50 Years Ago: Ruling Class Use of Religion (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the eyes of the class that is supreme in society, religion is for the people, as Napoleon once pointed out, but not for the rulers. It is something to stupefy or drive into a frenzy the mass of the people, as the needs of the ruling class demand. Since the days of the native medicine man, religion has been a prop and a handmaiden to each ruling class, and a priestly group has evolved parallel with the growth of government. So much has this been so that each social evolution of the past has had a religious glamour cast over it and has involved modifications of the creeds of the defeated rulers. Apart from its philosophic unsoundness, the success and the curse of religion has been its propagation of the myth of another world.

When the oppressed are weary from the hopeless struggle for existence and might be moved to rise and throw off the yoke of oppression, the deadening hand of religion stretches out to them, bids them to be of good cheer and be patient, and all will be well in the hereafter, where “all good people" will live in a heavenly rose garden.

From an article, The Cloak of Religion, by Gilmac, Socialist Standard July 1930.

Political Notes: Humbug & Heffer (1980)

The Political Notes Column from the August 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Humbug & Heffer

In our May issue, we had a piece referring to the murky Stalinist past of the Labour MP Eric Heffer, who has now announced his intention of entering the race for the leadership of his pseudo-socialist party. As late as 1953, after the death of Stalin, he was extolling the virtues of the monster who had done to death millions of Russian workers in the process of building up the power of the state-capitalist regime. In the Guardian of June 28 there was a long interview with Heffer by John Torode, complete with the usual description of his fondness for smart clothes, good food and fine wine. (It is beginning to seem as though a would-be leader of these pseuds has first got to prove that he has all the worst attributes of a capitalist Pig.)

In the course of the article, Heffer is quoted as reviling the Fabians (who are of course members of his own party) as being “the other side of the Stalinist coin” and went on to remind readers of the way the Webbs had swallowed Stalin. No readers of this journal will have any illusions about the Webbs or any of their ilk; we have on many occasions publicised their appalling views, which fitted so ill with their claims for the Labour Party as a guardian of democracy.

There was never, at any time, the slightest excuse for the Webbs to eulogise Stalinism in the teeth of all the evidence of its atrocities. But by the time Heffer did his grovel, even those who had fallen into the Stalinist trap had, in the main, realised what a murderous dictator he had been. But not Heffer he was still kissing the dead tyrant’s feet. And yet here he is, a quarter of a century later, having the gall to criticise his fellow Stalin-lovers.

Workshy myth

This too is a headline taken from an article in the press (Guardian June 28). It is not bad enough that workers are made redundant (apart from those referred to in the previous note who cannot be thrown onto the scrap-heap because they simply live there and know- no other home). They have to be insulted as well. Workshy, lazy, do better on the dole than working. And the insults are not hurled merely by the capitalist class. All socialist propagandists will be familiar with members of our own class who are all too ready to heap insults on fellow members even less fortunate than they are. (They forget they are always liable to join them!)

Of course it is true that some jobs are so badly paid that workers can actually do better on social security. A fine advert for capitalism that is, to be sure. But the report in the Guardian made it clear that “the vast majority of the unemployed experience serious financial difficulty . . . on average their benefits total only 44 per cent of their former earnings”. We are further told that the “mean benefit” (le mot juste!) for men is the vast sum of £26.34 per week. Also that only 19 per cent get redundancy pay from all sources totalling more than £200. Riches indeed.

Bitter price for youth to pay

The above heading is not our own, but appeared over an article by Shirley Williams, the former Labour Minister of Education, in the Observer (June 29). The article was on the subject of youth unemployment, the fearful prospect facing thousands of school-leavers of never having the privilege of becoming an employed wage-slave. One of the gems offered by Williams was that the government should pay special benefits to young people engaged in training or further education at least on a means-tested basis.

The very term “means test” was always calculated to make a Labourite foam at the mouth, and yet here is one of their own leaders advocating it — and not a single twitch in the paper’s letter columns. In all of its 700 words, there was not room for one single mention of the word socialism. How can someone like Mrs Williams pretend to be a socialist and yet manage to deal with ways of solving capitalism’s problems without even mentioning the word? Let alone understanding what it means.

Make sense of this

In Portugal there is a Conservative government acting under a recently enacted constitution whose second clause provides for the “transition to socialism”. (Taken from an article in the Times Literary Supplement of July 4 which points out that nowhere in the constitution is the term socialism defined!) 

Praising Mosley!

“What Mosley so valiantly tried for, could have saved his country from the Hungry Thirties and the second world war.” Michael Foot.
“Mosley is a superb political thinker, the best of our age.” A. J. P. Taylor.

Now it is well-known that Mosley is the hate-figure supreme of the Left. It is equally well-known that Foot has been a leading Leftie since time began and is now deputy leader of the Labour Party; and that Professor Taylor, that great historian, has also claimed to be a socialist. So it is possible that you might think the above quotes are figments of an overheated imagination. They may be incredible but they are still true. They are taken from the same edition of the TLS of the previous note and are part of the blurb to an advert of Mosley’s memoirs. Further comment would be superfluous.

L. E. Weidberg

Brexit and the Border (2018)

From the January 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Irish Border question has reared its ugly head again.

The Border’s roots go back to a split in the 19th and early 20th century between two sections of the capitalist class in Ireland. In the South were fledgling capitalists who wanted protective tariffs behind which to develop. In the North were the industrial capitalists – the Titanic was built in Belfast – who didn’t want to be cut off behind tariff walls from free access to markets in the rest of Britain and its Empire.

At the founding convention of Sinn Fein in 1905 its leader, Arthur Griffith, put the case for the petty capitalists in the South:

‘If an Irish manufacturer cannot produce an article as cheaply as an English or other foreigner, only because his foreign competitor has larger resources at his disposal, then it is the first duty of the Irish nation to accord protection to that Irish manufacturer … Under the Sinn Fein policy … no possibility would be left … for a syndicate of unscrupulous English capitalists to crush out the home manufacturer and the home trader’ (Sinn Fein Policy, 1907 edition, p. 15 and p. 23).

The President of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, J. Milner Balfour, put the point of view of the Northern capitalists in his evidence in July 1911 to the Committee on Irish Finance:

‘I think that any attempt to set up an independent Customs in such a way as to enable the Irish Parliament to create a Tariff between Ireland and the United Kingdom would be a very dangerous thing’(Minutes of Evidence, Committee on Irish Finance, cmnd 6799).

Dragging the workers into it

Both sides involved the working class in their dispute. The Irish Nationalists and Home Rulers, representing the petty capitalists of the South, relied on the Catholic majority on the island of Ireland. When Home Rule became an issue in the 1880s the Unionists, representing the big capitalists of the North, decided to play the ‘Orange card’, appealing to the Protestant majority in the North East, beating the Lambeg drum and declaring that ‘Home Rule is Rome Rule’. As a result the working class came to be divided on religious sectarian lines.

In the end the matter was settled by force of arms, in the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21. The Treaty that ended this war set up an ‘Irish Free State’ in 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland, with the remaining six in the North East staying in the UK, but with their own parliament. Politically, the fears of both sides came about. ‘Home Rule’ did indeed turn out to be ‘Rome Rule’ while Northern Ireland became a Protestant statelet where the Catholic minority were victims of systematic discrimination.

At the beginning the Border did not have much economic significance despite its immense political significance as it had never been accepted by a section of the Nationalists and was vehemently insisted on by the Unionists. It assumed economic significance after 1932 when the anti-Treaty wing of the Nationalists under De Valera came to power and began to pursue the original Sinn Fein policy of economic nationalism. The result was a tariff war between the Twenty-Six Counties and the UK which went on until 1938 and which involved the erection of a ‘hard border’ with customs posts between the South and the North East of Ireland.

Anglo-Irish Free Trade

Successive Irish governments continued with the old Nationalist agenda of encouraging the development of Irish infant industries behind tariff walls. By the 1960s, however, both Ireland and Britain were keen to join what has now become the EU, but De Gaulle kept vetoing this. Instead, in 1965, Britain and Ireland signed an Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement which provided for Britain to abolish from 1 January 1966 all tariffs on Irish imports while Ireland would gradually reduce and eventually abolish tariffs on imports from the UK. From that point on, the economic significance of the border was considerably reduced. Even more so after Britain and Ireland both joined the EU in 1973 and its customs union (erecting a common external tariffs on imports from outside the EU). The border still existed but, following the 1998 Good Friday agreement had become less politically contentious.

It has become a bone of contention again because of Brexit or, rather, because of the British government’s political decision to interpret Brexit to mean withdrawing not just from the EU’s political institutions but also from the customs union and single market and its common standards.

Withdrawal from the customs union means that the UK would no longer have to impose the same tariff on imports as the remaining members of the EU, including Ireland, have to on imports from outside the EU into their country. In fact, the EU would have to impose the common external tariff on all goods entering Ireland from the UK, including from Northern Ireland.

Ghosts from the past

In contrast to a hundred years ago, neither the capitalists of the North nor those of the South of Ireland want an economic border on the island of Ireland. Both parts of the island are now more or less the same economically. Both are eager to attract overseas investment. In this respect there is still a difference – the rate at which profits are taxed in the two parts of Ireland. In the South the rate is much lower.

The DUP have been campaigning for Northern Ireland to have the power to align corporation tax with that in the South rather than being tied to that in the rest of the UK. This shows that their public humiliation of Theresa May when she was first in Brussels at the beginning of December to sign a deal on the matter was politically motivated, a reflection of the sectarian backwoodsmen and women that they are. They no longer represent the interest of capitalists in Northern Ireland. On this issue they don’t even represent the views of those who voted in the referendum as a majority in Northern Ireland voted Remain, i.e., to keep the status quo with no change to the border.

The problem is that hatreds stirred up by rival sections of the capitalist class in the past cannot be turned off just like that. They have a tendency to continue beyond their usefulness to those sections and come to haunt their successors, causing political problems. In the case of Ireland the Theresa May government has found this out the hard way, especially as they chose to do a deal with the DUP to get a parliamentary majority. Sinn Fein, too, is a prisoner of dogmas inherited from the intra-capitalist disputes of yesteryear – if their 7 Westminster MPs took their seats they could counter the 10 DUP MPs, but they refuse to do so as they are not prepared to go through the empty formality of swearing allegiance to ‘the Crown’.

Trade and tariffs are not really an issue for the majority class of wage and salary workers. These – and the politics associated with them – are capitalist issues of concern only to the capitalist class which that class can be left to settle itself. The trouble is that, in such intra-capitalist disputes, the working class suffer collateral damage in the sense of being stirred up against each other. In Northern Ireland this impeded the development even of ordinary, reformist Labourite, let alone revolutionary socialist, politics. For years there was only one issue in every election, towards which parties had to situate themselves – the Border. It really would be a tragedy if the sectarian conflicts of the past were to be re-ignited by short-sighted political decisions, as happened in the 1960s.

Borders are borders separating one capitalist state from another and have always been a nuisance for workers, impeding their free movement. Creating new borders, or reviving old ones, only makes things worse. And, besides, is a step away from the socialist aim of a world without frontiers.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: Violence and secret organisation (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 6th the American Communists organised a demonstration in Union Square. New York City. The police were ordered to clear the streets on the ground that the Communists had not obtained a permit for a parade. Five Communist leaders were arrested and the crowd beaten up by the police with great brutality. That, of course, is a common story. There is. however, an additional feature of some interest. The Police Commissioner, Mr. Groves Whalem, declared on the following day that he had his agents inside the Communist Party keeping him informed as to all their plans and the movements of their leaders. We refer to this because it illustrates once more the danger to the workers of organisations which advocate violence, and attempt to carry on illegal activities in the absurd belief that they can do so in secret. The only sound line for the socialist movement in countries such as Great Britain and the USA is to organise on a basis which makes secrecy unnecessary. This rules out the Communist policy of street fighting, but that policy is one which is of no use to the workers. On the contrary, it has, in many countries, often been engineered by the authorities themselves through their inside agents.

From an editorial, Police Spies and the Communist Movement: Socialist Standard, August 1930.

50 Years Ago: Labour Government Tells The Unemployed To Emigrate (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

We recall how the Labour Party cried to high heaven when the Tories and Liberals told the unemployed to get out of the country and look for work elsewhere. Mr. Tom Shaw, at present Minister for War, was suitably ironical eighteen months ago concerning the “ecstasies" of the Imperialists" about the development of distant parts of the Earth”. The last Conservative Government set up a transfer board to move unemployed miners to imaginary areas where jobs were vacant. How the Labour Party scoffed at the idea of solving unemployment by moving the unemployed from one depressed area to another. But now the Labour Government, according to the Daily Herald of 12th August, is considering a big Empire settlement plan by which the unemployed will be employed on development schemes in the Dominions. So Mr. Lansbury and the Labour Government have nothing else to offer to the unemployed than to ship them off to the Dominions, in spite of the fact that the Canadian Government and the Australian Labour Government are faced with alarming and continuous unemployment of their own and firmly declare their determination not to receive Great Britain’s surplus workers.

From an editorial "Labour Government's Solution — Unemployed to Emigrate", in the Socialist Standard, September 1930.

50 Years Ago: Wages Under Labour Government (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the things Labour Governments are supposed to do is to keep up wages. Since the present government came in there have been big reductions in the wool, cotton and jute industries and there are now pending movements to reduce wages in building, agriculture, mining, boot and shoe production and railways. These applications for reductions cover about three million workers. Mr. Snowden, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, controls the Civil Service. Their cost of living bonus is governed by an agreement, made as a temporary measure in 1920. The agreement never gave them the full increase corresponding to the rise in prices, and it is admitted that their cost of living has not fallen by as large a percentage as is indicated by the Ministry of Labour index. The staff’s claim for a revised agreement was side-tracked by being referred to the Civil Service Royal Commission, and they therefore contend that until the Commission reports, no further reductions should have taken place. Mr. Snowden replied by giving them a five point reduction. When they protested, he replied by lamenting the ‘ingratitude” of the Civil Servants. Why workers in Government employment should be grateful when a Labour Government, contrary to the whole theory of the Labour Party, reduces their pay, it is difficult to understand.

From an editorial in the Socialist Standard, December 1930.

50 Years Ago: The Profit-Sharing Snare (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Great Britain is losing her hold over the world market. That means producing firms are finding it harder to compete successfully against producers abroad. Every scheme is being tried to regain lost trade and to increase the quantity of goods sold . . .  The most effective way to capture markets is to sell cheaper than your rivals.

* * * * *

Copartnership or shareholding by employees is the stale device which is being revived. One of the great examples of this scheme is the South Metropolitan Gas Works, who smashed their employees’ strike on the profit-sharing issue, and afterwards raised hours from 8 to 12 per day. That firm boasts that since "allowing employees to own shares, efficiency has increased, the price of gas has fallen, and — better still — profits have risen considerably. In this firm the profit-sharing scheme was made compulsory, so that all workers would take "a greater interest in their work”. It worked out in practice that fewer men were required to do the same amount of work.

From an article by Adolf Kohn, Socialist Standard, October 1930

50 Years Ago: Labour Government and Socialism (1980)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been an argument of long standing among Labour Party supporters that the activities of their party, even if not directly concerned with socialism, arc justified because they are leading towards it. They have ridiculed our policy of working directly for socialism as "impossiblism”. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald repeated this justification for the Labour Party at its conference at Llandudno, in October. He said:

The Government’s pledges were those of socialists convinced that the capitalist system cannot be made to work. If his opponents objected that the government had not reached the socialist goal, he answered ‘No, we haven’t, but we are going to get there’.

Mr. MacDonald's statement is hardly compatible with Mr. J. H. Thomas’s admission at the Conference of the National Union of Railwaymen on 5 July 1929, that the Government proposed to tackle the unemployment problem "While accepting the present order of society”. Nor does it fit in with the significant fact that the Liberals put the Labour Government into office, keep them there, and are carrying on friendly, secret discussions with them. Are we to believe that Mr. Lloyd George and his party would support a Government which is going towards socialism?

* * * * *

To retain capitalism is a practicable policy, although an unsatisfactory one from a working class standpoint. To abolish capitalism and establish socialism will be practicable as soon as the working class have been won over to socialism. The Labour Party has sought to justify a third policy, which is that of trying to abolish the evils of capitalism while keeping the system itself. Events arc proving that the task is an impossible one.

From an editorial “The Labour Government and Socialism”, Socialist Standard November 1930.

What does the German Social Democratic Party stand for to-day? (1948)

From the January 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before the war we frequently referred to the German Social Democratic Party, pointing out that it stood for nothing more than the reform of Capitalism. During its long years of “exile” under the Nazi regime, it has not changed. Reconstituted, it is again pursuing its former policies, advocating n form of State Capitalism.

Recently a German, living in the British Zone, sent us a pamphlet, with a request that we give our criticisms of it. The pamphlet is “Dichtung und Wahrheit über die Sozialisierung ” (“Assertions and Truth about Socialisation”) and was written in 1947 by Arthur Mertins, a member of the German Social Democratic Party.

Throughout the booklet, Mertins repeatedly uses the phrase “we socialists assert,” and there can be no doubt that for him and his party this socialisation they offer is equivalent to Socialism. But, in actual fact, what is advocated is the nationalisation of such things as the mines, transport, power, the heavy industries and the Banks (p.8).

As a piece of socialist literature, likely to give the German worker a clear conception of Socialism, the pamphlet is useless. Nowhere does the author explain what constitutes Capitalism or Socialism. But the pamphlet may do much harm in that it will spread false and dangerous notions among the German workers.

In the introduction (p.3) we see the old reformist tactic being followed—the attempt to win support from the non-socialist. Here Mertins appeals to the patriotic and nationalist sentiments of the German workers. He writes : “Whoever still opposes Socialisation, is an enemy of Germany.” How like the use of the Union Jack, made by Sir Richard Acland in his bye-election campaign in Gravesend !

To build a sound Socialist movement, it is useless to rely on the support of people who do not understand Socialism. Hitler’s rise to power ought to have shown that to the Labour Parties of the world. Patriotism and nationalism are in conflict with the ideas of a Socialist party. Socialism is an international system of society; it cannot exist in a single country, but can be established only by the majority of the world’s workers acting in unison. The Socialist movement, therefore, will grow in proportion ns the workers shed their patriotic illusions and adopt an international attitude. Appeals to patriotism and nationalist sentiments delay the dawning of Socialist understanding among the workers.

The system advocated by Mertins will have all the characteristics of Capitalism and will, in consequence, be but a form of Capitalism. When industries are nationalised, he says (p.4), compensation will be paid to the present owners. But how are they to be compensated? Presumably they will he given State Bonds in exchange for their company shares—State Bonds upon which interest will be paid. Not in this way can privilege be abolished, nor Socialism established. Indeed, this is precisely the way to perpetuate privilege and reinforce Capitalism. The State will run and control industry; the present owners will he assured of their “interest,” the State seeing to the profitable functioning of industry.

After reading the above, readers will not be surprised to learn that the system Mertins advocates has its prices, wages, etc., these to be fixed by the State (p.5).

This brings us to the crux of Socialism. The wages system is Capitalism. As Marx pointed out, wage- labour and capital can only exist together: the one is the complement of the other. If you wish to abolish profit-making—and capital is wealth used to make a profit by the exploitation of wage-labour—it can be done only by the abolition of capital and wage-labour. By this we are not suggesting that Socialism will destroy factories, mines, machines, etc., any more than we are suggesting that Socialism will destroy the workers. What we are saying is that Socialism will strip the means of production of their capitalist function (i.e. the making of profit) and will put an end to the necessity of workers selling their labour-power for m wage. In other words, Socialism will abolish the capitalist class and the working class when it abolishes capitalist production. Under Socialism production will he carried on by all capable members of society solely to satisfy the needs of society.

And to do that there will be no need for banks, money, prices and wages. Capitalism needs those things because it is, par excellence, the system of commodity production. In other words, Capitalism is, above all others, the system which produces for exchange. But exchange presupposes private owners and because of exchange money arose. Socialism brings common ownership of the means of life, production solely for use. Hence there will be no exchange of goods and so no prices. Wages, too—the price of the workers’ commodity labour-power—will disappear. In place of all this, society will produce what is needed, will own what is produced and each member of society will have free access to the means of life.

The pamphlet contains many anti-socialist suggestions (e.g., Mertins would leave untouched peasant private property—is this another vote-catcher?). But enough has been discussed to show that the German Social Democratic Party has learnt nothing during its years of tribulations, judging from this pamphlet, it is as reformist and anti-working-class as it was before the rise of Hitler. It is in fact a worthy companion of the British Labour Party which Mertins hails (p.13) as “our Socialist (!) sister party.” 

Clifford Allen

The Wallace Case (1948)

From the February 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Presidential election in the United States is due this year. The difference between tiie Democratic and Republican policies is so small that the intrusion of Henry Wallace, as third candidate, seems to many as the only alternative for the workers of the United States.

Mr. Henry Wallace, one-time vice-president to the late President Roosevelt, claims to speak for the “freedom loving people “and against “the reactionaries in the Democratic and Republican Parties." His present pro-Russian leaning has ensured him the support of Moscow’s overseas agents, the Communist Party. The London Daily Worker greeted him in no uncertain terms when he announced that he would stand for President.

  “The basic significance of the Wallace decision is that the flag of a real democratic American policy has at last been raised in the United States in the form of a challenge to the Presidency.’’ (Daily Worker, 1/1/48.)

This friendship of the Communist Party however, may lose for Wallace the support of the rival radical faction—the Americans for Democratic Action (led by Eleanor Roosevelt). As the Observer (4/1/48) put it: “Mr. Wallace has forfeited the support of all true progressives and intelligent conservatives in the United States.’’ Already the Political Action Committee of the trade union federation, the C.I.O., has refused to endorse his candidature. As the C.I.O. in an election only supports what it considers the “friends of labour ” it is apparent that Henry Wallace, even in their eyes, does not compare too favourably with their rival candidates. This does not come as a surprise to the Socialist movement. Socialists have seen before these radical rockets careering through the sky, who, despite their electioneering speeches, prove in power to behave like the rest of the capitalist politicians. Mr. Wallace —out of power—speaks of the sinister activities of reactionaries who support the Marshall Plan, though he conveniently does not mention his own editorial commenting very favourably on the nomination of General Marshall for Secretary of State. 

As an old New Dealer he stands for private capitalism with a certain amount of State intervention which he calls “economic democracy.” But occasionally Henry lets the cat slip out of the bag. In an interview he was asked by Mr. Dwight Macdonald (editor of Politics): “What do you mean by ‘economic democracy’? ” Mr. Wallace answered: “I’ve written a lot about that. But one thing I mean is a mixed economy—as much corporative, small business, cooperative and government ownership as will produce the goods. I wouldn't allow strikes in government-owned industries; we’ve got to find some better way.” (Politics, March-April, 1947.) These are indeed fine words for a man who, in the opinion of the Daily Worker “represents the democratic aspirations of millions,” but the Communist Party always have had their private definition of “ democracy.”

So we can see that Mr. Wallace certainly does not stand for Socialism and the interests of the working class. When, during the thirties, he was Secretary for Agriculture he showed himself to be the friend of the large farmers. Incidentally, both Mr. Wallace’s father and grandfather were large-scale farmers. When the economic crisis broke out in the United States in 1929 agriculture was hit even worse than industry. Even during the “prosperous” twenties agriculture was worse off than industry. The farmer had to sell his commodities at low prices and buy manufactured commodities at high prices. Therefore when Mr. Wallace became Secretary for Agriculture his aim was to raise agricultural prices. In the words of Mr. George Peek, the first administrator of the Agriculture Adjustment Administration, “the sole aim and object of this Act is to raise prices.” The Act which Mr. Peek was referring to was the Farm Relief Act (12/5/33). This Act was in two parts. The first part set up the A.A.A. This gave substantial payment to farmers on condition that they destroyed and restricted their production of all the basic farm crops and products in accordance with the proposals of the Department of Agriculture. The second part of the Act was the Farm Credit Administration which allowed farmers loans at low interest to pay off their existing mortgages. As can be seen this Act by Mr. Wallace and the New Dealers had no benefits for the working class or the thirteen million people in tenant farm families or the three million in sharecropping families. The Act only helped the owners of land. In fact it brought about a greater concentration of ownership and reduced many of the tenant farmers to mere wage-labourers.

Therefore it is apparent that whatever may be the result of the presidential election in the United States the working class will be in the same predicament— wage labourers. The workers of the United States and the rest of the world will not arrive in Easy Street by giving their allegiance to politicians of the calibre of Mr. Henry Wallace. What the workers must do in every country of the world is to form Socialist Parties whose only object is the common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing wealth. The only party in the United States worthy of working class support is the Workers’ Socialist Party (companion party of the S.P.G.B.).

Those supporters of Wallace who call themselves Communists should recall the words of Marx in the Address of the Central Council to the Communist League:

   “But they themselves will have to do the most for their final victory by becoming enlightened as to their class interests, by taking up their own independent party position as soon as possible and by not allowing themselves for a single moment to be led astray from the independent organisations of the party of the proletariat by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeois.” (Karl Marx, “ Selected Works,” Vol. 2. Published by Lawrence & Wishart. P.168.)

G. Clark

Notes by the Way: You Have Heard This One Before (1948)

The Notes by the Way column from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

You Have Heard This One Before

Mr. Hector McNeil, Minister of State in the Labour Government, spoke at Brussels about the new European grouping:

   “If we are to have a Western Union then this will not only entail immediate sacrifices for both of us but it will also mean important political decisions by both of us.
    “It almost looks as if Europe has taken a new decision.
    “She not only once more maintains that no dictatorship will be accepted but she announces that she is taking immediate steps now to combine to produce the conditions preventing the emergency and the advance of any dictator or any authoritarian system.
  "That is the thought, I believe, behind the Marshall Plan, the Paris Conference, and certainly activating the recent speech by Mr. Bevin.
   “The price in cash, in effort, and in sacrifice of all kinds will be worth while if we are able to ensure that no kind of authoritarian rule will arise in Europe, from whatever quarter it originates.”

(Daily Mail, 6/2/48.)

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The Policy of the “Daily Herald”

In evidence to the Royal Commission on the Press Mr. Francis Williams, former editor of the Daily Herald, disclosed how conflict arose between Odhams and the T.U.C. about policy. The following is from the Times (13/2/48):

   “Minutes of evidence taken on October 15, when Mr. Williams avid Mr. Hannen Swaffer appeared before the commission, were issued yesterday as a White Paper (Cmd. 7318, Stationery Office, Is. 3d.).
  ‘‘Mr. Williams, whose editorship of the Daily Herald lasted from 1936 until just after the beginning of the war, spoke of difficulties which arose in borderline cases, where it was not easy to differentiate between commercial policy (for which Odhams Press, the majority shareholders, were responsible) and the political policy (which was decided by the trade unions, who were minority shareholders). Conflicts occurred, particularly before the war and at its beginning, when the general editorial policy was to emphasize the seriousness of international developments and the dangers in Germany, and to criticise much of the Chamberlain Government’s policy.
  “Often the commercial proprietors felt that such a policy, if vigorously conducted, might drive away some public and advertising support. On a number of occasions leading articles, were, without consultation with the editor, sub-edited by deletion of a fair number of passages by the then chairman of the commercial board of directors. It was the culmination of a clash of that kind which led to his (Mr. Williams’s) resignation.”

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The Russian Concentration Camps

The following arc extracts from a Manchester Guardian leader under the heading “Forced Labour” based on “Forced Labour in Soviet Russia” by David J. Dallin and Boris I. Nicolaevsky (published by Hollis & Carter):

   “The existence of ‘corrective labour camps’ in Russia is, of course, well known and even officially admitted. As long ago as 1931 Molotov told the Sixth Congress of Soviets of ‘these mass projects employing those deprived of liberty.’ A good deal of information about them may still be gleaned from the Soviet Press. But the vast scale of the system, which may ‘employ’ over ten million people, and the terrible conditions in those camps can be judged only from the stories of those men and women who have experienced them . . . All of them, naturally, are 'prejudiced’; some of them are clearly untrustworthy. Yet the total impression is so convincing that an impartial reader is forced to conclude that if only half is true it still remains a damning account of an inhuman system.”
  “The prisoners are paid—but so little that it hardly counts. They are fed—but only enough to keep them working and not always enough for that. If they die, as they do in hundreds and thousands, it is not because the State wishes them to die, but because the conditions in the swamps and forests of Siberia are so fearful that only the strongest can survive.”

(Manchester Guardian, 20/1 /48).

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A Great Game

“Major Frank (Bring ’em back alive) Buckley is what the reference books call 'a football manager out of the top drawer.’ And the Major certainly knows a Soccer player when he sees one. When he puts over a deal it is more reminiscent of Big Business in Lombard Street than the simple relaxation of kicking a piece of leather around.
 “Major Buckley was the manager who sold £100,000 worth of players when he was at Wolverhampton.
  ‘‘Now at Hull he announces that nine young players are for sale on the transfer list.
  “It is a curious sort of auction in humanity, for the football business, which has a turnover of millions, is not noticeably sentimental or generous to the lads who do most of the hard work and provide all the skill.
  “Will these players easily get another job? Are they affected by the Direction of Labour Order? And, if it is policy to train a surplus of players., who looks after the welfare of boys who don’t quite make the grade, or get abruptly put on the transfer list?
  "It’s a great game—while it lasts.”

(Cassandra, Daily Mirror, 2/1/48.)

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The I.L.P.

The I.L.P., which once had over 200 of its members in Parliament as Labour M.P.s, has now faded out as a Parliamentary party. The loss of the deposit by the I.L.P. candidate at Camlachie set the seal on it and one proposal to be considered at the Annual Conference is that the Party give up fighting elections and devote itself to propaganda.

It was reported (Manchester Guardian, 26/1/48) that at the Conference of the Scottish division a proposal was on the agenda to alter the name to “The Socialist Party (with which is incorporated the I.L.P.)”. But it would take more than a change of name to turn the I.L.P. into a Socialist Party.

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Too Many Shoes

“NEW YORK, Saturday. — American manufacturers predict that production will exceed sales of shoes by 40,000,000 pairs in 1948.”

(News Chronicle, 21/12/47).

Editorial: The Railway Strike in Queensland (1948)

Editorial from the April 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the S.P.G.B. pamphlet “Is Labour Government the Way to Socialism?” there is a brief description of the conflict between the Queensland Labour Government and the railwaymen in 1927 which helped to defeat the Labour Government at the elections two years later. A similar conflict broke out in February of this year, and for weeks Queensland’s State railways were at a standstill. From reports in the London newspapers it appears that in the first place railway workshop workers struck for increased pay, refusing to wait the long time before their claim would have been heard by the Arbitration Court. The rest of the railwaymen came out in support and refused to go back when ordered to do so by the Arbitration Court. Thereupon the Labour Government took drastic action. They “proclaimed a state of emergency, under which the police have power to arrest all strike pickets . . . . To-day the Government announced that all workers must return on Monday or they would be dismissed from the service.” (Times, February 28th, 1918.) Then they hurried a Bill through the legislature "giving the police drastic powers to deal with unauthorized strikes.” (Times, March 10th, 1948.)

Dockers, both in Queensland and New South Wales came out in sympathy with the railwaymen and in protest against the measures taken by the Government. Here is a report of an incident during the strike : — 

    "The police drew batons to-day in their first major clash with Queensland railway strikers. About 400 of the strikers, carrying placards and yelling, broke through the police cordon in a march through Brisbane streets. Pickets fought the police as they seized placards and several men were hit by the batons.” (Evening News, March 15th, 1948.)

According to the Daily Mail (March 16th, 1948) "the Federal Labour Government has now become involved, as the powerful Seamen’s Union and the Waterside Workers’ Federation have declared for the Queensland strikers. They are both ‘Federal’ unions, and Communists hold key positions in them.”

Naturally the Queensland Labour Government has seized upon the convenient excuse that the Communists are responsible for the strike, but workers who still believe that the Labour leaders can do better than the avowed supporters of capitalism at running their system should not be misled by that red herring, but should wake up to the fact that strikes against capitalist exploitation are inevitable no matter which party runs the system. And railwaymen who have just been holding celebrations for the nationalisation of the British railways should observe from the example of Queensland (where the railways have been nationalised for many years) that nationalisation does not remove the need to struggle to maintain the standard of living.

Love, Marriage and Divorce In Russia (1948)

From the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the radical movement of the last hundred years or so the “woman question” has loomed large. In fact, amongst the self-styled “intellectuals” the enthusiasm for the emancipation of love from property fetters appeared to rival the enthusiasm for the emancipation of labour. Consequently, after the revolution in Russia had been accomplished and groups of “advanced” people abroad had swallowed the delusion that Socialism had been achieved in one country, it was accepted that woman in Russia had been freed from the shackles property had fastened upon her, and free relations between the sexes had at last become the social custom. Early reports gave some colour to this view. The Soviet Union was held up to admiring gaze as a model of sanity in sex relationship and we were regaled with stories of the love life of bright young women, married and unmarried, who had enjoyed the felicity of numerous husbands to the satisfaction and happiness of all concerned. Knowledge of birth control methods was widespread, abortion was permitted and, at the worst, the State cared for children, so that women were relieved of their worst burdens. It may be noted in passing that the benevolence of the State sprang from motives that had nothing to do with helping women to engage in untrammelled love affairs. Labour was urgently needed for industrial operations and women who were free from the burden of children provided a part of this labour.

Inspired by the false dawn in Russia an American biologist decided that the appropriate time had come to give the world at large views that he had long restricted to a privileged few, which contained his vision of humanity freed from evolutionary influences that were leading the human race to disaster. The book he wrote on the subject was entitled “Out of the Night” (published by Gollancz in 1936) and the biologist was H. J. Muller. He was professor of Zoology, University of Texas; Member, National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A.; and, finally, Foreign Member, Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. In his preface to the book Professor Muller writes, in connection with the views on eugenics he is putting forward:—

   “In the meantime, our airy imaginings concerning the future possibilities of co-operative activity on a grand scale are brought down to earth and given substance when we turn to the great and solid actualities of collective achievement which are becoming increasingly evident in that one section of the world—the Soviet Union—in which the fundamental changes in the economic basis have already been established. More intimate familiarity with these developments at the time of writing would have rendered available a mass of material pertinent to our subject. There the march of progress proceeds apace, while elsewhere discouragement and decadence admittedly deepen. This central fact of the present-day social world at once substantiates, and belittles our theorising. (P. 8.)

As we shall see, it is a pity that the learned professor did not leave his visions for a while and familiarise himself with the real foundations of Soviet Russia. However, let us first of all summarise the nature of his visions.

The professor advocates a form of eugenic procedure which, he claims, will ensure the improvement of the human race to such an extent that the next few centuries will concentrate within them biological improvement and terrestrial control equivalent to the progress achieved in the thousands of years between the amoeba and modern man. For example, he envisages a time when, on the basis of recent progress in biological investigation and experiment, the human egg-cell will be impregnated and germinate into the embryo and the child outside the human body; thus banishing from love relations the biological function of procreation. He looks forward to the time, now within the realms of possibility, when male cultures and female egg-cells will be stored and labelled, to be mixed later on principles that will ensure the procreation of only the best physical and mental types. This final fruition of biological genius he leaves, however, to the distant future. In the meantime he alleges that there are some things that can be done and he looks to Russia, the Mecca of his hopes, to initiate the first steps because, as he puts it, they can only be satisfactorily begun in a community from which private property has been banished. He argues that female insemination by artificial methods has now been advanced to a stage where woman can choose the father of her children without needing the intervention of sex relations. He argues that it is only a short biological step forward to be able to ensure the storage of male cultures for an indefinite period. The advantage of this would be that while it is impossible to determine during the lifetime of a prominent man whether or not he was of a superior type the lapse of, say, twenty-five years after his death should be sufficient to settle this problem and his culture would be available for insemination. Lest the reader has a vision of enormous storage spaces it is only fair to give the professor's estimate of what it might amount to. He assures us that if all the heritable characteristics (all that grows into legs, bodies, heart, lungs, eyes, brains, and so forth) of the whole of the next generation of mankind were gathered into a heap it would be about the size of an aspirin tablet. So that solves that worry! In a wild burst of ecstacy he asks:

   “How fortunate we should be had such a method been in existence in time to have enabled us to secure living cultures of some of our departed great! How many women, in an enlightened community devoid of superstitions, taboos and sex slavery, would be eager and proud to bear and rear a child of Lenin or Darwin! Is it not obvious that restraint, rather than compulsion, would be called for? " (P. 152.)

Well! the writer can imagine a lot of women that would not be enamoured with the project. After all it is they, and not the professor, who would have to undergo the pains of childbirth after insemination.

Still, we are not at the moment concerned with a discussion of the professor’s visions of the future. What we are concerned with is the false estimate that he, in common with others of his type, has made of the present shape of things in Russia.

Since Professor Muller’s book appeared a drastic change has been apparent in the attitude of Russia’s rulers to sex relations. This change has been bound up with the growth of Russia into a first-class industrial and military power based upon the following of methods previously adopted by Western powers to secure dominance. The wealth of Russian privileged groups has reached such a pitch that an English communist has had to write a pamphlet in defence of Russian millionaires. In this pamphlet (“Soviet Millionaires” by R. Bishop) mention is made of the change in the Soviet law of inheritance in 1945 aimed at securing priority to the children of the testator in the distribution of his property (page 11). The inference from this is obvious and partly explains the recent tightening up of divorce regulations. But there are other reasons as well, and of equal importance.

In the general tightening up of regulations concerning marriage and divorce the use of birth control methods has been restricted, abortion has become a crime, and divorce has been so hedged around by restrictions that it is almost impossible for any but the wealthy to obtain release from the marriage tie. In 1944 decorations were offered to women for the bearing of large families, but the limitations on divorce and the other methods aimed at increasing the birth-rate suggest that the answer of women to this empty flattery has not produced the desired result. Why does Russia so urgently need an increase in the birth-rate? To increase the measure of happiness of the people? No! The reasons are as sordid as those that inpired the Nazi regime and all modern states.. Russia needs children as exploitable material for her industries and as cannon fodder in future wars. Hence the sex relations are controlled and directed for these purposes and to secure the inheritance of property within a certain circle. Thus, in this sphere of human relationships the Russian regime is back behind its starting point. The accumulation of wealth in the hands of individuals has necessitated decrees securing the right of inheritance and this., in turn, demands that the parentage of children shall be put beyond the bounds of reasonable doubt. In other words, the property development that brought into existence the monogamic family is exerting its influence with increasing force in Russia to-day.

Thus the delusion that Russia was the Mecca of freedom in sex relations has vanished along with the immediate hopes of Professor Muller. But the imposition of restrictions has not yet finished.

The Manchester Guardian for April 9th contains the report of a lecture to a large audience in Russia on “Love, Marriage and the Family in Socialist Society ” by Professor Kolbanovsky. The lecture shows how drastically the Russian attitude has changed. The report is from Moscow and is by Alexander Werth. The following extracts need little comment:—

   “A special reason for this great interest in the lecture was that some drastic new marriage and family legislation is now being considered by a special Government committee . . .  The Soviet divorce laws were greatly stiffened in 1944, but he indicated that they would be stiffened still further. Without ‘prophecying' what the new laws would be, he spoke very harshly of the disastrous effect on a child's mind of his parent’s divorce, adding that 'for living parents to create semi-orphans is an act of criminal baseness.' "

     "In Soviet society to-day there were still many deplorable survivals of the capitalist way of thinking and acting. Also, some vulgar and unworthy ideas on 'free-love’ which flourished in the early days of the revolution—and which Lenin wholeheartedly condemned—had not yet been quite eradicated. Such revolting practices were unworthy of Soviet society.”

 .  .  .

“It was true, he said, that some marriages broke up owing to monotony and boredom. ‘Variety’ should, therefore, be provided by the wife herself. It was important, for instance, that the wife should develop and grow intellectually, that man and wife should have new interests, that these interests should be closely linked with those of the country and community; that they should also take a common interest in the upbringing of their children. . . .  As for the 'free-love' theories, the lecturer recalled that there were indeed some 'Marxist' theorists in the past who claimed that the family was a bourgeois institution, and that the State should take charge of the children. No! said the lecturer. Socialism rejected this 'stud farm' principle; nor was the family a 'property unit,' as in bourgeois society, but it was a vital 'social unit,' and, under Socialism, the monogamous family had a better chance than under any other system. Woman would be more and more freed of all drudgery and petty worries, her mental interest in her husband would increase, and that was a guarantee for a lasting association."

 .  .  .

   "Another peculiarity of Soviet society was, he said, that all conditions were being, and would continue to be, created for having an unlimited number of children ; the economic reasons for birth control would be eliminated.”

It will be noticed that it is the women who are to have the pains and the responsibilities and the subjection. They are to keep their husbands interested and to have large families. In other words, they are to be the slaves of the monogamic family. One is tempted to echo the phrase of the dustman in one of Shaw’s plays: "Bourgeois morality. Pah!"

Gilmac

Party News Briefs (1948)

Party News from the June 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day in London was a battle of endurance in which members won a victory over atrocious weather. We had members along the route of the procession selling literature, and they all got a drenching. In Hyde Park we had a decorated cart for our meeting and our banner with the party’s name on it could not be missed. Prior to May Day we had been disputing with the Ministry of Works their refusal to permit us to use amplifying apparatus in the park, and the permission given by them to the London Trades Council. We told them that while we did not advocate the use of this apparatus in Hyde Park, we had no other means of defence when others used it. It would seem reasonable that its use should be permitted to all responsible organisations or none. In the event, the amplifiers used at the Trades Council meeting were pitched quietly, possibly as a result of the stand we had taken, and while they interfered with our meeting to some extent, we nevertheless kept the attention of a very large audience. On Sunday we had another large meeting in the Park, followed by our mass rally in the Conway Hall. This we very nearly filled and our speakers, Cash, Young, Groves and Turner were listened to attentively and applauded with enthusiasm by the audience who donated about £40 to our funds. Party members in good numbers played an active part in making the May Day celebrations in London a success in spite of the conditions; Glasgow also report a good day up there on the Sunday. They sold 20 doz. Socialist Standards along the procession, and widely advertised the evening meeting in the Cosmo Cinema by street-chalking, billposting, etc. We were not permitted to hold outdoor meetings in Queens Park as this was reserved entirely for Labour Party meetings. F. Duncan and C. May spoke in the Cosmo Cinema to an audience of about 300 and the branch were well satisfied with the meeting. The collection was approximately £7 10s. C. Lestor went to Bristol for a May Day meeting on Durdham Downs. We have a few members down there who keep pegging away in conditions that are not too easy. Lestor spoke for three hours to about 200 people and the effort stimulated the local comrades. So far we have not received Manchester’s May Day report, but will give it in this column when received. From the U.S.A. also comes news of a successful May Day week-end in Boston by the W.S.P. of U.S.A. A feature of these meetings (on Boston Common and at their headquarters) was the exceptionally heavy literature sales.

The Head Office Librarians require copies of early party pamphlets, as they wish to prepare bound sets for the library. Have a look at your library and send along what you can spare. Also old pamphlets of the S.D.F., I.L.P.. etc., and copies of Justice.

Kingston Branch’s outdoor meetings at Castle Street are as successful as was anticipated. Cold and damp weather has not stopped us getting a good audience every Saturday evening. On one Saturday evening A. Turner held an audience of over 300 for two hours. The branch is confident of producing two speakers from its strength in the very near future

Leyton Branch have how opened a new outdoor station at the “Elms,” Leytonstone, on Wednesday evenings and the first meetings have been very encouraging to members.

A General Election Fight in North Paddington has been decided upon by the Executive Committee as a minimum General Election programme. The Executive Committee have not excluded the possibility of fighting other constituencies as well. This decision must be backed up by members and sympathisers immediately. Money will be the main limiting factor in our forthcoming election campaigns. We have members able and anxious to do the work, and an organisation fitted to deal with the tasks involved. The membership is in support of the fight on the electoral field in the immediate future, but we must build up the funds. Do whatever you can as quickly as you can!

The Overseas Secretary reports that the W.S.P. of of U.S.A. is holding its Annual Conference at Boston at the end of May. Representatives of the Canadian party will attend. They are trying to make a big effort of it with a series of outdoor meetings and possibly a debate. The Dublin socialist group is planning to extend its activities with regular propaganda meetings both outdoors and indoors, and also is trying to form an educational class. The group now has its own headquarters at the Boilermakers’ Hall, 33, Lower Gardiner Street. It meets there on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, having lectures on Sundays, a business meeting on Tuesdays, and plans in progress for an economics class on Thursdays. The hall was packed for the first lecture on May 2nd.

We have been asked by the Overseas Secretary to make a special request for members to assist him. He wants his correspondence with contacts in various parts of the world taken over by a member or members. Workers in other countries are now frequently asking for information from us. and trying to maintain correspondence with someone in Great Britain. The correspondence can be, if necessary, in English, but anyone who can correspond in a foreign language can be put in direct touch with a contact abroad.

Lewisham Branch are following in the footsteps of some other branches in running a Socialist Standard canvass every Sunday, and have already doubled their usual sales.

Bristol Group aims to run fortnightly outdoor propaganda meetings on Durdham Downs this summer and have already booked a series of speakers up to the end of August.

Islington Branch have at last nailed down the Communist Party to a debate. The arrangements are that Geo. Jones (late parliamentary candidate for Hornsey) for the Communist Party will be faced by A. Turner for the S.P.G.B. at Hornsey Town Hall on Tuesday, June 1st. A report of the debate will appear in our next issue.

The New Pamphlet “Russia since 1917,” due soon, will be sold at 1s. per copy. It is another lengthy pamphlet and there’s plenty for the money.

The New E.C. Member is G. Kerr (West Ham branch) and the new Central Organiser, J. D’Arcy Bloomsbury branch), both election results having been recently declared.

C. C. Groves,

General Secretary.

Mr. Shaw and the Dictators (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Mr. G. B. Shaw’s article in the Daily Herald on 13th May and the attack on him by Mr. Michael Foot in the Tribune, Shaw wrote to the Tribune on 28th May and again on 11th June. Some of his points deserve comment. He admits his support of the dictators in the following terms:

   “I may remind Mr. Foot that we all very properly stood by Hitler and Mussolini until they went wrong, exactly as we stood by Ramsay MacDonald. The first years of a dictator are always to his credit. Power corrupts, but not in five minutes.” (Tribune, 28/5/48.)

The last sentence raises a nice point. The other dictator, Stalin, has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century and must therefore have had time to be corrupted by power but Shaw has not withdrawn his approval as far as we know. In the later letter (11/6/48) Shaw tells us why the early years of a dictator are good. He tells us that Hitler put an end to unemployment and tore up the Versailles Treaty, and Mussolini drained the Pontine Marshes, started rebuilding Rome and made a Concordat with the Pope. It is, of course, the silliest of arguments for it justifies support of every kind of government, past present and future. They have all claimed credit for other peoples’ work and lent their names to monumental projects and the making or breaking of Treaties. Are we to give blind support to Roosevelt for the Tennessee Valley Scheme, to Napoleon and to those who destroyed him, to the Pharoahs under whom the Nile waters were used for irrigation and the Pyramids built, to all the rulers of the slave and feudal and capitalist regimes? Incidentally, if the tearing up of the Versailles Treaty shows how good dictators are, what about Stalin’s part in the agreements for the plunder of the defeated at the end of the second world war. Does Shaw now execrate him for lunacies worse than Versailles, and get ready to hail the new German dictator who will tear it all up?

Shaw is angry with Mr. Foot for reminding him that Mussolini had Matteoti assassinated, and says that he (Shaw) was not a party to it. If the Labourites are in the absurd position of deluding themselves with the notion how nice capitalism would be if only it were freed from the evils that necessarily accompany it, Mr. Shaw is in the same silly position about dictators. He says in effect, how nice dictators would be if only they didn’t do the brutal things to their opponents that all dictators have to do.

Of course, when it is a question of flooring Mr. Foot, Shaw is on an easy thing. Arguing for industrial conscription (”compulsory civil service ”) he asks Mr. Foot what a Labour Government has to offer to make the workers work, in place of the whip of starvation. What he ignores is the fact that we still have capitalism, and as Socialists have always said, you can’t have an exploiting system without some bludgeon to drive the exploited to work. But what has this to do with Socialism?

Mr. Shaw gives his own version of events when he. tells us that “the careers of Mussolini and Hitler were produced solely by the disgust and disillusion of the proletariat with party parliaments . . . ” This is a gross misinterpretation, What made the workers disillusioned in Germany was not Parliament as such but the inability of the Social Democrats, alone and in coalition, to make capitalism function in the interests of the working class; but every Socialist knows that this is always impossible. If Mr. Shaw had added Lenin and Stalin to his list of dictators his argument would have exposed itself, for the Russians never had any experience of parliament and therefore could not be disillusioned with it.

On Shaw’s general argument that Parliament is too slow and faulty, and dictators speedy and efficient, do any of his dictators give proof? Hitler and Stalin were just as helpless as any Parliamentary government to prevent capitalism engulfing their countries in war. If dictatorship is swift why is it that 30 years after Lenin said that they must immediately introduce virtual equality of wages from top to bottom, we find Russia not only not doing so but producing greater and greater inequality between the privileged rich and the poverty-stricken masses? If dictatorship is sure and efficient how comes it that Russia, after spending years developing co-education, ease of divorce, and legalised abortion, then discovers its “errors” and sets about reversing all those trends in greater or less degree?

Mr. Shaw's defence of capitalism run by dictators is as weak as his opponents’ defence of capitalism run by Labour Governments.

P. S.