tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post7222117630505923951..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Why the Great War Was Not StoppedPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-25761267118809521632014-08-08T10:50:43.388+01:002014-08-08T10:50:43.388+01:00Yes, 'perish the thought', but a German do...Yes, 'perish the thought', but a German dominated Europe based solely on German ideals is not the same as a German led(?) EU based on collective agreements and majorities.<br />Any future fiscal ideals coming out of a EU will be only agreed upon and to build on agreed monetary principles (of which an Independent Scotland cannot challenge(!).<br />Pre war Germany was a modelled on the military resulting in a military Dictatorship. It was the withdrawn (not beaten) German army which formed the right wing Frieekorps which sought out and murdered Rosenberb to order.<br />They were later swallowed up into Rhoem's SA, which was then swallowed up into Hitler's regular army or SS.Gary Elsbynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-74325233361696274222014-08-06T17:30:49.121+01:002014-08-06T17:30:49.121+01:00"Agreeing it was motive should not imply agre..."Agreeing it was motive should not imply agreeing with the motive anon."<br /><br />But you have just implied that this is what I was implying, when it wasn't!<br /><br />Please see Wittgenstein!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-39590428084865780742014-08-06T10:36:14.890+01:002014-08-06T10:36:14.890+01:00Maybe the Great War was not stopped simply because...Maybe the Great War was not stopped simply because no-one wanted it stopping.<br />The German's wanted an Empire to match Great Britain and in turn, Great Britain was having no rival on it's doorstep.<br />The key decision to go to war was certainly the German capture of Channel Ports (The German Ocean).<br />We were having none of that.<br />I am of the belief that the death of an Arch Duke was a smoking gun with very little concern for us over here.<br />The German navy was modelled on the British one and matching it day by day.<br />The Japanese Navy, of which we built on our design went on to challenge the US for Pacific supremacy of which they were having none either and thus starving Japan of oil and raw materials, hence their decision to invade China.Gary Elsbynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-52151988995152896862014-08-05T22:11:36.787+01:002014-08-05T22:11:36.787+01:00Agreeing it was motive should not imply agreeing w...Agreeing it was motive should not imply agreeing with the motive anon. See Phil's most recent post. Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-40014599405518251052014-08-05T16:58:10.605+01:002014-08-05T16:58:10.605+01:00"but i agree the prospect of a German-dominat..."but i agree the prospect of a German-dominated Europe was motive enough to intervene."<br /><br />Perish the thought!<br /><br />"The Trotskyist account of leadership betrayal does not fly."<br /><br />Trotsky spent his life spreading lies about the Bolshevik regime, though I sympathise very much more with Trotsky's position you can understand why Stalin couldn't omit the word scum from every sentence he wrote about the Tortskyists!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-1031924761794479002014-08-05T15:45:29.300+01:002014-08-05T15:45:29.300+01:00I'm sure you re right when you say the British...I'm sure you re right when you say the British government acted "to prevent French and Belgian channel ports from becoming German naval bases". I'm not sure why tou regard that as senseless from the point of the British government, or even of the average British worker.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-83997658553471947862014-08-05T10:13:57.127+01:002014-08-05T10:13:57.127+01:00Well worth reading Marc Mulholland's new essay...Well worth reading Marc Mulholland's new essay, if you haven't already.<br /><br />https://www.academia.edu/7815499/Marxists_of_Strict_Observance_The_Second_International_National_Defence_and_the_Question_of_WarChris Brookehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10519945225106590571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-63536632992448795212014-08-05T07:03:37.975+01:002014-08-05T07:03:37.975+01:00Well put. Indeed if you go further back to pre cap...Well put. Indeed if you go further back to pre capitalist UK - there was not the same identification of ordinary folk with the military, etc, which was regarded with suspicion and occasionally contempt. <br /><br />The developed capitalist state of 1914 rode in to war on a wave of Victorian propaganda. In a sense it also provided the great mass of males the chance to escape their dreary lives and "live the dream" of that propaganda, and their wives to be shot of them - there were many reports of female drunkenness once their men had gone off to war.<br /><br />I'm not convinced policy makers experienced the same enthusiasm, but i agree the prospect of a German-dominated Europe was motive enough to intervene. Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-67077072886841890472014-08-05T06:59:10.642+01:002014-08-05T06:59:10.642+01:00Phil,
A good summary. It should also be noted th...Phil,<br /><br />A good summary. It should also be noted that even the Bolshevik Deputies in the Duma voted alongside the Mensheviks for a defencist position, and that position was adopted by Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev, prior to Lenin's return for exile.<br /><br />The Trotskyist account of leadership betrayal does not fly. The reality is that the leaders of the Socialist Parties were basically led into a defencist position by the masses. They could and should have held to a principled position, but they would have then been marginalised for the duration, and the likelihood is that the huge SPD, with all of its widespread social provision would have been dismantled.<br /><br />In actual fact, the position adopted by the German SPD was not that different from the position advocated by Engels earlier. Engels wrote that the socialist gains in Germany had to be defended, and said that if Germany was attacked "We should hit them with everything we have."<br /><br />I'm not sure I agree about Russia. The February Revolution was driven largely by despair, but as Trotsky points out, for the first two years of the revolution, it was a Peasant War. In large part it was driven by the same forces that sought to bring about a bourgeois revolution that had swept Europe in the previous century.<br /><br />The reason workers were swept along by war fever is essentially two-fold. Firstly, nationalism as an ideology has deeper roots than many on the left have been prepared to admit. Secondly, the main basis on which workers have been organised, i.e. for tarde union struggle, is, as Lenin points out itself divisive.<br /><br />Trade Union struggles, as he points out are not "class" struggles, but sectional struggles, and as such breed a sectional rather than class consciousness. Its why workers can so easily be diverted into solution that demand close their factor not ours, "British Jobs for British Workers", Import Controls, Immigration Controls, and a "British Road to Socialism".<br /><br />You are quite right about the Colonial profits too. The argument put by Lenin, and accepted since then, that WWI was a war to divide up the world between imperialist powers, is basically false. The same is true of WWII. Trotsky is closer to the mark when he spoke about if the kaiser had unified Europe, not demanding it be broken up.<br /><br />WWI, was about creating a single European state. Britain got involved to prevent it, just as they had opposed Napoleon's attempts to bring it about earlier. Britain's euroseptics are still fulfilling the same reactionary, obstructive role today. Boffyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08157650969929097569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-86033504808085101272014-08-04T22:56:31.002+01:002014-08-04T22:56:31.002+01:00Why do wars happen? Greed. And fear. And both the...Why do wars happen? Greed. And fear. And both these emotions are concerned with power and money. That's all. And they work away, until some accident - or contrivance, although people are seldom clever enough to contrive exactly - set them off into war. Then the justifications - liberty, patriotism, compassion, indignation, religion, even - come into play. But they aren't reasons. Money and power, they're what count. <br /><br />Of course liberty, patriotism etc. matter - nothing matters more. But money and power are what count.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18097624792336619525noreply@blogger.com