Who opposed World War One?

[Red Clydesider]

There were conscientious objectors, of course, and I think we should respect them. But I mean, who opposed it politically, from a revolutionary left standpoint?

Well, Lenin, obviously. But who else? What voices, if any, in each country tried to tell the workers it wasn't their war and that they should join with workers of other nations against the European ruling classes?

James.

[Invader Zim]

Well, your own username, in reference to 'Red Clydeside' and the Clyde Workers' Committee, is one of the more important examples of opposition to the war. John Maclean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maclean_MA) was jailed for agitating against the war in 1915.

[Glitchcraft]

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.
Not Karl Kautsky however. His highness the pope voted for war credits.

[Fourth Internationalist]

From Germany there were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, both of whom were murdered for their political activities.

Edit: poster above me got them first. Damn.

[Glitchcraft]

Bertrand Russell, James Connolly, Helen Keller, Eugene Debs,

[ANTIFA GATE-9]

I don't know if any oposed it from a REVOLUTIONARY standpoint but there were many leftist parties and organizations that oposed it. The following countries are the ones I could find information on about them. You can find more information about the oposition to World War One on Wikipedia if your question isn't answered with this.

U.S.A:Leading up to 1917 and the declaration of war against Germany, the labor unions, socialists, members of the Old Right, and pacifist groups in the United States publicly opposed participation, the obvious motive for the 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing stemming from this. When Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection in 1916 on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War", he received support from these groups (although the Socialist Party of America ran its own candidate, Allan Benson). After Wilson was reelected, though, events quickly spiraled into war.
Eugene Debs, chairman of the Socialist Party of the USA gave an anti-war speech in Ohio but was then prosecuted by the Sediction act of 1918.


In New Zealand the war (particularly conscription) was opposed by the New Zealand Socialist Party and its successor the New Zealand Labour Party. Several members were prosecuted for sedition in 1916 and imprisoned, including Peter Fraser, Bob Semple and Paddy Webb. Fraser was later Prime Minister of New Zealand for most of World War II.

U.K:To mobilise the workers of Clydeside against World War I, the Clyde Workers' Committee (CWC) was formed, with Willie Gallacher as its head and David Kirkwood its treasurer. The CWC led the campaign against the Liberal government of David Lloyd George and their Munitions Act, which forbade engineers from leaving the company they were employed in. The CWC negotiated with government leaders, but no agreement could be reached and consequently both Gallacher and Kirkwood were arrested and imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act.
Anti-war activity also took place outside the workplace and on the streets in general. The Marxist John Maclean and Independent Labour Party member James Maxton were both jailed for their anti-war propagandizing.

[Brutus]

Kautsky originally viewed it as a defensive war but suggested abstaining (he was not a deputy but attended meetings). In 1915 it was apparent that the war would be prolonged and bloody. He, Bernstein and Hasse released a statement condemning the war. Karl liebknecht was originally caught up in the confusion, but later voted against. I can't for the life of me remember whether he abstained or voted for originally, but Rakunin knows.

[Red Clydesider]

Thanks, all. I was being a bit devious, testing the water to see if anyone would mention the Red Clydesiders. For me John MacLean was different from most others, in that he put so much energy - spent himself and died young - spreading the anti-war message and other socialist issues by speaking to innumerable public meetings, and holding classes, day after day, week after week - spreading the message as far and wide as he could. In fact, Lenin was like that too - whenever he was in pre-revolutionary Russia he tirelessly made contact with workers, had a real rapport with them, and worked to raise consciousness.

James.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

In Russia, the war was consistently opposed by most of the Bolsheviks, the Mezhrayonka, the RSDRP (Internationalist) group around Larin, elements of the Menshevik Organising Committee, Party of Left Socialists-Revolutionaries, and most of the anarchists. The Bulgarian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Narrow Socialists) also opposed the war, as did left factions in the SPD, the left social-democrats in Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, the Social-Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Socialist Party in America, the Italian Socialist Party (Maximalists) and most of the anarchists and I think half of the syndicalists in the belligerent countries.

[Invader Zim]

Thanks, all. I was being a bit devious, testing the water to see if anyone would mention the Red Clydesiders. For me John MacLean was different from most others, in that he put so much energy - spent himself and died young - spreading the anti-war message and other socialist issues by speaking to innumerable public meetings, and holding classes, day after day, week after week - spreading the message as far and wide as he could. In fact, Lenin was like that too - whenever he was in pre-revolutionary Russia he tirelessly made contact with workers, had a real rapport with them, and worked to raise consciousness.

James.

Does this therefore mean that I win this thread having mentioned Maclean in the second post of this thread?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

No I win by being boring.

[ANTIFA GATE-9]

Does this therefore mean that I win this thread having mentioned Maclean in the second post of this thread?

That's not fair i mentioned him too. Maybe a little later but I still mentioned him

Not my fault I was late coming home, it was the bus driver's.;)1

[Brutus]

Kautsky originally viewed it as a defensive war but suggested abstaining (he was not a deputy but attended meetings). In 1915 it was apparent that the war would be prolonged and bloody. He, Bernstein and Hasse released a statement condemning the war. Karl liebknecht was originally caught up in the confusion, but later voted against. I can't for the life of me remember whether he abstained or voted for originally, but Rakunin knows.

He opposed Germany's participation in World War I, but in order not to infringe the party's unity he abstained from the vote on war loans on 4 August 1914. On 2 December 1914 he was the only member of the Reichstag to vote against further loans, the supporters of which included 110 of his own Party members.

Fun fact- he was sent to the Eastern front, despite his immunity as a member of parliament, but refused to fight and instead buried the dead. He was sent back to Germany later that year due to the decreasing condition of his health.

[TheEmancipator]

I think Lenin deserves a huge amount of credit for his position and analysis of WW1, albeit from the comforts of Geneva. His condemnation of the "Social Democratic" parties who seemed to instantly forget Marx's internationalist views the moment the war broke out is admirable. And I think most historians agree his anti-war stance was the main reason he attracted popular support leading up to the events of the October revolution.

While Brest-Livotsk was a major geopolitical mistake, it only strengthens Lenin's anti-war credentials in my opinion.

Also, I believe a group in Germany called "Independent Socialists" opposed the war, breaking from the SPD. I'm not sure if Luxembourg was part of them or broke off to form the KPD?

In other countries, the main opposition came from the intelligentsia (as in, anybody not deluded by nationalist doctrine/ motivated by bourgeois interests with a basic grasp of common sense) or nationalist interests (in the Austro-Hungarian Empire for example).

[Jimmie Higgins]

Of the Second International Parties, I think the main ones that didn't support the war were the Italian and US socialist parties. The US decision may have had more to do with the US population's opposition to the war (before the US entered) and because there wasn't the pressure on the party to take a strong stand initially because the US was "neutral" at the beginning.

From what I understand, elsewhere anti-war socialists were only factions of the main parties (like in Germany) or splinters (like the Bolsheviks).

[Lenin1986]

James Connolly in Ireland opposed world war one.

[RedAnarchist]

All revolutionary leftists alive at the time, I would hope. The First World War was a disaster for the working classes of the world. So many young men killed hundreds of miles from home, including those murdered because they were thought to be cowardly deserters.

Capitalists and the ruling classes were the reason why WWI, and every other war, happened, but it is always the worker who has to fight in the trenches.

[Blake's Baby]

In the UK: the SPGB; the majority of the SLP; a section of the BSP (the majority probably) and the majority of the ILP.

Elsewhere, the Socialist Party in Serbia (don't know what its official title was) was one of the parties that actually held to the Second International's resolution (the 'Stuttgart Resolution' of 1907) that in the event of war, the task of socialists was to refuse to take up arms and instead work for the overthrow of the capitalist order.

There was also a section of the Dutch Socialists who opposed the war; like Italy (also neutral at that point) there were also pro-German and pro-Anglo-French factions.

And the majority of the Anarchists everywhere (except maybe France) also opposed the war.

[robbo203]

There were conscientious objectors, of course, and I think we should respect them. But I mean, who opposed it politically, from a revolutionary left standpoint?

Well, Lenin, obviously. But who else? What voices, if any, in each country tried to tell the workers it wasn't their war and that they should join with workers of other nations against the European ruling classes?

James.



The SPGB or Socialist Party of Great Britain was one. In fact it probably has the unique distinction of being the only revolutionary Party to oppose every other war since then as well (though I couldnt swear by that)

If you go to the archive section of the Socialist Standard circa 1914-18 there is some fascinating material to be found. Here's the link

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/archive

Very few organisations have a continuous record of publication going back so far and for that reason alone the site is worth noseying around - even if at times the prose in those early peices tends to be a bit on the purplish side!

[The Idler]

Here's an article from the SPGB at the time
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1910s/1914/no-23-november-1914/call-patriot

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

yeah, AFAIK the SPGB have always stood by the motto that "the only war is the Class War!"

[bricolage]

in the uk (and I'd imagine other countries but I don't know the facts), it's also good to look at the workers that took actions that while not necessarily from a consciously anti-war position broke through the veneer of 'national unity' and who refused to be sucked into the idea that the war effort did away with class divisions, a good example is this bus strike (http://libcom.org/history/london-transport-women-workers-strike-1918).

actually I got sent this today but haven't managed to read it yet, it looks interesting: http://libcom.org/history/british-west-indies-regiment-mutiny-1918

[Zukunftsmusik]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Army_Mutinies

Also remember reading in Gert Mak's Europe (fairly good introduction to european history - the written-like-an-essay-kind -, also made into a tv-series), about opposition at the front, with colourful descriptions of red flags waving on both sides of the no man's land etc., but I don't remember exaclty where and who and I don't have the book at hand.

[bcbm]

All revolutionary leftists alive at the time, I would hope.

your hope would be wrong, sadly. quite a few joined in the patriotic fervor when the war started, or found other excuses to cheer on the bloodbath.

[Ocean Seal]

I feel as if the question should read what non-revolutionaries opposed the war.

[Vanguard1917]

in the uk (and I'd imagine other countries but I don't know the facts), it's also good to look at the workers that took actions that while not necessarily from a consciously anti-war position broke through the veneer of 'national unity' and who refused to be sucked into the idea that the war effort did away with class divisions, a good example is this bus strike (http://libcom.org/history/london-transport-women-workers-strike-1918).

actually I got sent this today but haven't managed to read it yet, it looks interesting: http://libcom.org/history/british-west-indies-regiment-mutiny-1918

And the Etaples mutiny of British troops.

http://libcom.org/history/articles/etaples-mutiny-1917

[Red Clydesider]

A lot of good stuff here - parties and groups who opposed the war, some I knew about and some I didn't. I'll get back to this with more feedback.

James.

[Zukunftsmusik]

Opposition to the war was also of great importance to the outbreak of the German revolution. The whole thing pretty much started with the sailor's revolt in Kiel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailors%27_revolt_in_Kiel).

[RedCeltic]

When the United States entered the First World War, Which at the time was called the "European War" the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and the U.S. Congress had the Espionage Act of 1917 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917) Passed which made it illegal to interfere with Military operations, recruitment, and to promote insubordination among the military.

This act had been used later in 1918 when the American Socialist and Labor leader Eugene V. Debs who had previously ran for U.S. President and had formed the Socialist Party of America... made a famous speech called The Canton Ohio Anti War Speech (https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm) where he famously called the war an imperialist war. For this speech he was arrested and convicted of violation of the Espionage act and sentenced to ten years in prison. Debs had urged resistance to the draft and therefore was called a traitor by President Wilson.

During his trial Debs spoke for two hours and famously said the following:


Your honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the form of our present government; that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in the change of both but by perfectly peaceable and orderly means....
I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and factories; I am thinking of the women who, for a paltry wage, are compelled to work out their lives; of the little children who, in this system, are robbed of their childhood, and in their early, tender years, are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon, and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the machines while they themselves are being starved body and soul....
Your honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never more fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own.
When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the Southern Cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches the Southern Cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of Time upon the dial of the universe; and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing – that relief and rest are close at hand.
Let the people take heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

To protest his imprisonment there was a parade of unionists, socialists, communists and anarchists in Cleveland Ohio on May 1, 1919 which turned into a riot.

He ran for President while in Prison in Georgia and won 919,799 votes as a write in candidate.

He was later released from prison in 1921 by President Harding who commuted his sentence to "time served" having said the following:


"There is no question of his guilt....He was by no means as rabid and outspoken in his expressions as many others, and but for his prominence and the resulting far-reaching effect of his words, very probably might not have received the sentence he did. He is an old man, not strong physically. He is a man of much personal charm and impressive personality, which qualifications make him a dangerous man calculated to mislead the unthinking and affording excuse for those with criminal intent."[

[Geiseric]

Lenin, Trotsky, Eugene Debs, various anarchists, Luxembourg, Leibcnacht are the main people who I can remember who were against World War One. Obviously there were thousands and thousands later on who were against it, however the proletariat and peasantry bought the big lies in every country since in the beginning nobody thought it was going to be as bad as it turned out. The russian civil war is arguably an extension of world war one, since it started after the armistace between the central powers and entente were signed.

[Red Clydesider]

Thanks to robbo203 and The Idler for links to the SPGB archive. The article 'The Call of the Patriot' is heartbreaking to read, because it is simply true: working people were deceived into fighting and dying for causes that had nothing to do with them. If a majority of working people had been fully aware of this truth, there might have been mass refusals to fight. Instead, ruling-class propaganda spread among them like a plague.

I have one reservation about the SPGB article. This is splitting hairs, perhaps. It points to capitalism as 'the root evil' and cause of the war. Of course capitalists wanted war. But I'm very drawn to the 'Mayer Thesis' - the case argued by Arno Mayer in his book The Persistence of the Old Regime (Verso, 2010) that 'Europe's old order was thoroughly preindustrial and pre-bourgeois'. The men who actually began and pursued the war were essentially feudal monarchs.

Capitalism was well advanced in their time, but Wilhelm, Franz Josef and Nicholas - and their largely aristocratic advisors - did not make war on behalf of the bourgeoisie. They made war to maintain the power of the old European feudal aristocratic families, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs, and the Romanovs. Millions died so that dynasties could maintain their absurd hereditary right to rule. The irony is that in every case - most completely in the case of the Romanovs - it was their last stand.

James.

[Red Clydesider]

Thanks to Red Celtic for the Debs quote, which is inspiring.

On Serbia, I believe it was the Social Democratic Party which opposed the war. After a quite extensive internet search, however, I can find very little info about it. Not even in the Marxists Internet Archive. It must exist somewhere.

[Red Commissar]

Even though he was a reformist, Jean Jaures in France was resolutely opposed to the war. He was assassinated by a right-wing nationalist in response to the anti-war statements and rallies he made. He was passionate in this respect from a pacifistic perspective, but this had apparently earned the ire of right-wingers in France judging from how the jury didn't find his murderer guilty. Interestingly his radical counterpart, Jules Guesde, ended up becoming a supporter of France's involvement in the war alongside the SFIO's position of cooperating with the government.

The Italian Socialist Party as a whole for example opposed Italy's involvement in the war, but there were instances like that of Mussolini where some of these guys abandoned the party to pursue the war. Mussolini's case was the most surprising to party members at the time, as he had been arguably the most visible of the radical Maximalist faction of that party and had built up a reputation of opposing imperialism after leading the movement to protest Italy's war in Libya.

In hindsight we see early signs of Mussolini's changing political views, but still it did come as a shock when he began publishing articles in the party paper advocating for support for the war on the grounds of "liberating Italian workers" or some mess like that. Tried to reason that French and British interests were more progressive and that states like Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottomans were reactionary and thus holding back the march towards socialism.

Pretty much anyone that was involved with the Zimmerwald Conference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmerwald_Left) and other subsequent neutrality conferences is among the anti-war group too. It's unfortunate though, of those who signed on the original platform I only recognize names like Lenin, Zinoviev, and Radek. The others I've heard of but only in passing, it is unfortunate they ended up going into obscurity or dying off after World War I (and in some cases, purged...).