Slings and Arrows: “Be it ever to humble . . ." (1953)

The Slings and Arrows column from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Be it ever to humble . . ."

Scoffers and cynics sneer when they hear Bishops and sanctimonious politicians talk about the sanctity of the home and the family as the foundation of Christian civilisation. But that they are sincere cannot be doubted even by the most disbelieving. Why else would they live in such comfortable circumstances? Obviously because they believe that if the foundation is right the rest of the edifice must follow suit. Thus, true to their principles and beliefs. Archbishops live in Palaces, politicians in mansions and Stately Homes, Queen in Castles (two), Palaces (three), and Stately Home (one), and dogs, as is fitting and proper, in kennels.

Since there are not sufficient mansions, palaces and castles to go round, we content ourselves with flats, Nissen huts and prefabs. “Mid pleasures and palaces,” wrote a Victorian songster, “though we may roam. Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” Had he been alive to-day he might have added the words “even if it’s only a dog kennel.”

The New Statesman publishes each week a feature entitled “This England” consisting of extracts from newspapers submitted by readers, which show the lighter and more humorous and eccentric side of what is known as the “British character.” In its issue of the 13th June, 1953, the New Statesman published in this feature the following extract from the Times: 

“For a year a husband and wife have lived in a wooden dog kennel seven feet long by five feet wide at Ystradmynach, Glamorgan. The kennel is one of four in the corner of a disused allotment. Three are occupied by dogs and the fourth by Mrs. Dorothy May Norman and her husband, an engineer at a local power station.”

Reference to the Times showed that far from them being examples of British eccentricity this unfortunate couple lived in a kennel from sheer necessity, and not from choice. To journalists fond of writing about the glories of the welfare state and with comfortable homes in Hampstead or Bloomsbury and well appointed offices in High Holborn, the idea of people living in a dog kennel may be a joke. But each to his taste. Perhaps the juxtaposition of this item with articles by Mr. John Strachey showing where Marx was wrong, and that it was possible by legislation and “counterpressure ” to offset the evils that Marx denounced, may have given them cause for laughter which escape us.

According to the Times, notice to quit has been served on this couple and soon they will have nowhere to live, not even a dog kennel. But perhaps one of the Bishops or politicians may invite them to share their homes till further arrangements can be made, and thus keep the foundation of our Christian Civilisation in being.

* * *

Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue

Those, who since the last war have watched the manner in which British capitalism has become almost a colonial dependancy under the hegemony of the United States, might well expect that our foremost leaders would have objected and raised some form of protest. Instead, most of them have actually supported dependence on America. There was no one to demand the return of independence to this once mighty Power, until Coronation Day, when appropriately enough the following clarion call was issued:

“How the Yankees now parading London's streets must laugh when they see multitudes of Union Jacks. It is Britain’s national flag. Once it was meant to symbolise our power and independence. To-day the Yankees determine British policy.

"THEY dominate our Army, Navy and Air Force. 

"THEY tell us with whom we may trade and with whom we may not trade.

"THEY cause our lads to be killed in their war in Korea . . . If those in Westminster Abbey were real patriots they would help to send every Yankee back home. . . .”

Who is this leader who on Coronation day tried to imbue the nation with a sense of patriotism and national independence? None other than that staunch defender of the Union Jack, that heir to the traditions of Palmerston, Wellington, Drake and Raleigh, that paragon of patriotism, Mr. Harry Pollitt. There are of course several shortcomings in this appeal, but one cannot have everything. Suffice it that the clarion call has been made, and if Harry does not tell us what to do with “our” Army, Navy and Airforce, when the Americans are made to hand them back; well we must find out for ourselves. And as for being allowed to trade with whom we please, that would be wonderful, except that we can’t quite think of anything we have worth trading. The most interesting feature of Pollitt’s call to action, is, of course, the use of the collective pronoun. It serves to remind us of what “we” have lost by our dependence on the Americans.

In the first Elizabethan era, its most famous writer wrote a play in which a clarion call appears which has rallied Britons for three centuries, and has immortalised the hero who uttered it. Is it too much to ask that some playwright of the present Elizabethan era will do the same by Harry Pollitt? We hope not, and we feel sure that when that call is heard throughout our land there will be none who will not feel uplifted. "Cry, God for Harry, England and St. Joe!”

* * *

Anti-Americanism

There is a more sinister aspect to the grotesque posturings of Harry Pollitt and the Communist Party. Since the erstwhile Allies quarrelled over the postwar settlement, the Communist Party has indulged in stirring up anti-American prejudices. They refer to “Yank” in almost the same manner as Fascists refer to “Yids.” Should some unfortunate girl be assaulted by an American soldier, then it is headlined in the Daily Worker. But should Americans give large contributions to flood relief funds then one requires a microscope to find any reference to it. In their spoken propaganda they harp on this anti-yank theme with the same assiduity as Mosley once tried to work up prejudice against Jews.

There is no baseness from which the Communist Party will shrink in its effort to follow in the footsteps of their masters in the Kremlin. But they had better be careful. Not for the first time, Moscow might suddenly change policy, catching Harry Pollitt and his friends on the wrong foot, again not for the first time. Then, in their efforts to catch up with the change they might trip and break their political necks. An event which would be unmourned by all who know the Communist Party for what it is.

It was said of Shakespeare that “he touched nothing he did not adorn.” Of Mr. Pollitt and his Party it might truly be said that they touch nothing they do not degrade.

S.A.

Editorial: Tobacco workers' dilemma (1953)

Editorial from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the annual conference of the Tobacco Workers' Union, held in London in June, the delegates were discussing unemployment which has recently increased in the industry. The president of the Union, Mr. D. G. Bowry, drew attention to a problem affecting tobacco workers.

“In a number of our factories we have had to endure short time. We have seen the elimination of certain smaller manufacturers with certain dismissals of staff. Yet we are told that if we are to survive we must produce more. It seems to me that we in our industry are tossing up with a double-headed penny. If we produce more we are faced with redundancy, and if we produce less we are faced with the same medicine.”—(Manchester Guardian, 12th June, 1953.)

The point was neatly put; but Mr. Bowry did not state the problem fully and did not offer a solution.

Stating the problem fully he would have included all industries everywhere, not merely the tobacco industry in this country. He would not have called the factories “ours,” for in no country do the factories belong to the workers or to the community as a whole; in all countries all industries, including those run on nationalised capitalist lines, are run for profit not solely for use.

Consequently it is all workers, in all countries, who are tossing up with the double-headed penny. If they produce too little they get the sack; if they produce too much they work some of their number out of their jobs. And if they follow a happy mean their fate is just the same whenever an industry (or all industries) suffers from one of capitalism's chaotic phases of “overproduction” in relation to the market as did textiles last year. Nowhere at all are the workers free from poverty and safe against insecurity.

This is not what the workers are told. All governments and employers, and many labour leaders, tell the workers that if they produce more they will be better off and will be safeguarding themselves against unemployment.

As it happened, a day or two after the Tobacco Workers’ conference the Sunday Express (14 June) published an article by Dr. Ludwig Erhard, Minister for Economic Affairs in the West German government. In it Dr. Erhard offered to Britain and the British workers the advice he offers to the workers in Germany. Recently, “travelling in his fast Mercedes car he went round the Ruhr urging more steel production," and he would tell the British workers:—

“ It is no use for a working man to say, ‘I’m safe whether I work hard or not.’ It is no use saying: 'I won’t go without food even if I’m not worth a job ’ . . . But I would also add this: If you work hard you should eat well. If you eat well, you will work.”

Dr. Erhard thinks that British industry has nothing to fear from German competition as “there is room in the world for both British and German exports." He notes just one difference between Britain and Germany: “ our men work harder and faster.”

But one thing Dr. Erhard forgot to mention is that in West Germany there were at the end of March 1,392,870 registered unemployed!

So far what we have said could only strengthen Mr. Bowry in his conviction that we live in a hard, cruel world, for we have not yet attended to the remark he made at the end of his speech, that he would be “quite happy to hear the solution to this dilemma."

We are quite happy to supply the solution though surprised that among those tobacco workers there was nobody able to do so on the spot.

The dilemma glimpsed by Mr. Bowry is just an aspect, an inevitable one, of capitalism. And the only cure for capitalism is Socialism.

If, as so often happens, the tobacco workers hear the solution and then dismiss it from their minds on the ground that Socialism calls for a radical change of thought and action and is therefore difficult to grasp and endorse, they should remember that that difficulty will be as nothing compared with the miseries of poverty, unemployment and war they will undoubtedly suffer if they go on hoping that social reforms and Labour Governments and nationalised capitalism will get them out of the mess they are in.

Human Nature and Socialism: The Role of the Socialist (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the previous issue.

3—The Role of the Socialist

Let us try to see how socialists can use their knowledge of man in society to achieve social change. We must first discuss human nature a little further from a theoretical standpoint, in order to relate it to other socialist theories, and in particular to historical materialism.

There are two main points about human nature that are implicit in Marxist theory (though Marx and Engels avoided the term “nature” in connection with “human” because of its idealist associations). One is that it is essentially subject to change, and the other is that it is entirely made up of the behaviour and powers of individuals or groups within their environments.

Human nature is to be understood neither idealistically nor mechanically, but dialectically. It is no single universal form or essence which individual human beings share; nor is it the mere sum total of those individuals. It is the sum total of the needs, desires and activities of human beings in society. In other words, man can be no more than what men actually do in their historical and social environments. Thus human nature is essentially the history of humanity, and has nothing to do with any idealistic concept of some changeless entity called man.

Man has evolved as a species slowly and continuously through all the various phases of human society, from tree-climbing anthropoid to his present status. This evolution has been social, cultural, psychological— but hardly at all biological. It is therefore in a dual sense—biologically and socially—that human nature is to be understood; and this is why it has been truly said that human nature changes in some of its respects because it remains the same in others.

Production and Change

Of all the factors determining historical development the decisive element is the production and reproduction of life and its material requirements. Men must be in a position to live in order to be able to make history. The production of the immediate material means of subsistence, and the consequent degree of economic development form the basis upon which all other institutions, concepts and ideas have been evolved. All these things must be explained in the light of the material basis of life, and not vice versa.

Against this, the idealists portray history as though it were dancing to the tune of men’s ideas, or, more precisely, the ideas of a few “great men.” So determined were Marx and Engels to combat this line of thought that they ran the risk of being accused of saying that the production of the means of life is the only factor causing change. But, as Engels points out,

"Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc., development is based on economic development But all these react upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else has a passive effect There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself." — ("Marx-Engels Selected Correspondence," p. 517.)

At each stage of history there is a sum of productive forces and relations of individuals to things and to one another—all handed down to each generation from its predecessor. While these forces and relations are modified by the new generation, they also prescribe the conditions of life of that generation. In short, circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.

Men are products of certain conditions, and therefore changed men are products of other conditions. But it must never be forgotten that conditions are changed precisely by men. Man changes history, and is thereby himself changed and, in this sense, “all history is but a record of the continuous transformation of human nature ” (Marx).

When production was primitive, man’s simple biological needs determined his activities—but as production developed his needs developed also. In the process of production man is driven to a fuller comprehension of the world in which he lives. By acting on the external world and changing it, man changes his own nature.

History-making Animal

The basic difference between man and other animals—the change-over, as it were, from non-human to human—is when he begins to produce his own means of subsistence. This is not to say that animals don’t produce. The difference is that human production is premeditated, planned action, directed towards definite ends. Again, this doesn’t mean that no animal acts according to a plan. But, with man, consciousness takes the place of instinct, or, to put it another way, his“ instinct” is a conscious one.

“What distinguishes the most incompetent architect from the best of bees is that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he constructs it in reality,” wrote Marx. The labour process ends in the creation of something which, when the process began, already existed in the worker’s imagination in an ideal form. We may say that what ultimately distinguishes men from other animals is consciousness of method in production. The animal merely uses external nature, and brings about changes in it by his presence. Man, by his changes, makes nature serve his ends.

Yet man is not only a nature-controlling animal. He is also a history-making one. He is the sole animal who has worked his way out of the merely animal state —his normal state is one of consciousness, one to be created by himself. Man’s mastery over nature, of which he is a part, consists in the fact that he is able to know and correctly apply its laws.

Man has achieved a considerable measure of success as a nature-controlling animal, but when it comes to history-making there is much less cause for satisfaction. Broadly speaking, human action has achieved its desired end only in exceptional cases, and much more often it has achieved the exact opposite. Unforeseen effects have predominated, and uncontrolled forces have been far more powerful than those set in motion according to a plan.

These and other considerations lead socialists to believe that man has not yet made truly human history. “Only conscious organisation of social production,” says Engels, "can lift mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect, in the same way that production in general has done this for men in their aspect as species.”

Understanding and Co-operating

The question may be asked: why has man, who has been so successful in developing his powers of production, made such a failure of history? The answer is that men have made bad history because they have been unable to prevent the means of production from conflicting with the relations of production. They have been so preoccupied with having to “make a living” in competition with others that they have had no control over the long-term consequences of their actions. The history and human nature that have resulted have thus been unplanned and mostly unintended.

In the process of controlling nature man has been scientific, in the widest sense. But in the process of making history he has not. Man makes a machine by manipulating suitable materials in a certain way according to a planned purpose. On the other hand, he makes history as an indirect result, almost a byproduct, of quite another activity—that of competing with his fellow-man to “earn a living.”

The conditions of property society have never been, and can never be, such as to allow men to solve their problems with a collective will or according to a collective plan. The dominating motive being individual self-interest, their efforts clash, what each individual seeks is obstructed by others, and what emerges is something that no one sought.

Man has had greater success in his efforts to master the forces of nature than those of society, which dominate him as a power independent of himself. Slave to classes and to the conditions of class society, man (whether as owner of property or non-owner) has been merely a class animal. He has not yet become truly human, in the sense that he has been passive instead of active in the historical process that makes human nature.

The case for Socialism amounts to saying that history, like the control of nature, ought to be planned and consciously organised. It ought to be produced, like any other product, for a purpose, and this purpose ought to be broadly human, not narrowly individual. It should aim at the transformation of human nature to make man integrated, complete, and balanced through the free use of his creative energies.

The role of the socialist consists in his capacity for understanding the world, for understanding its natural and historical movement, and for co-operating consciously with all the factors that are working towards classless society. We are able to speak of Socialism as a potentiality because it already exists in the minds of men in an ideal form, just as the house exists in the architect’s imagination even before the blueprint stage.

Without classes, human nature can at last become the product of human science rather than the by-product of class struggle. With the abolition of class control of economic forces, when the whole of society has gained mastery of the conditions of social life, man will be able to exercise real control over his own nature. With the release of his human powers from capitalist servitude, he will be able to shape his environment so that it promotes the fullest possible development of all his faculties.

Stan Parker

(Next Article: Capitalist Patterns of Behaviour.)

The Suez Canal in World Affairs (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Suez Canal is the gateway to the Orient, the connecting link between East and West, between Britain and the members of the Commonwealth in the East.

The story of the Canal and the struggle for control of this area is told by Hugh J. Schonfield in “The Suez Canal in World Affairs,” published by Constellation Books, London.

Many centuries ago the wealth of the East was brought to the Mediterranean via Egypt. About 2,000 years B.C. a canal was built joining the Red Sea and the Nile. This canal, called the Canal of the Pharoahs, was silted up and rebuilt during successive reigns and renamed under succeeding empires. Finally it was closed in 776 A.D. while Egypt was under Arab domination. Then trade between the East and West declined, in the 13th and 14th centuries Marco Polo and other travellers opened up the Northern Overland route to India and China. The growth of the aggressive power of Turkey blocked this route. A new route was sought. Christopher Columbus sailed west and Vasco de Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Cape route gave successively the monopoly of Eastern trade to the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the British. To gain and maintain this monopoly Britain made herself mistress of the seas.

France with her southern seaboard on the Mediterranean was interested in opening up the ancient route to the East through Egypt. But competition with the Cape route was impossible while goods had to be carried by camel to Alexandria, then transhipped. A canal between Suez and Cairo was suggested, but the political and practical obstacles seemed insurmountable. Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire and it was thought that there was a difference of 30ft. in the sea levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. English merchants aware of French designs sought privileges in Egypt. Both French and English governments sought influence in Egypt and Turkey and when war broke out between England and France in 1793, France tried to establish herself there, but Britain put an end to these territorial ambitions by defeating the French at the Battle of the Nile.

About 30 years after, an Englishman Lieut. Waghorn started a postal route to India via Egypt demonstrating practically the advantages of this route. Engineers investigated the question of the difference in sea levels and a sect founded by the utopian socialist Saint Simon set up an organisation to examine the question of a canal financially and technically. An alternative scheme for building a railroad was put forward, supported by Britain. But France continued to retain her interest in the canal. Both Governments sought concessions from the Viceroy of Egypt who played the one against the other. When the Viceroy died, Britain received a concession to build a railroad because she had paid court to his successor. The dispute between France and Britain might have become serious if they had not been already allied in prosecuting the Crimean War.

The advantage gained by Britain was offset when Ferdinand de Lesseps received a concession from Mahomet Said, the next Viceroy, authorising him to form an international company to build a canal. The British Government opposed the venture and effectively warned off British capital from taking part in it. But after the construction of the canal Britain realised her mistake and bought up about half the shares. Then in 1882 when rioting broke out in Alexandria British troops took possession. Britain wished to preserve the right to defend the Canal if any Power attacked Egypt and to guarantee with other Powers to keep the Canal open in peace and in war. Other Powers disagreed but a compromise was reached with the Convention of 1888, which made Turkey nominal guardian and guaranteed to keep the Canal open in any circumstances. But Britain still remained in Egypt.

Germany, seeking means of expansion, seized on the possibilities of the undeveloped near East and set out to build the Berlin-Bhagdad Railway which would offset Britain's domination of Egypt and her use of the Suez Canal. When war broke out between Britain and Germany in 1914, Egypt lined up with Britain and closed the Canal to enemy shipping. Turkey, seeking to regain control in Egypt set out to invade it. Britain made Egypt a Protectorate and with the defeat of Germany and Turkey became guardian of the Canal.

In 1922, Egypt was declared an independent stale but the Egyptian Government was dissatisfied with the conditions of the declaration. Italy's longstanding threat to Britain in the Mediterranean culminated in the declaration of war against France and Britain in 1940. The Canal was attacked by air and Egypt was attacked by land from Libya. Because of Italy's lack of success Germany took a hand. For a considerable time the Mediterranean was closed to allied shipping but with the halting of Rommel at El Alamein the Canal was made safe to send aid to Russia in the effort to defeat the Japanese in the Far East.

Since World War II, Egypt has sought to terminate the 1936 Agreement which allows British troops to occupy the Canal Zone. But Egypt, like all other belligerents in war, has shown that she won't pay any attention to the 1888 Convention which guaranteed to keep the Canal open to all shipping in peace or war. In the conflict between Israel and the Arab League, Egypt stopped supplies going to Israel.

Mr. Schonfield's story of the Canal shows its importance to the capitalist Powers in peace and in war.

Today Egypt wants Britain to evacuate her troops from the Canal Zone but Britain is reluctant to do so until she is assured of strong Middle East defences. Certain sections of British capitalist class opinion would like to make the Canal Zone the central base in these defences because of its geographical position, and oppose handing over to Egypt this base with its hundreds of millions of pounds worth of installations. Other sections of the British capitalist class remember the limited use of the Canal during the two world wars and its vulnerability to land attack and are of the opinion that the North East Mediterranean coast with the mountains behind forming a barrier to landborne troops would provide a more suitable base. They claim that the Canal will decline in importance with the increasing use of air instead of the sea for conveying troops and equipment.

To understand why the Canal is important it is necessary to know something about present day society. The means of producing society’s needs are owned by a small section of society, the capitalist class, and the vast majority, the working class, must sell their labour power to the few who own those means of production. In exchange for their labour power the workers receive wages that are very often barely enough to live on. What the workers produce over their wages allows the capitalist class to live comfortably and increase their capital. To realise this surplus the capitalist class must sell their goods and must find raw materials with which they can be produced. This means that there must be trade routes to bring the raw materials from where they are produced to where they are needed and to take the finished articles to the markets where they can be sold. And to protect these trade routes in event of war the different sections of the capitalist class struggle for control of strategic points.

Mr. Schonfield would like to sec the dream of Ferdinand de Lesseps come true. He would like the Canal used for the benefit of humanity. He would like the Canal used to build up the backward countries and raise their standards of living. But if the Canal is to be used for the benefit of humanity the means of living will have to be the property of all society. Then goods won’t be produced and exchanged for the profit of the few but distributed solely for the use of all.

J. T.

Socialism and Questions of the Day (1953)

Party News from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have now prepared a pamphlet under the above title which we are sending to the printer. Unfortunately we have no money in hand at the moment to meet the cost. Will members and sympathisers send us what donations they can immediately so that we can pay for deliveries of the pamphlet as they come. It will be a pity if we cannot have this pamphlet on sale for the summer propaganda season.

The question is urgent so send us money as quickly as you can.

Blogger's Note:

Funds were found and the pamphlet was published in 1953. Unfortunately, this particular edition of Questions of the Day is not available on the SPGB website.

SPGB Meetings (1953)

Party News from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard