The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-08-30
On War and Danger Of War

I illusions. In this respect it must not
be for a moment be forgotten that
the so-called "lcft" social democratic
/ leaders (such as Paul Levi in Ger
many, Bracke in France, such repre-
eenttatives of the British Labor
Party as Maxton and Wheatley, and
such cleft" trade union leaders as
4 Purcell and Hicks) are the most
dangerous enemies of Communism in
the labor movement. Even the more
! sincere leaders of the left opposition
within the social democracy in so far
as they merely waver and chatter,
/ hut refuse to associate themselves
organizationally front he social demo-
cratic leadership, the Communist Par
4 ties are obliged to criticize most
strongly and to expose their role as
deceivers of their working class fol-
lowers.
But at the same time the winning
over of the left social democratic
workers and also of their leftward in
clined workers such as the anarcho-
syndicalists for a revolutionary united
proletarian front in the struggle
against war was never such an i'm
portant task as it is at the present
time.
disarmament and pacifism.
%. In view of increased prepara-
lions for imperialist wars, the talk
of the bourgeois governments and of
the petty bourgeois pacifists about
disarmament is the acme of hypocrisy
and mockery Sabotage of the Wash
! lngton agreement of 1921, concerning
limitation of naval ornaments, fail
/ ure of the Coolidge disarmament
proposal, failure of the Geneva Con-
ference of the League of Nations in
March 1920, Communists must ex-
pose in every possible way the false
and reactionary meaning, as long as
the capitalist system still exists,,.of
the slogan and Of disarmament adj
vanced by the bourgeoisie and their
agents, the social democrats. To sup
i port such a slogan means to sow IL
lusions that it is possible to do away
with war without the abolition of
capitalism. No proposals of the bour-
geoisie and the social democrats con-
Ecerning the curtailment Of ornaments
and the reduction of war expenditure
can reduce by single iota the danger
of war during the imperialist epoch,
The only country which has really
reduced its army to minimum is the
Soviet Union. Among all the existing
states, it is the only sure buttress of
peace. Emerging in October 1917
from the struggle against the imper-
ialist war, it has been for ten years
like heavy weight round the neck of
the European imperialists, preventing
them from hurting the various sec.
tons of the toiling masses against
one another. 1t can fulfil this role
also in the future, provided its policy
has the support of the international
working class. The policy. of the Sow
/ let Union directed towards disarma.
ment is the policy of state in which.
the proletariat is the ruling class anc
is laying the foundation of a new So
ciety which makes war impossible
The attitude of the world proletariat
to the position of the Soviet Union or
the disarmament question must there.
fore differ in principle from its atti.
tude towards the hypocritical disarm.
ament plans of the bourgeois states
/ %. There lis no doubt about the
fact that the millions of toilers who
went through the great imperialisi
war of 1914-18 do not want a new
war. The wounds of the last war are
still too fresh. These workers sin.
cerely desire to combat war. but de.
ceived by the social democrats, they
do not yet see their war clearly, ane
/ have yet no revolutionary basis. This
is the source of the vague and sen.
:. timental "pacifism," from which the
working class still suffers. This pa.
lcifism has nothing in common with
the deliberate deception carried -or
by the bourgeois pacifists, clergy anc
other charlatans whose task is to pro.
vide palliatives for the negative side.
of capitalist society.
(To Be Continued.)