Notes by the Way: Indian workers beginning to see through the Nationalist Movement (1939)

The Notes by the Way Column from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Indian workers beginning to see through the Nationalist Movement

An interesting situation has arisen in Bombay, where there is a Congress (i.e., Indian Nationalist) Government. The Government, which has the support of the so-called Congress Socialist Party of Bombay, introduced a Trade Disputes Bill, whereupon the trade unions denounced it and called a one-day general strike as a protest. In the disturbances that ensued the police fired, and 75 persons were wounded, one of whom died.

The Indian Labour Journal (October 23rd. 1938) reports that the Labour group in the Legislative Assembly opposed the Bill, “The Government, however, is adamant, and is bearing down all opposition with their overwhelming majority, consisting not only of Congress members but also of representatives of the interests of capitalism. The Bill has been welcomed by the latter.”

According to Dr. Ambedkar, “The Bill takes away the legitimate, constitutional and powerful weapon of the workers, namely, the strike, by declaring it illegal, and therefore punishable in a large number of cases.” (Labour Journal, October 23rd.)

Other critics allege that the Bill will encourage the formation of “company unions” at the expense of genuine trade unions.

This and other inevitable conflicts between Indian workers and Indian capitalism will in time teach the workers that Nationalism, to the capitalist, is only a means to an end. As the Indian Labour Journal sadly recorded on July 17th, 1938, when Congress Governments replaced the former Governments capitalist interests behaved just as they did before, “everywhere the attitude of the employers remains the same.”

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Corsica, Nice and Tunis

Mr. W. N. Ewer, in an article in the Daily Herald (December 12th, 1938), did a useful service by recalling the history of the Italian demand for various French territories. In the first place, the demand did not originate with Mussolini: —

“Signer Mussolini has his own purposes in the organisation of these ‘spontaneous demonstrations.’ But Italian patriots were shouting for Corsica and Nice and Tunis before he or Fascismo was born.

The cry for Corsica goes back to the great days of the struggle for Italian unity. For Mazzini it was Divine will that all the Italian peoples should be joined in one Italian state. Garibaldi called himself an atheist : but he felt much the same.”

France got Nice and Savoy in 1860 as part of a bargain by which Napoleon III of France promised to help turn the Austrians out of Northern Italy and thus help the movement for Italian unity. The Italians complained bitterly that Napoleon only half fufilled his promise, but he got his price, the transfer of territory being covered by a fake plebiscite on the most up-to-date lines. “In the town of Nice only eleven votes were cast against annexation.”

Tunis has an equally interesting history. Except that the chief brigands arc different, it reads like a dress rehearsal for the imperialisms of our own day: —

“Italy began to look on Tunis as her predestined share in the coming partition of Northern Africa. And so it might have been. But at the Berlin (Peace with Honour) Congress, Salisbury, to get French assent to his taking of Cyprus, suggested that France might find ‘compensation’ in Tunis.

Bismarck, for his own ends, cordially backed the suggestion. All this, of course, in deadest secret.

Italy’s suspicions were aroused. She asked and got assurances from France : took them at face value : waited too long. In ’81 there was an incident on the Tunis-Algiers border. The French troops were ready. Within a few weeks Tunis was a French protectorate.

Great Britain, tongue in cheek, solemnly protested against the aggression she had suggested. Italy raged furiously : and has been angry ever since. For nearly sixty years the ‘Tunisian question’ has troubled Franco-Italian relations.”

* * * *

Cyprus under the Heel

As Mr. Ewer points out, the British Government encouraged France to seize Tunis while England took Cyprus. The apologists for British Imperialism will say, of course, “how lucky for the Cypriots to be under British rule.” But the Cypriots think otherwise, they want to join Greece, so Cyprus is now under rigid suppression following an outbreak in 1931. The Manchester Guardian summarises the present position as follows : —

“. . . repression is still the manner of rule. The former representative system of government remains suspended: close restrictions are kept on public meetings ; trade unions are discouraged the Press is suppressed or censored on the flimsiest of pretexts at the will of the Administration.” (Manchester Guardian, October 13, 1938.)

* * * *

Was J. R. MacDonald a Fraud? 

Mr. L. MacNeill Weir, M.P., was Parliamentary Secretary to the late J. R. MacDonald for eight years, from 1924 to 1931. Naturally, when he published his “The Tragedy of Ramsay MacDonald” (Seeker & Warburg, 15s.), and roundly condemned the character and conduct of his former hero, he placed himself under the obligation of explaining his own conduct. If he knew long before 1931, why did he not resign and tell what he knew? If he did not know until the end, that, too, wants explaining. When Mr. Weir’s position is examined he, and the Labour Party, come out in a very bad light. So do the other leaders of the Labour Party.

Mr. MacNeill Weir, replying to letters of criticism published in The Times, wrote, on December 3rd, 1938, defending himself. Here is a remarkable passage in his letter : —

“I am blamed for taking the post of Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1924 when I believed all the charges I have made against MacDonald in the book. In 1922 I was one of the Scots contingent who voted to make MacDonald leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. We never believed Snowden’s repeated assertion at that time that MacDonald would sooner or later let the Party down.

It was not until the beginning of 1931 that suspicion of MacDonald’s bona fides arose, and suggestions began to be made of a change of leadership. All sorts of rumours, canards and defamatory aspersions circulate around public men—especially politicians. The fact is that MacDonald was a man of mystery, a human enigma, his real character only revealed in the passing of the years. We can be blamed for our unswerving loyalty to Dr. Jekyll during these years, but surely we are not to be condemned for not believing in the existence of Mr. Hyde.”

The S.P.G.B. opposed MacDonald always, i.e., onwards from 1904, when the S.P.G.B. was founded, but nothing we said of MacDonald ever stated such a strong case against leadership in general. We said that the popular theory of leadership of political parties included glorifying the party leader in order to make him an impressive and romantic figure in the eyes of the rank and file. There has to be a kind of conspiracy among the lesser leaders to deify the great ones in order to make the members loyal. What we did not contemplate was that the lesser leaders would fall for the same clap-trap themselves. Yet Mr. MacNeill Weir asks us to believe that, right up to 1931, he was being cruelly deceived by the man he knew intimately.

There is one thing Mr. Weir cannot get over. MacDonald’s speeches and writings were always empty of sound Socialist knowledge and principle, why did Mr. Weir not see through them? Another Labour M.P., Mr. Hugh Dalton, writing in the Daily Herald (November 18th, 1938), says that when he re-reads MacDonald’s old speeches now they give him “a sense almost of physical discomfort.” The answer is, and must be, that Mr. Weir and Mr. Dalton, and all their followers, did not know the difference between Socialist teaching, which endures, and social reformism, which depends for appeal on the trivial issue or the emotion of the moment.

The real tragedy is not the conduct of MacDonald, who, after all, was not a bit worse than his rival Labour leaders, but the admission made by Mr. Dalton that MacDonald’s empty rhetoric captivated his followers. After saying that the speeches were valueless, Mr. Dalton has to add, “But how his audiences loved them! It is a terrifying memory.”

Of course, Messrs. Weir and Dalton think that the Labour Party is healthier now. Perhaps it is. Perhaps experience has taught the rank and file a few things about the dangers of leadership. But if so, they owe little to Mr. Weir and Mr. Dalton, for both of these gentlemen are of opinion that the Labour Party “backed the wrong horse in 1922, when it made him (MacDonald) leader in place of Clynes.” As if the member of a war-time Coalition Government, who himself in 1931 was in favour of some kind of three-party Cabinet, was any more of a Socialist than MacDonald !

Before leaving the subject, it is worth while placing on record the claim made by a Communist, Mr. Idris Cox, in the Daily Worker (November 18th, 1938). He says that “MacDonald’s political record and ruinous policy was exposed by the Communists for 15 years before his death.”

This puts the Communists in a worse position than Mr. Weir. He says he sinned in ignorance. The Communists say they were well aware what MacDonald was, at least as early as 1922. Why, then, were the Communists, in 1922 and afterwards, urging the workers to vote for MacDonald?

* * * *

Mr. Middleton Murry to be a Church of England Clergyman

Six years ago, when Mr. J. Middleton Murry, the well-known critic and author, became active in “left-wing” politics, it was suggested in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD (September, 1932) that, unless he succeeded in overcoming his obvious failure to understand the principles of Socialism, he would, in due course, drift out again, disappointed. It is now announced that he is training as candidate for the Church of England priesthood. From an interview published in the Sunday Express (December 11th, 1938), it appears that the turning point for Mr. Murry was when he listened to a Hitler broadcast in June, 1934: “You may think me fantastic, but I said to myself : This is what the Bible meant by anti-Christ.”

One thing that can be said of Mr. Murry’s incursion into politics is that the freshness of his writings on Marxism and current problems must have given many people an interest which they would otherwise not have had. Along with some serious misunderstandings he wrote many things that were worth while.

* * * *

Admissions about Spain

At the beginning of the Spanish civil war, now become more and more a war with Italy and Germany, the British Government and the supporters of Franco vied with each other in suppressing important facts. It will be recalled how the authorities, month after month, disclaimed knowledge of German and Italian intervention, until the truth was too well known to be hidden. Now, late in the day, we have Mr. R. S. Hudson, Secretary, Overseas Trade Department, saying, in the House of Commons on December 1st, 1938, that “clearly one of the main reasons” why there are more German than British ships going to Franco territory “is the large quantity of munitions that the German Government are sending to Franco.”

Another recent admission was in the Evening Standard (December 2nd, 1938), where Mr. Aylmer Vallance showed that the assassination of the Conservative-Monarchist leader, Sotelo (often represented as the excuse for the rebellion), was not the only act of its kind. It was itself an act of vengeance for the assassination some days earlier of Lt. Castillo, a police officer, who was a member of the Socialist Youth League.

The Times, too, has several times admitted that air raids on Republican Spain are carried out from Italy. On July 23rd, 1938, for example, their correspondent at the Spanish frontier said:

“Some of the Italian airmen start out from Italy, rest at Majorca, then raid the Mediterranean coast, and return to Majorca for a few hours en route to their aerodromes in Italy.”

Among recent interesting features of the Spanish war was the promise made by Franco to Britain and France during the recent crisis, that he would remain neutral in the event of war (Manchester Guardian, December 1st, 1938). This may help to explain the continued pro-Franco attitude of British and French circles, which might have been expected to fear a Franco victory, lest it strengthen Italy and Germany in the Mediterranean.

* * * *

The Duchess of Atholl and her Supporters

The Conservative Duchess of Atholl fought West Perthshire against the Conservative Party because she wants the Government to take a strong line against Germany, Italy and Franco. Forward (December 10th) asked a number of well-known people how they would vote if they were in the constituency. Among those who said they would vote for her were Alfred Barnes, M.P. (of the Co-operative Party), Ellen Wilkinson, Tom Johnson, J. F. Horrabin, and H. N. Brailsford. They all gave much the same reason, approval of the Duchess’s foreign policy.

Among those who said “no” were Ethel Mannin, of the I.L.P. She said that, “as a revolutionary Socialist . . . I should not vote at all, my attitude being ‘a plague on both your houses.'”

Lord Elton (“National Labour“) said he would vote against her because “Chamberlain saved civilisation at Munich.”

Cecil Wilson, M.P., “Pacifist,” said he would write on his ballot paper, “War and all preparation for war is wrong.” “I stand for Peace, Freedom and the Brotherhood of Man.”

Lord Sanderson, “Pacifist and Socialist,” said he would vote for the Chamberlain candidate.

The Sunday Express (December 4th), has the following comment about the Duchess: —

“She makes a terrible howl about the troubles of the little children in Barcelona. But she is not so anxious about her own little children in Britain. She took the view, when the question of raising the school-leaving age came up, that children must be set to work at fourteen.”

* * * *

President Roosevelt Believes in Capitalism and Scrambled Eggs

“Actually, I am an exceedingly mild-mannered person, a practitioner of peace, a believer in the capitalistic system, and for my breakfast I am a devotee of scrambled eggs.” (Daily Mail, December 6th, 1938.)

* * * *

The Communists and Daladier

Since Daladier used Conscription and the armed forces to defeat the General Strike, the Communists are heaping abuse on him. The Daily Worker (November 28th) quotes, with approval, the statement that, in Berlin, Daladier, ever since Munich, has been regarded as a “Hitler man,” and says that the Daladier Government “represents the interests of the big monopoly capitalists, among whom are the closest friends of Hitler.” On December 8th, in the French Chamber of Deputies, a Communist, pointing at Daladier, said : “We, the Communists, are telling you to get out.” (Daily Express, December 9th.)

Who, then, is this Daladier? He is a leader of the Liberals (known as “Radical Socialists”), who formed part of the Popular Front along with the French Labourites and Communists. He was Minister of National Defence and War in Blum’s first Popular Front Government in 1936, and, as recently as April 13th, 1938, when, as Premier, he asked for a vote of confidence and for certain special powers, he obtained 570 votes to five; The Communists were with the majority and acclaimed Daladicr enthusiastically.

After the 1936 General Election, the French Communist Party expressly claimed that the Popular Front had not only helped their own and the Labour candidates, but had also helped to prevent Daladier’s party from losing seats.

So much for “Popular Frontism”!

* * * *

Prayers to Fill Empty Stomachs

The following appeared in the Daily Sketch (December 5th, : 1938): —

“Mayfair churchgoers, many in fur coats, prayed in the fashionable St. James’s Church, Piccadilly, W., yesterday, for the poor of the East End. They lowered their gaze as the Bishop of Stepney (the Rt. Rev. Hamilton Moberly) told them what life was like with the dole and faint hope of a job. He told of the “constant state of poverty, never enough money coming in to keep a family in decency—wives going out to work and becoming the main support of the family.”

He urged them to pray for the poor of the East End—’not just now and then’—but to make a habit of it. He felt that if only half a dozen people present were to support the Church’s work there by their prayers, something would be achieved. . . .”

* * * *

Ulster Democracy

From the Manchester Guardian (November 23rd, 1938: —

“Fourteen youths who were arrested when about forty Belfast police raided the McKelvey Recreation Club in a Nationalist area here recently were to-day transferred to Belfast Prison, where they are being held under Special Powers Act detention orders, which enable them to be held without trial for a prolonged period.”

* * * *

Jewish Employers and Sweating

Fascist propagandists make much of cases of sweating or non-payment of trade union rates when the employer is a Jew, and they are specially active among furniture trade workers. The reason, according to the Daily Herald (December 14th, 1938) is that not more than 10,000 London furniture workers receive the trade union rates and conditions, while 50,000 do not, and “the offending owners are practically all Jews.”

On the other hand, “the stigma does not apply to all Jews. There are about ten Jewish firms regarded by the unions as fair, and which have an honourable record.”

In the case of the furniture trade the whole industry is largely controlled by Jewish firms, but exactly the same kind of situation has arisen in numerous other trades, i.e., one group of firms paying trade union rates and another group underpaying. In the grocery and drapery trades the unions and the employers’ federations have jointly approached the Ministry of Labour to secure the enforcement of standard rates on the large number of employers not paying them. Yet nobody claims that the offending employers in those trades are mainly Jewish.

There are also Trade Boards in about forty industries, set up to prevent “sweating,” and it has been estimated that as many as twenty-five per cent. of agricultural workers are being paid less than the minimum wage legally applicable to them. It has never been suggested that twenty-five per cent. of the farmers are Jews.

Another point of more importance is that capitalism is an exploiting system, even when the trade union rates are paid. The employer who organises his concern on the basis of paying a relatively high wage does not do so from philanthropic motives. He takes good care to select the most skilful and bodily fit workers, and is able to do so because the higher wage attracts more applicants; and, being a capitalist, seeking profit, he, even more than his sweating colleague, introduces labour-displacing machinery and dismisses men when he no longer wants them.

Lord Nuffield is not a Jew, and he pays a relatively high wage, but on November 16th, 1938, he received a deputation representing 1,500 workless men formerly employed by him. (News Chronicle, November 17th, 1938.) “Many of the jobs were eliminated by the adoption of all-steel bodies.”

The most that Lord Nuffield could promise was to find work in other departments for men whose jobs are eliminated, and to re-engage the unemployed men as soon as possible. Some of the 1,500 have been out of work already for six months.

Capitalism is the enemy of the workers, and that will not be remedied by changing the nationality, religion, race, or politics of the capitalists.

Edgar Hardcastle

Pawns in Abyssinia (1935)

From the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is evident that the Italian Government is determined, at whatever the cost in men and money, to force big concessions from the independent State of Abyssinia, including, no doubt — if things go according to the Italian plans — the annexation of a large part of Abyssinian territory and the establishment of some form of close control over the remainder of the country. Why Mussolini’s Government is prepared to go to war can be explained on the usual grounds. Notwithstanding the Fascist promise of a new economic system, Italian industry is carried on for profit in competition with the rest of the capitalist world, and Italy’s lack of raw materials in her own territory or colonies places her capitalists at a disadvantage in the scramble for profit. Abyssinia is coveted because, among other attractions, it would provide a market for Italian goods and cheap supplies of raw cotton, which would free Italian capitalists from the need to import from America.

The excuse is often used by the Great Powers when annexing the territories of native races that the backwardness of the latter is withholding from the civilised world much-needed sources of supply, without any advantage to the natives themselves. In the war to conquer Abyssinia that excuse cannot very well be used. Nobody can argue that the outside world is being hampered by scarcity of cotton. On the contrary, one of the outstanding features of the depression has been the vast over-production of cotton in many parts of the world, and the expensive official schemes for destroying and restricting cotton crops. In short, the motive which sends a gigantic military force into Abyssinia is not economic, in the sense of a genuine need of the human race, but is purely capitalistic, the lust for profit in a world divided into antagonistic capitalist-national groups. So, if Italy wins and further develops cotton-growing there, the next world economic crisis will very probably see the Italian Government restricting the production of that article, after sacrificing lives innumerable to make the development possible. Other attractions in Abyssinia are gold, rubber, copper, potash, and platinum.

Unrest in Italy

There are other reasons also. The early enthusiasm for Fascism began long ago to wear off, and there have recently been reports of strikes and demonstrations, including some against the threatened war. Poverty and unemployment for the workers are the order of the day under the Fascist flag, as under all others, and faced with discontent, Mussolini, like many a doomed dictator before him, is grasping at military glory as a means of regaining popular support. Naturally, he pretends otherwise, and claims that all but a tiny majority of the Italian population are behind him. Nevertheless, according to the Geneva correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (July 17th), he takes the precaution of imposing a much more drastic control of the frontier passes leading into Switzerland, with the two-fold object of preventing the escape of men who do not want to fight and of preventing the importation of anti-war and anti-Fascist propaganda leaflets and journals.

From a military point of view, while all the advantages of money and armaments are with the Italian forces, the deserts and mountainous country will be comparatively easy to defend, and the weather will be against the invaders. While opinion generally is that in time Abyssinia would be crushed, the task may prove so slow and costly that the Italian capitalists may well come to regard Mussolini as an expensive luxury. According to Mr. Vernon Bartlett (News-Chronicle, July 25th), “It is true – even though it be denied – that exactly a year ago important Army officers were alarmed to learn that Signor Mussolini contemplated an Abyssinian campaign …. They advised against it, a commission on the spot advised against it. . . .”

The defeat of an Italian force by the Abyssinians at Adowa in 1896 led to the overthrow of the then Italian Premier, Crispi. Will history repeat itself ?

Something Rotten in the State of Abyssinia

Mussolini’s appeals to the Italian workers to sacrifice their lives in a quarrel which does not concern them are paralleled by those of Emperor Haile Selassie. Although the country has made only small advances towards capitalist industrialism, and that only in limited areas, it has its evils no less than those of the capitalist Powers. Chattel slavery still exists, and is only slowly giving place to wage-slavery. There is desperate poverty on the one hand, face to face with the wealth and power of the ruling class on the other. It is true, as the Emperor says, that “throughout their history they have seldom met with foreigners who did not desire to possess themselves of Abyssinian territory, and to destroy their independence,” but independence means no more to the subject class in Abyssinia than it does elsewhere. Moreover, much of the tribal territory held by Abyssinia was grabbed by the Emperor’s predecessors, and is now held by force against the wishes of the local population. It is one of the ironies of the situation that just as Mussolini is afraid of discontented workers at his back, so the Emperor has to take extreme precautions that the arms he imports do not on the way fall into the hands of his own unwilling subjects, who would use them to revolt against him.

Haile Selassie’s command over the kind of phrases to delude his subjects into fighting their masters’ wars is hardly less than that of Mussolini himself: “He who dies for his country is a happy man” – ” It is better to die free than live as slaves” (a little inappropriate perhaps in a country where there are many slaves) – “God will be your shield. United with God, our ramparts and our shields will face to-morrow’s invader with confidence. . . . Your sovereign will be in your midst and will not hesitate to shed his blood for Ethiopia. If no peaceful solution is found, Ethiopia will struggle to the last man for existence.”

The religious note will be better understood when it is remembered that the Abyssinian priesthood are said to own as much as one-third of the total land, and are immensely influential.

The Attitude of the Powers

Many of the other Governments have direct or indirect interest in the situation. The Abyssinian Government has for many years tried to insure itself against occupation by one Power by giving contracts and concessions to companies belonging to several different countries. America, France, Japan, England, Belgium, Germany and Egypt are among the countries with trading or other important interests. Owing, however, to the complications of the European situation — in particular, the aim of keeping Austria apart from Germany, for which Italy’s aid is essential — England and France would no doubt not be much disturbed at the idea of an Italian conquest of part of Abyssinia, provided that their own interests were safeguarded, along with Egypt’s interest in Lake Tana, from which the Nile flows. However, not only has America indicated hostility to any Italian conquest, but the Japanese Government has taken the same line, and is allowing influential Japanese organisations to work up an agitation against Italy for the proposed “violation of international law and justice.” The Japanese Government, which used the same methods in Manchuria and is now using them in China proper, is horrified that Italy should do this in Abyssinia.

A factor which may cause misgivings in many capitals is that any Abyssinian success may cause increased unrest throughout all the colonies in Africa.

It is worth remembering that Sir Samuel Hoare, British Foreign Secretary, has laid it down that Italy has a right to “expand,” i.e., to conquer the territory of other nations (Hansard, July 11th, col. 517).

It is also worth remembering that, in order to buy Italy off, the British Government offered to give away some British territory in Somaliland, without asking the local inhabitants or the population at home.

What the final outcome of the complex clash of interests in Abyssinia will be, it is impossible to foretell.

A Crusade to Stop Slavery

One argument which generally plays a prominent part in the wars of annexation waged by the European States against the coloured races — that the war is a Christianising war — cannot be urged here, because the Abyssinian ruling class are Christians and have, indeed, themselves played the game of Christianising the Mohammedans. Mussolini has had to content himself with another noble-sounding slogan. He is going to rid Abyssinia of slavery, and impose by force the very doubtful advantages of Italian capitalist civilisation. The Pecksniffian leader writer of The Times (July 15th), while chiding Mussolini for his “obstinacy," tells us of some of the evils existing in the ancient empire of Abyssinia, or Ethiopia: “It is known . . . that conditions of squalor and extreme crudeness exist among the greater part of their quarrelsome tribes, some of whom still retain the belief that a man is no man until he has killed his enemy.” The Abyssinians might retort that if there were no squalor already, conquest by any of the Powers would soon introduce it in large measure. Are not the notorious slums of the Italian towns squalid? And has The Times never heard of Britain’s army of paupers, and the shocking conditions of the depressed areas? As for the ferocity of the tribesmen, who is Mussolini to complain? Has he not for years bellowed of the glorious uplifting qualities of war?

The Labour-I.L.P. Attitude

With their incurable weakness for sentimental phrases, the I.L.P. and Labour Party have discovered here another “poor little Belgium” being attacked by a big Power, and want to take sides with the Abyssinian ruling class against the Italian. The I.L.P. New Leader (July 19th) wants the British workers to refuse to make or transport arms or munitions for Italy. Nothing is said of arms for Abyssinia, so, presumably, the I.L.P. has no objection to the making of war material for the ruling class of that country. The Labour Daily Herald is more explicit, and printed an article from their correspondent in Abyssinia (July 24th), containing the following :

“It seems as if all that remains for the Abyssinians to do now is to sharpen their spears, clean their rifles and hope that Europe will let them buy ammunition, so that it may be a fair fight” (italics ours).

Could anything better illustrate the hopelessly non-Socialist attitude of the little gentlemen of the Daily Herald? Here is a war about to take place between the exploiting class in two countries, one of which is more developed industrially than the other, and the organ of the Labour Party hopes that the slaughter of workers about a question which is not worth the life of a single one of them, shall be conducted on a “fair” basis, the only possible result of which would be that the killing would be prolonged !

The Socialist attitude is quite unlike that taken up by the Labour Party and I.L.P. We do not take sides in ruling class quarrels. A story told of the Viennese during the battle of Sadowa is more in line with what should be the working class attitude. At that battle, which occurred in 1866, the Prussians and the Austrians were fighting out the issue which of the two ruling class groups should dominate the German States and Central Europe. It is said of the Viennese that, while the battle was in progress they went on dancing, “as if it did not matter which side won.” They were right, and it would tax the ingenuity of all the assembled historians and apologists for war to show any tangible loss suffered by the mass of the Austrian population through the defeat.

The progress of the world, and the abolition of war can only come through Socialism. The duty of the working class is to press forward on that road, and not to be diverted by I.L.P.-Labour Party propaganda for this or that section of the ruling class.

Edgar Hardcastle

Historical fascism (2024)

Book Review from the May 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blood and Power. The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism. By John Foot. Bloomsbury, 2023. 416pp.

It has become common for the cry of ‘fascism’ to go up, from both right and left, every time a government or political party enacts or proposes policies which seem destined to increase state control over the system we live under. Some even argue that western capitalism itself is in fact fascism, if a cleverly dissimulated form. One thing historian John Foot’s new book on Italian fascism does is to give the lie to all this. It shows, in the starkest possible terms, how different fascism, in its original incarnation anyway, really was from what many idly give that label to today.

Blood and Power takes the reader on a harrowing journey of violence, torture and murder, without which fascism could never have taken hold of Italy and then ruled the country for over 20 years, only finally collapsing when its leader, Mussolini, made the fatal mistake of allying himself with Nazi Germany and being brought down when Hitler was brought down. Otherwise, the author speculates, the regime may have lasted longer, as did the similar set-up in Spain under Franco. But this book is not just a conventional, linear account (of which there are many) of Italy’s ‘ventennio nero’ (‘black 20 years’), but rather an excavation of that period ‘from below’, seen in large part, that is, via the on-the-ground experiences of many ‘ordinary’ individuals who lived, and not infrequently died, under fascist terror.

And terror it truly was, some of it stomach-churning as we see it depicted on the page. From as early as 1919, those who opposed the politics of fascism, either through declaring themselves ‘socialists’ or ‘communists’ or just voicing opposition to its ‘lawless’ approach, were subjected to brutal and terrifying treatment at the hands of increasingly large and merciless bands of fascist thugs. They were intimidated, beaten, tortured, maimed and often murdered, while the ‘democratic’ state and its authorities (ie, police and military) looked the other way, allowing a sort of ‘state within a state’ to develop. As the author writes, ‘fascism eliminated its opponents with gusto or reduced them to a state of fear’ (…) ‘it was fundamental, visceral, epochal and life-changing: both for those who experienced it, and those who practised it’.

Nor was there any redress for victims, and once the fascist party had taken full power from 1925 onwards, after which elections and any semblance of democracy ceased, it became all the more implacable. So, for example, as the author tells us, ‘it became nigh on impossible to print or distribute any kind of newspaper that wasn’t in full support of Mussolini and fascist rule (…) prisoners were often ‘disappeared’ or ‘committed suicide’ in prison (…) ‘torture was common, ritualised and sanctioned from above.’ The regime relentlessly pursued all its opponents, having no compunction about even sending its spies and agents abroad in pursuit of those who had fled the country and wreaking vengeance on them there. In all, according to the author, Italian fascism was ‘responsible for the ‘premature deaths” of at least a million people, in Italy and across the world’, including of course many thousands of Jews who were transported from Italy to the gas chambers in the latter part of the war.

How does all this compare to what is often referred to as fascism, or at least potential fascism, nowadays, in particular the ‘populist’ politics and regimes that have risen up in recent times? How, for example, does it compare to the current right-wing government in Italy, often labelled ‘neo-fascist’? How does it compare to the politics of Donald Trump in the US and the foreboding about what might be to come if he wins the 2024 presidential election? How does it compare to attempts by the Conservative Party in this country to undermine trade unions or criminalise certain forms of expression or to the apparently racist and ultra-nationalistic policies of right-wing groupings such as the Reform Party? The knowledge that this book imparts of the reality of Mussolini’s one-party state makes it clear that, however retrograde and undesirable it may be, the kind of modern-day populism exemplified above does not bear comparison to the vicious, ultra-repressive, anti-democratic nature of fascism in its original Italian form.

What, however, Italian fascism does share with today’s ‘populist’ ideologies or governments and indeed with the more ‘enlightened’ administrations in most Western countries is that the purpose of them all is to manage the profit system (ie, capitalism). And, broadly speaking, this takes place most effectively, as far as capitalism is concerned, in a political environment where there are democratic elections and scope for relatively free circulation and exchange of ideas. Regimes that do not allow this (eg, China and Russia today), while by no means impregnable in the longer term, inhibit such development and, in the way they operate, are the closest things that exist today to the kind of system excavated and characterised so expertly by John Foot in his exploration of Italian fascism. It should be added that such regimes also inhibit the spread of consciousness necessary for the establishment of the alternative system of society beyond the system of wages, money and profit which this journal calls socialism.

Howard Moss

How the Fascists Gained Power. (1931)

From the March 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the February issue we made the statement that Mussolini came into power because, and only because, he had been placed in control of the armed forces through having behind him a Parliamentary majority. The importance of the question is that we hold the same opinion as Marx on the necessity of the workers obtaining control of the machinery of government before they can establish Socialism. We also hold Marx’s view that the vote will give that control. Two other theories—both held by the Communists and both dangerously impracticable—are that the workers can gain that control without the vote, i.e., by armed force, or, alternatively, that they can set up their own machinery of government in opposition to the capitalist State. The two views converge, because in practice the capitalist class, controlling the armed forces through their Parliamentary majority, will see to it that no rival armed force ever comes into being to challenge their supremacy.

Communists, anarchists, and our own queer tribe of imitators of the Italian black shirts are credulous enough to take Mussolini at his own face-value and to believe his stories about his great march on Rome in 1922.

We have received a letter from Mr. A. T. Rogers, an anarchist, telling us that our statement about Mussolini is a “thumping lie.”

He quotes another anarchist, R. Rocker, as follows :—

“When on August 30th, 1920, the employees of the factory “Romeo,” in Milan, reported for work, they found the gates locked and guarded by the military. This was the signal for the workers to assume charge of the factories and mills. Within a few days over 600 establishments were in the hands of the workers. In various towns, particularly in Rome, tenants refused to pay rent. To relieve congestion in the homes of the workers, etc., rich villas, mansions, etc., were requisitioned for use without the Government daring to interfere. In the province of Palermo peasants invested large estates of the great landowners and distributed the acres among the village corporations. Similar action was taken throughout Sicily and Southern Italy. What effect this movement had upon the Italian Government can be judged by the statement later made in Parliament by Giolitti. Replying to the charge that his Government had failed to act energetically in the matter, the Italian Premier declared ‘What could I do? Invest the industries by the army? But in Milan alone 600 mills and factories were in possession of the workers. I should have had to use the whole army to dispossess them, and then I would have had no more soldiers to keep the masses in check outside on the streets. Had we resorted to violence, and mobilised the whole army, the Imperial Guard and the carabinieri against the 500,000 workmen, then my critics know very well what it would have led to.'”

Mr. Rogers claims that the passage he quotes proves conclusively that the Parliamentary majority “was utterly and helplessly impotent till the Socialists had stabbed the workers in the back by secretly conniving with Giolitti.”

It is, in fact, quite true that Giolitti’s Government in 1920 did not at first take open action against the workers who had “occupied” the factories. What Mr. Rogers evidently does not know is that Giolitti and the friends whose interests he was looking after did not want the workers turned out. That and not “impotence” was the reason for Giolitti’s temporary inactivity.

The whole story was told by the correspondent in Italy of the New York Nation (8th March, 1922).

The Peronne Brothers, proprietors of the Ansaldo Iron and Steel Company, found themselves, after the war, in increasing financial difficulties. They and associated firms were opposed by the Banca Commerciale and Giolitti’s Government. Peronnes were tricked into resisting the demands of their workers by promises of support from the whole body of manufacturers. The occupation of the factories by the workers was not, as has been alleged, the first step in an attempted revolution, but was merely a tactical move in an industrial dispute. But when it had begun, Peronnes’ rivals made concessions to their own workers, and got Giolitti’s Government to delay taking action. to help Peronnes, who were, moreover, in such financial difficulties that they could not afford to pay the higher wages demanded.

The delay in taking action was, therefore, deliberate, and was a move in a conflict between rival capitalist interests. It was contrived for the purpose of damaging Peronnes. Where, and as soon as the Italian Government wanted to take action. it took it fast enough, and drastically enough. The following is a report from the Socialist (April 22nd, 1920). It is interesting to remember that the Socialist, and the Party whose organ it was—the British Socialist Labour Party—were themselves enthusiastic supporters of that particular piece of tomfoolery, the idea that unarmed workers can defy the armed forces of the State.

“At Novara one worker was shot and many wounded by the troops. The Royal Guards were ‘operating’ against the strikers. At Brescia the strike continues. One striker has been killed by the troops. The strike committee of 25 has been arrested. In Turin and Naples the workers invaded the factories from which they had been locked out, formed Soviets and proceeded to work as usual. They were not allowed to work in peace for long. Government troops were sent to storm the buildings. The factory at Turin was the famous F.I.A.T. automobile works. One worker was killed at Naples.”

So much for the occupation of the factories in 1920.

But the real point of our original statement was not merely the events in 1920, but the way in which the Fascists came to eventual power in 1922. We say that the deciding factor was the possession of the machinery of government, vested in Capitalist representatives by the democratic vote of the electors. Mr. Rogers says we err. Let us quote four Italian witnesses, a trade union official, a Communist, a Liberal and a member of the “Socialist Party of Italy.”

Ludovico D’Arragona, Secretary of the Italian General Confederation of Labour, writing in the Labour Magazine (February, 1923), said that the Fascists were “openly favoured by the State authority.”

Bordiga, Communist, wrote in the Labour Monthly (February and March, 1923):—

“After the Nitti, Giolitti, and Bonomi Governments, we had the Facta Cabinet. This type of Government was intended to cover up the complete liberty of action of Fascism in its expansion over the whole country. During the strike in August, 1922, several conflicts took place between the workers and the Fascisti, who were openly aided by the Government. One can quote the example of Bari. During a whole week of fighting, the Fascisti in full force were unable to defeat the Bari workers, who had retired to the working-class quarters of the city, and defended themselves by armed force. The Fascisti were forced to retreat, leaving several of their number on the field. But what did the Facta Government do? During the night they surrounded the old town with thousands of soldiers and hundreds of carabineers of the Royal Guard. In the harbour a torpedo boat trained its guns on the workers. Armoured cars and guns were brought up. The workers were taken by surprise during their sleep, the Proletarian leaders were arrested, and the Labour headquarters were occupied. This was the same throughout the country. Wherever Fascism had been beaten back by the workers the power of the State intervened; workers who resisted were shot down ; workers who were guilty of nothing but self-defence were arrested. Thus the State was the main factor in the development of Fascism.”

Professor Salvemini, a Liberal, gives similar testimony (Manchester Guardian, October 19th, 1927). He wrote :—

“Mussolini was assisted in the civil war (1921-1922) by the money of the banks, the big industrialists and landowners. His Black-shirts were equipped with rifles, bombs, machine guns and motor lorries by the military authorities, and assured of impunity by the police and the magistracy ; while their adversaries were disarmed and severely punished if they attempted resistance.”

And lastly Modigliani tells us (Daily Herald, October 27th, 1927) :—

“It was by their (the Italian Cabinet’s) contrivance and with the help of military forces of the State that Mussolini and his gangs were able not only to administer Castor Oil, but to murder and burn for two years. And it is in that way that they finally reached the point of the march on Rome, in face of which the King openly and personally sided with the anti-Labour onslaught.”

So much for Mr. Rogers and R. Rocker.

In conclusion, we would draw attention to the fact, reported at the time, that the commander of the military forces in Rome was, even at the eleventh hour, and in spite of the arms supplied to the Fascists, quite confident of his ability to disperse the black-shirts in a couple of hours. It was not Mussolini who prevented him, but the existing Italian Government, who ordered him to assist Mussolini.

Edgar Hardcastle

The irrational in anarchism (1998)

Pamphlet Review from the May 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recent pamphlet traces a link between back-to-nature anarchists and far-right ideas. How true is this?

Flawed, fascinating and suggestive, Luther Blissett’s Anarchist Integralism: Aesthetics, Politics and the Apres-Garde is not quite “anarchism exposed”, as the back-cover blurb suggests, though it does attempt to trace some extreme right-wing and fascist tendencies in anarchism. The basic, somewhat more measured, position of the text is set out right from the start, on page three:

“While the majority of modernists and anarchists have never adhered to full blown mystical fascism, certain strands of anarchism embrace far-Right individualism, while yet others promote ideologies of integral nationalism.”

Blissett’s target is not anarchism as such (though he is quite sceptical about anarchism in general) so much as the Green Anarchist Network and, almost by the way, the journal Anarchist Studies; though there are salient points about anarchist anti-state fetishism along the way. It is pointed out, for example, that the state is not “the source of all social power”:

” . . . capitalist social relations are anchored in economic institutions which can and do function independently of the state. Capital reproduces itself not only within nation states but across nation states”.

Anarchist gurus

The strains of fascism, nationalism and racism that are apparently (and, to this reader at least, shockingly) found running through anarchism are represented in the first instance by anarchist gurus such as Bakunin (according to Blissett, a rabid anti-semite), Proudhon (an anti-semite and nationalist) and Kropotkin (an anti-semite, nationalist and anarcho-aristocrat). In terms of the anarchist grass-roots, Blissett points to those such as the “French and Italian syndicalists who became fascists”. The trouble is that the text, which includes plentiful, and fully referenced, quotations to support its contentions concerning Bakunin and the others, is not so adept at tracing such tendencies through to contemporary anarchism. There is a rather snide swipe at Noam Chomsky (who is on the editorial board of Anarchist Studies) for supporting free speech for fascists (his position being much the same on this issue as ours); there is reference to the support of anarcho-primitivists for fascist terrorism (more on this below); there is a connection made between anarchism and fascism via a joint link to modernist aesthetics.

In this last instance, far too much is taken as read and requires unpacking; the link between anarchism and aesthetics is not sufficiently explained or even established beyond stating that under capitalism power is aestheticised and that anarchism is structurally tied to capitalism. This is a sheer banality and the same could certainly be said about the movement for socialism, pre-revolution. Also, the notion of the aesthetic is too all-subsuming. Wide varieties and differences of aesthetic experience are collapsed under fairly crass generalisations, even within the more specific but still fairly wide rubric “modernism”.

It’s true that fascism, despite the hatred of the Nazis for modernist painting and sculpture, made extensive use of certain types of modernist design and architecture, and the Italian Futurists were early recruits to fascism, as were the poet Ezra Pound and the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis; but some modernist writers and artists such as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso were anti-fascist, while some such as Lewis Grassic Gibbon proclaimed that they were socialists. And, as the poet and critic Drew Milne has pointed out in the modernist journal Parataxis, “the most important modernist manifesto is Marx’s Communist Manifesto“. Even then, a simple list of modernist for-and-against fascism over-simplifies matters. It can be argued that the very forms of modernist aesthetics necessarily subvert fascist ideologies, whatever the intentions and beliefs of the artist.

Pseudo-mystical moronism

Regarding anarcho-primitivists, an article entitled “The Irrationalists”, which appeared in the Anarchist Lancaster Bomber # 7, is cited by Blissett. In this article, the author declares himself in favour of the “95 percent solution” in which a “Circle of Guilt (CoG) for what is happening” is proposed which includes virtually everybody:

“Activists adopting the 95 percent solution would have no difficulty over a subway sarin attack, city wide water supply contamination or a biological warfare attack on a fast food restaurant. Such activities see subway commuters or fast food customers as of no value and no loss to the moral universe.”

The article goes on to express support for (among other terrorists) the extreme right-wing and racist Oklahoma bombers. Such rhetoric reveals an astounding level of arrogance and pseudo-mystical moronism in claiming the authority for wholesale slaughter from some so-called “moral universe”. Morality is a human concept, and one heavily bound up with bourgeois ideology; the notion that it can be used first of all to set levels of so-called “guilt” (which is not the same as responsibility) for “what is happening” (whatever that may be—everything, presumably) and then as the reason for killing the greater part of humanity, is pathetic.

As for commuters and fast food customers being of no value—no value to what? To whom? To anarcho-primitivists or to the universe, possibly. If the latter, then in what sense can the universe be said to give a toss either way? And for that matter, what use are the anarcho-primitivists to an indifferent universe? If the former, then it needs to be asked whether or not the anarcho-primitivists are of any use to anybody else and, should the reply be negative, whether we might not just get rid of them, by the force of their own logic.

But does any of this make them fascist? Idiotics, certainly, and psychopathic quite possibly, but not necessarily fascist as such, despite their support for the Oklahoma bombers and the right-wing American militias. Such support can be seen as being a simple (in every sense) liking for extreme violence and general mayhem. There is, however, an ideological connection between anarcho-primitivism and fascism that Blissett apparently fails to recognise. This lies in what may best be described a nostalgia for a way of life (rural, close to the soil, “in tune” with nature, “innocent”) that never really existed. There is a hatred of the contemporary world (which we obviously recognise as being in a hell of a mess, but infinitely preferable to spending your life grubbing around in mud and shit for a few edible roots in the middle of a rainstorm) and a fear of the future—the only future these ideologies, whether anarcho-primitivists or fascist, can countenance is one which involves a childish attempt to flee into a mythical golden age that is located in the past.

For fascists or course, this nostalgia extends to the notion of the volk and the “purity” of the volk, an ideology which inevitably becomes tied up with racism and nationalism. This volkishness can also be found amongst the more extreme margins of the Green movement, including Green Anarchy and the anarcho-primitivists. Blisset is perhaps not overstating the matter too far when he refers to such groups as “eco-fascist”, even if he doesn’t entirely explain the reasons for doing so.

There are also a couple of mentions in this pamphlet for the Anarchist Communist Federation, one a perfectly correct but irrelevant (in this context) attack on one ACF writer for failing to understand Trotskyism, the other concerning the ACF’s links to Green Anarchist: “Anarcho-communists such as the ACF do themselves no favours by collaborating with far-Right reactionaries like Green Anarchist or looking to Bakunin for inspiration.”

Jonathan Clay

Notes of the Month: Two Blind Mice (1941)

From the February 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two Blind Mice

In a controversy about Russia, published in the Picture Post, father and son come to verbal blows in the persons of Professor Gilbert Murray and Mr. Stephen Murray (Councillor). We missed the professor’s contribution, but it is obvious from Mr. Stephen Murray’s reply that both were merely wrestling with words, not arguing about facts.

Thus, Mr. Murray, Junr., talks airily about the “land of Socialism,” a “state which has no exploiting class,” etc., etc.

Here are a few questions which these two protagonists would do well to ponder:

“Do the majority of Russians work for wages barely sufficient for subsistence?”

“Is there a small group of persons in Russia leading a comfortable and privileged life without the need of slaving in mines, factories, or on the land?”

“Are goods for sale at a price, and do industrial and agricultural undertakings issue a balance sheet to show whether they are being worked at a profit or loss?”

“Is there a police force, army, air force, and all the rest of the paraphernalia of repression for use at home and abroad ?”

If the answer to all these questions is “Yes,” then, gentlemen, you are looking at capitalism.

* * * * *

Hitler’s New Order. 

Some good points and interesting information are provided by Mr. Edward Hulton in the Picture Post (December 21st, 1940).

Nazism, which claims to be able to operate capitalism so much more efficiently and less wastefully than its older and more easy-going brothers, is, in fact, a maze of bureaucracies. Thus, in Dr. Funk’s Ministry of Economics alone, “1,200 propagandists are daily toiling,” whilst in the city of Prague “700 price controllers have just assumed office.”

When Hitler took power in 1933 he told the Germans: “Give me four years of power and then you can judge me on the results.”

Germans, so far from being in a position to do any judging, to-day are too busy enduring “trials.”

Their “voluntary contributions” for the new “people’s car” have brought them tanks instead, and the already low working-class standards are further threatened by the Deutscher Volkswirt, on October 4th, which says:

“In order to combat the flight from the land, the town population will have to decide to lower its standard of living.”

Under capitalism, the biggest part of the population will always be discontented, and this cannot be remedied by Hitler’s spate of words nor the showy effects of the Nazi military circus.

* * * * *

Who Calls The Tune? 

Unless we are very much mistaken, trouble is brewing for many trade union officials. These people, who live a not too uncomfortable life on the salaries paid to them out of working-class pockets, do not all appreciate that they are supposed to look after the working-class side in the argument about wages and working conditions. This is, in fact, what they are paid for, but many workers even seem to have forgotten it as well.

The following incident will give the point to this paragraph : —

A certain firm has not been paying the war bonus, as stipulated in the collective agreement between the employers and unions. The union official arrives at the factory, which is making great-coats for the Army, but fails to make contact with the employer. He then calls a meeting of the workers, and, instead of sympathising with the cheated workpeople, accuses them of deliberately slowing up work for revenge for the non-payment of the bonus.

And this, mind you, within the hearing of the manager!

The writer of these notes might have been moved when this union official turned from threats to pleading for more coats for soldiers who were shivering in the cold, were it not for an article in this union’s magazine describing how factories and workers were idle in this same trade for lack of orders.

* * * * *

Unequal Sacrifice

The propaganda, both here and elsewhere, designed to make workers believe that class differences matter little in war-time, that “we are all making sacrifices for the common cause,” is having an uphill fight against facts, and events that tear the argument to shreds. It is no exaggeration to state that the war, with all is black-out, is illuminating class-antagonisms more than ever. Standards of living, protection against air raids, evacuation—can anyone assert that these questions affect all members of the community alike? In the last instance, all these problems, like almost every major problem of our time, can be correctly appraised only with the gauge of class-consciousness.

As the war proceeds on its path of slaughter, these truths will become more and more apparent to the working-class the world over. What the result will be we cannot tell. At present a feature of working-class agitation for higher wages, better air-raid shelters, etc., is the pronounced part which Communists are taking in these movements.

For several reasons this is bad business from the workers’ point of view. In the first place, Communist subservience to the rulers of Russia will make it much easier for the demands to be refused.

For the same reasons, workers must be warned that, should the policy of the Kremlin change and they decide for a rapprochement with the British Government, Communists here and elsewhere will not hesitate to drop their present role as “guardians” of working-class interests, as they did in pre-war France.

Socialists are not merely concerned to further working-class interests, whatever their character, in war or peace, but above everything, to stimulate workers into thinking, learning and working for the ending of capitalism. Compared to this task all else is secondary.

* * * * *

“A Great Man”

“That he is a great man I do not deny, but that, after 18 years of unbridled power, he has led your country to the horrid verge of ruin, can be denied by none.” (Daily Herald, 24th December, 1940).

Mr. Winston Churchill, on Mussolini, in the recent B.B.C. broadcast to the Italians.

What a peculiar idea of “greatness,” Mr. Churchill, and indeed, the whole of his class must have ! To keep working-people chained to their miserable lives, to deny them the opportunity of thinking and speaking for themselves, and then to drive them to kill and be killed ! If these tasks can only be performed by “great” men, then the sooner the world is run by the “little” men the better it will be for the welfare of humanity.

The really useful things in this world are done by the working-class. The provision of food and clothes, the work of cleaning and healing, and the thousand-and-one different services without which life would be impossible, are simply taken as a matter of course by our ruling gentry. But creatures of bombast, of abnormal ego and the gift of the gab, whom circumstances, plus the intrigue of propertied interests, and a backward population elevate to positions of power, are admired and feted, even in the midst of the slaughter they helped to bring about.

* * * * *

Press-Gangs For Democracy ! 

As to Mussolini’s personal qualities, an illuminating story is told by Mr. Beverley Baxter, M.P., in the South Wales Echo, (December 17th, 1940).

Mr. Baxter was dealing with Mussolini’s early history, when, after activities in the pacifist and labour movements of Italy, he turned into a recruiting agent for the Allied cause. This is what Mr. Baxter says: —

“When the disaster of Caporetto overcame the Italians, Mussolini had been invalided out of the Army and was running a violent newspaper of his own in Milan. In addition to that, he was feeling his way politically, and had organised gangs in the city who had their own methods of persuasion.

“The Italian army was in almost complete disruption, and thousands of deserters streamed back to the towns. The British General Staff were in a desperate predicament. Somehow, the Italians must be made to go back and fight.

“I shall now reveal what has never been published before. A certain English officer of high rank, acting with a shrewdness that is wholly commendable, saw Signor Mussolini. When the talk was ended the Englishman owned the newspaper and Mussolini had agreed to do everything with his pen, and his gangs to get the deserters back into the war.

“How much did it cost?—I forget …”

* * * * *

The Vision of the Press

Problems arising out of air raids have revealed the capitalist class at their most inhuman. Their Press, also, has shown a callous disregard for the intelligence and feelings of their working-class readers.

Here are two particularly glaring examples of this : —

When the night raids first began in a comparatively mild form, and people stayed up all night as a consequence, the News Chronicle came out with a number of articles “proving” by “experts” that sleep was not essential, or that people could get sleep standing up in buses and trains on their way to work. To make their readers feel really happy about the lack of sleep, they enumerated all the famous people, like Napoleon and Julius Caesar, who, it was claimed, never slept more than an hour or two.

The inference being, perhaps, that with similar lack of sleep, you, too, could become like these historic personages.

A similar gratuitous insult was proffered to its readers by the Daily Express.

To divert people’s attention from the lack of 100 per cent. protection against air raids (and, of course, war itself), this paper was running a campaign to “turn the young men out of the tubes.”

Fortunately, this incitement to the working-class to turn in on itself and eject working-class males between the ages of fifteen and fifty on to the bombed streets failed miserably.

Socialists recognise that the capitalist Press have their own axe to grind, the point is, that it usually descends on workers’ heads.

Sid Rubin

Notes by the Way: No Labour or Materials for Deep Bomb-Proof Shelters (1940)

The Notes by the Way Column from the October 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

No Labour or Materials for Deep Bomb-Proof Shelters

Long before the war was entered into Professor Haldane and others were warning the Government that air raids on the scale witnessed in Abyssinia and Spain would necessitate deep bomb-proof shelters being built. On various grounds those whose job it was supposed to be to provide protection rejected the demand. Now that the raids are here and people who can find no safety or sleep aboveground are crowding into the underground railways at night the Government finds that in any event “we have not the materials or labour for effectual burrowing.”—(Manchester Guardian, September 24th, 1940.)

Some pertinent comments have been made on this belated discovery, one by Mr. Lloyd George and others by the City Editor of the Daily Herald, and Mr. R. R. Stokes, Labour M.P. for Ipswich : —

“In a newspaper article to-day Mr. Lloyd George describes as “sheer nonsense” the Government view that deep shelters cannot be provided at present. He points out that the Spaniards dug their deep shelters at the time when they were actually being bombed, that we have 800,000 unemployed to meet the labour problem, and that we have enough material to make the roofs of the shelters able to bear the pressure upon them. Mr. Lloyd George is too old a campaigner to make such statements without sound evidence up his sleeve.

Nor is he the only one. Mr. R. R. Stokes, the Labour member for Ipswich, himself an engineer, is to ask Sir John Anderson whether he is aware that competent engineers believe we could dig deep bombproof tunnels for the whole of London’s population at a cost of £120,000,000. If such statements can be substantiated, and particularly if it can be shown that we have enough materials, the Government will find itself in a weak position, for it has already abandoned by implication its view that the principle of deep shelters is wrong. It did that when it countenanced the closing of the Holborn-Aldwych Underground line, which ran its last train last night. If it is right to turn this tunnel over to the public as a deep shelter, why not make others ?”—(Manchester Guardian, September 23rd.)

This is what the City Editor of the Daily Herald has to say about the scarcity of cement: —

“One of the authorities’ professed reasons for not supplying London with more underground shelters is an alleged shortage of building materials, particularly cement.

To tell the public flatly that cement supplies cannot be obtained is highly misleading. Our cement output is large, and the Government itself can and does decide how much should be used for what purpose.

If it wished to use a certain quota for shelters, it could do so.

Secondly, the public should realise that our cement manufacturing capacity has been restricted for years past by the Cement Ring—which includes the great combine, Associated Portland Cement. The Chamberlain Government allowed this ring persistently to limit our output capacity in the interests of high prices and profits.

For instance, in the summer of 1939 Associated Portland Cement bought a cement factory at Hartlepool and closed it down on the ground that its capacity was “redundant.”

In the previous November Lord Wolmer, chairman of the Cement Makers’ Federation, made a speech loudly lamenting the “surplus capacity” in the industry, and the “influx of newcomers.” This speech was believed to have succeeded in preventing a big new cement plant being put up.

And now the people are told that there is not enough cement for proper shelters.

Apologists for the ring, though admitting its restriction policy, argue that the industry would have greatly increased its capacity before the war if Mr. Chamberlain and Sir John Anderson had been willing to place firm long-term contracts for cement to be used for shelter purposes. Even this our pre-war Government refused to do.”—(Daily Herald, September 24th, 1940.)

* * *

The Land of “Socialism”— Russia

“The first sentences under the recent decree making directors, engineers and others liable to imprisonment for defective production were announced here to-day. Three men were sentenced to five, six and eight years respectively on charges of producing faulty condensers.

A decree provides that persons charged with loafing or leaving work will be tried by a judge alone, not, as hitherto, by a judge and a factory delegate.”— Reuter.—(News Chronicle, August 17th, 1940.)

* * *

“Intelligent Life”

From an interview with the Astronomer Royal:

“The Astronomer Royal declares that vegetation exists on Mars. He affirms that intelligent life may have been there in the past, but there is no indication of it now.

So the conclusion of the Astronomer Royal is this. Conditions in which intelligent life was possible have existed on Mars. They will exist in Venus. But in all our planetary system at this moment, the Earth is the only place where we can be sure intelligent life does exist”.—(Sunday Express, September, 1940.)

* * *

Two Views of “Hospitality”

From the London Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian : —

“Meanwhile Londoners continue to use the Underground stations as shelters in spite of official discouragement. There is really strong feeling behind this, and not only in East London, where the lack of deep public shelters is most felt. Everybody with whom I discuss the matter is filled with admiration and pity for the people who come so far and endure such discomfort to sleep in peace.

I cannot remember any time for years when there has been among the luckier section of the population here such a vivid realisation of the social injustice which gives the less lucky section rickety houses in which no safety can be found and rickety incomes which give them no hope of escape to something safer. Middle-class indifference to working-class hardship has always been mostly a matter of ignorance, but there is no ignorance in this case. All of us know now what it feels like to be lonely and exposed in air raids. The demand for deep shelters and decent shelters comes from us all.”— (Manchester Guardian, September 23rd.)

From a letter to the News Chronicle: —

“On Wednesday at 2 a.m., with a party of about 30 people, mostly women residents and servants from a neighbouring street, I was evacuated at a moment’s notice to a luxury hotel in Park Lane. Many of us were in night clothes ; all of us had had a shock. The hotel lounge was crowded with people in evening dress, smoking, eating and drinking. No one took the slightest notice of us except a hall porter who, when approached, told us to sit on the staircase. No comfort or refreshment of any kind was offered, and it was with difficulty, after half an hour’s insistence, that I was able to buy some cigarettes.

What would have been our reception in an East End home ?

Mary Glasgow. S.W.3.

P.S.—I was wrong in saying “no comfort or refreshment was offered.” At one point a gentle elderly lady came with a bag of dog biscuits asking whether there was any animal with us.

—(News Chronicle, September 23rd.)

* * *

Dean Inge on Hitler and Napoleon

“There is a delicious story in John Bailey’s Diaries. An old don was presented to Napoleon during the Peace of Amiens. On his return his friends asked him what he thought of the Emperor.

“Oh,” he replied, “you could see that he is not a University man!” That was the donnish way of saying that he was not a gentleman ; Wellington said the same.

Napoleon, though a genius, was certainly a cad. He was utterly unscrupulous and immoral. His soldiers admired him, but he never made a friend. The two men with whom he could not dispense, Talleyrand and Fouché, both betrayed him, as he knew they would. His two wives were as unfaithful to him as he was to them. He left a legacy to a man who tried to kill Wellington. “A shabby thing to do,” said the Duke.

Nevertheless, he never descended to such depths of villainy as Hitler. For he was Emperor of the French, and the French, though they have their faults like other people, are not savages.

Hitler, whose real name, if he has a name, for his father was a bastard, is Schicklgruber, is a criminal of a rather uncommon type.

He is an absolutely shameless liar, but he is also a wholesale murderer. On June 30th, 1934, he organised a massacre of inconvenient friends, who had raised him to power. It is believed that about 700 were killed. Since then, he is responsible for the deaths of innumerable Jews, Communists, Poles, and others. He is the perfect criminal.”

— (Evening Standard, September 23rd, 1940.)

Napoleon, we notice, was immoral. The Dean curiously does not mention Napoleon’s conqueror, Nelson, in this connection. Incidentally, it may be observed that it has pleased various prominent men in recent times to gloss over the vices of Hitler and his ally, Mussolini. Lord Rothermere, for example, was for years an admirer of and apologist for Hitler. In 1933 (Daily Mail, July 10th, 1933), Rothermere was saying : —

“The world’s greatest need to-day is realism. Hitler is a realist. He has saved his country from the ineffectual leadership of hesitating, half-hearted politicians. He has infused into its national life the unconquerable spirit of triumphant youth.”

Six months later when he was running his “Hurrah! for the Blackshirts” campaign, and telling Daily Mail readers to join Mosley’s organisation (Daily Mail, January 15th, 1934), Germany and Italy were held out as models to be followed.

* * *

Pointed Remarks about Lord Rothermere

A correspondent, writing to the News Chronicle (September 20th, 1940), makes some telling observations : —

“In view of the fuss raised about Gracie Fields one notes with interest the fact that Viscount Rothermere is residing quietly in America. Was it not this reactionary who proclaimed not so long ago that Hitler was “no ogre” but, on the contrary, “exuded good fellowship,” and oh that there was “no man in Europe in whose judgment he (Rothermere) would sooner trust ?”

Did not his Lordship, on one famous occasion instruct his readers to vote for Mosley ? Funny, that the noble Viscount should not happen to be in England in these exhilarating days !

* * *

Constructive Franco and Generous Balbo

This game of praising the dictators still goes on. When Marshal Balbo died in an air battle in Lybia (or was got out of the way by Mussolini as other reports have it) Mr. Ward Price, in the Daily Mail (July 1st, 1940), ended a flattering article on him with the words: —

“A frank, generous spirit, who lived dangerously, Marshal Italo Balbo was an adversary of the kind that Britons instinctively respect.”

and the Times (September 25th, 1940), could write about Franco’s “wise policy of reconstruction” in Spain.

The Manchester Guardian (July 1st, 1940), had this comment to make about “chivalrous” Balbo : —

“He was, in fact, one of those Fascist Rases, or “bosses,” who in the period of the “March to Rome” fought for Fascism and carried it to success by the most brutal and unscrupulous means against its political opponents. Cesare Rossi and Finzi said that Balbo organised the bludgeoning of the dissident Fascist deputy Misuri when he tried to expose abuses in the Fascist party. Certainly it was Balbo, the Ras of Ferrara and head of the Fascist Militia, who in August, 1923, sent the notorious order to the Fascist Secretary of his city about how to deal with some Socialists who had been acquitted after being kept in prison without trial for two and a half years. They were to be got out of Ferrara, but if they persist in remaining, thus causing unrest, they must be bludgeoned, not to excess, but methodically, until they make up their minds to go. . . . The police will do well to persecute them by frequent arrests, every week at least, … if there should be any beatings (which will be conducted “in style”) there is no desire to see prosecutions instituted.”

As for Franco’s wise policy of reconstruction in Spain, Mr. William Munday, for many years Daily Mail correspondent in Spain, writes as follows : —

“It is dangerous to think aloud in the cafés, and Franco has carried out a big political clean-up. Spies are everywhere, ready to inform on the indiscreet. There is no room in the gaols for all the political prisoners, so they are left at large and collected as wanted.

All roads out of Madrid are well policed, and travellers are closely scrutinised by keen-eyed Civil Guards, who stop cars and demand papers. Railway tickets are only sold against safe conduct permits.

The result of all this is that Madrid is a vast rabbit warren in which are hidden hundreds of enemies of the regime, unable to escape. The police drag-net makes its daily haul.

That is Spain to-day. Spaniard against Spaniard. Families split up.”—(Daily Mail, August 6th, 1940.)

If Franco is trying to improve this desperate situation in Spain he certainly ought to; he waged civil war, and was largely responsible for causing it.

* * *

Russian Oil and German Bombers

Although it is reported (News Chronicle, September 4th, 1940) that Russian shipyards are building numerous tankers for transporting Russian oil from Black Sea ports into Germany, it may be that so far comparatively little Russian oil has been supplied to Germany. On the other hand, the Russo-German Pact was partly designed to increase the supply of materials to Germany, and it was said that on the anniversary of the Pact the Russian Press emphasised the value of the Pact “as a weapon against Britain’s blockade.”-(Daily Herald, August 24th, 1940.)

While this is going on the Communists indignantly protest when British oil firms go on supplying oil to Japan to be used in the war against China. The principle is the same in both cases, the sordid capitalist principle that all trade, including trade in means of destruction, is legitimate. This is not a principle that Socialists have ever adopted or condoned.

* * *

The Future of Gold

The Nazi Minister of National Economy, Funk, in a recent speech in Berlin, boasted that “gold will play no role in future as a basis for European currencies,” and again “a currency does not depend on its gold cover, but on the value which the State gives it,” but the Nazi Government’s actions show how little it believes in Funk’s doctrine, for Gerrmany has gone to extreme lengths in the past year to seize gold in all the occupied countries.

Similarly the Russian Government is now disputing with the British and American Governments the possession of gold held in London and New York on behalf of the Baltic countries overrun by Russia. Molotov, in a recent speech, addressed angry words to both Governments about “these illegal acts.”— (Daily Worker, August 2nd, 1940.)

It all shows how little the Russian and German Governments believe in the possibility of capitalism being overthrown as a result of the war, and how little they believe even in the likelihood that a better basis can be found for capitalist trade than the gold basis.

* * *

Further Progress of the Red Army

“Marshals of the Red Army are in future to wear a five-pointed star consisting of 31 diamonds in a gold and platinum mounting. The largest of the diamonds will be one of 2.62 carats.”—Reuter.—(Manchester Guardian, September 4th, 1940.)

* * *

From a Communist Manifesto Secretly Circulated in Italy

The Daily Worker (July 8th, 1940), published a manifesto of the Italian Communists. It is interesting to see that they at least have not been taken in by Nazi-Fascist talk of the need for “Lebensraum.”

“The Fascist potentates declare that we must win supremacy in the Mediterranean, that we must defeat British plutocracy so as to put an end to our poverty and tribulations. What a brazen lie ! Our country possesses sufficient natural riches to satisfy the lives of our people.

The overthrow of British plutocracy is the job of the British people. Our job is to overthrow the Italian Fascist plutocracy who, like vampires, suck the blood of our people.”

The manifesto does not contain any of the specious doctrines by which the Communists here and in Russia justified the invasion of Finland and the Baltic States.

* * *

What is Happening in France? A Question to the Communists

The Communist Party is in rather a dilemma about happenings in France. On the one side the Communists declare that the Communist movement in unoccupied France is strong and popular, and on the other that the Petain Government is very weak. Why then do not the French Communists put their “mass movement” theories into practice and seize power ? Who is there to stop them? Not Petain, for “the Petain Government’s authority is extremely weak” (World News and Views, August 24th, 1940), while “there is widespread opposition to the Petain regime, especially among the industrial workers, demobilised soldiers and unemployed, in those areas where the Communist Party’s influence was strong before the war, e.g., Toulouse, Lyons and Marseilles.”

Similar information of “serious and widespread popular unrest” is reported in the Daily Worker (August 16th, 1940).

If, then, Petain could not stop such widespread unrest, who is stopping it ? Who is preventing the Communists from carrying out their usual plan of taking over the Government. Can it be Stalin or Stalin’s friend, Hitler?

Truly a curious situation.

Edgar Hardcastle