Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs: Grace Carlson
Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 40, 4 October 1948, p. 1.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The United Nations is meeting in Paris in an ominous atmosphere. The American imperialists have had the audacity to launch another war scare a bare month before the voters go to the polls. The Berlin dispute has been thrown into the Security Council; and the entire capitalist press, at this signal, has cast aside all restraint in pounding the drums of war.
The insolence of the Wall Street rulers stems from their assurance that they will continue to monopolize the government for another four years whether Truman or Dewey sits in the White House. That is why American imperialism does not give a damn what the people think between now and election day.
Who made the decision to stage another war scare? A tiny clique of Brass Hats and Wall Street representatives who run the State Department and dominate the White House.
In other words, the question of war or peace, the fate of 140 million people of the United States, not to mention the fate of the peoples of the whole world, are being determined – not by democratic discussion and vote – but by a small, sinister clique of bankers, industrialists and Brass Hats operating behind closed doors.
What was the reaction of Truman and Dewey to the war moves of this irresponsible, power-drunk clique? Did Truman summarily remove them from the posts to which he appointed them? Did Dewey denounce their actions, and promise to kick them out if elected? Not at all.
Truman hastened to give them an approving pat on the back: “We must keep our bullets in order and our powder dry,” he told the press at San Antonio, Texas.
Dewey added his rubber-stamp “me too” to the latest war moves of the White House back-porch guard and called on the people of “every land who share our aims, to unite our prayers for peace.” This is really ominous! When a Wall Street politician calls on the people to “pray” for peace – watch out! The danger of war must indeed be great.
Hasn’t it become perfectly clear that all the promises made by the rulers during World War II were nothing but lies and deceptions ? They promised us democracy. And there is less of it in the world today than there was in 1939. Right here in the United States the drive to break down the rights of the American people is proceeding at blitzkrieg speed.
They promised us security, “freedom from fear.” But more hunger, insecurity and fear exist in the world today than before the war.
Greatest fraud of all was the promise of “enduring peace." The UN itself – the very body set up as an instrument to secure peace – has become the loudest sounding board in the preparation of public opinion for the projected third world slaughter.
What is really at bottom in the dispute over Berlin? The squabble over the currency, over the City Administration, over the “blockade” and over the “air-lift,” are only the immediate issues. They appear as the “incidents” which every ruling clique bent on war seeks as justification for its war preparations and to pin the guilt on the other side.
The underlying cause of the dispute is this: American imperialism faces a catastrophic depression. It is confronted, furthermore, with the disintegration of capitalism on a world scale, the break up of the centuries-old colonial system and the rising danger of workers’ revolution.
In an attempt to meet these threats, Big Business is pouring tens of billions of dollars into the war machine to help keep up the fabulous rate of profit to which it has become accustomed. Expansion of the war industries will prolong the unnatural boom and defer depression. And finally American imperialism hopes to smash the Soviet Union and conquer the whole world, thereby prolonging its outlived and decaying social system.
In accordance with this blueprint, the Marshall Plan was set up to convert western Europe into a spring-board for the projected war on the USSR. Part of the plan calls for the rehabilitation of German capitalism. Consequently Anglo-American imperialism moved ahead to set up a Western German puppet regime.
But to prop up German capitalism, you have to give aid and comfort to the former Nazis and their backers, since all important German capitalists supported Hitler. That is why, in a calculated political gesture to all the Nazis, the American military authorities commuted the sentence of Ilse Koch, the Buchenwald monster who made lamps out of tattooed human skins.
Where do Wallace and tne Stalinists stand on this life-and-death question of foreign policy and war? The whole foreign policy oi Wallace and the" Stalinists boils down to a call for a deal with Stalin. They want to carve up the world between the imperialists and the Kremlin. This is simply a tactical variation of the Wall Street program, a postponement of the showdown struggle. It has nothing in common with a genuine peace program.
When war does break out, Wallace. has already promised to jump on the band wagon. That will be the end of Wallace’s “fight” for peace.
You can’t end the danger of war with that kind of program of human material. To lead the struggle against imperialist war, men and women of stamina are required, leaders capable of sticking to principle. Against Wallace’s shameful record as – a salesman of World War 11 and his promise to support a new war once it begins, contrast the firm, principled stand of the Socialist Workers Party.
We denounced the war as a crime against humanity and the promises of the war-mongers as fraudulent. We continued the fight even after the U.S. entered the war. We did not flinch or back down when we were railroaded to prison along with 16 other members and leaders of the Socialist Workers Party for refusing to back the war.
By voting for Dobbs and Carlson on November 2, you help strengthen the anti-war forces. You register your protest against the war plans of Wall Street and its bi-partisan politicians. By voting the Socialist Workers ticket you support the demand to take the war-making powers out of the hands of Congress and let the people themselves, through a referendum vote, decide on the question of war or peace.
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