Nazi Victory Would Mean More Than "A Change of Masters
NOMAD, MAX
Nazi Victory Would Mean More Than "A Change of Masters By MAX NOMAD failure of the Socialist International to. Iwevent or to stop the first World'War has w years been a subject of bitter...
...Neither the workers la the attacked countries, who faft the prospect of becoming slaves is the otl literal sense of the word, nor those of the aggressor -nations, who hope to become partners of their victorious masters, will ho indhisW to listen to those who speak of civil war and a violent change of regime under such circumstances...
...But it is only half e truth...
...enians, Letts and Estonians...
...They are no longer waged for dynastic reasons, for "honor," for slices of territory, or for purely commercial reasons, such as colonies, markets, or raw materials...
...T was not merely strict military discipline and fear of immediate execution in case j of disjedience that converted the workers and jasants in uniform into the blind tools of their asters...
...Hitler will bring it to him...
...Before this tremendous change in the battle line, when we were safely ensconced behind the Maginot Line, the British navy and Allied air force, we thought of the war as a far-away thing on which we could theorize to our hearts' content...
...Lindbergh to renounce its preference for "the crown of England to American independence," implying, that since Canadians dwell within our "domain," they are not entitled to exercise their own independent choice...
...But since the first decades of the,twentieth century, particularly since the rise of fascism (and its predecessor, Bolshevist "communism"), wars have essentially changed their character...
...There is no third camp, writes Nomad...
...Socialists are temporarily surrendering the position of unhampered critics to take responsibility in the government of the country...
...And the Russian soldiers, though fed upon lie internationalism of Marx and Lenin, acted i the same way when they were told to ttack Finland...
...How many realize that to perform such a task, we...
...Seen from this angle, the .struggle against fascist military aggression and .the encroachments of our domestic reactionaries may eventually result in thoroughgoing reforms direct...
...a radical who wants to contribute his share to the preservation of the civilized ways of life in the face of a most concrete peril, should realise that common sense is not a "betrayal of the working class...
...Russia with its 183,000,000 hew controls 5,000,000 Lithu...
...No Christian need say he will not kill...
...This hemisphere is our domain," he has said...
...In this respect the man of the twentieth century is not a bit different from his ancestors, whether savage or civilized, of thousands of years ago...
...But first of all, there must be a firm determination to shelve the old slogans of defeatism, of indifference as to who will wrn»the present war...
...BUT how many of us know what such a gigantic task will involve, entirely aside from the appropriation of- money...
...both against private capitalist monopolies and against the dictatorial ambitions of a' centralized bureaucracy...
...It invariably fails whenever substantial material interests are involved...
...is devoting space in its paper to discuss the decisions of tribunals dealing with conscientious objectors...
...But the defense of what is still left of political liberty is ill-served by underestimating the, seriousness of the threat coming from the aggressors, or by issuing futile or fantastic calls for the overthrow of the existing, more or less democratic, regimes to be followed by the establishment of a dictatorship headed by some "true" follower of Lenin or Trotsky...
...The miners have agreed to forego their annual mid-summer festival holiday which has been held without a break for over 60 years...
...predict what will be the enact steps leading to that combination of economic plannfnp and democratic liberties which alone constitutes a guaranty against economic insecurity and political despotism...
...Solidarity seldom extends beyond .the confines of a very narrow circle...
...Thus the bulwark of freedom is the British Empire and the United States...
...No pacifist in Britain today need say he will not go to the war...
...century and in the early twentieth the wars between Prussia and Austria (1866), between Germany and France (1870), between Russia and Japan (1804) could have left the subjects- of the countries concerned indifferent as to the outcome...
...Nothing succeeds like success...
...The German soldiers, of room large numbers are descendants of three pnerations of class-conscious workers, have ot shown the slightest hesitation in invading nd devastating small countries such as Poland, Torway, Holland or Belgium, though they gold not possibly look upon them asi potential waders intent upon Germany's destruction...
...3 • * " TTHERE are those who, steeped in the old * formulas of radical lore, are unable or unwilling to see the facts as they really are...
...second, the firm determination to thwart by all means the designs of those who in the threatened countries wish to establish their - own brand* of fascist or semi-fascist rule...
...For how long can we remain free...
...The mode of life of the masses in the defeated countries .was not essentially changed...
...Between Stalin, Hitler and ^flssolini, four Balkan states 3*e dominated: Hungary, Ro*Nua, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia a total population of ^M&MOO...
...In a world 'of mechanized Nazism riding over small nations and threatening mankind, our humanitarianism is simply weakness...
...Radicals must realize that Nazis must be beaten before democracy can be reformed...
...The number of conscientious objectors has fallen with tile emergence of the new danger...
...No Third Camp "PROLETARIANS OF ITALY, WE CALL /* YOU TO THE STRUGGLE r No shout was this from the exiled leaders of Italia* Socialism—it came from the puffing lips of Mussolini as he declared war on France,, ' For years the outside world has questioned whether a dictator could risk taking his people into war,' whether he could prevent revolt as the dead and maimed cast their shadow on each family...
...Now the grim and brutal reality, with the definite danger of air attack on our open towns, has consolidated our people as nothing else could...
...In the nineteenth...
...nor are the circles interested in them restricted to comparatively small groups of capitalist super-sharks...
...The English workers, who have bene' fited by- th$- exploitation of the colonies, have been staunch supporters of British imperialism;, and the Labor Premier -Ramsay MacD&nald, though a member of the Socialist International, was in matters concerning India and other British "colonies or semi-colonies just as ruthless German and, the Polish miners, though fellow members of the International Federation of Trade Unions*, worked overtime to make an extra penny by scabbing upon their brothers across the Channel...
...For instance— to the" south—we "are protected TJy~onTy* the" few feet of not so good green water, that is, the Bio Grande River...
...IF IT is proposed to move the * seat of the British Government (the Crown with it) from London to Ottawa, we must forbid such a move...
...Both Germany and Russia S**re control over 35,000,000 [Poles...
...After ten months of drifting under a somnolent leadership the mechanized march of Nazism through Holland, Belgium and France has stirred this peaceful and democratic nation to face the hard realities of this war...
...There is also another element which jerals and radicals of the various schools are lually reluctant to discuss...
...Germany with its 79,000,000 (including Austria) commands 15,000,00 Czechs and Slovaks, MOO.000 Norwegians, 4,000,000 Wmes, 9,000,00 Dutch, 8,000,000 Belgians, 300,000 Luxembourg*rst and 42,000,000 Frenchmen...
...The history of mannd is largely the record of the extermination the enslavement of one tribe or race by other...
...10,000,000 in Ethiopia, and 1,000,000 in AlWnda...
...When the British coal miners struck some fifteen years ago, the belligerents...
...Life is laughing loudly through all our theroes, compelling us to recast our views...
...Their seemingly ultra-revolutionary attitude in damning equally the actual fascism of the aggressors and the potential fascism of -theattacked democracies, denotes either sheer obtuseness or a demogogic intent to appear more ''radical"'than the rest of the 'Leftist camp...
...The Communists, on the other hand, are just snarling and whining at everything that is done or suggested...
...In fact, in all these cases military defeat actually meant a step forward in the extension of certain political and cultural liberties...
...In the midst of a world conflagration Which has brought to the fore all the predatory instincts of the human pack, they continue to pin-their hopes to what some dissident Trotskyists call "the third camp...
...On this, at least, we might have expected wholesome and wholehearted support from the British Communists...
...While these tremendous changes are taking place in the life of the British people, it is pitiful to see the small left-wing parties in British politics negatively bewailng the loss of trade union rights and liberties without showing up some <way by which it will be possible to provide our soldiers with the guns and equipment necessary to protect then selves...
...Radicals of all philosophies created slogans, predicted revolts...
...But out of Che experience has come a higher sense of citizenship and a different conception of the rights of man...
...once war has broken „t For years that candid remark has been in subject of derision on the part if [Lenin's • gjeiples...
...It was no longer a problem...
...must ourselves become a totalitarian power, as ruthless, as, regardless . of the rights of weaker neighbors, as the Nazis will be in Europe—if Hitler, wins ? ¦Colonel Lindbergh has spoken vigorously on this subject...
...The only thing worth doing, and on which everything else depends, was to complete the industrial organization of the country to provide an aerial and mechanical answer to this Nazi threat...
...property rights and profits are now subservient to the national need...
...A friend of mine who edited a small trade union journal for many years has volunteered as a parashot at close on 70 years of age...
...It is common to meet commercial travelers and other business men who are giving service from midnight until 4 A. M. two nights per week in the military i reserve watching for parachute troops...
...The ultimate aim of every war launched by the totalitarian -powers, including Russia, is the complete, literal enslavement of the entire population in the interest not merely of a few capitalist concerns but of an enormously increased army of officeholders and would-be office-holders who have become the real ruling class in their respective countries since the communist and fascist revolutions...
...that is, to those who, within each nation, are opposed to both camps of-, by such a change...
...Iwevent or to stop the first World'War has w years been a subject of bitter controversy, •fcifronted by this fact, Karl Kautsky, the f oretheorist of pre-war Marxism, once stated ?gt the International was an instrument of w&ee which was of no use...
...IN the last 20 years, one-third • third' of the world's popula* tion has -come under CommaaUt, Fascist or Nazi dictator-' ¦Up...
...This fiddling, while democracy burns, merely emphasizes this party's complete ineptitude...
...Even the sending of Sir Stafford Cripps, as "Ambassador Extraodinary and Minister Plenipotentiary," is treated scurvily...
...The academic revolutionaries are bewailing the loss as a surrender to Nazi methods...
...For they could only discredit the radicals in the eyes of the masses by placing them in the malodorous proximity of Hitler's and Stalin's agents...
...The origin of the State, the origin of e social -classes is now generally explained the result.of those permanent wars, the rtoriaus tribe merging with the conquered d establishing itself as the ruling class...
...A radical who wants to be more than a mere howling dervish of obsolete slogans...
...the * Churchill-Attlee Government is conscripting the resources of the nation to see to it that these men are given the necessary weapons to achieve victory...
...For it plays havoc ith our fond notions of the poor exploited asses yearning for freedom and for living peace with their fellow humans speaking her tongues and living in other countries...
...The fruits of a century of struggle are in danger of being completely obliterated, and never before has there been such a deep realization of it...
...With Hitler's march through Belgium, this problem lost all its reality...
...I^ING LEOPOLD'S and France's betrayal, the overwhelming of our troops in Belgium and the withdrawal from two fronts has brought this nation up against the grim realities of this war...
...Of the remaining' two-thirds of the world's population, totaling 1,400,000,000, great sections may soon lose their freedom— 423,000,000 in China, 71^000,000 in the French Empire, and 61,000,000 and 11,000,000 in the Dutch and Belgian empires, respectively...
...But those very same oppressed classes, which .today are ready to rise in arms against their "betters," are tomorrow just as ready to 'improve their lot by the much more primitive and time-honored device of joining with their -masters for the purpose of attacking and despoiling their neighbors...
...And when the Colonel uses the word "domain," that is just what he means...
...i - tautsky's statement actually seeped very jj^olous on the face of it—at least to ail those rfjo believed that it was possible to wean the aldiers and the civilians from their warsongeTing masters, and that the masses, en\gttened by their fearless revolutionary leaders, (gold even in war time turn against the privitged classes of their own country, and fraternize nth their fellow sufferers on the other side f the trenches...
...And the greater the number of beneficiaries of-a "total" victory, the greater quite naturally is the exploitation of the vanquished...
...That cherished notion of old contains, to be ore, a large dose of truth...
...Even though it may be difficult to...
...There are 44,000,000 people in Italy, 3,000,000 in II ^•ee's colonies...
...The proletarians of ancient Rome found it perfectly natural to live as parasites on the backs of the conquered and enslaved nations...
...Spaniards and Portuguese under Franco and Salazart total 25,000,000 and 7,000,000, respectively...
...Britain today represents a democracy that is conscious that it is fighting for something vital to the welfare of mankind and is willingly making the sacrifices necessary to ensure victory...
...Theoretically, the victory of the invader may mean to the underprivileged classes merely a change of masters over which it is not worth, while for them to take sides...
...E*VEN if we should for a moment disregard that "struggle of races," as Ludwig Gumplowicz called this aspect of human history, we can easily see that even in peace time the idea of international solidarity of the oppressed classes has been an empty slogan rather than a concrete reality...
...Glasgow dockers, the most militant section of workers on the Clyde, have withdrawn their threat to strike for increased pay...
...The events of the present war seem to have indicated Kautsky's skepticism as to the fectiveness of any - internationalist pro pallida in war time...
...On the contrary, I am uncomfortably aware that, because of his extensive study of Nazi methods, the Colonel is amply qualified to advise us as to just how we should meet them...
...He now desires to protect the gains won in his lifetime of trade union struggle...
...Today about 662,300,000 persons are without liberty...
...The air force has been triumphant, and so has their ideology...
...All the more so as even the manual workers of the attacking countries are offered a chance of participation in the loot, by enjoying a preferential status over the conquered "inferior" races...
...And quite as .naturally, the average German, whether capitalist, intellectual or manual worker, gives his support to a regime that is in the process of conquering the world and of converting the Poles, the...
...The whole nation is rallying behind the government in this great effort to stop the Nazi drive...
...T*0 be sure, the apprehensions of those who * see the dangers lurking in the militarisation of the countries opposing Nazi invaders are largely justified...
...Total Rule to Match Nazis «y ROBERT...
...I make these quotations from Col...
...It is now pretty veil agreed by all that, to be perfectly secure, we_must defend the entire Western hemisphere,'from without and from within...
...With their good name besmirched by their Quixotic allegiance to long outworn "theories," they would jeopardise the success of their leadership in the forthcoming assault against our own would-be Hitlers and Museslinis...
...And as the menace of this horror comes closer with the fall of France, our~ whole people are steeling themselves for the final fight, knowing that everything depends on the outcome...
...The government, I am convinced, will do everything possible to open up trading with Russia and help build an unbreakable friendship with the Russian people...
...They believed that this hollow slogan was all the protection we needed against the swelling forces of evil...
...but their propaganda just now is not noticeably different from that ef Goebbels...
...All the other nations of the hemisphere must take dictation from lis in the conduct of their foreign policy —they must "cooperate," in the same way that the Scandinavian and the Low Countries were instructed to "cooperate" with the Nazis or suffer the consequences...
...The seven-day week has been willingly accepted by the workers...
...At best, they may insist on some improvements in their living conditions, but it It more likely than not thai the danger of the situation will spur them on to bring even greater sacrifices...
...THE Chamberlain Government conscripted the young men...
...Out of 200 resolutions on the agenda, there were &0 dealing with the electoral truce...
...Now we confront, and face to face, the terrible, immediate problem of how to keep the war out of US^ ""•If-Hitler wins, our country will be, in the true words of Lewis Douglas, "an isolated island of freedom in a great sea of violence...
...The human animal, though ;by origin it a beast of prey, has become "Dne^in" the •ocess of his development, when his brain tabled him to invent weapons that made it issible for him to'hunt both'other animals and s fellow humans as well...
...it may be the only way to keep himself alive, and the way of life which makes possible the existence of Christianity...
...Somewhere in the accompanying article Max Nomad, prominent author and magazine writers, says "common sense is no betrayal of the working class...
...It is all too true that we cannot really be safe unless this hemisphere is our domain—and we can make it our domain only if we imitate Hitler's proven methods—if we become, in fact, the Nazis of the Western world...
...The resolutions on the war, 18 altogether, from pure pacifism to the suggestion .#a**ReryJ&ing:Wpuld have been hunky-dory if a British-Russian alliance had been formed, were equally scrapped in the circumstances...
...This was a knotty problem, and while personally I favored the truce for tactical purposes, I knew of the tremendously important arguments that could be, offered against it...
...Ally Defeat Would Force U.S...
...Under a government that is organizing the nation for the effective prosecution of the war, Britain is rallying unitedly...
...It seems that the quip about the |M,rfllr which was of service at all times jrtpt in rainy weather originated in that onnection...
...It has nothing to do with an actual effort to prevent the worst disaster human civilization has faced since the invasion of Genghis Khan...
...E. SHERWOOD _ Author of "There Shall Be No Light" "IF HITLER WINS"—that is the phrase which now trembles upon the lips of vast numbers of frightened Americans, and the phrase is followed by all sorts-of speculations, some of them fantastic, though not more fantastic than the events of this shattering Spring of 1940...
...Keep us out of war"—-the isolationists have cried, fomenting a kind of peace hysteria...
...For even the German workers will eventually benefit by Hitler's victories, and there is no doubt that -most of them entertain the hope of becoming, the privileged foremen or overseers of the new European colonial slaves...
...In fact, there were cases in history when the masses actually benefited enjoyed in ultra-radical circles...
...And that common sense requires, first, a truce with every democratic government which actually tries to stem the Nasi tide...
...Iven though this may not square jj with the racist conception of the origin of the State...
...Thus the conquest of Spain by the Arab invaders in the eighth century was an actual boon to the great majority...
...as wartime starvation fell across totalitarian land...
...Thus the specific character of present-day war—even if we disregard the irresistible effget of official propaganda with the coordinated press, radio, and so on—does away with that potential "third camp" which is supposedly not interested in the outcome of the war...
...And, to come nearer home, even the most, enthusiastic -internationalist in the United States would think twice before he would try to advocate before the workers the idea of unrestricted admission of cheap Chinese labor to these shores...
...But the slogans have come to naught, the revolts never came...
...the former totaling 495,000,000 in population, the latter 132,000,000...
...And they keep repeating the old slogans of Liebknecht and Lenin to the effect that "the enemy is in our own country" and that the only correct stand of an honestrevolutionist in war time is to work towards civil war and a defeat of his own country...
...One should not forget that it was the British government's fear of its own victorious soldiers that, m 1&1S, brought the workers those provisions for the unemployed which constituted the only real social reform on a large scale they have obtained ia a century...
...and, third, after the danger has been overcome, the full utilization of the masses' combative spirit for obtaining a substantial improvement of their standard of living...
...Canada, specifically, has been told by Col...
...Our island is protected at one point by those "three thousand miles of good green water" which have formed the fragile walls of our fool's paradise...
...The Russian workers, whether Communists or not, take it for granted that the peasants of the Ukraine and of Central Asia should yield them the lion's share of their grain and their cotton—even though ninety-five out of a hundred inhabitants of those regions would prefer complete national independence...
...Ardent trade unionists are today willingly foregoing many of their age-long trade union rights...
...The new situation has brought out hidden sources of strength, courage and sacrifice ia oar people...
...Czechs, the Belgians and other nationals into hewers of wood and carriers of water foi> the German super-race...
...While thousands of our young men are facing death, the I.L.P...
...Lindbergh in no attempt to belittle their importance as sign-posts to the future...
...At other points, the measurement shrinks...
...But the cumulative horror of the Nazi regime, in peace and war, has created such a.reaction in the minds of the British people that the most pacifist amongst us are demanding the end of •Hitlerism...
...He traces the vested interest of the people inside dictator nations and shows how the youth, despite .generations of class background, don't hesitate to destroy the proletariat of other nations...
...The oppressed classes have, of course, since ne immemorial struggled against their masters...
...Japan's 1101,000,000 control Manchuko's 35,000,000...
...And this is the new spirit that is growing here in this emergency...
...For, whatever they may say, there is no such thing as "the third camp" in the midst of a war of present-day magnitude...
...The United States will be friendless and alone in the world...
...If Hitler wins"—there is lone result of thaT calamity of which we can be certain: the otherwise discredited isolationists will have been granted their dearest wish...
...If the Canadians refuse to heed our com-Facing the Channel British Unions Yield to War Needs As Cabinet Conscripts Industry By John Davis= Glasgow City Councillor /GLASGOW, Scotland (Passed by the Censor).—Today the British people are awake-to the fact that they are at war with a bestial totalitarianism...
...pHlS crisis conference of the Labor Party indicated the effect of * the changed situation...
...for the exactions of the Moslem rulers,were actually trifling as compered with those of the Gothic lords...
...That this conference decision was a true reflex of working class opinion is seen in the hearty reception since given to the new Emergency Powers Bill...
...From Alaska to Labrador, from the Hawaiian Islands to Bermuda, from Canada to South America, we must allow no invading army to set foot...
...IT is this progress achieved by defeat which * undoubtedly contributed to the vogue which for a long time the idea of "anti-patriotism" as Chamberlain or Churchill would have been in his place...
Vol. 23 • June 1940 • No. 26
