Sunday, November 08, 2009

Remembering that War is inevitably a part of capitalist business:WW1

The War and the Socialist Position (August 25th, 1914)

WHEREAS the capitalists of Europe have quarrelled over the question of the control of trade routes and the world’s markets, and are endeavouring to exploit the political ignorance and blind passions of the working class of their respective countries in order to induce the said workers to take up arms in what is solely their masters’ quarrel, and

WHEREAS further, the pseudo-Socialists and labour ‘leaders’ of this country, in common with their fellows on the Continent, have again betrayed the working class position, either through their ignorance of it, their cowardice, or worse, and are assisting the master class in utilising this thieves’ quarrel to confuse the minds of the workers and turn their attention from the Class Struggle..Read..>

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The War and You (September 1914)

As we went to Press with our last issue, but too late for us to deal with the events inour pages, the great capitalist States of Europe were flinging declarations of war ateach other and rushing in frenzied haste to the long-expected and carefully preparedf or Armageddon.
When we say that this mad conflict has been long expected and well-prepared for we make a statement which is almost trite. However much the masters of Europe may have tried to hide the underlying causes and objects of their military preparations, they have never taken any pains to conceal the fact that they were arming against "the day", and that "the day" was inevitable...Read >
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The War and the Socialist Position (November 1914)

FELLOW Workers,—During the last three months there has been staring at you from every hoarding, from trams, 'buses, and stations, from vans, warehouse walls, and notice boards on churches, from the pages of the newspapers and every other available space, the statement that: "YOUR KING AND COUNTRY
NEED YOU."
This statement, showing, if you will but think, how important and vitally necessary you are to the ruling class, has been re-iterated again and again, with innumerable variations, from countless pulpits and platforms up and down the country. Urgent appeals by the hundred thousand have been made to all " fit"
men to enlist; every device and every weapon that the "liberty-loving" masters could invent, ..Read >

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