The Menace of Aerial Warfare - Part 3 (1936)

From the September 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

In 1923 the League of Nations arranged for an authoritative investigation of the possibilities of bacteriological warfare. The result of the investigation is summed up in Victor Lefebure's “Scientific Disarmament."

Open the book at page 215 and skim the pages which follow: —

. . . they referred to the use of cultures of cholera and typhus, mainly by infecting water supplies. Professor Pfeiffer, although pointing out the obstacles in the way of successful use by infecting the supplies of larger towns, stated, “There are, no doubt, other possibilities. Infectious germs might, for instance, be thrown from aircraft direct into pure water reservoirs. In such a case filtration would be ineffectual.” He refers to the possibility of inoculation, but goes on, “An epidemic whose very name recalls the horrors and devastations which it caused in former centuries, and which is, therefore, particularly likely to spread terror and dismay, is the human plague. The most likely way of spreading an epidemic of plague would, no doubt, be the scattering of plague-infected rats, which might very easily be achieved with the help of aircraft. In this way an epidemic of bubonic plague might almost certainly be brought about in the trenches, which in any case are alive with rats; in the interior of the enemy country, also, the dissemination of plague germs on a large scale would be possible, resulting undoubtedly in the formation of centres of infection. . . Professor Pfeiffer also deals with artificial infection of projectiles with . . . anthrax, glanders and perhaps rabies. . . . Professor Cannon comments on crop attack. . . . Professor Madsden gives a balanced view of the possibilities as to the present and the future. . . . The means which bacteriology possesses in its present state of development would certainly suffice to give rise to epidemics of greater or lesser extent; airmen or persons with a knowledge of the topography of localities might infect the central sources of the water or milk supply of a big city, and thereby propagate epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera or other intestinal diseases. Epidemics of this nature might even be fairly serious.

Major Lefebure continues to point out that, although Professor Madsden and some others believe that epidemics could be got under control without much damage being done, they obviously are not taking into full account the special circumstances of war and the fact that diseases would be propagated on a far larger scale than is usual under peace conditions.

He says, quite rightly: —

Now if an attack of this nature were to be made producing hundreds of thousands of casualties requiring (special) treatment quickly, it would take us far and away outside our normal medical facilities both as to appliances and personnel. (The word (special) here replaces a phrase of the same meaning to reduce the necessary quotation to a minimum. L.G.S.).

In addition, resistance to a particular disease is not nearly so high if the population is not exposed to the bacteria of the disease in normal life. It would, therefore, be very unsafe to prophesy the possible rate at which an epidemic of (say) Bubonic plague would spread, since Europeans have not been exposed to this bacteria for several hundred years.

The position at the present time cannot be calculated, but I think it cannot be denied that bacteriological warfare is an additional menace to the security of civilian populations as well as to combatants. Its possibilities we shall learn if we experiment, although the value of such an experiment is yet to be established, but it is certain that expert opinion is firmly convinced that, be the damage great or small, bacteria are definitely an addition to the armoury of destructive weapons.

The quotations I have used were taken from a report made in 1923—it is now 1936.

Protection

There is, and can be, no possible protection whatever for civilian populations against chemical warfare from the air—(Major-Gen. Jackson, ex- Assistant Director, War Office).

There is no protection for the civilian against aerial attack.

Nowhere must this be better realised than in Government circles which have access to knowledge denied to the general public, and the services of experts in all departments of warfare and technology.

They suggest, as a precaution, that the people be instructed in methods of protection, when they know quite well that there are none.

The very best that can be done is to arrange and organise essential services, such as power-stations, fire brigades and doctors, so that they can function and perhaps relieve some part of the suffering with a minimum of interference. That this much is possible, if only gas be considered, is admitted, but high-explosive, thermit and the inevitable stampede of the people, we have not even begun to take into account.

The Government plans decontaminating centres, i.e., receiving stations where the injured can be medically treated and have their dangerous clothing destroyed or made safe for use. It plans to make respirators available for the essential services, and, possibly, a modified form of mask for the civilian population which would afford partial or temporary protection for the lungs, the assumption being, presumably, that this latter type would be used as a subsidiary protection.

The cost of an efficient respirator at the moment is about £4, but mass production would probably result in a considerable drop in price—to (say) 30s. if the manufacture was unsubsidised. Taking war-time production as a basis for calculation, about six months would be required to manufacture 10,000,000 masks. This does not take into account the special needs of young children or aged persons, for whom respiratory protection is a very difficult matter. It has been suggested that very small children might be placed in a sack of some gas-proof material, the air to be supplied by a pump through a filter, but the efficacy of the idea is doubtful, and no useful suggestions have yet been made to overcome the fact that a gassed or injured parent would be unable to continue pumping. Presumably, too, it would be necessary to anaesthetise the child before inserting it into the sack. Otherwise it would probably act in the same way as a cat in a bag—struggle furiously to get out.

To the suggestion of gas-shelters I oppose the following facts and figures. If bomb- and gas-proof shelters could be constructed to house (say) 500 people, and such large shelters present a considerable engineering problem, about 10,000 would be required as a minimum to house the population of London in immediate danger.

These shelters, which at present exist on paper and in the minds of optimistic speculators, would take months, if not years, to build. They would need a reinforced concrete roof 13 feet thick, or to be sunk to a depth of 80 feet underground to provide reasonable safety from high-explosive. The walls, if the shelter was built above ground, would need to be strong enough to carry the roof and to withstand the shock of high-explosive on the roof or the side-thrust on the walls if it dropped in the immediate vicinity. Such shelters would have to be constructed to admit no air whatsoever except through special filters. Apart from the fact that no device is known that will go on filtering indefinitely, and, therefore, if intensive attacks were carried out over a period of several days the filters would probably release the gas in ever-growing quantities into the chamber, the smallest crack in the structure would admit air directly from outside and make the filters useless.

Chimneys could be used to draw pure air from above the gas-cloud, but to be reasonably safe they would have to be constructed to a height of at least 150 feet—an excellent target for high-explosive. The following facts should demolish any arguments in favour of chimneys: —

A 500/1,000 kg. explosive bomb can demolish a whole block of houses, even if it only explodes in the vicinity.

A 100/200 kg. explosive bomb can destroy a house of several stories.

A 50 kg. explosive bomb can cause serious damage.

(General Von Haeften.)

The chimney that could withstand the explosive force of a 100-200 kg. bomb planted reasonably near the base cannot be built.

Water would be a serious problem since mustard gas, in particular, sinks to the bottom of reservoirs and renders water drawn from such a source undrinkable.

Food supplies would have to be rigorously protected from mustard and lewisite, and as attacks on docks and wharves with high-explosive, thermit and mustard gas would be an enemy's certain course of action, it is difficult to see how it could be done.

If an air-raid on London was signalled, the city would be plunged into total darkness. At the same time the public would be told of the impending raid in some way or another, and, human nature being what it is, would attempt to evacuate the city. Almost the whole of London’s private car traffic would be thrown, in pitch darkness, on to roads already incapable of providing for normal traffic. Buses would leave their routes and head for open country. People would make for the country on foot, by cycle, lorry or any kind of transport they could commandeer. The rate of evacuation would not, perhaps, be very great until the raid commenced, but when the dead and wounded and fires springing up in every direction became an actuality, then it cannot be doubted that something {in the nature of a stampede would commence. Necessarily, thousands would be killed in the raid, but the problem would take on its most serious aspects when the question of food, shelter and sanitary arrangements for several million panic-stricken people became of urgent importance. It is more than possible that famine and epidemic diseases would have to be dealt with.

If it is thought that I exaggerate possibilities, here are the words of the military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph: —

It has been suggested that in the event of severe air attacks, 40 per cent. of London's population would leave the city within the first 48 hours, and 80 per cent. within the week. Such an estimate may be exaggerated, but it is, nevertheless, essential to consider ways of controlling any such mass evacuation and of feeding and housing refugees. 

Gerald Heard has expressed much the same opinion recently, and from occasional items of news it is permissible to assume that the Government are awake to this probability.

Even if efficient gas-shelters were in existence, it is mere likely than not that their protective capacity would be doubted and an evacuation take place on nearly as large a scale.

The imagination refuses to function except in vague generalisation. To fill in details would be beyond its scope.

For man, woman or child there is no sure protection.

Summary

War would inevitably lead to destructive air attacks on the cities, not only of England, but of all belligerent countries, with effects very much as I have described.

Modern warfare is, above all, a battle of productive capacity, and a necessary condition of the factory operative being able to function is that he shall be reasonably free from attack. It is therefore very much to a country’s advantage to harry its enemy’s centres of production and distribution.

It is more than possible that, after simultaneous raids on the capital cities of all the belligerents, the effects would be so grave that an immediate armistice would be sought by ail parties. The vulnerable spots in any country are its great centres of population and production, but without such centres it is impossible to wage war on a modem scale with modern weapons, and, in spite of opinions to the contrary, there can be little doubt that the full possibilities of unrestricted warfare in Europe are well-known to all European Governments and military experts. The present spectacle qf elderly statesmen trying to adapt the diplomacy of Metternich, the Napoleonic wars and the fin-de-siecle to modern conditions, would be amusing if it did not carry within itself the germs of gigantic tragedy.

We may observe the fear in action in the bluff and counter-bluff that has characterised the dispute between Italy and England. There is no doubt that Italy's action threatened British capitalists' African and Imperial interests, and, in pre-war days, strong military action would have been taken at the commencement of the dispute. Now the case is altered. By using the League of Nations to declare an economic siege against Italy, Britain hoped to protect its interests without resorting to that unknown quantity—war. Mussolini had already made tentative arrangements to evacuate Naples, but it is doubtful if his advisers would have allowed him to declare war.

It would be a very bold speculator indeed who would dare to predict the future, but the possibility of war will be more remote when its dangers are more widely realised.

L. G. Savage

[Concluded.]

New Leagues for Old (1945)

From the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The only political organisation in this country to consistently hold and propagate the view, during the peace interval 1919-1939, that the League of Nations would inevitably fail in its professed purpose ot preventing war was the S.P.G.B. We knew that peace would not come merely from the setting up of “right” machinery, nor would war come because we may lack this machinery. We knew that, given the capitalist system, with the competitive struggle for markets and its conflicts over spheres of influence, etc., war was inevitable. As a result of our analysis we did not welcome the League in an exultant mood—our attitude was sceptical. We asked this question : —

“Is this pact an admission that the League is a mere phantasm, a spineless, parchment entity which can have no power or influence in the real world—the world of strife for economic interests?” (Socialist Standard, July, 1919.)

The question posed by us was answered during the next twenty years. Workers, however, did not question the League as we did; they took an opposite view. They believed in the League and its work, and they supported parties that “stood by the League.” Thousands of sincere and earnest workers devoted their time and energy building up the organisation which they thought would help to establish peace. Probably the supreme effort of the League of Nations Union was the organisation of the Peace Ballot in 1935. 12,000,000 voting papers were issued and over 11,500,000 people voted on the questions asked. One of the questions was: “Do you consider that if a nation insists on attacking another, the other nations should combine to compel it to stop by, if necessary, military measures?” 6,784,368 voted in favour of military measures and 2,351,981 voted against. Most of the remainder abstained. Our masters were, however, not disturbed. Fifteen years of “peace” talk from the League had brought this result—that given certain conditions a majority of the workers were willing to fight. When the story of the Ballot was written, Viscount Cecil added a chapter in which he said:—

“Nor must we forget that a second object of the Ballot was to convey to foreign countries the assurance that the British people stood firmly behind the League . . .  in recent years too many people have been ready to suggest that, contrary to the best traditions of their history, the British people would not be ready to fulfil their obligations under the covenant; that they would never be ready to risk their money, and less their lives, in the repression of lawless breaches of international peace. It is satisfactory to know that there is no justification for such a slander on our people. By immense majorities they have declared themselves ready to restrain an aggressor by economic action and, with more reluctance and by smaller but still important majorities, to follow this up, if necessary, by military measures.” (“The Peace Ballot,” page 62. Gollancz.)

The way was now clear to ruling-class representatives. They had useful information to guide them. War under the auspices of the League would gain the support of the working class. Few politicians failed in their week-end “perorations” for peace to speak strongly in favour of collective security and the League. But our rulers were not alone in speaking like this; the Labour leaders excelled at it. At week-end meetings, divisional meetings and conferences workers were told that it was essential that we stood by our “obligations under the covenant.” They who for years had advocated disarmament were now demanding strong action by the League (action which obviously required arms), claiming that this was the way to ensure peace. So belligerent did Labour leaders become that Miss Ellen Wilkinson was moved to remonstrate:—

“Is the Labour Party leadership trying to commit the Party to suicide? Must they always make the same kind of mistakes? For ten years they have been the head and front of the peace and disarmament movement. In the eleventh hour they clamour for sanctions that if meant seriously will lead to war. . . . There are even innocents who imagine that we can close the Suez Canal without an immediate state of war ! British Labour leaders have been trapped by cleverer men than themselves into sharing responsibility for a possible war, in the conduct and on the terms of settlement of which they in all likelihood will have no say whatever.“ (The Plebs, October, 1935.) .

The flood of pro-League and anti-aggressor propaganda could have but one ending. When it was considered necessary war was declared on Germany.

The League had failed to prevent war. Workers who had toiled hard for the League, imagining that it was an answer to international conflicts, had toiled in vain. The prize of peace was not theirs—the prize of working-class support for war was their masters’. The League had fulfilled that purpose. Thus were we justified in the view we had held for twenty years.

Now the League is starting again, only with a different name. The “peace-loving” nations have held a conference at Dumbarton Oaks and issued various proposals for a new organisation, the “United Nations Organistion.” Should this unity break, they want disputes between adherent members to be settled amicably. It is intended to have a “serviceable set of teeth” to deal with recalcitrant or aggressor nations, it is to have a Military Staff Committee, a sort of United Nations General Staff. Its armed strength is to be contributed by the various members. Will the British ruling class hand over the Navy ? In the old League any member charged as an aggressor was not allowed to vote on the matter in dispute; Russia proposes that such member should have this right. The Economist was right when it described it as a blood-brother to the old League. What are the chances of this League succeeding where the last League failed?

First, will the war end with the causes that gave rise to the war being swept away ? Recently Turkey became a “benevolent collaborator” of the British Empire. This prompted Mr. Hore-Belisha, M.P., to write a short survey of Turkish history showing the importance of the Dardanelles and Constantinople to the British Empire. He mentioned how in 1878 Britain agreed to defend the Asiatic dominions of the Turkish Sultan by force of arms because they feared the proximity of Russia to Constantinople. He also pointed out that as the Straits of Dardanelles are as vital an interest to-day as a hundred years ago, they must be kept in friendly hands. (News of the World, August 6th, 1944.) Two months later, when Greece was invaded by the Allied forces, Belisha stressed that just as Britain, as an island, had to prevent the domination of the Low Countries, so was it necessary, as an Empire, to prevent the domination of Greece. (News of the World, October 15th, 1944.) (He did not show how these matters are vital to the working class in these affairs, so “vital” to British interest, the working class is neither considered nor consulted.)

What will happen should Russia become an “aggressor” in these parts? Who will settle the disputes then? Does anyone imagine that the British ruling class will allow such matters to be settled outside their jurisdiction? Will they await an “impartial” and perhaps unfavourable verdict from other capitalist powers ? Also, who will settle the present dispute between the Russian and the Polish rulers? So we could continue enumerating the problems that the League may and will have to face, but “enough is a feast,” so we will leave them the task. The problems still remain because the causes of war are not removed. When the capitalists are faced with threats to their interests they will not stop to consider the “rights” or “justice” of the case. They will not forfeit their “right” to act in their own interests. They will move to defend these, “with the League or against the League.” As a force for peace this new organisation promises to be as innocuous as the old.

It has been said that we must see that the new organisation has “a serviceable set of teeth.” We want workers to get their teeth into the problem. What is to be their attitude ? Let them ask themselves this question : Is the next twenty years to be a mere interval between wars? We will answer, “Yes, unless workers show a considerable advance in Socialist understanding.” Capitalist Leagues and organisations exist to maintain that which now exists—capitalism. Those who help to maintain capitalism are helping to maintain a “cellarful of explosives.” Has the Labour Party any alternative to this prospect? During a debate on foreign affairs, Mr. A. Greenwood stated, “We yield to none in our admiration of the British Commonwealth and Empire.” (Official report, House of Commons, 25.5.44.) If in the future areas in close proximity to Empire bases or routes are attacked, the Labour Party will join in the struggle to defend those areas.

Socialists alone have an alternative. It is not sufficient to work simply for peace. Our task is to work for a new social order where, because articles will be produced solely for use, conflicts such as those we are now witnessing will become things of the past. Not new Leagues for old, but Socialism is the solution.

Lew Jones

The Passing Show: Bare-faced Cheek (1960)

The Passing Show Column from the October 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bare-faced Cheek

No one could accuse the world's ruling classes of consistency. The ruling class of each country is devoted to one thing, and to one thing only—the preservation of its power. Our rulers love to proclaim their attachment to high-sounding and immutable principles—but if their interests demand it, they will change their tune overnight. Recently there have been enough somersaults performed by prominent politicians to make an acrobat green with envy.

Here are some instances which occurred recently within a space of two days.

Principles v, Royalties

The ruling class of Morocco gained its independence from France some years ago. In its struggle it reiterated the right of every people to independence, the iniquity of one country holding another in subjection, and so on. More recently another former French colony in northwest Africa, Mauritania, became self-governing within the French Community. It has now decided to declare itself independent in November. One would think that the Moroccan ruling class would welcome this new step by the ruling class of Mauritania—the Mauritanians are only doing what the Moroccans have already done, and are acting on the very principles upheld by Morocco during its struggle with France. But not a bit of it! The Moroccan Government is breathing fire at the news. It has banned a Moroccan newspaper which supported Mauritanian independence, and has threatened to go to the United Nations. For the Moroccan rulers claim that Mauritania is really part of Greater Morocco. The Moroccan Government, which denounced France for wanting to hold on to its empire, is now planning an empire of its own. This despite the fact that Morocco and Mauritania have not even got a common frontier: Morocco would have to take over part of Algeria to give it access to its new province.

Why are the Moroccan rulers so eager to get their hands on Mauritania, even though they have to eat so many of their own words in the process? It's simple. Large and very rich iron ore deposits have been found in Mauritania, and the mining of them is about to begin by the Miferma company. The royalties payable on the ore are a prize worth trying for. And what does the Moroccan ruling class care about principles, when they see a chance of rich profits from the Mauritanian iron ore?

Terrorism

Another recently independent Mediterranean state has also given an example of inconsistency. Cyprus is now self-governing: the Cypriot ruling class has taken over, having ousted the British. The Cypriot leader in this struggle was Makarios. now President of the Cyprus Republic. The struggle was carried on by terrorism, which is the name now given by a ruling class to any kind of armed internal opposition to its rule. This terrorism, which forced the British to relinquish the island, was led personally by Grivas, Makarios's close ally in the struggle. But Makarios, having won his battle through terrorism, has now turned against it. He recently appealed for all guns and ammunition to be handed in to the authorities, and said: "I am not prepared to tolerate any kind of terrorism.” Terrorism having made him President of Cyprus, Makarios no doubt now sees that he had better deny any opponents of his the use of the same weapon.

Free competition

The American Government is worried about the high tariff wall with which the six European "Common Market” countries propose to surround themselves. The U.S. delegate to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade conference said recently (The Guardian, 2/9/60):

Whatever serves unduly to insulate the community market from the competition of world prices is out of harmony with our common GATT objective for the expansion of international trade.  . . .  The system will work to the serious detriment of the US and other third country suppliers — in fact, to the community itself. 

When it is to their advantage, the United States government supports “the competition of world prices.” But at home, it has a different policy. When big new projects are opened to tender, any foreign firm competing is handicapped from the start. Several British firms have recently found that although their tenders were the lowest for American projects, it was an American firm that got the contract. Which all goes to show that any capitalist country’s government must look after its own capitalists first. And in the process, as in this case, it must often speak with two voices—one for home and one for foreign consumption.

Mandates

Mr. Louw, the South African Foreign Minister, is concerned about the threat by stevedores and dockers in Tanganyika to boycott all South African goods. He protested to the British High Commissioner in South Africa that Britain, as the mandatory power, had obligations to ensure “freedom of transit and navigation and complete economic and commercial and industrial equality.”

For the South African government to quote the League of Nations mandate in support of its protest must have called for nerve of the highest order. For South Africa itself was given a mandate by the League of Nations — the mandate over what had been German South-West Africa. After the second world war it incorporated South-West Africa into its own territory. To all protests it replied that the League of Nations had ceased to exist, and that its mandates had ceased to exist with it. Therefore it no longer had any obligations to help the inhabitants of South-West Africa to self-government, and indeed was entitled to grab the whole country for itself. The question of South-West Africa has been raised over and over again in the United Nations, and on each occasion the South African government has denied absolutely that a League of Nations’ mandate could any longer have any validity. And now the South African government itself has appealed to a League of Nations’ mandate in support of its protest over Tanganyika!

It seems that to be a minister or a government spokesman in the modern world, the prime necessity is bare-faced cheek.

Alwyn Edgar

50 Years Ago: The Futile League of Nations (1974)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Garvin’s own summary may do him less than justice, but apparently there are but two things to be done to avert the threatened holocaust. First revise the Peace Treaties by peaceful means, and next enlarge the League of Nations by the inclusion of Germany and Russia, followed later by America. Is it possible that a man of education, and some width of outlook can fob his readers off with that stuff? Does he really believe it himself? Unfortunately there is no reason for doubting it. Mr. Garvin and those of his school look upon the present system of society as final, and for all useful purposes, eternal. Modification there may be, but fundamental change—no. Just as slavery was justified and defended in former times, even by men of culture and feeling, so wage-slavery under capitalism is justified and apologised for by those who profit by it. This attitude may result from a lack of imagination, but more probably from a comfortable feeling that the working class is a special dispensation of Providence, designed to do the necessary work of the world, in order that a smaller aristocratic class may cultivate the finer side of life.

With this view of human society it is not to be wondered at that the re-drawing of frontiers appears to them as epochal; that the stage-play of international leagues assumes a solemn profundity. When the working class realises its true position, it will view an arbitrary line drawn across a country as of equal validity with a chalk mark across the Atlantic. If Alsace were restored to Germany tomorrow, the Alsatian would still remain a peasant or a worker. If the Germans, Austrians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Tyrolese, etc., were all re-shuffled tomorrow, the workers of those areas would still remain workers. Differences of comfort or amenity, custom and language there might be, but working men would remain working men, and that is the essence of the matter. The Irish workers are finding out that a difference in political bosses is not such a vital matter as they once thought. Where capitalism is, there is wage-slavery, and the colour of the flag that floats over the factory makes no real difference to the worker. The great nations of the world are capitalist nations. The League of Nations can be nought else but a league of capitalists. 

(From an article "The Great War and the Greater Wars that are Coming", by W. T. Hopley, in the Socialist Standard October 1924.)

World Politics, 1904-1954: "Cities and thrones and powers" (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is difficult to parcel history. We place the feudal age between 500 and 1,500 A.D., and at once have to add there was chattel slavery after the beginning and capitalism before the end of it. When did modern European history begin? A dividing line has to be drawn, and sufficient reason found for it Most historians agree on the French Revolution as the convenient starting point: there is an intelligible, unbroken series of events that began in 1789. The Socialist Party was founded ten years before it reached its climax.

The outbreak of war in 1914 is often represented as a surprise—England on its August holidays, douched by the unforeseen. In fact, everyone knew it was coming. The Dual and Triple Alliances of the eighteen-nineties defined the position with painful clarity: the great European nations ranged in two hostile groups, each piling armaments and watching for advantage. Popular papers in Britain carried pictures of German militarism—stiff-legged marching regiments, the Kaiser in his spiked helmet —while Haldane reorganized the British army on German lines and France, Austria, Russia and Italy trained their conscript armies. No country could afford to fall behind: “You cannot when other nations are spending huge sums of money which are not merely weapons of defence but are equally weapons of attack,” said Lloyd George.

While the larger powers circled and feinted, the small ones were at one another's throats. Montenegro, Serbia, Novibazar, Albania—a dozen states in the Balkans with names that, twenty years later, ring of mustachios and musical comedy. Each of them was land-hungry and full of aggressive nationalism; all of them were caught in the struggle between Russia, Germany and Austria, for passage to the Mediterranean and the East.

Politically, it was a Machiavellian decade of plot and counter-plot—fundamentally, the seethings of a grand-scale eruption of imperialism and international competition. From 1870 onwards Germany had undergone a swift economic growth like that of Britain a hundred years before. Huge industrial combines emerged, trade multiplied, colonization started; shipping increased, and there was tariff protection against American and British goods. Britain had made its empire, held the markets and the sea routes; Germany was the rival, the strongest competitor. Many of the other European nations’ were still semi-feudal, but their growing commercialism (or that of their neighbours) drew them into the vortex.

The war changed the nature of European politics. Inevitably, it changed the map; its course included the Russian Revolution and the American entry to the arena. The relics of feudalism were swept away. While Russian aristocrats scurried across Europe for asylum, the Austro-Hungarian empire which had dominated central Europe was reduced to a small republic. The technical needs of twentieth-century warfare gave tremendous impetus to industry everywhere. And, at the end of the war, America was creditor to all Europe on a near-fantastic scale. Production for profit there had to be.

The Peace Treaties were shrewdly savage arbiters of the new balance of power. The principle that the beaten country must pay had been imposed by Germany on France in 1871; now it was imposed on Germany by France and Britain. The attitudes of the victorious nations differed, however. Britain had “raked in”— German ships, spheres of influence in the Middle East, spoils for the Dominions—and needed now a prosperous, buying-and-selling Germany; France's desire was for Germany stripped and subjugated. America withdrew politically but remained economically, bestriding the narrow, exhausted European world like a colossus.

By 1922 it was evident that, whatever had been intended at Versailles, German economic recovery had to be not merely allowed but encouraged. It is worth saying at this point, that the Socialist Party was not mistaken in its commentary before, during or after the war. The four years’ havoc was the inevitable climax to the commercial struggle which had spread and intensified for a hundred years. German militarism, which mostly took the blame, was simply the expression of a rapid, aggressive capitalist growth; given slight variations in nineteenth-century history, the enemy could as easily have been France or Russia. Many people in Britain were not patriots in the conventional sense but believed that to break German capitalism would bring jobs and prosperity. In the first wartime issue of the Standard facts and figures were quoted to prove them wrong, and wrong they were: mass unemployment began in 1920 and continued till 1939. The post-war world was shaped by capitalism, not by statesmen.

The steps to rehabilitate German economy were precipitated by the Germans’ attempt to evade astronomical debts by devaluing the mark. In a few months half a million marks were worth only a penny, and when the Germans reformed their currency the franc fell in turn. America, France and Britain, with scarcely an altruistic motive between them, collaborated to make Germany solvent and revive its industry. Five years' flourishing trade and high profits followed. They ended as abruptly as they began when the 1929 crash caused the withdrawal of American money from Germany and the collapse that paved the way for Hitler.

Meanwhile the “new civilization" was transforming Russia, and its votaries formed the Third International. The war had killed the second; its members, the social-democrats and the labour leaders' supported the conflict they had pledged themselves to oppose. The doctrine of capitalism’s impending collapse became a spearhead of “left-wing” political theory, seemingly given weight by the instability of finance, commerce and governments in Western Europe. The Russian Revolution’s effect on post-war world politics was mainly indirect, inspiring new ideologies and policies; the looked-for European uprising never came, and it was twenty years before Russia figured largely on the scene.

The peace treaty had set up the League of Nations, a permanent, elaborately-organized machine for conciliation and arbitration between nations. America was not a member, nor was Germany until 1926. Its Court of Intemational Justice at The Hague was to consider all quarrels between member-states; it sought reduction of armaments, above-board diplomacy, and co-operation between governments. There is a story that Abraham Lincoln, when his two little boys were in tears and a stranger asked the matter, answered: "Just what’s the matter with the whole world—I’ve got three apples and each wants two.” It was much the same for the League, except that "wanting two” was economic necessity and the other nations' reactions to disputes depended not on their ideals but on their interests. From 1925 onwards, every country was rearming. When the League disapproved, they left it.

The inter-war period has been called "the long weekend.” By the mid-thirties, Monday morning’s business was plain. After the depression, competition was fiercer than ever before. Cheap mass-produced goods from America and the East flooded across the tariff frontiers of Europe; the Lancashire mill girl stood in Japanese stockings and waved a Japanese Union Jack at the Coronation of George the Sixth. Italy, empire-hungry, flouted the League and attacked Abyssinia; Britain, with less fuss, annexed a hundred thousand square miles of Southern Arabia, breaking twenty-year-old pledges to the Arabs. Japan, too, lapsed from agreements with the western nations when driven by the same commercial interests to attack China. Pacts and treaties could mean little in the inescapable struggle for markets and empires.

The Spanish Civil War provided a bargaining counter for the European powers, and established anti-Nazism and anti-Fascism as positive political faiths for which the coming world war was to be fought. From early 1938, when Austria was seized, all eyes were on Nazi Germany. Needing still to expand, barred from movement to the west, the Germans went to Czechoslovakia, the most highly industrialized section of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. The hour seemed to have come. The British government, however, incompletely prepared for a European war and with little prospect of gain from it, delayed the outbreak.

Through 1939, frank preparations were made in every country. Japan, still attacking British interests in the East, was Germany’s ally. The signal for war was the Russo-German pact in August, and the invasion of Poland its swift consequence. The prevention of another power's dominating Europe was traditional, necessary foreign policy for Britain; Germany, still aggressive with success, had spread across the centre and the east and was within sight of the Rumanian oilfields and the way to the Mediterranean.

Russian imperialism showed its hand long before Russia entered the war; the hand was taken by Britain and America at the Yalta Conference in 1945, when the division of the post-war world was privately arranged. Russia was granted territory and spheres of influence in the Orient, and took them in Eastern Europe. Both coming late into the fighting, America and Russia tower in the war and its aftermath. The doctrine of the balance of power gave way to clear recognition of two great hostile camps of nations across the world, with convalescing Japan the unknown quantity and United Nations continuing the League of Nations’ losing struggle for world harmony.

The pattern of these fifty years, then, has been one of expansion; commercial expansion, and with it expansion in the conflicting political units. In 1904, Europe was the bone of contention for a crowd of scuffling puppy-nations. Today it is the world, contested by two great powers and their dependencies. The proposal of a federated Europe, first made in 1940, has been taken seriously since the war; national boundaries, so long considered an obstacle to Socialism, are being erased by capitalism.

Fifty years’ international strife. The Socialist Party has commented on but never entered it; it has opposed all wars because the working class can gain nothing from them, has been pilloried for saying so, and lived to see that it was right and the others wrong. World politics are capitalist politics: bluffings, courtship, threatenings and ultimately killings for markets, materials and communications. Not many people care much for the rights of small nations, but everybody cares for his interests in small nations. Men of goodwill and ill will have wrestled to control the consequences of competition; the truth is that they will continue as long as capitalism continues.

Robert Barltrop

Looking Back and Looking Forward (1940)

From the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the midst of the present titanic struggle in France and Belgium it appears to the majority of people that the past and the future are alike matters that can be left alone. Every energy, every thought, must, they say, be concentrated on the present; and with the impatience of those who are in the fight they are resentful that anyone should be concerned with past causes and future consequences. Socialists can appreciate the attitude of mind, for, we have felt similar impatience for years with the opponents of Socialism. For years the Socialist has had to put up with the apathy or wrongly directed zeal of the great majority. Before 1914, and right up to the outbreak of the present war, Socialists have been trying to get the workers of all countries to realise that, without a fundamentally different and better basis for the social system, there never would be or could be any safeguard against, poverty and war. But we who were on the job of showing the only way of escape were not listened to. We had to put up with the people who were “not interested in politics,” or who thought they knew of short cuts or easier roads, or who privately said they agreed with the S.P.G.B. but publicly put a different case because of the alleged ignorance and hopelessness of the working class.

We remember the Communists and their many Labour Party admirers who suddenly discovered, 20 years ago, that dictatorship—and its likely accompaniment, civil war—were the golden road to Socialism. In face of scornful taunts that we were out of date we replied that Socialism and democracy are indissolubly linked together, and that those who preached dictatorship would inevitably provoke reactionary terrorism. The Bolshevists cannot escape their major responsibility for the rise of Fascism.

We remember, too, the blind guides who thought they saw Socialism sweeping Europe because of the Labour and Labour-Coalition Governments set up in many countries after the war. We were told that “Over a large part of Europe definitely Socialist administrations are actually in office, and the principles of Socialism are avowedly accepted as the basis of social and economic reconstruction.” (Sidney and Beatrice Webb, in Preface to “A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain,” Fabian Society, 1920.)

The answer to this illusion was plain to see even in the journals which fostered it. The Daily Herald in 1919 had sent a correspondent, Madeline Doty, to study conditions in “Socialist” Germany. She interviewed, among others, a well-known German woman Socialist, a close friend of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, and said to her: “The world talks of a Socialist Republic in Germany.” This was her answer: “It is a lie. There isn’t an atom of Socialism. The Monarchy has gone, a Republic has come; but it is a capitalist Republic, a capitalist Republic that is more deadly and relentless than the Monarchy.” (Daily Herald, July 30th, 1919).

We remember again the legion of Labour Party supporters, including men now in the Cabinet, who preached pacifism, disarmament and appeasement; who, in face of our insistence that it was a dangerous illusion founded on a complete misreading of the world we live in, declared that if only German capitalism were treated generously there would be prosperity, stability and international reconciliation. The S.P.G.B. maintained unceasingly that neither greater armaments nor disarmament, neither punitive peace terms nor a policy of loans and concessions and a League of Nations, would alter essentially the basic forces driving to conflict. The S.P.G.B. continued to preach its only “ism,” Socialism, never on any occasion lending support to sentimental illusion and dangerous dreaming, and all the time we had to put up with the scoffing of the open enemies and misguided would-be friends of Socialism.

We are, of course, now asked to face the charge that we, too, failed in our effort to get the workers to realise the true nature of the situation confronting them. True, we failed in our task. The workers were not ready. They had too many and too persuasive leaders preaching the comfortable doctrine of the short and easy way to Socialism, against which we were almost powerless. But with our unanswerable case fortified by the experience of the past 20 years, and the present tragic outcome, what should we do ? Give up the struggle ? Stop pointing out the truth ? Plainly, No. The world needs the Socialist message more urgently than ever before. Let us rather determine that, to the best of our ability, old false doctrines in a new disguise shall not again be allowed to take root. Let us recognise with Sir William Beveridge there is need of a new idea; that “in view of the failure of the peace settlement of 1919, and of the despondency created by it in many minds, there is need of some new idea for the next peace. …” (Speech to Manchester Reform Club, reported in Manchester Guardian, January 31st, 1940.) Let us, however, determine that that demand for a new idea in the workers’ minds shall not be met, as Sir W. Beveridge proposes, with the sterile idea of Federal Union, but with the one fruitful conception for the human race, the idea of Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Locarno and Fred Karno. (1926)

From the May 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of course we shall scoff; that is expected of us. What else can one do with shams and hypocrisies? Besides, it is refreshing. It is a mistake to analyse laboriously and logically every exhibition of human folly. So we shall just scoff. Has it not been said that all enemies of the League of Nations will rejoice at its discomfiture. We are not among its enemies. One does not hate what amuses. But who could take seriously an aggregation of predatory rapacity calling itself a League of Nations? What a sight for the Gods ! What a spectacle for men ! Imagine these rulers of ours, with centuries of bloodshed and. massacre behind them, striding through, their latest hecatomb, trampling over the bones of their latest twenty-million victims, making for the quiet little town of Locarno. Why did they choose Locarno? Possibly because there, their ears were not deafened with the hammering in the shipyards, where the Labour Party’s six cruisers were nearing completion. Possibly to be out of earshot of the rumbling of tanks, the thunder of guns, and the clatter of troops engaged in the Autumn Manoeuvres, busily getting ready for the next difference of opinion. Possibly so that their deliberations would not be disturbed by the drone of aeroplanes practising the bombing of cities; or so that they would be free from the importunities of inventors, with the latest and most excruciating form of poisonous gas. Possibly because the other Continental holiday resorts were rather crowded, or perhaps with an eye to the appropriate, because Locarno reminded them of Fred Karno, England’s one-time prize comedian. But anyhow, they got there. There to do what? There presumably, to lay the foundations of a secure and permanent peace. How nice ! How laudable ! Yes ! and they were successful. Oh yes ! Mr. Austen Chamberlain ordered a new “bowler.” They told him he would be known as Sir Austen instead of Mr. Austen in future. Church bells were jangled, big drums were thumped, armament manufacturers shot themselves. Admirals jumped overboard and Generals went on the Labour Exchange. So you will see there is some sadness in all joy-making. As usual, the Admirals and Generals had been too precipitate. There was a further Conference to come. The Locarno spirit was to be supplemented by the Geneva spirit. The Locarno Conference had been marred by the absence of the dear friends with whom Sir Austen, when but a plain Mister, had drained a “loving-cup.” Geneva was to remedy that. The “loving-cup ” was to be furnished with additional handles, that all who would, might drink to everlasting peace and amity. So deeply did these delegates of free peoples realise their duty to their respective democracies, that it was thought advisable to hold their meetings in secret. We, with our narrow, restricted views on what constitutes democracy, look upon secrecy with suspicion, but there; are we not impossiblists?

However, the Harmony Kings disappeared behind their curtain, and the world hoped for the best. Alas ! Alack the day ! Sounds utterly unlike peace came through the veil. Groans and maledictions rent the dove-cot within, and the plain work-a-day world outside was grieved to hear unmistakable sounds of strife proceeding 'from the Temple of Peace. What was wrong? Nobody knows. The Press has released a farrago of jargon upon us, on the Scandal of Geneva; the Fiasco of Geneva; the Menace of Geneva, and so on, all about as useful as the Gin of Geneva. Questions of permanent and semi-permanent seats, Germany’s entry and Brazil’s veto, Spain’s claims and Sweden’s attitude, have been so bandied about that it is to be feared the average person has turned to the football results with a certain feeling of relief.

We will say it as modestly as we can—we thought as much. It is always a safe remark—after the event. Do not misunderstand us; we are not cynical. The horrors of another war like the last, are such as would justify almost any attempt to prevent it. It is the workers who have to suffer; we know that well enough. But to expect capitalism to abolish war, is like hoping for tigers to turn vegetarian. “It is their nature to” conquer and prey.

How profoundly pathetic it is to contemplate the thousands of well-meaning, earnest people pinning their hopes upon this phantasm, this illusion, this dream of the muddle-headed, the League of Nations. These are hard words. Many will read them with pain. We hope they will add to that, patience. For listen :

Here we have a system based upon robbery. You don’t agree ! You don’t like the word “robbery” ! That is simply because custom has blinded you to realities. Robbery is taking something from another without an equivalent. Even when the robbed is willing but is the victim of a trick, it is called robbery, even by capitalist law. The land was taken from the people by simple robbery. The wealth is taken from them to-day by a little more intricate robbery, but it is robbery just the same. They may tacitly agree with the robbery, but that is because they are unaware of the process. They are the victims of a trick. They are made to believe they are paid for what they do. They believe their wages are an equivalent to their work. It is not so. In simple language, we say that the whole working class produce each week a huge cake of wealth. Out of this cake, a slice is cut sufficient to keep the workers going for a further week. The difference between the slice and the cake is the extent of their robbery. Now in any given country, the size of this cake is becoming a source of embarrassment to its owners. Time was when they could exchange what they did not want at home, for some different kind of cake from other countries. But latterly the other countries have established capitalist bakeries of their own, and having exchanged portions amongst themselves until they are full up and running over, they each find they have large portions left. Here is a quandary. If they wait until ordinary usage has consumed the cake, two or three weeks may elapse. It is useless making cake with so much on hand, the masters say, so the working class must cease working until there is again a demand for cake. But the working class can only live by making cake. What is to be done? Experience has brought many expedients. First there is the device of colonies, and then that of trading with undeveloped races. These serve for a time, but obviously, when both the colonies and the backward countries proceed to produce cake for themselves, and later experience the same embarrassment in disposing of the surplus, the process becomes an urgent problem. Stoppages of the working class become more frequent and more prolonged. Portions of cake are crumbled off and grudgingly distributed under the various names of charity, Poor Law, insurance benefit, etc. It is easy to see that without such doles, the working class would not starve quietly in the midst of an abundance, kept under lock and key.

And then there are the foreign markets. What a scramble there has been for these ! Here the robbery has been open, crude, and undisguised. The so-called backward races have been invaded, their lands stolen, themselves massacred, the remnants enslaved. To what end? Primarily that their lands might furnish cheap ingredients for the cake, and next that they might become customers for the finished cake. It is in this struggle for markets, as it is called, that we find the genesis of modern capitalist wars. The first nation to reach the colonising, market hunting stage, of capitalist development was England. Each nation that has reached the stage where colonies and foreign markets were a necessity of further expansion, has found England first and later competitors blocking the way. Hence jealousy, competition, friction, warfare, bloodshed. Every struggle, even the last so-called war for democracy, has been followed by a re-apportionment of the earth’s surface. Now, without being by any means exhaustive, sufficient has been said to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that war is the logical outcome of capitalism. But capitalism is being compelled to realise that warfare is subject to the same laws of growth as all human institutions. Beyond a certain point its further expansion is at the expense of the rest of the organism. Modern powers of destruction tend ever more and more to involve victors and vanquished in a common doom. The day is quite near when one solitary aeroplane will be able to wipe out a town. Capitalism has endowed a giant with enormous strength, but like Samson in the Temple, the same act that destroys his enemies destroys himself. So capitalism pauses. Capitalists are human, like the rest of us; death is death whether one wears a silk hat or a cloth cap. So capitalism pauses. It confers. It recognises that expansion is the law of its being. But it recognises that expansion means war; and that war means destruction ; and that destruction may be universal. Here is a dilemma. The League of Nations is an attempt to find a solution. We wish them luck. Our great hope is that the form of their disillusionment may not take the shape of another war, but that they will realise that the cause of war is capitalism, and that the way to abolish war is to abolish the cause. We sadly fear that as so many supporters of the League are also ardent supporters of capitalism, they will take the bloodier road. The true League of Nations will be an International Socialist Party. Its aim will be to make the whole earth a common human possession, not a congeries of railed off portions, defended one from the other by bayonets and poison gas. Its beginning is here, here in Great Britain. The Socialist Party simply awaits your help and membership before joining with similar parties in all parts of the world, to achieve the release of mankind from the curse of toil, slavery, poverty, massacre and war. Is not the object a worthy one? Is riot that worth a little sacrifice and effort? Then why wait, why drift, why let the years go by? Socialism is possible now, to-day. Make it a certainty by joining the Socialist Party to-day.

W.T. Hopley

A Glance at San Francisco (1945)

From the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Allies meet at San Francisco as 26 years ago they met at Versailles. In 1914 they said that they went to war, not for any “territorial aims” or “aggrandisement," but for the purpose of making the world democratic and peaceful. As they had met at Versailles to discuss and arrange peace, it was disquieting to read Keynes' “Economic Consequences of the Peace” of the disputes that raged between the Allies during the Conference. Within nine months of the Armistice the myth of a democratic and peaceful world was shattered). Clemenceau, the French Premier, referred to some of the other diplomats as “jackals.” They met in the Hall of Mirrors—Clemenceau was old, perhaps blind. The “jackals” have met again, different men, but with the same principle and policy to guide them—the retention of the present social order. Workers hoped that Versailles spelled peace. It was a tragedy that they pinned their hopes to their muster’s activities then—it will be a farce if they hope for peace from the ramshackle conference at San Francisco.

This conference starts where the Versailles conference finished. Already there are disputes between the victorious powers. Germany is not merely defeated; her cities are heaps of rubble, her factories and workshops destroyed and millions of her capable workers slaughtered. The German capitalists cannot regain their strength for many years. Who stands therefore in the path of peaceful settlement? We remember Mr. A. Greenwood broadcasting the evening war was declared (3/9/39): “But with clear consciences, we shall know that we are fighting the last war for final peace and liberty.” Does Mr. Greenwood think that this promise will be realised? What are the views of other observers on this question? General Smuts has stated that “If San Francisco fails then I see nothing but stark disaster before mankind."—(Manchester Guardian Weekly, April 13th, '45). Later in San Francisco he said: "Our race has reached the limit of human endurance: If we fail here the world may be psychologically shocked beyond repair."—(Daily Herald, April 23rd, 1945). Mr. Emrys Hughes after examining the League of Nations and asking if this Conference will take steps to end imperialist rivalries, declares that: “If it does not it will just be the beginning of the Old Geneva farce all over in an American setting with the peoples of the world being betrayed again.”—(Forward, April 21st, 1945). Have we to accept these conclusions as correct? Here we have two persons, both well-informed on political matters, speaking from different political viewpoints, but both emphatic that a San Francisco failure spells disaster or betrayal for the human race. Both are making an error, although Hughes' error is largely confined to his conclusion. It is an error that arises from an inability to understand the causes of war and their removal.

The world is divided into two classes—those who own, the capitalist class, and those who are property-less, the working-class. The capitalist live on income derived from ownership and the workers live on wages obtained by selling their energies. The income of the capitalists arises from unpaid labour of the workers and exists in the form of rent, interest and profit. This income cannot be obtained until the goods produced by the workers are sold. Control of markets, sources of raw materials,, spheres of influence and control of strategic military areas are among the factors essential in the competitive struggle between capitalist powers. The struggle is fierce and although disputes are settled sometimes by diplomatic means, ultimately the decision rests on the weight of the armed forces of the rival powers. Force is the final arbiter. Where do workers stand in this trade struggle? America, a “creditor” nation, a victor in the last War had 25,000,000 workers existing on relief in 1932/33. Victory or defeat will leave the working class in poverty so they have no fundamental concern in the. decisions at this conference. The conference is to settle capitalist differences and its failures and successes alike will leave working-class problems unsolved. It will fail to ensure peace as it will not remove the cause of war —capitalism. It is useless for the purpose of uniting mankind. Does this mean that we accept the despairing attitude of Smuts and Hughes? Before dealing with that let us touch on the immediate post-war period of 1919.

When the last war ended widespread discontent with war existed amongst workers in the Army and in industry. After the efforts they had made to win the war they were condemned to poverty and unemployment. Here was the time for a clear statement of the Socialist case and concentrated propaganda for Socialism. But the Labour and Communist Parties scorned the idea of Socialist propaganda and jeered at our insistence on the need for Socialist understanding. They guided the healthy discontent of workers into political activities harmless to the capitalist system, but dangerous to the working-class. Little did the speakers of these organisations, who said that the immediate problems of 1932 onwards was to prevent war by supporting the League of Nations and collective security, think that within a few years they would have helped thousands of workers into an early grave in a world war. Their policies led inevitably to that result. Their efforts made workers easy prey to the war propaganda of capitalism. Now, having learned nothing from the dismal failure of their pre-war policies, they are repeating those efforts by boosting new “peace” machinery that will fail in its avowed object. Have they any guarantee that the incorrect policies of 1919-39 can become the correct policies for 1945? Of course not; the truth is that they can no longer separate themselves from the policies of the capitalist parties.

Workers need not accept the blind and stupid policies of the Labour leaders; they can hammer out a policy independent of the capitalist parties. That is why we do not accept the conclusions of either Smuts or Hughes that the failure of a few capitalist diplomats spells disaster for mankind or betrayal for the workers. The strength of the capitalists rests on the political ignorance of the working-class. Growing socialist knowledge amongst workers will rob the capitalists of their strength. When large numbers of workers understand that whether they are British, German, American, Japanese, they have a common interest in the abolition of capitalism, the capitalist diplomats will be unable to threaten war in the defence of capitalist interests.

The immediate task is to make Socialists and the conditions for propaganda have never been more favourable. After the most devastating war in history, capitalism is still torn with dissension and struggle. It is as useful to write in dust as to work for peace on a capitalist basis. The way to prevent war is to establish Socialism. Let us not bow our heads and complain of betrayal; let us organise together for the establishment of an International society—Socialism.

Lew Jones

Editorial: The Call of the Graveyard. (1922)

Editorial from the October 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “war to end wars” is still going strong. Eight years ago this peculiar brand of wars was going to finish in a few weeks. Four years later we were told that the fearful enemy that had been menacing the peace of Europe had been whacked. There was great jubilation in the tents of the mighty. A short time after, however, the whackers discovered that it was they who had been whacked. Much talk there was about the wheels of industry that would not move; much mystery and puzzlement over the movements of foreign exchanges; and finally weird and wonderful theories of currency. Tearfully the capitalists’ leader writers complained of the black outlook after all the treasure spent, and all the property destroyed. The allies had gleefully arranged how the war indemnity was to be split up amongst them, and afterwards discovered that they had so successfully busted the enemy that he could not pay. Then there was a wild scramble to raise up the fallen enemy (put their competitor back where he was before they started the busting process !) as he appeared to have fallen on the victors. In the meantime forty or fifty other minor wars were going on in different parts of the world to fill up the interval. 

A little later still the different members of the victorious time discovered that each was pulling a different way, each trying to carve a bumper share out of the alleged spoils on the sly.

There were many portentous conferences, much trumpet blowing and raising of smoke screens. So avaricious were the “peace­ makers” that the period of conferences bid fair to be infinite. While this hubbub was going on one that was so lately a fallen enemy rose up again, and while the “faithful” allies, without even the staunchness generally attributed to thieves, were following each his own course in backing this fallen enemy or his opponent a new apparition has appeared to haunt Europe in the person of the “victorious Turk.” So the wheels of the “war to end wars” are kept merrily turning.

With unconscious humour the Daily News (19th September, 1922), exhibits on its front page a picture to stiffen the backs of future war heroes. It is a pleasant picture; the picture of a portion of the Anzac cemetery at Ari Burnu, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where, they state, 20,000 British and Australian soldiers are lying ! Are they offering a solution of the unemployed problem ? Or are they offering the Anzacs a “home from home?” How anxious our masters must think we are to enter the eternal silence of the tomb ! Funny, isn’t it ?

In the editorial column of the same paper, same date, there are some other funny things. For example, we read : “Which is the better way of preventing a war—to keep Kemal’s army on the Asiatic side and call a conference to consider his claims, or to give it free passage and leave it to stake out its own claims by force?”

Here we have a capitalist definition of “preventing a war”—to prevent war go for the other chap first; it isn’t a war then it’s a defensive action ! Quite obvious, isn’t it?

In the meantime what has become of the wonderful “League of Nations” that was floated with such a flourish of trumpets? It appears to have quietly stepped off the stage (referred the matter to a committee!) its services being no longer required now that arrangements have been made to refloat the war enterprise on the grand scale.

To work up our feelings over “small nationalities” and similar sacred matters we are kept informed of the alleged atrocities of the Turks some hundreds of miles away. In the meantime, however, there has been a mining disaster in the North of England not many days ago, and many workmen lost their lives; further, we read daily of men, women and children being run over and killed by the motor cars that hurry the wealthy from pleasure to pleasure. Atroci­ties are not confined exclusively to wars; they also flourish abundantly where peace is supposed to reign.

This brings us to the main point. What does it matter to the world’s workers what group of capitalists control the sources of wealth? An exchange of masters is of no practical account to the world’s workers. The point is they are all members of the capitalist class.

Therefore the fresh stir up in Europe should not concern working men at all ex­cept as another instance of the cupidity and trickery of their masters.

On the page of the Daily News that contains the invigorating picture of the graveyard we read that Lloyd George sent a telegram to the Prime Ministers of Australia and New Zealand containing the following :

  “Your prompt response to our inquiry regarding troops to resist any threat against freedom of Straits and sanctity of Gallipoli Peninsula received here with enthusiasm.”

Who were the enthusiasts? Those who were going to direct the war evidently, as they were the only ones who knew anything about it. Anyhow, it wasn’t the prospective candidates for the vacancies in the cemetery; they are too busy discussing the wage cuts—the reward for their so recently suspended activities in the shambles.

The Great War and the Greater Wars that are coming. (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the world turned wearily from the battlefield there has been a gradual slump in the literature of war, and the tide has set towards the “Problems of the Peace.” All who could wield a facile pen have rushed to their ink-pots and boldly covered reams of white paper with explanations of why the New World that was expected to follow the war looks so dreadfully like the old one. Most people can see that the rich are still with us, and apparently richer than ever. None will deny that the poor are still here, and relatively if not absolutely, poorer than ever. What has happened? Fortunately the scribes will tell us this also. Unhappily, they have so many explanations of the same phenomena that a process of cancelling out takes place, and the only voice that emerges is that of the one who tells us to get ready for another war. Certainly the facts seem to support that view. There are more bayonets and more armed preparations in Europe to-day than ever before. Recourse to the League of Nations has simply added to them. Every barracks is full of soldiers, drilling and training for the next great struggle. Fleets are being overhauled and provided with deadlier guns than ever. Every week we are informed of a new development in aerial terror, whilst placid bands of assiduous chemists have added seventy new poisonous gases to the weapons of the next war. The joke about the “War to End War” has become too hackneyed for repetition, but few seem to have learned the lesson.

The latest addition to the literature of the Peace is a two volume, 1,400 page work, entitled “These Eventful Years: The Twentieth Century in the Making, as Told by Many of its Makers.” Rather a mouthful, isn’t it? Such an expressive title ! obviously chosen for its slight poetic flavour. These Eventful Years ! One can almost hear it being mournfully intoned to the evening congregation. And thus it is called a Pisgah book. This is possibly more apposite than the originators thought. They have intended, doubtless, to convey that they were surveying the world and its affairs from a sublime height. Why Pisgah, and not the Matterhorn or Everest should have been chosen is not clear. We can only assume their choice was influenced by the knowledge that Pisgah stands near the head of the Dead Sea.

It remains but to add that the price of the work being only a paltry fifty shillings, there can be little excuse for non-possession. Think of the contributors, too ! Von Tirpitz and H. G. Wells, Sir Oliver Lodge and Phillip Snowden, Lady Rhondda and Wellington Koo, Admiral von Scheer and Admiral Jellicoe, Ludendorff and Bertrand Russell; and seventy others including J. L. Garvin. We do not intend to review this stupendous work, owing to our having been unfortunately overlooked on the free list. J. L. Garvin, with that native modesty that so well becomes him, has partially remedied this by using up three columns of his “Observer” (August 24th) in boosting his own contribution to the book.

He explains that he was asked to contribute the first four chapters entitled a “Introduction to the History of Our Own Times,” and they trace the steady approach of the war through the preceding twenty-five years. Their measure may be taken when one notes that the fall of Bismarck is taken as the catastrophic starting-point, and that the interval is filled up with proper names. The Kaiser and the Tsar, variously referred to as William II and Nicholas II, or the German Emperor and the last of the Tsars, are the villains of the piece. What those two men have to answer for ! Curiously enough, the name George the Fifth nowhere appears. This seems to be a grave omission. Surely if our late redoubtable antagonist and our former ally were epitomised or symbolically expressed in the occupant of the throne, a like service should be performed for our own monarch. And we all know what he did in the Great War. If the Kaiser lost his war, obviously George the Fifth won it. Let justice be done.

But to resume. The story of the war itself occupies 50 pages. He suggests the temper of that account by a brief extract describing the turning point of the conflict, July 18th, 1918. It is a forceful piece of writing, quite in the vein of the militant arm-chair strategist. “Machine guns flashed over the standing corn”; troops “gathered under those far-ranging tree-tops”; the French force “thrust like a sword” into the “flank of the exposed German salient”; the enemy “lost 15,000 prisoners, 300 guns and broad positions that were vital,” etc., etc. But not a word of a dead man. The monarchs previously so much in the limelight also appear to have been elsewhere.

And then we get to the Peace. It is recognised and admitted that the Peace is a frost.

“What the Germans forgot in 1871, the Allies did not remember at the end of June, 1919.” Yes, the Peace is a frost. And what will happen when the thaw sets in?

“Europe is slowly drifting towards another catastrophe.” The map of Europe as re-drawn under the Peace Treaties cannot endure. The existing League of Nations is described as utterly inadequate. The exclusion of Germany is described as “one of the most fantastic travesties of human purpose”; the banning of Russia as timid and parochial.

And what is the lesson mankind is to learn from all this? What practical steps are formulated that we may avoid another Armageddon? What must we do to be saved?

Mr. Garvin’s own summary may do him less than justice, but apparently there are but two things to be done to avert the threatened holocaust. First revise the Peace Treaties by peaceful means, and next enlarge the League of Nations by the inclusion of Germany and Russia, followed later by America.

Is it possible that a man of education, and some width of outlook can fob his readers off with that stuff? Does he really believe it himself? Unfortunately there is no reason for doubting it. Mr. Garvin and those of his school look upon the present system of society as final, and for all useful purposes, eternal. Modification there may be, but fundamental change—no. Just as slavery was justified and defended in former times, even by men of culture and feeling, so wage-slavery under capitalism is justified and apologised for by those who profit by it. This attitude may result from a lack of imagination, but more probably from a comfortable feeling that the working class is a special dispensation of Providence, designed to do the necessary work of the world, in order that a smaller aristocratic class may cultivate the finer side of life.

With this view of human society it is not to be wondered at that the re-drawing of frontiers appears to them as epochal; that the stage-play of international leagues assumes a solemn profundity. When the working class realises its true position, it will view an arbitrary line drawn across a country as of equal validity with a chalk mark across the Atlantic. If Alsace were restored to Germany to-morrow, the Alsatian would still remain a peasant or a worker. If the Germans, Austrians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Tyrolese, etc., were all re-shuffled to-morrow, the workers of those areas would still remain workers. Differences of comfort or amenity, custom and language there might be, but working men would remain working men, and that is the essence of the matter. The Irish workers are finding out that a difference in political bosses is not such a vital matter as they once thought. Where capitalism is, there is wage-slavery, and the colour of the flag that floats over the factory makes no real difference to the worker. The great nations of the world are capitalist nations. The League of Nations can be nought else but a league of capitalists. Capitalists live solely and entirely upon the robbery of the working class. How then can we get enthusiastic over a league of our exploiters?

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests.

W. T. Hopley

Progress and Politics. (1923)

Book Review from the July 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Progress and Politics. by Ramsay Muir. Methuen & Co., 36, Essex Street, W. C.2. Price 3s. 6d.

The dust cover advertises this book “as an attempt to survey the whole field of politics from the standpoint of a progressive who is deeply dissatisfied with many aspects of the existing order, but who is convinced that the Socialist scheme of reconstruction is no better than a will o’ the wisp.”

After reading the book we can share the author’s conviction concerning what he calls “the Socialist scheme of reconstruction,” for throughout “Socialist” is used to denote the Labour Party, and for the workers the schemes of that party, like the schemes of the Liberal Party, are will o’ the wisps.

We have no space here to quarrel over the meaning of words, but to apply the term Socialist to the Labour Party is unfair both to responsible Socialists and to the Labour Party. The Labour Party is not, and never has been, a Socialist Party. Even its own publicists admit that, as witness Mr. Snowden’s statement that

  “the British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle.”—(Page, 528, “Manchester Guardian” Reconstruction Number, 26th October, 1922)

And so, while Mr. Muir is convinced the futility of Labourism, he says nothing about Socialism, and it is therefore impossible to know whether he has any convictions on this subject.

But more of this anon; for the present the book itself provides ample scope for comment. It can be divided into three sections, dealing with (1) the broad aims of Liberalism, 2) the achievements of Liberalism in the past, and (3) the Liberal solution of immediate problems. 

To take the last first.

It proposes as a solution of modern financial problems, increased death duties (the capital levy is discussed and turned down), the League of Nations as a means to abolish war, and a re-organisation of industry and an improved dole system to solve the present unemployment problem

The capital levy and death duties are no concern of the workers. The incidence of taxes falls on the people who can pay them, not on the propertyless class. Financial problems are therefore problems for master class, who will have to solve them unless the workers do so by ending the system which engenders them.

As for the League of Nations, only a Liberal can imagine that it will prevent wars. They have their basis in the economic structure of society itself, and result from the struggle for markets under competitive production. And although the workers allow themselves to be used as cannon fodder, they are all the time only fighting their masters’ battles while neglecting their own. The futility of expecting to end war under capitalism by peaceful negotiation is shown with naive clearness by our author himself on page 89, where he writes :

  “It was by the use of the Concert of Europe that Sir Edward Grey succeeded in averting the almost annual threats of war by which Europe was disturbed during the years 1906 to 1914, and he could have succeeded in averting the final menace of 1914 by the same means if Germany had only permitted the concert of Europe to come into being.”

Moreover, somebody will be doing things like this again, for Mr. Muir is not going to trust a pacific League of Nations with an army,

  “for the commander of such an army would have in his hands the means of making himself the despot of the world.”

The League of Nations is to be bossed, not boss, you understand !

And then unemployment. As this did not arrive with the war, but was quite a flourishing problem which should have appealed to Liberals of the past prior to 1914, and as “it is a problem of manageable dimensions capable of a reasonable and just solution” (page 133), it is strange that it was not solved by one of the many Liberal Governments the workers have chosen for themselves. But, there, even Liberals cannot do everything at once, and while the House of Lords needed reforming, what time had they to deal with a problem like unemployment, which was soluble and would therefore present no difficulty? The solution is Government relief work, and insurance by industries. Of course,

  “there would remain a large group of industries which could not be directly helped by this method ; the textile trades, for example. In these industries the only way of minimising—for that is all that is possible—the evils of a period of exceptional trade depression would be a system of organised relay work with partial unemployment relief.” —(Page 136.)

As Mr. Ramsey Muir does not know, or at least does not say, how periods of “exceptional trade depression” can be avoided, this is an admission of blank failure and shows that even Liberalism of the pinkest hue will not give the workers that security of which Mr. Muir prates.

So much for the future Liberalism. What of the past?

In his outline of past achievements, our author is continually compelled to confess that Conservatives shared in the so-called reforms of the nineteenth century. Thus we get frequent passages like these :

  “This Act (giving the counties representative councils) of 1888, though it had been drafted by a Liberal statesman, was actually carried by a Conservative Government.”—(Page 94.)

   “A Liberal Act of 1871 saved the unions from this danger (of prosecutions for conspiracy in restraint of trade), though it had to be supplemented by a Conservative Act in 1875.”—(Page 95.)

  “In the early days, a great Tory philanthropist, Lord Shaftesbury, was one of the most persistent advocates of factory legislation, which always had Liberal majorities.”—(Page 100.)

   “Conservative Ministries and Parliaments contributed from time to time to the work.”—(Page 101.)

From this it is seen that if the worker had cause to be grateful for these reforms, if they mitigated the evils of his slave condition, his gratitude must be showered on Liberalism and Conservatism alike. Such reforms have not fundamentally altered the position of the working class, however, and no gratitude is needed. And if Factory Acts and the abolition of slavery are achievements to be referred to with pride, does Mr. Muir forget that the Liberals like Cobden, so energetic in freeing slaves, were equally energetic in opposing Factory Acts? And in spite of capitalist historians, was the emancipation of slaves so disinterested and high-minded as Mr. Muir would have us believe? The Act liberating slaves was passed in 1832. David Hume had already pointed out in 1711 that

  “from the experience of planters, slavery is as little advantageous to the master as to the slave, wherever hired servants can be procured. A man is obliged to clothe and feed his slave and he does no more for his servant. The price of the first purchase, therefore, is so much loss to him, not to mention that the fear of punishment will never draw so much labour from a slave as the dread of being turned off and not getting another service will from a free man.”

And in Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” occurs this passage :

  “Though the wear and tear of a free servant be equally at the expense of his master, it generally costs him much less than that of a slave.”

The liberation of slaves was as charitable and disinterested as is the sending of “armies of missionaries whom Britain maintained” into every land, which our author claims to be characteristic of a new policy of Liberalism (vide page 92).

  “The purpose of the Missions is not to develop trade, but trade is inevitably developed by missions. They steadily increase material needs: soaps, oils, cloths, sewing machines, books, tools, follow hard on Mission enterprise. Missions teach thrift, industry and honesty in commercial dealings. It is worthwhile for business men to support Missions if from no other motive than that they create new, larger and better markets for their goods.”—(Record of the Home and Foreign Mission work of the United Free Church of Scotland, December, 1919, page 267.)

These are a few of the past achievements of Liberalism which Mr. Muir rakes up. There are some he has forgotten. What of Mr. Asquith sending soldiers to Featherstone in 1893, when the miners were shot down, and Churchill’s calling out of troops at the time of the Dock Strike in 1911, when, by mistake, of course, Mr. Tillett told the dockers to rush the bakers’ shops? For an author who chides Labour orators with trusting to the ignorance of their hearers (page 86), this is a serious omission. And how does he square this use of force with the statement that the Conservative is distinguished from the Liberal by

  “the use of force rather than persuasion as the easiest weapon for dealing with any sign of revolt against the established order.”—(Page 9.)

The use of force as a protection to the master class is another honour shared equally by these two parties, and with the advent of a Labour Government there will arise a third participator.

Force is the foundation of capitalist domination, and that force is obtained through Parliament; capitalist control there means capitalist control everywhere. The workers therefore have nothing to gain by supporting any party which seeks to maintain that control. Concessions and reliefs may have been granted in the past by both parties, but none of these concessions, none of these vaunted reliefs, such as Old Age Pensions, State Insurance, etc., have altered the general position of the workers in society. They are still slaves, and whilst Liberalism, Conservatism, or Labourism has their attention they will remain slaves. Mr. Muir admits that

  “Liberalism and Conservatism are united in their belief that private enterprise must, in the future as in the past, provide the main driving force in the economic sphere.”—(Page 7.)

And that statement damns Liberalism for the workers, to whom the only problem of vital importance is the problem of ownership and control of the means of life. The ending of private ownership solves the problem of the division of the product of industry, in which Liberalism promises the workers a larger but still a small share. The object of the workers should be to dispossess the master class. They therefore have no use for any party which denies the class struggle. For the achievement of their emancipation the Liberal Party is as useless as the Conservative or Labour Parties. The workers alone can free themselves from the burden of their condition—this they can do when they wish by organising on a class basis.

W. J. R.