Life against lies

The marionettes now strutting on the political stage—Chamberlain or Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier, Roosevelt, Stalin, Attlee, Eden or Cripps—are all moved by King Capital: he pulls the strings, they all dance at his command and step when and where he pleases.

The megaphones of Moscow blare, the trumpets of Nazism resound, the Press publishes its putrid lies, the radio speaker delivers his patriotic appeals, the bands play their military airs—all in order that the exploiter may remain enthroned—all in order, brother in toil, that a. parasitic class may continue to live by devouring the lives of you and yours.

If you realise the truth, of your position, you will refuse to be hoodwinked by any call to patriotism made to induce you to protect capitalist interests.

You will line up with those who have seen the light. You will voice the demand that the people in common shall commonly own and democratically control and operate all those things upon which they in common depend.

It is life we want, not death. When the means of life are “ours,” fellow worker—the life that is life shall be yours.

(From “Don’t die for Capitalism : Live for socialism”, SOCIALIST STANDARD, April 1939)