Editorial: The Pakistan-India conflict (1965)

Editorial from the October 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The war between Pakistan and India was another depressing reminder that men are still more ready to unite for nationalism and war rather than for world brotherhood. In a region blighted by acute poverty, hunger and disease was accompanied by fighting and violent death.

The reasons given for the conflict are especially cynical. Mr. Shastri’s Congress Party inherits the supposed ideals of Ghandi and Nehru. In the post-war years, Mr. Nehru in particular sermonised at length about peace. Today India is forced into that oldest and yet most modern of arbiters—war! Now that private property is in dispute, the pacifism of Ghandi has been forgotten.

Peace cannot exist in a violent society and Capitalism is violent. It is violent because it rests upon the exploitation of men by men. It is violent because it is geared to commercial struggles and is driven by the profit motive. Capitalism is violent because under it men act out the aggressive nature of private property. To want peace and yet preserve Capitalism is a contradiction which repeats the fatal errors of the past.

Indian and Pakistani workers rallied to the fighting with enthusiasm. Immigrants in this country lost no time in forming defence committees. Some workers readily donated a week’s wages. “My country right or wrong” prevailed.

Those workers involved in the conflict are victims of false religious loyalties, and their support for developing Capitalism in Asia. They mistakenly think that their interests are identical with the interests of the Indian and Pakistan ruling class.

The situation is one in which Capitalism asserts all its priorities. There is the fighting itself, the disruption and added misery this inevitably brings. There is the spectacle of men channelling their resources into destructive causes instead of into the creative task of ending poverty. There is the vicious fervour which can unify a nation on a war footing, stifling criticism, and temporarily diverting internal frustrations. The commitment to the senseless struggle can easily become self-perpetuating.

To Socialists the condemnation of the war between Pakistan and India is a condemnation of world Capitalism. It is not an isolated incident resulting from the aggressions of a single nation. International finger-pointing blinds men against the real cause. It is an event made possible by the support that Capitalism commands throughout the entire world. In this respect, workers in this and other countries far from the scene of fighting, are involved. It is futile to appeal to political leaders to act with more restraint or so-called wisdom. A world of harmony can only be possible when the working class of the world contract out of supporting Capitalism.

It is important to emphasise that although the conflict has been expressed in terms of Muslim versus Hindu, and although religious differences are a factor in the situation, the war was not over religion. The war was over the conflicting Capitalist interests of the Indian and Pakistan ruling classes and rapidly involved the great powers, particularly China.

Our message to Indian and Pakistan workers is that this conflict in which they have nothing to win, can only heap misery on abiding misery. Their interests in common with workers of all countries is to build Socialism.

Just as religion is a bastion of ignorance, so nationalism is a hate-filled lie. Both serve private property interests in which the worker has no stake.

News in Review: Los Angeles erupts (1965)

The News in Review column from the October 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Los Angeles erupts

For a few days the spotlight was switched from the ever present horror of Vietnam and focussed on the United States itself.

Los Angeles, that most modern of cities—if such an outdated word as city can be used to describe a sprawl of over 452 square miles—erupted into violence. In an orgy of looting, arson and killing the Negro population, so often the victims of mob violence, themselves became the mob. The savage details were too well reported to need repeating, but many thousands of troops were needed to crush what amounted to a rebellion. When it was over, needless to say the Negroes were the worst-hit victims.

The suppression of the Negro, lasting for a hundred years after their “liberation,” ranging from murder to petty discrimination, and running through all strata of society, has produced a distrust and hatred that will take a very long time to overcome. At every moment and in every possible way, the Negro is made to feel inferior.

Such a situation, and the fact that it could be changed, must lead to an explosion. Los Angeles has been a modern legend, that personifies the so-called affluent society, the world of mass-produced commodities in profusion. Brash and ugly, a mass of sprawling suburbs and six-lane freeways where public transport has practically disappeared, the Watts-Willowbrook area where the explosion occurred is known as the Black Ghetto. Can anything illustrate the plight of the American Negro more than the use of this medieval word to describe the conditions of workers in an ultra-modern city?

The riot was crushed, but as long as hatred between workers remains on such a scale and is added to the normal tensions and frustrations of capitalism, such eruptions will continue.

Priorities in Kashmir

How cruelly does capitalism itself expose the innocent delusions of its own supporters !

Consider the case of the host of organisations which collect charity with the professed object of lightening the enormous burden of hunger and destitution in the world.

These charities have an extensive library of photographs of pitiful children, swollen-bellied near skeletons. They campaign with pictures of refugees and victims of natural disasters. Many people find this appeal irresistible, and the money flows in.

India and Pakistan are among the favourite subjects for this sort of charity; both countries have literally millions of starving people, and the problem is periodically intensified by famine and calamities like floods and cyclones.

Yet among the indescribable suffering of their peoples, India and Pakistan can afford to go to war. What does this make of the appeal of the charities?

A few months ago these same two countries were fighting over the Rann of Kutch. While this was going on a cyclone hit East Pakistan, killing thousands of people and making millions homeless. The Pakistani Forces could have been used for rescue and recovery work; they had the manpower and much of the needed equipment. But they could not be spared from the fighting.

This sort of inconsistency does not prevent the charity-mongers appealing for aid for India and Pakistan. What they overlook is that over the past few years aid has been pumped into those countries on a scale which mocks the charities’ wildest dreams.

According to India’s Information Minister, Mrs. Gandhi, Pakistan has received one and a half billion dollars worth of aid from the United States. Mrs. Gandhi also admitted to India having received “only” two million dollars’ worth, but, of course, she did not mention the other aid, open and disguised, which her country has had from the other side in the Cold War.

The point is that the aid was not meant to feed starving people. It went into the two countries’ military machines; Mrs. Gandhi has complained—and she may be right — that American equipment which was supposed to be directed against the Russians was in action in Kashmir.

The Indo-Pakistani conflict has highlighted one of capitalist’s most blatant scandals. It defies all reason, all sense, all humanity, for the world to pour its resources into a massive destructive effort when there is so much to do in the way of feeding and protecting the human race.

This will not be altered as long as capitalism lasts. The war in Kashmir was only the latest example of capitalism’s priorities, which have always counted human interests and comforts as of little importance.

To capitalism it is in the natural order of things that millions should starve and that a battle should rage all about them.

TUC through the hoop

What were trade unionists expected to make of this year’s TUC, when its General Secretary one day argues in favour of a certain policy and the very next day describes that same policy as a “shabby compromise”?

Confusion is inevitable. The connections between the unions and the Labour Party were once supposed to benefit the unions, but they are being used against them.

It is now possible, for example, for a Minister of Labour to use his speech as a fraternal delegate to declare that the time has come for the unions to accept legal restrictions on their freedom to negotiate. It is possible for General Secretary George Woodcock disconsolately to argue in favour of his “shabby compromise,” of forcing individual unions to refer their wage claims to the TUC for vetting, because this was their only hope of avoiding legislation to force them to refer their claims to a Government board.

The unions still seem determined to support the Labour Government, although its professed policy is, as Woodcock put it, to “. . . put some restraint on the growth of incomes”—a policy which Minister of Labour Gunter justified because without it “We shall fail to hold our place in a fiercely competitive world.”

The Labour Government is, in other words, rallying the TUC in support of its efforts to salvage the international trade of the British capitalist class. This was also the aim of past Conservative Governments, but they were never able to persuade the unions to jump through the hoop so easily. It is worthwhile to ponder how the TUC, and the Labour Party, would have reacted had it been a Tory Government which was threatening to take legal powers to restrain wage claims.

How Mr. Wilson would have thundered his denunciations of dictatorship from the grouse moors! What depths of cliché-ridden oratory Mr. Gunter would have reached! What a riotous assembly this year’s TUC would have been!

But it is a Labour Government which is now moving towards a clash with the unions. These regular, hysterical denunciations of strikes and wage claims are coming from the mouths of Labour Ministers. And this policy—much tougher than the Tories ever tried—is justified with the last-ditch argument that whatever a Labour Government may do they are better than the Conservatives. This argument, which, in fact, allows the Government to get away with anything, is of course quite unsupported by any evidence.

But it is an argument which we are probably going to hear a lot more of Woodcock himself said that prices and incomes have actually gone up more since the Labour Government started trying to keep them down than they did before.

The unions may be like David Low’s famous carthorse—slow, patient, even a little stupid. But they have thrown a few riders in the past and they will do so again.

Recession ?

The Labour Government are going one better than keeping their election promises by claiming that they are giving us something which was not in their programme last October.

They did not promise that within a year of their winning the election we would be in an economic recession, with many industries on short time and the prospect of more to come.

Some of the firms on short time—for example, Ford and Hoover—as well as many City Editors, blamed the recession on to Government policy. While this may be a convenient explanation, it ignores certain facts of capitalist life.

Slumps, like booms, happen when conditions are ripe for them. A big boom overrides any attempt at official control and a slump does not respond to Governmental efforts at revival.

Juggling with interest rates and restricting credit are not policies which fashion events, but largely reactions to those events. British capitalism is not alone in its present difficulties; many other countries are also experiencing them, which indicates that the recession may get deeper yet.

But if we accept the Government’s claim that the closing down of the economy is all their own work, there is a massively awkward question for them to answer.

What happens, in a slump, to their vision of an automated Britain? They came to power on a promise to build a British industry humming with the very latest and most expensive computers and automatic production equipment.

They spoke (in fact they still speak) of a Britain in the forefront of the technological age, driving for its markets under the impetus of massive investment and a fearless determination to innovate.

But in a time of recession industry is definitely not interested in investing in expensive equipment designed to make more of the very things which, because of the slump, cannot be sold. At such times industry is not inclined to innovate; it tends to pull in its horns and to wait for the danger to pass.

Wilson’s Britain of scientists and technologists was, in fact, one of Labour’s more horrible ideas. There need be no regrets that it has joined the long list of pledges, given solemnly but now forgotten, knowing no grave but their own inconsistency.

Things to come

Time, as they never tire of telling us, marches on.

The first men to fly were famous for their daring; the aeroplane was a glamorous marvel of the Edwardian age.

But the First World War showed that the sky was a battlefield, into which each side sent its balloons and aircraft to observe the enemy and to direct artillery fire.

It was not long before other aircraft were developed, to shoot down the observers. Then others were sent up to protect the balloons from attack and later came the fighters and the bombing ‘plane to improve on the artillery shell.

This was the birth of the military aeroplane. The sky is now becoming outdated as a battlefield; the daring young men of the future will probably fight it out in space.

The two Cosmic powers—Russia and the United States—now make no secret of the uses to which their space ventures are being put. Both countries admit that they have observer satellites aloft and America plans to send up a space laboratory to carry out experiments in what they call defence.

The nature of these experiments is not, of course, known but it seems that we are witnessing the opening of another battlefield.

The next step could be a space ship designed to knock out the observer satellites, then another to prevent them being attacked—and then perhaps dog-fights in space.

There is nothing fanciful in this. The military possibilities of space flights have always been obvious and there was never any cause to believe that they would be ignored in capitalism’s constant arms race.

This may rub some of the glamour off the astronauts, which will not be recovered by blatant propaganda dodges like President Johnson’s proposal to send them on world-wide goodwill tours. There is no goodwill in planning to destroy millions of people.

Space war adds another dimension to capitalism’s terrors. It is not a pleasant prospect, but nobody should be surprised that once again society’s resources, and the courage and skill of its people, are being perverted.

Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The watch is a limited edition of only 150 pieces that’s already being delivered to customers. The retail price is $330,000…prices on the secondary market will get a bit bonkers. 

[HODINKEE]

Pakistan’s claims to all of Kashmir are driven by the region’s hydrological importance, its majority-Muslim population, and the military’s interest in rallying the nation behind it on these grounds. 

[Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter]

‘That’s where I sleep, under that bridge’ he says, pointing to a nearby cluster of tents beneath a highway overpass. ‘And the dogs are up there with their own private pool. They probably eat more in a day than we do in a month’. 

[NPR]

Underage workers, in some cases, have been hired to kill poultry flocks, handle dead carcasses and clean industrial poultry farms. Workers sometimes lack personal protective equipment or receive damaged gear, despite the risk of the virus jumping from animals to people. Dealing with a federal backlog, some farms have used killing methods considered inhumane, because it can be quicker and cheaper. ‘The biggest factor in agricultural safety is the urgency’ said Bethany Alcauter, director of research and public health for the National Center for Farmworker Health, a Texas-based nonprofit that advocates for worker safety and health. ‘Everything has to get done in a short amount of time, and that really can be problematic because there’s not the same amount of time to adequately train workers’.

[truthdig]

‘Trump’s view of a man at a desk moving pieces of the economy around like rooks and pawns on a chessboard is what socialism is all about—though the old tyrants in Moscow at least had the humility to assume that a committee of experts would be necessary to manage the economy according to ‘scientific‘ principles or at least the guile to pretend that they believed it, whereas Trump apparently has swallowed his own silly god-man horsepucky, being, as he is, an ass of exceptional asininity’. 

[MEDIAITE]

On July 28, 2024, Venezuelans turned out to vote in large numbers despite more than a decade of systematic repression and human rights violations under President Nicolás Maduro. Hours after polls closed, the Electoral Council declared that Maduro had been re-elected, with over 51 percent of the vote. The United Nations Electoral Technical Team and the Carter Center, which observed the elections, said the process lacked transparency and integrity, and questioned the declared result. The Carter Center said that the precinct-level tally sheets published by the opposition, which seemed to indicate that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won, were reliable and ‘authentic’. The Electoral Council failed to release the official tally sheets and did not conduct the required audits or citizen verification processes mandated by law. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in demonstrations, most of them peaceful, demanding a transparent and fair counting of the votes. They were met with brutal repression.

[HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH]

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

World View: Kashmir and the threat of nuclear war (2002)

From the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent weeks, the eyes of the world have once again turned to Kashmir and the ongoing antagonism between India and Pakistan over who should control it. Though the two countries have three times gone to war (1945, 1961 and 1971) without much western interest, this time round the sabre-rattling is attracting wider attention, not least because it could very rapidly result in a nuclear exchange with the loss of an estimated 25 million lives.

 

The Kashmir situation is a hangover from the age of Empire and British colonialism, when India was ruled by Britain and Kashmir was a principality ruled on behalf of Britain by the repressive Hindu Dogras dynasty. 

For the British, the Kashmir region was a strategic asset, of paramount geo-political significance. It could serve as a listening post for the tracking of Soviet-Sino ambitions in the region and be militarily important should Russia or China decide to attack. Indeed, even the US now views Kashmir as part of their on-going plan to circle China with their military bases.

In 1947, however, Britain’s rule of India was coming to an end and the region was being plunged into an orgy of religious bloodshed. As had been the case with some 580 other Indian principalities and states, Hari Singh, Kashmir’s maharajah, was given the choice either to join India or Pakistan or of remaining independent. Although the majority of the people of Kashmir were Moslem, he chose to surrender the territory to India. The “official” initial intention of Lord Mountbatten – the British governor-general – was that a plebiscite of the Kashmiri people be held. This has never happened, in spite of numerous UN resolutions on the issue,

One common view is that Lord Mountbatten was really the architect of the handover, believing India to be far more capable than Pakistan of repulsing any Russian and Chinese advances in the subcontinent, acting as a proxy army on behalf of western interests in the area.

Whilst Islamabad insists Kashmir should belong to Pakistan, citing UN resolutions on the issue and pointing to the Moslem majority in Kashmir, India is insistent that under the terms of the 1972 Simla Agreement both countries decided to settle the dispute through bilateral negotiations and minus UN Interference. And whilst India insists that the accession of Kashmir to India in 1947 is complete and that Kashmir is an integral part of India, Pakistan contests this and insists that the region is in fact disputed territory and that it has the right to provide moral and diplomatic support for an indigenous freedom struggle there.

At the moment one and a half million soldiers face each other across their respective borders and there have been regular artillery exchanges. Though tensions are high, the situation is not considered as threatening as it was weeks ago, when western governments were asking their nationals to return home. Since then, both countries have been involved in diplomatic talks with the US, Britain and Russia. None of which, however, has helped remove Indian forces from the Kashmir border or lessened the likelihood that renegade anti-Musharraf groups in Pakistan could take matters into their own hands. Analysts in Washington still maintain that any terrorist attack from Pakistan’s militants could easily result in a swift Indian nuclear response. And as Musharraf may sue for peace, he is mindful that he needs the support of the army and its hawkish generals, many of who see the Kashmir cause as a religious duty.

For Britain’s part, whilst Blair is playing his trite role as global peace-maker, this can only be considered an act of hypocrisy. It has been after all a Labour government these past two years that has helped up the ante there. In 2000 alone, the peace-loving Blair government granted India and Pakistan some 700 military export licences (just as Britain armed both sides during the Iran-Iraq war). Moreover, India is currently under licence to build the British-designed Jaguar bomber – the type of bomber that could deliver atomic bombs to Islamabad and other Pakistani cities

In January this year, Tony Blair travelled to India on a “peace mission”, intent on lending the Kashmir crisis his diplomatic skills. He did just that, returning a week later with a £1 billion order for 66 Hawk fighters. Three weeks later the British High Commission there organised a party for British arms salesmen attending the Defexpo arms fair – dealers who openly acknowledged that they were hoping to cash in on the crisis. The same old excuse applied – “if we didn’t, somebody else would” (the kind of defence you could use for kicking Blair up the arse).

The US and Britain may well be critical of either side in this conflict threatening the use of the “first strike”, but George W Bush has already intimated that he would use the “first strike” option against seven countries in four different scenarios, with British Defence Secretary Geoffrey Hoon suggesting Britain would do the same.

Although the US has resisted selling arms to India and Pakistan, it must be remembered that both India and Pakistan’s nuclear programme was initiated by the US “Atoms for Peace” programme, that India’s first nuclear device was produced in plant built with US assistance and that Pakistan’s first research reactor came from the US.

So, while there is much evidence for the continuance of the war industry, the peace industry seems to be pretty limp. The United Nations, set up to prevent conflicts, is all but lame. The Security Council is yet to invoke Article 34, which calls for investigations of disputes “likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security.” The UN Charter further allows any country or even the Secretary General (Articles 35 and 99) to place any threat to global peace before the Security Council.

The impact of a nuclear exchange between two impoverished countries and the knock-on effect for the rest of the globe is unimaginable. The death toll would be in the tens of millions, with many more dying months and years later. Millions of acres of land would be uninhabitable and the fallout would contaminate many neighbouring countries for centuries. The humanitarian mission to treat the survivors would have to be the biggest rescue mission in history – perhaps as big as all previous rescue missions combined. That such a scenario is possible is a damning indictment of capitalism. We stepped out of the 20th century – a century of bloodshed in the name of profit – into the 21st dragging every social ill behind us, with even more global problems abounding than 100 years previously. What a barbaric age we live in. Still, borders are to be fought over. Still, gods to be avenged and, still, that age-old cursed prize – profit – to be sought in every stinking orifice. And were the mushroom clouds to start rising over Islamabad and New Delhi, western capitalists would still ponder how they could cash in on this hell, this hell of their system’s making.

John Bissett

At Home and Abroad . . . (1971)

The Home and Abroad Column from the July 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Home

The crisis in the shipyards of the Upper Clyde group showed capitalism, and its apologists, at their most typical. The crisis came not for any lack of skill or materials or need; it came simply because the yards cannot fulfill the basic capitalist requirement that they operate at a profit. In that situation UCS may well have to shut down, no matter how many ships may be sailing which for one reason or another should be replaced—and no matter how much waste of resources a closure might represent. The Labour Party may howl with rage at the shut down, as they often do when the principles of capitalism which they uphold when in office come into operation when they are in opposition. The Tories say they are applying their policy of making all undertakings stand on their own feet. But if this were to be generally applied, what panic there would be among the parasites of the ruling class !

Among, for example, the royal family who, if required to stand alone on their own feet would quickly collapse into a heap. They have just decided that they can no longer stagger along on the pittance of the few hundred thousands they get each year, even if this does supplement the income from their massive private wealth. Workers whose lives are given up to the toil which produces all this opulence by the side of indescribable misery should not be deceived into thinking that what the press called the royal “wage” claim makes the queen and her hangers-on anything other than the highest, the most publicised and among the richest, of the capitalist class.

To the members of that class, problems like rising prices, for example, are seen as if through the other end of the telescope from the one to which workers’ eyes are glued. We do not need the Labour Party to remind us that the Tories promised to end this problem, as Labour themselves promised. Now, the election pledges are as usual being forgotten, if sometimes they are remembered when something happens like Minister of Agriculture Prior’s gaffe. Perhaps he was trying the unusual course of trying to be honest; or perhaps he is just a fool; or are the Tories playing the excessively simple game of admitting, quickly and in words which all can understand, that they cannot control capitalism? Whichever it is, the working class could do themselves a good turn by undestanding.

Politics

It seems that the government will not have an easy ride into the Common Market, whatever happens at the negotiations. In this country there is a strengthening lobby which is pledged to fight the British entry. One theme which this lobby is playing is the fact that the people have not been consulted on the issue. This is not, of course, entirely true; anyone who voted for either Labour or Tory in the last election thinking that he was opposing Britain joining the EEC must have a serious mental blockage. More to the point, when were the people ever consulted on this kind of issue? When was there a referendum on a declaration of war? When did we have the chance to vote on issues like racist immigration Bills? Anti-trade union laws? So why make an exception over the Common Market? Could it be that the Labour Party are seeing in the issue the chance to grab quite a few votes and know that a middle line policy will grab them all the more and all the quicker? It is not unknown for issues like the Common Market to be obscured by a propaganda smokescreen behind which a capitalist party makes its attack. And the talk about a referendum is no more than a smokescreen put out to hide the essential fact that worker have no interests in the issue; whether Britain goes in or not will have no fundamental effect on our standing as workers.

Abroad

How romantic, how thrilling, that the Russians have an orbiting space station where they can grow things and watch the weather and the vegetation and so on down on earth! What brave men are their astronauts, to whizz up into space and start crawling about from one ship to another just so that they can grow those things and watch all the others! What clever scientists, to think it all up and then design all the ships and the equipment! Perhaps there will still be some of the thrills and the romance left, when it becomes obvious that the stations (there will assuredly be more of them) are also being used, probably primarily, for purposes connected with the war machines of the space powers. The world was similarly thrilled when man first flew and we all know where that landed us. Space travel, and the courage and ability which goes into it, shows again what human beings could do to improve our environment —and how capitalism corrupts it all. 

What capitalism does is being witnessed in India and East Pakistan, where disease follows war follows flood and will probably be followed by yet more horrible disaster. It is now coming out, that places like East Pakistan have for a long time been in a turmoil of bloodshed, with political murders so frequent that they hardly make the news. Other murders, of course, are even less like to be noticed. Across the border in Calcutta there is a similar story. It is likely now that this already desperate situation will explode into something even more horrifying. The answer which capitalism has to this is to appeal for charity and to represent the affair as a regrettable accident. We should remember the original motives for conquering the Indian continent, and for keeping it in the economic state it was kept in for so long, and then for giving it its “independence” in the way it was. In this perspective the horror of East Pakistan becomes more logical—and even more horrible.

News in Review: Progressing backwards (1965)

The News in Review column from the June 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Progressing backwards

The Labour government’s housing drive is progressing steadily backwards.

At the beginning of May, several big building firms announced that they were cutting back their production of houses.

Wates Ltd. (whose advertisements tell us that they care) said they were reducing by about fifteen per cent. McManus started a cut in its labour force of around twenty per cent. Richard Costain stopped work on two hundred or so part-finished houses — a quarter of their yearly production.

These reductions do not mean, of course, that everyone is now so comfortably housed that there isn't any need to build any more homes for the moment, thank you.

On all sides, the tragic evidence of the housing shortage abounds. The Milner Holland Report, which touched only one aspect of the problem, said that over seventy thousand London dwellings have no proper bath and that more than one million share a bath, a sink and other basic amenities. There are still thousands of homeless people in London alone.

Why, then, are there cuts in building? 

As part of their great programme of bringing prosperity to the working class, the Labour government has imposed a credit squeeze which, among other things, has made it more difficult to raise loans to buy houses.

These loans—a mortgage from a building society, a housing endowment policy—are the only method open to a worker who wants to buy a house he will never have the ready cash.

These, then, are the people who are affected by this aspect of the squeeze. In Glasgow, reported The Observer, tenement flats are being left unsold because young couples cannot raise the loans to buy them. For the same reason, cheaper houses in Leeds and Bradford are not selling. Bigger, costlier houses are not in the same difficulties; in Leeds and Bradford, those in the £8,000 to £15,000 range can be sold easily. People who can afford that sort of house can also raise the necessary loan—if indeed they need to borrow the money at all.

This particular crisis will probably continue. and develop. “We will only start up again," said Costain’s managing director, “When the purchaser shows he can raise the money.” In other words, they will only start building again when they think they can sell the houses.

Housing, like all human needs under capitalism, is a commodity — something which is made to be sold. If for any reason the market contracts, as it is contracting now under the credit squeeze, the houses will not be built.

Simple, but bad luck on anyone who has not got anywhere to live. Perhaps the government's intelligence on the matter was represented by Mr. Robert Mellish, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing. “Personally,” he said, “I feel that building societies are a machine by which people buy homes . . .”

This brilliant flash of insight, leaving unilluminated as it does the fact that building societies are also machines by which a few people make a lot of money, does not reveal anything new to those workers, who, unable to afford a house any other way, have chained themselves to a lifetime's debt to a building society.

Any year now. as Mr. Mellish settles into his new job, he may catch up with one or two other facts which are common knowledge. He may even go further, and realise that there is a perpetual housing problem for the working class, and that no government can solve it because the problem is an inseparable part of the capitalist social system which they administer.

Pakistan-lndia

One thing is dear about the Rann of Kutch, and that is that the fighting there was not over who should have the right to enjoy the beauties of its scenery.

This is one of the world’s inhospitable spots—a ten-mile square patch of lifeless mud and salt flats, broken by small mounds and peopled only by the Jeroba rat. The 24th. Parallel runs through the middle of it.

But inhospitable or not, the Rann had all the makings of a typical international dispute. To begin with, there may be oil out there somewhere. The Sun Oil Company of the U.S.A. plans to start drilling offshore fairly soon.

This is not to say that the fighting was about oil only. Its origins, as far as they can be discerned, were rather more complex.

India forcibly established its troops in the Rann, north of the 24th. Parallel, in 1956—soon after oil had been struck in the Gulf of Cambay, about two hundred miles away to the south.

At that lime, Pakistan was on the Western side in the Cold War, and was signatory to several American dominated pacts. India, on the other hand, except where its own interests were concerned, was the Great Uncommitted, infuriating Washington by its insistence on playing off the Western bloc against the Russian and acting as honest broker whenever it could.

Whatever else this did, it gained for India a certain diplomatic leadership in South East Asia. Since then, the situation has changed.

Pakistan has recently taken the initiative right out of India's hands. President Ayub has been feted in both Peking and Moscow. The Chinese government has stated its support for Pakistan in the Rann dispute. The Russians have implied that they uphold Pakistan’s case over Kashmir.

India, with no sympathy in Washington to fall back upon, was thus isolated—something which was emphasised by President Johnson’s brusque cancellation of Mr. Shastri’s proposed visit to him.

In this situation of double-cross all round, the Indian government had to do something to try to regain the lost ground and to divert its people’s attention away from India’s defeats.

On these facts, it seems likely that it was India who provoked the fighting in the Rann. Delhi’s propaganda machine was soon at work to make the most of it.

The so-called Socialist Party demanded assurances that the fighting (in which, of course, none of its leaders were actually engaged) should not cease until the Pakistani forces had withdrawn. Mr. Shastri himself said:

I know that each of our 450 million people of India is today prepared to make any sacrifice in defence of the motherland. . . 

The Rann of Kutch, then, had all the requirements of a classical war situation—rival economic interests, diplomatic ploys, political manoeuvres, betrayal and hysteria.

The final irony is that India and Pakistan have always posed as leaders of the “Uncommitted” nations, as the peace- loving neutrals of the Cold War.

The Rann of Kutch repeated the lessons of Kashmir and Goa. The newer nations of capitalism are no better than the old. The peacekeepers of yesterday are the warmakers of today.

Old, old story

In yet another flare-up in the endless round of minor conflicts, the focus of world attention swung last month to the Western Hemisphere.

Once again the United States Marines landed in that trouble spot of the centuries; the island of Hispaniola. This time it was the Eastern half of the Dominican Republic; not very long ago the marines were hovering off the coast of Haiti.

President Johnson's statement that 

All we are in the Dominican Republic for is to preserve freedom and to save those people from conquest.

was rich, even from such a poker-faced operator as the President. As any brief glance at the blood-stained history of Dominica will show, the people there have never had any freedom to lose.

In fact, for most of the time they have been ruled by corrupt and vicious dictatorships with occasional periods of civil war. And if the occupation of a State by the armed forces of a foreign power is not conquest, then the word has changed its meaning.

However, almost in the same breath the Americans came out with the real reason — fear of another Cuba. Dominica was in fact Viet-Nam in reverse. The United States has always been extremely touchy about Non-American states having a foot in the American Continent.

The Monroe doctrine of 1823 was proclaimed to prevent this, and the conditions of the modern world, with its nuclear weapons and its long range missiles, makes the idea of a possible Russian base so near home particularly unattractive.

Whether or not there were actually any so called Communists in Dominica, is unimportant the possibility was enough. Russia and China made all the expected noises, and the usual moves in the United Nations, but obviously did not intend to risk a major war over a possible minor gain.

There was however a further complication for the U.S.A. — namely the Latin American States, with their fears and suspicions of their gigantic neighbour. In the 19th Century the United States could afford to treat South and Central America with contempt, but today they prefer to have amicable relations with them.

They have, over the last 30 years, devoted much energy to their “good neighbour” policies and to the Organisation of American States (O.A.S.)

If the situation really demands it, and American Capitalism is threatened, Washington is quite prepared to go ahead and damn the consequences. Dominica, luckily, was not that serious, which saved all that good neighbourliness from going up in nuclear dust.

Dead duck

The nationalisation of the steel industry may well be the last quack and flutter of a dying, if not already dead, duck.

Nationalisation is not the political issue that it once was. The Labour Party have quietly forgotten their intention, avowed only a few years ago, to take over cement and sugar. They have also forgotten, although less quietly, the fact that Clause Four commits them to nationalise all industry.

The Conservatives are similarly placed. They have left the vast majority of Labour's post war nationalisation untouched. They have even added some of their own state influence—and in the steel industry at that. They set up the Iron and Steel Board, with instructions to “exercise a general supervision over the iron and steel industry. . .”

Steel is probably the last opportunity, for a long time to come, for the sham battles over state control. For both parties, it is something of a political albatross which neither of them can cut away.

One argument has been notably absent from the debate over steel. When the Labour Party wanted to nationalise the mines they always pleaded that this would benefit the miners. They drew pictures of the suffering of the mining areas under private control. “Pithead baths” was a promise on the lips of every Labour candidate.

This had a certain force, especially in the mining communities which nursed dreadful memories of their past. But the same argument could not be applied to the other concerns which the Attlee government nationalised. No Labour propagandist, be he ever so eloquent, could pretend that the clerks in the Bank of England had gone home hungry and filthy before the war. Neither could the argument apply to the airlines, to gas and electricity — and now it cannot be used about the steel industry.

The case for taking over steel rests on other grounds. The White Paper made them clear:

The iron and steel industry occupies a focal and dominating position in the British economy. ... A single new large integrated works may cost £150 million.

. . . There are difficulties in raising private funds for projeots of this sort.

In other words, steel is vital to the economy of British capitalism and only a state controlled, integrated industry can hold out any hope of providing the capital to allow it to live up to its importance.

On this issue the Labour Party’s mind is made up, at least until they change it. Some of their Members revolted over the scale of compensation, but they were rather late in the day here, because the Labour Party have never concealed their intention of arranging “full and fair” compensation to the steel shareholders. The time for revolts on this issue was last October, when these very same rebels were campaigning to get into Parliament on Labour’s programme, compensation and all.

It is true that the terms are what can be called “fair", if by that we mean that the stockholders are not going to lose out on the deal. Government stock to the value of £550 million will be exchanged for securities valued on the market, on the day the White Paper came out, at only £430 million. Any disagreement between the Minister and the stockholders over compensation will be referred to arbitration. What could be “fuller’’ and “fairer” than that?

If the Tories denounced the compensation as a fiddle, this was only a haggle, an attempt to bump up the price of steel shares. The Stock Exchange provided a more reliable reaction: “The voice of protest,” said The Guardian, “ was muted. . .”

A couple of days later, the point was rubbed in when millions were added to the values of steel shares. Whatever the reason for this, one thing it does not suggest, and that is that the capitalist class are trembling behind their Walls of Jericho at the sound of Fred Lee’s steel band (state controlled, of course).

Not Worth the Paper (1998)

From the September 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Various treaties exist concerning different types of weapons of mass destruction but all of them contain escape clauses and ambiguous formulations that facilitate routine violations

According to newspaper reports, a number of geologists have suggested that the recent nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan may have triggered an earthquake in northern Afghanistan. Whether or not this is the case, many people are likely to have suffered residual damage from the global wave of hypocritical vibrations which rapidly followed. Unquestionably the decision by the rulers of two such economically troubled countries to engage in a futile and costly nuclear rivalry should be regarded as insanely foolish. Nevertheless, such folly is hardly likely to be constrained by moralising lectures from the very governments who were content to make huge profits supplying the nuclear materials and technologies in the first place. Especially when those same governments continue to pursue their own strategic programmes with single-minded zeal, the US military alone admitting to no less than 1030 tests. Classified documents yet to be released are expected to reveal that there were more.

The posture currently adopted by the senior members of the nuclear club as concerned guardians of the environment, although unconvincing, is perfectly consistent given the demented system of logic they embrace. Not one of them signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty until their own experiments were satisfactorily concluded and greater technical expertise, together with improved computer simulation, rendered further testing unnecessary. At the same time they have all promised under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to strive in “good faith” to halt the nuclear arms race and work towards nuclear and general disarmament. It is a promise that is being cynically betrayed.

One of the few remaining jobs for life in capitalist society is that of disarmament negotiator—an occupation demanding the analytical brain of chess grandmaster combined with the duplicity of a card-sharp. Since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (making the world safer for penguins) a further nineteen have been drafted dealing specifically with nuclear weapons, as well as others concerning chemical, biological, conventional, environmental and—er—“inhumane” weapons. Some are still to be signed or ratified but all of them incorporate escape clauses and sentences sufficiently ambiguous to admit interpretations facilitating routine violations. In any event, should even the most binding agreement become inconvenient, it would simply be ignored. As Richard Perle US Defense Secretary at the time of the Star Wars (SDI) hysteria wrote on 8 October 1982 with reference to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty ” . . . we would not hesitate to renegotiate and failing Soviet acquiescence . . . I hope we would abrogate the treaty”. The examples that follow typify the sort of trickery employed.

Outer space treaty 1967

Article IV decrees: “States Parties to the Treaty undertake not to place in Orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction, install such weapons on celestial bodies, or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner.”

At first sight this seems quite unequivocal but if it were it would never have been sanctioned. During the lengthy discussions prior to signing, a memo to the American Secretary of Defense from the Joint Chiefs of Staff (23 November 1965) stipulated: ” . . . the provisions of this treaty should not preclude the conduct of intelligence activities deemed essential to security.” Nor does it! Significantly the agreement fails to prohibit the launching of nuclear reactor powered satellites and, consequently, there are dozens of nuclear reactors orbiting the globe. Should their deep space disposal boosters malfunction then highly radioactive debris would fall to earth, adding to that already deposited from earlier mishaps in space.

To a disarmament negotiator words seldom mean what they appear to say and Article IV of the OST is no exception. One contention is that it only excludes nuclear weapons if they are intended for mass destruction and would not apply to any positioned in space to intercept missile attacks. This kind of sophistry merely fuels the suspicion that the reality was accurately encapsulated in the famous declaration by Senator Barry Goldwater: “Space is just another place where wars will be fought.” A view that is widely echoed (though not publicly endorsed) by policy makers in the Pentagon. In 1976 a convention was established that required any object being fired into space to be registered by the United Nations. Curiously, it does not demand an independent examination to verify the nature and objective of satellites-an omission that could be construed as ominous.

Non-proliferation treaty 1968

Since coming into force in 1970 (extended indefinitely in 1995) this treaty has been signed by all but five states-India, Pakistan, Israel, Brazil and Cuba-and is widely regarded as the most successful of modern times. But the promise of the nuclear signatories to work for disarmament and not to supply, or assist others to obtain, nuclear weapons has manifestly been broken. The arms race continues and the capacity for other powers to make nuclear weapons has markedly increased. Indeed, after the Gulf War ended in 1991 it was discovered that they were about to be built in Iraq despite the pledge of that government not to do so under the terms of the NPT.

Because of the comparative ease in evading the existing monitoring mechanisms of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a provision was added to the NPT in 1997 granting wider powers of inspection and control. Unfortunately it is only obligatory for the members who voluntarily accept it which, so far, is only a small minority. Yet 60 countries now have nuclear reactors and if the rulers of any one of them decided they needed a nuclear bomb, the NPT could not stop them getting it. Most conveniently, under Article X each party has the right to withdraw at three months notice “. . . if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country”. In certain circumstances, of course, the notice given might be a little less!

Sea bed treaty 1971

This treaty bans nuclear weapons from being fixed to the seabed beyond a twelve mile coastal limit. Its inadequacy becomes immediately obvious if you imagine a similar restriction being applied to aircraft on runways. Unhindered by the treaty an unceasing high-tech war is being waged at sea. In the attempt to counteract the threat of nuclear submarines the oceans has been transformed into a gigantic listening station, with underwater sensors fixed to the seabed, others suspended at different levels up to the surface and still more towed by ships. Smart mines with in-built computers are able to distinguish between the different sounds made by various vessels, while hunter-killer submarines-with their own delicate sensors-patrol in silence, armed with nuclear rockets (SUBROCS) and torpedoes. But whatever expensive or extravagant countermeasures are devised (including the deployment of specially trained dolphins) they can do little to diminish the awesome threat posed by submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). The Trident carrying boats, for instance, are almost 200 metres long and can remain submerged deep below the surface for several months. Each one can deliver nearly 200 warheads with a range of thousands of kilometres and costs in excess of a 100 billion dollars. Trident missiles, already capable of devastation on an unprecedented scale, are currently being updated to make them more efficient. At any given time there are almost two thousand warheads at sea, the majority of them under US command.

Not surprisingly there is a chilling legacy from all this activity. Over three thousand naval accidents have occurred during the nuclear age, leaving eleven nuclear reactors and at least fifty nuclear warheads on the ocean floor. Since they are not “fixed” however, they do not contravene the SBT.

Chemical weapons convention 1993

This Convention which came into force in 1997, requires the destruction of all chemical weapons stockpiles within 10 to 15 years. Although the failure to dispose of old stocks is highly dangerous, the programme is already well behind schedule and despite the considerable powers granted to inspectors under the CWC cheating about production is still possible. One obvious reason is that so many of the chemicals produced for quite different purposes can be used in combination to make weapons. The stockpiles of chemical weapons held in America and Russia are at least 30 thousand tonnes each and both of these governments have authorised the use of chemicals in war and in experiments on civilians.

When a stockpile of nerve-bombs was destroyed by the US in the 1970s they kept the “remnants” in case the “Russians had some” (they did). These “remnants” were theoretically capable of killing 140 billion people. Johnston Island in the South Pacific, previously the target for nuclear test explosions, houses a vast incinerator complex for the disposal of enough chemical waste to kill most of the inhabitants of Earth.

Biological and toxins weapons convention 1972

Signatories agree not to develop, stockpile or acquire “microbial or other biological agents or toxins . . that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes” or “weapons . . . designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict”.

Once again the wordsmiths have displayed their special skill. Here the key phrases are “other peaceful purposes” and “hostile purposes”, leading to repeated claims by Western and Russian governments that they are only producing “antidotes” in their laboratories which is permitted by the Convention. The legitimate use of toxic microbes in the production of vaccines only compounds the difficulties of the highly complex mechanisms for verification, making deception even easier than it is with chemicals. Many governments, including those of Britain, America and Russia are known to have authorised the use of biological agents in war and in experiments upon civilians.

The important thing to remember about treaties is that no government is forced to sign them and, if they do, they cannot be made to keep them. One thing is for sure: for as long as we live in a system in which the protection of minority economic interests is paramount the arms race will continue. Even if the nuclear powers had a genuine desire for disarmament, which they don’t, the cost of disposing of the massive, highly toxic arsenal (100s of billions of dollars) remains. The very size of these arsenals creates another problem-the decommissioning of nuclear reactors will take hundreds of years. The automatic response has been to attempt to solve the problem as cheaply as possible, with scant regard for the environment or the safety of those who inhabit it. Even the penguins are not really safe since the Antarctic treaty does not forbid the presence of “peaceful” nuclear reactors.

While defence expenditure by the major military powers is declining-dramatically in Russia and by over 5 percent annually in the US-weapons research, refinement and development continues to expand. For some projects in the US funds have actually been increased and the current defence budget of the US is still a staggering $242.6 billion. The projection of the present administration is that it will begin to rise again after 2001.

One of the justifications for this is GPALS (Gee, Pals, we can still make a buck or two)-Global Protection Against Limited Strikes. Even if the Start II reduction program is completed on schedule (2003) which is highly improbable, each side would still be entitled to keep 3500 deployed nuclear warheads and the only ones likely to be discarded are those it is no longer considered necessary to keep.

Meanwhile, secret military budgets continue to finance research into a new generation of weapons. Already a huge and fast expanding military-cybernetic complex has been established and experiments of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) as a weapon continue unabated. EMR signals which cause neurological alteration and can induce sickness or death are known to have been beamed upon civilians in both Russia and America. Some scientists believe that transmitting these highly powerful waves may not only cause earthquakes but “airquakes” as well . . .

Richard Headicar

50 Years Ago: Pakistani Punch-Up (2022)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

The violence which is an integral element of world capitalism has erupted yet again. In the Indian subcontinent the inevitable armed conflict between the two enemies has not been prevented by the United Nations, the international peace-keeping body.

Once again we see how capitalism cannot develop an effective means of preventing violence, whether on a local or international level. Only Utopians could expect the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Warsaw Pact or the Commonwealth to work wonders. Violence is a necessary part of capitalism.

To get down to cases: Just now we described the Indo-Pakistan armed conflict as “inevitable”. There are several reasons for this — some complex, some simple, some ancient and others more immediate.

Most people point to the partitioning of India at the time of Independence — nearly 25 years ago — as a significant point in history. The demand of the Muslims for their own state resulted in India losing five Muslim-majority areas to Pakistan. These areas were: North-West Frontier Province, Sind, Baluchistan and half of the Punjab in the west, and in the east the Eastern half of Bengal. The new state of Pakistan was thus a split personality: its capital, its business and military centres were developed in the West wing while the East wing, more populous and economically more promising, was treated as a colony.

During the sixties, under Ayub Khan’s corrupt dictatorship, Bengali demands for autonomy grew more emphatic, backed by civil and industrial unrest. Ayub’s successor, Yahya Khan, tried to placate these forces but finally, last March, resorted to military methods.

We may ask: why was he so determined to retain East Pakistan at such appalling cost? The reason is the usual sordid one of capitalist economics. East Pakistan had a profitable export trade, mainly in jute and tea, and the West wing needed foreign currency badly, both for maintenance of the Army and for development of new industries; and besides East Pakistan provided a captive market for West Pakistan’s growing industry.

That is what Pakistan stands to lose by this war.

(From the Socialist Standard, January 1972)

Letter from India: Conflict with Pakistan (1981)

From the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

If recent official statements are to be believed, and if one is to accept at face value the sensationalist Indian press headlines, Pakistan and India could soon be involved in another bloody war.

Mrs. Indira “Vasectomies All Round” Gandhi, in a recent speech, warned against the military build-up by certain neighbouring countries and called for preparations to meet any external or domestic challenge. The main (unnamed) neighbour she referred to was clearly Pakistan, a fact made plain when she said: “It is also in the air that they are preparing an atom bomb” (Times of India, 9/1/81). In “peaceful” contrast, Mrs. Gandhi hypocritically explained, while addressing a large crowd at Sanswara, India’s use of atomic energy was for “peaceful” ends. It is, in fact, common knowledge that India has atomic weaponry.

In December of last year Mrs. Gandhi spoke of the possibility of General Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistani President attempting “to divert the attention of the people” of Pakistan with military conflict with India (Times of India 20/12/80). This accusation contains more than an element of truth, as General Zia is overlord of a ravaged economy producing much discontent and is also under pressure to liberalise his harsh regime. These domestic uncertainties, coupled with the Soviet armed occupation in neighbouring Afghanistan, have made Zia look for external scapegoats, and no other countries fit this role better than India, Pakistan’s old rival, and the imperialistic Soviet Union.

Unable to muster the same popular support of his predecessor Bhutto, General Zia has tried to safeguard and strengthen his position by increasing Pakistan’s military potential in terms of both manpower and armaments. Additionally, Zia has recently been able to turn parts of his army into a profit-making concern by hiring out divisions to the Saudi Arabian ruling class at a high price.

Both China and America have greatly aided Zia with armaments and money in his military build-up programme. And it is no accident that when the Indian government went arms shopping recently in America, the latter tied such strings to the deal as to oblige the Indians to withdraw from the negotiations. The American government had no serious intention of selling arms to India; the reason for this is their foreign policy of wooing the Chinese and Pakistanis onto their siIte against the Soviet Union. It thus looks likely that military sales to India from Russia will increase, thereby drawing Ghandi more and more into the Russian sphere of influence.

Ghandi’s inference that Zia is trying to export his domestic problems can equally be applied to herself. For it is no coincidence that she has made these references to Pakistan’s threat at a time when she herself, like Zia, is trying unsuccessfully to manage an unstable economy which has produced waves of worker and peasant protest against her ruling Janata Party. In old-style Gandhi fashion, she is meeting these hostile responses with greater government powers of detention while increasing India’s military weaponry. Both Gandhi and Zia are preparing to deal harshly with potential domestic or foreign threats to the respective ruling classes they represent.

The main conflict point between Pakistan and India is, as with many inter-state conflicts, a border issue. In this case, the fertile and mineral-enriched northwest Indian state of Kashmir is the disputed region. In 1965, the political representatives from the ruling classes of India and Pakistan eagerly sent in their armed forces to butcher one another over the ownership of this region. The Indian ruling class won; the workers of India and Pakistan lost. To depict the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965-6 as a religious one, as was done at the time, is totally incorrect. It was not a case of Hindu India versus Moslem Pakistan, but purely one of the Indian versus the Pakistan ruling class, with the exploited classes of these two countries doing their masters’ filthy work for them.

Indo-Pakistan relations have tended towards frequent breakdowns during the last 30 years and on each occasion the Kashmir question has been a central issue. It is indicative of Zia’s desires to see this region incorporated into Pakistan that even the name “Pakistan” —“P” Punjab, “A” Afghan, “K”Kashmir, “I” Indus, “Stan” Baluchistan—serves as a continual reminder of the Kashmir question. In fact, there is not even a clearly-defined Kashmir border between India and Pakistan, as it appears differently on Indian and Pakistani maps.

Kashmir, and its capital city Srinigar, was once a summer escape from the heat of the plains for the Moghul Emperors who overran much of India, bringing with them their Islamic religion and introducing the caste system. While much of India resisted Islam, the Kashmiris more readily adopted the Moslem faith and even now Kashmir, like Pakistan, is predominantly Moslem. Now many Kashmiris do not consider themselves Indians and indeed there is a growing Islamic-based independence movement, which must please General Zia although it is not clear if this small, but developing political movement identifies with him. In fact, it seems more a case of regionally-minded Kashmiris wanting to set up their “own” state, apart from India and Pakistan—an aim similar to the confused thinking of the Basque separatists of Spain.

China has recently intervened in the. Kashmir dispute and called on India and Pakistan to settle their differences and face what is called “The Soviet Threat” in South Asia (New China News Agency, 15/1/81). The announcement attempted to quell Gandhi’s fears by stating that the Pakistani military build-up, much aided by China, is not directed against India. In other words, it is directed against the Red Army in Afghanistan.

However, despite all the Sino-Pakistani reassurances to the Indian government, the Kashmir problem will not go away. And as long as Kashmir remains a source of dispute (which will be just as long as capitalism remains to engender such antagonisms) Indo-Pakistani relations will remain tense, with possible eruptions into war, as in 1965. But assuming that General Zia and his governmental associates can collectively muster together three or four brain cells, they might then realise that in terms of population, land mass, GNP, industrial and military production and even size of armed forces, India dwarfs Pakistan.

Of more importance than the choice of war or peace by Zia or Gandhi is the decision by the exploited classes of these two nations, that is, those who fill the armies’ ranks, as to whether they wish to be used as cannon fodder in their masters’ dispute.

RSB

News in Review: Significance of Tashkent (1966)

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

Significance of Tashkent

The real significance of the talks at Tashkent had nothing to do with the dramatic death of Mr. Shastri, even though this did provide the press with copy for a lot of articles representing the man who had carried out India's warlike foreign policy as a veritable Dove of Peace.

We are used to such mush by now. What really mattered about Tashkent was that it was the Soviet Union which called the two sides together and which, when the talks looked like breaking down, spared no effort to get an agreement.

The final communique mentioned the two leaders “deep appreciation and gratitude" to the Russian negotiators, and well it might. But the Soviet too, should have given their thanks to somebody, because their intervention in the dispute was anything but coincidental and was inspired by anything but concern for the security of other countries.

It is clear that Russia’s interest in pacifying the Indian continent arises from its struggle with China. It would be disastrous for Moscow if the Indo/Pakistan conflict were to get out of hand; apart from anything else, the continuing clash between these two countries gives China an opportunity to sign "peace pacts" with one or the other, perhaps to send “volunteers" to fight there.

On the other hand, a stable India, friendly to Russia, forms a very important part of a defensive cordon around China. Who is to say that one day there will not be Russian missile bases in India, trained on Chinese cities?

Now the truly striking thing about all this is that Russia has been allowed to intervene, and to exert considerable influence, without any protest from, indeed with the encouragement of, the Western powers.

Only a few years ago this situation would have brought the two sides in the Cold War close to a shooting match. And only a little farther back the same situation was a persistent nightmare of British Foreign Secretaries, obsessed as they had to be with the priority of keeping Russia out of India, and so denying her an outlet to the rich markets, plantations and mines of the Far East.

Times, as they say, have changed. British Imperialism was once thought to be the greatest possible threat to the world's peace. There was certainly plenty of evidence of its ruthlessness, and of the deaths and troubles it caused. This led many people to assume that the end of the British Empire would mean a safer, happier world.

Yet now that this has happened, now that Britain calmly looks on while its old adversary walks into an area over which bitter wars were once fought, what has happened to the peace of the world?

We are threatened with greater and more terrifying wars than ever. There is as much, if not more, tension in the world than there ever was. There are still great power blocs, confronting each other over the markets and the raw materials of the world.

The reason for this is simple. The wars of capitalism are not caused by any particular line-up of powers, nor by the dominance of any one country. They are caused by the basic nature of capitalism itself, which cannot help but divide the world into competing units.

The dream of the old-time Indian nationalists may have been realised, and the nightmare of the old-time English Foreign Office have come true. But the black and fearsome reality of capitalism —which is neither a dream nor a nightmare — remains with us all the time. 

More murders

Ever since the abolition of the death penalty, a careful watch has been kept on the murder statistics by those people who think that the only fit and just fate for a murderer is to be hanged by the neck, alone and ignominiously, until he be dead.

The Home Office figure for crimes provisionally classed as murder during the first nine months of 1965 was 185; on this basis, and with a little statistical juggling, and with a little emotion roused by admittedly rousing cases such as the “Murder on the Moors" trial, some sections of the popular press have published the conclusion that since the Silverman Bill became law murderers are running riot.

In fact, the figures prove nothing of the kind. The provisional figure for murders need bear no relation to the figure of crimes which are finally recorded as such. (In 1959, for example the provisional and final figures were 192 and 141 — in 1960 217 and 135.)

So a higher provisional figure for 1965 does not necessarily mean that the final number of cases of murder will turn out higher. The provisional figure can be affected by all sorts of influences, not the least of which is a concern on the part of the police for public and parliamentary interest in the matter.

If the murder statistics—for this country and for others, and for any period— prove anything it is that the death penalty has no influence in the matter. Punishing a murderer does nothing to help his victim, neither does it safeguard the future victims of other killers.

This can be extended to other crimes. There is no call to be particularly sympathetic to the criminal, who after all is making the best of a particularly bad world for himself, much as any law-abiding bank clerk. But facts are facts.

Severe punishment—the cat, the birch, the hangman’s rope—has no effect on crime. A book published some time ago (The Courage of His Convictions, by Tony Parker and Robert Allerton) drove this point home.

But at the same time, it pointed out that the go-soft-on-the-criminal school was equally wrong. They merely disgusted the criminal, who preferred to know where he stood rather than be patronised and manipulated.

The effect to beat down the criminal by punishment, or to talk him round with kindness, has taken up a lot of society's time and energy. And in the result the crime figures go up or down quite unaffected by the methods which are used to deal with the problem.

In the process, a lot of favourite theories on both sides of the argument have been discredited. Most have been replaced by other, equally discreditable, theories.

The fact is that modern crime has its roots in modern capitalist society. Areas like Harlem, or the Gorbals, are a standing incentive to crime, because the best way to survive there is on your wits, and to strike first and talk afterwards.

Add to this the fact that capitalist society is one of privilege, where possession counts for everything, and you have the start of an explanation of, and therefore a cure for, the mass of crime which is such a problem all over the world today. 

Whatever conclusions the criminologists reach over the new murder figures, and whether the death penalty comes back or not, of one thing we can be .sure. Without an understanding of capitalism, and of the problems it causes, crime will continue to flourish unhealthily in our midst.

Labour waves the big stick

Mr. Ray Gunter, who has always prided himself on his affection for blunt speaking, opened the New Year in characteristic style.

Up and down the country he went, making speeches with but a single theme:

  We must find a means of making the country understand that we can spend only what we earn . . . (Blackburn, 5th January)

   We as a nation are living beyond our means (Ilford. 8th January)

The reason for Mr. Gunter's panic was, as we all know, that we are all living much too luxuriously, taking wages which are far too high, doing hardly any work in return, spending long holidays abroad and so on.

So Mr. Gunter and his colleagues speak up, treading a path well worn by previous Labour Ministers. But really, they have little to complain about. There is one thing they are forgetting.

It is now Labour Party policy to wave an enormous stick over workers' heads in the matter of wage increases; “If we cannot or will not match our productivity to our spending,” threatened Mr. Gunter, “Unemployment will arise.”

Now the Labour Party always claimed that it was the Tories who would have to use threats in wage negotiations, and that a Labour government would be able to use its close ties with the unions to keep wages in check without having a stand-up fight.

In fact, the opposite has happened; the Conservatives leaned only very lightly on the unions and Labour Ministers have used threats.

What the Labour Party's propaganda overlooked—not accidentally, of course— was that a Labour government would be committed to running capitalism, with all its conflicting interests—in this particular case the clash between workers and employers over wages, hours and so on.

In face of this clash, and in face of the conditions of labour shortage which generally favour the workers when it comes to a fight, the exhortations and the threats which come in so steady a stream from Labour Ministers are powerless.

There is no cause to offer them any sympathy. They asked for power to try to run British capitalism. And they got it.

After all, the big reason why the Labour Party got where it is today is that it has never encouraged the working class to face the facts of capitalism. There is an especial irony in the fact that those same workers who in their ignorance put the Labour Party into power are now themselves, unwittingly or no, forcing a Labour government to face some of the unpleasant facts of the capitalist social system.

Pakistani Punch-Up (1972)

 

From the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The violence which is an integral element of world capitalism has erupted yet again. In the Indian subcontinent the inevitable armed conflict between the two enemies has not been prevented by the United Nations, the international peace-keeping body.

Once again we see how capitalism cannot develop an effective means of preventing violence, whether on a local or international level. Only Utopians could expect the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Warsaw Pact or the Commonwealth to work wonders. Violence is a necessary part of capitalism.

To get down to cases: Just now we described the Indo-Pakistan armed conflict as “inevitable”. There are several reasons for this — some complex, some simple, some ancient and others more immediate.

Most people point to the partitioning of India at the time of Independence — nearly 25 years ago — as a significant point in history. The demand of the Muslims for their own state resulted in India losing five Muslim-majority areas to Pakistan. These areas were: North-West Frontier Province, Sind, Baluchistan and half of the Punjab in the west, and in the east the Eastern half of Bengal. The new state of Pakistan was thus a split personality: its capital, its business and military centres were developed in the West wing while the East wing, more populous and economically more promising, was treated as a colony.

During the sixties, under Ayub Khan’s corrupt dictatorship, Bengali demands for autonomy grew more emphatic, backed by civil and industrial unrest. Ayub’s successor, Yahya Khan, tried to placate these forces but finally, last March, resorted to military methods.

We may ask: why was he so determined to retain East Pakistan at such appalling cost? The reason is the usual sordid one of capitalist economics. East Pakistan had a profitable export trade, mainly in jute and tea, and the West wing needed foreign currency badly, both for maintenance of the Army and for development of new industries; and besides East Pakistan provided a captive market for West Pakistan’s growing industry.

That is what Pakistan stands to lose by this war. Against this loss, Yahya Khan would be fairly happy if he could grab Kashmir. This beautiful and fairly prosperous state, bordering West Pakistan, is a Muslim- majority area but was ceded to India by its Hindu ruler and has ever since been a bone of contention.

As for India, Mrs. Gandhi has her own reasons for war: if one counts the refugees, she has more than ten million reasons. Since Partition, India is naturally in a competitive position as against Pakistan. To take only two examples: their textile exports compete for foreign markets and so do their jute exports. At the time of Partition, West Bengal had more than 100 jute mills, which were separated at a stroke from the better jute producing areas of East Bengal. The mills had to be run down, as the small West Bengal crop of low-grade jute could not keep them going profitably.

For this reason — and others not connected with Partition — West Bengal is now in serious economic trouble. There is an extremely high rate of unemployment, and political and industrial unrest have led to indiscriminate murders and terrorism, with gangs of goondas roaming the city slums and terrorising the villages (If all this does not fit your stereotype of peaceable, poetic Bengali people, just remember that two Bengali words we all know are "thug” and “cosh”, and that in 1947 the bloodbath of Partition was worst in the Punjab and Bengal.)

Mrs. Gandhi has every reason to swim with the tide of Bengali nationalism and, posing as an altruistic benefactor, rescue Bangla Desh from the tyranny of the Pak Army. In doing so she will divert attention from her domestic difficulties and outflank the left wing parties. The majority party of West Bengal supports Moscow, so it will have to endorse her action. She may also have her eye on East Bengal’s potential as a cheap food-growing area, as a captive market for Indian manufactures and as a help in restoring West Bengali jute mills.

Finally we see a cynical line-up of angels backing this war — a war which is bringing starvation, disease and destitution to tens of millions of helpless men, women and children; which destroys the crops, the homes and the land they depend on; which has already pauperised 10 million refugees and is daily killing scores of others.

This war is hacked by so-called Communists in the Kremlin, supporting the same Mrs. Gandhi who refuses to allow their comrade Jyoti Basu to hold office in West Bengal. In backing India, the Russians are opposing, not only “imperialist” America, not only the corrupt, religion-based authoritarian regime of Pakistan, but also their own comrades in Peking. What an Unholy Alliance is this new Holy Trinity: Pakistan, America — and Peking! And what a piece of blatant humbug is Russia’s support for India and the “right of self-determination” for Bangla Desh!

None of these principalities and powers, these international Al Capones, has any concern for ordinary people. Famine, cholera, typhus and acres of refugee camps are a price they are only too happy to see others pay, as they fight it out, by proxy, in the plains of Bengal and the Punjab or the mountains of Kashmir.

This war, like other capitalist adventures, is one from which the working class can hope for no gain and which they should denounce from all angles. War, after all, is only the method by which the capitalist class redistributes its loot. When wealth is socially owned, this will be seen as the strangest and most self-destructive exercise possible.

Charmian Skelton