Nottingham Branch Report. (1911)

From the June 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

DIRTY ANTI-SOCIALIST UNION TRICK AT THE LACE TOWN.

Since the formation of the Nottingham Branch last July we have been spreading that working-class enlightenment which must precede the workers' emancipation. We soon got to grips with the enemy, and a debate was fixed up with a follower of the "meek and lowly one." Comrade Anderson did the needful, and we disposed of a good deal of literature and increased our membership, besides showing the antagonism between Socialism and religion—a gratifying result.

Next the Anti-Socialist Union made an appearance and held at meeting on the Market Square. We promptly challenged the speaker. a Mr. Glover, to debate, and to our surprise and delight, he accepted the challenge, and said he would be prepared to meet our representative on the following Sunday. Evidently he was unaware that a branch of the S.P.G.B. existed in Nottingham, as I will shortly show.

We made the necessary arrangements for the debate, and them on the Saturday our opponent informed the branch that owing to the religious objections of his Conservative friends, he could not debate on the Sabbath. Yet on the same day he advertised the debate in the local Press, and was in the Market Place with his carriage on the Sunday night.

Mr. Glover's object was obvious. He asked from the carriage if there was an I.L.P. man who would take the platform. A member of the S.D.P. got up, and, as might be expected, Mr. Glover dealt with the reform position, the refusal of the Labour Party to support the Woolwich amendment, Right to Work Bill, etc.

The brave defender of capitalism, after this honest and clean and typical Anti-Socialist manoeuvre, wrote to the head office of his Union saying that the "Socialist Party" had funked the debate.

This proves our contention that the A.S.U. have nothing to fear from such conglomerations of freaks as the S.D.P. and the I.L.P.

Several lectures have been given at the Notts Cosmopolitan Debating Society by our comrades Anderson, Fitzgerald, Neumann, Kent and Watts, on subjects appertaining to that working class education which it is our mission to extend. Space will not permit me to give an account of all the good work done by these lectures. The last of them was on "Socialism and Religion" and our comrade the lecturer gave the "rainbow-chasers" something to chase.

One apathetic reformer wanted to know when we are going to stop pulling to pieces and begin to construct. The answer was when we have cleared the rubbish out of the way.

S. 

The Edwardians (1954)

From the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

We all sniggered, not long ago, over Uncle Fred's best suit in the family album; whatever could Aunt Alice have seen in him? Now, perhaps, we know, because what they wore before 1914 is a cult in 1954. Spiv clothes are out and Edwardians are in at the dance halls and on the monkey-parades—dull colours, baggy velvet-collared jackets, drainpipe trousers, straggly ties. Not quite the same as Uncle Fred, though: to-day's model stands in a crepe-soled plinth and is crowned with an elegant perm.

Something new in the world of fashion is often something old. In the last four or five years, reminiscent styles of one sort and another have recurred persistently, from spectacular waistcoats to the flat caps that were introduced to southern England by north-country football fans in the late nineteenth century. The full Edwardian rig first became news for the picture papers when popular dandies adopted it—a comedian, a politician and a film actor.

Then, in 1953, it jumped to the headlines: a fight among Edwardian-dressed adolescents on Clapham Common. One died of stab wounds and another was hanged for it. People became aware that the costume was no longer merely a sartorial idiosyncrasy. More drab and uneasy-looking as it passed into the too-cheap, too-smart gents' outfitters, it was multiplying as the dress of truculent youthful gangs. With increasing frequency it was mentioned in court cases of offensive rowdyism. In a few months its wearers were christened "Teddy Boys"; it has become, in fact, the hoodlums' uniform.

The same ideals and circumstances lead to the same attire often enough. You can usually tell the artists from the visitors at an exhibition; a shorthand-typist is not likely to be taken for a factory girl, nor a Conservative for an anarchist. The most famous example from recent years is the spiv, who established a cartoonists' golden age with his drape and his shoulder-padding and his fist-sized tie-knot. There is nothing unconventional or new in the assumption of a common, near-uniform dress by suburban larrikins. In the past, when an adolescent's income was shillings instead of pounds, the same tendency was exhibited from time to time but on a lesser scale; before 1939 there were "trilby-hat gangs" on the corners and round the coffee-stalls.

The public concern about the "Teddy Boys" is concern over the behaviour-patterns that are the grounds for their association. Ideals in uniforms have a more organised, impressive look about them; and by and large it is delinquency that wears the Edwardian uniform. Delinquency, not crime—and there is a considerable difference. A black marketeer or a street bookmaker is not a delinquent; on the other hand, a bunch of young men who make a street intolerable to passer-by may not be criminals but are obviously delinquents—that is, they have a consciously anti-social pattern of behaviour.

What causes delinquency? Everybody knows: the bishops, the leader-writers, the psychologists, the headmasters—they all know. Unhappy homes, insufficient religious teaching, low moral standards, American comics, amusement arcades — the whole modern "anatomie of abuses." And, as is often the case, the more remedies are proposed the worse the thing becomes. While the Edwardians flourish, the serious, train-their-character youth movements wane; the Boy Scouts, which in the 'twenties and 'thirties sent thousands of hairy-kneed sixteen years-olds hiking through the countryside at summer week-ends, now is a little-boys' affair. The "Teddy Boys" have their own character and their own culture.

Mostly, they are youths between leaving school and being conscripted. That in itself is an obvious important factor: the sense of aimlessness, of having time to kill, must be tremendous. Here are you: kept at school up to fifteen, and at eighteen they want you again. In the meantime, for three years only is your life your own—except that whatever you propose, the State inexorably disposes at the end of the three years. And when you are in "the bleedin' Kate," there sis generally one of two things: either fighting or twenty months of organised time-killing. The Edwardians lack purpose in life—and it isn't surprising.

There is, too, the desire for manliness, which is seen largely in terms of loudness, roughness and "seeking the bubble reputation." The desire is probably more potent to-day than at any previous time. One reason is that a soldier, even an eighteen-year old one, must be a man, and perhaps a stronger reason is that there is no longer any segregation or much reticence between the sexes. A girl of seventeen has achieved womanhood in appearance and, as often as not, in experience, too; her male counterpart, lacking her natural and circumstantial aids, can only make valiant efforts towards corresponding ends.

Several supposed causes of delinquency have already been mentioned. The most commonly cited—probably because it is the favourite with the clergy and at school prizegivings—is lack of religious teaching. Strangely enough, the Edwardians have had more of that than most people. The 1944 Education Act gave religion a stronger footing in the schools than at any time since compulsory education began—and not every generation is subjected within a decade to pietistic profusions for a victory, a monarch's death and a coronation. It may be argued that religion teaching is only effective in the home; but no religion is more family-based, and more exacting, than Catholicism, and no cities have more crime and delinquency that those with large Catholic populations, like Liverpool and Glasgow.

Certainly no-one would deny that broken or unhappy homes contribute to delinquency; overcrowded homes, too. The absence of stability and affection can and does give rise to emotional conflicts, frustrations and resentments against society. Plenty of delinquents come from apparently good homes, however. There is a good deal of glib talk about adjustment and maladjustment, psychiatric terms that have passed into popular currency. Adjustment means a condition of harmony with the social environment; what of the person, then, who us adjusted to European civilisation in this present age? A. S. Neill, the high priest of "progressive" education, has written much about his achievements in adjusting recalcitrant or delinquent children from well-to-do homes. What is achieved? They are in harmony with predatoriness, violence, suspicion and power; in harmony—with a diseased society.

Delinquency is a way in which people react to personal or group situations. More important still, the reaction is something learned from society. The whole behaviour-pattern of the "Teddy Boys"—the shiftlessness, the truculence, the irresponsibility—is their reaction to what society has given them and their display of what it has taught them. Behind them is the entire structure of western urban civilisation which, Frankenstein-like, creates its monsters and lives in fear of them.

There is no quick, easy answer to the problem. It is not enough to think of this or that, of broken homes or a sense of frustration, as the cause. You must ask why the family is disintegrating; why so many people in our world are frustrated and unhappy. Social misconduct is no more the result of deliberate personal choice that it is the product of heredity or constitution (and that myth, thank goodness, has long been exploded). Society, through the law and the majority of public opinion, assumes that the delinquent is merely malicious, and deals accordingly with him. "You want a damn good thrashing," five East London Edwardians were told last week before the magistrate fined them. And even where there is better understanding, the social circumstances to which delinquency is a reaction remain.

The driving force of our society is profit. All its institutions and ideals are shaped by that motive. So, in consequence, are its problems, and while the basis remains they will remain; or, if one apparent problem disappears it does so only to be replaced by another. A few years ago it was the spivs; now it is the Edwardians. The real answer to delinquency can only be found by establishing a social situation which will not set some in conflict and teach them lessons of power and fear. And that means not punitive legislation, not religious teaching, but the abolition of profit-based society.

Robert Barltrop

Complicity (2015)

From the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whilst discussing the Atlantic slave trade of the past and the part played in it by the British a friend said that he felt some guilt about it. This, no doubt, was due to the part that his ‘nationality’ plays in his sense of identity. The ‘sins of the fathers’ were, for him, visited upon all who are ‘British’. In contrast to this I felt that the guilt was to be focused on the ruling class of the time and that he was blameless for their crimes.

However a case could be made that if we do not oppose the criminal actions of the ruling class of our own time then we are, indeed, complicit. This is compounded by the fact that much of the wealth that gives the capitalist elite their power in this country was derived originally from the slave trade. While underlining the continuity and importance of history this fact also illustrates the difficulty in allocating collective responsibility for the actions of some members of a community. That there must be some level of collective culpability is surely indisputable since we would all take some moral responsibility for our actions (or inactions) and this must include our political activities.

This year sees the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration/death camps and the complicity of the German population in their existence is still hotly debated by historians. Nobody would dispute that the members of the Nazi Party were complicit in these terrible crimes but what of those who voted for them originally and can those who did nothing to oppose the Nazis gaining power be exonerated from some culpability? Merely pointing at Hitler and Himmler and claiming to be ‘just obeying their orders’ provides no moral or political justification for committing inhuman acts. After they came to power there’s no doubting the level of fear that forced many into actions they would never otherwise countenance but there were many who were, to some degree, ideologically sympathetic -- and not just in Germany. Some would shrug or throw their arms in the air saying something like: ‘That’s an extreme example which could never happen again’ or ‘Any attempt to explain the Holocaust would be merely a rationalisation since the magnitude of the crime is incomprehensible’.

In contrast to merely despairing about ’the human condition’ socialists seek to explain Nazi rule in its historical and political context because of its importance in warning us of what can happen during one of capitalism’s inevitable episodes of extreme economic and political instability. This period also has important lessons for us in respect of keeping a close eye on the actions of those who would take advantage of such instability, both of the left and right wing. Above all it teaches us that any level of moral and political complacency towards the activities of our ‘leaders’ can and does lead to disaster - we must accept responsibility for the actions of those who do so in our name unless we oppose them politically.

It has long been recognised that people acting in a group can behave differently than they would as individuals. Lynch mobs and football hooligans are classic examples of this type of tribal behaviour. Nation states rely on this psychology in times of war as the individuals who compose their armies would never ‘cold-bloodedly’ murder another human being in their everyday lives. Of course all kinds of political conditioning are needed for this to happen but perhaps we can pick out one that might help explain the seemingly complacent attitude that many exhibit when nations murder in their name. Because of the numbers involved - sometimes millions when nations are at war – there is a kind of dilution of moral responsibility. Someone who would suffer great guilt if their actions or inactions were to cause a family member, friend or neighbour an injury (let alone their death) does not feel the same level of responsibility for the deaths and injuries that occur in a war that they supported (or did not oppose).

After the conflict dies down (wars rarely end neatly) the subsequent analysis might reveal that the causes were not quite what was claimed (as with the recent Iraq war) and so a debate ensues where blame is apportioned. The leaders and their advisers are questioned but rarely condemned or punished for their mistakes or crimes. But what of the people who let it all happen in their name? This is when the ‘dilution’ of moral and political responsibility comes into focus. Bush and Blair take the lion’s share of any guilt (which, of course, they strongly refute) then the ’intelligence’ community (for ‘sexing up’ the WMD dossiers), then perhaps the military leaders or even the oil companies etc., so that any culpability that is left is felt to be so negligible that it’s not worthy of consideration. Such a contrast to individual moral responsibility - nobody would defend their immoral activities by claiming that the murder they committed was somehow diminished by the volume of the other murders carried out that year or that the person they beat up suffered less injury than the victim of another thug. We socialists are appalled by the level of complacency shown by the mainstream political parties, voters and the politically cynical in this regard. How and why did we get to such a position where seemingly nobody takes responsibility for their political actions? 

At the heart of this we have the contradiction inherent within capitalist culture where, on the one hand, we are told that everyone is a competitor and there’s ‘no such thing as society’ and on the other hand we are told that we’re part of a ‘nation‘. The latter designation is usually only called upon in times of war or when some group are to be demonised as ‘immigrants’. Liberals tend to think of the world purely in terms of individuals as their ideology forbids any group or class consciousness and this is partly why they find the concept of collective complicity so difficult. Another reason for absence of any feelings of political responsibility for the actions of the state is because of the ‘professionalisation’ of politics. Westminster seems to many to be another world where ex public school boys play some kind of exotic role playing game that somehow decides national policy. The majority are completely alienated by this anachronistic theatrical nonsense and feel no relationship with (or responsibility for) the strange decisions that are made there.

In an integrated global economic and political structure like capitalism nobody can escape the consequences of its existence. We are all responsible for what happens in the world because capitalism has truly made it ‘one world’ –  in this respect, there’s no ‘third world’ or ‘developed world’. As long as we allow the political elite to do the bidding of the parasite class we are all complicit in their crimes. Only working for socialism can provide you with an ‘alibi’ should one ever be needed. When the majority feel morally and politically responsible for the world, as most do about their actions in their ‘private lives’, then we are all finally motivated to change things.

  ‘What did you do during the war daddy?’

  ‘I opposed the war and what caused it before it began, my son’.

Wez.

Obituary: Lisa Bryan (1961)

Obituary from the May 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lisa Bryan tragically died on March 29th at the age of 32. The previous evening she had been working at the Party Head Office finalising arrangements for the Conference Rally. This was typical of Lisa. Joining in 1947, her life in the Party had been one of ceaseless activity, serving on occasions as Central Organiser, Party Auditor, Executive Committee member, and finally (a job she held for over 10 years) on the Propaganda Committee.

She excelled in this work but regarded it as no more than a necessary duty. Her element was that of socialist propaganda, and as a speaker and occasional writer for the SOCIALIST STANDARD, she found the most satisfaction.

She had a fine, resonant voice, and it was a pleasure to listen to her. At street corner meetings the slim, attractive girl on the SPGB platform, clearly enunciated the socialist case, commanded respect. In the lecture hall, her material was thoroughly prepared and delivered with economy. Her learning was wide and deep, yet she was severely critical of her own ability.

Perhaps this provides a clue to Lisa Bryan's rare quality. Many women, unfortunately, still accept and delight in playing the role of the "second" sex. Not Lisa! She expected to be treated as an equal and the standard she set for herself was the highest. Hence the exacting demands she often made on herself.

In her Branch (Paddington), at Conferences and in internal Party discussions, her counsel was calm and constructive. Her tongue could also be sharp. The speaker who failed to attend a scheduled meeting, the literature secretary who let his accounts get into a muddle, the member who took Party work flippantly, all discovered this. But her reproof was administered with humour and understanding.

And yet, when all this has been said, one has hardly begun to describe Lisa Bryan. Socialism for her became inseparable from her whole person, affecting all her feelings and attitudes. To know Lisa was to make a friend, and her friends were many and diverse. Her loss will be felt far beyond her comrades in the Socialist Party.

Staunchly independent, asking little for herself, her humanity consumed her. She was consistently loyal to her friends; unstinting with help when they were in trouble; cheering when their spirits were low. We all depended on her for so much. Lisa Bryan was young and vital, her death leaves an awful gap. But her life enriched ours and we are the better for knowing her.

Paddington Branch.

In her Branch (Paddington), at Conferences and in internal Party discussions, her counsel was calm and constructive.

Debate: Labour Party and S.P.G.B. (1934)

From the December 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Debate was held at the Working Men's Club, Holborn, on Friday, October 19th, on the question: "Which Party is working for Socialism, the Labour Party or the S.P.G.B.? There was an audience of 500.

The Case for the Labour Party

For the Labour Party, Mr. G. H. Loman, prospective Labour candidate for Kingston, first congratulated the S.P.G.B. on their analysis of the social system and the class struggle, which was the most clear, lucid, and logical which he had ever read. The Labour Party had the same object—Socialism. Its express aims were peace, freedom and justice among the nations; equal opportunity for all men and women for a healthy, self-respecting existence; and to convert industry run for private profit into a planned national economy.

Industry, however, could be socialised in all sorts of ways, he said—by confiscation or compensation. And the Labour Party had said it will pay compensation, so as to prevent inequities as between different sections of the community, and to avoid antagonising foreign Powers. We want Socialism introduced in as humane a manner as possible, and not to bring starvation in the place of poverty.

Now, said Mr. Loman, the S.P.G.B. says Parliament us the seat of power, but we believe you must first take over the financial machinery—the Bank of England. If the House of Lords were obstructive, we should abolish it as a legislative chamber. And, having a mandate from the people, we should use the armed forces to put down opposition.

Mr. Loman said that he expected his opponent to deal with the Labour Party's past. But it is not fair to quote the words or actions of leaders who have been repudiated by the solid rank and fie of the Labour Party. We have done with the reformism of the past. We are going to the electorate to tell them we are out to introduce Socialism, and to convince them that Socialism is a practical alternative to the present system. We agree that only the working class can achieve the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, and the Labour Party will not accept office unless it has a majority of votes for Socialism throughout the country. But the S.P.G.B. is being idealistic when it  says that the mass of the workers must first understand Socialism. The social conditions—starvation in the midst of plenty—will demand Socialism long before the workers are educated for it.

The theoretical principles of the S.P.G.B. are excellent, but it is not surprising that that Party is so small, since they oppose all other Parties—condemn the Labour Party for administering capitalism; condemn the Russian experiment as State capitalism; condemn the I.L.P., the Co-operative movement, the Communists and the Fascists. The S.P.G.B. may not have much of a past, and they do not seem to have much of a future. If you are going to get the sympathy of the workers you must first find a point of contact. The Labour Party tells the workers what Socialism means in terms of concrete domestic measures.

The Case for the S.P.G.B.

For the Socialist Party of Great Britain, "Robertus" first defined its object as "the establishment of 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 interest of the whole community."

Socialism is necessary because everywhere we are faced with the contrast between untold wealth for a few and a very much-told poverty for the many. Three-fifths of the total income of this country, for instance, is shared by one-tenth of the people, whilst only two-fifths is left to be shared among the other nine-tenths. This contrast is only possible because one class, the capitalists, own the means of production; and the only remedy, therefore, for the poverty of the workers is to convert the means of life into the common property of society as a whole.

To do this, the working class must organise, consciously and as a class, to obtain control of the political machinery (which includes the armed forces). And this task is the task of the working class itself, without regard to leaders of lords (some of them created by the Labour Party!). For the successful termination of the class struggle involves the overthrow of the capitalist class and the establishment of a classless society.

Now let us compare this clearly-defined position with that of the Labour Party. Far from having abandoned their reform programme, they have apparently coined some of the S.P.G.B. phraseology, whilst still attempting to tinker with the effects capitalism—with profiteering, rents, slums, "peace"(!), public utilities—like all the other capitalist and reformist Parties. They call the recognition of the class struggle, "a narrow, class appeal, as all men and women of goodwill should rally . . . . etc." The Labour Party has grown by marrying its old reformist intentions to the unsound ideas of the workers, by studying and manipulating their ignorance. As Mr. Salter, a Labour M.P., has said in the "New Leader":

"There is not a single constituency in the country where there is a majority of convinced Socialist electors. We have plenty of districts, such as Bermondsey, where there is a Labour majority, but it is a delusion to think that the greater number of these people understand what we mean by Socialism. They neither understand it nor want it." 

No wonder the shipping magnate, Lord Inchcape, could say of the first Labour Government, "You have no need to dear these people."

Now, since Socialism is necessarily international in character, the question of foreign antagonisms does not arise. Nor is there any question, for the S.P.G.B., of either compensation or confiscation: it is a matter of restitution. Restitution to the workers of the world of the wealth which they alone produce. The records of history will testify that the rise of the capitalist class to power was made in complete disregard of compensation.

Here we have, world-wide, the private ownership of the means of life, and the consequent poverty and insecurity of the workers of the world. The Socialist Party of Great Britain declare that there is one remedy—Socialism—the working class must organise themselves as a class to obtain control of the political machinery (through which social power is wielded), and establish the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by and in the interest of the whole of human society.

F. E. 

On the eve of 1917 (1982)

Book Review from the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the Eve of 1917, Alexander Shlyapnikov, Allison & Busby

The publication of Alexander Shlyapnikov's memoirs of Bolshevik Party work from 1914 to 1917 is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of what really went on in Russia in those years.

Shlyapnikov was remarkable; a Russian industrial worker, a skilled turner by trade, he journeyed abroad for six years, working in factories in Paris, London and Stuttgart, picking up a knowledge of languages and conditions in Europe before returning to St. Petersburg in 1914 as a "French" emigrant.

Re-starting work in the engineering workshops in St. Petersburg, he rapidly became a "key-man", solely responsible for establishing contacts, building precarious underground organisations and developing an amazing technique for evading arrest by the Ochrana (Secret Police). He never walked down the same street twice, never slept in the same flat two nights running, and never gave his name or any address. His accounts of his hazardous trips to wartime Stockholm, London (where he worked as a turner at the old Fiat Motor Works at Wembley) and New York to raise money by selling reports of Czarist Jewish persecution to wealthy New York Jews, make fascinating reading. The sheer physical stamina of his exploits in Finland and Sweden is astounding. He reckoned the "life" of an active Party worker before arrest to be about three months.

His description of the success of the workers in presenting demands and wringing concessions on conditions of Czarist repression bears out the Marxian contention that not even the most savage oppression could prevent them/

The workers in the munition factories were indispensable. There was a limit to the number of "agitators" who could be slung into uniform and sent to the front, only to cause more trouble when they got there. He gives an excellent account of conditions in wartime (1914/16) St. Petersburg and Moscow, showing the complete breakdown of the system, resulting in famine conditions which made further prosecution of the War impossible. The lengthy manifestos and leaflets of the St. Petersburg Bureau combined demands for the Democratic Republic, higher wages, the eight-hour day, and confiscation of the land, with references to the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of socialism.

Shlyapnikov took part in the first "Workers Opposition" to Lenin and Trotsky's Democratic Centralism in 1920, but subsequently made his peace with Stalin only to be arrested in 1930 — something Czar Nicholas failed to do. His end is shrouded in mystery; he disappeared. His international experience may have enabled him to escape back to France. As far is known, he did return to Russia on the invitation of his old buddy, V. M. Molotov, the Foreign Minister, to be driven straight to the Lubyanka Prison. 

For all his battles, hardships and dangers, Stalinism was his reward. The book also brings home forcibly how pathetically backward and remote Russian conditions of political life were in 1914/16.

Horatio.

Comic book Capitalism (1978)

From the October 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

I don't know about you, but no matter the publication, I always read the letters page first. In Debbie a girls' magazine I recently came across a letter that struck a chord. It went on brightly about Blue Peter, show jumping — and then came the gem. "I don't get home from school until 5.30 and then I miss half the (TV) programme. And, knowing my luck, the part I miss is the best part."

Like I said, that strikes a chord. If you are addicted to Debbie with its "Secret of Fear Island", "Up to Date Kate", "Little Miss Featherfeet" and so on, real life is "I miss the best part". As a past victim of "Cannonball Kid", "Trained to Bust-up a Baldy's Team", "The Tough of the Track", I feel that "I miss the best part." Let's fact it; The Hotspur, Wizard, Girls Crystal and the Rover have done us all a disservice. Having learned about the world from them — we always miss the best part. These comic books taught us that life was worthwhile; that it was exciting and dramatic. We were thrown out of school unprepared for that harsh series of cliches that capitalism really offers the young worker.

"You will enjoy it here  . . . This job carries a good pension . . . There are excellent prospects of promotion . . . With this bonus scheme it is really up to you . . . Of course you must believe in the product . . ."

Don't know about you, mate; I was unprepared for it. In the last frame of a Cannonball Kid story our hero is depicted on top of an open-decker bus being driven through cheering crowds. He then reflects — by means of a bubble coming out of his ear —"Ah well scored a hat-trick at Wembley and bust up a Nazi spy ring at school—I wonder what next year will bring."

Unfortunately we are not thirteen years of age for ever. Too soon we are twenty or there abouts. So we start reading the Melody Maker or the New Musical Express. It's the same set-up though. Life is still worthwhile, exciting and dramatic. The only difference is that our villains are a little different. They are not cruel step-mothers who want to stop the ballet lessons (Debbie) or guys with big green heads from another planet (Eagle). Now the villains are the intriguing, mindless, unmusic-loving older generation.

Perhaps after the Beano, Bunty, or Melody Maker you regressed to the Socialist Worker or the Socialist Challenge. The villains there are hard-faced businessmen, multi-national companies or 'right wing' trade union leaders. The heroes are Lenin, Trotsky or some other "working class heroes" who are going to do something for you.

In actual fact, of course, life is not as simplistic as all that comic book nonsense would have us believe. George Orwell in an essay on Boys' Papers once speculated whether it would be possible to change the "right wing" bias of these young working class entertainments to  a more "left wing" bias. No doubt that excited some Maoist to bizarre notions of re-writing "I flew with Braddock" to "I marched with Mao" or some Socialist Worker zealot to contemplate the propaganda value of changing "Trained to Bust-up Baldy's Team" to "Trained to Bust-up Callaghan's Team".

Such notions are best left in the nursery along with all the other junk of childhood. The real villain of the piece is the way that society is organised. Everything that is produced to-day is produced for sale; the whole purpose of production on modern society is to realise profits. Every worker — "Boring old fart" or "way-out revolutionary" included — is a victim of this vicious buying and selling system. The important thing is not to climb Mount Everest in your bare feet (as Wilson of the Wizard did) but to survive in the commercial jungle of capitalism. A man or woman is not judged by how fast he or she can run (I believe Wilson once ran the mile in 3 minutes) but how much he or she owns. The majority of the population own little or nothing but their ability to work, and have got to sell that ability for a wage or salary. No wonder they feel "they have missed the best part". The "best part" is reserved for the owners of the factories, workshops and commercial undertakings.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain wants a new society;  a world where everything is produced solely for use; where the purpose of production is to satisfy human needs; a world without wages, prices or profits. This means a complete revolution in the economic basis of society. It means the whole world's resources are owned in common by the world's population. Such a gigantic transformation can only come about by the conscious act of a majority of the working class. A first step in that process is to leave behind the ideas of "heroes and villains" as portrayed in the comic books of our youth or the political comic books of the "right" or "left" wing.

I started off by saying that I always read the letters page first. Well, here's one I came across in the New Musical Express. The publication was encouraging its readers to send in what they term "smart ass one-lines"; these are usually distinguished by being more than one line and not particularly smart. One of them struck me though as being rather less silly than most; it stated:- "Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat." On Breadless Ones, ponder such wisdom.

Dick Donnelly

Oscar Wilde and Socialism (1961)

From the January 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Soul of Man under Socialism by Oscar Wilde; included in "Essays and Poems of Oscar Wilde". Penguin Books 2s. 6d.

Oscar Wilde died before the Socialist Party had been founded. It would therefore be a barren exercise at this stage to debate whether Wilde was a Socialist in the exact meaning of that term. What is beyond doubt is that there is in this essay much that the Socialist will agree with. and much more that could form the basis of rewarding discussion. There is no need to be off by the title: by "soul" Wilde clearly meant nothing more than mind—his choice of words has no religious implications.

It is true that part of the essay has little to do with Socialism in any economic sense—nearly half of it is taken up by a diatribe against any attempt at dictation to the artist, whether by government or public opinion. But when Wilde keeps to what is directly relevant, it is a joy to read his sparkling prose, and to see how he hammers his points home.

What of the do-gooders, for example, who try to alleviate the ills of society by well-meaning charity? Wilde writes:

Their remedies do not cure the disease; they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease. They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor. But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible . . . It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair.

Of the poor, Wilde says:

Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it.

As for those of the workers who accept their conditions, who have "made private terms with the enemy":

I can quite understand a man accepting laws that protect private property, and admit of its accumulation, as long as he himself is able under those conditions to realise some form of beautiful and intellectual life. But it is almost incredible to me how a man whose life is marred and made hideous by such laws can possibly acquiesce in their continuance.

Wilde would have nothing to do with state capitalism that is now often passed off as "Socialism":

If the Socialism is authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first.

He saw that a revolutionary change in the economic basis of society was necessary, and that this would have inevitable repercussions in the social superstructure:

When private property is abolished there will be no necessity for crime, no demand for it; it will cease to exist . . . Though a crime may not be against property, it may spring from the misery and rage and depression produced by our wrong system of property-holding, and so, when that system is abolished, will disappear . . . Crime will either cease to exist, or, if it occurs, will be treated by physicians as a very distressing form of dementia, to be cured by care and kindness.

Of the future economic organisation of society, Wilde remarks: "The community by means of organisation of machinery will supply the useful things, and . . . the beautiful things will be made by the individual." By individualism Wilde means the full development of man's personality, the possibility of which has been crushed by the institution of private property. The whole essay could be summed up in this paragraph from it:

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

This essay is a mine in which only half an hour's reading will reveal many Socialist gems.

Alwyn Edgar

The Communists' Reform Policy (1928)

From the August 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The fight against MacDonaldism should be advanced on the lines of unemployment being made a national responsibility with a definite scale of relief; for pensions at the age of 55 years, on a scale something similar to that suggested for the unemployed; the immediate nationalisation of the credit system and the basic industries (banks, Insurance companies, electricity generating supply, mines and transport, cotton and woollen textiles, and the rapidly developing artificial silk industry)."

The above appears in the "Workers' Life" (July 6th), as the Communist Party's demands for the Cook-Maxton alliance to adopt as their programme.

Nationalisation of public utilities, etc., means State-ownership with the capitalists in control and capitalism being carried on.

This demand, together with the scales of relief for unemployed and pensions shows the utter hypocrisy and cant in the Communist attacks upon the I.L.P. which are made in Palme Dutt's "Socialism and the Living Wage." This book, written for and published by the Communist Party, says:

The workers will not be tricked into the fight for Socialism. Certainly the propaganda of Socialism must start from the simplest daily needs of life of men, women and children, and the failure of capitalism to meet those needs. But at the same time it must be shown that no short cut can find the way out, no magic panaceas of pretended reforms, money-control or other trickeries, but only the conquest of the means of production by the working class, and, therefore, as the necessary condition of this, the overthrow of capitalist class power and conquest of power by the working class; and it must be shown that this class struggle will involve heavy fighting and sacrifice, demanding the strongest discipline and solidarity of the working class.

Adolph Kohn

History as mystery (1998)

From the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

That’s what our rulers want because while we remain ignorant of our past they remain unchallenged. While we remain indifferent to history they reign supreme

The interruption of the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermon on Easter Sunday by gay rights activists caused a flurry of media attention that would normally have been absent from such a pointless event. In the ensuing babble about the Church's hostile attitude to gay sex the content of the original sermon was more or less overlooked. Dr Carey's scholarly and sophisticated contribution to the Millennium Agenda was that we have all forgotten our historical Christian values, and that is why the world's in a mess. His view is that we should "remember history".

Funny that the Italians and the French have the same word for "history" as for "story", implying perhaps that both are made up. What the Arch Cant means by history is of course the official Christian revised and approved version, with nasty bits removed or blamed on someone else, and plenty of selfless martyrdom and soft-focus heroic imagery. History as a religious, spiritual and moral work of art, an aesthetic template to guide our actions in the future, an edifying edition of the highlights of past.

But the past didn’t start as "Once upon a time . . ." and end with "happily ever after". It hasn’t ended, for one thing. For another, facts always get in the way of storybook fiction. Christian history, like everyone else's, was bloody, not nice. Christians slaughtered and burned and pillaged and tortured for the faith. The first crusades were against other Christians in Ireland and France. Dissent was ruthlessly suppressed for over a thousand years, while Jesus and the Blessed Virgin climbed into bed with every baron, prince and dictator with money to hire them, with the result that peasants like us spent centuries robbed blind by the kings and scared shitless by the priests. A very handy arrangement for them, but not for 95 percent of the population. Dr Carey seems to want us to "remember" what his Christians said on Sundays, but not what they did the rest of the week.

Who Cares, Carey?

Most people aren't interested in history. It's boring. It's irrelevant. It's just dates and more dates. On the other hand, if you were betting a large sum on a horse, you'd look up its past form, and if you were buying a car, you'd want to know its service record, and if buying a house, you'd be very interested indeed in certain mediaeval by-laws allowing common access through your front room. When buying into an entire social system, however, we seem willing to forgo any such caution or curiosity.

History is certainly boring and irrelevant in schools. This is not accidental. If you were in charge of a prison and you had to choose videos for the inmates to watch, you'd be unlikely to pick Colditz or The Great Escape. Similarly, when the owning class, represented in Britain by the CBI, exercises its considerable control over the national school curriculum, it is not keen to emphasise the historical struggles that have continually taken place between owners and the vast majority of the dispossessed. Instead it emphasises the historical struggles that have taken place between owners and other owners, a subject not nearly as relevant to most of us. Thus, people leave school baffled and bored by history, and the owning class gets its workers cut-price and docile.

I didn’t grow up a socialist because I didn’t know the idea of socialism existed. I distinctly remember being taught the Franco-Prussian War in school, but no mention of the Paris Commune, and the Crimean War, but nothing about Chartists. Marx was some hairy German yob who wanted us all to wear uniforms and shoot each other. The nineteenth century may have been boiling with revolution right across Europe but to me it was drawing rooms, cucumber sandwiches and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Even where the history syllabus could have been potentially worthwhile, the dreary school culture would always manage to rob it of any significance, and the bored, passionless delivery of the time-serving teachers was enough to convince us that knowledge of any sort wasn’t worth having, except for job purposes.

What we call our history is mostly false but we do everything that we do because of it. Our state-approved history is the reason we get up and go to work all day, pay bills, buy holidays, vote the usual way and generally follow in our parents' footsteps . . . all the way to the grave. And a fake sense of past has bequeathed a fake sense of present. With the contempt of long familiarity, we don’t really look at the present as what it is, an unique passing moment, but as a wallpaper for our individual habitat. Big things don’t change in this bland continuum we decorate our private worlds with wisdom. Banks don’t crash. Princesses don’t have fatal accidents. Revolutions don’t change society.

No Industrial Revelations

If the present in all its technological sophistication was sprung upon us suddenly, as if for the first time, like a revelation, perhaps we would see the exciting possibilities in it, but history, or the popular sense of it, has inoculated us against any sense of this potential. History disguises the present moment as a veil disguises a face. We can shout and protest with the passing anger of the moment, but we cannot presume to pit our puny voices against history's relentless vast yawn.

If, instead of being the motive power of revolution, history has become the pale and feeble provider of excuses for the status quo, if instead of a springboard it is a tether that keeps the future out of reach, maybe we should just forget it altogether. If the little is not enough, maybe nothing is better.

School-kids wouldn’t complain. No dates, no stupid kings and queens with numbers for surnames, no essays marked C-minus "Must try harder". The only losers would be historical theme parks, quiz compilers and all those keen to escape the present through books but unable to get on with science fiction.

Amnesia is Easier?

A human memory only one-day-old would annul long-lasting conflicts, old scores, disputes, campaigns, epic struggles and endless fiascos and tragedies. The wars of the world would be called off through lack of interest. Capitalism would collapse as people forgot who owned what and why it mattered anyway. Jew and Arab would tell each other jokes in the sun. Catholic and Protestant would share their Guinness and wonder what all the silly Parade outfits were for. Soldiers would forget how to shoot, prison guards wouldn’t bother to lock up, policemen would wander off and pick wild flowers . . .

Oh dear. A pinch of salt is called for I fear. In truth it is impossible to forget what once you have learned. Even if it were possible to be more ignorant of history than we already are, it would simply mean that the owning class would treat us worse than they do. They have it their own way as it is. While we remain ignorant of our past, they remain unchallenged. While we remain indifferent to history, they reign supreme. While we watch football instead, they laugh at us.

But there is room in our culture for a better understanding of history (and football too, if you insist). What they school out of us, we can bring back again. What they don’t tell us, we can find out. What they ignore, we can discuss. It is not just that we would have a stronger sense of ourselves in time and place. It is also a revolutionary process, because it means overturning old ideas and beliefs in a ceaseless effort to reinvent our present, and design our future.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's idea of history may exclude the venerable and well documented history of homosexuality, but it also excludes the venerable and even better documented history of class struggle. Dr Carey just doesn’t want you to know about those embarrassing bits. The owning class too would like to cover certain things up, or at least gloss over them. That’s why, for a revolutionary, it is always important to be curious. If we are to succeed as a class in emancipating ourselves, we must know the history and tactics of those who are against us. That way, when next they attack us, we will not be unprepared.

Paddy Shannon

'Freedom or Slavery?' (1921)

From the April 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Born in a world that is tainted and rank with disease;
Bred amid squalor and sunk in monotonous toil;
Almost inhuman, like beasts that are laden and led.
Is our fate fixed? Shall there ne'er be cessation and ease
For our torn, weary feet? Shall we ne'er have the strength to recoil
From the sad death-in-life, where to live is to envy the dead? 

Beauty of nature and art, of fame and creative joy,
Nothing of these do we know, nor care we to understand;
Love that is truly has touched us and passed us by.
Chain-laden slaves are we, whom our masters can crush and destroy
At their wayward, whimsical will, with a negligent wave of the hand,
In the way a wanton child might crush and torture a fly. 

Is there no God to help, no Zeus, or Jahveh, or Buddh?
As well might our prayers be made to an image of wood or stone,
Hear, then, the truth; be sure you shall find it discordant and crude.
But harmony creeps through the discord, and a light in the crudeness gleams—
Freedom is our for the taking, and the power to take our own. 

Out of the wreck of a world that is falling into decay,
Rise, if within you dwells a spark of the will to dare;
Come in our ranks and work, and fight, and if need be die!
We have nothing to lose but our chains. Of a surety comes a day
When a choice must be made at last, when we break the fetters we wear
Or retain them still, slaves proud of our slavery.

F. J. Webb.

9 months of Labour rule (1965)

Editorial from the July 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twenty years ago this month, Great Britain elected the first majority Labour government in its history.

July 1945 was a time of jubilation for the Labour Party; but it was also a time of reckoning. Their two previous administrations―in 1924 and 1931―had been minority governments, and had been able to blame their failures onto their dependence on Liberal support in the House of Commons.

The Attlee government had no such excuse. They had a massive majority behind them and they were determined to carry out the programme they had cherished for so long. Many Labour M.P.s said―and perhaps some of them even believed―that the day of Socialism had dawned.

Reality was cruelly different, and it exposed Labour Party theories for what they were. The 1945 government were committed to running British capitalism, and they did this in basically the same way as the Tories would have done.

They fought the working class over wages. They used every weapon they could to break strikes in the docks and the coalfields. They launched the nuclear rearmament programme (which, says the Labour Party now, is based on a discredited nostalgia for outdated imperialism).

Some Labour ministers of those days became famous as political buffoons and failures. Others wore themselves into their graves. British capitalism stood undisturbed. And in the end the electors showed what they thought of Labour's attempts to run the system, by turning them out of office.

By 1964 the memories of Labour government had grown dim enough for the workers to want to give it another try. The Labour Party cannot now excuse their failures of 1945/51, so they have simply ignored them. The Conservatives were at any rate ready in the last election to stand by their record in office, and offer it as an incentive to put them back in power. Labour's record is so bad that they kept a shamefaced silence, and quietly forgot the Attlee government and their disasters.

Now once again we have a Labour government, and once again they are in the toils. British capitalism is providing them with many problems―financial, economic, international. They are disputing with the working class over wages. Many of their policies―on the Bomb, immigration, taxation-―have been reversed.

And one again, like their predecessors in 1945, they are failing to solve the problems of capitalism. As this becomes more and more apparent, Labour Party support is declining, in spite of all their gimmicks and vote catching publicity.

Of course, the Labour government are looking for excuses. Mr. Ray Gunter, Minister of Labour, for example, thinks that all the troubles are due to a deficiency in our morals:

“It is only when the nation realises and understands that there are underlying moral standards to which we should be obedient, that the Labour movement is going to achieve everything it wants to achieve . . .”  (Speech to the Co-operative Congress, Edinburgh, 2/6/65.)

Mr. Gunter is the man who said, on election night last October, that the Conservatives should be thoroughly ashamed of their victory in Smethwick. He is also the man reported (The Guardian 31/5/65) to be pressing now for "drastic measures" to further restrict the intake of immigrants into this country.

This is representative of the complete reverse of Labour policy on immigration. It would be interesting to know what Mr. Gunter thinks about the morals of a party which alters its line so cynically.

But however the Labour Party may twist and turn, its fate is sealed. Whether its policies are changed or not, whether they are applied or discarded, capitalism will continue. And with capitalism will also go its inescapable problems.

The only way to remove those problems is to abolish capitalism and replace it with Socialism. And that will happen only when the working class throughout the world have seen through the distortions and the failures of all the capitalist parties and have consciously and unitedly opted for Socialism.

QED (BBC1) (1984)

TV Review from the January 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

QED (BBC1)

This fascinating programme traced the improvement in British workers' living standards achieved through advances in technology over the last 35 years. The film was very effectively put together, showing the 1948 sequences — both original footage and reconstructions — in black and white and those if 1983 in colour. Heinz Wolff, the narrator, acted the two central characters — the lower income worker and the prosperous businessman.

We first saw him entering a typical house of the former in 1948; the tin bath on the outside back wall, 5 amp wiring just sufficient for lighting and the wireless—certainly no electric fires or any of the appliances we now take for granted. Instead of a vacuum cleaner, the carpet sweeper; instead of the 'fridge, the ventilated larder cupboard; a bicycle the only personally owned means of transport. We then switched to the businessman getting out of his car, going into his centrally heated home, and switching on the rather primitive television set. His wife is in their all-electric kitchen with 'fridge, washing machine and food mixer. The maid uses the Hoover and does the ironing.

What a contrast in 1983! The "working class" home now boasts all mod cons, including colour TV and video (Wolff does not say how much of this evidence of "affluence" is owned by the worker and how much by the HP company), and ownership of a car is almost taken for granted.

On the surface the differences have been greatly eroded. However, Wolff then points out that this rise in living standards has been made possible by the great strides in technology. The days when production was simple (and labour intensive) and most of us could do our own domestic repairs have given way to high technology, labour savings and the inability of most of us to understand "how things work". This, incidentally, with the high cost of getting any sort of repairs done, leads to built-in obsolescence resulting in more frequent replacement purchases, which is good for business.

Wolff then asks: What shall we do about the unemployed to make them again feel useful members of society? From a non-socialist, his answer is quite remarkable. To paraphrase him: in a sensible society we would turn them into caring people; we need teachers, nurses, people to help look after the elderly, handicapped and infirm. There is a multitude of worthwhile (but not profitable) ways of working, but he ends his programme with the words: "That future is further away than we think".

We say it need not be. If the programme made viewers aware that there is indeed a solution to the problems of capitalism and that advances in technology should benefit all and not just increase the profits of the few, then we are one small step nearer to that future—the establishment of socialism. Then work will be judged only by its usefulness to the community and workers will not be forced to be idle, feeling useless and unwanted, because no profit can be accrued from their work by the employer.

Eva Goodman

World View: Hot War in the Caucasus (1995)

From the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

If anything, the end of the Cold War has given even the least enlightened of us a geography lesson. Most of us are now all too familiar with names like Basra and Bosnia, Zagreb and Sarajevo and Mogadishu and Macedonia, and we can locate them on a map without too much difficulty. Grozny and Chechnya are the latest example of hitherto unheard of names that have suddenly rocketed themselves into the world news. But why the tiny Caucasus republic of Chechnya?

Yeltsin and his generals would have us that Chechnya is breaking laws laid down in the Russian Federation constitution by declaring itself a sovereign republic. Therefore, they must be returned to the fold at any cost.

One wonders at the importance tiny Chechnya holds for Yeltsin, considering its size. The old Soviet Union covered a total area of 8,647,172 square miles. Chechnya covers an area of 7,350 square miles (smaller in fact than Wales - 8,018 square miles). Surely Chechnya can't be that important - or can it?

To Yeltsin, the free-marketeer, Chechnya means vital roubles to a crippled Russian economy. Chechnya is basically essential to Russia's economic interests - all the more important since Georgia and Azerbaijan, both rich in natural resources, seceded successfully from the Soviet Union.

Oil Pipeline

The tiny republic of Chechnya, land locked on three sides by Russia, includes fertile farmland that straddles the wheat fields of southern Russia. The republic is also an important rail/road trade route to other trans-Caucasus republics. But most importantly, Chechnya controls the oil pipeline that connects the Black and Caspian Seas. Chechnya also claims several oilfields and a refinery and is further invaluable for the supply of chemicals, building materials and engineering.

So, like all wars in the modern world, the Chechen conflict has profit motive at its root, in particular who controls the Chechnya's mineral wealth and strategic pipeline.

The Chechen separatists feel they have every reason to claim independence. The area was initially forcibly incorporated into Russia by Tsarist expansionists some 150 years ago, since which time they have suffered the status of t the second class citizen, their Islamic faith making them subhuman to racist Russians and having to endure travel restrictions all too reminiscent of South Africa.

Stalin hated them so much that he had the entire population deported to central Asia in 1944 on trumped-up charges of Nazi collaboration -  a venture that wiped out 60 percent of the Chechen population.

Yeltsin has since blamed Chechens for every social evil facing Russia, from drug-trafficking and black-marketeering to the current trend for hijackings.

Chechnya sparked the current conflict in September 1991. When General Dzhokha Dudayev assumed power and declared Chechnya an independent republic. This was flatly denounced by Russia on November 1 1991.

Russian hostility to Chechnya's claims to sovereignty led some Chechen extremists to carry out hijackings to force their message home. This provided Moscow with the pretext to finance and supply weapons to the anti-Dudayev forces led by the pro-Yeltsin Umar Authurkhanov, in an attempt to nip Chechen nationalism in the bud.

Confidence in support from Moscow inspired anti-Dudayev forces to launch an attack on Grozny on November 25 last year, with the help of Russian mercenaries - an assault that was quickly repelled. What only became clear later was that the FSK (the successor to the KGB) had in fact recruited the mercenaries to fight Dudayev. The present crisis is, therefore, grounded in the covert backing Russian security forces gave to internal Chechen opposition forces. For it was the humiliation of that defeat that prompted the Russian massing of troops on the Chechen border at the beginning of December.

Opposition to the war

Polls since carried out in Russia have found that 75 percent of respondents oppose the war. The Russian media has also condemned the invasion of Chechnya, including the normally pro-Yeltsin Izvestia newspaper. On December 23, MPs in the Duma voted overwhelmingly for a halt to the war and even the army has been reported as feeling compunction pangs.

The only support Yeltsin has had for his Chechen operation has come from the parliamentary faction "Russia's Choice", the right-wing lunatic Vladimir Zhirinovsky and other nondescript opportunists. To the majority of Russians, Yeltsin, "the champion of democracy", is in reality a Stalin in miniature.

Many Russians are bewildered at Yeltsin's overnight change of character. For this is the same Yeltsin who came to world attention lambasting Gorbachev's attempt to stifle Lithuanian independence, begging army officers to disobey orders and calling on the UN to intervene.

Yeltsin, in three years, has learned quick that the rules of capitalism means that a country can only prosper if it is aggressive in defence of its economic interests. That's why the governments in the West have been so reluctant in coming forward with their criticism - because they have been doing the same thing as Yeltsin for 200 years.

John Bissett

Worker take-overs (2015)

Book Review from the June 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'An Alternative Labour History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy', Edited by Dario Azzellini. Zed Books. 2015

This is a collection of articles describing – and advocating – ‘workers control’ at various points in history and in various places, particularly Latin America, today. The authors see workers spontaneously taking over workplaces as the way to a new society without private or state capitalists.

In times of economic and political chaos when factory owners lose control or abandon their factories, workers do not just sit back and do nothing. They take over the factories and try to keep production going.  This shows, as Azzellini points out in his introduction, that ‘workers do not need bosses to organize production’. But this has never lasted for any length of time.

Sooner or later ‘order’ has been restored, either by the old ruling class re-establishing control or by a new ruling class taking over, and ‘bosses’ have come back, whether the old private ones or new state ones. In some cases, however, the ’recuperated’ factories  have been given a legal basis as cooperatives producing for the market. But this is no solution.  Cooperatives, Azzelini writes in the section of his introduction ‘Limits and contradictions of the cooperative model’, ‘tend to operate within the capitalist logic of productivity and profitability … the pressure on them to a adopt a capitalist business logic is immense … cooperatives are embedded in the framework of the capitalist economy and compete on the capitalist market following the logic of profit-making … ‘

This is a better fate than being forcibly suppressed but is still a dead end. Which is why Azzelini favours a revolution in which there is a general movement of workers to ‘take and hold’ the means of production (to use the terminology of the old IWW, which surprisingly doesn’t get a mention).

A revolution led by workers’ councils would certainly be better than one led by a vanguard party but still underestimates the degree of understanding of those involved as to where they are going and ignores the need to win control of political power to permit this and/or to back it up.

Adam Buick