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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 25, 22 June 1940, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
All the war-mongers from Roosevelt down to the small-fry Social Democrats play upon this fear of fascism to inculcate into the minds of the workers the idea that to support England, France or the United States in a war against Germany is a sacred duty.
To make the idea of supporting France, England, or the United States in the war with Germany more palatable to the workers, all the various types of democrats have recourse to the argument that the war is one between capitalist democracy and fascism.
No one would be foolish enough to deny the claim that capitalist democracy is better for the workers than fascism. To say that they are equally bad for the majority of workers would be to say something that is an obvious untruth.
If the present war were one for capitalist democracy against fascism it would be the duty of every class-conscious worker to give material (not political) support to the democratic regimes.
That is what the revolutionary Marxists did during the civil war in Spain. In the struggle between Franco and the Loyalist government, the advanced workers fought against Franco and thus gave military support to the Loyalist government representing capitalist democracy. It is true that the revolutionary Marxists, understanding that fascism could be defeated only by a workers’ government, urged the workers to establish a Soviet Spain. But since a majority of the Spanish workers did not follow the revolutionary Marxists the latter chose to fight with the Loyalist government against the fascists.
Conditions, however, are different in a struggle between imperialist countries, such as England, France, the United States or Germany. In the present war what is involved is not capitalist democracy against fascism but colonies, markets, sources of raw material. And since that is the motive force of the war the workers must determine their attitude by that factor and not by secondary factors.
“But,” say some workers, “We grant that this war is an imperialist war and that if the United States should intervene it would do so for its imperialist purposes. But the fact remains that the English and American variety of imperialism is better than the Hitler variety and as practical people we must fight for the better kind of imperialism. Imagine what would happen if Hitler should win.”
Let workers who ask this question not forget that the German workers can ask the question: “Suppose the Allies win?” They already received a taste of an Allied victory in 1918. Their experience then was not of a nature as to make them contemplate another victory with great enthusiasm. The miserable Social-Democrats may be anxious for a victory of the Allied imperialists in the hope that they would once more be placed at the head of Germany to serve the Allies. But the workers of Germany understand that an Allied victory means complete subjection of their country to the Allies.
A victory for the Allies does not appear to be any better for the German workers than a victory of Hitler for the English and French workers.
And why should the African or Indian worker and peasant exploited by British imperialism worry about a defeat of British imperialism? Nor, in America, can the Negro worker and sharecropper of the South be much impressed with the idea that his lot would be worse under Hitler.
The trouble is that if the workers are presented with a choice of Allied or German imperialism the solution to the problem of defeating fascism is insoluble.
A solution is possible if one delves more deeply into the problem and looks upon the capitalist world as a whole and not upon the relative merits of each national section of that world. Looking upon that world as a whole reveals the incontestable fact that its economic system has reached a stage of decay making its destruction absolutely imperative.
If the capitalist world should continue to exist, whether the victory goes to the Allies or to Hitler, the workers can look forward to more frightful wars, more misery, more death. The workers can have no interest in saving any part of such a system. Their interest is in destroying it root and branch.
Once we see the problem as one which involves the destruction of the capitalist world and not the victory of one set of imperialists over another, then the task of the American workers or the workers of any other country becomes clear. They must begin the struggle against their own capitalism. And if they should win that struggle it would constitute a blow to fascism all over the world.
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