Letter From Europe: SOS Longwy (1979)

The Letter From Europe Column from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some miles before Longwy there comes into view the reddish cloud which permanently hangs over it and over nearby Rodange in Luxemburg. As you get nearer you can see on the top of the slag heap which dominates the centre of the town a sign flashing “SOS EMPLOI". Longwy, in other words, is a steel town, and a steel town threatened with massive redundancies.

The world steel industry has been in crisis since 1974—productive capacity exceeds what can be sold profitably—and this has had serious repercussions in the old steel-making areas of Europe, such as Lorraine. The Lorraine steel industry began to develop a hundred or so years ago when a method of using the iron ore found in abundance in the area was discovered. Now that there are more modern methods of production and cheaper sources of iron ore, Lorraine is inevitably suffering the measures to reduce capacity which, within the framework of capitalism, is the only way of “solving” the current crisis. That such drastic measures were going to be necessary was evident as far back as 1976 when, instead of expanding again after a year or so of recession as on previous occasions, steel sales and production continued to stagnate.

The French government waited until the general elections of March 1978 were over (and won) before considering what to do. By then the privately-owned French steel firms were virtually bankrupt. Towards the end of last year the government announced that it was going to take over the running of these firms, appointing its own nominees to preside over the “restructuring” of the industry—the suppression of “excess” capacity—and jobs.

Over Lorraine, the government had a difficult decision to make: where to build a new modern steel works, in Longwy or in Neuves-Maisons, 100 or so kilometres further south near Nancy? In the end they chose Neuves-Maisons. As soon as the announcement was made there was consternation and anger in Longwy since the whole population realised that, on top of the already announced loss of jobs, this meant mass unemployment and a slow decline for their town. Thousands of school-children were assembled in the town centre to release balloons bearing the message “Longwy vivra” (Longwy will live). International passenger trains were stopped; wagons carrying Swedish iron ore were emptied on to the tracks; the frontiers with Belgium and Luxemburg were blocked; and lorries carrying steel products from Holland and, in particular, Germany were stopped and unloaded onto the motorway.

CRS move in

At the end of January two top managers of the steel firm Usinor were held hostage in their offices in Longwy. This led to the first violent clash with the CRS (the para-military riot police with a justified reputation for brutality) when they intervened to free the managers. The local police station was attacked with stones and other missiles. But the attack of 30 January was mild compared with what was to happen on the night of 23/24 February. Members of the CFDT trade union had been occupying a television relay station on a nearby hill and interrupting programmes to screen written messages opposing the planned redundancies. In a surprise attack in the middle of the night the CRS recaptured the station. News of this was announced to the population by the sounding of factory sirens and in no time a crowd of several hundreds had gathered in the centre of town in an angry mood. A bulldozer was commandeered and used against the gates of the police station. The crowd only dispersed after the intervention of the local Communist Party MP, Antoine Porcu, who had arranged a tacit truce: retreat by the crowd and their bulldozer in return for the withdrawal of the CRS (but not the local police) to outside the town limits. Later on in the morning the leaders of the Communist Party (PCF) dominated trade union, the CGT, organised the sacking of the local office of the steel employers’ federation; furniture was thrown out of the windows and files burned.

By now Longwy had acquired a national, and even an international, reputation of being in a fighting mood. The authorities decided that discretion was the better part of valour and kept the CRS out of Longwy, well aware that their very presence there would provoke fresh violence.

But the violence was not yet over. The two trade unions, the CFDT and the CGT had both established radio stations the latter in Longwy’s town hall with the evident blessing and support of the PCF mayor. Since the state in France has a monopoly of broadcasting these stations were technically illegal “pirate” stations and on 17 May jamming began of the CGT station. Radio Coeur d’Acier (Radio Heart of Steel). The result was the worst violence to date. The population was again called out by factory sirens and in the course of five hours fighting during the night 25 people, from the CRS as well as the crowd, were injured and 5 arrests made. Unusually, these 5 were not held in custody and, when they came up for trial, the charges against them were dismissed. The jamming of Radio Coeur d’Acier also stopped.

Clearly, the population of Longwy has shown a remarkable degree of solidarity and determination and this has enabled them to restrict the authority of the central State which has seen itself obliged to keep its riot police away and to allow the trade union radios to continue broadcasting illegally. But, and this is why the central State can afford to sit back and wait, the working class in Longwy are fighting a battle they cannot win. For in trying to keep open an unprofitable and outdated steel works they are not simply fighting against a government decision but against the economic laws of capitalism. If central governments not only in France but in Britain, Germany, Belgium and other countries too have had to bow to the logic of capitalism and cut back their steel industries, then the action of a small town, however determined, is not going to be able to override the iron law of “no profit, no production”.

Defensive Struggles

The sad fact is that the loss of the steel jobs in Longwy is inevitable and the most that the workers affected can hope for is a short postponement of their sackings and bigger redundancy payments. Indeed, this is what their solidarity and determination may bring them in the end and. if it does, it will not have been entirely in vain. But, when analysed unemotionally, it’s precious little. Like its neighbouring town of Athus in Belgium (which also had its clashes with the police when its steelworks was closed—but who remembers this now, except a few old men wondering what’s going to happen when their three-year redundancy benefits come to an end?). Longwy is doomed to decline even if its working class population had chosen to go down fighting.

There are those who don’t share this analysis but who see the clashes in Longwy as “the first flames of a renaissant proletarian flare-up” (Revolution Internationale, April 1979) and who talk of “the flare-up of proletarian violence that has restarted from Longwy” (Jeune Taupe, March-April 1979). According to these starry-eyed idealisers of violence, the events are the beginning of a revival of the working class’ “lost” revolutionary consciousness. Let’s scotch this myth before it goes any further. First, willingness to fight the police is no gauge of revolutionary consciousness (otherwise Manchester United supporters would have to be regarded as hardened revolutionaries). What allows someone to be described as a revolutionary is the aim he seeks—a complete transformation of society. In Longwy, despite the violence, the struggle is purely defensive: to save jobs (and on an issue where, unlike defensive struggles over wages and working conditions, failure is inevitable). Even the fights with the police have been defensive in the sense of being responses to actions started by the police. As for the political consciousness of those involved, unfortunately it is at the same level as in similar industrial towns in other parts of France: mostly support for the so-called Communist Party. Longwy has a PCF member of parliament and a PCF mayor.

The French CP, although still hypocritically paying lip-service to Marx’s ideas, has gone completely nationalist and analyses the steel crisis in France as an attempt by the German steel barons to eliminate a competitor. The German steel barons are supposed to control the Common Market Commission in Brussels and to have instructed Viscount Davignon, the Belgian Commissioner responsible for industrial affairs, to draw up a plan involving the dismantling of the French steel industry. This analysis would be laughable did it not provide the basis for a deliberate campaign by the PCF to stir up anti- German feelings. The PCF mayor of Longlaville, a small commune between Longwy and the Luxemburg border, has put up the following slogan on his town hall: “1870-1914-1939. La Lorraine ne sera pas vendue aux trusts allemands” (1870-1914-1939. Lorraine will not be sold to the German trusts). The present writer has seen this with his own eyes and is therefore prepared to believe reports of similar sentiments being expressed by other PCF members, the worst of which is the following from a certain J Gillet, a local CGT trade union official:

What's going to come about is the domination of Europe and France by the German capitalists. What the Germans were unable to obtain in 1914 and 1939, they are conquering today. Our action can be likened to that of the Resistance. It is a struggle for national independence (quoted in L'Anarcho-Syndicaliste. April-May 1979).

CP Chauvinism

This is not to say that the working class of Longwy are rabid German-haters. Far from it. They are ordinary workers worried about their future who, besides, being for the most part immigrants or children of immigrants from Poland and Italy, have no reason to see themselves as French chauvinists. This is why it is quite disgusting that the PCF should be exploiting the very real fears of the ordinary workers of Longwy in this way. Without exaggeration, their campaign can be said to be on a par with that of the pre-war German Nazis who blamed, again falsely, the problems of unemployed German workers on the Jews. To give credit where it is due, the smaller CFDT trade union has tried to counter this chauvinistic anti-German campaign of the PCF.

Those who see the combative attitude of the workers of Longwy as the beginning of a revival of a revolutionary, socialist consciousness among the working class are deluding themselves. We only wish that it was, but sober reality forces us to recognise that it isn’t. Yet it is an indication of the solidarity and determination the working class are capable of, a display which enables us to confidently conclude that when the workers really do want and understand socialism nothing is going to stop them getting it.

Adam Buick (Luxemburg).

Open letter to Arthur Scargill (1979)

From the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Arthur,

I read with interest the ‘profile’ article on you in The Observer supplement (17 June) and, in particular, your political views expressed therein.

You plainly believe that workers’ interests can best be served in the political field through the Labour Party, of which you are an active and committed member. I see also that you subscribe to the “Marxist interpretation of society” that there are “two classes in Britain, the ruling class which owns and controls the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the working class which provides the labour and is exploited by the ruling class.” Here you are dead right. You will also no doubt accept the view that the ruling class effects its rule through the state, which is the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’ and can only operate in the interests of that class.

But here we come up against a rather sticky problem. You say correctly that society today is a class society. What this means is that hitherto no ‘government’ (and this includes every single Labour government there has been, with or without majority support in Parliament) has done away with class ownership and control of the means of production, whether it has professed a desire to or not. The very fact that there still is a capitalist class — and a working class — is all the evidence we need for saying this. So every Labour government has lived with — and perpetuated — class ownership of the means of living.

But by perpetuating and not abolishing class ownership. Labour governments have therefore pursued the interests of the ruling class — the capitalists — for how else can a class-based society be run, except in the interests of its ruling class? Since the state is the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’, those who hold the reins of state power (governments), in order to perpetuate class ownership as every Labour government has done, must therefore be protecting, promoting and pursuing the interests of the ruling class.

However, since the interests of the workers and the capitalists, of wage labour and capital, are diametrically opposed — a fundamental Marxian proposition which I am sure your vast practical experience in the industrial field will bear out — how then can any Labour government, by acting in the interests of the capitalist ruling class, not be acting against the interests of the working class? In short, not to put too fine a point on it, how can you reconcile being a trade union activist as well as a member of what is in effect, despite all its appealing slogans, a capitalist anti-working class party?

This fundamental flaw in your thinking the belief that the Labour Party represents the interests of the workers is unfortunately shared by many trade unionists. The consequence of this is that the effectiveness of trade unionism itself is impaired. The so-called ‘understanding’ between the Labour Party and the unions has facilitated the task of Labour governments in imposing on workers anti-working class policies, some of which would even look bad coming from the Tories. It is therefore all the more important that trade unionists should extricate themselves from the spiders web of blind sentimental loyalty to the Labour Party which has kept them spellbound with promises of ‘jam tomorrow’ (always tomorrow!), and take a long hard look at what Labour governments, all Labour governments, have meant in practice (which in the end is what really counts).

Now you might agree with this criticism of Labour governments — it’s surprising the number of Labour Party supporters who would, yet still cannot draw the logical conclusion. Indeed, I see that according to The Observer you feel that the Parliamentary Labour Party has “betrayed its membership and the working class”. This is the usual excuse offered by the Labour left for the inevitable failure of Labour governments to run capitalism in the interests of the majority. The assumption behind this excuse is that the Labour Party is still worth supporting as a means to introduce socialism, if only a more ‘left wing’ leadership can be formed within the Labour Party. How the principle of ‘leadership’ can be reconciled with the opposing revolutionary Marxist principle that working class emancipation must be the conscious act of the working class itself, is something, of course, which the left does not care to explain.

But if past Labour governments have all been capitalist (there cannot be such a thing as a socialist ‘government’ anyway), are there any grounds for hoping that a Labour Party led by left-wingers will hasten the advent of socialism? Well, what is it that the Labour left are aiming for? No doubt that famous Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution which you call a “Marxist prescription for a new society” would be regarded by many of the left as an adequate description of their aim. This clause, as you know, calls for the ‘common ownership’ of the means of production, distribution and exchange, by which is meant ‘state ownership’, which the left would equate with a ‘classless socialist society’.

If the state is a product of class society, as Marxists believe, why would there be ‘state ownership’? Further, if goods and services are exchanged — bought and sold on a market — does this not suggest a private property set-up? If everyone owned all the means of production — that is to say, if there was common ownership — how could there be ‘exchange’ of what was produced? Exchange implies that sonic own and some do not.

In every exchange transaction there is a conflict of economic interests: it is in the interests of the seller to sell his commodity for as much as he can get, while the buyer’s interests would be to purchase this commodity for as little as possible. The commodity you as a trade union negotiator are especially concerned with is labour power, the skills of your members. Ironically, the buyer of this commodity is a state enterprise which, according to left wing theory, is the property of you, me and everyone else in the country. This, however, does not make any difference to the fact that workers in state industries have to struggle just as much as those in private industries for better wages and conditions, against employers who are determined whenever possible to intensify workers’ exploitation or, if insufficient profits are forthcoming, to make workers redundant. And despite the fact that ‘we’ are all supposed to own British Rail, for example, personally I don’t think I can afford to run the risk of taking this too literally by travelling on British Rail without a ‘ticket’, any more than I would be prepared to risk walking straight past the cash tills of ‘my’ local privately-owned supermarket with a bag-load of unpaid-for goodies. No cash means no goodies or railway trips.

In other words, there is basically no difference between private ownership and state ownership as far as the working class is concerned: the latter is just as much minority ownership and control of the means of living, except that this minority exercises its ownership collectively through the state rather than individually through private firms. State capitalism, as this is called, is still capitalism, with all the conflicts and contradictions that that implies.

There is an alternative to all forms of capitalism. Socialism entails that all wealth should be produced solely for use, not for sale or barter, and made freely available to all in abundance. Modern industry and technology is more than capable of producing this, but for capitalism and its restrictive rule: no profit, no production. Only in this sense of the word can we meaningfully talk about ‘common ownership’. Socialism, then, means quite literally ‘from each according to ability, to each according to need’. Unfortunately our task is made doubly difficult by the unsound views advanced by the left.

Yours for socialism, 

Robin Cox

Letter: Creeping greed (1979)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have been reading through several issues of the Socialist Standard which you were kind enough to send me and have found them interesting. Some of your principles are very attractive, and yet I am curious as to how they can be made to work in practice.

I must confess that this probably stems from my ignorance of socialism. However, your writers do seem to refer quite frequently to free access to goods depending on needs, and also there is reference to the idea of abolishing the wage system. I would like to know how all this can be made to work in practice. For example, what would replace the wages system, and what sort of society could we have which would provide goods and services according to individual needs without an element of greed creeping in?

Barry A. Todd 

(Prestwick, Manchester)

Reply:

It is not for us to describe in detail the social system that will arise following the establishment of common ownership of the means of production, for we cannot foretell what conditions will prevail at the time. All we can do is state the broad changes that we know must arise.

The most obvious is that the wages system would be abolished, since nobody would be in a position to exploit labour power. With the instruments of production socially owned, no one would wish to sell their ability to work for another’s profit, even if a buyer could be found. The very conditions of wage labour — the divorce of the majority from the means of life — will have ceased to exist, and all forms of exchange would disappear.

Necessity alone will dictate industrial activity. If goods are produced in excess of demand, production will be curtailed; should needs be unsatisfied, production will increase. Individuals will determine their own needs, and society will devise means by which people can make their requirements known (not a difficulty, given computer technology). All who were capable would work to the best of their abilities and take freely from the social wealth. We do not accept that, having opted for a non-cocrcive society, people will act against their own interests and refuse to co-operate in productive work.

The view that people are innately selfish is a fallacious one, fostered by the society in which we live. The concept of greed can only have meaning where access to wealth is restricted and scarcity is commonplace. Under capitalism the ruthless pursuit of self-interest is encouraged; in socialism it would be an absurdity. And even the pig will turn away from the trough when it can eat no more.

Editors.

Unemployment in Australia. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Melbourne.

26/12/27.

A Letter from the Socialist Party of 
Australia.

While Australia is being boomed abroad —by emigration touts—as a paradise for the workers, and thousands are flocking to her shores in search of work, in the capital cities the unemployed are marching the streets, registering at the Government Labour Bureaus, and sending deputations to the State Governments asking for sustenance or work.

All the old fallacies that have done service for the last century are being trotted out by the pen-valets, politicians and other hangers-on of the Capitalist class. Free Trade and protection hold pride of place, although in countries in which either of these fiscal policies is in operation, unemployment still remains a problem.

According to Steads Review, June, 1927, the figures submitted by the League of Nations demonstrated that the percentage of unemployed in Australia was greater than any other nation associated with the League.

The following figures were given by Mr. Tunnecliffe, deputy leader of the Victorian Labour Government: That from 6 to 9 per cent. of the workers of the Commonwealth are workless all the time. This represents 136,000 workers.

When the Labour Government came into power in Victoria, it set out valiantly to deal with unemployment, but after six months unemployment is worse than ever. The Premier’s (Mr. Hogan’s) explanation is that the sole cause of the unemployment problem is the adverse trade balance. One million pounds of the imports were clothes, and in this the workers themselves were the guilty parties. For a working man to wear imported clothes is sheer stupidity. 

For “sheer stupidity” this would be hard to beat, for during the year 1925-26 the total factory production for Australia amounted to £400,342,392, while wages were £86,724,683. It should be obvious, even to Mr. Hogan, that if the workers bought Australian goods with all their wages, a surplus of £313,617,710 would remain for the employers to sell. In spite of the inroads upon this by our masters, there still remains a surplus that must be disposed of in the markets of the world. But production the world over has outstripped all markets, hence the glut and world-wide unemployment. 

One of Mr. Hogan’s supporters, Mr. Hayes, has another view. He says that the failure of past (Nationalist) Governments to give consideration to the problem of unemployment was the cause of so many being out of work to-day. Yet in Queensland, where a Labour Government has been in power for twelve years, unemployment has been so bad that it has been found necessary to increase the contributions to the unemployment insurance fund.

A few weeks ago the Nationalists routed the Labour Party in New South Wales, and the workers were told that a time of prosperity was in store for them; since then the police have dispersed the unemployed with batons. Nationalism hold sway in South Australia, where 2,000 railway workers have been put off by the Government to swell the already swollen ranks of the unemployed.

There are many who think the present conditions are transitory, and that with the further development of Australia they will improve; but they are doomed to disappointment. Capitalism here is developing hothouse fashion. The Flinder’s Lane wholesalers, whose name a few years ago was synonymous with solidity, to-day find themselves in a financial quicksand through the development of the departmental stores. The establishment of large industrial concerns from England and America is making for the most scientific methods of production, with the consequent crushing out of the small and inefficient factories and the reduction of those employed.

But the most glaring instance of the displacement of labour by machinery is in the farming industry. The cry of those who formerly had an easy solution for unemployment by advising the workless to go to the country instead of hanging round the cities, has a fitting answer in the following) figures from The Age, 23/2/27:

“ In 1915-16, 213,719 individual farmers employed 259,409 persons, farming 28,883,364 acres, which produced crops valued at £75,475,427. In 1924-25 the number of individual farmers had decreased to 207,046, a reduction of 6,673, and the number of employees had fallen to 219,917, or 39,492 fewer than in 1915-16.

“ The acreage farmed 1924-26, however, was 33,156,308, an increase of 4,272,944 on the acreage of nine years previously, and the value of the produce was £107,096,393, which was £31,620,966 more than the value of the crops in 1915-16.”

Since then the Production Bulletin No. 20 gives the number of displaced farm hands, 1924-25 to 1925-26, as 15,255.

The Age proceeds: 

“ . . . and, as this machinery has been invented to meet the special requirements of Australian farmers, it is enabling them to produce more with a gradually decreasing volume of paid labour . . . Factories are making for the farmers machinery . . . To the employees in these factories farmers sell their produce in the best market in the world. Prosperity is interdependent; prosperity is mutually shared.”

This effusion is put forth as if it were a truth so rare that it would be sacrilege to doubt it. The Age conveniently forgets about the 39,492 farm workers while it talks about prosperity for the implement workers. But is the implement worker in as enviable a position as The Age would have us believe. The implement making industry is already being carried on “with a gradually decreasing volume of paid labour,” as the following figures from the Commonwealth Year Book will prove :—

From 1915 to 1924-25, percentage of increase of employees was 53.49 per cent., while in the same period the total production rose by 152.67 per cent., and the year 1923- 24 to 1924-25 saw the enormous increase of £149,701 with a reduction of 49 employees.

Thus we see the object of Capitalism is to increase the output with a constantly diminishing number of employees. Such a condition of affairs may be satisfactory for those who own the means of wealth production, but to the wage slave it means misery and ruin. And all the noise of the workers, employed or unemployed, the protests, the shouting, “We want work,” the street processions, the deputations to Slipper-tongue, the Premier, who will either turn them away with soft words or the policemen’s club, will not alter the economic laws of Capitalism.

While the working class is content to support Capitalism, it is getting the only possible result. There is only one course, and that—to understand that the gigantic means of production, which the workers operate to turn out wealth in abundance, must become the common property of society, to be used in the interest of the whole of society instead of in the interest of the Capitalist class as at present.

J. S.

Saklatvala on Socialism. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. W. Graham recently moved an official Labour Party amendment in the House of Commons, setting forth his party’s views on what they are pleased to call “socialism.” Mr. Saklatvala, for the Communist Party of Great Britain, replied to Graham and told him forcibly that the State ownership advocated by the Labour Party is not Socialism at all. The Conservatives were highly delighted with Saklatvala’s criticism, and the Capitalist Press was unusually generous in its praise of the Communist M.P.’s eloquence and logic.

But those who turn up Hansard (21st March) to enjoy some gems of oratory or to discover what is the difference between the Communist reformist and the Labour reformists whom they support, will be disappointed.

There are, however, some passages in Saklatvala’s speech which deserve to be placed on record.

Mr. Graham outlined the growth of trusts and State capitalism and the decline of competition, and instanced the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Post Office as his party’s ideal of “public ownership or socialism.”

Who owns the Post Office? 

Saklatvala replied by asserting that such institutions as the Post Office are not Socialism, their “soul” being purely capitalistic whatever the appearance of their body. When he was pressed by Labour M.P.s to explain his meaning he was quite unable to do so.

The Labour Party makes the childish mistake of describing State concerns as being the property of all the citizens, and Saklatvala, as ignorant as themselves, readily admitted this. He talked of public and municipal undertakings being owned by “the citizens of a whole borough, town or city,” and described the Post Office as being the property of “all the citizens of a country or nation.”

Naturally it was then quite beyond his powers to explain why he did not support the Labour Party’s demand for more so-called “public ownership.”

The plain fact is that the Post Office is every bit as much private property, run for private profit, as is the London General Omnibus Company or Selfridges. The Post Office, telephone and telegraph plant, etc., are valued at about £116-million. The £116-million thus sunk in plant and machinery represents money borrowed in one form or another from private investors by this and previous Governments, and it ranks along with other items in the total National Debt. The owners of the Post Office are not “all the citizens,” but the investing class, who draw their income from holdings in Government stock of different kinds. If the Government sold the Post Office for £116-million and used this to pay off part of the National Debt, the new private investors (or the same individuals) would then draw their profits from the Post Office direct as a private concern instead of receiving them at second-hand through the Government. The difference is one of appearance only.

Similarly it is the practice of Labour supporters to talk of the L.C.C. trams belonging to the citizens of London. In fact the London County Council has borrowed over £120-million to build its trams and other works, and of course has to pay interest on these loans out of the revenue from the trams, etc. These investors are the actual owners, just as much as if they held shares in a private tramway undertaking.

The Australian Governments pay more than £50-million a year in interest on the money borrowed to set up the so-called “public” undertakings which simple Mr. Saklatvala thinks are owned “by all the citizens.”

Why Do Communists Support Nationalisation?

Saklatvala then declared that “the poor postmen working in the Post Office are no better off than men working for a private corporation or company,” and again, “The nationalisation of the coal industry in one country . . . may even strengthen the capitalist atmosphere and the capitalist structure of society, in which this sort of nationalisation is practised.”

We heartily agree with the above condemnation of State capitalism, but cannot refrain from asking why the Communist Party, in face of it, still supports the demand for nationalisation of the mines.

Saklatvala—Syndicalist.

Finding it impossible to explain wherein he differed from the Labour Party, Saklatvala then disclosed that his aim is not social ownership but syndicalism, whereas our aim is to make the means of production the democratically controlled property of the whole of society. Saklatvala wants to “secure the control of the miners themselves over their own industry.”

Capitalism in Russia.

Saklatvala rashly denounced MacDonald for attacking “the one country which has achieved Socialism,” and was at once asked “which country is that?”—a question to which no reply was forthcoming.

He later talked about Russia, and said : 

“M. Stalin’s argument is that, deplorable as the industrial development of Russia is at the present time, the needs and requirements of the people of Russia make them dependent upon other countries for manufactured articles which cannot be supplied in Russia owing to the backwardness and the apathy of the working classes, who have not yet developed as far as a Socialist revolution.”

As it is obvious that the “one country which has achieved Socialism” cannot be Russia, where the workers are too backward and apathetic to have “developed as far as a Socialist Revolution,” we are left in the dark as to the whereabouts of this one bright spot known only to Saklatvala.

It is also interesting to note his opinion that “It is a mistaken notion to imagine for a moment that Socialism can be introduced alongside capitalism side by side, and gradually, and so on and so on. Such a thing would never happen; such a thing cannot happen.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Labour Party Warmongers. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

During recent years the extraordinary progress of aviation has brought increasingly to the fore the question of the use of aeroplanes to defend the interests of the ruling class of this and other countries in their conflicts with each other.

In the month of March of this year the question came up again for discussion and decision in the House of Commons, and according to the East Ham South Citizen (April issue), a local paper issued by the London Co-operative Society, Ltd., their President, Mr. Alfred Barnes, M.P. for East Ham South, delivered a “courageous” and “eloquent” speech for the abolition of aerial warfare.

Mr. Barnes, in moving an amendment calling for aerial disarmament, and speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, said in the course of his speech—

“We on these benches take up no equivocal position at all. We say without hesitation and without qualification, that the whole energy of this Government should be used not for perfecting the Air Force of the country, but how to abolish the Air Force in consultation and in agreement with other countries.”

It is sometimes convenient for these Labour M.P.s to forget what their own party did when they formed the Government in 1924. Mr. Leach (Under-Secretary of State for Air in the Labour Government), in reply to Sir S. Hoare, then said—

“The right hon. and gallant Gentleman wants me to define the attitude of the Government towards national defence. He asks in plain, explicit terms, are we going on with the expansion scheme? I am going to tell him in plain and explicit terms that there is no change in the policy of the Government for the time being on this matter.” (Parliamentary Reports, 19/3/24, Col. 1670.)

Later in the same speech, in reply to Commander Burney, he said—

“We are vitally interested in seeing that the lighter-than-air ships shall be explored, encouraged and fostered in every proper way that is open to us.”

Many keen supporters of the Labour Party are loud in their denunciation of the Tory Government when the latter vote further credits for the maintenance and improvement of the armed forces, and we are repeatedly told that the Tories are insincere in their proposals for disarmament and their attempts to prevent another war.

During the same speech by Mr. Barnes he expresses the opinion of the Labour Party of the insincerity of the Tory Government :

“We believe the Government are not sincere in their proposals for disarmament. I should be sorry, on an occasion like this, to judge the sincerity of any person or group of persons or party, but I do think that in human affairs we must judge the sincerity of people by their deeds, and I do not think that anyone who looks back on the post-war period and considers the approach to universal peace can be proud of the record of the present Government during its three years of office.”

This sentimental slobbering is patently dishonest. He cannot be ignorant of the action of the Labour Party when in office in 1924. Let us turn to the Parliamentary Reports for 19/2/24. During the course of the debate on air defence, a Liberal, Captain Wedgwood Benn, observed—

“In the first place, I understand the Government to accept this Resolution. It surprises me, although I applaud it, that they are prepared to go on with the programme which the right hon. Gentleman initiated. That was stated in terms by the Under-Secretary. I think they are right, although I am surprised, because the Labour Party only six months ago pledged themselves in the Conference to oppose it.” (Col. 1680.)

A most unpleasant way, to be sure, to remind the Labour Government of their deliberate decision to continue the programme laid down by the previous Conservative Government. Mr. Thurtle (Labour M.P. for Shoreditch) confessed to a certain amount of misgiving at the decision of the Labour Government towards the Air Force. He said—

“I did think we might expect from the Labour Government that, in whatever other things they might compromise, there would be a certain firmness of principle in regard to this matter of disarmament. We are told they are to stand by the programme which has been laid down by the past Government. There is, in my opinion, no justification whatever for a Labour Government, pledged as the present Treasury Bench is pledged to the principle of disarmament, taking up an attitude of that kind. As I look at the Treasury Bench I imagine there must be a number of uneasy consciences on it.” (Parliamentary Reports 19/2/24, Col. 1698.)

The Labour M.P.s, just like the Liberal and Tory, are fearful of the consequences should another war be declared. They dread the uprising of the working class, dread the possibilities of revolution, a movement for the overthrow of Capitalism. Says Mr. Barnes—

“Aerial warfare will inevitably lead to widespread revolution, such as we have not hitherto experienced, and that, indeed, should such a war occur, civilisation must come down in chaos before any military conclusion has been reached.” (Same paper.)

A gentleman, a recent addition to the ranks of the Labour Party—Commander Kenworthy—also had misgivings. He delivered himself during his oration of the following gem :—

“If the peoples of Europe are again to experience the horrors of modern, scientific aerial warfare in an intensified form, I am convinced they will rise in sheer desperation and overthrow the existing order of society.” (Parliamentary Reports, 19/2/24, Col. 1693.)

On this question of air armaments, as on all other questions vital to the interests of private property, the Labour Party, like the other two parties, continue to support the armed forces which are necessary for the maintenance of Capitalist interests.

C. F. Carter

The Atrocities of Peace. (1928)

From the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A shareholder at the annual meeting of the London and North-Eastern Railway Company told a painful story of the pitiful condition which exists among his unfortunate fellow holders of shares. 

“He knew women who had to work initials on handkerchiefs because they had got no return on their capital invested in this company” (Star, March 2nd).

The horrible position of these unfortunate women “who had to work” because they got no return on their capital, cannot fail to rend the hearts of the millions of working men and women who “have to work” because they do not own any capital in this or any other company.

Edgar Hardcastle

Correspondence: The Ballot or the Barricade? (1928)

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

A correspondent writes asking questions as to the need for the Socialist movement to make use of methods of violence. Here is his letter :—

East Street, S.E.

To the Editor, Socialist Standard.

I wish to put some questions to the S.P.G.B., and hope you will answer them in an early issue of the S.S., as there are several sympathisers of the S.P.G.B. resident in Bermondsey who await your reply with considerable interest. Now, for my questions.

1. You say in your “Declaration of Principles” that the S.P.G.B. is out to conquer Political Power, etc. Now, as the Party disavows “Violent methods,” how are you going to do it?

It seems to me, that by this disavowal the Party cannot claim to be “Revolutionary” in any sense of the word, nor Marxian, either. Marx, in his “Address to the Communist League,” insists that the workers “must prepare for the bloody struggles that lie ahead of them.” Engels also says much the same in his “Revolutionary Tactics.” Lenin, in his “State and Revolution,” page 25, says, “We have already said above, and shall show more fully at a later stage that the teaching of Marx and Engels regarding the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the Capitalist State—it can not be replaced by the Proletarian State (the Dictatorship of the Proletariat) through mere withering away, but, in accordance with the general rule, can only be brought about by a violent revolution.” See also “Hymn of Praise” sung in its honour by Engels, and fully corresponding to the repeated declarations of Marx, in the concluding passages of the “Poverty of Philosophy” and the “Communist Manifesto” with its proud and open declarations of the inevitability of a violent revolution. Lenin, himself, said, “The substitution of a Proletarian State for the Capitalist State is impossible without a violent revolution.” (Page 26 Ibid.)

2. My own point of view is as follows : Assuming that the whole of the working-class voted the Socialists into “Office” or “Power,” it is in the power of the oligarchy to refuse to let the workers’ Socialist representatives take their “seats,” and declare their election to have been gained by fraud, etc. Assuming this to have taken place, the Socialists could only contest the legality of the election in the Courts. The Courts being dominated by capitalists the result would be a “foregone conclusion,” the workers would then have to appeal to force of arms.

3. As the S.P.G.B. has opened an Election Fund, with all that is implied by Election Funds, how is this going to bring about a speedy termination to the present system of exploitation? I have written this under the impression that although anti-Socialist papers like the “Herald,” “Sunday Worker,” and “The Communist,” etc., often ignore letters and criticisms, the Socialist Standard always gives a straight forward reply to relevant questions, etc. 

I remain, Yours faithfully,

Robert Chapman.

Reply:

Is Violence Revolutionary?

It will be seen that our correspondent starts off by assuming that revolution implies violence, and that since we do not advocate violence, therefore we are not revolutionary. This is an assumption which will not bear examination. The Socialist Party aims at changing the foundation of society, at replacing the private ownership of the means of production by common ownership. It is therefore a revolutionary party. Conversely, the use of violent methods to secure minor reforms does not turn a reformist party into a revolutionary one. The use of violence by the suffragettes in pre-war days did not entitle them to be described as revolutionary ; they were not seeking to revolutionise society. The American miners on strike at Herring, Illinois, a few years ago, who used machine guns against the employers’ armed strike breakers, were only resisting a wage decrease; they did not want to overthrow Capitalism, and were not revolutionary.

Violence, What For?

On looking closely into our correspondent’s statements and quotations, we see that he has himself not troubled over much to define precisely what is the object of the methods of violence advocated by him. The Socialist Party lays it down that Socialism pre-supposes the conquest of the powers of government and the conversion of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, from “an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” We lay it down, further, that the vote is the only means open to the workers in developed Capitalist countries to conquer the powers of government. Mr. Chapman (see paragraph 2 of his letter) says that the workers “have to appeal to force of arms,” but he does not explain what would be the purpose of the appeal to arms. This is a very important point, because, having rejected the possibility of conquering the powers of government by means of the vote, he is forced into the position taken up by the Communists, and illustrated by his quotation from Lenin. That position is the setting up of a “Workers’ State,” based on Soviets, in opposition to the existing State at present under Capitalist control, and the destruction of the latter by the former.

Thus we have the Workers’ Weekly (official organ of the Communist Party) stating that, “The power of the Capitalists must be wrested from them. The workers must set up their own State” (February 24th, 1923); and again, “The workers must destroy the Capitalist State, and set up their own Workers’ State, before they can make any real change” (March 17th, 1923).

Now this doctrine, shared by our correspondent and the Communists, is a piece of impractical and dangerous romanticism. It is not revolutionary. It leads not to Socialism, but to the shambles.

 That it is impractical will be obvious to those who will give it serious consideration, and remember that the conduct of warfare has developed and is developing even faster than industry itself. The Capitalist State has a strongly disciplined regular army, possessed of all the latest, most costly and most highly technical means of destruction. Mr. Chapman talks lightly of the workers “appealing to force of arms.” What arms? Where can the workers get and keep and manoeuvre tanks, bombing planes, poison gas and liquid fire plant? Where is the money with which to buy them ? How could they learn to use them even if they had them? And, above all, will the Capitalist class permit this concentration of hostile forces and implements? It is too fantastic for words. Mr. Chapman himself exposes its colossal unreality. He says the workers would have to appeal to force of arms against the hostile decision of Capitalist courts : does he imagine that these same hostile Capitalist courts would have turned a blind eye on the rebels during the years of preparation for the appeal to force of arms?

Lenin's Inconsistency.

But Lenin on occasion contradicted his own Communist doctrine. Writing in 1916 (reprinted in the Class Struggle, May, 1919), he said :—

“Socialists are willing to utilise the present Government and its institutions in the struggle for the liberation of the working class, and also insist on the necessity of so using the Government in the creation of a suitable transition form from Capitalism to Socialism.“

Lenin’s claim that Marx’s and Engels’ writings give him support in his other doctrine is fantastic. Throughout their works both of them emphasise the necessity of obtaining possession of the State machinery, and point the way to that end through the use of the vote. It is implicit in the Marxian theory.

The Attitude of Marx and Engels. 

Our correspondent refers to certain writings of Marx and Engels. A significant point about the quotations is the dates at which the various passages were written. “The Address to the Communist League” was written by Marx in 1850; “The Poverty of Philosophy” was written by Marx in 1846; and the ‘”Communist Manifesto” in 1847. Of the works referred to, the only one written late in life is “Revolutionary Tactics,” by Engels. This is a preface to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” and was written by Engels in 1895. We will return later to this question of the dates of these works.

Mr. Chapman says that Engels in this preface (Revolutionary Tactics) gives support to the advocacy of violence, but curiously enough our correspondent does not quote any passage to support his claim. This is all the more curious when it is remembered that Engels devotes a large part of his space precisely to this question.

The simple fact is that Engels draws exactly the opposite conclusion, and unhesitatingly condemns armed revolt. It is impossible to avoid the belief that our correspondent made his statement without troubling to verify it from Engels’ writings. Let us see what Engels says in 1895 :—

Engels on the Use of the Vote.

“The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed that the conquest of universal suffrage, of democracy, was one of the first and most important tasks of the fighting proletariat, and Lassalle had raised the issue again. When Bismarck now found it necessary to introduce universal suffrage as the only means of interesting the masses of the people in his designs, our workers were not slow to make a serious use of the opportunity, and they sent August Bebel to the first constituent Reichstag, From that day to this they have utilised the suffrage in a manner which has rewarded them a thousandfold, and been an example to the workers of all other lands. The result of all this was that the bourgeoisie and the Government grew far more afraid of the constitutional than of the unconstitutional activities of the working-class party, and came to dread the results of an election far more than they dreaded the results of a rebellion. For here also the conditions of the struggle had been notably modified. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting and barricades, the methods that had proved universally decisive, down to the year 1848, had in effect become obsolete.“ (Translation by E. & C. Paul in the Plebs, January to April, 1921.)

Engels then goes on to show how the development of the instruments of war and the organisation of the armies had themselves, apart from other factors, utterly destroyed the possibility of armed workers overpowering or demoralising the regular armed forces.

In face of this, our correspondent’s claim is astounding.

Europe in 1918.

Now for the earlier works. Our correspondent refers to “repeated declarations of Marx in the concluding passages of the ‘Poverty of Philosophy’ and the ‘Communist Manifesto.’“ It is surprising and regrettable that he did not give us some of these “repeated declarations.” The “Poverty of Philosophy” does, it is true, end up with the quotation of two flamboyant lines from a poem by George Sand, in which she referred to the choice between “Combat or death; bloody struggle or extinction.” Our correspondent surely does not ask us to read into the selection of a purple passage of this kind to round off a peroration, the intention of Marx to convey a serious general lesson to the workers?

But our correspondent, in selecting these early works, has overlooked the essential point that Liberal and National movements in Europe in 1848 are not a model for a Socialist movement in a fundamentally different Europe in 1928, and, moreover, neither Marx nor Engels, then or thereafter, drew such a conclusion as he fastens on them ; they never omitted to stress the importance of gaining control of the machinery of government, as distinct from destroying it.

Except France and the Rhine Provinces and England, Europe in 1848 was still predominantly feudal. The capitalist class had not yet won their way to political supremacy, and the modern centralised nation-States had not come into being. To the force of Nationalism and Liberalism was added the largely blind discontent of a working-class movement just coming to birth. Marx and Engels thought that it might be possible for the workers to take advantage of the conflict between capitalist Liberals and the absolutist monarchies and their feudal supporters to win away the support of the State troops and rush the revolutionary movements forward to Socialism over the heads of the Capitalist and Nationalist leaders, who, of course, would not want to achieve by their revolt any such a result as that. The justifications for that error of judgment (frankly admitted to be such in later years) were many. Lack of experience led Engels and Marx to underestimate the potentialities of growth and expansion which lay in the Capitalist system. They also counted (not unreasonably at that period) on the possibility of demoralising the State troops by means of barricades and armed street demonstrations. Again, at that time there were not in existence throughout Europe, as there are to-day, either an immense administrative civil service and local government or a stable system of democratic government based on an extended franchise.

Engels, writing in 1895, candidly admits his error (“Revolutionary Tactics“).

“Yet upon us, too, time wrought her revenges, proving illusory the views we then entertained. Nay, history went farther than this, for the march of events served not merely to trample down our errors, but served further to bring about a complete transformation of the conditions in which the proletariat has to fight. The campaigning methods of 1848 are utterly obsolete to-day. . . .“

Engels particularly points out that even before 1848 victory of the armed workers over regular troops was “among the greatest of rarities,” and that by 1895 “there have been many further changes, all in favour of the regular troops.”

Since 1895, and especially since 1914, the position has changed again almost out of all recognition, and such an armed revolt to-day is ludicrous.

The Need to Capture Political Control. 

The “Communist Manifesto” (page 21; Reeves’ edition) says : “We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”

The “Address to the Communist League,” to which Mr. Chapman also refers, was an address to the German workers dealing with the actual situation facing them in Germany in 1850, and proposing methods of action to be followed before and after the anticipated victory of the German Capitalists over their feudal absolutist enemies. It did not pretend to apply to the working class outside Germany, where different conditions existed, still less to conditions which came into existence during the following 30 or 40 years, and which, as Engels confesses, he and Marx could not, and did not then foresee.

In any event, the phrase which Mr. Chapman claims is a quotation from the Address is not to be found in the text taken from Max Beer’s ”Inquiry into Dictatorship,” and published in the “Labour Monthly” (September, 1922).

Marx urges the workers to obtain arms and organise independently of the capitalist liberals before and during the struggles which were expected to give the capitalists supremacy, but for the period “after those struggles, during the time of their ascendancy over the defeated classes and the proletariat” he lays down definite plans for contesting elections and running workers’ candidates in opposition to the democrats, and “for whose success all must work with every possible means.” He deals further with the policy to be followed by the workers with reference to the budget and other parliamentary work. In this section Marx made no mention whatever of an armed struggle by the workers.

Marx on the Franchise. 

If further evidence is needed of the value placed by Marx upon the use of the vote for the conquest of power, we have only to remember how he worked for the winning and the extension of the franchise. The following two letters to Dr. Kugelmann illustrate this :—

“K. Marx to Dr. Kugelmann. 

January 10th, 1866.

We have been very busy organising a large meeting in favour of universal suffrage, and at this meeting only working men spoke. The effect was very great and “The Times” in two consecutive numbers discussed the question in a leader.“ (Printed in “Social Democrat,” May, 1902.)

K. Marx to Kugelmann. 

October 6th, 1866.

“The agitation for universal suffrage here, in which I have had a large share, is growing more and more.“ (Social Democrat, May, 1902.)

Let Us Suppose  . . . !

Then Mr. Chapman asks us to consider the situation which might arise if the capitalists destroy their own constitution in order to prevent the workers coming into control after the winning of an election. He omits, however, to consider the effect of such a move on the capitalist system and on the capitalist class themselves. Democratic, representative government is essential to the stable and continued working of the capitalist system. It is the foundation on which rests the political machinery and its enormous and complex administrative departments. If the ruling class destroy this basis by repudiating the very means by which they themselves gained their control, they not only risk early administrative chaos, they also commit eventual political suicide, even although the move may serve their immediate purpose. It is the imperative pressure of the needs and developments of the capitalist social system which has compelled and is still compelling the capitalists to broaden the electoral basis of their control. If they cannot resist this pressure now, what chance have they of putting back the clock after further years of representative government during which ever-increasing numbers of the workers learn to use and to value the vote? The capitalist parties everywhere exploit the electioneering value of being “constitutionalists.” Even the so-called dictators invariably parade the fact that they are constitutional in origin and practice ; they all know the value of preserving certain legal forms and formulas. Mussolini, who came into power through the deliberate action of governments elected by popular vote on a wide franchise, so far from repudiating the elective basis of his position, has added millions to the number of electors. In January, 1925, the voting age was reduced to 25, and is now to be reduced to 21, and even to 18 for married men.

The capitalist class could not prevent this development in its infancy; they cannot now stay its growth. Every year it becomes more difficult and the consequences more dangerous to them to narrow the franchise.

But let us suppose that at the eleventh hour the minority of capitalist “die-hards” does succeed in rushing the more timid and more circumspect majority into a rash venture of this kind. The possibility is small and remote, but were it big and imminent, that would only add weight to the Socialist policy as against the policy of armed revolt. If the final struggle takes on non-parliamentary forms, then it is of the utmost importance that the Socialist working class should have on its side the powerful plea that its position is constitutional. Once the working class are predominantly Socialist it is a simple matter, involving; no sacrifice or material delay for them to record by means of the vote that they are the majority. Mr. Chapman wants the workers to throw away a card of so great value. If the workers are compelled to make use of their economic organisation to bring industry to a standstill, and to appeal to the armed forces to support the constitutional majority against the usurping minority, nothing at such a time could exceed in importance the possession of the backing of constitutionalism. This will strengthen them and serve to undermine and split the backing of the capitalist parties and armed forces.

In his final question, our correspondent talks vaguely about “all that is implied by election funds,” but gives no inkling whatever of his meaning. If Mr. Chapman thinks that he has read in these columns or elsewhere a statement by the Socialist Party that we believe that the opening of an election fund will “bring about a speedy termination” to capitalism, I can only suggest that here again he is criticising without taking the trouble to read and understand. If he will consult our Declaration of Principles, he will see that we claim that the political organisation of a Socialist working class and their use of the vote to capture the machinery of government, and thus control the armed forces, will put them in a position to bring about a speedy termination of this system of society. If Mr. Chapman has further objections to this position, or any feasible alternative, we shall be pleased to hear it.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Challenge to Mr. Bevin on Post-War Reconstruction (1942)

From the August 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cutting away from the vague generalities of most of the Government spokesmen Mr. Ernest Bevin, speaking at the annual meeting of the National Chamber of Trade in London on July 15th, 1942, made two definite statements about post-war reconstruction, one on behalf of the Government and the other on his own behalf. The first need not detain us long. He said that “it was the policy of the Government to try to establish for the post-war period minimum wage regulations for all forms of employment” (Times, July 16th, 1942). In form it is somewhat ambiguous since it is not clear whether it is intended to be a permanent arrangement or only one “for the post-war period.” The probability is that it is meant as a pledge of a permanent policy. For the rest it is interpreted by the Manchester Guardian to mean not “universal standards such as those laid down by New Deal legislation in the United States, but . . . the British method of covering all industry with trade boards and collective agreements.” (Manchester Guardian.; July 17th.)

“Mr. Bevin,” says the Guardian, “at least is trying to do something now that will be ready before the good intentions have time to fade.” After the last war the good intentions did fade; so that the Labour Party in office discarded its own minimum wage policy drafted when in opposition. Let us assume, however, that this time the policy will be carried out, what does it amount to ? It will be a gain to a number of badly organised workers but it is only necessary to look at the past experience of such arrangements, with their low minimum rates, the exceptions for workers not up to the average level of health and efficiency, and the wholesale evasions, to see that it is a pledge of very modest value to the workers. Mr. Bevin’s second point is more interesting. He said: “At the end of the war we should be able to buy goods only for goods. The rentier, comfortably living on interest, would certainly be gone. It will mean that we shall have a nation at work, and that will not be an unhealthy thing.” (Daily Herald, July 16th, 1942.) The Times and Manchester Guardian reported him slightly differently. Instead of saying that the rentier would certainly be gone, they have it “would be entirely gone.” This, it will be observed, was not a pledge on behalf of the Government, but a statement of what Mr. Bevin believes will take place and of which he approves. We may digress for a moment to quote the Concise Oxford Dictionary about the rentier. The definition is “Person living on rente, person not needing to earn his living.” And “rente” is explained as of French origin, meaning “Income, especially that consisting of life annuity or dividends.”

So now we may seem to be getting somewhere. People living on property incomes, not needing to earn their living, will be gone ! (Incidentally if Mr. Bevin feared that there might be some propertied persons who would manage to escape the healthy necessity of working, he has already to hand a powerful instrument of which as Minister of Labour he has had experience. We refer to the prosecution of absentees from war work, fined or jailed under Defence Regulations.)

We are, however, going much too fast. Mr. Bevin has not yet convinced his fellow members of the Government, and was disowned by the Chancellor on the radio (2 Aug.) We may safely rule out any mass stampede on the part of the propertied class to surrender voluntarily their property and the income derived from it. An alternative is that it may be taken away from them. The S.P.G.B. has throughout its existence urged that the conversion of private ownership of the means of production and distribution into common ownership is the only way to solve the poverty problem; but Mr. Bevin does not subscribe to this. He is a member of the Labour Party, and that Party, far from seeking to abolish the rentier, prepares to establish him more firmly than ever by setting up state industries or public utility corporations and compensating the present owners with Government bonds, or stocks guaranteed by the Government. Has Mr. Bevin noticed, for example, how the rumours of nationalisation of the railways gladdened the hearts of the railway stockholders ? The Sunday Express (June 7th, 1942) reported “a slow upward move in home rail stocks. The buying is based on the theory that Britain’s railways will never return wholly to private ownership.” The Express went on : —

“That would have most important results for the 500,000 investors in railway stocks. Instead of a fluctuating income dependent on operating results, their revenues would be fixed.”

In short, Mr. Bevin, these stockholders are counting on the Labour Party establishing them in permanent security as rentiers.

Again on July 8th, 1942, the News-Chronicle reported another rise in railway stocks, and said : —

“. . . the current market explanation of the recovery yesterday was that it was inspired by statements of trade union officials that plans for the unification of the railways under a public board are well under way.”

It is then established that the rentier class, far from expecting Mr. Bevin’s Party to deprive them of their wealth and income, and make them work, are confidently looking to that Party for security as rentiers in the difficult post-war period.

There is, of course, a third alternative—that the rentier class have already disappeared or are about to disappear. It is fantastic to consider such a thing, but there are many supposedly well informed people who believe it to be true. There is Mr. J. B. Priestley, who writes that the war-time changes “are tending to bring people nearer to one level, both economically and socially. The differences between classes are much less marked” (Picture Post, June 27th, 1942). There is Lord Balfour of Burleigh, who, commenting on Priestley’s statement, approved of it and added: “I also hope and believe that such changes will continue after the war and on a great scale” (Picture Post, July 4th).

Mr. Priestley claimed that “many of the worst features of our pre-war life have vanished and are rapidly dwindling. For example, our fantastically gross and really sinful inequalities.” Then there Mr. Ivor Brown in the Manchester Guardian (June 6th, 1942), who fancies that we have already slipped into Socialism. “A 10/- income tax (with surtax in proportion) has given us what the Socialist orators could never do, Socialism in our time.” Ownership of a farm or factory is, he says, now only nominal, the owner “is just the employee of one or more Ministries.”

One can only gasp at the self-deception and short vision of such people and wonder how they manage to get like that in defiance of all the evidence that they are wrong. Presumably they knew about the pre-war inequality, that under 2 per cent. of the population owned about two-thirds of the accumulated wealth, and that three-quarters of the population owned between them not more than one-thirteenth of the wealth. Let us grant for the moment that at present the annual increase of the wealth of the propertied class is drastically curtailed in many instances by war-time taxation (as it was in 19l4—1918) but have they never heard how these fortunes leapt up again in the years after the last war ? Do they think that the rich are no longer with us ? Who do they think paid £6 17s a bottle for Benedictine at Christie’s sale on May 22nd, 1942 (Daily Telegraph May 23rd): £50 for six bottles of brandy, and liqueurs at £27 a dozen ? Did they not read of the £100,000 that was bid by a London builder for 130 bloodstock racehorses that had belonged to the late Lord Glenelly ? (Daily Express, July 15th, 1942). Do they ever look at the amounts left in the wills published in the Press ? On seven days chosen at random in July the Times published particulars of 55 wills. The amounts ranged from £12,000 to £426,000, and totalled £4,060,000—an average of £75,000 a head. Let us make the necessary allowance for death duties, ranging up to 50 per cent, and more on the millionaire fortunes, and even then ask Mr. Priestley if he really imagines that the position of these people “tends” to equality with that of the mass of the population. Again let him look at Whitaker’s Almanack, 1942, and see the big estates left in 1941. There are 13 of £500,000 or more, ranging up to one which is over £4,500,000. They average about £1,500,000 per head. Ten of them are over £1,000,000. Does Mr. Priestley not know the authoritative estimate that three out of four adult persons who die each year do not possess even £100 to leave to their heirs ? Does Mr. Priestley not know that in 1939 the average wage of an adult male worker in industry was less than 70/- a week, with hundreds of thousands earning far less than that. Does he not know that earnings have kept pace with the increased cost of living only where long hours of overtime are being worked ? Did he see the comment of the Birmingham magistrate on the disgrace that a married lorry driver, after 19 years’ service on the Great Western Railway, is receiving only 68/6 a week? (Daily Herald, July 16th.) Does he really affirm that there is not fantastic inequality between the position of the workers and the position of the propertied class, in war or in peace ?

This brings us back to Mr. Bevin. Does Mr. Bevin stand for the abolition of property incomes of all kinds ? Does he think this will take place in the post-war settlement ? Since his fellow Cabinet Ministers do not share that view, how does he propose to convince them ? And after that how does he propose to win the Labour Party away from its programme of stabilising the position of the rentier class? Does he agree with the S.P.G.B. that Socialism, which necessarily involves the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and distribution and all forms of property income, is the only remedy for the problems of the working class ? If the answer is yes, why is he a supporter of other programmes ? It the answer is no, what is the programme (apart from the one item of minimum wage regulation) which he believes will solve the problem without Socialism.

We make the confident forecast that no other policy will solve the problem. The propertied class will, under pressure, do various small things to meet working class discontent, but they will never be got off the workers’ backs until a Socialist majority determines to have Socialism. The post-war world will be very much like the world that went before unless the working class themselves determine otherwise.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Death Penalty in Soviet Russia (1942)

From the August 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received from a correspondent a letter dealing with the age at which young persons in Soviet Russia are liable to the death penalty. He refers to a statement quoted in the Socialist Standard for June, 1940, from Souvarine’s “Stalin,” that “a decree extended the application of the death penalty for delinquents and criminals as from the age of 12,” and says that a telephone message to the Soviet Embassy elicited the assurance that Souvarine’s statement is untrue. The assertion that children aged 12 are liable to the death penalty was first referred to in these columns in a review of Yvon’s “What has become of the Russian Revolution” (the Socialist Standard, March, 1939). In the issue for July, 1939, we published a denial by a correspondent, who quoted from “The Soviet Comes of Age” that “the death sentence cannot be pronounced on a person under 18 years of age.

Editorial Committee.

What Means This Strife? (1942)

From the August 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

How to End the Class Struggle. The Rise of Classes.

During man’s very early history, when society was in the stage of primitive communism, there were no classes and no class struggles. Then—and the period must have lasted for thousands of years—private property was unknown, all members of the tribe joining in the ownership of the hunting grounds and fishing waters. The proceeds of the chase were for the enjoyment of every member of the tribe. Thanks to this ownership in common there was no monopolising of resources and wealth by one section of the community to the detriment of another. No man could live by the exploitation of his fellows.

The domestication of animals and the fashioning of tools suitable for agriculture brought to an end this first stage of man’s history. It is always a revolution in the means of producing wealth which causes social relationships to change. Now tribes conquered others with the express purpose of converting the vanquished into slaves. They were brought home and set to work the land. The conquerors owned the tools, the animals and the land; the conquered were propertyless. Thus did private property arise and with it came classes and man’s exploitation by man.

Since that time the history of all society is the history of class struggles, for private property has severed society into the “haves” and the “have-nots.” For this reason we find antagonism between one section of society and another. “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, baron and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, standing constantly in opposition to each other, carried on an uninterrupted warfare, now open, now concealed . . .” And present-day capitalist society has not abolished the class struggle. “It has but substituted new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of warfare for the old.” (See “Communist Manifesto,” by Marx and Engels.) To-day we have the class-struggle between the capitalist and working classes.

They Won’t Face the Facts

Frequently, especially in war time and during crises, appeals are made to the exploited, the working class, to abandon the class struggle.

Such an appeal was made on May Day by Marshal Petain. According to a Yorkshire Post and Leeds Mercury report, he “appealed to the French workers not to restore the class system (!)” and spoke of “the unhealthy ideologies of the class struggle.”

(The Marshal, in keeping with his shallow thoughts, is guilty of loose phraseology; the “class system”—capitalism—has not been abolished in France, or elsewhere, and so cannot be restored.)

It is strange how the workers are always held responsible for the class struggle. Yet, as we have shown, it owes its origin to private property, the corner-stone of capitalist society. The class struggle exists because of the clash of interests between the workers and their masters. That the interests of these two classes are opposed is quite clear if we take one aspect of it. The worker sells his energies, his labour-power, to the capitalist. Over the price of this and over the length of time it shall belong to the capitalist, there is bound to be disagreement. The worker, living on the starvation line, wants the best price (wage) he can get; the capitalist, seeking to produce his wares cheaply so that he can sell them in the world market, wants to reduce production costs. He, therefore, tries to keep wages down. Strikes and lockouts, both as old as capitalism, are evidences of the class struggle.

We can say with confidence, therefore, that the Marshal made his May Day appeal in vain. The French workers, like any others, are compelled by the very nature of capitalism to wage the class struggle in order to maintain their standard of life. This they are forced to do, even if they do not understand the economics of capitalism, even if they are not politically-minded. To quote Marx again : “The proletariat goes through various evolutionary stages. Its struggle against the bourgeoisie begins with its birth.” Not Petain, nor Hitler, nor anyone else can check the outbreak of the class struggle, either by words, government decrees or brute force. Nothing less than the abolition of that which gives rise to classes will accomplish that—the abolition of private property.

People like the Marshal are to be found the world over, wherever capitalism has (as it inevitably must) brought into existence workers and capitalists.

On the same day as Petain’s broadcast was reported, and in the same paper, a letter appeared entitled “Labour Discipline.” This writer, too, assumes that the class struggle is the workers’ creation. He deplores the fact that 400 factory workers on strike have refused to obey their union leaders’ orders to resume work pending negotiations. The writer does not stop to ponder why negotiations are so frequently necessary between the owners of industry and their workpeople. For this man the class struggle is a matter of will, of inclination, on the part of the working class. He cannot see that it is a sheer necessity inseparable from capitalism.

Another of those perturbed by this everlasting strife between employer and employed is Lord Dudley Gordon. Addressing the Leeds and District branch of the Federation of British Industries, he spoke thus:

“We must do all in our power to get rid of the idea that the community consists of classes who have different interests clashing and competing one with another.” This paraphrased means: “Do your best to shut your eyes to facts. The class struggle is there alright, but ignore it.”

Lord Dudley’s solution for the whole problem is quite simple. “It would,” he said, “be better if we could look for competition in sacrifice.” This advice could, however, only have been meant for the workers—the usual call for more sacrifices. At any rate, his fellow capitalists ignored the message, for so far they have shown no inclination to enter into competition with each other in sacrificing the privileges of private ownership.

The Socialist Solution

Enough has been said to show that the way to a class-free society devoid of strife is not through the Petains and the Dudleys. Indeed, it can safely be maintained that the Socialist alone knows the solution to this problem. In his spoken and written propaganda, he aims at impressing upon the workers that the time has now arrived when classes need not be.

So long as the means of production were at a low stage of development and incapable of producing enough for all, it was inevitable that a few should ensure to themselves the privileges that ownership gives.

But that need not be now. The means of production can to-day pour our abundance. The truth of this is evident when one remembers that though so many millions are under arms and so many more millions engaged m turning out weapons of destruction, the world still carries on.

The Socialist urges that the way to end the class struggle is to make these gigantic productive forces the property of all society. This would immediately remove the cause of classes and conflict. This remedy, the only one, is, of course, opposed by the capitalist class. Their interests and privileges are at stake.

The task, then, of effecting this economic transformation rests with the working class, and sooner or later the workers of all nations will be obliged to undertake it.

The working class will carry the class struggle to its logical conclusion.

Beginning on the economic field over such particular questions as hours of work and wages, the struggle becomes a political struggle. The workers must win political power in order to carry through their revolution.

As time goes on the working class will realise more and more that this is their historical mission. The workers will become ever more critical of capitalist society. Every sphere of present-day society will be carefully scrutinised by them as their class consciousness grows.

When the majority of the workers become aware that class struggles need no longer be, that is, when they have become Socialists, they will use political power to abolish private property. Capitalism will be replaced by a harmonious social system—Socialism.

When we have the common ownership of the means of life, the individual’s interest will coincide with his fellows. Then, at last, strife and turmoil, so characteristic of capitalism, will no longer impede man’s progress.

With a society united and each giving according to his ability, who can say what will be the limits of man’s progress?

Clifford Allen

If We Are To Survive (concluded) (1942)

From the August 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

With the advent of private property, came more permanent dwelling-places, and interchange of products, the domination of tribe by tribe, and the growth of privileged and ruling classes. Whereas formerly man’s struggle for existence represented a unified battle against the elements, the fight for survival now took the form of man against man, class against class, state against state. No longer did man live a harmonious and cooperative life. The road to prosperity was now littered with the weaker and less fortunate over whom the successful had to step.

A society is the sum total of human relationships. The basis of all societies is economics, or the way in which men make their living. From this base there arises the superstructure of society. the ideas, morals, codes, and institutions. Change the way men are organised to make their living and you change the way in which they react to one another. It is this and this alone that explains man’s transition through the stages of primitive tribal society to feudalism and Chattel Slavery to the various developments of our present system. The ever-accelerating advance of new discoveries and inventions have wrought consequent changes in men’s relationships.

If we want to understand the disheartening human behaviour of the present-day, we must seek for an explanation, not in psychological stereotypes, but in the organisation of society. We live in a commodity system. Goods are not produced primarily to satisfy the needs of people, but to be sold on the market for profit. The means of production are all concentrated in the hands of a very few who live by virtue of their ownership. On the other hand we have the overwhelming majority of the world whose only means of livelihood is the selling of their energies, physical and mental, to those who own and control the machinery of wealth production. The few live well; the many dwell precariously close to a subsistence level.

It is a competitive world in which success is measured in dollars and cents. The scrupulous, the good-natured, those who will not rise at the expense of other, are forgotten men and women who will never bleed the blue of the upper class. It is an economy in which greed and selfishness are the prerequisites of a secure and prosperous life. Consequently, in order to live, man is compelled to develop these characteristics and to strive for personal achievement whatever the cost to his fellow men.

In such a world it is not practical to be unselfish and co-operative. What benefits one class hurts the other it is each for himself and the devil take the hindmost. The contradictions of capitalist society with its wasteful competition are not limited to individuals and classes within a country. In the quest for markets and trade routes on the part of national capitalist interests, the competitions of peace invariably give way to the conflicts of war, and the world finds itself again embroiled in a slaughter of unparalleled proportions.

Yet, in spite of all the greed and deceit, in spite of the brutality and ruthlessness of capitalist society, man is still a social being, and is quick to rally to the aid of his fellow men. It is not uncommon for men to sacrifice their own lives for the well-being of others. In every catastrophe there are always spontaneous efforts to help and assist the stricken and the unfortunate.

The present war is an excellent example of man’s social impulses.

Actually it is being waged for economic and political supremacy among rival capitalist factions. But in the minds of those in the front lines, the purpose is conceived as a humanitarian one. They are fighting to destroy a menace. They are killing in the conviction that humanity will benefit. They are dying in the hope that by their death a new and better world will come to life.

It is not the creation of a more virtuous man that is needed, not an improvement in human behaviour, but the establishment of a social system that will be conducive to an expression of man’s social nature. A society in which existence will be based on the pursuit of progressive and co-operative endeavours. Not only is man capable of living a better life, but the time is now ripe for its establishment. For the first time in history the world is capable of providing an abundance of wealth, more than enough to satisfy the needs of every individual. Modern science has contributed the knowledge and machinery necessary to transpose the biblical promises of milk and honey into twentieth-century reality.

There is only one obstacle standing in the way of a new day and that is the set of ideas that exist in the minds of men. From early childhood our thoughts and conceptions have been trained and nurtured along set patterns. In school and church we are imbued with set notions and prejudices. By the time we have passed adolescence we have a whole host of definite impressions and stereotyped convictions which we are wont to discard. Most of what we know of the world that lies outside our own direct experience is made up more of cursory impressions than of facts, more of myth than reality. Outside of the individual’s limited environment, his contacts with the world are for the most part second, third, or fourth hand. This limitation also holds true for men in high political offices, who rarely are acquainted with the problems and events over which they exercise authority.

It is undeniable that only a few of us have attained any degree of objectivity in our observations. The great majority of us mortals harbour a large repertoire of prejudices and faulty impressions. But the mistaken concepts, hackneyed ideas and ill-advised standards which we flatter to call our reason is a direct reflection of our environment. For example, if we believe in the nonsense that all Jews are shrewd and grabbing, we are reflecting what our training has taught us to believe.

It is particularly difficult in times such as the present, when we are bombarded from every source by propaganda and distortions, to think clearly and accurately regarding the social forces that have engulfed us. In fact, it is difficult to think at all. But the very conditions that make a clear picture difficult makes clear thinking all the more vital.

To the casual observer who has matured beyond the slogans and shibboleths that are intoxicating our senses, it appears inconceivable that any sort of decent life can emerge from the present horror and degradation. It is a world gone mad. However, all is not lost. The war is but further evidence that capitalism can no longer function in the interest of humanity.

It will not require many more years of privation and confusion before men realise the futility of killing each other in the interests of their masters. It will not be beyond the intelligence of the men and women of the post-war world to realise the possibilities of our scientific age. We need not be wary of the man’s ability to adjust himself to a new and better world. Socialism has become more than a dream for the future, it has become the prime need of to-day. Expediency demands a socialist world—if we are to survive.

Eric Hanson.

(“Western Socialist,” Boston, U.S.A.)