MIA > Archive > J.T. Walton Newbold
From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 28, 22 March 1923, p. 219.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2021). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
I had hoped to come over here with a larger delegation, but for a revolutionist it is not easy to get from England to the continent. The gentlemen of the Labor Party and of the 2½ International say that they could not come. But they could not because they did not want to. For the reformats shrink from coming in contact with the communists in any way. They prefer a united front with the capitalists. This week the Labor Party voted in Parliament for the convention of an inter-parliamentary conference on the Ruhr question, at which the Parliaments of Great Britain, France, and Belgium should meet. That is, representatives of the capitalists and labor representatives of the victorious countries only.
It would be useless tor me to give you any hope of help from the Labor Party, or from the mighty British trade unions, of which the great mass of English workers are still members.
The Labor Party is already anticipating the day when it will be in the government, and thus it prefers the sympathy of the bourgeoisie to the sympathy of the working masses of Europe.
If England does not venture to take action at the moment against France’s advance, it is because she fears the great army and numerous air fleet of France. But ere long, we shall be confronted by the task of defending ourselves from a war between the imperialisms of France and England. We must therefore be prepared for a danger which is much more serious than the occupation of the Ruhr and Rhine areas, for the danger that Europe, that the whole world, will be plunged into an imperialist carnage compared with which that of 1914 was nothing. It is our task to prepare the workers of Germany to overthrow their bourgeoisie, and to place the great industrial powers of the Rhine and Ruhr areas in the hands of the German revolution We must arm ourselves for resistance against the International of Capital, which may very easily arise as soon as the Ruhr adventure is over. This temporary conflict will be followed by the next great war, unless capitalist rule in Germany, in France, in Italy, and even in England, where the revolutionary movement is still weak, is first overthrown.
Last updated on 10 August 2021