Not content with using the slogan of the defence of the (bourgeois) fatherland, the bourgeoisie has another means with which to cheat and befool the working masses. We refer to the so-called pacifism. This name is given to the view that within the framework of capitalism — without any revolution, without any revolt of the workers — a reign of universal peace can be established. It would suffice, we are told, to set up courts of arbitration between the various Powers, to abolish secret diplomacy, to agree upon disarmament (at first, perhaps, only to a limited extent). With this and a few similar measures, all would be well.
The basic error of pacifism is that the bourgeoisie simply will not carry out any of these fine things like disarmament. It is absolutely absurd to preach disarmament in an era of imperialism and civil war. The bourgeoisie will take care to be well armed; and if the workers were to disarm or were to fail to arm themselves, they would be inviting destruction. We can thus realise how the pacifist watchwords cannot fail to lead the proletariat astray. PACIFISM TENDS TO PREVENT THE WORKERS FROM CONCENTRATING THEIR ATTENTION UPON THE ARMED STRUGGLE FOR COMMUNISM.
The best example of the fraudulent character of pacifism is furnished by the policy of Wilson, and by his fourteen points. Here, under a garnish of fine words, and in the name of the League of Nations, world-wide plunder and a civil war against the proletariat are promulgated. The following examples will show to what depths of baseness the pacifists can descend. Taft, sometime president of the U.S.A., was one of the founders of the American Peace Society, and at the same time a rabid imperialist. Ford, the famous American motorcar manufacturer, financed entire expeditions to Europe in order to trumpet his pacifist views; but at the very same time he was netting millions of dollars from the work his factories were doing for the war. Fried, in his Handbook of the Peace Movement (Handbuch der Friedensbewegung, vol. ii, pp. 148-150) assures his readers that the joint expedition of the imperialists against China in