Page:Karl Liebknecht - Militarism (1917).djvu/70

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MILITARISM

FUNDAMENTAL FEATURES OF "MILITARISM
FOR HOME" AND ITS PURPOSE.

Militarism does not only serve for defence and attack against the foreign enemy; it has a second task,[1] one which is being brought out ever more clearly with the growing accentuation of class antagonism, defining ever more clearly the form and nature of militarism, viz., that of protecting the existing state of society, that of being a pillar of capitalism and all reactionary forces in the war of liberation engaged in by the working-class. Here it shows itself purely as a weapon in the class struggle, a weapon in the hands of the ruling classes, serving, in conjunction with the police and law-courts, school and church, the purpose of obstructing the development of class-consciousness and of securing, besides, at all costs to a minority the dominating position in the state and the liberty of exploiting their fellow-men, even against the enlightened will of the majority of the people.


  1. That task of bolstering up the existing interior order of things devolves upon militarism not only in the capitalist order of society, but in all societies based upon class-division.