Several years before the hostilities officially broke out, Trotsky explains the coming second imperialist slaughter--World War II--including the relationship among the competing imperialist powers, the position of the weaker capitalist nations, and the response to these events by pacifist forces. Copyright © 1970 and 1978 by Pathfinder Press, reprinted by permission.
BY LEON TROTSKY
Each day the press peers out toward the world horizon, looking for smoke and flames. In order to draw up a list of the possible hearths of war, it would be necessary to refer to a whole primer of geography. At the same time, international antagonisms are so complicated and confused that no one can predict the point at which the war will break out, not to speak of the alignments of the belligerent parties. There will be shooting, but who will shoot at whom, nobody knows....
The situation is still further complicated by the middle and small states. They are like heavenly satellites, not knowing around which planet they should revolve. Poland is allied with France on paper, but in practice collaborates with Germany. Rumania formally belongs to the Little Entente but is drawn by Poland, not unsuccessfully, into the orbit of German-Italian influence. Belgrade’s growing rapprochement with Rome and Berlin evokes ever-increasing anxiety not only in Prague but also in Bucharest. On the other hand, Hungary fears, with complete justification, that her territorial aspirations will be the first to fall victim to the friendship between Berlin, Rome, and Belgrade.
They all want peace, especially those who can expect no good from war: the Balkan countries, the little Baltic states, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, the Scandinavian states. Their ministers come together at conferences, conclude agreements, and make speeches about peace. The whole thing resembles a puppet show on the crater of a volcano. Not one of the minor powers will be allowed to remain on the sidelines. They will all shed blood. The idea which only yesterday seemed absurd, that the Scandinavian countries might fight among themselves, is today becoming a probability. Germany need only find support in Sweden, and Great Britain in Denmark, and the Scandinavian "sisters" will discover themselves in antagonistic camps. On the condition, naturally, that Great Britain and Germany fight each other.
Pacifism, fascism, and war
It was not long ago that pacifists of various stripes believed or pretended to believe that a new war could be prevented with the aid of the League of Nations, show congresses, referendums, and other theatrical enterprises, the majority of which were financed from the budget of the USSR. What has remained of these illusions? Of the seven great powers, three--the United States, Japan, and Germany--are out of the League of Nations; a fourth, Italy, is destroying the League from within. The other three find it ever less necessary to cover their special interests with the League label. The melancholy partisans of the Geneva institution, yesterday the "hope of mankind," have reached the conclusion that the only way to "save" the League consists in not confronting it with any important questions. In 1932, when the famous disarmament conference was opened, the European armies numbered 3,200,000 men. In 1936, this number had already risen to 4,500,000 and continued to grow uninterruptedly. What has happened to Lord Cecil’s referendums?1 Who will receive the next Nobel Peace Prize? The Geneva disarmament policy has ceased to be even a worthy object of caricature.
War and revolution
In war, the big and the strong obtain predominance over the small and the weak. Geographical location, territorial dimensions, size of population, resources of war materials, reserves of gold, and technology assure the United States of a tremendous predominance over other countries. If one admits that the world war will proceed to its natural end, that is, to the complete exhaustion of the belligerent camps, one cannot escape the conclusion that domination over our planet will fall to the lot of the United States. However, domination over decadence and destruction, over hunger, epidemics, and savagery would inevitably signify the decline of America’s own civilization. To what extent is such a perspective real? A protracted decay of humanity as a result of the new war is not excluded. But fortunately it is not the only prospect. Long before the mutual destruction of peoples has proceeded to its end, the political and social machinery of each country will be put to the test. The work of war may be cut short by revolution.
I am little inclined to share the hope that the proletariat will be able at the necessary moment to resist with force the commencement of war operations. On the contrary, in the months of approaching war danger as well as during the first period of war, the masses will be dominated by centripetal, patriotic tendencies with the force of a natural reflex. This applies to classes and national groups within the various states as well as, for example, to the component parts of the British empire. But the further progress of war, with its train of destitution, savagery, and despair, will of necessity not only regenerate but also develop to the extreme all frictions, antagonisms, and centrifugal tendencies, which sooner or later will find their expression in insurrections and revolution. Even in this case, naturally, war remains the worst misfortune which can befall humanity. But the earlier the masses of the people make an end of it, the more easily will humanity’s self-inflicted wounds heal....
Since a new war of nations will start where the old one left off, the extermination of human lives and the expenditure of war materials will, from the very beginning, be several times greater than at the beginning of the last war, and will at the same time have a tendency to further rapid increase. The tempos will be more feverish, the destructive forces more grandiose, the distress of the population more unbearable. There is consequently every reason to expect that the mass reaction will begin, not after two and a half years, as in czarist Russia, nor after a little more than four years, as in Germany and Austria-Hungary, but considerably earlier. But a definite answer to the question of dates can naturally be given only by events themselves.