As The 100th Anniversary Of The Beginning of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Approaches ... Some Remembrances-Rosa Luxemburg, The Rose Of The Revolution -Concerning Morocco-(1911)

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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 claims 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 20^th century history. The ability to inflict industrial-sized slaughter and mayhem on a massive scale first portended toward the end of the American Civil War once the Northern industrial might tipped the scales their way almost could not be avoided in the early 20^th century once the armaments race got serious, and the technology seemed to grow exponentially with each new turn in the war machine.

The land war, the war carried out by the “grunts,” by the “cannon fodder” of many nations was only the tip of the iceberg and probably except for the increased cannon-power and rapidity of the machine-guns would be carried out by the norms of the last war. However the race for naval supremacy, or the race to take a big kink out of British supremacy, went on unimpeded as Germany tried to break-out into the Atlantic world and even Japan, Jesus, Japan tried to gain a big hold in the Asia seas. The deeply disturbing submarine warfare wreaking havoc on commerce on the seas, the use of armed aircraft and other such technological innovations of war only added to the frenzy. We can hundred years ahead, look back and see where talk of “stabs in the back” by the losers and ultimately an armistice rather than decisive victory on the blood-drenched fields of Europe would lead to more blood-letting but it was not clear, or nobody was talking about it much, or, better, doing much about calling a halt before they began among all those “civilized” nations who went into the abyss in July of 1914. Sadly the list of those who would not do anything, anything concrete, besides paper manifestos issued at international conferences, included the great bulk of the official European labor movement which in theory was committed to stopping the madness. A few voices were raised and one hundred years later those voices have a place of honor in this space.            

Over the next period as we lead up to the 100^th 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.     

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Teddy Martin had come from a long line of workers, some of his forbears had been among the first domestic weavers in Spitalfield, had been 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.

No question, thought Teddy Martin, his majesty’s government had gotten itself into a hard situation ever since that mangy Archduke somebody had got himself shot by a guy, a damn anarchist working with who knows who, maybe freemasons, over in Sarajevo, over in someplace he was not quite sure he knew where it was if somebody had asked him to point it out in a map. That seemingly silly little act (except of course to the Archduke and his wife also killed) apparently has exposed Britain, damn the whole British Empire that they claim the sun never sets on, to some pretty serious entanglements because if France were to go to war with Austria or someplace like that then the king is duty bound to come to France’s rescue. And Teddy Martin as thinking man, as a working man, as a member in good standing of the Labor Party ever since its inception was still not sure what he would do. Not sure that he would follow the war cries being shouted out by the likes of Arthur Henderson from his own party. All he knew was that the usual talk of football or the prizefights that filled the air at his pub, The Cock and Bull, was being supplanted by war talk, by talk of taking a nip out of the Germans and those who spoke in that way were gaining a hearing. All Teddy knew was that it was getting harder and harder for him to openly express thoughts that he needed to think about the issues more. That was not a good sign, not a good omen.                    

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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. 

Fritz was furious, furious at two things. First that those damn whatever they were anarchists, nationalists, or whatever had assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand. Had threatened the peace of Europe, his peace, with their screwy theory of picking off various state officials thinking that would, unlike victory in the mass class struggles, change the world. Christ, they could have at least read Marx or somebody. Make no mistake Fritz had no truck with monarchy, certainly not the moribund Austro-Hungarian monarchy, despised the Kaiser himself right here in the German homeland (although on the quiet since the Kaiser was not above using his courts for the simple pleasure of skewering a man for lese majeste and had done so to political opponents and the idle wild-talkers alike). Still his blood boiled that some desperados would pick at a fellow Germanic target. Fritz was not at all sure that maybe the French, or the English, the bloody English were behind the activities. Hugo Heine thought so, his immediate regional director, so there could be some truth to the assertion.

Secondly, that same Hugo Heine had begun, at the behest of the national committee of the party, to clamp down on those who were trying to make the party live up to its promises and try to make a stand against any German, any Kaiser moves toward war over the incident at Sarajevo. The way Heine put it was that if war was to come and he hoped that it would not the Social-Democracy must not be thrown into the underground again like in the old days under Bismarck. Hugo had spent two years in the Kaiser’s jail back then for simply trying to organize his shop and get them to vote for the party then outlawed. The radical stuffing had come out of Hugo though and all he wanted was not to go back to jail now for any reason. Fritz cursed those damn anarchists again, cursed them more bitterly since they were surely going to disturb his peace.    

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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 had 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.  

Old Jacques could see the writing on the wall, remembered what it  was like when the German threatened to come back in ’70 and then came the last time. Came and left the Parisian poor to eat rats or worse when they besieged the city, old Thiers fled to Versailles, and Paris starved half-aided by those Germans and he expected the same if not worse this time because that country was now unified, was now filled with strange powerful Krupp cannon and in a mood to use it now that one of the members of their alliance had had one of its own killed in Sarajevo and all Europe was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He believed that the anarchists of Paris to a man would resist the call to arms issued by the government. Quatrain, the great leader ever since Commune days, almost guaranteed a general strike if they tried to mobilize the Parisian youth for the slaughter. Yeah Quatrain would stand tall. Jacques though had personal worries somebody had seen his son, also Jacques, heading with some of his “gilded” friends toward the 12^th Grenadier recruiting office in the Hotel de Ville ready to fight for bloody bourgeois France, for the memory of Napoleon, for the glory of battle. And he old Jacques knowing from some skimpily- held barricades back in ’71 just how “glorious” war was fretted in the night against his blood.  

 

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George Jenkins dreamed the dream of many young men out in the heartland, out in the wheat fields of Kansas a dream that America, his America would keep the hell out of what looked like war clouds coming from Europe in the spring of 1914 (although dreams and dreamers were located not just on the farms since George was not a Kansas farm boy but a rising young clerk in Doc Dell’s Drugstore located in the college town of Lawrence). George was keenly interested in such matters and would, while on break or when things were slow, glance through the day later copy of the New York Times or Washington Post that Doc provided for his more worldly customers via the passing trains. What really kept George informed though was William White’s home grown Emporia Gazette which kept a close eye on the situation in Europe for the folks.      

And with all of that information here is what George Jenkins, American citizen, concluded: America had its own problems best tended to by keeping out of foreign entanglements except when America’s direct interests were threatened. So George naturally cast skeptical eyes on Washington, on President Wilson, despite his protestations that European affairs were not our business. George had small town ideas about people minding their own business. See also George had voted for Eugene V. Debs himself, the Socialist party candidate for President, and while he was somewhat skeptical about some of the Socialist Party leaders back East he truly believed that Brother Debs would help keep us out of war. 

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Ivan Smirnov was no kid, had been around the block a few times in this war business. Had been in the Russian fleet that got its ass kicked by the Japanese in 1904 (he never called them “Nips” like lots of his crewmates did not after that beating they took that did not have to happen if the damn Czar’s naval officers had been anything but lackeys and anything but overconfident that they could beat the Johnny-come-lately Japanese in the naval war game). More importantly he had been in the Baltic fleet when the revolution of 1905 came thundering over their heads and each man, each sailor, each officer had to choice sides. He had gone with rebels and while he did not face the fate of his comrades on the Potemkin his naval career was over.

Just as well Ivan had thought many times since he was then able to come ashore and get work on the docks through some connections, and think. And what he was thinking in the spring of 1914 with some ominous war clouds in the air that that unfinished task from 1905 was going to come to a head. Ivan knew enough about the state of the navy, and more importantly, the army to know that without some quick decisive military action the monarchy was finished and good riddance. The hard part, the extremely hard part, was to get those future peasant conscripts who would provide cannon fodder for the Czar’s ill-thought out land adventures to listen up for a minute rather than go unknowingly head-long into the Czar’s arm (the father’s arms for many of them). So there was plenty of work to do. Ivan just that moment was glad that he was not a kid.    

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Rosa Luxemburg-Concerning Morocco-(1911)

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First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, July 24th, 1911.
Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker.
Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf.
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions.
Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.

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Because of the Morocco Affair, as is well known, it has occurred to a number of our French comrades that an international socialist demonstration against the militaristic colonial adventure is called for. This would be arranged by the organ competent for such matters, the International Socialist Bureau. To begin with, a meeting was planned between the socialist representatives of the two countries directly involved, France and Spain. On behalf of the Spanish comrades, Pablo Iglesias proclaimed his agreement with the proposal made by Vaillant and the French comrades. When Germany dispatched the Panther to Agadir, it became evident that German militarism was also intervening in the Moroccan adventure, thus heightening international tension and increasing the possibility of a war. Thereupon the participation of German Social Democracy and possibly of the English representatives in the planned meeting appeared necessary. In reply to an inquiry made by the Secretariat in Brussels, Keir Hardie and Quelch consented on behalf of the English workers, and for their part also declared the meeting to be necessary. Only the German Party Executive failed to support the initiative. The answer was communicated only by one member of the Party Executive – as his private opinion, it is true – but the other members apparently agreed with it, since no further announcement ensued. The German member of the International Bureau also declared the conference to be inadvisable for the time being, and for this reason the planned meeting did not take place.

Opinions may differ on the necessity or usefulness of calling a conference of the International Socialist Bureau on the question of the Morocco Affair. In any case this meeting was not planned for the immediate future: only preparations were to be made so that it could be held if the need arose. It was on this basis that the socialist representatives of France, Spain and England accepted the proposal. However, the German party’s decision not to hold the conference ‘for the time being’ must be seen as a rejection of the whole idea – which is why the Secretariat in Brussels proposed to shelve the Morocco Question until the next annual meeting of the Bureau. That this attitude on the part of the German party could not have had an encouraging and stimulating effect on the socialist protest movements in other countries seems to us to be obvious. This makes it all the more interesting to know the reasons that have led to this attitude of our party. It sounds almost unbelievable, but these reasons are again considerations of the impending Reichstag elections. The view that was expressed by the member of the Party Executive – and which, after his announcement, has already been expounded in a public meeting in Berlin – reads as follows:

I see in the whole affair something with which the rulers of our state are attempting to divert general attention away from internal conditions, and to make propaganda for the Reichstag elections. With its domestic policy, our government has created a situation which would not even arouse a dog’s sympathy. It is thus relying on its favourite method, one which was used by Bismarck in 1887 with Boulanger and by Bülow in 1906 with the Hottentots. Now I believe Messrs Bethmann-Hollweg and Kiderlen-Wächter capable of any stupidity, even of one which could lead to serious European conflicts. In the case of Morocco, however, I believed that these gentlemen did not have a free hand, since conflicting capitalist interests come into question in that country; of which, the ‘French’ group in Germany is the strongest.

For years this war for the mines has been with us. As is well known, a certain Herr Mannesmann has given money to the Sultan of Morocco, for which he has received a document; this he and his friends and the small group of ranters who call themselves Pan-Germans claim is a document giving the brothers Mannesmann a monopoly over the Moroccan mines. Of course the contents of this document conflict with the Treaty of Algeciras. Mannesmann and his friends claim that this makes no difference, since the treaty cannot affect prior treaties.

Despite the great row that Mannesmann and his friends made in the press, the former Secretary of State for External Affairs, von Schön, could not be induced to say an obliging word concerning the Mannesmann Treaty although he did not wish to oppose Mannesmann publicly. But when he was pressed to take a stand, it turned out to be unfavourable towards Herr Mannesmann. The reason for this decision is due less to Mannesmann’s uncertain legal position than to a conflicting capitalist interest. Mannesmann is in competition with an ostensibly French mining syndicate. This syndicate is based in Paris and one of its partners is Schneider of Creusot. But besides Schneider, other giants of the German Steel-Works Association, such as Krupp and Thyssen, are represented in it. They say: if iron ore exists in Morocco in the great quantities that Mannesmann claims, then we can fetch it ourselves and need not be exploited by Mannesmann. These gentlemen would prefer to carry out the exploitation themselves rather than become victims of that exploitation. This consideration carried far more weight than all the legal and constitutional grounds. In so far as Messrs Mannesmann are still drilling for iron ore at all, they have recently transferred their activities to Agadir. From there the complaint was heard that the technicians were being prevented from doing their work. Then Bethmann-Hollweg and Kiderlen-Wächter made a concession to the cries of Mannesmann and his comrades. I do not believe, however, that they will allow themselves to be pressed further, since then they would be damaging the interests of the great powers of the Steel-Works Association. In brief: I believe the leaders of our foreign policy capable of any stupidity, but I do not believe that they will go any further because then they might injure the interests of the most powerful capitalists, and they, whose understanding is more penetrating, would call a halt in good time.

If we were to commit ourselves firmly too soon and to stress the Moroccan Question at the expense of all questions of domestic policy in such a way that an effective electoral slogan could be used against us, then the consequences cannot be anticipated. For in their hatred and fear of socialism, Krupp and Thyssen yield nothing to Bethmann-Hollweg. It is in our vital interests not to allow the discussion of domestic events such as tax policy, agrarian privileges and security regulations to be suppressed. Yet this is what could happen if we talk about the Moroccan Question in every village and thus encourage a backlash. If in this affair Messrs Bethmann and comrades get the defeat they deserve – which in view of their notorious incompetence is quite possible – then we would have one more argument to use against them in the election.

We must confess that the conclusions which have been drawn from the Moroccan Affair and described with such expert knowledge encourage us very little. The high-minded policy upon which they are based is: let us leave it to the grandees of the Steel-Works Association to put a stop to the German action in Morocco in good time while we trouble ourselves as little as possible with the whole matter, for we have other things to occupy us, namely, coping with the Reichstag elections. In any case, it surely occurred to no one to demand of the German Social-Democratic Party that we should ‘stress the Moroccan Question at the expense of all questions of domestic policy’. The very last persons who might be suspected of this are Vaillant and the French comrades, for they themselves are a living example of how one can stress foreign policy while not neglecting domestic affairs. This they demonstrated by discussing in the most lively manner their problems of domestic politics, especially the social security bill, without detriment to their energetic agitation against the Moroccan adventure. And similarly, the forceful protest action of Iglesias and his comrades did very little to harm the party’s other political struggles in Spain, particularly the splendidly executed economic mass action in Saragossa.

Moreover, it is most likely that our opponents, given the urgency of their need, are attempting to concoct an electoral slogan against Social Democracy out of all the hullabaloo over Morocco in order to produce a kind of patriotic election carnival. However, precisely if one accepts this and even believes that this ridiculous and frivolous adventure could result in ‘a powerful slogan’ against us, then it would seem completely illogical to avoid discussing this question in the course of our campaign. If we are to expect that the Reaction will use Morocco as a decoy to its own advantage, then the only way of making this slogan ineffective and of thwarting this attempt at manipulation is for us to enlighten the masses as soon and as completely as possible as to the deplorable background to the affair and the sordid capitalist interests involved in it. If there is a way in which our own debates on, and agitation against, this new attack by capitalist reaction could bring about our defeat, we are not aware of it. There is evidently such a limited trust in the strength of our view, in the productive power of our agitation, that one searches in vain for its causes. In 1870, in the face of the unleashed furies of jingoism, Bebel and Liebknecht did not hesitate to proclaim loudly our devotion to peace and fraternity. If they did not do this ‘in every village’, it was probably only because we were able to make headway in very few villages. And compared with the ‘patriotic war against the Sworn Enemy’, how insignificant is the insipid farce of the Mannesmann firm and its offspring in the present Foreign Office!
If the point of view that we have been discussing is guilty of too little faith in the victorious strength of our slogans, it seems to us that, on the other hand, it strongly overestimates the power of vested capitalist interests in guaranteeing peace. It may well be that the foreign policy of Bethmann and Kiderlen feels itself confident only of holding the balance between the two cliques of mining exploiters; but the game that is played on the volcanic terrain of international conflicts is, even for minds greater than these capitalist clerks, a game of blindman’s-bluff. Mannesmann and Thyssen alone do not determine the further course of the adventure which, like all global blunders, can easily escape from the grasp of those who arranged it and grow from a frivolous game with matches into a global conflagration. And of course the critical forms of the situation can be transferred, by means of granting concessions’ of some kind, to South Africa or another part of the world, which then creates quite new conflicts. This is why, in our view, the duty of Social Democracy is not to reassure public opinion, but to do the very reverse, to rouse it and warn it against the dangers lying dormant in it such adventures in international politics today. It is not enough for us to rely on the pacific intentions of some capitalist clique as a factor in achieving peace; we can only count on the resistance of the enlightened masses. By obeying the order to keep our peace, incidentally, we would be seen to be falling in with the wishes of the rulers of the Moroccan policy. The general Silence in the Forest [reference to a famous poem by Goethe] that the two high priests of colonial policy, Cambon and Kiderlen, have insisted on in order to carry on their hocus-pocus without interruption behind the backs of the people’s representatives and the public, is one more sign that the tactics of the workers’ parties require the very opposite: a loud appeal to the public opinion to which the rulers intend to present a fait accompli. In this sense the demand first put forward by Vorwärts that, for example, the Reichstag be convened, was surely dictated by the right instinct. Unfortunately, our central organ – if we are not mistaken – no longer appears to support this demand.
Finally the position of the Party Executive exhibits a general conception of the electoral struggle that does not appear entirely satisfactory to us. They say that we should restrict our agitation exclusively to matters of domestic policy, to questions or taxation and social legislation. But financial policy, the rule of the Junkers and the stagnation. of social reform are organically bound up with militarism, naval policy, colonial policy, and with personal rule and its foreign policy. Any artificial separation of these spheres can only present an incomplete and one-sided picture of the state of our public affairs. Above all we should propagate socialist enlightenment in the Reichstag elections, but this we cannot do if we restrict our criticism to Germany’s domestic circumstances, if we fail to depict the great international relationships, the growing dominance of capitalism. in all parts of the world, the obvious anarchy in every corner of the globe, and the major role played by colonial and global policy in this process. We must conduct our electoral agitation not as an abridged political primer reduced to a few simple points now ‘in vogue’, but as the socialist world view in all its comprehensiveness, richness and diversity.
We have heard so much about the ‘splendid situation’ in which we are approaching the Reichstag elections, and at the same time we have been warned repeatedly against spoiling this ‘situation’ by some imprudent action; previously this was the struggle for universal suffrage in Prussia, and now it is the agitation against the hubbub surrounding Morocco. We think that the ‘splendid situation’ is not a chance external constellation that one can spoil by a rash act. Rather it is the product of the entire historical development of the past few decades within and without Germany. The best way of throwing away the advantage of this ‘situation’ would be to begin to consider all party life and all tasks of the class struggle simply from the perspective of the ballot-box.