“Motives or pretexts are no more lacking under the new regime than they were under the old; but under the one as under the other, the true motive of every war is always the interest of the class or party in possession of the government—an interest which must not be confounded with that of the nation or the mass of consumers in the body politic; for as much as the governing class or party is interested in the continuation of a state of war, so much is the nation governed interested in the maintenance of peace.”5
As to the advantage which the governing class finds in the continuation of a state of war, the same author goes on to tell us:
“War without implies peace within; that is to say, a period of easy government, during which the opposition is reduced to silence under pain of being accused of complicity with the enemy. And what is more desirable, above all when the opposition is troublesome and its forces nearly balance those of the government? In fact if a war be unsuccessful, it inevitably involves the downfall of the party which undertook it; but if, on the other hand, it be successful, (and it is not undertaken unless some favorable chances are assured) the party which engaged in it and carried it to a satisfactory issue, acquires, for a time, a crushing preponderance. How many motives are there, not to speak of the small profits to which it opens the way, for not letting a favorable opportunity to make war escape!”6
As to the “small profits,” here is an enumeration of them:
“But, up to our own day, it has been the inferior classes, those whose influence counts the least, who have generally furnished the common soldiers. The wealthy classes have escaped by a money sacrifice; and this sacrifice, ordinarily very moderate, has been more than compensated for by the market which the state of war offered to members of the said classes, upon whom the proscription of foreigners and the obligation of passing through the military schools (access to which was, in fact, impossible to the poorer classes) ‘conferred the monopoly of the remunerative offices’ of the military profession. Finally if war be cruel to the conscripts who, according to the forcible popular expression, furnish ‘meat for the cannon,’ the departure of these impressed troops, brought up to farm labor or in the workshop, by diminishing the supply of hands has the effect of increasing wages, and thus palliating the horrors of war to those who escape military service.”7
This is categorical. We see that the “sacred love” of the metaphysical entity, “country,” is nothing more than exploitation and “small profits;” but the avowal is complete; it is a triumphant retort to those who would object that “there is a public opinion of which the governing are forced to take account,” that “a war may be just and obtain the assent of the public,” that “it is wrong to declaim against war in general,” that “there may be cases into which rulers are dragged in spite of themselves,” and moreover that “war is a consequence of the existing social state,” that “one may declaim against it or deplore its necessity,” but that “we are compelled to submit to it.”
Let us continue to quote:
“Nevertheless, whatever be the power of the men who decide peace or war, and the influence of the class from which the political, administrative, and military staff is recruited, they are, as we have just observed, obliged to reckon, in a certain measure, with the much more numerous class whose interests are involved in the various branches of production, to whom war is a nuisance. Experience all the time demonstrates that the resisting force of this pacific element is in nowise proportionate to its mass. The vast majority of the men who compose it are absolutely ignorant, and ‘nothing is easier than to excite their passions or lead them astray as to their interests.’ The enlightened minority is less numerous; and besides, what means would these latter have of getting their opinions to prevail, in the presence of the powerful organization of the centralized State?”8
Thus our capitalists do not hide from themselves the fact that they see nothing in war but a means of continuing their exploitation of the workers; the massacres which they organize serve to rid them of the surplus which encumbers the market. To them armies are created with the sole view of furnishing place and rank to those of their dependents by whom they would otherwise be importuned. To them, finally, these wars which they pompously call “national,” making the hollow, sounding words “country,” “patriotism,” “national honor,” vibrate in the ears of the naive—to them these wars are but pretexts for “small profits.”
War upon “small profits”! War upon all the wars undertaken in the name of the “country” or “civilization”!! For now that patriotism is beginning to decline, this new mockery—“civilization”—is used a great deal in launching the workers on a crusade against inoffensive peoples whom the capitalists would exploit and whose sole offense consists in being behindhand in reaching that degree of development which we have agreed to call present civilization.
Ostensibly it is to punish a band of imaginary marauders and secure our national preponderance that wars like the expedition to Tunis are undertaken, while the real object is to open up a new country to the rotten financial operations of a few dubious schemers; it is to secure a free field to these parasites upon the social revenue that the money wrung from the workers by taxation is expended in armaments; it is to realize “small profits” from the offices created in the conquered countries that these new markets, which enable the capitalists to get rid of their stale products, are opened with cannon shots, that a robust youth is impoverished, that
