So German and British capitalism are to unite, to form an alliance, to become blood-brothers, to make common cause against Socialism and the Revolution!
A War Against Socialism.
The pretence that we are in Russia to fight the Germans has long since become unbelievable. Recent proceedings in the Baltic have turned it to a wild and wicked jest. Why then are we there at all? The answer has been given by the "Manchester Guardian" (December 18, 1918):
"In Russia we are fighting neither against the Germans nor for the Czecho-Slovaks, nor for the Russian anti-Bolsheviks. We are fighting against a form of the State and a conception of property which we dislike, and which we have good reason to dislike, but which is not our business to overthrow by force of arms, in another country. That is why we are in Russia, or, as the "Financial News" (November 20) more crudely puts it: "In the City it is realised that events are shaping more and more towards an international suzerainty over Russia, modelled on the British surveillance of Egypt. Such an event would transform Russian bonds into the cream of the international market."
According to recent announcements the Government do not intend to send further forces to Russia—at the moment. The present policy of Western Capitalism (and we must now conclude that German Capitalism is in the plot as well) is apparently to encircle Russia, to ring her round with a cordon sanitaire, to cut her off from the corn and coal of the South, and the resources of Siberia, to prevent her getting raw materials by blockading her coasts and occupying her ports, in a word to starve and freeze her into surrender no matter whether 20,000,000 Russians die in the process this winter or not. If this does not succeed there will probably be more expeditions in the spring. Thus do the Capitalists plot and the Governments imagine vain things.
Up to now the Capitalist attempt to strangle the Revolution is not proving very successful. As swiftly as it is put down in one place it spreads to another. Suppressed at Vladivostock it spreads to Vienna. Put down in Baku it breaks out in Berlin. Arrested at Archangel it approaches at Amsterdam. Trampled upon at Murmansk it threatens Madrid. And if our Capitalists really attempt to destroy it at Petrograd and at Moscow then they should be solmenly warned that such action would be the surest way of setting the Revolutionary fires ablaze nearer home. There is no desire for armed Revolution in Britain. No humane man wishes to see machine-guns and Mills' bombs and massacre in Whitehall—nor at Versailles. Everyone would prefer that the Revolution should come through the mind and the ballot-box and by orderly constitutional means. But organised Labour must not allow British soldiers to be killed in Russia at the bidding of financiers nor Russian workers and women to be starved at the dictates of money-lenders. The war with Germany is ended. There must be no further war with Russia. All our expeditions in Russia must be withdrawn. So both in the new Parliament and throughout the country, let the demand of Labour be: NO MORE CASUALTY LISTS! HANDS OFF RUSSIA! AND BRING THE SOLDIERS HOME!
Printed by the National Labour Press Ltd., 8 & 9 Johnson’s Court, E.C. 4
