There are two directions in which this remarkable co-operation of millions of workingmen of all lands may have a practical effect on international affairs.
In the first place, there is an effort being made to internationalize labor unions. In Europe this has been done, to some extent, among the transportation workers. They have an international committee of their own, and keep each other informed of labor conditions and movements. The great railway strike in England, in the summer of 1911, was planned on the Continent, as well as in London and Liverpool, and there was a sympathetic restlessness with the strikers in various countries adjacent to the Channel that threatened to break out in violence. During the post-office strike in France the strikers attempted to persuade English and Belgian railway employees to refuse to handle French mail. The Syndicalists confidently look forward to the day when an international labor organization will be able to compel a universal general strike.
In the second place, the new international organization will have a far-reaching influence on militarism. This is due to two causes: first, the recruit himself is filled with the discontent of the Socialist before he dons the uniform. In France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, and other countries the anti-military virus has been long at work. But more potent than this is the feeling of international solidarity that binds these recruits into a brotherhood of labor who are unwilling to fight each other for purposes that do not appeal to the Socialist heart. Warfare, to the laboring man, is merely one phase of the exploitation of the poor for the benefit of the capitalist, and patriotism an excuse to hide the real purposes of war. At St. Quentin, in 1911, the French Socialists denounced the war in Morocco as an exploitation of human lives for the purposes of capitalistic gain. The German Social Democracy has always opposed the colonial policy of the chancellors on the same ground, and the Belgian Labor Party has been the severest censor of the Belgian Congo campaigns.
During the summer of 1911 the Morocco incident threatened a war between France and Germany, with England involved, and the other great powers more than interested. In August and September the situation became so acute that England and Germany were popularly said to have been "within two weeks of war." A profound sense of danger and an intense restlessness possessed the people. During this period of excitement the French Socialists held anti-war demonstrations. The German Social Democrats met in their annual convention at Jena and passed a resolution condemning the German Morocco policy, and Herr Bebel made a notable speech, detailing the horrors of war with grim exactness, and arraigning a civilization that would resort to the "monstrous miseries" of war for gaining a few acres of land. This speech was quoted at length by the great European dailies, and made a deep impression upon the people. In England the leaders of the Labor Party admonished the government that, while they were patriots and believed in national solidarity, the English workingman would never cease to consider the German and the French workingman as a fellow-laborer and brother. The International Socialist Bureau met in Zurich to discuss the situation and to consider how the organizations of labor might make their protests against war most effective.
It is difficult to measure the influence of such an international protest against the powers of governments and of armies. That the protest was made, that it was sincere, rational and free from the hyperbola of passion, is the significant fact. Forty years ago such action on the part of labor would have been ridiculed. To-day it is respected.
Disarmament, when it comes, will be due to the influences exerted by the recruit rather than to the benevolent impulses of governments and commanders.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Introduction to Klassenkämpfe, p. 13.
[2] See Engels, Introduction to Marx's Enthüllungen über den Kommunisten Process zu Köln.