Who do you think you are? (1980)

From the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let's get some things straight.

Being working class does not mean scrubbing front doorsteps of terraced houses on hands and knees, or wearing a cloth cap or a donkey jacket, does not mean smoking Woodbines, or playing darts, bowls or crib for the local pub team, does not mean watching Coronation Street and Carry On films, or speaking in a local dialect, heavy accent or slang, or passionately supporting a football team standing on the terraces, does not mean filling a mantelshelf with little ornaments from Blackpool, or keeping pigeons or greyhounds, does not mean shopping at the Co-op or reading the Daily Mirror, or . . .

Being middle class does not mean wearing a shirt and tie, having a mortgage, having a building society or bank account, or a nice car, or going to college or university, does not mean sounding your aitches, does not mean working in an office, being a foreman, a manager, a doctor, a teacher or living in a house in a quiet avenue, or having a bath twice a day, does not mean watching BBC2 documentaries, or supporting a football team and sitting in the stands, or slippers by the fire, or being polite, or being a self-employed plumber, window-cleaner or keeping the little corner shop, does not mean drinking wine, or reading the Observer or the Guardian or the Telegraph, does not mean . . .

Being a socialist does not mean voting Labour, or being on the "left", or being an "extremist" or a "militant", does not mean being an idealistic student who'll grow up in a few years, does not mean campaigning for a minimum wage, for more money to be spent on housing for the homeless, more medicine for the sick, more financial aid to third world countries, or waving banners urging governments to ban nuclear weapons, does not mean abusing policemen on the beat, or listening to Sham 69, or becoming hysterically emotional about "the Right to Work", or  . . . 

Being a revolutionary does not mean throwing bombs, barricading embassies, or violence in the streets, or listening to the Clash or the Sex Pistols, or taking heroin and cocaine, or wearing a Che Guevara beret and moustache, or shouting "Capitalist Pigs Die!" and raising a clenched fist in salute, does not mean becoming a rastafarian, or following the latest fashion, or going "underground", or dodging fares on British Rail, or . . . 

Get all this out of your head and you are ready to see things as they really are. Society is not split into thousands and thousands of little sections as a lot of misguided and ill-informed people would have you think. There are basically only two sections: the working class and the capitalist class. Being working class is an economic condition. The middle class, lower middle class, upper middle class, lower upper middle working class, and so on and so forth is all a myth. If you have to sell your physical or mental energies to an employer in return for a wage at the end of the week or a salary at the end of the month in order simply to survive, then you are working class. This is a fact,not an attitude. It doesn't matter a scrap what job you've got or wish you'd got. You are a member of the social class which produces all the wealth in society but which possesses nothing but its labour power, its ability to sell its mental and physical capabilities. The other class, the owners, are able to live as they please from the profits gained from the wealth that you contribute, directly or indirectly, towards producing. The capitalist class owns everything in society that is required for human beings to live (factories, railways, mines, land, raw materials, tools, machines), but they have no need to lift a finger. The working class are employed to do that. And all governments in all countries have no option but to act on behalf of this tiny owning section. Therefore all governments have no option but to perpetuate the exploitation of the workers—no matter what bull they try to feed to those they are governing.

A socialist is someone who recognises that this state of affairs is nothing less than continuous robbery, and who further recognises that there is bound to be a permanent antagonism of interests between the two sections so long as the present system exists, and who recognises that there can only be one possible solution: abolition of the present capitalist system and the establishment of socialism. Socialism: a classless, moneyless, stateless, worldwide social organisation based on the common ownership of the means of living, where everything is produced solely for use, and where everyone will be able to take freely from society whatever is available, whenever he or she so desires, and will be free to contribute to society to the best of their ability, whenever he or she so desires, purely because it will be in the interests of people as individuals and as members of the community as a whole. The transformation from capitalism to socialism will come when the vast majority of the world's working class understands and wants it and it will be voted for democratically because this will be how the new society will function. This transformation can be achieved no other way. It will be a complete change, a social revolution, the first conscious revolution in the history of the human race.

The only qualification to become a socialist is socialist understanding and the desire to bring socialism about as quickly as possible. In addition to being a socialist, I like hot baths regularly, Benny Hill, Dire Straits, Double Diamond and middle-to-low tar cigarettes. Some of my friends say I have bad taste.

Paul Breeze

Riot! (2011)

From the November 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

We take another look at the August riots.

Moral outrage ran riot across the pages of the tabloid press for six days in August this year while looting, arson and battles with the police spilled across the streets of London and other English cities. Angry condemnation of the rioters and promises of legal revenge emerged from the mouths of Westminster politicians, while the nightly television newscasts drip-fed the nation with a steady message of shocked disapproval.

‘These are sickening scenes. This is criminality pure and simple, and it has to be confronted and defeated’ said an apparently affronted David Cameron (PM and former member of the Bullingdon Club).

In the first days and nights of rioting, David Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, put the establishment case. The riots were: ‘an attack on Tottenham, on people, ordinary people, shopkeepers, women, children , who are now standing on the street homeless as a consequence’. It was a politician’s oily speech, carefully tailored to achieve maximum media effect, but it expressed a view which many of Lammy’s constituents might well have shared: the main damage inflicted by the rioters was on their own communities. The looting and arson attacks had been indiscriminate, directed at small local shops as well as banks, larger businesses and chain stores; people’s homes had been destroyed and members of the community were left traumatised and angry. Eventually, the rioting would also lead to the deaths of five innocent people. What Lammy’s comment also implied, though, was that the rioters were somehow not ‘ordinary people.’ By marginalising them in this way he was showing a desire to sidestep any need to understand what was happening.   

Revolution?

Unreported by the corporate media, another very different political commentary was also taking place. Its tone was not condemnatory but enthusiastic: ‘We are in a revolutionary moment’, proclaimed one blogger, ‘Prepare yourself…’ Several of the more excitable anarchist and leftist groups were in animated discussion about whether the long awaited ‘revolutionary moment’ had arrived; or, if it hadn’t, whether the rioting was, at least, an important step towards it; or, if it wasn’t, whether this was, anyhow, how revolution might begin?  Of the more ponderous political groups out on capitalism’s left-wing, the Trotskyist ‘Socialist’ Party of England and Wales (SPEW) preferred to censor the disorderly way young workers on the streets were expressing their frustration at the system. In its view, this was clearly incorrect. (The rioters, evidently, had not asked SPEW to stage manage the week’s events.)

Capitalism and the limits of tolerance

So, what did actually happen during those six August days and nights? Was it simply a sudden and inexplicable upsurge in criminality and ‘disgusting behaviour’ by urban youth? Or was it an inarticulate cry of the working-class stumbling blindly towards a revolutionary overthrow of the established order? Perhaps, of course, it was neither of these things.  Perhaps it was something else entirely.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that the rioting, wherever it occurred, had several obvious and consistent features: it took place almost exclusively in the poorer districts of cities; it had no obvious racial basis; the participants were young, sometimes very young; and where their voices were recorded in the dozens of published web videos, they delivered the same angry and unambiguous message: “it’s payback time.”

Payback

But payback for what? The answer which the rioters gave most frequently themselves was payback for years of indignity suffered at the hands of the police. And it was apparent that at the Pembury Estate in Hackney and at various other locations, many of those out on the streets were spoiling for a fight. ‘Kill the police’, they shouted. One man summed up the general mood this way: ‘[The police] are not all bad but most of them are; no-one around here has got any liking for the police’.   I’ve been wanting to do this to the Fedz for years, said another. Although the killing of Mark Duggan by police officers on 4 August and the insulting treatment meted out to his family was a powerful trigger for the riots, it was the longer-standing resentment felt towards the police in London and elsewhere that lit the powder keg.

For unemployed teenagers and young people in urban areas, regular harassment by police and the use of stop-and-search tactics has long been the source of that resentment. For black communities who feel themselves singled out for this kind of treatment, it is a double insult. But, black or white, the rioters universally expressed the view that the police “took the piss” on the streets.

There was, though, another aspect to ‘payback.’ It was about claiming what many felt society had denied them: the right to be treated equally and the right to a decent standard of living. They were not shy about it: it was about ‘the money’. Stafford Scott, in a Guardian comment piece made this connection: “looting comes from the belief that if you cannot get equality and cannot expect justice, then you better make sure that you get paid.” Though he was speaking of attitudes within the black community, his remarks chimed very closely with what all the rioters were saying.  For some, the collective nature of ‘riot’ was enough to legitimise the looting of shops and businesses. It was a moment of ‘freedom’ one teenager claimed.  And though not all spoke openly in these terms, the attitude is nevertheless implicit in the widespread notion of payback.  

Class war

So, were the rioters simply criminals, as Cameron, and others claimed? Certainly they were criminals. The law defines all attacks upon capitalism’s system of property relationships as criminal, whoever carries them out.  But the question that Cameron, as a defender of capitalist property could not raise, however, let alone answer, was what kind of challenge the rioters were making.

The significance of the August riots becomes clear only when they are set against the background of the conflicts of interest that are built into the social relationships of capitalism. Those conflicts are never far from the surface and are liable to break out at any time, visibly and destructively. That’s especially the case when the capitalist system, which is always unstable and unpredictable, puts large groups of people or even whole classes under pressure. And the rioters who came from Hackney, Tottenham and Peckham, and from dozens of other socially deprived urban areas around the country were certainly feeling the pressure. Many of these areas have for a long time been dependent on services funded by government and, as a result, are now being disproportionately hit by cuts in public spending. As the UK Coalition government continues its policy of making the working-class pay for the chaos and shrinkage in the economy, many families on low incomes now face not just the prospect of increasing unemployment but benefit cuts, higher prices, and the withdrawal of public services. All this is happening - and seen to be happening – in a society where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, and conspicuous consumption by the rich continues unabated.  It is hardly to be wondered at, under these circumstances, that frustration is going to spill over into action on the streets.

The rioting was not an example of class conflict. There was no direct confrontation between workers and their employers, for example.  The indiscriminate acts of violence, and arson seen on the streets last August were purely destructive.  The looting was for individual gratification or to meet individual need.   And there was certainly no sign that any of this would lead to a revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist order.  But as damaging to their own working-class communities as the riots showed themselves to be, they were a response to the specific class conditions that the rioters fond themselves facing under capitalism.  The targets they chose to loot were the everyday embodiments of capitalist property relations, high-street shops and businesses that hand over their consumer goods only to those with the money to pay for them. Also targeted were the defenders of those property relations, the police. Looting in these circumstances is a way of breaking through the barriers that capitalism imposes. It’s a way of challenging capitalism’s institutionalised entitlement system (money) and asserting your own sense of entitlement to a share of what society has produced.  To that extent, rioting is a political statement.

What is striking, though, is how little sense of identification the rioters had with their own communities or with other members of their own class.  From a socialist perspective, they betrayed no real understanding of why they lacked jobs and had little prospect of getting them – or why they needed jobs at all.  They showed no understanding of why they led impoverished, disempowered lives in a world full of rich folk, expenses-grabbing politicians, greedy bankers and glitzy consumer goods. They were seeking payback and a means, individually, to survive.  They were not fomenting revolution.  But at the same time, they understood enough to know that their interests were not being served by the world in which they lived, and felt strongly that they were entitled to something more.

HUD.

Obituary: Tony Turner (1992)

Turner speaking at Hyde Park.

Obituary from the April 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

News of the death of A. W. L. (Tony) Turner in a Cape Town hospital in February at the age of 83 will awaken memories in many older readers. He joined the Party in 1931 and resigned in 1955 after a series of acrimonious disputes.

Tony was accused of an anarchism that was incompatible with Marx. He had taken up a completely pacifist view together with Tolstoyan ideas about the socialist future—small-scale, a vastly simple society, that anticipated subsequent thinking amongst people like Ivan Illich, Fritz Schumacher and Edward Goldsmith.

Many members felt the difference should have been containable in a party seeking world revoution. If market society was replaced with production for need it was inconceivable that the result would take the same form everywhere.

Tony Turner began life before World War I in the slums of Walworth, the child of an Irish-cockney woman and a Maori father whom he never saw. He enlisted in the Navy as a boy sailor and saw service in the Far East. He took up boxing because, he told me, he was being constantly teased for persistent bedwetting, an affliction which eventually got him discharged from the Service, Before this happened he won the Combined Services Championship in one of the light divisions.

He returned to Walworth in time for the Slump. With other unemployed men in a similar position he developed stratagems of survival, including taking the long view by joining the Party. The Walworth—Elephant & Castle contingent in the Party formed an axis with Jewish lads from Bethnal Green and the whole lot must have looked as if they had looted a theatrical costumiers. These were the days of reach-me-downs. This was none of your middle-class shopping for accessories in Oxfam. Turner, according to contemporaries, sported patent leather dancing pumps and a Magyar blouse.

When this band of Bisto kids didn't have money for a cup of tea at the caff they hung around the Public Library which was warm and dry. Many became bookish and took elocution lessons. They went and sat in the gods at the Old Vic when they could raise fourpence or knew the doorman, and used their leisure like gentlemen, learning dancing, fencing, chess, bridge—anything that was free to the unemployed, and taught each other poker and other disreputable activities.

During his time in the Party Turner was a remarkably active and successful advocate of the SPGB point of view, so much so that the Party was sometimes referred to as Tony Turner's Party, to the irritation of older, less ebullient members. For people who heard him on the platform in Hyde Park or debating public figures in the years during and after the war, his performances were hypnotising in the first arena and devastating in the second—as many politicians found to their cost and chagrin.

He appeared at the Fulham Conscientious Objectors Tribunal during conscription as an amicus curiae to plead the case of many members before Justice Hargreaves. The Judge very early on became satisfied simply with an assurance from Tony that the person was a bona fide member for their exemption to be granted. The Services didn't really want socialists upsetting the rest of the lads.

He joined the Hampstead Labour Party after leaving the SPGB but left after three weeks. He emigrated to Kenya where he built up a substantial book business but continued to visit Britain frequently. In recent years he renewed acquaintance with the Party, visiting branches and taking part in discussions. He clearly enjoyed the greater spirit of tolerance that he found.

Ken Smith

  

Editorial: Women and socialism (1979)

Editorial from the December 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists argue from the basic fact that capitalism's private property relationships and class division are the cause of the oppression of both men and women. Women's Liberation movements put forward immediate demands such as equal pay, equal educational opportunities, 24-hour nurseries, free contraception and abortion on demand. Some of these demands may well be achieved, but now more than ever there is a need for a revolutionary change in society. It must be recognised that the subjugation of women does not exist independently but is related to economic structures in society. Men and women are oppressed together in an institutional framework that makes inhuman demands upon the, and inculcates destructive beliefs about themselves. They must be liberated together by changing society.

The choicest fruits of human society are denied to the working class, although they produce the wealth and operate and organise society's productive and distributive machinery. Once the majority of the world working class recognise that they can possess these themselves. they will establish socialism. It is not possible to have "little bits" of socialism or socialist "policies" and socialism does not exist anywhere in the world at this time.

The prerequisite for this new society is understanding and desire to co-operate.

Being world-wide, there will be no national barriers. There will be debates on the common aim, followed by organisation and action. Goods will be produced for use, so there will be no monetary system. This fundamental change in the basis of society will alter all social relationships and structures in our way of life. Police, lawyers and armed forces will give way to men and women doing useful work. Money, taxation and cheap goods will be replaced by production to meet human needs. With free access to wealth, there will be no starving millions, no poverty or degradation. Men and women and children will have complete equality in that they will have that free access to all goods produced. There will be freedom from want and fear. For the first time humanity will be controlling their environment.

New social relationships will form when socialism is established. There will be no husbands and wives because marriage derives from private property relationships. Men will no longer dominate women conditioned to be subservient. Today men and women stay together, often unhappily, because of economic necessity. The myth that child bearing and rearing is the fulfillment of a woman's destiny will be rejected. Men and women will shape and create their own lives. The alienating nature of work will disappear. The exploitation of women as sexual objects, which seems so normal to many men today will be swept aside. Equally important, the sort of spite and resentment that men as well as women show towards each other today, expressed in emotional blackmail, will pass away. People will relate to each other purely as human beings.

The problems of capitalism are not to be solved within the social and economic relationships basic to this system. Capitalism is unable to satisfy the needs and desires of the people of the world. Socialism is technically possible now. All we need is action by a conscious socialist majority of men and women to free us all, without distinction of sex.

We are all oppressed by capitalism and only by its abolition can humanity truly become emancipated. Only with the establishment of socialism can we become free—free to control our own lives, free to have or not to have children without regard to any financial considerations, free to work at any job we choose or to do as many different jobs as we wish in the course of a lifetime. The aim of the women's movement can only lead them into illogical impasses if they continue to pursue their goals within the framework of capitalism. Women should be aware that the Socialist Party of Great Britain has, since its inception 75 years ago, worked for the emancipation of the working class "without distinction of race or sex"—a rare phrase indeed in 1904, however much lip service may be paid to these ideas in 1979.

A quiet drink at the local (1966)

A Short Story from the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

"I'd emigrate myself if I was a younger man. There's no initiative left in this country." He sipped at his half-pint of bitter, put it back carefully on the bar and stared straight ahead at the row of upside-down spirit bottles.

Maurice always start like this. He pretends he is not speaking to you, really, just in case you don't answer him. And I didn't. There is no point in arguing with him. His mind is as set as one of the pickled eggs in the jar at his elbow.

"After all, let's face it, we're all mollycoddled by the Welfare State." He half turned to the youth with the bad complexion who was standing behind him and beginning to look uncomfortable. "I admit it," Maurice insisted with a magnanimous smile, "I'm just the same. I'm soft! Why should I save for a rainy day? The state will take care of me if I'm ill. If I get myself the sack from work I can get nearly as much from the dole and National Assistance as I can for working. Why should I bother to work?"

"Have you tried it?" The young man had a Glasgow accent which made his question sound curt.

Maurice's eyes widened and he really turned round to look at him now. "Tried what?"

"Getting the 'labour' money and National Assistance instead of working? Two chappies in the paper last week were fined £90 apiece for it. Able-bodied y'see. They should have been in a job." The cigarette in his hand trembled.

"No, well of course most of us don't try it, do we?" Maurice laughed implying that he had only been joking. He turned back to his glass, including me in his laugh. "We are the mugs that keep so-and-so's like them in idle comfort." He switched off his laugh as abruptly as he had switched it on and was beginning to bristle with enough indignation to warn anybody that he did not like being taken up on what he said. "Sixteen and a penny a week you pay, National Health." He glared at me.

"Well," I said, trying to produce a jovial smile like his, "they want to make sure you don't waste it on beer." The sarcasm missed him completely. He never drinks more than three half pints. He almost choked on the last drop in his glass, and his neck went red. "Look here!" he said, "If everybody spent as much as I do on beer, they'd be all right, let me tell you." The barman had a faint smile at the corners of his mouth as he filled Maurice's glass again. "I know how to save my money, which is more than a lot of 'em do these days." He kept pressing down the short bristles of his moustache with his fingertips. "They've got no right to make you pay out—what is it?—about £40 a year just in case you need a doctor. I'll decide whether I need a doctor, thank you very much. When I need my doctor's advice, I pay, privately. I want proper attention and a bit of respect, and that's the only way to get it."

The youth scowled behind him and said, "It's your sort that keeps it one treatment for the rich and one for the poor."

Maurice turned round on him, almost crouching. "That's the way it always will be, my lad, and the sooner you get it into your head the better. If you'd got money, would you queue up with that crowd of coughing bronchitics and snivelling kids just to get a five-minute once-over and a chit for the chemist's shop?"

"You're lucky you can afford it."

"Look! I'm not rich, you know. That's just the trouble—I can't afford it—now. Since this bloody health service came in, it costs the earth to be a private patient. Now it really is lone law for the rich and one for the poor."

"You can't win, can you, Maurice." I think he knew I was digging at him, because he didn't even look at me.

"At least everybody gets some treatment now," the youngster insisted, "even if it's not the best."

"You shouldn't have picked a Sunday to say that," I said. I shook out the newspaper I had been trying to read and showed him the Personal column. "Here you are: 'R.S.V.P. You are invited to help 3,000 children whose only help is the National Children's home . . . ' Here's another: 'The British Heart Foundation . . . urgent research needs your generous support . . .' Look, they are all down this column. Royal London Society for the Blind, the Army Benevolent Fund, British Empire Cancer Campaign For Research, The Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb, the British Epilepsy Association, the Arthritis and Rheumatism Council, the Chest and Heart Foundation, Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis. They're all appealing urgently for charity. All this is supposed to have been taken care of by the Welfare State."

"Oh, no! That's not fair! Give them time. They've got to deal with the main things first . . . "

Maurice wouldn't let him finish. "Give 'em time!" he said in a loud sneering voice. "They've been at it for 20 years now, and it's a damned sight worse than when they started. The surgeries got fuller, the hospitals get more out of date and understaffed. The whole thing's running down like an old car."

The young Glaswegian just lowered his heat and waited for it to pass. I don't think he really heard what Maurice said. "Look, you say it's one law for the rich and one for the poor, but what you forget is that poor people never had proper medical treatment before. When they had the 'flu or bronchitis or lumbago they couldn't afford to call in the doctor. They just had to stay in bed and wait for it to get better—if they were lucky."

He asked for another pint of mild, and I said to him, "Staying in bed is about the best sort of treatment for ailments like that. That's all we need sometimes—a few days in bed."

"Maybe, but there's not the time for that these days."

"Worse luck."

He looked at me with a trace of contempt in his expression. "Do you realise how many thousands of man-hours are lost through common ailments like that?"

"Well, I have some idea, yes."

"All right! You can't run a modern country by letting people sleep off their illnesses in bed. You need modern drugs—antibiotics, pain killers, tranquilisers—so that they can be back at work in a couple of days, maybe not have to stop work at all."

"This is what you call dealing with the main things first?"

"Certainly. What you must remember is that this is a country with a steadily increasing number of old people and a high density of population. The only way to increase production is to get more efficiency out of the labour force we've got. Take children, for example. Poverty and slums and lack of medical attention used to produce weak or disabled children. But these days it's being planned. The state can't afford thousands of invalids. So the mothers get free ante-natal treatment, maternity allowance, hospital care. If they produce more than one child they get children's allowances. The children get free milk and subsidised meals."

Maurice looked over his shoulder and said, "It's all done on the cheap. Hospitals, drugs, false teeth, spectacles—all cheap and nasty."

"At least it's something—and that's better than nothing."

"It is if you're useful," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, look here at today's paper again—this advert signed by Margaret Herbison, the Minister of Social Security. They've at last acknowledged that old age pensions are inadequate. So pensioners can now have a supplementary pension—if they apply for it—and if they've not got a part-time job earning more than two pound a week, and so on. They can have their income brought up to a guaranteed level. And look at it! £7 2s. plus rent and rates for a married couple; £4 10s. for a single householder; and £3 18s. plus 10s. rent for a single person. Who can live on that at today;s prices? And it's being brought up to that."

"But it's an improvement, isn't it?"

"Certainly! And it needs to be, because it still isn't keeping pace with rising prices. Look here at this bit in Michael Frayn's column: 'Some 7,500,000 people in this country live below what the National Assistance Board regard as subsistence level . . . ' One in seven of the population, as he says. What state of welfare is that?"

"It's bad, I admit, but you've got to agree that they're a dead weight on the state. Old age pensioners will never produce any more  . . ."

It was my turn to choke on my beer. "What! They've had the energy sucked out of them for 50 years of their lives, with nothing at the end to show for it, and you're complaining that they can't be worked until they drop dead! Whose side are you on?"

"They should save up for their old age, like I do," Maurice said. "There's too much state control, now—too many regulations and forms to fill in, too much interference. There's no freedom left. That's the price we've paid for all this. If you want a Welfare State, you can't complain when the state gives you a credit squeeze and a wage freeze as well. It's all part of the same thing. I mean, your life's not your own these days."

"As far as I can see," the youngster said, "the working man's life never was his own. Now, I think the ideals behind the Welfare State were good. For the first time, the worker had the chance of a new deal, the chance to live a respectable life. It's true enough that conditions—inflation and all that—have made a mockery out of most of it, but that doesn't make it a bad idea.

Bit by bit, we had all edged closer together, and the barman was leaning his chin in his hands, listening to us. Maurice glanced round to see who he had for an audience before he spoke. "Listen, my lad, I'm older than you. You don't remember the thirties. If you think this is a bad time for your Welfare State, just you wait until there's another depression and see how it works then. You're all right now as long as you've got enough stamps on your card, but you wait till you can't get any stamps because you haven't got a job even. I'm telling you this: what they give you they can also take away. And they will when it suits them. I've told you. I'd get out of this country if I was younger."

"Do you really think it's much different anywhere else?" I said. "You'd be in just the same trap."

"You two depress me," said the young man. "Don't they you?" he asked, turning to the barman.

"I haven't heard all of it, of course, but I must say, I think all this Welfare State business is a load of codswallop. You're no better off and no worse off, are you? I mean to say, you've still got to turn up at work tomorrow morning, haven't you? And you've got to take stingy-paid part-time jobs like this at the weekend to keep going. It doesn't alter that, does it?"

"That's the trap."

"Yeah, well, tell me some way to get out of that and I'll be interested."

"You can't alter that," said the Glaswegian contemptuously.

"That's the way it always will be, lad," Maurice said.

S. Stafford

Action Replay: What Price the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar? (2015)

The Action Replay Column from the May 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Qatar will host the 2022 World Cup, the first Arab nation to do so. Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president has already endorsed the bid and said ‘The Arabic world deserves to hold a world cup competition’. Qatar enjoys the support of the Arab league and the event is intended to bridge the gap between the Arab World and the West.

The first five proposed stadiums were unveiled in March 2010. The stadiums will employ cooling technology capable of reducing temperatures within the stadium by up to 20C. All of the five stadium projects launched have been designed by German architect Albert Speer and Partners. The air conditioning in the stadiums for the players and the spectators will be solar powered, carbon neutral and provided by Arup of England. The technology employed is remarkable but the labour required for its installation and the building of the stadiums has caused many deaths to migrant workers. Most of the workers are living in labour camps, enduring squalid conditions.

A Guardian article (25 September 2013) reported that a number of Nepalese migrant workers have faced poor conditions, as companies handling construction work for the 2022 World Cup infrastructure forced them to stay by denying them promised salaries and withholding necessary worker ID permits, making them illegal aliens. The precarious situation the various employers have created have forced the migrant workers to beg for food. Thousands of Nepalese labourers in Qatar face exploitation and abuses that amount to modern-day slavery as defined by the ILO.

During a building binge to pave the way for the Football competition in 2022, Nepalese workers in Qatar have been dying at a rate of one per day. A report released in March 2014 by the International Trade Union Confederation estimated that 4,000 more workers could die as preparations for the World Cup continue.

The barbaric conditions that migrant workers endure, brings sharply into focus, that under capitalism, capital is considered more important than labour. The profits that will flow to the companies involved in the Qatar World Cup, when the games commence, are considered more important than ensuring that proper safety conditions prevail to protect the migrant workers.

Kevin

Rewriting Marx (1993)

From the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are used to various Leninist regimes distorting the views of Karl Marx to try to bring some kind of spurious legitimacy to their vile social systems. A recent, almost breathtaking, example occurred in the Beijing Review (no. 34, 23-29 August). An article by one Ed Rothberg, who is apparently a professor from New York, defends the changes in the Chinese economy over the last twelve years or so as being in line with Marx's views. From a centrally-planned economy, China has changed to one where prices and wages are controlled by the market; this is allegedly all within a Socialist system, whereas in fact it is a change from state capitalism to a mix of state and private capitalism.

Rothberg's "discovery" is that a planned economy violates Marx's ideas about the best way to run a commodity-based economic system. Marx described the way that capitalism operated, with competition, profits and the law of value. But he was not concerned with recommending how to run such a system, as he knew that capitalism could not function in the interests of workers. According to Rothberg, however, Marx advocated competition as the way to develop the means of production. On this topsy-turvy logic, the economic changes in China are a successful application of Marx's economic theory.

In fact, of course, the changes do constitute a tacit admission that even a centrally-planned economy cannot escape from the economic laws that Marx discovered and cannot avoid the booms and slumps that are inherent in capitalism. And that's the point that Rothberg has curiously missed: Marx emphasised that his economic findings were specific to capitalism, and never suggested that they would apply in Socialism too. Rothberg has a damned cheek (to put it mildly) in invoking Marx's name in defence of the Chinese ruling class and the butchers of Tiananmen Square.

Paul Bennett

The Confessions of A Clyde 'Red'. (1930)

From the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The only time in my life that I have allied myself with the enemies of the workers has been since I came to the House of Commons, and that is by the order of the Labour Government. Almost every time I go into the Division Lobby I join such tried and trusted friends of the Labour Party as Lloyd George, his daughter, Sir Herbert Samuel, etc. They are keeping the Labour Party in office on condition that the workers and the Labour Party programme are deserted.

Thus writes the Labour M.P. for Shettleston ("Forward," August 2nd). He was, however, the official Labour candidate, and stood for the official Labour Party Programme. He was attacked during the election by another Labourite, Mr. C. Diamond, who has been on three occasions official Labour candidate, and who stated that he has supported the Labour Party because it is not committed to Socialism.

The Party that the Member for Shettleston—McGovern—stands for, is not out for the working class. Read his own words: -

There is no danger of chasing away the Liberal votes, as they have all joined us at Westminster. The Labour Cabinet coddle them too much to drive them away, and are more concerned about them than about the working class.

He became the official Labour Candidate—because it's the best way to get elected. "Getting in" —that's the game, even if it means going into the Lobby to vote against the programme he ran on.

The little conflict between the "wings" has now been settled at a joint meeting of the Labour Party and I.L.P., and the following terms were agreed upon: -

(1) That the I.L.P. accepts the Labour Party Annual Conference as the supreme authority of the organised political movement of the workers.
(2) That the I.L.P. wishes to remain in affiliation with the Labour Party. (Forward, Aug. 2.)

So, now Lloyg George, the I.L.P., and the Labour Party may continue their united front—in the same Lobby.

C.

Letter: The Fall of Keir Hardie. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir, I have stood by Hardie through the years. I have held him to be a man apart from the motley group of members and fakers of capitalism, to whom he has given political existence, and that he calls his Labour Party. I at one time allowed him to nominate me for membership of the National Branch, deciding that if his party was good enough for Hardie it should be good enough for me, and that if Hardie could do something with such elements I might. So I allowed myself to become a member of the Independent Labour Party, and have remained one up to within a week. I have hit out against the policy and tactics of the Party whenever I have occupied its platform, but I retained my membership simply because of my reverence for Hardie. Again and again I have contended with S.D.F. men: "Hardie is something bigger than these reform fellows. He means more than reform. He is a revolutionist—a kind of eagle among carrion crows." But since last week I admit myself beaten. I have been sold. Most of the workers are sold many times. You knock down their idol and they instantly get another. I have not been sold many times, but I admit I have been once—in Hardie.

Edward VII by the grace of the god Capital, and, in obedience to its will, that he might secure for it some sort of a basis to contract a further loan with Russia, was deputed to go and kow-tow with the bloody Czar.

Hardie had an opportunity to bring home to the House of Commons the horrors of Russia, and to fix them upon the Czar, backed by his "black hundred."

And Hardie got up his case well. Oh, yes, the facts were all right and the rhetoric also. Not for one moment do I think that I could have marshalled the facts as well, or have painted the pictures as vividly. He gave them the thousands that have rotted in Russian prisons during the last two years; he gave them the thousands that have been butchered by the emissaries of the "black hundred." And he brought the whole of the atrocities hone to the Czar telling the "House" how the Czar had thanked the "black hundred" for murdering wholesale the people of Russia, under the cry that they were Jews, and adorning himself and his child with the badge of their order as a token of his appreciation of their services to Russia. Then Hardie was called upon by the Deputy-Speaker to withdraw.

Well, with such a case, with such an array of facts, themselves completely pointing the charge, one would have thought that the mere human instrument, called upon to belie himself and deny them would have refused with quiet scorn, and have surrendered himself to any consequences.

But Hardie did not do this. He lost touch with the murdered in Russia, and the thousands groaning in its prisons. He commenced melodramatic word-play with the politician, Emmett. He ducked and edged and quibbled, and allowed horrible facts to be smothered in a play of words between himself and the Deputy-Speaker. And then when the latter insisted that the charge be withdrawn, Hardie withdrew the charge so far as it referred to the Czar and his Government.

Like Dan 'Connell, like Fergus O'Connor, like John Burns and a host of others—spouters, orators, fine rhetoricians, but not fighters, not revolutionists—so Hardie, when an opportunity arrived demanding that he should translate his speech into a bit of action, failed.

So Hardie has gone with the rest of them. The Socialist Movement has learnt that it must never trust him to use any great opportunity. Some of the papers had it that after "Artful Dodger" Asquith decided that he had bottled Hardie, he turned his face to his followers with a sardonic smile which said, "How's that for diplomacy?"

But had Asquith's man meant business, he might have retrieved his position even here, and the Whig lawyer might have had another unpleasant illustration of the fact that he who laughs last laughs best.

Had Hardie meant business, he might have proceeded with his speech, after the passage-at-arms with the Deputy-Speaker, he might have filled the ears of the "House" with the horrors of Russia; he might have piled fact upon fact proving what he had said, and then concluded: "the Russian Government is an autocracy, the Czar is a despot, and with these facts before me I say that the monstrous activities that I have laid before the "House" are the direct expression of the will of the Czar and his infamous Councillors, that he alone is responsible, being autocrat and despot, and I refuse to withdraw the charge." Then "Artful Dodger" Asquith would have smiled quite another smile.

But Hardie didn't mean business—and why? Was it his Parliamentary screw; or fear of not getting a seat in another Parliament, or fear of disrupting further that strange motley he calls the Labour Party, or what? It matters not. Once more some little political mote got into the popular leader's eye and blurred his vision as to the great matter for which he was pleading.

Then there was Grayson. He tells the people he wanted to say something. Why didn't he say it? Some of the papers say he was upon his feet before Henderson. Some of them say that the Deputy-Speaker called Grayson. Anyway, the pair got the floor pretty much together. Why did not Grayson proceed without it in the least recognising the existence of the man who had a compact with the Liberals to shut up the debate at a given time, or of it became in any way dangerous? Grayson may tell the mob outside, who have never been into the House of Commons, that he was prevented, but this will not go down with any man who has been into the Commons, and who knows that it requires a combination of circumstances rather more forceful than the ones of this debate to prevent a man in dead earnest from having his say in a hole like the House of Commons.

Anyhow, the debate upon the King's visit to Russia has been fruitful of much good to the English workers. It has smashed some more idols for some of us. It has shown us that the Labour Party is not independent at all, that it does make alliances with the Liberal Party to shut up debates when they become over verile. All this is education.

If the English Government would only try Russian methods on our spouters ever so little it would still further educate. But British capitalists are too wise for this. You mustn't frighten the popular idols of the people. Prospects of prison, disability, or banishment would turn most of these swans to geese. This would let people see too much. Disillusionment would set in fast. Therefore our Edward by the grace of Grab, going to one of Russia may say: "Behold I show thee a more excellent way to rule thy people. Do not murder and torture and crush in that old-fashioned way. Bamboozle thy people instead. Let them spout and have offices, and generally play the game, and soon you will find them so docile that, should any of their strong words annoy, you shall but threaten them with the least of these other things, so find them eager to withdraw.  Tut, tut, man, the father who has a child well broken in doesn't require to be always using the stick. He only requires now and then to show it, and this is more than sufficient."

But they do tell me that in Russia the people have gone beyond this spouting and office-holding and political game-playing, and refuse to have it at any price. They say that they have sighted the slavery underneath it all, and prefer prison banishment and death to it. And if this is so I don't know what Edward can say to Nicholas that will matter much. It seems to me that the same game played by both, with a people of this sort, must be nearly up. There are men and women in Russia of another sort than our Graysons and Hardies.

Yours, etc.,

John Tamlyn 

The slump in the nineteen-thirties (1978)

Book Review from the July 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In The Slump (John Stevenson and Chris Cook. Jonathan Cape 348 Pages £8.95) the authors took a new look at "society and politics during the depression". They pose such questions as: "How depressed were the depressed areas? What, if anything, did the hunger marches achieve? Why were both the communists and fascists confined to the sidelines of British politics? Why did the electors vote as they did? Why was there no revolution in Britain?"

With its illustrations and numerous statistical tables it makes an interesting and useful survey, though some of the conclusions are open to question.

In answer to the belief that it was a decade of universal and unrelieved decline in living standards they show that after unemployment dropped by about a million from the 2½ million of 1932, and helped by the fall of prices, especially of food, there was "appreciable rise in the standard of comfort and welfare" of working-class families in regular employment. The persistently heavy employment was concentrated in certain areas and certain industries.

They tell the story of the MacDonald Government which entered office in 1929, pledged to conquer unemployment and restore "prosperity", only to be brought down by an unforeseen world depression which pushed unemployment up from something over a million to a peak of 3 million. But why were they so single-minded as to believe that they could operate capitalism without unemployment and periodical depressions? The Minister dealing with unemployment was J. H. Thomas, the railwaymen's leader. He stated that they "were going to do what they could to reduce unemployment while accepting the present order of society" (Daily Herald 6 July 1929). He complained afterwards that he took on the job because the economist, Josiah Stamp, had assured him that unemployment was on its way down! In the Socialist Standard (June 1929) we foresaw the failure of the Labour Government to reduce unemployment.

The Minister in the Labour Cabinet appointed to assist J. H. Thomas was Sir Oswald Mosley. He tried in vain to induce Thomas and the Cabinet to adopt a "bolder" policy, and the authors believe that mass unemployment could have been solved but for "the attitudes" of the Labour Cabinet. By this they mean that the Cabinet had not then adopted the "full employment" policy of J. M. Keynes. "Keynesian ideas still lay outside the view of most politicians, although Lloyd George and Mosley were prepared to implement policies along these lines".

The authors fail to notice that since 1945 we have had Cabinets which have all accepted Keynes, but this did not prevent mass unemployment — over 1,600,000 registered unemployed in 1977, with another estimated 250,000 not on the register.

In the Chapter "The Revolution That Never Was" the authors tell us that there was a very widespread belief in the nineteen-thirties that mass unemployment threatened a breakdown of the political system and the end of capitalism itself. "For Marxists, the great depression was clearly the 'final crisis' of capitalism".

The authors obviously do not know that in February 1932 the Socialist Party of Great Britain published a pamphlet setting out the Marxist point of view, with the title Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse.

They go to some trouble to minimise the extent of the Labour Party defeat at the 1931 General Election, though the fact is that if in 1931 they had got the same percentage of votes as in 1929, of an electorate increased by more than a million, their vote, which was actually 6,650,000, would have been nearly been nearly 8½ million.

The authors explain the 14½ million votes given to the "national" government as being due to "the massive middle class" vote having gone that way, while "the working class" vote largely remained with the Labour Party. This merely confuses the real situation. The overwhelming proportion of the electorate were wage and salary earners, that is working-class, and they constituted at least a big majority of the 14½ million votes given to the Tories and their allies.

The authors carry this confusion about 'middle-class' voters into their attempt to explain the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, thus obscuring the fact that when, in democratic elections in July 1932, the Nazis became the largest party, with 13½ million votes, at least several millions were working class voters, including many who had formerly voted for the Social Democrats.

Edgar Hardcastle 

Holding Forth (1977)

Book Review from the June 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speakers' Corner: An Anthology. Kropotkin's Lighthouse Publications, £1.75. Illus.

The most remarkable thing about Hyde Park is that meetings and speakers still proliferate there. Up to the traffic and television explosions of the early nineteen-fifties, crowds went to parks and listened every Sunday. Finsbury Park, Victoria Park, Clapham Common, Platt Fields in Manchester and numerous others where audiences can no longer be found; but Hyde Park, despite surgery fifteen years ago, carries on. Tourists flock there, Londoners go - largely because, as is not the case with most of the so-called "means of communication", communication actually takes place.

The speakers today are alleged to be not so good as in the past, and it is probably true. Proficiency at outdoor speaking requires much practice, and that is harder to get than it was twenty-five years ago and more. Yet opportunities are arising afresh now, with the creation of shopping precincts and traffic-free areas in cities. The next decade may see a new generation of speakers to rival some of those mentioned in this book.

It is a collection of pieces about Hyde Park. Items from the history of assemblies there; the park regulations; extracts from writings by Bonar Thompson, a professional speaker who entertained audiences for many years; piousness by Lord Soper; and an article from the 70th anniversary of the SOCIALIST STANDARD. The compiler, Jim Huggon, is an anarchist speaker in Hyde Park and the foreword is by one of his predecessors, Philip Sansom. It is not the former's fault that the latter is an essay in dreadful self-esteem.

For habitués of the park this is an interesting wide-ranging book which does not attempt to analyze but communicates the feeling of the place.

Robert Barltrop

Marx and Lenin's views contrasted (2001)

From the December 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lenin stood for state capitalism and argued that socialist democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person. Was Lenin a Marxist?

Marx and his co-worker, Engels, consistently argued that socialism (or communism, they used the terms interchangeably) could only evolve out of the political and economic circumstances created by a fully developed capitalism. In other words, production would have to be expanded within capitalism to a point where the potential existed to allow for "each [to take] according to their needs". In turn, this objective condition would have created the basis for a socialist-conscious majority willing to contribute their physical and mental skills voluntarily in the production and distribution of society's needs.

With the extension of the suffrage, Marx claimed (in 1872) that the workers might now achieve power in the leading countries of capitalism by peaceful means. Given the fact that socialism will be based on the widest possible human co-operation, it need hardly be said that Marx consistently emphasised that its achievement had to be the work of a majority.

Again, given their understanding of the nature of socialist society, Marx and Engels saw socialism essentially in world terms: a global alternative to the system of global capitalism.

In the very first sentence of his monumental work, Capital, Marx wrote that "the wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails presents itself as a vast accumulation of commodities". He then went on to define the nature of a commodity in economic terms as an item of real or imagined wealth produced for sale on the market with a view to profit.

Marx claimed the wages system was the quintessential instrument of capitalist exploitation of the working class. He urged workers to remove from their banners the conservative slogan of "A fair day's pay for a fair day's work" and to inscribe instead "Abolition of the wages system!" Throughout his writings, he repeats in different form the admonition that "wage labour and capital are two sides of the same coin".

Marx considered that nationalisation could be a means of accelerating the development of capitalism but did not support nationalisation as such. On the contrary, he argued that the more the state became involved in taking over areas of production, the more it became the national capitalist.

Marx saw the state as the "executive committee" of a ruling class. In a socialist society, he affirmed, the state, as the government of people, would give way to a simple, democratic "administration of things".

Marx's vision of a socialist society can be fairly summed up as a world-wide system of social organisation based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by, and in the interests of, the whole community.

In other words, a universal classless, wageless and moneyless society wherein human beings would voluntarily contribute in accordance with their mental and/or physical abilities to the production and distribution of the needs of their society and in which everyone would have free and equal access to their needs.

Lenin's distortions

Post-Czarist Russia was a backward poorly developed and largely feudal country where the industrial proletariat was a relatively small minority. To suggest that Russia could undergo a socialist revolution (as Lenin did in 1917) is a complete denial of the Marxist view of history. Indeed, following the news of the Bolshevik coup, the Socialist Standard (official organ of the Socialist Party of Great Britain) wrote:

"Is this huge mass of people, numbering about 160 million and spread over eight and a half million of square miles, ready for Socialism? Are the hunters of the north, the struggling peasant proprietors of the south, the agricultural wage slaves of the Central Provinces and the wage slaves of the towns convinced of the necessity for, and equipped with the knowledge requisite for the establishment of the social ownership of the means of life? Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place or an economic change immensely more rapidly than history has ever recorded, the answer is 'NO!'"(August 1918).

Lenin persistently rejected the view that the working class was capable of achieving socialism without leaders. He argued that trade union consciousness represented the peak of working class consciousness. Socialism, he affirmed, would be achieved by a band of revolutionaries at the head of a discontented but non-socialist-conscious working class. The Bolshevik "revolution" was a classic example of Leninist thinking; in fact it was a coup d'état carried out by professional revolutionaries and based on the populist slogan, "Peace, Land and Bread". Socialism was not on offer, nor could it have been.

It is true that Lenin and his Bolsheviks wrongly thought their Russian coup would spark off similar revolts in Western Europe and, especially, in Germany. Not only was this a monumental political error, but it was based on Lenin's erroneous perception of socialism and his belief that his distorted conceptions could be imposed on the working class of Western Europe which was, generally, better politically organised and more sophisticated than the people of Russia.

Probably for practical purposes – since no other course was open to them – Lenin and his Bolsheviks could not accept the Marxian view that commodity production was an identifying feature of capitalism. Following the Bolshevik seizure of power, the production of wealth in the form of commodities was the only option open to the misnamed Communist Party. Commodity production continued and was an accepted feature of life in "communist" Russia, just as it is today following the demise of state-capitalism in the Russian empire.

Back in 1905 Stalin, in a pamphlet (Socialism or Anarchism), argued the Marxian view that "future society would be . . . wageless . . . classless . . . moneyless", etc. In power the Bolsheviks proliferated the wages system making it an accepted feature of Russian life. Wage differentials, too, were frequently greater than those obtaining in western society. Surplus value, from which the capitalist class derives its income in the form of profit, rent and interest became the basis of the bloated lifestyles of the bureaucracy. A contrasting feature of state-capitalism and "private" capitalism is that, in the latter, the beneficiaries of the exploitation of labour derive their wealth and privilege from the direct ownership of capital whereas, in the former, wealth and privilege were the benefits of political power.

There is a wide chasm between the views of Marx and those of Lenin in their understanding of the nature of socialism, of how it would be achieved and of the manner of its administration. Marx sees socialism as the abolition of ownership (implied in the term "common ownership"). His vision is a stateless, classless and moneyless society which, by its nature, could only come to fruition when a conscious majority wanted it and wherein the affairs of the human family would be democratically administered. A form of social organisation in which people would voluntarily contribute their skills and abilities in exchange for the freedom of living in a society that guarantees their needs and wherein the poverty, repression and violence of capitalism would have no place.

Lenin's simple definition of socialism is set out in his The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It (September 1917): "Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the whole people". Lenin knew that he was introducing a new definition of socialism here which was not to be found in Marx but claimed that there were two stages after capitalism: socialism (his new definition) and communism (what Marxists had always understood by socialism: a stateless, classless, moneyless, wageless society). However, so new was this definition that other Bolshevik publications of the same period still argued that "socialism is the highest form of social organisation that mankind can achieve".

Marx would obviously have concurred with the latter claim but, as has been shown, would have rejected completely the suggestion that socialism had anything to do with nationalisation or that it could be established over the heads of the working class.

Obviously Lenin was being consistent with his "nationalisation" theory when, in Left-Wing Childishness (May 1918) he proclaimed the need for state capitalism. It is true, of course, that the situation in Russia left the Bolsheviks no alternative to the development of capitalism under the aegis of the state. The fact is, however, that the concept of state capitalism is wholly consistent with Lenin's misunderstanding of the nature of socialism. State capitalism achieved a permanent place in the Russian economy and Communist Party propaganda exported it as being consistent with the views of Marx.

The contrast between Marx and Lenin is demonstrated most strikingly in Lenin's view of the nature and role of the state. Whereas Marx saw the state as a feature of class society that would be used by a politically-conscious working class to bring about the transfer of power and then be abolished, Lenin saw the state as a permanent and vital part of what he perceived as socialism, relegating Marx's abolition of the state to the dim and distant future in communism while in the meantime the state had to be strengthened. The Russian state and its coercive arms became a huge, brutal dictatorship under Lenin, who set the scene for the entry of the dictator, Stalin.

That Lenin approved of dictatorship, even that of a single person, was spelt out clearly in a speech he made (On Economic Reconstruction) on the 31 March 1920:

"Now we are repeating what was approved by the Central EC two years ago . . . Namely, that the Soviet Socialist Democracy (sic!) is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person; that the will of a class is at best realised by a Dictator who sometimes will accomplish more by himself and is frequently more needed" (Lenin: Collected Works, Vol. 17, p. 89. First Russian Edition).

This statement alone should be enough to convince any impartial student of Marxism that there was no meeting of minds between Marx and Lenin.

Russia, after the Bolshevik coup and the establishment of state capitalism became a brutal, totalitarian dictatorship. The fact that that its new ruling class exploited the working class through its political power instead of economic power meant that the workers were denied the protection of independent organisations such as trade unions or political organisations.

The western media, particularly oblivious to the implications of communism even as defined sometimes in their dictionaries, frequently drew attention to the poverty of the Russian workers. Conversely, and correctly, it also drew attention to the privileged and opulent lifestyles of the "communist" bosses. The same media, apparently without any sense of contradiction, was telling the public in the western world what the "Communist"-controlled media were telling workers in the Russian empire: that Russia represented the Marxian concept of a "classless" society.

The litmus test of the existence of "communism" for western journalists was recognition of the claim, by a state or a political party, that is was either "socialist" or "communist". Similar claims by such states and parties to be "democratic" was never given the slightest credibility. It might be argued that those who rejected the "democratic" claim knew a little about democracy whereas they appear to know nothing whatsoever about socialism.

The contradiction between the views of Marx and Lenin set out above relate to fundamental issues. Inevitably, however, they formed the basis for numerous other conflicts of opinion between Marxism and Leninism. In the light of these basic contradictions, it is absurd and dishonest to claim that there is any compatibility between Marx's concept of a free, democratic socialist society and the brutal state capitalism espoused by Lenin. Journalists, especially, should be in no doubt about the interests they serve when they promulgate the lie that Marxism or socialism exists anywhere in the world.

Richard Montague

Political Parties and the Workers (1942)

From the May 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The two decades which separate the last war from the present were crowded with events which left their mark on the working-class and its political outlook. The sorry spectacle of the so-called "2nd International" of the workers, i.e., the Labour parties, splitting up into recruiting agencies for their respective national capitalisms, broke the spell for many who had hitherto accepted these organisations as "genuine Socialists."

The Russian revolution and the emergence of "Communist parties" raised working-class hopes anew, only to dash them to the ground as the true character of the Bolshevik regime and its puppet organisations revealed itself through actions and policies that aroused bitter criticism and disillusionment in many working-class quarters.

The inability of seemingly powerful and well-entrenched Labour and Communist parties in Germany and elsewhere to prevent the triumph of political reaction was another bitter pill to swallow. Before the outbreak of the present conflict the sole pre-occupation of these erstwhile "dynamic" parties was to deal with the menace of Fascism; that is, they were reduced to playing the negative role of maintaining the status-quo of capitalist democracy.

The conditions produced by the present world-war have aggravated the sense of working-class political impotence. In Britain, at present one of the few countries with a Labour movement of any importance, former political distinctions are rapidly disappearing as the main parties, bearing governmental responsibilities, are forced by the problems of war to exert ever-increasing pressure on the workers, Labour leaders vie with Conservative and Liberal in demanding more sweat, more blood, more tears. The spectacle of Communists begging votes for Tory admirals, air marshals and such like persons for the sake of "national unity" is a subject of mirth for some, of bewilderment for others. In the meantime, generations of workers are growing to adult and voting age without being able to express their political opinions at elections or feeling the urge of doing so.

 Before the war gives way to Capitalist peace this problem will inevitable become even more intense. Bloody battles are yet to be fought and many lives will be lost; the standards of human existence will deteriorate, and these factors will not contribute to clearer thinking by the workers.

The danger of such conditions is self-evident. Forced to abandon their traditional beliefs and failing to find satisfactory alternatives, the workers become easy prey to demagogy and trickery, and thus the very evil which the war is supposed to eliminate may re-appear as great a menace as hitherto.

This feeling of frustration is shared by comparatively advanced workers and so-called intellectuals. Many of these cultivate a cynicism towards the whole question of political action which does not mask, but accentuates, their uselessness to the cause of Socialism.

This frustration is particularly noticeable in the United States, where distance from the battle zone and comparative immunity from other hardships arising specifically from modern war have induced a state of detachment from present-day problems. The failure of the European working-class movement is attributed not merely to the particular character of existing parties;  the whole traditional belief in parties as such is called into question.

Anton Pannekoek, the Dutch writer on Marxism, states his position in the bluntest of terms. Writing in an American magazine, Modern Socialism, he says:

The belief in parties is the main reason for the impotence of the working-class  . . . because a party is an organisation that aims to lead and control the workers.

Further on, however, he qualifies this statement:

If . . . persons with the same fundamental conceptions (regarding Socialism) unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarifications through discussion and propagandise their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of to-day.

Here Pannekoek himself is not the model of clarity, but he points to a distinction which does not exist.

However, it is not the practice of forming and supporting "parties" which has brought the workers to grief; the failure has come about by the aims and methods of particular organisations, and the membership which they have consequently recruited. Thus, with the exception of the S.P.G.B. and its fellow organisations abroad, all parties constitute themselves as groups of persons seeking power above the workers. That is just as true of Labour and Communist groups as it is of Conservative or Fascist. Though some will proclaim their intentions to abolish the present order in favour of a more equitable one, the main effect will be to replace one ruling clique with another.

A striking illustration is afforded by the Bolshevik seizure of power. The Soviet bureaucracy has formed itself into the new ruling class of Russia, and it is they who order the conditions of life and death of the workers and peasantry.

Only Socialism can guarantee the conditions of a life worth living for all. Because its establishment depends upon an understanding of the necessary social changes by a majority of the population, these changes cannot be left to parties acting apart from or above the workers. The workers cannot vote for Socialism as they do for reformist policies and then go home or go to work and carry on as usual. To put the matter in this way is to show its absurdity.

Socialist ideas are not acquired merely by the experience of hardships and tragedy under capitalism. They must be propagated and learned.

The party of the workers, therefore, cannot be anything less than a Socialist Party; its task, the conversion of the working class to the principles of Socialism. Nor can it at present be much more. It must eschew all the cheap tricks of electioneering and propaganda; whether these consist of open support for capitalism on the plea of "urgent" problems, or a futile appeal for "a Socialist Britain now." Such activities will not bring Socialism any nearer; the workers who support them are only postponing or evading their real responsibility.

That they do so is not due to any evil machinations or secret plots by these power-seeking parties. On the contrary, the existence of these organisations and the popularity of their illusory remedies is conditioned by the inadequacy of working-class political understanding.

So long as the workers do not comprehend the necessity and meaning of a revolutionary social change they will have no choice but to leave their fate in the hands of "parties" and "leaders." With the development of Socialist consciousness (class-conciousness) will come the realisation that they, the workers themselves, must take control of society. Knowing what has to be done will give them the will and assurance needed.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its fellow parties therefore reject all comparison with other political parties. We do not ask for power; we help to educate the working-class itself into taking it.

Sid Rubin   

Splendid anachronism (1988)

Film Review from the April 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Last Emperor is a film about contradictions: the apparent omnipotence of Pu Yi, crowned emperor of China at the age of three and proclaimed "son of heaven" and Lord of Ten Thousand Years", who by the age of six had been forced to abdicate without knowing it and has become a prisoner in his own palace. The contradictory arrogance of a child ruler who is, at the same time, a pathetic anachronism, overtaken by history. And the contradiction of a film that is rich in form but poor in substance.

The director, Bernardo Bertolucci, captures splendidly, the extravagant pomp and ceremony, the lavish but pointless ritual, the richness of costume and location as rank upon rank of luxuriously garbed, sycophantic eunuchs bow and scrape in the courtyard of the Forbidden City before a bored three-year-old more interested in chasing crickets than in his coronation. But, by focusing almost exclusively on the person of the "Last Emperor", Bertolucci fails to address the reasons why this once omnipotent ruler has become a pathetic figurehead, first imprisoned within the palace, then driven out, becoming a puppet emperor of Manchuria with the Japanese ruling class pulling the strings, before finally ending up a prisoner once again, forced to undergo "re-education" in a prison camp prior to his being released to end his days as a gardner.

For, what this film is, perhaps unwittingly, portraying, is the ending of one social order and the ascendancy of a new one with its own ruling class of which the emperor is no longer a part. The imperial excesses and post-imperial agonies are brilliantly evoked. But what we are offered is spectacle, a series of lavish tableaux, with very little insight into the more interesting historical processes that underpin them.

Janie Percy-Smith