From ‘War Commentary: For Anarchism’, Mid-December 1943, London, UK
The workers all over the world are today plunged in the second imperialist blood-bath of the century. Of the many political tendencies which opposed the war at the start, the Anarchist Federation today stands almost alone in its opposition to the war, and to the real — as distinct from the pretended — reasons for which it is being fought.
It has remained consistent with its principles; adhering unswervingly to the path of working class struggle, it has supported none of the belligerent imperialisms. German and Italian Fascism have had their apologists; British and French Imperialism have had their apologists; Russian Totalitarianism has its apologists. All these are manifestations of class rule. Their policies are the policies of their ruling class, fighting as always for the maintenance of their privilege and power over the workers. The Anarchists have refused to take the side of any of them.
War is always the outcome of the cut-throat competition for the world markets. Wars have always been fought between rival ruling groups for power over markets, over raw materials, or for the power to exploit human labour. These and these alone are the issues at stake. These are the issues which concern the ruling groups — governments and owners of capital. The workers have no stake in such matters. All wars today are imperialist wars. They are always fought to extend or consolidate the power positions occupied by the ruling classes both in their perennial competition with each other and in their continual struggle for domination over the workers whom they exploit.
Anarchism opposes war as the outcome of these clashing interests between rival imperialisms. Since Empires exist only to serve the interests of the ruling classes, wars undertaken for their extension or defence have nothing in common with the interests of the workers. The rivalries between the national sections of the ruling class weaken them in the class struggle, and the workers should utilize the opportunity thereby offered to them to prosecute the class struggle more vigorously than ever.
Nationalist sentiment, patriotism, aroused by war is the most effective means employed by the ruling groups to deceive the workers and conceal the underlying class struggle under slogans of “National Unity”. But while class divisions and the wage system still exist there can be no national unity, no community of interests between those who own and therefore rule, and those who only have their labour power to sell, and so are exploited. The bourgeoisie revealed its corruption in France, “our invincible ally”, when her rulers Petain and Weygand and others — all of them previously eulogized to the skies by Britain’s leaders — preferred to hand over the French workers to Hitler rather than risk the loss of their power and the destruction of their property.
Social Democracy is once more the recruiting sergeant for the bosses; the trade unions are tied to the treacherous policy and corrupt interests of their leaders. The devotees’ of Leninism and its offspring Stalinism have shown themselves more loyal to the ruling class of bureaucrats in Russia and their nationalistic aims, than to the interests of the workers of the world. Under the slogan of “Democracy versus Fascism”, they drive the workers on to spill their blood for the nationalistic aims of their exploiters.
We expose and reject with contempt this facile and treacherous slogan. Laissez-faire capitalism — in which private individuals own and control the land, factories and mines, and use the state power to protect their privilege — develops under the pressure of its own contradictions into Fascism — in which the One-Party state owns and controls the land, factories and mines and uses the state power to maintain its authority. Both exploit the workers to the limit of their capacity. FASCISM IS THE NATURAL CHILD OF BOURGEOIS “DEMOCRACY”.
Under “Democracy”, the ruling class has everywhere shown itself ready to compromise with Fascism rather than make concessions which would weaken its own class positions in favour of the workers. There is no question of principle involved for them — unlike the workers, who have shown themselves willing to sacrifice their lives for justice and freedom. In Spain, the bourgeois democratic bloc, aided by the Stalinints, strangled the social revolution of the workers, and peasants, under cover of their hollow slogan “Democracy versus Fascism—the war first and the revolution afterwards”. They thereby drained the life-blood from the only effective resistance Fascism has ever encountered (the German-Soviet war included). Capitalism, or any other form of authoritarian; i.e., class, — rule, cannot fight effectively against the further development of centralized class rule that Fascism represents.
Thus the fight against Fascism is indissolubly linked with the struggle against capitalism in all its forms. Unless the workers realize this now they will find that while they fight and sacrifice to destroy fascism, their rulers and their class allies in Russia, will be principally engaged in consolidating their own class positions in the rear, and incidentally sabotaging the workers’ fight. Social revolution alone can free the workers’ hands — by overthrowing bourgeois “democratic” capitalism — to crush fascism and brutal exploitation for ever.
The fight against fascism is the fight against war, is the fight against the class system which breeds wars. Workers must refuse to subordinate the class war to the national unity that benefits only the oppressors of the working class. But to limit the class struggle to mere wage issues, to half measures, is to our defeat. Fascism can be beaten only if the working class owns and controls the land and the instruments of production.
As the imperialist war drags on it is time for the scattered forces of the world revolution to redouble their efforts for the task of preparing to meet social collapse with the revolutionary message to the workers: No compromise with forces of reformism or reaction. Organisation for the social revolution. ANARCHISM.
Also
Is This the Last War?, by W.T. Crick (1915)
Manifesto of the Anarchist Federation of Britain (1939)
American Imperialism versus German Imperialism, by Marie-Louise Berneri (1941)
The Yankee Peril, by Marie-Louise Berneri (1943)
The Lebanon Crisis, by War Commentary (1943)
Man-Made Famines, by Marie Louise Berneri (1943)
Zionism, by War Commentary (1944)
Ten Years a Soldier, from War Commentary (1944)
Letter in memory of Marie Louise Berneri, from George Padmore (1949)
Marie Louise Berneri poster (artist: Kree Arvanitas) from Open Road #6, Spring 1978