Letter: Socialists and Reforms (1942)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (S. E. K., Braughing, Herts.) writes asking the following question: —

Editorial Committee, S.P.G.B.

Dear Sirs, 

I do not quite understand your viewpoint on the reform question, but if a member of the S.P.G.B. were elected to Parliament would he oppose or support a measure or bill in favour of Family Allowances ?

A reply in “The Socialist Standard” would help many readers, as I get different answers from different supporters of your party.

Yours faithfully, 

S. E. Keyte.

Reply.

There are several aspects of the question of Reform and Reformism. The first is that the S.P.G.B. is opposed to the policy of putting forward a programme of reforms in addition to the objective of Socialism. It has sometimes been argued that a Socialist Party can usefully have a programme of reforms or immediate demands, consisting of measures to improve the workers’ conditions under capitalism. The objections to this are many. One is that such a programme inevitably attracts the support of people interested in the reforms but not interested in Socialism. This leads, as experience has shown in the past, to the Socialist objective being pushed into the background, and to the Socialist membership being swamped by the reformist element. A second objection is that the party which adopts such a policy finds itself advocating reforms which are part of the programme of openly capitalist parties—which causes confusion in the minds of the workers and leads to a demand by the reformist element of the would-be Socialist Party that it should co-operate with capitalist parties in order to put the reforms into operation.

A further objection is that no matter what reforms are introduced capitalism will still remain. It will frequently nullify the temporary improvement brought about by each reform and at the same time produce other evils which in their turn demand still more reforms. The only solution of the workers’ problem is the introduction of Socialism, and this can be brought about only when a majority have been won over to an understanding of Socialism and have organised to achieve it. All the time and effort spent on reforms is time and effort lost to the propagation of Socialism.

As regards the question of voting for individual measures in Parliament it is not denied that certain measures may, at least temporarily, alleviate the hardship of some group of workers. In such a case, if the effect of the proposal was clearly beneficial, Socialist M.P.s would be instructed by the Party to vote for it while pointing out its limitations. They would, of course, in no case invite support or elections on such grounds.

It should, however, be observed that most of the proposals put forward are not beneficial at all. It can be said, for example, that the past Acts of Parliamenl extending the franchise were useful to the Socialist movement, as also Acts providing and extending education. These cases are fairly clear but a proposal to introduce family allowances would in effect merely have the result of redistributing wages as between workers with young children and workers without.

Editorial Committee.