Overheard In The Club (1974)

From the May 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers?

  Salt of the earth! Grand chaps! Where would we be without ’em? — They run everything for us. I can go away on a three-months’ cruise, confident that when I come back everything will be running smoothly. They make us excellent food, fine clothes, spacious houses, hotels, clubs, yachts, cars. They run our ships and planes and racing stables, keep our country estates fine and neat. All we need to do is look in occasionally — show an interest, express the thanks of the directors and shareholders — they appreciate that. And they never complain — not really. Niggles about wage rates sometimes, of course, but they never actually begrudge us our wealth or complain about how we use it. Proud to work for us, and yet not bitter when we have to lay them off or when they get too old to be useful. That shows real dignity. No doubt about it — hard work, and even hard times, breeds grand people! I’d be proud to be one of ’em — if I had to. Some of the nicest people I know are workers — my valet, for instance.

50 Years Ago: Who are the brain workers? (1974)

The  50 Years Ago column from the May 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

In order to combat working-class discontent the Daily Mail had urged “the men who do the brain work of this country” to give up their Sunday golf and devote the day to teaching the workers and correcting their “misapprehensions”.

How artfully the case is put! The manager, the professor, the cleric, the M.A., the B.A., and all the other lettered gentry; in other words the “Intellectuals” or salaried officials are obviously those to whom the Daily Mail points a reproving finger. How these people will swell with importance on reading such complimentary remarks. And yet it is nothing but “spoof”. “Spoof” for the “intellectual” and “spoof” for the worker.

* * *

Who are the intellectuals, the salaried officials anyway? They are simply a particular section of the working class, the most backward section, the most abject slaves — they who kiss the hand that smites them. They receive “honourable mention” when their performances assist the interests of the employers and the sack when their performances are unsuccessful. Like other workers they depend for their living upon the sale of their energies, and, like other workers, they go under if they can’t find a ready sale for such energies.

All work done by workers under capitalism requires the use of brains, and each kind of work is equally necessary.

The term “brain worker” is only a sop thrown to a particular section to ensure the continued support of capitalism by that section. The sop is thrown with the old principle in the mind of the thrower — “Divide and conquer". Set one section of workers against another and each will be so taken up with their sectional quarrel that they will overlook their fundamental solidarity as wage-workers.

[From an unsigned editorial 'King Canute Up-to-date' in the Socialist Standard, May 1924.]

Letter: Answers To Correspondents. (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. H. Baker (Wickford, Essex) writes, objecting to the statement that there will be a period of transition after a Socialist working class have gained control of the machinery of government. He says that ”the moment Capitalism is abolished Socialism will start.” He forgets, however,. that economic re-organisation is not a task to be completed in a moment by the simple issue of a decree, even although the majority of the population support the re-organisation. You cannot in a moment convert industries from the production of luxuries for the leisured few to the production of. necessaries for the population as a whole.

Mr. Baker adds that the change-over will involve "as little fuss” as a general election. This, of course, depends largely upon the attitude of a dissentient minority. But whether there is fuss or not, there certainly will be very difficult economic problems requiring to be solved before society will be running smoothly on a Socialist basis.

Mr. Baker also states that a Plebs League speaker at Southend asserted that Socialism has been established in Russia. The statement is totally untrue, and the Bolshevists in Russia do not now make any such claim. We have repeatedly invited those here who ignorantly repeat this statement to produce their evidence, which they are, of course, unable to do. The Russian working class do not "own and control the factories and run them for their own benefit.” The Russian workers are wage-earners, like the workers here. Rent, interest and profit are in Russia as here, paid to home and foreign Capitalist investors.

[Editorial Committee]

What Shall We Do With Our Votes? (1928)

Editorial from the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the approach of a General Election the “Left Wing” Labour groups are asking themselves how they ought to vote. All the rebels and near-rebels and would-be rebels are wondering whether they ought to carry their opposition to the Labour Party to the extent of telling their supporters to vote for Communist candidates or the candidates put up by branches expelled from the official Labour Party. They are, of course, in a difficult position. Having dubbed the Labour Party programme a “Liberal” programme, they must now choose either to support that programme and the candidates who fight on it, or, in effect, put themselves outside the Labour Party; for the Labour Party Executive is taking vigorous action wherever the dissident elements infringe the Party constitution and rules. Probably many of the Left-Wingers would like to take a definite stand, but they are deterred by the consequences. Whatever they may say about the discontent of the Labour Party membership with its leaders, a practical test soon convinces them that it is MacDonald not Maxton, J. H. Thomas not Arthur Cook, who have the support of the mass of the Trade Union members. A recent and illuminating test was the Borough Council elections.

In England and Wales the Communist candidates polled in the areas contested by them 10.5 per cent. of the Labour Party vote, and in Scotland 19.5 per cent. For the whole country their poll was 17.7 per cent. of the Labour votes in these selected constituencies (Sunday Worker, November 18th, 1928). The Editor of the Sunday Worker points out, too, that the Communist vote has declined since the Communist Party recently adopted the policy of openly opposing Labour candidates. He says that “in places where Communist candidates previously contested seats, before the adoption of the party’s new electoral policy, decreased votes for the Communists are frequently recorded.”

The Sunday Worker offers what is no doubt a correct explanation. Even many voters who are dissatisfied with the Labour Party programme will not vote against its candidates because they want to “get the Tories out.” To indicate the unsoundness of this policy of voting for one capitalist party in order to prevent another capitalist party getting in, the Sunday Worker recalls the 1906 Election, when hundreds of thousands of workers who had no faith in Liberalism voted for the Liberals in order to keep the Tories out. The Liberals got in and eight years later led its dupes into the War.

Truly a fatuous policy, but who have done more to propagate it than the Communists and the multifarious “Left Wing” groups? The Communists from 1920 to 1927, and the other “ Left Wing " groups still, have persistently denounced the Labour Party and simultaneously told the workers to vote for it because, in some way never explained and now (by the Communists) emphatically denied, it was supposed to be better than the other capitalist parties. If the workers still have faith in the Labour Party’s programme of reforming capitalism, the responsibility cannot be shelved by the Communists and the Sunday Worker.

Even now, while opposing some Labour candidates, the Communist Party members are required to go on paying the political levy to the Labour Party through their Trade Unions. Could anything be more productive of confusion in the minds of the workers?

Mr, J. T. Murphy, a prominent member of the Communist Party, writes on this in the November issue of the Communist, and  points out the absurdity of asking the miners to contribute £10,000 a year to the Labour Party and then appealing to the miners again for more thousands to fight the Labour candidates. He also condemns the confusing relationship between the Communists and the Left Wing groups, which, he says, has made the Communist Party a “laughing-stock.”

  Our party members are not quite sure when they should be recruiting for the Left Wing and when for the party. It appears that we can carry the programme of the Left Wing in one pocket and that of the Communist party in the other, and, according to the audience we are addressing, use one or the other without contradiction, for . . . the Communist programme and the Left Wing are identical in all essentials. The only people who ought to be bewildered, apparently, should be the audience who are to be led into the Left Wing according to circumstances (i.e., whichever meeting they have attended—if a C.P. meeting, then into the C.P.; if a Left Wing meeting, then into the Left Wing). This may be considered by some of our comrades to be tactical, but I am sure that' our party members are unhappy about it, and cannot get results whilst such a policy exists. (Communist, November 1928.)

We see, therefore, that the Communists are still unprepared to accept and act on the recognition of the fact that the workers' economic position of subjection is the result of capitalism and will continue as long as capitalism continues, irrespective of whether the system is administered by Tories, Liberals, the Labour Party or by anyone else. Similarly, the Sunday Worker, having disposed of the fallacious argument that the workers should vote Labour to “keep the Tories out,” proceeds to throw up another smoke screen in order to hide its retreat from the position to which its argument would logically lead it. The editorial lamely concludes:—

  We shall give our votes only to the working-class candidates whose programme is the end of imperialism and the end of war.

Capitalism and the danger of capitalist war will not be brought to an end by voting for the Labour Party programme of reforms of capitalism. Labour candidates are compelled to fight on the Labour Party’s general programme, but this, of course, will not prevent every single Labour candidate from saying that he is in favour of “ending Imperialism and war.” Probably all the Liberals and most of the Tories will equally willingly subscribe to the same vague and unhelpful declaration. So that, having given good reasons why the workers should vote against the Labour, candidates, the Sunday Worker evades the issue with a piece of advice which is meaningless.

In contrast with the trifling of Communist and Left Wing groups, the Socialist Party gives a bold answer. If the workers vote for capitalism, then they will get what they vote for. Workers who want Socialism will vote only for Socialist candidates. The Socialist Party of Great Britain is unique among the political parties in this country in being prepared to put forward candidates fighting on that issue alone, Socialism or Capitalism. At present the number of workers who want Socialism is few in comparison with those who want Liberal capitalism, Tory capitalism or Labour Party capitalism. That unfortunate position can be remedied only by Socialist propaganda. It is not helped, but hindered, by voting for one in preference to another of the parties which stand for private or state capitalism. There are differences, and real differences, between the capitalist parties, but the differences do not touch the subject condition of the working class.

Is there a Capitalist System? (1928)

From the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

“There is no such thing as the capitalist system!” exclaimed a public speaker in the hearing of the present writer recently. “A system (such as the solar system, for example) implies law—fixed, rigid, unalterable, tyrannic; but to-day you have infinite variation in exchange, with currency conditions in a state of chaos. No, there is certainly not a capitalist system.”

This method of trying to combat Socialist propaganda is not original, and it is difficult to imagine any fairly well-informed opponent using it; but, knowing that the workers are seldom well-informed on matters outside their jobs, many champions of capitalism seem inclined to convey the impression that the Socialist is attacking a phantom of his imagination. In case any of our readers take them seriously, let us examine their case.

In the first place, it is not true that the solar system is “fixed and unalterable.” It is in constant motion, radiating energy into space and thus altering its own composition. If astronomers are any guide, it had an origin and must have some end. Its lengthy existence (judged by human standards) does not alter the fact that it is a product of evolution.

Being composed of definite quantities of matter, its motions can be measured and expressed in the form of laws, and the same is true of other parts of the universe, including human society.

The prices of goods, for example (upon which we depend for our existence to-day), are regulated by economic forces, no matter what the variations in those prices may be. If a shopkeeper marks his goods too high, he is left with them on his hands; should he sell at too low a figure, he will not clear his expenses. In either case he will fail to realise a profit and will find himself on the way to the Bankruptcy Court. But what determines the figure at which he should sell?

The basic factor is the value of the goods, which is the expression of the amount of socially necessary labour embodied in them. Other factors are supply and demand. Sometimes the conditions will favour the seller and prices will tend to rise; at other times the reverse will obtain; but always there is the compelling force of competition, on one side or the other, or both simultaneously.

The effect of this force is felt most keenly by the workers. They have but one commodity to sell, that is, their power to labour. The value of this power, embodied in their brains, nerves, muscles, etc., depends upon the value of the necessary elements of their subsistence. The cost of the food, clothing, and shelter, etc., that the worker must have in order to go on working are reflected in the wages that they receive. In the long run and on the average, they cannot accept less without causing their energy to deteriorate and become unsaleable. They cannot get more, because there are machines on the one hand and unemployed workers on the other ready to take their places.

With the workers, the existence of economic law is not a matter of speculative theory; it is a painful, everyday experience. If there were no economic forces operating according to some discoverable law, nothing could prevent the workers claiming what wages they fancied, and the same would apply to the capitalists in fixing their prices. Nothing would be determined; all would be chaos; but human beings cannot exist on chaos and such a state is simply inconceivable.

At first sight, the realm of exchange presents an appearance of anarchy. The fluctuations of prices, including wages, are occasionally so violent that they seem capricious to the superficial observer.

In the same way, superstitious sailors, even today, attribute storms to spirits, etc., but for every wave there is a corresponding depression and the general level of the ocean remains unchanged. So with the world market. The rise in prices at one time encourages greater production till the market is glutted; then, with the consequent fall in prices, the less economically conducted concerns go out of business. Always there is going on a ruthless, blind, automatic selection of the fittest types of machinery and organisation for the production of the wealth, with the result that the social powers of production are greater today than ever before in human history.

How are these powers controlled? They are in private hands, in spite of their social character. Consequently, they are only set into operation for the production of private profit. There is no organised social plan. Competition asserts itself at every turn. Even the narrowing of the circle by the concentration of capital, the forming of world trusts, international combines, etc., only makes the struggle fiercer.

The larger the output, the greater the importance of minute economies; yet the conflict in the market is as nought compared with that in the factory. If the capitalist is an anarchist in the realm of exchange, he is a despot in that of production, which is carried on amid the smouldering revolt of wage-slaves needing but little to fan it into open flame; but this revolt, again, is for the most part blind. It is only against the effects of the system, because the workers have not yet learnt to understand the cause, i.e., the system itself.

Hence their efforts at improvement take the form of demands for higher wages and shorter hours, valuable enough if other things remained the same. Capitalism, however, constantly develops a greater power of exploitation. No programme of reforms can alter that. The workers cannot interrupt the development of industry; they can only take advantage of it by obtaining control of it through the common ownership of the productive forces themselves; but that would be Socialism—and “the end of all things.” That at least is what those who pretend that “there is no capitalist system" would like us to believe. 

Eric Boden

Trotsky States His Case (1928)

Book Review from the December 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Real Situation in Russia, by Leon Trotsky. Translated by Max Eastman. 364 pages. 7s. 6d. George Allen & Unwin.

This book consists for the most part of the statement submitted by Trotsky (and 12 other minority members) to the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party in September, 1927. The document was suppressed by Stalin and his supporters, and the opposition group – both in the Central Committee and in the country at large – was broken up by the imprisonment, persecution and exile of its prominent members. As might have been expected a copy of the statement was smuggled out of Russia, and now appears in an English edition. It is translated by Max Eastman, who is an American admirer of Trotsky, and was himself recently in Russia.

Trotsky describes in considerable detail the serious problems which face the workers in Russia under Stalin’s Government, the charges which his group level at the dominant section in the Communist Party, and the remedies which they propose.

The richer peasants in the country, and the trading and money lending capitalists in the towns are increasing in wealth and are becoming a more powerful factor politically. One-fifth of all trade, 50 per cent. of retail trade and more than 20 per cent. of industrial production is in private hands (page 27). The profits of the trading capitalists, the middle men, are big and growing while the workers’ share in the national income has been falling since 1925. The introduction of methods of rationalisation into State industry results in an increase of unemployment, a general intensification of labour, and a lowered standard of living.

The fear of unemployment is such that the workers resist the efforts of the Government to increase production in the factories by machinery and more efficient methods.

Among the 3½ million rural wage workers the rates of pay are often below the legal minimum even on the Soviet State farms. Housing for the town workers grows steadily worse.

Workers’ control is more than ever a mere catch-word without real application. “Never before have the trade unions and the working mass stood so far from the management of the Socialist industry as now” (page 57).

The immense majority of delegates to Trade Union Conferences are people entirely dissociated from actual participation in industry. Factory committees are mistrusted and discontent is driven underground because the man who voices a complaint knows that he will lose his job. Men and women are not equally paid.

Capitalism on the land

During the previous four years Trotsky alleges that from 35 per cent. to 45 per cent. of the landless rural workers and small peasants were unable to continue making a living, while the rich class of peasants (more than 28 acres) increased in number by from 150 per cent. to 200 per cent. (p. 61). In a typical district 15 per cent. of the peasants own 50 per cent. of the land machinery, cattle, etc. Renting of land is on the increase, and the army of landless rural labourers is continually being recruited from the poor peasantry.

The new bureaucracy

Under Bolshevik administration there has grown up a new bureaucracy, divorced from working class life and not subject to any effective control from below. “The city Soviets have been losing in these recent years all real significance.” “The Soviets are having continually less and less to do with the decision of fundamental, political, economic, and cultural questions. They are becoming mere supplements to the executive committees and the praesidiums. . . . The discussion of problems at the full meeting of the Soviets is a mere show discussion” (pages 98 and 99). Elected delegates are promptly removed from office if they express on behalf of the workers any criticism of the official element.

The composition of the Communist Party is deteriorating. At the beginning of 1927 only one-third of the members were shop and factory workers, while two-thirds were peasants, officials, etc. In 18 months over 100,000 industrial workers were lost to membership and an equal number of peasants admitted. The majority of these were “middle” peasants, the percentage of farm labourers being insignificant.

Inside the Communist Party “the genuine election of officials is in actual practice dying out” (page 115). Terms of office are being increased to two or more years. The Party machinery is used to secure the dismissal from their employment of workers who criticise the leadership.

Communist Party groupings

There are, in Trotsky’s analysis, three main groups. First, a right wing group, which combines the aims of the middle peasants with those of the Trade Union leaders and the better paid clerical and other workers. Secondly, there is the ruling section of the Communist Party, the members of the Government and the administration. Their object is to avoid if possible any change in the present balance of forces such as will disturb their own position.

And, thirdly, there is the Trotsky group, which claims to represent the mass of the industrial workers.

Lenin worship

Quite a large part of the book is given up to the personal issues between Trotsky and the members of the Government. Each section and all of the individual disputants try desperately hard to prove not only that their views are in accord with Lenin’s general line of policy, but that during his lifetime they possessed Lenin’s personal regard. These personal issues may be of interest to the English reader, but are not of great importance. They are, however, significant in that they indicate what both Stalin’s group and Trotsky’s group think of the degree of understanding possessed by the members of the Communist Party in Russia. Whatever may be the real opinion of Stalin and Trotsky as to the value of this “Lenin worship” and controversies about personal merits (it is noteworthy that Trotsky specifically credits Stalin’s faction with “sincerity,” p. 185), they both plainly realise that in the life and death struggle which involves the political careers and the very existence of the oppositionists, they have got to canvass support by “arguments” based on abuse and on the kind of trivialities which are the stock in trade of every demagogue appealing to a politically ignorant electorate. This, more than Trotsky’s assertions, indicates the low level which rules among the so-called Communists in Russia. It is not, therefore, surprising to be told that the majority organise regular bands of “Communists” to break up opposition meetings by means of catcalls and whistling in chorus.

Trotsky’s programme

The reader will have noticed that the evils which afflict the Russian worker are very much the same as those which afflict us here or in any other country where the basis of the economic system is capitalism.

Trotsky presents a long list of remedies which serve only to confirm what we have always said as to the necessity for Russia to go through capitalism. Trotsky does not admit this in so many words. In fact, he vigorously denounces Stalin’s “capitalist tendencies.” But when we examine his programme we find that it is all based implicitly on the continuance of capitalism in Russia until such time as a developed capitalist industry and a Socialist revolution outside Russia make Socialism possible.

Most of his proposals might have been lifted out of the programme of any trade-union in Germany or England; “Equal pay for equal work,” less overtime; more unemployment pay; no more Government faking of labour and industrial statistics; retail prices to be brought down to the world price level; no profiteering by capitalist middlemen; no increase in the rents of” working class houses; every effort to be made to lower the cost of production in order to promote the growth of industry ; more taxes on rich peasants; abolition of the State sale of Vodka, etc. A long programme of reforms, but no mention of the abolition of capitalist farming, capitalist trading and capitalist investment. Both Trotsky and Stalin draw up their programmes within the framework of state and private capitalism which prevails in Russia.

By far the most important demand made by Trotsky is for the unfettered expression of opinion by members of the Communist Party, and this does not go far enough. In the past Trotsky, Stalin and Lenin all agreed that “democracy” was merely a capitalist trick for hoodwinking the workers. With their dictatorship of a minority they were going to suppress the defenders of capitalism and impose Socialism on the apathetic majority. Experience has now taught Trotsky that dictatorship is incompatible with sound working class organisation.

It is also still necessary for him and other Bolsheviks to learn that they have not found a substitute for democracy. Without in anyway idealising it, the fact remains that modern industrial society, whether on a capitalist or on a Socialist basis, cannot be run with any degree of smoothness and efficiency without democratic methods. In no other way can the necessary social stability and the indispensable minimum of general interest in administration be secured.

Sooner or later the whole apparatus for suppressing opinion and political propaganda and organisation in Russia will have to be scrapped. The attempt to stifle criticism and hostile propaganda does not hasten the end of capitalism; it may for a time drive the propaganda underground, but the effect of that is to produce a false sense of security and a rapid deterioration among the organised workers themselves.

Trotsky’s errors about England

One fatal weakness of the Bolshevik leaders 10 years ago was their appalling misunderstanding of conditions outside Russia. There was at that time much excuse. Now there is none; but the ignorance remains. In face of the plain evidence of every election and the absurdly small membership of the English Communist Party, despite the waste of hundreds of thousands of pounds on propaganda, Trotsky still bases his hopes on an early revolution in this country. With 85 per cent. of the electorate members of the working class, there is no single constituency where a candidate has yet been returned to Parliament on a Socialist programme. The great majority of the workers still pin their faith to capitalism, a majority of them even continue to vote for the Liberal and Tory parties. To suppose that workers who vote for capitalism will at a signal from Moscow rise in revolt against the Government for which they vote, either in peace time or war time is sheer delusion. If Trotsky or anyone else bases a programme on that fantastic supposition they are in for certain disappointment.

Trotsky deals also with the complete failure of the Third International in China, and lays the blame on their tactic of supporting one after another of the capitalist nationalist leaders.

The book as a whole is valuable as a first-hand and authoritative impression of the recent condition of Russia, although of course we cannot accept Trotsky’s facts or his conclusions without further independent evidence, and this is not available. It is absolutely certain that the means do not exist in Russia for obtaining statistics on prices, production, etc., on a sufficiently general and precise basis to warrant the use made of them by both Trotsky and his opponents, and if Trotsky is as prone to rashness in drawing conclusions about Russian affairs as he is about England, then his views must be treated with considerable caution.

Nevertheless we can confidently assert that Stalin’s group is in the wrong. Not Trotsky’s book, but its treatment by the Russian Government proves this to be the case. Competent, self-reliant Socialists are not produced in an atmosphere of censorship, and Socialism is not to be promoted by the violent suppression of critics and criticism. Party unity which is based on the avoidance of discussion, is a fictitious unity, and a membership which is recruited by the bait of jobs in the State factories is worse than useless. Trotsky’s exile is the Russian Government’s plea of guilty to the charge of hindering the spread of Socialist knowledge and the growth of the Socialist movement. His exile does not prove Trotsky to be in the right, but it does prove his opponents to be in the wrong.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Lesson in Futility (1961)

From the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marches from Aldermaston and Wethersfield, treks from London to Holy Loch. Sit downs and arrests in Whitehall. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Direct Action Groups seem to be more intensely active as the days go by.

What is the Socialist attitude towards these demonstrations? No one can reasonably oppose a spirit of protest against intensifying hideousness in the instruments of war. But to treat the subject, as do the campaigners, in isolation from its causes is to make of C.N.D. an endeavour of impotence and futility. Here, on occasions like the Aldermaston and Wethersfield marches, were organised public protests against nuclear weapons. Yet throughout the whole proceedings there was no expression of antagonism towards the social system of capitalism which imposes upon each of its national capitalist groupings the need to have the most effective means of successfully waging war against their rivals. The leaders—supporters without exception of the existing social order—were cheered to the echo for their references to a capitalist world turning to nuclear disarmament for humanitarian reasons.

It is not inconceivable that governments will eventually give up the thought of waging nuclear war. The latest development in H-bombs has made these weapons so widely destructive that the use of them might well mean the destruction of the coveted markets and the extermination of the coveting capitalists themselves. Thus, to avoid the danger of destroying themselves and the very market expansion they are seeking, the various capitalist groupings, through their governments, may revert to “conventional” warfare.

This, however, is no solace. The colossal funds which governments have provided for the development of nuclear weapons reveals the financial lengths to which they will go to ensure the armament supremacy which, in the capitalist struggle for markets, alone offers a reasonable chance of triumph over rivals. And, now accustomed to greatly increased provisions for defence, they would be quite prepared to spend huge sums on “conventional” weapons.

Who can tell but that these weapons, if multiplied and further developed, would not be just as disastrous as H-bombs? We know, in any case, that with or without the bomb, war takes a sufficiently hideous toll in bloodshed and misery. And in a capitalist system which compels, from time to time, a resort to force, wars will inevitably arise. To denounce “the bomb” whilst acquiescing in the social set-up that brings it into being is contradictory and absurd.

It is for that and the added reason that it draws popular attention from the vital necessity of changing the social order that the Socialist Party of Great Britain opposes the C.N.D. The object of the working class should be the ending of a system which, at worst, offers universal annihilation through H-bombs and, at best, brings death to millions through other destructive alternative weapons.

F. W. Hawkins

The Cuban Cockpit and Castro (1961)

From the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

(1) The Background

In April, the American backed invasion of Cuba by a force of U.S. trained exiles became yet another issue that could have triggered off world war. As the invasion was under way, the American President warned Russia that “in the event of any military intervention by outside force the U.S. is ready to protect this hemisphere against external (our emphasis) aggression ” (Time, 28/4/61.)

America's “egg-heads” had hardly recovered from their exertions in campaigning for the election of President Kennedy, the bright young “progressive", before they were to be distressed and dismayed by the dishonesty and hypocrisy of his policy towards Cuba. Much more important still has been the harmful effect upon the American alliance and the less committed countries within its sphere of influence. The Guardian editorial of the 22nd April summed up these feelings and did not mince its words in the process. “American policy towards Cuba” it said, “has lead to resounding and deserved humiliation. . . .  the Kennedy administration appears to be guilty of deliberate intervention in the internal affairs of another country”. The editorial went on to say as a result the United States had made Dr. Castro stronger than before; she had made his régime still more oppressive and dictatorial; and thrown him still farther into the arms of the Soviet Union. . . .  Neutral governments have universally condemned him (Kennedy). Even in the Western Alliance he has wantonly thrown away much of the good will he previously enjoyed". What the Guardian regretted most of all was that American policy has facilitated Russia’s aim of posing as the “protector of small nations” struggling to free themselves from foreign tutelage. “He has made the watchwords of democracy sound like a camouflage for imperialism ”.

The Guardian summed up the feelings common to most of the junior partners of American Capitalism but we must point out that evoking democracy as a camouflage for attaining normal capitalist objectives pre-dates the Kennedy administration by many, many years. Two hideous world wars were allegedly fought to safeguard “freedom” against dictatorship and militarism but we know otherwise. Now that Russian economic development has reached such a high pitch, who need be surprised that her ruling class attempts to disguise its sordid objectives by hypocritically evoking the ideals of Socialism?

Like Germany and Japan before her, Russian capitalism is a latecomer in the world arena. Necessarily she is on the offensive. The American bloc, of which West Germany and Japan at present form part, is on the defensive. But it is not democratic rights nor the aims of Socialism that motivate their policies. It is the maintenance or enhancement of power, trade and class privilege that each government has as its function.

In January, the Socialist Standard carried an article which pointed out that for a small power to attempt playing off the great powers as a means of fostering its own economic development involves very considerable risks. The chief risk is that in freeing itself from subservience to one overlord it may well be forced to succumb to another. How is Castro faring in this respect? And, much more important so far as the Socialist is concerned, has the working-class in Cuba strengthened its bargaining position and extended its civil rights in the period in which the new ruling élite has been consolidating its position? Certainly, experience elsewhere in the held of bourgeois national revolutions of recent times has not been encouraging.

Throughout the former colonial or semi-colonial world, embryo capitalist classes or would-be capitalist intellectual-military élites are asserting themselves. Their aim is to supplant the foreign interests who, in the process of exploiting the natural resources of those parts, brought into being this rival social class. But just as the old powers find it necessary to disguise their rapacious motives under the cloak of the “struggle for democracy ”, so the new local exploiting class must obscure its cruel rôle in terms of the self-determination of small nations, their national liberation and the establishment of human dignity. As regards the claim of human dignity, it is true that with the ousting of the former colonial power, many an African, an Asian or a Latin American need no longer feel humiliated just because he was born where he was born and was what he was. That is an advance. But is he aware that in becoming a member of the working-class he is to face the greatest humiliation of all? That is that in the eyes of his employers he will not even be an inferior man. He, that is to say his ability to work, will become a mere commodity, to be bought and sold on the market. A cog in the productive process. Such is human dignity in the society into which he is entering.

The Socialist measures working-class progress in terms of its heightening awareness of its needs and aspirations. Consciousness in short, of its liberating rôle in history. Do workers realise the necessity of their building trade-union organisation that is independent of the employing class? Do they know the value of the strike weapon—and its limitations? Do they value and exercise hard won electoral rights and the right to dissent? Do they become more and more convinced of the need for a change in the very basis of present society if humanity is to survive and to reach its proper stature? These are our criteria.

The Nationalist teaches the worker to identify himself with his ruling-class. The Socialist says that the worker has no country and should recognise his common bonds with workers everywhere. Each new state that is set up has as its number one task the inculcation of a sense of differentness into its school-children and of their loyalty to a piece of territory quite arbitrarily arrived at. 

For the past year or so fierce argument has raged amongst Castro's admirers as well as among his critics in the outside world. Those who have viewed the scene through Bolshevik eyes have felt the necessity of “explaining” the social forces behind the Cuban revolution in the set terms of Leninism. Hence efforts have been made to show that, like China, it was the peasants' support that made victory possible as the workers played no great part. Then realising, perhaps, that the peasant's classic demand is for the land he worked and that state-farms (called cooperatives) would replace estate farms more efficiently, a new angle was developed. Truly speaking, they said, those working on the sugar plantations were not peasants at all but sharecroppers hired and fired by the three month season. Concerning the other end of the social scale, it is being debated whether it was a middle-class revolution betrayed because so many of its staunchest professional and managerial supporters have been alienated by now.

These knotty problems can be unravelled, however. According to Geografia de Cuba, a book quoted by Theodore Draper in his well documented article in Encounter last March, the population was more urban than rural and increasingly so. Of the 40 per cent who were dependent upon agriculture for a living over a quarter were classified as farmers and ranchers. The urban population was mostly literate but nearly half the rural population was not. But whatever their category, the mass of the people have readily given their support to a régime that promises to put an end to seasonal unemployment by diversifying agriculture and which is making strenuous efforts to raise the educational level of the people.

India and Brazil stand out as exceptions of great significance but since 1917 virtually every country entering upon the threshold of capitalist production has been failed by such middle-class elements as existed when the change came. Rarely has nature related the perfect juxtaposition of coal and iron that so favoured the pioneers of British capitalism. Coming so much later onto the scene there is the problem of important sections of the working-class being already organised to resist encroachments. Vast sums of money are needed to establish communications. Tariff walls are all around. In these circumstances and bearing in mind the extent to which the middle-class is compromised to the metropolitan power, it falls to a determined and far-sighted section of that class to actually throw off the fetters, often at the expense of some of the comforts and privileges of the class as a whole. Cuba’s capitalist system is being ushered in by a revolutionary élite of this kind who had grasped power on the strength of popular discontent.

(2) Political Democracy

How do the trade-unions fit into all this? Except for a pioneering few that were built up under anarcho-syndicalist influences at the turn of the century, most unions date from a much later period and were set up under Stalinist influence. Nevertheless, within their limits they became quite valuable working-class instruments. Under very great pressure they carried on through the Batista dictatorship and came out more or less intact. This was partly due to the fact that in the early days of the guerrilla war the trade-union movement remained neutral. Support for Castro came from professional and managerial circles who still lacked the constitutional rights promised as long ago as 1940 and from an increasing number of the rural population who saw him as the man who would at last enact the land reforms that had been promised in the same constitutional proposals.

The Communist Party (PSP) at that stage was deeply compromised by its history of collaboration with the Batista dictatorship. As late as April 1958 it broke, in effect, the general strike called by Castro since the key transport workers under CP leadership did not join in.

A few months after Castro’s triumphal march into Havana, the union elections that were held put most of the country’s union branches firmly in the hands of his 26th July Movement National conferences of various union federations during June, July and August secured him control over most of these groups. It should be noted that the new government had debarred from the elections trade-union figures belonging to several groupings other than the 26th July Movement who had managed to retain office in their unions even though they had fought against Batista and this was because of the solid rank and file support they enjoyed.

At the congress of the local TUC (CTC) early in 1959 there was a struggle between the pro- and anti-communist elements within Castro’s movement, the anti-communists having held power since his victory. According to Robert J. Alexander in his new book, The Struggle for Democracy in Latin America, both Fidel and his brother Raul intervened on behalf of the pro-communist elements. As a result all but one of the leading anti-communist figures were purged from the Executive. Since then the government has taken stringent measures to regiment the organised workers. By decrees promulgated early in 1960 all collective bargaining was abolished and all matters previously dealt with through joint negotiations were to be submitted to the Ministry of Labour for arbitration. Already troops have been used to bring recalcitrant workers into line. When a Conference of the Building Workers Federation in April 1960 refused to obey the orders of the CTC purge committee to dismiss its leaders, soldiers were moved into the meeting hall and the conference was brought to a summary conclusion.

Political democracy has been part of the price of the Cuban revolution notwithstanding that its reintroduction was the rallying cry of the "bearded ones” in their fighting days. On 1st May. Cuba declared itself on a level with Czechoslovakia by becoming a “Socialist Republic”. In the Soviet hierarchy it presumably ranks higher now than mere “Popular Democracies” which is what most of the satellites remain. Freedom of dissent whilst not entirely gone has been drastically curtailed. No opposition parties or newspapers have survived. Adlai Stevenson was reported by Time (28/4/61) as saying at the United Nations that nearly two-thirds of Castro’s first cabinet now form the leadership of Cubans in exile. It can be seen that those who fought with Castro in the belief that it was a struggle between democracy and dictatorship are silenced, in prison or in exile. Political freedom is something of such overwhelming importance to the working-class that it loses it at its peril. It does not exist in Cuba.

Eddie Grant

Armaments and Unemployment (1961)

From the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

The disarmament conference organised by the Labour Party in January 1911 passed a resolution in favour of a campaign to secure the mutual gradual reduction of armaments; with a view to the ultimate disbandment of all armies and navies. It rejected a proposal for a general strike to prevent war and would not even discuss an amendment to the main proposal, which declared that disarmament could only be brought about by the abolition of capitalism and establishment of Social Democracy. Many interesting things were said at the Conference, including a declaration that the British Government was absolutely responsible for the world armament race, made by Will Thorne, M.P., who three years later was heartily supporting the war “against the German militarists". But what concerns us here is an amendment, debated at the Conference, which would have postponed any effort to reduce armaments until such time as a law had been passed providing full maintenance for workers who lost their jobs in the armaments industries. The amendment was defeated but the attitude persisted and is with us still: there are still many workers who believe that it is only armaments that keep capitalism busy, and that if governments reduce armaments, employment and trade and wages will collapse. How much truth is there in this belief?

It can be answered categorically from past experience as well as from general considerations that capitalism is not kept going simply by armament expenditure and therefore the effect that reductions of armament expenditure will have depends on all sorts of other factors as well. To start with, except in war-time, expenditure on armaments and armed forces represents only a small proportion of total national income and production—in Britain it is now about 7½ per cent, in U.S.A. about 11 per cent, and in other European countries very much less than 7½ per cent.

It is of course obvious that if the British Government suddenly destroyed all arms, gave up arms production and disbanded the armed forces, thus saving an annual expenditure of £1,400 million, it would create immediate problems for hundreds of thousands of redundant soldiers and armament workers, as well as for manufacturers with cancelled contracts. If trade conditions were already depressed at that time the effects might he severe and prolonged, but they would not be different in magnitude from the effects produced by any other sudden cessation of demand for labour and goods totalling £1,400 million a year. One factor to he remembered here is that what is called “defence expenditure" is not wholly or mainly on weapons of war; about half is on the food, uniform, buildings and pay military and civilian staffs.

In 1945 war expenditure was equal to nearly half the total national income. Then in two years it was cut from £5,000 million to under £850 million, and the size of the armed forces was slashed from 5 million to 800,000. The effect of this on unemployment was negligible though it involved millions of men changing their work and millions of others finding jobs after demobilisation. All that happened was that as the armed forces dwindled the numbers of workers m civilian employment grew, for capitalism was in a vigorous phase of expansion. Experience after the first world war was not the same. There was much more industrial disorganisation when the troops were demobilized and within three years came the acute though short lived slump of 1921.

British capitalism was still expanding in 1951 when the Labour Government launched the re-armament programme which more than doubled defence expenditure from £740 million to over £1,400 million. To make it possible other activities, including building and the capital expenditure on the Post Office and nationalised industries, had to be cut down because there were insufficient reserves of labour and raw materials to carry on the existing volume of civilian production plus the expansion of armaments, Within a year the Government reported that the planned expansion of armaments was itself falling behind because of these limitations.

America immediately after the end of World War It had much the same experience as Britain when it demobilized most of its war-time armed forces, but unemployment did not fall to so low a level.

Germany and Italy had a quite different experience. They were not going through a phase of expansion in the early port-war years and their demobbed soldiers and redundant munition workers largely went to swell the very heavy unemployment that lasted for ten years or more.

But later, though Germany's armament expenditure still represented only about 2 per cent or 3 per cent of national income and production, German industry has had several years of boom conditions with more vacancies than workers to fill them and hundreds of thousands of workers being brought in from neighbouring countries.

We can therefore say that though arms and armies play a considerable part in the whole field of production arid employment and can ax times exercise a considerable influence on the total magnitude, expenditure on them is no more decisive than any other expenditure of similar size, i.e. on average about 5 per cent to 10 per cent of total national production and expenditure, It all depends on whether capitalism is in an expanding or a contracting phase.

To put it in perspective, it may be added that while capitalism continues no government is in fact going to abolish its armies and armaments though, as in the past, there may be occasions when expenditure is reduced.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: State Insurance (1961)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as with Labour Exchanges and Old Age Pensions, so with the latest dodge, State Insurance, it is a soporific. All along the line of Liberal legislation an examination shows that the benefit go to the employing class, not to the employed. 

*

Lloyd George, at Birmingham, exposed the mockery of the claim that those measures are being introduced to benefit the working class. He said:

   "Take a brewer’s horse How well he is looked after—well fed, cared for and doctored. If he does not feel up to the mark he has got a guardian there specially looking after him. He says there is something the matter with his horse today. He is kept there, is doctored, until he is right. That is not merely humanity, it is good business.”

* 

Just so. To keep the worker in a fit condition ensures a greater output, and the increased efficiency resulting from such condition will enable the employer to wring more profit out of his victim, for, while the labour-power may cost a little more, the return is certain to be greater.

*

A paper issued by the Government contains still more significant statements from German employers who have experienced the working of similar insurance schemes. . , .

From the "Chemical Industry" comes the statement that:

  "From the standpoint of the employers these laws are remunerative to the extent that the efficiency of the worker is increased, and without the insurance laws correspondingly higher wages would have to be paid."

* 

Just as Germany a few years ago recognised that in order to obtain the markets of the world they must have efficient labourers, so today, the British capitalists, ever behind, realise that to combat Germany they most economise, they must obtain a better quality of labour-power — if possible — without increasing its cost. Hence there is a welling-up of the milk of human kindness in the capitalist breast, and we get State Insurance and the like.

[From the
 Socialist Standard, July. 1911.]

Forward to Socialism (1961)

From the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

First, let us have some facts about the position of the workers in this country today. So much political capital has been made out of the workers alleged “prosperity"  that if we merely succeed in getting the facts and establishing the truth, we shall have done something really worthwhile.

A few facts, then, about the distribution and ownership of wealth. One of the most recent assessments is Professor Morgans book The Structure of Property Ownership in Britain. Professor Morgan estimates that the total nominal wealth of this country today is £40,355 millions. Of this, 5 per cent or 1 in every 20 own a total of £30,000 million. That means that the remaining 95 per cent own a balance of £11,000 millions. In other words, 1/20 of the population owns 3/4 of the nation’s wealth. The remaining 19/20 own about a quarter between them, but of this 95 per cent over a half own nothing.

In I960 10 million people paid Income Tax on £10/20 a week; nearly 6 million paid on £3 to £10 weekly; while only 16,000 paid tax on over £10,000 a year income. That means that less than one in a thousand gets £200 a week. The number of millionaires in Great Britain increased from 37 in 1956 to 67 in 1961. An increase of 30 in live years. Some, such as Mr. Clore, Mr. Hugh Fraser and Mr. Cotton, are multi-millionaires. of the order of 15 to 20 million or more. As might be expected, many increased their wealth by vast "take over" deals.

In the lint quarter of 1960, there were mergers to the tune of £200 million. The first quarter of 1961 more than doubled this figure with £427 millions, which included the largest bid of all time—£130 million for Ford's Motor Works, besides £39 million for Odhams Press. Six per cent more retail trade passed into the hands of the great multiple combines in 1950/60.

How have the wage earners fared? From 1938 to 1960 real wages (i.e. what wages will actually buy) have increased by 22 per cent.  [London and Cambridge Economic Service] This is based on the Ministry of Labour's Price Index, which always starts an argument. What must be remembered is that this is for manual workers only (whose wages were low to start with in 1938). Were the clerical workers, local Government lower grade Civil Servants and teachers included there would hardly be any increase. Behind the purely nominal increases, real wages have remained practically stationary.

On the other hand, the workers staged 800 more strikes in 1960 than in 1959 with 200,000 more workers involved, showing that they are not as docile as their employers would like. Assessment of the situation in 1961 would be incomplete without some reference to Automation.

In practice, this means that more processes are controlled by pre-set electronic and other devices. The worker has less choice than ever in the character and quality of his product, and so is more completely than ever the appendage of a machine. It ensures that workers work regularly at a faster pace, and is a fruitful source of more surplus value and higher profits. The large amount of overtime worked, and long hours spent in travelling to and fro, do not improve matters. Working hours remained around the 46/47 hour mark. Where decreases ate obtained they barely compensate for Automation. In fact, 1960 might be summed up by saying that it gave the very best that workers can expect under Capitalism—plenty of work.

Unfortunately workers cannot get straight improvements under capitalism —they all have strings. Wages may improve, but with a big demand for labour, up go rents and the price of food and necessaries. So that, overall, it might be said that in spite of the fantastic technical developments of the last decade—the fundamental position of the worker (with his television set) remains the same. With the Frenchman he can say “The move it changes, the more it remains the same." And this, after hundreds of Reforms, scores of leaders, the finest Health Service, the best Insurance Scheme and the most democratic rights in the world.

Perhaps I ought to say a word about atomic power, space-flight, the penetration of the mantle of the inner earth etc. Apparently some people think that all this supersedes or invalidates Socialism. So far from refuting the analysis of Capitalism as a passing stage in social development which prepares the ground for Socialist society, they confirm it.

Marx can well stand on his own feet, needing no prop from anyone. All who take the trouble to read what he wrote, will find the definition of Capitalism as the explosive destroyer of the Old World. It is unmistakable. Does the following sound out-of-date? Is it old- fashioned? Victorian? 19th Century?

  The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarous nations, into civilisation. The cheap prices of all commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese Walls. It compels all nations to adopt Capitalist production. . . .
   It has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. . . .  It keeps on doing away with the scattered state of the population centralised means of production and concentrates property in a few hands. Independent provinces become one Nation, one Government, one law with one frontier and Customs barrier.
  . . .  The capitalists have created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.
 Subjection of Nature's forces to Man, machinery, application of chemistry to Industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole countries for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground—what earlier century had ever a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

Now a word about the political scene. Conservatives still command a majority. For years now the Labour Party has been losing ground. So much so, that the Liberals have actually staged a revival.

Surely this is the tragedy of our generation! That the Party which claimed that it had successfully "united" all the motley crowd of which it was formed, should today be torn into contending factions is no fluke, but the inevitable result of its original blunders in [1906]. But that bewildered workers should turn back to Liberalism in their despair is tragic

The Labour Party was born out of the idea of working class political action. Many of its prominent figureheads claimed to be Socialists. Even more than this, they claimed to be "practical" Socialists who knew the way to get Socialism without explaining it to the workers. To quote from the Party's Foundation Manifesto:

  This political party of the workers can only be a Socialist Party because Socialism alone is based on the facts of working class existence. Socialism alone can free the workers from the necessity of selling himself for the profit of a master. Socialism alone will strip him of his merchandise character, and allow him to become a full social being.

This has never been understood by Labour, I.L.P., Communist and other Parties. It is for this reason that the Resolution which created the Labour Party stated that the new Party “would cooperate with any other group in support of any measure in the interests of Labour, in the House.” Capitalist Parties cannot work in the interests of the working class.

Why, the Labour leaders actually started activities with pacts with Liberals against Tories, they advocated, like Mr. Harry Judd of the S.D.F. at Northampton in 1900 “Unity to defeat the Tories" just as the Communist Party does now with the Labourites. This was the start of a 57-year record of job-hunting and place seeking, culminating in the Labour Government, in which the Labour leaders systematically opposed the very reform measures they had themselves used, to clamber into positions of power.

War, Conscription in peace-time, Strike-breaking by Troops, Wage Freeze, Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs, they have supported all these and actually implemented most of them. Their Nationalisation schemes, with their disastrous failure to understand that Society (meaning today, the workers) or the “Community" cannot “control" industry without owning (that means taking them out of capitalist hands) through political power first, are bogged down and discredited. Their housing projects, as soon as they became landlords, bring them both opposition and hatred.

The myth of the working class marching steadily forward to Socialism by increasing Labour majorities is well and truly finished.

Horatio.

Coventry Re-Blitzed (1961)

Party News from the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

We arrived in Coventry at about 11.30 a.m. and by noon we had our platform up and our literature displayed on our stand. The speaker opened the meeting and comrades moved to the various points, some selling “Standards” and pamphlets and others distributing “Introductory” leaflets with the address of the Coventry group stamped on them. Soon we had a sizeable audience and the questions came fast and furious.

In the afternoon an individual in the audience, using some youthful arrivals from the local beer shop, attempted to create some trouble. This eventually caused a rumpus and Party members were obliged to rally to the aid of the platform.

Soon after we had reopened the meeting, the local police arrived on the scene. They insisted that we close the meeting, but not before our speaker had put the issue to the audience and secured a majority vote of hands for us to carry on. Nevertheless, we were obliged to give way to the forces of the State, and dismantled our platform to cries of "Shame” from the audience — directed at the police.

During our 'break' we were approached by the police inspectors to whom we gave the necessary details of the Party, and this provided amusing incidents, such as our inability to furnish details of our "leaders”. Just think of it; 57 years organised and no leaders to show for it! What did emerge during the course of the discussion was the fact that the police had been sent for by the local stores; British Home Stores flanked us on one side and Marks and Spencers on the other Marks and Spencers certainly didn’t want Mars and Engels! The Precinct in Coventry is the city's open, ultra modern, traffic-free shopping centre, and our meeting had attracted so many people that it was impossible to get into or out of the stores on either side. The Superintendent of the police later remarked that, whoever we were, we certainly hit Coventry with a bang, and apparently this was loud enough to stop the “commercial symphony” being played on the cash register bells!

However, we finally fixed things so that we could open again, and this we did at 4.30 p.m.. though in a different spot. We shouldn’t have been speaking at the first one in any case. We carried on for about half-an-hour and then had to vacate the speaking place in favour of some hot-gospellers (this description provided by the police), who had apparently booked it. So back we went to the scene of our former triumph, and here we carried on a successful meeting with no interruptions until 7 p.m.

We distributed 400 "Introductory" leaflets, sold literature to the value of £2 9s. 3d., made numerous contacts for the Coventry Group, and rolled back to London, highly pleased with our day's work and determined to return to Coventry in the near future.

Since the above report was written we have heard of two further propaganda ventures in Coventry. On June 10th and 17th London members joined with our Coventry comrades in running very successful outdoor meetings.

Branch News (1961)

Party News from the July 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ealing

The branch is carrying on with its programme of fortnightly discussions during the summer months, alternatively with the usual business meetings. Comrade Jack Law gave a very interesting lecture on the Jehovah's Witnesses last month and will be giving another on the “Opening up of the American West” on July 7th. Members are asked to make this meeting as successful as the last. The weekly outdoor propaganda meetings have started at Earls Court and all members are asked to make a special effort to support them. They are held every Thursday, at. 8 p.m. A group of members went down to Southsea for an outdoor meeting on Sunday, June 25th. It is hoped to give a report on this next month.

Glasgow (Kelvingrove)

During May the branch held six meetings. Literature sales were SS. £1 9s. 0d., Pamphlets £1 0s. 8d., Collections £2 15s. 10d. Average audience 32. Members and a sympathiser attended four CND Rallies and sold £1 3s. 0d. S.S. and 13s. 10d. pamphlets. They had discussions with CND members and found some “ very sympathetic to our case,” who had “ met Party members in London.”

Nottingham

Comrade Powe gave a lecture to Leicester Secular Society on “Religion, Secularism, Socialism.” Fifty people were present and 8s. literature was sold. One open-air meeting was held in Leicester and two were held in Nottingham. It is hoped to follow up the Leicester meetings later. Literature sold 18s. Audiences at meetings: 40-50, 30-70, and 100 respectively. This is really good news as the Party has held meetings in Leicester in the past and it is most gratifying that we are renewing our contacts there.

London

A reminder of the meeting being held at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, on Wednesday , July 19th, at 7.30 p.m. Comrades will recall the very successful meeting held at St. Pancras Town Hall in April. This was well organised and most stimulating for all who participated. Lessons were learned from this meeting and as a result the Conway Hall meeting should be exceptionally well supported and organised. Members and sympathisers—rally to the meeting and keep up the good work.

Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London.July 19th, 7.30 PM

Please note your diaries and bring as many friends along as possible. There is a good gallery and plenty of standing room, in addition to the spacious hall on the ground floor.

Bristol

Durdham Downs is the regular outdoor meeting place for the Bristol Group members who have been holding meetings this season. During the month of May four meetings were held, audience averaging 50 and literature sales 9s. 6d. The comrades are hoping that with constant support they will be able to continue throughout the summer with increasing interest from the workers of Bristol.

Canada

The candidate of the Socialist Party of Canada polled 149 votes in the British Columbia election. This result is surprisingly good in view of the fact that the Branch of the Party was only formed there comparatively recently and the constituency is mainly agricultural. Their candidate had two half-hours on T.V. and a brief appearance after the vote was counted. He also had twenty minutes on the local radio, and four days before the election another ten minutes, which was re-broadcast the same day. He also had a brief recording on the Canadian Broadcasting system, as well as two or three long-distance calls from prominent writers. each of which occupied about ten minutes, enquiring about the Object and Principles of the Party. One thing the Victorian members are sure of is that thousands of people have heard their message for the first time, and a lot of confusion about the relation of Socialism to Soviet Communism was cleared up. We congratulate our overseas comrades on the effort they have put in and the results they have obtained.

Ireland

We learn from the W.S.P. of Ireland that owing to the death of a recently elected candidate in one of the wards, they are again entering the election contest. They tell us that, in their opinion, the greatest single factor in obtaining their surprisingly high vote was because they emphasised the international nature of their message, and the fact that they are part of a greater movement. They also make this further statement :

  We are inclined to accept the view that the terrible apathy existing here, as elsewhere. is not as unhealthy as it would appear. The workers may not yet have awakened to the need for Socialism, but they are beginning to demonstrate that they at least realise that so far whatever party they have voted for no change ensues for them—hence the abstentionists are the real majority—they continue to accept capitalism, but they are not voting for it. We believe that, especially among such people, real effort on our part can carry the day and convince them that there is something worth voting for. The fact that we are small numerically does not mean that the influence of our propaganda is not being felt; many people are quite prepared to vote and think with us to the exclusion of all others, even if they are not prepared at this stage to join us. In this we see much hope.

Phyllis Howard

What was fascism? (1999)

Book Review from the September 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fascism: Theory and Practice By Dave Renton. Pluto Press.

Fascism was basically an extreme form that nationalism took in Italy and Germany, for reasons specific to the particular history of these capitalist states, in the period between the 20th century’s two world wars.

Fascism originated in Italy in 1919 in Italy when Mussolini set up the fascisti di combattimento, so called after units of the Roman army. Later the word was used in relation to a similar extreme nationalist movement in Germany even though this described itself as “national-socialist” (Nazi) rather than fascist. Both these movements won control of political power more or less constitutionally, in Italy in 1922 and in Germany in 1933, and proceeded to establish a one-party dictatorship with mass organisations to embrigade the population and preaching that all members of the “nation” had a common interest. Fascism/Nazism was implacably opposed to Marxism for its internationalism and its advocacy of the class struggle within nations.

Analysing this new phenomenon, which represented political regression compared with how Marx and Marxists until the first world war had seen things developing (political democracy, then socialism), was a challenge to those who called themselves Marxists. It is how they met this challenge that Renton’s book describes. Well-written and easy-to-read it suffers from the defect that its author is an SWP member who sees Trotsky as a brilliant political thinker. But Trotsky was disqualified from usefully contributing to the debate since, although he wasn’t a racist, he too favoured a one-party dictatorship.

The SWP makes campaigning against the fascist grouplets that exist today one of its top priorities but since fascism is only an extreme development of nationalism they ought also to campaign against nationalism. Only they don’t; they support the so-called “right of nations to self-determination”, a doctrine which accepts the myth that “nations”—and so “aliens”—exist and so provides ideological ammunition to justify “ethnic cleansing” of members of other “nations” living on a “nation’s” territory.

Adam Buick

Headlines (1999)

Editorial from the September 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

• GOVERNMENT ADMITS NEW CABINETS WILL MEET IN SECRET (Camden New Journal, 11 April)
• BLAIR ATTACKS “SNOBS” WHO DERIDE WEALTH (Times, 7 July)
• SCHOOL TEST MANIA “KILLING CREATIVITY” (Independent, 15 July)

These recent headlines neatly sum up the activity of the Labour government in three particular areas—constitutional reform, enterprise culture and education.

Labour’s constitutional reforms are only a red herring, to allow it to pose as a reforming party even though it is unable and unwilling to deliver any social reforms (and in fact is continuing to whittle them away, as the disabled, single mothers and the unemployed can testify). But their constitutional changes are not even democratic. Instead of the pure and simple abolition of the House of Lords they are planning to turn it from a mixture of hereditary and appointed Lords into a House of Appointees only. The headline above refers to one of their proposals that will make local government less democratic: the replacing of the present system of committees meeting in public by an elected Mayor presiding over a cabinet that meets in secret.

Addressing a meeting of the British Venture Capital Association in July, Blair sounded exactly like Thatcher when he denounced most people’s disdain for so-called self-made businessmen and women as “unhealthy”. Instead of looking down on them he said, “we need society as a whole to applaud you”, and he pledged himself to instil such a healthy attitude to these cockroach capitalists even in schools. There can be no doubt about it. Thatcher’s programme of encouraging “enterprise culture” to pollute every aspect of life is in safe hands under Blair.

On education, the Labour government has made things worse for school students and teachers: testing, competition and tables of winners and losers have been extended even further than under the Tories. The headline here introduced a report of a speech by the author of children’s books David Almond who summed up Labour’s education policies as:

  Get kids into school fast! Get them assessed while they are in nappies! Get them going into literacy clubs, numeracy clubs, lunchtime learning clubs, holiday learning clubs! Holidays? Let’s cut them. School day? Let’s lengthen it. Homework? One hour? No, let’s make it two, eh! Let’s see them, children and teachers, work, work, work.

Inevitably, this has led to a fourth headline: “Exams criticised as ‘child abuse’. Children driven to suicide, reports Mark Henderson” (Times, 28 July).

Labour once used to be a reformist party which claimed to be able to impose socialist values—democracy, equality, co-operation not competition—on capitalist society. It was an impossible project of course which was bound to fail because capitalism can only work as capitalism. Now Labour is an openly capitalist party trying to impose capitalist values on those who haven’t absorbed them.

How right Socialists were to have had nothing to do with the Labour Party from the start.