By The Way: "Columbus” Vansittart. (1944)

The By The Way column from the July 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Columbus” Vansittart.

The Editor of the Glasgow Forward has persuaded Lord Vansittart to contribute a criticism of the letter calling for a negotiated peace signed by a number of British and Continental Labour politicians (miscalled Socialists).

He says he could "write volumes” on the duplicity and treachery of the German Social-Democratic and Communist Parties, and, of course, he has something there. The innocent British and American publics, says he, “are beguiled by German refugees into the notion that an effective German democracy is waiting just around the corner. It is not. It was quite ineffective after the last war, and is likely to be even less, rather than more, effective after this war. Democracy is a slow growth, not the automatic growth of military defeat.” (Forward, June 10.) (Our italics.) Whether Mr. Morrison will do anything about this, we are naturally unable to say. We certainly understood Mr. Churchill to say, on more than one occasion, that the aim of this war was the establishment of democracy in Germany, by military defeat of Germany.

Now Lord Vansittart says it’s impossible—and claims to be a German expert. Curiously enough. Socialists have always said much the same thing—i.e., war cannot produce democracy—but they do not conclude, like Vansittart, that the solution is the destruction of Germany, as well as democracy. They stand for international Socialism—real democracy based on social equality.

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Pollitt on Marxist Parties.

General Pollitt has burst into print again with his latest weekly pamphlet, “Pollitt answers questions on Communist Policy." Some poor sap called Duxbury has written to him complaining how completely mystified and bewildered he and his friends are by the sudden changes of the “Party line.” "It is very difficult, he says, when you have to tell people the very opposite of that which you have been drumming at them for months. They think, 'This fellow is a lunatic.' ” (p. 3).

Pollitt’s method of dealing with this is to admit it (the bewildering changes in policy), and then says its "Marxism.”

“The thing that distinguishes a political party based on Marxism is that it always formulates its policy from the concrete situation at a particular period, so that when the situation changes, policy also changes." (p. 5).

Then: 

  “By the way, it is not only the Communist Party which changes its policy to meet new situations. All other political parties in Britain have done so." (p. 6).

So we see, the thing which distinguishes a "Marxist” party (C. P. ?!!) is change; then "all other parties” have also changed—then they must all be "Marxist.” Actually, Mr. Pollitt knows quite well that ALL parties in Great Britain have not changed—because the situation of the workers has NOT changed—the S.P.G.B. still stands for Socialism and nothing else.

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“A New High Since September, 1937.”

  "The first news of the invasion caused feelings of jubilation in the inner circle of the market, while the sole reaction of jobbers was a slight widening of the margins between buying and selling prices. Since then prices of industrial equities have been Well maintained. The index of the Financial News stands at 111.1, a rise of 3.2 points on five weeks and a new high since September, 1937. There has been some switch from speculative buying of shipping and motor shares into European securities, particularly French guaranteed railway bonds and Imperial Continental Gas. . . . It seems very doubtful whether the new high levels can be held without a setback, unless the supreme effort of the United Nations meets with earlier and more continuous success than it seems prudent to expect.” (The Economist, June 10th, 1944.)

Meanwhile, Romanos iu the Strand, London, which was bankrupt in 1939, has made £30,000 profit and paid a dividend of 20s. in the pound, probably frequented by overpaid miners or munition workers.

The issue of the Economist already quoted shows, in its company report columns, what tremendous sacrifices are being made by the poor capitalists in the interests of the workers' war. Thus, Ever Ready Batteries made 40 per cent. Daily Mail, £623,105 profit; increase of £56,281. George Wimpey, Ltd., £228,000; dividend 20 per cent. for tenth year. Imperial Chemical industries, £4,000,000 profit. Dunlop Rubber Company, net profit £2,765,797, over £300,000 more than 1942. Now perhaps some of you scalliwags will understand that wars are not won with sacrifices. 

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“Give Your Blood for Your Country".

(But only by permission of the manager of your department.)

Lord Kemsley’s Daily Sketch (June 12th) waxes virtuously indignant because a West of England munitions factory has displayed a notice stating that—

  Employees of this firm render themselves liable to dismissal if they volunteer as blood donors without permission of the manager of their department.
  An official of the firm said to me: "The directors decided, on the advice of the works doctor, to stop employees from volunteering as blood donors because of the effect it would have on their health. They consider that a girl cannot do a full eight-hour shift on wartime rations and give a pint of blood as well.”

So workers may want to give blood for wounded soldiers—but "the directors" have decided that they shall not do so, because "they cannot do a full eight-hour shift ” if they do. In other words, it will interfere with their profits. Workers may only give their blood for their masters’ wars on the masters’ conditions.

Shylock, as everybody knows, only wanted his bond—"a pound of flesh”—without any blood. The modern capitalist takes, not merely the flesh—but, with the aid of his "medical advisers," the last pint of blood as well.

Horatio.