The Passing Show: Class co-operation (1962)

The Passing Show column from the April 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class co-operation

In a society where ten per cent. of the people belong to the owning and ruling class, and where the other ninety per cent, belong to the propertyless and working class, it is obvious that there is a continuous conflict of interest between the two. The owning class live on the surplus value extracted from the workers: the workers have to wage a ceaseless struggle to maintain even a part of the value of their work for themselves. In such circumstances it is a truism to say that the more the owners can fool the workers into believing that there is no conflict of interests, the happier—and richer—the owners will be. Just as the slave-owners used to push the view that really the slaves and their masters were all working together for the good of society, so there is an endless barrage of propaganda from the ruling class in our form of society that employers and employed should all co-operate “for the good of the country." When one investigates what this “co-operation” means, it is what one would expect—the workers must never strike, must at all times devote all their energies to their employers' interests, and must, of course, never be so vulgar as to ask for a wage-increase, or for that matter even oppose a wage-cut. if the employers decide it would be "in the best interests of the country."


Dozen awkward chaps

Propaganda to this effect is, of course, as common in state-capitalist industry as in private capitalist concerns. And according to a recent article in The Times, this propaganda has been very successful at the Littleton Colliery, in the Cannock Chase coalfield. “It has been nine years since anything worth calling a strike happened at Littleton, which employs about 1.900 men." The employers, apparently, are very satisfied with conditions at Littleton:

. . .  the miner's understanding of life beyond Cannock has also been broadened by television and National Coal Board propaganda. Thirty years ago the rather more desk-hound managers on the Chase were very much "the other side" to colliers, and they themselves reflected the narrowest of points of view. Today Littleton's young manager. Mr. G. A. Schofield, calls his union president (Mr. Richard Owen) “Dick", and Mr. Owen says: “We have about a dozen awkward chaps among 1,900, but all the rest understand we have to make coal pay its way."

One should, of course, be chary of accepting the estimates of the supporters of capitalism of the extent to which the workers have been duped by the propaganda put out by employers, whether directly, or indirectly, on the mass media such as television. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly a shrewd stroke by the employers to win over trade union leaders to their way of thinking.


Good old days
In fact, supporters of capitalism not infrequently regret the days of the Labour Government of 1945-51, since when Labour was in power trade union leaders were heard preaching “co-operation” even more frequently than they are now. The economist Graham Hutton wrote to The Times (8/2/62) on this very theme:

I think of those whom Labour and Tory Governments marshalled between 15 and 10 years ago to organise the productivity drive: Arthur Deakin, Lincoln Evans, Jimmie Crawford, Tom Williamson, Ted Fletcher, Vincent Tewson — these from the unions and T.U.C.—and the leaders of our industry from the F.B.I. B.E.C.. etc. I recall the Ashorne Hill conference a decade ago to discuss between what we all then agreed was a misnomer, namely, “both sides of industry”, their representatives' unanimous conclusions from the 66 Anglo-American Productivity Teams’ visits to the U.S.A. between 1947 and 1952.

Ah, happy days, when the employers and trade union leaders were not only reaching unanimous conclusions about the way industry should work, but were even agreeing that it was wrong to speak of “two sides" to industry! Former Labour ministers can take comfort from the fact that their efforts when in power towards “co-operation" in industry are still remembered with affection by such supporters of capitalism as Graham Hutton.


Social gulf

Despite what trade union leaders say, however, the facts of capitalism as daily revealed at the coalface, the factory bench, and the shop counter, mean that the class struggle continues. Sir David Eccles, Minister of Education, in a speech on February 8th. admitted as much, and had to relegate the ideal of co-operation between the exploiters and exploited to the distant future:

He told the Conservative Women's National Advisory in London that these (fee-paying) parents should consider the long-term future of their children in a society which would either he united socially or still hampered by the “we” and the "they" complex that so bedevilled industrial relations.

While admitting the effect, however. Sir David went astray when he came to explaining the cause:

Sir David said that one of the chief instruments which created the social gulf in our society was the system of education. Nine-tenths of all children went to maintained schools and the remainder—the bosses' children—to the independent fee-paying schools.

This is an error into which Labourites fall even more often than Conservatives. The divided system of education in our society is not the cause of the “social gulf,” but one of its effects. The class division, the social gulf, is not caused by the fact that the “bosses' children” (in Sir David’s words) go to special schools: but by the fact that there are bosses. For if in any society there are bosses there must also be the bossed: the one group cannot exist without the other, any more than horse-riders can exist without horses. Sir David must resign himself to the existence of the social gulf so long as he supports the system which gives birth to it; for it will be with us until capitalism makes way for Socialism.

Alwyn Edgar

Redundant managers (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment has particularly hit workers in manufacturing, shipbuilding, textiles and construction, but another section of the working class whose jobs have generally been protected until now has also suffered. This is the “executives”, those workers who are employed as managers of one kind or another. The Professional and Executive Register (PER), a department of the Manpower Services Commission, had 30,000 unemployed executives on its books in March 1974 but the total stood at 117,000 at the end of 1980 and is certain to be even greater now.

Until recently companies which wanted to economise during a slack period would get rid of shopfloor and clerical workers readily enough but would continue to carry managerial staff on the grounds of “mutual loyalty". Nowadays, the slump is biting so hard that, just to stay in business, companies are compelled to have a clear-out right up to the highest level, even the boardroom, and the result is a flood of redundant executives.

Who are these executives, and can they really be classed as workers at all? The Executive Post, which is the PER’s job-finding magazine, is mailed to registered jobless executives each month and the advertised jobs are almost all for “managers”, “officers", “administrators” and the like, but this cannot hide the fact that these are merely fancy titles for what are, in the main, only higher paid workers. The truth is that they have to sell themselves on the labour market in order to live just as mechanics, shop assistants, bus drivers and bricklayers must. Incidentally, many of these executives are not all that highly paid: although the salaries advertised in the Post go as high as £30,000 they go right down to £3,000 and many shopfloor workers earn a good bit more than that.

All these redundancies have given birth to a whole new industry in the shape of a horde of private agencies which, for a fee, will provide a course designed to teach jobless executives how to look for a new employer and maybe even find them one. Some of the “quality” newspapers regularly feature ads from these agencies in the job columns:

We offer the UK’s first Redundancy Counselling Programme designed exclusively for senior people. A concentrated, intensive programme to help you to resume your successful career path. (Daily Telegraph, 28/4/81)

Help from such agencies can cost as much as £2,000 so many of the jobless rely on the free course provided by the state-run PER or cheap courses run by other organisations like the Institute of Industrial Managers.

And how this help is needed! Many of the jobless executives have spent all their working life with one company and simply haven't a clue about how to look for a job. After all, getting the sack had always been something that happened to somebody else. The sacked executives are actually in a worse situation than their shopfloor counterparts because they have further to fall. They will almost certainly have much higher financial commitments such as a huge mortgage and perhaps children at expensive private schools. With the job will have gone various perks like the company car, expense account or private medical cover. Also, their chances of finding a similar job are poorer. They can expect to spend six weeks job-hunting for each £1,000 of salary they want, so a job at £8,500 a year will, on average, take a year to land. And because there are so many in the same boat they can also expect to follow up 200 leads with only one in ten of these producing any response.

So despite the ego-massaging and corner-cutting techniques of the agencies the prospects of finding a job at all aren’t rosy because there are many more applicants than vacancies. According to the Sunday Times (14/12/80) all of this causes the redundant executives to suffer loss of confidence and become depressed and bad-tempered. All very well for the course organisers to tell them to “suffer no indignities” while job-hunting, but how do you keep your dignity after you have attended several interviews, written dozens of letters and been either turned down or ignored? In any case, indignity doesn’t end with landing a job: having to sell oneself to an employer is an indignity in itself.

The same article in the Sunday Times described how one redundant executive lost his £20,000 a year job. Having just planned the sacking of ten fellow executives and 750 other workers he found his own head was next on the block. How ironic that he had been employed as a “long range planning director": the anarchy of capitalist production means that it is nearly impossible to plan with any certainty what will happen next month never mind years ahead. How could he have forecast that the strength of the pound last year against the dollar would force his American employers to switch production back to the United States?

The popular notion that all redundant executives receive a “golden handshake” is untrue. For example, the chief executive of a big toy manufacturer which went bust last year earned £25,000 a year but left with only one month’s salary. The reason is that many executives are on a “service contract" which means they only get the outstanding amount of their salaries when they leave, just as sacked football managers do, and are not entitled to redundancy payment. This wangle is gradually being introduced onto the shopfloor. Marathon, the big oil-rig builder on Clydeside, employs its workers on thirteen week contracts which can be renewed at the end of the period but there are other companies whose workers are employed on contracts lasting as little as one week. That way you never qualify for redundancy payment. If the history of reform teaches us anything it is that a way can always be found round any reform which gives temporary benefit to the workers.

Doubtless, many of the redundant executives will find new, equally well paid jobs but many more will probably have to move down a notch or two on the salary scale. All of them, however, must be painfully aware that they are no longer a protected species where unemployment is concerned. Their position as members of the working class is being forcibly demonstrated to them along with the fact that, just like any other workers, their future job prospects will depend less on their “loyalty” to the company than on whether or not it is profitable to employ them.

Viv Vanni

May-Day in Bedlam (1939)

From the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Marching of Armies coincides with the May-Day March of the Workers. In every country in Europe, preparations for war are being feverishly concluded, so that everything seems set for yet another orgy of mass-murder.

And remember, it is a mere twenty years since the last “War to end all Wars”—barely time for a new generation to be born and ripen into manhood.

Twenty years of poverty, of slums, of unemployment, of struggling and starving, and now, with supreme contempt for the millions who were the sufferers, your rulers may want you to fight and die so that those who come after you may perhaps inherit another twenty years of that self-same existence.

It is not too late, even now, for the common people of this and other lands to halt in their mad stampede to the slaughter-house and ask themselves WHY?

Many people believe they have got the answer. “Liberty is at stake," they say; “that precious freedom for which our forefathers fought.” Others maintain that “Hitler and Mussolini must be stopped, else they will seek to dominate the world.” With such fine-sounding phrases do working class men and women delude themselves, blindly ignoring what happened in 1914-1918, when those very same slogans lured millions to a horrible death.

The workers of Britain and France are not alone in their fatal ignorance. In Germany and Italy masses of people are convinced that they will be fighting for “a place in the sun,” for “room to expand,” not knowing or understanding that their working class opposite in the "Glorious British Empire” is just as sun-starved and cramped in his slum-cage of poverty.

It's "Class" that Counts

That is the great tragedy of to-day: the workers have not yet learned their most important lesson, the lesson of CLASS.

They allow themselves to be lined up as Britons, Frenchmen, Germans or Italians, never as workers and capitalists. Yet a German, Herr Thyssen, has more in common with a British .Lord Nuffield than with the men he employs.

Bata, the Czech boot manufacturer, comes to England and is still a capitalist, merely exploiting British wage-slaves instead of Czechs.

So capitalism puts everyone in his place, not according to language or nationality, but according to the economic position. That is the fundamental fact for the workers to consider, and all other questions mean little in comparison.

Remembering this, you must understand why the Socialist will not support a capitalist war to prevent Hitler or Mussolini grabbing parts of Europe or of the British Empire. For that Empire has no more meaning for the worker here, or anywhere else, than has the gold in the Bank of England. He knows it is there and is told that it belongs to him. But he has never been able to make any use of it, for the simple reason that it does not belong to him at all: any more than the street he lives in. And the native population in those parts of the world have so far shown no signs of preference for any of the imperialist gangs. It is a different question for those who have been able to invest large sums of money in those places. Owners of oil wells, of diamond mines, of rubber plantations, those are the people who are seriously perturbed by the threat of German and Italian aggression, and rightly so. For they fear the loss of their property and income, and it is that fear which is responsible for the enormous outlay on armaments by the British capitalist class, a class that not so long ago pleaded poverty as a reason for reducing unemployment pay by ten per cent.

When the British Government pledges with open heart to protect the “independence” of poor little Greece or Rumania or Poland, many coloured inhabitants in parts of the British Empire may well be making rude noises. For they are feeling the iron heel of a despotism that is comparable with anything “made in Germany.” So we are I left with the fact that neither on economic nor moral grounds should British workers trouble to defend the Empire.

If Hitler attacks Britain!

Here we are confronted with another bogey. Should we then put up no resistance at all and “allow Hitler to march his hordes into Britain?” Here at least there are some liberties left, and surely to kneel before Hitler and his like would mean the instant suppression of all freedom, including the right to put forward Socialist propaganda. This latter point is considered by our opponents as clinching their argument, and they point triumphantly to Germany and Italy, where in very truth all kinds of opposition have been ruthlessly suppressed. Is this not to be resisted? we are asked.

We will agree without hesitation that Socialist propaganda is worth preserving. But is it going to be preserved by lining up under the banner of British Imperialism in a war that will kill millions?

The first point that arises is the obvious fact that when Socialists allow themselves to be recruited for such a war they do not only commit suicide physically but ideologically as well. For they renounce completely the fundamental axiom of Socialism, namely, the directly conflicting interests of workers and capitalists, a conflict that, so far from being abrogated during a war, stands out in sharper contrast than ever. For that war, although it will be fought mainly by the workers, will not be RUN by the workers; it will be run by the ruling class, and their method will be to crush ruthlessly any attempt to express any working class opposition, whether in the factory or politically. In other words, the workers will have to place themselves wholly under an iron control of militaristic capitalism, and who is going to argue that if and when such a war is ended workers can start again where they left off?

In France to-day, the tactics advocated here “for the defence of democracy" have led to the establishment of a virtual dictatorship, which has as its first reactionary step stolen from the French working class all and more than was gained previously by independent working class action. If the workers here are stupid enough to fall for the same lies, they will be rewarded with savage economic and political oppression.

And, above everything, try and remember something about the last Great War. Then the Kaiser "had to be stopped." Ten million human beings who took part in stopping him were killed. millions more were maimed and wounded. The Kaiser is still living, enjoying a comfortable old age in his castle at Doorn. In his stead rules an even worse despotism, produced in part by the bitterness left over by the last war. What will the end of the next war bring? No one can tell for certain, but one thing it will not and cannot bring: that is a real and permanent peace and freedom from oppression. Neither can it bring relief from poverty.

And those objects alone are worth fighting for. We do not preach passive acquiescence to Fascism any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the Struggle for Socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. For in its development we can play a more and more effective part. As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists, whether they be of so-called “peace" or even those of war. Let there be signs to-day that more and more workers are becoming class-conscious enough to understand the real causes of capitalist wars and see how quickly our rulers would forget their international quarrels.

There are those who say that, by preaching Socialism to-day, we are playing right into the hands of Fascist reaction. We want to remind those people of what happened during the last war in one country—Russia.

The workers and peasants there were not Socialists. But they refused to fight and turned their attention to their real enemy at home. And what was the result ? Not only did they drive out a most reactionary regime, but their move helped to play a decisive part in the collapse of German imperialism, and thus hastened the end of the war. How much better could a strengthened Socialist Party in this country play its part in bringing home to workers everywhere die madness of fighting each other in the interests of the class that oppresses and exploits them.

We call upon you, Fellow Worker, to help us. Our message on this May-Day, in a world driven mad by capitalist greed and brutality, is the message of Marx and Engels:—

“ Working men of all lands. Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a World to Win !"

Sid Rubin

May-Day and the War Clouds (1939)

Editorial from the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

MAY-DAY, 1939, finds working class internationalism at its lowest ebb for many a year. How low can be seen from the success the rulers have had in the various countries in turning May-Day demonstrations from their former purpose. The celebration of Labour Day each year was formerly a spontaneous gesture by the workers' organisations that they repudiated the national hatreds fostered by reactionary interests for their own profit-seeking ends. By this sign the producers of the world's wealth gave, expression to their longing for peace and their growing desire to co-operate with their fellow workers in other lands. But the year 1939 finds May-Day half submerged in the growing tide of nationalism and war preparation. In Germany, May-Day has been filched by the Nazi Government and turned into a compulsory parade demonstrating the gigantic powers of the war-machine and the equally gigantic suppressive power of the Nazi State apparatus over the ideas and longings of the working class. And the dictator-states are not alone in their fever of nationalism. It is reported from France that the French trade unions, which have just had to sacrifice their forty-hour week and go over to sixty hours for armament work, have this year decided, in the same cause, to refrain from their customary stoppage of work to celebrate May-Day. At the same time, Parliamentary Government in France has reached a precarious stage under the system of emergency powers to facilitate the armament programme and war preparations.

In Great Britain the call for conscription has already succeeded.

Thus does the set-back of the working class movement on one side of a frontier exercise its evil influence on working class movements everywhere. In Great Britain, too, the year 1939 sees working class organisations being drawn deeper and deeper into the mire of nationalism and war preparation.

Of course there are many voices assuring the workers that their mistrust of this trend is mistaken. Telling them that defence of the Anglo-French Empires against the German-Italian encroachments is in the interest of democracy, and is therefore in accord with "true" internationalism and social progress: but those voices carry a false message. There is no practical effective internationalism except that which springs strong and self-reliant from the workers' community of interest, sweeping across national frontiers like a cleansing wind blowing away bestial hatreds and fears. The future of the human race demands the destruction of the national barriers which divide the peoples of the world. Not the defence of national independence but the destruction of capitalism must be the watchword of those who would build for the future of the human race and at the same time help to stem the flood of war in which capitalism threatens to engulf civilisation. The doctrine that each group of workers should rally round their own ruling class in defence of the “national interest” only plays into the hands of the war-makers in every country. Just as British and French workers gain hope and courage whenever they read of German and Italian workers who have resisted the mass propaganda of their rulers for war and nationalism, so also the internationally minded workers in Germany and Italy would be inspired to further brave efforts if they heard that their British and French comrades were refusing to ally themselves with Anglo-French imperialism: and correspondingly depressed to learn that many of those workers were falling into line behind their capitalist rulers.

For, make no mistake, Europe is not on tire verge of war for the sake of Nazism and Democracy, but for the sake of a re-division of the spoils of the last great capitalist war.

From a working-class point of view, the ideological differences between Chamberlain and Hitler are as nothing to the common cause they both espouse—the capitalist cause. When Hitler declares that German capitalism must export or perish, the representative of British imperialism, Mr. Robert Hudson, Secretary for Overseas Trade, answers in the same language of predatory capitalism: —

We are not going to give up any markets to anyone . . .  Great Britain is strong enough to fight for markets abroad. Britain is now definitely going to take a greater interest in Eastern Europe.—(Speech in Warsaw, March 21st. News Chronicle, March 22nd, 1939.)

Let the British and German capitalists quarrel about their profit-seeking interests. Let British workers set an example to their fellows in all lands by proclaiming that the interest of the working class is in internationalism, not in wars for markets. Let working-class May-Day be an answer to all who would seek to turn the thoughts of the workers to nationalism and war.

Long live Proletarian May-Day!Long live International Socialism!

Parliamentary Activity (1939)

Party News from the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are now in a position to speak with greater confidence of our plans in connection with the Party’s campaign in the Parliamentary constituency of East Ham North. A number of Party members have responded in a gratifying manner to the recent call for canvassers. Dagenham branch’s response was immediate and consisted of an offer to accept complete responsibility for canvassing and literature distribution in one part of the constituency. This is good work—and sound from the organisational point of view. If all branches, particularly local ones, assumed responsibility for other parts of East Ham, and could undertake all the work involved in their part, then the work would run itself simply and would not involve those of us at Head Office who are concerned with coordinating activities, with unnecessary worry. Dagenham’s example is not an isolated one, though at the moment, it is the most healthy. We have received a response from the membership in most branches, which, shall we say, is encouraging, though not completely satisfactory nor sufficient for our needs. Quite obviously, many Party members imagine that we should come after them. This attitude is a mistaken one, though, of course, it is not meant to be unhelpful. We cannot hope to know the capabilities of members, even if we were personally acquainted with them all. Nor are we able to judge what the resources are of branches for giving assistance. We have, therefore, to depend chiefly on the response to written appeals in some form or other. If this fact were realised we are sure all our difficulties would rapidly be solved. That is not to say that we make no individual contacts, but they must of necessity be limited.

Certain aspects of the work done so far give us great encouragement. We have disturbed the rest of local parties and politicians who regard us as poachers on their preserves. We shall disturb them all the more in the forthcoming season of outdoor propaganda activity. We plan a campaign including canvassing, literature distribution, bill-posting, intense propaganda, loud-speaker publicity and, if we can manage to provoke our opponents to bite—debates.

Comrades, your co-operation and disciplined efforts will make those plans an enormous success. Remember, one of the topical issues of the day, war and peace, promotes a ready interest in the Party’s case. Our message stands alone. It is worth every ounce of energy that you can give it —it is worth some sacrifice. Give—willingly and generously. You will enjoy it.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. 

Circuses as well as bread (1995)

Book Review from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Le communisme n'a pas encore commencé by Claude Bitot, Spartacus, Paris 1995.

This book, whose title translates into English as "Communism hasn't yet started" presents an interesting analysis of the working class movement over the last 150 years. As it is unlikely to be translated into English we summarise in the next five paragraphs the book's arguments, before adding our own comments.

Communism (or socialism, as we would normally call it) was not really on the agenda in the 19th century, because conditions were then not yet ripe for its establishment. In fact, if a communist party had come to power in 1848 or if the Paris Commune of 1871 had lasted the outcome could only have been some form of state-run capitalism.

Marx and Engels eventually came to realise this and then placed their hopes not on an immediate seizure of power but on the gradual development of working-class consciousness and organisation leading to the conquest of political power by a party enjoying majority support. But this didn't work either, as the Social Democratic parties which did emerge were not really socialist parties, but the left-wing of the bourgeois democrats. They expressed the aspiration held by most workers for better conditions within capitalism. The trade unions were similarly an expression of the workers desire to reform rather than end capitalism. Both helped integrate the working class into capitalism ideologically.

The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 was also a false hope. Russia on its own was clearly not ripe for socialism. Some Bolsheviks. including Lenin, realised this; which was why they relied on a socialist revolution occurring in the West, in Germany in particular, to save them. This was a miscalculation; which should have been obvious. Only a small minority of the workers in Western Europe were revolutionary. Most weren't, as was demonstrated by their actions. For instance, a majority didn’t even vote for left-wing parties. In fact most of the workers in Russia weren't socialist-minded either; they wanted peace, workers’s control, etc., which was understandable enough, but still amounted to wanting a better deal under capitalism rather than socialism. The end result was (as Lenin himself described it) state capitalism, and the eventual emergence of a new ruling class in the form of a state bourgeoisie.

The reason for the failure of these three different attempts was that capitalism had not yet reached the end of its historical cycle. It was still able to expand production and so offer reforms and increases in living standards. At the same time it was able to ensure that workers did not use their increased free time to develop their socialist education (as Marx had hoped). Capitalism supplied them with circuses as well as with bread.

Capitalism, says Bitot, has now reached the end of its historical cycle. It can no longer offer reforms and improvements; in fact there haven’t been any since the early 1970s. Nor are there likely to be any; on the contrary, conditions can be expected to get worse. This, says Bitot, will generate a socialist consciousness— this time, a majority socialist consciousness—which will put the Communist revolution back on the agenda. This time for real.

An obvious criticism springs to mind. In making both reformist and revolutionary consciousness a mere reflection of economic conditions (capitalism's ability or inability to expand production and offer improvements) Bitot is clearly being too determinist. But on another point— the implications of a majority socialist revolution—he boldly goes where no previous "left communist” has ever dared go before, by raising the prospect of a relatively peaceful overthrow of capitalist rule rather than the prolonged and bloody civil war they all still cling to.

If millions and millions of workers have become socialist, he writes, we can envisage what will happen;

"in reality, internally divided, on the point of breaking up, the existing power will be ready to capitulate, which will make it not too difficult to knock down. What will be the precise form of this overthrow? Obviously no one can know in advance. But what it is already possible to glimpse is that the capture of power will take place relatively without violence. No doubt the power will be tempted to install a dictatorship, but will it still have the strength, undermined as it will be from the inside? . . . A minority can be crushed in this way, but this can't hold back for long on immense majority determined to see things through; in the long term the power will be obliged to give up.” (pp. 241-2).
 
"Some Marxists continue to be inspired by these revolutions of the past and so urge extreme violence against the power, revolutionary civil war, as the only ways possible, while condemning in advance as 'opportunist', 'reformist', the more peaceful ways of capturing power which Marx himself envisaged for certain advanced countries of the time." (p. 242).
   
"If the revolution still has to pass through a fierce civil war (apart from being the equivalent of a third world war) this would only prove that conditions weren't ripe. The future revolution will take place with a minimum of violence since by becoming the movement of the immense majority it will have radically altered the relationship of forces to the detriment of the tiny exploiting minority, desperately seeking to maintain an exhausted and outdated economic system." (p. 243).

Adam Buick