Control: Remote or Direct? (1944)

From the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Five years of war have dragged by. Countries have been devastated. Food, machinery and lives lost. Millions of people have been moved about like cattle, cajoled or threatened into working long hours, and the products of their labours have gone up in smoke. In this country, we read, tuberculosis and neurosis are increasing. Little wonder, when the present state of affairs is taken into account. To add to all this, science, harnessed to the war machine, has ushered in a new and diabolical piece of machinery— the flying bomb.

From the stone hammers of the Stone Age we have now developed to the stage when it is possible to inflict destruction by remote control. The flying bomb is only a crude foretaste of what is in store for future civilian populations in wars to come.

Here is the important point. The Socialist Party of Great Britain argues that the only way in which we may abolish this fantastic state of affairs is to abolish the present system of society, and to establish Socialism in its place. We are being told that we can “take it" by people who have the best facilities for “taking it.” A cynical and hypocritical statement. Furthermore, whilst the working class is taking the brunt of the present war. their rulers are making flamboyant plans for the future.

If we think back a few years we can remember the times when the workers, striving for better conditions, were regarded as the lowest human types. They were often accused of being dirty and lazy when their accusers' system, capitalism, was responsible for withholding the means whereby they might earn their livelihood. Now, when the workers’ efforts are needed for the preservation of capitalist interests, concessions are very often eagerly considered.

No doubt an antidote will be found to the flying bomb, but the fact remains that it is a form of warfare come to stay. What then is to be done? Are we to go on perpetuating capitalism, with its wars, booms, slumps crises and general poverty for the workers, or are we to substitute a sane form of society?

It is for the working class to decide. Take no notice of the priests and politicians with their social reforms, housing schemes, and foolish ideas for a "new world."

We urge workers to study the case of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, that they may understand the economic causes of the phenomena already mentioned, and work for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.

Chester.