The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-04-17

these two agencies played in the recent rape of
Manchuria by japanese imperialism
These two international agencies recommended
by the Times to the anti-war students stood by
while Shanghai was bombed and Chapel was de-
stroyed. They became active in the Far East only
to urge counter-revolutionary war against Soviet
China and the Chinese Red Army. The League and
the Court part of the imperialist war machine.
OUT the warning of the Times TO the students that
passive resistance to all wars" is futile" con-
tains more truth than the Times probably intended.
The greatest danger to the effectiveness of the
student anti-war movement, and in fact the anti
war movement in general, is The notion that i'm
perialist war and the imperialist makers can
be defeated by the simple expedent of folding ones
arms and refusing to fight. such, for example is the
doctrine Of the War Resisters' League the Socialist
Party, and many other pacifist organizations
Such doctrines can only play into the hands of
the war makers, They certainly cannot be effective
in stopping the war makers.
A handful of snti-war people folding up their
arms and refusing to fight are easily swept aside
by the immense imperialist war machines. The
experience of the last world war with the consci-
entiOus DIRECTORS is an Illuminating lesson of the
futity of passive resistance to "alI wars"
THE pacitsts resist "au wars, including civil wars"
l to use phrase of Kirby Page, phrase which
expresses the political platform of pacifism the
Socialist Party the War Ressters League etc, etc
This platform, however radical sounding is ut
terly reactonary and menacing to the fight against
For, let us assume the passive resisters to
all wars" contend that millions will fold their arms
in time of war (although this is extremely I'M
likely due to the immense weight of the jingoistic
war hysteria at the opening of the war;, then will
this stop the war?
In such a case two things can happen. Either
the capitalist war makers will smash the move
ment through their tremendous State apparatus
OF violence, or else the passive resisers will be in
evitably drawn into armed struggle against their
capitalist enemies seeking to break their movement
by the violence of their capitalist state power
Which is to say that the passive war resisters
will find themselves faced with the alternative
of open civil war against the imperiaIist war
makers, or else face extinction.
But when the masses take the road of civil war
against the war makers, then they will already be
fighting the pacifst "resisters against all war"
1t is an unacceptable fact that in the fight against
the war makers the masses will be contending
against those who opposed to AL wars" For
it is dead certainty that this theory if carried to
its logical conclusions, leads its proponents to the
other side of the fence against the masses waging
civil war
THOSE like Kirby Page, Norman Thomas and
other pacifists who preach the fight against all
wars are in reality, dsarming the anti-war masses.
leaving them unprepared for the inevitable civil
war against the makers, and thus giving in
calculabe aid to the imperialists who are wasting
no time getting their machinery of violence fully
ready.
Any form of real resistance to the i'm
perialist war makers must become civil war against
them, or else perish in a blOOdbath of counter
revolutionary violence That is a lesson that the
passive resisters refuse to see, but which history
teaches the masses in bitter lessons of blood and
fire.
THE road of real struggle against imperialist war
is the road that leads toward proletarian revo-
luton against the capitalist system which IS tie
cause of war; for the smashing of that system and
the setting up of a proetarian dictatorship in the
form OF Workers and Farmers government.
On May l, day of international solidarity of
the working class let the anti-war students take
their places in the ranks of the marching working
class, let them pledge themselves to be fighters in
the great war for the liberation of humanity from
the yoke OF capitalisn-then they will be truly plav-
ing their part in the fight against war Then thew
will be fighting under the leadership of the only
class that will end war, against the very root and
Scource of war-captalsm