The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-01
Calls War a Certainty
Says Struggle Must
Go On Now
BY MAX BEDACHT

On September % the Second Con-
gress of the American League
Against War and Fascism will con-
vene in Chicago. The success of
this Congress is of momentous i'm
portance. 1t must be made a most
intense effort to broaden the united
front of the masses for struggle
against war and fascism.
The coming war is not a mere
possibility: 1t is a certainty. The
chief French militarist, Marshall
Petain, declared the other day that
war will come overnight, without
any preliminaries. American capt.
talism is arming feverishly. OF
course, it is preparing its steel-hel-
melted army for use also against
the workers at home, because they
are beginning to rebel against star
walton by unemployment or starva-
ton on account of miserable wages.
But fundamentally this armament
is preparation for the coming
world war.
No time must be lost. If we wait
with the organization of the strug-
gle against war until war is actually
upon us, we shall commit two
crimes: first, we permit the i'm
perialists to prepare for war with
out a challenge; secondly, we pre-
vent the organization of the forces
for anti-war struggle.
War Begins Long Before Declaration
The struggle against war cannot
be confined only to the period of
actual military warfare. War starts
long before the official declaration
Of war. War starts with economic
antagonisms. These economic an
tagonisms lead to measures of eco
non1ic warfare. They lead to dip
lomatic maneuvers between the an
tagonistic governments. Only when
these economic and diplomatic ma
neuvers no longer suffice to attain
the imperialist object, do the gov
ernmentS resort to arms. Then
military warfare is applied to OBJ
tain what the economic and diplo-
matte warfare failed to obtain.
The mobilization against war,
therefore, must from the start be
carried through against the very
government policy which is leading
to war. 1t must be mobilization
against the economic and political
maneuvers that drive toward war.
1t must be struggle against arm
aments and other preparations for
war. 1t must be a mobilization
against the chauvinist demagogy
through which preparedness and
war hysteria are produced. Action
against war must be action against
the forces and interests making for
war.
Must Struggle against Preparations
Without this struggle against the
preparations for war, there can be
no effective struggle against war it.
self. Without struggle against these
preparations, the war mongers have
the road free to prepare the need"
the ornaments and the soldiers for
the war.
The struggle against war has a
two-fold object: one is to prevent
the outbreak of war as long as pos
sible; the other is to fight war
when it comes and to turn 1t into
a struggle against the imperialists.
When war comes, 1t must be
changed from a war Of peoples
against each other into a war of
the people against their exploiters
and oppressors, against the capital
lists, against the imperialists.
Both Of these detectives require a
continuous and intensive struggle
before and after war is a fact. Or
ganization and struggle against war
before it is fact is indispensable
for organization and strugg e
against war after it becomes fact.
The idea that struggle against war
can wait until war is here is a
treacherous social-democratic theory.
1t was defended by the opportunists
in the Second International az the
regular Congress Of the Second In