War—What For?

by George R. Kirkpatrick

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....