Fireside Reflections (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

I drew my chair to the fire and settled down to a quiet perusal of the evening paper, the Glasgow Evening Times (January 2nd 1943). As I read, certain noises impinged upon my ears, "Bang, rat-tat-tat. Boom." Then suddenly, "I've got you." “You're dead," a small body slithered to the floor. It started all over again. "You're a German," “I'm an Aussie." Their baby sister was brought into it. "You're an Italian." Taking cover behind the chairs (pardon, rocks), the battle was quickly in full swing again.

What is this in the paper about Roosevelt on Peace Planning? Nothing about the cause of war. For example, “Men had come to see that the maintenance and safeguarding of peace was the most vital single necessity in the lives of each and all of us. All planning for the future was dependant obviously on peace." There was more that had little informative value, and it finished with : "All kinds of planning for the future—economic, social and so on— was not an awful lot of use if there was going to be another war in 10 or 15 years."

Roosevelt expects this system to continue, and if necessary to protect the peace with armed force. Socialists are in no doubt in their answer—repeatedly they have pointed out that if a sane system of society is to be established, the cause of war must be understood by workers. Time after time in the Socialist Standard has the root cause of wars —the private property institution—been exposed, and so long as that system continues, so long may wars be expected, and when the next one comes along, the children in this one are learning to fight the next.

"Hands up." The Italian was captured, and baby sister had to stick them up.

I turned the page, and was presented with the problem of "Britain's Dwindling Population." Some questions appeared in the article, such as: ''Why are people no longer having so many children? Is it desirable to concentrate on quality or quantity of population? Can we arrest the decline? " Some conclusions appeared as well.

"Experience seems to show, however, that you cannot bribe people into having children."

"Richard and Kathleen Titmuss, in their remarkable study of the falling birth-rate, emphasise that family allowances have in no country resulted in higher fertility." The fall in the birth-rate of the people (over 2,000,000 of them) who have incomes over £250 per annum is greater than the fall in the rest of the population who have incomes of £250 per annum and less. Again the problem is flirted with—the expectation that in this present system the problem can be solved. Is it not obvious that intelligent workers can see happening to their children's lives what has happened to them in their lives? What monetary inducement can be offered to wage-slaves, who have suffered the consequences of wage-slavery, to introduce new lives to a similar situation? We workers have witnessed the trials, the horrors, the ceaseless struggles to lessen our burdens. Workers tramped the streets looking for work. Marched on London to demonstrate the misery of our lot. Suffered the means test. Ceased work to forcibly present to our masters our grievances. Were regimented into the Army, Navy, and Air Force, into factories, to fight, bleed, toil and sweat for a cessation of hostilities that will eventually be the prelude of more strivings and strainings, horrors and wars. Unless workers democratically and freely discuss and face the problems that confront them, and again make every effort to unite, not to fight the master class, but to abolish the capitalist system—" What was that? ” "Bang," "Boom," the rush of little feet. " Rat-tat-tat-tat." A small body fell again to the floor. "You're dead.” The play may in time turn to reality.

We Socialists claim justly and logically that we have the solution to the workers' problems, and we invite every worker, irrespective of race or colour, to our meetings to discuss their problems, and we hope that every worker will resolve to eliminate his difficulties through Socialist understanding.

F. and D.

On Keeping Things Dark (1943)

Editorial from the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lowell, in his "Government of England" remarked that the right of M.P.s to probe into the doings of Cabinet Ministers and their departments has been valuable in helping to prevent the growth of that bureaucratic arrogance that he considered was unknown in this country though prevalent elsewhere. If he had been writing in wartime he would not have been so sure, but he was at any rate correct in regarding arrogant bureaucracy as an evil, and it is a fact that the working-class movement has been aided by the extent to which information has been made available through Parliamentary questions and the publication of official reports on the evils of the capitalist system. Marx was one who appreciated this, for he was much indebted to the courage and independence of men like Leonard Horner, inspector of factories in the middle of the 19th century, whose disclosures prevented factory owners from keeping the abominable working conditions from the public gaze. Marx observed that Horner rendered invaluable service to the English working-class by carrying on a lifelong struggle not only against the factory owners but also against Ministers of State, to whom the number of votes of factory owners in the House of Commons was of more importance than the number of hours worked by factory hands.

The inherent love of darkness and secrecy of the bureaucratic mind was shown up recently by a statement in the House of Commons made by Richard Law, M.P., Parliamentary Under Secretary of the Foreign Office. He had been asked about the wretched conditions of political prisoners in North Africa and replied:—

  The government attached importance to the release of all political prisoners in North Africa, but we should ask ourselves whether we were likely to further the objects we had in view by lecturing the authorities in French North Africa in a lofty and perhaps high-handed manner. As for the suggestion that a party of members of Parliament should inspect the camps, he wondered whether we would welcome three or four French members of Parliament going round our prisons here.— (Manchester Guardian, March 25.)

The answer to Mr. Law is that any person who wants to make the world worth living in for everybody would not have any objection at all to opening up all the dark spots to inspection. The bureaucratic mind abhors the light of day as also do all those who have something to hide because it will not bear inspection.

By an odd coincidence the next column of the Guardian gave an illustration of this. Some years ago the punishment of “pack drill" was officially abolished in the army and in army detention barracks, yet several cases have just been brought to light showing that it is still sometimes imposed.

The working class have everything to gain by the abolition of secrecy. Why should the workers, here or in any ether country, allow stupid national prejudice to stand in the way of exposure? It would do no harm—except to bureaucrats and others who have something to hide—and might do a considerable amount of good if M.P.s or anybody else, from France or from any other place, could have access to information now shrouded in secrecy. Some enlightened Americans or Russians might have quite a lot to say about English prisons, English slums, English working-class housing conditions and English factories, etc. Some visitors from countries where capital punishment has been abolished might have caustic remarks to make about hanging in English prisons and about the use of the Official Secrets Act to prevent Mrs. Van Der Elst from having access to prison medical reports. If, as was alleged, "they are most ghastly reading" (Evening Standard report of her trial, March 26) why should Government officials and ministers alone be allowed to read them? Some American visitors to Russia might do good work if allowed to tell us more about Russian concentration camps if we may judge by Quentin Reynolds' statement in "Only the Stars are Neutral" (Cassell & Co., 1942, page 174). He relates that he and another American journalist when in Kuibyshef in 1941 "passed one of the big concentration camps reserved for political prisoners. Beyond that we saw a long line of them working on a new road. There were about 800 of them. They were swinging pickaxes and wielding shovels, and on their faces there was no sign of hope. A few soldiers with rifles guarded them carelessly, for there was no place for them to run. Steele and I looked at each other and winced. Of course it wasn't as bad as the convict labour I'd seen in our own South, because these prisoners weren't shackled and they didn't wear stripes. We winced, I think, because these 800 prisoners were all women."

Then some enlightened Russians might return the compliment by studying and reporting on the American chain-gangs that Reynolds refers to; and on the way the American Constitution is evaded to prevent many negroes from voting in elections. And what about some independent-minded foreign snoopers looking into the way natives are treated in South Africa and elsewhere in the British Empire?

The stock answer of the bureaucrat will doubtless be to point to Germany and say that there you have the blackest spot of all; but that is no good reason for turning a blind eye on the rest of the world.

The working class gain from free and open discussion. Censorship and secrecy are traditional weapons of the ruling class.

By The Way (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is culled from the "City News" of the Daily Express for March 22 :—

  London's restaurants seem to be well in the money again. Quaglino's made a loss in 1940 and a profit of only £11,500 in 1941. Now they report a profit of £36,905 for the past year, bringing back dividends after two blank years. Shareholders are to get 10%, the. best since 1936. The Company’s 5/- shares, down to 6d. in the blitz, are now 5/6.

For the benefit of provincial and foreign readers, not familiar with the West End of London, it should be explained that 'Quags' is perhaps the most exclusive, and therefore expensive, London "joint," once notorious as the haunt of Royally and high aristocracy.

After four years of Lord Woolton's belt-tightening, and potato pies, in shilling-a-meal "British Restaurants"; screaming denunciations of food waste and extravagance in the Press; harrowing posters of sinking ships and drowning sailors by the Ministry of Food; this gorging and guzzling den, for the very top layer of the upper crust only, has been more packed than ever since 1936.

Naturally, caviare, hothouse vegetables and fruits, pheasant, grouse, and priceless old wines, are not rationed. They don't need to be. The normal working of the capitalist system sees to that. What is rationed, peace or war, is the amount of their produce which the workers get back in the form of money-wages.

This is necessarily a small proportion of their product, and condemns them to a very small portion of shoddy goods.

One other interesting sidelight from the company's report. The patrons of Quaglino's lost interest in London during the blitz. The Restaurant's 5/- shares went down to 6d. because some of "the cream" went down to a safe area; until the working class had beaten off the Germans, put the fires out, swept up, put its apron and evening dress on, and sounded the all clear, ready to serve the gilded parasites all over again—poor things !

Horatio.

Contemptible Communist Propaganda Methods (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not an accident that Communist propaganda methods in Great Britain have for many years fallen to a particularly low level of irresponsibility and dishonesty. They were tainted at their source in the Communist International. Angelica Balabanoff, who after many years in the Italian Labour movement, held influential position in Bolshevik Russia, gives interesting examples of Communist methods even in the early days. She relates, for example, that as early as 1918 Lenin and others were prepared to use any means and instruments to gain whatever object they had immediately in view. On one occasion Radek was busy forming Communist groups out of foreigners then in Russia as prisoners of war, with the object of carrying on propaganda in their own countries on their return. Balabanoff found, however, that these alleged Communists were attracted to join the group by the favour and privilege membership carried with it, and "practicality none of them had any contact with the revolutionary or labour movement in their own countries and knew nothing of Socialist principles" ("My Life as a Rebel," p. 233). Balabanoff (who later broke with the Bolshevists over their use of such methods) says that two of the Italian prisoners "were about to return to Italy with special credentials from Lenin and a large sum of money. I had only to talk with them for a few moments in Italian to understand that they knew nothing of the Italian movement, or even of the elementary terminology of Socialism. I decided to go direct to Lenin with my protest."

When she told Lenin of this and advised him that the Italians were "merely profiteers of the Revolution" and would seriously damage Communism in Italy, Lenin's cynical reply was: "For the destruction of Turati's party, they are quite good enough."

It is but a step from Lenin in 1918 to the Communist Party of Great Britain now. For the achievement of whatever object they have in view at any moment, any men and any methods are deemed good enough. Recently the Daily Worker carried on for weeks on end a campaign of denunciation of a small group called the British National Party. Hardly anyone would have heard of this obscure B.N.P. but for the Daily Worker's campaign for their suppression as being Fascist sympathisers; but as a tactic what could be more useful to the Communists? If only the Communists could persuade the credulous that this B.N.P. is a great and growing menace how easy to recruit members to the Communist Party to fight it! Sc with characteristic irresponsibility the Daily Worker pursued its campaign. But irresponsibility has its pitfalls and sure enough the Daily Worker fell. It announced in its issue of February 25 that the B.N.P. had booked Lysbeth Hall "in the name of the Socialist Party" for an Easter Conference. With what was a thinly disguised incitement to disorder the article opened as follows:—

  A Fascist conference, meeting openly in the heart of London whilst lads give their lives fighting Fascism abroad. That is the prospect if present plant of the British National Party are allowed to be carried into effect (italics ours).

At this point it is important to notice a statement made in the House of Commons on March 18 by Mr. Herbert Morrison, Home Secretary. He said that the B.N.P. "is a small body with only about a hundred members, and in no way merits the importance recently attributed to it" (Manchester Guardian, March 19, 1943).

Yet the Daily Worker, which claims to know all about the B.N.P., not only published details of an imaginary conference being held by the B.N.P. but added the statement that "preparations are being made to accommodate some 500—600 delegates, for whom catering has already been arranged." (Daily Worker, February 25.)

So the 100 members were going to send 500—600 delegates! Perhaps this throws light on how the Communists arrange their own conferences!

As was pointed out in The Socialist Standard for March (back page), the Daily Worker when called to account for the utterly false statement that we had had a hand in arranging the imaginary B.N.P. conference (the only Conference was our own, held in this hall for the third year running) published a brief and inadequate extraction, without apology. They, declined to publish a longer statement sent to them.

Another illustration of Communist malice and irresponsibility is afforded by a letter received by our West Ham Branch from the West Ham Branch of the Communist Party. It arose out of a challenge to debate.

Here is the letter, a. typical piece of Communist scurrility :—

Read the Daily Worker, World News and Views, and
 Labour Monthly.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN


West Ham Branch.

115, The Grove,

Stratford, E.15.

February 23, 1943. 

The Communist Party has NO dealings with murderers, liars, renegades, or assassins. 

The S.P.G.B., which associates itself with followers of Trotsky, the friend of Hess, has always followed a policy which would mean disaster for the British working class. They have consistently poured vile slanders on Joseph Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, told filthy lies about the Red Army, the Soviet people and its leaders, gloated over the assassination of Kirov and other Soviet leaders, applauded the wrecking activities of Trotskyist saboteurs in the Soviet Union. They have worked to split the British working class, and are in short agents of Fascism in Great Britain. 

The C.P.G.B. refuses with disgust to deal with such renegades. We treat them as vipers, to be destroyed. 

C.P.G.B., West Ham Branch,

J. Barker, Secretary. 

Needless to say, none of the charges in the letter are true or have even a semblance of basis in fact. Doubtless even the West Ham Communists realise this well enough—hence their failure, when challenged, even to attempt to substantiate their letter.

Executive Committee.

Titbits From The I.L.P. Stewpot (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The I.L.P. of 1943 is bang in trouble, although present-day defenders of the I.L.P. take no responsibility for the trickery and treachery imposed on the working class by the I.L.P. in its "march to power"; they must realise that if the I.L.P. is made up of the same stuff as in previous years, then their dope just won't go down as easy. 1943 has a working class much different, politically, from that of 1929. Scotland has had a generous helping of I.L.P. leadership; in 1929, of the 37 labour representatives elected in Scotland, 36 were members of the I.L.P. The following telegram was sent to Ramsay Mac’: 

  "Scottish I.L.P. congratulate you on your leadership in the magnificent success for Labour and Socialism at the polls" (Glasgow Herald, June 3rd, 1929). 

36 members of the I.L.P. in Parliament, representing thousands of Scottish workers, naturally gave the I.L.P. ideas, so they made this historic statement:

  "We stand as the ruling class in Scotland, and if we have not got complete control of Great Britain, we are going to have the opportunity of ruling Great Britain. It is not fitting that the ruling, class should go in rags." (Glasgow Herald, June 3rd, 1929.) 

Despite the fact that the I.L.P. stood as the ruling class in Scotland, no difference was noticed in the hellish conditions of the working-class in Scotland.

Glasgow, a hotbed of I.L.P.ism, to this day retains its rat-infested slums, and has the highest infantile death rate of any town in Great Britain. Yes! many of the workers that voted for the I.L.P. still live and remember.

But let's forget the past; these men were villains. Live for the future; let's have a Socialist Britain now! so say the present defenders of I.L.P.ism. Is the 1943 I.L.P. any different?—To the Socialist, the present-day programme of the I.L.P. in no way differs from the Keir Hardie days. It is the same reformism that was embraced by Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden, Sir Oswald Mosley, and others. To-day it suits the Catholic M.P, for Shettleston, Mr. McGovern, and his opposite number, Mr. Maxton.

Should one find it inconvenient to be an I.L.P. M.P., then one can change over to the Labour Party, as did George Buchanan, M.P. for Gorbals.

The present policy of the I.L.P. is, as before, vote-catching; it parades its anti-war policy as socialistic; the P.P.U. or the N.C.L. might as well make a similar claim—they have as much justification as the l.L.P. to do so. The S.P.G.B. warned the I.L.P. and other organisations that they would have to face, sooner or later, a politically intelligent working class, a working class that by bitter experience have reached a measure of political understanding that will not tolerate the impudent nostrums and insults previously thrust on their fellow men by unscrupulous leaders using such labels as I.L.P., L.P., and C.P. There is a growing tendency amongst the modern working class to examine the political and economic structure of capitalist society, when enough of these workers get the fundamentals of political economy, then the reformists will surely become the doomed battalion.

The rank and file of the I.L.P. are not concerned with the Socialist case from a scientific point of view; they indulge in hero-worship and a lazy mental outlook, both political and religious. This can be proven by the present trouble inside the ''Socialism in Britain now” movement, on the .religious question and also their policy.

Page 4 of the New Leader, January 16th, 1943, is devoted to an article by John McGovern, M.P., headed "This is the Year of Our Opportunity.” He says: "Let us purge our minds of doubts, our bodies of laziness, and our hearts of cowardice, and let us face the tasks of 1943.”

Before McGovern asks anyone to do anything, he should clear up some of the mess that at present is prevalent inside the I.L.P. A controversy, "Catholics and Socialism,” has been going on in the pages of the New Leader. F. A. Ridley has upset the apple cart again by his slashing attacks on the Catholic Church; this is resented by the Catholic element inside the I.L.P. and endorsed by the non-Catholic element. Let us examine three contributions from the New Leader, January 16th, 1943, on this question.

Harry Carr, Manchester, writes attacking Ridley. He says: "Amongst the mildest of Ridley's recent assertions from his fortnightly pulpit was that 'Christianity to-day had little enough to do with Christ.' He now says categorically that no Catholic can be a loyal Socialist.

"If the l.L.P. as a body supports him in this, then these of us who value freedom of conscience will know what to do. I hope I have made myself clear.”

Mr. Carr has certainly made himself clear.

R. Gray, Motherwell, also makes himself clear. He defends Ridley. He says : "May I quote a passage from the Encyclical letter 'Quadragesimo Anno' on the Pope's opinion on Socialism? Whether Socialism be considered as a doctrine, or a historical, fact, or as a movement, if it really remains Socialism, it cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, even if it has yielded to truth and justice in the points we have mentioned, the reason being that it conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth.' Pope Pius XI. then states: 'No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist.' ”

Mr. Fenner Brockway, Editor of the New Leader, gives the l.L.P. position on this question. He says: "So far as the l.L.P. is concerned, it must, of course, retain the liberty to criticise any institution whose policy is detrimental to the achievement of Socialism, but it applies no religious test to membership to the party, believing this to be a matter for the individual.” (New Leader, January 16th, 1943).

To the writer, Brockway means that you can be a Catholic and a Socialist at the same time. Ridley will agree with B. Gray of Motherwell that you cannot.

McGovern will agree with Brockway and the Pope at the same time.

Harry Carr of Manchester is in a helluva mess, but so is the I.L.P.

We of the S.P.G.B. have no religious axe to grind with any Church or the I.L.P.; a plague on both their houses.

Scientific Socialists have no room for religious or political nonsense. Our position is if you are a true Christian you are not a Socialist; further, if you support the 1943 policy of the I.L.P., you are a defender of capitalism.

Ridley creates further trouble for the I.L.P.—he states in Left, January, 1943:

  "What is the future role of the I.L.P.? At present, it is the only party in this country with even an ostensibly revolutionary character and policy; As such it has the entire field to itself. It has, literally, no competitors.
   "If the I.L.P. can become a revolutionary party in fact as in name, if it can forget the reformist past and concentrate on the revolutionary future, it has an unique opportunity both to lead the British masses forward to their inevitable show-down with the imperialists who rule them . . . "

Ridley knows the reformist character of the I.L.P. Whether or not 1943 produces a revolutionary I.L.P. remains to be seen. The present constitution of the I.L.P. convicts it as a reformist party, still advocating leadership, believing in great men, etc. Therefore, there is more trouble ahead for the I.L.P. and other reformist organisations.

The political intelligence of the working class is rising, hence the difficulty of the Independent Labour Party to survive. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is to-day reaping the benefit for its clear cut policy and strict adherence to Socialist principles along the lines laid down by Marx and Engels.

Gadfly.

The Camera Cannot Lie (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his "Falsehood in War-time” (Allen & Unwin, 1928) Arthur Ponsonby (now Lord Ponsonby) published an interesting collection of the irresponsible or deliberately fabricated stories used on both sides in the last war as an aid to war-propaganda. On the title page he quotes a saying, "When war is declared. Truth is the first casualty.” Wars do not change in that respect, and John Bright's statement of a century ago is still true: "You will find wars are supported by a class of argument which, after the war is over, the people find were arguments they should never have listened to.”

A small illustration of the ease with which news can be coloured occurred recently in the Sunday Pictorial (March 28, 1943). On the front page is a picture of a woman tearfully waving farewell to someone in a departing train at a railway station. The description provided by the Pictorial is that she is "a young Parisienne wife” at a Paris station. ". . . for her the tearful agony of farewell is made all the more bitter by the fact that her man has been brutally torn from her side by Hitler's order to make munitions for use against her friends.”

A very plausible story, but the picture (suitably altered from the original) had already appeared in Picture Post, May 23, 1942. Only there the lady was waving farewell to her husband, an English soldier, who had gone off for his training. So the English wife, who started weeping on Paddington station in May, 1942, was still weeping 11 months later, but now miraculously transformed into a Frenchwoman, in Paris, watching a train, (with "Third Class” blacked out) on its way to Germany. Large numbers of readers of Picture Post (like The Socialist Standard reader who informed us) had spotted the fake, and Picture Post (April 10) drew attention to it. The Sunday Pictorial explained that they had taken the picture from a Swiss newspaper.

The incident itself is unimportant, but it should serve to remind readers of the capitalist Press and listeners to the wireless of the possibility of news being, distorted and falsified. Though it should also be remembered that the really harmful distortions are not usually crude fakes like this photo. What is much more serious is the permanent (and often unconscious) twist given to information by colouring, selecting and suppressing, in line with the class interests of those who control the sources of information.

P. S.

Fairy Tales of the Future (1943)

A Short Story from the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Story of Exploitation
Once upon a time there lived in the society of men in the land of Britain a gentleman named Lord Dodo, who was well known and renowned for his prodigal generosity, and in consequence men paid heed to his words and deeds and courted his presence. Fairy Inquisitive asked, “How is it, when there are so many men so poor in society, you are able to be so munificently generous?" The Noble Plutocrat replied, amiably: "What I have done, other men can do; it only needs the talents—Industry, Initiative, Ability and Patience, and to believe in tile Great Institution of Private Property/' A little proly, who heard, wondered and pondered on this and thought, "What a good thing it would be if I could be as he." And as he mused, along came Fairy Understanding. Fairy Understanding, who was an honest little chap, said to proly, "I can't understand without facts, and so you won't understand without them." Proly eagerly cried, "What can I do to get facts?" Understanding answered, "You must search and inquire in the books of men." He and Understanding began the search. After much toil and effort, they came to "Das Kapital," and as proly read with understanding, he murmured, "I have the Key and Facts and Understanding. It is so simple. The workers present themselves to the Noble Lord's Agents, who estimate their skill and potential capacity to do work, and who tell the workers when, where, and as to the conditions they may work under. They have sold their labour-power. In due course they present themselves in the work compound. All times of beginning and, stopping work are carefully recorded. They proceed to spend their mental and physical energy on the materials supplied by the noble Lord, who does not pay for the time spent in feeding, or the food absorbed, in an interval allowed for the purpose, although it is needed to sustain their energy. They cease work, go home, indulge in meals, sleep and recreation to keep them fit. Next morning they are ready for another day of toil. At the end of the week they are paid, not the value of what they have produced, but what it costs to keep themselves and their families for a week—that is the value of their labour- power. This value is less than the value it produces during a week of work. The Noble Lord sells the product of a week's labour at its value, and deducts from the cash he receives. The remainder he keeps as unpaid labour or profits." Proly stopped, then he cried, “There' is a word for it—exploitation—and it is very ugly." But Understanding said, "You forget Facts and the facts are these; he and others have Right, Privilege, Precedence and Legality, and he is an honest, upright and generous individual." "What can I do to alter these things?" said Proly, and Understanding replied, "To change society you must gather the prolys together. When they understand the need for change and when there is a majority of prolys united for the common purpose of overthrowing the Private Property Institution and securing the Common Ownership, they will capture the Wizard of Might (political power) and build society so that the insidiousness of exploitation wilt be no more."

And in time Fairies Fact and Understanding and the prolys came together, abolished the Private Property Institution, secured the Common Ownership, and so we today are free from exploitation and we work only to supply our needs.

Web.

Money in Diamonds (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Evening Standard of April 18 states that the prices of "gem" stones in Hatton Garden have gone up 20 per cent. in the last few days. Also that it is expected, that more than £10,000,000 will be spent on gems this year. De Beers (the chief South African diamond concern) shares have risen from £7 last year to well over £17, and are still soaring.

Thus, in spite of Sir Kingsley Wood's exhortations, quite a number of capitalists (unless it can be over-paid munition workers, at £4 a. week), instead of lending all their money to the Government, prefer to have something handy and portable like diamonds, in these troublesome times, which can quickly realise a respectable sum anywhere.

Funnily enough, although everybody is supposed to be tightening belts, and "austerity" is the order of the day (its got something to do with winning the war), the most fabulous sums ever known have been spent on racehorses (£70,000 by one man) wines (£7 a bottle), rare orchids, old books, prints and carpets.

Perhaps it is because "austerity" for the lower orders is the counterpart of opulence for the few.

Horatio

The Devil is Convalescing (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a speech at Aberdeen University, reported in The People (February 7th, 1943), Sir Stafford Cripps warned his audience that they must not let slip the present opportunity to plan for peace. Soon it will be too late, for ”certain interests are already massing their forces to fight the plans for a better Britain and a better world after the war.” This is not a reference to Hitler, but to "privilege and selfish interests” here in this country. Sir Stafford quoted the old saying, "The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be! The devil is well, the devil a monk is he!” but went on rather inconsistently to dismiss "facile explanations dealing with deceitfulness of politicians or the trickery of the ruling class.” He recalled that in November, 1918, Mr. Lloyd George talked of making Britain "a fit country for heroes to live in,” but already it was too late, "the time had already passed and the new spirit of common sacrifice was already being strangled by the old forces of internal difference which rapidly reared their heads once the danger was past.”

Rather appropriately, in a neighbouring column of The People, is a statement made by Mr. Winston Churchill that "the sun has now begun to shine . . . " Continuing Sir Stafford's reference to the sickness of the devil, it might be suggested that as he basks in the new sunshine the devil is already in the convalescent stage, with a corresponding diminution of the early war-time seal for repentance and reform.

It prompts the question why the Labour Party (and Sir Stafford, who opposes the Labour Party) did not strike while the devil was really sick, by securing explicit pledges from the Government as regards post-war legislation on parts of the Labour Party programme, as a condition of entering the Cabinet.

Sir Stafford offered a second reason why sincere reformers in the past have failed to overcome the opposing forces. It is that they "under-estimate the support they would win from the people. . . . for a bold programme of change.” He did not define in concrete terms what he would regard a "bold programme of change" but we know one—Socialism. Sir Stafford has often in the past affirmed his support for Socialism, but we notice that in May, 1942, when he addressed the Fabian Society and defended the electoral truce and National Government in war-time, he explained why the compromise nature of the Government made it obvious that "no fundamental changes of a revolutionary character could be expected, nor was it desirable that they should be pressed " (Evening Standard, May 30th, 1942.) If the Evening Standard account is correct (it was described as being received from "an old member" of the Fabian Society who was present). Sir Stafford then went on to urge a Continuation of the idea of National Government after the war. He pleaded for "a National Progressive Government," but added that this Government "should not insist on any 'ism."

Not insisting on any "ism" means keeping.the present "ism" (Capitalism) and not attempting to change over to Socialism. This comes oddly from one who has long professed to believe that Socialism is what is required, and who criticise others for not seeking popular support for a bold programme of change.

Edgar Hardcastle

Inquest on the I.L.P. (1943)

Book Review from the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fenner Brockway's "Inside the Left" (Allen & Unwin, 15/-) contains no original contribution to Socialist thought nor even an adequate restatement of old theories. Brockway says of Sir Stafford Cripps (p. 264) that Cripps "has no experience of the working-class and he has no real knowledge of Socialist theory. . . . I doubt whether he has ever read Marx or any book of fundamental Socialist economics." Brockway has experience of the working-class and has probably read more about Socialist theory than Cripps but it is not unfair to say that he has.no real understanding of it. In this he is a representative figure in the I.L.P. The I.L.P. membership, taking each incident of the working-class struggle in isolation, are able to use what they know of Socialist theory and past experience to discuss the pros and cons of short-term courses of action but have no clear idea of Socialism or of how capitalism is to be abolished. They have no standard, except a sentimental desire to do some immediate good to the workers, by which to measure their actions. When their actions happen to be sound it is only by accident. They have theories but no theory, aims but no aim, enthusiasm and energy but no direction.

Brockway's book is full of interesting incidents and observations. It is written with candour and is honest according to the author's lights. It is like the many books written by competent journalists who have "been there when it happened"; and like some of those books it will be a useful work to the critical reader but without the living of it and the writing of it having been of much use to the author from the point of view of acquiring understanding of what is going on below the surface of things.

The chief use of the book will be to serve as a warning of the futility of attempts to build a Socialist movement on a foundation of sentiment, hero-worship, and reformism and (though he may draw no useful conclusions himself) Brockway is completely candid in showing this, as one or two examples will indicate.

Of the I.L.P. in the war, 1914-1918, he writes: —

   The Party membership was not so united as the National Council. The I.L.P. had no clear-cut philosophy or policy at this time; its idealism impelled it to oppose war, but Socialist sentiment was up against another sentiment, the intense emotion of patriotism, and probably one-fifth of the Party succumbed (p. 47). 

And again: —

    . . . the truth is that the I.L.P. had no unifying anti-war philosophy. One section of it was pacifist; another was opposed to a "balance of power war" on the continent but in favour of national defence; a third, while ready to take part in a class-war, was not prepared to support an imperialist war, though even this section had no thought-out revolutionary tactic (p. 52).
    We were not revolutionary Socialists. We were democratic pacifists (p. 55).

He admits by the way that MacDonald's attitude was never that of complete opposition to the war, and gives (p. 56—59) an interesting and fairly convincing explanation of how McDonald, by a political error of judgment or the swift movement of events, found himself isolated when in fact he was hoping to place himself at the head of a powerful group (including Lloyd George) hostile to Sir Edward Grey's foreign policy.

After 1918 Brockway devoted himself to the anti-war movement, believing that solid resistance to war could be built on the sentimental reaction against war that was then the fashion. He received from Bernard Shaw a sensible comment on its uselessness. This was in a letter (26 July, 1922) refusing to address a peace demonstration:—

   I grieve to say that I don't believe in these demonstrations. People who get emotionally excited about peace are precisely the people who get emotionally excited about war. In this matter, action and reaction are equal. Lloyd George will do all that is necessary to make the nation send Xmas cards to all the other nations until he wants to send them to the trenches again. Ten minutes after that he will have them telling stories of enemy sergeants (probably French this time) with their pouches full of gouged English eyes and throwing bricks at you as you are dragged back to prison (p. 135).

Brockway acknowledges the truth of this—afterwards.

    Writing in this year of war crises, 1939, one realises how. superficial was the effect of imposing No More War demonstrations which we organised from 1922 to 1924 and how justifiable was Mr. Shaw's cynicism.

Another illustration of the I.L.P.S floundering relates to a much later period, 1931-1933.

   I was elected chairman of the I.L.P. at Easter, 1931, and remained chairman until the end of 1933. During this period the I.L.P. disaffiliated from the Labour Party and began its inner struggle towards a revolutionary Socialist position. In the course of this inner struggle the I.L.P. experimented in many directions, at one time approaching the Communist International, and at another moving towards the Trotskyist position, at one stage attaching its hope to united fronts and at another reverting to purism, at one period going all out to prepare for Soviets and at another recognising again the value of Parliament (p. 237).

To see this in proper perspective it needs to be remembered that 1931 was after the I.L.P. had been in existence for nearly 40 years.

A last example is the attitude of Brockway and the I.L.P.. towards leaders and leadership. As a youth Brockway was constantly being swept off his feet by oratory. John Morley's " finely-phrased oratory awed me, but I felt more enthusiasm for the audacious speech of a young recruit to Liberalism—Mr. Winston Churchill " (p. 11).

This was before his conversion to "Socialism" but his attitude to leaders did not change. He was "entranced" by Keir Hardie (p. 17). He was a "Shaw worshipper" (p. 22), and MacDonald "expressed his opinions with the manner of a god and I felt at least that I was in the presence of a great man . . . his rich organ-like voice and oratory captivated me" (p. 35). He tells of a speech (in French) by Jean Jaurès, which Brockway "could not follow" and which probably not "one man in a hundred" of the audience understood, "but we all understood that he was illustrating the rise of the workers from slavery to freedom, and at his final cry of triumph we were all on our feet cheering with him" (p. 36).

Of course it can be said that this emotionalism, like admiration for the art and artifices of actors, is harmless; but in politics where it is played upon by leaders to sway the emotions of followers without regard to their understanding it is not harmless, far from it. Brockway gives a striking example of how harmful it can be. He had become thoroughly mistrustful of MacDonald because, among other things, MacDonald was working early in 1914 for a definite Labour Party alliance with the Liberals at the General Election. When Keir Hardie died MacDonald spoke at a memorial meeting in Glasgow and "many of those who heard him say that his oration rose to heights greater than they had ever known in human utterances. If there were doubts about MaoDonald before in the minds of Scottish Socialists, this speech removed them. The extraordinary loyalty of Glasgow to MacDonald, which was responsible for his election to the leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 1921, and was never dispelled until the betrayal of the workers by the second Labour Government, had its roots in this speech more than in anything else " (p. 65. Italics ours).

Can anyone read this and not perceive the truth of the S.P.G.B.'s claim that dependence on leadership is a menace to the working-clam movement and that not emotionalism and leader worship but knowledge, understanding and self-reliance are the workers' road to emancipation?

Yet Brockway (who incidentally mistrusted MacDonald but for years deliberately refrained from passing on his grounds for mistrust to the workers) is still, at the end of his book, putting the case for leadership and hoping to find leaders who will be "worthy of the name" and who will "not be tempted by careerism" (p. 342), and stating that, in the final struggle for Socialism "and the critical period of the transition following it," of course large power of direction must be given to the leaders" (p. 345). True, Brockway desires that "even then the final decision on issues of principle should remain with representatives of the workers," but he does not explain how a movement of workers brought up to be spell-bound worshippers of oratory and personality are going to acquire the knowledge and self- reliance necessary for the task of breaking the spell. 

Edgar Hardcastle

An Old Comrade Passes (1943)

Obituary from the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

London members of the Party will learn with great regret of the death of Comrade J. Barker, of Tottenham Branch. He joined the Party on March 11th, 1919, and from then right up to the end of 1942 he was always in attendance at branch meetings, propaganda meetings, and always willing to give every help he could in the work of the Party. He was known as a member who was always keen, patient and dependable. Whether to sell literature, take up collections, act as chairman, or carry the platform, he was always on the spot, no matter what the weather. No difficulties were too great. In recent years, age (he was well over 70) and the hardship of the life he had to lead were telling on him, but it made no difference to his enthusiasm and willingness to help. The Party has lost a valuable comrade.

Same Old Shaw (1943)

From the May 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Daily Herald for March 10, Mr. George Bernard Shaw presented a lengthy article on the subject of Marx, entitled, "What would Marx say about Beveridge?"

His answer to his own question (for what it is worth) is that "if he were alive now he would probably denounce Sir William Beveridge as a rascally appeaser, trying to ransom capitalism for another spell by his Report" — and though that is precisely what Sir William is doing, Sir William is not a rascal.

We are not bothered by literary speculations as to what Marx would have done, or said. The only reason Mr. Bernard Shaw writes such things is because it helps to perpetuate the myth that he is the bold, daring, revolutionary thinker who has "applied" Marx to British conditions. In this article, as in the "biography" by Mr. Hesketh Pearson ("Bernard Shaw," Collins, 1942) this legend is again dished up.

Marx "made another man of me"; "Marx's torpedo hit it [the 19th century] between wind and water and blew the golden lid of hell"; BUT—Marx's "dialectic of historical materialism belongs to the days when Tyndall startled the word by declaring that he saw in matter the promise and potency of all forms of life," (Shaw's metaphysics belong to the days of Methuselah, as we shall see), and "now we know that Marx's attempts to measure value by abstract labour-power, when he should have measured it by abstract desirability and his treatment of both as mathematical constants, instead of as variables, can only lead to nonsense and bankruptcy."

It's quite simple, Marx's own teachings—Historical materialism, the Labour Theory of Value and the Class Struggle are bankrupt  nonsense—but Marx himself was the greatest figure of the 19th century, because he made a new man of Mr. George Bernard Shaw. The "Fabian Essays," which Shaw edited, had nothing whatever to do with Socialism (Marxism). They were pure and simple Social Reform, which G.B.S. in the same article declares the capitalists turned (when published in his programme, "A Plan of Campaign for Labour") to their own account, thus producing the new form of capitalism called Fascism or Nationalism—Nazi for short, in Germany. This is perfectly true—very well known to Socialists—that the sure, certain way to Fascism is via a Fabian, Labour-reformist Government trying to administer capitalism under the false colours of Labourist "Socialism" and driving the workers, disgusted, into the arms of "leaders."

Incidentally, it was very well known to the I.L.P. politicians too. "Wheatley (Labour Health Minister) pointed out that the country was passing through one of its periodical cycles of depression. Within the capitalist system reduction in the standard of life would be inevitable. Wages would fall and the social services would be restricted. Did a Labour Government wish to be responsible for such things> It would necessarily become so if it administered Capitalism. Much better that it should throw the responsibility for the evils of capitalism on the Conservative and Liberal parties." (Page 198, "Inside the Left," Fenner Brockway.) Brockway and W. J. Brown actually proposed that the I.L.P. members of Parliament should resign before the resignation of the Second Labour Government; Brockway's one regret being that they did not.

The problem is how to saddle all this on to Marx. It turns out according to Shaw that the experience of Russia showed that "Marxian tactics broke down ruinously in Russia, and had to be replaced by Fabian ones." The real man in Russia is not Marx—but Sidney Webb. Lenin's new economic policy was Sidney's inevitability of gradualness. Here we might agree with G.B.S. Had he read THE SOCIALIST STANDARD  in 1917-18 or 1920, he would have been aware of the impossibility of Socialism in Russia then, instead of being taken in by it, and signing all those silly Communist statements, after his visit to Moscow.

We would have been interested if G.B.S. had shown us how the capitalists could use Marx's writings to establish Fascism. like they did his and Webb's (Fabian State-Control). Instead, all he does is to urge that all the extracts from Marx dealing with Dialectical Materialism and Economics should be cut of the new "Lawrence and Wishart" edition, leaving only the polemics like the "Eighteenth Brumaire."

His conclusion is that "Marxian strategy is all right, but what Marxian idolatry and bigotry can do without Fabian tactics may be learnt from Fenner Brockway's history entitled 'Inside the Left.'" The History of the I.L.P. "is a heartbreaking record," he says, but it is staggering that Shaw, who claimes to have read the book, can accuse Brockway, who in the course of 340 pages, betrays not the slightest inkling in Marx, of "Marxian bigotry." Brockway's effort is a tiresome lament that the I.L.P. did not know how to kick itself clear of the Labour Party's troubles quickly enough. Listen to this "Marxian idolator"—Brockway :—

The establishment of a revolutionary Socialist Party can be attempted in one of two ways. A few theoreticians can lay down a watertight programme and invite those who agree with it to join: this is the method of the Trotskyists and the Fourth International has remained in a vacuum. Only a party which already has its roots in the working-class movement can evolve, grow, to the revolutionary position by thought applied to experience, by learning its lessons from mistakes, by discussion, by the study of the history of the movement in other countries, and by a sincere and constant effort to find the right way. This second has been the method of the I.L.P. (P.237.)

Which is like saying a few draughtsmen can draw up blue-prints of an aeroplane, but we prefer to tie a pair of wings on you (the workers) and push you off the nearest cliff; we, the leaders, will then learn by "our mistakes."The statement is a typical piece of Brockway's political trickery—"thought applied to experience" IS political theory. His failure to grasp these elementary essentials has led Shaw into writing the stupid letters, published by Brockway, supporting the I.L.P. Not that this matters, as he has also supported everybody else, except the S.P.G.B.

The fact is, as Shaw himself says, his object has always been to "irritate and startle." If you do not say a thing in an irritating way, you may just as well not say it at all, since nobody will trouble themselves about anything, that does not trouble them. ("Bernard Shaw," p. 106.) This is what "poor bankrupt Marx" would have called tautology.

Shaw has nearly always been wrong, as when he said the last war would last 30 years; and advised "Turn up the lights" in this one, in 1939. His simple plan has been to startle the capitalists, by kidding the workers that he is a reckless revolutionary. Nothing is further from the truth; in fact, he is a quiet conventional respectable bourgeois, most apprehensive of the ideas of Karl Marx—a Fabian.

Fenner Brockway tells how at the Finsbury Branch of the I.L.P. in Goswell Road in 1906. Bernard Shaw came to speak one evening.

"The question I put was this: Mr. Shaw, we are young, and want to make the best use of our lives. What is your advice? The answer came in a flash, 'Find out what the Life-Force is making for and make for it, too." How many times have I used that in perorations to Socialist (?) speeches,' says Brockway. ("Inside the Left," p. 22.)

Dear Mr. Shaw, much as we appreciate the third act of "Man and Superman," we still cannot allow your Nietschean "Life Force" (Shavian for "God") to substitute Marx's driving force of social evolution—the tool of production. Perhaps Brockway took your advice, and chased the "will o' the wisp"; we see the motor of evolution in the strong right arm of the working class.

Mr. Pearson, Shaw's biographer, recounts how, in 1915, Eugen Sandow, the physical culturist, tried to entice Shaw as a pupil. Shaw said, "You misunderstand my case; I have you seen you supporting on your magnificent chest twenty men, two grand pianos and a couple of elephants, and I have no doubt you can train me to do the same, but my object as to pianos and elephants is to keep them off my chest, not to heap them on to it." ("Bernard Shaw," p. 317.) The Socialist worker's object as to parasites is to dump them off his chest, by the aid of Karl Marx, not heap them on to it, even when they include Fabian literary elephants like Bernard Shaw.

Horatio.