Obituary: Robert Barltrop (2009)

Obituary from the June 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Former member Robert Barltrop died on 26 April after a short illness. He joined the SPGB in 1946 as Robert Coster. A prolific speaker and writer for the Party, his work including the pamphlet Schools Today (1959). He resigned in 1959, before drifting into the fringes of the anarchist movement, and for a time even became an independent local councillor before rejoining the Party in 1970. He wrote prolifically for the Socialist Standard (and drew its first ever cartoon-strip feature), also serving for several years on the editorial committee. He left again in 1982.

Born in 1922, in his youth, he was, amongst other things, an enthusiastic boxer, and always retained an interest in the pugilistic arts. He worked as a school-teacher. He was an excellent artist, especially line drawing, and an expert in calligraphy. Very proud of his London heritage, he wrote several books on the cockney patois, a pride also reflected in three short autobiographical works published by Waltham Forest Library and in his regular weekly column in the Newham Recorder. He also notably wrote a book on the American author Jack London.

He was best known though for his work The Monument (1975), which remains a fascinating and entertaining introduction to the history of the SPGB. The book was largely written in the 1960s while he was out of contact with the Party, which explains the contentiousness of some of its many stories, anecdotes and perceptions.

Robert Barltrop was a controversial figure in the Party but he was always very civil to younger members who had not crossed swords with him politically. With him vanishes a great London character.

Kaz

Billy and Ben (1978)

From the January 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ben believed in God, a superior spirit in the sky,
An all powerful being, a saviour on High.
God, he said, was in you, around you.
A part of your life
Whether you be rich or poor
In peace or in strife. 

Billy, Ben's neighbour, asked how he knew He was there
And Ben said: "Don't be impertinent! Besides, that's not fair.
God is God, the giver of Love; the Lord is always so near.
Everyone knows it's Faith you need, then you'd know for sure He was here".
The observers of this encounter cheered Ben's clear cut words
For if there was anything clearer than what Ben had explained
Then they were sure that they'd never heard. 

Billy slowly walked away, a frown flitted across his brow so sad
But no-one was concerned at this facial expression
Because everyone knew that Billy was mad.
You see, Billy believed in this little green man
Who wandered the streets of the land.
You couldn't see him, hear him or speak to him at will
But as sure as the sky above was blue
The little green man had everything planned. 

"I'll go to the green man when I'm dead!" Billy yelled.
"The green man's garden is the best place to stay."
He told everyone this from his box in the town
And they came and locked poor Billy away.

Paul Breeze

The pilgrim's tale (1983)

Book Review from the November 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba. Paul Hollander (Harper, 1983).

This book provides a comprehensive catalogue of the statements, of varying degrees of fatuity, of those who have visited Russia and other so-called communist countries and have mostly come back back with tales of how very much better things are over there. Two quotations show how ridiculous widely respected individuals can become when they put their critical faculties to one side. One of the earliest pilgrims, Bernard Shaw (Rationlisation of Russia) had this to say about the Russian prison system:

In England a delinquent enters (the jail, that is) as an ordinary man and comes out as "a criminal type", whereas in Russia he enters . . . as a criminal type and would come out an ordinary man but for the difficulty of inducing him to come out out at all. As far as I could make out they could stay as long as they liked (p.46 in Political Pilgrims).

Half a century later Susan Sontag (Trip to Hanoi) tells how love transforms the one-party state:

When love enters into the substance of social relations, the connection of people to a single party need not be dehumanizing (p.273, ibid).

The author is of Hungarian extraction and is currently a Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts. He makes quite clear his support of the American side in the main conflict between the rival national groupings of the capitalist world and in common with most present-day observers sees this rivalry as a struggle between capitalism (described as "Western societies") and the "socialism" allegedly practised by the enemy. Thus it is no surprise that when he comes to put his own interpretation on the facts he runs into difficulties. One of these is the definition of the term "intellectual:, which to him means "famous writers, well known academics, journalists, artists" and the like, who are "sensitive, insightful and critical". Clearly we are expected to regard their counsel as especially wise and well considered, and to accept that they know better than we do. Indeed, while Hollander rejects the opinions expressed by Bernard Shaw, Julian Huxley, C. Wright Mills and many others of the so-called communist countries, he clearly continues to regard them as great men for their efforts in other directions.

The subject matter of the book is largely confined to those who went on political pilgrimages because they believed that the "socialism" they would find there was radically different from the open capitalism they experienced at home. There are however a few examples of workers who, in contrast to the intellectuals, decided on the basis of what they saw to emigrate. Their reported experiences as members of the working class under "socialism" is interestingly compared to their reception on the original visit. Intellectuals opted to remain at home and not put at risk their positions of relative comfort, many rationalising their decision as "fighting for socialism at home".

Not surprisingly, Hollander classes himself as an intellectual, and his elitist attitude becomes too obvious when he deals with the cases of Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine. These two well known actresses have undertaken the same pilgrimages and responded in the same manner as the great majority of the club, yet the author cannot bring himself to class them as genuine intellectuals. He described them as "quasi-intellectuals" and arrogantly states: "I would have purified my sources by removing all such questionable or marginal material without any damage to the substance of the book". Fully accepted as having impeccable credentials are a long list of clowns of the looney left, plus Billy Graham and Malcolm Muggeridge. (The latter is considered exceptional by the professor because his experiences as a newspaper reporter converted him into an open supporter of capitalism.)

The professor is also in difficulties when he tries to account for the continued antagonism shown after World War Two by the intellectual pilgrims towards their domestic capitalism. One chapter is entitled "The rejection of Western society in the 1960's and 70's", but even though the second preface is dated July 1982, the remarkable feat is performed of not mentioning the current world slump anywhere in the book. Hollander thinks that the so-called affluence of this period should have quietened the dissenting voices. Combined with his inability to see a better way of living, he becomes more disturbed than puzzled by the continuing waves of protest. The following quote betrays his anxiety:

It seems to me that what has been consequential is not the perception or praise of particular countries and their political systems at any given time. What makes a difference in the long run is the cumulative impact of the denigration intellectuals direct at their own society . . . The cumulative effect of this steady debunking and preoccupation with the ills of society intensifies the sense of malaise and alienation arising out of the problems and frustrations, many of which are unlikely to be resolved. (p. 434 ibid).

The quotes from the 1960s and 70s make no mention of any recession, and the author draws attention to the difference between their critique and that of the pre-war pilgrims, who made frequent allusions to the slump of the 1930s. It is of course perfectly correct to take on board new criticism as further unpleasant features develop. However, the quotations given do show considerable confusion as these "intellectuals" appear to have largely accepted the current ruling class propaganda that capitalism has changed fundamentally for the better. To some extent this arose because they were divorced from, and felt themselves several cuts above, the mass of the workers; in the modern plants of Silicon Valley members of the working class are exploited in the same way as in the inner city factories of Karl Marx's day. The industrial disputes which periodically arise over wages and conditions of work are basically the same now as then.

Hollander recognises that "social criticism must rest on a vision of alternatives". Recognising some of the social evils of capitalism, and refusing to believe that there is no alternative, the pilgrims take so-called communist propaganda at its face value. This leads them in the quest of one Shangri-La after another. First Russia then, when the repressive nature of that regime became too obvious to ignore, Cuba, China, Vietnam . . .

A factor Hollander leaves out of account in considering the "affluent" period which preceded the current slump is the increase in expectations engendered during that epoch, helped by the tremendous advance in technology compared with pre-war. That this advance continues, the recession notwithstanding, increasing still further the gap between what is and what could be, makes even more apt Murray Bookchin's admirable summing up (Post-Scarcity Anarchism, 1971):

In attempting to uphold scarcity, toil, poverty and subjugation against the growing potential for post-scarcity, leisure, abundance and freedom, capitalism increasingly emerges as the most irrational, indeed the most artificial society in history . . . On an even greater-scale, potentiality begins to determine and shape one's everyday view of actuality, until a point is reached where everything about the society — including its most "attractive" amenities — seems totally insane, the result of a massive social lunacy.

In his exasperation at the way social criticism lives on, the Professor quotes approvingly the complaint by Bernard Henri Levi (Barbarism with a Human Face):

Levy writes: "We have a Marxist urbanism, a Marxist psychoanalysis, a Marxist aesthetic, a Marxist numismatics. There is no longer any realm of knowledge that Marxism fails to have a look at, no area off limits, no taboo territory . . . no cultural fronts to which it fails to send cohorts of researchers (p. 419 ibid).

And so there should be. There are in fact no off limits — areas which exist in limbo. unaffected by the prevailing social relationships of production.

Hollander's essential reasoning seems to be that the only alternative to "our" capitalism is the regime of "communist" countries. As this alternative is worse than what we already have, we are stuck with capitalism and can only try to make it work as well as may be. There is no doubt the rave reviews which the first edition enjoyed came mainly because of the book' support for this line of reasoning, which has spawned the belief, widespread in America and apparently gaining ground in Britain, that socialism is now an outdated concept. In assisting these confusing this book, although helpful in disillusioning workers still over-respectful of so-called intellectuals, does the socialist movement no service.

E. C. Edge

The Long and Short and the Tall (1959)

Theatre Review from the March 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

As might be guessed, "The Long and the Short and the Tall" is a play about men at war, written by Willis Hall and presented by the Royal Court Theatre. It is not a great play; it is not great drama or even great entertainment but as the characters come to life' as the action of the play unfolds itself, it highlights some interesting and important points.

A British Army patrol takes a Japanese prisoner in an area forward of the main fighting line in the Malayan jungle. At the end of the play, the patrol itself is encircled and trapped by the Japanese troops.

The play reminds us of the vicious anti-Jap propaganda of the war years when soldiers were taught to expect in their enemies a kind of sub-human order of life. Japs were alleged to be little yellow people with slanted eyes that denoted the worst kind of calculated slyness. Their protruding teeth eventually became animal-like fangs, and they were all obsessed with the plan to exert a malignant perverse cruelty on humanity at large. The Japs, it was said, just because a hatred of democracy was inherent in their national character, had decided to enslave and torture the peoples of the earth. Unless they were thwarted, a future was postulated where the entire earth would be in the grip of "things" beside whom Dracula and Frankenstein would pale into friendly, amenable good chaps. Thereby war and retaliation became not only justified but crucial to the survival of Western society and its democratic institutions. This was a bitter lie.

The soldiers had been sent to Burma and had begun fighting in an atmosphere of deliberately contrived hate, How strange, then, how completely taken by surprise were they when the first prisoner they took appeared to be "almost human." He was actually frightened: he seemed to expect his death because no doubt he had heard and believed the Japanese propaganda about "British monsters."

But the prisoner was not immediately killed and the few hours that followed allowed a pathetic fragment of a personal friendship to develop between him and his captors, and as it developed, the greater became the lie of war propaganda as compared with their personal experience. "He's human," his captors reiterate, as the Japanese soldier smokes a cigarette and produces photographs of his wife and children. "He's a family man. He's one of us."

The contradictions pile up. The biggest collection of loot is held by the blue-eyed boy from the Church Army who doesn't like to swear and curse. "We're fighting for the democratic British way of life," says one cynical squaddie, "but there's no democracy in the Army."

For a moment they lapse into confused disillusion.

"It's bloody murder."
"Of course it is—that's my job."
"I just take orders."
"We're all mugs."
"We don't know why we're here or what its all made of."
"You think too much."

The tragedy was that they didn't think enough.

The complete ignorance and lack of any coherent idea about the cause of war adds further tragedy to their desperate position. On stage the characters mill about violently involved in a situation they don;t understand.

The play makes ridiculous the bogey's placed in people's minds by the mass propaganda agencies about the enemy during war and times of preparation for war, and though it's 1959 when the play is presented and not 1939 when it had a more critical social relevance, one can welcome the way its central theme cuts through the nationalist fervour that usually surrounds war and spotlights war as a human tragedy.

Though the play is an expression of indignation that war should ever happen, its contribution to the understanding of war as a social problem is deficient and superficial.

For a real analysis, we must move beyond the narrow language of this play and begin to use the higher abstractions of political discussion.

The views about war expressed in the play are crude and shallow and yet in real life are often repeated in seriousness.

"Bints!" "Men will always fight," etc.

So we must ever fear that whilst such ignorance prevails violence and military strength will remain the arbiter in the settlement of international disputes and the world's workers will yet make fodder for the atomic cannon.

Pieter Lawrence

An ahistorical nitwit replies (2003)

From the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the March issue of the Socialist Standard there appeared a short item in the Voice from the Back column that has obviously annoyed a supporter of capitalism. It was criticising an article in the Observer of 9 February and has led the Observer writer to describe us as “ahistorical nitwits clinging to a fundamentalism every bit as odd as the Islamic variant”. To put our readers in the picture we will set forth what has been said, and will also put in our own tuppenceworth. It is up to you to decide.

In March we wrote:

“You can always rely on journalists to write nonsense whenever they are dealing with capitalism and socialism. Take the recent example of Will Hutton writing in the Observer (9 February). 'Socialism and social democracy are secular forms of Christianity whose insistence on justice, fairness and equality have palpable Christian roots, while Christian Democracy's embrace of market capitalism is qualified by its Catholic commitment to a just wage, just prices and just profits – and that work should be a source of human dignity.' It would be difficult to find a sentence with more nonsense if you spent a year searching. Socialism is a materialist view that opposes the slavish notions of Christianity. The source of all profit is the surplus value that the workers produce over their wages. To speak of 'just wages' is as daft as 'just robbery'.”

Will Hutton was sent a copy, to which he replied:

“I receive over 100 e-mails a day regularly – sometimes over 200. I don't know where to begin with the criticism. It rests on the belief that the values which socialism promotes somehow did not exist before socialism; and that socialism has a monopoly of concepts like justice – hence the mockery of the just wage. If early socialist thinkers had been as poor as this, the ideas would have got nowhere. Sadly today's champions are ahistoric nitwits clinging to a socialist fundamentalism every bit as odd as the Islamic variant. That is why they have so little influence. If you don't see the pedigree of values upon which socialism rests and is built, you don't deserve to be in the game.”

Wow! Take that you, bounder and other put downs. Now let's take a look at the real world. The Catholic Church's “just wages, just prices and just profits” and commitment to “human dignity” is a historical nonsense. Has Hutton heard of the inquisition? Or the Pope's support of Franco and Mussolini? The Catholic Church, like the Protestant Church is a whole-hearted supporter of private property.

More importantly than Hutton's strange views about socialism and christianity is that he doesn't challenge the basic premise of socialism that profit is derived from the unpaid labour of the working class. Hutton is a very talented worker who sells his ability for a wage or a salary to a member of the capitalist class. He is dependent on a wage or a salary, just like, this “ahistoric nitwit”. Men and women of the working class produce all the wealth of the world. Even silly articles in the Observer. The proprietor has got to fill the spaces between the adverts after all.

Richard Donnelly

Who Will Do The Dirty Work? (1974)

From the September 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

"But who will do the dirty work" demand critics of Socialism. Well, it all depends on what one means by dirty work. Socialists look upon as dirty work that carried out by the armed forces of states and nations the world over. Killing, maiming, mutilation and brutality of infinite variety are part and parcel of the effects of capitalism the world over, and along with armed forces, would disappear in a Socialist world.

But such capitalist atrocities are not what the opponents of Socialism mean by dirty work. They are referring to menial, monotonous, poorly paid and unpleasant work.

Menial jobs in the sense of servants waiting upon masters would disappear under Socialism. No one need be servile in a society in which all the good things of life are freely available to everyone.

"But who will sweep the streets?" some demand. This old chestnut us well on the way out as, even under capitalism, many roads are cleaned by specially designed vehicles operated by the drivers. Most other "dirty" jobs could now be taken care of by vehicles or automatons in a similar way. But in any case these jobs cannot be described as lowly occupations. Who is to say who, amongst the manual, clerical and professional workers are the most useful or valuable to society when all are essential?

Public lavatory attendants are often cited as those having to do dirty work. But this is a job which some can and do take pride in. I have heard such attendants boasting of the spotless condition of "their" toilets. Indeed, on at least one occasion, one of those workers, interviewed on the air, staggered hardened radio interviewers by the obvious pride he took in his work.

Many jobs are thought to be unpleasant because of the poor levels of subsistence associated with them. Under Socialism there would be no poorly- (or well-) paid jobs. Work would be done because it would be necessary and because people would enjoy their part in it.

The navvy is often thought of as having a "dirty job" and he certainly gets dirty doing it (but then, so do professional footballers and nobody thinks of them as having to do "dirty work") but then there can be pride in the skill and strength needed to wield a fourteen-pound hammer, which explains why some people like watching navvies at work on a building site. There is a parallel between watching a navvy wield the hammer and watching a golfer wield a club. The latter isn't manual labour merely because the golf doesn't usually have to wield the club in order to earn a living (and might well arrive for the game in a Bentley!)

The jobs of nurses and doctors are glamourized with the business of sterility and asepsis—the scrubbing of hands, the dramatic life-saving operation, the laying of cooling hands on fevered brows, the taking of temperatures and the giving of "miracle" injections. In fact doctors and nurses get their hands far more unpleasantly dirty than people realize. Nursing can be a heavy, dirty job, especially mental and geriatric nursing, entailing cleaning and changing the clothes of incontinent patients. Yet nurses do it out of choice and, as most people realize, could hardly be pursuing their vocation for monetary reward!

As a medical student I hated the subject of pathology and couldn't imagine anyone wanting to carry out post-mortems or squinting down microscopes for a living. But practically all the pathologists I ever met brimmed with enthusiasm for their job.

It takes all types to make a world—fortunately for the Socialist.

Most medical students like and are keen about their calling, but not all. At least one would have settled for a "lowlier" lot in life. He told me he was darn sure he wouldn't go through six years of rigorous study to be a doctor if he could earn as much driving a cart.

Another medic who qualified without being dedicated was a square peg in a round hole, due to being the son of a wealthy family who wanted him to "do medicine". He just wasn't cut out for it and disliked it. He liked to get his hands dirty tinkering with motor cars and things mechanical in general. But his mother had a social status to preserve and simply "had to have a doctor in the family".

Thus, under Socialism there would be no clean or dirty work—only useful work due to society having within itself a ready hand wherever there is a human need.

R. B. Gill

Sad news - Dick Donnelly

Sad news reaches us via the Socialist Courier blog:

Sadly, the Socialist Courier blog has to inform its visitors that Richard "Dick" Donnelly has died. He had been a member of Glasgow branch of the Socialist Party since the mid-1950s and was a regular outdoor and indoor speaker and frequently a contributor to this blog. Dick would probably be the first to tell the branch, "Don't Mourn - Organise!"

The Socialist Party website has a few recordings of Dick that are well worth listening to:

• The Principles of Socialism  (16 April 1976)
• How Can a Real Revolution Be Achieved? Debate between Dick Donnelly, SPGB, and Albert Meltzer, 'Black Flag' (anarchist) (12 February 1987)
• Why Socialism Is Still Relevant (12 June 2004)

He was one of the best (and funniest) socialist speakers I ever had the pleasure to listen to. This is a massive loss to both the SPGB and to its Glasgow Branch. Condolences to both his friends and family.

I will make a point of posting some of Dick's articles and reviews from the Socialist Standard on the blog in the coming days.  

The Illusions of Sir Oswald Mosley (1930)

From the July 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Oswald Mosley has resigned from the Labour Ministry and made a great noise with his proposals to deal with unemployment. Though they are largely taken from the official Labour programme (Labour and the Nation) the Mosley plans are criticised and opposed by "official" Labour. An examination of his schemes shows that they are borrowed very largely from the Liberal Party programme, and hence Lloyd George sings their praise.

Raising the school age, pensioning some workers over 60, and making roads, bridges, etc.—these comprise the cream of Mosley's programme.

Do they deal with the cause of unemployment? Will they absorb the unemployed? Will they stop industry adding to the army of out-of works? The answer is No! Like Lloyd George's platform call, "We can conquer unemployment," the Mosley schemes play with effects and merely carry on the ordinary repair work the capitalists need to make their industry more effective.

Take cheap wage slaves over 60 out of the factory. Does that mean younger and more expensive workers will be employed instead?

Past experience shows that women and machinery will be used to keep down costs whenever production expenses are raised by legislation or Union activity. Young boys and girls taken out of the factory will provide another inducement to rationalisation by means of machinery, etc., and so, instead of older workers being employed, cheaper methods of production will prevent the increased employment of older workers.

Mosley and Lloyd George schemes—like the Labour Party policy, official or otherwise—simply mean that the ordinary and normal work of making repairs to capitalism is boomed as special relief work. Where it is not that, it is like making new roads—an attempt to increase the efficiency of capitalist production and distribution of goods.

Thirty shillings per week as a retirement pension may sound inspiring to Mr. Mosley, the millionaire, but it simply means the most pressing poverty for a married couple after a lifetime of toil.

Lloyd George and the Liberal manufacturers are uniting with the Labour Party on a common capitalist programme, not to solve unemployment—but to capture votes and pretend they are helping the workers. Both Liberal, Labour and Tory pin their hopes on rationalisation, which increases unemployment faster than relief work provides work.

None of these parties of capitalism face the fact that modern industry constantly and continuously produces an unemployed army of workers. The only way to cure unemployment is to stop the cause—the class ownership of the means of production.

Adolph Kohn

Where Leaders Lead (1997)

Book Review from the September 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Seizure of State Power by M. Velli. Phoenix Press, London. £4.50

Originally published in 1972 by the US group Black and Red as part of a "Manual for Revolutionary Leaders", this is a skit on the case for a revolutionary leadership put forward by Maoists and other Leninists.

If a bit belaboured (and the fact that it is printed as a 120-page essay with no chapters or subheadings doesn't make for any easier reading), it is nevertheless a good criticism of the Leninist idea of a vanguard party which seizes power supposedly on behalf of the workers and then rules in their name.

The author points to a contradiction in "classical revolutionary theory"which, on the one hand, presents the workers' revolution as an event in which workers emancipate themselves through their own self-organisation and activity, while on the other hand, insisting on the need for a vanguard party to bring the revolution to a successful conclusion by seizing state power.

But, says Velli, if the workers really were organised to emancipate themselves, why would they need a vanguard party to act for them? Surely they would simply go ahead and dissolve capitalism and the state.

The fact is, he argues, that a mass independent conscious working class movement is not a precondition for the seizure of power by a vanguard party. The situation is the exact reverse. It is only where workers are not yet capable of emancipating themselves—because most of them still have a "psychology of dependence" which leads them to believe that they must have leaders to tell them what to do—that a revolutionary vanguard has any chance of being able to seize power.

Historically, Velli points out, this has only happened in economically backward countries which, as a result, only have an undeveloped and inexperienced working class. This, Velli argues, fits in with the vanguard's real role which is, not to bring about the emancipation of the workers at all, but to do what the capitalist class did in the West: to organise the primitive accumulation of capital and break in the working class to industrial discipline and methods of control. But this, the author says, must not be openly stated.

For those who haven't worked it out already the M in Velli's name stands for "Machia".

Adam Buick

The unions we deserve (2000)

Book Review from the May 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

All Power to the Imagination!: Revolutionary Class Struggle In Trade Unions and the Petty Bourgeois Fetish of Organisational Purity by Dave Douglass. Class War Federation, P.O. Box 467, London E8 3QX.

This is really interesting and readable book, despite some horrendous comments on "national liberation", particularly relating to Ireland. The author is a life-long mineworker and NUM activist who is also a member of the IWW and the section of Class War which decided to continue with the CW paper and federation. The aim of this book is basically to attack the argument popular in some anarchist and left-communist circles that trade unions are inherently tools of the capitalist establishment that act to stifle workers' militancy and so on.

This position has led some revolutionaries to declare themselves "outside and against the unions"—though whether in practice they would choose not to join a union is another thing. The point about all this, as is brought home by Douglass, is that unions are essentially about workers uniting to defend themselves within capitalism. To criticise "the unions" for being reformist misses the point, as a union and its membership are one and the same. Workers are not "reformist" because "the unions" make them so; rather the level of political consciousness within a union will be a reflection of the general consciousness of the working class at the time. As Douglass points out, trade unions are not ideological monoliths—the processes of class struggle go on within unions.

If more militant members are losing the arguments then this reflects a wider passivity: something that is hardly surprising given the shattering defeats organised labour has suffered in Britain in recent decades. Trade unions can only be as militant and class conscious (and effective) as their memberships are, which must depend on the wider situation. Though this isn't to take away from the damage done by union bosses, whose frequent knighthoods and other "honours" are tawdry campaign medals minted by the real bosses, whose class interests they have served. However, to create a dichotomy between "the unions" and "the workers" can only lead to a distorted analysis of the uses and limitations of union struggle.

As a way of illustrating the dangers of this "against the unions" position Douglass points to the direct correlation between declines in union membership and the decrease in days lost (or won) in strikes. Hardly surprising—but if "the unions" were really responsible for holding back working-class combativity shouldn't the opposite be the case? In reality, non-union workers have not "broken free" from the unions—falls in membership are symptoms of the hammering the working class as a whole has taken. On the other hand, resistance to the attacks of capital is generally stronger in those sectors where there is still significant unionisation. There are some signs however that union membership and general combativity are rising. And let's not forget that this is vital if our class is to develop some of the solidarity and self-confidence essential for the final abolition of wage slavery.

Interestingly, one of the few sources quoted with any sort of approval by Douglass is the October 1994 edition of Spartacus, a publication put together by Socialist Party comrades in Norwich. He generally agrees with the case put in an article called "Socialism and Trade Unions":

"[T]he essence of the trade union is workers uniting to protect their interests in the workplace, and . . . ultimately the union and the workers are one and the same thing. If these workers have reformist outlook on life, i.e. believe that capitalism can be made to run in the interests of all, the unions must therefore have the same outlook; on the other hand if there were more revolutionary workers in the unions—and in society generally—then the unions would have a more revolutionary outlook, no longer harbouring any illusions about 'common national interests' or other such rubbish. That would not in any way alter the essential nature and role of the trade unions as the defensive organisations of the working class; but it would make them far more effective fulfilling that role" (p.10 - quoted from Spartacus).

Ben Malcolm

Wall Street (1988)

Film Review from the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

For once a film that has been a box office success is worth going to see. Wall Street is a thoroughly believable portrait of the world of the New York stock market. It has excellent acting performances by Michael Douglas as the ruthless corrupt tycoon Gordon Gecko and by Charlie Sheen as Gecko's young conscience-ridden apprentice. Both have slick but convincing dialogue to deliver and scenes which, while having loads of technical detail about financial dealings that go right over your head, are so tightly held together as to keep you riveted for the whole two hours.

The film has social messages too. And what better way to deliver them than to make them part of a powerful human drama? The director, Oliver Stone, has already shown his moral and political concerns with films like Salvador and the recent one about the Vietnam war, Platoon. Wall Street, it has been said, is a condemnation of the capitalist ethic, of the institutionalised greed the market system represents. In one key scene in the film, Gecko addresses a hall full of shareholders and, making no apology for his ruthless dealings, says of the market:

"Greed is right. Greed is good. Greed clarifies." Of course, coming from the mouth of an absolute stinker, this is a speech whose message to the filmgoer can only be the reverse of what was intended.

But does the filmgoer actually leave the cinema thinking the market is bad? Well, yes and no. In the end the apprentice escapes the clutches of his sorcerer and helps deliver him to justice. But the justice he delivers him is a law that classifies as illegal some of the dealings Gecko has been involved in, so-called "insider dealings". So, from this point of view, profit-making through the market is seen as fine as long as it takes place within the rules laid down by the profit-making system. Yet, at the same time, in its representation of the way in which the millions of people who run society are powerless pawns of the market and can see their livelihoods and futures upset by it at any time, Wall Street will set many people thinking that there must surely be a better, saner way of organising the way we live and produce. The film itself doesn't go so far as to suggest one, but then if it had it would probably have been more didactic, less watchable, and no doubt less of a box-office success.

Howard Moss

Terms and Terminological Inexactitudes (1940)

From the July 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

All of the opponents of the S.P.G.B. have at some time or other twitted us with being hidebound to terms. What we insist—as we invariably do—that Capitalism and Socialism are different and distinct systems of society, both of which have predominant features that can be defined and described, we are told that because certain feudal remnants remain in Capitalism or because the capitalist state imposes restrictions on the freedom of action of the capitalist, therefore complete definition is impossible, and all definition should be abandoned. Where such looseness of thought has led can be seen in the depressing spectacle of social reformers who year after year hopefully propose new modifications of Capitalism believing that it will some day cease to be itself and become its opposite. They can only cherish such vain hope because they do not know how to recognise what are the basic, unchanging, features of the Capitalist system of society.

There are others whose inaccurate use of terms is due to indifference rather than ignorance; they change their terms to suit their policy. Thus, during the past few years, as policy has changed the same persons have been able to describe Russia as Socialist and as Capitalist (the Express newspaper is a case in point); others have looked round Europe and have been able to discern democracy in this or that country where earlier and later they could see only dictatorship. Hitler and Mussolini have been much to the fore in this verbal juggling. Both have claimed at times to be upholders of revolution and at others to be guardians of tradition. Both have pretended in some places and at some times that they stand for Socialism and working-class interests against Capitalism and the "pluto-democracies." Hitler, after years of hostility to Bolshevism, chose last year to discover close affinities between the Nazi and Bolshevist systems. Mussolini, likewise, while building warships for the Russians, declared that Fascism is a bulwark against Bolshevist encroachments on Christian civilisation. On the other hand, he has at times denounced Bolshevism, not for being anti-Capitalist, but for being "State super-Capitalism carried to its most ferocious expression" (The Times, November 2, 1936). All of which brings us to a point which needs no labouring in the utter confusion of thought which clouds political discussion at the present time, that there can be no progress towards the goal of a better social system without a clear perception of the nature and laws of the system now in being.

The S.P.G.B.'s insistence on the value of definition of terms and clarity of thought has never been more necessary than it is at the present critical juncture.

Is It Work We Want? (1923)

From the January 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

"It is work we want, not charity," said a spokesman of the unemployed at a street corner meeting. This sums up the outlook of the average worker of to-day. He can see no other method of life than toiling or existing on charity. The fear of having to beg for bread, or go into the workhouse, spurs him on to find a job, though the conditions of work become ever more degrading.

How strange that such a view should find general acceptance among people already worn out with work; and at a time when wealth can be produced with such ease and abundance! It is stranger still that some must work hard and spend niggardly, whilst others work not and yet spend lavishly. If the former cease work for a brief while they come suddenly to the end of their resources; the latter buy palaces and furnish them brilliantly, live in magnificence, and yet at the end of their days they are more wealthy than at the commencement.

Who brings the rare jewels from far lands? Who sows and reaps that we all may live? Who drives the flying locomotive, the liners, the great cranes, the electric plant, and the plough? Who toils in sorrow and wretchedness that others may enjoy the best fruits of this wonderful old earth? Who is this strange being that makes possible for others an almost unlimited pleasure, beauty, and luxury, and takes for himself what is miserable, ugly, and poor? Who else but they who are born with the curse of slavery upon their brows?

Day after day, week after week, and year after year, thousands upon thousands of human beings do little more than eat, drink, sleep, and work. To the mass of the people the solitude of the mountain pass is unknown. Each day they—the "lucky" ones—must be at work to perform their allotted tasks.

Is it a pleasure to toil until limbs refuse to perform their accustomed tasks? Is it healthy to eschew fresh air and sunshine and pass the greater part of one's life in poisonous atmosphere? Is it intelligent to stagger with work-worn limbs and work-dimmed eyes along the thorny path of toil in order that parasites may prosper?

Through thousands of years a large part of the earth's inhabitants have fretted out their lives in slavery. Yet slavery, though hoary, had a beginning at a definite stage in the evolution of mankind. There was a period far back in the past when slavery was unknown. Just as certain definite social conditions in a past age brought slavery into existence, so other definite social conditions will bring it to an end.

It is leisure and idleness the worker needs (leisure to enjoy and idleness to recuperate), and yet he pursues work like a hound on the trail. How high above him, in one respect, is the "ignorant" savage of Herman Melville's "Typee," who worked little and laughed and sang long? And yet the worker does not pursue work because he loves the burden of toil; he does so because, as a rule, unless he works he cannot obtain the wherewithal to live. It is not a fault of his, but a misfortune—he is born into slavery.

So powerful is the influence of a part of his environment upon the worker, and so heavy is the weight of more recent tradition, that he believes slavery to be an eternal institution. A mighty thinker of the past, one Aristotle, shared this belief; but he made a profound qualification—there would be slavery, he said, until tools and machines were self-operating. We are now at the period when this is possible. With a touch of the hand mighty masses of machinery are set in motion which perform astonishing evolutions and accomplish wonderful results. With proper organisation little work on the part of man is required to turn out vast quantities of the necessaries of life.

Through succeeding ages, a privileged class has thrived upon the produce of an oppressed class, and it is the same to-day. In the past conditions were such that could not promise ease and comfort for the many, except where nature was particularly liberal and the population comparatively small. The needful things were produced by simple tools with much labour. Now all is changed. The needful things are produced by complicated tools with little labour. The conditions are such that they promise ease and comfort, leisure and luxury, to the many. But this promise can only be fulfilled when the many own the product of their energy.

GILMAC.

Terrorism and political violence (2004)

From the July 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has become a commonplace to declare that ‘one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.’ But has violence ever been an effective political tool and, if so, is it still? The American ruling class has declared ‘war on terrorism’ in an attempt to legitimise their own use of political violence around the world. But both the US and their enemies are indulging in an identical activity. The question therefore arises as to whether humankind’s political problems are ever resolved through military conflict.

It is possible to trace the history of warfare back to the origins of private property in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Levant some 5,500 years ago. The initial raising of armies to defend the agricultural surplus from raiding nomads soon became used to attack other city-states. The once elected warlords evolved into permanent kings whose main role became the protection of their class’s power and wealth. The first imperial regimes emerged together with those who struggled against such oppressive empires. Those who opposed any established power regimes have been demonised by their enemies ever since. It is these ‘resistance’ movements who have used political violence (terrorism) in an attempt to destroy and replace existing (usually) imperial regimes. We will not discuss the historical logic of the violence between states but this is where the seeds of internal political conflict are invariably sown. That the subsequent ‘terrorists’ are almost always armed and trained by a state is well documented and  such regimes show staggering hypocrisy by demonising their own students when they turn on their teachers. History has given a very mixed reception (usually dependant on their success) to these heroes or criminals: Spartacists, Thugees, Dog Soldiers, Boxers, Mau-Mau, Assassins – the list is endless. Since violence was used to impose political regimes, many have concluded that it is only through such conflict that they can be destroyed. Before we attempt to analyse whether history backs up this logic let us take a detour to try and understand why our culture is so immersed in the cult of the warrior and the belief that violence can resolve human problems.

Ever since Homer’s tales of the heroic deeds of the Greeks at Troy western culture has been saturated with a military ethos. We cannot imagine Malory, Shakespeare, Cervantes or Fenimore Cooper without Lancelot, Macbeth, Don Quixote or Hawkeye. Such is the central place it occupies in our story-telling that we can hardly conceive of drama itself without a conflict of some kind within the narrative. As we have seen, the very origins of private property produced a warrior elite who subsequently became a ruling aristocracy and it this class who were the patrons of the creators of culture. Given the moral dualism of Christianity it was not difficult for the rulers to characterise their opposing city, or later, nation states as evil. War became described as a struggle between good and evil – the relevant designations were, of course, dependent on which side you were on.  After six millennia of warfare the idea that it still represents a way to resolve problems is still an insidious part of our culture – not because it has proven to be so but because the ruling classes need us to believe in it. As evidence for this, let us consider the outcome of the longest and most bloody conflict of the last century between two of Europe’s ruling classes – Britain and Germany.

It is still a matter of great debate who actually started the war of 1914-18; some say it was provoked by France to recover territory lost during the Franco-Prussian conflict whilst others believe it an inevitable consequence of Germany’s need for an empire. What is not disputable is that the opposing economic interests of the ruling classes concerned were vital in their decision to go to war. They utilised the martial cultural traditions of their nations to convince the populations to slaughter each other. History shows that nothing was resolved by the allied ‘victory’ of 1918 because, as a consequence of the imposed terms of the German surrender, the whole thing erupted again in 1939. Again millions died, but did the fighting end with the defeat of Nazism? The Russian Empire was formed out of the division of Europe after 1945, as was much of the ‘third world’ where they and the U.S. fought out the ‘cold war’. Even today we still endure the consequences of the two world wars where the victors redrew the world map according to their interests – Palestine, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, etc. All we can be say about the direct result of war is that the ruling class of one nation state replaces another. Clearly this is not why those who fought the war did so, thus we can say with some legitimacy that war has not resolved the problems it was (at least in propaganda terms) supposed to. Can we also make this claim for the results of terrorist campaigns?

Many leaders of movements for ‘national liberation’ (terrorists) have subsequently become part of the ruling class they once fought. Israel, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Northern Ireland and many others now enjoy the fruits of their murderous campaigns. But what has become of the promises made during the struggle? Most who killed and were killed did so in the belief that they were creating a better and more just society than the one they lived in. In cases such as Zimbabwe things seem to have become worse in some respects. The exploitation and murderous repression of the Palestinians has plunged Israel into a nightmare of endless violence. The Irish  ruling class seem incapable of resolving their internecine power struggle . So again it would appear that violence has failed to deliver a better life to those who indulged in it and suffered from it. Why? One obvious reason is the inability of humankind to learn from its history. An understanding of history is far and away the most important component of any political consciousness. Before any course of political action is undertaken we must make an effort to understand how the world came to be the way it is. A motorcar cannot be repaired without some knowledge of how it works and no amount of moral outrage and violent action will resolve the problem. War and its bastard progeny we call terrorism, together with the regimes both have brought into the world, are the problem and not the solution.

Socialists have always opposed both violent struggles for ‘national liberation’ and the ‘legitimate’ wars fought between nation states. We see that causing more of it cannot lead to an end to the suffering in the world. War and all organised violence can only be stopped when it is rejected by those who alone must fight it. The ruling class and their media, political ideology, establishment history and all the other paraphernalia of the capitalist propaganda machine can never acknowledge this because to do so would illegitemise the origins of their own power. As to the other myth they peddle concerning mankind’s inherent violence, we can only look within ourselves for the answer. If you sincerely believe in the efficacy of violence to solve your own and the world’s problems then you simply deny the evidence of history.

Andrew Westley

Global March of the Gurus (2005)

Book Review from the January 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World. By Francis Wheen, Fourth Estate, 2004.

A few years ago Wheen had a critically and commercially successful biography of Karl Marx. This survey – A Short History of Modern Delusions, as the book’s subtitle puts it – takes 1979 as the decisive year. In that year two key events occurred that shaped the modern world: Margaret Thatcher came to power in Britain and Ayatollah Khomeini returned to dominate Iran.

The link between the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is uncontroversial. The Shah of Iran was a stooge of western governments, there to guarantee oil supplies. The ideology used to remove him therefore took the form of an anti-western Islam. This ideology then spread through the Middle East and beyond. But Wheen’s interpretation of Thatcher’s rise and the global spread of free market fundamentalism is less convincing. In Wheen’s account, the old status quo (which he clearly favours) was overthrown by New Right zealots spouting mumbo-jumbo. Or put another way, the post-war consensus on the mixed economy, guided by government intervention and Keynesian economics, was supplanted by monetarism, privatisation and the worship of market forces. Of course these facts are not in dispute and Thatcherite/Blairite ideology is mumbo-jumbo dressed-up as common sense (“we are all ‘Thatcherite’ now,” said Peter Mandelson, Labour MP, in 2002). However, what Wheen fails to appreciate is why the post-war consensus was so easily swept away. In the 1970s the long post-war boom had come to an end and the Keynesian status quo was perceived to be a failure in dealing with recession and high unemployment. Hence the spread of free market mumbo-jumbo.

Wheen sets great store by the Enlightenment values of reason and progress. This book is far more wide ranging than space here permits us to discuss. Cults, gurus, irrational panics and post-modernists are all subject to a withering criticism very much in the style of George Orwell. Despite the reservations above, this is a superb piece of work and it will be an invaluable resource for socialists.

Lew Higgins