Peace Movements: International Protest and World Politics Since 1945

April Carter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317901181
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

There is a long tradition of opposition to war and organized peace campaigns date from 1815. Since 1945, however, modern weapons technology has threatened world wide destruction and has stimulated widespread protests. This book sketches in the background of thinking about peace and resistance to war before 1945, and then examines how public opposition to nuclear weapons and testing grew in the 1950s and early 1960s. Later chapters cover the major ressurgence of nuclear disarmament campaigns in the 1980s. The book also looks at how peace protest has spread from its origins in North America and North West Europe to embrace many parts of the world; opposition to nuclear testing has indeed been particularly strong in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands. The period 1945 to 1990 was dominated by the Cold War between the USA and USSR, and the role of the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council caused difficulties for indeptendent peace groups in the West. During the 1980s the emergence of autonomous peace activity in a number of East European countries, and even on a very small scale in the USSR itself, transformed the possibilities for East-West co-operation between citizens to urge disarmament and political change. A chapter examines these developments. Opposition to all forms of militarism has spread in the last 30 years. This book charts the struggles to extend the right to conscientious objection to military service, and draft resistance to particular wars - for example in Southern Africa and Israel. It also looks in some detail at the growing opposition to the war in the Vietnam. The recent protests against the Gulf War are surveyed briefly in an epilogue.

CHAPTER ONE

Defining Peace Movements and their Beliefs

INTRODUCTION

Deciding which groups should count as genuine peace organizations is more difficult than it might at first seem. ‘Peace’ like ‘democracy’ is an attractive label, which may be appropriated for propaganda purposes. The goal of peace is, moreover, too general to be in itself a distinctive aim which separates peace groups from everyone else since most people desire peace for much of the time. The bitter divisions arise over the priority to assign to ending a war as opposed to winning it – especially if vital issues are at stake – and over the absolute importance of avoiding war. Furthermore, there is often acute disagreement over how best to avoid war, and no definitive way of answering this question. To confuse the picture further, peace campaigners do not necessarily always call for peace in preference to war. Some may, as we noted in the context of movements of the last century, support certain kinds of ‘Just War’ as a prelude to a just peace. There are many differences of opinion between peace organizations at any one time, based on variations in their underlying moral and political philosophy and specific aims. Peace groups are in addition influenced by national cultural factors.

Given this diversity of views and goals, it is important to clarify whether there are certain criteria which apply to all peace groups, and which distinguish genuine peace organizations from bodies which claim the title, but have different purposes. It is also necessary to classify the types of peace association, and to explore underlying political theories and the political strategies adopted.

IDENTIFYING PEACE ORGANIZATIONS

The first question we need to resolve is what the criteria are for distinguishing authentic peace groups from other bodies which claim the title ‘peace’. Since 1945 the main difficulty has arisen because of the role of the pro-Soviet World Peace Council. A number of pro-NATO organs have also been formed with the aim of attacking nuclear disarmament movements.

There are in practice a number of ways in which independent peace groups identify themselves and by which they are recognized by external observers such as journalists and historians. The first is autonomy from government or political parties. Autonomy can be compromised by organizational links, by the affiliations and role of central and local officials, and by sources of funds. Peace activists are not usually apolitical, though some may have no previous political experience or party ties, but they do need to show that they are not subservient to outside interests. Although Communist Party links have been the most sensitive issue in the West, in practice European nuclear disarmament campaigns have had more serious difficulties in keeping a distance from parliamentary socialist parties. Support from trade unions and professional associations has usually been acceptable, and religious backing has been seen as a guarantee not only of political autonomy but respectability.

The key test of autonomy is the policy pursued by a peace group. One requirement since 1945 has been non-alignment, a willingness to oppose the military action of both sides and to avoid unquestioning partisanship in disputes between the Soviet Union and the West. The second requirement, which has always existed, is commitment to criticize, and if necessary to resist, one’s own government. On both these counts official peace committees within the USSR and Eastern Europe, and pro-NATO organs in the West, would not normally qualify as independent peace groups, though there are borderline cases.¹

The final test of a peace group is the methods of protest adopted. Peace campaigns have embraced illegal action, but do not resort to violence. A peace group which deliberately sponsored violence or turned to guerrilla warfare would have become a different kind of body. For example the Weatherpeople formed a guerrilla group which emerged out of the protest movement against the Vietnam War in the USA, but once they went underground their aims and their methods were those of a revolutionary struggle. In principle the use of limited violence to resist and prevent a much greater violence might be seen as justifiable, but it has been generally accepted that it would be wholly incongruous for an organization committed to promote peace to engage in violent resistance.

CLASSIFYING PEACE ACTIVITY

Once we have decided what constitutes a genuine peace group, we need to understand the range and purposes of peace activity. A simple way of classifying peace campaigns is in terms of what they are against. Thus peace groups can be divided into those who oppose all wars and by extension all preparations for war; those who oppose a specific type of weapon; those who oppose particular policies relating to arms; and those who protest against a specific war.² These categories are not wholly satisfactory, because they tend to overlap and the motives for opposition are varied. Moreover, this classification excludes an important area of peace activity which is concerned not with protest but with positive attempts to end conflict through education and reconciliation, or through improving economic and social conditions. Nevertheless, a preliminary survey of peace protest is helpful.

Pacifists oppose all wars, arguing that fighting is morally wrong and that war is the greatest evil of all. Strict pacifism is usually now taken to mean personal refusal to take part in war and opposition to all types of war preparation. Pacifists hold the most consistent and uncompromising position on war, and often constitute the core of peace campaigns, both because of the strength of their convictions and their long-term organizational resources. On the other hand, the absolutism of the pacifist position is hard to reconcile with immediate political realities. So pure pacifists have always been a minority, and in order to make progress many pacifists support campaigns for more limited objectives.

Peace activists have tried to ban production, deployment and use of specific weapons because they are exceptionally destructive, indiscriminate or inhumane. Nuclear weapons are not only immensely powerful but cause burns and radiation sickness among the immediate survivors, while radioactive fallout contaminates the whole globe and results in deformity and illness among future generations. Biological warfare would spread hideous diseases indiscriminately. Chemical weapons are equally hard to control when used, but vary in their nature: mustard gas damages lungs and causes acute burns, but may not be fatal; nerve gases on the other hand are deadly in minute amounts and will destroy whole communities. All these potentially genocidal weapons are clearly in a category by themselves. Since 1945 there have been two major transnational movements against nuclear weapons and more limited protests against chemical and biological weapons. The modern technology of destruction has in addition greatly strengthened the argument that war itself is the worst possible evil. Belief that the use of nuclear bombs in a war between the superpowers would be inevitable has created a new category of ‘nuclear pacifism’.

Campaigns against nuclear weapons have not solely concentrated on the need for nuclear disarmament and for preventing the spread of such weapons. Protest has often focused on the testing of nuclear weapons – sometimes treated as a distinct issue – on particular nuclear bases, specific missile deployments, on mining uranium which can be used for bombs, and on the process of manufacturing warheads. Campaigners have also objected to the dangers of bombers carrying nuclear weapons (a number crashed in the 1950s and 1960s) and opposed vessels armed with nuclear weapons visiting their ports. The variety of these protests and their wider policy goals are explored in subsequent chapters.

Particular military policies may provoke opposition because they seem to increase the likelihood of war, or because they waste economic resources or have socially damaging consequences. Resistance to increases in military budgets and fears about an ‘arms race’ draw on these concerns. One major focus of anxiety and protest throughout this century has been the arms trade. Before and after the First World War many feared that arms manufacturers with a vested interest in selling as many arms as possible promoted war and so acted as ‘merchants of death’. Since 1945 the trade in arms from the technologically developed states of the West and the Soviet bloc to the Third World has prompted much critical scrutiny. Peace researchers have charted the volume of arms sales, which rose dramatically in the 1970s, and have examined the dangers of such sales strengthening military élites, distorting economic development and exacerbating local conflicts.³ Concern about arms sales was also expressed in the Brandt Report analysing the North–South divide.⁴ Groups in the USA and Britain and many other countries organized protests against arms sales during the 1970s, and protests mounted in the late 1980s.

Moves by the military to take over agricultural land to create or to extend army bases or air bases have provoked significant local resistance in a number of cases. The best-known campaign has been waged in Southern France by the farmers of Larzac, supported by Gandhian pacifists at the Community of the Arch and by industrial and professional unions. The campaign began in 1970 and was eventually won after eleven years.⁵ A little-known example is the prolonged struggle by the Shibokusa women who live at the foot of Mount Fuji to recover their land taken over by the US occupation army after 1945, but then retained by the Japanese armed forces.⁶

Opposition to a particular war is, of course, one logical expression of pacifism, and pacifists can often be found promoting resistance to conscription. Protesters also tend to stress the brutality and immorality of the methods used by their government in waging the war: for example opponents of the Boer War in Britain pointed to the use of concentration camps. The mainspring of campaigns against specific wars has, however, been anti-imperialism. This has been combined with a simple human resistance to being drafted overseas to face death or injury, especially when victory looks uncertain and the cause dubious. Conscripts may simply rebel against the grimness of army life. All these elements were present in the protests against the French War in Algeria. During 1955 and 1956 there were widespread demonstrations and petitions, some conscripts refused to leave for Algeria and women lay down in front of troop trains. A committee set up in 1958 indicted French use of torture and repression against Algerians, and by 1960 intellectuals and students were protesting bitterly. Some potential conscripts went into hiding or escaped abroad, and they were openly supported in a public manifesto signed by 121 intellectuals.⁷ War resistance can, however, be extended to active support for those justly fighting for independence. In France the highly controversial Jeanson network offered direct assistance to the Algerian National Liberation Front, and in the eyes of many discredited the wider opposition. So not all forms of resistance to specific wars can count as being part of a ‘peace movement’.

Anti-imperialism is not the only reason for opposing wars as unjust. Just War doctrine and popular perceptions distinguish between genuinely defensive wars and acts of aggression. So it is not surprising that the 1982 Israeli incursion into the Lebanon to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization, which could not, like the wars of 1967 and 1973, be seen as a legitimate response to a military threat from Arab states, provoked major public demonstrations against the government. The issue is not always, however, simply whether or not it is right to defend existing state borders, but the extent of those borders. Peace groups in Israel have criticized Israeli occupation of territories captured during the 1967 War. When frontiers are in dispute the distinction between a war of liberation and internal ‘terrorism’ becomes contentious, and the position can be further confused by violent conflict between ethnic or ideological communities in the disputed territory. Peace groups may then concentrate on resisting central government use of troops to quell local uprisings or guerrilla action as in the case of the Palestinian intifada or Northern Ireland. Sometimes, as in South Africa, governments quite unambiguously wage war on sections of their own population. Campaigns for draft resistance in both Israel and South Africa in the late 1980s did not primarily reflect pacifism, but deep disquiet about the repressive role of the military in those societies.

RECONCILIATION AND THE ISSUE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

The dominant emphasis of peace activity has been on opposing war and military policies, but it has always encompassed positive measures to promote mutual understanding and transnational cooperation. For example a Swiss pacifist, Pierre Ceresole, set up International Voluntary Service in 1920 to bring volunteers from different countries together in work camps to do useful work. Since 1945 many peace groups have been active in building bridges across the East–West divide through exchanging delegations or organizing conferences of professionals. In addition peace activists have often tried to engage in direct reconciliation of local communities in conflict by third-party mediation and by countering misinformation, or by bringing both sides together to alter long-term prejudices. Communal reconciliation is often linked to undertaking practical work to tackle local problems such as unemployment or housing. Christian pacifists have engaged in a number of such moves towards reconciliation in Northern Ireland, for example, and an international group worked with the United Nations in Cyprus in 1973–74 on a resettlement project for Turkish villagers driven from their homes.⁸

Positive peace-making is not always uncontentious. Because of the divisive and politically complex circumstances in which it takes place, reconciliation may be seen as traitorous and peacemakers can be charged with refusing to recognize the necessity of conflict and the need to resist injustice. So the claims of justice and the claims of reconciliation may appear to run counter to each other. Gandhian non-violence attempts to combine struggle with ultimate reconciliation, but even in non-violent campaigns resistance usually sharpens divisions. Pacifists may disagree on whether the right course is to support one side in a conflict or to try to end it. Bridge-building between East and West has also raised difficult issues for Western peace groups seeking dialogue through official channels in the East, but sympathetic to the opposition in Eastern Europe.

Whether peace should be an absolute priority or whether at times political freedom, human rights or social justice should take precedence has always been a pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Glossary of Strategic Terms
• Editorial Foreword
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One. Defining Peace Movements and their Beliefs
• Chapter Two. The Global Context of Peace Activity since 1945
• Chapter Three. The First Nuclear Disarmament Movement: 1957–64
• Chapter Four. The Movement against the Vietnam War and its Impact
• Chapter Five. Nuclear Disarmament: the Second Wave in Europe, 1979–87
• Chapter Six. Nuclear Disarmament Campaigns in North America and the Pacific in the 1980s
• Chapter Seven. Peace Protest in Socialist States
• Chapter Eight. Pacifism, War Resistance and Reconciliation
• Conclusion
• Bibliographical Essay
• Index