The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-14

Reviewed by
SASHA SMALL
HURING the August anti-war
" demonstration, I overheard a
discussion between two taxi drivers.
one was saying to the other, some
what cynically, why aren't you in
that parade?" The other answered.
'You won't catch me in there.
hope there's another war. I'll be
the first to CO."
At this, the first taxi driver
dropped his cynicism. That's be-
cause you weren't in the last one
was. And you bet your life they
won't catch me a second time" But
the other stuck to his position. I'll
be the first to CO."
The new Clara Zetkin pamphlet,
"The Toilers Against the War, :"
would have been the most effective
argument to present to that taxi
driver and to the hundreds upon
hundreds Of other workers who feel
the same way about it.
It's one hundred and twenty
eight pages are packed with the
sort Of arguments that would con-
vince the workers. This is no mere
repetition of exposures of the true
nature and role Of imperialist war
This is no mere agitational docu-
ment recounting the horrors of war
on the battlefields, listing the mil
lions of dead and wounded the
widows, the orphans, the destruc-
ton of property.
This pamphlet not only tears
away any sham glory of war. 1t
digs down into the real horror, the
real meaning Of war for the work
ing class populations of every coun-
try in the world, not only the de-
struction of life and property, but
the destruction of culture, the de-
struction of liberty, the destruction
of the last vestiges of civilization.
Clara zetkin devotes large part
Of the first half of the pamphlet,
headed "Imperialist Wars are Wars
Against the Workers" to the effects
of war upon the children:
"The imperialist war has left
behind it as a heritage an in
Vulnerable host of scrofuIous,
rickety and otherwise diseased
youths and children. It's ravages
to health have not come to an
end with its termination; they
last on from year to year in the
postwar period, intensified by the
economic and social devaStion of
the capitalist states which the
war has brought about, by the
ravages of the world economic
crisis, for whose outbreak and ex-
tent the war undoubtedly con-
stitutes contributOry cause. I'm
der the social conditions Of bour-
geois society, the fathers and
mothers whose health Is being so
severely undermined will create a
generation Of sick and weak chill
dren unto the third and fourth
generation, until the victorious
proletarian revolution gradually
effaces the results Of the crime
committed by the imperiaIist
World War, by creating new social
conditions. Until that time the
proIetariat and the working pop
uIation will remain the chief vic
Tins of the terrible heritage
which this world massacre has
decreed."
As result Of the undermined
health Of the children, their
schooling, such as it was, suffered
Teachers we're forced to send them
home. Juvenile delinquency devel-
oped tremendously. "Was it pos
sible" that he ideas and the tenn
peraments of the young should not
grow wilder and more brutal when
the horrors of imperialist war, the
act of numbering and letting one
self be murdered In this war, were
being praised as the loftiest heroism
in the schools, the pulpits, the press
and on all public occasions?"
In contrast to all this child mis-
cry there is glowing section on
what the Soviet Union is providing
for the children Of the workers and
PEASANTS picture of flouristing
life.
IN the second half OF the PAM
phlet called. THE Workers Are
Against Imperialist Wars" Clara
Zetkin puts the question squarely:
"The time is ripe for the general
settlement of accounts between
the pr0letariat and the b0ur-
goisie, between the unfree, DOWN
trodden and exploited of the
whole world and their masters
and torturers. The alternative is,
on the one hand class dictator
ship of the big property owners,
intensified into fascism, as per-
manent conditions for the millions
of the propertyiess or nearly prop
ertyless; or, on the other hand
the class dictatorship of the pro-
letariat as the representative and
leader of all the enslaved and ex-
plotted, as an unavoidable, tenn
porary transition measure in order
to safeguard the establishment of
the Socialist economic and social
order, which alone destroys the
basis for the enslayement and ex-
ploitation of man by man. In
other words: forward to the vic
torious and gloriously begun pro-