With these important Debs-penned editorials, among the first written after the outbreak of the First Imperialist World War in August, 1914, Debs immediately proclaims his total opposition to the fratricidal conflict; laments working-class acquiescence to their own destruction; denounces the historic betrayal of the Socialist Parties in preventing the cataclysm; and pays tribute to French comrade Jean Jaures.  A real mass workers leader, even if on the reformist wing, as well as a committed and consistent Socialist pacifist, however his principled anti-militarism and genuine mass popularity constituted a real threat to the French imperialist mobilization. He would be assassinated in a Parisian cafe on July 31, 1914 as Europe was racing into the abyss. In a footnote of justice, the assassin reactionary French nationalist Raoul Villain was acquitted of the well-observed, public execution. After which he would eventually flee to Spain’s Balearic Islands and hoped anonymity. It did not last. During the Spanish Civil War, in August, 1936, CNT troops landed in Ibiza to liberate the islands from the Fascist coup-plotters. Villain was detained as a suspected Fascist, and in a confrontation during his detention, the killer of Jaures was said to resist, shot and badly wounded. The anti-fascist militia barred any assistance to the wounded killer. After two days lying on the street, he died in the dirt.

‘The Furies Have Been Let Lose; Jaurès—Martyr to Peace’ by Eugene V. Debs from the National Ripsaw. Vol. 11 No. 17. September, 1914.

The War and the Workers–The Socialists and the War.

THE FURIES HAVE BEEN LET LOOSE.

For almost half a century the modern nations of Europe have been preparing for the titanic conflict to determine the supremacy of that continent. To outrival one another in military armament on both land and sea and to be prepared when the inevitable crisis came to grind one another to powder has been the high ambition and controlling purpose of all these powers since Germany tore Alsace and Lorraine from France at the close of the Franco-Prussian war and began its policy of colonial conquest and of annexing to itself all the territory it had the power to conquer in every part of the world. Other European nations became competitors in the conquest and began to seize and annex helpless colonies wherever they might be conquered by force of arms.

In all this mad scramble of these nations for industrial and military supremacy there has not been one genuine element of patriotism or one honest desire to benefit humanity or promote civilization. The selfish, sordid greed for spoil has lain at the bottom of this entire brutal military development. The primeval savage in man has been assiduously preserved in the soldiery under the sway of these empires of mammon so that when the word of command is given they will not fail to rush upon one another with the ferocity of beasts to cut one another’s throats and disembowel one another for the profit and glory of their masters.

Triumphant capitalism with a lingering remnant of feudalism rules all these powers. It is the aristocracy and nobility and clergy in alliance with the king, or emperor, or czar at the head, which constitute the ruling class and the reigning power. This class has no higher aim than profit and this power no other purpose than conquest. Profit is their prophet and gold their God.

To extend the dominion of their exploitation, to increase their capacity for robbery and to multiply their ill-gotten riches has been their controlling motive and since they could only extend their piracies by invading one another, the war which has now broken loose on a continental scale was inevitable. It simply had to come, and cry out against it as we may, there was no way on earth or in heaven to avoid it.

Socialists all over the world have been warning against it for years and have sought in every way humanly possible to stay the whirlwind of destruction, but in vain.

The war is here and the powers that are responsible for it must fight it out and abide the consequences.

It may be, as has been predicted, that this is the world’s final great war and that in this universal upheaval the last of the remaining thrones and dynasties will sink to rise no more and that in the reorganization and readjustment, which are bound to follow, a distinct advance will be made toward world-wide industrial and social democracy.

***

THE WAR AND THE WORKERS.

It is a thousand pities that the workers of all nations could not rise in their international might to prevent the terrible cataclysm that is now devastating the fairest nations of Europe and deluging their soil with the blood of the thousands slain.

The Socialists who represented the solidarity of the world’s workers to the extent that it has been achieved, did all that was in their mortal power to do to prevent the catastrophe, but they were outnumbered overwhelmingly by the hordes that are still in mental darkness, the age-long victims of ignorance and superstition, who are bound to the chariot wheels of their masters and who feel it to be their sacred duty to fight when the command is given and to die for the glory of those who rob and enslave and degrade them.

The overwhelming majority of all the armies of Europe now rushing upon one another with the bloodthirstiness of beasts is composed of workingmen who have everything to lose, including their lives, and absolutely nothing to gain but the continuance of their slavery and degradation. It is this aspect of the war that constitutes its supreme tragedy and is sufficient to make angels weep.

These workers of the various nations turned into soldiers to perpetuate their own slavery have not the slightest idea of what they are fighting for and yet they fight their fellow-workers, enslaved like themselves, with a savage ferocity that knows no bounds, and rush eagerly into the very jaws of hell to merit the miserable distinction of having died in the defense of their own degradation.

The Socialists of these nations have profited by the experience of the past and refuse any longer to murder one another at the behest of the master class which exploits them all, and the time will come, if it is not already here, when the world’s workers will be sufficiently enlightened to make it impossible for any ruling class to set them at war upon one another while they sit back in pomp and circumstance and divide the spoils of conquest.

There is no telling what the developments of the present war may be in consequence of the international solidarity of the workers which prevails already in the several countries involved and which may yet prove the magical factor to end the savage slaughter now going on even though it lacked the power to prevent the catastrophe in the first instance.

It will be observed that the aristocracy and nobility and clergy of Germany, Russia, England, Austria, France and other nations are not at the front having their bowels shot out and their remains left to the vultures. They are smugly and safely in their palaces, their club-houses and their salons, quaffing champagne and boasting about “our” valor and what “we” patriots are doing for the glory of the fatherland.

It is they who prate about the glory of the flag, but they do not fight for it; they leave that entirely to their vassal dupes. It is they who grow purple in their frenzy about “dying for your country” and who charge those their guff cannot deceive with lack of patriotism, but they themselves, although they own the country, do not shed one drop of their precious blood to save it.

The fact is that the workers of no nation have ever had a country of their own to fight for and to save and once the workers of the world own the countries and rule the nations of the world they will no longer be in the ignorant and savage state they necessarily must be to rend one another as they now do to save the country for the benefit of the robbers who have stolen it from the people.

***

SOCIALISTS AND THE WAR

It is questionable if anything further is to be gained, for the present at least, by protesting against the war in Europe.

The war has come and like an angry tempest it has let loose its pent up fury and in spite of all the protest that may be made against it, will run its savage course and pursue its destined road to the end.

With all its might the international Socialist movement protested against the war before it was declared and in that the Socialist movement was simply true to its lofty ideal of international peace and good will. Not only did the Socialists of all European nations do all in their power in their organized capacity to prevent this criminal war, but for years they warned the world against it, and sought to save humanity this continental catastrophe.

But their efforts were in vain. The powers of capitalism still rule and notwithstanding the heroism of the Socialists in challenging the war lords to their very teeth, the tempest was loosened and the mad passions of the rival plunderers, finding expression in the blood-lust of their hordes of blind and ignorant dupes, are now rioting in a carnival of death and destruction such as the world has never known.

The noble Jaures yielded up his life in the vain attempt to stem the torrent and avert the horrors that are now shocking the heart of the civilized world. The no less valiant Liebknecht, if the press dispatches are true, shared the fate of his French comrade in sealing his devotion to the cause of peace with his heart’s noble blood.

The ruling classes of Europe are solely responsible and must face the outcome and bear the consequences. It may be that in the course of events the international solidarity of the workers may be brought into play and become a decisive factor in terminating the war and in shaping the developments which must follow in its wake.

The Socialists are absolutely free from all responsibility for this heathenish slaughter, this hellish carnival of blood, this wanton destruction of life and property. Their hands are clean and their consciences clear.

They did all in their power to prevent the war and from now on they must do all in their power to open the eyes of the people to the causes of war and to the impending social revolution which is to sweep out of existence the ruling classes of all nations, put an end to class rule, destroy the incentive to class conquest, bring all nations into harmonious alliance for the promotion of the common good of all, and thus eternally banish the curse of war from the face of the earth.

***

JEAN JAURES, MARTYR TO PEACE

Jean Jaures, the foremost Socialist in France, and one of the foremost in the world, fell victim to an assassin on the eve of the war that is now convulsing Europe.

The taking off of this great leader in the prime of his splendid manhood and the zenith of his marvelous power, and in the very hour of the grave crisis he strove with all his matchless ability to prevent, is the greatest individual loss that, could have come to the Socialist movement. It is more than this, it is a calamity to civilization.

Jaures had long been the recognized leader of Socialism in France. He was the most brilliant orator in the Chamber of Deputies, if not in all Europe, and not even his bitterest opponent denied him this enviable distinction. He was a great scholar, a professor of philosophy and an eminent writer. He was gifted in the highest degree and to his natural ability there was added a classical education which fitted him for the great work destiny had in store for him.

Besides all this Jaures was a man of unquestioned courage, tireless energy, and unimpeachable integrity. All the elements of his nature and environment combined to make him one of the great moral leaders of his age.

And now this masterful man, this eloquent and fearless champion of the oppressed lies dead by the hand of a war-crazed fanatic, one of the many misguided victims of capitalism who in the name of “patriotism” slew the best friend of the common people and the greatest patriot of his time.

Jaures had just returned from Brussels where he had delivered one of his powerful speeches against the war then about to break upon Europe and he was about to deliver another in Paris in the vain hope of staying the frightful catastrophe. But alas! The very people he would have saved had been taught by the ruling class to regard him with hate and abhorrence. He was in truth their friend and would have prevented the horrible war in which thousands of them will be massacred and mangled, but strange and sad fatality, it was not to be. Jaures was stricken down and the wave of “patriotism” ran riot over the land and is now running red in rivers of proletarian blood.

Brave Jaures! Your martyrdom has not been in vain. The great soul of you marches on in the great movement for which you lived and died, and in good time a civilized world will hail you as the blessed prophet of peace and one of the noblest martyrs of mankind.

The National Ripsaw, a Free-Thinking, Socialist magazine that, in the 1910s, included the O’Hare’s and Debs on its board. The paper under the O’Hare’s was a voice of the Party’s anti-war wing and became a main literary vehicle for Debs before it, like all of the anti-war Left press, was banned from the postal services. In it’s previous incarnation, The Rip-Saw was an openly racist, exclusionary “Socialist” magazine under editor Seth McCallen from 1903 until 1908 when the paper was taken over by Phil Wagner and the politics of the paper changed. Thereafter it was a leading anti-war voice, changing its name to Socialist Revolution before its banning.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history//usa//pubs/national-ripsaw/140900-nationalripsaw-v11n07w127.pdf