WE CAN HAVE PEACE, IF WE WANT IT
Thomas, Norman
We Can Have Peace, If We Want It By NORMAN THOMAS THIS article is begun the day before the San Francisco Charter is to be officially launched as the bearer of the world's sure hope of lasting...
...It states some admirable ideals of human relations...
...THIS is not the basis for peace...
...It is not now my intention to examine the Charter in detail...
...From unemployment, men will turn to the boondoggling of militarism, imperialism, and ultimately war as they have turned in the fateful years that brought 2 titanic conflicts upon us...
...Under no circumstances must we permit British and American capitalists to foist a capitalist system, conceived in their own interests, upon the masses of the European peoples...
...That must not be handed completely over to our representatives on the Security Council...
...the Trusteeship Council can be useful although of itself it is by no means the pattern for ending the imperialism which jeopardizes the peace of the world...
...Fortunately the Charter is much better than the Dumbarton Oaks plan...
...Even Great Britain has no longer the population or economic position to hold her Empire except in alliance with one or other or both of the Big 2, the U.S.A...
...We have created a complete vacuum in Central Europe...
...British or Anglo-American interests are somewhat stronger in the Mediterranean and in Western Europe, where, however, hungry and discontented peoples, with less cause for gratitude than we think, already realize that they have an alternative to Anglo-American capitalist imperialism in Communism...
...Nevertheless the British Empire is emphatically a power to be reckoned with, and basically the New Charter is a device by which the Big 3 can easily and somewhat amiably maintain their collective power over the world, and adjust their own rivalries with a minimum of friction...
...It is already probable that the latter would consent to arrangements disarming them and stripping them of empire provided that their nation should not be devastated and occupied as Germany now is...
...It cannot be guaranteed in a world which in the midst of potential plenty perpetuates chronic unemployment and unnecessary poverty in the industrial nations, and poverty in vast colonial areas...
...In the process we shall probably turn over China to Russian exploitation...
...LET me try to recapitulate my argument and set forth in order the things for which lovers of peace must strive...
...But even more than upon the right sort of peace in Europe does our future hope depend upon ending the Japanese war on terms that will not make us the guarantors of white imperialism in Asia, and, of course, in Africa...
...The provisions for amending the Charter are very unsatisfactory but it is not quite the unamendable document that was drawn up at Dumbarton Oaks...
...It will have the same effect in the postwar world...
...It is inaccurate to say that there are 5 great powers...
...The power politics policies of Stalin and Churchill, and the lack of any American policy but vengeance, make hope for Europe remote...
...2? As a further protection against new war, and an essential condition to the success of the new association of nations, Congress must defeat postwar military conscription and our Government must move heaven and earth to bring about its universal abolition and progressive disarmament...
...All de Gaulle's swaggering imperialism cannot make France and her shabby empire a major power...
...4? The United States must take a lead it has not taken against the perpetuation of imperialism...
...WHAT I have been saying emphasizes one aspect of the argument that I have previously made in these pages...
...The business of removing the political and economic causes of war, and organizing the world, regardless of racial and national prejudice, on a basis fit for peace is completely unfinished...
...The Assembly will be a useful forum of the nations...
...There is no divine right of any race to rule its fellows...
...namely, that an even worse document than the San Francisco Charter might be useful in the right setting, while a better document would fail in the wrong setting...
...It is already clear that we shall not commit ourselves to others' imperialism without seeking a share in its illusory economic advantages and its military power, hence our zeal for bases and this talk about finding our prosperity in trade in the Far East...
...the Economic and Social Council has definite possibilities for good...
...I shall favor its ratification because I am convinced that practically and psychologically we shall be in a better position to work for genuine security and peace if the United States should ratify it with the active approval of us who have proposed a far more adequate program...
...As a result, eastern and much of Central Europe are already obliged to make the best terms they can with the Soviet power...
...Wars spring from group prejudices and group passions for profit and power...
...La Follette, and myself in the columns of The Progressive, and the Maclver Committee...
...To some extent the San Francisco Charter provides means which resolute peoples can use to improve economic and social relationships, but the pious professions of the Charter will be a dead letter, and its machinery will rust with disuse, unless from the peoples themselves will come a steady and intelligent pressure for those civil liberties, that freedom of information and communication, that more enlightened educational policy, and above all, those economic arrangements upon which in the last analysis assured peace and plenty must depend...
...We shall by our stupid support of white imperialism drive resentful colonial peoples whom our sons have died to restore to British, French and Dutch masters, to a Russian supported revolution...
...Already that drift has gone dangerously far...
...To end the war with Japan on terms that would bring the Japanese people into the family of nations, and assure colonial peoples of freedom within a framework of regional and worldwide federation, would be an infinitely greater contribution to lasting peace than the ratification of the San Francisco Charter...
...Its military usefulness in an era of rocket bombs is dubious, but in the degree that it will have value for the United States, it will be only against Russia...
...The perpetuation after victory in this monstrous war of the competitive militarism which was so large a factor in Europe's ruin would be of itself grim proof that once more we have learned next to nothing from all our expenditure of blood and sweat and tears...
...That requires a definite and conscious progress towards a federation of free peoples who will seek to use our marvelous machinery for the good of all...
...But it is not very likely that we shall get an end of competitive armament unless we get a better peace in Europe and in Asia than that towards which we drift...
...It is not that...
...Here lies the great hope of peace...
...Those representatives should make quarterly reports to the Foreign Relations Committees of the Senate and the House, and through them to the people, on the problems that come before the Council...
...There are in the Charter no adequate provisions to make possible the rule of the sort of a law between nations which by orderly processes can be made to approximate justice...
...Repeatedly I have argued that this is not an impossible dream and must be tried...
...If we persist in this war of annihilation against Japan, without any assurances at all to the Japanese people of any honorable place in the world, we shall not only condemn tens of thousands of our sons to needless death, we shall not only have upon our consciences the most destructive war in history in terms of women and children sacrificed on the funeral pyres of burning cities to empty victory, but we shall also sentence another generation of Americans to a more terrible conflict...
...Not all the rhetoric of San Francisco sentimentalists will make their Charter avert the next war if we will not summon the intelligence to seek with an earnestness that will not be denied an agreement with Russia to lead the world to the general abolition of military conscription and to progressive disarmament...
...How long shall our sons die that Stalin rather than the Japanese may rule Port Arthur, and Churchill and de Gaulle and old Queen Wilhelmina continue to exploit empires that they can neither recover nor maintain save as we pledge another generation of Americans to shore up their tottering foundations...
...It is the sober truth that this conscription in Europe has prevented no war...
...Indeed, it is only fear and suspicion of Russia that may put over peacetime military conscription at the very moment that we ratify the charter of peace...
...We Can Have Peace, If We Want It By NORMAN THOMAS THIS article is begun the day before the San Francisco Charter is to be officially launched as the bearer of the world's sure hope of lasting peace...
...Let me urge you to compare it, in order to discover its shortcomings, with what was specifically demanded, with somewhat varying accents, by the Editor, Sen...
...This is the road to a third world war...
...As a token of its own sincerity, it should immediately grant to the Puerto Rican people the plebescite on independence, statehood, or "dominion status," unanimously requested by the Puerto Rican Legislature, with the minimum economic guarantees for which they ask...
...1? It would be well to ratify the San Francisco Char-ter...
...No single proof of that fact could be more striking than the cynicism with which our own State, War, and Navy Departments at the very moment that they commend the San Francisco Charter to us demand peacetime military conscription as necessary for our "protection," or, more hypocritically, as the means by which we will fulfil our duties under the Charter...
...It would, however, be exceedingly unwise, since basically the new association of nations will be only an alliance, for Congress to give up control over the war making power...
...China has a long way to go before her potential greatness can be realized, and there is grave danger that she will be treated as an Asiatic Poland when peace is finally made in the Far East...
...The causes of war are to be found within nations as well as between nations...
...We shall deliver the embittered Japanese people to Communist agitators...
...It is, however, by no means impossible that men who have shown such tragic powers in war can intelligently apply their technical skill to the provision of such abundance that no longer will poverty and jealousy against the,more fortunate drive men into the agony which is modern war...
...Far more important for peace than any San Francisco Charter is the offer of independence to the Asiatic peoples, and just terms to the Japanese...
...I set forth these principles which I have not space to develop because they are absolutely essential to any program for preventing a third world war...
...and give a vested interest to an immense officer caste and all "the merchants of death" in fanning the rivalries and suspicions upon which appropriations for great armaments depend, and from which the greatest war in history may come...
...3? Everything possible must be done for a better and more democratic peace in Europe than now seems likely, and the war with Japan must be ended at the earliest possible moment on terms consistent with lasting peace...
...Such are the arrangements, mainly political, which are essential to peace...
...If we want to prevent a third world war, it is essential that we do whatever can be done at this last moment to insist upon a peace in Europe which will not partition or destroy Germany, or perpetuate the tragedy of forced labor for millions of persons or deny forever to European nations the possibility of a federation which will give them a self-respecting independence in relation to both Moscow and London...
...This we shall invite by wholly destroying the one strong independent nation in Asia...
...The amoral idea of sovereignty remains, and neither the unreal metaphysical idea of equality of sovereignty of weak nations and strong, nor the grim reality of the imperialism of the strong, is greatly affected by the San Francisco Charter...
...Nothing is more certain than that it would touch off an armament race between us and the U.S.S.R...
...and the U.S.S.R...
...Here I insist that the defeat of postwar conscription in America and the establishment within the next few years of an international security based on national disarmament are absolutely essential conditions of any success of the San Francisco Charter in averting war...
...We have refused to take any step which might lead to a United States of Europe or regional federations of genuinely independent peoples...
...These things can be said in more detail and with more enthusiasm and it would still remain true that basically the new United Nations is an uneasy alliance of 5 great powers, any one of which can veto any action directed against itself...
...We have to consider not only means of keeping the peace but whether the peace will appear to the peoples worth the keeping...
...The program for carrying out these principles, under democratic controls, will not be easy to develop or apply...
...They have no alternative...
...There can be no true prosperity or lasting peace on the basis of the exploitation of the weak by the strong...
...But within nations, at least the more democratic nations, we have achieved considerable suc-cesslin avoiding war by establishing machinery which, however imperfect, gives men definite confidence that they can make law more nearly approximate justice by orderly methods which do not require war's hideous violence...
...it has gone hand in hand with competitive armament and with imperialism, and has tended to make war easier and more likely...
...AS we love peace as well as our own material well being, we must end unemployment at home and actively help our neighbors not only to conquer starvation but to achieve that degree of industrialization upon which fair and mutually advantageous trade must depend...
Vol. 9 • July 1945 • No. 28
