The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-08
BY MEMO
VII. In August 1884.

Exactly two decades have passed since red
posters and the shr call OF the bugles proclaimed
general mobilization. Two decades which have wit
messed the first world war and Versailles the col
lapse of four monarches, the first Soviet Republics
in the world, the fascist reign of terror and the
most tremendous of all economic catastrophes. The
awakening of the colonial peoples the construction
of a new socialist society is bound up with these
two decades.
Only two decades, but in them the wheel of
world history has revolved at furious speed. Bour-
geois society, condemned to destruction and lying
at its last gasp hurtles into the ravine with the
gathering speed of an avalanche and there is no
power on earth that can save it. Ever shorter be-
come the intervals between the separate crises and
conflicts, deeper traces left behind by the
economic and political catastrophes in the severely
tested body of the capitalist social order.
August 1884. Once again the mood of August
1914 prevails The international situation is strained
to the utmost The principle which held until 1929
according to which there would be no large-scale
war during the next ten years. today no longer
holds $50 declared Mr.. Churchill to the House of
Commons justification for England increasing
its ornaments. And indeed the situation in the
summer of 1884 bears all the marks of the eve Of
a great world conflagration. All the agreements
made after the first world war have become scraps
of paper, all the pacts have been torn to pieces
teration in the relations of power after the first
world war has proved to be out Of date The Wash
ington Agreement, like the Versailles Treaty has
only historical value. The struggle for the new
partition of the world in the summer Of 1884 is in
full swing, the plumber of Manchura acting as the
stone which is setting the second world war into
motion. In August 1884 it must be clear to all
toilers that the blood of the ten million victims of
the first world war was shed only on behalf of
capital.
straight road leads from August 1914 to Au-
gust 1884. The first world war shook capitalist
society to its foundation, and made great breach
In the imperalist world system but it still did not
bring with it the final and complete overthrow Of
this society. Because private property and the
means Of production remained in existence outside
the Soviet Union, because the capitalist economic
anarchy led to new serious contradictions, because
the first world war accumulated new inf1ammable
materials, mankind Is confronted today by the grin
ming spectre of second world war; Capitalism
is war.
Today it is clearer than ever that imperialist
peace is only continuation of imperialist war by
other means, that war is normal phenomenon of
capitalism. The whole capitalist world has been
transformed into single armed camp and in the
utmost haste is making the last preparations for
the daily possible daily awaited slaughter just as
in 1914 today it is said to be a question of the
salvation of democracy" national security and
national interests" the freedom of the seas and
unpeopled spaces for the people who have no space
Already the barometer Of the shares of the
bloody armament international is mounting fever
shy upwards and announces profitable deals
in death.
According to a statement in the North American
Review, anyone who searches for practical way
of bringing back the good old times to the world
will find only one method viz, new war which
would last longer, and be more deadly and expen-