More new leaders for old (1942)

From the July 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article, entitled “Politicians, Bureaucrats and the New World,” in the Evening News of May 19th, Sir Ernest Benn, criticising the vagueness of the post-war proposals made by our by our present politicians, says the following :—

“When . . . this war is at last brought to a victorious conclusion, there will be a lot to do. Whether it is going to be a new-fangled world or the same old natural world with a new coat of paint is beside my present point. There is quite obviously a great big job of work to be done, and the nation—that is the British public, all the little John Citizens—will have to decide to whom that job is to be entrusted.

“There will be many applicants, and we shall have to go through the normal, usual processes of ‘taking up’ and making inquiries into character and qualification.”

It is obvious that this procedure of selecting applicants and “taking up” references is taken quite for granted by Sir Ernest Benn. That the majority of his readers would likewise regard this practice as the usual thing is also probable. It does, however, seem remarkable that the full significance of the above quotation has not yet been appreciated by our fellow-workers.

May we therefore remind them that for the last sixty years or more they have been doing nothing else but selecting applicants and “taking up” references; that for the last sixty years or more they have been incessantly cajoled, flattered and persuaded into electing “trustees,” whom they hoped would rid them of the many evils to which they are constantly subject; that, in spite of these years of promises and pledges relief from their problems has not been achieved.

Might we then suggest to them that it is high time they realised that the remedy for the problems confronting them cannot be achieved by the promises of leaders and professional politicians (of whatever stamp) but can only be accomplished through the independent, political action of the workers themselves, the basis for that action being a sound understanding of the fundamental objects and principles of Socialism.

Lastly may we say that this Socialist understanding is not beyond the mental capabilities of the working-class. They require no great intellect to grasp that the evils of poverty and insecurity with which they are afflicted arise from a certain system of wealth ownership and production, capitalism, nor do they need the intelligence of supermen to perceive that the system and its evils can only be eradicated once and for all by their organising consciously at a class and gaining political power for the establishment of Socialism.

The advice of Sir Ernest Benn is of no value to workers in their struggle. For them to put their trust in leaders and the like is to put their fate into the hands of men who will lead them but deeper into the quagmires of Capitalism.

As Engels so truly said in his “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific” :—

“To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement, scientific Socialism.”

Possessed of this “thorough comprehension,” the working-class will not require advice or directions from leaders. They themselves will know the way to go.

Stan Hampson