“On the Paris Peace Conference. 1919” in “Class Warrior”
On the Paris Peace Conference 1919
This article by Kingsley originally appeared in his short-lived newspaper, the Labor Star, in February 1919 and was republished in the Australian labour press in May 1919.
In the following article, E. T. Kingsley—the veteran Canadian socialist—handles a topical subject in his usual masterly manner, and reveals the hypocritical pretences of the international statesmen gathered at Paris at what, for want of a better name, is called a “Peace Congress.”
An International Madhouse
Some months have elapsed since the signing of the armistice. The dogs of war are supposed to be in leash and the dove of peace is expected to again hover over the scene. Alleged statesmen of mighty calibre have been for some time foregathered at the victor’s banquet board, presumably for the purpose of refurbishing the dove’s plumage and renovating dovecote that have been badly ruffled and befouled by the ruling class family row of the last four and a-half years.
Sometimes this gathering in Paris is jocularly termed a “Peace Congress,” but captious critics who claim to have peeped through the keyhole assert that the performance thereat bears a much more striking resemblance to a conclave of pickpockets, porch climbers, bandits, and burglars assembled for the profound purpose of dividing the loot and apportioning the plunder, than it does to a show having anything to do with “peace,” unless it is to demonstrate its utter impossibility.
While no sin of governments during the past has been more loudly condemned and raucously execrated by the disciples of hypocrisy and deceit, whose mission has been to stir up so much fog and confusion about the cause of the recent bloodletting that the common herd would be unable to arrive at any clear understanding of that cause, than the sin of “secret diplomacy,” it is worthy of note that no greater secrecy could be thrown about the deliberations of this alleged “Peace Congress” if it was actually a gathering of bandits to divide the plunder or lay plans for a future raid.
What Guarantee Is There of Peace?
Even supposing that the “Peace Congress” does in due time conclude its deliberations and a peace is signed, have we any assurance that peace will prevail? Is there anything in the world situation today that makes peace at all possible? From every quarter comes tales of increasing unrest and discontent among the working people. It becomes each day more and more impossible for the masters to find employment for their slaves, and without employment there can be neither quiet nor content.
Ruling class industry in its very highest development has been emphatically demonstrated during the last four years. The mightiest production of ruling class essentials the world ever saw took place during that time. Never before upon such a grand scale was the function of class rule so clearly demonstrated; never was ruling class efficiency and the superlative excellence of its industrial and governing mechanism so convincingly expressed as during that glorious period. No such stupendous slaughter and devastation was ever pulled off before; never was there a more complete justification of class rule staged in all human history; never were the splendid possibilities of human slaughter by the machine method more magnificently exemplified; never was there such a striking comparison drawn between the productive power and “kultur” of the primitive and barbaric past and that of Christian civilization.
The End of Class Rule
But this grand triumph of ruling class industrialism and its methods registers the beginning of the end of class rule and class robbery. The huge mechanism of ruling class industry, the eventual and ultimate purpose of which has been so magnificently disclosed during the years just passed, can no longer be made to function as the mechanism of peaceful industry. The whole fabric of industrialism is falling to pieces.
Made and finally perfected for the sole purpose of slaughter and devastation, once the huge task of the last years is finished, once the grand culmination of all ruling class “aspirations” has been attained in the complete triumph of capitalist civilization over its feudal forebear from whose loins it sprung, the mechanism breaks down. That which has been created purely for the purpose of war, slaughter and devastation cannot be used as the foundation for an edifice of peace.
Capitalism in a Dilemma
In spite of the fact that some hundreds of millions of slaves were turned from the production of the really essential things of life and their every energy expended in killing, maiming and destroying upon a scale hitherto undreamed of, there has yet been sufficient of those essential things produced to satisfy all reasonable demands. And now that the slaughter has at least momentarily ceased and the machinery thereof is no longer kept going full tilt, the ruling class world is thrown into a veritable jimjams of turmoil, strife and revolutionary action growing out of the inability of rulers and masters to turn their enginery of slaughter and rapine to the requirements of peace.
Evidently the industrial mechanism so-called that has been devised and designed to promote slaughter, devastation and waste, cannot be turned to the production of the essential things of life and the inauguration of an era of peace, plenty and fraternity. War, bloody and destructive, is the highest achievement of which ruling class civilization is apparently capable. In world-wide war the ruling class attains its final goal. Its supreme mission has been realized in the last four years. Senile decay swiftly follows, and its civilization becomes an international madhouse. Can one arrive at any other conclusion after taking careful survey of the world situation as it is to-day?
—“An International Madhouse,” Australian Worker (Sydney), 22 May 1919, 15; originally published in the Labor Star (Vancouver), 27 Feb. 1919, 4–5.
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