The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-07-18
by II. VI. WicRS

character of the capitalist govern
ment He still harbors the illusion
that the capitalist state is something
that stands apart from and above
the struggle of classes and can be
used against the capitalist class if
only the "progressives" pacifists,
socialists and forward looking
people" generally decide to use it
for their own purposes.
However, there is much deeper
significance to this wave of pacifist
twaddle than most revolutionists per
ceive. The dirty sermonizing of the
pacifists meets response on the
part of wide sections Of the working
class who sincerely dread the threat
of new war. Their hatred against
militarism finds futile expression in
pacifist indignation and finally dies
away without leading to any strug-
gle against the menace of imperialist
wars. The social function of pacifism
is precisely to weaken the working
class, the only class capable of eff
fectively fighting the threat of new
wars.
We must never forget that it was
the socialists, mouthing pacifist
phrases in the United States; the
Hillquits, the Oneals and other brain
less self-appointed leaders of the
workers who became completely en-
meshed in the net of bourgeois paci-
fism and aided tremendously in facil-
iating this country's entrance into
the world war, in spite of their feeble
denunciation of it.
LIE who breaches pacifism, he who
- declares for peace at any price
and who abjures all war, he who as
sails all militarism without asking
the question in whose interest mill
tary might is applied inevitably must,
whether he is conscious of it or not,
support the pvwer C. the ruling
class.
Most menacing of all decisions of
the working class is that of pacifism,
because as long as Imperialism lives,
as ~ as there is ruling capital
list cl"ss anywhere on earth the work
ing class must recognize that it will
have - defend itself against the
depreciation, Of that class with all the
power at its command.
In our Communist anti-militarist
campaigns we must always keep in
mind the fact that we must teach the
workers the difference between re-
dictionary military force that stands
in the path of history, tries to hold
it back by imposing letters upon it,
and the revolutionary military force
that has as its task the shattering
of the forces of the bourgeoisie and
clearing the path of history so that
humanity can go forward to higher
stages of development.
Only the proletarian revolution
can finally free the world from the
blight of imperialist wars. When
the ruling class is finally crushed
and the very ground upon which it
thrives furrowed so deeply by the
proletarian revolution that it can
never again take root, then and then
only can we. seriously speak of abol
ishing all militarism.
ANOTHER most reprehensible So
"A cial-democratic deception Is She
pacifist twaddle about war in the alb
stract; the inclusion of all wars
even revolutionary wars-as crimes
against humanity. 1t is social-de-
mocratic sophistry and a form of
crawling before the bourgeoisie to
speak today of war in the abstract.
The threat of war today is not some-
thing that we must face in the dis
tant future, but reality that vitality
affects the whole world right at this
moment.
4 concrete and not an abstract
problem of war faces the world to-
day. That is the predatory war be-
ing wage by the imperialist powers
against China and the Soviet Union.
Although this war must be combatted
with the same tactics used to stifle
any imperialist war it is at the same
time not a mere repition of 1914
1918, but new, special kind of war,
What is Mr.. Thomas or his cohorts
in the socialits party doing to meet
this new war against the Soviet
Union and the Chinese revolution?
He doesn't even mention it in his
proposals to the Peoples Reconstruc-
ton League, but merely repeats in
the most banal manner his sterile
distractions.
While Mr.. Thomas mentions i'm
ocrialism as a cause of wars, he
does not propose fight against the
very foundation of Imperialism, the
governments of the various capitalist
states, nor does he emphasize the
only effective method ever devised of
fighting against imperialist wars
once they have started.--the feminist