Editorial: Come On, Stump Up. (1918)

Editorial from the August 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

We haven’t got enough money yet to achieve the revolution. We haven’t even got within measurable distance of our first £1,000. Shame on us, our second month’s list actually falls a bit short of the first instead of showing an increase. This is not as it should be. Since the first list was published the need for funds has become even more imperative, for there is now a pretty general expectancy of a General Election about the end of the year, and should this materialise our part in it will be largely determined by the condition of this Fund.

The importance of this election can hardly be exaggerated. For over four years the people of this country have lain bound and gagged while almost every conceivable cruelty and outrage has been practised upon them. Their silence, enforced by brutal Acts of Parliament, has been claimed as acquiescence in and support of the orgy of slaughter upon which our masters have been spending us so lavishly. Every cry for peace has been crushed down by the bully’s bludgeon ; every manifestation of working-class international fraternity has been repressed by the hirelings of the “champions of liberty” ! Now they talk of proffering us a General Election, securely hedged around, as they think, so that no dissenting murmur against the butchery of working-class millions shall be heard in the land, and in order that on the day of reckoning they may claim that they acted in this bloody business according to the popular wishes, that no voice was raised against them when they put the question of their policy to the test of the polls, and that therefore every poor war-orphan had been robbed of its father’s care, and every war-widow of her husband’s support and protection, and every war-bereaved mother of the hope and comfort of her declining years, by the popular assent, wish, and demand.

It is up to us, who have so bitterly opposed the war from the very commencement, to frustrate this cunning design and prevent the filthy war-mongers from succeeding in this latest attempt to exploit their helpless victims. No electoral appeal to the people has been made in over four years of stupendous butchery ; we must see to it that the butchers do not snatch at the last moment an unanimous assent from their quivering victims. We owe it to our Cause to make our protest heard ; we owe it to our class to put on record at the ballot that only tyrannic repression has prevented the word of fellowship going out to all the stricken ones on those wretched battlefields.

Every endeavour should therefore be made to swell the Fund to the utmost during the next few months.

How They Dealt with the Election Paper Ration (1945)

From the July 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the House of Commons on the 9th May the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply, in answer to a question, said :

“The Government have given instructions that paper …. is to be made available for the General Election at the rate of one ton for each candidate …. the quantity to be increased by one quarter for independent candidates. . . . The headquarters of the established parties will, in addition be allowed paper at the rate of one ton for each candidate run by the party. In the case of the small parties, an additional five tons will be licensed. . . .”—(Official Report, 9th May, 1945).

The party having already decided to run a candidate in Paddington North, an application had been made for additional supplies of paper prior to this date.

On the 22nd May we were informed by the Ministry of Supply that:

“. . . . The allocation for Party Headquarters is restricted to the recognised parties having representatives in the House and the Socialist Party of Great Britain as such is not therefore entitled to any allocation for this purpose. . . .”

In a further letter dated the 29th May, the Ministry of Supply said that if we decided to put up a candidate he would “be entitled to a quota on the basis allowed to Independents. . . .”

It is not the purpose of this article to complain at the treatment meted out to us by the parties of capitalism, who, in possession of governmental power, have always been prepared to use it to suppress wherever possible the views of their opponents. Knowing them, we do not expect them to do otherwise. We do, however, place on record the purposeful ambiguity of the statement in the House of Commons which, when subsequently amplified by the Ministry of Supply, excluded from the ranks of “established” parties an organisation which has been in continuous political existence longer than most of the political parties at present represented in the House of Commons.

The care which the large political parties of capitalism claim to have for democratic institutions becomes a mockery when they use their governmental power to withhold from a minority organisation a large part of the material which they themselves consider to be necessary for the presentation of their own points of view.

Finally we wrote to the Speaker of the House of Commons drawing attention to the facts set out above and received from the Speaker’s secretary, Mr. Ralph Verney, the following negative reply.

“Dear Sir,

The Speaker asks me to acknowledge your letter of the 2nd June.

The Speaker’s responsibility to give opportunity for the expression of the views of a Minority is confined to the House of Commons; he cannot interfere with the decision of a Government Department, such as the Ministry of Supply, as to whether the issue of any particular commodity can be extended.”

Readers of the Socialist Standard will appreciate from the foregoing statement the difficulties under which we labour in making known the Socialist case at this Election.

Executive Committee, S.P.G.B.

Editorial: Conscription—1916 Over Again (1939)

Editorial from the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

After repeated pledges not to introduce conscription in peace-time, Mr. Chamberlain has introduced it in peace-time—with the bland excuse that “no one can pretend that this is peace-time in the sense in which the term could be fairly used.” The Labour Party can fairly claim that the man who treats pledges so lightly can hardly throw stones at Hitler, but on every other ground the Labour opposition to conscription is of the flimsiest kind. The Government is treating it accordingly. Particularly during the past six months the Labour Party has done its utmost to persuade the voters and badger the Government into a system of alliances to “stop the aggressors.” Now the Government suddenly falls into line, but says that its actual and potential allies want this country to adopt conscription in order to show that it means business—the nature of the business being the capacity to wage war on a large scale. The Government also points to the fact that France, Russia, Poland and the rest of the countries—except U.S.A.—already have conscription, and M. Blum, leader of the French Socialist Party (the equivalent of the British Labour Party), throws in his influence on the same side and tells his British colleagues not to be illogical. In these circumstances the Government would be foolish to treat seriously the Labour Party’s wordy opposition to conscription—those who have swallowed the camel of war do not for long strain at the gnat of compulsion. If Mr. Chamberlain had any doubts about the matter he could remove them by observing how the Labour Party behaved in 1916, when war-time conscription was being introduced. In theory they were opposed to conscription, but they were also represented in the Government and were in favour of the War. What then could they say when the Government came to them and said that the voluntary system had failed? Some of them did say, indeed, that the Government had broken its word and was tricking them, but they were answered by Mr. Arthur Henderson, one of the Labour Party representatives in the Government. Speaking at the Labour Party Annual Conference at Bristol, in January, 1916, Mr. Henderson supported conscription, on the ground that—

“Notwithstanding the magnificent success of the voluntary system, even now we had not all the men we needed to meet the enemy in the various theatres of war that we were confronted with.” (Report, page 120.)

In spite of Mr. Henderson’s support for conscription, it was obvious that a majority of delegates were still against it. A resolution was before the Conference which declared opposition to the Military Service Bill and went on to commit the Party to “agitate for its repeal” if it became law. This would have been very awkward for the Labour Party and its members, who were part of the Coalition Government, but Mr. Will Thorne and others proposed dividing the resolution. This was done and everyone was satisfied, because Conference then proceeded to adopt the harmless attitude of opposing conscription and also of opposing the resolution which would have committed them to agitating for its repeal. This can safely be taken as a forecast of what will happen now if the Government continues to put in practice the Labour policy of preparing for war, and if the international situation continues to be tense.

As far as the Trade Union Executives are concerned, that is indeed what happened at the special conference held on May 19th, 1939. They rejected by 3,817,000 votes to 232,000 an amendment which would have meant withdrawing from co-operation with the Government on National Service, and passed by 3,933,000 votes to 550,000 a long resolution which opened by protesting “most strongly against the Government’s action in introducing compulsory military service, in violation of the definite pledges given by the Prime Minister, and of the solemn assurances offered to the T.U.C. General Council when co-operation was sought by the responsible Ministers in the organisation of Voluntary National Service.” (Report in Daily Herald, May 20th.)

They also rejected by 4,172,000 to 425,000 a resolution in favour of a “general strike as a last effort to oppose military and industrial conscription.”

The Labour Party’s votes in Parliament in 1916 were equally illuminating for the light they throw on that Party’s attitude. There were three votes on the Military Service Bill, on January 6th, 12th and 18th, 1916. At the first vote, fourteen Labour M.P.s were absent out of the total of thirty-six. Of those present, thirteen voted “against” conscription and nine “for.” At the Second Reading, nine were absent, eleven voted “against” and sixteen “for.” And at the Third Reading, no fewer than twenty were absent, six voted “against” and eleven “for.” (The number of M.P.s had in the meantime increased to thirty-seven.)

As in 1916, so in 1939

The Labour Party is, in 1939, again making a great show of opposing conscription, because, in its view, the voluntary system “is providing, and can continue to provide, the nation with all the manpower required for effective national defence and for the fulfilment of its obligations for mutual assistance in the collective system of resistance to aggression.” (Statement issued by the National Council of Labour Daily Herald, April 26th.)

Many trade union executives and conferences have endorsed the Labour Party view, but one Union, the Civil Service Clerical Association, a little more far-seeing than the rest, has anticipated the likely future trend of misguided working-class opinion. Instead of playing for immediate popularity by opposing conscription, the General Secretary of the C.S.C.A., Mr. W. J. Brown, and his Executive Committee, moved an emergency resolution at their annual conference supporting conscription “on conditions,” one of which was the “immediate conscription of wealth.” The movers are thus in the safe position of still being able to say that they never supported conscription unconditionally in the form in which it will actually exist. At the same time they save themselves from the ridiculous position of the Labour Party. The C.S.C.A. delegates carried the vote for conscription by 414 votes to six.

The man who was largely responsible for persuading the delegates was Mr. W. J. Brown, former pet of the Communists and the I.L.P., ever a nimble sprinter after the merry-go-round of capitalist reforms and expedients. The day before yesterday he was MacDonald’s friend, then Mosley’s (at the birth of the New Party). Then he was very, very “left-wing” and the enemy of Bevin. Now he is “for conscription” and Bevin is against it. But the present position will, doubtless, be no more stable than the others, and any serious crisis for British capitalism will find them in the same camp again.

The Socialist Position

As against both of the above policies, policies circumscribed by the callous requirements of predatory capitalism, the Socialist Party stands for Socialism, well aware that neither the Browns nor the Bevins, the Chamberlains nor the Stalins, have any practical solution to offer for the evil plight in which the world’s workers find themselves.

The Socialist is opposed to conscription because he is opposed to the capitalist war for which the armed forces, whether volunteer, professional or conscript, are wanted. Though the war would be described on the one side as a war “for democracy” and on the other side as a war “against encirclement,” the driving force behind both sides would be the capitalist lust for markets, raw materials and strategic positions. When Hitler for the German capitalists says that Germany must expand or explode, find markets or perish, he meets his opposite in Mr. Hudson, British Secretary for Overseas Trade, who said in Warsaw on March 21st that “we are not going to give up any markets to anyone. . . Great Britain is strong enough to fight for markets abroad. Britain is now definitely going to take a greater interest in Eastern Europe.” (News Chronicle, March 22nd, 1939.)

Fighting that at present takes the form of words, trade agreements, loans, guarantees against aggression, etc., may, as in 1914, turn into an armed conflict, and that armed conflict will be yet another war produced by capitalist rivalries.

The Socialist Party knows that such wars solve nothing for the workers, and leave capitalism to produce still more wars in endless horror.

The Socialist Party declares its opposition not only to conscription but to capitalist war and to capitalism itself. The Socialist Party can repeat now what was written in its official organ in February, 1916, about the conscription then being introduced : —

“… We are bitterly opposed to conscription. But what are conscription, war, unemployment, poverty, overwork and starvation wages but the direct results of capitalist class rule? What hope of any permanent amelioration so long as the workers are the underdogs? What hope, indeed, of even a paltry concession in this matter so long as the exploiters are masters of the State and feel their controlling position unmenaced? We, therefore, urge the workers to join the real campaign against conscription; for conscription, on the part of the governing class, is only one item in the war upon the workers.”

Editorial: Looking Back and Looking Forward (1945)

Editorial from the March 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

We may reasonably hope that our Party Conference at the end of March will be the last to be held while the war in Europe is still in progress. It is an appropriate moment to take stock and glance back to the time when the last world war was nearing its end. The columns of the Socialist Standard in 1918 contain plenty of material to provoke useful contrasts and to enable us to weigh up our prospects in the future.

There are likenesses as well as contrasts in the two situations. First the cynical observer may provisionally conclude that “wars to end war” tend to get longer and worse, and to leave the world in ever greater disorder. He may observe, too, that the active and increasing opposition to war that asserted itself in all countries in the later phases of the last one is missing now. This can be explained by the surface changes that have taken place in the administration of capitalism and by the enormous advance made by the ruling class in their technique for keeping the working class quiet. Thirty years ago the ruling class, with their figureheads of kings, czars and kaisers, were only beginners at the craft of using labour leaders and the phraseology of the labour movement as means of allaying and blunting working class discontent. Under the strain of that war, masses of war-weary soldiers and workers came to feel hatred, mistrust and contempt for the ruling class politicians in their respective countries. This time it is all looked after. No capitalist government that knows the tricks of the trade would now try to rule in times of stress without its ministers drawn from labour ranks, and its contacts with the trade unions and political labour organisations. By this means and by bountiful promises of social reforms (not to mention the official adoption in some countries of the title “Socialist”) the ruling class have delayed the storm of discontent. But have they weathered it finally? We are confident they have not. Capitalist exploitation and capitalist contradictions have not been eliminated merely because the iniquitous system has been labelled “Socialism” or because labour leaders grace it with their presence in Cabinets and with their blessing.

One aspect of this change is that no events have occurred this time capable of stimulating the working class and giving them new (if illusory) hope such as the war-time revolts in Germany and the overthrow of Russian Czardom. A sign of the times is that with Russia a first-class Power. represented at “Big Three” conferences, the Communist Party falls into line as defender of the Allied capitalisms (including, of course, Russian State Capitalism). Last time it was the “right wing” labour leaders (denounced by those who later formed the Communist Party) who supported capitalist campaigns to get the workers to work harder and join in the scramble for more trade. Now it is Mr. Harry Pollitt who “has sent an appeal to all his mining members to speed up coal production” (Daily Express, February 19th). The Express report continues: —

“His [Pollitt’s] more serious concern, however, is that lack of British coal supplies for devastated European countries will delay the fruits of victory, and substitution of American and South African coal supplies may permanently injure British export markets.“

In France it is the same. The Observer Paris correspondent reports (February 18th):—

“Temporarily at least, Conservatism has triumphed in France. The Provisional Government of General De Gaulle is to-day eminently Conservative. It is a Coalition Cabinet based solidly on the support of moderate Roman Catholic elements on the Right and of the Communists on the Left, for the catchword of politics in France just now is the new conservative role being played at present by the Communists.”

As if to clinch the matter, the French Communist leader Maurice Thorez recently gave an interview to a French Catholic journal Temps, in which he is quoted as declaring that Marxism “is only a dogma,” and that he is “infinitely respectful of religion.” His present slogan is “One army, one police force, one administration.” (Quoted by L’Humanité.)

Russia now, with its restored Greek Orthodox Church, its nationalist propaganda and worship of military success and pre-revolutionary national heroes, its great and growing inequality of wealth, is not the Russia that gave fire to working class discontent all over Europe at the end of the last war. A country in which, even before the Russo-German war, there were said to be 30 rouble millionaires in Moscow alone, as well as rouble multi-millionaires, is not the country to encourage the uprising of the dispossessed !

Other items in the news in 1918 strike a familiar note. The Labour Party was reconstructing itself with an eye on gaining office. The Liberals were trying to stage a comeback. The Tories were getting ready by an education bill and by their propaganda for cheaper production, to reap the fruits of victory. “Intervention” was an issue—but intervention in Russia, not in Greece.

Here are two quotations from the Socialist Standard that are as applicable to-day. The first was on the glaring deficiencies of the Trades Union Congress : —

“If the rank and file of the trade unions desire the Congress to become a useful gathering, they must drop their apathy, take an interest in its actions, and, above all, send representatives from their own ranks instead of the case-hardened officials with their dirty tricks and old ambitious, who use the Congress to crawl further into the graces—and the jobs—of the master class.” (Socialist Standard, September, 1918.)

The other concerned the urgent efforts of the Party to get funds to carry on and expand its work:—

“The failure of the capitalist system to properly meet the requirements of human society—clear to us in times of “peace”—is now, in the course of the struggle on the bloody battlefield, faintly dawning on many others of our class, and a greater opportunity, as well as a greater need, for Socialist propaganda may speedily present itself.” (Socialist Standard, May, 1918).

What about the condition of the S.P.G.B.? Our membership, small though it is, yet is very much greater than it was in the difficult period at the end of the last war. Our production of propaganda material has been likewise greater, though now we are crippled by the paper restrictions, which were far less stringent then. We have a larger head office and larger income and expenditure. We have made a beginning with the appointment of a full-time Provincial Propagandist Organiser, and hope to be able to put others in the field. Above all, we have many more young speakers and writers acquiring the experience that will make them efficient workers to spread the Party’s influence in the years to come. The harvest is there—for, despite superficial appearances to the contrary, the workers are more and more recognising the need for fundamental social change—let us therefore all resolve to do our best to reap the hardest without delay. Down with capitalism—forward to Socialism.

Dear Old Pals. The Anglo-German line up (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well! Well! So the Germans are Britain’s Allies now! Dr. Adenauer himself has said “it is astonishing.”

“Britain and Germany have signed a treaty to defend one another instead of attacking each other "—(Sunday Express, 24/10/54.)

It must be a great comfort to the people. After two most frightful wars to smash Germany down, the capitalists of Britain and America are now intent on building Western Germany up.

Those past the half-century mark, with a moment to spare for introspection, may well recall the scenes of days gone by. “Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag!” “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” “Keep the Home Fires Burning.” The Recruiting Office in Whitehall packed with jostling crowds fighting to get into the army first. The Derby Scheme with its armlet, German bakers' shops looted. “ Society ladies chasing about with white feathers. The Great Shell Shortages! Lloyd-George! Minister of Munitions.

The 1915 disasters, Lloyd-George, Prime Minister 

The same Sunday newspaper which reported the news of the Anglo-German Alliance is serialising a new biography of David Lloyd-George.

“To-day’s episode tells of a military disaster which caused grief and misery in nearly four hundred thousand British homes.”

It is the story of Passchendaele, the most stupid and disastrous blunder of the 1918 war.

Four hundred thousand men floundered through mud knee-deep to their doom, trying to capture a piece of land the size of Green Park, Piccadilly.

This was the area at which Haig’s Chief of Staff, Kiggel, visiting the scene after the battle, broke down and wept, sobbing “Good God! did we really send men to fight in that”

That same Passchendaele of which Siegfried Sassoon wrote:

“If I were bald, and fat, and short of breath 

I’d live with scarlet majors at the base 

And speed glum heroes up the line to death 

You’d see me with my puffy petulant face 

Gulping and guzzling in the best hotel 

Poor young chap. I’d say, I knew his father well.

Yes! we lost heavily in that last scrap 

And when war was o’er and youth stone-dead 

I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed ”

Months afterwards, years afterwards, Lloyd-George was asked, if he knew how idiotic Haig and Robertson really were, why he did not sack them out of hand. In his Memoirs he said he dared not take the risk, when the Press were supporting the High Command, which might have required a General Election.

This explanation may satisfy Mr. Owen and some of his readers. It will not do for Socialists. The Socialist Party has a very vivid recollection of those war years.

It was during 1915 and '16 when Haig was “speeding glum heroes up the line to death" that our public meetings were smashed up by hysterically-patriotic members of the British working class.

The self-same violently nationalistic propaganda-drunk workers who cheered Haig’s ludicrous military blunders—booed the Socialist Party speakers who stood up to say that the war was for profits, and would bring workers nothing but disaster.

While nearly a million British soldiers staggered through a sea of mud in Belgium a tiny handful tried to fight through the sea of lies at home—the odds proved too great—the Socialist Party did the only thing possible, stood down until a few more workers came to their senses.

This is the real explanation of those harrowing events. Even two years afterwards, Lloyd-George could still win an election on “Homes for Heroes,” “Make Germany Pay,” and “ Hang the Kaiser,” though the victory was short lived. The political ignorance of the working-class was the ground upon which Haig could hound them to death.

It was this ignorance which blinded workers to their own interests. Understanding nothing of class society, the majority of workers thought they had something to gain from the defeat of Germany. They thought it their interest to prevent German capitalists acquiring British trade. Most of them thought their employers their benefactors—not their exploiters. In brief, knowing nothing of Socialism they supported Capitalism—and inevitably its wars.

Lloyd-George’s election stunts became notorious. The mere mention of “‘Homes for Heroes” got laughs for years, but, after many twists and turns, Baldwin, Ramsay Mac, Chamberlain and Co., the same old routine started all over again.

The same blunders were repeated in 1939/45 by military commanders who must not be mentioned because they have not yet “died in bed.” 1939, a change of labels—but basically the same—and a working class which still did not know that society is divided into two classes, with opposing interests, marched, or now, was rushed, to the shambles in fast trucks.

By now, science had “improved” war. No need to rush to the front, the aeroplane dropped it on you. Still, the workers support their masters, although 60,000 registered objection to the war.

And now, after two doses, Britain and Germany are Allies, “pledged to defend each other against a common aggressor.” What again? Yes! All over again.

And will all those who marched to smash Germany and “make her pay” rise up as one man in burning indignation at the futile squandering of life and wealth in two past wars, and cry aloud—"We will not fight for Germany, and mock our fallen comrades?”

They will not.

Until such time as a sizeable number of workers are Socialists, the people remain hydrogen-bomb dust for the modern Douglas Haigs.

Horatio.

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

Is Increased Production the Solution? (1944)

From the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the heading “Britain is Old-fashioned in Industry,” the Evening Standard (October 11th, 1944) reports speeches made at a Conference of the National Council of Women of Great Britain.

“Miss Barbara Ward, assistant editor of The Economist, said Britain must produce more goods and means of production must be more efficient.

Increase in a nation’s wealth depends on the amount of machine power behind each pair of hands.

We have fallen behind in industrial development, she declared. ‘We are old-fashioned.’

Thorough inquiry should be made into each industry—for instance, the steel industry—to discover why our costs were higher than those of other nations.

We should use our utmost enterprise and labour to increase our standards of living, she said.”

Miss Ward has failed to draw the logical conclusion in regard to what would happen if her suggestion were followed. If all nations become more efficient, and competition will force them to do so. then we shall be where we were—before the war.

“Increase in a nation’s wealth depends on the amount of machine power behind each pair of hands.”

Is not this also the cause of a nation’s poverty ? The amount of machine power behind each pair of hands in the United States before the war was greater than in any other country, and so was the amount of relative unemployment and poverty.

The assistant editor of The Economist is apparently unaware of the fact that the aim and object of capitalist production is not the production of wealth, but the production of profit.

Profit is something for nothing.

It is impossible to make something out of nothing, but the capitalist class give nothing and obtain abundant wealth for themselves as a result of playing a flim-flam game.

Labour applied to the natural resources of the earth produces all exchange values. The capitalist class do not labour, therefore they do not produce any wealth. They live by ownership. They own what is essential to the existence of the rest of us.

They allow us to produce exchange values for them in the shape of commodities under certain conditions. Before we are allowed to work we must agree to sell our wealth-producing material, our mental and physical energy, to them at its cost of production—that means, roughly, what we can live and work upon.

When we are working our energy is the property of those who have bought it, and what our energy produces the capitalist claims as his. Wages consist of the food, clothing and shelter the money will buy. The food, clothing and shelter the worker obtains as wages are all produced by those who labour, not by the capitalist class.

Consider the mighty effort of the working class during the war, and what they have lived upon, while doing it.

“Never in the history of human endeavour” has so much been produced on so little.

The working class have brought into being all the airplanes, guns, ships, etc., that were necessary to the carrying on of the war. What is to be their reward? The brutal truth is that capitalism cannot give them anything to compensate them for their efforts. The capitalist class will, however, continue to obtain their surplus values, rent, interest and profit.

The workers, however, expect to be placed in a better position after the war than they ever were before. The interesting point is how are Ihe ruling class going to devise ways and means of continuing the exploiting process. As a result of their experiences on the batlefleld in various parts of the world, many of the wage slaves are beginning to realise that there is something fundamentally wrong in capitalist society.

They will not be easily handled in the piping times of peace and will be harder to deceive.

Bevin says, “There will be unemployment but victory is worth it” (see Star, October 11th). The victory is the victory of the capitalist class, although the fighting, etc., has been done by the working class. If there is nothing for the workers after the war, what have the workers won? The capitalist class still remain in secure possession of the means of life; the land, railways, mines and tools of industry still remain in their possession.

The workers are where they were. Unemployment can be depended upon to keep wages down to that low level that is strictly in accord with capitalist interests, and then the same old grind.

Those who have acquired wealth during the war out of Army contracts, black markets, etc., will return when peace is proclaimed and disport themselves in the charmed circles of society. Many of the workers, however, who have endured the agonies of the struggle and lost their loved ones in the process, will line up at the Labour Exchange or apply for the sweet charity of the Public Assistance Committee. The means test will continue to be applied—to the working class. Homes are to be built—by whom? The landlord class are anticipating pickings when they receive compensation for the property that has been bombed. The financier will come into his own when deflation occurs—some time after the cessation of hostilities. The capitalist will have the wage slaves controlled for him by the Government, assisted by the labour leader. All sections of the ruling class will be compensated—at the expense of the wage slaves.

Everything in the garden will be lovely, as usual, for those who neither toil nor spin.

How long, fellow workers, how long? Can you not see that until the means of life are made common property there is no security for you ? Can you not see that you are doomed to the eternal treadmill of wage slavery and misery so long as the capitalist system shall last? We must do away with production for profit.

We must no longer allow the exploiter to continue to live by obtaining something for nothing. Production for use must be made to take the place of production for sale.

We are the vast majority.

      Let us stand together,

           All we have to do is to will it.

      And the world is ours.

Let us get hold of the State, the public power of coercion, and use it to make the ruling class let go their hold on our bread and life. Those only are Socialists who stand for Socialism; those who stand for less are the allies of our enemies.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain stands exclusively for Socialism; no other party in this country has the courage to do so—at election times.

We propose to run candidates for Parliament on the issue. Socialism or Capitalism—which?

We want you to help us. If you are with us, let us know of your existence. The fight is on.

The useful portion of human society have one common enemy—the exploiting system under which we live. Miss Barbara Ward suggests that by increasing the productive power of the slave-exploiting mechanism the slave would benefit. She fails to perceive that the worker is not paid for what he produces, but for what it costs to produce him. Her remarks enable us to realise, how weak the defenders of capital have become. Against the united advance of those who live by selling their labour power, the capitalist class are absolutely helpless. The interests of the workers are identical on the class field. The class issue is ownership.

The enemies of our class will discuss anything but the real issue. It is never raised in Parliament. It will never be prominent in the capitalist press. The very thought of a revolutionary Socialist Party fills the exploiter with fear and foreboding.

Although we hold the largest meeting in Hyde Park, we are rarely mentioned in the public press.

Has word gone round that attention must not be drawn to our existence? Capitalist politicians read the Socialist Standard and listen to our speakers, but all are faithful members of the conspiracy of silence.

The Labour Party is now always referred to as The Socialist Party, although not one of its members stands for Socialism or has been elected on the Socialist ticket.

Why the silence and deception?

The reason is that the ruling class know what we are out for, and they do not want the bulk of the workers to become interested in the issue.

Working class emancipation is, however, on the order of the day.

Line up and do your bit—

The freedom of humanity is at stake.

When the wage slaves free themselves from capitalist bondage, they free mankind for ever from economic servitude and the fear of war.

Society can then assume a higher form. There can be no such thing as freedom for the individual so long as some people own that upon which all people depend.

Socialism will give man the opportunity to express the noblest and best that is in him.

In capitalist society the bias is on the wrong side. The worst man has the best chance.

To change capitalist society into a newer and better social order is the job of the common people; it is a working class proposition.

Moving circumstance is slowly but surely removing the web of lies which the henchmen of our masters have been spinning for generations. Take your place, comrade. You should know by now what you are called upon to do. Demand Socialism now. Support only those who do the same.

Charles Lestor

50 Years Ago: Humanity and Reason (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

On August 17th the following news item was reported from Hamburg by Reuter:

“Dr. Hermann Ehlers, President of the West German Lower House, speaking yesterday during the unveiling ceremony to Hamburg’s 50,000 men, women and children who were killed during air raids in the 1939-45 war, said that nobody in Germany and few people in Britain had raised their voices against total warfare.

Therefore we must think of the one man who publicly protested against this kind of warfare – the Lord Bishop of Chichester, he said.

Today our special respect is due to the lone caller for humanity and reason.”

This will be news to members of the Socialist Party. Socialist speakers and writers protested many times during the war both against the war itself and against the inhumanity with which it was being conducted. It seems hard now to see the credit going to a member of the Bench of Bishops, who, as a body, were among the most bloodthirsty supporters of the war. Socialists agreed that the Germans suffered under the Nazi regime but we never saw the argument that we should help to kill them off in their thousands just to prove our sympathy for them. Socialists refused to help in the murder of the German and Japanese workers, and, for that refusal, some of them spent the war years being hunted by the police. Still, we may take this opportunity of telling Dr. Ehlers that we shall be publicity protesting against total war in any third world war too. We shall be calling for humanity and reason, that is to say, for Socialism, at every opportunity we have. And we shall be opposing the slaughter of the Russians, or of any other enemy our rulers may select for us.

(From Passing Show by A.W.E., Socialist Standard, October 1952)

50 Years Ago: “Two Years" (1991)

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

September, 1939, to September, 1941: two years of warfare on an unpreedented scale. Death and devastation rained from the sky on countless cities, with appalling consequences for the working class of this and other lands.

Looking back to the early days of this vast and terrible conflict, few of us in the Socialist Party then dared hope that conditions, even for a few months ahead, would permit us to continue propaganda for Socialism. But. here we are. after two years of war, still proclaiming that Socialism is the only way by which the working class can achieve a genuine "New Order” out of the present chaos of Capitalism.

It is true that in this period our meetings are not as numerous or as widespread as they were just prior to the war. but we can record that wherever they are held larger and more appreciative audiences are the result. Further, our literature sales are being effected in every party of the country.

Our difficulties, though, have been many and hard to overcome. The majority of branches were seriously dislocated as a consequence of the air raids. Many of the most active of our comrades were, through force of circumstances, compelled to leave the main centres of Party activity in order to follow their employment in distant parts of Britain.

Our Headquarters were bombed and demolished. causing us much extra work and not a little anxiety about meeting the inevitable expenses of transferring to new premises and the replacement of ruined equipment. 

(From an Appeal by the Party Funds Organiser. Socialist Standard, September 1941.)

Classic Reprint: Under Martial Law. (1954)

A Classic Reprint from the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Those of our friends who lend support to our outdoor propaganda meetings will be aware that for the past week or two those meetings have been suspended. Also, readers of this issue will notice that the Lecture List which until this date has appeared on the back page of this our official organ, has now been withdrawn. These occurrences demand some few words of explanation, which are offered here.

"When the war broke out in August the Socialist Party unfalteringly proclaimed the Socialist position in relation to it. From our platforms and, at the first opportunity, in the columns of our organ we took up the clear and definite attitude dictated by Socialist principles and working-class politics. This attitude, it is quite needless to say, was neither popular nor free from peril. It drew down upon us on the one hand the hostility of the rampant jingo hooligans of the streets, and on the other hand the “patriotic” fury of certain parasites “dressed in a little brief authority.”

"Our object was not to bid defiance to a world gone mad, but to place on record the fact that in this country the Socialist position was faithfully maintained by the Socialists. With this object in view we placed our backs against the wall and fought. Our platforms were smashed up and our members injured by mobs egged on by bourgeois cowards who, as usual, had not the spunk to do their own fighting for themselves. Not this only : one of our speakers was arrested and imprisoned, while others were dragged before the magistrates and “bound over to keep the peace.” In some instances the proceedings were rounded off by the victims being discharged from their employment by their “good, kind masters” for daring to hold political opinions of their own.

"We fought this fight long enough to achieve our purpose. In the columns of the last four issues of the Socialist Standard stand recorded our actions in this crisis, showing to the working class of the world that the Socialist Party in this country, acting in accordance with its declared principles, kept its hands clean in this, the most momentous crisis of its history. That is an asset to carry forward to the time when the war is finished.

"But now we are faced with a new situation. On the 28th of November last were issued Orders in Council (Defence of the Realm [Consolidation] Regulations) which render the prosecution of our propaganda a work of extreme peril. The following extracts from the Regulations will serve to show the nature of the impediment we are up against.

"27. No person shall by word of mouth or in writing or in any newspaper, periodical, book, circular, or other printed publication spread false reports or make false statements or reports or statements likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty or to interfere with the success His Majesty’s forces by land or sea or to prejudice His Majesty’s relations with foreign powers, or spread reports or make statements likely to prejudice the recruiting, training, discipline, or administration of any of His Majesty’s forces, and if any person contravenes this provision he shall be guilty of an offence against these regulations.

"57. A person found guilty of an offence against these regulations by a court-martial shall be liable to be sentenced to penal servitude for life or any less punishment."

"In face of these restrictions and penalties the Executive Committee of the Socialist Party decided to suspend propaganda meetings for the time being, and called a meeting of Party members, at which meeting their action was endorsed.

"We are aware, of course, that we lost an unique opportunity of indulging in heroics. We shall be told, perhaps, that we ought to have gone on in defiance of the powers that be till we went down in a blaze of fireworks. Our view, however, was the sane one dictated by our avowed principles. We have always held that the supreme power is in the hands of those who control the political machine. The most we could hope for by going on was to prove that contention. But it is not for us to prove our contentions by acting in opposition to them.

"There was no question of fighting for Socialism or Socialist principles. The Regulations were not, as far as we could judge, in the nature of anti-Socialist legislation. They were merely the precautions ordinarily resorted to by countries embroiled in a serious war. For this very reason we had nothing to gain by running counter to the Regulations, for just as the temper of the working class is, at the moment, such as to prevent them benefiting from our propaganda, so it would prevent them learning anything from our victimisation or martyrdom. Clearly, then, it was our tactics to place ourselves in such a position that only by the Regulations being strained to the point where they would become obviously anti-Socialist could we fall victims to them. These tactics demanded, in view of the risk of having our spoken words twisted and distorted in the Courts, that we suspend propaganda meetings for the time, and confine our activities to such forms of propaganda as would secure us from any attack that did not reveal the deliberate intention of our opponents to crush us under the cloak of the present situation."

(The above article appeared on the front page of the Socialist Standard for January 1915.)

Our new Head Office (1941)

Party News from the August 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The address of Head Office is 33, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W.1. It is about five minutes from Marble Arch and is just off the end of the Oxford Street end of Baker Street.

Blogger's Note:

The SPGB previous Head Office at 42, Great Dover Street had been hit by a German bomb in April. See the May 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard for more details.

12 Page “Socialist Standard” (1941)

Party News from the April 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret that owing to various difficulties we are compelled this month to reduce the size of the Socialist Standard to 12 pages. We hope to revert to 16 pages next month, but with the probability that the price will be raised to 3d.

Editorial Committee.

Members who have Changed their Address (1941)

Party News from the April 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will all members who have changed their address please inform their Branch Secretary of their present address.

Readers are reminded that our Sixpenny Stunt is still in operation. Send the address of a potential sympathiser and a sixpenny postal order to the Publicity Committee, and we will send the Socialist Standard for three successive months. Subsequently a letter will be sent inviting the recipient to become a subscriber and to purchase some of our pamphlets. 

Party Speaker fined (1940)

Party News from the September 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a result of a speaker of the Party being fined in connection with a Party meeting in Hyde Park we have had to meet a bill for £18 8s. Donations are invited to prevent this expenditure interfering with the Party’s normal activities.

Send to S.P.G.B., 42 Great Dover Street, S.E.1 Cheques and Postal Orders should be crossed.

To Readers of “The Socialist Standard” (1940)

Party News from the September 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hitherto war-time conditions have not placed as many obstacles in the way of producing and distributing the Socialist Standard as had been expected. Now, however, difficulties are rapidly increasing. Paper is more costly and the shortage has already made it impossible to print as many copies as could have been sold. Later on it is probable that the size will have to be reduced.

At the moment, however, a more pressing problem is the difficulty of selling the Socialist Standard at meetings in streets and parks. The number of meetings has been reduced, and, for various reasons arising out of war-time conditions and restrictions, opportunities for selling the Socialist Standard in the streets may be drastically curtailed.

We therefore ask readers who have been in the habit of buying the Socialist Standard at meetings to cease relying on this and take out a subscription for six months or a year.

All that is necessary is to send a postal order to the Literature Secretary, at 42, Great Dover Street, S.E.I.

The cost has been increased owing to the recent raising of the postage rates, but it will still cost you only 1s. 6d. for six months, or 3s. for twelve months.

Send in your order now if you want to be sure of receiving your the Socialist Standard regularly each month.

Please cross your postal orders.

To Readers of “The Socialist Standard” (1940)

Party News from the June 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hitherto war-time conditions have not placed as many obstacles in the way of producing and distributing The Socialist Standard as had been expected. Now, however, difficulties are rapidly increasing. Paper is more costly and the shortage has already made it impossible to print as many copies as could have been sold. Later on it is probable that the size will have to be reduced.

At the moment, however, a more pressing problem is the difficulty of selling The Socialist Standard at meetings in streets and parks. The number of meetings has been reduced, and, for various reasons arising out of war-time conditions and restrictions, opportunities for selling The Socialist Standard in the streets may be drastically curtailed.

We therefore ask readers who have been in the habit of buying The Socialist Standard at meetings to cease relying on this and take out a subscription for six months or a year.

All that is necessary is to send a postal order to the Literature Secretary, at 42, Great Dover Street, S.E.l.

The cost has been increased owing to the recent raising of the postage rates, but it will still cost you only 1s. 6d. for six months, or 3s. for twelve months.

Send in your order now if you want to be sure of receiving your The Socialist Standard regularly each month.

Please cross your postal orders.

ORDER YOUR “SOCIALIST STANDARD”

Your retail newsagent will get The Socialist Standard for you from his wholesaler.

You can have it sent by post each month by taking out a subscription: 1s. 6d. for six months or 3s. for twelve months (post free). Send your postal order (crossed) to Literature Secretary, 42, Great Dover Street, London, S.E.l.

Newsagents in Central London who Stock "The Socialist Standard”

Holloways, Fleet Street, E.C.l.

Colletts, 66, Charing Cross Road, W.C.2. 

I.L.P. Bookshop, 35, St. Bride’s Street, E.C.4. 

Marble Arch Kiosk, Hyde Park, W.l.

A Burning Question (1939)

From the April 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is pretty generally admitted that the relatively considerable personal liberty, particularly in freedom of expression in the political field, prevalent in this country, should be strenuously conserved. Political careerists of all colours “ Right " or “ Left " notwithstanding, who would be prepared to compromise to a point not easily distinguishable from Hitlerism or Stalinism, the rank and file are sound on this momentous issue.

Where does the Socialist Party of Great Britain stand on this issue? Alone among political parties, it faces the position fairly and squarely; it has an answer to the questions: “What would your party do in case of overwhelming evidence that any ‘democracy' attaching to the present constitution would go by the board in case of a smashing ‘Fascist' victory? Would it not be the duty of your party to definitely assist in averting such a catastrophe?"—the implication being a greater or less adhesion to a “Popular" Front.

The answer is implicit in the policy which the party has consistently adopted towards war generally, and exemplified specifically by word and deed during the Great War.

Applied to the specific question under consideration (for argument's sake alone, admit possibility of an overwhelming “Fascist  victory), the answer may be stated in fairly precise terms:

(a) The contingent and certain consequences of war to the working-class (war horrors of all kinds, including shooting of frightened boys acquiesced in by “Labour" ministers), and immediate deprivation of civil liberties (D.O.R.A. a lustier and thrice-brazen wench than in 1914), these considerations alone would weigh against the party receding one inch from its clearly expressed principle that no conceivable group of non-Socialists fighting one another are worthy of support of any kind from the Socialists.

It may be noted, incidentally, that history (ancient and modern) is pretty emphatic in its verdict that a dominant conquering power will always find willing tools to impose its regime among the conquered governing clique; history can afford more ironical instances than a fire-eating Labour “leader" doing the dirty work of a Hitler or Stalin—native “Hospodars" of the old Balkan States were frequently more oppressive than the Turk (see Encyclopaedia Britannica, 13th edition).

War is but one of the curses arising from the capitalist system; peace is ardently desired by the Socialist Party of Great Britain; the Party, while deprecating a “Pacifism" based ultimately upon disputed utterances of a problematical “youth with patient looks nailed to a crucifix," appreciates the kindly sentiment and decent outlook of the young men and women of the “Peace Pledge Union," for instance; it welcomes the recent I.L.P. approach to the same question, but “joining hands" on that particular issue, the Party would find itself out of step on fundamental issues.

One way only to conserve the “Democracy" of to-day and to attain Socialist Democracy eventually. Irritating, perhaps, to ardent but misguided souls who think the capitalist Jericho can fall by shouting, who pin their faith to “slogans" and fussy demonstrations. The immediate task is: make Socialists, and that is the work of the S.P.G.B.

Peter Gog.

Party News. (1940)

Party News from the March 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Sixpenny Stunt.

Our “sixpenny stunt” is still in operation. All you have to do is to send a sixpenny postal order to the Literature Secretary, 42, Great Dover Street, together with the address of an interested sympathiser, and we will send him or her the Socialist Standard for three consecutive months. A brief note will accompany the first month’s copy. At the expiration of the three months we shall write again, inviting the new reader to become a subscriber and to read our other published literature.

Appeal for Donations.

Elsewhere in this issue is an article which records the Party’s intensive propaganda campaign since the outbreak of war. This effort must not only be continued, but must be extended in the coming months. Up to the time of writing London meetings have not had to be financed out of the Party’s general funds. This, of course, is due to the splendid response of audiences, who have given generously.

We are certain that the success achieved in London can be repeated in the Provinces. Our Provincial branches and groups are clamouring for speakers, and if we are to meet their wishes, money must be forthcoming to finance a scheme for sending out propagandists.

Members and sympathisers will render the Party a great service by sending us a practical token of their sympathy—a donation !

Please do not delay.

Party Funds Organiser.

Urgent - Reader in Oxford.

Will the comrade who wrote to H Waite from Oxford, please his name and address.

A Tribunal Judge Clears the Air. (1940)

From the February 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is interesting to learn that the point of view expressed in the January issue of the Socialist Standard, that one’s conscientious convictions, although of a definitely political character, are of equal importance with any other aspect of thought, finds a stout supporter in Judge Davis, of the Southwark Tribunal. He has declared his view to be as follows : —

“Our duty is to judge the sincerity of the conscientious objection.” Such objection may be reached by many roads—religious, humanitarian, or political. It is not our duty to discriminate and, subject to any directions from the Appellate Tribunal, we shall grant exemptions to all types of objectors who convince us that they are conscientious.”

This statement of the position is identical with the case we submitted to the Appellate Court when appearing there on behalf of one of our members. There is, however, one doubtful point in Judge Davis’s statement with which we do not find comfort. We refer to that part of it which runs—”subject to any directions from the Appellate Tribunal.”

We hope that Judge Davis will maintain his present standpoint, whatever the Appellate body may direct to the contrary. To oppose the above accurate and perfectly legal interpretation of “conscientious objection” is to dive into the realms of nonsense, political prejudice, or hard-baked conventional thought.

Robertus.

Party News. (1940)

Party News from the February 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Sixpenny Stunt.

Our “sixpenny stunt” is still in operation. All you have to do is to send a sixpenny postal order to the Literature Secretary, 42, Great Dover Street, together with the address of an interested sympathiser, and we will send him or her the Socialist Standard for three consecutive months. A brief note will accompany the first month’s copy. At the expiration of the three months we shall write again, inviting the new reader to become a subscriber and to read our other published literature.

Price of Pamphlets.

Owing to an alteration of the exchange rate between the pound and the dollar we are compelled to increase the price of the following pamphlets imported from U.S.A.

The new prices are: —

“Bolshevism,” 1s. 6d. post free.

“State and Socialist Revolution,” 1s. 7d. post free.

“Reform or Revolution,” 1s. 7d. post free.

Appeal from Party Funds Organiser.

Under war-time conditions, with increased costs and difficulties in the way of normal activities, the Party is in need of funds. Members who are in arrear with dues are asked to pay up. Debts for literature should be cleared off, and members and sympathisers are invited to make donations to Party funds.

Party Funds Organiser.