Orwell on the dangers of Pacifism

I pulled this from a little Orwell I was reading last night, and thought I'd share it:

Orwell: "Civilisation rests ultimately on coercion. What holds society together is not the policeman but the goodwill of common men, and yet that goodwill is powerless unless the policeman is there to back it up. Any government which refused to use violence in its own defence would cease almost immediately to exist, because it could be overthrown by any body of men, or even any individual, that was less scrupulous... British pacifism is on the side of the Nazis, and German pacifism, if it exists, is on the side of Britain and the USSR. Since pacifists have more freedom of action in coutries where traces of democracy survive, pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it. Objectively the pacifist is pro-Nazi... Pacifism is only a considerable force in places where people feel themselves very safe, chiefly maritime states... The real working class, though they hate war and are immune to jingoism, are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it."

Taken from Orwell, My Country Right or Left, 1940-1943: The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 2, edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, (Harvest Books, 1968): 166-167.