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Title: Looking Forward Author: Alexander Schapiro Date: April 1915 Language: en Topics: anti-militarism, General Strike Source: Retrieved on 09.02.22 from https://libcom.org/library/volume-10-issue-2 Notes: Published in Mother Earth, Vol. X No. 2 (April, 1915).
We have been told often enough these last few months that Anarchists
have failed to grasp the gist of the present situation called forth by
the war; that they have failed in their antimilitarist propaganda and in
that of the general strike as a means for averting war.
It is true that our propaganda has failed to give tangible results, but
only in so far as we did not develop it enough, in so far as we did not
“go at it” with greater energy, with deeper enthusiasm.
But we were certainly on the right track when Anarchists said that
antimilitarist propaganda is the backbone of every agitation that has
for its purpose the destruction of the war-gods—which in its turn is the
direct consequence of the existence of the State. And Anarchists were
right when they always tried to make the people understand that the only
practical means the workers have to stop any attempt at war was the
general strike. This, after all, is no pet invention of the modern
Anarchist agitation. Already at the Brussels Congress of the old
International in 1868, the idea of a general strike against war was
broached, and in 1871—about a month before the Paris Commune—the
following resolution was passed by the German sections of the
International:
“1. To remind the members of the federation of the resolutions of the
Brussels Congress which proclaim the necessity to aim at the
organization of a general strike, i.e., the general cessation of every
production, in case a new war were to endanger the European nations. For
this purpose, the conference finds it necessary:
“2. To undertake an energetic propaganda against armies and institutions
which favor war, so that the protest of the International should, at
last, be able to express itself not only in words, but also in deeds;
“3. That the protest of the International should be efficacious, it is
necessary that the workers should refuse to work at the manufacture of
ammunition and instruments of war, looking elsewhere for means to make a
living; it is also necessary that they should organize on the basis of
solidarity, thus giving them also the power to refuse that
blood-tax—military service.
“4. The conference is convinced that the best means for organizing such
a propaganda is to create everywhere international sections —chiefly in
the villages.
“It is only thus that we shall be able to reach the political
development and the social liberation of the working class.”
This was written 44 years ago. How little we have gone forward in that
direction! How much there is yet to do! And yet—in spite of all
this—could the Anarchists regret anything in their propaganda? Would
they go back on anything they have preached until now? Far from it. All
that has now occurred has only strengthened them in the right course
they had taken by following in the footsteps of the old International.
They only acknowledge, once again, that the workers have been fooled—not
only by the governing classes, but by those who had continually promised
them the parliamentary millennium. State Socialism has been dangled
before the workers as a cure-all; they were promised it as an antidote
to the scourging poison of capitalism that ate into their souls and
bodies—that antidote which is the same effective poison but under a more
concentrated form. And if Socialism could show nothing better at a
critical stage of its development than to become the slaves of their
respective governments—when the Sudekums become agents of the German
Government, Vandervelde and Guesde and Sembat become Cabinet ministers
in Belgium and France, it is the grandest occasion for the Anarchists,
instead of taking however small a part in the present conflagration, to
show that they have always been right, is ceaselessly pushing home the
truth that the State is the worst danger to the free development of
nations and nationalities, and that only by its total abolition could
one hope for a better future.
The present war is nothing else but the apotheosis of the State; the
more tragic is it to find that the bellicose spirit has caught even
those whom he thought totally immune. We see how, for example, the
French Confederation Generate du Travail joins hands, for the first time
in its history, with the Socialist parties, and sends official delegates
to the Socialist conference of the “allies” just held in London. It may,
of course, be a temporary aberration on the part of the C. G. T., but it
is certainly a sign of the times that even the revolutionary
Syndicalists—with some exceptions no doubt—have fallen the prey of State
Socialists, hoping for a brighter future through a victory of the
French, or the English, or the Russian states over the German state!
Bakunin wrote in one of his essays that Germany had saved France in 1870
by destroying the latter’s army—an army that was an obstacle to every
progress—and appealed to France to render the same service to Germany.
Forty-five years have passed, and we have again the same two armies
fighting each other “for the liberties of the world.” Does not all this
indicate that armies as such—even when they destroy other armies—do not
make for progress? To appeal to Socialists and to Anarchists to help
this or that side of the belligerents is therefore to capitulate
unconditionally in the hands of the State—thus burning everything one
believed in, believing in everything one had burned.
It was one of the corner-stones of Anarchist principles that to
compromise voluntarily with the State is to admit its necessity, and
that therefore we shall use all means at our disposal to weaken the
State, so as to finally destroy it—and not to strengthen it by helping
one State against another.
In this shape, the question for the Anarchists changes into a struggle
of first magnitude. And if there is a reproach that could be made to the
Anarchist movement it is that it has insufficiently developed its
activity within the labor organizations where, after all, we shall
always find the best material with which to regenerate humanity. The
last few years have seen an increased lukewarmness on the part of our
comrades within the French labor movement A great heap of sharp
criticism was flung at it; it has certainly deserved it sometimes, but
in great part, through its abnormal exaggerations, it was often
unmerited and only cooled the ardor of the younger elements.
It is the duty of the Anarchists to recapture at once these lost
positions. This has to be done—or, at least, begun—now, while the war is
still raging. The weakening of the Anarchist element in the French
C.G.T. has also had a bad effect on the activity of our comrades in
other countries. This must not be. On the contrary, it should be a
lesson to us all, that if we wish to give an anti-State and a true
antimilitarist character to the labor movement, we must see that our
comrades should everywhere be in the advance guard, always on the
lookout, ever active within their labor organizations. The general
strike must remain our weapon par excellence for making as harmless as
possible either haughty employers or nefarious militarist states. But
let us not have any illusions on that score; the general strike in the
sense of a general cessation of production may be a sufficiently
powerful lever to bring to their knees the economic exploiters of our
age; but we must always be ready to transform such a general strike into
the forerunner of a general insurrection having for its aim either the
destruction of any attempt at a cataclysm like an international war, or
the complete social reconstruction of society. That its cost will be
heavy does not diminish its vital importance—knowing as we do now, that
we could have had a dozen successful revolutions with the blood spilled,
for all intents and purposes in vain, during the first few months of the
present war.
It is unfortunately difficult to talk reason to people engaged in the
war game, be they even Anarchists. But would it not be as well that
comrades of all those countries where the war fever, has not become
epidemic should at once, and without a moment’s hesitation,
begin—internationally in so far as it is now possible—the work of
reorganization of our forces on the same old foundations which have
stood so well the test of time, and spread our principles and tactics
more energetically than ever and with a stronger united front, within
our own ranks as well as within the labor movement. And if we stick to
our guns, and if our opposition to the State—to any State—remains as
irreconcilable as it has ever been—there should be no doubt of the
ultimate result. Victory <sc>will</sc> be ours.