Editing Pacifism (section)

====Between the two World Wars====
[[File:Красноармейцы-пацифисты.png|thumb|The soldiers of the Red Army in Russia, who on religious grounds refused to shoot at the target (evangelicals or Baptists). Between 1918 and 1929]]

After the immense loss of nearly ten million men to [[trench warfare]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rauchensteiner |first=Manfried |title=The First World War |year=2014|publisher=Böhlau Verlag |isbn=978-3205793656 |location=Wien |doi=10.7767/boehlau.9783205793656|url=https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=fulltext&uiLanguage=en&rid=16519 }}{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</ref> a sweeping change of attitude toward [[militarism]] crashed over Europe, particularly in nations such as Great Britain, where many questioned its involvement in the war. After World War I's official end in 1918, peace movements across the continent and the United States renewed, gradually gaining popularity among young Europeans who grew up in the shadow of Europe's trauma over the Great War. Organizations formed in this period included the [[War Resisters' International]],<ref>''Radical Pacifism: The War Resisters League and Gandhian Nonviolence in America, 1915–1963'' by Scott H. Bennett. New York, Syracuse University Press, 2003, {{ISBN|081563028X}}, p. 18.</ref> the [[Women's International League for Peace and Freedom]], the [[No More War Movement]], the [[Service Civil International]] and the [[Peace Pledge Union]] (PPU). The [[League of Nations]] also convened several disarmament conferences in the interbellum period such as the [[Geneva Naval Conference|Geneva Conference]], though the support that pacifist policy and idealism received varied across European nations. These organizations and movements attracted tens of thousands of Europeans, spanning most professions including "scientists, artists, musicians, politicians, clerks, students, activists and thinkers."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kramer |first=Ann |title=Conscientious Objectors of the Second World War: Refusing to Fight |year=2013 |publisher=Pen and Sword |isbn=978-1783469376}}{{page needed|date=May 2021}}</ref>

=====Great Britain=====
Pacifism and revulsion with war were very popular sentiments in 1920s Britain. Novels and poems on the theme of the futility of war and the slaughter of the youth by old fools were published, including, [[Death of a Hero]] by [[Richard Aldington]], [[Erich Remarque]]'s translated [[All Quiet on the Western Front]] and [[Beverley Nichols]]'s expose ''Cry Havoc''. A debate at the [[University of Oxford]] in 1933 on the motion 'one must fight for King and country' captured the changed mood when the motion was resoundingly defeated. [[Hugh Richard Lawrie Sheppard|Dick Sheppard]] established the [[Peace Pledge Union]] in 1934, which totally renounced war and aggression. The idea of collective security was also popular; instead of outright pacifism, the public generally exhibited a determination to stand up to aggression, but preferably with the use of economic sanctions and multilateral negotiations.<ref>{{cite web |title=Pacifism |url=http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-1Hom-c5.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203103202/http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-1Hom-c5.html |archive-date=3 December 2013 |access-date=2 December 2013 |publisher=[[University of Wellington]]}}</ref> Many members of the Peace Pledge Union later joined the [[Bruderhof Communities|Bruderhof]]<ref>{{Cite news |title=Learning from the Bruderhof: An Intentional Christian Community |language=en |work=ChristLife |url=https://christlife.org/blog/learning-from-the-bruderhof-an-intentional-christian-community |access-date=27 August 2018 |archive-date=7 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220407004601/https://christlife.org/blog/learning-from-the-bruderhof-an-intentional-christian-community |url-status=dead }}</ref> during its period of residence in the Cotswolds, where Englishmen and Germans, many of whom were Jewish, lived side by side despite local persecution.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Randall |first1=Ian M. |title=A Christian Peace Experiment: The Bruderhof Community in Britain, 1933–1942 |last2=Wright |first2=Nigel G. |year=2018|publisher=Cascade Books |isbn=978-1532639982 |language=en}}</ref><!-- This formerly read "English, Jews and Germans", but this implies that Englishmen and Germans could not be Jewish. -->

[[File:Prats-de-Mollo Children's Home.jpg|thumb|left|Refugees from the Spanish Civil War at the [[War Resisters' International]] children's refuge in the French Pyrenees]]

The British [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] had a strong pacifist wing in the early 1930s, and between 1931 and 1935 it was led by [[George Lansbury]], a Christian pacifist who later chaired the No More War Movement and was president of the PPU. The 1933 annual conference resolved unanimously to "pledge itself to take no part in war". Researcher Richard Toye writes that "Labour's official position, however, although based on the aspiration towards a world socialist commonwealth and the outlawing of war, did not imply a renunciation of force under all circumstances, but rather support for the ill-defined concept of 'collective security' under the League of Nations. At the same time, on the party's left, [[Stafford Cripps]]'s small but vocal [[Socialist League (UK, 1932)|Socialist League]] opposed the official policy, on the non-pacifist ground that the League of Nations was 'nothing but the tool of the satiated imperialist powers'."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Toye |first=R. |date=1 January 2001 |title=The Labour Party and the Economics of Rearmament, 1935–39 |journal=Twentieth Century British History |volume=12 |issue=3 |pages=303–326 |doi=10.1093/tcbh/12.3.303 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10036/26952}}</ref>

Lansbury was eventually persuaded to resign as Labour leader by the non-pacifist wing of the party and was replaced by [[Clement Attlee]].<ref>Rhiannon Vickers, ''Labour and the World'', Manchester University Press, 2004, {{ISBN|978-0719067457}}</ref> As the threat from [[Nazi Germany]] increased in the 1930s, the Labour Party abandoned its pacifist position and supported rearmament, largely as the result of the efforts of [[Ernest Bevin]] and [[Hugh Dalton]], who by 1937 had also persuaded the party to oppose [[Neville Chamberlain]]'s policy of [[appeasement]].<ref>A.J.Davies, ''To Build A New Jerusalem: The British Labour Party from Keir Hardie to Tony Blair'', Abacus, 1996</ref>

The [[League of Nations]] attempted to play its role in ensuring world peace in the 1920s and 1930s. However, with the increasingly revisionist and aggressive behaviour of Nazi Germany, [[Italian Fascism|Fascist Italy]] and [[Imperial Japan]], it ultimately failed to maintain such a world order. [[Economic sanctions]] were used against states that committed aggression, such as those against Italy when it [[Second Italo-Abyssinian War|invaded Abyssinia]], but there was no will on the part of the principal League powers, Britain and France, to subordinate their interests to a multilateral process or to disarm at all themselves.

=====Spain=====
The [[Spanish Civil War]] proved a major test for international pacifism, and the work of pacifist organisations (such as [[War Resisters' International]] and the [[Fellowship of Reconciliation]]) and individuals (such as [[José Brocca]] and [[Amparo Poch y Gascón|Amparo Poch]]) in that arena has until recently{{when|date=May 2011}} been ignored or forgotten by historians, overshadowed by the memory of the [[International Brigades]] and other militaristic interventions. Shortly after the war ended, [[Simone Weil]], despite having volunteered for service on the republican side, went on to publish ''[[The Iliad or the Poem of Force]]'', a work that has been described as a pacifist manifesto.<ref name="NYB">{{cite web |title=War and the Iliad |url=http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=4551 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080501053342/http://www.nybooks.com/shop/product?usca_p=t&product_id=4551 |archive-date=1 May 2008 |access-date=29 September 2009 |publisher=The New York Review of books}}</ref> In response to the threat of fascism, some pacifist thinkers, such as [[Richard B. Gregg]], devised plans for a campaign of [[nonviolent resistance]] in the event of a fascist invasion or takeover.<ref>Lynd, Staughton. ''Nonviolence in America: a documentary history'', Bobbs-Merrill, 1966, (pps.&nbsp;271–296).</ref>

=====France=====
As the prospect of a second major war began to seem increasingly inevitable, much of France adopted pacifist views, though some historians argue that France felt more war anxiety than a moral objection to a second war. Hitler's spreading influence and territory posed an enormous threat to French livelihood from their neighbors. The French countryside had been devastated during World War I and the entire nation was reluctant to subject its territory to the same treatment. Though all countries in the First World War had suffered great losses, France was one of the most devastated and many did not want a second war.<ref>{{cite web |title=Archived copy |url=http://paxchristi.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/The-First-World-War-in-Numbers.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181206102558/http://paxchristi.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/The-First-World-War-in-Numbers.pdf |archive-date=6 December 2018 |access-date=6 December 2018}}</ref>

=====Germany=====
{{Main|Pacifism in Germany}}

As Germany dealt with the burdens of the Treaty of Versailles, a conflict arose in the 1930s between German Christianity and German nationalism. Many Germans found the terms of the treaty debilitating and humiliating, so German nationalism offered a way to regain the country's pride. German Christianity warned against the risks of entering a war similar to the previous one. As the German depression worsened and fascism began to rise in Germany, a greater tide of Germans began to sway toward Hitler's brand of nationalism that would come to crush pacifism.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Conway |first=John S. |year=2003 |title=Review of Christian Pacifism confronts German Nationalism – The Ecumenical Movement and the Cause of Peace in Germany, 1914–1933; Der Weltbund für Freundschaftsarbeit der Kirchen, 1914–1948. Eine ökumenische Friedensorganisation |journal=Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=491–497 |jstor=43751708}}</ref>