Passing Comments: China (1950)

The Passing Comments column from the December 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

China

The Stalinists are having a difficult time trying to explain away the invasion of Tibet by China. One might have expected such an invasion in the days of the old, avowedly imperialist China; but surely, one would have thought, the new China, which claims to be “Communist,” would have no reason to invade her neighbours. The Stalinists are so short of good arguments that the best two excuses for the invasion they can think of are firstly that the Chinese Emperors of the thirteenth century conquered Tibet, and secondly that the British Government recognises Tibet to be “part of China". For example, the Daily Worker (27/10/50) says, “Just as Wales is part of Britain, so Tibet is part of China, and has been so since the thirteenth century. This fact was recognised by the British Government in a note to the Chinese Government as recently as 1945.” The second reason is feeble in the extreme: if the British Government recognises that, say, lndo-China is part of the French Empire, do the Stalinists agree without further discussion that the French have a title to lndo-China? The first reason is even more revealing: apparently the Communists believe that Mao Tse-tung and his friends are the successors of the Emperors, and that if the Mongol rulers of China seven hundred years ago conquered Tibet, then Mao has the right to rule over Tibet to-day. Tibet is as much a part of China as Ireland is of England. Ireland and Tibet are both relatively weak-countries which have at some time in their history been conquered by their bigger and more powerful neighbours. Just as one of the English imperialists of the last century might have referred to “the historic English territory of Ireland,” so now the daily paper of our new twentieth-century imperialists refers to “the historic Chinese territory of Tibet.” The Stalinists, it seems, now think that small countries once conquered lose all right to an independent existence. All of which goes to show that “the rights of small nations” is as empty a phrase in the mouths of the Stalinists as it is in the mouths of the Anglo-American leaders.


Peace

But how does all this square with the desire for “peace” so tirelessly reiterated by the Communist parties of the world?

So agile are the Stalinists in juggling with words that they can even reconcile the waging of an aggressive war with the defence of peace. A Daily Worker article of November 8th begins with the words, “ Twice in the past fortnight the Chinese people have acted for peace. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has marched into Tibet to protect China’s frontiers, and Chinese volunteers have gone to the help of the Koreans.” This action, it goes on, “ has made more secure not only China but the peace of all Asia and the world.” Propaganda about going to war in order to preserve the peace is not, of course, confined to the Russian bloc: “Illustrated" (11/11/50) has an article about one of the British soldiers who have gone to fight in Korea, and headlines it “Soldiers for Peace.”


Defence

The Daily Worker (27/10/50) says of what it calls the “standard Constitutional History Book for all pupils in the seventh class” in Soviet schools that it emphasises the “peaceful nature of the Soviet State.” “Nowhere in its pages can one find any other justification for the armed forces of the State than the needs of defence.” In the Western World there is the same insistence on the need for defence as the justification for having an army. The cost of preparing for the next war, including the building of bombing planes and bombs of all kinds, comes under the heading of “Defence Expenditure.” The invasion of Tibet shows that the Stalinists, like their opponents, have a somewhat elastic idea of the meaning of the word “ defence.”


India

Mr. Nehru disapproves strongly of the Chinese aggression on Tibet; indeed, he appears to dislike the use of force in any circumstances if it can possibly be avoided, according to the Manchester Guardian. An article in that paper on October 26th said of him that “his whole foreign policy is governed by his views on the use of force. He is enough of a Ghandian to believe that force solves nothing; he is also enough of a practical patriot to realise that countries must defend themselves against attack. . . . He satisfies the Ghandian in himself by insisting that force must not be used to drive the other side into a corner. Solutions to the last must be, he thinks, freely accepted. Mr. Nehru fulfils his duty as Prime Minister by insisting that aggression must be resisted.”

And it must be admitted that when Mr. Nehru talks about aggression and the use of force he is speaking of a subject of which he knows a great deal. Mr. Nehru has had experience of aggression from the profitable end.


Hyderabad

When in 1947 the British set up the two new dominions of India and Pakistan on the Indian subcontinent they did not at first cover all the territory which had accepted the supremacy of Britain. There were a number of Princes’ States like Kashmir and Hyderabad which were left to decide their future for themselves. Most of these States joined one of the Dominions, but the Nizam of Hyderabad did not wish to join either. By August, 1948, Hyderabad was the only state on the sub-continent which was still independent of both Dominions. In that month India protested at the activities of a Moslem organisation in Hyderabad whose members were called Razakars: India alleged that the Moslems were terrorising the Hindus of Hyderabad, who formed 86 per cent, of the population. The government of Hyderabad insisted that there was no internal disorder, and made the counter-charge that India was violating the frontier by sending raiding-parties across it, and was carrying out an economic blockade. (Hyderabad was entirely surrounded by Indian territory, having no outlet to the sea except through India.) After much further accusation and counter-accusation, India, without declaring war, invaded Hyderabad. On September 13th four Indian armoured columns thrust their way across the border. Three days later the Security Council met to hear the complaint of the representative of Hyderabad, who protested against the Indian aggression and demanded "immediate action” by the Security Council. Instead of sending MacArthur to help Hyderabad defend herself against this open act of aggression, the Security Council adjourned. On September 17th the Nizam gave up the unequal struggle against India: an estimated 2,000 of the defending forces had been killed, and the invading columns had almost reached the capital. Mr. Nehru added insult to injury by remarking "we are men of peace, hating war, and the last thing we desire is to come into armed conflict with anyone." After the surrender, the Nizam telegraphed to Lake Success withdrawing Hyderabad’s complaint against India. The Security Council breathed a sigh of relief and adjourned the matter sine die: which is a polite way of saying that they dropped it for good. No doubt Hyderabad was a backward, undemocratic country, ruled dictatorial by the Nizam; but South Korea (the invasion of which so outraged the Security Council) was also an undemocratic country, ruled dictatorially by the Syngman Rhee clique. If the Anglo-American bloc was really interested in defeating aggression, as opposed to making war on Stalinist countries, they could hardly have had a clearer case to deal with than the Indian attack on Hyderabad; but they refused to take any action, and thus showed themselves to be interested, not in defeating aggression, but merely in using aggression as a pretext for war in the countries belonging to the rival bloc.

Production

When the Labour Government took office in 1945 it appealed to the workers to increase production in order to assist in the "national recovery” after the war. To recover means, of course, to regain a position one has previously had, but has temporarily lost. When a nation recovers, it returns to some previous condition: but the Labour Party has never satisfactorily explained just why it wants us to regain our pre-war condition, to return to the days of 1918-39; especially since it has never ceased to criticise the Tory rule of those years. One suspects that phrase "national recovery” has only been used so often because it has a fine sound about it, but at the same time means little.

The workers responded to the Government’s call. Production is now over a quarter more than it was in 1946. The Government, however, has been making it painfully clear that the workers need expect no reward in the shape of a reduction in the cost of living. Mr. Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, said on October 30th: "It would be dishonest to hold out hopes or promises of reductions in the cost of living at a time when world prices, as a result of rearmament, are rising.” And Mr. Chuter Ede, the Home Secretary, told the House of Commons a week later that "it is impossible to anticipate that there will be any reduction in the cost of living.” Not only will there be no reduction : there are more increases on the way. On November 10th the Board of Trade announced that wholesale prices have gone up by another sixpence in the pound. The prices of raw materials have also increased—cotton, rubber, wool and metals are among those which have gone up most.

Wool

For the workers this makes dismal reading. But there are others who are less worried about it. The News Chronicle (31/10/50) had some interesting information about Mr. Ebenezer Sykes, one of the men who buy wool from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and sell it on Bradford Exchange to the spinners. Mr. Sykes takes up his stand on the floor of the Exchange every Monday and Thursday morning, and the buyers come and see him there. "Mostly when they meet they seem to tell funny stories. You must be very sharp to overhear the deals they make in between the yarns. But quietly, almost casually, one of them will say that he has 50,000 lb. weight of super 60’s to sell at 199 pence a lb. Another will say 'I’ll buy,' and the contract is as good as sealed.” The duties of Mr. Sykes’ job do not seem to be very arduous; but the money is good. "The last time Ben Sykes went on 'Change he sold 60,000 lb. of wool. He had bought it last December for 57 pence a lb. The price he received for that wool from the spinner who bought it from him was 150 pence a lb.” So the gross profit on that one transaction came to £23,250.

Sweated Labour

Mr. Dugdale, the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, made a speech at Staines in which he gave his own explanation of the rise in prices. "One of the main causes of higher prices was that people in India and Africa and other tropical countries were at last beginning to improve their standard of living ” (Times, 4/11 /50). Mr. Dugdale said that the wages of the Gold Coast agricultural labourers had now risen to 2s. 6d. a day, of tin-workers to 5s. 3d. a day, and of the Malayan rubber-workers to 3s. 4d. a day. "We had the satisfaction of knowing that such people were better fed and clothed now than when the Conservatives were running the Empire ‘and goods were produced at sweated rates.’ ”

It seems, then, that now the Labour Party is running the Empire, goods are not being produced at sweated rates: the line between sweated and non-sweated rates must run somewhere below fifteen shillings a week, at least in the British colonies. Mr. Dugdale’s conclusions on the wages question should earn the Labour Party a lot of support among the tin and rubber shareholders.

Alwyn Edgar

A Winter's Tale (1931)

From the January 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well! well!! well!!! Thank goodness, Christmas is over. Everybody has spent more than they should, everyone has bought presents for everyone else, and everyone is worse off except the children and the shopkeepers. The pantomimes are in full swing, and the opening of Parliament will add to their number. J. H. Thomas is ordering a new dress suit—all British—to help the trade of the Empire, and Ramsay is engaged in converting two and a half miles of his dinner speeches into gramophone records. With machines erected at convenient intervals along our coast, it is thought they will be wonderfully efficacious in keeping the east wind off our unemployed. The Mace was found to have vanished during the Recess, but Mr. Beckett explained he had only borrowed it to stir his pudding and would replace it in time for the opening performance. The sensitive heart of Mr. Lansbury has been riven by the spectacle of the ducks on St. James’s Park lake being divorced from their natural element by a thin sheet of ice. Ever practical, ever sympathetic, he has directed that holes shall be pierced at appropriate intervals in the ice, and that the pelicans shall be fitted with (British) skates. That is all the news that our ill-informed Parliamentary Correspondent can think of for the moment. But, looking over the outstanding events of 1930, he has reminded us that there was one item of world-shattering import overlooked by the regular Press. Future historians will record their gratitude to us for rescuing from undeserved oblivion the following moving story.

Let us tell the tale from the beginning. The Communist Party has been having a thin time. Apart from the general apathy due to the discovery of the fraudulence of the Labour Party, the C.P. suffers from private bogies of its own. Among them there is what is called the “right” danger. They seem to be a bit foggy upon the precise meaning of the term, due to the Communist Pope and Cardinals not having explained the danger to the faithful membership. The result was unfortunate. As J. T. Murphy explained in the Communist Review for last June:—

     Because of a lack of understanding of the new methods of work and a desire to eradicate the “right danger,” there has been by many comrades, indeed, whole district party leaderships, a leap into “left” sectarianism, which has isolated the party more than ever from the workers. The independent leadership of the party has become in these districts the isolated leadership, dashing about with revolutionary sounding propositions, accompanied by the transformation of revolutionary terms which mean something, into revolutionary jargon, which drives the workers away from us.

This is very sad, not to say serious. In fact, Mr. Murphy says:—

  In order that the seriousness of this situation can be realised . . . it is necessary to analyse some of these experiences which have led to serious struggles between the Political Bureau and the comrades concerned, though these comrades finally admitted their mistakes.

Some instances follow of the faithful Communists fighting the “right” danger by barging into “left sectarianism.” All are pathetically amusing. We select the following for seasonable reading, and wish we could add a reliable description of the “serious struggle ” referred to.

Attend, then! Turn the kids out of the armchair, draw up to the fire, and prepare to be thrilled by the ghostly tale of the

Battle of Burnley Barracks.

'Twas a wild night in March, and the early equinoctial hurricane moaned menacingly among the chimney stacks of Manchester. “Just the night for right-wing treachery,” said Al Capone to his — But no, we’ve got the wrong extract. This is the one, from the Communist Review:—

  In the preparations for March 6, the Manchester Working Bureau put forward, among other proposals, that a number of leading comrades should on March 6 lead a march of the workers on to Burnley Barracks, and call on the soldiers in uniform to demonstrate with the workers in the streets. Now, no member of our Party will question the desirability of propaganda amongst the troops. But when it is realised that in Burnley we had not a single Party cell in the mills, that the whole Party membership in Burnley did not muster a dozen members, that there had not been the slightest preparation for mass action of the workers, no preliminary work amongst the soldiers, indeed, that there are no Burnley barrarcks and no soldiers in Burnley, then the absolutely unreal and romantic line of approach by the Bureau can be seen at a glance. Once upon a time, there were barracks in Burnley, but so realistic was the approach of the Manchester leadership to Burnley, that they had not discovered that these barracks had long ago been transformed into slum property.

It is good to learn that, as a result of “ serious struggles,” these comrades finally admitted their mistakes. Let us recollect that it is only as a consequence of similar serious struggles that Don Quixote is known and endeared to us. Perhaps the Manchester Working Bureau’s claim to immortality is greater than his, for whilst the Don mistook real windmills for fictitious giants, they planned a spectacular march upon the non-existent. However, no need for depression. That will come soon enough when they hear of the death of Queen Anne.

W. T Hopley

The Socialist Forum: Socialism By Dictatorship. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. R. J. Freeman (Thornton Heath) writes, putting forward several points of criticism of our position. For convenience and in order to save space, these points have been extracted from the letter and numbered:—

1. The S.P.G.B. proposes to do nothing to ameliorate the conditions of the working class, other than press the socialist doctrine wherever possible as the only remedy.
2. This work of propaganda can still be carried on by the I.L.P. members outside of Parliament just as persistently as the S.P.G.B., and by their presence in the House of Commons as well, can attempt to resist encroachments on the workers' standard of living.
3. I admit socialist knowledge is growing, but it is not due, as you would suggest, to the theory of the increasing poverty and economic pressure making them think . . .  but because capitalism breeds it.
4. The industrial worker . . .  has a remarkable memory for the names of racehorses, prize-fighters, footballers, etc. . . .  It is extremely doubtful whether the increasing poverty of this section will ever make them socialists.
5. I suggest socialism is more likely to be achieved through the action of the administrative and professional section, because they will see the futility of trying to permeate the concrete skulls of the other section and would rather establish a dictatorship and so force an unintelligent majority to come into line with an enlightened minority.

Reply.

1. The S.P.G.B. is obviously not in a position to “ameliorate the conditions of the working class,’’ but it can and does support useful action by the workers in their Unions to resist encroachments on their standard of living. If our correspondent knows of some other way in which the workers’ conditions can be ameliorated, will he explain why he, and those who agree with him, do not put it into operation?

2. We challenge our critic to give us evidence that the I.L.P., either inside or outside the House of Commons, is carrying on, or has ever carried on, propaganda for Socialism. As we pointed out in the January issue, every single I.L.P. member who has entered Parliament has done so on the programme of the Labour Party, a programme which Mr. Maxton describes as "an enlightened Liberal programme” (see “ Our Case,” page 11). Mr. Maxton added that if the whole of the Labour Party programme were put into operation “ we would have not Socialism but rationalised capitalism.”

We deny that this is propaganda for Socialism.

In view of the fact that prominent members of the I.L.P. have repeatedly stated that the workers under Labour Government are worse off than under the Tory Government, we would ask for evidence that the presence in Parliament of members of the I.L.P. has enabled the workers to resist encroachments. Mr. Freeman does not deny or answer our statement that upwards of two million workers have had their wages reduced since the Labour Government came into office.

3. We have never said that poverty would make Socialists. It is the whole organisation and development of capitalism, together with Socialist propaganda, which make Socialists.

4. May we point out that it is in the columns of the Daily Herald, which the I.L.P. tells the workers to read, that racing, boxing, and football news are provided?

See also answer to 3.

5. Before suggesting that the administrative and professional section “will see the futility of trying to permeate the concrete skulls ” of the industrial workers, Mr. Freeman should have told us when the professional section are going to begin to think about Socialism themselves. We have seen nothing to indicate that they are in advance of the lower-paid workers. The assumption that these people will establish a dictatorship is in line with the bumptious silliness of the so-called “middle class” themselves. In the first place, they are not “an enlightened minority"; their behaviour during the war-fever marked them out as being credulous, ignorant, brutal and unstable beyond the average. In the second place, they are a minority and, whether they like it or not, they have to shape their lives within a social framework which depends for its existence on the consent of the majority. Mr. Freeman writes glibly of dictatorship, but evidently has not observed that Mussolini and his imitators came into power because, and only because, they had been placed in control of the armed forces through having behind them a Parliamentary majority. It remains for Mr. Freeman to explain how the people he has in mind are going to get control of Parliament; and then to explain how they are going to impose Socialism on a hostile working class.

Editorial Committee.

A Cock-Eyed World: Some Items From The Press (1931)

From the March 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, in its report for the half-year ended December 31st, 1930, reports that

   the ordinary and legitimate requirements of the public can be met by full-time production during eight months of the year, unemployment and under-employment must continue until such time as we have the good sense to relate our hours to the productive capacity of the industry. (The Times, February 5th, 1931.)
   In several cases at Merthyr Police Court recently summonses against parents for not sending their children to school were adjourned on the plea that the children had no boots. News-Chronicle, February 11th, 1931.

The News-Chronicle on January 28th reported from Caerphilly, a mining area, that several charges were heard on the previous day of men caught stealing coal.

   One man said he had two babies suffering from bronchitis, and they were cold, as he had no coal. He lived in a damp place at the rear of a shop. He had five children, the eldest being eight, and could not send them to school because they had no boots or clothes. He was ordered to pay 5s.
   Another offender said that, although working, he had no coal in the house. He had 12 children to keep.

Psychology and Socialism (1931)

From the April 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader has asked us to give our views on “Psychoanalysis and Sociology,” by Aurel Kolnai, translated by Eden and Cedar Paul, and published in 1921 by George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. It was an attempt to use psychoanalysis to throw light on the part played by society in shaping the individual. The translation is in a style which often makes it exceedingly difficult to understand what the author is driving at, and there is abundant evidence to show that he was quite unfitted to pursue this study, or in fact any study requiring logical argument backed up by knowledge and evidence.

This may be illustrated from his chapter on “Marxism as a Social Psychosis.” He says (p. 157) that “Marx espoused the Hegelian dialectic with great energy, merely replacing spirit in that system by economics, conceived as autonomous independent, mystically operative " (italics ours).

What exactly the italicised passage means it is hard to say, but it is certain that Marx himself did not conceive his theories in any such light. The view expressed must therefore be entirely Kolnai's own, but not one word of justification or explanation does he offer. This is typical of the whole book—an uninterrupted flow of obscurely worded assumptions linked together by the slenderest thread of connections.

Aurel Kolnai says that Marxists show all the signs of paranoia (p. 159), “a form of insanity, characterised by systematic delusions.” All the evidence he offers is contained in two statements; first, that Marxian theories ”suffice to arouse a suspicion ” that they have not a rational basis, and, second, that Marxism ”vividly recalls ” the idea of Christ the Saviour.

But these two assertions do not tell us anything about Marxism and Marxians. What “suffices” for Aurel Kolnai would not suffice for most people; and when he says that Marxism vividly recalls Jesus Christ to him, that only tells us something about Kolnai, about his trend of thought and about his inadequate ideas concerning proof.

And having so easily “proved” that Marxism is paranoia, he just as easily shifts his ground and allows that it is not “ simply a case of paranoia ” (p. 161). He even admits (p. 164) that the conditions under which the workers live may be a "contributory" cause towards moulding their ideas.

It is a pity that Aurel Kolnai did not follow up this one fruitful line of inquiry. If he had done so, he would have discovered that the private ownership, by the Capitalist class, of society's means of life is not a "systematic delusion,” but a hard fact. It is the determining factor in shaping the worker's ideas, because it governs the material conditions of his life.

Edgar Hardcastle

Socialism and Social Reforms (1931)

From the May 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is not only the workers who, through Trade Union action, endeavour to place certain limits upon their exploitation by the capitalists. The State, which to-day exists for the purpose of preserving capitalism, is also compelled in the course of its activities to take such steps.

In the early days of the nineteenth century, when the modern factory system was still struggling with earlier methods of production (based on handicraft in its later phases), the workers were able to reap some slight advantage from the divisions among the exploiting class.

Thus the landed interest, organised in the Tory Party, passed the early Factory Acts; and the tradition developed that by supporting one party against the other the workers could gradually improve their conditions. With the further developments of industry, however, the wealthy manufacturers bought land, and the landlords in turn began to invest in industry, until to-day the division has practically ceased to exist. In addition, the manufacturers discovered by experience that the legal regulation of hours of labour and the curtailment of so-called sweating could be made to hit their poorer and less effectively equipped competitors more than themselves. Hence the Liberal Party eventually took a special interest in pushing through the type of measures which they had previously opposed, and a considerable section of the workers came to regard the Liberals as their friends. In proportion, however, as modern industry develops, the value of such measures to the workers declines. The less efficient workers are precipitated into the ranks of the unemployed through legislation fixing legal minimum wages, and thus their last state is worse than their first.

This brings to the fore another type of reform which arises from the growing mass of destitution at the bottom of the social scale. This destitution constitutes a standing incentive to crime and is, therefore, a constant source of expense to the public authorities and, through them, to the propertied class in whose interests they function. Following the break up of feudalism in this country, in the reigns of the Tudors, the ruling class cowed the destitute into submission by savage repression, but the peasants who, by various means, were driven off the land, continued to grow in number and eventually the Poor Law was instituted. During the eighteenth century the farmers relied on this to make up the wages of their labourers, and again in recent years miners and others have found it necessary to appeal to the parish even when in work. Coupled with the fact that the present-day volume of Poor Law relief had reduced many parishes to bankruptcy, this led to the demand by various sections of the property-owning class that the State should assume the burden of destitution. Hence we have Unemployment and Health Insurance, old age pensions, etc., designed to relieve the pressure on the local authorities and, incidentally, pacify the workers by removing the pauper stigma. Such measures, being organised on a national scale, spread the burden over the entire capitalist, class, are more economical, and simplify the work of administration.

Nothing is easier than for astute politicians, whatever their, label, to put these measures forward as being specially intended to benefit the workers. Yet the number of persons compelled to seek Poor Relief is vastly greater than it was before the War. It is thus evident that as a preventive of poverty these measures are considerably less helpful than Mrs. Partington's mop in dealing with the Atlantic.

Education, sanitation, and the supply of houses by public bodies are other reforms for which Liberal, Tory and Labour politicians claim credit; yet it is clear that the education received by the wage-slave's child merely fits him to follow in his father's footsteps as a wage-earner; sanitation removes the threat of epidemic disease which does not spare the wealthy; while cheaper housing enables the workers to accept lower wages. Taken all round, these measures are intended to raise the standard of efficiency on the part of the workers, and thus make them more productive of profit for their masters.

In order to finance these measures the State is obliged to levy increased taxation upon those who alone can bear it, the property owners; and again nothing is easier than for so-called Labour leaders and others to represent this taxation as “socialistic"—an attempt to equalise incomes. The fact that the wealth of the large capitalists increases out of all proportion to the increased taxation, and that it is only the small fry that get squeezed out, is coolly ignored.

In spite of generations of this type of State activity, the cost of keeping up the armed forces is overwhelmingly greater than that of the “social services." Thus the greater part of taxation goes not to "relieve" the workers, but to keep them in subjection.

Many self-styled leaders of the workers belonging to the Labour and Communist Parties will readily admit that reforms on similar lines to those outlined above will not solve the problem facing the workers, and that Socialism is the only solution. Yet they claim it is necessary for their parties to have such reforms upon their programme in order to gain working-class support and thus obtain political power. "The workers want something now!” we are told, the implication being that the workers’ party should imitate the capitalist parties and make promises in order to catch votes. Such reasoning ignores the fact that a party which rises to power in such a manner can do nothing towards establishing Socialism.

Socialism cannot be imposed upon the workers from above. It is a system which implies their conscious recognition of its necessity. The workers cannot make the means of life common property without being aware of what they are doing. A programme of reforms is, therefore, useless to a Socialist Party, even as a strategic weapon. The failures of "Labour" Governments, the world over, to make any appreciable difference to the workers' conditions bear eloquent testimony to the soundness of our claim that, so long as capitalism exists because it is accepted by the workers as a necessity, it will be run in the interests of the capitalist class, and not of their slaves.

Wherever we turn, the plausible tales of the “reformers" concerning the need of “something now" merely serve to hide from the workers the fact that, in spite of Trade Union and State action, their exploitation and degradation grow greater rather than less, and must continue to do so with every improvement in machinery, technique, and industrial organisation. The effects of the much-discussed rationalisation now proceeding in all advancing capitalist countries should make clear to all the trend of modern society.

The Socialist Party will not barter its support for any promise of reform. For, no matter whether these promises are made sincerely or not, we know that the immediate need of our class is emancipation, which can only be achieved through the establishment of Socialism. Our interests are opposed to the interests of all sections of the master-class without distinction; whether bankers or industrialists, landlords or commercial magnates, all participate in the fruits of our enslavement, All will unite, in the last resort, in defence of the system by which they live.

For the party of the working class, one course alone is open, and that involves unceasing hostility to all parties, no matter what their plea, who lend their aid to the administration of the existing social order and thus contribute, consciously or otherwise, to its maintenance. Our object is its overthrow, and to us political power is useless for any other purpose. With these facts clearly in mind, and conscious that economic development is our unshakable and inseparable ally, we call upon the workers of this country to muster under our banner.

Eric Boden