Among the: many factors which have contributed to the undoubtedly disappointing speed (if that is the word) at which the working class have progressed towards an understanding of Socialism in the years since the Socialist Party was formed, one which has undoubtedly had a serious effect is the emergence of the so-called socialist countries, commencing in 1917 with Russia and continuing with many others in more recent years. The effect has been pernicious in two ways. First, the picture of life as it affects the working class in those lands has been of sufficient grimness as to cause those workers who think at all about these things to say: if that is Socialism (and only the tiniest handful realise that it is isn’t), you can keep it.
Secondly, and perhaps of even greater importance, large numbers of workers who are dissatisfied with capitalism as they experience it in their daily lives, especially the younger and more idealistically-inclined elements, have been taken in by the propaganda put cut by these countries from Lenin’s time onwards, the mouthing of pseudo-Marxist phrases, the glib misuse of the terms Socialism and Communism for realities which were so different, often horrifically so. If all the youthful energy and enthusiasm which have been wasted on these false dawns had been channelled into genuinely Socialist effort, it is reasonable to suppose that the cause would have been materially advanced. The damage done to Socialist progress by Lenin and his ilk hardly bears thinking about.
It is of course no coincidence that the Socialist Party was never taken in by the spurious talk about the creation of Socialism in Russia. Our party was from the first anchored to the doctrine that there can be no Socialism until the material conditions for a society of abundance have been achieved (this, ironically or not, being the task of capitalism); and, equally important, till the majority of the working class understand and want the new system of common ownership. We stood behind Marx’s dictum that the establishment of the new society must be the work of the working class itself. And we therefore regarded with contempt Lenin’s completely opposite teaching (in What is to be done ? and other works) that the workers were not equipped to understand Socialism, which must be brought about by an élite Bolshevik leadership who were so equipped (presumably either by God or by nature). (It should be noted here that with Marx and Lenin having two mutually exclusive attitudes on this fundamental aspect, the very phrase “Marxism-Leninism”, always on the lips of the so-called Communists, is about as meaningful as square circles or black snowflakes.)
The rest of the world expressed puzzlement in 1917 (still does) that, contrary to Marx’s ideas, Socialism should come first not in the industrialised west but in backward Russia. We had no bother in dealing with this puzzle; we knew it was just a figment of the imagination. Lenin kept talking about Socialism. To many people that proved it existed. It didn’t. And doesn’t. The vast majority of Russians are propertyless workers who are forced to allow themselves to be exploited just as in the west. Marx’s “abolition of the wages system” is not even on the horizon in Russia. Any more than it is here. And the Russian workers are not even permitted the luxury of being allowed to talk about the idea or to publish papers like this one to propagate the idea of Socialism.
Since the Hitler war ended, the plague of fake socialist countries has spread widely. The countries of eastern Europe fell under the control of the military might of the state-capitalist giant in Moscow. The feelings of the workers who live under those pernicious régimes show through from time to time in the form of uprisings in Berlin, Budapest, Prague or Danzig (where Polish workers who merely protested against a massive increase in prices were mowed down by tanks sent by their “Communist” masters in Warsaw).
In China, a tiny gang of Maoists have imposed their iron grip over 800 million workers who are exploited without mercy and without the slightest vestige of trade union rights and other freedoms. And a British Labour Peeress, Lady Wootton, who has the nerve to call herself a Socialist, actually wrote in Encounter that it was quite right that these millions should not be allowed trade unions ! While in The Observer, an ignorant intellectual, Professor Galbraith, actually wrote: “It works for the Chinese” (this echoing a previous-generation American intellectual who returned from Moscow with the infamous remark : “I have seen the future and it works”). Of course it works well enough for these impudent carpet-baggers who enjoy VIP trips to see the exploitation of the Chinese workers and then return to their home comforts to get paid for writing lies about it. But it is a sad fact that many young workers and students, who apparently now see through the Russian fraud, have simply switched not to studying Marx but to bootlicking Mao.
The rash has now spread so that every tin-pot black dictatorship in Africa has the nerve to call itself Socialist. And of course, so-called radical papers like the Guardian play their ignoble part in fostering the myths and the confusion by conning their readers into thinking that Socialism exists in such unlikely places as Zambia, Tanzania or Cuba. It never seems to worry these western apostles of freedom that all these places have one thing in common — prisons crammed with poor wretches whose only crime is to have fallen foul of the tyrannies run by Kaunda, Nyerere or Castro. Perhaps they have a great deal to learn, but many of them must be already learning it.
L. E. Weidberg
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