The Evolution of Revolutionary Burns. (1906)

From the April 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Extracts from a speech delivered by John Burns at the Old Bailey when tried for seditious conspiracy on April 9th, 1886).

These extracts from a speech of the Burns of the Eighties have been reproduced so that the working class may have an opportunity of contrasting the present views of this Right Honourable person with the views he then enunciated. It has been, and still is, the fashion to gibe and jeer at the volte face of another Right Honourable turn-coat (Joseph Chamberlain) and no one has delighted in the exercise more than Burns himself. Yet it has recently been held to be an exhibition of bad taste to bring Burns’ own past up in evidence against him—and no one was more righteously indignant than Burns ! The Burns revolution has been far and away more complete than that of Chamberlain and it is the more conspicuous because of the price Burns received for his apostacy—a price the recipient has so often rejoiced in the size of. The hope that Burns expressed in ’86 that the penalty for the betrayal of the working class would be heavy enough to deter anyone from attempting it has not been realized. The penalty has not been enough—for Burns ! We do not, of course, suggest anything so absurd that a man may not change his view, seeing it is upon that change of view in the working class that we rely for the realization of Socialism. But we are concerned to emphasize the point that the Burns of yesterday, who has secured his present position by virtue of his influence with the unthinking working class, is very far from being the Burns of to-day. It is more necessary to emphasize this difference than many think. Undoubtedly Burns secured his following as the Burns of the Eighties—by his association as a member of the working class with working-class movements. And undoubtedly it was because this following held to the idea of a practically unchanged Burns, an idea insinuating itself into an ever wider circle, that Burns’ services as a decoy were purchased by the Liberal Party. These extracts may help to destroy that illusion. Burns is now engaged in administering that capitalist system to which he at one time traced the poverty of the working class. To-day he urges the usual capitalist argument of working-class intemperance as largely the cause of working-class poverty, where previously he designated as liars those who held such views. To-day he is a member of the same sort of government, adopting exactly the same sort of method that he denounced so roundly in ’86. Yet poverty has only intensified in the interregnum. Burns’ attitude to-day is the capitalist attitude; his method the capitalist method. Only the unthinking section of the working class could fail to note the fact that between Burns and his Tory predecessor there is no material difference. Unfortunately the unthinking section of the working class is very large. Hence these extracts.

__________________

My Lord and Gentlemen of the Jury,

… I expected that at some time of my life I should be brought face to face with the authorities for vindicating the class to which I belong. I have, from my earliest infancy, been in contact with poverty of the worst possible description . . I have done everything I could in a peaceful manner to call the attention of the authorities to the frightful amount of poverty and degradation existing among the working class . . . I heard that there was going to be a meeting of the starving unemployed of London in Trafalgar Square on February 8th. . . I reached the place at 1.30. I was recognized . . . I got upon the plinth and spoke to 13,000 or 14,000 men. . . I pointed out that a remedy could only he found by bringing pressure to bear upon Parliament and the local authorities as I had tried to do 12 months before when I had to walk the streets of London for 7 weeks for daring to speak as to the condition of the workers . . . I ask you, can you wonder at a workman’s language being strong ? I am inclined to think that the day is not far distant when stronger language will have to be used. When the Fair Traders came, I climbed up the balustrade and acted as chairman of that second meeting. Why? All know that the Fair Traders Messrs. Peters, Kelley, Kenny, Lemon and others, are regarded as arrant impostors by the workmen of London and I was desirous that there should not be a physical conflict between the unemployed and those honest but misguided men who are the dupes of these bogus representatives . . . The day of these mercenaries I am pleased to say is now over. The penalty for betraying the workers I hope, will be heavy enough to deter any man from selling their cause, as it has many times been sold. . . I found that the crowd were becoming somewhat turbulent . . and I thought it my duty to listen to the suggestion that we should proceed in procession through the West End to Hyde Park. . . No damage was done by the procession … until we reached the Carlton Club. . . There is a class of men who make it a practice on occasions of political demonstrations to laugh and jeer from the Club windows at the poverty or what they term “the great unwashed,” to to jeer at the misery their own greed has created. . . The crowd were not in a temper to respond to contemptuous jeers by a smile. . . Stone throwing commenced. And that was the result of the stupid, ungentlemanly, criminal conduct of Carlton Club members. I did my best to repress the stone throwing . . . believing as I do that window breaking, except, perhaps, as warning, is useless to effect a change in our system of Society, based as it is upon the robbery of Labour. . .

John Burns in the 1880s.

Against this system of Society, I frankly confess I am a rebel, because Society has outlawed me. I have protested against this state of Society by which at present one and a half millions of our fellow countrymen, adult males, are starving—starving because they have no work to do. Talk about strong language ! I contend my language was mild when you consider the usage they have received and that the patience under severe provocation displayed by the workers is almost slavish and cowardly. . . We come before you not as paid agitators . . . but as men anxious to change the existing system of society to one in which men should receive the full value of their labour, in which Society will be regarded as something more than a few titled non-producers who take the whole of the wealth which the useful workers alone produce. . .

If you want to remove the cause of seditious speeches, you must prevent us from having to hear as we hear to-day, of hungry poverty-stricken men, who from no fault of their own, are compelled to be out of work. . . . I have not one single word of regret to utter for the part I have taken in this agitation. . . I say we cannot have in England as we have to-day five millions living on the verge of pauperism without gross discontent. . . . I am sorry to say that it seems to be a characteristic of the Government and the governing classes to be influenced only by fear—at least Mr. Gladstone, Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr. Chamberlain say that their Governments are not susceptible to reason or appeals unless the Hyde Park railings are pulled down and the club windows broken. . . Mr. Chamberlain prior to the riots denied that exceptional distress prevailed; but about a fortnight afterwards he admitted that it was exceptional and severe. . . It (the riot) also made the landlords and capitalists surrender to the Mansion House Fund some of the proceeds of their past robbery in the shape of charity. . . That meeting of Feb. 8th called the attention of the people of Great Britain to this fact that below the upper and middle strata of Society there are millions of people leading hard degraded lives—men who through the unequal distribution of wealth are consigned to the criminal classes and women into the enormous army of prostitutes whom we see in the streets of our great cities. And as an artisan I cannot see poor puny little babes sucking empty breasts and honest men walking the streets for months at a time—I cannot hear of women of the working class being compelled to resort to prostitution to earn a livelihood—I cannot see these things without being moved not only to strong language but to strong action, if necessary. . . And when the Attorney General says we incited to riots, I say that the Social system is to blame. It prompts men to thieve and it prompts women of the working class to resort to dishonest acts by not giving all a fair start in life and not giving them an opportunity to get honest work. Society journals demand our imprisonment. Why ? Because £11,000 worth of windows have been broken. But how about the sacred human lives that have been and are being degraded and blighted by the present system—of capitalism?. .  . . 

I shall serve my cause as well inside a prison as out. The word prison has no particular terror for me. Through the present system of Society life has lost all its charm, and a hungry man said truly (as Isaiah, said in the Holy Book) that there was a time in the history of our lives when it was better to die in prison or better to die fighting than to die starving. . . The wonder is that there was not more destruction, of property and that no life was lost. If we had given the word, not a single inmate of the Carlton Club would have been alive to-day . . .

Branch News (1963)

Party News from the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

In London, for the first time in the Party’s history, a Rally is being arranged in Trafalgar Square on Sunday, 15th September at 3.30 pm. Permission from the authorities has been granted and therefore all that remains to ensure success is the greatest support from every comrade who can possibly get to the Square on that day. The Propaganda Committee is holding a meeting of Committees and Branch Organisers and special arrangements for literature sales are being made. This occasion can be made really worthwhile, and one hundred per cent support from every member will help it to be so.

The Delegate Meeting is being held at Head Office on Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday, October 5th and 6th—a weekend to note in diaries. Paddington Branch have booked Hampstead Town Hall for a propaganda meeting on October 21st. Full details in the October Standard.

Our comrade Joe McGuinness is working hard for Socialism whilst at the same time working for his living. He is hoping to start a group in East Essex. Details under Groups on page 134.

West London Branch (ex-Ealing) have settled down well in their new meeting place and are looking forward to a very busy winter season of lectures, discussions, and film shows. We hope to publish details of the first meetings in next month’s Standard.

Glasgow Branch are enjoying their most successful outdoor season for may years. They are holding four meetings a week in Glasgow and two in Edinburgh. A feature of this summer's outdoor activity has been the success of the Sunday afternoon meetings at the new stance at Kent Street. This stance is in the middle of Glasgow's Sunday Market Place—the Barrowlands. The audience is usually between 100 and 200 and literature sales have been especially encouraging. The branch are also preparing for the forthcoming General Election in the Woodside Constituency and preparing a series of posters dealing with various aspects of the Party’s case to be displayed in Woodside prior to the election.

The event which has engendered the most enthusiasm from Glasgow members, however, is the recent acquisition of rented premises in Berkeley Street. This was made possible by the donation of £50 from a Canadian comrade who recently visited Glasgow. The premises are a three apartment basement flat which the Glasgow comrades are transforming from a slum into very attractive headquarters for Socialist activity. The Monday evening branch meetings are now held in the new branch rooms and education classes are due to start there at the beginning of October. It is also hoped to run a weekly discussion group very shortly. It is felt in Glasgow that branch rooms are essential for organisational and propaganda work and their lack until recently has held back our drive for better propagation of the Party’s case. News of Glasgow branch activity in regard to indoor meetings, classes, etc., will appear in next month’s Standard.

Phyllis Howard

Demonstration For Socialism (1963)

Party News from the September 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1973)

Party News from the September 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our enemies’ friends (2002)

From the July 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the demonstrators on the pro-Palestinian march of 18 May entered Trafalgar Square they were confronted by a lone socialist, bawling “Banish gods from the heavens, and rulers from the Earth!” over the assorted chants of Islamists and leftists. The same socialist had been told, in no uncertain terms, to go to Hell, by the Islamists, as he had tried to promote socialism as the solution to the Middle East question at the Hyde Park mustering point for the beginning of the march.

The various flavours of leftists on the march resolutely declined to confront the band of Islamists, despite the latter’s open insistence of their inimical opposition to them. Desperately holding to the principle of my enemy’s enemy is my ally the leftists held their noses and kept quiet. This in the face of the most reactionary ideas being pronounced by the Islamists: the separate nations of the Earth exist by the will of Allah, and they refuse to support the workers’ cause because they work for Allah. “Peace, Go to Hell” they shouted (and most things should go to Hell, it seemed, so far as they were concerned), and not one of the leftists who had been at the previous “peace” marches against the Afghan war, raised a word against their bellicose cry.

This is, perhaps, unsurprising, because this was in fact a pro-war march. The SWP, through their so-called Socialist Alliance front organisation, were promoting the slogan “Victory to the Intifada”. Some people on the march were chanting “No peace without justice” making clear their view that the Palestinian cause was “just”. Indeed, both slogans have little to do with a sensible materialist analysis of the situation, instead taking up a moralistic line on the “rights” of the Palestinians.

Impossible victory

This is so on two counts, on the military and class factors involved. The Palestinians have no chance whatsoever of militarily overcoming Israel. Modern war is waged by economic might, and Israel with its GDP of around $110 billion (in 2000), whereas the Palestinian territories have a GDP of $4.2 billion (in 2000): the former has the capacity to routinely outgun the latter – this leaving aside the greater Israeli population of available for fighting, some 1.5 million. Further, Israel has a much better developed transportation and communications system, vital ingredients of modern war (CIA World Fact Book http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/). There being no special conditions for fighting (as the Vietnamese jungles), nor any economic leverage for the Palestinians to apply, the sheer weight of power is on the Israeli side.

It becomes clear from this that the Intifada could only succeed with outside military intervention. Unsurprisingly, this is already happening. It is widely acknowledged that the Palestinian guerrilla organisations Hamas and Mujahadeen are financed and controlled by Syria and Iran. Perhaps less reported, is the Palestinian Authority’s dependence on European aid: for example, according to the British Consulate in Jerusalem’s website, the UK gave £1.12 million in aid for a “Modernisation and Unification of Legislation Project”, and £1.13 million “Assistance to the Palestinian Legislative Council” (http://www.britishconsulate.org/dfid/govern.htm). That is, the UK paid for the basic administrative infrastructure for a Palestinian political entity. This is out of a total of $121 million in aid received by the PA (2000, CIA WorldFact Book). By contrast, according to the same US source, the Israeli state receives $1.1 billion in aid from the US.

The basis for this struggle is, as has been noted many times in this journal, the struggle for control of the oil resources of the Middle East. Historically, the US relied on the “Twin Pillar” policy of using Israel and Iran as regional clients to secure their interest in the oil regions. With Iran going over to religious nationalists, Israel became the focus of continued US interest in the region, and the main target for their rivals to try to damage their capacity to control the region.

These different interests are entering into the situation to pursue their own antagonistic interests. It is interesting to note, for example, that the earlier stage of the conflict involved the Israeli army targeting the physical infrastructure of the Palestinian authority, the infrastructure paid for by the UK and EU. Given these competing interests, the various world powers intervening in the Israel/Palestine conflict will only seek for resolutions compatible with their own interests and against those of their foes. As such, it is clear that the slogan of “Victory to the Intifada” has zero content even within the usual risible terms of leftist “anti-imperialism’”. The only possible resolution within capitalism is an imperialist resolution benefiting one or other of the “imperialist” powers struggling for influence in the area.

Asked by another socialist at the demo why they were calling for “Victory to the Intifada”, the leftists replied that the Palestinians are oppressed. It would be interesting to ask them whether the workers of Syria or Iran are oppressed, and, since they clearly are, why the leftists are pursuing a policy of giving support to the foreign policies of those oppressive regimes: policies, the success of which could only strengthen their grip at home. The leftists would doubtless reply that they support the struggles of Arab workers, but that the Palestinians are oppressed as a people, and their right to self-determination must be fought for. This illustrates the romantic/moralistic approach of the leftists – the oppression of Palestinian workers is made qualitatively worse by the denial of national rights, that is, the denial to the Palestinian capitalists of a free hand in exploiting their workers and conning them into believing that they share a common interest in defending a patch of land.

Who owns, rules

Nationalism, is the political form of property consciousness. It asserts that a group of people cannot exist as such unless defined by their ownership of a particular quarter of the world – the relations between “peoples” are actually the relations between patches of land, rather than the people upon them. It was the predominate form of ideology for the rising capitalist class in the 19th century, a way of understanding the world in terms of conflicting properties, and is now a tool for conning the working class into believing that there is some communal interest between themselves and their capitalist masters in where the boundaries of their state are drawn.

This illustrates the second aspect the material situation that belies the leftist sloganeering, its class content. It is essentially a problem of property. Were the Palestinians to win, they would still be oppressed as workers, and the land would belong to a new set of owners. They would still be subject to poverty, to the tyranny of their rulers and to the chaos of capitalist existence. In fact, they could only lose out, as the sacrifice in life, freedom and material goods necessary to win such a war were made. The same would go for the Israeli working class as well. Modern war is inherently antithetical to the interests of the working class, involving, as it does, disruption to the complex and integrated system of production we depend on for our existence, and necessitating the imposition of the tyrannous political structures needed to govern a society in a period of total war.

Given, then, that the leftist position is one based on abstract ideals and morals, rather than a materialist analysis of the situation, it becomes clear how they can tolerate marching alongside the religious without opposing them. Their march was an expression of who they wanted to see win, regardless of real world material factors, and was an expression of their adherence to the ideal of national self-determination. As such, their position is essentially an idealist one, a desire to see the world conform with an idea, simply by professing it.

The socialist case against religion is a simple one. We understand that, as ideas are the result of the historical movement of society, and the premises of religion thus concur with specific forms of society, religion is a social matter and not, as protestant sectarians would have it, a matter of individual conscience. Religion as we know it today is a part of a social process of acquiring and understanding knowledge left over from a bygone age, one in which the imagination of humanity outstripped its capacity to understand and control the world. Knowledge is inextricably linked with the process of acquiring it, with the practise of thinking. Since we, as workers, live in a world that has acquired the capacity to control its own material environment, we must reject those guides to behaviour and analysis based upon premises of human powerlessness, and the practises of thinking that go along with them.

This is why the comrade present at the Palestinian march became the lone voice in confrontation with the reactionary confusionists of religion; arguing against ideas that can only lead the workers away from the practical issues at hand, and essentially hide the property character of the question. If the workers of the world are to be able to obtain and apply the control of the world of which they are capable, they need to throw aside such slogans as “Palestine for the Palestinians” and instead affirm the need for a struggle against the system of minority rule which underpins all the world’s wars, and proclaim “The world for the workers!”

Pik Smeet

News of Party Activity (1975)

Party News from the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two more successful debates have taken place recently, and we give short reports of both below.

Labour Party

A good-sized audience attended Ealing Town Hall on 6th June for our debate with the Labour MP Sydney Bidwell. The subject “Labour Party and Socialism — is there a connection?” was chosen by Bidwell himself; he also asked for last-minute changes in the speaking arrangements. After he had thus called the tune, it turned out to be an atrociously flat one.

Bidwell spent more than half his opening twenty minutes on the positions he held and the importance of the work he did. In the remaining time he spoke of the Labour Party as a loose movement not bound by principles and of its being supported by trade unionists. No attempt was made to explain “socialism”, or the political purposes of the Labour Party.

Our representative, Comrade Barltrop, defined Socialism and gave an analysis of capitalism. Being a loose movement without principles meant simply that Labour existed on the support of non-Socialists. Labour’s history was of reform legislation and — on the quoted evidence of many Labourites themselves — this left capitalism and the situation of the working class unchanged. The Labour Party was an anti-socialist, anti-working-class party.

A period of questions to both speakers showed unmistakably what the audience thought. Bidwell responded to every instance of the perniciousness of Labour policies by saying that the Tribune group, of which he was chairman, disowned all the disagreeable things. His closing speech was received silently, while our speaker’s summing-up of the Socialist case was enthusiastically received. Literature sales for the evening were excellent.

Common Market

In a debate arranged by the Philippa Fawcett College on 30th May on the Common Market Referendum issue William Shelton (Tory MP for Streatham) spoke in favour; John Fraser (Labour MP for Norwood) urged a “No” vote; Sue Slipman (NUS Executive) also said “No”; and C. May (SPGB) put the Socialist position.

Shelton argued the benefits of staying in. He spoke of the greater opportunities for capital investment which would give more jobs; the military advantages; and the myths put out by the anti-Marketeers to frighten the electorate. Fraser’s case was that membership had not brought the promised benefits and would create difficulties for the Labour Party in carrying out its programme. Sue Slipman’s remarks can be summed-up as “student nationalism”; her concern was that European influence would dictate how our colleges and universities would operate.

Comrade May challenged the other speakers on the poverty of their contributions. He analyzed the EEC’s capitalism and pointed out that the problems of unemployment, housing, poverty etc. were features of capitalism everywhere. All the other contributors had to offer the working class was work (and that only if things went to plan).

The SPGB would vote neither “Yes” nor “No” but register votes for Common Ownership: a world system to deal with world problems. Socialism would organize production solely for use and abolish all markets. Such a society could solve the major problems. When the majority understood and wanted it they would take political action to build a world where, in the words of Oscar Wilde, “Man will be known not for what he has, but for what he is” — a refreshing thought compared with the abysmal standard of contribution on the Referendum issue.

There was an audience of about 70.

The Guardian Doesn't Apologize

On 1st June we held a rally at Trafalgar Square on the theme “Common Ownership not Common Market”. The Guardian published a photograph of part of the audience, with a caption describing the meeting as an “anti-EEC” rally. Two letters of correction, one from a regular contributor to this journal and the other from a speaker at the rally, produced only the reply that The Guardian would try to print a clarification of our position at some time. A further letter to the Editor, saying that printing one of the letters now was the only useful way of rectifying the matter, received no answer. Presumably The Guardian has varied its old slogan to: “Comment is sacred, but facts are free.”

A Silly Weekend

We were recently in touch with London Weekend Television over the possibility of a Party speaker taking part in a discussion of London rates. At their request, we sent a three-minute script outlining the Socialist case on this question. London Weekend’s reply was that this was not appropriate to their programme because: “You have no particular proposal to make other than that an unspecified form of socialism would wipe out the need to pay taxes and rates.”

Well, it isn’t much of a proposal when you think of it, is it? All these people want to do is abolish capitalism and change the whole of society, and get rid of money and have free access instead. What’s special about doing that?

What the reply reveals is that TV discussion programmes want only trivia, of course. If our script had proposed replacing rates with a Tax on Amorous Glances, or putting comic hats on parking meters, we should have been invited to send a speaker to sit facing an interviewer with corrugated brow asking "But is it viable ?” — and, no doubt, a couple of economists saying earnestly “What about the cost- push and demand-pull?”

Interesting Figures

One feature of the Common Market Referendum voting was the large number of ballot papers recorded as “spoiled”, i.e. marked otherwise than as required. The total over Britain was nearly 55,000, and there were 6,874 in Greater London.

At every election we urge people (except where there is a Socialist candidate) to write “Socialism” across the ballot papers as a means of registering what they want. How many did so on this occasion?

Trafalgar Square

A successful 2½-hour meeting was held with an attentive audience of around 500 on a fine but occasionally chilly afternoon. A total of £14.60 literature was sold from the two literature tables, in addition to sales by members; the final total was probably in the region of £18. Two collections realized £21.06.

58 members were present and the three speakers dealt with the subject of the Common Market extremely well. Several members of the audience took advantage of the roving microphone to ask the platform questions, and it was a most successful propaganda meeting.

The Common Market & the Workers (1975)

Party News from the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speech in Trafalgar Square on 1st June

On one point both sides are agreed in the Referendum debate. They all prophesy Doom and Disaster. The “pros” if we come out — and the “antis” if we stay in. And they are both right!

The Government’s own statement confirms this. “In or out of the Common Market, it will be tough going for Britain over the next few years”, it says. They will not frighten us! The workers will increasingly realize that their fate under capitalism, British or European, is wage-slavery — and that they have nothing to lose but their chains, European or British.

The creation of the so-called European Common Market merely rubber-stamps Government approval on a fait-accompli, an established fact, which normal capitalist development makes inevitable. As soon as the European continent was covered with motorways and sprinkled with airports, the ancient fragmentation of city-states was on the way out. (Lichtenstein is now a tourist curiosity.)

Now an Unholy Alliance has been formed to counter the competition of the Soviets and the Yanks. “One capitalist kills many”, wrote Karl Marx in Capital. This is all the Common Market is about. “The capitalist class cannot exist without incessantly revolutionizing society. It invades every quarter of the globe . . . it deprives industry of its national foundation. The old local isolation is replaced by the interdependence of nations. It ends the fractionization of the means of production. Independents and provinces are consolidated into a single nation with one government, one legal code, one interest and one fiscal frontier.” (Communist Manifesto.)

By an elaborate system of subsidies, import bars and tariffs they are ganging up against the other two giants, although (as in the case of Italian wine in France and French eggs in Britain) they will ignore joint decisions when it suits them. For this they have stacked mountains of beef and butter, lakes of wine and vast stocks of eggs and bricks. It is the 1975 version of the old Free Trade-versus-Protection battle of a century ago, between those who wanted cheap food “for the workers” and those who wanted to keep up prices.

But cheap food means cheap labour. The pathetic TV discussion about the price of a tin of baked beans in various countries is an exposure of the real poverty of the working class in all of them. Still more absurd are the pitiful arguments about “sovereignty”. What “sovereignty” has a poor devil with a twenty-year mortgage round his neck? who can only go to bed by kind permission of a building society — there to lie beating his brains out about “control from Brussels”! Frederick Engels wrote ninety years ago that “the question of Free Trade or Protection moves entirely within the bounds of the present system, and has, therefore, no direct interest for us Socialists who want to abolish it”.

He was careful to add, however, that we are indirectly interested in anything which expands and develops the capitalist system as quickly as possible, hastening the day when its replacement by Socialism becomes inevitable. The Common Market will intensify all those factors which will destroy capitalism. Overproduction, glut, crises, depression — this is the normal course of capitalism, and the creation of a still smaller class of still wealthier capitalists, with the proletarianization of the remaining peasantry of Europe, will speed the growth of the Socialist movement.

For us Socialists the issue is not big capitalism or small, not British trade or European trade, not exploitation by British or European government, but the abolition of capitalism by the establishment of Socialist society. Not a European community which is nothing but a capitalist power-bloc, but the worldwide multi-racial commune of humanity — Socialism.

Horatio

Letter: The May Day Circus (1973)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrade,

In the March copy of the Socialist Standard you asked for films and photographs of the activity in Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square.

If I had carried a camera at the 1939 May Day Demo in Hyde Park and been able to get a colour photograph of the horse-drawn leading dray into Hyde Park, it contained an arrangement of four flags — The Union Jack — The Tricolour of France, The Stars & Stripes and The Red Flag with Hammer & Sickle, also the May Day issue of the “Daily Worker’’ with the headlines:

"A Call to Churchill, Attlee and Archibald Sinclair — to demand the resignation of Chamberlain and confront Hitler at once”.

It nearly all has happened, and the people who asked for it are now trying to forget it all.

D. B.

Trafalgar Square Demonstration. (1929)

Party News from the July 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

We greatly regret that the Demonstration arranged for Sunday, June 9th, and advertised in the “Socialist Standard,” had to be cancelled. Speakers who had undertaken to address the Demonstration reported their inability to attend, but it was then too late to make other satisfactory arrangements. Efforts were made to advise as many of our readers as possible.

S.P.G.B. Propaganda Meetings (1929)

Party News and notices from the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Branch News (1961)

Party News from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day, 1961

May Day is being held on Sunday, May 7th. and the Party is arranging to hold as many meetings as possible to make more well known the case for Socialism. In London, at Hyde Park, in the afternoon Party members will gather to support the meeting and there will be three speakers. The platform will be in a prominent position on the grass. At 7.30 p.m. there will be an indoor rally at Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road (near Victoria Station). At both these meetings, the support of as many comrades and sympathisers as possible will add to the success of the demonstration.

In Glasgow, at Queen’s Park, meetings will be held, followed by an indoor Rally at St. Andrews Halls, Berkeley Street. So, Glasgow Comrades, turn out to support the meetings as the London Comrades will be doing—rain or shine. See that every effort is made to Demonstrate For Socialism.

Trafalgar Square, Easter Monday

Despite drenching rain and cold, grey skies, comrades of the Socialist Party of Great Britain dauntlessly and enthusiastically rallied round and showed their worth by turning out—at least fifty in number, to sell literature at the termination of the C.N.D. Easter march in Trafalgar Square. Some comrades were at the Albert Memorial and others at the Square. Their efforts resulted in the sale of literature to the extent of £13 14s. 44—350 Socialist Standards and 89 War pamphlets. In addition 5,000 Nuclear leaflets were distributed, resulting (up to the time of going to press) in ten enquiries for more information about the Party, and five requests, with Postal orders for War pamphlets. Among these enquiries were requests from Montrose in Scotland and Aberdare in Wales. This was a first-class effort on the part of Party comrades and proves that with enthusiasm and organisation—even the worst weather is not a bar to getting on with the job! One of the Paddington Comrades, in an effort to preserve the literature, wrapped individual copies in cellophane for protection. It is hoped also that the handbills (which were also distributed) advertising the April 19th meeting at St. Pancras Town Hall, will prove equally successful.


Coventry Group

Coventry members are still very active and are in contact with Birmingham Branch with a view to holding some joint outdoor meetings in Birmingham during the summer. The Group members regularly attend political meetings, take part in discussion and then sell Socialist Standards outside the meeting places. For a small group this is very good work and the Group members are hoping that their various contacts will, in the not too far distant future, enable them to form a Coventry Branch.


Central Branch

The Central Branch Secretary would very much like to hear from Comrades A. Bowley and C. J. Hutton. Correspondence has been returned from their addresses, without details of change.


Demonstration For Socialism

A full report of our successful meeting in St. Pancras will unfortunately have to beheld over until next month. We can nevertheless give the essential details. An audience of 400, plenty of questions and lively discussion, and a collection of over £25. All concerned have good reason to be pleased with such a fine result to their efforts — on such a miserably wet night too!

Phyllis Howard

Branch News (1964)

Party News from the April 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much activity is talcing place in the Party and this behoves well for the better weather and the outdoor propaganda meetings. Particularly in Bromley (Lewisham Branch) and in Woodside (Glasgow), comrades are enthusiastically working in preparation for the General Election. Members not able to join in the regular work can help considerably by making great efforts to attend the meetings and take along as many friends as they can. The Glasgow meeting on April 26th is an election meeting and the Branch is challenging all the opponents who arc contesting the Municipal Election in the North Kelvin Ward to state their case.

Readers will note the May Day meetings advertised in this issue. In London, Trafalgar Square has been booked for Sunday, May 3rd, and with the experience gained at the September meeting, providing everyone works as hard and enthusiastically, this May Day should prove even more successful. Such an occasion provides great propaganda possibilities and we must make the very most of it.

Nottingham is following up the recent meetings at the Cosmo Debating Society when Comrade D'Arcy spoke, and the members there are planning a May Day Rally in Market Square on Sunday. May 3rd. in the afternoon and evening. The Cosmo Debating Society meeting was very successful. It is some time now since the Party sent a speaker there and our comrade D'Arcy was made very welcome. There was a debate with the Anarchists later in the evening. This, too. was well attended.

Sunderland Group (details under Groups) has started well and the Group hopes to hold regular meetings. It is hoped to have a full report of the activities in Sunderland in the May Socialist Standard. West London Branch recently had a lecture by our comrade Waters on the General Strike. This was well attended and particularly appreciated by younger members who learned much from the lecture.

Phyllis Howard

May Day in Trafalgar Square (1964)

Party News from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

A group of individuals standing in Trafalgar Square were shocked—shocked at what they obviously regarded as an act of profanity, a desecration, a catastrophe, taking place before their very eyes.

We assumed that these gentlemen came from some military establishment, as they were all wearing bowler hats and dark lounge suits and were carrying rolled up umbrellas. Had they been wearing bearskins we might have said they were Guards officers. But then of course, as everybody knows, rolled up umbrellas don't go with bearskins; the best thing to match a bearskin is a bear. But we must not lose the thread of our story.

We should point out that at first we experienced some difficulty in understanding what they were saying. At one point we were of the opinion that they were using some primitive dialect interlaced with Esperanto. But we were wrong; one of our brighter members remarked that it was extremely difficult to speak English without opening the mouth and at the same time keeping it full of marbles. But with practice it can be done, as these gentlemen were now demonstrating.

Our first clue came very quickly when, during one of their rare periods of articulation, one uttered a “four letter word". This, mark you, on the Sabbath Day.

Now a four letter word in English is the most fundamental expression of annoyance one is capable of. These military gentlemen were indeed very annoyed.

The seat of the trouble lay below Nelson’s column. For the benefit of overseas readers, Nelson's column is the most famous monument in the British Empire, or Commonwealth as they prefer to call it nowadays. It is a veritable pillar of British capitalism, a symbol of Imperialism ; and what’s more, it was built with scab labour. Apart from keeping Nelson up, it is very useful to the large pigeon population whose visiting cards are clearly visible in great numbers. On this occasion, however, this May Day Sunday in nineteen hundred and sixty four, the monument was performing the most useful role in all its history.

Draped round the column was a large red banner with the name of the Socialist Party on it. A little below this a large printed slogan—a very sensible slogan— “Abolition of the wages system”. The famous lions had posters over their front paws, and one had the Socialist statement on war attached to his posterior. On the plinth itself was a table at which sat four Socialist speakers, each waiting to speak to the audience of well over a thousand people. A hundred or so members of the SPGB were there, each playing his part in making this a great occasion. The whole scene was enough to make Lord Nelson turn in Lady Hamilton’s bed.

Yes, this was the Socialist Party holding its first May Day Rally in Trafalgar Square. Hitherto, on previous May Days, we have been plagued with the Communist circus and the Co-op adverts in Hyde Park advising workers to eat Stork margarine. (After sixty years of the "progressive” Labour Party, surely it ought to be butter?) But here we were without any distractions; no bagpipes, brass bands or skiffle groups.

We took full advantage of the situation —God was on our side as far as the weather was concerned—it was a lovely afternoon. For three hours all within the Square heard the Socialist case through our loudspeakers. To see lots of Party members selling the Socialist Standard, and a well-stocked literature stall carrying every Party publication, was a grand sight. Nearly £12 of literature, including 300 copies of the Socialist Standard were sold, and a collection of £19 10s. 0d. was taken up.

The meeting was temporarily interrupted by the appearance of two rather motley processions in the roadway outside. Composed of Labour and Communist supporters, they depressed the intellect with the forlorn and futile slogan they so dearly love—"Hands off Cuba”— "Hands on Makarios"—"Hands oil Fanny Hill”.

After this dreary and cheerless assembly had wound its pathetic way up the Mall we continued to enjoy the optimism of the Socialist message. Comrades from Birmingham, Glasgow, Brighton, London, combined to make the day. Many members brought their families—and why not? Stimulating speeches, comradely faces, sympathetic listeners—who would not be a Socialist on this pleasant afternoon in the month of May?

P. C.

A Week of Meetings in London (1967)

Party News from the October 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Gt. Britain organised a demonstration for Socialism in Trafalgar Square on Sunday afternoon, September 3rd. Despite uncertain weather there was a large crowd throughout the 2½ hour meeting, listening to the socialist case and putting questions to the speakers.

Over £16 worth of socialist pamphlets and journals were bought by interested workers, including 480 copies of the Socialist Standard. (In addition 300 Socialist Standards were sold in Hyde Park on the same day.) Our introductory leaflets in different languages were also much in demand and helped us to explain the Socialist Party’s position to workers from France, Germany, Turkey, Vietnam and elsewhere.

A photograph of the meeting which appeared next day in The Times picked out very nicely one of our slogans calling for “Abolition of the Wages System”. Surely the first time that phrase has appeared in those august columns!

Monday September 4th

The newly formed Camden group held its first meeting—on “Israel, Vietnam, Biafra— Problems for the Left”—on Monday evening. Over forty people turned up to discuss these issues.

The group meets at ‘The Enterprise’, Chalk Farm Road—which is opposite the Round House. The room is comfortable and the atmosphere relaxed and informal. So if you want to discuss socialist ideas, or have other views which you would like to give an airing, why not come along to the next meeting?

Thursday 7th September

The Socialist Party held two teach-ins on Thursday evening. One was at Conway Hall, where representatives from Oxfam, the United Nations Association, the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the SPGB opened a discussion on “World Hunger—What is the solution?" Although most of those present were not members of the Socialist Party, the audience was keenly aware of the deficiencies in the ‘solutions’ to world hunger put forward by the various reformist organisations. The socialist analysis of food shortages came across as the only positive and constructive answer to this problem of capitalism.

The other teach-in, organised jointly by West London and Greenford branches, was also well-attended. There was a wide-ranging discussion on Socialism and socialist tactics, with various brands of trotskysists and other would-be socialists ‘arguing’ a case for entrism.

Sunday 10th September

The week ended with a five-hour meeting in Hyde Park. A string of party members spoke from a specially erected platform on the grass. There was some lively discussion and on more than one occasion a member of the audience was given the platform in order to explain his objections to Socialism, a socialist speaker then replying. Party literature was again selling briskly and—many workers from Germany and Austria were interested in the Wiener Freie Wort—the organ of our comrades in the League of Democratic Socialists.

Successful Rally (1974)

Party News from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

General Elections at three weeks' notice are generally disadvantageous to small organizations, but the Socialist Party had one piece of good luck. We had arranged for a major public meeting in Trafalgar Square on 22nd September, so it turned out that we had the stage in the centre of London immediately after the Election was announced. There was Nelson’s plinth displaying our banners, and the sale of Socialist literature in full swing. BBC Television cameras were there for part of the meeting.

Several hundred people — a large number staying from start to finish — listened to our speakers. Comrades Barltrop, Critchfield, Baldwin and Young gave vigorous expositions of the capitalist system and the reasons for the present economic crisis; the failure of reform programmes; the vote-catching humbug of the parties who are unable to control capitalism; and the Socialist alternative to it all.

Between the speeches we had a roving microphone taken into the audience for questions. It can’t be said that all the questions were of the highest quality, but they gave the speakers opportunities to bring out other aspects of our case. The audience’s interest and appreciation were shown by the fact that a record collection was taken, and sales of the Socialist Standard and other literature were first-class. On a chilly grey day, it was a great success.