WORLD POLITICS AND ETHIOPIA

Proving by life itself that capitalism is the generator of imperialist war, Mussolini's black shirt legions have entered upon a "little colonial" expedition.

First Adowa is bombed, and after ten days of conflict, 10,000 are reported among the war dead. "Civilization must proceed!" Dutifully Fascism shoulders the "white man's burden" and drags forth tanks, planes, poison gas, and every accoutrement to the "civilizing" process. War may be to man what maternity is to woman (Mussolini) but according to Marcel Griaule, League of Nations authority on internal Ethiopian conditions, if Haile Selassie's warriors take up their paternal aptitudes with any considerable zeal, it will all end too badly for Il Duce's rule. Griaule declares: "Abyssinia on its mettle against an intruder, equals fifty Moroccos ... An imperial declaration of war mobilizes even the child at its mother's breast, even the child on its mother's back. Hundreds of thousands of men only too happy to be allowed to fight would appear from nowhere, from the soil they know so well, and of which they could use every nook and cranny against an enemy ignorant of the lay of the land and who has against him climate and altitude, malaria in the plains and air-sickness in the tablelands."

But more than the victory or defeat of the Italian invasion hinges on the turn of events. Nazi Germany prepares for a swoop on Austria,¹ and the Nipponese militarists get set for further penetration of China and eventual entry into Soviet Siberia. The whole equilibrium of peace may be kicked over in the march on Addis Ababa if the aggressor is not effectively opposed. Which course of action shall be pursued by the peoples desiring peace? In what direction shall they urge their government? We can discover solutions only on closer analysis of the alignments of the several powers in the international scene.

Great Britain

London's foreign policy is based on consideration of home and foreign tactics. She has been most aggressive in urging resistance to Italy's war because:

1. The English people through the peace balloting several months ago showed that it would be dangerous for Premier Baldwin to for-sake the League.
2. Britain's attempts to maintain her role as arbiter between France and Germany and her leadership in determining continental policy would be weakened if the Geneva institution, in which she plays a leading role, were revealed as impotent and of no consequence in the present crisis.²
3. England by virtue of her position as ruler over more than 430,000,000 of the colonial peoples, is greatly concerned over the possible effect the Ethiopian people's defense would have on the independence movements. Foreign Secretary Hoare has admitted that "outside Europe the effect would be no less deplorable. For a generation past, we in Great Britain and our friends in France have engaged in a wise and generous policy of eliminating issues between the white and colored races ... a war that claimed to be a war between the white and colored races would throw intolerable obstacles into this path." Beneath the diplomatic phraseology we see the fear of the liberation aspirations of India, Southwest Africa, Egypt, and other colonies.
4. The most important reason consists in the fact that were Italy to secure domination in Ethiopia as a result of the present invasion, thus becoming a power in North East Africa, the English grip on her colonies in the event of a future world imbroglio would be endangered. The semi-official Daily Telegraph of July 25 comments on this point: "British interests are believed here to be vitally involved not only in the Nile waters ... but in Signor Mussolini's future policy."

England knows that Mussolini has a larger purpose in mind in pursuing his African expedition than mere subjugation of Ethiopia. By strengthening her position on the Red Sea—basic line of communication between London and her colonies—Rome secures a hold which permits her to employ Ethiopia as a lever in that repartitionment of the world which Mussolini believe to be inevitable.

France

Paris' stand is determined by her all-obsessing fear of Hitler and by the desire to form a firm ring of allies engirdling Germany to oppose any "drang" outward. Laval in January of this year pledged support to Il Duce's colonial adventures in return for a promise of support against the Nazis. Plighting the troth, a strip of French Somaliland was ceded to Italy together with a small share in the Paris-owned Jibuti-Addis Ababa railroad. (P. Taittinger, President of the Colonial Commission of the Chamber of Deputies voiced his approval by declaring: "Sacrifice for sacrifice.")

The conclusion in June of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement giving free rein for Berlin to construct a powerful navy proved England's doubtful value in the anti-German front. The Anglo-German agreement, which has been construed as a definite threat to French security, confirmed Laval in seeking out Italy as an ally.

Other considerations, however, are also impelling France to support the Covenant of the League. For such action creates a precedent for application of international penalties (sanctions) against Hitler when his long-delayed push gets under way. This is what lies behind Laval's feverish negotiations with Hoare. Before Italy is opposed, definite assurance of British support must compensate France for the loss of Italy as an ally. Laval's game is clearly proven by his answer of October 7, reported in The New York Times of October 8, to London interrogation on backing the League: "The projected assistance obligation linking the two governments must be reciprocal, that is to say, it must obligate Britain toward France as well as France toward Britain."

Italy

Aided by the rapprochement with Laval and moved by a rapidly growing catastrophic internal situation, the black shirt dictator "sounded the solemn hour in the history of our fatherland."

He has plunged ahead into war, spurning Britain's conciliatory offer of a strip of territory of West Abyssinia, cynically declaring: "I am not a collector of deserts."³

Italy is much chagrined at the opposition she has encountered. She asserts she is getting a raw deal by her one-time allies. According to the terms of the 1915 secret treaty, the provisions of which drew her into the war against the Central Powers, she had been promised that: "In the event of France and Great Britain increasing their colonial territories in Africa at the expense of Germany, these two powers agree in principle that Italy may claim some equitable compensation, particularly as regards the settlement in her favor of the question relating to the frontiers of the Italian colonies of Eritrea, Somaliland and Lybia ... "

But agreement in principle has meant rejection in practice.

While England and France grabbed off the best stretches of the German colonial empire, Italy's efforts to get ahead were suppressed. This accounts for the tearful appeals to the "best people" of the former allies, begging them not to place obstacles in Il Duce's path.

Italy has been forced to disregard international law because there exists for the Fascist government no other alternative. Peasant riots for land and against oppressive taxes, the working class indignation against the near-catastrophic depression in the standard of living are forcing Mussolini's hand. The world crisis came quite early to this no-longer so-sunny country. The total volume of foreign trade has shrunk disastrously to less than one-third (from 44,500,000,00o lire in 1925 to 13.000,000,000 lire in 1934). The public debt has skyrocketed, while the gold and foreign currency resources have dwindled from 12,000,000,000 lire in 1929 to slightly more than 7.500,000,000 lire last year. The fervent appeals, then, of Mussolini, for "glorious" exploits in the mountainous passes of Ethiopia, are reduced to tragic search for a solution to the crisis of Italian capitalist economy.⁴

The Soviet Union

"Peace is indivisible." This is the stand of the Socialist Republic. Disruption of the status quo by military action in one sphere will be conducive to similar disruption in other parts, it states. Therefore, the maintenance now of the League authority is necessary to create a precedent for the future, when it may need to invoke again the same authority successfully. Litvinoff, speaking in the name of the Soviet delegation before the Council, declared that: "Other than military means can be found for advancing backward nations, influencing their life, and raising civilization." This in answer to the Italian plea for unhindered aggression. In a later speech of September 14, he defined the attitude in principle of the Soviet government towards conflict of this kind. "As you know, the Soviet government is opposed in principle to the system of colonies, to the policies of spheres of influence, to anything pertaining to imperialist aims. For the Soviet delegation there is only a question of defending the Covenant of the League as an instrument of peace. The instrument has already been damaged by previous attempts, and we cannot allow a new attempt which would put it completely out of work. We may need it more than once and probably on still more serious occasions." (Italics mine)

This position has been applauded by the Ethiopian people. The chief of the Ethiopian delegation, Hawariate, said of Litvinoff's speech: "I think he spoke right ; what he speaks and does is sincere. I find him genuine."⁵

It is with and because of this line-up of rival imperialist systems headed by France and Great Britain, that the League of Nations is taking such slow action in first adjudging Italy the aggressor and then moving to apply collective sanctions against her. Fearful of Italian insurgency and its inevitable repercussions, England moves to crush her. France, although bound by "friendship" to Mussolini, moves obliquely against the Nazis, aiming always at insuring her own "security." Italy's African adventure, in giving encouragement to Germany, Hungary (Hitler's newly won ally) and Japan,⁶ all keen on upsetting the status quo even at the expense of the Versailles victors has aroused French and British opposition. As the numerous tripartite treaties provide, France and England would be willing to divide up Ethiopia and settle the whole disturbing affair. But Mussolini's intransigence and its repercussions have brought collective action on his head.

It is clear that these Geneva activities, motivated purely by imperialistic self-interest, except as in the case of the Soviets cannot constitute a lasting means of preserving world peace. It is undeniable, however, that in the international situation, collective sanctions do represent a certain impediment, slight as it is, in the course of the war-makers.

The only alternative to sanctions is: Let Mussolini make war. Objectors to the invoking of sanctions, in the name of peace (vice Premier Goemboes of Hungary in The New York Times of October 11: "In the application of sanctions against Italy we see a move not toward peace but toward fresh conflicts") will let Mussolini make war upon Ethiopia; in the name of peace, they will permit Hitler to make war upon Lithuania and Czechoslovakia; in the name of peace, they will allow the Nazis and Japan to make war upon the Soviet Union. It is this sort of "pacifism" which aids the war-makers.

Not only Italy and Goemboes, quoted above, have raised objections to the application of sanctions, Not only the Croix de Feu French Fascists, the Mosley blackshirts (and now the Hearst press in the United States) have raised fearful outcry in the name of "neutrality," demanding that their governments desert the League. Confused pacifists like George Lansbury, the deposed British Labor Party leader, turn their heads the other way and offer mythical solutions. He says: "Why cannot the British government go to a world economic conference and say: 'We are the greatest imperial nation in the world ; we are willing for the sake of peace and security to put it all at the service of mankind.' "

Then there are the labor apologists like Sir Stafford Cripps, also of the Labor Party, who whitewash Mussolini because: "How are the imperialistic peoples who seized Transvaal in Two to reply to Mussolini when he tries to seize Ethiopia by force in 1935? That historic precedents for imperialism exist aplenty is undeniable, but the English trade unions by voting to stop shipment of munitions to Italy and endorsing sanctions have refused to allow the traditions to be continued at the expense of world peace.

These gentlemen oppose sanctions. Sanctions mean war, they say. But war is under way. It is clear, thus, that it is not sanctions which mean war, but fascism and imperialism. In the concrete situation, sanctions mean obstacles to war, obstacles to Italian imperialism. Refusal of loans and complete boycott, it is understood, will deal a serious blow at Il Duce's war strategy, leading to the calling of a halt to the war. The financial editor of the World-Telegram, Ralph Hendershot, reported on October 14, that in the opinion of leading Wall Street economists "Italy will not be able to stand up for long against the economic sanctions which have been imposed against her by the League of Nations."

Support for sanctions means support of the imperialists invoking them, is a further objection. However, what is overlooked is that when the working class demands specific sanctions and puts them into effect through its own independent action, calling for the government to respond officially to the people's desire for peace, the demand assumes no responsibility for the aims of the government nor implies support for it. No more than when a group of workers, having won a wage increase by strike action can assume responsibilities for the aims of the employers, who have granted them concessions. Let us extend the understanding of the position I am here setting forth.

Only strong working class actions preventing the shipment of munitions and all goods to the aggressor country, simultaneous to government-enacted boycott, places these forces in a position whereby they can frustrate any attempts on the part of their government: 1) to turn sanctions into an imperialist war (England against Italy), or 2) to drop sanctions and proceed to a robber agreement for partitionment of Ethiopia ... Passivity on the part of the American people, then, means playing into the hands of the forces making for war. Vigorous activity in support of all actions making for the maintenance of the embargo on Italian shipments and the lifting of the embargo on Ethiopia is the only possible, realistic solution to the war danger when our lives are at stake.

For the American government in proclaiming its "neutrality" to fail to draw a distinction between the aggressor and the victim, declaiming from on high, "A plague on both your houses," means giving encouragement to the Fascist war inciters, to all those who wish to sever the peace. The slogan, "Defend Ethiopian a recognition of the indivisibility of peace, in the final analysis, means preventing future war, means preventing the entanglement of the United States in another war. The rendering of medical aid and funds to Ethiopia, contributing to the defense of that country, while calling for no loans, no shipments to Italy, means bringing about the military defeat of an aggressor country, means bringing about the establishment of peace.

I am aware that the position outlined above will meet opposition in some quarters. Yet we can all agree on a common program of no loans, no materials, no arms to Italy. This must be translated into terms of common action.

For it is out of the present crisis that alignments for a Second World War are taking shape. Our doom is being prepared; only our united force can checkmate the incendiaries from pushing us headlong into catastrophe.