Part 43

With the aid of Russia, France, Japan and the United States Great Britain crushed her most dangerous rival--Germany. The struggle which destroyed Germany's economic and military power erected in her stead a more menacing economic and military power--the United States. Untrained and inexperienced in world affairs, the master class of the United States has been placed suddenly in the title rôle. America over night has become a world empire and over night her rulers have been called upon to think and act like world emperors. Partly they succeeded, partly they bungled, but they learned much. Their appetites were whetted, their imaginations stirred by the vision of world authority. To-day they are talking and writing, to-morrow they will act--no longer as novices, but as masters of the ruling class in a nation which feels herself destined to rule the earth.

The imperial struggle is to continue. The Japanese Empire dominates the Far East; the British Empire dominates Southern Asia, the Near East, Africa and Australia; the American Empire dominates the Western Hemisphere. It is impossible for these three great empires to remain in rivalry and at peace. Economic struggle is a form of war, and the economic struggle between them is now in progress.

7. Continuing the Imperial Struggle

The War of 1914 was no war for democracy in spite of the fact that millions of the men who died in the trenches believed that they were fighting for freedom. Rather it was a war to make the world safe for the British Empire. Only in part was the war successful. The old world was made safe by the elimination of Britain's two dangerous rivals--Germany and Russia; but out of the conflict emerged a new rival--unexpectedly strong, well equipped and eager for the conflict.

The war did not destroy imperialism. It was fought between five great empires to determine which one should be supreme. In its result, it gave to Great Britain rather than to Germany the right to exploit the undeveloped portions of Asia and of Africa.

The Peace--under the form of "mandates"--makes the process of exploitation easier and more legal than it ever has been in the past. The guarantees of territorial integrity, under the League Covenant, do more than has ever been done heretofore to preserve for the imperial masters of the earth their imperial prerogatives.

New names are being used but it is the old struggle. Egypt and India helped to win the war, and by that very process, they fastened the shackles of servitude more firmly upon their own hands and feet. The imperialists of the world never had less intention than they have to-day of quitting the game of empire building. Quite the contrary--a wholly new group of empire builders has been quickened into life by the experiences of the past five years.

The present struggle for the possession of the oil fields of the world is typical of the economic conflicts that are involved in imperial struggles. For years the capitalists of the great investing nations have been fighting to control the oil fields of Mexico. They have hired brigands, bought governors, corrupted executives. The war settled the Mexican question in favor of the United States. Mexico, considered internationally, is to-day a province of the American Empire.

During the blackest days of the war, when Paris seemed doomed, the British divided their forces. One army was operating across the deserts of the Near East. For what purpose? When the Peace was signed, Great Britain held two vantage points--the oil fields of the Near East and the road from Berlin to Bagdad.

The late war was not a war to end war, nor was it a war for disarmament. German militarism is not destroyed; the appropriations for military and naval purposes, made by the great nations during the last two years, are greater than they have ever been in any peace years that are known to history.

The world is preparing for war to-day as actively as it was in the years preceding the War of 1914. The years from 1914 to 1918 were the opening episodes; the first engagements of the Great War.

There is no question, among those who have taken the trouble to inform themselves, but that the War of 1914 was fought for economic and commercial advantage. The same rivalries that preceded 1914 are more active in the world to-day than ever before. Hence the possibilities of war are greater by exactly that amount. The imperial struggle is being continued and a part of the imperial struggle is war.

8. Again!

This monstrous thing called war will occur again! Not because any considerable number of people want it, not even because an active minority wills it, but because the present system of competitive capitalism makes war inevitable. Economic rivalries are the basis of modern wars and economic rivalries are the warp and woof of capitalism.

To-day the rivalries are economic--in the fields of commerce and industry and finance. To-morrow they will be military.

Already the nations have begun the competition in the building of tanks, battleships and airplanes. These instruments of destruction are built for use, and when the time comes, they will be used as they were between 1914 and 1918.

Again there will be the war propaganda--subtle at first, then more and more open. There will be stories of atrocities; threats of world conquest. "Preparedness" will be the cry.

Again there will be the talk of "My country, right or wrong"; "Stand behind the President"; "Fall in line"; "Go over the top!"

Again fear will stalk through the land, while hate and war lust are whipped into a frenzy.

Again there will be conscription, and the straightest and strongest of the young men will leave their homes and join the colors.

Again the most stalwart men of the nations will "dig themselves in" and slaughter one another for years on end.

Again the truth-tellers will be mobbed and jailed and lynched, while those who champion the cause of the workers will be served with injunctions if they refuse to sell out to the masters.

Again the profiteers will stop at home and reap their harvests out of the agony and the blood of the nation.

Again, when the killing is over, a few old men, sitting around a table, will carve the world--stripping the vanquished while they reward the victors.

Again the preparations will begin for the next war. The people will be fed on promises, phrases and lies. They will pay and they will die for the benefit of their masters, and thus the terrible tragedy of imperialism will continue to bathe the world in tears and in blood.

XVIII. THE CHALLENGE TO IMPERIALISM

1. Revolutionary Protest

Since the Franco-Prussian War the people of Europe have been waking up to the failure of imperialism. The period has been marked by a rapid growth of Socialism on the continent and of trade-unionism in Great Britain. Both movements are expressions of an increasing working-class solidarity; both voice the sentiments of internationalism that were sounded so loudly during the revolutionary period of the eighteenth century.