§ 37 The watchwords "National Defence" and "Pacifism"

The leaders of the socialist parties and of the Second International justified their treason to the cause of the workers and to the common struggle of the working class by saying that it was essential to defend the fatherland.

We have seen that as far as the imperialist war was concerned this was pure nonsense. In that war not one of the Great Powers was on the defensive; all were aggressors. The slogan 'defence of the fatherland' (the defence of the bourgeois State) was humbug, and was shouted by the leaders in order to hide their treason.

Here it is necessary to consider the question in somewhat greater detail.

First of all, what is our fatherland? What is the real meaning of this word? Does it mean, people who all speak the same language; is it the same as 'nation'? No, it is not. Let us consider, for example, tsarist Russia. When the Russian bourgeoisie clamoured for the defence of the fatherland, it was not thinking of the area in which people of one nationality were living, of the area, say, inhabited by the White Russians; it was referring to the peoples of various nationalities who are settled in Russia. What, in fact, did the bourgeoisie mean? Nothing else than the State authority of the Russian bourgeoisie and the landlords. This is what the capitalists wanted the Russian workers to defend. Really, of course, they were not thinking simply of defending it, but of extending its frontiers to include Constantinople and Cracow. When the German bourgeoisie sang the defence of the fatherland, what was the meaning in that case? Here the reference was to the authority of the German bourgeoisie, to an extension of the boundaries of the robber State ruled by William II.

We have then to inquire whether, under capitalism, the working class has any fatherland at all. Marx, in The Manifesto of the Communist Party, replied to this question by saying: 'The workers have no country.' What he said was true. Why? The answer is very simple. Because under capitalism the workers have no power; because under capitalism everything is in the hands of the bourgeoisie; because under capitalism the State is merely an instrument for the suppression and oppression of the working class. We have already seen that the task of the proletariat is to destroy the bourgeois State, not to defend it. Then only will the proletariat have a country, when it has seized the State authority and has become master of the country. Then, and only then, will it be the duty of the proletariat to defend its fatherland; for then it will be defending its own authority and its own cause; it will not be defending the authority of its enemies, and will not be defending the robber policy of its oppressors.

The bourgeoisie is well aware of all this. Here is evidence of the fact. When the proletariat had effected the conquest of power in Russia, the Russian bourgeoisie began to fight against Russia, forming an alliance with anyone who was willing - with the Germans, the Japanese, the British, the Americans, with all the world and his wife. Why? Because, having lost power in Russia, it had also lost the power of robbing and plundering, the power of bourgeois exploitation. The Russian capitalists were ready at any moment to destroy proletarian Russia, to destroy, that is the Soviet Power. Let us take Hungary for another example. When the bourgeois had the power in their own hands they issued appeals for the defence of the fatherland; but in order to destroy proletarian Hungary they were prompt to enter into an alliance with the Rumanians, the Czecho-Slovaks, the Austrians, and the Entente. We see, then, that the bourgeoisie knows perfectly well what it is about. Under the plea of the defence of the fatherland, it appeals to all citizens to defend its own bourgeois power, and it sentences for high treason all who refuse to assist. On the other hand, when it is a question of destroying the proletarian fatherland, it assembles all its forces and sticks at nothing.

The proletariat must take a leaf out of the bourgeois book; it must destroy the bourgeois fatherland and must do nothing for its defence or enlargement; but the proletariat must defend its own fatherland with all its might and to the last drop of its blood.

To these considerations the objector may reply as follows. Do you not know, he will say, that colonial policy and imperialism have helped the industrial development of the Great Powers, and that, thanks to this, crumbs from the masters' table fall to the working class? Surely this means that the worker should defend his master, should help his master against competitors?

It means nothing of the kind. Let us suppose that there are two manufacturers whom we will call Schultz and Petrov. They are rivals in the market. Schultz says to his men: 'Friends, stand by me with all your strength. Do all the harm you can to the Petrov factory, to Petrov himself, to his workmen. Then my factory will flourish, for I shall have downed Petrov and my business will boom. I shall be able to give all you fellows a rise.' Petrov says just the same to his men. Now let us suppose that Schultz has the best of it. It is quite likely that in the flush of victory he will give his workers a rise. But after a time he will cut down wages to the old level. If now the workers in the Schultz factory go on strike, and would like those who had formerly worked in the Petrov factory to help them, the latter would say: 'Mighty fine! You did us all the harm you could, and now you come crawling to us for help! Clear out!' It would be impossible to arrange for a general strike. When the workers are disunited, the capitalist is strong. Now that he has overthrown his competitor, he is able to get the better of his disunited workers. For a brief space the workers in Schultz's factory enjoyed higher wages, but their gains were soon lost. Just the same thing happens in the international struggle. The bourgeois State is a masters' league. When one such league grows fat at the expense of the others, it is able to bribe the workers. The collapse of the Second International and the betrayal of socialism by the leaders of the working class movement occurred because these leaders determined to 'defend' the crumbs that fell from the masters' table and hoped for an increase in the amount of these crumbs. During the war, when, owing to the aforesaid treason, the workers were disunited, capital in all countries imposed terrible burdens upon them. The workers came to realize their miscalculation; they came to understand that their leaders had sold them for the merest trifle. Thus began the rebirth of socialism. We can readily understand that the first protests came from the badly paid, unskilled workers. The 'aristocracy of labour' (the printers, for instance) and the old leaders, continued to play a traitor's game.

Not content with using the slogan of the defence of the (bourgeois) fatherland, the bourgeoisie has another means with which to cheat and befool the working masses. We refer to the so-called pacifism. This name is given to the view that within the framework of capitalism - without any revolution, without any revolt of the workers - a reign of universal peace can be established. It would suffice, we are told, to set up courts of arbitration between the various Powers, to abolish secret diplomacy, to agree upon disarmament (at first, perhaps, only to a limited extent). With this and a few similar measures, all would be well.

The basic error of pacifism is that the bourgeoisie simply will not carry out any of these fine things like disarmament. It is absolutely absurd to preach disarmament in an era of imperialism and civil war. The bourgeoisie will take care to be well armed; and if the workers were to disarm or were to fail to arm themselves, they would be inviting destruction. We can thus realize how the pacifist watchwords cannot fail to lead the proletariat astray. PACIFISM TENDS TO PREVENT THE WORKERS FROM CONCENTRATING THEIR ATTENTION UPON THE ARMED STRUGGLE FOR COMMUNISM.

The best example of the fraudulent character of pacifism is furnished by the policy of Wilson, and by his fourteen points. Here, under a garnish of fine words, and in the name of the League of Nations, world-wide plunder and a civil war against the proletariat are promulgated. The following examples will show to what depths of baseness the pacifists can descend. Taft, sometime president of the USA, was one of the founders of the American Peace Society, and at the same time a rabid imperialist. Ford, the famous American motor-car manufacturer, financed entire expeditions to Europe in order to trumpet his pacifist views; but at the very same time he was netting millions of dollars from the work his factories were doing for the war. Fried, in his Handbook of the Peace Movement (Handbuch der Friedensbewegung, vol. ii, pp. 149-50) assures his readers that the joint expedition of the imperialists against China in 1900 proved the 'brotherhood of the nations'. He writes as follows: 'The expedition to China furnished another proof of the ascendancy of the idea of peace in contemporary affairs. An international association of armies was displayed . . . . The armies marched, as a pacific force, under the command of a European generalissimo. We, the friends of peace, regard this world generalissimo' [he was writing about Count Waldersee, who was appointed generalissimo by William II] 'as merely the forerunner of that world statesman who will be in a position to realize our ideal of peaceful methods.' Here we see open and universal robbery designated 'the brotherhood of the nations'. In like manner, the robber League of Capitalists is dished up with the League of Nations' sauce.