CLASS ANALYSIS

JOANNE LAURIER—Mendes’ movie never asks who was responsible for one of the most barbaric episodes in world history, a calamity that resulted in some 40 million civilian and military casualties, including an estimated 22 million dead. The claims that the film’s depiction of numerous atrocities makes it an anti-war work are spurious, as is the case in regard to various contemporary movies on the subjects of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Lions for Lambs, Mendes’ own Jarhead, etc.). It is entirely possible to picture the awfulness of such conflicts—particularly as they affect one’s “own” side—and still insist, or imply, that such conflicts are necessary, inevitable, or, once begun, have to be “carried through to the end” in the national interest. The uncritical, narrowly focused treatment of the immediate “facts” of the war in 1917 helps plant it firmly in the pro-British establishment camp.

ERIC ZUESSE—The basic distinction is class, not ethnicity. The cause of all these wars — not only international but also civil conflicts — is the unlimited greed of the wealthiest. Ethnicity is merely used by them in order to expand their own wealth.

RAINER SHEA—The staggering selfishness that these petty tyrants showed when Stalin tried to make their resources available to a desperate populace-with many of the kulaks having burned their supplies rather than share it-is also ignored by bourgeois commentators who see the kulaks as victims. From a capitalist perspective, taking away someone’s means for exploiting the proletariat is a heinous crime, and the kulaks were only defending themselves.

ALVARO GARCIA LINERA—Over several weeks, the police had shown great incompetence and neglect of their duty to protect the ordinary people whom fascistic gangs threatened with beatings and persecution. But since last Friday — refusing to recognize their civilian command — many of these same police have shown an extraordinary capacity for attacking, detaining, torturing, and killing protesters from the popular classes. Of course, in the earlier [anti-Morales] protests, it had been a matter of reining in the children of the middle classes — and the police were supposedly powerless to react.

“Who said demonstrations are appeasing? Piñera seeks to shield the institutional and economic neoliberal model. He cracks down on [citizens] and keeps on legislating ​​​​​​​indoors accompanied by an ‘opposition’ which does not represent the ​​​​​​​protesting people. The request is clear: he must either call a constituent assembly or resign.” At the El Mercurio interview, the right-wing president very cautiously acknowledged that the Army and the Police had committed abuses against civilians.