News in Review: Business as usual (1966)

The News in Review column from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Business as usual

The first job of a new Labour government, after the victory champagne has been drunk and the rosettes put away with all the other mementoes of an election campaign which was full of hasty promises, is to assure everybody that nothing will be done to disturb the capitalist social system which the millions who voted Labour—not to mention the other millions who voted Conservative, Liberal, etc—so ardently support.

So it was that on the first Sunday after the election Mr. Harold Lever, who is. Labour MP for Manchester Cheetham, rushed into print in The Observer.

He opened his article like this:

Labour’s decisive victory has aroused anxiety in the City and large areas of the business world. In my view all these fears are unjustified and need to be promptly dispelled . . .

Mr. Lever then commenced to tick off, one by one, the fears which these business men who have not taken the trouble to observe a Labour government in action might unreasonably have thought about what Mr. Wilson will do to capitalism.

Nationalisation? Clause Four? Economic planning? Taxation? Investment incentives? The Labour Member dealt with them all, and ended on a justifiably hopeful note:

It is to be hoped that we will enter this difficult period without damaging and needless misunderstandings between Labour and the world of business.

Now this must have been very bracing to any capitalist who troubled to read it. And his satisfaction must have been even higher if he also read an article on the following day by William Davis, the Financial Editor of The Guardian, which reviewed the prospects for profits under a Labour government, and ended with the conclusion:

Looking ahead two or three years . . . there is good reason to believe that the upward trend in dividends will be resumed.

There should be no need to point out that trade unionists, whose unions often do so much to help Labour get power, cannot look to the immediate future with the same optimism as businessmen. And no Labour MP has yet tried to assure them on this point.

Hypocrisy over Rhodesia

As the world knows, Mr. Harold Wilson is having quite a fight with the Smith government in Rhodesia.

Mr. Wilson takes his stand (in public, at any rate) on moral grounds. The Smith government, he says, offends against all accepted standards of conduct by its racialist policies. He also complains for the benefit of those who are not impressed by an attack on racialism, that Mr. Smith is a rebel against the Queen.

The world also knows that the British government has tried to impose a blockade on Rhodesia and that there have been attempts, of varying success, to break the blockade.

There need be no surprise that these attempts are justified also by moral arguments, although of a different kind from those of Mr. Wilson.

The blockade runners talk about the freedom of the seas, and about the sanctity of commerce. This is just as Rhodesia's situation is a grand opening for a free-lance oil company and shipping magnate to make some money. This is the basic reason for the attempts at breaking the embargo; the justification comes after.

What of the future? Speculation has its dangers, but the chances are that Mr. Smith will find plenty of other companies willing to cash in on the situation and run the risks of defying the embargo.

Probably, too, there will be undercover outlets for Rhodesia’s tobacco duce, to replace those closed by the sanctions programme.

International trade is a matter of profit and loss and while it can be influenced for a time by political considerations the basic conditions of capitalism will in the end dominate.

Mr. Wilson has publicly said that he would win an easy victory in Rhodesia. He would not be the first leader of capitalism to fail lo understand the basic realities of a situation he is trying to control.

Prison reform

One of the problems which capitalism faces over sending people to prison for offending against the system’s property laws is that while they are inside they may forget what it means lo be docile, industrious members of the working class.

To discourage this, there is a veritable army of probation officers, welfare societies, clergymen and other soul-savers who are only too willing to help the released prisoner back into capitalist society.

They remind him that he is after all a worker; they talk about his making a constructive contribution to society; they spare no effort to find him a job and so help him from one form of imprisonment into another.

Now the reformers are going even further.

An electrical component firm in the Midlands, is collaborating with the authorities of a new prison there to get the convicts working on the assembly of their products.

The firm is not, of course, doing this purely as a money making venture; they claim that it is a social experiment.

The prisoners will be able to earn at most 11s. a week at this work—for a full time, forty hour week on piecework.

This is the first time a closed prison in Britain has undertaken work of this kind. The governor has made it clear that the assembly line in the prison will be just like one in a factory outside:

We shall encourage prisoners to produce as much as possible as efficiently as possible.

Thus the prisoners will have no excuse for feeling unsettled when they are let out at the end of their sentence. The disciplines, the exploitation — and the life will have continued while they were inside.

Presumably this is intended to make the men more amenable to their lot under capitalism. Has any reformer considered whether it may have the opposite effect?

How do you like your leaders? (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ivan.

The Passing Show: May Day, May Day (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day, May Day

Definitions: (1) A radio distress signal, repeated at rapid intervals, for ships at sea. (2) A working class distress signal, repeated at yearly intervals. It's the second definition which concerns us. You want me to justify it? Of course it’s not the way that Labourites and other left wingers will look at it when they assemble once again this year for their processions. To them it will be a fine opportunity to make the usual protestations of “solidarity’’, “peace”, “progress" and so on, with workers abroad which, for all the fire and eloquence with which they may be delivered, will be vague, empty, and not worth the ink that's used to print them in the next day’s newspapers.

May Day demonstrations began with the passing of a resolution by the Second International Working Men’s Association in 1889 to set aside the First of May as a workers holiday, so that mass demonstrations could be made to affirm the international solidarity of labour. But solidarity for what? Workers may have avowed such solidarity in 1889, but there was precious little of it in 1914, except perhaps in the only place where nationality didn’t count—in the grave. It has been the same story many times since then to some extent or another, yet down the years the farce of the May Day ritual has been observed.

But a “distress signal” I called it. Well, take a look at some of the things they will be talking about this time. Vietnam? Wages? The Bomb? Pensions? Housing? A superficial conclusion might be that the scope of May Day has broadened since the early days, yet really all these issues can be put under the headings of War and The Poverty of Labour, both inseparable from capitalism and very distressing indeed. Taken collectively they represent a massive S.O.S., a cry for help from a working class floundering in a sea of bewilderment. But the orators who thump the tubs in Hyde Park and elsewhere are just as ignorant as the listening crowds of the way to answer the cry. There is a lifeline which is there for the grasping, but it cannot be thrown by such as the Labour and Communist Parties; it is the lifeline of Socialist knowledge. When the working class have reached out for that, in no time at all they can haul themselves high, dry and safe, to a new world.

Sing, Bing

The wheel has turned a full cycle and Mr. Geoffrey Bing, Q.C. is back in Britain again. This is the man who was once Labour MP for Hornchurch and who climbed aboard the Ghanaian bandwagon when it began to roll some years ago, becoming Dr. Nkrumah’s principal legal adviser. He wasn't the only one to support that vicious and repressive regime of course, but although the two press interviews he gave at the end of March were noteworthy for the evasiveness of his replies to questions, at least he did say something. The other individuals and organisations in this country who hailed the new state, and incidentally sneered at us for refusing it our blessing, have all been conspicuously silent.

Now, what did our ex-Labour hero have lo say when he got back home? If we accept his version at its face value, whoever was to blame for the disturbing things that went on during Nkrumah's reign, it was certainly not Mr. Bing. He was “not there” when the notorious Preventive Detention Bill was announced in the Ghana Parliament. He was “ill” at the time of Nkrumah’s removal of the Chief Justice, and so on . . . He didn’t say what he was doing in November 1963, when the Preventive Detention Act was amended to increase considerably the government’s already harsh powers. He does seem to have learned, though, how unpleasant prison can be (“the actual physical conditions of prisons in Ghana are deplorable”), and how nasty it is to be “manhandled by soldiers” (his wife had that experience). Perhaps some of the five-year detainees could have told him all about those sorts of things if they’d been let out in time. However, that’s the snag with supporting dictatorships; the boomerang sometimes hits you before you have time to get out of the way.

“I have supported ideas and not individuals,” said Mr. Bing on March 28 in a final disclaimer. Ah, yes. Thats the crux of the whole matter, and if Mr. Bing had not said it, we would have had to say it for him. indeed he has supported ideas, and always the wrong ones just like every other Labour MP. True, not every member of his former party would be a deliberate supporter of dictatorships just like that, but so long as capitalism lasts, there is always the threat of it sometime, somewhere. And no capitalist politician can ever be entirely above suspicion in that respect. Even the best of intentions are derided and destroyed in the capitalist jungle, so that the democrat of today (perhaps without realising it at the time) is often a trainee for the dictatorship of tomorrow.

This is where we came in

Take heart, Lord Robens and others Who supported nationalisation of the mines in 1947. You think you have problems with falling coal demand and competition from oil? Well, so have others: this time it’s the West German coal owners who are running into trouble and are actually being paid by their government to take pits out of production. On March 17th, The Guardian described the Bonn government’s actions as “. . . measures . . . designed to help the coal industry to adjust itself to the realities of industrial life.” Which is a nice way of saying “no profit—no production”, no matter if some people do go short of warmth this winter. Incidentally, it does illustrate one point contrary to Tory claims; and that is that the profitability of an industry is not realty affected by whether it’s nationalised. It’s the current market conditions that count.

But don’t get too shocked or surprised at the news from Germany, will you. Governments often act in this way. A few years back, the British textile industry got the treatment, and before that American agriculture. Yet there are plenty of ill clothed and ill fed people around, aren’t there? Profit is the raison d'etre as far as capitalism is concerned, not human need.

Gaspers

“Just because you caught me polishing my Rolls-Royce doesn’t mean I’m a Tory. I'll vote Labour.” (Man at Morden Hill. Guardian report 16.3.66.)

‘‘While we act to suppress the ugly activities, if anyone dies we shall not be bothered." (Indian Premier Mrs. Gandhi. 16.3.66.)

"He (the Tory) must persuade a substantial mass of the voters . . . to identify the defence of their own interests and values with the defence of privileges which are—and are likely to remain—beyond their reach." (Why I am voting Tory, by Henry Fairlie. Observer 20.3.66.)

"A Conservative speculative builder in Cambourne this weekend described Mr. Wilson as "the nearest thing we’ve had to Churchill." (Peter Jenkins, Guardian 21.3.66.)

"I have a feeling that . . . voters are getting much more shrewd.' (Leonard Beaton. Guardian 30.3.66.)

New pamphlet on Racism (1966)

Party News from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new Socialist Party pamphlet, entitled The Problem of Racism, is published this month. The previous pamphlet on this subject, The Racial Problem, published in 1947 has been out of print for some time. The Problem of Racism is not just a revision; it is a completely new pamphlet. In 1947 it was the Jewish Question that was prominent. Today it is the Colour Question. This change is taken into account in the new pamphlet which examines the colour question in Britain, America, South Africa and Rhodesia. There are chapters too on the scientific theory of race, the historical origins of racist theories and on African nationalism.

There is one unfortunate error. The reference on page 41 to Guyana should, of course, be to Guinea.

Pamphlet obtainable from Socialist Party, (Dept. SR), 52 Clapham High St, London. SW4. Price 1/6.

Obituary: Robert MacNamara (1966)

Obituary from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

We greatly regret to announce the death of Robert MacNamara of the Glasgow Branch. He died at home in Glasgow on Saturday 2nd April 1966. Our comrade MacNamara was a member of the Branch for about forty years. Throughout his membership he was always a very active person and seldom, if ever, was absent from the Branch or propaganda meetings, etc. Over the past three years his illness confined him at home and therefore, ended his active participation in Party affairs. But despite his illness he never lost his enthusiasm or his keen interest. He was always delighted to have visits from members and hear any news and discuss activities.

He joined Glasgow Branch shortly after its formation and was, therefore, almost a foundation member. From this point onward he got down to intensive and systematic study of the Socialist case. He acquired an extensive knowledge of Marxism, economically, historically and philosophically. In the early days political conflict was widespread, keen and all too frequently, very hostile. We often had the united opposition of Labourites, I.LP.’ers and CP.’ers. Jail Square, West Regent Street were, in these days, the local political “duelling” grounds. He was a constant attender and could be found there almost any evening, winter or summer. In such discussion he would be either putting over the Socialist case or exposing the fallacies and absurdities of the opposition. Having an excellent understanding of the Socialist case and also, of the opposition’s cases, he was a highly competent propagandist. But in all cases he exercised tact and consideration and was never provocative or abusive.

The Party could do with many more MacNamaras. We have too few and his loss is therefore, much greater. We extend our deepest sympathy to his wife and family, their kind and careful attention during his illness was comforting.

John Higgins

The Law and Homosexuality (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the election out of the way, Wolfenden ― or rather his famous report ― may get back into the news again. This document, presented to Parliament in September 1957 after more than three years of painstaking work, called forth at that time a mixed public response of support and violent opposition. The government of the time fairly quickly implemented the committee’s main recommendations on prostitution (incidentally with a resultant increase in call-girls and a more highly organised poncing system), but did not make any move concerning the law on male homosexuality.

Public opinion was against any change, said Home Secretary R. A. Butler in the Commons debate of November 26th, 1958, as if capitalist politicians are not capable of trying to ignore public opinion when they think it will serve their purposes to do so. It is just conceivable that homosexuality could have become an election issue in 1959 but the greater likelihood is that for one reason or another the majority of the government did not favour change, and so the matter was dropped. However, one effect of Wolfenden since then has been to bring this controversial question more into the forum of public discussion ― press, radio and TV ― which has continued on and off ever since.

In May last year, Lord Arran managed to get a second reading in the Lords for his Bill to make private homosexual acts between consenting male adults no longer a criminal offence. But a similar measure introduced into the Commons a fortnight later by Labour MP Leo Abse was defeated, the opposition to it having been led by that self styled guardian of our moral welfare and champion of intolerance Sir Cyril Osborne, Tory MP for Louth. However, not long before the election, a Bill on the same lines was sponsored by the Tory Humphrey Berkeley and managed to survive a second reading.

It seems in fact that parliamentary opinion is turning in favour of changing a law which has not had the intended effect and has, by the very nature of its provisions, proved just about unworkable. And after all, there is nothing which brings capitalist legality into contempt more than an unworkable law. As the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, said on the matter:

“As a lawyer, I am prejudiced because I do not like law which cannot be enforced and we cannot ever enforce laws about what people do by consent in private. Those who are caught are the unlucky few.” (Guardian 13.5.65.)

The present set up had its origins in 1885, when during the committee stage of the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, The Liberal MP Labouchère moved his notorious clause creating the new offence between males, whether or not adult, consenting or in private, and by a stroke of the Parliamentary pen, made the lot of the male homosexual less tolerable than it had been for many years. Labouchère’s clause was passed without debate, and became section 11 of the new Act, providing punishments which were savage even by Capitalism’s standards. The maximum penalties still range from a £5 fine for “Bye Law indecencies” to life imprisonment for buggery.

No wonder that furtiveness and secrecy entered the homosexuals life in greater measure ― and there was a still uglier aspect rearing its head. In the storm of controversy that followed the publication of the new regulations, one judge called them “the blackmailer’s charter”, a name which has stuck and which seems to have been justified by subsequent events. Moreover, the dubious conduct of the police in securing some of their convictions has been a source of fierce contention among lawyers ever since. Only in May last year, Montgomery Hyde was citing recent examples of this in a series of articles in The People.

Not always the same attitude towards homosexuality has prevailed. Aymer Roberts says: “As we turn the pages of history we discern alternately the acceptance and admiration of homosexuality and then later its attempted suppression” (Forbidden Freedom). In feudal Britain, there were times when, along with fornication and adultery, sexual inversion was punishable by the most painful death. Indeed, as late as the seventeenth century, Lord Castlehaven was beheaded for it on Tower Hill. Such was the fear expressed through Christian dogma and supported by the church, of any practice which was thought to be a threat to the marriage institution.

The number of male homosexuals in Britain is not precisely known; estimates have varied between 500,000 and one million. But whatever the number, there is no doubt that for many the strain of trying to live within a set of general social rules ― not just the law ― which aim at their rejection, is very great. As Dr. Eustace Chesser has pointed out:

“The sense of guilt and nervous strain felt by many homosexuals today is due largely to social disapproval . . . Public opinion can be as punitive as the law.” (Live and Let Live.)

So the homosexual, it seems, has a difference which rapidly becomes a social handicap, but he is forced to wage a long and not altogether successful battle for society’s acceptance. Hence the mental conflicts, the nervous breakdowns, and sometimes the suicides.

Probably that is why the condition has been thought of as an illness ― two separate states have been confused and placed under one heading, but Wolfenden has rejected such a view, as have many leading medicos. According to Dr. Neustattor for instance, “It is not an illness or a disease . . . but simply a variation.” (Albany Trust Winter Talks, 1962-63). So if it can’t be called an illness, it is hardly a question of “curing” it neither has punishment stamped it out. Hence the proposal once more to bring English law into line with that of other countries, and as far as adults are concerned anyway, leave them well alone.

Nor should we forget that times have changed considerably since Labouchère’s days. It is not without significance that the reformers are anxious to convince people of the usefulness ― potential or otherwise ― of the homosexual to capitalist industry.

“It should not be beyond our capabilities to devise some method of control which will enable each homosexual to lead … a more useful life, and this in the final analysis must be a benefit to the whole community. (Albany Trust Winter Talks. 1962-63.)”

“A substantial minority of men in every class of society, being made free from fear of the criminal law, would be better able to play a constructive part in the life of the community. (Pamphlet by The Homosexual Law Reform Society.)

And of course, this is one of the salient propaganda features of the movement for reform of the law. The reformers want to fit the homosexual into existing society without additional stigma; they do not aim at a basic change in society itself.

The same criticism can be made of all such movements, wherever they are. In his book ‘The Homosexual Revolution’, R. E. L. Masters says that the homosexuals in U.S.A. have managed to start official organisations to voice their grievances and demands for law reform, the main associations being Daughters of Bilitas for women, and The Mattachine Society for men. He alleges that the problems of blackmail, police persecution and harassment, etc., are much greater there than in Britain, which may be the reason for the rise of these more vociferous protective clubs. He gives a list of “the movement’s” demands, which apart from the fact that some people might think them too sweeping, are all aimed at making the homosexual acceptable as a citizen of capitalist society. The very first of these is a plea that “the homosexual, male or female, should be permitted like any other citizen, to serve his or her country as a member of any branch of its armed forces.” (The present U.S. law forbids this.) A doubtful privilege indeed ― losing your life on a battlefield as a result of the very struggles you have waged to make it worth ― living.

When the law is eventually changed, then, a minority will be released from the shadow of vindictive penalties (although only in one provision of Wolfenden is this so; his proposal for the under twenty-ones is that the penalties be retained and in some cases even increased), but this will not be the end of the homosexual’s problems. Apart from the backlog of fear, ignorance and prejudice which will impinge on his life still, the legal change will at most be an offer to absorb him, so to speak, more easily into the present set up. Which will mean, if he is a worker (and most homosexuals certainly are), that the grey day-to-day existence and struggles to make a living will still be there.

Eddie Critchfield

The Gnomes of London (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the end of March discussions, began between the British and Rumanian governments over various debts owed to British capitalists by Rumania. These discussions, of course, didn't involve the interests of workers either in Britain or in Rumania but they are interesting in so far as they show how capitalism works as an international system.

In the past the City was more the centre of international finance than it is today. Foreign governments and companies used the capital market of London to raise funds. The Rumanian government was no exception. The capitalists expected a price for the use of their capital and got it in the form of interest on the bonds. Up to the Second World War the Rumanian government “met its obligations”, i.e., the capitalists got their share of the exploitation of workers in Rumania, as contracted. In the war, however, Rumania was an ally of the Axis Powers and this source of interest dried up in 1941. Ever since, the owners of Rumanian bonds have been clamouring for compensation. Although Rumania was on the losing side in the war most of these debts have yet to be paid. After the war Rumania fell into the hands of Russian State capitalism and was along with the other States of Eastern Europe, ruthlessly plundered to build up Russian industry and military might. In addition, many foreign-owned industries were nationalised without compensation.

After the death of Stalin the native Rumanian exploiting class began to complain about having to send so large a share of the loot they got from exploiting workers in Rumania to their masters in Russia. They sought to sell their products for as high a price as possible on the world market. The capitalists who had loaned money to previous Rumanian governments saw their chance. Ably aided by the Council of Foreign Bond Holders, they exerted pressure to see that before being allowed favourable trading terms Rumania paid up. In 1960 an Anglo-Rumanian Financial Agreement was signed, under which Rumania agreed to pay £l¼m. to settle certain debts. A further clause said that the settlement of the remaining debts should be discussed in 1966. Hence the recent talks.

Rumanian bonds are still traded on the London Stock Exchange and quoted in the Stock Exchange Daily Official List. For instance, 4 per cent Consols exchange at about £13 for £100 nominal stock. So do 4 per cent External Loan 1922 and 7 per cent Monopolies Institute 1929. Considering that some foreign bonds, like the Chinese 4½ per cent 1898, exchange at only 40s, this shows that some capitalists think there's a comparatively good chance that their government can get something out of the Rumanian government as a price for access to the world market.

A glance at the list of foreign bonds quoted in the Official List gives a panorama of the past glories of British Imperialism. Russian, Chinese, Hungarian, Greek and South American bonds exchange for little or nothing. Interesting items are the Baltic bonds issued by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during their short period of political independence between the world wars. In 1940 they were grabbed by Russia and another source of interest dried up. Yet now these bonds exchange at what seems the surprisingly high price of £50-60. The reason for this is that although Russia got the land and industry of these countries unfortunately for them the gold reserves were kept in London. Talks between Britain and Russia over the division of the property of these former States still go on. The last round finished in April. These Baltic bonds are a better buy than those of Tsarist Russia (also still traded) which are never likely to be paid. 

Russia and Rumania are not the only States negotiating with Britain over debts. Last August a delegation from Hungary was in London to discuss Hungarian bonds (now exchanging at about £14). Poland settled most of its debts in 1955, paying £40 for £100 face value. In 1960 Yugoslavia agreed to pay interest on some pre-war bonds. Thus on June 15 the interest on its 5 per cent Sterling Fund Bonds 1936 is due. Greece has also been forced to pay up.

The States of Eastern Europe in recent years have been gaining a degree of independence of Russia. Their privileged rulers now no longer have to share so much of the loot with those of Russia—-instead they are having to share it with capitalists in Britain, France and elsewhere! This is the price of “independence”. It is no accident that Yugoslavia has been forced to pay the most, precisely because it has achieved the most independence of Russia. In capitalism might is right and capitalists and their governments always drive a hard bargain. Incidentally, the Labour government in the person of junior Minister Walter Padley has been just as zealous in pursuing the interests of foreign bondholders as previous governments—thus showing their attempts to stir up xenophobia by talk of “the gnomes of Zurich” to be the hypocrisy it is.

Finally, it looks as if British capitalists are again moving in on the workers in Rumania. In March last year Lazards, the merchant bankers, signed an agreement with the State Bank of Rumania for a loan of £2m. from three British banks to build two cargo ships. This loan is to be repaid over a ten year period after delivery of the ships. At 5½ per cent rate of interest.

Adam Buick

Obituary: Neil Gillies (1966)

Obituary from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

We sadly learned of the sudden death of our Comrade Neil Gillies and extend to his relatives a sincere sympathy. Although he had been ill over recent years, it was hoped that with due care he had overcome his illness. Joining Marylebone Branch in March 1946 he transferred to Bloomsbury Branch in 1951 and had been a regular attender at all branch meetings and always supported party meetings and activity. Although not a speaker or writer, his support to other comrades generally was always welcome.

On the evening on which he was taken ill, he had been at the Hampstead Committee Rooms helping with the Election work and was his usual smiling and kindly self. He died the next morning. Neil will be sadly missed by us all who knew him.

50 Years Ago: The Easter Rising (1966)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A grave armed revolt in Dublin against English rule is raging at the time of writing. It is a revolt doomed from the outset, both because of the futility of its Nationalist aims, and the utter hopelessness of such a revolt against the mighty organised force of the political State. It is, apart from the fact that Socialism is worth fighting for. yet another illustration (if such were needed) that the organised Socialist conquest of political power plays into the hands of the oppressor and strengthens the chains that fetter us.

Such a revolt, however, is the natural result of centuries of alien oppression; which has forced the ideas of Irishmen into Nationalist channels and blinded them to its futility. And it is at the same time a fitting commentary on the perfervid declarations of the British champions of “honour" and “righteousness" that “they" are lighting, above all, for “the rights of small Nationalities".

From the Socialist Standard, May 1916.

40 Years On (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “General Strike" of May 1926 was of course not a general strike—but it did not need to be. It brought the level of production for the year down by about a third—equivalent to the effect of a major slump, and its cost to the capitalist class was put at £100 million or more. The industries wholly or partly called out on strike in support of the miners were transport, printing, iron, steel and metal and heavy chemicals, building, electricity and gas; and the Ministry of Labour estimated that the numbers involved totalled about 1,600,000, in addition to over a million miners. This was nearly half of all trade unionists at the time (5½ million) and nearly sixty per cent of the 4,366,000 who were affiliated to the T.U.C. Among the strikers, as Lord Citrine points out (he was Acting General Secretary of the T.U.C. in 1926) were “hundreds of thousands who had never been out on strike in their lives". The supporting strikes lasted for nine days though the miners continued after the others had gone back and some of the coal fields did not give up the struggle until December. ,

The total of working days lost in 1926 reached the highest figure of all lime, 162 million working days which may be compared to between two and three million days a year in recent times.

Lord Citrine, in an interview, published in the Sunday Times Magazine Supplement (10.4.66) claims that “It was not a defeat for the trade unions”, and if we leave aside for the moment the miners and the thousands of workers who were victimised, there is some truth in this. It was an unprecedented demonstration of working class solidarity, and employers, in face of it, did not feel emboldened to try a general move for wage reductions and longer hours and the official index of wage rates stood at the same level at the end of 1926 as it had at the end of 1925 (as also did the cost of living index).

For the miners however, it was different: in addition to wage reductions their hours were lengthened by half an hour or one hour a shift, with increases of 1½ to 2½ hours a week for surface workers.

In the twenty years before 1926 there had been a lot of propaganda in this country for the general strike, either in support of wage claims, or to stop war or as syndicalist “take and hold” action, but in the event the determining factor was the conditions of capitalism—the steep decline of the coal industry, and heavy and increasing unemployment: it stood at about 1¼ million, over 10%.

Workers feared that an attack on the miners if not beaten off would be followed by attacks on wages in other trades. The feeling was no doubt helped by the disappointment of many workers with the Labour Government which had had a nine months office in 1924. They wrongly concluded that that inglorious episode pointed to the uselessness of political action itself.

The Government had been badly frightened by the strike, imagining that it represented a revolutionary conspiracy by members of the Communist Party and agents of the Russian government. (The T.U.C. had refused an offer of financial aid from Russia.) When it was over the Government hurried to pass the 1927 Trade Disputes Act which restricted trade union activities in certain directions, made sympathetic strikes illegal and cut government workers unions off from illation to the T.U.C. and Labour Party, and international trade union organisations, etc., this in spite of the fact that Civil Servants did not strike and had not been called on to do so. The Act hit the T.U.C. since they lost some hundreds of thousands of affiliated members and doubly hit the Labour Party because individual trade unionists now had to contract in to pay the political levy instead of having to contract out if they objected to paying. (The whole of the 1927 Act was repealed by the Attlee government in 1946.)

A period of decline set in for the trade union movement and particularly for the T.U.C., to be hastened within a few years by the depression of the nineteen thirties, T.U.C. membership declined from 4,366,000 in 1926 to a low point of 3,295,000 in 1934; but since then expansion has been continuous and the present membership, 8,771,000 out of a total trade union figure of 10 million is a record.

Among the developments of the past forty years, both in the T.U.C. and in the unions as a whole have been the increased number of women trade unionists, the spread of trade unions to “non-manual” workers and the decline in the number of unions through amalgamations, though ’ big unionism” measured by the biggest union of all, the nearly 1½ million strong Transport and General Workers Union no longer has the glamour it once had.

Women trade unionists now exceed two million, compared to 832,000 in 1925; still however not more than one in four of women workers. Similar growth has been made among general clerical workers, bank and insurance clerks, civil servants and local government staffs, doctors and teachers.

With the decline of the coal industry from over a million workers to under 500,000 and of the railways the expansion of non-manual unions has shifted the balance in the T.U.C. helped last year by the application of the National Association of Local Government Officers' Association with 326,000 members.

The number of separate unions has dropped from 1,144 in 1925 to 591 in 1964 but over two thirds of total trade union membership is in the 18 unions with over 100,000 members all of which, except the National Union of Teachers, are in the T.U.C. Nevertheless the concentration of union membership in a small number of large unions has developed much less in Britain than in Germany, Sweden and some other countries and the British figure of only about 40 per cent of workers in trade unions also compares unfavourably.

The Swedish trade unions have recently, both because the recent wage negotiations were marked by threats of a general strike before eventual agreement was reached on a three year agreement. In Sweden the T.U.C. itself act as the negotiating body with the employers, something the British T.U.C. has no power to do though in 1926 the difficulty was overcome by the trade union executives being called to a conference in which they endorsed the strike plans of the T.U.C. General Council. But the real difference between Sweden in 1966 and Britain in 1926 is that the Swedish employers are faced with an acute labour shortage and were reluctant to have their booming trade interrupted by a strike (or by the lock-out they threatened at one stage). In Britain forty years ago the advantage was with the employers and especially with the coal owners—a shut down of the mines was almost a blessing to them.

Years of nearly full employment also encouraged a development which governments and employers favoured anyway, the widespread practice of unions and the T.U.C. being represented on joint productivity bodies with employers and the government, on organisations such as the National Economic Development Council, and of union officials being appointed to the boards of nationalised industries. The latest innovation is the government inspired plan to have trade unions invest funds in the Fairfield ship building company in order to save it from closure.

The argument advanced for this development by supporters of the Labour Party is that as they believe in planning it is logical that trade unions should at all levels have a hand in formulating and carrying out the plans for increasing production, and for sharing the product on the lines of the Government's Incomes Policy. It is based on a twofold illusion. Capitalism cannot be planned, either by those who own the means of production and distribution or by governments; still less by the trade union representatives invited in to be "consulted”, as will be shown the next time trade and production take a downward turn and unemployment rises.

The illusion goes much deeper than this. It shows itself in every conference of the T.U.C. and of the separate unions. The agendas are weighed down with scores of high sounding motions on all sorts of questions thrown up by capitalism at home and internationally, reflecting the emotional reactions of delegates but utterly useless from a practical point of view. Nobody takes the slightest notice of them, and most are soon forgotten by those who voted then. It is not merely that time spent on them is wasted but the real business of trade unions, looking after the interests of members as wage earners, suffers greater or less degree of neglect as a consequence.

And the question which ought to be the overriding concern of trade unionists as members of the working class, their interest in getting rid of capitalism and its wages system, and establishing Socialism, never gets heard at all. In this the trade union movement is little further advanced than it was forty years ago.

Trade union conferences go on passing resolutions for the nationalisation of industries, always in the belief that replacing the private capitalist by the state will somehow save the workers from the consequences of capitalism. They fail to lake note of the experience of the miners. Before and during the 1926 strike the trade unions and the Labour Party were advocating nationalisation of the mines as the one and only remedy. Evidence on those lines had been given to the Royal Commission on the coal industry, the report of which came out a few months before the strike, recommending nationalisation of coal royalties but not of the industry itself. The Miners Federation looked on nationalisation as a way to solve wage problems and to step the closure of uneconomic pits and loss of jobs. And now that the coal industry has been nationalised for twenty years the miners are complaining about exactly the same problem. At the T.U.C. at Brighton in 1965 Congress carried a National Union of Mineworkers motion in favour of a “National fuel policy” designed to save the coal industry against competing fuels. In his supporting speech the General Secretary of the N.U.M. stated that jobs in the coal industry were dropping at the rate of 40,000 a year and a quarter of a million had disappeared since 1954. And the miners delegate who seconded could see no difference between Tory and Labour policy for closing down uneconomic pits. How could it be otherwise? What counts for capitalism is costs of production and prospects of profits. If oil and gas are cheaper than coal, (and new finds of natural gas in the North Sea threaten a still cheaper competitor) coal is no longer king and miners must look for other jobs. And of course nationalisation has solved no wages problem and local strikes in the coal industry go on steadily at about a dozen or so a week year in year out.

This fortieth anniversary of the General Strike finds the trade unions facing likely new developments in trade union law when the Royal Commission on trade unions and employers associations finishes its work. When Webb wrote the 1920 introduction to his History of Trade Unions he was confident that the earlier indefinite and precarious state of trade union law had gone and that the legal and constitutional status of the unions “has now been explicitly defined and embodied in precise and absolutely expressed statutes”. How wrong he was. New court decisions, and the “unofficial” strikes which have come with low unemployment, not to mention the growing acceptance of the idea of strikes by civil servants and other workers, who in 1920 only half-heartedly adopted the implications of trade union organisation, have led to demands for amendments to the law and for the setting up of new machinery for avoiding and settling disputes.

Some of the pressure for change stems from the employers dislike of the intractable attitude of unions in a period of full employment, but it also comes from people who imagine that social structure has altered and made former trade union action unnecessary. But capitalism is not essentially different, and the class struggle has not disappeared. While it is hard to imagine circumstances in which the 1926 experience could be repeated a sharp worsening of trade, with consequent pressure on wages, could overnight produce large-scale conflicts no matter what the Royal Commission may recommend and no matter what new laws and new industrial conciliation bodies may be set up. What we as Socialists may hope is that workers will not go on deluding themselves that trade union action, necessary as it is, can solve their problems. Not action within capitalism but political action to establish Socialism is what the situation requires.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter from Denmark (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a teacher with socialist ideas I hold that the only sensible thing in a sane society is to teach children when they want to be taught and what they want to be taught. I feel sure that most of children want to explore the world in which they live. We all know of children who don't come home in time because they are engaged in play or in the act of investigating things. And who does not know children who keep on asking questions of all kinds? I find such behaviour characteristic of most children and I think all questions must be answered in a way satisfactory to the children at the time. If their request for information is not satisfied by us, we cannot hope that the abilities and talents which each child possesses will he developed fully!

Yet to develop these is precisely one of the stated aims of education in Denmark! The law says that the purpose of education is: “to further and develop the children's abilities and talents to strengthen their characters and give them useful knowledge.’’ The wording of this paragraph gives the teacher quite a wide scope on the theoretical level, for it is not defined in detail how to strengthen their characters and what useful knowledge is. Every teacher will interpret it his own way, and this makes if appear very democratic. But such a law should also give a socialist teacher a chance to try out his ideas in this field.

However, theory is one thing, practice another. What is actually happening at school?

A child starts at seven and leaves again at fourteen at the earliest. For each year of school a syllabus has been worked out—that is to say, by the end of the school year the pupil is supposed to know a certain number of things. At the later stages of school life examinations take place. If you pass these well, your chances in adult life arc good. If you happen not to be bright at the right things it's just your hard luck. The result is that teachers, parents and often the children themselves become very ambitious with regard to examinations. This means that the teacher asks questions to which he already knows the answers, and the children answer them as best they can. A teacher may ask : “How did the Norwegian and Danish people react to the German occupation?” The teacher knows the answer, and for some reason which is not apparent to the child it is desirable to know this fact. Motivation for knowing the two peoples' reactions is completely lacking. By the time you have lived your school life in this way for 7 years at least it has become quite natural to think in terms of “What am I expected to answer now?” In a class of 15 year olds a teacher had once asked everybody to watch a TV programme about 3 religious altitudes with the purpose of using the programme as basis for discussion. Nearly everybody had managed to see the programme, but when it came to the discussion nobody had anything to say except the teacher. She could provoke no one to speak. How good her techniques in this direction were I cannot say, but after the lesson a girl told her that of course all pupils had an opinion but did not like to put it in front of the class. In this case the children had to make up their own minds about a question and by now being so used to have a set answer to learn, the pupils found the idea of speaking freely awkward. This phenomenon cannot in many cases stimulate and develop the interest of learning.

But with the stated aims of education being as they are, a teacher should be able to change this situation. A number of things have to be considered in this connection It is impossible for a teacher to avoid examinations and tests. He, or she, will be judged on the basis of examination results, for the future employers must know your qualifications when you apply for a job. It is clear, therefore, that a good teacher is still one who can give knowledge which will give the best chance for a job to as many children as possible; and those will have the best chances who can enter into frictionless co-operation at their future factories, offices or other places of work. In today’s society technical skill is of utmost importance, and so the emphasis in the syllabus has been shifted from classical subjects to technical skills.

Some people hold that the fact that children are no longer expected to have so much exact knowledge and that demands in this direction have been eased considerably, is a sign of progress. It is true that there is a tendency towards teaching children how to find out things themselves, but at long as examinations and tests do not examine this quality in children it is pretty irrelevant to base your everyday teaching on this alone.

In practice it often happens that children ask you questions which do not lie within the subject you happen to be teaching. Many of these questions are very important to the children and would be interesting to discuss, but mostly pressure from above stops a teacher from taking up such questions. If you are a teacher who wants to satisfy these very relevant demands made by the children, you are in a dilemma. You want to do a thing which you are prevented from doing because you are at the same time subjected to quite contrary and different demands from the authorities.

So my conclusion must be that you cannot change one part of society successfully without changing all other parts. When some changes have taken place in education, I see their cause lying in changes in the methods of production. New techniques for producing goods developed all the time, and the worker is then required to learn new things all along. It means that more emphasis must be put on his ability to readjust himself to newly adopted techniques. Therefore children now in school must learn different things from what their parents had to learn. There is also a move away from direct authoritarianism. The latter change is, I think, due to the realisation by those in control that contented people are better producers, and these are important for capitalists to make bigger profits. Capitalism will run smoother in this way. So to me, the whole aim of society will have to be changed if any radical change is to be expected in our schools.

A. Peterson,

Copenhagen.

Myth of Industrial Unionism (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party attitude towards any specific political or economic organisation is determined by its basic position that there can be no social change as great, as far reaching and as demanding as the creation of Socialist society, without the conscious co-operation of the majority of the working-class. Until we reach that stage, until the wage-labour and capital relationships are abolished, there remains the vital need to safeguard working class living standards and conditions of work, and this safeguarding is rightly the task of Trade Unions. As long as a union remains a defence organisation the Socialists supports its sound actions and hits out at actions which conflict with the general interests of the workers, and as long as Socialists are few in number this is the only sound action possible. But the moment that any union claims that it is a revolutionary organisation then it must be judged from a revolutionary standpoint and the allowance made for the actions taken by non-Socialist unions are clearly out of the question.

Holding to this logical approach to the problem the Socialist Party very carefully examined the claims made for Industrial Unionism when American workers set on foot the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905. The claims were that here was an organisation placed upon a class basis, free from conflict between skilled and unskilled workers, free from craft divisions, with such a resultant unity that the antagonism between boss and wage-slave could be seen clearly and met in the most effective manner. These “new style’’ unions, it was said, organised the workers “economic power" in such a way that it fitted them to take and hold the means of living when the time arose. These unions would then form the framework of socialist society and become its permanent administration. The Socialist Party was able to counter these claims by showing that no structural changes in union organisation could turn non-socialists into their opposites.

The Industrial Unions were open to all who took out membership cards; as a result their organisations housed Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, etc., men of every brand of political persuasion. “It is useless for us here to attempt to disguise the fact that we have every shade of political opinion”, declared Delegate Murtaugh at the I.W.W. first Annual Conference. Yet the advocates of Industrial Unionism insisted that the I.W.W. was a "Socialist" organisation, one composed of "38,000 class-conscious workers" (Socialist Jan. 1908).

The I.W.W. was presented as an uncompromising force for unity, but in truth it was held together by shabby compromises and as a result it split, split and split again into warring factions. The split between the De Leonist elements and the “Bummery" section led to the existence of two rival I.W.W.’s (Detroit and Chicago) and during the active life of these rivals each side claimed that the other had blacklegged in industrial disputes. The De Leonist I.W.W. (later W.I.I.U.), though backed by the Socialist Labor Party of America, was organised on the same lines as the original I.W.W. and was thus open to all; as S.L.P. speaker, W. W. Cox confessed in the Weekly People (30 Dec. 1916) “The Workers International Industrial Union recognises no political party and it has a Republican, Democratic, Progressive Prohibitionist and Socialist Party as well as S.L.P. membership”.

The S.L.P. of A. while continually calling for clarity in political thinking at the same time approved and organised political confusion on the industrial field. As long as the politically confused were organised into the W.I.I.U. the S.L.P. was happy. In some magical way it was imagined that when the industrial unions grew strong enough they would themselves generate political clarity. The S.L.P. continued to urge the workers to “Organise industrially on the principles of the W.I.I.U.” until 1924 when, since the so-called “Socialist W.I.l.U.” had become an embarrassment, it was allowed to die.

In rejecting the fallacies of the Industrial Unionists the Socialist Party never asserted that Socialist Society would result from the actions of parliamentary delegates alone. It is completely illogical to imagine that Socialist understanding could grow to the point of political victory without simultaneously resulting in a growth of understanding and hence organisation to prepare for the taking over of industry. The Socialist Party in fact knows well that organisation is necessary for the running of industry in the new-born Socialist society. It holds also that a sizeable spread of political clear-sightedness will lead to the growth of such organisations, for when many workers want Socialism they will begin to organise and plan for the rebuilding of society prior to the capture of political power. We in fact stand for the principled, democratic organisation of class-conscious workers in contrast to the Industrial Unionist concept of industrial bodies built up upon the “open-house” principle.

For the present, however, Socialists have to act and co-operate with a majority of non-socialist fellow unionists. Socialist unionists will certainly oppose unsound actions and theories wherever these are found in the unions but we do not support the view that if the present unions were smashed then “genuine working class unions would arise in their place”—yet another industrial myth. The faults of the present-day unions result from the lack of understanding of their members and until their experiences lead them to realise the limitations of the day-to-day struggle, until they realise that within the framework of capitalism they cannot rise above their basic status as victims of the caprices of the world market these faults remain.

Melvin Harris

The General Strike of 1926 (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

London's Piccadilly was jammed with traffic. So was the Thames Embankment. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes—cars, vans, bicycles, horses and carts, almost anything on wheels— had been pressed into service.

This traffic chaos was news, but there were no newspapers. Out of Fleet Street came only a few bundles of single-sided cyclostyled sheets with a very brief digest of news snippets.

The railway stations were quiet except for the murmur of voices of bewildered people who had turned up with the hope of getting a train.

The docks were still and silent. Only at the gates, where groups of dock workers stood around, was there any sign of life.

The same pattern prevailed in towns and cities all over the country.

It was Tuesday, May 4, 1926--the first day of the General Strike. Workers whose Trade Unions had called on them to stop work, did so unanimously. The solidarity of the strike surprised even Trade Union officials and confounded thousands who had not expected the strike to take place.

During previous months, talks and negotiations, committees and commissions, reports and announcements telling how Trade Union leaders, the Government, the clergy and some prominent individuals were striving to find a solution to the deadlock, had led lots of people to believe that the strike would be cancelled at the last moment or that, if it was called, it would be a feeble affair, causing them little inconvenience. So, many awoke on that May morning without a thought that the day would be different to the one before.

For nine days the strike continued, more Unions joining in when called upon. At midday on the ninth day the General Council of the Trades Union Congress went to the Prime Minister and announced, “ . . the General Strike is being terminated today.” The news was broadcast at 1 p.m.

This abrupt ending caused more consternation inside Trade Union ranks than the calling of the strike had caused outside. Thousands of active, local Trade Unionists were struck speechless by the news. When they recovered their wits they set up a howl of protest and recrimination. They were the men who, during those nine days, had organised the pickets and demonstrations, arranged entertainment and recreation for the strikers, produced local strike bulletins, issued transport permits, planned help for the halt, the maimed and the blind and done the multitude of organisational jobs that had kept the strike solid. They had been the N.C.O.s of the battle. With confused ideas about the strike—theirs not, they thought, to reason why—they had done their job with enthusiasm. When, at the height of their zeal, they heard the retreat sounded, they were flabbergasted and enraged.

Angry voices accused the T.U.C. General Council of cowardice and treason. The General Council accused the miners of making impossible demands. Denunciation, recrimination, spite and mud-slinging were rife for weeks but, by the time of the next Trades Union Congress, the venom had subsided and members of the General Council were re-elected to office.

During the forty years since the General Strike the question has been frequently asked, “If the strike had not been called off so precipitately, could it have been brought to a successful conclusion?” The questioners have different ideas about what would have been a successful conclusion.

Their question implies that the Trade Unions planned the strike with a particular object in view, that the workers were led into the fight towards some preconceived goal. This is a complete misunderstanding of the event.

The threat to strike was an act of defence and defiance which the T.U.C. General Council did not expect to have to put into effect. They candidly admitted that they did not want the strike, that they did everything to avoid it including, as one of them said, grovelling to the Prime Minister. The Government forced them into the fight.

Ten months earlier the coal miners had given notice of their intention to terminate the miners' national agreement, to reduce their pay and increase their working hours. Failing acceptance of these demands, the miners were faced with a lock-out. They sought support from the T.U.C. and a committee of Unions representing miners, dockers, railwaymen and road transport workers planned to completely stop the handling of all coal if the lock-out notices were not withdrawn. At the final hour the notices were withdrawn, the Government granted the mine owners a nine months subsidy and set up a commission to investigate the coal industry.

The Trade Unions were delighted and the day of victory passed into the annals of working class history as “Red Friday”.

To those who did not blind themselves to what was happening around them, it was apparent that the employers and the Government had bought time to prepare for a show-down. The Trade Union leaders did the three monkey act; they saw nowt, heard nowt and did nowt.

The Government, without any effort at secrecy, instituted a strike breaking organisation, The Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, mainly under the control of military and naval personnel. At the same time they held out hope to the miners by appointing a commission of enquiry into the coal industry.

Months later, when the commission reported, it offered the miners nothing and, with the end of the Government subsidy drawing near, the mine owners again submitted their demands.

With the Prime Minister acting the part of a benevolent mediator it was simple to misunderstand, if not ignore, the Government’s bellicose activities. After Red Friday it appeared logical to again threaten strike action as a counter to the mine owner’s threats. But with the passing days it became clear that the Government and employers were digging in their heels.

As zero hour approached, a conference of Trade Union delegates met in London and the T.U.C. General Council, acting as negotiating committee, met the mine owners and the Prime Minister daily. The Council found itself shuttled between an immovable Government and an irresistible delegate conference. When finally they reported their inability to move their opponents, the assembled delegates voted by 3,653,527 to 49,911 to empower the General Council to go ahead with the strike.

Despite the overwhelming vote, the General Council utilised the twenty six hours between the decision to strike and the appointed time for it to commence, to again try to get the miners’ lock-out notices withdrawn so that negotiations could continue without strike action. Eventually, a full cabinet meeting flatly refused even this modest request and the Prime Minister told the General Council that the proceedings must close because the strike had been called and because of overt acts, affecting the freedom of the press, that had already taken place. Printing Trade workers on the Daily Mail had refused to print an anti-working class article, and had walked out.

The Government utilised these last few hours to set its strike breaking machinery into operation. The King signed a proclamation declaring a state of emergency under the Emergency Powers Act of 1920. Orders in Council were issued, army leave was cancelled and troops moved to industrial areas. The commissioners of the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies were instructed to put their machinery in motion. The mine owners made a final offer to the miners to settle with reduced wages and increased hours. At midnight on Monday the strike was on.

Throughout the strike the Union leaders emphasised that it was entirely an industrial dispute. The Government insisted that it was a challenge to the state and the democratic constitution and would lead to civil war. Communists urged that the strike could be used to displace the Conservative Government in favour of a Labour one. A few scatter-brained individuals even saw the strike as an attack on capitalism by class conscious workers, with the prospect of a social revolution.

All the circumstances considered, it was obvious the workers could not win. The number involved in the strike action was about three million. (G. D. H. Cole put the figure at 2,751,000).) That was quite a small portion of the total working class. The remainder were sympathetically indifferent, apathetic or hostile. The Government, despite a mild pretence at being an unbiased referee, was doing its job of keeping law and order. That meant preserving capitalist law and preventing the workers from being disorderly. Strikes create disorder. From its position of strength the Government could not lose.

Had the Government been weaker, and resigned under the strike threat, its successor, whether Liberal or Labour, would have had to do the same job of running capitalism. Subsequent Labour Governments proved that. Under similar circumstances they did similar things in the attempt to make capitalism run smoothly. The present outcry against unofficial strikes is a continuation of the policy. The workers must be kept at work without interruption for the hours and wages that the current trade condition requires.

That the General Strike could have led to a social revolution is a fantastic notion. The three million strikers reacted to what they considered an injustice, not because they were conscious of their class status and certainly not because they understood capitalism and the need to overthrow it.

When the strike was over the workers showed how un-class-conscious they were. Trade Union policy during the following years was one of greater class collaboration than ever before and Trade Union leaders cemented themselves more securely in their jobs.

The strike should have revealed the true nature of capitalist government, the real function of the state and the futility of leadership. But very few learned.

The workers will continue to struggle within capitalism and, whatever political party is in power, the government will use the state machinery against them, to keep them from disrupting the system or damaging the prospect of profits.

The General Strike was one battle in a continuous war. It was not a Waterloo. It was more like a Dunkirk. Battles on the industrial field, whether won or lost, will leave the workers still a subject class. With the employers entrenched behind their state, it requires political organisation with a knowledge of Socialism to dislodge them.

W. Waters.

The attitude of the SPGB during the Strike (1966)

From the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our attitude towards the General Strike was determined by the following considerations. The limits of trade union action; the determined attempts by the employers to depress wages since the great war; the evils of leadership; the lack of understanding on the part of the workers; and the fact that, in the last resort, power rested with the Government backed by a non-Socialist working class.

We pointed out at the time of the general strike that the workers should remain in complete control of the movement and not allow themselves to be hood-winked into a worse position than before the strike. And, above all, not to follow the stupid slogans of the communists to place all trust in the leaders. After the strike the communists put the blame for the failure on the very leaders they had urged the workers to trust, and advocated fresh leaders from the same group that had influenced the collapse.

Although the possibility of a general strike had been in the offing for some time the trade union officials and their supporters had made no effort to prepare for such an eventuality, whereas the employers had completed their plans long beforehand.

After the strike we made the following comments in the June 1926 Socialist Standard:

The greatest trade union action that was ever taken in any country was closed by the most gigantic swindle in the whole history of trade unionism. . . . The splendid solidarity of the rank and file, along with their studied refusal to follow the maniacs who advised the formation of "Workers Defence Corps" and other methods of crude force are healthy signs of the beginnings of an understanding of their slave position that forms the first step in the work of establishing Socialism.

Gilmac.

How far have we come? (1966)

Editorial from the May 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day and the fortieth anniversary of the General Strike on May 4th focus attention on the position of the trade unions and what they are able to achieve within Capitalism.

The Socialist party supports the working class in their struggles to improve their living standards through higher wages and better working conditions under Capitalism. Even so, we constantly point out to workers the narrow limitations of their trade union activity. Al best, and then only under favourable circumstances, trade union pressure can win marginal wage increases. Often, trade union activities are a line of defence achieving only a marking time in living standards. In unfavourable circumstances caused by general unemployment or the decline of a branch of industry, trade unions are almost helpless against the economic forces of Capitalism.

Socialists want to emphasise these points. In spite of many years of trade union action, the problems of workers in their struggles to gain a living remain basically the same. Workers are still forced into strike action or the threat of it as their only weapon in the economic war called Capitalism. In spite of years of talk about industrial harmony and an incomes policy, strikes, restrictive practices, guerrilla tactics are still an aspect of the social chaos wrought by the continuing antagonism of class interests. These conditions of life will go on as long as Capitalism exists.

These undeniable facts of modern life underline the urgent necessity for Socialism. They underline the limitations of trade union action and the necessity for workers to widen their political horizons to include taking over the means of production.

The ownership of the means of production is the key to the whole question. The struggle for higher wages and better conditions or against redundancy or wage reductions, all stem from the class ownership of the means of production that is inseparable from Capitalism. In supporting Capitalism politically by voting Labour, Liberal or Tory, workers endorse the economic disadvantages under which they arc now forced to struggle. Their vulnerability is due to the fact that they live from week to week or month to month from the sale of their labour power to the owners of industry—of the means of living.

The last forty years, indeed the last one hundred and forty years, will show that the trade union movement has been useful to the working class. Even so we must ask the question how far have we really come? The answer is surely that poverty, frustration and misery still abound. Capitalism is still the same commercial jungle as ever it was. Society is still torn apart by conflict and made ugly by privilege and exploitation. The necessities of life which Socialist society would take for granted are still under Capitalism a meagre offering for which workers must devote a lifetime of struggle.

The millions of trade unionists in this and other countries arc part of the labour force on which society’s wealth depends. In unity with the socially useful wherever they may exist, their task must be to create Socialist order in the place of Capitalist chaos. They can cater abundantly for their material needs. They can grow the food, build the houses and make the clothing. But they cannot do this as members of the working class selling their labour power on the market to exploiters. This is the pre-condition of their enduring poverty where trade unions remain necessary.