“The Great Class War 1914-1918” by Jacques R. Pauwels
Going Beyond The History Of The 1%
There are a relatively rare few historians who peel back the elite-serving mythologies and outright misrepresentations produced by the elite propagandists and imperial apologists who act as the Winston Smiths of our neoliberal age. Many of these Winston Smiths are celebrated and rewarded with academic chairs and/or well-remunerated think-tank, and consultancy, positions, provided with free publicity in the media, given publishing contracts for propagandist texts, and generally celebrated by the “establishment”. For those that decide to tell a history that is closer to that of historical reality, the academic and remunerative paths become much harder.
In the 1960s and 1970s of a fading “embedded liberalism” and the democratization of the academy it was somewhat easier to tell such truths and maintain a remunerative position within the mainstream, for example with the relatively new Economic & Social History discipline that shone the light of academic work upon the history of the 99% instead of the predominant hagiographic history of the 1%. Michael Parenti in his The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome describes these democratizing tendencies well. In such a period actual Marxists such as Eric Hobsbawm, who coined the term Long Nineteenth Century (from the French Revolution of 1789 to 1914), could gain some level of academic seniority. This was still in the face of establishment resistance and tended to be in the UK and Europe rather than a US still affected by the 1950s McCarthyite Red Scare. Parenti himself existed on the relative margins of the academy before focusing fully on his book writing. You will not find him invited to political discussions in the mainstream media, nor provided with fancy establishment titles and remunerative contracts.
From the 1970s onwards a campaign of increased academic disciplining was carried out in the US and spread across the West. In the US, the core of this is the removal of the protections of academic tenure through the proletarianization of the academic workforce; with tenured positions now a minority in a sea of underpaid post-graduate fellowships, adjunct and non-tenured positions. Academics may be into their late 30s or even early 40s before even the “successful” they gains tenure, still holding the debts incurred from their lengthy education and with their future career advancement overseen by the establishment. The recent inability of possibly the greatest US Black philosopher of our time, Cornell West, to gain tenure at Harvard even when proposed by the faculty, is instructive. Such pressures are also there in the rest of the West, but to a lesser degree. In addition, there are the disciplining effects of an academic grant process governed by the establishment (in the US over half of academic grants are provided by foundations such as the Rockefeller and Ford). The result is that many of the anti-Winston Smiths are an ageing and dying breed, many of which exist mostly or wholly outside the academy or are allowed to remain in lesser-known academic institutions while being significantly culturally unpersoned by the establishment media and institutions.
One such individual is the historian Jacques R. Pauwels who has the nasty habit (from an establishment point of view) of directly undermining many of the mythologic historical totems that underpin our hegemonic culture through excellent scholarship. Below I will summarize his book The Great Class War 1914-1918, adding some context of my own. Here is Pauwels placing the Ukraine war in its proper historical context:
For those who enjoy a more lengthy and academic discussion, here is Pauwels covering his work The Myths of Modern History with another excellent anti-Winston Smith, Gabriel Rockhill:
The Long Nineteenth Century
Pauwels starts at the beginning of the Long Nineteenth Century, with the French Revolution of 1789, one that started as a bourgeois liberal revolution (to free the bourgeoisie from the limitation of the King and aristocracy) but had then become a radical one (for more general freedoms) which was fought through a brutal civil war, The Terror. This Terror period is treated by establishment historians as the fault of Robespierre and the left; in a seminal myth about the danger of popular revolutions turning to violence. The reality was more the violent counter-revolution backed by the establishment and bourgeoisie both within and without France, being met with violence by the revolutionary Jacobins. This civil war ended first with a bourgeois attempted resolution, known as the Thermidor (which included the White Terror of executions of the Jacobins) and then with the dictatorship of Napoleon. Even this new nature of French society was completely unacceptable to the European monarchies and the Catholic church, who mounted a successful counter-revolutionary (to the bourgeois liberal revolution) continental war that finally succeeded at Waterloo in 1815 followed by the restoration of the French monarchy. Something that Pauwels does not fully cover is the way in which the internal bourgeois counter-revolution mirrored that of Great Britain in the seventeenth century (with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 implementing a bourgeois constitutional monarchy) and the US in the eighteenth (with the much more radical and decentralizing Articles of Confederation replaced with what some have called the Framer’s Coup by the centralized bourgeois-friendly US Constitution).
The rest of the Long Nineteenth Century is dominated by the struggle of the European bourgeoisie to rid themselves of domination by the sovereign, the aristocracy and the church. In 1948 the bourgeoisie regained power in France through the second installation of a Bonaparte, but this was nearly thrown away by France’s decision to wage war on Prussia. A decision that led to both a colossal military defeat (1870-1871) and the uprising of a new proletarian revolution in Paris, the Commune of 1871. This was crushed by the French state, aided by the Prussian state, through extensive violence and the execution of at least 10-15,000 of the Communards together with the imprisonment of thousands of others. As Pauwels notes, the European bourgeoisie was shocked and frightened enough by this new proletarian revolution to give up its own revolutionary ways and ally with the aristocracy, which was left running the political and military realms. Between 1870 and 1914 a mixture of violence, social reforms, superficial democratizing moves, mass propagandist primary schooling and military service, establishment-controlled mass media propaganda, reactionary nationalism, service within and emigration to the colonies, and some of the crumbs from the table of imperial spoils were used to keep the revolutionary threat at bay.
Only partially noted is the experience of the US, which had been expanding through war continuously since the first British colonies. In the eighteenth century it expanded across the US continent, taking the lands of both the Amerindians and Mexicans to provide new opportunities for its burgeoning population on the “frontier” that acted as a population safety valve in the same way European emigration did. The Civil War (1861-1865) removed the landed Southern gentry, producing a much purer version of bourgeois dominance. This was followed by the defeat of challenges by the labour unions and the Free Soil movements, and the peak of the Amerindian genocide, with many US corporations becoming huge concerns that allied with the state could defeat any internal challenges. At the turn of the century, the US capitalist elite was not burdened within a coalition with the aristocracy and much less burdened by internal challenges in the way that the European bourgeoisie was. It also showed its imperial tendencies in the war with Spain at the end of the nineteenth century through which it gained The Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico as well as dominance over Cuba. The US did not enter WW1 in 1914 because it would take time for the US bourgeois elite to drag the pacifist US population into a war that they did not want to be a part of; shown by the 1916 election of President Wilson on a pacifist ticket.
Imperialist Competition & Rally Around The Flag
Pauwels also points to the ongoing imperialist competition between the European powers, with the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 underlining the slowly collapsing nature of the Ottoman Empire that included oil discovered in the Middle East; oil required for Britain’s navy that had shifted from coal to oil. Showing the still empire-hunger of the European nations, France took control of Morocco in 1911 (opposed by Germany). There was also the possibility of a full colonization of parts of, or all of, China. Germany, only formed in 1870, came late to the imperial party and had little to show for it. With the need for new markets and the control over the natural resource supplies for its burgeoning industrial sector, and the possibility of cheap colonial labour, the German elite felt that it was only natural that they take a bigger share of empire pie. The addition of new colonies not only benefitted the bourgeoisie, but also a nobility heavily invested in extractive corporations and with a hunger for new lands and imperial military glory and prestigious governance positions. The Catholic Church also benefitted from many more millions to be “converted” to Christianity and expanding Church career advancement opportunities. The outcome of the Balkan Wars had also threatened Austria-Hungary and Germany through a significantly expanded Serbia that was allied with Russia; a parallel with the current EU moves to crush a Serbia that supports Russia. Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia had been in alliance since the early 1800s, but that changed with Russia’s alliance with France in 1892; partially in response to the German cancellation of the German-Russian Reinsurance Treaty and also to gain access to French financing for Russian industrialization. France was happy to gain an ally to help it reverse the defeat of 1870-71. In addition, Britain became increasingly threatened by Germany’s rapid industrial growth and allied with France and Russia in 1904, producing the Entente directed at constraining Germany’s rise.
In Western Europe the socialists had become more reformist than revolutionary, but their increasing electoral successes still threatened to change the balance of power between the small elite and the masses of the population; in the latter’s favour. In Eastern and Southern Europe, the threat of outright revolution was much more redolent – especially in a Russia that had risen up in 1905 to force an elected Duma upon the Tsar. Both bourgeois and noble elites that were tired of the ongoing concessions to the rest of the population required to “tame” revolutionary passions became more reactionary as the working class gained electoral power. In addition, there were nationalist challenges to the multi-ethnic empires; the “Irish Problem” being just one of them. A war would facilitate the disciplining of the population as calls to “King and Country” would produce a rallying around the flag, working class passions could be externalized against the foreign Other, and democratic institutions could be curtailed during a time of emergency. A good little war could be very beneficial to the elites, especially the ones that won the good little war; many national elites thought that they would win, or at least had no option but to fight.
From Delusions To Reality
The elites were generally happy that the war had started when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia (7/28), Germany declared war on Russia and France (8/3) followed the next day by Germany invading Belgium and the UK declaring war on Germany in response. In reality, the UK was looking for an excuse and saving “plucky” Belgium was a good cover for what they wanted to do anyway. The elites went off to war, dragging the population along with them; many of the latter not wanting anything to do with a war, especially the working class. Only four months later disenchantment had set in due to the colossal casualties (dead, injured, missing) of over a million each for France, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. The small British contingent lost a third of its number to casualties. Nearly two million dead in just 4 months! This was not the quick and easy war that so many of the elites had envisaged. It also now became a stalemate rather than the war of movement envisaged. For the lower ranks, the strict class-based nature of the army became increasingly evident. Officers were much better treated, while disciplining those many of them looked down upon. By the first Christmas the biggest headache for many of the officers was the increasing fraternization between the “lower ranks” who saw much of themselves in the “enemy” that they faced. This was dealt with by brutal discipline and enforced attacks to remind the lower ranks that the opposing lower ranks were the “enemy”.
The Western front sank into a state of static trench warfare, interspersed with great offensives with names like “Loos” (September to October 1915), “The Somme” (July to November 1916), “Verdun” (February to December 1916), “Flanders” (June to November 1917), and “Passchendaele” (July to November 1917) that wasted countless young lives for little or no gain, through 1915, 1916, and 1917. In the latter campaign the British alone suffered 250,000 casualties, at Verdun the French and Germans jointly suffered nearly a million casualties. Pauwels mentions the French Chemin des Dames disastrous attack of 16-25 April 1917, where 271,000 French casualties (145,000 dead) were suffered in just nine days for no gain. Even in the third year of slaughter the aristocratic senior officers recklessly threw away the lives of so many. In Africa and Asia, the German colonies were snapped up by the British, French and Japanese. The attempt to break the western stalemate through what became known as “Gallipoli” (February 1915 to January 1916) failed with very high casualties (approx. 200,000 on either side), and an attempt to take Baghdad in 1915 also failed miserably; with Baghdad only falling in March 1917 and the Ottoman Empire capitulating in October 1918.
In the east, the Russian army directly commanded by its Tsar was slowly destroyed as the backward Russian economy and society proved not up to the task of industrial warfare fought on a colossal scale. In March 2017 the Tsar abdicated when faced with a popular uprising and was replaced with a provisional government that wanted to continue the war. Uprisings against the Provisional Government were crushed by the new leader Kerensky in July but in October the Bolshevik revolution was successful, and an armistice with the Central Powers was signed. In 1917 war weariness had spread through all combatants, with the working class paying for the war with their lives and falling real wages while the bourgeoisie luxuriated in wartime profiteering. Discipline at home and within the armies deteriorated, exacerbated in Britain by the U-boat war and even more in Germany by the naval blockade. The massive losses of life, and the stories of wounded soldiers returning home, helped to undermine the legitimacy of the ruling classes and radicalize the working class. Instead of acting to reduce revolutionary fervour, the war was now acting to intensify and expand it. With the collapse of Russia, mutinies in the French and British armies, and growing pressure for peace at home the Entente nations were having a very bad 1917.
Dragging The US People Into The War
The war had been incredibly profitable for US industrialists who predominantly supplied the Entente and the bankers who provided the loans to finance the purchases of those supplies. It was in their interests for the war to continue and for the Entente not to lose, as that could be a catastrophe for the US financiers. After being re-elected in 1916 on a pacifist platform that represented the will of the vast majority of ordinary Americans, the US President continued the three-year US elite project of dragging an unwilling nation into the war. In April 1917 he prevailed, bringing the US economic behemoth in to support the Entente; the profits would continue, the financiers protected, and the US elite would have a seat at the table at the conclusion of the war. The population showed its resistance to becoming cannon fodder to drive Us bourgeois profit-making, instead of the envisaged 1 million volunteers only 73,000 turned up. The answer was conscription, as well as widespread limitations and censorship of the press, free speech in general, a massive propaganda campaign to manufacture consent for the war and even the use of a fascist-style organizations such as the American Patriotic League to psychologically and physically intimidate any pacifists. The state of emergency was also used to attack socialist elements, such as Eugene Debs and the radical IWW union.
With the Russians out of the war, the German elite focused on a great 1918 Spring offensive that would at last defeat the British, French and their allies; both before the US troops could make a difference and before revolution at home overtook them. Although the German attack was at first successful, coming within 80 miles of Paris, the combination of enemy resistance and logistical issues ground it to a halt by June 1918. The increasing number of US troops at the front, arriving at a rate of 100,000 per month, also made up for Allied losses while the Germans who had committed all their reserves could no longer replace such losses. The overwhelming power of the Allies in both manpower and production, aided by both the US entry and extensive colonial possessions to draw resources from, was evident to a German army greatly affected by the blockade. From July onwards the Allies launched offensives that at last created a war of movement, aided by increasing numbers of US troops and material, which led to the collapse of the German army; with increasing desertions, mass surrenders, and a general unwillingness to fight. Still, the Germans retreated in good order and continued to resist, and the senseless killing continued right up to 11am in the 11th of November. As Pauwels notes, during the last five weeks of the war half a million men were killed or wounded and on the last day (when the officers already knew that the war would end at 11am) there were 10,844 casualties that included 2,738 dead (more than on D-Day).
Putting Down The Workers’ Revolutions: Fascism
With the example of the Russian revolution to draw from, and the deprivations suffered by the working class during the war while faced with elite war-profiteering, there was the real possibility of revolution in both France and Britain. Revolution was only forestalled by a mix of hasty elite concessions to the working class and the utterly non-revolutionary nature of the union and Labour Party leadership; in contrast to the Bolsheviks in Russia. In Ireland, independence could only be forestalled until 1922, but in the colonies burgeoning nationalist resistance was put down with imperialist brutality. The German bourgeoisie in the form of the SPD allied with the aristocratic military to put down a burgeoning revolution to form a bourgeois social democratic government. When that was again threatened by revolution that included many low-ranking members of the military, the paramilitary reactionary Freikorps (a precursor to the Nazi SA) was constituted to crush it. In Italy the biennio rossi (two red years) produced major elite concessions, only to be reversed with the fascist takeover of Mussolini in 1922. A communist revolution in Hungary was short-lived, as the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed into centrifugal nationalism. In the US a Red Scare was utilized to facilitate the crushing of both revolutionary and moderate socialist groups. The attempt to crush the Russian Revolution at birth failed, as the Bolsheviks slowly gained victory in the Russian Civil War even with the interventions of Western troops and the Poles (repeating their attempt to take advantage of Russian weakness during the Time of Troubles three centuries earlier). Instead, the West built a reactionary wall of Poland, Finland and the Baltic States (all created by the Treaty of Versailles) to separate Russia from Western Europe – as it has once again in recent times, with the match of NATO eastwards after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Versailles confirmed the taking of the spoils of the German colonies by Britain, France, Belgium and Japan. In the following years, Portugal, Spain and Germany were to follow Italy down the fascist path with fascist Vichy France added after the French surrender to Germany, while the US took the path of the New Deal and the UK practised Bonapartism with the 1930s National government.
Pauwels’ book The Myth of the Good War provides the same style of representation of the actuality of WW2, throwing off the extensive myth making and misrepresentation so redolent in mainstream accounts of that war.