Capitalism is incendiary and has ignited yet another conflagration in the Ukraine. It has let free the Horsemen of the Apocalypse galloping around the globe. All the diplomacy was in vain: they were naught but charlatanism and mirage. For capitalism, war and peace are business and nothing but business. ar always came from above—from those who did not live on the work of their hands, but lived upon the blood and the sweat of the manual workers. the real instigators of wars are the lords of the land, of the factory, of the mine, and of the stock exchange.
We do not have, today, the peace yearned for by millions all over the world. The preaching of peace does not necessarily further the cause of peace. We all want peace, which in itself means nothing, if we cannot give a positive form to this platitude. The interests of the working class are bound up with the maintenance of peace. The peace we want means true democracy.
The supporters of peace campaigns ignore or pay too little attention to the profit-making nature of capitalism. Under capitalism it is for profit that goods are produced, and it is so that profits may be realised by the sale of goods in the world market that rivalries and armed conflicts arise between states. Passports and frontier inconveniences are of little concern to the working class.
During the progress of the war we can expect our masters to make the most of their opportunities to further subjugate us. We must resist every attempt in this connection. Attempts will also be made to lower real wages by financial sleight of hand. The working class must be on their guard. The capitalist class do all the “paying,” but the working class do all the producing. Everything necessary to the carrying on of the war will be produced by the workers, the capitalist class will not produce anything.
The capitalists will do their “paying” out of the profits they make by exploiting the working class. War, unfortunately for them, is an expensive business. But if the workers can be induced to lie low, and not be too troublesome about asking for more wages to meet a higher cost of living, cut down their butter and sugar, and so on, it might not prove so expensive after all. During the war the capitalist class will loan to the government a portion of their profits: this gives them a mortgage on the future production of the working class. After the war the Government will “owe” the capitalist class countless millions. It will then be discovered that social services, wages, etc., must be cut to the bone in order to meet the interest on what is owing. This is the reward of the working class. Whilst the sectional struggle between the capitalist powers has taken on the form of armed warfare, the economic warfare between capitalists and workers, between rulers and ruled, continues from official peace time into official war time, with this difference, that when a war is on, owing to the elimination of the competition of the unemployed, the scales are weighted in favour of the workers. Hence the concern of our capitalist masters over the wages question and their attempt to drum into the heads of the workers the necessity of “doing without a lot of things they will miss very much,” and the false belief that the “wealthier classes have had to make large reductions in standards of living.”
All the world over the World Socialist Movement has always been fighting for peace between nations. Its energies have been directed towards the elimination of the causes of war. The remedy lies in arousing the active opposition of working people against predatory, capitalist-made peace, in turning the never-ending war into a class war and by carrying through the dispossession of the capitalist classes as the sole means of putting an end to all menace of war, to all exploitation, and to all brigandage. Not till the world belongs to the workers will our class be free.
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