Answers to Correspondents (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

E. M. (Brixton) writes at length, denying that a majority of the workers will ever understand Socialism, as before our propaganda will penetrate the workers’ minds, most of them will be submerged into the Slum proletariat—and beyond redemption altogether.

The views put forward—as to the slowness of accepting Socialism and the workers' large interest in Capitalist ideas—are not new, and they were faced long ago. But the notion that general industrial development and economic pressure does not make the workers receptive to Socialism, is belied by the facts of daily experience.

One fact alone—the widespread interest in social affairs and social change, compared to 25 years ago—is patent to all. It does not follow from Capitalist development that most workers will be pushed into the slum proletariat.

The important facts to bear in mind are the growing insecurity of “jobs,” even salaried ones, the lessons of concentration of wealth going on all around us, and the proved inefficacy of the reform panaceas to affect the workers' lives for the better. The long history of workers' struggles against enormous odds proves that even the lies and chloroform of the masters fail to work in face of the glaring lessons from economic life.

Editorial Committee.