An Innocent Abroad (1975)

From the October 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is no news that Communists are fatheads, but Arthur Scargill is obviously a fathead par excellence. This “Marxist” miners’ leader went on two weeks’ holiday to the “workers’ state” of Bulgaria, and on his return told newspapers how surprised he was at what he found:

Corruption in State-owned shops and restaurants ‘that would have done credit to the Mafia’; Massive overbooking by State agencies that kept tourists stranded for hours;
A State-Run voucher system of paying for meals that left holiday-makers hungry and out of pocket.
   ‘It was a disaster', said Mr. Scargill. ‘I have no intention of ever returning'.
    ‘If this is Communism they can keep it.’

The report in the Daily Mail on 9th September was supplemented by an article giving further details of holidays and life in Bulgaria. No doubt the Mail’s readers would admit their need for such illumination; but not Scargill, surely? He, after all, has been an advocate of the "workers’ state” and presumably went to Bulgaria because he thought well of the régime.

The tragedy is that workers in Britain have been accepting militant leadership from this simpleton who confesses he didn’t know what he was talking about. He is described as a "Marxist”, and would probably rush about telling everyone of his astonishment if he opened a book by Marx, too.

Let us explain that in the so-called “Communist” countries the workers do not own the means of living, and production is carried on for sale and profit as it is in other countries. Which means you are as likely to be done, if you are a holidaymaker, in Bulgaria’s Sunny Sands as in Torremolinos or Blackpool; and as certain to be exploited, if you are a worker, in Sofia as in Bradford.

Arthur Scargill was open-mouthed because he did not know what either Socialism or capitalism is. Perhaps he will refrain from further utterances until he has found out.

Robert Barltrop