Open letter to Dick Taverne, MP (1964)

From the February 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir,

You may remember me as the Socialist who had the difference of opinion with you at a Marylebone meeting recently (or rather, I was one of a number). I hope you will not mind my writing to you. I have been engaged fairly actively in Socialist politics for many years and this is the first time I have felt prompted to do so.

I asked you a question about South Africa and you gave two replies (you will appreciate, I am sure, that a witness who gives one reply to a question and when that does not go down very well comes up with another answer, is always calculated to make the judge look over his glasses). Your first reply was that I had got my facts wrong. The second was that you were at school at the material time. And it is the latter answer which impels me to try and continue your education by means of this letter. I trust you are not already offended and that I do not appear too patronising. You must remember that it was you who pleaded youth in extenuation of ignorance; I am merely answering your implied cry for help.

Obviously, if you are too young to know one aspect of politics it is unlikely that you will be bristling with a sound knowledge of the facts on other matters; however, in this letter I propose to deal mainly with the South African question which started things off at the meeting. You were asked how you could reconcile your criticism of the British Tory Government record at UNO on the question of apartheid with the fact that when your own party was last in power they followed an identical policy at UNO. As mentioned above, your first shot to the effect that my friends and I had got our facts wrong, was wide of the mark. It is true that we had not brought any dossiers of evidence along but the vehemence of our reaction caused you to change course immediately. 

Now I am sure that an intelligent young man like you who only recently hit the headlines as one of the late Hugh Gaitskell's new crop of MP.’s, if you felt you were in the right, would not be put off his stroke by a handful of irate questioners' amongst a hundred of bis own supporters. Perhaps you realised that you really did not know the facts and that it was therefore simply not possible for you to maintain your stand. Of course, when you grow older and more experienced you will realise that it is possible to maintain even downright lies as long as your questioners are few and your supporters are both numerous and uncritical. At present you have not yet reached this stage.

Your next line, though, was really rather breathtaking. You were still at school, you said. This is no doubt true. But it will hardly do, will it? After all, if you are on a platform as a representative of a party you must surely be presumed to know what it did yesterday and even the day before. I was speaking on public platforms for the Socialist Party (and against the Labour Party) before I was twenty. But I would not have been able to do so had I not satisfied my comrades that I know all about my party's activities from the time it was formed (which was not when I was at school but long before I was born). Yes, and all about your party, too, and about all the other parties which seek power on a programme of reform of capitalism some of whom, like yours, claim to be Socialist (or at least used to; I noticed that neither you nor any of your colleagues on the platform so much as mentioned the word Socialism). In fact, I was ready to answer questions about the economic and social causes of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire as well as the change from primitive communism to property society; both of which, you will realise, happened well before I started school, let alone left it

You see, we hold that those who are not possessed of the necessary knowledge, either through their youth or for any other reason, should not presume, too, to instruct others from platforms; a proposition which you must agree is eminently reasonable. And my colleagues and I are only amateurs; we are none of us full-time paid politicians like you.

At any rate, I am sure you would like to know the facts so that next time you come up against others who know them, you will not feel at such a grave disadvantage. The government, when run by the party that you represent and which you may one day even lead (you seem to have all the advantages which Harold Wilson had and more; you are just as young, you are better looking, and equally you know nothing about Socialism), did all the things at UNO when the South African question was on the agenda that you now accuse the present government of doing. Not being a full-time politician and not having the staff at Transport House to wade through the records I cannot cite some of the choicest examples, but the following two or three, taken from a five-minute glance through Keesing's in the local library should do.

Nov. 29 '49: Resolution proposed by Scandinavian countries calling on South Africa to submit the question of the mandate to S.W. Africa to the International Court of Justice was carried 30-7. Your government abstained from supporting what it called the rule of law in international affairs.

Dec. 5 '50: A resolution condemning Apartheid defeated by, amongst others, the vote of your party’s government.

Nov. 28 '49: This was the occasion when the Rev. Michael Scott made a speech about the appalling sufferings of the Herero tribe. India moved a resolution condemning S. Africa. Carried 31-10. This time your lot did not abstain. It was one of the ten who voted against. You can imagine who tbe other nine were; if you can't, I suggest you look it up and see what kind of company your government was keeping while you were at school. Even the United States (not a Socialist country even by your notions) could not bring itself to associate with them and abstained.

Of course, all this was some years ago. But your party had the biggest majority of any party this century. And you must admit that it is rather less than honest to accuse your opponents of actions while hiding or denying the fact that you did likewise the last time you had the chance to do anything at all. And although some of the actors have passed on to higher things, some of them are your leading colleagues today who were not unknown school children in those days. For example you are no doubt acquainted with Barbara Castle who leads your anti-apartheid wing now. Well, she was old enough to know all about it.

I’m afraid I may have been a little too facetious in my letter. Things are really not funny at all. And the saddest thing is to see young people like you, able, intelligent and with the gift of tongues, swimming comfortably with the tide: the tide of capitalism that has for so long drowned all the hopes of a decent world for the human race to live in.

If you would like me to send you a pamphlet about Socialism, please let me know. I am sure you will find it a revelation. Then next time you are on a platform and a Socialist asks you a question, perhaps you will not feel so badly out of your depth.

                                                                                                                         Yours truly,

      L. E. Weidberg

A Pair of Labour Bleeders (1974)

Book Reviews from the April 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The Future of the Left: Lincoln and After," by Dick Taverne. Cape, £2.95 (paperback £1.50).

Dick Taverne's book is divided into sections. The first reads like an adventure story, where our hero comes out on top having conquered the forces of evil (left wing of the Labour Party). The second part presents Taverne's alternative for radical politics in this country, with ideas as new and exciting as egg-and-chips.

Taverne's thesis is that the Labour Party, which according to him has been the only radical alternative since 1929, has become so dominated by its left extremists that those who want to pursue "sensible" policies don't stand a chance. Successive Labour governments fail to deliver the goods for the left wing: "There were very few measures from the 1966 government which they [the left] could regard as socialist." He never tells us what measures would be regarded as socialist; hardly surprising, as he states also that terms like "socialist" and "working class" have "no precise definition". The result is that the militants who tended to be a large section of part workers are disillusioned, the party loses the next election, and Labour-inspired radical change takes a dive.

He then explains his rejection of the left-dominated party machine, and the steps that led to his resignation and his success at a Lincoln bye-election. For his Democratic Labour party he would have preferred the title "Social Democrats", but felt this was inappropriate for Lincoln. His campaign based on "realism" (opportunism?) claims to be for a society of equal rights and equal opportunities. To achieve it he would require a permanent wages policy; allowing people more say in decisions that affect their working lives; forcing the big companies to disclose their affairs; fairer distribution of wealth; fiscal reform including an accessions tax to replace estate duty; and above all his chief love, the continuance of the Common Market. The package can be summed up in his favourite phrase "Social Justice". Heard it before?

The book does spotlight the undemocratic nature of the Labour Party (if it needed showing), the way politicians twist and turn at every corner (for example Wilson's volte-face on the Common Market) , and the fact that "ultra-right" Enoch Powell and "ultra-left" Michael Foot have much in common on major issues. It also shows the author as thoroughly confused about many things, specially economics. For example, he accepts the myth that rising wages cause inflation. The tragedy is that the working class — who, by the way, Mr. Taverne, are the vast majority having to sell their capabilities to live, because they do not own any part of the means of production — are taken in by this sort of confusion.

Taverne's majority at Lincoln shows nothing and leads nowhere. To make any real change the working class must take the problems surrounding them into their own hands, abolish the system of society based on private ownership, and establish Socialism. When that happens, ideas about instituting "Social Justice" will be placed in a Museum of Muddled Thought from this age.

Ronnie Warrington 

"John Strachey", by Hugh Thomas. Eyre Metheun, £4.50.

Strachey was the political Heinz. His range of allegiances and convictions was not far short of fifty-seven varieties; and each one was found tasty by people whose relish for an easy snack is heightened by thinking it a bore to eat more substantially.

From Eton and Oxford, Strachey joined the Labour Party in 1923 and the ILP in 1924, becoming editor of the ILP's Socialist Review and in 1926 editor of the NUM's The Miner. Elected a Labour MP in 1929, he left the Labour Party to help found Oswald Mosely's "New Party" in 1931 but quickly parted company; later the same year he lost his parliamentary seat and was found "drawing towards the communist party". On the advice of Communist leaders he never joined the CP, but from 1932 to 1938 wrote books expounding their theory, including The Nature of Capitalist Crises and The Theory and Practice of Socialism. Mr. Thomas tells us that in these books "the most articulate Marxist spokesman in Britain" received the assistance of Dutt, Pollitt and Emile Burns of the CP.

However, he was "appalled" and "staggered" by the Soviet-German pact in 1939. He sold his £1,000-worth of Russian Five Year Plan bonds (and re-invested in General Motors); in 1940 he published A Programme for Progress — "frankly a 'revisionist' work"; and dissociated himself from the CP. Thereafter, he served in the war and at the end of it was again elected to Parliament for Labour and was a Minister in successive governments.

In 1953 he wrote three articles called "Marxism Revisited" in the New Statesman. These were expanded into another book, Contemporary Capitalism, in which Strachey rejected old errors in favour of new ones. He wrote to Michael Foot in 1958 that he had "reverted to my ancestral tradition of Whiggery". His last change of mind, incurring Gaitskell's disfavour, was over whether or not Britain should enter the Common Market.

Mr. Thomas's biography is interesting and well documented. It ought to provide lessons in several things. One is the perennial weakness of the Left for "intellectuals" and its readiness to attribute depths to whatever they say. Strachey was fundamentally a dilettante, belonging really with his cousin Lytton in the "Bloomsbury set". His radicalism and copious writing were founded on a private income and on entrée to circles where thinking-aloud would be readily, over the port, accepted for print.

The other observations to be made is how unchanged the Left is, despite all the alleged re-thinking and rejection of old Communist stuff. Strachey writing in The Miner in 1926 that "the handful of cruel, stubborn and dull-witted reactionaries, who today have the audacity to claim that they 'own' the great coalfields of Britain, will be deprived of every vestige of the power which they have so terribly abused" — could be any militant broadsheet-writer today. The theory of The Nature of Capitalist Crises, that the capitalist system was being delivered into the "revolutionaries" hands by the law of the falling rate of profit, is now repeated by IS, WRP and the rest. In the 'thirties it was a non-runner by Dutt out of Strachey. They never learn.

Robert Barltrop

Between the Lines: The future of socialism (1986)

The Between the lines column from the April 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The future of socialism

Brian Magee's cosy studio discussions on BBC2 are like Oxford seminars for spectators; listening to Brian and his guest intellectuals toss around a few concepts is like watching darts on telly - it doesn't really matter whether they score a hundred and eighty or miss the board, the important point is that you're not getting a chance to throw the darts. Thinking Aloud (BBC2, 9 March) was supposed to be about whether socialism has a future. Dick Taverne, who should have realised long ago that he does not have one, came out with some predictable old drivel about socialism being outdated: there are no longer classes, the future lies  with the terrific new ideas of the SDP (or was he saying that the future will be terrified by the new lies of the SDP?). Opposing him was Beatrix Campbell, a very trendy Lefty who thinks that Sweden is fairly socialist and the GLC was proof that socialism works. With confusion-mongers like her claiming to speak for it, what future does socialism have as an idea? Fortunately there was a third guest in the studio, Daniel Singer from France who showed more than a slight acquaintance with Marx's ideas. Singer began by daring to suggest that before the subject could be discussed it was necessary to define socialism; it should be made clear that socialism does not mean capitalism run by bogus socialist governments. It was left to him to state that socialism has never been tried, but that "if there is no future for socialism there is no future for the human race". It is a pity that the rest of the discussion was not conducted in such terms. Instead it was a mass of "to a certain extents" and "the trouble with socialism is . . . " Darts were not only missing the board, but being thrown at targets which did not exist. BBC2 calls it philosophy. I preferred Tony Hancock on BBC1 an hour earlier - at least he made a few points.

The future of socialisme

As if one night of nonsense-talking about undefined socialism isn't sufficient, Panorama (BBC1, 10 March) was concerned to show how Mitterand's "socialism" had failed to satisfy the French workers. In a series of articles over the last three years The Socialist Standard predicted that this would happen and has shown how it has happened. Needless to say, the "experts" on Panorama are too dim-witted to recognise that what has failed in France is capitalism in another form - nothing at all to do with socialism failing.

Milne's admission

BBC head, Alistair Milne, was in a studio discussion presented by David Dimbleby (This Week, Next Week, BBC1, 23 February) and was being attacked by Mary Whitehouse who has made it her hobby of late to watch video tapes of the dirty bits of Eastenders. In defence of the BBC's new highly successful soap opera Mine stated that "Eastenders is just a modern version of the old morality plays." So, here we have an admission: one of the functions of soaps is to convey to audiences right and wrong ways of behaving. "Rightful" behaviour is shown to be socially accepted by the characters in the soaps and leads to eventual success, whereas "bad" actions are shown in such a way as to lead viewers to fear committing such moral transgressions themselves. A very good example of the same process at work is in the kids' soap opera, Grange Hill in which the characters are presented very clearly within the context of approved and disapproved behaviour models. Readers with other examples of how TV drama attempts to mould audience behaviour should send in references and we shall publish your observations in a future column.

A question to Mr Churchill

Winston Churchill, the grandson of the man who never objected to plenty of violence in the media but preferred it in real life, has moved a Private Members' Bill in parliament designed to keep obscenity off the TV. Apart from the fact that the BBC and IBA Charters already commit them to self-censorship, Churchill's Bill is daft because it proposes to make illegal TV showings of explicit cruelty to humans and animals. Does that mean that Mr. Churchill wants to ban all pictures of armies going about their legal business of inflicting cruelty against "the enemy" - including pictures of British soldiers in 1945 who went in for some pretty explicit cruelty against humans in Dresden? Does this new Bill mean that the plays of Shakespeare will be banned from TV - we are thinking in particular of such jolly scenes as the pulling out of Gloucester's eyes by his stepson in King Lear? And will it mean that we shall no longer see Crossroads or Wogan - for, let's face it, what can be more explicitly cruel to humans, not to mention animals, than those offerings? Socialists oppose censorship. And we shall certainly not censor Mr. Churchill's response to our questions if he cares to send one.

Capitalist Utopia

"Imagine a factory where there are no strikes." Have you seen the hideous Nissan advert? It would be interesting if the Gdansk shipyards went in for a similar TV-ad campaign in Britain. When is the denial of the freedom to strike something to be boasted about and when is it an infringement of "human rights"?

Steve Coleman