Material World: Gangsterism rules OK (2026)

The Material World column from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether you believe the stories about US officials issuing veiled threats by reminding Vatican diplomats of the Avignon Popes (when the French Crown asserted secular power over the church and moved the seat of the Bishop of Rome to France), that they are circulating at all is a sign of the widely held sense of American lawlessness. An American official, according to the gossip, opined that the US has the power to do what it likes in the world, and the Catholic Church should take sides. Some have seen this as a threat to the Pope.

It has been doing what it likes for decades. In 2001 the US Congress passed a resolution, Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, which stated:

‘That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.’

In justification, it noted:

‘the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States.’

This became the basis for the campaign of targeted killing by executive order, as part of the so-called War on Terror. It was a carte blanche, and, as with any executive authority, the office holders since that date have sought to strengthen and extend the scope of authority for actions taken under this resolution. It extended from the battlefields of Afghanistan to become a universal reach, justifying strikes in Libya, Somalia, Oman and even, under the present administration, to the strikes against alleged narcotrafficking boats in Venezuelan waters.

In 2011 even Obama took the step of killing an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, in an overseas strike.

Although there are no exact figures available, the estimate is that in over 14,000 strikes, over 10,000 people were killed and wounded, of whom around 15 percent were civilians, including hundreds of children.

The laws of war

The ‘rules of war’ permit civilian casualties in proportion to the value of the military objective to be achieved: that is, the decision to adopt the targeted killing policy was a decision in advance to kill entirely innocent civilians.

The argument of presidents and their hangers-on is that such death tolls save more lives and stretch the limits of liberty and legality less than alternatives. But it does, in the end, put the President in the same place as a gangster, killing anyone who might get in his way (and threatening anyone thinking of doing the same). It turns the end sequence of the first Godfather film, where Michael Corleone orchestrates a string of murders of rival bosses, from a fictional scene into real government policy.

Of course Trump, who most likely will have encountered the real-world mafia in his career as New York real estate developer and casino owner, has extended this policy even further. His strikes on Iran this year included the direct slaying of the Iranian head of state, as well as top government officials. This is close to saying all bets are off.

The laws of war, such as they are, were developed by professional militaries and soldiers to make a life of warfare possible. They limit the actions either side can make to prevent a cycle of violence so destructive that the entire game of war grinds to an exhausted halt. It was always a hypocritical gloss on the murderous business, but it did offer some respite and protection.

The chief victims of Trump’s extension of the remote murder strategy are likely to be members of other governments. The US position is that it will retaliate with untold ferocity should someone dare to slay its head of state: but other governments may not have that luxury. And, as Iran has demonstrated, the technology for a sudden and surgical missile strike is within the reach of many countries.

Iran, for its part, has come out swinging: its retaliation against US bases and the countries that host US bases has been to try and impose costs on any US attempt to repeat the Iraq adventure of siege and invasion. They aim to pressure the US to back off by causing pain to US allies.

Whilst the fog of war still prevails, it’s clear that deaths have been many and widespread: at the time of writing over 2,000 Iranians have been killed, with over 20,000 injured. Around 15,000 have been injured in US-allied states (with around half of those in Israel), and about 200 dead (including 15 Americans).

Given the interconnected worldwide system we all rely on, the direct casualties in modern wars are very likely dwarfed by the number of deaths later incurred due to damage to infrastructure. Both sides in this war have threatened desalination plants essential for life in the region, as well as power plants (including nuclear installations).

Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will lead to disruption around the world, as we see fuel prices rise dramatically (already there are serious fuel protests in Ireland).

With Trump threatening to counter-blockade the strait (which will bring the US navy within range of Iranian missiles), the prospect of damaging the world economy in the medium term is real.

Leaving simple morality to one side, war makes us all poorer. Every death is the loss of a mind that might have come up with brilliant insights in the future. Houses, roads, bridges all get destroyed and inhibit economic activity in a wide area (the same has already happened in the war between Russia’s and Ukraine).

Universal gangsterism over trade routes and resources means everyone has a stake in ending war, and the only means to do that is the common ownership of the world.

Pik Smeet

Voice From The Back: Prisoners of want (2002)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prisoners of want

“One hundred thousand pensioners in old people’s homes are living on allowances of as little as £10 a week. Most are not even receiving the £16 weekly payment to which they are entitled, according to new research. The revelation that legions of old people live on less than many prison inmates will greatly embarrass Ministers, who have boasted of tackling pensioners’ poverty. “We were shocked when we discovered this,” said Lorna Easterbrook, who carried out the study for Help The Aged. “There’s a huge sense of humiliation among these old people. Some are getting £10 of their due allowances, but others are getting just £3 or £4 a week after relatives or homes make deductions.” Observer, 20 January.

The Observer journalist’s view that the Labour government ministers will be “greatly embarrassed” is probably wide of the mark. Nothing could embarrass these vile supporters of capitalism. Fellow workers, this could be your future inside capitalism. If you live beyond your ability to produce surplus value for the blood-sucking capitalist class. A bed pan and a tenner a week.

No cause for celebration

Twenty years ago a British Prime Minister told the Sun, and other slimy tabloid newspapers to “Rejoice” at the victory of the British capitalist class against the Argentine capitalist class. No mention was made at that time about the loss of working class life. We have no figures about the deaths of Argentine workers, but twenty years on, we have some about British workers. 255 British servicemen were killed, but even more awful since that madness, 264 British servicemen, who were involved have committed suicide. (Figures from the Guardian, 19 January.) Excuse us if we don’t rejoice, Thatcher, at the deaths of members of our class in the defence of your system. There are many orphans and widows of the working class today in both Argentine and Britain whose tears make joy impossible.

They like it, My Lord

“A Trade Union Congress report out today estimates that four million people, 16 percent of the workforce, work more than 48 hours a week, the limit set by the 1998 (European Union) directive. Men work the longest weeks with one in four clocking up more than 48 hours; one in ten working 55 hours; and one in 25 working more than 60 hours . . . John Monks, the TUC General Secretary, said: “Britain’s long-hour culture is a national disgrace. It leads to stress, ill-health and family strains.” Times, 4 February. Not everybody would agree with the TUC, though. John Crickland, Deputy Director-General of the CBI offers a defence of the long hours. “Workers want the right to make their own decisions about extra working hours. Managerial workers often work longer hours because they want to.” This defence is rather similar to the Fox Hunting Lobby’s – “The fox enjoys the hunt.”

Science and the profit motive

Inside socialist society the pursuit of knowledge will be free to all. There will be no restrictions on scientific investigation. This is impossible inside capitalism, with its copyright laws and its profit motive. Sir John Sulston, one of the leading researchers in the Human Genome Project has shown how powerful the profit motive is in science-based commerce. “We can’t possibly prohibit discovery. But on the other hand to imagine that we should always exploit, especially if it makes extra money, is insane. I think most reasonable people, including those who run companies, would agree. The trouble is, once people get into a company boardroom, they have no other choice. They have shareholders. I am afraid you have to leave your principles at the door of the boardroom”, he says.” Guardian, 2 February.

Blair, bombast and bombs

At the Labour Party conference last year Tony Blair said: “The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world”. Poverty, corruption, famine and war, he thundered like an Old Testament prophet, must be tackled. It went down big with the delegates. It is the sort of thing the Labour Party adore – talking about social problems in sanctimonious moral tones, and then doing nothing about it. But this time they were doing something about it – they were making it worse! “The government was facing condemnation from protesters against the arms trade last night after new figures revealed that the value of arms sales to Africa will more than quadruple by next year . . . High levels of spending on arms are seen as one of the main causes of poverty in Africa. A report by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) reveals that in 1999 African nations received £52 million worth of arms in deals with British firms. That figure rose to £125.5m in 2000 and is set to top £200m next year.” Observer, 3 February.

Post-combat syndrome

A report in the British Medical Journal claimed that post-conflict symptoms had been suffered long before the Gulf War and stretched back as far as the 1889 Boer War. “They concluded: “Post-combat syndromes have arisen in all major wars over the past century, and we can predict that will continue to appear after future conflicts” . . . The researchers said the best way to tackle the illnesses, which have cost subsequent governments considerable sums in financial assistance, was to better understand their characteristics.” Herald, 8 February. Surely, a much better way to deal with the problem is to abolish capitalism, the cause of modern warfare. No conflict = no post-conflict syndrome. You don’t need to be a trained medical researcher to work that one out.

 

Socialist Sonnet No. 225: Collateral Damage (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Collateral Damage

The primary target has been destroyed,

By a surgical strike designed to leave

Blasted and charred ruins for those who grieve

To pick through, for all who couldn’t avoid

Being reduced to statistics, a body count

On the evening news. Strategy is clear,

It’s the brutal diplomacy of fear,

Leaving far too few remains to amount

To complete human beings. There is concern,

International stock markets are falling,

With speculation, futures are stalling:

How many losses before fortunes turn?

The enemy is easily identified,

Being those barbarians on the other side.

 

D. A.

Sting in the Tail: The Numbers Game (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Numbers Game

Listen, John, I've just been reading the November / December issue of Labour Party News. It's full of Neil Kinnock and his pals on about the wonderful future they offer "our country" if they get in.

And they've got their own Premier Savings Account at "competitive rates of interest", a competition with a £10,000 tax-free prize, a Visa card, a lottery, and organic wines! Couldn't find a mention of socialism, but you can't have everything, can you?

They’ve got a lot of new members too; 140 here, 35 there, but the official "Recruiter of the Year" is a Nottingham youngster who roped in 200! It's easy, John, there's a membership form inside if you want to join: no conditions, no questions asked.

All this recruitment looks good — what's that you say? Labour's membership has dropped from 350,000 in 1980 to 288,000 now! Christ, that Nottingham youngster had better get his finger out, hadn't he?

Open Secrets

For fifty years groups of Leninists have been boring-from-within the Labour Party.

Because their own ideas have very little electoral support, they hope to gain influence in the Labour Party which they see as "the mass organisation of the working class".

There have been many such hopefuls down through the years of which "Militant" is only the best known. As would-be Bolsheviks they exist as "secret" groups but always there are the inevitable defectors to reveal all.

The latest group to be shopped is "Socialist Organiser" which, according to an ex-member, is:

. . . completely committed to remaining within the Labour Party, and will jump through each and every hoop the (Labour) NEC places before them to save themselves.

The Guardian (24 December)

These groups are an obstacle to Labour's chances of running British capitalism and are being rooted-out, but doubtless there will in the future be others willing to jump through endless hoops in pursuit of Lenin's useless and discredited ideas.

Princely Piffle

Prince Charles, authority on ecology and architecture, has been airing his views on

politics and economics.

Speaking on French TV he

. . . called for a balance between the ideals of capitalism and communism.

The Guardian (24 December)

What he meant by "communism" is, of course, what existed in Eastern Europe and which he described only last year as "one vast prison". What "ideals"of this system does he admire?

The Prince continued:

We need capitalism, but perhaps with a more human face. We need a system in which big capital becomes more and more Interested in local communities. . . and the developing countries.

As if capitalism will do this as an act of altruism and without taking profits into account!

This ignorance of capitalism's priorities is further revealed by his call for banks to lend to "gifted" young people to start their own businesses. Alas, the banks

. . . weren't in the slightest bit interested because young people had nothing to offer as guarantees.

We doubt if bank depositors would share the Prince's desire to see their savings lent without collateral.

Let's hope that HRH knows more about ecology and architecture than he does about politics and economics.

Keen as Mustard

During World War II over one thousand Australian servicemen were used as human guinea-pigs in experiments with mustard gas. Many of them had up to 95% of their skins burned and a top-secret film recorded the horrific details in glorious technicolor.

Were these men prisoners of the Japanese and the victims of a bestial atrocity? No, it was the Australian and British governments who conducted the experiments on them.

All this emerged in a BBC2 Horizon programme on January 14. The experiments were supposed to provide information for "defensive" purposes should Japan use mustard gas, but Horizon revealed that the Allies intended to use the gas on the Japanese: they decided on the atom bomb instead.

Probably the most shocking revelation for many who saw the programme was that the human guinea-pigs were all volunteers. One of the scientists involved in the experiments said that the men "knew what they were in for". This was only partly true because the call for volunteers made no mention of mustard gas, and the men certainly didn’t know there would be such long-term after-effects as leukemia and damage to internal organs.

There is nothing new in workers volunteering to perform capitalism's dangerous tasks. They are forever risking their health and lives in the service of their masters, and it is nothing new for them to be rewarded in cruel and inhuman fashion.

Gulf Reality

While TV commentators move toy tanks over sandy table tops and gush on about "pincer movements" like demented schoolboys: the realities of war are much more soberly summed up by one of the participants of the real war.

Here, for example, are the unexpurgated thoughts of Captain Ronald Thomas, from Stoke-on-Trent and A Squadron of the 16th /5th, as he watched his soldiers load their missiles for what might be the last hours of peace. "Yes, I'm frightened of dying. Everyone's thinking about it now." (A pause here.) "But you know, I'll be really pissed off if I didn't see my family again. I've got four kids. I’d be fucking angry if I was killed."

The Independent (15 January)

Anger is, of course, understandable but it is only anger based on knowledge of how capitalism leads to armed hostility that is of any use in combating the threat of war.

Reality Gulf

Now that hostilities have broken out in the Gulf, it is reassuring to learn that those with a hot line to the deity are showing a touching compassion.

Although Dr Robert Runcie and Cardinal Basil Hume acknowledge that It was sometimes necessary to resort to war, they said in a joint statement that they had emphasised to John Major "our concern that only the minimum force necessary to secure the UN objectives should be used, without inflicting indiscriminate damage on Iraq and its citizens."

They also urged the Prime Minister to safeguard sacred Muslim sites from attack in Iraq.

The Independent 15 January

When the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Roman Catholic Cardinal unite on joint statements, you can be sure you will get a dose of arrant nonsense. "Indiscriminate damage" is the nature of war. There are no rockets or bombs that select the guilty and spare the innocent.

However it is touching to that they are concerned about fellow divines in Iraq — no hiding out in the sacred sites!

Tiny Tips (2026)

The Tiny Tips column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

In almost all regions of the world, the top 1% of the population is richer than the combined 90%. Wealth inequality increases further with each passing day, mostly due to the lack of political will to stop it.

[Popular Resistance]

In China, inequality remains high… The top 10% of earners capture about 43% of national income, while the bottom 50% receive just 14%. Wealth disparities are particularly large, with the richest 10% holding nearly 68% of total wealth and the top 1% about 30%. 

[World Inequality Report]

Nearly half of Kenyans live in extreme poverty, i.e., on less than KES 130 [£0.75] per day. Yet a few have amassed enormous wealth. The richest 125 Kenyans have more wealth than more than three-quarters of Kenyans, about 43 million people. 

[Oxfam]

We celebrate the ‘recovery’ of fish populations that are stabilized at 5% or 10% of their historical population, mistaking the management of ruins for conservation. To understand the magnitude of what has been stolen, we must look back before the industrial age. In the 17th century, the ocean was a different planet. When Christopher Columbus sailed through the Caribbean in the late 15th century, he described the seas near Cuba as being ‘thick with turtles’, so numerous that it seemed his ships would run aground on them… in numbers estimated between 33 and 39 million adults in the Caribbean alone. They were a biological dominance that defined the seascape. Today, those populations are a shadow of the ‘mother sea’ that once existed. This report is an autopsy of the decline. It is an investigation into the specific species that the fishing industry has sacrificed on the altar of commerce. 

[Sea Piracy]

As both the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) monitor and Reuters noted, Poland is among multiple state parties in the process of ditching the Mine Ban Treaty. Citing the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the news agency reported that “antipersonnel mine production could begin once the treaty’s six month withdrawal period is completed on February 20, 2026”. 

[Common Dreams]

Greenpeace is a strong example, having emerged from ecological protest movements in the 1970s and 1980s, but having eased into largely cooperating with capitalist corporations and governments over time and giving legitimacy to their propaganda about individual lifestyle choices being the way to solve climate change.

[Counterfire]

The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, which has previously slammed vaccine skeptic Kennedy as a ‘paranoid kook’ whose ‘tinfoil hat is blocking out all sense’, tore into the Trump Cabinet member for his war on what it called ‘one of the biggest public health wins of the last century: the widespread use of disease-eradicating vaccines’. 

[HuffPost]

Therefore, we do not offer any support to wars waged by any capitalist state or any faction aimed at creating or strengthening a new state, whether aggressor or aggressed, whether or not they describe themselves as ‘socialist’ or ‘democratic’. 

[Internationalist Perspective]

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Against all war, economic and military (2004)

From the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists appreciate that the war over Iraq has drawn many workers into a political arena hitherto seen as boring and as impossible to influence from the outside. Workers once apolitical have been stirred into action by the lies, the tricks to curtail the democratic process, and the acts of violence, murder and destruction from their leaders.  Where before, whether at breakfast, in the workplace, in a café at lunchtime or over dinner in the pub in an evening, we discussed our work, sport, TV, pop music, sex and the weather or our personal pursuits, over and above our everyday troubles in life, lately we’ve seen the war over Iraq come to figure in these discussions.  Not satisfied with these usual outlets for our feelings, many have been attending the numerous anti-war rallies around the world and writing into newspapers, radio and television.  Socialists expressed pleasure in seeing so many of our fellow workers in anti-war mood, and in such numbers. 

   

But socialists are aware that in the workplace workers, anti-war campaigners and not, are soldiers in an economic war on behalf of the generals who own the businesses where we work.  We thought it ironic that workers should be so strongly united in an anti-war outlook on a Saturday, and then, back at work on the Monday, would go to war with each other, united only in an effort to win the battle for production, sales or work over their anti-war friends engaged in a similar process for other generals. A common lament from the weary and dismayed proletarian soldiers in the American Civil War of the 19th century was, We are all Americans! We socialists have a similar cry to workers in both the commercial and military wars of today – We are all fellow workers! If non-socialist anti-war campaigners only knew it, the wars of commerce lie at the root of all the military wars.

   

Sadly not a common view among anti-war campaigners, but all the signs of war are readily available if one cares to look and reflect on our day-to-day activity for just a moment.  Do not most of us work for a business to produce or sell products or provide some type of service in competition with those produced by our fellow workers who work in other businesses in the same field of activity? The products from one worker look almost identical to products from another, are made in similar environments by similar processes by workers who perform similar tasks in similar numbers and using similar tools. These commodities, whether we make them, sell or deliver them as a service, perform the same function, serve the same need, and sell for almost the same price. It is made clear to us, no matter where we work, in a supermarket, in a car or clothing factory, in a bank or a TV station, for example, that the company we work for, and by implication ourselves, are engaged in national (and international) rivalry with similar businesses all across the world. Every one of these businesses would if they could keep the whole market to themselves, and they struggle to get as much of it as they can in a game of competition – war by another name.  And the obvious end result is that the task is overdone and thus a glut is produced. 

   

Commercial conflicts are like military ones, with resources being trashed in a war for survival.  And the ruin of products coincides with the dissipation of the human effort employed in their production as well as the squandering of the quantity of the Earth’s natural resources as ingredients for their production. Perishable commodities which cannot be sold at their intended price are jettisoned into the bargain basement saleroom and then, if necessary, churned back into the soil even before the needy workers, who produced them, are allowed to have them free. The owners of the businesses where we work care not a jot for the workers when their particular war is over and they are no longer needed, due to sickness, injury on the job, the employment of new technologies, improved methodology or bankruptcy, which brings on our redundancy and poverty.

   

War includes struggles between classes, class wars between capitalists and workers.  In 19th-century France, a short civil conflict was fought between the bourgeois French National Assembly, and Parisian workers as republicans, known in socialist annals as the Paris Commune. In Britain, a civil war was waged between a feudal class and the rising bourgeoisie in the 17th century.  A war can also involve rival sections within a particular class who compete for power, as in America, where a civil war was fought between rival members of the American bourgeois class in the 19th century. There is another type of civil war which socialists cite, where in the arena of commerce, battles are waged between corporations, assisted by their (home-based) state authorities, first within national borders then steadily growing in stature to a transnational arena.

   

The now universal culture of ‘market ideology’ is the primary influence on the behaviour of humans everywhere.  The more power or money an individual or group can secure for themselves, the better their quality of life.  To be effective in their pursuit of power and wealth, whether solely by the means of commerce, or upgrading their war to the military stage, they must be indifferent to the needs and plight of their competitors; otherwise, their ability to wage war is diminished.

   

Whether a war in society is within a nation or between nations, the causes of these wars between the protagonists are of a similar nature. While the circumstances surrounding each war may remain peculiar to the time and place (the extent of dictatorship/democracy, class structure, mode of production, laws, parochial cultures or ideas or religions etc), the pattern seems to be repeated all over the world.  The owning class of one nation possesses something which that of another nation, or groups within a nation would like to possess.  These could be land, foreign trade deals, cheap labour, talented labour and property (as businesses or complete/established industries), home markets, and a natural resource as marketable asset – oil, gas, coal, iron ore, gold, diamonds, water, etc.  These are all requirements for success in making money, and with money comes power and influence for businesses and individuals.  As no one country has been endowed with a complete set of resources, there will often be a need to plunder.

   

Wars in human society take place between nations when the dominant men and women within them (the capitalist class) pursue wealth or the means to create wealth in society, using the power of their state and their labour (workers) as battering rams to defeat their enemies, which are themselves comprised of their opponents’ state machinery and workers. And where a conflict occurs within the territory of one nation, outside influences are often brought to bear. If resources are up for grabs, the capitalist grabbing class join the fray to see what they can win.

   

Only socialists can claim to be the true anti-war campaigners. Fellow workers around the world participate in anti-war campaigns, which call for the end of military wars, but none that we know of make that connection, as socialists do, to the wider society and particularly, to its mode of production and guiding ideology which promote competition among all sections of society. In campaigning solely for an end to military wars, which are but a bloody climax to the wider commercial war, there can be no hope of addressing the problems of human society today as a whole.

William Dunn

Worse than thought: In the article on Terror last month we quoted a figure of 35,000 for the number of civilian deaths in Iraq since the Anglo-American invasion. Since then the medical journal, The Lancet, has estimated the number as being more like 100,000.

They shall not want (1964)

From the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

We watched the crippled war veteran, a pathetic parody of a human being, struggle up the narrow Cornish street. A worn-out accordion, strapped to his chest, lurched dangerously as he limped along, and a battered trumpet gleamed in his hand. Although the ragged old coat barely covered him, he proudly wore his medal-ribbons on the front of it. This, then, was what he had to show for his war service: a mutilated body and a few worthless ribbons.

In contrast to the warm summer day, I considered what the gloomy history of this individual must be. Having gone off enthusiastically to light the “enemy”, he had discovered that on his return home he was not given the hero’s welcome reserved for the generals. As a cripple his wealth-creating capacity was destroyed, and, being no more use to his masters, he had been thrown aside like a broken lamp-bulb.

The tragedy is that this must have happened all over the world. In Germany and Italy, as much as Britain, men went home disabled after fighting for the interests of their capitalist masters. And instead of gratitude for their suffering they found only indifference and rejection.

And what of those more fortunate than this old cripple, the soldiers who escaped injury. Were they any better off on their return home? Sadly, no. “Their” country, they found, still belonged to the privileged ten per cent who did not have to work to live. The armed war had only been replaced by the economic war. Members of the working class of all countries had found that after five long years of fighting for something belter, there was still the same struggle to get a job, to keep it, and to make a week's wages last a week.

But have we learnt anything, since the last war, about the needless suffering of people like this disabled old man? Has the working class recognised that it has no interest in wars which are caused by conflicts between different groups of capitalists? Has it realised that the only answer to the problems of poverty and insecurity is a Socialist world in which wealth would flow abundantly?

Asking myself these questions, I noticed the old cripple had stopped at a suitable spot and begun to play his accordion. The notes came out, irregular and uncertain “The Lord's my shepherd,” he gasped, “ 1 shall not want.”

Keith Graham

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

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

What We Have Left Behind.

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

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

Love’s Labour Lost.

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

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

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

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

If Blood be the Price—

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

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

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

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

The Failure of Private Enterprise.

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

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

Some further lessons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A. E. Jacomb

Graveyards. (1916)

From the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether we look at the manifestations of the capitalist system of society from a historical standpoint, or view the effects of its workings at the present time, there is every reason why the system should be abolished. Apart from the fact, that it has given birth to and developed the means of production so that it is possible to produce wealth in abundance, capitalist society has since its inception a record worse than which it would be almost impossible for the human mind to conceive. For years now the workers, who alone produce the world’s wealth, have had a greater struggle to exist, in spite of the marvellous increase of wealth production due to improved machinery and methods. Not only is it true that the workers are in greater poverty relatively to the amount of wealth produced, but they are beaten, broken, and done to death in their struggle for a dull, monotonous existence. Factories, mills, mines, and the like are veritable death-traps, “accidents,” poisoning of one kind and another, and consumption finds victims by tens of thousands.

We know that of recent years the Press has published the heart-rending news of explosions in mines with their great loss of life, and that the customary enquiry has produced evidence proving beyond honest dispute that had the mine-owners taken reasonable precautions the terrible loss of life would have been avoided. We know that Lloyd George, at the behest of the ship-owners, raised the load-line of ships so that the owners might get greater profits at the expense of seamen’s lives. It is hardly necessary to refresh the memories of our readers with reference to railway disasters and the appalling waste of railwaymen’s and passengers’ lives.

After every railway disaster the usual enquiry of the Board of Trade official takes place ; the scapegoat is invariably an employee. The railway directors escape all blame. In the “Nineteenth Century Magazine” for June appeared an article on railway administration in Great Britain, from which is quoted the following scathing criticism.

“What is the Board of Trade record in this connexion ? It is shameful. Our percentage of killed and wounded on railways is nearly twice what it is in France. After every accident, there is the same heartless mockery, The same condemnation of a perfectly innocent engine-driver or signalman, found guilty of being human, of having failed to do the duty the human machine is not capable of doing : a duty which it is biologically impossible for him to carry out with the requisite degree of certainty. It is the duty of the Board of Trade official, as specified by Act of Parliament, to enquire into the cause of railway accidents, and advise and enforce the proper remedy. The Board of Trade official knows that the cause of 90 per cent. of railway accidents is one locomotive running into another, and he knows that the remedy is to instal apparatus which would render the recurrence of such accidents a physical impossibility. He knows that the engine-driver or signalman as the case may be, who has been guilty of the inevitable biological lapse, is as innocent as the policeman who stands at his elbow in the dock. He knows that the really guilty persons are the railway managers and he himself: the railway managers because they have neglected to make the inevitable accident an impossibility, and he himself, because he has neglected to employ the authority vested in him by Parliament to force the adoption of the necessary preventive measures. The procedure in these so-called Board of Trade inquiries is nauseating in the extreme. The real points of importance are purposely avoided. Why does not the Board of Trade official enforce the remedy he knows so well ? The explanation is obvious enough. He knows that the installation of preventive measures will mean a legitimate expenditure of railway money on a large scale, and that this will deplete some railway dividends, and absorb others altogether. He knows that this would cause an immediate outcry from the railway shareholders en masse, that real enquiry would follow, and that the miserable sham in which he is a partner would be at an end. He therefore orders a fresh copy of the conventional report he has made so many times before, to be made. It only differs in the matter of the date, and the figures of the killed and wounded, and the place at which the disaster took place. He sheds the same number of crocodile tears as he did on the previous occasion, and takes his directorship of one or more railway companies on his retirement from Government service (Italics mine.)

Think it over, fellow workers ; read it over yet again, and I have no doubt as to the result of your serious deliberations. During the processes of production and distribution thousands of men and women are hurled into premature graves in the greed for profits, while thousands of the wealth producers every year are maimed or become physical and mental wrecks as the result of the awful conditions under which they are compelled to labour for a bare existence. The capitalist class are only concerned with the acquisition of dividends, and are indifferent to the prodigious waste of human life that is ever resulting from their avarice. The writer hardly feels disposed to give the reader a further dose of the horrors of the ghastly struggle on the Continent ; but no more convincing evidence could be adduced to show the cold-blooded, murderous nature of the ruling class.

Not content with the systematic butchery of the workers in the “piping times of peace,” the master class, whenever their material interests are seriously threatened by their rival capitalists of another nation, do not hesitate to force the whole of the manhood of the toiling masses who are capable of shouldering a rifle and marching, into the armed forces to safeguard their interests and property. Many thousands will never return. As they die fighting King Capital’s battles they will be hurled unceremoniously into any hole as so much refuse, forgotten by their historic enemy—the ruling class.

Perhaps the reader would like to peruse the following, culled from the “Daily Chronicle,” 12.6.16.

“’Vorwaerts’ publishes an article headed ‘More than 700 Graveyards.’ The article refers to the battlefields of Galicia and to the efforts that are being made by the Austrian authorities to bring some order into the chaotic military burying places which lie scattered over almost the entire province. The writer reckons that between the town of Gorlice and the heights of Tarnovo no less than 419 graveyards have been cleared of their unsightly surroundings, and says that where possible natural beauties in the landscape have been utilised to lend dignity to the enormous cemeteries.

All along the Dunajec one proceeds from graveyard to graveyard thickly strewn over the entire countryside. Russians, Austrians, Germans, Hungarians, to the number of 40,000 are buried in the cared-for graveyards, a number which does not include, of course, those buried in masses in one grave. In West Galicia alone about 600 graveyards exist, and in other parts over 100. From the Dunajec eastwards the multitudinous graves of the Russians are seen stretching away into the eastern plains, an awful record of the death-grapple of last year.”

The reader will, of course, recognise that the same conditions apply with equal force to France, Belgium, and other areas where hostilities are in operation. The writer can almost hear the terrible shrieks of the Anti-Socialist in pre-war days: “Socialism will break up the home.” That agonised voice is strangely quiet while the homes of whole peoples are being laid in desolate ruin.

Need more be written ? We Socialists urge the workers to study their position in society, to understand the great and bloody struggle which exists between the capitalist class and the working class, and when they realise and understand these things, to join with us in the work of spreading the knowledge of the principles of Socialism, and organising our fellow-workers, consciously and politically, for the overthrow of the hideous capitalist system and its blood-soddened parasite class.

Only when capitalism is overthrown will society be able to free itself from the shackles that bind it, and men and women be able to lead a free, full, and joyous life.

C. F. Carter

The Menace of Aerial Warfare - Part 2 (1936)

From the August 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

Towards the end of the War we sat in our cellars and whispered after each bomb that dropped nearby, “Can you smell gas?” We didn’t know what it smelt like, but we sniffed apprehensively and hoped there would be no strange smell. What if we had smelt gas? We should have died like rats in a sewer. We should have been merely part of the dead incidental to war. And not even the useless consolation of a place on a Roll of Honour. The war-dead, whether they are civilians or civilian soldiers, are victims of a predatory anarchy, which exists between nations by virtue of the profit system. They are not even romantic victims. They die terror-stricken, in mud and filth. They crouch in holes, waiting for high-explosive and asphyxiating and excoriating gases to put a period to their lives. Their monument is an interim dividend.

What is the answer of capitalism to this? Aeroplanes, more aeroplanes, and yet more aeroplanes, with bombers in the ratio of two to one.

Let me give you another little picture, this time drawn by Major Endries, in his book, “Gift Gaskreig.” This is an English raid on the German manufacturing town of Dusseldorf: —

Light bombing squadrons arrive quickly in the darkness. They drop on the largest and most important factories, now working on night shift, bombs filled with white phosphorus. A torrent of inextinguishable flames overwhelm the buildings. Workmen attempt panic-stricken escapes to the cellars—the population, more panic-stricken, flies underground. The raiding party wireless to H.Q. “successful raid,” and calls for a second raiding party. These arrive with light gas bombs, spreading first an irritant gas that can pierce masks, followed by a second, stronger and more lethal gas, which kills the populace as they flee from underground cellars made uninhabitable by the first gas. Every two or three hours similar attacks are repeated on different parts of the town until everything is enveloped in flames, and clouds of poison gas mark the place where before hundreds of thousands of human beings lived and moved.

It has been suggested that an electric ray or system of electrical power projection might be used against hostile aircraft. Apart from widely scattered articles in the sensational press, there has been no evidence that such a ray or power projection is contemplated or possible, but presumably it would operate by interfering with the ignition, either magneto or coil, and—a remoter possibility—by exploding the fuel tank. It is a matter of fact, however, that intensive experiments have been in progress during the last few years with the application of the compression ignition engine (the Diesel) to aircraft, and the engine will be available for use in heavy aircraft within a matter of months. A ray of the type suggested would, therefore, be quite useless, since the Diesel has no electrical machinery to be affected, and the crude oil fuel is practically non-inflammable.

It is not difficult under a regime of unrestricted development to contemplate bomb and container designs which would release poison gas to dissipate uniformly in a low-lying cloud or death blanket not higher than our tallest buildings. But assume a blanket one hundred yards high, which gives a big margin of error, and we find that less than half a ton of chemical is sufficient to produce effective saturation over a square mile. Even if you multiply this by a thousand to allow largely for wind losses, barriers and higher concentrations, you are still far within the limits of practicable gas attack from the air.—“Scientific Disarmament,” Victor Lefebure.

Mustard gas, which, with Lewisite, is the gas best adapted for the destruction of civilian populations, is known technically as diclorethyl-sulphide. With Lewisite and chlorpicrin it is classified as a vesicant gas because it attacks not only the respiratory organs, but also the eyes, skin and surface tissue of the body. The mask, therefore, is not an efficient or a complete protection. Ordinary clothing will protect against mustard or Lewisite for two or three minutes, after which the gas, which is an easily vapourising liquid, penetrates to the skin. A complete suit of oilskin, so constructed as to be airtight, is a protection, but as such suits could not be worn for more than an hour or two without collapse, it is a matter of Hobson’s choice. As an emergency protection against low concentrations, motor grease smeared thickly on the exposed parts of the body, and especially between the fingers, in the elbow joints, and the parts of the head uncovered by the mask, is said to be effective. The manufacture of oilskin suits in useful quantities is impossible, and the cost would necessarily prohibit wide distribution among the class of people most in need of them—the workers.

Low concentrations of mustard do not kill if the respiratory organs are properly protected, although Lewisite, so far as effective concentration is concerned, is largely an unknown quantity. It causes painful lesions of the skin and tissue, and ulcers and sores, which may lead to prolonged invalidism. The ulcers may be gangrenous and, in the case of Lewisite, will, unless dealt with rapidly, be arsenically poisoned.

The injuries are very difficult of healing. A resultant tendency to despondency and lowering of morale in the patient is often seen. The combating of this must be made a special point in nursing these cases.—“First Aid in Defence Against Chemical Warfare” (Collins & Blackmore).

Both mustard and Lewisite are known as persistent gases, i.e., they persist in the place where dropped for periods varying between seven and fourteen days. The contaminated areas must be treated immediately with “ bleach ” (chloride of lime in powder form) if they are to be moderately safe for use. These gases also persist on the clothing of persons who have been in contact with them, and, if they entered a warm room or gas-shelter, unless their clothing was removed, they would injure the persons in the shelter. Mustard does not affect the skin immediately, the period of delay being from three to twenty-four hours. It is therefore quite possible for such persons to transmit the gas unknowingly for a considerable time. Used against disciplined troops, with proper respiratory protection, the proportion of deaths to casualties from mustard gas is very low, but it cannot be too greatly emphasised that the population of our large cities have not the necessary discipline and knowledge to protect itself.

On cold nights mustard is liable to lay in liquid form on the ground, becoming a dangerous vapour when the temperature rises in the morning.

Food contaminated by mustard gas is uneatable. Mustard burns are as painful inside as out— and fatal. It is certain that docks and wharves would be heavily bombed with mustard to contaminate essential food supplies.

Water is easily contaminated, and boiling is not a protection. To drink affected water might easily be fatal. Reservoirs are easily bombed, and cannot be covered, because water depends upon contact with air to keep it fresh.

Chloride of lime is an efficient neutralising agent, but it is doubtful (to say the least) if enough could be manufactured to supply the civilian population and the forces actively engaged, and since very large supplies of this chemical would be a tactical necessity for the armed forces, the amount available for civilian defence would be inadequate. It is not an exaggeration to say that adequate supplies of chloride of lime will be the deciding factor in any future European war. Lewisite has the definite disadvantage of being efficiently neutralised by water, large supplies of which are usually available. Mustard, on the other hand, can be used to infect large areas for several days, and during this time no troops could use the areas in question. To gain contact with the opposing forces it would be necessary to make “neutral” lanes through the gas by spreading large quantities of chloride of lime.

The most usual type of mustard gas bomb weighs 50 lbs. and contaminates about 600 square yards; the average load of a bombing aeroplane would, therefore, be 90 bombs capable of infecting an area of 54,000 square yards. In practice, of course, there would be a great deal of overlapping, and the figure given cannot be regarded as accurate. Even if we reduce the area by 50 per cent., however, we are left with 27,000 square yards, or 15 square miles, and, although the population of such an area would not necessarily be killed in its entirety, the total of fatal and non-fatal casualties would be extremely high, and it would be dangerous in the extreme for the survivors to move until the gas had been neutralised. There is, too, the additional problem of dealing with injured persons, which, at the present time, seems impossible of solution.

When, during the late War, it was proposed to use mustard gas in shells, it was discovered that the use of liquid presented serious problems in ballistics, which had to be overcome before it could be used. Although these technical difficulties were overcome, gas shells will always remain complicated and expensive things to make. The gas bomb, on the other hand, is not fired by percussion, but dropped. The difficulty, therefore, does not arise. A certain amount of streamlining is used for greater accuracy, but, quite apart from the fact that a gas bomb does not require to be very accurate, even petrol-tins filled with liquid gas and dropped, almost without discrimination, would be effective.

The practice of spraying gas from containers has not yet been used against civilians, but, given reasonable weather conditions, there is no reason why it should not be effective.

It is improbable that gases of the phosgene type would be used against large centres of population, chiefly because mustard is much more effective, easier to handle and as cheap to manufacture. A large distribution of masks capable of protecting the respiratory organs, the provision of gas-shelters arid the efficient gas-proofing of rooms (a comparatively easy job) in the better-built private houses, would provide adequate protection against this gas, which is deadly enough in its effects upon the unprotected, but non-persistent and relatively easy to keep out. Stemutator gases, to stampede the people, might be used, but to assume that the enemy in time of war (whoever the enemy might be) would wish to stampede the people when they could kill them as quickly and easily is a little naive.

It seems clear, then, that we shall have to deal almost entirely with the vesicant gases, high-explosive, thermit and possibly bacteria, and I therefore proceed to a consideration of these three last factors, which, in the anxiety to provide against the major threat of gas, are too often overlooked.

High-Explosive, Thermit and Bacteria

High-explosive is chiefly valuable in air attack for cutting essential connections, such as light, power, gas, water and drainage, in the spreading of general panic by reason of the violence of its effects, and in the destruction of shelters.

There has been great development in the destructive power of high explosive since 1918, and also in the technique of its use.

As an example, the time-delayed bomb may be considered. This bomb explodes between four and 36 hours after it has been dropped, the time of explosion being under full control. In regard to this weapon, the report of the German Red Cross in 1928 to the 13th International Red Cross Conference says: —

It is obvious that all rescue and protective measures would be practically useless if such a bomb exploded in a town after several hours or days. Even the best organised rescue services could scarcely be brought into action under such conditions, and such a step would really mean useless sacrifice.

High-explosive bombs used in aeroplane attacks on London during the last War weighed about 30 lbs. Airship bombs were somewhat larger. Bombs at that time were sufficiently “delayed" to explode after passing through two or three storeys, and could destroy a large house.

It is now possible to construct bombs carrying upwards of a ton of explosive.

In the section dealing with protection I quote some figures given by General Von Haeften, and there is no reason to regard them as exaggerated. Explosive is much more dangerous and destructive than it was twenty years ago.

Thermit has not yet been used against civilians. Its use in times of peace is for welding iron and steel, particularly under-water welding, It can produce a fire-centre of 3,000 degrees Centigrade— above the melting temperature of steel. There is-no method of extinguishing it.

Thermit is a mixture of magnetic iron oxide and aluminium powder, and it can be used equally well in shells or bombs. Thermit bombs weigh approximately 2 lbs., and each bomb is capable of starting a fire centre. Aeroplanes can carry large numbers of these bombs, and it would be a simple matter to start several hundred fires, which might or might not be serious, within the space of an hour or so.

The London Fire Brigade quite recently required most of its personnel and equipment, and the assistance of several fire-floats, to put out a wharf fire, and spent five days doing it. They could not even start to mitigate. the effects of several hundred fires springing up in rapid succession.

The question of the use of bacteria is one that has often been written round, but never seriously examined, in the public Press. This is probably because the effect of this type of warfare is largely incalculable.

It has been rumoured that, at the close of the last War, preparations had been made in several countries to use bacteria, and, in particular, that glanders cultures were discovered in a German embassy for the avowed purpose of infecting Rumanian cavalry horses. Rumour, of course, is proverbially the lying jade, but the technical resources of the time permitted it, and war, after all, is the art of inflicting the maximum of destruction upon the enemy with the minimum of damage to oneself. It would be absurd to expect any considerations of humanity or ethics to temper the tortuous workings of the military mind. The recent bombing of Red Cross units in Abyssinia was quite predictable. It is merely the military mind running true to type.

L. G. Savage

(To be continued.)

Blogger's Note:

The October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard carried the following correction in connection with this particular article.

Mr. L. G. Savage, the writer of this series of articles, asks us to point out that the instalment which appeared in the August issue contained two errors. In column one, page 123, last paragraph, "magnetic or coil" should read "magneto or coil."

The figures in the last paragraph, column one, page 124, are incorrect. 27,000 square yards is not 15 square miles, but only a small part of a square mile. It will be observed, however, that 27,000 square yards is the area likely to be contaminated by liquid mustard gas, and bears no relation to the area likely to be affected by gas in vapour form.

Ed. Comm.

Remember Hiroshima? (1965)

From the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the aircraft carrying the atomic bomb appeared above Hiroshima early in the morning of 6lh August 1945, the people of the city were not especially alarmed.

They assumed that it was the reconnaissance ‘plane which every day reported on the weather over a nearby lake, used as a rendezvous point by the American bombers. For months, the B-29’s had been hammering at one Japanese city after another; in August 1945 there were only two of any importance which had not suffered a heavy raid. One of these was Hiroshima.

Uneasily, the city was organising its defences. Every home was required to have a concrete water tank readily accessible for fire-fighting. Many houses were being torn down to make fire breaks. But the Super-Fortresses kept roaring past to the lake, and swung away to other targets. The people of Hiroshima became convinced that the Americans were saving something especially horrible for them.

All these fears came to a head, at eight-fifteen that morning, when the bomb flashed in the sky and the blast roared down and out and eighty thousand human beings died in a way which nobody had ever known before. More than four square miles of Hiroshima was destroyed; within a year the death roll had reached one hundred and forty thousand.

The effects of the bomb were gruesomely strange, and this gave rise to panic rumours about what had happened. Some people said the Americans had sprayed petrol over the city and set light to it. Others thought that a cloud of magnesium had been dropped, and ignited by high tension wires. Unfamiliar and menacing things were happening to the survivors of the bomb. Their hair fell out, their gums bled, trifling cuts stayed open and festered for weeks. Pregnant women suffered miscarriages and premature births; countless babies were born dead. People who had no visible injuries or burns quietly and simply died. And as if in mockery at this, weeds and wild flowers of all sorts flourished under the bomb’s rays and grew in profusion over the wreckage of the city.

President Truman announced that the weapon he had launched against Hiroshima had “. . . more power than twenty thousand tons of T.N.T. . . . more than two thousand times the blast power of the British Grand Slam, which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.” Although the people who were dying and suffering at Hiroshima did not appreciate it, history had been made at their expense.

In the United States, the New Yorker added its own little bit of history by devoting its entire edition, for the first time in its life, to a single feature. This was a report by John Hersey on the experiences of six people…..a German Catholic priest, an office girl, a Protestant Minister, two doctors and a windowed housewife—who had lived through the destruction of Hiroshima. Hersey’s story was immediately famous, and in November 1946 it was published in this country as a shilling Penguin (Hiroshima, by John Hersey—Penguin Books).

Here was the reality behind the politicians’ statements and the statisticians’ tables and the scientists’ measurements. These people had been crushed and wounded and frightened by the bomb. They had seen inexpressible horrors. Hersey told their story with restraint and sympathy, leaving the enormity of Hiroshima to speak for itself. Only once did he stand in judgement, and that was when he was telling what happened to the office girl when the bomb went off:

“. . . the bookcases right behind her swooped forward and the contents threw her down, with her left leg horribly twisted and breaking underneath her. There, in the tin factory, in the first moment of the atomic age, a human being was crushed by books.”

For the rest, the tragedy of Hiroshima is laid out in clean and compassionate English. All the horror is there, in the description of the wounded peoples’ macabre procession into the Red Cross Hospital:

“Dr. Sasaki worked without method, taking those who were nearest him first, and he noticed soon that the corridor seemed to be getting more and more crowded . . . Before long, patients lay and crouched on the floors of the wards and the laboratories and all the other rooms, and in the corridors, and on the stairs, and in the front hall, and under the portecochere, and on the front stone steps, and in the driveway and courtyard, and for blocks each way in the streets outside. . . . Dr. Sasaki lost all sense of profession and stopped working as a skilful surgeon and a sympathetic man; he became an automaton, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding.”

The twenty years which have gone by since that nightmare have been full of the lies and evasions of the official propaganda machines. The allied governments excused Hiroshima on the grounds that there was no other quick way of ending the war. They have never successfully explained why it was necessary to show the bomb’s power on a virtually undamaged city, when there were plenty of other places where it could have been demonstrated without killing over a hundred thousand people.

Then they fed us with the deterrent theory, which began with the argument (remember?) that so long as the United States was the only power to have the secret of the Bomb no other country would dare to start a war. The other capitalist powers, however, did not see it in this light; many of them said that the best way to preserve peace was for them also to have the Bomb and so restore the balance of power in the world. And while they have been arguing, and while the disarmament conferences have been droning on, and while the official lies have been flowing out, nuclear weapons have spread and become more powerful. If one of today’s hydrogen bombs had been used at Hiroshima, none of Hersey’s six people would have lived to tell their stories; they would all have been well inside the first fireball.

The important question now is what effect the establishment of nuclear armaments has had on the world. There is no evidence that the six people of Hiroshima, among the luckiest alive, learned anything from their experiences. The widow, for example, descended into destitution, and placidly accepted it. The office girl relapsed into bewildered despair. The priest had his own consolations:

“If your God is so good and kind, how can he let people suffer like this?” She made a gesture which took in her shrunken leg, the other patients in her room, and Hiroshima as a whole.

“My child, Father Kleinsorge said, “man is not now in the condition God intended. He has fallen from grace through sin.”

And of course there were always the delusions of blind patriotism:

“. . . I never heard anyone cry in disorder, even though they suffered in great agony. They died in silence, with no grudge, setting their teeth to bear it. All for the country!”

This was not unusual. In every city and in every land, in 1945 the war-weary working people could see no reason to abandon their support of the social system which had brought them to atomic warfare. All over the world, capitalism ruled on. Eventually there came the anti-nuclear movement, but that was a protest not against capitalism, nor even against war, but against a particular method of waging war. The nuclear disarmers were no different from the other movements which have protested against capitalism’s problems without understanding why they exist.

The atomic bomb was a refinement of the high explosive bombs—like the Grand Slam—which were becoming increasingly cumbersome, because the only way of stepping up their destructive power was to increase their size. High explosive bombs were an extension of the artillery shell, which in turn was a development from small arms fire. The refinement and the increase in the power of armaments is a continuous process, spurred on by, and inseparable from, the ever-present possibility of war.

All the time, the powers of capitalism are in conflict—over the right to exploit the places where they can sell goods and over access to the places where they can find the raw materials to make the goods. Singly or in alliance, they dispute over oil, tin, rubber—which means that they dispute over the Middle East. Malaya, the Congo. They dispute over trade routes and the ports and bases which serve and protect them—which means over Suez, Cyprus, Gibraltar. Here is the basic reason for armed forces, for the arms race and for the build up in weapons which now holds the possibility of a future too terrible to imagine.

It is time now to remember Hiroshima, but not in protest against the Bomb, nor against the men who made it or who dropped it, nor even against the men who sanctioned its use. The only effective protest is against capitalism, against the social order whose conflicts have brought us to the stage where human society can almost wipe itself out. Remember, then, Hiroshima—but not as a beginning nor as an end, only as an incident in a terrible story.

Ivan

Editorial: Atrocious Argument. (1917)

Editorial from the August 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those German atrocities ! The last raid on London gave opportunity for an almost unprecedented flood of feeling, mostly cant. It is not the agony of the parents who have lost little ones, the wives who have lost husbands, the husbands whose mates have been cruelly butchered, the mutilated remnants moaning in the hospitals, that finds expression in the horrified Press. No. They are horrified to order, and with a set purpose, and that purpose is not to deter the Ge­rmans from making such raids, but simply to inflame popular feeling against the “enemy.”

Those who want the war, and shout for it, and shove other people into it, and exhibit so much aptitude for bloodshed in the smashing up of pacifist meetings as one would hardly expect to find outside the trenches or the House of Commons, try to blind themselves to the true facts of the case. War is a serious business—a much more serious business than one would imagine from a perusal of the report of the Mesopotamia muddle. People wilfully entering upon war, in order to take that calm view of it that is essential to its prosecution to the “last man and the last shilling,” should themselves be above military age, or at least sure of a staff job, well behind the firing line, and not too adjacent to the miseries of the trenches—and they mostly are. But having embarked on war; having consented to this most serious business in life, having adventured thousands, and perhaps millions, of human lives in the trial by brute strength, it is folly to talk of putting any limit on the appeal to brute strength. Such talk is usually mere cant and humbug, and where it is not it arises from a boss-eyed sort of view of things.

Much has been made of the fact that women and children have been numbered among the victims of the German air raids. But it is no worse to kill a woman or a child than it is to kill a man, notwithstanding all the sloppy nonsense that has been written on the subject. As a matter of fact the mental torture of a man dying in consciousness is probably far greater than that of a child similarly placed, while as for women, the fact that they find themselves brought within the range of actual hostilities may help them to realise their responsibility for the war—and it is not a little.

A harsh judgment this may seem to be, but then every phase of war must be judged by harsh standards, and the only ones who have any grounds for complaint are those who are opposed to the conflict, or at all events are no consenting parties to it.

It is stated that the Germans can have no military object in these raids, but this is sheer rubbish. They may have several perfectly legitimate military objects. In the first place there is the popular clamour for protection. This, of course, cannot be ignored, but it admittedly can only be satisfied by weakening the striking forces on the British front. Those living a few miles out on the Eastern side of the metropolis may from their own observation gather some idea of the effectiveness of the raids in this particular.

It is also common knowledge that there are in and about London numerous munition works even the temporary disturbance of which, to say nothing of a lucky hit with a bomb or two, is a distinct advantage to the Germans, while it was openly stated in the Press a few days back that the wrecking of the War Office might be a bigger disaster to the Allied cause than the loss of an army corps. And finally, if only the Hun airmen could find the House of Commons with a fat bomb, dropped plump through one of the ventilators onto the table while Lloyd George stood there with his mouth open ! Ah, if only they could !