The Nature of War
“Must Man Wage War?” by F. A. Crew. Thrift Books No. 18. C. A. Watts & Co., Ltd. 1952. Price 1/6.
After the news of the Atomic Bomb in 1945. scientists in general, and atomic physicists in particular, got rather hot under the collar because they had done the pioneering research work which led to that horror of horrors; now with the possibility of bacteriological warfare the biologists are searching their consciences. Professor Crew has much experience of both warfare and scientific research, as he served in the army in the first world war, was Director of Medical’ Research at the War Office in the second, has been in the Territorials for 36 years, and since 1928 he has been a university professor of biology. He uses this experience and the data which is available on recent wars to analyse many aspects of war in this book. He has done this because, in his own words, “I have come to wish to be a citizen of the world, not of the world as it is but as it could be ” (preface). He divides his study into three chapters on the biological aspects of the causes, conduct and consequences of war.
The Cause of War
There are some people who suggest that warring is inherent in human beings, because we are born aggressive, and therefore there will always be wars. However the professor does not fall for that fairy tale, pointing out that,
“Aggressiveness may be inborn, but this attribute is expressed only when specific outside pressures are brought to bear upon the developing individual. He may be prepared to display aggressiveness, but there is no intrinsic need that he should ever be called upon to do so.”— (Page30.)
After examining the way people are brought up, and how aggression is fostered in this bitterly competitive world, he comes to the conclusion that,
“He can develop in a competitive world where men, wanting the same thing, fight for it ; or he can find himself in a world in which all things are shared.”—(Page 32.)
When such arguments are pointed out to some people they will reply that although that may be true of “us civilised people,” there are other peoples, such as the Indians, for example, who are readily classified into warrior and non-warrior types, into those who by virtue of their genetic endowment come to display those attributes which distinguish the fighting man, and those who, because of a different genetic constitution, are inevitably timid and cowardly, and thus are unsuited for a military career. To such people, the professor, who is a specialist in genetics, the science of inheritance, replies simply,
“There is no evidence which proves beyond all doubt that one ethnic, political, or social group is, for purely genetic reasons, superior to another in respect of military attributes.”—(Page 20.)
Having brushed away these mental cobwebs, he considers the structure of society, noting that in modern society,
“Certain groups exist which are in no way productive but live on the surplus created by the productive groups. The maintenance and reproduction of non-productive groups can only be achieved, therefore, by the maintenance and extension of power, of their dominion over the productive groups.”—(Page 15.)
He goes on to point out that war began in earnest with class society and is inherent in a class society, concluding that,
“Wars are no longer waged for material things required for subsistence; they arise out of the productive relationships of groups concerning the acquisition of surplus.”—(Page 36.)
This is because the ruling class, which is unproductive and lives on the surplus produced by the large majority of society, has something to gain from victory or lose by defeat, but the vast majority, the working class, gain nothing from war but sorrow, loss, and mutilation. However without their willing participation wars could not occur. Why then do they allow themselves to be persuaded to support it?
Noting that in capitalist society there is much human unhappiness, for millions of people spend most of their lives performing tasks which are both dull and tedious, giving neither physical nor mental satisfaction, and so live lives that are drab and featureless, he concludes that,
“Wars are made possible because the lives of so many individuals in the modem State are so grey and so dull, so complicated, and so unsatisfying…. War promises that which the individual has sought in peace and failed to find. It fills a life which has been empty. It unifies a people,… in short, war remains possible because in peace there so little to satisfy the creative urge of the mature and skilled and to enlist the energies of adventurous, restless youth.”—(Pages 34-5.)
The Conduct of War
Chapter 2 starts with an analysis of the way people are prepared for war, and then goes on to a description of a number of aspects of modern war. For example, he points out that in wartime hospitals are emptied of the tuberculous so that those injured by bombing, or on active service, can have the beds, and that in the army the men are exposed to conditions that lower their general well being, so making them prone to diseases such as tuberculosis. The result is that during the war the number of people suffering from this disease increased tremendously.
As germ warfare has been in the news in recent years and much has been written of it, but little substantiated, the following comments by an expert biologist are of interest.
“That it is possible to manufacture weapons of great lethality out of existing biological knowledge is beyond all reasonable doubt; that such a weapon already exists is highly probable} . . . the biological bomb could be used in such a way that it would surpass the atomic bomb itself as a weapon of mass terror; it is cheap; it could be produced in complete secrecy, no vast plant tucked away in the remote desert being required for its manufacture.
“Certainly it is not beyond the ingenuity of man to produce such a weapon. It must presumably take the form of a package of exceptionally virulent pathogenic micro-organisms or of parasites of one kind or another which, being deliberately let loose in the enemy’s country, initiates an epidemic among the human population, its animals of economic importance, or its crops.”—(Pages 65-6.)
Some Consequences of War
There are some people who think that war is beneficial to the human species because it is eugenically selective. They think that the “stronger” eliminate the “weaker” so the “fitter” or “better” only survive, and in this way humanity rids itself of inferior types. On the other hand there are others who suggest that in war it is the most worthy who are the first to be killed, so that it is the “better” who are killed and the inferior types that survive in most cases. They suggest that it is because war claims the “cream of the youth” that economic crises and other evils of capitalism occur, as those left cannot cope with the difficult problems that occur. The professor points out that neither view is sound. The first because tactics and weapons are far more important in war than any possible slight difference in biological make-up; the second because it has never been established that it is the “betters” who are killed off. With the mass attacks on civilian populations, which have become commonplace in recent times, such arguments are rapidly losing any appeal that they may have had in the past.
He discusses colonisation by conquest and points out that in the last thirty years of the nineteenth century, Britain France and Germany each gained by conquest millions of miles of territory, and so extended their domination over millions more people. However, in the twentieth century all the lands of primitive peoples have been colonised, so war is between nations of more or less equal technological development, who come into conflict over raw materials and markets. Since the Great Powers are highly industrialised they produce weapons of a new and more terrible type, and so war becomes more and more horrible.
What of the consequence for the working class? He says that more than 27 million people were killed, by war, between 1914 and 1918. Some of these on the battlefield, but many by the general lowering of resistance to disease that occurred through worry, anxiety, long hours of work, and lack of nourishing foods. For example, the influenza epidemic of 1918 was greatly aggravated by war conditions, and even after 1921 the mortality rates were considerably higher than would have been expected if the war had not occurred. Having mentioned the 8,000 T.B. patients discharged from sanitoria in the second world war, and its disastrous effects, he goes on to consider how war breaks up homes and so leads to an increase in crime, and considers the statistics on the lack of housing. Then, with a few well chosen examples, he shows that although the British working class got nothing but misery, disease, violence, and premature death, from war, the plight of the workers of the other countries of Europe was even worse. Such is the lot of the worker in capitalist society; be always gets the dirty end of the stick!
The Prevention of War
After this powerful indictment of war he considers that,
“The prescription for prevention is the complete transformation of the social inheritance and of the social structure, which by its very nature must periodically yield warring. . . . A unified world must be created in which in peace the needs of the bodies, the intellects,, and the emotions of all shall encounter the means of satisfaction.” —(Pages 36-7).
He concludes that,
“The only remaining obstacles to the achievement of this aim are those that reside in the minds of men.”— (Page 38.)
He states that he will work actively to oppose war.
So far, so good, but how are we to go about this? Professor Crew gives no consideration to that very practical question. However, from the analysis we see that to prevent war, capitalism, the society of classes and therefore of wars, must be replaced by socialism, the society of human beings where war cannot exist. To do this it is necessary for the majority of the people of the world to understand capitalism and desire to introduce socialism. The change in human society will then be made by sending a majority of socialist delegates to the parliaments of the different countries with the mandate to make the required legislation, for parliament is not merely a “gas-house,” but is the seat of power. Then the power will be transferred from the ruling class, the capitalists, to all mankind. Such is the nature and purpose of the socialist revolution. The Socialist Party is the instrument fashioned by members of the working class, to carry out this historic task.
Conclusion
The terminology used in this book has not the precision of the Marxist terms that the socialist is familiar with. Often the word State is used when country would be more accurate, nation is used when peoples are meant, and the capitalist, or ruling class, are often referred to as power groups. The author does, not seem to be sure of his analysis of the state capitalisms of Russia and Yugoslavia. As to formulating organised action on the basis of this analysis of society the writer gives us no lead, and in the preface he even supports the present armament drive and the present warfare in Korea!
However, this text of 81 pages is a powerful indictment of war, and the capitalist society that breeds it. Therefore it should be on every socialist’s bookshelf next to “The Socialist Party and War,” for it treats certain aspects of war for which there was not room in that pamphlet. We are glad that priced at 1/6 it is within reach of all workers.
R.J.J.