The abolition of capitalism might, and very likely
would, greatly diminish the incentives to war which
are derived from the Press and from the desire of
finance to find new fields for investment in undeveloped
countries, but those which are derived from the
instinct of command and the impatience of opposition
might remain, though perhaps in a less virulent
form than at present. A democracy which has power
is almost always more bellicose than one which is
excluded from its due share in the government. The
internationalism of Marx is based upon the assumption
that the proletariat everywhere are oppressed by
the ruling classes. The last words of the Communist
Manifesto embody this idea--
Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic
revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but
their chains. They have a world to win. Working men
of all countries, unite!
So long as the proletarians have nothing to lose
but their chains, it is not likely that their enmity
will be directed against other proletarians. If the
world had developed as Marx expected, the kind of
internationalism which he foresaw might have inspired
a universal social revolution. Russia, which devel-
oped more nearly than any other country upon the
lines of his system, has had a revolution of the kind
which he expected. If the development in other countries
had been similar, it is highly probable that this
revolution would have spread throughout the civilized
world. The proletariat of all countries might have
united against the capitalists as their common
enemy, and in the bond of an identical hatred they
might for the moment have been free from hatred
toward each other. Even then, this ground of union
would have ceased with their victory, and on the morrow
of the social revolution the old national rivalries
might have revived. There is no alchemy by which
a universal harmony can be produced out of hatred.
Those who have been inspired to action by the doctrine
of the class war will have acquired the habit
of hatred, and will instinctively seek new enemies
when the old ones have been vanquished.
But in actual fact the psychology of the working
man in any of the Western democracies is totally
unlike that which is assumed in the Communist
Manifesto. He does not by any means feel that he
has nothing to lose but his chains, nor indeed is this
true. The chains which bind Asia and Africa in
subjection to Europe are partly riveted by him. He is
himself part of a great system of tyranny and
exploitation. Universal freedom would remove, not only
his own chains, which are comparatively light, but
the far heavier chains which he has helped to fasten
upon the subject races of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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