Trade Union Leaders in Confusion (1935)

From the October 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Sixty-seventh Annual Conference of the Trade Union Congress met in the shadow of war, and its President, Mr. Kean, opened the proceedings with a touching, if incoherent, appeal for peace. Italy, he said, must be coerced into keeping the peace, by means of economic and financial embargo and, perhaps, by closing the Suez Canal, even if such action led the League Powers into a war with Italy. That is, we must have peace at all costs, even if we have to go to war for it. The logic is shaky, but the meaning is clear enough. Another war to end war! And the T.U.C. and the Labour Party are as blandly ready to send the workers to the shambles as if the last war had never happened.

Mussolini, cries Mr. Kean, "knows no moral principle”—so “we” should bring out “our” poison-gases and long-range guns, to convince him how much loftier are “our" principles. Mussolini has made an “unjust and rapacious assault” on Abyssinia; so Great Britain, upheld by the comfortable conviction of moral superiority, given her by the tale of her just and generous acquisition of world empire, must teach him to play the game according to the rules. The subject races of the British Empire might inquire eagerly just what those rules are; but, of course, ignorant black men cannot be expected to comprehend civilised society. The British T.U.C. apparently does not comprehend it either. They spent days reading the riddle: “When is a war not a war?” and reached the solution, “When the other side call themselves Fascists.” Thus the Fascist is being used to fill the place occupied by the “Hun” in 1914; and the T.U.C.—together, be it noted, with the Communists, with whom they refuse to associate—tell the workers that it is their interest to take up arms against Fascism.

Leaders Mislead the Workers

What a highly convenient catchword is this “Down with Fascism” rallying-cry! Just the slogan needed to disarm the “Left-wing” resistance to war, and transform anti-militarist campaigns into frantic clamouring for the defence of Abyssinia. And these “leaders of the working class” are so muddle-headed in their principles and policy that they are voluntarily playing the game of the National Government—the very Government they have in the past so often and so bitterly attacked. Give them a war they can condone, a slogan obscuring the basic issue, and they readily, unreflectingly, follow the example of the Social-Democrats and others whose 1914-1918 war record will not bear examination.

The S.P.G.B. maintains that the “Fascism” aspect of the matter is the superficial excuse necessary to render war acceptable. The underlying issue is an economic one—the workers of all the countries involved are to be used as tools to make possible the extraction of profit from Abyssinia. Great Britain is inextricably concerned, since Abyssinia is surrounded on almost all frontiers by British territory; since the Blue Nile, source of Egypt’s essential floods, rises in Lake Tana; and since Eritrea and the Somalilands are on the route to India. The British capitalist group are not anxious for war at present; but neither do they want Italy to corner all the profits they foresee in the development of Abyssinia. Therefore, the politicians at Geneva and elsewhere have been treading the knife-edge of diplomacy, endeavouring to give Italy concessions large enough to stave off war, without actually giving Italy a monopoly of Abyssinian exploitation. The workers of the world have no interest in these jugglings. What reason is there for them to support one section of their exploiters against another? Whichever side wins the wage-slaves will still be wage-slaves; the basic problem of present society will remain unsolved.

The S.P.G.B. maintains, as it has done consistently throughout its thirty-one years' existence, that the workers' interests are inescapably opposed to those of the capitalists, whatever political and national trimmings the latter may use to mask their ends. When the workers open their eyes to the facts of their exploitation, and cease to be taken in by the multifarious propaganda of the capitalists and their tools, they will see that their own interests lie simply and only in an entirely new system of society—Socialism—and will struggle indefatigably to establish it. Under Socialism the entire absence of the profit motive will once and for all eradicate the cause of war. When the workers have set up Socialism, then, and only then, will war be impossible.

Equality for Women Workers

Not a word of this did we hear from the T.U.C., and equally indefinite and non-socialist was their attitude on Britain’s internal problems. The economic position of women, the plight of the depressed areas, and the battle for shorter hours were all discussed from a purely reformist standpoint. All these problems are inherent in capitalism, but the T.U.C. conveys the impression that they can be solved piecemeal, without touching the basis of society. This impression is false: some improvements may benefit sections of the workers for a time, but the working class as a whole can never escape from exploitation by such painting the sores of capitalism. The first essential of capitalist society is an army of wage-slaves, people dependent for their lives on the sale of their energies in the labour-market ; and the commodity labour-power commands only the price necessary, for the labourer to continue his existence and reproduce his kind. That is, the workers as a whole—whatever differences and fluctuations may occur in particular sections at particular times—receive as the price of their labour-power little more than enough to keep them alive. This is an integral part of capitalism. Suppose women succeed, as the T.U.C. hope, in obtaining equal wages with men. Are they any the less exploited wage-slaves? By all means let them, in common with all their class, fight against the encroachments of their masters, but let them not be deluded into believing that their principal task. They must realise that these encroachments can be made impossible only by doing away with the private ownership of the means of life, which produced their enemy, the master class.

The Workers a “Depressed” Class

The T.U.C., with penetrating insight into social cause and effect, further disclosed to an astounded world that “the stricken areas owe their lamentable position to the decline in their main industries.” We have heard also that the circular movement of the globe on its axis may be explained as being due to the rotation of the earth. The T.U.C. was full of warm-hearted sympathy about the “shame and pity" of the depressed industries' situation, but spent no time analysing its true causes, or pointing the obvious way out. We state that these areas are “stricken" simply because the capitalists of this country cannot at present envisage making profits from them, owing to foreign competition and to more attractive investing fields elsewhere. Moreover, the whole working class all over the world is ”stricken" and lives in a state of permanent “depression.” The difference between these areas and others which receive less publicity is one of degree, and not of kind. It has been often and authoritatively stated that most workers, whether employed or not, have neither sufficient food, adequate clothing, nor sanitary homes. Such conditions are an integral part of capitalism.

Similarly, the question of hours is one which can never be solved so long as the human race is divided into two opposing camps, one owning the means of life and the other divorced from ownership, the one buying and the other selling labour-power. The buyers and sellers of labour-power have irreconcilable interests, and until private ownership and the buying and selling of labour- power is stopped for good, the haggling and wrangling over its price and time of its use must inevitably continue.

Down with all the War-makers

Finally, the T.U.C. decided to exclude Communists from holding official positions in Trades Councils. At about the same time the Communist Party announced its readiness to affiliate with the Labour Party. The T.U.C. officially stigmatised the Communists as a disruptionist element. Yet on the Abyssinian issue the Communist and T.U.C. policies are identical. So they blow hot and cold and make confusion worse confounded. The S.P.G.B. has indeed every logical reason to claim that it alone, in this maze of capitalist politics, is treading the direct path to Socialism. The Communist Party’s attitude in the Abyssinian crisis must have demonstrated unmistakably to many of its erstwhile supporters how capable that Party is of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Why further the declared policy of a capitalist Government? Why differentiate between national sections of the world capitalist class? To dam up Italian colonial expansion in Africa, which is so attractive to Italian capitalism, is merely to bring a European explosion so much nearer. To defend Abyssinia against Italy is merely to hand it over for capitalist exploitation by the native ruling class in alliance with Britain or France, or to split it up among various Powers. Abyssinia is due to be “civilised” by some capitalist group in any case. But the Communist Party is willing to lead British workers to slaughter Italian workers under the banner “down with Fascism and war." They remind us of Butler’s “Hudibras,” whose

    "Brain 

Outweighed his rage but half a grain, 

Which made some take him for a tool 

That knaves do work with, called a fool.”

Once again we must reiterate that these internecine squabbles, for all the fine phrases used as top dressing, are no concern of the working class. The paramount issue in the world to-day is the struggle for Socialism. The S.P.G.B. calls on the workers throughout the world to realise their class position, and to determine to end class-society and all its evils by organising consciously and politically for the one end, of establishing Socialism.

D. S.

Socialism and the Co-Operative Movement (1935)

From the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Report of an address by an S.P.G.B. speaker on July 9th at Co-operative Hall, Seven Sisters Road to members of the Islington Co-operative Guild) 

S.P.G.B. address: There is to-day a crying need for Socialism. In the depressed areas of northern England, in the heavy industries, such as coal, iron and shipbuilding, we behold the usual scene of the wholesale dismissal of workers under capitalism. Coal miners with no work while mines stand idle; textile workers unemployed while mills are closed; shipwrights despairing for the future while many ships ply the seas in a state of disrepair, and with the minimum of comfort for the crew. Men and women are denied all these, as well as other means of living, though they could themselves produce their own means of existence if allowed access to the means of production.

These facts were observed by Utopian Socialists more than a century ago. But they were groping in the dark; they did not fully understand the working of the capitalist system. Fourier, for example, was very enthusiastic over a system of co-operative colonies, which, he said, would grow with great speed. Robert Owen also confidently expected that co-operative productive societies would sweep the country within his own lifetime. Why, then, is it that more than a century after co-operative productive and distributive societies began to work, no great impression has been made on the capitalist system?

After one hundred years of striving, the Co-operative Societies employ only a quarter of a million people in their productive concerns, where the average wage is a mere £3 per week. In the distributive side of the Co-operative Societies the average wage of employees is even less—£2 15s. per week. The Co-operative movement has departed from the ideals of Fourier and Robert Owen, and as its supporters themselves admit, it has to I compete with other firms run on capitalist lines. That is why Co-operative employees have to strike against bad conditions of employment, taking part in the class struggle just as workers in other firms do. Many Co-operators still believe that the Co-operative Societies will be the means of emancipating the working class. But the conditions prevailing in the Co-operative Societies expose this hope as baseless. The facts go to show that the Co-operative movement is perfectly content to run on capitalist lines. For that reason its directors invested large sums in War Loan, and helped the capitalist class to continue the Great War, though it probably meant the murder or maiming of Cooperative members in the fighting forces. In spite, however, of the Co-operative Societies' willingness to be patriotic, people like Lord Beaverbrook attacked them. Therefore, the Co-operative movement, in self-defence, set up its own political party to make itself a political force in the country. Not with a view to getting rid of the wage-slave system, but only to continuing capitalism—and the Co-operative Societies. This is made dear by their statement (in the People's Year Book, 1932), that their Party will strive for more Public Utility Boards, such as the London Passenger Transport Board—which was recently faced with a strike of thousands of its *bus drivers and conductors.

The action of the Co-operative Societies in trying to get political power is an admission of the supreme importance of that power, and shows that the Co-operative movement is beginning to realise that the working class cannot get its emancipation while the Government is in the hands of the capitalist class.

(This concluded the address.)

Many questions were asked and apparently almost every member of the audience wanted to take part in the discussion, but the divergence of opinion shown within this Co-operative Guild is astounding in an organisation which claims that it will transform society. One member said that Parliament was no good; another said that the Co-operative Societies must seek protection in Parliament. It was maintained, on the one hand, that the Co-operative Societies would expand and overthrow the capitalist system; while another member declared that big finance was the greatest power in the world, and admitted, when questioned, that it could destroy the Co-operative movement. Another participant in the discussion said that it was not true that the members of the Cooperative Societies were interested only in the dividend; but went on to say that though possibly most of their members did buy at Co-operative stores because of the “divi," that was because we were living under capitalism.

Many other mistaken ideas were expressed, as for example, that the S.P.G.B. is in opposition to Trade Unions. As regards the Trade Unions, we point out that the working class must organise to resist the encroachments of their masters, but that such organisation cannot achieve Socialism.

D. S.

The Green Line Strike (1935)

From the September 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Thursday, July 25th, employees of the London Passenger Transport Board's Green Line coaches at Windsor and Slough agreed to strike in protest against speed-up schedules of duty and against too much discrimination in wages between Green Line conductors and the 'bus conductors on the same routes.

The Transport Board replied that they would have to wait to have the matter considered until September, when the directors of the Board returned from their holidays.

On the following Saturday morning many other garages joined the strike, bringing the number of strikers up to nearly three thousand. The strike was still, however, quite unofficial, and the Transport and General Workers' Union took up a definitely hostile attitude, advising the men to resume work and let their grievances be settled by means of the existing machinery. Later that day the Board announced that if the men had not returned to work by Monday they could consider themselves dismissed. By Monday morning the men were back at work.

A controversy arose, in which Mr. Bevin criticised not only the minority movement for interfering with the running of union matters, but also Herbert Morrison, the Labour Party's ardent advocate of Public Utility Boards such as London Transport. At the time when Mr. Morrison was making his stand in the House of Commons we maintained that the rationalisation of transport in London would by no means improve the position of the transport workers. But Mr. Morrison, turning a blind eye on the class struggle, continued to urge legislation which could—and did—result only in the bringing together of the transport owners in one united force opposed to the transport workers.

During the last few weeks a spate of strikes among the 'bus and coach workers against rigid discipline, speeding up and low wages, has amply vindicated our claim that the Public Utility Boards, which the Labour Party holds up to admiration as measures of "Socialism," are no more than tools to intensify and to mask capitalist exploitation.

The attitude of the Union was unheroic; apparently the leaders wish at all costs to avoid trouble; they expressed no sympathy with the workers in their bad conditions, but merely begged them to return to work and "let things be done decently and in order." However necessary discipline may be in a union, and however "illegal" a lightning transport strike may be, an organisation which claims to fight the workers' battles can rightly be expected to manifest sympathy with, and understanding of, such expressions of the class struggle. In the recent strike, however, the Union simply played into the hands of the bosses.

Modern Trade Union leaders show no inclination to emulate the Tolpuddle Martyrs. No doubt Mr. Morrison will offer to the workers at the next election a programme teeming with Public Utility Boards.

D. S.

Marx on Piecework (1935)

From the December 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Quoted from “Capital," vol. I, chapter 21, Moore and Aveling translation, Glaisher, 1912 edition.)

(All italics are ours.)

. . . it is self-evident that the difference of form in the payment of wages in no way alters their essential nature, although the one form may be more favourable to the development of capitalist production than the other, (p. 562.)

About the book of one John Watts, who praised piece-work, Marx says: “ . . .  it is a very sink of long-ago-rotten, apologetic commonplaces." (Footnote, p. 562.)

   Piece-wages do not, in fact, distinctly express any relation of value. . . . The price of labour-time itself is finally determined by the equation: Value of a day's labour = daily value of labour-power. Piece-wage is, therefore, only a modified form of time-wage, (pp. 563, 564.)
    Piece-wages become . . .  the most fruitful source of reductions of wages and capitalistic cheating, (p. 564.)
    They (i.e., piece-wages) furnish to the capitalist an exact measure for the intensity of labour. . . . Piece-wages therefore lay the foundation . . .  of a hierarchically organised system of exploitation and oppression. . . . The exploitation of the labourer by the capitalist is here effected through the exploitation of the labourer by the labourer, (pp. 564, 566.)
     Given piece-wage, it is naturally the personal interest of the worker to strain his labour-power as intensely as possible; this enables the capitalist to raise more easily the normal degree of intensity of labour. It is, moreover, now the personal interest of the worker to lengthen the working day. . . . The prolongation of the working day, even if the piece-wage remains constant, includes of necessity a fall in the price of the labour, (pp. 565, 566.)
     Piece-work has, therefore, a tendency, while raising individual wages above the average, to lower this average itself, (p. 566.)
      . . . piece-work is the form of wages most in harmony with the capitalist mode of production. (p. 567.)

The above quotations express very pungently Marx’s view of piece-work, the system which for some five years now the Bolsheviks have been introducing and extending in the Soviet Union. They have done so in the name of Socialism in order to increase production. Our capitalists had the same motive, but did not need to use such a specious excuse. The S.P.G.B. affirms that not only the piece-work system, but the wages system as a whole, runs directly counter to Socialist administration, whether in Russia or anywhere else.

D. S.