Letter: Supporting a Capitalist War for Freedom (1939)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (S. H. O., Highgate) puts the following question : —

“Suppose, in the recent crisis, one had to choose between a certain suppression of freedom of expression and association (as, for example, is at present enjoyed by the S.P.G.B.) and fighting in a capitalist war, with, nevertheless, a chance of preserving such freedom, what should the Socialist decide to do? 

“N.B.—I am not implying that such was the choice; I am asking you to suppose it was.”

Reply

Our correspondent’s letter well illustrates the difficulty of giving a satisfactory reply to a question based on a hypothetical case. What line Socialists should follow in a given situation must depend upon a consideration of all of the important factors, but in any hypothetical case some important factors are not stated, and the situation itself may be one which, in the opinion of the Socialist, could not happen.

In the present case our correspondent tries to give the hypothetical situation actuality by instancing the recent crisis; but this is not a legitimate parallel, for the recent crisis was not a situation in which the assumed choice of alternatives presented itself.

Our correspondent does not explain how opposition to a capitalist war could make certain the suppression pf freedom of expression, etc. Does he mean that defeat in war by Germany would make that result a certainty? If so, we must reply that there can be no certainty about it. The German capitalist class (like their British counterparts) are interested in the acquisition of colonies and markets, and in weakening the armed forces of their rivals. It is impossible to say what their wishes about the form of Government of Great Britain would be. One guess is as good as another. If a victorious German ruling class shared Mr. Winston Churchill’s view about dictatorship they might even use their influence to prevent it in this country.

Mr. Winston Churchill: “I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war, I hope we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations.” (Daily Telegraph, November 7th, 1938.)

Actually, it is the attitude of the working class which is in the last resort decisive. If Fascism arose in Britain, with or without war, it could only be because the British capitalists wanted it and the workers supported it or were apathetic.

Our correspondent does not mention, and may have overlooked, that the line to be followed by Socialists is not one for British Socialists alone but for all Socialists. His proposal can, therefore, be tested by its application in other countries.

The British-French capitalists would be waging war in defence of their class interests, in alliance with one or more of the Russian, Polish, Turkish, Yugo-Slav, Italian or Rumanian dictatorships. Socialists in those countries would be in a position of having to support their own dictatorships and thus give up their own struggle for “freedom of expression and association.”

But if it is desirable for Socialists to fight in a capitalist war because of the chance of preserving freedom of association in one country, it must logically be equally desirable to fight in a capitalist war because of the chance of gaining such freedom in another country. Consequently, the Socialists in those dictatorship countries would be considering helping the “enemy” group (Germany and her allies) against their own Governments, because defeat of their own Governments might assist the establishment of a democratic or, at least, a weaker Government, and give them freedom of association. (This line was followed by some alleged Socialists in 1914.) Then the Socialists of the world would be fighting each other, all on the basis of the principle contained in our correspondent’s question!

As against such opportunism we say that Socialists must maintain the independence of the Socialist movement and its international solidarity, recognising that the preservation of freedom of expression depends ultimately on the degree of class-consciousness of the workers, and war weakens that class-consciousness.

Ed. Comm.

Book Review: Ropes of Sand. (1915)

Book Review from the August 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

“A way to Prevent War,” by Allan L. Benson. 180 pp. Cloth, 1 dollar. Appeal to Reason, Girard, Kansas, U.S.A.

“If the people were in favour of war, the way to end war would be to convert the people to peace. This book is devoted to the task of showing that since the people are opposed to war the logical way to end it is to take the power to declare war from minorities who misuse it and vest it in the people who may be depended upon not to use it at all.” Thus does the author of the volume under review open his preface.

The busy reviewer who takes up a book for the purpose of criticism, and finds the key to his labours in the first paragraph, is a lucky man. “Since the people are opposed to war” ! “What an assumption to build up a 180 page tome upon ! Had the writer lived in England in August 1914; had he taken part in the perils of our outdoor propaganda soon after the outbreak of hostilities ; had he mounted the public platform in any of the belligerent countries last autumn, when the British bulldog was a gnashing of his teeth, and the French poodle and the Russian bear were tying themselves up in true lovers’ knots in their patriotic frenzy, and the German two-headed eagle was doing the porcupine act with his neck feathers, and only the Dutch cheese maintained his customary sanity (because he wasn’t a belligerent)—had he, the author of “A way to Prevent War,” taken the platform then and tried to tell the people that they “are opposed to war,” he would have experienced experiences that might have prevented him rushing into print on such a flimsy ground as the conception that the people would never use the power to declare war at all.

Mr. Churchill has told us that there are worse things than bloodshed, and it is true. Mr. Churchill, of course, meant that there are worse things than the shedding of other people’s blood, and thus put even fewer dissentients will raise voice against the statement. But if we are to believe Mr. Benson, there are no conceivable circumstances, no wrongs and oppression, which could urge the people to resort to arms if the option of peace and war lay with them.

Well, I for one say not so, and fervently hope not so. Bad, indeed, as this welter of blood is—and its horror vibrates not less strongly through the Socialist fibres of the reviewer than through the reformist fabric of his author—it is not so bad. by a very long chalk, as that the working class, if the power to make war was vested in them, could “be depended upon never to use it at all”—merely because, under Mr. Benson’s scheme, those who voted for war would be the first to be sent to the front.

The present futile and deplorable struggle, with all its appalling waste of life and all its stupendous agony and suffering, is not so bad as that other condition because it indicates that the workers are not lacking in the “animal” courage necessary for the achievement of their emancipation from wage-slavery, while on the other hand, if they would never resort to armed conflict at all under the condition that those who voted for war would be the first to be called upon to serve, that would simply indicate that they have not the courage to strike the blow which they must strike in order to set themselves free.

Mr. Benson says : “The world is tired of war.” This may be true enough now ; and anyway it is pretty certain to be true before the war is finished. That does not mean, however, that in a decade or so the world would decline to resort to force of arms again should circumstances similar to those which caused the present conflagration then obtain. No one, in all probability, will be more heartily tired of the war before it is finished than the capitalist class, who have got to pay for it ; yet even our author would not deny that it would be idle to expect the capitalist class to abolish war. Anyway he says that his program “will not be installed by the capitalist class,” (Page 4.)

What better reason has Mr, Benson for maintaining that the people (by whom he seems to mean the working class) need but the referendum on war in order to abolish war ?

The bottom of the argument is knocked out by the author’s own admission (p, 77) that “It is unfortunately true that scheming diploma­tists and jingo journalists have the power so to inflame peoples that they desire war.” What, then, is the use of talking about giving the people the “direct vote on tha war” ? To bam­boozle them into desiring war is to bamboozle them into voting war ; and to lay the voter under the penalty of having to fight if he votes for fighting is simply to challenge his courage. These things are patent to everyone save the crank who thinks he has discovered a short cut to the millenium.

The very fact that it is true that “scheming diplomatists and jingo journalists have the power to so inflame peoples that they desire war” shows that it is not so much the referendum on war that the people need as knowledge. Knowledge alone can save them from the wiles of the “scheming diplomatists and jingo journalists” interested in stirring up race hatred and exploiting the cowardice of those who have not the courage to face the charge of the white feather lancers. Granted that Mr. Benson, as a part of his scheme, provides the same penalty for those who advocate war through the Press or on the platform as for those who vote for it in the ballot, but the capitalists, with their unlimited means of inducing men and women to take personal risks (as witness the system of espionage existing in all capitalist countries) would find this very little deterrent to the people being so inflamed as to desire war.

Knowledge is the only safeguard against the workers being dragged into wars that do not concern them—knowledge that is, which has found its consummation in the capture of the machinery of government. This knowledge must be Socialist knowledge. It must be knowledge of the unity of interest of the workers of all countries, and the antagonism between that interest and the interest of the capitalists of all lands.

And mark this, that knowledge itself, while it precludes the possibility of the workers being inflamed for capitalist war, must on the other hand inflame them against the capitalists in the bitterest of all wars—the class war. As opposing interests are the cause of all wars, unity of interest is the only absolute safeguard against war. The Socialist recognises this and acts accordingly ; the pseudo-Socialist does not recognise it, and he acts accordingly also.

Hence we find Mr. Benson telling us (p. 101) “The advocates of the war referendum plan declare that if diplomacy were democratized and the war-making power vested in themselves, no war could be begun for which the people had not voted”—which, of course, is not less fatuous because it is true, if the people can be inflamed to desire war.

And hence also we find Mr. Benson arguing the question (p. 102) “whether the Socialist plan of ending poverty and war or the war-referendum plan is, in its nature, most likely to lead in mak­ing its way into the public understanding” and deciding (as a Socialist !) against the Socialist plan.

Another mistake of the author which residence in any of the belligerent countries might possibly have prevented him from making is the claim that women, if given the vote, “would vote overwhelmingly against war.” One who proclaims that “We Socialists take nothing for granted” might at least have spent some pains upon substantiating this claim. He might have endeavoured to show that the Socialist theory of the domination of material interests over human actions applies only to the male sex.

There are many other points of error in Mr. Benson’s book, only one particularly grave one can be mentioned here. This is the statement that the power for peace and war rests solely in the hands of a few politicians. Says our author: “134 men in Congress and one man in the White House have all of the power . .” (p. 11). This exposes a lamentable ignorance of the true facts of the case. The politicians are the servants of the master class, acting in their interests under such cloaks of hypocrisy and cant as they can devise.

The book is not without one merit. It brings before the public notice many of the wiles with which the diplomatists and politicians have carried out their masters’ work. The Bismarckian instances are very interesting reading though not altogether new to English readers. The events leading up to the Spanish American War are also worth perusal, and in particular the story of the “Maine.” How the American Government resisted for ten long years every demand to have the sunken warship raised from the slime of Havannah Harbour, and how it was eventually raised, taken out to sea, and sunk in order to destroy for ever the evidence of the falsity of the pretext for war which ten years previously it had provided, tell their own tale of Cultur, as unmistakably as certain other incidents related tell theirs of Culture and Kultur.

A. E. Jacomb

An I.L.P. “belief”. (1917)

From the August 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Independent Labour Party believes that the war was caused by the breakdown of class government in Europe. The peoples had no voice in policy before the war, and when they suddenly found themselves faced with “enemies” they had to fight.”

This statement contained in No. 1 Leaflet “The I.L.P. and the War” is not supported by facts or evidence of any kind ; it is merely a belief. Though whether the word “believes” applies to the first sentence only, or to the whole paragraph, it is impossible to say, nor does it matter much. The first sentence, expressing the belief that the war was caused by the breakdown of class government in Europe, if it is truly the belief of the I.L.P., is by far the most important statement, not only in this paragraph, but in the whole leaflet.

The writers fail to justify their belief. The master-class would ridicule it, and the Socialist would laugh at their self-inflicted credulity. What would be the attitude of the capitalist politicians ? First they would deny the existence of class government. Secondly they would claim that government was vested in the representatives of the people, was therefore democratic ; that government had not broken down, nor was it in the slightest danger of doing so. If the I.L.P. never anticipated this attitude it is politically sightless. If the capitalist position—so often expressed by its agents and spokesmen—was present in the collective mind of the I.L.P., they should not have been satisfied with the mere expression of a belief ; they should have shown in definite and unmistakable language that, in spite of capitalist boasting of the democratic nature of their system, class government exists. Moreover, they should have justified their statement that it had broken down.

They have done none of these things, it is, therefore, left to the Socialist to show the absurdity of their beliefs. In no country of Europe was there any government, at the outbreak of war, that showed signs of collapse. In every country of Europe—and the world—there was poverty and suffering, always on the increase, among the working class. There was discontent everywhere, but the suffering and discontent of the workers does not in itself mean the breakdown of capitalist government, on the contrary, it is proof of its power—and confidence in itself—to exploit and subjugate. At the outbreak of war, we are constantly being told, the Central Powers were organized and equipped for the struggle. That is to say, the working class of those countries were fully controlled and disciplined by the governing class. Obviously, class government had not broken down in those countries, but, on the contrary, had reached a high degree of perfection. In those allied countries where conscription was in vogue the military authorities, at the instigation of those who controlled the political machinery, gave orders for mobilisation and were obeyed almost to the last man. In this country the process was slower but just as sure. Everyone knows how the masters co-operated with their representatives in Parliament by “releasing” men fit for active service. But it is not everyone who knows how dexterously Mr. Asquith and his government, on behalf of the capitalist class of this country, engineered towards conscription. Had he been satisfied with having achieved his object and not boasted of his political dexterity, the workers would have been left to think that the Government had simply blundered from one pledge to another until conscription was accomplished, as much to their own surprise as other people’s. But the competition for ministerial portfolios often compels Ministers—however modest they may wish to be thought—to construe their actions in such a way as to gain them credit for acumen and foresight. Thus Mr. Asquith claimed that his government, by devious methods, had gained “compulsion by consent,” in the following utterance:

“Next, in the earlier stages of the war more men came in than we could effectively train and equip, and it was not until the beginning of last Autumn that the shortage of men, actual or prospective, became a serious problem. Compulsion, whatever may be said of its abstract merits or demerits, is alien to British traditions—(cheers)—and its introduction would have been viewed with the greatest suspicion in the absence of a proved case of absolute necessity by the vast bulk of Liberals, by a large body of Conservatives, and by practically the whole of organised labour. (Cheers.) I have consistently maintained ever since the recruiting problem became urgent that compulsion could only be practicable and made effective when at each stage of the road it was accompanied by general consent. That is exactly what has happened. Everyone who knows anything of our political life must be aware that such measures as have been passed by enormous majorities in Parliament this spring would even a year ago have encountered the most strenuous opposition, with most dubious prospects of survival.”

Whether this boast is true, or whether such a complexion had been given to a series of blunders, or whether the Government was dragged or forced along the road to conscription by the governing class, the result was the same and was never in doubt. The ruling class with their agents preserved their authority and achieved the same degree of power over the working class here, as the Allied and Central Governments exercised at the commencement. Clearly class government had not broken down in this country.

But possibly the I.L.P. intellect will object that these facts only apply to the period of the war, and that the outbreak of war placed the Government once more on their feet, or braced them for the struggle. But they cannot take this attitude in view of the concluding sentence in the paragraph quoted. “The peoples had no voice in policy before the war.” Quite so. The Government conducted the business of the ruling class in utter disregard and contempt for the working class, until they called upon them to defend “their” country—their country, who’s?-and the credulous—or should it be shuffling and treacherous ?—I.L.P. babble about the people who “suddenly found themselves faced with enemies they had to fight.” Had the people—that is the working class—understood their class position they never would have waited for the master class to choose enemies for them. But thanks to the I.L.P. and the rest of the parties and organisations that serve the master class, the workers have had but little chance of learning who are their real enemies. Had the workers of every country understood the nature of capitalist society and their own slave position, the governing class in each country would never have succeeded in persuading them that the workers of other lands could be their enemies. There is no possible ground of antagonism between the wage-slaves of one capitalist State and another. The antagonism that exists is entirely between the different groups of the governing class. When these groups fell out they knew that the workers under their control and domination could be relied upon to do the fighting in their interest. Had they entertained any doubts as to the docility of their wage slaves they would have hesitated before plunging into war. A working class really antagonistic to its rulers would use such an occasion to further its own object : they would face the enemy their experience pointed to ; not the enemies of their enemy.

Once again the real Socialist position must be emphasised. The I.L.P. complain that “the peoples had no voice in policy before the war.” Would there be any difference if they had? Without knowledge the workers can be led to support any policy that happens to be in the capitalist interest. We have seen the workers in the past—plastic as clay in the potter’s hands—led to conflict against those who are “their allies” to-day ; or fighting on the side of those who are designated as their enemies, and through all the sanguinary wars engendered by capitalist production and distribution they have remained a slave class under the domination of those, for whom they fought. Before wars can cease the workers must gain the knowledge that will enable them to prosecute the class war to a successful conclusion ; until that time arrives their lot must be to work the factory machine, or the machine gun, at the instigation and in the interest of the governing class.

F. Foan

The Arms Industry: From Bazil Zaharoff to Ray Brown (1966)

From the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The affairs of arms manufacturers and their agents have for many years been a fertile field of investigation for social reformers who look for the cause of human suffering and social chaos in the activities of evil men. The recent appointment of Ray Brown to the new government post of Head of Defence Sales, for example, let off a storm of protests by government back-benchers. An old bogey was raised in a question by Labour M.P. John Rankin: —

Is my Right Honourable Friend aware that the appointment of Mr. Brown seems to be similar to a former appointment, that of Sir Bazil Zaharoff, who earned a reputation in this country and in the Labour movement for his nefarious practices which were widely condemned by every member of the Labour movement?

A brief study of the development of the arms industry over the last hundred years will show the points of similarity.

The second half of the 19th century was a period of rapid technical advance in armaments. The industrial revolution produced the coal, iron and steel, chemical and mechanical engineering industries which were to make this possible. The Industrial Revolution was itself part of the development of a society where antagonisms made arms production a necessity.

For about 300 years naval warfare had changed little. It was fought in wooden sailing ships carrying bronze cannons with the winds and human energy as their only sources of power. Between the Crimean War and the end of the century great changes took place. Steam powered, armour-plated ships built with rifled steel guns capable of hurling shells of three-quarters of a ton many miles with great accuracy. Armoured plate became thicker and tougher as the guns became more powerful. At the end of the century the torpedo shattered the supremacy of the battleship. On land similar advances were made by artillery. In small arms the machine gun, developing from hand operated models to the Maxim automatic, gave the infantry far greater firepower. The railways also made it possible to deploy men and war materials rapidly.

The great technical development of the advanced countries and the consequent rapid increase in production provided not only the wealth, but also the source of frictions which were to make increased arms expenditure necessary. One result was the intensified rivalry in the search for markets for the increasing volume of commodities. There were many chances for the weapons to be proved in battle; the American Civil War, Franco-Prussian War, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War and so on until the First World War.

The great arms manufacturers were drawn into the industry by the prospects of greater profits. The steel and heavy engineering industries were in the second half of the 19th century plagued by fluctuations in the demand for their goods. Expansion during boom time and prospects of bankruptcy during slumps made it urgent that their activities be diversified. The British government, in order to have the latest technical developments incorporated in the weapons of its armed forces, placed orders for components such as gun barrels with the Sheffield steel makers and later for the complete guns. It was in this way that pickers came into the industry. Their activities grew as they took over a shipyard at Barrow and the Maxim Machine Gun Company. By 1914, Vickers had grown to an international combine, whose products ranged from complete battleships to machine guns. Armstrongs, a general engineering firm in north-east England, also became a giant of the arms industry. Krupp in Germany and Schneider in France were their main rivals.

Like any other commodity, armaments were—and are—made to be sold profitably. Governments were usually the customers and the industry's sales methods were tailored to suit the markets. The major manufacturers had well staffed branch offices in the capital cities that offered the best prospects of sales. These offices were private diplomatic missions in close contact with the government; some were reputed to have greater knowledge of local politics than the official embassies. Where local conditions demanded it, bribery and corruption were used.

Zaharoff, whose early life was spent in the Balkans, started his career in the arms industry as the Balkans agent for the Anglo-Swedish firm of Nordenfeld. Among their products was the first commercial submarine. His first success was the sale of one of these to the Greek Navy in 1877 followed by an order for two from the Turkish Navy. This was the start of Zaharoff’s reputation for playing one nation against the other; for exploiting a rivalry which already existed. Zaharoff was well equipped for his job; he was fluent in several languages, a great charmer, had a wide knowledge of the world and politics, all of which he applied with great success to his job. He quickly became Nordenfeld's agent for the whole of Europe.

In this new capacity Zaharoff was up against Maxim’s, whose machine gun was far superior to Nordcnfeld's. Zaharoff tried every dirty trick in the trade to win orders for his firm but they were of no avail against the superior product. The result of the clash was the merger of the two firms with Zaharoff looking after the sales and Maxim's the technical details. Later in the 1890’s, Vickers took them over and it was with Vickers that Zaharoff reached the height of his career. His activities look him all over the world, negotiating orders wherever the demand occured.

Vickers at this lime obtained large shares in a number of overseas arms companies including some in Spain. Italy and Japan, as well as contracts to manage the government dockyards of Russia and Turkey. Other international activities included membership of a syndicate of British, French, German and American firms to divide territories and profits and to pool patents for armoured plate; licensing a German firm, Deutsche Wallen, to manufacture and sell machine guns with shared profits in certain markets; an agreement whereby Vickers made and sold Krupps time and percussion fuses. There were also gentlemen’s agreements with Armstrong to avoid clashing in foreign markets.

It is probable that Zaharoff had a hand in negotiating many of these agreements, which were, after all, normal business arrangements. He was also credited with controlling sections of the foreign press and of getting into the confidence of the world’s leading politicians. His tactics included philanthropy; grants to set up aviation studies at one university, financing literary prizes and establishing homes for disabled sailors. It was rumoured that he was one of the richest men in the world and had control of the world's armament industry. When he died in 1936, he left only £1 million which is far from making him one of the richest men but very good for a salesman.

The First World War caused the expansion of the arms industry so that a large part of world industry was geared to supplying the combatants. The war provided the incentive to develop Switzerland’s aluminium and hydro-electricity generating industries: Japanese industry prospered greatly and expanded. The opposing forces faced each other with international armaments. 'The world's navies were clad with Krupp’s patented armour plate. The armies used machine guns operating on principles developed by Maxim. The torpedoes were Whitehead’s design.

Once the war was over the accounts had to be settled. Krupp’s and Vickers were in dispute over royalties on fuses and Vickers and Deutsche Wallen were in dispute over royalties on machine guns. Business, in other words, as usual.

The ending of the war produced the very situation—the slump—which the arms makers had tried to safeguard by joining the industry. Their activities had expanded continuously for many years during the pre-war arms race and during the war had expanded much more again. In Britain, there was a boom in engineering and ship-building for two or three years after 1918, then the slump came with production and prices dropping drastically. Both Vickers and Armstrong had tried to diversify their activities into a wide variety of products from locomotives to sewing machines, but to no avail. By 1925 they were both in great difficulties and outside experts were called in to advise. The two firms were merged and Vickers-Armstrong struggled on for many years before another arms race restored their profits.

In the slump, these two mighty firms were powerless. Their best salesmen could not revive the market. Their close contacts with the great politicians and military leaders of the world could not help them. In fact, capitalism mastered them and not the other way round.

Various efforts were made by the League of Nations to regulate the arms industry but with little success. Many hooks were published during this period exposing the arms industry. They were useful in showing the workings of the industry but their solutions limited to such useless measures as nationalisation and international commissions to control sales. Disarmament conferences were piecemeal affairs, trying to limit the number of battleships and cruisers, weapons which were on the way out.

The arms race before World War Two was concerned with aircraft, tanks, armoured cars and submarines. The industry became more subject to government control. Instead of setting the pace with design and innovations, it became more and more dependent on working to government specifications.

The Second World War saw the introduction of some of the war material with which we are familiar today—electronics in radar and rocket guidance, rockets and the atom-bomb.

The atom-bomb could only be developed by governments; it required far greater resources than any private firm could muster. The IJSA was the first to produce it, over a million men being involved in this project. In spite of the greatest secrecy about its production, there are now five countries openly making this weapon. The main rivalry since the Second World War has been between the USA and Russia. There has been a continuous high level of spending on arms, including a race in the production of nuclear weapons and the aircrafts and rockets to deliver them. This rivalry is now carried on into space.

The expense of this development can only be borne by the giant nations such as the USA and Russia. The former great nations are now left well behind.

Since the war the international arms trade has continued. The Nato and Warsaw Pact alliances provide large markets, as do the new independent countries many of which spend over 30 per cent of their budgets on so called defence. For all the government control, the internationalisation of the industry is still there. The British Hawker Hunter and Canberra aircraft and the American F104 have been built in many countries. The Russian MIG fighter is built not only in Warsaw pact countries but also in India.

The arms trade has continued to flourish but the British capitalists’ share of it has declined steadily. Russia and America now oiler a far more attractive range of goods and are also better organised to take advantage of the market. Russia’s triumphs include breaking into the Egyptian, Cuban. Indonesian and Indian markets. Private enterprise USA is also showing the way by having a government sales organisation with Henry J. Kuss in charge under the title of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Logistics Negotiations. Kuss is a career Civil Servant and The Observer (15.5.66) reported, “Last year he was given a medal by McNamara for selling 9,000 million dollars worth of arms since his appointment in I960.” He also forecasts a booming market. “Mr. Kuss was recently quoted as saying that over the next ten years about 100,000 million dollars would be spent in the free world outside the United States on military hardware." (Financial Times, 22.12.65).

This brings us back to Mr. Ray Brown and his job of expanding Britain’s arms sales. Despite such promising markets, only £125 millions of British arms are being exported each year. The Labour Government are hoping that an increase in exports will help to solve their balance of payments problem. At present, Mr. Brown must he a little confused with his job. as there are certain promising markets out of bounds: South Africa and Spain, for instance. The conditions for sale to America must be hard to swallow: no doubt the Labour conscience would he calmed if the arms were only used for peaceful purposes like strike breaking or quelling riots.

And this brings us back to the agony of the Left. Mr. Rankin sees a similarity between the roles of Zaharoff and Brown. Of course there is: the only difference being that Zaharoff worked for Vickers and not (as Mr. Rankin thought) for the Government. The conditions of 1966 may require different selling techniques to 1906 and, as men, Zaharoff and Brown may be as different as chalk and cheese but the essential features are the sun. Weapons of war are made to be used and their effects will be the same whether gentlemen or rogues sell them or whether it be governments or private firms that employ the salesmen.

Joe Carter

Something’s lurking around the corner – but it isn’t a world war (2023)

From the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader in Greece has sent us the article below. We publish it as informative and a contribution to the discussion about whether the war in Ukraine is likely to lead to a Third World War.

The devastating one-two punch delivered to the world economy by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian war has fuelled fears that World War Three may soon break out. With no other historical event to compare the current crisis to, many take their cue from how World War One killed the first wave of globalisation in 1914 and conclude that the end of our second wave of globalisation is nigh.

Although world trade as a percentage of world GDP is currently down to 52 percent (the same level as in 2009), we are very far from the nadir of 5 percent registered in 1945 at the end of World War Two. Because of the tendency to conflate or confuse the order of historical events, the decline in world trade is incorrectly seen by many to be a harbinger of world war. Yet it was the other way around with the demise of ‘Globalisation 1.0.’ Moreover, World War Two did not erupt immediately after 1918. It took twenty-one years of interwar isolationism, protectionism and the Great Depression to trigger it.

How realistic is the outbreak of a major international war in the foreseeable future? The causes of World War One were imperialism, militarism, nationalism and the alliance system. Although present in the equation today, these factors are considerably less dynamic than they were at the end of the long nineteenth century in 1914. Imperialism has been replaced by transnational organisations and multinational corporations. Militarism is also significantly weaker. If the war in Ukraine is the prelude to World War Three, where is the will to fight on the part of the Russian aggressor? It appears that only the Ukrainians possess this quality. The same may be said about the explosion of nationalism in Ukraine, which is the exception that proves the general rule. Nationalism was necessary for capitalism’s gestation from feudalism with its myriad tariffs and customs barriers that hindered trade. In our technologically connected world, nationalism is an anachronism that has no lasting power against large multinational corporations and transnational organisations like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

When Russia’s oil-and-gas-fuelled economic expansion wound up in 2008, President Vladimir Putin put everyone on a daily diet of Great Russian chauvinism and idiosyncratic imperial revanchism. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels had ten years to work their propaganda. Putin has had a good fourteen—and the efforts bore fruit. Ask the average Russian teenager what they know about the 1917 revolution and they’ll shrug their shoulders. Yet like parrots they’ll repeat that Joseph Stalin saved the planet from fascism in World War Two. Never mind that it was the Soviet people who defeated the Nazis—and not Stalin. The Red Tsar’s purge of the Red Army shortly before the war began and murder of the Soviet Union’s top military minds, his myopia over Hitler’s plans and other blunders that cost the lives of millions of people, make his role in the war much less than heroic, to say the least. Nevertheless, under Vladimir Putin the victory of the Soviet Union against the Third Reich was quickly turned into a hypostasis of the Russian state. Quite tellingly in terms of his intention to attack Ukraine under the pretext of fighting Ukrainian Nazis, Putin had legislation passed in July 2021—just six months before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine—that make it a crime to equate Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. In a word, the Kremlin uses Hitler to whitewash Stalin.

Kremlin propagandists speak of a ‘sacred national war’ in Ukraine but most Russians, particularly in St. Petersburg, Moscow and other large cities, are ceasing to be idiots—to use the term in the original, ancient Athenian sense of ‘idiotis,’ that is, an individual who does not participate in the common affairs of the demos, or ruling body of free citizens. Russians are waking up from a 22-year slumber. They see that their grey FSB mouse-turned-emperor is naked—and from the waist down this time. Moscow insists that the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine was imperative in order to pre-empt an attack from NATO. However, increasing numbers of people understand that Putin’s real motive was to distract the public’s attention from a tanking economy and gain ratings through a short, victorious war.

The closest parallel in Russian history to what we are witnessing in Ukraine’s snow-covered fields of fertile chernozem, or black soil, is Tsar Nicholas I’s attempt in 1853 to bolster his regime via a ‘short, victorious war’ in Crimea. The results were catastrophic. The war lasted until 1856, the Imperial Russian Army was soundly defeated, the treasury was drained (leading to the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867), and Russia’s influence in Europe was seriously undermined. The humiliation in the Crimean War forced Russia’s educated elites to recognise that rapid modernisation was the only way to recover the empire’s status as a European power. This was a catalyst for social reforms in the 1860s, including the abolition of serfdom and the overhaul of the justice system, local self-government, education and military service.

For a world war to be on the cards, a fight between two opponents must swiftly turn into a fight between many. Russia today is more isolated than she has ever been. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has more allies than does the pale moth, as Russians pejoratively refer to their president. China is at best a lukewarm ally and even an engagement of NATO forces against Russian troops in Ukraine will not see the Red Dragon leap to Putin’s defence. A war between the United States and China is a non-starter because globalisation has bound the world much more tightly together than it has ever been. Were such a war to start, it would be an armed conflict between a buyer and seller, a consumer and a producer—and all parties would lose. China is a giant with clay feet, as the pandemic of recent protests in cities across the country suggest. Xi Jinping and the elite in Beijing fear worker unrest like death. They know that their privileges—and very survival—depend on their ability to ensure that people are not unemployed.

While a world war may be necessary to kill Globalisation 2.0, it is not an imperative for socialist revolution. In the early 1920s, for instance, a massive workers’ movement developed in Germany. Organised in councils (Arbeiterräte), these people were devoted to a general struggle against exploiters and the seizure of economic power by associations of worker collectives. They opposed patriotic defensism (defence of ‘their country’) and were hostile to all governments, including their ‘own’ leaders in Berlin. The workers’ councils rejected political parties and trade unions, which they regarded as fundamentally anti-democratic because they invariably have leaders who make all the important decisions and followers who do as they are told.

This was also true in Russia, where workers’ councils, or soviets, first appeared in the Revolution of 1905. Unlike political parties or trade unions, they answered to no one but their own collective and their elected representatives were recallable by the majority. The councils held de facto power in working class neighbourhoods in St. Petersburg and Moscow after Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate in February 1917. The rest, as they say, is history. Lenin’s Bolshevik Party came to power on the rising tide of soviets, then quickly swept the workers’ councils off the political stage and replaced them with its own dictatorship—which then morphed in the thirties into Stalin’s personal tyranny. Naturally, the USSR presented itself as anti-capitalist. From the standpoint of capitalists the world over, this was confirmed by the supposed abolition of private property and the free market. From the perspective of Soviet workers themselves, however, their government, though endlessly spewing Marxist phraseology, was in fact a harsh exploiter. This was also felt by the workers in the Communist Bloc, especially when the Soviet Union ordered an armoured division into East Berlin in 1953 to crush a rebellion by East German workers—which set a precedent for the armed interventions in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Whether the Soviet Union was state capitalist or a ‘deformed’ or ‘degenerated’ workers’ state, as some argue, it certainly was no paradise for most people. The USSR had very little in common with socialism, if of course by socialism we mean a society without exploitation and classes. Not for nothing did many Russians call their country the ‘land of the great lie.’ The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was neither a union (Moscow ruled despotically over the regions), nor soviet (the workers’ councils were eliminated), nor socialist (workers’ self-management was destroyed), nor republican (there were no free elections). Every word in this “USSR” was a bald lie.

War is not a necessarily condition for anti-capitalist revolution. Most analysts neglect to mention or are simply unaware of the fact that the revolution in Russia might very well have broken out before the guns sounded in August of 1914. Analysis of the extensive data collected by Tsar Nicholas II’s Factory Inspectorate for the period from 1900 to 1914 shows a sharply rising strike wave, particularly in the empire’s capital, St. Petersburg. In the first six months of 1914 alone some 2 million people went on strike—and their demands were political rather than strictly economic. If anything, the outbreak of WWI seriously dampened the workers’ movement, which picked up again in a big way in 1916 following Russia’s Pyrrhic victory against Austria-Hungary during the Brusilov Offensive.

Recent history is peppered with efforts by workers’ councils to challenge the establishment (both capitalist and ‘communist’) during peacetime. Among others, these include Poland in 1956 and 1980-81 (rady rabotnicze), Mexico in 2011 (comités trabajadores), Hungary in 1956 (szovjetek), Italy in 1968 (consigli di fabbrica), Spain in 1936-37 (comites trabajadores; although formed during a war, this was a civil war), France in 1968 (comités d’entreprise), Czechoslovakia in 1968 (zavodnie rady) and Iran in 1978-79 (shoras).

Neither Moscow nor Kiev can win the war in Ukraine. A prolonged, bloody stalemate is much more likely. This of course is pregnant with grave dangers, and not just for the leaderships of the two belligerent countries. During the early interwar years one hundred years ago, the philosophy behind the League of Nations’ use of sanctions against a recalcitrant Germany was based on the observation during the Great War of how the British naval blockade had led to anti-war demonstrations and strikes in Germany (activities which the Nazis would later deem a ‘stab in the back’). The idea was that by making the Germans suffer economically, they would rise up against their government—as they had in 1918, when Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate and escape to his relatives in Holland. However, the Ruhr Crisis in 1923, and the insane hyperinflation in Germany that ensued, threatened to have quite the opposite result. American trepidation that a socialist revolution might rip Germany asunder and lead to the replacement of the centre-left Weimar government by one openly friendly to the USSR, showed the limits of economic sanctions. In other words, it is far from inconceivable that the current sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s regime may actually trigger unrest and revolution in the West and around the world.

The consequences of this war are enormous and will end up weakening rather than strengthening NATO. The world’s ‘middle class’ is receiving its coup de grace and poor countries will suffer terrible privations, including famine. Social stability will be shattered and there will be anger and polarisation everywhere, especially in China and the United States, where inequality is extreme. Sky-high energy prices and inflation work as a counterincentive to the strengthening of NATO. Most member nations—including the United States, which has clearly forsaken its role as the world’s policeman—do not want to spend more money on keeping the organisation alive.

Instead of the beginnings of a new world war, what we are witnessing is the stage setting for global turmoil and revolution with people in many countries challenging their establishments and demanding drastic change.

Evelpidis Economakis

Prophecies on the Outcome of the War (1942)

From the January 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

To call forth a display of dialectical acrobatics among certain sections of the “Left” it is only necessary to ask the question: “Is this an Imperialist war?” The replies would arouse memories of youthful hours of immature speculation spent pondering such propositions as : “No straight line is so straight that in certain circumstances it could not be considered crooked. . . . No circle—in certain circumstances, an oval,” and etc. Supporters of the war, particularly those apologists whose political activities have been “anti-Imperialist,” would qualify their answers with something like this: “Well, it is not merely … or only … or solely an Imperialist war.” Aside from the Communist Party, which has long since ceased to deny that it stands for the interests of the Russian Government, there are few among the “Leftists” who would deny categorically that this IS an Imperialist war—whatever else might be involved, whether they support or oppose it.

The facts are inescapable. What does “an Imperialist war” mean if not that the outcome determines which group of powers will possess the world’s most fruitful imperial possessions? The chief concern of the British and American capitalists in the Far East is the defence of Imperial interests. The loss of strategic positions and the loss of political influence and control of key trading centres would destroy or considerably restrict the freedom to trade in the markets of the teeming millions in China, Asia and India. The chief concern of the British, American and Dutch capitalist class is to maintain and defend its existing privileges: the chief concern of the German, Italian and Japanese capitalist class is to wrest these privileges from them for themselves. Upon the outcome rests the power to derive profit and exploit the workers to the advantage of one group or to the disadvantage of the other. That is the simple position. This war basically is an Imperialist war. That much would be agreed, though not without qualifications, by many political opposites who support the war. But that does not dispose of the difficulties of those who seek logical grounds for their support. Indeed if support or opposition to the war were governed merely by the fact of its being demonstrably capitalist or Imperialist then there would be considerably less intellectual dyspepsia and acrimonious dispute in “Left” political circles.

F. A. Ridley and C. A. Smith in a Huddle

Take, for example, the controversy in the October issue of Left, between F. A. Ridley and C. A. Smith, both members of the I.L.P., which claims (1) that it is opposed to the war, and (2) that it is Imperialist. The controversy is narrowed to the question, “Is this solely an Imperialist war?” which Ridley affirms and Smith opposes. Ridley outlines the half century struggle between German and British capitalism and argues effectively that the present war is a culmination of that struggle. He allows for no other interpretation of his case than that there is no ground for support for war. To this point the issue is clear. From this point he becomes somewhat bogged by the Russian issue; “Socialists are justified,” says Ridley, “in advocating the (qualified) support of the Soviet Union.” Ridley defends this line because of “the undoubted possibilities of revolution and revolutionary war which the fall of Hitler . . . discloses.” Ridley’s approval of “(qualified) defence of the Soviet Union” logically should lead him to support the war. Russia is not fighting an independent war but as an ally of Imperialist Powers. On this point Smith has an easy task and scathingly replies to it. Perhaps Ridley’s attitude here is a concession to the I.L.P., whose policy, as far as it can be understood, is “opposition to the war,” and “defence of the Soviet Union.” But that is no excuse for Ridley.

C. A. Smith, in taking the negative on the question, “Is this solely an Imperialist war?” excels Ridley in the opposite direction. He argues that when “one side is engaged in a purely defensive struggle for freedom—such a struggle, other things being equal, has always been regarded by Socialists as progressive.” He quotes, and endorses, George Padmore’s statement in September Left that “China is fighting a progressive war of national liberation.” Further, he says: “. . . But what matters in politics is not motives but consequences [Smith’s italics], and while the attempt to clamp Nazism on the whole of Europe is reactionary, the endeavour to prevent the extension of Nazism to areas enjoying any [our italics] measure of political democracy, civil liberty, cultural freedom and national independence is politically progressive—even when waged by Imperialist powers.” “If there is nothing progressive about any phase of this war, then there is nothing in it for Socialists to support.”

It would not be unfair to Smith to say that he supports the war on the ground that it is “progressive.” The difficulty is to imagine any war in which Smith could not support one side or the other.

The Issue for Socialists

It is necessary to discount Smith’s statement that Socialists regard war as progressive when “one side is engaged in a purely defensive struggle for freedom.” It cannot be doubted that Mr. Smith so regards this war as do others in the Party of which he is a member and outside of it.

The first and fundamental fact about this war which has to be recognised is that it arises against the background of private ownership in the means of living and the world capitalist competitive struggle which flows from it. Without private ownership (and the only alternative is Socialism) it would not have arisen. It is, therefore, first, a capitalist war; not because of the “motives” of the ruling groups engaged in it, but because the objective world in which we live is a capitalist and competitive world. It is also an imperialist war because the object of the capitalist groups engaged in it is the defence of politically protected foreign capital investments (Imperial interests). Capitalism and Imperialism go together, and though conceivably wars could arise in the modern world which were not Imperialist the likelihood is small. The Spanish Civil War is an example where the struggle would not have arisen at all, or if it had, would have been of short duration, but for the Imperialist ambitions of the powers outside Spain who intervened.

This war is both capitalist and Imperialist.

It is certain that the British and American capitalists would not have engaged in it had it merely meant a threat of the extension of Nazism without the threat to their Imperialist interests. Whilst for Ridley the outcome of the “(qualified) defence of the Soviet Union” holds the possibility of the downfall of both Hitler and Stalin, and for Smith support for the war holds the (only?) possibility of the retention of political democracy and freedom and culture against the spread of Nazism, events might prove both to be wrong, and from their point of view the horrible sacrifice in life and devastation would have been in vain. A really terrifying prospect. Is it not possible that the reaction against Hitler in Germany and against Stalin in Russia might not hold the possibilities of the kind of “revolution” that Ridley anticipates? And even if the things Smith wants to see retained are retained, is it so certain that this alone will guarantee the world against years of bitter and exaggerated nationalisms among the world’s workers which are likely to arise out of years of fighting. Hitler, after all, managed to persuade German workers twenty years after the last war that their problems were due to the defeat of Germany in the first world war. Would anyone have anticipated that twenty years ago? Would Smith? Whatever the outcome of this war it cannot be guaranteed that the “consequences” will be “progressive” for the world working-class movement. Incidentally it was Smith who supported the Abyssinians against Italy. Whilst Socialists supported neither, there were many who, accepting “progressive” standards for judging the issue, argued, like Bernard Shaw, that the defeat, even by Fascist Italy, of those who composed the slave-owning ruling class of Abyssinia was “progressive.” To the Socialist the issue, of course, did not affect working class interests.

In the world to-day, neither Socialists nor even those who masquerade under the title, control events. They are remote from the time when they can. The fact has to be faced that events might produce setbacks, real or apparent, despite their will or desire. Whilst the workers are in the main not ready for Socialism this is unavoidable. It is in line with the logic of things. There is, however, no proof to be adduced that Socialism is necessarily delayed by such setbacks, or that the reactions to them would not be followed by such neutralising factors as circumstances which would favour’a corresponding acceleration in the spread of Socialist ideas.

The time has not yet come when Socialists can consciously plan to overcome events. In the meantime, however, we reject any evils which the world offers as choice. The Socialist does not have to choose which is the less of the evils. In a world where the majority are dispossessed of the means of living and where the minority who own quarrel between themselves over possessions which should belong to society, working-class independence should remain among the first and fundamental of Socialist principles.

Harry Waite

Something to Remember You By (2012)

From the June 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

It says a lot about the society we live in that there are so many war memorials. The latest addition to London's collection is to the men of RAF Bomber Command who were killed in operations over enemy territory during the 1939/45 war. Wait a minute; that war ended nearly seventy years ago. What took so long? Well to answer that we might do worse than think about Terry, who does not rate a place on a memorial because, although he flew in many of those operations he avoided being killed in them. Strip away his agonising dependence on alcohol and nicotine and you are left with Terry as a nice guy – gentle, caring, sociable. Restless, mind you, which may have been related to his comfortably-off family whose farming allowed them to plonk him into a posh nearby grammar school, but which infected him with an addiction to fast motor bikes and big, powerful goods lorries. And which then led to his partaking in a cruelly prolonged and deliberate act of mass destruction and killing.

Rear Gunner

At the time the gossip was that a desire to escape from his family drove Terry, when he was seventeen, to volunteer for Royal Air Force aircrew. Perhaps he dreamed of being a Spitfire pilot - Winston Churchill and The Few and all that. But he was forced to contain such energies when he was classified as a rear gunner - the coldest, most isolated, most dangerous position - in a squadron of Lancaster bombers. This aircraft was regarded as a marvel of speed, operating ceiling and bomb load, useful to the policy of what came to be known as area - saturation - bombing which emphatically laid waste to a number of great German cities and killed between 300,000 and 600,000 civilians. The casualties in Bomber Command exceeded 55,000 killed - one seventh of all British deaths in action during the course of the war. But the Lancaster offered its rear gunner one hopeful feature, for in an emergency he could use a mechanism to spin the turret so that the armoured doors he had entered through opened out at the tail end of the aircraft; he could then escape by tipping himself backwards and operating his parachute.

Coincidence And Cowardice

Terry contributed to the horror, as he recalled, by completing over sixty operations - well above the average or any expectation - which he survived through a combination of beneficial coincidences and cowardice. On one occasion, in terror while under attack, he used the aircraft Elsan and came back to his turret to find it had been blasted away. On another, soon after taking off and while still in English air space, he heard the pilot shouting that he could smell someone smoking; Terry heard only the word “smoke” so without asking any questions he spun his turret and threw himself out into the evening air. He could give a vivid account of dangling calmly from his parachute while watching the bomber continue on its way to the flak and night fighters. The most colourful incident was when the pilot found, after landing safely from an operation, that Terry had fallen asleep - which was strictly forbidden. He ordered the crew to leave Terry there while he took the aircraft out to the dispersal point at the remotest fringes of the airfield. When Terry eventually woke up his first, immediate sensation took in only the absence of vibration and engine noise so again he threw himself out – except that in this case he was only a few feet off the ground and had a long walk back to the airfield buildings, dragging an open parachute with him. In the years after the war he could laugh at these experiences but he could not laugh - could not even talk about - two incidents when his pilot could not get a badly damaged bomber back to base and crashed it into the sea, or another when his squadron came back to be told that they had seriously failed to hit their target and so must return at once to do it as ordered, flying in the daylight formation for which they had no training. Terry's dominating memory of that raid was of spotting another Lancaster alongside, in which he knew a close friend was the rear gunner. As he watched the bomber dissolved into a ball of fire.

Terrifying Force

By the time Terry was flying on operations, the effectiveness of RAF bombers, in terms of their range, power, technological equipment and bomb load, had been vastly improved. Which must also be said about the disciplined brutality of the raids. Now it was all controlled over the target by a designated Leader Marker who dropped a first flare. This was followed by the Pathfinders dropping aiming marker flares, which the main bomber force then used (once the Marker Leader was satisfied it had all been carried out accurately) to aim their bomb load onto the buildings and people below. And while this was happening the higher levels of command, where the policy was laid down, were involved in a long debate about the most effective – the most damaging and most murderous – method of wielding that terrifying force. Should it be against targets such as aircraft factories, oil plants, railways? Or should it be straightforwardly used against human beings, smashing their homes and all around them and killing as many as possible with the object of undermining their morale and affecting the German war effort. In the process of this argument a number of German cities - Berlin, Cologne, Essen and others - had to pay a savage price. A passionate devotee of the policy of area bombing was then at the head of the RAF Bomber Command - Air Marshall Arthur Harris (known, for obvious reasons, as “Bomber” Harris).  Air Marshall Harris persisted in the face of some influential opposition and attempts to sack him: “ . .  . in the last eighteen months Bomber Command has virtually destroyed forty-five out of the leading sixty German cities. There are not many industrial centres of population now left intact. Are we going to abandon this vast task, which the German themselves have long admitted to be their worst headache, just as it nears completion?” (1 November 1944). The rancour in this dispute over the most likely way to kill the largest number of the enemy was unusually enduring; Harris had to wait until 1953 for the government to award him a baronetcy, there was no campaign medal for the crews and only recently has there been that permanent memorial.

Hypocrisy

Against the odds Terry survived into civilian life, got married, had kids and was soon brought up against the fact that being one of yesterday's heroes - one of the glorious Bomber Boys - was not unfailingly attractive to employers. And then there was the ever-present need to control the more erratic features in his personality, which may have been acceptable up in the air above some burning German city but not so useful on the ground in peacetime. In bald terms, he and his family had a hard time of it. He split from his wife and was told that he suffered from an aggressive cancer in his lungs. In his last days in hospital he once blurted out that he “...could fight all those fucking Germans but I can't fight this.” At that time the ravaged cities were being re-built, the places of those who had died were being taken by others. And now, in a most blatant example of ruling-class hypocrisy, there is offered a monument to the men who died while they did their bit to make it happen. All of them were victims of the propaganda which insisted that there was an enemy who needed to be fought to exhaustion when in truth all of their interests were in unity. Terry was there because he accepted those lies – allowed them to wreck what should have been another useful life.

Ivan