If Mary E. Marcy was anything, she was a combatant in the class war. Here she writes the editorial for the first ISR of that earthshaking year of 1917. With the world at war and the United States preparing to enter it, Mary Marcy does not counsel pacifism, rather she urges workers to embrace the ‘fighting instinct’ being called forth, not in the service of imperialist war, but in their own interests as an international class against the war.

‘The Fighting Instinct’ by Mary E. Marcy from the International Socialist Review. Vol. 16 No. 7. January, 1917.

SOME people believe that Organization is the greatest thing in the world. They point to the German military organization to prove their contention. They refer to the German Social Democracy. But we do not agree with them.

Organization, unless it does something — unless it acts, means nothing. Perhaps man’s natural tendency to fight is the greatest of all his heritages. Some of us see this. We know that it is man’s natural tendency to satisfy his hunger, to seek shelter, and to perpetuate the species. But he has to fight for an opportunity to do these things.

From savagery to civilization it has been the tribes, and later, the nations, which have known how to fight that have survived. The weak and peaceful tribes met the strong and warlike hordes and were annihilated.

And the old law holds good today even as it did a hundred thousand years ago; the weak man, the peaceful man, goes down in the struggle and the strong survive.

The strong continue to take from the weak and grow stronger with every theft, for men learn to fight, by fighting, and men grow strong to fight, by fighting.

Civilized man today is governed almost as much by the things he has learned and the habits he has formed, as by his natural instincts and tendencies. Our natural instinct, when we are hungry, is to satisfy that hunger — and yet hundreds of thousands of starving men and women pass and repass every day, wagon loads, and train loads, of food which they do not touch.

The habit of respecting Private Property in them has grown stronger than the old instinct to eat and to live. Historically, it has been only recently that man learned to work, to apply himself for hours at a time to any given task. He did not take naturally to work. His instincts were all against application. And yet we see some people so far losing this instinct for idleness and for play that they actually beg to be allowed to perform work in their old age that they had rebelled against and loathed in their youth.

Most of man’s original tendencies, or instincts, serve to preserve the human race. But these instincts may become so suppressed in childhood and in youth by the long and painful efforts of their parents, teachers and employers, as well as their governments, that some of them cease to function.

Habit may become so fixed that it will prove even stronger than the instinct to eat when we are hungry; this is why hundreds of thousands of people go about in a semistarved condition from one year’s end to another.

The working class of the world is increasingly exploited by the owning classes. And man’s original tendency today is to fight over the food, the clothing, etc., etc., just as primitive men fought for the results of the chase centuries ago.

And the owning class, or capitalist class, is today fighting for more and ever more of the things produced by the workers. The Class Struggle is the every-day struggle of the workers and the idlers for the products of the workers.

The capitalist, or owning class, is appropriating these things today. Who is going to have them tomorrow?

We believe the class that fights most steadily. For as soon as the workers pause to rest, cease to fight and to demand more and ever more of their products, or the value of their products, the stronger grows the capitalist class.

And every time the capitalist class grows lazy or careless, the workers will, if they continue to fight, gain more of the things they make.

Peaceful habits, in their association with the capitalist or employing class, will mean lower wages, longer hours, more abject slavery for the workers. Fighting habits, habits of rebellion, among the working class will mean more strength to fight, more wisdom on how to fight, more desire to fight — the capitalist system which robs them.

Some of us love the rare, nice little boys who refuse to fight when they are playing. We reward these boys with candy and words of praise; and we punish the children who fight. This is the general attitude of parents today. This is the attitude of teachers today. We punish those who possess the fighting spirit when we should reward or encourage them.

Boys are young fighting animals and we may either start the long period of suppression of this natural and vital instinct in their early years or encourage it.

The thing we should do is to teach our children and the youths about us, and the working class in general everywhere, to fight in their own interest; we should show them that to fight in their own interest means to fight the present profit system.

The instinct to fight for what we need is what the working class must encourage today and tomorrow, and the next day. We shall never get anything from the exploiting class unless we fight for it. When we have the intelligence to fight unitedly, and only then, can we ever hope to win a victory over the capitalist class.

As long as we only go about whining, and talking and regretting the condition of the working class, we shall never gain one foot of ground against our exploiters. Every time we rebel and fight for more of the things we produce, we learn new ways for more effective fighting, we grow more in the habit of fighting, we become better prepared to meet the next attack of the enemy.

Every time we meekly permit a further encroachment by the employing class we are building up habits of submission that will be all the more difficult to overcome when we do engage the enemy.

It is not today the capitalist class that holds the working class of the world in subjection, but the habits of inaction, of turning the other cheek, of submission on the part of the workers themselves.

The capitalist class exploits you because you have not fought often enough, hard enough nor regularly enough to learn how to fight. And they are going to keep right on exploiting you until you become a great worldwide fighting organization of the working class. And remember-

An ounce of fighting rebellion today will mean a pound of revolt tomorrow.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v17n07-jan-1917-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf