The Ban on the Daily Worker ought to be removed: there is no doubt about that. The Freedom of the Press is maintainable only by fighting for it, even although it may seem that from a short view point such freedom causes wrong roads to be taken, wrong paths to be trod. However, wrong paths taken freely can be retraced freely. It is when the wrong route is travelled because of sane vested or peculiar interest forcing the way, that it leads to disaster and a procession of incorrect policies.

We must have an internationa1 as well as a national outlook on this though, and, when we survey Willie Gallagher's fatherland we find that the Anarchist and Workers' Opposition press was suppressed many years ago. The CPGB too Would attempt to do likewise here if it had the opportunity.

Therefore it' is not on the grounds of freedom that the C.P. stake their claim for the lifting of the ban. They want the ban lifted to help the war effort. To be quite concise, they wish to advocate more effectively for - longer hours, more production, greater effort by the workers, the opening up of a second front: and all this to take place under capitalism. Whom do the C.P. think Churchill is? Whom do they think rule and control this country? To shout for greater  exploitation of the workers is to shout for a more efficient form of capitalism and the next more efficient form in the catalogue is Fascism.

Let us quote fron the Western Front Special issued by the Scottish Committees of the C.P. (G.B.). "The Editorial Board of the Daily Worker in a recent letter to Divisional Labour Parties, has made it clear that it would lend all its effort to the policy of winning the war, would aim to consolidate the unity of the democratic alliance against Hitler and his satellites and would give every support in the drive for increased production for the fighting fronts. Furthermore the Editorial Board has declared that in the event of the ban being lifted, and in the interests of national unity, they would have no desire to revert to past controversies".

What a study in belly-crawling.' "Please sir, let us publish our paper, and we'll allow the Labour Fakirs to lead the worker up the garden and we won't say a thing; as long as we can publish our paper, we will only attack the ILP, the Trotskyists, and the Left Wing Communists".

Sure, let them publish the Daily Worker. It will be the first thing to make the workers realise how far the C.P. has gone - TO THE RIGHT THERE IS LIMIT.

(June-July 1942)

How often has it been said that it is the duty of all young Socialists to go into the Army, that there is no alternative - one must go with the workers into uniform and help to prepare for the day when the holocaust is ended by the action of the masses?

The value of military training is indisputable, if we take as our standpoint that Socialism will be achieved, not by a peaceful evolution from Capitalism, but as a result of an elemental struggle. The success of such a struggle, however, depends on the participation of the vast masses of workers in the Army who have had military training those who at first entered the Army under the influence chiefly of the bosses' propaganda. Whether or not a handful of revolutionary Socialists receive military training will make little difference one way or the other.

The real question is: should revolutionists enter imperialist armies to influence the soldiers? Those saying they should, hold that where-ever the workers go (to church? to Hell? Why not to prison also, then?) the Socialist should follow; young Socialists should go with their generation... to the grave, and, if they think they can help to keep it from the grave, they must, nevertheless, shut up and obey orders. That is the traditional view. The object of such a course is plain enough; that correct leadership must be given when mass opposition to the war develops, and in the meanwhile carry on Socialist propaganda in the army.

How is that to be done. Cases have occurred in which soldiers have been discharged for the mere possession 6f Communist literature, let alone for openly advocating a Socialist struggle. And it must be clear that military authorities will not regard with detached benevolence the consistent spreading of revolutionary thoughts and literature. It follows that, in general, work under such conditions must entail the watering down of these ideas to such an extent as will present no danger to the authorities. That leads one to ask whether entry into imperialist armies for this purpose is worth while at all.

To come now to the assertion that it is necessary to have revolutionaries in the army in order to give correct leadership when the crisis comes. Only if an army is entirely insulated from civilian life is that true. (And then nothing can be done, since a mere handful of revolutionists would be powerless).' But there are few instances in history when an army was hemmed off entirely - apart. from professional or foreign troops. In the French and Russian revolutions it was not possible to prevent civilian politics penetrating the army. Thus, when the time arrived, the efforts of the more forward spirits among the troops were exerted in the right direction. Ordered to fire on "the mob", some refused, thus serving as "the crystals in a saturate solution" as Trotsky put it. In his "History of the Russian Revolution", Trotsky ref ers to these nameless heroes who came out against their officers' orders They were almost certainly not members of the Bolshevik party, and if they had been they might have been e~ed, as "efficient. soldiers" in obeying orders. (Trotsky says that the Bolshevik strives to be the best soldier. First duty of a soldier is obedience.) It is thus untrue to say that initiative cannot arise from the ranks. On the other hand, one must admit that the presence of authentic revolutionaries at such a time could not but better the position slightly (in proportion to their numbers). The point I wish to make here is that their presence is not vitally necessary for the army to come over to the side of the revolution.

If it is a hard-and-fast rule that Socialists should go wherever the workers go, then we must presume that this applies equally to the bourgeois-controlled army, bourgeois-controlled political parties, or any other political parties,. not excluding the Fascist parties, whose mass basis in Germany, especially, was formed largely out of the workers.

It is well known that Fascism (as also militarism) is characterised by an "intolerance" towards opposition. In what manner, therefore, would revolutionary Socialists enter Fascist parties? Certainly not for the purpose of peaceful education'. They would enter them, if they entered them at all, as a 5^th column on behalf of the revolution. Can we not draw a parallel in the case of imperialist armies?

Those advocating the traditional military policy seek justification 'by the formulation of various seemingly progressive demands. For instance, the Fourth International calls for military training of the workers under trade union control, financed by the Capitalist state. This is advanced as a slogan for rallying the workers, notwithstanding the fact that it is unrealiseable without first achieving' the Socialist revolution, whilst after the revolution such a course would depend upon circumstances. Such slogans are unsuited to present-day realities. Again, quite a fetish is made around the demand that workers should learn "military arts",.and be trained as officers. Surely,. if bourgeois governments have steeped their peoples in this training, they have done so in their own interests, and for the purpose of using the worker-soldiers as their pawns?

It is foolish to take the ostrich-like attitude that this process of large-scale militarisation is really a blessing in disguise simply because it seems likely to facilitate a forceful overthrow. It should not provide subject matter for rejoicing, but should, rather, arouse the wrath and detestation of sincere revolutionists. For militarism crystallises the worst feature~ of Capitalist inequality, oppression and rampant violence.

Though it is right to point out that humanitarian laments are of no avail, it is fatal to ove"rlook the fact that the policy behind this militarisation is the policy of the ruling classes, and that militarisation is intended to accustom the masses' to submissiveness and ready obedience. This, in turn, leads to a psychology which would be, to say the very least, unfavourable for a flowering of real workers' democracy. Rather would it encourage the growth of the stifling fungi of bureaucracy and' despotism all over again. On this triple count, therefore, militarism should be resisted in every possible way.

So much is the military aspect stressed by some revolutionaries, that one is led to wonder whether they are not more intent on being good soldiers than Socialists. As if to reassure us, in the same breath as they' declaim against inefficiency, desertion or.conscientious objection, they call aloud for fraternisation'. Yet does not this (the greatest danger to the ruling classes, and doubtless condemned in every army manual) amount to the most wicked indiscipline? One cannot have it both ways: either one is against fraternisation and desertion, or for both. And when Lenin referred to the Russian army "voting for peace with its feet", this' was a bad thing? In this war Italians are said to desert en masse, because they do not see the point in fighting. Our "Socialist militarists" would presumably be foremost in shooting down these unfortunates. Otherwise they would not be the "best soldiers" ...

To draw a parallel between factory and army and to say that the worker has no choice but to accept the discipline of both, is unsound. Whereas economic pressure forces the worker into the factory and makes him "accept" its discipline, the direct class violence of the bourgeoisie herds workers into the army, and trains them to kill their brothers. That is the distinction. There is a choice, even if legally it is limited: army or prison. And if that is so, it is better that the individual Socialist decide for himself since the whole matter is reduced to one of personal conditions.

There seems to be a tendency for many erstwhile revolutionaries who have passed military age to "see why" they were quite wrong in their youth. Palme Dutt, calling for mass slaughter on a second front, was, in the last war sent down from his University for Socialist peace propaganda. Morrison's former speeches and writings would now be subjected to 2D, and their author to 18B for the duration. Their revolutionary "opponents" of the Left agree with them on the need for "obeying the historical process" by advocating that workers obey the bosses' orders to go and slaughter other workers. (Is that, incidentally, the "only true" Marxist policy? Were not Leo Jogiches, co-founder of the Polish Social Democracy, Rosa Luxemburg, or James Connolly, true marxists? Is it opposed to Marxism to 1eave such matters to the individual - without of course taking up a pacifist attitude?) attitude?)

But it is time such arguments Were refuted.. It has gone on, for too long, this tragedy of young and virile Socialists, the hope of the future, dying without having struck a blow for their cause, in the false belief that they were serving it. It is time to stop juggling with what are, whether we like the word or not, vital principles.