Adonis Diaries

“Workers of the world: Shut down your weapon industrial complexes” Jean Jaures in 1903

Even in 1903, the European Marxists and social democrats (particularly in Germany,  England, France and Italy) were cognizant of a major military confrontation is being prepared by the main capitalist powers (especially between the oldest Capitalist and vastest colonial power of England and the nascent industrial powerhouse of Germany) sweeping Europe that will generate a drastic moral calamity, which is still plaguing the 21st century.

And these social and political parties and organization knew what was to be done to stop any major war from igniting: Educate and politicize the workers in industries to stop working at military industrial infrastructure. (That was 15 years before Lenin and single mindedly decided to grab power in Russia)

On July 30, 1903, Jean Jaures, the French social and political activist and organizer, who became the soul of the unity of the opposition movements before WWI, and who was assassinated in Paris on July 31, 1914, shortly before France declared war on Germany, delivered this speech:

“If Humanity considers the proof of  courage is to be condemned to continue killing eternally, then mankind is accursed and doomed.

Courage is Not to maintain this somber and dark clouds of war, these sleeping clouds that we persist in believing that they were break up pn the “others”.

Courage is Not to keep in the hands of Force the solution of conflicts that reason can resolve.

Courage is the exaltation of mankind, and this course is an abdication.

Courage for all of you, a courage of all hours, is to sustain without flinching the temptations of doing harms of all kinds, physical and morals, that life extend to us.

Courage is to love life and to look calmly at death.

Courage is to shoot for the ideal and comprehend the real.

Courage is to act and to give to the great causes without asking for return, or what kinds of compensation our efforts will reserve for the deep universe.

Courage is to seek truth and to say it, to not submit to the triumphant law of lie, and to not be the perpetual echo to lies with our soul, mouth and hand clapping for the idiots and fanatics.

How our conception of life is poor.

How our science of life is short.

If we persist on believing that, as war is abolished, then we will lack opportunities and occasion to prove and exercise our courage, and that we have got to let the tambour and drum of war rolling and listen to their chiming rhythm meant to make our heart jump in heroic excitements in this 20th century, these tambours are sounding shallow.

Allow your life to be vibrant, sincere and whole.

Bet on social and political democracy to free the individual first of all, before the liberation of the exploited classes.

Let democracy meant to liberate all the oppressed fragments  of people all over the world and never by conquering them and subjugating them.

We are going to witness wars between social and political democracies and the militaristic retrograded oligarchies. (Jaures was hopeful that the opposition movements will take power and resist these oligarchies as war begins to flare up)

The best bet to blocking the coming world war is that all the proletariats unite their forces in all nations and join their determination to stop work at the military industrial complexes and the production of weapons.

The coming war is initiated by the envy of capitalist groups, their colonial expansions, the imperialistic violence for dominion, politics of prestige.

All these factors have created a climate of permanent tension which generates constant and growing risks for wars.

Note: It was England that prepared for WWI since 1906, as Germany overtook and surpassed England in exporting all kind of industrial products on the world markets. The strategy of England was to block access to all ports serving Germany.