A Labour Party Promise and a Capitalist Admission. (1930)

From the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Tom Shaw, speaking at Wandsworth on December 16th, 1929, gave the following interesting pledge on behalf of the Labour Party: —

  We make no apology for saying that the instant we are powerful enough to do it, poverty shall be abolished.

—(“Evening News,” 17th Dec.) 

The “Evening News,” in an editorial, expressed its doubts about the matter :—

  That is not the maundering of a street-corner spell-binder. It is the considered utterance of Mr. Tom Shaw, one of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State in the Labour Government and incidentally the man who once complained piteously that he could not produce a remedy for unemployment “ like rabbits out of a hat.”
  We make no apology for saying that though Mr. Shaw and his friends should be returned to Parliament with no opposition at all poverty will not be abolished. We venture to add that the type of mind that could produce such a statement as Mr. Shaw made at Wandsworth last night will never decrease poverty, let alone abolish it.

We are strongly of the opinion that the “Evening News” is right; we also do not think that the Labour Party will succeed in fulfilling Mr. Shaw’s promise. We are quite certain that poverty will not, and cannot, be abolished under Capitalism, although the administration of the system is in the hands of “Labour” men. But what surprises us is the further admission of the "Evening News” that the problem has not been solved in the U.S.A., which the “Evening News” is always telling us to imitate.

  We might begin by reminding Mr. Shaw that the world has never been without poverty and that in the United States to-day, the richest nation in material wealth that the world has ever known, there is plenty of it—not relative poverty merely, but want and destitution.

Next time we are invited to copy American methods, perhaps the “Evening News” will tell us in what way “want and destitution" in the U.S.A. are preferable to “want and destitution” in the United Kingdom."

The Socialist Movement in Other Countries (1930)

Editorial from the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

PROGRESS IN AMERICA.

Our readers will have read with pleasure that in November last comrades of ours in New York launched the first number of their monthly journal, "The Socialist." The founders, the Socialist Educational Society, are trying to link up into a national organisation a number of groups and individuals who have long carried on separately the work of propagating Socialism.

"The Socialist” will make it possible for them to get their message before a wider public with the object of turning what is now an educational society, with a declaration of principles based upon our own, into a political party.

The starting of the new journal is by no means an isolated event. It is the outcome of years of hard and often seemingly fruitless efforts. But the handful who .persisted in that work were men who had learned by experience—some of them as members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain—that the road to Socialism cannot be an easy one. They know, as the founders of the S.P.G.B. knew, that there is no limit to the plausible but futile schemes for reforming Capitalism put forward by professional politicians and well-meaning but badly-informed would-be saviours of the working class, and that nothing but Socialist knowledge will make the workers secure against these political frauds and cranks. The publication of "The Socialist” marks a definite step forward for the Socialist movement in the U.S.A., and it also inevitably means a heavy additional burden for the comrades who are responsible, a new drain on their time, their energies and their pockets. We urge our readers here and in America to give what aid they can in extending the sale of the new journal in order to lighten as much as possible the work of the Socialist Educational Society. We hope next to be able to report that the extension of their activities, the holding of more study classes and propaganda meetings, will have made it possible to. form in the U.S.A. the looked for Socialist Party.

AND AUSTRALIA.

Reference has also been made from time to time in our columns to the Socialist Party of Australia, another young organisation formed by a few readers of the Socialist Standard. They, too, have as their basis our Declaration of Principles.

At their meetings and lectures they have been in the habit of selling our pamphlets and the Socialist Standard, but during the past year or two the Australian Government has done us the honour of banning our literature from that country. That action—still being continued under the present Labour Government which came into office last October—has caused us and our Australian comrades inconvenience and financial loss, but it is likely to have one very happy result. It has caused the Socialist Party of Australia to concentrate on publishing a journal of their own, and this they intend to do as soon as they can get together the necessary minimum of money. We commend this incident to the authorities who thought they could stop Australian workers from studying Socialism by excluding literature from abroad.

Readers in Australia who would like to assist in the work of the S.P. of Australia should get into touch with the Secretary, at P.O. Box 1440, Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION.

In the early days of the S.P.G.B. we sent delegates to the Congress of the International, but finding that parties were admitted to it which were prepared to repudiate by word and deed the fundamental principles of Socialism—parties here and abroad of the type of the Labour Party and the I.L.P.—we withdrew. We were not, and are not, prepared to associate internationally with organisations which are opposed to Socialism at home. In due course the war justified all our criticisms of the Second International. Not being based on Socialist principles and knowledge, it dissolved at the first shock into national groups anxious only to outdo each other in their ferocious jingoism and their demonstrations of loyalty to their respective sections of the Capitalist class.

The eventual formation of the Third (Communist) International has not solved the problem; rather has it confused it still more. It, like its rival, is prepared to admit organisations which are not in any sense of the word Socialist. It admits and supports bodies which are avowedly nationalist, interested primarily in helping one Capitalist country against another. It allows (or rather orders) its national parties to support Capitalist candidates at elections and advocates the suicidal policy of street-fighting. Its policy is dictated, not in the interests of the working class of the world, but in the interests of the developing Capitalist system in Russia striving for a place in the world scramble for markets.

The progress of Socialist organisation cannot be more advanced on the international than on the national plane. We look forward to the time when our work and the work of the bodies we have mentioned and other individuals and groups in English-speaking countries and in Austria and elsewhere, will bear fruit in a real International based not on illusions but on the solid foundation of Socialist knowledge and organisation.

__________________________

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NOTICE.

READ "THE SOCIALIST"

"The Socialist," organ of the Socialist Educational Society (U.S.A.), is obtainable from the publishers at 132 East 23rd Street, New York, or from this office. Price 3½d. a copy, post free; or 3/6 a year post free (one dollar a year post free in the U.S.A.). Bundles rates on application.

What is behind the Naval Conference? (1930)

From the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the moment of writing the stage is being prepared for the Five-Power Naval Conference, whose object is to solve the problem that could not be solved at the 1927 Geneva Conference.

What is this problem? To those who have not given much thought to it, the problem appears to be the question of the peace of the world, and this view is supported by the frequent references in newspapers, pamphlets and books, to the "spirit of peace," the “spirit of humanity," the “spirit of the Kellogg Pact,” and various other spineless spirits. Now one can hardly attribute any of these forms of “ spiritualism" to governments who are prepared to use the latest forms of warfare against striking workers; and who are prepared, as in England, to allow the bulk of the workers in a dying industry, the coal industry, to starve or depend upon individual charity.

In fact, the problem is not the peace of the world but an attempt to set a limit to the ruinous expenditure upon armaments. A writer in the “Sunday Times” for January 19th put the problem in a nutshell when he wrote : “Good will come out of the Conference if only in the Budgets of the nations.”

The naval armament position is similar to the military and aerial. It is a race between attacking and defensive forces.

A hundred years ago the warship was a wooden vessel propelled by the wind and armed with a quantity of small cannon. The projectiles fired by these cannon could have been carried about by the crew. The cost of such men-of-war was so small that they could be built and fitted out by private people. The increase in cost came with the increase in weight and explosive power of the projectile. This brought with it necessary improvements in the construction of ships to withstand the shock of firing and also improvements in defensive armour to resist the enemy’s fire.

Towards the end of the Crimean War the ironclad warship was devised, driven by steam. At first it was slow and clumsy and the iron plates were only a few inches thick, though this was quite sufficient to resist the projectiles of the times. The wealth and science of each nation was then called upon in the headlong race to produce a navy capable of holding the sea against all others. As wealth and scientific knowledge grew, the expenditure upon naval armaments grew even more tremendous and the giant battleship was still supreme.

By the end of the last century the wealthiest nations had succeeded in building floating castles that cost millions of pounds to construct and keep in fighting condition. Steam drove them, steered them, raised and lowered the boats, and accomplished many other feats formerly done by the unaided hands. Their armour plate was several feet thick; their heavy guns weighed over two hundred tons each, and they hurled projectiles over two thousand pounds in weight to tremendous distances. At the outbreak of the war in 1914 one of these heavy guns could fire at and hit a target' over twenty miles away.

But still the building of heavier armed and more expensive ships goes on, with oil as the motive power. Improvement proceeds at such a rate that a battleship is rendered obsolete almost as soon as it leaves the slips. Each capitalist nation, therefore, sees with agony a huge part of its wealth going into the bottomless pit of battleship building, and is looking in every direction for some means to end the increasing drain on profits.

In the meantime a fresh war horror had come into existence at the end of last century—the submarine. Its early growth was a subject for curiosity and schoolboy tales. Then 1914 finally demonstrated the value of the submarine and small fast war craft, and showed that the battleship was little more than a white elephant, the torpedo found the weak spots in everything.

Towards the end of the war, yet another and more efficient arm was added to the Navy as a defence against the submarine, and that was the aircraft carrying torpedoes and bombs. The submarine was slow, but it was invisible, and herein lay its strength. The aeroplane high up can “spot” a submarine at the lowest depth it can safely sail. On top of this, submarine building has become more costly as the submarines have grown larger and more heavily armed. France has just completed a submarine vessel of 3,000 tons—a small battleship, the cost of which was over a million pounds.

The latest improvement in the aeroplane is direction by wireless. By this means an aeroplane carrying gas bombs and torpedoes can cruise over a wide area dealing death in all directions while its operators remain practically immune from damage. So we may now expect a further development to meet and render useless this latest weapon of horror. Where will it all end? The capitalist can see no end but the continued production of ever more terrible means of causing destruction. He is not concerned with the scrapping of implements of war, but only with decreasing their cost.

So, finally, the high ideals of the Naval Conference are really £ s. d., and have as much concern for real warfare of humanity as the capitalist has for the general welfare of his wage slaves. This was made perfectly clear in one of the resolutions of the League of Nations Economic Conference at Geneva in May, 1927, which affirmed :—

The world as a whole still devotes considerable sums to armaments and to preparations for war, which reduce the savings available for the development of industry, commerce, and agriculture, and are a heavy burden upon the finances of the different States, entailing heavy taxation, which reacts upon their whole economic life and lowers their standard of living.

—("The Economist Supplement,” 28/5/1927.)

It will be noticed that in all the official arguments on the question of armament, with the exception of Russia, there has been ho suggestion of the absolute abolition of all armaments—it has only been a question of limitation. And from the English side there has been no hint of limiting its most effective weapon—the bomb and torpedo-carrying aeroplane. This is significant of the ideas behind the talk—although we have a Labour Government!

There are, however, elements of humour in the situation, and one has been provided by the “New Leader” of January 17th. In its editorial columns we read:—

The memorandum signed by 77 Labour Members of Parliament! urging that the delegates of the Government at the Naval Conference should make the abolition! of battleships and warships over 10,000 tons one of the principal aims of their deliberation, has our heartiest approval.

What imbecility! One might as well urge that each ship should have one gun less. The net result of the adoption of this recommendation would simply be the setting of the problem to naval experts of making the 10,000-ton ship as destructive a weapon as the 20 or 25 thousand ton ship, and America has already demonstrated that it can be done. But apart from that side of the problem, what has become of the alleged peaceful aims of the I.L.P.? They approve a Memorandum which says : "One of the principal aims is to be limitation.” Has it not occurred to the I.L.P. that there is such a thing as total abolition?

But then, of course, the I.L.P., by its support of the Labour Party, anticipates the indefinite continuance of capitalists whose interests are at present being so well served by MacDonald, Thomas, Snowden & Co.

Armaments are the fighting power of the State and the State in the hands of those who resist Socialism is the bulwark of Capitalism. It, and its fighting forces will last as long as Capitalism lasts, because Capitalism signifies the existence of a subject class to be held in bondage.

Gilmac.

Tugan-Baranovsky's Criticism of Marx. (1930)

Book Review from the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Modern Socialism in its Historical Development," by M. Tugan-Baranovsky, was published in 1910. It was translated from the Russian by M. I. Redmount.

The most interesting feature of the work is the record of working-class efforts and ideas in the early days of the movement. The phrasing is inclined to be awkward, possibly due to difficulties of translation. It is, in places, not easy to get at the ideas. When understood, however, the work presents a rather curious instance of an author losing sight of his own premises, merely because society has failed to act on them. 

On page 14 he defines Socialism as 

The social organization in which, owing to equal obligations and equal rights of all to participate in the communal work, as also owing to the equal right to participate in the produce of this work, the exploitation of one member of the community by another is impossible.

Having laid this down as a working principle—incomplete as it is—the reader might expect that it would, at least, be used to show wherein working-class parties, calling themselves Socialist failed to act up to their name. Instead, M. Baranovsky, confusing labour politics with what he calls Marxism, declares that the latter has departed from its principles. By Marxism he means the principles that should govern the workers in their efforts to emancipate themselves. These principles were broadly outlined by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto.

On page 8 M. Baranovsky says that Socialists recognised that they had to bear in mind the immediate needs of the people and shape their policy on them. In consequence of these ingenious Marxian tactics, he says, Socialism has become the greatest political power of the present. He describes this action as transferring the centre of gravity of the Socialist movement into the sphere of practical politics. The ultimate aim, he says, recedes into the background, whilst the proper ideal continues to serve but as a symbol, without any concrete content, and finally, the tactics of Marxism have in theory resulted in weakening the interest in the final issue of Socialism.

Here, he fails to see that it is the Labour Party that has falsified Socialist principles by their reformist policy. The broad facts of the working-class position, and the principles drawn from them are, in essence, the same to-day as when Marx outlined them in the Communist Manifesto. M. Baranovsky should, reasoning from his declared facts, have noted that the Labour Party cannot, at the same time, be both a reformist and a Socialist party.

This failure to see that a Socialist party must have Socialist principles, and base its political activities on them, vitiates the work throughout. To M. Baranovsky the Labour Party is a Socialist party in spite of its reformist policy and its denial of Socialist principle.

The reason for his shortsightedness is seen after a careful examination of his book. M. Baranovsky has the Utopian mind. Something of the soundness of the Socialist position he glimpses here and there; but in the main he belongs to the period of which he writes most fluently; the period when reformers like Owen, Fourier and St. Simon saw the rottenness of Capitalism and planned new systems to supplant it. In his preface he compares these with Marx, as follows:—

And taking into consideration that Marxism, as I strongly believe, does not embrace all the scientific elements of Socialism, my investigation necessarily assumed an historical character in so far as I was obliged to retrospect and introduce earlier, partly forgotten doctrines of the so-called Utopian category, which I consider deserving of the most serious attention and which in some respects are even more scientific than Marxism.

One of the best-known of the Utopians was Fourier. His plan for the reformation of society was the formation of groups, called Phalanstries, each group to settle on the land and provide for themselves by their associated labour. Fourier himself waited in vain for some charitable millionaire to finance his first group. Yet there have been quite a number of these experiments in different parts of the world. They were all failures. Capitalist society is too strong an organism to be affected by such dreamlike projects.

Wherein can such schemes be termed scientific? M. Baranovsky does not tell us. But Marxism, as he calls it, can tell us why they always failed. Working-men cannot throw up their jobs and form groups to produce for themselves. They have no capital to start with (a necessity under Capitalism) and Capitalists already own the land.

But the Utopians are unscientific in another respect. They say that nothing can be achieved by struggling against those in power. The only effective weapon is persuasion. They turn their backs on the class struggle, instead of recognising it and taking their place in the ranks of the workers. What could be more unscientific than refusing to see what is so evident in modern society. The antagonism between Capitalists and workers is the most outstanding feature of modern times, all over the Capitalist world, and conditions cannot essentially change for the working-class until they get the upper hand in that struggle.

But it is not the early Utopian ideas with which M. Baranovsky is chiefly obsessed. His Utopianism has advanced some what. Sixty pages are devoted to what he conceives as the special forms that the future society may take. He reviews the possibilities of eight different systems. Socialism and Communism have each four alternative arrangements, according to him : Centralized, Corporate, Federal And Anarchical. The Utopian cast of his mind is plainly revealed in the profitless task of reviewing these forms. But even more so is this the case in the last section of his book ,where he says on page 230:—

In the Socialist community, just so as in the Capitalistic, the price of a commodity will rise in the case of demand exceeding supply, and fall in the inverse instance.

In this quotation we see how Capitalist ideas clog the minds of those who try to frame schemes to escape from the evils of the present system. M. Baranovsky would carry over into a future system he has somehow conjured up, the very things that make Capitalism what it is. He would still have commodities and commodity production. Sale and purchase of the necessaries of life.

Capitalism is based on the class ownership of the means of wealth production and the commodity character of human labour-power. Labour-power is bought by the Capitalists to operate the machinery of production and sell their commodities on the world's market. The energy of the worker is a commodity, he is stamped with the commodity character. He is compelled to suffer all the vicissitudes that distinguish other commodities in the Capitalist world: over-supply, depreciation and physical decay, when he can no longer sell his one commodity.

Throughout the productive and commercial world everything has a practical aim in view. The object of it all is profit. The workers themselves cultivate efficiency, eliminate waste, produce all forms of wealth, and run all the services that minister to the world's needs. Yet they suffer poverty because they do all this for those who buy their energy. Everywhere business is run on practical lines and becoming more rationalised every day. Yet the worker’s mind is still obsessed with the false notion that wealth can only be produced by this arrangement that makes the bulk of human society—the working-class —a class of wage-slaves.

Production and distribution of wealth can be carried on by society without the enslavement of one class. But only the class that is enslaved can possibly want such a system. Consequently, it can only be established by the workers themselves. Moreover, it can only be established in opposition to the Capitalist class. Which means that the workers' first task is to critically examine and understand the basis of Capitalism. He will then know for himself what must be changed or eliminated in order that he and his class may win security and freedom from exploitation.

F. Foan

Party Activities (1930)

From the February 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Head Office

The Sunday evening lectures that were commenced at Head Office in the autumn have continued through the winter with considerable success. These lectures are given mainly by members who are developing as speakers, and this offers a splendid opportunity for beginners. The questions and discussion that follow have been usually on a high level and cannot fail to provide valuable information to those present.

We would like to see more members in attendance.

WEST HAM. Meeting at Stratford.

In spite of very bad weather there was an interested audience of 250 at Stratford Town Hall on Sunday 12th, when our speaker dealt with the subject, "How to Get Socialism." Questions and opposition centred chiefly round the problem of doing something in order to check the worst effects of Capitalism. It was interesting to notice that even those who spoke in defence of the Labour Party policy were not prepared to speak enthusiastically about the Labour Government's actions. Instead of the usual Communist telling is that the workers must use armed force, the one Communist opponent who intervened did so in order to deny that the Communists hold any such view. Fortunately the speaker had available the report of the last Communist Congress where that policy was reiterated.

The members of the West Ham Branch who organised the meeting had used it as an opportunity of making the party more widely known. Some 3,000 handbills were given away and 1,000 specimen copies of the SOCIALIST STANDARD were distributed prior to the meeting.

There was a collection of £2 6s. 9d., and literature was sold to the value of 9s. 4d.

EAST LONDON.

The East London Branch have been very active during the winter and are making good progress. Open-air propaganda in Victoria Park has been maintained and indoor public meetings have been held each month. In addition, the branch is conducting lectures in the branch room at 141, Bow Road, on alternate Fridays in the month.

Potential speakers have been discovered among new members, and are being given opportunities for training. Sales of literature are good.

BATTERSEA.

The monthly meetings run by Battersea branch in their branch room at Latchmere Road Baths have been a great success. Attendance has been good and considerable interest taken in the party point of view. Open-air propaganda has been maintained on Clapham Common, except in very bad weather conditions.

SHEFFIELD. A BRANCH FORMED.

Efforts to form a branch in Sheffield have met with success, and we are looking forward to early signs of propaganda activity in that neighbourhood. Those wishing to get in touch should communicate with E. Boden, 44, Edgedale Road, Millhouses, Sheffield.

EDINBURGH.

Edinburgh members are trying, in spite of difficulties, to make the party known and get a branch going. Not the least of the difficulties is the bad weather, which frequently prevents open-air meetings. When the weather improves their efforts are likely to meet with success. Those wishing to lend a hand should communicate with D. Lamond, at 15, Barclay Place.

GENERAL PROPAGANDA.

Regular open-air propaganda stations are being well maintained. Glasgow especially has been showing good results.

As so much depends on the SOCIALIST STANDARD to link up the party with friends and sympathisers, and to keep our position before the public, members are urged to make special efforts to increase sales. One way of doing this, we would suggest, is to get subscribers for a period of one year (the cost is only 2s. 6d. per annum, post paid). If each member of the party made it his or her job to get only one or two subscribers annually, our sales would increase by leaps and bounds.

All shoulders to the wheel to forward the good work.

PROPAGANDA COMMITTEE.