Midlands and the North, Slumdom (1963)

From the May 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you want a fair idea of the blight inflicted on men's lives by early industrial capitalism, travel through England to the Midlands and the North, and take a good look at the housing there. In this region are the towns which were the classic homes of slumdom, with their mean and narrow streets, row upon huddled row of wretched little back-to-back hovels, where dampness, rat infestation and tuberculosis were rife. Here it was that men, women, and children, lived out their pitifully short and broken lives, slept from sheer exhaustion in the few hours respite from the hell of the mills, mines and factories. The capitalists, the mine and mill owners, the iron masters and others, also had homes near to their property, but not among the slums, of course.

Take a good look we said. No need to hurry about it. Any time in the next twenty, thirty or forty years will do, or even longer. These slums have been there for many many years and if we read the signs aright, will still be there when our grandchildren are growing old. The government, local authorities, and various experts who have written on the subject at least agree on one thing, that the slums in this region are just about the worst in England. It is said that this part of the country plus South Wales, contains more than half the 850,000 houses declared unfit in England and Wales in 1955. Housing Minister Sir Keith Joseph has admitted that the North of England has a far greater concentration of slums than anywhere in London. Dr. Hill, his predecessor, was a bit more specific. A few months earlier, he had pinpointed Liverpool as about the worst case in the country.

Certainly, if we go by the last official figures declared by local authorities and published as a White Paper in 1955, Liverpool does qualify for Dr. Hill’s dishonourable distinction. Over 88,000 (about 43 per cent.) of its 204,000 dwellings were then unfit for habitation. Manchester came a very close second with some 68,000 unfit out of 208,000—about 32 per cent. But one thing to remember about these figures, indeed the whole of the 1955 estimates is that they are probably conservative. They were in fact based on what local councils thought they could clear in the next few years, not what they thought should be cleared. In any case, there was not (and still is not) any nationally agreed standards by which obsolescence is judged. It is said that Liverpool went the whole hog and reported all of her known slums whereas some towns did not even bother to make a return to the Minister.

So these estimates have come under fire many times since 1955 and it is generally agreed that they are unrealistic. The true position is probably much worse— perhaps we shall never really know just how bad. Even those incurable optimists and promise breakers, the government of the day, have had to admit that “ . . . in about fifty areas, chiefly in the North and Midlands, the task of slum clearance will be a long job ” (White Paper Housing in England and Wales, February, 1962). A long job indeed! By the end of 1960, Manchester had managed to clear 7,737 and Liverpool 5,331. Birmingham had cleared 6,950 out of 50,250. At this rate, it will take between 50 and 100 years just to remove the existing slums.

But there is another factor—a constantly recurring one—which is like a thorn in the flesh of the town councils of this and every other region. Dilapidation. If it were just a question of pulling down the hovels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it might be a long job, but with perseverance the end would at least be in sight eventually, though probably not in our lifetime. But, of course, capitalism simply does not work that way. It makes a mockery of the planners’ efforts. As Gavin Lyall pointed out in the Sunday Times of 23/4/61:

   Slums are not a static thing. Every year, an average of 150,000 houses in the country become 100 years old. Against this, about 60,000 are demolished every year. At the present rate of progress . . . there are children not yet born who will be bringing up their own children in some of the houses of the northern cities, which even today are recognised as slums. 

Of course, the thing to remember is that it is workers and their families who occupy these grim holes now, and who will do so in the far off future visualised by Mr. Lyall and others. Let Dr. E. Sigsworth, Economic History Lecturer at Leeds University, tell you the reason. Addressing a conference on slum clearance at Bradford this year he said that “most people living in slums could not afford to pay an economic rent, let alone buy a house through a building society ” (Guardian, 11/3/63). So there it is in a nutshell, and we are back to the problem behind the problem—the sheer inability of some workers to afford anywhere better to live than broken-down hovels.

This unpleasant fact will no doubt have been noted by the various planners and reformers groping for an answer to the muddle, but we can take a bet that its deeper implications will have escaped them. For them it is not just a question of pulling down slums, but their replacement with low cost houses for workers to rent. They miss the point that therein lies the foundation of future slumdom, for cutting costs means cutting standards. For example, the average floor area of new three bedroomed council houses in England and Wales declined from 1,050 sq. ft. in 1951 to 901 sq. ft. in 1958. Dr. Sigsworth advocates subsidised local authority housing but clearly this is no answer. Local authority housing has been subsidised to some extent or another for the best part of a century. According to the 1961 interim report of the Rowntree Trust Housing Study, about three million council houses have been built since the first world war, “with the aid of subsidies and sixty-year loans.” But the housing problem weighs as oppressively as ever.

An indication of the obsession with costs which affects building just like any other industry under capitalism, can be gained from the recent report that Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham are negotiating to form a consortium to make possible the mass production of building materials, the standardisation of fittings and equipment, and cheaper bulk buying (our italics).

One of the reasons that “overspill” development is preferred to high density town building is because the cost to the government is very much less. J. B. Cuillingworth estimated in 1960 that the subsidy cost of 500,000 high flats on a central site would be about £34 millions a year compared with £12 millions for the same number of dwellings in a new or expanded town (Housing Needs and Planning Policy, p. 173).

So the more we look at the problem of the Midlands and the North, the more we see that it is really the same problem as elsewhere, only more acute. The older industrial areas of this region are the worst off and even the most optimistic forecaster dares not hope for an improvement in his lifetime. There are the added complication of industrial decline, the slow but stubborn growth of unemployment, and the subsequent drift of population southwards in search of work.

It is in fact a familiar story of capitalism. There will be a familiar ring too, about the news that houses were much more difficult to sell in 1962 than for some years past, despite a freer supply of mortgages and average prices in the North being only about half those in London. This was certainly not because people’s housing needs were met—we know that is not true. But then capitalism does not exist for such purpose anyway. Its prime aim is the satisfaction of a market, whether in housing or anything else.

Eddie Critchfield

Essential Reading (1975)

From the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and Historical Materialism — A Socialist Analysis of the Materialist Conception of History. Published by the SPGB. 20p. 

At last we have this eagerly awaited pamphlet. It is a definitive statement which explodes all the confusion surrounding Marx’s teachings on history. Sprinkled with examples from Roman, feudal and modern times, it is concise but authoritative — a textbook on history in itself.

But it is more than that. Once and for all the “mystery” created by terminology has been ended: Dialectics, Idealism, Materialism, Mind and Matter, Thought and Deed, Theory and Practice. Dialectics is clearly explained as simply the ancient Greek word for evolution — the expression for looking at things developing.

How much ink and paper has been spent on purporting to explain the Marxian dialectic but, in fact, “justifying” the unprincipled opportunism of this or that reformist party. None more so than the Leninist Bolsheviks, who claimed the sole copyright of dialectics, appointing themselves the high priests of this mystic cult:

Only the Communists apply the dialectic-materialist teachings of Marx and Engels in the spirit of their founders.

L. Rudas, Dialectical Materialism and the Social Democracy (translated from the German edition).

How many unfortunate workers—members of the CP (and its Trotskyite splinters) have had their poor skulls cracked by trying to understand the jargon-ridden interpretations of “only the Communists”! Stalin, “Lenin’s best pupil”, physically exterminated the Bolshevik Old Guard in the holy name of “dialectics”. Socialism became state-capitalism; capitalist profit became socialist profit; freedom, tyranny; democracy, dictatorship.

Voting for the capitalist Labour Party? Pacts with Nazi Germany? Strike-breaking in support of imperialist wars? Calling left right? Making wrong right? “It’s all in the dialectics, comrade! It’s dialectical contradiction, see?”

With this pamphlet, the game is up. Workers who read it can no longer have wool pulled over their eyes by Palme Dutt and other professional twisters with pseudo-Marxist rigmarole. Even the Bolsheviks were constrained to pour scorn on the naive Chinese who published theses on “the dialectics of hairdressing”, and the Hungarians who dropped the centre- forward of the state football team “for not applying the correct Marxist-Leninist dialectic on the football field” (i.e. not scoring enough goals).

Let all those who have been bemused by the highfalutin phrase-mongering take heart. The clear and definite answers are in this little book. The materialist conception of history is expounded with clarity and simplicity, without detracting from the immense sweep and profundity of Marx’s theory.

Human history is neatly marshalled and lucidly explained. In addition, the pamphlet carries two invaluable appendices. First, a comprehensive set of references to works before Marx, expounding previous rational theories of history. Second, a reprint of the essential statements by Marx and Engels on historical materialism.

A new and deadly weapon has been forced for the Socialist armoury.

Horatio.

Material World: One Thing the Romans Did For Us (2017)

The Material World column from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

What did the Romans ever do for us – other than pass down their concepts of property? For instance, land in Rome could either be ‘private property’, res privata or managed by the city authorities such as a park in which case it would be part of the res publica. Res nullis referred to land belonging to no-one, ownerless, therefore, it was available for occupation, the justification on which the British settlement in Australia was based despite it already being the home of indigenous peoples. However, res communis property was territory not subject to the legal title of anyone. It could not be claimed by a state because it belonged to all, or ‘the common heritage of mankind.’ In the sixth century CE, the Institutes of Justinian codified the relevant Roman law as: ‘By the law of nature these things are common to mankind – the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea.’ Two modern-day examples of res communis would be the continent of Antarctica and outer space.

In 1908, Britain made claims on parts of Antarctica and after that, several other countries did likewise. To avoid conflicts, the Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1959. This was the start of the polar region being protected and preserved for the heritage of all. The treaty does not recognise territorial sovereignty claims ‘to ensure in the interests of all humankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.’

This year in October, the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (better known as the ‘Outer Space Treaty’) will turn 50. The Treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet. Article Two of the Treaty states that ‘outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means’.

The 1979 Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other  Celestial Bodies (the ‘Moon Treaty’) was apparently intended as a new treaty to supersede or supplement the Outer Space Treaty, most notably by elaborating upon the outer space treaty’s provisions regarding resource appropriation and prohibition of territorial sovereignty.

It banned all exploration and uses of celestial bodies without the approval or benefit of other states under the ‘common heritage of humankind’ principle (article eleven). Dr. Christopher J. Newman, a reader in space law at the University of Sunderland explains ‘You couldn’t have the superpowers landing on the moon and carving up bits of territory on the moon. It’s not possible to own it, it’s not possible to appropriate it by means of sovereignty or any other such device. So it was designed to deal with a binary power bloc, and a superpower budget. The people who drafted the treaty didn’t have commercial space activity on their minds.’

They could not be expected to foresee the Space Act of 2015 (sometimes called the ‘Extraterrestrial Finders Keepers’ law), which grants US citizens or corporations the right to legally claim natural resources – including water and minerals. Commercial operations could reap trillions of dollars from mining precious metals like platinum, common metallic elements such as iron, and water. Handing out the right to exploit chunks of space to your citizens sounds very much like a claim of sovereignty. Congress is saying to these companies, ‘Go get these rights and we’ll defend you,’ and at the same time saying, ‘We’re making no sovereign claim of ownership’. The bottom line is, before you can give somebody the right to harvest a resource you have to have ownership.

Socialism has legal precedent back to Roman times for the aim of common ownership which can be defined as a situation where every individual has the potential ability to benefit from the wealth of society and to engage in the decision-making process of what and how we consume, to allocate resources in short-term and long-term collective goals. Even so, to use the word ‘ownership’ can be misleading in that this does not fully bring out the fact that the transfer to all members of the society of the power to control the production of wealth makes the very concept of property redundant. In that sense, socialism will be a ‘no-ownership’ society.

ALJO

Cooking the Books: What is like gravity? (2005)

The Cooking the Books column from the June 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where you have generalised production for the market, the production and distribution of wealth escapes from human control and comes to be dominated by economic laws - such as "no profit, no production", "minimise costs", "maximise profits", "accumulate more and more capital" - which impose themselves on those taking day-to-day economic decisions as if they were natural laws.

 

In fact, early students of how the capitalist economy worked such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo thought that they really were studying natural laws, but Marx pointed out that this was only the appearance: the economic laws of capitalism only arose out of the particular social and economic basis of capitalism under which the means of production belonged to a minority class and where everything was produced for sale on a market with a view to profit. If capitalism were to be abolished, these economic laws would cease to operate; on the other hand, they would continue to operate as long as capitalism existed.

 

In this sense Colin Hines, an economic adviser to the Green Party, was right when he wrote in the Guardian (25 April) that "Globalisation is not like gravity", meaning by globalisation the effects of the pressures exerted on the home economy by competition on the world market: "The fact that countries with higher costs haven't a hope of competing with those where labour is cheap seems crushingly obvious".

Yes, it is, and this is one of the economic laws of capitalism, but he then "Yet in Britain, only one party has grasped it: the Greens. They have realised that to help workers worldwide we must stop gearing economies to ruthlessly out-compete each other. We need new goals: maximising self-reliance and ensuring that trade rules are governed by a pro-poor approach . . . Trade rules must be rewritten to discriminate in favour of domestic production".

But the existing trade rules, as for instance embodied in and enforced by the World Trade Organisation, are not just a voluntary policy option, but essentially a reflection of the economic laws of capitalism. Globalisation may not be like gravity, but it's not like putty either. In fact, as long as capitalism lasts, it is like gravity.

If the Green Party thinks that the trade rules/economic laws of capitalism can be changed so as to stop ruthless competition on the world market, and to be governed by a "pro-poor approach" or to permanently discriminate in favour of higher-cost domestic production, then they must be living on a different globe to the rest of us.

Film Review: Home Town Story (1951)

Film Review from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Home Town Story' (Director: Arthur Pierson)

The editor of an American small town newspaper embarks upon a press campaign against the high profits made by various large factories. He eventually “treads on the corns” of MacFarland, the owner of a local surgical apparatus factory. MacFarland interviews the editor and explains that in capitalist production it is not only the capitalist class that reaps a profit. The consumer also gets an interest by getting from the commodity a utility value greater than the commodity’s price. All the modern advantages of scientific and mechanical progress, MacFarland further contends, are due to the expansion of capitalism.

The editor rejects this argument and proceeds with his campaign.

Eventually his school-girl sister, through a land slide, is trapped in a disused shaft. With the use of vast excavating machinery an entrance to the shaft is cleared. The child is rescued but so terribly injured that her life can only be saved by an operation within two hours. She is flown to hospital in MacFarland’s plane and is successfully operated upon. It transpires that the surgical apparatus used in the operation is one produced in MacFarland’s factory.

These events lead the editor to abandon his campaign and to boost henceforward the mechanical advancement and social advantages achieved by capitalist production.

All this may sound convincing to those lacking knowledge of capitalism’s processes. To the Socialist it is both hypocritical and fallacious.

In the economics of capitalism “profit” means only one thing—i.e., the interest or dividends arising from the workers’ mental and physical energy. The capitalist in real life is not concerned with the utility of his commodities as long as those commodities will sell and bring profit.

This quest for profits is the force which has hastened the expansion of capitalism and brought the mechanical and scientific advancement necessary for profitably expediting capitalist operations. Roads have been laid to facilitate the conveying of commodities; many and various means of transport have been manufactured to carry the workers to and from work, and commodities from sellers to buyers. It can even be said that the advancement in medicine and surgery is largely prompted by the capitalist desire to maintain greater physical fitness and productive capacity among the workers, and, in war, to patch up the wounded that they may fight once more.

And what of the mechanical and scientific instruments of destruction produced and brought into use when the seeking of markets, etc., eventually brings war? What of the submarines, the bombers, the guns, the poison gases, the atom and hydrogen bombs? Were these produced, and can they possibly be used, for the benefit of mankind?

The machinery which within Socialism would lighten the work of the community is, under capitalism, the means of throwing many wage slaves into the ranks of the unemployed. The planes which in a classless society would be for the convenience of all are, under capitalism, destroyers and mutilators of men, women, and children. The vast weapons of destruction which would be non-existent and unnecessary in a sane social order are, under capitalism, vital necessities for carrying on the wars of capitalism.

In isolated and individual cases highly developed machines of modem science and invention may be used solely for humanitarian reasons. As a general rule, however, modem machinery is used only for speeding up production or increasing the lethality of capitalist wars.

If the makers of “Home Town Story” had tried to give a true picture of capitalism they would have found nothing to vindicate it, but much to condemn.

F. W. Hawkins

50th Anniversary Russian Revolution (1967)

From the May 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Curtain Raiser

On March 8th 1917 (February 23rd by the old Russian Calendar) on the streets of Petrograd, a demonstration exploded into a riot, and the riot into a revolution. It was the kind of classic situation that would appeal to a romantic—a spontaneous uprising against tyranny with strikes and demonstrations, the massing of the workers on the streets, and the slow crumbling of authority as regiment after regiment swung over to the insurgents. In just over a week the Tzar had gone and with him the whole apparatus of the State. The scene was set for the much more famous October revolution. It was indeed a curtain raiser.

How could such an event have happened? It was completely unrehearsed and unorganised. Thee workers and soldiers, in whose hands the city lay, were unled and the revolutionary parties were every bit as surprised as the authorities. They trotted behind events as confused as everybody else, and only when the last vestige of authority had gone and the impetus had begun to slacken, did the masses start searching for somebody to take over the controls. What had led up to this situation?

Tzarist Russia was an autocracy at once repressive and inefficient. There was no serious political authority except that of the Tzar, operating through the Army, the Bureaucracy and the secret police. The Church was servile to an extent rarely found elsewhere. The Tzar was backed by a close knit landowning aristocracy immensely wealthy, powerful and cultured. Their wealth and power rested on a peasantry, not far removed from serfdom, who were poor, illiterate and superstitious. The peasantry made up over 80 per cent of the population, and so were the dominant factor in the situation. There was a small class of merchants, government officials and capitalists, and a small but rapidly growing industrial working class.

The system was completely unbending and incapable of compromise. Ministers of State were mere functionaries, who could be dismissed at will by the Tzar, while the Court, as is inevitable in an autocracy, was rife with intrigue. Groups and individuals strove to sway the Tzar and Tzarina, who alone could make ultimate decisions. The most famous of these was Rasputin; among a Court crawling with adventurers, he was merely the most successful. No member of any liberal or revolutionary party had been able to obtain any political experience prior to 1905, and not very much after, this factor combined with a constant, though inefficient, policy of suppression, resulted in political parties and groups existing in a vacuum, out of touch with the realities of politics. This inexperience was to show itself plainly at a later stage, when the liberals were confronted by a realist of the calibre of Lenin.

Capitalism had come late to Russia, but when it did arrive it made rapid progress. The population at the beginning of the 19th century consisted almost entirely of peasant serfs, with a nobility and a middle class of merchants, officials and professional people. There was also a tiny city population.

By the beginning of the 20th century enormous businesses had been established mainly in the metallurgical, mining and textile industries. The railways had arrived and serfdom had vanished. A pushing middle class, whose social habits resembled those of the bourgeoisie of Tudor England, had emerged, as well as a growing industrial proletariat.

Much of this was achieved by foreign Capital — mainly French, British, German and Belgian. This was one reason for the political weakness of the native capitalists; foreign capitalists were not unduly worried about internal conditions, as long as the profits flowed. The number of industrial workers in 1801 had been under 100,000, but by the end of the century the number topped one and three quarter million. In a mere 9 years between 1861 and 1870, the urban population jumped from 4½ million to 6 million. But even so by 1917 there were still 16 peasants for every worker.

The gulf between industry and agriculture was immense. Agricultural methods had hardly changed since the 17th century, while industrial methods and organisation in Russia were comparable with those elsewhere. More important was the fact that owing to outside capital being used, the enterprises that were set up were large concerns. In countries where capitalism had developed from within, the usual sequence was for small concerns to grow slowly into large ones. This process was by-passed in Russia—a fact which had great political significance; large numbers of workers under one roof were easy to organise politically. Workers' solidarity in the factories was consequently great.

The peasants on the other hand were politically non-existent. They were the rock on which much political theory foundered. The limit of their aspirations was to own the land that they worked. Discontent had been accumulating for centuries, exploding into countless peasant uprisings which, being without any clear aim, were easily crushed. The revolts were violent and bloody, and they were suppressed in the same way.

The tangled web of Russian political thoughts in the 19th century had divided into two main camps—Liberal and Revolutionary. The Revolutionaries were divided into Populists and Marxists. Constant suppression, and the complete disinterest of the peasantry, kept them all very small in numbers, and led to fragmentation and dispute. The fact that the peasants were the bulk of the population put them into the main stream of political thought.

The Populists who emerged in the later half of the 19th century looked to the peasants for salvation; their slogan was “Go to the People”. Needless to say the “noble” peasant, as envisaged in the drawing rooms of Petrograd, had little connection with the real article. The Populists sought to establish a kind of agrarian Socialism based on the village commune. During the summer of 1874 thousands of young men and women dressed up as peasants, and went into the countryside to rouse the peasantry. They urged them to adopt modern methods of agriculture, so that they could emerge as a force in the land. They hoped that a vitalised peasantry would give rise to a spontaneous mass movement.

The peasants treated these interlopers with contempt and hostility while the police, who did not have the sense to leave them alone to break their hearts on this brutish mass, arrested them in thousands. However the Populists had another side to their theories—terrorism. The assassination of the Tzar in 1881 was a Populist action. Out of the Populists came the “Social Revolutionary Party”, which was to play a great part in the events of 1917.

The other stream of revolutionary thought, the Social Democrats, influenced by Marx, based their hopes on the rising working class. They argued that only when Capitalism had been fully established in Russia, and the working class were developed, could the move to Socialism take place. As with all other political parties and groups in the pre-revolutionary Russia, it is difficult to pinpoint a definite line of argument, because of constant dispute and fragmentation.

In the early days, some Social Democrats were left alone by the secret police, because their insistence that “Capitalism” must precede “Socialism” led to the misunderstanding that they were pro-Capitalist. By and large they opposed terrorism as futile and unnecessary, but again a minority leaned towards it. Others opposed aid to peasants during famine, on the grounds that it was hindering the growth of Capitalism, and thus of Socialism.

The first Russian organisation to propagate Marx’s ideas was the Emancipation of Labour group in 1883, followed by a mass of discussion groups, clubs and circles. In 1895 an attempt was made to unify these in the Fighting Union for the Liberation of the Working class. In 1903 The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, formed in 1898, split into two wings, the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Russian Social-Democrats were steeped in venomous factional strife with constant denunciations, splits and excommunications which made the most bitter political enemies outside Russia look like a band of brothers.

Throughout the 19th century there was another division of thought which must be understood, because of its effect on later events. This was Westernism and Slavophilism. The first of these looked to the West, and thought that Russia’s path lay in catching up with Western Europe, while the second rejected the “decadent culture of the West” and looked to “native Russian institutions” as the road to salvation. These theories went far beyond the nationalism of the rest of Europe and compared with the worst racialist theories, although they were not couched in terms of “blood” but of “cultural patterns”. The division ran through all the parties, including the Social-Democrats, so that Internationalism, and a desire to cut themselves off from the rest of the world, existed side by side in the same organisation. This political dualism was amply demonstrated by the Bolsheviks when they obtained power.

The Tzarist government showed amazing resilience. By its refusal even to contemplate compromise, and by the unrelenting attack on all forms of opposition by the secret police, the Okhrana, it held off the day of reckoning. At the same time it ensured that the day, when it came, would be bloody. All the ingredients of revolution were there, but it was the Great War which destroyed the props behind the facade. In the first few weeks it became obvious that the Russian Army, although it could hold its own with the weaker Austrians, was no match for the Germans. Within a month the Russian Second Army was encircled and annihilated at Tannenburg in East Prussia. The Russians only advantage was in numbers, and the government tried to block the gap with bodies.

Fifteen and a half million men were mobilised and about eight million were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. Only the vast distances to be covered, combined with the fact that the Germans were locked in a massive struggle on the Western Front, prevented a break-through. The civil population were reduced to starvation with little fuel to meet the Russian Winter.

When in 1915 the Tzar, who was incapable of organising anything properly, took absolute command of the Army, it was just a matter of time. Bureaucratic inefficiency by both the General Staff and the War Department, and out of date methods combined with a blockade, contributed to the downfall but the real reason was that Russian industry was unable to sustain a war of this magnitude.

One of the mainstays of the monarchy had always been the army. The regular army was a group apart from the rest of the population, and completely loyal. They could always be relied on to obey orders. But the terrible slaughter had largely wiped out the regulars, particularly the officer class who went over the top standing erect, and were special targets. By 1917 the bottom of the barrel was being scraped, and crack regiments were filled with men who would never have been entertained as recruits in peacetime. All was ready for the collapse.

The March revolution took place entirely in Petrograd. Once it was accomplished the rest of the country followed suit. Throughout the winter there had been a rash of small strikes. The shortages of war were accentuated by muddle and corruption, and workers and housewives often had to queue for hours for basic essentials like bread. Wartime industries had added an extra 400,000 workers to the population of the capital, and this increased both working class strength—and their problems.

The day that was to begin it all was International Women’s Day, with all the usual demonstrations, meetings and speeches laid on. None of the revolutionary parties were calling for any real action, for they did not consider the right moment had arrived. During the morning women workers in some textile factories began a run-of-the-mill strike. They demonstrated outside empty shops, as they had been doing regularly for months, and marched about shouting for bread. Other workers came out in sympathy until about 90,000 were out. They flocked onto the streets of the Vyborg district, and then drifted into the city proper. Some troops were out, but nothing much happened, and the day ended quietly.

The following day, March 9, found half the workers out on strike, and slogans attacking the war, the autocracy and the police began to appear. The Cossacks, the traditional riot breakers, charged the crowd but without any real venom. The crowds pelted the police with stones and ice, but were tactful with the soldiers. The day ended with the strange spectacle of rioters cheering Cossacks. By March 10 a quarter of a million workers were on strike, shops had closed, and tramcars stopped running, Petrograd was at a standstill. Shooting began between the crowd and the police. Later the police withdrew and the troops took their place. Already the unreliability of the army was becoming apparent.

At this stage it was still only a massive disorder, a general strike combined with mass demonstrations. No serious clash had yet taken place. What is more nobody, neither government nor revolutionaries, realised just what was happening.

The next two days provided the climax. The military commander of Petrograd, Khabalor, gave orders for a counter attack. This was the point of no return. Gradually the army swung to the side of the revolutionaries, and began to fight the police. By March 15 the city was entirely in the hands of the insurgents, and the Tzar had abdicated. The second stage was about to begin.

Les Dale

What Marx thought (1972)

Book Review from the July 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Thought of Karl Marx, by David McLellan. Papermac. £1.50.

Despite the over emphasis on the philosophical and Hegelian aspects of Marx’s thought, this is a good introduction to his writings which also provides convenient translations of passages from some of Marx’s less accessible works.

McLellan, as a professional political philosopher himself, is naturally more interested in Marx the philosopher than Marx the economist. True, Marx wasn’t an economist pure and simple. He was a Socialist too and regarded economics as merely the study of the production and distribution of wealth under capitalism. True also, he employed Hegelian language and concepts to put over his views on capitalism and Socialism. As Lassalle put it, Marx was “a Hegel turned economist and a Ricardo turned socialist”. But all this does not alter the fact that his most important writing was Volume I of Capital, not the Grundrisse or the Paris Manuscripts. This was the longest of his writings he himself saw to publication, and it is essentially a book about economics.

McLellan is clearly out of his depth when it comes to economics and his discussion of Capital is one of the weakest parts of this book. His discussion of “future communist society” is weak too, despite his realising that for Marx this was to be an international, stateless, moneyless society. But he does give sensible explanations of the Jewish Question and the dispute with the anarchist Bakunin. McLellan also points out that Marx thought the workers’ party “should be a democratic, open organisation guided by decisions taken by majority vote at annual congresses”; that the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” was "seldom used by Marx and never in documents for publication”; and that “Marx never claimed that the proletariat would become immiserised in any absolute sense”.

One of the passages McLellan has found about Marx’s views on the possibility of the peaceful abolition of capitalism reads:

   A historical development can only remain ‘peaceful’ so long as it is not opposed by the violence of those who wield power in society at that time. If in England or the United States, for example, the working class were to gain a majority in Parliament or Congress, then it could by legal means set aside the laws and structures that stood in its way (quoted p. 201, from the East German edition of Marx and Engels Werke, Vol. XXXIV, p. 498).

Marx, however, still believed that such a peaceful take-over of political power might later be opposed by a “slaveholders' revolt”.

Adam Buick

Nationalisation changes nothing (1984)

From the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the time of writing, after months of an overtime ban designed to force the Coal Board to increase their offer of a 5.2 per cent increase of pay, most areas of the industry are on strike against pit closures, with the NUM President and Executive trying by mass picketing to force the areas which voted against the strike to join in. If the members of unions are to maintain democratic control of their own affairs in their own hands, it is essential that there should be a ballot before a strike begins and a ballot on acceptance or rejection of the terms negotiated by their leaders for calling off the strike. In the present dispute the NUM President and Executive have consistently refused to take a national ballot, one of the results of which has been conflict between miners wanting to continue working and miners trying to prevent them.

At the same time the courts became involved. Under the law as amended by the Thatcher government it is illegal for pickets to operate elsewhere than at their own place of work. The National Coal Board were awarded a court injunction forbidding the Yorkshire Miners Association to send pickets to other areas but delayed taking the further step of going to the court with a request that the Yorkshire Association be fined for its continued breach of the injunction. The NUM obtained promises of support from unions in road and rail transport and in steel, designed to prevent the movement of coal or its import but unions in the electricity power industry refused to help and gave instructions to their members to cross picket lines and continue working.

The background of the dispute is a complex one. It involves great changes in the techniques of coal cutting; the price at which the NCB can market its coal in competition both with imported coal and with the cost of power generated by oil and gas and atomic energy; and what will be the future demand for coal if North Sea Oil goes into decline. While modernised pits can produce at highly competitive prices and make a profit, there are others which make huge losses. In the former the miners can look to continued employment but in the latter the prospect is that the jobs will disappear as the NCB closes them down. In localities where the Coal Board is the chief or even the only big employer this spells disaster for the whole population.

The government’s attitude is that the NCB as a whole shall pay its way and cease to be dependent on subsidies, thus increasing the pressure to close down the loss-making pits. The Coal Board holds record stocks of coal it cannot sell. The NUM’s aim is that no pit shall be closed, however big its losses, until all the coal has been extracted. Also that there shall be no reduction in the total manpower employed, that no coal should be imported and that government policy shall encourage the use of coal against other sources of energy. They take the long-term view that there will come a time when coal production will have to be expanded again to meet demand.

The media have for the most part been hostile to the NUM's claims and actions, seizing on the refusal to take a national ballot as evidence that most miners are against the strike. This, they say, is undemocratic, but more of them insist that the NUM, also in the interest of democracy, should not settle the strike until after the workers have, by ballot, agreed.

The effect of the new techniques of mining on the industry and the NUM can be seen in the recently opened Selby coalfield. When it reaches full production in four years time it is expected to produce ten million tons a year, a twelfth of the Coal Board’s present total output, with just 4,000 men (Financial Times, 26 October 1983). But before Selby produced a single ton of coal over £1,000 million had been spent developing the mine and installing the costly equipment. What it means in economic terms is that more and more of the labour required to produce coal is that of workers not employed in the pits.

The mineworkers have been hit by the ceaseless change and development of industry under capitalism. In their search for profit, companies and nationalised industries take up inventions which promise cheaper production and increase profits, no matter what effect it has on the livelihood of the workers whose jobs disappear. Even if they get other work the change makes their old skills useless. In the past it was the handloom weavers driven into starvation by the application of steam power to new weaving machines; the coach drivers and farm horsemen whose jobs were destroyed by the railways and motor vehicles; the railway men in turn hit by motor transport and air transport; the morse telegraphist hit by machines and the development of telephones; and now the numerous office jobs that are becoming obsolete. Trade unions always do what they can to prevent or at least to delay the change but in the long run it is a losing battle. At present there are something under 200,000 miners, threatened by the loss of 20,000 jobs if loss-making pit closures planned for this year take place. At the beginning of this century they numbered over a million, reduced to 736,000 by the time the mines were nationalised in 1947 and to 490,000 in 1964. The NUM cannot put the clock back.

One of the tragedies of the NUM, as of other unions, is their long-held belief that nationalisation would solve their problems. The TUC began its claim for nationalisation of the mines before 1900 and the Labour Party adopted it soon afterwards. In 1919 the Miners Federation of Great Britain (as the NUM was then named) conducted a big campaign for nationalisation, got it approved by a ballot of its members and gave evidence to the Coal Commission set up to study the problems of the industry. The claim for nationalisation was combined with a claim for a 30 per cent increase of pay and a reduction of hours from 8 to 6 a day. The MFGB also argued that these claims could be met and still the price of coal could be reduced. They forgot all about capitalism. Within a couple of years selling prices for coal had fallen drastically, bankrupt companies were closing pits, and the union had to face demands for lower pay and longer hours, culminating in the General Strike of 1926 and the miners being forced back to work after a five months strike.

In the present dispute Arthur Scargill made a speech calling on the miners to unite against “the enemy, the Coal Board”. What is this Coal Board? It is the board of directors of the nationalised industry. It was set up under the Labour Government’s Nationalisation Act of 1947. The Miners Union had got what they had been campaigning for. Their MPs in the House of Commons voted for it, including its requirement that the industry should pay its way. There was nothing in the Act about maintaining the number of miners at 736,000. The Attlee Labour Government would not have dreamed of including such an impossible condition. What then did coal nationalisation bring for the miners? It was described by an earlier NUM Secretary Will Paynter in his book British Trade Unions and the Problem of Change:

  I remember the morning of January 1st, 1947—the first day of operations with nationalised mines — standing on the top of a tram of coal at one of the collieries I served as a Union Agent, making an enthusiastic speech about “the dawn of a new era", of the significance of the day being one where the "workers were moving forward to the control of their own destinies" and that we were at the beginning of the process where capitalism would be replaced by Socialism. This was obviously a naive and immature judgement of the change taking place, as we soon realised from experience. The relationship between management and workers remained the same; the union still had to fight hard to get improvements in wages and conditions and little in the daily lives of the men reflected the change that had taken place.

Paynter went on however, to say that there had been some improvements. Discussion between the management and the unions "became less acrimonious”, and it now became possible, as it had not been before nationalisation “for workmen to influence management policy”. In the present scene he would have to abandon that also. The miners have yet to learn that nationalisation is state capitalism and alters nothing in the class relationships of capitalism.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Passing Show: Stolen Holiday (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the February 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Stolen holiday

How dare you take an extra day off work at Christmas! How DARE you!

Is this the way to beat our foreign competitors and make Britain great again? Well, is it? You ought to be ASHAMED of yourselves. Here we are in the middle of an economic crisis. Exports are down and costs are up. The trade gap is wider and the pound narrower. But what do you care? Absolutely nothing—and to prove it you took Monday December 28th as an extra holiday.

The Daily Mail of the following day threw a purple-faced screaming headline at its readers. Did you know that you had had a stolen holiday? That is what the Mail called it, because Wilson’s government refused to declare it a public one but many firms granted it just the same. And those awful dockworkers actually took it without so much as a by-your-leave. This, at a time when industry in rival countries was allegedly working normally. “ Not exactly the Dunkirk Spirit ” moaned the Mail.

It’s a moot point whether British workers are more or less diligent than those elsewhere, and not one which is really worth much either way. West German workers, for example, get more holidays than British and West Germany is one of Britain’s major European competitors. After all, one day’s work more or less is not likely to make such a tremendous difference to the fortunes of the British Capitalist class, but the Mail is probably concerned least the habit should become more popular and frequent, and aims to knock it hard on the head before this gets a chance to happen.

It’s nothing new for workers to be called lazy. My own memory is long enough to recall the insults of the pre-war labour exchanges with their puffed-up little clerks, themselves dead scared of putting a foot wrong and landing in the queue on the other side of the counter. During and since the war things have changed, superficially anyway, but we still have to endure goading with stick or carrot from press and politicians alike. Of course, the Mail and the Labour Government would like to see a return to the “Dunkirk Spirit"—its self-denial and if need be, heroism, in the task of keeping British capitalism on the map. Do you remember the days of Dunkirk, incidentally? The futile bloodshed and misery, the long tedious hours of war work and short rations?

Dunkirk and 1940 have a nostalgic ring for capitalist politicians. In those days there was always the promise (the carrot) of a better world after the war, of course, and twenty years of post war experience have tarnished the image a bit. But never mind, if only they could recapture some of the spirit, how much easier would life be for them. Costs would be kept down as foolish workers cheerfully sacrificed their wage increases. Profit margins would widen and perhaps more markets be captured. All very desirable for the owners of industry but hardly an exciting prospect for the working class. Now perhaps you can see why we are not very impressed by the promises or threats that are made from time to time to try and get a bit more out of us.

About the same time as the Mail was working itself into such a rage over our laziness, The Duke of Edinburgh and his son were off for a week or two of winter sports. In February he will visit Australia for a week. Princess Margaret and husband went over to Ireland for a bit of a holiday. Perhaps if we scanned the society columns we could find plenty of other rich people doing the same sort of thing.

Quite clearly the Royal Family and the rest do not take the Mail's strictures very seriously and in any case they were not aimed in their direction. For they belong to the ten per cent who do hot have to sell themselves for a wage packet to make a living, and who live a life of perpetual ease and comfort. The rest of us do all the work and have a pretty drab time of it. Just think about that before you get too conscience-stricken over your Christmas break.

The ultimate stunt

Let’s face it. There are some of us who have never been daring or mildly athletic. A jump from the top board of the local swimming baths would be a real trial of courage for many, including me. Even our childhood pranks can only be called slightly audacious, quite harmless in themselves and never very exciting.

To get to the point. This is perhaps the age of the stunt man, highly trained and physically fit, whose job it is to keep giving his audience bigger and better thrills. He is in great demand for the stand-in feats of riding, fighting and falling that enthrall you on the silver screen, and keep the big (and expensive) stars in one piece. He must have nerves of steel and a lion's courage, and early on he has to face the possibility of serious injury or sudden and violent death.

Like the rest of us, the stunt man lives in a highly commercial world, and although he may be comparatively well paid, he has to make his living under particularly difficult and trying conditions. And being a commercial world, it subjects him to its rules and regulations and the same sorts of pressures as other workers. In practical terms, this means that he must never really relax. His eyes must always be open for new feats (“gimmicks” would be a less generous term) to maintain his audiences’ interest and keep his labour power in demand. And just as in other fields demanding intense concentration and devotion, the job can become a pretty unhealthy obsession.

Did you read about the Hollywood stunt man Rod Pack in the Daily Mail of January 8th? His escapade made Blondin and his barrel look like child’s play. He had been doing a lot of skydiving—parachute jumping to you—which you might think dangerous enough. But not Mr. Pack. He heard a writer’s joking suggestion about trying a jump without a ’chute. “It became a obsession,’’ he confessed and with the not entirely disinterested assistance of some enterprising T.V. producer who offered him a contract, he managed to pull it off. He is still alive to tell the tale.

Granting Mr. Pack’s courage, what has been the result of his feat? A lot of worry for his wife and friends, a rake-off for the T.V. producer and some exclusive pictures for the Daily Mail. “Just for the hell of it, just to be first” was his reason, and as far as he was concerned, that was the end of it. But we can be sure there will be others to follow him, risking life and limb in perhaps even more foolhardy and dangerous stunts to satisfy the demands of the entertainments market. It will prove precious little and solve no outstanding social problems. A tragic waste, really, of human skill and strength, but then that is a fitting description of capitalism as a whole.

Eddie Critchfield

Socialist pioneer (2000)

Book Review from the March 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Essential William Morris by Iain Zaczek, Dempsey Parr, London & Bath, 1999.

This is a very large, coffee-table book, beautifully illustrated with 150 of Morris's drawings, illustrations tiles, wallpaper designs, pained panels, tapestries and much else. All the illustrations are carefully described by the author.

There is also an introductory biography of Morris's life by Claire O'Mahony, in which she traces the origins of his family, his early childhood at Woodford Hall in Epping Forest, his schooling at Marlborough College and, later, Exeter College, Oxford, where is discovered "the idyllic medieval city, the circle of idealistic undergraduates and the writings of the Tractarians, Ruskin and Carlyle". Later, after leaving Oxford, Morris sought out the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

O'Mahony states that "the medievalism of Morris's youth provided a consistent thread to his political morality of later years, which was so firmly rooted in the Socialism theorised by Karl Marx". She mentions that, in 1871 and 1873, Morris visited Iceland where "he experienced a reawakening of his social conscience when he witnessed the simple dignity of classless life amidst the unrelenting hardships experienced in Reykjavik". She very briefly mentions Morris's membership of, first, the Liberal League; his dissatisfaction with Liberalism, his joining the Social Democratic Federation of Henry Mayers Hyndman in 1883, and his founding with 10 others of the Socialist League, as "one of the strongest advocates for a socialist revolution in 1880s' Britain". His friendships with "the Russian émigré anarchist Prince Kropotkin and Friedrich Engels", are noted.

O'Mahony says that "Morris's socialism is most lucid in his writings on art and society". Morris was one of the few privileged members of the capitalist class in Victorian England who fully embraced, and developed, socialist ideas. And despite the coffee-table style of this book, this is stressed in the introduction. Whether readers have coffee tables or not, The Essential William Morris is worth reading, and keeping for the superb illustrations.

Peter E. Newell

Scotland—Progressing Backwards (1963)

From the May 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow

Most of the working-class dwellings in Scotland are the product of the rash of building that took place at the beginning of the century. In Glasgow it is the tenement building with its single and two-roomed apartments, usually three-storied, that predominates.

They were built for the influx of workers from Ireland and other parts of Scotland who crowded into Glasgow during the halcyon days of British capitalism when shipbuilding and heavy engineering along the west coast were booming. Such towns as Port Glasgow, Greenock, Paisley, and all the environs of Glasgow were built on the same lines.

In Lanarkshire, at such places as Motherwell and Hamilton, the coalfields attracted workers not only from Scotland and Ireland, but also from such European countries as Poland and the Ukraine. There the houses were built mainly on the classical “miner's row” pattern, rows and rows of depressing squat little buildings, each one a replica of the other. They may have been a different model from the Glasgow tenement, but, in common with them, they were small, overcrowded, cheap, and utterly unsuitable for human habitation.

On the East coast the story was equally miserable. The housing of the working class in Dundee, Kirkcaldy, Leith, and Edinburgh is from the same sorry mould as Glasgow. Indeed, Edinburgh, which has some pretence of being a cultured city (the ‘‘Athens of the North” the locals boast) with its festival of arts and drama and its litter boxes with the legend “This city is beautiful, keep it that way,” has probably some of the most sordid slums in Europe.

Today, of course, there are changes taking place. A walk through Glasgow's back streets will show that gaps are beginning to appear in the previously unending sides of those asphalt valleys. The local authorities are being forced to demolish some of the worst properties, though sometimes they are saved the task by their helpmates, decay and ill repair. Sometimes the buildings collapse when they are empty, sometimes when still occupied. In Possilpark, in the north of Glasgow, a whole gable-end of a tenement collapsed in a high wind last January. In Anderston and Gorbals in recent years tenements crumbled away in the night while still occupied. In Balloch, Dumbartonshire, last April, an eleven year old boy was crushed to death when a condemned tenement collapsed on him and his playmates.

Of course, houses are not only falling down, some are being built. But how many? Despite the promises of local governments, the picture is far from rosy; in Glasgow last year there were only 2,000 built, the lowest since 1947. More significant than the paltry number that are going up, is the type of houses that are being built.

In those areas where the houses were of a decent standard, the authorities found that the rents were too high for the majority of workers. Indeed, Mr. D. Gibson, the convenor of the Housing Committee in Glasgow, confessed that they could not send workers from the condemned tenements to such areas as Mosspark because ‘‘They were high- minded men who put Mosspark out of the reach of the very men and women who are demanding higher standards, and people in this city in need of housing cannot face up to rents and rates of £130 per year.” (Glasgow Herald, 19/3/62.)

The same sad story of workers too poor to be able to afford anything approaching decent housing. But for an example of ‘‘progress” the next point could hardly be bettered.

“Many years ago Glasgow had taken a resolution never to build again the two-apartment houses which had been such a large part of Scotland's housing problems. Now they were faced with thousands of Glasgow's citizens, the salt of the earth, who wanted to stay in Anderston and Woodside—the places where they had been brought up—in room-and-kitchen houses with an inside toilet. They refused to go to the new housing estates of Castlemilk and Easterhouse, and Glasgow Corporation were now building 10,684 modern houses for two persons. . . . That's progress; that's the criterion of affluence in this affluent society, a room and kitchen with an inside toilet.”

But even this modest demand for a new two-room apartment is hardly likely to be met. Mr. Gibson considers it will be necessary to convert the old property in some cases—“Even if they built 100,000 new houses in the next twenty years, they still need to keep standing some 30,000 room-and-kitchen and two-room-and kitchen houses, but they must be improved. They must have an inside toilet and reasonable washing facilities, even if it was a hot shower instead of a bath. These improvements could be carried out inside the bed recess in the kitchen at an estimated cost of £750 per house which would make them habitable for another 20 years.”

What a dilemma! They are building 2,000 a year just now: even if they built 100,000 in 20 years they would still have to convert old property and this would only last another 20 years.

Twist and turn as they may, capitalisms’ reformers, whether the Labour Party brand like Mr. Gibson, or Tory, Liberal or Communist, are bereft of an answer. Like the system they support, they find in the housing situation that every time they patch up in one place, something falls down in another.

Richard Donnelly

A Socialist Tour (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following brief account of the visit to this country of two American colleagues is reproduced from the September-October Western Socialist as [it's] likely to be of interest to our readers—Ed. Com.)

Fulfilling the ambition of many years, two American comrades took a two-week trip to Britain to meet the members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and participate in their activities.

Never to them did life in the Socialist movement seem more momentous and meaningful than those two weeks.

Here are a few of the highlights.

While flying across the ocean, the comrades engaged a fellow plane passenger in an intensive (12-hour) explanation of Socialism. When the plane landed at Shannon, Eire, he gave them a dollar for a Western Socialist subscription; a few hours later, when the plane landed at London, he decided to join company with them for the day, meet the SPGB comrades, and attend the outdoor meeting at Hyde Park. 

From the time they landed at London airport, and were met by two wonderfully patient comrades with motorcar and motorcycle and driven to an inviting home for a most refreshing reception, until they left Prestwick airport two weeks later with friendly farewells from Glasgow comrades, they were simply overwhelmed by the sheer warmth and cordiality of the comrades. Everywhere they went they received a grand welcome, and the hospitality in the homes was genuinely gracious. A welcoming social was held at the Head Office, London, at which about 150 comrades exuberantly expressed themselves in group dancing, singing and discussing—for a most enjoyable evening.

The afternoon of their arrival, the comrades headed for their first outstanding destination—Hyde Park. There they met a goodly number of comrades and saw some SPGB speakers in action. They had little time to listen for, in response to persistent requests, they took the stand to speak to large and attentive audiences. The crowds at this and other outdoor meetings at which the comrades spoke, looked and acted much like those on Boston Common and asked similar questions. However, at every meeting, they asked about conditions in U.S., the possibility of Socialist expression, the influence of “McCarthyism.” Opposition came mainly from a few vociferous Communists; heckling was far less than anticipated, and there was usually a round of applause for Socialism.

Starting with the meeting at Hyde Park, the comrades were almost completely absorbed in Socialist activities. In the fifteen days in Britain they spoke at eight outdoor meetings (Hyde Park 2, Lincoln's Inn Field 3, East End Market 1, Portsmouth 1, Glasgow 1), ten SPGB Branch meetings, one Executive Committee meeting, and a lecture at Workers' Open Forum, Glasgow. Besides these organized meetings, there were numerous group discussions with comrades until the wee hours of most mornings. It was inspiring and instructive to listen to and participate in the critical and interesting discussions on various aspects of Socialist theories and analyses. At every branch meeting the need was stressed for closer co-operation, correspondence between the overseas comrades, articles for the WS. Emphasized was the fact that WE ARE AS ONE and WE ARE NOT ALONE.

While in London an extremely encouraging message was received from a Glasgow comrade stating that a 17-year-old member had just appeared before a Tribunal and had been exempted from military service. “Part of my defense on behalf of the comrade was the production of a copy of the January, 1945 Western Socialist (in which appeared a most effective article dealing with a Socialist analysis of war by the young defendant's mother). All the Glasgow members present at the Tribunal agreed the WS was a very powerful card to play."

A meeting with two members of the Editorial Committee, both of whom had helped edit the Socialist Standard for more than 30 years, proved very valuable. There was an exchange of information, helpful suggestions were offered, and closer cooperation in the future was assured. Most important was the fact that surplus articles would be made available for The Western Socialist thus enhancing the possibility of its monthly issuance.

To reciprocate in a small way for the splendid cooperation by the SPGB with the WSP throughout its existence, the American comrades made a donation toward launching a fund to employ a full-time paid organizer. This project, which was presented to the Executive Committee for consideration, received a very favourable response wherever the comrades travelled. Incidentally, while in Glasgow, a comrade made a generous donation to the WSP.

A fascinating trip through the heart of England was made possible by the splendid cooperation of a Lancashire comrade who drove 215 miles to London in his “jalopy" and then travelled back with the comrades through Oxford, Warwick, Stratford on Avon, Litchfield, Kenilworth, and the Midlands to Burnley where wonderful hospitality awaited them. While plenty of the countryside was beautiful, a perpetual poll of blackness and misery seemed to hang over the entire industrial area. Much seemed to remain just as Engels described it in 1844. The stone barrack-line slums were everywhere; the smoke seemed to darken everything.

The trip to Burnley made possible a hasty visit to Manchester where, within a few hours, a meeting at the home of a comrade was arranged. About 25, among them a charter member of the SPGB, met for a stimulating discussion of Socialist problems.

One of the most inspiring incidents of the visit took place at a comrade's home. There, in a kitchen, a group of comrades from England, Ireland, Scotland and United States discussed their common problems, spoke the same Socialist language, adhered to the same principles. Before leaving for the Workers’ Open Forum meeting, they stood around a table, firmly grasped hands in a symbol of international solidarity, and expressed the hope for the speedy realization of an international Socialist conference.

Climaxing the trip (only a few hours before plane time) was a meeting at the Workers' Open Forum, Glasgow, addressed by the two comrades. The hall was jampacked by more than 450 workers who, except for some heated opposition in question and discussion by a small group of Communists and Anti-Pariiamentarians, enthusiastically received and loudly applauded the Socialist case.

After the meeting the comrades were surrounded by well-wishers, and more than a hundred lined the side-walk to cheer them on their way. En route to the airport, a fifteen-minute stop was made at a comrade’s home, where a goodly group of Glasgow members, who had been present at the meeting, expressed great enthusiasm, sang comradely songs, and further cheered the comrades on their way. Awaiting them at the airport, 30 miles away, was another group of Glasgow comrades who stayed with them for a grand confabulation until enplaning time, almost 3 a.m.

In a letter recently received from a comrade at Burnley, Lancashire, the Mowing estimate of the trip is expressed:

   “That your visit to England and Scotland aroused tremendous interest is beyond doubt. In London and Manchester (and over the 'phone to Glasgow) we learned from many comrades something of the great enthusiasm which is but one of the results of your tireless endeavours to visit as many branches and meetings as was possible during your all too brief stay. . . .  Our Comrades in America will feel tremendously encouraged when they realise the full import of your visit to Britain. I feel sure that I am merely expressing what hundreds here are already thinking and saying, that your momentous visit must and will be the forerunner of many more involving many comrades. And equally important, it must be two way traffic, and who knows?—maybe it won't be very long before delegates from all the Companion Parties will be converging on some city in Europe or America for the first Socialist International Conference."

George Gloss

Letter: Is Marxism Wrong? (1968)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sirs,

“The whole doctrine of Marxism rests on the materialist conception of history”, says L Laurat in Marxism and Democracy. You are no doubt aware of the renewed interest in theories of history and historicism (Isaiah Berlin: Historical Inevitability; E. H. Carr: What is History?; G. R. Elton: The Practice of History, etc.).

You must also be aware of the fact that the Marxist conception of history and other forms of determinism have come in for a great deal of criticism—indeed they have been utterly discredited. The Marxist explanation of such events as the Reformation, the English Civil War, and the “scramble for Africa” are now recognised to be faulty if not demonstrably wrong.

In the light of later research and knowledge of history would you still reaffirm the materialist conception or would you concede that some modification is necessary?

T. Young, South Oxhey, Watford, Herts. 

REPLY

Mr. Young’s conjectures about the present status of Marxism are shared, no doubt, by many who have taken a passing interest in historical inquiry. His remarks, however, tend to be so general that we feel it would lead to a more fruitful exchange if he would be more specific in his criticism. We therefore invite a supplementary letter from him.

Editorial Committee

Tobacco For The Old 'Uns (1947)

From the July 1947  issue of the Socialist Standard

About once a week since Budget Day in April we have been treated with statements that the Chancellor is trying to find out ways and means so that the old age pensioners can still have their bit of ’baccy despite the rise in price consequent on the increased tax. The obvious solution would have been to have increased the old age pension by a few bob a week. The wiseacres who control our destinies must have thought of this solution, but evidently it does not appeal to them. So instead they have spent weeks devising complicated schemes involving coupons, rebates, and such like. All this in order to save the Exchequer (or ultimately the capitalists who bear the taxes) a few thousand pounds which otherwise might have benefited those pensioners who do not smoke. Could anything be more contemptible from a so-called “Labour” Government, which is supposed to have the interest of the working class. It’s “heart” may be for the workers, but it’s mind is for the capitalists, as Socialists have always pointed out that it must be.

R. M.

The Labour Party and the Unemployed. (1908)

From the February 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour Statesmanship.

The question of unemployment was the first to occupy the preliminary conference of the Labour Party at Hull. “Important” speeches were made by the “statesmen of labour," and a no less “important” resolution was passed.

Mr. Pete Curran said: “Until we are in a position to utilise the legislative machinery of the country for the purpose of curtailing the income of the rich who are in possession, and in adding to the income of the poor, we shall never solve the unemployed problem.”

Mr. J. R. MacDonald, in moving the important resolution said: “Unemployment was now part and parcel of our industrial system; it was produced by the system with the same certainty and accuracy with which the industrial system produced profits.”

Mr. O’Grady in seconding that resolution .said: “The present industrial system was a machine turning out profits on the one hand and unemployed on the other. It was inevitable that it must be so.”

From the foregoing extracts from the most “important” speeches that were uttered on the question, our readers will naturally gather that since unemployment could confessedly only end by the abolition of capitalism, therefore the resolution that was carried by an overwhelming majority urged that steps should immediately be taken to instruct and organise the working class in the work before them, namely, to concentrate upon the capture of the powers of government to the end that the productive powers may be transformed from instruments of oppression and exploitation, into the means of promoting the welfare of those who produce.

But no. That would not have been statesmanlike. It would have been too logical.

This was the resolution actually carried: - 

  That in the opinion of this conference of trade union, Socialist, and co-operative organisations, unemployment is not caused by the free trade policy of the country, and is not averted by periods of good trade, but is a permanent feature of our present industrial organisation. This conference therefore declares that the problem can only be solved by a vigorous use on the part of the Government, and of local authorities, of the legislative and administrative powers, including shortening the hours of labour of public and other employees and protecting the worker from the operation of land and other monopolies, which depopulate the country, overcrowd the towns, lower wages, and increase the share of the national produce which is secured by the idle rich. This conference consequently calls upon the Government to fulfil its promise in the King's Speech of 1906 that it would amend the Unemployed Workmen Act, and it declares that such an amendment to be satisfactory must embody the principles and general policy of the Labour Party's Unemployed Workmen Bill.

And that is so like the Labour Party. The unemployed, you see, can only disappear on the abolition of capitalism, therefore, do not let us take steps to that end, let us ask the capitalists to abolish themselves!

If no unemployed are available, the capitalist loses his great weapon in the cutting down of wages and in the speeding up of the employed, nor is any reserve army available for the expansion of production in busy times, nor are any available to take the place of strikers. Without the deadly competition of the unemployed for jobs, the employed would be enabled to obtain almost the whole available product of their labour. Profits would therefore vanish and capitalism come to an end. Yet the master class are to be asked to themselves abolish the very corner-stone of their dominant existence. This is reasonable, possible, statesman like, reform wisdom.

When we on the other hand insist that since unemployment is inseparable from capitalism, and since from unemployment flow the greatest miseries of the workers, including the wholesale starvation of children, women and men, and since, moreover, the abolition of capitalist exploitation is admittedly the only solution of unemployment, therefore the workers should concentrate upon the capture of political supremacy in order to abolish class exploitation, when we insist upon this, the only logical policy, we are dubbed impossiblists, heresy hunters, or moon-raking rainbow-chasers by those whose hard-headed, practical and "possible” policy consists in requesting of fire that it shall not burn.

A Reform Analysed.

But what is one of the principal factors upon which the Labour Party relies in its solution of the unemployed? It is the reduction of the hours of labour. There is nothing to be said against the reduction of the hours of labour as such, but as a solution of unemployment what could be more fatuous?

From the passing of the Ten Hour Act until the present day nothing is more certain than that the reduction of hours has not in the aggregate of cases decreased, but has caused an increase in productivity. That is to say, instead of more workers being required to produce the same amount as formerly, fewer are actually required. This holds good generally. It is partly due to the fact that the very reduction of hours, by allowing a greater time for the recuperation of the strength to the worker, enables him to put forth a greater effort per hour. He is, indeed, usually compelled to do so, and to produce as much or more in the reduced working day as in the former longer hours.

Further, there are in most departments, mechanical appliances ready for adoption which for the nonce are no cheaper to work than the human machines they would displace. When, however, an increase in the wages bill threatens, these appliances are introduced to save such increased expenditure, and by reason of the continual perfectibility of the machine, particularly due to the experience born of its being put into practical daily working, the appliances improve rapidly and bring about considerable reductions in the number of workers the masters need hire in order to produce the same amount of goods as before.

Therefore the reduction of hours, unless carried to such extreme and wholesale lengths as would require a revolution to accomplish, would not reduce the numbers of the unemployed.

Any reduction of the working day that is introduced by the ruling class will, from the very interests which promote it, be only upon such a scale as is consistent with greater output on the part of the average worker employed and greater profit for the possessing class.

So the reduction of hours, as a "palliative,” instead of requiring more workers to be employed to produce the same amount of wealth as before would, in the long run, actually require less, and would have the tendency to increase rather than diminish the very evil of unemployment against which it was directed. It is, indeed, a typical palliative.

F. C. Watts