Ancestors (2010)

Book Review from the May 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tracing Your Labour Movement Ancestors. By Mark Crail. Pen & Sword Books. £12.99.

This book is rather badly titled and is actually a guide to archive holdings relating to trade union, ‘socialist’ and other similar organisations rather than a mere accessory to the family historian and as such is potentially extremely useful to those interested in what is termed ‘labour history’.

It could also be used as a pocket guide to the historic Left (of which, it should be pointed out, the Socialist Party does not claim to be part) as the entry for each organisation includes a potted history. Unfortunately many of these are less than accurate, including that for us. For instance, a couple of minor historical errors: the group which went on to form the SPGB did not simply break “with the Social Democratic Federation over its ‘reformist’ line and the increasingly erratic leadership of Henry Hyndman” but because of the dallyings of the SDF with non-socialist organisations and the anti-democratic (leadership) role of its Executive Committee. Also, the Socialist Standard has not been published since the “launch” of the Party in June 1904 but from September of that year.

These are however chickenfeed compared to the ideological bloopers. Following “a tradition known as ‘impossibilism'” (mainly by historians), the Socialist Party allegedly holds that “reformism is of limited value in overthrowing capitalism”. Not limited value but no value whatsoever. Individual reforms – that is legislation aimed at altering particular aspects of life under capitalism – may be to the advantage or disadvantage of the working class but as a policy such legal alterations are not “stepping stones to socialism” but the road to nowhere. Capitalism reformed is still capitalism. However beneficial (or otherwise as is now usually the case) individual reforms might be, the interest of the working class lies in overthrowing capitalism, not altering its workings.

Keith Scholey