"An Illustrated History of the Russian Revolution" (1928)

Book Review from the June 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

"An Illustrated History of the Russian Revolution" Editors : W. Astrov, A. Slepkov, J. Thomas (Vol. I. 195 pages. Publishers: Martin, Lawrence, Ltd., 26, Bedford Row. Price 10s.)

The work of which this is the first volume is described by the publishers as the "only complete history of the Russian Revolution.” The material was supplied by the Lenin Institute in Moscow and by many of the prominent men who played a part in these struggles. It contains a large number of excellent reproductions of photographs , relating to the events described.

This volume covers the period from the beginning of the present century to the middle of 1917. A second volume, to be published this year, is to bring the history up to the introduction of the New Economic Policy and the effort to reconstruct Russia’s industrial life.

It is, on the whole, an exceedingly readable and useful account of the forces which led up to the overthrow of the Czar’s Government, the seizure of the land by the peasants and the withdrawal from the War. It is, however, needlessly inaccurate in dealing with the attitude of Socialists to the War. While Lenin and his associates retained their pathetic trust in the Second International right up to 1914, the Socialist Party of Great Britain had years before realised the non-Socialist character of that body. The British Labour Party, like its French and German counterparts, was not Socialist and could not be expected to take up a Socialist opposition to the War. It is therefore misleading for the writers of this work to state (page 56) that the “Socialists” of Germany, France and England supported the War. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, alone in this country, took up a Socialist stand in 1914 and maintained it throughout the War. That we did so was known to the Bolsheviks.

In 1915, when the British Labour Party and its fellow-parties in the Second International refused to admit the Bolsheviks to their Conference because the Bolsheviks opposed the War, it was to us that the Russian Party came in order to secure publication of its manifesto denouncing this action and repudiating the rights of these jingoes to speak in the name of Socialism. The manifesto in question was published in the March, 1915, issue of the “ Socialist Standard.”

Edgar Hardcastle

Sex relations in Russia: Are they revolutionary? (1928)

From the January 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Bolshevik writer on literature and sex, well known in America, Mr. V. F. Calverton, waxes very enthusiastic on “Red Love in Soviet Russia,” in his magazine, The Modern Quarterly (Nov., 1927), an American journal cultivated by “Red intellectuals.”

The "Red” writer has just returned from Soviet Russia, and admires the "realistic candour" with which Russia is meeting the sex problem.

He quotes at the outset the usual rubbish of Capitalist distortion, such as the following from the "Yellow” morning paper, the New York American of June 12th, 1927, on "Marriage in Russia":—

A Provincial Control Commission of the Communist Party in examining a member as to his conduct and life, something that is often done, asked him about his morals and sex relations. He replied that he was happily married, had a beautiful wife, loved her, and was faithful to her. The Commission expelled him from the Party on the ground of "holding to small bourgeois principles.”

This type of lie has almost died out here, but in America it still survives. On the other hand, the view is widespread that sex relations in Russia are changing in a Socialist direction, but the evidence advanced does not support that view.

The writer of the article claims to uphold the materialist view of history—but drops it when he deals with sex relations. What material environment is there in Russia upon which new sex relations can flourish? Small private property in the villages and a mixture of State-controlled and privately-owned businesses and industries in the towns! And withal a struggle to maintain pre-war standards of production and to find work for all the able-bodied.

Mr. Calverton deals with some of the changes in woman’s position in Russia, and argues that "woman has been emancipated from her subordination to man, which she still suffers in the 'civilised' Western world.”

Marriage in Russia is now a civil function, but the ecclesiastical aspects of it are destroyed. Thus argues Mr. Calverton, but he omits to mention that besides the civil contract, marriage may be celebrated in all the churches in Russia where religion is "reformed,” but still strong.

We are next told that when a woman marries in Russia “she is still a free woman.” This high-sounding phrase, when explained by him, means the domestic code “does not establish community of property between the married persons," and that change of residence of one of the parties does not oblige the other to follow. Surnames of children may be that of husband or wife, as the couple may decide. The man cannot shirk responsibility for the children, and in case of divorce, we are told, a third of the man’s salary is requisite for the support of each child.

These changes are not revolutionary. “Property rights” of woman have become commonplace in capitalist countries with the entry of woman into business, etc.

Changes as to names and separate residences may be written into statute law, but, like many of the laws which Russia passed in its early Bolshevik days, they must remain dead letters if they conflict with economic conditions. The housing question in Russia is very acute, and to point to laws which allow separate residences for married people only brings up the question, when will even the married workers living together be able to get adequate accommodation in a country where rich and poor still have a real meaning and a real existence?

He quotes Madame Kollantay to the effect that what is revolutionary in Russia’s sex relations is “the creation of a collective responsibility,” “feelings of comradeship,” etc., but no facts are adduced to show its real existence, any more so than in any capitalist State. Engels’s book, "The Origin of the Family,” is quoted, but no deductions are drawn from the important point made by Engels, that once capitalism is overthrown, the new race growing up under new conditions will fashion their opinions and practice without any regard to what we to-day consider should be their course.

The fact that statute law cannot escape from the dominant influence of material conditions is admitted in the Russian Code quoted in the article :—

Only time and experience will show how many of the provisions of this code belong to the transitional category, features which are destined to vanish with the more perfect establishment of the Socialist order. In certain clauses, however, there is clearly to be discerned a conscious recognition of conditions and habits of life surviving from the old order. Such survivals are inevitable at this time when neither the economic nor the psychological transformation is complete. There are provisions respecting property and income which will inevitably be subject to obsolescence or amendment. The law of guardianship, essentially revolutionary as it is, is yet no more than a first tentative approach to the realisation of collective responsibility for the care of the young. The laws of marriage and divorce still bear traces of the passing order, frank and sensible acknowledgment of the existence of certain economic and psychological conditions only to be overcome when the complete change is accomplished.

All children in Russia are legal. Compared with Czarist Russia, this is an advance, where children were counted illegal where a church marriage had not been performed. And even in this country the interests of property are gradually legalising children born out of wedlock.

A great deal is made of the fact that in Russia divorce can be obtained upon mutual consent on the grounds of incompatibility. Again, if we compare this with Czarist days, it is an advance, as under Nicholas adultery was necessary to obtain divorce. But modern capitalist States are modifying divorce law, and in Puritan America divorces in many States are granted on the slightest pretext.

In Russia Birth Control literature is plentiful. So it is here and generally throughout Europe. With the difference that most people here can read it, but Russia still suffers a large amount of illiteracy. From the Rev. Mr. Malthus (Christian apologist for a ruthless war on the workers) down to Charles Bradlaugh (atheist defender of capital) and on to reformer Marie Stopes, we have had plenty of Birth Control propaganda, and mostly by individualists—clearly showing that it has little revolutionary interest.

Abortion in Russia is legal, but the high birth rate and the low economic development in Russia doubtless plays a large part in welcoming anything to reduce births.

Between 1922 and 1924 more than 55,000 legal abortions were performed in Russian State hospitals. The backward mental development of Russia’s peasantry—her most fruitful populace — necessitated scientifically performing what was generally done in a dangerous way by those who feared every new mouth to feed. The widespread practice of abortion in Russia still shows that birth control literature may be cheap, but the practice of birth control methods among a backward people still very slow.

These reforms may all be well carried out in every capitalist country without in any way weakening the fabric of capitalism. And where they are carried out in some degree as in U.S.A., the individualist and reactionary views of those who are in favour of them is notorious.

Prostitution in Soviet Russia is still strong as it must be in every country where the workers are poor and private property owners are prosperous. All the freedom of marriage laws on paper cannot override the effects of economic life.

The battle with the brothel keepers in Soviet Russia is dealt with by the official journal,  "Izvestia” (November 11th, 1926), quoted by Mr. Calverton.

In 30 States in one year 715 houses of prostitution were opened, chiefly in Moscow, Leningrad, Samara, and Stalingrad. Unemployment of single women was found to be one of the greatest dangers. The "Izvestia” (November 11th, 1926) states that over 32 per cent. of the prostitutes are occupation house workers.

The Soviets decreed that single women should be laid off last in the event of unemployment. Houses for the Reformation of Prostitutes were opened, and the Commissar of Public Health says that prostitution is on the decline. No figures are quoted to show this, but in any case the causes are still there and the attempts at reforming are little in advance of the Salvation Army.

Summing up the general sex relations, it is obvious that there is nothing beyond the process of reform from the barbaric condition of Czarist laws to laws more suitable to capitalist development.

International Socialism, on the other hand, will not deal with effects of capitalist conditions, but lay the economic foundations upon which new sex relations will flourish, freed entirely from the trammels of property and economic insecurity.

Adolph Kohn

Looking at Hippies (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the sociologists, psychologists, criminologists and indeed anyone else who is on the mighty bandwagon called the Behavioural Sciences, obsessions come and go. The latest is the probe for reasons behind the hippies, to ask why they should want to drop out of this great, beneficient society we live in. This is an interesting, and by no means simple, question. Another, less fashionable but with more value, is, what are the reasons behind the people who have not, in one way or another, dropped out?

By this we do not necessarily mean people like Reginald Ethelbert Seaton, who retired from the chair of the Inner London Sessions in September and who told the Daily Telegraph before he went: “Show the birch to a hippie or a Skinhead and you have shown him the light and the way back to respect for himself and the law.” We really mean the millions who applaud that sort of statement and whose reaction to the hippies, whether they are occupying empty houses or just flopping on the ground around Eros, includes a perceptible element of hysteria.

We have seen this kind of ugly mood before, and seen it turned against other non-conforming minorities, and watched it being titillated by what are called the organs of public opinion. For example, the joyful press reports of the court attendant at Folkestone who sprayed the courtroom while the hippies were there. That proved they were all dirty and verminous. Then there was the newsreel commentator who sounded on the verge of an apoplectic fit when they showed the board outside 144, Piccadilly asking for, among other things, a colour television set. That proved the hippies were all shameless scroungers—or at least it did to anyone who refused to recognise that the request was obviously meant as a joke.

This kind of malice is aimed not just at the squatters. Another of its targets was the crowd outside the house; it was meant to reassure them that the values of property society are eternal, that they are respectable in a good cause, that their degrading docility makes sense. It is only a short step from this to reject—angrily, even violently—the minority who do not accept property values, and who do not want to be respectable or docile.

There is, of course, a lot more to it than that. A hippy spokesman (accepting that there can be such a thing) at 144, Piccadilly said that they were standing against the routine degradations of work (by which he meant employment) and the straight society. Perhaps the resentment against this would not be so pronounced if these opinions could be nicely pigeon-holed into one of the usual explanations for deviant behaviour. But the hippies, or most of them, come from families which one of them called in New Society (9/10/69) “White collar workers: anything from badly paid office staff to teachers, scientists and lower executives.”

Now by rights the hippies should think and act like impoverished clerks and teachers. When they refuse to do this, when they begin to perceive some of the unpleasant facts about capitalist society, they appear to be traitors and let-downs and, because the facts they perceive are so uncomfortable, they are also a challenge. They challenge the automatic acceptance of wage-slavery— the rush-hour backwards and forwards the forelock-touching, the scheming and grovelling for an extra few shillings on the salary cheque—and the gratitude for it all.

They challenge, too, all those values of what they call (and it is not a bad term) the straight society. They do not regard the law as an eternal morality, they do not worship manliness and organised, military brutality. “Get your hair cut and get to Vietnam” snarled one of the spectators at 144, Piccadilly. He was frustrated at the hippies’ preference for love before war. What greater treachery could there be ?

What the hippies are up against, whether they realise it or not, is the support which the working class give to capitalism. This support need not be a directly conscious business expressed in the language of the politico; it is more of a general, almost a conditioned, acceptance of whatever capitalism demands— poverty, disease, war. Those who so bitterly criticise the hippies would do well to look at what they themselves support.

At this year’s Labour Party conference, for example, Harold Wilson was speaking for the straight society. What did he make of it? We have, he said, a two-fold task :

. . .  to remove the scars of nineteenth-century capitalism — the derelict mills, the spoil heaps, the back-to-back houses that still disfigure so large a part of our land.
   At the same time we have to make sure that the second industrial revolution through which we are passing does not bequeath a similar legacy to future generations. We must solve the problems of pollution —of the air, of the sea, of our rivers and beaches. We must also solve the uniquely twentieth century problems of noise and congestion . . .

It did not seem to strike anyone in the hall that, typical of a capitalist politician, Wilson was promising to solve the problems of capitalism today at the same time as he was admitting that the problems of capitalism last century are still with us. But there was more to come, as Wilson wound up with these words:

We go forward today into the year ahead, into the Seventies. We have the faith. We have the vision. We have the means to make that faith, that vision, a reality. We cannot fail.

Now, even those who are hardened to the regular debasement of words by a politician must have thought that this was going a bit far. It might just have happened that the Labour delegates, remembering all that has passed these last five years, would have wanted something more from their leader than stale platitudes. One or two of them might with reason have laughed, or fainted with surprise, or been sick. But they did none of these things. They stood up and applauded. For a minute and a half.

Such is the straight society. If the hippies are revolting against the spectacle of workers asking for more from the men who cheat them, lie to them, exploit them and even kill them, then clearly they have a point.

Should we, then, all rush off to join the nearest squat? The weakness in the hippy case is that, assuming they are consciously rejecting the values and priorities of capitalism, they have no notion of how to deal with the system. Capitalism is rotten but it is here — kept here by the working class who, although they are a conforming, politically ignorant mass, cannot be ignored. The hippies could be turned out of their squats because behind the police who got them out were all those millions of people who support capitalism and who stand for the values, disciplines and degradations of the straight society.

This is one fact which it is impossible to opt out of. One of the hippies’ much publicised plans, for example, was to buy St. Patrick’s island off the Irish coast and there establish a community of love and harmony. This is the sort of dream many of us have had at some time or other but the hard, sad fact is that on St. Patrick’s the hippies would have been no more insulated than they were at 144, Piccadilly.

On their island the hippies would have had no choice but to deal with capitalism outside. They seem to recognise this at the moment; Frank Harris, one of their leaders, told a local meeting that they would buy produce and contract their construction work at the nearby resort of Skerries (which pleased the local tradesmen) and later talked about methods of financing the venture. (The Guardian 7/10/69). But to deal with capitalism means that the relationships the priorities and the values of the system would, sooner or later, be admitted to the island paradise.

Capitalism does not exist by accident. It has exhausted its usefulness to human society but it lives on and the simple reason for this is that the majority of people want it to. Indeed, when we get down to it, even the hippies eventually end up on that side. They are not the first group to hate the effects of capitalism at the same time as they misunderstand the basics of social change. The hippies deny the need for political action, for a conscious majority in favour of a revolution. Their theory that it is possible to insulate ourselves against the effects of capitalism denies the need for a revolution and in that very fact supports capitalism’s continuing.

And so, paradoxical though it may be, the hippies are on the same side as the men with the bowler hats and rolled umbrellas. There is not, yet, a revolutionary situation and until there is we shall never have a fuzz-free London and there will continue to be the theft of property.

Ivan

See also:

Socialist Standard December 1969: Hippies: An Abortion of Socialist Understanding

Material World: Dogs of War (2016)

The Material World column from the March 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The use of mercenaries in warfare has a very long history but these days an insatiable need for security has fuelled the growth of today’s private security industry. Technology allows private armies to punch above their weight. And military hardware and technology is ever cheaper, ever more available. Business is booming for a growing army of private military contractors. A common attraction about hiring mercenaries is that they can get away with things that you can’t get away with if you’re a national government. The American corporation Blackwater gained notoriety in 2007 after its hired guns killed 17 Iraqi civilians and seriously wounded 20 in Baghdad. The incident became known as the Nisour Square massacre.

A War on Want report Mercenaries Unleashed, published in February on their website, reveals that private military and security companies (PMSCs) constitute a ‘vast private industry, now worth hundreds of billions of dollars, [which] is dominated by UK companies reaping enormous profits from exploiting war, instability and conflict around the world.’ Rather than regulating these ‘dogs of war’ the UK permit the mercenaries to police themselves with voluntary codes like the 2010 International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers. Many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are not signatories to the 1989 United Nations Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries.

Fourteen companies, like flies around shit, have head offices in Hereford, where the SAS is based. War on Want estimates around 46 companies compete for recruits from the special forces. Most mercenary companies boast of their links to elite infantry units like the Royal Marines. The report notes that ‘at the heart of the industry is a revolving door between PMSCs, military, intelligence and corporate worlds, with the interests of these sectors closely intertwined.’

Security giant G4S is the second-largest private employer on Earth with more than 625,000 employees. While some of its business is focused on routine bank, prison and airport security, G4S also plays an important role in crisis-zones right around the world. In 2008, G4S swallowed up Armorgroup, whose 9,000-strong army of guards has protected about one third of all non-military supply convoys in Iraq.

The Gulf petro-states are hiring poor people from around the world to take part in the hostilities in the Yemen civil war paid for by the wealthy Gulf States. The United Arab Emirates has hired hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to fight for it in Yemen, paying handsomely to recruit a private army of battle-hardened South American soldiers. The Colombians had entered the UAE posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater (re-named Xe and now Academi) and now in charge of his new company Reflex Responses, with a $529 million contract from the sheikdom according to the New York Times(15 May 2011). The Colombians’ experience fighting leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers in their home country make them attractive recruits for the UAE and they are highly prized for their training in fighting guerrillas according to a source cited by the press agency AFP in Bogota, adding ‘They want to make war an industry using Colombians as cannon fodder.’

An Australian, Mike Hindmarsh, a former senior Australian army officer, is the commander of the UAE’s Presidential Guard, an elite unit and the only Arab force to undertake full military operations in Afghanistan, where they fought alongside American troops. The Presidential Guard has been lauded for playing a key role to re-install the exiled Yemeni government of President Hadi. Nor is Hindmarsh alone. It is not known how many Australians work for the UAE military but among those, a former Australian soldier and intelligence corps officer since February 2014 has been an adviser to the Presidential Guard, a former special operations commander in the Australian army has been a specialist adviser to the Presidential Guard since January 2013 and an evaluator for the Guard was previously a warrant officer in both the Australian and British armies. Yet another former senior commander in the Australian army is now in his fifth year as a senior adviser to the Guards.

In 2015 the Swiss government banned private military firms operating from inside its borders from taking part in foreign conflicts, however, the most famous of mercenary armies, the Pontiff’s Swiss Guards, escape the prohibition that forbids recruitment of Swiss nationals for foreign armies. A similar proposal by War on Want to ban the organisation of mercenaries in the UK, and end what they call ‘the privatisation of war’, we fully expect, will die a death.

ALJO

Why We Commemorate The Commune. (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

M. Yves Guyot, in the first number of that most amusing journal, the Anti-Socialist, says that “Socialists celebrate, without much conviction, the anniversary of the Commune which, in 1871, added the horrors of fire and shooting to those of the siege of Paris. As a matter of fact, however, they have forsaken the so-called revolutionary methods.” The wish is probably father to the thought. Or perhaps M. Guyot is misled by the clamour of the middle-class place-seekers, who try to use the working-class movement as a means of inducing the ruling clique to admit them to the feast. The would-be leaders of the workers are usually ready to sell out or become reasonable "when the ruling class shows a disposition to purchase them. But with the rank and file this cannot be—and that is why the real and the sound movement, the movement that counts, is that of the rank and file, and is neither more advanced nor more backward than this is. Socialism is a class movement, a mass advance, and not a movement of demagogues. And there is a steady growth of Socialist knowledge and determination among the workers, who, far from abandoning the revolutionary method, become more truly revolutionary in the scientific sense of the word. They are gaining in consciousness of their class interest, and learning, slowly it is true, how fundamental is the truth that for their emancipation they must rely upon themselves alone.

This, indeed, is one of the great lessons of the Commune of Paris, and its annual celebration helps to bring vividly home to the Socialist worker the deep meaning of the class struggle and the ruthlessness of the master class when its interests are threatened. It is by no means the only valuable lesson afforded by that historic tragedy, but it is one that will repay a moment’s attention. On the heads of the Communards mountains of calumny have been heaped. The hireling literature of the bourgeoisie has attempted to bury the Commune under falsehoods, suppression of facts, and misrepresentation. The capitalist squint is manifest all through, and the workers are assiduously trained by preceptors in the hire of the masters to look at all things with their masters’ squint. That which is just and legitimate when done by the master class in defence of their interests is the blackest of crime when done by the workers in defence of theirs. That which is heroism and gallant conduct on the part of the capitalist class becomes murder and abominable misdeeds when resorted to by the workers in their own defence. Therefore, while so many of our fellows are taught to look upon the Communards as the worst of criminals, it is our duty to vindicate the memory of those brave men.

The history of the Commune, as recounted by many bourgeois historians, presents a glaring example of that falsification of history of which the capitalist class is guilty; of the shameless slandering of heroic workers, in spite of existing trustworthy documents and evidence, and of the reliable histories which have been written. There is no need to repeat the story, to refute one by one the lies of prostitute historians—Lissagaray and others have done that —but it is worth while emphasising here the fact of the class calumny. Thus a writer in the Times “Historian’s History of the World” recklessly accuses the Commune of having committed monstrous crimes, and goes on to say, “For more than two months the Commune ruled supreme over one of the greatest capitals of the world, and to this day the collectivists, the anarchists, the unruly, and the lawless of every country on the globe celebrate that brief triumph as the most splendid manifestation of the power of the people that the world has ever seen.” And against the fact that while supreme the Commune ruled well and peacefully, and kept Paris remarkably free from disorder or crime, this person, Rambaud by name, says, “In reality a few audacious men, both within and without the committee, such as Rossel, Flourens, the ‘generals’ Duval and Bergeret, Raoul Rigault and Delescluze, arrogated to themselves the greater part of the power and abused it shamefully . . . So long as the Commune lasted the conditions under which men governed, tyrannised, fought, killed, and themselves found death were those of pure anarchy." Such specimens of class misrepresentation are by no means rare in this “history,” yet in spite of class bias, they are compelled to admit in speaking of the “ re-conquest ” of Paris after the Commune, that “From the beginning it was evident that the conquerors would lie implacable. Hardly had the army entered the city than the executions began. . . At the barracks people were shot down by the dozen. Whole districts were depopulated by flight, arrests, and executions. . . Meanwhile long processions of prisoners (forty thousand had been taken) were journeying with parched throats, blistered feet, and fettered hands along the mad from Paris to Versailles, and as they passed through the boulevards of Louis XIV.’s town, they were greeted with yells and sometimes with blows. They were crowded hastily into improvised prisons, one of which was merely a large court-yard where thousands of poor wretches lived for weeks with no lodging but the muddy ground, . . and whence they were dispatched with a bullet in the head when desperation led them to rebel. . . The punishment inflicted on the insurgents was so ruthless that it seemed to be a counter- manifestation of French hatred for Frenchmen in civic disturbance rather than a judicial penalty applied to a heinous offence. The number of Parisians killed by French soldiers in the last week in May 1871 was probably twenty thousand, though the partisans of the Commune declared that thirty-six thousand men and women were shot in the streets, or after summary court-martial.”

It is a bourgeois refinement to represent the capitalist hatred of the workers as “French hatred for Frenchmen in civic disturbance.” No struggle is so bitter as the class struggle, for on their supremacy in this depends the capitalists’ power, wealth, influence, indeed, everything that springs from their ability to exploit the workers; and they will in this struggle go to lengths of savageness which make ordinary warfare pale its ineffectual fires. After the Commune slaughter gave place to wholesale deportation to New Caledonia only when the heaps of dead threatened the conquerors with pestilence. Such was the punishment of the Commune for its “crimes,” of which the greatest was its weak sentimentalism and mistaken moderation in face of the tiger that was attacking it.

The Commune is by no means the only example of the vindictive ruthlessness of the ruling class and the folly of washy sentiment on the part of the workers, but it is nearer to us because it illustrates clearly that the working class in revolt within the capitalist system almost instinctively turn towards industrial democracy. Of the bitterness of class struggles, and their ruthless prosecution by ruling classes, history abounds in examples, from the massacre of the soldier-helots of Sparta to the street slaughters of our own times. And in every social revolt calumny has been the accompaniment of the massacre of those who revolted. The peasants in Germany, driven to revolt by misery and ill-treatment, were accused of every known crime, yet the “Cambridge Modern History” tells us that “The worst of their deeds was the ‘massacre of Weinsberg,’ . . (1534) for which the ruffian Jacklein Rohrbach was mainly responsible. In an attempt to join hands with the Swabian peasants, a contingent of the Franconian army commanded by Metzler attacked Weinsburg, a town not far from Heilbronn held by Count Ludwig von Helfenstein. Helfenstein had distinguished himself by his defence of Stuttgart against Duke Ulrich of Württemberg, and by his rigorous measures against such rebels as fell into his power. When a handful of peasants appeared before Weinsberg and demanded admission the Count made a sortie and cut them all down. This roused their comrades to fury: Weinsberg was stormed by Rohrbach, and no quarter was given until Metzler arrived and stopped the slaughter. He granted Rohrbach, however, custody of the prisoners, consisting of Helfenstein and seventeen other knights; and against Metzler's orders and without his knowledge the Count and his fellow prisoners were made to run the gauntlet of the peasants' daggers before the eyes of the Countess.” The author further adds “These bloody reprisals were not typical of the revolt.” On the other hand we are told in the same chapter that “the suppression of the movement was marked by appalling atrocities . . the Bavarian chancellor reports that Duke Anthony of Lorraine alone had already destroyed twenty thousand peasants in Elsass; and for the whole of Germany a moderate estimate puts the number of victims at a hundred thousand. The only consideration that restrained the victors appears to have been the fear that, unless they held their hand, they would have no one left to render them service. ‘If all the peasants are killed,’ wrote Margrave George to his brother Casimir, 'where shall we get other peasants to make provision for us ?’ Casimir stood in need of exhortation ; at Kutzingen, near Wurzburg, he put out the eyes of fifty-nine townsfolk, and forebade the rest to offer them medical or other assistance.” The writer justly adds “When the massacre of eighteen knights at Weinsberg is adduced as proof that the peasants were savages, one may well ask what stage of civilisation had been reached by German princes.”

The peasants’ revolt in England is another case in point. The poll tax and the attempt to re-enforce feudal services roused revolt all over England. The men of Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire, though they attacked the houses of the more obnoxious nobles, and ransacked the prisons, did not plunder or steal, but simply asked for their freedom. This Richard II. promised, and set thirty clerks to write out charters, upon receipt of which the peasants began to disperse. The next day Wat Tyler, their leader, was murdered by the Mayor of London; and when the peasants had returned home their charters were annulled and the King marched through Essex and Kent at the head of a large army and put hundreds of peasants to death.

Another instance was Kett’s rebellion in the reign of Edward VI. Twenty thousand men defeated the royal troops at Norwich and demanded redress of grievances. Kett proclaimed a rude communism, and admittedly kept perfect order in his camp and consented to no violence. His humanity, however, cost him dearly. The Earl of Warwick at the head of an army of foreign mercenaries defeated the peasants, and then proceeded with a cold-blooded massacre which ceased only because Warwick feared that the “gentlemen would have to be plowmen themselves, and harrow their own lands.”

There is, indeed, no lack of modern instances pointing the same moral and emphasising the fact that the savage crushing of the Commune, far from being an isolated case, is but the expression of the real feeling of the ruling class for those beneath. The worker who in the face of these lessons becomes the dupe of the sentimental humbug and humanitarian professions that cloak capitalist interests, is guilty of treachery to his fellows. The lesson most be taken to heart that on his own class alone can the worker rely, for the capitalist must ever remain the bitterest enemy of the working-class movement; and bourgeois honour, justice and humanity are but empty words to lure the worker astray. In all war sentiment is weakness, and nowhere more so than in the class war, and for the workers to be the dupes of bourgeois sentiment in the inevitable struggle with the capitalist interest, is to place themselves entirely at the mercy of the enemy.

It is not, perhaps, pleasant to find things so. It would doubtless be more agreeable if the tiger would peaceably lie down with the lamb, and fools may abuse us for pointing out that this cannot be. Well, let those who nurse such illusions ignore the facts if they will — the facts will not ignore them, and will find them unprepared. Let those who will not face reality soothe themselves with falsehood—though they shut their eyes the truth remains. The very harshness of reality makes him worthy the name of man but the more determined that it shall alter, and he finds that he must know rightly the nature of the society about him before he can take any effective step toward the change on which so much human well-being depends Moreover, in emphasising a harsh truth—a truth to which so many wilfully blind themselves we are but doing our bare duty by our fellows, for it is on the knowledge of things such as these that the speedy emancipation of humanity from slavery and the possibility of real human brotherhood depends; and that, indeed, is one of our reasons for commemorating the Paris Commune of '71.

F. C. Watts

Revolution not reform, (1906)

From the September 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are soldiers of the Social Revolution. No reform can bring any economic benefit to the whole working class. Do you think Municipal Ownership will abolish poverty? If you do, read any recent description of the slums of Glasgow, where Municipal Ownership has been carried farther than any American reformer has yet proposed.

Revolution tears an evil up by its roots; reform merely shifts it from one spot to another. When New York demolished its “Little Italy,” and put a park in its place, what happened? Rents in the vicinity rose to a point that drove out all the former inhabitants, and a new, and; if possible, worse Little Italy came into being further up town. Do you think a reform like that is worthy the efforts of a workingman, not a a mere dilettante in philanthrophy ? When the Mills Hotel No. 1 was opened, within a few weeks merchants in the neighbourhood reduced wages, and when their clerks protested they could not live on the new scale, the reply came quickly : “O yes, you can. Go, live at the Mills Hotel.”

Think about that for a few minutes. Do you begin to see the economic law of the matter ? Here it is: Any reform that reduces the cost of living of the working class reduces to at least the same extent the wanes of that class.

Many forms of Municipal Ownership may and do cheapen the cost of living, but as they also reduce wages, they can be of no benefit to the working class. Municipal Ownership may reduce the amount of corruption and graft in our city politics; but whether it does or not is no concern of the working class. If graft were abolished to-morrow, the working class would be no better off economically. The workingman is robbed “to the full extent that the traffic will bear” at the factory door. Graft simply changes the mode of division of the spoil after it has been taken from the working class. To the workingman who is merely getting his bare keep like the horse in his master’s stable, it is a matter of indifference whether the wealth that he and his fellows have been robbed of is expended in the purchase of an automobile, or an alderman, a steam yacht, or a Supreme Court Judge, or in the building of an oil refinery or a railway.

Where Public Ownership is accomplished by purchase instead of by confiscation, let us see what it means. The only way a City can get the money to purchase a street railway, a water works, or a gas plant is—generally speaking—by issuing bonds. These bonds are desirable investments for the perishing Middle Class who are being driven from every other field by the captains of industry and finance. These bondholders are just as truly the owners of the municipalized plants as are the present private owners. But they have a distinct advantage. The security of their investment and the payment of their interest is guaranteed by the City Government. We still have private, not public ownership. The difference is that the City Government has now become the managing and collecting agent of the owners.

Is this reform "enough of a change for you to fight for? You damn it, when you call it a reform. No reform can help you. What you need is a revolution.

True public ownership cannot be allowed, save by confiscation. This sort of public ownership would help you, because it would precipitate the Social Revolution. Why? Because no one class of your masters. your robbers, your exploiters would consent to be stripped of their stolen goods, their means of exploitation, without compensation, while their fellows retained theirs.

Has “confiscation" an ugly sound to you my non-socialist reader? So it has to me, and that is just why I am a Socialist. At present four-fifths of the product of the toil of the working class is confiscated by the masterclass, and the object of the Socialist movement is to end for ever this hideous confiscation: but I for one do not propose to pay the thieves or the fences one penny for the goods they have “confiscated" — stolen from the workers.

Compensation? Yes, they will receive ample compensation in the privilege and joy of living in a world of equals, where poverty and misery will be unknown, and fellowship will be a living fact, and not an empty word. Can you conceive of any greater compensation than this? I can not.

Robert Rives La Monte,

in Progress (New York).

No Value Under Socialism! (1975)

From the August 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wealth under capitalist society takes the form of commodities. Although commodities must be articles of use, their distinguishing characteristic is that first and foremost they are produced for sale with a view to making a profit. Buying and selling is the exchange of commodities with money acting as a medium of circulation. Commodities are exchangeable because they are the material depositories of exchange value.

Value has nothing to do with the physical properties of a commodity. However much we may examine its physical structure, we will not discover therein one scrap of value. This is because value is purely a social product, not a natural one. Definite historical conditions are necessary for the full development of exchange value, those conditions are capitalist production. Insofar as commodities have value, they are the embodiments of one identical social substance, viz. human labour. When we speak of value we are not referring to the useful qualities a commodity may have. We are referring to how much it is worth, its exchange value.

The labour which creates value is abstract homogeneous human labour, the average labour of society. This average labour may vary, depending on the stage reached in society’s powers of production, on its technology, but not any particular time it is given. A particular commodity can be exchanged for any other however diverse their uses may be provided they be equal in value. If we take two different commodities in the proportions in which they are exchangeable, whatever those proportions are, a given quantity of one can be equated to some quantity of the other. This equation tells us there exists something common to both in equal quantities. Yet this third thing is neither the one nor the other, it is that both are products of labour.

We have been dealing with what constitutes value, and its social nature, but the magnitude of value contained in a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour time it takes to produce it. Only necessary labour time counts because that is all society requires in the production of exchange values. Any commodity which owing to inefficiency took longer for its production than the time socially necessary would not represent more value, and would have to sell on the market for the same as those produced in the time socially needed.

Again a particular commodity may at one time contain more value than at another. This would be when owing to greater difficulty in the technical or natural conditions of production the socially necessary Labour time would increase, and therefore also the value of the commodity. The reverse would obtain when owing to greater productivity of labour, due to improved machinery, or more favourable natural conditions, it would then take less socially necessary labour time to produce, therefore a decrease in its value.

Do the products of labour always have to take the form of commodities, where man loses control of his own product? Only in competitive capitalist society where production is determined by the profit motive and the market, and the great productive technology necessitated by capitalism is only allowed to function in the interests of accumulating capital.

People in Socialist society in contrast will be able to produce and plan in relation to human requirements. There will be no commodities, therefore, no value and no surplus-value. The means of production will not be owned by a privileged class. Socialism will bring into line production with satisfying human needs.

Let us look a little closer at what production for the satisfaction of human needs means. Two aspects of production would apply under Socialism which do not under capitalism. First the quantitative requirements of society would be satisfied owing to the tremendous impetus Socialism would give to production in the release of a huge number of men and materials, now engaged in the requirements of capitalism. Those men and materials would be contributing to the satisfaction of human needs.

To give some idea of the scale of the release of men and materials which Socialism would give, just consider some of the things, necessary to capitalism which would have no place in Socialism. Such things as the production of weapons of war, the vast quantities of materials and paper used in commerce including packaging, advertising, banks and offices. The machinery, paper and metal used for money is no small item. Then add to this the energy required, human and otherwise. Yet, we have merely scratched the surface, the list is endless. Men have filled books about it; Vance Packard in his book The Waste Makers describes in detail the mountains of rubbish produced. The continuous change of superficial style and the built-in obsolescence, all in an effort to sell more, so that the owners of the means of production may increase their profit. All is accepted as normal practice by capitalism’s standards.

The people of Socialism then, would produce for use and not for profit thereby satisfying the quantitative aspect of production. Then there is the aspect of the function of man labouring, the satisfaction to be obtained from doing something useful and creative. How would Socialism effect this very vital part of human life? Work would certainly not be looked up as a necessary evil. It was William Morris who wrote: “If pleasure in labour be generally possible, what a strange folly it must be for men to consent to labour without pleasure”.

This is not the attitude of trying to reduce working time to a minimum by more use of machinery in order to allow more leisure time for more fulfilling activities. The fullest use of machinery would be made where it could alleviate unpleasant work, or to cope with vast quantities when required. This is not to say that there would be no unpleasant work under Socialism. But what constitutes unpleasant work? What may be unpleasant to one, may to another mean the height of pleasure. Again, to have to perform the same task for the best part of one’s life presents a thoroughly depressing prospect. But to take part in an activity for a period of time, then to do something else depending on one’s interests and abilities would make tasks interesting which would otherwise be tedious. Socialism would allow a new awakening of interests and abilities that lie slumbering to develop, thus enlarging the scope and fulfillment of human life.

The Socialist answer to the question, “Must the products of the labour of men always take the form of commodities?” is no. Let us be done with commodities and their value. Let there be only useful production, which means let us have Socialism.

P. Young

Socialists and War (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

William Morris in 1887 when there were rumours of a war with Germany: 

“If war really becomes imminent our duties as Socialists are clear enough, and do not differ from those we have to act on ordinarily. To further the spread of international feeling between the workers by all means possible, to point out to our own workers that foreign competition and rivalry, or commercial war, culminating at last in open war, are necessities of the plundering classes, and that the race and commercial quarrels of these classes only concern us so far as we can use them as opportunities for fostering discontent and revolution; that the interests of the workers are the same in all countries and they can never be really enemies of each other; that the men of our own labouring classes therefore, should turn a deaf car to the recruiting sergeant, and refuse to allow themselves to be dressed up in red and be taught to form a part of the modern killing machine for the honour and glory of a country in which they have only the dog's share of many kids and few halfpence—all this we have to preach always. though in the event of imminent war we may have to preach it more emphatically”.

Rosa Luxemburg during the first World War:

"All demands for complete or gradual disarmament, for the abolition of secret diplomacy, for the dissolution of the great powers into smaller nationalities and all similar propositions, are absolutely Utopian so long as capitalist class rule remains in power. For capitalism, in its present imperialistic course, to dispense with present-day militarism, with secret diplomacy with the centralization of many national slates, is so impossible that these postulates might more consistently, be united into the simple demand ‘abolition of capitalist class society'".

Greasy Pole: National Wealth Service? (2016)

The Greasy Pole column from the March 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hutton is a name which in its time has distinguished some famous personalities. There was that batsman at The Oval who amassed an innings which was then a record for a Test Match against Australia. Then there was the American heiress, a member of the Woolworth family, who revelled in drugs and alcohol while she amassed a total of seven husbands. And who had just $3,500 in 1979 when she died. Then what about John Matthew Patrick Hutton who was the Labour MP for Barrow and Furness in Cumbria, once noted for its shipyards and for the largest steelworks in the world but now looks out across the North Sea at one of the densest concentration of wind farms. In July 2010 he reached the heights of Baron Hutton of Furness. But not before he had told a TV political correspondent, in confidence, that if Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of his party, ever got to be Prime Minister it would be ‘a fucking disaster’.

Milburn

A long term close friend and one-time flatmate of Hutton, who continued to share ideas including his contemptuous (although less abrasively worded) opinion of Gordon Brown, was Alan Milburn, the MP for Darlington, which was once busy until it was reduced to an ominously titled ‘area of re-generation’. Near to Darlington was Sedgefield where the MP was Tony Blair but this was unlikely to have been the sole cause of Milburn being an ardent Blairite. His Parliamentary career did not begin until April 1992 and was typical in the sense that he moved between a succession of ministries, perhaps impatient that he did not work his way further up the Greasy Pole. But it was crucial that in June 2003, on the very day of Prime Minister Blair imposing a ministerial reshuffle, Milburn resigned as Secretary of State for Health on the grounds that it got in the way of him keeping to his family commitments at his home in the North East. Except that being a devoted family man did not prevent him taking a number of posts as advisor or consultant to some large companies – for example Bridgepoint Capital, which includes Alliance Medical who were competing for contracts, often dealing in the Health Service.

Trotskyism

In any case Milburn was back in the government in 2004 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a title fancy enough to swaddle the fact that his objective was to design a super campaign for Labour in the coming election. He did not make the start in this task which was expected of him, which brings us back to Gordon Brown who took over the job with its opportunity to launch at Blair a heated, copulatory protest – in this case concerning a recent article in the Sunday Times by Milburn: ‘You put fucking Milburn up to it… this is Trotskyism! It’s fucking Trotskyism!’ Which was inaccurate as well as abusive to the memory of that cruelly discarded Bolshevik. After Labour’s next defeat, in the 2010 election, Milburn resigned from Parliament and took on, among other responsibilities, the job of advising the Conservative/LibDem coalition government on something officially called ‘social mobility’ – a phrase open to pretty well whatever interpretation its user desired (Milburn preferred ‘…to pursue challenges other than politics’).

Bookshop

To put all of this situation into perspective we have to begin with the fact that Milburn was born to a single mother in a small village in County Durham and grew up in Newcastle on Tyne where he went to school. Not a lot in that of promise about social mobility. At Lancaster University he was not among the most promising of students and when he left there he had become restless enough to cultivate the uniform hirsute style of protest, joining CND and – most memorably – earning £20 a week managing a small bookshop in Newcastle. It had a name designed to tempt anyone needing an accessible source of cannabis to also see if there was anything readable on the bookshelves. It was after taking various roles in the local Labour Party and trade unions that he was elected MP and it was appropriate for the New Statesman to warn that he was widely seen as ‘the epitome of Blairite centrism and moderation’. During his time as Secretary of State at the Department of Health he devoted himself to safeguarding what was being dubbed the ‘modernisation’ of the NHS, which entailed the development of private investment opportunities in health and brought about the closure of hospitals and other services, whether there was need for them or not, and pressure on the employment conditions of doctors and other workers in the Service.

Profits

And how has Milburn fared, among the most ambitious of the designers of these changes? There had been a time in 1988 when, in tune with his most assiduously promoted self-image, he was a leading light in a campaign to defend the jobs of the workers in the shipyards at Sunderland. And in 1990 when he was a Regional President of his trade union by the name Manufacturing Science and Finance. So he has fared well. Kept busy. Bridgepoint Capital is one of his multitude of interests now; it pays him £30,000 a year for his advice on their bidding for NHS work. Six months after he joined them a subsidiary won an NHS contract worth £16 million. With his second wife, who is a barrister, he set up a company under the name of AM Strategy, operating in media and consultancy contracts in relation to the NHS; in the year-end to March 2013 AM showed accounting profits of £1,357,131. And in May 2013 Milburn declared himself ‘delighted’ to be appointed as Chair of the Health Industry Oversight Board at PricewaterhouseCoopers – a company which he praised for its ‘strong opportunities’ for growth. He may well have had a similar response to the news that his old friend and fellow Labour front bencher Hutton had been appointed to the board of Circle Holdings, which also flourishes through its contracts with the NHS.

The adjustments and confusion offered by Milburn and Hutton have been essential in their attempts to crisis manage the chaos of capitalism. In the process they have been compelled to change, adjust or abandon what they once presented as enduringly basic principles. This entire episode has emphasised our role to carry through the authentic social progress so urgent to the world.

Ivan

Indefatigable socialist (1996)

Book Review from the February 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

William Morris in Manchester and Salford by Edmund and Ruth Frow, Working Class Movement Library, Salford. £2.50.

William Morris was an indefatigable speaker and writer for Socialism over the last thirteen or so years of his life. Many of his speeches were reproduced as articles or pamphlets, and essays such as Useful Work vs. Useless Toil and How We Live and How We Might Live (the latter republished by the Socialist Party) are well worth reading today. Manchester was one of many towns he visited as a speaker for the Social Democratic Federation and Socialist League.

Morris’s first visit to Manchester was in 1882, but as a businessman not a Socialist. His first furnishing and designing company took part in an exhibition, and this was successful enough for them to open a shop, first in John Dalton Street and later in Albert Square, though this did not last long. By the time he came in 1883 to speak at the Manchester Royal Institution, Morris was a Socialist, and his theme, that riches meant corresponding poverty and slavery, was not popular among the local capitalists. His subsequent visits were to speak to working-class audiences, especially in Ancoats, the world's first industrial suburb. From 1884 to 1894, Morris spoke almost every year at the Ancoats Brotherhood, an institution founded to provide leisure and educational opportunities for working people. He spoke out of doors too, in Albert Square, and, on what was almost his last visit, to a crowd of two thousand at Trafford Bridge in Salford. His favourite talk, apparently, was on "Monopoly", an explanation r of the labour theory of value.

This pamphlet, though expensive at 28 pages (9p a page!), is well illustrated, and gives a useful and vivid account of Morris’s activities in the north-west.

Paul Bennett

Uforia (1979)

A Short Story from the April 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Italy recently there was much craning of necks and straining of eye-balls when strange objects which many people believed to be flying saucers, were spotted in the sky. Photographs, and even a film, have been produced to substantiate this, and one Italian even appeared on television claiming to have spoken to creatures thirteen inches tall with lights in their foreheads. Since then the hysteria seems to have spread, with a report in the Guardian of UFOs buzzing an American missile base.

It would appear however, that despite all this aerial activity, flying-saucers, like ghosts, never actually make any serious attempt at communication, and one might wonder why these galactic interlopers go to all the bother of traversing space only to complete a couple of laps before zooming off again.

Perhaps the reason for their reticence in making contact is that they have been tuning into earth sci-fi movies in the mistaken belief that these were actual recordings of preceding missions. They would undoubtedly derive little consolation from a movie like The Day the Earth Stood Still in which poor Michael Rennie, while merely trying to warn earth governments of the folly of their ways, only got a bullet for his trouble (despite having a ten-foot tall tin pal who dispensed instant obliteration at the clunk-click of a visor).

Another reason might be the problem of choosing a landing site. Certainly ruled out would be the grounds of the White House, where one recent uninvited guest was assisted from the premises by a dozen club-wielding policemen. Another good place not to come down is Iran where any vehicle tends to end up as an instant bonfire. Nor Cambodia, where both sides in the set-to currently going on there aren’t exactly renowned for their kindness to prisoners. A worse fate for a space visitor would be hard to imagine—except perhaps to land with a green skin in among Rangers fans at a Celtic-Rangers match.

But more probable is the apparent complexity of the society that visitors would experience. Assuming that the spectators came from a planet whose society somehow evolved differently from that of the earth—Tribal Communism, Chattel-Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism. The observation of the day to day running of the buying and selling system might be somewhat overwhelming. Perhaps to discreetly eavesdrop on one of these crafts might help to clear up the mystery.

“Our scanners show people blowing one another up, and shooting and clubbing each other to death”, 

“Is this all they do then?”. 

“Apparently not, in spite of the mayhem they appear to have developed quite a high level of technology.”

“So then, we can assume that everyone has ample food, clothing, and shelter?” 

“Now that’s an interesting point. Although the planet is capable of providing enough food to satisfy the needs of the entire population many times over, many millions are undernourished and even starving to death.”

“Perhaps they have inadequate methods of transportation?” 

“Well, here’s a transporter carrying milk and it appears to have arrived at its destination.”

“Are they giving it to the people?” 

“No they’re pouring it into a hole in the ground.”

“I see, a storage tank?” 

“No an abandoned mine-shaft. Now this looks hopeful, here are a group of people at a production unit stacking up sacks of grain in a huge pile.”

“Ah, then this time they must be storing it?” 

“Not exactly, they’re burning it.”

“Is here any logical explanation for this seemingly irrational behaviour?” 

“Well I’m not quite sure, but from what I can gather it’s some kind of weird religious sacrifice they dedicate to a deity they call profit. Apparently great numbers of these people go into production units and produce vast quantities of wealth taking only enough to keep themselves alive. On the other hand there is a small number of people who must be high priests judging by the amount of wealth that they own and consume, and by the way that the producers revere them, indulging in a curious ritual of inclining their bodies and pulling at strands of hair on the front of their heads.” 

“This is most difficult to understand. On our planet where we have long since mastered the technique of production, we simply distribute according to people’s needs.” 

“It would seem that although these people also have the wherewithal to organise themselves in the same way very few have grasped this simple proposition.” 

“Do you think we should land and inform them?” 

“Are you kidding? Look what happened to Michael Rennie.”

Tone.

Between the Lines: The Soppy Season (1989)

The Between the Lines column from the December 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Soppy Season

This is the month of the year when TV gets all starry and snowy and twinkly winkly. As the awful day approaches cries of artificial merriment abound, as do the false smiles of weathermen. "And if you're alone this Christmas. let's at least hope it's good Christmas weather for you." They don't tell you what to do if you're alone and can't afford to switch the heater on. Become a statistic, perhaps, as you freeze to death. Blue Peter will announce the totally unpredicted result of its tediously worthy appeal. So now it will be possible for at least twenty deaf children to have their own Blue Peter minibus to get them to their special school. What about the rather more than twenty deaf kids who are not to benefit from Xmas charity? What about the ones who can't get in to a school for the deaf because the places have been cut? What happens when the coach breaks down and there are no more Blue Peter milktops to pay for a new clutch? But let s not bother with such unhappy questions: it's the time of the year when we're supposed to feel good. Let misery recommence in January then it's no longer our problem. 

All the Christmas films will be dusted off. Why the hell couldn't the Nazis have caught Julie Andrews and those monstrously sugary kids and contributed one humane deed to history? Dickens' Christmas Carol will be trotted out. Here is a miser, concerned only about money and exploiting workers. Remind you of anyone? No, let's not be vindictive - it's Christmas. Then he falls asleep, meets some ghosts and decides to give a Christmas dinner to his impoverished employee. What spirit! Next the bosses will be falling asleep and giving a living wage to ambulance workers. But let's not talk about them, because it's Christmas and strikes, strife and other nasty things might just crack our contrived grins of delight. Noel Edmonds will be sitting up the top of the Telecom Tower making fools of people And here is your brother from New Zealand whom you haven't seen since you were in the womb together." Why was the family broken up in the first place? What about if they hate the sight of each other? (After all. there can be few other reasons to go voluntarily to New Zealand, can there?) But let's not bother our little Xmas heads with such rest-of-the-year thoughts. At Christmas time we are supposed to weep merrily as dear old Noel plays with the sentiments of a nation, re-uniting those who have successfully avoided each other for decades and springing jolly surprises on old men with heart conditions.

Then the comedians come on. Christmas wouldn't be the same without repeats of Morecambe and Wise repeating what live music hall entertainers did much better in the past. On trots Jim Davidson, that rascally cockney racist, to entertain our lads over in the Falklands. The poor half-wits half wet themselves at jokes about Pakistani shopkeepers and queers. The religious nutters are always let loose at Christmas. The rest of the year most of the religious TV is conducted by Thora Hird and Harry Secombe. the goon who found god. Now it's time for everyone to go bloody barmy: on come children's choirs to sing horrible Christmas carols about lickle Jeesas Kwoist. What about the homeless parents today who can't find anywhere to live? Oh, very well. I've made my point. One could go on about Babycham adverts. the Queen's Christmas Insult to those whom she dares to call her subjects and the newsreaders who give that little wink at the end of the news.

On the other hand, why bother to complain? It will all go away as soon as it came. Christmas over; capitalism back to normal. "Oh. you want to give us 10,000 milktops and we give you a minibus, eh? You want me to fall asleep, meet a ghost and offer you a pay rise?" You see, in a society where everyone is alienated the only way that workers can be collectively happy is when Happiness Season is officially declared. Like Happy Hour in the boozer, except they close the pub on Christmas evening.

Why War?

This was the question asked on After Dark (C4, 11 November) No answer was given. At one point one of those present mentioned the cause of war. He did not say what it was. you understand. He merely claimed there might be one. He was quickly interrupted by the chaplain of Eton College, a Major in the army, who said that God is on the side of all soldiers in all wars. In which case it would seem that this god is a somewhat vindictive swine, going up to one crowd of killers and saying. "Okay lads. I'm with you on this one" and then turning to their enemies and saying the same. There was an extremely boring General with a loud voice who said that the excitement of war is part of some men's natures. Clearly, the General's thinking about the theory of human nature was about as undeveloped as his knowledge of ways of killing people was sophisticated. But even if some men are conditioned to enjoy fighting wars, so what? Some men are conditioned to like raping women, but we don't make the most vicious rapist a General.

What was needed was a clear analysis of why humans go to war. It is not because of our genes, our natures or our beliefs. It is because capitalists make themselves richer and more powerful by obtaining more and more markets and trade routes and exploitable populations and raw materials. And until capitalism is abolished, its ruthless, competitive drive for profits will condemn workers to die needlessly in wars, as have 25 million since the end of the last world war. The discussion of war is not a moment to entertain the ignorance of know-nothing Generals or chaplains who preach the gospel of legalised murder. Resolution for 1990 socialists on After Dark. Let the army Generals sit up top of the Telecom tower with Noel Edmonds for the next year, planning cunning stunts to bring tears to the eyes of more unsuspecting funsters if - and only if - there really must be another Christmas next year.

Steve Coleman

It’s the same the world over (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the favourite current themes of newspaper columnists, and of politicians, is the alleged world-beating efficiency of Japanese industry. Stories of amazing ingenuity and fantastic endurance on the part of Japanese workers are too often used to persuade British workers to speed up production and to accept new methods of working—or of being exploited.

There is, of course, another side to this picture which is less publicised than the stories of Japanese shipyards undercutting the rest of the world, and of dirt cheap transistor radios flooding the world’s markets.

A recent book by Bernard Newman— Round the World in Seventy Days—showed that some aspects of life in Japan are anything but highly mechanised and efficient.

Many Japanese towns have no, drains; their night soil is carted away to be used on the surrounding land, by people who are called Eta. (It is easy to tell when you are approaching one of these towns; the smell of the nearby countryside is enough.)

There are about three million Eta, living in some five thousand small communities. Clearing the night soil is not their only unclean occupation; they are also engaged in tannery. For a long time they lived like ancient slaves and there is a widespread belief that they originated in Indonesia. So low is their standing, such is their reputation, that the very word Eta is never mentioned in polite conversation; the well-bred Japanese who must refer to them simply holds up four fingers.

Eta have to contend with a considerable weight of discrimination. They have tried to improve their lot in the past but generally they have been content to muck along amid the night soil. They are still a class apart, although the increased industrialisation with its population drift into the towns tends to get them lost in the crowd. They are still struggling to break down the barriers against them.

Such prejudices, as we all know, are not confined to one group of people, nor to any one country. People in the West are inclined to regard the Japanese as inferior and, as Newman points out, the Japanese think that they are better than some other peoples. He records one remark, that all Korean immigrants into Japan should be sent home as quickly as possible. Where have we heard remarks like that? Southall? Paddington? If it is any consolation to the Korean, and to the Eta. it is the same the whole world over.

Jack Law

Why I left CND (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

I was one of the enthusiastic teenage supporters of CND who took part in the 1964 Easter March. That was the last year I marched, because by Easter 1965 I had ceased supporting CND and had become a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

It is difficult to recall when I first became attracted to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I think I was automatically thrown into sympathy with it by the foolish outlook of many of its fiercest opponents. I was visiting London one Easter, saw the March pass through Trafalgar Square and was surprised by the huge number of marchers. Later I bought CND pamphlets from a “Communist” bookshop. One in particular impressed me—Win We Must by Bertrand Russell. This decided me to join my local CND group.

I went on public demonstrations, sold the CND organ Sanity and frequently argued about war with members of the public. As well as arguments with supporters of the deterrent theory (the “we’ve-got-to-have-it-as-long-as-theyve-got-it” gang) there were arguments within CND. One of the biggest blows to the “Peace Movement” was the Moscow Test Ban Treaty, after which it became an unsurprising experience to hand someone a pamphlet and be told; “Haven't you heard, mate? They’ve already banned it?”

From the outset one of the biggest weaknesses of CND was that its supporters had no clear idea of what it was all about, and where they did have clear ideas, these were in opposition to the clear ideas of other supporters. I don't mean that they were altogether ignorant of the facts of nuclear war. Quite the contrary: the public image of the CND supporter who wears the badge merely because of the dope-peddling and copulation on the Easter March is mostly fiction. I found the average active CND man was better informed about politics than his opponent. What I do mean is that the objects and principles of CND were not always very precise, and where they were there always existed sections of the supporters which were trying to extend them or tone them down. CND has no official membership, and supporters include Pacifists, Anarchists, “Communists,” Trotskyists, Conservatives, Labourites and Liberals—plus many other groups, and even more who have no party affiliation. Each of these sections accepts the principle of leadership, in fact approval of this principle is axiomatic to CND policy. Naturally, therefore, each section tries to pull in its direction the entire organisation.

Perhaps the main broad division is between what we could call the Pacifist-Anarchist wing, and those more interested in the preservation of Britain as a matter of expediency. I was definitely in the latter camp. On the Pacifist side it was pointed out that nuclear weapons were no longer the most fearsome available, and that as weapons of war could not be rigidly classified on the basis of destructive power it was not reasonable to see the banning of some weapons as more important than the banning of the rest of them. I can now see there was more in these arguments than I had supposed. H-bombs are NOT to be seen as divorced from other sorts of armaments. They have their own particular features but there is no longer anything peculiar about their destructive powers. They are simply weapons. They cannot be lifted out of the context of weapons as a whole, neither can weapons be lifted out of the context of the social system which produces them. This was one of the many awkward questions left to fester in my mind, slapped down for the moment with the stop-gap argument that nuclear weapons should be especially opposed because they were not only a means of war, but also—due to the “instant retaliation" policies of Russia and the US and the probability of war by accident—a possible cause of it.

The Committee of 100 (which is often confused with CND. There is no official connection between the two) began to crystalise an ideology, based on the concept of the “nonviolent society.'’ I dismissed this as mere idealism, though in fact it was the natural corollary of an obvious train of reasoning: we want disarmament. How are we to enforce it? Obviously by something more than a treaty, since treaties can be broken at will. We need something more fundamental. Go on thinking like this for a bit and you will start to consider the cause of war. Had I thought more analytically from the outset and gone straight to the question “What causes war?” instead of wasting time over silly red herrings like disarmament treaties, neutral initiatives, UNO etc., I should never have supported CND. What it comes to is this: if the human race is to survive in peace, the very antagonisms which create war, or even the machinery of war, must be removed.

However, my thoughts 'didn’t follow this chain, because I didn’t accept the first link: that there is no way of enforcing disarmament between nations. I thought it could be done, as outlined in Russell’s Has Man A Future? by means of world government, or at least a super-UN. It should have occurred to me that if we can persuade nations to give up a tremendous part of their sovereignty to a world authority it should be an easy job to get them to perform the' much less demanding task of refraining from annihilating each other.

But this point was glossed over by another piece of Russell’s reasoning which seemed to me perfectly valid at the time: that the interests of nations lay in co-operation. Russell used to say that Russia and America had ninety-nine per cent of their aims in common, and it was silly of them to destroy each other for the sake of the remaining one per cent. He called on the nations to treat the prospect of war as he thought they would the possibility of being exterminated by a comet from outer space—by uniting together to oppose what was threatening them all. By this very analogy he gives the real key to the situation. War is not a comet from outer space. The whole point about war is that it does not come from outer space, but from the social system which exists on Earth.

It is easy for the non-Socialist to fall into the error of thinking that it is in the nation's interest to co-operate. This is because he identifies the nation with the people. In fact the nation is not the people; it is the capitalist class and its machinery of coercion. The people—ninety per cent of them —are not the nation. They are the nation’s employees, the working-class who have no country. It is certainly in the interests of all the peoples of the world to co-operate. But it is not in the interests of all the nations of the world to co-operate. It is not in any nation’s interest to combine with another nation, except to form a supra-national bloc in order more effectively to assault other nations or blocs.

CND supporters stress the importance of “escalation,” and quite rightly so. Escalation is the process by which relatively minor conflicts develop into major conflicts, because of the ever-increasing force which each side finds it necessary to bring into the field to equal and overcome the other. It is a pity people can’t take their realisation of escalation a stage further and see that it is present at the very genesis of war. Military conflict is an escalation from economic conflict. War, it has been said, is fought for vital interests. The trouble is that the same thing is likely to be a vital interest to more than one nation at a time. It is rather naive in these circumstances to discover which nation actually possesses the particular interest (i.e. which nation managed to steal it first) and label the other nation the “aggressor.”

A lot of people talk as though there is nothing really at stake in a war, as though wars were caused by “arrogance" or “hatred” or the desire not to lose face. Russell even compares brinkmanship policies to the American teenagers’ game of “chicken” on the motorways. Surely it should be evident that wars are fought over something, that they are not just misfortunes, that something is at stake.

However at the time when I came into contact with the Socialist Party I was a convinced follower of Russell, of CND and (with reservations) the Labour Party. I first heard of the Socialist Party about four years ago. I saw the name in a Central Government textbook giving voting figures for all the parties at general elections, then I saw the advert in Sanity. I asked a Communist Party friend of mine what the party was, and he replied inaccurately: “The Trots.” Later I met members of the Birmingham branch.

At first I was inclined to scoff. It is somewhat difficult acclimatising oneself to the idea that a party of 600-odd members can be right, and nearly everyone else wrong. I already called myself a Socialist, of course. By this I meant something rather vague, to do with support of the “left-wing” of the Labour Party.

My main objections to the Socialist Party were: first, I thought nationalisation was a step towards Socialism, I saw the increase of state control throughout the world as a praiseworthy thing I ought to support (whether through the Labour Party, the Communist Party or some other body I considered merely a matter of tactics). Second, I could not appreciate the Socialist Party’s opposition to CND and other disarmament groups, which I thought had great potential influence for peace. I would say (as scores of people have said to me since): “Let's make sure of our survival first, then we can decide on the system of society.” (As though the two had nothing to do with each other.)

The answers to these points are, of course, first that state ownership is a device for running society more smoothly in the interests of the capitalist class; second that Capitalism is the cause of modern warfare. Capitalism without war is as absurd a proposition as a deciduous forest without dead leaves.

Any effort expended on reforms is effort unexpended on revolution. When we consider that parties which have started out for revolution and “immediate aims” have ended up with no revolution and immediate aims gone sour, we realise what a wild goose chase the pursuit of reforms is, even if they are connected with something as vital as the possible end of civilisation. The only way to prevent war is to establish Socialism.

Steele.