Preparing for war again
The world is in a pretty mess, and our newspapers are full of the news that the various nations are getting ready, rearming, for yet another, a third, world war.
No one can view this position with equanamity. Two world wars in one generation, with colossal destruction everywhere. Our masters, the capitalist class, have no solution or alternative, but to prepare for a third world war. The socialist is the only alternative policy, that is why we persist in advocating it to you. Look where you will, you will find no other solution. We read a statement by Lord Boyd Orr, reported in Reynolds (7/8/49). He thinks we would be idle but for war work. He said: —
“If the Great Powers were not spending more than one-third of their national revenues preparing for the third world war, the unemployment position would be far worse.
“If by some miracle peace descended on the earth and men were released from the Forces and from making bombers and other weapons, the strain would be too great for our economic structure.”
Yet there is still a housing shortage; we still have to exist on short rations. Surely this labour, wasted in producing war goods, could be more usefully employed. But, No, say our capitalist masters, the workers must not get higher wages, must still exist on rationed food, so that our capitalist order may prepare for another war, destroying once more on a wholesale scale. Where does all this work and production for war get us? After yet another war, we shall surely return to what we are experiencing now. It gets us nowhere, poverty and starvation and worry for the masses, more and more wealth for the master class.
No, fellow-worker, this is all wasted effort; it perpetuates the system of Capitalism, the system which exploits us.
We ask you to seriously examine our attitude, and if you agree, as you surely must agree, we ask you to help us in our propaganda, to spread the knowledge of Socialism among our fellow-workers, by joining the S.P.G.B., and so do your share towards making this a better world. Help us to ABOLISH the capitalist system which prepares for wars and then indulges in an orgy of destruction.
FLORO