Unrest in Bahrain (1996)

From the May 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

It seems ironic that in an area of the world that is so in need of peace, so many Middle East leaders are opposing protests sparked by the clamour for parliamentary democracy. This is indeed the case of Bahrain, which has been ruled by Sheikh Issa Bin Salman al Khalifa since 1961.

The Khalifa clan has some 800 men folk who are notorious for abusing their privileged positions for their own ends, creaming profits from state and private enterprises. That they represent the ruling Sunni minority is also part of the equation, for the majority Shi'ite population are vastly poorer and proportionately more likely to be unemployed, and excluded from civic office, the army and the police.

It is therefore hardly surprising that calls for a new "democratic" parliament—the national assembly having been suspended in 1974, four years after British withdrawal—should come from the Shi'ite majority.

The mosques had been the only means of opposition for the discontented until January when a ban on political sermons was enforced. Since then unrest has broken out with the burning of cars and the percussion bombing of selected targets—though with minimum casualties.

As can be expected, it was only natural that Iran should have been fingered as being behind the unrest, and that the cause was Iranian territorial claims on Bahrain. Iran was quick to counter the accusation, claiming that Bahrain is seeking an external cause for domestic unease to justify the US presence in the region.

Joining Bahrain, and then the US in scapegoating Iran, was Egypt's President Mubarak who announced that Iran "had started a fire" that would spread. Believing that Bahrain's tiny army of a few thousand to be too small to handle further unrest, King Hussein of Jordan kindly offered the loan of his troops to Sheikh Issa.

Even Yasser Arafat voiced a hypocritical condemnation of the protesters. David Hirst, writing in the Guardian (16 February) felt it ironic that "fresh from the electoral triumph that considered him 'president' of his state in the making, this former revolutionary should condemn another Arab for simply aspiring to elections".

Oddly enough, it was from Kuwait—the Middle Eastern country that has perhaps the most to fear from Shi'ite Islam—that calls came for Bahrain to establish a parliament.

Qatar has also backed the pro-democracy protests and has gone so far as to allow opposition exiles to state their case on state television. This, however, is more likely a response to claims in Qatar that Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were behind an anti-government plot to reinstall the deposed emir. Furthermore, Bahrain and Qatar have for some time been embroiled in a dispute over the tiny Hawar Islands which are rich in resources.

Neither is the fact that Qatar is seeking to normalise relations with Iraq and Iran giving the Gulf Co-operation Committee (set up to solve regional disputes) much time to relax.

Thus it is not without cause that real fears are again emerging in the Middle East—fears sparked not only by territorial disputes, but also by the overspending on arms and the region's over-reliance on US interference should someone raise the stakes.

In a region as unstable as the Middle East, such a false sense of security can only be undesirable. Nevertheless, it is a situation that vindicates the socialist argument that the cause of conflict is invariably sparked over territory, trade routes and mineral wealth—all sources of profit for the contestants.

The streets of Bahrain have recently been daubed with new graffiti, including the claim that "parliament is the solution'. The chances are, though, that a Bahraini parliament will be controlled by the Khalafas to serve their own interests and the fact that they have been elected will only serve to legitimise their rule, thus further retarding any struggle for democracy.

Bahrain is the region's most important financial centre, heavily dependent on profits from oil and gas. This alone should tell the Bahraini working class that their struggle is aimed in reality at securing crumbs from the cake they have baked, and that the "freedom" they believe their protest will bring about is in reality a liberal and distorted view of freedom perpetuated by the same class that will use it to continue exploiting the,. However, they are not alone. Theirs is the struggle that will be echoed all over the world, until the working class realises there is a real alternative—Socialism.

John Bissett

Our Many Head Offices (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Party has had a number of Head Offices in the course of its career. Until recently most of them have been fair reflections of our slender funds.

Our first Head Office was little more than an address: The Communist Club, 107, Charlotte Street, W.1. Then in 1905 we rented a room for certain evenings at 1A, Caledonian Road, King's Cross Road. Here the Executive Committee used to meet on alternate Saturdays and Thursdays. Then in 1906 we rented a room at 28, Cursitor Street, where, for the first time the Executive Committee met every Tuesday evening. After some trouble with the landlord we took a room at 22, Great James Street, just off Theobalds Road, in 1907.

In 1909 we began really to move upward. We got two rooms on the first floor of a house in 10, Sandland Street, Bedford Row (a little behind the north side of Holborn). This was the first Head Office visited by the present writer. When he went there as a youth he felt he had really reached the heart of deep red revolution. The ground floor was an old dilapidated junk shop. The side  door led up two flights of dark rickety stairs to a couple of bare rooms. The floor was bare boards. One room contained an old desk for the use of the General Secretary and anyone else who had writing to do. Beside was piled the stock of unsold Standards. As time passed the pile grew far beyond the height of the desk until it was in danger of being knocked down by anyone passing. The other room contained a long table and some chairs. This room was used for economics classes on Thursday evenings and for folding Standards on Saturdays. On Tuesday evenings the table was moved into the secretarial room for the E.C. meetings. When the E.C. was sitting it was almost impossible to get anyone else into the room, in spite of the fact that we advertised and boasted that our E.C. meetings were open to the public—so they were, if you could get in!

While we were at Sandland Street the General Secretary, Sammy Quelch, had a coffee shop nearby, and he had a habit of pinning a note on the door asking any members who called to go round to the coffee shop. Robert Blatchford had a humorous dig at the Party in his paper The Clarion (the most popular Labour paper of its day) at the time. He said he "called at the Headquarters of the Socialist Party of Great Britain but found that the Party had gone to get a cup of coffee." Later this was changed to "The Secretary, the Treasurer, and the member had gone to get a cup of coffee."

The old junk shop was bombed during the last war and it and the adjoining houses completely obliterated. But the fire, passion and enthusiasm of the members that gathered in those two bleak rooms above the shop still lingers in the memory. There was a tough old member without arms (he had lost them in an accident in Africa) who used to sell boot laces and matches and would come in breathless and dripping with rain to tell of a meeting that was being held so that members could hurry there with the literature to sell. He was one of the best literature sellers the Party had and was active for many years. later on he surmounted his difficulties sufficiently to earn a comfortable living. His name was Germain.

Head Office was moved from Sandland Street to 193, Grays Inn Road in 1912. There we had two ground floor rooms and a basement in which, for the first time, the literature was put into proper order. One of the members, T. W. Lobb, made curved seats that ran around the walls of the front room. This room was large enough for the E.C. to sit round the table on chairs whilst visitors could sit along the walls.

Next door was a rather poor coffee shop but the owner had a sympathy for us and helped us in many ways, particularly during the first Great War. Every Saturday he would come in with cloths and a pail of water and clean the windows. When the police were waiting to raid us he gave the secretary word of the two men he saw watching our place and enabled her to direct E.C. members into his shop to decide what to do about holding their meetings.

The first war broke out whilst we were at Grays Inn Road, and it was there that the War Manifesto was prepared and members met to decide upon the course of action to meet the various difficulties arising out of that calamitous event. The times were certainly stirring as the pages of the Socialist Standard during those devastating years will reveal.

During the six years we were at Grays Inn Road a great deal of work was done. Before the war preparations were completed for putting a paid Organising Secretary into the field; economics and other classes and discussions were held regularly; members would meet to decide about making visits to outlying places to hold impromptu meetings; and a host of other plans were made and accomplished. Someone managed to buy an old printing machine on which leaflets, E.C. reports and treasurer's reports were printed. Comrade Alley, who recently passed away, used to set them up in type and leave a note for members to run them off—very laboriously by swinging a long arm across.

In 1918 we were forced to leave Grays Inn Road and we took two rooms on the first floor of a house at 28, Union Street, W.1, just behind Oxford Street. There again the people in the shop below were sympathetic. It was a sweet shop and if any dubious caller made an appearance or there was any urgent message one of the price-cards in the window would be turned upside-down. The General Secretary at that time occupied the floor above Head Office.

These rooms were only a temporary refuge. The next year, 1919, we got premises at 17, Mount Pleasant, opposite the G.P.O. Sorting Office. we had two floors and a fair-sized basement. It was the most "respectable" Head Office we had had up to that time, and we remained there eight years. It was to this office that many wandering members returned after the war. One night, soon after we had taken up occupation, a powerful voice outside roared a greeting to a member and then Moses Baritz walked in. He was back after being released from prison in America where he had been interned for his anti-war activities. When he went out to America during the war his hair was coal black; when he returned it was snow-white. prison had been torment to a man of his nervous energy.

Several Australian seamen visited us at this office in the Twenties. Some of them later took part in forming our companion party in Australia. We also had visitors from America who helped  to form our companion party in the United States.

In 1927 Fitzgerald, with the aid of map and compass, succeeded in proving to a majority of the E.C. members that the Elephant and Castle was really in the centre of London. Anyhow we moved over near there to 42, Great Dover Street. We took an old house with three floors and a basement. One of the members made fittings for keeping the S.S. and literature in proper order in one basement room. The other basement room ( a very small one) had tables and chairs, and a stove on which a woman member cooked for those who wanted a meal. The smoke and heat in the little place was stifling, and getting out when one had finished was a problem.

The ground floor front room was used for selling literature and packing. There was a small shop front in which literature was displayed. The first floor consisted of one good sized room in which meetings were held as well as an occasional social—when the place shook as if it was about to collapse. E.C. meetings were also held in this room. Here we had some interesting discussions on the Spanish Revolt and at the beginning of the last war. In the room above lectures were given on many subjects during the winter months.

In April 1941 a bomb fell on this house destroying most of our stuff and we had to get temporary premises at 33, Gloucester Place, which consisted of two ground floor rooms. In April, 1943, we took over Rugby Chambers, Rugby Street, just off Theobalds Road. These premises had been occupied by the Electrical Trades Union. It was from here that we ran our first Parliamentary candidate in 1945. It was also while we were here that the Party membership began to expand and the funds to reach reasonable proportions. With greater activity, the need for more space and increasing rent the members looked round for more suitable premises. A fund was started and sufficient money donated by members and friends to enable us to buy our present premises at 52, Clapham High Street, which we took over in March, 1951. Here at last we have a place of our own, with a small hall for meetings, and suitable accommodation for the secretary, committee, a library, a canteen, and a room in which members can meet and discuss.

After many ups and downs it looks as if we have reached a settled place at last.

Gilmac.

The General Strike (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The year 1926 was a most momentous one in working class history. It was the year of the greatest battle ever fought by the British trade union movement—the general strike.

The great world war of 1914-1918 created a vacuum in the world's markets and during the trade boom that followed British workers were able to wring a few concessions from their employers. As markets again became saturated with goods and trade declined, the tables were turned and the employers launched an attack to reduce wages and depress conditions of work.

The reparation terms imposed upon Germany after the war caused German coal to be diverted to markets that had previously been the prerogative of British coal traders. This aggravated the slump in the British coal industry and the wages and working hours of coal miners became the prime target when the employers took the offensive. In 1925, when their wages were already reduced to miserable limits, the miners were threatened with a further wage reduction, extension of their hours of work and the break-up of their national negotiating machinery.

The Miners' Federation of Great Britain rejected the employers' demands and received the support of the Trades Union Congress which arranged with the railway and transport unions for united action. The employers, lined up behind the Government, were unprepared for such action and beat a hasty retreat. The day the coal owners withdrew their demands passed into history as Red Friday.

The trade unions were jubilant but the employers and the Government set to work making detailed preparations for the show-down that they intended to bring about. A few trade unionists, like Mr. A. J. Cook, the Miners' Secretary, realised that only the first round had been fought and they called for preparations for the next struggle, but nothing was done.

Meanwhile, an Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (O.M.S.) was set up under the control of a number of military and naval commanders and prominent capitalists, whilst the Government stalled off the trade unions with a Royal Commission, under the chairmanship of Sir Herbert Samuel, to inquire into the coal industry.

When the Samuel Report was issued in march, 1926, it was specific only in its assertions that the miners should accept lower pay and longer hours. Some members of the General Council of the T.U.C. argued that the miners should accept the terms of the Commission's report pending a reorganisation of the coal industry that the report recommended, but the miners adopted a slogan, "Not a penny off the pay, not a second on the day."

The General Council of the T.U.C. entered into negotiations with the Government, trying by all means, even "almost grovelling" as Mr. J. H. Thomas of the National Union of Railwaymen admitted, to find a way to divert the head-on crash that was ahead. Finally, Mr. Baldwin the Prime Minister, turned his back on the workers' leaders and refused further negotiations on the grounds that a general strike was threatened and that certain overt acts had already taken place, including gross interference with the freedom of the Press. This referred to the action of certain printers who had refused to print some anti-working class statements. The fight was on.

On Friday, April 30th, the King signed a Proclamation declaring a State of Emergency. Orders in Council were issued in the form of Emergency Regulations under the Emergency Powers Act. Local authorities were reminded by a Ministry circular of the measures that had been previously arranged to cope with a national stoppage. Troops were moved to South Wales, Lancashire and Scotland and arrangements made to call in the Navy. The O.M.S. placarded the country with a poster calling for recruits.

On the third of May the General Council of the T.U.C. issued a manifesto and the following day the General Strike commenced. The stoppage exceeded expectations. All workers called upon responded magnificently, as did many who were not called upon. There were no evening papers and no passenger trains. All army leave was cancelled and the Government took over the B.B.C.

At midnight the taxi drivers came out and the next day saw seamen, transport workers, printers, journalists, engineers, dockers and many others all solidly on strike. The Government took over the Morning Post and issued the official British Gazette under the editorship of Mr. Churchill, whilst the T.U.C. took over the Daily Herald and published The British Worker.

By the third day of the strike 82 unions were involved and, considering the lack of preliminary preparation, the workers' organisation was splendid. Each succeeding day more and more workers joined the strike and the Government took further action including the formation of a "Civil Constabulary Reserve," composed of ex-soldiers with wages higher than those paid to miners. On the eighth day the High Court of Justice declared the strike illegal. The Government prepared to confiscate money sent by overseas trade unions to help their striking colleagues in Britain. The B.B.C. announced "There is as yet little sign of a collapse of the strike." There was no rowdyism, and clashes with the police and other authorities were of a minor nature.

At midday on the ninth day the General Council of the T.U.C. arrived at Downing Street and informed the Prime Minister that the General Strike was being terminated that day and the news was broadcast at 1 p.m. followed by the publication of an order by the General Council for a cessation of the strike. Sir Herbert Samuel had issued a personal unauthorative memorandum to the members of the council and they had seized upon it as an excuse to call off the strike. The miners were left to carry on an heroic struggle on their own till they succumbed in December, not even having been notified of the intending surrender.

Throughout the strike the General Council closed its eyes to the class conflict in which it was involved and insisted that the issue was purely an industrial one. Not so the Government. It realised clearly the class character of its own acts and called for support from the un-class conscious by addressing them as "the nation" and telling them that Parliament and the constitution were threatened.

The Labour Party acted and spoke similarly to the General Council of the T.U.C. It blamed the Government but did not want to see the Government defeated. Hypocritically, it said that had it been in office it would have avoided such a situation, conveniently forgetting forgetting that only two years earlier it had been prepared to evoke the Emergency Powers Act in similar circumstances when it was faced with a transport strike.

The Communists went wild and were responsible for many of the clashes with the police. They cried that Parliament was finished and demanded all power to the General Council. They saw a revolution every time a lorry was overturned or a policeman lost his helmet. After the strike they laid the blame for the capitulation to the cowardice of the members of the General Council and demanded the replacement of the cowards.

It is not easy to analyse an event immediately it has taken place, yet, such is the nature of Socialist analysis, that we would not amend one paragraph, alter one sentence or delete one word of what the Socialist Party of Great Britain said about the General Strike at the time. The twenty-eight years that have elapsed have only served to confirm what our comrades of those days wrote in the Socialist Standard.

The two outstanding lessons of the General Strike were, firstly, that while political power is in the hands of the capitalist class, and until such time as the workers take it into their own hands, they must expect defeat in industrial struggles that threaten the interests of the whole capitalist class. Secondly, the evils of leadership. To blame the General Council or call them cowards and traitors solves nothing. To replace them by other leaders is merely to invite continuous repetitions of similar debacles. To be free of cowards, traitors, hypocrites, fakirs, and even well intentioned mis-leaders, the workers must see to it that their representatives are their servants, not their masters, carrying out instructions, not giving them.

When the workers are prepared to put as much effort and heroism into the struggle for Socialism as they were prepared to devote in support of the striking miners in 1926, there will be a grand story to tell.

W. Waters

Material World: The Future of Climate Talks (2013)

The Material World Column from the November 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

At 5am on 27 September, after days of discussion at a plenary meeting in Stockholm culminating in an all-night session, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finalized its Fifth Assessment Report. Each successive report – the earlier reports appeared in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007 – has contained stronger predictions than the one before. Thus, the new report envisions sea level rise of up to one meter by 2100, as compared to an upper limit of 60 cm in the fourth report.

However, climatologist Michael Mann, director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, points to ‘a credible body of scientific work’ suggesting that ‘business as usual’ emissions are likely to produce a sea level rise of two meters by 2100, submerging large coastal areas around the world. Professor Mann accuses the IPCC of ‘conservatism and reticence’ – failings he attributes partly to the caution inherent in the culture of science and partly to political pressures (even the IPCC’s report admits that sea level rise may reach two or three meters by a later date).

The magnitude of sea level rise depends in large measure on the fate of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS). The fourth report predicted that a rise in mean global temperature of 2°c above the pre-industrial level could trigger loss of the GIS. This was one of the reasons why a rise of over 2°c was defined as ‘dangerous’ and preventing such a rise set as a policy goal. Now, with the ice sheet starting to collapse before our eyes, the IPCC has acknowledged that a rise of even 1°c above the pre-industrial level may be enough to melt the GIS. But we are already 0.8°c above the pre-industrial level!

So preventing ‘dangerous’ climate change is no longer a plausible policy goal. Dangerous climate change is already upon us – a rather inconvenient fact for ‘moderate’ politicians who seek to reassure public opinion. Should they join the obscurantists who deny the science? Or should they espouse a more modest policy goal? But what exactly?

Implications of the ‘carbon budget’

Despite its vulnerability to political pressure, the IPCC has adopted a new concept with quite radical policy implications. The fifth report for the first time lays out a global cumulative carbon budget, drastically limiting how much more carbon – in the opinion of the IPCC – can be released into the atmosphere.

Diplomats are reported to be ‘concerned that discussions around a carbon budget could derail the already fragile process of negotiations on climate’ (Fiona Harvey, The Guardian Weekly, 4  October). Indeed, were governments officially to adopt this approach, they would be openly acknowledging that most known reserves of fossil fuels must be left in the ground. And, of course, they would also be acknowledging that it makes no sense to continue prospecting for new deposits.

This would mean a deep change in perception – oil, gas and coal would be seen no longer as precious wealth to be coveted, exploited and fought over, but rather as repulsive ‘filth’ threatening the health and life of humanity and the biosphere.

George Monbiot complains that for some reason governments just do not seem able to make this switch:

‘Press any minister on this matter in private and, in one way or another, they will concede the point. Yet no government will act on it… Governments everywhere are still seeking to squeeze every drop out of their own reserves, while trying to secure access to other people’s’ (The Guardian Weekly, 4  October).

To this one could add that for quite a few governments the exploitation of new hydrocarbon deposits remains the centrepiece of long-term national economic strategy. The Russian government, with its extensive territorial claims in the Arctic, is an especially striking example. They evidently fail to appreciate the irony in the fact that it is global heating itself that is making many of these deposits accessible.

Why so obtuse?

Why then are governments so obtuse? Is the logic underlying the carbon budget really so difficult for them to grasp?

As Monbiot discovered, government ministers as private individuals may understand the situation well enough. But the governments in which they hold office are not free agents.

The government of a country exists primarily to ensure optimal conditions for the accumulation of national capital – the wealth (value) owned by that country’s corporate and state capitalists – in competition with other national capitals. The process of capital accumulation is endless and serves no purpose outside itself.

A government that defies the imperative of capital accumulation in any significant way immediately comes under pressure so intense that it is forced either to change course or to resign. This is probably what would happen to any government that demanded fossil fuels be left in the ground, however profitable extracting and selling them might be to the companies concerned. Only extremely strong and persistent popular counter-pressure might give a government some room for manoeuvre.

The international climate negotiations may fail, but is that in itself cause for regret? So far these negotiations have achieved little of substance, apart from raising false hopes and creating new financial instruments for speculative profiteering. If talks break down because governments cannot accept measures that their own scientific experts tell them are necessary, that will starkly demonstrate that it has become impossible to reconcile the imperative of capital accumulation with the requirements of human survival.

A choice has to be made. It is no longer a matter of ‘socialism or capitalism’ or even ‘socialism or barbarism’. The choice now is between world socialism and global catastrophe.

Stefan

No compromise - 75 years for Socialism (1979)

From the September 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The history of popular political movements is a story of the abandonment of political principles for the sake of mass appeal. A vote in the ballot box is worth two thoughts in the head. What would have happened to the Tory party if Peel hadn't tossed principles to the wind and issued the Tamworth Manifesto in 1836? Who would have bothered about Lenin if he'd have recognised the February revolution as Russia's 1789, instead of resorting to the Blanquist fantasy, the consequences of which have been far from anything resembling socialism? In recent letters to the Guardian members of the Labour Party have pointed out that commitment to Clause Four of their own constitution at election time would be inexpedient, as it loses votes. Kids at school are taught that to hold ideas strongly is 'extremism'; whereas to conform passively is euphemistically referred to as 'moderation'. This is the age of pragmatism—of treading carefully along thin lines. So far the political leaders have held their balance, but where has it got their followers?

Consistency of principle is one merit which even its greatest enemies grant the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It was founded in 1904 by men and women who opposed the minimum reform programme of the Social Democratic Federation and held that only socialist revolution would be in the immediate political interest of the working class. They were called 'The Impossibilists' by their opponents in the SDF because they refused to tread the political tightrope. The Declaration of Principles adopted by the Party's founders has remained unchanged for seventy-five years. An indication of dogmatism, sectarianism and sterility? Many have accused the SPGB of these things and hoped that, like shouting 'Nazi scum' at National Front processions, it should take offence and go away. But the criticism is an unjustified one, for what the Socialist Party said about capitalism in 1904 is no less true today.

There are still classes: 'those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess'. This antagonism can only be abolished by 'the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people." This 'emancipation must be the work of the working class itself' and will 'involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.' The necessary action is for the working class to 'organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government . . . ' so that the State 'may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation . . . ' The Party standing for socialism must still 'wage war against all other political parties, whether allegedly labour or avowedly capitalist . . .' That, in a nutshell, is what the SPGB has said for seventy-five years. Apologists for capitalism tells us that such Marxist principles are hopelessly outdated. Meanwhile they cling to the depressing and ahistorical belief that social relations have never changed in any fundamental sense and that they will never change. Theirs is the obsolete philosophy of a stagnating, medieval world.

Hostility towards the SPGB from the Right has been because we understand their system better than they do. The Left's objection has been that we know what socialism is and refuse to accept phoney models. From the very start the Labour Party's reformism was shown to be contrary to the political interest of the wealth producing class. Six Labour Governments later the idea's beginning to catch on. The Socialist Standard was the first British publication to provide a serious critique of Russian state capitalism. The Party exposed Stalinism in the thirties, at the expense of meetings being broken up by members of the Communist Party—acting on official policy. No support was given to CND or any other 'reform capitalism—change the world tomorrow' campaign.

The Left has always cared more movement than direction. Building the party has always meant more than spreading ideas. In the early days of the International Socialism journal there were articles showing a real understanding of capitalism. But it was in the nature of the Leninist urge to let the vanguard do the thinking while the masses do the marching that IS became the SWP; demands for full employment have overtaken any thoughts of abolishing class society; and the conservative motto of 'A fair day's pay for a fair day's work' is well inscribed upon their banners, rather than the revolutionary slogan, 'Abolition of the wage system!' In the last election they advised their supporters to vote for Callaghan—who they said was as bad as Thatcher—in order to keep out Thatcher. After all this time one is entitled to ask, has all the expedient abandonment of principles, has the wider circulation of Socialist Worker on the basis that people think they're buying the Sun, has the descent to comic strip communism, been really worthwhile?

To a member of the Socialist Party the answer is clear. There may not be many of us, but at least we're in the party because we want socialism. Anyone who joins a branch of the SPGB must show such political understanding. It is only in this way that the retention of principles can be ensured. Some will respond, 'So what? You're very principled, but destined to be no more than a footnote in history.' It's true enough that there's nothing inevitable about socialism. Maybe the world will be annihilated in the struggle for market domination before workers see that the means of wealth production and distribution is there for the taking. Capitalism will not collapse of its own accord. The world's workers will probably be persuaded to support the system which oppresses them for some years to come. But the fact that a theory has not been put into practice does not mean that it is impracticable. The fact that human beings have the unique ability to think rationally does not mean that they will do so at all times. 'You can have the truth, but you've got to choose it' as Bob Dylan wrote. One day the moderation of today will be seen for what it is. And the impossibilists will be seen to have been the ones who spoke about reality.

Steve Coleman

Two old members (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anderson and Fitzgerald were two of the most active members of the Party during the first 25 years of its existence. Anderson was a house-painter and Fitzgerald a bricklayer; and in the early days both of them were often out of work. Both were excellent indoor and outdoor speakers and debaters, both were members of the Executive Committee during the whole of that time, and both held their convictions strongly and argued them fiercely and forcefully. They were both very active in internal party controversies, though sometimes on the opposite sides.

Yet in spite of their similarities they were, in many respects, opposites.

Anderson was tall, rawboned, commanding; he was a first-class orator, with a high carrying voice, and could carry on speaking untiringly for hours at a stretch. He was at his best on the outdoor platform where his clarity, quick wits, rhetoric and caustic humour either drove his opponents into fits of laughter or reduced them to despair and impotent anger.

Fitzgerald, on the other hand, was short, compact, tough and had a deep powerful voice. He was at his best indoors. He prepared his material carefully, used simple language and put forward powerful logical and direct arguments, rarely employing humour or invective and never using rhetorical flourishes of any kind.

Anderson's chief activity was speaking and he organised the Party's outdoor propaganda in London for most of the time. He was in his element at rowdy spots where his forceful manner dominated the audience and quietened the disturbers. Before the Party was formed he was on the Provincial Executive of the Social Democratic Party and was active in Scotland.

Just before the 1914-18 war broke out the Party raised a fund to put a paid organiser into the field and Anderson was appointed to the job. The outbreak of war, and the difficulties into which the Party landed on account of it, put an end to the project.

In 1925 Anderson developed Arterio-sclerosis and died in 1926 at the early age of 47.

Although a regular and active speaker Fitzgerald's principal interests were writing and taking classes in economics. He was on the Editorial Committee of the Socialist Standard from the early days until his death, and he wrote many excellent theoretical articles. He wrote the first article on the Russian Revolution, which appeared in the August, 1917, number and placed that upheaval in its proper perspective.

Fitzgerald was a first-class debater; two of the debates he represented the Party in were reprinted as pamphlets under the titles the 'Conservative Party" and the "Liberal Party"—others appeared in the Socialist Standard. The two that appeared in pamphlet form were reported verbatim and reading them discloses how clearly, simply and accurately, he spoke.

Fitzgerald was exceedingly helpful to young members, always willing and anxious to assist them in their studies by the loan of books, advice in their reading, and the resolving of knotty points.

In spite of his work for the Party Fitzgerald found time for other studies. He passed an examination for building construction and, after a period, teaching mathematics to aspirants for the Indian Civil Service, he got a permanent job teaching at the Brixton School of Building.

Fitzgerald was an assiduous cyclist; he and the small-framed bicycles he designed for himself, were inseparable. He went to meetings and everywhere else on his bicycle, wet or fine.

In 1925 Fitzgerald contracted kidney trouble. He got temporary relief from an operation but the trouble returned again towards the end of 1928. He returned from a cycling holiday in Austria, Italy and Switzerland, to undergo two operations, and died in the spring of 1929 at the age of 56, a fortnight after the second operation.

Anderson and Fitzgerald, each in their own way, were sound guiding influences in the formative period of the Party's history. When they died in the twenties they were sad losses to the Party. They did their work during the toughest part of the Party's life when speaking was difficult, audiences hard to get, and the Party known to few, and they did not live to see the fruit of their labours.

Gilmac.

Charles Lestor (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

I first met Charlie Lestor over 30 years ago. I was still a kid, he was a mature and impressive man. His effect on the eager audiences of the post 1914-18 war was electric.

He had just arrived in this country after 20 years in Canada and the U.S.A. His Canadian style, accent and rig made him remarkable enough; his address to the large audiences of unemployed ex-servicemen was extraordinary. When most of the I.L.P. and Communist "Unemployed organisers" devoted their attention to personal invective against individual ministers; or the usual temporary nostrums for increase of the dole, or (much more) prevention of its decrease. Lestor never failed, in my hearing, at least, to go straight to the root of the matter.

He just could not speak to an audience without dealing with the capitalist system. From that day to this, I have never wavered in the opinion that of all the speakers I have heard, Lestor, in those days, was out on his own as a powerful exponent of Marxian economics in a popular trenchant style.

In clipped and rugged American terms, without a word wasted, he would grip a large audience from the first phrase and proceed to build up a rigorously logical exposition of surplus value.

"There's no sentiment in Business," "that profit is wrung out of the hides and carcases of the working-class," "those wages amount to just enough fried fish, chips and beer to keep you working."

These and similar phrases were as typical of Charlie Lestor as the shock of hair, the bushy eyebrows covering the twinkling eyes, and the missing index finger on the waving hand. Tanned by the prairie suns and the Yukon snows as at home in 'Frisco or Winnipeg as in Stepney or Hyde Park, he was a modern cosmopolite, a man of all countries and all trades.

For many years I lost touch, but immediately remade his acquaintance on joining the S.P.G.B. in 1939. Much water had flown under the Bridge, the years were beginning to take their toll. In the bitter weather of 1941 it was Charles Lestor who attended regularly at the Gloucester Place office of the Party, in a Balaclava hat, sometimes with frost on his eyebrows, to give instruction and counsel to young members in between air raid warnings. Subsequently I read through the minutes of those talks which covered a wide field of History, Economics and Current Affairs.

In 1945, the post of full-time propagandist fell vacant. At an age when most men ask nothing more than their carper-slippers Lestor applied and was appointed. As Central Organiser of the Party at the time I went over to see him in N.E. London, and made sure, as it was snowing heavily, that he had some reasonably warm equipment for the bitter trip to Glasgow that night.

The years passed rapidly by, and many were the demands of the Party on Lestor's services. I cannot recall one occasion when these were refused or denied. Whether the meeting was large or small, far or near, early or late, he accepted as a matter of course.

As time marched on, it became apparent that even a man as vigorous, tough and energetic as Charlie Lestor could not beat Anno Domini indefinitely. Still the indomitable spirit refused to give up. In weather when he should have been indoors at home, he was regularly at Lincolns Inn and Tower Hill. The once powerful and strident tones which would ring out like a blast across a large audience, were sinking into an almost inaudible whisper.

Never did his sense of humour desert him, his remarks were now often punctuated by a quiet chuckle. He tended in later years, to an exaggerated optimism with regard to Socialist which other well-known Socialist speakers have also expressed.

During the Party's tenure of Rugby Chambers he once remarked to me "When you've stopped learning, you've stopped living." Surely that explains the astounding tenacity with which he stuck to his efforts as a Socialist propagandist, for so long.

Horatio

F. C. Watts (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

F. C. Watts was an active member of the group that came out of the Social Democratic Federation to take part in the founding of our Party.

He was an excellent writer and contributed many articles on theoretical subjects to the Socialist Standard as well as putting our position in written debates with opponents. He was also a good speaker; he spoke quietly and forcefully without indulging in rhetoric, and his lectures were packed with useful information and logical argument. He was particularly good when speaking on theoretical subjects.

For many years Watts conducted well attended classes on Economics at our various Head Offices; many writers and speakers, in the years before 1914, were greatly indebted to him for advice and for the information he so willingly imparted.

In the early years of the Party Watts undertook the work of keeping in touch with those abroad who were in sympathy with our outlook, and he contributed articles to the journal of the old Socialist Party of Canada The Western Socialist. He also translated a number of articles from foreign journals that had been written by prominent radical writers, such as Guesde.

Watts was a carver by trade, and a first class craftsman; some of the internal decorations of the ill-fated Titanic were his work, and he also did some of the carving on the coronation chair of George V.

Like Fitzgerald he was fond of cycling and till late in life he could be met on some of the interesting byways of England and in some of the quaint old inns.

Watts was active from the early days of the Party until late in the twenties; then he seems to have quietly faded out and we have not heard of him for many years.

It may interest those who have read our pamphlet "Socialism and Religion," to know that it was drafted by Watts. It was one of the most popular pamphlets, both here and in America, that the Party produced and a certain Bishop Brown quoted from it, and paid it a tribute, in his pamphlet "Christianism and Communism."

Gilmac.

Alf Jacobs (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Very early in his working life Jacobs became interested in the struggles of the working class. As a young man he lived in Edmonton, then a rising suburb of North London.

By occupation a cigar maker, he had to make the journey daily to Battersea, in South London, having to rise early every morning to reach the workshop.

With ever-increasing numbers of workers on the platform, and few trains to take them, the workers were aroused into agitating for increased trains and workmen's facilities for cheap fares. Meetings were held, and into these Comrade Jacobs flung himself with zeal. One morning he was arrested on Liverpool Street Station and charged with disturbing the peace. His trial took place at the Guildhall, and he was defended by Mr. Thompson, at that time Editor of Reynolds News, and acquitted.

He was an active member of the Cigar Makers Union and served on their executive committee. Then he became interested in the propaganda of the old Social Democratic Federation and eventually joined them. At about this period of his life he experienced considerable unemployment and, with a young family, suffered chronic privation and want.

Very shortly after the formation of the S.P.G.B. he decided to join the Party following his resignation from the S.D.F.

For many years he was an enthusiastic worker and spoke at four, five and six meetings a week, very frequently addressing two meetings on Sundays. Following the outbreak of the war in 1914 he never hesitated to hold meetings in Victoria Park, East London, notwithstanding hostile demonstrations  at every meeting he addressed.

When "peace" was declared he threw himself with redoubled energy once more into the struggle for Socialism, and only gave up owing to advancing age and decline in his health.

He became almost an institution on the meeting pace in Victoria Park, for he seldom missed a meeting on Sundays during many years.

The Party has produced many great workers in its cause, but few gave more ungrudgingly than our old comrade.

He died in his 70th year, early in 1940.

C. F. C.

Moses Baritz (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Moses Baritz was one of the most forceful and courageous characters who ever entered the ranks of the S.P.G.B. Of less than average height, bulkily built and with a stentorian voice, he was a ruthless and merciless man to meet in political debate. He had an uncanny memory, was a terror to his opponents and sometimes an embarrassment to his friends.

He was a Manchester man and much of his political work was done in his native city, and London. He was also active in the U.S.A. and Australia. In 1919 he was invited by comrades to give a series of lectures in New Zealand. On landing in that country he was met by detectives who shadowed him during his brief stay. He became a torment to New Zealand labour leaders and was soon arbitrarily deported. Finding it difficult to enter another country he spent some time on the sea to the annoyance of the shipping company.

Of the numberless anecdotes about Baritz's political activities we can give only one. Once, in Manchester, forcefully debarred from entering a meeting to be addressed by H.M. Hyndman of the old Social Democratic party, because it was known that he would be an annoyance to the speaker, Baritz climbed on to the roof and blew his clarinet down the ventilator shaft until he was enticed down and allowed to take his seat in the hall.

Later in life his detailed knowledge of music secured him a responsible job with a well known gramophone and radio company where he was highly valued. He broadcast on musical subjects on several occasions, and frequently combined his musical knowledge with his Socialist propaganda. Failing eyesight caused him to wear pebble lens spectacles and in the 1930's his bulky frame, white curly hair and dominant voice, were met with mixed feelings by men of all political parties throughout this country. When he died in April, 1938, at the age of 54 the S.P.G.B. lost a treasured and colourful personality.

W. Waters.

A. E. Jacomb (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

A. E. Jacomb was an active member of the Social Democratic Federation at the end of the last century and the beginning of this, and was a member of a group which came of that organisation to form the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904, helping to shape the Party's fundamental principles and policy. He was a compositor by trade and in the early years of the Party, in fact up to the beginning of the 'twenties, he was responsible for the printing of the Socialist Standard and pamphlets. In this work he was a tower of strength, for the job was certainly not a sinecure. Often enough there were not sufficient articles to fill the paper and Jacomb had to make up the ret, under various pseudonyms, as he was doing the composing.

For many years, up to the end of the first Great War, Jacomb was a member of the Executive Committee and the Editorial Committee. He was a fine writer with a keen and caustic humour, contributing many excellent articles to the Socialist Standard. He also drafted two of the Party pamphlets: "Socialism" and "The Socialist Party: Its Principles and Policy." He gave the best he could do to the Party although his life was one long struggle against financial difficulties.

It was a pitiful business that, towards the end of his life, Jacomb found himself in opposition to the Party about his attitude to the Spanish upheaval and to the last Great War, which led him to make a number of extravagant statements in the heat of controversy. But although he believed the policy of the Party was wrong, he still held fast to his fundamental socialist convictions. The vehemence of his criticism was due to his belief that the Party was on a wrong and fatal track, and to his anxiety to put it back again on what he thought was the right track.

Jacomb was a very fine character; simple and sincere, and a genuine and earnest champion of socialist principles for the whole of his long life.

He suffered from heart trouble for many years before his death in the autumn of 1946.

Adolph Kohn (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Kohn became interested in politics when very young, taking part in discussions at Marble Arch, Hyde Park, when only  a youth. In 1908 he joined the Party and was soon very active as a writer and speaker; he spoke on the outdoor platform nearly every evening for some years.

Soon after joining the party he started a private book agency and was the principal means of bringing English translations of foreign Socialist classics to many of us at a time when they were little known in England.

Practically all his life Socialism and books were his main interests. He read voraciously and few had his knowledge of books, past and present, on different aspects of the working-class movement. He was a forceful and humorous speaker, both indoor and outdoor, and early in the 1914 war he had some rowdy meetings. At one of his meetings in 1914 at Marble Arch the crowd rushed the platform, after a hectic meeting, and the police had to escort him through an angry crowd of "patriots" and across the road to the tube station.

During 1915, when the passing of the Conscription Act became certain, Kohn left for America, where he remained for about six years and made many friends in Canada and the U.S.A. While out there he wrote and spoke on Socialism and also organised classes. He sent articles to the Socialist Standard from America, and the last one, in 1917, was picked up by the American authorities, who took exception to its anti-war contents and made considerable efforts to trace him. They also pressed the English authorities for assistance, and the latter called Fitzgerald up for questioning and kept him in a cell for a night. They also had his sister along at Scotland Yard for interrogation. However, they never traced Kohn and the matter was eventually dropped.

Arising out of the above police investigation there were two humourous incidents, which it seems to the present writer are worth recording. Fitzgerald was very methodical and also extremely critical of members whose "stupidity" helped the authorities to collect members whose military position was doubtful. When Fitzgerald was arrested and searched the police found in his pocket his address book, which contained the addresses of most of us! The other incident concerned Kohn's sister. Although she was secretary of the Party at the time, the police failed to discover that she was even a member of the Party.

Kohn was on the Executive Committee and the Editorial Committee before 1914, and he was again on the Editorial Committee from 1924 to 1929. He wrote many excellent articles for the Socialist Standard and was by nature very lively, full of jokes, and fond of company. Even when he was dying, humour still stirred in him.

A little while before the second world war his health broke down, and in 1940 he had to go into hospital for treatment. While there the hospital was hit by a bomb, and a few weeks later the room where he lodged was badly blasted. After a couple of years out of hospital, T.B. developed, and early in 1944 he was back in hospital again, where he remained until his death on the 28th December, 1944. He was twice evacuated on account of the hospital being hit by flying bombs, finally reaching the temporary hospital quarters in a large house in North Wales where he died at the age of 56.

Kohn's brain was crammed with knowledge of the international working-class movement, and he was intellectually generous to members and sympathisers—always ready to answer a question or explain a point. He gave almost the whole of his life to the struggle for Socialism.

Gilmac.

The Party in Scotland (1979)

From the September 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The big mystery is, why did the Socialist Party of Great Britain take so long to become established in Scotland? After all, when the London Impossibilists formed the party in 1904 socialist ideas were not completely absent north of the border. The probable explanation is that the Scottish Impossibilists, because they were surrounded by heavy industry, fell for the Industrial Unionism ideas of the Socialist Labor Party of America. So it was the SLP which flourished in Scotland instead, and not until that organisation had shot its bolt after the first world war did the SPGB make any impact.

Even so, it is surprising that the party had no branches in cities like Edinburgh and Glasgow before the 1920s. Edinburgh branch was formed first, in 1922, but never really established itself and after an in-and-out existence died just before the war in 1939. In Glasgow the story was entirely different and while the party's ideas were slow to take root there, once they did they dug deep and, except for a brief spell in the late twenties, there has been a strong branch in the city ever since.

Now comes another mystery. Edinburgh was not the party's first branch in Scotland. Incredibly, this was in what was then the small fishing town of Fraserburgh in the north-east. The details of this branch first appeared in the Socialist Standard Branch Directory in August 1910 and vanished after May 1911. Who this small band were and what happened to them remains unsolved and no other record of them exists in the party.

Glasgow branch was not formed until 1924, although there had been individual members in the city before then. Times were harsh with much unemployment among members but gradually the branch began to make itself known. Outdoor meetings were held in and around Glasgow and members made their presence felt at meetings run by other organisations. A whiff of the political atmosphere of the period can be had from a lengthy report in the Socialist Standard for August 1931 of a street corner debate with the Communist Party. It is extremely doubtful, for a variety of reasons, if a similar event could be held today.

Inevitably, the branch produced its share of stalwart personalities. John Higgins was the first branch secretary and remains in the party today, having given a lifetime's service for socialism. John's indoor and outdoor meetings provided an introduction to socialism for many future members and his efforts were crucial in establishing the party in the city.

Outdoor Orator

Then there was Alex Shaw. Whatever his failings, Alex was everybody's idea of what an outdoor orator ought to be. Alex didn't speak, he roared and could keep it up for hours with every sentence guaranteed to have the audience either in a rage or, much more likely, in stitches. He had a turn of phrase that was unique. For example, listeners would be warned of the reformist proposals made by "Tory diehard, Labour blowhard, gasbag Trotskyite and Communist blatherskite"! Alex made so many appearances on our platform down the years that local wits referred to us as "the Shawcialist Party" and he spoke for the branch only two days before he died in 1966.

Thanks to the work done by the branch the socialist message spread and branches were formed in Hamilton and Dundee in the mid-thirties. Neither survived the war but the present Edinburgh branch still holds meetings in Dundee and we shall surely see new branches of the party in these and other towns.

If anything, socialist activity in Glasgow hotted up during the war and speaking engagements in the city were much sought after by London speakers eager to get away from the bombing in the capital. Eventually the branch was strong enough to have its own headquarters where public meetings and education classes were held. There was a plan to contest the 1945 general election but it was not until 1962 that the first genuine socialist candidate stood in Scotland, when North Kelvin Ward was contested in the municipal elections. This campaign broke new ground for the party when Tony Mulheron became our first representative to appear on British television. In the next four years the branch contested five municipal and three parliamentary elections. Night after night members canvassed the entire area, sold large amounts of literature and distributed mountains of leaflets and manifestoes. It was a tremendous effort although the returns from it, other than the few votes we got, were disappointing.

The Mound

Today, the work of the party goes on. Edinburgh branch, now re-established and with its own speakers and writers, continues to hold outdoor meetings throughout the summer at The Mound in the heart of the city. There the locals and many overseas visitors, especially during the Edinburgh Festival, hear the case for the abolition of the wages system and its replacement by production for use.

In Glasgow a high level of indoor and outdoor meetings, debates, literature sales is maintained although the local authorities seem determined to make the holding of political outdoor meetings as difficult as possible. However, this method of communicating is probably doomed anyway, and new methods will have to be developed by both branches.

Does our resolve never weaken? The truth is that sometimes is does: some members simply give up because they cannot see socialism coming in their lifetime. But recently a few Glasgow members visited a veteran comrade in the city, and although practically disabled his mind is still as sharp as ever and we sat and talked, over a few drinks, about old times. Inevitably, we got around to talking about the future society and what it would be like. Our old comrade observed that he would never live to see socialism but he had no regrets. He told us "The most wonderful experience of all would be to live in socialism. The next best is to spend your life fighting for it". Those words perfectly sum-up the socialist attitude and no resolve could stay weakened for long in the face of inspiration like that.

The party has had over fifty years of struggle in Scotland and despite the hard work and sacrifice all we have won is a foothold. But we survive and are determined to ensure that the socialist case will continue to be heard in this part of the world.

Vic Vanni

The Russian Revolution - Its impact on the Socialist Movement (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Russian Revolution broke upon war-weary Europe in 1917 most of the present members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain were wither unborn or very young. To most of us the Russian Revolution is past history, as indeed it is to most people living to-day.

Whilst a knowledge of events relatively so recent is easy to acquire, the emotional impact of those events on politically-minded working men and women in this country, reformist and self-styled revolutionary alike, is harder to recapture. The fervour aroused by this impact even seeped into the S.P.G.B. Growing up into manhood in the years following the first world war, it is difficult for any young politically-interested worker, unbriefed in Socialist theory, to escape the influence of the emotionalism and the fervour which clouded opinion on the happenings in Russia. The Socialist revolution had started in Russia and would sweep through Europe! The workers would rise (at the psychological moment), form their own councils (Soviets) and take over land, the mines and the factories. Parliament had been shown by the events in Russia to be "useless"—a "gas house." Every strike was interpreted by the new, self-appointed Bolshevik theorists in this country as a move in the strategy of the coming struggle for Socialism. Those who seemed quite unaware of this development were the workers generally, though the English Bolsheviks seemed not to notice the fact.

One result of the Russian Revolution was the formation of the British Communist Party in 1920. The Socialist Labour Party, an organisation formed in 1903 and allegedly Marxist, split and some of its prominent members became leaders of the new organisation, which devoted itself to preparing for the "psychological moment." So seriously did it take this mumbo-jumbo that at one time in the late twenties Communists wrote to the S.P.G.B. declining a challenge to debate on the grounds that there was not time to debate Socialism—"it was round the corner." Others who joined the early Communist Party came from the I.L.P. and the Labour Party, it being possible at that time to be a member of each party at one and the same time, the assumption being that the different branches of the "working class movement" were moving towards the same goal even if "tactics" differed. Even one or two members of the S.P.G.B. found their way into the Communist Party.

As a political party, however, the Socialist Party remained unshaken in its basic attitudes by the events in Russia. It would be an understatement to say that the Socialist Party showed a disinclination to identify itself with the "working-class movement" on Russian questions. Whilst not unmoved by the events in Russia we rejected what Communists claimed were the lessons to be applied from it to England. We saw nothing in the Russian upheaval which would make it necessary for the Party to deviate from the course it has set itself at its foundation in 1904. We rejected the propositions that a Socialist revolution had taken place in Russia, that the working class had come to power, that "intellectual minorities" could "lead" an unprepared working class to Socialism, that Parliament was "useless" and that Russia had forged new instruments for working class emancipation. We expressed our views forcefully and objectively on these issues which resulted in bitter opposition from our opponents, as the Socialist Standard and propagandists of twenty and more years ago testify. Our attitude on the Russian question is unchanged to-day and there is nothing that was written by our comrades in 1918 about it that we would withdraw. In contrast, prominent members of the Labour Party, who, whilst making pious reservations about the "violent methods" of the Bolsheviks in the early years, expressed approval of their aims and thought Russia was Socialist: but to-day see Russia as an empire-building, police state. It is an odd thought what the next thirty years might bring when one reflects that early Communist M.P.s like Newbold and Saklatvala owed their seats in Parliament to the fact that they were candidates of the Labour Party whilst at the same time being members of the Communist Party. Time and events have brought changes of attitudes among erstwhile supporters of the Bolsheviks. Having little or no theoretical knowledge, support, idolatry and tolerance have given way to criticism and bitter opposition. The Socialist Party of Great Britain opposed the basic assumptions of the Bolsheviks and their English supporters as unsound and non-Marxist, and the consequent development of affairs in Russia since the Revolution has occasioned us no surprise.

Without reservation the Socialist Party refuted the claim that the Bolsheviks could introduce Socialism in Russia. We were critical of their aims and methods. Socialism was impossible before large scale, industrial production has developed, and with it also, a dispossessed working class had been formed and won over to Socialism. The position in Russia was that it was a country largely populated by a peasantry, dominated by a semi-feudal aristocracy. Capitalist production was small in relation to the economy as a whole. Politically, the land-owning aristocracy were dominant and in control. the capitalist class were weak and insignificant, the working class was relatively numerically small though its organisations were semi-insurrectionary, vigorous and well organised. Parliamentary government in the Duma was a facade and creaked under the burden of aristocratic privilege and power: the franchise made a mockery of democracy.

Unable to deal with the complex problems thrown up by the war, the Russian Imperial Government, in 1917, began to lose authority and prestige. Lack of transport, food and arms, led to seething discontent among the soldiers, workers and peasants. It was in these circumstances that the Soviets (loosely organised councils or committees) established themselves among the workers, the soldiers and the peasants. The weaker and the more incompetent the Government were to control the situation the stronger the Soviets became and the more authority they assumed. The tottering Imperial government  gave way in March, 1917, to the Kerensky regime. Kerensky was leader of the Mensheviks, who were, like the Bolsheviks, a section of the Social Democratic Party. The Kerensky regime lasted until November, 1917. Its failure resulted from its complete inability to assess the widespread discontent with the war among the soldiers, workers and peasants. Where the Mensheviks failed the Bolsheviks succeeded. They realistically exploited these discontents in the meetings of the Soviets. As the authority of the new regime declined so the Bolsheviks gained in popularity in the Soviets and the prestige of the Soviets grew. There were instances of some constitutional powers passing from the government to the Soviets. The slogan of the Bolsheviks became "All Power to the Soviets" and "Peace, Land and Bread." They crystallised the discontents and spread rapidly throughout Russia. The Kerensky regime, following its corrupt predecessor, came to its end.

The Bolsheviks had come to power in Russia. The Soviets, despite their spontaneous and improvised character had assumed constitutional forms and power. Amid all the excitements and the interest in the Russian Revolution aroused outside Russia the S.P.G.B. remained calm. From the outset it knew it could repudiate the wild claims that were being made. Whatever the merit of the slogan and object of "Peace, Land and Bread," we said, this was not Socialism, and that, in the absence of knowledge and understanding among the majority of the population, could not lead to it. Further, we argued, this knowledge and understanding could not arise in the absence of maturity in productive relations and social development. Any government which assumed power in such circumstances, whether it claimed to be Socialist or not, must make itself responsible for the problems of capitalism and bring upon itself the opposition of the workers—they must fail. We were right.

In 1917 the Bolsheviks kept an earlier promise in arranging for free elections to a Constituent Assembly. When the result of the elections showed a majority opposed to the Bolsheviks, the government of the latter, which controlled the armed forces through the Soviets, decisively suppressed it. That was one of its first openly terroristic acts. It was certainly not the last. What idealism, principles or Socialist ideas might have existed in the pre-1917 Bolshevik movement in Russia, soon became lost in the evolution of the autocratic tyranny that soon established itself and remains firmly in the saddle to-day.

If there are lessons to be learned from Russia and other parts of the world where capitalism is administered in the name of Socialism and by men who sprang from the workers it is that the only was to Socialism is through working class understanding and democracy.

H. W.

The Impact of the First Great War (1954)

From the September 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 1914-18 war had a disastrous effect upon the Party. On many Sunday mornings before the war broke out the Executive Committee had been meeting to read through and amend a pamphlet that had been drafted for publication. This had to be abandoned and the pamphlet was not considered again until a few years after the war ended. Another project that had to be abandoned was the appointment of a paid Secretary-Organiser. Money had been subscribed for this purpose, the member selected, the Executive Committee were discussing the date when he should start and the work he should start upon when the war put an end to the idea.

The war dealt its worst blow to the membership. The Military Service Act, which came into operation in March, 1916, applied immediately  to a large body of active young members and, eventually, to nearly all the men in the Party. The Appeal Tribunals that were set up were quite useless, as far as members were concerned, and were treated by them largely as a means to put the Party's case where possible; generally, however, the objections of members only got a few minutes hearing. In order to escape the clutches of the authorities many members "disappeared" and some we never saw again; others went to prison.

Immediately the war broke out we drew up a Manifesto which was published in the September 1914 Socialist Standard; the August number was already printed. This Manifesto is reprinted in our pamphlet on War. In the same September issue of the Socialist Standard an editorial article appeared setting out the real basis of the conflict and concluding with the following paragraph: —

"The question for the working class, then, is not that of British or German victory, since either event will leave them wage-slaves living upon wages. Under German rule those wages cannot be reduced lower than under British, for very British working man knows that the masters who are shouting so loudly today for us to go and die in defence of our shackles and their shekels, have left no stone unturned to force wages to the lowest possible limits. The question, then, before the workers, is the abolition of the whole social system of which war and unemployment are integral parts, and the establishment of society upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production—the establishment, that is, of Socialism."

The Executive Committee passed a resolution stating that any member who voluntarily joined the fighting forces was unfit for membership of a Socialist Party. This attitude the members loyally adhered to during the course of the war.

Outdoor speaking during the war was extremely difficult. There were many turbulent meetings. Some meetings were broken up and members had to defend the speaker and the platform. Speakers were arrested for "spreading disaffection amongst His Majesty's subjects." A speaker was arrested at Leicester and followed to the police station by a crowd howling for his blood. He was released, after a week, on giving an undertaking not to appear on the platform again for six months. When he got back to London he phoned his employers intending to give a plausible reason for his absence. He did not get that far. He was told his wages would be sent on and they never wanted to see him again. Later he learned that one of his fellow clerks had obligingly pinned up a report of this case in the manager's office.

One instance in particular reflected the attitude of the authorities towards our speakers. One of them got upon the platform and, before putting our case, said he would read to the audience Lord Roberts' Circular to Commanding Officers in India. Before he got half way through the circular the police intervened and took him off to the police station where he was charged with "spreading disaffection." When he came before the magistrate he protested that he had made no personal contribution at all; that he was arrested whilst in the middle of reading Lord Roberts' circular. The magistrate asked to see the circular and, after reading it, said "Well there is nothing wrong with the circular, but, read at a meeting in the present circumstances, it was likely to cause disaffection amongst His Majesty's subjects." He then warned the speaker not to repeat his crime and fined him £2 2s.  . . . As a matter of interest the circular dealt in detail with the selection and care of native girls to act as prostitutes for the soldiers in India under official licence!

The difficulties of speaking increased so much that a Party meeting was called to decide whether it was worthwhile continuing. A majority decided that it was not. On the front page of January 1915 Socialist Standard we informed readers of our decision to suspend outdoor propaganda and the reasons that forced us to this decision. The article, in large type, appeared under the heading "Under Martial Law."

So outdoor meetings were closed down but the columns of the S.S. continued to criticise all concerned in the war and to put the Socialist attitude on the war. Every issue was full of statements that came under the  Regulations and members were expecting the Head Office to be raided and the Party compulsorily closed down. In October 1916 the War Office informed us that the S.S. was prohibited from being sent outside the United Kingdom on the ground that a portion of its contents "might be used by the enemy powers for their propaganda." In 1917 the Head Office was raided by the police but there was nothing left there to interest them; all Party records had been deposited elsewhere and the General Secretary at the time, Hilda Kohn, carried the minute book around in her bag.

During the war the funds of the Party got very low and an urgent call for donations brought in very little. But the members who were left managed to hold out until the end, although we had to give up our premises in 1918 and move to a couple of rooms on the first floor of a house behind Oxford Street.

When the war ended members began to drift back and the job of rebuilding the Party was commenced with enthusiasm and success.

Gilmac.