Deep Politics Forum

Mikhail Lermontov
From Valerik (1840)

The fight was over. All was still.
The bodies made a grisly hill.
Blood trickled from them, steaming, smoking…
"Just tell me, my kunak,
What do they call this little river?"
"They call it Valerik", he said,
"Which means The River of the Dead.
Those who named it are in Heaven…"
Then someone else's voice I heard,
"This day is for the war decisive".
I caught the mountaineer's glance derisive.
He grinned but did not say a word.
And there I was; my heart so pained with pity.
I thought: "Poor man, what are you after?
The sky's so blue. The world so endless.
And still you're fighting: Why, what for?!"

Anatole France
From speech delivered at a meeting for peace in 1906
Translated by J. Lewis May

A country living under the shadow of war and invasion is easy to govern. It does not clamour for social reforms. If any labour men should be pig-headed enough to urge the Government to expedite the passage of some measure concerning the extension of Trade Unions, or the eight hour day, the wiseacres that rule us would very quickly answer: "Workers, this is no time to think about bettering your conditions. What we've got to do now, is to turn out as many guns as we can." And what can one say to that?

When war and invasion are threatened, people don't haggle about arms and munitions. And all that is an excellent thing for the financiers and army contractors, who know how to make patriotism pay. Threats of war, why, they are meat and drink to the reactionaries! One rumour of war can do more harm to socialism in six weeks than the parliamentary mug-wumps could do in twenty years with all their votes and all their speeches.