Party News (1998)

Party News from the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Former Pupil

When we reviewed The Long Johns by John Bird and John Fortune in the March 1997 Socialist Standard we mentioned that at one time political satirist John Bird had been a member of the Socialist Party. In a recent interview John Bird has himself once again confirmed this. Asked if his political consciousness had been awakened by meeting members of the ruling class at Cambridge University he replied:

"Actually. I was a member of something called the Socialist Party of Great Britain at school for a while. You had to pass an exam, you known. You could not just join" (Evening Standard, 3 December).

India

"GP: Letter 30/11/97 reporting about a scuffle with a Maoist fanatic in a train compartment wherein during a debate he commented that Lenin was an "imposter" in defining Socialism. The enraged Maoist attacked him but immediately resisted by other passengers”—Extract from Minutes of Executive Committee, World Socialist Party (India). 12 December 1997 Meeting.

George Watkins b. 1918 d. 1997

George came into contact with the SPNZ in the detention camp for conscientious objectors during WW2. There C.P. Furey was giving lessons in Marxian economics. The scientific socialism immediately appealed to George who joined the Wellington Branch of the SPNZ in 1950. Active in the party until his death, George convinced many of us of the case for socialism through his enthusiasm, patience, knowledge, writing and teaching abilities; his wonderful wit and humour bringing joy to our lives. George gained a tremendous boost and much hope for the future when the WSP (India) was formed and wrote many letters of encouragement to the Indian party. He will be sadly missed by wife Ngaire, family, and friends.

Donations to the Socialist Party

The Party’s ability to pursue its objectives, energetically and effectively, is prejudiced by lack of funds. We manage on shoestring budgets when, with more resources, we could accomplish so much more.

We invite members and sympathisers to donate money to the Party’s General Fund. Please send donations (cheques and postal orders made payable to "The Socialist Party of Great Britain") or, preferably take out a regular Standing Order in favour of the Party, by writing to the Treasurer, The Socialist Party. 52 Clapham High Street. London SW4 7UN, asking for details and a form.

50 Years Ago: In Commemoration of the Communist Manifesto (1998)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The working class movement from the date of the Manifesto followed two divergent courses; the first, the scientific course, remained a thin small stream, while the second, the reformist course, grew in volume until it reached torrential power. This is explained in part by the two aspects of the Manifesto—the theoretical and the practical. It was upon the practical side, that is the temporary and weaker side, that the movement concentrated more and more, as it grew in volume, until the theoretical basis became completely submerged in the “practical” questions of the day or, in other words, reformist policies and programmes.

We are no worshippers of leaders or "great men" but we recognise the magnificent work done by Marx, Engels and other contributors to the scientific socialist movement, which began with the publication of the Communist Manifesto. We stand on the shoulders of those past workers who have helped us up and we profit by what they have done to make our social vision clearer. We are members of the working class and hold, with the writers of the Manifesto, that “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win "We hold further that this world can only be won by the workers prosecuting the class struggle unremittingly, spurning all attempts to seduce them into support of reform programmes, abandoning the worship of leaders and depending upon their own efforts alone.

The best tribute to Marx and Engels is to recognise what is permanent in their work and put aside that which was dictated by the confused and temporary circumstances of the time in which they wrote. It is in this spirit that we commemorate the publication of the Communist Manifesto of 1848 as one of the greatest events in working class history.

(From front page article by Gilmac,
 Socialist Standard, February 1948)

The General Strike (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

On its 50th anniversary the tales of the General Strike, real and legendary, will be told. The strike action of those Trade Unionists and others who took part was not based on a clear recognition of the position of the workers under capitalism and the class struggle resulting therefrom. The workers were not class-conscious, and therefore their actions were not a challenge to the existence of capitalism. Nevertheless, under the present order workers have to defend their living standards against their employers, and to that extent the General Strike must rank as a landmark in the history of the British working class; as the most determined display of solidarity we have seen this century. That is encouraging to the Socialist — if workers can unite on one issue for a limited purpose, they can certainly unite on the greater issue of Socialism. “Unity is strength”, and “A house divided against itself shall fall”.

In 1925 the mine owners, faced with the re-emergence of Germany as a trade competitor, served notice on the Miners’ Federation to terminate the National Agreement ending the minimum wage and demanding severe wage cuts. Working hours were to be increased from 7 to 8 hours daily without extra pay, and District Agreements were to replace the existing National one. The miners put their objections before the TUC at a joint meeting held on 10th July 1925. The TUC supported the miners, set up a special commission, and issued instructions to all railway and transport workers forbidding the movement of coal and the handling of export coal. “All men engaged in delivering coal to commercial and industrial concerns will cease Friday night 31st July”. A specially summoned conference of Trade Union executive committee members gave unanimous support to these instructions.

Baldwin (the Prime Minister) summoned miners and mine owners to 10 Downing Street on the morning of Friday 31st July 1925 (“Red Friday”) and announced the granting of a subsidy to the coal industry amounting to about £25 million, extending over nine months. The wage cuts and other demands of the mine owners were postponed until April 1926. Evidently the government was not ready, but the nine months’ respite gave them time to set up their strike-breaking organization OMS (Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies), the appointment of civil commissioners, and the enrolling of large numbers of special constables and the formation of mobile police squads. Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, said: “We therefore decided to postpone the crisis in the event of averting it, or if not averting it, of coping effectively with it when the time came”.

In the meantime a Royal Commission, presided over by Sir Herbert Samuel, presented its report. The report was very definite in demanding wage reductions and the lengthening of the working day, and it became clear that the government would back the mine owners. A. J. Cook, the miners’ leader, in his pamphlet The Nine Days recalls the attitude of Ramsay MacDonald and the Parliamentary Labour Party in relation to the evidence placed before the Commission. “The only difference of opinion was between the industrial movement and the political movement regarding compensation for the royalty owners. Strange to say, the leaders of the Parliamentary Labour Party who had been preaching Socialism for many years were the ones who opposed the policy of the Miners’ Federation and the Trade Union Congress in regard to the question of compensation or confiscation of royalties”.

Before the Commission report came out, the British coal owners declared publicly that they would never again meet the miners’ representatives, nor submit to National agreements, and that they would insist on District agreements. This was an attempt to break the solidarity of the miners since the building up of the Miners Federation. The Federation, at a meeting held on April 9th 1926, re-affirmed its total opposition to the mine-owners’ proposals. Later, on 14th April 1926, the TUC Negotiating Committee passed the following resolution: “This Committee reiterates its previous declaration to render the miners the fullest support in resisting the degradation of the standards of life, and to obtain an equitable settlement of the case with regards to wages, hours and a National agreement”. In April 1926 the coal owners announced that unless the miners accepted their terms, a reduction in wages and the working day lengthened by one hour, they would close down the mines as from 1st May. This effectively “locked out” one million miners.

A conference of the Trade Union executives was held on Saturday 1st May at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon St, London, and two decisions were made: (1) That no negotiations should take place until the lock-out notices had been withdrawn, and (2) that the General Council of the TUC should be empowered to go ahead with a General Strike. 3,653,529 voted for, 49,911 voted against, and 319,000 were unable to reply in time. Further, it was agreed that no-one should return to work at the end of the General Strike unless all Union agreements were maintained. The General Strike was set to commence on Monday 3rd May. On Tuesday 4th May, the absence of trams, railway trains, buses, newspapers, and road transport were the first obvious indications that the workers in the mass supported the strike decision. The strike was on in earnest.

The General Strike will be remembered for two things. Firstly, the enthusiasm and solidarity of the workers, and secondly, the cowardice and treachery of the TUC in calling it off nine days later behind the backs of the miners, and ratting on every resolution upon which the strike call was issued. The inglorious betrayal of the finest effort of the British working class on the industrial field should surely have taught the workers not to place their trust in leaders. Not a single concession was gained, and one million miners were left alone to fight the mine owners backed by the government with the tacit approval of the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party led by Ramsay MacDonald and J. R. Clynes. The miners were locked out for over three months after the strike, and forced by starvation and privation to accept the coal-owners’ terms of reduced wages (below 1914 level), more unemployment, and an increase in the working day by one hour. It is a sad commentary on the present attitude of the National Union of Mineworkers that their recent ballot within the last few weeks was a demand for the retention of overtime working.

The idea of using the weapon of a general strike as a means of abolishing capitalism is still held by anarchists, syndicalists, International Socialists, Communists, and others. Daniel De Lon, the patron saint of the SLP (now defunct), held that the political revolution would fail unless the workers backed up the political organization by the strike, which he described as the economic organization. The 1926 strike showed all too clearly that when there is a class struggle those who hold political power are in control. The workers in their millions had only two years earlier voted to power the Baldwin government, and it was that government which said that wages must come down, and was prepared to use the whole machinery of government to give effect to their policy. This task was made easier by the miserable collection of renegades, led by that arch swindler “Honest” Jimmy Thomas who would have sold his own grandmother. True to character, a few years later he was accused of selling secret information about the contents of the Annual Budget.

Had the general council of the TUC been composed of men of principle, loyal to the class they had the honour to represent, the capitalists would not have gained the victory they did. Union after Union was forced to accept wage cuts or increases in working hours. The Trades Dispute Act, passed a year later, was only opposed by the Labour Party because of the contracting-out clause which affected their income from the Political Levy.

Writing about the Strike fifty years later, what lessons were learned by the workers? Have they abandoned the idea of leadership inside or outside the Unions? The answer is no. Has the Trade Union organization and the TUC undergone a change of attitude on the question of class co-operation? Again, the answer is no. If anything, Trade Unions have become more insular: more concerned with the narrow issues affecting their individual members. They are completely steeped in capitalist ideology. Their world begins and ends with their members’ interests, not with the interests of the working class as a whole. The TUC is nothing other than a political wing of the present Labour government. Those who think in terms of a successful general strike with Jack Jones, Hugh Scanlon, Len Murray, and the other untalented servants of capital, in place of J. H. Thomas, Swales, Hicks, Tillett and Pugh, etc. are deluding themselves. The present Trade Unions are hopelessly compromised with the Labour government, and this is to their disadvantage. They are expected to co-operate on wage reductions, redundancy policies, wage freezes, and hosts of other schemes which are of direct help to the capitalists. But the general strike is not a means or an aid to the establishment of Socialism. Joint action by groups of Unions against groups of employers can achieve benefits or prevent living standards from being depressed. This is the most that can be expected. The capitalist class will not, nor cannot, succumb to any other form of economic pressure as long as they control the State machine.

We do not make a distinction between workers organized in Trade Unions and those outside. Both have to understand how to use the political weapon. Both have to renounce leadership, whether it be industrial or political. Both have to understand the consequences of their social action before embarking on that action. Socialist understanding must come first, it cannot be learned later, because without this understanding and knowledge Socialism cannot be established.

May Day is the day upon which the working class of the world demonstrate their international solidarity. So far the working class have ignored the splendid proposition or prospect of a Socialist society. In doing so, they have denied themselves the opportunity to cleanse the world of the scourge of capitalism. Men live their lives in time, so why squander it? There is nothing we cannot do if we have a mind to. There is no force on earth which can prevent the establishment of Socialism when the will is there.

Jim D'Arcy

Industrial Action or Political Power? (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is a sobering thought that fifty years after the so-called General Strike, the working class as a whole and the trade unions in particular, are still fighting the same defensive struggle. Though it is a truism that while capitalism and the wages system remain, workers must organize to struggle at the industrial level, over wages and working conditions, it is a truism which gets no further forward. To continually grope along the same well-worn path and still harbour the illusion that some day, it may lead somewhere, has all the ingredients of a farce gone mad.

In any other field of human endeavour, if there had been so much trial and error for so little result, it would long have been questioned whether the right course of action was being taken. But determined, it seems, to retain their blinkers at all costs, the trade unions plod on, never noticing the signs that say “Hey, you’ve passed this way a thousand times before! “Since 1926 there have been 86,578 recorded strikes in the UK, an average of 1767 each year.

At the time of the General Strike, the SPGB praised the solidarity of the workers and condemned the conniving treachery of the TUC leaders. We ridiculed the so-called Communist Party who meekly demanded the replacement of one set of leaders by another. We pointed out that reliance on leaders was fatal to working-class interests. We argued against the procedure of “the tail wagging the dog”, whereby the General Council of the TUC called the strike on and off without consulting those involved. Since then, two generations of essentially similar empty-headed leaders have come, and uneventfully gone, leaving their rank-and-file meal-tickets precisely where they found them. The CP and the “left” have continued to play their nefarious rôle: unenlightened themselves, they are powerless to spread enlightenment.

Over the years there have been many cries of “victory” as workers have won the day, or at least wrung concessions in particular strike actions. While it is better that the workers should win, rather than crawl back defeated on the bosses’ terms, the significance and durability of such victories has yet to be seen in their class perspective by most of those concerned. However well the workers fight industrial struggles, no final victory is possible in this field. At the end of the day their position in society remains that of a non-owning, exploited class of employees. Ironically, even their solidarity (itself a fine and noble attribute) in such struggles can be turned against them, because the employers can better afford a long drawn-out struggle, without being reduced to the pittance level of welfare starvation. If a particular firm goes broke, capital can always regroup and seek other profitable fields for exploitation. For the workers whose livelihood depends upon a regular pay-packet, such situations mean worsening poverty, if not disaster. One need only look at the plight of one-and a-quarter millions unemployed pathetically demanding “the right to work” to see who has the whip-hand. It also provides further illuminating insights as to how far they have got with these struggles in fifty years.

Clearly, it is contradictory and nonsensical to vote continuing political power to the parties of capitalism, and then rely on the hopelessly inadequate strike weapon to redress the balance in a disjointed series of skirmishes over wages and conditions with individual employers or particular industries: having voted acceptance of the system, to settle down to a lifetime of fighting its inevitable results. Unless we are to resign ourselves to an eternity of bickering over wage rates, the vicious circle has to be broken.

From the standpoint of the capitalist, “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”, but for workers, the key factor in the struggle is that they are selling themselves. The permanency of such a system is untenable. The missing element that holds the solution is working-class awareness. Awareness of what needs to be done to end capitalism. Awareness, that in the political field alone lies the power to terminate the existence of class society.

Industrial Actionists who urge workers to see more in trade-union struggles than merely defensive actions, are nothing more than so many posturing cardboard revolutionaries. They sneer at political action to gain control of the state because, they say. Parliament is a capitalist institution. Then, virtually to a man, they urge workers to vote the Labour Party into power to use this “capitalist institution” for running capitalism. Failing to see the need for majority understanding, they think the political field is tainted but the industrial field is clean and this is where the final struggle will take place. There are however not two sets of workers, those in unions and those who vote at elections. They are the same workers, and the lack of Socialist knowledge prevents them from pursuing class emancipation as the immediate issue.

It is worth noting that with widespread unemployment and capitalism in yet another crisis, according to their funny theories, this should be their finest hour — but the workers in trade unions are not rallying to the banner of Industrial Action. With the onset of this current slump, the number of strikes declined dramatically. In 1975 806,000 workers were involved in strikes. This was less than half the number for 1974. There was a twenty-three per cent, decrease in the number of stoppages in the same period. Some of the “militant” shop stewards who should be spear-heading the onward rank-and-file rush to “workers’ control” (or some other equally vague objective) have been falling like ninepins. They are dedicated to erroneous theories. If they had any sound ideas they would not now be in disarray. They have nothing new to offer and despite their delusions of grandeur, they are as muddled as those they expect to follow them.

Throughout the period of the General Strike, as indeed for our twenty-two years of existence before it and fifty years since, the Socialist Standard has consistently argued for class-conscious action in the political arena, as the only way to achieve Socialism. Any objective assessment of those fifty years of working-class history, can only confirm our case.

Political power through control of the state machine is the means whereby the owning class is able to dominate society. There are no capitalists at factory gates reading proclamations about their ownership rights. Any disturbance at the factory gate is handled by police or, if it gets nasty, by the armed forces. These coercive agencies are under the direct control of the political machine. The legality of private property institutions, is decided by the state. To gain possession of all the means of production and distribution by the whole community it is an inescapable necessity to capture political power. Obviously only a world-wide working-class majority with Socialist understanding would be interested in gaining political power to end class society. Parliament is a capitalist institution now, because the great majority of workers vote for capitalist parties. When the quality of the vote changes, so will the purpose to which it is put. Then, Parliament will be used to strip the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of living. What, in the final analysis, gives the licence for continuing capitalism is the workers’ approval of it. Fortunately, the democratic process cuts both ways. When the workers cease supporting capitalism and exploring blind-alleys, they will vote for Socialism.

The capitalist class, which, according to leftist folklore, could do nothing to stop the workers taking over the factories, suddenly becomes endowed with mystic powers the moment the political field is discussed. The left haven’t even learned that the capitalist as 'such does nothing. It is workers who run his state for him, just as they run his factories. What they are really saying is that workers in the Civil Service and armed forces would continue supporting capitalism. Even if this were true it could not determine the outcome of events. But there is nothing to insulate workers in government jobs or armed forces from the spread of Socialist understanding. Socialist ideas will permeate all sections of the working class. The leftist industrial-actionists fail to grasp the significance of a world majority wanting Socialism. This is part of the weakness of élitist thinking. They cannot visualize the workers being self-reliant and having no dependency upon leaders.

Leftist humbug about the capitalists closing down Parliament, can easily be put to the test without bloodshed. They have never tried to explain and work for Socialism. But, given the continuation of their present state of confusion, fifty years from now on the centenary of the General Strike, they will still be demanding the “right” to work.

Harry Baldwin

Political Parties and the General Strike (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A great deal can be learned from the experience of the working class in the General Strike. Not only does this expose the futile policies of left-wing groups, but it goes a long way towards explaining the generally submissive attitude of the trade unions during the current crisis.

Right from the beginning, the General Strike had little chance of success, due to the economic condition of capitalism at that time. The boom after the First World War turned out to be brief. By the summer of 1920 world markets were contracting with a heavy rise in unemployment: in June 1920 2 million were unemployed in Britain. The traditional industries such as coal were suffering in particular. The position became worse for the coal industry because of competition from the USA, Germany and Poland. A. J. P. Taylor in English History 1914-45 describes the economic conditions which led to the General Strike and to its ultimate failure:

Over-production of primary products dominated the inter-war years, and the impoverishment of these producers brought something near ruin to the old British industries. Exports of coal ran down to almost nothing. British prices tumbled faster than they had risen, and employment tumbled.

During the War the government had taken control of the mines, but the industry was handed back to control by the coal owners in March 1921. Economists opposed government subsidies to the coal industry since the current economic policy necessitated the fixing of the pound to the Gold Standard as a means of arresting its declining value vis-a-vis the American dollar.

In this situation the economists were arguing, as they still do, about the need to increase exports. To do this, prices had to be lowered to compete with rival coal-producing powers. At the same time, profitability must be maintained by lowering wages.

Resistance to reductions in wages had already been tried by the miners, in conjunction with the railwaymen and the transport workers, in the “Triple Alliance" of 1921. The collapse of this industrial action, which became known as “Black Friday”, portended the disaster of the General Strike. Baldwin’s 1925 policy of granting a subsidy to the coal industry, together with his establishment of the Samuel Commission, were measures by which the Government could play for time. By May 1926 the subsidy was due to run out and the mine-owners were continuing their demands for a reduction in wages and longer working hours. The secretary of the Miners’ Federation, Arthur Cook, more militant than his predecessor Frank Hodges, was determined that the miners should stand out against wage reductions. He was supported by the Federation’s President, Herbert Smith. The overwhelming majority of miners backed the strike.

United we stand

Nevertheless, by April 1926 the Government was prepared to make a stand against strike action as it had been in 1921. All the same, Stanley Baldwin and the Conservatives manifestly wished to avert a General Strike which they regarded as an intensification of the class struggle. Baldwin’s policies meant that he had to walk a tightrope between the TUC, and the mine-owners (together with the reactionary elements in the Conservative Party). Although the Conservative government introduced the temporary subsidy in 1925, Baldwin said: “‘All workers in this country have got to face a reduction of wages to help put industry on its feet.”

This was the predictable statement of an administrator of capitalism. It was part of Baldwin’s political strategy not to appear to be the ally of the mine-owners. Instead, he posed as the defender of what was termed as “the British Constitution” against what were considered to be the sectional interests, in the form of the TUC and the miners.

In the Conservative cabinet Lord Birkenhead also represented himself as a pseudo-conciliatory figure. Meanwhile, Churchill, Austen Chamberlain, Joyson-Hicks and Neville Chamberlain were all opposed intransigently to both the TUC and the miners. Steel-Maitland, the Minister of Labour, was himself a mine owner. Members of the Cabinet such as Churchill favoured parades of troops, tanks and armoured cars in the streets against the strikers. Churchill had vigorously opposed subsidies and belligerently claimed that the strikers were Communists under the influence of what he termed as "Red subversion".

The Liberal Party had shown that it was equally determined to protect the interests of Capitalism. Asquith and the Liberal Shadow Cabinet condemned the strike in a straightforward fashion while Lloyd George was trying to gain some political advantage from the affair by declaring that, although the strike was a mistake, the Conservative government was also culpable to some degree.

A similar position of opposition to the strike was adopted by the Labour Party. MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas, Clynes and Henderson in common with the Conservative, Baldwin, all believed in the sanctity of the "British Constitution”, so a rift developed between the TUC and the Parliamentary Labour Party. The "Left”, in the form of Maxton, Lansbury, Wheatley and Cook were under the familiar misconception that capitalism was on the verge of collapse and believed that the General Strike could be turned into some type of revolution.

At that time, the Russian Revolution was still fresh in many people’s memories. The "Communist” Party believed that a workers’ revolution was about to spread across the industrialized countries. However, its support amongst the working class was quite insignificant: its membership amounted to less than five thousand. Two years before the General Strike the CP was making statements such as members of the armed forces should be helping the workers to smash capitalism. The theory of Capitalism being on the verge of collapse was held by the CP and, though it was prepared to use parliamentary methods as a propaganda platform, it also advocated violence and insurrection. It had been barred from affiliation with the Labour Party and so concentrated its efforts on attempting to win support in the trade unions, believing that the formation of factory committees would lead to them being "indispensable weapons in the struggle to force the capitalists to relinquish their grip on industry”. Such an attitude towards the General Strike and towards the idea of revolution was not only adventurist but, what is more important, blatantly anti-democratic.

Tactics

When the General Strike broke out on May 3rd the striking miners were joined by the railwaymen and workers in transport, printing, heavy industry, building and the gas and electricity industries.

The government monopolized the means of propaganda. It was able to put forward its own case in the British Gazette, its own newspaper, the editor of which was the reactionary Churchill. He denounced the British workingmen as "the enemy” and in the columns of the newspaper he demanded that they surrender. The BBC, although theoretically independent and not yet a public corporation, was very much in the government’s pocket and suppressed news which might bring embarrassment upon the government. The TUC published the British Worker which was ineffective since it was forbidden to give out ordinary news or propaganda.

Many myths have been told about the General Strike. Various syndicalist groups and the CP have claimed that the General Strike produced a "revolutionary situation”. Such an interpretation of the events is completely mistaken. There was no opportunity for revolution and certainly no possibility for a Socialist revolution. The strike was one of sympathy and had no revolutionary undertones. The reverse was the case. The General Council of the TUC strove to bring a conclusion to the miners’ strike. It had no desire for a confrontation with the government or the mine-owners. However, the Miners’ Federation was determined to make a stand against the proposed wage reductions and longer hours. Arthur Cook and Herbert Smith were opposed to the Samuel Commission. The mine-owners were equally intransigent, while Baldwin’s cabinet was steering clear of negotiations until concessions had been made by the miners.

The TUC General Council’s decision to call the General Strike was, from the point of view of the “respectable” trade union leaders, a shrewd tactical manoeuvre. By calling a strike of these dimensions the General Council could apply greater pressure on the Government to participate in negotiations to resolve the miners’ dispute. When the attempts broke down, the TUC General Council called off the strike and therefore isolated the miners, who continued their strike in conditions of semi-starvation until November 1926.

The Wrong Road

The idea of revolution had no support amongst the members of the TUC General Council, who were eager to solve the dispute and reconcile the two sides of the coal industry. Large sections of the British working class were undoubtedly sympathetic towards the miners. However, they were not revolutionary and were certainly not class-conscious. The vast majority of the miners themselves were not revolutionary. In spite of all the absurd statements made by the Left and by the Right, the General Strike was not political but was purely economic. A. J. P. Taylor correctly sums up the non-revolutionary attitude of the workers: "They were loyal to their unions and to their leaders, as they had been loyal during the war to their country and to their generals”.

Another historian, David Thomson, in England in the Twentieth Century remarks about the events of 1926: "The Sorelian myth of the ‘General Strike’, of ‘direct action’ on a scale great enough to coerce governments and paralyse nations, was not one accepted by the mass of British opinion, nor even by the organized workers themselves”. “What died in 1926, though nobody noticed, was the myth of syndicalist revolution as the road to better times”.

The failure of the General Strike is underlined by the fact that when the miners were driven to return to work in November 1926, they were compelled to accept the coal-owners’ demands: wage reductions, longer working hours and district agreements. Under the subsequent Trades Disputes Act of 1927 sympathetic strikes such as the General Strike were made illegal and, of course the Government had the support of the armed forces to back this up as well as the tacit agreement or apathy of the majority of the population.

The attitude of the Socialist Party of Great Britain towards general strikes and towards strikes overall is that they can only be used as a means of limited economic struggle. As long as capitalism exists, the strike will be a useful weapon for the working class: most effectively when trade booms occur, industry is expanding and there is a greater demand for workers. Under conditions of depression such as prevailed in 1926 and exist today in 1976, the strike will lose most of its effectiveness. The results of the General Strike and of many of the strikes occurring now, prove this.

If the workers are to abolish the conditions which they experience and which make strikes both necessary and inevitable, they must turn their attention to political action for the democratic act of establishing Socialism.

V. Lutra

Contemporary Voices (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The form and nature of the General Strike is discussed elsewhere in this journal: What we deal with here is the fact that the capitalist class in 1926, and no less today, were aware that there are many ways to skin a cat. The strike hit the production of newspapers, but not to such an extent that the propaganda of the capitalist class was made impossible. The copy to hand — the 4 page Continental edition of the Daily Mail for Monday, 10th May 1926 — leaves no doubt that it was directed almost entirely to the British market. The paper itself describes how “no feer [sic] than 30,000 copies” of the previous day’s edition had reached England in the morning by air and were distributed nationally, while a further 150,000 arrived by boat in the early afternoon. We give here some excerpts, all from different articles, to illustrate the force of the propaganda war waged on the strikers.

The headlines above the lead article set the tone:

BUSINESS AS USUAL IN SPITE OF THE STRIKE.

GREAT FIRMS THAT ARE CARRYING ON.

LISTS FROM ALL PARTS OF BRITAIN.

MORE WORKERS GO BACK.

TRANSPORT SERVICES INCREASED.

The greater part of the article is then taken up with a list of approximately 100 of these “great” firms from Glasgow to the Isle of Wight. The strike was pronounced illegal, but not merely by the Daily Mail reporters, the experts were brought in:

Lord Mersey, the eminent jurist has expressed his entire agreement with the great lawyers who have already condemned the general strike as illegal. Speaking of the speech made by Sir John Simon in the House of Commons on Thursday night, in which it was pointed out that every workman who had broken his contract and every trade union official who had advised and prompted that course was liable to damages, Lord Mersey said to a Daily Mail reporter yesterday. I agree completely. It is good law.

Having received judgement in advance from the “good”, the “great” and the “eminent”, how the capitalist class must have greeted the prospect of wringing the immense wealth of the strikers from them in the law courts. However, the government was devising more hideous means of revenge. The paper reported that the strike was costing “Britain” £lm. a day:

An increase in direct taxation to meet the bill is contemplated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he has stated categorically that he will require to impose substantial increases in indirect taxation. In other words, the strikers, who have deliberately brought this disaster on the nation, will be made to pay for it in higher beer and other taxes.

All (and only) strikers drank beer of course. As for some of the others — item:

Employés [sic] of the Oxford and District Omnibus Company called together to consider strike action, refused to hear the speakers and sang “Land of Hope and Glory.”

But even the strikers had their moments of light relief — item:

Police v Strikers. At a football match at Plymouth between strikers and the local police on Saturday, the Chief Constable’s wife kicked-off.

No mention of the result however. The government had issued a "new pledge to all strikers” through the BBC which the paper publicized in a front page block in capitals:

Everyman who does his duty by the country and remains at work, or returns to work during the present crisis will be protected by the State from the loss of trade union benefits, superannuation allowances, or pensions. His Majesty’s government will take whatever steps are necessary in Parliament, or otherwise, for this purpose. [Signed] Stanley Baldwin.

The General Council of the TUC was nervously making its attitude known:

We also want to make it clear that we are not challenging, as is clearly inferred in one part of Mr. Baldwin’s spech, [sic] the rules, the laws or the customs of our Constitution. We are certain that so far as we are concerned the Premier will find us willing to listen to any statements he may make.

The advertisements add some colour. While it was with some regret that we noted under “London Amusements” column that “The Great Lover” at the Shaftesbury Theatre was “closed until further notice”; it was going to take more than a general strike to stop some:

Drages of Holborn offer Mr. and Mrs. Everyman living in London or 20 miles outside, the convenience of their private motor car service to convey those selecting furniture to and from the showrooms.

While elsewhere the Gleneagles Hotel was pointing out that every summer it attracted “the leading figures of the British social scene. Duke’s son and dramatist, statesman and sportsman, tee up on the famous golf courses and enjoy the finest holiday that Britain has to offer. Top-of-the-tree men [monkeys?] swarm at Gleneagles. They know the right thing. Wise in labour, wise in leisure. The best folk go to Gleneagles because it is the best place to go.” They point out that a night-sleeper would take you there. Driven no doubt by one of the volunteer engine-drivers whose photographs appear on the back page. The previous day (a Sunday) was described by the Mail in terms so partisan that only the capitalist hacks could fail to see any contradiction:

Sabbath Calm. The results of all this was that London passed a very peaceful Sunday. The town almost returned to that old fashioned calm which used to be the wonder of Continental visitors. Churches were better attended than usual and special prayers for the national welfare were offered . . . In the Bird’s Cage Walk a detachment of the Royal Tank Corps is sharing the Guards Barracks. There have [sic] a column of armoured cars with them and elsewhere in South London a number of heavy tanks are parked.

The Church, of course had something to say, and workers today should note carefully who had and (still have) “god on their side.”

Cardinal Bourne, the Archbishop of Westminster, during High Mass at Westminster Cathedral yesterday made the following declarations; there is no moral justification for a general strike of this character. It is a direct challenge to a lawfully constituted authority and inflicts without adequate reason immense discomfort and injury on millions of our fellow countrymen. It is therefore a sin against the obedience which we owe to God, Who is the source of that authority, and against the charity and brotherly love which are due to our brethren. All are bound to oppose it and assist the Government.

After three full pages of unadulterated opposition to the strike, the Mail writers ran out of steam, and had to rest. The back page is dominated by photographs under the heading “Pictorial phases of the General Strike”. What is notable here is that a reader would be unaware that there was any strike. We have volunteer railway-men, special constables on their way to work, members of the Chelsea Naval Depot eagerly reading the Daily Mail (what else?), and city working girls who have turned their offices into bedrooms to obviate transport problems to and from work. But a striker? Or a closed factory? Not one. When the newspaper could attack them no more, it simply ignored them. A deliberate policy aimed at confusing and dividing opinion against the strike. As far as public opinion was concerned, the paper published one letter only. It inevitably reflected a view with which the owners of the Daily Mail would agree. Although fifty years old now, it has a current ring to it:

The country is sick to death of these so-called trade union leaders. They are nothing else but revolutionaries notwithstanding their protests. Trade Unionism has got out of hand and requires to be clubbed on the head to put it back in its proper place.

As we watch Messrs. Murray, Jones and Scanlon of the present-day entering into “negotiations” with the government over how far the living standards of the working class can be permitted to fall, the correspondent would no doubt agree that they are now back in their “proper place.” The point is that the trade unions were not revolutionary in 1926 — in Britain or elsewhere. If this had been the case we should have no trade unions, with or without leaders, today. Nor should we be reading "yesterday’s news” in the knowledge that tomorrow morning we can read the same sentiments all over again.

Alan.

Trade Unions and Socialism (1976)

From the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the addled thoughts of Communists and their allies and successors, the trade unions are potential and sometimes actual revolutionary organizations. Oddly enough, the people who agree with this idea are the sizeable reactionary fringe for whom Conservatism does not go far enough, and who see in every wage demand a plot to bring down civilization. Both are out of touch with reality and fail to see the advantages and limitations of trade unionism.

The Socialist Party recognizes the necessity for all workers to do all they can to maintain wages and working conditions. This is part of the class struggle in capitalism. The working class are the nine-tenths of the population who have to live by selling their only possession: labour-power. It is a commodity. Like all commodities its price reflects its value, i.e. the labour which has gone to make it, and like all commodities it is sold on a market where the interests of buyers and sellers are fundamentally opposed. The need for workers to organize and make use of the weapons available to them collectively is clear.

Organization draws attention to some limits and creates others. The trade unions’ early need was for legal recognition and protection, to allow them to function effectively without penalties and also to enable them to control their members. This protection was given by Acts of 1868, 1871 and 1875, and reinforced by the Trade Disputes Act of 1906; and it was dependent on the unions’ showing “responsibility” towards capitalism. The historian Halévy describes them as zealously cultivating respectability in 1868. The 1905 Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain said:

. . .With this legal protection, however, ideas that had been growing up since the breaking down of the Chartist movement, spread far and wide. Taught by the assiduous agents of the capitalist class that ‘“Capital” and “Labour” were brothers, the workers acted on the theory that between them and their masters were “common interests.”

From the big manufacturers’ point of view the major unions provided a body to negotiate rationally with. Engels remarked in the 1892 preface to his Condition of the Working Class that squabbles over petty items had become a nuisance, and concessions enabled them “to crush all the quicker and all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both ends meet without such perquisites”.

The basis of trade-union organization is wages and conditions, without any political reference. Many trade unionists support the Labour Party; others are Communists, Conservatives, Liberals, etc., all of whom need equally to press to maintain or try to improve their living standards. This shows on one hand that everyone, conscious of it or not, is in the class struggle; and on the other, that the overwhelming majority of trade unionists are not Socialists and do not even think they are. To that extent, the unions have hardly needed persuading that workers and employers have “common interests”.

Political-minded militants believe that in a strike, or when otherwise under pressure from the capitalist class, a mass of trade unionists can be led into a general rebellion against the existing order. The same belief is held about the unemployed; and, as with the unemployed, the position is that (unless they are Socialists) they want nothing more than a solution to their immediate problem. When militants are elected to trade-union offices it is in view of their likely success as negotiators, not their political gospels. However, the implication on the part of the militants who profess to be aiming to overthrow capitalism is that they are seeking the support of non-Socialists. This was the position taken up by Keir Hardie and other early Labour leaders.

“Left-wing” doctrines in the trade unions have, universally, had undesirable results for the working class. The idea of “workers’ control” has provided a ready-made structure for totalitarian regimes, where the trade unions are virtually government departments to ensure industrial discipline. Of Communist militancy between the two world wars, Gerald Abrahams says in Trade Unions and the Law (1968):

Communism convinced its converts that Patriotism meant less to a citizen than his loyalty to an economic group. That theory, incidentally, has served well some of those industrial leaders whose function it became to lay down to government the terms on which the worker would co-operate in a war, and Parliaments, which seem to have favoured the conscript rather than the volunteer, appear to have accepted their instruction.

The records of legislation and government action do not show what is commonly believed, that Labour governments are more favourable than others to the trade unions. After the Trade Unions Act of 1871 (Liberal), the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875, which established the legitimacy of “trade disputes”, was passed by a Conservative government. The Trade Disputes Act of 1906 and the Trade Union Act 1913 were enacted under the Liberals. Following the General Strike, the Conservatives’ Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act 1927 declared certain strikes illegal; it was held as a grievance, and repealed by Labour in 1945. However, it made little change in practice, and in the opinion of some legal authorities did not alter the existing position over general strikes.

Since the war, Labour and Conservative governments have both pursued the idea of an “incomes policy”, meaning wage restraint, and have both offended the trade unions with legislation: the Prices and Incomes Act (Labour) and the Industrial Relations Act (Conservative). Labour applied the Emergency Powers Act in a docks strike in 1948 and the Seamen’s strike in 1966. No party has seriously opposed the functioning of the trade unions since the Acts of the eighteen-seventies; but they have all (including the Communists during the war) bared their capitalist teeth when the system they hold dear was under duress.

Something which would surprise the trade unionists of the past is the sight of union leaders today in open collaboration with governments to limit pay increases for their members. Up to recent times the accepted practice was for the unions to make bargains with governments without surrendering their basic right of bargaining with the employers (in 1966, shortly before the Prices and Incomes Act, it was held by a court that government policy was “not relevant” to a worker’s claim for a wage increase). In fact the trade unions alone have made government wage-restraint possible. Capitalism battles through its crises at the expense of the working class, but it is something new for it to be given active help on those lines by working-class organizations.

The Webbs described a trade union as “a continuous association of wage-earners for the purpose of maintaining or improving the conditions of their working lives”. Unions are economic organizations with an essential function. It is also a restricted one, and they operate properly by accepting the restriction: political action by them has been chronically damaging to working-class interests. While their success in gaining wage increases depends on the state of production more than anything else, they should always be ready to (as Marx advised them) test the situation and not accept the pleas of the capitalist class and governments.

The restriction means also that trade unions cannot change society. The next step for trade unionists is recognition of the position in which they stand, and the fact that the path to Socialism is separate political organization. With this consciousness they can end the action in support of capitalism which too often characterizes trade unions now, and turn from sectional aims to the interests of the working class as a whole. In a resolution he drafted for the International Workingmen’s Association in 1866, Marx wrote:

By considering themselves champions and representatives of the whole working class, and acting accordingly, the trade unions must succeed in rallying round themselves all workers still outside their ranks. They must carefully safeguard the interests of the workers in the poorest-paid trades, as, for example, the farm labourers, who due to especially unfavourable circumstances have been deprived of their power of resistance. They must convince the whole world that their efforts are far from narrow and egoistic, but on the contrary, are directed towards the emancipation of the downtrodden masses.

Obviously much trade-union action — for instance, that which centres on the idea of a “wages league” in which groups of workers demand as of right to be better paid than others — is divisive and unconcerned with the class issue. Trade unions have much to learn. At the present stage, Socialists observe and approve their efforts to get what they can. But the reservations have to be made: our demand is for workers in the unions to see that they are only half-participating in the class struggle. The question is not what Socialists do about trade unions, but what the trade unions are going to do about Socialism.

Robert Barltrop

Letters: Is there a short cut? (1976)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is there a short cut?

I have become a consistent and grateful reader of your journal. However I do believe that the establishment of an all-sharing, all-caring society cannot be achieved in the foreseeable future by wholly democratic means.

The SPGB has been established over fifty years yet its voice is still insignificant. The unrest of the ’twenties and ’thirties were not to my knowledge effectively taken advantage of by you. Instead a so-called “socialist” government was born heralding a new land of nationalization, social welfare etc. Today in 1976 the same flimsy worthless promises are bellowed by Ministers who keep their so-called “socialist” Cabinet seats warm. There are 1.4 million officially unemployed and beggingly accepting the crumbs from the capitalist table. (You quite rightly state that the real figure is nearer 3 million.)

Does the SPGB now assume to let another fifty years slip by? How do I convince my friends that I am not a starry-eyed dreamer but someone equipped with sensible, concrete and democratic proposals for organizing and establishing a Socialist Britain? You wish to take the democratic road to Socialism — how successful have your candidates been in local by-elections? “Man makes his own history but not according to his will.”

Shaun McCarthy

London SW1

Reply:

Many people feel frustrated, as you do, at having to endure the continuation of capitalism while seeking mass understanding for Socialism. However, the alternative you seem to be implying, minority action, would not change things. Without a mandate from a conscious Socialist electorate, the minority could only be another government.

We suggest you look on the establishing of Socialism as we do, as an urgent matter, and convince your friends of the same. Best of all, join the SPGB (when you have got rid of that misunderstanding about “a Socialist Britain”) and throw your effort into bringing about Socialism. Every new member is a nail in the coffin of capitalism.

Spiritual Matters

It would appear that religion can bar membership to the Party for sympathizers. Perhaps you would be good enough to clarify my position, since I have considered applying for membership.

Under no circumstances could I be regarded as religious, in the accepted sense. I follow no creed, nor accept any religious dogma. I do, however, look around me and wonder at the miracle and mystery of life. Perhaps some day Man will have sufficient knowledge to explain “How” the miracle occurs, but I think the question “Why” will still remain. I can see a sunset and be moved by its grandeur; I can watch a horse move and be excited by its beauty; I can look at a cathedral and marvel at its form and craftsmanship. These things can be explained, but mere explanations do not account for Man’s spiritual reaction. If I choose to wonder at the life-force behind life itself and if I choose to call it God, is this incompatible with Socialism?

That people should understand that the root cause of most of our problems lies in the fact that we produce for sale and profit instead of for the needs of mankind — seems to me to be Socialism’s fundamental message. While I agree with most of your argument about religion I can’t see why so much fuss should be made about it in regard to membership of the SPGB.

George Pearson

London S.W.20

Reply:

The explanations of phenomena are not “mere” ones. At the beginning of his History of the Intellectual Development of Europe J. W. Draper wrote:

In the month of March the sun crosses the equator, dispensing his rays more abundantly over our northern hemisphere. Following in his train, a wave of verdure expands towards the pole. The luxuriance is in proportion to the local brilliancy. The animal world is also affected. Pressed forward or solicited onward by the warmth, the birds of passage commence their annual migration, keeping pace with the developing vegetation beneath. As autumn comes on, this orderly advance of light and life is followed by an orderly retreat, and in its turn the southern hemisphere presents the same glorious phenomenon. Once every year does the life of the earth pulsate; now there is an abounding vitality, now a desolation. But what is the cause of all this? It is only mechanical. The earth’s axis of rotation is inclined to the place of her orbit of revolution round the sun.

Let that wonderful phenomenon and its explanation be a lesson to us; let it profoundly impress us with the importance of physical agents and physical laws.

There is nothing wrong with experiencing emotional pleasure. What you apparently have not considered is that it is variable according to different social conditioning. A conception of beauty which deeply moves people in one time and place is distasteful in others.

Examples are to be found in all the fields you mention. The idea of beauty in nature arose chiefly from the Industrial Revolution. In architecture, as in all the arts, what is strongly appreciated in one culture is unacceptable in another. That some qualities appear to transcend time and place is due to the comprehensiveness of capitalism. However, other keenly-felt reactions are quite temporary. For instance, concepts of female beauty — alleged to have “launched a thousand ships” — differ widely and are ultimately functional.

There is, therefore, no ground for calling these phenomena "spiritual” and attributing them to a force “behind life itself”. People have a sense of mystery about emotional pleasures because they are denied access to them — many of the “beautiful” things and experiences are simply manifestations of wealth. As Dr. Johnson said: “Rid your mind of cant, sir.”

Rates and Things 

In your view, taxation is not a matter of any consequence to the working class. Could you explain how this applies to the rates levied on private and council housing, and to motor vehicle and television licences?

Do Socialists participate in the election of trade union officials? Presumably this presents some difficulty as most of the candidates hold an allegiance to other political parties.

If political parties can be classified as being in favour of private capitalism, state capitalism or Socialism, how would anarchist and syndicalist groups fit into this?

Do you have the information on the Socialist Labour league, etc., that I asked for?

You might be interested to know that in Lord Chalfont’s programme “It could never happen here” the is spokesman advocating a re-run of Russia 1917 was a certain Duncan Hallas.

R. Richardson

Reply:

Rates are a tax on property, and the greater part of them comes from industry and commerce. So far as housing is concerned, before the decline of private landlords, rates were paid like taxes out of income. Since they are levied on each item of property, it became landlords’ practice in some cases to separate rates from rent, making the tenant responsible for paying them (“exclusive” and “inclusive” rents). Obviously it is a book-keeping difference — the tenant pays the same gross amount. Local authorities adopted the “exclusive” system for council housing so that, instead of deducting tax to pay to themselves, separate rates and rent funds were contributed to.

The dispersal of former estates of let-out houses, largely into owner-occupation which now forms about half the housing stock in this country, has led to the landlords’ rates being levied as countless relatively small amounts on individuals whose house-purchase makes them technically “property-owners”. The system is widely considered to be anomalous as a tax rooted in pre-war conditions, and alternatives to it are being sought. Motor tax and television licences are not taxes but special funds raised from users of facilities. The former was known until recently as the “road fund licence”, and the income was intended for the provision and upkeep of roads by highway authorities.

Socialists in trade unions make their own choices as to voting for officials. They may take political affiliations into account, but the function of trade unions is the limited one of seeking better wages and conditions; a candidate for office will be judged for his likely effectiveness as a negotiator above anything else. Socialist Party members in unions do not pay the political levy for the support of the Labour Party.

Political groups and parties which advocate the abolition of capitalism have to be viewed for the validity of their claims. If their policies are not realistic ones they will not achieve the aim they talk about, and capitalism will continue. While not avowedly in favour of it, they do their bit for it. Anarchists and syndicalists generally support reforms, and have supported governments or political parties which appeared helpful to them; and this sort of compromise means taking the side of capitalist class interests.

On your last question, we don’t think it is our function to supply information about other political parties.

Worsening Conditions

In conversation with a friend on the economic cutback I said that Marx had prophesied that the more advanced and technological capitalism becomes the worse will become the lot of the common people. She replied that Marx said no such thing.

Is it not the situation today, with millions starving and out of work and other millions merely subsisting amidst a technology capable of producing abundance for all? If Marx did not say it, should he have done?

And would it be a truism, or is the lot of the people better but merely suffering a temporary setback until more advanced technology produces another glut that cannot be consumed by the producers?

Would you please explain Mr. Healey’s words that higher prices would cost the user more but be a lighter burden on the taxpayer, and we must not kill the will to work (when a couple of millions can’t get work?)

Ruth Bolster

London S.E.15

Reply:

The passage you are thinking of is probably the one in Capital Vol. I, Chapter 25, “The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation” pages 660-1, Allen & Unwin edn.):

We saw in Part IV, when analysing the production of relative surplus-value: within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange him from the intellectual potentialities of the labour-process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour-process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital.

However, you (and your friend) should read the entire chapter. Marx did not argue that the working class must continuously slide into more abysmal conditions. On the contrary, he pointed out that under some circumstances:

A larger part of their own surplus-product, always increasing and continually transformed into additional capital, comes back to them in the shape of means of payment, so that they can extend the circle of their enjoyments; can make some additions to their consumption-fund of clothes, furniture, etc., and can lay by small reserve-funds of money. But just as little as better clothing, food and treatment, and a larger peculium, do away with the exploitation of the slave, so little do they set aside that of the wage-worker. A rise in the price of labour, as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of the tension of it. (Page 631).

The governing factor is the needs of capitalism:

The rise of wages therefore is confined within limits that not only leave intact the foundations of the capitalist system, but also secure its reproduction on a progressive scale. (Page 634.)

What is the standard of judgement for “worse”? It can only be, as you point out, the potentialities of society. In the same chapter Marx reviews a Budget speech of 1863 in which it was claimed that “the poor have been growing less poor”. He says:

How lame an anti-climax! If the working-class has remained “poor”, only “less poor” in proportion as it produces for the wealthy class “an intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power”, then it has remained relatively just as poor. If the extremes of poverty have not lessened, they have increased, because the extremes of wealth have. (Page 668.)

We do not know the speech by Healey that you refer to. Presumably he was referring to the effects of subsidies on prices. Two things to keep in mind are: (1) that the price of labour-power also is subsidized, i.e. kept in check by family allowances, rent and rate rebates, welfare benefits, etc.; (2) that the burden of taxation is not on the working class but on the capitalists, for whom it is better to contribute to subsidies on selected commodities than be faced with demands for wage increases all round.

As for “the will to work”, see the review of The Right to be Lazy in our last issue.

New Definitions?

It will be agreed by SPGB members that they have to spend as much time with enquirers telling them what Socialism is not as with telling them what it is. The greatest coup of the capitalist propagandists was when they succeeded in misrepresenting Socialism to the masses. Their allies are those organizations which claim to be Socialist or Communist, though they are nothing of the sort.

It seems to me that the Socialist parties have done little research into the nature of language. If not, why not? Such research could help to solve the problem of propaganda. According to Marxian analysis, ideas are a reflection of the mode of production. It follows that language is likewise engendered. Therefore it should be possible to evolve the language to correspond to the actual processes of production instead of being a reflection of a class ideology as at present. A vast number of words and usages exist which presuppose such things as scarcity, division of interests, competition, attack, exploitation, leadership, etc., and which do not truthfully reflect the process of production.

Science extended mathematics to bypass “ordinary”, inaccurate language in order to deal with physical realities. Marx used prose to say what modern economists tend to say with mathematical formulae. There is a great increase of people trying to be “scientific” by using jargon, endeavouring to escape emotional connotations and vagueness in expression, though they often fail in this.

I am not advocating a complete new mathematical language, such as Leibniz imagined. I do advocate an effort to educate the working class in an analytic response to words, in order to clarify ideas, and to emancipate them from the cheap propaganda which at present bamboozles them.

For example: I think it would be a good start if, instead of accepting definitions as expressions of opinion, we demand (and teach others to demand) that a definition be a description of the way the thing is produced, including a reference to its function. I don’t think Marx would frown on that practice.

F. Sliwinski

Newcastle-on-Tyne

Sorry, Earth

I was interested to read of the latest exploits of Friends of the Earth in the April SS, and I wondered if you could make any use of the following story. A while ago I received a letter from a comrade which was contained in a used envelope made good for re-use by a stick-on label issued by Friends of the Earth. Since I believe in doing all I can to counter the wastefulness of capitalist society I sent off a postal order for a bundle of these economy labels. Back it came, with a note from our Friends saying Sorry, we’ve stopped selling economy labels because they’re no longer economical. So I wrote again, asking by what criteria it could be no longer economical to use less paper than that contained in a new envelope. And the answer? "Those of our Accountant”. One of their directors gave a lengthy explanation and gave a breakdown of figures to show that the sale of economy labels did not make a profit for Friends of the Earth. And then I remembered: it’s Friends of the Earth Limited (Registered in London. Company No. 1012357). The letter even spoke of what was necessary "to stay in business”.

So there you are. You can’t serve two masters, and you can’t be committed to "the rational use of the Ecosphere” and to the continuation of a profit-motivated society. Otherwise, you end up wasting more paper by having to send out slips saying silly things like "Sorry, we no longer do economy labels because they’re no longer economical”. Further evidence, if any were needed, that the most effective way of countering the wastefulness of capitalism is to propagate the establishment of socialism.

Bill Valinas

Notice.

As we go to press with this issue, we have learned of the death of our comrade Gilbert McClatchie — "Gilmac", who was a contributor to the Socialist Standard for over sixty years. An appreciation will appear in the June issue.

The Stall (1998)

A Short Story from the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Saturday 1 November an Alternative Politics Fair was held in Norwich and three of us decided to go along for the day to run a couple of stalls. We set the stalls side-by-side with one section piled high with copies of the Socialist Standard, including some free back numbers, and the other with literature, books, pamphlets, and leaflets of a radical nature.

Norwich (for those of you who have never visited it) is a colourful and cosmopolitan little city and political people know one another, either by sight, shared experience or reputation, so as we gathered in the auditorium of the Norwich Arts Centre there was no lack of co-operation between stall-holders as stalls were set up and boxes were carried into the hall. A general atmosphere of camaraderie reigned and some curiosity shown for other stalls. The Anarcho Syndicalists were there, a Disabled Rights Group, Friends of the Earth, Black Womens Rights, Ethical Investments—don’t ask me, I was told it was to do with investing ethically which is much as I thought. At ten thirty we opened to the public and waited for the surge.

The surge did not come and there were no hordes but there was a steady trickle and people did look round and some left laden with books and leaflets. Interest was shown in the Socialist Party stall and explanations required as to our political colour. We had to refute that we were anything to do with Militant Tendency, Socialist Workers, the Independent Labour Party or Arthur Scargill. Helpful discussion ensued from this but the idea of a system without the use of money was usually greeted with smiles of disbelief and some people said it would be very nice but . . .

The main problem for people seemed to be “human nature”. Fortunately the Socialist Party’s leaflet on the human nature question was included in packs of leaflets and Socialist Standards and handed to everyone who came to the stalls.There were the usual arguments. People would not work if food and shelter did not have to be struggled for. There would always be people who would grab more than others. We have to have leaders to represent us. Some people are bone idle and would live off the backs of those who worked harder. We endeavoured to deal with these arguments as they cropped up, but I have always found when talking to people about the abolition of money that they are, on the whole, not comfortable with the idea, seeing themselves as perhaps bereft without cheque books, wallets and purses to carry about with them. There is a general ignorance about the part money plays and a belief that it is money that is valuable and not the goods which are produced by people's labour. In fact I suspected that in the minds of some people money had been raised to that of almost supernatural status.

October's Socialist Standard was snapped up, the illustration on the front cover about Class War spotted immediately. We were asked what had happened to them. People agreed that in theory Class War s aggression had been unacceptable, but glints in the eyes of people told me that they found it exciting and satisfying, in some way responding to anger and frustration about the capitalist system. I found no-one to support anything the Labour government is doing and no-one who expected it to do anything other than it has done since it came to power.

It was a good day and Alistair sold many books on his stall, but disappointing to find that reformism is still depended on and money is still seen as the best means of exchange apart from perhaps the LETS system and bartering. A little sadly, I think, we packed our literature away and dismantled the stalls until the next time.

Heather Ball

US flexes its muscles (1998)

From the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we mention in our editorial, at the end of October 1997 another crisis emerged in the Middle East when Saddam Hussain banned Americans from the UN Special Commission (UNscom) charged with monitoring Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. A further conflagration threatened when Saddam promised to shoot down any US reconnaissance planes flying over Iraqi airspace.

Within days, US forces were put on alert with Britain’s Labour government offering wholehearted support.

What became clear as the waiting game unfolded, and perhaps surprisingly so for US Middle East watchers, was that the US and Britain were alone in their stand that Saddam should again have his ass kicked. Not only was caution urged by France, China and Russia (who together with the US and Britain make up the UN Security Council), but condemnation of US belligerence came from normally pro-US states such as Egypt (the second biggest recipient of US aid), Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

While Russia and France feared another US strike would jeopardise potential oil contracts and the recovery of old debts, Arab states’ reasons were two-fold.

The first had nothing to do with support for Saddam, but was more an alleged empathy with the long-suffering Iraqi people, still awaiting the lifting of UN sanctions that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands from malnutrition and disease since 1991.

The second is that many Arab rulers see the US as reneging on a post-Gulf War promise to deliver a Middle East peace settlement and because of the sanctions the UN refuses to impose on the Middle East’s other villain of the piece—Israel.

It is no secret that the US still bankrolls Israel to the tune of billions of dollars each year—a country whose nuclear arsenal is clouded in mystery—and in spite of US foreign aid legislation from 1977 barring funds to any state secretly developing nuclear weapons. Moreover, while Iraq’s flouting of one UN resolution can plunge the region into a long and protracted war, Israel is still in breach of six UN resolutions (338, 465, 476, 672, 673 and 681).

We might add that while the US is desperate to prove to the world that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction, it is silent on its own chemical weapon stockpiles, and just as it can turn a blind eye to Israeli bombings of Libya in 1982 and 1996, so too can it ignore Turkey’s frequent over-the-border incursions to murder Kurds and the oppression Indonesian forces still carry on in East Timor.

All of this can be set against President Bush’s Gulf War Orwellian double-speak that “America stands where it always stands—against aggression”. Interesting words indeed from the first ever head of state to be condemned by the World Court, for “unlawful use of force against Nicaragua”.

The whole episode should make it immediately clear that the latest round of US sabre-rattling has less to do with any perceived threat Saddam poses to the present world order and rather more to do with US hegemony and US control of world oil supplies.

This is perhaps why Tony Blair could announce at the recent Lord Mayor’s banquet: “When Britain and America work together on the international scene, there is little we cannot achieve . . . we must not reduce our capacity to exercise a role on the international stage” (Observer, 18 November).

What Blair’s overt support for the US reveals is an all too common acknowledgement by the British elite that Britain can only ever move forward in America’s shadow.

Meanwhile, UN inspectors have since returned to Iraq, but with a reduction in the proportion of Americans represented. The US alleges that Saddam will have exploited the UN absence to conceal Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and insist they will not stop until all of Saddam’s weapons and related facilities are uncovered and the world is again a safe place to live in; a hollow sounding notion considering Russia and the US still have 5,000 nuclear warheads pointed at one another.

In the immediate future we can expect further military stand-offs in the region, with the working class hostage to the ongoing power struggle over control of the world’s centre of oil extraction.

John Bissett

Africa and the reality of capitalism (1998)

From the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Africa, a continent with virtually all the resources it takes for development, is the worst hit by hunger, starvation, armed conflicts, instability, displacement and abject poverty. Politicians, jockeying for the little resources left by the capitalist class, display the politics of hide-and-seek, repression and oppression.

This is mainly because of the system that encourages capital accumulation and profit-seeking. The cumulative effect is flagrant corruption, deprivation, wastage and impoverishment which intensifies underdevelopment.

Worst of all, as Africa is helplessly dragged into the global free trade championed by the IMF and World Bank, Africa’s natural resources are further exposed for deep exploitation by international capitalism, which deteriorates the woes of the already impoverished African working class. This shows that the objective conditions of African socio-economic formations do not favour capitalism.

Capitalism and imperialism are perceived as the major cause of the current underdevelopment in Africa. Capitalist development has tended to reinforce the exploitative dependence that enables underdevelopment to persist. The fact remains that Africa will never witness any meaningful development under capital accumulation and market profit-seeking which breed dissension, division, greed, selfishness, tribalism, ethnic chauvinism and the like.

Recently, after the just concluded 22nd ECOWAS Summit in Abuja, Nigeria, one African president identified division and the exposure of the region’s economy (market) to the Western capitalist class as the major source militating against the development of the region. But this is the base of capitalism—market profit-seeking and exploitation. It is not enough to identify these problems but more so to resolve them by helping to abolish the system that creates them.

The African working class have the cards in their hands for socialism if only they want it. Indeed, African conditions have revealed capitalism in its harshness and brutality: inequalities are too glaring. In the face of extremities of want and a meagre surplus, it is difficult to sell the idea that those who are in positions to accumulate should take what they can and leave the rest to suffer what they must. Africa’s ruling class has run out of ideas for fashioning and inspiring a functional development strategy, limited as it is by the constraints of working with ideas compatible with the maintenance of the existing property relations.

The evils of capitalism are conspicuous in Africa and Africans have lost confidence in capitalism, exemplified by the renewed springing-up of working-class consciousness in South Africa, The Gambia, Namibia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and others but are choked by the external forces of capitalism. Again, another problem of the state of the development of productive forces in Africa is that it turns even the best of intentions into caricature. The lack of the development of the productive forces appears to encourage political authoritarianism and reduces “Socialism” to the management and redistribution of poverty.

But underdevelopment will surely persist if the existing capitalist relations of production are maintained, and if the dependence of Africa on international capital continues. Therefore, the overturning of the existing relations of production is necessary for overcoming underdevelopment. Socialism is inevitable if development is desirable.

It is obvious that in the event of protracted futile developmental efforts, the politics of anxiety has become institutionalised and increasingly the ruling class is displaying signs of paranoia while the subordinate classes have become frustrated, demoralised and available for induction into extremist movements as in Algeria, Senegal, Burundi, Rwanda and the like. The ruling class is fast psychologising failures which lie in the economic sphere.

The fact is that Africa has less hope of development if the property relations of production and distribution and the market system continue. The reverse is the solution—socialism abolishing capital accumulation and market profit-seeking and embracing production for need. The time is now to co-operate with fellow workers all over the world to establish global socialism.

JohnBull Nwarie