What are schools for? (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following essay was submitted by a member of the SPGB to a competition, open to people between 16 and 19, organized as part of the so-called “National Debate on Education”. The winning essay was published on 4th October in The Guardian. This contribution was short-listed but not chosen for publication. It shows the fundamental difference of approach of a Socialist to the subject.

The usual answer to the question “What are schools for?” is to reply that they are for education. That is true but unsatisfactory, for it begs at least two other questions—what shall be provided as education, and, more important, education for what?

Schools tend to be reflections of the society in which they exist. Today, therefore, schools are created in the image of capitalism. As in capitalist society the majority of the population are members of the working class (i.e. dependent upon the sale of their labour-power to an employer for a wage or salary) the education provided by schools for that majority must, however vaguely, be influenced by that fact.

Schools mainly teach the young, whom they have to enable to take their places in society. At the moment, therefore, education for the majority must be largely training them for future employment. Capitalism needs “clerks”, "engineers”, “doctors”, “postmen” and “policemen”, etc. and so these are some of the qualities of labour-power that schools must produce. Additionally, as capitalism requires a disciplined workforce some form of discipline and moral education must be central to schools.

Today, therefore, “education” must be for enabling people to take their place in capitalist society. This “end” of education determines which of the available “means” shall be employed, i.e what shall be provided as education.

Exam System

The most obvious link between school and employment is the exam system. It is this system which presents schools with the clearest expression of capitalism's labour-power needs. It is at the clear target of getting their pupils to attain satisfactory exam qualifications that schools must aim. The government and their examination boards must keep the exams responsive to capitalism’s needs, while schools must alter their subjects and methods in response to changes in exam requirements.

Employers increasingly depend upon exam qualifications when hiring labour-power. Their aim is to employ only the most productive (in the sense of profitable) workers in order to survive in competition with their rivals. Similarly, “the nation” requires an efficient and sufficiently qualified (i.e. educated) workforce in order to out-pace foreign competitors. Thus, the exam system and the relative merits of each qualification must continuously alter in response to capitalism’s increasing demands, while schools can only follow this lead by adjusting their courses and placing different emphases on the importance of various subjects.

To the pupil, the exam seems (correctly or otherwise) to be the main point of the dozen or so years spent at school. The exam may well appear to be the key to “higher” education and more exams, or ultimately, for the majority, the qualification for a job. Just as prostitutes are forced to advertize their wares, so too wage-workers increasingly have to exhibit their exam qualifications; to many, school may appear little more than a training centre for the brothel of life.

While capitalism needs workers to be qualified to perform certain types of work, it also requires a working class which is disciplined and which accepts the moral values of capitalist society. With this task schools must also be concerned. The school day is modelled upon capitalism’s working day. The school must discipline the pupil to attend school at certain times and to accept the authority of those in charge. Although alternatives to this have been attempted, “experts” and “public opinion” have been against their general application (probably correctly from their position), as they fear that it would produce an undisciplined working class (the majority).

Similarly, the exam system, it has been argued, instils discipline into the pupil by forcing him or her to recognize that the only way to "get on” in life is to work hard. In this is based a contradiction, for if the exam is a competition then only a selection can succeed and this will remain so even if every pupil works very hard—the only winner in such a situation being the employers who would gain a better-quality work-force while the majority of pupils would, as ever, have lost. Further, this argument is promoted into a myth of meritocracy in society; for by extension it is erroneously inferred that those on top of society have got there either by hard work or by “merit” and intellect.

Examinations today therefore mean selection, and selection means rejection. The rejecting system means that many pupils, who have been taught to have aspirations of reaching “the top”, must be disappointed. Their impotence to achieve their aims leads them to frustration. Schools must cope with these frustrations both by teaching their pupils useless alternative “leisure” pursuits and also by preaching “safe” moral values, e.g. respect for private property and authority.

Examinations and teaching are based upon the prevailing orthodoxy and both aim to reinforce and perpetuate that orthodoxy. For the majority this must remain so (even in “denominational” and private schools), as long as the “end” for schools is life in capitalism.

If, however, society was changed to Socialism, then the aim of education would be for life in Socialist society. That would mean that schools wouldn’t be for producing “clerks” or “postmen” (i.e. qualities of labour-power) but rather for developing human beings in the widest and most varied sense. As all work shall be voluntary, there will be little restriction on what and when work shall be done. In one day a person may choose to deliver post, cook meals, type letters, work in a factory or do any other variety and number of works.

Thus schools shall provide the broadest possible education to enable people to develop and extend their individuality to the fullest, not being confined by class and rigid division of labour. Production shall be to satisfy society’s needs, for useful and necessary items, not for profit. Education shall provide people with some of the abilities needed for such production, but not in any narrow sense of producing people to do only certain confined types of work.

Schools without walls

In Socialism, where everyone in the world shall own the means of living, there will be no need for exchange and money, which are the products of private-property society. Thus education would not be limited by cost and property factors. Socialism will be a “school without walls” where students could receive experience working in factories and offices etc. (which at present would be opposed by vested interests such as trades unions and employers, against the exploitation of child-labour); where, if the desire was to learn a new language, the student could travel to an area where that language was the vernacular not confined by cost; where, as private property would no longer exist there would be no copyrights, censorship or need for false theories or moral values so all information would be freely available for education; where lessons will not be merely passing sets of notes from teacher to pupil without going through the head of either, but rather the critical refinement and propagation of theories to support practice. 

Schools in Socialism shall be freely accessible to all those (of whatever age) who wish to learn. In capitalism schools are for survival-training for the capitalist jungle. In Socialism education shall be for the fullest extension of human beings, both individually and socially.

Brian Philips

Teachers are workers (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Various journals—the Times Educational Supplement and The Guardian among them—have affected some surprise at findings recently published by National Opinion Polls following their enquiry into teachers’ opinions and practices concerning such matters as “pupil power”, corporal punishment, school prayers, housing, private interests, and so on.

It is clear from the results that teachers, by and large, continue to take a very conventional view of these and other related matters.

Quite apart from the chimera of “pupil” or “parent power” (what exactly does this mean within the context of capitalist society?) and ignoring the sheer irrelevance of badminton as a game much favoured by teachers, one may well ask what is so surprising about this “discovery”?

So 75 per cent. of teachers want school prayers. Well, so (almost certainly) do most parents. A majority of teachers wish to retain the grammar schools. Again, so did (and still do) many of the British public: always provided, of course, that their children were enabled to attend them. 72 per cent. of teachers wish to retain the power to cane. Well, go and ask “the man in the street”. If you pursue the matter with him you may well be informed that he believes in bringing back the birch, too, to say nothing of capital punishment.

An so the list goes on. The publicity given to such noisy leftist minority groupings as “Rank and File” (the black sheep of the National Union of Teachers), the nonsense talked about “pupil governors”, and the emergence of pupils’ unions, have had the dual effect of deluding the innocent and giving the more astute of capitalism’s apologists the excuse to strangle at birth any signs of independent thinking among teachers, pupils or parents. By way of justification, all they have to do is to point to “dangerous revolutionaries in the classroom”—great stuff for the gutter press, needless to add.

To a socialist, particularly if he happens to be inside the education system, it must come as no surprise at all to learn that in these as in most other matters the teachers are, in reality, no different from other members of the working class. After all, they are just as much a part of the capitalist system as any other section. Which means, of course, that they are just as vulnerable to an uncritical acceptance of capitalism’s mores together with its repressions and its coercive discipline.

NOP’s horse never really ran. The most that can be claimed for the whole exercise is that it may have helped some to understand how capitalism first creates and then exploits its Aunt Sallys.

R.W.C.

Blogger's Note:

One can never be 100% sure about these things but I believe that 'R.W.C.' was the regular Socialist Standard writer, Richard Cooper, Why he opted for just using his initials for this particular article, I do not know but he would regularly write on the subject of education  — he was a teacher — in the pages of the Socialist Standard. 

For more background on Cooper, he wrote an entertaining article in the August 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard on 'Becoming a socialist'.

New faces, old cases (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enter Peter, exit Paul —

Now Jimmy Reid has got the call;

“Two honest men”, I hear you say 

(Prepared to queue for an MP’s pay). 

Will Labour aim for higher things,

With all this talent in the wings?

But ere you raise your hopes too soon 

Just listen to the same old tune:

Let the music start and the game begin — Put the right wing out, the left wing in. 

All join hands and circle left,

Circle left within the ring.

But double back on the same old track 

When capitalism pulls the string.

J. D.

Capitalism and hunger (1977)

From the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists argue that the world-wide problem of hunger is not caused by the earth’s resources being insufficient to provide enough food for its population, but by the fact that the present social system, capitalism, is geared to profit-making and not to the satisfaction of people’s needs. Capitalism restricts the amount of food produced and sometimes leads to the destruction of what is already produced. Socialism on the other hand will be a society freed of all socially-imposed limitations on the production and distribution of food.

Myth of scarcity

From time to time, evidence in support of our view that starvation is the result of the economic system and not of overpopulation is provided by capitalist institutions. A recent example is the report Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, compiled by the Institute for Food and Development Policy in San Francisco, and summarized in an article in the Guardian of 1st September.

The report points out that Africa, with the worst malnutrition of any continent, is a net exporter of foodstuffs such as cattle and vegetables. Thus food desperately needed by the millions of malnourished Africans is sold abroad as a way of acquiring the foreign exchange sought by the emerging African capitalist states. In Ecuador—a country not noted for the high living standards of the majority of its inhabitants—only 14 per cent. of cultivable land is actually farmed, a tragic waste of resources which becomes positively obscene in the context of the hungry millions of mankind.

Not only does capitalism mean underproduction and scarcity, it also artificially brings about a situation where “too much” is produced (this means too much for the good of profit-making and the accumulation of capital, of course, not too much for people to eat). 1976 saw a bumper world harvest, which has led to enormous stockpiles of wheat and falling prices in the United States. President Carter’s reaction to this is to move to stabilize prices and reduce storage costs by ordering American farmers to cut down the acreage of wheat by one-fifth next year! Wheat-fields will be ploughed up, and less wheat produced, all in the name of profit. Meanwhile, millions of men, women and children will starve because they cannot afford to buy the food they need. No profits are made by selling wheat to those who cannot pay the going rate. As the Guardian writer says, “Food is produced to meet the demands of those with sufficient money to buy it.”

The way out of this absurd situation is not to try and tinker with the profit-motivated capitalist system so as to make destruction of food unprofitable, or to pay the developing countries “fair prices” for their agricultural products. The elimination of world hunger can only be achieved within a socialist society, where production will be solely for use and not for profit, with free access for all to what is produced. Then the resources of the earth and the agricultural knowledge of mankind will be combined to produce enough food for all.

Paul Bennett

Letter: In other words (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

In other words

I found the letter written by Jon Lieberman in the August edition of the Socialist Standard very interesting, for, like him, I consider Party members to be an aloof bunch of egg-heads, no doubt very sincere in their almost foolproof beliefs, but completely and utterly devoid of a sense of humour and suspicious of change.

Of course, the Declaration of Principles are precise and straightforward to anyone living during the period 1910 to 1940, but language and phrasing change, and it’s time the SP realized this. Nobody wishes to see Pentagonese used to describe your aims, such as: "That, at this moment in time, as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the working class keep a low profile, there is no way other than escalation of hostility, etc., etc.”; but I have endeavoured to rewrite the aims as near to present-day understanding as possible.

Incidentally, that Principle No. 8! Why read “SPGB’’ twice? And why not call yourselves World Socialist Party? Since when did Socialists consider Britain Great?

R. J. Otter

Shepperton

Reply:

Let’s put it like this: the verbal confusions in the first part of your letter make us suspicious of the verbal alterations you suggest in the second part. If our beliefs are "almost foolproof”, as you state, why criticize us for not being eager to change? Though sympathetic with us you stand outside the Socialist Party, but say we are "aloof”. You may have been somehow unfortunate in a limited contact with members, but do you really mean "completely and utterly devoid” of a sense of humour (and have you never seen evidence to the contrary in the Socialist Standard)?

As regards the name of the Party, Great Britain is the name of the political unit we operate in. Our opinion does not enter into it. We do not think Clapham High Street is High, either, but it is beyond our control and doesn’t matter anyway.

We have considered suggestions for re-wording our Declaration of Principles at various times, but no alternative has provided the same meaning. There is not space to reproduce yours in full, but the first one reads:

Society in today’s world is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e. land, factories, business groups etc.) by the capitalist class; and that consequently the working class, by whose labour alone wealth is produced, is powerless.

The opening phrase is a tautology: "today’s world” is society. "Business groups” are not part of the means of living. You have cut out any reference to the means of distributing wealth, leaving the impression that "means of living” is restricted to the means of production. “Powerless” has a political meaning, whereas the definition of the working class is economic. Similar criticisms apply to your other re-worded clauses. Not many marks out of ten, we’re afraid.

Blogger's Note:

R. J. Otter was an ex-member of the SPGB. He was a member of Islington Branch from August 1956 until April 1960. He reigned from the Party, stating that it was ". . . unrealistic and has a bad personal attitude." Ouch.

He returned to the letters pages of the Socialist Standard nearly ten years later, in October 1987, and he still wasn't happy with the Party.

Letter: Purity & evolution (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Purity & evolution

First I wish to congratulate you on the excellence of your publications as to the form.

In terms of doctrine, one senses an earnest striving to preserve a purity that cannot be without merit. Now, I have a couple of questions. Does not the unconditional rejection of all other parties and movements, while preserving a kind of virginity, also coincide with "lack of impact”? (The latter term is characteristically quantitative, but it is the whole of ambient mentality, modern mentality.)

Question 2 is: What is your attitude to non-materialists? My own position is that of metaphysics. I feel 1 can situate “historical materialism” as a kind of weapon-analysis but feel certain I would ever seek to escape from an exclusive materialism.

Have you an expert on economics and war that could come along to a meeting under the auspices of the World Federalist Association. A meeting will be held on war at the House of Commons by kind invitation of Joan Evans mp. Mr. K. F. G. Clarke, Sen. Assistant Manager, Economics Dept., Midland Bank, will speak on “Does the International Financial System promote World Peace?” 

Finally, 1 totally disagree with your pamphlet on racism as to Darwin. I reject Evolution (except on a limited, circumscribed basis). I am certain that Social Darwinism has fostered a racialism of its own. It is false beyond a limited range. Even Marxist terms like "advanced” fosters practical racism. Of course it serves a purpose but it totally ignores ancient pre-historic civilizations of which the "backward" peoples today are the residue (of a falling away from Tradition in the metaphysical sense—not the sentimental sense of Conservatives).

A. C. Stock 

London SE25

Reply:

1. You appear to consider “purity” as a good thing in itself. We don’t. Our view is a practical one: we oppose parties and movements which stand for capitalism, but parties in other countries which have Socialism as their objective are our companion organizations.

You suggest we should have more “impact” if we abandoned this attitude and, presumably, joined with a party or parties we do not agree with. Leaving aside the question of principle, it is an illusion to suppose that this would make us better known or more popular. Small organizations joining with larger ones are eaten by them. If the alliance was not numerically so one-sided—say, the SPGB with the World Federalist Association you mention—the position would still be that the latter organization is uninterested in Socialism and would only be seeking our support to get better “impact” for its own policies.

2. Historical materialism cannot be anything other than exclusive of metaphysical beliefs. Its standpoint is that all social phenomena, including ideas, arise from the way men organize to produce the necessities for their existence; in so doing they enter into relationships which determine not only their institutions but the forms their consciousness takes. Our attitude to non-materialists is, therefore, that they are mistaken.

3. Your letter was not received by us in time to consider going to a meeting. We have no “experts” on economics and war. Members of the SPGB understand the economics of capitalism, including the way it inevitably leads to war. Our attitude to the question asked is that the international financial system is part of the operation of capitalism, and as such cannot promote peace.

4. You jump from evolution to “Social Darwinism”, which was a 19th-century doctrine aiming to justify capitalism by showing that the ruling class were the fittest and strongest individuals in society. This is not the view expressed in our pamphlet, or by socialists in an context. Evolution explains the physical emergence of man. Once he lived in society (and he has no other existence) his evolution became social, and the driving principle in it has been the formation of and conflicts between classes.

"Advanced” has racist overtones only if you are thinking of races. It means a movement forward. Prehistoric societies are not “civilizations”. The Marxist case is that if a major change becomes open to people living in such a society, or a feudal one, it must take the form of a step in a certain direction; this is all "advance” means.

Letter: Individual liberty (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Individual liberty

Replying to W. J. Street (September Socialist Standard), you reject Kropotkin’s vision of a society where “the liberty of the individual will not be limited by laws or bonds”. Does this then imply that there will be such laws or bonds with Socialism?

Does the "democratic social organisation" necessitate compulsory majority decisions? If so, as the State "has withered away”, how will such decisions be enforced?

Are we referring to Socialism or to a controversial intermediate society?

Finally, with the material needs no longer at risk, will the individual and society continue to be in conflict?

After all, people do not shoot one another because of divergent views on art or would not do so in a civilised society.

F. Ball

Wokingham

Reply:

We reject Kropotkin’s view of society because in common with all anarchists he places the liberty of the individual above the needs of society. This is a utopian conception; society is not just a collection of individuals. The wants and needs of the individual are inseparable from the organization of socialist society.

The duties and the relationships of those living in Socialism will be established by social custom, as it was in the period of man’s early history before the advent of private property. Society, which will be democratically controlled, will have a responsibility towards all its members and vice versa. The keynote is social co-operation at every level.

It would be wrong to claim that there will always be total agreement, but there would not nor could not be any coercion against any individual or minority who did not agree with majority decisions. Matters in dispute would have to be thrashed out, and any decision taken would put the interest of the community first, and a dissenting minority would be expected to go along with it. The fact that all available information and facilities will be at the disposal of minorities or individuals, and discussion unrestricted, will help them to see the reasons for the majority decision, even though they may not accept it. Few people will not bow to reason if they have had a fair hearing. As you do not give a specific example we cannot develop this point further.

Socialism is not an intermediate society. There is no half-way stage or transition between socialism and capitalism—we move from one into the other.

We generally agree with your last point. However, we do not divorce the individual’s needs, including his cultural and intellectual needs, from those of society. The individual is a social product and his thinking powers are born out of social conditions. He is not above society but of it. His ideas arise from and must relate to the material circumstances of his social existence.

Letter: Enquiry (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enquiry

In the Guardian (Aug. 26th 1977) I read under FIND OUT ABOUT SOCIALISM: “For specimen literature write to.”

I wonder your ideas about Socialism and how you would translate them into action.

I’m Hungarian-born. I lived there for 26 years, but I’ve been living in Sweden for month. I know what socialism means in practice in Hungary or in the other socialist countries. I know what it means that’s why I deserted Hungary and live here in Sweden.

Walter Ja’nos

Sweden

Reply:

Socialism is a widely mis-used term but it does have a precise meaning. In socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the whole, worldwide, community. Every human being will have the same relationship to the means of production and free access to what is produced. Production will be solely for use, for example food will be grown and processed simply to be eaten. There will not be any buying or selling and money will not have any rôle to play. Men and women will as free individuals co-operate to perform all the necessary work of socialist society. Since there will be no possible motive for one group in society to dominate or exploit another, armed forces, armaments, the state itself, will not exist.

Is this the kind of society you left behind in Hungary? Does it exist anywhere? If you compare the basic conditions in Hungary and Sweden you will find that the social system in both countries is capitalism. The vast majority of people possess only their ability to work, their labour-power, which they must sell for wages. Whether members of the working class are employed by private capitalists or the state makes no real difference. In both cases the working class is paid less in wages than the value of what it produces. The minority who as a class own the means of production are able to appropriate the difference. In other words in Hungary as in all of the so-called socialist countries we find wage-labour and capital—the mark of capitalism.

We as a party cannot achieve Socialism on our own. The only way to get Socialism is for the immense majority of the working class to understand their class position in society and to organize consciously and politically to take control of the political machinery for the sole purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing Socialism.

When you have read some of our literature we shall be pleased to discuss any points you wish to raise.

Letter: Vital statistics (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vital statistics 

I would be grateful for your observations through the SS to put a friend’s mind at rest. He wants it in black and white!

For the attainment of a socialist society, what would constitute the majority? Is it 100 per cent. of the working class who are 86 per cent. of the population, or 100 per cent. of the population? We agree that 51 per cent. or even 65 per cent. would not be enough for the socialist case to succeed. But he is of the opinion that we must aim for 100 per cent. of the population or we have no chance of success. This, I feel, is an impossibility and unattainable. I have tried to explain that it will depend on circumstances at the time, and when that time comes the working class themselves will decide what constitutes the percentage of the majority, be it 60, 70 or 81 per cent., etc.

Would be thankful if you would expand and settle the issue.

Brian Johnson

Pontypridd

Reply:

“Majority” means an electoral majority. At the beginning of this century the question was of there being enough working-class votes, assuming they were nearly all cast for Socialism, to outnumber the capitalist class. Today the electorate (people over 18) in Britain number roughly 40 millions, of whom about nine-tenths are workers. Clearly 51 per cent. would not do; it would mean nearly half the population did not accept Socialism and were not prepared to operate it. 100 per cent. of the electorate would mean all the capitalists had become Socialists, which we doubt. One vital factor would be what was happening in the rest of the world. Another would be the strength of what feeling against Socialism remained. If it appeared that the non-socialists were mostly unconvinced but amenable, those who were ready for Socialism might decide that they could go forward (bearing in mind that everyone would benefit from the change).

What we would say about these difficult decisions is that we are anxious to be confronted by them. Tell your friend to join us and help to spread Socialism.

SPGB Lectures and Meetings (1977)

Party News from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

R. Weidberg wrote under the name of 'Ronnie Warrington' in the Socialist Standard.

Meetings in Scotland: "The Lenin I Knew" (1977)

Party News from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

With regards to him doing a series of meetings on "The Lenin I Knew", Harry Young's credentials were that he was a founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920, serving on its Executive Committee in his capacity as the national organiser of the Young Communist League. Later on in the 1920s he spent several years in the Soviet Union working for the Young Communist International. He also provides some background information on his time as a Communist Party member in an article from the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Andrew Whitehead's excellent website has more details on Harry Young's political life and journey. It's well worth checking out.

Editorial: Socialism is the only basis for unity (1952)

Editorial from the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

In working-class circles in the early years of this century the idea of international unity was widely if not deeply held. It was taken for granted that as trade unions and labour parties in all countries had similar aims of seeking higher wages and social reforms, they had only to get together to be truly united. The clash of nationalist sentiments was admitted but it was considered that this was an evil for which reactionary governments were largely responsible and that when the workers got to know and understand each other national hatreds would disappear, and with them war. As an aim, the workers looked to Labour Governments which would, naturally, co-operate with each other in a friendly way.

The S.P.G.B. did not accept any of those easy assumptions. It insisted that the choice was between having Socialism (which presupposed a majority who understood Socialism) and retaining capitalism, and that so long as capitalism remained there would be misery, poverty and war. The counter-argument the labour parties put was—rather vaguely because they never clearly formulated it—that there would be a sort of transition during which Labour Governments would steadily improve workers conditions and at the same time educate them and unite them for the eventual advance to Socialism. They insisted, above all, that this was the way, indeed the only practical way, to preserve peace and foster world unity.

After half a century we can now check up on the rival conceptions of labourites and socialists and see which has been proved correct.

We have had two world wars and can see the possibility of another, for the governments are all arming and hurling threats and abuse across the frontiers, and where stand the parties that thought they could control and improve capitalism? They stand divided on opposite sides of the iron curtain. In the West the British Labour Party and its associated parties denounce the Communists who govern Capitalism in Russia and her satellite countries and are denounced by them. The trade union movement of the world is likewise divided into hostile camps; on one side the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and on the other the (Communist) World Federation of Trade Unions. On the political field the labour parties and their international committee are at war with the communist parties.

In domestic matters the experience of Labour Party control of Capitalism has been equally disastrous. Far from inspiring and uniting the working class it has ended with deep divisions inside the Labour Party and trade unions. Gone are the days when the standard Labour Party argument against the S.P.G.B. was to chide us with dividing the workers and to urge us to get inside the united ranks.

The working class in each country and internationally are at present desperately divided but the responsibility lies not with die S.P.G.B. but with those who started with the erroneous idea that capitalism could be controlled and moulded into something better and had to learn by experience that the policies of Labour and Communist Governments operating capitalism are determined by capitalism.

When they learned their error the British Labour Party resorted to the trick of pretending that a new system had been introduced, the “Welfare State." Stalin and his associates took the even more impudent course of claiming that Russian state capitalism had actually become Socialism.

Stalin's latest contribution (Daily Worker, 14 October, 1952) is to present to Russian readers a detailed argument to show how and why commodity production and the law of value must continue to operate under “Socialism"; which is chiefly of interest as showing that in Russia too there must be workers who are asking awkward questions and are not satisfied with the double-talk of those who govern in their name.

From a working class standpoint the world is in a desperate state but the situation has a brighter side. It is evident that the old reformist theories and trust in nationalisation or State capitalism have lost their attraction and the leaders are frantically trying to retain their hold on a rank and file filled with doubt. That should be a great opportunity for Socialist propagandists.

Blogger's Note:

Alwyn Edgar's mention of Stalin re-defining 'Socialism' in the Passing Show column (see under 'Ah, but this is different'), plus the reference to Stalin in the CPGB's Daily Worker along the same lines in this month's editorial both probably relate to his 1951 work. the Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR.

The Passing Show: Human Nature (1952)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human Nature

One of the most common arguments met with by the advocates of Socialism is that concerning human nature. Again and again anti-Socialists come up with something of this kind—“I’m sure your system would be a very good one if it would work, but of course it never will. Human nature is against it.” It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that people who argue like this simply do not want Socialism, and are trying to find plausible-sounding reasons for their attitude rather than admit their hostility openly. For the more research workers delve into the history of nations, and the more they examine the social institutions still existing among primitive peoples, the more it becomes obvious that the system of private property which our opponents suppose to be so fundamental that it is rooted in the very nature of the human race, is merely a product of the last four or five thousand years at most—a very small time indeed when compared with the vast ages which have elapsed since the first recognisably human beings appeared on earth. The earliest records of all civilised peoples point to a preceding primitive communism, and the same kind of system is evident among all those peoples with whom for some reason or other modern capitalism is only just catching up. If we wish to say that either one or the other of the two systems—private property or communistic ownership—is fundamental to human nature, then an impartial observer, judging by the length of time human beings have existed under the one system or the other, would be forced by the weight of evidence to decide in favour of Communism.

#    #    #    #

Remarkable!

Recently two articles appeared in The Times entitled “ A New Greenland,” which showed that the Greenlanders do not differ from other primitive peoples in this respect. The Times Special Correspondent said (5-9-52):-

“The Eskimos lived in settlements small enough to prevent the over-hunting of the district in which they lived, and their system of life ensured that as long as one hunter in each group had a catch, no one in the community starved. Further laws and social organisation were neither known nor indeed necessary."

Later on, the article said: “Remarkable though it may sound, crime is almost unknown.” Why remarkable? Crime is no more basic to human nature than is private property. They both enter human society at the same time, and will be abolished from human society at the same time.

The social system which exists among the Greenlanders, or which used to exist among them until very recently, drives another nail into the coffin of the argument that “human nature is against Socialism.” It should, in fact, have been buried a long time ago.

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Whence all but he had fled

Only some of those who are fond of arguing about “human nature,” however, maintain that it is the same at all times and among all peoples. One of the most prominent features of modem war propaganda is based on exactly the opposite premise. We can all remember the fiery speeches that were made, and the fiery articles that were written, to show the inerradicably military and aggressive character of the Germans, and, in contrast, the peaceful and neighbourly nature of the British. Indeed, some of the propagandists were so carried away by this theme that they are still at it, long after the circumstances that called it into being have passed away. Here is Colonel Windsor Lewis, Commanding Officer of the Welsh Guards, at a Guards' Comrades dinner in Welshpool (Daily Herald, 6.10.52); “The Germans are only waiting to make another war. They have exactly the same military characteristics to-day that they had under Attila the Hun. They have to be impressed by the smartness and efficiency of an occupation army if their warring ambitions are to be checked.” (Since this gentleman, at least, hasn’t heard, it may be worthwhile repeating here that the English are as much, and as little, descended from Attila the Hun as the Germans are.)

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Reluctant heroes

No doubt the gallant officer has often led his men on the march. But in the march of modern propaganda he is well behind. For when the Nazi press, and radio, and cinema fell along, with the Nazi war- machine in 1945, the Germans, freed from their influence, became no more militarist than anyone else. So much so that when the friction between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union increased in the post-war years, and the help of the Germans was needed for the coming “defence against Communism,” so far from jumping at the chance to get into uniform again, they showed a decided reluctance to do so. The situation has now become so ludicrous, with the “peaceful” British ruling class trying to get the “militarist” Germans to rejoin the army, that a film made by the British glorifying the late “Nazi aggressor,” Rommel, has had to be taken off in Vienna because of the opposition of the Austrian Germans. And, incidentally, the “bloodthirsty” Germans in the Federal Republic have been getting along without a public executioner for some time now, whereas in “ law-abiding ” Britain he is still considered a necessity.

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Czech oppression

Even the official version of what happened between Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939 now seems to be in process of revision. For the Western ruling-class want German cannon-fodder in the event of a struggle with the Russians, and, on the other hand, the Czechs have been captured by the opposing bloc, and for all practical purposes are now beyond the range of Western propaganda. Hence we get statements like the following, made by the American Chief Justice Clark, sitting in the United States High Commission Court of Appeals at Frankfurt on September 29th: “The Sudeten Germans joined the Nazis because they hoped to be liberated from the oppressive rule of Czechoslovakia, a Government which has now expelled all of them.”

This is not what the British workers were told in 1939, when their rulers were hoping to lash them into a frenzy of enthusiasm for the war against Germany.

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Now they’re too pacifist

If any people were supposed lo be more warlike and aggressive than the Germans, according to our wartime "leaders,” it was the Japanese. Another recent article in The Times (19.9.52) was on the difficulty of overcoming the strong pacifist feelings to which the Japanese have been subjected since the defeat of 1945 and the temporary overthrow of the military propaganda machine which it entailed. In the first flush of victory the Americans made the Japanese adopt a new constitution which included the permanent renunciation of war and armed forces. The Japanese people, whose belligerency disappeared at the same time as the propaganda machine which created and fostered it, are now "imbued with pacifist notions,” according to the article. As in Europe, so in Japan the reversal of roles between the former “peace-lovers ” and the former “militarists” is seen. For the. Japanese Government is "under heavy pressure from American sources to formulate its own rearmament programme, so that it can take over the task of defending Japan when the American garrison forces leave.” And it is reluctant to do so because of the unpopularity this would bring it at the polls.

 

So much for the regard for truth shown by the war propagandists.

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The Satellites

The American Government is becoming less and less anxious to conceal from the world the fact that Britain has now been reduced to a satellite position. For example, when the Pacific Council met recently in Honolulu, the British Government did not ask to become a full member, but merely made a humble request to be allowed to send observers. The three members, America, Australia and New Zealand, all sent replies rejecting this request, replies which were received at the Foreign Office at the same time as the meeting of the Pacific Council began—thus presenting the British Government with a fait accompli, and allowing her no time to make even a second self-effacing supplication to almighty America. And whose idea was it to reject the British request? The Times (23.9.52) said: "There is no reason to doubt that the Australian and New Zealand Governments, if they had followed their own inclinations, would have welcomed British observers.” Here is a case where one evidently equals more than two.

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Death pays a dividend

But since this happened another event has occurred which for a short time gave Britain considerably increased prestige within the Western alliance. What was the event? Perhaps, since the alliance is supposed to be in defence of truth, it was a decision by me British Government to stop telling lies at elections. Or perhaps, since the alliance is said to be in support of freedom, it was a decision by the British Government to release all its unwilling subjects in Malaya who are in jail without trial, merely on suspicion. It would be pleasant to think that either of these had happened; but unfortunately, any British minister who actually did either of these would earn himself nothing but the sack. No: the incident referred to was the exploding by British scientists of their own home-made atom-bomb in the Monte Bello Islands off the coast of Australia. Observers reported that it seemed to be more destructive than any of the 30 bombs set off by the Americans since the war ended. Now the ability to kill a lot of people with great speed is the quality above all others which enables one to cut a figure in international capitalist society; and the explosion of the bomb began a chain-reaction of suggestions in American newspapers that the wartime community of knowledge in the delicate problem of how to kill human beings quickly should be re-established between Britain and America, and that the gates of the American atom-bomb paradise, slammed in the faces of the British Government by the 1946 MacMahon Act, should be reopened. Something may come of these suggestions; but the facts of power are so heavily on the side of the American rulers that, at most, this can only be an Indian summer for British Capitalism.

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Ah, but this is different

Stalin’s recent long article in the magazine "Bolshevik” is nothing more than a rehash of what Stalinists the world over have been saying ever since there were Stalinists. Stalin is kind enough to agree with Engels when, in Anti-Duhring, he says that even in the last century Capitalism in Britain had developed so far that if the proletariat acquired power they could abolish commodity production; but this admission brings him up against the fact that in Russia, where the proletariat is alleged by the Stalinists to have seized power in 1917, commodity production is still in full blast thirty-five years later. Stalin tries to get round this by saying: "In the Soviet Union commodity production is not ordinary commodity production, but of a special kind without capitalists.” How can you have a society with commodity production, with wage-labour, with capital, but at the same time not have a capitalist society, defeats socialists—as, of course, it defeated Marx and Engels, whose follower Stalin claims to be.

Stalin’s arguments, however, have nothing to do with logic. They are clearly based on the principle that if you tell people often enough that black is white, they will come to believe you.

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An old problem—the spendthrift poor

Sir James Fiddes is reported to have told members of the Savings Bank Institute at Worcester College, Oxford, on September 22nd, that it was estimated that 25 per cent. of the adult population of this country had no real savings connection.' He asked his audience how they proposed to reach this hard core.

You might try giving them something to save, Sir James.

Alwyn Edgar

Russia—1952 (1952)

Pamphlet Review from the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

In response to an invitation from the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in Moscow a “British Workers” delegation visited the Soviet Union in May of this year. They have now published a report. The delegation consisted of five engineers, three railwaymen, one electrician, one cine-technician, one taxi-cab driver, and Pat Sloan, secretary of the British-Soviet Friendship Society, who was the only member of the party who speaks Russian. According to the report all twelve were active trade unionists; two were also active in the Labour Party and two, excluding Pat Sloan, were members of the Communist Party.

In the introduction to the report (“Russia, 1952,” 6d.) the writer emphasises conditions in the old Russian Empire prior to the revolution in 1917, and stresses that the country has only “had fifteen years of peaceful new construction since 1917.” He says that up to 1917 Russia was one of the world’s most backward countries, and quotes E. J. Dillon as saying that famine was “as periodical as the snows.” After admitting the backwardness of the Russian economy under the Czars—a fact that the Socialist Party has hammered home for years—he then makes the statement that “only from 1928 did Soviet Russia begin to progress rapidly with a Socialist planned economy.” How Russia jumped from being one of the world’s most backward countries in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power, to a socialist economy in 1952 the report does not say. However, let us return to our “workers” delegation. They arrived at Moscow by air, and entering the city by road from Moscow airport, saw on their left the new Moscow University—with its 6,000 bed-sitting rooms for the students; on their right were the one-storeyed dilapidated wooden houses of the workers! Soon after arriving the delegation visited the Permanent Building Exhibition, and saw the plans for the Ten Year Reconstruction Plan for Moscow. To British visitors, continues the report, a backward feature of the Soviet Union to-day is public sanitation; there is a great deal to do in this respect. During the war both public and private sanitation was much worse than it is to-day. In “Workers in Stalin’s Russia” M. L. Berneri quotes a letter from a friend in the R.A.F. which he wrote on his return from the Soviet Union. In his letter he says that the sanitary arrangements on the trains (which incidentally have three and sometimes four classes) are grim; and he quotes Ethel Mannin as saying: “The Russians might aim to fulfil various five-year plans, but when they get near a lavatory they don’t aim at all.” So much for Russian sanitation.

Housing, sanitation and road-building are all priority problems, and will, according to the report, provide the Soviet people with plenty to do for very many years. All asphalt roads date from the First Five Year Plan; most cities have their main roads and thoroughfares asphalted, but once you get off the main roads, either in the towns and cities or between them, you find rough tracks.

Although housing is one of the main problems of the Muscovite worker, numerous blocks are being built, mainly in the suburbs. New thoroughfares are being built and many of the old buildings are being pulled down. Although now the capital of the U.S.S.R. (St. Petersburg was the capital of the old Russian Empire), Moscow is no better than other cities such as Rostov-on-Don or Leningrad. Moscow was at one time referred to as “an overgrown village.” But it is now changing. Numerous impressive buildings are appearing such as the new University; and there are some new semi-skyscraper type flats such as the 27-storey railwaymen’s block.

Like all visitors to Moscow the delegation was much impressed by the underground super-palaces of the Metro. Each station has superb decorations in marble, bas-reliefs, coloured tiles, porcelain plaques, mosaics, stained glass, etc. But there are only 35 stations in all.

Two other aspects of life in Moscow are worth mentioning.

The shops usually open at 11 a.m., and long queues form outside before opening time. This statement seems to belie the assertion that Moscow shops are well stocked; or if they are, then it seems—as others have reported—that there are too few of them to cope with the demands of population. The shop assistants work on an eight-hour shift system, and the shops stay open until late in the evening. Comparative food prices are higher in the Soviet Union than in Britain, in the case of all of our subsidised rationed goods. Unsubsidised foodstuffs are comparable in price. Champagne is about 17s. a bottle, red wine 6s. 6d., and vodka 11s. According to the delegation’s report the Soviet Government, by advertising, is trying to discourage the consumption of vodka in favour of beer and wine. This is not surprising as some vodka is nearly 95 per cent. pure alcohol, and having sampled it this writer can assure his readers that after one party—and Russian parties always last well into the night, and much vodka is drunk—the average worker would not be very fit for work the next day.

The cost of television sets is much less than in Britain, but radios at £25 are a little dearer. Cars were selling at £225 to £450. Although these prices seem to compare favourably with British prices it must be remembered that the average wage in the U.S.S.R. is about 1,000 roubles a month (paid monthly) and some workers such as cleaners get less than 500 roubles, which is about £3 per week. As the average wage is not more than £6 per week it can be seen that most wage workers in the Soviet Union are more poverty stricken than their British counterparts—health service, in both countries, notwithstanding. Some members of the delegation considered that a Soviet worker receiving 500 roubles per month would eat worse than his opposite number (£3 per week) here in Britain. He would also find the cost of clothing very high, and would not be so well clothed. As to highly skilled workers, such as miners, engine drivers, foundry men, etc., the report claims that their wages enable them to eat much better than the corresponding workers in Britain. Before returning to the second aspect of life in Moscow—the churches—let us look at the important aspects of the Soviet wages system.

All wages are carefully graded for every job. There is equal pay for equal work. The skilled workers' wages rise very steeply, and wages are graded as a deliberate policy, as an incentive to increase skill.

The report does not mention the stakhanovite movement, which is almost universal in the Soviet Union. The aim of this movement, which is referred to as “socialist emulation” by the Communists, is, by great effort, improved techniques and better organisation, to increase production—and profits, for the various State trusts and “combinars.”

The second interesting point made by the delegation is their description of the three churches they visited in Moscow; a Russian Orthodox, a Baptist and a Roman Catholic. At the first, a cathedral, they found a congregation of several thousand. In the second there were several thousand “souls,” including the delegation (not forgetting the two Communists), who participated in Communion! (Who was it that said “Religion is the opium of the people”?). In the last church, the Roman Catholic, there was not a full congregation. According to the officiating priest the present total Catholic congregation is some 800 souls. Most of the people in the churches were elderly, but the delegation noticed a number of children. Religious instruction is not, however, given in the schools.

Although the delegates stress the fact that the Soviet people desire peace—as do all sane and rational people—they draw attention to the one-hour military parade in Moscow which preceded the May Day demonstration, which they think might be taken in certain quarters to be a disproof of the Soviet Government’s desire for peace. Marshal Govorov took the salute at the May Day parade, and after mentioning the “new and great victories in industry and agriculture, in the development of science and culture,” he reminded his audience of the revival of German and Japanese militarism. He said that the war in Korea was the result of the policies of the “Anglo-American imperialists” and “therefore the Soviet armed forces must stand on guard ” in order to defend the “peaceful” Soviet Union against attack. As with the Western block, the Soviet Government claims to be re-arming for defence. They all always arm for defence—of course! .

Following the military parade, the civilian parade entered the Red Square—with slogans for peace! Commenting on Marshal Govorov’s speech and the demonstration, the report says:—

“Having seen this magnificent display by the Moscow workers and heard Marshal Govorov’s speech, as well as having travelled widely and made our own investigations wherever we went, we are absolutely convinced that the words of Marshal Govorov put the matter of Soviet defence in its correct perspective, and that while it would be utter madness for the U.S.S.R., in the State of the world to-day, not to be vigilant about its defences, at the same time it would prefer to devote even greater resources to peaceful development.”

This statement is quite logical—from the capitalist point of view. All countries, Britain, America and the Soviet Union included, “would prefer to devote even greater resources to peaceful development,” but unfortunately war, and preparations for war, are inseparable from the production-for-profit world of to-day.

After leaving Moscow, the delegation visited Gorky, Rostov-on-Don, Novocherkassk and a summer resort on the Azov Sea. They travelled 3,500 miles, mostly by air. In most places there was still evidence of destruction caused by the war. But large areas of some towns such as Rostov had been rebuilt. At one State Farm the delegation saw a number of excellent race-horses. One of the delegates “commented that it is worth knowing that the Soviet worker can still lose his 2s. 6d. each way in a State totalisator if he wishes, even if the bookies are a form of private enterprise now extinct.” No comment!

From Rostov the delegation went to the capital of the Georgian Soviet Republic Tbilisi, where they visited a restaurant, the Park of Culture, the Textile Combinat, and the Palace of Pioneers.

In sections 4 and 5 the report mentions Child Welfare and clinics for expectant mothers. (“Every working mother is given five weeks off work on full pay, and seven weeks after, the birth of a child,” p. 8.)

According to part 5 of the report, “Conditions in Soviet Industry,” the atmosphere in Soviet factories is absolutely different from that in Britain: it is much more free-and-easy. This is. however, a rather sweeping statement to make considering that the party were being taken on a conducted tour. This statement does not seem feasible, because, as we have mentioned above, stakhanovism and piece-work are universal throughout the Soviet Union.

In sections 7, 8 and 9 the report discusses the Health Service, sport and cultural activities, most of which has been commented on thousands of times before by previous “workers” delegations, and in the columns of the Soviet Weekly.

Although there is quite a lot of useful information in this small pamphlet (23 pages), it is, in the main, sympathetic towards the Soviet regime. Of course, it is not so much what it says, but what it leaves out. Unfortunately, they did not visit the more distant regions of Siberia such as Irkutsk or Yakutsk, or Lubianka jail in Moscow, or a “ Corrective Labour Camp.” Neither do they inform us of the functions of the “frontier units of the Ministry of State Security,” nor the most important fact of all—the existence of all the paraphernalia of capitalism.

Peter E. Newell.

Monte Bello: An Anti-Social Event (1952)

From the November 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under the capitalistic mode of “production for sale," the historical increase of the potentiality of the machinery of production finds a parallel increase in powers of destruction, which is alone explained not by “the evil in men’s hearts” or the theory of “ original sin,” nor yet by the various ideologies of rival sections of the capitalist class whether emanating from behind “Iron Curtains" or “Democratic” frontiers— but by the private ownership of the wealth which has been socially produced and manifests itself, in the words of Marx, “ as a vast accumulation of commodities."

This production potential of modern capitalism, capable as it is of producing vast quantities of commodities, creates a problem of “Export or Bust” for those who own the products; the capitalist class, whose sole object is the sale of these goods, by hook or crook, in the markets of the world. This is known as “healthy competition," but inevitably leads to events at places such as Nagasaki, Bikini and Monte Bello becoming anything but “ health resorts.”

The latest achievement in destructive power has been the production and explosion of an atomic bomb by Britain’s rulers in a remote comer of “their empire ” which from all accounts has been a comparable “effort” with that of the American experts at Bikini. British “prestige" has apparently received a fillip from this devastating blast, described by the Liverpool Express of 3rd October, in glaring headlines, as “a triumph in the powers of destruction.”

It is a far cry from the days of the British gunboat, sufficient to uphold the “prestige” of British capitalism then at a cost quite negligible in comparison with this expensive demonstration at Monte Bello, deemed necessary by our rulers to impress rival capitalist powers.

Quite apart from what any disciple of Darwin would have to say re the effects on the flora and fauna of Monte Bello, and despite the fact that on this occasion care was taken that no member of the human race was within range of the deadly blast, the purpose behind these “triumphs of destructive power” is obvious and can be summed up in the capitalist slogan, What we have, we hold." What they have is the surplus value squeezed from the hides of their wage-slaves and what they hold of this wealth depends on their “Might,” which is the only “Right” of capitalism, mirroring as it does, the “ law of the jungle.”

This constant waste of human energy in destruction, whether in the form of bombs, warplanes or battleships, is sufficient indictment of a social system which has outlived its historical purpose. Now is the time to end it and we appeal to the wage-slaves of the world to “rise in their countless numbers,” and organize on the political front with one object—the abolition of capitalism, and the establishment of Socialism; when, following from this revolutionary act, access to the wealth of the world will be a natural birthright for each and every member of society; where the competition of the capitalist jungle of national entities gives way to a world of co-operation and production solely for use, enabling man to regain some of his lost human dignity, at present buried under the degradation of his commodity existence.

Remember—the Socialist Party is the growing instrument for your emancipation.

G. R. Russell