Churchill in perspective (1965)

From the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sufficient time has passed since Churchill’s funeral for popular emotions to wane—but not sufficient yet to make it likely that his words and deeds will be subjected to any analysis for popular consumption. No doubt historians in the future will discover reasons to doubt his greatness, but there is no need to await the passage of time.

In what way can he be considered great? His actions concerning the working class, his military prowess, his flair for foreign affairs?

It was he who called out the troops during the Dock Strike in 1911. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government which put on the statute book the 1927 Trades Disputes Act, prohibiting strikes by one group of workers in sympathy with another, curtailing the right of picketing, and preventing the Civil Service unions affiliating to the T.U.C.

He recognised the inability of economists to understand capitalism, and he admitted inadequacies in the system, particularly “the strange discordance between the producing and consuming power.” (Daily Telegraph, 20.6.30.)

The News Chronicle (10.11.43.) reported him as saying,

“I regard it as a definite part of the duty and responsibility of this National Government to have it set about a vast and practical scheme to make sure that in the years immediately following the war there will be food, work and homes for all.”

But by 1948, the war over and there not being the same need to urge workers to greater efforts, he was arguing against “precise elaborate programmes.” In 1952, back in office, he was stressing the need for three years to elapse before any improvement would show. He left the government in 1955 and today the old problems of “food, work and homes” are still with us.

Churchill the military man certainly had some grand concepts. Commenting on the expeditions to Antwerp and Gallipoli, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says:

“In both cases the strategic concept was brilliant, but the forces required for their success were not forthcoming, and Churchill’s own impatience contributed to their failure.”

It reports Churchill as describing the Dardanelles campaign as “a legitimate war gamble.” (The Encyclopaedia Americana records the British losses as over 33,000 killed, 78,000 wounded and 7,000 missing. Turkish and French casualties were also very high.) What sort of man can make a legitimate gamble of the lives of hundreds of thousands of men?

In the second volume of the Official British History of the Second World War by Major L. F. Ellis, it appears that in 1940, when Churchill was being built up as the great war leader, his telegrams and messages to Lord Gort, Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force were, “not always relevant” and he “did not grasp the nature of the German threat to the B.E.F. as a whole, nor the weakness of the Belgian position.”

What is the basis for Churchill’s claim to greatness in the field of foreign affairs? It is said that he was one of the few who in the Thirties understood the ambitions of Nazi Germany. But his own words show that he was not opposed to dictatorship in principle.

After the 1914-18 War, he stated his policy as “Peace to the German people, war on the Bolshevik tyranny.” In 1927 he was “charmed, . . . , by Signer Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing, and by his calm, detached poise in spite of many burdens and dangers.”

The Evening Standard (2.4.37.) reports Churchill as saying,

“It is certain that if Franco wins. he will be in no position to interfere with British and French interests in the Mediterranean. The Germans and Italians will have little or no influence upon Spanish policy once the firing stops.”

But by April 5th the same paper reports him as saying, “A thoroughly Nazified Spain, retaining its German nucleus, may well be a cause of profound anxiety to both France and Britain.”

Events were causing him to change his words, and not only towards Spain :

“We should not go cap in hand to Soviet Russia, but how improvidently foolish we should be. … to put needless barriers in the way of the general association of the great Russian mass with the resistance to an act of Nazi aggression (News Chronicle, 10.5.38.)

Compare this with his statement, reported in the Daily Telegraph, (7.11.38.); “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.”

It cannot be more clear, Churchill was not oppose to the Fascist powers as long as they did not threaten British capitalist interests. He thought “great men” could secure Britain’s position in the world, but after the war he had to accept that Britain, compared with the USA and Russia, was a second-rate power. No Hitler or Churchill can do anything to change that.

What, then, has Churchill achieved? The economic, social and political problems remain broadly the same as 90 years ago — war, want, insecurity are as current now as when he was born. Perhaps there was some truth in the description of him by another, similarly unsuccessful and similarly revered, capitalist politician, Aneurin Bevan: “the mediocrity of his thinking is concealed by the majesty of his words.”

Churchill was a member of the British capitalist class and he served his class well. He maintained a constant anti-working class attitude throughout his life. In the military and foreign fields he was no more successful than other possible leaders. He became the spokesman for British capitalism during a period when its future was endangered, and used his gift for words to spur the working class to greater efforts for the benefit of their masters.

In death, as in life, he served our rulers well. The pomp and ceremony of his funeral was a circus for the diversion of the working class. The entire pulpit–religious, political, press and radio–have been loud in his praise. Here was a man, they said, for workers to look up to, to recognise as a leader, and in so doing to pay homage to future leaders and to the principle of leadership.

Here perhaps we may rephrase Bevan’s comment, and apply it to all leaders—The failure of their actions is concealed by the majesty of their promises.

Where did Churchill lead the workers? Where will any leaders take them? Workers have only to reflect on their experiences—not for Churchill and his class, but for those they dominate, is it a life of blood, sweat, toil and tears.

And it will remain so, until the same workers who are now deluded into an hysterical hero worship of men like Churchill, learn that their interests lie in dispensing with leaders and setting up a social system in which all men stand equally.

Ken Knight

Umbrella statesmen (1939)

From the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

A lot of skits have been published about Chamberlain and his umbrella, but the real significance of it has escaped the commentators. It is that, in negotiating peace or war, it is the capitalists or their representatives who carry the umbrellas, but the workers who, when the war has started, are expected to shoulder—not umbrellas— but guns, and to blow each other to bits about a quarrel which can be made or made up by statesmen, who need to be armed with nothing more than an umbrella, a fountain pen, and the passive support of the workers themselves in order to be able to plunge the world into a holocaust of blood such as the earth has never yet seen.

R. M.

Correspondence. (1956)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow, C.2, 22/8/56.

Sir.

In the Socialist Standard for August your contributor F. Offord, says “At the conclusion of the Second World War when the Japanese capitulated to Russia their arms and ammunition and their control of Manchuria were handed over by Stalin, not to the Communists who had borne the brunt of the Chinese war against the Japanese, but to their mortal enemies the Nationalists.”

These statements are not merely incorrect—they are the very reverse of the truth. When withdrawing from Manchuria, the Russians, instead of handing over Manchuria to Chiang Kai-shek, whose authority they had by treaty recognised, gave advance notice to the Communist forces who were able to take up positions before the Nationalists arrived. The Russians surrendered immense quantities of captured Japanese arms to the Chinese Communists and this was one of the principal factors in ensuring Mao Tse-tung’s success.

Neither is it true, but the very opposite of the truth, to say that the Chinese Communists bore the brunt of the fighting against Japan. The Communists reserved as much of their strength as possible for the coming struggle for China while the Nationalist forces were exhausted by their long and terrible campaign against the Japanese. Lin Yutang did not exaggerate when he said, in 1945: “For every Japanese the Communists claim to have killed they have killed at least five Chinese; for every town they have captured from the Japanese, they have captured fifty towns from the Chinese.”

The Communists directed their struggle mainly against their own countrymen and the immense aid which Russia gave them was a direct breach of the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship of August 1945 in which Stalin recognised the National Government as the central Government of China.

Yours faithfully.

H. W. Henderson.

Reply to Mr. Henderson.

On Mr. Henderson's first main point that Russia surrendered to the Chinese Communists the arms and ammunition left by the Japanese in Manchuria and also assisted, with advice, he does not give proof of his assertion. As for the statements in the article, they are fully supported by the following quotations from the generally-recognised historian on China, Professor C. P. Fitzgerald, and quoted from his work “Revolution in China.” “Late in the war, in 1945, Stalin could say to Harry Hopkins that he did not regard the Chinese Communists as a serious factor, and recognised only Chiang’s Government as that of China. ... It was this regime [that of Chiang Kai-shek] that the victorious powers recognised as the legitimate Government of China. The Communists were treated as dissident forces who should properly submit to the authority of Chiang Kai-shek. Their claim to share in the surrender of the Japanese, or to administer the provinces in which they had maintained resistance for eight years, was not accepted ” (page 83). On page 86 is a description of how Chiang Kai-shek (the leader of the Nationalist Kuomintang Party) obtained “the surrender of the Japanese to the forces of the Kuomintang, not to those of the Communists.”

As to which side bore the brunt of the fighting against Japan—on page 64 “Chiang devoted his time and his German-trained armies to fruitless campaigns against the Communist rebels in South China. Huge sums of money were wasted on these vain attacks, heavy losses of material, many casualties among the best trained troops. None of these troops were ever permitted to fight the Japanese. . . .” On page 77, “. . . the Communists, who had ten years of experience of guerrilla warfare behind them, could be sure of being able to keep the field, for years if need be, till they, and they alone, represented Chinese resistance.” Again, on page 80, “.The Nationalist Government, from the end of 1939, never made any further military effort to recover lost territory . .  It did not engage to any serious extent in guerrilla warfare behind the Japanese lines. This task was left to the Communists. . . ." Incidentally it was the constant fight against the Japanese which the Communists maintained that was such an important factor in rallying the patriotic Chinese behind the Communist Party, and that, in turn, really was a factor which enabled the Communists eventually to conquer China.

F. Offord.

For the Battle of Britain Sunday (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where's Blunsdon?

“Uncle Bert, where’s Blunsdon?”

“Blunsdon? Now only in my mind old chap.

The shapes of buildings are still clear But names and faces aren’t I fear.

My memory’s a leaking tap.”

“Uncle Bert, what were they like?”

“Who?”

“Blunsdon people. Just like you?”

“What questions! — some ways yes, like me. 

They ate and drank and worked and swore 

And after, drank and swore some more.

In these ways people are like me.”

“Did they sing hymns 

Like we do here at school?”

“Of course. Some did, although not all,

In several churches, one quite old —

(St. Leonards) — and it was dammed cold,

And — ah yes! I now recall 

A school service on a drowsy day,

Outside the church we heard a noise 

And, jumping with excitement, (as do boys)

We saw some bomber planes “at play.”

There they were, winking in their silver grace, 

Heading East, a pretence in fun 

To direct bombs at a Blunsdon 

in some ungodly foreign place.”

(Aye! The Lord speaks through his preachers, versed

In schizoid phrases such as these:

“By all means love thy enemies,

But for Christ’s sake kill ’em first”).

Remember Hiroshima? (1965)

From the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ivan

20 years ago (1965)

From the August 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

One August morning twenty years ago an atom bomb exploded on the town of Hiroshima. It was shortly after 8 o’clock local time that a U.S. bomber dropped the new weapon. An estimated 80,000 people died; and more than that were injured. Together with the attack on Nagasaki a few days later, about six square miles of built up area were completely destroyed. President Truman mentioned the figure of 2,000,000,000 dollars spent on the research and production involved in the manufacture of the bomb.

Despite six bloody years of mechanized slaughter, the devastation resulting from this single raid was on a sufficient scale to penetrate the minds even of those resigned to a world constantly racked by war. Throughout the capitalist press the need for a new morality was preached and, here and there, voices were raised in humanitarian protest,

To consider the protests first; these generally took the line that the atomic bomb was such a terrible weapon that it should never have been used. But the A-bomb is just as “legitimate” as any other weapon. There is no distinction between methods of warfare which are “acceptable” and others which are not. If the stakes in any capitalist dispute are sufficiently high then every available resource is thrown into the struggle, and pious condemnation of this makes not one iota of difference.

Yet this emotional reaction to nuclear war still finds its adherents in CND and similar organisations. It is based on a refusal to face up to the reality of this capitalist world where brute force is a not inconsiderable factor in securing and maintaining a share in the world’s markets. When the permanent bickering over trade periodically flares up into open warfare no power is prepared to fight with one hand voluntarily tied behind its back. Speaking three days after the Hiroshima bombing, Truman’s double-talk made quite clear the purpose of the second world war, which culminated iu the use of a nuclear weapon:

“The U.S. wants no territory or profit or selfish advantage out of this war; we are going to maintain the military bases necessary for the complete protection of our interests and of world peace.” (Our emphasis).

However, in August 1945 the bulk of the press was unanimous in its support of the allied bombing but cautioned its readers on the threat involved to mankind. This took the form of sermonising on the “new world” which was to be ushered in with the coming of “peace” and which had to be a world free from the danger of war. The Daily Express advised:

“Everything turns on the wisdom and goodness of the peoples and their rulers.”

The Daily Telegraph felt that:

“Unless we now so bear ourselves that the power of war-making is stamped out and peace among men of good will is securely established, the human race must go down to ghastly ruin.”

The pacifist Peace News cried from the heart:

“The latent moral crisis of the world has now become evident and palpable. The invention of the atomic bomb imposes upon mankind the necessity of a new behaviour-pattern.

Henceforward, there is only one form of security for Russia or any other great power. That is moral security.”

The Daily Mirror took refuge in the thought:

“Basic power is moral power.”

Originality seemed to have gone by the board. The sum total of this wisdom amounts to this: that wars in the past have been the result of the wickedness of men but if mankind now decides to embrace the good, wholesome life than (God willing) we can all live in peace and plenty.

In Britain, amid this deluge of rubbish, Socialists raised their voices in a common sense analysis of the situation. They explained that man is not innately evil and warlike and that, in a world dominated by production for profit, it is the mad scramble for economic advantage that causes war. Conflicts between nations are the result of friction between their rival economies in the struggle to obtain or keep foreign markets and supplies of raw materials, trade routes and spheres of influence. The decision before mankind of war or peace presents itself as the wider choice between capitalism or socialism.

J. B. S. Haldane, writing on nuclear energy in the Daily Worker, had the cheek to declare:

“Marxists should be the first to realise that with a complete revolution in war and production the principles of politics will also change. What was right last week may be disastrously wrong this week.”

On the contrary, Marxian socialists realise that as long as capitalism: lasts nothing fundamentally changes in the relationship between the property-owning class and the working class; the class struggle continues. The advent of nuclear energy is no reason for socialists to desert their principles. The only effect of nuclear weapons is that the task of the working class—to establish socialism—is now even more urgent. As the Socialist Standard pointed out in October, 1945:

“Your choice is as simple as it is vital! On it rests the future of humanity.” 

If this were true in 1945, how much more so these twenty years later?

John Crump

Life against lies (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard carried throughout its pages a series of snippets from old Socialist Standard articles highlighting the SPGB's unique position on issues of the day. Where possible, I've provided a link to the full article.

The marionettes now strutting on the political stage—Chamberlain or Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier, Roosevelt, Stalin, Attlee, Eden or Cripps—are all moved by King Capital: he pulls the strings, they all dance at his command and step when and where he pleases.

The megaphones of Moscow blare, the trumpets of Nazism resound, the Press publishes its putrid lies, the radio speaker delivers his patriotic appeals, the bands play their military airs—all in order that the exploiter may remain enthroned—all in order, brother in toil, that a. parasitic class may continue to live by devouring the lives of you and yours.

If you realise the truth, of your position, you will refuse to be hoodwinked by any call to patriotism made to induce you to protect capitalist interests.

You will line up with those who have seen the light. You will voice the demand that the people in common shall commonly own and democratically control and operate all those things upon which they in common depend.

It is life we want, not death. When the means of life are “ours,” fellow worker—the life that is life shall be yours.

[From “Don’t die for Capitalism : Live for socialism”, Socialist Standard, April 1939]

We said the same in 1939 as in 1914 (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard carried throughout its pages a series of snippets from old Socialist Standard articles highlighting the SPGB's unique position on issues of the day. Where possible, I've provided a link to the full article.

In this, our first issue of the Socialist Standard since the declaration of war, we have the opportunity of reaffirming the socialist attitude that we have consistently maintained since the formation of the party, including the war of 1914-18. With the increasing international tension of recent years we have again and again pressed home the undeniable truth that as long as the world is organized on a capitalist economic basis the never-ceasing rivalries will continue to produce conflicts ranging from mere diplomatic crises to gigantic armed struggles spreading over the oceans and continents of the world. The Socialist Party of Great Britain re-affirms that the interest of the world working class – on whom the untold misery and suffering of war inevitably falls – lies in abolishing the capitalist economic system.

[From “The Socialist Party of Great Britain and the War”, Socialist Standard, October 1939]

Film Review: Hacksaw Ridge (2025)

Film Review from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hacksaw Ridge is a 2016 film about Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who served as a U.S. Army medic during the Second World Slaughter. He saved 75 lives during the Battle of Okinawa and became the first conscientious objector to win the Medal of Honour (the U.S. version of the Victoria Cross). The title refers to the cliff the U.S. Army climbed over to attack the Japanese during that battle.

Desmond Doss was a Seventh-Day Adventist (a Christian who believes the sabbath is Saturday instead of Sunday) who decides to join the Army as a combat medic (because he wants to save lives instead of take them). However, his training requires him to learn how to use a rifle, which he refuses to do. His refusal to hold a weapon forms the main conflict of the film. This is a spoiler-free review, so I won’t go into the specific reasons why Doss refuses to hold a weapon (although it’s connected to the 6th biblical commandment of ‘thou shalt not kill’).

Firstly, I must mention that the writing, filmmaking, and acting are all marvellous. The violence in this film is gory, but not too gory. Vince Vaughn gives an especially great performance as the sergeant of Doss’s unit (this is helped by the character being semi-comedic). IMO, the best part of the film is when Doss saves the life of a wounded Japanese soldier, because it shows that he regards the Japanese soldiers as human (and not as the ‘enemy’, contrary to war propaganda).

However, there are three quotations from this film that socialists would take exception to:

1. Early on, Doss’s brother joins the army (to serve in WW2) much to the disappointment of their parents; especially their father who served in the First World Slaughter and lost all his friends in that conflict. In that scene, their mother mentions the 6th commandment to his brother, to which he replies: ‘It’s not killing if it’s a war’.
2. When Doss is explaining to his superior officer why he refuses to hold a weapon (because of the 6th commandment), the latter replies: ‘Most people take that to mean don’t commit murder’.
3. Finally, in that same scene, the superior officer says: ‘What we’re fighting is worse than Satan’. A socialist response to the first two quotations is that killing is killing (it doesn’t matter whether it’s sanctioned by the state or not). With regards to the third quotation, I would understand (in a way) where he was coming from if they were fighting against Nazi Germany, but to call the Japanese worse than Satan is blatant brainwashing.

In conclusion, despite the war propaganda, this is a good film about an incredibly brave man who did the right thing but for the wrong reason.

Matthew Shearn

World View: Learning the real lesson of Auschwitz (1995)

From the March 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty years ago saw the liberation of those who remained the victims of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Its remembrance is important, but torturing ourselves with memories without learning from them can be next to useless.

The whining tones of the clerics of various unreasoning faiths urge us to remember the inhumanity that is within all of us. Every baby, say those who want to deliver us from "sin", is an embryonic Nazi. We reject such anti-human nonsense. Of course, humans are born with a capacity to behave co-operatively or callously and, depending upon environmental factors, can exhibit both characteristics. But humans are uniquely social animals, dependent upon one another for survival. To say that inhumane barbarity of the kind practised in the concentration camps is "within us all" is to say no more than that all humans can be driven to defy their social nature.

Stalinist Gulags

The gas chambers of Auschwitz, like the Stalinist gulags and countless other monuments to inhumanity, are not reflections of what humans naturally are, but of what we can become under certain historical circumstances. The lesson we must learn is not to repeat those circumstances.

There were no prisons, gas chambers. torture machines or genocidal experiments within the earliest tens of thousands of years of human history. We call these people primitives, but they were not Nazis or Stalinists. Faced with any army ready for the murderous task of battle they would have looked on with human incomprehension.

For most of human history there were no property relationships. There were no nations or states. Modern mass murder, be it organised warfare or organised ethnic killings, is a product of property society and the resulting ideologies of nationalism, racism and religious tribalism.

German workers supported the Nazis in specific historical conditions which were exclusively connected with the property system of capitalism. Fascistic feelings were not “within them", but were responses to a world which they felt they could not control. Without capitalism there could be no Nazism, just as state capitalism lay the ground for Stalinist thuggery and butchery.

Today we see the same system causing the same effects. From Bosnia to Rwanda to East Timor literally hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered because workers have yet to learn the real lesson of Auschwitz.

If there is to be any hope out of the tragedy of the holocaust it will come when enough of us say not merely "Never Again", but organise consciously to ensure that the soil within which future death camps can be planned is removed from the landscape of our history.

Steve Coleman

Between the Lines: Some riots you see . . . (1985)

The Between the Lines column from the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some riots you see . . .

Riots on TV are not what they used to be. In the early 1980s we used to get panicky reporters appearing live on the scene, not quite knowing whether the BBC had insured their limbs. These days no sooner does a riot start than a team of dull-witted politicians are in the studio, there to throw cliches at us like chucking nuts at monkeys The Tory says that it's all caused by criminal elements who are taking advantage of easily-led workers. Then comes the Labourite — usually Gerald Kaufman whose jackets are worn to remind us what value we're getting for our colour TV licence — who talks about how the Tories invented unemployment and while the rioters are wrong they can be sympathised with, but then again the police are doing a good job, but then again they really shouldn't shoot people if they can possibly avoid it. but then again reports have shown . . . Riots on telly are becoming more boring than The Horse of the Year Show. One good thing about the revolution: it will only happen once.

. . . and some you don’t

Remember the pictures of the Orgreave riot shown during the miners' strike? Remember how we were urged to have pity on those poor police who were doing their best to defend the peace against the violent tactics of those horrible strikers? And now, long after the strike is over, we see another view of the riot (People to People, C4. 9pm. 27 September). Clear pictures and accounts demonstrated very forcefully that what occurred at Orgreave was a police riot that the police were out of control and dished out violence to peaceful pickets in a manner which would be more typical of the Polish or South African state machine. Those with eyes to see. and minds unblocked by prejudices which tell them that the police can never be the aggressors, saw camera shots of police beating up workers who had gone to Orgreave to further their trade-union interests. Why were these pictures never shown while the strike was on? The fact is that while the camera never lies, the liars are very capable of manipulating the evidence of the camera when it so suits them.

Real lives

The banned and then censored BBC2 documentary on "political extremism" in Northern Ireland turned out to be nothing very original or surprising. Both nationalists in the programme (for let it not be forgotten that the Unionists are nationalists too) showed themselves to be buried in the politics of working-class disunity, sloganising and violence. McGuinness came across as somewhat saner than the Unionist clown whose response to the murder of some Catholics was to declare that "Christmas has come early this year". In fact, most workers are more advanced in their thinking than the sort of politically retarded mis-leaders portrayed in this film.

If only every town . . .

Have you seen that appalling advert which concludes. "If only every town could be like Milton Keynes '. Have you ever been to Milton Keynes? Has the joker who dreamed up the advert ever lived in Milton Keynes? Perhaps he should be given a chance to live in one of the uniform workers' houses in the land of his dreams. And while we're at it. why not give Jimmy Savile a free pensioners' travel pass and let him travel round the country on second-class British Rail trains instead of the Rolls which he is more accustomed to sitting in? And why not let old Barratt live in one of the poverty-homes he is so eager to advertise on TV instead of the expensive mansion near Hexham which he lives in now? Let the shoddy goods which the ad-men try to sell us be consumed by the idle parasites — they are not good enough for the wealth- producers. For workers nothing but the best is good enough — and to be sure. Milton Keynes is nothing like the best.

Showing it like it is

There is a popular view on the Left that everything shown on television is lies. Plenty of what we see on TV is lies and distortion, but much of it is both useful in providing an insight into aspects of life which most of us never experience and helpful in indicating the manifold contradictions of capitalism. Of late we have been offered several documentary series worthy of note. BBC2's series Probation (Tuesdays. 9.30pm. ended 29 October) was one of those "fly-on-the-wall" efforts in which we were allowed to look in on the ruined lives and confused existences of workers dependent on probation officers. Two points emerged from the series: firstly, that, despite the claims of the human nature brigade, there are plenty of workers in our society who are genuinely eager to help other workers to get out of their mess: secondly, it became clear that those society sees fit to punish or cure are inevitably the victims of a system in need of punishment or cure. A society which leaves thousands of workers ill-educated, unemployed, frustratedly aggressive, vulnerable to dangerous escapism and tempted by goodies beyond their reach creates more casualties than the over-burdened probation officers can hope to help satisfactorily. At best, the probation service can ameliorate the difficulties of those who attract problems like light attracts moths; at worst it serves as a rather authoritarian, patronising and sermonising outfit which seeks to normalise those capitalist normality can do without.

Infuriating though it has been. Queens': a Cambridge College (Wednesdays. 8.20pm. BBC2) provides a glimpse into an institution where students are taught that they are part of an intellectual élite. The evidence of the cameras (which could be discriminate) is that an awful lot of Cambridge geniuses are bores, morons or both. In the first programme in the series we were shown a public school twit in an interview, attempting to gain a place to "read" history. He is asked why he wants to read history and answers that it is because looking at the past will help us to understand the present Fair enough. Then he is asked to give an example of this. He mumbles vaguely that if you look at the origins of the Middle East you will understand the Arab-Israeli war. He lists as his hobby "fantasy war games" highly appropriate for a Cambridge history scholar. Asked why he wants to "come up" to Cambridge he answers that he wants to be trained for leadership. He gets in. As does the Sloane Ranger who is applying for medicine, whose parents live in the Sudan, has enjoyed "surfing on the Nile", working on a leper colony (which was absolutely amazing") and wants to work "with Third World people in North London".

In the second programme we see a crowd of these "intellectuals" joining the Christian Society and one of them (a science student) recounting how Christ appeared to him one night in his study after he had screwed up his packet of cigarettes. Nobody asked him what he had in them. In the third programme we were irritated by an offensive law student with pretensions to being an orator. He addressed the Cambridge Union (membership. £18 a year) on why public schools must exist. Apparently they produce academic excellence. Odd that: he came from one and seemed exceptionally unoriginal in his thinking.

After The War Is Over (Fridays. 9.25pm. BBC2) showed very clearly that after the suffering of the Second World War workers had big expectations. Returning from the war, the wage slaves came to something other than a land fit for heroes. The series has been very successful in showing both the utter impotence of the reformism of the patronising post-war Labour government and the shoddiness to which workers had access in those days of never having it so good. The Ministry of Information propaganda films are particularly striking in their transparent aim of bluffing the workers into continuing the war effort after the war had supposedly been won.

All three series helped to show workers more about what has been and is going on in society. They were not exercises in deception, but full-scale. uncensored pictures of capitalist reality. Proof that television can be used in the battle for working-class knowledge.

Charles and Di

Your reviewer did not watch the interview of the happy Royals on ITV (Sunday. 20 October), but is expecting at any time now a letter from the Palace calling on him to meet with Charlie for a serious discussion about how to abolish poverty and other related matters which our heir contemplates in his spare time. Let it be noted here that whatever passes between us will be in confidence. Suffice to say that I can offer him some definite advice about how to avoid becoming the ruler of a divided nation — and it doesn't involve doing yoga and keeping off red meat.

Steve Coleman

Life under capitalism: 50 Ways to Leave the System (1992)

From issue 8 of the World Socialist Review

How many ghosts can dance on the medal of honor?

David S. Rubitsky, 72, was denied the Medal of Honor—the U.S.’s highest combat decoration given to a wage-slave demented enough to slaughter fellow human beings on behalf of our capitalist masters.

The reason Mr. Rubitsky did not receive this medal of dubious distinction was that a military review board did not believe his tale of killing 500 Japanese wage-slaves in a single day during world war II. He asserts the real reason he was denied the “honor” has to do with anti-Semitic bigotry.

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B’rith supports David Rubitsky in trying to convince the world that he did indeed perform the near-miracle of slaughtering 500 fellow human beings in one whoop. They termed the military’s refusal of recognition “unconscionable.”

Unconscionable? Seeking praise for someone who claims to have killed 500 people is what’s really "unconscionable.” Only in our capitalist society, with its sick morality of pursuing profit over human needs—and, where necessary, at the expense of human needs—would a massacre qualify one for the status of hero. The fact that what passes for a human rights organization throws its weight behind rationalizing such atrocious behavior just goes to show how warped this society is, how morbid is its mentality.

In socialist society no one will get decorated with medals for being the “most ferocious one alive.” No markets to fight over, thus no wars. Only one world where we all have a common interest in each other’s well-being. Pathetic scenes of old men taking pride in killing fellow human beings will be a thing of the past. It is a future that is long overdue.

W. J. Lawrimore

War and Humanity (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

After what is now cynically referred to as World War I, there sprang into existence a number of organisations whose propaganda could be summed up as “No More War.” One line of approach was to publish illustrated pamphlets showing in vivid photographic detail the effect of near explosions on the bodies of human victims, adding such captions as “This was a man.” They reasoned that the coming of another war could be prevented if they successfully appealed to the human sense of self-preservation. How mistaken they were in spite of their humanitarian motives, we who have passed through World War II know only too well. We became “hardened” to the daily scenes of destruction caused by air raids and V weapons, and knew from our own experiences what the great bomb loads were doing to the people of Germany. They, like us, for all that was assumed to the contrary, could and did “take it.” The Burgomaster of Hamburg in an interview with Edward J. Hart of the Sunday Express said : —

“But like Londoners we have shown we can take it. even when the streets were piled with our dead in their thousands. You have seen for yourselves what has been done to us here, yet when your 18 hour curfew is lifted and you meet our people going about their daily business in street and shop you will find there is no hatred in Hamburg for British or R.A.F. During four raids in July 1943, incendiary bombs destroyed 70,000 houses in Northern and Eastern Hamburg alone. In the eastern section where 700,000 people used to live all but 3 per cent. of the houses were burned down in one night. Temporary wooden structures to house 30,000, have since been built. Burgomaster Krogman added that of a pre-war population of 1,700,000 more than 1,000,000 remain in Hamburg in roofless dwellings.”—Forward, May 19th, 1945.

All this has a familiar ring especially if one shifts the location to the London dock area, where the workers dwellings were clustered around their place of work just like those of the dockers of Hamburg. It further shows how far our rulers are removed from the life of those dependent on wages, when Churchill told the German industrial workers, in a warning of heavy bombing to come to “take to the fields.” Whether the like advice was tendered to Japan’s millions by American spokesmen is not known, for according to the latest news, 5,000,000 are homeless in Tokio, while Yokohama’s docks are burnt out. British workers with over 60,000 civilians killed, can without “giving comfort to the enemy” realise what tragedy and horror the bombed workers of Japan are suffering.

The war before it became “global” was openly described as the struggle between the “haves” and the “have nots,” that is between the formation called the Axis consisting of Germany, Japan and Italy who had arrived late in the field of capitalist trade and colonies and found themselves frustrated in their national capitalistic expansion and the powers that had long ago partitioned the world into their respective spheres of influence and protected trade routes.

This naked view was soon covered by the welter of propaganda inseparable from modern war; the German workers who had known mass unemployment were told that victory would mean that they would be “swimming in fat,” while Italian and Japanese workers were told a like tale of empire and prosperity. The British Empire fell back on the time honoured “democracy and freedom,” while Russia, relied on her hastened industrialisation man-power, and aid from capitalist America.

The “ideologies” in the line-up presented some strange bed-fellows ; the Nordic “herrenvolk” whose pure Aryan stock “entitled” them to rule “lesser races,” found themselves the allies of the Latins and yellow men of Japan, while democratic Britain and America opposed Nazism as the allies of authoritarian Russia which had never known a free democratic election in her history.

Meanwhile with the Italo-German part of the Axis defeated, the victorious powers sitting at San Francisco are concerned not with any humanitarian motives, but with how their rival claims can he met without a major war breaking out between themselves.

Nor are they neglecting their preparations for such an eventuality; America has already an advanced type of “doodlebug,” while Britain’s House of Lords recently discussed the development of “novel devices.” Lord Darnley said “he visualised the possibility of the atomic bomb destroying not only humanity, but the globe on which humanity lived. The world he said must reach some general agreement to avoid these conseriuences.”

Lord Cherwell replying ended with : —

“Unless the nations could agree on some self-denying ordinance it was certain that the range and lethality of weapons would continue to increase. Unfortunately this country had most to lose by this. Our geographical advantages were rapidly diminishing. Unless and until our safety could be absolutely guaranteed by some into international organisation we must insist that we not only keep abreast of but ahead of any nation who might conceivably attack us in every scientific device. No effort should be spared to ensure this.”—Manchester Guardian, May 31st, 1945.

The noble Lords were discussing the world dilemma of how to carry on Capitalism with its trade rivalries, and territory protected by force, without wiping out humanity in the end; a problem before which capitalism stands impotent.

To-day man must either abolish capitalism or end his own existence. The forces of destruction must be struck from the hands of the capitalists and their hordes of militarists, by the workers. The workers can only effect this when armed with the knowledge of their power to end the system under which they are wage-slaves to the capitalist class. Thus in a classless society with abundance for all will the world be free from want and fear.

Frank Dawe

Only Socialism Will Abolish War (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nazis Gone But War Not Abolished

Weeks have passed since Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered yet Europe is not at peace. The newspapers are full of reports of friction between the Allied Governments at San Francisco, and trouble over the settlement of Poland, Yugo-Slavia, Austria, Syria, Greece and other countries. Mr. Anthony Eden returned from San Francisco to report in the House of Commons : “with regard to the general international situation, there is a number of serious and disquieting issues, some of them urgent.” (May 18th). Some British and American newspapers are already talking about the need to take a strong hand with Russia. The war with Germany ended on the 8th May. Within just over a week the Daily Mail which dubbed the San Francisco Conference “San Fiasco,” reported from U.S.A. that some newspapers were talking of “ultimate conflict between Russia and the Anglo-American Allies.” The Daily Mail correspondent said: “It is an astonishing phenomenon that this sort of controversy should be going on only eight days after the surrender of Germany. But it has to be faced.”—(Daily Mail, May 17th.)

In any future war, as the Minister of Production, Mr. Oliver Lyttelton, pointed oat in the House of Commons on March 22nd, 1945, it is obvious that V weapons, now in their infancy, will become more effective and more devastating. “You may be sure,” he said, “that all parts of the United Kingdom, every nook and cranny of the country, will be within range of those weapons when they are more highly developed.”

So little confidence is there that war has been abolished that there is actually discussion about the safest place to locate the new World Peace Organisation. A writer in the Daily Telegraph says: “The safest place in Europe for the World Organisation headquarters would probably be some city in the United Kingdom, not necessarily London. They would be vulnerable there to attack from the air, but less liable to capture than they would be on the European Continent.”—May 25th.. 1945.

THE CAUSE OF WARS IS CAPITALISM

The fundamental cause of wars in the modern world is the economic rivalry of the Powers, and this exists because capitalist industry in all countries has as its aim the making of profit. Manufacturers in every country are striving all the time to capture markets from each other. Governments try to gain an advantage in the trade war by taking colonies as sources of raw materials and as places where the capitalists can invest their surplus wealth. Armies, Navies and Air Forces are built up to control trade routes and strategic points all with the same purpose in view. When the French Government fought to suppress the native population in Morocco their Marshal Lyautey, who commanded the French troops, made no secret of their aim : —

“French soldiers are fighting in Morocco to acquire territory in which rise rivers capable of supplying power for electrification schemes which will prove of great advantage to French trade. . . .

“Our object is commercial and economic. The military expedition in Morocco is a means, not an end. Our object is the extension of foreign trade.”—Star, October 31st, 1922.

In the years when the present war was brewing trade rivalry was everywhere in evidence. Mr. W. M. Hughes, Australian Minister for Health, saw clearly what the outcome would be. Speaking at Brisbane in July, 1936, he said: —

“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, July 25th, 1936.

The London Times, October 11th, 1940, saw the same forces at work behind Germany’s aggressive policy.

“Beyond doubt one of the fundamental causes of this war has been the unrelaxing efforts of Germany since 1918 to secure wide enough foreign markets to straighten her finances at the very time when all her competitors were forced by their own war debts to adopt exactly the same course. Continuous friction was inevitable.”

SOCIALISM THE ONLY SOLUTION

The Great War, 1914-1918, was to be a war to end war. So was the present war. But the threat of war is still hanging over us. Unless capitalism is abolished and socialism established internationally in its place the same rivalries will produce further wars. All the victorious Powers are now preparing for the trade war as soon as the fighting stops. Sir Frank B. Sanderson, M.P., was only stating what is known to everyone when he said in 1941: “Britain must plan now for the post-war export trade. Peace will bring in its train fierce competition in the world’s markets and it was only by planning in advance that we should be able to hold our own.”—Daily Telegraph, July 17th, 1941.

If you want capitalism and capitalism’s wars you will vote for the capitalist candidates. If you understand that the immediate need of the human race is the establishment of socialism, under which the means of production will cease to be owned by the capitalist class and become the property of society as a whole, you will vote for the candidate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Capitalism will produce war no matter whether the Government which administers it is Tory, Liberal, Labour, Communist or any other party.

The Yellow Peril (1945)

From the July 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Miss Hoare was mentioned in the Daily Express of April 18th, 1945, as a person with quaint ideas. She has lived in Japan for 26 years, including nine months after the war started. This is what she had to say: “The Japanese are a most lovable, courteous and kind people. I was never afraid of them. I loved them and they loved me.” She went on to say that the Westerners have driven the Japanese into war and that before that they were peaceable, self-supporting and content. Historically it is true that Japan used to be isolated from the outside world, but it is not the Western world which now has driven the Japanese into war, it is capitalism. It was owing to the fact that a certain section of the ruling-class of Japan set out upon a programme of capitalist expansion with the object of obtaining cheaper raw materials and access to markets that the Japanese are at war. All war under capitalism is brought about for the same reason whether it is by Japan, Germany, Britain, Russia, or any other up-to-date country.

The workers of Japan, owing to their political ignorance support war in the same way as the workers of other countries support it. Until they understand the working of the present system of society they will continue their support. British fellow workers please note.

Chester.

50 Years Ago: Atrocities—Cynical Ruling Class Attitude (1995)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

For weeks on end the British Press carried horrifying accounts and pictures of atrocities committed in Nazi concentration camps; mass starvation, brutality, sadistic cruelties perpetrated by degenerate guards on helpless men, women and children, prisoners buried alive, tortured by solitary confinement and so on. Some of the worsened conditions of recent months may have been due, as one of the German guards said, to transport difficulties—the stupendous Allied bombing of roads and railways can hardly have failed to produce disorganisation—but this does not affect the main facts of appalling brutalities over a long period. But if the facts are substantially agreed this is certainly not true of the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Far from accepting the views of many newspapers and capitalist politicians we deny their right to raise hands in holy horror; or to attempt to fasten the responsibility on the German workers. On several counts the British ruling class and their spokesmen have not the slightest justification for the attitude they adopt. (. . .)

By all means we protest against atrocities and brutality, but we do so not as an expedient according to circumstances but against atrocities and brutality wherever and whenever they occur.

It is for the working class of the whole world to see as it really is the cynical and hypocritical use made, by the capitalist class of atrocities, and not to let themselves be divided by capitalist propaganda directed against first one and then another foreign nation. It is capitalism itself that produces the worst atrocity of all—war, and which everywhere has a record of brutality towards the working class and colonial peoples in peace or in war.

Only Socialism can end it and only world working class unity can achieve that end.

[From an article in the Socialist Standard, June 1945.]

How to Stop War: Mr. Churchill’s Suggestions Examined (1946)

From the May 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

With one Capitalist war just over, and the prospect of yet others looming up in the future, various politicians are bursting into the news with their ideas on how to prevent another war; or to be more accurate, their ideas on how to make sure of being on the winning side in the event of another war.

Chief among them, of course, is that arch-enemy of the working class, Mr. Winston Churchill. His recent effusion, from across the Atlantic, put leader writers over here in something of a dither as to what the great man actually meant. They did seem to be agreed on one of his statements, however; that is, how to stop a war when it looks as though there's going to be one. And since the methods advocated by Churchill find fairly wide support amongst the working class, it might be worth while to examine them, or their implications, in detail.

“There was never a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than this one," declares Churchill. “ If we had stood up to Germany any time between 1930 and 1935 there would have been no war," says the Sunday Times of March 10th. And, presumably, if America had stood up to Japan between 1930 and 1935 there would have been no war. And if the brutal Boers had stood up "to the gentle English—or was it the brutal English and the gentle Boers—in 1890 there would have been no Boer War; and the same with all previous wars, one can suppose.

In fact, all that has to be done in order to stop a war is to stand up to the nation that intends to declare war some 10 years or so before they actually do so. It only remains for statesmen to equip themselves with knowledge of this universal war preventive and we are in for an era of glorious war-free prosperity.

But before going out to get drunk on such gladsome news, perhaps it would be better to find out a little more about the Churchillian methods for promoting peace. For instance, what does this “timely action" consist of? To make a strong protest, perhaps; but surely that would have no effect without force to back it up. Declare war on them, then? But surely—isn’t this supposed to be a method to stop war? Maybe Mr. Churchill only meant that there would have been a very much smaller war. Still it is all very confusing.

One fact does emerge, however. Boiled down to its essence, Churchill is only an adherent of the “might is the surest preventative," ‘‘trust in my good right arm, O Lord," school, after all. A disciple of the doctrine that, if a nation is only strong enough, then no other nation will dare to attack it.

The first thing that strikes one about this theory is that, for it to be effective, there must be no question of the absolute might of the country that is in danger of attack. And, of course, it must be the country that is attacked, not the attacking country, that is mighty, otherwise things are worse than before.

But how is a country going to make itself so frighteningly strong? There is only one way, of course—that is, by ample production of armaments by unlimited access to raw materials, such as oil, rubber, etc., and by possession of and command over military bases and strategic outposts.

To which one might ask, "How does a nation acquire these things except by going to war in the first place? " Since there are only a limited number of bases, etc., a nation can only obtain them by wresting them from those who have them (except in rare cases of outright buying and selling, or a swap of territory in the interests of two nations).

So it looks as though this method of preventing war has only the effect of increasing its likelihood.

Even for a country with colossal strength there is absolutely no historical foundation for saying that that country will not be attacked. The colossal strength of Germany in 1939 did not prevent Britain from attacking her. Nor did the strength of America prevent Japan from attack, or the strength of Russia prevent Germany from attacking Russia.

So it seems as though there must be some motive impelling Capitalist countries to maintain their possessions or interests at all costs. Such a motive can only be explained satisfactorily by economic reasons. It arises from the fact that under Capitalism goods are produced for the purpose of being sold for profit. And along with the incessant striving for markets in which to sell these goods there is competition in prices. The cheapest goods will sell best. But to sell goods at a cheaper price and get the same overall profit you must sell more goods. Which means still greater competition, coupled with the fact that inability to sell goods means catastrophe to the capitalist.

As long as goods are made primarily for sale, and not solely for use, there is no escaping from these facts. If the Socialist explanation of the cause of war is correct, then no fantastic schemes, such as U.N.O. or disarmament, will have any effect in the long run, since they leave the cause untouched.

Are the working class going to fight their masters' wars indefinitely. If, under Capitalism, the only way to abolish war is by declaring war, then surely it is high time to abolish Capitalism.

Cyril Evans.

The Passing Show: Declaration of Washington (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the March 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Declaration of Washington

The declaration issued jointly by President Eisenhower and Sir Anthony Eden after their recent talks in Washington must long stand as an object-lesson in the art of inserting the maximum amount of inaccuracy in the minimum amount of space. The declaration occasionally approaches the truth when it deals with the misdeeds of “the other side,” the Soviet bloc.; but when they dwell on their own records and aims, the president and the Premier rarely get even with hailing distance of the facts.


Theological Gambit

The Anglo-American leaders begin roundly:

“We are conscious that in this year of 1956, there still rages the age-old struggle between those who believe that man has his origin and his destiny in God and those who treat man as if he were designed merely to serve a state machine.”—(The Times, 2-2-56.)

Eden and Eisenhower thus blandly ignore both those of no religion who support the Anglo-American bloc, and all those fervent religionists—including the large Russian Orthodox Church, for example—who would die for the Stalinists. In fact the struggle between the two blocs has nothing whatever to do with religion or irreligion: each state has its tame churches to give it the divine sanction: the struggle is between the British ruling class and the American ruling class (who happen to have sufficient mutual interests to support an alliance) on the one hand, and the Russian ruling class (usually supported by their Chinese opposite numbers) on the other. But the desire for self-justification is strong: hence the habit of claiming the approval of the Almighty.

One for Ripley

But this is merely an opening canter. Warming to its theme, the second paragraph of the declaration runs (believe it or not):

“ Because of our belief that the state should exist for the benefit of the individual and not the individual for the benefit of the state, we uphold the basic right of peoples to governments of their own choice."

Or, as one might paraphrase it when one has regard to reality, “because of our belief in something we don't believe in, we uphold what we deny.” The claim of Eden and Eisenhower to believe that “the state should exist for the benefit of the individual and not the individual for the benefit of the state” surely borders on the farcical. Both the President and the Prime Minister were in the highest counsels of Great Britain and the U.S.A. during the last war, when the state in each of these countries so far denied the elementary rights of the individual that it conscripted millions of its citizens and sent them off to kill other individuals and be killed themselves. Not only do Eden and Eisenhower believe that the individual exists for the benefit of the state: they go further—they believe that when called upon he should cease to exist for the benefit of the state. But official pronouncements would not read so well if they confined themselves to the truth, nor would they make such good propaganda.

What can be said about the second part of this almost incredible paragraph, where the signatories allege that they uphold the basic right of peoples to governments of their own choice? When one thinks of the Prime Minister giving his consent to this clause, at a time when British troops are on an active footing in British Guiana, Cyprus, Kenya and Malaya expressly to prevent their people's having governments of their own choice, one can only feel grateful that the cares of high office have not deprived Sir Anthony of his sense of humour.

All my own work

Lack of space prevents the analysis of the Declaration in the detail it deserves. But one other paragraph must be quoted:

“During the past ten and more years 600 million men and women in nearly a score of lands have, with our support and assistance, attained nationhood. Many millions more are being helped surely and steadily towards self-government. Thus, the reality and effectiveness of what we have done is proof of our sincerity."

Since Britain has been in the Empire racket longer than America, the insincerity of this statement is more immediately obvious in regard to Eden than Eisenhower. Britain attempted to retain her Indian Empire (which contains the great majority of the 600 millions referred to) by every means at her disposal. A great army was maintained there; any expression of opinion in favour of independence invited ruthless official action; if the people demonstrated for independence they were forcibly scattered and the leaders (including for example Pandit Nehru) thrown into British jails. Riots and shootings and massacres marked the progress of the years. At length the British power waned, and the British State could no longer afford to maintain the repression in face of the almost unanimous opposition of the peoples of the Indian Empire. And so the Attlee Government withdrew from India, being no longer physically capable of remaining there. It is this eviction of the British by the Indians which Sir Anthony Eden now tries to describe as a British achievement. It is as if a boxer, after fighting a dozen rounds, is at length knocked out; and as he is carried from the ring opens one eye long enough to remark “I retire voluntarily from the contest and claim all the credit for my opponent’s victory.”

Who said aggression ?

No doubt if the British are thrown out of Cyprus this will also be counted as a great British contribution to the establishment of self-government, and the British ruling class will expect the Greek ruling class (which will take over from. them) to be duly grateful. But until this happens the task is to explain why Cyprus should not have self-government. In this connection a recent letter written to The Times (11-2-56) by Lord Vansittart is of considerable interest.

It appears that Britain has every right to be in Cyprus, because it “belongs to us.” Since Lord Vansittart coyly refrains from explaining how it came to “belong to us,” a word on the subject might not be out of place. Briefly, in 1877-8 Russia attacked Turkey, with the aim of seizing part of her Balkan territories; Great Britain, in the role of knight in shining armour, sprang to Turkey’s side to defend her against Russian aggression; the fleet was ordered to the Turkish coast, and alarm and counter-alarm succeeded each other. But when the smoke had cleared away, it was found that the noble British Government had taken advantage of the crisis to force Turkey to hand Cyprus over to British rule. The Cypriots, of course, had not been consulted.

It is this expert piece of sharp practice which Lord Vansittart now contends gives “us” the right to stay in Cyprus.

A little late to recant

But do not think that Lord Vansittart’s endorsement of this smooth-faced knavery means that he has no principles. He has. Or rather he used to have. He refers in his letter to “ the primary principles for which millions died in two vast wars”: and among them, it will be remembered, was the principle of self-determination. None was more vociferous than Lord Vansittart in his clamour for strict measures against German aggression before 1939, and for the merciless prosecution of total war against Germany between 1939 and 1945. But now, it appears, Lord Vansittart has had second thoughts. The principle for which millions died, to quote his own letter, no longer engages his support That “self-determination should be automatic ” Lord Vansittart now decries as a “delusion” The Germans under Hitler, of course, were in favour of self-determination in certain circumstances; it was only the application of the principle to countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland that they objected to, because there it was against the economic interest of the German ruling class. Lord Vansittart has now accepted the pre-1945 German view of the matter, which could be summarized as “self-determination unless it conflicts with one’s own interests.”

And so Lord Vansittart changes his mind. But all the British soldiers who died in the war of which Lord Vansittart was the prophet, and in which he beat the drums louder than anyone else, they stay dead. The principle they thought they were fighting for is now found by the noble lord to be a “delusion.” If only it was as easy to bring the millions of dead to life again as it is for a politician to change his principles!

Alwyn Edgar

By the Way: Unfaithful Wives of Soldiers (1945)

The By The Way Column from the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unfaithful Wives of Soldiers

Dr. Percy Herbert, the Bishop of Norwich, is very worried about unfaithful wives of soldiers.

He says unfaithful wives “are very widespread” (News-Chronicle, January 4th)—(presumably this means there are a lot of ’em, not that they are broad in the beam)—as high as one in ten, in some units in the Mediterranean.

The chaplain who gives him this information adds : “It is impossible to describe the mental and moral devastation caused to a husband when he hears of his wife’s infidelity.”

The Bishop is very concerned about the men who are engaged in “tearing the guts out” of the Germans (Mr. Churchill’s elegant phrase) being “morally devastated.” It really is difficult for a man to be “a combination of gangster, poacher, cat-burgler and footpad,” as Lord Wavell has defined a modern soldier, if he’s worrying about his wife’s fidelity.

Wives should remember that soldier husbands will stab, shoot, roast, blast and throttle the enemy much more efficiently if they are not “morally devastated.”

* * *

Medals and Principles

Mr. Jos. Shelley has refused to accept the M.B.E. awarded him, saying:—

“I am an active member of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, in which I serve on two of its important committees. If I accepted it questions regarding my principles might be raised and a false interpretation drawn. Principles matter; medals don’t.” —(Daily Herald, January 11th.)

Good for you, Joe!—this is only the beginning of the end of Sir Walter Citrine. Sir Mark Hodgson, Lord Ammon, Lord Latham, etc.

* * *

Privates, Infantry, Discharged : for the Information of :

“In Sunny Bahamas.—Opportunity to acquire Land and Building Sites now being developed in the most beautiful part of the Bahamas Islands, near Nassau. Suitable either for retirement or investment. Ideal climate, fishing, bathing, golf, etc. Low taxation and living costs. Regular air and shipping services after the war. . . .”—(Advert. in Evening Standard, January 13th. 1945.)

* * *

Paris—and London

The Daily Herald sent a British housewife, Mrs. Barker, to Paris to find out how the housewives are faring there after the liberation.

She tells a harrowing story of the terrible privations now being suffered by the population as a result of an artificial famine created by the war, and concludes: —

“Till then, it means unhappily that the larger your purse, the better you fare. The poor are often hungry. The middle class get by. The rich do very well indeed.”—(Daily Herald, January 12th, 1945.)

The same issue of the Herald (January 12th) carries a special Black Market story on how Inspector Yandell is cleaning up the Black Market—(Yes! Again!)—by Gordon Cummings, which states that: —

“Trafficking in coupons is a serious problem. On top of actual private deals, some retailers are getting supplies to cover their ‘off-the-coupon’ sales at fancy prices.”

And who, dear Mrs. Barker, are the people in London, as well as Paris, who can pay “fancy” (read high) prices? Who will always outbid the poor man?—i.e., the working man ! The question has only to be asked to be answered. Rationing has little or no significance for the rich. There are always plenty of really good substitutes, or rather alternatives, to be had.

If you can’t run a car. you can always take a cab or engage a private car. If there are no oranges—there are hot-house grapes and peaches. No cloth coats?—always one or two fur ones, at a price. Always grouse in season, or venison for a change—if you can afford it. No central heating at home? There are always good hotels for the best (richest) people.

In London, as in Paris, Berlin as New York or Moscow. “The poor are often hungry. . . . The rich do very well indeed”–in peace or war time. That’s capitalism, Mrs Barker. The only way out is Socialism.

* * *

Tailpiece

Racket No. 3—Coupons.

“Clothes coupon traffickers are getting bold. They are now openly offering coupons to strangers in public houses, night clubs, hotels, and even in the streets. 

“Their supplies are stolen, forged or ‘traded’ coupons. 

“Large numbers of the ‘traded’ coupons are bought from people who cannot use their quotas.”—(Daily Herald, January 16th.)

* * *

Wrong to Kill

Private George E. Smith, US. soldier, was on trial for murder of Diplomat Sir Eric Teichman by shooting him in his own grounds on December 3rd.

Three psychiatrists, two American Army officers and one British civilian, testified about the mental state of the prisoner.

Questioned about Smith’s mental age being only nine, Dr. Alexander, Colonel in the American Army and chief neuro-psychiatrist for this part of Britain (Norfolk), replied to the question, “Does Smith know it is wrong to kill?“—”Yes, he does.”—(Daily Express, January 12th, 1945.)

Poor George, if he could only have waited another month or two, till he got to the European mainland, he might have been given a medal. It’s the first time we’ve heard that it’s wrong for a soldier to kill; we thought it was his trade.

* * *

Fraternising with the ” Enemy “

“U.S. Troops Seek Kin in Europe. 

The American soldier, when not fighting, is anxious to find relatives who may be in Europe, reports Associated Press from Paris. At least 2,000 requests for help in tracing kith and kin have been received by the Red Cross in the last ten weeks. 

Doughboys whose roots may be French, Dutch, Polish—and in many cases German—are getting every possible help in their quest”.—(Evening Standard, December 30th, 1944.)

This sheds a little more light on the £15 fine on Allied troops for fraternising with Germans.

It must be rather difficult to inspire hatred and ferocity for “the enemy” when they are not only “class-brothers,” but sometimes even blood-brothers, as with many German-Americans.

Horatio