What they are saying (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Told You So

“We in the Labour movement feel it is time we had a look at what we have set up. When the coal industry was nationalised we felt that we were setting up Socialism in this industry, but we now discover that what we have introduced is simply state capitalism.”—Mr. G. Moir (Paisley) at the Co-operative Party conference, reported in the Manchester Guardian of 23/4/57.

A Child Communist's Guide to Democratic Centralism

“In this struggle has evolved the principle of democratic centralism, which combines democracy and centralism, both essential in our organisation.

“Democratic centralism is centralism on the basis of democracy, and democracy with centralised guidance.” —Mr. John Mahon, at the Communist Party Congress, reported in the Daily Worker of 22/4/57.

The People’s Flag is Deepest Red, White and Blue

“If we have been too uncritical of the Soviet Union in the past, it does not alter the fact that we are the most British Party in politics today.”—Mr. John Gollan, at the Communist Party Congress, reported in the Daily Worker of 22/4/57.

Capitalism and Human Needs—1957 

Food Shortages every year 

American help for India

“Every year there is a famine in India somewhere, and some people go without enough cereals to fill half a handful, and are reduced to digging the ground for tubers and scratching trees for bark . . ."

Too Much Wheat in Australia 

Cannot find market

“The Australian wheat industry faces the worst, marketing trouble since the depression of the 1930s, the chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, Sr John Teasdale, said today (April 24). .

[Beginning of two adjoining articles in the Manchester Guardian of 25/4/57.]

50 Years Ago: Communist commotion (2007)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard 

“FREE HARICH, SACK HARRY,” painted with true Communist zeal in large white letters on the roadway greeted the faithful as they entered Hammersmith Town Hall over the Easter week-end to receive their annual dose of dogma from the cardinals of King Street, and to indulge in some public confessions of political sins. This slogan was not a rabble-rousing challenge to strike fear into the hearts of Yankee capitalists or warmongering Tories; it was directed not outwards, but inwards, to the heart of the Workers’ Mass Party itself. Harich is the young intellectual imprisoned by the East German government, and guess who Harry is? Yes, none other than Cardinal Harry Pollitt. Alas! we confidently predict that this slogan will have as little effect in altering the status quo as others which have appeared on walls from time to time to enliven the working-class scene have had (e.g., “Hands off Guatemala,” “End Eden’s War,” “Chuck The Tories Out,” etc.). Harry is still there, and so, presumably, is Harich—but in a different place.

The irreverent slogan was, however, a sign of a definite air of revolt which hung over the proceedings, a revolt which, if not quite amounting to “ruthless self-criticism,” was at least an indication of a fairly advanced state of political masochism. Cardinal J. Gollan, the Party secretary, had to announce that 7,000 of the faithful had left the flock during the preceding year: others were all too ready to voice their doubts, especially about the Russian intervention in Hungary.

(from article by M. L. in Socialist Standard, June 1957)

Notes By The Way: Robbing the Thrifty (1958)

The Notes By The Way column from the January 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Robbing the Thrifty

Elsewhere in this issue (Fifty Years Ago) two contrasting quotations are given, the first relating to the vast army of people who, forty years ago, were dependent on the Poor Law and the second a quotation from Colin Clark about the 1,700,000 now receiving National Assistance. As he says, the so-called Welfare State has done little more than change the name from Poor Relief to National Assistance.

His main point is, however, the way in which Labour and Tory Governments, by steadily raising the cost of living—60 per cent. since 1947—have whittled away the purchasing power of savings and fixed pensions.

  “While the social services are handing out benefits to some, the Government, through its financial policy, has been robbing the meagre savings of the humble and the weak and driving them back on to the bread line. Not a record to be proud of."

While this was happening to the humble and weak the rich and powerful had great opportunities for adding to their wealth through the rise of prices of company shares and properties of all kinds. Many great new fortunes have been made under the “Welfare State,” while the governments, the Trades Union Congress and the National Savings Committee were preaching thrift to those who could least afford it, and deploring the growth of gambling and football pools.

The Savings Racket in Russia

If the Labour and Tory governments in Britain have whittled away the value of savings by their policy of raising the cost of living, the government in Russia has achieved the same end by much more drastic methods.

In 1947, when they revalued the currency, issuing new currency in place of the old (but much less of it) they cancelled one-third or one-half of all deposits in Savings Banks above 3,000 roubles (about £143), and cancelled two-thirds of the face value of most State bonds. Thus, the worker who had invested £100 found himself owning only £33.

Earlier this year a still more drastic action was taken, particulars of which were given in Soviet News (10th April, 1957). published by the Russian Embassy in London. (See also Economist, 20th April, 1957.) The announcement was made by Mr. Krushchev. He stated that the total amount of loans outstanding was 260,000 million roubles (about £24,000 million), so that the cost of the tax free lottery prizes paid out on the bonds in place of interest must have been nearly £900 million a year, an amount much bigger than the cost of interest on the British National Debt.

Mr. Krushchev blandly explained that the Russian government has decided to raise no more loans, and as this could not be done “unless the payment of winnings and redemptions on the previous loans was suspended at the same time,” the government also proposed to postpone the payment of winnings for a period of 20 to 25 years.” Instead, they would repay the 260,000 million roubles at the rate of about 13,000 million roubles a year (about £1,200 million), but without interest or lottery prizes until the end of 25 years.

Mr. Krushchev did not say that the Russian government was going to do this: they were merely proposing it. and would only carry it out if the Russian workers approved! The same issue of Soviet News reported that the Russian workers had approved.

The suggestion of the Economist as to the reason for this move is that the size and cost of the debt had become so large (nearly half the annual budget) that it had become “a real burden” on State finances. The British Chancellor of the Exchequer must be envious of his Russian opposite number's freedom of action.

The Elusive "Middle Class” Again

In the Observer (1/12/57) Mr. Alan Day had an article on “Inflation and the Middle Classes,” discussing whether it is true, as some Tories say, that “the middle classes” have suffered more harshly from inflation than have other people.

He agreed that “one section” have undoubtedly been badly squeezed—"the pensioners and other retired people living on fixed-money incomes." He also agreed that the same is true of “the elderly working classes," but with the difference that the former have been on a higher standard of living and therefore have farther to fall before they can qualify for national assistance.

Apart from this, Mr. Day believes that the "middle classes" as a whole have not been badly hit, though some of them (he mentions "classics masters” as an example) have suffered because they are less in demand than they used to be. The others have had their salaries raised with the cost of living, though, as Mr. Day points out, it is done with less publicity than the raising of wages of railwaymen. dockers, etc.

But what is of more interest is what Mr. Day means by "middle classes." He deals in the main with people who sell their mental and physical energies, just like dockers, but who call their pay salaries instead of wages. In short, they are members of the working class, and the name "middle class" is inapplicable.

Mr. Day admits this. He confesses that he cannot define the term and writes:—

  “The only possible definition is that people are in the middle class when they think they are.”

But surely the remedy is too simple. If people can belong to a non-existent class merely by thinking that they belong to it, all they have to do about their problem of low pay is to think that their pay isn’t low. Or, since they think the working class are better off, why not think themselves into the working class? Or, better still, why not "think" instead of day-dreaming? Think about capitalism and their working class status in it; then think about Socialism, in which they would be able to live and work as intelligent members of a free society, no longer hag-ridden by notions about class.

One in Ten Americans is a Slum Dweller

Under the above heading the Daily Mail reports a survey made in America by the magazine "Fortune."

  “To-day, some 17,000,000 Americans live in dwellings that are beyond rehabilitation—decayed, dirty, rat-infested, without decent heat or light or plumbing.”

The Daily Mail says that, according to the survey, in America’s biggest and richest cities like San Francisco, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Houston, the number of people crowding into slums is growing proportionately faster than the population of the city as a whole.

The major reason for the slums is said to be "prosperity itself,” because, as jobs are to be had, people come in from small towns and farms, the South, and Puerto Rico.

Horizontal Alcoholics

Many writers have used the theme of a visitor from another planet as a means of taking a fresh look at the imbecilities of our world. Naturally, he cannot see any more or any deeper than his creator and most of the creators, being accepters of the present structure of society, have seen the odd little evils and missed the accustomed big ones. All the same, a visitor from another planet which had a developed capitalist system, and who was blind to the major evils of capitalism, might well blink at some of the crazier activities of official and unofficial legislators and moralisers. A latest example comes from Washington, U.S.A., and was reported in the Daily Telegraph (30/11/57).

Because the local legislature believes "that people are liable to drink more standing up," they made a law requiring that people who want to drink in public must do so sitting down.

The local Restaurant proprietors do not like this and want the few repealed. They point out that, to escape the law, drinkers pop over into Maryland, "where they can drink standing up. This means they can escape tipping."

Until some years ago there was another law which ruled that drinks had to be mixed out of sight of the customers, "so that non-drinkers would not be tempted. It was changed when some bartenders were found making Martinis with olives which customers had left in their glasses."

It recalls the Defence Regulation that at one time made it illegal to treat other people to drinks. (Or is it one of those many laws that exist still but are ignored?).

Does the Washington law allow the customers to take their drinks lying down?

New York Stock Exchange and the British Labour Party

The Daily Herald in a leading article (25/11/57) smugly reports that the President of the New York Stock Exchange—“no Socialist he”—has borrowed from the British Labour Party the idea of government investment in company shares, for that is what he is advising the American government to do "for small firms that need money to grow bigger.”

According to the Herald this proves that "the temple of private enterprise in Wall-street ” has been forced to go in for "public enterprise,” "because it is necessary for the efficiency of industry.”

We are not much concerned with the Herald’s belief that boards of directors will be more efficient and careful when handling government money than when handling shareholders' money, except to say that it is difficult to think of any single reason why it should be so.

What interests us more is that the Herald should so easily manage to get the thing upside down. When the temple of capitalism borrows an idea from the Labour Party all it shows is what queer ideas the Labour Party has, and how much the Herald has changed since its early days when it would have scoffed at the proposal.

A Straw in the Wind

The General Secretary of the Communist Party, Mr. John Gollan, in his report to his executive committee after his visit to Moscow, referred to the question of "Unity of the Socialist Parties and the Communist Parties.” (Daily Worker, 2/12/57.)

Mr. Gollan and the British Communist Party will now and for as long as the instruction holds, describe the British Labour Party as a Socialist Party, likewise the Labour parties in other countries. It was not always so. In 1929 the Communist Party’s election programme "Class Against Class” had this of the Labour Party

  “This Party is the third capitalist party. It lays claim to the title of Socialist Party, but has nothing to do with Socialism.”

At other times they have called the Labour Party social fascists and similar abusive names. Is it that the Labour Party keeps changing? Not at all. It merely means that the Russian government wants a new tactic to be employed towards the Labour Party so overnight it becomes a "Socialist party.” Who knows what it will be called by the end of 1958.

Edgar Hardcastle

Communist Commotion (1957)

From the June 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

“FREE HARICH, SACK HARRY,” painted with true Communist zeal in large white letters on the roadway greeted the faithful as they entered Hammersmith Town Hall over the Easter week-end to receive their annual dose of dogma from the cardinals of King Street, and to indulge in some public confessions of political sins. This slogan was not a rabble-rousing challenge to strike fear into the hearts of Yankee capitalists or warmongering Tories; it was directed not outwards, but inwards, to the heart of the Workers’ Mass Party itself. Harich is the young intellectual imprisoned by the East German government, and guess who Harry is? Yes, none other than Cardinal Harry Pollitt. Alas! we confidently predict that this slogan will have as little effect in altering the status quo as others which have appeared on walls from time to time to enliven the working-class scene have had (e.g., “Hands off Guatemala,” “End Eden’s War,” “Chuck The Tories Out,” etc.). Harry is still there, and so, presumably, is Harich – but in a different place.

The irreverent slogan was, however, a sign of a definite air of revolt which hung over the proceedings, a revolt which, if not quite amounting to “ruthless self-criticism,” was at least an indication of a fairly advanced state of political masochism. Cardinal J. Gollan, the Party secretary, had to announce that 7,000 of the faithful had left the flock during the preceding year: others were all too ready to voice their doubts, especially about the Russian intervention in Hungary. One delegate remarked that in 22 years he had never known a Congress that had such a ‘type of discussion getting down to it.'” (Observer, 21/4/57). The college of cardinals, including Gollan, Matthews, Mahon and Pollitt, struggled manfully with incantations and holy writ to exorcise the devils of heresy.

Representatives of the Labour press were excluded from the conference. Could this be because Mr. Peter Fryer (who resigned from the Daily Worker over the treatment of his reports from Hungary and who was later expelled from the C.P.) was the would-be representative for Tribune?

Hungary

Although the hierarchy’s policy obtained an “overwhelming majority” of votes in its support from the Congress, there were some rather frank things said about the Russian intervention in Hungary. For instance, Mr. J. McLoughlin, the famous Dagenham campanologist, was most vociferous: “Don’t dig your heads in the sand,” he said “and ignore Hungary. Terrible things have happened.” And, he added, in a final fling at the platform, “I want to come to the next Congress and see at least a partially new front bench – not the Dutt-Pollitt-what’s-his-name axis.” (Observer, 21/4/57.) Tut, tut, John. flattery will get you nowhere.

J. McLachlan (Scotland); “The Daily Worker told us that there was black counter-revolution in Hungary, but, in fact, there were popular demonstrations against a bureaucratic regime,” he said. “I agree that these were used by reactionary forces, and I agree that the final intervention by Soviet forces was necessary. But terrible mistakes had been made by the Soviet and Hungarian leaders and we should condemn those mistakes at this ingress.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57.)

Another outspoken critic was Mr. Brian Behan. “At meeting of the executive,” said Brian Behan, “he had moved an amendment that they should dissociate themselves from the crimes of the Hungarian Communist Party. but this had not been printed in the Daily Worker. He had been told that this was due to a technical error (!) and accepted this, but he believed that his amendment should have been reported to Congress.” (Daily Worker, 20/4/57.) Readers who may be prematurely rejoicing at the thought of free speech pervading the upper layers of the Communist hierarchy will no doubt be saddened to learn that Mr. Behan did not gain a place on the new executive: the above statement, and others we shall be reporting later in this article, may offer slight clues as e cause of his unfortunate political demise.

Mr. Fryer was not permitted to put his case before Congress, but copies of a speech he would have made were distributed. A portion of this speech (reported in the Manchester Guardian of 22/4/57) is most revealing, and is worth reproducing here: “You can cross out my name from the membership list with a stroke of the pen. But you cannot cross out the truth about Hungary with a stroke of the pen. The truth about Hungary is known perfectly well to many of you who will vote for the rejection of my appeal. In the privacy of his office J. R. Campbell (editor of the Daily Worker) speaks of Kadar as a puppet. I am expelled for blazoning abroad what Campbell knows to be the truth.”

The Bomb, and Conscription

Male Communists are capable of making some monumentally fatuous remarks, but it takes a female Communist (Comrade Frances Silcocks, from Yorkshire) to reach the ultimate low in fatuity. After dilating on the struggle of working-class women against the horrors of the H-bomb, this Diana of the barricades said: “Now we are told that the Soviet Union is testing the bomb, and we are asked what we say about that,” she said. “We are opposed to tests in any country, including the Soviet Union. But what is the Soviet Union to do? Is it to sit on the fence until we throw bombs at them and they have none to throw back?” (Daily Worker, 20/4/57.) Certainly not, Comrade Frances, we hero mothers of the Communist Party would consider it an honour and a privilege to be liquidated by a real, class-conscious, Soviet H-bomb.

“There was a short, sharp debate on conscription. By 321 votes to 135 Congress defeated a proposal that the Party should fight to end conscription.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57.) The ubiquitous Mr. McLoughlin also had some words to say on this subject: “The Tory Government had announced a new policy on conscription, but the Communist Party was still committed to it. Why?” he asked. “Perhaps because the Russians have got conscription.” “Don’t be provocative,” called out a delegate. (Daily Worker, 20/4/57.)

Democracy

The election of the executive committee was democratic in the extreme; 42 members were “recommended” for election, and, would you believe it, “a party spokesman said . . . that there would be 42 members on the new executive.” (Manchester Guardian, 20/4/57.) How convenient! As we mentioned before, careless talk cost Mr. Behan his seat on the band-wagon.

Lest we appear too harsh on the comrades, we should mention that they stage-managed quite a nice little show of “democracy” during the congress. The minority formulation in the draft revised text of The British Road to Socialism relating to “fraternal relations between Socialist Britain and the countries of the British Empire” received a majority of votes over the majority (executive committee) version. However, we defy anyone to show us any fundamental difference between the two drafts as reported on the front page of the Daily Worker of 22/4/57. The debate was, as the immortal bard said, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

A final indication of the degree of democracy which pervaded the congress is that 57 general resolutions submitted by branches were not discussed, and “before delegates had seen them they were asked to agree to remit them to the National Executive, and in the end they did so.” (Manchester Guardian, 23/4/57.)

“Revisionism”

Cardinal Gollan admirably defined this fine old Bolshevik euphemism for criticism of official party policy in his weighty address to his flock (Daily Worker, 20/4/57). “We use the word ‘revisionist’ advisedly, not as a bit of name-calling, but to describe objective tendencies. These were the contributions attacking the essential basis of the Party, democratic centralism and its leading role.” He later said (Daily Worker, 22/4/57): “Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to fight revisionists all their lives.” Exactly; the modern disciples of Pope Lenin have to carry on the good fight – no wonder they don’t have any time to discuss Socialism.

Another outspoken delegate was Professor Hyman Levy, who denied that the loss of 7,000 members was due to “revisionism,” “but to the attitude of the leaders to events in Russia and Eastern Europe.” (Manchester Guardian, 22/4/57.) Professor Levy “challenged his chairman, Mr. Harry Pollitt, to explain his silence about ‘a gangsterism’ in the Soviet Union. How often has Harry Pollitt been told about this? How often has he told people to keep their mouths shut?” Need we add that Professor Levy’s utterances were nowhere reported in the pages of the Daily Worker! Much prominence was, however, given to a “reply” by Andrew Rothstein, a reply deeply embedded in party dogma. (Daily Worker, 23/4/57).

Kerala

The recent coming to power of a “communist” government in the State of Kerala in India received much plaudits from the assembled comrades. Cardinal George Matthews said (Daily Worker, 22/4/57): “The victory of the Communist Party of India in the State of Kerala is a portent of far-reaching political developments which will take place among the teeming millions of India.” No one outside the Communist Party phantasy world, however, will be surprised to learn that business in Kerala continues much as before, on sound capitalist lines, and the revolutionary Communist ministers’ ” deeds and sayings in one single day are too bourgeois for words,” according to Miss Taya Zinkin in the Manchester Guardian (24/4/57). ‘She continues: “The Chief Minister attended Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s prayer meeting yesterday, bought a copy of his book on the Gita (Hinduism’s Bible), and asked for an autograph of India’s walking saint . . . Meanwhile the Health Minister, Mr. R. A. Menon . . . told the Palghat Poor Home Society that the beggar problem must be solved by private institutions because the Government can do very little,” etc.

“The British Road to Socialism”

Some heretic voices were even raised against this blueprint for revolution (1957 version, with all the latest tactical amendments and deletions to match the day-today, struggle. E. & O.E.). A genuine, old-fashioned kind of Bolshevik is T. Connor who “opposed the draft as a revisionist (ouch; that word again) programme, and he was fighting for a return to revolutionary Socialism. He moved an amendment calling for the formation of workers’ councils and councils of action through which power would be seized.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57.) Cardinal J. R. Campbell rebutted this idea, evocative as it is of sterner, ruder, Bolshevik days. “The amendment put forward by Huyton, suggesting that workers’ councils and councils of action would elect a Socialist Government, proposed to substitute for the pure milk of Marxism the skimmed milk of Trotskyism,” he said. (Laughter). May we remind the reverend Cardinal and all the sheep who laughed so heartily at his witticism, that once upon a time “councils of action,” “workers’ councils,” “united fronts,” etc., were all the rage on the revolutionary front. For instance, a circular issued by the “Red International of Labour Unions” came into our hands (Socialist Standard, March 1923) before the word “Trotskyism” (one of the foulest swear-words in the Communist vocabulary) was invented. This circular advocated the concentration of “all available strength” by the formation of “councils of action through the medium of conference composed of delegates from trades councils, trade union branches, and district committees, working class local and national political organisations, unemployed organisations, co-operative societies and guilds.” Stick that in your milk and skim it, Campbell. Cardinal Campbell opposed the nationalisation of certain types of land, not because it is not Socialism, but because “it would also lead to endless complications pushing masses of people on to the wrong side of the class struggle.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57). Yes, but which side? With true revolutionary zeal the good Cardinal also opposed the policy of “no compensation,” because it “would alarm those we are seeking to neutralise, would create the maximum opposition and make most difficult a peaceful transition.”

To prove that the female of the Communist species is more deadly than the male, Mrs. Gwen Shield moved an amendment to reject the draft’s proposal to compensate former owners of nationalised industries. “She wanted them to get only the opportunity to work and when prevented by physical incapacity to get National Insurance benefits.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57). Good news for all you capitalists!

What of the Future?

Thousands of members have left the Communist Party during the past year, and many more may do so after this year’s conference, which has conclusively proved the party hierarchy’s refusal to budge one inch from its rigid pro-Russian line. But the “hard core” will carry on, for, in Cardinal Pollitt’s own words, “We all owe everything to the party, whatever we do and whatever our job” (Daily Worker, 23/4/57).

Professor Levy summed up the Communist Party’s political influence thus: “The working class of this country have constantly rejected the Communist Party,” he said. “You keep on talking as if you were the leading group.” (Manchester Guardian, 22/4/57). Whatever future party line the diehards adopt in following the tortuous changes in the policy of the Russian ruling class, it will inevitably be anti-working-class and anti-Socialist. The Communist Party’s past history has been a chapter of misrepresentation, trickery, deceit and humbug. Its future is likely to be no different.

Michael La Touche

Open Letter to Jimmy Reid, Communist shop steward, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (1972)

From the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Brother,

Some weeks ago I saw you on Television addressing the students at Essex University. In the short extract screened, you were talking about a united working-class and saying (quite correctly) how immensely powerful the working class could be, if only it was united.

“If we all spat we could drown them” you said, with typical working-class directness and humour. Quite true, of course, probably in no other country (including Russia) is the working class in such overwhelming preponderance. The question therefore, is why isn’t the working class united? What is it that blinds workers to their class interests, and divides them? A moment’s thought should supply the answer. It is political ignorance.

Many workers do not think they are workers, at all. Many carry on a pathetic struggle to appear “middle- class”, grumbling the while about the “unjust” prosperity of car workers or dockers.

In fact, even to talk about “Unity” at all pre-supposes unity for something—some aim, some goal. Unity in the abstract, for the sake of unity is meaningless.

Apart from the large number of workers who still think that the boss is their best friend and that they too can become capitalists, there is also a very large number who see the necessity of uniting in trade unions to improve their lot.

These workers are at the threshold of class consciousness—but only the threshold, the first baby step. Lenin called it "mere trade union consciousness”. They have an awful long way to go.

A minority of workers have realised that the problem is not just a question of keeping wages up, but that capitalism is their trouble and its abolition would be emancipation from social problems for everybody, especially the workers, who are on the receiving end. These workers have acquired real class-consciousness, for them it is no longer a question of dockers, or miners, or teachers, but the abolition of the wages system. They are revolutionary Socialists because it is absurd to propose the abolition of capitalism without a superior alternative. When the anti-Socialist says “Yes, but what would you put in it's place?” the answer is Socialism.

This presupposes the overthrow of capitalism, and we can all agree that the last thing capitalists want is to be abolished (by the way, this does not mean physical extermination; we are talking about social relations). Theoretically, it should be possible to abolish the capitalist class without harming one hair of one capitalist’s head.

Over the years, various people have put forward various ideas for the abolition of capitalism. This has brought disunity, even among those who wanted to abolish capitalism. In other words, even the minority who did oppose capitalism could not agree on the methods to overthrow it. Among the various groups holding opposing ideas was one which came together from a number of splinter groups to form a Communist Party in 1920.

Some of these groups left it again, as soon as they realised more about it. Sylvia Pankhurst and the Workers Socialist Federation refused to follow Moscow and backed out. Some prominent Scottish Workers Committee Movement stalwarts, Tommy Clarke, of the AEU, John Maclean, the first Bolshevik Consul in Britain, did likewise.

Under Russian domination, and blindly following their paymasters, McManus, Gallagher, Bell and Co. they started their wearisome howl for “The United Front” which is where you, my dear Brother, get your Unity slogan from.

The idea was to bore within the Labour Party and turn it into a Communist or “Leftist” party. They would have had more luck boring within the Bookmakers Protection Society to transform it into the Anti-Betting League.

To the end of their days neither Lenin nor Trotsky really understood the British set-up and hoped that the economic crises of the twenties would impel British workers to change the Labour Party into a party of “heavy civil war” (Moscow Theses).

Until 1929 the British C.P. screamed for the United Front when for the election of that year Moscow ordered a turnabout and “Class against Class”; they ran thirty-three candidates and lost thirty-three deposits.

Now after years of utterly futile agitation for minority armed insurrection and “heavy civil war” Mr. Gollan and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain have decided that “Socialism in Great Britain can be established by the parliamentary road”.

This destroys the reason for the existence of the Communist Party, whose claim to fame was that it was in favour of violent drastic measures.

There is just one other point, however, concerning what Socialism is. When Mr. Gollan informs the British electorate in a television interview that the British C.P. is concerned only with the British people the British C.P. has lost its last vestige of any semblance of a workers’ party.

This is where we come in. The overthrow of capitalism must be a political act. It must be the united conscious act of a revolutionary working class by some form of election.

Under the stress of difficult and hazardous circumstances, Lenin and his followers had to bend Marx’s writing to suit C.P. tactics. Nowhere, at any time could Marx have envisaged Socialism (or the end of capitalism) without a majority of the workers. The few occasions when he used the phrase "Dictatorship of the Proletariat” meant only this.

Incidentally, in the address of the Working Men’s International Association which he wrote, he had this to say about numbers:

The element of success they possess—numbers; but numbers weigh only in the balance, if united by combination and led by knowledge

So before the workers start spitting to drown the capitalist class, it would be well to realise that Socialism is the abolition, not the reform of capitalism, and that to establish Socialism, the workers must vote for it, because there is no other way of knowing whether they are united for it or not.

Yours truly,

Horatio.