Sold Again — As Usual (1951)

From the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whatever party you have voted for in the election you have voted for the continuation of the present system of production for profit, with all the evils that spring from it. Now you can sit back and take what is coming to you. For the third time in less than ten years you have been called upon to vote in a General Election. What have you gained by voting? Nothing but what you always get—hard work, insufficient wages, insecurity and war. As far as you are concerned the world is in an even worse mess than when the Labour Government took office in 1945. Then you were promised better times, peace and security, but all of these have proved to be an illusion. Even the boasted "full employment" is only due to the destruction of the last war and the preparation for a greater war in the future.

In 1945 you hailed the end of hostilities with sighs of relief and the vain hope that, after the dark days, your wounds would heal and you would soon resume your old ways with some measure of security. The hope was short-lived. The smoke of battle had hardly drifted away before the world was embarked upon another feverish armaments race and rising prices and shortages hit you hard. The German ogre had disappeared only to be replaced by the Russian one, and others are waiting round the corner to take its place. The war clouds have gathered fast again and the two main political parties were united in asking your support for the means and the privations associated with another gigantic holocaust. The bereaved, the wounded and the dead have made their sacrifices in vain.

Surely it is time you faced the stark realities of the world you live in? Surely it is time you faced the problem of reshaping the world so fundamentally that insecurity, the hard drab struggle for existence and the horrors of war will no longer darken your horizon and blast your lives and those of your families?

What is the real source of all your troubles—the source which all the candidates in the election ignored?

The means to produce and distribute the things you need to-day are owned by one class, a property-owning class, the capitalist class. This class lives out of incomes derived from the investment of money in shares and bonds. Whether the means of production are State-owned, company-owned or privately owned, they are operated for the purpose of providing incomes for the class that lives on your backs. You, the working class, operate the means of production and distribution, and you do so in return for wages and salaries because you are compelled to sell your power to work in order to obtain the means to live. You must find employment in order to live, but the owners of the means of production can live, and live luxuriously, without working. Their incomes come out of what you produce above what it costs to enable you to live and bring up a family. It is therefore to the interest of the capitalist to make you work as hard as possible for as low a wage as they can force you to accept. Hence the industrial strife, the class struggle, that breaks out between you and your employers; they try to depress your conditions, you try to raise them. Hence the united Tory and Labour exhortations to you, in their manifestoes, for increased production at a time when industrial profits are higher than they have ever been.

After nearly seven years of Labour Government they tell you in their manifesto, that "Half of Britain’s wealth is still owned by 1 per cent, of the population.” The Tories promise no more than to “do our best. . . . to make things better all round, but we do not blind ourselves to the difficulties that have to be overcome, or the time that will be required to bring us back to our rightful position in the world, and to revive the vigour of our national life and impulse.” In other words to revive the hungry twenties and thirties, when they were in power, and the conditions that led to the second world war. .

Production of goods for profit is the mainspring of the world to-day. Tory, Labour, Communist alike accept this as inevitable. And yet while the profit motive lasts there is no hope of amelioration for you. It defeats all good intentions and drives the world headlong to disaster after disaster.

The goods you produce must be sold by the capitalist, or the organisation working for him, before be can reap his surplus. Out of this comes the struggle for markets, for raw materials, for trade routes, and the periodical crises and wars. Since the cessation of hostilities on a grand scale these struggles for markets and raw materials have brought about new international alignments, the flourishing of secret diplomacy, many lesser wars and, lately, the war in Korea and the threat of war in Persia and Egypt. So long as production for profit lasts the trade rivalries and the wars associated with them cannot be avoided, no matter what government holds the reigns of power nor what promises they make.

Capitalism has unwittingly made a considerable contribution towards paving the way to Socialism. It has made the world one vast whole in which each section is dependent upon the others. The spread of modern conditions to all parts of the world is rapidly bringing the people of the world up to one general level of development; everywhere reproducing the conditions in which there is on one side a relatively small group of privileged property owners and on the other side, confronting them, the large mass of unprivileged and propertyless. Capitalist class ownership of the means of production has moved parallel with the spread of modern machines, modern methods and modem ideas. In face of this development the barriers between Eastern and Western culture have broken down; primitive customs and primitive ways are fast dissolving, bringing into line fresh groups of wage-workers with eyes opening to the evils of the present and the possibilities of the future.

Socialism is the antithesis of Capitalism. Its establishment will mean the abolition of all the antagonisms and miseries rooted in the class ownership of the means of living, and the dissolving of the disharmonies that hinder the enjoyment by all of the people of the world of the full fruitfulness of world unity and cooperative labour. Socialism is a system of society in which all that is in and on the earth will be the common heritage, and at the free disposal of all mankind. There will be no privileged classes and there will be no industrial antagonisms. Each will give according to his capacities and take according to his needs. The interest of each will be the interest of all because all will be working in harmony, and under the best conditions human ingenuity can devise, for the purpose of providing as full and comfortable a life as humanity can secure.

Surely you can see that this is directly in your interests and that, therefore, the case put forward by the socialist is worthy of serious examination. You are the people who can bring about this social change, but you cannot bring it about unless you understand it, realise what it involves and how it can be accomplished. Socialism cannot be brought into bring by a few people on behalf of the many. Any attempts, in that direction can only lead to confusion and disaster. Those who establish it must have cleared from their minds the prejudices that to-day set people at loggerheads; the prejudices of race, colour and class that set groups against each other. They must recognise the fundamental unity of all as members of one world-wide human family. Having arrived at this outlook they must then organise together to remove the privileged class from the seat of power—the control of the governmental machinery.

Parliament is the centre of government. It makes and enforces the law, and it does so on the basis of a society organised to serve the interests of a privileged group of capitalist property owners. In order to establish Socialism it is necessary to take away from the capitalist class their control of governmental power. This can only be accomplished by sending socialist delegates to parliament for this purpose alone. Parliamentary elections offer you this opportunity providing there are a sufficient number of you, who understand and want Socialism, to secure the return of your delegates. Up to the present this support has been sadly lacking.

We put forward a socialist candidate in the 1945 General Election and two in the last General Election. On the present occasion we have not been able to put forward any candidates. While this does not in any way affect our outlook or our determination to contest elections, it does mean, unfortunately, that the socialist position was not expressed by any candidate in the election, regardless of what name-tag he or his opponents fixed upon him. The result of the election simply decided which party will run Capitalism, with its accompanying miseries, for the next term. It may even be that they will decide to pool their resources and form a coalition government. In any event it is of no consequence to you which of them was victorious because their programmes are fundamentally identical; they are all committed to the continuance of the present social order, with its privileged class, its production for profit and its promise of greater and more devastating wars in future.

You have voted the Liberal Party into power and it brought you insecurity, misery and war; you have voted the Tory Party into power and you got the same thing; you have voted the Labour Party into power and fared no better; the Communist Party cannot offer you any fundamental change—their alternative is direction of the same system from the Kremlin instead of Westminster. If you voted for any candidate in the election you only voted for the continuance of the system that enslaves you, deprives you of the full fruits of your labour and prepares the means to send you to the shambles.

You will be called upon to vote again in the future, perhaps before long. Make up your mind now to give the position we have outlined your serious consideration. Are you content to remain beasts of burden, doomed to labour obediently for the enrichment of those who live like leeches on your backs, or will you rise from your knees and order your own lives in harmony with your fellows for your mutual benefit? Upon your understanding and action depends the possibility of a world free from the evils that afflict the world of to-day. The responsibility is yours, you cannot pass it on; you shirk it at your peril!

Gilmac.

Passing Comments: Take your Pick (1951)

The Passing Comments Column from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Take your Pick

One way of spending an entertaining half hour is to go into a public library and compare the accounts given in each paper of one particular event. For example, on September 5th all the papers except the Daily Herald and the Daily Mirror carried reports of the wedding in Germany of Prince Ernst August of Brunswick-Luneburg and Princess Ortrud of Schleswig-Holstein. The details of the story, as told in the various dailies, enable one to see just how far the Press is animated by a passion for truth. The News Chronicle said a horse-drawn bridal coach took the princess to church. The Daily Worker said that the Government of Lower Saxony had vetoed all horse-drawn vehicles, and had stipulated that cars of not less than 8 m.p.h. must be used. The Daily Express, ahead of its rivals, said that the cars had to go at 10 miles an hour. Inside the church, the Daily Mail said that the bridal train was made of 27 yards of champagne-coloured silk, and 19 yards of taffeta. The Daily Worker, more generous, gave her 28 yards of silk and 21 of taffeta. After the ceremony, the Daily Mail said that there were 150 royal and titled guests, the Daily Express that there were 800 royal and noble guests, and the Daily Telegraph that there were 4,000 guests, without specifying their ranks in society.

Fascist Aggressor

But certain indisputable facts emerged. The bridegroom is the eldest son of the man who would be king of Hanover if Germany still had kings; and his mother is the daughter of the last Kaiser, Wilhelm II. During the war he fought for the Nazis, becoming aide-de-camp to a panzer commander. Did the British upper class ignore his wedding on that account? They did not. The Land Commissioner for Lower Saxony, Mr. Gibson, and the former Land Commissioner for Hanover, Brigadier Langham, were there. So were two sisters of the Duke of Edinburgh. One of them, Sophie, married the bridegroom’s brother, Prince George, and the other, Theodora, married his cousin, the margrave of Baden. (The former’s eldest son, by the way, who was born in 1937, was christened Karl Adolf, after Hitler. What a pity our newspapers, who delight in printing slushy articles about the royal family, don’t tell their readers the really interesting facts—such as that Prince Charles has a cousin called after the man whom Winston Churchill described as “this wicked man, this repository and embodiment of many forms of soul- destroying hatred.”) As for King George, he sent his congratulations and lent the bride her diadem.

The Grip of the Gestapo

Now, it is not a dozen years since Churchill was whipping up the working class to the pitch of fury necessary for them to go on fighting the war by launching his polemics against the Nazis. In 1940 be was saying “the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue not only Europe but mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history.” “Upon this battle,” he said, “depends the survival of Christian civilisation." “If we fail, then the whole world . . . will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.” Many of the workers believed him, and sacrificed themselves on the battlefields. But apparently the ruling class didn’t, if we judge by the friendliness they now display towards a man who spent several years helping Hitler to impose “the grip of the Gestapo and all the hideous apparatus of Nazi rule ” on more and more conquered territories.

Moral Re-armament

An article appeared in the Jersey Evening Post on September 24th about the conferences which the moral re-armament movement has been holding at Caux in Switzerland since the beginning of August. The author waxed lyrical about a “force which solves industrial deadlock,” and said that at Caux an ideology was taught which was one of “inspired democracy above party, class, colour, creed, national prejudice and point of view.” One sought in vain for a more detailed description of this force or ideology; and a Times article which appeared four days later was similarly vague, saying merely that what moral re-armament wants is a “worldwide renaissance of moral and spiritual forces.” Exactly what system of morality Buchman and his friends want, exactly what kind of spirituality, all this is left dark. But about the practical achievements which they claim their movement has made they are less reticent. One of their aims is apparently harmony in industry. And proudly they produce at Caux labour leaders who in the past have led strikes against the employers, and who now publicly regret that they have been capable of such wickedness. But so far no morally re-armed employers have been heard to regret refusing wage-increases to their workers. Nor have any converted shareholders been produced who have resolved to refuse in future to live on the labour of others.

Does the Conservative Party Lose Members?

Further, the Buchmanites claim that they have been instrumental in reducing the membership of the Communist Party in certain areas. No doubt: but if the movement is really above class and party, why does not M.R.A. produce figures to show how the membership of the Conservative and Labour Parties drops when it gets to work. After all, neither the former party, which supports the private-enterprise bosses, nor the latter, which supports the bosses of State-industries, can claim with truth to be above class.

Matters become clearer when one reads in The Times that employers of labour have taken a close interest in the proceedings at Caux, and that industrialists were present from British centres, Germany, North Italy, the French textile area, Austria and the Low Countries; and further when it emerges that among those also present were Dutch officer-cadets sent by their military authorities. It would take more than the persuasions of a Buchmanite to convince one that the Dutch army chiefs were spending good money on holidays for officer-cadets with no ulterior motive whatever in view.

Close Harmony

If all these facts did not indicate the real character of M.R.A, then surely the talk about harmony in industry would. For the idea of harmony between a ruling and a subject class is not new: members of the ruling class in every age have propagated it. Under a slave-owning system, it is in the interest of the slave-owners to preserve harmony between themselves and the slaves, while it is in the interest of the slaves to put an end to that system. And under a feudal land-holding system, it is in the interest of the barons to preserve harmony between themselves and the peasants, while the interest of the peasants lies in ending that system. Similarly, under capitalist industry, State-owned or private, it is in the interest of the bosses to promote harmonious relations between themselves and the workers; but what will benefit the workers is not harmony in capitalist industry, but its abolition, and the introduction in its place of Socialism,

Moral Re-Armament is, in fact, one of the forms taken by the struggle of the capitalists of the Western world against their own working class on the one hand, and against the Russian ruling class on the other.

When the Workers Ran the Factories

Recently the Trade Unions International of Metal and Engineering Workers (which is part of the World Federation of Trade Unions) issued a pamphlet describing how the Italian steel workers refused to allow the owners to close steel factories during 1949 and 1950, and instead continued at their work without wages and without professional management, electing temporary managers from their own ranks. While the workers ran the factories themselves, they built ships, aeroplanes, furnaces; they improved efficiency; and by introducing new processes, they economised considerably on production costs—for example, at the Ilva-Bolzaneto works at Genoa, they reduced the price of a kilogram of metal from 44 to 28 lire, and, in order to economise on oil, they invented a process which saved 500 kilograms of oil in every eight hours of work.

It Can be Done

This episode in Italy has a number of useful lessons for all socialists. First, that workers can run the factories by themselves; and that they can not only maintain but improve efficiency. Second, that this kind of movement, which consists of industrial action alone, cannot permanently put the workers in control of the factories. As the pamphlet itself says, "there was no point in cherishing the illusion of stable and lasting working-class management in a capitalist regime." Like all such experiments, this one would have ended immediately had the Government decided to employ resolutely the coercive forces at its disposal. Italy thus reinforces the lesson of Russia after 1917, where the system of worker-elected managements, which operated for a short time after the Revolution, was soon abolished by the Bolsheviks in favour of State-appointed managements when the former system was seen to be incompatible with State-capitalism.

State-Ownership

And the third lesson is that State-ownership of factories does not alter in the slightest the position of the workers vis-a-vis their employers. The most powerful attack of the employers, says the pamphlet, came in September and October, 1950, when in a dozen or more factories they attempted to dismiss 15,000 metal workers. And of these undertakings, “the majority belong to the I.R.I., that is to say they are State corporations." So in Italy, as in Britain, those workers who spent their energies forwarding the nationalisation of factories can now seen how they have wasted their time.

Set Free the Producers

Mr. Roy Harrod gave a talk on the home service on September 19th in which he brought forward a theory which has been heard often of late from Conservative economists and politicians; it is that the cure for our national ills lies in greater productivity, and that this can only be obtained by reducing controls and restrictions and setting the "producers” free. No one could object to this, were it not for the fact that when a Conservative talks of the "producers” he means not the actual producers, the workers, but the people who order the producers about, the business-men and managers. Now setting the business-men free to produce exactly what they wanted might lead to greater productivity, and it might not; for what every business-man pursues, what the system forces him to pursue, is not higher output as such, but higher profits. If the business-men in a particular industry come to the conclusion—as they sometimes do—that the way to raise profits is not to increase output, but to restrict it, then they will restrict output

Agreed, Mr. Harrod

But although Mr. Harrod did not know it when he talked of our output being kept below what it could be by a system which restricts the producers, he had stumbled on to a great fact—one of the facts on which the theory of Socialism is based. For in our society the workers, the producers, are indeed greatly restricted. Millions of them are forced, by economic necessity or by orders of the heads of State, to work in occupations which produce nothing whatever, which adds nothing whatever to the sum total of the goods and services consumed by mankind. Hundreds of thousands of them, in this country alone, are forced to join those monstrous organisations whose sole aim is to murder other human beings, to destroy the houses, schools and factories which other men have built; those organisations which are constituted, maintained and directed not with the aim of increasing human happiness, but with the aim of increasing, by cold and scientific calculation, the already vast sum of human misery and destitution; those organisations, in short, which are politely known as ‘‘His Majesty’s armed forces.” Other workers are forced to spend their time and their skill in the armaments industries, producing instruments and machines which will be used when the next war comes to kill workers in other countries and to wreck their houses. Other workers still are employed in clerking and office jobs, in stamping tickets, in doing all the jobs connected with money, advertising and banking—all of which have one thing in common: they are totally non-productive. Socialism would give to all these workers the pleasure of doing a constructive, creative job, which is at present denied them.

So if you really mean what you say, Mr. Harrod, about setting the producers free to raise production you know which party to support.

Words and Deeds

Many people are misled by the revolutionary phraseology of some parties of the “left.” They hear these parties attacking Capitalism and imperialism, and they assume that the parties concerned must be parties of socialists, parties of the working class. But, unfortunately for clarity of political thought, any demagogue trying to gain power during the last thirty-five years has automatically had to denounce Capitalism and imperialism in order to obtain support. Such demagogues have often been the instruments of developing State-capitalism, either in countries which have previously had private-capitalist systems, or in countries where previously the landowners have ruled.

Why take their word for it?

But just as no one would now accept the claim of the English Puritans of the 17th century that they were fighting merely to secure freedom for their own form of religion, so in the 20th century no one should accept any politician’s speeches at their face value. It was therefore surprising to bear so eminent an historian as Professor E. H. Carr (during his talk on the B.B.C., 5.9.51) repeat the old fable that because Marx said that the first socialist revolutions were to be expected in the leading industrial countries of the world, and because the first socialist revolution actually took place in Russia in 1917. therefore Marx was wrong. If the first socialist revolution had in fact taken place in Russia in 1917, then Marx would have been wrong on this point; but since neither the 1917 nor any subsequent revolution was socialist (as should be obvious to anyone who not only quotes but also reads Marx) then the truth or otherwise of Marx’s statement still remains to be proved. It is true that the leaders of the 1917 revolution indulged in lengthy tirades against Capitalism, and it is true that they were the first successful revolutionaries to do so; but are we to believe their words or their actions? And if we believe their words, why are we not to believe all the other demagogues who followed them, all claiming to be the leaders of the proletariat against the national or international capitalists?

Uncle Tom Peron and All

Hot on the heels of the Bolsheviks in Russia came Kemal Ataturk in Turkey, who claimed the fight against “international capital” and the “rule of the bourgeoisie,” and who said he was on the side of "the proletarian masses of the world.” Then came Mussolini in Italy, Salazar in Portugual, Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, and a number of dictators in South America; now Tito has emerged in Yugoslavia, Mao Tse-Tung in China, and Ho-Chi-Minh in Indo-China. Of the same demagogic type, though the regimes they have introduced are less dictatorial because of the particular circumstances of their various countries, are, or were. Roosevelt in the United States, the Labour leaders in Britain, and Nehru in India. All claim to be socialist, or at any rate to be against Capitalism and “big business.” And the recent revolt in Argentina was blamed by dictator Peron on “obscure forces of Capitalism and imperialism.” Peron, it is worth noting, commands the enthusiastic allegiance of Argentina’s trade union congress, the “General Confederation of Workers”: which should be a clear warning against supporting any particular politician or party just because the trade unions do.

Case Dismissed

Are all these claimants to be admitted as socialists? Or are their respective policies and actions to be examined first, before a decision is made? If they are, no member of the Socialist Party will doubt the verdict that will be reached. And if we reject the laziness which takes every politician at his own valuation, let us hope that the argument that Russia’s was the first socialist revolution, and that therefore Marx was wrong, will be consigned to the limbo of the lost.

By Courtesy of Sir John

It seems that Sir John Ellerman may be ranked among those who can differentiate between the Labour Party’s protestations and its practice. Sir John (Daily Express, 28.9.51) is the richest man in Britain, and he holds shares in the majority of the papers which support the Labour Party—he has 307,450 shares in the Daily Mirror, 41,285 in the Sunday Pictorial, and 10.000 in Odhams, publishers of the Daily Herald. So all these papers support the Labourites with the help of Sir John’s money; evidently be has no strong objection to their politics.

While we are on the subject of Sir John, those who believe that Capitalism will in some mysterious way be ended by attacks on the fortunes of individual capitalists by devices like death duties will be interested to know that Sir John’s father, who died in 1933, left £36 million, which was reduced to less than £20 million by death duties; and that only eighteen years afterwards, the Ellerman fortune has surpassed the 1933 figure, being now estimated at £40 millions.

Sympathy

Concerning the sympathy which recently poured in from the rich and powerful in many parts of the world when a very wealthy man in this country was ill; we should all, of course, be sympathetic to all those who are sick, but especially toward those who cannot afford five doctors and eight nurses to look after them.

Alwyn Edgar

Letter: More about industrial action: The Legend of the "Jolly George” (1951)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have had correspondence with a reader (P.C.O., London) who in the letter below raises the question of minority action and the effectiveness of strikes to stop war.

Editorial Committee,

The Socialist Standard.

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter of the 20th July. I have taken in carefully all you have had to say. There is one point, however, you seem to have overlooked.

The general tone of your letter suggests that you think the individual can do nothing to alter affairs, and I would like to remind you of the Russian Revolution, started by a mere “handful,” also of the “Capitalist Trade Union ” (to use your own term) action which started with the refusal by the dockers to load the “Jolly George" and ended with the Capitalist Government being compelled to withdraw their armed forces from Russia, to which they had been sent to destroy the new “Workers’ State,” although the said “Workers’ State” may not be a very pleasant one to live under nowadays.

The “Jolly George” incident also compelled a Capitalist Government to cease conscripting working- class boys and young men into a Capitalist Army.

Why has there been nothing to rival it to-day? After the 1st G. War there were demobilisation riots, demonstrating in Whitehall, etc., etc. After the 2nd G. War there were no such disorders—the workers meekly waited for. their “Demob.”, their age group, etc., etc. Meanwhile they went to places like Greece and slaughtered foreign workers for the glory of the British and American Capitalist States. The only thing that nearly resembled anything like riots was the outbreak of mutiny at the Aldershot “Glasshouse” in 1946. If there were anything approaching the solidarity I would like to see, there would have been a General Strike in sympathy with the men imprisoned in the “Glasshouse” and protection from Capitalist Militarism given to all members of the working class by organised Labour. In Spain, an attempt might have been made to free the conscripts in a military prison, judging by the workers’ conduct in the Civil War. Personally I would like to see a General Strike take place whenever a deserter from the Capitalist Armed Forces is arrested.

Yours, etc.,

P.C.O.

Reply:

(1) Recipe for Revolution

The S.P.G.B. case is that the achievement of Socialism requires in the first place a majority of socialists, and the resulting democratic political action to gain control of the machinery of government. Our impatient correspondent replies by pointing to Russia and offers us his own recipe for starting a revolution: “Just take a mere handful of people.”

But why does he tarry to tell us this? Why hasn’t he already collected his simple ingredients and cooked his revolution? Why he has not done so is indicated elsewhere in his letter; where be tells us, for example, that the insurgent attitude of some workers after World War I has to be contrasted with the meekly accepting attitude of workers after World War II. He has left something out of his recipe; the handful of would-be leaders of riots and mutinies can put themselves at the head of bodies of rioters and mutineers only if there are such bodies to put themselves at the head of.

In Russia in 1917, because that semi-feudal economy could not stand up to war with industrialised Germany, army discipline, civil administration, and the transport system had all broken down, and there were millions of land-hungry peasants, mutinous soldiers and starving workers ready to support a movement to overthrow the Czarist regime. Having no electoral system through which to vote the Government out, the discontented Russians rioted and mutinied. If our correspondent in 1945 had called on the British workers to stage a “revolution” in order to get rid of the Churchill government they might reasonably reply by asking why go to all that trouble to get something they could and did get by using their votes at the election.

More important from the socialist standpoint is not whether a minority can do “something” but whether it can achieve Socialism. Doubtless the Russian Monarchist Liberals who started the movement to overthrow the Czar were a small handful, as also were the Communists who later started the movement which ended with the present State capitalist dictatorship. They did not and could not introduce Socialism and it is that which concerns us. What the Russian Communists did achieve, to quote our correspondent, is a condition of affairs “not very pleasant to live under nowadays.” But surely we don’t have to do anything to achieve that state of affairs; we have it already.

(2) The Legend of the “Jolly George”

But our correspondent has a subsidiary weapon in his armoury of argument. Without waiting for Socialism, a handful of dockers, he tells us. could start a movement which would force a government to withdraw its armed forces from war against Russia and compel them to abandon conscription. He is sure of this because it happened.

Never were so many errors compressed into so small a space.

It is of course easy to make the claim that the Government was forced to do certain things because of a strike by some London dockers, but there is not the slightest evidence to back up the claim.

It is a simple matter to show that the decision after the first World War to abandon conscription had nothing to do with the refusal to load the “Jolly George,” and we can only suppose that our correspondent’s memory is at fault. Immediately the war ended with the armistice on 11th November, 1918, new Conscription call-up notices were cancelled. (Hansard, 15th November, 1918, Col. 3110.) Existing conscripts were retained in the Forces after that date, but the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, announced on 30th October, 1919, that conscription was being lapsed. "We have arranged that by the end of this financial year there will not be a conscript in this country.” (Hansard, 30th October, 1919, Col. 981.) The plan was adhered to and the period of compulsory service was officially terminated on 30th April, 1920.

Note particularly these dates, all of them before 1st May, 1920, for it was not until ten days later, on 10th May, 1920, that some London dockers refused to load arms for Poland on the “Jolly George,” so that incident cannot possibly have been the cause of events that took place long before it happened.

Nor was it the determining factor on Government policy about Russian intervention. One intervention, that of the British troops at Archangel was ended by their withdrawal on 27th September, 1919, a decision obviously governed by military and other considerations.

But then came the Polish war against Russia in April, 1920, and it is this our correspondent has in mind. The facts show how completely wrong are his conclusions:

As already stated the dockers refused to load arms for Poland (a free gift, incidentally, from the British Government) on 10th May, 1920.

Did this stop the war? No. For the Russo-Polish armistice was not signed until five months later, on 12th October.

Did it stop the British Government using naval forces to help Russia’s enemies? No. For British warships were still in the Black Sea when the war ended.

Did it cause the British Government to desist from its policy of hostility to the Russian Government? No. For early in August when the Polish armies were temporarily in retreat, the Government warned Russia off:

"The British Government now took up a threatening position, demanding the cessation of the Russian advance, failing which they would give all aid to Poland.” (Labour Research Department Monthly Circular," 1st September, 1920.)

And coming down to the specific issue of the flow of British armaments to Poland, did the dockers stop it? Here we can quote a witness who for this purpose can hardly be doubted:—

“Frankly, the National Council of Action has failed. . . . It was formed to prevent the supplies and munitions being sent in support of the attack on Soviet Russia, which it is quite obviously not doing. Somehow, and from somewhere in this country, these supplies are being sent. A Moscow report alleges that England has sent seven steamers of munitions, three tanks, and twelve small steamers with provisions in aid of Poland, and that these have been unloaded at Danzig."

That candid admission was published by the Communist Party of Great Britain in their organ, “The Communist” on 7th October, 1920, five months after the “Jolly George” affair. And if the Council of Action movement failed in Britain parallel actions on the Continent were equally futile. We read in Labour Research Department Circular of 1st September. 1920:

“The French Government now turned every effort to pouring munitions and officers into Poland. Supplies also came from Great Britain."

"So great was the flood that the same journal reported that ‘the Poles were firing ten shots to the Russian one.’"

The attempt by industrial action to save Russia from defeat by the Polish forces was a complete fiasco: —

". . . the unlimited foreign supplies . . . and the expert military advice were producing their effect, and the Russian advance was turned. By August 20 the Poles were in Brest Litvosk.” (L.R.D. Circular, September 1920).

So much for the legend of the “ Jolly George.”

(3) Why not a General Strike against the Labour Government?

Then our correspondent, filled with false recollections of what happened after World War I, tells us how he would like to see "organised labour” staging a general strike to help army deserters, etc., and he wonders why the workers now do not act as he says they acted after the first world war.

We have already pointed out that our correspondent on his own showing does not have to wait for “organised labour.” All he has to do is to collect his "mere handful ” and start something.

And could anything be more unrealistic than the talk of action by “organised labour”? The Council of Action of 1920 was a joint body formed by the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress and was directed (unsuccessfully as we have shown) against the Lloyd George-Churchill government.

So let us now repeat our correspondent’s advice in its proper form. “Why do not the Labour Party and the Labour M.P.s and the Trade Unions now organise a general strike to stop themselves from supporting the policies of their Labour Government which they uphold and agree with and vote for?”

We cannot conclude without drawing attention to a curious time-lag in our correspondent’s programme of action. If, as be believes, a "mere handful” could start a movement to stop war, why waste this potent weapon by bringing it into action only after the war is over and then only to help deserters and military prisoners. Why not do it before World War II began and stop the war itself?

Can it be that our correspondent knows as well as we do that “organised labour” in all countries in 1939 was not opposed to the war-making of the respective governments but was supporting it?

One last point. We do not know what our correspondent means in his letter when he says that the “Jolly George" action was described by us as "capitalist Trade Union action.”

Ed. Comm.

Confusion at the T.U.C. (1951)

From the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

When we were very young the gramophone was in its early stages. It was called the phonograph, it had tubular records instead of discs and each record, when played, ended with the spoken words, “Edison Bell Record.” We were reminded of this when we read the reports of the speeches at this year’s Trade Union Congress. For a number of years, since the end of the last war, in fact, the speeches of the “ big shots” at the T.U.C. have followed the same theme. So marked is the repetition that, as we concluded the report of each speech we felt like saying, “ Edison Bell Record.” Again, this year, as in previous years, unofficial strikes were denounced, support for the Government’s armament programme was urged, the Communists were castigated, increased production was demanded, continued austerity was forecast, and workers were warned to be moderate with their demands for wage increases.

The 83rd Trade Union Congress was held in Blackpool early in September this year and was attended by 917 delegates. The president, Mr. Alfred Roberts, in his opening speech, said nothing original. One has the impression that he read the speeches of his recent predecessors in the presidency and rehashed them with a slight variation of emphasis.

There was a minor revolt on the first day of the Congress when delegates voted for a reduction in the time allowed for speeches from members of the General Council and from fraternal delegates, thus allowing more time for general discussion. But, on the second day, following a bombardment from the General Secretary, Sir Vincent Tewson, the delegates rescinded the decision and gave back to the General Council the privilege of longer speeches. Sir Vincent said that the Council members needed the time to acquaint the delegates with all the facts before they made decisions. He did not give many facts in his speech on that occasion but hinted mysteriously of “certain people who cause the trouble” and “arrangements that took place outside the conference.”

The debate on foreign affairs developed into a battle between groups of delegates and the General Council,—”the floor against the platform,” as Sir Vincent had previously expressed it There were a number of resolutions, including one of over 250 words, but the General Council ruled the roost and its critics were defeated. The resolutions were a series of protests and appeals. A protest against the resumption of diplomatic relations with Spain, an appeal to abolish the atom bomb, a protest against the re-arming of Germany and Japan, an appeal for trade with Russia, and so on.

Of course, Sir Arthur Deakin—sorry, Mr. Arthur Deakin was there. We apologise for that slip of the pen. We are so used to having our Trade Union chiefs “honoured” by the representatives of the capitalist class that we were a little premature and lumped Mr. Deakin with his peers, Lord Citrine, Sir William Lawther and Sir Vincent Tewson. As Mr. Deakin has been elected president of the T.U.C. for the ensuing year he becomes an odds-on favourite for the next honours list. He treated Congress to his usual tirade against “reds” and Communists to the delight of some of the delegates who baited him. His anti-red mania has become a joke amongst Trade Unionists.

A new gang of critics of the General Council were present at the T.U.C. this year—the supporters of Mr. Bevan. These Bevan-ites were greatly discomforted by the support they received from Communists and by the insistence of some of the speakers on confusing them with the Communists. The confusion is easily understandable. The criticisms of both groups were so trivial 'and so far removed from the fundamental problems of the working class that neither of them is deserving of even the doubtful compliment of being termed rebellious.

The visiting high-light to this years Congress was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gaitskell. Prior to Mr. Gaitskell’s visit, some members of the General Council had reluctantly admitted the need for wage increases. But the Chancellor gave a warning. He said:—

“The cost of living here will go on rising in 1952, even with stable world prices, if we go on pushing up our costs through further substantial rises in wages and salaries. That is what we must avoid." (Manchester Guardian, 5.9.1951.)

He was full of warnings. He warned of the need to cut home production in favour of exports, he warned of the impact of rising prices on “our” balance of payments and he warned that fear and inertia was making our lives “thinner, poorer, harder and more burdensome than need be.” There you are, fellow workers, do not be frightened, work harder, cast off inertia and life will be fatter, richer, softer and oh, so cosy. Or will it?

The Chancellor talked of profits and dividends. He said that the total profit income of companies and public corporations had risen just over two and a half times between 1938 and 1950. He continued by claiming that the profits were taxed so that dividends had not risen so much and he concluded that part of his address by saying that he could not state that high profits had been an important cause of the rise in the cost of living. Naturally, Mr. Gaitskell, naturally! Such a statement would destroy the time-worn argument. that it is wage increases that cause rises in the cost of living.

The real plum in Mr. Gaitskell’s address, the real juicy tit-bit, came when he referred to the need for a more even distribution of property. To achieve this even distribution he suggested, ,

“. . .  some form of partnership by the workers in individual firms or industry through the distribution of bonus shares reflecting the rise in undistributed profits." (The Times. 6.9.1951.)

This is magnificent. It is novel. It is unique. Such acumen, such wisdom. A Daniel come to judgment. Yea, a Daniel. The Conservative Party has been talking about a “property owning democracy” for years; the Liberal Party has made co-partnership in industry its main plank for the past three years. Now comes Mr. Gaitskell to join hands with them in proclaiming this panacea for working class ills.

Co-partnership in industry has been tried in a number of fields at various times. The most noteworthy were the schemes of the gas companies and Lever Brothers at Port Sunlight. The object of such schemes is not to re-distribute property, but to encourage the workers to take a keener interest in the firm or undertaking whch employs them. They are expected to work harder to produce greater profits so that their share is larger. They are expected to do away with all restrictive practices, not to strike, to accept a minimum wage, in fact to tolerate all sorts of things in the interest of the undertaking in which they are co-partners. The share that the worker gets is so infinitesimal that it does not, or has not up to now, had the desired effect. The gas companies were probably the most generous in their co-partnership scheme. It is claimed that they devoted half the invested capital to profit sharing. When one considers the number of employees amongst whom this part of the profit had to be shared, and the much smaller number of investors who shared the other part, it gives a picture of the worth of such schemes to the workers. The benefit is to the employer who can use the idea of the co-partner to discipline his employees.

The Trade Unions in this country have never shown an interest in co-partnership schemes and Mr. Gaitskell had a cheek to make such a suggestion at the T.U.C. But there, fools step in where angels fear to tread. Trade Unionists who can swallow die rubbish that is handed out them by the Labour Party supporters may also fall for this idea. All it amounts to is an incentive bonus for greater production and a means to check wage increase demands.

Another screwy batch of proposals came from the General Secretary when he put forward a six point plan for peace.

His plan was that Russia should adopt the following six points,

1. Put the last touches to the Austrian treaty.
2. Let up on the people of Berlin.
3. Return the prisoners of war still held six years after the end of hostilities.
4. Wind up the Cominform.
5. Co-operate actively within the United Nations and cease making a fetish of the veto.
6. Co-operate in many specialised agencies of the United Nations—on economic, health and education issues and the I.L.O. (Daily Herald, 6.9.1951.)

All of which the Russian Government could agree to do and still declare war the following day, or have war declared against it the same day. Such tickling of the war problem is pitiful. There are numbers of workers who have not achieved Sir Vincent’s exalted position, who could tell him that the cause of war is deeper than these trimmings, that the conditions that his six points seek to remedy are the result of war, not the cause, and that to eradicate war from society the cause must be dug out by the roots.

The Congress went through its week arguing about industrial illnesses, children employed on the stage, bulk purchasing by the Government, National Health Insurance spectacles, the film industry, education of trade unionists, equal pay for women, and concluded its business with the usual votes of thanks and the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.” No. Not “The International” nor “The Red Flag,” just “Auld Lang Syne.”

Having appealed, urged and protested for a week the delegates went their several ways. The General Council? We hope they will not be bothered by ghosts from the 1926 or other bygone General Councils. What a set-up in the Trade Union world. If the workers continue to support Labour Government, the sting is taken out of their trade union struggles; if they use their unions as fighting machines they have to fight Labour Government. The solution to this queer contradiction is not to be found in Mr. Gaitskell’s proposal to re-distribute property but in the Socialist proposition to abolish private ownership in the means of production, and to make land, mines, factories, workshops, ships, road transport, air transport, warehouses, docks, garages—all the means of production—free of ownership, either by individuals, companies, public undertakings or the state.

W. Waters

The Magic Formula (1951)

From the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Middle Ages the alchemists (the witch doctors of their day) spent much time searching for the philosopher’s stone. This stone if found was to change the base metals into gold. But their searching was in vain. They should have lived in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, when they might well have thought that their wishes had come true. In this period the wealth of a few increases and continues to increase without any effort on the part of those who own it. This surely must be the philosopher’s stone in action. But the explanation is a very different one—it lies in the formula M-C-M'.

This formula means money-commodities-MONEY, the second item “Money’’ being greater than the first. In this formula lies the explanation of capitalist production. The capitalists start with money which they change into commodities and back again into money—more money than they began with. Where does this extra money come from? The explanation is to be found in one of the commodities they purchase. This commodity is the labour power of the workers. This commodity, like all other commodities, is bought and sold at a price based on its value. This value is determined by the amount of socially necessary labour involved in the production of the food, clothing and shelter the workers must have in order to function as workers. And so the worker is not cheated on the sale of his labour power, or his wages. From a legal point of view it is a perfectly fair transaction. But this commodity labour power has a quality not possessed by any other commodity, which makes it to the capitalist the most treasured commodity of all. It can increase values beyond the value it contains itself. Other commodities can only transmit their own values into the commodities produced. Here then is our philosopher’s stone. And here also in the formula quoted above is the explanation of the world we live in. The formula, for example, explains wars. In order to bring in the extra amount of money shown in the last item of the formula the commodities produced have to be sold. The workers can only receive the amount their wages will purchase. And so there is an endless conflict between the various groups of world capitalist powers to find markets for the commodities produced by their workers. These conflicts lead to war.

This formula also explains the general and continued poverty of the working class. The workers can never obtain more than the value of their labour power. This means that they can only receive back a portion of what they produce. The part left over, which we socialists call surplus value, belongs to their masters. And so while workers may not be destitute, yet compared with a few, the capitalist class, they are poor. This formula also explains the intensification of exploitation. The capitalists must find markets in competition with their rivals. Production must be cheapened, and the only way to cheapen production is by lessening the labour time involved. And so we have speeding up. The formula given above explains all of the attributes of the capitalist system of wealth production.

The alchemists never solved this problem. They were unable to find the philosopher’s stone which would change base metals into gold. But we have found out how it is possible for wealth to increase under capitalism while the condition of the working class remains unchanged. And now we must take the next step. The next step is to bring about a state of affairs in which the formula M-C-M' ceases to exist—in other words Socialism, so that those who produce may enjoy the fruits of their labour. For the bringing about of that we invite the co-operation of each member of the working class. The working class must do that—we cannot do it for them. If we could we should have done it long ago.

And now—how will things be produced under Socialism? In the first place there will be no commodities—that is things produced primarily for sale. In fact there will be no buying or selling, and because of this no money. The one test for production will be the satisfaction of human needs.

There are those, of course, who argue against us that when we can have anything we want people will make pigs of themselves, but the pig turns away from the trough when he has had enough. But all of these arguments arise from the conditions we live under now. No member of the working class has enough. His needs are never satisfied. Given conditions where needs can be satisfied then mankind will take what is needed and leave the rest.

There are of course many other arguments put forward against Socialism, which space precludes us from dealing with here. We would say, however, that it is worthy of your serious consideration. Get to grips with the problem and you will soon be on our side.

Clifford Groves

Sob story (1951)

From the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Or “Swings and Roundabouts"

In the harbour of Monaco, millionaire Sir Bernard Docker came ashore from his magnificent yacht “Shemara” to talk to Sunday Express representative Bernard Harris (2.9.51) on the subject of rich men's taxes. The millionaire is an irate and indignant man, sobbing into his champagne; the sour milk of human unkindness is curdling his digestive juices. The reason in a nutshell is the Labour Party’s latest manifesto which declares “Further taxation must be levied on the small minority who draw large unearned incomes from private fortunes.” Sir Bernard says, “No one in Britain has got any real income now,” which boils down to the fact that under the present system of taxation no man is left with more than £6,000 per annum, To achieve this amount he must have a gross income of £100,000. To a millionaire this is mere chickenfeed, and you cannot possibly run a large yacht (crew of 32) and afford a town and country house, so what are you to do? The answer is, painful though it may be, you must draw on your capital. Thus the latest threat of further taxation hits where it hurts. “It is ludicrous” (wails Sir Bernard) “to think that you will get happiness and prosperity by forcing everybody down to a dead level of uniformity. Every man in Britain should have the opportunity to make all the money in the world. For in the creation of wealth for themselves men create work and good living standards for others.” His wrath is then directed against “this socialist talk of the rich living on the labour of others.” (For socialists read Labour). “It is complete ballyhoo. What have they ever created? Everything they have touched, including their nationalisation projects, has been a complete flop.” We would hesitate to class nationalisation as “creative ” but would like to put on record that all the vast wealth which Sir Bernard owns (including what was left by his Dad) has been and still is, created by the workers. There are only three ways of getting a living in this sorry world, by working, begging or stealing. We are not suggesting that Sir Bernard goes out and robs a bank when he wants some spending money. The fact is that capital invested in industry derives huge profits in the form of dividends from the unpaid labour of the workers. Capitalists the world over acquired and are acquiring their enormous wealth from the surplus labour put in by the workers over and above their weekly wage. That is where the robbery takes place.

The Sunday Express tells us that the “philosophy of this forthright millionaire is summed up as follows by a big American company:—

“America became great by letting Americans become great, giving every man, woman and child a chance to go as far as his energy, productivity and ambition let him. Destroy opportunity for profit and you destroy ambition; destroy ambition and you destroy America.” 

Sir Bernard maintains that the above portentous pronouncement “goes” for Britain as well as America. He should not lose sight of the fact though that Docker Senior gave him a pretty good start, building up investments in a powerful industrial group of companies in the Midlands. However, to quote his own words, “It is ludicrous to force everybody down to a dead level of uniformity.” Sir Bernard may sigh about the Labour Government “soaking” the rich, but he should bear in mind that among other things there is an outsized rearmament bill to be paid, not to mention Korea and Malaya, and as all wars are waged on behalf of the class he represents he must expect to pay the piper when the system he supports calls the tune.

We cannot close, however, without giving him one crumb of comfort.

Perchance when the rearmament programme gets cracking Sir Bernard will gain on the “roundabouts” of the Birmingham Small Arms Company a little of what he loses on the “swings” of taxation. Here's hoping, anyway. It's putrid being down to your last yacht.

F. M. Robins

Party News Briefs (1951)

Party News from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

The resumed Delegate Meeting was held at Holborn Hall on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, October 6th and 7th, when all outstanding items were dealt with. Delegates at one time numbered 34. representing 19 branches. Collections taken at the Delegate Meetings and Party meeting amounted to £30.

#    #    #    #

A Party Meeting to discuss Electoral Activity was held on Sunday afternoon, October 7th, at Holborn Hall. Some 250 members were present, many taking part in discussion. It was agreed to endorse the arrangements already in hand to concentrate propaganda in Paddington North and East Ham South during the Election.

#    #    #    #

At the time of going to Press an intensive propaganda drive is being held, particularly in Paddington and East Ham. There are 50,000 Election Manifestoes to be distributed and nearly twice our monthly quota of Socialist Standards are to be sold. Members have plenty of work on hand—and are getting on with it.

#    #    #    #

A very successful indoor meeting was held at Southend-on-Sea on Monday evening, October 15th; a London speaker addressed the meeting. The hall was filled to capacity.

#    #    #    #

Manchester Branch have had a successful summer outdoor season and are making plans to hold a series of indoor meetings during the winter.

#    #    #    #

Indoor meetings throughout the winter are being held by Bloomsbury, Dartford, Hackney and S.W. London Branches apart from the Sunday evening meetings at Head Office. For details of all these meetings see notices on another page of this issue.

#    #    #    #

Head Office Sunday evening meetings are well under way and members and sympathisers are cordially invited.

#    #    #    #

Will all readers in Nottingham please note that a Discussion Group meets at the People’s Hall, Heathcote Street, Nottingham, at 7.45 p.m. on the first and third Wednesdays in each month (i.e., November 7th and 21st). Members and sympathisers are welcome.

Quite a number of propaganda meetings have been held during the summer at Nottingham and there seems no doubt that these have greatly contributed to the formation of this Group as considerable interest in the Party case has been aroused in this area.

Fortnightly outdoor meetings are to be held at Slab Square, Nottingham, on Saturday evenings at 7.30 and Sundays 11.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m.

Phyllis Howard

Blogger's Note:

Some background information is required with regards to the aforementioned Special Party Meeting on Electoral Activity which was held on October 7th at Holborn Hall. 

The October 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a short notice that a Party Poll had been held on the subject of the Party and Electoral Activity, and there was a majority vote against putting up SPGB candidates at the forthcoming 1951 General Election. The Special Party Meeting took place during the weekend of the Party's Autumn Delegate Meeting, and the subject of the meeting was what activity the Party could do around the forthcoming Election. It was decided that Party members in and around London would concentrate their propaganda efforts in Paddington in West London and East Ham in East London, which were two areas where the Party had put up candidates at the recent 1950 General Election. Two hundred and fifty members attending the Special Meeting was impressive, and should real intent.

The following links give some more background on the Party and the 1950 and 1951 General Elections:

• Nov 1949: From The Eastern Front
• Feb 1950: How will you use your vote?
• Mar 1950: Our Two Election Campaigns 
• Apr 1950: Party News Briefs (See paragraph headed "The Parliamentary Committee")
• May 1950: To the Electors of East Ham
• Oct 1951: Why We Are Not Contesting This Election

SPGB Meetings (1951)

Party News from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Link:

A couple of interesting links which give more background about Eddie Shaw and anarchism in Glasgow during the 1940s and 1950s:

• Anarchism in Glasgow (Interview)
• Not a Life Story, Just a Leaf From It by Robert Lynn

Letter: Shut Up and Shut Out (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Shut Up and Shut Out

At the meeting of the "Hackney Committee Against Racialism”, controlled by the IMG, I explained to the chairman that I wished to explain the Socialist case. Though I was invited, as my name is in the Hackney Council brochure, the chairman stated that I was not to speak. I did not quarrel at all but suggested a speaker from the Socialist Party. "Oh dear no, Tariq Ali is our man.” In brief, red fascists are no different from black fascists.

Recently a poster on the wall at the London School of Economics announced a meeting of IS. I knocked at the door and asked if it was all right to sit and listen. They knew I was a member of the Socialist Party. The answer was "No”. I suppose they’re a secret society.

S. Highams

London N.1

Letter: Ourselves and the CP (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ourselves and the CP

I am writing to protest at your waste of good Socialist space in the S.S. I refer to your continual obsessive carping on the misguided thinking of the CP in comparison to yours. Surely, with all the futile waste, almost criminal of the capitalist system, this includes state capitalism masquerading as communism, you could leave the CP to its usual smearers in the Labour and Conservative parties. After all there must be something wrong with the CP to warrant this continuous smearing — apart from yours.

A member of the CP can never expect honours from the establishment while still an active member. In order to attain these he must leave and get control of a Union if possible, and duckshove his way to the top, to manipulate its business in capitalism’s favour. A case in point is the ETU where three communists with the help of the present Lord Feather secured controlling positions in that key Union. One became Sir Leslie Cannon — if that was any consolation to him. The establishment know how to reward working-class treachery in their favour.

J. Maryon

Hornchurch.

Reply

We have never gone in for the “smearing” of other political parties. Our criticisms are always based on verifiable fact and never on smear, guilt by association or any of the other tactics employed by capitalist parties.

Our criticism of the so called “Communist" Party is quite different to those used by the Labour and Conservative Parties. We are unique in attacking the CP on the grounds that they are, whatever their proclamations may be, an anti-working class party. The CP advocates not Communism or Socialism (the terms are the same thing although the CP confuse the issue by differentiating them) but State Capitalism.

Nothing that the CP advocates can change the economic position of the working class. When they contest elections they do so on a reform platform talking nonsense such as “The British Road to Socialism” or more nationalization. The suggestion that they want a fundamental change in the basis of society can easily be refuted. For example John Mathews writing in their fortnightly review was full of “criticism” for Labour chancellor Denis Healey’s recent mini-budget because it failed to deal adequately with the problems facing British capitalism. Mathews suggested that Britain should go in for selective import controls, planned investment and that self contradiction in terms “planned trade”. And what did he have to say about capitalism?

  There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the size of the [trade] deficit, and the interest charges to be paid on loans, but no solution — only appeals to make a "national effort”, etc. It needs to be said that the British economy is running down not because of shoddy workmanship, or absenteeism, or any of the pseudo-explanations advanced but because of the economic sabotage of the owners of capital. It is the management of the economy which is at fault, not the economy itself. (Comment August 10, 1974 — emphasis in the original.)

Our unmasking of these political frauds masquerading as revolutionaries is fully justified. The fact that some ex-CPers seek places of privilege and power in the capitalist establishment is not surprising but does not alter the case. Once in power Communists pursue anti-working-class policies. Ken Gill, newly elected to the TUC general council brags that “. . . this mighty Congress has committed itself to wage restraint . . . we hated restraint under Heath but we welcome it under Wilson” (Daily Telegraph 5 September 1974.) 

Need we say more?

Editors.

Letter: Russia and the Abyss (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia and the Abyss

The otherwise excellent piece on Russian elections (August Socialist Standard page 133) concludes that 200 collective farm workers and 50 others automatically means 1,000 non-workers. But be careful! Russian classifications are abstruse and devious, many are classified as “Peasants”, several “Intellectuals” (Intelligents) even “Technicians”. I readily agree that it’s all baloney anyway, even a Peasant member of the Supreme Soviet is an “Apparatchik”. Perhaps it’s better to say this, or that we are well aware of Soviet nomenclature.

Secondly with reference to the series on the famous books. Good idea and sure to take. But can we be careful to point to the fallacy of facile comparisons between then and now otherwise we fall right into the Labour Party trap — “There you are how much better now . . .”

So long as we emphasise that in a 1970 world of electronics the “Abyss”, as it was, could no longer exist. Or as we say about The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, many similarities still exist.

The new high-rise flats are an abomination and disaster.

Horatio.

Letter: Joy in Living (1974)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Joy in Living

Reading the SPGB pamphlet Art, Labour and Socialism persuades me that in his Joy in Labour theory, William Morris’s failure to pose and answer a simple but pertinent question restricted the development of his subject.

He has convinced us of the joy useful labour will give, but why? Surely the joy serves a biological end, and is nature’s reward for the fulfilment of that end. But the primary aim is the perpetuation and improvement of life, of which labour is but an ingredient. Our Joy-in-Labour concept could perhaps be logically amended to Joy in Living.

Denied its expression in wage-labour, the impulse finds a compensating gratification in spurious pleasure drawn from the vast arts, entertainment and sports industry. An industry quite distinct from productive processes, that surely provides overwhelming evidence of alienation. An industry much of which, possibly all eventually, a healthy Socialist society will make obsolete.

One quality this industry seeks to express is vitality: an interesting commentary on the condition of its audience. Much of literary and theatrical fiction is clearly vicarious living. A bogus satisfaction rewards the reader of the popular “Whodunit” in which is exploited a perversion of the evolutionary impulse — effort which should be directed to improving life involving the tackling of problems (“challenge”) is reduced to a trivial mental exercise.

F. C. West

London E.2

Letter: Ideas and Struggle (1989)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ideas and Struggle

Dear Comrades,

I found an old copy of your magazine Socialist Standard at a friend's place. I was very interested to read it and there were several thought-provoking articles.

Have you got anything on Trotskyism? Several of my friends have very nearly joined such parties as the SWP. Militant and the RCP. A few years ago, I was on the periphery of the RCP, but their ruthless party building (and total rejection of real working class issues) turned me off . . . fortunately. I find that the Trotskyists have a very patronising attitude to the working class that I presume results from Lenin's theory that, on their own, workers can only reach a trade union consciousness and thus, hey presto, the need for the guiding light of a revolutionary party—it does not seem to have done that much guiding so far! And what do you think of anarchism? I have occasionally read anarchist papers—some of them are nothing more than liberal rubbish (such as Freedom), but others do have more sense (e.g. Direct Action) in that they emphasise the class rather than the culture!

I must say that I do have my differences with the SPGB analysis, particularly over how socialism will be achieved. I completely agree with you that a majority of the working class needs to be fighting for socialism, but. as Marx said, "ideas change in struggle". To me this means that at any time there is a possibility of real change because in mass struggle the ideas of the working class do change. For example, if the miners strike had spread to other sectors (as it had to in order to avoid defeat), then we might have seen a possible revolution. I think that it is very Leninist to underestimate the abilities and potential of the working class. You say "the democratic conquest of political power”— what about the real power in this society, the economic structure? Thatcher is merely a puppet of the bosses' interests. To talk of revolution in such mild terms makes me think of naivety such as what would you do if there was a military uprising against the new socialist government?

I also think that you emphasise educational activities far too much. I would never deny the importance of propaganda, but getting back to that original quote from Marx: “ideas change in struggle” . . . not through passive book reading. So I would argue that socialists should be fighting back against this rotten system in their own lives in the here and now (for example, agitating for a strike in their workplace, leafletting their community about the Poll Tax and helping to set up Anti-Poll Tax Unions) and supporting all other working class people in their struggles against class society. I think that it is only through such a movement as this that society will be changed—but I am very interested to hear what you have to say

Norman Davis

London, N16

REPLY
1. Yes, as Marx said, ideas change in struggle. But this does not mean to say that ideas change suddenly. In fact, the process of overcoming the overwhelming conditioning of capitalism is itself a long hard struggle. We do not underestimate the potential of the working class, as the Leninists do, when we say that the majority of workers are at present imbued with support for capitalism. There is a great potential for workers to make the transition to understand and want socialism instead, but we would be kidding ourselves and others if we accepted, for example, that if the miners' strike had spread "then we might have seen a possible revolution". The key precondition for a socialist revolution is that a majority should be socialists, fully conscious of their class position and their interests as workers in ending capitalism. If the miners' strike had benefited from greater solidarity amongst other workers, it would have improved the miners' position, and would have been a sign that class consciousness was growing. But that simple condition, of a majority of genuine socialists, still stands as an indispensable precondition for the revolutionary change we seek, and we continue to work with great determination to build up such a majority.

2. Yes, Thatcher is a puppet of the bosses' interests. But political power within capitalism cannot be overestimated—the bosses spend millions through their parties securing and organising political power. In Britain today, the state forces including the military are, as a matter of concrete fact, under the control of a parliamentary government which is given electoral support by the very workers whose interests it opposes. Many on the Left find it hard to face up to the harsh fact that capitalism, in all of its forms, does depend on the acquiescence and/or apathy of a majority of workers themselves. With the growth of a socialist majority, determined to end capitalism, the notion of a military uprising to prevent this is nonsensical. How would such a military force even exist or survive against the solid and hostile opposition of a socialist majority throughout society? The greater degree of class consciousness which that would entail on the part of the majority would make it more than likely that such a military sect would be starved of food, of power and electricity supplies, of uniforms, of weapons and of credibility.

3. You say that "passive book reading” and educational work are not enough on their own, but must be combined with active campaigning, e.g. against the poll tax, or for strikes at work, as, going back once again to Marx, "ideas change in struggle”. It is false to make such a rigid division between passive reading and active action. Reading and learning is itself an activity. Furthermore, the substance and subject matter of what socialists write and read about is, of course, the subject matter of the class struggle itself. And, on the other hand, a lot of so-called radical actions are actually nothing more than feeble attempts to reform and modify capitalism, to dress up oppression in a new guise. But, as far as trade union and strike action are concerned, or democratic efforts by workers to combine and improve (or just maintain) their wages and conditions of work, the Socialist Party fully supports such action. As active members of a whole range of trade unions, many of our members have worked very long and hard at such active struggle. But as a political party standing unequivocally for socialist revolution our role, which we carry out to the best of our abilities, is to put to our fellow workers the most urgent choice facing the entire human race now in 1989: are we. the deprived majority, going to allow the world's resources to remain harmfully in the hands of about 1-5 per cent of the population, or are we at last going to act on our true interests. and organise politically, consciously and democratically for the overthrow of capitalism, and the establishment of world socialism?

Editors.