Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/65

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CAPITALISTIC MILITARISM
33

tion.[1] Even the fame of a Cortez or a Pizarro fades before India and Tongking, the Congo, German Southwest Africa and the Philippines.

THE PROLETARIAT AND WAR.

If the function of militarism was above defined as being a national one directed against the foreign enemy it must not be understood to mean that it is a function answering the interests, welfare and wishes of the capitalistically governed and exploited peoples. The proletariat of the whole world can not expect any profit from the policies which make necessary the "militarism for abroad"; its interests are most sharply opposed to such policies. Directly or indirectly those policies serve the exploiting interests of the ruling classes of capitalism. They are policies which prepare more or less skilfully, the way for the world-wide expansion of the wildly anarchical mode of production and the senseless and murderous competition of capitalism, in which process


  1. See the memorable debates of the German Reichstag between November 28 and December 4, 1906, where the "abscess was lanced."