On Illegal Organisations. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the July issue reasons were given for our opposition to the Communist Party. Among other things, the opinions were expressed that "it is impossible to organise the working class secretly," and that, with the possible exception of politically and economically backward countries, no necessity for illegal methods of propaganda exists, and no useful purpose is served by devoting energy to them.

America provides interesting confirmation of the inevitable failure of the illegal organisation. In that country a serious attempt was made to apply the Moscow policy, and it was in fact the, boast of the American Communists that "the United States is the only country in the world where the Communist movement, as such, is an underground movement."

In the October Liberator (New York), Max Eastman, himself a supporter of the Third International, examines the present deplorable condition of the American Communist Party, and endeavours to explain it. His appreciation of the result of their work is this: "Two years have passed (since the secession from the Socialist Party), and except for the deepening and confirming of that split, nothing of appreciable value to the cause of Communism has been done by the Revolutionists. A good deal has been done to the detriment of the cause." This is all the more striking because the conditions considered, favourable to Communist propaganda have been present to a degree perhaps never previously known. "In spite of an 'increasing misery' that surpasses the demands of any theory, the workers in America seem to be less friendly to Communism than they were two years ago."

The mistake lay in the acceptance of the fallacy that capitalism had broken down beyond hope of recovery, and the supposition that the form of activity dictated by the semi-Feudal Russian autocracy must have application to the capitalist democracies. The first simply is not true, and the experience has again proved the falseness of the second.

There never was any necessity for propaganda to be illegal in America, any more than in this country. "It is not so much the ruthlessness of the American capitalists as the romanticism of the American Communists which accounts for their being underground. The majority of the leaders want to be underground. They enjoy disciplining the devotees of a rebellion, but educating the workers for the revolution is a less interesting task, and they are not fulfilling it."

The Communists "formed an elaborate conspiratorial organisation excellently adapted to promote treasonable and seditious enterprises, although they have no such enterprises on foot"; yet when subjected to police persecution for their activities they, like the Communists over here, are forced into the position of using the ordinary legal machinery for their protection. "The folly of this policy becomes tragically apparent when members of this underground organisation defend themselves in Court with the eloquent and perfectly truthful assertion that the propaganda they are conducting is not in violation of the laws." It becomes still more tragically apparent when they resort to the distribution of circulars advocating methods of terrorism—for the mere purpose, so far as we can judge, of sustaining and justifying the illegality of their organisation." This degeneration into the futility of sabotage has always been the fate of those who have never been nearer to an appreciation of the class struggle than that of throwing broken bottles at policemen.

Their failure is that they will not recognise the realities of the present situation, and the attitude of the workers towards capitalist institutions.

The capitalist class is, and will remain, in power until such time as the class conscious organised workers are strong enough to wrest that power from them. That power depends on the support of the great mass of the workers, unthinking though that support may be. Capitalist domination will not be overthrown because some relatively weak organisation declares its preparedness to defy constitutionalism, and to damn the consequences. It is a question not of intention, but of effectiveness, and the object of the revolutionary organisation is to strengthen itself until it is a force which cannot be ignored or suppressed. This means neither more nor less than the spreading of the knowledge of Socialism— the unexciting task of making Socialists. The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia because, for the objects they had in view, they had the mass of workers, peasants, and soldiers behind them. Those supporters were not Socialists, and those objects were not Socialism; but the position elsewhere with regard to the needs of the Socialist revolution is the same. The workers of America and Britain have not yet the requisite knowledge of, and sympathy with, Socialism ; in short they do not want it.

The Communist Party therefore, in its insurrectionary attitude to the American Government, alienates those very people for whose ears its propaganda is intended. In the eyes of the average worker the Government which he elects represents his interests, as its proclamations do actually mirror his opinions. It is a fact, and not a surprising one, that the average unthinking worker believes that the existing machinery of Government does give expression to the will of the people. What, then, is he to think of those who deliberately set themselves against what appears to him as the forces of law and order?

It would not matter so much if the Communists bore the burden of their own mistakes ; but the harm they do is much wider than that. They provide the Government with the excuse it desires for repressive legislation such as at ordinary times it would be difficult to introduce; and this legislation is used against every revolutionary propaganda body. They provide the openly capitalist political parties, and more particularly the reactionary "Labour" parties, with easy material for their attempts to discredit Socialism. They confuse, without educating, those workers who are reached by their propaganda, and antagonise the much larger number who hear only the misrepresentation to which it so readily lends itself.

It is a slow and difficult task to remove from the mind of the typical wage earner the pathetic belief in the inevitability of his sufferings, and in the permanency of political institutions and economic forms of society; but there is only one way, the educational way, and to think of challenging those who are now in control, before this educational work has been accomplished, is mere foolishness.

Knowledge of the evolution of human society, and of the origin and development of existing political institutions on the one hand, and knowledge of the present economic structures which makes possible the exploitation of the workers, an exploitation not superficially observable, are the necessary forerunners of successful organisation for the emancipation of the workers. Spectacular defiance of the powers that be has no place in this scheme of things.

P. J. L.

The "Crusader" Again. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the August issue I dealt with what I considered to be the weakness and insufficiency of the policy of the "Crusader," in so far as it is concerned with the emancipation of the workers. In reply the Editor wrote (August 26th) :

  "The writer, in his opening sentence, says that we believe in the power of the ethics of Christ to overcome all the difficulties and to combat all the evils which trouble mankind. That is just what we don't believe. The ethical system of Christianity by itself is a trunk without a head, a tree without a root. Christianity is based on attachment to a person of transcendent authority. When it is detached from this foundation, it loses all its distinctive characteristics, and becomes, what its adversaries declare it is, an impossible dream, a set of barren principles."

As a matter of fact, I am still of the opinion that my statement of the "Crusader's" attitude was a fair one, but evidently Stanley James thinks not. May I, however, quote from the "Crusader" itself (September 23rd) on this point, asking it to be noted that the Editor does not dissociate himself or the journal from the opinions of other writers in it? Mr. Wilfred Wellock, a regular contributor, writes, under the title "The Way Out," as follows :

  "Labour needs the lead of people who are prepared to take the straight road to the new world, to adopt a revolutionary programme based on the ethics of Christianity." 

And again : 

  "How magnificent it would be were Labour to stand four square on the principle of service and co-operation, and fight a General Election with such slogans as 'The Meek shall inherit the earth. . . ' "

Comment on this is not required.

Incidentally, to return to our opposition to the "Crusader" policy, I repeat, the militant and not the meek will inherit the earth.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: BBC’s Anti-Pacifist Blockade (1991)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The B. B. C. is extending its anti-Pacifist blockade. It has now blacklisted three famous preachers—Dr. Donald Soper, of Kingsway Hall and Tower Hill; Dr. George MacLeod, of Iona; and Canon Charles Raven, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge . . . In these three cases, as in the case of the Glasgow Orpheus Choir, banned because of the pacifist views of its conductor. Sir Hugh Robertson, the B. B. C. is assumed to have acted as the instrument of the State. No attempt has been made to disguise the reason for the action . . ." (News Chronicle, January 4th. 1941.)

["Press Cuttings", Socialist Standard, March 1941.]

Confusion In Conference. So-Called Socialists Meet at Copenhagen. (1910)

From the October 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Confusion was the keynote of the proceedings at the International Socialist (!) Congress held recently at Copenhagen. A Babel of tongues spoke every language but that of Socialism. The "impracticable theory" of rallying the workers to the fight for emancipation has been deliberately discarded in favour of the "saner and more practicable policy" of devising ways and means of begging, coaxing, threatening reforms and palliatives out of the capitalist class. The RED INTERNATIONAL, founded by Marx and Engels for revolution has been so completely prostituted to reform and compromise, that the bulk of the delegates at the Conference, and the "Labour" Press throughout the world, recognised unhesitatingly that the British Section were the "most advanced, the most revolutionary" of all the delegates. What unspeakable tragedy! The most uncompromising fighters for Socialism were these representatives of the Labour Party, the I.L.P., the S.D.P., the Fabian Society, and the Trade Unions—the chief wire-pullers of wire-pulling organisations and the arch-betrayers of working-class ignorance ; the very scum of the "Labour" political inferno, sitting cheek by jowl with the embodiments of bourgeois arrogance, conceit and condescension. The British delegation had twenty votes at the Congress, ten being controlled by the Labour Party and the remainder being distributed among the other organisations of the section. Thus the open defenders and supporters of the Liberal Budget, Taxations of Ground Values, Reform of the Poor Law, Free Trade and other allurements of their Liberal masters, were the "revolutionary" element of the Copenhagen Congress. What other proof is needed that the International Socialist Congress has been CAPTURED BY THE CAPITALISTS ?

But the "revolt" of the British delegation against several "important" resolutions was not due to any sudden Socialist conviction. These "uprisings" had a much more mundane cause. The resolutions "rebelled" against embodied the ideas of measures either passed or promised by the British Liberal Government! And the truth of that allegation was openly insisted upon by the various British delegates who addressed the Conference and the International Bureau.

And needless to say, the calibre of the delegates was similar to that of the British section. The German Social-Democratic Party steeped to the hilt in a Parliamentary reform policy ; the Austrian Social-Democratic Party, an effective mixture of such elements as the British Labour Party, I.L.P., and S.D.P., whose greatest achievement is supposed to have been the obtaining of the suffrage for some hundreds of thousands of Radical Labourites (alias Social-Democrats) ; the ''Unified" French Socialist Party, in which the bourgeois Republicanism and political diplomacy of Jaurès has obliterated revolutionary action ; the Russian twin "Socialist" organisations whom bitter experience of the oppressors has not saved from the fatal mistake of seeking "BLESSINGS FROM ABOVE" ; the Italian Socialist Party, still boastful of their "unity" of all factions (including those who have grown tired of fighting for Socialism): all these and many more such sections formed the material of which this apology for a Socialist congress was made up. 

It is a sad reflection that, except the S.P.G.B., every body that contained the germ of Socialist existence has been swallowed up by that congress of compromise and confusion. In France the Guesdists, who at one time, in spite of their small number, wielded enormous power for Socialist enlightenment, are absorbed by the reformist followers of Jaurès and Vaillant; in Italy the United Party has forced its compromising policy on its members with the result that the Socialist element has been swamped ; in Russia the Parliamentary possibilities for the "political genius" have caused wholesale desertion of the Socialist flag. Even the once alleged Socialist organisation, the S.L.P. of America, has given up every vestige of independence, and sent its delegate—to whine to the S.P. of the same country for fusion—and to be SNEERINGLY SPURNED !

Now to survey the happenings at the Congress. The delegates sat in a hall decorated with banners indicative of the character of the Congress. "Religion is a Private Concern" ; "A Maximum Working day of Eight Hours" ; "Disarmament Means Peace " : such were the mottoes they bore.

The boast of Stauning, the Danish president, that his party showed by their 100,000 votes and 28 successful candidates at the last parliamentary election, and their 23 newspapers with 120,000 subscribers, their triumphal work for Socialism was exceedingly hollow in face of the speeches of the Danish delegates and the resolutions they supported. Vandervelde's opening speech on behalf of the International Bureau was a glorification of the un-class-conscious labour movement. Instead of deploring the fact that in every country represented at that Congress the ascent of the Parliamentary reform policy has in the last three years more than in any other similar period, PLAYED HAVOC with the honest proletarians seeking enlightenment, he crowed over the fact that 38 countries and 8 million followers were represented at the Congress, and that in many countries the "Socialist" parties have experienced a large influx of votes and "Socialist" representatives since the last Congress.

The agenda was one that would be considered mild by a Radical Free Trade gathering. The main items were the Unemployed Question; International Arbitration and Disarmament; International Results of the Legislation for the Protection of the Workers; Organisation of an International Pronouncement against the Death Sentence; Question of Co-operative Movement; International Trade Unionism and the General Strike.

Some of the arguments on the questions on the committees and in open Congress will be of interest to our readers.

In the committee on Disarmament and Peace, Vaillant (France) said: "The abolition of war will naturally only be made possible by Socialism, but for that we cannot wait. It is therefore necessary to make a stand against armaments and militarism in the different Parliaments." Keir Hardie said: "If now the German and English Governments came to an understanding about the limitation of armaments it would not be due to their LOVE OF PEACE, but because these two countries can no longer bear the burden of armaments. The workers are strong enough to prevent war. On the day of the declaration of war the workers must cease work. That is not a general strike. It is also necessary to make a stand against the vile action of the capitalist Press." Bruce Glasier said: "Christianity has been unable to abolish war. There are already Socialists who are prepared to sacrifice their principles of peace. The fighting instinct can unmistakeably be found in some Social-Democrats. That is the animal instinct which one must overcome. Let us unfold the most far-reaching agitation for peace, then the United States of Europe will soon become an accomplished fact." Radec (Poland) said : "The attitude of Vorwaerts and of the German Social-Democratic Party in Parliament concerning the Anglo German arrangement is nothing short of an alternative to the defence of naval armaments advocated by Hyndman and Co. which has generally been condemned." Hillquit (U.S.A.) said : "No word has yet been uttered concerning the main point. The debate has until now only been a continuation of the Stuttgart discussion on anti-militarism." Dessin (England): " We must ABOLISH CAPITALISM to ensure peace. But we can already now contribute towards a diminution of the dangers of war, and that is what the resolution of the British delegation is aiming at."

In the Committee on the question of the Co-operative Movement the following speeches are characteristic of the main position. Vendervelde (Belgium) said : "The criterion will be that the co-operative societies must be organisations in the class-struggle. The German workers will see to it that the co-operative societies remain Socialist. The German co-operative societies propagate Socialism secretly ; those in Belgium openly." Guesde, speaking for the French minority said : "The conquest of political power is necessary. Only when a co-operative society furthers this object is it of use, that is to say it must not be ignored but given its right place. In Germany the co-operative societies are limited liability companies with small shares, but wherein consists their Socialism ? We have been told that the profit is distributed according to consumption, but that is capitalistic. We must not only tell the workers to join those societies but to use them as a means in the class struggle." Whiteley (England) said : "English co-operative societies have already proved useful in politics, and have joined our Parliamentary committee. Socialists have until now done nothing for these societies, but will do something for them in the future—that is, carry Socialism into their ranks."

The first resolution proposed in open Congress was one on unemployment. It started out by stating that unemployment is INSEPARABLE FEOM CAPITALIST PRODUCTION and proceeded to say that it could therefore not be a question of abolition but of amelioration. For this purpose the Congress demanded from capitalist Governments, statistics ; wages as paid by co-operative societies ; support during industrial crises ; safeguarding of political rights ; support of all arrangements for finding employment ; diminution of unemployment by legislation ; compulsory support of unemployed. Dr. Adolf Braun (Austria) moved the resolution with the approval of all delegates except the British. On the motion of its adoption MacDonald said: "For the British Section the present Resolution is too weak. We would have liked to have seen the right to work at fair wages insisted upon. The British section is especially of opinion that the capitalist method of production is to blame for unemployment, and that it therefore must be made responsible for its consequences." Quelch said : "If we go home with this resolution we shall considerably damage our own movement for the amelioration of unemployment, the resolution being too weak."

On the "unity" question De Leon declared that "After the Amsterdam Congress we, the minority, the S.L.P., declared ourselves prepared to negotiate with the S.P., which they have declined to do. Therefore this Congress must decide that the other party is obliged to negotiate with us. In the name of the S.L.P. I may declare that we are READY FOR NEGOTIATION with the S.P. There are prospects of a powerful movement in America, but it cannot flourish, because we fight each other." Hillquit replied : "The Socialist Party has long become an object of unity and asked all Socialist bodies to unite. All accepted our invitation except the Party—let us say De Leon. (Laughter.) Since then we have made rapid progress, most members of the S.L.P. having joined us. Now, Comrade De Leon, if you are prepared to abandon your last creation, the I.W.W., and your non-Socialist tricks, no conference or convention is necessary for that fusion." To which Berger (Milwaukee) added : "Ten years ago we had two organisations, each with 5,000 members ; now the S.P. have 53,000 paying members, the S.L.P. less than 1,000. That is nearly unity. The remaining 1,000 are welcome if they will give up fighting the Trade Unions. We shall solve the fusion, question within the next three years because then only De Leon will stand outside our party. You see we are working strongly for unity." (Loud Applause.)

The resolution on Disarmament and Peace was, like all the other resolutions put before the Congress, FULL OF CONTRADICTIONS and inconsistencies. It started with explaining the necessity of war under capitalism, and finished with a demand for suppression of hostilities by the democracy, and giving directions to the International Bureau how to act in case of a declaration of war. Socialism would stand a poor chance indeed if it were as impossible as this resolution. Vaillant and Keir Hardie moved the following amendment: "The Congress regards the General Strike as a means for the prevention of war, more especially a refusal to assist in the production and transport of arms and amnrunition." This was rejected by a vast majority and the amendment carried.

During this debate Keir Hardie, replying to an attack by Ledebour on the British delegation, stated that the English Labour Party is against war and militarism. Ledebour had taken the attitude of the I.L.P. to be that of Hyndman and Quelch, but his Party had nothing to do with these. If his Party had supported the Liberal Budget that was NOT A QUESTION OE PRINCIPLE, BUT TACTICS.

On the question of unemployment Hardie said "In our country we are very near a radical solution of unemployment. We should find ourselves in a difficult position in face of the English Government with the resolution passed by the Congress, hence we ask the substitution of our resolution for the one adopted."

In spite of the contradictory nature of the composition, agenda, speeches and resolutions, there is no mistaking the object and effect of the Congress. The German S.D.P. strained every nerve to make the Congress an advertising medium for their approaching General Election. They were in a position to obtain sufficient support to get the resolutions on the main questions shaped so as to appeal to the German Radicals and bourgeois Democrats who have grown tired cf the orthodox Radical party and want a real, live reform party. Luckily for the German delegation, no other section but the British was out for a similar purpose. In France, Austria and Italy the elections have recently taken place, but in England a General Election is not at all unlikely within, the next three years. Hence two rival "Socialist" parties fought each other tooth and nail, the Germans anxious to pass resolutions acceptable to Radicals; the English striving to prevent the passing of anything the Liberal Government could conveniently act upon to the detriment of the Labour Party, I.L.P. and S.D.P. The German delegates expressed their gratification at the results of the Conference, and congratulated themselves on having gained A HUNDRED THOUSAND VOTES through its agency.

So another congress has come and gone—-in the way the capitalists delight to see —in confusion. But, despite the forces of reform and reaction, cunningly striving to turn the working class upon itself, the future belongs to the Revolutionary. The ever-growing economic pressure must eventually demonstrate the utter futility of reform, and at the same time unmask those who advocate it. May the awakening come soon.

Hans J. Neumann

Signs of the Times. (1909)

John William Robinson

From the May 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is most significant of the trend of economic development that everything that enters into the recreative or intellectual side of life should have become dependent upon finance. Thus we find that the Sciences, Art, Music, Drama, Literature, etc., have all become subordinate to profit, to the all important question—"will it pay? " Authors, musicians and so on are not allowed to produce the best that is within them, but must, turn out only that which will pay.

The latest extension of this development concerns sport. The "sport of kings" has for a long time past been dominated by the Alpha and Omega of capitalist thought—profit, but now football has entered the industrial arena.

These reflections are caused by an article in the Football Evening News, dated March 10th, 1909. The article is headed "The Crisis: Will the Players Force a Strike? Purely Business,. Socialistic Legislation of the F. A.," and is "by J. W. Robinson, (International goalkeeper)."

The first paragraph is as follows: "At last the Players Union is at daggers drawn with the Football Association. I say 'at last,' because it has for some time past been obvious to all who take part in professional football to-day, no matter whether they are players or officials, that a Union which is formed to look after the interests of professional players is bound to fall foul, sooner or later, of a body which, to all intents and purposes, only looks after the-interests of employers." There you have the class war as applied to football.

How long will it be before footballers in general realise the position, and having done so, determine to do their part in the struggle for class emancipation ?

The writer of the article goes on to compare the professional footballer with the skilled mechanic, pointing out that the former, like the latter, is "employed to do certain work and supply a want by a limited company."

Accompanying the article is a cartoon which is even more remarkable, for it is a pictorial representation of the commodity form of labour. It shows two bloated capitalists, one a prospective buyer, the other a prospective seller. Between them is the "Pro," his arms tied behind his back, and fastened to a long chain at the end of which is a heavy cannon ball. The seller is saying to the buyer, "A fine fellow, worth £20,000, and only costs £4 to keep a week."

A little more economic pressure and the "Pros" will have to recognise that the only way they can emancipate themselves, and incidentally their sport, from the domination of capitalism is for them to fall into line with the international working class, and organise with them for the conquest of political power, and having obtained that they must proceed to dispossess the capitalists from their ownership of all natural resources and tools of production, in order that these resources and means may be socially owned and used.

The nucleus of that organisation is here, in the Socialist Party of Great Britain. 

H. H.

Letter: More About Marcos (1987)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Your reply to my criticism of your Editorial in your April 1986 issue, “Lessons of the Fall of Marcos”, is in fact an admission that my criticism was on the target, despite your seeming defense of the Editorial.

I contended that the ruling class will not allow the revolutionary socialist majority to take political power, unless the working class was organised with an economic power (Socialist Industrial Unions) that could enforce their decision at the ballot box by taking possession of the industrial establishments of the land and assuming the conduct of the nation's production, thereby locking out the capitalist class.

Now, you contradict yourself again. Your Editorial stated that, "You have always argued that it is possible to establish socialism by peaceful, democratic means, through the working class organising into a mass political movement and using existing elective institutions, imperfect as they are from the standpoint of pure democracy". I agree that you have always argued this thesis. Your Declaration of Principles confirms this. However, you now hedge on this programme when you say, "It is absurd to imagine that all the workers need to do to achieve socialism, is to vote for it. Certainly this is not and never has been our position". However, that is not the statement that you made in your Editorial which I criticised and which you say is a position you always argued. Now, you are amending it. Your Statement of Principles does not include your amendment.

You say I am labouring under a misapprehension because you did not say Marcos' downfall was a "socialist electoral victory". That is true. You did state that it was an example of "What is likely to happen when a government enjoying minority support, tries to defy a majority movement". You did not refute my charge that the ruling class did not give up power despite the majority movement. Actually, they did defy the majority because only the figure heads were changed!

I did not imply that Allende was a socialist or that he won by a majority vote. Why quibble? I stated that the ruling class did not accept the decision at the ballot box!

You are moving toward the DeLeonist position when you say, "It is not the socialist victory at the polls as such that would lead to the last capitalist government relinquishing power, but the fact that this victory would be a reflection of the determination and, naturally, organisation of a vast majority of workers. This organisation for socialism will also extend to the places of work (the existing trade unions will obviously be completely transformed when a majority of their members are conscious, determined socialists) but it will be essentially political". (My emphasis.) An organisation of class conscious socialists in their places of work and the transformation of the existing trade unions as you state, implies the organisation of the workers' economic power that you criticise the DeLeonists for advocating.

You admit that the capitalist class possesses immense economic power that enabled it to attain political power. Now, you say that evolution led to the disappearance of their original economic power entirely as a result of the fact that they possess political power! Your argument that the substance (economic power) reflected the shadow (political power) you now reverse. You say the shadow now reflects the substance! This is an impossibility!

You say, "DeLeon and Sam Brandon have simply got it the wrong way around: the capitalists' economic power depends on their control of political power rather than vice-versa". Your thesis was demolished years ago by Frederick Engels in Anti-Duhring in the chapter dealing with the "Force Theory". It is also in conflict with the Materialist Conception of History.

You seem convinced that the ruling class will abide by a majority at the ballot box and allow the socialist majority to take power. Suppose they will not abide by this legal and peaceful process? What does the SPGB propose that the workers do?

I am not continuing this discussion in order to win points. I sincerely believe the questions I raise are important to our movement. I trust that you agree that they are.

Sincerely,

Sam Brandon

Riverdale, 

New York. USA

Reply:

1. The Materialist Conception of History does not regard political power as a mere "shadow" of economic power which must faithfully reflect, at every moment and any given time, economic (productive) conditions. It merely says that economic factors are in the end decisive. It is people that make history as the members of different social classes strive to protect and promote their class interests and. as Engels points out in the chapter of Anti-Duhring to which Sam Brandon refers, political power can be used to work either with or against the trend of economic development:

  . . . after the political force has made itself independent in relation to society, and has transformed itself from its servant into its master, it can work in two different directions. Either it works in the sense and in the direction of the natural economic development, in which case no conflict arises between them, the economic development being accelerated. Or it works against economic development, in which case, as a rule, with but few exceptions, force succumbs to it.

In other words, although economic factors win out in the end. political power can accelerate or retard this. This is why, as Marx and Engels noted in the Communist Manifesto, "every class struggle is a political struggle". Who controls political power is important for the actual course of any class struggle because such control can allow a class whose social position has been increased as a result of a change in productive conditions to speed up the reshaping of society in its interest — but, equally, it can allow a class that has become economically weak or redundant to prolong, for a longer or shorter period, its privileged position in society. In this latter case it can be legitimately said, as we did in our reply to Sam Brandon's last letter in the September 1986 Socialist Standard, that the ruling class in question only dominates society because it controls political power, even if it originally came into possession of this power through having played a key role in an earlier stage of economic development. Incidentally, we never said, as Sam Brandon claims, that the capitalist class had lost "their original economic power entirely as a result of the fact that they possess political power". What we said was that they now have economic power, despite the disappearance of their original economic role in production, entirely because they possess political power. Which is not at all the same thing.

Far from such a situation being in conflict with the Materialist Conception of History as Sam Brandon suggests, it is one which the MCH, with its theory of class struggles as the motor of history, implies must inevitably occur from time to time:

  While it is true that in the long run the social system is determined by the stage of development of the means of producing wealth, the social system and this stage of development may, nevertheless, at a given period be totally out of harmony. Indeed, at recurring periods it must be, at least so long as society is divided into classes. The reason is that while the development of the means of production is not under control, the social system, within certain limits, is. The industrial development, which men cannot arrest, is ever shifting the social centre of gravity. Thus, at one time, whoever controlled the land controlled society. As industry developed, however, the implements and machinery became of greater importance. This change of values brought another class to the surface — the owners of the factories, machinery and raw materials. But the industrial development which brought to light this new class did not arrange a social system under which they could reach their highest pinnacle of power. It gave them strength by altering the relative importance of the sources of wealth; it prepared the way for a social change by making the stage of development of industry out of harmony with the social base, but the actual work of bringing the social base into line with the method of production was left to the initiative of the factory owning class whose interest demanded it. And at the same time the old ruling class, whose interest lay in maintaining the system under which they were paramount, opposed the attack on that system to the utmost” (The Socialist Party. Its Principles and Policy, 1956 reprint; pp24-5).

Our contention is that society is now again in such a period where the development of industry is out of harmony with the social base. As we explained in our last reply, the development of the means of production has made the capitalist class economically redundant and socially useless. It is now only their control of political power, reflecting the absence of socialist political consciousness on the part of the workers who now run society from top to bottom, that enables them to continue to control production. It is therefore vitally necessary that, before attempting to reorganise society on a new social base corresponding to the changed productive conditions, the working class should organise into a political party with a view to depriving the capitalist class of their political, and so economic and social, control. At the same time they should also organise themselves with a view to keeping production going when once the capitalist class has been deprived of political control.

2. That the working class should organise economically as well as politically for socialism has always been our position:

  . . . the Socialist Party never asserted that Socialist society would result from the actions of parliamentary delegates alone. It is completely illogical to imagine that Socialist understanding could grow to the point of political victory without simultaneously resulting in a growth of understanding and hence organisation to prepare for the taking over of industry. The Socialist Party in fact knows well that organisation is necessary for the running of industry in the new-born Socialist society. It holds also that a sizeable spread of political clear-sightedness will lead to the growth of such organisations, for when many workers want socialism they will begin to organise and plan for the rebuilding of society prior to the capture of political power (Socialist Standard, May 1966). 

. . . the trade unions must inevitably accept the Socialist theory as the logical outcome of their own existence, and as such will provide the basis of the economic organisation of the working class to manipulate the means and instruments of wealth production when the capitalist class have first been dislodged from political power. The essential conditions for obtaining Socialism must never be underestimated. At the very moment that the workers have gained control of the State machine provision must be made simultaneously for the economic requirements of the community (Socialist Standard, November 1937).

Our disagreement with Daniel De Leon (an American socialist who had some influence on those who founded the Socialist Party in Britain, taking up the same basic position as we do on the ballot box and reforms, for instance) was not over his advocacy of both political and economic organisation for socialism but over other aspects of this question. He was in favour of the immediate setting up of a socialist economic organisation to rival the existing "pure and simple” trade unions. We saw no point in this since such an organisation would either be as small as the socialist political organisation and so ineffective against employers or, to be effective, would have to accept non-socialists and so come to be no different from ordinary unions; in which case why not join the existing unions and work within them? These will inevitably become socialist when more and more workers come to embrace the socialist position.

We also rejected De Leon's blueprint for "socialist industrial government'. Making the industrial union the basic unit of future society would be to carry over into socialism the sectional divisions imposed on workers under capitalism. Nor did we consider the word government as appropriate to describe the administrative machinery of socialist society (De Leon meant in fact administration, so why cause confusion by using a word associated with political coercion and class rule?). Finally, as can be seen from the way Sam Brandon expresses himself in the second paragraph of his letter, this was essentially a plan for establishing socialism in one country.

3. We do not see how saying that "it is absurd to imagine that all the workers need to do to achieve socialism is to vote for it" constitutes an amendment to the statement that socialism should be established 'through the working class organising into a mass political movement and using existing elective institutions". The two statements are not contradictory. Far from it. Organising into a political movement itself involves much more than simply putting a cross on a ballot paper and then expecting the person you voted for to act on your behalf. Given the nature of socialism as a democratic society based on voluntary co-operation, workers must play an active role in its establishment; they must participate in the mass socialist political party, both to mandate and control its delegates and because unity is strength on the political as well as on the industrial field This active participation in the struggle for socialism is precisely what we mean in our Declaration of Principles when we talk about workers organising "consciously and politically". Socialism cannot be established by workers merely voting for political delegates and then leaving them to get on with the job; it can only be established by workers themselves consciously participating in the political movement for socialism.

4. Finally, how should the workers react if the capitalist minority refuse to accept the democratically-expressed will for socialism? This would be up to them to decide, through their political and economic organisations, in the light of the exact circumstances. A number of possibilities would be open to them. If the capitalist minority were to resort to violence and sabotage to try to impede the establishment of socialism then the socialist majority, through its political control of the state could use force if necessary to deal with them. If, on the other hand, the last capitalist government were to attempt a coup d'Etat and refuse to release the reins of power, they would rapidly discover that they had taken the shadow for the substance. The armed forces, being composed of workers who would also have been affected by socialist ideas, would refuse to obey them and might even turn on them. Mass demonstrations and strikes (including perhaps of the kind Sam Brandon envisages) would break out. In the end the capitalist class, or those acting in its name, would be compelled to surrender since, as we have been saying all along, no government enjoying only minority support (and the last capitalist government would enjoy only minimal support) can survive in the face of the active opposition of the majority (which, in the case of the establishment of socialism, would be the immense majority) of the population.

Editors

Are Socialists for War? (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Q. I can understand socialists being opposed to war — everybody hates war. But you must admit that there are times when it is necessary.

A. No, I don’t accept that at all. Every war has been justified with that sort of argument.

Q. So socialists would just let the Russians walk into this country without doing anything to stop them?

A. It’s the Russians now, is it? Look, socialists realise — better than most people — that they don’t have any say in the matter. Neither have you. We are not the ones who decide whether this nation will go to war — or who the enemy will be.

Q. Oh, well, of course. That’s true in every country. The government decides.

A. That’s right. The majority of the Russian people, or Americans or Germans or Japanese are conscripted — forced — to do the fighting, whether they want to or not, like us.

Q. Yes, but the government represents the interests of the whole country, doesn’t it?

A. No.

Q. But it is elected by a majority of the population.

A. Oh, yes, I agree. But I don’t think that the majority of the people realise what their real interests are. They gain nothing out of a war and many of them lose a very great deal.

Q. It’s bound to involve sacrifices when we’re defending our country.

A. “Our country”? Most of us don’t own a scrap of it. Virtually all the land and all the buildings and other wealth on it belong to a small number of extremely wealthy people. It’s their country — not ours.

Q. You know what I mean — we’re all British. We’ve got a common cause when we are threatened by a foreign power.

A. I know that’s how a lot of people feel about it, but it just doesn’t square with the facts. For a start, many of the owners of factories and so on in this country aren’t British at all. They’re American or Japanese or German or Arabs. So I don’t know what you feel about fighting to protect their wealth.

Q. Well, all right. But they give us British jobs, don’t they?

A. Look, I think you’d better get this “jobs” business sussed out. Firms don’t give us jobs out of the kindness of their hearts. Only if they can make a profit out of us. When they can’t, they sack us. And the lower they can keep our wages, the more profit they make.

Q. I know that. That’s what they’re in business for — to make a profit.

A. And it’s out of their profits that they pay the enormous amounts of money needed to run the government and all the other paraphernalia of the state — including the fighting services.

Q. So?

A. That’s why governments — whatever political party — always operate in the interests of business — capital. And when governments go to war, it’s for their interests — not ours.

Q. What do you mean, “their interests”? Surely everybody has got an interest in freedom and democracy?

A. Wars are not about freedom and democracy. That’s just a slogan. Wars are the more violent episodes in the ongoing competition for profit and power in the world. When negotiations finally break down, the ultimate form of competition is war. The only war — if you want to call it that — for freedom and democracy that British people have been involved in was against our own ruling class. And pretty vicious they were when working men and women were campaigning and organising to form trade unions or get the vote.

Q. You say wars are not about freedom, but what about the war against Hitler? Britain couldn’t let the Germans go on slaughtering millions of Jews.

A. But Britain did! The Nazis had been exterminating Jews — and Gypsies and Communists — for years before Britain declared war in 1939. And all that time British statesmen and newspapers had been saying what a great man “Mr Hitler” was. It was Germany’s territorial expansion and growing industrial and military strength which finally made them see Germany as a dangerous competitor.

Q. Just a minute. You’re not trying to say that all the stories about German atrocities were just British propaganda?

A. No, of course not. Those things happened. But atrocities are going on all the time in different countries, and other nations do little or nothing about them — unless they want to use them as propaganda. For instance, Britain did virtually nothing about the thousands of Argentinians who were tortured and murdered under the military regime. But when that government tried to take possession of the Falkland Islands — then the build-up of propaganda was almost as rapid as the deployment of the armed forces.

Q. You make it sound a very callous, ruthless business.

A. Do 1? I’m glad. Because that’s exactly what it is. Governments talk about human rights and freedom when it suits them, but if you look at their actions it’s just eyewash. They are completely devoted to protecting and expanding possessions and profits and power — utterly regardless of human beings. How can any genuine human interests be served by the huge stocks of chemical and biological and nuclear weapons that the major nations are building up? They are all designed to kill human beings in millions.

Q. Well, all right. Suppose we agree that the big nations are only quarrelling about carving up the world between them — what about the struggles of small nations to break free from the domination of the big nations — Afghanistan or Mozambique or Vietnam? I thought socialists supported wars for independence.

A. No. If you look at nations that have gained their independence from the old colonial powers it is pretty obvious that the ordinary people, the peasants and the working class, are no better off under their home-grown ruling class than they were under the British or the Portuguese or whatever.

Q. But a lot of these countries have Marxist governments.

A. So they say. What does it mean? That they think they can get a better deal by linking themselves with Russia than with the USA or European nations? Anyway, you wouldn’t say that the average Russian worker was particularly free or well off, would you? Labels like Marxist don’t mean very much. They are part of the steady diet of propaganda. The real test is the living and working conditions of the majority of the population.

Q. Well, I agree with all that. But I thought that Karl Marx was in favour of wars of independence.

A Yes, you are quite right. That was over a hundred years ago, though.

Q. Are you saying that he was right then, but he’d be wrong now?

A. No, Marx and Engels were both wrong about it. It’s easy to see that, with hindsight. Experience has proved it. But it was an understandable mistake.

Q. Well, I don’t understand it. Why do you say they were mistaken?

A. Probably wishful thinking. They expected a much faster development of working-class understanding and solidarity than in fact happened. Much of Europe was still under the domination of the old feudal empires in the first half of the nineteenth century. They thought that the defeat of the Austrian and Russian Regimes and the emergence of capitalist nation states like Germany would quickly lead to a working class movement to overthrow the capitalist regimes. It didn’t happen. The workers got caught up in the surge of nationalist feeling fostered by their new masters. They still do, don’t they?

Q. I suppose so. So socialists reckon that our own employers are bigger enemies than foreign soldiers?

A. That’s one way of putting it — if you apply it to every country. You and I have got no quarrel with Russian workers or German workers or any other workers. They’re in the same position as we are — being milked all their lives by their bosses. It doesn’t do us a scrap of good to nuke them.

Q. No, that’s true. Whoever wins a war, the working class always loses — on both sides.

Ron Cook

Running Commentary: Property-Owning Democracy? (1987)

The Running Commentary Column from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Property-Owning Democracy?

Remember the Tories' 1983 election promise of turning Britain into a "property-owning democracy"? The prospect of "owning” their own house was undoubtedly an attractive proposition to many workers fed up with the insecurity of renting their homes from unscrupulous landlords or penny-pinching councils. However for many the dream has turned into a nightmare. As fewer council houses are built and fewer properties are available to rent, many people have been forced to "choose" a mortgage, which the building societies have been only too pleased to give them.

But having encouraged people to become home owners, the government has now decided to punish those home-owners who have the misfortune to become unemployed. New rules have just been introduced which will mean that anyone who becomes unemployed will have only half their mortgage interest paid while they are in receipt of Supplementary Benefit and only for the first four months of unemployment. Under the old rules all the interest (but not the capital) was paid. This is bound to increase the rate of repossessions. Already one in ten homeless families are homeless because their home has been repossessed due to mortgage default.

Families faced with the prospect of unemployment and inability to pay their mortgage may decide to sell up to avoid arrears and repossession. If they do, however, the local authority would have no obligation to rehouse them since they would be deemed to be "intentionally homeless”.

For workers in this situation the security promised by the slogan "property-owning democracy" has turned out to be as illusory as it is for those who depend on paying rent in order to keep a roof over their heads.

It Pays to Advertise

It is even more profitable if you can get someone who has nothing to gain to pay you for the privilege of so doing!!

Strange as it may seem, the same person who objects strongly to paying a few pence for a carrier bag printed with the name of a supermarket, will pay pounds to advertise something else.

Guinness started the fashion years ago. In return for a cheque made out to them for the correct amount (something like 20 guineas if memory serves) you would receive a sweater with 'GUINNESS' — not even the toucan —  emblazoned across the front. Today for £18.95 you may buy a plain wool sweater by post; this price is already considerably higher than for a similar garment bought across the counter. However, for only an extra £ 1, you can have' The Times' discreetly embroidered on the left-hand side. Of course, if you don't have the odd £20 to spare, you can go downmarket and buy a Coca Cola — or if you prefer, a Pepsi — T-shirt. Slightly upmarket again, you could, in gold on black, advertise Biba. If you really want to dredge the bottom, feature the Sun with the screaming front page headline 'SID VICIOUS DEAD. Punk Star Killed By Overdose'.

One T-shirt we have not yet seen is the one advertising the fact that we are all being killed by an overdose — of capitalism!


Gorbachev the democrat?

"We need democracy like we need air to breathe", said Gorbachev in a speech to the ruling Central Committee. What he means by "democracy" is that there will be more than one candidate standing for office in elections and a bit more public debate with officials prepared to admit from time to time that things occasionally go wrong, that there are shortages and production quotas aren't always fulfilled.

Well it's better than nothing. But no-one should be conned into believing that the new, reforming Russian leadership is really concerned about giving ordinary Russian workers a voice in decision-making. What Gorbachev is undoubtedly concerned about is the failure of the Russian economy. Giving people a little in relatively unimportant areas is a time-honoured way of getting them to give back a lot more.

If Russian workers are made to feel that they do have a voice, that they are listened to, then it is quite possible they will be conned into working harder and producing more wealth for the Russian ruling class. A little bit of political liberalisation will not affect the fundamental division of Russian society into those with wealth and power and those without, unless Russian workers recognise that fundamental division and then exploit the small window of opportunity that Gorbachev has opened for their own political ends.


Bullets on the beat

Officially Britain has an unarmed police force. Unofficially things are rather different. A curious incident involving a car chase down the M1 which ended when the car being pursued ran out of petrol and shots were fired, led to revelations that for the past eight years traffic police patrolling the Nottinghamshire section of the M1 motorway, the A1 and Nottingham city centre have been carrying guns.

Charles McLachlan, Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire, said at a press conference:

  The vehicles are double-manned and weapons are carried in a locked container in the vehicle. They are two pistols, a pump-action shotgun and body armour. They are not allowed to take these weapons from the container which is permanently locked, without approval from a senior police officer.

No doubt this was meant to reassure people. But these words sound rather hollow given the trigger-happy mentality of certain armed police as shown by a series of tragic incidents over the last six years in which people have been "accidentally” shot by armed police.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the militarisation of the police is that the decision to arm police officers is not taken in public after debate and discussion but instead is made behind closed doors by the police themselves. As such decisions are deemed to be "operational" even the elected police authorities, to whom the police are nominally responsible, do not have to be consulted or even informed.

To All Readers (1987)

Party News from the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

You may be aware that Islington branch of the Socialist Party are putting forward a candidate for the forthcoming general election. Obviously an immense amount of background work is necessary if we are to seize this chance of putting our case across.

This is an ideal opportunity for people who are unable to attend branch meetings regularly to get involved. Volunteers are urgently needed to help in any way they can — envelope addressing, leaflet distribution, door-to-door canvassing and so on,


Even if you can only spare an hour or two a month, or are unable to get out and about in the constituency, please get in touch with Cliff Begley at head office to offer your services. Your support and help will seldom be of greater value than during this pre-election period.

Swords into swords (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last December the Labour Party unveiled its new military policy in the form of a glossy pamphlet bearing its new symbol — what seems to be a rather pinkish rose — and the appropriately patriotic title The Power to Defend our Country.

For those harbouring any last illusions about the Labour Party's anti-militarism, it's a revealing document in which the Tories are accused of being "disarmers by stealth" who have "crucially weakened" the "core of our armed strength". The Royal Navy, the Labour Party complains, "now has no ship dedicated to carrying large numbers of Royal Marines and their helicopters" while the Army "is set to lose a terminally guided anti-tank rocket, a scatterable mine rocket, a battlefield electronic warfare system as well as improvements to existing tanks and, possibly a new tank".

All this, we are told, because of Thatcher's fixation on nuclear weapons and decisions to buy the "appallingly expensive" Trident intercontinental missiles from America to replace the outdated Polaris missiles currently carried by Britain's four nuclear-armed submarines. Labour, the document says, intends to "cancel Trident, de-commission Polaris and remove all American nuclear weapons in this country". The money saved on Trident will be used to enhance NATO's "conventional capacity" of destruction:

  Britain will contribute towards that enhancement by committing the sums saved on Trident towards additional conventional strength.

The message is clear enough: Labour intends to maintain, indeed increase, Britain's "armed strength" by building up its arsenal of so-called conventional weapons. Or. more brutally, Britain's military power of destruction will be maintained but will be composed of conventional rather than nuclear weapons and the money wasted on Trident will be wasted instead on ordinary warships and warplanes, on bombs, rockets, missiles, tanks and battlefield electronic warfare systems.

This contrasts of course with what CND, and many Labour Party members and supporters, want: to spend the money saved on Trident on schools, hospitals and peacetime industries. The Labour Party's current military policy is, however, a literal if somewhat cynical interpretation of what CND demands: mere nuclear disarmament.

When CND was formed in 1958 they told us that nuclear weapons were so dangerous that we should drop everything else and join their single-issue campaign to get rid of them. The Socialist Party replied that, although we too were appalled by nuclear weapons, it was a waste of time to drop campaigning for socialism so as to campaign just for nuclear disarmament. We pointed out that arms, including nuclear weapons, only existed because capitalism was a war-prone society and that the only solution to the threat of nuclear destruction was to replace world capitalism with a socialist world of common ownership and democratic control. We added that, even in the unlikely event of nuclear weapons being abolished on a world scale, conventional weapons would still remain and that these too were capable of wreaking mass destruction and of killing millions and millions of people as the first and second world wars had shown; that, in fact, to accept capitalism while opposing nuclear weapons (as CND was in effect advocating) was to favour conventional weapons since the very nature of capitalism meant armed states squabbling over markets, trade routes and other economic matters and therefore the need for some kind of armaments as long as capitalism lasted.

As we put it in an early article on CND. "to campaign for nuclear disarmament implies acceptance of so-called conventional armaments" (Socialist Standard, August 1960). Some CND supporters replied that this was unfair, but the revived CND of the 1980s took up precisely this position, as the Labour Party has now done with a vengeance, not only accepting conventional weapons but even praising them as more effective than nuclear ones.

It should not be thought, however, that the Labour Party is against all nuclear weapons. Its new policy document commits it only to abandoning Britain's submarine-carried intercontinental nuclear missiles. It does not propose the abandonment of nuclear weapons by the NATO military alliance, which the post-war Labour government took Britain into and full support for which is reaffirmed in the document. Nor does it say what it intends to do about Britain's tactical, or battlefield, nuclear weapons such as what might be called the conventional H-bombs carried by RAF Strike Command and the nuclear depth charges carried on some Royal Navy ships (some of which were being transported by the convoy involved in the road accident in Wiltshire in January).

The Labour Party merely commits itself to trying to end "NATO's over emphasis on nuclear weapons" and to bring about "less reliance on nuclear weapons in the NATO alliance". In other words, the Labour Party accepts that NATO — in effect, the United States — should retain nuclear weapons:

  The Americans also understand that we are not asking them to dismantle their strategic nuclear weapons.

So American, but not British, submarines armed with Polaris and Trident missiles can continue their patrolling with the blessing of the Labour Party.

As to the American cruise missiles, it is true that Labour now says it will "remove" them from Britain but this is easier said than done since the decision to install them was a NATO decision and the other NATO members, especially those that have already accepted such missiles (Norway. Germany. Holland. Belgium and Italy), are likely to bring enormous pressure to keep them in Britain too. Already Labour's shadow Foreign Secretary. Denis Healey, has started to hedge on this issue, saying that it is “not inconceivable" that some American nuclear missiles could remain in Britain under a future Labour government.

In any event, where would these cruise missiles be removed to? To Germany, Norway, Belgium, Holland and Italy? In which case the Labour government would be taking up the same hypocritical position as their fellow partisan of the pink rose, President Mitterrand of France, who supported the deployment of US cruise missiles in Europe — as long as none went to France.

That the Labour Party should have a — to say the least — ambiguous policy on nuclear weapons should come as no surprise in view of their past record:

• In 1945 when the first atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a Labour government was in office in Britain and the Labour Prime Minister Attlee had a personal representative at the Nagasaki massacre.
• It was the same post-war Labour government that took the decision to develop the British Bomb.
• At the 1957 Labour Party Conference the deputy leader and shadow Foreign Minister, Nye Bevan, pleaded, in a speech opposing the abandoning of the British Bomb, not to be sent "naked into the conference chamber".
• When the 1960 Labour Party Conference voted in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament the leader of the Party, Hugh Gaitskell,  refused point-blank to accept this decision (like David Steel after a similar decision at the Liberal Assembly last autumn), pledging himself to "fight, fight and fight again" to reverse it; which after much wheeling and dealing to fix the trade union bloc vote the 1961 Labour Conference duly did.
• The Wilson Labour government elected in 1964 took the decision to modernise the nuclear warheads on the Polaris missiles.

If the present Labour leadership has chosen not to fight, fight and fight again to change conference decisions against the British Bomb, this is because they know they have no chance of winning as in the 1960s. Some of them may even be genuinely convinced that British capitalism has no need to possess the independent power to annihilate Moscow in order to be able to negotiate from a position of strength in conflicts with other capitalist states, but that an enhanced conventional strength would be sufficient. They may well be right but that's not our problem so we'll let the parties aspiring to run the affairs of British capitalism — Labour, the Tories and the Alliance — settle this issue among themselves.

But one thing is clear. Anybody who may be tempted to vote for the Labour Party as being in some way less militaristic than Rambo Reagan, David Owen and the Iron Lady have been forewarned by the Labour Party itself. Labour fully accepts the logic of capitalism that states must arm themselves with the most destructive weapons they can afford in order to be "credible" in the international conflicts that arise all the time under capitalism over markets, trade routes, sources of raw materials, investment outlets and the strategic points to protect these.

Labour has no intention of sending Denis Healey naked into the conference chamber. Those the pamphlet calls "our potential enemies" will be spared that horrible sight, because Healey will be fully clothed with all the deadly conventional weapons needed to uphold the bargaining position of the British capitalist class whose interests he would be representing.

Adam Buick

The Socialist Peace Policy (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The next general election might well be the last one before the next world war. Within five years from the date when you cast your next vote you, your family, your friends and all of the surrounding environment could be victims of this system's ultimate madness: the mass annihilation of modern war.

It requires no crystal ball, no advanced degree in foreign policy, to observe that the "healthy competition" of capitalist rivalry is becoming more vicious and ruthless as the weeks go by. In 1986 the governments of the world spent a record £634 billion on armaments. That amounts to £1.2 million every sixty seconds of the day and night. The increase in militarist expenditure last year was greater than in any previous year — ever. The foolish and the fearful might delude themselves that these weapons will never be used. The reality is that they are being built for use, the reasons for their use are increasing and it is only a matter of time before capitalism blows us up. Such a holocaust may not be the intention of the superpowers. But new superpowers, armed with their own weapons of mass destruction, are fast arriving on the scene. Militarist accidents are ever more likely. The ticking of the clock as the moments lead up to the next war is all too audible to those whose fingers are not placed tightly in their ears.

All of the major parties have "defence" policies which are really war policies. Or. to be blunt about it. they are strategies for killing large numbers of people. That is what they are doing when they ask you to vote for their "defence" policy: choose their strategy for murdering people you have never even met in preference to that of the next party. To vote for these parties is to become a willing accomplice in the preparations for mass murder. The absurd deterrence strategy is best described by the dictum. "If you want peace prepare for war". That is the policy accepted by most of the parties aiming to run capitalism. It is like saying if you want virginity among teenagers build brothels in the schools. You do not achieve peace by preparing for its opposite: if you prepare for war there will be a war.

Nobody should be taken in for one minute by the Labour lie that they are presenting a more peaceful policy. On the contrary. theirs is an alternative war policy — a policy dependent on conventional methods of murder being used by Britain, while at the same time remaining in loyal alliance with the NATO nuclear murder gang. It is like a gang of muggers saying that in future they will give up using knives and will rely on beating people up with wooden sticks. But at the same time they will remind their victims that their friends in the bigger gang still have knives. If anyone votes Labour in the belief that conventional weapons are about decent warfare they should go and talk to the conscript soldiers of Iran and Iraq, or the victims of the Falklands war. In their document. Modern Britain in a Modem World, the Labour Party states that

  . . . we must defend ourselves effectively by land, sea and air. And fully participate in NATO. The best defence relies upon troops, ships, aircraft and tanks.

If that is peace talk they have a perverse conception of peace. The next election will be the first one ever in which the Labour Party has competed for power against the Tories on a manifesto of promising to spend more on weapons than its opponents. Labour concedes that its war policy will cost more than that of the Tories. Would you vote for that as a means towards achieving peace?

Wars are not the result of workers in Russia failing out with workers in the USA. Most of the British workers who unthinkingly accept Labour’s line that "we must defend ourselves effectively" do not have any enemies in Moscow or Prague or Berlin or Tripoli. Most workers in Britain have never met a Russian, let alone fallen out with one sufficiently to want to blow them up. Most Russians have never met an American. If you repeat a lie often enough people may begin to believe it and so they keep on telling us that we must be defended against the Russians. After a while "Russians" are seen as monstrous, threatening, inhumane beings, fit only for nuclear attack. And to Russian workers, indoctrinated by the same lies from their owning class, we are perceived similarly as a wicked enemy. What you must never forget — because when you have finally forgotten it you are finally brainwashed — is that there is nobody out there you need to kill and there are no enemies out there with a grievance against you. War is not about our interests, but those of the bosses who rob us so that they can be rich and powerful. War is about the competition between capitalists. If we are to die it will be for them. Ponder that as you are asked to cast your vote for one of the " defence"" policies.

The Socialist Party is the only party in Britain standing in the next election on a policy for peace. Not peace by means of building more bombs or building nice bombs or painting the bombs red or negotiating with capitalists for a delay in the moment of war. The Socialist Party stands for the abolition of all of the weapons of war: Cruise missiles. SS20s. plastic bullets. Exocets, the lot. We present ourselves to our fellow workers in the next election on the basis of the following propositions:

Capitalism is the cause of war in the modem world. The Socialist Party is unequivocally opposed to the worldwide capitalist system. We are opposed to it in Russia and China just as much as in Britain and the USA. The rivalry over profits, trade routes, markets and raw materials which is generated by capitalism makes war inevitable. It follows from this that you cannot seriously oppose war unless you are out to end capitalism. It is futile to attempt to remove an effect without removing its cause. The Socialist Party calls for votes from workers who want to end the capitalist system. There can be no other starting point for removing the threat of war.

Workers have no country. Nationalism is based on the lie that workers have their own country: that the British have an obligation to Britain and the French to France. Workers who do not own or control Britain have no obligation to the bosses who do own and control it. Our sole interest is in co-operating with our fellow workers across the world who also have no country. Why should we die defending what is not ours? On the contrary. our object is to obtain what is not ours: the world and its resources. The class war — between the parasites who possess and the workers who produce — is the real struggle that need concern us. And to win that we need not initiate the violence which is characteristic of capitalism. The workers are the majority and once we unite there is no force that will stop us taking the earth into our common possession.

Socialism will allow humankind to co-exist in peace. There is nothing natural about war. In fact, peaceful co-operation is more fitting for human beings who are conscious and potentially rational beings. Once we live in a world of common ownership and democratic control of resources there will simply be no reason to kill each other. No Empires to build or markets to expand or profits to increase. Socialism will be a social system in which war will be pointless, peace will be the norm. There will be no socialism without socialists to bring it about, just as there will be no capitalism or war without workers to support such insanity.

Stop and think when you cast your next vote. Think of the peace which could come about and think of the screams which are the human sound effects of war. Think — for your own sake, think hard.

Steve Coleman