The Waste of War. (1918)

From the February 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

A point often overlooked by the man-in-the-street is the connection of war with waste. A list of figures covering the cost of the war day by day conveys little to the layman's mind. Parliamentarians give you these statistics freely, that you may be beguiled into sacrificing your mite on the altar of War. Not that the combined savings of all the working class would maintain the war for a single day, but it tends to instil into their minds the illusion that they are doing something for "their country.”

War is absolute waste of men, material, and brain power. The question is not concerned with any supposed “rights.” The fact is—just allow this point to sink into your mind—war is absolute waste.

Since August 1914 practically all advances in science have been in connection with war. Eminent men have devoted their faculties to the solving of the problem of defeating the submarine menace. Others have given their time and energies to the production of new chemical compounds for the greater slaughter of the “enemy.” Inventors concentrate upon means of destruction. A huge man-of-war, involving the labour of thousands of men and women for many months, is sunk in a few minutes. A gun of large calibre, again the product of months of toil, reaches the slaughter-ground, and a shell from the “enemy” reduces it to scrap-iron. And so with all the material produced for war.

And then the men. Men covering every branch of science have been sacrificed. Torn from their laboratories and studies, they have been thrown into the Army like so much meat a sausage machine. And in addition the finest men of half the world, the very flower of every advanced race under the sun, are flung like so much garbage into the pit, from which few indeed will come out as sound in mind and body as they were when their masters claimed them to be wasted in the war for commercial supremacy.

Only by one method can you eliminate this tragic waste. That method is by realising your position as wage-slaves and emancipating yourselves therefrom. The science of Socialism will teach you how to do this. Read our literature. Ask us questions on any point you do not agree with or do not understand. We are ever willing, nay, eager, to assist our fellow workers--men and women—along the road to liberty.

Harry Grattan

Strikes Better than Arbitration (1968)

Party News from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member of the Socialist Party of New Zealand, our comrade Ron Everson, sends us the following report on recent industrial unrest in that country:

On 17 June for the first time in twenty-seven years the Arbitration Court refused a general wage order application. The unions had sought increases of up to 7.6 per cent to compensate for cost-of-living increases following devaluation and the imposition of restrictive economic measures by the government.

The decision amazed even some employers who were prepared to give their workers a five per cent increase and some had already adjusted their prices in anticipation. The decision of course roused the ire of the workers. Widespread interest was taken in trade union activities; erstwhile apathetic union members attended work stop meetings and demonstrations. On the day of the State opening of parliament on 26 June trade unionists staged a demonstration. They were supported by students with placards pledging support for the workers and demanding bigger bursaries, by the Campaign Against Rising Prices, the Maori organisation for Human Rights and the CND. The demonstrators forced an unprecedented change in the State opening of parliament by Governor General Sir Arthur Porritt. Never before had a Governor General entered parliament for the State opening other than by the main entrance. On this occasion poor Sir Arthur had to sneak in by a side door.

Demands were made for the abolition of the Arbitration Court. Delegates to the Federation of Labour conference were in favour of ignoring the Court. It seems this, the strikes and industrial unrest that followed frightened the employers into agreeing to go back to the Court for a rehearing. As a result the Court made a wage order of a five per cent increase restricted to the first $40 earned by men, the first $30 by women and the first $25 by junior workers. Whether the nil order was the outcome of the inexperience of the new Judge of the Court, Blair, or the employers’ contempt for the workers’ will to fight is anyone’s guess.

However, the outcome was an illustration of the passage in the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s pamphlet Questions of the Day:

   “In practice arbitration bodies exist for the purpose of preventing industrial disputes from taking the form of stoppages of work, and their awards on wage claims are bound to be influenced by the attitude of the workers. If workers were to abandon all idea of strikes the employers and the arbitration bodies alike would reduce still further the amounts they were prepared to offer. The strike remains the workers' indispensable weapon".

Need we say that on the day of the march on parliament among the forest of banners there was not one advocating the “abolition of the wages system”. When workers in sufficient numbers reach that degree of understanding an effort to fob them off with a few miserable cents of a wage increase will only raise a laugh. It is a sad fact that now a few cents flung in their direction can take the fight out of workers.

While they lack knowledge of the nature of wages, and the wages system, they will be forced to engage in these never-ending struggles which merely maintain their subject position as wage-slaves.

Meanwhile the July issue of the New Zealand Building Worker,' official journal of the Carpenters and Related Trades’ Industrial Union of Workers, reprints our leaflet on devaluation (also an issue in New Zealand as the government there followed Britain), an article from this journal on the IWW and one from The Western Socialist on the materialist conception of history.

Ron Everson

Brewers & Preachers (1968)

From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The pro-and anti-Sunday drinking referendum that has recently taken place in Wales has been fought, on the one hand, under the guise of democracy and the freedom of the individual and. on the other, as a struggle to maintain a tradition in the face of a decline in standards and morals. One was an attempt by the brewers and those who, consciously or otherwise, supported them to change existing social habits, and the other an attempt by religious organisations (mainly Nonconformist) to maintain a way of life that has been peculiar to Wales for generations.

The sponsors of Sunday opening were without doubt headed by the brewery interests and other allied organisations. One found strange members in their camp — even religious people who claim to be supporters not only because of the 'freedom’ involved but because they could not find any scriptural command in the list of “Thou Shalt Nots" which was anti-drink. The Rev. Cannon R. Williams of Haverford West (the Brewers’ Chaplain) was a case in point. The public hoarding adverts and nation-wide door-to-door distribution of pamphlets must have cost the brewers a fortune — a fortune they hope to recoup in the years ahead.

Another reverend spokesman stated in the Western Mail that “the nation that loses its Sunday loses its soul”. But it is only fair to say that other, non-religious organisation have added their weight against the Sunday extension, for instance. National Life-Line (a movement similar to the Good Samaritans though primarily confined to industry) stated:

  Alcoholism is costing industry £75 millions annually . . . 250,000 men failed to turn up for work because of that ‘Monday morning feeling’.

Well, what is to the advantage of the brewing industy can be to the disadvantage of other industrialists—that’s capitalism.

It is indeed a comment on democracy in Britain that it grants ten minutes broadcasting time to the “Communist” Party, five minutes to the Welsh Nationalists and none whatsoever to the Socialist Party of Great Britain in Wales, but can spend a huge sum of money to build up a national campaign, including television and sound broadcasts, on the benefits of a Sunday pint of beer.

W. Brain

Science and Race (1968)

Book Review from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Science and the Concept of Race, Margaret Mead, Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ethel Tohach, Robert E. Light. Editors. (Columbia University Press, $6.50)

About one third of this book is for the specialist; the remainder an absorbing discussion of one of society’s big problems. Not a one-sided discussion, either; Dwight J. Ingle writes

    . . . both types of racists seek to place individuals in schools, jobs, and housing on the basis of racial identity rather than of abilities, interests, drives, and behavioral standard.

Both types of racists! But even this determined bending over backwards does no more than suggest that there might be the very tiniest mouse of evidence in favour of racism—and that after all the mountains of prejudice which have been probed to find it.

Gloria Marshall makes the crucial point, that racial classification is usually taken as the starting point for an investigation of that very classification. In other words, assume that a Negro is different and then look into his differences. In other words, a case of heads I win and tails you lose.


The pity of it is that such knowledge, such discussion, does not penetrate into the council estates and the suburbs, where racism flourishes in so many forms. This can be fought only with knowledge; Science and the Concept of Race, with its up-to- date review of scientific thinking on the subject, is a sound introduction for anyone wanting to understand and attack this most pernicious of theories. It also has a comprehensive list of references for further study.

Ivan

Marxism and Communism (1968)

Book Review from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxism and Communism by Katharine Savage (Bodley Head 25s.)

Katharine Savage specialises in books for young people. Her latest is a skilfil mixture of ignorance and confusion and will probably sell very well.

John Crump

Catholics and Protestants in Ireland (1968)

From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

July 1, 1690, (Old Calendar) was a major turning point in Irish history. The defeat of the catholic King James confirmed William of Orange as the new King of England and Ireland and consequently as head of the Protestant Church. The centuries which followed witnessed the suppression of catholics by the imposition of penal laws. The old aristocrats had their lands confiscated and were replaced by a new Loyalist aristocracy. The new privileged class re-let their lands to the peasants and. as the years passed, raised the rents to enormous heights. The landlords lived then in ostentatious luxury spending most of their time gambling, drinking and entertaining their fellow aristocrats in England, all from the proceeds of rack-rents.

These circumstances imposed a hard and unstable existence on the catholic peasant majority evoking their hatred of the parasitical protestant landlords. After the Catholic Emancipation of 1829 the Irish went through the greatest horror in their history—the so-called Famine of the 1840’s. The population was devastated and today is still little more than half of what it then was. The catholics strongly felt that famine had been imposed and exacerbated by a foreign, protestant government.

Then in 1916 the Easter Rising took place. The executions which followed sparked off the Anglo-Irish war, bringing Ireland to the attention of the world. Again the Irish felt they were victims of a crime against humanity—the introduction into Ireland of the Black and Tans, gangs of trigger-happy layabouts in British uniform. In the end the British government agreed to grant a mild form of nationhood to twenty-six countries, but a parliament subordinate to Westminster to the portion of Ireland where protestants were a majority. The actions of a handful of protestant politicians, who pressurised the British government into splitting Ireland in two, once again brought the religious issue into Irish politics. Giving a portion of Ulster a political divorce from the rest of Ireland was one of the causes of the cold blooded and bitter civil war.

This very brief outline of Irish history is essential to an understanding of how religious belligerence arose. The protestant minority have not been the victims of terror by “the papists" in the Irish Republic despite their fears in 1921. On the other hand, this ridiculous religious belligerence still exists in Northern Ireland where the catholic minority are subjected to various forms of discrimination.

Both religions, catholic and protestant, claim to be Christian. Today we hear their leaders crying out for peace throughout the world; they beg the rich to be charitable to the poor; their tongues are blistered denouncing socialists. Yet they stand firmly rooted in the society which causes and perpetuates war and poverty.

Religion, to the Irish catholic, is man's first and most important duty. They feel that the road to god is the road to happiness. They are thus led to accept present conditions and to look forward to happiness after death. They fail to see that they, like men in other religions, have a common bond—they are members of the working class. Religion to them is like heroin injected into their veins. It mixes with the blood and sinks their minds into a state in which they can no longer think for themselves. It is this which leads them willingly to submit to their energies being used for the benefit of a few parasites. They are unable to see that this oppression helps perpetuate their exploitation, the sale of their labour-power for a minimum of its produce. The consequent degradation, and the insecure existence, always with the fear of what may happen should their ability to work be maimed, encourages a belief in a better existence after death, just as primitive man’s struggle with nature gave rise to beliefs in gods, devils, demons, food-laden paradises and all sorts of unrealistic fantasies.

Only by a close examination of society can the worker learn the reason for his poverty and only after casting aside all forms of addiction—nationalist and religious—can society be examined in a clear manner. Only by learning where his true interest lies can the worker go out, organise consciously and take the proper steps to end his subservience; Religion is of no use here. It is in fact a hindrance, a serious and a malicious hindrance.

All the workers of Ireland should end their addictions. They suffer the same conditions as the workers in England. Russia and everywhere. Their split into different factions of a similar dream will have to go. It is sad to see our fellow workers fighting amongst themselves over opposed beliefs in some form of nothingness, with the catholics shouting about partition and the protestants about 1690 and the Inquisition. They mistakenly believe their degradation to be inflicted upon them because of their different beliefs, one faction agitating the other. The catholic workers are unable to see through the nebulousness of their religion while the protestant workers allow themselves to be used as instruments of hypocritical Unionist parasites who want the link with Britain in order to make more money. The catholics swoon over their history while the Orangemen denounce the tyranny of the papacy at the height of its power.

The solution to the problems of workers in all Ireland will not come by conversion of one faction to the other, but by uniting with each other and with their fellow workers of the world. Then, when the workers are united their energies can be turned to the real conflict—that between capitalists and workers, not between workers with different national and religious tags. However the workers must, in the first instance, reject all the drugs, nationalist and religious, which lead them into willing submission to the capitalist class.

Patrick Garvey

The International Oil Scramble (1968)

From the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

The modern oil industry has seen many changes since the first successful well was drilled in Pennsylvania in 1859. At first the main application of oil was as a fuel for lamps. Now it has many more uses. Its distillates provide the fuels and lubricants for various types of internal combustion engines powering the means of transport on land, sea and air. It can be used as a substitute for coal as boiler fuel and as a raw material for the chemical industry. For all the changes the oil industry is still beset by the contradictions resulting from the capitalist mode of production. The leading producers operate on a world wide scale but are hampered by the nationalism of the countries they operate in. The extraction, refining and distribution of oil needs a vast social effort; yet a motley host of parasites make a fine living from it, through private property rights. As in all capitalist industry costs are cut to the bone; yet the waste that characterises the system is not eliminated.

America is still the leading national producer, but its market has expanded so much that it is also the leading importer. The early years were characterised by cut throat competition among the many producers. As the landowner has the mineral rights, an oil field can have as many producers as there owners over it. This is one aspect of waste that goes beyond duplication of effort, in that an excessive number of wells in an oil field reduces the amount recoverable from that source. In spite of the many different producers the American industry was soon dominated by Standard Oil. founded by Rockefeller in 1870, who within a few years controlled approximately 80 per cent of refinery capacity, 90 per cent of the pipelines and had large interests in railway tankcars. Hence the producers had to dance to the tune called by this firm. Standard became the dominating oil interest in the world. In 1911 it was broken into 30 companies under American anti-trust law. One of them, Standard of New Jersey (ESSO), is still the world’s largest oil company.

A number of oil fields outside America were developed before 1918. The most important was in the Baku region of Russia, which was controlled by the Nobel brothers of Sweden (of dynamite and peace prize fame). German interests had important investments in the Rumanian oil fields. They also had a share in the Turkish Petroleum Co. (now Iraq Petroleum Co.), in partnership with British interests and Gulbenkian (Mr. 5 per cent). In 1908 important deposits were found in Persia by the Anglo-Persian Co. (later Anglo-Iranian, now B.P.) and the Abadan refinery set up in 1913. The British Admiralty in 1914 switched their warships from coal to oil fuel, and also obtained a controlling interest in the firm. The main challenge to Standard Oil during this period came from the Royal Dutch Company. Operating from Sumatra, they were well placed to undercut the Americans in the important Chinese market for lamp oil. Shell was another competitor. They distributed Russian oil and cut transport costs by introducing tanker ships. In 1907 these two firms merged and five years later had carried their challenge into Standard's home territory by setting up subsidiaries in America.

The first world-war showed the importance of oil as a strategic material. The defeat of Germany resulted in the confiscation of its oil interests, France taking over its share in Turkey. In Russia the oil fields were taken over by the state. With increasing demand competition intensified in the scramble to gain control of new sources. The main contestants were Britain and America who clashed wherever there was oil to be found. American interests were excluded from the Middle-East till 1928 when they gained a share in IPC. They were later to gain concessions in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the region. The interwar period saw Venezuela. Iran and Iraq became important producers.

The development of such synthetic materials as nylon, plastics and artificial rubber during the second world war gave rise to the petro-chemical industry and important new markets for oil. The growth of air transport, the replacing of steam by diesel traction on the railways and the increasing number of motor can, have also been factors in the continuing growth of the oil market in recent years. The main outlets are still in the industrialised areas while relatively underdeveloped regions have become increasingly important producers. This has led to conflicts over royalties, taxes and concession agreements between oil companies and governments in whose territories they are operating. One showdown came between the Anglo-Iranian Co. and the Iranian government which resulted in nationalisation of the firm’s assets. The British government replied by successfully placing an embargo on oil from Iran. Output was increased elsewhere, including areas operated by Anglo-Iranian, while the Iranian government had assets yielding less income in two years than a single day’s royalty had done before. In 1954 a new agreement was signed in which the eight leading oil companies formed a consortium to run production for a half share of the profits. Those who controlled the marketing end of the industry still called the tune.

The struggle between the various capitalist sectional interests over the division of the spoils continues. It mainly consists of haggling over royalties and concessions. At times of stress such as the Suez war or the more recent Arab-Israel war, pipelines have been blown up, supplies cut, or the Suez canal blocked. As a result some other sources have expanded output to take up the slack. Having found that individual action unsatisfactory, governments of the producing countries have set up the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to take joint action. In fact they are only doing what the international companies have long been accused of. Vast fortunes have been made in recent years by the rulers of the oil producing lands. More than enough for luxurious living so that they still have large funds to invest. Places such as Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela are pressing ahead with industrialisation projects. Large sums have also been invested in armaments. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are examples; each nation has territorial claims on neighbouring Sheikhdoms.

In recent years Italy, Japan, Spain and France have been trying to get or increase their stakes in the oil producing areas, thus adding to the chaos that already exists. State-capitalist Russia has recently produced more oil than it needs and has captured some important export markets. It is estimated that demand for oil in Russia will expand so much that they too are on the look-out for outside sources of supply. At present about 60 per cent of the proven oil reserves are in the Middle-East, yet efforts to discover other reserves arc being made throughout the world. In a situation where there is a problem of oversupply, this may seem crazy. Yet under capitalism with its conflict of interests, it makes sense to be crazy. In the case of oil. consuming, marketing, and producing interests vie against one another in an orgy of waste.

The oil industry presents a fine example of the confusion that can arise from the conflicts of capitalism. Workers get caught in the mythologies of imperialism. Hence the idea that the international oil companies have simply to be ousted from the Middle East, to hasten the end of capitalism. Its opposite is that they must stay there to defend our standard of living. Russia is a case where foreign interests have been replaced by local ones, yet the differences are only superficial. A minority still dominate society and conflicts over the terms of trade remain. Neighbouring satellite countries pay more for oil from Russia, than the same product will fetch on the open market. As for living standards, the majority have to put up with working class standards, which are well below those of the capitalists—the Gulbenkians. the Rockefellers, the oil sheiks.

Joe Carter

50 Years Ago: Equal Pay for Women (1968)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

A writer in Reynold's Newspaper October 13, 1918 bewails the fact that women’s wages should be lower than men’s. She complains that: —

   Woman has been treated as a sort of lay figure for students of economics. Her value to the employer as a profit- maker, to the community as a potential Mother, to the politician as a dispenser of votes, has had the fullest consideration. But who has claimed the right of woman to that payment for her labour which will allow of a full and independent life?

The writer forgets that in the past the capitalist has only employed women in preference to men because they were cheaper, and if we except those special occupations where women — because of lightness of touch etc. — excel, men would still be employed in preference to women if wages were the same for both sexes. A woman who does equal work with a man must obviously require and obtain the same amount of the necessities of life. It does not follow, however, that the employer must pay her a wage that will provide it. Girls living with their parents for instance, look upon the factory as a makeshift to obtain a living until they get married. The capitalist knows this, and the girls seldom organise to try and force them to pay for their labour-power at its cost of production, hence the parents have to make up the difference. The employment of large numbers of women sets free men who, competing with their fellow-workers' provide employers with the power to reduce men's wages: and married women, unable to live on their husbands’ wages, take their place beside the younger women in the factory, and the capitalist gets the husband and wife for wages that would not sustain them if they lived separately.

From an article 'Woman and her Work' by F. Foan. Socialist Standard, December 1918.

Letters: Reform or Revolution (1968)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reform or Revolution

Sir,

In connexion with Socialism it seems pertinent to consider three situations: the current capitalist-situation, the future Socialist-situation and the change-over-situation when capitalism changes to Socialism. Many people claim Socialism infeasible, usually on the grounds that human-nature would not allow Socialism to operate. To this the Socialist Party of Great Britain replies that those elements of human-nature that would harm Socialism are merely a product of capitalism and that under Socialism human-nature would adjust accordingly. Such an adjustment would surely take generations, certainly many years, to come about, and this in itself surely renders the sudden onset of Socialism an impossibility? The Socialist Party demands that Socialists should not vote for reformist parties such as the Labour Party and apparently forgets that by condemning reformism an increasing public sympathy towards the Socialist Party will technically be followed by an increasingly “Right Wing” government. Indeed, as soon as the Socialist Party became a threat to the status-quo, repressive government measures would be taken to destroy it. In fact we could see politics moving backwards. It appears that Socialists must become involved in reformism, or cry for ever to the wind. This makes the unsympathetic attitude taken by the Socialist Party towards the Labour Party all the more difficult to understand.

R. E. Shimmin,

Port St. Mary, Isle of Man.

REPLY:
Mr. Shimmin’s argument might have some validity if it really was the aim and policy of the Labour Party to achieve Socialism by a gradual process of reform. But Labour has always firmly stood for capitalism (even if we concede that a tiny handful of its members may have wanted Socialism). Its constitution commits it to wholesale nationalisation or state capitalism, while in practice it accepts capitalism in Britain more or less as it is, a mixture of private and state enterprise. The only party in this country to stand for Socialism is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Class ownership of the means of production causes workers’ problems and any government, be it Labour or “right-wing”, which takes power within capitalism cannot solve these problems and must come into conflict with the workers. It must run capitalism in the only way it can be, as a profit-making system in the interests of the privileged few who live off rent, interest and profit, and to the detriment of the workers. As socialists, we are not particularly concerned whether the capitalist government is Labour, Tory, Liberal or a coalition of them all. They are all anti-working class.

We fail to see Mr. Shimmin’s point about the growth of the Socialist Party “technically” being followed by a reactionary government. We presume that this is the old hoary one about splitting the anti-Tory vote. But it is not the Tories that are the main enemy. It is capitalism and we are equally opposed to all parties that support it, Labour as well as Tory. We would also remind Mr. Shimmin that in many countries, and especially in pre-war Germany, it was the failure of democratic reformism that paved the way for the rise of parties favouring dictatorship.

We are given no reason as to why the growth of the Socialist Party should be at the expense of the Labour Party. No doubt when the socialist movement grows those who support capitalism, fearful of splitting the anti-socialist vole, will rally around one or other of the large capitalist parties. It may be the Tories or it may be Labour or they both may form an anti-socialist electoral alliance. It does not really worry us what they do. That is their problem and that of the class they represent, the capitalists. We assure of one thing, though. Going by the record of the two post-war Labour governments, if there are any repressive measures to be taken against socialists and workers generally Labour will be only too pleased to oblige.

Which brings us to another of Mr. Shimmin’s points. He suggests that when the Socialist Party grows the government will take steps to try to crush it. Maybe, but we doubt it. For as the socialist movement grows so the power of the capitalists is weakened. The balance of class power shifts in favour of the workers. Any government, be it Labour or Tory, which tried to crush the socialist movement would be biting off too much. By the time the socialist movement has grown so as to be a threat to capitalist power then it will be too late to crush it.

Nor has our correspondent really understood our view of human nature. We are not out to change it. We merely assert that human beings behave in different ways under different social conditions and that they can change themselves by changing these conditions. The change from capitalism to Socialism will not be made by us on behalf of the people, but by the immense majority of workers who want Socialism and are fully aware of what is involved in establishing and running such a society. Once workers are socialist-minded Socialism can be established fairly quickly. When the workers have political power it won’t take long to use it to convert the means of production from class to common ownership. This done, then production for use, to meet human needs can begin. Socialism will have been set up.

Editorial Committee

Democracy and Socialism

Sirs,

A member of your party who saw me leaving Hyde Park on a march on Sunday 25 August claimed that because anarchists consider parliamentary democracy to be a farce we have no reason to object to the suppression of the minimal democratic liberties that the Czechs have so far won.

Indeed we consider that parliament is manipulated undemocratically, though in point of fact the Czechs anyway have at no time claimed to have achieved a "free parliament” so this is rather a red herring. If they did they would no doubt have the danger that their “gains” would be rendered nugatory by making such parliament powerless as our own is in fact, if not in Tory constitutional theory. We would then surely warn that the achievement of parliament is the achievement of the shadow of democracy not the reality, and that to allow one’s self to be hamstrung by the rules of parliamentarian politics, when the ruling class never accepts such a limitation, would be to shackle the working class and hand it over bound hand and foot to exploitation.

What the Czechs have tried to achieve, however, is freedom of expression, the right to publish their own views. Here again, if the ruling class has the state to finance its press, and anyway through the ownership of industry is able to afford a preponderant share of the press, we would say that such equality of the press and freedom of expression is a myth, the shadow of the substance only.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain stood aside from what was the most significant demonstration on the issue, a demonstration which had as its basis solely the two principles that the Czechs should have the right to decide their own system of society —whether or not our demonstrators might like their choice—and that the demonstration should be confined to those who make the same demand for the Vietnamese.

I cannot believe that the Socialist Party is still really so foolish as to deny any value to opposition to a dictatorship. You rest such enormous claims on the validity of British parliamentary democracy as a road to Socialism, that one might have expected you to support any struggle to win such basic liberties as freedom of expression—saying of course at the same time that these gains would not solve everything and that more needed to be won to make this valid.

No doubt as the bombs begin to fall in a nuclear war, you will still be saying you cannot associate yourselves with protest embracing anyone but members of your own party. You will of course be right in saying that there is no permanent cure short of Socialism, but you will be wrong, a million times wrong, in refusing to attempt to get a short respite so as the further to work for Socialism by joining with others who do not share every jot and title of your faith.

Laurens Otter, 

Thornton Heath

REPLY:
The attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on democracy is well set out in Chapter Four of our pamphlet Questions of the Day.

  “Under Democracy, the workers are allowed to form their own political and economic organisations, and within limits, freedom of speech, of assembly, and of the press is permitted as well as the possibility of the electorate choosing between contending political parties. “Now, unlike many people intoxicated with a newly-found love for democracy, the Socialist Party of Great Britain has always insisted on the democratic nature of Socialism, and on the value that the widest possible discussion of conflicting political views has for the working class. When we refuse to unite with non-socialist organisations for the purpose of defending democracy, it is most certainly not because we in any way minimise or underestimate the importance of democracy for the working class or the socialist movement It is simply because we are convinced that democracy cannot be defended in such a manner.
  “Democracy, in itself, cannot solve the problems of the working class. Unemployment, poverty, insecurity, and other evil effects of capitalism remain, no matter whether the form of its political administration be democratic or dictatorial. Freedom to cry working class misery from the house-tops will not, in itself, abolish the misery. Democracy is a weapon, potentially invaluable, it. is true; but like every other weapon, it can be used either for self-preservation or for self-destruction.
  “As long as the working class supports capitalism and capitalist policies, it will be tempted ultimately to give its support to that policy best calculated to meet the political and economic needs of capitalism —even though that policy may be one of dictatorship.
  “Democracy for the working class can only be consolidated and expanded to the extent that the workers adopt the socialist standpoint. To renounce Socialism so that democracy may be defended, means ultimately the renunciation of both Socialism and democracy”.

and, in our manifesto on the Second World War, reproduced in our pamphlet The Socialist Party and War:

   “The Socialist Party of Great is fully aware of the sufferings of German workers under Nazi rule, and wholeheartedly supports the efforts of workers everywhere to secure democratic rights against the powers of suppression, but the history of the past decades shows the futility of war as a means of safeguarding democracy”.

Thus, we do, and always have, held that democracy is of value both to the working class and to the Socialist movement, but we do not think that it should, and in the end can, be defended by uniting with non-socialists or by war. So we are not "so foolish as to deny any value to opposition to dictatorship”. We welcome the break-up of dictatorships and the coming of democracy, however limited. But we do not support democracy in the abstract, but as a means to an end: Socialism.

Otter’s case is based on a fallacy. Because we refuse to join in demonstrations with non-socialists, in favour of democracy, he says that therefore we are not in favour of democracy. This conclusion is quite unwarranted as the reason we will not join with non-socialists is because we do not think this is the way to defend democracy. Besides, with the pro-Vietcong elements on his demonstration we are sure there were many there who couldn’t care two hoots about democracy.

In his last paragraph Otter begs the whole question as he assumes that our joining with non-socialists would "get a short respite so as the further to work for Socialism” (we shall ignore the jibe about faith). But this is precisely what we deny. As we said above: experience shows that to renounce Socialism so that democracy may be defended means in the end to renounce both Socialism and democracy.

"British parliamentary democracy" is not the road to Socialism. Socialism can only be established by the democratic political action of a working class convinced of the need for it. In Britain universal suffrage and parliament (and the local councils) can be used to win political power. But there is nothing special about the British constitution. Other states have different arrangements but as long as they allow a majority to get its way they can be used to establish Socialism.

It is quite true that in Czechoslovakia there was no struggle for a “free parliament”. Technically, there was already a national assembly elected by universal suffrage but these really did conform to the anarchist image of being a fraud, a facade and a farce. Real power lay elsewhere: in the top ranks of the Communist Party. Electors had no choice but to vote for (or if they dared against) a list of pro-government candidates. Opposition parties and journals were suppressed. It is nice to see, however, that some anarchists are learning that there is a difference between dictatorship and democracy as far as the workers are concerned.

Editorial Committee.

Sicko (2007)

Film Review in the December 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sicko (Directed by Michael Moore)

What a devastating indictment of the US health care system this film is! Fifty million Americans have no health insurance, and eighteen thousand die because of this each year. The focus of the film, however, is on those who do have such insurance — and are therefore not the most badly off — but find it of little use when they need it most.

The insurance is with health maintenance organisations or HMOs, though they should really be called wealth maintenance organisations, as they are most concerned about the wealth of their owners and top executives. People pay for health insurance or have it provided by their employer but, when it comes to the crunch and they fall ill or have an accident, the HMO will try every trick in the book to avoid paying up. Surgical procedures may be categorised as experimental and therefore not covered, or people may be denied treatment because they did not disclose some prior medical condition or even failed to diagnose it themselves.

It is the individual cases Moore presents that give the film its impact. One child died because the HMO insisted she be treated in one of their own establishments rather than the hospital that the ambulance had taken her to. A man who had lost the tips of two fingers in an accident with a saw had to choose which one should be replaced, as he could not afford both. A sick and disoriented woman was dumped in the street by the hospital when she could not pay her bills.

Moore contrasts the American system with those in Canada, Cuba, France and the UK. He makes great play with the fact that the cashier in an NHS hospital doesn’t receive payments from patients but instead pays out, reimbursing some of them for their travel expenses. The original NHS idea of free treatment is trotted out, courtesy of Tony Benn, but disappointingly there is no discussion of the extent to which it no longer applies. Further, there’s little if any investigation of the real quality of health treatment in these countries.

All in all, though, this is a forceful attack on the idea that medical treatment should be based on considerations of profit. And just before the end comes a refreshing thought, that society should be more concerned with ‘we’ than with ‘me’.

Paul Bennett

50 Years Ago: Morality and Property (1968)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under a system of chattel-slavery sheer physical force was almost the sole means of holding the slaves in subjection. It was not necessary for a community of interests between master and slave to be hypocritically assumed and inculcated. What the slaves thought was of little or no consequence to their owners: morality was considered no concern of slaves; it was held to be an attribute of and an obligation upon “free-men" alone.

On the contrary with serfdom, the greater cohesion manifested by the workers made it very necessary to use mental as well as physical means to secure their complete subjection. A pseudo-moral code was required for the workers in order to guide their activities along lines consistent with the welfare of their exploiters. But a serf who was compelled to part with both labour and produce to a non-productive lord could never he taught to believe that he was not exploited, that he was a free man. as it has been possible to teach the wage-worker of today.

The awkward problem was ingeniously solved by the Catholic clergy, the intellectual and moral guardians of feudalism. They zealously inculcated into the peasantry the idea that the categories, king, lord, and serf were of divine ordinance and unalterable. and further, that the present life with its poverty and riches, is only a preparation for the coming “kingdom of God”, where those who had been meek and humble while toiling and suffering “here below", would dwell in happiness “amongst the best".

From the Socialist Standard, January 1918.

Letters: Human Nature and Socialism (1968)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human Nature and Socialism

Socialists are often confronted with the statement that human nature would not allow Socialism to be established, that men would not “work for nothing”, that man is selfish, the whole idea of Socialism though admittedly a desirable system of society would not work for it is contrary to the nature of man.

What the critic really means is human behaviour as conditioned by capitalism and not as he claims human nature. Human nature in fact is a basic set of desires e.g. to eat when hungry, to drink when thirsty, to sleep when tired etc. and these basic desires of man will not change under any system. On the other hand, human behaviour does change and varies from society to society. Rather it is Capitalism that is opposed to human nature, for under this system man is often deprived of basic desires of human nature. i.e. if he is hungry and has no money, he cannot eat.

A man born into a primitive cannibalistic way of life, would be conditioned from birth to accept the eating of his fellow man as the normal thing to do, until educated to the contrary. Likewise a man born into the capitalist system of society is conditioned from birth to accept this system as normal, until he is educated to the fact that there is an alternative to the capitalist system of society. The alternative being a system of common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interests of the whole community. A classless society that would end for ever exploitation, war, and poverty. A system of society whereby man would have a free, satisfying, full life. Secure for all time from the ravages of the capitalist system, with an unlimited horizon ahead to work for the betterment of all mankind.

When Socialism does eventually come to be established, a man born into this society, the final emancipation of all men, would accept common ownership and working for the needs and betterment of all human life (indeed, not working for nothing) as the normal way of life. He would look back unbelievably at a system of society, whereby the propertyless majority were exploited and used for their whole lifetime, subjected to wars, hunger and poverty, for the benefit of the propertied few, and wonder how this system lasted for so long, 

J. Cardin, 

Wallesey, Cheshire.

Clement Attlee

I read with interest in the November edition of the Socialist Standard, your “tribute" to the late Clement Attlee, and though 1 am in partial agreement with you, I feel your assessment was rather harsh.

To be true the Labour Party isn’t and hasn’t been Socialist—point accepted; but to be pragmatic (no slur on the prime minister intended) the most likely form of socialism did appear to come from the Labour Party, and this may still be true.

Attlee, “a cunning and bitter enemy or the working class”? Come now. It is an unfortunate fact that under a bourgeois capitalist representative democracy, such as Britain, all reformist parties accept the parliamentary democratic system. Why even the SPGB have stood for Westminster. Because of the innate conservatism of the populace and like the SPGB are unwilling or unable to use physical force to overthrow the government. These reformist parties, typified under Attlee’s leadership perhaps, set about reforming the capitalist system. True there was no basic change social or otherwise during the 1945-51 government. But isn’t half a loaf better than none? Soviet communism better than Tzarism, or the Welfare State better than child labour? Or at least it’s no worse.

You know, whatever the reasons and motives and whatever the ownership, Britain and the rest of the world isn’t as black as you paint it. Accepting the capitalist system for a few more years at least the reformist parties are the best hope to educate the workers if socialism is to be achieved. 1 know many in the Labour Party and Labour Young Socialists who are sympathetic to the SPGB and it is these people who can carry the word of Socialism.

I hope that Hobbes and Machiavelli were wrong when they assumed all men were naturally evil and had a propensity to do wrong. But until they are proved to be wrong we are stuck with the political leaders, under whatever guise they go. 

David Melvin, 

Surbiton, Surrey.

Reply

Mr. Melvin argues that “the most likely form of socialism did appear to come from the Labour party, and this may still be true”—even though “the Labour Party isn’t and hasn't been Socialist". We do not accept this. The Socialist Party of Gt. Britain has always maintained that Socialism will only he achieved by a majority of the working class taking conscious, revolutionary action to capture political power and institute common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. Before this step can be taken workers must be equipped with an understanding of what Socialism entails.

In our work of helping to spread socialist ideas we have had to combat reformism— the concept that workers should be mainly concerned with merely improving their conditions of life and work under capitalism. But at no time have we taken up the illogical position of arguing that all reforms are useless. When we criticised Clement Attlee (Socialist Standard, November 1967) we did not do so because of the reforms which were pushed through Parliament by the governments he led. We would say that some of these (eg. the National Health Service Act, 1946) left the working class marginally better off. Others very definitely worsened the lot of the workers (e.g. post-war rearmament and development of nuclear weapons). But the overall effect of the Labour party's programme was to maintain the workers in their previous situation — propertyless wage labourers under capitalism.

We attacked Attlee for the confusion and, worse, disillusionment which he personally did so much to promote among working men and women. He claimed to be a socialist and promised that a Labour government would be instrumental in building a socialist society in Britain. As we showed, to give his policies credibility he adopted a revolutionary pose on a number of issues. After the second world war millions of workers were horrified with the slaughter and destruction of capitalism and, believing that the Labour Party stood for something different, voted Attlee into power on a great wave of enthusiasm. It took just six years for the revulsion to set in and. when this happened, many workers were convinced that they had witnessed the failure of Socialism. This, we think, earned Attlee his epitaph—“a cunning and bitter enemy of the working class”.

Mr. Melvin claims that there are individuals in the Labour Party and its youth section who are sympathetic to the Socialist Party. This is true enough and, of course, many of the present members of the Socialist Party started their political careers in the capitalist parties. The reason why each one of us left to join the revolutionary party was that we realised it was impossible to argue convincingly for Socialism to workers like ourselves from within the ranks of an anti-working class organisation.

Capitalism has got nothing to do with men being ‘'naturally evil” or displaying “a propensity to do wrong”. Nor is it necessary to paint Britain and the rest of the world artificially black. In fact, at times, the problems which capitalism confronts us with defy any attempt at exaggeration. Capitalism exists today because of a class monopoly of the means of production. This monopoly can only be broken by the combined efforts of the working class and, for this task, the workers need their own political organisation. In Britain this is the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain.

Editorial Committee

Background to Patents (1968)

From the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some workers look upon patents as a chance to make their fortunes, rather like coming up on the pools, with the chances just as remote. It has the added attraction of appearing to be a reward given for the contribution of some useful invention to society. They cite as example a zip fastener, and say “simple isn’t it? The bloke who invented that must have made a fortune. Wish I could hit on an idea like that." Its all part of a dream world where production and technical development is an individual affair and success comes as a result of meritorious effort.

The world of capitalism in which patents, copyright and trade marks are needed does not operate like that. It is a system of society with a fundamental contradiction in that it is based on the private ownership of highly socialised means of production. Patents are part of the legal superstructure of that society, turning devices and processes developed by social effort into private property. With ownership goes the right to a rake-off, when the patented item is produced commercially. In modern industry large laboratories, employing scientists and technicians and equipped with expensive apparatus, are needed to do research and development work. The main part of this work involves applying what has already been invented and it is not very often something that can be patented is discovered. It must be remembered that the owner of patent is the organisation employing the scientist. They provide the equipment, materials and even the problem to be solved. It is easy enough for the employer to arrange things so that the job for which a patent is applied has been worked on by so many people that not one of them could claim ownership. In fact patents are registered in the name of the firms or perhaps its technical or research director. On the odd occasion that an aggrieved technical worker feeling cheated out of a patent sues his employer all he can expect is the loss of his savings in legal expenses for the dubious honour of having had a go.

Like anything else under capitalism the patent system has constantly to be revised. This is largely due to the fetter it imposes on technical development. In their quest for profit capitalist firms take up anything they think will help this and in doing so find that the know-how they need has to be paid for as it is private property. Hence there is either duplication of effort through trying to find substitutes or royalties are paid. In earlier times a patentee determined to have his way could cause a hold-up in technical development. One instance in Britain was the long dispute over the rights to the process of vulcanising rubber in the middle of the 19th century. At that time rubber had immense possibilities but suffered from one great drawback, its instability. On a warm day it melted; on a cold day it cracked; it dissolved in contact with oil and even perspiration; and lost its clastic properties after only a little use. Efforts were made in Britain, America and on the Continent to overcome this. The solution was founded in America by a process known as vulcanisation. The discoverer, Goodyear, being penniless was unable to patent the process for a few years and by that time patents had been taken out in Britain by a manufacturer called Hancock who had obtained samples of the vulcanised rubber, analysed them, reproduced the process after a fashion and patented it. His patented process was not as good as Goodyears but control of the patent enabled him to keep the Goodyear process out of Britain for several years. The result was the stagnation of the rubber industry in Britain so that once the Americans overcame this obstacle they had easy picking in the British market.

Patent laws have been amended many times since and the rights of patentees restricted. Yet expensive litigation still takes place. The Rolls Royce versus Rateau case is a recent example. It lasted 49 days and expenses were estimated at more than £400,000. The importance of the case can be judged by the litigants. Rolls Royce, Europe’s largest aero-engine producer, against Rateau, a French firm which forms part of a semi-nationalised company in which America’s Pratt and Whitney, the worlds largest aero-engine producer, has a share. Had Rateau won back payment of royalties would have been due not only from manufacturers but also from the British government which had been involved in aero-engine research. A minimum estimate of the royalties due at one per cent was £3 million. Which all shows what production is about. The division of profit was the point at issue and the technicalities of the machine were the object which had been produced to get the profit. The item under dispute could have been anything from razor-blades to a process for the production of synthetic fibres for it is the question of who has the right to the income from the patent that gives rise to the litigation not that of putting the historical record right as to who first thought up the idea. All this is a far cry from the dream world of the clever mechanic and his invention.

Another aspect of the patent system which causes headaches is the process of establishing the patent. In Britain this is looked after by a government agency whose task it is to establish the validity of any claim. This involves checking whether the invention has or has not been discovered before. With the growing technical complexity of industry the number of applications for patents grows and so also the difficulties facing the Patent Office. The job of establishing the novelty of a claim can only be done by skilled scientists and technicians and the task of searching through records is slow and laborious. With the international nature of capitalism the same application will be made in several countries and there is an international body with offices in Berne. All this is part of the waste of capitalism as not only does the industrial research and development have to be done but also additional resources have to be devoted to establishing ownership. Which would be unnecessary in a rational society.

Patents are part of capitalism's fetter on production. Although most cases are lost and the patentee is unable to prove infringement due to the expense involved. Only the largest firms are in a position to go to law. With patents certain products can be monopolised and prices kept well above what they would have been had the know-how been freely available. The same happens internationally so that countries most in need of industrial know-how must pay the advanced capitalist powers for it. Generally their need for aid helps make them respect patents. Of course this does not always happen. Russia and Japan gained a large part of their industrial knowhow through copying, and ignoring such niceties as paying up. Now that they have become established powers in the world of capitalism and have industrial know-how of their own to sell they issue licenses and accept payment of royalties in the time-honoured fashion.

Socialists have no proposals for reforming the patent laws either to give the small man a chance or to prevent monopolies and price-rigging or to give the emerging capitalists of Africa and Asia industrial know-how on the cheap. In fact all these demands are but the reflection of sectional interests within the capitalist class. Rather we go for another proposal: Socialism where technical development will be devoted solely to satisfying man’s needs and not for the profit of a minority. In that situation patents, copyrights, trade marks and the like will no longer be needed.

Joe Carter

Finance and Industry: Partners in Progress (1968)

The Finance and Industry column from the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Partners in Progress

The fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia was a boon to the Morning Star. Its special enlarged issue of 7 November had articles on the coup and on the changes that have taken place in Russia since. The advertising department had cause to be proud as a large part of the extra space was taken up with adverts from Russian and British industrial organisations. There was a full page effort by Courtaulds telling of their trade with Russia. But pride of place must go to a quarter-page taken by ICI headed “Partners in Progress”. It stated:

  ICI-Western Europe's largest chemical company-enjoys a thriving business relationship with the Soviet Union.

And went on to list some of its products exported to Russia and of plants being set up there under license from ICI. It ended on technical co-operation:

   Just over a year ago this form of co-operation reached a new stage when a five-year agreement was signed by ICI and the State Committee of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Science and Technology. This agreement—providing for technical co-operation and the exchange of information in certain fields—was the first of its kind to be concluded between the Soviet Union and a British company.

For ICI progress means a thriving business relationship and technical co-operation. Socialists know that scientific development and increased trade do not necessarily constitute progress. In the context of capitalism, in both the ICI and Russian state versions, science is used to increase productivity with a view to extracting more surplus value from the working class. It is only in Socialism where the means and techniques of production belong to and are under the democratic control of the whole of society that the results of scientific research will be used for the benefit of all.

We know that the so-called Communist Party and their unofficial organ, the Morning Star, are confused as to the nature of society in Russia. Now it seems their attitude to ICI has changed. This is what John Gollan had to say at their 29th Congress in November 1965:

  Labour's Britain of the 1970's will still be the Britain of the ICI, the Prudential, Vickers, the Stock Exchange, Eton and Harrow, the House of Lords and Buckingham Palace. We Communists refuse to accept this future (Turn Left for Progress).

There is no doubt about their attitude in that statement. They say they refuse to accept a future Britain of the ICI and so on. Yet in 1967 they accept an advert from their old enemy which points out its close ties with the Russian state. One useful aspect, however, is that the faithful followers of the Communist Party who will only accept information coming from the Morning Star have it straight from the horse's mouth: the Russian state and ICI have enough in common to be considered partners. We have one small suggestion. The caption should have read Co-operators in Capitalism.

Big Deal

The recent take-over battle in which the General Electric Company (GEC) gained control of Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) publicised the main features of capitalism which the journalistic trivia over personalities could not disguise. The first point to note is that the issue was not decided by the 150,000 or so people employed by the two companies even though it is they who carry out all the varied tasks involved in running both set-ups. Nor was the population of Britain consulted in spite of all the talk of how Britain’s interest would be served by the deal. The AEI shareholders were the important people and each side addressed their arguments to them. It was for them to decide and the point at issue was profits.

The argument raged over which management would deliver the greater profit. GEC had its record of growth in profit during the past five years as a recommendation. While AEI, in view of the stagnation of profits in the same period, could only claim that recent reorganisation would bear fruit in increased profits in the next few years.

It was clear that improvements in profits were expected to come as a result of a ruthless cutting back in the workforce. GECs record has shown what can be done for their shareholders through more intensive working of their staff; Moves included shutting down 35 regional offices and reducing head office staff from 2,000 io 200. AEI had been going in for the same sort of thing. The Financial Times of 6 November reported:

  Manpower has been reduced by nearly 9.000 and 12 major establishments closed with no reduction in manufacturing capacity . . .  but these actions alone reduce annual costs by about £7m.

Since the take-over the process continues. Cuts have been announced in AEI head office staff and more may follow elsewhere. The point to note here is that the drive to economise is inherent in the system and does not just occur when there is a merger or take-over.

Another feature of modern capitalism that the take-over publicised was the amount of common interest the parties involved had. Large shareholders were held in both firms by major institutional investors such as the Church Commissioners, the Prudential, the Co-operative Insurance. Not only did AEI and GEC have shareholders in common but they also shared investments such as the 18 per cent each had in C.A. Parsons, the leading supplier of generating equipment to the CEGB. Their interests involved agreements with firms in such fields as domestic appliances, lighting, telephone equipment, radio and television, electronic components and nuclear power stations. The take-over demonstrated how that holy cow competition works nowadays. The pressures generated by free, unbridled competition lead to its opposite where marketing and licensing agreements are entered into to try and bring some order into the anarchy of producing for sale with a view to profit. But capitalism does pave the way for Socialism in that even it needs large-scale co-operation. Its great stumbling block is of course that it is based on private property so that production solely for use, the logical outcome of socialised production, cannot be achieved.

Another publicised factor, the size of the resulting unit, is also important but it must be emphasised that the whole exercise was not concerned with increasing size for its own sake. The advantage of large groups is in the economies in design, research and marketing which large-scale production allows. In fields where AEI and GEC were competitors, duplication of design and research are cut out. The same goes for overseas sales. It is estimated that GEC-AEI will have annual sales of approximately £450m, which will make them seventh in the world league for the electrical industry. Even then they will be small in comparison with their American rivals of the same name. General Electric, whose annual sales are in the region of £7,000m. So that, in world terms, the going will be tough. In fact this was one of the pressures that led to the takeover. It is a case of running faster in order to stay in the same place. This is why mere size or the GEC Board's record are no guarantee of future success in profit making. ICI, whose management used to be the idol of the supporters of capitalism, has stagnated. BMH, in spite of mergers and rationalisation, has still found the going tough. Quality of management and size are only subsidiary factors to the main regulator—the condition of the market.

Mergers concern the owners or shareholders involved in that they hope to safeguard their investments through larger industrial units. The workers' role lies in producing the wealth from which the profit is made. Mergers take place due to the increasing competition within capitalism, but they do not guarantee any better profits as in general they are only keeping up with industry as a whole. For workers the lesson of mergers is an exercise in how the capitalist class protect their interest. They should take a hint from their masters and organise the biggest take-over of all—the take-over of the world's means of production for the benefit of everyone.

Joe Carter

Report From Moscow (1968)

From the January 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent months a mass of articles has appeared in the press dealing with Russia today. But most of these give very little concrete information on the subjects which are of crucial importance—the class structure of Russian society and the living conditions of working men and women in that country.

The working class in Russia, like workers throughout the world, sells its labour power for a wage (usually paid monthly there). The state-decreed minimum has recently been raised by ten roubles to 60 roubles a month. At the official exchange rate of £1 = 2.50 (before devaluation), this is equivalent to a monthly salary of £24. Such comparisons, however, are of limited value; what is necessary is to illustrate what this means in terms of real wages by giving the prices of goods on sale in the shops. The following list was compiled during the first half of November 1967, from commodities being sold in the stores in Leningrad and Moscow. We concentrated mainly on clothes because these are a basic essential (along with food and housing). At the same time it is fairly easy to assess the quality of articles of clothing, unlike much food which is wrapped or in packets.

Clothing
Man’s suit (poor quality)                                 64.00 roubles
Man’s suit (poor quality but better than above) 82.00r.
Men’s overcoats (various styles and qualities) 75-124r.
Men’s long-sleeved shirts (cotton)                         4.50-9.00r.
Man’s short-sleeved shirt (nylon)                         12.50r.
Women’s slips (nylon and various qualities)         10.00-17.00r.
Woman’s headscarf (cheapest)                         1.33r.
Women’s knitted suits                                         27.00-31.60r.
Child’s overcoat (4 year old)                                 22.85r.
Child's windcheater (nylon)                                   20.00r.
Children's frocks (for 2-3 years old various
qualities)                                                                 5.77-12.52r.


Food
1 kilo (2.2 lb) apples or pears                                 1.00r.
1 kilo (1.1 lb) bread                                         0.15r.
Eggs (sold in tens)                                                 0.90r.
1 kilo (12 lb) cheese                                         3.00r.
2-course meal at student's restaurant                 0.40r.


Others
Bicycle (very poor quality)                 54.50r.
Televisions
       c. 17" screen                                 234.00r.
       c. 20" screen                                 401.00r.
Motor cars (vary according to size & comfort) 2500-5000r.

It is clear from the above that workers in Russia have to be just as adept as those elsewhere in the art of eking out their wages. But, however much they may skimp and scrape, there are many luxury commodities on sale in the shops which they can never reasonably hope to buy. For example, just off Red Square in Moscow there is a store specialising in expensive shoes. Among the footwear displayed in its window were a pair of very elegant lady’s suede ankle-boots, selling at fifty roubles. When it is remembered that this sum represents nearly a month's wages for the lowest paid, it is obvious that the Moscow working man stands about as much chance of buying these shoes as a worker in London does of purchasing a Savile Row suit.

The question arises—who are the people, then, in a country like Russia who can afford such prices? One who springs to mind is Nikita Kruschev, the ousted first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Living in retirement, he has a five-roomed flat in Moscow as well as a country house on what used to be Prince Golytsin’s estate. Standing in seven acres of grounds, this building has four bedrooms and two reception rooms, while the Kruschevs are looked after by a staff of servants (two cooks, two chauffeurs, maid, gardener). As the Sunday Times put it: “Kruschev has 550 roubles a month, and with virtually all his bills paid by the State he lives at a level that could only be matched in the West by someone with a comfortable private income." [1]

It might be objected that we are relying here on Western newspapers which are inclined to distort the situation in Russia. But such reports on the easy life of the ruling class there and the other state-capitalist countries of eastern Europe are confirmed by information that can be gleaned from their own official sources. Thus the Belgrade Evening News (20 December, 1961) talked about individuals in Jugoslavia who have an annual income reaching 70 million dinars 'about $100,000 at the official exchange rate). [2]

In contrast to Kruschev's town and country residences, working class housing in general conforms to the twin standards of cheap and nasty. Despite the vast blocks of new flats which have been built since the war, some of the slums in Moscow can rival those of the East End of London for squalor and ugliness, while many of the tenements in Leningrad are without baths and date from the nineteenth century. The usual features of inadequate accommodation can be seen everywhere—children playing in gloomy backyards, washing hung from windows because there is nowhere else to dry it, buildings dilapidated and unpainted. No doubt, the occupants of these dwellings would be interested to learn that:

The Soviet state is very successfully solving its housing problem.

or that:

Though the current five-year plan period will not yet satisfy the housing needs of all the Soviet people, even the sceptics agree that the tiresome housing problem is nearing its solution. [3]

As in Britain, it is quite possible for families to buy their own apartments and, in fact, they are encouraged to do so: reports indicate that state credits for housing loans will be expanded by 200-300 per cent during the present plan. A normal flat costs from 2,000 to 6,000 roubles—depending on size and facilities—and deposit/repayment arrangements are strangely reminiscent of those in England. An initial deposit of forty per cent of the price is required, while the remaining sixty per cent is covered by monthly instalments spread over ten or fifteen years. This makes it clear that although the better-paid Russian worker can often manage to buy his own flat, it is just as much an uphill struggle for him to do so as it is for his counterpart in the West.

In addition, something needs to be said about the very low rents which are common in Russia, and which are always stressed in the government’s propaganda material.

  . . .  the monthly rent usually makes up less than four per cent of the wages earned by the head of the family and is actually a symbolic cost only.
The Soviet Union has the lowest rents in the world. (their emphasis). [4]

In reply, it is worth repeating what Kuron and Modzeleswski had to say on this before they were expelled from the Communist party in neighbouring Poland.

  As a rule, the worker has the advantage of living very inexpensively in a government-owned building. His lodging is therefore part free. But to live and produce he must stay somewhere. At any rate, his apartment rarely has any luxuries and in most cases not even the elementary comforts. It is part of his subsistence minimum, supplied to him in addition to his wages.
   The workers receive medical care free and can buy medicines at a discount, but these are necessary in order to preserve his labour power: they are ingredients of his subsistence minimum. If free medical care were abolished and rents increased, the worker's wages, would have to be raised in proportion to the increase in his necessary expenses. These non-returnable benefits and services are a necessary purl of the worker’s subsistence minimum, a wage supplement as necessary to the worker as the wages themselves, and therefore a constituent of production cost. [5]

Transport in the cities is another subsidised service. The standard price on the metro and buses is only 0.05 roubles, while trolley-buses or trams are even cheaper. This is necessary because only a few highly paid workers can afford motor cars and therefore most working men rely on public transport to get them back and forth from work. In the same way, most long-distance travelling in Russia is by rail and here there is a very rigid system of classes in operation. In contrast to capitalist Britain with its first- and second-class seats, "socialist” Russia finds it necessary to have four divisions— ranging from wooden benches upwards. It is certainly a strange experience in “the proletarian countries” to see workers standing in the corridors of trains, outside half-empty first class compartments, because they cannot afford the price of a decent seat. Laurens van der Post recalls a similar situation when he was travelling in a Russian steamer on the Black Sea.

   Pacing up and down the deck before dinner I saw old ladies with black shawls round their heads looking for a sheltered place for themselves and their bundles on the boards against the iron bulwarks. I saw them looking out of patient, peering eyes through the windows at the stewards in white, starched jackets laying the tables in the first-class dining-saloon, candlelit, sparkling cut glass for white and red wine as well as water, ornate silver cutlery and peaked napkins spotless as Arctic snow by each place . . .  Later I saw them lying on the hard deck, heads propped against their bundles, sleeping more peacefully than I was to sleep in my de-luxe cabin that night . . .  I remembered Fitzroy Maclean’s account of a Black Sea cruise—it might very well have been in this very ship—telling how, as the passengers were nearing Odessa, the loudspeakers suddenly called: "Olga Ivanova, we are calling Olga Ivanova. This is to inform Olga Ivanova that her car and maid are waiting on the quay for her." [6]

The Russian working class, then, is subject to all the stresses and indignities which workers everywhere experience under capitalism. Some of this is recognised by the Russian authorities and the conventional explanation is that the standard of living of the people is continually improving and that this trend will be maintained until eventually a system of free access to wealth will be instituted. Any ruling class defends its privileges with an ideology and the Russian bureaucracy is no exception. A cornerstone of its "theory" is that before the transition from "socialism” to "communism" (this is a Leninist perversion of Marxism, anyway) can be effected, a new type of communist man must emerge. This peculiar creature must be completely unselfish, must always put the interest of the community above his own personal welfare, must he continually prepared for hard work, and so on. In other words, this is the very antithesis of revolutionary thinking—with socialism reduced to utopian and mystical terms.

Such arguments do not stand up to the facts. A visit to the Exhibition of Economic Achievements in Moscow makes it obvious that the technical basis for a Socialist society exists now. If the agricultural and industrial machinery on display there were applied to natural resources for the benefit of mankind as a whole, the principle of “to each according to his needs" would be an accomplished fact. What stands between the workers and such a society of abundance is the class monopoly of the means of production. In Russia this takes the form of state capitalism, with wealth concentrated in the hands of the state and the state controlled by a minority ruling class. Because of this, production today is not intended to satisfy the people's needs but instead is geared to defending and increasing the collective property of the rulers. Thus vast industrial complexes are given over to turning out murderous nuclear weapons of the type which were trundled through Red Square on 7 November. In the same way, factories are set up to build ingenious ticket machines which are then installed to prevent workers from freely using the underground railway and other services, although these are supposed to belong to the working class in the first place. In fact, the Russian government’s own statistics prove that production is carried on primarily in order to expand the means of production, which represent the class property of the bureaucracy. Already post-war industrial output has grown to 7.3 times the 1939 figure, [7]  while real wages today are less than six times what they were prior to 1917. [8] In this way the Soviet Union conforms to Marx’s general law of capitalist accumulation.

  It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse.
 If the working-class has remained “poor”, only “less poor” in proportion as it produces for the wealthy class “an intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power”, then it has remained relatively just as poor. If the extremes of poverty have not lessened, they have increased, because the extremes of wealth have. [9]

A socialist revolution, carried through by the working class, will be necessary for the overthrow of state capitalism and the construction of Socialism. The material conditions for this step have all been fulfilled in Russia, as in the rest of the capitalist world. What is needed now are working men and women equipped with socialist understanding. But the spread of Socialist ideas is bitterly opposed both by the state machinery and the Communist party in the Soviet Union. Apart from its efforts to emasculate Marxism, the CPSU does all it can to falsify historical facts, not least those relating to the Bolshevik revolution. A visitor to the Red Army museum in Moscow looks in vain for any reference to Trotsky, while in the Revolutionary Museum in Leningrad there is no mention, not just of Trotsky, but of such leaders as Bukharin, Zinoviev and Kamenev.

Despite all this an oppressed class cannot be kept in chains for ever simply by a repressive state or bureaucratic trickery. The collapse of the tsarist regime demonstrates this completely. It is the experience of workers under capitalism which in the end makes class-conscious socialists out of them and this applies as much to Russia as to any other capitalist country. When we remember the heroism which the young working class in Russia displayed in the bourgeois revolution of 1917, we can be sure that the Russian proletariat will not be missing from our ranks when the workers of the world decide to overthrow capitalism and build a world socialist community.

John Crump

Endnotes:

[1] Sunday Times. 16 July, 1967.

[2] Is Jugoslavia a Socialist Country? Peking. 1964.

[3] Housing Construction. Moscow. 1967.

[4]  Ibid.

[5] An Open Letter to the Party. Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski. London. 1967.

[6] Journey into Russia. Laurens van der Post. London. 1964.

[7] Material ami Moral Incentives under Socialism. Mikhail Laptin. Moscow. 1966.

[8] How the Exploitation of Man by Man was Eliminated in the USSR. Leon Onikov. Moscow. 1966.

[9] Capital. Vol. 1, pp. 645, 652. Moscow. 1961.