Editorial: The Bankruptcy of “Communist” Theory. (1924)

Editorial from the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Immediately after the Bolshevik seizure of power there was some excuse for the misconceptions of the significance and causes of that event, which were prevalent here in working-class circles. Reliable information on Russian affairs had been lacking throughout the war years, and to those who were not familiar through historical study with the slow growth of social forces, no rumoured happening behind the wall of censorship was too fantastic to be believed. Those people outside Russia who erred in crediting the Bolsheviks with achievements which were hardly dreamed of by Lenin and other responsible Communists, were quite unable to examine critically the proposals which were put out by the Third International for the conduct of the workers’ struggle elsewhere. They erred again and more seriously in assuming that methods which may have been useful and probably inevitable in Czarist Russia could be applied here where almost every condition is different. Underlying Communist doctrines lay the assumption that constitutional action is futile for the Socialist’s main aim, that the democratic idea is a myth and a danger, and that capitalism can be overthrown not by the deliberate act of an organised working class, but only by a minority, the Communist Party. To the superficial observer the condition of Europe at the end of the war and at the beginning of the peace made these assumptions less absurd than they appear now. There were sections of the ruling class which had lost their grip on the situation in face of a war which they began and could not control, and in face of peace problems which threatened to be insoluble and fatal. The moment passed and even during capitalism’s difficulty, the workers, in spite of equally superficial views to the contrary, were never less ready to act as a class against their exploiters. All that can be said for the Communists is that many of them did believe their desperate creed. They were prepared to pit their puny strength against the might of the capitalist state, to have their own and other people’s heads broken in trying conclusions with the armed forces, to go to jail for defiance of capitalist laws and in general to face the consequences of their own foolhardy actions. Not so our present-day Communists. The violent doctrines of 1920 will no longer stir even the most emotional and youthful would-be rebel. They are too obviously impracticable to stand the test of discussion in the light of the present situation. But while they dare not go on preaching civil war they are not prepared to admit their error. Instead, they now ask us to believe that they are the innocent victims of wicked misrepresentation, and that they never believed these doctrines at all. Accordingly we give below a selection from the host of declarations they now want be forgotten, prefaced by their recent repudiation of their original policies.

  “The Communist Party has repeatedly pointed out that unless it is able to win over to its standard a decisive majority of the working class it cannot realise the social transformation. The Communist Party believes that without the activity of a majority of the workers both in the struggle to set up a real Workers’ Government, and in the subsequent Socialist reconstruction, emancipation is impossible.” (Editor, Workers’ Weekly, November 7th, 1924.)

Lenin writing on Bourgeois Parliamentarism versus Proletarian Revolution (Workers’ Dreadnought, August 28th, 1920) used the following words :—

  “The accusations of siding with the Bourgeoisie can indeed be levelled at all … who, while proclaiming adhesion to the dictatorship of the proletariat in words, in deeds propagate the belief in the necessity of gaining under the capitalist régime the formal consent of the majority of the population (that is a majority of the votes in a bourgeois parliament) before political power can be transferred to the proletariat . . . Let the revolutionary proletariat first overthrow the bourgeoisie, throw off the yoke of capitalism . . . and then it will be in a position to gain the support of the non-proletarian working masses.”

Lenin here uses “proletarian” to mean only the class-conscious minority, not the whole of the working class, as is shown by his following remark that “economically and politically it (the proletariat) represents the true interest of the vast majority of the workers.”

Eden and Cedar Paul, two members of the C.P.G.B., in their pamphlet “Communism” (Labour Publishing Co., 1920, p 12), wrote— “the Bolsheviks believed in the concentration of revolutionary energy in the hands of a comparatively small group prepared to seize power and declare the dictarorship of the proletariat. . . The dictatorship will not be exercised here, any more than it has been exercised in Russia, by the masses. It will be exercised by an oligarchy by a revolutionary élite.”

Lenin, speaking at a Peasants’ Congress (“Ten Days that Shook the World,” p. 303), is reported by John Reed as saying : “If Socialism can only be realised when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least 500 years.”

Karl Radek (“The Development of Socialism from Science to Practice”) describes “the notion that the proletariat should undertake no revolution until it is satisfied it has the majority of the people at its back,” as “nonsense.”

Bela Kun (“Liberator,” March, 1920), declared in an interview that “only a small part of the Hungarian workers were Bolshevik . . . But the most effective means of revolutionising the masses is revolution.”

Clara Zetkin, speaking for the Third Interrnational at the Berlin meeting of the three Internationals in April, 1922, declared that “The new political organism cannot at first be broad-based upon the people’s will . . . The revolutionary élite wrests the powers of the State from the grip of the capitalist class, and establishes the dictatorship of the proletariat.” (Official Report, p. 15, Labour Publishing Co. Ltd)

The Thesis of the Third International on “Parliamentarism, etc.,” adopted at the Moscow Congress, 1920 (C.P.G.B., p. 4), “repudiates the possibility of winning over parliament.” “The Statutes and Conditions of Affiliation” (C.P.G.B., page 4) declares that “the aim of the Communist International is to organise an armed struggle for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie …”

The “Workers’ Republic” (Communist Party of Ireland, April 7th, 1923) states that “the advanced workers, organised in a Communist Party . . . will put the capitalist class out of existence by handing back to the workers that which has been filched from them.”

So much for the Communists’ repudiation of minority action and the armed revolt against the capitalist class. They have changed their watchwords because the old ones were growing ever more unpopular and absurd, but they have failed to see where they have drifted.

In 1920 they were sharply differentiated from other so-called working class parties, but this distinguishing feature removed, they fall back where they truly belong, into the ranks of the reformists. With their long and continually changing list of “Immediate demands,” ranging from capitalist measures like nationalisation to the dissolution of the British Empire, both of them a recognised part of the stock-in-trade of the Labour quack in the ‘eighties, they will have difficulty in showing any reason for their separation from the I.L.P. and the Labour Party. They have demonstrated that Communist theory is barren of hope for the working class.

Lloyd George tells the truth. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

There may still remain some simple souls who think there exists an essential difference between Liberal and Tory. Be in doubt no longer friend. Lloyd George, who is getting on in years, has been moved to glorify his latter days by a burst of real truth. When one remembers what he has said about his Tory opponents, one can only conclude he wants to appear before Peter with at least one good deed on his record. Anyhow he has set your doubts at rest.

It was at Cardiff it happened, on the night of October 20th, when according to the “Daily News,” he spoke as follows :

  “Now one word to my Tory friends. They are honestly afraid of Socialism. I will tell them how to get it. Destroy the Liberal Party first. (Cheers.)

   I ask the Conservatives : Are you going to take the risk of having no alternative, no support? Are you going to destroy a party which does not agree with you, which takes a different point of view, which looks at things from a different angle, which has a different tradition, but which is just as firmly rooted as you in the existing order?”

So there you have it all in its naked simplicity. Comment is almost unnecessary. We will confine ourselves to emphasising that their difference is merely one of angle, of point of view; not fundamental at all. The Liberal Party is an “alternative,” a “support.” They are “just as firmly rooted . . . in the existing order” as the Tories. The Socialist Party has said so for years. Lloyd George has now publicly admitted it. Then doubt no longer. Join a party with a bedrock difference, not one with a squint.

W. T. Hopley

Quotes from Engels. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard 

“Nature exists independently of all philosophies. It is the foundation upon which we, ourselves products of nature are built. Outside man and nature nothing exists, and the higher beings which our religious phantasies have created are only the fantastic reflections of our individuality.” —F. Engels.

* * *

“Men make their own history in that each follows his own desired ends independent of results, and the results of these many wills acting in different directions and their manifold effects upon the world constitute history. It depends, therefore, upon what the great majority of individuals intend.” —F. Engels’ ” Feurbach.”

A Look Round. (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The L.S.D. of Capitalist Remembrance. 

What slimy hypocrites are the ruling class of to-day. Every opportunity is seized upon to pour out tears of sympathy for their victims, when the process is not a costly one; but let it mean dipping into the merest portion of their wealth and, what a difference. Armistice Day is one of those occasions when our masters launch upon us a flood of nauseating cant. It is, we are told, in remembrance of our “glorious dead,” but compare such pretended capitalist sympathy with the treatment meted out to the workers at all times. It would indeed be surprising were it otherwise.

  “At the present time there are 800,000 ex-Service men unemployed, of whom 300,000 are young men not much over 30 years of age, who gave their best years to serve their country. “—Daily Chronicle, 16/9/24.

In like manner their wartime heroes are left to die in want; same paper says (25/10/24) :—

  “Thomas Whitham, V.C., who won the honour when a private in the Coldstream Guards during the war, died of peritonitis at Oldham Royal Infirmary yesterday. Mr. Whitham, who leaves a widow and six children, had been out of work and had had to raise money on his medal.”

The following is also a specimen of our kind masters’ gratitude :—

  “Wages of workmen in the Manchester Corporation Gas Mains Department were yesterday found to be 2s. 3d. short . . . the explanation given was that the sum represented two hours’ stoppage for Armistice Morning. Six hundred workers, all ex-Service Men, are affected.”—Ibid, 15/11/24.

Well might the workers remember their masters’ recruiting appeals : “Isn’t this worth fighting for?” “What will you lack sonny?” May they remember that it was the Labour Party that rendered such able assistance in such appeals. Likewise that it was the same Labour Party that was prepared to use the masters’ military legions as strike breakers when you were fighting to maintain your standard of living during their term of office.

* * * * *

Capital Nonsense.

An applicant at Greenwich County Court said that his landlord, who was a “great Socialist,” refused to accept rent from him. Whereupon the oracle of justice, dipping deep into his reservoir of wisdom, delivered himself of the following : —

   “Probably then he doesn’t want the rent. A Socialist I believe is a person who has no objection to accumulating Capital on his own account but denies the right of other people to do so.” —Star, 4/10/24.

Let us reason ! A capitalist is one who owns wealth in the form of capital : A Socialist is a member of the working class who realises his slave position and works for Socialism. Like the rest of the workers he is poor. It is his class whose wage labour applied to nature’s minerals provides the wealth which the capitalist class dissipate in luxury, spend on wars, armies, navies, etc., or accumulate in the form capital in order to further exploit the workers for profit. Wage slavery never permits of more than a continued poverty existence. The workers’ accumulation is one of misery and insecurity. The Socialist doesn’t deny the “right” of the capitalist to possess capital because he knows that “right” is backed up by the political control of armed forces. What the Beak calls “right’ is called by the Socialist “might.” When the workers organise to control that might the masters will be welcome to the right. We stand for the common ownership of the earth and its control by the whole people, i.e., the abolition of capitalism and its corollary capital.

* * * * *

The Meaning of Poplarism.

We have never doubted the sincerity of George Lansbury’s actions in the interests of—George Lansbury. Through the columns of the “Daily Herald,” 8/11/24. He puts forth an admixture of “Jesus,” “What I Think,” and spurious economics. Says he:—

  “All who possess health and strength should be only too glad to help maintain those unable because of disability to do a full week’s work for a full week’s wage.”

Quite a common mis-statement dear to the Labour Party confusionist, plus the sentiment which is such an asset to Lansbury. He knows that the wages the workers receive hover round a bare cost of living basis, which only suffices to replenish their energy. In the “Herald,” 17/3/24, he wrote of “thousands of miners whose wages had sunk below subsistence level.” presumably by short working time, which had to be supplemented by Poor Law Relief. That section therefore of the working class not required by the masters, either because they are physical wrecks or those whom it is unprofitable to employ, must be retained in some sort of condition by the capitalists who own the mass of the wealth, which constitutes the proceeds of the robbery of the working class. Dare Lansbury deny that? Obviously the masters wish to keep their expenses (rates and taxes) as low as possible, for they come out of their profits.. This is where the Labour leader renders assistance, first by endeavouring to disguise the process of working class exploitation, and second by trying to convince the workers that the masters’ rates and taxes concern them in order to keep them as low as possible. Proof:—

  “The larger Poplar ratepayers who squeal so much about the rates have therefore on the balance been saved at least £250,000 yearly as a result of the Poplar Labour Movement during the last four years.” —Poor Law Officers Journal, quoted Labour Leader, 6/3/24.

The “larger” ratepayers ought, therefore, to be grateful for they pocket an extra million in profit. Those who confuse the workers, knowingly or otherwise, are the best friends of the capitalist, and will merit their appreciation despite the pretence of their opposition. It is clear that it doesn’t matter whose the votes are, because—

   “As your member in the last two parliaments, I desire to thank both friends and opponents for the loyal support which they have given me during that period. “—Lansbury Election Address, October 24th.

As Socialists we know we will meet with bitter opposition from our opponents (Labourites included) : It is significant that while it took us six years to rake up £1,000 the I.L.P. Election Fund contained anonymous £500’s and £l,000’s, and one large employer of labour, Mr. Bernard Barron, while deploring the defeat of the Labour Government could contribute to the Labour Party funds, £5,000 in one gift. (“Chronicle,” 13/10/24.)

* * * * *

Your Work and Their Profit.

“Business Organisation” is a magazine devoted to devices and schemes for extracting the maximum amount of energy from the workers, with the minimum cost. It claims to be disinterested in politics, save in so far as they “check trade and hamper the efforts of our readers to find work for labour and make profit for themselves.” (October.) Eager to obtain insight into this divine arrangement, we read on, and learn of the great Woolworth : "The thought occurred to him that in future he would pay others to work for him, and so large did his business grow that he had never even entered some of his stores.” Another gentleman who also discovered the trick of how to find work—for others—was Mr. Selfridge; he embarked on a world tour a few months ago, “just to show he isn’t indispensable in the business” (Ibid,). The above instances apply equally to the capitalists as a whole. When the workers no longer consider it a privilege to be allowed to fashion a world of pleasure for others, that pleasant world can be theirs.

W. E. MacHaffie

Correspondence. (1924)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Policy.

Answer to F. L. Remington. 

(1) Your remarks on municipal action have already been dealt with in the answer given in the October issue of the Socialist Socialist. Until you can bring some arguments against our reply your unsupported assertions are worthless expressions of opinions.

(2) To say “the Socialist Party of Great Britain accepts the structure of the working classes (sic) existent industrial machinery in the shape of Trades Unions” (a very verbose phrase which simply means “the S.P.G.B. accepts Trades Unions”) shows a considerable confusion of thought. Practically all who work for a wage have to “accept” Trades Unions where they exist in any strength, whether a member of the S.L.P. or any other Party. It is significant to note that almost every S.L.P.-er that became prominent in the eyes of the public did so by their activities in the Trades Union not by any action in industrial unionism or politics. This confusion of thought is further emphasised by your two statements (a) “the S.L.P. endorses industrial unionism” ; (b ) “the S.L.P. is a political party just as much as is the S.P.G.B.”

As industrial unionism denies political action for the working class your remark proves the S.L.P. to be an anti-political party. The whole question of “industrial unionism versus Socialism” has been debated and dealt with in various back numbers of the “S.S.” which we recommend to your notice.

Another error in your letter is in passing over lightly the matter of “imposing personalities.” Had you read our exposure of the S.L.P. in our manifesto and in various articles in the “S.S.” from August, 1906 onwards, you would have seen that “leaders” with a sheep-like following existed in the S.L.P. since its inception. This was one of the factors that prevented those in England who were fighting the old S.D.F. policy from taking part in the formation of the S.L.P.

(3) It can only be supposed that if you have read the answer to your query on the oath, you have not paid the slightest attention to its contents. You make no attempt to show how the working class can gain control of political power if they baulk at an oath. In fact all your present assertions were met in that reply.—Ed. Com.

* * *

Reply to G. T. Foster.

It is significant that while questioning the definition of Mind given in the article entitled “A Brief Sketch of the Materialist Conception of History,” you fail to give any alternative explanation.

Your statement that “the brain itself is ONLY an idea,” given without the slightest attempt to supply any evidence or reason to support it, is sheer nonsense.

Another unsupported assertion, namely, “We know ONLY modes of our own consciousness” is self-contradictory. Who or what are the “we” that know?

When you can give any evidence for your entirely baseless assertions, it may be worth while to examine such evidence.—Ed. Com.

* * *

Reply to J. Jacobs (Edmonton, Alberta).

Your references to the political antics of the Communists in Canada are noted. Their posing as Labour candidates with a long reform programme of a capitalist nature is very similar to the gymnastics of Communists here. Communists in Canada, once so strenuous for the One Big Union and now shouting back to the American Federation of Labour simply show that they are out to capture the jobs in unions as well as in Labour Parties.

When the working class understands the class struggle it will realise the futility of Communist “Moscow” tactics and the anti-revolutionary character of these so-called Communist opportunists.—Ed. Com.

Why Socialists Oppose Nationalisation. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Case Against Government Ownership.

The Socialist propagandist is frequently asked by opponents, and by those who sympathise but are only slightly acquainted with the Socialist case, to defend “Nationalisation.” It is usually with surprise that the enquirer learns that the Socialist Party is not in favour of, but opposed to, the many forms of State or Municipal ownership.

While a few Conservatives, considerable numbers of Liberals, the bulk of the Labour Party, and the I.L.P. are advocates of Nationalisation, the Socialist Party does not hold that the workers can usefully support this demand. Our general reason is one that lies at the back of all our principles, that is, that Nationalisation will not benefit the workers. It is a matter of complete indifference to us whether this or any other proposal is, or is not, useful to the other class, the employers.

What, then, is Nationalisation? Let us take the mining industry as an illustration. At present certain moneyed people, capitalists, invest part of their capital in the lease of coal-bearing soil, machinery, etc., and use part in employing miners and clerks and managers to carry on the various processes connected with the hewing, hauling, sale, and distribution of coal. After they have paid wages and all expenses, they expect to, and actually do, receive in the price of their coal, an amount greater than the total they have spent on getting and selling it. The difference between income and expenditure goes into the pockets of the shareholders or owners as profits or dividends, and this happens irrespective of whether those shareholders have or have not any knowledge of coal-getting, and irrespective of whether they spend the whole of their time idling and enjoying themselves, or whether they take an active interest in the concern in which their money is invested. Generally speaking, the amount of their profits depends not on their own efforts, but on the amount of capital they happen to possess.

This is the normal organisation of the capitalist system in its undeveloped or “competitive” stage, and it is objected to by us and by the advocates of Nationalisation. The agreement between us, however, does not go very far. We object to the control of the means of life being in the hands of non-workers. We object to the owners of capital being permitted to consume part of the wealth the workers have produced while they take no active part in production themselves. We hold that society can now dispense with the capitalist class, because they no longer perform any function which cannot be performed at least as well by members of the working class, by which we mean all those people who, because they do not possess property, are compelled to offer their services to those who do. We do not regard the investment of capital as a service which entitles the owner to live at the expense of those who do the work. We therefore advocate Socialism, which is a social system in which every able-bodied person will be expected to engage in wealth production before he earns the right to enjoy the use of those things which society can provide for its members. Society itself will set aside wealth in the form of machinery, etc., for the purpose of future production, instead of paying a privileged class for permission to use the results of the workers’ past labour, as is done at present. The capitalist class will cease to exist.

This is Socialism, but it is not Nationalisation. Nationalisation, or Municipalisation, is said to exist when the State or some local authority takes over or initiates an undertaking instead of leaving it in the hands of any capitalist or group of capitalists who choose to invest their money in it. Thus the railways in Germany, the Post Office and Telegraphs in Great Britain, and butchers shops, sawmills, and other concerns under Labour Governments in Australia, are nationalised. This development is a natural successor in certain industries to the early competitive stage of capitalism. For instance, the overwhelming importance to a great trading nation of efficient means of communication and transport makes it imperative that private individuals shall not be entitled to act quite irresponsibly. The result of leaving such industries in individual hands would have been a chaotic lack of organisation which, while profitable enough to the owners, would have been fatal to those industries which needed cheap and, above all, dependable and widespread transport services. In self-interest, therefore, the capitalist class as a whole, through their Governments, had to step in and either take over, or at least control, those services which had become too big and important to be left in individual hands without grave danger to the stability without which trade would be impossible. There may, of course, be other reasons for the introduction of national control. Bismarck took over the German railways partly for military purposes, partly in order to have a source of income outside the control of the German Parliament, and lastly because he hoped with centralised control to be able to deal more effectively with any attempted insurrection by the German workers. He and other Continental Ministers have used bureaucratic control to stamp out Socialist propaganda by penalising the active workers, and by denying State employees ordinary political rights. In France, State employees, like those in most Continental State concerns, have been denied the right to organise or to strike, and have been compelled to carry on blackleg services by the simple device of calling them to the colours. Sometimes in wartime and only during that emergency it becomes imperative for other industries temporarily to be put under the sole control of the Government. This happened here during the last war.

Again, it may happen that, owing to changed world conditions, new inventions or some such reason, a powerful group of capitalists may be faced with the threatened loss of the whole capital invested in an industry, as might happen, for instance, if oil fuel completely replaced coal. In such circumstances thé owners, if powerful enough, would become enthusiastic supporters of Nationalisation, in the hope that they might get compensation and pass their losses on to the State. A circular recently issued by a firm of Leicester stockbrokers to their clients, explaining why they favoured Nationalisation of the mines, may very well be dictated by a fear of this kind. (See August issue.)

There is yet another frequent explanation of capitalist enthusiasm for State control. La Follette, who is running as Third Party candidate for the U.S.A. Presidency, is an old-fashioned representative of capitalist interests who regards trusts and combines as a departure from the early “purity” of the capitalist system, and he wants the Government to intervene and, if necessary, take over certain vital industries. He is getting quite an unexpected amount of support from a host of small capitalists, manufacturers, farmers, etc., who are being slowly throttled by the banking, railway, and other rings, and who wish to put back the economic development of society. In this country we have Mr. Clynes, who believes, like La Follette, that it is better to have a large number of small capitalists than a small number of large capitalists. (Preface to the “Failure of Karl Marx.”)

Now, if you examine all the schemes put forward by these various advocates of Nationalisation you will see why it is that the Socialist opposes them. They all of them perpetuate the very feature which is essential to capitalism and which leads us to seek the abolition of the system. We do not hold that capitalism would be all right if only profits were limited to 5 per cent. or 1 per cent., or that it would be all right if trusts were abolished or prevented from charging high prices. We know very well that it is the system itself which is the cause of the chief economic evils from which the workers suffer, and these were as bad, and in some respects far worse, before trusts and combines had been heard of. We do not share the pathetic belief of the “Daily Herald” in 1923 (November 12th, 1923, and following days) that capitalism would be all right and there would be no unemployment if only wages were higher. Their unfortunate example was America, but we learn from the “Daily Herald” of October 23rd that there are now more than 5,000,000 unemployed in that country in spite of “high wages.” For the Socialist, capitalism is the enemy; not big capitalists or little capitalists, not high wages or low wages, not efficient or inefficient capitalism, but simply capitalism. And the essential feature of capitalism is reproduced in all these nationalisation proposals. IN ALL OF THEM THE CAPITALIST INVESTOR IS STILL GOING TO BE ALLOWED TO LIVE ON THE PROCEEDS OF HIS INVESTMENT. The only difference—a minor one—is that he will receive interest on Government or Municipal Bonds instead of receiving profits or dividends on ordinary company shares. He will still be able to live without working, and the system which permits this will still be the capitalist system.

The main underlying cause of the worker’s poverty is the private ownership of the means of producing material wealth. The class that lives by owning, maintains its position because it controls the political machinery and can invoke the aid of the armed forces whenever necessary. The remedy can only be the abolition of private ownership, and this can be done only in face of the opposition of the present owners. Examine Nationalisation proposals on these three claims : (1) That it solves the whole problem. (2 That it improves the workers’ position within the present system. (3) That is makes the final solution easier than it would otherwise be.

The “Daily Herald” (July 27th, 1923), under the heading “Socialism at Work,” instanced the Port of London Authority as a Socialist success. “… What Socialists propose is to set up other bodies like this very enterprising and energetic Port of London Authority.” It has on other occasions mentioned in the same connection the Post Office, and Municipal tramways, electricity undertakings, etc. Now, are these things Socialism, or do they as Socialists contend, merely alter superficially the form of the capitalist system?

First, let us take Mr. Herbert Morrison, Secretary of the London Labour Party.

  “The Port of London Authority was established by Mr. Lloyd George some years ago to enable the capitalists of the Port to have the advantages of public credit and to do for themselves collectively what they and a number of private companies had been unable to do with success individually. . . . The Port of London Authority is a capitalistic Soviet . . . the constitution of which is thoroughly objectionable from the Labour and Socialist point of view, and which has certainly not been as friendly to the workers of the Port of London as it might have been” (“Daily Herald,” July 30th, 1923).

The last remark refers, of course, to the many strikes to enforce better working conditions. We do not care to question the “Herald’s” assertion that “By the unanimous admission of the capitalist Press it works exceedingly well.” It is, however, sufficient to say that the capitalist Press does not usually describe in these terms anything which is likely to benefit the workers at the expense of their employers. Next, I am going to quote another Labour supporter, Mr. G. T. Sadler, LL.B., writing in the “Herald” on the subject of the capitalist nature of Municipal undertakings (April 2nd, 1924) :—

  “Many socialists have the idea that by municipalisation they can get rid of capitalists. May I remind such that by municipalisation you create State capitalists? This process has been long going on in all our chief towns. Take a few examples— 

The debt of—

L.C.C. £105,000,000

Lincoln £1,667,000

Liverpool £22,000,000

Manchester £31,000,000

Leicester £4,995,000 

“On all this interest is paid, say, 5 or 4 or less per cent.—to capitalists ! ”

Mr. Sadler is wrong in only one respect—in thinking that Socialists share this Labour Party idea.

To show how completely many critics of the capitalist system miss the really vital feature is well illustrated by another reform of capitalism advocated by the Labour Party. In the “Daily Herald” (October 20th, 1924), Mr. Emil Davies has an article in which he holds up for the imitation of English workers a milk-distributing co-operative society formed four years ago in Minneapolis. He says : “Those who produce and those who distribute the necessaries of life” will, in the co-operative commonwealth, “not be the wage slaves of people who allow the real workers a mere subsistence, and themselves take large profits which enable them to live in luxury.” He then goes on to tell us that this concern, employing only 400 workers, actually made £40,000 profit last year ! He admits that the workers who formed it could raise only trifling amounts of capital themselves, and it was to outsiders that they had to go to start the business. Thus they began operations with promises and actual investments totalling £23,000, and it is of course mainly to these investors that the profit goes. If this instance of intensive exploitation were really what Socialists aim at, the workers might justly detest the name of Socialism. In fact, co-operative capitalism is open to the same criticism as State capitalism or any other variant of the wages system. And. as Mr. J. A. Spender, the Liberal economist, correctly says, “the MacDonald-Webb School of Socialists . . . would disown the Marxian doctrine. . . . These men have no economic doctrine about wealth or its distribution between classes, and are more correctly called State-capitalists than Socialists” (“Weekly Westminster,” October 25th, 1924).

Even the “Herald” has been compelled on occasion to see the weakness of its own party’s position when some particularly flagrant case has come to its notice. Thus in an Editorial of April 12th, 1924, we find the following :—

  “We do not believe that there is any fundamental distinction so long as the wage system exists, between the relationship of a private employer to his workers and the relationship of a municipality or State to its workers. In each case the latter sell their labour-power, and their capacity to sell it at a fair price depends on their capacity, through their trade unions to refuse to work.”

This brings us to the second argument in favour of Nationalisation, i.e., that it improved the position of the worker within capitalism. The “Herald,” in April, 1924, thinks that it makes but little difference, and we are all familiar with the poverty and discontent among postal employees, who complain, moreover, that the Labour Government has been not better, but worse, in respect of the restrictions imposed upon Civil Servants in their political activities. There is no evidence that State employees in Germany or under Australian Labour Governments have been better off than workers in private employ doing similar work. And if, as the “Daily Herald” points out, “the price of Nationalisation were the giving up of the weapon of self-protection” (the strike), then “under capitalism a nationalised industry would actually be worse off than those left in private hands” (September 13th, 1922). Lest it be thought that there is no possibility of this right being denied, it is as well to remember that the Court of Enquiry set up by the Labour Government after the London Traffic Strike (“Daily Herald,” April 12th, 1924) recommended that there should be compulsory arbitration, which, as the Editor said, meant in practice the taking away of the right to strike. This report was signed by the Labour representative, Mr. Pugh.

There still remains the argument that Nationalisation is economically desirable because it paves the way for Socialism. If it is merely size that counts, then this argument obviously fails, because the trust has solved the problem of large-scale organisation, and in many industries the international combine has been organised across State boundaries and over a larger field than any single Government can possibly cover. Cotton and oil are instances of this. Further, from the point of view of the future, State enterprises are economically bad, because they often introduce political considerations which are less likely in the trust. As pointed out above, Bismarck, when he took over and extended Prussian railways, was influenced largely by purely military needs and not only by the question of providing an efficient means for the transport of goods. In short, the technical and organisational basis of Socialism has long been prepared, and there is no need for half-way houses. The problem before us is solely one of propagating Socialism, no less in States like Queensland, with its ten years of Labour Government, and countries with a relatively high proportion of nationalised industries, than in countries where competitive capitalism is still strong. The private property of the capitalists, which is what we desire to take for society, cannot be touched until the workers as a whole will back up such a step. Advocating Nationalisation within the capitalist system is unnecessary, because the pressure of their own problems will force the capitalists to do this in suitable industries, and its advocacy is injurious to workers because it obscures the real aim and delays its realisation.

Edgar Hardcastle

Correspondence. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thompson (Hull). The evidence for our statement of the decline of Communist membership is contained in the organ of the Communist International—“The International Press Correspondence” (August 12th, 1924). The report of C.P. of G B. membership is given as 5,116 at date of 4th International Congress, and 3,000 at date of 5th Congress (1924).

John Jacob (Alberta), F. Goulding (Manor Park), F. L. Remington (Leicester), G. F. Foster (North London)—replies will appear next issue.

Five Penny Pamphlets. A Review. (1924)

Pamphlets Review from the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of these, one, “The Condition of the English Working Classes” contains some really useful information for the Socialist. The conclusion drawn from the full particulars of money-wages, prices, and unemployment since 1900 is that there has been “from 1900 onwards, a steady lowering of the standard of life to the working classes.” An attempt is also made to estimate the effect produced by the payment of unemployment benefit.

The others, while carefully prepared, were intended chiefly for the defence of the Labour Government at the Election, and are a typical product of the disgruntled Liberal now so common in the Labour Party, the kind of people once happily described by the “Morning Post” as “Bourgeois turned sour.”

The “British Bondholders” after pointing out that the bondholders “are not the working class,” asks the workers to support the Russian Treaty, which is to force payment of interest to bondholders on old loans, and arrange a new loan on which more interest will be paid to bondholders.

“Why a Treaty with Soviet Russia?” instead of explaining why some capitalist interests support and others oppose the Russian Treaty, is based on the simple and misleading statement that “The capitalists hate Soviet Russia.” It contains a summary of the relations between the British and Russian Governments since 1905.

“Facts about the Combines” and “Who Keeps Prices High?” contain figures about the profits, and facts about the organisation, of several big trusts. They both argue in the style of the old Liberals, that capitalism would be all right if it were not for the wicked trusts which keep prices high. “Under these trusts in the last twenty-four years the condition of the working classes has become worse and worse; if the condition of the workers is to improve it will only be after they have broken the power of the capitalists who control these trusts.” One might suppose that before trusts were heard of, back in the middle of the nineteenth century, the working class (Who are these working classes?) were doing very well, instead of being actually in the same position as they are now.

These are obtainable from the Labour Research Department, 162, Buckingham Palace Road, S.W.1.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Religion. Reply to a Vicar. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Reply to a Vicar's attack upon our pamphlet.

  The Vicar of Watford (Herts) recently took it into his head to attack Socialism, taking as his text our pamphlet “Socialism and Religion.” A member of our Watford Branch sent a reply to the Vicar for insertion in the “West Herts Post” (the paper reporting the Vicar’s address), but this paper could not find space for it. 

   The local Labour Party were highly indignant at the attitude taken up by the Vicar, and spared no pains in the endeavour to prove that “Socialism” and “Christianity” were practically synonymous terms. They imported an East End parson to defend them against the imputation of supporting anti-Christian doctrines, and even threatened to secure the aid of the Bishop of St. Albans. 

  As the matter may perhaps be of general interest we print below the letter rejected by the “West Herts Post.”—Editorial Committee, S.S.

Under the above title the “West Herts Post” for September 25th reports an address delivered at the Watford Parish Church by the Rev. Henry Edwards, the Vicar of Watford.

In this address a pamphlet entitled “Socialism and Religion,” published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain (of which I am a member); was attacked by the Vicar, and is the immediate reason for the following criticism of his address.

In his address the Vicar claims that:

Religion is the true remedy for the ills of humanity ;

The Church is just as keen as Socialism to see a better state of things;

The working men of to-day owe to Christianity their freedom, homes, education’ and hospitals ;

Socialism is essentially immoral and advocates free-love.

The word “Religion,” as used by the Vicar, is rather confusing. The religions of the world are countless, and each sect claims that it alone holds the true philosophy of life. I take it, however, that the Vicar is not speaking on behalf of Mohammedanism, Buddhism, or Shintoism, for instance, but only on behalf of the Christian Church. I will therefore confine my remarks to the attitude and activities of this Church.

Christianity and the Workers.

The Church has enjoyed for centuries a power over the affairs of men unparalleled by any other single organisation. During part of the time it was the largest land-owner in the world, owning one-third of the entire land of Europe and controlling the bulk of the educational facilities. This period is familiarly known as the “Dark Ages,” when persecution was rife, knowledge languished and almost died, and the poor suffered from oppressive and barbarous regulations. The Church taught but little beyond the singing of hymns, the saying of prayers, and the belief in miracles. Every step made by science then, and since, has been in spite of, and in face of, the bitter opposition of the Church. Galileo was persecuted by the Church for his scientific discoveries, and only saved himself from torture and death by recanting. Giordano Bruno was burnt for teaching that the earth goes round the sun.

From the time it became a State religion until the present day Christianity has supported the oppressors against the oppressed. The barbarities of the pagan empires were outdone by the barbarities perpetrated after Christianity became the ruling religion in the Roman Empire. The subsequent history contains records of vice on the part of the clergy that would be difficult to equal, as anyone can verify by looking into “The Life and Times of Machiavelli,” by Villari, or, better still, the book the Vicar recommends us to read, “The History of European Morals,” by Lecky. Lecky’s book contains multitudes of illustrations of murder, rape, and other crimes committed by the leading figures in the Church. For instance, on page 261 of Vol. II he points out that Constantine, shortly after his conversion to Christianity, put to a violent death his son, his nephew, and his wife.

The doctrines taught by Christianity are slavish and calculated to make the slave satisfied with his oppressed condition. On this point let me quote Lecky again :—

  “Slavery was distinctly and formally recognised by Christianity, and no religion ever laboured more to encourage a habit of docility and passive obedience.” (Page 66, Vol. II.)

  

  “Christianity for the first time gave the servile virtues the foremost place in the moral type.” (Page 68, Vol. II.)

Are not “docility” and “passive obedience” the ideas most opposed to working class improvement? As long as slaves are satisfied with their lot they will submit to wage reductions and all the other oppressive conditions imposed by their masters. Acting on these ideas, the workers would not have gained the limited advantages they now possess, such as Trade Union combination, factory regulations, “limitations” of the hours of labour, and the suffrage. All these, as a matter of fact, have been obtained against the opposition of the Church.

Christianity is, therefore, proved by its own supporters (Lecky was a Protestant) to be a religion favouring the continuance of slavery.

The Church of England itself has little of which to boast. It was the offspring of the Reformation movement. The Roman Catholic religion, with its numerous holidays, feastings, and taxations for religious purposes, stood in the way of the free exploitation of the workers by the rising commercial magnates of the time. After the Reformation the holidays and feast days were abolished, the workers were driven off the green fields into the factory hells, and their fearful sufferings there—under the control of Christian employers, backed up by Christian clergy—have been recorded on many a burning page in books written by Christian and non-Christian writers. The reports of factory inspectors, Shaftesbury’s “Diary,” Gaskell’s “Machine and Industry,” Gibbin’s “Industrial History of England,” and a host of other books provide illustrations of the depth of brutality Bright, Cobden, and other Christian employers of the time, sank to in their lust after profit.

Martin Luther, the leading figure in the Reformation movement, hated the peasants, the poor people of his time, and supported the savage repression exercised by the feudal lords of Germany. He is reported to have written the following exhortation :—

  “Crush them, strangle them, and pierce them, in secret and in the sight of men, he who can even as one would strike dead a mad dog.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th Ed. article Luther.)

That his suggestion was faithfully carried out appears probable, as the ”Harmsworth Encyclopædia” states that 130,000 peasants were slaughtered during, and immediately after, the revolt (page 4623, Vol. VI).

Religion and Slavery.

The Vicar quotes Wilberforce as an example of the Church’s work for freedom, but what was Wilberforce’s attitude towards the oppressed?

In the period following the Battle of Waterloo, when industry was changing over from hand work to machine work, children from six years of age and upwards were employed for long hours in factories, and girls and boys were working up to sixteen hours a day in coal mines. Wilberforce was deaf to all appeals for assistance on their behalf, and used his influence to support the Government in savage acts of repression against the overworked and starving workers. In 1818, when a peaceful meeting of working men assembled at Peterloo to protest against oppressive regulations, a body of militia set upon them and massacred numbers. Wilberforce opposed any enquiry into the matter, and, in the same year, voted £1,000,000 to build new churches ! (See “John o’ London’s Weekly,” September 6th, 1924, and also the “Diary” of Lord Shaftesbury.)

Lord Shaftesbury struggled for years to interest influential people in the terrible plight of factory children, but he failed to enlist the Church in the support of factory legislation. Those who shed tears over the condition of the black slaves in far-away America were blind to the anguish of the tiny white slaves at their door. Here is a brief extract from Hodder’s “Life of Lord Shaftesbury,” which will give a faint idea of the horrors prevailing at the time in the coal mines of this Christian country :—

  “A very large proportion of the workers underground were less than thirteen years of age ; some of them began to toil in the pits when only four or five; many when between six and seven, and the majority when not over eight or nine—females as well as males. . . .

 

  “From the time the first coal was brought forward in the morning, until the last whirley had passed at night, that is to say for twelve or fourteen hours a day, the trapper was at his monotonous, deadening work. . . . Except on Sunday, they never saw the sun. . . .

  “It sometimes happened that the children employed in the mines were required to work ‘double shifts,’ that is to say, thirty-six hours continuously, and the work thus cruelly protracted consisted, not in tending self-acting machinery, but in the heaviest kinds of bodily fatigue, such as pushing loaded waggons.” (Pages 221-222.)

Shaftesbury complains bitterly of the indifference of the clergy to the children’s sufferings. In his diary he makes the following remarks on the clergy :—

  “I find as usual, the clergy are, in many cases, frigid ; in some few, hostile. So it has ever been with me. At first I could get none; at last I have obtained a few, but how miserable a proportion of the entire class ! The ecclesiastics, as a mass, are, perhaps, as good as they can be under any institution of things where human nature can have full swing ; but they are timid, time-serving, and great worshippers of wealth and power. I can scarcely remember an instance in which a clergyman has been found to maintain the cause of labourers in the face of pew-holders.” (Hodder’s “Life,” page 378.)

I may add that Wilberforce and other Church dignitaries who were so concerned about negro slavery raised not a murmur about the indentured white labour, which was equally as bad, if not worse, that flourished in America at the same time.

Religion and Patriotism.

The Vicar urges patriotism, and blames Socialism for being unpatriotic. We had a good illustration of the patriotism of Christianity during the war. The Christian Churches of Germany blessed the arms of the German soldiers and wished the soldiers success in their endeavour to murder their fellow-beings of other lands. The Christian Churches of England likewise blessed the English soldier and prayed that he would be successful in the slaughter. Incidentally, I may mention that the English Church had thousands of pounds invested in War Loan ! The patriotism of the Church has been dealt with by Lecky as follows :—

  “Much misapplied learning has been employed in endeavouring to extract from the Fathers a consistent doctrine concerning the relations of subjects to their sovereigns; but every impartial observer may discover that the principle on which they acted was exceedingly simple. When a sovereign was sufficiently orthodox in his opinions, and sufficiently zealous in patronising the Church and persecuting the heretics, he was extolled as an angel. When his policy was opposed to the Church he was represented as a demon.” (History of European Morals, page 261, Vol. II.)

The financial interests of the Church are bound up with the continuance of the present system of profit-making. It has millions of pounds invested in railway and other securities, from which it draws dividends, so that it stands to workers in the relation of an employer to the employed. As such, therefore, it is in favour of wage slavery and against its abolition.

Religion and Education.

And now a few words on Education.

Christianity has been the prevailing religion among Western nations for two thousand years, and yet educational facilities were not provided for the mass of the people until comparatively recently. Every step in education has been opposed by the Church. It was “infidels” like Robert Owen and William Lovett who pressed forward the movement for elementary education, and the Church flung the same charge—“immorality”—against Owen that it has flung against every innovator. When National School Boards were established, the Church saw that its resistance was futile, so the clergy fought for control of the School Boards in order that religious teaching should occupy the main part of the curriculum.

Pestalozzi, who has been called the “Founder of the Elementary School,” met with opposition and indifference in his attempt to spread education among the poor. His biographer, Gabriel Compayre, writes :

 “In every time and country, fanatics have been found to decry innovators. He was accused of countenancing anti-Christian doctrines. . . Those of his colleagues who had remained orthodox Protestants were the first to cast stones at him.” (Peslatozzi and Elementary Education, page 57.)

Religion and Family Life.

The Vicar contends that the coming of Socialism will bring immorality and destroy family life. There is no need to look into the future, the evil is here in our midst to-day, and the source of the evils is the system in which we live. The introduction of the factory system long ago dragged the father, mother, and children from the home and set them in competition with each other in industry.

The streets of every large town in this country are thronged with women who are compelled to barter their bodies in exchange for bread. They must live, and the avenues of employment are already thronged to overflow with the unsuccessful. When women are assured of their bread they will be able to spend their affections freely upon those they love, and some of them will not have to adopt the sordid refuge of the streets. But it is not only on the streets that bodies are bought. The woman that enters into a loveless marriage, in order to obtain security of livelihood, is just as much a prostitute as her sister of the streets, the only difference of account being that one sells herself for a short while and the other does so for life. The boasted morality of to-day is a sham, as the ugly facts published in the divorce columns of the daily papers bear eloquent witness.

How much home life does the average worker get? In many instances the whole family are out at work all day trying to obtain the wherewithal to keep a roof over their heads. Their home is more of a sleeping and meal-snatching place than anything else. Overwork makes them irritable with each other, and the time they have together is too brief to enable them to thoroughly understand one another. Trying to make the meagre wages cover the needs of the family, crabs and twists the minds of all. Finally, it is surely idle to speak of home life to working people nowadays, when multitudes of them cannot even find, or pay the rent of, houses to live in, and have to pack themselves into rooms under unhealthy conditions and with the fear of eviction from even these poor shelters constantly haunting them.

Religion and Submission.

That the virtues extolled by Christianity are the virtues of submission is borne out by the statements of the Founder Himself. In his celebrated “Sermon on the Mount” Christ says :—

“ Blessed are the poor in spirit. . . .

“ Blessed are the meek. . . .

“ Blessed are they that mourn. . . .

“ Blessed are the peacemakers. …”

The following out of these ideals is a passive submission to the misery and oppression of this world for the sake of the happiness to be enjoyed in a mythical world hereafter. The true Christian is exhorted to “Resist not evil,” and, therefore, must not take any action to alter the existing order of society, in which the workers are a class of poor and oppressed slaves, subject to the laws and whims of a profit-seeking class of employers.

Socialism aims at taking from the masters the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen. Its object is to raise the workers from slaves to freemen. It is therefore opposed to Christianity.

I have now shown, by a few illustrations out of the multitudes that exist, that the ideals and attitude of the Church were, and are, opposed to the interests of the workers. Any real advance the workers make will have to be made, now as in the past, against the opposition of the Church. If the workers would cast off the chains of wage slavery, then they must cast off the slavish doctrines of Christianity, which counsel them to love, honour, and obey those who oppress them.

G. McClatchie

Labour and Value. Harold Cox on Karl Marx. (1924)

From the November 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Francis H. Napier) takes exception to Mr. Harold Cox’s criticisms of the Labour Theory of Value expounded by Marx. He quotes from a series of “Daily Mail” articles by Mr. Cox as follows :—

  “… many socialists . . . even when admitting that the greater part of modern wealth is created by the machine and not by the men will try to wriggle out of the consequences of that fact by arguing that the machine itself is the product of labour, and therefore anything that it produces ought to belong to labour. This very common Socialist contention ignores the fact that the workpeople who produced the machine were all paid for the work they did. Some of them may have been underpaid; some may have been overpaid; but they all received payment. They are not entitled subsequently to claim that the machine is theirs.”

Mr. Napier correctly points out that in admitting that the machine was produced by labour, Harold Cox is also admitting the accuracy of the statement that wealth is produced by labour; but both Mr. Napier and Harold Cox misrepresent Marx in suggesting that he made this the basis of a moral claim for the labourer of the full value produced. Mr. Cox, of course, is very well aware that Marx made no such claim. We cannot deal with that point here, but with regard to the question of payment for work done it must be quite apparent that if the workers did receive the full value of the machines produced by them, then the machines, or their equivalent, would belong to the workers after the work was finished, and there would be no surplus to go as profits to the employer. That profit represents the difference between the value of the product and the value of the workers’ labour-power. The workers do receive the value of their labour-power, their wages, but they do not receive the full value of their product.

Mr. Napier goes on to ask if it is correct, as Harold Cox says, that Socialists argue that “value . . . merely depends upon the amount of labour.” He states that he was not aware that Socialists held this view, “but rather that the value of the commodity was determined by its cost of production.”

Mr. Napier has fallen into an error here through a confusion as to the meaning of terms. When Marx speaks of “cost of production” he means its cost in labour, not the cost to the manufacturer of materials, wages, etc.

Marx deals plainly and simply with this subject in “Value, Price, and Profit” (chapter 6). He writes as follows: “The relative values of commodities are, therefore, determined by the respective quantities or amounts of labour, worked up, realised, fixed in them” ; and again, “The greatness of its value . . . depends . . . on the relative mass of labour necessary for its production.”

Mr. Napier quotes further from Harold Cox a question as to whether labour spent in pulling down a house is creating value, and answers it himself by showing that if a certain plot of land is required for the building of a new house or factory, then the work of demolition is a necessary part of the new building scheme, and the labour is therefore, in the words of Marx, “socially necessary” and value creating.

He quotes also illustrations of what Harold Cox calls “wasted or non-productive labour.” Two fishing boats set out to sea, and only one of them succeeds in getting a catch. Two watchmakers make a watch, but only one of them will go. Have the unlucky boatman and the bad watchmaker created value? asks Mr. Cox.

The answer is that a certain proportion of unlucky voyages is inevitable, and this wasted labour is therefore a necessary feature of the security of the amount of fish required by society. The socially necessary labour cost of obtaining fish includes this proportion of wasted labour. Marx, as Harold Cox knows, never claimed that value “merely depends upon the amount of labour,” but on the amount which at a given time it is necessary for society to expend. If labour is wasted unnecessarily, then it is not value creating. This is the position of the watchmaker who knows so little of his trade as to make a watch which will not go.

While we are on the subject of Harold Cox, it is interesting to learn that he has only just found out that MacDonald is an anti-Marxist. After quoting from MacDonald’s writings to show that the latter has long ago repudiated Marxism, he continues :—

  “To repudiate Marx is to repudiate Socialism as well as Communism. Ramsay MacDonald may claim to have a peculiar brand of Socialism of his own manufacture, but he is not entitled to act as interpreter for other socialists when he repudiates the prophet who founded their creed.” (Saturday Review, 25th Oct.)

It is noticeable, however, that the Harold Cox of the “Saturday Review” does not agree with the Harold Cox of the “Daily Mail,” to whom MacDonald is not merely the proprietor of a “peculiar brand of Socialism of his own manufacture,” but a representative Socialist.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Great War and the Greater Wars that are coming. (1924)

From the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the world turned wearily from the battlefield there has been a gradual slump in the literature of war, and the tide has set towards the “Problems of the Peace.” All who could wield a facile pen have rushed to their ink-pots and boldly covered reams of white paper with explanations of why the New World that was expected to follow the war looks so dreadfully like the old one. Most people can see that the rich are still with us, and apparently richer than ever. None will deny that the poor are still here, and relatively if not absolutely, poorer than ever. What has happened? Fortunately the scribes will tell us this also. Unhappily, they have so many explanations of the same phenomena that a process of cancelling out takes place, and the only voice that emerges is that of the one who tells us to get ready for another war. Certainly the facts seem to support that view. There are more bayonets and more armed preparations in Europe to-day than ever before. Recourse to the League of Nations has simply added to them. Every barracks is full of soldiers, drilling and training for the next great struggle. Fleets are being overhauled and provided with deadlier guns than ever. Every week we are informed of a new development in aerial terror, whilst placid bands of assiduous chemists have added seventy new poisonous gases to the weapons of the next war. The joke about the “War to End War” has become too hackneyed for repetition, but few seem to have learned the lesson.

The latest addition to the literature of the Peace is a two volume, 1,400 page work, entitled “These Eventful Years: The Twentieth Century in the Making, as Told by Many of its Makers.” Rather a mouthful, isn’t it? Such an expressive title ! obviously chosen for its slight poetic flavour. These Eventful Years ! One can almost hear it being mournfully intoned to the evening congregation. And thus it is called a Pisgah book. This is possibly more apposite than the originators thought. They have intended, doubtless, to convey that they were surveying the world and its affairs from a sublime height. Why Pisgah, and not the Matterhorn or Everest should have been chosen is not clear. We can only assume their choice was influenced by the knowledge that Pisgah stands near the head of the Dead Sea.

It remains but to add that the price of the work being only a paltry fifty shillings, there can be little excuse for non-possession. Think of the contributors, too ! Von Tirpitz and H. G. Wells, Sir Oliver Lodge and Phillip Snowden, Lady Rhondda and Wellington Koo, Admiral von Scheer and Admiral Jellicoe, Ludendorff and Bertrand Russell; and seventy others including J. L. Garvin. We do not intend to review this stupendous work, owing to our having been unfortunately overlooked on the free list. J. L. Garvin, with that native modesty that so well becomes him, has partially remedied this by using up three columns of his “Observer” (August 24th) in boosting his own contribution to the book.

He explains that he was asked to contribute the first four chapters entitled a “Introduction to the History of Our Own Times,” and they trace the steady approach of the war through the preceding twenty-five years. Their measure may be taken when one notes that the fall of Bismarck is taken as the catastrophic starting-point, and that the interval is filled up with proper names. The Kaiser and the Tsar, variously referred to as William II and Nicholas II, or the German Emperor and the last of the Tsars, are the villains of the piece. What those two men have to answer for ! Curiously enough, the name George the Fifth nowhere appears. This seems to be a grave omission. Surely if our late redoubtable antagonist and our former ally were epitomised or symbolically expressed in the occupant of the throne, a like service should be performed for our own monarch. And we all know what he did in the Great War. If the Kaiser lost his war, obviously George the Fifth won it. Let justice be done.

But to resume. The story of the war itself occupies 50 pages. He suggests the temper of that account by a brief extract describing the turning point of the conflict, July 18th, 1918. It is a forceful piece of writing, quite in the vein of the militant arm-chair strategist. “Machine guns flashed over the standing corn”; troops “gathered under those far-ranging tree-tops”; the French force “thrust like a sword” into the “flank of the exposed German salient”; the enemy “lost 15,000 prisoners, 300 guns and broad positions that were vital,” etc., etc. But not a word of a dead man. The monarchs previously so much in the limelight also appear to have been elsewhere.

And then we get to the Peace. It is recognised and admitted that the Peace is a frost.

“What the Germans forgot in 1871, the Allies did not remember at the end of June, 1919.” Yes, the Peace is a frost. And what will happen when the thaw sets in?

“Europe is slowly drifting towards another catastrophe.” The map of Europe as re-drawn under the Peace Treaties cannot endure. The existing League of Nations is described as utterly inadequate. The exclusion of Germany is described as “one of the most fantastic travesties of human purpose”; the banning of Russia as timid and parochial.

And what is the lesson mankind is to learn from all this? What practical steps are formulated that we may avoid another Armageddon? What must we do to be saved?

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 to-morrow, the Alsatian would still remain a peasant or a worker. If the Germans, Austrians, Poles, Rumanians, Czechs, Tyrolese, etc., were all re-shuffled to-morrow, 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. Capitalists live solely and entirely upon the robbery of the working class. How then can we get enthusiastic over a league of our exploiters?

The working class will organise itself to expropriate those who live parasitically upon it. It will link itself with the workers of every country, to achieve this internationally, when the workers understand their class-interests.

W. T. Hopley

Socialism and the Labour Movement. (1924)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Critic Answered.

15, Grenville Street,

Dublin.

Dear Comrade,

As a member of the working class, I am very interested in your party and the Socialist Standard. Some months ago a member of your party was in this town and he left a few of us thinking. For myself I must say that the Socialist Party of Great Britain has very little chance of ever making the working-class Socialists. First, because they do not definitely take their place among the workers and engage in the struggle between the workers and the capitalist class which is unceasing, rather do they preach that nothing except the political battle matter, forgetting that without the economic and the defence forces of the working class movement parliaments, or political institutions are valueless as the capitalist could afford to laugh at the attempts of a band of politicians trying to control the implements that are in his hands. The only hope that Socialism may be achieved is in a combination of all the industrial workers organised as a class together with the defence forces that it will have to fashion in its own defence, and lastly the use, if necessary, as a supplement political action. Propaganda for political action will be helped as the struggle of the class conscious and organised workers goes on.

My chief idea in writing was to urge that sectarianism inside the working class should cease and that small bodies like the S.P.G.B. ought to get into the Labour movement and put their influence on the side of unity, otherwise there will be doubts as to their sincerity. In this town the S.P.G.B. has one individual as a member, and there are intelligent young men calling themselves Communists. He and they are a group who unite in their refusal to assist the mass of the workers who are out for the Workers’ Republic. Why do such people, Communists and Socialists, anger the working class by their hair-splitting differences? Why is it that capitalists whom we are trying to down manage to keep united while we are divided, yet we are all out for working class control of the means and instruments of production and distribution? Therefore I would urge that inside the working class is your place.

Yours fraternally,

P. Cunningham.

Reply to P. Cunningham.

Your letter has been passed on to me for reply, but I find reply difficult because your letter contains only baseless assertions and muddled ideas.

In the first place, capitalist conditions make socialists; we only assist the educational work of conditions.

You say that we do not take our place among the workers in the struggle. I don’t know where you get your information from, but you are evidently badly misinformed. The members of the S.P.G.B. are working men and working women. They work in factories, mills and workshops, and take part with their fellow workers in the daily and weekly struggle for the best conditions of labour that can be obtained. But while doing so they point out the limits of this struggle and the impossibility of overthrowing capitalism by industrial methods. They therefore agitate among their fellows for political action. In the S.P.G.B. they are organised for the political struggle; class-conscious revolutionary action for the establishment of Socialism.

What do you mean by “the economic and the defence forces of the working-class movement”? There is only one force that is worthy of a moment’s consideration—the force that operates as powder and shot, bombs, poison gas, and so forth; the force that is bottled up in aeroplanes, battleships, and tanks; the murderous force that can blow thousands of us to bits and spread ruin and desolation over large territories in the wink of an eye. Have the experiences of war, of strikes, and of battering of native populations taught you nothing? And this mighty death-dealing machine is operated from parliament—in Britain, from the House of Commons. They can crush any working-class uprising almost before the workers have begun to move, as many a man, eating his heart out in prison, has learnt to his sorrow.

Now what can the workers bring to combat this political machine? Nothing but empty stomachs and brickbats. Their wages are not sufficient to enable them to purchase anything beyond a few rifles, and any attempt to manufacture munitions (which could only be done on such a small scale as to be valueless) or to tamper with the soldiers or sailors would, and has been, rapidly met with a term of imprisonment. Up against the political machinery the workers are helpless, and yet, the irony of it, they can obtain control of this machinery as soon as they wish.

On the industrial field the workers are faced with the misery and demoralisation produced by repeated failures. On the political field they are faced with complete success as soon as they are clear about the objective and the way to obtain it. It is easier to organise workers effectively for sound political action than it is to organise them for industrial action alone, because in the one direction complete success is within their grasp, whilst in the other ultimate defeat is certain. The two positions can easily be demonstrated by illustrations that will satisfy the average worker, who is not either a blind worshipper of idols or empty phrases, or whose head is not filled with the fatal delusions of the communist.

To take another of your points. The implements of production are in the possession of the capitalist because he can resist by force any attempt made by the workers to take them. That is why the capitalist laughs. But when the workers, through delegates they control, take possession of the force the laugh will disappear, as it disappeared from the faces of the people composing each class that in the past lost political power and with it economic ownership. Space is too limited for me to give illustrations of this fact here, but you have only to ask and you will receive plenty of illustrations in a future number of this paper.

You ask us to unite with others in “the Labour movement.” But for what are we to unite? Mere unity is meaningless by itself. Are we to unite with the Labour Party to help the capitalists to obtain more profits and the workers to become more docile slaves? Are we to unite with people like J. R. Clynes? He is president of the League of the British Commonwealth that has issued a leaflet stating :

   “The ‘League of the British Commonwealth’ demands, therefore, the nationalisation of our principal banks as the only permanent remedy for unemployment ; but this does not imply or involve the nationalisation of land, industry, or anything else.”

Masses of workers are Liberals, masses are Conservatives; do you want us to unite with either or both of these? You see, unity depends upon the objective and the means to obtain the objective. But I am forgetting, you consider political action to be useless, therefore I presume you are not in favour of uniting with bodies that urge the workers to action you consider useless?

If this is so, take care you are not throwing a boomerang. Take care some members of the Labour Party may not be accusing you of “splitting the ranks.”

From your letter it would appear that the fraction you favour is that rapidly diminishing quantity going under the name of Communist. But it is difficult to find out on what policy one could unite with the Communists, except on the policy of finding out that one is constantly making mistakes and must start again with a new shibboleth—rather a barren outlook you must admit.

You say the mass of the workers are out for the Workers’ Republic. Wake up, friend, your blissful dreams are far, far away from the truth. The mass of the workers are, alas, supporters of capitalism, and your foolish statement suggests to me that you mix very little with your fellow workers. Come down from your attic ot dreams and learn the realities of life before tendering advice to those who are engaged in the struggle for Socialism.

You wind up with the absurd statement that “we are all out for working-class control of the means and instruments of production and distribution.” If this is so, why all the fuss and propaganda? And why, above all, isn’t Socialism here now? Anyhow who are the “we” to whom you refer?

Finally people may be “out for” many things but the point is are they acting in a way that will obtain for them the object of their desires? I might be “out” to visit France but if I started from the North of England to swim there via Greenland there would not be much likelihood of my arrival. The means cannot be separated from the end. There are many people who claim to be “out for” Socialism, but their actions give the lie to the claim and push farther into the future the wished-for objective. The Labour Party, for instance, who urged the workers to take part in the late war, and who engage the attention of workers upon a multitude of questions that are of no value. Then there are also the Communists, who change their minds every few weeks; continually find out that they have been making mistakes; ask the workers to trust them completely, and then work might and main to drive the workers into the shambles.

We are of the working class, inside the working class, and working our hardest to assist our fellow workers to understand that in Socialism lies their only salvation; and that the only way to obtain Socialism, once understanding and desiring it, is to capture the political machinery from the capitalist so that we can dispossess them of the power they wield and the wealth they have stolen.

Gilmac.