As The 100th
Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars)
Approaches ... Some Remembrances
- Karl Liebknecht- Militarism & Anti-Militarism- II. Anti-Militarism- The Need for Special Anti-militarist Propaganda
Karl Liebknecht- Militarism & Anti-Militarism- II. Anti-Militarism- The Need for Special Anti-militarist Propaganda
The weakening of militarism requires the investigation of the possibilities of a continuation of peaceful development, or at least of a limitation on the possibilities of violent clashes. It also means above all the restoration to health, the revival of political life and of the Party struggle. The ruthless and systematic struggle against militarism already in itself leads to the revolutionary development and strengthening of the Party, and is a source of the revolutionary spirit.
From all this there follows the necessity, not only of a struggle, but also of a special kind of struggle against militarism. Such a ramified and dangerous structure can only be dealt with by action which is equally ramified, which is energetic, wide-ranging and daring, and which tirelessly pursues militarism into all its hiding-places, always en vedette, on the alert. The dangers presented in the fight against militarism also force one to take action which is more flexible and adaptable than agitation of a general kind. However unpopular this conception was and is in Germany, a number of points must be made which may overcome the attitude of reluctance and dispel such doubts. First, we have a special form of propaganda for women and young people. We also carry out specialized agitation not only among agricultural workers but also in the trade unions for the different trades. Finally, we can point to the successful anti-militarist propaganda conducted in other countries. It is only a matter of time, and probably a very short time, before the fundamental idea expressed in the motion no.114, rejected at Mannheim, is generally recognized.
Such action has also been made into a duty of German Social-Democracy by the well-known and unanimous decision of the International Congress of 1900.
The demand for such special propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with the unhistorical, anarchist conception of militarism. We are quite clearly conscious of the role which militarism plays within capitalism, and of course have not the remotest idea of setting it above or on a level with capitalism, since it is simply an aspect of capitalism – or more correctly, a specially pernicious and dangerous manifestation of capitalism. But our whole agitation against capitalism is directed against these manifestations, in which capitalism takes on a concrete form. We can to a certain extent designate the field of the anti-militarist struggle as a special one; alongside the general political struggle, alongside the trade union struggle, for that matter even alongside the co-operative and educational struggle. To sum up: we are anti-militarists in so far as we are anti-capitalists.
If, from a historical point of view, anti-militarism has everywhere been transformed – in conjunction with the use of troops in civil war, against the internal enemy – from a set of generalities of a rather theoretical nature into a practical movement adapted to contemporary reality, this is no reason to hinder the development of specifically anti-militarist propaganda in lands in which the army has not so far been used in this way, or not within living memory. It has always been the pride of the Social-Democratic movement that it does not wait to be burned before it is wary of the fire, but learns from history, from social science and from the experiences of fraternal parties to take an attitude of foresight and to build on these experiences. They have a clear message to relate as far as anti-militarism is concerned. And the time is ripe.
The events leading up to World War I from the massive
military armament of almost all the capitalist and imperialist parties in
Europe and elsewhere in order to stake their claim to their unimpeded share of
the world’s resources to the supposedly eternal pledges by the Social-Democrats
and other militant leftist formations representing the historic interest of the
international working-class to stop those parties in their tracks at the
approach of war were decisive for 20th century history. Over the
next period as we lead up to the 100th anniversary of the start of
World War I and beyond I will under this headline post various documents,
manifestos and cultural expressions from that time in order to give a sense of
what the lead up to that war looked like, the struggle against its outbreak
before, the forlorn struggle during and the massive struggles in order to
create a newer world out of the shambles of the battlefields.
********
Teddy Martin had come from a long line of workers, some of
his forbears had been among the first domestic weavers in Spitalfield, the
first machine-tenders in Manchester and had been workers like him and his
father in the London shipbuilding trade. He knew deep in his blood there was an
“us” and “them” in the world without his party, the Labor Party, having to tell
him word one on the subject. He had even read Karl Marx in his early teens when
he was trying to figure out why his family was stuck in the faraway outer
tenements with their squalor and their human closeness (he never could get over
being in close quarters ever since then). So yes he was ready to listen to what
some left members of the party had to say if the war clouds on the horizon
turned any darker. But, and hear him true, his was like his forbears and his
father before him as loyal a man as to be found in the country. Loyal to his
king (queen too if it came to that) and his country. So he would have to think,
think carefully, about what to do if those nasty Huns and their craven allies
making loud noises of late threatened his way of life. Most of his mates to the
extent that they had any opinion were beginning to be swept up in the idea that
a little war might not be such a bad thing to settle some long smoldering
disputes. Still he, Teddy Martin, was not a man to be rushed and so he would
think, think hard, about what to do if there was a mass mobilization.
********
The German Social-Democratic Party had given Fritz Klein
everything. Had taken him from a small furniture-making factory(less than one
hundred employees constituting in those days small) where he led the fight for
unionization (against all odds for that woefully unorganized industry and
against the then still standing laws against unionization pressed by the state
as well as well as the outlaw status of the S-D Party in those pre-legal days)
and brought him along into the burgeoning party bureaucracy (boasting of this
number of party publications, that number of members, and the pinnacle the
votes attained for the growing number of party parliamentarians in the
Reichstag). Made him a local then regional shop steward agent. Later found him
a spot in the party publications department and from there to alternate member
of the party’s national committee. As he grew older, got married, had two
lovely children the party had severely sapped the youthful idealism out of him.
Still he was stirred whenever Karl Liebknecht, old Wilhelm’s son, the father whom
he knew from the old days, delivered one of his intellectual and rational
attacks against the war aims of the Kaiser and his cabal. Still too though he
worried, worried to perdition, that the British and, especially the French were
deliberately stepping on German toes. Although tired, endlessly tired, he hoped
that he would be able to stick to the Second International’s pledge made at
Basle in 1912 to do everything to stop war in case it came, as was now likely.
He just didn’t know how he would react, didn’t know at all.
********
Jacques Rous (and yes he traced his family roots back to the
revolution, back to the “red” priest who he was named after who had led some of
the plebeian struggles back then that were defeated by those damn moderate cutthroats
Robespierre and Saint Just) had long been a leader the anarchist delegation in his
Parisian district, had been in a few fights in his time with the damn city bourgeoisie,
and had a long, very long memory of what the Germans had, and not done, in Paris
in ’71,in the time of the bloodedly suppressed Commune. Also Jacques had long
memories of his long past forbears who had come from Alsace-Lorraine now in German
hands. And it galled him, galled him that there were war clouds gathering daily
over his head, over his district and over his beloved Paris.
But that was not what
was troubling Jacques Rous in the spring of 1914. He knew, knew deep in his bones
like a lot of his fellow anarchists, like a lot of the guys in the small
pottery factory he had worked in for the past several years after being laid
off from the big textile factory across the river that if war came they would
know what to do. Quatrain from the CGT (the large trade union organization to which
he and others in the factory belonged to) had clued them in, had told them
enough to know some surprises were headed the government’s way if they decided
to use the youth of the neighborhoods as cannon fodder. What bothered Jacques was
not his conduct but that of his son, Jacques too named in honor of that same ancient
red priest who was the lifeblood of the family. Young Jacques something of a
dandy like many youth in those days, something of a lady’s man (he had reportedly
a married mistress and somebody else on the side), had told one and all (although
not his father directly) who would listen one night that he planned to enlist in
the Grenadiers just as soon as it looked like trouble was coming. Old Jacques wondered
if other fathers were standing in fear of such rash actions by their sons just
then.
**************Karl Liebknecht- Militarism & Anti-Militarism- II. Anti-Militarism- The Need for Special Anti-militarist Propaganda
5. The Need for Special Anti-militarist Propaganda
It is certainly true that militarism bears within itself the germs of its own destruction, and that capitalist culture in its entirety contains many mutually contradictory and destructive elements, not least those tendencies whose basis is scientific, artistic and ethical education and which are responsible for a determined attack on militarism. The subversive effect for example of the Simplizissimus [1*] literature must not be underestimated. [1] The story of Cromwell, the story of the year 1789 in France and that of 1806 in Germany show us how a military system can disintegrate and rot to the point where it destroys itself. It is true that in all violent conflicts between the people and the state power a peculiar psychology of blood becomes active and powerful, a suggestion, a hypnotism of blood, or even – to use Andreyev’s phrase – a blood logic, which may in the space of a moment decisively reverse the balance of forces. But all this has no bearing on the question of the necessity for propaganda, which itself is a part of the organic process of disintegration, and the same holds of all the other manifestations of capitalism and indeed also holds of capitalism itself. Its relevance is restricted to the question of the chances of a successful process of agitation.
The special danger which militarism presents has been explained above. It stands before the proletariat as a robber armed to the teeth, and its ultimatum is not “La bourse ou la vie” (your money or your life), but “La bourse et la vie” (your money and your life) – which goes further than the morality of robbers. Besides the fact that it is a great danger for the future, militarism is an ever present, ever real danger, even when it is not actually on the attack. Not only is it the Moloch of economic life, the vampire of cultural development, the chief agent of falsification in the class struggle, it is also the factor which, explicitly or implicitly, in the last instance regulates the form of the political and economic movement of the proletariat in the class struggle. This in all important respects is indeed determined by militarism in its role as the chief pillar of the brutal might of capitalism. Militarism is crippling our activity. In the disruptive peace before the storm our Party life is becoming sluggish, and parliamentary work overcome by languor and paralysis.The weakening of militarism requires the investigation of the possibilities of a continuation of peaceful development, or at least of a limitation on the possibilities of violent clashes. It also means above all the restoration to health, the revival of political life and of the Party struggle. The ruthless and systematic struggle against militarism already in itself leads to the revolutionary development and strengthening of the Party, and is a source of the revolutionary spirit.
From all this there follows the necessity, not only of a struggle, but also of a special kind of struggle against militarism. Such a ramified and dangerous structure can only be dealt with by action which is equally ramified, which is energetic, wide-ranging and daring, and which tirelessly pursues militarism into all its hiding-places, always en vedette, on the alert. The dangers presented in the fight against militarism also force one to take action which is more flexible and adaptable than agitation of a general kind. However unpopular this conception was and is in Germany, a number of points must be made which may overcome the attitude of reluctance and dispel such doubts. First, we have a special form of propaganda for women and young people. We also carry out specialized agitation not only among agricultural workers but also in the trade unions for the different trades. Finally, we can point to the successful anti-militarist propaganda conducted in other countries. It is only a matter of time, and probably a very short time, before the fundamental idea expressed in the motion no.114, rejected at Mannheim, is generally recognized.
Such action has also been made into a duty of German Social-Democracy by the well-known and unanimous decision of the International Congress of 1900.
The demand for such special propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with the unhistorical, anarchist conception of militarism. We are quite clearly conscious of the role which militarism plays within capitalism, and of course have not the remotest idea of setting it above or on a level with capitalism, since it is simply an aspect of capitalism – or more correctly, a specially pernicious and dangerous manifestation of capitalism. But our whole agitation against capitalism is directed against these manifestations, in which capitalism takes on a concrete form. We can to a certain extent designate the field of the anti-militarist struggle as a special one; alongside the general political struggle, alongside the trade union struggle, for that matter even alongside the co-operative and educational struggle. To sum up: we are anti-militarists in so far as we are anti-capitalists.
If, from a historical point of view, anti-militarism has everywhere been transformed – in conjunction with the use of troops in civil war, against the internal enemy – from a set of generalities of a rather theoretical nature into a practical movement adapted to contemporary reality, this is no reason to hinder the development of specifically anti-militarist propaganda in lands in which the army has not so far been used in this way, or not within living memory. It has always been the pride of the Social-Democratic movement that it does not wait to be burned before it is wary of the fire, but learns from history, from social science and from the experiences of fraternal parties to take an attitude of foresight and to build on these experiences. They have a clear message to relate as far as anti-militarism is concerned. And the time is ripe.
Footnote
1. Major-General von Zepelin was concerned with this danger – see the Kreuz-Zeitung, December 23, 1906.
Additional note
1*. SIMPLIZISSIMUS. A satirical German journal, founded in Munich in 1896 by A. Langen and Th. Heine. Hostile to militarism and clericalism, it ridiculed the ruling authorities, and suffered a number of legal trials as a result.
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