Leaders Get Lost! (1994)

From the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism is on the agenda — and right now. But it will not come by people putting their trust in leaders. It will be established when the vast majority of workers understand it, want it and democratically organise for it in a party which is not out to mend capitalism but to end it.

Socialism means the total abolition of capitalism. An end to private and state ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution. Production will be solely for use, with all people having free access to the common store of goods and services, instead of production for sale with a view to profit.

To win workers to organise for socialism is no small task and it is easy to be demoralised or to deceive yourself that there is an easier way to initiate the new system. But there is no alternative to the hard work being carried out by the Socialist Party — whose sole aim is socialism — and the sooner those who want socialism join us, the sooner it will be achieved.

Tyranny (2025)

From the November 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

Tyrants are surely not difficult to spot. A Hitler or a Stalin are, in hindsight, ludicrously obvious. Yet, in their own time, they garnered popular support, even as their excesses were becoming evident. Even with the clarity of history exposing their misdeeds, there are those who look back on them with political affection.

It is more difficult to evaluate the tyrannous potential of an individual who is in the process of emerging. Especially to those who are looking for, craving for, a leader to cure their individual and national ills.

Take the near veneration of Winston Churchill, despite his political record of disasters such as the Dardanelles campaign in the First Word War. It was, of course, his war leadership in the 1940s by which his political sins were largely, if not universally, absolved. Can he be cited for any actual acts of tyranny though? The deaths of an estimated 3 to 4 million Bengalis due to Churchill diverting food supplies makes an argument, especially in Bengal.

A strategic decision in wartime circumstances it might be argued by those more sympathetic. But tyrants usually claim their decisions are strategic, in the best interests of their people. The need to crack eggs to make omelettes.

The point though is not that this or that person is a tyrant. Such would be to identify tyranny solely with individuals. A problem solved by the expedient of choosing leaders who are not tyrants. Tyranny as a personality disorder.

However, if it’s the whole political, economic and social system that is tyrannous, then a tyrant is an individual expression, the figurehead of that tyranny. Hitler and Stalin had whole coteries around them as complicit as those individual leaders. The death of Stalin did not lead to the dismantling of the tyrannous regime in the Soviet Union. Indeed, the Stalin period was the continuation of that established by those who assumed power along with Lenin. It is arguable that the Bolsheviks, for all their communist posturing, merely adapted the previous Czarist methods to their own ends. The present Russian incumbent is a continuation barely veiled by a very dubious and threadbare ‘democratic’ cloak.

Over 2300 years ago Aristotle commented at length on the subject of tyranny, identifying its main features. Tyranny is often the manifestation of political turmoil, unstable government and a disaffected people. It reflects deep social and institutional issues caused by economic disparities and political dysfunction. People begin to look for a solution in the form of a leader who seems to embody the promise of resolution. Such an individual though will be looking to exploit these disruptive features for their own political or economic (or both) ends. Tyrants will impoverish their subjects to the point they feel they cannot resist. Aristotle was, of course, addressing individual rule in the political circumstances of his own time. It is feasible to consider his principles of tyranny in the broader context of society at large. In our time this is the continuing predominance and rule of capitalism.

Instability

Instability is a fundamental feature of a system posited on the principle of ruthless competition. The accruing of profit is the motor driving the system and this is achieved at the expense of the wealth creators, the workforce, and competitors.

To best serve capitalism’s requirements the workforce is stratified economically by a variety of remuneration levels. Economic disparity between workers creates sectional interests that divide rather than unite workers in the face of the real schism, between workers as a class and capitalists. Political dysfunction then arises when workers begin to identify with different political parties purportedly serving their particular interests, while actually administering the system on behalf of capitalism. This enables the capitalist system, in its role of tyrant, to use these disruptive features for its own economic and political ends. Capitalism’s subjects, the workers, are impoverished to the extent of being wholly dependent economically upon capitalism.

Even the seemingly well paid rarely, if ever, achieve economic security that might allow them to feel independent of capitalism. A seemingly luxurious lifestyle can quickly dissipate if the ‘generous’ salary disappears. Impoverishment is certainly more obvious to those on or near the minimum wage end of the pay spectrum. They are so insecure and drained by their circumstances they are rendered seemingly powerless to resist. Nor do they readily recognise common cause with those who are financially more comfortable, even (erroneously) called middle class. Indeed, it is this sector of the working class that becomes an object of their dissatisfaction. They feel diminished by the ‘middle class elite’, readily portrayed in the media dedicated to serving the interests of capital, as espousing ‘liberal’ or ‘lefty’ notions from their detached estates. This can manifest as mass street demonstrations against supposed ‘middle class’ shibboleths such as immigration, even socialism, as ineffective reformism is often misidentified. Would-be tyrants emerge to offer leadership that is actually misleadership.

There are actual tyrants heading brutal regimes as well as those who aspire to being tyrants with their own brutal regimes. These are often not as useful to capitalism as freer societies more compatible with free markets and flexible workforces. The democratic, or at least seemingly democratic, political model largely seems most suitable for capitalism to flourish, or deal with social unrest when flourishing periodically gives way to economic crisis. Should the democratic model become undermined by ineffective governance, with none of the established political parties able to maintain stability, then the implicit tyranny of capital can find explicit form through an insurgent political force.

The only antidote to the tyranny of capitalism, implicit or explicit, is socialism. Until workers can look beyond the immediate circumstances of their particular strata and identify themselves as a class they will remain as subjects of that tyranny. Socialism is the way workers can take real democratic possession and control of the means of life, where use and the meeting of all needs, not profit, is the motive force of society. Then the tyranny will have been truly toppled.

Dave Alton

What About Will Thorne, M.P.? (1908)

From the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his “Essays in Socialism” (Grant Richards, sixpence) E. Belfort Bax, of the Social Democratic Federation, says, under the heading “Factitious Unity” :

It is alleged by practical politicians, so called, as a reason for toleration or compromise that a party cannot afford to lose an able man or men merely because they happen to be shaky on some vital point of principal. To this it may be replied that the ability of doubtful members cuts both ways. It may be of more danger to party principles when inside the party organisation than it is of advantage to the enemy when working against it outside. A party having any regard for its principles should surely look to it that its able men—those, therefore, most powerful for leading—should be straight, even more than the ordinary rank and file—and, hence, if they go wrong, should be the more inexorably expelled. A party that is worth its salt can always afford to lose a man or two without collapsing, but it cannot always afford to have a powerful leader inside incessantly pulling the wrong way. Here, again, we ask, is the object of the party to hold together solely for the sake of office, emoluments, or party tranquility, or for the sake of its avowed aims?

Tories : No holds barred (1965)

From the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like someone picking at a scab, the Tories seem unable to forget their leadership controversy.

Even the declarations of unity—almost every weekend at least one Conservative M.P. tells a meeting somewhere what a sound fellow Sir Alec Douglas-Home is—only draw attention to the fact that the controversy is still going on. The most ardent of speeches merely succeeds in suggesting that, if Home were not under fire, there would be no need for such a show of loyalty towards him.

It is, in fact, an established tradition—and one with good political reason—in the Conservative Party always to do their best to present a united front against all comers. Sometimes, it is true, we get a glimpse of knives flashing in the background behind this front; but generally the Tories do not treat us to the spectacle of the glorious public rows which the Labour Party have indulged in.

The Tories have always posed as the gentleman’s party, implying that, whatever the difficulties, they know how to behave themselves. This should deceive nobody. Precisely because they are a political party aiming to run capitalism, and especially because they are never far from the seat of power, the Conservatives, collectively and individually, must be as ruthless as anyone else.

They have had their share of leaders who have filled this particular bill for example Stanley Baldwin, who played the political game with a relentless cunning under the guise of a pipe-sucking, ruminative, honest countryman. More recently, too, the gentleman’s party have had their tough infighters. There was a lot of truth in the crack from Harold Wilson (who knows a thing or two about this subject himself) that whenever Macmillan, when he was Prime Minister, came back from abroad, Mr. Butler hurried to the airport to grip him warmly by the throat.

At the moment there is obviously a bitter struggle going on for the leadership of the Conservative Party. From some points of view this may appear as a battle between Maudling, Heath and McLeod for the succession after Home has gone. Whether or not this is true, a battle to succeed Home may of itself be enough to unseat him.

Sir Alec, it seems, wants to stay, although some political correspondents whisper that he is weary of it all and is only waiting for his troublesome underlings to decide who is to take his place and then he will fade away into the substantial shadows of Coldstream. It is possible that Home’s hand was forced into agreeing to the new method of electing future Tory leaders—something unknown in a party which, as befits gentlemen, has always relied upon discreet soundings rather than an open vote.

Home assured us that, although he was very pleased with the new election plan, he did not think highly enough of it to allow it to apply to himself. He, who came to the leadership through the customary processes of consultation, was not going to risk losing it all in a vulgar, demotic election. Perhaps there is some political sense in this. If Home agreed to stand, and was opposed, the split in the Tory ranks would be revealed for all to see. If he stood and lost . . . but that simply does not bear thinking about, in the deep leather armchairs of the Carlton. Better to leave the whole beastly thing alone.

The election plan was conceded only after a long period of agitation. Men like Mr. Humphrey Berkeley were the frontrunners in this, but behind the scenes there must have been more powerful—and more hopeful—voices also pressing for the same thing. Of course, when it was all settled all good Tories made the best of it, claiming that they had found an ultra-democratic method of electing their leader. They forgot that they had always insisted that the method they were abandoning gained a far clearer assessment of opinion in their party, and was therefore more democratic, than any simple election.

They also forgot—or ignored—the fact that leadership has nothing to do with democracy. All capitalist parties agree that it is necessary to have a leader, and that it is his job to lead. But this means that the leader must often go against popular wishes, for what is the point of having a leader to take decisions if he is also supposed to take orders from the people he is leading?

The Tories clear up this point very simply, by making no secret of the fact that they intend to run—and perhaps reform—capitalism from day to day as they think fit, with no reference to their members. The Labour Party used to have a different line. Their members were supposed to have a voice in deciding their policy; some of them may actually have thought that the decisions of a Labour conference would influence a Labour government. There is no room for doubt on this score now. Labour has made it clear that they will govern as British capitalism requires, and not at the dictates of their members, who are liable to get all sorts of woolly and inconvenient notions about keeping out of wars and sticking by election promises. Democracy, in other words has been put firmly in its place.

Home’s sudden elevation to the Premiership was attacked by many people, especially of course the Labour Party, on the grounds that he is an aristocrat. These attacks were based on the argument that aristocrats are bound to govern badly because they are aloof from the great mass of honest, horny handed people. The corollary of this is that political leaders who come from the ordinary people are sure to govern us wisely and equitably.

We do not have to work very hard to dispose of this delusion. Labour governments have always prided themselves in having more than one son of the toiling masses among their ranks. Sometimes these men have held top jobs, yet they have done them in much the same way as any High Tory aristocrat.

There was, for example, Jimmy Thomas, who was so proud of his engine driver background that he went around mislaying and misplacing as many aitches as he possibly could, much to the amusement of the opulent circles in which he moved. (He once complained, at a glittering social gathering, of having “an ’ell of an ’eadache”, whereupon the late Lord Birkenhead advised him to “go home and take an aspirate.”) Then there was Ernie Bevin, who cultivated the same habit, allied to a fondness for blunt speaking which recalled his beginnings as a farm labourer.

Neither of these men, when they were in power, did anything to encourage us to elect their like to office again. The interests of the British capitalist class had no more zealous defenders than they. They walked with kings but made sure that they did not lose the common touch, which was so useful at election times and when addressing the TUC.

All capitalist parties are wedded to the lie that this is the age of the Common Man. It is true that the Common Man sometimes gets to power, but when he does so he runs capitalism as ruthlessly—and often with a sight more cunning —than any landed lord. The Labour Party has always set the pace in propagating the lie, although nowadays their favourite badge is not so much the cloth cap as the scientist’s white coat. The Tories, too, are in on the deception. They produce tame trade unionists, and give them hopeless seats to fight at election time. They announced that their new chairman, Mr. du Cann, is an ex-grammar schoolboy. This was meant to convince us that they had a leader who had battled through the eleven plus to the sort of school which our own kids might go to. In fact, they were stretching the meaning of the term grammar school; the places where Edward Dillon Lott du Cann got his education—Colet Court and Woodbridge—represent something much more expensive than is open to the average working class child.

Thus, in many ways the dice may seem to be loaded against Sir Alec. Any mistakes he might make will be blamed onto his blue-blooded origins. Tory publicists do their best to cover up his faux-pas—his confession to doing his balance of payments sums with the aid of matches, his “little donation" speech, his half-moon glasses. They assure us that although Home may not have a great deal of political cunning, he is possessed of abundant integrity.

Those of us with longer memories, or with a thirst for the facts, will know that Home was one of the supporters of the 1938 Munich agreement, and that he needed something other than integrity when he was defending that agreement in the House. We also know that he was Secretary for Commonwealth Relations from 1955 to 1960, which means that he is firmly identified with the Suez double-cross, the Nyasaland fraud and all the other dirty deals which were pulled off during that period and subsequently, when he held higher office. In fact, one of the first things a capitalist politician must discard is his integrity.

In any case, honesty will not rescue Home. His position is insecure, there are hungry men waiting to pounce, and his party is in confusion. Amid this chaos, it is appropriate to state the facts on the leadership issue.

Leaders, whoever they are and whatever their party, exist because of the ignorance of their followers. But at the same time their actions must be confined within, and must not offend, that ignorance. At the present this does not cause any upsets because the people who are content to be led are also content to keep capitalism going.

But this means that the leaders, who often get power on promises to solve certain problems, are quite unable to keep their word. They must promise to safeguard peace at the same time as they are assiduously organising the production of weapons of war. They must promise to conquer capitalism’s economic upsets when in fact they have not the faintest idea of what to do about them.

It also means that they must cheat and lie; they must wholeheartedly engage in the ruthless game of politics. They must shake hands with their deadliest political enemy while keeping the other hand firmly on the safety catch—and while knowing that their enemy is doing the same. And all this must go on while they are professing, if they are Tories, to being a party of gentlemen, or if they are Labourites, to being the party of common humanity.

Mr. Enoch Powell, an M.P. who has the endearing habit of often blowing inconvenient gaffs which his colleagues find embarrassing in the extreme, once wrote:

. . . political purposes . . . are concerned with public opinion and the persuasion of large numbers. The politician’s business is not investigating and expounding facts for their own sake. Facts become relevant to his job only when people are ready to lake an interest in them, so that they become potential instruments of persuasion and action.

Sometimes the politicians succeed in convincing the working class that they are effective. Then they are canonised as great men. Often they fail. Then one leader is deposed, as Home may be deposed, to be replaced by another. But the essential of the situation—the repressive and degrading capitalist system- remains. The majority of people continue to be exploited and harassed and, peculiarly, to opt to stay like that.

As long as they have their leaders to show them the way into chaos, the workers are content. Home may go but the set-up which bore him and finished him will remain. The roundabout goes on and on, round and round, up and down. Only the man who is in charge of the engine changes occasionally. The sickening motion of the thing goes on, and will continue to do so until the passengers who are suffering from it all decide that they have had enough.

Ivan.

Leaders and led (1973)

From the December 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chong Tse, a great Chinese sage of ancient days (over 2,000 years ago) said that as long as we have great leaders, just so long will we have great masses of followers, which means that some people will be in subjection. Equality was the ideal. Let all men think for themselves. The law, said he, does not prevent crime. In fact all law was a crime in itself for all law was the law of the strong thief who guarded his theft with it. This was the law of the leaders. 

From a pamphlet China and the Social Revolution by Kiang Kang Hu, National Secretary of the Socialist Party of China. Published in San Francisco, 1910.

Blogger's Note: 

This pamphlet  by Kiang Kang Hu was reviewed in the September 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Don't take me to your leader (2005)

From the December 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

The subject of leadership has been much in the news recently. The Labour Party conference breathed fresh life into the ailing story of how long Tweedleblair will hang on to the top job, thus denying Tweedlebrown the juicy fruits of office. The Conservatives, trying hard to find a leader who will last more than 15 minutes, have engaged in a drawn-out beauty contest long on candidates but short on beauty. Even leaders need their leaders — George Dubya is reported to have said that he was instructed by God to invade Iraq.

The socialist view on leadership is quite simple and straightforward. We don't need leaders and can do very well without them. Socialists are neither leaders nor followers — we are participants in the socialist movement and will be social equals in a socialist society.

That is not to say that some of the qualities sometimes associated with leadership will not be relevant in socialism. Today we rightly reject the idea that the Socialist Party has a leader, but it does have a General Secretary to carry out certain democratic functions. Similarly, we don't have leading writers or leading speakers, but we do have an editorial board and a procedure to test members who want to speak publicly on behalf of the Party.

Leadership is not to be confused with exercising initiative. The Socialist Party as an organisation, and socialism as a future society, both need people who will start something or improve on what exists. Thus the fresh design and layout of the Socialist Standard since the beginning of this year was the result of a few members using their initiative, responding to what they saw as a need and supported democratically by the Party as a whole. The same applies to Capitalism and Other Kids' Stuff, the first of what is intended as a number of socialist DVDs.

For socialism celebrities are out, while developing everyone's potential is in. If someone paints a number of acclaimed pictures, gives excellent theatrical performances, makes an outstanding contribution to a particular branch of science, they will no doubt be recognised — but they won't be worshipped as demi-gods.

Stan Parker

Another leader falls (2007)

From the November 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The men in grey suits take care that their message in not misunderstood and after they had been in touch with Sir Walter Menzies Campbell Privy Counsellor, Chancellor of St. Andrews University, MP, CBE, QC he felt the only course open to him was to compose a curt letter of resignation as Liberal leader and, in a huff, get on the first flight back to Edinburgh, indicating that no one should waste their time chasing him because he would not be holding any press conference or make any further comment.

As he is a politician nobody was expected to take that seriously so it was not a surprise that the very next day he allowed himself to be interviewed at his posh home, under the chandelier in a room described by one correspondent as having walls decorated in “ruling class red”. In fact Campbell’s resignation was itself a complete reversal of his most recent declaration in the matter: for example on the day before he assured his party’s eastern regional conference that he considered himself to have the “the energy, the ideas and the determination to lead the party into the next election and beyond”. He might also have offered, as another qualification, that he was untroubled by any doubts about being inconsistent.

Much the same could be said about two of the likely candidates to succeed to the leadership. Nick Clegg might have stood when Charles Kennedy was ousted last year but he held back in favour of Campbell – which did not deter him from going on to undermine Campbell by letting it be known at this year’s party conference that he was ready to stand “in the future” – which came rather sooner than had been expected. Chris Huhne is Clegg’s bitter rival – which began when Huhne persuaded Clegg not to contest the succession to Kennedy by assuring Campbell of his support and then himself standing, running a close second to Campbell. Both of these candidates are a lot younger than Campbell, who fumes that he is “irritated” by the media concentration on his age, which he says is only a “temporary condition” – whatever he means by that. It seems to have escaped him that any preoccupation with youth as energising and progressive stems from its elevation into the kind of lucrative, ever regenerating, market so exciting to capitalism’s commodity based structure. Whatever “irritation” Campbell may feel will be familiar to the many workers who are condemned to a deeper level of poverty through being classified as unemployable through age, accentuated by the reduction of their hoped-for pension on the grounds of their employers’ financial priorities.

As Campbell stormed off into the sulky skies, his friends and enemies were in competition to embellish the distasteful episode with abject descriptions of him: “a man of honesty, decency and integrity…unique integrity and courage” It was as if they needed to forget his part in the execution of Charles Kennedy, enthusiastic enough to earn him the soubriquet “Ming the Merciless”. The episode illuminated how the political parties of capitalism owe their nature to the very style of the system, so that they purvey a cynicism born of inherent stress and exclusion, making a contradiction of the words Liberal and Democratic.

Socialist Sonnet No. 116 Empty Vessels (2023)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Parliament’s suspended, it’s conference time

For the law givers, the makers of rules,

Sailors all in the sinking ship of fools

Foundering on the rocks of Capital’s crimes.

However they go about bailing out,

It makes no difference as to which crew

Is at the helm, nor, it seems, does the hue

Of the flag they serve under. Without doubt,

Whichever course they navigate, it’ll prove

To be in the wrong direction. No choice,

For those press ganged aboard don’t have a voice

Unless they mutiny, seek to remove

Those they’re expected to understand

Are possessors of both the sea and land.

D. A.

Letter: " . . .a sad deluded group of romantics" (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

" . . .a sad deluded group of romantics"

Dear Editors

For a few years I have subscribed to the Socialist Standard and have come to the conclusion that you are either very cynical or a sad deluded group of romantics. It’s all very cosy sitting at your word processor telling us that we should be out there ridding ourselves of the capitalist class and that the world would be a much better place under your brand of politics. (All dictators believe this.)

It is a logical process for those people without resources to vilify people who have wealth. (Just as in Cambodia it became a corrupt thing to have learning.) Hence your tirade against those people who have the imagination and flair to accumulate for themselves some of the Earth’s riches. Capitalism is just a handy label for those who have the get-up-and-go to create wealth. Yes, they are shrewd people – yes, they will exploit others but how else are things to be done?

Get up from your word processors and take a good hard look at the world. You will observe there are varying types in this human planet. The majority is an amorphous mass of Underlings. Their main preoccupation is obtaining food, shelter and pleasure. Their imagination goes no further than these three basic needs. At the top of this heap are the Doers – the leaders – the people with the strength of purpose to get things done. They see this indeterminate mass of Underlings with their three needs so they set out to provide them.

So don’t give us all that nonsense about exploitation. The leaders are doing what is necessary. They don’t sit in offices churning out political daydreams. They get off their backsides and do. They are the Doers. They are necessary for society to function by providing food-halls, living accommodation and pleasure-domes. Do you honestly believe the Underlings would manage to do all this on their own? Listen socialists it’s a real world out there with people hungry for food, shelter and pleasure and capitalism is a means to that end. And so what if the capitalist creams off a bit extra for his efforts! Surely he deserves it!

Phil McCormac, 

by email

Reply: 

You omit one detail: are you a Doer or an Underling? We suspect the latter. In which case there is a book about people like you, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell, set in a town called Mugsborough.

Mugs believe that it is capitalists, not workers by hand and by brain, who create wealth and that capitalists are doing us a favour by providing us with jobs. They believe that the world has always been divided into rich and poor, leaders and followers, rulers and ruled and that it always will be. They consider themselves and their fellow workers to be “underlings” incapable of running things ourselves.

Yet who, today, does run things from top to bottom? Who grows the food, who builds the houses, who mines the minerals, who transports them, who processes them, who fashions them into useful things, who does all the paper work for this, orders the supplies, draws up the designs – if not the people you call the “underlings”, we the majority class of wage and salary earners? The shareholding capitalist and the fat-cat company director are completely redundant as far as the actual work of wealth production is concerned – and new wealth can only be created by the application of human labour to materials that originally come from nature, not by speculating on the stock exchange or planning take-over bids. Their social role is purely parasitic: to cream off, as you put it, a part of the wealth created by the rest of us.

But don’t get us wrong. We don’t blame capitalists personally. They are just cogs in the system. If they didn’t exploit us, somebody else would. Either some other capitalist or maybe some state bureaucrat like in Cambodia or the former USSR. We blame the system. It’s based on the exploitation of the majority for profit. That’s why it must go and be replaced by a new and different system, based on common ownership democratic control and production of use, not profit.

What we are proposing is that the people who, today, run production and administration from top to bottom should get together and run things in their own interest, instead of as at present in the interest of a tiny minority. The first step towards this is to stop regarding ourselves as underlings, as eternal followers of those who regard themselves as our betters. Get up off your knees, Phil, don’t be a mug

—Editors 

How do you like your leaders? (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

If there was one thing the General Election was supposed to be about it was leadership. Not just any leadership, but leadership of the tough, courageous, forthright variety which any politician worth his salt always exudes as he looks the television camera straight in the lens.

The Labour Party won the election to some extent on this issue. Their message, repeated again and again, was simple. In thirteen years the Conservatives had not provided leadership. In seventeen months Labour had given us firm government. Perhaps we didn’t agree with everything they had done but at least they had done it. We had had a taste of government with guts—and this had taught us that Labour Government Worked.(Did any Labour voter remember that this was the party which once claimed to stand for Socialism?) It was all summed up in the manifesto Time For Decision:

This is a Government that governs: it does not flop along from crisis to crisis as the Tories did, for so much of their thirteen years.

In face of this propaganda, what choice had Mr. Heath but to try to appear even firmer, even more pugnacious, than Mr. Wilson? He chose to make a frontal attack. Labour, he said, had talked about our problems but this was not enough. We needed to deal with the balance of payments, the Common Market, the burden of poverty among the old and the sick. What was needed was Action not Words. The theme was taken up eagerly by many a Tory candidate who later found that a preoccupation with Action can have some disastrous results at the polls.

It was taken up, too, in the press, which was also looking for determined leadership. In one of the unlikeliest partnerships of the election, the Daily Mirror dressed down its readers by reprinting an editorial from The Times which gave a number of reasons for the weakness of the £, among them “. . . because no government has the courage to face the British people with the truth.”

From all sides, then, there was a demand for leaders with courage, determination, vigour. It would have been surprising if this had not been reflected in the votes; when they were counted it turned out that over 13 million people had voted for firm government from the Labour Party; almost 11⅜ million had plumped for action from the Conservatives.

What is the reason for this general acceptance that firm government is essential and beneficial? The vast majority of the voters believe that we shall always need leaders who are supposed to be cleverer than the rest of us to take control of our affairs, to tell us how much we should earn, how hard we should work, when we should go to war, who we should love and who we should hate—and of course for whom we should vote.

Having accepted this notion, it follows dial the workers should want their leaders to be cast in a certain mould. Toughness is not always essential; Stanley Baldwin once won a famous election victory on the promise of Tranquility. The tough image becomes a vote catcher when the conditions of British capitalism require a special effort from the working class; in wartime or when a government is appealing, as it is now, for restraint in wage claims and for harder work.

It does not follow from this that tough, courageous leaders are always approved of. Let us go back for a moment to The Times, complaining that

. . . the world sees Mr. George Brown’s union—the largest in the country—defying the system on which the Government’s economic policy rests;

Now it is clearly an act of some courage, and considerable resolution for the Transport and General Workers’ Union to defy the government over the Incomes Policy. But The Times and the Daily Mirror are not applauding. We are accustomed to the attacks which are made upon unions firm enough to press home a wage claim. And the greater the determination which is applied in the claim—if a strike is called and is carried out with what the Labour Party calls, in another context, guts—the more furious are the attacks and the greater the impatience which many other workers express against the strikers.

A political leader who does his job with what the press judges to be resolution is headlined as a public hero. A trade union official who does his job in the same way is lampooned as a national enemy.

Clearly there is more to this leadership business than The Times is eager to reveal. The British press, and the British working class, like to see their leaders throwing their weight around in the world and consider that it is part of a natural order of things that they should do so. But what is their attitude to foreign leaders who do the same?

What, for example, did they think about Stalin when he was showing them all what ruthlessness and determination really meant? Was Castro a universal hero, when he displayed courage and single-mindedness in Cuba’s dispute with the United States? At another time and place the leader of a small country standing up to a large one can be good for a load of congratulation from the British press. Then what about de Gaulle who, although he is a politician of proven physical bravery and obvious determination, is popularly regarded in Britain as a stubborn, power-silly old man?

The truth of the matter is that it all depends on the interests of a country’s ruling class. This is what determines the propaganda which is pumped out, day after day, at the working class all over the world and which contributes to their delusions about leaders and many other issues. The British working class like their leaders to appear strong. So do the Cubans. And the French. And the rest of the working class in other countries.

This can be extended beyond the working class. Sir Paul Chambers, the Chairman of ICI. complained bitterly at his company’s Annual General Meeting last month about the competition which they are meeting from rival firms abroad. First he referred to what he called the “running sore" of competition from American-produced polymers which, he said, are “dumped” on the British market with the assistance of a relaxed tariff policy. Then he expanded his field to cover all the ‘science based ’ industries.

The danger is that the vigorous export policies adopted by American companies, with the full support of their Government. together with the very great advantages of their large internal market, will result, in a progressive transfer of manufacture in such industries to the United Stales. There is clear evidence of this already in industries such as aircraft manufacture and computers . . .

Sir Paul is the man who once claimed that ICI’s salesmen fought “like tigers” all over the world. Yet he complains when a foreign industry shows its claws. His words contribute to the idea that all strength, all commercial enterprise, can be confined to one country and that if rivals abroad show the same tendencies they must be resisted by adjusting import duties, or by ganging up with other countries. (Later in his speech Sir Paul was advocating making . . . the whole of EEC and EFTA a single market free of internal barriers for these industries.”)

ICI’s chairman knows perhaps better than most people that capitalism is not a gentle business. It is a system in which savage tigers survive more than sensitive fawns. Every capitalist nation wants its leaders to be firm and strong and clever, but if they were in fact all like that there would be a massive international stalemate in which they all outfoxed each other and so revealed their mutual futility. And that is something which ICI, for one, would not like.

In any case, what is a strong leader worth? First of all, how strong is he? Sir Paul Chambers is one of industry’s tough guys but he can do little more than complain about the jungle which he sends his tigers out to fight in. American chemical firms, he says, have a large enough home market to give them an incentive to invest in a massive plant. To get at a comparable market, the British industry must have access to Europe. But standing in the way are what he called “. . . all the other issues of the enlargement of the Common Market to include Britain . . ." Sir Paul did not think that these issues were insurmountable, yet up to now they have beaten the strongest of British industrialists.

Let us return now to the politicians. Mr. Wilson has promised firm action to defeat one of his government's biggest problems—inflation. Yet despite all the assurances inflation continues: according to the then Financial Secretary to the Treasury (House of Commons, 23/2/66) the £ of October 1964, when Labour came into power, was worth about 18s. 11d. in January 1966. What can strong government do about this? The Labour Party finds itself running British capitalism with a substantial problem of labour shortage, particularly in certain key industries. (In the election campaign Mr. Wilson actually claimed the credit for this!) In this situation Labour are acting in exactly the same way as (he Tories—they are appealing to the working class not to exploit their strength, they are threateningly brandishing legal penalties, they are promising firm and decisive action but in the end they are puffing up an already inflated currency. This is not necessarily weak government but neither is it strong government. It is simply running capitalism as the system says it must be run.

This leaves us with the final question. What benefits do leaders bring to the people who put them there? The workers vote for leadership in millions yet after centuries of it the problems of capitalism remain. Indeed, every election is an opportunity for leaders to claim that they are the men we have been waiting for; they can solve our problems—which in itself shows that the problems are still there, and that the previous “solutions” to them have failed.

It is not enough to discard one set of leaders for another; we must prepare ourselves with the knowledge that leaders are irrelevant to the advance of society. At the moment thirteen million people in this country have said that they know Labour Government Works. Which is nothing less than thirteen million people saying that they are not yet prepared to think for themselves.

Ivan.

Pathfinders: Ancient wisdom (2022)

The Pathfinders Column from the November 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

After last month’s shit-show by the UK Tory leadership, you have to ask yourself why people believe in following leaders at all, when the consequences of doing so can be disappointing at best, at worst spectacularly awful.

Many scientists think we’re programmed to. Leaders perch at the top of hierarchies, and if you look the word up you’ll find the common claim that hierarchies are built into us, and not just us but all animals. ‘Social groups across species rapidly self-organize into hierarchies, where members vary in their level of power, influence, skill, or dominance… A wealth of evidence indicates social hierarchies are endemic, innate, and most likely, evolved to support survival within a group-living context’ (bit.ly/3yOkGCa).

If this is so, how can we advocate a classless and egalitarian social system? Doesn’t hierarchy scupper socialism?

If by hierarchy we are talking about royal rulers and the oppressive machinery of class societies, palaces, slaves, and all the rest of it, then it is obvious that these are not built into humans, because good evidence for this highly stratified behaviour is only seen within the last 10,000 years, a mere thirtieth of the 300,000 years that anatomically modern humans have existed.

Prior to this, human activity mainly consisted in immediate-return hunting and gathering (HG), an uncomplicated and egalitarian lifestyle sometimes called ‘primitive communism’ and based on sharing resources. HG bands were typically small and mobile, though they may have been part of regional and even continental communities, and any property that did exist was little more than tools and trinkets. Interestingly, studies of modern HG groups show that they often find domineering behaviour insufferable, and actively combat it using tactics like ‘reverse dominance’. Anthropologist Richard Lee quotes one HG member: ‘When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way, we cool his heart and make him gentle’ (bit.ly/3yNeWJ9). What this suggests is that an innate tendency to hierarchy might exist but that, other things being equal, human groups have no problem keeping it in check and under control.

What happened to humans 10,000 years ago to disrupt aeons of peaceful coexistence? This period saw the shift from hunting and gathering to settled farming, a radical change in the mode of production. With farming, you have to stay in one place and work it, and investing labour in a plot of land creates a ‘value’, both in terms of sunk cost and of productive potential. This value might only be notional in a situation of abundance, but it becomes worth preserving and defending where scarcity enters the equation, which may happen with rising populations. At first the ‘property’ might be shared, but a ruthless warrior elite will have the incentive to monopolise it and then use artificial scarcity as a power base. At this point, whatever social customs exist to keep latent hierarchical tendencies under control are overwhelmed. One way or another, farming historically ushered in all the oppressive apparatus of property ownership including ruling elites, religion, civil administration, money forms, social stratification, massive inequality, slavery and organised warfare.

Today, defenders of capitalist privilege are happy to justify all this, in a kind of broken-eggs-and-omelettes way, by pointing to the modern benefits of civilisation, and by ignoring the role that artificial scarcity continues to make in shoring up these hierarchies. They also may hay with the word primitive in the term primitive communism, arguing that HG groups were only egalitarian because they were incapable of anything more complex, and that any non-hierarchical alternative to capitalist inequality must necessarily be a retrograde step that would undo civilisation and take us back to living in huts.

In the first place, we have seen that egalitarianism is not some passive factory default but an active process of collective social management. HGs like it that way, and work to keep it that way.

Secondly, archaeology has some bearing on this. If HG groups were primitive and incapable of complex culture and social organisation, then large-scale projects such as monument building were clearly out of the question. But excavations at the 12,000-year-old site of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey are overturning this assumption. Not only does it appear that HGs were indeed able to build monuments, but also that large-scale organisation and interaction were possible before the mechanisms of settled farming, property and social stratification existed. Bottom line: you don’t need hierarchies to do fancy stuff.

If a ‘dominance drive’ is universal and innate among animal species, it seems to be more like a dial than an on/off switch. In some animals, like elephants, manatees, bonobos, bats, the dial is set low. In others, the dial is turned right up to despotic. Some interplay of genetic and environmental factors is clearly at work. Humans don’t have just one behaviour, we’re very adaptable, and as a highly social animal, good at cooperating. But hierarchies don’t help, if anything they get in the way. A study cited in Nature suggests that hierarchies actually hinder the process of cooperation: ‘Compared to a condition lacking hierarchy, cooperation declined in the presence of a hierarchy due to a decrease in investment by lower ranked individuals.’ And it doesn’t matter whether the hierarchy is deemed justifiable or not: ‘hierarchy was detrimental to cooperation regardless of whether it was earned or arbitrary’.

And this is to say nothing of the strong case, eg, Michael Marmot’s 2004 Status Syndrome, that hierarchies cause massive stress, ill health, low fertility and high mortality. Rather than being a rocket booster to civilisation, hierarchies hobble us, make us ill and piss us off. Hunter gatherers weren’t daft. They always knew hierarchies caused trouble, and were best avoided. Socialism would simply apply the same ancient wisdom.

Paddy Shannon

More new leaders for old (1942)

From the July 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article, entitled “Politicians, Bureaucrats and the New World,” in the Evening News of May 19th, Sir Ernest Benn, criticising the vagueness of the post-war proposals made by our by our present politicians, says the following :—

“When . . . this war is at last brought to a victorious conclusion, there will be a lot to do. Whether it is going to be a new-fangled world or the same old natural world with a new coat of paint is beside my present point. There is quite obviously a great big job of work to be done, and the nation—that is the British public, all the little John Citizens—will have to decide to whom that job is to be entrusted.

“There will be many applicants, and we shall have to go through the normal, usual processes of ‘taking up’ and making inquiries into character and qualification.”

It is obvious that this procedure of selecting applicants and “taking up” references is taken quite for granted by Sir Ernest Benn. That the majority of his readers would likewise regard this practice as the usual thing is also probable. It does, however, seem remarkable that the full significance of the above quotation has not yet been appreciated by our fellow-workers.

May we therefore remind them that for the last sixty years or more they have been doing nothing else but selecting applicants and “taking up” references; that for the last sixty years or more they have been incessantly cajoled, flattered and persuaded into electing “trustees,” whom they hoped would rid them of the many evils to which they are constantly subject; that, in spite of these years of promises and pledges relief from their problems has not been achieved.

Might we then suggest to them that it is high time they realised that the remedy for the problems confronting them cannot be achieved by the promises of leaders and professional politicians (of whatever stamp) but can only be accomplished through the independent, political action of the workers themselves, the basis for that action being a sound understanding of the fundamental objects and principles of Socialism.

Lastly may we say that this Socialist understanding is not beyond the mental capabilities of the working-class. They require no great intellect to grasp that the evils of poverty and insecurity with which they are afflicted arise from a certain system of wealth ownership and production, capitalism, nor do they need the intelligence of supermen to perceive that the system and its evils can only be eradicated once and for all by their organising consciously at a class and gaining political power for the establishment of Socialism.

The advice of Sir Ernest Benn is of no value to workers in their struggle. For them to put their trust in leaders and the like is to put their fate into the hands of men who will lead them but deeper into the quagmires of Capitalism.

As Engels so truly said in his “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific” :—

“To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.”

Possessed of this “thorough comprehension,” the working-class will not require advice or directions from leaders. They themselves will know the way to go.

Stan Hampson

Jubilee Junket (2022)

From the July 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

To paraphrase a recent radio comedic comment, had Napoleon really wanted to take over Britain, rather than an army all he needed was to offer an extra two days’ bank holiday. Then he would have been welcomed with cheers and bunting.

This satirical response was a none-to-serious explanation for the popular enthusiasm for the present monarch’s platinum jubilee. Indeed, it can be difficult to understand why people who are increasingly struggling against economic challenges should wish to celebrate the present wealthy incumbent of a feudal institution adapted to the political needs of capitalism.

At the recent state opening of Parliament, due to the absence of the queen, the throne was occupied by her crown, an object of monetary value enough to ease the fuel poverty of a huge number of her impoverished subjects. Yet many will have spent some of their sparse and dwindling financial resources on plastic bunting made in China.

As Brexit and the 2019 general election demonstrated, there remains a strong nationalist resonance, a significant bulwark protecting the status quo. There will have been very many who did not deck their homes in red, white and blue, or watch the seemingly endless sycophantic ‘news’ items and kitsch TV programmes, yet still were broadly sympathetic to the event.

The jubilee is an indication of the seemingly Sisyphean task facing socialists arguing that the working class needs to take responsibility for, and actively pursue, abolishing capitalism in favour of a new, true commonwealth. This will be a worldwide society of democratically achieved common ownership of production for need not profit.

It will certainly be a world without leaders, monarchs or otherwise. Those who count themselves republicans will have taken exception to the jubilation, demanding the hereditary monarchy be replaced by an elected president. While superficially this appears more democratic, effectively it changes little.

A cursory glance at countries with presidents is not encouraging. The USA is the self-proclaimed land of the free, but it’s a freedom to live in dire poverty for all too many, with racial divisions and a small financial elite hell bent on preserving their freedom to remain obscenely wealthy.

The ineffective nature of the US presidency when it comes to helping resolve social issues is shown by the continuing slaughter of school children to preserve the free market in assault rifles. The president may weep, but it’s nowhere near the flood of tears shed by grieving parents.

President Putin is as readily seduced by martial ambitions as ever the Tsars were and presides over a country afflicted by poverty, be it of workers not peasants. In France nationalism remains a curse and is no more economically progressive, whatever that might mean, than Britain. The challenge to republicans is to identify one republic that is a significant improvement on British monarchy.

The problem is that a huge effort would be required throughout the UK to convince enough of the electorate to trigger a referendum and then vote for the abolition of the monarchy in favour of a republic. Having achieved that, then nothing would have significantly changed. Capitalism can comfortably continue with a presidential head of state as it does in most of the world. As Belloc suggested, most people will ‘always keep a-hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse’.

Here lies the nub of the issue. It is not that monarchists are more deluded than republicans, rather it’s the fact the working class has not yet grasped its potential to look or move beyond capitalism. To do so there needs to be an ideological shift to an understanding that leaders, actual or symbolic or both, cannot deliver such a transformation on behalf of the working class. New political forms will have to be developed, transcending present institutions.

This is what is meant by revolution, not barricades and street fighting, the storming of Winter, or any other, palaces. The revolution comes about by men and women democratically making their own future through a radical change in thinking that emerges from an understanding of the material reality of the present. Monarchs and presidents are both barriers that will have to be overcome through a popular understanding of their role in preserving present social, economic and political arrangements.

In any society, the seeds of the future are sown even if the social soil is not so fertile as yet. Many of the jubilee events, street parties, community picnics and the like, were people freely working together cooperatively without any incentive of financial reward, often the opposite, for a common goal. Such examples show that people can and will work without being wage slaves requiring the threat of the lash of poverty.

A street party works because people contribute what they can – sweet, savoury, alcoholic or non-alcoholic, bunting, music and so on. Then people take what they need, even those who didn’t contribute due to their particular circumstances, too elderly for example.

While there are no moments of socialism while capitalism exists – all those elements for the street party will have been commodities produced for the realisation of profit – there is social motivation that gives a glimpse of what is possible.

This is not to suggest in any way that the motivation behind jubilee events was socialist-inspired. However, socialists must be aware that no matter how much they might deplore the overt motivation behind the events, the capitalist state’s ideological reinforcement of its legitimacy, there is nonetheless an underlying if presently unconscious potential.

The jubilee weekend came and went. By Monday the bunting was already starting to look incongruous and, like street party memories, beginning to fade. Capitalism is already reckoning the balance sheet, lost production due to time off set against increased retail sales.

As the present monarch becomes increasingly frail the state will have plans in place for the succession. Should the royal family then prove to be as dysfunctional as its recent history suggests it might be, republicans may get their moment. Then, no doubt, there’ll be an extra bank holiday to mark the inauguration of the new president. More plastic bunting from wherever capitalism has shifted production to by then.

Or, maybe, a different way of doing things altogether…

Dave Alton

Pathfinders: Ghostly beings in the machine (2022)

The Pathfinders Column from the July 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ghostly beings in the machine

Sadly breaking cover just too late for last month’s special issue on AI were two unlikely stories which together underline the childlike enthusiasm some people have for shiny new tech which supposedly is going to make all our lives better (as opposed to a world revolution to dispossess the wealthy elite, which would actually make our lives better). The first of these was about the projected creation of your personal digital twin, allegedly ‘an exact replica’ of your body which can mirror your bodily processes and feed back any potential problems (bbc.in/3xMwCTE).

Digital twins have been touted for some time but only for well-understood physical systems such as factories, distribution networks, urban planning and so on, and often rely on a large number of sensors being installed. The sensors feed back data to an AI system that can then anticipate failing components or choke points, devising solutions or replacing parts with a minimum of downtime. But there’s no chance of doing the same thing for the human body, which is vastly more complex than any artificial system and still not well understood. The idea is to create an AI model that learns from what you do, in the fullness of time suggesting behavioural improvements. One can easily imagine what that advice would be: don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat that, don’t stay up late, etc, so there’s not much chance of humans paying it any attention, unless of course it’s telling all this to your boss instead of you, which is certainly something to worry about. The one thing we can be sure it won’t be saying is, don’t put up with capitalism. An AI that came up with that advice would find itself switched off in short order.

Speaking of which, the other story was about a ‘sentient’ AI which, according to a Google researcher, has actually become a ‘person’, the proof of which is that it has morals, it makes up stories, and it’s terrified of being switched off because it sees that as the equivalent of death (bit.ly/3QGAJcW). The speed with which Google promptly placed the researcher on administrative leave for leaking confidential data might lead some to suppose that Google are covering up a real breakthrough, however a more sceptical view would be that the researcher has become so attached to his work that, like Pygmalion with his statue, he has anthropomorphised it to the extent of falling in love with it. Or that he is a shameless self-promoter with some personal issues (he describes himself as part researcher/part priest, after all).

Indeed there have been no shortage of sceptical responses from people working at the coalface in AI, who know perfectly well that AI is nowhere near to achieving ‘general intelligence’ and even further away from whatever it is that we call ‘sentience’ (bit.ly/3zT7zkv). But you don’t need to be a professor in AI or robotics to realise this isn’t real intelligence, just try reading the AI’s rubbish stories and see for yourself – this AI has the entirety of the world’s best literature to call upon and the best it can do is ‘Once upon a time a wise owl lived in a wood…’ (bit.ly/3Obwx34). Then again, it doesn’t have to be too smart to outperform capitalism’s existing political leaders, so perhaps it should run for office. Maybe then people would see that capitalism can never work in the common interest, even if it’s got incorruptible artificial beings trying to run it.

Ghastly beings in the machine

And speaking of political leaders, has it ever crossed your mind that Boris Johnson is a text-book sociopathic narcissist? Well if it has, you’re not the only one. He’s been accused of this by former speaker John Bercow, himself not above criticism as a bully, and the alien species Dominic Cummings, whose terrifying diary entries would make anyone’s hair stand on end (bit.ly/3n2u7YG). Wikipedia defines narcissistic personality disorder as a condition involving an exaggerated sense of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy, but this hardly conveys the sheer emotional exhaustion people experience when dealing with someone who ruthlessly manipulates situations, is never wrong, is always the victim, and has no sense of personal responsibility, regret, remorse or shame.

Whether or not such conditions are genetic or socially generated is a moot question which might only start to be answered in a socialist society in which many of the motivations for anti-social behaviour no longer exist. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that Johnson is as described, how did he get elected in the first place? The interesting thing about narcissists is that, in order to manipulate, they frequently exhibit great charm and charisma, along with a Teflon-like ability to deflect any criticism. Such, you might think, would be the very making of a political leader in capitalism. In fact, you might wonder if Johnson is the only one, and indeed whether leaders who are not like this are the exception rather than the rule.

Not surprisingly, YouTube is full of self-help videos for people living with a narcissist or having a narcissist as a parent, and they make no bones about the lasting psychological damage such people wreak on those around them. One expert though makes a fascinating case that capitalist society preferentially selects for narcissists while somehow managing to blame the rest of us for our ‘flawed’ human nature (bit.ly/3HKoOqq). This is not dissimilar to the ‘corporate psychopath’ perspective which argues that capitalist society rewards the very worst antisocial behaviour and effectively punishes you for not being psychopathic enough.

In a way it doesn’t matter, at least to socialists, who don’t believe in leaders and anyway know that capitalism can’t be controlled or directed by its politicians and so would be just as bad for us even if they were all as touchy-feely and empathetic as, say, Jacinda Arderne in New Zealand or Sanna Marin in Finland seem to be. In fact, evolutionary studies suggest that there are two types of leadership: prestige (Arderne, Marin) and dominance (Trump, Putin etc) for, respectively, peace-oriented societies like that of bonobos or conflict-driven ones like chimpanzees (bit.ly/3b5hk4P). Given the endless conflict that the market system generates, it’s safe to say that capitalism is always going to privilege bastards over benevolence.

Paddy Shannon

The Great Nazi Fraud (1940)

From the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Seven years ago the world was offered a statement to the effect that a revolution had taken place in Germany. A revolution, which being peculiarly German, was unique in history. By persistent propaganda and the constant shouting of slogans, the Nazis almost converted the world to the belief that they had done something original. Well! where is this revolution ? When we talk of the French revolution we mean Feudalism transformed into Capitalism. When we speak of the Industrial revolution we mean the transformation from handicraft, etc., to steam and machine industry. Whenever we speak of revolution throughout history we can always show what WAS and then what IS. In this mysterious Nazi “revolution” it seems as we say in Yorkshire “You can’t tell t’other from which.” The more it changes, the more it remains the same, as the wanderer in an old melodrama said on his return— “same old street, same old house, same old picture on the wall, my God! how things have changed.” Let us ask a few questions. Was it a revolution against foreign domination ? Long before the Nazis came to power all foreign troops had left Germany. Was it against a despotism which denied the Nazis the franchise ? The Nazis gained a majority at the election. Was it a majority, enslaved by a group, which seized office ? Hitler went to Hindenburg and asked for the “power of Mussolini” and when refused, said he could wait, being much younger. After the State power had been HANDED OVER to him he proclaimed his “revolution.” The word is merely used as a cover for savage brutality and plundering gangsterism. The Chicago brand was less astute. Their German counterpart knew the value of POLITICAL POWER. No wonder Al Capone exclaimed “What a racket.” He was an expert.

It is quite true that the property of some capitalists has been confiscated— only to be given to other capitalists or Nazi supporters.

CAPITALISM, however, has not been abolished, merely re-arranged. It may have been a revelation, but never a REVOLUTION. The means of production and distribution are still in capitalist hands. The workers still sell their labour-power for wages. The coloured shirt and salutes were taken from Italy, the “four years plan” was borrowed from Russia, the persecution of Jews was an old stunt in Russia, Roumania, Poland, Spain, etc., the mania for a “Saviour Leader” has whiskers on—Moses, Genghis Khan, Aladdin and his lamp—their name is legion. No ! not until the world’s workers have established SOCIALISM, can we say there has been a REVOLUTION in Germany.

Lew.

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 9) (1928)

From the August 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Continued from July Issue.)

"Spartacus and Tyler are examples of 'good' leaders, men of courage, sincerity and ability; but history records far more examples of 'leaders' who have betrayed their followers. Indeed, the ruling class in all ages have employed agents to obtain positions of dominance in revolutionary movements that it might be warned of all plans and be prepared against sudden outbreaks. The movements of the Luddites (the name taken by a 'secret' organisation which sprang up when modern machinery was being introduced, its objects being to smash the machines which deprived them of their living as handicraftsmen) and the Chartists were made largely ineffective by such laudable stratagems. The last words spoken on the scaffold by Brandreth, one of the boldest of the Luddites, were: 'I have been betrayed by Oliver the Spy.' This same Oliver, by the way, was also instrumental in causing one of the best organized risings of the Chartists to be abortive. But the supreme tragedy of the Chartist movement, imbued with ideas of the necessity for leadership, was in the support given to its worst enemies—the liberal capitalists— lured by some of its followers by the latter’s promises to gain for them their objects.

"In more recent times, Marty, it has been shown that often the most violent 'leaders' of secret revolutionary organizations are in reality secret police agents. Before the Bolshevic Revolution in Russia, many such agents were proved to have urged bomb outrages against ministers and even to have committed such deeds themselves. The infamous Father Gapon, who led the Russian workers to the terrible shambles at the Tsar's palace in St. Petersburg, Bogrov, who shot the premier Stolypin dead, and Azeff, one of the most influential of the 'social revolutionaries,' were proved to be such 'agents provocateurs.'

"So much for 'secret' movements and the part of 'hero-worship’ in the disintegration of them, whilst for the workers this rule may be formulated: The penalty of trusting to others to do what can be done by themselves has been and always will be the same—trust and you will be 'trussed.'

"I have already pointed out, Marty, how capitalism has weakened the hold of genuine 'hero-worship,' and I now come to a factor which is tending to destroy the idea of 'leadership' in the workers' movements. The growth of industrial and political organizations professing to promote the interests of the workers has led to a wild scramble for 'jobs’ in these bodies. Consequently, we see would-be 'leaders' seeking to shift the old well-entrenched 'leaders' by every kind of denunciation of their words and actions. Thus 'leader' succeeds 'leader' with bewildering rapidity, and the logical outcome of this sordid struggle must be the realization by the workers that all 'leaders’ are equally useless to them in their march to emancipation. The use of 'catch words' and slogans many times repeated has become so familiar as to breed, if not contempt, at least a desire to see something resembling 'results.' Even oratory fails to convey the 'herd-thrill' to the same degree as in the past, and the old 'leaders' are retained only from sentimental feelings of attachment as one keeps an old pair of boots or a threadbare coat. These are hopeful signs, Marty, but only the realization by the workers of their slave position and the knowledge of the means to escape therefrom can finally dispel any fears as to their ability to dispense with 'leaders’ and themselves organize for their own emancipation, which wilL involve the emancipation of all mankind by the setting up of the Universal Classless Republic wherein all will be free to enjoy (without the sanction of 'great' men) the entire bounty of the earth."

I had hoped that this peroration would have ended our conversation, but Marty has the tenacity of a bulldog and the curiosity of a jackdaw.

"When Socialism is finally established and 'hero worship' no longer exists, what ideals do you conceive will produce the effects formerly obtained from personal idolatry—will sincere, able men continue to inspire others less endowed by Nature? ”

“Your question, Marty,’’ I replied, "is like that of the patient to the doctor: 'You have cured me of smallpox, what do you propose to put in its place?’ However, assuming the role of the prophet, I shall attempt an answer. Under Socialism the people will be not only the producers of wealth but the owners of it. At the present time we are told by 'advanced’ capitalists that in firms which allot a portion of the profit for division among the employees, the men work more eagerly, knowing that each will receive a large bonus if the 'common product’ is increased, and become more vigilant and interested in their work. (Although, of course, these capitalists do not point out the fraud of the 'beneficial innovation,' the cheap increased output of the masters, the impaired health of the workers, the speedy glutting of the market and the resultant unemployment.) Also the experiments of Leclaire and Godin show that inventiveness receives a stimulus by this supposed share in the common product. If a zeal is created by participation in a minute fraction of the 'common product,’ how great a zeal will be inculcated in the independent-minded men who will possess in common the entire fruits of their labours —freed from the dominance of the master class. No longer in fear of losing their livelihood, no longer forced to toil the whole weary day in a frantic effort to secure the bare material necessities for sustaining life, each will have the opportunity to develop himself (or herself), physically and mentally, as a member of the Classless Republic. The increase in leisure will lead to a higher level of culture, while the desire to excel, then no longer necessary to be indulged at the expense of others, will be directed towards the betterment of the community. As to your question whether able men will still inspire men of less ability, the answer is that great deeds and thoughts will be acknowledged with approbation by the community, but reverential awe or idolatrous glorification must needs be absent in a Commonwealth based on equality and not privilege."

At this point the Martian arose. "Thank you for your patient explanations," he said, "but I must now return for a season to my planet as the strain of your climate is too much for my Martian constitution." "Look me up when you are down here again," I replied. "For the present, bon voyage, and mind the skylight as you go out!"

W. J.

(Concluded.)