Proper Gander: Belonging to Our Belongings (2016)

The Proper Gander Column from the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The usual concept behind a ‘social experiment’ TV show is to throw people into situations outside their usual routines, such as plonking them somewhere remote and seeing how they cope (Castaway 2000, Eden) or dressing them up in period clothes to live as if they’re in a previous era (The 1900 House (2000) et al). However much light these programmes shed on how we adapt to different circumstances, there's often a whiff of them being the televisual equivalent of putting a load of cats and dogs in a cage and prodding them with sticks. The grand-daddy of this kind of show is Big Brother (2000 onwards), which rapidly degenerated from its almost-anthropological origins into a boring and degrading guessing-game over which of the housemates will shag and/or argue first. Fortunately, Life Stripped Bare (Channel 4) is much less tawdry, despite being an excuse to film people getting their kit off.

Unlike the above shows, Life Stripped Bare doesn’t move its participants into a different place to live. Instead, it leaves them in their own homes, but without any of their furniture, appliances, phones, wallets, nick-nacks and, indeed, clothes. All their possessions are boxed up and locked in a storage container nearby, leaving them with just basic food rations. For the first few hours, there’s little the naked participants can do except sit awkwardly under similarly bare windows. On each of the following days they can choose just one item to get back from storage. During the experiment’s three weeks, they can’t buy or borrow anything apart from food and drink, and they must carry on with their daily lives. Afterwards, they’ll decide which of their belongings they really want back.

Among participant Heidi’s 861 possessions are 31 bikinis and 68 vinyl records. She feels that her ‘stuff’ defines her, so she’s interested to find out who she really is without her belongings. She’s concerned that people won’t like her without her jewellery and make-up, and she feels she’ll get left behind if she doesn’t check social media several times an hour. She says it’s ‘pretty sad’ that she’s defined her life by how many Instagram followers she has, aware that there’s something hollow about her own mindset. Another participant, John, recognises that he’s lost the art of conversation because of the amount of time he spends looking at a screen.

Understandably, the first items they choose to get back from storage are clothes, or used to make them. After reclaiming her first few items, Heidi says that the novelty of getting something else back wears off within minutes, whereas at the start she got a high with each reclaimed item: ‘The more stuff I get back, the less happy I am'. On day five, Andrew and Georgia choose their phones, while housemate Tom instead picks some socks, saying that having his phone isn’t in the spirit of the exercise. A week later he chooses his hitherto under-used piano, wanting to take the opportunity to learn to play it while he has fewer distractions.

After the 21 days, lorries return to the participants’ homes and they get their remaining belongings back. The final part of the experiment is to decide how many of them they want to keep. Together, the three households get rid of nearly a third of their possessions, and feel better for de-cluttering. Heidi says she used to feel that she needs belongings to make her who she is, and comes to believe she wasted her time validating her life through social media. She learns to worry less about needing other people’s approval, put things more into perspective, and make the most of what she’s got.

The point of Life Stripped Bare isn’t to find out how well we can survive with few possessions. It’s more about exploring how we relate to what we own. Which of our belongings are most important to us, why, and what do they say about how we feel about ourselves? The relative scarcity of possessions (and the threat of their scarcity) in capitalism underpins our attitudes to what we possess. Owning things represents some kind of security, and we’re encouraged to equate success with having lots of stuff. Which particular commodities we own, and the extent to which we define ourselves through them, often hinges on how well they have been marketed to us. What we own also affects how we relate to other people, whether we rely on how we’re dressed to win respect or if having phones with social media alienates us as well as brings us together. We've always attached meanings to our belongings, and always will. How we do this depends on the way society mediates between ourselves and what we can own. Capitalism both restricts us and pressurises us into owning stuff, so no wonder there’s often something troubling about how we relate to our possessions, as Heidi and the other participants in Life Stripped Bare found out. With all the questions the programme raises about our attachments to our belongings, it’s ironic that it’s sponsored, and by Samsung Home Appliances.

Mike Foster

The Audible Unsung Ally (1974)

From the July 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The BBC enjoys, probably justly, the reputation of being the most “respectable”, honest and impartial broadcasting organization in the world. As such, a global audience tunes in to its programmes in many languages which go out around the clock.

Having said that, a comparatively short article in The Guardian of 16th May 1974 explains just what, within the context of capitalism, such a reputation for honesty and impartiality means.

The article dealing with the proposed cuts in expenditure on overseas broadcasting is, most aptly, entitled “A business ally in jeopardy”. About half-way through comes the first really significant paragraph:

The BBC World Service means a lot of things to many people. One of its lesser known activities, however, is the influence it has on Britain’s exports.

This ally of British manufacturers broadcasts a variety of programmes expounding the achievements of British industry and technology. Mr. G. E. Mansell, Managing Director of the BBC’S External Services, is quoted as saying:

We not only mention British Science, technology, industry and exports, but we report any noteworthy achievements in these fields on our world news bulletins, on Radio Newsreel and the various magazine and specialist programmes we broadcast.

Also, when British overseas exhibitions and promotions are mounted, the BBC foreign language services usually broadcast programmes on the event and the companies and products involved. Later Mr. Mansell states: 

The very existence of a British broadcasting service which is respected everywhere for its efficiency and integrity reflects well on the efficiency and integrity of the UK and helps to create a favourable climate for the British exporter.

Enquiries resulting from these programmes are passed straight to the manufacturers. That this has proved vastly profitable to the latter can be seen from the following.

In 1973 BBC External Services received 300,000 enquiries from all over the world. 4,500 of these were generated by just one programme “New Ideas”. A “News from Britain” broadcast in Japanese brought 1,000 enquiries. From a BBC survey of 300 companies, 49 per cent, reported enquiries directly resulting from broadcasts; some had as many as 200. One company, Halden Engines, stated that they were over-run (our emphasis) with enquiries after mention on the German and World Services. Their order books for 2-stroke engines are full and they plan to open a new factory to meet the increased demand.

Today the External Services broadcast approximately 100 hours a day in 40 languages and BBC statistics show that they have 60 million regular (daily!) listeners and a further 72 million tune in occasionally.

Some time ago we saw a lot of posters proclaiming “It pays to advertise”. Obviously it is even more profitable if the most respected broadcasting corporation in the world will do it for you; not just without charge, but without even being asked to do so!

Eva Goodman

Editorial: "Some" Stock-Taking. (1916)

Editorial from the September 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

WHAT WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED IN TWELVE YEARS.

With this issue we commence the thirteenth volume of The Socialist Standard. For twelve years we have struggled to preserve this mouthpiece of the class-conscious workers’ political party, and those who know the history of that struggle know that it has been a severe one. The financial difficulties of the undertaking, manfully shouldered by the mere handful of stalwarts who composed the Party in the first few weeks of its existence, were only overcome by long years of grim, patient, unremitting toil —but they were overcome. Working-class enemies of the working class, squirming under our criticism like noisome things of darkness exposed to the light of the sun, tried to stifle us in the law courts by means of that instrument —the law of libel—which rogues have placed in the hands of their fellow rogues in order to shield them from the attacks of honest men. We survived that ordeal also.

Other enemies have left no stone unturned in their endeavours to secure the suppression of our organ, and have howled themselves hoarse into the ears of “constituted authority.” But we have fought our fight with circumspection, determined that if we went down it should be upon the real issue, and in the full blaze of the light generated in and of the class struggle. On such terms “constituted authority,” much as it has hated us, has declined to put us down.

Years of hard and faithful work had the desired and expected result. Our journal came to to recognised as a serious and potent weapon in the class struggle. Just as our declared principles, and the policy arising therefrom, stood alone in the English-speaking world at fulfilling the requirements of the political party of the working class, so our paper, in which those principles were expounded with all the vigour at our command and the revolutionary policy consistently applied to every situation that arose, has come to be regarded as unique. Hence it finds, readers in almost all capitalist countries, and in English-speaking countries abroad its circulation is now considerable, as such things go.

The results are tangible. At home, at a time when our Party organ is almost our sole means of public propaganda, and when our chief avenue of circulation—the propaganda meeting —is for the time being closed to us, our sales are fully maintained, thus ensuring the continuance of our work under almost impossible conditions. But valuable as this is it is not the only result of our labour. The test of this orgy of blood, when every passion has been appealed to by wily politicians and callous owners of property, in order to inveigle men into a business which but for ignorant passion they would loathe, has found our principles sufficient and our policy sound. Taking our stand upon the fundamental antagonism of interests between the two classes in society, we have kept ourselves clear of the crushing tentacles of the octopus nationalism. And this without any change of policy, or any deviation from principle, or any trimming in the smallest particular, to meet the altered circumstances.

This final testimony of tense and harassing events has crowned all our years of arduous toil in a manner that makes the impregnability of our position obvious to all men who have eyes see, and the lesson has, by our official journal, been carried to the furthermost ends of the earth. Honest workers overseas, groping in darkness, have seen the beacon, and are shaping their course by it. Under the quiet but compelling influence of The Socialist Standard the ground is being prepared in more than one country for the establishment of working-class political organisations on S.P.G.B. lines.

So, at the end of twelve years, and in a moment of great peril, we may look back cheerfully, dated and sustained by what we have been able to accomplish rather than cast down by that which we have failed to do. It is true that during the present crisis we have not been able to say all that we could wish. But we have always maintained that those who control the political machinery control the forces of coercion, and we have always declared ourselves against trying conclusions with those forces so long as other and better means remain open to us. The spectacular has never appealed to the Socialist Party, and it has always been our policy to leave “thrills” to the sensation-mongers. We have preferred, therefore (and this remark applies no less to times of “peace” than to this time of war, for we could at any period of our history have gone down in a blaze of fireworks, amid the plaudits of the shallow pates of the gallery) to survive to carry on our work of education—dull, stodgy, ox-like work if you choose to call it such, but work essentially necessary to our victory.

But if we have not said all we should have liked we have said all that, in the difficult circumstances, we could; and beyond this, we have never said or written one word in all these troublous months, that will not stand the test of Socialist criticism. When it became impossible, owing to the Defence of the Realm Regulations, to defend the Socialist position on the public platform, we closed down our propaganda meetings rather than continue under restrictions which could only result in injury to our cause. But in our paper we have upheld the Socialist position through it all. Alone among all those in the belligerent countries claiming to be Socialists, as far as we have been able to ascertain, we took the right path at the start, and have steadily held to it.

So whether we sink or swim, whether the volume we are now commencing runs to a normal end or early meets the bully's extinguisher, we are happy to know that in its inextinguishable pages of the past two years, now safely and surely in the keeping of the working class of the world, there is the record of a Socialist party successfully withstanding the shock of the severest test it could be put to short of the final phase of its revolutionary struggle, and withstanding it, not on the strength of two or three ultra-tragic limelight “heroes,” but on the simple strength of its own sound principles and organisation.

Well for Socialism, well for the cause of working-class emancipation, that when this orgy of blood and entrails is finished, and the battered and torn and quivering remnants of the working class of the world are permitted to lay down their instruments of murder and staunch their pouring wounds, it may be pointed out to them that though they were betrayed on every hand in this tragic crisis, in the one case where they organised upon Socialist principles, they were able to keep their actions free from reproach and their movement free from taint.

Obituaries: Alec Hart and Alf Crisp (2004)

Obituaries from the February 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Alec Hart (1924-2004)

Alec Hart died in his 80th year in South Africa where he had lived for almost 50 years. Alec came across the Socialist Party when he heard a young speaker, Doug Verity, at a meeting in Finsbury Park, North London. He was so impressed with the case for Socialism that he arranged for Doug to address the youth club he attended, and politically, Alec never looked back.

He joined the Party in 1944 and influenced some of his siblings, two of whom (including the writer at the age of 16) also joined. Alec was a member of the old Islington branch and was sometime branch treasurer. He much valued the Education Classes held in the 1940’s at the Rugby Chambers Head Office, especially the Economics Classes. He always challenged non- or anti-socialist comments and arguments and often crossed political swords with Father and other members of the family. In 1956 he followed and later married a girlfriend when she went to live in South Africa, and although they eventually parted, he couldn’t face returning to the English climate and the problems of resettling there.

Throughout the repressive regime of apartheid he remained staunchly socialist, even though the South African Special Branch paid attention to him, by visiting him and also examining his mail, and at one time the Socialist Standard and Party pamphlets were gazetted in South Africa as prohibited literature. However, at Alec’s insistence, and with little concern about the risk this posed for him, the Socialist Standard was sent to him regularly as well as Party pamphlets etc. as they were published. He wrote and often had published, letters to the South African press giving the socialist view on current topics and replying to other correspondents in the press.

He was very knowledgeable about classical music and built up a large collection of records. A keen cyclist, he took many holidays touring by bike in the UK and in South Africa. Ill-health in his last few years took him into residential care where he shared a room with a very deaf old Trotskyite, and political arguments between them usually ended with Alec’s opponent removing his deaf-aid when he’d “had enough”. Alec though never gave up.

Phyllis Hart

Alf Crisp (1908-2003)

We are sad to announce the death in November of Alf Crisp at the age of 95. Alf was a Londoner who for most of his life lived in Forest Gate. He joined West Ham Branch in August 1930, and remained in that Branch, though the name changed, until moving to Cambridgeshire in 1991 to be near his son Malcolm. Thereafter in Central Branch he maintained his close interest in Socialism and friendship with members. His wife died in 1967 so Alf had 36 years on his own.

Until the age of 75 he worked as a printer, for many years in his own business, but subsequently for other printers - colleagues. Printing was more than a job, his attitude was that of a craftsman, but he never made a fortune at it. He undertook printing for the party which included membership cards and posters for meetings. In most cases no charge was made.

Alf was a conscientious objector during WW2, as was his brother. West Ham Branch made the most of the post-war environment, and Alf joined in with the activities. In later years his contribution would be in the form of regular support for Branch meetings. He is remembered as a pleasant and thoughtful comrade who would on occasion express his opinion in a forthright manner. He would make his political views known whenever an opportunity was presented. Malcolm tells of an incident not many years ago when his father was virtually ejected from the afternoon tea session at the Day Centre in Over; he had made loud protestations when the National Anthem was sung there to mark some royal event.

He made new friends in Cambridgeshire and was able to pursue his hobbies, notably woodwork and music. Alf was a skilled pianist and had a lifelong interest in musical instruments, making a hammered dulcimer in his eighties. We extend sympathy to Malcolm and his family.

Pat Deutz

Editorial: Circumstances alter cases. (1915)

Editorial from the July 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Probably no newspaper carried on a more vigorous campaign against the Red Peril, a year ago, than the “Daily Express.” That the “Socialism” it attacked was, in the main, State Capitalism, is a fact which only adds piquancy to its present attitude.

Before dealing with that interesting phenomenon, however, it is necessary to point out once more that the difference between "State Socialism” and Socialism, is the difference between slavery and freedom for the workers. In the former, the elements of the new society are present, but until the workers own and control, all the benefit goes to the capitalists; overwork and poverty is the workers’ only share. Until the proletariat have fought the class war to a successful conclusion, they are still the hirelings or wage slaves of a class of parasites. That is why the class straggle is the great Socialist principle, and that is what distinguishes us from the pseudo Socialists. Thus the development of large-scale industry, whether in trust or State, is but the economic basis of Socialism. It is the means which the working class triumphant must seize and utilise for the commonweal.

The “Express," however, used to call any form of State enterprise Socialism, and it is ludicrous to find that journal advocating the very thing that it formerly branded as the end of all things.

But let it speak for itself. In dealing with the war it said on June 19th:

“All that is required is an extension of the system which was applied to the railways as soon as war broke out. The railways were immediately taken over by the State. So smoothly do things run that we probably do not realise that to day every railway employee is a State employee paid by the State, and that every passenger travels as a passenger of the State, and pays his fare to the State. . . . The same principle must be applied to every other war industry with the smallest amount of delay for the period of the war. The larger industries, such as coal and shipping and the manufacture of general munitions, and the supply of the nation’s food, must be taken over at once The smaller industries must be absorbed by the State as occasion demands— for the term of the war.”

Yet the "Express” used to say that what it now advocates was utterly impracticable, and the deadliest foe to efficiency ! It was said to be an impossibility for a government to take over and organise such vast and complex industries, yet no sooner does it become necessary to the interests of the master class than the thing is done, in the two vital industries, in the twinkling of an eye, while the “Express” barks for more. From an impracticable, hare-brained scheme it becomes an extremely practical necessity. From being a grave danger because it would inevitably foster inefficiency and cause waste, it becomes the sovereign way to increase efficiency and eliminate waste. Formerly, the absence of the vivifying breath of competition was said to mean industrial death; now competition is abolished in the vital industries because co-operation alone is life. Formerly the very basis of the British Empire was individual initiative and private enterprise; now the Empire is in danger because of the chaotic inefficiency of individual initiative and the utter failure of private enterprise—and to save the Empire these very things must be abolished in the most essential industries. Truly the right about face of the capitalist Press is remarkable, even for them. But wait! perhaps they have not yet done turning.

We used also to be told that Socialism menaced the liberty of the individual and meant the regimentation, the ticketing, the registration and State surveillance of the people. Bat even so, the objector was worrying himself unnecessarily, for it is certain that this “liberty,” so far as the mass of the people are concerned, has been interned or repatriated ages ago; while with regard to the awful charge of wishing to label, control, and register men and women, well, the free born Briton has, for the past few rears, been undergoing a Prussianisation that bids fair to leave its prototype far in the rear.

The workers were classified, ticketed, and docked, suffering pains in the pocket, in that great ninepence for fourpence swindle. Then the Defence of the Realm Act hit them below the belt. Next comes the Munitions Bill to give them a farther dig in the ribs, while close on its heels follows the National Register, with its questions, its penalties, and its precious certificate that is to certify our servitude.

It would be truly carious to find out what arguments the capitalists have left even against the bogey they label as Socialism. When their interests demand it they throw their arguments to the winds and lay bare the lying hypocrisy of their assertions. Circumstances, they urge, alter cases. Undoubtedly. And in this case the circumstances have shown that the helpless inefficiency and wasteful dishonesty of their boasted private enterprise is very much worse even than their capitalist State enterprise.

And where are those damnable frauds who professed to be opposed to Socialism because it menaced the liberty which was supposed to exist in this country, and which was dearer to these frauds than life itself? We have listened in vain for the protests against the Register, etc., by the Liberty and Property Defence League or any similar body. Those doughty champions of individual liberty in the Anti-Socialist Union who never tired of assailing us on the false ground that we advocate what the Government is now doing, are now silent and acquiescent.

The sad truth is that under cover of national necessity the chains of servitude are being fastened more firmly upon the limbs of the worker. Nevertheless there is no room for pessimism. Economic development proceeds apace. The ruling class, in the pursuit of its interests, refutes its own arguments, eats its own words, and, in very truth, helps dig its own grave. Socialism is ever more clearly demonstrated to be both possible and necessary. Every fresh phase of capitalism throws into relief the antagonism of classes, and indicates the need for the working class to become masters of the State, and use its supreme economic power for the liberation of human kind from wage slavery. And the day of that liberation may come sooner than we now dare to think.

Editorial: Our Tenth Volume. (1914)

Editorial from the August 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

With this issue we close the 10th volume of the Socialist Standard. When the history of the final struggle for working-class emancipation comes to be written, the history of these ten volumes will form so integral and by no means uninteresting part of those records. The story of the bold shouldering of the heavy responsibility, both financial and journalistic, of the production of such an organ, by the few men and women who founded the Socialist Party; the struggle to maintain the paper against the attacks of those who saw in it a working-class weapon that was to be feared, and therefore hated; the long and bitter fight for the foremost place in working class political papers: all these are phases of working-class striving that will not be forgotten when the struggle is over and classes are no more.

At the moment, however, the most interesting as well as the most important thing to he pointed out is that the 10th volume closes exactly as the 1st commenced —the free and untrammelled weapon of working-class revolution and emancipation. The reason of this is not far to seek. It is simply that at its founding it was placed upon the firm base prescribed by the principles in the light of which the Socialist Party shape their every action. Hence its continued and growing success as a revolutionary weapon is a further triumph for, and vindication of, those principles.

It is quite as it should be that the circulation of our official organ is larger now than it baa been at any time in its existence. In this it marks the steady progress of the Party and the Party’s propaganda. Resolutely declining to trust to the fickle favours of passing sensation, we have to fight hard to gain ground—but once we have gained it we never lose it: it is ours for all time.

It is this steady march, sustained not on the seductive sweets offered in sensations and side issues, but on the solid bread of Socialist knowledge—the propaganda of the principle of the class struggle—that makes us feared and hated by the master class of this country and their henchmen as no other political party is feared and hated.

To this result, desirable because it is a certain symptom of a successful fight, the Socialist Standard contributes in a very large degree, hence it behoves all those who desire to see the progress and triumph of the revolutionary propaganda, to give their whole-hearted, ungrudging, and consistent support to our Party organ, to the end that it may go on from success to greater success in its mission of fitting the workers for the struggle that lies before them.

Equality, Not Sameness (2016)

From the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘You can’t have a world of equality,’ it is sometimes said, ‘because people differ. They differ in ability, energy, creativity. A world where everyone was forced to be equal simply wouldn’t work.’

Socialists want a society of equality, but that emphatically does not mean we want a world where everybody is the same. People do indeed differ, in terms of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, any disabilities and so on. We do not all have the capability to be a Beethoven, Dickens, Picasso or Einstein; but that is not an argument against equality.

So what do socialists mean by equality? Firstly, everyone will have the same kind of access to the goods and services produced in socialism. This will mean free access to, at the very least, the basic needs of human beings: food, housing, clothes, heating, household goods, travel, education, leisure time. Nobody will live in a thirty-room mansion, and equally nobody will live in a slum. Nobody will have to choose between eating and heating, or put off getting a new coat or pair of shoes. Secondly, everyone’s opinion will be equal in terms of deciding what should be done or how resources should be allocated. This does not imply that people will be voting all the time or spending hour after hour in meetings: it just means that there will be no power-holders or elites who will decide things for others and also that there will be no impersonal market forces that determine what transpires. Thirdly, work will be organised on a truly democratic basis, with no bosses or hierarchies and nobody being ordered around. There will still have to be organisation, of course, but work will be made as safe and satisfying and comradely as possible.

Where, then, does this leave the point that people are different? There is an old saying, ‘It takes all sorts to make a world – fortunately’. People have a diverse range of interests and abilities, and in socialism they will be able to develop and make use of these in ways simply not possible under capitalism. People may be interested in railways or computers or pottery or carpentry or chemistry, and they will be in a position to use these abilities to help meet human need. They may discover new abilities that are never explored under the present narrow system. Presumably there will still be top novelists, musicians and scientists, some with famous names, but no celebrity culture as now.

Further, it need not follow that socialist society would be exactly the same everywhere. There will very likely be differences in language, and in tastes in music, food and clothing in different parts of the world. We cannot predict this now but we certainly do not envisage a bland uniformity. And no doubt people will want to express their individual styles and preferences in lots of different ways.

So equality does not imply sameness or identity, just a democratic society where people have the same amount of control over their lives, and where creativity can truly flourish without the encumbrances of class and the profit motive.

Paul Bennett

Party Notes. (1909)

Party News from the November 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two Party candidates are contesting local elections in Burnley and three in Tooting, and full advantage is being taken of the special facilities thus offered for propaganda.

Elsewhere our comrades are in evidence. In Islington, where the “Social-Democratic” and the “Progressive-Labour” wings of the Liberal Party are opposing each other, our branch is running a special mission exposing both and urging the workers to abstain from voting either for those who support capitalism because it pays them or for those who support it in order to “reform” it.

Our Islington comrades, thinking of the dark months now upon us, when necessarily the sale of the Socialist Standard is reduced and our finances correspondingly strained, are organising a Social and Dance in aid of the Party Organ Guarantee Fund (see Islington Branch Report, p. 22), while a Party Social to the same end is mooted. Take time by the forelock, comrades, and remember the appearance of the “ S.S.” must be assured.

A debate between T. A. Jackson, representing the I.L.P., and Comrade J. Fitzgerald, S.P.G.B., has been held at Tooting. We expect to repeat more fully in our December issue. As we go to press a debate is being arranged between Comrade F. E. Dawkins and “ Clarion Vanner” Mr. Muir Watson, the consent of the Stoke Newington I.L.P. being required.

Following up the public debate in which the local champion of the I.L.P. got so severely handled, our East Ham comrades have carried through a vigorous and successful week’s mission completely putting to rout the followers of the aforesaid champion.

At Ilford a Mr. A. M. Stones, a Protestant lecturer, quickly realising the growing influence of our Party even in that church and chapel ridden district, set himself to attack Socialism, denouncing it as Anarchism, Atheism, Free Love, etc., etc. Our men therefore held a few extra meetings to expose the fallacy of this teaching, and incidentally to take advantage of the advertisement given to Socialism by this Holy Squint. The meetings proved very successful, interest being added by the tactics of the Christians. At one meeting, after a scathing exposure of how religion is used to bolster up capitalism, our Comrade Dawkins, reading from Press reports of court proceedings, showed that while so-called "Free Love” did not necessarily apply to Socialism, it applied to Mr. Stones himself, in spite of his Christianity. This proved the last straw. Our comrade’s arguments won the intelligent portion of the audience: the Christian section, seeing their idol shattered, indulged in a display of hooliganism that rendered continuance of the meeting impossible. A bodyguard thirty or forty strong of the aforesaid intelligent section of the audience that accompanied our comrades to their Club alone prevented Dawkins from being literally torn to pieces by these erstwhile lambs of God. Baulked for the moment they were not satisfied, and later when Dawkins was walking home he was pounced upon by three of them, one of whom dealt him a very severe blow on the head with a cudgel, all three then running off. (In this connection a reward of £5 is offered—for particulars apply 27, York Road, Ilford). Fortunately they did not kill our comrade (who was on the platform next evening as enthusiastic as ever), but they have helped us to effectually kill Mr. Stone's propaganda, and have really done us a power of good.

O.

Editorial: Our New Leaflet. (1909)

Editorial from the February 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

In issuing “The Socialist View" of the unemployment question in leaflet form for free distribution, we have commenced the year well. The leaflet is at once a clear, comprehensive, simple and straight-forward statement of the case, and it is up to the Party members and sympathisers to see that it is placed in the hands of as many members of the working class, employed and unemployed alike, as is possible. This is particularly desirable at the present time because not only is the question of unemployment very acute, but the confusion that has overtaken the pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties on this matter seems to have reached something of a climax. Take, for instance, the grand national campaign that was to have been organised by the Social Democratic Party. This, has fizzled out, as Socialists knew it must, and now that “collections” are not forthcoming, and the “leaders" are not prepared to take their own advice and “rush the bakers’ shops,” the London unemployed decline to be used as “unpaid sandwich men,” to walk the streets accompanied by more policemen than “comrades,” to advertise the S.D.P. Those leaders sought to excuse their use of the unemployed on the plea that they were teaching them the principles of Socialism, illustrating those principles by the unemployment of their students. The force of this is seen when the “leader” is hustled out of Berkeley Square by the police. The men, being without a leader, disperse. Their class-consciousness could not be very profound, nor their Socialist education complete.

And what of the “Labour” Party—the great Independent-Free-Trade-Radical-Gospel-Temperance-Secular-Nonconformist-Labour Party? In the House of Commons its members were busy prating about opening ports and closing “pubs” ; outside, they are now, on the platform and in the capitalist Press, slanging each other as traitors and enemies. Yet despite the ever intensifying poverty and misery due to increasing unemployment, they are all of them content to moon about in what Liebknecht well termed “the dream of the right to work,” content to dream—for £200 a year.

Take the Socialist Labour Party—this party through a somewhat chequered career has, as it were, boxed the compass, yet has failed entirely to grasp the Socialist position. From advocating palliatives it has swung to the other extreme, and absurdly talked of “taking and holding,” and now we find it appealing, cap in hand, to the representatives of the capitalist class, asking what they are going to do for the unemployed, while, as if to further illustrate the confusion existing in that party its national secretary has been expelled for assisting a “right to work” committee.

The only remedy (!) the Tory Party can suggest is the same Protection that is proved powerless to touch the unemployed problem in Germany, France, or America; while the panacea of the Liberal Government is to be found in the new army scheme, coupled with the (conveniently made from the necessity of) putting in hand that work purposely held over from the Summer.

Amid and against all this confusion the S.RG.B. pursues its course as steadily and uncompromisingly as ever. The first and only Socialist party established in these isles, it has consistently held aloft the banner of Socialism. Increasing numbers and increasing strength have but spurred it on to greater efforts, while neither the wiles of the capitalist-class politician nor the sentimental ambiguities of the "labour leader,” the shrieks of the ultra moral and religious anti-Socialist, nor even the increase in working-class unemployment has succeeded in effecting in it the slightest deviation from the Socialist principles or change in its policy. Coming from such a party, the leaflet mentioned above will throw a welcome light on the outer world of political and economic darkness, and shed a peculiar light on the burning question of unemployment from an unmistakably Socialist, and therefore undeniably working-class, view-point.

Blatchford under the Harrow. (1908)

From the October 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Between the nether millstones of the Socialist attitude upon the question of invasion, and the Liberal Manchester Guardian's answer upon the facts of the present German scare, Robert Blatchford has been rather pitiably pulverised. The Socialist Party derides Mr. Blatchford's passion for lamp-black and lightning, and repudiates his attitude upon war as upon other working-class questions; and the Manchester Guardian, with a single splutter of the pen, has killed the only alleged fact upon which Mr. Blatchford built up his war scare articles. His 200,000 Germans practising embarkation are now, as he himself admits, as dead as doornails. It is true Mr. Blatchford admits his error (as to the 200,000). There was. indeed, nothing else for it. But he still holds to the idea that we are in danger of invasion.

From a working-class point of view, of course, it doesn’t matter two straws whether we are or not. There is no reason for supposing that a German capitalist is worse than one of the bull-dog breed, and this is the only question that affects the workers in this connection. The casual person would be justified in concluding from the outcry of scare mongers of Mr. Blatchford's mould, that the Germans were a semi-barbarous horde who, having conquered England, would either put the whole 40 millions of us to the sword and have done with us in one great blood orgy, or would enslave and reduce us to a state of wretchedness inconceivable. In point of fact the normal German is at least the equal of the normal Britain in intelligence, and standard of comfort. If, therefore, the hosts of the Teutonic capitalist overran us and imposed German conditions and a German standard of comfort, there would be no material change in the case of the working class. As for any attempt to appreciably reduce the standard of living, that is clearly impossible. The working class of this country have plumbed the deeps of misery and poverty. They have, as a class, no further to go if they are to maintain anything approximating to working efficiency.

Therefore the intelligent working-class answer to the lay of the Clarion minstrel is, that, as they have nothing to lose but their chains, they are supremely indifferent to the possibility of a Prussian descent upon the English capitalist's coast. If Germany wants good old England, they may have it for us. It doesn’t belong to the English working class. Why should the English working class worry about preserving it for others? If the others want it, let them fight for it. and if they manage to eat one another in the process, all the better.

The only thing that matters is the development of a consciousness of working-class solidarity, born of appreciation of the common cause of the working-class misery and its common remedy. Socialism is the answer to every question of working-class import, and— Socialism knows no frontier. It matters nothing that England may be peopled as to one half by Germans, or by any other proportion nameable of any or all nationalities on the capitalist globe. That would make no difference to the movement of the working class towards the world-embracing Co-operative Commonwealth. The workers of all nations make common cause against the common or capitalist exploiter.

Therefore, if invasion is coming, let it come; and if Mr. Blatchford wants to don his old uniform and go out to fight, let him fight. It will he no more than one foolish entry on his own record - -and what is one among so many! Upon questions of this sort he is suspect. His reputation is known. He is weighed in the balances. He is of the stuff that the patriot is made—the patriot of the music hall—however he may protest to the contrary. He has worn regimentals and they have got into his blood. For this cause he gives himself over to the imagination of vain things (one of them being that he can speak with authority upon military matters). Wars and rumours of wars are (with the lust of adulation), meat and drink to him. He may quite honestly hold himself to be a man of peace but,—it is no more than a delusion he hugs. What reason he has, goes to the four winds at the tap of a drum. “My country right or wrong,” is the essence of Jingoism, and that was openly, blatantly, the attitude of Blatchford during the Boer War, however much he may attempt (as he has so often attempted), to disguise it to-day by quotations from other articles of that time, capable of bearing other constructions. He went “off the handle then, and his unfortunate daughter played, so he told the world, the “national” anthem (or was it “ Rule Britannia”?) every evening at his command. He was Sergeant Blatchford of the Dublin Fusiliers then, and he would be Sergeant Blatchford once again. He has very much in common with Kaiser Bill —whom he despises.

Well, the Socialist movement cannot afford to have a Sergeant Blatchford of the Dublin Fusiliers. He would be dear at any price.

But it must be a bitter pill for if the word is pardonable - so “cocksure” a gentleman as Mr. Blatchford to have to make public confession of error.

A. J. M. Gray

Tottenham Branch report. (1906)

Party News from the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like our comrades of West Ham reported in last month's Socialist Standard, we are neither dead nor asleep. We have held our propaganda meetings every Sunday morning and evening all through the Winter at West Green Corner, with very gratifying results. Our Comrade Anderson upholding the position of the Party against all comers, from the defenders of Total Abstinence to Universal Perpetualism, as well as the other usual "political" opponents, all of whom have alike had to depart, defeated.

The Branch membership is growing and the sale of The Socialist Standard is steadily increasing, over 100 copies having now been sold at one meeting.

A few weeks ago a meeting supposed to be in aid of the Hemsworth Miners (who had been locked out some 87 weeks) was held at our station. Three local Councillors were to speak, and when the chairman had opened the meeting one of them proceeded to address the crowd. But instead of speaking of, or on behalf of, the miners, he (presumably from force of habit) talked about himself and his activity or want of it on the local Education Committee.

Realising the trick, we planted our platform some little distance away, and very soon the people were around it, listening and applauding as our speaker showed how the poverty of the miners of Hemsworth and elsewhere, inevitable under capitalism, could be cured, but only by Socialism.

The attempt of the local parish pump politicians to take advantage of the sufferings of those people to advertise their own peculiar brand of "progressive labourism'' met with signal disaster, and, losing their entire audience, all they could do was to come and ask us for a collection for them. This was refused, but they were invited to send a statement of their case with any request to our Head Office, where, we assured them, it would be generously considered - but nothing more has been heard of them.

Under the auspices of the North London District Council we have started our Thursday night meetings at St. Ann's Road, and have met with that kind of opposition we had thought was a thing of the past, a section of the shopocracy of the neighbourhood engineering the trouble. One night one of them displayed his intelligence and skill by walking round and round the meeting blowing a penny trumpet. As this, however, did not succeed in spoiling our meeting, a professional cornet player was brought up and a chorus of half-a-dozen assisted him in making an infernal row. Some thought they were singing; nevertheless our meeting went on, and although at our last one an even more dirty attack was tried we held our ground, and finishing up with three rousing cheers for Free Speech, we assured all interested that we would be there again next Thursday, and we will.

H. A. Young

A Shadow Falls Across the Capitalist World (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Election Campaign is over and the votes have been cast. For the first time in the history of this country a party of working men and women has put forward a delegate for parliament on one issue alone—to capture the powers of government for the sole purpose of dispossessing the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of production and establishing Socialism in place of the present social order. At our meetings we stressed the fact that voters who were not in favour of this sweeping revolution should not vote for our delegate. We also stressed our opposition to reform policies and pointed out that we could do nothing for the workers: that Socialism was something the workers must accomplish themselves, understanding what they were after and using the Socialist Party as their instrument; for this purpose. Our opponents at North Paddington were the Tory and Labour parties.

Over the years we have been told that if we wait until the workers understand Socialism we would have to wait hundreds of years. As workers we repudiated this sneer at the intelligence of our class. We were told we were armchair philosophers, and twitted with the phrase “The Small Party of Good Boys.” Our reply has always been that our case is clear, direct and simple and is the only one in the interests of the workers. Consequently the workers will listen to us when we have sufficient means at our disposal to make a concentrated attack to arouse the workers interest.

Events have shown how right we were. For many years members and sympathisers have been contributing to our election fund. As we are only working men and women it has been a slow and painful process. Our principal obstacle was the £150 deposit required; not even a mole hill to our opponents, with their rich supporters, but a veritable alpine wall across our path. Just before the war we had collected enough to venture on the campaign and we put forward a prospective candidate, but the outbreak of war deferred the general election. When we learnt that there was to be a general election this year we decided to take part. We appointed a Parliamentary Committee who planned and, with the assistance of the Propaganda and other Committees, carried through the campaign. We decided to contest North Paddington and nominated a delegate to go forward as our candidate. Then we rolled up our sleeves and waded in, throwing all the strength we had into the contest.

We had no “National figures,” with or without cigars, to dangle before the electors, nor had we any national newspapers to bamboozle them We wanted neither. Instead we had the best of all weapons, the only solution to working class poverty and misery, and working class brains, energy and enthusiasm with which to put it forward. In the few short weeks at our disposal a campaign was planned and carried through that our opponents, who had neither the conviction nor the sincerity that inspired us, were unable to equal.

We got out leaflets explaining our case in detail and members and sympathisers came straight from work (sometimes involving long journeys) to the committee rooms to spend hours writing  100,000 addresses, folding leaflets, printing posters and doing many other jobs. Others organised or spoke at the numerous meetings arranged in the constituency. Meetings were advertised by a loud speaker van, by sticking up 1,700 posters in every available spot and by chalking the roads at suitable places.

Our Manifesto and four other statements explaining the Socialist position were rent to the 34,000 voters in the constituency, and the manifesto to the 1,000 services voters. Men and women members and sympathisers were out every night canvassing and selling literature. They succeeded in covering over half the houses in the constituency spending much time discussing our ease. Every house in the constituency was visited four times by helpers to deliver leaflets or hand-bills. Everyone worked hard and took a joy in what they were doing. No one worried about whether the work was dirty or clean, for they were working for themselves, helping to clean out the dirty stable of capitalism.

And now, looking back, we have the satisfaction of knowing that the planning and the execution were well and truly done.

What response did we get to our efforts? There is only one word the present writer can think of that describes it—amazing! Our case was put forward everywhere without trimmings, just as we have put it forward for 41 years. We held two Sunday night-meetings at the Metropolitan Music Hall, Harrow Road. On each occasion the theatre was packed with two thousand people. These meetings lasted for over three hours during which interesting questions were put to our speakers by the audience. A weeknight meeting was held at the Porchester Hall which was attended by about 600 people.

One night Churchill turned up at the Prince of Wales, Paddington, to give his usual dose of opium. He did not get an enthusiastic reception. After he left our speakers held two large meetings. When it commenced to rain one of the speakers invited his audience to adjourn to the little Emmanuel Hall where about 300 of them packed it out and gave our speaker not only un attentive hearing, but an enthusiastic one as he answered their questions for nearly two hours.

At the beginning of the campaign our audiences were small but as they learnt more about our principles and policy they commenced to flock to the meetings.

The striking thing about all our meetings has been the orderliness and attentiveness of the audiences, and their genuine interest in Socialism as evidenced by the direct and interesting questions they asked.

Our audiences were composed of working men and woman of all kinds and yet they were sufficiently interested and appreciative of our case to contribute £55 to the collections at the first large meeting, £67 to the second, and £23 to the third. Collections have been taken up at indoor and outdoor meetings and a considerable amount of literature has been purchased. Those who came to the Emmanuel Hall meeting on the night of the Churchillian frost contributed nearly £7 to the collection.

Before each of the three large indoor meetings referred to above we put up posters inviting our two opponents to put their case from our platform in opposition to us, and repeated the invitation from the platform but neither of them turned up. They had the opportunity of speaking to 2,000 electors at the cost neither of effort nor expense, hut neither Mr. Brendan Bracken nor Lieut.-General Mason Macfarlane took advantage of this grand opportunity! Why? In our view because they funked it. They had not sufficient faith in their case, or in the response of the workers to it.

We started this election campaign with an election fund of £300. In the course of the campaign we have collected sufficient to enable us to spend another £300.

On the eve of polling day about 1,000 people were present at an outdoor meeting at the Prince of Wales, which lasted from 8 o'clock until after midnight.

All this shows that, whatever the size of the vote for Socialism this time, the workers are at last turning away from the sterile policies that have befogged them and left them in the ditch for so long, and are now willing to listen to the case for Socialism.

When one realises that this happened in the one little corner of England that our meagre resources enabled us to tackle it shows what a tremendous response there would be to our case if we could put in the same amount of work everywhere. But be it understood that this is only the beginning. Next time the volume of our challenge will be far greater.

Yes, the tide is beginning to turn at last. The workers are on the scent of the source of their slavery. Let the ruling class tremble at this portent of the coming flood which will sweep privilege and class rule from the earth for ever.

Gilmac.

Hillsborough (2016)

From the August 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The former Liverpool chief executive Peter Robinson presided over Liverpool Football Club during their most successful period, the mid-1960s to the 1980s. He was well known for his shrewdness and informal management style. It’s only with hindsight we learn, that on the 20 March 1989, he telephoned Steve Clarke, the competitions secretary of the Football Association and urged him not to stage the upcoming FA cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough, and suggested Old Trafford, as a more suitable venue. Clarke returned his call later that morning to say that ‘the committee had selected Hillsborough’ and ‘the police would not agree to the allocation being altered’ either (the i newspaper, 28 April).

The most striking thing about the vast body of evidence gathered on the Hillsborough disaster is that the English game’s governing body (the FA) has, from the immediate aftermath of the disaster never acknowledged that it made a disastrously bad call by failing to heed Robinson’s advice about the inadequacy of Sheffield Wednesday’s ground. Graham Kelly, the former FA chief executive, drafted an initial six-page report two days afterwards, but there is no indication that he was looking to investigate how the venue, which did not have a safety certificate, had been chosen. The document also reveals the FA’s overwhelming preoccupation after Hillsborough was with covering its own back and getting the story straight. 

96 people aged from 10 to 67 years old died at the stadium, in the ambulances, or shortly after arrival at hospital. A total of 766 people suffered injuries  of some kind. On 19 April, the death toll reached 95 when 14-year-old Lee Nicol died in hospital after his life support machine was switched off. This total rose to 96 when artificial feeding and hydration were withdrawn from 22-year-old Tony Bland after nearly four years, during which he had remained in a persistent vegetative state. This followed a legal challenge in the High Court by his family to have his treatment withdrawn, a landmark challenge which succeeded in November 1992.

On the10th anniversary in 1999, at least three people who survived were known to have committed suicide as a result of the emotional problems brought on by the disaster. Another survivor had spent eight years in psychiatric care. Numerous cases of alcoholism and drug abuse were also attributed to lingering effects from the disaster, and it contributed to the collapse of a number of marriages involving people who had witnessed the events.

Professor Scraton was an important member of the Hillsborough Independent Panel (2010-2012) and primary author of Hillsborough: The Report of the Independent Panel (2012). He provided extensive submissions to the 1997-1998 judicial scrutiny undertaken by Lord Justice Stuart-Smith. These submissions included disclosure of the 'review and alteration' of police officers' statements. Following negotiations he eventually accessed and researched all police statements in their original and altered form in the House of Lords Reading Room. Professor Scraton has remained highly critical of the Stuart-Smith scrutiny, describing it as a ‘debacle’.

Scraton's book Hillsborough: The Truth is widely accepted as a definitive account of the disaster and its aftermath. It focuses on the inadequacies of the police investigations, official inquiries and inquests, and reveals the extent of the systematic review and alteration of South Yorkshire Police statements. It also details the treatment of the bereaved and survivors in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and the ‘inhumanity’ of the body identification process.

Following the 20th anniversary of the disaster in 2009, the government gave a commitment to the full disclosure of all documents relating to Hillsborough, appointing the Hillsborough Independent Panel to manage the process of the disclosure and to produce a report explaining the work of the Panel illustrating how its work added to the public's understanding of the disaster. Professor Scraton was appointed as a member of the Panel. He led the Panel's research team, based at Queen's University Belfast. In a parliamentary debate following the publication of the Panel's Report, Scraton’s work was commended in parliament by Andy Burnham, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, as ‘a huge service not just to the Hillsborough families but to this country’. The Report led directly to: the quashing of the 96 inquest verdicts of 'accidental death' and the ordering of new inquests by the Attorney General; a full investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Authority; and a full criminal investigation.

Sir John Goldring was appointed as Assistant Coroner for South Yorkshire (East) and West Yorkshire (West) to conduct the new inquest. On 26 April, the inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing in respect of all 96 victims. In 2012-13, Scraton received the Queen's University Vice-Chancellor's inaugural award for research impact. In May 2016 the Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, announced that Phil Scraton was to be given the Freedom of the City in recognition of his work, spanning twenty five years, on the Hillsborough tragedy.    

This tragedy has been looked at from many perspectives including the police, the judiciary, newspaper reportage and the families fighting for justice. But what about the typical Liverpool fan? Peter has been a Liverpool supporter for over 50 years. Conscious of the campaigns for the past 27 years but not emotionally involved like families and friends of the 96 killed, he attended the 20^th anniversary memorial service at Anfield and witnessed the ‘Justice for the 96”’chant when Andy Burnham was attempting to speak that moved him to take the campaign back to government.

When lies were being told almost immediately after the disaster, he struggled to believe them and even when some were convincingly refuted, he didn’t imagine the conspiracy was as deep and widespread as it turned out. As the years passed he still felt for the families, admired them, but did not forget them because LFC fans would not let that happen.

The second inquest that took over two years was important because it allowed the personal stories that were not heard previously to be told, and helped families to grieve, knowing more clearly what had happened to their loved ones. In Liverpool when the verdicts were announced, the emotions could be felt throughout the City, culminating in a huge gathering in front of the famous St George’s Hall.

Peter is proud of the families and all connected with the campaign, their dignity, perseverance etc. He is proud to be a scouser in the fullest sense, noting that the other Merseyside team, Everton were also united in grief, along with much of the football world –with tributes coming from Dortmund and Villarreal fans.

Although still appalled at the tactics and behaviour of police and other institutions that tried to justify the lies and cover ups, he is delighted that after 27 years, a serious injustice has been put right, giving hope to other long campaigns, such as the Orgreave miners who were also victims of the South Yorkshire Police. We hope that their fight is taken as seriously.

Kevin

Saklatvala's "Holy Ghost" (1992)

Book Review from the October 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fifth Commandant. By Sehri Saklatvala. Miranda Press. Salford. 1991. £4.95.

The author was sixteen years old when her father, Shapurji Saklatvala, died in 1936 but more than 50 years later her devotion to his memory is clearly evident in this biography of his life and work.

Saklatvala was a Parsee, born into an affluent Bombay family in 1874. But after emigrating to England in 1905 he gradually gave up his family business connections to devote himself to politics. From 1922-23 and 1924-29 he was a member of parliament for Battersea North. First for Labour and then as a Communist.

Saklatvala's political affiliations often overlapped: he was a member of the Liberal Party until 1910 although he joined the ILP in 1909. In 1917 he was a member of the British Socialist Party as well as the ILP; at the 1921 ILP Conference he represented the ILP’s Clapham Branch although he joined the Communist Party in the spring of that year. In 1922 he was elected as a Labour MP although it was known that he was a member of the Communist Party. He continued to be an active member of the Labour Party until 1928 despite being elected as a Communist MP in 1924.

During his time as an MP, and afterwards, Saklatvala tirelessly worked to inform the public of the exploitation of Indian workers, and also helped to form a Communist Party in India.

There is no doubt that Saklatvala had the courage of his convictions and was a thorn in the side of the establishment. In May 1926 he served two months in prison for sedition. Such was the haste and determination to silence him that detectives tried to arrest him before the Emergency Powers Act was passed.

Saklatvala’s life epitomises the futility of reformism. He was a sincere man with a genuine wish to see poverty eradicated. Despite having a serious heart condition he kept up a punishing schedule of work which undoubtedly hastened his premature death. But he tackled effects rather than causes: during the 1923 budget debate Saklatvala asked for low incomes to be free from tax. But the take- home pay of workers is subjected to downward pressure irrespective of the amount of taxes levied. A revolutionary would have advocated the abolition of the wages system; anything less is simply a continuation of the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class.

Chapter 20 gives the full text of Saklatvala’s speech defining socialism in the House of Commons on 21 March 1928. He correctly repudiated nationalisation as a path to socialism and understood the necessity for socialism to be a worldwide movement. But instead of a socialist society he envisaged standardisation of working conditions and wages in all countries to avoid the extreme exploitation of workers in underdeveloped countries, and the nationalisation of all industries under workers’ control. He also stated his belief that Russia was a socialist country.

Despite his criticism of capitalism, Saklatvala did not understand that while the wages system existed capitalism—either monopoly capitalism or state capitalism—would continue nor that a socialist society, with goods produced for use instead of for sale, would have no need of money or any means of exchange.

Saklatvala once stated that he had made up his mind never to admit even the tiniest criticism of Russia because that, for him, “was like a sin against the Holy Ghost". Today the economic doctrines of state capitalist Russia are discredited, and the late, unlamented British Communist Party has revealed a few unpleasant secrets about its unsavoury past. What a sad epitaph for such a dedicated propagandist! And what a blind alley to devote one’s life to!

This is an affectionate portrait of one of the erstwhile Communist Party’s few MPs and it provides an interesting glimpse of the politics of the 1920s. particularly in regard to British foreign policy in India, with details of the Meerut trial and the Simon Commission.

Carl Pinel

Going for gold (1992)

Editorial from the July 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

It really is four years since the last Olympic Games, and the whole jamboree is ready to roll again, this time in Barcelona. The Earth’s largest gathering of athletes and other sportspeople will assemble there this month and compete for medals and glory. Television and newspapers will keep the world informed of what is happening, compile the medal tables and search out the best news stories. And many people (not just the Barcelona hotel-owners) will be turning a nice profit.

For the Olympics of course are not at bottom about running and jumping and swimming. Like so many other things, Olympic sport has been moulded into a capitalist image, with money and nationalism the motivating factors. The sponsors don’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts, rather they expect good returns for their investment. Every winner wearing the gear of some manufacturer is adding to their coffers, while the greatest prize is that of hosting the Games themselves. The members of the International Olympic Committee are being wined and dined by those hoping to strike it lucky when the site for the 2000 Games is announced.

Besides the money, national pride and reputation are also at stake—as if having the fastest runner somehow proved the worth of a country’s government. But that, alas, is more or less how many workers will see it, that “their” country did well in terms of winning golds and silvers. The countries of Russia’s former East European empire used to be the most desperate for success in these terms, but the shamateurism rife elsewhere was equally hypocritical. Despite the fine-sounding words of the Olympic motto, nobody can pretend that taking part is anywhere near as important as winning.

The financial and nationalist pressures are responsible for the way so many competitors are forced to resort to drugs of one kind or another. The real crime is getting caught, misjudging how long before the contest you can safely stop the drugs you’ve been taking. For a tiny minority, Olympic success does open the door to relative wealth and comfort, but most have only broken dreams to show for their efforts, and often damaged bodies as well. There have been recent claims of athletes being used as guinea-pigs in the testing of unproven drugs, sometimes with appalling consequences.

The Olympics, then, are not about the pursuit of sporting excellence. Despite the dedication and talent of the participants, the name of the game is money and power, in various forms. Just as teaching under capitalism is not designed to educate in a real sense or help people to learn and think, top-level sport is not aimed at finding the best runner or swimmer. The flag-waving and money-grubbing, the deadly rivalry and the underhand tactics all reflect the sick society in which they occur. There is nothing wrong with striving to do your best, whether in sport or any activity. But the Olympics do not exist for this purpose at all—and it’s as well to remember that the next time you flick the TV switch to tune into the latest from Barcelona.