An Insult from the Commander=in=Chief:
“The fact can not be disregarded nor explained away that for some reason or other the life of the soldier as at present constituted is not one to attract the best and most desirable class of enlisted men....
“The [military] service should be made so attractive that it would not be difficult to obtain intelligent and desirable men and to hold them.”—William H. Taft, Secretary of War (now President and Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy): Annual Report of Secretary of War, 1907, page 14. Mr. Taft repeated this insult in a public speech. (See New York Times, April 26, 1908.)
In the Report of the Secretary of War, 1907, page 79, is the following from the General Staff:
“The bulk of recruits come and must always come from the agricultural, artisan, and laboring classes.”
How long will strong men of the working class accept a kick as a compliment—from so-called “great” men?
CHAPTER ONE.
A Confidential Word With the Man of the Working Class.
Brother!
Whoever you are, wherever you are on all the earth, I greet you.
You are a member of the working class.
I am a member of the working class.
We are brothers.
Class brothers.
Let us repeat that:—Class Brothers.
Let us write that on our hearts and stamp it on our brains:—Class Brothers.
I extend to you my right hand.
I make you a pledge.
Here is my pledge to you:—
I refuse to kill your father. I refuse to slay your mother’s son. I refuse to plunge a bayonet into the breast of your sister’s brother. I refuse to slaughter your sweetheart’s lover. I refuse to murder your wife’s husband. I refuse to butcher your little child’s father. I refuse to wet the earth with blood and blind kind eyes with tears. I refuse to assassinate you and then hide my stained fists in the folds of any flag.
I refuse to be flattered into hell’s nightmare by a class of well-fed snobs, crooks and cowards who despise our class socially, rob our class economically and betray our class politically.
Will you thus pledge me and pledge all the members of our working class?
Sit down a moment, and let us talk over this matter of war. We working people have been tricked—tricked into a sort of huge steel-trap called war.
Really, the smooth “leading citizens” tried their best to flim-flam me, too. They cunningly urged me to join the militia and the army and be ready to go to war. Their voices were soft, their smiles were bland, they made war look bright, very bright. But I concluded not to train for war or go to war—at least not until the brightness of war became bright enough to attract those cunning people to war who tried to make war look bright to me. I have waited a long time. I am still waiting. Thus I have had plenty of opportunity to think it all over. And the more I think about war the more clearly I see that a bayonet is a stinger, made by the working class, sharpened by the working class, nicely polished by the working class, and then “patriotically” thrust into the working class by the working class—for the capitalist class.
The busy human bees sting themselves.
If I should enlist for service in the Department of Murder I should feel thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of myself. It is all clear to me now. This is the way of it, brother:—
In going to war I must work like a horse and be as poor as a mouse, must be as humble as a toad, as meek as a sheep and obey like a dog; I must fight like a tiger, be as cruel as a shark, bear burdens like a mule and eat stale food like a half-starved wolf; for fifteen or twenty dollars a month I must turn against my own working class and thus make an ass and a cat’s-paw of myself; and after the war I should be socially despised and snubbed as a sucker and a cur by the same distinguished “leading citizens” who wheedled me to war and afterward gave me the horse-laugh;—and thus I should feel like a monkey and look like a plucked goose in January.
Indeed I am glad to see it all clearly.
I want you to see it clearly.
The “leading citizens” shall never have opportunity to laugh at me for doing drill “stunts” they would not do themselves and for going to a war they could not be induced to go to themselves. Moreover, no member of the working class can ever say that I voluntarily took up arms against my own class.
If, however, years ago, I had joined the militia or the army I should have been entirely innocent of doing voluntary wrong against my class, because I did not understand—then. But it is different now. All is changed now—because I do understand now. And I want you to understand this matter. Indeed we members of the working class should help one another understand. And this book is for that purpose. You will permit me to explain very frankly—won’t you?
You will notice that this is a small book[[2]]—very much smaller than the vast subject of wholesale murder called war. But kindly remember that this book of suggestions—chiefly suggestions—is written for those, the working class, whose lives are too weary and whose eyes are frequently too full of dust and sweat and tears for them to read large and “learned” works on war. This book is indeed written in behalf of the working class—and the working class only. The lives and loves of the working class, the hopes and the happiness of the working class, the blood and tears of the working class are too sacred to be viciously wasted as they have been wasted and are wasted by the crafty kings, tsars, presidents, emperors, and the industrial tyrants of the earth.
This book contains no flattery.
We are flattered too much—by cunning people.
Flattery confuses most people. Flattery blinds us, and that is why business men and their unarmed guardsmen flatter the working people.
A multitude of intelligent honey bees can be confused, hopelessly confused, at swarming time, simply by beating an empty tin pan or drum near them and calling loudly the almost patriotically stupid word, “Boowah! Boowah! Woowah! Woowah!” And, indeed, down on the old home farm in Ohio we often “brain-stormed” our swarming bees by just such simple means—in order to hold them in slavery and thus have them near and tame. We wished to rob them when they worked—later on.
This device works perfectly in human society also. The capitalist class use this method with great success on the human honey bees, the working class.
Millions of intelligent working men can be confused—and more easily robbed later on—simply by flattering them carefully and then beating a drum near them and cunningly calling out the pleasingly empty words, “The Flag! The Flag! Patriotism! Patriotism! Brave boys!”
Bewildered moths rush into a flame of fire because it is bright. Bewildered working people rush to war and singe their own happiness, snuff out their own lives—like moths—because war is painted bright. In the shining candle flame moths virtually commit suicide. In the glittering “glory” of war multitudes of the working class practically commit suicide. This will be clearer to you as you read these chapters.
Brother, let me help you tear the mask off this legalized outrage against the working class, this huge and “glorious” crime called war. At this horrible “Death’s feast” we working people spit in one another’s faces, we scream in wild rage at one another, we curse and kill our own working class brothers, we foolishly wallow in our own blood and desolate our own homes—simply because we are craftily ordered to do so. Thus we are both savage and ridiculous. Ridiculous did I say? Yes, ridiculous. That word ridiculous sounds like a harsh word—doesn’t it? But, remember, in all wars the working class are always meanly belittled, wronged—outraged.
We are the plucked geese in January—patriotically.
When we working people hear a fife and drum and see some handsomely dressed, well-fed military officers and see their long butcher-knives called swords—our confused hearts beat fast, our blood becomes blindly and suicidally hot and eager.... Look out, brother! Take care! Remember: Always in all wars everywhere the working class are confused, bewildered—then shrewd people make tools, mules, fools, and foot-stools of us!
“Follow the flag!” sounds good—but strikes blind the working class.
“Follow the flag!” sounds brave and grand. Very.
“Follow the flag!” is wine for the brain—of the working class.
“Follow the flag!” makes millions of our class blind and useable.
“Follow the flag!” stirs a savage passion cunningly called “patriotism.”
“Follow the flag!” never confuses a man wearing a silk hat.
“Follow the flag!” is bait laid for fools, “rot” fed to mules, by every tyrant king, tsar and president at the head of governments used by the industrial ruling class.[[3]]
Governments—today under capitalism—are composed of “leading citizens.”
These “leading-citizen” governments quarrel over business—markets and territory.
Being proud, these “leading-citizen” governments pompously decide to “protect their honor”—their alleged honor—“at any cost.”
Lacking sufficient brains, they can not settle their quarrel with brains.
Reverting to savagery, they decide that “might makes right.”
Being brutal, they decide to “fight it out.”
Being cowards, they decide to avoid personal danger—to themselves.
Knowing the working class are gullibly useable, these “leading-citizen” governments decide to use the workingmen as fists.
Being crafty, they decide to seize the brain of the toiler—to teach the working class:
To follow the flag—automatically—that is, patriotically
To follow the flag—blindly—tho’ “leading citizens” do not follow the flag into bloody danger
To follow the flag—blindly—cheered by silk-hatted cowards
To follow the flag—blindly—no matter where it goes, no matter how unjust the war may be
To follow the flag—blindly—tho’ the working class fighters are to be given no voice in declaring the war
To follow the flag—“patriotically”—like slaves defending masters who buy and sell them as chattels—“patriotically”—like ancient serfs defending the very landlords who robbed the serfs, insulted their wives and raped their daughters
To follow the flag—brainlessly—like dumb cattle following a “trick” bull to the bloody shambles of the slaughter house
To follow the flag, brainlessly, as a frog will swallow a bait of red calico loaded with a deadly fish-hook
To follow the flag, automatically, to the horrors and hell of the firing line—automatically, to the flaming cannon’s mouth and there butcher other workingmen and be butchered by other workingmen who are also—automatically—following another flag—like fools used as fists for cowards.
And the leading citizens have indeed succeeded in doing what they decided to do. They have had us taught disastrously.
Patriotically we have worn the yoke throughout the centuries—centuries sad with tears and red with blood and fire.
Patriotically for thousands of years we have stormed the world with the cannon’s roar—but never won a real victory for our class.
And for a hundred years—when we could vote—we have stupidly followed the political crook to the ballot-box, and then we have meekly teased for laws, whined for relief, and humbly coaxed the “reformer.”
Gullibly we swallow the traducer’s lies that paralyze our brains, bind our wrists, and lay us under the employer’s lash.
Deafened and stunned with a fool’s “hurrah,” we wade in our own blood while those we love are broken in the embrace of despair.
And when on strike for bread and for the betterment of the women and the little children, blindly on horseback we ride down and club one another, blindly we bayonet one another at the factory, blindly we crush one another at the mines, blindly with Gatling guns we sweep the streets and hills with storms of lead and steel, and in a thousand ways blindly our class destroy our class in the bitter and stupid civil war in capitalist industry—cheaply we lend and rent ourselves for our own ruin.
Ah, my friend, there is a political earthquake coming which will swallow up the political prostitutes and the industrial parasites and Caesars of society—when our class open wide their eyes and see the great red crime—not only on the battlefield, but around the factory and before the miner’s cabin door. Not blindly but proudly and defiantly the workers will then—but not till then-defend THEMSELVES.
This book is not a parasite’s platitudes, nor a hypocrite’s pretenses in a Fakir’s Parliament; this book is not a tearful lament about war nor a long-winded essay on militarism, nor a coward’s whine for peace.
This book is not intended to be harsh; it is frankly intended to be a short, shrill call: “Danger!” and also a guide-board for the producer’s road to power.
Too long, too madly and sadly, too gullibly the flimflammed working class have broken their own hearts and wet the earth with their own blood and tears; too meekly and weakly the toilers sweat themselves into stupidity and then—like cheated children—gullibly hand over the choicest culture, clothing, bread, wine and shelter to the robbers and rulers who despise them and betray them.
What for?
They have the habit.
O, my brothers of the working class, no matter what language you speak, no matter what God you worship, no matter how bitterly you would curse those who would teach you and rouse you—wherever you are, in the barracks or in the mines, in the armories or in the mills, in the trenches at the front or in the furrows on the farm—let us clasp hands—as a class. Let us talk over this matter. And in talking it over among ourselves let us be frank. We must be very frank. And let us be friends. Even as I write this, mighty fleets of gun-laden ships of steel are steaming up and down the seas provoking, insulting, challenging war; and in several parts of the world thousands of our working class brothers are slaughtering one another in wars they did not declare, and they do so simply because they do not understand one another; and they do not understand one another because THEY HAVE NEVER TALKED THIS MATTER OVER AMONG THEMSELVES in friendly frankness—like brothers, without flattery and without bitterness toward one another.
As you and I consider this matter now by ourselves and for ourselves, we may for a moment—just for a moment—disagree somewhat; but if we do disagree, let us disagree without bitterness toward one another. Let us remember that we are class brothers, and permit nothing to injure our friendship or class loyalty. Some things concerning war must be said plainly—even bluntly—things neither flattering nor complimentary to anybody. Remember, too, that a flattering friend is a dangerous friend. Therefore I refuse to flatter you.
Stamp this into your brain: The working class must defend the working class. In national and international fellowship we must stand together as a class in class loyalty.
And now, first thing, let us get an idea of what war (one phase of the great class struggle) is—for our class. But before reading the next chapter on “What Is War?” examine the photograph of hell here following:
“They say there are a great many mad men in our army as well as in the enemy’s. [In the Russian and the Japanese armies.] Four lunatic wards have been opened [in the hospital]....
“The wire, chopped through at one end, cut the air and coiled itself around three soldiers. The barbs tore their uniforms and stuck into their bodies, and, shrieking, the soldiers, coiled round like snakes, spun round in a frenzy ... whirling and rolling over each other.... No less than two thousand men were lost in that one wire entanglement. While they were hacking at the wire and getting entangled in its serpentine coils, they were pelted by an incessant rain of balls and grapeshot.... It was very terrifying, and if only they had known in which direction to run, that attack would have ended in a panic flight. But ten or twelve continuous lines of wire, and the struggle with it, a whole labyrinth of pitfalls with stakes driven at the bottom, had muddled them so that they were quite incapable of defining the direction of escape.
“Some, like blind men, fell into funnel-shaped pits, and hung upon these sharp stakes, twitching convulsively and dancing like toy clowns; they were crushed down by fresh bodies, and soon the whole pit filled to the edges, and presented a writhing mass of bleeding bodies, dead and living. Hands thrust themselves out of it in all directions, the fingers working convulsively, catching at everything; and those who once got caught in that trap could not get back again: hundreds of fingers, strong and blind, like the claws of a lobster, gripped them firmly by the legs, caught at their clothes, threw them down upon themselves, gouged out their eyes and throttled them. Many seemed as if they were intoxicated, and ran straight at the wire, got caught in it, and remained shrieking, until a bullet finished them.... Some swore dreadfully, others laughed when the wire caught them by the arm or leg and died there and then....
“We walked along ... and with each step we made, that wild, unearthly groan ... grew ominously, as if it was the red air, the earth and sky that were groaning.... We could almost feel the distorted mouths from which those terrible sounds were issuing ... a loud, calling, crying groan.... All those dark mounds stirred and crawled about with out-spread legs like half-dead lobsters let out of a basket....
“The train was full, and our clothes were saturated with blood, as if we had stood for a long time under a rain of blood, while the wounded were still being brought in....
“Some of the wounded crawled up themselves, some walked up tottering and falling. One soldier almost ran up to us. His face was smashed, and only one eye remained, burning wildly and terribly. He was almost naked....
“The ward was filled with a broad, rasping, crying groan, and from all sides pale, yellow, exhausted faces, some eyeless, some so monstrously mutilated that it seemed as if they had returned from hell, turned toward us.
“I was beginning to get exhausted, and went a little way off to ... rest a bit. The blood, dried to my hands, covered them like a pair of black gloves, making it difficult for me to bend my fingers.”[[4]]
Would it not be a strange thing to see a banker, a bishop, a railway president, a coal baron, an anti-labor injunction judge, and a United States Senator all hanging on stakes in a pit with scores of other men piled in on top of them—all clawing, kicking, cursing, wiggling, screaming, groaning, bleeding, dying—“following the flag”—patriotically?
Such would indeed be a strange and interesting sight.
Strange and interesting, extremely so—but absolutely impossible.
And there is good reason.
Let me explain.
CHAPTER TWO.
What Is War?
War is wholesale, scientific suicide for the working class under orders from their political and industrial masters.
War is:
For working class homes—emptiness,
For working class wives—heartache,
For working class mothers—loneliness,
For working class children—orphanage,
For working class sweethearts—agony,
For the nation’s choicest working class men—broken health or death,
For society—savagery,
For peace—defeat,
For bull-dogs—suggestions,
For the Devil—delight,
For death—a harvest,
For buzzards—a banquet,
For the grave—victory,
For worms—a feast,
For nations—debts,
For justice—nothing,
For “Thou shalt not kill”—boisterous laughter,
For literature—the realism of the slaughter house,
For the painter—the immortalization of wholesale murder,
For the public park—a famous butcher in stone or bronze,
For Roosevelts—opportunity to strut and brag of blood, and win a “war record” for political purposes,
For Bryans—a military title and a “war record” for political purposes,
For Christ—contempt,
For “Put up thy sword”—a sneer,
For preachers, on both sides,—ferocious prayers for victory,
For Sunday-school teachers—blood-steaming stories for tender children and helplessly impressible boys,
For bankers—bonds, interest (and working class substitutes),
For big manufacturers—business, profits (and working class substitutes),
For big business men of all sorts—“good times” (and working-class substitutes),
For leading business men, for leading politicians, for leading preachers, for leading educators, for leading editors, for leading lecturers—for all of these windy patriots who talk bravely of war, who talk heroically of the flag, who talk finely of national honor and talk and talk of the glory of battle—for all these yawping talkers—never positions as privates in the infantry on the firing line up close where they are really likely to get their delicately perfumed flesh torn to pieces.
Thus war is hell for the WORKING class.[[5]]
It is, of course, true that in ancient times the leading citizens did much of the fighting—but that was very long ago, in the days when the machine-gun had not yet been dreamed of. Even two thousand years ago the plutocratic snobs were beginning to show traces of intelligence sufficient to avoid going to hell voluntarily—afoot.
Says Professor E. A. Ross:[[6]]
“Service in the Roman cavalry, originally obligatory on all who could furnish two horses, became after a time a badge of superiority. ‘Young men of rank more and more withdrew from the infantry, and the legionary cavalry became a close aristocratic corps’.... Finally the rich came to feel that wealth ought to buy its possessors clear of every onerous duty. In Caesar’s time ‘in the soldiery not a trace of the better classes could any longer be discovered ... the levy took place in the most irregular and unfair manner. Numerous persons liable to serve were wholly passed over.... The Roman burgess cavalry now merely vegetated as a sort of mounted noble guard, whose perfumed cavaliers and exquisite high-bred horses only played a part in the festivals of the capital; the so-called burgess infantry was a troop of mercenaries, swept together from the lowest ranks of the burgess population.’”
At present a movement is being promoted by Harvard University authorities to organize in the University “a fashionable troop of cavalry.”[[7]] It does not seem likely that many members of the labor unions, so heartily despised by scab-praising ex-president Eliot, will be able to join this “fashionable troop of cavalry.” The labor unionists on strike, unarmed and helpless, may later come in handy as targets for practice by the highly educated “fashionable troop of cavalry.”
After all is “said and done” concerning wars past and present—what is really determined by a so-called great war?
Which of two warring nations is the nobler—is that what a war decides?
Not at all.
Which of the two bleeding nations is the more refined—is the more sensitive to the cry for justice, or has the greater literature, or the keener appreciation of the fine arts, or is more devoted to the useful arts and sciences, or contributes most to the profounder philosophy—which of the two warring nations is the more truly civilized—is that what is decided by war?
Not at all.
Which of the struggling nations is the more wholesomely social? Does a war make that evident?
Not at all.
Which nation has the better cause? Is that, then, what a war decides?
Not at all.
Which nation does more for the progress of mankind? Is that made clear by a war?
Not at all.
A war decides no such questions.
Well, then, what is determined when two nations go to war?
Simply this:—which can make the better fight.
That is all.
And that is exactly what is determined when two sharks fight, or when two tom-cats, or two bull pups fight, or when a cruel hawk and a sweet-throated song bird fight: which is superior as a fighter.
War is the ignoble trick of slitting open the blood vessels of the excited working class to “satisfy” the “honor” and save the pride and business of crowned and uncrowned cowards of the ruling class. There never is a war and never can be a war till the working men are willing to do the marching, the trench-digging and the actual fighting, bleeding and dying. And the working men are never willing to butcher and be butchered wholesale till influential but coarse-grained people of the capitalist class or “highly educated” panderers to the capitalist class, craftily or ignorantly excite the humble toilers to the fiend’s stupid mood of savage hate. First come the “powerful editorials,” the “great speeches,” the “eloquent sermons,” and ferocious prayers for the war; then the fife and drum; then the brain-storm of the humble, humbugged working men; then the recruiting; then the hand-waving and “Good-bye, boys, good-bye, good-bye”; then the butchering and the blood; then the tears and taxes.
It is, of course, true—grandly true—and is here gladly, gratefully acknowledged—that some educated influential people are too highly civilized, too finely noble, to stoop to the shameless business of rousing the slumbering tiger in the human breast. Some of them proudly scorn the vicious rôle of throwing fire-brands into the inflammable imagination of the weary toilers. These have courage—true courage. These we greet with profound gratitude.
But every lily-fingered snob, every socially gilt-edged coward, every intellectual prostitute, every pro-war preacher, every self-exempting political shark, and every well-fed money-glutton, who dares help excite the working class for the hell of war—these, every one of these—in case of war, should be forced to dance on the firing line to the hideous music of the cannon’s roar till his own torn carcass decorates a “great battle” field.
And to this end—as part of their own emancipation—the working class should make all haste to seize the powers of government, and thus be in position, by being in legal possession of the power, to make and enforce all laws concerning war. Beginning now, always hereafter, the labor unions, the working class political party, and all the other working class organizations should for future use, keep a careful record of all male editors, teachers, preachers, lawyers, lecturers, and “prominent business men” and politicians and “statesmen,” who speak, or write or even clap their hands in favor of war; and in case of a war thus fostered, these, all of these, should be forced by special draft to fight in the infantry, without promotion, on the firing line, till they get their share of the cold lead and the cold steel. Thus let the mouthers do the marching, let the shouters do the shooting, let the bawlers do the bleeding, let the howlers have the hell—force them to the firing line and force them to stay on the firing line—and there will be far less yawping about the “honor” and the “glory” of war, and there will be fewer humble homes of the poor damned with the desolation of war.
But, you see, for all such self-defense the working class must as soon as possible capture the powers of government. You see that, don’t you?
Friend, don’t curse the militiamen and the soldiers. No, no. They are our brothers. Explain—with tireless patience explain—to them that the capitalists seek to make tools and bullet-stoppers of them. Explain it like a brother inside and outside the ranks till our working-class brothers everywhere—inside and outside the ranks—are roused to a clear consciousness of the meaning of a Gatling gun with a working-class “man behind the gun” and a working-class man in front of the gun.
Brother, stamp this into your brain and explain it into the brain of our brothers:—The working class must themselves protect the working class.
If in imagination the mothers, sisters, sweethearts and wives of the world could get the roar of the cannon in their ears and feel the splash of blood in their faces, could see and hear the horrors of the battlefield and the agonies of the war hospital, they would never again be fooled into smiling caressingly upon the haughty and jaunty “higher officers,” when, like peacocks, these gilt-braided professional human butchers strut through the ball-rooms and through the streets on military dress parade, and these women would also regard the pro-war orator with complete contempt.
The women of the world owe a great debt of gratitude to the writers of some powerful pen pictures of war. The terrible but accurate realism of some of their descriptions of war makes one hate the word war. Emile Zola’s story, The Downfall,[[8]] is crowded with these pictures. The Downfall should be in a million American private libraries. Following is a page of Zola’s flashlights from the battlefields of the Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71:[[9]]
“At no time during the day had the artillery thundered more loudly than now.... It was as if all the forces of the nether regions had been unchained; the earth shook, the heavens were on fire. The ring of flame-belching mouths of bronze that encircled Sedan, the eight hundred cannon of the German armies ... were expending their energies on the adjacent fields.... The crash that told of ruin and destruction was heard.... Some lay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger of suffocating, others had bitten the ground till their mouths were full of dry earth, others, where a shell had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks.... Some soldiers who were driving a venerable lady from her home had compelled her to furnish matches with which to fire her own beds and curtains. Lighted by blazing brands and fed by petroleum in floods, fires were rising and spreading in every quarter; it was no longer civilized warfare, but a conflict of savages, maddened by the long-protracted strife, wreaking vengeance for their dead, their heaps of dead, upon whom they trod at every step they took. Yelling, shouting bands traversed the streets amid the scurrying smoke and falling cinders, swelling the hideous uproar into which entered sounds of every kind: shrieks, groans, the rattle of musketry, the crash of falling wall. Men could scarce see one another; great livid clouds drifted athwart the sun and obscured his light, bearing with them an intolerable stench of soot and blood, heavy with the abominations of the slaughter. In every quarter the work of death and destruction still went on: the human brute unchained, the imbecile wrath, the mad fury, of man devouring his brother man.... Horses were rearing, pawing the air, and falling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their saddle by the blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part, retained their seats and rode onward in the ranks with vacant, sightless eyes.... Some there were who had fallen headlong from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth. Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun with terror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. There was a handsome black horse, an officer’s charger, that had been disemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feet entangled in his entrails.... Of the brave men who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield.... A lieutenant from whose mouth exuded a bloody froth, had been tearing up the grass by handfuls in his agony, and his stiffened fingers were still buried in the ground. A little farther on a captain, prone on his stomach, had raised his head to vent his anguish in yells and screams, and death had caught and fixed him in that strange attitude.... After that the road led along the brink of a little ravine, and there they beheld a spectacle that aroused their horror to the highest pitch as they looked down into the chasm, into which an entire company seemed to have been blown by the fiery blast; it was choked with corpses, a landslide, an avalanche of maimed and mutilated men, bent and twisted in an inextricable tangle, who with convulsed fingers had caught at the yellow clay of the bank to save themselves in their descent, fruitlessly. And a dusky flock of ravens flew away, croaking noisily, and swarms of flies, thousands upon thousands of them, attracted by the odor of fresh blood, were buzzing over the bodies and returning incessantly.”
But let this fact burn its way into your brain to save you from hell and rouse you for the revolution—this fact:
Nowhere on all that battlefield among the shattered rifles and wrecked cannon, among the broken ambulances and splintered ammunition wagons, nowhere in the mire and mush of blood and sand, nowhere among the bulging and befouling carcasses of dead horses and the swelling corpses of dead men and boys—nowhere could be found the torn, bloated and fly-blown carcasses of bankers, bishops, politicians, “brainy capitalists” and other elegant and eminent “very BEST people.”
Well, hardly.
Naturally—such people were not there, on the firing line—up where bayonets gleam, sabres flash, flesh is ripped, bones snap, brains are dashed and blood splashes.
Why not?
CHAPTER THREE.
The Situation—Also the Explanation.
The situation, the “lay of the land,” must be clearly seen by every member of the working class who wishes to help himself and his fellow workers avoid the vicious sacrifice of the working class by the capitalist class.
In Chapter Ten of this book the unsocial nature of the present form and structure of society is explained more fundamentally; but just here notice the clash of class interests in a war. War is a “good thing” for one class and war is simply hell for the other class.
Who want war?—What for?
Who declare war?—What for?
Who fight the wars?—What for?
Get these questions straight in your mind. First study the Situation; then the Explanation. Now for the Situation. Here it is: