In 1940 the congress began to fall under the influence of the right-wing America First Committee.75 It was, in Lynch’s words, a “tenuous, uneasy, and short-lived alliance” that put pacifists in company with right-wing nationalists who in some cases were Nazi sympathizers. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the congress hastily disbanded, marking an ignominious end to a dubious attempt by some pacifists to avoid war at all costs, even at the expense of allying with proto-fascists.
The dwindling pacifist movement faced a fundamental contradiction as it campaigned to prevent war in the late 1930s. It tried to project an internationalist message, even as it campaigned to keep the United States aloof from the world crisis. Pacifists tried to project an internationalist perspective. They called for a“social change”strategy of greater engagement in the world to address the underlying political and economic equalities that contribute to war.
They opposed imperialism and economic exploitation and supported self-determination for oppressed peoples and nations. Their overriding political objective, however, was keeping the United States out of war. Their longer-range internationalist agenda received less attention and in any case was not relevant to the immediate challenge of confronting fascist aggression.
By 1938 many internationalists and progressive peace advocates agreed with Einstein’s call for military preparations to resist Nazism. “While the goals of pacifism remain unchanged,” he wrote, “the methods of achieving peace must necessarily be adapted to changing circumstances.” Sound pacifism, he argued, includes the right to resist butchery and the obligation to face international challenges.77 For the majority of those who supported peace, internationalism came to be understood as collective military action against aggression, while pacifism was identified primarily with isolationism. This was not what pacifists intended. They tried to advocate a position that was simultaneously internationalist and antiwar, but the worsening crisis left no room for such nuance and made their stance increasingly untenable.
As Chatfield wrote, “pacifist internationalism lost its political relevance long before the nation went to war.” The term pacifism increasingly acquired a pejorative, even treasonous, connotation. It became synonymous with inaction and defeatism in the face of the enemy. Pacifism’s earlier calls for sanctions and vigorous action against fascist aggression were forgotten. This was the end of pacifism as it had been previously understood. A few religious sects and radical groups still used the term, but for all others it became tainted. Even Einstein condemned “unsound, irresponsible pacifism,” claiming in a 1941 letter that it contributed to the defeat of France and to England’s ordeal.
Despite their intense efforts to prevent war peace advocates were blamed for allowing it to happen. This was a misinterpretation of history that ignored the demands of the majority of peace advocates for resistance to fascism. It gave pacifists more influence than they actually possessed at the time and diverted attention from the actions of those actually responsible for the mistakes that were made. The decisions to accommodate and appease fascism were made by the leaders of Britain, France, and the United States, not by pacifists.
These political elites were influenced more by right-wing sympathies, economic self-interest, imperial ambitions, and Catholic conservatism than by the pressures of pacifism. To be sure, peace advocates wanted to keep their countries out of war, but they were not neutral in the face of the acts of aggression that began with Manchuria in 1931 and continued right up to the outbreak of world war in 1939.
Many peace advocates supported sanctions, arms embargoes, and, as the Peace Ballot results showed, even collective military action against aggressors. They advocated resistance to Mussolini and defense of the Spanish republic. They considered themselves internationalists and urged self-determination and economic justice for oppressed peoples. Theirs may have been a utopian view in light of the harsh political realities of the time, but it was not the cause of war. They were perhaps naïve in believing too long in the League of Nations, and mistaken in supporting neutrality legislation and aligning with isolationists. They were reluctant to admit the inevitability of war; but this did not make them responsible for its outbreak.
The Failure of Peace Efforts
