What causes Crime? (1967)

From The Changing Face of Crime series from the January 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trying to reduce, or even contain, crime is rather like playing blind man’s buff in a room mined with booby traps. (Rudolf Klein, The Observer, 9.1.66.)

It must be conceded to the world’s do-gooders, champions of the underdog, helpers of lame dogs over stiles. Hope, or whatever it is, springs eternal in their aching breasts. Yet even the most sanguine of reformers has sometimes to admit defeat. One problem which nobody pretends to be able to solve, which everyone agrees resists every attempt to deal with it, is crime.

Of course there are all sorts of theories on the problem and every so often some new legislation, or a new Home Secretary, is welcomed as a step on the road to a solution. Rudolf Klein, in the article from which the sombre sentence above is taken, was enthusiastic about what he hoped for from the present Home Secretary:

It is a dismal prospect for any politician. But if anyone can do it, Mr. Jenkins—with his intellectual honesty and political courage . . .  is the man to carry it off.

So far, the one result of Jenkins' alleged brilliance and courage has been the new Criminal Justice Bill. Nobody seriously thinks that the Bill’s tinkering with court procedure, sentences and police powers will have the slightest effect on the level of crime. But this does not damage Jenkins' reputation.

The great hope for Roy Jenkins was that he is known as a reformer—the sort of Home Secretary to outrage old men in West End clubs by vetoing birching sentences. In a speech to the Press Gallery last June, he said: ,

. . . do not let us for one moment confuse . . .  toughness with a policy of preserving cruel and archaic laws designed, not to protect society, but to enforce . . .  the prejudices or tastes (or lack of taste) of one group of people upon another.

Jenkins was not attacking here the opinions of only those who, on the proceeds of legal robbery, can afford to be members of expensive clubs. The feeling is widely popular, that the way to deal with criminals is to be tough with them—to answer violence with greater violence, to suppress and degrade the robber and the outlaw by long, harsh periods in prison.

Neither side in this dispute can easily defend its arguments. The reason for this was touched on by—if we can be allowed one more quotation from him—Rudolf Klein:

Research . . . suggests that the problem has its roots deep in our society.

Before we discuss how deep the roots, and what sort of society, let us ask—what sort of problem? At the moment, a pretty big one; the number of indictable offences known to the police is now well over a million a year—more than twice as many as in 1948, which was a year deep in the post war crime wave.

The theory of a “wave” of crime, ebbing and flowing, may once have been valid but it cannot apply to the present. From time to time the crime figures may alter slightly; some may be affected by increased police efficiency or by a change in the definition of a crime. But nowadays there is no such thing as a crime “wave”; it is in full flood, and around us all the time.

How do the reformers explain this? Before the war a popular theory was that poverty was to blame, that a man who was out of work would readily steal food for his children. This inadequate explanation kept going until 1939 produced another excuse—unsettled conditions, the feeling that any day might be our last, the fact that millions of fathers were away in the Forces and not instilling in their children a proper respect for the laws of capitalism.

Then the war ended and the men came home and the crime figures soared. The reformers were ready; what, they asked, could we expect in the aftermath of a mighty war? Everything would be alright when we settled down again.

Twenty years after 1945, we may be assumed to have settled down but the criminal still runs riot, more wildly, more scientifically than ever and often with an attention to organisation which would be welcome in many a board room. The latest theory is that the “affluent” society we are supposed to be living in is to blame—that we are all so idle and bored, surrounded by washing machines and television sets and travelling everywhere in plush cars that we build up a massive frustration which must somehow be relieved, even if it means coshing an old lady on the way to collect her pension. Learned sociologists lecture on the essential inner rottenness of “affluence”, while the rest of us look at the crime graph going up and up and wonder what the next theory will be.

What are the roots of crime? People who have known the relaxed living in the countryside where nobody thinks of latching a door, let alone locking it, might be excused for blaming it ail onto urban life. Certainly crime flourishes in the big cities and anyone who knows London's East End, or Glasgow, or Liverpool, has probably had some direct, personal evidence of this. The cities grew up because of the industrial and communication needs of developing capitalism, which threw masses of people into concentrated living and, inevitably, into festering slums where life was hard and which bred hard, ruthless attitudes to it.

Many of these slums still stand, with little prospect of being destroyed in the near future, it is not difficult to appreciate that the people who are tough enough to survive in them are tough enough to live by crime. But this again is only part of the story; crime flourishes also on the new estates, in the post war towns and the overspill areas which have not yet had the time to become slums.

We are digging, now, a little deeper and perhaps it is time to ask what we mean by crime. In 1964, of 1,066,467 indictable offenders known to the police, 940,848—over 88 per cent —went under the heading of Breaking and Entering, Robbery and Larceny. In 1965 the number of indictable offences had gone up to 1,133,882 and the percentage was about the same. In other words, the vast majority of crimes are committed against property, a conclusion expressed in a lecture in June 1964 by Professor Leon Radzinowicz, Director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology:

Ninety six per cent of all our crime consists of offences against property and nearly three quarters is straightforward larceny.

When we talk about crime, then, we are really talking about a particular type of offence, although it is usually the other sort—horrifying murders or sexual offences—which make the headlines and capture the public's attention. And since property is a social relationship it follows that any change in the form of property will be reflected in changes in the form of crimes against it

On a small scale, an example of this is the fact that since before the war the number of thefts from unattended motor cars has increased sixfold, while the number of bicycles stolen has only doubled. On a large scale, an example is that coups like the Great Train Robbery, and most types of blackmail and false pretences, are designed to get ready money—something which only becomes desirable in a developed capitalist economy where money is a dominant means of exchange.

Killing, and what are known as offences against the person, are sometimes connected with crimes against property. In other cases they are quite unconnected—the blind and motiveless acts of sick minds. Here, probably, we are down to the irreducible level of offences, which any human society must suffer and deal with.

Let us be clear that Socialism, a humane social system, will approach this problem uncluttered by the property obsessions and the vengeful philosophies of capitalism. It will, also, be free of capitalism's anomaly, that some killers are treated as heroes—provided they do it in a military uniform.

If, then, crime is mainly a matter of offences against property it must follow that to remove property is to end crime. This argument may not appeal to some of the religious, nor to the legal sadists who dabble in theories of original sin and who are hot for vengeance against anyone who fails to stand firm against temptation. Revenge is a sterile business, best left to the seekers after eternal morality. We are concerned with human society, and with its welfare.

The abolishing of private property society, and with it the end of crime, will bring massive benefits. It will remove the inequalities which are the very incentive to crime and violence. It will give society the chance to treat sick minds for what they are instead of regarding them as candidates for damnation.

Those people who, not having been born into the capitalist class, try to make a fortune by robbing a bank are social outcasts. There is no cure for them in property society. Whatever the reformers try, they cannot solve the problem. In The Courage Of His Convictions, the hardened and perceptive criminal Robert Allerton is quite clear on this point; cruelty, he says, is not the answer to the criminal and, although there may be more hope in it, neither is kindness.

We are back, now, at the roots. The criminal scene is a confusion of violence, desperation and muddled, futile reformers. The remedy for it all is at the roots of society and the only hope is in a basic social change. But there is much ignorance standing between us and that. And among it is the criminal, upon whom so much thought is lavished, so many statistics compiled, so much ink expended—the criminal who is observed, analysed and experimented upon—and who in his own way is as hearty a supporter of capitalism as the most respectable and law-abiding house agent’s clerk.

The clerk dreams of sudden promotion, or of winning the pools. The crook waits and watches for the big tickle. They are both caught in the same net of ignorance, and they both need each other to get themselves free.

Ivan. 

Crime in History (1967)

From The Changing Face of Crime series from the January 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Standards of good or bad behaviour, within a society, are by no means constant. In fact they vary enormously from age to age, and within different societies in a particular age. This is even more applicable to those actions, forbidden by law, that are known as crimes.

Crime is usually defined as “an act prohibited and punishable by law.” No matter how revolting or dangerous an action may be, it is not legally a crime unless covered by a law that prohibits it, and prescribes a punishment for it. However in popular usage the words crime and criminal are used to describe actions that are anti-social, regardless of their legality. This is quite understandable, as throughout history most criminals have been a pretty brutal and heartless lot. The fact that many of them were driven to crime did not make them any more likeable. The Robin Hood type of legend, popular throughout the world, has never had much basis in fact. So that when we are discussing crime, it is as well to get the definition right.

This is not just being pedantic, as a glance at the history of crime will show. Even within a particular age there are great variations. For example, where prohibition exists, to take a drink becomes a crime and the production and sale of liquor carries heavy penalties. But all of this is quite legal and harmless elsewhere. Again laws on such things as homosexuality, blasphemy, gambling and adultery, to name just a few, are completely different from country to country, and even, in a Federal Union like the USA, from State to State.

When we compare one age to another this is even more obvious. Many actions that once carried the death penalty, and were regarded as the wickedest in the calendar, are no longer illegal and often not taken seriously. Witchcraft, once a capital offence that brought torture and death to countless people, is no longer taken seriously. Any legal action that is taken in the matter now is usually associated with alleged fraud. Heresy, atheism and Trade Union activities, once either capital or transportation offences, are no longer illegal in most states.

On the other hand many things once considered harmless or even praiseworthy, are now serious crimes. The Election practices of the Georgians would today land all concerned in gaol for a long period and the kind of satire that slams like a sledge hammer from the cartoons of Gillray and Rowlandson would now be considered criminal libel. On a grimmer note, the ceremonial torturing of animals, like throwing live cats from the belfry at Ypres, would bring heavy, and popular sentences. An even greater crime—the kidnapping, enslaving, buying and selling of human beings— known as the slave trade was once, not very long ago, an honoured profession. Perhaps the most important change of attitude, since, the coming of capitalism, is the increased importance of private property. Crimes against private property bring forth as great, if not greater penalties as crimes against people.

In the early days of Capitalism when each group was struggling for a foothold, and when enterprising but murderous characters were clawing their way into power, the line between criminal and legal action was very thin. One of the great Capital offences of the 19th century was Piracy on the High Seas. But piracy had not always been taken so seriously. The Privateer was a private person commissioned by a government to capture enemy ships, and was behaving quite legally. The pirate, on the other hand, was an outlaw. Drake and Grenville were privateers, while Morgan and Leech were pirates, but it is difficult to see any basic difference in their actions.

Earlier governments had tolerated, and even encouraged, piracy against their rivals and taken some of the proceeds. A successful pirate could always buy a pardon, and settle down in his home country. Morgan, one of the cruellest and unprincipled of pirate captains, received a hero’s welcome in England, and was received by Charles II. He died wealthy and respectable.

By the 19th century British, French and American capitalists dominated the trade routes of the world. They wanted settled conditions in which to operate. Pirates were ruthlessly hunted down and executed. These same Capitalists had used corruption, bribery and the plunder of ancient civilisations to fill their coffers and help finance their more orthodox enterprises. The Great Train Robbers were the descendants of these freebooters of the past. The aim was the same, to acquire wealth quickly and then become “respectable.” But unfortunately for the Train Robbers they came two hundred years too late. Modern Capitalism does not want this kind of action, and emphasises its point with 30 year sentences. Settled conditions are needed and corruption, theft and fraud are crushed whenever they can be detected.

Now what about proletarian criminals, the ones that stole the copper, while the others stole the gold? To be condemned to hang for stealing a handkerchief, by a judge or magistrate whose family wealth had come from piracy, the plunder of Bengal, or from slave produced West Indian sugar was, to use a current slang expression, a bit thick. But that was the fate of many.

The economic revolution of the Tudors, with its galloping inflation, agricultural unemployment and enclosures, drove more and more people on to the roads. They swelled the ranks of the sturdy beggars who roamed in search of subsistence. They flocked to London and settled in hovels in and around the town. Crime was often the only trade open to them. Penalties became increasingly brutal; flogging, branding and mutilation, as well as hanging, were extensively used. Not that the victims got much sympathy from their more fortunate brethren. Public executions had a high entertainment value, and provided an instructional day out for the kiddies. 

Much more profitable was the use of criminals as a source of cheap labour. The 17th century saw more extensive use of transportation to the colonies. The plantations and farms of North America and the West Indies cried out for cheap labour. Magistrates and judges were always ready to commute a death sentence to one of transportation, for a reasonable consideration.

The 18th century was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and new methods of agriculture, with the inevitable enclosures. People continued to pour into the towns but industrialisation was not proceeding fast enough to absorb all of them. London and the growing towns became crammed with people with no legal source of income. They crowded into the most appalling slums—the infamous Rookeries—and lived as best they could. Mayhew, writing in the next century when the situation had eased somewhat, described the pathetic means by which people sought to grub a living. Crime was one of the most obvious ways. In fact successful crime and successful prostitution were about the only means of climbing out of this hell into a more civilised existence, but not many made it.

Meanwhile industrialisation, and the exploitation of the new Empire, brought increased prosperity to the more fortunate section of the population. This led to an increase in crimes against property. The growth of the banking system led to more legislation against forgery, while the expansion of trade caused increased concern over adulteration of goods. The terrible state of the roads, and the inefficiency of the Post Office, gave rise to the highwayman, whose main occupation was robbing the post boys. A programme of road building and fast, well armed mail coaches largely ended this situation, but the growth of commerce and shipping led to organised raiding of ships in the Thames.

The ruling class struck back with renewed savagery, supported up to the hilt by the law abiding citizens. The 18th century saw a surplus of labour in Britain, and there was no use for convict labour at home, so more people were hanged or transported. The Continental countries had built up modern police forces, but Britain’s police were inefficient and corrupt. The British ruling class feared the development of a Police State, and refused to reorganise their own police. Instead they developed what became known as “Britain’s Bloody Code.” Over 200 offences were punishable by death, and many more by transportation.

The loss of the American Colonies upset the practice of transportation, and led to the establishment of the notorious prison hulks. These were old battleships, moored mainly in the Thames, and run by private enterprise. These ships were bad even by the standards of existing prisons. They were a “temporary” measure which lasted eighty years.

The 19th century saw the development of the world we know today. The Capitalist class were firmly in the saddle, and with them came Capitalist morality. There has probably never, before or since, been such an age of reform as the Victorian. It was the age of the rise of the Trades Union and the working class movements. When changes came they came with amazing rapidity, in thirty years the number of capital offences fell from over 200 to four. More important, the Capitalists began to realise that the worker with a terraced house, a piano in the front room, and pretensions to support, made a more docile and efficient slave than the products of degradation in the Rookeries.

Les Dale

Castro: Latin American Nationalist (2017)

From the January 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 26 November Fidel Castro, one of the oldest dictators in Latin America, died. The announcement of his death was made by his brother Raul Castro on state television. His death was celebrated by the opponents of the government of Cuba in Miami in Florida, and it was also taken as sad news by many of the Latin America Leftists and supporters of the Cuban regime.

In 1959 Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara were part of an armed rebellion which provoked the overthrow of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, a government backed by the US for several years. Then, part of the ruling elite of Cuba shifted toward the support of the guerrillas who were fighting in the Sierra Maestra against the Cuban military forces.

After their victory, Fidel Castro and the Communist Party of Cuba initiated the nationalization of all the US holdings and assets, and all private land was taken over by the state. The US declared an embargo on the island.

Castro declared himself a ‘Marxist-Leninist’ and entered a relationship with the Soviet Union, and established a form of state capitalism like the one established by the Bolsheviks, and called it socialism. In a country where agriculture prevailed over industrial production, sugar was the main production that existed in the whole country, and most of the workers were peasants and did not have any socialist consciousness. The level of illiteracy was high in the rural areas of the country. The economic backwardness was as in most of the countries of Latin America

After the defeat of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs which was financed by the US and backed by the CIA, and, at the peak of the Cold War period after the 1962 missile crisis during the government of John F Kennedy in the USA, and Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union, an accord of no intervention was signed between the US and the Soviet Union.

Several social and economic reform programmes were implemented such as state-run medical services, public transportation, and public education. A large programme of education was initiated throughout the country,  

A long period of stagnation, poverty, and scarcity began. While the government blamed this on the embargo imposed by the US, they never recognized that so-called socialism in one country was an impossibility and that despite collaboration with the Soviet Union, which also proclaimed itself a socialist country, the economic laws of capitalism prevailed in the country. Most of the followers of Cuban ‘socialism’ in Latin America blamed Cuba’s problems simply on the US embargo, and never recognized the class character of the ruling elite, and the economical exploitation of the Cuban workers.

For many years, the Latin American left proclaimed Fidel Castro as the leader and commander in chief of the Cuban revolution, and a bastion of socialism in that region where many guerrilla groups were financed by Cuba on behalf of the Soviet Union during the period of the Cold War. Most of those groups were defeated by the military forces of several Latin American countries.

The whole region of Latin America is a clear indication that socialism cannot be established by a small group of armed individuals. The great majority of the class-conscious-less workers never gave support to any of these groups, including the guerrillas of Manolo Tavarez Justo, and the invasion of Francisco Caamano in the Dominican Republic, who at the end did not obtain the support of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Government. In the same manner Che Guevara did not receive any support from the Communist Party of Bolivia.

Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia trying to obtain the support of the peasants to carry out the same revolt that took place in Cuba in 1959, and the guerrillas that accompanied him were killed or imprisoned. Within the Cuban leadership he was the only one who verbally advocated a moneyless society but after the Fidelista guerrillas took power he became the Minister of Commerce, and he was in charge of the Central Bank of Cuba, which contradicted his aspiration for a socialist society without money.

Despite their socialist and Marxist rhetoric and phraseology none of the leaders of the Cuban revolution including Fidel Castro ever had a real conception of what a socialist society should be. Most of the speeches and writings of Fidel Castro show that he was an apologist of Latin American Nationalism and later representative of the struggle of the Latin American capitalist class to liberate themselves from the influence of the US capitalist, like Domingo Peron in Argentina, and Ernesto Cardenas in Mexico, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

The case of Cuba is a living example of what the Socialist Party and the companion parties of the World Socialist Movement have indicated for many years, which is that socialism cannot be established in one single country, and that it must be established in a world scale by the vast socialistically conscious majority of the workers, and that socialism cannot be established in an economical backward society to be a free access society. That is the reason why the Cuban regime had to initiate a rationing programme with the excuse to create equality among the workers, while the ruling elite enjoyed all kinds of privileges and benefits.

Marcos.

Good work in Manchester (1950)

Party News from the August 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the visit of the Provincial Propagandist to Manchester, our outdoor propaganda increased, from what could be described as a struggle to express ourselves, to a point whence from day to day the case for Socialism was put before the workers of Manchester. Our main speaking site is in the centre of the city and for a change, the workers who usually spend their staggered lunch hours listening to street traders and strong arm men, heard the party’s case, acquired useful political knowledge and were made to realise how little they really understood the world in which they live. After a week or two on this site, the laughs which greeted our attempts to expound Socialism, the arguments that we were utopian dreamers, or too advanced, began to change, the audience were interested, discussions became lively and questions began to show that our case was being thought about and that the literature sales were having effect. The importance of this site should not be under estimated as these lunch hour meetings served workers from all the suburbs of Manchester. In addition to these excellent meetings and others which were held on our normal sites, the large industrial concern of Metropolitan Vickers was given a treat, speaking sites which had gone in to disuse owing to lack of speaking strength, were again opened up with success, efforts were made to revive Eccles. where, although the audiences were small, literature sales were good and it was thought that given time a reasonably good hearing could be obtained. One Sunday evening, one could hear the case for Socialism being expounded in Eccles. a bus ride into Manchester the same thing was happening, and again on the other side of the city, in Platt Fields, this vital propaganda was in progress. It really did seem that the workers would waken up under such bombardment. As an experiment Liverpool was tried on a Saturday afternoon and the large audiences of 300 to 500 and literature sales of approximately 14/- gave promise for the near future.

In all 50 meetings were held including two indoors, one of which was held to round off the month’s propaganda. £8 of literature was disposed of, including 32 dozen Standards, and collections, which were not often taken, amounted to £2 15s. Od. There is no question on the grounds of literature sales and though it is hard to measure to what extent socialist knowledge was acquired by people hitherto unfamiliar with our case, we certainly upset the Labour Party supporters and the Stalin idolisers and even the religious meetings increased to combat the dreadful spread of materialism. If anything, a month is far too short, but the least we of the Manchester branch can do is to make every effort to continue with the excellent work put in by the part time organisers. That along with our new methods of door to door canvassing, which is showing excellent results will, we hope, bring into being new branches in this area and help to fill in those blank spaces between here and London.

A. G. Atkinson.

Propaganda Organiser.

Manchester Branch.

Interpreting Shakespeare (1950)

Book Review from the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

New books on the life, works and ideas of Shakespeare are continually added to the enormous literature on the subject. Recent additions have included Ivor Brown's "Shakespeare," Duff-Cooper's “Sergeant Shakespeare" (in which it is suggested that be must have served in the army to have gained his familiarity with military matters), and a reprint of Hesketh Pearson's lively and entertaining "Shakespeare" that Ivor Brown catalogues under the heading "Imaginative.” Pearson seeks to interpret Shakespeare’s writings in the light of political and other happenings at the time, and of Shakespeare's likely reactions to them. Writing during the recent war when, as Pearson puts it, the world had before its eyes in the persons of Hitler, Mussolini, etc., a large number of modem Julius Caesars. Pearson claims that Shakespeare, with a similar example to study at first hand in Queen Elizabeth, had a much better understanding of Caesar and of all dictators than is shown by G. B. Shaw in his idealised version of the ancient Roman dictator.

But for Socialists a much more profitable study is "Shakespeare—A Marxist Interpretation,” a short work by A. A. Smirnov, translated from the Russian and published in 1937 by the “Critics Group” (96, Fifth Avenue. New York).

Smirnov set out to relate Shakespeare's views to the basic economic and political changes and class struggles taking place in the 16th century.

He argues alike against those who see Shakespeare as "the ideologist of the feudal aristocracy” as against those who see him as "the ideologist of that section of the nobility which was acquiring bourgeois trappings.” To Smirnov, “Shakespeare was the humanist ideologist of the bourgeoisie, the exponent of the program advanced by them, when, in the name of humanity. they first challenged the feudal order, but which they later disavowed ” (Pages 92 and 93). According to this interpretation, which Smirnov supports with many quotations from the plays, Shakespeare in the early years portrayed in a favourable light the absolutist monarchy needed by rising Capitalism as a protection against the warring feudal barons. Later, that need became less urgent, the Monarchy and Court degenerated and leaned towards feudal reaction, and at the same time the narrow Puritan group emerged as a representation of capitalist interests and outlook.

Then Shakespeare, who was particularly antagonised by the Puritan hostility to the theatre, found himself, like other "humanists,” faced with the dilemma of the contrast between early bourgeois ideals and the sordid money-grubbing of the bourgeois way of life. To some extent he then "surrendered his former position and yielded to the taste of the reactionary aristocracy which held such triumphant sway over the London stage in 1610.” (P. 85.)

The evidence adduced by Smirnov is necessarily partly speculative and may or may not convince the reader; but those who follow his argument will at any rate appreciate that here is a serious study worth many of the more usual superficial interpretations.

It is not made clear whether Smirnov is, or was. a supporter of the Stalin regime in Russia and he wrote very guardedly when expressing dissent from views on Shakespeare held by some Soviet writers. But one of his tributes to Shakespeare would certainly now give offence to Stalin worshippers. He praises Shakespeare for having had the insight to realise "three centuries before the appearance of scientific history,” that the battle of Agincourt was not won by “a little group of well-born heroes, but by the English soldiers.” If Shakespeare lived in Russia now and wrote plays dealing with the war he would have to reshape his ideas and become a groveller. He would have to pay slavish tribute to "the great leader and supreme commander of genius. Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. Stalin." “the greatest man of our planet." "creator of Soviet military science.” etc., etc.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Abyss revisited (1950)

From the January 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the beginning of the century a young American writer came to the slums of London in search of experience. In the guise of a tramp he spent many months amidst the filth and squalor that thousands of people knew as home. The writer was Jack London, and his researches led to the publication of the “People of the Abyss.” If anybody doubts, or seeks more evidence of the vile foundations upon which present-day society is based he need go no farther than this small volume. It is not pleasant reading.

Many people would read it merely as history. The bad old days. They would tell you that poverty is a thing of the past. The “philanthropic” Tories, the “bluff generous Liberals, and the newly powerful Labour Party, with Beadle Bevan well to the fore, would all agree with them, and argue among themselves as to who was responsible for removing this evil. Maybe we would take sides in this squabble, but first of all we must be sure that the evil has actually been removed.

In spite of all its anomalies and contradictions the capitalist system does comply with certain economic laws. As the mass of wealth produced by the working-class increases, due to revisions and improvements in the means and methods of production, greater skill is required from the working-class. This means a rise in the cost of production of a worker. In order for him to reproduce his mental and physical energies he must consume increasing amounts of food, clothing, shelter, entertainment and education. Many examples of this can be gleaned from contemporary history. Hundreds of natives of Africa who a few years ago were eking a bare living from the soil are to-day employed in Strachey’s ground nut scheme, with the result that they now require those social conditions befitting a labourer, lorry driver or mechanic. Where to-day is the Indian factory worker who can exist upon a daily handful of rice? In other words, as the mountain of commodities increases, the molehill returned to the workers in the form of wages and salaries does grow also. Consequently the poverty of an electric, near atomic era is very different from an era of gas power wherein the internal combustion engine was no more than a daring experiment.

Yet such social derelicts as Jack London describes still doze upon the walls of Spitalfields Churchyard and they are not all old. Some carry young babies and openly feed them. You see them scrounging around the fruit and vegetable market in search of discarded “specks” and fag ends. Occasionally they come to blows over the division of their spoils and are carted off for 28 days in the comparative comfort of Wormwood Scrubs. The well-meaning self-satisfied social busybody points out that they could enter institutions and be well cared-for. It is easy to say but these people are suffering from more than material poverty. Years spent in such conditions have made their mark upon their minds. All self-respect has gone. Beer, cheap port or even methylated spirits are the peaks of their ambitions.

The streets are narrow and between the houses are tailoring sweat shops. The clatter of the machines, the hissing of the steam presses, the discordant singing of the girls pour from the windows. Now is the “season” and many of these places exhibit notices offering attractive conditions of work. After Christmas they will disappear and work will be scarce. At 12 or 1 o'clock the girls come out. They are young and dressed not in gay but gawdy clothes, their pallid faces over-decorated with paint and powder, their nails highly varnished (but notice the work-worn hands). The greyness of their surroundings gives them an uncontrolled desire for colour. Their one topic of conversation is men.

For marriage seems their only form of escape. And what an escape! See the places wherein they live and breed—the vast prison blocks of the Peabody Estate and other such organisations. See the women on their balconies with sagging breasts and distended stomachs, old before their time. See the market places—Wentworth Street, Brick Lane or Mile End Waste—where they haggle with the vendors. See the schools wherein their kids are trained to replace them in the factories and mills. Many of these places were destroyed by bombs. In their place rise the slums of 10 years time.

To-day employment conditions are fairly good and the majority of capable men and women are in work. The many public houses are doing well. “Why aren’t they saving for a rainy day?” screeches the social nosey-parker. Why? If these people had a little less self-righteousness and a little more commonsense the answer would be clear. The people of the abyss have forever lived in poverty, spending literally years plodding from factory to factory and then back to the labour exchanges for a few bob to tide them over. As children, youths and then as parents they have always had to scrimp and save to keep body and soul together. Is it then not natural that when a few extra shillings come their way they are going to enjoy those things which to their limited horizons appear as luxuries.

Such conditions must obviously affect the ideas of those who suffer them. As the previous paragraph demonstrates, their general attitude is one of “ here today and gone to-morrow.” Always must they live from hand to mouth. Their kids are not ill-treated, but left from an early age to fight the battle of life for themselves. They become precocious and unwilling to respect the “sanctity” of private property. They learn to steal, fiddle and avoid the law. Many find their way into the juvenile courts, to approved schools, Borstal institutions and thence to prisons as habitual offenders.

Politically they are easy meat for the opportunists. Many of them, especially among the Jewish community are attracted by the subtle propaganda and glib promises of the Communist Party. Since the war the familiar “flash and circle” has reappeared upon the walls as the Fascist Movement with its vicious anti-Semitic nonsense, has crept back on to the scene. To support such organisations as these is an outlet for their emotions, a means of hitting out at something. Consequently we have seen the battles at Ridley Road.

Yet in spite of all these obstacles there are oases in this desert where man’s natural love of beauty can rise to the surface. On the windowsills of the tenements’ window boxes filled to capacity bloom and are tended with loving care. Queues of work-worn men and women wait outside the Whitechapel Gallery or the People’s Palace to experience works of art. See them in the evenings, still in their working clothes, hurrying to and from the public libraries.

A contradiction? Not at all. Here again capitalism shows itself as its own gravedigger. As the system becomes more involved we have seen how necessary it is for the workers to receive more “education." In itself this is nothing, but in widening the worker's horizon its effect is colossal. He becomes ever more aware of the world in which he lives and how it operates. The fallacies become more apparent, and slowly, the solution more clear.

For these are the producers. I have spoken of London because it is within my own experience, but with very little modification these conditions prevail in every industrial area throughout the capitalist world. Those who are the most useful suffer the worst conditions. But it is a temporary state. All over the world a wind is rising, a wind that will eventually destroy capitalism and its festering sores forever. Hasten the day!

Ronald.

Fact from Fiction (1950)

Book Review from the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Novelists and story writers create fictional characters, but, unless these characters are to appear ludicrous, they must be portrayed against a background of the social conditions of the period and part of the world that is the scene of the story. The characters must eat, dress, play and behave in the manner of their time, their country and their class. They must live in buildings and travel by the transport facilities available in their day and to those of their social status. Thus, the writer of fiction can present us with a picture of living conditions in different parts of the world at varying periods of history. The more correctly he describes the living conditions, the more real will his characters appear and the better will be his work. He that sets the story in the conditions in which he himself lives has a simplified task.

Vera Fiodorovna Panova is a Russian authoress who writes of her own times. She has received official Russian awards and prizes and for her first novel she received the Stalin Prize of 10,000 roubles. In 1948 there was published in Russia her second novel entitled “Kruzhilika.” This has now been translated into English and is published by Putnam & Co. under the title “The Factory." The blurb on the jacket of the book says, “Obviously it has to be reckoned with in any portrayal of Soviet life."

The story has no plot to be cunningly unfolded. It is simply a series of interlinking scenes of everyday life in Russia, centred around a factory. Naturally, in such a setting, the majority of the characters are workers and it is mighty interesting to learn how they live.

In the early pages of the book we are treated to a view of a meeting of the “town party executive,” where most of the time is taken by a trade union official who complains that the factory directors do not allow the Trade Union to play a sufficiently important part in the affairs of the factory. The main function of the Trade Union appears to be to assist in improving production, suggesting technical improvements, and complaining because ”. . .  the director does not pay enough attention to the voice of the masses.”

The factory director lives a vastly different life from that lived by the factory workers. The following extract from pages 257-258 illustrates. The director, Listopad, is driving around the town in his car because he wants to think about his new girl friend. The car is driven by Mirzoev (Akhmet), his chauffeur.

“The car glided softly up the steep street, swam up to the turning into the high road and dashed away from the settlement. A tram was climbing up the street very slowly, it seemed to be standing still; a small tram with people clinging to it—those who lived in the settlement and worked in the town—returning home. If a man worked in the town, thought Listopad, he ought to live in the town. Only those who worked in the factory ought to live in the settlement. Otherwise they had to go through this misery twice a day—waiting a long time in the frost, crowding on the steps, hands freezing as they hung on the rail."

Listopad then goes on to soliloquise about the housing shortage and ” . . . these hideous brick cubes with two hundred flats in each and five stories without a lift.” Then his thoughts come back to his girl friend and the prospects of having her in the car with him. He speaks to his driver;

"Akhmet.”
Mirzoev turned to the director.
“ Tell Averkiev to get me another car rug. A good one—wolfskin."

All the characters in this book are interesting. There is the demobbed soldier who returns home, gets married. spends his gratuity and then has to sell some of his old clothes in the market to raise enough money to get a meal. In the market we meet the usual marketplace patter, sales talk and trickery.

We read the troubles of the Trade Union collector who has the week’s subscriptions stolen from his pocket in a tram. He borrows from friends and relatives to make up the money, and.

" . . . from then on, three-quarters of hit earnings went to pay off what he owed. The remaining quarter was not sufficient even for the barest necessities and be got heavier and heavier behind."

We are given a picture of the workers spending their Sundays digging their small allotments in order to grow potatoes to help eke out their wages. They make the day a family outing, taking sandwiches for dinner. We also read of the young factory worker who was awarded a bonus of 19,000 roubles for special work one month. With that money he left the job, to the great annoyance of the factory chiefs who regretted the loss of so useful a worker, so good a pace setter. This incident suggests to us that the Russian State chiefs found it more beneficial to give medals and diplomas for exceptional work.

Whilst reading this book one is struck by the idea that, except for the climate, the vodka and the queer sounding names, this is a story of workers in any part of the world. Despite the claims of the Communist Party and their supporters, it appears that the lot of the Russian worker during the years 1945 to 1948 differed but little from that of workers in other countries. They were poor, overworked and ill-housed, just as the victims of capitalism the world over. Like good patriots they sacrificed for the war effort and they hated German workers like hell. The voice of Joe Stalin over the radio is received like the voice of the Pope by a devout Catholic. The State is their religion. They work till they drop for their church and their Pope—and their wages.

W. Waters

Editorial: Out of the nightmare (1981)

Illustration accompanying the original editorial.

Editorial from the December 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s been happening in the world this year? Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or injured in wars; some of these we’ve read about in newspapers or seen on television screens; others, in Eritrea, Timor or Cambodia have been ignored or forgotten about. Many more hundreds of thousands of people, in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America, have been fleeing from these wars and filling the world’s refugee camps. Tens of thousands of people have been arrested, tortured or murdered. Millions of people (about 30 million) have died of starvation and many millions more have been left so weak from undernourishment that irreversible damage has been caused to their mental and physical faculties. Millions of children, from Thailand and South Korea to Africa and South America have worked in semi-slavery and under conditions that defy description.

It has to be admitted that none of this is new. Equally horrific things have taken place at other times in human history. But the difference today is that, for the first time, these scourges could be eliminated. Famine, torture, disease and war need no longer plague the human race. There could be enough food, shelter, clothing and other things to satisfy everyone’s needs the world over. Much infectious illness could be a thing of the past everywhere. Wars are popular with virtually no one and most people would like nothing better than to see all the inhabitants of the earth live in peace together.

Yet nearly all of us, without knowing it, give our support to and help perpetuate the very things we find unacceptable. We endorse the poverty, hunger, cruelty and warfare that blight humanity. We do it every time we express support for the big political parties, every time we vote for them. Because all of these parties stand for the continuation of a world system of which poverty, hunger, cruelty and warfare are an integral part. They stand for a system that will only produce goods when there is a profit to be made and which can never therefore hope to put food in the belly or clothes on the back of people who have no cash to pay for it. And when profits can’t be made, even goods that have already been produced aren’t given to needy people. They’re stored, burned, dumped or buried - anything else would “upset the market”. So large ‘gluts’ of food and other goods are produced in some parts of the world while millions go starving or undernourished elsewhere. All the big parties say they are opposed to this, but they are all committed to administering the system that makes it happen.

The big parties also say they are opposed to war. But when it comes to it, they all accept war and prepare for it. They give encouragement or help to one side or the other in bloody conflicts taking place in other parts of the globe. They insist that they themselves must have ready the best and most sophisticated weapons in order to “protect the country”. But when we consider that, in all countries, the vast majority of the wealth is owned by a tiny minority of the population, we can see who is getting the best deal from “protection”. Wars break out - as a nuclear war could break out — when the economic interests of this wealth-owning minority (their markets, trade routes and sources of raw materials) are threatened and their profits are endangered. And then the only protection ordinary people get is to be told to fight and die for the country. The protection that even civilian populations get is derisory. As many modern examples have shown, they suffer death, misery and destruction on a large scale.

How then do we go about not supporting poverty, famine, disease and war? The answer is to take a long hard look at the world around us, to see that all attempts to improve the nightmare system of production for profit are futile, and to join a vigorous democratic movement determined to replace it by the society of abundance, equality and security which is there for the taking. But it can only be taken when a majority of men and women use their votes not to elect leaders who promise to run things for them but send to the seats of political power democratically elected delegates from a mass socialist party who are committed to one thing and one thing only the abolition of the outdated system of money, wages, profit and buying and selling and the bringing in of a new, truly humane society which will produce only for people’s needs and will make full rational democratic use of the abundant resources of planet earth.

The Passing Show: Censured (1962)

The Passing Show column from the June 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Censured

In the May Socialist Standard was reprinted part of an article on the Titanic disaster from the May 1912, issue. It recalled some of the unsavoury details of the tragedy—the desperate rush (in order to attract the rich transatlantic passengers) to break speed records for the crossing, which resulted in an insufficient look-out being kept; the much higher proportion of first-class than steerage passengers rescued; the officer who kept steerage passengers from the lifeboat with his revolver; and so on. Now another significant piece of evidence has come to light.

As the Titanic went down, many of those on board clearly saw a ship which made no attempt to come to the rescue. Afterwards, it was found that the liner Californian had been in the vicinity at the time of the Titanic's collision with an iceberg. At the subsequent enquiry the captain of this ship was censured for not going to the help of the Titanic, although he maintained to the end that he had never seen the Titanic's distress rockets.

Under observation

Now the general secretary of the Mercantile Marine Service Association has claimed that it was the Norwegian ship Samson which saw the Titanic in distress at less than 10 miles range. But (according to a recent Norwegian TV broadcast, quoting the Samson's chief officer) this ship, which could have given invaluable assistance, then steamed away.

Why did it do that? Why did the captain and crew of the Samson so deny their common humanity with the crew and passengers of the Titanic as to leave 1,635 men, women and children to drown?

They steamed away "because they had been engaged in illegal seal hunting operations, and thought they were under observation by the American authorities.”

Having broken Capitalism's laws, they feared punishment' by the Capitalist state authorities. As so often happens, Capitalism forced these men to stifle their pity, and behave without compassion.

The whole Titanic episode, in fact, seems to offer a microcosm of the workings of Capitalist society.

Confidence

Even for the Capitalists Fascism has its drawbacks. It makes wartime propaganda, about the defence of freedom, and so on, even more difficult to put across than it is in the democracies; and it is an expensive system—the secret police have to be paid, and to keep even one political prisoner in jail costs many pounds a week. So while the Fuhrers and Duces and Caudillos of Fascism strut vaingloriously on their balconies and puff out their chests before their gigantic rallies, each one knows at the back of his mind that he is there because he is doing a job for his ruling class.

Which is why General Francisco Franco, Caudillo of Spain, must be a worried man just now.

In Asturias 30,000 miners have come out on a pay strike. Franco has had to proclaim a state of emergency covering Asturias and the Basque provinces of Vizcaya and Guipuzcoa, where several thousand more workers have gone on strike. Altogether, more than 50,000 are involved. Students demonstrating in Madrid shouted support for the Asturian miners. and several were arrested, joining the 50 workers already reported to be in jail.

As The Observer (6/5/62) puts it:

   The crisis constitutes the most serious challenge to General Franco's regime since the end of the Second World War.
   If the Government can get the strikers back to work only by force of arms, it is likely that the industrialists, who have for so long supported the regime without question, will lose some of their confidence in General Franco's ability to safeguard their interests.

And if the industrialists lose their confidence in Franco, there is no future for him. 

‘‘Defence’’

Mr. George Wigg, Labour M.P., is worried about the state of the army. He thinks Britain does not have enough soldiers. And he does not hesitate to apportion the blame. Recently he stated forthrightly:

The responsibility for the state of the Army lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of those politicians of both parties who took their decisions about Army manpower because it was politically convenient so to do and not in the light of Britain's defence needs.

Britain's Capitalist class need never lose sleep over the next war, while they have Labour M.P.s like Mr. Wigg to look after their “defence needs” for them.

Alwyn Edgar

The Passing Show: Class co-operation (1962)

The Passing Show column from the April 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class co-operation

In a society where ten per cent. of the people belong to the owning and ruling class, and where the other ninety per cent, belong to the propertyless and working class, it is obvious that there is a continuous conflict of interest between the two. The owning class live on the surplus value extracted from the workers: the workers have to wage a ceaseless struggle to maintain even a part of the value of their work for themselves. In such circumstances it is a truism to say that the more the owners can fool the workers into believing that there is no conflict of interests, the happier—and richer—the owners will be. Just as the slave-owners used to push the view that really the slaves and their masters were all working together for the good of society, so there is an endless barrage of propaganda from the ruling class in our form of society that employers and employed should all co-operate “for the good of the country." When one investigates what this “co-operation” means, it is what one would expect—the workers must never strike, must at all times devote all their energies to their employers' interests, and must, of course, never be so vulgar as to ask for a wage-increase, or for that matter even oppose a wage-cut. if the employers decide it would be "in the best interests of the country."


Dozen awkward chaps

Propaganda to this effect is, of course, as common in state-capitalist industry as in private capitalist concerns. And according to a recent article in The Times, this propaganda has been very successful at the Littleton Colliery, in the Cannock Chase coalfield. “It has been nine years since anything worth calling a strike happened at Littleton, which employs about 1.900 men." The employers, apparently, are very satisfied with conditions at Littleton:

. . .  the miner's understanding of life beyond Cannock has also been broadened by television and National Coal Board propaganda. Thirty years ago the rather more desk-hound managers on the Chase were very much "the other side" to colliers, and they themselves reflected the narrowest of points of view. Today Littleton's young manager. Mr. G. A. Schofield, calls his union president (Mr. Richard Owen) “Dick", and Mr. Owen says: “We have about a dozen awkward chaps among 1,900, but all the rest understand we have to make coal pay its way."

One should, of course, be chary of accepting the estimates of the supporters of capitalism of the extent to which the workers have been duped by the propaganda put out by employers, whether directly, or indirectly, on the mass media such as television. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly a shrewd stroke by the employers to win over trade union leaders to their way of thinking.


Good old days
In fact, supporters of capitalism not infrequently regret the days of the Labour Government of 1945-51, since when Labour was in power trade union leaders were heard preaching “co-operation” even more frequently than they are now. The economist Graham Hutton wrote to The Times (8/2/62) on this very theme:

I think of those whom Labour and Tory Governments marshalled between 15 and 10 years ago to organise the productivity drive: Arthur Deakin, Lincoln Evans, Jimmie Crawford, Tom Williamson, Ted Fletcher, Vincent Tewson — these from the unions and T.U.C.—and the leaders of our industry from the F.B.I. B.E.C.. etc. I recall the Ashorne Hill conference a decade ago to discuss between what we all then agreed was a misnomer, namely, “both sides of industry”, their representatives' unanimous conclusions from the 66 Anglo-American Productivity Teams’ visits to the U.S.A. between 1947 and 1952.

Ah, happy days, when the employers and trade union leaders were not only reaching unanimous conclusions about the way industry should work, but were even agreeing that it was wrong to speak of “two sides" to industry! Former Labour ministers can take comfort from the fact that their efforts when in power towards “co-operation" in industry are still remembered with affection by such supporters of capitalism as Graham Hutton.


Social gulf

Despite what trade union leaders say, however, the facts of capitalism as daily revealed at the coalface, the factory bench, and the shop counter, mean that the class struggle continues. Sir David Eccles, Minister of Education, in a speech on February 8th. admitted as much, and had to relegate the ideal of co-operation between the exploiters and exploited to the distant future:

He told the Conservative Women's National Advisory in London that these (fee-paying) parents should consider the long-term future of their children in a society which would either he united socially or still hampered by the “we” and the "they" complex that so bedevilled industrial relations.

While admitting the effect, however. Sir David went astray when he came to explaining the cause:

Sir David said that one of the chief instruments which created the social gulf in our society was the system of education. Nine-tenths of all children went to maintained schools and the remainder—the bosses' children—to the independent fee-paying schools.

This is an error into which Labourites fall even more often than Conservatives. The divided system of education in our society is not the cause of the “social gulf,” but one of its effects. The class division, the social gulf, is not caused by the fact that the “bosses' children” (in Sir David’s words) go to special schools: but by the fact that there are bosses. For if in any society there are bosses there must also be the bossed: the one group cannot exist without the other, any more than horse-riders can exist without horses. Sir David must resign himself to the existence of the social gulf so long as he supports the system which gives birth to it; for it will be with us until capitalism makes way for Socialism.

Alwyn Edgar

Redundant managers (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment has particularly hit workers in manufacturing, shipbuilding, textiles and construction, but another section of the working class whose jobs have generally been protected until now has also suffered. This is the “executives”, those workers who are employed as managers of one kind or another. The Professional and Executive Register (PER), a department of the Manpower Services Commission, had 30,000 unemployed executives on its books in March 1974 but the total stood at 117,000 at the end of 1980 and is certain to be even greater now.

Until recently companies which wanted to economise during a slack period would get rid of shopfloor and clerical workers readily enough but would continue to carry managerial staff on the grounds of “mutual loyalty". Nowadays, the slump is biting so hard that, just to stay in business, companies are compelled to have a clear-out right up to the highest level, even the boardroom, and the result is a flood of redundant executives.

Who are these executives, and can they really be classed as workers at all? The Executive Post, which is the PER’s job-finding magazine, is mailed to registered jobless executives each month and the advertised jobs are almost all for “managers”, “officers", “administrators” and the like, but this cannot hide the fact that these are merely fancy titles for what are, in the main, only higher paid workers. The truth is that they have to sell themselves on the labour market in order to live just as mechanics, shop assistants, bus drivers and bricklayers must. Incidentally, many of these executives are not all that highly paid: although the salaries advertised in the Post go as high as £30,000 they go right down to £3,000 and many shopfloor workers earn a good bit more than that.

All these redundancies have given birth to a whole new industry in the shape of a horde of private agencies which, for a fee, will provide a course designed to teach jobless executives how to look for a new employer and maybe even find them one. Some of the “quality” newspapers regularly feature ads from these agencies in the job columns:

We offer the UK’s first Redundancy Counselling Programme designed exclusively for senior people. A concentrated, intensive programme to help you to resume your successful career path. (Daily Telegraph, 28/4/81)

Help from such agencies can cost as much as £2,000 so many of the jobless rely on the free course provided by the state-run PER or cheap courses run by other organisations like the Institute of Industrial Managers.

And how this help is needed! Many of the jobless executives have spent all their working life with one company and simply haven't a clue about how to look for a job. After all, getting the sack had always been something that happened to somebody else. The sacked executives are actually in a worse situation than their shopfloor counterparts because they have further to fall. They will almost certainly have much higher financial commitments such as a huge mortgage and perhaps children at expensive private schools. With the job will have gone various perks like the company car, expense account or private medical cover. Also, their chances of finding a similar job are poorer. They can expect to spend six weeks job-hunting for each £1,000 of salary they want, so a job at £8,500 a year will, on average, take a year to land. And because there are so many in the same boat they can also expect to follow up 200 leads with only one in ten of these producing any response.

So despite the ego-massaging and corner-cutting techniques of the agencies the prospects of finding a job at all aren’t rosy because there are many more applicants than vacancies. According to the Sunday Times (14/12/80) all of this causes the redundant executives to suffer loss of confidence and become depressed and bad-tempered. All very well for the course organisers to tell them to “suffer no indignities” while job-hunting, but how do you keep your dignity after you have attended several interviews, written dozens of letters and been either turned down or ignored? In any case, indignity doesn’t end with landing a job: having to sell oneself to an employer is an indignity in itself.

The same article in the Sunday Times described how one redundant executive lost his £20,000 a year job. Having just planned the sacking of ten fellow executives and 750 other workers he found his own head was next on the block. How ironic that he had been employed as a “long range planning director": the anarchy of capitalist production means that it is nearly impossible to plan with any certainty what will happen next month never mind years ahead. How could he have forecast that the strength of the pound last year against the dollar would force his American employers to switch production back to the United States?

The popular notion that all redundant executives receive a “golden handshake” is untrue. For example, the chief executive of a big toy manufacturer which went bust last year earned £25,000 a year but left with only one month’s salary. The reason is that many executives are on a “service contract" which means they only get the outstanding amount of their salaries when they leave, just as sacked football managers do, and are not entitled to redundancy payment. This wangle is gradually being introduced onto the shopfloor. Marathon, the big oil-rig builder on Clydeside, employs its workers on thirteen week contracts which can be renewed at the end of the period but there are other companies whose workers are employed on contracts lasting as little as one week. That way you never qualify for redundancy payment. If the history of reform teaches us anything it is that a way can always be found round any reform which gives temporary benefit to the workers.

Doubtless, many of the redundant executives will find new, equally well paid jobs but many more will probably have to move down a notch or two on the salary scale. All of them, however, must be painfully aware that they are no longer a protected species where unemployment is concerned. Their position as members of the working class is being forcibly demonstrated to them along with the fact that, just like any other workers, their future job prospects will depend less on their “loyalty” to the company than on whether or not it is profitable to employ them.

Viv Vanni

May-Day in Bedlam (1939)

From the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Marching of Armies coincides with the May-Day March of the Workers. In every country in Europe, preparations for war are being feverishly concluded, so that everything seems set for yet another orgy of mass-murder.

And remember, it is a mere twenty years since the last “War to end all Wars”—barely time for a new generation to be born and ripen into manhood.

Twenty years of poverty, of slums, of unemployment, of struggling and starving, and now, with supreme contempt for the millions who were the sufferers, your rulers may want you to fight and die so that those who come after you may perhaps inherit another twenty years of that self-same existence.

It is not too late, even now, for the common people of this and other lands to halt in their mad stampede to the slaughter-house and ask themselves WHY?

Many people believe they have got the answer. “Liberty is at stake," they say; “that precious freedom for which our forefathers fought.” Others maintain that “Hitler and Mussolini must be stopped, else they will seek to dominate the world.” With such fine-sounding phrases do working class men and women delude themselves, blindly ignoring what happened in 1914-1918, when those very same slogans lured millions to a horrible death.

The workers of Britain and France are not alone in their fatal ignorance. In Germany and Italy masses of people are convinced that they will be fighting for “a place in the sun,” for “room to expand,” not knowing or understanding that their working class opposite in the "Glorious British Empire” is just as sun-starved and cramped in his slum-cage of poverty.

It's "Class" that Counts

That is the great tragedy of to-day: the workers have not yet learned their most important lesson, the lesson of CLASS.

They allow themselves to be lined up as Britons, Frenchmen, Germans or Italians, never as workers and capitalists. Yet a German, Herr Thyssen, has more in common with a British .Lord Nuffield than with the men he employs.

Bata, the Czech boot manufacturer, comes to England and is still a capitalist, merely exploiting British wage-slaves instead of Czechs.

So capitalism puts everyone in his place, not according to language or nationality, but according to the economic position. That is the fundamental fact for the workers to consider, and all other questions mean little in comparison.

Remembering this, you must understand why the Socialist will not support a capitalist war to prevent Hitler or Mussolini grabbing parts of Europe or of the British Empire. For that Empire has no more meaning for the worker here, or anywhere else, than has the gold in the Bank of England. He knows it is there and is told that it belongs to him. But he has never been able to make any use of it, for the simple reason that it does not belong to him at all: any more than the street he lives in. And the native population in those parts of the world have so far shown no signs of preference for any of the imperialist gangs. It is a different question for those who have been able to invest large sums of money in those places. Owners of oil wells, of diamond mines, of rubber plantations, those are the people who are seriously perturbed by the threat of German and Italian aggression, and rightly so. For they fear the loss of their property and income, and it is that fear which is responsible for the enormous outlay on armaments by the British capitalist class, a class that not so long ago pleaded poverty as a reason for reducing unemployment pay by ten per cent.

When the British Government pledges with open heart to protect the “independence” of poor little Greece or Rumania or Poland, many coloured inhabitants in parts of the British Empire may well be making rude noises. For they are feeling the iron heel of a despotism that is comparable with anything “made in Germany.” So we are I left with the fact that neither on economic nor moral grounds should British workers trouble to defend the Empire.

If Hitler attacks Britain!

Here we are confronted with another bogey. Should we then put up no resistance at all and “allow Hitler to march his hordes into Britain?” Here at least there are some liberties left, and surely to kneel before Hitler and his like would mean the instant suppression of all freedom, including the right to put forward Socialist propaganda. This latter point is considered by our opponents as clinching their argument, and they point triumphantly to Germany and Italy, where in very truth all kinds of opposition have been ruthlessly suppressed. Is this not to be resisted? we are asked.

We will agree without hesitation that Socialist propaganda is worth preserving. But is it going to be preserved by lining up under the banner of British Imperialism in a war that will kill millions?

The first point that arises is the obvious fact that when Socialists allow themselves to be recruited for such a war they do not only commit suicide physically but ideologically as well. For they renounce completely the fundamental axiom of Socialism, namely, the directly conflicting interests of workers and capitalists, a conflict that, so far from being abrogated during a war, stands out in sharper contrast than ever. For that war, although it will be fought mainly by the workers, will not be RUN by the workers; it will be run by the ruling class, and their method will be to crush ruthlessly any attempt to express any working class opposition, whether in the factory or politically. In other words, the workers will have to place themselves wholly under an iron control of militaristic capitalism, and who is going to argue that if and when such a war is ended workers can start again where they left off?

In France to-day, the tactics advocated here “for the defence of democracy" have led to the establishment of a virtual dictatorship, which has as its first reactionary step stolen from the French working class all and more than was gained previously by independent working class action. If the workers here are stupid enough to fall for the same lies, they will be rewarded with savage economic and political oppression.

And, above everything, try and remember something about the last Great War. Then the Kaiser "had to be stopped." Ten million human beings who took part in stopping him were killed. millions more were maimed and wounded. The Kaiser is still living, enjoying a comfortable old age in his castle at Doorn. In his stead rules an even worse despotism, produced in part by the bitterness left over by the last war. What will the end of the next war bring? No one can tell for certain, but one thing it will not and cannot bring: that is a real and permanent peace and freedom from oppression. Neither can it bring relief from poverty.

And those objects alone are worth fighting for. We do not preach passive acquiescence to Fascism any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the Struggle for Socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. For in its development we can play a more and more effective part. As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists, whether they be of so-called “peace" or even those of war. Let there be signs to-day that more and more workers are becoming class-conscious enough to understand the real causes of capitalist wars and see how quickly our rulers would forget their international quarrels.

There are those who say that, by preaching Socialism to-day, we are playing right into the hands of Fascist reaction. We want to remind those people of what happened during the last war in one country—Russia.

The workers and peasants there were not Socialists. But they refused to fight and turned their attention to their real enemy at home. And what was the result ? Not only did they drive out a most reactionary regime, but their move helped to play a decisive part in the collapse of German imperialism, and thus hastened the end of the war. How much better could a strengthened Socialist Party in this country play its part in bringing home to workers everywhere die madness of fighting each other in the interests of the class that oppresses and exploits them.

We call upon you, Fellow Worker, to help us. Our message on this May-Day, in a world driven mad by capitalist greed and brutality, is the message of Marx and Engels:—

“ Working men of all lands. Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a World to Win !"

Sid Rubin

May-Day and the War Clouds (1939)

Editorial from the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

MAY-DAY, 1939, finds working class internationalism at its lowest ebb for many a year. How low can be seen from the success the rulers have had in the various countries in turning May-Day demonstrations from their former purpose. The celebration of Labour Day each year was formerly a spontaneous gesture by the workers' organisations that they repudiated the national hatreds fostered by reactionary interests for their own profit-seeking ends. By this sign the producers of the world's wealth gave, expression to their longing for peace and their growing desire to co-operate with their fellow workers in other lands. But the year 1939 finds May-Day half submerged in the growing tide of nationalism and war preparation. In Germany, May-Day has been filched by the Nazi Government and turned into a compulsory parade demonstrating the gigantic powers of the war-machine and the equally gigantic suppressive power of the Nazi State apparatus over the ideas and longings of the working class. And the dictator-states are not alone in their fever of nationalism. It is reported from France that the French trade unions, which have just had to sacrifice their forty-hour week and go over to sixty hours for armament work, have this year decided, in the same cause, to refrain from their customary stoppage of work to celebrate May-Day. At the same time, Parliamentary Government in France has reached a precarious stage under the system of emergency powers to facilitate the armament programme and war preparations.

In Great Britain the call for conscription has already succeeded.

Thus does the set-back of the working class movement on one side of a frontier exercise its evil influence on working class movements everywhere. In Great Britain, too, the year 1939 sees working class organisations being drawn deeper and deeper into the mire of nationalism and war preparation.

Of course there are many voices assuring the workers that their mistrust of this trend is mistaken. Telling them that defence of the Anglo-French Empires against the German-Italian encroachments is in the interest of democracy, and is therefore in accord with "true" internationalism and social progress: but those voices carry a false message. There is no practical effective internationalism except that which springs strong and self-reliant from the workers' community of interest, sweeping across national frontiers like a cleansing wind blowing away bestial hatreds and fears. The future of the human race demands the destruction of the national barriers which divide the peoples of the world. Not the defence of national independence but the destruction of capitalism must be the watchword of those who would build for the future of the human race and at the same time help to stem the flood of war in which capitalism threatens to engulf civilisation. The doctrine that each group of workers should rally round their own ruling class in defence of the “national interest” only plays into the hands of the war-makers in every country. Just as British and French workers gain hope and courage whenever they read of German and Italian workers who have resisted the mass propaganda of their rulers for war and nationalism, so also the internationally minded workers in Germany and Italy would be inspired to further brave efforts if they heard that their British and French comrades were refusing to ally themselves with Anglo-French imperialism: and correspondingly depressed to learn that many of those workers were falling into line behind their capitalist rulers.

For, make no mistake, Europe is not on tire verge of war for the sake of Nazism and Democracy, but for the sake of a re-division of the spoils of the last great capitalist war.

From a working-class point of view, the ideological differences between Chamberlain and Hitler are as nothing to the common cause they both espouse—the capitalist cause. When Hitler declares that German capitalism must export or perish, the representative of British imperialism, Mr. Robert Hudson, Secretary for Overseas Trade, answers in the same language of predatory capitalism: —

We are not going to give up any markets to anyone . . .  Great Britain is strong enough to fight for markets abroad. Britain is now definitely going to take a greater interest in Eastern Europe.—(Speech in Warsaw, March 21st. News Chronicle, March 22nd, 1939.)

Let the British and German capitalists quarrel about their profit-seeking interests. Let British workers set an example to their fellows in all lands by proclaiming that the interest of the working class is in internationalism, not in wars for markets. Let working-class May-Day be an answer to all who would seek to turn the thoughts of the workers to nationalism and war.

Long live Proletarian May-Day!Long live International Socialism!

Parliamentary Activity (1939)

Party News from the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are now in a position to speak with greater confidence of our plans in connection with the Party’s campaign in the Parliamentary constituency of East Ham North. A number of Party members have responded in a gratifying manner to the recent call for canvassers. Dagenham branch’s response was immediate and consisted of an offer to accept complete responsibility for canvassing and literature distribution in one part of the constituency. This is good work—and sound from the organisational point of view. If all branches, particularly local ones, assumed responsibility for other parts of East Ham, and could undertake all the work involved in their part, then the work would run itself simply and would not involve those of us at Head Office who are concerned with coordinating activities, with unnecessary worry. Dagenham’s example is not an isolated one, though at the moment, it is the most healthy. We have received a response from the membership in most branches, which, shall we say, is encouraging, though not completely satisfactory nor sufficient for our needs. Quite obviously, many Party members imagine that we should come after them. This attitude is a mistaken one, though, of course, it is not meant to be unhelpful. We cannot hope to know the capabilities of members, even if we were personally acquainted with them all. Nor are we able to judge what the resources are of branches for giving assistance. We have, therefore, to depend chiefly on the response to written appeals in some form or other. If this fact were realised we are sure all our difficulties would rapidly be solved. That is not to say that we make no individual contacts, but they must of necessity be limited.

Certain aspects of the work done so far give us great encouragement. We have disturbed the rest of local parties and politicians who regard us as poachers on their preserves. We shall disturb them all the more in the forthcoming season of outdoor propaganda activity. We plan a campaign including canvassing, literature distribution, bill-posting, intense propaganda, loud-speaker publicity and, if we can manage to provoke our opponents to bite—debates.

Comrades, your co-operation and disciplined efforts will make those plans an enormous success. Remember, one of the topical issues of the day, war and peace, promotes a ready interest in the Party’s case. Our message stands alone. It is worth every ounce of energy that you can give it —it is worth some sacrifice. Give—willingly and generously. You will enjoy it.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE.