179 SOCIALISM AND THE LEAGUE 178 THE CLASS STRUGGLE Theoretically the matter resolves itself into the question: is the dictatorship of the proletariat possible without violating democracy, as far as the class of exploiters is concerned?
Kautsky has expressly omitted this, theoretically the only important and essential question. Kautsky has set forth all kinds of quotations from the works of Marx and Engels, but not those which refer to the case in question and to which referred.
Kautsky has discussed the things that suit him, using as premises those facts which can be accepted without qualification by liberals and bourgeois democrats, because they do not transcend the sphere of their thinking. But he has wholly disregarded the main subject, the fundamental fact that the proletariat cannot win without crushing the opposition of the bourgeoisie, without forcibly overpowering its opponents. And where there is forçible crushing, there is not freedom, there also cannot be democracy.
Socialism and the League of Nations By MAURICE SUGAR people. Explanation of group characteristics and practices is yet made by their ascription to some particular people or country, usually upon the assumption that such characteristics and practices are inherent. It is altogether natural that this facile method of solving the mysteries of social phenomena should be accentuated during a time of war, since it is at such a time that fervid nationalistic appeals play upon and exaggerate this view; a predisposition for which is already implanted in the people by the teachings of a grossly distorted educational system. And this view is all the more readily accepted because of the indisputable fact that nationality does very often furnish a rough means of classification of many apparent differences; sight being lost of the facts that these differences are relatively minor ones, and that the comprehensive characteristic nationality itself is a derivative one, its rise being traceable to the play of certain social and economic forces, which by no means cease to exist upon the crystallization of a nationality, but which continue to work within the nationality by them brought forth.
The practice of treating nations as separate, distinct and fundamental entities is one to which even a great number of radical thinkers adhere. And, in the realm of international relations, we constantly find progressive minds contrasting one country with, or comparing it to another, and noting what they contend to be basic differences or similarities. To say that one capitalist country is democratic and that another is autocratic is to ascribe a fixed political character to each of these countries as a unit. There is disclosed no recognition of the fact that some of the elements of governmental administration of each of the countries may be of a democratic nature or tendency, and some of an autocratic nature or tendency; a greater or less proportion of one of these elements giving a democratic or autocratic appearance to the whole.
Many, known as radicals, who display enthusiasm for the formation of a league of nations, conceive of such a league as the clasping together of the hands of so many individuals. These countries are democratic, they say. They will join hands, and jointly they will insure peace, or enforce peace, or greatly initigate the danger of war, such declarations being accompanied by arguments which show that the reference to countries as distinct entities is not one invoked merely because of the expediency of this method of expression, but, generally, because the league, in their minds, is to partake of the characters of the countries forming it.
To point out that capitalist nations are not essentially cohesive Foreword Since the following article was written there have come to my attention certain newspaper editorial comments which are of great signifiance, in the light of the conclusions which have expressed.
On January 5, 1919, the New York Times, in a leading editorial insisting upon the necessity for the existence of a league of nations, says. Even Clemenceau would not care for the balance of power without the support of the United States, more than ever necessary now that the world faces a new threat more insidious, equally immoral, and perhaps more powerful, or at least more dangerous than Germany itself, where the Bolshevist idea was born, appropriately enough. The balance of power is powerless against the enemy within the gates of every nation.
On January 6, 1919, the New York World states editorially. Without a League of Nations, two thirds of Europe will be Balkanized by the logic of events, with the black menace of Bolshevism hanging over everything and everybody.
House of Correction, Detroit, Michigan.
February first, 1919.
For centuries it has been customary to consider nationality as the primary distinguishing feature between larger groups of