Obituary: Charles Kincaid (1988)

Obituary from the December 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles Kincaid died last month at the age of 85. Despite suffering and considerable pain in his last few weeks, the one subject which he continued to be able to speak about with enthusiasm and lucidity was socialism.

Discovering a copy of the Socialist Standard in the West Ham library in the mid-twenties, he read it through and became a socialist, soon joining the West Ham branch of The Socialist Party. The family suffered extreme poverty during three years of unemployment in the early 1930s, and this situation was hardly improved when he obtained employment at Enfield Rolling Mills in 1934. Much of the journey to [and from] West Ham he often walked, not being able to afford the full fares throughout the week. For all but 2 years of his 34 years in the Rolling Mills he was a shop steward.

In retirement at Milton Keynes he formed a discussion group and followed up a number of promising leads. People showing an interest in the case for socialism were written to and visited, despite difficulties caused by his lack of personal transport in the urban sprawl of the area. He made significant contributions to the local newspapers through their letters columns, developing the case for socialism in lengthy contests with opponents.

One of his most unlikely encounters took place during the Blitz while on nightshift. The Rolling Mills Chairman and Tory MP, John Grimston, turned up and was treated to a discourse on socialism to the accompaniment of bombs and anti-aircraft fire. On subsequent visits, he was challenged by Chas to try his hand at chess.

Those fortunate enough to have known Charles Kincaid will sadly miss his good humour and determination in the struggle for socialism. His example can only inspire us to redouble our efforts to bring about the change he was committed to. We extend our condolences to his son Bill and the rest of the family.

CS

Brave New Towns (1980)

The Briefing Column from the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the New Town Acts of 1946 over a score of such towns have been designated in Britain. Its object was "to relieve congestion in the big cities and to provide pleasant and healthy conditions for people who would not have to travel elsewhere to find work". According to the Official Handbook of the Information Office, these new towns "represent a notable achievement". The handbook remarks that it was hoped to get rid of the existing slums of the big towns, although it is admitted that the high proportion of unfit houses in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow was so high that clearance would take "longer than usual".

Among the havens of hope were Harlow, Bracknell, Basildon, Crawley, Corby, East Kilbride and Cumbernauld. Nearly a million people have been moved to the new towns in the past 30 years. Are they all living in pleasant, healthy conditions away from the polluted air and poisonous canals of the old overcrowded cities? Do they find it easier to find employment without the need to travel elsewhere? Far from it; unemployment and developing slums reveal the poverty of the planners' ideas and the actual poverty of the people who put their trust in the planners. Many people are saying that they are worse off than before they moved. Those living in Basildon and Pitsea have heard their haven described as a "rural slum"; Crawley reports hundreds more unemployed; while in Corby, thousands in the British Steel Works have lost their jobs, and a great many houses are in urgent need of repair.

What about the much-lauded Milton Keynes? According to the Corporation there is prosperity in MK.

Twenty-six thousand jobs have been created since 1967. More than half of these can be described as genuine new jobs. Most of the jobs are from overseas companies and from expansion of companies already allocated. A pool of workers wooed to the area by cheap housing is now keeping pace with business expansion which is not happening in other parts of the country. Business men here are not moaning about high interest rates or traffic jams or having to lay off their workforce. They moan about shortage of hotel space to put up their numerous clients and about the delay in opening up the new helicopter service to Heathrow.

However, the new £8 million station opens soon. New firms include a domestic wireware business from London and engineers from East Grinstead, Sussex. The manager of the local job centre says that "the recession hitting other parts of the country has barely touched us. Over the next five years there will be another 5,000 jobs here".

But these startling claims leave many observers wondering. Andrew Blowers, a sociologist of the Open University, says that: "Workers here earn up to 15 per cent lower wages than in other parts of the South-East. Rents are higher than in London and quarterly central-heating bills of around £150 a year are common." He blames the Corporation for giving the new city a prestige image and attracting firms offering low wages. Most people could not afford to furnish their homes and were at the mercy of door-to-door salesmen with HP cons and inducements. While denying this poverty, the Corporation says "MK is no way isolated from normal economic and social national pressures".

That hundreds of new city children are living in poverty became clear from recent reports in the local press. "Many families were without gas or electricity. A lot of people are on the breadline." And on top of "normal" wages, high rents and the increasing dearth of jobs, they are faced with pollutants such as sulphur-dioxide and flouride emissions from the brickworks, the dangers of asbestos exposure in the Rail Works, housing cuts and large numbers of unemployed, especially among school-leavers.

Looking through the property columns, however, gives one a different picture. There's a 300-year-old cottage at Great Linford—offers in the range of £70,000. One among scores ranging from £52,000 in Hanslope to £82,000 in Towcester. Or if you are thinking of returning to London, there's a nice penthouse in Kensington at £115,000 (99-year lease) and one near Hampstead (freehold this one) at £245,000.

As the end of the 20 century approaches these glaring contradictions expose capitalism as criminally inefficient and anti-social, fit only for the end that has overtaken all previous class-divided societies.

Charles Kincaid

Labour's young lions (1964)

From the May 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent conference of the youth section of the Labour Party, the so-called Young Socialists, at Brighton, has again rejected the official party policy on many important issues. There are signs that the young Socialists have now become an embarrassment to the Labour Party as was the League of Youth in the past. The Labour Party has always been unfortunate with its youth section. They have always been captured by extremists. In the thirties it was the Communists; today it is the Trotskyists.

Trotskyist theory places great emphasis on leadership and slogans. It is their policy to take up the demands of any discontented group and to try and lead their struggle. The Young Socialists have been an easy target for them. In fact it is only here that their policy of boring from within has had any success. The youth sections of all "left-wing" parties tend to be more "radical" than the main party.

When the blatant vote-catching manoeuvres of the leadership of the Labour Party are considered it is not really surprising that the Young Socialists have gone the way they have. They don't like what they see but have not the political experience to explain it. It is young people in this frame of mind that the Trotskyist approach with criticism and an alternative policy. They move in and organise the discontented members.

There are at present four or five Trotskyist and similar groups operating in the Young Socialist movement. This in itself is noteworthy. For Young Socialist branches have tended to back the group which approached them first, though changes occur through the process of splitting to which the Trotskyist groupings are particularly liable. The most influential of these is Keep Left which the Labour Party has already proscribed. This takes the same line as the Socialist Labour League, the main British Trotskyist group, and has a clandestine organisation within the Young Socialists. There are other Trotskyist groups opposed to Keep Left in Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow and South Wales. Then there is Young Guard, which has a following in London and amongst students. Strictly speaking, this is not Trotskyist—its Trotskyist wing recently broke away—but it has the same technique of "boring from within."

An amusing aspect of all this is the factionalism and the disagreements between the various groups. The leaders of the boring-from-within groups—Healy, Grant, and others—are all older men who have been on the Trotskyist movement for twenty to thirty years. They fell out with each other soon after the Revolutionary Communist Party was dissolved in the late 1940s. The basic differences were over the nature of the Russian system and various theses of Pablo, a leader of the Fourth International, on Eastern Europe. These quarrels have been transferred lock, stock and barrel to the Young Socialist organisation. Wherever their branches meet these obscure differences are aired and the whole Trotskyist library of abuse is brought out—centrist, revisionist, Pabloite, elitist, Stalinist, Krondstadt, etc., etc. Added to this are stories and rumours of how the members of the groups have behaved at various conferences; how they allied themselves with the Right Wing; how particular groups have organised too many socials and dances. All this together with secret meetings and visions of armed uprisings may be good for laughs but has nothing to do with Socialism.

Generally speaking the members of these factions spend more time arguing against each other and Party officials than anything else. Such is the experience of boring from within. If Socialists were to join the Labour Party they too would be forced into petty disputes to the detriment of Socialist propaganda even if this were allowed. The Young Socialist Movement may have been easy to infiltrate but it has no power to do anything. When its members face the working class they do so as members of the Labour Party and on its programme. They do not control their own journal. They cannot campaign on their own programme. They have to campaign for a Western nuclear deterrent and for immigration control and for other policies which their conference has rejected. To campaign on any other programme is to render themselves liable to expulsion. This is the whole futility of boring from within. Inside the supposedly mass party your time is taken up with quarrels with bureaucrats; outside you campaign on their programme.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that Socialism can only be established by a Socialist working class. hence the chief task of Socialists can only be to make their fellow workers Socialist. We hold that this can best be done by campaigning for Socialism and Socialism alone. To do otherwise is to get the support of non-Socialists and eventually to cease to be a Socialist party altogether. We accept the doctrine of the class struggle and base our policy on it. Thus we refuse to compromise with other political parties which, including the Labour Party, can only stand for Capitalism.

It is sometimes argued that the way to make Socialists is to back the demands of politically ignorant workers and show then that these demands can't be realised without getting rid of Capitalism. But this is an odd way of going about things. Why not tell the workers straight off that they're going down a blind alley? Why bother to lead them down it just to show them it is a blind alley? The logic of this is that the working class should try out all wrong policies just to see that they are wrong. We reject such nonsensical doctrine. But once this doctrine is rejected then the case for entryism falls to the ground. There is no longer any need to make a principle of leading workers down blind alleys because you think it will benefit them.

Nor does it make sense to argue that Socialists should work within the Labour Party because it is "the mass party of the working class." If the Labour Party is a mass working class party then so is the Conservative Party for just as many workers vote Conservative as Labour. But even if the Labour Party were supposed by the vast majority of workers this would still be no reason for joining it. Such workers would not be Socialists. It would still be the duty of Socialists to oppose the Labour Party and to point out its non-Socialist character. An independent Socialist party would still be necessary to spread Socialist ideas.

Basically, however, the Trotskyists don't accept the need for Socialist understanding. They are more interested in leading ignorant masses. This is perhaps why have been successful among the Young Socialists. The ordinary Young Socialist member has little knowledge of politics. He is merely discontented. The Trotskyists have channelled and assumed the leadership of this discontent. Thus arguments which we have heard many times before appear in Marxist and Trotskyist terms. But behind the words there is no understanding. The ordinary Trotskyist follower does not understand the principles of Socialism—some are even religious—he does not realise he is being used by a bunch of experienced political manipulators who have failed to gain a following elsewhere.

Some good may yet come from this confusion and ignorance. Some young people may be led to study the principles of Socialism and to think beyond the slogan level. Already ideas on Russia, nationalization and leadership which we have been expressing for decades are being discussed in some sections of the Young Socialists. We have something to contribute to these discussions. After all, we pioneered the view that Russia is State capitalist; we said even before nationalization was implemented that it would not benefit the working class; it has been a principle of our organization from its foundation in 1904 that the working class doesn't ned any leaders and must emancipate itself. It is not boasting, but a historical fact, that we have been consistently correct in our attitude to political issues. Those who are interested in politics do themselves a disservice if they ignore our case.

Adam Buick

What is the 'Islamic State'? (2015)

From the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

ISIS stems from the breakdown of Iraq. Its core is former officers of the Iraqi army that served under Saddam and were displaced by the Americans when they disbanded the Iraqi army after the conquest of that country. Those officers found themselves marginalised further by the capture of the state by an expressly Shia political party (under the sway of Iran). The army had been dominated by a confessional and cultural Sunni section of society. They were able to turn to their co-religionists to recruit support to mobilise against the new government. Although Islamic State (as a group) was already formed, and had emerged from Al Qaeda in Iraq and other Islamist insurgent groups, it was this lash up with experienced military commanders that allowed them to make their break through, around 2010.

It was their combat expertise, the poor moral of the new Iraqi army, and the general lack of government authority in several Sunni provinces, that allowed ISIS to capture the heavy weapons and advanced military equipment that enabled it to advance quickly and overrun Iraqi army positions to take control of vast swathes of the country in the north. The other contributory factor in its growth was the breakdown of civil order in Syria, which enabled ISIS to become a participant in that civil war.

Tellingly, in the unrest, Fallujah (already twice bloodily pacified during the US occupation) rose again. Whilst ISIS nominally maintains it controls the city, it is reported that the revolt was by local tribes, using ISIS assistance and military support. ISIS is thought to have about 30,000 fighters, and about 8 million Iraqis under their control. That is not sufficient military force to subjugate an entire population (before the uprising, about 1 in 20 of the Syrian population were employed in the Ba’athist security forces, which partly explains the regime's resilience, and gives an indication of the scale of resources needed to completely suppress a population). In order to hold this population, it projects an image, with global reach, claiming to want to create a universal Caliphate and convert the world to genuine (i.e. its brand of) Islam.

The organisation is concerned with having a fearsome reputation, just as every bandit, feudal baron and Mafioso has needed in the past, in order to protect itself and continue its business. It is all about respect and appearance. Hence the, frankly, incompetent terror attacks on Paris, which were more about show and spectacle than about any sensible military strategic goal. Indeed, it has been noted that when they first encountered significant resistance (the Kurds of Kobane) poor morale and training of ISIS forces saw them handsomely beaten.

Their reputation, though, allows them to carry out their commercial operations. According to Channel Four News ISIS has been able to seize over $400 million in bank robberies. A further $40 million comes from kidnap and ransom operations. Its main source of regular income, though, is the $100 million it makes through selling oil, most of it, surprisingly, to the Assad regime in Syria (http://tinyurl.com/oxp3nfv). The American historian and blogger Juan Cole:

“I would argue that Daesh (ISIS) is analogous to the pirate enclaves of the early modern period. Al-Raqqa, Palmyra, Mosul, Falluja and Ramadi function for it as desert ports, as Tortuga and Port Royal did for pirates in the Caribbean and St. Mary’s on Madagascar did for pirates in the Indian Ocean. It is easy to be misled by the organization’s language of “state.” It is a militia of some 25,000 fighters who conduct raids. They don’t actually do much governing of the places they dominate, and mainly extract resources from them. Tribal raiding states in it for the loot have been common in Middle Eastern history, as with Nadir Shah in the eighteenth century. Looting one city pays for the raid that lets you loot the next. They even make the people who want to emigrate and escape their rule pay a sort of exit ransom” (http://www.juancole. com/2015/11/modern-raiding-pirate.html).

Essentially, then, in his view ISIS is the most spectacularly successful mafia operation in history.

ISIS, far from being an existential threat to the western way of life, is in fact a species of a phenomenon seen time and again in history. Its economic basis is the availability of a natural resource which can be extracted with little labour but which commands a high price (other examples are metals and diamonds in Africa, or narcotics in South America). It complements this resource by the proximity of a disposable, largely uneducated population, whom it can recruit to do its dirty work and fighting. It extends this principle with the mass kidnap of woman, and institutionalised forced marriage and rape as a reward for its soldiers. It is, in essence, no different from the Mexican drugs cartels that terrorise the border regions of that country, and infiltrate and direct the governments there.

Essentially, unlike capitalists who live off surplus value, ISIS and its leadership live off the direct expropriation of material surplus wealth, much as a feudal aristocracy did. Hence why its medieval economics rely on medieval methods of rule. The local populations do not have to be disciplined or mobilised into its system, the way workers have to be, merely passively present to extract wealth of fighting manpower from whenever it is necessary.

The role of religion in this context is to keep the local population compliant, and to help attract recruits. A common confession of faith creates the idea of a common identity, and legitimises the excesses of the ruling gang. It also helps to attract ideologues and recruits from abroad. Its most useful role is in attracting money and support. ISIS follows the Wahabbist trend of puritanical Islam that is prevalent in Saudi Arabia. This (and links between Iraqi and Saudi tribes) allows it to obtain funding from Saudis. That Saudi Arabia is itself locked in a regional power struggle with Iran, which in its turn uses the Shia strand of Islam to spread its influence, means here are geostrategic elements to the precise doctrine followed by ISIS.

The other use for Islam by ISIS is to set its stall out against the Great Powers of America and Europe, and their legacy in the Middle East. ISIS expressly rejects the boundaries drawn up by the colonial powers, and seeks to mobilise people in the region behind it against the Western Powers. Islam is embedded into the culture and history of the region, and in the state building manner of ‘selective invented traditions’ it is trying to forge a polity against the great gangsters of the Western militaries, who are sufficiently successful to make their grabs (which tend to be in terms of the territories and the resources in the ground, rather than their movables directly) almost invisible to the eye.

Whilst Islam as a religion is not the only mobilising factor in the Middle East, it’s clear that it has managed to take the role of being at the forefront of nationalism from the state capitalism of an earlier period as expressed in Nasserism, the Ba'athist regimes in Iraq and Syria and the PLO.

Pik Smeet

A Quack's Confession (1968)

A Short Story from the February 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The man was certainly ill. We all agreed about that. He was unconscious. He had a high fever. His breathing and pulse-rate was irregular. On rare occasions he would regain consciousness—but then he would just babble nonsensically, or leap about making frantic gestures. Everyone had to admit that there was something wrong. This was not how folk ought to behave. Undoubtedly, he was ill.

Furthermore, we all said something should be done about it. A few advocated prayer, others punishment. But most of us rejected such foolish advice. We were determined to treat his illness properly, medically and effect his cure.

"The correct treatment is quite apparent," said one. "The patient is unconscious, so we must wake him up. We can do this by shaking him vigorously, and by sounding loud noises in his ear."

"Perfect!" cried another. "And since he has a temperature we must cool him down. Let us submerge his body in icy water."

"Naturally," said a third. "And to regularise his breathing we must connect an air pump to his lungs, and be careful to work it by the clock."

In due course they fixed on a plan by which the sick man would receive all these types of medical care. To their surprise, however, after days of the most intensive treatment the patient did not seem to be improving. I thought his condition had worsened, but my companions indignantly rejected this suggestion, and not a few of them maintained (with deep conviction) that our man was on the mend. "Only a soulless cynic could deny that we have made progress," someone remarked, with a contemptuous glance in my direction.

At this I felt I had to speak out. "My knowledge of medicine is very slight," I told them. "But I do think we've been setting about this problem in the wrong manner. It seems to me that these disorders which you have been treating: the temperature, the irregular pulse and so on—these are but symptoms of something deeper. I think we should discover the cause of the illness and treat that."

At this there was, first of all, a great deal of laughter, but when I persisted, amusement turned into annoyance. One of my friends, a little kindlier than the rest, told me: "I can appreciate your concern. When I was your age I too had these high-flown ideas. However, we've a practical job to do now, and we're doing it as well as we can. These abstract notions of yours may sound all right in theory, but you must remember: medicine is the science of the possible."

"The so-called treatment you're using isn't curing the patient," I remonstrated. "If you never tackle the roots of the ailment, he will never recover. You may even be responsible for his death."

"That's going too far," I was rebuked. "Cherish your own ideals if you want to, but don't cast aspersions on decent people who are doing a necessary job. We're extremely devoted to our medical work, and it makes my blood boil to hear the irresponsible suggestion that it's all in vain. We cannot expect overnight miracles, after all."

Throughout all these conversations, the patient was groaning pitifully, and was therefore ducked in even colder water, shaken yet more roughly, submitted to louder and louder noises, etc. I was infuriated and went off to consult some books on medicine and physiology, where I soon discovered the cause of our patient's infirmity. As a matter of fact it is quite a simple virus, and very easy to eradicate.

But I could never persuade the others to listen to me, and they came increasingly to think of me as an obstructive person with a dangerous obsession. At length I was becoming such a nuisance that they had me locked up. I have been in this prison cell ever since. I am allowed newspapers, and in all of them I read that the patient is about to recover.

Yesterday I had a visitor—my fiercest opponent, the one who had denounced me more heatedly than anybody else, the one who was most dedicated to the view that only symptoms should be treated. "I'm genuinely sorry to see you here," he said. And I could see that he was.

"This may surprise you, but I personally feel there may be a lot in what you say. I couldn't come out on your side though. All these ideas about viruses are far too much in advance of the thinking of ordinary people. We must educate them gradually. In time, if we keep on treating symptoms, they will come to see that we must eventually eradicate the cause as well. I admire your stand, but we must be realistic, and not move ahead of the times."

With that, and a promise that I would be more comfortable, he shook me warmly by the hand and left.

All the same, it is extremely lonely here in the cell, and sometimes, at night, I am awakened by the patient's screams of agony.

David Ramsay Steele 

The Enemy on the Left! (1973)

The Enemy on the Left Column from the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

A regular column dealing with the antics of those who call themselves socialists but in practice do nothing but harm to the cause.

The material in this month's column is drawn from an article in a recent issue of the intellectual periodical Encounter who in turn are quoting from the leading ultra-left magazine in West Germany, Kursbuch. The German paper featured reports from a number of contributors, all known for their leftist views, about conditions in some of the so-called "socialist" countries. There is not room in this column to give more than a sample of the quotes from these reports but one can mention at the outset the remark of the editor (himself a well-known German left-winger) that it is noticeable that members of western communist parties are prepared to travel around Europe, even to such places as fascist Greece, but carefully avoid places like Hungary or the Ukraine. "The comrades just don't want to look at revolutionary reality."

However, the contributors did take the plunge and we follow with some excerpts from their reports. "The social system of Czechoslovakia is not socialist, but centralist, bureaucratic and totalitarian." The reporter has shied off the term capitalist, but not bad for a left-winger. As for North Korea, the state is described as an "authoritarian, nationalist, Fuehrerstaat". I prefer the term "red-fascist" but we see what he means. The North Koreans are forced to honour Kim Il Sung and his family as a holy family. Schoolchildren must recite: "The leader loves all children; all children  love the leader". Shades of Stalin. Not to mention Hitler. Party functionaries speak to the citizenry like army commanders and nobody dares get too close to the limousines in which they drive to their own separate shops and private theatre entrances.

"Cuba has been turned by Castro and Guevera into a living hell." (Yes, the same Che who was such a cult figure among the leftist students only yesterday; the name means rather less today. Tomorrow: "Che Who?") Castro's rule is a "hyphenated monstrosity: Hunger — Fear — Chaos — Terror". The support for the régime comes from the "partisan aristocracy", the old cronies of Castro and the Officer Corps. This "closed group" lives in luxury and enjoys exclusive privileges. Their favourite car is the Alfa-Romeo deluxe 1750. "This is the new class which preaches self-denial and sacrifice to the masses and speaks lightly of 'material differences', which propagandizes for the New Man with a Rolex on the wrist and an Uppman cigar between the fingers." (Shades of Animal Farm; how these red-fascists don't change.) There are no fewer than 20,000 political prisoners — but you won't find leftist creeps like Tariq Ali shedding any tears for these poor devils when they attend Castro's junkets, or leftist scribblers like the Guardian's Gott. It remains to add, sadly, that the German editor entitles the article "The Dilemma of Socialism and State Power". Schweinerei!

L. E. Weidberg     

Violence and the Social Revolution (1924)

From the December 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is customary for our opponents to represent the Social Revolution as an orgy of bloodshed. They profess to believe that violence, in various forms, is its essential feature. Thus Mr. Arthur Henderson, Secretary of the Labour Party, in an article in the "Daily Herald" (November 19th), refers to "the odour of blood and hatred, etc, which clings to the idea of the Social Revolution." He wishes this "odour" to be dissociated from the programme of "fundamental economic transformation" proposed by the Labour Party, and expresses the opinion that the Party has suffered from some of its adherents talking about the "iniquities of the capitalist class," and "the class war."

Before proceeding to examine this conception more closely, it is worth noting that the above Mr. Arthur Henderson was for some considerable period a member of a Government which, among others, was officially responsible for the slaughter of millions of members of the working class. Apparently Mr. Henderson's aversion to blood and hatred does not prevent him from helping to carry on a war in the interests of the ruling class.

The same remark applies to numerous other members of the present-day "party of peace."

Another point which calls for comment is the fact that none of the proposals of the Labour Party which have found practical legislative shape involve any "fundamental economic transformation." On the contrary, every one of these proposals has always recognised the legality of the ownership by its present proprietors of the mass of wealth which we refer to as the means of living, that is the land, railways, factories, etc.

An economic transformation could only be fundamental if this legal right of the owner-class was abolished, through the conversion of the means of life into the common property of the whole community. The dispossession of the master-class by the wage-slave class, that is alone a fundamental change since it upsets the very basis of the existing social order; and that is precisely the essential feature of the social revolution. Any violence there may be will be entirely incidental, and will obviously depend upon the nature of the resistance offered by the master-class to the abolition of their privileges. So long as the master-class control the political machinery and along with it the major force in society it is clear that a revolutionary organisation is not in a position to use force with any chance of success, and consequently has no interest in doing so. On the other hand, once the revolutionary party has conquered political power the force it will exercise to carry out its object will then be "constitutional," i.e., the act of established authority.

The Labour Party along with their Communist supporters encourage the idea that revolution and political activity along peaceful and legal lines are in some way opposed to one another. The Socialist Party denies such opposition. With the social revolution as its avowed object it proclaims the necessity of the workers becoming organised consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government (see Declaration of Principles) as the means of accomplishing that object. Its activity consists in endeavouring to convince the workers of the need for Socialism, which consequently brings it into conflict with all parties which seek to persuade them that some other object is worthy of their support.

In conducting this activity we are guided by the fact that the interests of the workers and their masters are opposed to one another. The established order is responsible for poverty; it is therefore to the interests of the workers to abolish it.

At the same time the present basis of society provides the few with wealth. We need not be astonished then they they defend it. This elementary fact is continually being obscured by reformers of every description.

They profess to be able to harmonise class interests and see no harm in exchanging political support with the parties of the masters. Thus the Labour Party held office by consent of a majority of Liberals and Conservatives in the late Parliament. Such a position would be inconceivable in the case of a Socialist Party. Acting in the interests of the workers, it would oppose the parties of the masters at every step, and would consequently meet with their opposition in return. Such a party can only exist and develop as a result of an increasing mental grasp by the workers of their own position.

Mr. Arthur Henderson and his associates fear such a development. Hence their aversion to any discussion of the class war. The fact of such a conflict in society, evident throughout every section of economic life, must be kept apart from political issues to suit their ambitions to be successful statesmen. But economic evolution is no respecter of personal ambitions.

The class war continues and becomes more intense in spite of all efforts to hide it.

The question is not fundamentally one of morality. The Socialist Party does not talk of the iniquity of the master-class. They, like ourselves, are the creatures of social development. Consequently we do not howl for their blood. Candidly, it is their property we want, and if they are determined to die rather than yield, die they must; but we do not imagine that social evils are due to their sins or that any altered outlook on their part will remove these evils. The system is the cause of these evils, and the system must be abolished. Instead of abolishing the system the Labour Party proposes to camouflage it by turning shareholders into Government Bondholders. They simply propose to paint Capitalism red (like a pillar-box) and call it Socialism.

The social revolution is the only logical outcome of the existing struggle between the classes. The master-class cannot exist without a slave-class and that class in its turn cannot exist except as a result of a continual conflict with its masters for its means of subsistence.

Strikes and lock-outs are not the results of mere differences of opinion. They proceed from an antagonism of interest. In order that the masters make a profit, wages must be kept as low as will allow the worker to produce that profit. Both sides realise this in practice, however little they grasp its implications in theory; but it is not the workers' interest that the masters should make any profit out of them. Hence their struggle over wages questions.

Wages, however, become more and more insecure; unemployment increases and wages fall. What outlook, then, has the wage-slave? No hope, certainly, under capitalism.

Emancipation from want can only with the abolition of class-ownership of the means of life, i.e., in the social revolution.

The common ownership of the means of life, with production carried on in a socially-organised manner for the provision of food, clothing and shelter for all, that is Socialism, the object of the Socialist Party, the party of the Social Revolution.

Eric Boden

"The environment will force the hand of the world (2015)

Interview of Howard Pilott, The Socialist Party's Brighton candidate in the last election and a member of the Brighton Discussion Group by the University of Sussex Students' Newspaper, The Badger.

It doesn’t feel like the setting for talk of revolution. It’s a rainy day in Lewes, and I’m sat in Howard Pilott’s large open plan kitchen as he stands distractedly making tea. His springer spaniel Rose nestles against my leg, and I’m a little intimidated by the affluence of my surroundings. He dismisses the idea that this conflicts with his socialist ideals: “In order to advance the case of the working class in this society I’m not sure it particularly serves for me to say: Right, I’ve got to live in sackcloth and ashes for the rest of my life”.

Pilott is passionate about socialism, that much is clear; a self-confessed ‘political-butterfly’ (he’s been a member of both the Labour and Green Party), Howard Pilott contested Caroline Lucas’ seat for Brighton Pavilion in the 2015 general election for the Socialist Party of Great Britain. What does socialism mean for him? He’s clear that it is, and will be (although not within his lifetime he wearily concedes), a  leaderless movement. He looks at me seriously as he discusses how our government is structured towards the representation of vested interests, a system supported through clever spin and media monopolies, and yet “there seems to be this consensus that there is no alternative”.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain envision instead a system of local organisation: “Decisions about what are in the interests of the majority of the population should be taken by the majority of the population; local collectives organising on a local basis with other local collectives”. There’s no monetary system, no particular political agendas: “People freely choose what they aspire to, what needs to be made. They contribute what they can”.

I ask Pilott if his running for MP was in line with this conception of a leaderless movement, and whether the change for which he speaks, a socialist revolution, the end of capitalism, is something that could be achieved by working from within: “Voting for me wasn’t about my intentions to become an MP, to go to the House of Commons, be a backbencher…It’s not that kind of thing. A vote for us is a statement of rejection of the current society. Saying you want something very different. To reject capitalism. A rejection of the idea that power is in the hands of the few”.

“We’d gradually get a large sector of the community turning round and saying ‘we don’t want this’. That a large part of the population are outside of this [system of governance]. At some point sooner or later the majority of the population will have to seize power; turn around and say, actually we’re not playing by these rules anymore”. Pilott maintains the necessity of a peaceful revolution, and he’s evidently wary of being associated with the legacies of former communist states: “To seize power tends to conjure up images of storming the Winter Palace. I don’t think it would be like that – violent revolutions don’t get you very far”. He reflects on Iraq, Serbia and Afghanistan, observing that violence is cyclical and self-repeating; a poor foundation for an egalitarian society: “If you start off being violent, it’s hard to stop – you’re on the road to notown”.

When I first heard Howard Pilott talk, during the first waves of Corbyn mania, I was surprised by his hostility to the new Labour leader and the wider Labour party, which he criticises enthusiastically and with a seemingly greater regularity than the Conservatives; is this an explication of the much lamented fracturing among the British political left? The problem with Jeremy Corbyn, according to Pilott, is that he represents “a kind of sense of false hope. Joining the Labour party may be a bit like giving to charity or buying a copy of the Big Issue in order to change things – because they’re in bed with capital”. He contends that the Labour party is tearing itself apart: “It has got this really difficult path to tread, because it’s not talking about abolishing capitalism, it’s talking about running capitalism a bit more nicely than the Tories can”. However, Corbyn is not entirely dismissed: “I welcome the existence of everybody on the Left, because they may be asking the right questions”, although Pilott wrily adds that Labour’s solutions are often “half-baked”. Either way, for Howard Pilott, questioning the system will eventually lead to answers; to the structural change anticipated by the SPGB.

Indeed, Pilott considers that Jeremy Corbyn may be the recruitment drive the SPGB desperately needs. He contends that newer members of the Labour party, enthused for a new voice platforming popular dissatisfaction with mainstream politics, will begin to see that in actual fact Corbyn’s Labour represents more of “the same old same old; squabbling over Trident, talking about bombing Syria, not doing anything about tuition fees”. To be in Labour, according to Pilott, is to be “bogged down in the minutiae of managing capitalism”. Yet, despite Howard Pilott’s passions for the advancement of socialist ‘rationalism’, the SPGB struggles with attendance at public meetings, even in Brighton. Does he get dejected? “It’s a bit demotivating at times. We’re not a big party at the moment (he laughs, adding that he only got 88 votes in the general election), we’re not going to make a major dent in the world”.

“I think it’s a bit like ‘what did you do in the war Daddy?’, ‘what’s the bit you’re doing towards the environment?’ It’s about what you’re doing in these areas on a personal level. I think it’s really important to keep the flag flying. We’re still here: this is the alternative, opportunities are available for you”. Whilst Howard Pilott thinks that there’s “not a chance” capitalism will end within his lifetime, he thinks there’s already steps being taken: “The thing that is going to force the hand of the world is the environment. Even Bill Gates now has said that he doesn’t think the market system can deliver [a solution to climate change]. What will happen is that there will be an increasing polarity of interests”.

The consequence of environmental pressures could go either way, Pilott says, according to this polarity; he’s afraid of the alternative: “Society could become more oppressive, more fascistic”. Yet he’s mentioned previously that socialists should vote Tory. He laughs when I ask him about this, but admits that “this is something I’ve always struggled with. I subscribe to the Marxist idea of false consciousness – people are arguing in favour of things that are not in their interest”. He ascribes UKIP’s popularity to this notion: “What is Nigel Farage? A city trader, a millionaire. They think that because he’s got a pint and a fag in his hand he’s one of them. What does he want to do? Cut taxes for the rich”.

If there is a false consciousness, as Howard Pilott attributes, how can there be the break necessary for a socialist revolution? Pilott smiles, “well you can talk to them, which my party has tried to do for 110 years. Or alternatively, you can wait for capitalism to do its work for you. For things to begin to get so bad that people start to become more agitated”. This is his logic behind the idea of voting Tory – the necessity to shock people from their inertia: “You get more full-blown capitalism [under a Tory government], less of the amelioration of a welfare state; workers rights are removed, social provision is scrapped, markets are let rip…Maybe what would happen is that the inequalities, the deprivations this creates will wake people up”. Pilott’s uncertain however of this tactic: “That was a facetious remark I made – I don’t know whether or not it’s true”.

One thing is clear for Howard Pilott though: we are reaching the final crises of capitalism. He thinks people need to be shocked in order to ‘wake up’ to the oppression and inequality inhered in a capitalist system, and that this will happen through environmental pressures, through climate change, as we fail to take effective mitigative action: “The environment will certainly wake people up, but the trouble is, it may wake them up too late”.

Is there no hope then for socialism? Howard Pilott I think is quietly optimistic; he possesses the certain dogged idealism necessary for the contemporary socialist, trusting in the ‘ingenuity of humankind’: “I don’t believe that a society which can come up with triple heart bypass surgery, that can effectively bring people back from the dead, can take a piece of machinery on this planet, fire it at another planet that is further away than the sun and get it to land on an asteroid smaller than Lewes, can’t arrange things on this planet other than a way where a handful of people have to own half of it, and millions of people have to starve. I simply don’t believe it. It doesn’t strike me as sensible, rational or intelligent, and I’m sure actually we’re beyond that”.

Kathryn Cheeseman

Material World: Burma - More Rounds To Go (2015)

The Material World Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Burmese generals throw in the towel’ was the headline in the Times (12 November). ‘President Thein Sein, the former Junta general, promised to hand over power to Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy.’

Office maybe, but not power. The fact is that the military of Burma (these days also called Myanmar) have not yielded political power to the will of the people. 

On the Common Dreams website Mark Farmaner explains the constitutional reality (LINK.): to end economic sanctions and their pariah status, but having no wish to surrender control of the country and aware that they couldn't win an election, the solution for the military elite was a new constitution which has the appearance of democracy yet which still left them in control.

The democratically elected MPs will be joined in the new parliament by another 116 MPs, all appointed by the head of the army, 25 percent of the total, who will choose one of the two vice presidents, and like them, will be a soldier. The head of the Burmese army also gets to choose key government ministers. The Defence Minister, Home Affairs Minister and Border Affairs Minister who will all be serving soldiers. This puts the armed forces outside of the control of the new government. The new government will not have control over the police, justice system, security services or issues in ethnic states where the army, according to numerous human rights organisations, have been committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Without control of the police or being able to create a truly independent judiciary people will still be able to be jailed for their political beliefs or actions. A National League for Democracy (NLD) government won’t be able to use the military budget to try to rein in the army. The army sets its own budget. The government has to make do with the money left over. No surprise, then, that military spending is higher than health and education combined.

Just in case an NLD government should still try to implement policies the military doesn't like, above both parliament and government is a 'National Defense and Security Council'. Constitutionally, it is the most powerful body in Burma. It has eleven members, six of whom come from the military, so it has a built-in majority. It could overrule decisions made by an NLD government. If these checks on the power of the government were not enough, the military also inserted clauses in the constitution that give it the right to retake power for vague and unspecified ‘national security’ and ‘national unity’ reasons. In the special case of Aung San Suu Kyi, the military placed a specific clause in the constitution that a president can't have children who are citizens of foreign countries, which she does, just to prevent her ever becoming president.

Perhaps the constitution can now be amended? The generals foresaw the possibility and this is the importance of the 25 percent of seats quota for the military in parliament. To change the constitution, more than 75 percent of MPs have to vote for it so the military have a veto over constitutional reform. No change unless they agree to it.

This is not political democracy. The military dictatorship has tried to ensure that the state continues to be their ‘executive committee’ while offering the sop of token democracy. The military are fully integrated into the commerce of Burma, trading as capitalists in their own right, and to preserve their business interests they want to remain in control of the state. Mark Farmaner aptly describes it as ‘democracy on a leash’. Even so the NLD won enough seats to be able to appoint the president.  In Western democracies, a situation where the military are not under the control of the government and where the military appoint key government ministers, would be considered completely unacceptable.

The fact is the global capitalist system is willing to turn a convenient blind eye to reality if it provides access to Burma’s resources and markets. Aung Suu Kyi’s international reputation will help attract business and the multinationals are eager to see many more ‘Made in Myanmar’ labels. Despite what the Times claimed, there are a few more rounds to go before Burma attains political democracy.

ALJO

Stalin in Eclipse: They came not to praise him but to bury him . . . (1956)

From the June 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 5th, 1953, one Jospeh Vissarionovich Djugashvili, alias Stalin, died.

In the Soviet Weekly (12:3:53), under a large photograph of the late Russian dictator, the following words were written:—

"The immortal name of STALIN will always live in the hearts of the Soviet people and all progressive mankind!"

And in a statement published on the same day as Stalin's death, by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, we are told that: The heart of Jospeh Vissarionovich Stalin, comrade, in arms and continuer of genius of the cause of Lenin, wise leader and teacher of the Communist Party and the Soviet people, no longer beats." The Russian Communists, in their statement, also inform us that: "Comrade Stalin led our country to victory over Fascism during the Second World War . . . "

In his funeral oration Georgi M. Malenkov, now Soviet Minister of Power Stations, spoke of Stalin—the "Great" Stalin—as the greatest genius of mankind, the great thinker of our epoch and the greatest theoretician on national questions. And he continued:—

"The strengthening of the country's defence capacities and the consolidation of the Soviet armed forces have been the object of Comrade Stalin's tireless concern."

Malenkov then bid farewell to "our teacher and leader, our beloved friend . . . !"

After Malenkov had finished Beria, who has since been shot as a traitor and an enemy of the Soviet State, reminded those present that:—

"Our great leaders Lenin and Stalin taught us untiringly to increase and sharpen the vigilance of the Party and the people, against the designs and intrigues of the enemies of the Soviet State. We must now still further intensify our vigilance."

And they did—against the Secret Police Chief, Beria, himself!

Three Years Later
Three years after the death of the "great" Stalin, "Comrade" Khrushchev, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in his report to the twentieth Congress of the Party, shocked many of the "comrades" present by saying:—

"Many of the shortcomings we are now working to eliminate would never have arisen of not for the complacency that at one time gained currency in some links of the Party, and for the tendency to give a rosy picture of the real state of affairs . . .
   "If Party unity was to be further consolidated and Party organisations made more active, it is necessary to reestablish the Party standards worked out by Lenin, which in the past had frequently been violated.
    "It was of paramount importance to re-establish and to strengthen in every way the Leninist principle of collective . . .
       "The Central Committee was concerned to develop the creative activity of Party members  . . . It vigorously condemned the cult of the individual as being alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, a cult which tends to make a particular leader a hero and miracle worker and at the same time belittles the role of the Party and the masses and tends to reduce their creative effort. Currency of the cult of the individual tended to minimize the role of collective leadership in the Party, and at all times resulted in serious drawbacks in our work."

(Cominform Journal, 17.2.56).

This was only the first shot against the late "leader and genius" of the Soviet Union—Joseph Stalin.

M. A. Suslov also condemned the cult of the individual: and said that collective leadership had at least been re-established. And A. I. Mikoyan admitted that in the past three years "after a long interruption, collective leadership has been created." (Applause). (Cominform Journal, 2.3.56, emphasis theirs). He continued by saying: " . . . for approximately 20 years we had no collective leadership . . . " And:

"In analyzing the economic position of present-day capitalism it is doubtful whether Stalin's well-known thesis in the 'Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.' can be of any help to us or is correct—in relation to the United States, Britain and France—the thesis that with the break-up of the world market the volume of production in these countries will shrink! This assertion does not explain the complex and contradictory phenomena of present-day capitalism and the fact of the growth of capitalist production in many countries after the war."

(Cominform Journal. 2.3.56).

Dealing with Stalin's book 'The Short History of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Soviet Union' Mikovan says that it is inadequate and inaccurate. After attacking other books on Party History and the Civil War, he admits that "Such historical scribbling has nothing whatever in common with Marxist history."

Stalin the Terrorist
Since the termination of the twentieth Communist Party Congress in Moscow, it has been reported that Khrushchev made another—more pointed—attack on Stalin at a secret session. He is reported to have accused Stalin of making mistakes in regard to Soviet agriculture, of weakening the Russian Army prior to the Second World War by killing 5,000 Russian army officers—and of terrorism. Even Harry Pollitt, the British Communist, admits that "Stalin . . . ignored warnings about Hitler's invasion plans . . . " (Daily Worker, 24.3.56). He also admits in his first article condemning Stalin, that Stalin made serious mistakes in connection with agricultural policy, and later in his relations with Jugoslavia.

According to the Manchester Guardian (28.3.56), the first reliable report of what Mr. Khrushchev actually said about Stalin appeared in the Polish Communist Party paper Trybuna Lubu. In an article bu Jerzy Morawski, a leading Polish Communist, he says:—

   " . . .  the degeneration of the security organs could, and indeed did take place. They became independent of the Party authorities and were used to consolidate the personal power of Stalin."

And:—

"Later on repression was used automatically and blindly."

And further:—

   "As a result many honest people were sent to prison penal camps or shot."
  "Almost all the leaders and the active members of the Polish Communist Party then in the Soviet Union were arrested and sent to camps."

For many years both Socialist and non-Socialist critics of the Russian régime have said that Russia was in fact a dictatorship, that Stalin was a ruthless dictator, that the Soviet Union was a police State, that many innocent people had been thrown into slave camps, and that neither democracy nor Socialism existed there. And for as many years Communists, in all countries, have denied these allegations. Yet now, scarcely three years after Stalin's death, the Communists themselves are admitting much, if not all, of the truth about Stalin and his bloody dictatorship.

Perhaps in time more will be admitted. The Communists may even deny that Socialism exists in Russia.

Peter E. Newell

Pathfinders: Digging Optimism (2015)

The Pathfinders Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

There's a bit of a revolution going on in archaeology at the moment. It started a few years ago with the excavation of the temple complex of Göbekli Tepe in southern Anatolia in Turkey. The structure consists of concentric circles of 20 ft high, 20 ton stones and the earliest phase of building is dated to the Epipaleolithic, a period of post-glacial hunter-gatherer groups that came before the Mesolithic era, and long before the agricultural developments of the Neolithic. At somewhere between 10,000  and 20,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known temple structure in the world.

That's if it is a temple. So far nobody is quite sure, and guesses have ranged from a sanctuary to a banquet and festival venue to a proto-religious centre devoted to Sirius, the dog star. If a sanctuary, it's not clear what guests might have been fleeing from. If it turns out the structures were roofed over, the stargazing theory will be dogged with an obvious problem (New Scientist, 14 August 2013). The festival centre idea is the most novel, and the most troublesome.

What nobody disputes is the remarkable fact that there is no sign of agriculture anywhere near the temple, nor any trace of a permanent settlement. In archaeological terms this is an anachronism, and it's not just Göbekli Tepe. At the Syrian site of Tell'Abr, dated 11,000 BP, and also at Dja 'De and several others, pre-agricultural villages - consider the significance of the phrase - have been excavated with large communal buildings, while at Wadi Faynan in Jordan what looks like an amphitheatre has been excavated, dating to 11,600 BP. Somehow hunter-gatherers who knew neither the potter's wheel nor the plough were doing large scale monumental building 3,000 years before settled farming, and 7,000 years before the Pyramids (New Scientist, 2 October 2013).

To say that these discoveries have blown a hole in orthodox theory is putting it mildly. The assumption has been that environmental limitations, possibly population growth, or global warming or some other factor, caused distressed humans to abandon their hitherto successful foraging life and develop settled agricultural techniques. You could sum it up as 'necessity is the mother of invention'. Marxian materialist thought has been in agreement with this narrative, and indeed through Marxist archaeologists like V. Gordon Childe may even have been the parent of it.

Some modern archaeologists are now asking themselves whether we've got it all wrong. Instead of changes in material conditions creating changes in overlying cultural strata, could major changes in the cultural superstructure instead have caused seismic changes in the material basis of society? To a socialist, that's rather like asking if you can boil a pan of water without turning the gas on.

Something's certainly wrong with the picture. Evidence is gathering that, instead of a sudden headlong rush into farming spurred possibly by some calamitous event, an extended period of 'proto-farming' grew up alongside and complementary with hunting and gathering, in which human groups acquired the knack of managing forests and game. In other words, there was slow agricultural evolution, not fast revolution, and it took place independently on every continent. Moreover, the great advances of farming technology, such as hybridisation of different strains for higher yield, tended to come about during phases of material plenty, not need, quite the opposite of what orthodox theory predicts (New Scientist, 31 October).

A plausible explanation for this is that while foraging provided the main diet, proto-farming was a sort of hobby which produced not the basics but the luxuries, and groups were in no hurry to rely on it as a main food source. This makes sense because the technology of hybridisation must have been a lengthy, trial-and-error business, and not one to be conducted in a hurry when times were particularly tough. Indeed some Scandinavian sites show that when the farming failed, the groups went back to foraging, and not the other way round.

If this view is right, it lends sustenance to the idea that early 'temples' like Göbekli Tepe were really feast-centres for gatherings of otherwise nomadic tribes, perhaps coming together to celebrate some seasonal prehistoric equivalent of Christmas, and that settled living and farming grew, organically and much later, round such established centres.

There is another factor to consider. It has been well documented in studies that humans have a bias towards loss-aversion, meaning that they are more likely to act to prevent a loss than to achieve a gain.

In the context of the pre-Neolithic this implies that agricultural technology could have developed after the fact of material plenty, in order to preserve it, rather than before it, in order to acquire it.

What's wrong then is not materialist thinking in itself but a particular iteration of it. If we factor in loss-aversion as a material motivator, we see that human social change can still be understood perfectly well in materialist terms, just not quite in the way we imagined.

And what, queries the impatient reader, does any of this have to do with the cost of my gas bill?

Just this: there are many people out there who, although sympathetic to socialist ideas, have failed to lend a hand or get involved in promoting the case for socialism for the simple reason that they have a fatalistic, even millennialistic view of social change. In short, they imagine that socialism, or any large-scale upheaval, can only come about after some global cataclysm which knocks out the entire governing apparatus of capitalism. That this amounts to an argument for doing nothing is almost beside the point. It's not a political stratagem, it's a suicide note, and a more depressing view of humanity and of the future would be hard to come by.

What if such people have got it backwards? What if recent work in archaeology is telling us a different story, that instead of being driven forward by disaster and desperation, humans are spurred on by success? Other things being equal, how much more motivating is it to offer a vision of the future based on a history of successes, than to offer dark and gloomy forebodings based on a history of failures? After all, we humans have got a lot of things right as well as wrong, and despite capitalism's rat race and rigged laws, values of tolerance, empathy, equality, mutual aid and democratic cooperation are surprisingly resilient in almost every country.

If we want people to come together in support of collective liberation from an economic system that's outdated, restrictive, destructive and viscerally unequal at every level, perhaps we ought to start creating arguments that build on the abundance of energy and creative genius that humans have, and not do what everyone else does, beat people over the head with a big nailed stick.

That way, maybe we could finally extend the season of goodwill to a year-round phenomenon.

PJS

Greasy Pole: Liz and Her Life and Loves (2015)

The Greasy Pole Column from the December 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Is This Thing Called Love? was Cole Porter’s epic contribution to musical morale in the slump of the 1930s. A more recent example of the misuse of the word was when Prime Minister David Cameron assured us that ‘I love the NHS’, provoking a rage of response from the doctors, nurses, technicians, carers about how and why this thing Cameron calls ‘love’ could actually mean government policies so designedly restrictive and damaging to their work and to the patients who rely on their skills and application. And then, from the opposite Benches, there was another politician who, looking to impress us, declared that that ‘Labour is the party I love’. This was Liz Kendall, as she announced that she was a candidate in the Labour Party’s recent leadership election. Mysteriously, she was at first presented as the favourite until reality in the form of the membership vote put her at the bottom, in fourth place. Which was when it was revealed that her ‘love’ for Labour was not so strong as to persuade her to accept that result as the democratic will of the party and to support Jeremy Corbyn as the party leader.

Cambridge

Kendall came of a political family; her father was a Labour councillor before joining the Lib Dems and then re-joining Labour. As a child she enjoyed an outing with the two parents on their local canvassing so that, if the time ran out, she might throw a childish tantrum when there were no more doors for her to knock on. After grammar (non-selective) school she went to Cambridge and, in shock after the result of the 1992 general election under the calamitous leadership of Neil Kinnock she decided to ‘join the party and help fight to make sure it never happens again’. Whatever she meant by ‘it’ did eventually happen again, with Tony Blair and his government’s predictable failure to maintain their support in the miserable swamp of capitalism. After achieving a double first and being captain of the university women’s football team Kendall held a succession of spin-doctor jobs including a period as Special Adviser to Harriet Harman, who in the chaos of Labour in 1998 was sacked from the government. Kendall was rejected as the Labour candidate in Tony Benn’s old seat at Chesterfield and worked for Patricia Hewitt who judged her to have ‘a core of steel’ which was just as well as in 2010 Hewitt herself was suspended after allegations of corruption over political lobbying for cash, which did not prevent her subsequent appointment to such rewarding posts as Special Consultant to the massive pharmacological combine Alliance Boots and to a private equity company with links to BUPA hospitals. This was not, from Kendall’s point of view, all disaster because it led to her being chosen as Hewitt’s successor as the Labour candidate for the rock-solid seat of Leicester West, which she won in 2010 with a majority of 4017 despite a decline of 7.6 percent in the Labour vote.

Malnutrition

In her maiden speech in the Commons Kendall made a point of the stark problems in Leicester West particularly of the children there; more than a third of them growing up in what she called workless families, with life prospects wrecked by their poverty. In some parts of the city they are more likely to die before they are five, to do badly at school and then struggle to survive on low paid employment. Perhaps there were some Members there that day who assumed that she would be among the more restless and challenging wing of her party. But it did not happen like that; her core of steel operated in support of the measures calculated to intensify the poverty in her constituency. She supported the £23.00 benefits cap and the proposals to enforce a contributory system of benefits on the grounds that the present one had allowed too many people to exist without any pressure, such as lack of food and housing, to get paid employment. For the NHS she is in favour of what she called ‘patient choice’ which is actually a proposal to encourage more private investment with its prospects of massive profits for some dominant companies -- such as Alliance Boots and BUPA -which have what she describes as ‘a role for the private and voluntary sectors where they can add extra capacity to the NHS or challenges to the system’. Pertinent comments on Kendall’s attitude on this were from the Health and Social Care Information Centre that the number of admissions to hospitals from malnutrition rose during the past year, from 5469 to 6520; and there was the estimate from the European Nutrition for Health Alliance, that as many as 40 percent of hospital patients in the UK are malnourished on admission, causing many to be undiagnosed through inadequate screening. In fact the Tameside hospital in Greater Manchester now encourage the staff of their A and E department discreetly to offer food boxes to any patients who on discharge are malnourished. There are similar arrangements at hospitals in Birmingham and Newcastle.

Thieving

A continuing review of Kendall’s record finds that she supports limiting immigration through a points-based system, and the abolition of the right for immigrants to claim tax credits and benefits. She stands for the continuation of the universally destructive nuclear Trident submarine programme (which she obediently calls a ‘deterrent’) with expenditure on it exempt from cuts such as those imposed on essential services. Among her many fundamental euphemisms is one which applies to the entire system of class ownership and production for profit when she announces that she is ‘firmly on the side of wealth creation’, ignoring the harsh reality that it is that very system which all too often reduces wealth production when it is not profitable enough. Some time ago Kendall was angry when she found that another Member had stolen a tuna sandwich which she had left in a fridge at Portcullis House, used by the MPs as their offices. She attached an angry note to the fridge door: ‘I do not appreciate this and warn other people…’ to which the reply, in another note, was: ‘I took it… and I’d do it again’ . In spite of all she had been through, Kendall seems to be unaware that stealing will come most readily where many are occupied with managing the entire system of theft.

Ivan

Obituary: Stan Law (1991)

Obituary from the April 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Somewhat belatedly we regret to report the death of our Comrade Stan Law after a long period of illness.

Whilst serving in the RAF during the Second World War, Stan heard of the Socialist idea. Such was the strength of his conviction that, still in uniform, he rang our then General Secretary to say he was deserting. He was talked out of this extreme step, and advised to work his ticket. This he successfully did, the authorities pleased to rid themselves of what they called 'a bloody nuisance'. He was the British counterpart of the good soldier Schweik.

Stan was a member of St Pancras Branch for many years before ending up in Central Branch. A quiet unassuming chap (one of a very close group of young members) all of whom could inject their Socialist propaganda with humour and enjoyment. In the latter years of his life, illness prevented him from taking an active role. Although he was always glad to attend meetings of transport could be arranged.

Breakdown At The Hague Part 3 of 3 (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

In two previous articles we stated the basic reasons why the International Conference on world pollution, held at The Hague last November, broke down in failure and recrimination. The delegations represented rival capitalist states, each driven by the pressures of profit-making and national interests into the continued use of production methods which are destructive of the environment. At present, on balance, the problems resulting from pollution are getting worse. What is required is co-operation between all people and the freedom to set up a safe world energy system.

We also cited the fact that the capitalist system creates vast amounts of energy waste in the military and its socially useless jobs such as marketing, finance and banking which are part of its profit making machine. This waste would not happen in socialism which would be solely concerned to provide for real needs. So, socialism would bring great savings of energy but also increased demand in the work required to raise the living conditions of people throughout the world. However, once this has been achieved it could then be possible for society to settle down to a stable and sustainable way of life working within the natural systems of the planet without being destructive.

The idea of a zero growth, sustainable society is not new and in recent years has been put forward by the Green Movement. But whilst many of the declared aims of the Green Movement appear to be desirable these are contradicted by a fatal flaw in all green policies. They stand for the continuation of the market system. Instead of a society based on voluntary co-operation where all goods and services are produced directly for needs with free access, the Green Movement aims to retain the market system in which goods are produced for sale at a profit. This must mean the continuation of the capitalist system which is the cause of the problems of pollution in the first place. The Green Movement has never been able to answer the question which is how it can achieve a zero growth, sustainable society whilst retaining a market system which includes an irresistible, built in pressure to increase sales for profit and where if sales collapse, society tends to break down in recession, unemployment and financial crisis. The only way in which the aims of the Green Movement could be achieved is through socialism.

When we speak of a stable, sustainable society we do not mean a static society in which there is no development. On the contrary, when liberated from the profit motive of corporate research and the military machines of capitalist states, science will flourish and will serve the interests of all people. Nor do we suggest that new science will not result in new technology. The urgent need for care of the environment will be just one field where research and new technology would be given priority. However, we should also recognise that the abolition of all the economic constraints imposed by the market system on the use of labour will bring enormously increased powers of production. In socialism it will be possible to produce vast amounts of goods. It is in the light of this fact that people in socialism would have to ask if it makes sense to go on and on producing whilst using up the planet's resources or whether there should be voluntary limits to consumption and an eventual scaling down of productive activity.

There is an assumption in our society that increased ownership and consumption of goods leads to increased happiness and should therefore be a central drive in our lives. But whilst we all need to live to a decent standard of comfort and enjoyment the values of our acquisitive society arise from insecurity and competition. We substitute personal ownership for the better human relationships which would express our real needs as social individuals. Our happiness, or otherwise, arises from how we relate to people not from how we relate to material objects as owners.

So whilst we do not presume to lay down in advance what decisions will be made in socialism we can set out a possible way of achieving an eventual zero growth society operating in a stable and ecologically benign way. This could be achieved in three main phases. First, there would have to be emergency action to relieve the worst problems of food shortages, health care and housing which affect billions of people throughout the world. Secondly, longer term action to construct means of production and infrastructures such as transport systems for the supply of permanent housing and durable consumption goods. These could be designed in line with conservation principles, which means they would be made to last for a long time, using materials that where possible could be re-cycled and would require minimum maintenance. Thirdly, with these objectives achieved there could be an eventual fall in production, and society could move into a stable mode. This would achieve a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth. On this basis, the world community could reconcile two great needs, the need to live in material well being whilst looking after the planet which is our shared home in space.

Although capitalist society appears to place great importance on its material wealth, it sometimes has no hesitation in destroying it in vast quantities and in ways which have no thought for the loss of human life involved. For example, the 20th. Century was one such story of continuous destruction. We have already mentioned the misuse and waste of energy in armaments production, but more energy has then been used to fuel the war machines of the world. These have gone on to destroy vast amounts of means of production and useful structures such as factories with all their machinery, roads, bridges, railways, vehicles, aircraft, and millions of tonnes of shipping. In Vietnam the American Government poisoned entire areas of the country with deadly Agent Orange. The names of Hiroshima, Stalingrad, Berlin, Dresden and Caen are just five of the hundreds of towns and cities that have been reduced to rubble. In the Balkans, even as the century closed we saw installations in Serbia being bombed whilst in Kosovo the homes of people were being shelled and incinerated, together with their occupants. In a sane society, all these means of production and useful structures would be produced and would then serve out their useful lives, which in some cases like houses and bridges could be for hundreds of years.

Some applications of labour have to be constant as, for example, in food production. With food, production and consumption are more or less simultaneous. But with housing, infrastructures and durable means of production, the products of one generation, with subsequent maintenance, can be used by many succeeding generations. In socialism this could mean that the initial work required to solve the problems of capitalism would not have to go on and on. Given that the work was in accordance with conservation principles, that population levels become close to stable, and that communities were content to place voluntary limits to consumption, then there could be an eventual fall in production with all the benefits this would bring to care of the environment.

Seen solely from a technical point of view there are no doubt many ways in which the damage caused by pollution could be reduced with different uses of labour. But before any of these can become real options on which communities can freely make democratic decisions, labour itself must first be liberated. Labour must enjoy its own freedom outside the present enclosed system of commodity exchange in which it is confined to its function of profit making and the accumulation of capital. Not even in the most optimistic dreams of defenders of the free market will the “accumulation of capital” ever be made to equal “care of the environment”.

In the meantime, the play-acting that passed for an International Conference on pollution at The Hague last November, is booked to continue at Bonn in May. But what presents itself as farce is really a tragedy in which we must cease to be a mere audience. How much more time wasting and failure must we see before it is accepted that capitalist politicians are incompetent to deal with the problem. The real powers of action are with the great majority of people. This will be when we decide to create a society in which we will be free to co-operate and to use all our great reserves of energy and ingenuity for our needs. Without doubt, this includes the urgent need to stop the despoliation of our planet.

Pieter Lawrence