
NO SERIOUS person, certainly no socialist, would disagree that the first world war was an inter-imperialist conflict between “great powers” in pursuit of markets, resources, and hegemony.
Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing. At the time, one hundred and nine years ago today, the majority of socialists, trade union leaders and prominent “Marxists” abandoned international class solidarity, capitulated to war fever, embraced national chauvinism, effectively endorsing the industrialised slaughter of millions of workers of all combatant nations.
Socialists who opposed the war and exposed its real cause — imperialist profiteering — were marginalised and victimised. In Britain, John MacLean and other socialists were imprisoned under the Defence of the Realm Act.



