A word to the electors of Clapham Park (2026)

Party News from the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our manifesto for a local council by-election in Lambeth on 9 July.

You are being asked to vote in yet another election. The other parties will come to you with lists of promises: more housing, safer streets, better parks, protection for LGBTQ+ people. They will tell you that if you elect them to the council, they will manage capitalism a little more humanely.

We say: we have all heard these promises before. Labour, Lib Dem, Green, they have all sat in the council chamber. The housing crisis has deepened. Rents have soared. Our parks have been fenced off for private profit. And still they ask for your vote on the promise that this time it will be different.

The SOCIALIST PARTY does not make promises we cannot keep. We do not ask you to vote for us in order to administer capitalism more efficiently. We ask you to use your vote as a weapon of class consciousness, to register that you understand the root cause of every problem facing Clapham Park, and that the solution lies not in the council chamber but in the abolition of the wages system itself.

HOUSING: AGAINST PRIVATISATION, FOR THE COMMONS

Lambeth Council has spent decades selling off, demolishing, and privatising the housing stock that working people in Clapham Park depend upon. Council homes have been transferred to housing associations. Estates have been handed to developers under ‘regeneration’ schemes that mean demolition for tenants and luxury flats for investors. The Clapham Park Estate itself has seen the slow erosion of social housing, replaced by ‘mixed tenure’ developments where the ‘mix’ means that those with money and those without are segregated within the same postcode.

The other parties will tell you they will build more ‘affordable’ homes. But ‘affordable’ to whom? To the buy-to-let landlord? To the overseas investor with an empty flat? To the young professional on a six-figure salary? Affordable housing is a contradiction in terms under a system where land and property are commodities to be speculated upon.

The SOCIALIST PARTY has always maintained that housing problems cannot be solved by reform. Every reform, council housing, rent control, ‘right to buy’, has been absorbed, undermined or reversed by the logic of capital. As we argued in the Socialist Standard over a century ago, and as history has proven again and again: what is given by reformist legislation is taken back by economic necessity.

From a socialist perspective, we do not seek to ‘improve’ social housing as a transition to socialism. We recognise that the very form of the commodity, whether a council flat or a private apartment, must be abolished. Housing must cease to be an asset class and become a commons, a space for social engagement, collectively controlled and freely accessible. The ‘communalisation of housework’ demanded by feminist commons theorists is inseparable from the communalisation of housing itself.

Housing under capitalism means rent, mortgage debt, eviction, and ‘regeneration’ that regenerates profit for developers while displacing tenants. Council housing, housing associations, ‘affordable’ rents — all are attempts to manage this contradiction, and all have failed because they leave the wages system intact

Socialism means the common ownership of land and buildings. No rent. No landlords. No ‘property ladder.’ Shelter produced and distributed according to need, not according to ability to pay. This is not a policy to be voted through a council chamber. It is a necessary part of working-class revolution.

BROCKWELL PARK: ECOLOGY AGAINST ‘PARKSPLOITATION’

Brockwell Park is being destroyed before our eyes. Not by neglect, but by commercialisation. Lambeth Council has handed our park to Brockwell Live, a festival operator owned by the private equity firm KKR, managers of approximately £600 billion in assets, with average returns of 18-23 percent. KKR is accountable only to its shareholders. It has no interest in our park, our ecology, or our community.

The result? Up to 32 days of fenced-off, ticketed events. The ‘Great Wall’ erected across public land. Ancient trees damaged. Grasslands turned to mud. And for what? So that profits can be extracted from what was once free space for all, then funnelled through a Luxembourg holding company while Lambeth claims it needs the revenue to ‘subsidise’ the very community events it has now cancelled.

This is not mismanagement. This is capitalism functioning exactly as designed: the enclosure of the commons, the selling-off of things we all use, the subordination of our natural and social landscape to the imperative of profit.

The Green Party will tell you to vote for them to ‘protect’ the park. But ‘protection’ within capitalism means regulation, consultation, planning permission, a slower form of the same enclosure. The Labour Council, meanwhile, has been found by the High Court to have acted unlawfully and irrationally in its handling of these events. Yet they press on.

From a socialist standpoint, we reject the framework that says Brockwell Park must ‘pay for itself.’ Public space is not a revenue stream. Ecology is not a balance sheet. The SOCIALIST PARTY has long argued that capitalism treats the environment as a ‘free good’ to be exploited at no cost to capital. We say: the park belongs to the people who use it, not to the council that administers it, and certainly not to a private equity firm.

Brockwell Park under capitalism is being enclosed by KKR because every space is subject to the logic of the profit system. Labour has managed the park’s enclosure. The Greens would regulate it. Neither questions the system that requires it.

Only socialism can de-commodify public space. Only when production is for use, not profit, can a park be simply a park — trees, grass, birdsong, and the free association of human beings without ticket barriers, security fences, or ‘events strategies.’

LGBTQ SAFETY ON CLAPHAM HIGH STREET

Clapham High Street should be a space where LGBTQ people can move freely and safely. The recent history of violence, harassment, and hate crime in the area is real and must be addressed. But how it is addressed matters.

The other parties will tell you the answer is more police. More CCTV. More ‘hate crime’ legislation. More reporting mechanisms that funnel vulnerable people into the arms of the same criminal justice system that disproportionately arrests, harasses, and imprisons LGBTQ people especially trans people, and sex workers.

The SOCIALIST PARTY has always maintained that the police are not a neutral force. They are, as we have argued since 1904, part of the coercive wing of the capitalist state. Their function is not to protect the vulnerable but to protect property and the social order that produces vulnerability. The modern police force emerged to discipline the working class, break strikes, and enforce the property relations that create the conditions for violence in the first place. As we have consistently pointed out, the police do not prevent crime; they manage its distribution, channelling it away from the wealthy and toward the poor.

The ‘community policing’ advocated by some reformists is no solution. It merely extends the reach of surveillance and control into our neighbourhoods under a friendlier face. The abolition of state policing does not mean its replacement by ‘community policing;’ it means the abolition of the conditions that make policing ‘necessary.’

From a socialist perspective, safety is not produced by force but by different social relations. When housing is secure, when work is voluntary, when gender is not a source of economic precarity, when the ‘family’ is not the enforced unit of social reproduction, then the violence that policing claims to address withers away. The work of collectives like Cradle Community, developing transformative responses to harm that do not rely on coercive institutions, shows us what is possible. But these experiments remain trapped within capitalism, unable to address the structural roots of the violence they respond to.

Policing under capitalism is not a neutral service but the defence of property relations. The police do not prevent violence against LGBTQ people; they manage its distribution, channelling it toward the poor and the marginalised. ‘Community policing’ fulfils the same role, but with a friendlier face.

The socialist alternative is not a different kind of policing but the abolition of the conditions that make policing ‘necessary.’ This is not reform. This is revolution.

WHY WE STAND

THE SOCIALIST PARTY is often called ‘impossibilist.’ We accept the term. We were given it by reformists who thought socialism could be achieved piece by piece, reform by reform, compromise by compromise. Over 120 years, we have watched every such attempt fail or become diluted. The welfare state was built then partially dismantled. Council housing was built and sold off. The ‘right to work’ became the obligation to work for a pittance.

We do not stand for allegedly ‘possible’ improvements within capitalism. We stand for the so-called impossible: a world without wages, without landlords, without police, without states; a world where production is for use, not profit; where the means of life are held in common; where human need, not the accumulation of capital, governs society.

This is not a distant utopia to be achieved after a ‘transition period.’ It is not a programme to be implemented by a party or a state. It is the practical activity of working people abolishing for themselves the divisive and exploitative categories of wage, commodity, property, gender and race.

We do not ask you to vote for us in order to ‘represent’ you in the council chamber. We ask you to vote for us in order to register your rejection of the entire framework of capitalist politics. Every vote for the SOCIALIST PARTY is a vote for the common ownership of the means of life. It is a declaration that you understand that Clapham Park’s problems over housing, ecology, safety, dignity cannot be solved by better management of the same system that produces them.

THE ONLY WAY FORWARD

The other candidates will tell you they can make Lambeth ‘better.’ We tell you the truth: Lambeth cannot be made better while capitalism remains. The council, whatever its political colour, is an administrative body of a class state. It manages the affairs of capital in our locality. It cannot abolish the profit motive. It cannot communalise housing. It cannot de-commodify our parks. It cannot produce safety without force.

Only the conscious, organised working class can do these things. Only when the majority of people understand their interest in the abolition of capitalism and act upon that understanding can we move beyond the endless cycle of reform and reaction.

Your vote for Anya Krycek is not a vote for a councillor. It is a vote for socialism. It is a declaration that you refuse to be bought off with promises of ‘affordable’ rents and ‘community’ policing. It is a recognition that the problems of Clapham Park are the problems of the world system and that their solution requires the revolutionary transformation of that system.

The Patriarch and the mote. (1910)

From the May 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hyndman on compromise ought to be funny. The “International Socialist Review” for February provides the interesting combination. Come, let us guffaw together.

It is a long article and contains the usual verbal hydrogen which bulks so largely and weighs so little; the usual Hyndmanic hysteria and verbal stage-strutting in which the patriarch delights. The smile comes in when one reflects on the little omissions that appear to have been made. As instance : “In order to make sure of retaining their seats in the House of Commons at the General Election, both the Labour Party and the I.L.P. have come to terms with the Liberals in a manner which must shake all confidence in them in the future.” This, of course, is all very horrible, and no doubt deserves all the vituperation of which Mr. Hyndman is capable, but we do not observe any reference to Herbert Burrows’ letter to the Daily Chronicle asking for Liberal support. We agree that “when a body of men returned to Parliament to represent Labour interests exclusively and independently, enter upon a whole series of bargaining with the national and local organisers of one of the great capitalist factions they do an amount of mischief to the whole movement which they do not comprehend ; “but we must confess our inability to discover the remotest difference between that action and the slimy evolution of Quelch and the S.D.P. at Northampton. The Liberals of the boot metropolis are not decidedly differentiated from the Liberals of the rest of this country. On what grounds shall we exclude the Northampton attempted deal from the “whole series of bargainings” ? Logic supplies no answer other than the thoroughly patent fact that the S.D.P. and the I.L.P. differ in nothing but their initials. And even this difference is got over locally by selecting another set, such as L.R.C., T. & L.C., or what not, under cover of which intrigue, chicanery and political poltroonery receive different values. The pure and spotless S.D.P. as a party, tire not in their denunciation of the foul and rotten Labour Party, but no objection is raised to segments of the pure and unspotted former alliancing with the specked and flyblown latter, also in segments.

Without going over ground already covered in our columns we would like to contrast the ponderous piffle of the patriarch with actual recent events. “‘No compromise’ must be our motto and our policy from the first and all through,” he says. Then please explain Camborne, Haggerston, Northampton, etc. “Let us take all we can get, but never let us sink our principles, or lower our flag, for any consideration whatever.” Contrast this with Quelch’s reply to a questioner: “If we cannot get anything better than the Budget, I shall vote for the Budget.” Supplement the latter with Hyndman’s “a Budget which I do not hesitate to declare is as outrageous a fraud upon the people of the United Kingdom as any swindle which even the Liberals have as yet perpetrated—and that is saying a great deal.” Quite interesting, isn’t it? Says Hyndman : “No Socialist can admit the right of the House of Lords to throw out the House of Commons’ Budget, however bad it may be in principle and application.” And again (same article): “I look with sadness, not unmingled with contempt, on the manner in which the Socialists of the Labour Party have surrendered to the capitalist Liberals on the Budget, on the House of Lords and on the General Election.” And so on.

There is quite a touch of sadness in the sentence where he looks back, at the age of sixty-eight, over his thirty years of Socialist effort, and realises that he will not see its fruition in the Co-operative Commonwealth. But does Mr. Hyndman think it will be brought nearer by the advocacy of more Dreadnoughts and the adoption of a modification of conscription, as suggested by himself and jingo Blatchford at Burnley. We who are nearer twenty-eight can join in deploring the non-imminence of the Socialist Republic, but the tears of regret do not blind us to the fact that every year of the S.D.P.’s further existence puts the Revolution back ten. And we are out to smash you. We are young, most of us of the S.P.G.B., but we are awake. We were born slaves, we are slaves now, but we are not going to die slaves if we can help it. Life is very rapid. A little twink of time and we are no more. The sweets of life are very meagre and Capitalism has the larger hand. Capitalism has got to go. The S.D.P. by its program of patches, immediate demands and general piffle, stands, wittingly or no, for its continuance. So the S.D.P. must go too. Every year we knock off its life brings Socialism and sunshine ten years nearer. Says Hyndman in concluding : “It is for us to take care that we hand on the torch of revolutionary Social Democracy … to those who shall in turn take up the splendid task from us.” There are signs, however, that this curiously named fire-brand will burn itself out even before Hyndman & Co. relinquish it, and then perhaps the path may be the more clearly seen in the absence of its reeking smoke and uncertain flicker.

Wilfred.

Correspondence: Reply to James Fletcher. (1910)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reply to James Fletcher.

The Social-Democratic Party in Germany occupies a similar position to the party similarly named here. Its programme (the Erfuter Program) consists of the theoretical part, based on the teachings of Marx—the Materialist Conception of History, the Surplus Value theory and the Class Struggle—and the practical, consisting of reforms and palliatives ; and we allege that the whole existence of the German S.D.P. has been spent in the advocacy of those reforms, to the detriment of Socialist propaganda. In the early days of our party we held the erroneous view—still entertained by the S.L.P. of Gt. Britain and America—that the German workers must obtain certain reforms because the revolution from feudalism to capitalism was not complete. But we found that conditions there make a Socialist Party quite as possible as here. A small number of members of the German S.D.P. take up our position and work for the formation of a straight party. As to our use of the expression “our German comrades,” it were a sorry state of affairs were we not in a position to so express ourselves, while Bebel’s action in 1906 speaks for itself.

Revolution’s Reply to Reform. (1909)

Pamphlet Review from the December 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The answer to “Arms for the Workers: A Defence of the Programme of the Social-Democratic Party.” (E. C. Fairchild, Lon. Organiser S.D.P.)

“By common consent, Socialists agree that the control of the National Executive by the working class must precede the use of land and the instruments of production for the common good. Conflicts between the classes in society are but struggles to secure possession of the central authority that decrees the law, which registers or changes the conditions of property holding. Control of politics means control of property.”

Thus Mr. Fairchild opens. But he is incorrect. Politics is the science of government, or, the contests for power of government. Our author means neither the control of the science nor of the contests, but the control of political power. Then Control of political power is political power. Henceforth we shall transcribe the sentence : “Political power means control of property.”

The palliator then deals with his subject under sectional headings. We will do the same, using his headings.

The Principle Common to Socialists

“We cannot escape restraints upon our freedom imposed by our life in the past. Custom and tradition weigh as heavily in politics as in other departments of human activity.”

Is this the language of regret ? It seems so, for as a consequence :

“The political party that appealed to electors upon a statement of object only, would soon find the average man so far rational that he wished to know the means by which the object would be realised.”

Exactly. Were it otherwise Socialists, optimists as they are, might deem the fight hopeless. But reformers dread the question, and for fear of it will not appeal to the electors upon a statement of object only. We read:

“For this reason, the Socialist Party in every country has formulated a number of proposals, variously known as palliatives, platforms, or stepping-stones.”

The object of Socialists, reduced to the utmost limits of brevity, is—Socialism. Not so sententiously, but with more information, the S.P.G.B. states its object as “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.”

The “rational” man at once asks “Is present society so based ?” No. Then how is the property change to be effected ? Mr. Fairchild himself supplies our answer to the dread question.

“Control of the National Executive by the working class must precede the use of land and the instruments of production for the common good.” 

Then we must get control of the National Executive, or, to lift ourselves above the S.D.P. loose verbiage, must capture the political machinery. Why ? Because it is “the central authority that decrees the law, which registers or changes the conditions of property holding.” Because, to use a less questionable phrase, “control of the National Executive” means political power, and “political power means control of property.”

The answer is clear and easy. Why then, does the reformer try to put ‘”the electors” off asking the question by giving them “a number of proposals” which are not Socialism to think about?

Of course, the reform defender has the alternative that his language is as loose in this passage as elsewhere, that these “proposals” are not formulated to avoid the question, but to answer it—and the use of the term “stepping-stones” would bear him out. But to submit these “palliatives” as the answer to the question “how is Socialism to be attained?” is to claim that they are indeed stepping-stones to Socialism ; that they are revolutionary, and undermine the capitalist basis of society. Perhaps we shall see later if he dare take up this position.

Concerning the proposals we read :

“While the private possession of land and capital continued, these proposals could be applied by a government representing the interests of the capitalist class, or by a government acting on behalf of the workers and having Socialism as its aim.”

So we are asked to imagine that the working class have obtained that “control of the National Executive” which “must precede the use of land .and the instruments of production for the common good” ; have captured that political power which means “control of property” ; are installed (in the persons of their “Socialist” representatives) as the “central authority that decrees the law, which registers or changes the conditions of property holding.” And this “Socialist” Government, with its control of property, its power of “changing the conditions of property holding”—what does it do? Does it announce the fructescence, the fruit-time longed for by the tired labourers of “myriad meetings” ? Does it, having attained all that is needful for the purpose—control of the armed forces and the other instruments of government—change the property condition from private to common ownership, and so establish Socialism and free humanity from the curse of wage labour and all its concomitant evils ? Oh no ! At the moment when exploitation should cease for ever it begins to dabble with Eight Hours Days and Minimum Wages !

But this seeming idiocy can be easily accounted for. The palliator puts forward “palliatives” in order to catch votes. When we are invited to suppose a government “having Socialism as its aim” installed at Westminster, we are really asked to imagine the most complete realisation of the “get there at any price” policy. The pseudo-Socialists have captured the seats, but, as our author knows well enough, they have not captured one shred or vestige of political power. As a matter of fact, as far as essentials go, the position remains unchanged. The working class have control of the “National Executive,” but only in the sense that they had it previously. Formerly, in their ignorance, they elected their masters ; now, in their ignorance, they elect men of their own class who are not honest enough, or intelligent enough, or brave enough, to come before them with the plain statement of Socialist object only, but have formulated a number of proposals which were perhaps intended to carry them into power, but have only carried them into place. The minds of those who elected these misleaders have undergone no change, and since it is the mind of the electorate which controls the National Executive, the control of this “central” authority means exactly what it did before—the perpetuation of capitalist control of property, decreed by working-class ignorance.

The “government having Socialism for its aim” occupies a false position. Seated on fraudulent pretensions, it is utterly impotent. The most honest of it members thought to snatch a victory for Socialism on the votes of those opposed to the revolutionary principle, and now they find that, true as it is that “political power means control of property,” it by no means follows that political power and political place are synonymous, or that property is controlled in the interests of those who have control of the “central authority.” That depends upon their consciousness of those interests.

In order to have obtained political power for working-class interests it was necessary for the working-class representatives to draw their strength from an electorate cognisant of those interests, instead of which, in the case we are invited to imagine, they are upheld by a working-class electorate with the capitalist mind, who have given them no mandate for revolution, no authority for changing “the conditions of property holding.” If it is true, then, that “conflicts between the classes in society are but struggles to secure possession of the central authority that decrees the law which changes the conditions of property holding,” then the recognition that this “Socialist” government which has become the “central authority,” is powerless to interfere with the property condition of present society is a confession that the palliator’s vote-catching policy is fighting the battle on wrong lines.

Without political power, and therefore without control of property, our “government having Socialism as its aim,” is reduced to its Minimum Wage bill, its Eight Hour act, and so on. But whether these things are “applied by a government representing the interests of the capitalist class, or by a government acting on behalf of the workers,” the result must be the same. “Political power means control of property,” but, given the property conditions, the economic laws which arise out of them are beyond its reach. Political power may sweep away private ownership of the means of production, but so long as that property condition continues, the exact degree of misery of the workers as a class will be determined by industrial development, and will be unamenable to palliatives.

Concerning the central idea of the section, that “the principle common to Socialists” which our palliator observes “beneath, or running through,” the various proposals, is “the extension of collective or communal action for the general well-being, in place of the use of national resources for private gain,” this implies “control of property,” which only political power can give the workers. To say that they have this political power is to say that they have the power to abolish private property in the means of life and to establish Socialism; to say that they have it not is to say, on our opponent’s own showing, that they cannot extend “collective or communal action for the general well-being,” or, as he earlier put it, use “land and the instruments of production for the common good.” To maintain that they have that political power which should accompany political place (and which is only important to the workers because it confers the power to change the property conditions of society) and yet allow “the private possession of land and capital” to continue while they apply their “palliative” is to rebuke the lie that they have Socialism as their aim, and expose themselves as willful perpetuators of capitalism.

Further, so far from true is it that there is any “principle common to Socialists” running through these proposals, that the principle common to capitalists—exploitation—is implied by and writ large over most of them, for example the Eight Hours Day and the Minimum Wage.

The Socialist in Politics.

There is little in this section that Mr. Fairchild has not touched upon in the previous one. He claims that “the items of the Socialist (!) programme are a recognition that the claims of society are greater than the rights of private property in land and capital.”

Are they, indeed ! It seems to the present penman that if anything could have denoted the utter abandonment of all and any rights, claims or hopes by the workers, it is to hear “Socialists” talking of the application by “a government acting on behalf of the workers, and having Socialism as its aim,” of Eight Hour Days, Minimum Wages, feeding necessitous children, and (p. 2) “public control of those agencies which supply public needs, on lines that will secure release from the burdens imposed by the payment of interest to idle money-lenders.”

What touching solicitude for the property owners’ welfare !

“The Socialist in politics,” it seems, is bound to formulate a palliative programme. We take the opposite view.

We hold that only by the change of the property basis of society from private to common ownership can the workers’ position be improved. “Political power means control of property.” To have political power we must have political place, but we may have political place without having political power. But since it is not political place which controls property, that alone is useless to us, and its attainment would prove calamitous for working-class interests. For in such a case the “Socialist” government must be on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand they would be pushed in the direction of revolution (the direction of changing the property conditions of society) by the “Social-Democrats” and others who believed they had won power for Socialism, on the other hand they would be expected by the vast majority of their constituents, who had elected them upon reforms and for reforms, to institute those reforms they had promised.

Mr. Fairchild’s statement that, “while the private possession of land and capital continued” the reforms “could be applied by a government having Socialism as its aim” indicates the direction he anticipates they would be forced to move in. But we shall show presently that these “palliatives” will not palliate, that all the economic laws which govern commodities are against the “palliatives,” and must inevitably render them powerless to affect the economic condition, of working-class existence. If we are correct in this; if, being applied the “palliatives” prove to be inoperative, what will be the result ? They will be detected for the misleaders they are and incontinently thrown overboard. Should they, on the other hand, attempt the revolutionary property change, they will quickly find out what it means to be without political power. Their political castle, built upon the rotten foundation of a non-Socialist electorate, will collapse at the first blast of their own trumpets, crumble beneath the tramp of their own feet.

Whichever course the “government having Socialism as its aim” should follow, the result must be the utter waste of all the precious working-class enthusiasm and weary effort—blood and treasure in the very essence—and consequent apathy and loss of confidence in themselves among the workers.

In order to avoid this misfortune, the Socialist Party of Great Britain takes the field without palliatives or other vote-catching devices. Holding that the duty of “the Socialist in politics” is to build up a position upon a thoroughly sound, revolutionary foundation, it discourages support from those who do not hold its principles. It is with this object it has framed a rule (31) to the effect that all or none of the vacant seats in any particular ward or constituency must be contested and that all must be elected or none allowed to take their seats. Our political place must be the measure of our political power.

A. E. Jacomb.

To be Continued.

Editorial: Principles or Expediency (1939)

Editorial from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

From its formation the S.P.G.B. took a firm stand for “principle” against “expediency,” and, unlike other organisations which also professed attachment to principle, the members of the S.P.G.B. really meant what they said and acted up to it. The controversy was not one of personalities but of a fundamentally different view of things. Yet it could truthfully be said of the advocates of expediency that most of them were not very clear about the implications of their attitude. They would say that they realised the necessity of remaining loyal to Socialist principles, such as opposing all capitalist parties, but when it came to applying the principle they would constantly find some urgent and special, but only “temporary,” reason for suspending the principle. In practice this meant that temporary became permanent, and the principle was forgotten.

The issue would arise then in just the same manner as it does to-day. There would be a Tory Government in office, and the alleged Socialists in the I.L.P. or Labour Party would say, “In principle we are as much opposed to Liberals as we are to Tories, but it would be a good thing if we were to promise to help the Liberal opposition if in return they will promise some social reform legislation.” To the superficial short view it looked good business, but the price that had to be paid far outweighed the immediate advantage. In order to help secure the victory of the Liberal Party the other parties to the bargain had to drop all pretence of Socialist propaganda and devote their efforts to convincing the electorate that Liberal social reforms were the thing that really mattered. The first duty of the Socialist Party is to make Socialists, and the policy of expediency meant the almost total suppression of Socialist propaganda.

Needless to say, when a Liberal Government was in office the expediency-mongers often transferred their allegiance to the Tory Party.

The Socialist Party condemned expediency and showed how it confused, demoralised and divided the workers. Men and women, just beginning to learn that capitalism is the enemy, would suddenly be told that it was urgently necessary to support one section of the capitalists against another. They learned to suspect their leaders, often wondering whether their chief allegiance was to their own party or to the Liberal or Tory Party. Expediency also divides the workers among themselves. It was all very well to support “Free Trade” when helping the Liberal Party, but workers in industries directly affected by foreign competition thought they had just as good a case for supporting tariffs, and the Tory Party, which advocated them. And how could the worker who was told to vote for a capitalist party and its programme of reforms go on believing that “Socialism is the only hope of the workers”?

Helping Capitalists to Power

Socialists, taking their stand on Socialist principles, went on pointing out the harm of sacrificing the substance for the shadow, the achievement of Socialism for the momentary petty concession from the capitalist class. They showed from past and present history how that policy produced only disappointment and betrayal, and prevented the growth of the Socialist movement. Above all, Socialists insisted on the hard truth that all capitalist agents who are elected to Parliament use their power to protect and preserve the capitalist system against the interest of the working class. Elect a Liberal reformer to-day on the strength of his promises and you will find him to-morrow using the armed forces to defeat a strike.

It is just the same in foreign affairs. Every capitalist and Labour politician swears his love of peace, but it only needs a realisation on the part of the capitalists that their interests are threatened to see the peace-loving politician declaring war. Liberal and Labour Party leaders, prior to 1914, were the peace-lovers; but war found them in coalition with their erstwhile Tory enemies, waging capitalist war, enforcing conscription, and so on. Only a brief while before President Wilson launched America into the War he had been elected—with the support of alleged Socialists—on an explicit promise to keep the country out of war. Chamberlain, the “peace-maker” of Munich, may be wanting war at no distant date, and if he does his way will be made easier by his reputation as a peace-lover. His present opponents in the Liberal and Labour Parties will be found helping him to win over the population to a policy of war. Expediency will again ha’ve helped the capitalist class to their task of hoodwinking the workers. Yet expediency has its surface attraction. The alleged Socialist who hails Chamberlain for preserving peace has apparently a substantial claim, just as has the opponent of Chamberlain, who urges unity with other capitalist groups, to “defend democracy.” But whichever group has its way the workers will be divided, will be deceived into entrusting control of the political machinery in capitalist hands, and will have their attention taken away from the basic fact that it is capitalism which produces wars, capitalism which stands in the way of Socialism.

Once Socialists give up principle for expediency they lose their way and get entangled in the intricate maze of capitalist political intrigue. Worst of all, they become divided, attaching themselves to different and rival sections of capitalist movements. Wars about capitalist interests masquerading as wars for democracy or nationalism are the most tragic example. Expediency in the last War naturally led to so-called Socialists fighting on the Allied side for “democracy” or “self-determination” and on the German side for “culture against Russian barbarism.”

The Czechs, who in the last War declared that they were being loyal to Socialism by fighting to dismember Austria and gain Czech independence, have their counterpart to-day in the Ukrainian “Socialists,” who are prepared to back Hitler-Germany in order to secure Ukrainian independence from Poland. One of them told a News Chronicle correspondent (News Chronicle, December 9th, 1938): “Better an alliance with the devil than continued Polish oppression.” Very short-sighted, of course, and incompatible with Socialist principle, but so is all expediency.

Marxism and United Fronts (1939)

From the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists recognise the need for working class unity; we are enthusiastic supporters of a united front. But we cannot, and will not, support unity at all costs. It is true to state that a real united front of the working class can only come into being when it is based on the solid foundation of Socialist knowledge. We are, therefore, according to our Socialist principles, obliged to oppose united fronts of the character so often presented, because the object which is aimed at is not of a Socialist character, nor is the basis of the suggested unity Socialist knowledge. Our battle-cry is, therefore, not unity at all costs, but unity on Socialist principles, the unity of an intelligent, politically organised, and determined working class for the overthrow of class society.

Some people may think that this is a very nice ideal, but it is not practical—it is not possible to get a majority of the working class to act along the lines indicated; therefore, it is essential, in order to stimulate activity, to seize upon some issue on which temporary agreement can be obtained between the various parties. In order to justify this form of activity our opponents often quote the Communist Manifesto (wrongly, in the sense that the Communist Manifesto never referred to the modern united front). “The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties . . .” (page 21, M. Lawrence edition). This section of the Manifesto is assumed to provide the justification for all kinds of absurdities in connection with the class struggle in general and unity in particular. It is put forward as the Marxian basis of action in the form of an unchanging truth, a dogma. It is inferred that, were Marx alive to-day, he would urge affiliation to the Labour Party and united fronts for everything and anything, as do our misguided friends, the C.P. and I.L.P. In passing, it might be to the point to add that it seems strange that people who are continually changing policy and tactics on the ground of being dialectical should fail to see (or is it refuse to see ?) that, by virtue of the dialectic, that which was applicable during 1848, and even remained so until 1870, is no longer suited to meet the needs of 1938 (so far as advanced countries are concerned).

If one reads the Communist Manifesto carefully that is made clear, e.g., the joint preface by Marx and Engels, 1872, states (Section 4): —

“… Although in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties therein enumerated.”

Since Section 2 deals with the same matter, it is also included in the joint remarks of Marx and Engels.

We accept the Marxian case, not because of any blind homage to either Marx or Engels, but because they discovered social truths the correctness of which history has proved up to the hilt. The Marxian approach to the social problems places a key, or tool, in the hands of the working class, by which they can understand past social history, the present, and from this glean valuable knowledge to guide their future revolutionary actions, and thereby accomplish the task of overthrow more quickly.

When Marxism is applied, not as a dogma, but as a beacon light to illumine the proletarian highway, then it will be realised that no fixed and unalterable tactics are possible, and also that the particular conditions in any given situation will determine the details of the course to be pursued. Sections 2 and 4 were, and still are, suited to meet the requirements of the infant proletariat in their struggles in countries which have still to overthrow feudalism and establish capitalism. If we view past history we find that man’s development socially was in proportion to the development of his tools. At the stage where private property became established classes were born and class struggles commenced. The ruling class were always the most important class economically. The rise of the modern capitalist :class made them economically the most important class. But they, in order to perform their function, i.e., carry social development a stage further, were compelled to establish their political supremacy in order to permit the breaking down of the feudal fetters which restricted further social progress. In other words, the historic mission of capitalism is to create a great proletariat, eliminate the peasant, establish social production, and centralise control. To accomplish this task the capitalist class had to carry out the revolutionary overthrow of feudalism. If we keep in mind the fact that under the feudal system there were several classes, e.g., aristocracy, peasants, capitalists, and the then developing proletariat, we will see that the class struggle assumed a fourfold aspect. Further, it would not have been possible for the modern master class to have fought its battle with the feudal aristocracy without the aid of both peasants and workers. Again, capitalism was a necessary phase of social development; it therefore represented progress. In addition, so long as the class struggles were of a many-sided character, the issue between the capitalist class and the working class could not become really clear. By way of indicating that this was the view of Marx, a quotation from “Revolution and Counter-Revolution” may serve : —

“The working class movement itself never is independent, never of an exclusively proletarian character, until all the different factions of the middle class, and particularly its most progressive faction, the large manufacturers, have conquered political power, and remodelled the state according to their wants. It is then that the inevitable conflict between the employer and employed becomes imminent and cannot be adjourned any longer . . .” (page 8).

When the capitalist class have attained their political supremacy, then the class conflict is speedily reduced to the clear issue between the two great classes, the last two classes to appear in social history. When one considers that the Communists then in existence were merely a handful, and also that the establishment of capitalism would provide the social, economic, and political conditions which would make the Socialist proposition understandable to the working class; then the correctness of the urge to the Communists to assist their enemies, the capitalist class, in the destruction of their enemies, the feudal aristocracy, to put it in the words of Marx : “In short, the Communists everywhere support all revolutionary movements against the existing social and political order of things” (i.e., the abolition of feudalism). The Manifesto also makes it clear that the Communists should not conceal their aims, i.e., the abolition of capitalism; also that their independence should be preserved.

Contrast this with the programmes of the Labour Party, I.L.P., and so-called Communist Party, who, if they ever had any Communist aims, disdain to reveal them. Their aims are, and always have been, such as any Conservative or Liberal could, at a pinch, vote for. To take a few of the more prominent issues : Work for the workless, 40-hour week, defend Austria, Czechoslovakia, democracy, etc. These are issues which the modern master class are interested in from time to time; there is nothing revolutionary about any of them.

Suppose we put the question: Was feudalism abolished here? The answer is yes. Were the social and political conditions necessary for working class emancipation created ? Again, yes. 

Then it follows that the possibility for the organisation of the working class on an independent basis, and of an exclusively proletarian character, have been in existence for many years. Our task is, therefore, clear: to organise the working class for overthrow, to create proletarian organisation based upon Socialist knowledge for the purpose of social revolution. Instead of doing this our united fronters are even fanatical in their avoidance of revolutionary activity. They squander the courage, enthusiasm, and generosity of the working class in the advocacy of Labour programmes which are essentially Liberal in character; then, on special occasions, become the brazen defenders of British capitalism. It is interesting to note that Engels, in a letter to Bebel, expressed strong views on the question of unit)? at all costs: — 

“Unity is quite a good thing so long as it is possible, but there are things which stand higher than unity. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one’s life long against the alleged Socialists than against anyone else, one cannot greatly grieve that the struggle has broken out” (this refers to the party split) (page 402, Correspondence).

The letter dealing with immediate claims, by Marx and Engels jointly, to Liebknecht, Bracke and others, deals scornfully with the suggestion of dropping the issue of Socialism in order to attract the workers with a programme of immediate aims. Quoting the German S.D. programme as follows, “Let no one misunderstand us. We do not want to give up our party and our programme, but we think that for years hence we shall have enough to do if we concentrate our whole strength and energy upon the attainment of certain immediate aims which must in any case be achieved before the realisation of the more far-reaching ends can be thought of . . .” Engels replies as follows, “The programme is not to be given up but only postponed — to an indefinite period. One accepts it, though not really for one’s self and one’s own lifetime, but posthumously as an heirloom to be handed down to one’s children and grandchildren. In the meantime one devotes one’s ‘whole strength and energy’ to all sorts of petty rubbish and the patching up of the capitalist order of society, in order, at least to produce the appearance of something happening without at the same time scaring the bourgeois.”

How that fits exactly the so-called Communists to-day is self-evident. The Socialist Party refuses to be drawn into this campaign of peddling rubbish; our opponents, who are bankrupt of a case against us, can only resort to abuse and such absurd assertions as: “The S.P.G.B. do not take part in the day-to-day struggle,” etc.

When the question of the day-to-day struggle is examined, it is evident that no member of society, irrespective of whether worker or master, can escape the day-to-day struggle; it is the class struggle, in its non-revolutionary aspect. We, as members of the working class, are very much concerned about such things as the means test, slums, poverty, etc. We realise that, even within capitalist society, our poverty can be aggravated, hence the reason why we endorse the need for the working class to struggle against the encroachments of capitalism where possible. We also know that even the most diehard Tory Government must introduce reforms from time to time; and that, even were all that which has been promised to the workers by Tories, Liberals, Labourites, or so-called Communists (even in their wildest days prior to their extreme Conservatism), granted, we would have poverty, slums, unemployment, etc. As Socialists we want much more than they will ever give, viz., Socialism; consequently we logically concentrate on the quickest means of obtaining it. It is not our job to assist the master class in running society; in the course of doing so, national and local legislation and administration is essential. It is true to state that to-day possibly 99.9 per cent. of the time of Parliament and town councils are concerned with affairs of no interest or concern to the working class; this is so, irrespective of the personnel who form the Government.

We are Socialists, not careerists; therefore, we take our stand on the need for spreading Socialist knowledge. Keeping this in mind, we know that, in proportion to the growth of Socialist knowledge, the working class will find that they will be even more successful on the question of conditions of labour, etc. Try and visualise a May-day demonstration of Socialists, one hundred thousand strong; their banners bearing revolutionary slogans, their ranks the living manifestation of solid unity based upon Socialist knowledge, their action indicative of determination to abolish capitalism. Because you are intelligent, strong and united, you are feared, therefore respected; meantime you are politically ignorant, disorganised and weak; consequently you are not feared, but despised. When the working class are so organised then the words of Marx, “Let the ruling class tremble at a Communist revolution,” will be fully realised. The ruling class, in their panic, will be ever more ready to concede your demands; you will be in a position to demand. Now, in most cases, you only beg. The remedy for all the ills, unemployment, slums, poverty, war, etc., is Socialism; it should be established at the earliest opportunity. To accomplish this it is essential that a majority of the workers become Socialists. We, of the S.P.G.B., are doing our utmost to convince the workers of the need for Socialism; our task is made more difficult by the propaganda of confusionists who call themselves Socialists; however, we will win in the end. The importance of this task should not be under-rated. As Engels said (“Socialism, Utopian and Scientific”): “To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historic mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions, and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.” In other words, make Socialism first, then the rest (unity) will follow, and the working class will soon get rid of capitalism.

John Higgins

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VIII.] (1912)

From the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VII.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VIII.

It now remains but to consider the general conclusions which logic demands shall be drawn from the seven aphorisms which have occupied our attention. For this purpose a brief recapitulation will be useful.

The implication of our first clause is that

1. The basis of the present social system is the private, sectional ownership of the means of living.
2. This property condition divides society into two classes—possessors and non-possessors.
3. The class of non-possessors must exist where there is a set of social conditions which, involving at the outset the sale of their labour-power in the competitive market, makes them the sole producers of the wealth of society, without giving them any share in the control of that wealth. This condition is expressed by the phrase “the enslavement of the working class.”

Our second aphorism follows as the logical deduction from the first. It asserts that as society is divided into two classes, one of which lives upon the labour of the other, there is an antagonism of interests between the two classes, and that this antagonism of interests induces a class struggle.

The implication of the third is that the antagonism of interests, and therefore the class struggle, can only be abolished by the abolition of the cause—the condition which the first aphorism states is the base of the whole social fabric; that is, the ownership of the means of living, and the substitution therefor of common ownership of these things.

The next aphorism pronounces that the workers, in emancipating themselves, will emancipate the whole of humanity “without distinction of race or sex” and it is next declared that only the working class itself can be the instrument of this emancipation.

The sixth aphorism states that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, is merely the instrument for maintaining the present social basis and the oppression of the workers which necessarily proceeds from this basis, and it deduces therefrom the conclusion that the workers must organise, consciously and politically, first, for the capture of this machinery of government, and secondly, having done this, to convert it into the agent of emancipation.

The implication of the last aphorism is that, as there are only two classes, and therefore only two class interests, which are diametrically opposed, the political party of the workers must be opposed to all other political parties.

That is a brief summary of the implications of the seven aphorisms which have been set out in these pages.

Now what attitude do logic and common-sense impose upon those who believe these implications to be fundamental truths?

First of all they must elevate them into the position of principles, of guides for their every step and activity in the direction of the economic betterment of their class. Their course of action will then be clear.

If it is true that the basis of present society is the class ownership of the land, factories, and other means of living, then every feature characteristic of, and peculiar to, the working class as such—the weary toil, the insecurity of livelihood, the grinding poverty, the enforced idleness, the cruel cheating of childhood’s pleasures, the hopeless outlook of old age, the thousand and one brutal, humiliating and painful details that make up the miserable total of the workers’ cankered existence—can be referred to that class ownership of property.

The very central point of the workers’ attack, then, beyond all dispute, is this social base. the class ownership of the means of life. The possessors must be dispossessed.

If it is true that the machinery of Government, including the armed forces, exists only to preserve that social base, then, clearly, the barrier of the machinery of government must be surmounted before the social base can be interfered with. The method, therefore, must be political while and where that method is possible. The political power must be captured through the ballot, in order that the control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, shall pass into the hands of the working class.

We must enter the field of political action in order to capture political power, with the object of using it as the means of dispossessing the propertied class.

If it is true that all political parties are but the expression of class interests, then political parties must be exactly as antagonistic and irreconcilable as the interests they express. The logic of this is inexorable. And if it is true that there are but two classes in society, and that their interests are diametrically opposed and irreconcilable, then the political party of the working class must be at all times and in all places, utterly opposed to every other political party.

Hence the policy of the party seeking working-class emancipation must, under conditions identical with those obtaining in this country, be identical with that expressed in the final clause of the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which declares that: —

“The Socialist party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.”

This is the only policy for a party holding the principles set forth and explained in these articles, the only policy of a party (under the given conditions) seeking working-class emancipation, the only policy for a party aspiring to establish “a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community,” the only policy of a Socialist party.

Let every man and woman of the working class, therefore, who is interested in the welfare of that class, who is weary and sick at heart with the miserable tragedy of the workers’ position, take up the premises of the Socialist principles and examine them, Let him (or her) take them up as a challenge to his intellect, and either convince himself of their truth or prove their falsity. Let him then bring his actions into line with his convictions, rejecting the Socialist principles if he finds them unsound, but adopting them and cleaving to them if he finds them true and unassailable.

True, these principles and the policy they dictate offer nothing but battle and victory—nothing but the last arduous campaign of the class struggle—and the fruits thereof. But it is sufficient. It must not be exchanged for the power and pelf of office and a place near the fleshpots of Egypt for a few who dub themselves Labour leaders.

We who know the class to which we belong, and build up all our hopes on our faith in the capacity of its intellect, know that it will not be so exchanged. We know that the working class, as a class, is capable of judging all things for itself, and of marching on to its emancipation under the guidance of its own avowed principles, without leaders or use for leaders, to its emancipation.

A. E. Jacomb

THE END

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VII.] (1912)

From the November 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VI.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VII.

As all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

The political machine, as we have endeavoured to show, is essentially an instrument of class government. It does not anywhere come into existence until society has assumed a class form — until there has developed within society a class who govern and a class who are governed.

The political machine exists to preserve order in society according to the existing basis of that society; but just as there can exist sections with opposing sectional interests within the ruling class of a given society, so that political machinery can be wielded in different directions to further the several interests of those warring sections of the ruling class – and that without in any way threatening the social base.

Political parties consist of those who organise to gain control of or at least to exert their influence upon, the political machine, in order to advance their interests as they understand them.

But if it appears from this that capitalist political parties rather indicate sectional than class interests, it must not be forgotten that this is merely because these parties, comprising sections of the ruling class, are at one with the basis upon which their position as a ruling class is founded.

Though it is true that each of these sections will use the political machinery in a slightly different way, this difference can only apply to matters of superficial detail. In anything deeper than this every political party among the ruling class stands for the interest of that ruling class.

This is inevitable. Before these sections can exist as such those comprised in them must be a ruling class. Before the landed interest can clash with the manufacturing interest both the landowner and the factory-owner must be established in privilege on a private property basis. Before Tariff Reform or Protection can become burning questions of the day, those whose sectional interest is wrapped up in either detail of capitalism must first have their deeper interests identified with one and founded upon the capitalist system.

The class interest, therefore, is paramount; in the last resort it overshadows all sectional interests. Indeed, the fact that sectional interests loom so large in capitalist party politics at the present day is no proof of the importance of those interests but is evidence only of the weakness of the pressure exerted politically by the opposing class.

The truth of this is seen in the tendency of capitalists to “close the ranks” against any political party which, in fact or in their idea, threatens their class interest, and the increasing pressure of the organised political party of the workers is destined to reveal with the utmost clearness the fact that capitalist parties stand primarily for capitalism and for the capitalist class — is destined to reveal it by exhibiting them a united party at bay with revolution.

There are certain so-called political parties such as the I.L.P., the B.S.P., and Labour Party, and in Scotland, the S.L.P. who, it might be argued, are not covered by the above remarks, but in reality these have no separate political existence. Two of them are nothing but appendages of the Liberal Party, one is trying which wing of the capitalist bird of prey it can find most comfort (if any) under. As for the remaining group, they have postponed political action until it will not be required — until the workers have gained in the teeth of the political machine all that they could gain with it. They have cut their political throats with the anarchist razor, and by this contribution to anarchy, to say nothing of other matters, have added their service to the preservation of capitalism.

As a matter of fact all political parties must express the interest of one or other of the only two classes in society. In this connection, Frederic Engels finely says (“Origin of the Family,” Kerr & Co. p. 211): “For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class.”

This is strictly true, and therefore, not only was it inevitable that these pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties, composed as they are, of a working class element which is “not ripe for its economic emancipation,” should express capitalist interests, but it was inevitable that they should express the sectional brand of capitalist class interest appertaining to the particular phase of capitalism by which they are immediately environed – namely, the manufacturing interest, as expressed in the Liberal Party.

Hence, despite their pretended hostility at the moment, the eventual destiny of the B.S.P. is the Liberal fold – just as soon as its leaders can get their price.

The political activities of all who are not ripe for their economic emancipation must necessarily express capitalist interest, for the simple reason that they are helping to maintain the existing order of society. This is so even if they managed to gain admission to a sound, revolutionary organisation. There they work out the ruling-class interest by weakening the revolutionary attack – probably the worst form opposition to working-class emancipation can take.

The interests expressed or reflected, and striven for, by political parties, therefore, fall into two main groups – capitalist and working-class. These are diametrically opposed, since they involve wage-slavery on the one hand and emancipation on the other. The position of the party seeking working-class emancipation, then, must clearly be one of uncompromising hostility to all other political parties. It does not materially matter whether these parties are organisations of working men with capitalist ideas or avowedly capitalist organisations with a working-class tail.

The object of the last is to secure working-class votes, because, as Engels puts it: “The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage” – and the vast bulk of that suffrage is working-class. In this object they find, increasingly as the workers get a dim idea that their masters’ politics are not their own, great assistance in the pseudo-Socialist parties. These parties, led by men on the look-out for billets and personal aggrandisement, spread confusion by teaching the workers that the difference between themselves and the capitalists is merely one of personality, and not of class, principle and system; that the difference between their interests and their masters’ is so slight that for the “immediate end” of getting a Labour leader into Parliament, that difference can be composed, the battle stopped, and the two rival classes work together politically.

This is, where it is conscious, the worst form of treachery, in as much as it prevents the working class realising the fundamental antagonism of interests between themselves and their exploiters. It prevents them, therefore, becoming “ripe for their economic emancipation,” and from organising politically as a class, apart from and hostile to those who hold them in bondage, ever seeking, working, fighting for deliverance from their chains.

Again, as Engels says: “Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class.” The ballot is indeed the means of gauging the working-class strength and maturity, and for that reason it must be kept free from compromise and the entanglement of alliances. It must stand as the clear index of the progress made by working class consciousness, the clock ticking off the last moments of our long slavery. To this purpose it is scared. If, however, it is to have any significance of this character, it must indicate a working-class mind free from the obsession of capitalist illusions. This is a final reason why the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party.

The political struggle of the workers must of necessity be waged along class lines, for it is one form of the highest phase of the class struggle. It is on the political field that the sternest battle of all is to be fought. That fight is not for mere votes as such, but for the enthroning of the REVOLUTIONARY IDEA in the seat of power. The enemy, then, is no less the political ignorance of our own class than the educated master class, therefore we must attack that ignorance, even when it is organised in so-called working class political parties, just as relentlessly as we attack the orthodox parties of our masters.

A.E. Jacomb

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VI.] (1912)

From the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorisms IV & V.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VI.

As the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

The machinery of government is composed of the governing bodies, from Parliament down to the Parish Councillor the Board of Guardians; the instruments of the law, from the Lord Chief Justice down to the “Labour” J. P. and the armed forces, from the army and navy, down to the policeman, the jailor, and the common hangman.

To say that all these exist merely to conserve to the master class the plunder they wrest from the workers, looks, to the man who views things through the glasses the masters provide for him, very much like “drawing the long bow,” but it is nothing of the kind.

It is often argued that the hangman is necessary to square accounts with the murderer of the working-man’s daughter, that the policeman is the sweet little cherub who sits up aloft and keeps watch and ward over the teapot the prosperous proletarian banks his surplus money in.

Well, what if he does? What if the hangman is the only protection of sweet and innocent seventeen? It does not follow, by any means, that this is anything more than an incidental — that is why these appendages of the present social system exist.

As a matter of fact it is in the very nature of the “State” to wear a mask — to assume a physiognomy that is not, in reality, its own. It exists to maintain “order.” That is the fundamental hypocrisy of its existence. It exists in a false atmosphere of impartiality, as something above the division of class interests, and therefore as competent to deal impartially with petty class squabbles.

But first of all it postulates a social condition which is entirely in favour of the class whose instrument it is, and the basis of that social condition in the present day is the private ownership of wealth.

The “order” which the State maintains must be in harmony with that property condition. Anything which is out of harmony with that basis is disorder, and must be suppressed. Therefore, of course, “order” must include the robbery of the working class.

Under that condition the State and its machinery pretends to be the servant of the whole of the people, but it is ridiculous, on the face of it. The fact that some working men have a little money in a teapot, or that the system breeds a certain number of maniacs or desperate beings against whom society at large needs protection, only serves to obscure the real reason for the maintenance of armed forces.

It is not the private property of the workers that the armed forces of the nation exist to protect. It is not even the private property of the master class that it is primarily maintained to conserved. It is the central point, the pivot, of the present social system — the private property institution which is to be protected.

It is this private property institution that is the vital spark of the capitalist organism, hence its preservation unruptured is of incomparably greater importance than the protection of present property from petty pilferers.

As a matter of fact the State is itself an instrument for the violation of private property, as witness the “Death Duties.” One section of the ruling class may use the machinery of the State to plunder another section, and that without straining a joint of it. But every atom of its composition is formed to resist any attack upon the private property institution.

It was shown in an earlier chapter that the basis of society as at present constituted is the ownership by the master class of the means of living. At the time society was placed upon this basis the machinery of production was in a very different stage of development from that to which it has attained to-day. The steam engine was not invented, and machinery was practically unknown.

The vast strides made by the development of the means and instruments of production have brought about a veritable industrial revolution, but the basis of the social system has not shifted one jot. It was ownership by a section of society of the land, material, factories, and implements of production in the beginning of the capitalist system — it is the same to-day.

How could it be otherwise? The very working of the system itself precludes the broadening of the private ownership so as to include all the people, for the steady tendency of competition has been and is to narrow that base by crushing successive circles out.

The only way in which the base can alter is in the direction of common ownership, and in this direction there is no halfway house. Bits of common ownership cannot exist in a world of private ownership by a class. The case is not the same where, even though private ownership is the rule, it takes the form of ownership of the means of production by those who use them instead of by those who do not. In such a system certain portions of the woods and pastures, for instance, might be commonly owned, as indeed they were under feudalism, and people owning their own products would derive benefit from them.

But where the workers have to sell their labour-power in a competitive market in order to live, the benefit of all property, whatever the legal form of property may be, will accrue to the master class. However it may be called, they have control through their system, which determines that the wealth produced by the working class shall surrender the whole of their labour-power to them at the cost of its production.

If there were any possible way in which the social base could be gradually changed from private ownership to common, it is doubtful if all the armed force could prevent that gradual change taking place — but we should have seen a commencement made long ere this. As a matter of fact not one shred of commonly-owned wealth can be pointed to. Our Post Office is under the control of the master class, who use it to sweat profit out of the workers for the relief of the taxpayer, and to provide fat sinecures for their own sons. Even the “nation’s pictures,” and the public parks, are under the control of the capitalist class, who decide how they shall be conducted, and when they shall be opened or closed. The people have nothing at all to say on these matters.

It is quite impossible, therefore, for the base of present-day society to undergo any process of evolution. Society itself does, but the present base of society cannot. It started in the same form that it now possesses, and it must retain that form until it finishes its career. It came in as private ownership by a class, and as private ownership by a class it must go out.

While it is true that in the long run the social system is determined by the stage of development of the means of producing wealth, the social system and this stage of development may, nevertheless, at a given period be totally out of harmony. Indeed, at recurring periods it must be, at least so long as society is divided into classes. The reason is that while the development of the means of production is not under men’s control, the social system, within certain limits, is. The industrial development, which men cannot arrest, is ever shifting the social centre of gravity, changing dominating values. Thus, at one time, whoever controlled the land controlled society. As industry developed, however, the implements and machinery became of greater importance. This change of values brought another class to the surface – the owners of the factories, machinery, and raw materials. But the industrial development which brought to light this new class did not arrange a social system under which they could reach their highest pinnacle of power; it gave them strength by altering the values of the sources of wealth it gave them education by making the stage of development of industry incongruous with the social base. It prepared the way for a social change but the actual work of bringing the social basis into line with the method of production was left to the initiative of the class whose interests demanded it.

And at the same time the old ruling class, whose interest lay in maintaining the system under which they were paramount, opposed the attack upon that system to the utmost,

The social system, then, is within certain limits under the control of men, Each system that permits of class distinctions favours a given class, and that class naturally employs every means to prevent the system from falling.

It is for this purpose that the present ruling class maintain their army, navy, and police. By means of these they hold back social change until the social basis of sectional private ownership has got to be quite out of harmony with the means of producing wealth by social effort. It follows, therefore, that the revolutionary class must dispossess the capitalists of these armed forces before they can change the social basis.

The machinery of government is controlled through Parliament. Parliament provides the money without which no army or navy can be equipped or maintained. Parliament, which pays the piper, calls the tune to which Jack Tar and Bill Adams must dance. The moral is plain : the working class must organise for the capture of Parliament.

When they have possession of this instrument they will have control of the armed forces, and will be in a position to proceed to the abolition of private property in the means of living and the organisation of industry on the basis of common ownership of the machinery of production and of the product.

The organisation must be consciously for this purpose. That is to say, the organised workers must understand thoroughly the object for which they are organising. The strength of the revolutionary party does not depend, in the time of crisis, upon the number who have been voting for fragments “they believe in,” but upon the number who understand what the Revolution means, and whose adherence is founded upon this understanding.

What is the position of the man who has voted with the Socialist party because he thought they stood for, say, nationalisation of the land, which he believes in, when he finds that they do not stand merely for that by itself, but for the abolition of private property in every social necessary ? He withdraws, and discouragement is bred of his defection. But suppose large numbers have been induced to give support to an object that they do not understand, and therefore cannot believe in, what is the position of a party attempting to take revolutionary action on such a miscalculation of strength? The result might very well be disaster.

Even if it were no worse than a fluctuation of strength at the polls, that would be sufficiently disastrous to condemn such pandering to ignorance, for Socialism must have no backwash, but must clearly indicate, in every trial of strength, the steady advance which is inevitable to it.

But there is another and vastly more momentous reason why the Socialist organisation must be free from political ignorance.

One of the most fruitful causes of working-class apathy in political matters in the past few years has been the way in which so-called Labour leaders have neen bought over by the master class.

A sort of wholesale instance of this is the present Labour (!) Party in the House of Commons. In order to attach to themselves the vote of “organised Labour,” which was raising a cry for a party representing working class interests as the “organised workers” understood them, the Liberals assisted certain “Labour” candidates to scrape into Parliament in divisions where a split vote between “Labourites” and Liberals would let in the Tory.

The result is that “organised Labour” is treated to the spectacle of a “Labour” party putting down amendments that they dare not move for fear the Tories should side with them and defeat the Liberal Government.

There is only one safeguard against this sort of treachery. The working-class party must build-up its strength only on the votes of those who understand the working-class position and working class politics. If this is done the master class will realise that they are up against democracy: that the representative is only the representative; that the “rank and file” crule the roost, and that as the elected person cannot switch votes to one side or another he has nothing to sell. In such case they will realise that all there is left for them to do is to fight him.

All the reasons here set forth demand the utmost clarity of issue. Only the revolutionary is a fit instrument to work for Revolution. It would be placing the Socialist Party in a false position to have them occupying seats to which they had been elected by the votes of those who were not revolutionists , for in the first place they would have to pander to these un-class-conscious voters in order to retain their seats; secondly they would be unable to obey the commandments of their revolutionary coadjutors, for if they did it would involve the alienation of those who did not stand for revolution.

The revolutionary and the reformer are as far as the poles are asunder. The one stands for the abolition of what the other clings to. It is folly, then, to attempt to unite the two in one political organisation. Each must fight for his interest as he understands it – therefore they must fight each other. The place for the reformer is in the master’s camp, for however they may differ as to matters of detail, they do agree to the fundamental point – the necessity for the maintenance of the present system.

It is the duty, then, of Socialists to see that the workers organise consciously for the revolution. To this end they must keep the issue clear. They must do all they can to discourage those who do not understand the meaning of revolutionary politics from attaching themselves to them, either through the political party or through the ballot. They must at all times clearly put forward the principles of Socialism, asking only for the acceptance of those principles. Anyone who intelligently accepts those principles will need no inducement in the way of vaporous promises of reform and palliation. He becomes part of the revolutionary movement, an atom of vital force helping to push it along, instead of an addition to the dead-weight of ignorance and apathy which retards the progress of any forward movement.

Let us stand for Socialism alone, then, without obscuring our teaching and our object with other issues, and therefore without lumbering our backs with paralytics who cannot walk and who won’t be carried. Thus only can we build up a political organisation composed of the sound, healthy material necessary for our purpose. Thus only can we base our actions upon exact knowledge of our strength.

A.E. Jacomb