NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL
DEFENCE.
We all love our country and are anxious that it may be spared the horrors of foreign invasion and foreign rule. This is an elementary fact which is as true to-day, when the working class in every country is immolating itself on the altar of Imperialism, as it was in those days when Gustave Hervé was signing himself "Un Sans-Patrie" and was proclaiming that the working class had no Fatherland. There are some who think differently, who have now adopted Gustave Hervé's old view. But we think that they are wrong, and contradict themselves. For if it be a matter of complete indifference to the working class whether it lives under native or foreign rule, why should these very Socialists denounce annexations and protest against subjection of foreign nationalities?
No, the working class has a country, just as the individual members of it have a family, and naturally wishes to protect it against outside violence. This wish is not impaired by the fact that the safety of the Fatherland is endangered through no fault of the working class. It is this tragedy of the situation—the working class fighting to protect its country in a war caused by capitalist rivalries and which can only have for its issue the satisfaction of somebody's Imperialist interests—that has led the Socialists above mentioned to repudiate the idea of Fatherland. But it is also this tragedy which makes so intolerable the attitude_of the opposite school, who, in the name of national defence, have abandoned Socialism and are trying to represent the war itself as the cause of the working class.
Where is the way out of this dilemma? It seems inevitable that we have either to abandon the idea of Fatherland, or else abandon Socialism. If the country is to be defended we must, it seems, proclaim the unity of classes and repudiate Internationalism—unless, indeed, we lay down a new doctrine that in peace time we ought to shout: "Proletarians of all countries, unite," and in war time demand: "Proletarians of all countries, cut each others' throats!" Or, if Socialism is to be preserved, if Internationalism is to be maintained, we must, it seems, abandon the idea of national defence, and repudiate the doctrine of the Fatherland. There seems to be no middle course.
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