By The Way. (1916)

The By The Way Column from the November 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much has been written and said with regard to the question of British Prisoners of War and their treatment in Germany, but of late various items of news come to hand which tend to show that the “Ger-Hun” can be out-Hunned by the Brit-Hun. Witness the following:

“The Newhaven Guardians have declined to admit for treatment to the workhouse conscientious objectors working on the Newhaven to Seaford road improvement scheme who fall sick.”—”Star,” Sept. 23rd, 1916.

* * *

And, again, there is the report in the Press of a conscientious objector who met his death at Dyce, near Aberdeen, under the administration of the Military Service Act. Whilst the Local and the Appeal Tribunals disallowed his claim for exemption, after nearly concluding his sentence pronounced by court-martial, he was re-examined by the Central Tribunal and offered work of national importance—a reversal of the two previous decisions. He was eventually sent to Scotland and there contracted a chill, the result of leaky tents and damp soil, with no provision for drying wet clothes, from which he died.

Dr. Clifford describes this as:

“The latest of a long series of incidents demonstrating the injustice of the new conscription policy, and the fearful tyranny of our growing militarism.”

Further he adds :

“The fact is, we have been grossly deceived. Faith has not been kept with the people. With or without intending it, the Coalition Government has betrayed us. Parliament distinctly arranged that conscientious objectors should be safeguarded.”—”Daily Chronicle,” Sept. 9th, 1916.

* * *

A later announcement on this case states that a Deputation from the Home Office visited the camp and a “representative of the men stated afterwards that the Committee decided that the tents should be abolished and arrangements made with local farmers to accommodate the men in lofts. A building is to be erected to deal with cases of sickness.”—”Daily Sketch,” Sept. 20th, 1916.

When cases of neglect or ill-treatment of prisoners of war occur in Germany large headlines and long articles are necessary to point out the enormity of the offence, reference being made to the Hague and Geneva Conventions, etc., but when it is the Hun in our midst a short paragraph suffices. Such is our prostitute Press.

* * *

I well recollect how important, in the days of my youth, it was considered to be that my religious instruction should in no wise be neglected. And so it came to pass that at this period of our existence we used to read that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof;” the meek “shall inherit the earth”; and many other such texts. But in due season one came to the conclusion that in the first quotation the printer had omitted the prefix “Land.” Verily, verily, I say unto you, hearken unto me and read you that which is good. For the last two years and two months we have had dinned into our ears a lot of talk about “our” country, but even during that period we have read of desirable plots of freehold land being bought and sold. An interesting case of how “our” country is disposed of from time to time may be gathered from the following :

“Mr. Harry Lauder has bought an estate of 14,000 acres, it was stated yesterday in Glasgow, on the east side of Loch Fyne, at Glenbranter, a place formerly linked with the name of the late Mr. David MacBrayne, Steamshipowner, Glasgow.”—”Reynolds’s,” Oct. 15th, 1916.

There’s war economy for you ! Save your money and lend it to your country, screech our masters and their hirelings to the workers, whose portion of the country is contained in a flower pot.

* * *

On another page of the same paper I notice that the question of war time economy was to be practised on the old people, whom our spiritual guides would describe as the Lord’s poor. It reads :

“The Walsall Guardians by a majority of one vote decided to substitute suet pudding and treacle for the Christmas plum puddings in the workhouse. Alderman Bull said the workhouse master expected to save £15 to £20. Mr. Carter, another member, said the action was contemptibly mean.”

It would indeed be interesting to learn whether these paragons of economy contemplate sitting down at the Christmas season to similar fare. Precept and practice are so vastly different, you know.

* * *

With a desire to try and get a further lease of life and to regain their hold over the masses the Church has inaugurated a National Mission of Repentance and Hope. Sky pilots from far and near are busily engaged telling us how the war is uniting high and low, rich and poor, in short, how it is attempting to bridge the chasm between classes. And that after the war capital and labour must cease fighting each other and work for each other’s good. The Bishop of London himself says: “If it is shown to us by the Spirit of God that we must alter the whole system I can promise we are ready to do it. If there is anything in our position, houses, incomes, in our motors, in anything we have then that thing has got to be scrapped.” Our well-paid bachelor Bishop might as a preliminary make a start by following his Lord and Master a little more closely. For I read that the “Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.” This 20th century disciple, however, is more fortunately placed than He who said : “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” But stay, the Bishop says “if it is shown to us ‘by the Spirit of God’ that we must alter the whole system . . . we are ready to do it.” Seeing the vast epoch that has elapsed since the statement with regard to taking up the cross was made, methinks it will be “some” time yet ere these gentlemen who have waxed fat on the cross will be able to discover “by the Spirit of God” whether they are to abandon pelf, place and power.
,

* * *

This Right Rev. Father in God, speaking at Victoria Park, made reference to a desire for a better state of morals in London, and said “we mean to have a . . . cleaner London for the boys when they come home from the trenches and the North Sea.” The pearl of greatest price is found in the following:

“It is the working-class daughter that I am trying to save by my campaign in West London. Why should they be at the mercy of the lusts of mankind ? The fault is largely in the home teaching.”

It would be more correct to say that they were at the mercy of the wealthy class in society. Has this shining light and supporter of capitalism never heard, or has he forgotten, the Queenie Gerald case with its sordid story of obtaining girls for wealthy patrons ? We have no recollection of the Bishop at that time speaking outside St. James’, Piccadilly, pointing the moral and adorning the tale of the cadet who wrote asking for a virgin and offering a respectable sum for the privilege. Yet, forsooth, he wants to save the working-class daughters. It will be within the recollection of many that when the defendant in this case was conveyed to the police station a large sum of money was found in her possession, also valuable jewellery, which went to show the nature of her patrons. The Bishop would be better employed in prosecuting his “purity” campaign in fashionable churches rather than in a public park in the East End ; and working-class parents might profitably consider the cause of, and remedy for prostitution.

* * *

I might in passing just note for the benefit of my clerical friends and others, who so often refer to the waywardness of mankind across the seas, that in a recent issue of a weekly capitalist paper there was an announcement to the following effect: “Nearly 500 cases, mostly divorce, will occupy the attention of the Judges, in the Probate and Divorce Division during the Michaelmas Sittings . . . Of this number 376 are undefended matrimonial suits.” Who said Socialism would break up the home life?

* * *

Reverting to the subject-matter of an article in last month’s issue of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. The nonsensical statement attributed to Jaures, that,

“Without nations there could be no international”

One is not surprised to see that statement repeated by Dan Irving in the Burnley “Pioneer.” One fool makes many, and the time-servers of the master class who pose as Socialists, must indeed be conscious of their own fraudulent position, when reduced to such puerile phrases, in order to justify their support of capitalist anarchy.

* * *
How feeble is the labour leaders’ conception, of Internationalism, is seen in their denunciations of the Social Democrats of Germany. Every capitalist rag in England—and no doubt in all the allied countries—has boasted the fact that even the Socialists recognised the justice of their cause and were forsaking the class war, or suspending it, while national interests were at. stake. The German Socialists excused their lapse from Internationalism—if they ever understood it—with the fear of a Russian invasion. Their prototypes in the allied countries took up their masters’ cry of German militarism and from the first called upon the workers to take-up arms and crush it. Whatever land the fakirs hail from, there is no difference or distinction between them ; they are all tools of the ruling caste and have no cause to sling mud at each other, as the allied Socialists do at their German comrades in fraud. One in particular saying

“the German Socialists must wash the blood off their hands with tears of remorse, and even then they would have to take a back seat in international movements.”

The Scout.

Blogger's Note:

The conscientious objector who died at Dyce Work Camp was Walter Roberts. I remember reading about his sad story in Come Dungeons Dark, John Taylor Caldwell's biography of Guy Aldred. Aldred was an inmate at the Dyce Work Camp and was a friend of Roberts.

50 Years Ago: Socialism is international (1966)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the power of nationalism to grip the minds of the worker rises, so Socialism fades. But when the warm rays of Socialist enlightenment and knowledge illumine their minds with the promise of freedom and social well-being, their hands will clasp across national boundaries, and their feet will tread them into the past. In that day the capitalist will "beat the bounds" in vain, the workers will know that boundaries and nations have no meaning or significance for them. These two, nationalism and international Socialism (and there can be no Socialism that is not international) are opposite as the poles, as antagonistic as fire and water. When patriotism and Socialism enter the worker's mind, patriotism will be quenched or Socialism will evaporate. The Socialist patriot is as impossible as the Christian Socialist. If he is loyal to the class that exploits him, he is a traitor to his own class. If he recognises and is true to his class interest, the class war will engage all his free time and energy; and he will laugh to scorn the hypocritical vaporings about the rights of small or big nations, seeing only in every nation a large or small group of capitalists—his own class being spread over the world, like an upper strata of the earth's crust, for each group to claim and exploit.

The real international will be built up on the facts of Socialism The universal recognition of these facts will mean the linking up of the world's workers in opposition to the capitalist class. That class will practice nationalism and preach patriotism just so long as it serves to obscure the class struggle and keep the workers divided. When they have to face an enlightened and united working class, they themselves will stamp out every boundary in their urgent need for cohesion and strength to meet the workers' onward march.

[From an article, "The Ghost of Jaures Laid", in the Socialist Standard, October, 1916.]

The International. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and Engels had no misapprehension whatsoever as to the fact that the first International could only be the means of carrying and spreading a knowledge of Socialism among the wage-workers throughout the world. Such a task, in face of the great apathy and ignorance of the toilers, was a tremendous one, as the history of the first International has demonstrated. Yet it cannot be gainsaid that the International from 1863 till 1872 was a far greater educational power among the proletariat than the present International, which was inaugurated in 1889. This comparison becomes more significant still when it is asserted by prominent writers and speakers of the present labour movement that the first International was only a roof without the house, while the second, the present International, is a house with a roof. Marx and Engels never claimed any more for the first International than that it was an awning under which the toilers of the world were to be gathered in order to acquire a sound knowledge of capitalist society and of their position therein. And during the nine years of its existence it was indeed a powerful factor in the class struggle throughout the civilised world. The present International, however, is a house without a roof for all the good it is to the proletariat. Look back at that old International and you must feel astounded at the terror it drove into the hearts of the possessing class and their satellites; and why? Simply because it breathed revolution through and through; and Marx and Engels did their utmost to maintain the flame of the revolution.

With the tremendous advantages the present International possesses and has since it was inaugurated, as compared with the great difficulties of the first International, it is evident that the present International has by no means made the most of its opportunities. When in 1863 the first International saw the light there were practically only Marx, Engels, and a few other stalwarts to take up the gigantic task. Marx and Engels were then in the midst of their analysis of the capitalist system, which later on became the basis of the scientific Socialist movement. At the beginning of the first International there was only the Communist Manifesto, a work excellent in its way, but lacking the detailed exposition that followed in Das Capital. The Franco-German War, the Paris Commune, the many great fights and skirmishes of the workers with the capitalist class in every country from that period until 1889, when the second International was inaugurated, were certainly historic events from which splendid lessons ought to have been drawn by the international proletariat; but that was not to be.

The first International shines in the history of the international working-class movement as an epoch of revolutionary propaganda among the proletariat that is not in the least degree approached by the newer movement.

The first International Congress in connection with the first International was held at Geneva in 1866, followed by similar Congresses in 1867 at Lausanne, in 1868 at Brussels, 1869 at Basle, and in 1872 at The Hague. No Congresses were held in 1870 and 1871. During these two years the young international was sorely tried and proved too weak to withstand the exceptionally heavy onslaught made upon it. The Franco-German War and the subsequent Paris Commune were the primary causes of the collapse of the International in 1872, while the hostile position taken up by the bulk of the English Trade Unions against the brave and noble Communards, together with the fact that anarchist tactics were introduced and insisted upon by Bakounin and others were certainly most effective contributory factors to the ultimate fall of the first International. It has been frequently asserted by bourgeois writers and speakers and occasionally repeated by so-called Socialists that Marx was mainly responsible for the Paris Commune. Nothing is more erroneous. Marx knew the extent, power and possibilities of the first International too well to have advocated a sectional trial of strength between the practically unorganised proletariat and the capitalist class.

Marx and Engels, who had throughout the first International aided and advised it in person and by correspondence, continued to be helpers and guides in the different countries even after the first International had collapsed in 1872. When in 1883 Marx died, Engels remained in personal touch with the working-class organisations until his death in 1895, paying them visits in the summer and corresponding with them during the winter.

But although the Socialist movement in the different countries had since the fall of the first International nominally accepted the Socialist teachings of Marx and Engels and the principles of the class-struggle underlying them, the development of the political action of the respective Socialist parties almost in every country tended more and more towards opportunism, so that when the second International was inaugurated in 1889 the opportunist Parliamentarism of the German, Austrian and French parties and the reform tendency of the English, American, Belgian, Dutch, Italian, Swiss and other national parties, that had not yet entered upon a Parliamentary career, naturally found their reflection in the first and following assemblies of the present International. At each of these re-unions the opportunists and reformers were to the fore and easily overpowered the few valiant revolutionaries to whom the policy and tactics of negotiating with the capitalist class for “dirty patches on the wage-slavery garden” were treachery and abomination. And just in the proportion in which in the different countries the Socialist parties attached ever more importance to catching votes for Parliamentary and Municipal candidates running on reform programmes, the revolutionary propaganda was more and more relegated to the rear, till to-day we have a so-called International Socialist movement embracing organisations and individuals that are beyond a doubt purely bourgeois-radical in composition and action. As long as such conditions prevail the working-class movement will make no headway.

The constitution of the International Congress is, as we know so well, a purely theoretic one. Any working-class organisations avowing recognition of the class-struggle at the time of claiming admission have no difficulty whatever in being accepted. They may immediately before and after each Congress repudiate or grossly violate the principles of the class struggle; they may, in fact, be Liberal or Radical organisations at home; but so long as they pretend to be in accord with the class-war attitude, they are heartily welcome at these triennial gatherings.

And what is the composition of these Congresses in consequence? Let us briefly analyse it for our readers’ benefit. The English delegation undoubtedly carries off the palm.

First and foremost comes the Labour Party with a constitution supposing independence on pronouncedly non-Socialist lines. In Parliament they are represented by 30 members, who were elected mainly by open or secret compromise with the Liberal Party and on Radical programmes. In Parliament and out of it they have over and over again assured the Liberal Party that they would be perfectly friendly with them so long as that friendliness was reciprocated.

Next comes the bourgeois Fabian Society with its four members, who were at the last General Election returned as official Liberal representatives, and with a host of official progressive Municipal councillors. The Fabians want a state of Society where “Fabian intellect” shall dominate the masses on the “economic” basis of the “rent of ability”.

A further composite of the English section is the I.L.P., who deny and violate the principles of the class war all the time they are at home. Their members of Parliament were returned by the help of the Labour and Liberal parties. They spend all their efforts in propagating hopeless palliatives and reforms and in the real class struggle continually compromise with the capitalist class.

The S.D.F. support capitalist cat’s paws of the anti-Socialist labour type, and pursue a propaganda of palliatives and reforms, which finds its highest expression in waiting upon capitalist Cabinet Ministers and bourgeois Members of Parliament, to beg of them to push forward “Healthy Legislation for the Suffering Proletariat, etc.”

Besides this array of “sound revolutionary” organisations there are a few “craft-unions” that keep up their membership by their “starvation pension schemes and coffin clubs” mingled with the hope of being able to do something “very soon” for the unemployed with the most valuable aid of the Right Honourable John Burns, whom they support during his election, and then denounce as traitor if the hoped-for reforms are not forthcoming.

But this confusion and opportunism is not, as pointed out previously, only rampant among the organisations that form the British Section of this unhappy International. Take Germany for instance. Here you have the much-boasted of three and a quarter million votes at the last general election, yet the membership of the Socialist Party comprises about 600,000 only, scarcely 18 per cent of the number of voters. It is true that the number of trade unionists has risen to nearly two millions; but a third of these are members of Liberal or religious trade unions, that are entirely under the sway of the capitalist class; and other trade unions are so-called “neutral” ones, that is to say, they are craft unions, independent of the Socialist Party. In the political arena the German Party is dominated by the Reformers and the Revisionists, and in their Parliamentary and Municipal actions they are steeped to the eyebrows in bourgeois reforms and palliatives, while the revolutionary propaganda is left to the very much despised “Rickers”.

In France there was until the International Congress in 1904 at Amsterdam, a body of real revolutionaries – the Guesdists. But in consequence of the “unity” craze these revolutionary fighters fused with the Reformers, the followers of Jaurès, about two years ago on the following terms:

“The United Party is a party of the class struggle, which, even if for the benefit of the workers it takes advantage of minor conflicts among the possessing class or joins in action with a political party for the purpose of defending the rights and interests of the proletariat, remains nevertheless an opposition party, which in principle irreconcilably faces the bourgeois class and their tool – the State.”

The Reformers have, at least temporarily, bamboozled the Guesdists; but judging from the proceedings at the last Congress of the Party, some few weeks ago, there are already many bad sores, which can only lead to a split in the near future. The trade union question, the anti-militarist agitation and the Revisionist tendencies of the followers of Jaurès must bring matters to a head very soon. The United Party during the last general election obtained nearly 900,000 votes, 52 of their candidates having been elected. Yet the members of the United Party number only about 52,000. There are about one and a half million trade unionists in France. Half of these are either Nationalists or Radicals, or do not believe in political action at all. The remaining half are composed of men, most of whom consider it detrimental to the cause of Labour for the trade unions to work in co-operation with the Socialist Party. This question is the great bone of contention between the Guesdists and the followers of Jaurès, who insist upon the trade unions remaining “neutral”, whatever that may mean. it is probable that mainly through the difference the Guesdists will leave the United Party very shortly.

A similar state of things is reflected in the delegations of almost every country, and the truth forces itself upon us that the International Socialist Congress is, as far as the majority is concerned, Socialist in name only, many indeed repudiating even the name.

For the triumph of Socialism, national and international, organisation is essential, but the organisation must be for Socialism and based on Socialist principles or such organisation can be nothing to the workers but a delusion and a snare,

Hans Neumann

Further reading:

In 1968 the late John Crump wrote a three-part article in the Socialist Standard on the subject of the Socialist Party and the Second International. Click on the links:

• May 1968
• June 1968
• July 1968

The Revolutionary Proposition - Part 2 (1955)

From the September 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

To Socialists it is an almost pathetic spectacle to see the mass of the workers everywhere looking up to and voting for leaders though the latter have invariably let them down and failed to bring about any change in the great disparity between the status of the workers and that of the owners. The struggle between the two classes continues unabated. Every demand for an increase of wages is resisted by the employers as fiercely as ever. For, does it not curtail the Capitalists’ profits? Whatever improvements have been made in working conditions for the slaves in the industrially-advanced countries in the West, and in the backward countries in the East, have been and are in the interest of the employers themselves. All reforms have left the problem untouched. The rich have become richer, the poor poorer. The working-class continues to be excluded from ownership and control of the means and instruments of wealth production and therefore from the degrees of social dignity and economic independence that modern man could enjoy. Nationalisation of industries is still being dangled before the eyes of the workers as a panacea, but wherever industries have been partially or—as in Russia and elsewhere—almost completely nationalized, it has not altered the position of the workers one iota. In some respects it has made matters worse for the workers.

That the fallacy and uselessness of nationalisation as a remedy for working-class problems can on occasion be admitted even by its advocates, with impunity, would, show how deplorably slow the masses are to draw conclusions and move in the right, i.e., in the revolutionary direction. Thus, Jean Jaurès was recently quoted by the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeituny as having stated:

"Whether the worker toils for the State, the Department, the city-councils, or for privates, is all the same. Whether the employer is called State or tailor, the dependency and the misery are always the same. If the Socialist organization meant nothing but the extension of the present State enterprises and public works in their present-day form, it would be nothing but a colossal swindle . . . ' '. . . as long as the State does not stamp out the Capitalistic organisation and establish a new organisation in its place, the State is caught by this Capitalist rule in the same way as the private producers: its despotic hand is impotent against the terrible, steelhard juggernaut and so becomes, willy-nilly, the slave of the present social order of the brutal machines which trample on and squeeze the workers just as a steam press squeezes the grapes and pours forth riches for the fortunates of the world, but leaves for the people nothing but the useless residue of want and misery.'

And in another issue of the paper they quoted in a leading article:

‘The transfer of all private capital to the State does not by a long way do away with the function of capital, and does not by a long way exclude the exploitation of the working-class—it is in truth FAR FROM BEING SOCIALISM.’ 

Yet, they call themselves Socialists while all the time doing the dirty work of the exploiters and calling for more State-control! Is it so difficult for the multitude of voters and the dues-paying party-members to perceive the fraud and swindle that is being perpetrated upon them?

Is it too much to expect that the two world-wars also would have opened the workers’ eyes after the smoke had cleared and shown the old great gulf between the two classes, the haves and the have-nots, unchanged in both the victorious and the defeated countries alike? And is the swindle not equally clear in Russia, where even the Western democratic facilities which the Russian workers had precariously grasped for a moment in 1918, were again lost under the bloody onslaught of the Bolshevik monster? Incidentally, the fact that the present enemies (East v. West) fought hand in- hand to destroy the “militarism” of an adversary whom they are now straining every nerve to re-arm. should convince the most credulous of workers that NOT ideologies, but sordid commercial interest and loot are the stakes in these' conflicts.

If some innocent youngster, such as the writer was when he made his first steps in Socialism, were to suggest to these Austrian or, for that matter, any Continental “Socialist” or “Communist” leaders, that they might in the present “unique and fateful” emergency urge the revolutionary Marxian solution, i.e., the expropriation of the expropriators, and the establishment of a classless and moneyless society, as the only way to ensure real peace and prosperity for all, such a suggestion would only be considered as simply incongruous and impossible by these “ Socialists.” It was only to be expected that the leaders of the S.P.O. and the Arbeiter Zeitung also would do nothing but just echo the great fears, add some sloppy sentimentalities and pretend standing aghast at this development.

No wonder that, in spite of the Capitalists themselves living now uneasily and even dangerously, armament manufacturers are reassured and consider their profits safe, just as “Nehru’s expose of the. Socialist pattern of society provided a stimulus for the Bombay stock-market. The market reflected the encouragement to investors from Nehru’s speech! it led to widespread buying, and the market is again buoyant.” Slyly, the Times correspondent described Nehru’s politics as “Ghandian principles and modern politics, economic theories, and—what appears to be essential—a touch of humbug.”

If any of the exploiters of labour ever feared action by these self-styled “Socialist” leaders endangering the safety of their profits and dividends, they have now proof absolute that their fears were unjustified. What present fears persist, spring from the discovery of nuclear energy which, only under the idiotic system of Capitalism, is primarily applied to the forging of weapons for the most effective mass destruction and so becomes a nightmare to all humanity. The fears then stem from the existence of nuclear weapons and the uncertainty whether the Capitalists with their managers and statesmen in East and West, and in the other opposing camps, will be capable of containing and permanently controlling their fine virtues of greed, commercial rivalry in the world’s markets and resources, lust for power, jealousy, envy, hatred and mistrust engendered by the possibility of extracting tremendous wealth from the exploitation of a disinherited working-class, and so prevent a fatal explosion and world conflagration.

The writer felt it necessary to restate what the Socialist Standard has in much better form already pointed out on the situation. I wished that in particular Gilmac’S fine article: “Should we Despair?” in the January issue,' were read and re-read, and taken to heart by all workers for the really welcome stimulant it is in these dark days. It is time indeed that the workers shook off the old dirty cloak of nationalism, the illusions of nationalisation, and that—in the words of Marx—“he faced with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”

Much would have to be said about such words as “nationalism” and “patriotism,” so assiduously fostered among the people from the cradle to the grave. But taking: “Right or wrong my country” at its face value, we would say to the workers: “If you find it hard, or if you have any scruples in discarding your nationalist sentiments, since they have become the apex of the retreat from reason, here is an authority on the value of nationalist sentiments: Sir Winston Churchill. His words:

“What is the use of being a famous race and nation . . . if at the end of the week you cannot pay your housekeeping bill?” 

should help you to discard nationalism and become CLASS-conscious!

R.

Concluded.

Blogger's Note:

It just struck whilst scanning this in that 'R.' is the Austrian comrade, Rudolf Frank. It was obviously the quote from the Austrian newspaper that was the giveaway, but I should have known anyway. Early Socialist Standard writers — and Frank joined the SPGB around about 1910 — would sometimes just use a letter as their pen-name, so 'A.' was Alex Anderson, 'K.' was Adolph Kohn, and a later Socialist Standard writer, Edgar Hardcastle, adopted it in the 1920s by using 'H.' as his pen-name. 

The other giveaway was that I just posted on the blog another article — from 1910 — with the same title. This was obviously Frank's hat tip to Jacomb's earlier article.

A Forecast of the Coming Revolution: Interview with Paul Lafargue. (1904)

From the November 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amongst the best known leaders of Socialist thought is our comrade Paul Lafargue, author of "The Evolution of Property", "Socialism and the Intellectuals", and many other volumes and pamphlets of great value to International Socialism. A visit to Paris brought us in touch with a French comrade, through whose kindly offices we received an invitation to visit the veteran debater at his pleasant retreat in a little village some dozen miles from the French capital. Lafargue and his wife (once known personally to English Socialists as Laura Marx) received us with the true comradeship, which in palpable form made it plain that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, is no empty phrase amongst Socialists.

Mindful of the interests of the Party, we secured from our comrade the following interesting expression of his views upon some vital topics of moment:

“The two countries which will benefit from the Russo-Japanese War”, said Lafargue, in answer to a query, “are America and England. Though the Japs succeed in expelling Russia from Manchuria, they are at the same time weakening themselves for a long period, and thus limiting their capacity for industrial competition. Again, the financiers of England and America—principally the former—will draw from Japan a great deal even of such profit as may accrue to her in return for their present assistance. Japan has for years been developing extraordinarily, but the War hinders this. The resources she is squandering in war are lost to industry.”

“And the results of all this upon our policy in the Far East, comrade?”

“The most important thing is the appearance of Japan upon the scene as the strong power of the East, so strong that no European country can compete with it. The rise of Japan marks the conclusion of European piracy in the Far East. Nobody expected such an extraordinary power. Further, Japan will organise China, industrially and politically.”

“What is your view, comrade, of the industrial position in Japan?”

“The rise of Japan industrially has been so rapid that the horrors of child and female labour in the England of the early nineteenth century have been reproduced—with the great difference that the intermediate stages from the England of the fifteenth century were totally absent in Japan. The psychological difference is enormous, and must produce a revolt, but the form we cannot forecast. In England and France the revolt was against the machine, and whilst this may not prove so in Japan, this we know—the Japs start with a Socialist movement such as was not, and could not be, in England and France in the initial stages of Capitalism. Just as the Japs adopt and adapt the ready-made science of Europe, so the Social science of the New Age finds there a ready soil. We may expect the Japanese people, who have shown such extraordinary courage on the battlefield, to show in the Social struggle the same indomitable energy and enterprise.”

“Now, as to the War again, comrade, what are its results upon Europe?”

“This war has shown that Russia has made a fool of Europe with a show of power. Particularly has Czarism befooled France. That show has enabled her to draw from France about eleven milliards of francs (some £400,000,000) by State loans and financial companies for the industrial exploitation of Russia. The latter investments have been chiefly for coal-mining and metal works. These found prosperity as long as the Russian State was a huge customer for railway construction, &c, but even before the War this fell off; and now, in so far as they have a revival, it is only the artificial stimulus of war time, which will have its due reaction. Even now the lack of money is strangling this revival. Either victory or defeat for Russia now means revolution—a bourgeois or constitutional revolution. The first thing that the new power will have to do will be to proclaim the bankruptcy of Russia—as the best means to obtain credit. You will recollect a similar process in the French Revolution. The new rulers of Russia will be the more ready to declare this bankruptcy, in that the losers will be, not the Russians but the French. The international effects will be felt primarily in France, where the chief debt of Russia is held. The fall of the present Russian political system will shake the whole fabric of European society.”

“What is the likely effect upon Socialism in France of the loss of all this capital through the fraud and folly of the bourgeois politicians and the financial magnates who dominate them?”

“Ah, that is the question. Remember the fuss about Panama involving only 1½ milliards of francs. You will see why I anticipate great results from the loss of some eight times as much. Only the Socialist Party of France has opposed itself to the Franco-Russian Alliances and denounced it as a fraud upon the French people. The discrediting of all the bourgeois parties must mean the immense growth of the party of the Proletariat. Only the Socialist Party of France, the Revolutionists of France, had the courage and insight to oppose the alliance with despotism.”

“Very good, comrade; so much for the economic factors. What of other forces?”

“Russia is a compound of different nationalities. In the centre the Slavs, surrounded by Poles, Finns, Caucasians, Armenians, &c, held down by main force. These will spring into position again on the occasion of the Revolution, and Poland principally (the Ireland of Russia), which has never lost the sense of nationality, despite the tyranny of centuries, will make her influence felt. She will want to reconstitute her nationality with the Austrian and the German Poles. Thus I believe that the next few years will bring us the European revolution, which, if Socialists are sufficiently bold and well organised, will mean also the Social Revolution.”

This concluded, as far as the War is concerned, one of the most instructive conversations in which 1 ever had the pleasure of participating. In a future issue I hope to reproduce some expressions of our comrade upon trade unionism, but with which it would be a pity to complicate this article. The difference between the Socialists and the pseudo-Socialists can easily be seen by a comparison of the large-mindedness and grip of the situation disclosed by our comrade, with the puny reflection of Capitalist sentimentality exhibited by Jaurès in dealing with this same position. The attitude of the Reformists in France sufficiently indicates the absurdity of the claim of such superficial politicians to in any sense represent Socialism either in France or elsewhere. Jaurès and his school are straining every nerve in a “Stop the War” agitation, on the surface in the interests of peace, but in reality designed to, if possible, stave off the evil day of capitalist collapse. It was not for nothing that our comrades of the Socialist Party of France moved the resolution at the recent International Congress, which declared against compromise and intrigue with capitalist parties. The Socialists of France have fought and are fighting the same battle against treachery and folly of opportunism, which we of The Socialist Party of Great Britain are waging in this country.

I am sure every Socialist in England joins with us in reciprocating the fraternal greetings extended by Paul and Laura Lafargue to the unofficial representatives of British Socialism to whom this interview was accorded.

H. J. Hawkins.

(Socialist Standard, November 1904)

Correspondence

Our comrade Hawkins forwards a copy of the following letter which he has received:

“Draviel, 15.11.04

Dear Comrade,—I have just received No. 3 of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, containing your interview, and I am glad to find that you have given a very full and faithful account thereof.

Trusting that the paper will be successful and with my best wishes and our kind regards to Mrs Hawkins and yourself.

Yours fraternally

Paul Lafargue." LAFARGUE.

(Socialist Standard, December 1904)

Confusion In Conference. So-Called Socialists Meet at Copenhagen. (1910)

From the October 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Confusion was the keynote of the proceedings at the International Socialist (!) Congress held recently at Copenhagen. A Babel of tongues spoke every language but that of Socialism. The "impracticable theory" of rallying the workers to the fight for emancipation has been deliberately discarded in favour of the "saner and more practicable policy" of devising ways and means of begging, coaxing, threatening reforms and palliatives out of the capitalist class. The RED INTERNATIONAL, founded by Marx and Engels for revolution has been so completely prostituted to reform and compromise, that the bulk of the delegates at the Conference, and the "Labour" Press throughout the world, recognised unhesitatingly that the British Section were the "most advanced, the most revolutionary" of all the delegates. What unspeakable tragedy! The most uncompromising fighters for Socialism were these representatives of the Labour Party, the I.L.P., the S.D.P., the Fabian Society, and the Trade Unions—the chief wire-pullers of wire-pulling organisations and the arch-betrayers of working-class ignorance ; the very scum of the "Labour" political inferno, sitting cheek by jowl with the embodiments of bourgeois arrogance, conceit and condescension. The British delegation had twenty votes at the Congress, ten being controlled by the Labour Party and the remainder being distributed among the other organisations of the section. Thus the open defenders and supporters of the Liberal Budget, Taxations of Ground Values, Reform of the Poor Law, Free Trade and other allurements of their Liberal masters, were the "revolutionary" element of the Copenhagen Congress. What other proof is needed that the International Socialist Congress has been CAPTURED BY THE CAPITALISTS ?

But the "revolt" of the British delegation against several "important" resolutions was not due to any sudden Socialist conviction. These "uprisings" had a much more mundane cause. The resolutions "rebelled" against embodied the ideas of measures either passed or promised by the British Liberal Government! And the truth of that allegation was openly insisted upon by the various British delegates who addressed the Conference and the International Bureau.

And needless to say, the calibre of the delegates was similar to that of the British section. The German Social-Democratic Party steeped to the hilt in a Parliamentary reform policy ; the Austrian Social-Democratic Party, an effective mixture of such elements as the British Labour Party, I.L.P., and S.D.P., whose greatest achievement is supposed to have been the obtaining of the suffrage for some hundreds of thousands of Radical Labourites (alias Social-Democrats) ; the ''Unified" French Socialist Party, in which the bourgeois Republicanism and political diplomacy of Jaurès has obliterated revolutionary action ; the Russian twin "Socialist" organisations whom bitter experience of the oppressors has not saved from the fatal mistake of seeking "BLESSINGS FROM ABOVE" ; the Italian Socialist Party, still boastful of their "unity" of all factions (including those who have grown tired of fighting for Socialism): all these and many more such sections formed the material of which this apology for a Socialist congress was made up. 

It is a sad reflection that, except the S.P.G.B., every body that contained the germ of Socialist existence has been swallowed up by that congress of compromise and confusion. In France the Guesdists, who at one time, in spite of their small number, wielded enormous power for Socialist enlightenment, are absorbed by the reformist followers of Jaurès and Vaillant; in Italy the United Party has forced its compromising policy on its members with the result that the Socialist element has been swamped ; in Russia the Parliamentary possibilities for the "political genius" have caused wholesale desertion of the Socialist flag. Even the once alleged Socialist organisation, the S.L.P. of America, has given up every vestige of independence, and sent its delegate—to whine to the S.P. of the same country for fusion—and to be SNEERINGLY SPURNED !

Now to survey the happenings at the Congress. The delegates sat in a hall decorated with banners indicative of the character of the Congress. "Religion is a Private Concern" ; "A Maximum Working day of Eight Hours" ; "Disarmament Means Peace " : such were the mottoes they bore.

The boast of Stauning, the Danish president, that his party showed by their 100,000 votes and 28 successful candidates at the last parliamentary election, and their 23 newspapers with 120,000 subscribers, their triumphal work for Socialism was exceedingly hollow in face of the speeches of the Danish delegates and the resolutions they supported. Vandervelde's opening speech on behalf of the International Bureau was a glorification of the un-class-conscious labour movement. Instead of deploring the fact that in every country represented at that Congress the ascent of the Parliamentary reform policy has in the last three years more than in any other similar period, PLAYED HAVOC with the honest proletarians seeking enlightenment, he crowed over the fact that 38 countries and 8 million followers were represented at the Congress, and that in many countries the "Socialist" parties have experienced a large influx of votes and "Socialist" representatives since the last Congress.

The agenda was one that would be considered mild by a Radical Free Trade gathering. The main items were the Unemployed Question; International Arbitration and Disarmament; International Results of the Legislation for the Protection of the Workers; Organisation of an International Pronouncement against the Death Sentence; Question of Co-operative Movement; International Trade Unionism and the General Strike.

Some of the arguments on the questions on the committees and in open Congress will be of interest to our readers.

In the committee on Disarmament and Peace, Vaillant (France) said: "The abolition of war will naturally only be made possible by Socialism, but for that we cannot wait. It is therefore necessary to make a stand against armaments and militarism in the different Parliaments." Keir Hardie said: "If now the German and English Governments came to an understanding about the limitation of armaments it would not be due to their LOVE OF PEACE, but because these two countries can no longer bear the burden of armaments. The workers are strong enough to prevent war. On the day of the declaration of war the workers must cease work. That is not a general strike. It is also necessary to make a stand against the vile action of the capitalist Press." Bruce Glasier said: "Christianity has been unable to abolish war. There are already Socialists who are prepared to sacrifice their principles of peace. The fighting instinct can unmistakeably be found in some Social-Democrats. That is the animal instinct which one must overcome. Let us unfold the most far-reaching agitation for peace, then the United States of Europe will soon become an accomplished fact." Radec (Poland) said : "The attitude of Vorwaerts and of the German Social-Democratic Party in Parliament concerning the Anglo German arrangement is nothing short of an alternative to the defence of naval armaments advocated by Hyndman and Co. which has generally been condemned." Hillquit (U.S.A.) said : "No word has yet been uttered concerning the main point. The debate has until now only been a continuation of the Stuttgart discussion on anti-militarism." Dessin (England): " We must ABOLISH CAPITALISM to ensure peace. But we can already now contribute towards a diminution of the dangers of war, and that is what the resolution of the British delegation is aiming at."

In the Committee on the question of the Co-operative Movement the following speeches are characteristic of the main position. Vendervelde (Belgium) said : "The criterion will be that the co-operative societies must be organisations in the class-struggle. The German workers will see to it that the co-operative societies remain Socialist. The German co-operative societies propagate Socialism secretly ; those in Belgium openly." Guesde, speaking for the French minority said : "The conquest of political power is necessary. Only when a co-operative society furthers this object is it of use, that is to say it must not be ignored but given its right place. In Germany the co-operative societies are limited liability companies with small shares, but wherein consists their Socialism ? We have been told that the profit is distributed according to consumption, but that is capitalistic. We must not only tell the workers to join those societies but to use them as a means in the class struggle." Whiteley (England) said : "English co-operative societies have already proved useful in politics, and have joined our Parliamentary committee. Socialists have until now done nothing for these societies, but will do something for them in the future—that is, carry Socialism into their ranks."

The first resolution proposed in open Congress was one on unemployment. It started out by stating that unemployment is INSEPARABLE FEOM CAPITALIST PRODUCTION and proceeded to say that it could therefore not be a question of abolition but of amelioration. For this purpose the Congress demanded from capitalist Governments, statistics ; wages as paid by co-operative societies ; support during industrial crises ; safeguarding of political rights ; support of all arrangements for finding employment ; diminution of unemployment by legislation ; compulsory support of unemployed. Dr. Adolf Braun (Austria) moved the resolution with the approval of all delegates except the British. On the motion of its adoption MacDonald said: "For the British Section the present Resolution is too weak. We would have liked to have seen the right to work at fair wages insisted upon. The British section is especially of opinion that the capitalist method of production is to blame for unemployment, and that it therefore must be made responsible for its consequences." Quelch said : "If we go home with this resolution we shall considerably damage our own movement for the amelioration of unemployment, the resolution being too weak."

On the "unity" question De Leon declared that "After the Amsterdam Congress we, the minority, the S.L.P., declared ourselves prepared to negotiate with the S.P., which they have declined to do. Therefore this Congress must decide that the other party is obliged to negotiate with us. In the name of the S.L.P. I may declare that we are READY FOR NEGOTIATION with the S.P. There are prospects of a powerful movement in America, but it cannot flourish, because we fight each other." Hillquit replied : "The Socialist Party has long become an object of unity and asked all Socialist bodies to unite. All accepted our invitation except the Party—let us say De Leon. (Laughter.) Since then we have made rapid progress, most members of the S.L.P. having joined us. Now, Comrade De Leon, if you are prepared to abandon your last creation, the I.W.W., and your non-Socialist tricks, no conference or convention is necessary for that fusion." To which Berger (Milwaukee) added : "Ten years ago we had two organisations, each with 5,000 members ; now the S.P. have 53,000 paying members, the S.L.P. less than 1,000. That is nearly unity. The remaining 1,000 are welcome if they will give up fighting the Trade Unions. We shall solve the fusion, question within the next three years because then only De Leon will stand outside our party. You see we are working strongly for unity." (Loud Applause.)

The resolution on Disarmament and Peace was, like all the other resolutions put before the Congress, FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS and inconsistencies. It started with explaining the necessity of war under capitalism, and finished with a demand for suppression of hostilities by the democracy, and giving directions to the International Bureau how to act in case of a declaration of war. Socialism would stand a poor chance indeed if it were as impossible as this resolution. Vaillant and Keir Hardie moved the following amendment: "The Congress regards the General Strike as a means for the prevention of war, more especially a refusal to assist in the production and transport of arms and amnrunition." This was rejected by a vast majority and the amendment carried.

During this debate Keir Hardie, replying to an attack by Ledebour on the British delegation, stated that the English Labour Party is against war and militarism. Ledebour had taken the attitude of the I.L.P. to be that of Hyndman and Quelch, but his Party had nothing to do with these. If his Party had supported the Liberal Budget that was NOT A QUESTION OE PRINCIPLE, BUT TACTICS.

On the question of unemployment Hardie said "In our country we are very near a radical solution of unemployment. We should find ourselves in a difficult position in face of the English Government with the resolution passed by the Congress, hence we ask the substitution of our resolution for the one adopted."

In spite of the contradictory nature of the composition, agenda, speeches and resolutions, there is no mistaking the object and effect of the Congress. The German S.D.P. strained every nerve to make the Congress an advertising medium for their approaching General Election. They were in a position to obtain sufficient support to get the resolutions on the main questions shaped so as to appeal to the German Radicals and bourgeois Democrats who have grown tired cf the orthodox Radical party and want a real, live reform party. Luckily for the German delegation, no other section but the British was out for a similar purpose. In France, Austria and Italy the elections have recently taken place, but in England a General Election is not at all unlikely within, the next three years. Hence two rival "Socialist" parties fought each other tooth and nail, the Germans anxious to pass resolutions acceptable to Radicals; the English striving to prevent the passing of anything the Liberal Government could conveniently act upon to the detriment of the Labour Party, I.L.P. and S.D.P. The German delegates expressed their gratification at the results of the Conference, and congratulated themselves on having gained A HUNDRED THOUSAND VOTES through its agency.

So another congress has come and gone—-in the way the capitalists delight to see —in confusion. But, despite the forces of reform and reaction, cunningly striving to turn the working class upon itself, the future belongs to the Revolutionary. The ever-growing economic pressure must eventually demonstrate the utter futility of reform, and at the same time unmask those who advocate it. May the awakening come soon.

Hans J. Neumann

Bebel’s Answer to Jaurès on “Political Tactics”. (1904)

From the September 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

International Socialist Congress 1904

(Translated from El Heraldo de Madrid, by P. J. Tobin)

When the German Social-Democracy discussed at the Dresden Congress the proposition that is being now debated, nobody thought of bringing it before the International Congress. Nevertheless I am pleased that the Parti Socialiste de France have submitted it to the consideration of the bodies which form the great International Socialist Party, because, contrary to the opinion of Jaurès, this proposition is applicable, in the same manner as it is to Germany, to Belgium, France, Holland, and all other countries.

When Kautsky and Singer drew up the Dresden proposition they took into consideration not alone the conditions under which things exist in Germany, but also certain circumstances that are inseparable from the social ambient created by the system of capitalist production in all the countries where it reigns.

Jaurès pretends that there is such an enormous difference between Germany and France that it is absolutely impossible that an International Congress could adopt rules of Socialist conduct practised with success in one of these nations so as to apply them to the other. Jaurès suffers from a sad error, because although there are differences between France and Germany, they are not so great as he supposes.

I must point out that in the treatment of this question I do not consider it from a particular standpoint which the country where I live supplies me with, but from a general standpoint. All nations may see themselves very soon attacked by this illness that we want to put an end to now, Switzerland as Holland—

Troelstra (Holland): We are not ill.

Bebel: You are not, but you could be so tomorrow, and it is necessary to avoid this happening.

Two perfectly defined tendencies exist in the German Social-Democracy. The two were discussed in the Dresden Congress, and afterwards the proletariat decided in favour of that one which it considered as having best hit the mark. Once the subject was resolved upon, nobody has been found wanting in respect to what was agreed, nobody has produced disagreements in our great party. In France the situation is very different; between Socialists there are serious disputes which do not exist in Germany.

Jaurès admits, like ourselves, the class war, and considers its antagonisms as irreducible; but he also believes that the proletariat ought to work with the radical elements of the middle class, to ensure its own emancipation, if these elements lend themselves to help them in their struggle for liberty. These words of Jaurès enclose a censure for those who do not march in unison with the so-called “progressive” forces of the middle-class, since we spurn a means of serving the cause of the proletariat.

The censure is not just; we avail ourselves of all means for bettering the condition of our comrades the workers. We do not spurn reforms; but what we do refuse, and that in the most explicit manner, is the coming to an agreement with any faction whatsoever of the middle-class, no matter by what name it may go. An agreement of this kind cannot be of any other consequence than to make Socialism responsible for the oppression which the capitalists exercise over the masses of the working-class. Besides, this agreement would give rise to an error that being persevered in by the workers, would lead them to abandon the saving camp of Socialism to throw themselves with closed eyes into the abyss of anarchism. The policy adopted by the French Socialist Party has had two effects: to throw from its bosom the best elements for the fight, the most self-denying, and give entrance to those who accept the attitude of this party in relation to the Minister Combes in order to reach high political posts. As you see, the results of the Revisionists’ policy could not be more disastrous.

In the most flourishing period of French Ministerial Socialism, France has given spectacles which incite the passions of all those who feel the flame of Socialism burning in their breasts. Millerand, the Socialist Millerand, who received, as the most correct of courtiers, during his occupation of the Ministry, kings and queens visiting Paris on the occasion of the Exhibition of 1900, did not remember that an international Socialist Congress was about to be held at approximately the same date; more, he consented that the free exercise of the right to public demonstration should be denied the Socialists, a thing that was permitted to them in 1889. Strange paradox. The Liberal Ministry of Waldeck-Rousseau did not permit in 1900 the exercise of an individual right which the Conservative Ministry that ruled France in 1889 authorised! I cannot understand [with great indignation] how all the delegates did not uprise possessed of the same anger, to protest against the cynicism of those governors that call themselves “democratic”—

Adler (Austria): If you refer to what occurred in the Père-Lechaise demonstration, I must state that the Congress had already concluded its tasks.

Bebel: That is true, but it does not matter; the delegates who were still in Paris and the French Socialist Party ought to have formulated that protest.

Jaurès, in order to explain his reasoning on the diversity of proceedings that should be applied in France and in Germany, tells us Germans: You cannot compare your situation with ours. You live under an Imperialist regime, while the regime to which we are subject is the Republican. The observation is correct. We must confess that did it depend on us, the Imperial Government of Germany would not have another instant of life. But this does not justify the attitude of the Ministerial Socialists, because the proceedings of the French Republic are so dull and arbitrary that I find myself in the sad necessity of becoming an advocate of the Monarchy.

In Germany we have liberty of union and of association, which the Authority respects. In our strikes armed force never intervenes. On the other hand, in France the liberty of union and association is constantly being trampled upon, and in all strikes, and under any pretext whatever, the Government sends infantry, cavalry, and even artillery to the field of action. Now, before this conduct which shows how great is middle-class precocity, I ask Jaurès: How is it possible to explain that a Government which proceeds in this manner has included amongst its number an individual Socialist, and now has the aid of a Parliamentary minority?

The exterior clothing with which the Monarchy clothes itself does not hide its pretensions. At first sight all of us know what a Government of the capitalist class symbolises. Nevertheless, sometimes conscience pricks, and abandoning being logical with itself, realises acts of justice to the workers, which injure the masters.

The bourgeois Republic decks itself out in raiment which cajoles the masses, lulls them with fine words, makes them promises which are on the lips but not in the heart, and this acts so that later, when workmen are assassinated in Châlons-sur-Marne, in France; in Colorado of the USA; or in Vale, of Switzerland, the cynicism, the shamelessness and criminality of these actions appear in greater relief. As you can observe, there is not the difference that Jaurès establishes between the Monarchy and the Republic. And this, I say, in reference to the economic system, takes place as well with militarism, clericalism, and other problems.

After acts such as those I have related do not be astonished that I deduce that there is an absolute incompatibility of the office of Minister to a capitalist government with the character of a militant socialist.

The force of working-class emancipation has taken root in the class-consciousness that the workers possess. I remember very well when on a certain occasion Marx and Engels were asked how was it that England being a country where industry was so developed and having so liberal and progressive a Government, how was it that under such conditions Socialism was so little evolved? They answered that the English middle-class was so astute and intelligent, that they had arranged everything so that historic and social acts were mystified, introducing confusion and division into the ranks of the working-class.

I think it to be my duty to affirm that in questions of greater importance, in those of more interest for public life and national prosperity, Germany has nothing to envy France; on the contrary, in what concerns the navy and colonial question, etc which affect the productive classes in so great a manner, France has made no concession whatever, and in Germany, yes. Further, in the fiscal system, the income tax in Prussia is an ideal compared with what exists in France.

Although it may appear strange, on account of what is now going on in France, the capitalists will never destroy clericalism, because it is an arm which in crucial moments can be used against the workers. I agree and applaud the work now being accomplished in France, but it must not be forgotten that in thirty years’ time nothing worthy of note will have been done in this sense.

If a fight of this nature were undertaken tomorrow in our country we would assist with vigour, but we would take good care not to contract any compromise that might diminish our independence, and would not abandon the defence of working-class interests, not even in moments when the struggle may be hottest. The Jaurès method is of use only in making anarchists.

It cannot be denied that this Congress is competent to give judgement on the question of tactics. Jaurès himself maintained this opinion when the Kautsky resolution was voted upon at the Congress of 1900. Moreover, if we can discuss protection and free-trade, the general strike, etc, why cannot we treat of tactics?

With respect to the design which guides us in asking that the Dresden Proposition be voted upon, everyone who knows us will say what is true, that we do not attempt to whimsically impose an opinion, but to give an advice, to furnish a rule of conduct that is the outcome of thirty-six years of experience.

Tactics may be modified, but the idea will never disappear which inspires the Dresden Resolution, an idea that the proletarian will never abandon, because it is the only one capable of carrying it to the close of its day’s labour—the expropriation of the dominant class.

Correspondence. (1904)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1904 issue of the Socialist Standard

To The Editors.

Dear Comrades,—The Saturday Review discussing the Amsterdam Congress and the relative merits of Bebel and Jaures, observes, amidst many other funny observations, that—

  '‘The Socialism of the Fabians is the Socialism of Jaures, which is different from that of Keir Hardie who will not have anything to do with either Liberal or Tory," And, again, “Jaures ought to have nothing to do with the Congress, he is too clever and level-headed to keep company with the men who carried that resolution.” (Re India.)

It may interest the Saturday Review scribe to learn that Keir Hardie as President of the British Section, voted with Jaures as against Bebel, on the “Dresden Resolution,” and that the Resolution on “India,” moved by S. G. Hobson (I.L.P.) and seconded by Dadabhai Naoroji (the Liberal candidate for North Lambeth) was carried amid the acclamation of Jaures and his party—The Parti Socialiste Francais.

Truly, “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”— 

Yours fraternally,

Alex Pearson, 

Gravesend, Sept. 9, 1904. 

Fight War Not Wars (1996)

The TV Review column from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The proliferation of TV programmes about war and the military in recent months is enough to make one wonder whether this is a conscious attempt by the TV authorities to satiate the appetites of those who have become so twisted by capitalist society that violence is a way of life. Whatever, their latest offering—(BBC2, Mondays 7 pm, starting 11 November) —was an appalling example of the genre.

All the tricks used by bourgeois historians to account for—and justify—war were present in abundance. What was lacking was hard-headed analysis that actually fitted the facts. Frankly, when a large part of the historical analysis proffered in a series is given by such professional reactionaries as Norman Stone and Niall Ferguson, you know where the programme-makers’ priorities are likely to lie at the very start. The fact that the series started on Armistice Day, when the patriots and nationalists of the British Legion organise a two minutes' silence to remember the past crimes of the British ruling class, only served to confirm this impression. 1914-18, still ongoing at the time of going to press, is a series for dewey- eyed old soldiers who still proudly parade the pieces of metal they were given to put on their chest for killing people in other countries just like themselves for nothing that had anything to do with either of them.

As even the Guardian's TV critic admitted, the attempt to explain the cause of the First World War in this programme was woeful. For those who believe in some sort of innate German militarism it will have served to confirm their prejudices. but the real reason for the war—Germany’s late entrance into the imperialist scramble and its desire, along with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to extend its economic influence—was almost entirely ignored. Instead we were treated to stereotypical commentaries on the German ‘‘national character" and portraits of the great leaders of the day, presumably on the grounds that this was likely to prove insightful into the whole affair. We were informed, for instance, that the Russian Tsar was ‘'puny" and that—most fascinating and importantly of all— the French Socialist Party leader Jean Jaurès had a rather wide back, "rather like that of a peasant". The only mildly noteworthy fact to be mentioned in all of this for anybody who wasn't already aware of it was the Black Nobility link between the various royal houses ostensibly involved in the war—the Kaiser, for example, was both Queen Victoria's grandson and the cousin of Tsar Nicolas II.

Reformist betrayal

The programme's obsession with Jaurès was particularly odd and its only apparent virtue was that it fitted in with the Great Man Theory of History so beloved by bourgeois historians past and present. According to this programme, Jaurès's assassination just before the outbreak of the war was a significant event which broke any likely resistance from the working class to the conflict. This is, at best, sheer fantasy. The International Socialist Bureau (Second International) had long signalled its willingness to take sides if war came. Indeed, as early as 1896 the ISB had signalled its belief in the primacy of national interests over class interests when a resolution was passed supporting the right to "national self- determination". Allied with this, most of the leaders of the Second International were prepared to support a "defensive” war. It therefore was no surprise at all in 1914 when the French Socialist Party supported France's war on its German aggressor, or that the largest nominally socialist party in the world, the German SPD, supported its own ruling class in its ‘defensive’ war against backward, semi-feudal Russia. In Britain, Henry Hyndman's British Socialist Party and Keir Hardie's Independent Labour Party both took sides with the British capitalists, while the Socialist Labour Party wavered before coming out against the conflict.

It is very unlikely indeed, given all that has already been noted about it, that 1914-18 will mention that the only political organisation in Britain to unequivocally oppose the war was the Socialist Party, making plain the real economic causes of the conflict. And if it continues with its theme that WWI was a battle between peace-loving and democratic Britain against German militarism and autocracy we might like to remind them of what real socialists were saying at the time about that most benevolent of social groupings, the British ruling class, when all the fake socialists rallied to their flag:

    This Government, the ‘defenders of freedom, the upholders of justice and right", endorsed martial law, the denial of all liberty and the firing on defenceless crowds in South Africa, batoned 700 men in Dublin, turned out the military against YOU at Belfast, Llanelly, Leith, the Rhondda Valley and elsewhere; they callously refused to give underfed children sufficient food; they mock with pretty words but cynical, brutal inaction, the condition of the ever growing army of unemployed; they have sanctioned wholesale imprisonment, exile and butchery in India, Persia, Egypt and the New Hebrides, and allied themselves with the infamies perpetrated in Russia and Japan: in a word they reek with lying pretence and self-satisfied pharasaism, for in very truth, they are the ever willing tools of autocracy, capitalism and class rule everywhere." (SPGB leaflet. The Call of the Patriot, February 1916)

Dave Perrin

'Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro' (2012)

Film Review from the November 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

London Labour Film Festival Gala - 'Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro' September 2012

The TUC-sponsored London Labour Film Festival gala-film was the French film Les neiges du Kilimandjaro (2011). The film is directed by Robert Guediguian, and stars Jean-Pierre Darroussin as Michel, a CGT trade union official in the Marseilles shipyard.

The film opens in the shipyard, and the struggle between capital and labour sees the union 'choosing' by lot those who will be made redundant. Later Christophe, one of those made redundant, insinuates to Michel there have been many union compromises with management and ‘back handers’. For decades the CGT was allied with the Communist Party, and the ossified 'Stalinist' reformism of both undermined the events of 1968. The CGT was more recently involved in strike action in 2005 over the privatisation of the Marseilles maritime ferry service.

Michel mentions the 1972 “Common Programme” which was optimistically seen as the 'union of the left', forming the basis for the Mitterrand Presidential victory in 1981, and reforms to capitalism such as Keynesian economic measures. Michel has achieved a 'good' standard of living due to the benefits of 'reformism'. He speaks highly to Christophe of the fruits of 'reformism', and in one scene Michel and his wife discuss that they are now “petty bourgeois”. During capitalism's periodic crises, the workers’ wages decrease so that Christophe, the young worker who is made redundant with no severance payments, commits a robbery for purely economic need; the proceeds are used to buy food, pay the rent, and look after his younger brothers.

Michel's hero is the pre-WWI reformist social democrat politician Jean Jaurès whose picture is on his work locker and he refers to him several times in the film. Jaurès advocated 'popular front' alliances with the progressive middle class. When WWI threatened in 1914 he tried to implement the Second International anti-war policy but was assassinated. Mitterrand placed a red rose on Jaurès' tomb in 1981.

Jaurès's reformism was opposed by Jules Guesde's 'Marxist' party whose manifesto had been drawn up by Marx and Engels. In 1905 Guesde's party and Jaurès’s party united under pressure from the Second International and Guesde soon got bogged down in reformism. In 1914 he joined the French government of “National Unity” although in 1907 he had declared war was the “result of the capitalist regime”. Had he not been assassinated no doubt Jaurès would have too.

Michel is imbued with an 'Idealist, reformist, social democratic' philosophy and the sense of 'justice' shared by Jaurès. Marxists see 'justice' as a concept originating in class society but Jaurès believed that the Idea of 'justice' causes the movement of history. Paul Lafargue critiqued Jaurès and 'justice' in his 1895 lecture Idealism and Materialism in the Conception of History: “Man never would have emerged from the primitive communist environment in which the idea of Justice does not exist”. Michel believes his conduct is guided by 'justice' but Lafargue sees that “the idea of Justice will vanish like a bad dream when common property shall have taken the place of private property”.

Steve Clayton

The ghost of Jaurès laid. (1916)

From the October 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

M. Jaurès, the Blatchford of France was assassinated just previous to the outbreak of the European war. At a recent Socialist (!) congress held in Paris, a minority, composed presumably of anti-militarists, claimed that had Jaurès lived he would have been on their side and against the war. Lt. Paul Hyacinthe Loyson, advertised in the ''Daily Chronicle" as "a prominent French Socialist," tells them and us, that "it is a cheap and easy game to lay claim thus to a corpse that cannot speak."

The genuine Socialist will not take sides in this body-snatching quarrel. Jaurès' influence with large sections of the French workers is claimed by the advocates of two philosophies with little to choose between them. England possesses faithful facsimiles of both. We have the anti-militarists of the I.L.P., who are anti-militarists among other things, and may be Socialists when Socialism is too strong for them to resist it. We have, too, the "Socialist" Patriots like Lieut. Loyson and—according to the evidence he furnishes—Jaurès and the majority of French Socialists.

Lieut. Loyson's evidence is most convincing. The anti-war party of the I.L.P. might just as well lay claim to Robert Blatchford as the "Zimmerwaldians" try to appropriate the ghost of Jaurès. The latter, only a year before his death, "consecrated a book of 560 pages to the study of the best means for a democracy of waging war. A strange anti-militarist, forsooth, this theoretician of the art of fighting." We agree with Loyson, he is entitled to the corpse., and all that goes with it. As a Socialist Party we do not even seek a share in the possession of it. We not only deny the truth of Loyson’s claim that Jaurès was "the leader of international Socialism all the world over and its 'living; torch;'" we deny emphatically that he was a Socialist even. You ask for proof—permit Lieut. Loyson, who so readily supplied the evidence that discomfited the Zimmerwaldians, to provide the material that will lay the ghost he himself has raised.

"Jaurès," he says, "was, in fact, a great-realist who threw the purple mantle of his oratory only over ideas that were healthy and well-muscled. Hence he always held that a whole could only be made up of its parts and that without nations there could be no International."

There is plenty of evidence in Loyson's adulatory article, and in the writings of M. Jaurès, to convict him (Jaurès) of having been anti-Socialist. But I select the above because it is novel and supremely childish, coming from one represented as a "living torch" with none but "well-muscled ideas."

The scientists and philosophers, ancient ant modern, who have been really great, have in the setting out of their systems, been often compelled to begin with simple definitions of terms and things for the sake of clearness. That Marx commenced his analysis of the capitalist system of society by defining and analysing commodity. Euclid laid down at the outset postulates and axioms, and one of the latter was that "the whole is greater than the part." Unfortunately, few people get much further than the axioms or definitions of any science; that doe not prevent them having the greatest respect for those who have gone farther. Those who like Jaurès and Loyson, have made it their business to mislead the workers, know that an assumption of scientific knowledge gleaned from the very first pages of really great works, make a first-'class impression on the minds of the ignorant. A neat phrase conveying an questionable truth, purloined from Euclid, Darwin, or Marx, is not only impressive, not only does it give safe foothold for the mind for a space, but it imparts weight to the trash that follows, and the recipient will doubt his judgment rather than hesitate to swallow  what is claimed as an obvious deduction. It may be "cheap and easy to lay claim to a corpse," but it is not less "cheap and easy" to intersperse scientific commonplaces, cheek by jowl with false economics and capitalist shibboleths, in order to throw dust in the eyes of the workers.

"A whole can only be made up of its parts" is merely a variation of Euclid's axiom that "'The whole is greater than the part," and "without nations there could be no international" is one of the "healthy and well-muscled ideas" over which "the great realist threw the purple mantle of his oratory." Such unsophisticated and shallow reasoning—excuse the compliment—would scarcely seem worthy of notice were it not for the implication it carries. Without nations there can be no international, therefore nations are necessary—they must be preserved, that the international may not die— that false and contemptible international that writes the parasitic labour decoys in common discussion for their mutual interests; that rotten international where they exchange their experiences, their successes and vicissitudes in the despicable game of bluffing the workers.

"Without nations there could be no inter-national." In other words, without capitalism there could be no Socialism, or Socialist movement ; without classes there could be no class war; unless a small class own the means of wealth production and enslave the larger class, there can be no struggle of the slaves for emancipation, and so we might go on. Is it the struggle we want? Do we pray for the class war? Is the international—even the real international—our goal? No, Socialism, the common ownership and democratic control of all the means of life, is the objective of the Socialist. The international, when we get it, is only a means to the end. It is forced upon us because the workers will see the need for it. The ruling class will use all manner of excuses to keep the working class divided; the International Socialist movement will brush the ruling class aside like chaff. For the Socialist movement tramples down national boundaries, recognises the common link between the workers of every land— their poverty and slavery indicts the ruling-class as a robber class, establishes the fact, that poverty need not exist, that slavery can be abolished by the workers themselves, and that the quarrels of the ruling class are of no concern to the working class. 

The working class of the world have a common bond that transcends every tie of race or nationality—their urgent need for emancipation. What matters the name of the country of your birth, if you are a slave in that country? What tie is it that links you to the lordly capitalist ? You are chained to his machines, in his factories and workshops, and driven by the whip of hunger to produce wealth for him while you sink deeper into poverty. You are the robbed, he is the robber; you are the slave, he is the master. A bond of shame, a tie that is a degradation to every wage-slave, is the only nexus between classes, and patriotism is the acceptance and approval of the bond.

Capitalism in its ruthless and brutal progress breeds workers of less consequence than machines, and treats them with far less consideration. The greater the progress of capitalism is, the deeper is the poverty of the workers, the more widespread their suffering, and the more intense their anarchic struggles for existence. Their ever-increasing efficiency intensifies the struggle. Yet all that the ruling class can suggest, nay command, is more efficiency, greater efforts, and sterner self-sacrifice in the interests of trade, and loyalty to them in their scramble for the lion's share in the markets of the world.

In every land the dominant class holds sway over the lives of the workers, moving them like pawns over the chess-board of civilization. From the slum to the factory, from the factory to the battlefield with the workhouse for the huffed. The dominant class wages scientific war against the workers. It maintains the necessary physical force to break down their strikes for higher wages, and with callous irony calls it "preserving order." It provides for an army of priests to lie about the "divine purpose of the Almighty God" in creating rich and poor—the first to be charitable and the second to be patient -while, their only god is gold. The dominant class enlists from the ranks of the workers themselves all the gifted traitors who can fashion themselves into the semblance of respectable labour leaders, entrusting them with the task of educating the workers in the way they should go for Christ's sake and capitalism.

Yet, in the midst of this hellish turmoil of capitalist oppression and anarchy, when starving millions only fail to strive for Socialism because of their ignorance, "Socialism's living torch," with academic calm and dignity, assures the workers that "without nations there can be no international!" Nations first, internationalism second—and impotent: that was Jaurès' conception. As the power of nationalism to grip the minds of the worker rises, so Socialism fades. But when the warm rays of Socialist enlightenment and knowledge illumine their minds with the promise of freedom and social well-being, their hands will clasp across national boundaries, and their feet will tread them into the past. In that day the capitalist will "beat the bounds" in vain, the workers will know that boundaries and nations have no meaning or significance for them. These two, nationalism and international Socialism (and there can be no Socialism that is not international) are opposite as the poles, as antagonistic as fire and water. When patriotism and Socialism enter the worker's mind, patriotism will be quenched or Socialism will evaporate. The Socialist patriot is as impossible as the Christian Socialist. If he is loyal to the class that exploits him, he is a traitor to his own class. If he recognises and is true to his class interest, the class war will engage all his free time and energy; and he will laugh to scorn the hypocritical vaporings about the rights of small or big nations, seeing only in every nation a large or small group of capitalists—his own class being spread over the world, like an upper strata of the earth's crust, for each group to claim and exploit.

The real international will be built up on the facts of Socialism The universal recognition of these facts will mean the linking up of the world's workers in opposition to the capitalist class. That class will practice nationalism and preach patriotism just so long as it serves to obscure the class struggle and keep the workers divided. When they have to face an enlightened and united working class, they themselves will stamp out every boundary in their urgent need for cohesion and strength to meet the workers' onward march. Imagine in that day, if you can, the members of the International Socialist Movement seriously discussing the proposition that "without nations there can be no international." Such a proposition has no place in the Socialist philosophy. It is mere kindergarten babble to the Socialist. But to the anti-Socialist it serves as a premise on which to build his case for the loyalty of the workers to their exploiters. Jaurès and Loyson have both used it in that way, thereby proclaiming themselves anti-Socialist. The Socialist does not care a rap whether the capitalist class divide the earth among themselves by rivers and seas, or by the lines of latitude and longitude. What concerns him, is the class ownership, which he works and organises to abolish.

F. Foan