World Socialist Radio - The Magic Gadget IRL (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

The Magic Gadget IRL by The Socialist Party of Great Britain

This episode reflects on life before smartphones and social media, describing how children in the 1990s experienced the world directly, without digital pressures such as FOMO (fear of missing out), sexting, cyberbullying, and addictive “attention economy” features designed to maximize engagement. It highlights growing concerns about the mental health impacts of ubiquitous device use among young people and discusses recent policy responses such as Australia’s ban on major social media platforms for under-16s and widespread bans on phone use in schools, though evidence of real benefits remains mixed. It also notes how pervasive smartphone ownership even among very young children blurs safety with surveillance, and that regulatory efforts may simply push kids toward less regulated, potentially worse online spaces.

Taken from the January 2026 edition of The Socialist Standard.

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

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Featuring music: ‘Pushing P (Instrumental)’ by Tiga Maine x Deejay Boe. Source: Free Music Archive, licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

Alternatives (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Meet the New Year, same as the Old Year’ to paraphrase Pete Townshend. Which begs the question, will we be fooled again?

Certainly January 2026 seemed to be serving up familiar news items. Putin continuing to pound Ukraine, Trump similarly enhancing his country’s democratic credentials through a military adventure in Venezuela to kidnap their president and his wife. Xi Jinping in Beijing must surely be casting covetous glances at Taiwan while feeling on-trend with his fellow presidents.

Israel continues air strikes on Gaza while, no doubt, Hamas quietly bide their time plotting another blow for liberation, perhaps by killing more kids at a pop festival. Meanwhile Iranian state forces have been slaughtering protesters who are sick of the repressive theocratic regime.

Meanwhile in good old Blighty, the Labour government continues to demonstrate that inequality cannot be taxed away. The Prime Minister, posturing on the international stage, pursues his partial morality by speaking out in condemnation of Russia’s assault on Ukraine while remaining silent over USA’s incursion into Venezuela.

Rather than New Year resolutions, what is required is New Year revolution, initially in people’s thinking. As long as nationalist concepts continue to be entertained to a greater or lesser extent around the world, nothing fundamentally can change.

Wars and armed conflicts will continue to kill, almost without discrimination, huge numbers of men, women and children. Each death utterly preventable. To continue to support, actively or passively, maintaining the present system is to support the killing.

New Year’s resolutions are largely wishful thinking, largely forgotten halfway through the month. However, to make a telling change in the world in favour of the vast majority does require resolution. A resolve that will be challenging and will be challenged. It’s either passive acceptance of the status quo or the active and conscious pursuit of an alternative society.

Early alternatives

Emerging capitalism spawned attempts to bring about political change and establish ideal, cooperative communities. The seventeenth century, during the upheavals of the English Civil War, saw the rise of two such movements.

The Levellers were concerned with political and legal changes via extended suffrage, annual parliaments, religious freedom and equal justice for all. Printed manifestos were the main campaigning device, allied to public debates such as those in Putney. Influential for a while within the New Model Army.

The Diggers focused on economic change through the abolition of private property, common ownership of land, communal farming and the ending of wage labour. Themes that continue to resonate with socialist thinking of the present day.

The difference between the two groups also continues to persist, agitators for political change on one hand, direct action communalists on the other. Little recognition at the time that the two elements are intimately connected.

The political establishment of the day, the Commonwealth under Cromwell, produced its own Agreement of the People marginalising the Levellers. Meanwhile the Diggers were subjected to legal action and violence for their occupation of land.

So the new governing force did what subsequent governments continue to do to the present day, that is defuse radical aspirations through short-term measures that really changed nothing significant in the political and economic relations as experienced by the vast majority. However, the way had been opened for the rising capitalist class to usurp the fading power of feudalism that eventually re-divided the people into two classes, capitalist and workers, a situation that still persists today.

Brutal conditions

The brutal conditions workers had to endure when industrial capitalism was enacting its steam-powered revolution produced an inevitable reaction. Combinations, early trade unions, met with an outright ban initially, while the Luddites faced deployments of soldiers and the hangman’s noose as governments did little to mask their sympathies.

There were capitalist employers who did take a more enlightened view, seeing no benefit in overworked employees living in squalor. Famously, Robert Owen ran the New Lanark manufacturing community on the banks of the Clyde. Reasonable living and working conditions, at least by the standards of the times, along with health and education services were undoubtedly an improvement. The fundamental aim of that community still remained the creation of profit.

Owen demonstrated that the profit motive could be well served, perhaps better served, through a more-or-less contented workforce. This was an early example of welfare capitalism, what would become social democracy on a national scale. As an alternative to the miserable slums in which so many urban workers then existed, New Lanark would have been acceptable. It was not, though, any sort of alternative to capitalism, but an indication of how it would develop as a functioning society.

Owen would go on to become involved with the New Harmony utopian community in Indiana. 20,000 acres along the banks of the river Wabash. He is often credited with being the founder of utopian socialism and the co-operative movement. Perhaps he was also an early syndicalist through his involvement with the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, the attempt to have a national trade union for all workers. An aim of the GNCTU was to use the combined power of all workers to assume control over industry to be operated on their own behalf. A general strike was envisaged as a means to this end. New Harmony, the GNCTU and the co-operative movement patently failed to bring about an alternative society as the whole world continues to be capitalist.

Modern failures

There have, of course, been many subsequent political movements and parties expressing their intention of overthrowing capitalism in favour of socialism. One strand of this has been social democratic gradualist organisations proposing to reform away capitalism. Despite at times succeeding to enact reforms that have achieved significant – usually short-term – beneficial changes, these parties have failed to maintain those improvements and, instead, have largely become managers of society on behalf of capitalism.

A variety of Leninist parties continue to advocate their own revolutionary model. However, wherever their designs have been realised subsequent to the Russian Revolution of 1917, they have only produced state capitalism in one form or another. None have at any time been socialist societies.

A truly socialist society means common ownership of the means of wealth production meeting everyone’s self-defined needs, with people freely contributing their talents and abilities, a society without money, democratically achieved worldwide through the conscious action of the vast majority, the workers.

Capitalism for ever?

Absolutely a huge task, but one that must be undertaken if there is to be an alternative to economic hardship, rationing of resources by ability to pay, and an almost continuous waste of life and resources through war. Otherwise these features of capitalism will simply continue ad infinitum.

The task of motivating a vast majority of the world’s population of 8 billion or so to embrace the concept of socialism and act in concert to realise this concept precludes there being any ready formula concocted by a minority. Those who would be vanguards to act on behalf of that majority are bound to fail. Only by common consent and commitment can the majority identify what needs to be done and institute those organisations required to deal with the process, overcoming obstacles already known and those that will undoubtedly arise.

This requires individual resolution to bring such change about, acceptance of responsibility as there is not, and cannot be, a leader or party who can do it on people’s behalf. Looking beyond those from left, right and centre claiming they have the way forwards.

It is for socialists, however few in number at present, to maintain the broad principles of socialism in the public domain and advance where and when possible. There can be no short cuts whatever others might claim to the contrary. On hearing any such claim, recall the title of The Who song alluded to at the start: ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. Take it to heart.

D.A.

Halo Halo (2026)

The Halo Halo! column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now supposing there was such an entity as a god, what would you think of a supreme being who demanded that males, while still a baby, were compelled to have their reproductive organs mangled, maimed, mutilated and chopped about?

‘God says, “This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised”. The act of circumcision is to be performed on every male child on the eighth day after birth, whether born into the household or purchased from a foreigner, and it serves as a physical sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s lineage’ (Genesis 17.10.).

Male circumcision is not mentioned in the Quran but it is practised by followers of Islam too.

Unless you’re a misandrist feminist there is nothing at all humorous or jokey in the act described above. And there’s nothing funny about the mangling, maiming, and mutilating carried out on females in the name of religion either.

A UNICEF report issued in March 2024 on the subject of FGM (female genital mutilation) noted that 230 million females, young and adult, had been subjected to FGM. The report noted that over an eight year period, from 2016 to 2024, 30 million more individuals, a 15 percent increase, had had FGM imposed upon them. The report said that there were grounds for believing that FGM was being carried out on girls at even younger ages, ‘often before their fifth birthday’.

A little like the creationists in the USA who are always trying to get rid of Darwinist teachings in schools there are those who use the judicial process to maintain the continuation of FGM. In Gambia at the end of 2025 its supreme court heard from ‘religious traditionalists who are hoping to topple the country’s poorly enforced ban on female genital mutilation.’ Apparently, ‘The Gambia has one of the highest rates of FGM in the world, with 73 percent of women and girls aged 15 to 49 having undergone the procedure (Unicef). FGM was outlawed in 2015 in the West African nation by then dictator Yahya Jammeh, who branded it outdated and not a requirement of Islam. The ban was subsequently upheld in July 2024 when lawmakers rejected a controversial bill… plaintiffs filed an appeal with the Supreme Court in April, arguing that the procedure is a deeply rooted cultural and religious practice’.

In Kenya, The Standard reported that attacks had been carried out on church property and personnel and on girls and male church associates and that some of their members had been forcefully re-circumcised. The report gave no indication as to who was carrying out these attacks.

A December article at LBC is unequivocal as to FGM: ‘FGM/C is not a cultural ‘practice. It is not a medical ‘procedure…It is not an “ethical dilemma”. It is violence against women and children.’

DC

Avoiding the elephant (2026)

Book Review from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Invisible Rivals. How We Evolved to Compete in a Cooperative World. By Jonathan R. Goodman. Yale University Press. 2025. xv+236pp.

This is a wide-ranging book. Written in a jargon-free and eminently accessible style, it is basically a work of evolutionary psychology, but it also steps into a number of other fields of knowledge and investigation, for example biology, anthropology, history, politics and economics. Its fundamental themes, as suggested in its title, are cooperation and competition and the part they play in human society.

As the author points out, this has been a hot topic of study for specialists in various fields over many years, and even more so in recent times. For most of these, the old idea of humans as red in tooth and claw, deep-down selfish and wicked and with social interaction dictated by an ethic of everyone for themselves has been superseded by an understanding that homo sapiens is capable of a wide range of behaviours according to the life conditions and experience of each particular individual and social group.

Many recent studies have emphasised that, if circumstances and social environment allow, human beings are likely to behave in generous and empathetic ways towards others, since we are essentially flexible creatures with behaviour shaped by the society into which we are born and become part of. It follows from this that, if life takes place under adverse systems and conditions, this can provoke negative reactions in which communities are divided among themselves and people may be inclined to seek their own advantage at the expense of others. Some studies stress the ‘positivity’ element more strongly and see human beings as an instinctively kind and associative species, ‘pro-social’ or ‘super-cooperators’, whose default, whose natural inclination is to share and be cooperative and mutually supportive. In this view, only when conditioned from the earliest years to compete and pursue personal ‘success’ and reward, as in today’s capitalist system, do humans shift away from sharing and towards selfishness and personal gain. But both these positions espouse the idea of humans as eminently flexible and adaptable creatures and often draw on evidence that, for the vast majority of the 300,000 years or more of human existence, we lived in sharing egalitarian societies with no rulers or ruled, no resource domination and relatively little conflict. That was when we were hunter-gatherers, and the argument continues that, only when that lifestyle was replaced by one of settled agriculture starting around 12,000 years ago, (the ‘tiny speck in our history’ referred to in this book) did hierarchies and states come into being and result in struggles for power, development of classes and the existence of rulers and ruled, provoking predatory behaviours and setting people against one another.

All this of course fits in nicely with the socialist advocacy of an egalitarian society, which, via modern technology, could guarantee a more secure level of existence than hunter-gatherer societies and could be based on free and equal access to all goods and services, with no buying and selling, no wages or salaries with cooperative endeavour aimed at satisfying human needs rather than seeking profit. So nothing in ‘human nature’ would prevent this. Indeed, if human beings are either ‘naturally’ cooperative and inclined to share or even sufficiently flexible to welcome such a lifestyle as being in both the collective interest and their own, then surely it will fit them like a glove.

However, the author of this book sees things rather differently. He presents what one commentator has called ‘a highly nuanced account of human competition and cooperation’. According to this, though we are capable of being either selfish or altruistic, the selfish side tends to prevail, something we may not even always be aware of ourselves. In other words, in most of our dealings, the motives we present to others may be different from what they believe and indeed from what we ourselves believe. In this view, a human tendency for self-interested manipulation is seen as fundamentally present. As the author puts it, ‘selfishness and double dealing are basic human traits to be found in everyone, including themselves’ and ‘deception and exploitation are deeply rooted in our natures’. So selfish goals are seen to be hidden under a cloak of apparent altruism or selflessness. Thus the ‘invisible rivalry’ of the book’s title.

But what about humankind’s approximately 290,000 years of apparently egalitarian and conflict-light hunter-gathering? The writer does not neglect this but argues that, in terms of equality and conflict, things were more nuanced and not necessarily as one-sided as presented by many studies of anthropology and palaeontology, pointing rather towards his more ambiguous take on ‘human nature’. His verdict is that, though we commonly share and reciprocate, this does not make us innately cooperative. It just makes us ‘animals capable of cooperation’. Here it is noticeable, however, that, though he draws on a wide range of sources which point in favour of his thesis, other key sources providing widely recognised evidence for the ‘highly flexible’ or ‘ultra-cooperative’ idea, some of which have been reviewed in this journal, are notably missing. There is no mention whatever, for example, of the work of widely recognised experts in this field such as John Gowdy or R. Brian Ferguson. So it is difficult not to see a certain amount of ‘cherry-picking’ in what is presented here.

As for the writer’s take on the current state of humanity and the economic system that dominates it – capitalism -, he clearly does not consider that the equivocal view of humanity he presents prevents change or improvement and he does acknowledge the possibility and importance of cooperation. He states unequivocally in fact that human society could not have survived ‘without intense cooperation, and this is implicit in the support he expresses for what might be called ‘progressive’ social policies and developments, ie, more openness, democracy and equality. He refers to a need for ‘the political will to enact policies that upend the modes of exploitation we have normalized and the cultures of inequality we allow to thrive’ and for this to happen via ’cooperation at the local and global levels’. But he sees any such changes entirely in the context and through the lens of the existing system, thereby avoiding the elephant in the room, ie, that system’s imperative to keep on existing and producing for the profit of the tiny minority. We, on the other hand, would regard any attempt to bring about change or improvement within its framework as tinkering at the edges, a sort of ‘moving the deckchairs on the Titanic’.

Howard Moss

Rootless (2026)

From the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Grassroots Left, one of the factions within new leftist political grouping Your Party, says in the programme for the central executive committee of the party: ‘Our goal is to bring an end to capitalism, a socially and ecologically destructive system driven by the profit motive and private ownership of the means of production, and replace it with a socialist society organised to meet people’s needs, not generate profit’ (tinyurl.com/ysjhycp9).

Wonderful, they want to bring an end to capitalism! Well…. no, they are regurgitating Old Labour nonsense from decades ago because they go on to say that they want to have ‘key sections of the economy owned and democratically controlled by the people who work in them and depend upon them’.

We wonder what those key sections are. Shipbuilding? Steel? Textiles? Nah, too late mate, all gone. According to current UK government figures, service industries (care homes, education, estate agents, advertising, and of course banks and insurance companies, the latter four being of sod all use except in a capitalist society) account for 81 percent of total UK economic ‘output’.

And if they did get their way, given they are talking about the UK only, how do they intend to manage the interchange of wealth between this services economy with the world capitalist economy, ever hungry for profits? We don’t have a clue, and neither do they.

Then what happens when the capitalist economy goes into recession, as it inevitably will? Which of these geniuses will have the task of wringing their hands as they take the so sad decision of cutting services and jobs?

How many workers are going to fall for such tripe? Probably not many, but it will help capitalism as it will sow even more confusion in workers’ minds as to the real meaning of socialism.

Budgie

Cooking the Books: Wages for housework? (2026)

The Cooking the Books Column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The BBC News website carried an article on 9 December headed ‘A wage for housework? India’s sweeping experiment in paying women’ which described schemes in various Indian states under which some poorer women were given a regular monthly payment by the state. The International Wages for Housework campaign trumpeted this as a victory for their campaign, issuing a media statement that ‘after more than 50 years of campaigning, wages for housework is becoming a reality – in India and elsewhere’.

They date the beginning of their campaign to when Selma James raised their demand at a women’s liberation conference in Manchester in March 1972 but went further back to ‘the work of Eleanor Rathbone, the Independent MP who won Family Allowances (now Child Benefit) in the UK’. The payments under the Indian schemes are not ‘wages’ at all but, like family allowances and child benefits, a handout from the state. The whole ‘wages for housework’ campaign is basically a campaign for this social reform; not necessarily a bad reform, as paying the money directly to the woman rather than her husband is an advance. Even so, it is still a social reform and, as with all reforms that involve the state paying workers money, one that has unintended consequences.

When, during the last world war, a scheme for family allowances became practical politics thanks in large part to Eleanor Rathbone, the Socialist Party brought out a pamphlet Family Allowances: A Socialist Analysis which argued that ‘family allowances will lower the workers’ standards of living instead of raising them’. This was based on what wages are and what ultimately determines their level.

Wages are a price of what workers have to sell: their mental and physical energies. Their amount reflects the cost of buying the goods and services required to produce and reproduce this. In the days before family allowances, this included an element to raise future workers and so covered, at least partially, the cost of maintaining a ‘housewife’ and bringing up children. The economic effect of paying family allowances would be to reduce the amount that the employer needed to pay workers to reproduce their labour power and raise a family. As the pamphlet put it:

‘Once it is established that the children (or some of the children) of the workers have been “provided for” by other means, the tendency will be for wage levels to sink to new standards which will not include the cost of maintaining such children’.

Thirty years later we made the same point in commenting on James’s pamphlet Women, the Unions and Work. Her demand for ‘wages for housework’, the May 1973 Socialist Standard said, ‘seems a little naive’:

‘Wages are the price for which workers sell their labour power. That price will be generally sufficient to keep a worker, and his family, at a socially accepted standard. Payment made for housework, like family allowances or free transport, would act as a brake on wages’.

The payments to poor women in India are likely in time to put a brake on wages too, even if, through being paid directly to women, they represent an improvement for the women concerned in making them less dependent on a man.

Selma James had been a Trotskyist (though of a group that recognised that Russia was state capitalist) and quoted Marx, but Marxian economics was not her strong point. Marx would have advised her to change the reformist slogan ‘Wages for Housework’ to the revolutionary watchword ‘Abolish The Wages System’. Then both men and women would have access on the same basis to what they needed to live and enjoy life.

Obituary: Malcolm Rae (2026)

Obituary from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Malcolm (Mac) Rae, who has died at the age of 95, had been a member of the Socialist Party since 1982. He had been an apprentice car mechanic and later a colliery plant fitter, who could ‘fix’ anything (vacuum cleaners, electrical appliances, furniture) and would do it not just for his own family but for friends and neighbours too.

He always had a scientific mindset with no truck for religious ideas, and his experience of work and looking at the world around him convinced him as a young adult that the way society operated was not in the interest of the vast majority of people. So when he came into contact with the Socialist Party, he quickly found agreement with our case for a completely different way of organising social and economic affairs which would assure equality and security for everyone instead of poverty and insecurity for so many.

From then on, as a member of South Wales (previously Swansea) Branch of the Party, he became an active advocate himself for our ideas with wide personal knowledge and understanding that made him an acute and an astute participant in any kind of discussion or debate. His ongoing wish was to see the vision he supported live on until its aims are achieved.

Our sympathies to his son Ian, daughter Kim, and their families.

South Wales Branch

50 Years Ago: Who likes facing Labour’s future? (2026)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

A generation of workers have placed their trust and wasted their lives on the pie-crust promises of ambitious politicians. More than thirty years have passed since the Labour Party issued its post-war election manifesto: Let us Face the Future. People like Barbara Castle, who were rising ‘stars’ of the left, when Aneurin Bevan was chief demagogue, have lived to stand in the crumbling ruins of all the misguided hopes which they themselves helped to build. Once again the ludicrous spectacle is one where the reformers proposed and capitalism disposed. We are now living in their future.

Every group of workers in the NHS has been (and will continue to be) ruthlessly exploited by their Labour government overlords. (Yes, we know and by the Tories.)

The nurses, whose devotion to their patients has been mercilessly used by successive governments, were forced to organize, demonstrate and threaten strike action. Then the ambulance crews were pushed into the same position. The ward orderlies and laundry workers caved in under the weight of increasing drudgery and near starvation wages. The extreme reluctance of any of these workers to add to the suffering of the sick and aged, has been cynically played on by the Tory and Labour governments.

The latest miserable episode is that of the junior doctors. Driven by being on duty or on stand-by for as much as one hundred hours per week and working for as many as eighty hours with virtually unpaid overtime, they banned overtime. This brought about the closing down of wards, casualty departments and even entire hospitals. If this reads like a nightmare, that is what capitalism does to dreams of reformers. (…)

Aneurin Bevan once said the Tories were ‘lower than vermin’. What does that make the Wilson, Castle and Foot mob? Regretfully, calling names however well deserved, does little to raise the level of class-consciousness. When the working class wake up, they will contemptuously brush aside these petty upstarts and, in fact, dismiss all leaders. Ultimately the responsibility rests with the workers. Their political maturity (or lack of it) is reflected in how they vote. The power to continue the agony of capitalism derives from the votes of the workers. The power to end it will come from the same source.

[From the article, 'Who likes facing Labour’s future?' by Harry Baldwin, Socialist Standard, February 1976.]

Action Replay: Both sides now (2026)

The Action Replay column from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the attractions of watching sport is that of giant-killing, where an underdog defeats a far more powerful or wealthy club or player. This can be even more surprising and satisfying than a long-priced winner in a horse race.

Cup competitions, in football and elsewhere, can throw up encounters between mismatched opponents which sometimes do lead to a giant-killing. In this season’s Carabao Cup, League 2 Grimsby Town beat Manchester United, and in 2000 in the Scottish FA Cup Inverness Caledonian Thistle defeated Celtic. One of the classic cases was in 1972, when non-league Hereford United beat First Division Newcastle United, which included an iconic goal from Ronnie Radford. And in this year’s third round, non-league Macclesfield Town beat the holders Crystal Palace, in what has been described as ‘the biggest upset in Cup history’. Comparable victories can happen at international level, too, such as Iceland’s win over England at the 2016 European Championships.

Similarly, sometimes, in individual sports. Boris Becker won the Wimbledon tennis men’s singles title in 1985 when unseeded, and in 2021 Emma Raducanu won the US Open title after having to play three qualifying matches to get into the main draw.

The opposite to giant-killing can be unequal and so uncompetitive events or tournaments, and anything too one-sided can be unappealing to spectators. At the time of writing, Wolverhampton Wanderers are adrift at the bottom of the Premier League, having had to wait till their twentieth match for their first win. The Italian national rugby union team had won just sixteen matches in the Six Nations tournament since joining it in 2000, and lost 112.

The recent Ashes Test Matches between Australia and England looked like being very ill-matched, with Australia winning the first three tests rather easily, the first being over in just two days. But then England got their own back, winning the fourth test in two days, before losing again in the fifth.

Contests between unequals can take place in boxing too, such as the recent fight between former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and ‘social influencer’ Jake Paul. Joshua was much the heavier, in addition to being far more experienced, and he won by knockout, with Paul suffering a broken jaw. The purse for the fight was reportedly to be $184m. The recent ‘Battle of the Sexes’ tennis match between Nick Kyrgios and Aryna Sabalenka may have been similar. It’s not clear how much they got paid, but both happen to be represented by the same sports agency. The match was much criticised as being unexciting, and also not helpful for women’s tennis, but no doubt it created a lot of publicity.

Maybe giant-killing gives workers the idea of ‘rags to riches’ social change, as very occasionally happens under capitalism.

Paul Bennett

SPGB February Events (2026)

Party News from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Editorial: Iran’s cry of the oppressed (2026)

Editorial from the February 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

People, shot by live ammunition, too terrified to go to hospital for fear of being arrested. Body bags spilling out of mortuaries onto the street. ‘Security’ forces extorting the equivalent of 6 years labourer’s annual wage to return the dead to their families. 18,000 protesters arrested, some facing summary execution. A total communications blackout, forcing some to walk hundreds of miles to border areas to get information out.

As this goes to press the Iranian government, undaunted by Donald Trump’s bluster, says it has killed around 2,500 protesters, but if they’re admitting to that figure, the real toll might well be far higher.

Some protesters were apparently hoping for the return of the monarchy under Reza Pahlavi, son of the hated former shah, who had been energetically trying to stir up Iranian public opinion from his safe home in Washington DC. That was seen by most media pundits as an unlikely, even farcical proposition, and one too monstrous for anyone who remembers the brutal repression of the shah, before the advent of the mad mullahs. But the alternatives, civil war or else a military coup, didn’t look attractive either.

The Iranian people only want what anyone wants, to be free to live decent lives. In pursuit of that modest aspiration they have repeatedly shown a level of personal bravery that commands a heartrending respect. ‘Sometimes parents go to the protests and don’t come back,’ explained one mother to her two young children, shortly before she too was killed by police gunfire. ‘My blood, and yours, is no more precious than anyone else’s’.

They have never stopped fighting the theocracy, and they probably never will. Within just two weeks of the 1979 revolution, women were out on the street protesting against the new mandatory hijab, which followed ‘a ban on alcohol; the separation of men and women in universities, schools, pools and beaches; and limitations on broadcasting music from radio and television.’ More protests came in 1992, ’94 and ’95, then a massive one in 1999 following closure of a liberal newspaper, then in 2007 because of petrol rationing, and again in 2009-10 due to what many saw as a rigged election. More protests followed in 2011 in solidarity with Arab Spring uprisings elsewhere, and later in 2017 over the cost of living, and 2018 over water shortages. Most recently in 2022, months of protest followed the alleged judicial murder of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the ‘morality’ police (as if they knew the meaning of the word) for failing to wear a headscarf. In all these protests, the police went in with guns blazing. Hundreds were killed, thousands arrested, and many executed, including by hanging from cranes in public places ‘to deter others’.

The regime may cling on for now, and the more it crumbles, the more viciously it will oppress its own people. Its leaders – and its army of police thugs – know what will happen to them if they finally lose control. They won’t expect mercy, and they damn well won’t deserve any.

Slaughter in Gaza, slaughter in Ukraine, slaughter in Sudan, in Myanmar, and now in Iran. Dozens of armed conflicts elsewhere. When does it ever stop, in capitalism? The tragedy is that it never will, until we bring an end to the competitive market system which sets humans forever against each other, just so that a tiny few can profit.

Editorial: Principles or Expediency (1939)

Editorial from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

From its formation the S.P.G.B. took a firm stand for “principle” against “expediency,” and, unlike other organisations which also professed attachment to principle, the members of the S.P.G.B. really meant what they said and acted up to it. The controversy was not one of personalities but of a fundamentally different view of things. Yet it could truthfully be said of the advocates of expediency that most of them were not very clear about the implications of their attitude. They would say that they realised the necessity of remaining loyal to Socialist principles, such as opposing all capitalist parties, but when it came to applying the principle they would constantly find some urgent and special, but only “temporary,” reason for suspending the principle. In practice this meant that temporary became permanent, and the principle was forgotten.

The issue would arise then in just the same manner as it does to-day. There would be a Tory Government in office, and the alleged Socialists in the I.L.P. or Labour Party would say, “In principle we are as much opposed to Liberals as we are to Tories, but it would be a good thing if we were to promise to help the Liberal opposition if in return they will promise some social reform legislation.” To the superficial short view it looked good business, but the price that had to be paid far outweighed the immediate advantage. In order to help secure the victory of the Liberal Party the other parties to the bargain had to drop all pretence of Socialist propaganda and devote their efforts to convincing the electorate that Liberal social reforms were the thing that really mattered. The first duty of the Socialist Party is to make Socialists, and the policy of expediency meant the almost total suppression of Socialist propaganda.

Needless to say, when a Liberal Government was in office the expediency-mongers often transferred their allegiance to the Tory Party.

The Socialist Party condemned expediency and showed how it confused, demoralised and divided the workers. Men and women, just beginning to learn that capitalism is the enemy, would suddenly be told that it was urgently necessary to support one section of the capitalists against another. They learned to suspect their leaders, often wondering whether their chief allegiance was to their own party or to the Liberal or Tory Party. Expediency also divides the workers among themselves. It was all very well to support “Free Trade” when helping the Liberal Party, but workers in industries directly affected by foreign competition thought they had just as good a case for supporting tariffs, and the Tory Party, which advocated them. And how could the worker who was told to vote for a capitalist party and its programme of reforms go on believing that “Socialism is the only hope of the workers”?

Helping Capitalists to Power

Socialists, taking their stand on Socialist principles, went on pointing out the harm of sacrificing the substance for the shadow, the achievement of Socialism for the momentary petty concession from the capitalist class. They showed from past and present history how that policy produced only disappointment and betrayal, and prevented the growth of the Socialist movement. Above all, Socialists insisted on the hard truth that all capitalist agents who are elected to Parliament use their power to protect and preserve the capitalist system against the interest of the working class. Elect a Liberal reformer to-day on the strength of his promises and you will find him to-morrow using the armed forces to defeat a strike.

It is just the same in foreign affairs. Every capitalist and Labour politician swears his love of peace, but it only needs a realisation on the part of the capitalists that their interests are threatened to see the peace-loving politician declaring war. Liberal and Labour Party leaders, prior to 1914, were the peace-lovers; but war found them in coalition with their erstwhile Tory enemies, waging capitalist war, enforcing conscription, and so on. Only a brief while before President Wilson launched America into the War he had been elected—with the support of alleged Socialists—on an explicit promise to keep the country out of war. Chamberlain, the “peace-maker” of Munich, may be wanting war at no distant date, and if he does his way will be made easier by his reputation as a peace-lover. His present opponents in the Liberal and Labour Parties will be found helping him to win over the population to a policy of war. Expediency will again ha’ve helped the capitalist class to their task of hoodwinking the workers. Yet expediency has its surface attraction. The alleged Socialist who hails Chamberlain for preserving peace has apparently a substantial claim, just as has the opponent of Chamberlain, who urges unity with other capitalist groups, to “defend democracy.” But whichever group has its way the workers will be divided, will be deceived into entrusting control of the political machinery in capitalist hands, and will have their attention taken away from the basic fact that it is capitalism which produces wars, capitalism which stands in the way of Socialism.

Once Socialists give up principle for expediency they lose their way and get entangled in the intricate maze of capitalist political intrigue. Worst of all, they become divided, attaching themselves to different and rival sections of capitalist movements. Wars about capitalist interests masquerading as wars for democracy or nationalism are the most tragic example. Expediency in the last War naturally led to so-called Socialists fighting on the Allied side for “democracy” or “self-determination” and on the German side for “culture against Russian barbarism.”

The Czechs, who in the last War declared that they were being loyal to Socialism by fighting to dismember Austria and gain Czech independence, have their counterpart to-day in the Ukrainian “Socialists,” who are prepared to back Hitler-Germany in order to secure Ukrainian independence from Poland. One of them told a News Chronicle correspondent (News Chronicle, December 9th, 1938): “Better an alliance with the devil than continued Polish oppression.” Very short-sighted, of course, and incompatible with Socialist principle, but so is all expediency.

Marxism and United Fronts (1939)

From the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists recognise the need for working class unity; we are enthusiastic supporters of a united front. But we cannot, and will not, support unity at all costs. It is true to state that a real united front of the working class can only come into being when it is based on the solid foundation of Socialist knowledge. We are, therefore, according to our Socialist principles, obliged to oppose united fronts of the character so often presented, because the object which is aimed at is not of a Socialist character, nor is the basis of the suggested unity Socialist knowledge. Our battle-cry is, therefore, not unity at all costs, but unity on Socialist principles, the unity of an intelligent, politically organised, and determined working class for the overthrow of class society.

Some people may think that this is a very nice ideal, but it is not practical—it is not possible to get a majority of the working class to act along the lines indicated; therefore, it is essential, in order to stimulate activity, to seize upon some issue on which temporary agreement can be obtained between the various parties. In order to justify this form of activity our opponents often quote the Communist Manifesto (wrongly, in the sense that the Communist Manifesto never referred to the modern united front). “The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties . . .” (page 21, M. Lawrence edition). This section of the Manifesto is assumed to provide the justification for all kinds of absurdities in connection with the class struggle in general and unity in particular. It is put forward as the Marxian basis of action in the form of an unchanging truth, a dogma. It is inferred that, were Marx alive to-day, he would urge affiliation to the Labour Party and united fronts for everything and anything, as do our misguided friends, the C.P. and I.L.P. In passing, it might be to the point to add that it seems strange that people who are continually changing policy and tactics on the ground of being dialectical should fail to see (or is it refuse to see ?) that, by virtue of the dialectic, that which was applicable during 1848, and even remained so until 1870, is no longer suited to meet the needs of 1938 (so far as advanced countries are concerned).

If one reads the Communist Manifesto carefully that is made clear, e.g., the joint preface by Marx and Engels, 1872, states (Section 4): —

“… Although in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties therein enumerated.”

Since Section 2 deals with the same matter, it is also included in the joint remarks of Marx and Engels.

We accept the Marxian case, not because of any blind homage to either Marx or Engels, but because they discovered social truths the correctness of which history has proved up to the hilt. The Marxian approach to the social problems places a key, or tool, in the hands of the working class, by which they can understand past social history, the present, and from this glean valuable knowledge to guide their future revolutionary actions, and thereby accomplish the task of overthrow more quickly.

When Marxism is applied, not as a dogma, but as a beacon light to illumine the proletarian highway, then it will be realised that no fixed and unalterable tactics are possible, and also that the particular conditions in any given situation will determine the details of the course to be pursued. Sections 2 and 4 were, and still are, suited to meet the requirements of the infant proletariat in their struggles in countries which have still to overthrow feudalism and establish capitalism. If we view past history we find that man’s development socially was in proportion to the development of his tools. At the stage where private property became established classes were born and class struggles commenced. The ruling class were always the most important class economically. The rise of the modern capitalist :class made them economically the most important class. But they, in order to perform their function, i.e., carry social development a stage further, were compelled to establish their political supremacy in order to permit the breaking down of the feudal fetters which restricted further social progress. In other words, the historic mission of capitalism is to create a great proletariat, eliminate the peasant, establish social production, and centralise control. To accomplish this task the capitalist class had to carry out the revolutionary overthrow of feudalism. If we keep in mind the fact that under the feudal system there were several classes, e.g., aristocracy, peasants, capitalists, and the then developing proletariat, we will see that the class struggle assumed a fourfold aspect. Further, it would not have been possible for the modern master class to have fought its battle with the feudal aristocracy without the aid of both peasants and workers. Again, capitalism was a necessary phase of social development; it therefore represented progress. In addition, so long as the class struggles were of a many-sided character, the issue between the capitalist class and the working class could not become really clear. By way of indicating that this was the view of Marx, a quotation from “Revolution and Counter-Revolution” may serve : —

“The working class movement itself never is independent, never of an exclusively proletarian character, until all the different factions of the middle class, and particularly its most progressive faction, the large manufacturers, have conquered political power, and remodelled the state according to their wants. It is then that the inevitable conflict between the employer and employed becomes imminent and cannot be adjourned any longer . . .” (page 8).

When the capitalist class have attained their political supremacy, then the class conflict is speedily reduced to the clear issue between the two great classes, the last two classes to appear in social history. When one considers that the Communists then in existence were merely a handful, and also that the establishment of capitalism would provide the social, economic, and political conditions which would make the Socialist proposition understandable to the working class; then the correctness of the urge to the Communists to assist their enemies, the capitalist class, in the destruction of their enemies, the feudal aristocracy, to put it in the words of Marx : “In short, the Communists everywhere support all revolutionary movements against the existing social and political order of things” (i.e., the abolition of feudalism). The Manifesto also makes it clear that the Communists should not conceal their aims, i.e., the abolition of capitalism; also that their independence should be preserved.

Contrast this with the programmes of the Labour Party, I.L.P., and so-called Communist Party, who, if they ever had any Communist aims, disdain to reveal them. Their aims are, and always have been, such as any Conservative or Liberal could, at a pinch, vote for. To take a few of the more prominent issues : Work for the workless, 40-hour week, defend Austria, Czechoslovakia, democracy, etc. These are issues which the modern master class are interested in from time to time; there is nothing revolutionary about any of them.

Suppose we put the question: Was feudalism abolished here? The answer is yes. Were the social and political conditions necessary for working class emancipation created ? Again, yes. 

Then it follows that the possibility for the organisation of the working class on an independent basis, and of an exclusively proletarian character, have been in existence for many years. Our task is, therefore, clear: to organise the working class for overthrow, to create proletarian organisation based upon Socialist knowledge for the purpose of social revolution. Instead of doing this our united fronters are even fanatical in their avoidance of revolutionary activity. They squander the courage, enthusiasm, and generosity of the working class in the advocacy of Labour programmes which are essentially Liberal in character; then, on special occasions, become the brazen defenders of British capitalism. It is interesting to note that Engels, in a letter to Bebel, expressed strong views on the question of unit)? at all costs: — 

“Unity is quite a good thing so long as it is possible, but there are things which stand higher than unity. And when, like Marx and myself, one has fought harder all one’s life long against the alleged Socialists than against anyone else, one cannot greatly grieve that the struggle has broken out” (this refers to the party split) (page 402, Correspondence).

The letter dealing with immediate claims, by Marx and Engels jointly, to Liebknecht, Bracke and others, deals scornfully with the suggestion of dropping the issue of Socialism in order to attract the workers with a programme of immediate aims. Quoting the German S.D. programme as follows, “Let no one misunderstand us. We do not want to give up our party and our programme, but we think that for years hence we shall have enough to do if we concentrate our whole strength and energy upon the attainment of certain immediate aims which must in any case be achieved before the realisation of the more far-reaching ends can be thought of . . .” Engels replies as follows, “The programme is not to be given up but only postponed — to an indefinite period. One accepts it, though not really for one’s self and one’s own lifetime, but posthumously as an heirloom to be handed down to one’s children and grandchildren. In the meantime one devotes one’s ‘whole strength and energy’ to all sorts of petty rubbish and the patching up of the capitalist order of society, in order, at least to produce the appearance of something happening without at the same time scaring the bourgeois.”

How that fits exactly the so-called Communists to-day is self-evident. The Socialist Party refuses to be drawn into this campaign of peddling rubbish; our opponents, who are bankrupt of a case against us, can only resort to abuse and such absurd assertions as: “The S.P.G.B. do not take part in the day-to-day struggle,” etc.

When the question of the day-to-day struggle is examined, it is evident that no member of society, irrespective of whether worker or master, can escape the day-to-day struggle; it is the class struggle, in its non-revolutionary aspect. We, as members of the working class, are very much concerned about such things as the means test, slums, poverty, etc. We realise that, even within capitalist society, our poverty can be aggravated, hence the reason why we endorse the need for the working class to struggle against the encroachments of capitalism where possible. We also know that even the most diehard Tory Government must introduce reforms from time to time; and that, even were all that which has been promised to the workers by Tories, Liberals, Labourites, or so-called Communists (even in their wildest days prior to their extreme Conservatism), granted, we would have poverty, slums, unemployment, etc. As Socialists we want much more than they will ever give, viz., Socialism; consequently we logically concentrate on the quickest means of obtaining it. It is not our job to assist the master class in running society; in the course of doing so, national and local legislation and administration is essential. It is true to state that to-day possibly 99.9 per cent. of the time of Parliament and town councils are concerned with affairs of no interest or concern to the working class; this is so, irrespective of the personnel who form the Government.

We are Socialists, not careerists; therefore, we take our stand on the need for spreading Socialist knowledge. Keeping this in mind, we know that, in proportion to the growth of Socialist knowledge, the working class will find that they will be even more successful on the question of conditions of labour, etc. Try and visualise a May-day demonstration of Socialists, one hundred thousand strong; their banners bearing revolutionary slogans, their ranks the living manifestation of solid unity based upon Socialist knowledge, their action indicative of determination to abolish capitalism. Because you are intelligent, strong and united, you are feared, therefore respected; meantime you are politically ignorant, disorganised and weak; consequently you are not feared, but despised. When the working class are so organised then the words of Marx, “Let the ruling class tremble at a Communist revolution,” will be fully realised. The ruling class, in their panic, will be ever more ready to concede your demands; you will be in a position to demand. Now, in most cases, you only beg. The remedy for all the ills, unemployment, slums, poverty, war, etc., is Socialism; it should be established at the earliest opportunity. To accomplish this it is essential that a majority of the workers become Socialists. We, of the S.P.G.B., are doing our utmost to convince the workers of the need for Socialism; our task is made more difficult by the propaganda of confusionists who call themselves Socialists; however, we will win in the end. The importance of this task should not be under-rated. As Engels said (“Socialism, Utopian and Scientific”): “To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historic mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions, and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.” In other words, make Socialism first, then the rest (unity) will follow, and the working class will soon get rid of capitalism.

John Higgins

Notes by the Way: Indian workers beginning to see through the Nationalist Movement (1939)

The Notes by the Way Column from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Indian workers beginning to see through the Nationalist Movement

An interesting situation has arisen in Bombay, where there is a Congress (i.e., Indian Nationalist) Government. The Government, which has the support of the so-called Congress Socialist Party of Bombay, introduced a Trade Disputes Bill, whereupon the trade unions denounced it and called a one-day general strike as a protest. In the disturbances that ensued the police fired, and 75 persons were wounded, one of whom died.

The Indian Labour Journal (October 23rd. 1938) reports that the Labour group in the Legislative Assembly opposed the Bill, “The Government, however, is adamant, and is bearing down all opposition with their overwhelming majority, consisting not only of Congress members but also of representatives of the interests of capitalism. The Bill has been welcomed by the latter.”

According to Dr. Ambedkar, “The Bill takes away the legitimate, constitutional and powerful weapon of the workers, namely, the strike, by declaring it illegal, and therefore punishable in a large number of cases.” (Labour Journal, October 23rd.)

Other critics allege that the Bill will encourage the formation of “company unions” at the expense of genuine trade unions.

This and other inevitable conflicts between Indian workers and Indian capitalism will in time teach the workers that Nationalism, to the capitalist, is only a means to an end. As the Indian Labour Journal sadly recorded on July 17th, 1938, when Congress Governments replaced the former Governments capitalist interests behaved just as they did before, “everywhere the attitude of the employers remains the same.”

* * * *

Corsica, Nice and Tunis

Mr. W. N. Ewer, in an article in the Daily Herald (December 12th, 1938), did a useful service by recalling the history of the Italian demand for various French territories. In the first place, the demand did not originate with Mussolini: —

“Signer Mussolini has his own purposes in the organisation of these ‘spontaneous demonstrations.’ But Italian patriots were shouting for Corsica and Nice and Tunis before he or Fascismo was born.

The cry for Corsica goes back to the great days of the struggle for Italian unity. For Mazzini it was Divine will that all the Italian peoples should be joined in one Italian state. Garibaldi called himself an atheist : but he felt much the same.”

France got Nice and Savoy in 1860 as part of a bargain by which Napoleon III of France promised to help turn the Austrians out of Northern Italy and thus help the movement for Italian unity. The Italians complained bitterly that Napoleon only half fufilled his promise, but he got his price, the transfer of territory being covered by a fake plebiscite on the most up-to-date lines. “In the town of Nice only eleven votes were cast against annexation.”

Tunis has an equally interesting history. Except that the chief brigands arc different, it reads like a dress rehearsal for the imperialisms of our own day: —

“Italy began to look on Tunis as her predestined share in the coming partition of Northern Africa. And so it might have been. But at the Berlin (Peace with Honour) Congress, Salisbury, to get French assent to his taking of Cyprus, suggested that France might find ‘compensation’ in Tunis.

Bismarck, for his own ends, cordially backed the suggestion. All this, of course, in deadest secret.

Italy’s suspicions were aroused. She asked and got assurances from France : took them at face value : waited too long. In ’81 there was an incident on the Tunis-Algiers border. The French troops were ready. Within a few weeks Tunis was a French protectorate.

Great Britain, tongue in cheek, solemnly protested against the aggression she had suggested. Italy raged furiously : and has been angry ever since. For nearly sixty years the ‘Tunisian question’ has troubled Franco-Italian relations.”

* * * *

Cyprus under the Heel

As Mr. Ewer points out, the British Government encouraged France to seize Tunis while England took Cyprus. The apologists for British Imperialism will say, of course, “how lucky for the Cypriots to be under British rule.” But the Cypriots think otherwise, they want to join Greece, so Cyprus is now under rigid suppression following an outbreak in 1931. The Manchester Guardian summarises the present position as follows : —

“. . . repression is still the manner of rule. The former representative system of government remains suspended: close restrictions are kept on public meetings ; trade unions are discouraged the Press is suppressed or censored on the flimsiest of pretexts at the will of the Administration.” (Manchester Guardian, October 13, 1938.)

* * * *

Was J. R. MacDonald a Fraud? 

Mr. L. MacNeill Weir, M.P., was Parliamentary Secretary to the late J. R. MacDonald for eight years, from 1924 to 1931. Naturally, when he published his “The Tragedy of Ramsay MacDonald” (Seeker & Warburg, 15s.), and roundly condemned the character and conduct of his former hero, he placed himself under the obligation of explaining his own conduct. If he knew long before 1931, why did he not resign and tell what he knew? If he did not know until the end, that, too, wants explaining. When Mr. Weir’s position is examined he, and the Labour Party, come out in a very bad light. So do the other leaders of the Labour Party.

Mr. MacNeill Weir, replying to letters of criticism published in The Times, wrote, on December 3rd, 1938, defending himself. Here is a remarkable passage in his letter : —

“I am blamed for taking the post of Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1924 when I believed all the charges I have made against MacDonald in the book. In 1922 I was one of the Scots contingent who voted to make MacDonald leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party. We never believed Snowden’s repeated assertion at that time that MacDonald would sooner or later let the Party down.

It was not until the beginning of 1931 that suspicion of MacDonald’s bona fides arose, and suggestions began to be made of a change of leadership. All sorts of rumours, canards and defamatory aspersions circulate around public men—especially politicians. The fact is that MacDonald was a man of mystery, a human enigma, his real character only revealed in the passing of the years. We can be blamed for our unswerving loyalty to Dr. Jekyll during these years, but surely we are not to be condemned for not believing in the existence of Mr. Hyde.”

The S.P.G.B. opposed MacDonald always, i.e., onwards from 1904, when the S.P.G.B. was founded, but nothing we said of MacDonald ever stated such a strong case against leadership in general. We said that the popular theory of leadership of political parties included glorifying the party leader in order to make him an impressive and romantic figure in the eyes of the rank and file. There has to be a kind of conspiracy among the lesser leaders to deify the great ones in order to make the members loyal. What we did not contemplate was that the lesser leaders would fall for the same clap-trap themselves. Yet Mr. MacNeill Weir asks us to believe that, right up to 1931, he was being cruelly deceived by the man he knew intimately.

There is one thing Mr. Weir cannot get over. MacDonald’s speeches and writings were always empty of sound Socialist knowledge and principle, why did Mr. Weir not see through them? Another Labour M.P., Mr. Hugh Dalton, writing in the Daily Herald (November 18th, 1938), says that when he re-reads MacDonald’s old speeches now they give him “a sense almost of physical discomfort.” The answer is, and must be, that Mr. Weir and Mr. Dalton, and all their followers, did not know the difference between Socialist teaching, which endures, and social reformism, which depends for appeal on the trivial issue or the emotion of the moment.

The real tragedy is not the conduct of MacDonald, who, after all, was not a bit worse than his rival Labour leaders, but the admission made by Mr. Dalton that MacDonald’s empty rhetoric captivated his followers. After saying that the speeches were valueless, Mr. Dalton has to add, “But how his audiences loved them! It is a terrifying memory.”

Of course, Messrs. Weir and Dalton think that the Labour Party is healthier now. Perhaps it is. Perhaps experience has taught the rank and file a few things about the dangers of leadership. But if so, they owe little to Mr. Weir and Mr. Dalton, for both of these gentlemen are of opinion that the Labour Party “backed the wrong horse in 1922, when it made him (MacDonald) leader in place of Clynes.” As if the member of a war-time Coalition Government, who himself in 1931 was in favour of some kind of three-party Cabinet, was any more of a Socialist than MacDonald !

Before leaving the subject, it is worth while placing on record the claim made by a Communist, Mr. Idris Cox, in the Daily Worker (November 18th, 1938). He says that “MacDonald’s political record and ruinous policy was exposed by the Communists for 15 years before his death.”

This puts the Communists in a worse position than Mr. Weir. He says he sinned in ignorance. The Communists say they were well aware what MacDonald was, at least as early as 1922. Why, then, were the Communists, in 1922 and afterwards, urging the workers to vote for MacDonald?

* * * *

Mr. Middleton Murry to be a Church of England Clergyman

Six years ago, when Mr. J. Middleton Murry, the well-known critic and author, became active in “left-wing” politics, it was suggested in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD (September, 1932) that, unless he succeeded in overcoming his obvious failure to understand the principles of Socialism, he would, in due course, drift out again, disappointed. It is now announced that he is training as candidate for the Church of England priesthood. From an interview published in the Sunday Express (December 11th, 1938), it appears that the turning point for Mr. Murry was when he listened to a Hitler broadcast in June, 1934: “You may think me fantastic, but I said to myself : This is what the Bible meant by anti-Christ.”

One thing that can be said of Mr. Murry’s incursion into politics is that the freshness of his writings on Marxism and current problems must have given many people an interest which they would otherwise not have had. Along with some serious misunderstandings he wrote many things that were worth while.

* * * *

Admissions about Spain

At the beginning of the Spanish civil war, now become more and more a war with Italy and Germany, the British Government and the supporters of Franco vied with each other in suppressing important facts. It will be recalled how the authorities, month after month, disclaimed knowledge of German and Italian intervention, until the truth was too well known to be hidden. Now, late in the day, we have Mr. R. S. Hudson, Secretary, Overseas Trade Department, saying, in the House of Commons on December 1st, 1938, that “clearly one of the main reasons” why there are more German than British ships going to Franco territory “is the large quantity of munitions that the German Government are sending to Franco.”

Another recent admission was in the Evening Standard (December 2nd, 1938), where Mr. Aylmer Vallance showed that the assassination of the Conservative-Monarchist leader, Sotelo (often represented as the excuse for the rebellion), was not the only act of its kind. It was itself an act of vengeance for the assassination some days earlier of Lt. Castillo, a police officer, who was a member of the Socialist Youth League.

The Times, too, has several times admitted that air raids on Republican Spain are carried out from Italy. On July 23rd, 1938, for example, their correspondent at the Spanish frontier said:

“Some of the Italian airmen start out from Italy, rest at Majorca, then raid the Mediterranean coast, and return to Majorca for a few hours en route to their aerodromes in Italy.”

Among recent interesting features of the Spanish war was the promise made by Franco to Britain and France during the recent crisis, that he would remain neutral in the event of war (Manchester Guardian, December 1st, 1938). This may help to explain the continued pro-Franco attitude of British and French circles, which might have been expected to fear a Franco victory, lest it strengthen Italy and Germany in the Mediterranean.

* * * *

The Duchess of Atholl and her Supporters

The Conservative Duchess of Atholl fought West Perthshire against the Conservative Party because she wants the Government to take a strong line against Germany, Italy and Franco. Forward (December 10th) asked a number of well-known people how they would vote if they were in the constituency. Among those who said they would vote for her were Alfred Barnes, M.P. (of the Co-operative Party), Ellen Wilkinson, Tom Johnson, J. F. Horrabin, and H. N. Brailsford. They all gave much the same reason, approval of the Duchess’s foreign policy.

Among those who said “no” were Ethel Mannin, of the I.L.P. She said that, “as a revolutionary Socialist . . . I should not vote at all, my attitude being ‘a plague on both your houses.'”

Lord Elton (“National Labour“) said he would vote against her because “Chamberlain saved civilisation at Munich.”

Cecil Wilson, M.P., “Pacifist,” said he would write on his ballot paper, “War and all preparation for war is wrong.” “I stand for Peace, Freedom and the Brotherhood of Man.”

Lord Sanderson, “Pacifist and Socialist,” said he would vote for the Chamberlain candidate.

The Sunday Express (December 4th), has the following comment about the Duchess: —

“She makes a terrible howl about the troubles of the little children in Barcelona. But she is not so anxious about her own little children in Britain. She took the view, when the question of raising the school-leaving age came up, that children must be set to work at fourteen.”

* * * *

President Roosevelt Believes in Capitalism and Scrambled Eggs

“Actually, I am an exceedingly mild-mannered person, a practitioner of peace, a believer in the capitalistic system, and for my breakfast I am a devotee of scrambled eggs.” (Daily Mail, December 6th, 1938.)

* * * *

The Communists and Daladier

Since Daladier used Conscription and the armed forces to defeat the General Strike, the Communists are heaping abuse on him. The Daily Worker (November 28th) quotes, with approval, the statement that, in Berlin, Daladier, ever since Munich, has been regarded as a “Hitler man,” and says that the Daladier Government “represents the interests of the big monopoly capitalists, among whom are the closest friends of Hitler.” On December 8th, in the French Chamber of Deputies, a Communist, pointing at Daladier, said : “We, the Communists, are telling you to get out.” (Daily Express, December 9th.)

Who, then, is this Daladier? He is a leader of the Liberals (known as “Radical Socialists”), who formed part of the Popular Front along with the French Labourites and Communists. He was Minister of National Defence and War in Blum’s first Popular Front Government in 1936, and, as recently as April 13th, 1938, when, as Premier, he asked for a vote of confidence and for certain special powers, he obtained 570 votes to five; The Communists were with the majority and acclaimed Daladicr enthusiastically.

After the 1936 General Election, the French Communist Party expressly claimed that the Popular Front had not only helped their own and the Labour candidates, but had also helped to prevent Daladier’s party from losing seats.

So much for “Popular Frontism”!

* * * *

Prayers to Fill Empty Stomachs

The following appeared in the Daily Sketch (December 5th, : 1938): —

“Mayfair churchgoers, many in fur coats, prayed in the fashionable St. James’s Church, Piccadilly, W., yesterday, for the poor of the East End. They lowered their gaze as the Bishop of Stepney (the Rt. Rev. Hamilton Moberly) told them what life was like with the dole and faint hope of a job. He told of the “constant state of poverty, never enough money coming in to keep a family in decency—wives going out to work and becoming the main support of the family.”

He urged them to pray for the poor of the East End—’not just now and then’—but to make a habit of it. He felt that if only half a dozen people present were to support the Church’s work there by their prayers, something would be achieved. . . .”

* * * *

Ulster Democracy

From the Manchester Guardian (November 23rd, 1938: —

“Fourteen youths who were arrested when about forty Belfast police raided the McKelvey Recreation Club in a Nationalist area here recently were to-day transferred to Belfast Prison, where they are being held under Special Powers Act detention orders, which enable them to be held without trial for a prolonged period.”

* * * *

Jewish Employers and Sweating

Fascist propagandists make much of cases of sweating or non-payment of trade union rates when the employer is a Jew, and they are specially active among furniture trade workers. The reason, according to the Daily Herald (December 14th, 1938) is that not more than 10,000 London furniture workers receive the trade union rates and conditions, while 50,000 do not, and “the offending owners are practically all Jews.”

On the other hand, “the stigma does not apply to all Jews. There are about ten Jewish firms regarded by the unions as fair, and which have an honourable record.”

In the case of the furniture trade the whole industry is largely controlled by Jewish firms, but exactly the same kind of situation has arisen in numerous other trades, i.e., one group of firms paying trade union rates and another group underpaying. In the grocery and drapery trades the unions and the employers’ federations have jointly approached the Ministry of Labour to secure the enforcement of standard rates on the large number of employers not paying them. Yet nobody claims that the offending employers in those trades are mainly Jewish.

There are also Trade Boards in about forty industries, set up to prevent “sweating,” and it has been estimated that as many as twenty-five per cent. of agricultural workers are being paid less than the minimum wage legally applicable to them. It has never been suggested that twenty-five per cent. of the farmers are Jews.

Another point of more importance is that capitalism is an exploiting system, even when the trade union rates are paid. The employer who organises his concern on the basis of paying a relatively high wage does not do so from philanthropic motives. He takes good care to select the most skilful and bodily fit workers, and is able to do so because the higher wage attracts more applicants; and, being a capitalist, seeking profit, he, even more than his sweating colleague, introduces labour-displacing machinery and dismisses men when he no longer wants them.

Lord Nuffield is not a Jew, and he pays a relatively high wage, but on November 16th, 1938, he received a deputation representing 1,500 workless men formerly employed by him. (News Chronicle, November 17th, 1938.) “Many of the jobs were eliminated by the adoption of all-steel bodies.”

The most that Lord Nuffield could promise was to find work in other departments for men whose jobs are eliminated, and to re-engage the unemployed men as soon as possible. Some of the 1,500 have been out of work already for six months.

Capitalism is the enemy of the workers, and that will not be remedied by changing the nationality, religion, race, or politics of the capitalists.

Edgar Hardcastle