Editorial: Armistice — And After. (1918)

Editorial from the December 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a suddenness only equalled by that of its starting the vast slaughter machine of the capitalist world has come to a standstill as far, at least, as the chief opponents are concerned.

While the strain imposed upon Germany became apparent to all when it was seen that she was unable to spare men or material to help Bulgaria, the strict censorship, combined with the skilfully conducted retreat of her armies on the Western front, prevented outsiders from realising how near the breaking-point had been approached internally.

Innumerable rumours are flying about concerning the conditions in Germany, but the amount of reliable information is small possibly due as much to the English censor as to the lack of correspondents on the spot.

In some aspects the experience of Russia in 1917 is seemingly being repeated in Germany. A so-called Socialist cabinet has been formed consisting of three members of the Social-Democratic Party— Ebert, Scheidemann, and Landsberg—and three from the Independent Socialist Party—Haase, Dittman, and Barth. The last is claimed by some papers to be a member of the "Spartacus" group of the "Independents," but other papers deny this.

It would appear that a conflict is already raging as to whether a Constituent Assembly shall be called or a Soviet Parliament on the model of Russia shall be set up.

That the Scheidemann group should have seized the opportunity to take office is quite in line with their previous actions. In outlook and conception of social forces and developments they stand on about the same level as the Labour Party of this country, who have always been ready to assist the capitalist parties and hope for offices in return. Thus the Scheidemann "Socialists" gave their whole-hearted support to the prosecution of the war by the German capitalists, just as the Labour Party here placed its "whole services and party organisation" at the disposal of the English capitalists for the prosecution of the war by them.

The position of the "Independents" is not quite so easy to follow. That Bernstein and Kautsky should have "wobbled" on this question of taking office in such a Cabinet is not surprising, though it completely stultifies their action in withdrawing from the Social-Democratic Party during the war. But it certainly seems strange that Franz Mehring, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and the like should have agreed, as they appear to have done, to this step being taken.

As far as can be judged from the information to hand, the only grounds upon which Socialists in Germany could take office at the present juncture would be for the purpose of arranging for a general election to be taken as soon as possible, based upon adult suffrage without property qualifications. In such an election the Socialists would, of course, stand solely for the establishment of Socialism and so would apply a real test as to whether the working class desired to establish Socialism.

If they desired to do so then a majority of Socialists would be returned. Failing this it would be quite clear that, due either to apathy or ignorance, the majority desired to retain capitalism. It would show the need for further Socialist propaganda being carried on until a sufficient number became convinced of the need for, and set to work to establish, the Socialist Commonwealth.

Socialism, that is a system of society based on the social ownership of the means of life, cannot be established till those who produce and distribute the wealth of society decide that it shall be produced and distributed socially for the benefit of all. Any attempt on the part of a so-called Socialist Cabinet to use the positions the peculiar circumstances of the moment have placed in their hands, for the purpose of establishing "Socialism" from above must end in a fiasco.

And greater than this internal question stands the huge powers outside. It would be the height of folly to suppose that the two greatest capitalist countries in the world, America and Great Britain, entered into this gigantic struggle to abolish capitalism. On the contrary, it was to maintain and extend that system that the unparalelled slaughter has taken place, and these nations will take all the steps necessary still to be taken for the achievement of that object. Let the working class attempt to take possession of the means of production, even in the indeterminate manner that they have done in Russia and as soon as they can be spared armed forces will be sent to ''restore order" and "establish peace."

The significant terms of the Armistices granted to Austria, Turkey, and Germany show clearly the end in view. Turkey is to be allowed to retain sufficient forces to "preserve order" in Armenia. The cold-blooded cynicism of this arrangement after all the howling of the capitalist Press about "Armenian massacres by the Turks," shows to what depths of foul hypocrisy the capitalist class can descend.

Austria is to retain twenty divisions under arms, While we are not told the number of men assigned to a division, a moderate estimate would give over 300,000 men under this clause. The people of Austria have thrown over their royal family and its relations, and the Allies are afraid that in the confusion existing there the working class may fail to appreciate properly the beauty and benefit of fully-developed capitalism. So the 300,000 are left for the purpose of persuading them to adopt a right view. In the case of Germany, while the Allies have demanded the surrender of sufficient guns and munitions to render the reopening of the war by the German army against the Allies quite hopeless, that army is allowed to retain as much of the war material remaining as they can carry across the Rhine inside the period of the Armistice. Here again the need for "preserving order" and "safeguarding property" is the reason behind the "concession."

The formation of Soldiers' Councils by the men stationed in various parts of the country is already arousing anxiety among the master class. The capitalist Press calls upon these councils to exercise a "moderating" influence upon the extremists, who are said to be "Bolshevist agents." Doubtless we shall soon hear of Russian gold being used to corrupt the Germans!

According to the correspondent of the "Daily News" (25.11.1918)—

 "Order may be preserved in Germany if the troops can be got to their homes quickly and disarmed, and if the respective federated Governments have courage and energy to master the Soldiers' and Workmen's Councils."

The idea behind this suggestion is not difficult to discover. Evidently the capitalist class is hoping that a sufficient number of officers and soldiers may be found still holding "patriotic" and "nationalist" views, who can be persuaded to take orders from the master class for the purpose of "saving society." If these "loyal" troops can be selected quickly, and if— as the "Daily News" correspondent suggests—the others can be rapidly returned home and disarmed before serious conflicts arise, the capitalist class of Germany may hope to steer through the troublesome times ahead without disaster to themselves. And if they fail ?

The answer can be seen in Russia. Allied troops have entered both on the Eastern and the North-Western frontiers. Further detachments are now being sent to the latter district from the Western Allies, while according to the "Daily Telegraph" (25.11.1918) the Japanese are claiming "recognition of the Japanese necessity to preserve order in Siberia to protect the integrity of Japan." In August 1914 the Socialist Party of Great Britain issued its War Manifesto, which was published in the September issue of the Socialist Standard. Therein we stated :

"The capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the question of the control of trade routes and the world's markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters' quarrel.
"These armed forces, therefore, will only be set in motion to further the interests of the class who control them—the master class—and as the workers' interests are not bound up in the struggle for markets wherein their masters may dispose of the wealth they have stolen from them (the workers), but in the struggle to end the system under which they are robbed, they are not concerned with the present European struggle, which is already known as the BUSINESS war, for it is their masters' interests that are involved, and not their own."

The S.P.G.B was the only party in Great Britain who laid down the Socialist position when the war began and told the working class the truth about the situation. We have been the only party to maintain that position through the four and a quarter years of slaughter.

Overwhelming proof of the correctness of our attitude is now available in the terms of the "secret treaties" that have been published, quite apart from those known to exist but whose terms are still secret, in the action of the Allies in seizing the German colonies, in the various peace terms that have been formulated, in the declarations of "economic war after the war," and in the claims now being made by the various countries of the Allied group upon territories and "spheres of influence." Deceived by the delusion so sedulously spread by the master class that their "national existence was in danger," that "civilisation trembled in the balance," and so on, the workers have slaughtered each other by millions—and for what ? That the chains of wage slavery may be more firmly rivetted upon themselves the world over.

This applies as much to the victors as to the vanquished. While the capitalists have made huge fortunes out of war contracts the workers, despite "bonuses," "allowances," and increased rates, have been worked longer hours driven harder, and exploited to a greater degree than in the time of "peace'' preceding August 1914. Speeding up of machinery, improved methods of organisation, greater "hustle" in the works and factories, further sub-division and "dilution" of labour processes, premium bonus schemes and extension of piecework, have resulted in a greatly increased output during the war.

On the return of "peace" conditions these methods will be extended and elaborated, resulting in still greater "driving" and intensification of toil with its consequent increased profits for the master class and greater misery for the workers. The urge of "patriotism" and "helping the boys in the trenches," will be replaced by the more deadly, if more stealthy, whip of hunger. Schemes have been prepared and discussed for this purpose, and one set of such schemes has been critically examined and analysed in the Socialist Standard for April and May, 1917, under the heading "Promises and Pie Crust."

The vast army of demobilised workers—from both military service and munition works—will supply a staggering number of unemployed which the masters can use to beat down wages and to impose stricter conditions of employment. The reconstruction of industry and the re-building of shell-shattered towns in the war area will afford but a relatively short, and by no means complete, respite from the operation of these conditions. Their application will be world-wide, affecting "new" as well as "old" countries where capitalism rules.

The contradiction and antagonism between the increasing powers of wealth production faced with a relatively decreasing capacity, under private ownership of the means of life, on the part of the majority of society to absorb the products, will grow greater year by year. This growing antagonism, coupled with the inability of the capitalist class to control the effects of this vicious system, will drive the workers to realise that not national boundaries but class barriers are the matters for them to study. Then they will see the sound and impregnable truth of the closing lines of our War Manifesto, where we say—

"Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism."

Make no mistake about it; the capitalist nations of the globe will unite to form a solid phalanx in defence of their properties and interests the world over. The huge war just finishing is rapidly being overshadowed by the vaster CLASS war, moving into the last phases of the greatest of all struggles the world has ever, seen—the war over the ownership of the means of life ; the war to decide whether the producers shall be SLAVES OR FREEMEN.

In the great war now closing various races— black and brown, white and yellow—were marshalled against each other by the master class. In the final phases which we are approaching, of the greater war between the classes, race, colour, and sex barriers will be swept aside, and humanity as a whole will line up for the last great struggle of the human race—the struggle for the emancipation from Capitalism—for the establishment of the Socialist system.

Editorial Committee

Right Again. (1918)

From the December 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

A little while since President Wilson, in this the mouth-piece of the Allies, was screaming for the German people to arise and overthrow their rulers. There would be no negotiation with the Hohenzollerns, he declared ; the Kaiser and his gang would have to go. Every available means was exploited in order to induce the working class of Germany to solve the difficulties of the Allies by plunging into revolution.

We said, however, at the time, that should the workers of the Central Empires take their cue from Mr. Wilson and attempt to take into their own hands control of public affairs, the armies of the Allies would be used to crush down the rising and restore security to capitalist interests.

What has happened ? After the signing of the Armistice a wave of revolution appeared to threaten 
the existence of German capitalism. Immediately the American President announced that no food
 would be sent to Germany unless the people were quiet. So we were not far out, nor did we have to 
wait long for events to prove the correctness of our statement. If the Allied Armies are not called on
to restore capitalist domination in Germany it will only be because the capitalists of the world have
found sufficient the more cunning scheme of starving into submission the revolutionaries who have served their purpose.

Jacko.

Editorial: The Latest Humbug. (1920)

Editorial from the December 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is, perhaps, no other epoch in history so mean and brutal as the present. Even the days we are wont to call the "Dark Ages" have no records of men slaughtered wholesale by gas and flame. Herod has been out-Heroded by dozens of petty military chiefs. Nero earned the execration of posterity by burning a city: a modern general will gain a title and the popular applause by burning a score.

Where in the pages of history can one read of such detestable hypocrisy as the burial of the "Unknown Soldier" that took place a short time ago in the very street where the erstwhile comrades of that lifeless clay had been batoned because they dared to rebel against the prospect of starvation? Does any thinking man suggest that the capitalist class had any other idea, in organising and carrying out, with such pomp and expense, the burial of a common soldier, than hoodwinking the working class ?

Standing at the Cenotaph in "silent humility" at 11 o'clock on the Anniversary of Armistice Day were to be seen politicians whose whole political career is a record of pompous and contemptuous disregard for the lives of the working class; who had sent soldiers to shoot down strikers in their native streets, and who at that very moment were formulating plans for the calling together of scientists to assure that this country should be well supplied with poison gas at the outbreak of the next war!

Representations are being made to the Government to protect the infant dye industry against foreign competition—not because they want English frocks dyed with English dyes! That is (vide "Daily Mail," 19th Nov.) only, apparently, a secondary point. The main reason is that of the maintenance of plant for the manufacture of toxic gases! And this almost contemporary with the announcement that the League of Nations is endeavouring to prohibit the use of gas in war !

We were told at the commencement of the war that no more would be seen the spectacle of men broken in fighting "their country's battles" forced to seek charity in the streets or shelter in the workhouses. We were promised "a land fit for heroes." Our eyes were dazzled with the prospect of an England made beautiful and happy so soon as the Prussian were crushed and rendered innocuous. Yet what do we find ? Men wearing war ribbons hawking vegetables, or even begging coppers, may be met with all over the place. Certain newspapers are full of the plaints of ex-soldiers who have been swindled out of their pensions. One journalist has been going about the country as a tramp, and reports the casual wards in all parts to be full of ex-service men tramping about the land looking for work! The economic position of nearly everyone who possesses nothing but labour power is more desperate than ever it was before ! And yet Prussianism is crushed. Its arch-exponent is reduced to the expedient of sawing wood as an outlet to his feelings !

Was it, then, Prussianism that was the enemy of the working class ? Or was not the Socialist right when he told you that the capitalist system was the enemy to be fought and crushed ? Do you still place reliance on your political representatives ? Show us a capitalist politician and we will show you a fraud, a trickster, and a pot-hunter. Show us a labour leader and we will point you either a stupid ignoramus or a wilful misleader. Show us an ideal you cherish and we will show you how the capitalist class through their Press twist it to their own advantage. Even your tears and heartaches for your lost young men are used by this hypocritical class to blind you to the rottenness of the system upon which they batten and live their luxurious lives.

How, then, to escape from this murderous, slavish existence ? Do we need tell you the way again ? Or need we only urge you.to think for yourselves ? If you need encouragement go to Bethnal Green, or to the slums of Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, or whatever great town you may be near, and if you have any pity in you it will not be long before you discover the way to end the system that murders and degrades the large mass of its community in the interests of a small section, and assuages its grief-stricken millions with a circus.

11 — 11 — 11: 101 years since the end of World War I

From the World Socialist Party of the United States website

Exactly 101 years ago today the Armistice that ended World War I was signed and came into force. It was signed between 5 and 6 am but did not come into force until 11 am. Fighting continued in many places right up to the last minute: nearly 11,000 men were killed or wounded on that last morning of the war.

As the Armistice had already been signed, why could it not have come into force earlier – say, at 7 am? Or, even if it was not yet time to lay down arms, could commanding officers not have avoided offensive action?

Some did. One British general, acting on his own initiative, ended the war in his sector early in the morning. Prime minister David Lloyd George was annoyed when he heard of it and deprived the general of his pension. The prime minister was planning to announce the Armistice in the House of Commons later in the morning – few Members of Parliament are ‘early birds’ – and wanted the dramatic effect of the guns falling silent just as he was speaking. Lining up three elevens – ‘at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month’ – also had a rhetorical appeal. It still has. Surely that was worth a few thousand casualties?

Another ‘softie’ was Major General William Haan, commander of the 32nd Division of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), who received a field telephone call from his subordinate in command of the 63rd Brigade asking permission to attack in order to straighten out a dent on his front. Haan retorted that he did not intend to throw away men’s lives on the war’s last morning to tidy up a map. 

Other commanders were made of tougher stuff. Major General Charles P. Summerall ordered V Corps to force a crossing of the Meuse River that last morning at the cost of over 1,100 dead and wounded. One of his men, Henry Gunther, was the last soldier killed in action in World War One. He died at one minute before 11 am while charging astonished German troops. He had been despondent over a recent reduction in rank and was apparently trying to redeem his reputation.

The 167th Field Artillery Brigade of the 92nd Division of the AEF, consisting of black men, was ordered to launch its final charge at 10.30 am. 

Many artillery units continued to fire on German targets to avoid having to haul away their spare ammunition. Another good reason, eh? 

In fact, the war could easily have been ended not a few hours but three days earlier, when a German delegation, headed by Matthias Erzberger of the Catholic Center Party, drove through Allied lines in order to negotiate an armistice. The delegation was escorted to the Compiègne Forest near Paris where, in a railroad dining car converted into a conference room, they were met by Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies. Foch presented the Allies’ terms and told Erzberger that he had 72 hours to obtain the consent of his government or the war would go on. ‘For God’s sake, Monsieur le Marechal,’ Erzberger pleaded, ‘do not wait for those 72 hours. Stop the hostilities this very day.’ His appeal fell on deaf ears. 

Foch had good reason to be confident that the Allies’ terms, harsh as they were, would be accepted. Six weeks earlier, on September 29, the German Supreme Army Command had informed the Kaiser and the Imperial Chancellor that the military situation facing Germany was hopeless. Then, on the night of October 29-30, sailors at the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven, unwilling to be sacrificed in a final naval offensive, had mutinied and their revolt had quickly spread to other ports. The army too was starting to disintegrate under the impact of mass desertions. It was now politically as well as economically and militarily impossible for Germany to sustain further hostilities.

What socialists said about World War 1 at the time

Leaflet by Karl Liebknecht, May 1915:

The main enemy of every people is in their own country!

Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet: The Crisis of German Social Democracy, written in prison in the spring of 1915 and first published at Zurich in February 1916, illegally distributed in Germany:

  Gone is the euphoria… In the prosaic atmosphere of pale day there sounds a different chorus – the hoarse cries of the vulture and the hyenas of the battlefield. Ten thousand tarpaulins guaranteed up to regulations! A hundred thousand kilos of bacon, cocoa powder, coffee-substitute – COD, immediate delivery! Hand grenades, lathes, cartridge pouches, marriage bureaus for widows of the fallen, leather belts, jobbers for war orders – serious offers only! The cannon fodder loaded onto trains in August and September is moldering in the killing fields of Belgium, the Vosges, and Masurian Lakes where the profits are springing up like weeds. It’s a question of getting the harvest into the barn quickly. Across the ocean stretch thousands of greedy hands to snatch it up. 

  Business thrives in the ruins. Cities become piles of ruins; villages become cemeteries; countries, deserts; populations are beggared; churches, horse stalls. International law, treaties and alliances, the most sacred words and the highest authority have been torn in shreds… 

  Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping filth – there stands bourgeois society. This is it [in reality]. Not all spic and span and moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and the rule of law – but the ravening beast, the witches’ sabbath of anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus it reveals itself in its true, its naked form…

Friedrich Engels once said:  ‘Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.’ What does ‘regression into barbarism’ mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then when the period of unlimited wars begins it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war. This is a dilemma of world history, an either/or; the scales are wavering before the decision of the class-conscious proletariat. The future of civilization and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales. In this war imperialism has won. Its bloody sword of genocide has brutally tilted the scale toward the abyss of misery. The only compensation for all the misery and all the shame would be if we learn from the war how the proletariat can seize mastery of its own destiny and escape the role of the lackey to the ruling classes.

Eugene Victor Debs, The Canton, Ohio Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918

  Sam Johnson declared that “patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people… 

The working class, who fight all the battles, the working class, who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class, who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.

Yours not to reason why; 
Yours but to do and die.

That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation…
You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to develop, and a manhood to sustain… 

They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches…

Sources

On the last day of the war: here

General background here

On the sailors’ revolts see the first part of Gabriel Kuhn (translator), All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918-1919 (2012)

Stefan

The Aftermath (1968)

From the November 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the firing stopped on that November morning fifty years ago, and an unnatural quiet descended on a landscape pulverised beyond recognition, an armistice had been arranged but peace had certainly not arrived. Mar who woe present at the time have described the uncanny feeling as the nightmare closed, and how odd it was to be able to walk erect in places where, only a short while before, it was certain death to raise their head.

For four years the great nations of capitalism had hurled themselves at each other with deadly-effect; the butchery had been unparalleled. Now, that at least was over, but the toll of life still went on. Plague, in the form of Spanish influenza, swept the world and the blockade of Germany, with its cynical and heartless use of starvation to achieve political ends, continued.

The war had revolved around the question of Germany. The older capitalist powers had fought to contain and cripple a new, dangerous rival. Germany had tried to gain political domination in line with its expanding economic and military power. The established powers had grabbed the most profitable areas of the world as sources of raw materials and outlets for their manufactured goods; they controlled the most important strategic points such as the Suez and Panama canals.

German capitalists found themselves forced to expand under unfavourable conditions. They began to prepare to challenge their rivals. They built up a huge and efficient army, began to challenge British supremacy at sea by amassing a large navy. The whole of Germany was organised for war.

Railway systems were laid down to enable the rapid transport of troops to strike points, in case the great fear of a war on two fronts came to reality. In 1914 the time had arrived for the great throw.

The throw failed. Germany was battered, but by no means deterred. The German army was still intact and stood almost entirely on foreign soil. The tremendous offensives of the previous few months had forced them back, but failed to break them. But Germany was disintegrating behind the armies. Modern wars are fought on the factory floor, and in the food queues as well as in the front fine and Germany had had enough.

In October the German admirals decided to send the High Seas Fleet in one final "do or die" attack against the British, but the sailors had mutinied. By 3 November 1918, Kiel was in their hands; within a few days the Kaiser had gone and a Social Democrat was Chancellor.

Germany made frantic last efforts to salvage something from the wreck, but was eventually forced to accept harsh terms in which it was stripped of its colonies. These were not worth an awful lot, as the best areas had been grabbed before Germany had arrived on the scene, but they were to become a mania in the next decade and to enable the German ruling class to build up war fever again, when the time came.

Germany was disarmed, conscription was abolished, its army was limited to 100,000 men. It was allowed no air force, only a small navy, and no submarines, heavy artillery or tanks. German rivers were internationalised. But in spite of this Germany still remained intact. German industry was basically untouched and the army general staff remained. It was only a matter of time before the ambition of the German capitalist class would persuade them to try again.

The most far reaching effect of the war was the break up of Austria-Hungary. The ancient Hapsburg Empire had covered a vast area in Central Europe. Although, with the rise of the German Empire, it had been somewhat overshadowed by its pushing neighbour, it was still a powerful block. At the end of the war it disappeared as Central Europe was “balkanised”.

The German-speaking Alpine provinces of the former empire, with Vienna as the capital, became the new Austria. The rump of pre-war Hungary, stripped of 75 per cent of its territory and 60 per cent of its population, became the Republic of Hungary, with Buda-Pest as its capital. The old Kingdom of Poland was recreated more or less as it had been before the 18th century partition between Austria, Prussia and Russia. Austria Hungary’s southern provinces of Croatia, Bosnia and Dalmatia were joined to Serbia and Montenegro to become Yugo-Slavia.

Most important from the point of view of future development, was the creation of Czechoslovakia. This was the ancient Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia with Slovakia and Ruthenia. The outer mountainous ring of Bohemia was occupied by German speaking peoples. This was to become a flash point twenty years later.

France, conscious of its inferiority in numbers with Germany. in the next twenty years built up a system of alliances with these small nations in an effort to ring Germany and adjust the balance. This again was to become a telling point in German war propaganda.

Russia was in a state of turmoil, torn by civil war and invaded by foreign armies, its casualties from war, famine and political murder were numbered in millions. Taking advantage of its weakened state, and believing in the imminent collapse of its government, the allies helped to strip Russia of much of its more advanced areas.

Finland broke away and became an independent state. The Baltic areas, that had been some of the most industrial parts of the old Empire, became Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and Russian Poland went into the new Polish State.

But Russia came back as one of the most powerful states in the world, and its rulers showed they had nothing to learn, when it came to ruthlessness in pursuit of their aims. They were to have one new weapon that had not existed since the French Revolution—a fifth column in the shape of their supporters in many countries, the local Communist Parties.

The Great War ended after millions of workers had died, but nothing was solved, nothing could be solved. The problems of capitalism still remained. The dragon’s teeth of a new conflict were well and truly sown. What is more tragic, the working classes of the world had really learned nothing. They were to fight again in a generation.

Les Dale

Armistice reflections (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is Armistice night. I have just come home through London along with a portion of the joyful crowds who are going to celebrate. But what are they celebrating? It cannot be the end of wars since expenditure on armaments still grows, and the "East" and the "West" harries the imaginations of diplomats. Is it a victory they would celebrate? But here a million unemployed, and the miners are marching on London to remind legislators that hunger is abroad in the coalfields.

As I travelled on 'bus and tube my mind wandered over the events of the war and since. The petty squabbles of war "leaders," military, naval, and political, who each tried to keep a grip on the shoddy coat of glory; the nobleness of purpose with which each saddled the other with incapacity. I tried to think of a leader who possessed the military virtues we were taught to revere when we were children—and I failed to think of one. Even the modesty of Lawrence is lost in a crowd of full-dress photographs taken in the waste places of Arabia. A few short years have stripped the idols, one by one, of the gilding a venal Press and a hypocritical platform painted on with such a lavish hand.

The enemies of wartime have again become the joint partners in the plunder of peacetime. German, Austrian, Italian, French, American and English shareholders are indiscriminately mixed in the giant companies and trusts that take from the workman of different lands all that he produces above the pittance that pretends to keep him.

While the crowds passed before the Cenotaph to-day those who had grown wealthier out of war and peace swept in their luxurious cars to the palaces built out of the blood and toil of slaves. Behind all the mockery and cynicism lie the devastated homes, the cheerless hearths, of millions of the poor. The hollow shams at the top and the bitter misery at the bottom; the trickery and the illusions; the romance and the reality.

The tragedies of the war existed not only in the deaths, the mutilations, and the sorrows of the bereaved, but also in what lay behind much of it. Imagine the feelings of those forced, by fear of a white feather or by conscription, who went to battle without enthusiasm but with much dread. They had to endure the manifold hardships without the inner fire of a cause worth while to sustain them. Of such were many who are buried in nameless graves.

Most of us, particularly the more imaginative, when not drunk with enthusiasm or liquor, suffer the nameless dread of mutilations or death. Thousands, nay millions, went through this agony during those terrible years. Of the young and the old of many countries eight and a half millions were killed , twenty-one million wounded. This country alone had a million dead to mourn for and two millions wounded.

But what are the celebrations for? What have the millions died for? Why do many an old couple sit by the fire dreaming sadly of what might have been? Oh, sordid reality! Oh, cold, comfortless truth! Because one group of money bugs wanted more profit than another! For this the flower of youth was trampled and destroyed by the iron heel of war. And even now, while the horror and dread of those days still stirs restlessly in the mind, like the remnants of the spell of a nightmare, the nations of the earth are still hotly pursuing each other in a headlong race to more terrible wars still, though the wiser ones foresee that the end is not worth the price, in wealth and prestige, that will have to be paid.

And those who so easily sent our loved ones to their graves are niggardly in payment to the mutilated and the dependants. They groan of the height of the taxes, and tell fairy tales of the wealth of the pensioners. They would have us believe, as they orate at their many-coursed dinners, that they are really too poor to stand the strain. When unemployment was widespread before the war it was said that the country was too poor to maintain the human scrap heap of industry. Yet, on the war alone, this country was able to throw away wealth to the amount of over six thousand million pounds in four years! And this while millions of the population were entirely withdrawn from productive work.

And to-day those who might ponder over these things and be dangerous to the powers that prey have their emotions diverted into safe channels. They are given a few cenotaphs, a few processions, a turgid mass of hypocritical sentiments. They mourn by cold monuments and return to work sad, but satisfied.

What a civilisation! What a tragedy!

Gilmac.