THIS QUARTER
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it belongs among those phenomena which, properly understood,
are subject to human control.
This control, however, cannot be exercised by the ruling
classes in the great imperialist democracies, for it is the economic
system which serves their interests which also must resort to these
periodic military bloodlettings in order to resolve economic con–
flicts otherwise insoluble. Within the perspective of capitalism, the
best that can happen if the Allies win the war is a new Versailles,
followed by the same round of political convulsions as ended up
in
the triumph of fascism. For it seems impossible that the war will
not bring on immeasurably greater economic crises than any we
have yet known, and that the mass desperation which these will
provoke can be curbed by anything short of the abandonment of
all democratic forms.
Many liberals, of course, are aware of the precariousness of
the pro-war position. But they cling to it because they profess to
see no alternative to entrusting the anti-fascist cause to ·the armies
of imperialism. This is not surprising, since they reject the Marxist
analysis of war and fascism as products of the capitalist system
itself. But in their recoil from the revolutionary socialist program,
they are forced back, step by step, to the most naked apologetics
for imperialism. As the war has drawn nearer this country, the
space between the revolutionary and the imperialist positions has
steadily shrunk until it will soon not be big enough for even a
New
Republic
editor to balance himself upon.
It is notable that the pro-war liberals can still support one
cause with real enthusiasm: the revolutionary mission of the Ger·
man people to overthrow Hitlerism. But even here they are in–
volved in a hopeless contradiction. For an Anglo-French invasion
is
bound to arouse German patriotism, rallying all classes behind
Hitler in a war of "national defense." Thus French and British
nationalism cancel out German nationalism in favor of the impe–
rialist interests dominating both camps. In fact, an imperialist
war can he waged only so long as national unity is maintained on
both sides of the firing line. The international solidarity of the
workers, with the masses in each nation fighting not against their
brothers across the border but against their own capitalist govern–
ments, is the only force that can either bring into being real democ–
racy or make war and fascism unnecessary. This is the alternative
which our liberals find either too Utopian or too bloodthirsty.