{"id":7418,"date":"2014-08-15T16:41:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T16:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=7418"},"modified":"2021-03-21T18:22:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T18:22:09","slug":"one-hundred-years-of-counter-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/15\/one-hundred-years-of-counter-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"One Hundred Years Of Counter-Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kool34 sent us a comment on the\u00a0articles in our recent bulletin on the First World War (Emancipation & Liberation Special Bulletin \u2013 The Centenary of the World War I Imperialist Slaughter<\/a>). This comment invited us to read the\u00a0following article by Mark Kosman. We are pleased to draw this to the attention of our\u00a0readers.<\/p>\n

\"th-14\"<\/p>\n

In 1871, Karl Marx wrote that governments use war as a fraud, a \u201chumbug, intended to defer the struggle of the classes\u201d<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. In 1914, that fraud was so effective that not only most workers, but also most Marxists, supported their respective nation\u2019s rush to war. Ever since then, governments have used war to defer class struggle and prevent revolution. But this strategy cannot last forever.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In all the commemorations for the centenary of World War I, it is unlikely that there will be many references to the huge strike wave that preceded the conflict. But this strike wave, known as the Great Unrest, created considerable insecurity among Britain\u2019s elites. This was especially the case, as these strikes coincided with other disturbing social movements, such as the nationalist upsurge in Ireland and the increasingly violent campaign for women\u2019s suffrage.<\/p>\n

By the summer of 1914, workers were mobilising for what the left-reformist commentators, Sydney and Beatrice Webb, called \u201can almost revolutionary outburst of gigantic industrial disputes\u201d<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. The future prime minister, David Lloyd George, warned that if these industrial disputes coincided with the looming civil war in Ireland then Britain would face \u201cthe gravest [situation] with which any government has had to deal for centuries\u201d<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Another reformist author, HG Wells , claimed that Britain\u2019s wage-earners had \u201cdefinitely decided not to remain wage-earners for very much longer\u201d and he warned of \u201ca series of increasingly destructive outbreaks \u2026 culminating in revolution\u201d<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Wells may have overstated what he called the \u201cdrift towards revolution\u201d. But even Basil Thomson, the head of Britain\u2019s political police, the Special Branch, seems to have shared Wells\u2019 fears when he predicted that \u201cunless there was a European war to divert the current [of unrest] we were heading for something very like revolution\u201d<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Whatever the situation in Britain\u2019s empire, the \u201cdrift towards revolution\u201d was certainly real in the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires. Europe\u2019s politicians and media could divert some popular discontent into nationalism, imperialism and masculinist militarism. But this only encouraged a situation in which, when confronted with inter-imperialist war in 1914, politicians on all sides felt unable to back down, fearing what Lloyd George called \u201cnational dishonour\u201d and \u201cshame\u201d.<\/p>\n

Britain faced no serious threat of invasion in 1914. Nevertheless, having seen the male youth of France and Germany rush to war, Lloyd George was very concerned that the British male should also act like a \u201creal man\u201d, so that Britain would not end up as \u201cthe only land whose children are not prepared to sacrifice themselves for [their nation\u2019s] honour\u201d<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> In a similar vein, the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, argued that \u201cno self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated\u201d Britain\u2019s obligation to defend Belgium<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Meanwhile, in Germany, kaiser Wilhelm was even more anxious not to be seen as \u2018unmanly\u2019, insisting that \u201cthis time I shall not chicken out\u201d<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, while his chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, said that for Germany to have backed down in 1914 would have meant \u201cself-emasculation\u201d<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

For these politicians, this defence of male honour, combined with the defence of their countries\u2019 great power status, was crucial for maintaining respect and authority at home as well as abroad. No British politicians were as explicit as the Prussian conservative leader who said that \u201ca war would strengthen patriarchal order\u201d or the German military leader who said that a war was \u201cdesirable in order to escape from difficulties at home and abroad\u201d<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. But, when war in Europe seemed inevitable, both Asquith and Churchill immediately saw it as a relief from domestic conflict – a way to \u201cescape from Irish troubles\u201d<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, working class men also saw war as a way to both assert male honour and to give them a sense of purpose and community without having to make a revolution. Consequently, politicians like Lloyd George soon began enthusing wildly about the \u201cnew patriotism\u201d that was so effectively motivating millions to fight and die for their governments rather than fighting to overthrow them<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Of course, this counterrevolutionary strategy could only work as long as governments had a hope of winning the war. Failure to provide this hope, or to provide people with sufficient food, could easily create the conditions for revolution, and, as the war dragged on, working class women started protests and food riots right across Europe. Such protests were particularly effective in Petrograd, where female workers spread the idea of a general strike on International Women\u2019s Day, 1917. On that day, March 8, hundreds of women dragged their fellow male workers onto the streets and in a few days the Russian tsar had abdicated and his regime had collapsed<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Cynical<\/h3>\n

Fearing the spread of what he called a \u201cnew enemy, more dangerous than the Entente: international revolution\u201d<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span>, the Austrian emperor, Franz Josef I, immediately proposed ending the war. The German kaiser, however, was determined to keep fighting, fearing that if his government made peace without victory then that would only exacerbate any revolutionary tendencies<\/span>15<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Lloyd George was equally concerned about his government making a peace without victory and he even claimed that, if conditions got any worse in Europe, then \u201crevolution in France, England, as well as Germany, was about certain\u201d<\/span>16<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. When mutinies broke out in the French army, the British government then felt compelled to launch the disastrous Passchendaele<\/em> offensive in the hope that more refusals to fight could be \u201caverted by a great [military] success\u201d<\/span>17<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. So it seems that even if the need to hold back revolution was not a major reason for starting the war, it was an important reason for maintaining<\/em> the slaughter. Indeed, general Douglas Haig was quite explicit about the counterrevolutionary purpose of the Passchendaele<\/em> offensive, when he wrote that, if the Allies could win the war in 1917, \u201cthe chief people to suffer would be the socialists\u201d<\/span>18<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

By 1918, the kaiser\u2019s government was still determined to hold back revolution in Germany, so general Erich Ludendorff launched his own counterrevolutionary offensive. Fortunately, this offensive failed and refusals to fight became so widespread in the German army that Ludendorff called for an immediate armistice to contain any threat that retreating soldiers might \u201ccarry the revolution into Germany\u201d<\/span>19<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Lloyd George then agreed to uphold this armistice, seeing it as far preferable to any risk that \u201cGermany may collapse and Bolshevism gain control\u201d<\/span>20<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this cynical use of both war and peace to counter any threats of revolution was very effective and the workers\u2019 revolutions in Germany and Russia were soon contained and repressed. However, a decade later, the unemployment and austerity of the Great Depression put European revolution back on the agenda. This situation then compelled the German capitalist class to revive the militarism and national unity of 1914 by letting the Nazis take power. Britain and the US still feared competition from a revived German imperialism. But they were hesitant to push their own reluctant populations into a repeat of the 1914-18 land war, with all its mutinies and revolutions. Consequently, they held back from invading France and, instead, prioritised the bombing and blockading of German civilians for much of World War II<\/span>21<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

By 1945, the two world wars had successfully decimated and redisciplined much of the world\u2019s working class. The US and the Soviet Union then maintained this discipline by keeping the world in a constant state of cold war. However, by the 1960s, once they realised that the cold war was unlikely to lead to a nuclear war, workers became increasingly free of wartime discipline. American soldiers in Vietnam refused to fight and some even killed their own officers. US failure in the war, combined with widespread strikes, as well as black and feminist rebellions, then encouraged a growing anti-capitalist consciousness.<\/p>\n

Western governments now had little choice but to roll back state provision and introduce mass unemployment in order to make workers think twice about going on strike. By relaunching the cold war in the 1980s, these governments were also able to rediscipline workers while, at the same time, maintaining investment in industry through massive military spending.<\/p>\n

This whole counterrevolutionary strategy was, again, very successful. But it could not last. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the cold war ended, capitalist investors neglected industry in favour of finance. This led inexorably to the crisis of 2008, which in turn led to today\u2019s economic policy of seemingly endless austerity. Such a policy has, so far, been very effective at demoralising and demobilising people. But, without a global confrontation on the scale of the cold war, it has little chance of long-term success<\/span>22<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 20th century, no government, whether fascist, Stalinist or Thatcherite, could successfully impose austerity on people without also distracting and uniting them through a constant state of war emergency. The cold war was ideal for this. But all attempts to revive the cold war in the 21st century as the \u2018war on terror\u2019 have resulted in failure.<\/p>\n

New great unrest<\/h3>\n

Despite the brutality of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, international opposition did deter the US military from bombing people on the scale of the Korean and Vietnam wars. At the same time, however, the US population\u2019s reluctance to sacrifice its soldiers compelled the US military to use a level of violence to protect its personnel that only increased opposition to the American presence. Unable to bomb people into submission or to win their support, US defeat was inevitable.<\/p>\n

This defeat later helped to encourage the Arab spring uprisings across the Middle East. Unfortunately, counterrevolutionary repression and civil war have, so far, crushed these uprisings. But the US and other western governments still need to use troops on the ground to stabilise these counterrevolutions, and people\u2019s reluctance to sacrifice any more soldiers makes that an extremely risky proposition. Unable to unite their populations around wars in Iraq, Iran or Syria – let alone Ukraine – western politicians are, instead, keen to commemorate the national unity and futile sacrifice of past wars in a desperate attempt to pretend that we really are \u2018all in this together\u2019.<\/p>\n

With no concession to any historical truth, Barack Obama has praised the \u201cprofound sacrifice\u201d that Allied soldiers made in 1914-18 \u201cto fight and die for the freedom we enjoy\u201d<\/span>23<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Meanwhile, David Cameron was so fixated on the idea of the \u201csacrifice\u201d that British soldiers \u201cmade for us\u201d that he used the word eight times in one commemoration speech<\/span>24<\/sup><\/a><\/span>. Fortunately, if Britain, with its strong military traditions, cannot tolerate the loss of 179 soldiers in Iraq, then no western societies are likely to tolerate the \u201csacrifice\u201d of vastly greater numbers in any new global war. Nevertheless, the western ruling classes are still hoping that people will agree to sacrifice their living standards in order to compete with workers in Asia and so, somehow, rejuvenate western capitalism.<\/p>\n

Such a sacrifice, such a \u2018race to the bottom\u2019, would be less bloody than the inter-imperialist competition of 1914-18, but no less pointless. As in the early years of the Great War, people will go along with government propaganda for a while, but – eventually – they will realise that they are dying for nothing. Then it may only be a matter of time before we see something comparable to that of the Great Unrest. And, this time, our rulers will have serious problems containing any such unrest, because there is no easy way to divert people\u2019s energies into war, as there was in the cold war – or in the Great War.<\/p>\n

The British government\u2019s desperate attempt to revive what Cameron called the \u201cnational spirit\u201d by commemorating the monstrous slaughter of 1914-18 is a good opportunity to expose the real history of capitalism and its counterrevolutionary wars.<\/p>\n

See TheRealWW1<\/a> for information about future events and for more anti-war articles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kool34 sent us a comment on the\u00a0articles in our recent bulletin on the First World War (Emancipation & Liberation Special Bulletin \u2013 The Centenary of the World War I Imperialist Slaughter). This comment invited us to read the\u00a0following article by Mark Kosman. We are pleased to draw this to the attention of our\u00a0readers. In 1871,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1843,1858,1867,1846,1845,1848],"tags":[3043],"class_list":["post-7418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-capitalists-organise","category-oppression-liberation","category-emancipation-liberation-and-self-determination","category-british-imperialism","category-us-imperialism","category-ex-ussr","tag-author-mark-kosman"],"views":5337,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7418"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18791,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7418\/revisions\/18791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}