{"id":1088,"date":"2019-03-11T22:17:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T22:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1088"},"modified":"2019-10-21T14:35:11","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T13:35:11","slug":"hungary-and-suez-hope-amidst-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/hungary-and-suez-hope-amidst-tragedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary and Suez–Hope Amidst Tragedy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
December 1955, U.K.<\/a><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
The Governments of Israel, Britain, France and Russia, when they  resorted to war in October 1955 in pursuit of their own separate  objectives, have at the same time struck a decisive blow to achieve  something they never sought and are hardly aware of.  The tanks and  bombers in a few days of destruction have helped to shatter the most  hampering illusion of our generation, an illusion that has held back  multitudes from taking the first step towards a real understanding of  the problems facing the human race. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThis illusion was the belief, held with equal fervour by democrats and \nCommunists, and on both sides of the Iron  Curtain, that there are “two \nworlds”, essentially different in aims and conduct.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOn the one side the democrats and Labourites of the Western world \nbelieved that they and their rulers are guided by a superior moral code,\n are inherently against brutality, are committed to “law not war”, and \nto the United Nations, and are incapable of naked aggression to further \ntheir interests.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOn the other side were the Communists and their followers, who believed \nwith equal sincerity that Russia, by virtue of being a “Socialist” \ncountry, is free from and superior to the sordid imperialism and \ncolonialism of the West, and utterly incapable of opposing the \naspirations of ordinary workers.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nNow the foundations of both beliefs have been smashed into fragments. \nSincere men and women in both camps are horrified and heartbroken to \ndiscover in one revealing flash that the men they reviled behave in \nexactly the same criminal way; that the Edens and the Krushevs are blood\n brothers after all, worshippers of the same capitalist god of violence \nand war. The sickening dismay of those who trusted Eden, “the friend of \nthe United Nations”, is only equalled by that of Communists who see \nRussian tanks smashing down Hungarian workers. For both groups the one \nthing that could not happen has happened.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThis sudden and dramatic exposure of the sham on both sides of the Iron \nCurtain provides a splendid opportunity for Socialists, who alone can \ngive a valid explanation to the bewildered adherents of the rival \nideologies. Only the Socialist can explain that it is not a failure of \nmen, but the unavoidable results of the workings of the social system. \nThe division of the world into separate capitalist states, each seeking \nto achieve its own commercial ends amid the international rivalries, \ncompels each government again and again to make a choice between using \nmilitary force to achieve some gain and enduring some weakening and loss\n by not using military force; the ideals and temperaments of the men who\n make up the governments is of minor, indeed negligeable importance; \nthey all have to use the same methods or get out.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe Socialist, too, and only the Socialist, can deal with the difficulty\n of  the  admirers of Russia. At the core of their admiration is the \nbelief that Russia is “Socialist”, and only the Socialist can deny this \nfraud and explain the  truth. State capitalism, the conduct of \nfinancial, commercial and trading operations by a government in place of\n a private company is not Socialism and has no relationship to \nSocialism. It is not the manner in which these operations are \ncontrolled, but the nature of the operations that constitutes them \ncapitalist. The efforts of a government, Russian, British, Indian, or \nany other, to control sources of raw materials, protect frontiers and \ntrade routes and capture markets for its exports\u2014these activities are \nthe cause of war no matter how or under what flag they are conducted. \nThe worker in every country in the world should take to heart the \nelementary truth that wars are not made by wicked foreigners, but at \nhome, in the land he lives in: through the everyday activities, \nseemingly peaceful and innocent, of those who employ him and make profit\n out of him, and who seek to sell the products of his labour in world \nmarkets against the similar activities of other employers under other \ngovernments. This is the factor common to all the countries: the factor \nthat drives governments into war and workers to their death in \nfratricidal combat with their fellows. But this factor is the capitalist\n organisation of society, and only Socialists know the remedy, the \nintroduction on a world-wide basis of a different social system \nSocialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Back to the History Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
December 1955, U.K. The Governments of Israel, Britain, France and Russia, when they resorted to war in October 1955 in pursuit of their own separate objectives, have at the same time struck a decisive blow to achieve something they never sought and are hardly aware of. The tanks and bombers in a few days of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2659,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1088","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2660,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1088\/revisions\/2660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}