World Affairs :
The Imperialist Treachery and the First Imperialist War
History is a witness to the fact
that 1914-18 First World War
(FWW) was a predatory War. It was
fought by the two imperialist groups
– one headed by the British and
French imperialists and other by
the German imperialists. As Lenin
said in 1915, “neither group of
belligerent imperialists was less
inferior to the other in spoliation,
atrocities and the boundless
brutality of war.” “Seizure of
territory and subjugation of other
nations, ruining of competing
nations and the plunder of their
wealth, distracting the attention of
working masses from the internal
political crisis in Russia, Germany,
Britain and other countries,
disuniting and national stultification
of the workers, and the
extermination of their vanguard so
as to weaken the revolutionary
movement of the proletariat – these
comprise the sole actual content,
importance and significance of the
(First World)War.”
The
bourgeoisie
had
hoodwinked the working class and
other toiling people of their
countries by painting their
predatory war in attractive colors
of patriotism, nationalism and
called it as a war in defense of
father land, freedom and
civilization, etc. Both the belligerent
imperialist groups used the human
and material resources of the
Countries they were ruling as well
as their colonies as cannon fodder
in their war.
The First World War ended
with the defeat and surrender of
Germany on November 11, 1918.
It was a bloodiest War in
human history till then. It was
participated by 65 million soldiers.
1,115,471 soldiers were either
16
killed or missing, 13 millions
civilians lost their lives. 21 million
soldiers were wounded in the War.
The British colonial rulers had
drawn lakhs of Indian people into
their armed forces. They used
them as mercenary forces to crush
the Indian people as well as
colonise the people of other
countries. More importantly, they
had sent 1,100,00 Indian soldiers
to fight the FWW in various battles
in other countries. About 75000
Indian soldiers had lost their lives
in this War. Here the British
Colonialists had used the Indian
people to subjugate and enlarge
colonies in other Countries. They
saw the Indian people as the
cannon fodder to realize their
colonial ambitions through an
oppressive war.
The ‘victor powers’, mainly the
imperialist rulers of Britain, France,
US and Italy went all out to reap
the fruits of their victory in the war.
They held a so-called peace
conference in the beginning of
1919 and worked out a so called
Treaty of Versailles dictating the
terms for surrender to the defeated
Germany. This Treaty asked
Germany to surrender large areas
of German territories, huge fleet,
merchant ships, lease out rich coal
belts, pay huge sums or
reparations as war damages to the
victor powers. It asked to dissolve
and not to have military. It allowed
the victor powers to keep the left
bank of the Rhine river for 15 years
as a guarantee for the payment of
reparations to the victors.
Indeed, it was a most ruinous
and humiliating treaty. It inflicted
deep wounds on the body and mind
of Germany. But just in a decades’
time, Hitler used it as a fertile
ground to transform the hurt and
pain into an irrepressible anger,
revenge and resolve among the
German ruling classes to regain a
lost dream of world hegemony
through an aggressive, more
ferocious global war.
The FWW had pushed the
German people into worst economic
crisis and untold miseries. The
people of the so called victor
countries too had gained nothing
as this war had nothing to do with
the interests of the people. The
imperialist powers used the war and
victories to consolidate, strengthen
and enlarge their hold in their
countries as well as in colonies.
They had further intensified their
plunder by shifting the burdens of
their war on the people.
Except in Russia, in almost all
the European Countries, the
leaderships of Social – Democratic
Parties had succumbed to the
bourgeois national chauvinist
slogan of “defense of father land”
and tailed behind their ruling
classes. So, they could not utilize
the imperialist crisis and war to
advance the revolutionary
movements to overthrow the
bourgeoisie in their own Countries.
The Proletariat in Russia, guided
and led by Lenin had successfully
led the Socialist Revolution by
turning the imperialist war into a
revolutionary civil War. They
overthrew the tsarist autocracy
which was tied the warring
imperialist group of Britain, France
and US.
India was a British Colony at
the time of FWW. They were in the
struggle against feudalism and the
colonial rule. The working class
movement was in a nascent stage
and the party of proletariat was not
Class Struggle