What is religion? - Part 8 (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 7.

The Economics of Religion

Christianity was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, because it was thought to be a suitable religion for slaves. It was a “hotch-potch religion," or a “cemetery of dead religions,” because when the slaves were brought into Rome from many different lands, they brought with them their many religious ideas. Professor Seeley says, “the age was religious because it was an age of servitude" and the Christian teachings of “blessed are the meek, the humble, and the merciful,” fitted very well into needs of society at that time. “ Christianity produced a complete change in the attitude to the Emperor. It made their loyalty more intense.” (Professor Seeley, lectures and essays page 75.) As the New Testament admirably puts it, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but God; the powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation." Romans Ch. 13 ver. 1 and 2. The Roman Empire was already in decay when Christianity was ushered in, and it was no coincidence that some spiritual opium was needed to quieten the slaves against revolt

In the middle ages the church controlled most of the land. This meant that they had a considerable amount of real economic control in their hands, for under feudalism he who controlled the land controlled most of what was on it. Of more recent times we have seen the power of the Catholic political parties in pre-Nazi Germany, Spain, France, Austria, etc. The controlling of education by the Church, and antagonism to divorce, contraception, etc.

When capitalism was beginning to expand, missionaries played a very important part in paving the way for the trade that was to come, and often in a very crude way. The African natives who were discovered in a state of nakedness, were told by the missionaries that God frowned on such things, and that to be a good Christian one should at least cover the genitals. But the natives had no clothes with which to gain the favours of God; they only had bars of Gold, diamonds and ivory tusks. As chance would have it Lancashire had plenty of cheap pants and pyjamas in all the colours of the rainbow which no self-respecting Englishman would wear, not even in bed. Then guess what happened—yes trade started—and no wonder they called it the “Gold Coast” Where the missionaries didn’t conduct the trade themselves, it didn’t need a lot of imagination for an enterprising trader to follow the missionaries up.

“Look up to Heaven,” said the missionary to the native, and the latter did so. When he looked down again he found that his land was appropriated! As the Zulus say “When white man first came to us he had the Bible, and we owned the land. Now he’s got the land, and we’ve got the Bible.”

Of recent years Bishops and other church dignitaries have become in some cases fabulously rich, so rich that many have been able to invest thousands of pounds in armament firms. (See Alan Handsacre “The Revenues of Religion.”) In Russia we had many examples of millionaire priests investing sums as large as half a million roubles in Soviet War Bonds. This is strange in a country which not long ago was turning churches into anti-religious museums, and persecuting followers of all religions.

It is often argued that Jesus was a Socialist, and Keir Hardie stated that he learnt his socialism from the New Testament. The idea of the disciples having all things in common gives rise to this misunderstanding. Jesus could only have been a socialist if he and his disciples fished with a steam trawler in an environment in which capitalism had already developed. Nothing that Jesus was alleged to have said, makes him a socialist in any way. The whole essence of his teaching was to tolerate the unpleasant things of life for treasure to come in heaven. His whole teaching and prophesies were based on survival after death. We socialists want to survive before death, and to have our good time in this world which we know that we have to live and work.

There are plenty of arguments against religion, and they come from many angles. Perhaps the chief one is that religion is false, and because of this it discourages people from thinking. Socialism, unlike religion, needs understanding and not just believing. Well did Marx say “the criticism of religion is the beginning of all criticism” for when we come to realise that there is no subject so holy that we must not or dare not criticise, then we begin to look at everything critically and to accept nothing at its face value. Again Marx wrote “For too long has religion explained history, let us with history explain religion”!

Horace Jarvis

 

(Concluded.)

“An Old Age Tragedy” (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

At election times both the Labour and Conservative parties proudly proclaim that they have been responsible for the establishment of “The Welfare State.” This term has been in vogue since the end of the last war and we are told that today it is the health, happiness and well-being of young and old alike that are the first concern of the State.

It is the claim of Socialists that family allowances, health services and insurances, increased old age pensions or public assistance, do not alter the basic position of the working class. Both Tory and Labour administrations have been concerned with maintaining the smooth running of the capitalist system.

Recently the most grandiose claims have been made in connection with old age pensions and services for the elderly. Here for example is a statement made by Mr. A. Bevan speaking in the House of Commons on 17th October, 1948:—

  “In very many cases before the war before the nation enjoyed the social services which it has today, large numbers of old people were living in workhouses. Today they are living in the homes in which they have lived throughout their lives. They are insisting on doing so.” 

Over five years have pissed since this statement was made.

Now the conditions under which many of these old people are living under “in their own homes” has been revealed in a number of articles published in the Manchester Guardian under the title “ Neglect of the Aged Sick.” In its issues of 20th and 24th November, the following information appears.

An incident is related of a Queen’s District Nurse who found a woman of 78 in an appalling condition sitting in a chair from which she was unable to move, suffering from delayed shock. She was doubly incontinent and her back from hips to knees was "completely raw with gangrenous sloughing areas.” The whole room was “ alive with bugs ” and “ the stench was horrible.”

A medical officer in the south of England called upon an old couple in a basement room where he found two old people of about 80. The woman was swollen with dropsy and the man collapsed and helpless. The report relates the doctor’s struggle to get them into hospital and the difficulties he encounters in trying to do so, for there are about nine thousand people on the hospital waiting lists, of whom 75% are classified as the "chronic sick.” The Manchester Guardian points out in its report a number of cases of old people dying alone and uncared for as a result of this. Among them is the story of the recluse whose dead body was only found by his neighbours because of the noise set up by the howling of his starved dogs who had already started worrying the corpse. Perhaps the most supreme example of our highly civilised 20th Century welfare state is that of an old woman found with a bad leg which she carefully wrapped in newspaper. Upon the removal of the paper the leg was found to be infested with maggots.

The article continues—"since the creation of the welfare state, the lot of old people has, in some ways, worsened not improved” and on the question of the shortage of hospital beds quotes with approval the following statement made by an officer of the Queen’s Institute of District Nursing—

   “This is in contrast to the system previously prevailing whereby the relieving officer would have no difficulty in getting the patient into the workhouses infirmary immediately she was found.”

We would not of course suggest that the conditions prevailing in the workhouses in the past have been anything but wretched, but we would ask some of those ardent reformists who talk so glibly of the achievements of the "welfare state” today to bear some of the facts given above in their minds.

The problems of the old people can in no way be separated from the problems of the working class in general. The difficulties that we face as we grow older can only be explained from a poverty that arises directly from the fact that we have to work for others for a wage or salary in order to live. This is not enough to enable us to save any appreciable sum in order to “retire” comfortably. Old age means that we are becoming a burden upon the capitalist system; perhaps we are not quite as efficient as we were in the past and no longer such a profit making asset. It may well be that the reports we have given from the Manchester Guardian are concerned with a few of the worst and most outstanding cases, but few workers can face the economic prospects of old age without fear and trepidation.

For the ruling class, however, there is no such problem. They will be able to solve the difficulties of their declining years very easily. For them there is no poverty and therefore no lining up for hospital beds, and they can retire to one of those exclusive nursing homes with exorbitant fees whose advertisements can be seen in all the newspapers or fashionable magazines. Wealthy people in their latter years far from being lonely are often surrounded by very large numbers of helpful friends who expect “to be remembered in the will.”

The elderly worker has always been something of a problem to capitalism. In times of mass unemployment and economic crises they are often regarded by capitalist and worker alike as a hindrance in the struggle for business and for employment. In 1931 Sir Charles Grant Robinson reported by the Daily Herald on 2nd October made the following statement:—

   “I am not at all sure that one of the best things we can do would not be to take every one over 60 years of age and not necessarily put them into a lethal chamber but kindly and firmly tell them they ought to be on the unemployed shelf.”

In modern society the emphasis on dealing with this problem has always been to try and do so in the most cheese-paring and economical way possible. After all the main concern of this industrial, profit making world must be with the younger workers as cannon- fodder for new wars and the wage workers of the future. The Beveridge Report points out that it is dangerous to be lavish with old age until such time as adequate provisions have been made for the young.

The first appearance of old age pensions was itself an economy measure introduced by a Liberal Government in 1909. The maximum sum paid was 5s. pet week. Mr. Lloyd George regarded this as an extremely economical position since it cost double this sum to keep an inmate in the workhouse and he expected to save £1,600.000 per annum on the transaction. Most people would do their utmost to exist on however small a sum to save the indignity of entering a workhouse.

In the years since then we have seen the introduction of higher old age pensions, but today in face of higher prices they still remain totally inadequate. We have tried to show in the foregoing remarks that the reforms of the Welfare State have had behind them the same principle as that of Lloyd George in 1909, namely that Capitalism will be able to deal with those work-weary and war-weary workers who have spent themselves out in its interest in as an efficient and cheap method as possible.

The problem remains for the elderly, as it does for the majority of workers throughout the world, one of poverty and it can only be solved by the establishment of Socialism which will sweep away the class division from which it arises.

Men and women in the Society of the future will no longer look upon old age with the dread with which we regard it today. In a world in which everybody will be able to receive all the products of society as and when they need them, irrespective of the amount of work they are able to do, the miserable poverty of the old will be banished forever.

No longer will there be the loneliness of old age which is a reflection of the anti-social tendencies that Capitalism throws up, for under Socialism the never ceasing struggle which pits worker against worker and capitalist against capitalist will no longer exist. Instead the harmonious relationships which must arise from common ownership of the means of production will permeate our dealings with one another and instead of being without interest in our neighbours we shall be more interested in them as members of the human brotherhood.

Indeed the whole idea of retirement arises from a world in which employment is regarded as a necessary evil, but in the future with the production of goods for use, the people of the world will work for the sheer love and pleasure of doing so, part of the instincts of man as a creative animal. The old will no longer be regarded by the young as a burden standing in the way of their future who ought to be “pensioned off.” We are certain that the majority of people will take pleasure in adding, if only in some slight degree, to the joint productive efforts of society as long as they are able. If we look around us today it is easy to find the old age pensioner who has long since become mentally dead owing to the fact that he cannot find any interest in life now that his work, even under Capitalism, is now over. In the society of the future if people became too old or feeble to wish to work they will receive all the attention they require. Only under Socialism can it be said that there is no division between young or old any more than there is for male or female or black or white, because every individual will be the responsibility of the whole of society.

D. A. Moss

Shall Germany Re-Arm? (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The old tragic farce “Shall Germany Re-arm?” that occupied the European stage between the end of World War I and the emergence of Hitlerite Germany, has been revived and is playing to full houses wherever the world's statesmen gather together to discuss peace and war. The revived version is much the same as the old one but some of the actors are playing different roles. In the nineteen-twenties, with Russia out of the running, the near-disarmament of Germany under the Versailles Peace Treaty brought as its consequence the threat of Europe being dominated by French capitalism and its Polish and other allies. So the British and American capitalists had an interest in helping Germany to recover and in this, though for different reasons, they were pursuing the same policy as Russia. The Russian Government took the view that a stronger Germany would curb the power of all the Western capitalist groups. So as late as the end of October, 1939, when Hitlerite Germany was armed to the teeth and was actually at war, Mr. Molotov, who is now furiously denouncing the re-armament of Germany, was still telling the world what a good thing it was that Germany was strong, because “we have always held that a strong Germany is an indispensable condition for durable peace in Europe.” He was to discover not long afterwards that the Germany whose re-armament the Russian government had encouraged was to turn those arms against Russia as she had already turned them against Britain and France.

But after World War II Russia faces the western powers with huge armed forces equalled only by those of the U.S.A. So now it is not French expansionism that the other Powers fear. They fear Russia and, despite the obvious risks, they prefer to see Germany re-armed to offset the Russian threat.

The decision is a difficult one for them all since they can only guess whether German capitalism will in the long run seek to use the West to squeeze the East, or use the East to squeeze the West.

All the West European political parties including the Tories are worried about the problem but above all the British Labour Party. As long ago as 1950 the Labour Government's Foreign Secretary, the late Ernest Bevin, accepted in principle the re-armament of Germany but he did so against the wishes of many Labour M.P.s and their supporters. When the question was voted on in the Parliamentary Labour Party in February, 1954, the Executive secured the passage of its resolution favouring German unity and re-armament and German assistance in the defence of Western Europe, by only 113 votes to 104 (Daily Herald 25/2/54). The justification urged for this policy is “fear of Russia,” just as, 30 years ago, an earlier Labour Party Executive was using “fear of France” as a reason why the Labour Party should support armaments.

Some of the present spokesmen of the Labour Party have evidently been studying the arguments current at the time of the old controversy. In the nineteen-twenties Mr. Lloyd George used to talk about general disarmament and indeed it was the announced intention of pursuing such a policy that was used by him and others as justification for keeping Germany with strictly limited armed forces. Now it is Mr. Aneurin Bevan who says that “we should be seriously discussing the possibility of universal disarmament” as an alternative to uniting and defending Western Europe (Sunday Despatch 14/3/54). It is as unrealistic now as it was then.

In those days disarmament was to come through the League of Nations as now through the United Nations; though already the manifest failure of the latter has led Mr. Attlee to say in a speech to the Oxford University Labour Cub: “I think that in our Commonwealth we have something which is really better than the United Nations and something to set an example on how the United Nations should work” (Daily Telegraph 23/2/52). It is odd to recall now what were the explanations then given for the failure of the League. The most plausible line was that if only U.S.A. and Russia would join the League and if only the League bad power to enforce its decisions all would be well.

Now indeed U.S.A. and Russia are members of United Nations but each pursues a policy of building up huge armaments on the ground that the other is a war maker. And in Korea, where a large scale “United Nations” war was fought, these two Powers were backing the rival armies.

An argument used by Labour Party and other opponents of German re-armament is that the Germans have caused two world wars, are a militarist nation and cannot be trusted. In other words that the Germans are an “inferior race” by comparison with all or some of the others.

In the controversy each national group can state what, in its own estimation, is an unanswerable case. As each group maintains that its own armaments are purely defensive, and as each can provide ample evidence of fiendish barbarities used by other Powers in war, this is easy. All war is bestial and no nation has a record much less horrifying than any other. The whole argumentation is bedevilled by a blank inability to recognise why capitalism needs arms and why wars occur. The capitalist-minded patriots of all countries denounce the methods used by the others but fail to recognise that they are pursuing the same objectives in the same way. They all seek to control sources of raw materials, seek to invade new markets, and seek strategic bases to protect their territories and trade routes. But each and every one regards its own activities as necessary, lawful and legitimate, and for those who accept capitalism and seek to perpetuate it so they all are. Given a capitalist world Russian attempts to dominate the Dardanelles or seize North Persian oil (as in 1946) have just as much necessity and legitimacy as the British hold on Suez or Abadan or the American control of Panama or oil resources in the Middle East. It is the law of the jungle.

Not recognising this, those who argue superficially about war being caused by American, Russian, British or German aims of world domination allow themselves to be deluded into the belief that aggression is an inherent characteristic of one particular nation or is the outcome of some ideology. It is only necessary to glance at the present trouble spots of the world to see how remote this is from the truth. Is it “ideology” that sets Egyptian capitalism against British at Suez. Russian against Turkish in the Dardanelles, French against Indonesian, Argentine against British over control of territories in the Antarctic, America against Russia in Europe, the Pacific and elsewhere, Israel against the Arab States, India against Pakistan over Kashmir, British against African in Kenya? The list could be enormously extended and the explanation in all cases is that capitalism is by its nature a competitive, expansionist system breeding rivalry, hatred and war. There is no way out of this terrifying threat of continuing wars except by abolishing capitalism and establishing world socialism in its place.

About Books (1954)

Book Review from the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1952 Victor Gollancz, Ltd., published that excellent book by Josué de Castro, “The Geography of Hunger.” In the early chapters Mr. de Castro points out that, although there have been innumerable books on the subject of war, that other great human tragedy, hunger, has seldom called forth a book. He lists for us the few books on the subject; the novels “Hunger” by Hamsun and “The Grapes of Wrath” by Steinbeck; Istrati describing his experiences in Rumania, George Fink in the suburbs of Berlin, and Felekov and Neverov describing hunger in Russia. That is Mr. de Castro’s complete catalogue.

There is now another, a most excellently written book, that can be added to the list. "The People of the Deer” by Farley Mowat, published by Michael Joseph in 1952 at 15s., with drawings by S. Bryant and maps.

Farley Mowat developed what he terms “the disease of the arctic,” which is a longing to spend his time in the wide open spaces of the Canadian North West Territory. He learned of a little-known group of Eskimos who occupied the inland somewhere west of Hudson Bay and he decided to find them. Others had set out on a similar expedition before him and had perished in “The Barrens,” that terrifying territory north of the Canadian timber line and west of the Hudson.

Mr. Mowat made his first trip alone, contacting an old trader who had hung on in the inland country and getting to know the few remaining Eskimos of the Ihalmiut people. After a brief interval of a few months back in Southern Canada, Mr. Mowat returned to the Ihalmiut Eskimos in 1948 with a student of zoology, a Mr. Andrew Lawrie, as his companion. He set to work to learn the language and to study the history and customs of these people.

The story of these northern people is a tragedy. It tells of a once comparatively numerous people reduced by 1951 to about forty individuals. Mr. Mowat tells how, winter after winter, during the past fifty or sixty years, the ranks of these lovable folk have been decimated by starvation and disease—starvation and disease that was unknown till white men in search of profits probed their way into the northern lands.

These people live entirely by the caribou: they eat it, clothe themselves from its skin and build their lives around it and its habits. For generations they have hunted it for its meat, its fat, its bone, its horn, its hide and its fur. Without it they die, but in the days when the vast herds of these deer roamed their land there was little fear of dying from that cause.

The Ihalmiut have few possessions but no man claims exclusive ownership of even the tools of his own creation. Their tools, weapons and boats are the work of skilled craftsmen and they were once wonderful hunters. They hunted the caribou, killing just enough to supply their requirements.

Then came the white man in search of furs. The Eskimos were contacted and offered rifles, ammunition, kettles, tobacco and a variety of knick-knacks in exchange for furs. They gave up hunting the caribou in favour of the white fox, they laid aside their spears in favour of rifles, they gave up their deer meat in favour of white flour and tinned food. Things went well for years. Then the 1914-1918 war killed the fur market. The traders withdrew from their northerly stations and when the Eskimos trekked south with their furs they found the traders’ huts empty. They couldn’t understand it. They waited thinking the white man must come back, he still must need the furs.

When the worst of the winter weather was on them the Eskimos had plenty of furs but no ammunition for their rifles. They had lost the art of their primitive form of hunting. They had reduced their resistance to the cold by eating food of the white men instead of deer meat and fat. They had contracted white men’s diseases and they died by the hundred.

This story was repeated between the wars. When the fur trade boomed the traders went north with the weapons and gew-jaws to exchange with the simple people who were prepared to obey their every wish. When trade slumped, without warning the traders left and the Eskimos died. This is a sorry story of the effect of capitalism when it comes in contact with primitive people. The rifle and the demand for furs urged the eskimos to kill in excess of their living needs and the hordes of caribou have become as decimated as the people themselves. The caribou is in danger of passing away like the buffalo of the American plains.

If there are any of these people left in 1954, and if they are ever rescued from their plight, the solution of capitalism will be to either provide charity or to use them to work to produce wealth for exploiters. If it is a matter of helping them to re-adapt themselves to their environment, and there is no profit to be made in the process—well, maybe some charitable organisation will lend a hand. Or, more likely, as Mr. Mowat indignantly tells us, excuses will be made for doing nothing about them.

In addition to presenting us with this interesting sociological work Mr. Mowat is a first class author and his writing makes his book enthralling. He has neglected no aspect of study of the Ihalmiut people and he kept our noses glued to the pages of his book till we reached page 316 and the final word.

W. Waters.

Party News Briefs (1954)

Party News from the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Conference, 1954. The Annual Conference is being held as usual at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London, during the Easter week-end, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 16th, 17th and 18th. Proceedings commence each morning at 11 a.m. Several interesting items are on the Agenda and members are urged to, attend promptly so that work can run smoothly and leave ample time for discussion. The Central Branch Secretary will be present and will welcome Branch members and needless to say will be happy to collect dues.

Social and Dance. This will be held in the Conway Hall on the Saturday, tickets (3s.) will be available from Branch Secretaries. A good band has been engaged and the Central Organiser and Social Committee are doing their best to ensure a good evening—it is up to members and friends to arrive early and enjoy themselves.

Australia. A Central Branch member has returned from a visit to Melbourne and was very grateful for the hospitality he received from the S.PA Secretary, Comrade C. Saunders and his wife. He would particularly like to thank them for the farewell party they gave him. He is certain that if any members should be in that part of the World, they would receive a “hearty welcome, advice and assistance from both Mr. and Mrs. Saunders.” Two sympathisers, one a school teacher and the other a scientist were introduced to the Saunders' and were proposing to join the Party.

Denison House meetings have been successfully run by Paddington Branch during the winter months and it is hoped to give a full report on the series after the final meeting is held on April 4th.

Phyllis Howard

Notice To All Members

MAY DAY

Literature arrangements, Sunday, May 2nd.

There will be two distribution points at which literature can be obtained and returned at the times stated below.

Charing Cross Underground Station,

Villiers Street entrance: 12.30 p.m — 2.30 p.m. 

Connaught Place off Edgware Road.

100 yards from Marble Arch: 2 p.m.—5.30 p.m.

Members who collect literature from Charing Cross may return their sales at Connaught Place, should they decide to sell along the Procession route.

The Trades Council procession leaves the Embankment at 2 p.m. and reaches Hyde Park at approximately 3.30 p.m.

Members are urged to co-operate and give all the assistance they can.

Our Hyde Park meeting will commence at approximately 3.45 p.m. and finish at 6 p.m.

The Conway Hall meeting will commence at 7 p.m. sharp and terminate at 9.30 p.m. sharp.

These activities seed your full support.

Central Organiser.

Work, Welfare and Wages (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is a glossy and expensive technical magazine called “Mass Production.” Probably you don’t read it—which is a pity, because there is a lot written in it about you. But you may not appreciate this at first, because you are referred to as “it,” and “it” is human labour. 

In the March issue of “Mass Production” is an article by “Commentus” entitled "Work, Welfare and Wages,” which deals with problems of incentives and labour-management relationships. It is written (as, indeed, is the whole publication) from the point of view of management, and when “Commentus” writes “we” he means those who are looking after the employers’ interests. He questions “the value of attempts to foster the family spirit in the families.” The homely phrase “human-touch personnel technique” is used in connection with this family spirit, and it is really not surprising that “Commentus” finds that such calculated bonhomie doesn’t fool anyone. Plaintively he asks “Even if the managing director condescends to wear a carnival hat at the get-together party, does it really encourage the chaps in the factory to greater effort?”

   “Then there it the alleged subtle attempt at production boosting by giving people the line that their work it of social significance. No doubt it is—but most people will go on thinking (if they think about it at all) that the firm is in business to make money and not for the benefit of the community. That the community does in fact benefit is not relevant unless the firm was started from purely altruistic motives—which is highly improbable! Likewise, talk about their part in the firms' achievements makes very few of the workers swell with pride. They have a rooted idea that the firm is in business to make money —the actual product is in a sense only a by-product"

And so we see that the much-discussed theories of harmonious relationships in industry have failed to measure up to the realities of capitalist production. Despite the lines that are given them, workers can’t get rid of the “rooted” idea that the firm is in business to make money. Perhaps the roots of this idea lie in the fact that firms do make money. In any case, wage claims are being pressed, and it seems that false substitutes are less and less likely to be accepted.

Comparisons with American productivity are becoming more frequent, and talk of high-wage paying Capitalism in this country is increasing in technical circles. If higher wages are to be paid then the employers will do all they can to ensure that no appreciable inroads will be made into profits. To achieve this more mechanisation will be carried out; fewer operatives but more technicians will be employed. “Commentus” writes:

   “It should provide both cheaper products and higher wages—not to mention profits! But will the mere button-pushers, although in clean, comfortable surroundings, then complain of the monotony of their effortless task ?”

It would be a very disturbing thing indeed if the “mere button-pushers” did not do very much more than just complain. It would indicate that they had been fully transformed into appendanges of machines and instruments of capital. If this is the price to pay for higher wages, then workers may well reconsider whether they are aiming at the right target. All the family spirit, hygiene and welfare measures that could be devised could not compensate for such loss of humanity.

Are these the sort of “improved” conditions that can be expected from Capitalism? If they are, then socialists want no part of them. People are not instruments for purposes outside themselves—they are less than human to the extent that they submit to being just another commodity in the world of capital. Only Socialism will abolish their commodity status and make them whole men and women.

Stan Parker

The Chinese Advance (1954)

Film Review from the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialism is impossible—at any rate not for generations because of the mass of backward people in such places as Asia who are incapable of understanding class warfare and socialism and would therefore render the advent of such a society impossible." Such a viewpoint which is held by a number of those otherwise sympathetic to the socialist cause discourages them from working for the establishment of this new society which seems to them too far distant to be practical politics. We can readily agree that Socialism, being an international system of society, requires the support of the mass of the workers of the world for its success. But peoples who are brought within the orbit of the Western world absorb present day mental attitudes and techniques at a speed truly amazing. The largest national group in Asia is the Chinese, who according to the census taken last June number 525 millions. It might be illuminating if we take a peep through the bamboo curtain at, say, just one aspect of society there to see if development compares with that of the West.

A Chinese Film

Such an opportunity presented itself when the Chinese film “The White-haired Girl” was shown at The Scala, London, and at a limited number of other cities throughout the country.

Cinema-going can be a depressing experience owing to the average run of shows being so mediocre, even though there are films made which could be regarded as competent and therefore of fair entertainment value. Once in a while a film stands out as a masterpiece—such a one is “ The White-haired Girl!'

The film was adapted from the opera of the same name and is based on a legend from modern China during the course of the recent change of regime there. For a Chinese audience it epitomises a story occurring in real life only too frequently. The scene opens with the peasants harvesting in the sweltering heat of a Chinese summer. Despite the idyllic beauty of the countryside there is a threat hanging over their heads— if they are unable to repay the loans contracted during the year the lender, who is also the largest landowner as is usual in that country, is liable to distrain on their belongings including their winter clothing. How well the Chinese audiences realise the significance of all this! To try to brave the biting cold of a Chinese winter without suitable clothing is equivalent to‘a sentence of death. In vain one old man tries to stop his daughter from overworking, for she is engaged to be married and has the additional expense of getting a home together. After lunch the engaged couple wander off for a short while and a charming love scene takes place —charming because of its restraint and sincerity.

There is a scene on the threshing floor which graphically demonstrates the exploitation of the rural people. This is constantly demonstrated in similar scenes in real life in China. This is of especial interest because exploitation in our industrial society is camouflaged by the wages system. The landlord’s large proportion of the grain is measured out contrasting with the pitiful remainder as the farmer’s reward for a year’s toil. The rewards of arduous toil are insufficient to meet the landlord’s demands and he asks for the girl in lieu of repayment. The father’s misery provides a poignant moment of the film and is acted with transcendant skill. On New Year’s eve she falls asleep on his shoulder. He gently replaces her on the bed, kisses her, then restraining his bursting tears goes in the snow to the landlord’s house and poisons himself on the threshold. He had hoped by this gesture to shame the landlord out of his bargain but it was in vain. The landlord comes next day—in China it is customary to settle debts by the New Year—and takes the girl to his home. Much to his chagrin she is taken over by the autocratic mother—a commonplace character in many families in China despite the apparently lowly place that women appear to have—for service in the women’s quarters as a slave. However, the landlord manages to violate her in the end. With the aid of another servant, her fiancé helps her to escape, is foiled in the attempt and fleeing the district, joins up with the Red Army. Eventually he becomes the leader of a detachment and later, when the Reds have conquered the area, is sent back to his own village to enforce the new land distribution laws. Meanwhile the girl becomes pregnant and, helped by another servant escapes to a nearby mountain cave. There in a scene marked by exquisite delicacy she gives birth to her baby. It dies. Her hair turns white.

Sleeping in the cave she lives off wild berries and plants eking this out by stealing the offerings from a lonely Buddhist temple and with her white hair becomes a legend in the neighbourhood. The landlord in order to distract the attention of the newly arrived Reds from his own short-comings, deliberately fires a house in the village and blames the white-haired apparition. The Red detachment goes off to probe this tale and the long-lost lovers are dramatically reunited.

The landlord is judged by The People’s Court, composed of villagers, who assemble and listen to the girl's charges against the landlord. Unable to control their passion the villagers try to lynch him but the Red Army officer insists on law and order. So the case proceeds according to the letter of the law. The accused is sentenced to death, and his land distributed to the peasants.

Here you see a fair replica of a scene that was enacted in many villages throughout China when captured by the Red Army.

Dramatic Art in Post-War China

A rapid expansion and development of dramatic art took place in the Mongol Dynasty of the 13th century although more rudimentary performances were known over the preceding 2,000 years.

The displacement of civil servants by Mongol and other foreigners during this period and the discontinuance of the classical examinations for the civil service relieved the educated from their preoccupation with classical literature, hitherto essential for the examinations, and thus freed them to write novels and plays.

A further literary renaissance coinciding with the founding of the Republic in 1911 also included dramatic art.

The standard of acting on the Chinese stage is very high—it has to be—for the production has not the assistance from stage scenery or effects. In this respect it resembles the Elizabethan stage. Their plays would be called operas in this country for the words are sung to music provided by an orchestra. This development from the opera was demonstrated in the film where the words were sung to an orchestral background. Percussion instruments which underline and emphasize the important lines in the traditional Chinese opera were absent in the music for this film while the haunting Chinese melodies composed in the western idiom revealed the influence of Western capitalism.

“The White-haired Girl" is more directly derived from the Yang-ko, a traditional village fertility folk dance. During the war against Japan this popular entertainment was developed and changed to meet the needs of Communist Party propaganda designed for a population who, not being able to read, were unable to be doctrinated with the written word. Various specific characters were introduced. After the villagers had joined in, the dance troupe would present a play. 

The film demonstrates these diverse influences and also shows clearly the impact of capitalist ideology, as represented by the Land Reform Laws imposed on the old traditional social set-up of the landlord's village.

The action in the drama and the spoken passages are realistic and probably owe more to Western theatre than to Chinese opera. But as China has adopted capitalism and successfully assimilated it until now it appears to be somewhat of a Chinese variety of capitalism, so it seems that Chinese dramatic and musical artistes have been able to absorb the technique of western capitalism yet still produce a film which is essentially and completely Chinese.

“The White-haired Girl” demonstrates what is possible when the high level of culture and dramatic sensibilities and revolutionary fervour of the Chinese are harnessed to the technical knowledge of the West.

The Chinese film industry have equalled if not beaten Hollywood at what is usually considered to be its own game and in so doing perhaps indicate that the dismal Jeremiahs may be holding a mistaken view of the alleged slow pace of development of the fresh arrivals in our modern society.

Frank Offord

Hard Work (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many of the opponents of the Socialist Party of Great Britain often tell us in defence of present-day society, that hard work is the keynote of success in the modern world; and they go on to illustrate this argument with pictorial descriptions of the lives of those wonderful self-made men, within whose illustrious ranks we find Lord Nuffield, Ford, Dawson and Sir Bernard Docker. Indeed to listen to some of our opponents the lives of these men read like Hans Andersen fairy stories.

It is one of the tragedies of life, that many members of the working class cannot see the fallacy in this argument. They believe that they too can emulate the success of that figure of British big business, Mr. George Dawson. They see themselves holidaying on the French Riviera, dining at the Ritz, and driving from place to place in luxury cars.

The reasons for this attitude of mind are not far to find. In almost every facet of our daily lives we are subjected to as intense a barrage of propaganda as could be imagined. The ideas of hard work and success are pumped at us in our newspapers, from the radio and television, and at the cinema; they are as inescapable as death itself.

To a member of the working class, hard work can be guaranteed to bring one thing, a great desire for rest and sleep. What foundation of success is laid by the man digging a hole in the road? Reaching Australia perhaps? Does the cotton worker find that hard work breed success? Far from it. He finds he has worked so hard that he has produced a glut of goods and ended up in the dole queue. For every George Dawson or Lord Nuffield there are millions of men and women whose sweat and energies have entitled them to one thing; a place on the old-age pension register, with the prospect of receiving some paltry weekly sum, which is hardly sufficient to keep them in tobacco, let alone provide the necessities of life.

Hard work offers no solution to the problems of the working class, for the only real solution is the abolishment of the causes of these problems; of war, poverty and insecurity. It is the very nature of society which is to blame—a society which invests the ownership and control of industry upon one section of society and brings the rest to a state of relative poverty. A society where things are produced not for use solely but for sale at a profit. A society which pits man against man and nation against nation, leaving a trail of wars, booms and slumps.

Only when things are commonly owned, when goods are produced only to satisfy the needs and desires of men and women, when wars no longer ravage the face of the earth, when man will really be brother unto man; only then, under Socialism, will man inherit his rightful heritage. Let's work hard for that.

Michael Gill

Backwaters of History - 7: The Paris Commune (1954)

From the April 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Paris Commune

Whilst crowds lined the streets of London to watch Queen Victoria pass on her way to open the Albert Hall, on Tuesday, March 28th, 1871, the streets of Paris were lined with denser and more exuberant crowds. Around Paris was camped the German army of Prince von Bismarck with a young lieutenant Hindenburg amongst his officers. On the previous Sunday Paris had been to the polls and on this Tuesday the results had been declared. Now, with a predominantly working-class Commune, the Parisians were jubilant and staged a monster procession.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Napoleon I, who had made himself Napoleon III of France, had embarked on a war with Prussia, mainly in an endeavour to revive his failing prestige. His war had been unsuccessful and after defeats at Saarbrucken, Weissenberg and Metz, Louis Napoleon surrendered to the Prussians at Sedan on September 2nd, 1870. The French armies were held prisoners in Germany and at Metz. On the 4th of September Paris rebelled and proclaimed a republic. A collection of lawyers, professional politicians, careerists and job hunters constituted themselves a Government of National Defence and, although the Prussians were at the gates of Paris, this government proposed to offer resistance. Behind the scenes it prepared to capitulate.

On the 28th Juanuary, 1871, Paris, starved out, capitulated, its fortifications were disarmed and the weapons of the regular troops were handed over to the enemy. But, within Paris there was a military organisation known as the National Guard, a voluntary defence organisation composed mainly of members of the working class. This National Guard retained its weapons and cannons and entered into a truce with the Prussians. The troops of Bismarck who had besieged Paris for 131 days and were now prepared to occupy it, found that the workers of Paris would only allow them to occupy certain small sections of the city and, in those section, they were virtually prisoners.

The Government of National Defence resigned and on February 8th a National Assembly was elected at Bordeaux. This assembly almost unanimously elected a M. Thiers as head of the executive power. Theirs saw the danger that an armed working-class presented to French capitalism and made plans to disarm the Parisian National Guard.

He sent General Lecompte with troops to sneak away the cannons that the National Guard had purchased with its own subscriptions, claiming that these cannons were state property. The plan was to get the guns away before the people of Paris realised what was happening, but the scheme went awry. The people came out of their houses and surrounded the troops, offering them coffee and breakfast until finally the troops fraternised with the workers handing their rifles into the crowd in exchange for glasses of wine. In all parts of Paris the attempt to steal the guns had failed. Paris was now up in arms against the Thiers government seated at Versailles.

A Central Committee of the National Guard, elected without distinction of rank, from the various companies, took over the control of affairs in Paris and set about the job of maintaining distribution of what food and supplies were available and seeing to the general running of the city. This committee firmly met the opposition of the city mayors and other pro-government elements until it stood down in favour of the newly elected Commune.

The Commune got straight to work. On March 30th, it decreed the abolition of the standing army and conscription and declared that only the National Guard, to which all citizens should belong, might bear arms. The rents of all dwellings were remitted from October 1870 to April 1871 and if rent for that period had been paid it was to be deducted from future payments. Pawnshops were stopped from selling pledges. All foreigners elected to the Commune were confirmed in their jobs, it being claimed that "the flag of the Commune is that of the Universal Republic."

On April 1st it was decided that no member of the Commune, nor any of its functionaries, should receive a wage or salary higher than 6,000 francs a year—a workman's wage. On the following day the Commune disestablished the church, stopped payments from public funds for church purposes and decided to confiscate all ecclesiastical property on behalf of the people.

During the next few weeks Judges and other judicial functionaries were brought under the control of the Commune, so was the police force; the guillotine was publicly burnt; night work for bakers was abolished; Pawn shops were closed; Napoleon Bonaparte's triumphal column at Place Vendome, which was "a symbol of chauvinism and mutual hatred amongst nations," was overthrown and a chapel, built in expiation of the execution of Louis XVI, was destroyed.

Plans were prepared to organise a federation of co-operative societies into which working men were to be enrolled with a view to taking over and managing those factories and workshops that had been closed by the employers. Educational facilities were made available to all and many outstanding grievances were remedied.

The Commune was composed mainly of working men who made of it a working, and not a parliamentary body, executive and legislative at the same time. With only workmen's wages to be earned all the political sharks and job seeking racketeers who had previously occupied the administrative posts, faded from the picture and working men took their places.

Whilst the Commune was passing its various enactments the Thiers government at Versailles was preparing to suppress the rebellious city. Attacks had been made since the early days of April, in fact the city was under shell fire whilst the Commune was sitting. Thiers persuaded Bismarck to release French troops taken prisoner during the war so that an army could be built to march on Paris. During April and early May thousands of the Parisians were taken prisoner by the Versaillese and subjected to revolting atrocities. Thousands more were killed.

On Sunday, May 21st, the newly formed Versaillese army marched into Paris through five breaches in the defences. The workers of Paris threw up barricades and fought like tigers.

"Let good citizens arise! To the barricades! The enemy is within our walls. No hesitation. Forward, for the Commune and for liberty. To arms!"
"Let Paris bristle with barricades, and from behind these improved ramparts still hurl at her enemies her cry of war, of pride, of defiance, but also of victory; for Paris with her barricades is inexpungable."

(Two proclamations of May 22nd, quoted by Lissagaray in his "History of the Commune of 1871.")

The government troops fought their way through the city inflicting great slaughter and destroying buildings. By the following Sunday, May 28th, the Parisians were defeated, the Commune was gone and most of its members were dead. When the city was subdued the Thiers government took its revenge.

"And now the murder of defenceless men, women and children, which had raged the whole week through in ever-increasing proportions, reached its highest point. The breechloader no longer killed fast enough; the conquered were slaughtered in hundreds with the mitrailleuses; the 'Wall of the Federals' in the Pere la Chaise cemetery, where the last massacres took place, remains to-day a dumb but eloquent witness to the frenzy of the crime of which the governing classes are capable as soon as the proletariat dares to stand up for its rights. Then, as the slaughter of all were seen to be impossible, came the arrests en masse, the shooting down of arbitrarily selected prisoners as victims for sacrifice, and the transference of the remainder into great camps, where they awaited the mercy of the courts-martial."

(F. Engels' introduction to "The Civil War in France," by Karl Marx.)

The "Wall of the Federals" was the wall against which one hundred and forty seven of the Communards were lined up and shot in cold blood on May 28th, 1871. Every Whit Sunday workers of Paris march and lay wreaths against this wall.

"Twenty-five thousand men, women and children killed during the battle or after; three thousand at least dead in the prisons, the pontoons, the forts, or in consequence of maladies contracted during their captivity, thirteen thousand seven hundred condemned, most of them for life; seventy thousand women, children and old men deprived of their natural supporters or thrown out of France; one hundred and eleven thousand victims at least. This is the balance-sheet of the bourgeois vengeance for the solitary insurrection of the eighteenth of March.
"What a lesson of revolutionary vigour given to the working men. The governing classes shoot in a lump without taking the trouble to select hostages. The vengeance lasts not an hour; neither years nor victims appease it; they make of it an administrative function, methodical and continuous."

(Lissagaray's "History of the Commune of 1871.")

It is easy, today, to see the faults of the Communards but we must not lose sight of the fact that they were not Socialists. Very few of them had more than a feeling of working-class solidarity, with an urgent desire to do something to remedy the evils of their day. If all their reforms had been fully operated capitalism would still have held sway, although with a different complexion.

Nevertheless, the Paris Commune stands as an heroic landmark in the history of the working-class and gives us an indication how workers can act when called upon to re-organise society.

Books to read:-

"Civil War in France," by Karl Marx.

"History of the Commune of 1871," by Lissagaray.

"The Paris Commune of 1871," by Frank Jellinek.

"The Paris Commune," by V. I. Lenin.

"The Paris Commune," by E. S. Mason.

Selected Chapters in:

"The State and Revolution," by V. I. Lenin.

"Terrorism and Communism," by K. Kautsky.

"Defence of Terrorism," by L. Trotsky.

"Vital Problems in Social Evolution," by A. M. Lewis.

W. Waters