Hell's Alley (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

Hell's Alley

(Dramatization of events preceding to, and from "Bloody Saturday", June 21 1919, arising from the Winnipeg General Sympathetic Strike)

Note: I have taken a few liberties with the events of this time in order to best condense the events and feelings of the time. For example: Secretary of the Seattle Trades and Labor Council, James Duncan, had actually made his address a couple of weeks earlier. And those of the Central Strike Committee as were arrested had been arrested days earlier. So Sam Blumenburg, soldier Bray and Helen Armstrong would not be present. However, Helen did take lumps on occasion and is useful in conveying sentiments of Strike Committee. The Socialist, Blumenburg, was actually a dry cleaner but rates being written in, not just for his classic (genuine) one-liner but to show problems of "enemy aliens". The secret police reports are of various times and sometimes condensations of more than one report to give the idea of the hysteria and paranoia that existed in some official circles. Likewise with government officials. The beating is as nearly accurately reproduced as possible. There is some controversy as to whether the workers did or did not destroy some of the interior of the streetcar, so I left it out. They did not, as some historians have claimed, tip over the streetcar. They tried, but it was too heavy. So are a lot of things.

Larry Tickner

Cast, in order of appearance:

COMMENTARY: Relates happenings and statements of others away from scene. As he gives wide cross-section of views of various elements it is important that his face not reflect conflicting emotions and should be blanked out with makeup. It is occasionally necessary that he be able to call on a booming voice that will shake the rafters.

"WORKERS": All somewhat apolitical, reflecting the general situation of the time. The common headgear of workers, at the time, was the bowler hat. But as such is not likely to carry the desired impression upon today's audiences it is perhaps better that they wear tweed or cloth caps. 

WORKER 1: Generally more than average social awareness. Experienced. Knows he is in a tough fight but prepared to hang in there no matter what. 

WORKER 2: Considerably less aware, but not lacking in courage. Slight foreign accent.

WORKER 3: Probably would have given in at the first blush if not carried by the tide of determination amongst his peers.

WORKER 4: Highly idealistic (more than the others). Still retains the original religious fervor. Prepared to act first and think later.

(Soldiers all in uniform)

SOLDIER BRAY: Active supporter of the strike.

OTHER SOLDIERS: As many as can be comfortably accommodated on stage. An attempt to attain an approximate balance between them and workers.

HELEN ARMSTRONG: Wife of socialist and carpenter union organizer George Armstrong. A socialist speaker in her own right. A proud upright woman. Femininely attractive enough, but dressing in such a manner as to neither hide nor exploit the fact.

SAM BLUMENBERG: Socialist, slight Jewish accent, but quite articulate. Fellow metal worker with Russell.

JAMES   DUNCAN:   President   of  Seattle   Labor   Council.   He   is   not unsympathetic  to groundswell  of need for industrial  unions  but is attempting to achieve it by reforming the American Federation of Labor (AFL).

MESSENGER BOY

ACT 1

(Open Set)

Market Square, opposite Winnipeg City Hall. Center stage is a raised platform suitable for speakers. There are a few chairs on the platform for the speakers. At extreme stage left and extreme downstage stands Commentary. He holds a scroll before himself. He can use it for cues, but it is preferred that he memorize his lines. He remains still when not speaking and when he speaks the "participating" players freeze, except where otherwise noted. (Note: All entrances and exits are made from amongst the audience.)

COMMENTARY: Saturday morning, June 21st, 1919. Market Square, opposite Winnipeg City Hall. The war to end all war is over. Wartime restrictions are still in effect. The Social Democratic Party has been declared illegal. The journal of the Socialist Party of Canada has been banned, as have the works of Marx and Darwin, and some of the plays of Gilbert and Sullivan. The men who fought four years for a "glorious new world" return to find it the same one they left — widespread unemployment, with all too familiar grinding poverty, aggravated by rampant wartime inflation. Nationwide discontent reflects itself, in Winnipeg, in the form of a six-week General Strike.

[Enter Worker 1. He briefly shuffles around at the base of the platform until he is joined by Worker 2.]

WORKER 2: Where's the Strike Committee?

WORKER l: Don't know. Guess we're a bit early.

WORKER 2: Storm bother your place much?

[Enter Worker 3]

WORKER l: Blew off a few shingles. Fixed them. But I sure don't want to see a storm like that again. 

WORKER 3: Blew a big piece off the roof of the Children's Hospital. What the hell? Strike or no strike we don't want to see children suffer. [Others nod in agreement] Me and a mate offered to fix it. Hospital

Director said he'd see us roast in hell first. 

WORKER 2: What the hell's the matter with them? Why do they hate us so? Don't they see all we want is a decent living? 

[Enter Worker 4] 

WORKER 3: Don't know. Say we're all Bolshevik or Reds or something. Whatever that is. Enemy aliens getting German gold to ruin the country. 

WORKER l: That's nothing. Been saying things like that about us for 20 years. Longer. Far as I can remember. Anything to keep our wages down. Been through it three times now. Try to get a union, decent wages. Each time, they use the police and scabs to break our strike — Courts to fine and imprison our union leaders. Forced to go back to work, at worse conditions. Alongside scabs. [Spits] 

WORKER 4:  But this time it is going to be different. We are better organized now. All workers together striking for each other. Worked last year. Got three wage settlements by threats of general strikes. 

COMMENTARY: With the workers properly organized there is nothing they may not successfully demand from the capitalist, by means of a general strike. 

WORKER 2: But without a general strike the metal masters beat the workers down within a month. That's why we had to support them this year. Make things better for all of us, too. 

WORKER 3: But maybe we should not have all gone out. It's been 6 weeks now and things are getting bloody tough. Don't know if there will be enough food for my family. 

WORKER l: Don't lose heart brother. The Strike Committee says that as long as there is one crust of bread amongst us we'll share it. We must be strong, to win. 

WORKER 2: Why do the metal masters hold out so long? Even they admit the men cannot live on their present wages. Why can't they see the justice of our case? 

WORKER l: We don't even get the minimum conditions just laid down by the League of Nations. 

COMMENTARY: I worked hard to establish my business. As a logger. In the sawmills. Worked to get an engineering ticket. I alone am best qualified when and whom to hire and fire and how much an employee should be paid. And no bloody Red is going to tell me different. 

WORKER 4: [In almost dreamy nostalgia] Remember, six weeks ago, when we came out? Labor Council called on all unions to support the Metal Trades. Eleven o'clock in the morning, as arranged, I took off my apron, put on my hat and left the job. The streets were full of people. 'Twas like a Roman holiday. Not just union people either. As many without unions came out in support of the metal workers' cause. Even soldiers changed over to our side.

WORKER 2: Even the Strike Committee was surprised. In the afternoon went to their favourite restaurant. It was closed, of course. [All laugh]

WORKER 4: Even police voted to come out.

WORKER l: Agreed with Strike Committee though. Stayed on to keep order. Even said they'd bust our heads if we got outa line. Never needed it though. Strike Committee cooperated to see everybody kept calm.

WORKER 3: [Apprehensively] But now they have fired all the police for being sympathetic to the strikers. Replaced them with boss's goon police.

WORKER 4: Dumb buggers are no good for anything anyway. Just say boo and they fall off their horses. Think we should run 'em outa town. Worse scab herders yet.

COMMENTARY: Sawing, sawing, sawing. What the hell we sawing up these old oxen yokes for anyway? We hire on to be policemen, not bloody woodcutters. [Pause] Don't know. Don't care. For six dollars a day I'll do anything. Don't need oxen yokes no more anyhow. Got tractors now.

[Immediately enter Soldier Bray. He is readily recognized and accepted by the workers. As he steps upon the platform other soldiers begin to mingle with the crowd.]

BRAY: Comrades, the soldiers are with you in your demands for collective bargaining. We also demand an allowance for returned soldiers.

WORKER l: How can we trust the soldiers? You have not always been with us.

BRAY: I know what you mean. Last winter some of us did act against workers. Beat up on foreigners. Even destroyed the Socialist Party's headquarters. We now know we were wrong. But we had been misled by newspaper nonsense that screamed about enemy aliens, red menace and such. Strikes financed by German gold.

COMMENTARY: Secret Police Agent 57, reporting from Vancouver, B.C. There is reason to believe Bolshevik agents have landed on our shores. 5,000 of them are training under arms in Canada and the United States. They have violet rays and know how to use them to blind people.

BRAY: [Continuing] Then the Union members convinced us your interests are our interests. That is why we are here today, to stage another parade. When the soldiers' support is shown the justice of our case will be seen and we will win.

[Most of crowd obviously restless and leaning towards action.]

WORKER l: [As he speaks Helen Armstrong mounts the platform.] But the Mayor has forbidden more parades. And the Strike Committee says we should avoid confrontation. [Quoting the Strike Committee] The best thing to do is nothing. Go to the beach. Make love.

HELEN: That's right Comrades, I beg you wait for the advice of the Strike Committee. They should have been here by now. I was to have met my husband . . .

WORKER 4: We can't wait any longer. It's been six weeks now.

HELEN: Wait. Here comes Sam Blumenburg. [As Sam mounts platform] He's on the Strike Committee.

SAM: Sorry I'm late. I was to bring a visiting speaker but he didn't show up.

SOLDIER 2: [In a badgering manner but the rest not too sympathetic with him.] You sound like an enemy alien. How do we know the papers aren't right? How do we know you ain't gettin' German gold?

SAM: [Not in any way intimidated, scoffingly laughs.] What is this enemy alien? And German gold? Workers see damn little gold of any kind. In my country it was very bad — very poor. Then the Canadian government says, Come to Canada, Land of Big Opportunity. Shows a poster; Woman with a nice white apron, waving to husband coming in from field. So I come. What do I find. All the good land gone. Even farmers who have it can hardly make a living. Long unemployment lines. Miserably low wages. Then I get a job with Bob Russell. He says he wants to make a union that gets good wages for everybody. Not just craftsman. I think, maybe this is the big opportunity government talks about.

SOLDIER 2: Russell's a socialist. How do we know you are not using the strike to make a revolution, like the papers say?

SAM: You crazy? Socialism could never happen that way. Sure Bob wants a new society. Me too. One with no money, no wages, everything free. But it can only come by majority action. Right now all we want is enough wages so we can live to see that day.

SOLDIER 2: Hah, what country do you come from?

SAM: [With all the confidence of someone who had dealt successfully with the question many times before] ... It is not necessary to ask where I come from. My face is the map of Palestine and my nose is Mount Zion. [All laugh and that ends the matter].

[Enter James Duncan. He takes to the platform as he is welcomed by Blumenburg.]

SAM: Here is the visiting speaker I was to meet. James Duncan of the Seattle Labor Council.

[A lot of booing and hissing from those in attendance. But sentiment not shared by Bray, Blumenburg or Helen Armstrong.]

WORKER 4: Yankee Craft Union Snob.

BRAY: Wait. Let's hear what the man has to say. [All quieten.]

DUNCAN: Brothers and Sisters. I am sorry I am late. Got a bad time from the border guards. Said if I'd been a day later they wouldn't have had to let me through at all.

COMMENTARY: Honorable gentlemen of the house. The legislation before you will permit us to scourge the country of the enemy alien red menace once and for all. It will permit us to deport any of them. Reds of any kind, even British born reds, without trial. And once again make our country free. [Speaking rapidly] House of Commons: First Reading — all in favor say aye. Second Reading: all in favor say aye. Third Reading: all in favor say aye. Senate: First Reading — all in favor say aye. Second Reading— all in favor say aye. Third Reading — all in favor say aye. Signed by the Governor-General Total time elapsed 40 minutes

DUNCAN: I understand your sentiments. They are not unlike my own. [As he speaks the crowd begins to warm to him giving each other nudges and nods of approval]. We have just had a general strike in Seattle for almost the same reasons as yours — low wages and refusal of the employers to recognize joint industrial bargaining. I am now on my way to the AFL Convention. [Boos and hisses]. If I cannot get them to reform their organization to embrace all workers I will join with you to help found one big union to represent all workers. [Enthusiastic cheers from all and applause from those sharing the platform] I wish I could stay longer and help your strike but I am late and must go to the AFL Convention. My heart is with you. [Exits to applause].

BRAY: Hear that, comrades. Our case is just. Workers everywhere are sympathetic to us. Many are striking in support for us.

COMMENTARY: Secret Police Agent 98 reporting from Ferni, B.C. You do not have to worry about the union leaders here becoming revolutionary. They don't want to lose their soft and cushy jobs.

BRAY: Vancouver is out, Calgary is out, Lethbridge, Edmonton —

COMMENTARY: Dear Mr Prime Minister, as your Minister of Labour I must respectfully advise that, this is not an opportune time to make a declaration in favor of the principle of collective bargaining as it would be grasped as an excuse by the strikers to claim they had forced the government and thereby proved success of the sympathetic strike.

BRAY: Saskatoon is out, Regina, Prince Albert, Brandon, Port Arthur, Fort William, Toronto.

COMMENTARY: Edmonton out two weeks — Vancouver a month.

WORKER 3: [Apprehensively.] But there is talk of getting scabs to run the streetcars, If that happens the strike is broken.

WORKER 4: Don't worry Comrade. [He uses this address for the first time, reflecting the increased pitch of anxiety.] We know how to look after scabs.

COMMENTARY: Secret Agent 67, reporting from Calgary: What the new union policy will be, will depend on how dangerous things may be to their personal liberty. Already their fear is making them hesitant and, as far as possible, they will tone down their program. I recommend reformed labor laws, which would meet with the approval of the Conservative labor element, aiming at the elimination of basic grievances and a satisfactory settlement to the returned soldiers and simultaneously the deportation of alien trouble makers. Decisive and concerted arrest of the leaders, a quick trial with a sentence making release or confinement dependent upon their future policy.

BRAY: Comrades, it is time to begin our parade.

HELEN: No, no. Wait for the Strike Committee [Blumenburg nods, in agreement.]

COMMENTARY: [Continuing] Unionism, rightly organized, is the very basis of national unity and strength. Especially will this be proved when the inevitable international complications ensue. With regard to this new movement, only two courses are open — either crush it ruthlessly or reform the labor laws of the country [while Commentary is finishing a boy messenger hands Helen a note and hastens nervously away.]

HELEN: [Upon reading the note shrieks] God! They've arrested my husband. They're arresting the whole Strike Committee. [In her sobbing grief she awakens to the danger to Sam.] Oh, Sam they'll be after you too. You have no family to hold you. Run!

SAM: No, I must stay with my Comrades and help the strike.

.HELEN: [Bray and the crowd showing sympathy and anxiety for Sam.] Don't be a fool. You're the only one on the Strike Committee without an English background. They are deporting foreigners who didn't even have anything to do with organizing the strike. You can't help us from jail or deported. Run .. . run! [Hesitantly and reluctantly Sam exits to the well wishes of the crowd.]

COMMENTARY: Sam Blumenburg escapes to the United States where he is active in Socialist and labor organisations for the rest of his life.

BRAY: Now the soldiers are in charge. We will begin our parade. [Steps from the platform to take his place at the head of forming parade.]

HELEN: No! No! Wait!

WORKER 4: [They are all in an ugly mood.] I'm bloody tired of waiting. [Helen runs beseechingly from one to another. Her helplessness is symbolized by lack of dialogue. Each pushes her gently but firmly aside.]

WORKER 3: Look! Here come the mounties. [Note: the ensuing confrontation with police is somewhat pantomimed. Crowd begins mocking and jeering. Mockingly hold their backs upright, stiff and hands in front as though holding horses reigns. As the mounties "go through" the crowd turns in unison to watch them pass (a bit of choreographic talent needed here). Helen, and to some extent Bray, are not out of agreement with the sentiments expressed but their apprehension shows as things begin to get more and more out of control.]

WORKER 1: Bloody mechanical men!

WORKER 2: Can't you understand the workers' needs?

WORKER 4: [As they pass through] Bloody scab herders! [All looking down the street.]

BRAY: [In relief] They're gone. Now we can begin.

COMMENTARY: [In a voice that rattles the rafters] COMPANEEE! Fall in! [Following lower volume but with military precisioness]. Ninetieth Winnipeg Rifles ready for action at a moment's notice, Suh! 100th Winnipeg Grenadiers, ready at a moment's notice, Suh! 106th Infantary ready at a moment's notice, Suh! 79 Cameron Highlanders, ready at a moment's notice, Suh! Twenty machine guns on mobilized units. Ready at a moment's notice, Suh!

HELEN: [Looking in direction of mounties.] Wait, they're turning. They're coming back. [Crowd all jeer as they part ranks as though horses going between them. As the eyes of the crowd follow the mounties away. Worker 4 picks up a rock and makes ready to throw it after the mounties. Helen tries to stop him but is brushed aside. The others aghast, at first, but then start picking up rocks and hurling them after the mounties. All except Helen and Bray, curse the mounties as they pass.]

BRAY: [As things get out of hand.] Let's not lose control of ourselves. Let's be orderly.

Worker 3: [In relief] They're gone.

WORKER 2: Here comes a streetcar.

[They all crowd around. Helen and Bray are quite helpless now. Worker 4 jumps as though to grab the trolley line.]

WORKER 4: I've got the trolley cord. It's stopping!

[Helen and Bray have the same feeling toward the scab but do not take part in what follows, for slightly different reasons. The crowd make actions that indicate pulling the scab out of the streetcar.  They make a cordon, ironically similar to the one the mounties passed through. They in turn take a punch at the scab and shout obscenities at him as he runs the gauntlet and runs away. There is a great amount of noise from crowd.] 

HELEN: Listen! The mayor's reading something. 

WORKER 3: Who can hear?

WORKER 4: Who cares anyway. Bloody boss's stooge. 

COMMENTARY: In the name of the security and protection of the King all herein assembled are instructed to disperse .. . [Drowned out by the noise.] 

HELEN: The mounties are returning. They have their revolvers out. 

COMMENTARY: [Military voice] At the READY . . . AIM . . . FIRE! [Pause] [regular voice] One bystander is killed instantly.

[All paralyze looking in direction of Worker 2 as he holds his leg in pain. Half crawling to extreme stage right where he lays down dying. Remains there for remainder of scene.]

WORKER 2: Hide me. No, do not call the doctor. I am foreign born. They will deport me. [Dies] 

COMMENTARY: Dead of gangrene. [Now all begin to jerk and fall as though being shot and clubbed and trampled by horses. Helen goes to the help of a half-dazed worker.] 

HELEN: Here Comrade. I'll help you. [Screams in pain as head jerks back from clubbing. Arises from momentary unconsciousness] Run! .. . Run!

[As commentary speaks all in unison go through a slow motion act of running. First stage front then left, then right, raising their hands in horror at what they "see" in each street.] 

COMMENTARY: Blockaded across each street are the special police. In the right hand of each is half an oxen yoke. In the other hand some have revolvers.

[All go through action of being clubbed, being shot; falling; getting up; stumbling in every direction.] 

HELEN: [Half dazed] Come Comrades. Hide in this alley. We'll be safe here. [All go to centre stage stage and crouch as though hiding.] 

COMMENTARY: Mommy. Why do people call that little street hell's alley? Come along dear. Don't ask such things.

[In a few moments they are startled by something at stage left.] 

ALL: The goon police!

[They all retreat to stage right but again are confronted.] 

COMMENTARY: At each end of the alley cordons of special police, clubs in hand.

[They all go through action of being beaten.] 

WORKER 4: [Going through action of fighting back]. Fucking bastards!

[But  he  is  clubbed from  one  side  and  then  another.   Crumples unconscious, as they all do, in tortured heaps.] 

COMMENTARY: Scourge the streets! Find them, find them! Punish! Punish! Punish! Beat! Beat! Beat! Law and Order! Law and Order! [Slight pause].

[As strikers begin crawling off stage helping each other, carrying the unconscious and the dead worker, Commentary continues.]

We return to work like whipped dogs. Work alongside scabs. Lose seniority. Pensions. Sign allegiance oath. [With vengeance] Sign! Sign! Sign! [Some exiting workers resentfully go through action of signing. Some spit in hatred.] Some are permanently blacklisted. [Slight pause] Troops arrive to take over the streets . .. Trucks with mounted machine guns patrol back and forth. But the streets are empty of strikers. Bloody Saturday is over.

ACT 2

COMMENTARY: Same qualification as Commentary in first act [could be same performer but recommend the part be divided.]

JUDGE: Complete with those mysterious robes they are prone to wear.

[Commentary 2 assumes the same position as Act 1. The judge is at his bench fiddling with papers as Commentary speaks.]

COMMENTARY: History books will largely by-pass the participants in the events of these days. Worse. Some will write in heroes who had very little to do with the struggle. This is not to say there were not key martyrs and heroes. There were. And their bravery and suffering matched any. But the genuine ones would not have had it that they were so heavily written in, nor that the rest be so easily passed over.

JUDGE: [Forcefully banging his gavel] Order in the court!

COMMENTARY: Many "aliens" have been deported. The vast majority of them are unknown to the strike leaders. Those of British backgrounds get a trial. As to fairness? The trial is by a jury. The jurists are mostly farmers with little in common with the accused. It is doubted, by many, that a similar jury could be found anywhere else in the country.

JUDGE: The seven of you: A.A. Heaps; Reverend Wm. Ivens; R.E. Bray; George Armstrong; John Queen; R.J. Johns; W.A. Pritchard, have been jointly charged on six counts of seditious conspiracy which we have spent these many weeks reviewing but may be briefly summarized as follows:

Count 1: A general form of seditious conspiracy to bring hatred and contempt to excite disaffection against the government, the laws and the constitution and generally to promote ill-will and hostility amongst the people and between classes.

Count 2: Seditious conspiracy in overt acts; in the calling of seditious socialist meetings and distribution of seditious socialist literature; Participation in the founding of the One Big Union with syndicalist objectives; The prosecution of an illegal strike, to discommode and inconvenience the inhabitants of Winnipeg and the paralyzing of all industries and business in Winnipeg and endangering the lives, health, safety and property of said inhabitants.

Count 3: Seditious conspiracy to carry into effect a seditious intention to endanger human life and to cause serious bodily injury and to expose valuable property to destruction and serious injury. 

Count 4: Seditious conspiracy to organize an unlawful combination or association or associations of workmen and employees to get demands by unlawful general strikes which were intended to be a step in a revolution against the constituted form of government in Canada. 

Count 5: Seditious conspiracy to undermine and destroy confidence in the government, laws and constitution. To persuade workmen to form unlawful associations for the purposes of obtaining control of all industries and of obtaining the property rightfully belonging to other persons.

Count 6: Seditious conspiracy to unlawfully bring about changes in the constitution and to enforce the "Soviet" form of government in Canada through means similar to those used in Russia. 

Count 7: Committing a common nuisance by use of an unlawful general sympathetic strike in which various employees walked out illegally and which endangered the lives, health, safety, property and comfort of the public and obstructed the exercise and enjoyment of rights common to all His Majesty's subjects.

Aug 1, 1919: The Winnipeg Eight at Vaughan Street Jail 

COMMENTARY: In making his charge to the jury the judge makes it clear that he believes in the guilt of the accused. The defense protests the method of choosing a jury and the prosecution attorney confides to a colleague that with any other jury in the country a conviction would be unlikely. Upon reconvening the jury renders its verdict.

JUDGE: I have the jury's verdict before me. [pause] A.A. Heaps. Not guilty on all seven counts.

COMMENTARY: A labor alderman in the City of Winnipeg. Member of the Strike Committee. Upholsterer by trade. Only one of the seven to be acquitted on all seven counts. Defended himself. His address to the jury took all of one day.

JUDGE: Reverend William Ivens. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Had been ousted from the Methodist church for his pacifist views. Subsequently founded a labor church in the Winnipeg Trades and Labor hall. At the time of his arrest was editor of the Western Labor News. Defended himself. His address to the jury took 14 hours. While in prison, elected to the legislature for the Independent Labor Party, where he served 16 years.

JUDGE: R.E. Bray. On six counts of seditious conspiracy, not guilty. On the charge of committing a common nuisance, Guilty. Sentence: six months in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Soldier. Member of the Strike Committee. Representative from the Soldiers Committee. Philosophically a pacifist. Only joined the army to get work. Subsequently becomes an organiser for the newly-founded One Big Union. Spends his reclining years in Vancouver growing gladiolas.

JUDGE: George Armstrong. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Member of the Strike Committee. Member and one-time organizer of the United Brotherhood of Carpenter and Joiners of America. Prominent lecturer for the Socialist Party of Canada. While in prison elected to the Manitoba Legislature on a reformist ticket. Subsequently returns to write and speak for the Socialist Party in relative obscurity.

JUDGE: John Queen. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: A silver-tongued labor orator. Alderman of the city of Winnipeg. Advertising Manager of the Western Labor News. While in prison, elected to the Manitoba Legislature and subsequently reelected the rest of his life. Serves seven terms as the mayor of Winnipeg.

JUDGE: R.F. Johns. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Railroad machinist. Active member of the Socialist Party of Canada. During entire strike was in Eastern Canada involved in other union activities. His imprisonment results in an undue strain on his wife causing him to drop all Socialist activities. He returns to school to become a machinist teacher and ultimately the Manitoba Director of Technical Education.

JUDGE: William A. Pritchard. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: one year in the Manitoba Prison Farm.

COMMENTARY: Vancouver organizer for the longshoremen's union. In Winnipeg on a four-day visit as executive representative of the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council. A prominent speaker for the Socialist Party of Canada. His address to the jury, two days, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each, becomes a classic in judicial circles. Pressures from his imprisonment have tragic effects upon his family. He is subsequently several times elected the Reeve of Burnaby and is a key factor in the founding of the reformist British Columbia CCF Party. For this latter act some of his fellow socialists never forgave him. In 1979 three years before his death at the age of 93, in his home in Los Angeles he wrote "Had the government carried out its initial move there would not have been any trial. . . Andrews, principal counsel for the crown went one evening to the Penitentiary and announced: By tomorrow you will all be deported to Britain — wives and children to follow. . . . But Armstrong at once called out: Hey, Alfie! What are you going to do with me? Send me to Alaska? He was born in York, Toronto. This put the kibosh on the hurriedly devised scheme."

COMMENTARY: Two others are tried separately.

JUDGE: F. .J. Dixon. For your part in writing and circulating articles in the Western Labor News you are hereby charged with seditious libel.

COMMENTARY: A labor member of the Provincial legislature, undertook the publication of Western Labor News when the others were arrested. Made a stellar performance of conducting his own defence and despite hostile charge from the judge, after 40 hours the jury rendered a verdict of not guilty.

COMMENTARY: R.B. Russell is charged on six counts of seditious conspiracy and one count of common nuisance.

JUDGE: R.B. Russell. Guilty on all seven counts. Sentence: two years in Stoney Mountain Penitentiary.

COMMENTARY: Secretary of Canadian Railroad Machinists. Esteemed to be leader of the strike. Prominent member of the Socialist Party of Canada for which he runs while in prison. He is narrowly defeated by fellow strike supporter, Dixon, on the second count of a preferential ballot. Labor throughout the world demands a pardon for him as far away as Glasgow, Scotland, threaten a general strike if he is not released. He is pardoned. Upon release, he becomes secretary and main organizer for the newly founded One Big Union. It is Russell's expressed intention to fight for workers on the industrial field, while at the same time educate them in socialist ideas for the ultimate abolition of capitalism. For a while the OBU makes an impressive impact upon labor scene; its presence being felt in a wide spectrum, including Nova Scotia miners, textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in New York and San Francisco and amongst western lumber workers. For fifteen years it publishes a weekly journal with union business interspersed with socialist theory. But the writing is on the wall. The OBU has to fight on too many fronts: employers with an understandable mutual antagonism; government; police; and other unions — first there is the international craft unions, then the international industrial unions — and the Communist Party, whose worm-within and Moscow-obedience policy is scorned by the OBU. Ultimately the OBU withers to a mere Winnipeg base. After 43 years, at the founding of the Canadian Labor Congress in 1962 what remained of it is officially disbanded. On Labor Day 1964, four weeks before his death, Bob Russell is officially recognised as the father of labor in Manitoba. A school and a wing of a children's hospital are named after him. [Pause]

In the words of Pritchard at the time ". . . in my own mind I rest assured that the historian of the future will drive the knife of critical research into the very bowels of the bogey that has been conjured forth out of the imagination of certain legal luminaries of this city; and placing everything in its proper position will appreciate at their worth each fact and each factor; and will appreciate at their proper worth all those persons who have become part and parcel of what has been conceded to be the greatest case in the history of Canada."

Classic Reprint: Socialism: a simple exposition (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

The article which follows this one is a dramatization of an incident that took place during the Winnipeg General Strike of May-June 1919. This strike was basically over wages, and hence only a defensive action in the class struggle, but many of those active in it had pronounced socialist views. To illustrate this we publish below extracts from a pamphlet written and published over fifty years later in Los Angeles by one of those sentenced, as the play records, to one year's imprisonment for his part in the strike.

A few centuries old, capitalism emerged from a static, clerical, feudal society into one of voyages of discovery, of exploration and conquest of foreign lands, into one of burgeoning trade. Following the voyages of discovery of Da Gama, Columbus, De Soto, Magellan and others, trade bloomed tremendously and the initial steps were taken for the development of regional markets into a world market, and the capitalist system from a European (chiefly) restricted economy into an ever-expanding world-wide system.

It must be admitted that capitalism, historically considered, is a higher, superior social system than any of its predecessors. It broke the restraints that feudalism placed on society's productive forces and thereby developed the increasing productivity of labor.

One could enter many areas to show how capitalism rapidly improved industry, providing an ever-increasing volume of useful vendible goods. Without doubt this was a great social advance. It should be noted here, however, that this increasing volume of goods, while useful, was not produced primarily with this usefulness in mind, but for sale on an ever-expanding world market with profit as the ultimate objective. The main question before any promoter of a new article, etc, is: will it sell?

From simple factories powered by windmill and water-wheel to the use of steam, capitalism has developed huge plants with fast-moving assembly lines, employing thousands of workers in each plant. Today this mere mechanical production is giving way to the electronic and the use of the computer. All this means, as time goes on, more and more wealth will be produced with less and less labor. The button-pusher replaces the skilled mechanic.

One thing is definitely revealed as we study capitalism in its genesis and growth. Problems which once confronted society have disappeared. In times past famine occurred because not enough could be produced or conveniently transported. Capitalism has developed the forces of production to the point where an over-abundance now becomes the source of human distress. Famine and want are with us today as a result of too much production. Those in greater need invariably lack the purchase price. Yet the fact stands out: society can with its present means of producing useful goods supply an abundance for all. Famine (shortage) can become as obsolete as the windmill and the water-wheel. The means exist that can make this abundance for all a living reality. But this is prevented by the very structure and nature of the capitalist system. "Production for Sale" is the obstacle. Capitalism, however, should be credited with having so developed the means of production and increased the productivity of labor that this abundance can be apprehended. No previous society carried within it this potential.

Further, it has created potentials whose nature and function foreshadow possibilities for much greater use in a future society wherein these potentials could be developed to their fullest. The growth in logistics indicates there should be no cause to fear the absence in such a society of the necessary distributive agencies. In the modern army logistics have been developed to a high degree, and in this alone appears the potential for a satisfactory distribution of society's products. It is the highly destructive competitive nature of capitalism which prevents the full growth and use (for society's good) of these agencies and potentials.

From this "positive" side of capitalism it can be argued that a higher and better organized social system, a system of "Production for Use", in which the instruments of production and distribution will be socially controlled and administered is not only desirable but possible.

The question is thus put: "How will production and distribution be carried on in this visualized possible future society?" And, dealing with what we know now, of what is and what has been, peering as well as we are able into the future, all we can honestly say is: "Production and distribution will be carried on as they are now but with the exploiter of labor, the master class, off the scene". But surely by then society will have gained greater knowledge of more than these points. If we can imagine socialism being established, say, tomorrow, the same agencies (but without the self-perpetuating "bureaucracies"), the same techniques, etc, will carry out the necessary work. But those potentials of which we have made mention will no doubt by the time socialism has been established have been developed to a higher degree, the technology of society so increased yet controlled, that the work could be carried out with a greater efficiency, with waste eliminated, and greater social benefits accruing.

The potentials we now observe also indicate that since production will be for the social good and not for profit, wage-labor will disappear and therefore wages (that badge of modern slavery). Goods being distributed on the same basis and not sold, money would become superfluous. "Production for Use" being the objective of social effort, "distribution", as such, would be carried out unrestricted by any elements of "exchange". Thus the socially wasteful efforts represented in banking, insurance, brokerage, etc, would perforce be eliminated. Since society would require from its members contributions to the social welfare "according to each individual's ability", and return to each "according to his needs", those economic rivalries—which even such capitalist spokesmen as President Wilson and President Eisenhower claim to be the cause of modern war—would have become things of the past. The disappearance of these hostile elements would allow the development of more humane and harmonious relations among people. Poverty, as we know it will have gone; industry—whose technological development has produced world-wide pollution—could be so organized and operated that further pollution could be avoided and the present pollution eliminated. It is safe then at least to predict that war and its horrors would have ceased, poverty done away with and a really sane world "created" fit for human habitation.

from Socialism: A Simple Exposition by W.A. Pritchard (1972).

Feminist theory — a socialist critique (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

To attempt to write a socialist critique of feminist theory is difficult. This is not the result of any ambiguity in the attitude of socialists towards the role of women workers in capitalism, but because of the difficulty in finding a single body of theory that can be identified as feminist. While most feminists would agree that women are frequently discriminated against in such areas as employment, education and pay, and by the laws relating to taxation and social security, and would also argue that women feel oppressed in other ways too (for example by their frequent depiction in the media as either sex-objects or housewives), their analyses of the causes of such inequality vary considerably as do the strategies they adopt for overcoming it. Broadly speaking though, feminists can be categorised into three groups: liberal feminists, radical feminists and socialist feminists.

Liberal Feminism: Equal opportunity to be exploited

Liberal feminists tend to regard women's inequality as an unfortunate relic of former, less civilised times at a point in history when such attitudes are no longer appropriate. Their remedy for this situation is large doses of "justice" and "equal opportunities" for women backed up by the appropriate legislation. Such equal opportunities legislation as already exists on the statute books in most developed countries is indicative of this approach and, indeed, shows its inherent limitations. Equal opportunities and pay can be, and have been, granted and then withdrawn in accordance with what employees think they can afford and what they think they can get away with. Since the Equal Pay Act was passed in Britain in 1975 the gap between male and female earnings has actually widened. Liberal feminists seek equality between the sexes but within the context of the existing capitalist economic system. So the division of society into the capitalist class (the minority who own and control the wealth and the means of producing and distributing it) and the working class (the majority of us who produce the wealth through our labour but do not benefit from it) would still remain, together with all the suffering and injustice that that system entails.

It is true that equality of opportunity might result in more women as company directors, judges, politicians, financiers and other capitalist parasites, but this is irrelevant to women in the working class. Most working class women already work, selling their labour power in factories, offices, schools and hospitals. For them it is not equal opportunities legislation which has given them a new "right to work" but economic need which has forced them to do so. While their lives might be made a little easier if they received equal pay for their work and if there were better child care facilities, it should be remembered that their pay and conditions of work could only ever be equal to male members of the working class — they would never be equal to those of their employers, male or female. Similarly the oppressive necessity that forced them into the labour market in the first place would remain. Equal opportunity within capitalism amounts only to the equal opportunity to be exploited.

Radical Feminism: Sex against sex

Radical feminists claim (with little evidence to back up their claim) that there is a fundamental and deep-seated conflict of interests between men and women and that this is the main division of society cutting across divisions of class, race or religion. They maintain that all women are exploited by all men; that men, whatever their status or class, are always in the role of the oppressor and women always in the role of the oppressed; that it is in the interests of men to maintain this system of patriarchy and that they will endeavour to do so at all costs using violence or the threat of violence to defend their privileged position if necessary. Radical feminists have revitalised traditional stereotypes of men and women, suggesting that men are naturally aggressive, competitive and hierarchical while women are pacific and co-operative. As a result they claim that most social ills such as war, violent crime and racism arise out of patriarchy and so the overthrow of male domination would cure not only sexual inequality but also just about every social problem.

The focus of radical feminists has been the sexual abuse of women by men, the use of violence and the threat of violence. Their solution, apart from short-term attempts to draw attention to their cause by means of attacks on sex-shops (seen as symbols of aggressive male sexuality) and the picketing of cinemas showing films deemed to be offensive to, or exploitative of, women, is rarely made explicit in practical terms. Most do not actively seek to bring about the feminist revolution that they advocate in theory, but instead often choose to live within the existing system in separatist, all-women enclaves. This reflects their mistaken analysis of the problem — that is that men are necessarily the enemy. Most women know from their own experience that this is not the case. To suggest that all men are in more powerful positions than all women is clearly ridiculous. Is Margaret Thatcher to be considered to be in a less powerful position than a male factory worker just because she is a women? Is Ronald Reagan powerful because he is a man rather than because he is president of the United States? Are factory bosses more powerful because they are male or because they own wealth and are therefore in a position to exploit the work force? And what of women bosses? Do they have no power over their male employees?

Radical feminists constitute a tiny minority of women; the society they want to bring into being has little appeal for the majority of the population, male or female — not only does it seek to separate the sexes but also to regulate in a totalitarian manner their sexual relations, literature, films and theatre; their analysis of the causes of sexual inequality is crucially flawed with their own "revolutionary programme" such as it is, does not specify what it is to be its motive force.

"Socialist" Feminism: Confusing the issue

"Socialist-feminists" have attempted to reconcile socialism with feminism. On the one hand, most of them would accept the fact that capitalist society is necessarily a class-divided society from which the working class can never benefit. But, on the other hand, they want to incorporate the notion that society is also divided by gender. For this reason they reject the kind of Marxist analysis that the World Socialist movement has found useful in trying to understand the nature of capitalist society on the grounds that it fails to take account of what they see as the specific nature of women's oppression, or their particular position within capitalism. Women workers, they argue, because of their roles as unpaid mothers and domestic workers, do not have as strong links with their class as they do with their sex, and socialism, with its emphasis on class, cannot be the means of achieving their liberation.

This strand of feminism grew from three roots. Firstly, many "socialist-feminists" received their early political education in the left wing political movements and parties of the late sixties and early seventies. Within these organisations women often found themselves subjected to the same kind of abuse and belittling of their abilities that they had come to expect from those on the right of the political spectrum. They felt that their concerns were being dismissed as "women's issues" and therefore as trivial and unimportant. They correctly recognised that such organisations which spoke of freedom and equality but which failed to show respect towards their own women supporters, had little to offer. However, such women unfortunately drew the further conclusion that this was a fundamental shortcoming of socialism rather than of the particular organisations which had mis-appropriated that name to describe a politics which had very little to do with socialism as we understand it in the World Socialist movement: that is, a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interests of the whole community.

Secondly, many women had seen how, despite some early improvements in their position, women in the Russian empire were no better off under "communism" than they had been before 1917 and in many ways they were even worse off. Again it was wrongly believed that this meant that socialism had nothing to offer women since its apparent application in other parts of the world had so singularly failed to bring about women's liberation: women were still work-horses on the one hand and breeders of the next generation on the other. What they failed to see however was that Russian-style "communism" had not brought about the liberation of the male workers either. This was hardly surprising since the essential elements of the capitalist system remained intact — production for profit and the wages system.

Feminists also looked at the writings of socialist theorists like Karl Marx and criticised them for seeming not to take into account of what they regarded as the different circumstances which affect women as workers, most notably the fact that most women are, at least for part of their lives, not directly engaged in "productive" work outside the home because they are bringing up children and doing the multiplicity of chores that are entailed by "housework". It was felt that this difference between men and women was sufficiently wide to render women's links with the working class at best tenuous.

This is a mistaken view and one which plays into the hands of the capitalist class by causing divisions amongst workers. What was Marx's view of women workers? While it is true that he did not address himself to the question of women's oppression as women, he did consider the role of women in so far as they are a part of the working class, and, where they are exploited in some way differently from men by virtue of their gender, then he also deals specifically with women. Further, Marx thought that women's entry into the production process was necessary, and ultimately progressive, development within capitalism. It was a necessary development in that capitalists constantly strive to reduce their production costs in order to maximise their profits and since women's (and children's) labour could be bought more cheaply than that of men's it was inevitable that they would be recruited as wage-labourers as soon as the level of sophistication of machinery in factories was such that physical strength need no longer be considered. (Indeed, when labour was in short supply, women and children have been, and in some places still are, employed regardless of their physical fitness to do the job and the damage to their health that results.) So far then, it does not seem that women's role in capitalism is very different to that of men's: they are hired and fired, and exploited in accordance with the dictates of capital.

Domestic labour and productive work

Although many women spend a considerable part of their lives engaged full or part-time in domestic labour and child care, this does not make them any less members of the working class. Part of the problem is caused by the fact that housework is under-valued and is frequently regarded as not really work at all. This in turn is partly due to the ignorance of many men as to what is entailed in housework and child care. (It happens in other cases too, that someone else's job seems less arduous than our own because we don't fully appreciate what it involves.) A further cause of confusion is the idea of "productive work". Marx writes:

The only worker who is productive is one who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, or in other words contributes to the self-valorisation of capital (K. Marx, Capital, Vol.1, Chapter 16, Penguin Books, 1976, p.644).

But to say that a person is "productive" in this sense is to say nothing about that person's class position — a person may be productive or unproductive on this view and yet still be a member of the working class if they do not own or control the means to produce or distribute wealth and are forced to sell their labour power for a wage or salary or to draw state benefit if capital no longer needs their labour, or if they must depend for their livelihood on the wages or salary of someone else. Also the first part of Marx's statement quoted above is modified by the second part so that it includes those who contribute to the production of surplus value. Marx saw that as capitalism develops, the production process becomes more co-operative in nature as labour becomes more specialised and the division of labour more highly developed:

In order to work productively, it is no longer necessary for the individual himself to put his hand to the object; it is sufficient for him to be an organ of the collective labourer, and to perform any one of its subordinate functions (K. Marx, Capital, Vol.1, pp.643-4).

Similarly Marx recognised that reproduction of labour power was an important part of this total process:

The individual consumption of the worker, whether it occurs inside or outside the workshop, inside or outside the labour process, remains an aspect of the production and reproduction of capital, just as the cleaning of machinery does . .. (K. Marx, Capital, Vol.1, Chapter 23, p.718).

On this analysis then, the working class should be regarded as the "collective labourer" contributing to production either by making goods themselves, by contributing one of the many services needed to keep the wheels of the capitalist machine running smoothly, or by forming part of the reserve army of the unemployed. Even if we then make a distinction between those who receive a wage for what they do and those who do not (such as housewives) both groups can still be seen as productive in that they contribute to the overall capitalist process.

Domestic workers clearly are productive in this sense but in any case should consider themselves as full members of the working class since they do not have any share in the wealth owned by the capitalist class. It is also important to recognise that domestic work and child care are not in themselves uninteresting or menial (certainly not more so than many paid jobs) but it is often the context in which they are carried out which makes them seem so (e.g. the isolation of many young mothers and their lack of money).

"Socialist" feminists are thus creating a theoretical problem, and divisions within the working class where none really exists. Their tactic of forming women's caucuses, within trade unions for example, is misguided and counter-productive since it both divides the working class, making it appear that men and women have conflicting interests, and also marginalises women and so-called women's issues.

Socialism is for women too!

The extent to which feminist theories have highlighted the ways in which women's subject status is reinforced and maintained through social and cultural conditioning should not be under-estimated. Women need to be confident of their ability to engage in political activity and to believe that they are not the passive, helpless creatures that much of their education and conditioning has encouraged them to be. But to use these insights as the basis for arguments in favour of all-women political movements, or women's sections, however socialist their proclaimed intent, rests on a faulty assumption about society and has politically damaging results. That assumption is that in some way women's oppression is fundamentally different from that experienced by working class men. Whilst it is undeniable that women do experience certain forms of economic, cultural and social oppression and discrimination as a result of their gender, the economic basis for exploitative social relations is not gender-specific. To argue that women's experience of capitalism is crucially different from that of men risks falling into precisely the same trap of sex stereotyping that the feminist movement itself has struggled to resist. That is to say that women's roles as wives and mothers define them more completely than do their roles as workers.

If socialism is to have any chance of success and if the causes of oppression of women and every other oppressed group within society are to be removed for good, then we should seek to emphasise the essential similarities in lives and experiences of members of the working class irrespective of sex or race, rather than to draw attention to any superficial differences between them.

Socialism must include the liberation of women as a crucial part of the wider project of human emancipation, but of course that is not going to happen in an automatic or inevitable way. The World Socialist Movement cannot permit sexism to nourish within itself. For a political organisation to be at all credible it must embody the attitudes, values and practices that it seeks to institute in a future socialist society. Socialism is about liberation of the whole human race, men and women, which is why the socialist movement in theory and practice makes no distinction between people on the basis of sex or race. Our strength lies in unity and co-operation, not in separatism and division.

Janie Percy-Smith

The poison of development aid (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

The following article has been translated from the Internationales Freies Wort, journal of the Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten, the section of the World Socialist Movement in Austria.

The poison gas catastrophe in Bhopal in India with its large number of dead plus many more blinded and injured shook world opinion. The American multinational chemical corporation Union Carbide, to whom the Indian poison laboratory belonged, was quick to point out in the media that its production of protection for plants (pesticides) aided India towards self-sufficiency in food and thereby saved many people from dying of hunger. So, after deducting the thousands who were poisoned Union Carbide still comes out as positive!

But the truth is that India doesn't need any poisonous material for pesticides. The poverty-stricken small farmers lack the most basic implements such as spades and hoes as well as pumps for irrigation, etc. But there's no business in this for big industry in the Western countries. So the underdeveloped countries get pushed the products which the industrialised countries want to sell, all in the name of development aid. In other words, "we are helping ourselves, not the underdeveloped countries" as no less than President Nixon openly declared when development aid was under attack in America.

So the Indians, happy with their unordered poison which of course the poverty-stricken small farmers could not buy, were forced to migrate to the towns as they couldn't make a living from agriculture, where they settled in front of the gates of the chemical factory and died "like flies" when the poison gas leak came.

World opinion, prevented from a correct insight into the problems of the underdeveloped countries by all the manoeuvres that go on over loans and exchange rates, was taken unawares by this catastrophe. But not anyone who had taken the trouble to inform themselves of the facts. Some years ago the American writer Susan George published her How The Other Half Dies in which she attacked established myths and exposed the businesses of the industrialised countries as responsible for the poverty of the underdeveloped countries.

Such statements are not approved of by the establishment of the industrialised countries — but the latter's failings make their investigation of the problem worthless. This is also the case with the "Independent Commission for Development Questions", a committee under the chairmanship of Willy Brandt (SPD), the majority of whose members are "representatives" of the underdeveloped countries themselves but they are all from the capital-benefiting elite-strata of these countries. The consequence is that the first report (1980) carefully avoids everything that could go against the capital interests of the industrialised countries and so ignores all the real problems and can show no way towards solving them.

The second report (1983) is just the same. In the foreword Brandt points out that events have regrettably confirmed the worst apprehensions of the first report. In which case the Brandt Commission was useless. Of the 94 proposals in the first report not one had been implemented. Of course something else will happen — more recommendations and more pious wishes.

Development to what?

In reality everything resolves around the preservation of the existing economic institutions of the industrialised countries. The assumption is that the underdeveloped countries should be lifted to the splendid heights of the developed countries. But people in the developing countries are less and less enchanted with this. It has been noticed that all the aid has not reduced the gap between living standards in the South and those in the North — on the contrary the backward countries have fallen even further behind. It has also been noticed that the industrialised countries are not a paradise for all their inhabitants. The introduction of industry into the underdeveloped countries has led to more disadvantages than advantages — the uprooting of traditional ways of living and working, the cut-back in home production in favour of the products of the multinational corporations, the growing impoverishment through the ever-increasing dispossession of those who are insolvent, ending in the disasters like Bhopal.

If the practice of industrial development is so unsatisfactory this is above all because its theory, the basic concept of raising the underdeveloped countries to the level of the developed countries, is nonsense from the beginning. When the whole world is "developed" and busies itself with profitable stock exchange transactions where would the raw materials and foodstuffs at present imported from the underdeveloped countries come from?

But this leads to the view that real aid for the underdeveloped countries demands fundamental changes in the developed countries — and that the establishment does not want to hear. It wants to push forward normal business to an ever greater extent, to exploit the population of the underdeveloped countries as underpaid producers of raw materials and, beyond this, also to make them low-wage industrial workers and customers for the products of the multinationals. In this effort large factories have been set up in the underdeveloped countries, to the detriment of existing industries in the developed countries. Their financing has mainly come from credit.

International debts

High finance, which likes to go on about being thrifty, once again didn't follow its own advice. The big banks queued up to lend credits to the underdeveloped countries. Now they are faced with the international debt problem, the consequences of which are borne by the underdeveloped countries. Over-burdened with debts these have growing interest payments and an increasing dollar exchange rate to worry about too. The much-ballyhooed recovery of the American economy which Reagan boasts about has taken place mainly to the detriment of other countries. Tax reductions for the rich and unlimited increasing arms spending has led to an enormous deficit in the American budget with no noticeable inflation — at home. The inflation was in fact exported through the increased interest rates which attracted international capital to the US and made it a debtor country, but pushed up the exchange rate of the dollar.

The underdeveloped countries are now faced with a mountain of debts expressed in expensive dollars, borrowed at ever-increasing rates of interest. On top of this the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which the second Brandt report still hoped would increase its support for these countries, forced devaluations on the debtors, further increasing the burden of their dollar debt. In 1985 the interest payments alone were 50 per cent of the borrowed amount for Argentina and Brazil and 40 per cent in the case of Mexico. These are the so-called "threshold countries" who stand on the threshold of industrialisation and so should be "somewhat better" than the ordinary underdeveloped countries!

The Debtors

Brazil was the first country to break the hundred billion dollar debt level. In Sao Paulo 34 per cent of those available for work are unemployed. They don't known that they each owe 14,000 Schillings (about $750) to the international bankers, and, even if they did know, it wouldn't worry them. The debts were contracted under the military regime to use on numerous large projects which were in part profitable, but which in many cases became unprofitable through mismanagement and the downturn in the economy. Home-produced cars fill the streets, but have no petrol and run on alcohol which is produced from raw sugar. The cultivation of this together with that of soya beans for export means that the cultivation of foodstuffs has fallen by 12 per cent, and this in a country of chronic undernourishment! The really pressing problem of increasing the production of home-grown foodstuffs has been forgotten in the industrialisation-illusion.

The Pinochet regime in Chile, supported by international finance capital, came to power through the murder of the democratically-elected President Allende and has since practised a murderous reign of terror. But this has not meant that there have been no business swindles under it. The five big banks which Pinochet had privatised could only be saved from bankruptcy by being renationalised. And a number of bankers and two Ministers have been found guilty of fraud by the Courts.

In this respect there is no essential change if a military government is replaced by a civilian one, as has happened in Argentina and now also in Brazil, so long as the civilian government continues to obey international capital and its bailiff, the IMF. In the rest of South America and in Africa and Asia things are similar: foreign credit is mainly used for projects which ignore the needs of the population because these only very sporadically correspond to the valorisation requirements of capital.

The spectre

There is a saying that if you owe the bank $1000 you have problems but that if you owe the bank $1,000,000 the bank has problems. And the underdeveloped countries have debts of billions of dollars! Hence the spectre of a debtor's cartel: if all the developing countries were to stop their payments at the same time then all the big banks in the industrialised countries would go bankrupt and there would be an economic earthquake. At present it hasn't happened as the governments in these backward countries are in the hands of wealthy capital-benefiting minorities and have openly gone into the (well paid) service of the foreign exploiters. But in the last analysis they have to understand that an explosion threatens them if they exact further sacrifices from the population.

The creditors can no longer seriously hope to ever recover their capital. It is now only a case for the creditor-banks of not having to cancel the uncollected debts and thereby admit their faulty credit position. The debtors are given a delay for repayment and are lent yet more money so that they can pay the interest. In theory the debtors receive the new money but they never see it; it remains in New York, London, etc in the hands of the banks who are thus enabled to achieve considerable profits.

The truth is that these countries can only settle these new debts inadequately. Among the many proposed solutions there is the tried solution which always emerges when the capitalists are in difficulty: let the much-suffering state pay! This would save the banks, before or after, from their bankruptcy - naturally at the expense of the majority of the population of the industrialised countries who thereby see established a forced solidarity with the inhabitants of the underdeveloped countries.

We can't help thanking them. Financial pressures have produced more than enough harm — they have poisoned not only the thousands in Bhopal but the whole economy of the underdeveloped countries. And the economy of the industrialised countries is in no better state: they suffer from stagnation and unemployment and so have unused resources that could be used to produce the things the underdeveloped countries really need.

But this is opposed to the basic principles of the profit economy: only what yields or at least promises a profit is produced. Here is the real problem and any attempt to find a solution must start from here. The removal of the profit system is the watchword. That the Brandt Commission and the other aid schemes are chained to the profit system is the real reason for their failure.

South Africa: metals before morals (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

In July of last year at Helsinki there was a meeting of various foreign ministers called to discuss economic sanctions against South Africa. Delivered to the meeting room was a single sheet of paper from the South African government which carried a list of the metals it exports to the rest of the world. The message was crystal clear, and to gentlemen who deal in conniving it needed no explanation: they knew that sanctions against South Africa might provoke the government in Pretoria into cutting vital metal exports and that any pressure contributing to the downfall of the racist government could bring civil disturbances that would disrupt mineral supplies for the Western and other economies.

How desperately do the Western economies need South African metals and what would be the result of a ban in supplies?

Strategic stockpiles

Western Europe and Japan are the most heavily reliant on South African minerals. In most metals, world reliance is not particularly great because other production sources or mineral substitutes are available; but in two metals, chromium and platinum, a disruption of supplies would be grave. The only country to plan for a shortage of metals is the US. Its $38 billion (US) stockpile contains a 3-year supply of "strategic metals" defined as those coming mainly from unstable countries and at the same time being vital to industry and the military. Until recently stockpile planners made no allowance for South African instability, with the result that, in some important metals, stocks are inadequate. The US stockpile, for instance, is badly deficient in platinum.

There are five metals which South Africa produces enough of to seriously matter if output were disrupted: platinum, vanadium, gold, chromium and manganese.

Vandium, normally included in stockpiles, is a strong metal mainly used in steel for pipelines, bridges and high-rise buildings. According to Peter Robbins, director of the International Metal Trade, Unicoal Metals Ltd, a cut in South African vanadium supplies, "would not be an insoluble problem. Other metals such as molybdenum, can be substituted for vanadium. With the decline in pipeline building, there is lots of both metals around at the moment. China is also a big producer. So if there was a disruption of months rather than years in South Africa, it probably wouldn't affect the market at all" (Toronto Globe and Mail, October 1, 1985).

Similarly with manganese which is in glut and available elsewhere. Used in dry-cell batteries and as one of the main ingredients in alloy steel, it is a cheap metal; the quantities added to steel are small. Having to pay higher prices to alternative producers would not be crippling. Neither would there be drastic problems if South African gold production were hit, though gold prices would rise, according to Antony Murray of the Commodities Research Unit, one of the largest international minerals consulting firms:

More than 90 percent of all gold ever mined is still around on the gold markets. Known world gold stocks are more than 20,000 tonnes — equal to more than 30 years of South African production. In uranium, where there is over-supply, it would be a relief if South Africa stopped production. Diamonds are also an embarrassment. Industry need not worry about the diamond supply (Toronto Star, September 30, 1985).

But what about platinum?

The West seems able to cope with any South African disruption except chromium and platinum:

Chrome consumers who use the metal in making high quality steel for aerospace, petroleum and chemical industries, have already persuaded South African producers to store extra supplies abroad, and West German users are turning to the Philippines as an alternative supplier. Even with this added to government stockpiles, disruption would hurt badly, particularly in Western Europe. Though South Africa produces 30 percent of the world's chrome supplies, Britain, for example, depends on it for 60 percent of its consumption. The British government over the years, could, but didn't, find other suppliers such as Albania, which sells its chrome through an agent in Milan (Leslie Plommer, Toronto Globe and Mail, October 1, 1985).

The West could, perhaps, cope with a partial reduction in chromium supplies by substituting other metals where possible. One problem they would have is that the Soviet Union might withhold its chromium from the West, in its attempts to damage their economies. On the other hand, it might sell. During the Vietnam war, Russia sold nickel to the US (when there was a nickel-miners strike), knowing it was being used for production in the war against the North-Vietnamese, who they were backing. Commodities, including raw materials, are made (or mined) for sale at a profit on the market and one market is as good as another.

To what extent a cut-back in chromium supplies would affect Western economies, would be dependant on how long it would last. A one or two-month disruption would be no major problem, though it would force prices up. However, a 6-month break would create major difficulties.

Equally crucial are the expensive platinum group metals (PMG) of which the most important are platinum, palladium and rhodium. Their uses include catalysts for the petro-chemical industry and for reducing toxic-emissions from cars. Platinum is currently in good supply with prices low and palladium is in glut. Rhodium, however, is in short supply as Japanese and US car production has increased. Its price has quadrupled in a year. Demand for the platinum group is soon to increase further as the European community phases in new exhaust regulations for auto-makers starting in 1987. It could be that a disruption in South African supplies might force suspension of laws on auto-emissions in the US and Japan and a delay of the European measures. Rising prices could also induce jewellery owners - who absorb about 10 percent of world production — to sell their bangles for industrial use. At present no country keeps a stockpile of platinum and at the moment there is only a 3-month world supply in stock. Canada, the only significant Western source, produces one-tenth the volume mined by South Africa. With other metals, it may be possible to find ways of getting around shortages, but with platinum it's not possible. There would be a major industrial disruption, causing technology and industry to be redesigned completely.

Fear of losing supplies

Keith Shaw, senior mining analyst for Laing and Cruickshank, one of London's largest stockbrokers, believes Western dependence on South African supplies across a range of minerals is underestimated. "No country is indespensible", he said, "but, if the US gets tucked into Star Wars, there will be a big increase in the importance of South African metals. In an increasingly high-tech world, South Africa is a sensible supplier of these things" (Toronto Globe and Mail, October 2, 1985).

Experts point to another possibility. South Africa has the power to block mineral exports from Zambia, Zaire, and Zimbabwe. These countries, along the African mineral spine, which stretches from the Congo to the Cape, are huge producers of many of the same metals as South Africa and to export them they are dependant on South Africa for locomotives, sea access and port facilities. Any move against them by South Africa would not only ruin their economies, but increase world reliance on South Africa, even more than at present.

Given the profit-oriented nature of capitalism, there are a few basic points we can be sure of. Governments, elected or otherwise, exist primarily to administer the affairs of capitalism. Since capitalism's very death blood is the profit-motive it logically follows that major government decisions, like major business decisions, are with view to profit, both long term as well as short term. To keep business, hence profits, moving smoothly (or as smooth as possible in the anarchy that is capitalism) they must have the necessary raw materials.

No government gives a damn about ethical and moral considerations, not because they are composed of nasty people and not because many of them weren't concerned before they came to power, but because once in power, they quickly find out there is only one thing they can do — run the affairs of capitalism. The dog wags the tail, not the tail the dog. Whatever politicians say and whatever minor steps are taken against South Africa, there will be no major course of action against it for fear of losing needed supplies. Breaking off diplomatic relations can hardly be considered a major course of action if one still buys from them; that's like not having a chat with your butcher when you buy his meat. Nor would economic sanctions solve anything.

History has proven that racial prejudice cannot be eradicated within capitalism, a system which, by its very class divisions and the competitiveness these create, divides worker against worker. Only by recognizing that socialism (as defined below) alone is the answer to the major social problems and that political organization is the way to achieve it, can people really start to remove apartheid, racism and economic sanctions as well as all forms of economic blackmail.

Ray Rawlings

(Canada)

What socialism is (1986)

From the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

Socialism is not the state capitalism that is oppressing the workers in the USSR, China, Yugoslavia, Poland or any other country that claims to be socialist. Socialism also is not the nationalization of industries that Sweden, Great Britain and others have set up. In fact, socialism has never been truly tried anywhere on the face of the earth.

A socialist society is a stateless, moneyless, classless society based on production to satisfy human needs. A socialist society has collective ownership by all of the railroads, factories, mines and other means of production. These means of production will be controlled through a democratically elected administration. The persons in this administration will be subject to removal at any time by the people who elected them.

The only way the above society can become a reality is if the working class organizes into a political party of socialism and through democratic elections captures the state. Socialism cannot be established by a vanguard party. Socialism must be established through a majority of persons wishing it so. In places where there are no electoral ways of taking power other democratic means may have to be taken. But, in such places as the US, Great Britain and Canada where workers have access to the ballot, peaceful electoral methods should be used.

Rich Foland

(United States)

Editorial: A World to Win (1986)

Editorial from the Summer 1986 issue of the World Socialist

The world we inhabit is split up into many competing units called nations. The nation is a product of property society; it is an area in which one group of property-owners is dominant and has borders and tariff regulations and armies keep its rivals out. The capitalist class — the small minority of the world’s population who own and control the means of wealth production and distribution — is disunited and in a constant state of fierce competition and potential war as each section of the capitalists seeks to possess what belongs to its national rivals.

The rivalries and wars between capitalist nations have nothing to do with the working class — the majority of us do not possess the means of living, but survive by selling our labour power for a wage or salary. Workers have no country, even though the national capitalists wherever we happen to live will try to indoctrinate us into the belief that their national ambitions will benefit us. When Britain had its Empire the industrial workers in London and Manchester were living in squalid slums: they had no share in the profits plundered by their exploiters. The modern Russian Empire, which commits the criminal fraud of claiming to be socialist, is a nation which has spread its power into Eastern Europe and, more recently, into Afghanistan, but its victories in conquering new parts of the world do not serve to improve the lot of the impoverished lives of the Russian workers who dwell in overcrowded flats and can only gain access to a limited range of food. In the US the capitalists possess great national prestige and the President’s word is seen as a command by many smaller national governments, but that has done nothing to improve the conditions endured by the slum-dwellers of New York or the millions of American children who live beneath the government’s official poverty line. Workers are persuaded to wave flags and salute leaders and hate enemies whom they have never met and kill in wars, all because of the pernicious ideology of nationalism. The conscious worker understands that he or she has no country — that they are not Americans or Russians or Austrians or Australians or English or Irish, but workers who have more in common with other workers across the world than they will ever have with their national rulers.

Capitalist politics is national politics. The world is full of manifestoes proposing to bring prosperity to this or that nation. None of them is worth the paper it is written on, for there can be no solutions to social problems on a national basis. Trade is international, banking and the money market cross the world, war policies involve multi-national gangs of murderers, such as the Warsaw Pact and NATO, communication technology has turned the world into a global village, the entire process of wealth production and distribution depends upon a complicated, worldwide division of labour. Anyone who proposes to examine the problems of society by concentrating upon just one nation is like a Professor of Anatomy whose study of the human body does not extend beyond the little finger on the left hand. That is why all parties except for the Socialist Parties of the world are wasting time in the futile pursuit of policies for national solutions: only the World Socialist Movement has recognised that capitalism is a world system requiring a worldwide solution.

Although the politics of capitalism is stuck in the rut of national fragmentation, many workers in 1986 have a worldwide outlook which far surpasses that of previous generations. Only in recent times have workers started to travel from nation to nation, and as they do it may occur to them that beyond the superficial differences there is a remarkable similarity in the lives of workers wherever you go. Workers across the world increasingly watch the same films, listen to the same records — and now, with easily-made home-videos and audio-cassettes we can communicate with one another without having to travel long distances. As we share experiences we find it easier to identify with those who are supposedly aliens. For all of its limitations, the worldwide consciousness made evident by the Live Aid concert — which was televised across the globe and had as its best-selling theme song a record called We Are The World —was an indication of the pent-up feeling within many people that they are citizens of the world and, left to ourselves, we do have far more in common than drives us apart. Again, whenever international disasters are shown on our television screens the vast majority of workers feel sympathy towards their fellow human beings whose lives have been shattered by earthquakes or floods or violence caused by the system. Socialists seek to cultivate such world-consciousncss, for until workers realise their common position as inhabitants of the planet earth the capitalists will continue to divide and rule.

Socialism is not a policy for running a nation. There has never been, and nor could there ever be, socialism in one country. Socialism has yet to be established, and when workers do decide to bring it about we shall do so as a worldwide transformation of society. For that reason, although the various Socialist Parties operate within different national units, we him are part of one World Socialist Movement, all sharing the same clearly-defined Object, the same Principles and the same democratic political tactics. In short, the struggle for world socialism requires a movement with a worldwide perspective.

In a socialist society all the resources of the earth, including the factories, mines, offices, land and the means of communication and transportation, will belong to everyone, regardless of colour, sex, age, or where one happens to live. All people will have free access to the goods and services which the world is able to produce.

A socialist world will not be one in which there will he no problems left to solve. But, free from the fetters of production for profit, the sole basis of creating goods and services will be the satisfaction of human needs. Without several nations competing to make the same product, without rival research institutes in different nations each trying to make a discovery without others knowing what they know, the world will be able to unite its energies for the first time ever. The waste, duplication and tension of a society cut up into nations will give way to one world, one people and one common aim of mutual survival and comfort.

The abolition of nations will not mean that cultural variety will be destroyed. Indeed, it is nationalism which all to often suppresses minority cultures. In a socialist society the richness of cultural customs will make the world a better place, just as the absence of armies and bombs and passports — all features of a world divided — will make the world secure.

Fellow workers, we have a world to win. Not a new government or higher wages or longer holidays or a new reform to keep us quiet — nothing less than common possession of the world and all that is in it and on it is worthy of our political effort as a class. To that end, we urge you to take your place as class-conscious workers within the World Socialist Movement.