Whither South Africa? (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the western outskirts of Johannesburg lies the “shanty-town" of Newclare—an ugly sprawl of wooden shacks, patched up with canvas and corrugated iron, dirty and horribly overcrowded. Buried deep in the misery and squalor of Newclare and other places like it, live the Native workers of Johannesburg and the gold-mines of the Rand.

On February 13th this year, two armoured carloads of police drove into Newclare. Their object was to make a surprise check-up on passes, the documents which the law compels all adult male Africans to carry to show they are in work (and which, incidentally, most of them are unable to read).

These “pass laws” have never been completely effective. They are even less effective now when the Natives have been flocking into the towns in such large numbers that the authorities have found it quite impossible to keep up with them. And so, to remind them that the law still exists even though it cannot be administered properly, the police have taken to making surprise raids (often in the middle of the night), in which they make a sudden swoop on an area, quickly round-up likely suspects, arrest those found without passes, and carry them off to gaol. Sometimes the arrests run into hundreds, and the raid looks more like a minor military exercise.

Perhaps because it was only a small raid, the one on February 13th did not pass off quite so smoothly as usual. When the police tried to make an arrest on this occasion they were immediately attacked by a large crowd of Natives who eventually forced them to retire under a hail of stones and other missiles. Having driven off the police, the crowd then proceeded to throw barricades across the streets and began stoning every vehicle they found carrying Europeans, at the same time setting fire to shops and looting the contents.

The rioting continued unchecked until the following day, when heavy reinforcements of armed police and firemen were drafted to the scene, and to other places where disturbances had also broken out in sympathy. Covering the firemen with rifle and machine-gun fire to enable them to fix the hoses and at the same time prevent the crowd from cutting them, the police began to occupy the area. The crowd resisted fiercely, attacking both the police and the bands of armed Europeans who were now also roaming the district, bent on taking matters into their own hands. (The presence of these gangs was one of the most significant aspects of the riot, and is a disturbing indication of the level to which racial feeling has now risen inside South Africa.) Finally, after several hours of pitched battles, the police cleared the streets, and the disturbances came to an uneasy end.

The incident itself has since been referred to the Riots Commission, which is already sitting to consider five other cases of rioting. All of them have occurred within the last six months.

What has brought South Africa to this perilous pass? What has brought about this situation, in which certain elements in the White group are already expressing their intention of suppressing all future trouble, whatever the cost and whatever the consequences? Where some of the politicians are already talking about the dangers of civil war? South Africa has always had a racial problem. What has happened in the past few years to bring it to such a terrible state?

To answer these questions, we must first make a brief review of the events that have taken place since 1948.

The Past Two Years

There are two main political parties in South Africa, the Nationalist Party under Malan, and the United Party under Smuts. In addition, there are two smaller organisations, the Afrikaner Party led by Havenga, and a Labour Party.

At the last General Election, held in May, 1948, the Nationalists and Afrikaners combined had a slight majority over the United Party and the Labour Party. This enabled them to form a Coalition Government with Malan as Prime Minister, and Havenga in the key position of Minister of Finance.

Backed largely by the Boer farming vote, the Nationalist Party has always taken an extreme line on the racial question, and, indeed, they fought the election on this issue. Malan himself, in a speech at Praal on the 20th April, 1948, said about the election that it was 

  “dominated by the question of whether the European race would be able to maintain its rule, its purity, and its civilisation or float along until it vanishes for ever in the black sea of South Africa’s non-European population.”

Once in power, there is no doubt that Malan would have been prepared to go the whole way with his extreme racial policies if it had not been for the reluctance of Havenga to go the whole way with him. As his Government depends upon the support of Havenga and the Afrikaner Party, he has had to give way—at least for the present. This, however, has not prevented him from pressing on with all kinds of other repressive legislation, with or without the support of Havenga. Prominent in this legislation has been: —

(a) The pushing forward of the general ideal of "complete separation” of all the racial groups of South Africa, “socially, residentiary, industrially, and politically.” This means that, the four groups of South Africa—the Whites, the Coloureds (people of mixed blood), the Indians, and the Africans, will be for ever kept strictly apart. In line with this, legislation has already been introduced forbidding inter-marriage between Europeans and Coloureds (laws already exist forbidding marriage between Whites and Indians, and Whites and Africans).

(b) The intention to keep the Natives on the Reserves, and away from the towns—in Malan's own words, “the Native reserves must become the true fatherland of the Native." In the towns they must henceforth be regarded as “visitors.” 

(c) Repeal of the previous Government’s law allowing the Indians three representatives in Parliament.

(d) Abolition of present Coloured vote, and in its place a similar system to that now operating for the Natives in which they are allowed three separate representatives (who must be Europeans).

(e) Repeal of the previous Government’s Bill recognising Native Trade Unions.

(f) All training of Native skilled workers to cease.

(g) All voting rights to be taken away from the Indians, and from all Natives living away from the Reserves.

As the culmination to all these repressive activities Malan is now about to introduce an identity-card system by means of which every person in the Union will eventually be registered according to “race.” Its effect will be to put every individual, once and for all, into a racial classification from which there will never be a chance of escape. To the darker-skinned African it will be just another document to add to the others he has to carry already, but for the Coloured group its effects will be profound. It will put an end, in fact, to all possibility of a white-skinned Coloured person “passing over” into the White group.

Finally, the Nationalists have extended the racial laws to cover the Cape Province, formerly the least subject to prejudice. In the post offices, non-Whites are now directed to separate counters; there are separate exits and entrances at the railway stations; “Jim Crow” travels the trains; and rides shamelessly on the buses, where Europeans now sit in the front and members of the other groups sit at the back.

All these things show clearly that the Malan Government is determined to put the clock back in South Africa. But what of the United Party and Smuts? Are they any different? Only to this extent— that whilst they do not wish to put the clock back, they neither wish to put in very far forward. Their alternative boils down to a few reforms here and there which they hope will take the sting out of the Natives' rebelliousness, relieve the pressure on the Indians and Coloureds where it hurts them most, and leave them all once more contented with their inferior position.

The same applies to the Labour Party. Only recently there was a split in their ranks when their Leader and Deputy Leader in Parliament voted against the Indians being allowed the vote. One member abstained and the others voted in favour of the Bill, which was in any case a milk-and-water effort that only allowed them representation by Europeans.

What it comes to is this, irrespective of Party, irrespective of class, almost the whole of the White group are united in refusing to allow the non-Whites anything like a position comparable with their own. They may differ here and there amongst themselves as to which particular rung of the ladder each of the other groups should occupy, but one thing they are agreed upon—that they, the Whites, belong near the top of the ladder and the others a long way further down.

They continue to deceive themselves that they can maintain this situation, that for ever and ever 2½ million Europeans can keep the other 9 millions in subjection. There never was a more forlorn and fantastic hope, nor one with graver possibilities of terrible consequences for themselves. Speaking in the South African Parliament three days after the riot. Smuts said: —

  “Something new is coming into the life of this country. We are accustomed to the orderly conduct of our Natives and on the whole our Natives are well behaved, but some change is coming about  

  “Unless this new development is stopped and stopped at once and unless firm measures are taken no one can be sure of the future of South Africa.” (Johannesburg Star, 15/2/50.)

Unfortunately for Smuts, for Malan, for all the vast majority of Europeans in the Union who think like them on the Native question, there is a change taking place in the Natives, not only in South Africa, but throughout the whole of the continent. Smuts has sensed the change and would like to explain it by the recent activity of Malan and the Nationalist Party. What he fails to recognise is that whatever the Nationalists have done to provoke matters, they have only helped to bring more quickly what is bound to have come in any case. What all the Whites of South Africa fail to face up to is that the Natives are on the move, and will not stop until they have gained the same position as the Whites.

On this question we can do no better than quote from our pamphlet. “The Racial Problem.” What it said three years ago is even more relevant now than it was then:—

  “As industry develops, they (the Natives) will learn more, and want more, and then the same position will face the South African White worker as faces the American White worker at the present time. Then will the South African workers, White, Native. Coloured, and Indian, be at their own cross-roads. What their decision will be we do not know nor do we intend to guess. What we say to the South African workers we have already said to the American workers. They must realise that their interests as workers lie together: until they do so they will remain divided and weakened, wide open to the attacks and encroachments of the capitalist class. Much worse may result; the logical end of the road which the South African White worker is treading can only be bloody violence and destruction. No group can permanently hold down another many more times more numerous than itself, and sooner or later the working class, particularly the White section, will have to face up to the situation and make their decision.”

Recent events in South Africa have served only to underline the warning contained in this statement. The White workers in the Union will ignore it at their peril.

Stan Hampson

Of Mice and Men (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to The Economist (25/2/50), Mr. Herbert Morrison regrets that the activities that take place in the Stock Exchange are influenced by politics.

The society we live in is called capitalism. It received that name because “capital,” strictly speaking, money invested to gain more money, is the driving force in the production of society’s needs. This money is spent on means and instruments of production, fields, factories, raw materials, machinery and the buying of labour power, and under present conditions most of the money is invested in huge companies and state concerns which produce the bulk of the goods and services society requires. The title to ownership in those organisations is stocks and bonds, and the main market where they are bought and sold is the Stock Exchange. In the commodity market when prices rise this shows which goods are in demand and the production of these goods increases until supply overcomes demand and prices fall. So in general the price of shares on the Stock Exchange rise and fall under the influence of the same kind of factors. The Stock Exchange is a necessary adjunct of capitalist society. Mr. Morrison realises this: he “presumes the Stock Exchange has useful functions to discharge,” and says, “We ought to recognise that in our money and industrial system such an institution may well be necessary,” but Mr. Morrison “would urge them not to allow the political straws to affect investments.”

To this criticism, Mr. John Braithwaite, the Stock Exchange chairman, very effectively replied: —

  “It is quite true that prices are influenced by the ebb and flow of opinion as to the result of the election as they are by every form of news and opinion on domestic or foreign affairs that has any bearing on the investment market. . . .

  

“What Mr. Morrison seems not to understand is that movements of prices are not made by the whims or wishes of members of the Stock Exchange. They are the result of the actions of countless individuals and institutions all over the country and by no means all of one political persuasion who are moved by countless different reasons to send instructions to the Stock Exchange to buy or sell securities. . . . These are the tides of business influenced by economic and political conditions the world over. . . . The Stock Exchange can no more control or influence those tides than King Canute could order the tides of the sea.”—(The Economist, 25/2/50.)

What chance has Mr. Morrison and the other Canutes of the Labour Government planning a system like that? Even a Cabinet with the alleged talents of the Piddingtons wouldn’t have a chance.

Mr. John Strachey, Secretary of State for War in the present Labour Government, a few years before the war made the following statements in “The Nature of the Capitalist Crises”; they bear repeating: —

  “The whole of the present official leadership of the British workers looks forward, like G. D. H. Cole, to the possibility of an organised or planned high wage paying and centrally controlled capitalism. . . .

   "Unfortuntely, however, as we have seen, whatever else may happen upon this uncertain planet, the establishment of a planned, stable, high wage paying capitalism is impossible” (page 354).

Planning is only possible when goods are produced for use and not for profit, and at the present stage of social development with the gigantic social productive forces production for use implies common ownership of those productive forces—in a word, Socialism.

J. T.

Is There a Future for State Capitalism? (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Tory M.P., Mr. Hugh. Linstead, has tried to define the issues that will divide the parties in coming elections and has concluded that the electors will be asked to decide the question: “Is it State capitalism or private capitalism which can provide the largest amount of wealth for our community?” (Times, 8/3/50). Looking still further ahead he sees the possibility of a new division arising, that of Labourism versus Socialism. His second forecast is correct, but the first is over-simplified to the point of unreality. The Labour Party would now not attempt to fight an election on a programme of all-round Nationalisation, and the Tories are fully committed to retaining most of the existing Nationalisation schemes and to accepting some form of State regulation over the operations of private industry.

A better appreciation of the election is shown by the editor of the Observer (5/3/50) when he says that the Labour Party’s advocacy of further Nationalisation “was small and, in its character, noticeably lukewarm”; and by an Italian journalist in London who wrote: “The welfare State is accepted by all. Some parties want more and some less Nationalisation of industries, but this difference does not constitute a real battle. It is more a question of confidence as to who can guide the vessel of State better.” (Il Mondo, Rome. Quoted in Manchester Guardian, 22/2/50.)

Nationalisation is not very popular and the Labour Party is taking due note of the fact. One Labour supporter, Mr. Hannen Swaffer, wrote: “The British people decided last week that, for the present at least, it did not want any more Nationalisation.” (People, 26/2/50.) A Labour Peer, Lord Strabolgi, said in the House of Lords (7/3/50), “We did not get a mandate for further Nationalisation; we did not even get a mandate to continue the Iron and Steel Act.” The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Tom Williams, assured the House of Commons, “the simple fact is … that land nationalisation forms no part of our programme and policy to-day.” (“Report,” 8/3/50, Col. 396). And one Labour M.P., Mr. R. Crossman, is reported by the Times (4/3/50) to have told the Oxford University Labour Club that he “thanked Heaven that the motorcar industry was still under private enterprise. He would rather have private enterprise with Government control and regulation than one of the gigantic public corporations which had been taken out of politics and over which there was no public control.”

The Ebb Tide of Nationalisation

As far as Western Europe and the British Dominions are concerned (except perhaps industrially very backward countries like India and Pakistan) the history of the years after the first world war is being repeated. After a brief period of widespread extension of Nationalisation a reaction has set in, at least for a time. New governments in Australia and New Zealand are opposed to its extension and in the ranks of the defeated Australian Labour Party a move is on foot to commit the party to the maintenance of “private enterprise” as the rule, with the introduction of Nationalisation as the exception. It is reported from France that Nationalisation is now so unpopular that for the next election “no party …. has yet advocated any extension.” (Daily Telegraph, 28/2/50.) All three of the Scandinavian Labour Governments, Denmark, Norway and Sweden have expressly or tacitly abandoned further Nationalisation. Sir Arthur Salter goes so far as to claim that the British Labour Government’s pre-election intention to extend Nationalisation to sugar, cement and insurance placed it in the position of being “alone in Western Europe, in the Commonwealth, in the whole of the free world.” (Manchester Guardian, 18/2/50.)

State Industries in Russia

Russia, too, has her problems of Nationalised industries, the interesting feature being the great extent to which their operations conform to the British pattern. While British Communists may criticise Nationalisation here for its "capitalist” features – as if basically it could have any other – State concerns in Russia show quite clearly that the Communists in power have found no means of running State industry to meet the needs of a capitalist world, except the traditional methods of Capitalism.

Some Labour Party theorists have argued in the past, and still do, that State capitalist enterprises can be run without the need to show a profit, i.e., either at cost or even at a loss, the loss being met out of State subsidies; and also that so-called “workers’ control” can be grafted on to Capitalism. In 1918 the Labour Party was committed to “democracy in industry,” “Nationalisation and workers’ control “; and the Communists in the early days took a similar line. None of them ever squarely faced the meaning of what they demanded, for if the workers who form the great majority were allowed “democratic” control of industry that would include control over its finances and power to take it over and stop the payment of profits or interest to shareholders or bondholders. In practice no Labour Government or Communist Government intend to concede such power – if it did the result would simply be to bring Capitalism to chaos. So in Russia, as in Britain, management of State industry and its finances belongs to directors appointed from above by and under the continuous control of the Government. And if in Britain nationalised concerns produce commodities for sale and have to show a profit, so they do in Russia.

In private industry if a firm cannot make a profit goes under. So every firm must strive to keep production costs below selling price. And nobody has yet discovered any other way of achieving low production costs in Nationalised industries than by requiring them to make a profit. In Russia, in addition to paying to the Government a turnover tax which is a percentage of what the concern receives from its customers, State enterprise has to pay profits to the Government. The procedure is explained in The Soviet Financial System by M. L. Bogolepof, Director of the Financial Division of the Russian State Planning Commission: —

  “Each establishment, having received from the State for its exclusive use both equipment and capital, proceeds to operate on its own. with its own financial accounting, bank account, credit facilities and, finally, with the right to make a profit,” (p. 9.)

What he here oddly calls the “right to make a profit” is in fact an obligation, rigidly enforced by the Government, and the profit does not belong to the undertaking—” his profit, as well as the proceeds from the turnover tax belongs to the State . . . .” (Bogolepof, p. 9.)

How much of the profit is kept by the Government and how much is returned to the undertaking depends on whether it can show that it requires additional capital for expansion. According to another Russian writer, A. Antonov (Soviet Weekly, 25/9/47), in some cases the Government keeps as much as 91 per cent. of the profits, while in other cases it may keep as little as 10 per cent.

Bogolepof explains (p. 34) how every State undertaking is compelled to go to the State bank for a loan (on which of course interest is paid) if this is needed as additional capital for short periods; and is likewise compelled to apply to the bank if it finds that it needs for an extended period more working capital than was planned for it.

Then the State bank acts as an inspector into the way the undertaking is being operated.

  “If the deviations from the production programme . . . are due to the fault of the enterprise, the bank refuses to supply additional credit, and the financial difficulties of the enterprise become the object of investigation by the competent authorities. As bank loans are provided on the basis of an analysis of the borrower’s financial and economic position, they have become one of the most valuable and effective forms of control by the Government over the activities of State enterprises.” (p. 34.)

It will be seen that if Mr. Bogolepof were to find himself transferred to one of the British nationalised industries he would find the capitalist-financial atmosphere remarkably like the one he breathes at home.

In one respect Russian State Capitalism does differ from British, because in Russia there is no burden of compensation to the original owners. (In the East European Russian satellites, however, some compensation is the general rule.) But while this was an important difference in the beginning it has become of less importance as the new army of bondholders has come into existence who have lent to the State the money used to provide new capital for State enterprises. The interest they receive is much higher than the rates received by Government bondholders in England.

Nationalisation of the Land

The Labour Party has disowned land nationalisation but they used to declare that it was an essential part of their policy. As set out in their 1918 programme, Labour and the New Social Order, their intention was to nationalise the land and organise agriculture on the combined basis of large “national farms,” small holdings, municipal farms, and farms run by cooperatives. In the meantime the Russian Government has established a farming system very much like the Labour Party’s scheme. It consists of large State farms, small family-farms, and co-operative or “collective” farms in which, however, the farmers also have their own private holdings. The whole idea of being “collectivised” was detested by large numbers of farmers and force had to be used. Large numbers, though they had to submit, have never become reconciled to it, and during the war while the authorities had their hands tied with the German invasion they saw their chance and seized collective farm land and added it to their own farms. According to a correspondent writing in the Manchester Guardian (1/3/50) the public reproof administered late in February to the Minister in charge of agriculture, A. A. Andreyev, rested on the allegation that his method of organising collective farmers into small units working only on their own collective farm (as against large units working on any farm) encouraged them in their attachment to the idea of private farming.

Late in 1946 a move was made to compel the farmers to give back the land they had illegally appropriated, and according to an official statement quoted by the writer referred to above, the authorities secured the return of some 11 million acres. But the illegal acts have continued and further large-scale seizures have been reported as recently as November last. A new campaign is now reported with the object of persuading the farmers not only to restore land taken illegally but also to throw their own legal holdings into the pool. “In this way all private ownership of even the smallest plot of land, it may be assumed, will be gradually eliminated.” Whether that writer’s anticipation will be borne out remains to be seen. With all the main features of Capitalism in full force, with the growing emphasis on inequality of income and ownership, the accumulation of property will continue to be universally attractive and the peasants are not at all likely to give up easily the private ownership of which every effort of the Government has so far failed wholly to deprive them.

The Myth of Nationalisation

One thing the experience of Nationalisation has shown is that the conception of all-round State Capitalism as a workable and stable alternative to private Capitalism is a myth. If Nationalisation is only partial, as in Britain (about 20 per cent. of all industry is nationalised) it has to be run on normal capitalist lines and brings no comfort to the workers; and if it is wholesale Nationalisation, as in Russia, it likewise has to be run on strictly capitalist lines, and likewise fails to satisfy the needs and desires of the population.

Events have played havoc with the theories of the nationalisers, here and in Russia, and the Labour Party now finds its propaganda robbed of one of its main ingredients. The deep-seated discontent of the working class has never been wholly satisfied with promises of immediate social reforms. There was always, in addition, the vague but persistent desire for some more alluring ultimate objective. Among the early Labourites Keir Hardie met this desire by the argument that Nationalisation, though not much worthwhile for its own sake, was justified because it was a necessary step to the achievement of Socialism (or “free Communism” as he sometimes called it). Later Labourites dropped Keir Hardie’s argument and put in its place the view that wholesale Nationalisation is the ultimate aim, to be achieved gradually industry by industry. But to make this acceptable they had to claim that Nationalisation is itself of great and immediate advantage. A generation of workers were converted to this belief and are only just learning that it is false. Now Nationalisation propaganda has turned sour on the Labour Party and they find that their responsibility for running Capitalism for five years has turned them into a Party trying to live on past achievements, a Party of “conservers” of what exists – the so-called Welfare State. Like the other Conservatives, the limit of what they can hold out as a glittering future prize is almost comprised in the ever-receding prospect of overcoming the crisis.

The Communists in Russia are in a like dilemma. Copying the Labour leaders whom they affected to despise so much, they have given to State Capitalism the name Socialism; but unlike the Labour Party, they have adhered to Keir Hardie’s line of holding out as a solace for present troubles an ultimate but never materialising Communism.

It remains to be seen for how much longer the partial and the complete nationalisers will be able to hold the allegiance of the working class in face of evils for which neither group of distorters of Socialism can find a remedy.

Edgar Hardcastle

Party News Briefs (1950)

Party News from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kingston Branch having passed through a comparatively inactive winter period has recommenced activities. The first outdoor meeting was held at Castle Street, Kingston, during election week with enthusing results. The station will commence, officially and regularly, on Saturday, April 18th, but meetings will be held there when branch speakers are available and weather permits before that date. The membership of the branch, which has remained numerically stationary for a long period, has begun to increase. The loss of Comrade J. Thorburn, who had to transfer to another branch, was a disappointment to the other branch members, but the return of Comrade G. Waters, transferred back from Lewisham Branch, has replenished the Kingston speaking strength. Three very active members who, although they remain on the branch roll, have had to take employment and find a residence in distant parts of the country, are, of course, unable to assist in local work for the time being. The meetings at Castle Street are the only activity contemplated for 1950 to date, but the steady influx of members may alter that very soon. Those friends and comrades who attended the Saturday evening meetings during the previous two years are cordially invited, requested—urged, to support those meetings again this year. Those who have contemplated membership of the party are reminded that the branch meets on alternate Thursdays at 9, Vicarage Road, Kingston, at 8 p.m. (meetings for April on the 13th and 27th), and that they can contact the secretary at 19, Spencer Road, East Molesey, Surrey; phone number, Molesey 4094.

Ealing Branch social and dance on March 11th, in the Princes Room, Ealing Town Hall, proved to be a great success. A good turnout of members together with a first-class orchestra and dance floor, and an efficient “refreshment” service, provided everyone with an enjoyable evening. This branch has had a fairly busy winter season, with four indoor meetings including one at Richmond. It is intended to wind up with two further efforts, one at Richmond on April 14th, with R. Critchfield as the speaker and the other at Ealing Town Hall on April 17th with C. Groves speaking. Plans for the outdoor season include the running of propaganda stations at Ealing Green on Saturdays, Heron Court, Richmond, on Sundays, and Turnham Green on Mondays. The last station replaces the one previously used at Shepherd’s Bush which has been abandoned owing to the difficulty of getting an audience. Three trips to the coast have been arranged, all of them to Southsea, in July, August and September. Members who have been to Southsea on previous propaganda excursions, will recall that this place has proved to be remarkably good for our propaganda efforts and it certainly warrants further attention.

The Parliamentary Committee has issued its provisional report on the General Election campaign in North Paddington and East Ham, South. The final report will be presented when the auditors have completed their work and a closer analysis of the meetings held, has been made.

In East Ham twelve outdoor meetings were held during the campaign and thirteen indoor meetings, three of them in the East Ham Town Hall. In Paddington we held two Town Hall meetings, four in the Emmanuel Hall, three in local schools and one at the Metropolitan Theatre, in addition to six outdoor meetings. Of the meeting at the Metropolitan Theatre the Parliamentary Committee says, "Probably one of the most successful in the history of the Party and it is no exaggeration to say the finest meeting held by any Party in the London area during the Election, both as to size and the manner in which it was conducted.”

During the campaign there was distributed in the two constituencies, 163,000 items of literature, comprising 25,000 Election Manifestoes delivered by hand, 50.000 Election Specials, distributed by hand, and 88.000 Candidates' Addresses delivered by post. 65,000 handbills were distributed, 50,000 of them in East Ham, the constituency being covered six times by members who undertook to distribute them. 1,100 posters were displayed in the two constituencies. Two separate units of loud-speaker apparatus were constantly in use in both constituencies and Party members and sympathisers used their cars as frequently as possible, nine cars being fairly constantly in use in Paddington and three vans and a car in East Ham.

More details of the canvassing efforts are to be given in the Committee’s final report, but we are told that bad weather curtailed much of the work.

The committee rooms at East Ham South cost us £36 for the six weeks and those at Paddington £49 1s. for the same period. This high cost was due to the shortage of shop accommodation.

The total costs for each constituency were. East Ham, South, £603 (approx.), and for Paddington, North, £615 (approx.), making an approximate total of £1,218. The income from collections at meetings amounted to approximately £130, leaving us with a total net expense of £1,088, which is £188 over our estimated figure. The committee devotes much of its report to recommendations for the next election, in particular to ways and means for cutting the expenses, based upon the lessons of this campaign. The report concludes with thanks "to all members in whatever capacity their work was performed for what was truly a wonderful effort of a voluntary organisation. It shows what revolutionary enthusiasm, which lies at the base of our socialist knowledge, can do, and will do, in the future.” The Parliamentary Committee is now engaged in collecting details of the number of Party members in each constituency throughout the country, the number of voters in each constituency and its geographical area. The collected information is to be presented to the Annual Conference which will discuss how many and which constituencies we shall contest at the next election. We are anxious to increase the number, but finances will determine. You can help with them. Send donations to the Parliamentary Fund addressed E. Lake, S.P.G.B.. 2, Rugby Street. London, W.C.l. 

The Food Parcel, mentioned in these columns in our March issue, sent by our comrades in the Wellington Branch of the Socialist Party of New Zealand, for use by the catering committee at the Annual Conference, has arrived. It is a splendid parcel and we thank our New Zealand comrades most cordially for the kind thought and for their generosity.

The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Ireland is ready and we are informed that quantities have been dispatched to us. They have not arrived at the time of writing. We hope to have them in time for our Conference on April 7th, 8th, and 9th, and to review the publication in the next issue of the Socialist Standard, which will also contain a report of Conference proceedings.

W. Waters.

Circumstances alter attitudes (1950)

Editorial from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before it became the Government the Labour Party built up a reputation on the frail ground that it was in favour of applying the principle of democracy everywhere, with particular reference to the depressed native populations who suffered so much from the profit-hungry greed of the privileged class. Now that the Labour Party has become the Government, administering Capitalism, lofty ideals that gained them support have had to take a back seat and the interests of the British Capitalist class become, and must become, the ruling idea. A recent example is the instance of the native ruler Seretse.

The circumstances are fairly well known owing to the publicity given by opponents of the Labour Party; opponents, it may be added, who would in all probability have acted more or less in the same way had they been the Government. Seretse is chief of a native population in Bechuanaland. He came to England to study and married a white girl. The Regent who had been acting as chief during Seretse’s minority objected to the marriage. After considerable internal discussion the Regent was exiled and the majority of the population accepted Seretse and his wife. In the meantime the Government’s representatives had been taking part in the dispute. Finally Seretse was invited to England for discussions on the express condition, he claims, that he would be allowed to return. When he was here the Government refused to let him return and banned him and his wife from the territory for five years.

Why did the Government take this autocratic action, in face of the wishes of the local population? Obviously not out of consideration for the native people but from motives springing from the needs of national diplomacy; the national diplomacy of a capitalist government. What are these needs? One of them is to placate the South African Government which has passed a number of repressive measures against natives; another is fear of what might happen to the interests of the privileged class in other parts of the "Empire" if they failed to frown upon the union of white with black.

Thus, in spite of the high-flown style of the propaganda against Fascism and Nazism in the past, where capitalist interests are, or seen to be, involved all capitalist governments, including the Labour ones, are prepared to engage in racial discrimination.

Obituary (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What an ungrateful lot the British workers are! Hardened fighters in the great battle for Immediate Demands have given the best years of their lives furthering the cause of that great fountain of reforms, the Communist Party of Great Britain; nay, have also been so generous as to urge the workers to give their lives not only in international warfare, but also in the streets against the forces of the State. But what do the workers do to show their appreciation of the herculean efforts of their self-appointed leaders? The result of the recent election clearly shows that the British workers overwhelmingly rejected the C.P.G.B. and its crypto-comrades.

Both M.P.s in the previous House of Commons lost their seats, and apart from these two and Harry Pollitt who fought Rhondda East, the remaining 97 Communist Party candidates lost their deposits, very few of them polling 1,000 votes or over.

As was to be expected, the Daily Worker of 25th February, 1950, gives a couple of false reasons for this calamity, in the hope of covering up the truth. Mr. Gallacher is reported as saying:—

  “The workers have not yet seen our point of view that it was necessary to vote Communist in order to ensure a real fight against their enemies."

The point of view of the Communist Party (as published at the time of the election campaign—it has a notorious habit of changing overnight) was all too discernible. A plethora of social reforms ranging from Home Rule for various sections of the British Isles, through the familiar hardy annuals—more wages, houses, schools, trade with Russia, etc., and less armaments, price increases, frozen wages, trade with the United States, etc., to the more exotic items such as banning the atom bomb and a more democratic constitution of the British Army.

But behind the camouflage of all these reforms, promises and vote-catching slogans, the insoluble tie between the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Russian Government stood out in bold relief, and here lies the real cause of the C.P.’s downfall. A working-class not accepting the Socialist solution to world problems, and stiff in support of Capitalism will be most likely to support the “home-grown” section of the capitalist class, and not the interests of some rival group of exploiters abroad. Hence, now that the American and British sections of the world capitalist class find themselves opposed to the imperialist policy of the Russian ruling class, the British workers (who are still nationalist in their outlook, thanks partly to the propaganda of the Communist Party itself) will naturally oppose any organisation which supports Russian capitalism. The popularity of the Communist Party in 1945, which resulted in their obtaining two seats in Parliament, was largely due to the temporary alliance between the United States. Britain and the U.S.S.R. during the war.

The other reason for defeat advanced by the Daily Worker was that the workers voted for the Labour Party rather than the C.P. in order to “ keep the Tories out.” Surely, if the “Communists” were really concerned about keeping out the Tories, they would have refrained from putting forward all those candidates, which, according to their reasoning, might have “split the Left vote,” a heinous crime for all so-called “progressives” to commit, and one, incidentally, of which the S.P.G.B. has often been accused. However, five years of Labour Party administration of Capitalism prompted large numbers of workers to vote Tory in 1950, despite the Daily Worker's glib excuse, in fact, so many workers supported the Tory candidate in West Fife that he topped Mr. Gallacher’s vote by nearly 1,000, the Labour candidate winning the seat which “oor Wullie ” had so stoutly held for the past fifteen years.

It is interesting to note here that in spite of the host of reforms and the vote-catching tricks employed by the “Communist” candidates (i.e., pandering to religious and racial prejudices in certain constituencies), they polled a mere 200 votes each more than the S.P.G.B. candidates in North Paddington and East Ham South. We of the Socialist Party, who stood for the single issue of Socialism, and who eschewed all forms of election stunts and vote-catching slogans and promises of reforms, insisting on socialist knowledge being the pre-requisite for the support of our candidates, have long been chided by the “short-cut boys” of the C.P. as being “impossibilists,” whereas they, the saviours of the workers, would lead them to victory in a flash of lightning. Now it appears that the leaders have moved so fast (in a circle) that they have left their followers behind, and have reappeared at the rear of the political scene.

What are the future prospects for the vanquished “vanguards of the proletariat”? Now that parliamentary representation no longer exists, and the chances of future representation seems remote, the Communist Party may once more advocate armed insurrection as being the only hope for the workers. The cloak-and-dagger element of the C.P. may once more become prominent, organising “parallel illegal machinery,” forming secret cadres, shock battalions and what not, in fact as it were reverting to type, and complying with Bolshevik theory inherited from the terrorism of the Blanquists of nineteenth century Russia.

This policy of bringing the workers out against the armed forces of the State may have sounded feasible in the days of rifles and barricades, but it is recklessly suicidal for the workers nowadays, when the modern State controls such weapons as tanks and flamethrowers. At the congress of the C.P.G.B. held in November, 1929, the Manchester Guardian of 2/12 /1929 reports Harry Pollitt as saying: —

  “Only through social revolution, only through armed insurrection, can the workers gain power."

And now, fresh from the crushing Communist Party defeat in 1950, the same Mr. Pollitt says: —

  “The great issues will be settled not in the arena of this reactionary Parliament, but by the workers’ mass struggle in the factories and the streets." (Daily Worker, 25/2/50.)

This statement may only refer to trade union activity and to street meetings and marches, but on the other hand it may be a hint of further dangerous anti-working-class machinations by the Communist Party.

Whatever the new Party Line will be. we can make two prophecies with confidence: —

1. It will be strictly in conformity with the needs of the Russian capitalist government.
2. It will not present an alternative to the present system of society for the consideration of the working class, but will offer innumerable reforms, as do all the other reform parties, in the hope of attracting support for its policy.

We have always held the view that the “Communists' ” misuse of the word “Socialism" by applying it to state-capitalist Russia has greatly hindered the task of explaining what Socialism really is despite the smokescreen of pseudo-marxian jargon with which they cloak their propaganda, and we have also seen many similar so-called “left-wing" parties perish during the last thirty years (Trotskyites, Independent Labour Party, etc.) due to the sterility of their non-socialist arguments.

The sooner the Communist Party of Great Britain also finally falls from the political scene the better, for the workers will then be rid of an organisation which has been nothing but a millstone round their political necks, and whose policy has helped in no way to remove the cause of the major problems besetting society to-day —i.e., Capitalism and substitute Socialism in its place Only a political party having this object as its aim is worthy of working-class support.

Upon a tombstone of crumbling clay in the political grave where the C.P.G.B. will be unceremoniously interred, the following epitaph, written in the blood of millions of workers may be seen: “Born 1920, Died ?. R.I.P. (Russian Imperial Policy).”

Michael La Touche

Letter: A Statement Challenged (1950)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from a correspondent:—

Leeds.

To Secretary, Socialist Party of G.B.

Dear Sir,

In your booklet on the Centenary of Communist Manifesto you state in the preface: That in the preface to the 1872 edition Marx and Engels say: “No special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at end of Section II.”

In a debate a speaker denied the accuracy of this, and produced a book which is supposed to contain all the prefaces. The above could not be found in it.

Can you enlighten me on this point? Thanking you in anticipation of your reply, for which I enclose stamped addressed envelope.

Yours faithfully,

L. Benjamin.

Reply.

The above letter relates to a passage on page 3 of the Preface to “The Communist Manifesto—and the Last Hundred Years,” published by the S.P.G.B.

In our Preface we drew attention to the statement made by Marx and Engels in their joint preface to the. 1872 edition of the Communist Manifesto. The whole statement that we quote from Marx and Engels is:

  “No special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded to-day.”

Sixteen years after Marx and Engels wrote that passage Engels, after the death of Marx in 1883, wrote

a new-preface to the 1888 edition of the Communist Manifesto, and in that 1888 preface he quoted again the words that he and Marx had written in 1872.

For confirmation of the above our correspondent can refer his critic to any of the following editions of the Communist Manifesto:—

• The edition published by W. Reeves, London, in 1888 (see page 6). This is the authorised English translation edited by Engels himself.
• “Modern Books” edition, London, 1929 (p. xv). “Lawrence and Wishart” Edition, London, 1939 (P. 8).
• The “Martin Lawrence” edition, London, 1930, with an Introduction and explanatory notes by D. Ryazanoff, Director of the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow (p. 260).

This last-named edition does not contain the 1888 Preface by Engels, and its version of the 1872 Joint Preface by Marx and Engels is a translation from the Russian, which was itself a translation from the German. This is doubtless the explanation of the fact that it words the passage slightly differently, as follows:

  “We therefore do not lay any special stress upon the revolutionary measures suggested at the close of the second section. In many respects the passage would have to be differently worded to-day.”

It is clear that the critic who challenged the authenticity of the statement in the S.P.G.B. edition is mistaken. It would be interesting to know what is the book from which he obtained his erroneous information.

Editorial Committee.

Food or Profit? (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again over-production and unmarketable supplies of food are the order of our day. In America food is being stored in barns, caves and even aeroplane hangars, at a cost of approximately £9,000 an hour to pay for storage and the rapid deterioration which is taking place in certain food commodities. Mr. Brannan, America's Secretary of State, says “the situation contains warnings that we cannot ignore, but there is no solution in sight to stop the surpluses piling up higher and higher.” (News Chronicle, 6/3/50.) What wonderful system is this—that brings about the position of food piling up and deteriorating when there is still poverty in our midst?

Why is it—that in Asia, there are millions of people living in poverty and in the main underfed (News Chronicle, 6/3/50), and yet at the same time the other half of the world are letting food rot?

Lord Boyd Orr said at a meeting of the Association of Scientific Workers held on March 5th, that he saw threats of the same vicious circle that contributed to the crisis of 1929-30. He went on to say : “There is already a fight for world markets and this would be intensified when Germany and Japan again entered the field and other countries became more industrialised" (Manchester Guardian, 6/3/50). Lord Boyd Orr thinks that the United Nations with its Agricultural Organisation and World Banks will somehow or the other solve this problem, but it is very noticeable that he does not say how.

Statisticians in the same category as himself miss one vital point, that Food, Clothing and Shelter, which are necessary to sustain human life, are produced, not because people need them, but for sale on a market with a view to profit. When goods cannot be sold, markets become glutted and there arises the position of commodities piling high in warehouses and the like, as already witnessed in America at the present time.

The only solution to any problem is to remove the cause, and until this is accomplished all the Lord Boyd Orr’s in the world will not be able to bring about a state of affairs where there is plenty for all.

Only Socialism can solve this problem, a system of society in which goods will be produced solely for use, where people will work according to their ability and take according to their needs.

J. P.

Our Birthright (1950)

 

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

All members of the working class who ever attended school will, no doubt, remember their mentors’ eulogistic references to the "birthright” which is the proud heritage of everybody who had the great good fortune and common sense to get themselves born in Great Britain. The meaning of this great blessing has somehow always managed to elude the writer—certainly, a "birthright” during the last three or four decades seemed a very obscure and intangible possession, except, of course, for the master class, who by reason of their ownership and control of the means whereby all goods are produced, enjoyed a very real "birthright” in the wealth accruing from the sale of those goods. The extravagant opulence of their lives was accepted as the natural order of things, as was the fact that the workers were poor, and therefore had to make the best of the meanest dwellings, shoddiest clothes and food of little or no nutritional value. An odd sort of “birthright” in the second case, you say? But, nevertheless, it is the only one the workers can expect under the present system, capitalism. And we are grateful to the editor of Reynolds News (8th January, 1950) for his magnanimity in publishing the fact. He begins an optimistic leading article on "Why Labour Will Win the Election” by asserting:—

  "Because Labour is the only Government in Britain's history that has accorded to every man his birthright of work and wages."

Thank you, Mr. Editor, for your information, but it may interest you to know that there are quite a number of workers who look forward to attaining a very different and more concrete birthright than Labour’s offering, i.e.. Socialism.

Inherent within the quotation there is the erroneous assumption that the interests of all men are identical. Socialists, however, realise that present-day society, not only in Great Britain but all over the world, is divided into two classes—the capitalists or owning class, controlling all the means of wealth production and distribution, and the workers who, by reason of their propertyless status in relation to the means of living, are compelled to spend the best part of their lives in their masters’ factories, mills, mines or shops, etc., producing and selling goods. In short, the whole complex business of present-day society is run from top to bottom by members of the working class who, in return for their services, receive wages. You, fellow worker, do not need us to tell you that whatever the amount in your wage-packet, it is never quite enough to, colloquially speaking, “make ends meet.” In fact, in a great number of cases, workers are born to and live a life of direst poverty.

If every man and woman should enjoy such a birthright as just described, the capitalists would not be at all anxious to claim it. We feel sure that they would not consider it worth while leaving their villas in Nice or hotels in the Bahamas to stake their claim. They know and like too well the luxuries which the working-class make possible for them. We seem to hear murmurs of: "How is this possible if we barely get along on a standard of living far below theirs?”

This, then, is where a little simple economic illustration is called for. It is known to Socialists as the theory of value and surplus value and can briefly be depicted thus: A worker is paid the rate for the job at which he is employed but that sum will be much smaller than the values he will create during working-hours. This difference is known as surplus-value, and is the source of the capitalists’ income. For an excellent insight into this aspect of Socialism we would recommend Karl Marx’s "Value, Price and Profit,” in which this question is ably dealt with in a very interesting discourse.

To conclude—Socialists do not want the birthright which the Labour Party acting for capitalism offers. Instead, we want our children, and children’s children to know and accept the birthright of a world wherein labour and wages will not exist. Work will then be the happy performance of some task which will benefit the community—when "Each for all and all for each” will become a fact instead of the pious and hypocritical utterance it is to-day. Wages will be an anachronism in a community where "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is the maxim, and with the existence of common ownership in the means of wealth production and distribution which Socialism presupposes, there cannot be use for either masters or money.

Even to-day, productive powers have reached a level where it would be possible for everybody to have enough—even to-day, it would be possible were it not for the capitalist class who control not only their factories, mines, etc,, but our very lives as well.

Are you going to allow this state of affairs to continue?

Are you going to vote once again for the system which enslaves you?

Or are you, fellow worker, going to join our ranks and help in the historic mission of the working-class —the overthrow of capitalism and the realisation of our real birthright—Socialism?

D. E. A.

William Thompson (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Westdene,” 3, Charteris Road,

Woodford Green, Essex.

The Editor.

Dear Sir,—May I through your valuable columns enquire whether any reader has information about the Irishman William Thompson (1775-1833), Socialist, co-operator, economist, and writer on social questions.

Though largely forgotten to-day, Thompson, who was a friend of Robert Owen, Jeremy Bentham, William Pare, and others, played an important role in his day.

I am engaged in writing a life of Thompson and would be extremely grateful to know if any reader knows of manuscripts, letters or other writings of Thompson.

Yours sincerely,

Richard K. P. Pankhurst, B.Sc. (Econ.).

Blogger's Note:

Pankhurst's biography of William Thompson was reviewed in the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard by Bill Waters. 

Forecast for the future (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no doubt that for the majority of people in this and other lands the future does not offer very much. It is not necessary for us to turn the pages of the history books to see the horror and tragedy that Capitalism has produced. A glance at what has taken place during the life of any reader shows that Capitalism has so far not succeeded in making life the enjoyable adventure that it well might be. Poverty, unemployment, war and insecurity are the main features of which it can never rid itself. More and more wealth is produced, new methods of production discovered and yet millions of working men and women are insufficiently fed, clothed and housed. As more wealth is produced the greater becomes the gulf between worker and capitalist—for all wealth that is produced belongs to the capitalist class. No oppressed class has ever produced more wealth than that produced by the workers to-day and yet, in comparison with what is produced—no section of any community has ever been worse off.

It is only five years since the end of the last war and what do we see? Despite the promises of prosperity, despite the slogans “war to end war” and “peace in our time” which were so glibly given to us by the ruling class, one thing stands out a mile. All modern nations are preparing for war. However much we may desire peace, however sick we may be of the unending blood baths of capitalism, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that another war is on the way. As capitalism develops wars become greater, the weapons of destruction are more effective, new means of mass murder are discovered and periodically the world working class are hurled against each other in a disastrous struggle in order that the interests of the capitalist class may be preserved. The victory of war is never a victory for the workers. It is always a victory for a section of the ruling class.

Socialists are often dubbed pessimistic. Our policy is not one of pessimism or hopelessness, but we tell you to face up to the facts. The future lies before you and it is up to you to fashion it as you desire. Two roads are here—Capitalism or Socialism—which one are you going to take? Capitalism you know and if you are satisfied with it you will continue to give it your support. We Socialists are not satisfied and we have made an effort to understand the world in which we live. Our solution to the problems that confront us is simple—We stand for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism—a system based on common ownership of the means of wealth production. But we cannot establish Socialism until you and the majority of the working class desire it Capitalism with all its horrors will be your lot until you join with us to abolish it. If you are unconvinced have a look at the history of Capitalism and you will see what it has to offer you.

Are you content to make this your lot? At the end of your life will you be able to say you have enjoyed it to the full? Are you not sick of war, unemployment and misery? Do you want to pass this state of affairs on to posterity? The world is really a very beautiful place; life, too, could be beautiful, and yet the conditions of the majority of the people make it very ugly. If you desire something better why not study the case for Socialism? Once you start to do this it will not be long before we will have your agreement. Then you too can join with us in the work that will ultimately lead to the abolition of Capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. Only then will the working class put the past behind them and go forward to a future of peace and prosperity—that of Socialism.

Joan Lestor

It’s an ill wind (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many objectionable things during a war; property and homes are destroyed and lives are tortured and twisted in more ways than one. When peace is declared much remains for which the war must take and get the blame.

The late Robert Lynd had Saturday articles in the News-Chronicle showing the good side to many subjects which were generally accepted as unpleasant, but I never remember his praise of war.

The redeeming feature of modern war is that in so-called civilised countries the great mass of the workers are able to “get by.” This solves their greatest problem. I well remember working as a collector in the 1930’s and being brought close to the problems of my clients, who could not find a few pence each week for me to record on their premium books.

Then came 1940 and the A.R.P., when people previously unemployable were in receipt of the princely sum of £3 5s. every week, without such things as short time or lost time.

What a blessing for “tally men” like us; we found life much easier. Thousands of people in war work who would have ended their days in penury if our generation had been blessed with peace.

Owing to the terrible devastation during the war we find that five years since it ended we are still blessed with full employment and the Labour Party using it as a main plank in their election programme.

Commercial cables received in this country are delivered by special messenger. Before the war this was done by young boys of 15 to 18 years of age, at a wage of about 20s.

Owing to the Greater Production drive and National Service at 18, this labour is now scarce and almost unobtainable at anything approaching an economic rate, and the cable company have been compelled to look to fresh fields. The only available labour is that of the type that in peace time would be on the scrap heap, men of 65/70, incapable of ordinary work but still able to hobble off and on buses. If you live in London and happen to be in the City, glance into Creechurch Lane, E.C. (Leadenhall Street), and you will see the grandfathers sitting in the waiting room of the Commercial Cable Company, and you will realise “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.”

Many casualties of the 1931 economic blizzard may still lose sleep at night, worrying about the future, but with the help of God, a bit of luck at the “pools” and two more major wars, he may finish up his days in a job. That is all that matters (perhaps), unless you can think of an alternative.

David Boyd

Another banker comes unstuck (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The assertion that higher productivity is the only solution to the problems facing the working class to-day has been repeated so often by the politician and his numerous henchmen that there is danger of the idea being accepted through the sheer force of constantly reiterated suggestion.

The latest interested party to lend the full weight of his personality as a “someone" in the financial world is Mr. H. Bibby, chairman of Martins Bank. Ltd., who was quoted in the Manchester Guardian of 13th January, 1950, as follows: “The truth is there is greater danger of unemployment if we do not use advanced mechanical aids." He also finds necessary “a willingness to work conscientiously when they [the workers] are at work. Any other course would lead to disaster. . . ."

So we are led to believe that increased efficiency is the all-important thing. Only through harder work and better machinery will we solve our problems.

In case you too have read this statement and are suffering from qualms of conscience, or developing a guilt complex over those stolen minutes in the only place where the foreman cannot follow, perhaps you will not feel too badly about it if you turn over the page of your newspaper and read the small item at the bottom of column three. For those who have mislaid their copies it reads as follows: —

“A further two hundred workers have been dismissed owing to redundancy in the engine division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. This follows the dismissal of two hundred workers between July and November last year, and is described in an official statement issued by the company last night as ‘part of the normal continuous process of strengthening the efficiency of the company’s organisation.' "

And what is efficiency in industry but higher output per man, and how is this achieved but by Mr Bibby's advanced mechanical aids and harder work, and with the same inevitable results as those at the Bristol Aeroplane Company?

J.T.

Puzzle corner (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month we set you a different type of problem. This short item, outlining the problem, originally appeared in the Lansing Labor News, and was reprinted in The Western Socialist, organ of our companion party in the United States, in December, 1947. The solution of the problem is presented in the first column of the back page of this issue of The Socialist Standard : —

   “Man can circle the earth without touching the ground; man can kill other men many miles away; man can weigh the stars of heaven; man can drag oil from the bowels of the earth; man can compel an icy waterfall to cook his meals hundreds of miles from the stream; man can print a million newspapers in an hour; man can breed the seeds out of oranges; man can coax a hen to lay 365 eggs in a year; man can persuade dogs to smoke pipes and sea lions to play guitars. Man, in other words, is quite an ingenious and remarkable package of physical and mental machinery.

  “But when this astonishing person is confronted with one problem, he retires to his hut defeated. Show him six men without money and six loaves of bread belonging to men who cannot use it but who want money for it, and ask him how six hungry men can be put in possession of the six surplus loaves, and watch him then, it is then that man attends conferences and appoints committees and holds elections and cries out that a crisis is upon him. He does a score of useless things and then retires, leaving in the shivering twilight the tableau of six hungry men and the six unapproachable loaves.”

Get your pen, paper and envelopes ready; you may need them. When you have read the solution in column one, page 64, right through, from first word to last, from top to bottom, think it over. Then read the sentence in italics at the foot of the column. That’s when you may need the pen, paper and envelope. It’s a prize worth having.

W. Waters.

The Socialist Message To The Working Class. (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

In presenting our case to the working class of Great Britain, which we have been doing for over forty years, we do not waste our time and space on issues such as humanizing the workhouses, that is to say, whether such workhouses shall be bigger or better. Neither do we bother as to whether there shall be central heating in the waiting rooms in the Labour Exchanges or not. Neither do we waste our time as to whether there shall be a return to the Gold Standard, or whether the Pound Sterling shall be devalued, or whether Military Conscription shall endure for 18 months or 12 months.

But what we tell the working class is something like this. We explain at length the REAL causes of their poverty, squalor and war. We take great pains to explain why they must continue to live for the best part of their lives in rat-hole tenement houses. We tell them the REAL causes, that in the near future that the already overcrowded waiting rooms of the Labour Exchanges will be still more overcrowded. We also tell them that from the overcrowded waiting rooms of the Labour Exchanges will only be a short step to the already overcrowded cemeteries of the battlefields of Europe and elsewhere.

We don’t just leave it at that. We always tell them that the remedy for those horrors lies entirely in their own hands. In short, they will have to do some hard thinking. They will have to acquire that revolutionary knowledge and understanding to organise politically and consciously to obtain control of that piece of machinery known as the Powers of the State. They will have to use it for their own advantage, namely, to dispossess the ruling class of their ownership of the whole earth and the fullness thereof. That includes the factories, railways, steamships, airways, etc. They, the working class of the world, will have the task of emancipating the whole of society themselves. No leaders can do it for them, and certainly no Messiah or Saviour. No other political party can tell that. Indeed they dare not tell them that.

When the working class arrives at that stage of revolutionary knowledge and understanding, cries will be heard from many lands. “What are we waiting for? ” They won’t wait very long. Startling things will happen. They will take possession of all the flour mills and bakeries of the world. What will be done with that lovely bread and beautiful cakes that will be produced without money or price? Even children will reply, “You will eat them, of course.”

The working class will not be content with this alone? They will take possession of all the textile machines and all the millions of yards of beautiful cloth and produce beautiful clothing. What will be done with those beautiful clothes? Again even children will reply, “You will wear them, of course.” This will be done without money or price.

Still the working class won’t be content. They will take possession of the whole earth and the fullness thereof. They will take possession of all the stone, clay, concrete and the steel. They will then produce beautiful strong houses. Again without money or price. What will be done with those beautiful strong houses? Again children will reply, “You will go and live in them.” They will do so without let or hindrance. There will be nobody to stop them now. In a very short time it will be obvious to everybody there won’t be required such things as rent books, estate agents, no mortgage or building society.

Then as private property has been abolished, and the causes of war removed, there won’t be required such institutions as armed forces, etc. There won’t be necessary such things as Secret Police, such as F.B.l or M.I.5, Gestapo or Ogpu. There won’t be needed such people as a Prime Minister or any other Cabinet Minister. There won’t be any Labour Exchange or a Stock Exchange or banks of any description, and many other institutions of a slave order of society.

Finally, when the working class almost throughout the world proceed to act on those lines, they will then cease to be a working class. At the same time there will cease to be what is known as a ruling, privileged class. It will then be the end of what is known to-day as Capitalist Society. A new social order will be born, and it will operate throughout the whole world. It will be known as Socialism.

Nat Posner

"Socialist" Unity in U.S.A. (1950)

Editorial from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two American reformist organisations, the "Socialist Party" and the "Social Democratic Federation," have decided to unite in the blessed name of "Socialist Unity." How little the united organisation will have to do with Socialism is shown in the same issue of the "Call" (S.P. of America) that reports the decision to unite.

In this issue (10th February, 1950) Mr. Norman Thomas, on behalf of the S.P.A., and August Claessens, on behalf of the S.D.F., both complain bitterly about Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Junr., because, at a public dinner he said: —

“Let me make this dear. As a Democrat. I hate Socialism just as much as I hate Communism or Fascism or any other ism."

Of course, the S.P.A. and the S.D.F. are entitled to attack Mr. Roosevelt who is a supporter of Capitalism; what could be more natural? But that is only half the story. Their indignation arises from the fact that these two so-called socialist parties supported Mr. Roosevelt when he was "elected to Congress on the Liberal Party ticket, having failed to get the Democratic nomination." In the words of Mr. Thomas: "Socialists of all sorts took a benevolent view of your candidacy and scores of socialists, especially of the Social Democratic Federation, were very active in your election."

And now, no longer needing their votes, Mr. Roosevelt turns and rends them. As Mr. Thomas indignantly writes: “You didn’t say that when you needed our help."

Mr. Gaessens adds a threat: "Had we known that you hate socialists we surely would not have embarrassed you with our co-operation."

Even this will probably not be taken seriously by Mr. Roosevelt. When the next election comes round this precious united "Socialist" party will doubtless again find reasons for supporting him, or some other enemy of Socialism.

When Mr. Thomas describes his supporters as all sorts of socialists " he could have added, except those who really are socialists.

Fact from Fiction (1950)

Book Review from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Novelists and story writers create fictional characters, but, unless these characters are to appear ludicrous, they must be portrayed against a background of the social conditions of the period and part of the world that is the scene of the story. The characters must eat, dress, play and behave in the manner of their time, their country and their class. They must live in buildings and travel by the transport facilities available in their day and to those of their social status. Thus, the writer of fiction can present us with a picture of living conditions in different parts of the world at varying periods of history. The more correctly he describes the living conditions, the more real will his characters appear and the better will be his work. He that sets the story in the conditions in which he himself lives has a simplified task.

Vera Fiodorovna Panova is a Russian authoress who writes of her own times. She has received official Russian awards and prizes and for her first novel she received the Stalin Prize of 10,000 roubles. In 1948 there was published in Russia her second novel entitled “Kruzhilika.” This has now been translated into English and is published by Putnam & Co. under the title “The Factory." The blurb on the jacket of the book says, “Obviously it has to be reckoned with in any portrayal of Soviet life."

The story has no plot to be cunningly unfolded. It is simply a series of interlinking scenes of everyday life in Russia, centred around a factory. Naturally, in such a setting, the majority of the characters are workers and it is mighty interesting to learn how they live.

In the early pages of the book we are treated to a view of a meeting of the “town party executive,” where most of the time is taken by a trade union official who complains that the factory directors do not allow the Trade Union to play a sufficiently important part in the affairs of the factory. The main function of the Trade Union appears to be to assist in improving production, suggesting technical improvements, and complaining because ”. . .  the director does not pay enough attention to the voice of the masses.”

The factory director lives a vastly different life from that lived by the factory workers. The following extract from pages 257-258 illustrates. The director, Listopad, is driving around the town in his car because he wants to think about his new girl friend. The car is driven by Mirzoev (Akhmet), his chauffeur.

“The car glided softly up the steep street, swam up to the turning into the high road and dashed away from the settlement. A tram was climbing up the street very slowly, it seemed to be standing still; a small tram with people clinging to it—those who lived in the settlement and worked in the town—returning home. If a man worked in the town, thought Listopad, he ought to live in the town. Only those who worked in the factory ought to live in the settlement. Otherwise they had to go through this misery twice a day—waiting a long time in the frost, crowding on the steps, hands freezing as they hung on the rail."

Listopad then goes on to soliloquise about the housing shortage and ” . . . these hideous brick cubes with two hundred flats in each and five stories without a lift.” Then his thoughts come back to his girl friend and the prospects of having her in the car with him. He speaks to his driver;

"Akhmet.”
Mirzoev turned to the director.
“ Tell Averkiev to get me another car rug. A good one—wolfskin."

All the characters in this book are interesting. There is the demobbed soldier who returns home, gets married. spends his gratuity and then has to sell some of his old clothes in the market to raise enough money to get a meal. In the market we meet the usual marketplace patter, sales talk and trickery.

We read the troubles of the Trade Union collector who has the week’s subscriptions stolen from his pocket in a tram. He borrows from friends and relatives to make up the money, and.

" . . . from then on, three-quarters of hit earnings went to pay off what he owed. The remaining quarter was not sufficient even for the barest necessities and be got heavier and heavier behind."

We are given a picture of the workers spending their Sundays digging their small allotments in order to grow potatoes to help eke out their wages. They make the day a family outing, taking sandwiches for dinner. We also read of the young factory worker who was awarded a bonus of 19,000 roubles for special work one month. With that money he left the job, to the great annoyance of the factory chiefs who regretted the loss of so useful a worker, so good a pace setter. This incident suggests to us that the Russian State chiefs found it more beneficial to give medals and diplomas for exceptional work.

Whilst reading this book one is struck by the idea that, except for the climate, the vodka and the queer sounding names, this is a story of workers in any part of the world. Despite the claims of the Communist Party and their supporters, it appears that the lot of the Russian worker during the years 1945 to 1948 differed but little from that of workers in other countries. They were poor, overworked and ill-housed, just as the victims of capitalism the world over. Like good patriots they sacrificed for the war effort and they hated German workers like hell. The voice of Joe Stalin over the radio is received like the voice of the Pope by a devout Catholic. The State is their religion. They work till they drop for their church and their Pope—and their wages.

W. Waters