Capitalism as the Cause of War.pdf

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Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal

extracted text: world war but, instead, the prelude to a regime of permanent peace. The heroic forces of the United Nations now en gaged in Korea are fighting, in the very truest sense, a “war to end war”. As the United States representative to the United Nations, Warren R. Austin, said before the Security Coun cil last month: “The United States, like almost every other member of the United Nations, wishes to live in peace, in tolerance, and in productive co operation with its neighbors in the world community. The United States is determined to support the efforts of the United Nations to ensure that all countries, small and great, may be free from aggression. The United States believes that if aggression is stopped in Korea, it is less likely to break out elsewhere. The United States believe that the restoration of peace in Korea by the United Nations will strengthen peace everywhere”. And Ambassador-at-large Philip C. Jessup, speaking in opposition to a suggestion that the United States con sider launching a “preventive” war against Russia, said more recently: “War is never .inevitable. Destruction of war is so catastrophic that no stone must be left unturned in an effort to maintain our se curity and our highest values by peaceful means. It is the conviction of our Government that this can be done.” As to the measures taken in Korea, Mr. Jessup said more specifically: “We seem to be on the way to finding means for making interna tional organization effective as a collective way to keep the peace.” Capitalism as the Cause of War One very satisfying result of Communist Russia’s policy of imperialistic aggression, is that it is serving to blow up the Lenin thesis that “capital ism is the cause of war”. Lenin, in his small book, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, building on the Marx theory of the economic interpre tation of history, attempted to prove that capitalism results in the growth of monopoly and the expansion of colonial possessions, and this in turn in imperialist rivalries and war. This was a theory so easy to grasp and off-hand so convincing that it was widely accepted, misleading many thinkers. It charged the capitalist system and the capital ists with the arch-crime of the world, war. And yet there was war long before there was capital ism in the modem sense, although possessions indeed at tracted raiders long before the beginning of history. War had its inception in inter-tribal conflicts over hunting grounds and fertile valleys, in the raids of nomads on semi settled pastoral and settled agricultural populations, in the expeditions of barbarians against rising centers of civiliza tion, in the offensive and defensive wars of various ancient empires. Then there were tfie feudal wars between petty princes in various parts of the world, the dynastic wars which followed the formation of monarchial states, the wars between Christendom and Islam, the later religious wars in Europe, colonial and revolutionary wars, the Na poleonic wars against a master whose dream was unifica tion. It is easy to see in all or most of these wars, whether they were wars of limited objective, or wars of extermina tion, enslavement, and wide conquest, fundamental econ omic drives and motives. The First World War, unfortunately, presented many aspects which lent strength to Lenin’s theory. Germany was a “have not” nation; it was competing for markets, demanding colonies; the capitalist nations allied against Germany combined to destroy a rival. World War Two, however, was harder to fit into the Lenin pattern, although, again, even in this war fought primarily against fascism, economic drives undoubtedly played a part on both sides. But the question is not whether economic or material interests play a part, or the main part, in war, or in most wars. It must be accepted that they do. The question is whether Lenin was right in charging that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and that capitalism is the cause of war. As everyone knows, it is the capitalist nations which have freed their colonies,—India, Pakistan, Burma, Cey lon, Indonesia, the Philippines have all been made inde pendent; Indo-China is on the way to independence; so also various colonies in Africa. It is Communist Russia which has of recent years achieved conquest not only of large parts of Germany, all of Poland, and of the Baltic states on its western border, but of large parts of Eastern Europe, and, in Asia, of Outer Mongolia, Sinkiang, Manchuria, and North Korea; fur thermore, it now holds all of China practically in fief. And not content with exercising general dominion, it has exter minated whole populations, and it has transported and holds in actual slavery tens of millions of hopeless people. There is an imperialism on a scale, and of a ruthlessness, such as the world has never before known. After World War Two, the capitalist nations im mediately demobilized and disbanded their armies. Through the formation of the United Nations they not only hoped for, but planned a peaceful world. Only Russia continued to build up its armed strength to such an extent that it now has all the other powers at a disadvantage. Recently, through its North Korean puppets, it re sorted to open warfare, invading and overrunning most of South Korea. The United Nations, in opposing this ag gression by armed force, supplied chiefly by the United States, but aided by seven or eight other nations, is making a heroic effort to halt it, thus to prevent this small war from developing into a third World War. And although Russia is a member of the United Nations, solemnly pledged to uphold the Charter, it is the one nation which is opposing the effort to restore peace in Korea. On the contrary, it is continuing to supply the aggressive forces with vast quantities of war equipment and supplies. If World War Two was hard to fit into the Lenin pattern, the World War Three which now threatens man kind, could not be fitted into it at all. For it would not be a war of capitalistic imperialism, but of communist im perialism. It would be a war brought on by the most vi cious form of monopoly of all,—state monopoly; by the most vicious form of colonial expansion of all,—the expan sion of a totalitarian state. It is not capitalism as such, but political and economic nationalism which has engendered the wars of modern times, and Communist Russia is proving to be as nationalistic, imperialistic, and militaristic as any power in history. Only some form of cooperative world government will end war. The organization of the United Nations was a move in that direction. Capitalism does not oppose this development, but favors it, as capitalism would work best under a system of world-wide organization and coopera tion. “The forcible establishment of a universal state by some single surviving power” (the phrase is Arnold Toyn bee’s), which is the aim of the Kremlin, would not perma nently establish peace, for, as such a state would not be established by universal consent and would have to be maintained by force, it would break up in the end, as have all the great empires of history. While democracy is inherently inclined to peace, totalitarianism is, in its very nature, militaristic. A further extension of individual freedom and of democratic government, and not a spreading slavery to totalitarianism, will give us permanent peace. 327
Date: 1950
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