Socialist Pacifism and Nonviolent Social Revolution: The War Registers League and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939

For much of the twentieth century, the War Resisters League (WRL) has offered a “socialist” pacifist critique of the existing world order and capitalistic system. Virtually alone among the secular Left in America, the WRL repudiated the use of armed violence to promote class war, advance social revolution, and defeat fascism during the Spanish Civil War. Unlike international wars, which it considered the product of capitalist rivalries and power politics, the League viewed the Spanish conflict as a class war/social revolution and championed a nonviolent social revolution and Republican victory. Also, WRL members both played a prominent role the Socialist Party (SP) debate over the Spanish conflict and formulated a pacifist critique of the SP and those radicals who embraced armed defense and armed social revolution in Spain. Largely unknown, this socialist pacifist current comprises an important alternative vision in the American socialist tradition, and one with continued relevance to nonviolent social change.