nonviolent action here in thenUnited States, to try to stopnAmerican aggression at itsnsource rather than leave thenwhole burden on those whonsuffer its impact.nAt FOR the executive secretary, AlfrednHassler, was pushed out after thennational council voted to make thenPeople’s Peace Treaty the basis for endingnthe war. That treaty was andocument drawn up in Hanoi, andncalled for an unconditional Americannwithdrawal and the installation of thenProvisional Revolutionary Governmentnin Saigon.nThe insistance on an immediatenAmerican withdrawal, followed by thendemand that all aid to the South Vietnamesenbe ended, was the device fornreconciling pacifists with procommunists.nEveryone knew that “peace”nbased on the premise that only thenanticommunist side would be preventednfrom fighting was the same as a policynfavoring a Communist victory. Its advantagenwas that such a policy could benstated in traditional pacifist terms, asnopposition to war-making. This is antime-tested formula being used today innthe debate over Central American policynand the nuclear arms race.nThe large-scale exodus of boat peoplenfrom Indochina, the deployment ofnSoviet bombers and warships to Vietnamesenbases, and the genocide andncontinuing war in Cambodia have donennothing to disillusion the AFSC or thenother groups on the righteousness of then”revolutionary struggle” in SoutheastnAsia or elsewhere in the Third World.nRevolution, however, must always bendefined in leftist terms. Anticommunistnguerrilla movements, as in Angola andnNicaragua, are obviously only bands ofnreactionaries and mercenaries in thenemploy of imperialists. Even the Afghannresistance against foreign invasion isnoutside acceptable limits because it isnpart of the East-West struggle.nThough the AFSC has condemnednMoscow for invading Afghanistan, it hasnalso attacked the Afghan resistance as ancollection of landlords and tribal chiefsnopposed to land reform and socialnchange, and further tainted by the aidnreceived from the CIA. The AFSC hasnalso sought to justify the Soviet invasion.nOne AFSC pamphlet cited by Lewynstates: “From a Soviet perspective, itnmay have occurred to them that thenU.S. might have been tempted to seizena destabilized Afghanistan and turn itninto a new listening post on Russia’snsouthern border.” The WILPF onlynfinds the Soviet invasion “regrettable,”nand notes “the Soviet interest in havingnclose relations with a neighboring country.”nAid to the Afghan guerrillas is tonbe opposed because it merely fuels thenglobal US-Soviet confrontation, fornwhich the US is primarily to blame.nIn 1981, the AFSC disarmamentnprogram published a pamphlet falselynclaiming that the USSR had “virtuallynno power projection forces,” whereasnthe US was “the only nation capable ofnprojecting and sustaining its power bynmilitary force globally.” This made thenUS the real threat to peace in the world.nThe pamphlet Questions and Answersnon the Soviet Threat and NationalnSecurity also dismissed the Soviet occupationnof Eastern Europe as beingnthe natural result of “two Germanninvasions,” while Moscow’s support tonhelp “Third World nations throw offntheir yoke of colonialism and neocolonialism”nwas praised.nLewy’s history, based on an extensiveninvestigation of the official recordsnand publications of the AFSC at theirnnational headquarters in Philadelphianand of the FOR, WILPF, and WRLnat the Swarthmore College Peace Collection,nis full of revealing quotationsnand the sordid details of the alliancenbetween pacifism and America’snenemies — what in a more frank andnhealthy period would be branded treason.nHowever, his attempt to draw anclear line at the Vietnam War betweennan authentic pacifism and a new radicalncreed that merely uses pacifism as andevice to seize the high moral groundnin political struggles is too neat. He alsonaccords the old pacifism too muchncredit as a noble exercise in idealism.nAt one point Lewy even claims that:nPacifists, committed to thensupreme value of nonviolence,nremind the rest of us who arennot pacifists of the link betweennmeans and ends. Their personaln”No” to killing carries annimportant ethical message. Thenpacifist vision of a world free ofnthe threat of war can help buildnsupport for the development ofnan ordered political communitynnnat the international level able tonresolve conflicts peacefully andnjustly.nThis is an exercise in wishful thinking.nNone of Lewy’s four groups deservenany praise for their “idealism,” evennwhen one goes back to their very beginnings.nThese groups were on the wrongnside from the start. This is why the NewnLeft found it so easy to gain control ofnthem. All four groups were foundednduring or immediately after World WarnI. The war shattered both the liberalnfaith in natural progress and America’snisolation from global power politics.nThe resulting intellectual turmoilnprovided an opening for radicals. Thendominant world view of the foundingngeneration was fashioned by the philosophynof socialism. As Lewy himselfnstates in his first chapter:nThe pacifist organizations thatnwere founded during and afternWorld War I included a strongncore of socialists, and all pacifistsnstressed the importance ofnopposing the imperialism of thencapitalistic order, of ending thenarms race and achievingneconomic and social justice innorder to remove what theynconsidered to be the ultimatencauses of war.nA.J. Muste, a Protestant ministernwho was a leader of FOR from 1926-n1929 and again from 1940-1953 (duringnthe period between he worked withnthe Trotskyist American Workers Party),nargued in a 1928 pamphlet that thencapitalist status quo was by its naturenviolent and thus pacifists had to benrevolutionaries. Only by ending capitalismncould violence be ended. This samenline has become commonplace. Fornexample, in an AFSC pamphlet writtenn44 years later, James Bristol, a formernLutheran pastor, claimed: “While twonwrongs never make a right, before wendeplore terrorism it is essential for us tonrecognize fully and clearly whose terrorismncame first, so that we can assessnwhat is cause and what is effect.”nAt the core of the entire peacenmovement is the Leninist theorem thatnimperialism is the highest stage of capitalism,nand thus capitalism is the principalncause of war. It is true, of course,nthat capitalist states have used militarynforce to expand as well as to protectnDECEMBER 1988133n