SPGB Propaganda Meetings (1932)

Party News from the July 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists and the Press (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We live in what is claimed to be a “free country," where there is "free expression of opinion," but this must not be taken literally. It does not mean that anyone can say or write just what he likes. The Official Secrets Act and the libel laws cut off considerable areas of expression, into which you trespass at your peril. Much greater restriction arises because we live in a money world, in which capacity to make views known depends largely on what you can afford to pay. If your resources run into hundreds of thousands or millions of pounds, you can publish the Daily Worker, Daily Herald, Daily Express, etc.: if not you may have to be content with a monthly journal. But what about the possibility of the “free” expression of varied points of view in the columns of those and other journals with the big circulations? This again is a very narrowly circumscribed possibility when it is a question of securing publicity for a minority and not popular point of view, such as that of the S.P.G.B. When daily newspapers misreport matters of concern to us, or when they refuse to publish our letters or advertisements, there is no remedy—and this notwithstanding the existence of the Press Council, which is supposed to keep an eye on the conduct of the Press.

Another approach to the Press Council

In 1956 we approached the General Council of the Press about an incorrect statement (one of many in the Beaverbrook newspapers) that occurred in the Evening Standard, followed by editorial refusal to correct it (The matter in question was the practice of the Evening Standard of describing Labour Party conferences as conferences of "The Socialist Party of Great Britain.")

The Press Council declined to interfere, on the ground that readers would not be misled. (See Socialist Standard January and March, 1956.)

In May of this year we wrote again to the Press Council about the refusal of the Daily Telegraph to publish an advertisement of the Socialist Standard, the only reason given being that there is no refusal to publish our advertisements on principle, each advertisement being dealt with on its merits.

The Press Council replied on 29th May, 1957:—

“ Dear Sir,

"I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of May 27. The question of whether a particular advertisement will be published rests entirely with the Editor, whose decision is absolutely final. It may help you to quote the statement which appears on this subject in The Times every day. It reads

" 'All orders for advertising in The Times are accepted on the express terms— (a) that they are subject to cancellation at the discretion of the Editor,' etc., etc.

"Yours faithfully,

“(Sgd.) Alan Pitt Robins, C.B.E."

Of course, we don't feel at all helped. Either the Press Council approves of newspapers refusing advertisements or it disapproves, and it doesn't add anything to be told that The Times does it as well as the Daily Telegraph.

The Royal Commission on the Press

The Press Council arose out of recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Press (1947-1949). In the report of that body the question of refusing advertisements was dealt with; though we confess we cannot be certain what exactly the Royal Commission was trying to say. The relevant passages in the Report (paragraphs 529 and 530) are as follows:—

"We consider it entirely wrong for a newspaper to boycott a particular advertiser arbitrarily and for personal reasons."

“We have received evidence that some newspapers refuse all advertisements of a particular class. This is a different matter. We consider that a newspaper has a right to refuse advertisements of any kind which is contrary to its standards or may be objectionable to its readers. This right, however, should not be exercised arbitrarily."

This statement may have the appearance of being both clear and reasonable. It is the last sentence that makes the meaning unclear. The Royal Commission appears to be saying that it would be quite right for the Daily Telegraph to refuse all advertisements from the S.P.G.B., because the S.P.G.B. is objectionable to the readers of the Telegraph, but wrong for the Daily Telegraph to decide, arbitrarily and without giving a reason, to publish some and exclude others: but that is what the Telegraph does.

By curious coincidence we received from the News-Chronicle an almost directly opposite point of view. Having written to them about a misstatement in someone else's advertisement, a member of the S.P.G.B. received a reply to the effect that of course the News-Chronicle could not possibly interfere with statements made in advertisements.

The freedom to express Socialist ideas

The fact is that the possibility of making Socialist ideas known to the population is very narrowly restricted in this country. Newspapers and periodicals almost never give space to the Socialist viewpoint, and letters are comparatively rarely published. With paid advertisements we have somewhat better results, though refusals (sometimes masquerading under “no space available") are frequent. As the Royal Commission on the Press was supposed to be concerned with "free expression of opinion and the accurate presentation of news," they might have been expected to face the issue squarely: instead they sidestepped it by the insertion of the qualifying word "important,” (Report, page 676), and considered whether “ the Press as a whole gives an opportunity for all important points of view to be effectively presented."

Is the expression of Socialist ideas important? Certainly it isn't with the Tory, Liberal, Labour and other giants of the newspaper and periodical Press.

Not that the Royal Commission found everything to be satisfactory—far from it, and they half-understood the reason. "The failure of the Press to keep pace with the requirements of society is attributable largely to die plain fact that an industry that lives by the sale of its products must give the public what the public will buy. A newspaper cannot, therefore, raise its standard far above that of its public, and may anticipate profit from lowering its standard in order to gain an advantage over a competitor." (Paragraph 680.)

Nationalisation no remedy

We say that the Royal Commission only half understood the nature of the problem. This is amply proved by the fact that they took for granted that publication can only be for the purpose of selling and making a profit—they never considered the possibility that the only way of securing "freedom of expression" is through Socialism, when the question of sale and profit would not arise.

And they are not the only ones who do not understand. A delegate at the recent conference of the Electrical Trades Union, speaking on the Press, said:—

"An end must be put to its reports of sadism, sensationalism and pornography. We shall nationalise this monopoly so that its views shall be that of the working masses for Socialism ."—{Daily Worker, 7th June, 1957.)

It is difficult to imagine anything more contrary to every experience. We are asked to believe that nationalisation would change the Press into a vehicle for enabling the workers to express Socialist ideas. Let us look at a few facts. Where the Press has passed under direct Governmental control, as in Russia, it is not only impossible to publish a journal putting Socialist ideas for a Socialist organisation, but it is legally forbidden for a Socialist political organisation to exist at all. Secondly, the broadcasting service in this country has been nationalised for 30 years after a five year life of the original British Broadcasting Company. Do we find the nationalised B.B.C. putting over Socialist propaganda? It is in fact even worse than the capitalist Press. For a quarter of a century the S.P.G.B. has tried to get the Socialist case put on the radio, but with never a single success. Not that the B.B.C. says it will on principle not let the S.P.G.B. broadcast—nothing so crude —but each time application is made the application is refused.

One of our adverts, refused by the Daily Telegraph mentioned that the S.P.G.B. is barred from the air by the B.B.C. Those who are silly enough to think that there is some essential difference between the “private enterprise” capitalist Telegraph and the State capitalist B.B.C. may wonder why the former didn’t jump at the chance of chiding the latter for its opposition to “freedom of expression.” Instead they showed their true affinity by behaving in the same way, suppressing the Socialist case.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Good Abbé (1957)

Abbé Pierre (1955)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was recently announced from Paris that the Abbé Pierre, ". . . known among his followers as ‘The Apostle of the Homeless’ ” has joined forces with the former Brazilian president of United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, Senhor Jose de Castro, to create a "world organisation to fight hunger.”

The announcement added that the organisation would be financed by funds accruing from an international prize awarded to Senhor de Castro some years ago, and from lecture tours to be undertaken by the Abbé Pierre.

We are further informed that the good Abbé has already founded an “international institute for research and action against world poverty,” and a "World Abbé Pierre Foundation ” to finance it!

We might well wonder what kind of world it would be if we had not the impoverished, the homeless and the other victims of our social disorder to provide rungs on the ladder of fame and/or salvation to the pious reformers who, like the poor under capitalism, are always with us.

Worthy motives of muddled Reformers

But let us not ascribe such unworthy motives to the noble Abbé and those of his kind. Let us assume that they are sincere people, with a constant care for the miseries that beset millions in our unfortunate world. Well might they be shocked, indeed, for capitalism presents us with much that is shocking, even today, after generations of reformers.

As workers, ever close to the miseries which shock our reformers, and Socialists, knowing fun well the reason for such miseries, we must be forgiven if we wonder at the unworldly simplicity of all Abbé Pierres.

Even the poor man himself has been forced to confess that only "miserable results” have been so far achieved in the fight against misery.

Pity the poor reformers! Ephemeral things, they come and go, tampering with the effects of a cause unknown to them; administering social aspirin to a society afflicted by a social cancer. Good people? Of course they are! But in their dealing with the problems that confront the mass of the people they are, to put it charitably, naive.

We cannot believe that any reformer setting himself the task of eliminating poverty, could be so stupid as to seriously hope that they will achieve that end. Rather, we should imagine, do they hope to alleviate small pockets of the misery that so shocks them.

In order to protect themselves from “impostors” it is usual for the charity-giving reformers to make extensive enquiries regarding the depth of social degradation into winch the objects of their charity have fallen. It is bad enough to live in a world so organised socially that it is incapable of providing you—often, even if you are the most docile of wage-slaves—with work. To be denied by society the food, shelter and clothing necessary in order to live, is bad enough; but to suffer the piety, platitudes and preaching of most of the charity mongers and reformers heaps insult on injury.

The pious Abbé is going to spend funds on “research” and “action” against world poverty. We can only hope that such recklessness will not prevail in his broader charitable work, for all the research necessary on the origins of world poverty, and the required pattern of action for its eradication, have long since been known to Socialists. A very little research by the Abbé into Socialist writings will undoubtedly yield the cause of the misery against which he militates. Further persistence will reward him with the solution to such misery.

Poverty, unemployment, bad housing, crime, and the host of other evil social phenomena that continually haunt us all have their groups of “good-doers” spending time, money and effort vainly trying to stem the flood of misery, or effect reforms, but these evils remain, strong, virile weeds in the fecund soil of capitalism.

Cause and effects

Capitalism is the basic social cause of all these evils; that which the Abbé Pierres of this world struggle against is but the effects. They fight shadows, the Socialist prefers to get to grips with substance. As Socialists we know that there is only one truly effective “reform," and that is Socialism.

Capitalism, with its private ownership of the machinery of wealth production, forces on the mass of people a condition of slavery, wage-slavery. All the things necessary to the sustenance of human life become commodities, their use value only incidental to their exchange value. Even our physical energies—our labour power—has a commodity character which, since we are propertyless, we are obliged to sell to the owners of the factories, mills, land, etc., in order to get the wherewith to buy the things we need.

It is a staggering thought that even the humble loaf of bread—the “staff of life" to the masses—is not produced, under our present social system, primarily for the purpose of being eaten. If you have money you can buy all the bread you want, and there is no law to prevent you burning it should you so desire. On the other hand, if you are without money and starving you will go without bread—or beg at the table of an Abbé Pierre! ,

Order of Priority

Capitalism provides us with hungry millions, surely a reason for unrelenting work, and at the same time with armies of unemployed; capitalism gives us our slums for there is little profit in providing homes for the slaves of the system; capitalism, with its need to protect its foreign investments, gives us wars and their attendant evils.

Even if it were feasible to attack the problems of capitalism singly for the purpose of piecemeal reform, which, of course, it is not, it would be an odious task indeed, placing them in their evil perspective. While you fight slums, war creeps nearer, while you organise peace pledges, slums go unattended, while you are re-habilitating the refugee his compatriots are creating refugees, and so on.

There are no short cuts to Socialism and certainly trying to patch up a bankrupt social system is not progressing. If all those people who are genuinely desirous of putting an end to the evils they see around them actively joined with the Socialist movement, they would put an end to their objection that Socialism is a long way off. Had there been no Labour and Communist parties holding out political carrots to the working-class and no reformers using energy uselessly, then the pious charity mongers would long, since have been compelled to find other means of getting to Heaven and the world might well stand on the threshold of Socialism.

Until that time arrives, I suppose we who know better will see many Abbé Pierres trying to perform the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Richard Montague

How well is the "Welfare State"? (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from the June Socialist Standard).

Health in the Welfare State

Those who sing the praises of the European Welfare States and of the land of the highest wages and greatest prosperity—the U.S. A.—seem to be quite unaware of or to deliberately ignore the ugly, cruel, stupid and tragic features which the model states in both hemispheres have in common. In the totalitarian countries behind the Iron Curtain where Press and platform do not often dwell on the ugly side of things at their end, and where, therefore, information and statistical data on social affairs are not so easily accessible, ignorance may be excusable, but this cannot be said of the peoples of countries where books and Press supply the damning facts and figures with critical comment.

The 1955 report of the largest Austrian Health Service, with close on one million insured persons, provides perhaps the clearest picture of the state of health of the people. In that year the service had to deal with half a million cases of illness. Three million sickness certificates had to be issued.

Prescriptions totalled 8,700,000, which works out at 10 per person per year. In each 1,000 insured persons 193 insured persons or members of the family were treated in hospital. 375,000 bills for spectacles, foot supports, artificial limbs, bandages and other accessories had to be paid, 9 million days of illness were registered, and 3 million days in hospitals. There were 672,000 cases of dental treatment.

These are the records of only ONE, though the largest, Health Insurance Fund to which other sick clubs and the private practitioners have to be added. The city’s many hospitals and clinics are woefully short of beds and are invariably overcrowded. So are the institutions for the mentally sick. The number of inmates in the Vienna mental institutions and lunatic asylums has trebled since 1950. In that year the largest institution took in 735 persons and in 1955 the number rose to 1192. Even if it is true that alcoholism has a lot to do with it, it must be pointed out that frustration and the hard and nerve-racking conditions under which the mass of people have to live and work are in very large measure responsible for people taking to drink and driving them mad.

In a budget debate it was disclosed that in Austria no less than 4,200 million schillings were spent on alcohol, which is half a milliard more than the year before, and two milliards on tobacco. In Germany the situation is even worse, with nearly 50 per cent more on both items. How hopeless the problem is for the reformer or the apostle of anti-alcoholism is clear from the fact that prohibition, or even curtailment of the production of beer, wine and Schnapps would involve the loss of 348 million schillings for the government's tax collectors, not to speak of the serious effect on employment. An increase of alcoholism is noticeable in almost the whole world. Sweden has had to take drastic steps to restrict the rapidly increasing consumption of alcoholic drinks. A report says that since the abolition of rationing in 1915, offences and crimes have frightfully increased. If the number of unfortunates who have been and are being driven mad by the iron heel behind the iron curtain, is probably incalculable, the number of persons in mental institutions in the “free world” countries is no secret—it is, for example, 750,000 in the U.S.A.

Crime

This chapter is not intended to deal with such deeds (perpetuated by governments) as training young people in the use of instruments of mass murder and destruction. Whatever can be said about war in the jungle and in the wild and woolly past of the human race it is now and has been for a century already—a crime. True, it is so regarded not only by Socialists, but unless you are consistent in your condemnation and earnestly concerned with the all-important question of the real cause of the dastardly deed and prepared to work, as Socialists do, towards the elimination of that cause, the mere expression of your moral or sentimental indignation remain ineffectual and futile. Thus, with all their professions of peace and desire for disarmament, the welfare states and the totalitarian regimes continue the status quo, with all its contradictions and imbecilities—poverty and misery in die midst of ever-increasing accumulation of wealth and possibilities of enjoyment of life for everybody—in other words: with Demon Capital in the saddle. Whilst chewing platitudes about peace, freedom, sovereignty and social justice, the Labour Government of the United Kingdom brought in the atom-bomb, and in another welfare state—Austria—it is the very leaders of the “Socialist Party of Austria” who are the chief promoters of a new army. And in order to imbue the young recruits with the necessary fighting spirt, welfare statesmen and writers continue as in pre-welfare days, to give to historical events the bias required by the national (read capitalist) interests. So important is the fostering of that spirit to the powers that be that if for example, there was no “Südtirol question," both Rome and Vienna would have to invent one.

Our purpose in this chapter was, however, to deal with the crimes committed not by order or at the behest of governments, but by individuals driven to desperation and anti-social acts by an anti-social and insane system of society. It is to show that in the welfare state most of the evils inseparable from the money system flourish as abundantly as ever before. Burglaries, robberies with violence, theft and larceny, shocking murders and assaults, cruelties to children, etc., are on the order of the day. In January the leading article in a Vienna newspaper wrote: “With great alarm the public learns that the number of murders and general crimes with violence have for weeks again sharply increased. The excitement about the brutal assault on a postman last Saturday has hardly abated when news comes of a new far more terrible crime. In their tumble-down barracks an old couple was found battered to death and robbed of what little savings they possessed. A youth of 17 was afterwards arrested for the murder." The same paper reported the murder of a 25-year-old wife by her husband. Two boys of 17 and 18 raped and murdered a girl of 15 on her way home. A one-arm invalid killed his wife and six children with an axe. Another man murdered his wife and four children. Six boys stole within a short time 31 autos. “Christmas is the time"—another paper wrote—“in which the number of suicides and attempted suicides is far above the average. Among the many “tireds-of-life" this Christmas was the 40-year-old A. H., who gassed herself and her two children."

It is interesting that within a few days of one paper boasting that Austria was a land without gangsters, there occurred no fewer than three bank robberies in classical gangster style, with autos and the rest (two in the country and one in Vienna), in one of which two young robbers perished. And so one could go on ad infinitum, every day bringing new reports of crime and tragedies. Rarely are they reported in the foreign press, since every country has more than enough locally to fill their own regular columns of police and court reports.

In these unholy and unblessed orgies of crime, cruelty and fraud which, by the way, give employment to whole armies of policemen, gendarmes, prison guards, and wardens and executioners, lawyers and judges, reporters and printers and photographers, detectives and special transporters, in addition to experts in safety devices, safe-makers, etc., etc., the annual number of convictions of all kinds over recent years is invariably just over 100,000 in this country, 20 per cent. of which are for criminal killing and assault; the rest are for fraud, embezzlement, blackmail, insurance swindles and other “scandals."

With the Socialist's preference for quoting his enemies confirming the truth of his statements and criticism, here is what the Austrian Sozialminister Proksch said at a conference of the “Aktion Jugend am Werk” (7/11/1956): It is the tragic fate of the young about to start a profession, to be faced with unsettled problems. The advisory committee tries to help them in making a decision, but what good is this to them when there are no suitable openings and nobody wants them. It is hypocrisy to accuse youth of being spoiled and depraved when nothing is being done for their professional education. What is to become of a youth who has to wait months and sometimes longer for a chance of an apprenticeship? One must not be surprised if young people eventually become criminals." Remarkable, is it not? that this same Sozialminister should only a few months earlier have declared: “The Welfare State brings welfare to everybody, and with it assures well-being to every citizen”

If it will console British readers that things are said to be worse in America, here is what Sir Basil Henriques, former chairman of East London Juvenile Court, said after he had spent 51 days in the U.SA discussing juvenile delinquency in 20 cities and 14 States: "Every court where I sat I heard cases which were more serious than any I have heard in my 33 years on the bench.” On the television, he said: “I saw nothing but murder, divorce and prison scenes.” And if you should happen to get hold of a book “Never Come Morning," by Nelson Algren, you may come to the conclusion that really Sir Basil could hardly have exaggerated.

Accidents at work

The number of accidents at work is rising from year to year. From 1953 with 129,449 accidents, with 422 killed, it rose to 162,500, with 670 killed, in 1956. They do not only bring physical pain for the worker and mental depression (fear of losing his job) of the injured, but also distress to wives and children left behind after the death of their breadwinner. Almost unnoticed in the sensational revolt in Hungary and the Suez conflict, there occurred (in October 1956) the terrible tragedy when a bridge under construction and serving in the building of a dam at the Ottenstein power stations collapsed burying 10 workers under huge blocks of concrete. The accident, coming after the previous year's catastrophe at the Kapron dam, added its tragic quota to the already great number of widows and to the 25 orphans left behind after the previous disaster. Twelve more children were orphaned on 19th and 20th March when their parents lost their lives in a cycling accident near Salzburg.

So is the tragedy of accidents aggravated under capitalism by an individual having to provide for a number of others (wife, children, old folks) who are, through the breadwinner's death, deprived of the wherewithal to live. Under Socialism, when no individual will be dependent on another individual for his means of sustenance, but when every man, woman and child will be the responsibility of the whole community, any unfortunate accident to an individual will then not involve such tragic consequences to others. (This aspect will be dealt with more fully later in this series of articles.) 

Rudolf Frank

(To  be continued.)

Letter: Hegel and Marx (1957)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editorial Committee.

In a letter to the June Socialist Standard a correspondent who signs himself "History Sixth” puts forward the view that "Marx's philosophy is not more materialistic than Hegel's, and his theory of history not more materialistic than any attempt to account for the historical process by the means of empirical science." He concludes from this that Marxism is logically compatible with metaphysical or religious beliefs.

Because of another opinion he offers; i.e., it is a mistake to call Marx's theory the materialist conception of history, his remarks, quoted above, are ambiguously confusing. Surely to be consistent with such a view he should say not that Marx's philosophy is not more materialistic than Hegel's, but that it is not less metaphysical than Hegel's. Again, when he says Mare's theory of history is not more materialistic than the means of empirical science, we are given no clue as to what he means by the term materialistic as used in the context.

The view that Marx’s philosophy is no more materialistic than Hegel's has been put by G. D. H. Cole and others, but I would suggest to "History Sixth” that such a view shows a complete misunderstanding of both Marx and Hegel, and it was certainly not a view shared by Marx himself. Thus, in the second preface to Vol. I of Capital Marx says: “ My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but its direct opposite.” He adds: "Hegel transforms the life-process of the human brain under the name of the idea into an independent subject.” He concludes: “With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.”

Even on the question of philosophy, Marx and Hegel never spoke the same language. For Hegel the subject matter of philosophy was to discover a prime mover or first principle in the cosmic process. This first principle was a self-creating self-activating thought process; i.e., God, which proceeded on a higher spiral plane to achieve absolute self-consciousness. Thus, for Hegel, nature, ideas, and that includes the means of empirical science, were but aspects of an underlying and essentially religious reality. Hegel viewed philosophy then as a means of finding out what had happened in terms of a teleological necessity and to show that what has happened could only be what must happen. Men were then but the instruments of a dialectic process. The task of philosophy was not to change the world but to understand its appointed end. Hegel denied that his philosophy afforded any clues as to how the world could be changed. He said: "Philosophy comes too late to teach the world what it should be . . . The owl of Minerva begins its flight when the shades of twilight have already fallen.” Hegel's philosophy by its very nature excluded any empirical directive principle as to how the world should be changed.

Marx's views were utterly opposed to such conceptions. He said: "Philosophers have only interpreted the world, our job is to change it.” Indeed, Man's philosophy was not a philosophy in the accepted sense as was Hegel's. Marx was not interested in trying to discover ultimate truth. For him truths were always historical and relative. Metaphysical idealists and religionists hold and must hold that thought is creative. On the other hand, Marx, in line with his own theory, said thought was selective and the manner and scope of its selection was moulded by the material conditions of life. Metaphysical and theological concepts can then have no place in the Marxist scheme.

If Marx had a philosophy it could be best described in his own words as critical materialism as opposed to mechanistic materialism. He believed with Feurbach that critical materialism would mean the end of metaphysics and religion. Again, Marx regarded materialism as the only valid expression of scientific method. Thus, in a footnote on Page 368, Vol I of Capital, he refers to a particular method as the only materialistic and, therefore, the only scientific method.

Marx took the world that is man and his relations with nature as they are. Marx then embraced a thoroughgoing naturalism as opposed to the super-naturalism of Hegel and other religious thinkers. He believed that facts are not more real than they are found to be, and do not express some deeper underlying truth. It was because Marx collected his facts and organised the knowledge gained from them on the presupposition that he was dealing with a material world, that his theory can be empirically demonstrated. Because Hegel began with metaphysical as opposed to materialistic assumptions he could offer no empirical guide as to the course of history. He could only assure us that a cosmic self-consciousness would come to pass, but how it would do so he is silent. Even in a brief and sketchy analysis of Marx and Hegel, it can be shown that in outlook and method they were worlds apart

On the question of religion itself, Marx denied that there was some religious essence in man. Religion itself is a product of social life and it only arises when society has reached a certain stage of development in the division of labour. Like all other forms of culture, it can be critically analysed in a specific social situation, and like all other forms of activity it can be shown to change under the impact of changing conditions. While religion had historic justification in the productive rituals of the past, it serves no useful social purpose today.

Marx also denied that man was endowed with a natural religious sentiment, any more than he is naturally endowed with any other aspect of culture. A religious sense is not the outcome of a timeless abstraction, but the product of social consciousness and bound up with a certain stage of social development. To suppose then that any element of supernaturalism could find a place in Marxism is to invalidate the most basic assumptions of historical materialism. For that reason a belief in supernaturalism is incompatible with Marxism. I trust that these remarks might stimulate History Sixth into a reassessment of Marxism.

Ted Wilmott

Editorial: The Proposition They Will Not Consider (1957)

Editorial from the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over a century ago the famous pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto," was published, beginning with the words: “A spectre is haunting Europe —the spectre of Communism." It went on to describe the terror that the Communist movement inspired among the rulers of Austria, France, Germany, Russia, etc.

Almost any journalist picking up that pamphlet today would be likely to write about the way these words apply to the world in 1957—but he would be entirely wrong! It is not history repeating itself, but a word being distorted into an opposite meaning.

In 1847 when Marx and Engels wrote about the governments and the ruling class being afraid of Communism, they meant by Communism a movement springing from the workers, having for its aim the overthrow of capitalism and establishment of Socialism. And they meant by Socialism what the S.P.G.B. means today, a system of society in which all people would co-operate in producing articles and services freely for the benefit of all.

It is true that for many years now the governments of half the world, and, above all, the American Government, have been scared by the spectre of Russia and that they call it the spectre of "Communism": which just goes to show how the politicians can hypnotise themselves with words.

Communist Party the enemy of Communism

The Russian Government is controlled by the Russian Communist Party, but the Russian social system is not Communism (or Socialism), and the Russian Government is no more interested in achieving such a social system than is General Eisenhower or General Franco. If the Russian Government were interested in spreading Communism in the world, it would, of course, show its interest by starting at home and introducing Communism into Russia; but this would mean abolishing the very comfortable privileged position occupied in Russian state capitalism by governmental and managerial circles of the population. Why should they seek to destroy the capitalism that gives them power and privilege and wealth?

Why not be friends with the Russian Government?

Are we saying then that the American Government’s fears of, and hostility towards, the Russian Government is based on pure illusion? By no means. American and Russian capitalism have just the same kinds of reasons for mutual hostility and fear as British and American capitalism had in relation to Germany in 1914 and 1939.

Back in the 19th century West European governments feared the Russian dictatorship under the Czars because Russia’s ruling class had ambitions to expand into the Middle East and the Mediterranean and into India and the Far East; in all of which regions they clashed with the similar expansionist ambitions of other Powers. Exactly the same rivalries exist today, the main difference being that nowadays the Western politicians say (and seemingly many individuals actually believe) that their clash with Russia has to do with "Communism." What it has to do with is the economic rivalry that capitalism gives rise to between the separate capitalist Powers, of which Russia is now in the top rank, surpassed in power only by America.

If Communism (or Socialism) in the sense of the Communist Manifesto were the issue dividing the world today, the Russian Government would be lined up with the ruling class of America, Britain, Japan, India, etc., to crush it

They never consider Socialism

The Western politicians and Press will give thousands of words and acres of space to the Western case against the Russian bloc and give less but quite a lot of space to those who defend the Russian point of view or argue in favour of seeking compromise with it. But they never on any account give space to considering the case for Socialism (or Communism) in the sense in which the pioneers of Socialism used it and meant it

But, after all, why should they? Why should the Press take the trouble to answer the Socialist case since nobody (except the S.P.G.B. and its companion parties) ever puts it? When do Gaitskell or Bevan or Bulganin ever put the case for Socialism? Probably all three would (privately) feel embarrassed at trying to prove that society can look to a hopeful future inside capitalism, with its production for sale and profit, the wages system, the continuance of property incomes, investment, competition for markets, etc. But when do they ever say in public that Socialism necessarily means abolishing that capitalist social system?

And as they don’t ever say it, the capitalist Press falls into line and happily ignores the case for Socialism.

Labour Party comforters of Capitalism

Mr. George Schwartz, in the Sunday Times (9/6/57), picked on the latest Labour Party pension plan as an example of this. He pointed out that the capitalist Press gave much and sympathetic notice to the plan.

“Cos why? Because it is in essence a straightforward exercise in capitalist reasoning based almost wholly on capitalistic methods of calculation and reckoning. Bless you, I have met stockbrokers who couldn’t spell the word dialectic, who have read it with interest and understanding.

". . . There is no talk about the annihilating that disreputable trio, rent, interest and profits. There is no nonsense about egalitarianism. On the contrary, the main thesis and principle is that the more you put in the more you take out. In short, chums, it is a stem lecture on the virtues of capitalist attitudes and behaviour."

And the H-Bomb Controversy

It is a far cry from the Labour Party’s new scheme for contributory old age pensions to the rights and wrongs of the H-bomb (though there is a certain relationship: if “the bomb must fall,” it doesn't seem to matter what pension you might otherwise have been going to get!) In this field, too, the Press will consider every aspect except the Socialist point of view. The Manchester Guardian in a frank editorial (3/6/57) tried to face up to the implications of the Bishop of Manchester’s demand that the British Government should renounce the H-bomb—whatever the consequences. The editor of the Guardian thought that the chances of such an example being followed by general disarmament could be put at about one in ten. the far higher probability would, he thought, be the more or less speedy Russian overrunning of Western Europe and Britain. To the advocates of giving up the H-bomb he put the question:

"Are they prepared to face the agony of living under  a Communist system?” Recoiling from this himself, he prefers to rely on the deterrent value of having the bomb.

"The deterrent theory is that on the contrary their use by either side has become less likely. Six big bombs, as has been said before, would be enough to destroy central government in the Soviet empire."

It is not our purpose here to follow the Guardian into these muddy depths, but to put a question and a challenge. The challenge is to the Guardian to give its evidence for its utterly fantastic statement that the Russian Government behaves as it does because its objective “is a Communist world.”

Where does the Guardian so hide itself from the facts of capitalist life that it cannot see that the Russian Government behaves like any other expanding Capitalist Power because it is an expanding capitalist Power?

Our question is to ask the Guardian why, when it is actually trying to be frank and objective, it can only see the choice between capitalism with the H-bomb and capitalism without the H-bomb: why does the Guardian steadfastly turn away from even considering that perhaps after all there really is a case for destroying war at its source in the capitalist foundations of the social system on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Which means considering the case for Socialism, and that the Guardian cannot bring itself to do.

Socialism, Capitalism and "H" Bombs (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

In these enlightened days of aspirin civilisation, the reading and listening population of the world are being calmly informed of their own possible extinction either through actual “H” and “A” bomb warfare or as the result of the “peace time” testing of these instruments for “freedom.” We read in the Daily Express, May 2nd, 1957, that the New York Times thinks “that Britain, like the United States and the Soviet Union, can make and stop hydrogen bombs should be a source of pride for Britons.” 

With the hot-house development of techniques and weapons during the last world bloodbath for profits and the frantic race for supremacy which has gone on ever since, in making, testing and stock-piling “H” and "A" bombs the public has had information made easily available to it in daily newspapers, radio, etc., at every stage of the process. Apart from the scientific “secrets” which the others are not supposed to know about, over a period of more than ten years everything about “H” and “A" bombs has been told. Although efforts have been made in some quarters to play down the effects, nobody could say they have been kept in the dark. It is a charge which certainly could not be levelled at the various National ruling classes, that they have suddenly let the workers in on "H” and “A” bombs being produced, like a bolt out of the blue. Maps have been published in national dailies showing the area of devastation. Information about blast, heat, radiation and now strontium 90 has been sent out through all the mass propaganda channels. Millions have watched “H” and “A” bomb explosions, in cinemas and on television. Hiroshima and Nagasaki still bear living evidence. To make it perfectly clear that these things are not toys the experts have likened the explosions to many millions of tons of T.N.T. It has often been stated, by way of example, that all the bombing raids round the clock on Hamburg, Tokio, etc., would be dwarfed in a flash. Yet after more than ten years of this blood-chilling information there is no stir on the part of the vast majority of potential victims. The question which forces itself on our attention, is—why? Why, with all the peace movements, bomb-banning demonstrations, and petitions, do the majority of workers take no apparent interest in something which might exterminate untold millions of them? What is there fundamentally wrong with all these movements that their mass appeals fail to strike home on something so seemingly simple.

In our unravelling of the above questions we hope workers will see that this is an urgent appeal for action, but of a different and more rewarding kind.

Some of the arguments of the anti-"H” bomb movements begin with the plausibly-sounding statement that “war is the most urgent of problems, so it must be solved first. You cannot work for Socialism if you are dead.” Next comes “the "H" bomb is the most deadly of war weapons, so first our activity must be turned to getting rid of that." Some of these people, namely, those in the so-called Communist Party, have a remarkable capacity for believing that only those “H” and "A” bombs not possessed by Russia are harmful.

One of the effects of this approach to the war problem is that it helps to produce an attitude of mind where, because of the sheer dread of "H” and "A” bombs, war, if only they are banned, could be so heavenly. It is obvious from the start that movements which seek to ban this or that particular weapon are resigned to the continuation of wars; in fact, such activity could truly be described as "getting procedure laid down.” Is war really more acceptable to the working-class if “H” and “A” bombs are not used ?

We claim that the S.P.G.B. and its companion parties have the only real case against war. This must be thought about by workers not as a cheap bit of "pushing the party,” but as a serious statement, which, we think, all the evidence upholds.

When workers hear or read the appeals to ban the bomb, their reaction is one which has already been strongly conditioned.. Conditioned by the fact that, whatever country they live in, they are taught to think as nationalists. Conditioned by the patriotism of "loyalty to the country.” Nationally they see their rulers' interests and their own as one. They are British, American, Russian, and so on. To nationalistic people, leaders (political and religious) flags, armed forces and weapons of all kinds are quite necessary in the interests of the "country.” Seeing no difference between themselves and the boss, they argue "if we don't make it, they will,” " it's no use this country disarming if the others don't,” forgetting that the misguided patriots in the other countries argue in exactly the same way, i.e., not as workers, but as Germans, Americans, Africans, Russians, and so on. Because of their nationalism they all make the same mistake, the mistake the boss teaches them to make, that is, to speak of “we” and “our country.” The all-important fact is, of course, that workers do not possess any country, and the convenient little "we” makes them identify their interests with those who do. To nationalists the world is not divided up into a world-wide working class and a worldwide capitalist class with mutually antagonistic interests; it is divided into “ us” and the “foreigners.”

What could be more telling of the futility of the "peace” movements and the bomb-banners than the fact that they appeal to nationalism and claim to be the real patriots. Thus they directly help to foster the very outlook without which war would be impossible.

It becomes clear that while the majority of workers in each country feel allegiance to its rulers, and through them to the capitalist class which lives on their backs, these Governments, politicians and parsons will be able to prepare the workers for war, make and test "H” bombs or do any thing else on the ground of "national interest.” There must then, be something more than just not wanting the bomb. There must be understanding by the majority of a really workable alternative. It is precisely this which is lacking among the peace screamers, all of whom accept capitalism (consciously or otherwise), but seek to avoid its normal consequences. The alternative for anyone who has thought about what they have just read is implied in what has already been said, that is, a world without nationalism, commerce and conflicting trading interests. A world no longer divided either into nations or classes of rulers and ruled, but a world community, the whole planet being run to satisfy the needs of its population and no longer for profits. With the industrial and natural resources bring held in common by all, mankind would co-operate to produce and freely distribute the things they need. Because the very basis for international conflicts will have gone, wars cannot arise. From that it follows as a matter of course that there will be no bombs to ban, society will not be making them nor any other instrument of destruction. Armed forces will not exist under Socialism because their function will have gone when capitalism goes.

This is about the time when in arguing our ease by word of mouth, our opponents say, “yes, it is a nice dream but how and when will it come about?” The answer to this has been given by the S.P.G.B. since its inception. It will come about when you (the opponents) cease to think that solutions to working class problems can be found within capitalism. Never mind about calling Socialism a dream; until you accept it and help others to do so, you are stuck with the nightmare of capitalism.

When a majority of the world’s workers (all suffering the same problems under the same system) have come to the conclusion, after making the tour of the blind alleys, that Socialism is necessary, the "how” will be fairly easy. They will no longer vote for and support the parties of capitalism. Labour, Liberal, Conservative and so-called Communists, etc.; they will use their votes to send Socialist delegates forward in each country for the object of stripping the capitalist class of the thing which makes them a capitalist class, that is, ownership (State or private) of land, factories, mines, machinery and railways, etc. With this done and the means of production in the hands of the community and democratically controlled, society will begin anew.

Harry Baldwin

Capitalism and the State (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Fabian myth shared by Mr. Strachey is that increasing state activity, especially on its economic side, is an important factor in changing capitalism into something which is not really capitalism. Like Communists, although for other reasons many Labourites have proclaimed that the system is on its last legs. Unfortunately for such a view, capitalism seems to be a centipede.

State Economic Activity and Capitalism

It may be pointed out that state economic intervention has been a feature of modern capitalism right from the start in the form of state funds for capital projects, subsidies, technical research, tariffs, etc. So far from state intervention being a symptom of the system’s old age. it has. on the contrary, been a means whereby the various capitalist nationals have attained a more vigorous economic life.

That there has been a great increase in state activity in the history of modern capitalism is undeniable. This is due to the fact that the state is bound up with and inseparable from the general activities of capitalism. With the vast expansion of capitalism there has gone a corresponding increase in the activities and functions of the state. Just as the development of capitalism, nationally and internationally, has led to an increase in the antagonisms and tensions not only within the national economies, but between them, this in turn has greatly added to the growth of the weight and complexity of their problems. The state thus comes increasingly to the fore as the one social institution able to cope with these problems at any adequate level.

Origin of the State

Marxists do not regard the state as part of some eternal dispensation. It can be shown that the state is an historical product and, like all other social institutions, it has an origin and growth. Marxists point out that there have been societies without states, hence society is both logically and historically prior to the state institution. The state as an organised coercive agency does not in fact emerge until the break up of early tribalism, with its primitive egalitarianism, which was brought about by the development of private property relations and its concomitant privileged and unprivileged social classes.

With the division of the community into owners and non-owners of the sources of wealth production, the state as a social power becomes the means of ensuring the continuance of this division against disruption from within, as the result of social conflicts engendered by antagonistic class relations of production and enemies from without. The state thus serves to guarantee the legal titles of those who own the means of production and gives them the right to appropriate the labour of others, be they slaves, serfs or wage workers. In the ultimate instance these legal relations can receive a physical sanction by the control of the state over the armed forces. Thus any class which is the dominant class in a given set of private property relations of production must have direct or indirect access to the state apparatus.

The Struggle for State Power

If since the passing of primitive society history has been the history of class struggles, then these struggles have centred around the attempt to preserve or win state power. Thus an established ruling class will seek to maintain its control over the state machinery in order to perpetuate a social arrangement favourable to themselves. On the other hand, a rising class which aspires to become a new ruling class, will seek to obtain control of the state in order to mould it along the lines of their own interests. This was the position in which the bourgeoisie found itself in its struggle against the old feudal order, although economic development, by placing them in the key positions of the productive process, had given them an advantage over the old class, they found the old social organisation based on an older mode of production, inadequate for a new expanding form of production of which they would be the prime beneficiaries. The need for the control of state power became essential to bring about a social arrangement more accommodating for the extension and widening of the divergent economic powers.

It can be seen then that a particular form of state organisation is the product of a social class or classes which benefit from a particular set of property relations which it is the state's obligation to enforce.

The Meaning of Private Property Relations

When Marxists say that the state is the protector of private property, they mean that it guarantees the class interests of a given set of property relations. But the significance of these property relations do not consist in the mere ownership of things like the possession of a pair of trousers or the tools of an independent craftsman. Capitalist private property relations means a social relation between men, a relation between owners of the means of production and non-owners.

The social relations of production of capitalism are linked then with a definite class interest which confers upon those who own the wealth resources the right over the disposal of the labour of others. And it is to maintain and enforce these social relations of production that constitutes the primary function of the state.

Reformist View of the State

Marxists point out that class social systems, with their corresponding state structure, are the outcome of social development. They have come and gone, and there are good historical reasons for stating that capitalism, which is the latest of such systems, will also be the last and in turn will give way to a classless and hence stateless social organisation.

While Labour and Fabian theorists accept the fact of the class structure of capitalist society, they do so on different grounds to Marxists. For them social classes and state organisation have always existed and always will. That is why Labour propaganda, although it at times makes veiled references to the injustices of a class society, never advocate the abolition of classes. For them capitalism is part of an eternal dispensation. Their theory is then unhistorical and uncritical.

If, according to such a view, there must always be a class differentation in the social structure, what purpose does the state serve? Their answer is that the function of the state is to minimise the conflict between the classes to the greatest possible extent, in order to maximise social harmony. On such an assumption the state is not a class organ but a classless agency which exists to reconcile divergent economic interests for the greatest common good. Translated into actual political practice, it is the class collaboration theory of the old political parties, whereby the state serves as a means of seeking to blunt class antagonisms.

Such a view of the state provided an opportunistic springboard for the initial high dive of the Labour Party into politics. Its case against the Tories and Liberate was that it had subverted the true function of the state to act in the interests of the whole of society by taking sides in the use of state power. The side of the rich against the poor; thus using the state for a class purpose. It did not say the rich should not be rich, but that they should not be too rich. It did not say that the poor should not be poor, but that they should not be too poor. Social reforms and taxation were to be the instruments for redressing the abuses of Tory and Liberal rule and so bring about a greater equalisation of what they considered as part of the natural order of things to be a socially unequal situation. Nevertheless, their claim that by redressing social abuses they would restore the proper social balance between the classes, compelled them to pose as champions of the under-dog, and even gave the illusion if not the reality of their being a class party, which in spite of their most strenuous denials to the contrary, they have only recently lived down.

Accepting as they did the contest between Capital and Labour as a social norm, they claimed that they would see it was fought under the Marquis of Queensbury rules. As a genuine third man in the ring, they would see the bigger opponent did not use his weight unfairly or maul in the clinches. They would on occasions even compel him to pull his punches. Nevertheless, they were only too anxious to point out that should the workers attempt to take advantage of the situation, unduly, by pressing their claims too far, it would be necessary in the general interest of society for the state to seek to restrain them. That various Labour Governments have used this pretext to employ the repressive machinery of the state to curb the demands of various sections of the working class is too well known to need recording here. In the real world of capitalism the state remains the guarantor of capitalist property relations.

The old apologists for capitalism used to explain away its class division as a division between brain and hand. Labourites refer to it as the division between intellectual and manual work. Like the old apologists, they also accept as a corollary of this that great differences in income are part of the natural order of things. Mr. Strachey in his book, Contemporary Capitalism, in spite of his pseudo Marxist language, endorses the Labour' Party’s views on all these matters.

One cannot help being struck by the identity of Labour and Tories social outlook. The Tories also accept class society as part of the eternal dispensation and the state as being the true representative of society as a whole. Thus Burke, Hegel, Comte, John Stuart Mill, and Uncle Tom Cobley and all, find their synthesis in modern political theory.

Labour Party and Social Planning

When the Labour Party speak of social planning they do not imply the controlling and harmonising of the economic resources in the interest of the whole of society. What they mean is the adoption of certain state policies for the better regulation of the forces of capitalism. Indeed, in a system where profit is the ruling motive and anarchy of production an inevitable consequence, social planning in any real sense is impossible.

In the distant past Labourites saw the hope of a socially planned capitalism in the growth of monopolies. So far, however, from monopolies eliminating the anarchy of capitalist production, as was fondly imagined, they on the contrary tend to intensify it, because monopolies seek the pursuit of certain ends, regardless of the requirements of the economy as a whole.

Labour’s Changed Views on State Capitalism

Early Fabian and Labour theorists, often ex-civil servants, dreamt bureaucratic dreams of a state directed capitalism. Present day Labourites now see it as a nightmare. They have long learned that private appropriation, the interplay of the market and individual economic calculation are the indispensable norms of world capitalism and hence British capitalism. It knows that a Whitehall capitalism so far from solving present day problems, would only complicate and intensify them. In fact, the present anarchy of production would be the essence of economic rationalism compared with the organised chaos of a vast state controlled capitalism.

Now the Labour Party and, of course, Mr. Strachey along with them, have no “plans” for taking over capital accumulation. With proper safeguards Mr. Strachey blandly assures us capital investment and the profit motive must still be the unmutated mainspring of his “mutated economy.” As Mr. Morrison once observed, the Labour criticism of capitalism was not that the capitalist makes profit, but his inefficiency in failing to make continual profit sufficient enough to justify his existence. This also, it seems, is Mr. Strachey’s views.

State Investment

For many years it was fashionable for Labour “experts” to laud state capital investment as an alternative to private investment, and that a planned economy could be achieved by a major intervention in the economic affairs of capitalism via state investment. Such an assumption was utterly unrealistic. Not only would state investment have to compete with private investment, but capital accumulation and profit making would still constitute the mainspring of the system, and the problems of capitalism would remain essentially unaltered. In point of fact, any analysis of modern capitalist countries will show that the state has never assumed any obligation to direct and control capital accumulation, and Labour Governments have been no exception to the rule. What governments have done is to devise policies which seek to aid and maintain capital accumulation. Even social reform legislation, in so for as it succeeds in blunting class antagonisms, has for this reason a bearing on facilitating the smoother path for accumulation.

If capital accumulation, as it can be incontestably shown, is the norm of capitalist society, then it follows that state economic legislation must follow the pattern of that norm. Unless we assume that state policies are designed to undermine and finally destroy this most fundamental feature of capitalist behaviour—the self-expansion of capital. There is not the remotest evidence that the reformist parties contemplate such a project The state exists then to act on behalf of the aims and objectives of capitalist society. While state policies may modify capitalism, the state can never transform capitalist society, whose creature it is. And it is only transformation that can be equated with significant change.

Whatever changes the Labour Party envisages in capitalism, it always unchangingly assumes capital in eternal control. Something for which the capitalist class no doubt feel eternally grateful.

Ted Wilmott

Special Note to Canvassed Readers (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We would very much like to know the reaction of you workers whose front doors our canvassers knock on. What you think of our ideas, and in particular our principles.

We know from experience that the first time a Socialist knocks on your door and introduces you to the Socialist Standard, it is usually the first time you knew that some party other than the usual ones exist, and we have a lifetime of prejudice to break down before you are prepared to consider seriously the case that we put.

Also, if you have just come home from work and our knock gets you up from your tea, we know the reception suffers accordingly. Add to this children going to bed and the fact we may call on a night when you are broke, we get some slight idea of what Socialist propaganda has to cope with. There is, of course, another reason which brings you to the door in a bad frame of mind, that is when you have been watching television. This is really a shame, because what it amounts to is that those workers are too busy trying to escape from Capitalism to find out how to get rid of it. In face of all the problems such as food prices, rents, clothing, holidays, strikes, war news, and so on, you find it easier after a day’s work to laugh at T.V. than to do a little serious investigation about the cause of it all—hence it just goes on.

Are we paid for it?

It is also probable that some of you think that our canvasser sells Socialist Standards for a living. This is not unreasonable, since all kinds of people are everlastingly knocking at your door trying to “sell you something." For our part we get two things out of going round with the Socialist Standard, one is tired feet, the other is a sense of satisfaction in doing something to help our class forward to an understanding of their position in the world as wage-workers, because we know it is only from this understanding that the system of work, want and wars will be removed. Yes, like you, our canvasser has done a day's work before he calls; he has the same problems as you, plus Socialist ideas, and he is always prepared to discuss these with you. It is not always possible to stop at one door for an hour, as much as we may like to, as there is more to be done, so please send us by post any questions, etc., which time on the doorstep does not permit a satisfactory answer to.

We must claim your attention

In the world of today where many millions read one or another of the daily comic papers, does it seem hopeless for you to make any effort, would it be any use if you did? The answer to this is it would make every difference—remember your neighbour is probably just waiting for you to do something, as well; if all leave it to each other, no one will do it. Socialism can only come when enough workers want it, and since it answers your problems as well as ours, you must do your part. Develop the habit of reading the Socialist Standard every month, introduce it at work, leave it on a bus; above all, do not resign yourself to the fate that the world as it is cannot be changed. It can be changed. You can most certainly play a part in changing it. First you must understand what needs changing and how to change it The problems we face all arise from the fact that the means of producing goods and services of all kinds are in the hands of the employers. Because of this profit is society's motive force instead of needs; because of this the struggle for oil and markets, etc., exists, which leads to wars. To send Socialists (not Labourites) to Parliament backed by understanding for the one object of making these means of living the common property of all (see our object) is the only answer. This means no wages, no money, no market, profits or wars, but world-wide cooperation to produce enough and happiness for everyone. Yes, it is worthwhile reading the Socialist Standard and getting your fellow-sufferers to do so.

We invite you to attend our Branch meetings, the address of your nearest branch is on the back of the S.S. If you are a member of a trade union, we would be glad to send a speaker to your branch should they be agreeable. You will also find in the S.S. a list of our pamphlets; these are the clearest Socialist statements on the subjects they deal with. We strongly urge workers everywhere to read our case, the result, when enough of you do, will justify the effort. Our canvasser will bring any pamphlets you ask for the next time he calls. We'll be seeing you.

Harry Baldwin

What they are saying (1957)

From the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Told You So

“We in the Labour movement feel it is time we had a look at what we have set up. When the coal industry was nationalised we felt that we were setting up Socialism in this industry, but we now discover that what we have introduced is simply state capitalism.”—Mr. G. Moir (Paisley) at the Co-operative Party conference, reported in the Manchester Guardian of 23/4/57.

A Child Communist's Guide to Democratic Centralism

“In this struggle has evolved the principle of democratic centralism, which combines democracy and centralism, both essential in our organisation.

“Democratic centralism is centralism on the basis of democracy, and democracy with centralised guidance.” —Mr. John Mahon, at the Communist Party Congress, reported in the Daily Worker of 22/4/57.

The People’s Flag is Deepest Red, White and Blue

“If we have been too uncritical of the Soviet Union in the past, it does not alter the fact that we are the most British Party in politics today.”—Mr. John Gollan, at the Communist Party Congress, reported in the Daily Worker of 22/4/57.

Capitalism and Human Needs—1957 

Food Shortages every year 

American help for India

“Every year there is a famine in India somewhere, and some people go without enough cereals to fill half a handful, and are reduced to digging the ground for tubers and scratching trees for bark . . ."

Too Much Wheat in Australia 

Cannot find market

“The Australian wheat industry faces the worst, marketing trouble since the depression of the 1930s, the chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, Sr John Teasdale, said today (April 24). .

[Beginning of two adjoining articles in the Manchester Guardian of 25/4/57.]

50 Years Ago: The Separation of Ownership from Management (1957)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The logic of events has altered somewhat the character of the opposition that is made to the Socialist. He is now seldom told that the personal management of the capitalist is essential to the working of industry, for it is precisely those concerns in which the personal supervision of the capitalist is lacking that are driving the personally managed businesses to the wall . . .

It is only the small businesses that can, in any real sense of the word, be said to be personally directed, and the small concern is in a parlous way beside the great public company. The large firm is able to considerably reduce the proportion of management expenses by distributing them over a larger volume of work. It is also able to extend the division of labour and to introduce and suitably employ the most efficient machinery. It is, able to buy in large quantities and, therefore, more cheaply; to make consignments of goods in bulk and, therefore, at lower rates, and in many ways both in buying and in selling to overreach its smaller rival . . .

The sweating underground master-baker is out-competed by the eight hours day machine bakery. The struggling tobacconist, tea dealer, and the like, are being crushed by the branches of the great distributing trusts. The small cycle maker is losing ground before the great Coventry companies, and on all sides a similar process is going on . . .

The working class now runs industry to its own misery for the profit of its oppressors, but the day is near when it should take those industries that have been built up with its blood and sweat and transform them from means of profit for a handful of parasites into the means of its deliverance from slavery and degradation.

(From an article “ Industrial Democracy.” in the
 "Socialist Standard,” July, 1907.)

We Are World Changers (1942)

From the July 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Irish writer, Seán Ó Faoláin, in a book he wrote entitled “An Irish Journey,” made the following remark ; —

“When you go to war you do what you do in the movies, tear your ticket in half, and the half you leave outside is your critical faculties.” (p. 252.)

The statement has another meaning as well as the one the writer wished to convey.

The tragedies and upheavals of war give fresh life to philosophical, religious and mystical views of various kinds, partly because mental strain disturbs the capacity for clear thinking in many people, partly because these views give the feeling of an escape from problems bound up with war, and also partly because these views serve the interests of the class of privileged people who wish to emerge from the war with their privileged position unshaken.

The more the brains of workers are tortured or lulled with mystical views the less clear is the thinking they can do about their fundamental problems. The worst of the matter is that people derive a temporary relief from putting these problems behind them as insoluble or accepting them as inevitable. In this they are like the early Christians who gave up hope of improvement in their earthly life and despairingly accepted their miseries without resistance, treating them as scourges on the path to paradise.

The problems of the workers, endless toil, poverty and insecurity, are neither inevitable nor insoluble. They are the product of the economic conditions of to-day just as the problems of the chattel slave and the serf were the product of the economic conditions of the times in which they lived. In fact, the fetters that bind the producer are a heritage from the dawn of civilisation, when a portion of mankind grabbed a privileged position and forced others to do the work.

Food and air provide what is called physical and mental energy—moving and thinking. The limbs move and the brain thinks. Thoughts are either pictures of the world around us or are based upon our surroundings. We can only understand what people may tell us by relating it to our own actual experiences. In the early days of the human race picture-writing gave place to the use of symbols in passing on messages and ideas. It is similar with the mental development of the child in our times; actual pictures are replaced by symbols but behind the symbol is the immediate world around the child.

Our thoughts are based upon our surroundings and our surroundings, our environment, is partly physical— mountains, rivers, plains, and so on—and partly social— our connections with our fellows. Our thoughts therefore are shaped partly by the physical and partly by the social environment. As our main concern is obtaining the necessities of life, which can only be accomplished by close connections with our fellows, the social environment is the dominating influence in shaping our thoughts. This social environment has undergone radical changes across the centuries and so have man’s thoughts.

Looking at the matter from another angle, the fundamental aim of human beings is to be happy, and happiness for the overwhelming mass of the world’s population is bound up with an adequate supply for each person of the physical necessities of life—food, clothing and shelter.

But the satisfaction of his bare material needs is not enough to make man happy. He also requires mental satisfaction. That is to say that as man has been helped onwards to his present civilised state through mental exertion it has become essential to him to engage in mental as well as physical activity. Thus, whatever form it may take, the opportunity must exist to exercise the intellect. In other words, man cannot be satisfied with a mere animal existence like a cow in a field—however much some may have cause to envy the cow !

Across the ages man has exercised his brain to enlarge the supply of necessities and also to explain the world around him. His endeavour to explain the world has been limited by the state of knowledge of his time, but, more important still, by the nature of the glasses through which he has looked at the world. Thus to the Greeks and Romans, in spite of their intellectual achievements, a world containing universal suffrage was unthinkable because chattel slavery was the basis of their social systems.

The bare, gloomy mountains and the fructifying river gave a colouring of savagery and voluptuousness to the religious outlook of the Egyptians. But under this colouring was a basis of thought that reflected the social conditions in the valley of the Nile; for instance, the threat aimed by the religious hierarchy at the ignorance of the well-to-do about what would happen after death. By playing upon this ignorance the priesthood was able to acquire vast wealth and influence. From that day to this the wealthy have paid for their ignorance but have also been assisted by the priesthood to hold on to their privileged positions.

Apart from the few mystics who, intentionally or unintentionally, blind themselves to the needs of the world around, the main preoccupations of people to-day is either adjusting present society to make it run more smoothly or building a new society out of the present one. Thus it is agreed that the present social order creaks badly. As the Socialist is bent upon building up a new society out of the old he examines the old to find out the nature and the cause of the creaks. This cause is the private ownership of the means of living.

The problem that should encase the attention of the workers, apart from the obtaining of the means to live, is therefore the problem of how to get rid of poverty and insecurity for ever so that they may live like men and women and not like beasts of burden. This problem is bound up with the present organisation of society into wealth owners and wealth producers—capitalists and workers. All the producing and distributing of wealth is done by workers—those who are compelled to sell their energies in order to live. All the fruits of production pass into the hands of the investors, the capitalists, who in the main do not, and need not, work, but who own the products of labour because, through their shareholding, they own the land, factories, ships and other means and instruments of production.

While this division of society into two classes, with interests that are fundamentally opposed, remains, there is no way of abolishing the poverty and insecurity problem. In other words, there is no way by which the workers can lose the characteristic of beasts of burden providing comfort and security for wealthy idlers. The solution of the problem makes necessary the abolition the basis of classes—the abolition of the private ownership of the means of living. This abolition can only be accomplished by building society upon another basis, the common ownership of the means of living—Socialism.

Thus the Socialist accepts the materialist conception of history which is one that is based upon the knowledge provided by history that changing economic conditions are the driving forces in social changes. It is the Socialist outlook upon the world, the glasses through which he looks, and necessarily so as the Socialist is out to change the world. Whatever views philosophers may hold is therefore, immaterial to the Socialist because he is a world changer and is only concerned with what works towards that end.

It is for this reason that the Socialist turns a cold eye upon the new philosophic, religious and mystical interpretations that bubble up from a tormented world, as attempts on the part of their authors to find a mental escape from evils that frighten them or to parry the blows that promise to sweep privilege out of the world.

Philosophical views of the world are numbered by hundreds but, in the long run, they have not influenced for the better the lot of the wealth-producing classes throughout history, though they have sometimes provided battle cries for new classes seeking privileged positions for themselves.

Thus whatever kind of philosophical or mystical views may be put forward at different times to explain the world as it is, it has no fundamental bearing on the practical question of changing the world because the latter depends upon the economic interest of sections of the population. The Socialist appeals to the workers on the ground of their economic interests which is what counts in the struggle to obtain a secure basis for happiness for all.

All people are born alike in this, they pursue what they believe is their best interest. It is therefore the duty of the Socialist to convince the workers that the movement for Socialism is a movement that is in harmony with their fundamental interests, which of course it is.

While the poverty problem remains the workers need not bother and bemuse themselves about the views of philosophers and their like. The point is to change the world by establishing Socialism and then they will have time and opportunity to dream in comfort about whatever systems of thought give them interest, amusement or satisfaction.

Gilmac.