Letter: Terror and culture in Africa (1953)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Terror and culture in Africa

London,

S.W.1.

The Editor,

Sir,

One of your readers has sent me your paper. I am at a loss to understand why, but I am appalled at the ignorance displayed by your leading article: “Savagery, Black and White.” I am not a Socialist, but no doubt an intellectual case can be made for Socialism. Palliation of savage atrocity, however, is no part of Socialism—at least Socialism as I have always understood it. The Mau Mau you are presenting as a constitutional nationalist movement to your readers (who mostly have no first-hand knowledge of Africa), is a terrorist organisation directed as much against Africans, and indeed against their fellow tribesmen, as against Europeans. Do you really suggest that ripping a child from its mother’s womb and cutting off babies’ heads and drinking their blood is reminiscent of the ceremonies of Free Masonry?

I realise that this silliness is not due to any ill-will but simply from a lack of knowledge.

The statement that the Kenya African is far behind his brother on the West Coast is strictly accurate. The Africans on the East Coast fifty years’ ago when the Europeans first went there had no knowledge of the wheel or of the fulcrum. Their social organisation was extremely simple. Indeed they were primitive people in the true sense. On the contrary, the West Coast African can be described as barbarian in the technical sense, but not primitive. The Ashanti kingdom, for example, may have been bloodstained, but it was a complicated organisation approximating to the Lombard kingdom, which, savage though it may have been, has after all left us an imperishable legend. The Kikuyu have no art, whereas the West African sculptured heads (of which examples can be seen in the British Museum), are universally regarded as masterpieces. From whence arises these differences between the East and West African? Not, of course, from any inherent difference in ability, but from the fact that the West Coast has been in contact with Western civilization from at least the Sixteenth Century, and Portuguese influence is obvious in their art and techniques. It is, after all, the contact of cultures which makes civilization. What would have been the civilization of these islands if we had had no contact with the Celts, Romans, Saxons, Danes or Normans, but had remained completely isolated and inhabited by the aborigines of these islands, whether they were Picts or Britons?

Before the war many good Socialists and honest men were seriously misled about the state of Europe by insisting on regarding every human being as a good trade unionist with a hundred years of industrial organisation and two hundred years of chapel-going behind him. Many present-day Socialists are made to look foolish when they insist on regarding savage and barbarian peoples in the same way as their predecessors did the Nazi and Communist movements. Hodgkin's “Italy and Her Invaders’’—incidentally a most fascinating book—is a much better preparation for the understanding of present-day Africa than are the publications of the Fabian Society.

I remain,

          Your obedient servant,

Diana Spearman.

Reply to Miss Spearman 

In her criticism of the article “Savagery, Black and White” which appeared in the Socialist Standard for last December, Miss Spearman reads into the article statements that are not there. The Mau Mau is not presented as a constitutional nationalist movement nor does the article palliate “savage atrocit". The key to the article is contained in the last sentence: “Thus imperialist chickens come home to roost!” The Africans in the past have been treated with ruthless savagery by the whites; is it surprising that some of them remember and try to repay in kind?

To explain the source of violence and cruelty is not to palliate it. We condemn all violence and cruelty, civilised and uncivilised, and we are advocating a world in which they will have no place. Miss Spearman, however, is prepared to condone some cruelty and violence because it leaves behind a legacy of culture!

Miss Spearman says “I am appalled at the ignorance displayed in your leading article.” But she does not give any examples of the alleged ignorance. The article takes conflicting statements from authoritative sources and points out the contradictions. Is that ignorance? Miss Spearman has allowed her emotions to obscure her critical faculties and reads into the article what was never even suggested. The writer of the article quoted from The Times a description of the Mau Mau oath-taking and then points out that this account is reminiscent of the secret oath-taking ceremonies of the Freemasons. There was nothing in this ceremony about ripping a child from its mother's womb. Are we to understand that Miss Spearman has “firsthand knowledge” of this? If so we would be interested to learn how she witnessed it! Since she is on this subject may we remind her of a hideous civilized ceremony of Holy Communion in which the body and blood of Christ is consumed in token form.

Then we are told by inference that we must not worry about the bloodstained Ashanti kingdom because, like the Lombard kingdom, it left an imperishable legend of culture behind. Under those circumstances, apparently, the cutting off of babies heads is palliated! But Miss Spearman does not go back far enough in her description of the West African culture. Genuine West African culture was destroyed by the slave traders who visited Nigeria and the adjacent districts in the 16th and 17th centuries. Over 80 per cent. of the negro slaves came from this area and what were they like? According to anthropologists they “came from the economically most advanced, artistic, and socially complex areas of Negroid Africa. The economic, organizational, and aesthetic levels of these districts were in general comparable to the slave empires of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome." (Page 72 “Outline of Anthropology," by Jacobs and Stein, 1948.)

The Portuguese and other civilized ruffians destroyed these cultured communities, branded their cultured members with irons and herded them into slave ships to undergo long voyages packed in stifling holds. So many died of their sufferings on the voyages that many of the ships had to jettison a large part of their human cargo on the way. The following extract from Sir Alan Burns' “History of Nigeria ” (1942) will give a little idea of what these negroes suffered:

“The cruelties practised by white men in this trade are almost unbelievable. The condition of the crowded hold of a slave-ship during the long 'middle passage’ in tropical weather across the Atlantic would explain the reason why scores of slaves died on every voyage, and why others would, when the opportunity offered, leap overboard to escape sufferings worse than death. Men and women were flogged to compel them to eat, and hot irons were occasionally used to force them to open their mouths and swallow the food which they were too sick at heart to eat willingly. They were flogged again to make them dance and sing in order that they should not brood over their misfortunes. Unbounded licence was given to the officers and crews of slavers as regards the women; the men slaves were fastened together in pairs by handcuffs and leg-irons, and frequently were stowed so close together as to admit of no other posture than lying on their sides. The height between decks was sometimes only 18 inches, so that the slaves could not turn round or even lie on their sides. In about the year 1785 one ship took on board 700 slaves, who were 'so crowded that they were obliged to lie one upon another. This occasioned such a mortality among them that, without meeting with unusual bad weather, or having a longer voyage than common, nearly one-half of them died before the ship arrived in the West Indies’ ” (pages 78-79).

Against this record of misery Miss Spearman sets the Portuguese influence upon the art of the Benin people! If she can shed civilized hypocrisy for a moment let her compare the thousands upon thousands of negroes from West Africa—men, women and children—who were torn apart and suffered the miseries of the slave ships and after, with the atrocities which are placed at the door of the Mau-Mau and she must admit that, bad as the latter are, they are puny in comparison with the atrocities of the civilized. But she need not even go back so far. Whatever the Mau-Mau may have done to babies and women is trifling in comparison to what was done to Japanese women and children at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at other places during the Great War and in Korea.

Since Miss Spearman is so worked up over Mau-Mau ferocity let us call her attention to another example of civilized ferocity from a different part of the world.

Sir Francis Head was Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada during the first half of last century. After his experiences there he wrote a “Memorandum on the Aborigines of North America" which he included in his book “A Narrative” published by John Murray—London, 1839. From this memorandum we take the following extracts:

"The fate of the red inhabitants of America, the real proprietors of its soil, is, without any exception, the most sinful story recorded in the history of the human race; and when one reflects upon the anguish they have suffered from our hands, and the cruelties and injustice they have endured, the mind, accustomed to its own vices, is lost in utter astonishment at finding that in the red man’s heart there exists no sentiment of animosity against us, no feeling of revenge;”

"So long as we were obtaining possession of their country by open violence, the fatal result of the unequal conquest was but too clearly understood; but now that we nave succeeded in exterminating their race from vast regions of land, where nothing in the present day remains of the poor Indian but the unnoticed bones of his ancestors, it seems inexplicable how it should happen that, even where their race barely lingers in existence, it should still continue to wither, droop, and vanish before us like grass on the progress of the forest in flames.”

Sir Francis Head’s memorandum was sent to the Government of the day but nothing happened, the interests involved were too powerful. He wrote his book when he returned to England to call attention to the plight of the red men but it was wasted effort, the red men continued to be harried until in despair they retaliated, as best they could, in the seventies and eighties, providing writers with material for “Westerns” but doing themselves no good in the end. They were up against the civilized lust for wealth and it was too much for them. Is Miss Spearman prepared to overlook the violent and cruel wiping out of the red men on account of American culture?

Miss Spearman tells us easily that the social organisation of the Kenya African was extremely simple. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, in his introduction to Peristiany’s “The Social Institutions of the Kipsigis” (published in 1929), by no means supports this view:

"Anthropology in Kenya has been left to the initiative of individuals. Our knowledge of the peoples is not a good advertisement for scientific laisser-faire. Although Europeans have been settled in Kenya for about half a century we know very little about the social structure of its peoples,” page xix.

Peristiany’s book, the record of first-hand observation, reveals that the social organisation was anything but “extremely simple.”

Before Miss Spearman goes out of her way to tell us we are silly she should delve more deeply into the subject herself.

We may add that “a much better preparation for the understanding of present-day Africa” is neither Hodgkin nor the publications of the Fabian society but a study of white imperialism in Africa and books by such investigators of native life as Junod, Hobley, Rattray, Peristiany, Schapora and the like

Finally, if Miss Spearman is genuinely concerned about atrocities today let her attack the father of them all—Capitalism with its insatiable lust for profit.

Gilmac.

Letter: In other words (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

In other words

I found the letter written by Jon Lieberman in the August edition of the Socialist Standard very interesting, for, like him, I consider Party members to be an aloof bunch of egg-heads, no doubt very sincere in their almost foolproof beliefs, but completely and utterly devoid of a sense of humour and suspicious of change.

Of course, the Declaration of Principles are precise and straightforward to anyone living during the period 1910 to 1940, but language and phrasing change, and it’s time the SP realized this. Nobody wishes to see Pentagonese used to describe your aims, such as: "That, at this moment in time, as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the working class keep a low profile, there is no way other than escalation of hostility, etc., etc.”; but I have endeavoured to rewrite the aims as near to present-day understanding as possible.

Incidentally, that Principle No. 8! Why read “SPGB’’ twice? And why not call yourselves World Socialist Party? Since when did Socialists consider Britain Great?

R. J. Otter

Shepperton

Reply:

Let’s put it like this: the verbal confusions in the first part of your letter make us suspicious of the verbal alterations you suggest in the second part. If our beliefs are "almost foolproof”, as you state, why criticize us for not being eager to change? Though sympathetic with us you stand outside the Socialist Party, but say we are "aloof”. You may have been somehow unfortunate in a limited contact with members, but do you really mean "completely and utterly devoid” of a sense of humour (and have you never seen evidence to the contrary in the Socialist Standard)?

As regards the name of the Party, Great Britain is the name of the political unit we operate in. Our opinion does not enter into it. We do not think Clapham High Street is High, either, but it is beyond our control and doesn’t matter anyway.

We have considered suggestions for re-wording our Declaration of Principles at various times, but no alternative has provided the same meaning. There is not space to reproduce yours in full, but the first one reads:

Society in today’s world is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e. land, factories, business groups etc.) by the capitalist class; and that consequently the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced, is powerless.

The opening phrase is a tautology: "today’s world” is society. "Business groups” are not part of the means of living. You have cut out any reference to the means of distributing wealth, leaving the impression that "means of living” is restricted to the means of production. “Powerless” has a political meaning, whereas the definition of the working class is economic. Similar criticisms apply to your other re-worded clauses. Not many marks out of ten, we’re afraid.

Blogger's Note:

R. J. Otter was an ex-member of the SPGB. He was a member of Islington Branch from August 1956 until April 1960. He reigned from the Party, stating that it was ". . . unrealistic and has a bad personal attitude." Ouch.

He returned to the letters pages of the Socialist Standard nearly ten years later, in October 1987, and he still wasn't happy with the Party.

Letter: Purity & evolution (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Purity & evolution

First I wish to congratulate you on the excellence of your publications as to the form.

In terms of doctrine, one senses an earnest striving to preserve a purity that cannot be without merit. Now, I have a couple of questions. Does not the unconditional rejection of all other parties and movements, while preserving a kind of virginity, also coincide with "lack of impact”? (The latter term is characteristically quantitative, but it is the whole of ambient mentality, modern mentality.)

Question 2 is: What is your attitude to non-materialists? My own position is that of metaphysics. I feel 1 can situate “historical materialism” as a kind of weapon-analysis but feel certain I would ever seek to escape from an exclusive materialism.

Have you an expert on economics and war that could come along to a meeting under the auspices of the World Federalist Association. A meeting will be held on war at the House of Commons by kind invitation of Joan Evans mp. Mr. K. F. G. Clarke, Sen. Assistant Manager, Economics Dept., Midland Bank, will speak on “Does the International Financial System promote World Peace?” 

Finally, 1 totally disagree with your pamphlet on racism as to Darwin. I reject Evolution (except on a limited, circumscribed basis). I am certain that Social Darwinism has fostered a racialism of its own. It is false beyond a limited range. Even Marxist terms like "advanced” fosters practical racism. Of course it serves a purpose but it totally ignores ancient pre-historic civilizations of which the "backward" peoples today are the residue (of a falling away from Tradition in the metaphysical sense—not the sentimental sense of Conservatives).

A. C. Stock 

London SE25

Reply:

1. You appear to consider “purity” as a good thing in itself. We don’t. Our view is a practical one: we oppose parties and movements which stand for capitalism, but parties in other countries which have Socialism as their objective are our companion organizations.

You suggest we should have more “impact” if we abandoned this attitude and, presumably, joined with a party or parties we do not agree with. Leaving aside the question of principle, it is an illusion to suppose that this would make us better known or more popular. Small organizations joining with larger ones are eaten by them. If the alliance was not numerically so one-sided—say, the SPGB with the World Federalist Association you mention—the position would still be that the latter organization is uninterested in Socialism and would only be seeking our support to get better “impact” for its own policies.

2. Historical materialism cannot be anything other than exclusive of metaphysical beliefs. Its standpoint is that all social phenomena, including ideas, arise from the way men organize to produce the necessities for their existence; in so doing they enter into relationships which determine not only their institutions but the forms their consciousness takes. Our attitude to non-materialists is, therefore, that they are mistaken.

3. Your letter was not received by us in time to consider going to a meeting. We have no “experts” on economics and war. Members of the SPGB understand the economics of capitalism, including the way it inevitably leads to war. Our attitude to the question asked is that the international financial system is part of the operation of capitalism, and as such cannot promote peace.

4. You jump from evolution to “Social Darwinism”, which was a 19th-century doctrine aiming to justify capitalism by showing that the ruling class were the fittest and strongest individuals in society. This is not the view expressed in our pamphlet, or by socialists in an context. Evolution explains the physical emergence of man. Once he lived in society (and he has no other existence) his evolution became social, and the driving principle in it has been the formation of and conflicts between classes.

"Advanced” has racist overtones only if you are thinking of races. It means a movement forward. Prehistoric societies are not “civilizations”. The Marxist case is that if a major change becomes open to people living in such a society, or a feudal one, it must take the form of a step in a certain direction; this is all "advance” means.

Letter: Individual liberty (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Individual liberty

Replying to W. J. Street (September Socialist Standard), you reject Kropotkin’s vision of a society where “the liberty of the individual will not be limited by laws or bonds”. Does this then imply that there will be such laws or bonds with Socialism?

Does the "democratic social organisation" necessitate compulsory majority decisions? If so, as the State "has withered away”, how will such decisions be enforced?

Are we referring to Socialism or to a controversial intermediate society?

Finally, with the material needs no longer at risk, will the individual and society continue to be in conflict?

After all, people do not shoot one another because of divergent views on art or would not do so in a civilised society.

F. Ball

Wokingham

Reply:

We reject Kropotkin’s view of society because in common with all anarchists he places the liberty of the individual above the needs of society. This is a utopian conception; society is not just a collection of individuals. The wants and needs of the individual are inseparable from the organization of socialist society.

The duties and the relationships of those living in Socialism will be established by social custom, as it was in the period of man’s early history before the advent of private property. Society, which will be democratically controlled, will have a responsibility towards all its members and vice versa. The keynote is social co-operation at every level.

It would be wrong to claim that there will always be total agreement, but there would not nor could not be any coercion against any individual or minority who did not agree with majority decisions. Matters in dispute would have to be thrashed out, and any decision taken would put the interest of the community first, and a dissenting minority would be expected to go along with it. The fact that all available information and facilities will be at the disposal of minorities or individuals, and discussion unrestricted, will help them to see the reasons for the majority decision, even though they may not accept it. Few people will not bow to reason if they have had a fair hearing. As you do not give a specific example we cannot develop this point further.

Socialism is not an intermediate society. There is no half-way stage or transition between socialism and capitalism—we move from one into the other.

We generally agree with your last point. However, we do not divorce the individual’s needs, including his cultural and intellectual needs, from those of society. The individual is a social product and his thinking powers are born out of social conditions. He is not above society but of it. His ideas arise from and must relate to the material circumstances of his social existence.

Letter: Enquiry (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enquiry

In the Guardian (Aug. 26th 1977) I read under FIND OUT ABOUT SOCIALISM: “For specimen literature write to.”

I wonder your ideas about Socialism and how you would translate them into action.

I’m Hungarian-born. I lived there for 26 years, but I’ve been living in Sweden for month. I know what socialism means in practice in Hungary or in the other socialist countries. I know what it means that’s why I deserted Hungary and live here in Sweden.

Walter Ja’nos

Sweden

Reply:

Socialism is a widely mis-used term but it does have a precise meaning. In socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the whole, worldwide, community. Every human being will have the same relationship to the means of production and free access to what is produced. Production will be solely for use, for example food will be grown and processed simply to be eaten. There will not be any buying or selling and money will not have any rôle to play. Men and women will as free individuals co-operate to perform all the necessary work of socialist society. Since there will be no possible motive for one group in society to dominate or exploit another, armed forces, armaments, the state itself, will not exist.

Is this the kind of society you left behind in Hungary? Does it exist anywhere? If you compare the basic conditions in Hungary and Sweden you will find that the social system in both countries is capitalism. The vast majority of people possess only their ability to work, their labour-power, which they must sell for wages. Whether members of the working class are employed by private capitalists or the state makes no real difference. In both cases the working class is paid less in wages than the value of what it produces. The minority who as a class own the means of production are able to appropriate the difference. In other words in Hungary as in all of the so-called socialist countries we find wage-labour and capital—the mark of capitalism.

We as a party cannot achieve Socialism on our own. The only way to get Socialism is for the immense majority of the working class to understand their class position in society and to organize consciously and politically to take control of the political machinery for the sole purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing Socialism.

When you have read some of our literature we shall be pleased to discuss any points you wish to raise.

Letter: Vital statistics (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vital statistics 

I would be grateful for your observations through the SS to put a friend’s mind at rest. He wants it in black and white!

For the attainment of a socialist society, what would constitute the majority? Is it 100 per cent. of the working class who are 86 per cent. of the population, or 100 per cent. of the population? We agree that 51 per cent. or even 65 per cent. would not be enough for the socialist case to succeed. But he is of the opinion that we must aim for 100 per cent. of the population or we have no chance of success. This, I feel, is an impossibility and unattainable. I have tried to explain that it will depend on circumstances at the time, and when that time comes the working class themselves will decide what constitutes the percentage of the majority, be it 60, 70 or 81 per cent., etc.

Would be thankful if you would expand and settle the issue.

Brian Johnson

Pontypridd

Reply:

“Majority” means an electoral majority. At the beginning of this century the question was of there being enough working-class votes, assuming they were nearly all cast for Socialism, to outnumber the capitalist class. Today the electorate (people over 18) in Britain number roughly 40 millions, of whom about nine-tenths are workers. Clearly 51 per cent. would not do; it would mean nearly half the population did not accept Socialism and were not prepared to operate it. 100 per cent. of the electorate would mean all the capitalists had become Socialists, which we doubt. One vital factor would be what was happening in the rest of the world. Another would be the strength of what feeling against Socialism remained. If it appeared that the non-socialists were mostly unconvinced but amenable, those who were ready for Socialism might decide that they could go forward (bearing in mind that everyone would benefit from the change).

What we would say about these difficult decisions is that we are anxious to be confronted by them. Tell your friend to join us and help to spread Socialism.

Letter: Still Trying to Ban the Bomb (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Still Trying to Ban the Bomb

Dear Editors,

We desperately need your help to stop further nuclear testing in the South Pacific by France which has been condemned world-wide, but with no effect. Economic pressure is the only way to persuade France to change its mind.

Please boycott all French products and don't go to France on holiday and ask your friends and colleagues to do the same. Fax your protest to President Chirac (Fax no. 00 33 I 47 42 24 65) informing him that you are boycotting French products and will continue to do so indefinitely if France continues with further tests. (These will be far more powerful than the first one!)

As Britain is one of France's main trading partners your action will make a difference and any pressure you can put on the Government will certainly help. 

Zerina Tata, 

Wembley, Middlesex

Reply:

While we are opposed to all wars and to all testing of nuclear weapons (which add to the level of radioactivity in the world) we do not engage in single-issue campaigns. Instead, we concentrate on working to achieve a world of common ownership and democratic control in which wars and armaments and armies—and nuclear tests—won't exist.

As long as capitalism and its drive for profits exists, then so will states to further the interests of the various national groups of capitalists. And states, in the jockeying for position with other states, must be armed with the most up-to-date and destructive weapons they can afford. These include weapons of mass-destruction such as nuclear weapons. This is why it is the case that as long as capitalism continues so will nuclear weapons and their testing from time-to-time. Protests and boycotts can’t stop this. The only solution is to get rid of global capitalism and replace it with world socialism.

Editors.

Letter: Simply misheard (1995)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Simply misheard

Dear Editors,

One thing I especially enjoy about the Socialist Party is your rationality. I find it frustrating that your solid arguments are so often simply misheard rather than disagreed with.

You doggedly put forward the proposition that what we need is a world society in which we all take what we each decide we need, from the common store of goods which we all co-operate together to produce. There would be no money, no coercion, and nobody would use anybody else.

Not only that, but you are clear that if this is to come about, it can only be as a result of the majority of the world's population grasping the situation, understanding how things are and what’s needed. You are emphatic that any idea of leadership is totally out of place in this thinking.

There is a whole movement afoot which is wholly with this understanding. I have in mind people like roads protesters, who are amazingly brave, creative and committed. Greens, people into DIY publishing and music, those into the newly-emerging Land Issue a la Winstanley. who was against money, and many others, the DIY underground, travellers and so forth. They share a great deal of your language, and they all more or less reject exploitation and favour a person-centred culture where the individual and the community are not artificially at odds as they are now.

And yet there seems to be no connection.

It seems to me that, for the alternative culture at least, there are two big obstacles to embracing what you call "Socialism":

Firstly, everyone assumes that some form of exchange has to remain in place. The idea of really sharing and trusting people not to take liberties is literally unthinkable.

Secondly, any attempt to say "we’ve thought about this, and this is what we think", any clarity on what's wrong and what’s needed is regarded with fear and hatred. People are very relativistic these days, seeing the only alternative to “nothing can be known" as “This is the truth, agree or else!"

In the meantime, of course, there's nothing relativistic about capitalism. We have to like it or lump it.

So that's why I value the Socialist Party so much. For holding onto the possibility that we can live all as sisters and brothers to one another, no matter how unfashionable and impossible that might look to our tired and fearful age—and for arguing that that's going to involve getting rid of exchange and so on.

It is all right to have an opinion about this. When you’re in a dark place people who genuinely look for a way out are a resource not a threat. Of course you could be wrong, but it looks reasonable to me. and indeed. I came to this understanding before I ever heard of the Socialist Party. To entertain these possibilities has nothing to do with trying to be a leader or a fanatic, it’s to do with trying to escape all that rubbish but still respect your intellect.

I really wish that I came across similar thinking more often amongst people you’d expect to be open to it.

Peter Rigg, 

Nelson, Lancs

Blogger's Note:

As many readers of the blog will know, Peter Rigg was a very valuable contributor to the Socialist Standard. His best known work was his Free Lunch cartoon strip, which appeared on the back page of the Standard from 2001 until 2020.

Answers to Correspondents: Trade Union Action and Political Action (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trade Union Action and Political Action

A correspondent (R. J., Spalding) asks the following question: —

When the Trade Unions approach employers with demands for, say, increased pay, longer holidays, shorter hours, improved pension arrangements, you support their efforts. When, to supplement that approach, they take parliamentary action, either by trying to influence M.P.s of all parties, or through their representatives (invariably in the Labour Party) I gather that it is your policy to oppose them.

Please define the point at which your support for working-class efforts at improved conditions under capitalism ceases, and say how I, as a Trade Union secretary, can justify this attitude to my own members if I accept your point of view.

The Railway Clerks’ Association has done quite a lot for its members at one time or another by parliamentary means. For instance, only during February this year action was taken through Labour members . . . . .  who, by threatening to block the L.N E. Railway’s General Powers Bill, to draw attention to the lack of a proper Superannuation Fund on the L.N.E., were successful in forcing the Company to begin negotiations, that have every appearance of being satisfactory. Again, through action in Parliament, a schedule was included in the Railway Grouping Bill, which had the effect of preventing wholesale dismissals. This action was definitely of benefit to the workers, including myself, concerned.

Reply.

In order to clear the way for our reply it is necessary to correct one statement in our correspondent’s question. He says that when trade unions support the candidature of Members of Parliament they are “invariably in the Labour Party.” Though generally true of Great Britain, it is not invariably so. The National Union of Teachers, for example, has candidates in the other parties also. Going outside this country we see the American unions openly bargaining to support candidates, irrespective of their party.

The next point to notice is, that until Socialists become a majority of the electorates, a man can only become a Member of Parliament by standing for capitalism; while promising at the same time to press for certain reforms. If, therefore, a miners’ union or railwaymen’s union finances a successful Parliamentary candidature, it means helping to delude the workers into the belief that it is in their interest to reform capitalism instead of abolishing it. Similarly, what our correspondent calls “trying to influence M.P.s of all parties” means, in fact, striking a bargain with them. M.P.s want votes, and that is the only kind of “influence” they are interested in. The union, therefore, goes to the M.P. and offers—even if it is not put so bluntly as this, both parties know what is meant—to provide votes in the constituency in exchange for support in the House of Commons. In America the bargaining is quite openly admitted and defended by the unions.

What is the attitude of the Socialist to these practices? What attitude can it be except opposition? The Socialist holds, and preaches to the workers, that capitalism must be abolished, not reformed, and that the abolition can only be achieved by the conscious action of the workers organised together on a Socialist basis. How could a Socialist at one and the same time teach these elementary Socialist truths and make nonsense of them by helping to return to Parliament men whose mandate is to retain capitalism and reform it? ;

There are other aspects also to be considered, The achievement of Socialism requires that the workers should organise together on the basis of recognising that they have a common class interest against the capitalists. On no account can Socialists foster sectional rivalries among the workers. But when the Railwaymen try to get the support of M.P.s of all parties in the House of Commons, it frequently means, in fact, helping the Railway Companies to resist the encroachment of the road transport industry, and hoping, in return, to get some concessions from the M.P.s who represent Railway Company interests. Thus it divides the working class instead of uniting them. In the long run the class interest of the workers is more important, even to the sections which hope to gain small concessions by taking action on their own.

Also it should be remembered that when the capitalists feel that something vital to them as a class is at stake, all the Parliamentary lobbying and Labour candidatures count for nothing at all. A case in point was the 1927 Trade Union Act. The Baldwin Government wanted the Act and got it without paying the slightest attention to the opposition demands. In other words, if the united trade union movement cannot get something out of the employing class it is an illusion to think that political "influence” in the House of Commons will make any difference.

Lastly, it should not be forgotten that the final aim of the Labour Party is to get into office. When it does, that is when it takes on the administration of capitalism, the trade unions find themselves face to face with a Government of the people it had been supporting, only to discover, as did the miners in 1924, that the Labour Government tells them not to make “embarrassing” demands. Or it finds, as did the railwaymen, that the Labour Government is prepared to use Emergency Powers against strikers.

Workers should not forget, too, that after giving their support to the Labour Party in order to get petty concessions they found that Party in 1914 urging them into the trenches in capitalism’s war.

The outcome of it all is that many workers in their disappointment jump to the conclusion that a Labour Government is even worse than a Tory Government, and this enables Tories or Fascists, or some other supporters of capitalism, to gain adherents.

The time to avoid these evils is right at the start, and the way is to stick to Socialist political action, even if it appears to involve occasionally some loss of a minor advantage to some section of the workers.

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents: The Trade Union Political Levy (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union Political Levy

A correspondent (R. J., Spalding), who is a trade union branch secretary, says that he “strongly criticises the Labour Party from the Socialist point of view,” and is in doubt whether or not he ought to go on paying the political levy to his union. The money, he says, “ is at present utilised mainly to support such of our colleagues as have entered Parliament as Labour Members, in general parliamentary action and to provide loans to local parties in accordance with the decisions of local branch members; again almost exclusively the Labour Party benefits.”

He goes on to suggest two alternative courses of action, either not to pay the levy, or, alternatively, pay it but oppose its use to support the Labour Party.

The S.P.G.B.’s view is that the levy should not be paid, because only in that way can the Socialist’s opposition to reformist political parties be made clear and unambiguous. 

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents: The Busmen’s Problem : A Correction (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Busmen’s Problem : A Correction

Our attention has been drawn by Mr. F. Snelling, National Officer of the National Passenger Workers’ Union, to a misstatement in the article which appeared in the August The Socialist Standard under the title “The Busmen’s Problem.” The statement referred to was as follows : — 

“Following the strike, an enquiry was held by the union into the activities of certain of the more prominent members of the section, with the consequence that a number of the leading rank and file members were suspended from office and others expelled from the union. The suspensions and expulsions were subsequently endorsed by the 1937 Biennial Conference of the T. & G.W.U.”

Mr. Snelling informs us that the decision to suspend and expel members was not taken until after the 1937 Biennial Conference, and although the enquiry was held and completed before the end of the Conference, no statement was before the Conference on the result of the enquiry.

The Committee of Inquiry which was set up issued an interim report which made no reference to the suspensions and expulsions. This was the report that was accepted by the Conference.

W. E. W. & F. W. J.

Letter: More about industrial action: The Legend of the "Jolly George” (1951)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have had correspondence with a reader (P.C.O., London) who in the letter below raises the question of minority action and the effectiveness of strikes to stop war.

Editorial Committee,

The Socialist Standard.

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter of the 20th July. I have taken in carefully all you have had to say. There is one point, however, you seem to have overlooked.

The general tone of your letter suggests that you think the individual can do nothing to alter affairs, and I would like to remind you of the Russian Revolution, started by a mere “handful,” also of the “Capitalist Trade Union ” (to use your own term) action which started with the refusal by the dockers to load the “Jolly George" and ended with the Capitalist Government being compelled to withdraw their armed forces from Russia, to which they had been sent to destroy the new “Workers’ State,” although the said “Workers’ State” may not be a very pleasant one to live under nowadays.

The “Jolly George” incident also compelled a Capitalist Government to cease conscripting working- class boys and young men into a Capitalist Army.

Why has there been nothing to rival it to-day? After the 1st G. War there were demobilisation riots, demonstrating in Whitehall, etc., etc. After the 2nd G. War there were no such disorders—the workers meekly waited for. their “Demob.”, their age group, etc., etc. Meanwhile they went to places like Greece and slaughtered foreign workers for the glory of the British and American Capitalist States. The only thing that nearly resembled anything like riots was the outbreak of mutiny at the Aldershot “Glasshouse” in 1946. If there were anything approaching the solidarity I would like to see, there would have been a General Strike in sympathy with the men imprisoned in the “Glasshouse” and protection from Capitalist Militarism given to all members of the working class by organised Labour. In Spain, an attempt might have been made to free the conscripts in a military prison, judging by the workers’ conduct in the Civil War. Personally I would like to see a General Strike take place whenever a deserter from the Capitalist Armed Forces is arrested.

Yours, etc.,

P.C.O.

Reply:

(1) Recipe for Revolution

The S.P.G.B. case is that the achievement of Socialism requires in the first place a majority of socialists, and the resulting democratic political action to gain control of the machinery of government. Our impatient correspondent replies by pointing to Russia and offers us his own recipe for starting a revolution: “Just take a mere handful of people.”

But why does he tarry to tell us this? Why hasn’t he already collected his simple ingredients and cooked his revolution? Why he has not done so is indicated elsewhere in his letter; where be tells us, for example, that the insurgent attitude of some workers after World War I has to be contrasted with the meekly accepting attitude of workers after World War II. He has left something out of his recipe; the handful of would-be leaders of riots and mutinies can put themselves at the head of bodies of rioters and mutineers only if there are such bodies to put themselves at the head of.

In Russia in 1917, because that semi-feudal economy could not stand up to war with industrialised Germany, army discipline, civil administration, and the transport system had all broken down, and there were millions of land-hungry peasants, mutinous soldiers and starving workers ready to support a movement to overthrow the Czarist regime. Having no electoral system through which to vote the Government out, the discontented Russians rioted and mutinied. If our correspondent in 1945 had called on the British workers to stage a “revolution” in order to get rid of the Churchill government they might reasonably reply by asking why go to all that trouble to get something they could and did get by using their votes at the election.

More important from the socialist standpoint is not whether a minority can do “something” but whether it can achieve Socialism. Doubtless the Russian Monarchist Liberals who started the movement to overthrow the Czar were a small handful, as also were the Communists who later started the movement which ended with the present State capitalist dictatorship. They did not and could not introduce Socialism and it is that which concerns us. What the Russian Communists did achieve, to quote our correspondent, is a condition of affairs “not very pleasant to live under nowadays.” But surely we don’t have to do anything to achieve that state of affairs; we have it already.

(2) The Legend of the “Jolly George”

But our correspondent has a subsidiary weapon in his armoury of argument. Without waiting for Socialism, a handful of dockers, he tells us. could start a movement which would force a government to withdraw its armed forces from war against Russia and compel them to abandon conscription. He is sure of this because it happened.

Never were so many errors compressed into so small a space.

It is of course easy to make the claim that the Government was forced to do certain things because of a strike by some London dockers, but there is not the slightest evidence to back up the claim.

It is a simple matter to show that the decision after the first World War to abandon conscription had nothing to do with the refusal to load the “Jolly George,” and we can only suppose that our correspondent’s memory is at fault. Immediately the war ended with the armistice on 11th November, 1918, new Conscription call-up notices were cancelled. (Hansard, 15th November, 1918, Col. 3110.) Existing conscripts were retained in the Forces after that date, but the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, announced on 30th October, 1919, that conscription was being lapsed. "We have arranged that by the end of this financial year there will not be a conscript in this country.” (Hansard, 30th October, 1919, Col. 981.) The plan was adhered to and the period of compulsory service was officially terminated on 30th April, 1920.

Note particularly these dates, all of them before 1st May, 1920, for it was not until ten days later, on 10th May, 1920, that some London dockers refused to load arms for Poland on the “Jolly George,” so that incident cannot possibly have been the cause of events that took place long before it happened.

Nor was it the determining factor on Government policy about Russian intervention. One intervention, that of the British troops at Archangel was ended by their withdrawal on 27th September, 1919, a decision obviously governed by military and other considerations.

But then came the Polish war against Russia in April, 1920, and it is this our correspondent has in mind. The facts show how completely wrong are his conclusions:

As already stated the dockers refused to load arms for Poland (a free gift, incidentally, from the British Government) on 10th May, 1920.

Did this stop the war? No. For the Russo-Polish armistice was not signed until five months later, on 12th October.

Did it stop the British Government using naval forces to help Russia’s enemies? No. For British warships were still in the Black Sea when the war ended.

Did it cause the British Government to desist from its policy of hostility to the Russian Government? No. For early in August when the Polish armies were temporarily in retreat, the Government warned Russia off:

"The British Government now took up a threatening position, demanding the cessation of the Russian advance, failing which they would give all aid to Poland.” (Labour Research Department Monthly Circular," 1st September, 1920.)

And coming down to the specific issue of the flow of British armaments to Poland, did the dockers stop it? Here we can quote a witness who for this purpose can hardly be doubted:—

“Frankly, the National Council of Action has failed. . . . It was formed to prevent the supplies and munitions being sent in support of the attack on Soviet Russia, which it is quite obviously not doing. Somehow, and from somewhere in this country, these supplies are being sent. A Moscow report alleges that England has sent seven steamers of munitions, three tanks, and twelve small steamers with provisions in aid of Poland, and that these have been unloaded at Danzig."

That candid admission was published by the Communist Party of Great Britain in their organ, “The Communist” on 7th October, 1920, five months after the “Jolly George” affair. And if the Council of Action movement failed in Britain parallel actions on the Continent were equally futile. We read in Labour Research Department Circular of 1st September. 1920:

“The French Government now turned every effort to pouring munitions and officers into Poland. Supplies also came from Great Britain."

"So great was the flood that the same journal reported that ‘the Poles were firing ten shots to the Russian one.’"

The attempt by industrial action to save Russia from defeat by the Polish forces was a complete fiasco: —

". . . the unlimited foreign supplies . . . and the expert military advice were producing their effect, and the Russian advance was turned. By August 20 the Poles were in Brest Litvosk.” (L.R.D. Circular, September 1920).

So much for the legend of the “ Jolly George.”

(3) Why not a General Strike against the Labour Government?

Then our correspondent, filled with false recollections of what happened after World War I, tells us how he would like to see "organised labour” staging a general strike to help army deserters, etc., and he wonders why the workers now do not act as he says they acted after the first world war.

We have already pointed out that our correspondent on his own showing does not have to wait for “organised labour.” All he has to do is to collect his "mere handful ” and start something.

And could anything be more unrealistic than the talk of action by “organised labour”? The Council of Action of 1920 was a joint body formed by the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress and was directed (unsuccessfully as we have shown) against the Lloyd George-Churchill government.

So let us now repeat our correspondent’s advice in its proper form. “Why do not the Labour Party and the Labour M.P.s and the Trade Unions now organise a general strike to stop themselves from supporting the policies of their Labour Government which they uphold and agree with and vote for?”

We cannot conclude without drawing attention to a curious time-lag in our correspondent’s programme of action. If, as be believes, a "mere handful” could start a movement to stop war, why waste this potent weapon by bringing it into action only after the war is over and then only to help deserters and military prisoners. Why not do it before World War II began and stop the war itself?

Can it be that our correspondent knows as well as we do that “organised labour” in all countries in 1939 was not opposed to the war-making of the respective governments but was supporting it?

One last point. We do not know what our correspondent means in his letter when he says that the “Jolly George" action was described by us as "capitalist Trade Union action.”

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Shut Up and Shut Out (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Shut Up and Shut Out

At the meeting of the "Hackney Committee Against Racialism”, controlled by the IMG, I explained to the chairman that I wished to explain the Socialist case. Though I was invited, as my name is in the Hackney Council brochure, the chairman stated that I was not to speak. I did not quarrel at all but suggested a speaker from the Socialist Party. "Oh dear no, Tariq Ali is our man.” In brief, red fascists are no different from black fascists.

Recently a poster on the wall at the London School of Economics announced a meeting of IS. I knocked at the door and asked if it was all right to sit and listen. They knew I was a member of the Socialist Party. The answer was "No”. I suppose they’re a secret society.

S. Highams

London N.1

Letter: Ourselves and the CP (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ourselves and the CP

I am writing to protest at your waste of good Socialist space in the S.S. I refer to your continual obsessive carping on the misguided thinking of the CP in comparison to yours. Surely, with all the futile waste, almost criminal of the capitalist system, this includes state capitalism masquerading as communism, you could leave the CP to its usual smearers in the Labour and Conservative parties. After all there must be something wrong with the CP to warrant this continuous smearing — apart from yours.

A member of the CP can never expect honours from the establishment while still an active member. In order to attain these he must leave and get control of a Union if possible, and duckshove his way to the top, to manipulate its business in capitalism’s favour. A case in point is the ETU where three communists with the help of the present Lord Feather secured controlling positions in that key Union. One became Sir Leslie Cannon — if that was any consolation to him. The establishment know how to reward working-class treachery in their favour.

J. Maryon

Hornchurch.

Reply

We have never gone in for the “smearing” of other political parties. Our criticisms are always based on verifiable fact and never on smear, guilt by association or any of the other tactics employed by capitalist parties.

Our criticism of the so called “Communist" Party is quite different to those used by the Labour and Conservative Parties. We are unique in attacking the CP on the grounds that they are, whatever their proclamations may be, an anti-working class party. The CP advocates not Communism or Socialism (the terms are the same thing although the CP confuse the issue by differentiating them) but State Capitalism.

Nothing that the CP advocates can change the economic position of the working class. When they contest elections they do so on a reform platform talking nonsense such as “The British Road to Socialism” or more nationalization. The suggestion that they want a fundamental change in the basis of society can easily be refuted. For example John Mathews writing in their fortnightly review was full of “criticism” for Labour chancellor Denis Healey’s recent mini-budget because it failed to deal adequately with the problems facing British capitalism. Mathews suggested that Britain should go in for selective import controls, planned investment and that self contradiction in terms “planned trade”. And what did he have to say about capitalism?

  There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the size of the [trade] deficit, and the interest charges to be paid on loans, but no solution — only appeals to make a "national effort”, etc. It needs to be said that the British economy is running down not because of shoddy workmanship, or absenteeism, or any of the pseudo-explanations advanced but because of the economic sabotage of the owners of capital. It is the management of the economy which is at fault, not the economy itself. (Comment August 10, 1974 — emphasis in the original.)

Our unmasking of these political frauds masquerading as revolutionaries is fully justified. The fact that some ex-CPers seek places of privilege and power in the capitalist establishment is not surprising but does not alter the case. Once in power Communists pursue anti-working-class policies. Ken Gill, newly elected to the TUC general council brags that “. . . this mighty Congress has committed itself to wage restraint . . . we hated restraint under Heath but we welcome it under Wilson” (Daily Telegraph 5 September 1974.) 

Need we say more?

Editors.

Letter: Russia and the Abyss (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia and the Abyss

The otherwise excellent piece on Russian elections (August Socialist Standard page 133) concludes that 200 collective farm workers and 50 others automatically means 1,000 non-workers. But be careful! Russian classifications are abstruse and devious, many are classified as “Peasants”, several “Intellectuals” (Intelligents) even “Technicians”. I readily agree that it’s all baloney anyway, even a Peasant member of the Supreme Soviet is an “Apparatchik”. Perhaps it’s better to say this, or that we are well aware of Soviet nomenclature.

Secondly with reference to the series on the famous books. Good idea and sure to take. But can we be careful to point to the fallacy of facile comparisons between then and now otherwise we fall right into the Labour Party trap — “There you are how much better now . . .”

So long as we emphasise that in a 1970 world of electronics the “Abyss”, as it was, could no longer exist. Or as we say about The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, many similarities still exist.

The new high-rise flats are an abomination and disaster.

Horatio.

Letter: Joy in Living (1974)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Joy in Living

Reading the SPGB pamphlet Art, Labour and Socialism persuades me that in his Joy in Labour theory, William Morris’s failure to pose and answer a simple but pertinent question restricted the development of his subject.

He has convinced us of the joy useful labour will give, but why? Surely the joy serves a biological end, and is nature’s reward for the fulfilment of that end. But the primary aim is the perpetuation and improvement of life, of which labour is but an ingredient. Our Joy-in-Labour concept could perhaps be logically amended to Joy in Living.

Denied its expression in wage-labour, the impulse finds a compensating gratification in spurious pleasure drawn from the vast arts, entertainment and sports industry. An industry quite distinct from productive processes, that surely provides overwhelming evidence of alienation. An industry much of which, possibly all eventually, a healthy Socialist society will make obsolete.

One quality this industry seeks to express is vitality: an interesting commentary on the condition of its audience. Much of literary and theatrical fiction is clearly vicarious living. A bogus satisfaction rewards the reader of the popular “Whodunit” in which is exploited a perversion of the evolutionary impulse — effort which should be directed to improving life involving the tackling of problems (“challenge”) is reduced to a trivial mental exercise.

F. C. West

London E.2

Letter: Ideas and Struggle (1989)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ideas and Struggle

Dear Comrades,

I found an old copy of your magazine Socialist Standard at a friend's place. I was very interested to read it and there were several thought-provoking articles.

Have you got anything on Trotskyism? Several of my friends have very nearly joined such parties as the SWP. Militant and the RCP. A few years ago, I was on the periphery of the RCP, but their ruthless party building (and total rejection of real working class issues) turned me off . . . fortunately. I find that the Trotskyists have a very patronising attitude to the working class that I presume results from Lenin's theory that, on their own, workers can only reach a trade union consciousness and thus, hey presto, the need for the guiding light of a revolutionary party—it does not seem to have done that much guiding so far! And what do you think of anarchism? I have occasionally read anarchist papers—some of them are nothing more than liberal rubbish (such as Freedom), but others do have more sense (e.g. Direct Action) in that they emphasise the class rather than the culture!

I must say that I do have my differences with the SPGB analysis, particularly over how socialism will be achieved. I completely agree with you that a majority of the working class needs to be fighting for socialism, but. as Marx said, "ideas change in struggle". To me this means that at any time there is a possibility of real change because in mass struggle the ideas of the working class do change. For example, if the miners strike had spread to other sectors (as it had to in order to avoid defeat), then we might have seen a possible revolution. I think that it is very Leninist to underestimate the abilities and potential of the working class. You say "the democratic conquest of political power”— what about the real power in this society, the economic structure? Thatcher is merely a puppet of the bosses' interests. To talk of revolution in such mild terms makes me think of naivety such as what would you do if there was a military uprising against the new socialist government?

I also think that you emphasise educational activities far too much. I would never deny the importance of propaganda, but getting back to that original quote from Marx: “ideas change in struggle” . . . not through passive book reading. So I would argue that socialists should be fighting back against this rotten system in their own lives in the here and now (for example, agitating for a strike in their workplace, leafletting their community about the Poll Tax and helping to set up Anti-Poll Tax Unions) and supporting all other working class people in their struggles against class society. I think that it is only through such a movement as this that society will be changed—but I am very interested to hear what you have to say

Norman Davis

London, N16

REPLY
1. Yes, as Marx said, ideas change in struggle. But this does not mean to say that ideas change suddenly. In fact, the process of overcoming the overwhelming conditioning of capitalism is itself a long hard struggle. We do not underestimate the potential of the working class, as the Leninists do, when we say that the majority of workers are at present imbued with support for capitalism. There is a great potential for workers to make the transition to understand and want socialism instead, but we would be kidding ourselves and others if we accepted, for example, that if the miners' strike had spread "then we might have seen a possible revolution". The key precondition for a socialist revolution is that a majority should be socialists, fully conscious of their class position and their interests as workers in ending capitalism. If the miners' strike had benefited from greater solidarity amongst other workers, it would have improved the miners' position, and would have been a sign that class consciousness was growing. But that simple condition, of a majority of genuine socialists, still stands as an indispensable precondition for the revolutionary change we seek, and we continue to work with great determination to build up such a majority.

2. Yes, Thatcher is a puppet of the bosses' interests. But political power within capitalism cannot be overestimated—the bosses spend millions through their parties securing and organising political power. In Britain today, the state forces including the military are, as a matter of concrete fact, under the control of a parliamentary government which is given electoral support by the very workers whose interests it opposes. Many on the Left find it hard to face up to the harsh fact that capitalism, in all of its forms, does depend on the acquiescence and/or apathy of a majority of workers themselves. With the growth of a socialist majority, determined to end capitalism, the notion of a military uprising to prevent this is nonsensical. How would such a military force even exist or survive against the solid and hostile opposition of a socialist majority throughout society? The greater degree of class consciousness which that would entail on the part of the majority would make it more than likely that such a military sect would be starved of food, of power and electricity supplies, of uniforms, of weapons and of credibility.

3. You say that "passive book reading” and educational work are not enough on their own, but must be combined with active campaigning, e.g. against the poll tax, or for strikes at work, as, going back once again to Marx, "ideas change in struggle”. It is false to make such a rigid division between passive reading and active action. Reading and learning is itself an activity. Furthermore, the substance and subject matter of what socialists write and read about is, of course, the subject matter of the class struggle itself. And, on the other hand, a lot of so-called radical actions are actually nothing more than feeble attempts to reform and modify capitalism, to dress up oppression in a new guise. But, as far as trade union and strike action are concerned, or democratic efforts by workers to combine and improve (or just maintain) their wages and conditions of work, the Socialist Party fully supports such action. As active members of a whole range of trade unions, many of our members have worked very long and hard at such active struggle. But as a political party standing unequivocally for socialist revolution our role, which we carry out to the best of our abilities, is to put to our fellow workers the most urgent choice facing the entire human race now in 1989: are we. the deprived majority, going to allow the world's resources to remain harmfully in the hands of about 1-5 per cent of the population, or are we at last going to act on our true interests. and organise politically, consciously and democratically for the overthrow of capitalism, and the establishment of world socialism?

Editors.

Letter: Democracy and Votes (1992)

The offending cartoon.

Letter to the Editors from the November 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Democracy and Votes

Dear Editors.

Your cartoon in the July issue of Socialist Standard really did reach the depths of Stalinist-style amalgam tactics, in its attempt to link anarchism to Stalinism and Nazism. Not only was the cartoon scurrilous, it was also inaccurate as well. Stalin through the Comintern advised the Communist Parties worldwide to use parliamentary tactics, as was so miserably illustrated with the career of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Hitler for his part used parliamentary methods, as did, and still do. other fascist parties, including Mussolini.

You say that anarchists ignore the State. On the contrary, those revolutionary anarchists who have learnt the lessons of history believe that a social revolution must involve the active destruction of the State. There is a big difference between electing MPs and mandating delegates to, for example, a workplace or neighbourhood council. The delegates to these would be decided upon by mass assemblies. and would be mandated and subject to instant recall. Parliamentarians would be under no such control of the masses. What is more alienating under capitalism than to file singly into an election booth once in every five years?

You pay lip service to self organisation and mass action. In reality, in your advocacy of parliament, including the defence of institutions like the Russian Constituent Assembly, you show yourselves as staunch defenders of bourgeois democracy.

Ron Allen, 

Anarchist Communist Federation 

London E1

Reply:
Thanks for the compliment! Yes, we do say that the vote is an important gain and we do say that “bourgeois” democracy, for all its many limitations, provides the best framework for workers to organise themselves without leaders—both to defend their interests under capitalism and to struggle to replace it by the fully democratic society that socialism will be. What are you saying? That it makes no difference whether or not we have the vote? We don’t think you will get very far with that one— Editors.

Letter: Population breeds pollution? (1991)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Population breeds pollution?

Dear Editors,

Thank you for publishing my letter on population and for your reply (July Socialist Standard). I do not understand why you so vehemently dismiss population growth as a contributor to serious environmental problems, and indulge in a compulsive denigration of Malthus: “Parson Malthus spouting his own brand of naturalistic determinism”, "apocalyptic vision had not an iota of scientific validity”, "completely arbitrary” (Socialist Standard, April 1991). Perhaps you are loyally echoing Marx’s similar invective when Malthus’s theory seemed to threaten his system?

In fact, Malthus regarded rapid population growth as highly desirable, provided adequate resources were available to support it. Nor was he a misanthrope, but a person of great charm and an advocate of progressive social measures, including much more equitable distribution of wealth. It is clear that he would have preferred his theory, arrived at in the pursuit of truth, not to have been valid, but could not escape from its conclusions. Which of these conclusions have stood the test of time?

The best known is that human fertility has the capacity to increase population exponentially ("geometrically") and, if unchecked, can overwhelm any conceivable supply of resources. (This is true; for example. if this country’s population of about 9 million in 1800 had grown at Kenya’s present rate of 4 percent per annum, we should now have more than three times the present world population of 5,500 million). What Malthus could not have known was that the revolution in agriculture was about to lead to a rapid increase in production, sufficient temporarily to relax the linkage between population and food supply that had, as Malthus realised, held in Europe for many centuries. The health of the people, and their numbers, now increased together, as Malthus. with characteristic honesty, acknowledged in the fifth edition of his Essay in 1817. Even so. the "misery" (Malthus's word) of anxiety about supporting a large family still operated strongly, and the average annual population growth of about 1.5 percent per annum during the 19th century fell a good deal short of the theoretical maximum, and indeed of present growth rates in Africa and South America.

Birth control

In the developed countries the anxiety about supporting a large family has now been much reduced by a deliberate choice of small family size, facilitated by contraception, something which Malthus ruled out on moral grounds, recommending instead “moral restraint” and voluntary choice of late marriage. (Practising what he preached, he married at 38 and only had three children). Your reply to my letter says that I “undermine the case for birth control by associating it with the ideas of Malthus”. Whatever this means, it does seem to be an association that Malthus himself would have rejected.

I said in my earlier letter that we should look at the actual world situation as it is now to see if some common ground for agreement can be found. In the developed world, rates of population growth are low and in some countries may become negative for a time. As some reduction in population size would have many beneficial effects. it is hard to sympathise with the near-hysterical reaction this prospect seems to produce in some quarters.

The Third World of poor countries is another matter. In Africa, food supply is now falling behind population, and the latter is expected to double in the next 25 years, unless serious attempts are made to reduce growth, or the checks of famine and disease detailed by Malthus are allowed to operate. Attempts to increase food production in Africa or (as you imply) in Western countries that might export food to stricken areas will involve soil erosion, deforestation, increased pollution by pesticides and fertilisers, and greater demand for energy. Clearly these measures can only provide temporary relief while population growth is dealt with. Any delay will only lead to further increases in the numbers at which population levels off.

Turning to environmental damage by human activities, your pamphlet Ecology and Socialism recognises the dangers of the “present mode of production” to the biosphere and acknowledges the "urgent need for humans to take action to change the way they relate to the rest of nature". So far so good, but the next sentence offers an explanation which is altogether too facile: "We in the Socialist Party agree that capitalism has devastating consequences for the environment”. Much more careful analysis is needed here than you offer in your reply to my earlier letter, in which you simply assert that the only cause of the ecological crisis is the capitalist system: "its cause is not the pressure of population nor industrialisation".

Several issues need to be disentangled: is it true that an industrial system can be run under any political regime without causing significant environmental damage, that damage being approximately proportional to the size of population? Will a socialist system at least minimise the damage? How long is it likely to be before a socialist system can be put into operation on a world scale? What are the implications of population growth in relation to these questions?

Ecological damage

It is certainly true that the capitalist system encourages economic growth as a consequence of its internal dynamics, and that this leads to rapid obsolescence, increased production rather than more efficient conservation, thoughtless depletion of resources dictated by market forces, short term planning through discounting the future. and so on. Additionally, the present state of international relations leads to wasted spending on armaments at a rate of £1,000,000 a minute (though this represents less than 5 percent of world GNP).

One can only make informed guesses as to how far the benefits of industrialism (which you welcome—see Socialist Standard, April 1991) can be provided with little or no environmental damage, but the measures you suggest in One Green World, although beneficial, would be very far from reducing the damage to zero. Recycling of materials requires energy and is inevitably incomplete in each cycle; “prudent" use of fossil fuels would still mean heavy use; control of pollution is only partial in most industrial processes; and so on. Transition to more economical practices takes time, and further population growth and the expansion of industry in the Third World are more than likely to outpace the improvements in technology.

In Ecology and Socialism (page 27) there is a complete misunderstanding of the effects of a “steady-state economy", which, although less menacing than an exponentially expanding one, is not sustainable if its consumption and production rates are high. For example, stabilising fossil fuel consumption at today’s levels would still lead to a progressive and rapid increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. (However, you do at least acknowledge that as part of a steady-state economy, population levels must also be stable—i.e., growth must cease! I low do you reconcile that with your dismissal of population growth as a cause of the ecological crisis?)

Even if the socialist system you envisage comes about by achievement of the necessary popular majorities in its support, this is bound to be well into the future. Would it not be wise in the meantime to reduce population growth as far as possible while the existing, more wasteful, economic system is in being? And can you be sure that, in practice, your system will be as effective as you claim in reducing ecological damage? I can think of few things more conducive to waste than being able to pick up as much as one likes of basic commodities for nothing.

I spent over 20 years in the late Conservation Society, most of the time as its chairman or director, and the relationship between politics and the environment was one of my main interests. I find many of your goals attractive, but reading your dogmatic assertions about how to achieve them prompts me to conclude with a paragraph from Malthus:

The speculative philosopher [i.e.. the advocate for the perfectibility of man. and of society] equally offends against the cause of truth. With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment, without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man towards perfection.

John Davoll

Shepperton, Middx

Reply: No, it doesn't—capitalism does

Socialists argue that the lot of the majority of world society can be vastly improved by replacing the present dominant world economic system—capitalism—with a system of common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. This system would allow the Earth's resources to be used to abolish world poverty and misery through the institution of production directly for use instead of for sale at a profit as now happens. Malthus and his followers deny that such an improvement can come about. According to them, increasing population will wipe out any gains, so it is better to do nothing. Not only is this wrong; it is heartless and deeply anti-human. It leads to a situation where a fall in the death rate (because, for instance, improved living conditions lead to babies and children living longer) is seen as a “catastrophe"

Thus Garrett Hardin, a Professor of Ecology at the University of California, can say:

I don't think anything can be done in the short term that won't make things worse in the long term. If there are too many people . . . saving lives ensures that more people will die in the end. . . . If a population is so malnourished that its physical ability to produce children is reduced, the first effect of improving a peoples nutrition is to increase that fertility. (The Christian theologian) Tcrtullian regarded famine as a blessing, to cut out excess population. It sounds hard . . . but it is so. (Science Digest, May 1986).

Apart from the fact that in the long run we are all dead, the thing to notice here is that the “excess" population are never well-off university professors but those unfortunate enough to have been born poor and without access to the means to overcome their poverty.

Is it really surprising that socialists attack these notions? Marx did so with a vigour which may have on occasion bordered on the intemperate but that is understandable in view of what was being said. He certainly did not do so because he feared “Malthus's theory seemed to threaten his system". Like us, he attacked the ideas and theories of Malthus because they were wrong and because they were used to defend the status quo.

Family size

Large families are not the cause of poverty. Many small families and people without dependants suffer the ill effects of poverty while the wealthy and privileged whatever the size of their families have always been able to escape from the misery and privations suffered by the poor. Nor would the attainment of “zero population growth" automatically lead to an improvement in the lot of the propertyless majority. The history of Ireland is proof of this. The population at the end of the 19th century was about half what it had been earlier in the century, yet the majority remained poor and the Irish economy relatively underdeveloped.

Socialists are all in favour of the widest possible dissemination of information about birth control and methods of limiting the size of families or the numbers of one's children. But one important point to notice (and it seems to have been missed by John Davoll) is that family size is not simply a question of biological drives. It also has a social aspect. Historical, economic and cultural factors play a very large (possibly major) part in determining family size:

reproduction, whether at high or low levels, is so important to the family and to society everywhere that its level is more or less controlled by cultural norms about family size . . . In each society the cultural norms about these vital matters arc consistent with the social institutions in which they are deeply embedded. Changes in fertility are unlikely without prior or, at least, simultaneous changes in those institutions. (R. Freedman quoted in David M. Heer, Readings on Population, 1968).

A study of the failure of a large-scale multi-million dollar birth control campaign in India (the Khanna Study) pointed directly to the fact that a large family was a necessity for the overwhelming majority of the agricultural population studied. For them the practice of birth control was seen as economically ruinous and a threat to their well-being, particularly in later life in a society lacking state-provided welfare services. (Mahmood Manvidani, The Myth of Population Control, 1973).

It is obvious that the numbers of human beings cannot go on rising for ever. But to think that population control can be successful without the introduction of the economic security that socialism would bring is mistaken. Engels put the matter well in a letter he wrote to Karl Kautsky in February 1881:

There is of course the abstract possibility that the number of people will become so great that limits will have to be set to their increase. But if at some stage Communist society finds itself obliged to regulate the production of human beings . . . it will be precisely this society, and this society alone, which can carry this out without difficulty. (Marx and Engels on Malthus, 1953. p. 97).

Contrast this with the contradictory forces operating within capitalist society. Fears about the "dangers" of overpopulation alternate with concerns regarding population decline seen as a loss both of potential markets and of recruits for the armed forces to fight for the interests of the ruling class in the wars capitalism causes.

Thus present-day child benefit payments to parents in Britain have their roots in a 1944 White Paper advocating family allowances as a means of arresting the decline in the birth rate. A recent report by the Family Policy Studies Centre into a similar situation in the Common Market over the past few years suggests that pressure will be put on the European Commission in Brussels to support "pro-natalist" policies (Independent, 29 July 1991).

John Davoll expresses an understandable concern about conditions in some parts of Africa. The situation there is, again, the outcome of the workings of the world capitalist economy. Investment of capital in profit-making enterprises such as logging lays waste vast areas of forest at a far greater rate than local subsistence farming. Investment in large-scale agriculture drives the peasant who cannot afford to compete on to fragile marginal land which rapidly degenerates into desert:

Drained, fertile floodplains and complex irrigation systems favour the most "economically profitable" land use systems which invariably amounts to the large-scale cultivation of cash crops destined for the export market. As a result of the small farmer's weak financial position he cannot compete for the fertile lands, and is relegated therefore to lands of marginal fertility for food production. (Saidou S. Jallow of Gambia College in S. H. Arnold and A. Nitecki Culture and Development in Africa. 1990. p. 72).

Africa cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the W'orld. A world-wide socialist system would give all access to food and the means of producing it. Local shortages could easily be made good from the common world pool of resources.

Capitalism and pollution

Because under capitalism profit-seeking firms are producing commodities to be sold on the market in competition with other profit-seekers, they are under pressure to produce as cheaply as possible so as to undercut competitors. Anything which adds to their costs of production (as pollution control measures do) hampers this profit-seeking and is resisted on the grounds that some competitors may not have to bear the same cost.

When pollution control first became a big political issue in the 1960s the then President of the Chemical Industry Society, Professor G. H. Beeley, pointed out that chemical wastes were not re-used because "it is cheaper to throw them away" than to concentrate them for re-use:

Neither the chemical industry nor the users of its products lightly accept. . . the cost of disposing their waste. The cost can mean the difference between profit and loss".(Soil Association press release. 28 July 1969.)

This is why under present conditions the elimination of 98 percent of emissions from smoke stacks takes place only where the value of precious metals recovered is greater than the cost of filtration. Socialism, because it will produce for use only and not for profit, will have no such constraints on the implementation of know n measures to eliminate pollution.

We are a little surprised that John Davoll appears to chide us for advocating re-cycling as a means to a sustainable “steady-state economy”. He himself has gone on record as stating that “industrialism" does not have to cause the environmental damage it does today "if goods were made more durable . . . and were also designed to be capable of being re-cycled, re-used and repaired" (John Davoll. "A Sustainable Society", Conservation Times No 86. July-October 1983).

Humankind has now developed the technology to provide everyone on Earth with a decent existence while at the same time minimising environmental depletion and destruction. How soon? As soon as a majority understand the need for the change and take the necessary democratic political action to gain control of the state and use it as a means to free us from the danger we are now in. Many hands will speed the plough.

Gwynn Thomas

Blogger's Note:

John Davoll's mention of  'One Green World' may be in reference to this special issue of the Socialist Standard that dates from August 1987.