10 THE CLASS STRUGGLE 11 Socialist Terms of Peace By Louis BOUDIN there has been a constant insistence by the laborers upon conditions, which has very materially improved the status of the worker on the farm. Here and there small groups have been claiming better pay and more human conditions of labor and notch by notch the standard is being raised. It takes much time and patience to accumulate the force necessary to precipitate a strike in the agricultural districts where the work is so scattered and small groups are engaged in the struggle. But the experience of the Middle West last year shows very conclusively that it can be done and there is no doubt that every year will see a broadening of the fighting forces of industrial unionism until they embrace an effective agricultural workers movement. Indeed, on all grounds, except the most narrow and selfish individualism, it is eminently necessary for the community itself that this should happen.
To sum up, then, the Industrial Workers movement is marked by a tendency to improve the status of the workers and to seek something more than a mere economic recompense in the shape of wages. It has, however, not yet reached the stage of seeking to make itself a fundamental factor in the conduct and administration of industry. It seems to be on the verge of establishing itself as the dominant labor factor in certain industries and has unquestionably improved its position greatly in the last few months.
Owing to the great confusion attendant upon current discussion of Socialist Terms of Peace, due to the general confusion in the theory and practice of the Socialist movement brought about by the war, any such discussion, in order to be profitable, must begin with a statement of fundamentals.
What are the fundamentals of the Socialist position on peace and war?
To begin with, Socialists are not pacifists pure and simple.
They do not adhere to the Tolstoyan doctrine of not resisting evil by force. The Socialists are quite ready to resort to force which includes bloodshed whenever that becomes necessary and expedient for the attainment of their objects. And that applies not only to the class struggle, but also to that struggle commonly called war.
Socialists are not bloodthirsty, and the most revolutionary among them shrink more from the shedding of blood than those members of our society who adhere to more conservative views.
But they recognize that in a society founded on force, force may be a revolutionary factor as well as a conservative or reactionary one. The question whether or not force should be used at any time and for any purpose is, therefore, to the Socialist, always a question of expediency: that is, whether or not the use of force is likely to attain the object sought to be attained, and whether or not the object sought to be attained is worth the cost in human suffering which the use of force is likely to entail. War is, therefore, from the Socialist point of view, not objectionable merely because of the suffering which it entails, except in so far as this suffering is useless that is, expended for an object for which the Socialist does not care or which he does not consider worth the price in human suffering which war entails.
In other words, it is always a question of the nature and character of the war; the aims and objects for which it is fought,