For the dissolution of the Officer Corps – For workers’ military schools

Wellred

Core Argument

This chapter argues that the officer corps is not a neutral professional body but the organised political instrument of capitalist class rule. Its central claim is that officers are drawn from the ruling and upper-middle classes and are trained in anti-democratic, anti-Labour traditions, making them the consistent backbone of reactionary movements. The text presents a series of historical examples to substantiate this: in Germany, the officer caste allied with the Nazis against the working class; in Spain, it led Franco’s revolt to crush the Popular Front and independent workers’ organisations; in Britain, Mosley’s fascist thugs were trained in anti-Labour tactics by members of the officer caste. The chapter concludes that every anti-democratic and anti-labour movement, whether military dictatorship or fascist insurgency, has been carried out under the direct leadership of, or in alliance with, this caste.

The polemical target is twofold. First, the chapter attacks those who oppose conscription under the Labour Government but advocate maintaining a voluntary army rather than abolishing the standing army and its officer corps entirely. Such a position, it argues, is dangerously insufficient and leaves the working class exposed. Second, the chapter implicitly argues against reformist or parliamentary illusions that a Labour government can coexist with the existing military hierarchy. The demand is uncompromising: the officer corps and its reactionary schools, clubs, and organisations must be dissolved at once, and any attempt to recreate them must be ruthlessly crushed.

In place of the capitalist officer schools, the chapter proposes workers’ military schools, financed by the state but controlled by the trade unions. These schools would train workers in military technique and the military arts, creating a scientifically directed military organ of the working class. The text draws on the analogy that the capitalists already have such special schools for their most loyal sons, and the workers cannot afford to lag behind in protecting their class interests. This military policy is presented as an integral part of a broader socialist programme at home and abroad, necessary to defend against foreign intervention and domestic fascist or military violence. The immediate political task is to force the Labour leaders to implement this alternative.