Letter: The Need to Control Parliament. (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Mr. W. T. Birch, London, S.E.22) objects to what he (mistakenly) regards as our view on fighting elections.

He quotes from a publication called “From Slavery to Freedom” a passage which he gives as follows :—

(1) Of serious import is the declared policy of the S.P.G.B. organ to run candidates in non-socialist constituencies provided the money is forthcoming. This policy has possibilities too dangerous for Socialists to entertain. A Socialist elected by non-Socialists “willing to give him a chance,” or for his personality, is a party to a fraud against the working-class. Such an individual would not be an empowered delegate, but would be more unsavoury than an honest reformist.

Mr. Birch then adds his comments :—-

That this charge is correct I know, because I remember the reference in the Socialist Standard, and if my details are correct, the constituency considered was Battersea. Now it is well known that, unfortunately, only a mere handful of Socialists {I mean real revolutionary Socialists, not people who call themselves such) are to be found in any constituency. Suppose your candidate had been elected if he had run for Battersea, and there is the chance that he may have been. He certainly could not have gone to the House of Commons and said that he represented, say, 10,000 people who understood Socialism and were prepared to substitute this system for Capitalism. I repeat that your candidate might have been elected if he had run. People vote from all sorts of motives. Some are “fed-up” with their present member, others like the personality of a candidate, etc. I doubt, however, if there are enough real Socialists in the country to get a single man into Parliament, if they could be collected into one constituency.

(2) And what could the member do in the House? Put the Socialist position before the M.P.s? They already know it, and the newspapers would not publish the speech. Far better to do propaganda work outside. Under Capitalism a man can only go to the House of Commons to help to administer Capitalism, and to talk about voting on the merits and demerits of legislation introduced into a capitalistic legislative chamber is sheer reformist nonsense; and if the candidate himself were to introduce Socialistic measures (say a Bill declaring the land and everything on it and in it to be communal property) he would be doing something for which he had no real mandate from his constituents.

(3) Perhaps, however, the Socialist Party of Great Britain no longer holds such a policy. If so, it would be well to have an assurance to this effect.

(For convenience of reply we have numbered the paragraphs in Mr. Birch’s letter. – Ed., Comm.].

Reply.

(1) Mr. Birch quotes a passage referring to ourselves, and “remembers” that certain statements were made in the Socialist Standard without, however, referring to the issue in which they appeared or saying what those statements were. This is not surprising. No statements were made bearing the slightest resemblance to those ascribed to us by Mr. Birch. Anyone who reads Mr. Birch’s letter, without knowing the facts, will assume that we put forward candidates intending to get them returned on a non-Socialist programme and on non-Socialist votes. The truth is far different. What we proposed in 1928 was to do in the Parliamentary elections what from the formation of the party we had done in local elections, that is, put forward candidates for the propaganda value of that action, knowing full well that they could not possibly be elected.

Mr. Birch says that he read our statement about the candidate we proposed to put forward in Battersea. If he would consult the Socialist Standard of February, 1928, he would see that we made plain something which would be already known to every reader of the Socialist Standard, viz., that our candidate would run on the Socialist programme, seeking a mandate for the establishment of Socialism and nothing else. Yet in face of this Mr. Birch affects to believe that our candidate might have been elected by the non-Socialist majority of South Battersea electors. We can only say that we are appalled by the ignorance of electors and elections exhibited by Mr. Birch. He asks us to believe that only “personality” stands between victory and defeat for the capitalists at election times, and that electors who are in favour of capitalism are always liable when “fed-up” to vote against capitalism. Mr. Birch gives no evidence for his belief, but the matter can be quite easily tested. Will Mr. Birch give us a few instances of elections where voters who wanted capitalism voted against the various reformist candidates, and voted for candidates running simply on the Socialist programme.

And if Mr. Birch is still convinced that non-Socialists are always liable to vote for what they do not want and against what they do want, will he tell us how he proposes that we should guard against this except by our invariable precaution of putting forward a candidate simply on the Socialist programme?

One other point in the passage Mr. Birch quotes is the reference to money. Are we to understand that Mr. Birch objects to us asking our sympathisers to contribute towards the expense of carrying on the activities for which the party exists? (Having read the statement in the February, 1928, Socialist Standard, Mr. Birch will remember that the appeal was addressed to our sympathisers.)

(2) In this paragraph of his letter Mr. Birch implies his opposition to the Socialist Party of Great Britain’s policy of gaining control of Parliament. May we ask Mr. Birch in what way he imagines that Socialism can be established without the workers gaining control of Parliament and the rest of political machinery?

Mr. Birch tells us that the newspapers would not record the doings of Socialists in Parliament. How does he know this? Why does he suppose that the newspapers which already to a limited extent report our propaganda activities would cease to do so as soon as Socialists are numerous enough to win elections? And what of it, anyway? It is necessary for the workers to control the political machinery irrespective of whether the Press cares to report it.

Mr. Birch tells us that we should do propaganda work outside Parliament. Does Mr. Birch really imagine that the working class can overthrow capitalism while leaving the capitalists in control of Parliament merely by doing propaganda work outside. This is anarchism with a vengeance.

We cannot follow Mr. Birch’s statement that candidates of ours put forward for the purpose of establishing Socialism would, if elected, have “no real mandate” from the electors.

(3) In his third paragraph Mr, Birch asks if we have now abandoned the policy which he describes. If he means have we abandoned the policy of capturing the political machinerv in favour of the anarchistic policy of only doing propaganda work outside and leaving the political machinery in the hands of the capitalists, the answer is NO.

If he means our policy of fighting elections for their propaganda value even when there is only a minority of Socialists, and therefore no possibility of a Socialist candidate being elected, and if he means our policy of running candidates simply on the need to overthrow capitalism and establish Socialism through control of the political machinery, our answer is again NO !

May we recommend lo Mr. Birch that he read again the statement in the February, 1928, Socialist Standard that he read once before but has failed to remember?

Editorial Committee.

Blogger's Note:

The “From Slavery to Freedom” pamphlet quoted in the above letter was a 1932 pamphlet produced by the Socialist Propaganda League, which was an early split from the SPGB (Pre-WW1). The split centred on the WB (Upton Park) controversy. According to the SPL's wiki page, the pamphlet was reviewed in the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard. The review is not on the net yet  . . . but it soon will be.