(12) Why should the working class give the capitalist governments a free hand in the murder of the workers? Why not rigorously restrict the power to call millions of men to arms?
What would happen if the working class should refuse to fight?
“That ‘the government can not put the whole population in prison, and if it could, it would still be without material for an army, and without money for its support,’ is an almost irrefutable argument. We see here [‘in passive resistance, not simply in theory, but in practice’] at least the beginnings of a sentiment that shall, if sufficiently developed, make war impossible to an entire people....”[[194]]
Five points to be emphasized here:
(1) Require all the school teachers to teach all the children to despise and hate war.
(2) Arm everybody or nobody.
(3) Train everybody or nobody.
(4) “The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.”—Constitution of the United States: Third Amendment.
(5) The working class should diligently study the folly of requiring one regiment of the working class to fight the united and class-loyal capitalist class in strikes.
These five propositions suggest a plan that would, even under capitalism, render the working class far less helpless and hopeless than they are at present in their class struggle against the capitalist class of masters who may legally order the working class soldiers to fire on the working class.