Riot and Revolution: Speech by Rosa Luxemburg on Trial for Inciting to Riot (1907)

From the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the twelfth of last month Rosa Luxemburg was tried at the Criminal Court at Weimar for “inciting to the use of physical force” by the speech she contributed to the discussion on the General Strike at the annual Congress of the German Socialist Party held in 1905 at Jena.

The court was densely crowded. Besides a great number of Socialists the audience included a good many “ladies of the highest Bourgeoisie”, the President of the Supreme Court, and, last but not least, a representative of the Ministry.

Public Prosecutor’s Charge

The incriminating speech having been read the Public Prosecutor submitted his case as follows:

“After Bebel had  spoken at the Party Congress in favour of the General Strike, other speakers, who took part in the discussion, expressed disapproval of such means, as the General Strike could lead to a physical force revolution, at which the workers may be defeated. Then followed the accused, who derided and sneered at these objections, more especially as they were living in the year of the ‘glorious Russian revolution’. She said: ‘we should be fools if that would be no lesson to us’, and she emphasised the fact that in Germany we had also arrived at that point where Evolution must give way to Revolution. Respecting her comrade, Heine, she stated he was not in touch with the masses who, as history proves, had always shed their blood for the exploiting class; and she thought they may once shed their blood for their own class.

These are the main points of the speech, which dealt less with the General Strike than with the Revolution. In fact the accused mentioned only now and then the General Strike, in order to be able to talk about the principal point, viz., the Revolution. In that way the incitement to the use of physical force was thrown out to the masses who were confused already, and the sanguinary seriousness of the speech was crowned by a quotation from the Communist Manifesto that the workers have nothing to lose but their chains. The accused desires that the object of the Socialist Party should not be attained by parliamentary means or by means of the General Strike, but by a physical force revolution; and the speech was made to incite the masses to break their chains. It was to happen in our country just as in Russia. All this amounts to an incitement to the use of physical force. Her words were such as to create excitement among the masses and from the standpoint of law and order it is most significant that the accused occupies a prominent position in her Party and by virtue of her heedlessness has considerable influence and hence is exceptionally dangerous. I ask the Court to pass a sentence of four months’ imprisonment upon the accused.”

Rosa Luxemburg’s Reply

Counsel for the defence, Kurt Rosenfeld, answered with a brilliant speech from the Socialist as well as the juridicial standpoint, but the limited space of The Standard unfortunately does not permit our reproducing more than the speech of Rosa Luxemburg. She said:

“My defending Counsel having dealt with the juridicial aspect I wish to explain my own conception and that generally held in my Party regarding the question of the General Strike and the use of physical force. But before doing so I must refer to the argument which the Public Prosecutor used a moment ago. I cannot help saying that I was really astonished at the carelessness with which an official representative of the law ascribes the responsibility for affairs like the Hamburg street riots to a Three Million Party, the Socialist Party.”

The presiding judge, interrupting the accused, warned her not to indulge in expressions such as “carelessness”, which he thought would not help her case.

Rosa Luxemburg (continuing):

“I think that it is particularly necessary for me to draw attention to – let me say – the complacency with which the Public Prosecutor, in face of an express decision by a Court of Law to the contrary, wants to make us responsible for the Hamburg riots, for this is on a par with the complacency with which in this case he ascribes to me the intention of inciting to the use of physical force by my Jena speech.

“Counsel for the prosecution holds that my excited tone deserved grave consideration. But surely the tone is a matter of individual temperament. Why, is it not possible that one may speak most excitedly, yet may present a strictly scientific conception, while, on the other hand, one may speak very quietly, yet present a very crude, unscientific, and alarming conception? And as far as my conception in regard to the question of the General Strike is concerned, I hold the view that neither a revolution nor a great, serious General Strike can be produced or provoked in an artificial manner.

The General Strike

“As the Public Prosecutor has referred to my speech at Mannheim, I may, perhaps, be permitted, for the purpose of making clear my conception, to quote here some passages from a pamphlet on the General Strike, a pamphlet I wrote purposely for this year’s Party Congress at Mannheim. In that pamphlet I say, for instance, on page 33:

  ‘It suffices to sum up what I have said in the foregoing, in order to obtain an explanation as to the question of the said leadership and initiative of the General Strike. If the General Strike does not mean one separate action but an entire period of the class struggle, and if that period is identical with a period of revolution, it must be clear that a General Strike could not be called forth at will, even if such resolve should emanate from the unanimous forces of the strongest Socialist Party. Seeing that the Socialist Party is really powerless as far as the setting on foot and the suppressing of revolutions according to its own sweet will are concerned, neither the greatest enthusiasm nor the uttermost impatience of the Socialist forces could provoke a real period of General Strikes that would culminate in a live, mighty movement of the masses.’

“And on page 50 of the pamphlet you will find the following statement:

   ‘While it is on the one hand difficult to predict with certainty whether the abolition of manhood suffrage in Germany will create a situation instantly calling forth a General Strike, there can on the other hand be no doubt that in the event of our entering a period of stormy action of the masses here in Germany the Socialist Party could not possibly confine their tactics to the merely parliamentary defensive. To determine beforehand the cause and the time of an outbreak of the General Strike in Germany is beyond the power of the Socialist Party, because it is beyond their power to create a historical situation by means of Party resolutions. But what the Party can and must do, is to indicate the political trend of these struggles, if they once take place, and to formulate a clear, determined policy for their pursuance. Historical events cannot be controlled by prescribing regulations, but by realising beforehand their probable, measurable consequences and by taking action accordingly.’

“That is my conception with regard to the General Strike and from that you will be able to gather that this conception is far removed from the views held by the Public Prosecutor.

The Lesson of Russian Revolution

“It has been said that the most aggravating moment in my charge is the fact that in my speech I alluded so frequently to the Russian Revolution. But one cannot help observing that the Russian Revolution is the first great historical experiment with the weapon of the General Strike and that every serious-minded social student, even if he happens to be a bourgeois scholar, must turn to the Russian Revolution for the purpose of gaining practical knowledge.

“A further point mentioned was the composition of the audience, whom I am accused of having incited to the use of physical force. Why, I did not even speak at a public meeting, but at the Socialist Congress; I spoke therefore to an assembly of men, who comprised a selected number of the enlightened workers of Germany. Hence I think it a really enormous under-estimation of the political maturity and intelligence of the Socialist Propagandists to believe that they could by an inflammatory speech so easily be incited to the use of physical force. Such an aspersion amounts decidedly to a tremendous under-estimation of the enlightening and elevating intellectual influences which 40 years of Socialist propaganda have produced in the ranks of the German working class. And I say openly that I should and could have used the identical expressions even at a public meeting without having caused the remotest idea of using physical force in the minds of the workers. Why, has the German Proletariat not proved sufficiently during the last few decades how completely it has attained its political maturity, how capable it is to control its passions in face of the meanest of provocations to riot. And the workers are provoked to rebellion daily not only by words but by deeds.

Real Organisers of Riot

“Do you believe that masses of people could be incited to use physical force against the ruling class merely by a few words on the Revolution, when you consider that these same masses kept their temper admirably all the time the capitalist class enforced their anti-Socialist law, their penal servitude enactment directed against free speech and press, their measures for increasing working-class starvation and, last but not least, their Bill for smashing up the workers’ economic organisation? I am surprised that the Public Prosecutor has not, instead of prosecuting me, brought to book the originators of those laws and Bills, for these deeds are apt to stir up immensely the propertyless masses and would most certainly lead to physical force excesses if – yes, if it were not for Socialism’s enlightening and elevating influence.

“The Public Prosecutor opined that I completely repudiate the revolutionary character of my Jena speech. That is a great error. I have spoken in a revolutionary strain and I always speak in a revolutionary way, seeing that our entire Socialist propaganda is revolutionary; but not in the sense so peculiarly interpreted by the Public Prosecutor, who ascribes the Hamburg street riots to the revolutionary effect of Socialist agitation; but in the sense that we aim at a basic revolution of the present social order. And I do not even deny that in that process physical force may well become necessary.

Engels on the Bourgeoisie

“But I, together with my Party, take up the standpoint that the initiative for using physical force proceeds always from the ruling class, a standpoint that was so ably made clear by our great teacher, Frederich Engels, who in 1892 wrote in the columns of the Neue Zeit:

  ‘The Bourgeois have very frequently suggested to us that we should under any circumstances abandon the use of revolutionary methods and remain within the limits of the law now that the exceptional Socialist law has been dropped and the common law has again been made accessible to all, even to Socialists! We regret being unable to oblige the gentlemen of the bourgeoisie by taking that hint and hasten to remind them that at this very moment it is not us who destroy ‘the legal means’. No, on the contrary, they – the bourgeois – are doing propaganda work for us so effectively that we should be fools were we to interfere with them whilst they are making such wonderful progress. There is evidently some justification for the question whether it will indeed not be the bourgeois and their government who will violate laws and rights, in order to demolish us by physical force. We are prepared to wait. In the meantime ‘kindly have the first shot, gentlemen of the bourgeoisie!’ They will no doubt fire the first shot. One fine morning the German bourgeois and their Government will grow tired of watching with folded arms the overflowing river of Socialism, and they will take recourse to lawlessness, to physical force. What will be the use of it? Physical force may repress a small section of the people in a limited district, but the power has still to be discovered that is capable of annihilating a Party of two or three million persons spread over a very large country. The counter-revolution, a momentary overpowering of the workers, may perhaps delay the triumph of Socialism for a few years, but only that it may finally prevail so much more completely and definitely.’

“This is our conception. And now in conclusion I ask you to acquit me; not because I am afraid of the imprisonment to which you may treat me. If it is a question of enduring the punishment meted out to us by the ruling class for our convictions, every Socialist submits to it with the greatest indifference. But I ask you to acquit me, because my conviction would be an injustice and would cause aggravation in Socialist circles.”

After an hour’s deliberation Rosa was found guilty and sentenced to 2 months imprisonment.

Well done, “red Rosa”; you have grandly expressed the sentiments of the class-conscious workers of the world and may you live to see the Social Revolution accomplished!

Forget, forget the 5th of November – and Trafalgar Day (2005)

Editorial from the November 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The only man to enter Parliament with good intentions”. So some describe Guy Fawkes, though this isn’t the official line on the Gunpowder Plot which was uncovered four hundred years ago this month. Actually, this saying is wrong on two counts. Guy Fawkes did not enter Parliament with good intentions, and to wish to blow up Parliament can’t really be said to be a good intention (blowing them up wouldn‘t achieve anything; voting them out is the intelligent thing to do).

Four hundred years ago the English ruling class was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Spain which, with the backing of the Pope, was trying to incorporate England into a revived Holy Roman Empire. Capitalism had only come into being in the previous hundred years or so and the English ruling class was in the process of transforming itself from a serf-exploiting feudal nobility into a ruling class whose wealth and power would be based on producing for and trading on the world market. To achieve this it was essential to avoiding being incorporated to an economically stagnant Absolutist Empire such as Spain was trying to establish in Europe.

The ideological smokescreen under which this conflict of economic interest was fought out was Protestantism versus Catholicism. Henry VIII had broken with the Pope in 1529 and Protestantism became the ideology of that section of the English ruling class striving for a national capitalist state. Catholicism that of its enemies. Throughout the 16th century in England, Catholics and Protestants were successively burned at the stake. Guy Fawkes was a Catholic and had entered Parliament with a view to blowing it up in a bid to re-establish a Catholic regime in England.

From the point of view of the English ruling class, he was a traitor, and has traditionally been portrayed as such in school history books. In fact, anti-Catholicism remained a key feature of English nationalism right up until the end of the 19th century. By then it had become an anachronism. England – since the union with Scotland in 1707, “Great Britain” – had long since established itself as the leading capitalist power in the world and was no longer under even the remotest threat of being incorporated into some backward-looking Absolutist Catholic Empire.

In view of the anti-Catholic aspect the media didn’t know quite how to mark the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. They had no such doubts about how to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar – by an obscene display of jingoistic nationalism.

The ground had already been prepared by London’s successful bid to stage the 2012 Olympics and England’s regaining of the Ashes from Australia, both of which saw a mindless mob gather in Trafalgar Square to sing jingo songs known to socialists as “Fool Britannia”, “Land of Dopes and Tories”, “Good Save the Queen (and all who sail in her)” as well as – though quite out of place – Blake’s “Jerusalem”.

Socialists are utterly opposed to such manifestations of nationalism. In fact, we find disturbing the revival of nationalism in Britain in recent decades, as seen in the acceptance into the mainstream of formerly fascist usages such as the term “Briton” and the flag of St. George. At one time, British patriots used to call on people to die for their “country”, i.e. for the state which for accidental historical reasons happened to have jurisdiction over the geographical area where they lived. Nowadays, the appeal is to the “nation”, i.e. to an imaginary community. But there never can be any real community under capitalism. A “nation” is a false community, and a dangerous illusion because of its divisive nature.

Britain, like every other country or state in the world, is class-divided: a minority of rich owners and the rest of us. We have no interests in common with them and anything which encourages the illusion that all the people of Britain form a community with a common interest can only serve their interests. They need us to believe this because their rule and privileges depend on our acceptance. They are few but we are many. They know this but most of us don’t, yet.

When we do then we will see that the only community possible today, given the integration of the world economy, is a world community. But to be a real community there must be no class division. There must be common ownership of the globe’s resources so that they can be used for the benefit of all the members of the human race. We will then recognise ourselves, not as British, French, American, Australian or any of the other labels our rulers impose on us, but as members of the human race, citizens of the world, Earth people. Then the sort of narrow-minded nationalism orchestrated on Trafalgar Day – and let’s hope it’s not going to become an annual event – will be looked back on with a shudder as a manifestation of a barbarous past when ruling classes incited people to regard themselves as members of rival, competing “nations”.

Strikes for Peace (1918)

Editorial from the February 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

Signs are steadily growing that the working class of Europe are becoming weary of the war, with its endless slaughter, its lack of decisions making for peace, and the increased privation and misery that result from its continuance.

Enthusiastic at first for the war, with an enthusiasm inflamed and fed by the Press and the preachers — religious and political — of the master class, the workers of the various belligerent countries rushed to the fray, to the cry of “On to Berlin!” “Paris in a week !” and the like. Three and a half years of appalling slaughter have intervened, with immense improvements and developments in the instruments of torture and destruction, but the belligerents are no nearer a military decision now, on either side, than they were in 1914.

Food is becoming short, not only because millions of men have been called to the armies and navies, but also because millions more have been taken from the production of the necessaries of life and put to making instruments and articles for its destruction. And this second army has to be fed along with the first.

This food shortage is further aggravated by the favouritism that is rampant all round. Working-class women may wait for hours in queues for meat or margarine, and then fail to obtain any, but wealthy novelists, paunchy parsons, triple chinned quondam “white-feather” tricklers, and prosperous “patriots” in general, can easily obtain hundreds of pounds weight of good things to nourish their determination to sacrifice and strengthen their “will to victory.” Shops in working-class neighbourhoods are often shut for days because of the lack of supplies, but there is no shortage of first class meat, genuine butter, choicest tea, and so on at the big hotels and clubs of the West End of London, and of certain fashionable resorts. The wives of the capitalists never stand in queues for anything except a view of the latest extravagance in expensive fashions.

Although the news published here of things that are happening on the Continent has to be taken with a certain amount of caution, as we must remember that the Censor will only allow the publication of items that suit the interest of the master class, it seems fairly certain that disaffection is growing there and strikes are increasing. In many cases the avowed object of the strikes in Germany and Austria is the securing of food, but nearly always accompanying this demand, and in some cases forming the sole object, is the call upon the governments to declare an armistice and enter into negotiations for peace.

In this country a similar movement is spreading and strikes are not only in progress, but more are threatened. This movement has received a great impetus from the introduction by the Government of a measure for extending the power of Conscription by the military authorities, usually referred to under the misleading but catchy title of the “Man Power Bill.” In the Press the greatest prominence has been given to the attitude taken up by the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, though this society is not the only, or even the most important, section affected by the Bill. The reason for singling out the A.S.E. has been the refusal of the Executive of that body to take part in a joint conference with the other trades and Sir Auckland Geddes, on the details of applying the Bill. The A.S.E. Executive claim that as they have a separate agreement with the Government on this question, they should be consulted separately on the withdrawal of that agreement.

While the Government have a complete answer to this objection, it is significant that, so far, they have not attempted to bring that answer forward. Sir Auckland Geddes or Mr. Lloyd George (whose title will no doubt arrive later on) could easily have answered the A.S.E. Executive somewhat as follows :

   “It is true we made that agreement with you, but what of it ? Did we not point out at the time that there was no guarantee that we would keep it ? Did not Mr. Henderson answer your question on this point by telling you point-blank that no such guarantee would be given ? And, far more important than this, is it not a fact that we have made various promises, pledges, and agreements, several of them embodied in Acts of Parliament, not only to sections, but to the whole working class. Even now your protest is not on behalf of the working class, but a claim that a small section—the members of the A.S.E.—should not be placed in the Army until the “dilutees” have been taken. Surely if you did not complain when we smashed agreements and pledges given to the whole working class it is illogical to complain now when a section of that class is being similarly treated.”

This latter fact is the fatally weak point in the A.S.E. case, and is being used effectively by the capitalist Press and spokesmen against them.

While such narrow, short-sighted views are held by sections of the working class the master class have an easy task in keeping alive the jealousies and divisions that are so useful to them in their fights with the workers.

Sir Auckland Geddes was quite successful in urging the other trade union leaders whom he met in conference to accept his proposals and to promise to persuade their followers to accept them without trouble or friction. One reason why the A.S.E. officials were not so ready to follow their old methods on this occasion is the growth of the “Shop Stewards” movement up and down the country. This movement has helped to undermine the influence of the “official” cliques in the trade unions, as shown by the numerous “unauthorised” strikes, and with the loss of this influence over the rank and file the officials realised that their chance of bargaining for jobs with the master class would be gone.

Apparently some of the Shop Stewards, however, are merely rivals for the “official” positions and refuse to move far outside the beaten track. According to the “Daily Telegraph” for Jan. 30th, 1918, the “National Administrative Council of Shop Stewards” passed the following resolution :

  “That they are not the body to deal with the technical grievances arising out of the cancellation of occupational exemptions from military service embodied in the Man Power Bill, and must, therefore, leave such grievances to be dealt with by the official organisations concerned.”

Most of the “official organisations” are swallowing the “grievances” whole.

It would be a big mistake to suppose that these strikes and threats to strike indicate an acceptance of the principles of Socialism, or even a general awakening to the fact that they are slaves to the master class, on the part of those engaged in this movement. In some cases there may be some suspicion as to the good faith of certain Ministers and the War Cabinet, but even this suspicion is only of a faint type, as is shown by several of the resolutions passed at various meetings. According to Press reports resolutions of similar character have been passed (up to the time of writing) at meetings held at, Woolwich, Albert Hall (London), Barrow, etc., in the following terms :

   “That the British Government should enter into immediate negotiations with the other belligerent Powers for an armistice on all fronts, with a. view to a general peace on the basis of self-determination of all nations and no annexations and no indemnities. Should such action demonstrate that German Imperialism was the only obstacle to peace they would co-operate in the prosecution of the war until the objects mentioned in the first part of the resolution were achieved, failing this they would continue their opposition to the man-power proposals.—"Daily News,” 28.1.1918)

These resolutions show the confused mental condition of the workers concerned. Does their claim for “self-determination” apply to Ireland, India, and Egypt ? If so do they really imagine the British capitalist Government will agree to such application ? Certainly they must be simple if they believe a threat to strike would bring such a result.

A resolution moved at Glasgow at a meeting where Sir A. Geddes was present struck a firmer note in the following terms :

  That having heard the case of the Government, as stated by Sir Auckland Geddes, this meeting pledges itself to oppose to the very uttermost the Government in its call for more men. We insist and pledge ourselves to take action to enforce the declaration of an immediate armistice on all fronts ; and that the expressed opinion of the workers of Glasgow is that from now on, and so far as this business is concerned, our attitude all the time and every time is to do nothing in support of carrying on the war, but to bring the war to a conclusion.

The supporter of the war could, of course, point out that, as far as the workers are concerned, there is as much—and as little—reason for carrying on the war now as ever there was. Better late than never, however, and if the Clyde workers realise even at this late date that they have nothing to gain but a good deal to lose by the continuance of the war it is a point to the good.

Of course the Government soon arranged for a counterblast to these resolutions, and the Press gives somewhat vague and rather circumstantial accounts of meetings where resolutions of support, of the Government were supposed to be passed. But this action in itself is a proof of how widespread, if not deep, is the movement.

It would be folly, or worse, for the workers to fail to recognise the forces that can be employed against them by the Government if it chooses. Already in certain cases where men have refused to work in a particular factory or on a particular job the protection cards have been withdrawn, the men called to the colours, and then ordered back to the factory or job at ordinary soldier’s pay. With its present powers and without troubling to pass the “Man Power” Bill at all the Government could withdraw the protection cards and exemption certificates of the engineers and others concerned, call these men to the colours, and then draft them back into the shops and shipyards under military orders and discipline and on army pay.

The messages, more or less reliable, purporting to show that this action is also taking place in Germany against certain of the strikers there may merely be the newspaper preparation for an extension of such action here.

It is true that, to the outsider, signs of another sort are not wanting. The sudden calling of the Labour Party Conference to formulate what it called its “Peace Aims” without even taking time to consult its constituent bodies was undoubtedly the work of the Government to prepare for a “climb down” on their previous bombastic claims. The contemptuous treatment of Mr. Havelock Wilson at that Conference shows how readily the capitalists throw aside their tools when they have served their purpose. Mr. Lloyd George’s speech a few days later was practically a withdrawal of almost every claim, from Constantinople to Alsace-Lorraine, previously put forward. Of course the game of bluff will not be dropped all at once ; but how transparent it is becoming is shown by the official statement of the Inter-Allied War Conference published on 4th February, 1918 :

  The Allies are united in heart and will, not, by any hidden designs, but by their open resolve to defend civilisation against an unscrupulous and brutal attempt at domination.” — “Daily Telegraph.”

To draw up such a statement during the very week that the question as to whether the war was to be continued till the objects of the Secret treaty with Italy were attained was being raised in the British Parliament was certainly an exhibition of irony.

Rumours have been floating round that the Bill was introduced with the object of raising disturbances so as to give grounds for a further abatement of claims on the part of the Government, and whether these rumours have any foundation in fact or not, it is certainly curious that a Bill should be introduced to give the Army authorities power they already possess in substance if not in method. The excuse that the matter is too pressing to allow the time necessary for the present procedure, while valid, hardly seems strong enough for the introduction of such a trouble-raising measure.

By far the greatest danger to the workers lies in another direction. The ablest representative of the master class to-day on the public Press is Mr. A. G. Gardiner, of, the “Daily News.” Not only has he a firm grasp of the situation from the masters’ side, but he is easily the cleverest of their agents at the game of misleading the workers by using a style of seeming honesty and openness to cover up a substance of slimy deceit. A good example of this was his “Open Letter to the Clyde Workers” (“Daily News,” 19.1.1918′. His articles, while appearing to condemn the Government, are strenuous attempts to defend the existence and maintenance of capitalism. Another instance of danger from this direction is the employment of Mr. Henderson as a decoy duck to lure the workers into dangerous waters. Despite his unceremonious and contemptuous dismissal at a moment’s notice from his position in the Cabinet, he is again engaged on dirty work for the masters in the statement he issued to the Press on 1st Feb. In that screed he urges the workers to realise the gravity of their threatened action because it—

   . . . may precipitate a crisis which in the interests of the whole international working-class movement we must do all in our power to avert.”—(“Daily Telegraph,” 1.2.1918.)

The cant and humbug of talking about an “international working-class movement,” that has no existence, while the capitalist governments refuse to allow even a meeting of international delegates, is characteristic of one who has done all in his power to urge the workers to slaughter each other for the national interests of the capitalist class.

But these statements, along with those of Mr. Gardiner, sound plausible. Their purpose is to persuade the workers to still leave in the hands of the masters’ agents the manipulation and direction of affairs. And there is a great danger that the workers, so long used to following this course, so long in the habit of following “leaders,” will succumb once more to this influence. Some of them not daring to trust themselves to manage affairs, will believe it better to leave the management to these “experts.” If only half of the blunders and appalling crimes of this war should be brought into the light of day, these timid workers will have a rude shock concerning the ability of those “experts.” Even such reports as have leaked through up to now show what a gigantic hypocrisy is their claim. The revelations that have been published in regard to Mesopotamia should convince every worker that they simply could not themselves manage matters worse, while the contempt they are held in by both the master class and its agents may be illustrated by a small incident from one of the war fronts.

A certain road on a portion of the line is used to bring up munitions and food to the men in the trenches. The “enemy” knows the position—and use—of this road quite well. It is therefore watched during the light hours, and swept with shell and machine-gun fire during the night. The transport vans are stepped just outside the area of fire to save the mules (four-legged ones) and the supplies are then carried through the shot-swept zone by the men.

As the working class begin to understand the position they occupy in modern society ; as they begin to take a hand in settling affairs of social importance, they will make many blunders and mistakes. In the main, however, these will be easily recognised and corrected. But the biggest danger that confronts them—the biggest mistake they can make—is to place power in the hands of “leaders” under any pretext whatever. It is at once putting those “leaders” in a position to bargain with the master class for the purpose of selling out the workers. It allows the master class to retain control of the political machinery which is the essential instrument for governing Society. All the other blunders and mistakes the workers may make will be as dust in the balance compared with this one, and not until they realise this fact will they be on the road to Socialism.

Letter: Caught Napping (1918)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

To  The  Editor.

I notice in the current issue of our Party Organ a “Letter to Irish Workers,” by Mr. Thos. Brown. Although there is nothing to lead one to suppose that that letter was written by a member of the Party, and bears evidence (to the initiated), in the absence of the usual comradely salutations, that it was not, I think that some more definite disclaimer should have accompanied the letter, provided, of course, I am right in my surmise as to its authorship.

While it is difficult to place the finger on any definitely unsound phrases, it is nevertheless a fact that the “atmosphere” of Mr. Brown’s letter suggests the nationalist rather than the Socialist. The references to “suffering, bleeding Ireland,” “loving service to living Irishmen,” “profound sympathy with all the struggles of his countrymen,” “No true Irishman who has any real regard for his country,” and so on, do not ring true to the Socialist hammer, while such phrases as ‘”Ireland a nation’ . . .  is not a first-class Socialist issue” gives a Socialist the creeps.

A Socialist does not have profound sympathy with the struggles of his countrymen but with, his fellow workers; he does not demand “loving service to living Irishmen,” or Englishmen, or Frenchmen, but intelligent service in the cause of his class.

I have no desire to make a long criticism on Mr. Brown’s letter, but there are two other points that need attention before I close. The first is his reference to the “Clarion” as a “prominent Socialist organ.” No Socialist could think of that paper as anything but the most insidious of anti-Socialist journals, which its war record alone is sufficient to prove it to be. Then the constant use of the term “international Socialist—as if one can be a Socialist without being an internationalist.

Fraternally yours,

MacC.

Reply:

We humbly accept the gentle chiding administered by Comrade MacC. All that he says is quite true, and as a matter of fact instructions were issued to the effect that Mr. Brown’s letter was to be inserted under such a safeguard as our comrade suggests, but—” somebody blundered,” and Comrade MacC. gets the chance to immortalise himself.—Ed. Com.

Obituary: Joe Carter (2018)

Obituary from the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to report the death in September of Joe Carter at the age of 85. He joined the old Camberwell branch of the Party in 1963, later transferring to Haringey branch. In the 1960s and 70s he was active as an outdoor speaker (in particular at Tower Hill and Lincoln’s Inn), indoor lecturer, writer (as ‘JEF’) and as a party candidate in local elections in north London. Born in Switzerland and having lived and worked in Belgium, he was fluent in both Italian and French. He worked, thanks to his knowledge of languages, as a night telephonist in the overseas section of the Post Office. Our condolences go to Janet, a Party member, and his family.

More Labour Lies (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour, says the full-page ad., has got Life and Soul and there follows the usual list of misleading figures which are supposed to impress us. The Labour Party used to have the reputation of being a party with ideals which was out to help ordinary people. Now some bright-boy is trying to revive this but after years of wage restraint, anti-union laws, immigration colour bar and the like he will have his work cut out.

The ad. makes two claims about Labour on housing both of which, as we shall show, are very misleading.

Under the heading “Peace of mind in your home” they say:

  The 1968 Rent Act . . . brings ‘fair rent’ machinery. Nearly 80% of tenants' applications have resulted in rent reduction.

The unwary reader might draw the conclusion that this new machinery must be good if rent went down in four cases out of five. He has missed the phrase "tenants' applications". For landlords, as well as tenants, can apply for a so-called fair rent to be fixed and when all applications are taken into account it is a different story: the rents have been put up in three cases out of five. Even a Housing Policy Study Group set up by Labour’s National Executive has expressed its concern:

  Applications for registration of a fair rent in England and Wales between the start of regulations and 20th June, 1969, numbered 140,000,  123,000 of which had been determined by May 1969. The Ministry of Housing has analysed 80,000 of these rent registrations representing those cases where the new rent could properly be compared with the old (i.e., excluding cases where the terms of the tenancy were changed or where there were improvements or alterations which could affect the rent). Of these, 32% had resulted in rent reduction, and 59% in a rent increase. Clearly some rents would be increased under the ‘fair rent’ machinery but the proportion of rents being increased does seem unduly high (Report, p.12, our emphasis).

No doubt Labour’s publicity tricksters are banking on more people reading their full-page ad than their shilling pamphlet.

Under another heading — “A decent home is the cornerstone of a happy life” — the ad. declares:

  "The 1969 Housing Act increased financial aid to landlords in bringing old houses up to standard”.

It makes no mention that if landlords do this they can also apply to bring their old rents up to standard. The 1969 Housing Act in fact resumes the work of the 1957 Housing Act (the one Labour vociferously denounced at the time as the “wicked Tory Rent Act”), in that it allows tenancies now subject to Rent Control to be decontrolled. Instead, their rents will be set under the new “fair” rent machinery, a changeover which is bound to result, as Labour admits elsewhere, in the rent going up in the great majority of cases.

We draw attention to this not because we support or oppose rent control but to expose Labour’s false claim to stand for low rents. Labour’s policy of making investment in housing-letting a little more profitable is designed to overcome one of the problems caused by the rent control they once clamoured for, a striking demonstration of the futility of reformism. They are now doing what the Tories tried to do in 1957, but this time a little more cautiously. Which is not surprising since both parties are only out to administer capitalism. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always held that within capitalism there is no solution to the housing problem and, that therefore attempts by governments to deal with it while retaining class property and the profit motive are futile.

The ad. is at least more cautious than George Thomas, the Secretary of State for Wales, who when the Bill was first published made this claim which we record for future reference:

  Within 10 years of this Act no one in Wales should be living in an unfit house

(The Times, 31 January 1969).

Thomas obviously forgot the lesson Aneurin Bevan learned when he rashly promised in 1946 that “when the next election occurs there will be no housing problem in Great Britain for the British working class” (quoted in Hansard, Vol. 453, Col. 1202).

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: The Fallacy of Nationalisation (1969)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the 9th October the Prime Minister met a deputation representing the Trades Union Congress and the Miners Federation, who presented a demand for Nationalisation of the coal mines on the lines laid down by the Sankey Report.

According to the report of the interview given in the Daily News (11 October 1919) Mr. Smillie, representing the miners put forward two main reasons why the mines should be nationalised.

The first was that ‘the mines are largely unsafe because they are working for private profit’. In what way Nationalisation would make them safer was left to guess. There is no evidence that the railways have become safer for the railway workers since they have been under government control, nor has it ever been put forward that the Admiralty Dockyards are safer than private ones.

Mr. Smillie's second point is given as follows:—

  "I want the mines Nationalised in order that by the fullest possible development in intelligent lines, with the assistance of the engineering power we know we possess, we might hereby develop the mines and increase the output and so reduce the price”.

Coming at this moment, after a certain bitter experience by the miners, the last suggestion in this statement is simply staggering. Coal is under Government control now, and a few months ago, without any economic reason, the price was raised by 6/- a ton.

Neither is it certain that Nationalisation would result in ‘the fullest possible development of the industry’. While this is possible it is far from probable, as experience of the Government departments during the war — and since — has shown only too well.

But these points are not the important ones . . . Nationalised industries are expected to show as good a result as—or better than—the private business, as, for instance in the case of the Admiralty Dockyards.

The fundamental fallacy underlying the TUC and Miners’ demands for Nationalisation of the coal mines—and it applies with equal force, to the Nationalisation of any other industry—is their failure to recognise the slave character and position of the workers . . . The workers will remain wage slaves while capitalism lasts, even though every industry were Nationalised.

(From an unsigned Editorial "Coal and Cant” in the Socialist Standard, November 1919.)

Letter: Capitalism a class society? (1969)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sirs,

While agreeing entirely with your aims of socialism, I would quarrel with the idea, enshrined in your declaration of principles, that society is still clearly divided in such a way that everyone is a member of either the “master class” or the “working class”, or as you put it those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. There are now a vast number of people who, for example, work and own shares. It seems to me that the idea of a divided society is no longer valid: all the other objections to capitalism are in themselves more than enough, but the concept that everyone can be put on one side of the fence or the other is not acceptable. In particular, this would suggest that anyone who, for example, receives interest on a bank account, or who is partly paid in shares of the firm he works for, cannot support the SPGB' as “all political parties are but the expression of class interests.”

Yours sincerely,

Neil Mitchison, 

Edinburgh.

Reply.

A class is a group of people who all have the same economic interest. The make up of classes, the dividing lines between them, their functions in society, the number of them in existence, have all varied with different social systems.

One thing which capitalism has done has been to tidy up classes. There are now only two of them and, with relatively few exceptions, the whole population of the capitalist world is in one or other of them. The exceptions may be peasants living and working under social relationships more akin to feudalism, or shopkeepers and tradesmen existing in a sort of class twilight These people — and they are a small minority — may be unclassifiable but this does not affect the overall, significant class division of capitalism.

The vast majority of people can be placed in one class; they are forced to sell their working abilities in order to live. They do this to the owners of the means of production and it is only by selling their working power that they are allowed access to the means of production. It is reasonable, and accurate, to call these people the working class and to call the other class, who own the means of production and who therefore buy labour power, the capitalist class.

Now what about the person who sells his labour power to an employer but who also owns some shares, or receives interest on savings? . This does not alter the fact that he depends for his living on selling his ability to work; his relationship to the means of production make him a member of the working class.

The division of society into classes, with opposing interests which cause so much unrest, is only one of capitalism's malaises but it is not to be ignored or minimized. The revolution for Socialism will overthrow the capitalist class and take away their monopoly of the means of production. It is, therefore, against their interests but it is in the interests of the other, subject class — the working class. That is why it is only the Socialist Party which stands for the interests of the working class and why all who oppose Socialism, or who stand for something less than Socialism, express the interests of the capitalist class.

Editorial Committee.

'Imperialism - highest stage of capitalism’ (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

 It is impermissible to draw a common balance between the hard-earned savings set aside by the peoples of the socialist countries to help their friends, and the capital of imperialist monopolies which they expect, sooner or later, to bring them profit. (V. I. Pavlov in 'Economic Freedom versus Imperialism'.)

A Russian delegation has recently returned to Moscow from Indonesia where it spent five weeks putting pressure on the government, in an effort to persuade Jakarta to start repayments on its $700m. debt to the Soviet Union. According to The Times (1 October 1969) “The Russians demanded that Indonesia begin repayment of the debt on schedule next year as agreed in 1966, but the Indonesians declined and explained that to do so would drain the country's foreign exchange and jeopardise her five-year development plan.” The counter-proposal from the Indonesian side was that Russia should allow Jakarta forty years in which to pay off the debt and that the Soviet Union should also forego its interest rights. Nothing was resolved and the talks are to be resumed in Moscow later this year.

Meanwhile . . . an Indonesian mission is travelling to Paris to put forward similar proposals to the Intergovernmental Group on Indonesia which represents the Western creditor nations.

John Crump

Off The Rails (1969)

Book Review from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Essay on Liberation by Herbert Marcuse (The Penguin Press)

Marcuse’s latest work is an attempt to amplify and elaborate ideas contained in his earlier books such as Eros and Civilisation and One Dimensional Man, in the light of recent developments and trends in world capitalism.

Nevertheless much of the book is shot through with a very fine thread of inconsistency and ambiguity in relation to what he says in some of his other works. For instance, he refers to the Soviet Bloc as “Socialist” without qualifying his use of the terms, whereas in his book Soviet Marxism he explains that although he refers to Russia as being Socialist he does not mean it to be understood as what Marx and Engels meant in their works. His use of the term “repressive bureaucracy” aligns him with those sections of the New Left who look upon Russia as a “deformed workers’ state”—as though a caste of officials are actually responsible for the social system there and not vice versa. Marcuse is too good a Marxist scholar to know that this is not the case. But for all his considerable insight in some fields, Marcuse could not be more out of touch with the real situation when he gives his appraisal of the student insurrection of May 1968 in France and the riots in the ghettos of America. In both of these he sees manifestations of a real, growing anti-capitalist movement. Of course they are nothing of the sort. The only aim of both the May students' movements and Black Power is an amelioration of conditions within the wages-profit system.

According to Marcuse, the working class has been effectively incorporated into capitalist system psychologically and economically. He acknowledges that only a class conscious working class who want Socialism can bring about the socialist revolution. If it is true that they are so committed to capitalism, how are these powerful mental bonds which fasten them to the system, to be broken?

Marcuse’s answer is to point to the students—a new twist on the vanguard and élitest theories of Lenin and others. Not that Marcuse is actually putting forward the same idea as Lenin, for he knows very well that the working class are capable of understanding the Socialist alternative. However, he thinks that the students can be of help in arousing the workers’ awareness of their repression and servitude in capitalist society, although there is also the danger of them provoking a working class backlash, resulting in Fascist and semi-Fascist regimes. Marcuse stresses that “the established democracy still provide the only legitimate framework for change and must therefore be defended against all attempts on the right and Centre to resist the framework”. Socialists would certainly agree with this.

Creative and cultural possibilities in Socialist society, where repression has been abolished and technology and science serve mankind as a whole and not the interests of a minority class through the intensive exploitation of an enslaved class, are discussed (but a better account of this is to be found in Eros and Civilisation in a chapter entitled The Aesthetic Dimension.)

In spite of some glaring howlers, Marcuse’s work is interesting and stimulating nonetheless, and is far more optimistic in its outlook than much of the turgid drivel churned out by many left wing writers.

L.

Violent Belfast (1969)

Book Review from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Holy War in Belfast, by Andrew Boyd. Anvil Books 8s. 6d.

Belfast has a tradition of sectarian disturbances which is still alive as the fence the Army has put up between the Protestant and Catholic slums shows. Andrew Boyd gives here a simple blow-by-blow description of major riots that took place in 1857, 1864, 1872 and 1886. He has added a couple of hastily-written chapters which are supposed to bring the position up to date, but his book really ends in 1886.

That was the year Gladstone’s first Home Rule Bill was defeated. It was also the year the Orange Order became respectable. Up till then it was a secret society of poorer Protestants whose parades were nearly always accompanied by disturbances. Their aim seemed to be to provoke the Catholics whenever the occasion arose. As such they were regarded as a nuisance by the government and for many years Orange marches or the display of Orange banners were prohibited. Many of the clashes described by Boyd were between police and Protestants.

The pattern is familiar: raving Presbyterian ministers, gun-fights, mob violence, intimidation, barricades, murder, arson, looting and battles with the police. In nearly every case the aggressors were the Orange extremists. In every case it was the poor, Protestant and Catholic, who suffered the consequences of this violence in terms of death, injury, homelessness and unemployment.

Inflamed by the anti-popery of their preachers, the Protestant workers feared that Home Rule would mean domination by the Catholic majority in the rest of Ireland. The landlords and the rich capitalists knew this was so much nonsense but they had a very real economic interest in encouraging hostility to Home Rule. The landlords wished to protect their right to exploit and oppress the Irish peasants while the capitalists wanted access to the profitable markets of the British Empire. To protect their economic interests they decided, as Churchill’s father Lord Randolph Churchill put it, to play the Orange card. Catholic-baiting and anti-popery became the stock-in-trade of the Unionist Party which emerged in 1886 from the anti-Horne Rule elements in Ireland.

Since 1920 this Party has itself ironically enjoyed a measure of Home Rule over six counties in the North East of Ireland. Lord Craigavon, Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister, declared that they now had a “Protestant government for a Protestant people”, a statement not calculated to encourage the “loyalty” of the non-Protestants who made up a third of its subjects. To deal with those who were likely to be “disloyal” the government soon passed the notorious Special Powers Act; set up a special para-military police force of which the equally notorious B Specials survive; abolished proportional representation in elections and gerrymandered local council wards—all really needlessly since the Unionists had a built- in majority if they could continue to play the Orange card successfully.

Today, however, this has become an embarrassment — with the need to attract overseas investors and with full free trade between Ireland and Britain (including Northern Ireland) due in 1975—and some Unionists are trying to repudiate their past. But this will not be easy since not only do many of their followers still hold to the bigotry their masters once taught them but the records show that what Paisley says today nearly every leading Unionist—Minister, MP, aristocrat, judge or churchman—said yesterday.

For the record (since the publishers do not disclose this) Boyd is a member of the Northern Ireland Labour Party and is obviously out to discredit the Orange Order and the Ulster Unionist Party. That’s easy, a great deal easier than defending the NILP, which is but a second unionist and loyalist party with an unrivalled record of opportunism including support for the Special Powers Act.

Adam Buick

Second opinion (1969)

Pamphlet Review from the December 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why We Have Resigned From The Socialist Labour Party of Great Britain by J. and N. Plant  (108 Cambridge Gardens, 1969)

Those who follow American presidential elections closely will have noticed that there is always a candidate for the “Socialist Labor Party”. But they are probably not aware that there is also a party of the same name in Britain which has maintained a precarious existence since its decline in the 1920s. The SLP of Great Britain was originally set up in 1902 by dissidents from the Social Democratic Federation and was one outcome of what has been called “the impossibilist revolt” in the SDF, a revolt which also led to the founding of the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904. The SLP gained some support up to and during the first world war because of its militant unionism. Many of its members were carried away by the Russian revolution and a breakaway section was one of the founding groups of the Communist Party in 1920.

Over the years we (and especially our companion party in America) have put forward a careful criticism of SLP policy: its industrial unionism, its De Leon worship, its undemocratic meetings, its exact blueprint of future society and so on. Earlier this year two members of the British party resigned and have published their reasons for doing so. Their pamphlet is interesting since it endorses many of the criticisms we have made. For instance:

1. “The Socialist Labour Party does not advocate and work towards a society where the principle ‘from everyone according to his faculties, to everyone according to his needs!’ will operate, but advocates as its goal, as fully developed Socialism, a society where man will still be enslaved by the Law of Value and its consequences.”

2. “The SLP has an opportunist and non-scientific attitude to religion . . . (a revolutionary socialist party) must treat religion as a social question, which it is, and not as a ‘private matter’.”

3. The SLP sees “socialism” existing “on an essentially national scale. It is forever talking about the workers taking over the industries of the nation’ and creating a ‘Socialist Britain’ or a ‘Socialist America'”.

4. “It is not scientific and permissible to lay down an exact blueprint of how future Socialist society will be organised. At most we can enumerate certain basic principles and guidelines, and give an indication in very broad and tentative outline of the way we think society might be conducted. But the exact administrative structure and precise mode of behaviour of people in a Socialist society will be determined by the specific material conditions of that society. What these specific material conditions will be, and how people will react to them, cannot be known to us at the present time.”

5. “Few incidents in SLP history have exposed the Party’s theoretical weaknesses, opportunist tendencies, lack of honesty about its own past and unwillingness to frankly admit mistakes to the full, than its attitude over the years to Soviet Russia . . . By the late 1930s the SLP had become a de facto supporter of , and apologist for, the Stalinist terror regime, albeit a critical supporter and apologist”.

6. “The SLP makes De Leon’s theories and teachings, including the faults and shortcomings, into an infallible doctrine that must not be questioned. De Leon is placed on a pedestal; a higher pedestal than his theoretical abilities and knowledge would warrant, even if it were a good thing to place anybody onto a pedestal.”

The Plants also reveal the undemocratic internal structure of the SLP in America and Britain, and make other criticisms (on the SLP’s attitude to peaceful revolution and participation in demonstrations) that we would not wholly endorse. Nevertheless, this is a very useful pamphlet which shows how correct we have been in consistently opposing the SLP.

Adam Buick

The Wages System Must Go (1969)

From the December 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most people nowadays have some grievance with this or that aspect of society. Millions suffer the horrors of capitalist wars in Vietnam and Biafra. Mental illness is a growing problem. Old-age pensioners are dying from malnutrition, from cold. Slum violence and riots hit the headlines. Waiting lists for hospital beds and houses outstrip supply. Town planning is without reference to the individual: he has no control over his environment. Every day more strikes, more redundancies, and so on.

Most people would agree that each of these grievances could be remedied with a fair measure of goodwill and intelligence.

Socialists would disagree. They are all inherent in the way this society is organised. Their solution lies in abolishing capitalism, which embraces the entire world and whose motive is not the satisfaction of human needs or the alleviation of human suffering, but the creation of profit for disposal by the privileged few, and the accumulation of capital.

What, then, constitutes capitalism? Capitalism is the society in which a certain group of people, a small minority, monopolise the ownership of the factories, land, mines, transport concerns, and every other point where wealth is produced. In this country they are proud to be called the capitalist class. This appellation is a hallmark of respectability, of privilege, and of alleged superiority. In Russia, China, and Eastern Europe they are proud to be called people’s commissars and members of praesidiums and politburos.

But mere monopoly of these means of production is not enough to give them a privileged position in society. They must employ workers, people who will produce all society’s wealth but never own more than that which their wage represents. Some say that the workers get a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, but what is ‘fair’? If the working class produce everything then they should receive all of it. But do they? No. The fact is that the worker’s wage represents only a fraction of the wealth he has created. He is robbed—but legally. And although he constantly struggles to improve his wage, he apparently never dreams of abolishing the entire wages system.

Some radicals think that this is unnecessary. After all, they argue, if you seize all the means of production from the capitalists and institute state ownership, then only the state (and through the state, the people as a whole) will benefit from the wages system.

And if the state machine is managed by people who call themselves Marxists or Socialists or Communists or the National Liberation front, then this is obviously a more just and sane society. A society where people can at last plan their environments; with human priorities to the fore, and unrestricted by the demands of the market economy. But is it?

Will these advocates of state ownership have eliminated the contradictions of capitalism, manifested in a class struggle between the capitalist who strives to intensify exploitation through lower wages, longer hours, and faster production, and the wage slave, whose aim is to raise his wage, slow down production, and lessen his working hours? And forced into competition with other states and their ruling-classes, will housing have priority over defence or more profitable industries like motor cars and cosmetics?

The rulers of Russia, China, Cuba, North Vietnam, and other self-proclaimed ‘socialist’ countries perform the same function as that of the capitalist described above. They must pump surplus value out of the working class or be destroyed in the international competitive process.

Periodically they urge their workers to fight wars for them, sometimes for ‘defence’ (of their capitalist private property), sometimes for blatantly imperialist aims. They crush strikes of dissatisfied workers, ruthlessly, with all the state power at their disposal.

Their workers are exploited and oppressed just as surely as we are. Perhaps more so, for in those so-called ‘workers’ states’, the workers are prohibited from forming their own independent trade unions.

To summarise, capitalism means class monopoly of the means of production—its prime motive is profit, and to hell with the interests of the worker. Its mechanism, the means by which it robs, is the wages system. Solutions to capitalism’s problems can be found only after abolishing this system.

All other solutions, such as the ‘welfare’ state, housing squats, treaties to abolish or localise wars, non-aggression pacts, backing Britain, Labour or ‘communist’ governments or ‘workers’ control’ (of the wages system) are at best palliatives, at worst outright deceit.

And our solution? Don’t follow anyone, don’t believe anyone who offers you paradise—and a wage. And don’t expect us to lead you. We are allergic to sheep. Instead, cultivate your self-reliance and organise yourselves democratically (and that means equal participation in decision- and policy-making, with all tasks not assumed by leaders but delegates) for the conquest of political power. When you have political power as a class, you will be the last class in history to be emancipated. There are none below you, none you will need to dominate to maintain your position as free men and women at last.

Voluntary co-operation on a world scale will replace compulsory economic competition between individuals. Social antagonisms will fade into history. With the abolition of the wages system the interests of the individual will coincide with those of society. Genuine freedom will have dawned.

M. A. B.

State Capitalism (2018)

The Cooking the Books column from the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

For a week in September BBC Radio Four ran a series of short lunch-time programmes on ‘The New Age of Capitalism’. On the Wednesday (19 September) the theme was ‘state capitalism’. The presenter, David Grossman, began by reading a dictionary definition of ‘capitalism’:

‘An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit rather than the state.’

And then asked if the term ‘state capitalism’ was not therefore a contradiction. His answer was that it wasn’t. In fact the term is routinely used now, particularly in relation to China as, for instance, by the then Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull earlier this year (Sydney Morning Herald, 23 April).

Grossman’s two guests identified two kinds of state capitalism. (1) where the state controls major companies producing for profit, and (2) where the state intervenes in the capitalist economy to direct and develop it. China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea were given as examples of the first kind. Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and, perhaps surprisingly, Norway were given as examples of the second, on the ground of having built up substantial ‘sovereign wealth funds’ (hence Norway’s inclusion) which were used to further develop capitalism in their country. State intervention in general was traced back to the implementation of policies advocated by Keynes.

The term ‘state capitalism’ has been part of the socialist vocabulary since the end of the nineteenth century to refer to industries and services, producing for profit and employing wage workers, such as the Post Office in Britain and railways on the Continent. Marx himself wrote of ‘state capital, in so far as governments employ productive wage-labour in mines, railways, etc., and function as industrial capitalists’ (Capital, Vol 2, ch. 3).

So, the programme was a welcome advance in understanding – as far as it went. Because it didn’t go the whole hog. China was said to have become a state capitalist country only from 1979. So what was it from 1949 to 1979? One of the guests used the word ‘socialist’ in reference to this period. There was certainly a change of policy on the part of the Chinese government in 1979 but what existed before then also had ‘state capitalist’ features – industry and trade were controlled by state companies producing for the market and employing wage-labour.

The difference was that, while after 1979 the remit of these companies was to make a profit at company level, before then the government’s aim was to increase the surplus (make an overall profit) at national level. The same system had existed in the old USSR. Which was why we described both pre-1979 China and the USSR as state capitalism.

The programme, however, exhibited a better understanding of state capitalism than Lenin or Trotsky who, basically, accepted only the programme’s second definition – the use of the state to direct and develop capitalism. This was the policy, which he openly called ‘state capitalism’, that Lenin advocated the Bolshevik government should adopt but which they were unable to implement until after the civil war in Russia was over in 1921.

Although Grossman rejected the dictionary definition of capitalism, he did not offer a corrected version. It would not have needed much change, to for instance:

‘Capitalism is an economic and social system in which trade and industry are controlled by private owners or the state for profit.’

This would also require a change in dictionary definitions of socialism, to eliminate any reference to state ownership and control. But that’s another matter.

Hippies: An Abortion of Socialist Understanding (1969)

From the December 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Everybody seems to think I’m lazy.I don’t mind – I think they’re crazy.Running everywhere at such a speed.Till they find there’s no need . . .

Ever since the explosion of “Flower Power” in Summer 67, the world’s working-class has been aware of the Hippy movement, or as it is now more frequently called, “The Underground”. Attitudes to the hippies have varied from amused fascination to angry revulsion.  Many people have grown more hostile to them over the past two years, as their emphasis on such harmless-sounding words as “Love” and “Beautiful People” has declined, and their tendency to smoke pot has become more widely publicised.

In Britain the occupation of 144 Piccadilly confirmed the hippies’ bad reputation—though the occupiers were not typical of the Underground by any means. TV news announcers put on their frowns for this item, were careful to identify the occupation with soccer hooliganism (both were “violence to property”), and equally careful to avoid dragging in irrelevant details like the fact of empty houses alongside homeless people.

A wave of horror swept the country at the realisation that there were people who not only wore long hair (and obviously smelt foul, as anyone could see by looking at their TV screens), but actually believed they had a right to live without working. In one television programme, David Frost, Hughie Green and Robert Maxwell—those highly productive labourers who toil so usefully to justify their existence—led an attack on the hippies for their conscientious objection to work. When Richard Neville (editor of the Underground magazine Oz) suggested that the idea of work as a duty hadn’t a very ancient historical pedigree, that work in the modern world was “really a form of slavery,” and that with today’s productive techniques there could easily be more than enough wealth for everyone, he was devastated by Frost’s crisply intelligent retorts: “Very high‑flown I’m sure” and “I really am an old fuddy-duddy you know.”

Hippy characteristics

The hippy phenomenon is a movement, a set of attitudes, a subculture or a nuisance, according to your point of view. It consists of several hundred thousand people, drawn mostly from the working class, in the advanced regions of Capitalism. It is vaguely defined, fuzzy-edged—no one can draw up a hippy manifesto; no one can specify who is a hippy and who isn’t. It differs from country to country: in America, for example, there are relatively fewer semi-hippies or weekend hippies than in Britain, for the simple reason that long hair is a much greater obstacle to getting a job in the States than in Europe. All the same, we can list some of the features which distinguish hippies from what they call “straight” society.

First, there is age—or rather, youth. Hippies are predominantly under-thirties. Second, they have an unorthodox pattern of drugs consumption—mostly pot, with occasional recourse to acid (“pot” is now common parlance for cannabis (marihuana), and acid for lysergic acid (LSD)) and minor use of amphetamines and other pills. Or as “straight” society (gaily swilling down immense quantities of alcohol, nicotine, barbiturates, aspirin, etc.) usually puts it: “Hippies take drugs.” Whatever may be the medical properties of the hippies’ chosen stimulants, they do have the important social property that their use is, for the time being, prohibited by the State.

Third, hippies possess a typical style of appearance: long hair, casual-to-scruffy clothes, beads, etc. And fourth, like all minority groups they have their own language: “mind-blowing” (stimulating to the point of powerful hallucination); “hang-up” (unfortunate disturbance of tranquillity); “fuzz” (policemen), and so forth. It is a measure of the commercial cashing-in on hippies that virtually all of their jargon is very widely-known through its dissemination in pop music. Most of it was borrowed from other sources, not coined, by the hippies.

Fifth, hippies are preoccupied with certain forms of art, for example beat music accompanied by displays of coloured, flashing lights. Sixth, they aim at an inversion of the values of “straight” society. They embrace spontaneity rather than self-control; childlikeness rather than sophistication; love rather than power; “dropping-out” rather than careerism; “doing your own thing” rather than imposed uniformity; admiration for the destitute rather than for “affluence”; disorder rather than method—and of course, Indians rather than cowboys. Seventh, hippies often show a greater than average susceptibility to superstition. They are generally against established “organised religion,” but fall for all sorts of religious and mystical clap-trap which have an exotic flavour ; astrology, transcendental meditation, palmistry, sunspots, or Krishna-consciousness.

Lastly, many hippies advocate a revolutionary change in society, though both the manner of achieving this, and the nature of their proposed new system, (sometimes described as “tribal” or “communitarian”) are extremely vague. An example of this vagueness was the slogan advanced in one Underground paper: “Alternative Society Now!”—its urgent tone somewhat cancelled out by the woolliness of its descriptive content, which could scarcely be less informative. At least many hippies are clear that the major social evils of today are all bound up together, and can be removed only by a total social change. Both of the important politically-oriented offshoots of the hippy movement, the Diggers and the Yippies, make specifically Socialist proposals, such as the abolition of wages and of money. In our opinion, both these groups are doomed to futility because of their methods, but they do constitute an advance on the previously fashionable assortments of youthful radicals. This groping towards Socialist understanding is particularly impressive when set against the temporary direction of trendy Leftism in the US: flirting with black racism, romantic idolising of Guevara and similar state-capitalist prophets, or the demagoguery and vanguardism the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

Causes of hippies

The Socialist argument that the majority of workers must arrive at a clear understanding of Socialism before they can get it, that a Revolution in ideas must precede the Revolution in politics and economics, is often sneered at by those who say that the mass of the population (except, for some reason, the extraordinary people who make this statement) are brainwashed robots, puppets manipulated by TV, and the press.

But Capitalism is not a conspiracy. It cannot be controlled by set of individuals, not even the Capitalist class.  Current ideas provide a support for capitalism (though the “mass media” are only a part of their reinforcement), yet Capitalism is dynamic, constantly advancing and frequently unpredictable in detail. The very ideas which defend capitalism have to be adjusted or replaced, to fit new conditions. Workers must be trained, not only to do their jobs, but also to be versatile, because their jobs are changing all the time, and also to make radical criticisms of the way capitalism is run, because otherwise inefficient and unprofitable blunders would result. As the Communist Manifesto put it:

  The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production . . . All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their trains of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned . . .

Today, traditional ideas about work, leisure and “the purpose of life” are under attack, and in retreat. Capitalism has killed God stone dead, and is stamping on the twitching corpse. Capitalism extends the juicy carrot of the “Leisure Society”—a golden age of short working-hours and automated abundance, which is ever imminent yet never arrives. Capitalism holds aloft an image of glamour, high-powered pleasure, rest and freedom—whilst the worker’s mind and body are reduced ever more thoroughly to instruments of accumulation. From the belief that work is a grim duty, consumption its reward, capitalism is shifting emphasis to the view that consumption is a duty, work something to be made rewarding.

It is in this context of irresistible change that confused vortices of rebellion like hippyism must be seen. The hippy movement has been centred in California—the most technically advanced region of the world, the window on the future. That is not an accident: it is just what Socialists and historical materialists have predicted. The embryo of Socialist ideas is constantly gestating in the womb of advanced capitalism: the foetus is aborted repeatedly, but the fertility of working‑class consciousness cannot be lost, and the insemination of Socialist organisation must grow more copious. The hippy movement is one of those abortions.

Hippies are a product of the youth cult, the commercialisation of young people and the “generation gap.” But this gap is not only a construct of the publicity men: the new generation does live and think differently from its elders. Many of the things our fathers and mothers were grateful for (and that is a measure of the servile depths to which the working-class has sunk), we take for granted. Young people in the advanced countries have never been brought to heel by a major slump, nor by a war at home.  Their standard of consumption has generally risen steadily throughout their lives, and they confidently expect it to go on doing so indefinitely. Given this outlook, mere technical progress and fatter wage packets lose their capacity to impress. Young workers are more likely to ask “What’s it all for, this endless treadmill? When do we start to live?”

The rapid dissemination of hippyism throughout the advanced world is a consequence of the similarity of conditions in these counties, plus the globe-shrinking communications network: any fad, fashion, doctrine or cult, once it has popped up in one nation is almost instantly mirrored in all. This buttresses our case that the notion of a Socialist revolution in a single country is ludicrous.

The hippies’ deliberate irrationality, and their earlier Love worship, are a protest against “straight” reasonableness and logic. (In fact the very term “straight,” like the archaic “square” reveals this). Capitalism manifests very thorough rationality in the service of inactive irrationality—scientific means to insane ends. Those who don’t understand capitalism’s structure often find its “logic” oppressive, and retreat into gooey, mindless sentimentality. This is a very common modern theme, exemplified in things like Godard’s early films, such as Alphaville.

Mysticism is favoured by a reaction against modern institutional Christianity, seen as a cover for the “straight” virtues of ambition and conformity, and mysticism links up with drug-induced hallucinations which provide escape from an aimless and insecure reality. It is romantically pretty, a source of poetry, in attempt to give back to life a lost “depth,” and in its imported forms it has the flavour of more primitive societies in which alternatives to the score-card mentality of “straight” achievement compulsion can be found.

The hippy movement is now virtually finished. Certain aspects—the dress, the jargon, the music—are steadily incorporated into a much broader and less rebellious area of commercial youth culture. “The Underground”, always a term with a more political slant, becomes infiltrated by Leftist reformists and insurrectionaries. It is to be hoped they will learn something from the Underground, for they have little to teach it. (1) A feeling of community, and a common set of values, will persist among those who smoke pot (and therefore dislike policemen), but this becomes vaguer as the habit spreads. The really important question of future movements, perhaps partly hippy-derived, perhaps bigger, perhaps more explicitly antagonistic to the economic system.

Criticism of hippies

A few young workers, whose anti-Capitalist tendencies were initially stirred by the Underground have progressed in their understanding to the point of embracing revolutionary Socialism, and joining the Socialist Party of Great Britain.  But much more could have been accomplished if there had existed a bigger Socialist movement with the resources to put its case more loudly. As it is, a potentially fruitful upsurge of critical and anti-authoritarian idea has in the main been diverted into reformism, anarchism and mysticism.

The hippies’ emphasis on a style instead of a programme, whilst in many ways endearing, and possessing an obvious advantage for propaganda, is a grave obstacle to their progress in understanding. Distinctions of dress, hairstyle and musical taste are, after all, fairly trivial—and many hippies come dangerously close to regarding them as fetishes. Flickering lights, a psychedelic design, a whiff of incense, a Clapton guitar phrase—such things can be combined into a powerfully unified appeal to all the senses, yet Capitalist society has no difficulty in prostituting this as it prostitutes all art and all enjoyment. Whereupon the market, having squeezed the Underground dry, moves on to the next short-lived modish fad. As Wilde put it, the trouble being very modern is that you become old-fashioned very quickly.

With the first, naive realisation that a new society is necessary, three elementary errors are committed in turn. First, it is supposed that the adoption of attitudes appropriate to the desired society will bring it closer—hence the “Love” phase. This is quickly seen to be largely unsuccessful, since the conditions of the present system generate completely opposed attitudes. To the extent that it is successful it merely helps to reconcile people to the existing state of affairs. The next stage is to go beyond mere attitudes, to try and act as though the new society were already here. This is like trying to get out of a prison by ignoring the bars, and equally futile. After this, attempts are at last made to overhaul the system, but only piecemeal, by changing bits at a time.  However the nature of the bits is mainly determined by the nature of the whole, not vice versa—as student militants are among the most recent to discover. Thus, what started out as something really radical, and in its implications revolutionary, has been shepherded back into the fold of orthodox reformist politics. Only clarity of thought, and courage in the face of the jeers about “sectarianism” which are always hurled at revolutionaries, can break out of this vicious circle.

Now the Underground veers between two courses of action: assaults on Capitalism and attempted withdrawal from it: respectively symbolised by the occupation of 144 Piccadilly, and the move to Saint Patrick’s Isle. But Capitalism will not fall before sporadic demonstrations and happenings, however defiant or amusing these may be.  Neither will it let anyone drop out.

It may be argued in defence of the Underground that this is the age of exploration rather than of Principles, and that there is much value in looseness, informality, and even incoherence. But exploration is worthwhile only if it leads to discovery, looseness if it leads to firmness, informality if it leads to definable formal organisation, and incoherence if out of it emerges a new coherence. The Underground is incapable of making these advances because, though often expert at dramatising its criticism of “straight” society, it seems quite incapable of criticising itself.

Hippies then, are only the symptoms of a sick society: Socialists the cure. Yet to those workers infuriated by the hippy way of life, we say: Don’t look for scapegoats. A few “spongers” are nothing compared to the vast wastage of Capitalism: the arms/space race, built-in shoddiness, the unnecessary monetary system, the “sponging” of the owners of industry. To blame hippies (students, immigrants, unofficial strikers) for your troubles is to lose sight of the actual cause—which is precisely what your masters the capitalists want. Anyway, the view that people ought to work to “earn” their subsistence is out-of-date in a world which could easily provide more than enough for everybody, with a tiny fraction of the work done today. Everything should be free; all work should be voluntary—that is Socialism.

To hippies themselves, we say: Pulling faces at Capitalism is not enough. Even talking about “tribal” alternatives is not enough. An uncompromising stand on Socialist Principles is required before we can start to bring about the new moneyless world society.

David Ramsay Steele

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(1) One of these Bolshevik reactionaries, D. Widgery, recently remonstrated with the Underground, via the columns of International Times (Oct. 10):  “IT would still be publishing its twee pop-star interviews two months after workers’ soviets were declared on Merseyside and Clydeside.”  Widgery’s delusional system is so fantastic that he imagines an administrative apparatus which was a symptom of Russian backwardness half a century ago has some relevance to the working-class problems in the 1970s!  Notice how his two chosen regions are centres for manual workers, that proportionately declining  section (soon to be a minority) of the working class – a section which the Bolsheviks invest with unlimited Romantic potential.  Compared to the fairytale world of the Bolsheviks, Tolkien’s fables are scientific sociology, twee pop-star interviews the last word in revolutionary politics!