# Essays in Socialism and War

John Bryan was Rothstein's war-era pseudonym. No. 1 in the International Socialist Library.
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST LIBRARY. 1.
ESSAYS IN SOCIALISM AND WAR
By
JOHN BRYAN
(Reprinted from "The Call.")
ONE PENNY
(SECOND IMPRESSION)
London: BRITISH SOCIALIST PARTY. 21a Maiden Lane, Strand, W.C. July, 1917
page
INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST LIBRARY. 1.
ESSAYS IN SOCIALISM AND WAR
By
JOHN BRYAN
(Reprinted from "The Call.")
(SECOND IMPRESSION)
London: BRITISH SOCIALIST PARTY. 21a Maiden Lane, Strand, W.C. July, 1917
page
MILITARISM, PRUSSIAN AND OTHER
Prussian Militarism must be destroyed. This is the catch-word of to-day. Prussian Militarism had been in existence generations before the present war, but nobody outside Germany thought that it was such an intolerable evil. Scrutinise the history of the ten years' quarrel between this country and Germany, and you will not find a word said against Prussian Militarism. The attack from this side was directed against the German navy, never against the German army. The army was a necessity; indeed, often the argument would be: the navy was to Britain what the army was to Germany—vital to the existence of the country. The same attitude was observable in other countries. Read our French ex-Comrade Sembat's famous book: Faites la paix, si non faite le roi ("Make peace, or else make a King"), and you Ywill find there a fervid defence of the big German army as a necessity for a country which has two frontiers to defend against strong and watchful enemies. Was it different in America? Not at all. Colonel Roosevelt was an admirer of the Prussian military system, and no "exchange" professor ever spoke a word against it.
Now it is different. Now Prussian 1filitarism is the enemy and ought to be crushed. This is repeated in Britain, where the German army was bracketed with the British navy as the sheet anchor of national existence; in France, where Marcel Sembat is now Minister; and in America, where Roosevelt blows the war trumpet. All of a sudden the discovery has been made that Prussian Militarism is a curse not only to the world, but to Germany herself, and that the war is really a world-wide crusade against it. Why? you may ask. And the reply given is: because Prussian Militarism is merely an instrument of the Prussian Junker domination—the domination of a feudal class which has no business to live in the modern world, which has imposed itself upon the German nation, and which has caused the present war out of sheer feudal lust of conquest.
The circumstance that this discovery had been made only ​in the last twenty months casts considerable susp1c1on upon the sincerity of those who are exploiting it in the Press, in the pulpit, and on the platform. Nevertheless, the mass of the people have accepted it as a new Gospel, and believe in it with all the fervour of fresh converts. Their fault is not insincerity, but sheer ignorance and incapacity for clear thinking.
The truth is that what is called "Prussian" Militarism is exactly the same as the Militarism of other capitalist countries—only better organised and more efficient. There was a time, it is true, when it was an essentially Junker institution. That was when Prussia-Germany was still an agricultural country with preponderately agrarian interests. Prusso-German domestic and foreign policies were then dictated by these interests, and the Junkers, as the landed aristocracy dominating all the institutions of the country, also used the national military organisation for the advancement of those interests. But forty years of economic evolution have not passed in vain. The Junkers still hold the chief political power in the land. They still control the army as they control the main civil departments of the Prusso-German State. But the chief economic power is no longer theirs, because the main interests of Prusso-Germany are no longer agrarian. A powerful bourgeoisie, industrial, commercial, and professional, has arisen in Germany, and it is their economic interests which are paramount in the State. The State may still be manned by members of the Junker class, but it is run all the same in the interests of the big bourgeoisie. Had it been different, there would have long ago been a revolution in Prussia-Germany similar to those which France and England had undergone more than a hundred years earlier. But the Junkers were and are no "backwoodsmen." They were and are men of the world and of business, and they were left in possession of the actual exercise of power on condition that they did the bourgeoisie's will. They accepted the bargain in the same way and in the same spirit as our own "old nobility," together with the Crown, accepted a similar one after their successive defeats in 1688 and 1832; only in the case of Germany the process was much quicker owing to the greater readiness of the German bourgeoisie to leave the actual political and military power in the hands of their new allies. This, in its turn, was due to two circumstances: on the one hand, the German bourgeoisie was anxious to get ​effective protection from the rising tide of Social Democracy, and on the other hand, German capitalism had rapidly outgrown the limits of the national market and had embarked upon a policy of Imperialism—"World-Politics," as it was called—which threatened to bring it into conflicts with older rivals. It was this Imperialist factor which proved decisive. It brought together the Prusso-German Junkers and the German capitalist class, and rendered effective the bargain, hereby the former retained their power, but placed it at the disposal of the latter. Imperialism and Militarism have become associated as the end and the means to an end.
Has the history of Militarism been different in other countries? Certain circumstances which are obvious to the reader prevent us from dealing with this question adequately, but we may ask: has it been different in France, where Militarism was originally handed over to the Third Republic as a legacy from the Second Empire, and where its character was made sufficiently evident by the clerico-monarchist crisis associated with the names of MacMahon, Boulanger, and Dreyfus? Yet the French bourgeoisie accepted it—accepted it from that moment when the first shells were fired against Bizerta (Tunis) in 1882. Or has it been different in Russia, where the bourgeois parties in the Duma vied with one another, in the course of the eight years preceding the war, in voting the military budgets, in spite of the fact that the actual military power was notoriously exercised by a class of ""Junkers"? The reason for this acceptance of Militarism was the rise of Russian Imperialism. Or is the case different in this country? We have had no Militarism, not because of our geographical situation, but because we had no rival in our Imperialist pursuits. But no sooner did the German "menace" arise than the foundation was laid by Lord Haldane's reforms of a British Militarism, and now we shall have universal military service. Will that Militarism be of a different kind from the Prussian variety? The Ulster revol and the part recently played by the Army Council in the political crisis supply the answer. Yet our capitalist class will accept it, because Imperialist policy demands it.
What a hollow hypocrisy it is to thunder forth against "Prussian" Militarism and to single it out for universal opprobium! Prussian Militarism is but the most perfect model of modern Militarism which exists everywhere, and which will only be overcome when Imperialism is overcome. Socialism is the sole alternative to the one as to the other.
NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL DEFENCE.
We all love our country and are anxious that it may be spared the horrors of foreign invasion and foreign rule. This is an elementary fact which is as true to-day, when the working class in every country is immolating itself on the altar of Imperialism, as it was in those days when Gustave Hervé was signing himself "Un Sans-Patrie" and was proclaiming that the working class had no Fatherland. There are some who think differently, who have now adopted Gustave Hervé's old view. But we think that they are wrong, and contradict themselves. For if it be a matter of complete indifference to the working class whether it lives under native or foreign rule, why should these very Socialists denounce annexations and protest against subjection of foreign nationalities?
No, the working class has a country, just as the individual members of it have a family, and naturally wishes to protect it against outside violence. This wish is not impaired by the fact that the safety of the Fatherland is endangered through no fault of the working class. It is this tragedy of the situation—the working class fighting to protect its country in a war caused by capitalist rivalries and which can only have for its issue the satisfaction of somebody's Imperialist interests—that has led the Socialists above mentioned to repudiate the idea of Fatherland. But it is also this tragedy which makes so intolerable the attitude_of the opposite school, who, in the name of national defence, have abandoned Socialism and are trying to represent the war itself as the cause of the working class.
Where is the way out of this dilemma? It seems inevitable that we have either to abandon the idea of Fatherland, or else abandon Socialism. If the country is to be defended we must, it seems, proclaim the unity of classes and repudiate Internationalism—unless, indeed, we lay down a new doctrine that in peace time we ought to shout: "Proletarians of all countries, unite," and in war time demand: "Proletarians of all countries, cut each others' throats!" Or, if Socialism is to be preserved, if Internationalism is to be maintained, we must, it seems, abandon the idea of national defence, and repudiate the doctrine of the Fatherland. There seems to be no middle course.
​But there is. At a time when wars are made, not for self-protection, but for the subjugation of other nationalities, be it by way of annexations, or the establishment of protectorates, or "zones of influence," is 'it not clear that our old conception of national defence has become obsolete? Modern nations are no longer what they were two or three generations ago. They have become internally differentiated into classes, with antagonistic interests and ideals. Wars, too, therefore, have come to have a different meaning for capitalists and proletarians. To the former, wars have become a means of realisation not of national, but of Imperialist ideals, and to that extent they have lost for the working class all meaning. Accordingly, while the capitalist classes were inciting one country against the other and arming nations to the teeth, the working class was protesting louder and louder its opposition to war in any shape or form. Thus, while French and German capitalists were nearly coming to blows over the privilege of exploiting Morocco, the French and German working class were proclaiming at Berne that even the fate of Alsace-Lorraine was not a sufficient reason for war; while to all the incitements of the financial and military cliques of Austria and Germany against Russia the invariable answer came from the proletarian ranks that even the common hatred of "Tsarism" would not justify a war.
It was in this common international opposition to war on the part of the working class that lay the germ of a new conception of national defence, for it simply meant that the best method of national defence was to prevent war altogether by common international effort. Modern wars being what they are, the working class had every interest in preventing them, and thus avoiding the bitter necessity of fighting for their countries against their own class. It was this conception which lay at the bottom of the Stuttgart resolution pledging every Socialist party to resist war by all means in its power. This was a new conception of national defence by the international action of the working class: a conception which could only arise in our era of Imperialism.
We know it was not acted upon. It certainly was not clearly understood or digested, and when the war broke out there was everywhere a relapse into the old idea of each nation for itself. In each country there was the fear that the other countries would not support its action, and that its sacrifices would thus be in vain. This was a mistaken notion. ​If the working class in any one country had had the faith and the courage to revolt, the spell of the old idea of national defence would have been broken in all other countries, and the revolt would have become international. But that is at present beside the point. What it is necessary to emphasise is that the development of Socialist thought before the war had brought out a new conception of national defence, which, if acted upon, would have prevented the war altogether and thus f>roved the most efficacious method of national defence.
But then the mistake—it may be objected—has been made, and have we any other option but to fall back upon the old method? The reply will be found in the same Stuttgart resolution, endorsed and amplified at the Basel congress: "Should war nevertheless break out, it is the duty of Socialists to intervene to bring about its cessation at the earliest possible date, and to make the fullest possible use of the economic and political crisis caused by it with a view to rousing the people and thereby accelerating the downfall of capitalist domination."
This is but the same idea of international action for national defence, only extended to the time of war. Not by fighting against one another, but by joining hands in a common effort to stop the war and to overthrow Capitalism, the author of the war, will the working class best achieve the security of their respective "Fatherlands."
WARS—ANCIENT AND MODERN
Enrichment—apart from prestige in the case of despotisms—has ever been the object of war. "The art of war" was Aristotle's opinion more than 2,000 years ago, "is, in sense, by nature ,part of the art of acquisition," and Plato makes his Socrates tell what would happen if the ideal republic were to abandon itself to the ordinary mundane affairs, and, in consequence, outgrow its own resources: "Then a piece of our neighbours' country would be wanted by us for pasture and tillage, and they, in their turn, if they exceed the limits of necessity, will want a piece of ours, and then, Glaucon, we shall go to war." "So we shall," was Glaucon's reply. This is as elementary and as simple as A. B. C. Whatever the poets may have sung, whatever dip​lomatic speeches and notes may have told the world, and however much historians may have embellished the simple fact of "acquisition" and the taking of the "neighbours' land for pasture and tillage," the bottom fact remains that from the time of Nebuchadnezzar to our own enrichment has been the object of war.
But just because this is an elementary and simple fact, it does not explain everything about war. The "we" who go to war and "acquire" will be different in different times, and the forms and the precise objects of acquisition will be different also. Those who go to acquire the neighbours' country in the degenerated republic of Plato will be a totally different set of people from those who proceed to the performance of a similar act under the Third French Republic, and the pastures and the tilled fields in the one case will obviously be dissimilar as an object of acquisition to the Moroccan mines and Tunisian phosphate fields in the other. Everything changes with the state and composition of society. Nebuchadnezzar had one conception of what there was to be acquired in the neighbours' country, and the modern capitalist class has another conception of the same thing; and while—to quote an instance in this present war—the Russians' first act when they established themselves in Galicia was to appoint a large number of officials and to initiate a scheme for the distrubution of the lands among prospective peasant immigrants, the Germans' first act, when they came to Poland, was to set the mines and factories working. So much in the "art of acquisition," of which the " "art of war"" is, by nature, a part, depends upon the state of society even in the same war and in the same historical period.
In our time of very much advanced capitalism, this art of acquisition bears a peculiar impress which sharply distinguishes it even from that which immediately preceded it at an earlier stage of capitalist advance. "We" used to acquire markets for goods. That was very recently—so recently that many of us still speak of wars as being, by nature, part of the art of acquiring markets for our Manchester, or Birmingham, or Sheffield ware. But that stage, in which the proverbial missionary with the Bible and the trader with the bottle were the first performers, to be followed by a punitive force under the Union Jack, is really gone and buried. We live in a different age, the age of finance which seeks concessions and investments. At home we have filled ​up pretty well every avenue of dividend-earning; or, if we have not, the rate of remuneration has become so low that wider fields and better pastures must be sought elsewhere. At the same time the industrial and economic prosperity since the beginning of the present century has been such that "free" capital has accumulated in enormous quantities, and its investment at home must appear to its happy possessors a sheer waste. And so we get the yearning after financial markets in countries poorer in capital, but rich in economic possibilities. Those countries may be members of our own capitalist family—Russia, Italy, Rumania, self-governing dominions over the sea—or they may be strangers like China, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, or Abyssinia. Thither dividend-hunting capital flocks to fertilise the natural resources and, incidentally, to line the pockets of its holders. In some cases its activity is so guaranteed by historical or natural agencies that it becomes positively liberal, friendly, and pacifist. Such was the case with German capital in the three first-named countries, and such has been the case with British capital in the older Dominions. But there are cases in which capital, in its process of penetration, meets with considerable obstacles. The natives do not want any railways, or fear the consequences of having gold dug in their midst by foreign prospectors, or have a strange prejudice against their cemeteries being ravaged by bone-seeking phosphate manufacturers. Or, again, various national capitals come to graze in the same pastures; they want to build the same railways, to work the same mines, and to ravage the same cemeteries. Capital then becomes exceedingly angry. It gets red in the face, it discards all Liberalism and all civilisation (or Kultur, as the case may be), mails its fist and strikes right and left—at the natives, or at its rivals, or at both.
This is what we call the Imperialist stage of capitalist expansion. It is no longer a hunt for markets where one can dispose of manufactured goods, cotton or any other, but a hunt for countries where one can invest capital in some profitable business that would yield rich dividends. The difference is material not only in form. At the game of market-hunting for ready goods only those can play who have a large manufacturing industry at home. They alone can supply the needs of the markets, and they alone are able to underbid the stray rival. That was the position of this ​country for a long, very long number of years. But the financial game of investment can be played by any country which has any capital at all. However small it may be, and however large the home requirements may seem, it can always find in a more backward country a still more profitable investment—provided its activity is safeguarded by a natural or artificial monopoly. And as the latter kind of monopoly is best provided by the subjugation of the natives and by the forcible ejection of all rivals, this form of capitalist activity leads to the establishment of "zones of influence and protectorates, and is the most fruitful cause of international friction the world has ever seen.
This is the "signature" (to use a musical term) under which the present war broke out, and just as in music the key in which a piece is written is generally recognised by its last note, so will the key of the present war, however complicated its harmony may be, emerge dear when its last chord is struck. By the terms of peace, even the most enthusiastic among the audience will see that the signature of the fine battle symphony which they have just heard was Imperialism, and that the whole bloody exercise turned round one subject, viz., whose capital is to gather dividends from the riches of Turkey or of the Congo, and whose capital is to look on in greedy impotence, with a watering, but empty mouth.
NATIONALITIES AND PEACE
In what relation do the professed war-aims of the Allies stand to the real causes of the war? This question must rise in every mind that gives itself the trouble of studying the Allies note to President Wilson in the light of the deeper origins of the war. A stranger coming to our planet and reading that note would think that the war, like the wars for Italian independence, has been caused by the unfulfilled national aspirations of a number of young and oppressed races. A cursory reading of the war speeches, pamphlets, and other pronouncements during the last two years and a half would probably confirm him in his first impression. Was not the war in the first instance brought about by a bullying ultimatum served by Austria upon small Serbia and by the chivalrous intervention of Russia on behalf of the latter? In the case of this ​country, was not the outrage committed upon small and neutral Belgium the cause of her intervention? And who can doubt France's motives in face of her ardent devotion to the tragic memory of the two provinces which were torn out of her national body in 1871? Is it necessary to add the case of Italy and Rumania, both of whom have long been yearning after the final accomplishment of their national union? So, wherever you look, you find the same national motives at play—outrages on living national organisms on the one hand, and national aspirations and the assertion of national rights on the other. And thus it appears that the Allied Note, with its emphasis upon the national principle and its programme of reconstruction of Europe on !the principle of nationalities, is logically built up in accordance with the prime causes of the war. If after the terrible experience of the last two years Europe is to enjoy secure peace, the obvious need is, in the first instance, to remove the conditions which have brought on the present war.
So it appears, but is it so in reality? One must give full credit to the extraordinary ability and agility with which the diplomacy and journalism of the Entente Powers have succeeded in confusing the causes and, therefore, the issues of the war in the public mind and palming off their Imperialist war aims in an attractive disguise by drawing heavily upon the stores of sympathy which had accumulated in the world for generations with the "nations struggling to be free." Indeed, who can doubt, even apart from the teachings of history, that Russia's "sympathy" with Serbia would not have induced her to raise even a finger on her behalf if she did not happen to be a very useful factor in Russia's diplomacy in the Balkans and Galicia? Again, who can doubt that but for the special importance possessed, from a strategical point of view, by Belgium, the violation of her neutrality would have been received by the British rulers, and therefore by the British Press and the British people, as coolly as the violation of Luxemburg neutrality had been, and the violation of Greek neutrality is at this very moment being received? Or shall we interpret France's case differently? Who, with a knowledge of modern French history, does not know that the question of Alsace-Lorraine had been kept in the foreground by the French Nationalists, Clericals and Monarchists with the sole object of fighting the Republic as a form of government impotent to repair national wrongs ​and of retaining and strengthening, in the midst of republican institutions, the militarism of the Second Empire as an instrument of monarchist restoration? And if this constant and skilful agitation had, with some fluctuations, success among the financial and industrial bourgeoisie of France, who were neither Clerical nor Monarchist, who can doubt that this was due entirely to the wealth of Alsace-Lorraine in coal, iron, and potash, which exercised a natural fascination upon the French capitalist mind? And if even to-day you were to offer France Alsace-Lorraine in exchange, say, of Morocco and the Congo, what would be the reply? Read the instructive article by Henri Roche, the well-known publicist, in "La Voix de l'Humanité," the Swiss pacifist organ, of May 31st, 1916, and you will see that the reply would be emphatically in the negative. What can we say, further, of Italy's "national" aspirations, knowing as we do that she could have got without fighting Trentino and Gorizia, but that she refused the offer because she wants also Trieste, the entire hinterland of which is Slav, the Dalmatian coast, which is also Slav, and furthermore, southern Albania and a portion of Asia Minor? And lastly Rumania, who had previously grabbed a portion of Bulgarian country, and only intervened when she thought she could accomplish her national aims on the cheap? Do we not know that her intervention had only been brought about after she had been promised, in addition to Transylvania with its German enclave, also the Banat, which is much more Serbian than Rumanian, and a portion of Bukowina, with a Ruthenian Ulster?
The origins of the war have, in fact, nothing to do with the principle of nationalities. None of the countries of the Entente which have made this principle their stalking horse have been celebrated by their respect for it in the past, and its exploitation by them at present is only a convenient method of gaining the sympathy and adherence of the simple-minded democracies of the world. If, therefore, the entire programme outlined in the Allied Note to President Wilson were to be realised, it would solve none of the problems which have brought about this war. Germany, of course, would be crushed, Austria-Hungary would be dismembered, the Ottoman Empire would be reduced to a small and impotent State in the middle of Anatolia, whose life would not be worth ten years' purchase, and to that extent the predatory objects of ​one set of the belligerents would be attained. But how would it render future wars impossible and lay the foundations for a League of Peace when the real roots of the war would be left untouched? Those roots are the Imperialist rivalries of modern capitalist States, and no amount of jugglery and tampering with the map of Europe on the principle of nationalities would remove them. Let a still Greater Russia be created with the help of Posen and Galicia and Bukowina and Constantinople and Northern Persia; let France be aggrandised by the addition of Alsace-Lorraine and the left bank of the Rhine; let Italy obtain mastery of the entire Adriatic Sea with a good slice of Asia Minor thrown into the bargain; let also a vast Yugo-Slav State be created across the Balkans and further north on the ruins of Austria and Hungary; let also a new Czecho-Slovak State be created as an advance post of Russia in Central Europe; let all these and many other such alterations be made in the European map in obedience to the principle of nationality—and tomorrow we again have the old Imperialist rivalries, the old financial and colonial aspirations, the old militarist lust for power, all leading up to a new cataclysm.
And so we come to the conclusion that the ostensible war-aims of the Allies, as outlined in the Note to America, stand in no relation to the real causes of the war and would, if realised, leave things exactly in the same position as they were before. The truth, of course, is, Capitalism in its present imperial phase is a fruitful source of wars, which can only be stopped up by the overthrow of Capitalism itself.
THE PROFITEERS OF WAR
It was a universal belief before the outbreak of the present calamity that the "future war" would not and could not, for economic reasons, be of long duration. Referring to the experience of the Russo-Japanese War, in which frontal attacks only led to withdrawals on the part of the defeated opponent, without bringing about any decision, Count von Schlieffen, the famous successor of Moltke in the German General Staff and one of the greatest theorists of war in our time, said: "In such cases the campaign is dragging along. But wars ​of this kind are impossible at a time when the existence of nations depend upon the uninterrupted course of commerce and industry, and the wheels must again as soon as possible be brought in motion. A strategy of attrition cannot be pursued when the maintenance of millions of troops requires the expenditure of milliards." Bebel held the same views. Speaking before his Hamburg electors in March, 1911, he said: "Imagine what a confusion would be brought about by a modern European war on the very first clay of mobilisation. The cessation of imports of food from abroad and the feeding of the armies called to the colours would so increase the prices of foodstuffs that a general famine would become unavoidable within a fortnight. The Empire would have to support the families of the reserve men sent to the front, and the cessation of shipping and all industry would lead to the ruin of countless business men and firms. This was the case even in 1870, and would be still more terrible in the future war." And Behel predicted that the effect of a war would be the collapse of Capitalism and the outbreak of a revolution.
We know now that things have turned out differently. The great "future" war, greater even than was expected, has now lasted for more than two years, and its end cannot be foretold. In spite of this Capitalism has not collapsed, no revolution has set in, and a strategy of attrition is being pursued with a never diminishing vigour, though the maintenance of millions of troops requires milliards upon milliards. The factor which all our previous military, political, and economic authorities failed to take account of was the very magnitude of the "future" war and the very milliards which it would require for its prosecution. This magnitude and these milliards have had for their result that in all belligerent countries practically the entire economic activity of the nation has been directed into war channels and has adapted itself to the one aim of satisfying the requirements of the military forces and the military administration of the State. Arms and war material are no longer produced by a few firms and State arsenals, but by thousands and thousands of firms which previously carried on totally different business and which but for the magnitude of the military needs of the State, backed by milliards of money raised by loans would have been ruined "within a fortnight." The same enormous extension benefiting thousands of old and new firms has taken place in the pro​vision of clothing, of food, of means of transport, of chemicals, of basic raw material like coal and iron. The State has in each country become a customer of boundless requirements and immense resources, and so far from "countless business men and firms" being ruined, the prosperity of the capitalist class has never been so great as now.
This is true of all belligerent and nearly all neutral countries, from Japan to Holland and from Sweden to the United States. The total sum already expended by the belligerent States on and in connection with the war probably exceeds by now ten thousand millions sterling, and by far the greater part of it—that is, deducting pay to the troops and salaries to officials at home—has gone into the pockets of the-capitalist class of the world. Armament and munition makers, clothing manufacturers, coalowners and iron-masters, shippers, motor car manufacturers, food growers, and all the innumerable hosts of army contractors of various kinds—all have filled and overfilled their pockets from this inexhaustible golden deluge. Everywhere, in belligerent and neutral countries, a new class of millionaires has arisen, a new money aristocracy, a new oligarchy of nouveaux riches. From every capital of the world we hear reports of unusual displays of luxury, wildest orgies and debaucheries, of money spent like water in night clubs and fashionable gaming resorts. We hear them from Berlin and Vienna, from Petrograd and Paris, from Stockholm and Amsterdam. The organ of our Austrian comrades recently devoted an article to the portraying of these nouveaux riches—how their agents are active whenever an old castle comes upon the market, how the architects are busily evolving new plans of town and country houses with a multitude of towers and turrets, and how the large drapery firms are getting in stocks of gloves of large sizes. In our own country, which likes to avoid ostentatiousness, one only has to make a round of the most expensive restaurants in London, visit a few public sales, look in on an evening in some of the fashionable music halls, in order to feel the presence of the new rich; and when we hear bishops declaiming upon the immorality prevailing at the present day, and read reports of police raids on night clubs and other institutions of a similar kind, we know what to think of the rest.
The war, contrary to all expectations, has proved a true gold mine to the capitalist class throughout the world. While ​millions are killing or get killed in the trenches, while our streets are being rapidly filled with one-legged or one-armed, blind, and otherwise mutilated human beings, while our hospitals and our asylums are full of physical and mental wrecks, while mourning reigns in tens of thousands of homes, the capitalist class is coining money faster than it can, and fortunes are being built up as in the days of the Indian Nabobs or the first Spanish adventurers in Mexico and Peru. As for neutral countries, it is sufficient to recall that according to a recent report, the "national" wealth of the United States has increased during the last two years by something like £800,000,000, and that Japan (a neutral country in spite of the war) has been buying up her securities in Europe, and is now practically free from foreign indebtedness, to realise the blood-sodden ground of Europe has for them, too, produced a rich harvest.
The capitalist class has enormously profited by the war. Can we wonder that it shows no haste in ending it? Why should it? It makes money, it does not suffer from the rising cost of living, and its personal losses on the battlefields are both absolutely and proportionately insignificant in comparison with those sustained by the working class. In the initial stages of the war some of us thought that at least the neutrals would revolt against the massacre and the attending restrictions, in various directions, imposed upon them by the belligerents. Some inconvenience, no doubt, they suffer, but can they be compared with the profits their capitalist classes are making as providers of arms and ammunition, of foodstuffs, of raw material and shipping? Hence the paradox: the world is perishing in a sea of blood, but capitalism which could stop the catastrophe if it wished allows it to go on. This is the true paradox of capitalism!
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