Under indictment for sedition, Debs greets the end of the barbarism of the First World War with an appeal for the movement to organize for revolutionary Socialist, international, reconstruction.

‘The War is Over’ by Eugene V. Debs from Ohio Socialist. No. 45. December 4, 1918.

WE MUST NOW ORGANIZE

The war is over, the political campaign is ended, and now what? The greatest work ever cut out for it now confronts the working class and issues its challenge to the Socialist movement.

The world is now ready for the workers, but are the workers ready for the world?

That is the great question of the day and its answer will shape the future and determine the destiny of the race for another generation and perhaps another century.

The choice the workers of the world now have to make is between capitalist despotism and Socialist freedom; between wage-slavery and industrial democracy. Their masters and exploiters are of course uniformly for capitalism and slavery and it naturally follows that their press, their pulpit, their political henchmen and their retainers on the bench, at the bar, in school and college and every other social institution, are for the same program.

Against this powerful and hitherto impregnable combination, the workers of every nation have contended in vain, the only result of the beating of their wings against the bars of their industrial prison being to obtain a few paltry concessions from their masters, and these were served to placate discontent and silence protest except upon the part of the small minority of revolutionary Socialists who have kept the agitation alive and who have persistently demanded the overthrow of capitalism and the destruction of wage-slavery, thereby incurring the hatred of not only the master class but of the very slaves by whose side they toiled and for whose liberation they were battling as well as their own, knowing that the solidarity of their class, at whatever cost to themselves, was the price of liberation.

And now these revolutionary Socialists, these “undesirable citizens” in the eyes of the thieving profiteers and exploiters, looking backward over the past, especially the last four years, are asking the workers of the world if they are prepared to take their masters at their word–the masters of all nations who united in the battle cry of “Democracy”–and establish democracy, real democracy throughout the world.

The profiteers, plutocrats and pirates who constitute the ruling class of every nation on earth, under the present system of capitalism all shouted in unison that the war was for “Democracy” and now let their exploited slaves who outnumber them twenty to one, proceed to carry out the purpose for which the deluge of blood was shed in the war, the purpose which justified the war and made it a patriotic and humane war according to the aristocratic and plutocratic masters–let the toilers, peasants and soldiers, the common people, the useful people who operate the mills, till the soil and harvest the crops, delve in the mines, sail the ships and perform all other necessary social service, let them now unite to carry out the program of the war as announced by the masters and establish the democratic commonwealth in every nation on earth.

The extent to which the workers will succeed or fail in carrying out this program will be determined by the extent to which they are industrially and politically organized. Without organization or with organization that is either lacking in revolutionary spirit and purpose or entirely reactionary, there is no hope. The revolution may be precipitated by the forces underlying society, but the workers will be in no position to take advantage of it and install themselves in power, thereby achieving their freedom and enjoying its blessings for soon, very soon the counter-revolution will throw their unorganized, undisciplined ranks into confusion and dismay and drown their revolution in their own blood.

Now, as never before, the working class have their opportunity to free themselves from the bondages of the ages and walk the earth its sovereign rulers. If they fail and sink back into the slavery which existed before the war and still exists, the catastrophe will be due entirely to e lack of revolutionary industrial and political organization.

In Germany the workers are at this hour face to face with their immediate fate and their future destiny. At the beginning of the war the great majority failed the cause and were swept into the torrent of militarism and reaction. Their weakness, to put it mildly, destroyed the International and created bitter disappointment in Socialist circles throughout the world.

Will the German workers measure up in the supreme crisis and stand as staunchly for Socialism and democracy now as they weakly yielded to capitalism and militarism in 1914?

Will they follow the brave and inspiring examples of their Russian comrades and scorn compromise in every form, determined to survive or perish with their revolutionary principles?

Shall it be Liebknecht or Scheidemann? It cannot be both. These two elements will not mix. It must be one or the other. Let us hope there is no real basis for doubt as to which it will be. Scheidemann in any form means death to the revolution. A thousand times rather that the revolution should perish with Liebknecht than survive with Scheidemann!

But to return to the question of organization. That is the question with which we are at this hour most vitally concerned.

The late elections were in some respects disappointing because our party has for the past year been harassed, persecuted and all but crushed in the military despotism created by the war. Under all the circumstances the showing was not only all that could be reasonably expected but in some sections the party more than held its own and gave gratifying evidence that it had not been demoralized by the war but that on the other hand its power, prestige and purpose were undiminished and that as soon as the rigors of the despotic laws were relaxed the party would take a fresh start and move onward toward greater victories than it had yet achieved.

So there is not the slightest cause for discouragement. We have lost nothing and we have gained much. The people are now far readier for Socialism than they ever were before. We have but to proceed without delay to build up our organization, revive our press and our propaganda, and prepare for the great work of industrial and social reconstruction that confronts the world. The Socialist Party, to be the factor it should be in this stupendous task, must be strong in number, in self-discipline and in the Socialist spirit, and it must have clear understanding of its high purpose.

Now is the time for every Socialist to serve as builder.

To build the party is to mould the future.

The industrial and social democracy will not be dreamed into existence, not voted into power. It will have to be organized and to that supreme historic task we must give ourselves patiently, persistently and understandingly with all our hearts and all our souls.

Let us all unite as we never have before and build together in unison and harmony the Socialist Party that it may rise to power, fulfill its historic mission to emancipate the working class and bring democracy and peace to the world.

The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from January, 1917 to November, 1919. It was edited by Alfred Wagenknecht Wagenknecht spent most of 1918 in jail for “violation of the Conscription Act.” The paper grew from a monthly to a semi-monthly and then to a weekly in July, 1918 and eventually a press run of over 20,000. The Ohio Socialist Party’s endorsement of the Left Wing Manifesto led to it suspension at the undemocratic, packed Socialist Party Convention in 1919. As a recognized voice of the Left Wing, the paper carried the odd geographical subheading, “Official Organ of the Socialist Parties of Ohio and Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and New Mexico” by 1919’s start. In November of that year the paper changed to the “labor organ” of the Communist Labor Party and its offices moved to New York City and its name changed to The Toiler, a precursor to the Daily Worker. There the paper was edited by James P. Cannon for a time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/ohio-socialist/045-dec-04-1918-ohio-soc.pdf