Branch News (1961)

Party News from the April 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

St. Pancras, April 19th

Most members will already know of the demonstration for Socialism meeting held at St. Pancras Town Hall on Wednesday, April 19th. This is a very special occasion and calls for the enthusiasm and practical assistance of all London comrades. From Monday, April 10th, until the meeting date, a programme has been arranged for advertising the event by distributing handbills. The urgency and necessity for the work cannot be too strongly stressed. So please take up the challenge and rally to the distribution centres at 7.45 p.m. on the following dates: —

Monday, April 10th—Camden Town Underground Station.

Tuesday and Wednesday, April 11th and 12th—Mornington Crescent Underground Station.

Thursday and Friday, April 13th and 14th—Century Cinema, Kings Cross.

Monday, April 17th—Angel Underground Station, Islington.

Tuesday, April 18th—Russell Square Underground Station.

Wednesday, April 19th, at 7.30 p.m. — DEMONSTRATION FOR SOCIALISM, St. Pancras Town Hall, Euston Road, N. W. 1.

Ealing

The attention of members is drawn to two film shows being held this month. The first, on Friday, April 7th, deals with post-war Germany, and the second, on Friday, April 28th, subject—the eventful year of 1848.

Events last month were a film show, the first of the monthly canvasses in the Acton area, and on the social side a visit to the Toulouse Lautrec Exhibition at the Tate Gallery, followed by the usual get-together at a member’s home in the evening.

The next canvass in the Acton area will be held on April 9th—time and meeting place to be announced. Attendance of members at Branch meetings has been remarkably high of late. Please do your utmost to keep this up.

Islington

Islington Branch continues to hold successful lunch hour meetings every Thursday at Tower Hill. Attentive audiences of two to three hundred are becoming a regular feature. Literature sales could be improved if comrades would attend regularly to assist Comrade McGuinness. This is useful and enjoyable work for the Party. Please join Comrades Ambridge and McGuinness on Thursdays, 12.30 p.m. at Tower Hill.

Wembley

Wembley Branch members were agreeably surprised when over a dozen Jehovah’s Witnesses turned up to Comrade Law’s talk on the J.W. Movement, held on February 13th. There was lively discussion which lasted until the end of the meeting. A report was published later in the local press. The branch view seems to have been justified that members need to brush up their knowledge of contemporary religious theories. So further lectures will be arranged later, covering Modern Non-conformism, Spiritualism. The Mormons, etc.

At the end of February, Comrade Bryant (S.P. of A.) talked to the branch about Automation. Other discussions have been fixed for April, and there will be a film show early in May. All welcome, and for those interested, full details from the branch secretary.

The branch is slowly but surely increasing its sales of the Socialist Standard—mainly by canvassing—and current figures arc reaching the twenty dozen mark. They may well have passed this by the time these notes appear. Parts of Wood Green Area were successfully canvassed on February 26th, and a member living locally will follow up. This part of London is due for another visit shortly. At the beginning of the outdoor season in May, we shall try a canvass in Portsmouth and follow this with a meeting on the sea front in the afternoon. All branches will be informed of precise arrangements.

During the winter, we have had the benefit of writers classes held in Wembley on alternate Friday evenings. Emphasis has been laid here on improving our style of writing by applying the general principles of journalism—forceful presentation and economy of words. We hope that the results will show themselves shortly in better articles for the Socialist Standard.

Canada

Two former members of Ealing Branch went abroad to Toronto at the beginning of 1957. They were Comrades G. and S. Catt. For some time, fairly regular letters have passed between them and London. Now comes the splendid news that they have both joined the Socialist Party of Canada and have managed to start a local discussion group, with nine or ten persons regularly attending. There have been some very lively meetings to all accounts, and these comrades are hopeful that a Toronto branch of the S.P. of C. can be formed in the not too distant future. Address for those interested is 184, Beach Avenue, Toronto.

But it is an uphill struggle against tremendous odds, particularly since the Socialist movement over there is small and scattered. At the same time, it is a challenge which the Comrades Catt have gladly accepted, and we send them our very best wishes.

A Donation

The Party acknowledges with sincere thanks a donation of £500 received on March 14th from Ethel Lee Haing, an Australian Party member. She had saved to buy a car, but felt that the sacrifice was worth making to help in our work for Socialism.

Phyllis Howard

A polite reply to a Jehovah’s Witness (2023)

From the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Mrs J. W.

Thank you for your leaflet and discussion about your view that the answers to today’s social problems can be found by reading the Bible.

I am a member of the World Socialist Movement. I respect those Christian groups such as yourselves who, like us socialists, refuse to participate in war, and the courage of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, together with that of the Hutterites and Amish, during wartime is well known to me.

You are correct in saying that the money is there for governments to choose what to spend it on. But they don’t really have a choice. All governments are bound to put profits, and the defence of profit-making (ie, military expenditure), before people and their needs. They cannot help but do so, since the nation-state is the executive arm of the minority who own and control the world’s resources with a view to the accumulation of capital – the capitalist class. They cannot act in any other way. While the planet’s resources are monopolised by a minority of the population, the demands of profit-making will always come before the needs of people. This is why military expenditure is a priority for governments. The capitalists of each country are obliged to maintain the threat of war in the face of the cut-throat commercial competition which is capitalism. Even though the profit-system is suicidal to the capitalists themselves, and to all of us (modern warfare, including nuclear weaponry, pollution, despoliation of the Earth, etc), while the Earth remains the property of a minority ruling class this will always be the case.

What you know as the Bible consists in fact of only a tiny number of Christian texts which were chosen out of hundreds (which were destroyed) by the established clergy of the Byzantine Empire. These men would hardly be considered Christians by you, yet you take their choice among the Christian canon as your book known as the Bible today and which you call the ‘Word of God’. While burning the books of the Christians which were unacceptable to the official Orthodox Church at the time of the Council of Nicaea, these same officials who established the Bible as it is known today also burnt the Christians whose scriptures were at odds with the state-church alliance of Byzantium. So what you call the Bible is but an altered and much tampered-with fragment of a much larger body of Christian scripture, most of which has disappeared.

But that is neither here nor there for me, since I accept nothing on authority, and if some morsels of wisdom are to be gleaned from the Bible, the same is true of other books too. It is my experience, and surely yours too, that people can see in the Bible whatever they choose to see and expound accordingly. It is in the realm of the natural world and of human society and history in which we must search for the truth, not in that of ancient mythology, nor of ancient mythology rehashed to suit today’s people and their own confused imaginings.

Very many people are opposed to the state of affairs (capitalism, by whatever name they call it) prevailing today. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t give a sou to charities, yet they do. We see them reaching into their pocket frequently. Thousands of people around the world work actively in charitable organisations, and also in ecological, political organisations, anti-war associations, Red Cross and so on. Others train arduously to be nurses and doctors, earning very little money for doing so and travelling to out-of-the-way places hoping to ease the suffering of others.

All this hardly fits with the picture painted by you of ‘self-loving’ people with no natural affection, etc. In fact, everyone points to others when questioned about the world’s ills, saying ‘I would be happy to help others and do this, and establish a world of justice and goodness, but others would obstruct it’. In other words, they all point to other people (never themselves) as the reason why ‘things will never change for the better.’ As everyone tends to do this, we end up with millions apparently willing and eager to bring about a better world, but each pointing to the rest who, they all say, would ‘obstruct’ it! The picture is not one of ‘evil’ or selfishness, but of blindness toward our collective strength and power – a sense of alienation from one another which seems to leave no option but that of apathy and a timid ‘waiting for the awful end to come’ etc, … Which serves capitalism very well indeed.

And religion (all religion) assists in this cultivation of apathy and helplessness. Not so much tiny groups like yourselves, who have very little influence, but the whole perverse doctrine of an omnipotent Supreme Being who governs the universe and who urges us (by means of religious books etc) to ‘resist our evil human nature’.

Christianity especially, with its doctrine of Original Sin (today rehashed by secular conservatives as ‘human nature’ – the myth of innate evil) tells us we are helpless in the face of the social evils we have ourselves brought about. It tells us to forget about changing society (above all to forget about expropriating our masters) and set our sights on a future paradise which ‘God’ has prepared for us after death (no wonder this suited so well the Byzantine hierarchy which established the Christian Bible as a ‘holy book’! It has suited all ruling classes ever since!).

In short, religion sustains class rule, and the evils arising from it (famine, warfare, poverty and so on) by divorcing humanity itself from the possibility of real solutions. It condemns humans to prayerful, penitent, charitable acceptance of the existing order of things, and to social and political inactivity and dependence on leaders, whether clerical or secular. Because, religion says, real change is not in the power of man, but of God – that mythical Supreme Being who has ordained things as they are and in the face of which we can but kneel, pray, and try to ease suffering while we await ’His coming’. It is not our job, says religion, to root out the cause of suffering, or to take the Earth into the hands of the majority of its human inhabitants. It is not our job, says religion, because we are, basically, evil, hateful and good-for-nothing; seduced by the serpent and redeemable only through God’s will.

What an ally religion is to the capitalist class!

What an enemy and obstruction to human emancipation and self-realisation!

I have no wish to be meek. We cannot afford to be meek. Our task must be, as members of the majority working class, to expropriate the minority who own the world’s wealth and resources in the rampant interest of profit. We must organise as a class and dispossess this minority, so that, with the Earth’s resources in the hands, democratically, of us all, a society of real co-operation, a society of free access, without nation-states, without frontiers, without wars, poverty and famine, can at last be established.

Meekness is the watchword of those who would have us meek. Of those whom superstition serves, as a useful tool, for keeping us on penitential knees.

Far from happiness being provided by religion, religion occurs where real happiness is absent. Paradise in the sky is and always has been a poor substitute for real heaven on Earth. Religion is ‘… the sigh of the oppressed creature. The opium of the people.’

Sincerely yours,

A. W.

Halo Halo! (2023)

The Halo Halo! column from the December 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Knock on door. Open to see two very smartly dressed mature ladies standing behind a smartly besuited gentleman. All smiling. Quick appraisal. Decide not Mormons because they only proselytise using males. Politely ask who they are. They offer pleasantries then straight into their sales pitch. Light slowly dawns. Ah, Jehovah’s Witnesses. They’re trying to fill their quota and sign me up. Haven’t they seen Life of Brian? Not worried about getting stoned then? Since it’s December I naughtily ask about their policies on Christmas and other Christian festivals. Aware it’s a no-go because they consider it pagan. Also ask about Easter. Wot, no pressies or chocolate Easter eggs? Even atheists say no thanks matey! Smiles become more strained.

Respond to their proffered leaflet with three copies of Questions and Answers about Socialism. After all, exchange is no robbery. Polite smiles quickly change to worried ones. He pulls back leaflet he was offering me. Exit right quickly. Socialism – the antidote to religion.

‘Witnesses believe that a “little flock” of 144,000 selected humans go to heaven, but that God will resurrect the majority (the “other sheep”) to a cleansed earth after Armageddon’ (Wikipedia). JW have eight and a half million adherents.

#    #    #    #

On the second-largest island in the Philippines, an obscure religious movement, believed to be promoting an imminent end-of-the-world ideology, has been accused of engaging in sexual violence and forced marriage of its own members, including children. It is thought to have at least three thousand five hundred members. There are several religious groups in the Philippines that are labelled by authorities as cults (Al Jazeera 19 September).

#    #    #    #

In November 1978, 900 Americans, adherents to the People’s Temple, died in Guyana after drinking poison at the behest of their leader, Rev Jim Jones. ‘Temple members were regularly humiliated, beaten, and blackmailed, and many were coerced or brainwashed into signing over their possessions—including their homes—to the church’ (Britannica.com).

#    #    #    #

In Kenya, the Pastor of the Good News International Church was said to have told followers they must starve themselves to death. Why would anyone do that? Apparently, in order to ‘meet Jesus’. The Kenyan authorities had found over four hundred bodies. The news report noted, ‘Starvation appears to have been the main cause of death, according to government autopsies, but some victims – including children – had been strangled, beaten or suffocated’ (Sky News, 18 July).

#    #    #    #

In Britain it used to be the norm when filling in any kind of form that asked for religion to respond with C of E. It often meant … well I’m not really religious but to avoid social disapprobation I’ll go with the flow. After all, if it’s good enough for the Queen/King it’s good enough for me. But now us ‘nones’ are coming out of the closet. A 5 October AP report notes that American and Canadian ‘nones’ are, give or take, a third of the population. Japan, Israel and Uruguay are listed as high in ‘nones’. Unnamed European countries qualify too.

DC

Conscientious Objectors (1943)

From the November 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Stanley Hilton, the Rochdale conscientious objector, who on July 26th was sentenced at his fourth court-martial to two years’ detention, has been released on a ‘suspended sentence.’ . . . Hilton, a Jehovah’s Witness, had spent three years in jail.”—(News Chronicle, October 5, 1943.)

“In this war, as in the last, the position of M.P.s in regard to military service is a difficult and delicate one. The public and even many members of the House of Commons believe that they are legally exempt from the provisions of the National Service Act. This is not so. … A member of the Commons is, by custom, left to decide for himself whether he will serve in the Forces. … In spite of these privileges, some 150 M.P.s are engaged on full-time war service. . . . Rightly the decision is left to the individual conscience.”—(Evening Standard, September 23, 1943.)

Tiny Tips (2009)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers. Officials encouraging the booklet’s distribution include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade. The booklet was published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, in cooperation with the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, and has been distributed for the past few months:

[Dead Link.]

Anwar, 15, can’t read or write, but says he’s good at tunnel work. He needs a new job as Israeli planes bombed his workplace, one of hundreds of smuggling tunnels on Gaza’s border with Egypt:

[Dead Link.]

London’s Conservative Mayor boris Johnson has been labelled “out of touch” with millions of Londoners after he described the £250,000 he is paid for a weekly column in the as “chicken feed”. He said it was “wholly reasonable” to take the annual fee on top of his £140,000 salary as mayor:

[Dead Link.]

Sheehan’s pitch is to free ourselves from our co-dependency with the Robber Class. “... Only buy used, only use cash or bank debit cards, or only buy from local merchants,” she recently wrote. They can only steal from us if we enable them.” And when the Robber Class steals from us they generally get away with it. Sheehan argues that Bernie Madoff was punished so severely because he stole from the rich:

[Dead Link.]

Tens of thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses gathered on Friday at Berlin’s Olympic Stadium and four other major German cities for an international congress, predicting the demise of the “current global system.”

[Dead Link.]

“Yes, I’m fully prepared for this. I have concluded that the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] are not going to be ended by politicians or people at the top. They’re not responsive to people, they’re responsive to corporate America. The only way to make them responsive to the needs of the people is for soldiers to not fight their wars. If soldiers won’t fight their wars, the wars won’t happen. I hope I’m setting an example for other soldiers.”

[Dead Link but see this for the quote.]

When the Honduran military overthrew the democratically elected government of Manuel Zelaya two weeks ago there might have been a sigh of relief in the corporate board rooms of Chiquita banana. Earlier this year the Cincinnati-based fruit company joined Dole in criticizing the government in Tegucigalpa which had raised the minimum wage by 60%. Chiquita complained that the new regulations would cut into company profits, requiring the firm to spend more on costs than in Costa Rica: 20 cents more to produce a crate of pineapple and ten cents more to produce a crate of bananas to be exact. In all, Chiquita fretted that it would lose millions under Zelaya’s labor reforms since the company produced around 8 million crates of pineapple and 22 million crates of bananas per year

[Dead Link.]

Jehovah's Servants (1961)

From the June 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Until a couple of centuries ago human knowledge of the physical universe and of man’s historic development was scattered and very limited. The principal guides were religious works and teachings, the most familiar being the Bible. The idea of the World and Universe coming to an end, and being reborn again in some other form, stemmed from man’s primitive struggles with nature, the observance of life and death among plants and animals, the waxing and waning of the heavenly bodies.

The strong religious theories and dogmas influenced ideas about society.

It was when the class struggle became more acute that suppressed groups combined theories about new societies with the contemporary religious ideas on the ending of the world. Politics in 'those days were never far removed from religious hair-splitting and supplication.

In the 16th century Germany was in a state of upheaval. The creed of one Protestant group, the Anabaptists, included a belief in ’the return of a divine power and the establishment of a system of common ownership. The dramatic outcome of this movement was in 1535 when the Anabaptists under John of Leiden, took over the town of Münster and attempted to set up the millenium on earth. The adventure was an experiment in a commonweal society which the feudal landowners, aided by the Church, stamped out in mass bloodshed. In England at the time of Cromwell a similar but smaller group called the Fifth Monarchy men exited. Successfully hampered by the magnates and Cromwell, they awaited the Restoration to gain a place in history. Frustrated then at every turn they took to the murder of legal gentry, and followed this up by a comic opera attack on the Tower of London. This adventure effectively erased them from activity.

With the opening up of the United States the ideas of the Millennium took on a more peaceful form. In North America, where land was plentiful, colonies calling themselves the Lord’s Elect set up their Edens, practising mutual aid, pooling of resources, and strict living. Others more colourful awaited what they hoped was to be the second coming under some self-appointed Messiah or Shiloh. The weakness of these colonies lay in their exclusiveness. The outside world interested them only slightly; they had no desire to interfere with society.

However, in the 1850’s one group formed a different attitude. Known as the Christadelphians, they laid down very definite views on their God's plan far mankind which they based on biblical study. They claimed that the old earth would pass away with Christ's return, and a new world with no evil, oppression, or wars, would be the reward of the believers, with an everlasting life thrown in. They made a name for themselves as conscientious objectors in the American Civil War.

By 1872 Pastor Russell, living in the U.S.A., had formed another group based on Christadelphian theories. These groups called Bible Students were worldwide, linked to their chief, Russell, by a system of publications and pamphlets that embodied the Russellite theories. After the death of Russell in 1916, the mantle of leadership fell on the shoulders of Judge Rutherford, who had American know-how on sales pressure, publication and organisation. The Bible Students were banned in the U.S. during the first World War and Judge Rutherford was jailed.

It was in the unsettled conditions of the world after 1918 that the Bible Students turned their propaganda to eye-catching and shock provoking tabloids. Such statements as, “ Millions now living will never die ” (in a world still numbed by the World War losses) or “ Religion is a racket ” at least arrested attention, even if the subsequent arguments were lacking in proof.

The Rutherford clique tightened up on the old members and widened the base of membership. The original select class were quietly pushed out and the members eventually became known as Jehovah’s Witnesses—a more comprehensive name and helpful in making new members.

The ideas of the sect are disturbing to other creeds. They renounce the conventional ideas of heaven and hell, the immortal soul, and the holy trinity. Backed up by Biblical quotes, the Witnesses argue that Man was created and lived under perfect conditions, but fell under the influence of a fallen angel, namely, the devil. Since then the world and its social systems have fallen more and more under the sway of the devil and his legions. Wars, sovereign states, hunger, poverty, oppression and death itself are all manifestations of mankind's turning away from Jehovah’s revealed truth.

The current troubled society fills them with hope, however, as the Witnesses proclaim that the day of Armageddon cannot be far away. The faithful, they say, will survive the final struggle in which the devil will be made captive, and "this system of things” swept away. Christ will rule the earth, supported by some 144,000 spiritual beings who once lived on earth. The rest of men will not die, and under the theocratic order the earth will flourish as a garden.

When the earth is fruitful again a resurrection of all the dead will take place. All will enjoy the paradise on earth and so remedy past sins by acknowledging Jehovah and Christ. However, after a thousand years the devil will be released to tempt the wavering. This is the final struggle and the devil and his followers will be finally condemned to death.

A cynic might wisecrack and ask how anyone could turn "bolshie” after a thousand years of the millennium; will it be the outcome of boredom? Many may howl with laughter at these theories —at the same 'time as they are swallowing other dogmas, religious and political, that are just as unreal.

The Witnesses can argue their case with ability and verve, which is more than can be said for the average Catholic, Tory or Labourite. Fundamentalists in a world of science, they fearlessly attack theories of evolution by rapier thrusts at the weak links in Darwinism. They are the type of religious opposition to keep materialists on their toes. They have been scourged by the dictatorships which have tried to keep them from their domains as if they were the plague. This is to be expected when great “Leaders” are filling their workers up 'to the brim with home brewed ”People’s Republics” and ‘‘New Orders.” The Witnesses might appear to their masses as some rival supermarket.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses may be painstaking in argument, energetic, skilful in propaganda, obedient in organisation; but after all this they are supporting some theory that has no basis in fact. For their case ultimately pivots on a manlike conception of a god; a deity with human emotions and ideas, a god made in man’s image. The grimness of capitalism has driven these people to feel that man cannot help himself; he must forever wallow in blood and hatred, never growing up, always dangerously infantile.

In fact, only man himself can. work out his own salvation. In spite of the setbacks, heartbreaks, and mistakes, Man learns step by step to deal with his problems.

That is the final answer to the Witnesses of Jehovah, and to all other purveyors of religious theories.

Jack Law

Jottings. (1921)

The Jottings Column from the June 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Thames Police Court magistrate believes that the unemployment dole is destroying the morals of the working section of the community. In charging a man for being drunk on the dole, he described it as a scandal and an outrage, and was astonished that decent industrial people (there are such, then !) should permit it to go on. "Really, I wonder that anyone works at all." Apart from the silliness of the remark (since someone must work before doles can be paid) he apparently conveniently forgets that there is, at any rate, one section which does not believe in working—never did and never will—the members of which are maintained on the doles (large ones, too!) they succeed in squeezing out of those who do work, and whose right to appropriate and misuse is not questioned outside the Socialist movement. That same class employs magistrates and others to interpret so-called justice in their own interests. They are the real unemployed.

*       *      *

Mr. Havelock Wilson told a meeting of seamen at Hull the other day that nationalisation was the surest way to slavery. The surest way is to accept without complaint the conditions imposed upon us by another class holding the reins of power and at the same time support the existence of such conditions by voting this class into power, generally with the approval and assistance of "leaders" such as Havelock Wilson.

That condition has long since been reached. We are in the throes of slavery now, not on the way to it, as Mr. Wilson suggests.

"In all big questions it was the duty of the leaders of trade unions to consult the members before taking action. If they did not do so and the workmen submitted to degrading and abominable dictation they deserved to be slaves."

This sounds brave, but coming from Wilson we can estimate its value at once, and that is— nothing. Has not he himself posed as a leader ready to lead the workers anywhere but on the right track? And where is there a greater would-be dictator if anybody took any notice of him? He did not hesitate to support that nationalised institution known as the British Army when it suited his purposes to do so, in spite of the "degrading and abominable dictation" attached to it. All along he has definitely supported the master class, therefore the workers can have no use for him. They can emancipate themselves without the assistance of leaders, and when they have reached a period of full enlightenment due to the spreading of a knowledge of what Socialism is, they will act upon that knowledge and leave the would-be leaders where they belong—in the discard.

 *       *      *

If what Judge Rutherford of New York says comes true, there will apparently soon be no need for Socialism. According to the learned gentleman it seems that in 1925 the world will undergo a complete transformation. No one need die unless he chooses ; there will be no necessity to work, no hunger, no poverty, no unhappiness. Bald men will grow new hair ; toothless gums will be filled with new teeth, and men and women will renew their youth and for ever become beautiful. And all because of a perfect food which will be discovered, and which will nourish and sustain everybody for ever. Altogether it will be a glorious condition of existence due to a process which will be revealed in due course by the Lord—if he does not forget.

*       *      *

After reading the above it occured to me that an item like this ought to command the attention of those members of the House of Commons such as J. H. Thomas, John Hodge, Henderson and Roberts, who have just attached their names to a memorial, along with about a hundred other anti-Socialists, urging the Minister of Health to publish and distribute leaflets "which would spread information about healthy, nutritious and economical foods" for the working class. No doubt Judge Rutherford, who appears to be in touch with the old gentleman who usually gets the blame for creating this ball of misery and madness, would gladly supply them with details in advance which would help to solve their difficulties.

*       *      *

Overheard in the workmen's tram the other morning:

  Is this a free country ?—Undoubtedly.—Who says so?—Those who own it.—Who is it free to ?—Those who own it.—How about the workers?—Being slaves, they only count as such.—Have they no rights?—None whatever.—Not even the right to work ?—Not even that. —How came one class to have all the rights?—The workers made them a present of them and re-affirm it at every General Election.—Then they are in chains !—Absolutely.—Well, then, haven't I the right to get up and say so ?—You have not.—Not even to speak the truth ?—Not even to speak the truth. A man got fined the other day for getting up in Hyde Park and speaking what he declared was the truth.— Then what can be done—Nothing but keep pegging away at them with Socialist knowledge. It is the only instrument that will knock off the chains and shift the rights from one side to the other.

Tom Sala

Modern Fundamentalists (1968)

From the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human society in its development unfolds the secrets of the Universe but at no time has this been so accelerated as in the capitalist mode of production. New discoveries and inventions plus mankind’s experience have a direct bearing on all ideas that are held in society.

We are in part of an age when religious ideas, having already undergone changes in the past, are once more moving to a new field. The wide adherence to old dogmas held by the masses has now weakened, particularly in the spheres of Protestantism. Ruling classes nowadays tend not to appeal to their workers in the name of God but rather rely on slick and earnest appeals that are spiced with economic theories and plans. Apathy and small congregations along with dated theology present the churches with an almighty headache and much heart searching. The clamour for reform and ’’modernism” in order to get organised religion back in the groove again comes from the clergy of every well known sect. It is in fact largely a ’’Palace Revolution”. The South Bank rebels led by the Bishop of Woolwich startle the orthodox with their New Reformation. Rebellious Rabbis and matrimoniously minded Catholic Priests cut across the age long rules of their orders.

It is something of a jolt to find in the midst of so much unbelief and uncertainty the old biblical dogmas resisting, and often by using very modem techniques.

Two bodies both having their roots in the religious peasant-communist theories of the 16th century Anabaptists present themselves to us. The first, the Christadelphians, were founded in America by John Thomas in 1848. They rejected the Trinity along with the idea of a personal devil. Death must occur and a physical resurrection at the return of Christ is the divine plan for man. The new kingdom on earth will be ruled by Christ and the elect with the evils of our time removed. Those who still reject this paradise and who sin are punished by death, there being no hell. The Christadelphians base their ideas on a correct and literal reading of the Bible. Their numbers are small and are not growing. They are not so often met with and certainly lack the organising capabilities of the Jehovah's Witnesses.

This body has ideas so similar in form to the Christadelphians that the uninterested may be forgiven fur not appreciating the differences. Again they have modern roots in America and were originally known as Russellites. They proclaim the return of Christ and the physical resurrection of the dead. A great battle or struggle (Armageddon) will result in the control of the Devil. For a thousand years mankind will live under the rule of Christ on earth under extremely good conditions with no poverty, illness or death. After this period the Devil and all those who refuse to fit in to this Paradise just die whilst the rest go on living on earth for ever unmolested. The Witnesses are zealous and argue closely around biblical interpretation. They boldly proclaim their faith at your front door and have an efficient literature sales technique. In fact membership hinges around the willingness to sell and witness the faith.

The leaders arc rather like a self nominating Executive Committee and all interpretation of current events in the light of biblical prophecy rests with them. The Witnesses are found in most countries but have been viewed with suspicion by dictatorships and were executed en mass by the Nazis. They probably number several million and unlike the more orthodox Christians they are not worried by a remorseless fall out of congregation. Though there must be a ceiling on their growth rate some success in the newer types of industrial communities has caused flutterings in the hearts of the more orthodox Christians.

The third fundamentalist group that has of recent years secured a foot hold in Britain is the Mormons. They are probably the only hundred per cent all-American religion. Joseph Smith, the founder, claimed to have been shown the gold tablets of the Book of Mormon that were secreted in America. This theological work claims that America was at one time peopled by the Jews and the hand of God was much in evidence there in ancient times. The motive force behind this movement was tied to the opening up of the Golden West. As is to be expected America became the Mecca of every non-conformist and radical group, religious and secular, for here the virgin soil awaited the plough of the disciples of dissent like the Mormons.

Founding Salt Lake City after their great trek they established a community far more advanced in social graces and modern techniques than those surrounding them. Principles of welfare were embracing and well organised as a result of a tithe levy on members. From this place in Utah they have sent their preachers throughout the world.

The book of Mormon and the bible are the foundations of the faith; the former must be accepted without any qualification. They have a lay or supervisory priesthood with apostles and a President who control the church. The President is in office for life and the apostles elect the new one on his death.

These strong dogmatic creeds seemingly flourish in an environment of waning belief. They offer a strong sense of identity in a world of class and personal segregation. The struggle for jobs, position, homes and profits keeps mankind well splintered. A weekly religious gathering bolstered up by feeling that one is part of the elect of god helps to quieten the smouldering sense of isolation. Some workers can be expected under these general social conditions to seek a haven inside a mental wall of unassailable religious faith.

Knowledge of the natural world however destroys and makes inroads into these beliefs and the adherents are forced to spend fruitless hours trying to square the impossible. Workers should try to come to grips with the material and social causes of the problems that beset and worry them and not seek for answers by juggling with quotes and extracts from ancient and modern versions of the so called ’‘Words of God".

Mankind has been pondering over these scripts for some thousands of years and very little, if any, good has it done them.

Jack Law