The Jamaica Plan for World Peace (1952)

From the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard has received a circular from the United Nations Association of Jamaica containing details of yet another plan for world peace, which the Association thinks we must strive to attain by means of a world peace referendum, in which the peoples of the world could declare that they want peaceful settlement of differences by negotiation, reduction of armaments, and a ban on the use of the atom-bomb, hydrogen-bomb, germ-warfare and other weapons of mass destruction.

This kind of plan is not new. There were a number of them before the second world war. Two that spring to mind are the Peace Ballot of the Peace Pledge Union and Canon W. H. Elliott's League of Prayer, to which belonged five and a half million people all praying that the nations might be guided "as one family into the ways of peace.” Since the last war we have had Communist-sponsored Peace Conferences; a rival non-Stalinist peace conference is reported as planned in Yugoslavia; the publisher Victor Gollancz has been trying to get people together with the object of "halting the drift" to a third world war; and now the Jamaica plan has appeared.

These attempts failed to stop the second world war.

And our experience teaches us that they will also fail to prevent yet other wars. No one questions the sincerity of the people who sponsor them and take part in them. And it is undoubted that people will support them in large numbers. This is not surprising. For if a hundred people are asked if they prefer peace or war, at least ninety-nine of them will say that they prefer peace; and therefore they are willing to sign petitions for peace, or vote for it in referendums. This general desire for peace among the peoples of all countries is well known; so much so as to render almost ludicrous the solemn statement made by a Russian in the new English language paper published in Moscow: she said, referring to a recent visit to England, that "there is no doubt that the average man is very much concerned about peace.” (News, July, 1951.) Why is it that this general desire for peace has such little effect on world affairs?

The reason is that the simple question, "Are you for war or for peace? ” never in fact arises outside the pages of the latest peace pamphlet. For what the organisers of these petitions and referendums ignore is that the world to-day is divided into a number of separate states, which all have capitalist economic systems, whether the private-enterprise brand or the State-owner- ship brand is more in favour in any particular country. And these states, by virtue of the fact that they are capitalist, have interests at variance with those of other states. They must all safeguard their sources of raw materials; they must safeguard their markets; and they must safeguard and improve their strategic position in the world so that they may be able to defend themselves successfully when the next war comes. Now there are not enough raw materials in the world to satisfy all the states at the same time; more important still, there are not enough markets (other than government buying of armaments) to be able to take up continually all the products of capitalist industry when it is going at full blast; and in the all-pervading atmosphere of insecurity^ and mistrust which arises from these continual conflicts' in the economic sphere, two or more states often find themselves contending with each other over the control of some small country or island which both sides consider is vital to its safety in a future war. Each state, then, filled with suspicion at the activities of other states, tries to defend itself by building up more and more armaments. Finally there comes a time when a state sees its interests so clearly threatened by another state that it has to resort to arms to defend them, and history has to record the outbreak of yet another war.

This is half the answer to the question, “Why is the general desire for peace ineffectual in preserving it?" The other half is to be found in the fact that in each state the organs of propaganda—press, cinema, radio—are in the hands either of private capitalists, who naturally support the interests of their own state, or (in the more recently organised capitalist systems) in the hands of the state itself. And when war becomes imminent, the press and the radio do not pose the simple question, “ Peace or war? ” to the populations whose opinions they influence; they put the question in the form, “Are we tamely to submit to the enemy aggressors and imperialists, and allow our friends and ourselves to be attacked, or are we to defend ourselves and our interests in other countries?” And the effectiveness of the organs of propaganda is seen in the fact that at any rate at the beginning of a war, the great majority of the population of any country is wholeheartedly behind its government.

In peace time, no one is more vociferously peace- loving than are the heads of states. “ Our main purpose,” said Mr. Morrison in the article which Pravda printed on August 1st, “is to avoid war, to preserve peace.” Pravda replied that the real champions of peace are the Russians. But in reality there is no state, on either side of the Iron Curtain, whose main purpose is to avoid war and preserve peace. All states believe that there are some things more important than peace. For example, in the “Short History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks),” the author (Stalin) distinguishes between two kinds of war:

“ (a) Just wars, wars that are not wars of conquest, but wars of liberation, waged to defend the people from foreign attack and from attempts to enslave them, or to liberate the people from capitalist slavery, or, lastly, to liberate colonies and dependent countries from the yoke of imperialism; and

“ (b) Unjust wars, wars of conquest, waged to conquer and enslave foreign countries and foreign nations.”

The definition of "just wars”—wars of defence against attack or to liberate dependent countries— could be stretched to cover any and every war any country was engaged in. And” just wars” are preferable to peace, if the choice has to be made, according to them.

President Truman, though going into less dialectical detail, comes into the same conclusion. “President Truman said tonight that ‘freedom and justice are more precious* to the American people than peace.” (Daily Express, 11/1/1951.)

Events would show us this even if the speeches and writings of the leaders of states did not. When war broke out between North and South Korea, the U.S.A. thought it more important that South Korea should be kept within what it calls “the free world” than that peace should be preserved. And when the North Koreans were retreating rapidly before their enemies, China thought it more important that North Korea should be kept within what it calls “the democratic world” than that peace should be preserved. Whatever Mr. Morrison may say, all states have ends which to them are more important than the preservation of peace.

The Jamaica Plan for World Peace, and all other plans of the same kind, ignore all these facts. The Jamaican circular calls on the peoples of the world “to deliver an irrevocable mandate for peaceful negotiation of differences between nations.” This rather reminds one of the people in a tropical village delivering “an irrevocable mandate” that the tigers in the nearby jungle shall settle their differences peacefully by negotiation. One can stop the danger of fights between tigers by shooting the tigers; and one can stop the danger of war by getting rid of the capitalist system. Until we do that we will have wars. If you support these schemes which leave out of account the great central fact of the existence of the capitalist system, you are wasting your time. The only way to put an end to war is to bring about the establishment of a socialist society.

Alwyn Edgar

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

Socialists are against all War (1981)

From the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Capitalism and war are inseparable. There can be no capitalism without conflicts of economic interest From these arise the national rivalries and hatreds, the fears and armaments which may at any time provoke war on a terrifying scale.”

from The Socialist Party and War (1951 edition)

In the years which have passed since the first nuclear bombs dropped, the horror of war which once produced pacifism now often results in protests against nuclear weapons. But pacifist movements failed to prevent or even limit wars; CND and the European Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (END) can do no better. A no doubt agreeable and time-consuming occupation for diplomats, the Geneva “peace" and "disarmament" talks drag on for decades and at least keep these people from doing too much actual damage. But the results of their endless labours are hardly reassuring

After World War 1 the League of Nations was set up, with the aim of preventing any future war. It failed. After World War II the Unitcd Nations was established. Since then, there has not been one single year of world peace: Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, Malaysia. Kenya, the Congo, the Indo-Pakistan wars. Nigeria, the Sudan, Chile, Bogota, Ethiopia, and many other conflicts have raged. Not all wars are "news": till recently, how many of us were familiar with the situation in El Salvador?

Before the First World War, European stares lined up in two opposing alliances, but the apparently formidable equation of the Triple Alliance against the Triple Entente did not prevent war in 1914. Today the USA and Russia use a balance of nuclear power — Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) — to deter the use of nuclear weapons, and their well-advertised possession of these weapons to deter head-on "conventional" war. This policy does not however prevent conflict breaking out: what happens is that the two superpowers fight their wars by proxy, in “small far away countries".

Civil Defence Farce

If CND appeals to the optimists. Civil Defence has attractions only for masochists, pessimists and humourists prepared to crouch under a table with children. buckets, baked beans and a fire extinguisher and play Scrabble for several weeks. After a nuclear attack, food shortages would be acute: "If you saw a frog running about you would have to wash it down to get rid of active dust, cook it (alive?) and eat it." [1] As a letter-writer asked, "How far underground with two weeks' supplies of beans under your arm can you get in 3.6 minutes?" [2]

The Government argues that to provide shelters for all would be too expensive: £60,000 million for 10 million households is compared with £5,000,000,000 for Trident missiles. Some people are now buying or building their own shelters but there are problems here too. As the New Scientist commented, "the new breed of nuclear entrepreneurs unfortunately . . . includes few experts, and prospective buyers should bear in mind the ancient common law rule of caveat emptor. If a bomb shelter is ever put to the test and proves to he defective, the aggrieved party is unlikely to be able to resort to consumer legislation ” [3] One DIY hack-garden shelter-builder described another problem: "I hope all the neighbours build them—we would feel awful if they were hanging on our manhole cover to be let in”. [4] The New Scientist found that shelters cost anything from £1500, jerrybuilt, to £30,000 de luxe.

Survivors will need to be both rich and ruthless, equally capable of shutting out their neighbours, eating frogs, and conducting mass cremations. Or they could all be scientologists: L. Ron Hubbard claims that taking niacin and “auditing" in a Purification Rundown will ensure that scientologists can survive where humans can’t.

"Queensberry Rules" for war

What about attempts to control or limit war? International agreements such as Hague Conventions and Geneva Protocols have, among other things, banned certain weapons such as poison gas and tried to control the treatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war and protect the sanctity of property in anti-looting laws. Such agreements are not observed in practice. Mountbatten, with considerable experience of military operations in two World Wars, said: “I know how impossible it is to pursue military operations in accordance with fixed plans and agreements”. [5] 

In World War II saturation bombing of cities caused a terrible Massacre of Innocents: civilian populations were primary military targets as they still are. Prisoners of war and non-combatants were used as slaves in German industry and agriculture and by the Japanese and Russians. German firms such as Krupp, the arms manufacturers, looted from conquered lands, as, later, did the Americans, the British, French and Russians.

In the nuclear age, the Non-Proliferation Treaty has been an abject flop. It is useless to attempt a list of states with a nuclear capability: it would soon be out of date. We can however examine the 1972 SALT I agreement and assess its effect. Each superpower had about 10 times as many warheads 6 years after SALT I as they had 6 years before. This they call progress.

The CND Argument

SALT II, would probably mean a maximum of 2,500 MIRVed missiles, including 820 MIRVed ICBMs. [7] It has been estimated that to destroy effectively all buildings in London would require only 242 50KT (Kiloton) warheads, and to destroy all Moscow only 141 such warheads would be needed. [8]

Yet SALT II is supported by the so-called Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament:

CND is wholly behind the ratification of SALT II, the continuance of detente and of negotiations about intermediate nuclear systems. [9]

CND propaganda relies on emotion, on the belief that nuclear weapons am unique in their effects by focussing on the consequences of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is this argument valid? The immediate effects of nuclear bombs are fire, blast and radiation sickness; their longterm effects are cancer and genetic damage. The view that these can only be caused by nuclear weapons is false.

CND themselves compared the resulting fire from an A-bomb with the Hamburg, Tokyo and Dresden firestorms, caused by thousands of incendiary bombs. "The fires all joined together to make a single holocaust or "fire storm". These huge pillars of fire caused winds of up to 150 mph . . . to rush in towards the burning area . . . People caught in the street were soon burned to death. The fate of people in fireproof shelters was not much better. The air that they breathed had to come in from the street, and the temperature of that air was 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, or nearly as hot as molten glass. This forced some people to rush out of the shelters into the flames outside. Others were killed by carbon monoxide . . . The fires burned for days and some areas were so hot that they could not he entered for weeks. Even then, the insides of some shelters burst into flames when they were forced open, and some were even red-hot." [10]

The long-term toxic effects of a nuclear bomb are cancer and genetic damage, but these are not caused by nuclear weapons alone. Similar effects have come from the chemical dioxin, both in a military context when it was used under the name of Agent Orange, [11] and when released accidentally, as at Seveso and in the USA at Love Canal. Napalm burns are horrific, as are those caused by radiation.

Suicide !

The Doomsday argument asserts that a nuclear war would be a suicidal catastrophe. As Mountbatten said, "in the event of a nuclear war, there will he no chances, there will be no survivors all will be obliterated". [12] This argument seems convincing enough except that a similar view was held by preceding generations in pre-nuclear times. Witness the appeal by the King of Belgium and other heads of state in August 1939

Beneath our very eyes the camps are forming and a tearful struggle is being prepared in Europe. Is our continent to commit suicide in a terrifying war at the end of which no nation could call itself victor or vanquished, but in which the spiritual and material values created by centuries of civilisation would founder? War psychosis is invading every home, and although conscious of the unimaginable catastrophe which a conflagration would mean for all mankind, public opinion abandons itself more and more to the idea that we are inevitably to be dragged into it . . . We can only hope that those in whose hands rests the fate of the world will . . . give effect to the desires which they have so often expressed that the disputes which separate them shall be settled in peace, and thereby avoid the catastrophe which threatens humanity”.  [13]

Why do we have wars and armed forces at all? It appears impossible to prevent war, and futile to attempt to limit wars. Wcemust, if we are to do anything practical about war, first understand why wars happen.

Common Myths

1. Overpopulation—but after 1945 the confrontation between America and Russia was between what would be regarded as two under populated states.
2. Hunger. A consequence of war or preparation for war, not usually a cause of war. In 1914 and 1939 Germany had full granaries.
3. Lunatic leaders. But these, like the "sane" ones, depend for their power on support: even dictators have to be loved.
4. "Merchants of death": the left-wing scapegoat theory, blaming war on the arms trade from which private firms (Krupp. Lockheed, Vickers) profit. But most arms trade is now government business, and in any case, such dealers only fish in troubled waters.
5. Humans are basically aggressive and violent. Irrelevant, also untrue. Why do states need conscription to coerce people into their armed forces?
6. “Just wars" — for. example for the “defence of democracy". Wc must distinguish between the actual cause of war and the propaganda used to whip up support for it. Always, both sides claim that they are in the right. God inevitably hedges his bets, if you believe the sky-pilots. As examples of this type of argument. in 1940 MP's of all parties were of one mind: we must "wage war against monstrous tyranny" (Churchill), this was a “war for liberty" (Lees-Smith, Lab.); and we must "preserve our liberties” (Percy Harris, Lib.). [15] At the same time, the Defence of the Realm Act muzzled opponents, and internment for political reasons became a tool of the "voluntary totalitarianism" freely accepted by those liberty-loving MPs. Then as now, governments tried to keep military matters away from public and democratic discussion. 1940 — "Is it becoming the practice of ministers to make their important announcements on the wireless? That is bad enough, but when they do not even make them on the wireless which addresses the people at home, hut make them on the Overseas wireless at three o'clock in the morning, that . . . is not fair to the House of Commons” [16]. 1980 — over the decision, announced without prior discussion, to buy the Trident Missile System. Mrs Thatcher was asked: “On such a momentous decision, is it right to put a fait accompli to the House of Commons?’’ Her reply: “we have to do just that” [17].
7. Defend our country. A bogus plea: workers have no country to defend..No “nation” is a single group each nation is divided into two opposing classes, into owners and non-owners. The working class have never won a war yet: they only tight them in their masters’ interests.

The real cause

Why do wars happen. What are they fought about? Certainly not ideals or ideology: Stalin allied Russia with Nazi Germany and later with Britain and America. The USA trades with “Red” China. It is economic interest which creates wars and which forces governments to prepare for war As John Nott, Minister of Defence, argued in favour of Reagan's Rapid Deployment Force “We have crucial minerals and in fact our oil supplies to defend" [18]. Callaghan, when leader of the Opposition, also said “We must welcome the intention of President Carter to set up a task force of 100,000 men which could move quickly into position, if only because of the utter dependence of the West on oil" [19].

It is not our economic interests which are at stake We — the working class — control only one commodity, have only one financial asset at out disposal: our ability to work. We live by hiring ourselves out, renting our lives, veiling our mental and physical skills to the employing class for wages or salaries.

Those whose interests are at stake are our employers, the exploiting class. Theirs are the oilfields of the Gulf States, the mineral resources of Southern Africa, the capital investments, trade and markets which no capitalist government can afford to ignore. It is their sordid, commercial competition which leads to conflict and war.

Just as in the High Street supermarkets compete against one another, so in the international market companies and State enterprises compete for lucrative markets and access to vital and profitable raw material and mineral resources. This never-ending competition periodically erupts into armed conflict. Peaceful conquest by means of sales drives and takeover bids develops into more than mere “trade war”.

In boom times, with expanding demand, production is increased on all sides, capital flows in, new companies are formed, new factories built, more salesmen are hired. Profits are good, and politicians re-discover that “free trade’’ is the only proper way to run the system. But if for any reason the markets are full and demand ceases to match the supply, salesmen are forced to travel to remote regions and companies more and more resort to “unfair” trading practices, such as “dumping”. The casualty rate in this trade war is seen in the bankruptcy figures, and heard in howls of boardroom anguish as dividends are cut

Capitalist production is carried on with a view to profiting from the surplus value created by workers value over and above what they receive as wages or salaries. It is for this prize — surplus value — that oil wells are opened up, that factories, farms and mines are operated, and Wimpy Bars compete with Kentucky Fried Chicken, Chinese takeaways with Pizza palaces.

Our society is characterised by two forms of warfare: economic competition and class war — the exploitation of those who have to sell their labour power in order to live, thereby enriching those who live off our unpaid labour. This class war also has casualties: millions die from poverty, hunger or disease each year. Battles take place, as last year in South Africa, where a demonstration of black workers was gunned down by police, leaving more than 40 killed and over 300 injured. Next day the Police Commission- [missing line] ed at all costs and no mercy will be shown ”. [20]

Usually this war is waged silently, with employers forcing wage-cuts and workers resisting the drop in their living standards. A hundred years ago it was the same: “William M. Evarts, our accomplished Secretary' of State,. . . (said) that our working men must accept lower wages in the future . . . (due to) the much higher rates per day which . . . cannot be permanently maintained when we are exporting largely of domestic manufactures in competition with the products of the cheap labor of Europe”. [21]

By paying workers less, employers hope to be able to sell their products cheaper than their rivals’, so grabbing a larger share of the market. Selling more, they would obtain more surplus value and so more capital, in time becoming stronger than their competitors. All this at the expense of us, the have-nots.

In the present recession, with many industries laying off workers and cutting back production, some governments hope that arms exports will compensate for their declining trade in other sectors: tanks for cars. In technology, government investment leans heavily towards the military. In advanced laser technology, for instance, VULCAN — a civilian laser — cost the Science Research Council only £2 million, while HELEN — developed at Aldermaston for military research — cost £7 million [22]. Last year Russia made 89 space launches: only 8 payloads were non-military. America launched 12 satellites, 10 of which were Defence Department jobs [23].

Capitalist society generates war, because it is based on competition. To wage war successfully, governments pour huge resources into the production of the most horrendous weapons; they then compete in exporting this advanced technology to other — potential rival — governments. The economic competition periodically explodes into military conflicts. No amount of petitions and protests by pacifists and CNDers can alter the fact that this is how this society works. Such protests leave untouched the root cause of war, the competitive nature of capitalist society, based on the exploitation of the working class. This is the problem that working people have to understand, and to sidetrack them from this understanding is to do them a grave disservice.

Charmian Skelton

References

[1] Times, 14/2/80.

[2] Guardian, 29/7/80.

[3] New Scientist, 24/7/80.

[4] Woking News and Mail, 31 /7/80.

[5] Speech, 11 May 1979. printed in How to Survive the Nuclear Age, Ecology Party '80.

[6] World War III. ed S Bidwell 1978 (Hamlyn). Figures for America may be underestimated and those for Russia overestimated by CIA, the agency mainly responsible for such "statistics". A MIRVed missile carries a number of independently-targetable warheads.

[7] World War III, p 14.

[8] Science Fact, rd Prof F. George, Topaz 1977. 10 such warheads = one Poseidon missile.

[9] Guardian, 24/7/80 letter from Bruce Kent, General Secretary of CND.

[10] CND, Civil Defence and Nuclear War. quoted in Civil Defence by P. Bolsover. CND 1980.

[11] New Statesman, 22/8/80: an illustrated article about South Vietnamese children born deformed, without a brain, no eyes and so on.

[12] As 5, above.

[13] H.M.S.O. Cmnd 6106 (1939). Appeal by the King of the Belgians and other Heads of State of the Oslo Group. Our emphasis

[14] As 5. above.

[15] Penguin Hansard, 13/5/40.

[16] Ditto, 5/11/40

[17] New Scientist, 31/7/80.

[18] Weekend World, ITV. 8/3/81.

[19] Hansard, 28/1/80 quoted in Protest and Survive, by E. P. Thompson.

[20] BBC News, 18/6/80. Our emphasis

[21] Scientific American, February 1880.

[22] Financial Times, 5/3/81.

[23] Guardian, 19/3/81.

Editorial: Why we oppose this “Peace Movement.” (1911)

Editorial from the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

The hypocrisy of the English race is proverbial. At intervals they rise to such a height in this direction, as to draw upon themselves the ridicule of the whole world—as when, drooling a sickening stream of sanctimony, they circumscribed the exploitation of the West Indian slaves, forbidding their masters to employ them more than eight hours a day, while children of tender years, of our own race, in our own country, toiled for sixteen hours a day in the mill-hells of the Midlands.

The recurring frenzy of nauseating pretence again sweeps over the land, and this time its infection spreads beyond our shores. They have caught it America ; they suspire the bacilus in Germany ; in Australia the complaint becomes epidemic. “Peace, sitting under her olive” is the subject of this amorous outbreak, and you might shout “mad dog !” in the streets and nobody would take any notice, because every eye is fixed on the beautiful form “sitting under her olive,” and every lip is outraging her name.

Peace, forsooth ! What has peace to do with you, workingmen of the world ? What horror has war that “peace” has not accustomed you to? “The red rain of death !” Ah ! go into the mine and you will see it. “The awful rending of strong men’s bodies !” The shunter sees it every day. “The fearful cost of human life !” The “Thunderer” was built in “peace” at the cost of a thousand accidents, from keel-laying to launch. Every plate in her great hull would sweat blood of those who mined it and smelted it and forged it, were the day when “the sea shall give up its dead” to come upon us tomorrow. Every great girder that gives strength to her stupendous form, and every rivet that holds them together, have been drenched with the blood of workingmen, at every stage of their winning and fashioning, before ever they come to crush and mangle workers’ bodies in the shipbuilder’s yard. And every gun which is to be put aboard her, and the engines and fittings and coal—all these are to be paid for with workers’ life and limb ; so that when she leaves port a complete thing, she may do so as an emblem of capitalist peace : for it is very unlikely that she will ever receive such libations of blood in battle has she has had poured over her on the stocks.

Peace ! The snuffling humbug of the word on capitalist lips ! At the very moment they are mouthing it most unctuously they are drafting police and military against the miners in South Wales, massing troops on the borders of Mexico, and raising an immense fund to fight the implement workers in Australia. And while the British Liberal Government are making the remote corners of the earth echo and re-echo with the empty nothing, “Peace !” they are voting the enormous sum of £75,000,000 for war—on the principle that they’ll have peace if they have to fight for it.

Strange, is it not, that in all this cry of “peace” but one incentive shows itself ? The burden of armaments. It is the treasure, not the blood, that causes the capitalist head to ache. No wonder—for treasure is the master’s while the blood is the workers. £75,000,000 in a year is a mighty drain, and the Government that is forced to exact it is in a precarious position. So they scream “peace” by way of a soft answer to turn away wrath—and also in the certain knowledge that the result will demonstrate that peace, even as the capitalist understands it, is possible only at the cost of crushing armaments—or national extinction. It is significant that no hope is held out of a “peace treaty” except with America—a country with whom all serious differences have already been composed, against whom, in addition, Britain would hurl her might in vain, and who could inflict damage, where they can inflict it all, with impunity. They could starve us out by stopping their own and Canadian wheat at the granaries. It is admitted that on the day when the States and Canada want join hands the “mother country” has got to submit. On that day the treaty becomes in all eyes what from the first it must be in reality—waste paper. It is easy for two nations who cannot fight, to make a treaty that they won’t.

But the case is different with, say Germany. No responsible person suggests a treaty with that country—yet it is Germany that has made a British Liberal Government increase its annual Naval Estimates £14,000,000 in five years. No, derision waits the Minister who dares suggest such a treaty, for the farce would be too apparent. Just as a treaty with America brings peace no nearer because the two could not fight, treaty or no treaty, so a treaty with Germany would bring peace no nearer because, in the face of conflicting interests (without which they would not fight in any event), the treaty would not be worth the cost of its inscripton. The humbug, therefore, of the cry of “Peace” and “Disarmament,” is apparent.

There comes a time, of course, when it becomes cheaper to submit to a foreign rival than to arm against him. What course our ruling class will take when the cost of “keeping up the two-power standard” is dearer than exploiting native workers under foreign rule is foreshadowed by the course of the French master class at the time of the commune. Their patriotism will quickly enough then take the form of reduced annamants—the tacit confession that they would sooner “wear the yoke” in humilty than seriously suffer in pocket.

Meanwhile the Liberals, in their desire to cover themselves, have been loyally supported by the Labour Party. These have shouted “peace” with the best of them, and they lose no opportunity of implying that it is only the “burden of armaments” which prevents the Liberals “sweeping poverty from every hearth.” They thus kill a number of birds with one stone. First the Liberals are absolved directly it is discovered that their efforts for general disarmament are without avail ; secondly the Labour Members put themselves right with all those of their constituents who are, or who think they are, groaning under the burden of armaments, and thirdly they throw dust in the eyes of the rank and file of the Labour Party and Trade Unionists on whose backs they have climbed to place—and pelf.

Of course, a show of consistency had to be made in the House. The I.L.P. had organised 250 meetings on the question of armaments, so something was expected. And something happened.

Exactly one half of the Labour Members in Parliament came up to scratch to save the face of their party by voting against the Liberals’ immense Naval Estimates. The other half (save two who voted FOR them !) stood out of it oblige the Liberals !

Keir Hardie says the party were bribed, the Osborne Bill being the price of their defection, and he should know. But we wonder how many would have opposed the Estimates had they been really in danger. How many would dare have gone back to their Liberal constituencies with the confession on their lips that they had helped to defeat a Liberal Government? Not many, we venture to guess.

50 Years Ago: Futile Appeals For Disarmament (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A demonstration was held on Thursday October 13th at the Central Hall, to further the agitation for disarmament. It should be obvious that the capitalist governments of the world arm against each other because they must, war being the logical and necessary outcome of their economic rivalry. While, therefore, the prospect of economising, by mutual agreement to limit expenditure, is attractive to the employing class who have to bear the burden, to appeal to a national group of capitalists to give up their only defence against their like-minded predatory neighbours and against the workers from whose robbery the privileged position of the capitalist class arises, is to ask them to commit suicide, and will naturally be given the amount of consideration such a proposal would deserve. Is it to be expected that our capitalist rulers, armed to the teeth to defend their private property, will scrap their armaments and voluntarily sacrifice their hold on the world's wealth merely.in response from muddle-headed reformers?

* * *

The Bishop of London distinguished for his Christianly ferocious thirst for blood in the late war, asked God's blessing on the Washington Conference meaning no doubt that he hopes the Empire would find favour in the sight of the Lord to get a thumping big share of the spoils in the partition of China. The speakers . . . were no doubt doing their duty by the ruling class in talking platitudes about peace in .the present interlude between the 'last war’ and the next ‘last war’, because at the moment it is desirable to distract working class attention from the lining-up for the conflict to decide the mastery of the Pacific.

(From an article The Peace Society’, by E.R.H., Socialist Standard, November 1921).

Capitalism and War. (1929)

From the August 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

When man’s control over nature was considerably less than at present, there was always the fear of thousands being laid low by famine and disease. The productive capacity and means of transport existing today have obviated the danger of famine; shortage in one part of the world being counterbalanced by abundance in other parts. And hygienic and medical knowledge enables man to check contagious disease in its early stages.

There remains, however, a fear which oppresses millions of people at the present time; the fear of war. The mechanical and chemical means of slaughter in existence today are so vast and terrifying that scarcely anyone can view the prospect of war between powerful nations without feelings of horror. In short it is not the natural elements that inspire the greatest fear, but man-made instruments of destruction.

The horror engendered by the contemplation of this danger gives rise to organisations with the abolition of war as their object.

So much has been written of late on the subject of peace and disarmament, and so much of it by people whose business it is, not to lay bare the actual causes of war, but rather to hide them ; and so much of it by well-meaning people who do not understand the causes, that it may be useful for the benefit of new readers to clarify the matter.

The first wars were fought between nomadic peoples in search of the means of subsistence, and as there did not exist any class division within the communities, the war was fought in the interest of the whole group, the spoils being enjoyed by all. With the rise of classes—which could not take place until it was possible for the producers to produce a surplus above their own needs —and the division of society into ruling and subject classes, wars were then waged in the interests of the rulers, and from that time onward have always been in the interests of the particular ruling class.

It is necessary to note that from the beginning wars had an economic cause, for it is the purpose of this article to show that all wars are at bottom the outcome of conflicting economic interests. A superficial knowledge of history, such as is imbibed at school, would lead one to think wars in the past have been due to bad rulers instead of good, or to the wickedness of foreigners, or maybe to religious differences ; that the last war was caused by the ambitions of the Kaiser, or by his habit of wearing his moustache at an angle of 45 degrees.

The crusades, in particular, are often alleged to have been fought because the Holy Land had fallen into the hands of the infidel Turk, the fact that they barred the trade routes to the East (the major cause) not being considered worthy of mention.

Under capitalism, production is carried on for profit, which profit is not realised by the capitalist until the articles are sold. As they cannot all be sold profitably inside the country of production, the surplus must be sold abroad.

When the capitalist nations came in contact with peoples in backward countries who did not welcome them as traders, they resorted to force of arms and forced their way into these countries. Obviously, this process has limits, and the big capitalist powers were bound to come into conflict over the division of the coveted areas.

When all the avenues of trickery, double-dealing, or “diplomacy,” have failed to bring about a satisfactory division, one side or the other plays its trump card—armed force—and the workers are called on to lay down their lives in the interests of their respective masters.

Modern capitalist powers stand little chance of waging war successfully without the support of practically the whole population ; for, apart from the huge armies engaged in the actual fighting, the arms and munitions have to be produced and transported, and the troops fed and clothed; smooth working is therefore essential.

This necessary support is forthcoming only because the workers do not realise their slave position, but believe they have interests in common with the capitalists ; this belief being assiduously fostered by the whole of the press and the professional politicians.

A typical instance may be given. Mr. Tillett, as chairman of the T.U.C., gave his views, along with prominent capitalists, in the Daily Herald of December 27, 1928, on the prospects of trade during 1929 :—

“If Britain is to recover her industrial prosperity and her lost markets, there must be courage, initiative and competence equal to the past.

Labour has its contribution to make and will respond, if invited. Trade Unionists as well as employers must move with the times in organisation and equipment, and catch the new spirit. I have no fear that the organised working-class movement, or its leaders will fail when the test comes.”

The Herald, of course, in its leading article comments favourably on Tillett’s views. Industrial prosperity could only be “recovered” by those who had formerly enjoyed it, and as the lot of the workers under capitalism has always been poverty, only the employers stand to recover anything, and it is precisely out of the struggle for markets, whether lost or newly discovered, that wars arise. Those who maintain that the workers have mutual interests with the employers in this struggle for markets should therefore maintain that it is to the workers’ benefit to engage in the wars arising therefrom, and such individuals, although they are fervent supporters of peace during peacetime, often become equally fervent recruiting agents in wartime, or, as Tillett puts it, they “move with the times.”

The Socialist attitude on this subject is clear and definite. Those who do not own the country cannot have it taken from them, and even a complete victory by one capitalist power over another, resulting in the complete subjugation of the vanquished state, would not benefit the workers of the victorious country, and would only mean a change of masters for the workers in the defeated country. The conditions of the workers in victorious Britain are—broadly speaking—similar to those obtaining in defeated Germany, whilst the capitalists of the allied countries have benefited at the expense of their fellow thieves in Germany.

When war broke out in 1914 other so-called working class parties were thrown off their balance and either supported the war or were divided on the subject. The Socialist Party alone pointed out the truth concerning the issues at stake and affirmed the unity of interests of the workers throughout the world and their antagonism of interests with the capitalists throughout the world.

There is a type of propaganda against war which is perfectly sincere but is the outcome of emotion rather than knowledge. This takes the form of drawing attention to the horrors of war, and such books as the recently published “All Quiet on the Western Front ” are regarded as excellent anti-war propaganda.

One can readily agree that modern war is a ghastly, horrifying, inglorious destruction of human life, but the mere realisation of this is not sufficient to prevent the workers from supporting war if they think they have an interest in doing so. Many went into the last war fully realising its horrible nature but not its sordid origin. Those who are swayed in one direction by emotion can be swayed in another direction if the emotional pressure brought to bear is sufficiently strong; and we know the power of the press to sway such people.

Then there are those who believe that it is the competition in armaments which is responsible for war, but a little thought should show them that this competition is itself an effect of a cause, and must continue so long as the cause remains.

The fact is that capitalism requires an armed force at its disposal for two reasons : to use against rival powers, and to use against the working class if they attempt to lay their hands on their masters’ property. The proposals of the Russian Government, therefore, for complete disarmament were fatuous nonsense equivalent to proposing to the capitalist powers that they commit suicide. All governments rely ultimately on armed might, the Soviet Government included.

The present writer recently heard a worker, unable to meet other criticisms, say “Well, at any rate, it must be admitted that the Labour Party is a peace party.” The idea behind such a statement is that wars are caused by the particular statesmen forming the government. This is entirely erroneous. No matter how much disposed towards peace a government may be, when the conditions are ripe for war the government is forced to take action in accordance with the interests of the ruling class, whether that government is labelled Conservative, Liberal, or Labour. So that even granting the Labour Party to be more in favour of settling international disputes by arbitration, it does not alter the fact that war is as likely to occur with “Labour” in the seats of power as it is with the Conservatives or Liberals there. In fact, if the Labour Party have the confidence of the workers to a greater extent than the other two parties it would be more convenient to the capitalist class to have a Labour Government to pave the way should war become inevitable from a capitalist standpoint.

Even if it were possible to abolish war within capitalism, capitalism would still remain, and it is the mission of the Socialist Party not to fight against particular features of the system, but against the system itself.

In conclusion, therefore, let us urge you not to waste your time with futile anti-war movements, but to join with us in working for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism, confident that with the ending of the system will end the danger of war resulting therefrom.

J. Lockwood

Socialism, Capitalism and "H" Bombs (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

In these enlightened days of aspirin civilisation, the reading and listening population of the world are being calmly informed of their own possible extinction either through actual “H” and “A” bomb warfare or as the result of the “peace time” testing of these instruments for “freedom.” We read in the Daily Express, May 2nd, 1957, that the New York Times thinks “that Britain, like the United States and the Soviet Union, can make and stop hydrogen bombs should be a source of pride for Britons.” 

With the hot-house development of techniques and weapons during the last world bloodbath for profits and the frantic race for supremacy which has gone on ever since, in making, testing and stock-piling “H” and "A" bombs the public has had information made easily available to it in daily newspapers, radio, etc., at every stage of the process. Apart from the scientific “secrets” which the others are not supposed to know about, over a period of more than ten years everything about “H” and “A" bombs has been told. Although efforts have been made in some quarters to play down the effects, nobody could say they have been kept in the dark. It is a charge which certainly could not be levelled at the various National ruling classes, that they have suddenly let the workers in on "H” and “A” bombs being produced, like a bolt out of the blue. Maps have been published in national dailies showing the area of devastation. Information about blast, heat, radiation and now strontium 90 has been sent out through all the mass propaganda channels. Millions have watched “H” and “A” bomb explosions, in cinemas and on television. Hiroshima and Nagasaki still bear living evidence. To make it perfectly clear that these things are not toys the experts have likened the explosions to many millions of tons of T.N.T. It has often been stated, by way of example, that all the bombing raids round the clock on Hamburg, Tokio, etc., would be dwarfed in a flash. Yet after more than ten years of this blood-chilling information there is no stir on the part of the vast majority of potential victims. The question which forces itself on our attention, is—why? Why, with all the peace movements, bomb-banning demonstrations, and petitions, do the majority of workers take no apparent interest in something which might exterminate untold millions of them? What is there fundamentally wrong with all these movements that their mass appeals fail to strike home on something so seemingly simple.

In our unravelling of the above questions we hope workers will see that this is an urgent appeal for action, but of a different and more rewarding kind.

Some of the arguments of the anti-"H” bomb movements begin with the plausibly-sounding statement that “war is the most urgent of problems, so it must be solved first. You cannot work for Socialism if you are dead.” Next comes “the "H" bomb is the most deadly of war weapons, so first our activity must be turned to getting rid of that." Some of these people, namely, those in the so-called Communist Party, have a remarkable capacity for believing that only those “H” and "A” bombs not possessed by Russia are harmful.

One of the effects of this approach to the war problem is that it helps to produce an attitude of mind where, because of the sheer dread of "H” and "A” bombs, war, if only they are banned, could be so heavenly. It is obvious from the start that movements which seek to ban this or that particular weapon are resigned to the continuation of wars; in fact, such activity could truly be described as "getting procedure laid down.” Is war really more acceptable to the working-class if “H” and “A” bombs are not used ?

We claim that the S.P.G.B. and its companion parties have the only real case against war. This must be thought about by workers not as a cheap bit of "pushing the party,” but as a serious statement, which, we think, all the evidence upholds.

When workers hear or read the appeals to ban the bomb, their reaction is one which has already been strongly conditioned.. Conditioned by the fact that, whatever country they live in, they are taught to think as nationalists. Conditioned by the patriotism of "loyalty to the country.” Nationally they see their rulers' interests and their own as one. They are British, American, Russian, and so on. To nationalistic people, leaders (political and religious) flags, armed forces and weapons of all kinds are quite necessary in the interests of the "country.” Seeing no difference between themselves and the boss, they argue "if we don't make it, they will,” " it's no use this country disarming if the others don't,” forgetting that the misguided patriots in the other countries argue in exactly the same way, i.e., not as workers, but as Germans, Americans, Africans, Russians, and so on. Because of their nationalism they all make the same mistake, the mistake the boss teaches them to make, that is, to speak of “we” and “our country.” The all-important fact is, of course, that workers do not possess any country, and the convenient little "we” makes them identify their interests with those who do. To nationalists the world is not divided up into a world-wide working class and a worldwide capitalist class with mutually antagonistic interests; it is divided into “ us” and the “foreigners.”

What could be more telling of the futility of the "peace” movements and the bomb-banners than the fact that they appeal to nationalism and claim to be the real patriots. Thus they directly help to foster the very outlook without which war would be impossible.

It becomes clear that while the majority of workers in each country feel allegiance to its rulers, and through them to the capitalist class which lives on their backs, these Governments, politicians and parsons will be able to prepare the workers for war, make and test "H” bombs or do any thing else on the ground of "national interest.” There must then, be something more than just not wanting the bomb. There must be understanding by the majority of a really workable alternative. It is precisely this which is lacking among the peace screamers, all of whom accept capitalism (consciously or otherwise), but seek to avoid its normal consequences. The alternative for anyone who has thought about what they have just read is implied in what has already been said, that is, a world without nationalism, commerce and conflicting trading interests. A world no longer divided either into nations or classes of rulers and ruled, but a world community, the whole planet being run to satisfy the needs of its population and no longer for profits. With the industrial and natural resources bring held in common by all, mankind would co-operate to produce and freely distribute the things they need. Because the very basis for international conflicts will have gone, wars cannot arise. From that it follows as a matter of course that there will be no bombs to ban, society will not be making them nor any other instrument of destruction. Armed forces will not exist under Socialism because their function will have gone when capitalism goes.

This is about the time when in arguing our ease by word of mouth, our opponents say, “yes, it is a nice dream but how and when will it come about?” The answer to this has been given by the S.P.G.B. since its inception. It will come about when you (the opponents) cease to think that solutions to working class problems can be found within capitalism. Never mind about calling Socialism a dream; until you accept it and help others to do so, you are stuck with the nightmare of capitalism.

When a majority of the world’s workers (all suffering the same problems under the same system) have come to the conclusion, after making the tour of the blind alleys, that Socialism is necessary, the "how” will be fairly easy. They will no longer vote for and support the parties of capitalism. Labour, Liberal, Conservative and so-called Communists, etc.; they will use their votes to send Socialist delegates forward in each country for the object of stripping the capitalist class of the thing which makes them a capitalist class, that is, ownership (State or private) of land, factories, mines, machinery and railways, etc. With this done and the means of production in the hands of the community and democratically controlled, society will begin anew.

Harry Baldwin

Bird’s Eye View: ‘To be radical is to grasp things by the root’ (2022)

The Bird’s Eye View Column from the July 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘To be radical is to grasp things by the root’

‘Hundreds gathered at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk yesterday to reject the presence of US nuclear weapons in Britain after a report detailed Washington’s plans to deploy warheads across Europe. Protesters arrived from Bradford, Sheffield, Nottingham, Manchester and Merseyside with banners opposing Nato, raising them at the airbase’s perimeter fences. Veterans from previous struggles including Greenham Common stood alongside those attending an anti-nuclear demonstration for the first time’ (popularresistance.org, 22 May, bit.ly/3Nrbb0Q).

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has failed. The UK is now no nearer to abandoning its nuclear weapons than it was when CND came into existence. The present government, as well as any which is likely to take power in the foreseeable future, Labour, Liberal or Tory, is firm on this. The women of Greenham Common did win sympathy from some workers attracted to the simple, emotional appeal of women who do not want to be destroyed in a holocaust, yet they failed to stop the first Cruise missiles, which were flown in right on schedule. The Lakenheath marchers, like their Aldermaston predecessors, have been travelling in exactly the wrong direction. Their propaganda has taken no account of the reasons for the existence of nuclear weapons. This has not necessarily been through ignorance of those reasons; perhaps some members of CND know them well enough, or did so once, e.g. the observation by two Greenham Common participants:

‘To oppose nuclear weapons requires a fundamental change in our attitude to life. Clarity of purpose and utter opposition is the only chance to reverse the threat that hangs over all our lives. What we want to change is immense. It’s not just getting rid of nuclear weapons, it’s getting rid of the whole structure that created the possibility of nuclear weapons in the first place. If we don’t use imagination nothing will change. Without change we will destroy the planet. It’s as simple as that’ (Boon, C., Social Movements and Political Power Emerging Forms of Radicalism in the West, Temple University Press, 1986, bit.ly/3a2S6Up).

Indeed. But such insight is all too rare: reformists always treat their problems in isolation from the rest of capitalism. Pacifists think of war as a problem on its own; charitable organisations consider poverty to be something like a personal accident. CND regards the Bomb as an evil which can be separated from its surroundings. And there are those who trumpet tribunals….

‘Workers of the world, unite!’

‘What has also become evident is the helplessness of peace-oriented approaches. Such voices are being shut out by mainstream media platforms, which is reinforced by the inability of the UN to act independently of a geopolitical consensus, and by inter-governmental impotence to safeguard human interest in face of the menacing moves by the most powerful states motivated by contradictory geopolitical motivations. In light of this line of interpretation, I am proposing the establishment of a civil society tribunal along the lines of the Russell Tribunal that brought independent critical voices to the fore on the Vietnam War in the midst of the Cold War in 1966-67. Although this experience was controversial at the time and of questionable relevance to ending that war…’ (Toward a People’s Ukraine Wars Tribunal, countercurrents.org, 7 May, bit.ly/3NCpcce).

The first Russell Tribunal was established to try America for war crimes in Vietnam (of which there was no shortage, of course) which really boiled down to support for the victory of that kindly, freedom-loving ’communist’, Uncle Ho. There have been five more ‘Russells’ to date. How many tribunals, peace groups and pow-wows have come and gone? Innumerable peace treaties, pious resolutions, prayers and demonstrations have been written, passed, uttered, forgotten and staged since the dawn of capitalism. Nuclear weapons remain, hypersonic missiles have made their destructive debut and both sides in the war between Russia and Ukraine continue to use cluster bombs, much to the consternation of Human Rights Watch which is urging both countries to stop and join the international treaty to ban their use. As W. M. Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia during the war to end all wars, observed:

‘The increasing intensity of competition for economic markets must lead to armed conflict unless an economic settlement is found. This, however, is hardly to be hoped for. Talk about peace in a world armed to the teeth is utterly futile’ (News Chronicle, 25 July 1936).

And today:

‘A senior U.S. State Department official said Thursday that a massive Ukraine aid package ― which contains $4 billion in grants for allies to buy American-made military hardware ― is partly aimed at eroding Russia’s share of the global defense market’ (US poised to bite into Russia’s global defense market share, yahoo.com, 13 May).

We should remember that

‘The way things are organised is neither natural nor inevitable, but created by people. People have a wealth of skill, intelligence, creativity and wisdom. We could be devising ways of using and distributing the earth’s vast resources so that no one starves or lives in abject poverty, making socially useful things that people need — a society which is life-affirming in all its aspects’ (Alice Cook and Gwyn Kirk, Greenham Women Everywhere, South End Press, 1983).

What they say they want is also what socialists want; and when enough of us want it we will be able to combine those two remarkable human capacities, the emotional and the rational, in order to take things into our own hands and run our own society, our own world, in the interest of all people. Only then will ’peace and life’ be possible.

And Yet War Came (1960)

From the April 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

In vast numbers of people during the Twenties and Thirties there grew up a revulsion against war, a reaction against the senseless slaughter of World War One. Writers like Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front) and H. G. Wells (The Shape of Things to Come) attempted to show the futility of war and the possible destruction of civilisation. On the political field, popularity and votes could be won by politicians claiming to be in favour of disarmament, and armament manufacturers were pilloried as the “merchants of death.” Basil Zaharoff was held up as an example, with his supplying of arms to both sides. Prominent politicians like George Lansbury and Stafford Cripps won fame by their opposition to war. There was the “Peace Letter” campaign, which held great sway among the opponents of war. Its aims were linked with the League of Nations, whose alleged purpose was to assemble all the nations for the settlement of differences by discussion and reason. And yet war came.

Those people who formerly opposed it changed to support on the grounds that it was the lesser of two evils. That the horrors of Nazism and Fascism were worse than the horror of war. Politicians whose popularity had rested on disarmament and appeasement were reviled and replaced by those more determined to prosecute the war. Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo became the personifications of evil.

The Allies, in order to prosecute their war aims more successfully, drew up the Atlantic Charter and its declaration of human rights. The sweeping away of poverty and the degradation of the common man, was pronounced a major war aim. Despite Churchill’s popularity as a war leader, the desire for change at the end of the war resulted in the election of a Labour Government with an overwhelming majority. 1945 was thought to be the beginning of a new era. The “Welfare State” was ushered in with loud acclaim.

Yet for all the blood, toil, tears, and sweat, what has become of the hopes and ambitions of those years? Has the threat of war been abolished? Have the antagonisms and tensions between nations ended? Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo are gone; Khrushchev, Chou-En-Lai, and Nasser, are now the “villains of the peace.” Instead of Fascism, Communism is now held up as the barrier to the peace and stability of the world.

Politicians say that one of the causes of the last war was the weakness of the Allies in their policy of appeasement. It is claimed that this encouraged aggression by the Axis powers—therefore, we should be armed and ready to deter any potential aggressor even if it means going to the very brink of war itself, as advocated by the late American Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. Labour Party leaders now support nuclear weapons, for to argue from strength, they say, is the only way of maintaining Britain’s position in a world charged with aggressiveness. This is the ludicrous situation —all the nations are determined to have peace, even if they have to go to war to get it.

As much as people are opposed to war, history teaches us that mere opposition is not enough. Socialists are more than just opposed to war. We are opposed to a system that is the direct cause of war situations and finally of war itself. What is this system? It means private ownership, working for wages, the buying and selling of goods, and the acceptance of trade, both national and international, as the only way people can get the things they need. Armies, Navies, Air and Police forces exist and function for the sole purpose of maintaining and protecting property institutions. This is the main reason for the division of the world into national competitive groups.

Anyone who supports this system is an agent of that same process that produces a Hitler, Gas Chambers, a Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and all the other horrors of modern war. Here is the irony of it all. That in their daily lives the way in which people get their living produces a monstrous situation for which there is only a monstrous and yet temporary solution. Having defeated the supposed enemy, they then bring about the situation which nobody wanted in the first place. The Socialist solution runs counter to everything that supports existing property institutions.

Socialists want a world based upon voluntary co-operation, in order that the products of men’s efforts can be of free access—a world where money will not be necessary.

We want people to break out of this vicious circle that perpetuates the ideas of property society. We want their thinking to be Socialist thinking.

J.C. Gormley

The Harbinger of War (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peace talk is the harbinger of war: the louder the talk the nearer the war. When governments are protesting their peaceful intentions and pacifists are loud in their denunciation of war, one can be sure that a war is in the offing.

Between the wars of the present century a collection of peace organisations sprouted up, flourished, spread and propagated until the outbreak of the next war withered them up and they shrivelled to insignificance. Again, today, we are confronted with a batch of them. There are peace committees, peace councils, peace unions, peace societies, peace conferences and all the conglomeration of organisations that go to make up the “peace movement”.

The attitude of the majority of peace organisations is that war is wicked, that it is immoral, a crime against society. This approach to the problem of war is largely emotional, and, because it is rooted in emotion, the “peace movement” is doomed to futility. It attracts the sentimental and not the understanding opponents of war.

The very same sentiment that will urge a man to support a peace organisation will drive him to support a war. The prospect of war with its slaughter and suffering is, undoubtedly, vile and revolting. It is understandable that any human being should brand it as immoral and seek to oppose it. But a prospective enemy is always portrayed as a vile and vicious beast, revolting atrocity tales are circulated and he is proclaimed the enemy of all decency, morality and of civilisation in general. Whether the foe be called a Boer, a Hun, a Fascist or a Communist, he is caricatured as a destroyer of all that genuine peace-loving people hold dear. The sentimentalists turn their attention from the horrors of war to the new horror that is presented. The emotional seeker after peace is asked, “What would you do if a German, or a Korean or a Russian were to rape your sister or to murder your mother?” and immediately he becomes an equally emotional war-time flag-wagger. The same arguments that he previously used against war he can now use against the prospective enemy. So the peace organisations fade.

Prior to the 1939-45 war a group of pacifists, some of whom were members of the Society of Friends, published a booklet entitled “The Roots of War”. In this booklet they quoted from “Conscription and Conscience” by J.W. Graham:

“At the outbreak of the Great War 90 per cent of the peace movement disappeared like snow before the summer sun and 32 per cent of the available young men in the Society of Friends joined up.”

That referred to the 1914-18 war. The position did not change before the last one. During 1935 millions of people signed a Peace Ballot. Four years later most of them had forgotten all about it or would have justified their support of the impending war with similar arguments to those that they had previously used in favour of peace.

The pacifist solution to the problem of war is to urge everyone to resist war service and conscious support of war efforts. The argument is, if everyone refused to participate in war there could be no war. True. But one could as readily say that if everyone refused to be unemployed there could be no unemployment. The logic is sound, but the premise is false. A widespread refusal to participate in war will not, and cannot spring from the sloshy soil of emotionalism. It must have its roots in an understanding of the cause of war, the purposes for which wars are fought and a recognition of worldwide class interests, irrespective of nationality, language, colour, sex or any other sectional division. When the majority of workers realise that they have a common interest with those whom they are sent to kill and that the real enemy is the social class that sends them to do the killing, then there is prospect of an end to war. Until then, mere sentiment will no more stop future wars than it has staved them off in the past. Sentiment is the hotbed from which grows patriotism, racial prejudice, hatred of foreigners and national bigotry, all of which can be suitably fertilised by propaganda, religious teaching, martial music, etc.

Practically all of the peace organisations make great play of declaiming against instruments of mass slaughter such as the atom bomb. They seldom direct any opposition to killing by bayonetting or rifle sniping. The individual methods of killing are selective and are usually confined to the soldiers in the front line of battle, but the instruments of mass destruction are not selective, they do not discriminate between the soldier and the civilian, male and female, the old and the young, god worshipper and atheist, Liberal and Labourite, or, what is more important, between worker and capitalist. Radioactivity is no respecter of persons.

If the opposition is to killing, why direct it at one particular instrument of destruction even though it may be the most spectacular. Is death less objectionable when due to disembowelling by a bayonet than when it is caused by disintegration by Gamma rays? Such specialised opposition to the instruments of mass destruction suggests a desire to escape the consequences of modern war rather than a desire to eliminate the evil of war itself. It suggests a fear rather than an indignation.

All such opposition to mass killing, atom bombs, as well as to war propaganda and armament manufacture, is opposition to the effects of war and not to war itself. The peace organisations, admirable as their intentions may be, are useless for the purpose of preventing war. War is a product of social conditions and those conditions must be examined for its cause before it can be eradicated. Socialism alone has the solution that can end war for all time.

There is another approach to the war problem that would be humorous were it not that so many workers are deluded by it. There are those who claim that by the superior might of an associated group of nations, would-be aggressors can be scared away from war. This is the line taken by the majority of governments today. Armaments are piled up by blocs of states in order to intimidate other blocs and thus crowd the world with snarling fighters who are all afraid to start anything for fear of getting a licking. The whole argument is, of course, sheer nonsense. The League of Nations was based on this idea, just as is U.N.O. today. The League of Nations could not intimidate Italy when it invaded Abyssinia, nor could it prevent the last world war. The existence of U.N.O. did not prevent the war in Korea nor will it prevent the greater war that is looming ahead. Atlantic Pacts, the grouping of Western powers, Russia and Oriental alliances are all of the same order. The increased military might that results from an alliance between a number of states is heralded as a force for peace. Bunkum! It is just so much increased strength when the war starts. The smallest and weakest of nations are driven to war by the force of capitalist competition, even against mightier competitors. Military strength may defer but cannot prevent the ultimate use of military force to settle international conflicts.

This “peace by force” argument goes hand in hand with the well propagated idea that it is always the other fellow who is the villain. No government ever admits that it is the aggressor. Each capitalist state protests that it is pining for peace but that others will not leave it alone. Various opponents arise with martian expression to disturb the peace. Once it was the French, then the Germans and the Turks, now the Russians. In each of those countries the aggressor is some other nation. Britain claimed that Hitler was warlike and started the last war, Russia attacked Finland to safeguard itself against aggression, Hitler and Mussolini wanted peace but warmongering Britain was aggressive. “Please sir, it wasn’t me, it was that other boy.” So they hoodwink the emotional pacifists and wean them away from their peace organisations into an all-out war effort.

The Communist-inspired peace conferences, likewise, have nothing to offer. The acrobatics of the Communist Party during the last war are still fresh in our memory. Always the policy is in line with the foreign alliances of the Russian Government. If Russia and Britain are allies, the Communists are patriotic enthusiasts. If Russia is in the opposite camp, it is a war of capitalist imperialism against the workers of the East, and the Communists are anti-war. Any protestations of peace coming from the Communist Party indicate the requirements of the Russian Foreign Office. The indication now is that Russia is not yet prepared to face a war. But the fighting pacifist speeches at the peace conference attract a lot of well-intentioned but sentimental pacifist workers.

High profits and low wages indicate that the workers are producing a lot of wealth that does not come back to them in their weekly wage packets. It is in the scramble to acquire profit that capitalist groups come into conflict with one another. Certain necessities to modern civilisation such as petroleum and rubber are only to be obtained from particular parts of the world. Their production and sale offers great profit. National capitalist groups jostle for control of these areas. They argue, they enter into diplomatic relations, they place their case before U.N.O. and they build armaments against the day when they must fight for survival. If one group gives up the struggle even for a short while it is swamped by its rivals. Constant alertness is vital and a preparedness to resort to arms when the national economic life is being strangled which, for the capitalist, means when his profits are being diverted into someone else’s pocket.

There is no working-class interest to be served in any capitalist war. They are not worth the shedding of working-class blood. But the workers must not be pacific. There is a war to fight, a war against those who would maintain the existing system of production for profit. The class war. That calls for a very determined and fighting working class, not a sentimental pacifist one. The question of morals or the evil of war does not enter into it. Where there is a conflict of interest there must be a readiness to fight. If we object to fighting then we must remove the conflicting interests. If we remove the capitalist class we shall have solved the problem of all wars, international as well as class. But we shall not remove the capitalist class with sentiment and talk about morality.

W. Waters