Why Socialists Oppose the Vietcong (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vietnam is the latest of the left-wingers’ adopted fatherlands. Before Vietnam it was Algeria, before that it was Cuba, and so on back to Russia. This support for the Vietcong does not depend on what is actually going on in Vietnam, but is rather an expression of the left-wingers’’ dissatisfaction with certain aspects of modern society. To that extent it is irrational.

Nevertheless those who support the Vietcong imagine that they are Marxists and it is in pseudo-Marxist terms that they rationalise their support for this nationalist movement whose aim is to set up a state capitalist regime in the South similar to that in the North. The Vietcong is not a socialist movement, and by no stretch of the imagination can it be said to have anything to do with Socialism. But since those who shout for “Victory for the Vietcong” have dragged in Marx and Socialism, we must at least refute their arguments and state why Socialists do not support the Vietcong.

Left-wingers’ use two basic arguments. First, that socialists should support any movement, even if it is not socialist, that weakens “American imperialism” which they say is the main threat to social revolution throughout the world, just as Marx supported moves against Tsarist Russia. Second, and this comes from Lenin, the Vietcong and workers in the West are fighting the same enemy – imperialism – and so we should support each other.

It is true that in the middle of the nineteenth century Marx saw Tsarist Russia, the “gendarme of Europe”, as a great threat to the further social progress of mankind. He felt that if Russia overran western Europe it would crush the democratic movement and put the social revolution back for years. Therefore, he was ready to support any moves that might weaken the power of Tsarist Russia. He supported Britain, France and Turkey in the Crimean war. He stood for an independent Polish state, to be a buffer between Russia and the rest of Europe. He did all he could to expose the pro-Russia policies and intrigues of Lord Palmerston. These may seem odd activities for a socialist – and, indeed, we have criticised Marx for them. Marx argued that before Socialism is possible society must pass through the capitalist stage. But this is no automatic process; it depends on the outcome of human struggles. Russia was “reactionary” in the proper sense of the word in that it was a threat to the development even of capitalism. Marx opposed Tsarist Russia, not because it was the strongest capitalist power, but because it was the strongest anti-capitalist power.

Looking back now we can see that Marx was over-optimistic as to the prospects of a socialist revolution in Europe. In time the capitalist states of western Europe grew stronger and the Tsarist Empire weaker, finally to be destroyed along with Austro-Hungary and Imperial Germany in the first world war. Before that even, Russia in a bid to keep its armed forces up to date had become indebted to the capitalists of France and Belgium. Well before the turn of the century we can say that conditions had changed since Marx’s day. Capitalism was firmly established as the new world order. Russia was no longer a threat. The task of socialists was even clearer: to oppose all wars and nationalist movements and to work to build up a world-wide workers’ movement with Socialism as its aim. This has always been the policy of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Today capitalism quite clearly dominates the world, in Russia and China as well as in the West. To talk of “American imperialism” as the main threat is to play the game of state capitalist Russia and China. Every up-and-coming capitalist power finds the world already carved up by the established powers. If it is to expand its influence it must clash with these powers, as Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia have found and as China is now finding. All of them, in their time, have beaten the “anti-imperialist” drum, that is, have opposed the domination of the world by Britain and France and later America. Mussolini talked of Italy as a “proletarian nation” in a class war against the “bourgeois nations”. Nazi Germany stirred up Arab and Latin American nationalism. Japan advanced the slogan of “Asia for the Asians”. Russia, too, and now China, like Germany before, vociferously denounce Anglo-French-American imperialism.

Naturally socialists, wittingly or unwittingly, do not allow themselves to be used as tools of some capitalist state, as most of those who shout for the Vietcong are (some know full well what they are doing). Socialists are opposed to world capitalism and to governments everywhere.

Lenin could not believe it when he learnt that the German Social Democrats had voted for the war credits in 1914. Later he worked out a theory to try to explain it, his theory of imperialism. Basically, he argued that as profits were greater in the undeveloped parts of the world capitalists were eager to invest there; this brought the capitalist states into continual conflict over the division of the world. Part of the “super-profits” of this imperialist exploitation, were used to pay higher wages and provide social reforms for sections of the workers at home. They were thus led away from revolutionary socialism towards opportunism.

This theory is mistaken on nearly all counts. It has not been proved that the rate of profit was higher in the colonial territories. There is a much simpler explanation for capitalist expansion into the undeveloped world in the forty or so years before the first world war: the need to secure sources of raw material for the expanding industries at home, and then to secure strategic points to protect these sources and the trade routes to and from them. As for Lenin’s explanation of reformism it is the purest nonsense. To suggest that workers share in the proceeds of colonial exploitation is to reject the Marxian theory of wages which says that wages are the price of labour-power.

But this argument was an essential part of Lenin’s theory. For on it he based his strategy of support for anti-imperialist nationalist movements. If they succeeded, he believed, they would deprive the imperialist state concerned of its super-profits and so also of its ability to buy off its workers. Deprived of their share the workers’ standard of living would drop and they would once again become revolutionary, affording a chance for a Bolshevik-type vanguard to seize power.

This is typical of Lenin’s thinking, to rely on some factor outside of the development of the working class itself to create the conditions for social revolution. It fits in well with his contempt for the abilities of workers and his view that they should be manipulated by a self-appointed vanguard. Needless to say this short-cut to Socialism is just as much a dead-end as all the others.

Of course defeat in Vietnam, and the whole of South East Asia, would have serious consequences for American capitalism. That is why they are fighting. It would deprive them of access to many raw materials, but more important it would shift the balance of power around the pacific in favour of Chinese state capitalism.

It is not true that the Vietcong and workers are fighting the same enemy. The Vietcong are fighting American capitalism. The interests of workers are opposed not only to American capitalism but to capitalism everywhere including Russia and China. Victory for the Vietcong, as we have already explained, would shift the world balance of power from America to other capitalist powers. This is not something that is in the interests of workers, or something that they should support. There is no issue at stake in Vietnam worth a single worker’s life.

The Socialist Party, then, is opposed to the Vietnam war, as to all wars. We do not take sides. Nor are we hypocrites like those who cynically use all normal people’s abhorrence of the burning of women and children (as if the Vietcong did not use flame-throwers) to get them to support one side in this war. Such people do not really want an end to the killing; they want it to go on till the side they support has won. Let them at least be honest and stop trying to fool people with their phoney anti-war sentiments.

Adam Buick

Letter: Lenin and Socialism (1968)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Mr Editor

Re the Review of Boudin’s book Theoretical System of Karl Marx, (Socialist Standard, August 1968). Can we have some evidence in support of the statement that the “seizure of power in Russia in 1917 was allegedly with the object of imposing Socialism on a population not ready for it”? With Boudin, I can say “what I have read of Lenin’s says just the contrary”.

In the late Twenties a small volume appeared entitled On the Road to Insurrection. This consisted of a series of letters to his colleagues by Lenin from his temporary hiding place. In one of these he deals with the objections raised by Kamenieff and Zinovieff to his proposal to overthrow the Kerensky government. Among these was the point that, even if the insurrection succeeded it would not be possible to establish Socialism. Lenin’s retort was that it was not a question of establishing Socialism, but of gaining control of the industries in order to prevent the evasion of taxes by their proprietors.

In a critical review of the position in Russia a few years later the Socialist Standard wrote “They (the Bolsheviks) promised a war-weary people peace – and, wonder among politicians, kept their word!”

The slogan of the insurrection was “Peace, Bread and the Land!” If woolly headed people outside Russia jumped to the conclusion that Socialism had been established overnight, that is hardly Lenin’s fault. For the slogan, “Socialism in one country” we are indebted to Stalin, chief executioner of insurrectionists.

Eric Boden 

Cromer, Norfolk

Reply:

It is quite correct that Lenin did not claim that the object of his Party was to introduce Socialism immediately, but then the article in our August issue (A Marxist Textbook) did not say that he did: the reference to “overnight” is our reader’s interpolation.

What Lenin wrote in April 1917 before his Party seized power, in The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution was:

  Our immediate task shall be not ‘the introduction of socialism’, but to bring social production and distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers Deputies (Italics Lenin’s).

(It might be wondered what ‘Social production and distribution’ could mean if not Socialism, but Lenin attached some other meaning to it.) Lenin’s case was that the introduction of Socialism was not to be immediate, but he and others made it quite clear that the seizure of power was to result in Socialism. The question how this was to happen was dealt with by Maxim Litvinoff in his The Bolshevik Revolution written in March 1918. He wrote: –

  In the meantime it is certain that if left by foreign enemies alone, the Soviet rule will in no distant future establish a Socialist regime in Russia.

On the following page he indicated that it would be “soon”. What is this but the concept of “Socialism in one country”? Litvinoff was not some uninformed looker-on. He was used by the Party as its spokesman abroad and was appointed by Lenin’s government as its official representative in Britain.

There were many other evidences of Lenin’s association of the seizure of power with Socialism. One was the Russian Constitution drafted by the Communists and adopted in 1918. It bore the title “Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic”. Another was Lenin’s own description of the seizure of power as “the Socialist Revolution” (Left-wing Communism by Lenin, May 1920, CPGB p. 44).

Of course we agree that the Communists gained support on the slogan “Peace, Bread and the Land”, not on seeking a mandate for Socialism. They knew that they could not get a Mandate for Socialism, but Lenin scoffed at the idea of waiting for Socialism until “the intellectual development of all the people permits it”.

In a speech he made in November 1917 he said: –

  The Soviet political party – this is the vanguard of the working class; it must not allow itself to be halted by the lack of education of the mass average, but it must lead the masses, using the Soviets as organs of revolutionary initiative . . . (Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed, Penguin edition).

This was the accepted line of his party and Lenin’s government was not deterred by the fact that it could not even get a mandate for its immediate policy – hence the dictatorship. After the seizure of power a Constituent Assembly was elected which produced a majority of deputies opposed to the government, whereupon the government in January 1918 suppressed it. It was after that suppression that Litvinoff was holding out hopes of a “Socialist Regime in Russia” in no distant future.

Editorial Committee

Capitalism Since the War (1968)

Book Reviews from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Western Capitalism Since the War by Michael Kidron – Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 36s.

Theories of Imperialism by Tom Kemp – Dobson, 42s.

Both these writers are left-wing lecturers at Hull University. Michael Kidron is a prominent member of the ‘International Socialism’ group, while Tom Kemp is editor of Fourth International—the ‘Socialist’ Labour League’s theoretical journal. Kidron’s little book (which he rightly calls an essay) concerns itself with the economic trends which he can see, or thinks he can see, developing in Western Europe and North America. Kemp, on the other hand, has produced a commentary on the theories of imperialism elaborated by a number of writers—Lenin, Luxemburg, Hobson, Schumpeter; but the reader catches glimpses of what the SLL thinks is happening to capitalism today.

Slumps and crises are a permanent feature of the capitalist system. So, for relatively long periods, it often displays a marked tendency to stability. When this happened in the 1890’s one of its effects was to lend weight to the arguments of the revisionists, led by Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein claimed that capitalism was becoming more adaptable and was able to stabilize itself by means of the credit system, employers’ organisations and other devices. In the same way, since the Second World War, other theories have been put forward to explain the fact that no generalised slump has developed and one of the most .fashionable has been the so-called permanent arms economy.

The theory of the permanent arms economy, patented by the I.S. group, is a variety of Keynesism rather than Marxism. Keynes argued that government spending generally could iron out the ups and downs of capitalism. Kidron suggests that a particular type of government spending has achieved this:

  The impact of arms expenditure on stability and investment is no less direct. It is heavily concentrated on the capital goods industries which are responsible for the big swings in the traditional business cycle. It provides a floor to the downswings and has, in the US, been deliberately used in this way.

But the recent build-up in unemployment (which has now remained above the half a million mark in Britain for more than eighteen months) has obviously given quite a knock to the I. S. leaders. Kidron says in his preface that he completed his manuscript in March 1967. At that time he could still write that any “elements of instability are just a smudge on the horizon. So far, the weight of the arms economy has been on the side of stability, charging and recharging the more immediate causes of high employment and well-being.” A year later it is a different story; John Palmer, another of their prominent spokesmen, told a meeting in Hampstead on 13 May last that the permanent arms economy was coming to an end:

  The arms economy is no longer the provider of the capitalist system. Capitalists are now economising on arms spending. The boom years in Europe and America are a thing of the past.

The coming period, he said, would be one of crisis and instability.

The point is that capitalism docs not need a great deal of stabilising anyway— since it is not as unstable as I.S. claims. They subscribe to the underconsumption myth, that left to itself capitalism would collapse as it would not be able to sell what it produced. But, if you hold this view, you must explain why capitalism has not collapsed long ago. The answer Michael Kidron came up with was that capitalism would have collapsed had it not been for arms spending. It is true that consistency is not one of the I.S. group’s strongest points but their statement that the so-called permanent arms economy is coming to an end ought to mean that they think capitalism is about to collapse. For some reason, John Palmer did not give a date.

In fact, what is collapsing is not capitalism but the myth of the permanent arms economy. It has been discredited along with Keynes generally. It is a measure of I.S.’s theoretical bankruptcy that, faced with this, they fall back on the “crisis of capitalism” to create the conditions for social revolution, rather than the growing understanding and organisation of the working class.

The ‘Socialist’ Labour League, of course, never tires of telling us that the capitalist system is in a state of “crisis”. According to them, capitalism has been in this condition for years but recently it did look as though the unbearable tension (and the semi-hysteria it gives rise to in the League) might get some relief when the SLL central committee solemnly announced that the socialist revolution had started, (see Newsletter 25/5/1968). Tom Kemp, however, is relatively restrained in his book and, since he is a Trotskyist, the most interesting sections are those concentrating on Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin came up with the idea that it was imperialism which had given rise to the opportunist trends in the social-democratic movement.

 The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others.

Kemp writes that although “there seems no need to accept in a literal way what Lenin wrote about the relationship of the aristocracy of labour to the working class as a whole as valid for the present day”, nonetheless “Marxists have generally followed Lenin in accepting that the ‘aristocracy of labour’ in the metropolitan countries owed its privileged position to the existence of imperialism.”

As with Kidron’s theory, the Socialist Party is in fundamental disagreement with this view. In fact, we reject the Leninist concept of “bribery” as being as crudely mistaken as is the supposedly stabilising influence of the permanent arms economy. For a start, the capitalists have nothing to bribe the socialist movement with. But objections such as this are incidental in any case. The most important error Lenin and his followers made was to imagine that there was any need to bribe the working class into supporting the war effort in their various countries. The workers then, as now, were committed to capitalism. Come war or peace, crisis or slump, their support of the capitalist system has never wavered.

By refusing to face up to this, Lenin contributed to the mystical belief in the revolutionary aspirations of the workers which remains a characteristic of all shades of neo-bolshevism. It is this which accounts for the obsession with leadership which is displayed by groups like I.S. and the SLL. The revolutionary potential of the working class is being diverted by right-wing labour leaders, they argue. Hence the need for alternative “revolutionary leadership”.

The Socialist Party rejects this idea as well. What is needed is not leadership (the labour movement is rotten with “revolutionary leaders” as it is) but a working class equipped with an understanding of Socialism. The left wing are a valuable asset to the capitalist system, thanks to the confusion and disillusionment they produce. As a force for maintaining capitalism they are far more potent than any “bribery” or economic strategy which the ruling class, could resort to.

B. C.

Winstanley – A Man Before His Time (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gerrard Winstanley was born at Wigan in 1609. Little is known of his life. After school he went to London to work in the cloth business. Like many others he was ruined in the Civil War and withdrew to the country. Somewhere in the Thames Valley friends gave him a home in return for which he acted as their cattleman.

In 1648 his interest turned to politics and he wrote The New Law of Righteousness, a sort of Communist Manifesto of his day. In 1649-50 he worked and wrote for the Diggers. In 1652 he published The Law of Freedom in a Platform, a call to Cromwell to lay the foundations of a ‘communist commonwealth’. In this he sketched a classless society, a blend of the radical democracy of the Levellers, the ‘communism’ of More’s Utopia and his own secularism. Like More he advocated an economy without money, organised around public storehouses to which each would bring the product of his labour and from which each should satisfy his needs.

Although his book lacked More’s literary imagination, in the history of the development of socialist thought it was more significant, since not only did it spring out of a ‘workers’ movement, but actually proposed a workable plan. More clearly than any who preceded him, he saw that the source of all exploitation was private property. He said “labour is the source of all wealth and no man ever grew rich save by appropriating the fruits of others’ work”. He also saw that this exploitation was the source of all oppression and war. Economic inequality degrades those who must submit to it and infests them with a consciousness of their ‘predestined’ inferiority. “The enslaved worker looks upon himself as imperfect and so is dejected in his spirit.”

Although Winstanley was sympathetic to the Levellers, he was not one of them. He did not want peasant ownership but ‘community life’, by which he meant both team work and ‘eating at a common table’.

Although he never quite abandoned the idea of a God, this God bore no resemblance to that of any religion; he described God as follows:

  "God is reason. Neither are you to look for God in a place of glory beyond the sun, but within yourself and in every man. He that looks for a God outside himself and worships a God at a distance, worships he knows not what".

He knew organised religion as the instrument of the owning class. In his The Law of Freedom he stated

  “this doctrine (religion) is made a cloak of policy by the subtle elder brother to cheat his simple younger brother of the freedoms of the earth. For saith the elder brother “The earth is mine, and not yours, brother. You must therefore not work upon it unless you will hire it from me and you must not take the fruits of it unless you will buy them from me by that which I pay for your labour; for if you should do otherwise, God will not love you and you shall not go to heaven when you die but the devil will have you and you must be damned in hell. You must believe what is written and what is told you and if you will not believe, your damnation will be greater.” The younger brother, being weak in spirit and having not a grounded knowledge of creation nor of himself is terrified and lets go his hold in the earth and submits himself to be a slave to his brother for fear of damnation in hell after death and in hopes to get heaven thereby—so his eyes are put out and his reason is blinded.
   “So that this divining spiritual doctrine is a cheat, for while men are gazing up to heaven, imagining after a happiness or fearing a hell after they are dead, their eyes are put out that they see not what is their birthright and what is to be done by them here on earth while they are living.”

Thus, two centuries before Marx, Winstanley said in plain English “religion is the opium of the people”.

Eva Goodman

On the Wrong Track (1968)

Arthur Horner

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Arthur Horner, General Secretary of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1946 to 1959 and a leading member of the Communist Party died on September 4 at the age of 74. We do not doubt his sincerity but his life shows what mistakenly believing Socialism to exist in Russia can lead to. We give below an extract from his obituary in (The Times 5/9/68) which shows how the so-called Communist Party’s anti-war stand and industrial militancy comes and goes in accordance with the foreign policy interests of state capitalist Russia. Horner incidentally, to his credit, opposed the first World War and was thrown into jail for doing so; but in the second: 

  “When the civil war broke out in Spain, he came out solidly on behalf of the Spanish Government, declaring that it was not merely a rehearsal ground for the next world war but an important stage in the class-struggle which transcended national frontiers. He brought all the aid he could to the International Brigade and on one occasion toured the battlefront. In general his policy was naturally the same as the Communist Party’s which he personally expressed by supporting any move which made for increased friendship with Russia and combined action to prevent aggression.”

  “When the war came he sincerely believed that the situation had suddenly altered and that it began another pointless struggle between rival imperialist powers rather than as a fight to preserve freedom and democracy. However by 1941 and with the attack on Russia he was using all his influence to raise coal production. He attacked the Government’s wartime policy of ‘Dual Control’ of the mines which he said meant that the main responsibility for production remained with the owners, and called for the earliest possible nationalisation of the whole industry and, as an important first step forward, the maximum use of the pit committees. At the same time he was careful to condemn absenteeism and unofficial strikes, saying that although the Government and the owners were usually to blame, the men should resist provocation to strike.”

Threat of Famine (1968)

Book Review from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Famine: 1975! by W. & P. Paddock (Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 42s.)

The authors, an agronomist and a retired State Department official, consider the threat of the most catastrophic famine in world history. While agriculture is now almost static in the undeveloped world, still falling death rales and continuing high birth rates — in some countries higher than had been thought physically possible — combine to produce enormous increases in population, such that already nearly half the people in undeveloped countries are under fifteen years old. Food production can be greatly increased in many ways: birth rates can be greatly reduced, as they have been in the unique case of Japan. But the authors claim that there is no prospect of this being achieved in time to avert prolonged famines involving billions of people. The situation is even more serious than the misleading official statistics indicate.

In the book, the capitalist system is accepted unquestioned, but most of the causes of the present situation can be ascribed to a world economic system not designed primarily to cater to human needs. For example. 95 per cent of world agricultural research expenditure is in the developed world (non-tropical soils). The results of this research cannot he applied in the undeveloped world (tropical soils).

From 1975 on, America will not be able to provide the required food to the “hungry nations" in addition to that needed for domestic and commercial use. It is assumed that Canada, Australia and Argentina will not provide any significant quantities. So say the authors cynically, the "hungry nations" must be divided into three categories: those to be abandoned as hopeless (India, Haiti, Egypt), those which will manage to survive without aid (Libya, Gambia), and those in between which should receive food (Tunisia, Pakistan).

The possession or lack of food supplies could replace that of nuclear weapons as the dominant factor in power politics. We should be glad for one mitigating factor in the chaos and misery of the coining decades, though: "The Time of Famines can be the catalyst for a period of American greatness". This illustrates the depth of cynicism of the book which nevertheless contains some useful information.

S. D. S.

Democracy By Decree (1968)

Book Review from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Experiment in Industrial Democracy by Flanders, Pomeranz and Woodward (Faber and Faber, 45s.)

This book studies the John Lewis Partnership, a group of department stores and supermarkets employing 17.000 people, that has for fifty years run “an experiment in industrial democracy”. Its introduction did not come as a result of pressure from below. Rather it was the brain-child of Spedan Lewis, the son of a store-owner. The scheme was introduced at Peter Jones, an unsuccessful shop Lewis had taken over from his father. Spedan Lewis believed his father’s shops had prospered by giving good value. It could be improved “if more of its resources were allocated to better pay and conditions, which would attract good workers and encourage them to work well”. The scheme succeeded and was extended to the stores he inherited from his father in 1928. The group has continued to prosper so that:

   Turnover has more than doubled over the past ten years, and profits have more than kept pace . . . Partnership department stores have also been more successful in increasing sales than comparable stores outside.

In a society where goods arc produced to be sold with a view to profit, success can only be measured in terms of sales and profits. In this respect Lewis' scheme has made the grade.

What about the “industrial democracy", then? It consists in the main of elected councils, journals, profit-sharing and welfare schemes. The study shows that employees are more concerned with questions of wages and working conditions than with commercial policies. In fact they have the normal attitude of workers rather than of “partners”. Not that we would expect it to be otherwise. The workers' attitude to trade unions is fairly representative of the industry. Few of the shop workers are believed to be members of USDAW. while the most highly organised are the central London delivery van crews in the TGWU.

The profit-sharing part of the scheme comes up against the same snags in that the workers, having to look after their daily needs, tend to sell the shares issued them. So that whatever the intentions of the firm, it forms part of their wages rather than a stake in the company. Partners opt out:

  The partnership now operates a licensed stock-dealing pool which handles small transactions and arranges to place the considerable quantity of stock which is 'renounced' each year .by partners as soon as they become entitled to it.

One table shows that in January 1966 £13,999,090 or 29.5 per cent of the firm’s capital was issued to outside investors. £5,136.120 was 5 per cent Second Cumulative Preferred Ordinary Stock "most of which was originally issued to the partners under the profit-sharing scheme". This benefits the business and safeguards outside shareholders as follows:

  This part of profit-sharing mainly takes the form of shares which provide a continual flow of new capital, and which rank last in the capital structure, so that the Partnership can offer the best possible security to outside investors, while remaining independent of them for a considerable part of the fresh funds required by an expanding business.

In practice the scheme has served as a means of regulating the employer-employee relationship to get the co-operation of the latter for the benefit of the former.

Capitalism nowadays needs an efficient and enterprising working class running production. Their participation in making decisions has to be tolerated to the extent that it aids the smooth running of industry. It is nonsensical to think in terms of industrial or political democracy in isolation from social activity as a whole. Only in a society which the means of life are held in common will democratic control by society over its affairs be achieved.

Joe Carter

Bolshevism (1968)

Book Review from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

A History of Bolshevism by Arthur Rosenberg (Anchor Books. 14s.)

This book, first translated into English in 1934, has now been republished. When we reviewed the German edition the Socialist Standard (January 1934) [we] said that it was “a striking confirmation of the stand taken by the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the Russian upheaval and the historic role of the Bolsheviks". Rosenberg, who was till 1927 a leading member of the German Communist Party, concludes, we said, that the Bolsheviks were “the executors of the testament of Peter the Great. To them has fallen the historic task of solving the backwardness of Russia. They are accomplishing this through the institution and development of State capitalism".

The book is a must for all who wish to understand the nature of the Russian revolution.

Marxism versus Maoism (1968)

Book Review from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Beliefs in Society: The Problems of Ideology by Nigel Harris (Watts, 15s.)

Once you've ploughed through the first three, analytical chapters, written in the almost incomprehensible language that is associated more with New Left Review than International Socialism (which Harris edits), this is a very good book.

Harris starts his analysis front the materialist conception of history (“which identifies social classes as the product of a competitive struggle for scarce resources and a social division of labour: the most important beliefs within society are seen as related to this basic struggle, and thus to class"). Ideologies, or systems of beliefs, “relate to the arena o! social conflict, to the purposes of groups competing for scarce resources". They don’t come from nowhere and to no purpose. As examples, Harris takes British Conservatism. Russian Marxism-Leninism (so-called), and Asian, mainly Chinese, nationalism.

He shows how Marxism, originally a theory of the self-activity of the working class in the industrialized parts of the world, became “the conservative ideology of a new class society, a body of formalized doctrine designed to justify the existing nature of society and to leave complete freedom of action to its leaders". The only criticism we would have of this chapter is that Harris plays down the difference between Marx’s views of the self-emancipation of the working class and Lenin’s advocacy of a vanguard party as a necessity even in advanced capitalist states. Indeed Harris almost denies that this was a central part of Lenin’s political theory. But if it wasn’t, why did the Third International lay it down as an organizational must for all its affiliates? Despite Harris’ protests, Lenin did pave the way for Stalin.

Harris re-iterates that for Marx Socialism was not "a tactic for forced economic development under State control” but a society in which the working class will have achieved its freedom:

  Now Marxists identified the industrial proletariat as the sole agency for achieving socialism (and therefore, socialism was only an appropriate aim in developed countries where the proletariat was a majority), not just because it was poor, but because of its role within the economy, because it sustained and developed the industrial economy by its own efforts, because it was concentrated and organised in the major cultural centres, because it learned discipline and the advantages of interdependence, because by its experience it had the ability to run the economy.

Thus to be used by people, such as the Chinese Communists, working in predominantly peasant countries, with no working class to speak of, Marx’s views would have to be revised. Inevitably, in a retrograde manner. In China the result was a theory, disguised in Marxist terms, very similar to the pre-Marxist Narodnik (or Populist) revolutionaries in Russia against whom Plekhanov, Martov and Lenin had argued.

  What would this “regression" entail? A belief that the intelligentsia plus peasants could produce a revolution: that revolution could create socialism; that ‘nationalism’ completely encompassed socialism, that the ‘people’ encompassed the proletariat, and that the local national struggle was the key to the progress of mankind; that the country concerned could industrialise without undergoing capitalism; that socialism was a peasant way of life rather than an emancipated developed society.

Li Ta-chao (see review of Meisner’s book in May Socialist Standard) began this revision and Mao finished it. It is interesting to note that for Maoists Marx’s “workers of the world, unite" has become “oppressed peoples of the world, unite!"

   Mao has revised Marxism to such a degree that it cannot really be considered to be merely a local “application”: the essence has disappeared. What constitutes revolution is not the most advanced urban masses securing their own emancipation by their own efforts, but guerrilla warfare by the least advanced rural groups, operating outside the ordinary social structure over many years, in order to seize power and begin industrialisation. A would-be ruling élite, dispossessed and alienated from the status quo. within a decaying agrarian social structure, fits naturally into Maoism, although even more naturally into Castroism which was not part of Marxism-Leninism in its revolutionary phase in Cuba. Activism and populism provide the dominant themes.

“Guerrilla warfare", Harris points out. “takes us straight back to Narodnik thought, to the revolutionary minority seizing power in the name of the people—despite the people—to the traditional coup d'état rather than social revolution”.

This is exactly the analysis we in the Socialist Party have made, but we are more consistent. Such guerrillas are enemies of the international working class, to be denounced as such. Harris (though not in this book) gives them, e.g. the so-called National Liberation Front in Vietnam, “unconditional" support. Why? He’ll have to do better than say Marx supported some nationalist movements in the 19th century, for the simple reason that the 20th century is not the 19th century.

Adam Buick

This Business of Gambling (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a corner of a busy Manchester belling office sat a frail, elderly woman concentrating all her menial energy on the day's horse racing. She was about 70, with wispy grey hair and a face lined by a life time of wage slavery. Every week she goes to this same office, to play up her meagre pension in a ceaseless struggle to rise above the Plimsoll Line existence laid down by government statisticians. 

After a life on the wages treadmill, she is now trying to get some easy money from this betting business which everyone seems to be having a go at. Adjusting her rolled gold framed spectacles, which have a habit of falling askew through worn hinges, she grimly studied all the facts and figures of form, ignoring the hubbub around her, and floor strewn with losing betting tickets, sporting pages of the various dailies cast away in disgust by those who had lost, and the steady drone of the race commentator as he went through race after race ritual . . .  “They’re going down” . . .  They’re at the post" . . . “They’re under orders”. . .  "They're Off" and the result on which they all hung, especially if there were a photo finish with its added agony of waiting. But she was used to it all now.

Scribbling down her final selections, she handed in the vital stake money, received her ticket and returned to her corner to await the outcome. Her hands trembled slightly as she snapped shut her handbag containing only one more ten shilling note. But she tossed her head defiantly at the thought of yet another week of penury if she failed to find a winner in the next race. She was no coward — and look at those Chinese waiters from the restaurant downstairs, how brave they were — always laughing, even when they lost, and those Negroes from Moss Side—fearless gamblers all. Besides, she felt some fellowship for all these people, who, like herself, were trying desperately to alleviate their poverty.

Long before she started coming into this betting office, she had been tired of ekeing out on her pension. But. still, this so called easy money was proving very hard to get. Especially as her bank was so weak she soon got broke and a gambler without a stake is as helpless as a bricklayer without a trowel. Still, it gave her some interest, and mental activity even at her age and was preferably to spending long hours in her drab back street bed sitter. That really was a vegetable like existence. As she ruminated on. the race was off and the result was a 9 to 2 winner which somewhat eased her grim countenance: she had a whole five shillings on the nose (to win). She was improving at the game. Or was she? From past experiences she well knew there may be some losers lurking round the corner tomorrow . . . ?

The above vignette of real life, culled from our “affluent" society of the Sixties, (what the Manchester Evening News is so fond of headlining as . . . "Booming. Bustling. Manchester”) . . .  provides an ironic answer to those who claim that this is the best of all possible worlds. In fact, many workers show what they think of this world by dashing in and out of the nearest betting shop at every available opportunity for a few shillings worth of each way escapism from the dull monotony of their wage and salary slavery. Indeed, recently, a top bookie, William Hill complained about . . . "The loss in man hours to industry through time spent in bet shops". But as we pointed out in the Socialist Standard in March 1963, Hill is himself a staunch supporter of capitalism, betting shops and all. Gambling is a built in component of capitalism and the hold up last winter in racing in Britain through foot and mouth disease, and the frosty weather, amply demonstrated this when thousands of betting shop personnel were laid off as the betting business slowed down and adjusted itself to dog track trade only. No doubt this millionaire bookie, who complained in 1963 about belling shops being what he described as . . .  "a social evil" (but who later paid £850,000 for eighteen of London’s “socially evil” but profitable betting shops) was pleased at the hold up in racing so that the "loss in man hours to industry” will be curtailed?—Or was he?

In the long run, whether the working class gamble or not, their basic position as a subject class will remain unaltered. And even though the grim experience of being dead broke, time and again under a monetary economy, is certainly no joke, the human organism gets used to losing the rent now and again in the valiant and apparently endless attempts to double it.

G. R. Russell

Plaid Cymru is not the answer for Wales (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

If the results of July’s by-election in Caerphilly and the one last year in the Rhondda are anything to go by, nearly four out of every ten workers in the mining valleys now support Plaid Cymru, which wants a separate state in Wales. Since at the last general election Labour held most of these seats with majorities of up to and over 20.000 this represents a dramatic change of political opinion.

Plaid Cymru fought this election at Caerphilly (where in 1923 stood the first Communist Party candidate) more on Labour’s failure and their own reform programme than on their ultimate aim of a separate slate. With unemployment in Caerphilly at 8 per cent, which on a national scale would mean two million on the dole, they had plenty of discontent to work on. They argue that it is “London government" that causes our problems. The solution, apparently, is Cardiff government. This is nonsense. Our problems are not caused by London government but, as elsewhere, by the class monopoly of the means of production, in short, by capitalism. Their solution lies not in nationalism, which is a delusion and a snare, but in world Socialism.

Sometimes, Plaid members claim their party is the vehicle for “socialism in Wales". This too is absurd as it is not possible to set up Socialism in one country alone.

Labour’s reaction to this challenge was revealing. They stopped at nothing in their campaign against the "separatists" They dishonestly suggested that Plaid Cymru encouraged bomb outrages and wanted to reserve the best jobs (a matter dear to the heart of every Labour councillor) for those who spoke Welsh. They spoke of “incipient fascism". They claimed to be against nationalism as it put up barriers between people. One local official said he had nothing against workers in England, Scotland or Ireland (he did not mention anywhere else) and wanted a “socialist Britain.” Fred Evans, the candidate, too wanted, or so he said, "socialist, not separatist, solutions". The main case against a separate state of some of the Welsh Labour MP's who spoke was obviously a concern lest their careers in London come to an abrupt end. Michael Foot, who sits for Ebbw Vale, was afraid that a separate Wales and a separate Scotland would leave England with a built-in Tory majority, that is. would leave the Labour politicians in permanent opposition. Yet apparently the Tories have their uses. One Labour leaflet headed “Nationalism Doesn’t Pay” was partly a reprint of an anti-separatist item from the Daily Telegraph.

The Labour Party’s attitude here is just hypocrisy. They are not against violence, but have always supported wars and armed forces. If any party deserves the “fascist" tag surely it is Labour who have done so much to lay the foundations for a corporate state in Britain. Nor are they against nationalism: they are British nationalists. As for putting up barriers, was it not Labour who greatly strengthened the immigration colour bar? A “socialist Britain" is no less ridiculous than a “socialist Wales" and for the same reason.

Since a separate state is in fact no solution to our problems Labour was on stronger ground in dismissing this as irrelevant and in pointing to Eire where, despite an independent government in Dublin, there are the same problems as here such as high unemployment and emigration.

Although it is heartening to see a revival of political activity and argument in the valleys after years of Labour one-party rule, it is a pity that this is taking the form of rejecting one futile party for another, even if it is breaking away from the Tory-Labour Tweedledum-Tweedledee farce.

Background to Apartheid (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The system of Apartheid thought out and applied by the National Party regime in South Africa is a consciously racist one. There is a long history of repressive and discriminatory legislation aimed against the ‘‘non-white’’, and in particular the African population. The National Party under its leaders Hertzog, Malan, Strijdom and Verwoerd reduced the limited representation of the none-white population until today it is non-existent.

In an effort to stem the rising nationalist fervour among Africans and prevent the consolidation of opposition forces, as represented by the African and Indian National Congresses, and elements of the "Communist" and Liberal Parties, the government has extended the normal ruling class policy of divide and rule to include actual geographical separation. There have thus been created so-called “Bantustans” which, as a scheme on paper, has been so often used by the hypocritical supporters of Apartheid as a conscience absolver. In fact the “Bantustans” or “Black Homelands” amount to nothing more than a large number of scattered reserves covering about one seventh of South Africa’s territory, much of it of the poorest quality. Claims by the National Party as to the self-governing nature of the reserves are quite false.

The self-set task of the government has been not so much the preservation of the traditional African tribal system as its re-creation. Much of the tribal system was destroyed long ago by military defeat in a series of wars waged against conquest, as well as by the widespread adoption of Christianity. If the government had directed all the resources of the state into a genuine attempt to build up the remnants of the tribal society, it may have halted the clock for a while, but it could not have turned it back. As it was they were unwilling to lose the economic advantage of African farm and factory workers, not to mention personal lackeys. The result has only been to continue and sharpen the internal strife, with the government becoming more desperate and openly repressive in their attempts to safeguard the dominance of the Afrikaner farmer class.

Inevitably the already restricted freedom of speech and press has been removed in an effort to bolster the apartheid regime. Both the African and Indian National Congress that had been so successful in breaking down political apathy among farmers and workers are now banned. One of the most far reaching attacks on democracy made by the government has been the Suppression of Communism Act. The wide definition given to ‘communism’ and the absolute authority given to the Minister has meant its use against any and all opponents of the regime. Govan Mbeki, the author of The Peasants Revolt was detained in solitary confinement for two months under this law before being acquitted of the charge against him. He was only one of many African political organisers to be subjected to this same sort of treatment. Radio and the press are also subject to censorship and the introduction of television is actively resisted by the S. African state.

In the field of education the non-white population is at a serious disadvantage both through the type and amount available, though education for white workers is warped in many spheres, in particular that of race. A large number of distortions appear in the history textbooks provided for both white and non-white pupils. Two myths in particular are widely believed, namely that the Dutch landed in an empty territory, and that clashes with African tribes were always violent, with massacres of innocent unsuspecting whites by the Africans. This is in complete contradiction to the accounts of many early travellers. The addition of “race studies” to many school curricula has been fraught with danger from the very beginning, though perhaps more for what it left out, than for what it included. There is for instance a high percentage of space devoted to “Bantu tribal life in the reserves” but very little to “Bantu in Urban Areas” which has resulted in the whole picture becoming distorted, and most white children left utterly ignorant of the industrial shanties and slums, and the general frustrations suffered by non-white workers.

The policy of Apartheid has been, and continues to be, a definite hindrance to industrial expansion in South Africa. While it has provided a vast supply of cheap unskilled labour, it has ignored the pressures of world competition toward the need for increased technical skill and specialisation. The National Bureau for Educational and Social Research reported in 1962 a shortage of 12 per cent among junior scientists, and 10 per cent among professional engineers without taking account of posts filled by inadequately trained labour. In its annual Economic Review the South African Reserve Bank drew attention to “an insufficient supply of certain classes of skilled manpower. Such shortages were evident, for example, in the building, iron and steel, general engineering and motor industries”. The Minister of Education, forecast a shortage of 1,500 doctors in 1965, and this in a field which has been more open to Africans than other professions. Capitalist groans at this state of affairs have been echoed by the National Developments Foundation of South Africa, as the following speech by Dr. F. Meyer, its President demonstrates:

  Why cannot we increase productivity and bring down the cost of living? Why cannot we modernise our factories? Why cannot we improve or expand our marketing and selling? and hundreds of similar questions you may ask. The answers arc all the same, namely: because we do not have the trained managerial executive and technical manpower to plan, organize and administer these things. The opportunities are there. We can get the money, the materials and the equipment, but we cannot lay our hands on the trained manpower to turn ideas into action.

It may fairly be said that the capitalist class in South Africa are for the most part opposed to the strict apartheid measures that have been applied, even though their representation on the political field, through first the Unionist and later the United Party, has been one of compromise with the numerically predominant Afrikaner Nationalists currently entrenched in the seat of power The more radical Progressive Party and the now dissolved Liberal party forthrightly called for a multi-racial South Africa taking an attitude very similar to that put forward by W. H. Hutt in his The Economics of the Colour Bar published in 1964 — “When we buy a product in the free market we do not ask about the sex, race, nationality or political opinions of the producer. All we are interested in is whether it is good value for money”. 

In spite of the ideology of Apartheid and its associated practices, the complete separation of people into tribal and ethnic groupings has proved impossible. With such a closely integrated economic structure, and with all the important harbour facilities, the best arable land, and mineral wealth owned by “white" people, it could not have been otherwise. Hampered as they arc industrialisation and urbanisation continue. in many cases with restrictive employment laws being openly breached. Between 1962 and 1964 the African population of Johannesburg increased from 609,100 to 706,389. Increasing numbers are being recruited through the labour bureaux in the Transkei. The figures are endless, all of them testify to the impossibility of complete separation. They reveal the policy of apartheid as a scheme for the subjection of non-white farmers and workers in the interests of Afrikaner farmers.

That the capitalist class will gain political as well as economic control of South Africa is inevitable. The question remains—when and how. Should the National Party remain in power, unwilling to make any sort of compromise then violence will be the only alternative—a bloody revolt will commence, the result of stifled opinion and pent-up frustrations of years of racism.

Michael Bradley

The Socialist Party and War (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are not pacifists. Yet ever since the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed in 1904 it has opposed all wars. Our members have suffered imprisonment and persecution rather than fight—and the members of our companion socialist parties have done the same in other parts of the world.

Why is this? It is because we recognise that under capitalism wars arise when rival powers fall out over the control of markets and supplies of raw materials, or over the domination of trade routes and spheres of influence. It is this struggle between rival capitalist states which compels countries like Britain and America to maintain armed forces wherever they have interests. And the same pressures act on the state capitalist powers such as Russia and China.

But in these struggles the working class have no interests at stake. Workers are people who, because they own no factories or other means of producing wealth, are forced to sell their mental and physical energies for a wage or salary. Working men and women throughout the world have a common interest in getting rid of the capitalist system which gives rise to wars and many of the other problems which confront us. By a united effort we could replace capitalism by a new way of organising the world. We call this Socialism or Communism (not to be confused with Labour-administered capitalism in Britain or the brutal state-capitalist dictatorships in Russia and elsewhere). Socialism will be a world community completely without frontiers and based on common ownership and democratic control of all the means of producing wealth. In a socialist world production would be solely for use and enjoyment—not for profit.

When the first world war broke out the vast majority of those who called themselves socialists were soon swept away by patriotic hysteria. In Britain the Socialist Party was alone in explaining the internationalist position which socialists must adopt under conditions of peace or war. We issued a manifesto which ended with the following statement:

   “Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good win and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of Capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.”

Over fifty years later we still adhere to this position. In fact, our comrades in the World Socialist Party of the United States recently reprinted the extract above in their paper, the “Western Socialist”, to explain their attitude towards the war in Vietnam.

We do not appeal to you merely as people who think that war is senseless and want to see an end to it. We appeal to you as working men and women whose interest lies in establishing a world socialist community. We do not ask for your support, for you to accept us as new leaders; rather we need your comradely help in working to achieve Socialism.

50 Years Ago: Morals and Socialism (1968)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist’s opposition to the bourgeoisie and the capitalistic system for which they stand by no means springs simply from a recognition of the misery, slavery and degradation which capitalism entails, though being human and not mere automata of logic, Socialists are naturally strongly influenced by such facts. They know, however, that capitalism has been a necessary and useful stage in the evolution of human society. It is because the system is neither of these today, because it can be shown that the functioning of wealth as capital is now a hindrance to economic and therefore to social and intellectual progress, that the Socialist regards capitalism as an obsolete and evil institution.

If the Socialist holds exploitation and class oppression to be morally wrong, it is because, for the first time in history since the formation of class divisions away in the remote past, the material means are now available wherewith these, together with all their consequences, may be eliminated from human institutions. It is because this latest existing phase of class society, capitalism, is the great obstacle, holding mankind back, so to speak, on the very threshold of a new and splendid era manifesting untold developments in the material, social and mental triumphs of the race, that the Socialist holds this system and all the agencies which uphold or tend to perpetuate it, in hatred and abomination.

From an article by R. W. Houseley, Socialist Standard, October 1918).

The Review Column: Czechoslovakia (1968)

The Review column from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Czechoslovakia

What did the Russians crush in Czechoslovakia? The British press by a large majority, decided that the tanks and soldiers were in Prague because Dubcek had introduced democracy and, since the Russian government is a dictatorship, this could not be allowed to continue.

Thus the Russo/Czech dispute was reduced, as are so many similar clashes, to a question of ideology. Thus the newspapers ignored, as they so often do, the essential facts of the situation.

First, Czechoslovakia was not a democracy. Recently the workers there had won a measure of freedom but even so they were still a long way from the limited rights of workers in, say, Britain. Certainly, a Socialist party could not have existed freely and openly in Dubcek’s Czechoslovakia.

Second, the invasion was not a case of one country imposing an ideology upon another. Czechoslovakia’s importance to the Russian bloc is mainly strategic—as it was to Nazi Germany in 1938.

Dubcek’s policies were threatening to take his country out of Moscow’s sphere of influence. The Russians, as devoted to the “domino” theory as are the Americans over Vietnam, feared that if Czechoslovakia went so might Rumania, Jugoslavia—and who knows what might then happen to the Russian empire?

The invasion, then, was no more than a normal reaction by one capitalist power against another when it sees its interests in jeopardy.

Normal, also, was the hypocrisy on both sides. Those who wept crocodile tears over great big Russia attacking little Czechoslovakia were dry-eyed when Britain went into Suez. The Russians, on the other hand, were practising the same sort of imperialism as they denounce in Vietnam.

Finally, and most important, both Russians and Czechs claimed to represent the interests of Socialism when what they were really engaged in was just another sordid and ruthless dispute of capitalism.

Nixon or Humphrey?

The Republican and Democratic Parties have now decided that next month the American working class can choose between capitalism under Richard Nixon and capitalism under Hubert Humphrey.

Even as capitalist politics go, this is not an exciting choice but there is no encouragement to believe that the voters in America will not go to the polls with as great an impression of destiny as ever.

They will be sure that they are making an important choice between two different courses. As the election campaign develops, what will be called the issues will be stimulated and publicised, with the object of increasing the sense of importance.

Whoever wins will do so to a great surge of optimism; his supporters will greet his victory as the opening of a new era of sanity, or safety, or perhaps high adventure and achievement.

Then what will follow? In 1964 President Johnson won the election with an unprecedented majority. Everywhere he went, the crowds in their thousands adored him. The Republicans were shattered; Goldwater’s defeat had reopened their wounds, so that Theodore White wrote of them, in The Making of the President 1964, that they had chopped themselves in two and that no one could tell whether they would recover.

White, like many other observers, was forgetting—or perhaps he simply did not know—what capitalism can do to a politician’s reputation. He assumed that Johnson and his party would continue in the same tumultuous bliss of their victory.

Now the problems and the disputes of the system Johnson has tried to run have finished him and it is the Democrats, as they showed so clearly at Chicago, who are almost literally warring.

In four years’ time we shall be reviewing the failures of the man the Americans elect as President this November. In four years the American workers will have yet another chance to reflect upon the futility of choosing between one type of capitalism and another.

TUC 1968

The Trades Union Congress, because of its close connections with the Labour Party, is composed largely of men and women who reject the case for Socialism.

They are people who, rather than work for a basically new social system, prefer to reform the present one, to support capitalist political parties, to involve themselves in all sort of political manoeuvres and compromises.

This, they say, is preferable to working by principles. It is called Getting Something Now.

Well this is the TUC’s centenary year and it might be expected that the delegates at Blackpool asked themselves what, after one hundred years, they had got.

During that century the problems of capitalism have not diminished. The majority of people are still subject to the degrading and impoverished life of a worker; they live in inferior homes, they eat inferior food, they have access to inferior schools, medical treatment and so on.

There are still upheavals like Vietnam and Nigeria in which a capitalist dispute brings untold suffering to millions. The world is indeed a desperately unsafe place, hovering as it does perpetually on the brink of nuclear devastation.

The practical results of the achievement of many a trade unionist's highest ambition — the election of a Labour government—could be seen at the TUC —in the many critical speeches, in the rejection of the incomes policy.

Nineteen sixty eight is not a happy centenary year for the TUC. At a time when they should be able to look back on their achievements, all they have to remember is a century of confusion and frustration.

They themselves must take the blame for this. They, after all, are the people who reject the idea that the unions' job of protecting their members’ interests cannot be reconciled with compromising with, and supporting, the political parties of capitalism.

Irish Labour's New Republic (1968)

From the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following its much-improved representation in the Dail Eireann at the last General Election, the Labour Party has increased its political activity and talks of a new approach to politics. Amidst an atmosphere of enthusiasm and inspired by increasing party membership, their leader Brendan Corish voiced his plans for the future in an address at the Labour Annual Conference in Dublin in October l967. This has been published as a pamphlet under the title The New Republic. The laying down of a definite policy together with the re-affiliation of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union has roused curiosity in all quarters and has paid-off by further swelling Labour's ranks.

There was no lack of optimism and speculation in the address. Indeed, Corish commenced by forecasting “the seventies will be socialist” for the people of Ireland. In July the Dail (parliamentary) members of the Labour Party met four hundred delegates from all over Ireland to draft a new manifesto and to consider the developments which had taken place since the last conference.

One new development that Labour has to face is the referendum due to be held later this year on the abolition of the Proportional Representation system of voting. Statistics suggest that if the referendum abolishes PR in favour of the single-member constituency system in England, it would perpetuate the Fianna Fail government for a further ten years. Also, it would probably reduce Labour representation in the Dail to a mere handful since most of Labour's members are elected on the second choice votes by pro-Fine Gael and anti-Fianna Fail supporters.

Even if PR were retained there is a ludicrous tinge in Corish's prediction. Though he has succeeded in doubling his party's numbers in the Dail (from ten to twenty), he would have to increase it by a further fifty to gain power. He has also to convince a politically hostile electorate—manifest in the way, except for two short periods of coalition government, they have continually returned Fianna Fail to power—of the desirability of his new republic—and he has to do this between now and November next year. With Ireland's biggest trade union, the ITGWIJ, now standing firmly behind the Labour Party Corish certainly has a chance of increasing his representation, but the chances of gaining power are very thin.

It would be impossible to gain a majority of seats in the Dail without the support of the farmers and since on the whole they are very conservative, Labour has not the appeal in the rural areas it has in the towns. The only probable way of ousting Fianna Fail is by forming a coalition with Fine Gael, the main opposition party. But after Labour's being the minor party in two previous and disastrous coalitions—with the consequent charge of selling out “socialist" principles—Corish has assured his members that Labour would not join another coalition. We shall see.

The Labour leader listed the major wrongs which, to a people who hide beneath the robe of Roman Catholicism rather than face the truth, were carefully worded so as not to provoke the ever-ready guillotine of the Church. He confronted people with what they already know and what many accept as the will of God. Old age pensioners are expected to survive on a few shillings a week. In the forty-seven years of Home Rule a million Irish men and women have emigrated. Ireland, he said, was “starved of employment". One after another Corish pointed out the problems which are not peculiar just to Irish workers but are common to workers everywhere—though his strong national-mindedness seems to have blinded Corish on this point. His particular grievance is that “£600m. of Irish capital is invested in the biggest money-market in the world" instead of invested in Ireland!

The solution which Corish says will solve these problems is the abolition of private enterprise, and the establishment of “socialism". Socialism, it is true, is the correct solution, but what according to the Labour leader is “socialism"? His excuse for failing to give a clear meaning is that “people who call themselves socialists differ in their definitions of the word". But since the Labour Party claims to accept the ideas of its founder, James Connolly, let us consult his writings to see how he used, or abused, the word.

Connolly's idea of “socialism” centred round the Irish Republic for which he and James Larkin tried to rally the workers to take up arms and fight. His Republic, he said, would not be like the United States where "the power of the purse established a new tyranny under the forms of freedom, one hundred years after the feet of the last British redcoat polluted the streets of Boston"—a remark which brings out Connolly’s nationalism and his hatred of the British. Connolly alleged that in his Republic the workers would enjoy the fruits of their labour. Maybe he would have changed his mind if he had lived long enough to witness the effects of the Russian revolution when they tried to set up “socialism" in one land.

When the first world war broke out De Valera and Connolly appealed to the workers not to follow John Redmond's support for Britain. Connolly quite rightly pointed out that the Irish workers' quarrel was not with the workers of another land (Germany), but he and De Valera were continually soliciting the Irish workers to go into battle with the British army in Ireland (consisting of course partly of Irish and partly of English workers).

Corish stated that in his new republic all Irish capital would come under the control of the state; that the banks would be brought under the direct control of the Dail, and that all capital would be invested in Ireland to build industries. If Labour comes to power and successfully executes these plans, he believes that the workers will no longer have to swell the labour forces of other countries. Then Ireland might wrongly be called “socialist", but it would be just another state capitalist country not more able to further the cause of Socialism than the existing ones which have tried and failed.

 Patrick Garvey

Activity in Ireland (1968)

Party News from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The World Socialist Party of Ireland, under considerable difficulties, is carrying on the struggle. They rushed out a leaflet (“under very odd conditions", they report!) on the Czech crisis, of which this is an extract: 

   “The different political regimes involved—Russian, Bulgarian, Polish or even the Czechs themselves—claim that they are “socialist". This is a lie! If Socialism is to have the only possible worthwhile meaning, that of a classless society to replace capitalism, as envisaged by Marx and other socialist pioneers, there is no ‘socialism' in these countries any more than in Labour government Britain or slate capitalist Yugoslavia."

Over one thousand cm these leaflets were distributed at a “protest" meeting in Belfast, where a member of the WSPl managed to get five minutes on the platform to state our case against the confusion of the Young Liberals, National Democrats, N.I. Labour Party, Young “Socialists" and so on. The comrades in Belfast hope this event may have helped to convince the authorities that the streets are now safe for political meetings again. The new address of the WSPl is 13, Queens Square, Belfast 1.