"The working-class party is very much in sympathy with the disarmament idea in itself. For this party is the most consistent opponent of militarism, and demands in its programme not only the formation of a citizen army in place of the standing army, but also that questions of peace and war should be determined by the people themselves, and that all international differences should be settled by arbitration. But no amount of sympathy can get over the fact that in the present capitalist world there is very little chance of a general disarmament of the Powers. The conception that war is only a product of human unreason is on the same level as the idea that revolutions are only mental aberrations of the masses. War is rooted in the opposing interests of the nations, as are revolutions in the opposing interests of the classes."[528] FOOTNOTES: [510] Macdonald, _Socialism_, p. 120. [511] Marx and Engels, _Manifesto_, p. 1 [512] Marx and Engels, _Manifesto_, p. 31. [513] Bax, _Religion of Socialism_, pp. 126, 127. [514] Debate, Hyndman, _Will Socialism Benefit the English People?_ Introduction. [515] Mann, _International Labour Movement_, p. 6. [516] See, for instance, Hyndman in _The Transvaal War and the Degradation of England_. [517] Snowden, _The Individual under Socialism_, p. 14. [518] Keir Hardie, _From Serfdom to Socialism_, p. 10. [519] _Clarion Song Book_, p. 25. [520] Bax and Quelch, _A New Catechism of Socialism_, p. 31. [521] Bebel, _Woman in the Past, Present, and Future_, p. 235. [522] "Veritas," _Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism?_ p. 2. [523] Neil, _Songs of the Social Revolution_, p. 13. [524] _Reformers' Year Book, 1907_, p. 195. [525] _Social-Democrat_, September 1907, p. 534. [526] Ward, _The War Drum shall Throb no Longer_, p. 13. [527] _Ibid._ p. 14. [528] _Vorwaerts_, March 10, 1907, translated in the _Social-Democrat_, April 1907, pp. 220-224. CHAPTER XIII SOCIALISM AND THE ARMY Most Socialists, British and foreign, are opposed to the existing armies, for two reasons: (1) Because they wish to overturn practically all existing institutions from the Monarchy downwards, and they fear that the military may defend the _status quo_; (2) Because they aim at the abolition of States and of nationality and at the disappearance of frontiers, as the ideal Socialist State of the future would, for economic and political reasons, have to embrace the world. The Socialist State of the future, embracing the whole universe, can be created only after the existing States have been overturned. Therefore the more immediate aim of Socialists is to seize upon the political power in accordance with the advice given by Karl Marx in his celebrated "Manifesto."[529]