War and Hell or Peace and Starvation

 

 

 

I came across this short article by Eugene V. Debs. It was written in 1915 but much of it, including the peace in the USA and war in Europe, is still very timely. I sometimes feel tired of saying that when going through historical records, especially since it only seems to apply to bad things, disease, poverty, war, corruption, bigotry etc. 

Debs was at the time the leader of the Socialist Party and was its pick for Presidential candidate, his opposition to American entry in the First World War and refusal to buckle to pressure led to his arrest, and he ran his last Presidential campaign from behind bars.

 

 Published in St. Louis Labor, whole no. 578 (Aug. 14, 1915),

 

 Because the workers have everything to lose, including their lives,
and absolutely nothing to gain in war, it does not follow under the
benevolent rule of capitalism that they have everything to gain and
nothing to lose in peace. In Europe just now the workers have war
and hell while in this country they are enjoying peace and starvation.
That there may be no mistake about the latter condition I quote from
the highest capitalistic authority, the Associated Press, which carries
the following dispatch:

COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 26th, 1915.— Reports received here
today from militia officers who have charge of the distribution of
food supplies among destitute families in the Southern Ohio coal
mining districts, prompted state officials to send out additional
appeals for contributions to aid in the relief work.

The reports showed that a large number of these 10,000
families in the Hocking and Sunday Creek Valleys are dependent
on outside aid for food. In describing conditions the word “piti-
able” appeared frequently in the reports. There is no strike in
these districts, but most of the miners are out of work owing to
the shutting down of the mines.

There is much more to the dispatch, but this is enough. There is
no war in this country and there is no strike in Ohio. Instead of war
and hell such as they have in Europe they have peace and starvation
in Ohio. The soldiers who are asphyxiated in the trenches have one
advantage in war over their fellow-workers who are starving in the
mining camps in peace — their agony is reduced to hours, perhaps
minutes, instead of being prolonged into a lifetime. Blessed are they
who are speedily reduced to wormfood, for they shall not see their
offspring starve in the midst of plenty.

 • • • • •
It is not the misfortune of the miners that condemns them to see
their wives and children starving before their eyes in a state bursting
with riches they themselves produced; it is their folly and crime in
common with the folly and crime of the people among whom they
live.

The men who shut down the mines and locked out the miners
and are now starving them and their families are not among those
crying for relief. They own the mines and control the jobs and can
shut out and starve the miners at will — by grace of the miners them-
selves, an overwhelming majority of whom belong to the same capi-
talist party their masters do and cast their votes with scrupulous fidel-
ity to perpetuate the boss ownership of the mine in which they work
and their own exclusion and starvation at their master’s will.

Blessed be the private ownership of the mines, for without it the
miners and their wives would lose their individuality, their homes
would be broken up, their morality destroyed, their religion wiped
out, and they would be denied forever the comfort and solace of pov-
erty and starvation!

When the miners themselves control the mines, once they have
learned how to control themselves, they will not lock themselves out
and starve themselves and their loved ones to death. The bosses are
very kindly doing this for them, but only because the miners them-
selves, by their votes and otherwise, have willed it.
The bosses lose their power and along with it their jobs when the
workers find theirs.

• • • • •

But I only meant to show that in peace as in war the workers are
the losers; if they are not killed in war they are starved in peace; if
they escape the trenches they are reserved for the slave pits.
The bosses are always the beneficiaries; the workers always the
victims. The Rockefellers never lose and the [John R.] Lawsons never
win. Such is capitalism and the workers who side with the bosses and
support capitalism politically and otherwise, and are therefore respon-
sible for capitalism, are also responsible for the hell they get in war
and the starvation they suffer in peace.

 

Using Mother Night to Understand Elon Musk

 

Thanks to Cold War Steve

 Some years ago, I reviewed Kurt Vonnegut's story Mother Night. I won't rehash what I said then, I'd just like to bring up that one of the points I was keen to emphasise is that the book is one of the few that deserves the cliché "More timely now than when it was written". I'm not sure if Mother Night is my favourite of Vonnegut's works, but it is the one I come back to most.

I don't think I need to introduce Elon Musk, even if this is the first blog post you've read. There have been much commentary on his Nazi salutes and boosting of Nazi sympathisers on his platform Twitter. The thesis of Mother Night is summed up in the phrase "You should be careful about what you pretend to be, because in the end you are what you pretend to be". 

I don't think Elon Musk is a Nazi in his heart and mind, his temperament isn't a good fit for the mindset. But, this is irrelevant compared to the material impact of his actions and his conscious attempts to emulate the Nazis as much as the circumstances and his own talents will allow. It doesn't matter that he's not a Nazi, because in the end of the day he is pretending to be one. 

He shares some things in common with Howard Campbell Jnr, the protagonist of Mother Night. Howard, like Musk was a bit of an outsider, Howard was an American but raised in Germany and spoke German as a first language, and like Musk Howard was a Nazi, that's why he's in a cell in Israel when the story starts. He was a prominent official working under Goebbels. He was also a spy for the Allied cause and is credited by his handler with bringing the Allied victory sooner than expected. 

  So, what's Howard's problem? Well, in a nutshell, Howard can't reconcile his idealised version of himself with the material reality of his existence. In order to become a good spy he had to win over the Nazi government, in order to do that he had to be useful to them. During the War Howard spent his time crafting propaganda for the Axis powers, radio broadcasts to the US Army denouncing Roosevelt, plays and other antisemitic propaganda. All of which he personally ridiculed as insane drivel. At no point in the narrative are we given any suggestion that Howard was remotely close to the Nazi ideology, he was just very good at both of his jobs.

This fact haunts him, time, and again he is confronted with the toxic impact and festering legacy of his work. His father-in-law a brutal Nazi police officer who enslaved dozens of Slav women to work on his estate thanks Howard personally for convincing him of the righteousness of the cause. In a horrifically beautiful passage, the father-in-law unknowingly twists a knife in Howard's insides by confiding that there was a time when he had doubts about this whole Greater Germania and master race thing, but it was Howard's propaganda that corrected him. 

In yet another example, after the War, Howard runs into the American Neo-Nazi fringe. This is a tiny movement led by decrepit cranks and a dozen or so angry, alienated young men. The whole "movement" is a sad bunch of losers, but their guns still work, and they've been using bootleg recordings of Howard's old racist ranting speeches for succour and to maintain morale. Even after the War has ended, the seeds he planted are still sprouting.

Still, Musk and Howard are not completely alike, Howard is torn apart about the evils he aided, whereas Musk seems positively giddy about them and frustrated that he can't go further. In the end if Musk teaches us anything, it's that Vonnegut was right. We are who we pretend to be.

 

News from Zengakuren

 

 

ZENGAKUREN, the All-Japan Federation of Autonomous Student Bodies is a mass revolutionary organisation, with a militant tradition of struggle against American Imperialism and the Japanese ruling class. In 1960, it organised strikes and continuous demonstrations, in which many were wounded, outside the Tokyo Diet, against the Ratification of the Japanese – US Security Treaty. These reached such an intensity that the US Government thought it advisable to cancel a proposed Eisenhower visit to Japan.

The Zengakuren have recently called for the establishment of an anti-war International. They are supported in this by the Committee of 100, the Student Peace Union in the US, the Socialist Students Organization of West Germany and many other organizations opposed to both American and Russian tests. On August 17, 1962, representatives of the Zengakuren, including Nemoto, their President, attended the Leningrad Conference of the International Union of Students. On their way, they had demonstrated in Red Square against all nuclear tests. They had been arrested, then released and `closely watched during the remainder of their stay`.

We publish below an extract from Zengakuren Information Bulletin No.3, describing their discussions with representatives of the Soviet Student Council (SSC):

Soviet Student Council (SSC): Are you fighting against the nuclear testing of any nation other than the USSR? Do you realize that the Soviet Union is not the first country to engage in nuclear tests?

Zengakuren: We are engaged in a militant mass struggle against American nuclear tests. Our slogan in this struggle is, `Against tests of USA and USSR`. We oppose any nuclear activity by any country, be it England, France or China. Of course, we are fighting against the nuclear armament of Japan. You who sponsor the I.U.S. Congress should have known such a well-known fact.

SSC: Granted, but what country began the first nuclear tests and how many times were such tests carried out before the Soviet Union began?

Zengakuren: That is of no consequence. We accuse all countries engaged in testing of promoting the arms race and of suppressing the working class and people.

SSC: We are glad to hear that you oppose the American nuclear tests and can appreciate your stand against these tests. We lost millions of lives in World War II. This tragedy was due to the fact that our military forces were weaker than those of the Fascists. We do not want to be the second Hiroshima. If during the war Japan had had nuclear weapons at their disposal, the tragedy of Hiroshima would not have occurred.

Zengakuren: We oppose your dangerous view. According to your logic, you encourage the Japanese Imperialists to arm themselves with nuclear weapons. Do you really think that this is an effective way to stop the nuclear race and to prevent nuclear war?

SSC: The best way to prevent war is obviously total disarmament, but the next best procedure is to continue Soviet nuclear tests.

Zengakuren: Your policy, based on such a philosophy, wields an immeasurably harmful influence on the anti-war struggle of the working class. Do you know the slogan that is being used in Tokyo, New York and London to fight N-tests? `Against tests by the US and USSR`. These students and workers attempt to obtain peace not with nuclear weapons but by their own struggles.

SSC: You believe that if the Soviet Union stopped its tests, the working class movement would increase in strength and the imperialists’ tests would stop. We cannot be sure of such an outcome.

Zengakuren: Are you suggesting that the workers of the world stop their struggles and support Soviet testing? By holding such a view, you cause dissension among the workers of the world and make them oppose each other. The workers must unite. Soviet nuclear testing does not support peace. It provides America with an excuse to continue their tests and intensify the arms race. Any nuclear testing suppresses the workers of the world and subjects them to the domination of the ruling class. Aren’t you yourselves the slaves of nuclear weapons?

SSC: We can appreciate your point of view, but we are of totally different opinions.

Zengakuren: The justice of our views will be borne out by the continuation of the world-wide struggle against N-tests.

SSC: Your opinion sounds quite sincere; continue your work as you like, but don’t forget that you are in the USSR now.

Catastrophic Gradualism by George Orwell

 

The following is a commentary by George Orwell on the intellectual backing for dictatorship and oppression. It is in reaction to the 1945 publication of Arthur Koestler's book The Yogi and the Cossack, which is a collection of essays.

  It first appeared in the September 1946 issue of Politics.

THERE is a theory which has not yet been accurately
formulated or given a name, but which is very widely
accepted and is brought forward whenever it is necessary
to justify some action which conflicts with the sense of
decency of the average human being. It might be called,
until some better name is found, the Theory of Catastrophic
Gradualism. According to this theory, nothing is ever
achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice, but
on the other hand no considerable change for the better is
to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval.
History necessarily proceeds by calamities, but each succeeding
age will be as bad, or nearly as bad, as the last.

One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret
police forces and so forth because this is the price that
has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand “human
nature” will always see to it that progress is slow or even
imperceptible. If you object to dictatorship you are a reactionary,
but if you expect dictatorship to produce good results you are a sentimentalist.


At present this theory is most often used to justify the
Stalin régime in the USSR, but it obviously could be— and,
given appropriate circumstances, would be— used to justify
other forms of totalitarianism. It has gained ground as
a result of the failure of the Russian Revolution— failure,
that is, in the sense that the Revolution has not fulfilled
the hopes that it aroused twenty-five years ago. In the name
of Socialism the Russian régime has committed almost every
crime that can be imagined, but at the same time its evolution is away from Socialism, unless one re-defines that word in terms that no Socialist of 1917 would have accepted. To
those who admit these facts, only two courses are open.
One is simply to repudiate the whole theory of totalitarian
ism, which few English intellectuals have the courage to do;
the other is to fall back on Catastrophic Gradualism. The
formula usually employed is “You can’t make an omelette
without breaking eggs.” And if one replies, “Yes, but
where is the omelette?”, the answer is likely to be: “Oh
well, you can’t expect everything to happen all in a
moment.”


Naturally this argument is pushed backward into history,
the design being to show that every advance was achieved
at the cost of atrocious crimes, and could not have been
achieved otherwise. The instance generally used is the over
throw of feudalism by the bourgeoisie, which is supposed
to foreshadow the overthrow of Capitalism by Socialism in
our own age. Capitalism, it is argued, was once a progressive force, and therefore its crimes were justified, or at least were unimportant. Thus, in a recent number of the New
Statesman, Mr. Kingsley Martin, reproaching Arthur Koestler for not possessing a true “historical perspective,” compared Stalin with Henry VIII. Stalin, he admitted, had
done terrible things, but on balance he had served the cause
of progress, and a few million “liquidations” must not be
allowed to obscure this fact. Similarly, Henry VIII’s
character left much to be desired, but after all he had made
possible the rise of Capitalism, and therefore on balance
could be regarded as a friend of humanity.

Now, Henry VIII has not a very close resemblance to
Stalin; Cromwell would provide a better analogy; but,
granting Henry VIII the importance given to him by Mr.
Martin, where does this argument lead? Henry VIII made
possible the rise of Capitalism, which led to the horrors of
the Industrial Revolution and thence to a cycle of enormous
wars, the next of which may well destroy civilization altogether. So, telescoping the process, we can put it like this:
“Everything is to be forgiven to Henry VIII, because it was
ultimately he who enabled us to blow ourselves to pieces
with atomic bombs.” You are led into similar absurdities
if you make Stalin responsible for our present condition
and the future which appears to lie before us, and at the
same time insist that his policies must be supported. The
motives of those English intellectuals who support the Russian dictatorship are, T think, different from what they publicly admit, but it is logical to condone tyranny and massacre if one assumes that progress is inevitable. If each
epoch is as a matter of course better than the last, then any
crime or any folly that pushes the historical process for
ward can be justified. Between, roughly, 1750 and 1930
one could be forgiven for imagining that progress of a
solid, measurable kind was taking place. Latterly, this has
become more and more difficult, whence the theory of Catastrophic Gradualism. Crime follows crime, one ruling class
replaces another, the Tower of Babel rises and falls, but
one mustn’t resist the process— indeed, one must be ready
to applaud any piece of scoundrelism that comes off— be
cause in some mystical way, in the sight of God, or perhaps
in the sight of Marx, this is Progress. The alternative would
be to stop and consider (a) to what extent as history pre
determined? and, (b) what is meant by progress? At this
point one has to call in the Yogi to correct the Commissar.

In his much-discussed essay, Koestler is generally assumed to have come down heavily on the side of the Yogi. Actually, if one assumes the Yogi and the Commissar to be
at opposite points of the scale, Koestler is somewhat nearer
to the Commissar’s end. He believes in action, in violence
where necessary, in government, and consequently in the
shifts and compromises that are inseparable from government. He supported the war, and the Popular Front before it. Since the appearance of Fascism he has struggled against
it to the best of his ability, and for many years he was
a member of the Communist Party. The long chapter in
his book in which he criticises the USSR is even vitiated by
a lingering loyalty to his old party and by a resulting tendency to make all bad developments date from the rise of Stalin: whereas one ought, I believe, to admit that all the
seeds of evil were there from the start and that things would
not have been substantially different if Lenin or Trotsky
had remained in control. No one is less likely than Koestler
to claim that we can put everything right by watching our
navels in California. Nor is he claiming, as religious
thinkers usually do, that a “change of heart” must come
before any genuine political improvement. To quote his
own words:

“Neither the saint nor the revolutionary can save us;
only the synthesis of the two. Whether we are capable
of achieving it I do not know. But if the answer is in
the negative, there seems to- be no reasonable hope of
preventing the destruction of European civilization, either
by total war’s successor Absolute War, or by Byzantine
conquest— within the next few decades.”

That is to say, the “change of heart” must happen, but
it is not really happening unless at each step it issues in
action. On the other hand, no change in the structure of
society can by itself effect a real improvement. Socialism
used to be defined as “common ownership of the means of
production,” but it is now seen that if common ownership
means no more than centralised control, it merely paves the
way for a new form of oligarchy. Centralised control is a
necessary pre-condition of Socialism, but it no more produces Socialism than my typewriter would of itself produce this article I am writing. Throughout history, one revolution after another— although usually producing a temporary relief, such as a sick man gets by turning over in bed—has
simply led to a change of masters, because no serious effort
has been made to eliminate the power instinct: or if such an effort has been made, it has been made only by the saint, the Yogi, the man who saves his own soul at the expense of
ignoring the community. In the minds of active revolutionaries, at any rate the ones who “got there,” the longing for a just society has always been fatally mixed up with the
intention to secure power for themselves.


Koestler says that we must learn once again the technique
of contemplation, which “remains the only source of guidance in ethical dilemmas where the rule-of-thumb criteria of social utility fail.” By “contemplation” he means “the
will not to will,” the conquest of the desire for power. The
practical men have led us to the edge of the abyss, and the
intellectuals in whom acceptance of power politics has killed
first the moral sense, and then the sense of reality, are urging us to march rapidly forward without changing direction.
Koestler maintains that history is not at all moments pre
determined, but that there are turning-points at which humanity is free to choose the better or the worse road. One such turning-point (which had not appeared when he wrote
the book), is the Atomic Bomb. Either we renounce it, or
it destroys us. But renouncing it is both a moral effort and
a political effort. Koestler calls for “a new fraternity in a
new spiritual climate, whose leaders are tied by a vow of
poverty to share the life of the masses, and debarred by
the laws of the fraternity from attaining unchecked power”;
he adds, “if this seems utopian, then Socialism is a utopia.”
It may not even be a utopia— its very name may in a couple
of generations have ceased to be a memory— unless we can
escape from the folly of “realism.” But that will not hap
pen without a change in the individual heart. To that ex
tent, though no further, the Yogi is right as against the
Commissar.