ONLY SOCIALISMBRINGS PEACEA Call to Action Against War

WITH increasing force, as thedays go by, this country is

,l>eingdriven into a new war, thistime in the Far East. And anarmed conflict breaking out in theFar East, with this country in-volved, will hardly remain local-ized for long; it will almost cer-tainly become the prelude to an-other world war even more bar-barous, disastrous and ruinouslydestructive than the last.

A virtual alliance, probably in-cluding a naval agreement, alreadyexists between the United Statesand Great Britain, for joint actionto protect the "interests" of bothagainst Japanese aggression.

What are these "interests" inChina to defend which we arecalled upon to go to war? They arethe investments, commercial privi-leges and financial prospects ofbanking and big-business groupsin this country, the "right" of thesegroups to coin profits out of thetoil of the Chinese people undis-turbed by Japanese competition.They are imperialistic interests ofexploitation and oppression. Theyare the selfish interests of no morethan a tiny handful of Americans,for what interests have the greatmasses of fhis country in China oranywhere else that require defenseby armed force? Such is the Amer-ican stake in the Far East.

Slogans Of WarOf course, we are not going to

be asked to go out and get killedfor the profits of big business, noteven for the "open door" in China,which is the slogan under whichAmerican imperialism operates in

the Far East. We will be asked tofight to "uphold our nationalhonor" and to "make the worldsafe for democracy"again; to "helpthe Chinese people" against theJapanese; by some, even to "de-fend the Soviet Union." They willseek to harness our idealism andhatred of fascism to the warmachine, even more brazenly thanPresident Wilson exploited similarsentiments in 1917.

But it will be the same bloodyfraud, the same unscrupulous de-ception of the people. For the lastthing American imperialism wantsis freedom and democracy inChina; that would mean an end toall foreign domination and ex-ploitation, American included. Thelast thing American imperialismwants is to do anything to "defendthe Soviet Union" which it hatesand fears far more, as a socialistrepublic and a standing threat tocapitalism, than it hates and fearsJapan, which is merely an imperi-alist rival. Imagine, "making theworld safe for democracy," handin hand with Tory England, theattorney for Hitler and Mussolini!

Whatever may be the fine"demo-cratic" phrases in which .they areenveloped, the real aims of theAmerican government in such awar will be: first" to protect andextend its own imperialistic inter-ests against Japan; and, secondly,to ensure "order" and "security"in the Far East by suppressing anyoutbreaks of popular revolt thatmay occur and by undermining So-viet influence, perhaps even help-ing to organize and finance theforces of counter-revolution.Amer-

A "War for Democracy" Brings Fascism

Workers!Stop the Shipment of All N

ican troops sent to the Far Eastin the name of "democracy,"would become the police force ofreaction against the peoples ofChina, Japan and the Soviet Union.In such a crusade of reactionaryrepression, British and Americanimperialism could very easily finda common basis for accomodationwith Japanese militarism, after thedecisive test of war had read-justed the relation of imperialistforces in the Far East. Against thecommon foe-socialism and demo-cracy-the victorious and the van-quished powers would readily uniteto their mutual advantage.

The "war for democracy" wouldnot only bring reaction and in-creased imperialist oppression tothe Far East; it would also bringmilitary dictatorship very like fas-cism at home.The Industrial Mobil-ization Plan and the Sheppard-Hillbill borea sign of what we mayexpect should America be plungedinto another war.

Big Business The Only GainerIn a word,American big business

would be the only gainer in war;its coffers would be filled to ~er-flowingwith swollenwar profits andits investments and business pro-spects would be secured againstJapanese competition. But thegreat masses of the Americanworking people would stand to loseeverything--our blood, our liber-ties, our living standards, ourgreat achievements in labor organ-ization during recent years., For this war that is being plan- .ned, the administration is now pre-paring. It has already launched atwo-billion dollar rearmament pro-gram, the biggest peace-time arma-ments budget in history, and theindications are that additional bil-lions will be added in time. This re-armament program not only re-flects the increasingly aggressive

foreign policy of the administra-tion; it also implies an increasinglyreactionary course at home-aban-donment of federal low-cost hous-ing and other important publicworks; cuts in unemployment reliefand retrenchment of social-welfareplans; governmental regulation ofunions in order to keep them inline with the war program. Re-armament means reaction on everyfront!

Menace Of "Collective Security"That is the fate towards which

we are being rapidly driven by thewar-mongers. Of course, theyoperate in the name of "peace." Sodid WoodrowWilsonwhen he steer-ed this country into the WorldWar. Then, the slogan was a "con-cert of free nations against auto-cracy"; today, it is "collectivesecu-rity of the great democraciesagainst fascism." This slogan of"collectivesecurity" is both a fraudand a menace. It is a fraud be-cause there is not and can neverbe a common front of the "greatdemocracies" simply out 'of "ideo-logical" solidarity; the diplomaticfriendships and hostilities of thesepowers are determined by their im-perialistic interests not by their al-leged "democratic ideals." Look atEngland, that greatest of "greatdemocracies,"crawling before -Mus-solini and Hitler! The "collectivesecurity" idea is a menace be-cause it serves as the cover underwhich military alliances are beingsecretly prepared. Behind the cloudof phrases about "quarantining"the "aggressor nations," the Roo-seveltian version of "collectivesecurity," a naval understandinghas been reached with GreatBritain for war in the Far East."Collective security" is utterlymeaningless unless it is implement-ed by military pacts; once imple-mented with such pacts, it is a

Fight for Socialism-Join the Ind

unitions and War Supplies to Japan!

deadly trap for the masses, bindingthem hand and foot to the imperial-istic war machine.

American People Want PeaceThe American people,in its great

mass, wants peace. Above all, theAmerican laboring masses wantpeace. They have shownit by theirsupport of the LaFollette-LudlowAmendment. They have shown itby their demand for the with-drawal of American warships andMarines from the Far East. Theyhave shown it by their cold recep-tion of the attempts of the ad-ministration to stir up a jingoisticfrenzy in connection with thePanay incident. They have shownit, above all, by the widespreadpopular hostility that greeted thePresident's feeler towards "collec-tive security" in his Chicago ad-dress, everywhere correctly inter-preted as a move towards an Eng-lish alliance. The masses of thepeople want peace and are deeplyaroused at the course the adminis-tration is steering towards war.

Behind the administration, thereis rallying a "national front" forwar, stretching all the 'way fromAlf. M. Landon, the LibertyLeaguer, to Earl Browder, theStalinite, all united on the sloganof the "concerted action" of the"great democracies." Against this"national front" for war, we mustbuild up the broadest possible com-mon front against war, embracingall sectionsof the peoplewho desirepeace and are ready to unite theirefforts for it. In this movement asin all forward movements in p;es-ent-day society, labor is the mostpowerful and dependable force.Naturally, other groups, such asthe farmers and the middle classesare vital for any real anti-wa;struggle but they can achievetheir full leffecti'imess only byallying themselves with the labor

movement under its leadership. Onthe other hand, if labor fights hardfor peace, it will surely win thesupport of all those who hate warand would most suffer from itshould it come.

Our struggle against war mustalso be a fight against war-makingimperialism and all its works, athome and abroad. We must cometo the aid of the Chinese peopleresisting Japanese aggression andto the aid of the Spanish peopleheroicallyfighting against Franco'sfascist band and its foreign back-ers. How can we do this? Mosteffectively of all, by stopping theshipment of munitions and warmaterials to Japan, thru independ-ent labor action and pressure on thegovernment, and by forcing openthe markets of this country to Chinaand the Spanish Loyalist govern-ment. While the employing-classpress screams its head off aboutJapan, American banks lend itmoney and American business mensell it all sorts of war materials.The same is true of the capitalistsof other countries, Great Britainabove all. Only the working-classmovement can stop this shamelessassistance to Japanese aggression.Only international working-classaction can stop Japanese mil-itarism!

As against the "cooperative ac-tion" of the imperialist "demo-cracies," preached by the jingochampions of "collective security,"we urge the cooperative action ofthe labor movements of the UnitedStates, Great Britain, France andother countries to prevent, byst~ike action, if necessary, theshipment of war materials of anysort to the Japanese militarists!

Socialism The Only RoadWe, too, are alarmed at the

"state of international anarchy."But we propose to meet it not by

endent Communist Labor League

a military alliance of "democratic"robber-states but by a united inter-national front of the workers andlaboring masses the world overagainst predatory and war-like im-perialism, whether "democractic"or fascist. Because this "interna-tional anarchy" stems from theantagonisms and conflicts inher-ent in capitalistic imperialism, weare convinced that the only way toeliminate it is to eliminate the

system of capitalism itself. Wemay throw obstacles in the way ofthe war-makers and postponeor head off the war that is nowbeing prepared. But, in the longrun, war will continue to face usas an imminent danger just as longas capitalism continues to exist.Fundamentally, the only answer towar is socialism-for only socialismcan bring peaceI

March, 1938.

Issued by theINDEPENDENT COMMUNIST LABOR LEAGUE

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