War and Why. The Cause and the Remedy

 

The ruling class have shown on many occasions that they are past-masters in the art of inducing self-deception among the workers. The art of lying is one of the chief characteristics of capitalism everywhere. The main task is to present the lie in such a manner as to make it appear to be true. This, unfortunately, is easy. The working class, from childhood onwards, are trained in such a manner best calculated to make it difficult for them to separate truth from falsehood. This deception is aided by the reformist movement. Clear evidence of this can be seen today. The capitalist class cleverly conceal their real aims behind lofty phrases, so that today we hear from all quarters the words and slogans, "Peace,” “Democracy,” "Collective Security,” etc. With these slogans, capitalism is stampeding the masses into war hysteria.

There is a clear indication that working people and their families may expect to go through in the next thieves' quarrel between their capitalist masters. Briefly, the Socialist Party’s case is that all wars by capitalist States are undertaken for the purpose of protecting foreign investments, securing markets and of securing fresh sources of raw material. Judge each war by the result, and it will be seen that this is the result of nearly every war during the last century. Workers have nothing to gain as the result of war, whether the State in which they happen to be born is victor or vanquished.

The Marxian analysis of capitalist production lays bare the cause of all wars,. The worker produces commodities of a far greater value than his or her wages enable them to buy back. Out of the struggle for this surplus comes the struggle for markets at home and abroad, and with the capitalist development, trade barriers are erected. The struggle grows keener, finally, the tension reaches breaking point, and war is declared. War is, then, a quarrel between the various sections of the capitalist class over the disposal of the surplus wealth stolen from the workers in the course of their exploitation. It 'is, therefore, a quarrel in which the workers have no concern, and to end it they must remove the cause, i.e., the class ownership of the means of production. This they can do by organising to capture political power from the master class and to establish a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production—in short, socialism. The capitalist is the enemy, and, whether he appears as a democrat or a dictator, he can offer nothing but wage slavery to the working class. 

Socialists everywhere oppose the principles of socialism to the war plans of the ruling class in such a way that the class issue is kept clear and the real aims of the ruling class exposed. Our battle cry is: “ Working men of all countries unite.” The worker replies to the war threat of capitalism by lining up for socialism. Without this fundamentally class-conscious outlook, capitalist wars, and consequently working class slaughter, will always be a riddle to members of our class whose discontent with the present order of things need socialist understanding to give direction and effectiveness to that discontent. We members of the Socialist Party proceed towards our objective, firstly, by educating ourselves, and, secondly, by passing on that education to our fellow workers.

The reason organised peace movements have failed is that they have all consented to the power structure which creates war. War is neither democratically begun nor democratically prosecuted. It is therefore facile to contend for wars to be fought on the terms of moralistic teachings. These pleas, no matter from how many mouths they come, are lame.

Nothing in human history is inevitable. We are not living and organising society according to any pre-ordained schemes. We are masters of our own history, not slaves of it. We can do what we choose. But you know that these are not the sort of ideas that we are encouraged to develop. On the contrary, we are encouraged to think of ourselves as slaves to the present order of things. Although another world war is not inevitable if the present state of society is allowed to continue then it is a distinct possibility. The profit system is an unstable and volatile method of organising society and armed to the back teeth as many states are, the recipe is being mixed for an armed conflict. History is ripe for socialism and there are clear reasons for its vital urgent establishment.