Anger Of The Guns: Exposing the monstrous global death machine

Prefaced by Jeremy Corbyn, The Monstrous Anger Of The Guns shows how the arms industry works and how war and slaughter is built into capitalism

Anger of the Guns exposes the imperialist war machine (Photo: Guy Smallman)

By Andy Makin
Tuesday 21 January 2025

  SOCIALIST WORKER Issue

The massive ­campaign against Israel’s ­destruction of Gaza and it’s warfare against ­neighbouring countries has focussed attention on the ­international arms trade.

This means a new book, The Monstrous Anger Of The Guns—How The Global Arms Trade Is Ruining The World And What We Can Do About It, will find a wide readership amongst activists.

The book has a preface by Jeremy Corbyn. It’s editors are Rhonda Mitchie of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, Andrew Feinstein, Palestine activist, and Paul Rogers, professor of Peace Studies at Bradford university.

The main part of the book consists of articles from a range of international writers which cover several aspects of the world wide arms trade.

It includes activist voices from the Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Action and the students ­campaigning for university divestment.

The articles are short, readable and packed with relevant facts we can all use.

Anna Stavrianakis points out the dominance of US arms spending—£650 billion in 2021, more than a third of the world total. China spends £250 ­billion and Russia spends £70 billion. The entire regions of Africa and Latin America combined account for less than 5 percent of world military spending.

Vijay Pasadena points out that the US has a market share of military exports which is far higher than China’s. It is staggering that the US has 902 bases abroad while China has just one.

Of particular interest was Palestine Action’s contribution describing the direct action against Israeli owned Elbit Systems—though I ­disagree with their contention that “established politics is pointless”. Mass movements depend on meetings, marches and demonstrations.

Also of great interest is Lorenzo Ruzzoni’s account of workers’ actions against arms supplies to Israel such as the Barcelona port ­workers’ refusal to handle arms for the Gaza war.

This book is a useful and informative tool for activists. Opposition to ­militarism and arms production will always be a key part of opposing the system. But it is impossible to imagine persuading capitalist states to disarm and coexist without war and military competition.

We need to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a real democracy that stops producing weapons and makes peace the norm. Nonetheless, this is a book well worth reading and discussing in the wider movement.The Monstrous Anger Of The Guns is available from Bookmarks bookshop

Right wing conspirators made cosily criminal

If you’re looking for an entertaining read for the dark winter nights, Jonathan Coe’s new book fits the bill. Coe fulfills his role as satirist of the ruling class, but takes a new path into the genre of “cosy murder mystery”.

The novel is partly set during the short time that Liz Truss was prime minister. A group of rightwing politicians and academics hold a conference with some heads of industry at a country retreat.

They bemoan “woke culture” and plan to destroy the NHS and profiteer from the spoils. The story then goes back in time to explore the origins of this group in Thatcherite Britain.

The time frames are connected by the death of a blogger who was briefly around during both. He spent his life uncovering the direct but clandestine connections between fat cats, right wing academics and Westminster.

Coe riffs-off some topics such as NHS privatisation—something I was eager for as I am a health worker. Coe raises other themes, such as sexual diversity, but then drops them.

However some issues sit more easily within the plot, like the confrontation over slave profits at the county retreat. Coe explores the idea of nostalgia well. He relates the nostalgia for the post‑war “consensus” to the “Gen Z” fondness for watching Friends.

Coe’s novel What A Carve Up was both hilarious and angry. This is quite funny but feels a bit resigned and, well, cosy.

Diana Swingler