Editorial: Our Forgetful Pressmen. (1916)

Editorial from the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers may remember that in the early days of the war we were moved to hilarity by the attempt of the Press to convince the workers that the Russians were fighting to liberate themselves from the German influence which prevented them from becoming a free and democratic nation. All that savage tyranny which may be symbolised in Siberia and the knout was laid to the door of German influence, and the picture was conjured up of that winged seraph the little white father, and all his attendant fluffy, gurgling cherubims, cheerfully sousing themselves in blood, and actually giving up their booze, in order to shake off the German hand that, prevented them giving their beloved peasants the corner seats in their ingle-nooks and the first pull at the liquor.

We laughed.

This tosh appeared in the columns of the “Daily Chronicle,” in whose pages we now find a sort of sequel in a comment upon the resignation of Mr. Sasonoff, the Russian Foreign Minister. The editor writes (July 25) :

“The past 11 months have seen a steady and uniform weeding out of the Ministry of all Ministers liberal enough to be in sympathy with the not ultra-liberal Duma. Mr. Sasonoff was one of the last two left. Moreover, his resignation has been followed by the accession to the Cabinet of two very noted reactionaries—Mr. Makaroff, well-known for his severity in the course of the repression which followed the Russian revolution, and Mr. Khvostoff, not the ex-Minister of the Interior but a near relative of his with a reactionary record.”

The struggle of the Tsar and his statesmen to free themselves from the German influence seems hopeless, for the more they beat the Teutons on the battle-field the more Germanism beats them in their own Cabinet. It is a very strange world we live in, in spite of our Press prostitutes and our prostitute Press.

Trade abroad (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard carried throughout its pages a series of snippets from old Socialist Standard articles highlighting the SPGB's unique position on issues of the day. Where possible, I've provided a link to the full article.

Sir Walter Runciman writes :

“Now that peace is signed, the first necessity for the British Empire and for the whole world is to get trade going everywhere. . . . Only by a full stream of trade can the flow of food and goods between all peoples wipe out hunger, misery, and unemployment, and possibly anarchy.”

Capital lying idle is unfruitful, but capital employed in trade brings in rich returns, hence the anxiety of the profit seekers to get on with the business. That a full stream of trade will will wipe out hunger, etc., is the usual delusive humbug of the employing class.

[From “Peace—Competition—War”, Socialist Standard, August 1919]

Capitalism Cannot Cure Unemployment(1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you vote for the Tories, the Liberals, the Labour Party or any Party which is prepared to continue the capitalist system, you are voting for unemployment, along with the rest of the ills of capitalism.

It is an insult to your intelligence to ask you to believe that any of these Parties can cure unemployment. If they could, why haven’t they done so before?

Except during wars there never has been a time when there was not unemployment, and every time capitalism lurches into one of its periodic industrial crises, unemployment mounts to staggering proportions.

Under the Liberal and Tory Governments which were in office during the nineteenth century, unemployment was continuous and at times of crisis it got worse. They always promised to abolish unemployment, but all they ever did (and that very tardily) was to make mean provision through Unemployment Insurance Acts to prevent the unemployed from starving.

Unemployment increased after the last war. It will increase again after this war.

HERE ARE THE FIGURES

Here are official figures of unemployment under various governments after the last war.

In 1921, under Lloyd George’s Tory-Liberal Coalition Government, unemployment rose to over 2,500,000. Nearly one in four of the insured workers were out of work.

In January, 1924, under MacDonald’s Labour Government, unemployment was 1,374,206.

Under the Tory Government in January, 1928, it was 1,260,503.

Under the Second Labour Government, in January, 1931, it rose to 2,662,842.

In January, 1933, under the National Government, it was 2,955,448.

PLENTY OF WORK AFTER THE WAR

The spokesmen of the capitalist parties tell you there won’t be unemployment because of the need to repair the destruction caused by the war. They told you the same after the last war.

Speaking about the period after the present war, Mr. A. S. Comyns Carr, K.C., made the following pronouncement: —

“He believed that the problem of post-war unemployment did not exist. On the contrary, the problem of employment after the war was going to be how to find enough people to do the work.” (Speech reported in the Times, March 8th, 1943.)

Exactly the same fallacious promise was made after the last war by Mr .J. R. Clynes, one of the Labour leaders, who was a Minister in the Lloyd George war-time Coalition Government. He said : —

“If there ever was a risk of over-production, causing unemployment, there is none now. For at least a dozen years there must be conditions of shortage which, with the best energy and effort, cannot be removed. We are in arrears. We need have no fear of the supply exceeding the demands.”—(Reynolds Newspaper, November 30th, 1919.)

At the time Mr. Clynes made his statement, unemployment was 500,000. By the middle of 1921, less than, two years later, it was over 2,000,000. Then it declined but remained well over 1,000,000 until the crisis of 1931 when it slumped to record levels.

This will happen again if the working class continues to vote for the candidates of the capitalist parties.

WHY UNEMPLOYMENT

Under capitalism, goods are not produced solely for use (as they will be when you decide to vote for Socialism). They are produced for profit. If the manufacturer cannot make a profit, he curtails production or else he tries to cut his costs by reducing wages or installing “labour-saving” machinery. Either way the result is the same—unemployment. The capitalists of all countries are always striving to capture markets from each other. It is impossible for them all to sell their products at a profit because the wages received by the workers are not sufficient to buy the great quantities of goods produced by modern mass-production methods.

RAISING WAGES IS NO SOLUTION

The Labour Party claims that higher wages is the solution (though when they were in office in 1931 they cut the wages of government employees and allowed employers generally to do the same). The Tory Lord Beaverbrook now puts forward the same empty policy. His newspaper, the Sunday Express, May 27th, 1945, reports him as follows: —

“His policy for the abolition of unemployment was to raise the standard of living in every country in the world by international agreement, so as to increase the consumption of goods.”

In the first place, there is not the slightest possibility of effective international agreement to raise wages. Even the Allied Governments, within a week of the ending of the war with Germany, were demonstrating their inability to agree with each other on all sorts of problems about European governments and frontiers. Even if they did put their signatures to some pions declaration, it could never he enforced. Every worker knows that in times of bad trade many employers are able to force individual workers to accept less than agreed rates of wages, even in industries such as agriculture where the minimum is supposed to lie enforced by law. In face of an international agreement to enforce higher wages, some countries would simply ignore it and employers everywhere would protest that they could not afford it. International agreement to reduce wages is a much more likely eventuality.

Note, too, that Lord Beaverbrook, who for years opposed any kind of international agreements and backed his policy of Empire isolation, now talks of international action !

But the basic fallacy of the whole policy is that agreements about wages leave untouched a major cause of unemployment, the introduction of labour-saving machinery. At all times, employers are scheming to get the same output with fewer workers, by introducing new machinery and more efficient methods. During the war this has been enormously speeded up. Coal, cotton and agriculture are three of many industries in which new machinery and methods are going to displace hundreds of thousands of workers. It is estimated that “British agriculture should have no difficulty in producing half as much again as it did before the war with a substantially smaller labour force paid at twice the pre-war rates.”—Manchester Guardian, May 15th, 1945.

How will international wage agreements find work for these armies of redundant workers?

SOCIALISM THE ONLY REMEDY

Capitalism cannot exist without unemployment, without the exploitaion of the workers and without trade rivalry with foreign capitalists. Capitalism will go on producing unemployment, crises and wars. It makes no difference whether the Government which administers capitalism is Tory, Liberal, Labour, Common Wealth or Communist. Only Socialism will solve the problem. Through the international action of the working class of all lands capitalism must be abolished and Socialism established in its place. Then the means of production will be owned and democratically controlled by the whole community. Production for profit, trade rivalry and unemployment will be no more. Goods will be produced by the co-operative efforts of all the able-bodied population and will be available freely to meet the needs of all.

Increased production will result not in unemployment, but in increased consumption and greater leisure.

Russian Imperialism (1948)

From the April 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

If, in 1918, the words and deeds of the Bolsheviks inside Russia stirred the imaginations of workers everywhere, so also did their abrupt reversal of foreign policy. They preached “no annexations, no indemnities," called on all workers to repudiate the aggressive policies of their governments, and demanded the ending of the war. They published the sordid treaties in which the Allied Governments had secretly agreed to dismember Turkey and divide up the rest of the spoils of war. They renounced Czarist Russia's century-old aim of controlling the Dardanelles, and voluntarily gave up the Russian “spheres of interest” in China and Persia extorted by force from governments too weak to resist. They proclaimed the right of "self-determination" and allowed Finns, Poles, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians to secede and become independent states. They denounced the annexations of territory and demands for reparations imposed on the defeated countries under the Versailles Treaty, and vigorously attacked the whole idea of backward peoples being exploited as colonies and protectorates by the imperialist powers. They preached internationalism, opposed militarism, and encouraged their followers in all countries to seek the reduction or abolition of armies, navies and air forces.

All of that was 30 years ago. Now Russia stands forth as a great imperialist power, armed to the teeth, trying to overtake America in atom bomb production, glorifying nationalism and militarism, and entering into the competitive struggle with the same plundering aim as the other imperialist powers.

How far Soviet Russia has departed from the earlier anti-imperialist proclamations of the Bolshevik party can be seen by comparing its present actions and attitude in foreign affairs with the views of Lenin in his work “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism," written in 1916. (See Selected Works of Lenin, Vol. 5, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1936.) Lenin condemned the imperialism of all the powers, but because of the Russian censorship he had to illustrate his case by avoiding reference to Russia and mentioning only Japan. Writing a year later in the 1917 Preface Lenin explained this:—"I was forced to quote as an example—Japan! The careful reader will easily substitute Russia for Japan, and Finland, Poland, Courland, the Ukraine, Khiva, Bokhara, Esthonia and other regions peopled by non-great Russians, for Korea." (1917 Preface, Collected Works, Vol. 5, p. 6.) He instanced Japanese imperialism in Korea. Now by an ironical turn of events Northern Korea is occupied, not by the Chinese from whom Japan annexed it, but by Russian troops (while Americans hold the southern half). Now also Russia has a base on Finnish territory; has annexed about a third of Poland (while Poland has compensated itself by taking territory formerly in Germany); and has incorporated the Ukraine as a Republic in the Soviet Union. Esthonia has been annexed—the vote endorsing this being taken with Russian troops in occupation; likewise Courland, part of what, between the wars, was independent Latvia. Khiva and Bokhara, conquered by Czarist Russia and reduced to vassal states in 1873 are now republics in the Soviet Union.

Lenin's statement that "the war of 1914-18 was imperialistic (that is, an annexationist, predatory, plunderous war) on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies, ‘spheres of influence' of finance—capita), etc." (1920 Preface) can as truly be applied to World War II, Russia again being one of the predatory powers, but this time with greater success than then fell to the lot of the Czarist regime. Examples in great number could be quoted showing the many regions in which the Russian expansionist drive is operating, by methods reminiscent of Russia's Czarist past and of British, Japanese and German imperialisms in their heyday.

At the Yalta Conference in 1945 and again in August, 1946 (see Daily Telegraph, August 13th, 1946, and Daily Worker, August 14th, 1946), the Russian Government revived the old Czarist demand to have a base on Turkish territory from which to control the Dardanelles. This had been preceded some months earlier by a campaign in the Russian Press for the annexation of large areas of Northern Turkey. Part of this territory had been ceded by Russia to Turkey in 1921 after a plebiscite had been taken. No one can reasonably quarrel with the Communist argument (Daily Worker, January 12th, 1946) that the vote was a farce because taken whilst Turkish troops were in occupation, but exactly the same can be said of Russia's annexation of the three Baltic Republics in 1940.

As has been mentioned it was the Bolsheviks who exposed the secret treaties of the first world war. In the second world war it was the Russian Government which had its imperialist claims embodied in a secret agreement signed by America and Britain at the Yalta Conference in 1945. As a condition of entering the war against Japan Russia was to be allowed annexations and spheres of influence at the expense not only of Japan but also of China, Russia’s ally! Under the agreement, which was made without the knowledge of the Chinese Government and was not published until a year later, Russia not only received the strategically important Kurile Islands and Southern Sakhalin, rich in timber, minerals and oil, but also received recognition of Manchuria as a Russian sphere of influence though it was Chinese territory until annexed by Japan in 1931.

The agreement was subsequently published by the British Government (Command Paper 6735, 1946). The relevant clauses read as follows: —

1. The status quo in Outer Mongolia—the Mongolian People’s Republic—shall be preserved.

2. The former rights of Russia violated by the treacherous attack of Japan in 1904 shall be restored —namely,

   (a) The southern part of Sakhalin as well as all the islands adjacent to it shall he returned to the Soviet Union.

   (b) The commercial port of Dairen shall be internationalised, the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union in this port be safeguarded, and the lease of Port Arthur as a naval base of the Soviet Union restored.

   (c) The Chinese Eastern railway and the South Manchurian railway, which provide an outlet to Dairen, shall be jointly operated by the establishment of a joint Soviet-Chinese company, it being understood that the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union shall be safeguarded and that China shall retain full sovereignty in Manchuria.

3. The Kuriles shall be handed over to the Soviet Union.

Clause 1, referring to Outer Mongolia, meant that the Government of China would be expected to confirm recognition of the independence of this formerly Chinese territory. The required recognition was given in January, 1946. Outer Mongolia, nominally independent, is now in close military and economic dependence on Russia.

The Kuriles and Sakhalin had been objects of the rival Japanese and Russian imperialists since 1875, Russia being forced to leave the former and the southern half of the latter after her defeat by Japan in 1904-5.

The granting of the Russian claim to Port Arthur is described as a “restoration"—so it was, but not to the original owners. After the Chino-Japanese war, 1894-5. Japan annexed it from China but was expelled by Russia, France and Germany on the plea that the occupation threatened the independence of Peking; in spite of which China was then forced to lease it to Russia. Dairen likewise was, under pressure, leased by China to Japan in 1915.

Members of the Chinese Government were quick to protest against the Yalta secret agreement as being “contrary to the Atlantic Charter." (Times, February 25th. 1946). and the following news, item indicates that some of the Chinese are still not prepared to accept it: —

“The Chinese People’s Political Council yesterday adopted a resolution urging the Chinese Government to demand the return to China of Port Arthur and Dairen, which have been occupied by Soviet forces since the collapse of Japan.’’ (Sunday Despatch, March 14th, 1948.)

The fact that the Yalta Agreement contained the face-saving clause about China retaining “ full sovereignty in iManchuria” deceived nobody, least of all the Chinese Government, and the following shamefaced comment was made by the London Observer (February 17th, 1946); —

“The surrender at Yalta of China’s rights in Manchuria to Russia as the price of the latter’s entry into the war on Japan was no matter for pride, whatever the gain in speeding victory . . . . the fact remains that China’s rights in a region more important to her than any disappeared. Dr. T. V. Soong obtained some modifications of the Yalta terms in the subsequent Russo-Chinese Treaty. But since then Russia has stripped Manchurian factories of machinery and still fails to withdraw her troops. Urgent diplomatic pressure in Moscow is our immediate due to China.’’

On coming to power in 1917 the Bolsheviks relinquished all the Czarist claims and rights to spheres of influence and oil concessions in Northern Iran (then known as Persia). In 1946, with Russian troops in occupation, the Iran Government was forced to agree to the re-imposition of much the same Russian privileges. The form taken by this new Bolshevik imperialism was the setting up of a joint Russian-Iran company to exploit the oilfields for 50 years, the important point being, however, that majority control would be in Russian hands for 25 years. For the next 25 years the control would nominally be equal but not until the expiry of 50 years would the Iran Government have the right to buy out the Russian half of the shares. The text of the clause relating to the first period reads: “In the course of the first 25 years of the activity of the company 49 per cent. of the shares will belong to the Iranian side, and 51 per cent. to the Soviet side . . . " (Published in “Soviet Weekly,’’ September 18th, 1947.) When Russian troops left (after complaint had been made to the United Nations) the Iran Government, backed by the American and British interests, which have their own oil concessions in other parts of Iran, repudiated the agreement with Russia. Doubtless Russia’s claim will be revived when the Russian Government considers the moment opportune.

Another example of Russian imperialism was the treaty imposed on Finland which ceded to Russia the province of Petsamo and leased “territory and waters for the establishment of a Soviet naval base in the area of Porkkala-Udd.” (News Chronicle, July 23rd, 1946.) In March, 1948, further demands were being made.

During the lifetime of the League of Nations the Russian Government never failed to point out that the so-called League of Nation's mandates were only another name for the old avowed annexations of colonial territory. When the United Nations replaced the League, and the Italian colonies came up for disposal, the Russian Government promptly made a proposal “for international control of two parts of Libya, with a Russian administrator in Tripolitania and a British or U.S. one in Cyrenaica." (Daily Worker, April 30th, 1946.) The claim was, however, not favoured by the other powers and was withdrawn.

Forgetting the early Bolshevik arguments against the stupidities and dangers of reparations, the Russian Government pressed its claim for 10,000 million dollars as reparations from Germany.

Another aspect of Russian imperialism has been the setting up of subservient governments in the countries on Russia’s borders in Eastern Europe. This was defended by Premier Stalin in a statement to the Moscow “Pravda’’ in 1946 (reproduced in the Manchester Guardian, March 14th, 1946). Speaking of the East European countries through which Germany had attacked Russia he said: “Is it to be wondered that the Soviet Union, in its desire to safeguard itself in future, is making an effort to secure in these countries governments loyal to the Soviet Union? How can one, unless one is mad, qualify these steps and aspirations of the Soviet Union as expansionist tendencies in our State? ”

It may seem a plausible argument, but it is precisely the one used by every expanding Empire as an excuse for “protecting its frontiers”; as for example by British imperialism in India and Egypt, by Japan, mid by Czarist Russia itself.

A last illustration of Russian imperialism strikingly shows the gulf that separates the outlook of the present regime from its own early proclamations. In January, 1948, the American Government published German documents, captured in 1945, which purported to disclose the secret agreements between Russia and Germany after the Pact of 1939 was signed by the two Governments. According to the Daily Herald (January 22nd, 1948) these secret agreements “ divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, gave the Baltic Republics to Russia and provided for the partition of Poland . . . Russia's claim to naval and military bases on the Dardanelles as part of the ‘carve up ’ . is recorded."

In 1918 in a somewhat similar situation the Bolshevik Government was able to make the most devastating of all answers, it answered the secret treaties of the Czar’s Government by renouncing them. It showed the sincerity of its protestations against imperialism by giving up all claims and by evacuating all territories seized against the wishes of the inhabitants. The Bolshevik regime was held in high esteem by workers in all countries because it could show clean hands to contrast with the loot-laden talons of all the governments powerful enough to enforce their claim to spoils.

Not so in 1948! Now the Russian protests against the imperialism of other governments have a hollow ring because the Russian Government is itself gorged with loot. Instead it had to combat the secret documents published in U.S.A. by producing a parallel volume purporting to expose the secret negotiations between the British and German Governments in 1939. “These negotiations were designed to secure a broad political agreement with Hitler, Including the division of spheres of influence throughout the world. Germany was to be given the predominant influence in South-East Europe.” (Daily Worker, February 16th, 1948.)

Unable to show by deeds that their hands are clean the Bolsheviks have perforce to fall back on the cynical plea—for that is what it means—that they are no worse than the other brigands of predatory capitalism.

And that will be the verdict of history on the melancholy decline from the idealist principles of 1918 to the sordid practice of thirty years after. 

Edgar Hardcastle

In 1918 they called it peace (1978)

From the November 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are very few people alive who experienced the First World War — the first swift moves of 1914, the settling down into the trenches from the Channel to the border of Switzerland, the mud and the policy of attrition which ground away millions of lives and then the great battles of 1918 and the Armistice, which came sixty years ago this month.

The war opened, on both sides, in a mood of high optimism. The author Henry Williamson, who himself survived much of the fighting, describes the last minutes of peace:

That night I wandered with a cousin to the West End and we heard Big Ben strike the hour. The German Government had not replied. Wild cheers rose on every side.

The troops marched away to cheers and brass bands, the recruiting stations were jammed with eager heroes, it was widely assumed that by Christmas another glorious victory would have been written into the history of British — or German — imperialism. This jingoism was subsequently fed by the official propaganda machines, at their traditional task of making the truth the first casualty in a war. The Germans alleged that any prisoners taken by the Belgians were liable to have their eyes gouged out (and then collected into convenient buckets for war correspondents to see); the Allies were definite that the brutal Prussians were severing children’s hands to prevent them growing up into a new generation of soldiers.

By 1918 the mood had changed, after the experiences of the Somme, Verdun, Passchendaele and the like. The exuberance had given way to grim despair and a conviction that the war would, if not actually last forever, go on for a very long time with the trenches stuck there in the mud swallowing up one generation after another. There was little expectation that the end was so near; in August 1918 Churchill told Haig, the British Commander in Chief, that the “decisive period” of the war was to come in July 1919.

So when the Armistice came it was often greeted with a numb indifference. On the Western Front, exhausted soldiers simply slept through the rain which fell that day. One officer recorded the event in his diary, in less than heroic terms: “November 11 — Armistice with Germany commenced. Weather: Fairly heavy rain”. It was a strange ending to the battles of that year, which had introduced the direct military presence of American capitalism into the affairs of Europe and which had persuaded the German ruling class that they would do better to try to live to fight another day. Their army was allowed to return home in good order, a circumstance which subsequently fuelled the Nazis’ argument that the brave, honest German soldier had been stabbed in the back by the politicians.

Reality

It is impossible to compute anything like an accurate figure for the total losses of the war; one estimate says that 30 millions is too low for all the members of the forces and the civilians who lost their lives. Then there was the massive burden of the wounded — maimed, blinded, gassed or with nerves shattered by the shellfire. Many of these lingered for years, dying gradually over the days of disillusionment in the twenties and the thirties. And there were others, who were not killed or maimed but whose lives were distorted by the loss of someone they depended upon; the wife of a soldier who was killed got 5 shillings (25p.) a week plus ls.6d. (9p.) for each child, which was not far off starvation.

These were the people who, in 1918, were waiting for the promises of verbose politicians to be made good; they had suffered, as they had been told to, and now they were due to experience the better, safer world which their endurance was supposed to build.

Reality was something different. Demobilised servicemen came home to join the dole queue, the Means Test and the insulting rigours of the Not Genuinely Seeking Work Clause. They roamed the streets begging, or tried to live by selling laces in the gutter. They returned from the trenches to the slums — and many of them might hardly have noticed the difference.

It is a pitiful thing to think of, but thousands of these brave men of ours have better homes in the trenches of Flanders than in the sunless alleys of our Motherland.

(Arthur Mee, Lloyd’s News, March 26, 1916).

The bewilderment and despair bore a predictable response. In England the workers turned from Conservative to Labour and back again; there was a questioning of the political system and of the value of parliamentary democracy which on the Continent helped the dictatorships into power. And in 1939, as a fitting climax to Europe’s new Dark Age, the struggle between German capitalism and the rest was resumed.

There are many questions being asked, now, about the First World War but few go to the roots of the matter. Much of the criticism of 1914/18 is laid at the door of stuffy, incompetent generals, who were more worried about the shine on their boots than about the sufferings of the men in the trenches. Or the war is treated as a massive historical accident, which might easily have been avoided by more skilful statesmanship.

These theories are inconsistent with one vital fact. August 1914 was the climax of a long period of the build up of their respective forces by the great powers of European capitalism. The military build up was itself a by-product of the challenge which German capitalism was making to the established dominance of the French and the British.

Socialist Opposition

That dominance was based on the industrial development and the imperial expansion of Britain and France during the 19th. century. German capitalism came comparatively late on the scene and as its industrial power increased it too began to look for expansion. The clash with the powers already in command was unavoidable.

Their victory in 1871 had given the Germans access to the ore of Lorraine; their production of iron and steel quickly outstripped that of Britain. Their mercantile fleet expanded and their ambition to become a new colonial power, with all that that meant in terms of markets and access to sources of raw materials, had to follow. Germany acquired the beginnings of an empire in Africa and, in the Agadir incident in 1911, showed its desire to get a foothold in North Africa. The plan to build a rail link between Berlin and Baghdad opened a way into India and, perhaps, then the Far East.

It was to support these economic ambitions that Germany built up her armed forces. The German Navy threatened to match that of Britain — something the British capitalist class could not accept without contest. Their army became a highly professional force, dedicated to the most efficient and ruthless prosecution of war — which the French ruling class could not accept. In the Schlieffen Plan the Germans laid down their design for the conquest of Western Europe and when it all began it became virtually impossible to turn it back in its tracks .

That war, then, did not appear suddenly out of the mists; it was the predictable outcome of a typical clash of interests in the perpetually feuding world of capitalism. What of those who saw this, who saw that workers were being pressed to fight for their masters’ interests and who stood out against the bully boy patriots who thirsted after the blood of their fellow workers?

From the outset the Socialist Party of Great Britain made our opposition plain:

. . . no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working class blood . . . Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

Opposition to the war was a hazardous stand to take. Objectors, of whatever persuasion, were often given a very rough time:

The Daily Mail wants the names of every known pacifist or active friend of Germany in your city, town or village . . . (Daily Mail, October 25 1917).

There were many examples of the brutal treatment of conscientious objectors, callously justified by Kitchener as “horseplay amongst soldiers”. This excuse illustrated one especially nasty feature of the system of dealing with objectors; all too easily they could be “deemed to have enlisted”, which meant that they were officially regarded as being in the army and subject to military law and discipline, whether they wanted to be or not. Thus if they were shipped to France and continued to disobey orders to put on a uniform they could be — and in many cases were — sentenced to death.

Pledge

In no case were these sentences carried out, although some not uninfluential voices thought they should have been. In the case of political objectors there was an especial disdain. Colonel Wyndham Childs, who as Director of Personal Services — the ‘discipline branch’ of the War Office — was responsible for the treatment of conscientious objectors who, because they were “deemed to have enlisted” were officially in the army, recommended in April 1918:

That it should immediately be made known that conscientious objectors who disobey a lawful command . . . will be tried by General Court Martial and, if sentenced to death by that court, the sentence will be carried out if it appears that their objection is based on political and not religious grounds . . .

For the Socialist Party, propaganda was a difficult, almost impossible, business. Our meetings were broken up, our headquarters raided by the police and our members who were eligible for conscription were either imprisoned or forced to go on the run. Wherever they were — Dartmoor, Wormwood Scrubs or living rough — they continued to put the case against the war which was slaughtering their fellow workers in the cause of their masters and for the society of socialism. When the last shots were fired in 1918, we could look back on our defiant statement of August 1914 as a pledge to our class which we had kept through four desperate years.

In 1918 they called it peace but such has been the history of the world since then that there is hardly any need, now, to draw attention to the cynicism of that claim. The sixty years since 1918 have been of practically unbroken war, somewhere in capitalism, because this social system cannot exist as a harmonious, co-operative human experience. Capitalism is essentially divisive and conflict is basic to its nature.

These facts will not be in the minds of the people who stand at the cenotaphs this November, nor will they be heard in the sermons which are mouthed there. The poppies and the wreaths and the parades will be marking the end of one of capitalism’s bloodiest episodes — one tragic futility celebrated by another.

Ivan

50 Years Ago: The Futile League of Nations (1974)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Garvin’s own summary may do him less than justice, but apparently there are but two things to be done to avert the threatened holocaust. First revise the Peace Treaties by peaceful means, and next enlarge the League of Nations by the inclusion of Germany and Russia, followed later by America. Is it possible that a man of education, and some width of outlook can fob his readers off with that stuff? Does he really believe it himself? Unfortunately there is no reason for doubting it. Mr. Garvin and those of his school look upon the present system of society as final, and for all useful purposes, eternal. Modification there may be, but fundamental change—no. Just as slavery was justified and defended in former times, even by men of culture and feeling, so wage-slavery under capitalism is justified and apologised for by those who profit by it. This attitude may result from a lack of imagination, but more probably from a comfortable feeling that the working class is a special dispensation of Providence, designed to do the necessary work of the world, in order that a smaller aristocratic class may cultivate the finer side of life.

With this view of human society it is not to be wondered at that the re-drawing of frontiers appears to them as epochal; that the stage-play of international leagues assumes a solemn profundity. When the working class realises its true position, it will view an arbitrary line drawn across a country as of equal validity with a chalk mark across the Atlantic. If Alsace were restored to Germany tomorrow, the Alsatian would still remain a peasant or a worker. If the Germans, Austrians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Tyrolese, etc., were all re-shuffled tomorrow, the workers of those areas would still remain workers. Differences of comfort or amenity, custom and language there might be, but working men would remain working men, and that is the essence of the matter. The Irish workers are finding out that a difference in political bosses is not such a vital matter as they once thought. Where capitalism is, there is wage-slavery, and the colour of the flag that floats over the factory makes no real difference to the worker. The great nations of the world are capitalist nations. The League of Nations can be nought else but a league of capitalists. 

(From an article "The Great War and the Greater Wars that are Coming", by W. T. Hopley, in the Socialist Standard October 1924.)

"Fiesta." — An essay in futility (1949)

From the October 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

A King was once injured in the loins, and as he lay in his bed, he watched his kingdom decline. It is upon this mythological theme that Ernest Hemingway based his recently republished novel, “Fiesta.” His king is an American journalist, his kingdom, vividly portrayed with neither comment nor condemnation, is the degenerate world of the reckless twenties.

Much has already been written about the political and industrial conditions of this decade. Black Friday and the general strike have been analysed and discussed, and with them the miserable failure, so far as the working class were concerned, of the first two Labour Governments; but so far as the social relativity to economic conditions is concerned, another aspect has been largely neglected.

The first world war had resounding effects upon the social set up of capitalist society. By compromise, or in many cases, by complete surrender, many members of the landed aristocracy had managed to retain a great deal of their wealth and power. Still was it largely their prerogative to send their sons to the universities and thence into the diplomatic corps, the army or the church. Still the sons of the bourgeoisie were found a place in the family business. In both cases the daughters were taught to sing or play, “ finished,” “ brought out ” and used as “ pawns ” or even “ queens ” on the social chessboard.

But the war, which introduced many scientific discoveries, with all accompanying horrors, brought a great step up in production. Thousands of pounds were made overnight. New powers rose in the land. The little fish were swallowed by the sharks. And the war had to be paid for. Taxes rose. The landed aristocracy, living upon ground rents and family fortunes, suffered at the hands of the industrial capitalists. Many of them were uprooted.

The post war world revealed social changes. School, the army, the family estate or business was a sequence broken. The school, alright—the army, too true—but then what? The family estate was now the business of the “nouveau rich” or even the National Trust, and where was the place of the “master’s” son in a vast industrial organisation?

And the position of the daughters had changed as well. This war, dwarfing its predecessors in intensity, had called for the participation to some degree of every human being. The sea barrier, crumbling all the time under capitalism, broke down almost completely. So far as the women of the working class were concerned it merely meant that they became more competition for their jobless menfolk, but for the women of the capitalist class it made them as independent as their parasitic brothers.

This collapse of tradition made their world seem hopeless. Those things that had previously existed to occupy their minds had vanished. Pleasure became their sole pursuit. The social columns were filled with details of extravagant parties. Hostesses were judged by the lavishness and originality of their balls. One achieved passing fame by ordaining that all her guests turn up in baby clothes. The rag-time band, the bottle party, the night club, the stunt, Paris, the Riviera, Eastern tours, was the fad of the layabouts. Drug addiction and immorality reached their highest peak. They dabbled in Freudian psychology and psycho-analysis. Fantastic behaviour was excused as “ self-expression,” perversion as reflexes. “The colonel’s lady and Rosy O’Grady,” as Hemingway parodies icily, “are lesbians under the skin.”

Such conditions and ideas are bound to reflect themselves in the art of the generation. New schools in literature and art portrayed the expensive futility of this generation. The harsh sexuality of D. H. Lawrence, the infathomability of James Joyce, the fatuous writings of unmourned contemporaries, the cubist, surrealistic and futuristic schools of art are all evidence of these trends. “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas ”—these stark horrible words of T. S. Eliot, the era’s major poet, are typical. "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"—again Eliot.

Forever seeking something new their hungry eyes turned to Russia. What was taking place there? Bolshevik propagandists spoke glibly of the intellectual, of the intelligentsia, of the new culture. Did these words not apply to them? Many of them thought so, and from this womb of jargon emerged one of the most pernicious creations of our time—the left wing intellectual who was going to lead the suffering workers by their noses to what they vaguely referred to as “emancipation.” To further this aim they founded little magazines, not to propagate understanding but to dangle cultural carrots, and under the heading of “reviews” to flatter their own authors’ uselessness.

These were the 1920’s—for the working class a period of unemployment, industrial dispute and lockout; to the capitalist class, especially its younger members, a period of re-organisation and re-settlement. The slump of 1931 put a brake on their activities. So ignorant are they of their own system of society that they were severely shaken and many of them even believed that the system which kept them idle was on the verge of collapse. Many workers, by the way, thought so too. The Socialist Party of Great Britain was not so optimistic. We pointed out that the system would not just collapse, that a force was operating within it that would not only bring about its downfall, but be ready with a new system of society to replace it; that as that force was not ready yet the system would eventually right itself. Time has proved us correct.

But in retrospect we can draw useful lessons from this age. The working class are slated by the bishops and told by the Bible bashers that their licentious habits and immoral practices are the root cause of their poverty. These people do not, or at least do not want, to recognise that it is the working class who are most obedient to the morality of this system of society. After earning or seeking to earn a living they have in the main neither the time nor the energy to do otherwise. It is only when a class is completely divorced, as were they also in ancient Rome, from all useful work that their minds turns to these excesses.

And it is the working class who by their lack of political understanding keep these people idle. Contrast this sterile opulence with your poverty and usefulness. They are linked. Ask yourselves why? The Socialist Party of Great Britain can provide the answer. This is capitalism wherein a small class own the means whereby you live. They neither toil, nor do they spin. You do that! They reap the benefits. The solution? A new system of society wherein these things are the property of all mankind. Under such a system not only would your material needs be satisfied but your culture would be a reflection of happiness instead of misery. It can come just when the working class desire it. So read, learn, realise and band with us.

Overthrow this sterile curse!

Ronald.

Unemployment: The Poverty Problem Explained (1971)

From issue number 1 (1971) of The Western Socialist

(Edit Comm. Note: Although The Western Socialist was founded in 1933 — In Winnipeg. Canada — it has had precursors extending back to The Western Clarion of 1905. Another predecessor of our journal was The Winnipeg Socialist, published by the Winnipeg local of the Socialist Party of Canada, beginning with the issue of January, 1923. The lead article of that first edition was entitled UNEMPLOYMENT, with subtitle: The Poverty Problem Explained. Inasmuch as unemployment and poverty — some 48 years later — remain problems of great priority, the article is as timely today as when it was written. We take pleasure In reprinting this important analysis of one of capitalism’s perennial questions, working class poverty and the interrelationship between employment and unemployment The article was written by Adolf Kohn. a pioneer of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, who was organizing for the socialist movement in Canada and the United States, at the time.)

Every day the number of unemployed workers increases. The chance of getting a job becomes less and less. The army of the workless tramp the streets begging for a job. Unemployment is not their real trouble. It is the want of the necessities of life. They are hungry and face starvation together with those dependent upon them. The idle rich are unemployed, but they do not suffer poverty. Unemployment is a curse only to the working class, because they are a class without wealth. Poverty, not unemployment, is the real “problem.”

Why are the workers out of work? Why are there no jobs for them? It is because the workers have produced too much. The factories and stores are overflowing with goods for which there are no buyers. The class that owns the land, factories and mines will only allow the workers to produce when they can make a profit out of their labor.

Capitalists need unemployed army

The capitalists introduce the latest machinery and scientific devices to increase the output of the workers, and thereby to reduce the number of workers they need hire. They employ women and children because they are cheaper. Every discovery and invention, every new method of speeding up the worker is Introduced to increase profits. The very development of modern Industry, therefore, continually throws the worker out of work. All these up-to-date methods of production increase the output of each worker and continually piles up the wealth in the factories. The workers in the factories have been so busy, so industrious and so productive that they are continually faced with unemployment. Each manufacturer produces as much as possible and as cheap as possible in order to capture the market against his competitors, because he is in business for profit. Each country does the same, and the result is a world war for markets, to dispose of their products.

It is in the interest of the capitalist to have an army of unemployed. Not only to absorb some of them when business is brisker than usual, but to keep down the wages of those in work. The employer knows that with an army of unemployed outside he can speed up the employed and keep them docile. While the worker is forced to sell his energy to the owners of the factories. his wage will get lower as the competition for jobs gets keener. If he does not find a master quickly, he will starve, so he is compelled to work on the bosses’ terms.

Where unions are powerless

The power of unions to resist is very small when unemployment grows, and so the workers’ standard of living declines. The present system of production for profit is impossible without the unemployed, and the employers’ power to introduce machinery and speeding up systems will always guarantee an unemployed army for the capitalists.

A cry for a shorter work-day as a remedy for unemployment is. therefore. a cry of men who do not understand the present system. Shorter hours are an incentive to the employers to speed up and devise ways and means for getting a greater output in fewer hours. Better machinery and the saving of waste are also adopted. Employers like Ford and Leverhulme boast of greater profits since they shortened hours. No union can remove unemployment. Unions cannot stop machinery being introduced to save wages. Unions cannot stop the growth of the Trust and Combine, which always eradicates waste, and, consequently, needs less workers to do the work. Unions cannot stop the constant overproduction which closes down industry. These things are inherent in the capitalist system. They are due to capitalist ownership, and the resulting anarchy. The contradiction of co-operative production inside the factory and the private ownership of the product, causes the depressions and crises we now suffer.

Not war problem

The worker, able, ready and willing to work, is denied a chance to apply his energy and produce wealth. He has produced too much and he is. therefore, left in misery, while around him is greater wealth than ever existed before. Labor leaders talk of greater output, while the warehouses are stifling with goods. Our politicians talk of increasing "our" foreign trade while unemployment has increased along with increasing exports. England and America's great export trade has not saved them from an unemployed crisis. After the great Allied victory the workers who carried on the war are offered a day or two’s work, removing snow, to get it done cheaper than ordinary rates. The industrious workers are insulted with a charitable dole insufficient to pay the rent, provided they are medically unfit to perform the miserable relief work at a starvation pittance.

The capitalists dare not attempt to absorb the unemployed. They could not do without them. They will not offer any grants likely to make charity more desirable than the lowest paid work. It is not a war problem, for the unemployed are a constant feature of the present system. Even when work is resumed and trade flourishes again, the same large workless army will appear as a result of a superabundance of wealth produced once more.

The capitalist system has no solution for unemployment. If work could be found tomorrow for some of the workless, they would merely add to the products clogging the market. The workers cannot buy their products because their wages are but a fraction of the wealth they produce.

The only remedy

Mr. Lloyd George tells English workers to emigrate to Canada, and preachers tell them to "trust in the Lord." We tell the workers there is no hope until they establish a system of common ownership of the natural and industrial resources, in order to produce wealth for use by the producers instead of for the profit of idle owners of these resources. You must establish Socialism, but, in order to do this you must acquire the necessary knowledge of the subject. Education and organization of the working class must be carried on, so that the workers can obtain the necessary political power to change the system. There lies the road to your emancipation.

Adolph Kohn

“The Transition From War to Peace” (1944)

Book Review from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Transition From War to Peace by A. G Pigou. (Oxford University Press, 6d.)

We have received the above for review. Professor Pigou deals almost solely with the post-war problem of the difficulty in finding employment for large masses of workers, who will find themselves out of a job when peace arrives. In various parts of the pamphlet he records accurately the facts and figures of the labour market after the last war, and on page 6 says:—

“The transition from war to peace, throwing as it must do, vast numbers of men and women out of direct and indirect forms of war work, is bound to create, as it did create in 1919, an assembly of persons, less vast indeed, but nevertheless large, for the moment deprived of employment and anxiously seeking after it in one or another civilian occupation.”

With regard to the immediate post-war situation, he remarks that “a vast process of re-stocking will be called for.” During this time—six months or so after the war, he estimates—it is probable that the problems will arise in the transfer of workers from one job to another and not in the actual finding of work.

He makes an important point with regard to this “period of transfer and adjustment” on page 9 when he says:-—

“With the large number of persons that must be then suddenly thrown on the labour market, there is a risk that wage earners, at all events in some occupations, will find themselves at a disadvantage in bargaining and so may be forced to accept large reductions in. rates of pay.”

To obviate this after the last war the Government passed Temporary Wage Regulation Acts in 1918 which were extended to 1920. He mentions that it would be sound policy for the Government to do this again after the present war—presumably for the same purpose of preventing unrest amongst the workers who come back from the battle fronts eagerly searching for the “Four Freedoms” or signs of the already moribund “Atlantic Charter.”

Manifesting in no uncertain fashion the character of post-war “reconstruction/’ the pamphlet continues (page 11) :

“The transition is bound to be a long drawn out affair, of which the first year or so of peace constitutes only the initial phase . . . Thus we should expect a second phase following the first—a phase of relatively contracted demand, in which a number of would-be workers may well find themselves without a job—a delayed post-war depression linked with and partly caused by the high activity of immediate post-war days.”

Here again he draws upon the history of the period following 1918 depicting clearly the catastrophic nature of the slump of 1920 and the years following, when prices came tumbling down, and wages following after.

Pigou (who, by the way, is a Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge) states, however, that “it is not inevitable that at the end of the present war these events should repeat themselves.” He says : “The moral of this history is fairly plain. After the war of 1914-18 money got out of hand.” (Page 17.) This is his explanation of the economic phenomena of slump and boom—his solution being that if money is kept in hand by the retention of certain war-time controls these things will not occur.

But the fact that slumps and booms can be controlled or abolished by controlling the movements of money is given the lie by Professor Pigou himself on page 15, where he points out that this boom broke in 1920, not as “a consequence of deflation by the banks, in the sense of a contraction of the quantity of money in existence.”

“It was a consequence of the decisions by business men not to use their money.” (Pigou’s emphasis.)

Why didn’t the capitalists wish to use their money and keep production going? Or, to put the question another way, why from 1918-20 did the capitalists want to use their money to the greatest possible extent, but not afterwards? Obviously we must seek the solution not in the movements of money but in the factors that cause capitalists at one period to wish to use their money in production, and at some other period not to do so. In other words, we must have recourse to the motive of capitalists in engaging in production. Knowing that, under capitalism, goods are produced with the intention of their being sold at a profit, it is easily seen that when the prospects of profit are great the capitalist will jump in on production and when the prospects of profit are very doubtful he will jump out again.

Applying this to the situation in 1918 it is clear that the capitalists fell over themselves to get in first during the “re-stocking” period when demand exceeded supply, prices were high and profits good. As soon as the markets by about 1920 had readjusted themselves (by means of the “healthy competition of private enterprise”) and the normal chaos of capitalist production had its effect, numerous industries were faced with declining demand for their products. Prices slumped, and the prospects of profit disappeared. Then the capitalists were forced to think more than twice about putting their money into further production.

This pamphlet, like others in the series of “Oxford Pamphlets on Home Affairs,” offers a good deal of sound factual information, but fails to offer a correct explanation or adequate solution of the problem with which it deals.

So long as capitalism exists with its private ownership of the means of production and its scramble for markets, so long will exist the economic phenomena of crises and booms, together with all the other problems which face the working-class, such as poverty, mass unemployment and wars.

No! The solution does not lie in the control of movements of money, but in the abolition of a system of society based on private ownership with its consequent need of money and the establishment of a system of society based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production where the need for money will disappear.

N. S.

50 Years Ago: Futile Appeals For Disarmament (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A demonstration was held on Thursday October 13th at the Central Hall, to further the agitation for disarmament. It should be obvious that the capitalist governments of the world arm against each other because they must, war being the logical and necessary outcome of their economic rivalry. While, therefore, the prospect of economising, by mutual agreement to limit expenditure, is attractive to the employing class who have to bear the burden, to appeal to a national group of capitalists to give up their only defence against their like-minded predatory neighbours and against the workers from whose robbery the privileged position of the capitalist class arises, is to ask them to commit suicide, and will naturally be given the amount of consideration such a proposal would deserve. Is it to be expected that our capitalist rulers, armed to the teeth to defend their private property, will scrap their armaments and voluntarily sacrifice their hold on the world's wealth merely.in response from muddle-headed reformers?

* * *

The Bishop of London distinguished for his Christianly ferocious thirst for blood in the late war, asked God's blessing on the Washington Conference meaning no doubt that he hopes the Empire would find favour in the sight of the Lord to get a thumping big share of the spoils in the partition of China. The speakers . . . were no doubt doing their duty by the ruling class in talking platitudes about peace in .the present interlude between the 'last war’ and the next ‘last war’, because at the moment it is desirable to distract working class attention from the lining-up for the conflict to decide the mastery of the Pacific.

(From an article The Peace Society’, by E.R.H., Socialist Standard, November 1921).

50 Years Ago: The Problem of Unemployment (1971)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Notwithstanding the claims advanced by the daily press, that trade shows signs of revival, the unemployment figures are still in the neighbourhood of one and a half millions.

In fact, the workers of every country are unemployed to an extent never yet experienced, with one exception. We are told that Germany is the exception and that unemployment there is scarcely known . . . Some people might argue from this that the way to fuller employment for any country was to have a good war with a neighbouring country and lose it!

Such an argument, however, is on a par with the general capitalist principle that working-class prosperity in one country can only be built up on the unemployment and impoverishment of the workers of other countries.

That is necessarily the outcome of the contention that unemployment can only be reduced by the capture of foreign trade.

(From the Socialist Standard October 1921. Article by Fred Foan.)

War, Peace and Profits (1942)

From the September 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The casualties of war mount with the scale of military operations, but outnumbering even the victims of the battlefield are the legions who succumb to the fearful heritage of war—hunger and pestilence. That was the experience after the last world-war, as we are reminded in a book just published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

“Medical Relief in Europe,” by Dr. Melville D. Mackenzie, is described in “The Londoner’s Diary” (“Evening Standard,” 24/7/42) as being the “grimmest, most fascinating book I have read recently.” Its grimness cannot be questioned, for it tells the author’s experiences in Eastern Europe after the last war, where he worked with Nansen in an endeavour to relieve the plight caused by starvation and disease. Despite their efforts, “more people were killed by famine and disease in the three years after the war than by guns during the war.” We do not know whether the author’s work took him to Central Europe, where the devastation wrought by these “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” was equally fearful. Amid such parlous conditions the democratic republic of Weimar was born — puny and rickety, like many of its children. No wonder it did not survive.

In Hungary, the revolt led by Bela Kun was crushed, according to the Communists, not so much by superior force, but by the American shipments of wheat placed into the hands of Hungary’s old ruling class, the reactionary landowning aristocracy. Whilst bombs are raining on cities and millions of men are blowing each other to pieces, the horrors and problems of the present crowd speculations as to the future into the background. Only our rulers permit themselves occasional, highly rhetorical, glimpses.

Mr. Anthony Eden, perhaps second in popularity only to Mr. Churchill, and a strong tip for future premiership, in a speech at Nottingham on July 23rd, delivered himself of the following : —

“Industry has reached a stage in which there is no necessity for anyone in the world to go short of food, or to lack the means to build themselves a better life. The problem is to organise a full production and an equitable distribution for all.” (“News-Chronicle,” July 24th, 1942.)

A problem indeed. For Mr. Eden and his class, none of whom conceive or admit the need for Socialism, it is insoluble. But there is no harm in trying, at any rate, on the public platform.

Bearing in mind the disappointment which awaited the workers in the years of slump and unemployment that followed the last war, Mr. Eden added a word of caution :

“We must have no illusion about the future even after the war is won. To win the peace will be as hard a task as to win the war. We shall need the same national unity at home. We shall need true friendship between the nations who have fought as Allies.” (Ibid.)

We shall need something far more drastic, the abolition of the capitalist social order. But Mr. Eden would not be able to help in that direction. He can only hold out hopes for a continuation of some form of “National Government” and agreement on international policy among the victors. We are not told what contribution an alliance of political parties, all of whom have had their chance of dealing with the problems of poverty, unemployment and other evils, but failed, can make to the future happiness of mankind. In the sphere of international relations there are already signs of rifts in the lute. Mr. Cordell Hull, United States Secretary for Foreign Affairs, declared in a speech of the same date as that of Mr. Eden, that the welfare of the post-war world demands “the removal of trade barriers.” Whilst Free Trade may suit the interests of American capitalists, it is not so clear that it would be welcome to ruling class interests in Britain and elsewhere. Wherever we turn, the interests of capitalist ownership of the means of life nationally and internationally effectively prevent any substantial amelioration of human suffering. It is idle for Mr. Eden to avow in the same speech that “Never again must we tolerate the chronic unemployment, the extremes of wealth and poverty, and slums, and lack of opportunity for so many, which have disfigured our national life in the past.”

And may we add, continue to disfigure it in the present. In a written statement by Captain Crookshank, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, it is seen that—

“The number of big incomes shows no reduction. A hundred people still receive over £100,000 a year, but whereas in 1939 they paid 12½ millions in tax, they now pay 17.3 millions.” (“Evening Standard,” July 24th, 1942.)

We are not told whether their combined incomes have risen since 1939, though that may well be the case.

At the other end of the social line-up, 5,700,000 taxpayers are in the £125—£250 per year class. With the cost of living at its present rate, it is not necessary to be a student of economics to appreciate the hardships suffered by those wage earners and their dependents.

Nowhere have the ruling class relaxed their grip on the economic and political life of the country. Rather have they strengthened it. Squeezing out the smaller capitalist fry will give greater power and security to the monopolies, just as it will lower the social status of a working class having to contend with powerful combines, whose representatives personally occupy the pivotal positions within the machinery of State. These are the realities of the present and they count for more than the chimera of platform speeches.

They also reveal the future trends of capitalist society. In other countries, too, this centralisation of control and ownership has been put into effect or else discussed; the motive is not a new one; it is the same that has actuated capitalist production from the beginning—profits and the greater security in obtaining them.

Bearing in mind what has been said at the beginning of this article, the following item of news is of special interest : —

Under the heading, “A European Plan for Farming,” the “News-Chronicle” which reported the speech of Mr. Eden also brings news of a conference in London between representatives of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.

“These representatives,” the report goes on to say, “have prepared a peasant programme aimed at opening new post-war markets for their countries in Western Europe—the only way to free them from economic and political domination by Germany.”

“Their programme insists on peasant ownership, with peasant institutions, democratically organised; ample facilities for credit, including a Central Agricultural Bank; and regulated prices.”

Can the futility of capitalism be demonstrated more convincingly ? There are prospects of mass starvation for some time after the war in these very countries, and landowning interests there are looking to Western Europe for a “market” !

Unless the workers of the world awaken to the urgency of Socialism, the epitaph of all human civilisation may well be :

“They wanted work and they gave them munitions factories and war; they wanted bread and they gave them a Central Agricultural Bank and regulated prices.”

Sid Rubin

50 Years Ago: Why the Workers Save (1991)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Times (April 21st 1941) published an article based on first-hand knowledge of the workers’ attitude towards the Government savings campaign. The writer comments on the fact that many workers save in order to be able to face the anticipated depression after the war. “A majority of the working-class expect hard times after the war,” he writes, and quotes a Bradford weaver, who said : —

“I think there’ll be a big slump. I was in t’last slump; it was a terrible time. People didn’t save anything. I was always telling them, if it’s only two or three shillings, don’t spend more than you need. If it’s anything like the last, God help them.”

The naive writer of the article is rather surprised to learn that the attitude of the workers towards saving is not like that of the capitalist: —

“It is only in a very few instances that a working man is putting by money as a form of capital accumulation, which will eventually enable him to invest in property or become a small trader. Most often saving is a form of insurance against known contingencies : marriage, sickness, death, unemployment, old age, hard times . . . even at the poverty level families frequently save, at the expense of their elementary subsistence needs . . . ”—(The Times, April 21st, 1941.)

In short, the capitalist saves out of his superfluity in order to accumulate capital; the worker saves out of his insufficiency in order to protect himself against capitalism and the capitalist.

[From the Socialist Standard, June 1941.]

Editorial: A Few Words on the Atlantic Charter (1941)

Editorial from the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Atlantic Charter drafted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill lays down the principles of the post-war international settlement as viewed by the U.S.A. and Britain. It has now received the general support of Russia and of the small Powers allied against Germany. It suggests obvious comparisons with the attempt to settle world affairs after the last war and with the scheme the German Government has put forward for enforcement if they are the victors. If it were as easy to dispose of awkward problems as it is to draft fine sounding proclamations we could perhaps agree about the superiority of the Atlantic Charter over the Versailles settlement and over the German plan. There is this to be said for the Atlantic Charter, that it is phrased in terms which do not envisage dividing up the spoils of world trade for the benefit of the victors. In Point 4 it pledges Great Britain and the U.S.A. that they will endeavour, “with due respect for their existing obligations” (more about this later) “to further enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.”

This has been compared with the third of President Wilson’s 14 points drafted in 1918, which promised similar equality of trade conditions, but only “among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.” In other words, Germany and her allies were in effect barred.

Similarly it may be compared with the plan for world settlement recently elaborated by one of the leading Nazi economists, Werner Daitz. This was summarised in the Times (September 10th, 1941); under this plan the world is to be divided into six groups, the East-Asiatic, the Indo-Malay, the European, the African, the North American and the South American. The European, which is to take in all Western Russia and Great Britain, is to be under German dominance and according to Daitz it will have complete control over Africa, and there is to be no nonsense of equal trading conditions: —

“Europe will exercise a dominating power over the world. She will need much less food and raw materials from oversea than heretofore, but she will remain the greatest selling market for the countries producing rawstuffs. Consequently, she will be able to dictate the terms on which she buys. What will happen to Australia if Germany refuses her wool ? Or to the Argentine if she declines her beef ? Or to the United States if she will have no cotton? Europe will be able to use the fact that she is the world’s greatest consumer and the world’s intensest centre of industrial production as a political lever to control the other Lebensraume.”

Promise and Performance

But while the words and sentiments differ, what about the prospect of fulfilment? It will not be forgotten that when President Wilson had been disposed of other men and other interests actually dominated the settlement, and paid not even lip-service to the liberal sentiments expressed by Wilson in others of his 14 Points.

Already there has been questioning about that innocent little clause in the Atlantic Charter which reads: “With due respect for their existing obligations.” At the meeting of the nine allied Governments held in London, on September 24th, the representative of the Dutch Government raised objection and said “it was the view of his Government that this reservation might diminish the beneficial effect of the whole clause.”—(News-Chronicle, September 25th, 1941.)

The City Editor of the same journal supported the Dutch Government’s protest though pointing out that that Government too is asking preferential treatment for its own interest. He added: —

“Politicians, business men and leading civil servants are already busily engaged in explaining away Point 4. Some of them are even reported to have argued with scant tact; in the United States that we must maintain exchange control and trade bilateralism as permanent features of our economic set-up, since we “cannot afford” to do without them.

Bilateralism is the system of trade which says, “I won’t buy from you unless you buy as much from me.” That system is in direct and irreconcilable conflict with the equal access principle, which says, “I submit to no conditions from those to whom I sell and impose no conditions on those from whom I buy.”

If Point 4 of the Atlantic Charter means anything at all, it means adherence to the latter, “multilateral,” system of trade, and it is disquieting to find even distinguished economists setting at defiance both our signature to the Atlantic Charter and the most elementary doctrines of their own science”.— (News Chronicle, September 25th, 1941.)

So already it is plain that Clause 4 is going to have a rough passage and if its opponents have their way, to quote the News-Chronicle, “all that in practice is likely to be left of a fine principle is a fine phrase.”

Who will Slay the Capitalist Giants?

All the emphasis in the Atlantic Charter is laid on the relations between nations, but what about the great capitalist combines at home? The Atlantic Charter sees the need to protect the small nations against dominance by the larger ones if they are to trade and have access to raw materials on equal terms. But if capitalism is to continue, as Roosevelt and Churchill take for granted that it will, how is this to be done? How will they deal with the great capitalist concerns like Unilever, Imperial Chemical Industries and similar concerns in other lands? Who is going to slay these giant international semi-monopolies which are the real dominators of world trade? What is the use of saying that trade is on equal terms, a fair field and no favour, when these octopus organisations are left with their tentacles sprawling across the globe, not to mention the fact that they will naturally seek to use their great influence with governments to advance their interests.

This is the acid test of the talk of putting capitalist trade on a better basis. Is there any intention among the upholders of capitalism of reversing a half century of development towards bigger and bigger monopolies? Some twenty years ago a Labour leader, Mr. J. R. Clynes, said that his party thought it better to have a large number of small capitalists than a small number of large ones. Would Mr. Clynes or any other Labour leader say that to-day? Indeed, how could they when they are committed to a programme of amalgamation and formation of great public utility corporations ?

Is Agriculture to be Destroyed by Cheap Foreign Imports ?

There is another awkward fact to be faced by those who think that fine words about equal trade conditions are a contribution to settling the world’s problems. Are any countries to be allowed to impose protective tariffs or give subsidies to agriculture or other industries in order to save them from bankruptcy in face of a flood of cheaper products from abroad ? The News-Chronicle, true to its free-trade doctrines, says that the Atlantic Charter rules out these practices, as it logically does, but where do the Conservative Party and the Labour Party stand ? The Conservatives and many individuals in the Labour Party are already committed to a policy of protecting agriculture in Britain against a flood of imports from countries able to grow food more cheaply. What do they understand by Clause 4? And if they demand protective measures or subsidies for agriculture how will they object to Germany and other countries following a similar line for various industries ? In short, how will the trade scramble after this war be any different from that before the war’?

Twenty odd years ago the Labour Party had an answer. They were prepared to take the free trade line and let agriculture or any other industry sink or swim without aid. In their 1918 “Labour and the new social order,” they said “we ourselves object to all Protective Customs Tariffs,” and on the question of agriculture they said specifically that nothing must be done which would raise the price of foodstuffs here above the price level of foodstuffs imported from abroad.

They would no doubt give a somewhat different answer now but change is not necessarily progress, and the task of making capitalism work harmoniously is at least as difficult now as it was then. Socialists have no doubt about their attitude. Capitalism cannot be made to work satisfactorily. It must be abolished. Those who think differently, and this includes all those who have hastened to applaud the sentiments of the Atlantic Charter, should at least face up to these problems and decide where they stand.