for taking pattern from our more studious and scientific “enemies” from Dusseldorf and other towns in the German manufacturing districts. Yet what does all this mean even if carried out? It must lead to one thing—and here the Socialist explodes that nonsensical piffle anent the formation of a “league of nations”—it must mean competition in a more intensified form than anything hitherto endured, and as a natural sequence, more terrible struggles over trade routes and markets.

The history of science is a history of ceaseless opposition of the most brutal and degrading kind at the hands of the followers of Christian teaching. Galileo, who, when a boy, discovered the law of the pendulums motion by observing a lamp swinging from the roof of the cathedral at Pisa, and who later constructed one of the first telescopes, was subjected to the most persistent tyranny at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. The most deliberate lying and hypocritical abuse was directed upon the youth of Pisa as he persistently swept the heavens with his telescope, more especially when he revealed the mountains and valleys of the moon. No less brutal was the spiteful war waged by the Christians against Nicholas Copernicus, up to that time a Christian follower himself, because of his compilation of his book “Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies.” Protestant and Catholic sank their differences in order to persecute Kepler, because his discovery of the motion of the planets undermined the chief tenets of the churches.

The extent to which scientific research has been hampered and put back by vitriolic Christian spite will never, perhaps, be known. It remained for such men as Halley and Newton to administer what is regarded a the coupe-de-grace to such opposition, and to definitely establish for all time the triumph of scientific achievement over ignorance and superstition.

But not merely in the field of astronomy was bitter opposition met with. Geography, geology, chemistry, physics, anatomy and medicine, and finally political economy, all aroused the deepest animosity on the part of those whose interests were affected. Such economists as Adam Smith, Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill were quite acceptable to the master class, but the genius of Marx, so damaging to the very foundations of capitalist domination, compelled the modern master class to resort to the weapons of its priestly predecessors.

To-day we perceive the international capitalist class falling over itself in its efforts to employ new methods of wealth production. With the securing of political power, to which all economic power is subservient, the masters were assured of all the benefits accruing from the genius of their slave-workers, since without capital the working of the discovery is usually impossible, and the capitalist State is careful never to assist the needy inventor to securely place his own invention.

More than one great thinker have embraced suicide rather than witness the exploitation of their life’s work by the financial thieves to whom they have been forced to entrust their theorisings. Others have died wretchedly, breathing hatred of the gross injustices of modem society. The tragedy of John Kay, and that of Heinrich Heine, one of the greatest of lyrical poets, were bad enough, in all conscience, but many worse are on record. The hostility which was turned upon Copernicus was later used in despair against Darwin, and with no more success. In 1874 Bishop Cummings, a well-known American Church dignitary, said with regard to the work of Darwin:

The Church has no fear of science; the persecution of Galileo was entirely unwarrantable; but Christians should resist to the last Darwinism, for that is evidently contrary to Scripture. 

Bishop Cummings apparently forgot that the theories of Galileo were just as much opposed to the Scriptures as were the theories of Darwin, else why the persecution of the man ?

The views of the Church upon the subject of the Darwinian theory were never better expressed than in a letter published in "The Church Chronicle" (New York), May 28,1874. It read: :

  Darwinism—whether Darwin knows it or not; whether the clergy, who are half prepared to accept it as “science,” know it or not—is a denial of every article of the Christian faith. It is supreme folly to talk as some do about accommodating Christianity to Darwinism. Either those who talk so do not understand Christianity, or they do not understand Darwinism. If we have all—men and monkeys, women and baboons, oysters and eagles—all developed from an original monad or germ, then St. Paul’s grand deliverance—"All flesh is not the same flesh. There is one kind of flesh of men, another kind of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are bodies celestial and bodies terrestial"—may still be very grand in our funeral service, but very untrue to fact."

So much, then, for the onslaught of the Church upon one more triumph of scientific research. To-day the masters are calling all the resources of science to their aid for the purpose of increasing their opportunities of exploiting the workers That such exploitation lies at the root of all modern wars has been pointed out by Socialists for many years.

The rapid advance in machinery means the creation of an ever-growing surplus of commodities. The need for foreign markets for the disposal of this produce is the cause of almost every international dispute. The struggle for international wealth grows greater even as the paucity of new markets makes itself more manifest. As is so clearly demonstrated by H. de B. Gibbins in his "Industrial History of England": “The nations must go on fighting for an outlet for the extra wealth produced, otherwise the whole gigantic system of international commerce must breakdown by the mere weight of its own intensity."

Analysis of the structure of capitalist society demonstrates how nations producing for profit and not for social use create a surplus of commodities. Thus we arrive at the keynote of this competitive system, and, incidentally, the true cause of all its warfare.

So long, therefore, as capitalism survives must we endure warfare. Socialisation of the means and instruments of production and distribution in the interest of the whole people is the only possible solution, and this can only be achieved by the working class itself. The more the master class try to delude themselves that science is on their side the greater becomes the instability of capitalist domination. Science can only find its true expression in a sane, commonsense order of society as outlined by tbs S.P.G.B. Once the workers become educated enough to realise the possibilities behind our proposals the doom of capitalism will most assuredly be at hand.

B.B.B.

Editorial: The New Labour Party. (1917)

Editorial from the November 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The latest move of the capitalist politicians is an endeavour to extend the Labour Party so as to embrace all and sundry who come within the category of “wage-earners.” ‘The announcement meets with the pretty general approval of the capitalist Press, as might be expected. It is realised among the circles of the astute that there is going to be a pretty brisk business doing in the political way when the war is over, and that such business will not follow quite the same old lines. Men who have been dragged from their cricket and football fields and made to waste the years of their prime in the torture chamber of the modern field of war will come back thinking beings; they will have acquired the gravity of greybeards, and the respect for politics of the seasoned Socialist; they will have learned that since all their unforgettable and unforgivable miseries have been heaped upon them by the men they and theirs sent to the House of Commons, and that such men are in a position to do it all again, the vote is not a joke after all, but a weighty and serious matter, worthy of their most earnest consideration.

That the power those who have political control have over the lives of their subjects has been revealed with intense clearness by the events of the last three years is quite understood by our masters and their agents the labour leaders. They know that the mask is stripped from their faces, and that the hollow sham of the “objects” of the war, long since laid bare by their own lying lips, has discredited their parties. They see men turning away from them in myriads, groping with outstretched hands for a new passage to follow, a more hopeful path to tread. For this reason we are to be provided with a working class political party (!) on a very broad base, to the end that the war-awakened proletarians may be shepherded quietly along the road that provides fat paunches and triple chins for labour leaders and safety for their pay-masters.

Well, the change makes little difference to us. The new Labour Party will inherit two legacies from the old—their foul record and the bitter hostility of the Socialist Party. We shall show them no mercy.

War Fever in America. (1917)

From the November 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Socialist" Activity.

Many leading "Socialists” supported the candidature of President Wilson because “he kept os oat of war." Now the same alleged Socialists are supporting him because be has declared war. Ever since the Socialist Party adopted a resolution at their St. Louis Conference (1917) criticising the war these “comrades" have bean resigning.

At the time of writing (September) the members of the Socialist Party of America are more active in other organisations than in their own. Scores of new reform organisations have been formed upon every pretext under the sun.

The “Intellectuals.”

A. M. Simons has long been known as a great "Socialist.” His Socialism (!) recently consisted of advising Congressmen of the necessity of ridding the Socialist Party of all opponents of the war and turning over to the Government inside information concerning party activity. He was expelled from the party. His co-worker in this “Socialist" work was W. R. Gaylord, the Socialist Party candidate for Congress from Wisconsin. The "intellectual" was also expelled.

Many others, however, who have been guilty of equally treacherous work, are allowed to remain in the party or else to resign with a great show of injured innocence.

John Spargo— Patriot!

John Spargo's actions ever since he made his home in America confirm oar position that reformers are dangerous to the movement. He has turned his energies continuously towards helping the enemies of Socialism. At one time slandering Marx, at another time endeavouring to give a religious twist to Socialism, he has latterly filled the Press with jingoism in the name of Socialism. He has now resigned from the Socialist Party because it has criticised the war. Loop inflictions from him fill the columns of the capitalist papers with the usual wails of of such jingoes.

"Socialist” Exports to Russia.

As soon as things looked doubtful for the continuance of the war by Russia the American Government, like their English pattern, proposed sending a Commission of friendly advice to Russia— just as though Russia had not suffered enough without having to endure delegations from the autocrats of the West— Lloyd George and President Wilson.

To lend a political touch to the Commission the President, of course, selected a “Socialist." Needless to say, the chosen one was one of the most notorious jingoes of the party, Charles Edward Russell. He has since been expelled for joining the Commission without the party consent.

Nationalist "Internationalists."

Upton Sindair and his wife rose to fame with his book "The Jungle,” and later by his exhibition of starvation as the road to happiness. Ha has again sought notoriety by resigning from the Socialist Party, attaching a long, wild screech about the necessity of joining the Allies in the fight for "World Democracy.” Our millionaire "comrade” J. G. Phelps Stokes, and his wife Rose Pastor Stokes, have also joined the “struggle for liberty” and resigned from the party.

William English Walling, W. J. Ghent, (ex-Rev.) Geo. D. Herron, Robert R. La Monte, and Allan Benson (Presidential candidate), are among the number of the (in)famous supporters of the war in America.

All Workers Unite—Except Germans!

Most of these “comrades” seized the opportunity of the Russian situation to send a telegram to the Russian Soldiers and Peasants Council, begging the workers of Russia not to make a separate peace. In the name of “World Democracy” and of Western liberty they beseeched them to keep in the fight to smash Germany and free Europe of the honor of future war! Mrs. Jack London consecrated (!) her husband’s memory by signing the reactionary message. Spargo is now calling upon them to form a new party—a “real Socialist party” on the lines of the nationalist body that H. M. Hyndman adorns in England.

Several new papers have sprung into existence to voice the views of each section. Louis M. Boudin, author of “Theoretical System of Karl Marx,” objected to the telegram sent by Victor Berger and Maurice Hillquit to President Wilson at the outbreak of war. This telegram begged the President to place an embargo on all boats in the danger zone.

Boudin claimed this was pro-German. At the St Louis Conference he quarrelled with some of his fellow members of the S.P. Executive, and has been active ever since combatting the views of Hillquit.

One notable recantation he made at the St Louis Conference was that he withdrew his support of national defence at the end of his book on Socialism and War.

"The Class Struggle.”

Boudin and others hove started a new monthly —"The Class Struggle”— to express their aims. In the main it is against the war, but it supports the growing Industrial Unionist movement without explaining its real value. Many of the contributors are also connected with the “New International,” the monthly paper of the Socialist Propaganda League. This is an organisation of the self-styled “left wing” of the Socialist Party of America. Their advanced teaching consists mainly of supporting "direct action” by means of Industrial Unionism. This anti-Socialist propaganda is carried on in conjunction with “The International Socialist Review.”

The "Socialist for President.”

Allan Benson of the Socialist Party was boomed as the great anti-war Presidential candidate of the Socialist Party in Nov. 1916. Workingmen throughout America objected to sending a capitalist with Elihu Root’s black record as chairman of the U.S. commission to Russia. Allan Benson showed his revolutionary conceptions by issuing the following to the Press from Yonkers, N.Y., on May 4th:

  If the German submarines are sinking 400,000 tons of shipping a week it doesn’t make any difference whether we send Elihu Root or Billy Sunday to Russia. Elimination of the submarine is the thing of paramount importance, overshadowing everything else. I never regarded Root as a good exponent of democratic principles, nor do I now regard him as such. But I have no sympathy with any opposition to Root which is really more of an attempt to bring about a separate peace between Russia and Germany than it is to prevent Root going. I would infinitely rather have Root go on the commission than have some man go who might work for a separate peace between Russia and Germany.

The Call of the Wild.

One of the carious documents of the war is Upton Sinclair’s resignation statement sent to local Pasadena (California) of the Socialist Party. Below is an interesting extract taken from the “New York Call” (July 18):

  I say that this war must be fought until there has been a thorough and complete democratization of the governments of Germany and Austria, and I say that any agitation for peace which does not include this demand is, whether it realizes it or not, a pro-German agitation. The argument that we have no right to say under what institution the German people shall live seems to me without force. The Germans did not scruple to make war on the French and to set up a republic in that country. They did this because they believed that a republic would be less formidable from a military standpoint; and it is now on the cards that the world shall do the same thing for the Germans, and to the same purpose.
  For these reasons, Comrades, 1 cannot follow you in your declaration that this is "the most unjustifiable war in history,” or in your policy of mass opposition to the draft. But I would not have you think that I have gone over bag and baggage to the capitalist system. I believe that there is a work of enormous importance to be done by the forces of radicalism in the present crisis.

The Blind Leading the Blind.

On May 12th the capitalist Press was ablaze with the long telegram to the German Socialists sent by some of the prominent “Socialist” jingoes. I reproduce below the essentials of the traitorous message:

  The democratic peoples of the world now in league against the kaiser and kaiserism will be compelled to continue their war against Germany and her autocratic allies until the kaiser and kaiserism are overthrown. The German Socialist faction that opposes the Government has already realised that both an early peace and German liberty require that the power of the kaiser should be rigidly and immediately curtailed and they have announced the following program as a core for kaiserism:
   Responsibility of the government to the reichstag, reichstag control of peace and war; equal reichstag election districts; abolition of the upper houses of the states and the empire, as well as equal suffrage in Prussia—now apparently on the way to accomplishment tho not yet promised even “after the war.”
     This program is fundamental and excellent—so excellent, indeed, that it is extremely unlikely to be granted without a protracted series of overwhelming German defeats. It is fully half of what is needed. But it is not enough. The Hohenzollerns must go.
     The rest of the world realises, whether the German people realise or not, that liberty in Germany and peace in the world must remain a sham as long as the Hohenzollerns and their supporters retain any real power.
      But whether Germany prefers a republic or a constitutional monarchy the Hohenzollerns' tradition and prestige must not only be reformed—it must be broken.
     The kaiser himself claims that kaiserism is to be democratized and strengthened in its fight against the other nations. It will be difficult if not impossible, to convince the democracies of the world that a reformed kaiserism is anything else than an effort of the Hohenzollerns to make the German people more willing tools of his foreign policy. Nothing but the overthrow of the autocrat can prove finally to the world that the German people repudiate his past crimes and refuse to have any share in the crimes he is planning for the future.
      There is only one way to bring the war to an early end —the kaiser must go.

Signed to the cable were these names:

Wingfield R. Gaylord, “Socialist” candidate for congress from Milwaukee; Robert Dives La Monte, Socialist author and editor of Connecticut; Charles Edward Russell, Socialist candidate for governor of New York, 1914 ; A. M. Simons, world-renowned Socialist, editor and author; J. G. Phelps Stokes ; Rose Pastor Stokes, author ; William English Walling, author and Henry L. Slobodin, formerly national secretary of the American Socialists’ committee.

Judas!

An instance of the treachery can be gathered from the following cutting from the daily papers in America of May 4th:

SOCIALISTS IN U.S.A. CAN'T URGE PEACE.
  WASHINGTON, May 4.—German Socialists in the United States who attempt to force or influence a separate peace between Russia and Germany will be dealt with to the full extent of American laws.
  The state department indicated this today following publication of charges by J. G. Phelps Stokes, that some of the German wings of American Socialists are trying to force such a peace.
   Such efforts are considered extremely treasonable acts.
  The new censorship will be applied vigorously to prevent the socialists communicating with the Slav leaders.

An indication of the attitude of the coming party is revealed by the following:

  Expressing Socialism in terms of American life and experience, this new party . . .  will not cling to formulae and let the substance of the Socialist hope pass by unnoticed. . . .  It will make its appeal not to one class alone, but to all men and women of good will and social vision. It will be a party of toilers, not because it sets them apart and panders to them, but because its principle carried into effect must bring their emancipation.—(John Spargo in the “Philadelphia Public Ledger.”)

Thus the English reader will observe that the language and methods of the traitor are curiously similar, whichever hemisphere they belong to. Their dainty stomachs revolt at the idea of the class struggle, while they bawl for butchery by nations.

Adolph Kohn