New Phases of the War—What Will Italy Do? (1940)

From the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The conflict now raging on the Continent has awakened the average worker to some extent from the lethargy of a decade, but the serious character of the world’s situation he does not, in general, as yet perceive. When his friends or relatives are called up he is induced to try to follow world events, but in regard to them his attitude is one of resignation: he leaves political direction to others : he may have a vague feeling of uneasiness but he relies absolutely upon those in authority for guidance: what is involved is too much for him to grasp: in the main his mental blindness condemns him to be controlled solely by circumstances and be obedient to the will of those in authority.

All the same, 1940 is not 1914. Subconsciously the working class have imbibed knowledge from bitter experience; it may be latent, but it is there, and it can, and will, eventually find a means of expression.

The Tablet, a Catholic paper, has in its current issue summed up the Nazi power in strong but correct language : “Its weapons are the weapons of fear and falsehood. Debauched by the vision of authority acquired by the bomb, and maintained by the jack-boot and the whip, the German people have placed their strength and their abilities at the mercy of a ruthless gang, who are using that strength to enthrone themselves as the masters of an enslaved continent.”

The Government here has come into being as a result of various groups arriving at a tacit understanding, anything may happen as a consequence, even a new orientation on the part of Russia and the Communist Party.

The Labour ministers of the Crown, newly appointed, can hardly do anything for the working class: their business will be to show that they can run the system efficiently and well; the leaders of the older parties found themselves in difficulties, the leaders of Labour are to help them out. ‘Twas ever thus.

The paper quoted from above has something to say which lends colour to our viewpoint: “Some of the appointments are conspicuously good. Mr. Herbert Morrison at Supply and Mr. Ernest Bevin at Labour are both men with proved reputations as organisers well able to defeat obstructions and delay. What is more important, they can go ahead without the feeling that they may impair national unity and incur charges of Fascism (if they ask for suspension of the ordinary privileges and safeguards, normally enjoyed by business firms and trade unionists). The old Government had to walk very warily, simply because opposition journalists and speakers had for so long been blackening its character.”

The Tablet, being an upholder of the old religion, is naturally opposed to Stalin and Co., but it may be right when it surmises that the suppression of the Communist Party in France has greatly hindered the work of the Russian Foreign Office. “We must be wary of attaching any importance to signs and rumours of estrangement between Stalin and Hitler. They may be true, but they may equally be intended to restore more freedom of subversive action inside Britain and France to the hidden army.”

The Daily Mail is jubilant over the Discipline Act.

We are told it is the most revolutionary law that Parliament has passed in modern times. “At one stroke we relinquish our right to choose our own tasks or to dispose of our own property as we think best.”

The wage slave has, in reality, had few rights in regard to choosing what he should do and as to property: he has few possessions. Why the Daily Mail should see anything revolutionary in the Discipline Act is beyond us : it makes little difference in the lives of those who live by selling their labour-power. . . .

The invasion of Holland has brought about certain international complications. The latest news at the time of writing is that Germany, Russia and Japan are to hold a conference to discuss and decide what to do about the Dutch East Indies. This is likely to bring the United States directly into the war and induce Roosevelt to run for a third term.

The readers of the Socialist Standard will be alive to the importance of these developments, but, to refresh the memories of our readers, we would remind them that 15 per cent. of the world’s bauxite comes from Dutch Guiana and over 17 per cent. of the world’s tin from the Dutch East Indies. In rubber also, the Dutch East Indies produce a third of the world’s supply and they are also the most important source of copra and produce a quarter of the world’s palm oil. The petrol produced in the Dutch East Indies is not inconsiderable in amount and, what is more, Dutch interests in the oilfields of Roumania and the Near East have been placed unreservedly at the disposal of the Allies.

Japan is finding China a problem, the war game there is not worth the candle: the exploiters of the wage slaves of Nippon perceive that, if their hands were free, they could make large profits by taking advantage of their industrial rivals’ troubles in Europe: the markets are waiting, but the war in China absorbs all the efforts of the industrialists of Japan and the gains from the conflict are not perceptible.

The Evening News of May 21st says: —

“American and European fears that Japan might interfere in the German campaign against Holland is easily understood in view of the pronouncement of a number of Japanese naval and military authorities.

Behind it there is the economic question of oil.

The Japanese Navy, like every other, has turned exclusively to oil fuel; and the tremendous enthusiasm for Diesel engines in the Merchant Service, only recently checked by Government decree which demanded the return to coal wherever it was economically possible, has increased the shortage of oil.

Demand Now Greater.

Even in peace-time Japan consumes two million tons of oil a year—the greater part of it by the Navy and Merchant Service—and can produce less than a quarter of a million tons herself.

If she obtained complete control of the oilfields in Sakhalien, which Russia would prevent to the limit of her forces, it would mean rather less than half a million tons more.

That was in peace-time, but the campaign in China has greatly increased the demand for the Navy, Air Force, and Merchant Service which is caring for the supplies.

Rubber, Too.

The greater part of this excess demand has had to come from the United States. This is paid for in silk, but the mobilisation of the Army has depleted the supply of peasant labour available for its production.

So the exchange with the United States is not nearly as advantageous as it might be.

Possession of the Dutch East Indies would supply Japan with all the oil that she would require, as well as other commodities, of which the principal is rubber, which Japan has to import to the tune of 100,000 tons a year.”

Before concluding this article we must draw attention to events in the Mediterranean. The situation appears to be dangerous to the peace of the Near East. Mussolini, however, is not having all his own way. The Italian papers do not give us the true opinion of the Italian people. When Italian journalists get their instructions, and understand what the Government line is, they must not go against it, and the only way they can distinguish themselves is by their zeal for it. The organ of the Vatican, Osservatore Romano, solidly supports the Allies. It has a circulation of 300,000 and is supported by a following strong enough to cause Mussolini to pause before lining up on the side of Germany.

If Italy does enter the war on the side of Germany, and the resistance of the Allies becomes too strong for the Germans to overcome in Northern France, Germany will, no doubt, invade Switzerland with Italy’s aid. Hitler is pressed for time : he had to win quickly or he could not hope to win at all.

From what has been written the reader will be able to perceive that, owing to the inter-relations prevalent in the productive world of capitalism, all countries are likely to be involved in the conflict sooner or later. Marx says : “Force is the midwife of an old social order pregnant with a new one, that it is the tool by the means of which social progress is forwarded and foolish, dead political forms destroyed.”

When the smoke clears away from the battlefields, and we can calmly view the results, we can better judge the outcome of force in the present instance. In the meantime we continue our task of striving to bring into being a new social order “in which there shall be neither rich nor poor, neither master nor master’s man, neither idle nor overworked, neither brain-sick brain-workers nor heartsick hand-workers, in a word, in which all men would be living in equality of condition and would manage their affairs unwastefully and with the full consciousness that harm to one would be harm to all—the realisation at last of the meaning of the word commonwealth.”

The quoted words are from William Morris, who hated with all his heart “the dull squalor of capitalist civilisation,” whose fruit is so often war. In the commonwealth of Morris there is no cause for conflict—when we establish Socialism we establish peace and plenty.

Charles Lestor