{"id":1108,"date":"2019-03-11T22:59:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T22:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1108"},"modified":"2019-03-11T22:59:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T22:59:00","slug":"what-caused-the-two-world-wars","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/what-caused-the-two-world-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"What caused the two World Wars?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article includes an extract from the pamphlet Socialism and War<\/em>, published\nby the Socialist Party of Great Britain in July 1950. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When the major powers become involved in armed conflict, whether Operation Restore\nHope<\/em> or Operation Desert Storm<\/em>, these conflicts are presented as a temporary\nmeasure, necessary to restore ‘peace.’ Each time political leaders expect support for\ntheir wars it is always with the subtly implied promise that all will be well eventually.\nIt was the same in the nineteenth century as it is now. Yet, at the start of this century,\nthey never requested working class support for another hundred years of ‘temporary’\nconflicts that have since caused so much destruction. For who would possibly have\nsupported Operation Twentieth Century<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The twentieth century has been the era of truly world wars that have been the most\ndestructive unnatural events this planet has ever seen. But were they, and the dozens of\nconflicts that have followed, necessary? The socialist answer is no, not even the Second\nWorld War, a war above all others allegedly fought to bring lasting peace and democracy to\nthe world but which left death, tyranny and fresh antagonisms in its wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Economic Causes of World War II<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The basic cause of modern war is the international rivalries inseparable from\ncapitalism and the capitalist class’s domination of the world’s resources. World War Two\nwas no exception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The particular background to this, the most destructive war ever, was the formation of\nthe German-Italian-Japanese alliance in the 1930s and their concerted effort to expand at\nthe expense of weaker neighbours and the older colonial powers, notably Britain, France\nand Holland. Italy and Germany had long before 1914 entered into the colonial scramble but\nthey developed late and found all the best territories, strategic positions and trade\nroutes already dominated by the ‘older and fatter’ bandits. The line-up before 1914 was,\non the one side, the ‘Triple Alliance’ of Germany, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire,\nand arrayed against their expansionist ambitions the ‘Triple Entente’ of Britain, France\nand Russia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The First and Second world wars were directly linked in that the settlement imposed on\nthe defeated states after the former succeeded in deepening the antagonisms which led to\nthe latter. The background to the First World War was the clash in the Balkans. Germany\naimed to move through the Balkans across the Dardanelles and onwards, taking in the Middle\nEast with its oil resources and strategic importance. It was given dramatic expression in\nthe planned Berlin-Baghdad railway. Such a thrust meant cutting off Russia from its Balkan\nproteges and an outlet to the Mediterranean, and meant severing the British Empire\nlife-line through the Suez Canal to India and beyond. France with its African interests\nwas as vitally concerned as Britain to stop this German dream of world power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the war came in 1914 Italy deserted the Triple Alliance while Turkey joined it.\nPart of the Allied bribe to Italy was the secret promise of a rich share in the spoils of\nvictory – a promise which Italy claimed was never kept. Later on, in the early 1920s, with\nGermany prostrate and Russia weakened by the civil war and Allied intervention, Europe was\ndominated by France and the French system of alliances with Poland, Czechoslovakia and\nRomania, a system aimed both against the revival of Germany and against Russia. The\nBritish Government, following its traditional European balance of power policy, saw the\nneed – in the interest of British capitalism – of helping Germany recover to offset French\npreponderance. A new factor, however, came into being after the world slump which followed\non from the Wall Street Crash of 1929: the coming to power in Germany of the Hitler\ndictatorship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slump led in 1931 to a major breakdown in the system of international payments.\nProduction fell in country after country and trade plummeted. Gold became concentrated in\nthe hands of the dominant capitalists in the USA, Britain, France and the countries\nassociated with them. These states also had a monopoly of access to most of the sources\nand raw materials in the world. The world thus became divided into two groups; those\ncountries which had the gold and raw materials and those which lacked them. Germany, Japan\nand Italy were in the second group and in a bid to solve the problems this presented, the\ngoverning parties organised on an aggressive totalitarian basis and resorted to policies\nwhich challenged the other, dominant group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get gold and currencies to buy essential raw materials the totalitarian states tried\n‘dumping’, i.e. selling their products below cost. In their trade with other countries\nthey used devices which avoided gold, such as barter and bilateral trade agreements and\ncredits which had to be used to buy their goods. All these devices tended to tie their\ntrading partners to them and thus take them out of the world market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This decline in the use of gold threatened the financial centres of London and New\nYork. London was also threatened as the centre of dealings in raw materials. Pursuing\nthese aggressive economic policies Germany had considerable success in Southern Europe and\nLatin America, while Japan made headway in the markets of Southern Asia. In 1931 Japan\nused armed force in Manchuria to set up a trading monopoly there. In the past the\nimperialist powers had decided on an open door policy for trade with China as none of them\nwas strong enough to exclude all the others. Now Japan was trying to do just this, a\npolicy which inevitably led to conflict with America and Britain. Italy similarly used\nforce to get an overseas market in Abyssinia in 1935. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By way of response, the dominant powers decided on a determined campaign to regain the\nmarkets lost to the totalitarian countries. German, Japanese and Italian goods were\nboycotted. Credits were offered to the countries of Southern Europe to win them away from\ndependence on Germany. The more successful these policies were the more desperate became\nthe economic position of German capitalism. Without the funds to give credits, force\nappeared to be the only way. Hence the annexation of Austria in 1938, the breaking up of\nCzechoslovakia in 1939. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point the conflict of economic interests was coming to a head. Germany was\ntrying to keep its gains in Southern Europe by all means, including force, and Britain and\nFrance were using credits to undermine German influence. There was no backing down on\neither side. War would break out as soon as Britain and France decided to resist force\nwith force. This was delayed as long as possible, particularly because of the vague\nanti-war feelings of British and French workers; but in September 1939 when Germany\ninvaded Poland the Second World War began. In a few years Russia and the USA were drawn in\nalso. It was a war which blazed over all Europe and Asia and parts of Africa. It was a war\nfought between rival groups of capitalist states over markets, trade routes and sources of\nraw materials. It was not about democracy or fascism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing illustrated this more than the resultant carve-up between the victorious\ncapitalist states in 1945 which left the totalitarian regimes in Spain and Portugal intact\nwhile delivering half of Europe into the hands of Stalin and Russian imperialism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the History Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article includes an extract from the pamphlet Socialism and War, published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in July 1950. When the major powers become involved in armed conflict, whether Operation Restore Hope or Operation Desert Storm, these conflicts are presented as a temporary measure, necessary to restore ‘peace.’ Each time political leaders…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1108","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1108","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=1108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}