A Pamphlet which Misses its Mark (1932)

Pamphlet Review from the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of the very large number of pamphlets claiming to be Socialist propaganda that are published month by month, only a small number are of even passing value. In the main they deal with capitalism’s problems from the standpoint of the reformer without any real grasp of Socialist principles. Occasionally something better is attempted. Among the latter is “From Slavery to Freedom,” published by the Socialist Propaganda League. It purports to be a Socialist survey of history from the earliest times, the object being to relate the Socialist future to the past development of mankind. It fails in its essential purpose for several reasons. The first is that the treatment of social development in the pamphlet is too sketchy and disjointed, due probably to the writer or writers having tackled the job without first deciding exactly what lessons were to be drawn. The value of a knowledge of history to the workers (even a much simplified and elementary knowledge) is a severely practical one. It is necessary that the workers should realise that the social system has changed in the past, that it has changed because of material forces which are still operating, that these forces work in a manner which can be expressed in laws of social development. Learning these lessons of history the worker can discover from the past how to organise for the capture of political power as a prelude to the establishment of Socialism. But to make this clear in the space of a small pamphlet is a very difficult task. The chief difficulty is to select just enough of the main features to illustrate the course of social development without making the description read like a bewildering catalogue of unrelated facts. The worker who approaches this pamphlet without previous acquaintance with the subject is likely to find it very hard to bring away the few outstanding ideas which it should have been the aim to provide.

The writer of the pamphlet has not the same excuse for certain careless and ambiguous passages in the historical section. For example, the treatment of the State is unsatisfactory and likely to mislead. Having said (p. 9) that the early Gens, Phratry, Tribe and Confederation each had its own “political organisation,” the pamphlet fails to explain the fundamental difference between that form of organisation and the later coercive political organisation—the State. On page 13 the capitalists are described as capturing “the political institutions” from the nobility, while on page 16 reference is made to the same capitalists depending upon “the centralised official and military State.” This would make it look as if the administrative organisation of the Tribes and Gens, etc., was like the political institutions controlled by the nobility, i.e., a “centralised official and military State.”

It is also very misleading to suggest, as is done on page 9, that cannibalism was an “occasional alternative” to slavery.

On page 10 is the grossly misleading assertion that under chattel slavery “wealth was overwhelmingly produced for use and not for profit.”

The inference to be drawn from the first three paragraphs on page 11 is that Feudalism originated through drought and famine in Asia and was not the offspring of conditions within the Roman Empire.

There is a slip on page 21, where it is said to be paradoxical that an employer should introduce a machine costing less than the wages of the displaced workers. “Less” should obviously be “more.”

On page 24, line 29, “creditors” should read “debtors.”

On page 16 we are told “The lands of the Monasteries and the Gilds had already been filched by the absolute monarchy,” and on the next page, “on their accession to power the merchants and manufacturing class proceeded to dispossess the Church of its lands and territories.” The suppression of the Monasteries occurred in the 16th century, before the “merchant and manufacturing class” came into possession of political power, although the movement was born of their needs.

Leaving the historical treatment and turning to the attempted exposition of Socialist principles, we find many serious defects, a few of which are briefly noted.

On page 2 we are told that the “threat of tariffs” will “still further depreciate their [workers] exiguous standard of comfort.” No further explanation is given of this statement, and the reader is left with the impression that tariffs are a cause of a lowered standard of living, and presumably, therefore, are something the worker should resist, although on page 26 free trade is called a “capitalist nostrum.”

On page 2 also we have the familiar I.L.P.-Communist nonsense, about the catastrophic collapse of capitalism in the assertion that the development of capitalism will lead “ultimately” to a condition where “production has been brought to a standstill.” A knowledge of the working of capitalism during crises would have prevented the writer from supporting this fallacy.

Again, on page 2, there is reference to the workers responding to the call for war with “a flat refusal.” This is just sentimental claptrap. A capitalist class placed in power by a non-Socialist electorate is not going to be greatly disturbed by attempts to organise a flat refusal. The curious part is that the next page contains the assertion “we cannot give support to any movements which have for their object the removal of some particular evil arising from the system itself.” Surely war is an evil arising from the system itself ?

The treatment of trade unions is muddled, apparently being the work of two persons with opposing views. One of them, on page 26, describes the evils of bureaucratic control of trade unions and asks rhetorically if the workers are not as competent as their officials “to control and manage their own organisation, not to please capital, but themselves?” This implies that trade unions can be made useful to the workers, and it is evidently the same writer who says on page 27 that the workers should “set about the task of building up more effective industrial organisations having for their motto the abolition, not the amelioration, of the wages system.” But the other writer will not have this. He says (p. 26) that “even the most perfect control over officials, and the most willing and efficient service from them could not make of trade unions an effective instrument for improving the conditions of the workers, or even retaining their hard-won present standards.” It is pertinent to ask how these “hard-won” standards were “won,” if not by trade union organisation and action. And if the workers ought to leave the present unions (as they are told on page 27) and build up “more effective industrial organisations,” having as their aim “the abolition, not the amelioration, of the wages system,” what would be the use of this if, as we are told on the next line, “industrial action can only be applied against effects of capitalism, and cannot dislodge the cause of the workers’ slavery and poverty” ?

la short, the pamphlet rejects the case made out by Marx for trade union action (see Value, Price and Profit for example), without making any serious attempt to answer his arguments.

On page 19 an explanation of the class-struggle tells the reader that the class-struggle ensues from the conflict between employers and workers over the conditions of employment, instead of out of the private ownership of the means of life. This is unsound in theory and in practise has led to many unsound actions by those who have fallen into this error.

Lastly, the pamphlet makes some malicious assertions about the S.P.G.B., for example, that it is controlled by a “caucus” although “in form, the control … is, democratic.” Anyone who cares to look at our rules and to see our E.C. and other organs at work (all of them are open to the public) will see the silliness of this assertion, for which no kind of evidence is given, except the vague implication that “all forward movements initiated outside of their own circle” are blocked. By “forward movements” the writer doubtless means such policies as the anti-Marxian and anti-working-class attitude on trade unions expressed in the pamphlet. It does not seem to have dawned on the writer of the pamphlet that such retrograde ideas make no headway in the S.P.G.B., because the members have joined it on a basis which excludes them and, therefore, do not want any such innovation.

Without saying so explicitly the pamphlet manages to imply that members of the S.P.G.B. are allowed to belong to the Angliccan or Catholic Churches. This is utterly devoid of truth.

Reference is made to the S.P.G.B.’s attitude that a Socialist, elected to Parliament by a Socialist electorate on the Socialist platform, might be instructed by the Party to vote for certain measures that might come before Parliament, on their merits. The only argument given in the pamphlet against this sound Marxian attitude is that such votes might in certain circumstances save a capitalist Government from defeat. The attitude put in the pamphlet is that “a Socialist electorate would understand the need for opposition on each and every occasion to each and every capitalist Party.” This overlooks the point that a vote against a measure introduced by a capitalist opposition party in the House might have precisely the same effect as a vote for a measure introduced by the Government, i.e., it “might save a capitalist Government from defeat.”

Incidentally, we wonder if the writer holds that a Socialist in the House of Commons ought to vote against, say, a proposal by a capitalist party to stop a war, on the ground that the proposal emanated from a capitalist party.

Our policy of fighting elections for propaganda purposes is attacked by the pamphlet, by means of the dishonest device of implying (without saying so definitely) that our candidates run on a non-Socialist programme. The writer of the pamphlet knows this to be completely untrue.

The Socialist Propaganda League should stop and consider whether its claim to be an organisation for educating the workers and clearing away confusion does not place it under the obligation of making only those statements in support of its case for which evidence can be given. Malevolent, improvable and lying insinuations, levelled on the principle that some part of a wad of mud is sure to stick, do not help the working class movement, and it is doubtful whether in. the long run they even help those who fling them.

G. H. D.

Speaking Out (2023)

Book Review from the August 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speakers’ Corner Anthology. Edited by Jim Huggon. Union of Egoists. 2022.

This is a republication (with a new, additional Foreword) of an anthology first published in 1977. It is a collection of excerpts and other written material connected to Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner and there are several references to the SPGB scattered throughout. Jim Huggon is an anarchist who spoke regularly there from 1965 to 1983. He refers to a review by the Socialist Standard of the original version which has slightly puzzled us as it appears that no such review was ever published.

The collection also includes a knockabout piece by Harry Young (Horatio) called ‘On the Platform’ and originally published in the Seventieth Anniversary edition of the Standard in June 1974. There are excerpts too from famous Speakers’ Corner regular Bonar Thompson’s book, Hyde Park Orator, which has also recently been republished with added illustrations.

In addition, there is an interesting if rather pious excerpt from a piece by Lord Donald Soper about his time as an outdoor orator (more focused on Tower Hill than Hyde Park). This is interesting as he tells of encounters with a variety of other regular speakers and his relationship with them, without actually naming them. In particular, he writes of his conversations with a well-known Tower Hill personality and that this man was a scientific socialist, ‘breathing fire and slaughter against all religion, sneering at morality [and] despising the consolations of faith’ who turned out to be much warmer privately than his public persona had initially indicated. Given Soper’s detailed description of him it is highly likely that this was Harry Martin, a regular speaker at Tower Hill and who had left the SPGB in 1911 to found the Socialist Propaganda League (see ‘Getting Splinters’, in the June 2004 Centenary Edition of the Socialist Standard).

Tower Hill no longer exists as a speaking station and Speakers’ Corner at Hyde Park is a shadow of its former self, these days a veritable bear garden aimed at tourists with very few serious speakers. This anthology helps capture the spirit of an earlier age.

DAP.

Blogger's Note:

There's a wee mistake in the review. The original edition of this book was reviewed by Robert Barltrop in the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Letter: The Need to Control Parliament. (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Mr. W. T. Birch, London, S.E.22) objects to what he (mistakenly) regards as our view on fighting elections.

He quotes from a publication called “From Slavery to Freedom” a passage which he gives as follows :—

(1) Of serious import is the declared policy of the S.P.G.B. organ to run candidates in non-socialist constituencies provided the money is forthcoming. This policy has possibilities too dangerous for Socialists to entertain. A Socialist elected by non-Socialists “willing to give him a chance,” or for his personality, is a party to a fraud against the working-class. Such an individual would not be an empowered delegate, but would be more unsavoury than an honest reformist.

Mr. Birch then adds his comments :—-

That this charge is correct I know, because I remember the reference in the Socialist Standard, and if my details are correct, the constituency considered was Battersea. Now it is well known that, unfortunately, only a mere handful of Socialists {I mean real revolutionary Socialists, not people who call themselves such) are to be found in any constituency. Suppose your candidate had been elected if he had run for Battersea, and there is the chance that he may have been. He certainly could not have gone to the House of Commons and said that he represented, say, 10,000 people who understood Socialism and were prepared to substitute this system for Capitalism. I repeat that your candidate might have been elected if he had run. People vote from all sorts of motives. Some are “fed-up” with their present member, others like the personality of a candidate, etc. I doubt, however, if there are enough real Socialists in the country to get a single man into Parliament, if they could be collected into one constituency.

(2) And what could the member do in the House? Put the Socialist position before the M.P.s? They already know it, and the newspapers would not publish the speech. Far better to do propaganda work outside. Under Capitalism a man can only go to the House of Commons to help to administer Capitalism, and to talk about voting on the merits and demerits of legislation introduced into a capitalistic legislative chamber is sheer reformist nonsense; and if the candidate himself were to introduce Socialistic measures (say a Bill declaring the land and everything on it and in it to be communal property) he would be doing something for which he had no real mandate from his constituents.

(3) Perhaps, however, the Socialist Party of Great Britain no longer holds such a policy. If so, it would be well to have an assurance to this effect.

(For convenience of reply we have numbered the paragraphs in Mr. Birch’s letter. – Ed., Comm.].

Reply.

(1) Mr. Birch quotes a passage referring to ourselves, and “remembers” that certain statements were made in the Socialist Standard without, however, referring to the issue in which they appeared or saying what those statements were. This is not surprising. No statements were made bearing the slightest resemblance to those ascribed to us by Mr. Birch. Anyone who reads Mr. Birch’s letter, without knowing the facts, will assume that we put forward candidates intending to get them returned on a non-Socialist programme and on non-Socialist votes. The truth is far different. What we proposed in 1928 was to do in the Parliamentary elections what from the formation of the party we had done in local elections, that is, put forward candidates for the propaganda value of that action, knowing full well that they could not possibly be elected.

Mr. Birch says that he read our statement about the candidate we proposed to put forward in Battersea. If he would consult the Socialist Standard of February, 1928, he would see that we made plain something which would be already known to every reader of the Socialist Standard, viz., that our candidate would run on the Socialist programme, seeking a mandate for the establishment of Socialism and nothing else. Yet in face of this Mr. Birch affects to believe that our candidate might have been elected by the non-Socialist majority of South Battersea electors. We can only say that we are appalled by the ignorance of electors and elections exhibited by Mr. Birch. He asks us to believe that only “personality” stands between victory and defeat for the capitalists at election times, and that electors who are in favour of capitalism are always liable when “fed-up” to vote against capitalism. Mr. Birch gives no evidence for his belief, but the matter can be quite easily tested. Will Mr. Birch give us a few instances of elections where voters who wanted capitalism voted against the various reformist candidates, and voted for candidates running simply on the Socialist programme.

And if Mr. Birch is still convinced that non-Socialists are always liable to vote for what they do not want and against what they do want, will he tell us how he proposes that we should guard against this except by our invariable precaution of putting forward a candidate simply on the Socialist programme?

One other point in the passage Mr. Birch quotes is the reference to money. Are we to understand that Mr. Birch objects to us asking our sympathisers to contribute towards the expense of carrying on the activities for which the party exists? (Having read the statement in the February, 1928, Socialist Standard, Mr. Birch will remember that the appeal was addressed to our sympathisers.)

(2) In this paragraph of his letter Mr. Birch implies his opposition to the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s policy of gaining control of Parliament. May we ask Mr. Birch in what way he imagines that Socialism can be established without the workers gaining control of Parliament and the rest of political machinery?

Mr. Birch tells us that the newspapers would not record the doings of Socialists in Parliament. How does he know this? Why does he suppose that the newspapers which already to a limited extent report our propaganda activities would cease to do so as soon as Socialists are numerous enough to win elections? And what of it, anyway? It is necessary for the workers to control the political machinery irrespective of whether the Press cares to report it.

Mr. Birch tells us that we should do propaganda work outside Parliament. Does Mr. Birch really imagine that the working class can overthrow capitalism while leaving the capitalists in control of Parliament merely by doing propaganda work outside. This is anarchism with a vengeance.

We cannot follow Mr. Birch’s statement that candidates of ours put forward for the purpose of establishing Socialism would, if elected, have “no real mandate” from the electors.

(3) In his third paragraph Mr, Birch asks if we have now abandoned the policy which he describes. If he means have we abandoned the policy of capturing the political machinerv in favour of the anarchistic policy of only doing propaganda work outside and leaving the political machinery in the hands of the capitalists, the answer is NO.

If he means our policy of fighting elections for their propaganda value even when there is only a minority of Socialists, and therefore no possibility of a Socialist candidate being elected, and if he means our policy of running candidates simply on the need to overthrow capitalism and establish Socialism through control of the political machinery, our answer is again NO !

May we recommend lo Mr. Birch that he read again the statement in the February, 1928, Socialist Standard that he read once before but has failed to remember?

Editorial Committee.

Blogger's Note:

The “From Slavery to Freedom” pamphlet quoted in the above letter was a 1932 pamphlet produced by the Socialist Propaganda League, which was an early split from the SPGB (Pre-WW1). The split centred on the WB (Upton Park) controversy. According to the SPL's wiki page, the pamphlet was reviewed in the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard. The review is not on the net yet  . . . but it soon will be.

Why I joined the SPGB (1975)

From the November 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the nineteen-thirties it was commonplace for meetings to be held at street corners. Many sites became well-known. There were fewer cars and no TV. The audiences were attentive, asked questions and took part in discussion. Many workers became interested in politics at such meetings. I was an example. Apart from a critical attitude to Religion, as a youth, I took most things for granted.

It was in 1933 that I first stopped to listed to a meeting. I was eighteen years old. When I heard the speaker say we were "slaves" I stayed to hear more. I may have heard words like "capitalism", "socialism", "wage-labour" before but never thought much about them. The speaker urged workers to organize themselves as a class and end the system that exploited them and was the cause of their poverty". This impressed me as I had often wondered what gave other people the right to order me about, so I was in the right frame of mind. I stayed until the end. I bought a pamphlet for 1d called From Slavery to Freedom and that title suited me fine. I could use a bit of freedom. It gave me an inkling as to what Socialism was all about. I went back to Rushcroft Road time and again. Meetings began to act like a magnet. I was drawn to them. I was out every night listening and learning. I was soon familiar with the various parties. Amongst them the SPGB and I listened to their speakers. It was one of them that I heard the first time. I had become a "Political Animal".

However, if there was a wrong turning, I took it. I was going to have to learn the hard way. I was attracted by the rallies in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square which were always "Against Fascism". I got the idea that this was helping Socialism. This was unfortunate as I was going off at a tangent. But I wanted action. I wanted to be in the middle of things.

At the time of the Spanish Civil War, whilst crossing Westminster Bridge, our long rambling columns were confronted by arm-raised lines of BUF (Mosleyite) supporters. There were thousands in our demonstration and we outnumbered and out-shouted the "Blackshirts". We held up clenched fists in reply to the "Hitler salute". With our chanting and banners proclaiming "Arms for Spain" we felt we had won a victory for the forces of "peace and socialism".

In 1936 I joined the Labour Party because I considered it "the mass party of the working class". I was not sure what they meant, but it sounded fine at the time. Anyway I was only joining to help turn it into a genuine socialist party. My fellow members were reformists and I was going to win them over to socialism. I now regarded myself as a sound revolutionary. I did not entertain any doubts on that score.

I soon found myself engaged in other activities. Soon after becoming a member of the LP I came into contact with the "Militant Labour League" and joined. They were one of several Trotskyist factions. I was in fact a member of a party within another party. The atmosphere was very conspiratorial. Secret meetings were held regularly to decide strategy. The object was to try and get control of local Labour Party Branches. The so-called Communist Party was playing a similar game. According to the MLL the basis of socialism had been laid in Russia in 1917 by the Bolshevik Party under Lenin and Trotsky, but Stalin had betrayed the October Revolution, usurped power and built up his bureaucracy. The USSR was a "degenerated workers' state". The object of the League was to defend the basis of this "workers' state", build up a fourth International, work for world revolution and overthrow Stalin, at the same fighting against the Labour leadership in Britain. We sure had plenty to get on with. But we were not deterred: we were Bolsheviks ready for any task. With the "deepening of the crisis of world capitalism" the working class would rally to the Vanguard of the Masses. That was us. We were all set to win the "leadership" stakes.

We did not bother to explain to other workers what socialism was. That was a waste of time. The workers would trust and follow us. We would raise the right slogans at the right time and we were the right leaders. Had not the mantle of Lenin and Trotsky fallen on us? The tasks in the "coming period" was immense. Programmes dealing with "perspectives" were constantly issued. We would be dealing with world-shattering events. Hitler came to power because of false leadership of the German workers. Victory for the world working class would come, under the Banner of the Fourth International. Each of us saw himself as a potential Trotsky directing Red Armies all over the world. We did not have long to wait for events to start moving. "The death agony of capitalism" started getting under way, or so we thought, when World War Two began in 1939.

During the war, at a conference, all the groups united to form the "Revolutionary Communist Party". We listened to a recording of Trotsky's voice. Delegates were overcome and had tears in their eyes as they heard the "Old Man's" voice. We, the self-appointed leaders, then all shook hands and sang the Internationale. The ruling class did not have time to tremble, however, for this new party sank soon after this emotional launching. All the "perspectives" were wrong. None of the forecasts of world revolution materialized. It was the RCP that collapsed and not capitalism. There was no turning of the masses to the vanguard, and there was no death agony of capitalism.

Disillusioned, it came to me in 1945 that the workers of the world were not class-conscious. They did not want Socialism. I had to adjust my thinking. After the dust settled it was clear the post-war world was not going to be different. The working class supported capitalism and it was going to continue. At the end of the war it was "back to work" as usual for wages. The only crisis that occurred was if workers could not get their old jobs back.

My pipe-dreams were coming to an end. I could not agree with the Trotskyist slogan "For a Third Labour Government". I refused to vote for it at the 1945 General Election. I left the Labour Party and, at the same time, broke with Bolshevism although this was regarded as "impossible". It was like breaking out of a stifling prison and coming back into the real world.

I avidly started reading the SOCIALIST STANDARD again. In the light of bitter experience, I had to re-learn all the fundamentals of Socialism. I listened again to what the SPGB had to say. Hearing their speakers was like a breath of fresh air. I went to their lectures and classes. I was thoroughly routed in arguments about Russia. I felt confused when members of the SPGB asked me what a "workers' state" was; why did the Russian workers pay themselves wages? Did Karl Marx write a book called Capital or a book called "Dialectical Materialism"? And much else besides. Understanding, at last, the materialist conception of history I was able to refute the "workers' state" nonsense, and beginning to see the Trotskyite so-called "theories" were ridiculous.

I never met one Trotskyite who advocated the abolition of the wages system or understood its implications. No-one ever spoke about production solely for use. They do not know the difference between the common ownership of the tools of production with democratic control by the whole of society and what they call "nationalization under workers' control". The followers of Trotsky are anti-working class because they distort the meaning of Socialism. They hinder the spread of genuine Socialist knowledge.

I could see now how wrong I had been been, and I had much to learn. Despite my mistakes I had not turned sour about Socialism. I applied to join the SPGB and was accepted in 1946. Socialist understanding expands when you become a member. I recall meeting again in the Camberwell branch our late Comrade Frank Dawe, whom I had known very slightly over the years. He had asked me what I had been up to, and I told him. He gave me a quizzical smile and said: "You have been doing what I call 'boring' in the Labour Party. All you do in fact is to 'bore' in at one end and then 'bore' out again at the other, without achieving anything. Put it down to experience!" That just about sums it all up.

J. C. Gormley