British Socialism Part 23

CHAPTER XIII

SOCIALISM AND THE ARMY

Most Socialists, British and foreign, are opposed to the existing armies, for two reasons:

(1) Because they wish to overturn practically all existing inst.i.tutions from the Monarchy downwards, and they fear that the military may defend the _status quo_;

(2) Because they aim at the abolition of States and of nationality and at the disappearance of frontiers, as the ideal Socialist State of the future would, for economic and political reasons, have to embrace the world.

The Socialist State of the future, embracing the whole universe, can be created only after the existing States have been overturned.

Therefore the more immediate aim of Socialists is to seize upon the political power in accordance with the advice given by Karl Marx in his celebrated "Manifesto."[529]

Most Socialists apparently believe that not by Parliamentary means but only by violence will they succeed in making themselves supreme, for we are told: "The ballot-box is no doubt a safer weapon than the rifle; but even when there will be a sufficient number of people in these islands convinced of the necessity and possibility of the co-operative commonwealth, the end will not yet be certain. There are the cla.s.ses in possession to be considered. Are they going to allow themselves to be voted out? Will they respect a franchise and ballot-box which will vote that they shall get off the backs of the workers? Franchise 'Reform' Bills--and it is astonishing to what use 'reform' can now be put--can be rushed through Parliament, like Crimes Acts, in twenty-four hours; and there is the 'voluntary' professional army, under military law, to overawe the recalcitrants who may resent the suffrage and the ballot-box being jerrymandered against the popular interest. But none are so likely to be overawed by threatened displays of armed force--whether voluntary or conscript--as those who have a difficulty in distinguishing the b.u.t.t end of a rifle from its muzzle."[530]

Under the heading "Will it come to barricades?" we read: "The barricade is to-day, all will agree, in this country at any rate, an impossible weapon. Armed insurrection on the part of the workers in this country would to-day be the height of folly, and will continue to be so, so long as our standing army of hired mercenaries exists.

Standing armies are the instruments of capitalist oppression at home and aggression abroad. But so long as even one great Power maintains the present form of military organisation, so long as war is possible, so long will it be necessary that some form of military organisation exist in all countries. We dare not preach peace when we know there can be no peace. This is why the Socialists of all countries are to-day in favour of an educational policy which will make every citizen fit for military service within the ranks of a citizen army, organised and maintained for purposes of defence only. The advantages of such a force, from the Socialist standpoint, are so obvious that they need hardly be stated. And it would at least put the working cla.s.s in a position to understand what a barricade means, and how, if need be, to act in their own defence. There are, I am well aware, a handful of individual Socialists with us who are against universal military training, but they are a diminishing quant.i.ty, and will in due season find their natural vocation within the ranks of the Liberty and Property Defence League."[531]

Mr. Quelch, the editor of "Justice," shares the foregoing opinion, for he tells us: "Revolutions, it is said, can no longer be accomplished by force, but only by peaceful means--the vote, Parliamentary action, and legislation. It may be so, but it will be unprecedented if the present ruling cla.s.s surrender without a struggle. And if they had the armed force of the nation at their command, they would struggle successfully no matter what the Legislature may have done. The ruling cla.s.s will not be made to submit to law and order which is not their law and order, except by overwhelmingly superior force. n.o.body supposes that in such a contest the people could win against the ruling cla.s.s unless they had been able first to win over the army.

With a professional 'voluntary' army, well paid and well affected to its paymasters, such winning over would be practically impossible. But with the armed nation there would be no winning over required. An armed nation--whatever it may do or submit to--is essentially a free nation, and whatever such a nation determines upon, that it can do and have, in spite of any ruling cla.s.s."[532]

Similar opinions have frequently been expressed by leading Continental Socialists. Herr Kautsky, for instance, wrote under the heading "Expropriation of the Expropriators," as follows: "The arming of the people is a political measure. It can, under certain circ.u.mstances, cost just as much as a standing army, but it is needed for the safety of the democracy in order to deprive the Government of its most important weapon against the people."[533]

Those who are of opinion that only the extreme section of British Socialists, the revolutionary wing, is hostile to the army, are mistaken. This may be seen from the following resolution of the Fabian Society, which is the most moderate exponent of British Socialism: "Armies act as a standing menace not to neighbouring States, but to the working populations of their own countries. A study of the strategical disposition of many of the great railway stations and barracks of the Continent will prove that the most important function of the modern army is to suppress the resistance of labour to capital in the war of cla.s.ses."[534]

Among the "immediate reforms" demanded in the programme of the Social-Democratic Federation[535] we find a demand for "the abolition of standing armies and the establishment of national citizen forces."

Army and police are to most Socialists very objectionable because it is their function to protect the national order and national property against predatory, anarchistic, and revolutionary attempts. Therefore it is only natural that "No Social Democrat regards the present police system as a satisfactory one, or a professional police as other than a dubious expedient."[536] According to the opinion held by many Socialists, "The soldier's primary function is to come to the rescue of the policeman when the latter is overpowered."[537]

Voluntary armies of the British type are quite as objectionable to Socialists as are the national armies of the compulsory type raised on the Continent of Europe. "We are told that the advantage of our present military system is that it is not compulsory, that people are free to join the service or not as they please. The freedom of the average recruit to join the army is about on a par with the freedom of an unemployed workman to work for lower wages than the recognised rate of wages, or the freedom of the prost.i.tute."[538] "Your soldier, ostensibly a heroic and patriotic defender of his country, is really an unfortunate man driven by dest.i.tution to offer himself as food for powder for the sake of regular rations, shelter, and clothing."[539]

"A standing army of professional soldiers is the most effective instrument in the hands of the dominant cla.s.s, the greatest menace to democracy and popular liberty, and the most effective barrier to revolutionary change that could possibly be devised. And surely, too, the ant.i.thesis to that is the Armed Nation--every citizen a soldier and every soldier a citizen."[540]

The ideal army from the Socialist point of view is the armed nation.

It is, as we shall see in the following, an army composed of Socialist workmen and commanded by Socialist leaders. It is not an army for national defence, but one for attack on the existing order; it is a revolutionary army, an army of plunder. The very natural desire of Socialists to create such a force is, as a rule, disguised under the demand for a democratic army and universal military training. "We Socialists advocate the military training of all citizens and the abolition of professional armies, as ensuring the maximum of military efficiency and the minimum of menace to democratic principles and popular rights. We propose that every man should undergo a thorough military training so as to be equal to any other man. A professional army is maintained in the main for the defence and maintenance of the master cla.s.s. A professional army is a specialised cla.s.s or caste, divorced from civil life, hostile to the general body of the community, and maintained as an instrument to serve the purpose of the master cla.s.s. That purpose is as often the suppression of popular movements at home as aggression abroad. If it were possible to abolish all military organisations, the remedy would be simple. But we have seen that that is, under present conditions, impossible. Therefore we urge that all citizens should be armed and trained to the use of arms, so that all reasonable military requirements may be met and professional soldiering be entirely dispensed with."[541] The fact that the abolition of the professional army would involve the loss of India and of other possessions to Great Britain is a matter of no importance to the Socialists. In fact the Socialists wish Great Britain to lose not only India but all her colonies, as will be seen by reference to Chapter XI., "Socialism and the Empire."[542]

Every attempt at improving the voluntary army of Great Britain is considered a blow at Socialism, and is therefore vigorously resisted by the Socialists. Hence the scheme of army reform of Mr. Haldane, Secretary of State for War, has been loudly condemned by them as reactionary and likely to strengthen the capitalists, and they entreat the workers not to oppose universal military training. "The capitalist cla.s.s would be perfectly delighted that all the rest of the people outside themselves and their mercenaries should be peaceful unarmed non-resisters. Nothing could suit them better. We have Mr. Haldane's territorial army--on paper; and a more reactionary, militarist (in the worst sense), and anti-democratic system than that to which the present War Minister has had the effrontery to apply our term of the 'Armed Nation' could scarcely be devised."[543]

Whether Mr. Haldane's proposals give Great Britain a better army for national and Imperial defence, is apparently immaterial to the Socialists, for they criticise it merely from the point of view of intending rioters and revolutionaries. They complain: "The position of the Volunteers now is this, that they are not under military law, and cannot be called out as soldiers to shoot down workmen at the bidding of the capitalists. Mr. Haldane's scheme, however, destroys the civilian character of the Volunteers, and converts them into professional soldiers."[544]

Although most Socialists are in favour of a national militia, a considerable number oppose even a national militia of the Swiss type, fearing that it would refuse to aid the Socialists in overturning society as at present const.i.tuted. "We have been told of the readiness with which the Swiss militia have donned their uniforms and seized their rifles when called upon to act against strikers."[545] The Socialist delegates who accompanied the committee of inquiry which the National Service League sent to Switzerland in the autumn of 1907 were apparently less interested in the efficiency of the Swiss army for national defence than in its att.i.tude during conflicts between labour and capital.[546]

Fearing that a national militia might not be willing to lend itself to revolutionary purposes, that it might become a patriotic force as is the Swiss militia, many Socialists condemn every kind of military service, and are quite ready to disarm the nation in the name of humanity and civil freedom. For instance, at the annual conference of the Socialist Independent Labour Party of 1907 the following was moved by a well-known revolutionary Socialist, Mr. Bruce Glasier:

"That this Conference believes that the time has come when militarism in every form should be denounced and resisted as alien to civil freedom and social progress, and expresses itself emphatically against compulsory military service, and the attempts which are being made to introduce military training in public schools or other public inst.i.tutions, and views with alarm the purposes of Mr. Haldane's Army Territorial Bill, which, if pa.s.sed, will make military service practically compulsory under officers drawn wholly from, the upper cla.s.ses, will make industrial employment dependent upon military service, and, instead of promoting international unity, will foster and increase the spirit of militarism and aggression."[547]

In moving this resolution Mr. Glasier said that "he denounced militarism root and branch," and Mr. Keir Hardie, a Communist Socialist, in seconding, said: "The resolution was not only a declaration against militarism, but a special and specific condemnation of the Territorial Army Scheme now before the House of Commons. The Socialist party was bound to protest against a system of that kind. The particular feature which emphasised the danger was that there were to be county a.s.sociations formed to have charge of the new territorial forces, and to have a majority of military men upon them with landlords and possibly employers of labour. A citizen army was as great a menace to an industrial population as a professional army. The new army would be recruited from the people, and officered by the enemies of the people, just as the professional army was. Children were to be taught that the flag was the great thing to value in life.

They would find that a citizen army, officered by the rich and recruited from their own ranks, would be taught to regard the flag as something holy, while they shot down strikers and Socialists just as freely as the most exclusive professional army in the world could do.

Patriotism was one of the weapons used by the enemies of the people to blind them to facts."[548]

The Trade Union Congress of 1907, disregarding the security of the country and the Empire from foreign aggression, also condemned military training of every kind. Commenting hereon, the "Social-Democrat," the organ of the Social-Democratic Federation, which favours a national democratic army, wrote: "The Trades Union Congress declares against conscription and also condemns military training, which is a totally different matter. To condemn conscription is purely negative. It would be very much more to the point if the representatives of the organised working cla.s.s would formulate an expression of opinion on the actual military problem. Conscription, at the worst, is in the air; but the present-day military problem is not in the air; it is on the earth, practical and urgent. What have the trade unionists to say to it? Do they approve of the present system of a nominally voluntary professional soldiery, maintained as an instrument at the service of the capitalist cla.s.s for suppression at home and aggression abroad?"[549] The trade unionists were urged to abolish the voluntary army and to create a national citizen army, which will a.s.sist the Socialist in overturning society.

A national citizen army, composed of Socialists and commanded by Socialists, is the ideal, and until such an army be created it is in the interest of Socialists to weaken the existing army and to undermine its discipline to such an extent that, in the event of a rising or a revolution, it will side with the revolutionaries. With this object in view, Socialists are trying to create dissatisfaction in the army by means of emissaries and literature. For instance, in a leaflet ent.i.tled "An Appeal to Soldiers," the Social-Democratic Federation says: "If you are to fight for patriotism and country, then let it be a national duty for all, wealthy as well as poor, to bear arms. Let not those who are called upon to fight remain a pariah cla.s.s apart, bereft of the rights of citizenship--regarded by the upper cla.s.ses as something to be avoided."[550]

In its official programme the Social-Democratic Federation demands, under the heading "Immediate Reforms," "the abolition of courts-martial: all offences against discipline to be transferred to the jurisdiction of civil courts."[551] Why do the Socialists demand the abolition of military law? Because, in their own words, "With the abolition of military law, upon which we have always laid the greatest possible stress, militarism falls to the ground."[552] Therefore the "Appeal to Soldiers" admonishes the military: "You are and will remain a cla.s.s apart from the rest of the nation so long as you are compelled to serve under a barbarous military code called 'military law.' The system of trial by court-martial is a mere farce and a mockery. We of the Social-Democratic Federation intend to do our utmost to abolish it root and branch. Give us your support. Remember that the late War Minister, Mr. St. John Brodrick, compared the soldier to the Chinese coolie in South Africa. This is how you are looked upon by the very people who use you as food for powder in the interest of their cla.s.s.

Now is the time for all who wish you well to demand the abolition of military law, the civilising of military service, and the establishment of a national citizen force."[553]

In the autumn of 1907 a letter to the editor was published by the "Daily Telegraph" which contained the following statement:

"I do not think that many people, least of all the authorities, realise what a vigorous campaign is now being waged amongst the rank and file by the Social-Democratic Federation. Herewith I forward a leaflet which, I believe, is being distributed in thousands to the military stations in all the corners of our Empire. The one I enclose I found attached to a tree by the roadside during the recent manoeuvres near Aylesbury. Copies of the same leaflet have reached me from India and Belfast, where they were distributed during the recent strike trouble. It is no exaggeration to say that this leaflet is dangerous; the men of our army are peculiarly susceptible to the tenets of the Social-Democratic Federation. Officers and N.C.O.s will tell you what a serious effect such propaganda must have upon discipline.

"Yours faithfully, "H.C. SMART, Editor, 'Army Graphic'"

"_October 7, 1907._"

Socialism is carrying on a vigorous propaganda for destroying discipline in the army and also in the navy. Herveism has been imported into Great Britain, and is making rapid progress. "The Socialist," the organ of the Socialist Labour party, a party which at present is small in number, but which is most violent in att.i.tude, in an article ent.i.tled "The Socialist Labour Party and the Citizen Army,"

quotes with approval Herve's saying: "The present countries are cruel step-mothers to the proletariat. There is at present no country so superior to any other that its working cla.s.s should get themselves killed in its defence. In case of mobilisation the proletariat should respond to the call to arms by an insurrection against their rulers to establish the Socialist or Communist _regime_. Rebellion sooner than war! In case of an order to mobilise, we would seize the moment to attempt the revolution, to place our hands on the social wealth to-day usurped by a minority." The foregoing is printed in very large type.

The article then continues, commenting upon Herve's advice as follows: "The soldier has been fed and clothed by the working cla.s.s. His continued efficiency as a military automaton depends upon regular supply of food, clothing, and the necessaries of life from the same source. He has been transported to the field of conflict by the labour of a whole army of railwaymen. Let us suppose that the day of the final struggle has been reached. Suppose the capitalist attempts to stifle the revolution in blood; suppose he calls upon the army to crush the revolutionary working cla.s.s by brute force. Let us suppose, too, that the revolutionary agitation has not penetrated the Chinese walls of military discipline (a most improbable hypothesis) and that the soldiers, instead of turning their guns against the capitalist murderers, cheerfully and willingly serve their masters in the attempt to crush the people--what then? We shall put the army in quarantine.

We shall isolate it from the rest of the community. We shall cut off supplies of food, clothing, and fuel. The railway and telegraph service will no longer be at its disposal--and in this respect we are in a more advantageous position than our French and German fellow-workers, inasmuch as the Government ownership of the railways in these countries is used to deny the workers connected with them the right of organisation. The army would be in a state of siege, surrounded on all sides by implacable foes. That, coupled with whatever may be possible and necessary in the way of armed insurrection within and outside of the army, is the policy proposed by the Socialist Labour party and Industrial Unionism. Circ.u.mstances may, and probably will, modify it in many important details, but there is the main outline. Is it not more logical, more coherent, more likely to succeed than any 'citizen army scheme'?"[554]

Love of country has apparently no room in the Socialist's ethics. Its defence does not trouble him, since he is taught that his worst enemies are those Englishmen who happen to be better off.

Waste not your ready blows, Strike not at foreign foes, Your bitterest enemies tread your own soil; The preachers who blind ye, The landlords who grind ye, The gluttons who revel whilst ye are at toil.

Rise in your might, brothers, bear it no longer, a.s.semble in ma.s.ses throughout the whole land; Teach the vile bloodsuckers who are the stronger When workers and robbers confronted shall stand.

Through Castle, Court, and Hall, Over their acres all, Onward we'll press like the waves of the sea.

Seizing the wealth we've made.

Ending the spoilers' trade; Till Labour has triumphed, and England is free.[555]

In their desire to abolish the army, some Socialists argue that "The whole of your military system is entirely unnecessary."[556] Others falsify history and boldly a.s.sert that British wars, "in nearly every case have been waged for the suppression of liberty abroad, or from the irritating desire on the part of British statesmen to interfere with the internal affairs of other nations."[557] On the other hand, Mr. Quelch very sensibly argues: "Militarism is an evil against which we have to fight with all the means in our power, but to talk of universal disarmament at the present stage is mere Utopianism, a crying of peace where there is no peace, and where existing antagonisms make peace impossible. We have at first to eradicate the causes of conflict. To-day the unarmed nation offers itself as a temptation and a prey to some mighty brigand Power. War is the last argument of kings, and all Governments rest on force. So long as that is the case, it is only the people which is armed that can maintain its freedom, or can indeed lay claim to be a free people. An unarmed nation cannot be free. An armed nation, on the contrary, is a guarantee of individual liberty, of social freedom, and of national independence."[558] Mr. Quelch would have the same ideals as the National Service League, did not later utterances of his contradict sensible statements such as the above.

It is a curious and most interesting phenomenon that in France and Great Britain, two eminently non-aggressive countries, the Socialists do all in their power to disarm the nation, whilst in Germany, which can hardly be described as non-aggressive, the Socialists are patriotic and are ready to go to war, not only for the defence but also for the aggrandis.e.m.e.nt of their country. Numerous declarations to that effect made by the leading German Socialists are on record, and the following extract is characteristic of their att.i.tude:

"That Germany be armed to the teeth, possessing a strong fleet, is of the utmost importance to the working men. What damages our exports damages them also, and working men have the most pressing interest in securing prosperity for our export trade, be it even by force of arms.

Owing to her development, Germany may perhaps be obliged to maintain her position sword in hand. Only he who is under the protection of his guns can dominate the markets, and in the fight for markets German working men may come before the alternative either of perishing or of forcing their entrance into markets sword in hand."[559]

In the spring of 1907 the leading German Socialist paper wrote in a weighty article on the Peace Conference at The Hague: "The conception that war is only a product of human unreason is on the same level as the idea that revolutions are only mental aberrations of the ma.s.ses.

War is rooted in the opposing interests of the nations, as are revolutions in the opposing interests of the cla.s.ses."[560]

A comparison of German Socialism with English Socialism shows that English Socialism is more violent and far less patriotic than German Socialism. German Socialists love their country. Most British Socialists apparently love only themselves.

FOOTNOTES:

[529] See p. 107.

[530] H.W. Lee in the _Social-Democrat_, June 1, 1907.

[531] Thomas Kennedy in _Forward_ of May 25, 1907, reprinted in the _Social-Democrat_, June 1907.

[532] Quelch in the _Social-Democrat_ for October 1907.