The truth about Russia (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Why don't you go back to Russia?" is the standard comment of the wage slave who stumbles across a socialist propagandist and cannot put up an argument. The fact that most socialists do not come from Russia and have been there does not deter the enthusiastic anti-socialists. But who can blame them? After all, the Communist Party is constantly telling them that Russia is socialist or communist. The Tory party use the myth of "Communist Russia" to discredit the socialist idea. The media will apply the label "Marxist" to any dictator who cares to use it.

Of course, times change and people learn. When in the 1930s the Socialist Party of Great Britain referred to Russia and its satellites as state capitalist dictatorships we were howled down by the Left. Our outdoor meetings were disrupted for saying that the Stalinist dictatorship in Russia was no more socialist than it was during Hitler's Nazi regime. These days our point of view is gaining credibility. The Trotskyists, whose entire case is based upon an acceptance of Lenin's anti-socialist Bolshevism, will reluctantly accept that Russia is not socialist but insist that it was in 1917. Quite how a society transfers from socialism back to capitalism, they have yet to disclose. Other Leftists say that Russia is undergoing a very long transition period from capitalism to socialism (or from socialism to communism as they confusedly put it). In fact, Russia is no more or less in transition to socialism or communism (the terms are synonymous) than any other part of capitalist society. The contradictions of state capitalism are creating within the working class a consciousness which will lead to the abolition of capitalist social relationships; but that will only happen when the workers want and understand socialism and then organised politically for it. When it does happen it will be despite the wishes of the Russian Communist Party — not because of them.

The Russian Communist Party, like its counterparts in Poland, Hungary, China, Albania and the rest of the misnamed socialist countries, is no different in its objective from the Tories in Britain. They stand solely for the interests of rent, interest and profit. They will ban strike, lock up trade unionists and other dissidents, use the police to protect their unearned luxury and set the workers to war in defence of their economic interests. Our political hostility to them is no less than our hostility to Thatcher, Foot or Reagan. As defenders of capitalism they are unworthy of the support of the working class.

As early as 1918 the Socialist Standard was forecasting the state capitalist outcome of the Bolshevik revolution. Being an undemocratic coup d'etat in a backward economy with a non-politically conscious population, mainly consisting of peasants, the only result could be a new ruling class running capitalism in its own interests. Far from being a socialist revolution, 1917 was Russia's 1789. The events of Poland during the summer of 1980 have again vindicated our view. Why were our fellow workers striking in Poland? It was because their enemies are the same as ours: the international capitalist class.

On 16 August 1981 The Observer newspaper (not The Morning Star) published a statement by Mykola Pohyba, a Ukrainian dissident, who was a prisoner in a penal colony in Buchs. The statement was smuggled [out of] Buchs. The statement [is published in] full because of the light it throws on capitalism in Russia.

Steve Coleman   

MYKOLA POHYBA'S STATEMENT

It is no secret that fundamental human rights have been consistently trampled on in the Soviet Union. The flouting and complete disregard of human rights is felt most acutely by workers who are powerless to oppose the political and socio-economic oppression.

My life and my so-called "slanderous activities" may well serve as examples. I am presently serving a second term of imprisonment. In 1975 I was charged under Article 187 and sentenced to three years' imprisonment by the Kiev Oblast Court. In 1979 I was charged under Article 206 and sentenced to five years in prison by the Kiev People's Court.

As a worker relegated to the lowest rung of the Soviet social ladder I personally have experienced economic, socio-political and national oppression. Understandably, I could not help but give thought to and consider the real reasons for this oppression. With time I realised that fellow workers were also victims of exploitation and that this exploitation was greater the lower one found oneself on the social ladder.

I came to the conclusion that ultimately it is the state that is the exploiter, along with the State-party bourgeoisie which is in its service and which is the one wielding the real power in the country. The socialism and internationalism of which one so often speaks in the Soviet Union is nothing more than a smokescreen for a means of production and distribution of material goods which is not in the least socialist.

In short, I have come to the conclusion that our country is actually a State capitalist society with a totalitarian form of government.

In informal conversations with fellow workers I expressed some of my views regarding Soviet reality. I saw nothing wrong in so doing. Specifically, I noted that the real causes of our impoverished condition are to be found not in mistakes committed by the administrative apparatus, but in the very system of production which, in actual fact, is capitalist.

In my conversations, as well as in the leaflets which I wrote and then posted throughout Kiev on bulletin boards, monuments, etc (for having posted my leaflets on a statue of Lenin, I was charged under Article 206 with hooliganism), I showed that the Soviet labour unions (i.e. state-party organisations) neither constitute a separate autonomous organisation nor do they represent the rights and economic interests of the working class.

They are, in fact, an integral part of the Party-State apparatus whose principal aim is to extract the utmost from the worker while keeping the working class in blind obedience, checked and ensured by a system of meting out at first minor and then even greater benefits. The dispensation of benefits depends on factors such as good behaviour success in meeting the designated quotas, and loyalty to the State.

Those workers who express dissatisfaction, be it outrightly, or indirectly, are demoted to the lowest-paying jobs, lose any privileges and are put under the "care" of Soviet penal authorities. All this is done with no objections raised by the labour union.

I believe that I am not alone in my endeavour, that the situation in the Soviet Union is rife for the founding of independent labour unions as opposed to party-state ones), which would prove effective in solving the problems with which the working class is faced. I explained to my fellow workers that we not only had the right to talk of independent labour unions, but the right to organise them.

Throughout the course of my so-called "slanderous" activity, I came to see that similar views are held by many workers who as a rule may be characterised as independent-minded. I became aware that their numbers are growing daily.

And even though the ruling class will go to any length to check independent-minded workers whose protest is born of spontaneity, repressions will no longer be able to suppress that awareness which has been awakened in the consciousness of the people.

The recent events in Poland have shown that the working class is capable of leading the struggle for its rights and freedoms, for a feasible improvement of its well-being. The effectiveness of the struggle waged depends on the degree of solidarity of the working class, on the degree of self-organisation.

This, in short, is the extent of the 'slanderous activity' for which I am being 'rehabilitated' behind barbed wires. I ask that the Ukrainian human rights group make my letter known to the people of the Soviet Union and to world public opinion. But foremostly, to the labour unions throughout the world.  Let them be the ones to determine who the real culprit is and what his true motives are.

After Seeing a Performance of "The Trojan Women." (1920)

From the March 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

What though you beat the earth and cry aloud
To all the dead that you have loved and lost;
Shall one arise and cast aside his shroud
To help and save you, hell-bound, tempest tossed
On the sad world's waters? Rise from off your knees
And face life fearlessly whate'er portend.
The wheels of Fate, despite your futile pleas,
Roll on, unheeding, to their destined end.
And still men cry and clamour to the dead,
Or pray for aid to gods and other men;
And still Fate crushes them and passes by.
The night comes swiftly; even now the red,
The blood-red sunset, like an open wen,
Creeps in its course across the darkening sky.

F. J. Webb

Party News (1969)

From the June 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite police 'protection' and a rival Paisleyite meeting, Belfast branch of the World Socialist Party of Ireland held their May Day meeting on Sunday May 4. The Paisleyites said they were holding a religious service nearby to protest about a political meeting on a Sunday, but their meeting turned out to be political too with attacks on Harold Wilson and talk of Ulster's 'great Protestant leader,' then in jail. Despite having loudspeaker equipment they gave up before the Socialist meeting closed.

The previous day, WSP members had distributed socialist literature at the Labour and trade union march. Among the other leaflets handed out was one from the People's Democracy headed Workers' Civil Rights which seemed to advocate the extension of contracting-out to trade unions in Northern Ireland, where (quite reasonably) those who want to pay the political levy to the Labour Party have to say:

The 1927 Trades Disputes Act was never repealed in Northern Ireland. This meant that Trade Union funds cannot be donated to the Labour Party unless a worker 'contracts in'. In Great Britain, Trade Union Funds can be used to affiliate to the Labour Party unless the worker 'contracts out'.

Perhaps the Northern Ireland Labour Party is short of cash and is using its members in PD to whitewash the undemocratic contracting-out swindle.

Six Days Shalt Thou Labour, and on the Seventh … (2015)

From the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers in the retail industry will be relieved that George Osborne’s recent budget plan allowing shops to increase Sunday trading hours is being hampered by the fact that there are only 24 hours in a Sunday in which it is possible to make them work.

Ever since the 1950 Shops Act, which gave retail workers specified meal breaks, a half-day holiday each week and time off in lieu of Sunday work, there have, of course, been numerous attacks on their working hours and conditions, including Thatcher’s 1986 Shops Bill, though this was defeated when rebel Tory and Labour MPs joined forces and were backed by the Church of England and a religious campaign group.

But governments have not always taken the same view of Sunday trading. In 1855, after complaints in the House of Lords that five million people had become estranged not only from the Church but from Christianity, Lord Robert Grosvenor’s ‘Sunday Trading Bill’ was introduced in an attempt to herd them back into church.

It failed, and it kicked off a series of protests which led, eventually, to the establishment of Speakers’ Corner in London as a place of Sunday working class discussion and debate.

The Bill was designed to prevent small traders on whom the poor were totally dependent from doing business on Sundays. Large shops remained closed anyway, and since the normal working week was six days with wages being paid late on Saturday, the Bill would be irrelevant to the rich but cause real hardship to the poor. When this was pointed out Grosvenor’s response was that ‘the aristocracy are largely refraining from employing its servants and horses on Sundays’.

The timing of his Bill was not good. ‘Bread riots’ protesting at widespread poverty had recently taken place in Liverpool and London, and the ‘Beer Bill’ restricting Sunday trading hours in the places where workers met to socialise had just been passed.

Notices drawn up by the Chartists soon appeared around London announcing that a public meeting was to be held in Hyde Park on the following Sunday:

‘New Sunday Bill prohibiting newspapers, shaving, smoking, eating and drinking and all kinds of recreation and nourishment, both corporal and spiritual, which the poor people still enjoy at the present time.  An open-air meeting of artisans, workers and ‘the lower orders’ generally of the capital will take place in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon to see how religiously the aristocracy is observing the Sabbath, and how anxious it is not to employ its servants and horses on that day, as Lord Robert Grosvenor said in his speech. The meeting is called for three o’clock on the right bank of the Serpentine on the side towards Kensington Gardens. Come and bring your wives and children in order that they may profit by the example their ‘betters’ set them!’

Hyde Park, on a Sunday afternoon in June, would have been swarming with London’s high society parading their horses, carriages and uniformed flunkeys. But on this occasion, as witnessed by Karl Marx who was in attendance:

‘At three o’clock approximately 50,000 people had gathered… Gradually the assembled multitude swelled to a total of at least 200,000… The police who were present in force were obviously endeavouring to deprive the organisers of the meeting of what Archimedes had asked for to move the earth, namely, a place to stand upon. Finally a rather large crowd made a firm stand and Bligh, the Chartist, constituted himself chairman on a small eminence in the midst of the throng.

No sooner had he began his harangue than Police Inspector Banks at the head of 40 truncheon-swinging constables explained to him that the Park was the private property of the Crown and that no meeting might be held in it. After some pourparlers in which Bligh sought to demonstrate to him that parks were public property and in which Banks rejoined he had strict orders to arrest him if he should insist on carrying out his intention, Bligh shouted amidst the bellowing of the masses surrounding him, ‘Her Majesty’s police declare that Hyde Park is private property of the Crown and that her Majesty is unwilling to let her land be used by the people for their meetings’.

…Suddenly shouts could be heard on all sides: ‘Let‘s go to the road, to the carriages!’. The heaping of insults upon horse riders and occupants of carriages had meanwhile already begun…The procession of elegant ladies and gentlemen; ‘commoners and Lords’, in their high coaches-and-four with liveried lackeys in front and behind, joined, to be sure, by a few mounted venerables slightly under the weather from the effects of wine, did not this time pass by in review but played the role of Oder-Zeitung involuntary actors who were made to run the gauntlet. A babel of jeering, taunting, discordant ejaculations, in which no language is as rich as English, soon bore down on them from both sides… To this must be added outbursts of genuine old-English humour peculiarly mixed with long-contained seething wrath. ‘Go to church!’ were the only articulate sounds that could be distinguished. One lady soothingly offered a prayer-book in Orthodox binding from her carriage in her outstretched hand. ‘Give it to your horses to read!’ came the thundering reply, echoing a thousand voices…The spectacle lasted three hours’ (‘Anti-Church Movement’, Neue Oder-Zeitung. 28 June 1855).

The following day’s Morning Post reported the events: ‘A spectacle both disgraceful and dangerous in the extreme has taken place in Hyde Park, an open violation of law and decency… an illegal interference by physical force in the free action of the Legislature… This scene must not be allowed to be repeated’. It added however, that the ‘fanatical’ Lord Grosvenor was solely responsible for provoking the ‘just indignation of the people’.

Lord Grosvenor, however, not only refused to withdraw the Bill but re-stated his determination to press it through. The chartists responded with a handbill for another meeting the following Sunday.

‘Lord Robert Grosvenor wishes to drive us all to church! Let us go to church with Lord Grosvenor next Sunday morning! We can attend on his Lordship at Park Lane at half-past ten: ‘go to church’ with him, then go home to dinner, and be back in time to see ‘our friends’ in Hyde Park. Come in your best clothes, as his lordship is very particular’.

On Sunday a notice banning the meeting, signed by Sir Richard Mayne, the Commissioner of Police, was attached to The Park gates. The crowds, however, poured in. According to the following morning’s Times ‘By half-past two o’clock there must have been nearly 150,000 men, women and children present.…The proceedings began by the usual stump oratory, which continued for some time, until a cry of ‘the Police’ being raised put an abrupt termination to it’.

‘The police’ had arrived in the form of Sir Richard Mayne on horseback, plus approximately 800 truncheon-wielding officers determined to enforce the ban. With the meeting abandoned, the assembly again turned their attention to the spectacle of the wealthy parading up and down in their carriages. This time the police charged the crowd. Over 100 arrests were made and dozens were injured, one fatally.

The following day Lord Grosvenor withdrew the Bill and confessed to being in ‘rather an awkward predicament’. The intention of his Bill, he said, had been merely to increase the amount of holidays to the ‘overtaxed thousands of the Metropolis’

For several weeks things were fairly calm with a few sporadic meetings held at which the police kept a low profile. After a while, however, police renewed their intervention. Eventually a notice was issued, signed by the Commissioner of Police banning public meeting from all London Parks. It warned, ‘All necessary measures will be adopted to prevent any such meeting, or assemblage’.

No more meetings were held for several years. In 1866, however, the Reform League announced that a meeting was to be held in Hyde Park on 2 July.

Mayne at first announced that the ban would be enforced, but at the last minute relented and the meeting, attended by about 50,000, went ahead. A further, evening meeting was announced. This time Mayne was determined to prevent it. The ban was reissued and promptly declared invalid by Edmond Beales, a barrister and President of the Reform League claiming the Park was the ‘property of the nation’.

On the evening of the meeting the arriving crowd was met by about 1,700 police officers mounted and on foot, and the gates locked. A large crowd had already assembled inside and were unable to leave. When Beales and other leaders of the Reform League arrived the crowd attempted to force open the gates and enter, and the police, according to the Times ‘used their staves freely to defeat this attempt’.

It was suggested that the meeting be transferred to Trafalgar Square, and Beales and the leadership set off in their cabs. The vast majority of the crowd however, some who had walked miles to be there, were in no mood for this and determined to hold a meeting, proceeded to pull down the railings and enter the Park.

The first breach was made in Bayswater Road, followed by several more along Park Lane. And, according to the Times, ‘The police brought their truncheons into active use, and a number of the roughs were somewhat severely handled’. The Morning Star reported that the police had used their truncheons ‘like savages who, having been under temporary control, were now at full liberty to break heads and cut open faces to their hearts content’. But despite numerous and severe injuries, and dozens of arrests, the crowd flooded in.

The Grenadier Guards and the Life Guards were rushed in to back up the police, but were ineffective. The meetings and speeches were in full swing and could not be prevented.

The Reform League then called a meeting for 6 May 1867. Walpole, the Home Secretary, immediately announced a ban, to be backed up with the appointment of 12,000 special constables, together with whatever regular police and military force necessary. It was obvious though, and Walpole realised it, that the ban would be ignored. At the last moment it was lifted.

Over 150,000 people marched into Hyde Park on 6 May. The police and troops stood by and watched as the massive rally took place - peacefully and calmly. The following morning Walpole resigned.

Finally, in 1872, in an attempt to dress up their defeat as an act of benevolence, the ‘Royal Parks and Gardens Act’ was announced, which they claimed,  and still claim to this day, gave the right to hold meetings in the public parks.

In fact, this right was never given. The government used everything in its power (including the use of the army) to prevent the public meeting to discuss their concerns. The right to free speech in the public parks had to be taken. And paid for with working class blood.

Nick White

Superfacts (1984)

From the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Look. Up in the sky.

Is it a bird?

Is it a plane?

No, it's a super geriatric!

No, it's not, it's Supermac.

Who?

You know, the Earl of Stockton.

Who's he then?

Why, he's ex prime-minister, Harold Macmillan, that's who.

What'd he do that was super?

Well for one thing he coined phrases that were famous.

So do Xmas cracker manufacturers.

Yes but his were more relevant, weren't they?

Such as?

Well he said: "You've never had it so good".

So he was into sex then?

Oh no, nothing like that. Whitehouse forbid. No, he was talking about the important things in our lives like our jobs, our respirations.

Aspirations.

Them too.

So what did be actually do then?

He gave us more jobs for one thing.

It is with us again, this condition they have repeatedly assured us was gone for good. Unemployment at the end of 1962 was pressing stubbornly upwards and was expected to top the 600,000 mark with the turn of the year. Once again we are seeing a lengthening of the dole queues. Some sections of workers have been affected more than others, such as those in manufacturing and construction. There has, for some time, also been widespread unemployment amongst teenage school leavers. (Grim New Year, Socialist Standard, January 1963.)

And another thing  . . . . 'Ere wait a minute! What's the idea of interposing a quote from the Socialist Standard circa 1963 into our discussion?

Well, you see when you have a discussion you can make all kinds of assertions, but when you introduce facts it takes on a bit of real meaning, and the reality is that even when we are supposed to be "having it so good" it was still bloody awful. The truth is that even when capitalism is going through one of its periodic booms, the needs of the vast majority can never be satisfied in spite of the so-called great leaders. Nor could it be otherwise since capitalism can only operate in the interest of the tiny handful who constitute the capitalist class. So instead of asking the slavish question: What did he do for us?, ask yourself this question" What can I do for us? Get it Mac? Super!

Tone.

The Passing of Hardy (1928)

From the March 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

Primarily this journal is an organ of political propaganda. As such, any attempt to appraise the work of the late Thomas Hardy would be somewhat out of place. But there is one feature connected with his death which needs underlining and emphasising. We refer to the attitude of that old enemy of mankind, the Church. Here was a man who throughout most of a long and thoughtful life, had no use for the Church and its teaching whatever. Although at one time an orthodox Churchman, he has since confessed he found no happiness therein. As an artist in life, he truthfully portrayed the part played by the Church in rural conditions. He recognised its utility to certain primitive, immature minds. But, as a man, he had no need of it. He saw men and women as the puppets of circumstance. He saw life as a

“Chequerboard of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays."

And to Destiny he imputed an almost impish irony. Throughout his works, like a theme, there runs this thread of cynical frustration.

But it seems there are heights of irony of which even Hardy never dreamed. For hardly had he breathed his last, before the Church, whose teachings he had repulsed in life, claimed his corpse for her own. Apart from the fact that he was a known Agnostic, Hardy had specifically recorded in the opening sentence of his will, his desire to be buried with his own folk at Stinsford. No matter, he was a great man, too great for the Church to attempt to belittle, so they annexed him. There was a further difficulty : Hardy was known to have opposed cremation, and cremation is necessary before burial in the Abbey. The way out of that dilemma was easy. Ignore it. Hardy was dead anyway. What of his relatives, his friends? Yes! they were opposed to the old man's last wishes being trampled on. The Daily News correspondent interviewed his brother Henry, his sister Kate, and a cousin, Teresa Hardy. He records :—"They were all very emphatic in declaring their disappointment at Hardy being taken away from them. . . . Teresa Hardy, when I asked her if she did not appreciate the honour done to her cousin, said : 'There is nothing in honour. He wanted to be buried in Stinsford Churchyard, and I think it is cruel not to do as he wished.' " Even the Mayor of Dorchester, Mr. W. F. Hodges, said the proposed Abbey burial would leave a sore feeling in the town.

No matter! The Church must have its poppy-show. An ingenious expedient was suggested. As they could not have Hardy's body buried with his ancestors, the local Rector suggested they might have a piece of him, and it was hurriedly arranged that poor old Hardy's heart should be cut out and buried at Stinsford. As all the world knows, this was done. What Hardy would have thought of the whole proceeding, one can imagine. It is difficult to conceive anything more repulsive and disgusting, in an age which so constantly claims to be "enlightened," and the comments of posterity should be worth reading. Sentiment still plays an important part in human affairs, and possibly will so continue for many years to come. But it is hard to imagine the sentimental majority of people viewing the barbaric mutilation of gentle old Hardy's body with any feelings other than loathing.

W. T. Hopley

Rusted Iron Lady (1992)

Book Review from the February 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Economy Under Mrs Thatcher 1979-90. By Christopher Johnson. Penguin, 1991. £5.99

This is a generally readable account of the economic policies pursued by the Conservative governments under Mrs Thatcher, containing a useful appendix of statistics on everything from trends in economic growth to changing employment patterns. Johnson, a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, shows that even on Thatcher's own dubious terms, her governments were a decidedly mixed bag—with notable failures to deal with unemployment, inflation and economic growth.

Though Thatcher is usually portrayed as a clear-sighted, no-nonsense politician, this book goes some way towards undermining the image by hinting at the very real confusion of her governments with regard to the conduct of economic policy. Though Johnson only touches the surface, there is a definite recognition that a core confusion of Thatcherite economic policy was on the subject closest to her heart—inflation.

Throughout the 1980s Conservative governments showed themselves to be hopelessly unclear about the cause of the persistent rise in the price level, and proved themselves incapable of halting the phenomenon to which they attached so much importance. Early intentions to slow the rate of growth of the money supply foundered on an inability to understand exactly what constitutes money, and from that point on government policy plumbed the depths of confusion. In the long-running farce since then, inflation has been blamed on a multitude of factors ranging from high wage rises to low interest rates, excessive government expenditure to incorrect tax policy and beyond. Everything, that is, except its real cause—the policy pursued by all governments alike since the Second World War, of printing an excess issue of inconvertible paper currency in an attempt to secure a buoyant economy.

While the stubborn rises in the price level continued to bewilder Tory politicians, the policy aims of economic growth and low unemployment also provoked confusion among the ranks of Thatcher's ministers and advisers. All her governments were marked by a tension between those who thought so-called "monetarist" policies on state expenditure and trade union reform could pave the way to truly lasting economic growth, and others, who, in their more realistic moments, took a rather different view. This realistic perspective, forced on the Conservatives by events, was summed up by former chancellor Nigel Lawson in 1990, who told the House of Commons that "there always have been economic cycles and there always will be economic cycles".

We might add to this remark that there will always be economic cycles so long as capitalism lasts, and that only socialism can put an end to them. Similarly, only social ownership of the means of living with production solely for use can provide the framework for the abolition of poverty, homelessness, crime and those other afflictions of capitalist society that flourished under the now rusted-up Iron Lady, none of which her economic policies proved capable of solving.

Dave Perrin 

Greasy Pole: Baby David Speaks (2012)

The Greasy Pole Column from the March 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among the more memorable examples of urban unrest dredged up by the analysts after last August's riots was Tottenham, that place in North London with the Seven Sisters Road and White Hart Lane, Jimmy Greaves and, less happily, the tragedies of Baby P and Victoria Climbie. And the Broadwater Farm Estate where in 1985 there was a riot on a scale to ensure its place in the record books.  The riot was notable, too, for the killing of P C Blakelock, an event which led to Winston Silcott being sent to prison for life only to be released in 1991 when his conviction was found to be based on fabricated evidence.

Bernie Grant

It took a long time for Tottenham to adjust to the memories of those events and to the fragile tension which followed. This was not helped when the Leader of Haringey Council, Bernie Grant, shrugged off the killing of the policeman in the memorable description that “...what (the police) got was a bloody good hiding”. It says enough about those times that Grant went on to be elected when the Parliamentary seat at Tottenham became vacant in 1987 and later stood for the leadership of the Labour Party. He died of a heart attack in 2000; his wife was on the candidates’ short list but the party, perhaps hoping for a less combustible representative, preferred one David Lammy who, when he was elected in June 2000, may have warmed many a Tottenham heart by becoming the Baby of the House – not expected to turn out to be like one of those gurgling, screeching, defecating infants who keep you awake at night.

Thatcher vs Beveridge

And so it has turned out as Lammy, with his scholarships and Masters Degree and being called to the bar, is one of what some electors are comforted to call “middle class”. And perhaps to foster this he was quickly assumed to be well suited to a smooth, unhindered rise up the Greasy Pole with a succession of ministerial posts eventually reaching the heights of Minister of State and Privy Councillor. All this came to an abrupt end with the 2010 election. As the Labour Party subsequently struggled to unravel the chaos of Gordon Brown's leadership, Lammy's contribution to their leadership election did not seem to be entirely free of confusion.  He nominated Diane Abbott while declaring his support for Ed Miliband, then refused Miliband's obliging offer of a place in the Shadow Cabinet on the grounds that he wished to be free to speak on a wide range of issues. Labour members may have seen this as something of a continuous process when he bewildered them by writing that he saw common ground between two people who they had always regarded as at opposite ends of the political spectrum: “ . . . to knit society back together again . . . means a working class with a stake in capitalism and a middle class with faith once again in the welfare state. It requires fulfilling the goals expressed by both Mrs. Thatcher and Beveridge, not one or the other” (Out of the Ashes – Britain After the Riots).

Smacking Children

There was more to come on the same theme. At a meeting in September 2011 of the “think tank” Policy Exchange he warned, “We can't have another generation that are routinely unemployed for longer than a year. We have to guarantee these people work otherwise we will pay the price dearly”. But in January he was advising a markedly different explanation for the riots, declaring that they were due to “. . . an explosion of hedonism and nihilism,” rather than government cuts or unemployment. He expanded on this analysis by linking the riotous behaviour to legal restraints on parents smacking children: “Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour Government, saying, 'You guys stopped us being able to smack our children”. He then displayed more confusion by outlining the problems of all those frustrated unsmacking parents who “. . . raise children on the 15th floor of a tower block with knives, gangs and the dangers of violent crime outside the window”, contrasting them with those he can classify as “middle class” who can afford to place their children in private schools where they are taught “discipline” and have tennis lessons.

Branding

Contradicting Lammy's ravings, there is a mass of established evidence that anti-social behaviour is deep-rooted in poverty and alienation, aggravated by the police assertion as the guardians of property society and its system of class privilege. A study by the London School of Economics and the Guardian – one of many – which interviewed 270 of the rioters last December said that 86 percent of those interviewed gave poverty as the main cause; 85 per cent said the police were “important”; and 79 percent said unemployment. There is no record of anyone mentioning restraints on parental smacking of children. If, as Lammy blusters, “hedonism” and “nihilism” were contributory factors, that is likely to be, as an observer of a typical Saturday afternoon in any shopping centre will notice, the effects of the “branding” of goods which is designed to be a powerful aid in a profitable sales method. The problems displayed in the riots and beyond are severe and toxic. The events at Broadwater Farm took place 26 years ago. Has nothing been learned since then, as the politicians promised?  Has nothing of any consequence changed? As long as the matter is left to the likes of David Lammy, that is all there is to look forward to.

Ivan

Obituaries: Harry Edwards; Phyllis Howard; Vic Berry; Neil Brodie (1990)

Obituaries from the March 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Harry Edwards

West London branch members were shocked by the death of Comrade Harry Edwards at their branch meeting on 1 February at the age of 67.

Harry Edwards had joined the old Paddington branch of the Party in 1947 after being demobbed from the army, later transferring to Ealing and then to West London. He worked for the old road transport division of the railways, a job which entitled him to travel cheaply all over Europe where he had many friends and contacts and from which he retired early. This gave him the time to pursue the things that really interested him, the local rowing and chess clubs (he had been a keen rower in his younger days, the captain of his club in fact) as well as socialist activity.

At the time of his death he was branch treasurer, acting Central Branch Secretary and member of the Standing Orders Committee preparing this year's Conference at Easter. A quiet reliable man who was always prepared to take on such essential if unglamorous tasks in a revolutionary organisation, he will be missed both by the Party and his family.

Phyllis Howard

Phyllis died peacefully on New Year's Day 1990 at the age of 83.

She joined the Party in 1934, together with her future husband, Arthur George. Both were members of Bloomsbury Branch (now Camden), and were tireless workers of the Party in the 30s and the difficult period during and immediately after the war.

Phyllis served on practically every Party committee, including several years on the Executive Committee. Her last official post was that of General Secretary. In addition, she was a candidate in a local election in the 60s.

For many years she was secretary of the Editorial Committee of the Socialist Standard and the committee met regularly at her home in North London. Phyllis never really recovered from Arthur's unexpected death in 1982, and her health deteriorated.

All who met her will remember her as a warm-hearted and gentle person. Her contribution to the SPGB will be remembered with appreciation.

Vic Berry

We regret to have to announce the death last November of our Comrade V. J. Berry. Vic Berry first joined the old Leyton branch of the Party in 1932 and before the war was a regular speaker at the Party's outdoor stations in Leyton, East Ham and Hackney. Like so many others, family commitments led to him dropping out of activity for a number of years, and it was only in 1963 that he rejoined, Camberwell branch. On his retirement he moved to Torquay from where he continued to propagate socialist ideas. His last article, on Robert Owen, appeared in the October Socialist Standard.

Neil Brodie

Neil Brodie, who died in early January, joined the old Chiswick Branch of the Party in 1938, and was a member of the later Ealing and West London branches, for which he was the Treasurer for 18 years. As a young man he had come to London from Scotland and worked as a civil servant at the Post Office. When the Post Office Savings Bank moved to Glasgow he took the opportunity to return to Scotland where he remained after his retirement.

We extend our sympathy to his wife and daughter.

The Role of Youth (1975)

From the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why doesn't the Socialist Party of Great Britain have a "youth section", a sort of dumping ground for kiddies whom we're ashamed to accept as real party members? After all, the other parties thrive on their glorious youth movements. You see, it serves two purposes: firstly, it gets rid of the hopelessly stupid kiddies who haven't yet learnt to recite the respective "left" or "right"-wing crap adequately; and secondly, it serves as a launching pad for opportunists like Peter Hain (Young Liberals) and Tariq Ali (IMG) whose lack of political ability could only go unnoticed by a group of below average school-kids and a bunch of equally careerist university students.

Membership of the SPGB is based upon a test, not differing whether is a boy of ten or an Oxford don. Entry into the Socialist Party is based solely upon the acceptance of Socialism, not age, sex, race or intellectual ability. And then the "left wing" call us "sectarian".

What then are the issues concerning young people today? Do they differ that much from their parents?

Education is one thing which modern youth are very concerned about. Most people are concerned about their job, the condition in which they do it and their relationship to their boss. It is quite right that young people should be equally concerned. Modern workers join trade unions, so do modern youth. The National Union of Students, despite its ridiculous political illusions of itself, has now gained some degree of respect from the trade union movement and fails rarely to represent its members. The National Union of School Students, possessing the same political illusions as the NUS and failing equally, is at least a start in the acceptance by the education authorities that school students have the right to negotiate conditions with them.

On the less "immediate" side, but something which on the whole most young people are "against", is war. It would be fair to say that, if asked, most young people today would claim to be "against war". The thing is had you asked Dad in 1930 or Granddad in 1910, they too would have been "against war", but like the CND and the "pacifists" of today would be, they were the first in line to join the army when "Queen and country" called.

It is currently popular for young people to say that they are "frustrated" (or be told so by psychologists with nothing else to do). It is never quite clear what they are frustrated from doing. Indeed, of the truth were known, if the school lessons, the paper round and the endless nights "up the disco" were taken away, most of them would spend all day glued to the box getting even more frustrated. Being young is sometimes looked upon as a rather undignified status. "He's not a Man yet," says the wage slave, "because he's not like me" . . . yet! It is thought of future life which causes frustration.

The problems confronting old and young people are exactly the same. Most people like decent working conditions, no wants to be killed in a war, nearly everyone is fed up. Why? The root cause of all the trouble is capitalism, the system of society, not based on the satisfaction of human needs, but the accumulation of profit by a small minority. If you're fed up, it's not because you're young it's because of capitalism.

Have young people recognised the fact? What of all this talk of "the new revolutionary youth" or Rhodes Boyson's cries of woe about communist infiltration into the education system? The answer is that the modern youth are no nearer accepting Socialism than their parents were. But it is not for want of trying. They support parties like the Young Communist League, the International Socialists, the International Marxist Group, the Workers Revolutionary Party and even the Labour Party "Young Socialists". Most become disillusioned after a while, few ever understand Socialism. Let the private armies rest assured, there is no "mass revolutionary youth".

Today more young people are coming to Socialist meetings, buying Socialist literature, many are no doubt reading this very SOCIALIST STANDARD. They are beginning to see the stupidity of vanguardism, of violence, of Russian and Chinese nationalism, of Leninist and Trotskyist propaganda. As the "Left" declines, the more young people are considering and accepting the Socialist case.

What alternative does Socialism give to young people for the future? A world based on common ownership, not private or State ownership. A democratic society in which you are are your own leader and in which voluntary co-operation will take the place of State coercion. A system in which eduction will be not only for the young, but for anyone seeking knowledge. In which work will be for social need and personal satisfaction, not for wages. A world in which talent will be freely expressed, not stifled. Socialism is the world of the future for both young and old. Its establishment depends on your acceptance of it.

Steve Coleman 

A Question for Members of the Labour Party (1937)

From the February 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The modern propertied class, like their slave-owning predecessors, get something for nothing. They can live without working. They live on the surplus products of the wealth-producers, while the latter obtain only a subsistence wage, more or less. The propertied class live on the backs of the working class, but they do not put it as crudely as that. They call it rent, interest and profit, and hedge it about with legal safeguards and moral disguises. They are full of promises of better things for those whom they exploit. They will, as Tolstoy said, do everything for the workers except get off their backs. The workers, therefore, must perform this parasite-shedding operation for themselves. They do not lack counsellors, prominent among them being the Labour Party. In endless pamphlets and speeches the Labour Party promises to put things right. It will do so, it says, by nationalisation, public control, State regulation, investment boards and so on. But all of this is to be subject to one condition which the Labour Party affects to regard as a rather clever strategic move. The condition is that the propertied class are to be compensated. The Labour Party's programme of action, called For Socialism and Peace, says that "the public acquisition of industries and services will involve the payment of fair compensation to existing owners . . . the suggested basis of compensation, broadly, is the net reasonable maintainable revenue of the industry concerned." Major Attlee, leader of the Labour Party, enlarged upon this in a speech at a luncheon of the British Railway Stockholders' Union at the Hotel Splendide, Piccadilly, on January 14th 1937. He assured his audience of investors in the railways that the Labour Party would "like to make your securities more secure. We should like to turn you into holders of shares in the community rather than the railway companies" (Daily Telegraph, January 15th, 1937).

So the parasites are not to be shaken off, only made more secure. Tolstoy's apt words have become out-of-date and must be rewritten: "The Labour Party saviours of the working class will do everything for the working class except get the parasites off their backs."

It would be interesting to know what the rank and file of the Labour Party really think about this.

Edgar Hardcastle

Revolutions (2009)

Book Review from the July 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Endnotes #1 – Preliminary Materials For A Balance Sheet Of The Twentieth Century. 216 pages. Available from Endnotes, 12 London Road, Brighton, BN1 4JA. £10

The opening issue of this new journal is based around a dialogue between contemporary French ultra-left groups Troploin (Gilles Dauvé & Karl Nesic) and Théorie Communiste (who remain anonymous). Of the contributors Dauvé is probably most well known to English speakers for his tracts written under the pseudonym ‘Jean Barrot’ – Eclipse and Re-emergement of the Communist Movement, Critique of the Situationist International and Fascism / Anti-fascism.

As Endnotes state in their introduction “…we have no wish to encourage an interest in history per se. [..] We hope [..] to undermine the illusion that this is somehow “our” past, something to be protected or preserved. [..]We would go so far as to say that with the exception of the recognition of the historical break that separates us from them, that we have nothing to learn from the failures of past revolutions — no need to replay them to discover their “errors” or distil their “truths” — for it would in any case be impossible to repeat them.”

Both groups, and presumably Endnotes, are tied to the concept of “Communisation” – communism is not something that happens after the revolution, it is the “immediate production of communism; the self-abolition of the proletariat through its abolition of capital and the state.” Notions of both a “transitional society” and “workers self-management” are rejected. Capitalism is a system of production, value accumulation can as easily be managed by workers as by private capitalists or state bureaucrats.

The structure of the journal - each chapter is a critique of the one preceding it - makes for a stimulating and engaging read. A wide range concepts and historical events are covered and subject to lively criticism. From the Paris Commune to Argentina 2002 via the Russian and German revolutions, Italian “Red Years”, the Spanish tragedy, Paris 68 and the Italian “Hot Autumn” we are taken on a radical train journey of revolution and counter-revolution, though the spirit isn’t one of nostalgic reminiscence but firmly rooted in the possibilities of the present moment.

   

Whilst the politics of both Troploin and Théorie Communiste don’t converge with the Socialist Party on all counts there is certainly plenty of food for thought on offer here and a good opportunity to become acquainted with a not overly well known current of contemporary European thought.

DJP

Marx's Wage Labour and Capital (2004)

From the February 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party can be described as a Marxist party, in that it recognises the immense contribution made by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the 19th century in developing a scientific understanding of capitalism as a distinct and transient society, one which was historically progressive in its time, but which is now outdated and needing to be replaced.

This is not to say that we think Marx and Engels were correct on every subject then, still less now. The whole point of a scientific approach to politics and economics is that it is based on facts, evidence and objective testing and reassessment. Marxism itself has been defined as the distillation of all the lessons and understandings gained from working class struggles against capitalism, expressed in a scientific manner.

Nonetheless, there is enormous value to be gained from studying the classical works of Marx and Engels. Writing during the earlier phases of capitalism’s development and working to get a handle on the whole phenomenon, their writings provide a clarity and a perspective on capitalism and the need for workers to replace it by socialism, rarely achieved since. In fact, some hold that the development of capitalism has accorded even more closely with their basic analysis than was perhaps the case at the time.

Their works may not be particularly easy reading - but newcomers may be pleasantly surprised how easy they can get into them - but they were written by people who were active participants - as well as commentators - in 19th century working class struggle and who were passionate and eloquent in their commitment and analysis. Their power to slice through the fog of mystique, confusion and distortion which passes for contemporary news and commentary can be both astonishing and inspiring.

Wage Labour and Capital is one excellent example of just such a classic. Written by Marx towards the end of 1847, it was aimed to be a popular exposition of the basics of how capitalism functioned and the subjugation of wage labour. Engels re-issued it in 1891 but with certain changes to take into account Marx’s advances in economic theory after 1847, in particular the distinction between “labour” and “labour-power” which was not made in the original version. Engels, however, did not point out - and change - the different sense in which Marx employed the term “cost of production” in 1847 compared with later. In Capital Marx used the term to mean what it costs the capitalist to produce a commodity, i.e. what they have to pay for raw materials, labour-power, energy, wear and tear, etc. In other words, not including profit. In Wage-Labour and Capital Marx uses it to mean cost in terms of the total amount of labour required to produce it, including the part the capitalist did not need to pay for, i.e. including profit. It was thus the same as he later meant by value.

Marx starts by making a few things clear. Workers sell the capitalist their labour power for an amount of money. That money could have been used to buy a certain amount of commodities. So labour power is as much a commodity as (say) sugar. The workers’ labour power has been exchanged for an amount of commodities measured by money. The exchange value of labour power as measured by money is its price. Wages are just a special name “for the price of this peculiar commodity which has no other repository than human flesh and blood.”

But why does the worker sell labour power to the capitalist? In order to live of course! Marx then exposes the reality of work under capitalism in a way which has great resonance today:

“The exercise of labour [should be] the worker’s own life activity, manifestation of their own life. But they have to sell it to another person to obtain means of subsistence. Life activity is just a means to enable existence. They work in order to live. Labour is not even reckoned as part of normal life, it is rather a sacrifice of their life. Work has no meaning other than as earnings.
“What he produces for himself is not the silk he weaves, not the gold he draws from the mine, not the palace he builds. What he produces for himself is wages, and silk, gold, palace resolve themselves for him into a definite quantity of means of subsistence, perhaps a cotton jacket, some copper coins and a lodging in a cellar.”

Marx points out labour was not always a commodity and that under capitalism labour takes the form of wage labour, or “free” labour. That is workers are free to sell their labour-power to any capitalist who wishes to buy it and the capitalist is free to get rid of the worker as soon as there is no profit to be made. But there is a limit to such “freedom”:

“The worker whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour power cannot leave the whole class of purchasers (the capitalist class) without renouncing his existence. He belongs not to this or that capitalist, but to the capitalist class.”

Marx then carefully explores how prices of commodities are determined. Slicing through the metaphysics of supply and demand and free competition, Marx identifies that the benchmark is the labour cost of production. This is also the centre of gravity for a price, around which prices will fluctuate. If a particular branch of industry is profitable, capital is put in to that industry until the price of that product falls below the labour cost of production, and vice versa.

“We see how capital continually migrates in and out, out of one domain of industry into another. High prices bring too great an immigration and low prices too great an emigration. The fluctuations of supply and demand continually bring the price of a commodity back to the cost of production.”

The corollary is that “the current price of a commodity is always either below or above its cost of production.”

One of Marx’s specific contributions to political economy was to regard these continual fluctuations in prices not as chance but as fundamental to how the capitalist economy ensures that prices are determined by the cost of production. That is: “These fluctuations which bring with them the most fearful devastations and like earthquakes shake bourgeois society to tremble at its foundations - this industrial anarchy” is fundamental and basic to capitalism, rather than something which can be smoothed or ironed out.

The same general laws determine the price of labour power, or wages. Whilst wages do fluctuate through supply and demand, in essence:

“The cost of production of labour power is the cost required for maintaining the worker as a worker and developing him into a worker. The price of his labour is therefore determined by the price of the necessary means of subsistence.”

Just as the cost of replacing machines needs to be factored into prices:

“The cost of reproduction must also be included, whereby the race of workers is enabled to multiply and replace worn out workers by new ones. Wages, the cost of production of labour power for the working class as a whole - as opposed to individual workers - amounts to the costs of existence and reproduction of the whole working class.”

Marx then dissects the reality and truth of capital. Yes, capital consists of “raw materials, instruments of labour and means of subsistence which are utilised to produce new raw materials, new instruments of labour and new means of subsistence”. They are also nothing more than:

“Creations of labour, products of labour, accumulated labour. Accumulated labour which serves as a means of new production is capital.”

These products of labour are however no longer owned by the working class. They have been appropriated by the capitalist class. The existence of the capitalist class and its wealth is based on robbery. But capital is a product and part of capitalism. As well as being all these different components of production, “all the products of which it consists are commodities, sums of exchange values, as well as material products.”

But how do certain sets of commodities become capital? The following evocative description tells us:

“By maintaining and multiplying itself as an independent social power, that is, as the power of a portion of society, by means of its exchange for direct, living labour power. “

This is the reality of the god worshipped by modern society. Entirely made by labour. Old, past, historic, parasitical, but because we accept the rules of capitalism, we allow this god to subvert and rule modern society in its own peculiar and reactionary interests. Living labour subordinate to dead labour. The reality of the exchange between wage worker and capitalist is that:

“The worker receives means of subsistence, but the capitalist receives the productive activity of the worker, the creative power which not only replaces that which is consumed (through wages) but gives to the accumulated labour a greater value than it previously possessed. The worker surrenders to the capitalist this noble reproductive power in return for subsistence which is consumed for ever.”

The relationship and dependency is that:

“Capital presupposes wage labour; wage labour presupposes capital. They reciprocally condition the existence of each other; they reciprocally bring forth each other.”

So wage labour and capital have a common interest? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that capital only thrives by exchanging itself for wage labour. The more capital increases, so does wage labour. No, in that the increase and profitability of capital is simply to increase the power of the master over the slave, the increased domination of the capitalist class over the working class.

The most tolerable situation for workers under capitalism may well be for the fastest growth in productive forces, of capital. But the respective gains for the capitalist class and the working class are hardly equal. The capitalist class already has power over the working class. The strengthening of capital increases further the power of the capitalist class to appropriate an even greater relative share of wealth than before. Whilst money or even real wages may grow in times of prosperity of capital, the stupendous growth in the wealth appropriated by capital may mean that in society as a whole, the position of wage labour is relatively worse off than before.

And why should the capitalist class be entitled to any of the wealth created by the working class? All the wealth is created by workers using means of production which were created by previous workers. The capitalist class adds precisely nothing to the process. Any wealth appropriated by the capitalists is at the direct expense of the working class. Profit and wages are shares in the same product of the worker. One gains, one loses.

In the final section, Marx sets out the basic futility and effect of the competition between the capitalists. Capitalists try and drive each other out of business by raising the productivity of labour and cheapening their products. But all that happens is that other capitalists adopt the same mechanisms and processes, resulting in the prices in the once profitable line falling below the labour cost of production. They are all in exactly the same position as before.

“The same game begins again. More division of labour, more machinery, enlarged scale of exploitation of machinery and division of labour. And again competition brings the same counteraction against this result. This is the law which again and again throws bourgeois production out of its old course and which compels capital to intensify the productive forces of labour, the law which gives capital no rest and continually whispers in its ear: ‘Go on! Go on!’ Whatever the power of the means of production employed, competition seeks to rob capital of the golden fruits of this power by bringing the price of commodities back to the cost of production.
If we now picture to ourselves this feverish simultaneous agitation on the whole world market, it will be comprehensible how the growth, accumulation and concentration of capital results in an uninterrupted division of labour, and in the application of new and the perfecting of old machinery precipitately and on an ever greater scale.
Finally, as the capitalists are compelled to exploit the already gigantic means of production on a larger scale, there is a corresponding increase in industrial earthquakes, in which the trading world can only maintain itself by sacrificing a part of wealth, or products and even of productive forces to the gods of the nether world - in a word, crises increase. The world market becomes more and more contracted, fewer and fewer new markets remain available for exploitation, since every preceding crisis has subjected to world trade a market hitherto unconquered or only superficially exploited.”

This is still the crazy system we live and work in. Destructive of wealth, people and the planet we occupy. Is it not time for the producers of wealth - the world working class - to cast aside the capitalist class and their crippling, destructive, distorting system, and replace it by a more sensible and satisfying approach whereby we produce wealth to meet people’s needs and we work because we enjoy it and want to contribute to the good and well-being of world humanity?

Andrew Northall

Pathfinders: Harmony of the Hive Mind (2015)

The Pathfinders Column from the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

When you watch a really good band play a gig, you probably notice the rhythmically and harmonically 'tight' performance, the 100 percent focus and commitment, the way the players proceed in lock-step, almost as one mind. You know of course that this is an illusion created by many hours of painstaking rehearsal during which every element is calculated, measured, argued-over and scripted out, every variable is banished or budgeted for and all the words, chord structures and extempore passages are fixed and memorised. If you pay close attention you can even read the subtle signals passing between the various players who, behind the music, are 'talking' each other through the song.

Imagine for a moment that the players in this band were telepathic, not for show but for real. They wouldn't need to count in, or maintain eye contact, or rehearse endlessly. They wouldn't have to stick to the script in order to play perfectly. They wouldn't even need a script. Each of the players would share the others' thoughts as if present in their heads, though not in words because words take too long to process, but instead in abstract feelings or sensations, perhaps mixed with fragmentary visual images or fluctuations in mood. The effect would not be like a silent negotiation between individual minds but a single 'multi-mind' spontaneously thinking and acting.

Even better, suppose the audience was telepathic as well. Then they could become part of the band, ultimately blurring or abolishing the distinction between listener and performer, singing or creating rhythm or playing their own instruments, the whole consisting of balanced arrangements in controlled volumes without the need for a sound engineer. In short, a telepathic gig would be phenomenally good by anybody's standards. Rolling Stones? Oasis? Arctic Monkeys? Who they?

Well, you guessed it. Scientifically-speaking, something like this may be possible in the future. Recent work with monkeys showed that it was possible to connect the electrical output from the parts of their brains involved in movement so that they were able to move an object on a screen towards a desired goal, in order to get a reward (New Scientist, 18 July). Each of the three monkeys was connected via electrodes to a computer which allowed them to move the screen object in just one dimension. To move it successfully required synchronised thinking from all three monkeys, operating what the researchers dubbed a 'brainet'. Further work with rats showed that they could receive, store and transmit usable information to a computer, functioning as a parallel processing unit or 'hive mind'.

The world is wiring itself together at every level, from rats to neural networks to the 'internet of things'. Human telepathic control over these networks is the ultimate logical goal, albeit on the assumption of future background technology rather less obtrusive than today's clunky electrodes, scanners and wire cables. The description of a musical performance given above, though of course speculative, is meant as an analogue of any human endeavour requiring collective participation. Formal spoken languages would no longer be a barrier, and may for many purposes become redundant. The possibilities for science, engineering, games, learning and the arts are certainly beyond our present ability to predict, and nearly beyond our ability to imagine.

There is one problem with all this, though it's not one that socialists will lose any sleep over.

The ability of humans to think collectively as a group-mind would be catastrophic for capitalism. All workers sharing their ideas, without language, labels, prejudices and egos getting in the way? It must be stopped at once. Divide and rule is what's needed to keep this market economy on the straight and narrow. Cut those monkey scientists' funding immediately!

Cyberspace in black and white

Apparently we're getting less spam in our emails these days, as anti-spam policing has for the first time since 2003 managed to cut it to below 50 percent of all email traffic (BBC Online, 18 July). Or rather the various spammers and phishers have finally twigged that we've all long since twigged, and their nasty little games don't work anymore. The bad news is that malware is on the increase, including the dreaded 'ransomware' (pay up, or never see your files again). So the arms race between the black hats and the white hats (i.e. baddy hackers and goody hackers) continues to escalate in a war which is of course all about screwing money out of you. If you're not paying the black hatters, it's only because you're paying the white hatters. Maybe it's not the most pressing concern for socialism, but the lack of a profit incentive would mean pretty much the end of spam, of malware, even of all those hated passwords.

Why do plutocrats get their wallets out?

From vague pixellated blur to stunning hi-res image, we've all followed with bated breath the passage of the New Horizons probe to distant Pluto to reveal its secrets. And its secret is now revealed – it's a cold, boring planetoid where nobody in their right mind would ever want to go. Still, it's amazing that the first moon probe was launched as recently as 1959, within the lifetime of many of our readers, and now every planet in the solar system has had close-up photo opportunities from the NASA paparazzi. Pluto, though, is about as far as we can realistically go unless someone invents a Star Trek-style warp drive. Even at New Horizon's record speed of 50,000mph it would take 100,000 years to reach our nearest stellar neighbour (New Scientist, 18 July).

Most socialists find science interesting and planetary exploration equally so, but unlike excitable media journalists they are not hopelessly confused about the reasons for it. Talk of public interest and selling science to school kids is all very worthy, but socialists know two things the journalists don't. First, space exploration is not funded by the public out of taxes, because those taxes ultimately derive from the rich, therefore it is the rich who are financing it. Second, the rich are doing it as a speculative investment to see what returns they can get out of it. Think science is purely the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake? Think again. That's not how the rich see it at all. They aim to get more rich, and investing in science – even those avenues that seem to offer no obvious profit potential – is the way to do it. Pluto, if you recall, as well as being the god of the underworld, was also the god of wealth.

PJS

Ammunition from Yankee-Land. (1916)

From the October 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

An American Blatchford.

England cannot claim a monopoly of "Socialist" patriots. One of the leading types of American vote-catching "Socialist" Party men is Victor Berger, who was the lone "Socialist" elected to Congress from the city of Milwaukee in the State of Wisconsin. At the present time there is a ballot amongst the members as to whether Berger should be re-called from the National Executive of the Socialist Party of America for his stand on patriotism.

Training the Children.

Berger stated his position in the 'Milwaukee Leader," and outraged the feelings of some of the "comrades"—and to do that it must be pretty bad and rank.

Among his statements are the following:

Any man who is unwilling to fight for his class or nation does not deserve to belong to a class or nation. The "Leader," therefore, is in favour of a "preparedness" that shall unite and protect the bulk of our nation—that is the working people. . . . . This preparedness must become a part of our early education by practising calisthenics and by encouraging outdoor sports from childhood on, in order to produce healthy men and women. But this cannot be all.

National Servitude.

The more to follow that he promises is a new way of "protecting the working people." He says:

Every citizen should devote one year—between 19 and 20—to the service of his nation. The citizen—male or female—may stay at home during the time and receive for the service such pay as will be fixed by Congressional legislation. The education must be in charge of the nation and the nation must pay for it.

Such are the leaders and "brains" of the Socialist Party of America. No wonder "the Party" here is the happy hunting ground of freaks of every kind and of professional wind-bags who find a soft haven of refuge from work in preaching the gospel of Government Ownership and Christian Fellowship, seasoned with a little higher wages and more efficiency.

"Worse than Hell."

Mr. Berger closes his editorial with this:

We Socialists are as much opposed to militarism as we ever were. But the Socialist Party is not for peace at any price. War may be hell, but there are some things in this world worse than "hell." Real Socialist are willing to fight these things.

What "these things" are we are not told. Where ignorance is bliss silence is golden.

A "Socialist" In Sackcloth

This puerility recalls the attitude of the present lone Congressman of the "Socialist Party," Meyer London, who represents the East Side tenement district of New York City, which has been described as "a pocket edition of hell." On May 5th there was a debate in Congress on giving the franchise to the people of the American colony, Porto Rico. After London had said: "The man whose vote you take away will have the right to put the knife of the assassin into the heart of any man who attempts to govern him against his will," an uproar took place in the House and a member moved that London be expelled unless he apologised for insulting Congress. Meyer London apologised. Not only that: as L. B. Boudin said in the "New Review," he did it "in such a miserable way that the reading of the printed record of the scene is sickening and disheartening beyond measure." And as asked plaintively, "What has happened to London?"

History as It is Not.

The conspiracy of silence with which we were met in the English labour Press because we dared to expose the fraud of political compromise and reform advocacy, has spread to America. Ever since the war started the Labour and alleged Socialist Press of the United States has carefully refrained from referring to our Party at all when dealing with Socialism in Great Britain. The "New York Call," the privately-owned organ of the Socialist Party of America, continually refers to the Independent Labour Party as the only party in England that is standing against the war, and this in spite of the fact that we have sent the SOCIALIST STANDARD regularly ever since our masters decided on war.

Some "News."

The "International Socialist Review" is a non-party magazine which is practically run in the interests of the I.W.W. and "Direct Action." The "International Notes" of the July issue (written by Wm. E. Bohn) are an example of the misrepresentation of the movement in England. Says Mr. Bohn, "The Independent Labour Party has been against the war from the beginning." To those who have carefully followed the actions and literature of this body this is grotesque. We know that right through the war it has allowed its members, and especially its members in Parliament, to push recruiting and to appeal to working men to join this this capitalist war. Even its alleged anti-war member, Ramsay MacDonald, states that "we" must carry the war to a successful conclusion. We know that long before conscription started the I.L.P. left it to each member to decide whether he would enlist, which is not a Socialist position. When we recall the speeches of the I.L.P. Members of Parliament like J. O'Grady, G. N. Barnes, Charles Duncan, Adamson, Richardson, and W. C. Anderson, we realise the depth of the "Review's" distortion of facts.

Fact versus Fiction.

The writer evidently that the campaign against conscription (which was not supported by many of its Members of Parliament) entitles it to be called "anti-war from the beginning."

The Independent Labour Party is a part of the Labour Party which has used all its energy to support the war and seduce the workers into supporting it. The Independent Labour Party is pledged to maintain the Labour Party constitution and also its candidates.

When the "Review" says that "we on the outside are obliged to take the votes of the Independent Labour Party and the British Socialist Party as the true indications of Socialist opinion in England and to say that American Socialists are pleased with these indications," it is lying, and that is putting it mildly.

The Test of Socialism.

The Independent Labour Party, whose leaders like Keir Hardie and MacDonald, denied the class struggle; the party which advised the workers to vote for one of the capitalist parties in politics; the party whose members were allowed to support increased armaments; the independent labour party financed by avowed non-socialists; a party which, as Engels said long ago, was brought into being with the help of Maltman Barrie, the paid Conservative agent; this organised body which has lately given support to the nonsensical propaganda of avowed anti-Socialists like E. D. Morel and Mr. Ponsonby, M.P.: this is the party which represents the true indication of Socialist opinion! Save us from such!

The British Socialist is also a true indication of Socialism! A party whose policy has been to support the Conservative and Liberal sections of the robbing class, which has advocated a Citizen Army, a score of rotten reforms, a large Navy and a strong Army, etc., without the protest and in most cases with the support of, the very men who still form the rump of the British Socialist Party. The whole controversy within the latter, too, has been about details of war, and there has been no large conflict of opinion as to the support of the war itself — because the members do not understand Socialism.

I challenge the "Review" to answer—if it can. Perhaps, too, when dealing with influences against the war in England it may find space to mention the S.P.G.B.

Adolph Kohn