Socialism better than striking (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are few plaudits from the media for workers who come out on strike; at such times it is more usual for the inbuilt assumption to operate, that the employers and the government are exercising reason and patience while the strikers, to get their own way, are putting the nation’s economy, health and safety at risk. This argument relies on the type of snap judgement and prejudice which exist most easily when reality is obscured and inconvenient facts are smothered. For example, in the water workers’ dispute the new Environment Minister, Tom King, condemned the strikers for refusing to put the matter to arbitration when the fact is that he himself, by planning to abolish the Water Council, has undermined the industry’s established arbitration machinery.

Many of the snap judgements are made by workers in frustration at having to cope with the effects of a strike. Nobody can be expected to be happy, as they contemplate a pavement awash from a broken, unrepaired water main, or queue at a dismal stand pipe, about a hardship so obviously avoidable. In sane terms, there is an immediate, constant human need for water; there is the equipment and the people to produce it as it is needed. Why can’t the two — needs and ability — match up? The common response, fed by the media, is blame the strikers, forgetting that the employers could easily finish the dispute by conceding the workers’ demands. Their refusal to so concede is, of course, based on arguments about economic survival, just as are the workers’ wage claims. It is those same arguments which sometimes lead to the employers imposing a lock-out or closing down a works regardless of the hardship this causes to the people who work there or who might need the works’ products.

Workers suffer the effects of a strike because, as mass consumers of commodities, they are the ones most vulnerable to a breakdown in supplies. For example, the recent health workers’ dispute caused anxiety and physical suffering to people who were waiting for treatment in National Health Service hospitals. The media made much of this, with heart-rending stories of delayed operations and frustrated treatment plans. No publicity was given to the fact that rich people were unaffected by the dispute for the simple reason that their class does not depend on an economy-straitened, mass-produced medical service like the NHS; they have access to the doctors and the clinics where strikes and disputes are unknown but where treatment costs hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pounds a day.

This contrast effectively illuminates the hypocrisy of the officially expressed concern for the welfare of sick people, for children and pensioners — the traditionally vulnerable source of so many human interest stories in the gutter press — when they are affected by a strike. The same compassion is notably absent when a government or a local authority, in the name of economy, attacks the welfare of those same vulnerable people by cutting services like home helps and day centres and by closing down hospitals and residential homes. When these assaults are made on people's lives they are represented as the fruits of prudence and reason.

The fact of the matter is that strikes and lock-outs are not matters of morality except that they conform to the basic morality of capitalism which is that of a social system operating on class antagonisms. The opposing classes of capitalism arise from the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, which means that the class which does not own those means is reduced in order to live to selling their labour power to the owners. This is not immoral; it is an essential, historical feature of capitalism.

Private ownership is also responsible for the character of wealth under capitalism — that of commodities, of goods which are produced primarily for sale and profit. This is all-pervading; even cases like medical treatment, which may seem superficially unconnected with commodity production, are in fact very much a part of the productive and exploitative processes of capitalism. NHS hospitals are like vehicle repair shops and servicing bays, where the machines are human beings who are patched and tuned up to get them back on the road of employment again. Commodity production is motivated by the realisation of profit and the accumulation of capital; unless there is a prospect of these there is no production. So closures, redundancies and the like are not affronts to an eternal human morality; they are inexorable products of the class-antagonistic nature of capitalist society.

Occasionally, among their crocodile tears, the media may crudely philosophise about the possibility that there is a better way of doing things. Indeed there is, although it is one not to be dreamed of in even the wilder recesses of Fleet Street. To say that capitalism essentially has a class antagonism is to say that it must divide the human race into two factions endlessly disputing over the division of wealth at a time when enough can be produced to satisfy everyone’s needs. It is to say that this social system cannot operate in the harmonious manner which modern productive powers enable and demand.

If the class antagonisms are essential to capitalism they can be assessed and remedied only by reference to the basic nature of the system and that, as we have said, is the private ownership of the means of life. There is only one way in which that basis can be changed; after private ownership the next step must be common, worldwide, human ownership. The alternative to capitalism is socialism.

As socialism changes the basis of society, so it will bring in changed social relationships which will immediately be expressed and recognised in human harmony. Social ownership of the means of living entails a classless society, a world of united people whose entire interests are entirely as one. So socialism will replace antagonism with co-operation; it will substitute abundance for scarcity and human welfare for minority dominance. Its morality will replace that of privilege and repression with open access and freedom. It is the true alternative to strikes and to all the other conflicts of capitalism.

50 Years Ago: American Investigators Borrow from Marx (1983)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

We socialists have a saying that every ruling class helps to dig its own grave. As excellent evidence, consider the massive report first issued after three years of research by President Hoover’s Research Committee on Social Trends.

The Report is full of statistical matter which will be of invaluable use for us in our propaganda. Here, the present writer wishes to emphasise the open acceptance, though without acknowledgement, of course, of the basic proposition of Marxism. first laid down by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, eighty-five years ago and later stated by Marx as follows:

The mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness. 

At a certain stage in their development, the material forces of production in society come into conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing with the property relations within which they have been at work before. From forms of development of the forces of production, these turn into their fetters. Then comes the period of social revolution. With the change of the economic foundation, the entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.

The above generalisation was for long completely ignored by the professional sociologists of the universities. Later it was condemned as a false and pernicious doctrine generally being misinterpreted out of all recognition. In recent years many historians have adopted it as the real clue to history and the only tool by which they could justify their claim to be "scientific historians". In "Recent Social Trends" the principle is stressed very clearly though the revolutionary conclusions drawn by Marx are not drawn by the Committee, or to be more specific, are only vaguely hinted at in their indefinite suggestions as to future changes. The following are extracts from the Introduction:

Scientific discoveries and inventions instigate changes, first in the economic organisations and social habits, which are most closely associated with them. The next set of changes occurs in organisations one step further removed, namely in institutions such as the family, the government. the school and the churches. Somewhat later, as a rule, come changes in social philosophies and codes of behaviour, though at times these may precede the others.  

(From an article by R.W. Housley, Socialist Standard, March 1933.)

Russian empire (1983)

Book Review from the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gerard Chaliand, Report From Afghanistan (Penguin, 1982).

Based on two visits made to Afghanistan in October and November 1980. this report is a condemnation of Russia as “the bloodiest and most deceptive caricature in modern history, a cruel parody of the ideas that supposedly inspire it" (p. 7). Chaliand claims that all peoples have the right to self-determination, as defined by United Nations charter, and that Russia has violated that right.

Afghanistan is the only country outside the Warsaw Pact to have been occupied by Russian troops since the Second World War. Although the justification of the intervention of December 1979 was the threatened collapse of socialism in Afghanistan, the reality is that Russia now guards the Pakistani frontier only a few hundred kilometres from the Indian Ocean and also has a significant presence on Iran’s western border.

Modern Afghanistan was created towards the end of the nineteenth century as a buffer state between Tsarist Russia and the British Empire and has remained since that period largely undeveloped. The rural population is dominated by the mullahs, who have for decades opposed any reform which might threaten their influence or undermine traditional customs. In 1950 Russia and Afghanistan signed an economic agreement whereby Russia would provide sugar, cotton and oil in exchange for wool and raw cotton; $740 million of aid was provided for Afghanistan between 1954 and 1968 and in 1955 the Russo-Afghan Treaty of Neutrality and Non-Aggression was signed. There was the building of an airport at Kabul and a road through the Salang Pass from the Russian border to Kabul (the road used by Soviet troops in 1979). In 1967 Afghanistan and Russia signed a protocol guaranteeing the delivery of Afghan natural gas from 1967-1985.

On 24 April 1978 President Daud was overthrown and executed while attempting to arrest leading members of the Afghan left including Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Hafizullah Amin of the Democratic Party of the People of Afghanistan. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was proclaimed and recognised by Russia on 30 April with Taraki as President. There followed a breakdown between the Khalq and Parcham factions of the Party and hostility to the government from the population. Hafizullah Amin’s secret police and army troops were sent to subdue the resistance. On 27 July 1979 Amin became secretary of the Party and Central Committee and minister of defence. He was also prime minister and overseer of the secret police.

On 10 September Taraki, while visiting Moscow, agreed with Brezhnev to institute a programme of democratic nationalism and to invite the Parcham faction to rejoin the government. They had been ousted from key government posts in July 1978 with Karmal being sent as ambassador to Prague. Meanwhile Amin, who totally controlled the Khalq faction, arranged for the arrest of Taraki on 14 September. Taraki was then executed some weeks later. Amin now became head of state. Repression continued under Amin's rule, as did hostility to his government. The Russian military intervention began on 25 December 1979 and by 27 December Russian troops occupied Kabul. Amin was immediately overthrown and executed and Babrak Karmal was proclaimed president and prime minister.

Opposition to the government continued but Chaliand points out that because of "its leadership organisation, coordination and strategy . . . [it] is one of the weakest liberation struggles in the world today” (p. 47). The opposition is conservative in that it expresses no political alternative other than the retention of traditional customs and religious values. No reforms have been posited other than opposition to government and herein lies its weakness. There is no coordination of strategy among the individual factions which remain regionally based and regionally ambitious.

Chaliand argues that the Russians have not followed the strategy adopted by the Americans in Vietnam and have only sufficient troops to control the cities and principal roads. The strategy is one in which Russia

expects to draw the country into its economic sphere, taking advantage of the unexploited and underexploited natural resources like oil, uranium, chrome, manganese, copper, coal, iron, and semiprecious stones . . . during 1979 and 1980 the Soviets launched a number of economic projects to strengthen the industrial infrastructure of Afghanistan and increase its trade with Russia (p.66)

Opposition has been restricted to sabotaging roads, skirmishes outside forts and fortified villages and terrorist strikes on towns. Chaliand says that the West must recognise that this resistance is one of “a people fighting for their liberty" (p. 71) and that it should be supported. In this he is taking sides in a conflict of interests between rival capitalist spheres of influence.

Afghanistan is seen as a step in Russia's expansion of its empire by conquering neighbouring territories and in that it adds to the "tarnished image of socialism" (p. 76). This is a basic flaw in Chaliand’s argument. His major concern is in drawing attention to the shift of the regional balance in Western Asia away from the interests of Western Europe and America. He calls on the West to challenge Russia whenever and wherever it is necessary for we are entering an era of "open competition and antagonism between East and West” (p. 88). But that competition is not between “tarnished” socialism and free capitalism but between conflicting capitalist interests. Russia may hypocritically claim to have cast off the mantle of Tsarist imperialism but its action in seizing economic and political control of Afghanistan is no less imperialist in its outcome.

Chaliand’s report recognises the cynicism of Russia's position but ascribes that to a corrupted socialism rather than as another manifestation of the Soviet Union’s essential capitalism. To take sides in the conflict between opposing spheres of capitalist interests is to give credibility to the system which generates the very conditions that Chaliand laments. Rather he should emphasise the reality of capitalism at its most cynical; it is manifested in the annexation of Afghanistan.

Philip Bentley

Happy families (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

We feel that it is important to differentiate between sporadic "battering" which can be regarded as part of a normal marriage, particularly in certain cultural groups, and more persistent beating.

The Family Service Unit, from whose journal (Winter. 1973) this comment is taken, was set up over thirty years ago. to deal with the “problem family". During that time, the nuclear family has remained the most predominant home unit in society, but has come under increasing strain. The rise of capitalism has tended historically to break up pieces of stability, to fragment life into smaller and smaller atoms. The common lands were broken up under the Enclosures and the extended family was dislocated with the arrival of the factory system. Now the divorce rate has shot up, and there is an increasing number of single parent families and even of single people without children, often living in bedsits. There is a disturbing feeling of isolation, of alienation, especially in the rapidly growing cities where population is concentrated. as the profit machine grinds on its “labour unit costs” like grain in a mill:

Just a cast away, an island lost at sea. . .

I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle. . .

Walked out this morning. I don't believe

what I saw,

A hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore. (Sting, 1979) 

The problem of domestic violence is impossible to quantify because it takes place behind closed doors. For the same reason, its tragedies are numerous and very rarely charted. Scream Quietly or the Neighbours Will Hear by Erin Pizzey was published in 1974 and documented the incidence of wife-beating in London, where she had founded Chiswick Women's Aid in 1971 as a charitable refuge for the victims of violent attacks in the home. She described in horrible detail the cruel treatment suffered by the women who came to her for help. Violence was said often to arise out of arguments over money or some petty jealousy. The pathetic frustration of a worker, bullied at work and taking it out on the women and children he lived with, was shown to be the most common case, with Sunday nights having the highest rate of violence, presumably because of the prospect of starting work Monday morning. The NSPCC deal with tens of thousands of cases of child-abuse each year, and their reports have recently shown an increase in the rate of child-battering, which they ascribe to the recession. Apart from the increased feelings of frustration arising from unemployment, there are now more children being left all day on their own as two people have to work to earn the equivalent of what had once been brought home by one.

Erin Pizzey has now published a further book on this subject, Prone to Violence (co-written with Jeff Shapiro, Hamlyn, £1.75) which develops a theory of violence which was only hinted at in her earlier work. The 1974 book had concentrated on the problems faced by women who tried to get away from men who had been beating them up. She cited many obstacles which they faced, including the difficulty of getting somewhere to stay with children, and the worry of having to leave children with a man who might be violent towards them. She looked at the weak legal position of women in such cases, especially those who were co-habitees rather than wives, and concluded that

For generations the established charities and more recently the State social welfare services have been picking up the pieces after each individual family crisis. They've not asked or looked for the cause of the troubles or done anything to eradicate them (1974, page 90)

so that the end product of the nuclear family is sometimes a periodically crying wreck, defused by ECT at the hands of the “mental health" practitioners, when the antiseptic, family-planned, two-point-five- child model has not stultified as smoothly as it should.

In the new book, on the other hand, a number of particularly violent relationships are documented, and the suggestion is made that there are a number of people who have been conditioned from early childhood to seek violence as their sole means of gaining attention and feeling secure. This difference in analysis lies behind the two separate sets of refuges for battered wives which now exist. The National Federation of Women's Aids was formed by various feminist groups who saw domestic violence as being a problem of violent men attacking women, who wanted to get away as far and as quick as possible from those men. Erin Pizzey’s Women's Aid, now known more appropriately as Family Rescue, sees the problem in broader terms as consisting of the relationships existing between men and women, particularly of the violent kind. In Prone to Violence she has made her clearest statement yet of why she thinks many women go back to men who have beaten them up. A feminist review of the book in the Socialist Workers’ Party Socialist Review has predictably rejected Pizzey’s line of argument, suggesting instead that women went back to their previous assailants because of their weak economic and legal position, or even to get away from Pizzey herself!

Pizzey may seem the more reactionary partner to this dispute, in that she argues that some of the people involved in these relationships do in some way seek violence as a way of establishing themselves, rather than simply being put upon as helpless victims. In fact, however, apart from some reservations mentioned below, hers is potentially the more revolutionary position, since the solution to the problem expressed in this way would involve a total transformation of human relationships. The same irony exists in relation to the Left as a whole. It is often considered very militant to state that the working class is about to overthrow capitalism, if only one reformist leader were not standing in the way. The fact that most workers still accept capitalism and leaders, and that this is what stands in the way of revolution, holds greater potential for change, even if it seems a more bleak outlook.

Out of the seemingly endless conveyor belt of casualties of cramped working-class stress, Erin Pizzey came to the conclusion that the problem ran deeper than one simply of once-off attacker and victim. Often the people being beaten up came from disturbed family backgrounds. She asked why whole families were not taken into care:

By asking such questions, you are shaking the very foundations of a society that has never questioned its basic assumption that the privileged few should control the lives of everyone else. The class structure and social fabric of our society are so organised that any failure to comply with this assumption is met by a rigid and unyielding bureaucratic offensive . . . violent people are very frightened people. (Prone to Violence, pages 51,57).

She suggests that where a new born child is treated violently rather than gently (for example by parents who are themselves violent) it develops a relationship to its own body chemicals which is unbalanced, becoming “addicted” to feeding off its own adrenalin or cortisone (which has the opposite effect of adrenalin, inhibiting the blood flow). She analyses violent relationships as being based on such imbalances, and believes that the chemical manifestations of this can be inherited directly. This medical theory has not been proved or disproved, and at times appears bizarre, even sinister:

We hope to see pharmaceutical companies working to find a whole new spectrum of drugs that could be used to aid the internal work with the emotionally disabled. (Ibid. page 181)

However, much of the social commentary surrounding this is very perceptive. The need is clearly stated for human relationships to be based on a freshly harmonious footing, free from the frustrations and repression of ties of violence. Only in capitalist society, where even human beings have a price on their heads, is the arrival of a new person seen inevitably as an additional financial burden to bear. Two people or, increasingly, one person becomes responsible for the upbringing of that child. It is part of the obscene atomisation of capitalist society that this responsibility is exclusive to one or two people, rather than being social and shared. The stress and violence which often results from financial and emotional limitation, and the role of the closest protectors of the child as providers of its social conditioning, lead to unbalanced character development. This is a social problem of capitalism and the nuclear family, whether or not it manifests itself in the chemical way suggested by Pizzey and Shapiro. In any case, all such social phenomena must have some bodily or chemical manifestation even if Pizzey's theories of adrenalin and cortizone are fallacious.

These books do not have any solution to the problems they document, but by exposing the weaknesses of many claimed “solutions” they suggest a way out of relationships of torment and agony, through the conscious and free organisation of society. Even if some women and men seem to have a tendency to be attracted towards violence because it is the only way they know of asserting themselves, this is not the same as the crude and callous suggestion that someone who has been beaten up wanted it to happen. Nobody wants to suffer the tortures documented in these books. What people want is security and the chance to assert ourselves creatively. In a jungle society of competition and separation this can rarely be achieved directly, and so people resort to desperate means. The result is untold human misery, all of it unnecessary. The answer is for us to organise society rather than letting it organise us.

Clifford Slapper

Listening banks (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Big Five banks do not give consistent, unalloyed pleasure to the Prime Minister. Indeed, some of their actions, like a few weeks ago on interest rates, have been known to provoke one of Thatcher’s famous temper tantrums about which husband Denis writes so tremulously in Private Eye. But a recent decision by the banks, which might have come from the fearsome Norman Tebbit himself, must have given hearty satisfaction at Number Ten.

The situation, in brief, is that the banking unions have asked for a nine per cent pay rise. Nowadays it is usual for the employers to respond to such claims by arguing that they simply can't afford the money: the firm isn't making enough, or even losing money; any more rises and they will all be in Carey Street . . .

But that sort of argument is not available to the likes of NatWest and the Midland. who are accustomed to declaring profits of hundreds of millions of pounds. So the banks are simply confronting the unions with the harsh reality of capitalism in slump and of the true social standing of bank employees. The boot is now firmly on the employers’ foot; the unions have little bargaining muscle; among the three million plus unemployed there must be plenty of people who would willingly take a job in a bank without causing problems with pay demands.

Of course, being banks they don't put it in quite so demotic a way; what they actually say is: “In terms of the ‘need to pay’ there is no justification for any increase at all . . . none of the banks report any difficulty in recruiting the number and calibre of staff they require.”

This response will be difficult to explain, among those bank workers who have grown accustomed to the assumption that they are socially better than people like miners and lorry drivers and sewage workers. They have always believed that they had some common cause with their bosses.

But there is really no problem; the explanation is perfectly simple. Everyone who has to go to work for a living is a member of lie working class, and all members of that class have interests opposed to those of their employers. Miners, water workers, bank clerks are in the same class and have a united interest. There is no gentility in the social relationships of workers to employer; it is all a matter of the balance sheet, of the drive to make and sell goods for profit. Bank workers, more than perhaps any others, should be able to understand that.

The Labour Government Gets Tough with the Workers(1948)

From the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Capitalist Press has found a new hero in Sir Stafford Cripps. They congratulate him on having taken firm control of Government economic policy and on standing up manfully to the trade unions on the wages issue. In his recent speeches and in the Government declaration, “Statement on Personal Incomes, Costs and Prices,” he announced plans to avoid increases of prices and profits and, if possible, to reduce them and told the trade unions there must be no more wage increases unless accompanied by a substantial increase in production, or for the purpose of attracting workers to undermanned industries, or in the event of a future marked rise in the cost of living. And if we do not obey (Sir Stafford warns us) we face ”a serious and prolonged set-back in our economic reconstruction accompanied by a persistent low standard of living.” He follows it up with the threat of dictatorship.

“We must all subordinate our own interests to those of the nation. Otherwise someone will be called upon to force us to comply as the only alternative to disaster.” (Speech at Edinburgh, Observer, 8/2/48)

A typical Press comment on the Government’s new statement of policy was that in the Daily Mail (6/23/48). Under the heading “The Truth at Last” the Mail wrote : “The Government have taken their courage in both hands. . . Not only have they for the first time made far-reaching economic proposals without the prior permission of the T.U.C., but they are facing up to the hard facts of our economic situation. This is a refreshing change from the weak and hesitant attitude we have come to expect. It is .not difficult to trace in the new departure the hand and purpose of Sir Stafford Cripps.”

Sir Stafford Cripps’ rise to power deserves a little examination. He made his name in politics (and, thus earned the grave disapproval of the Daily Mail) as a critic of the official Labour Party policy. He attacked the monarchy, wanted disarmament and an anti-war policy, urged a United Front of the Labour Party and other so-called “left wing” parties, and constantly urged the Labour Party to be bolder and more aggressive in its programme of “soaking the rich” to aid the workers. Above all, he became known for his belief that when Labour got power ordinary Parliamentary methods of carrying out their programme against capitalist opposition would be slow and ineffective and must be helped out by the use of Orders in Council and other devices for coercing the opposition and speeding up legislation. Sir Stafford, after many years at loggerheads with the Labour Party, found his chance during the war and is now, in all but name, Prime Minister of the Labour Government. What a chance for him to see the realisation of his early hopes and plans, and how zealously this puritanical lawyer-politician tackles the job. One thing only has gone awry, Sir Stafford has turned right round: his belligerency and his demand for emergency measures, speed and urgency, are now directed against the workers in the trade unions. Here then is the reason why the capitalist writers praise the man they used to spurn.

He and his colleagues are also now being praised in the same quarters for being frank to the workers and telling them the grim truth about the crisis. The Labour Government deserves no such praise. If they were really being frank and truthful their message would go something like this:

“In 1945 we got your votes under false pretences. We pretended that a Labour Government would be able to bring about continuous improvements of your standard of living with more pay, shorter hours, plenty of goods at lower prices, plenty of houses, etc. We also promised you peace with all the world, especially Russia. We pretended that our aim was Socialism and that we would lead you towards that goal. Those things were not true. We were muddled about it ourselves and only partly understood what problems capitalism would produce, but beyond that we were just making empty promises to get your votes and hoping, Micawber-like, that something would turn up before the next election. What we were really doing was to take on the job of putting British capitalism on its feet again and some of us knew that this would mean imposing further great hardships on the workers. We promised ‘full employment’ but we quite overlooked the fact that capitalism needs unemployment in order to keep wages down and safeguard profits. As we can’t do without capitalism we are now compelled to urge yon not to press for higher wages though we have been raising prices by withdrawing subsidies. If yon don’t heed our warning we shall have to use wholesale direction of labour or some other compulsion to make you adjust your demands to the requirements of capitalism. We are, now finding ourselves compelled by capitalism to carry out much the same policy as the Tories and Liberals imposed on you after the First World War. After this crisis there will be other crises, and we shan’t be able to do anything about them except tell you to be patient, pull in your belts and work harder. If you want to escape all these evils the only way is to abolish capitalism and introduce socialism. But if you are, content to put up with capitalism we shall stay in office as long as you will let us. Why should we leave the sweets of ministerial office to the Tories or some other party?”

That is what they would say if they were candid. What they will say is quite another story. As they fall into line with traditional Tory and Liberal policies for dealing with capitalist crises they may be expected more and more to defend their failure to “deliver the goods” by putting the blame on those who put them in power – the working class.

Edgar Hardcastle

"The Red Prussian" (1948)

Book Review from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Red Prussian; the life and legend of Karl Marx 

by Leopold Schwarzschild

Much has been Written on "What Marx really meant.” This book sets out to tell us what Marx really, was.

There is, however, a startling paradox in the author's presentation. According to Mr. Schwarzschild Marx is a defamer, intriguer and political.thug. A man of many passions but no parts, possessed by an unscrupulous lust for power.

It is with mild astonishment, therefore, that we learn from the preface that "The most important facts of our times all lead back to one man—Karl Marx.” This is followed by the shattering contention, "There is no doubt if Marx had never lived our whole life would have been different ”

One can only say even at the risk of debunking Marx further in the eyes of Mr. Schwarzschild that had Birth Control been fashionable enough at the time to have put Marx among "the missing” "our life” would have been much—very much, the same, a statement Marx would have sworn to by the hairs of his beard. The old "megalomaniac” even constructed a theory debunking for all time the notion that history is a fairy-tale of the "adventures" of great men and "heroes.”

The case for the prosecution rests on excerpts and quotes mostly of Marx's and Engels' views and personal assessment of their associates. The source is the complete Marx-Engels correspondence.

It adds very little in essentials to what is known on the matter. That Marx's personal opinions were often excoriating and unjustified is ancient knowledge. That his personal opinions were often harsh but justified by subsequent events is neither ancient nor modern knowledge to Mr. Schwarzschild. Marx could even be conciliatory to views other than his own as his relations with the various sections of the First International amply testify.

Mr. Schwarzschild, indicting Marx before the bar of history as the arch-evil-maker of all time, cannot admit of any concession, or charity. He is out to get his man.

For the same reason the objective basis of Marx’s disputes with his contemporaries—disputes, over important and often decisive doctrinal differences—are no part of Mr. Schwarzschild’s evidence.

For that reason again we learn nothing of Marx's real criticism of Bruno Bauer's mystical belief in the creative power of ideas; of: his real dispute with Arnold Ruge over the nature and function of the State, or his withering analysis of the reactionary doctrines of Moses Hess’s "True Socialism”; of Proudhon’s petty bourgeois theories or Bakunin’s eclectic Anarchism.

Mr. Schwarzschild is merely concerned to use on the surface of this cauldron of simmering controversy the ladle of malice and scoop up the froth of personal remarks and chit-chat—used by all sides, incidentally—and present this froth as the essence of Marxism.

That all this is not even a part of Marxism is perhaps the most ironical commentary one can make on this book.

Marx, of course, did not affirm that morality was a bourgeois inhibition. He did deny, however, that there was some superior ethical judgment to which conflicting class-interests could be referred and successfully settled. For Marx the preaching of an abstract ethical ideal in a class dominated society was dangerous utopianism. It was against such "Utopians” that he directed his sharpest criticism.

Hegel is dealt with in a summary and largely flippant fashion. The author apparently knows nothing of the social and economic background which made Hegel such a force and compelled for a period all German philosophy and culture to stand within his shadow.

Marx is made out to be merely a slavish disciple of Hegel. It is, of course, a common-place among Marxist students that the differences between Marx and Hegel were in some aspects more emphatic than that which they had in common. The publisher's blurb informs us that the author took a degree. We might assume that it was not in Philosophy.

Risking the fact that the author's lack of knowledge of Marxism may tend to become monotonous in recounting, we are compelled to say Marx never held the view that man was a mere mechanical by-product of some mysterious ineluctable "economic process.” Consciousness—not the abstract consciousness of Hegel, but the historically class-conditioned consciousness of human beings—is central to Marx's doctrines.

Marx did not say human instincts and emotions must of necessity have an economic origin. He would have utterly repudiated the statement.

Marx did not say (vide the author) History makes men; he said the opposite, Men make History. He even said “ History possesses no riches; it fights no fight.” He added, History is nothing more than the activity of man—real living man—in pursuit of his ends. That this human activity is conditioned by the objective productive relations in which man as social groups find themselves is an interpretation of history which can be empirically established. Even academic sociologists who are not “Marxists” accept this interpretation as the most fruitful one. But as the author infers, Dr. Marx fluked his degree all these academic gentlemen might have done the same.

Finally Marx did not say what Mr. Schwarzschild says, that economics was the exclusive factor in history. The author in his zealous search through the Marx-Engels correspondence could have read Engel’s letter to Bloch on the part ideological factors play in Marx's theory. That, however, was not the sort of thing Mr. Schwarzschild was looking for.

Mr. Schwarzschild indulges in the fashionable practice of biographers by seeming to read Marx’s secret thoughts in imaginary soliloquies and conversations. The absurdities supposedly uttered by Marx in this manner are, of course, the exclusive copyright of Mr. Schwarzschild. His interpretation of Marx's theory is not the Historical Materialism of Marx but the some what hysterical romanticism of Mr. Schwarzchild.

His criticism of Marx’s economic doctrines is even below the conventional stereotyped “refutations.” Unable to refute Marx’s analysis that the objective source of profit is unpaid labour he falls back on such contentions that a source of profit is buying houses and selling them at three times their value. He is utterly unable to grasp the fact that labour is required to produce houses and therefore the basis of profit must be the element of unpaid labour contained in producing them.

He does not pursue the fascinating possibilities of this economic discovery by showing in disproof of Marx that the great increases in the wealth of present society and the vast accumulation of capital can be explained perhaps on the hypothesis of buying houses and selling them at three times their price.

He also assures us that profits are made by trading, i.e. the act of buying and selling. Here he confuses the production of profit with its realization. If labour is to be considered a source of profit then Mr. Schwarzchild’s viewpoint is that it is the dead labour of constant capital—the costs of running machines and worked up material—to which we must look. Apparently it is only living labour—the application of human labour power itself—which is denied this profit-making function.

He even tells us that many of the causes of profit-making are immaterial ones. For such a statement he offers not the slightest evidence—not even “immaterial” evidence. ’

Present-day, monopolistic, control-ridden society is referred to as a liberal capitalist system based upon thee free-play of forces. This is not the statement of John Bright a century ago but the considered opinion of a journalist called Mr. Schwarzschild in this year of grace 1948.

The author says that no economist has accepted the economics of Marx. The reason being, of course, self-evident. We wonder if even the present apologists for capitalism would accept the economics of Mr. Schwarzschild.

Mr. Schwarzschild contends that Marx refused to give a blueprint of future socialist society because it would have revealed a Super Prussian State. That Socialism cannot be a sum of ready-made proscriptions but the historic product of the living concrete conditions developing in Capitalist Society is the one thing which marks off Scientific Socialism from the utopian brands. Such a remark revealingly shows that Mr. Schwarzschild’s knowledge of Scientific Socialism could be amply accommodated with a suitable margin on the back of a postage-stamp. Incidentally, when Marx showed that Socialism must inevitably mean the establishment of a classless society the author simply says that Marx was lying.

It is rather amusing to reflect that the capitalist press, each in their different ways, have largely demolished Mr. Schwarzschild’s contentions. It is equally amusing to note that in their contradictory assessment of Marxism they also contradict each other. Thus the journal Truth comments not unfavourably on the author’s contention that “Bismark was a champion of human liberty against the soul-destroying tyranny of Marx.” The liberal Manchester Guardian review agrees with Mr. Schwarzschild’s personal assessment of Marx but disagrees with the liberal Mr. Schwarzschild’s estimate of Bismark bv stating that like Marx “Bismark had the same repellent qualities even more intensely.” The Economist's reviewer thought that the author’s tendency to exaggerate the triumphs of Liberalism contained some startling inaccuracies. He believed, however, that Marxist science is but a painful attempt to justify Marx’s dogmatic pronouncements before 1848. Mr. Crankshaw in the Observer holds, however, that “Marx’s philosophic contribution is badly under-rated by Mr. Schwarzschild” and says “here in the midst of the 20th century Dr. Marx and his dialectic very much is.” In spite of Mr. Crankshaw’s assertion that a man of lesser talent than Mr. Schwarzschild could have disposed of Marx’s theory of surplus-value Mr. George Malcolm in the most objective of the reviews in the Evening Standard regards Capital as one of the most potent books in the world. The ineffable Frank Owen in the Mail commenting on the Red Prussian asks “was Marx a great genius or monster fraud?” and never really answers it. Mr. Harold Nicholson in the Daily Telegraph “cannot believe that a man who earned the unflagging devotion of his wife and Engels could have been quite the monster Mr. Schwarzschild portrays.” Finally the Manchester Guardian's summing up that the hook “is not the last word on one who is, after all, a great historic figure” expresses the more or less general viewpoint of most of those quoted.

All of which must be most disconcerting to an author who sets out to prove that Marx was a cross between an educated half-wit and an Al Capone.

Anybody with the barest knowledge of Marxism can read it with tolerant amusement. But the book is 16s. and that is a lot to pay for amusement, even these days. If it is merely relaxation the reader wants then “Itma” or “ Dick Barton ” is much more entertaining and wholesome.

Ted Wilmott

Under False Colours (1948)

From the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have recently seen a display of bitter antagonism between Soviet Russia and the Communist Party on one hand, and the Labour Party and the Government on the other.

Following Russia’s crystallization of Eastern European countries into a Soviet-controlled bloc the Communist Party has answered the Labour Party’s opposition with charges of misrepresenting Socialism, supporting American Imperialism, and opposing “the new democracies of Europe.”

The Labour Party claims, however, that it is the C.P. that is misrepresenting Socialism, and, further, attempting by underhand methods to gain a dominant influence in the trade unions. Moreover it charges the Russian Government with endangering world peace by bringing a large portion of Eastern Europe under the orbit of Communism. In this matter Mr. Attlee said the following: "We can and we wish to have the friendliest relations with the people of Russia, and we can have the friendliest relations with a Communist State, but we are not prepared to accept Communism. We are resolutely opposed to the Communist way of life and the Police State.” (Daily Herald, January 24th).

When one looks closely at this conflict one is at once struck by strange contradictions arising within it. We are told by the C.P. that the ultimate aim of Russia is Communism and that this objective is almost reached. The social system in Russia, says the C.P., is Socialism—the prelude to Communism.

Now if Socialism is a prelude to Communism why is a Socialist organisation opposed to a Communist one? How can Mr. Attlee, who claims to be a Socialist, say that he is opposed to "the Communist way of life” ? And why does the Labour Party, which does not hesitate to call itself a Socialist organisation, object to the growth of Communism in Eastern Europe?

Going a little deeper we may ask the question: “How can a Communist organisation explain the fact that, although it claims to be out for the emancipation of the working class, it does nothing toward the necessary preliminary explaining Socialism either from its platforms or through its daily organ The Daily Worker?

Much of this mystery can be cleared by recognising that Communism and Socialism are one and the same thing, and that Russia’s social system is not Socialism but State Capitalism. Moreover, the Labour Party and the Communist Party, by their very actions, show that they are working in the interests of Capitalism.

But, if these parties are both supporting Capitalist interests, why are they opposed to each other? The answer is clear. The feature that reveals Capitalism in Russia is the buying and selling of labour power. It is true that many features of Capitalism, as administered in other countries, are absent in Russia. Commodities are not dumped upon the market by individual firms, but are allocated according to a Government plan. Foreign trade, too, is planned by the Government—not left to private importers and exporters. Agriculture is not the work of independent farmers, but of Government-controlled collective farms.

Irrespective of this, however, one dominant feature remains. The vast majority of Russia’s people, because they do not own the means of production and distribution, are forced to sell their labour power for wages or salaries. In common with the wage slaves, of other countries they, as a class, can live no other way under Capitalism.

We find, then, that wage slavery, the very thing that proves the existence of Capitalism, is a characteristic of the Russian economy.

Now, wherever it operates, Capitalism cannot remain static. Competition between Capitalist groups accelerates the need for each group to produce huge masses of commodities that can be profitably sold at competitive prices. Having secured these commodities there comes to the capitalists of each country the need to sell them. Competition for markets, fields of exploitation, and trade routes is rife and the rival competitors find that friction between themselves becomes ever more serious.

It is in this framework of exploitation and competition that Russia, with her growing industrial and agricultural capacity, finds herself thrown into conflict with America—the country most likely to endanger her future Capitalist development.

America’s vast resources and advancement in war weapons, however, are sufficient, should war break out, to tax or even overcome the strength of Russia—if she were alone.

The motive behind Russia’s annexation of Eastern European countries now begins to show itself. She is gathering strength for a possible war not only against America, but any rival power.

The Labour Party is right, therefore, when it suggests that the C.P. is working against Socialism. This, however, does not show that the Labour Party, in contrast is working for Socialism.

It is an unfortunate fact that the majority of workers still believe that Capitalism can be run in the interests of the workers, and it was in the hope that this would be done that a Labour Government was voted to power.

Despite the efforts of the Government, however, we have in the last two years seen a gradual increase in the cost of living, a greater shortage of goods, attempts to “peg” wages, and an ever-increasing friction between nations. We have seen that, Labour Government or no Labour Government, Capitalism will go its own sweet way.

The nationalisation programme, heralded as "a Socialist measure,” has been carried out, but profits are still derived from the nationalised industries—and you cannot have profits or dividends without the exploitation of the workers. Thus the Labour Government is doing no more than administering Capitalism.

Working, as it is, for British Capitalism, it sees in Russia’s recent expansion the growing strength of a rival Capitalist power. It is this that has incurred the wrath of the Labour Government, and prompted Ernest Bevin’s plea for a union of the Western European nations.

A final note upon the Communist Party. The manner in which this organisation so glibly refers to the Soviet-dictated countries as ”new Democracies” shows the depth of deception to which the C.P. will sink in order to gain support for Russian Imperialism.

Socialist knowledge can fortify the workers against the propaganda of political fakers. Gain that knowledge and you can no longer be misled by supporters of Capitalism posing as Socialists. 

F. W. Hawkins

Editorial: The Concealed Aim of the Communist Party (1948)

Editorial from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

A battle royal is in progress between the Labour party and the Communists for the leadership of the trade unions. The Socialist Party, being concerned with the spreading of socialist understanding and the destruction of the idea that leaders can solve the workers’ problems for them, is not on either side. But we are not lookers-on for we are directly concerned with the task of exposing the non-Socialist aims and activities of both of the combatants. On this occasion we are interested in a charge made against the Communists that it is their intention to set up here a totalitarian state. The charge was made in a Daily Herald editorial on December 23rd, 1947.

“Communism wants to establish in Britain a system under which no Party except the Communist Party is allowed to appeal for votes, and under which no man dare open his mouth on political subjects except in praise of the One Permitted Party,”

The Daily Worker could not afford to let such a grave charge pass unanswered and the next day it published a leading article accusing the Herald of deliberate lies. “Communism in Britain,” said the Daily Worker, ”does not advocate a One-Party system as the Daily Herald pretends.”

The Worker concluded its article by quoting from Marx’s and Engel’s ‘‘Communist Manifesto” of 1848 the words: ‘‘Communists, scorn to hide their views and aims,” and fiercely declared that “with these words . . . we fling back the monstrous charges of the Daily Herald. . . ”

It will be noticed on examination that the denial does not squarely meet the charge. The Worker denies that the Communists "advocate” a one-party system; but the Herald's charge was not that they openly advocate it but that they want it, a very different proposition when you are dealing with a Party that habitually conceals its real aims. After all, are they not good disciples of Lenin who in his "Left-Wing Communism” told them that the way to carry on Communist, propaganda in the trade unions was to resort to “strategy and adroitness, illegal proceedings, reticence and subterfuge, to anything in order to penetrate into the trade unions, remain in them, and carry on Communist work inside them, at any cost.” ("Left-Wing Communism" by N. Lenin. Published by the Communist Party of Great Britain. P.39.) Is it not legitimate to suspect that the political jesuits may adopt the subterfuge of being ”reticent” about their real aims?

Next it will be noticed that the Worker only makes the denial on behalf of Communism "in Britain.” If we find a Party defending the suppression of all other political parties by the Communists in Eastern Europe, may we not be more than suspicious when they beg us to believe that they do not intend to do the same thing here?

We can also find enlightenment by observing what the Communists in Russia said on this question before they got power and what they did after they got power.

For years the Russian Communists agitated for the setting up of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly in place of the Czarist Autocracy. They were still agitating for it a few weeks before they actually got power. They took part in the elections along with the other parties (” We participated in the elections to the Russian bourgeois parliament, the Constituent Assembly, in September-November, 1917.” Lenin, in Left-Wing Communism,” p.42.) But when the Assembly met the Communists discovered to their consternation that the delegates of the Social Revolutionary Party, representing the peasants, were in a large majority. So the Communist Government dissolved the Assembly by force. Stalin in his “The October Revolution” remarks about it: “At the beginning of 1917, the slogan of the Constituent Assembly was progressive and the Bolsheviks espoused it. At the end of 1917, after the October insurrection, the slogan of the Constituent Assembly became reactionary, for it ceased to correspond to the relationship of the contending political forces in the country.” (Martin Lawrence edition, p,22.)

Another Communist writer, Maxim Litvinoff, defended the suppression on the ground that the views of the peasants had changed between the time they voted and the time the Assembly met—“had the Constituent Assembly been elected a couple of months later it would have shown a large majority for the Bolshevik policy.” (“The Bolshevik Revolution.” Maxim Litvinoff, 1918, p.49.) Mr. Litvinoff’s guess may possibly have been correct but on that assumption why did not the Communists put it to a test by holding another election? No election to the Assembly was ever held again and the Communists, soon carried out the suppression of all political parties except their own; so that today, in Stalin’s words, ”Only one party, the party of the workers, the Communist Party, enjoys legality.” (Stalin, Interviews with Foreign Worker’s Delegations. Published in Moscow, 1934. P.13.)

In the course of defending the act of dispersing the Assembly Litvinoff himself summed up the case against it. We can hardly improve upon his statement.

“It may certainly appear as a monstrous crime against democracy on the part of a regime which regards itself as Socialist to have suppressed an institution which had been the dream of generations, which the Bolsheviks themselves had been championing ever since the first revolution of 1905 with more enthusiasm than any other party . . . . What better proof could have been furnished that the Bolsheviks were trampling on the people’s will in a manner hitherto exhibited by the worst tyrants in history, that they were afraid of the verdict of the nation gathered through its representatives in the highest assembly known to democracy . . . ?” (The Bolshevik Revolution.” P.15.)

The British Communists, who defend every suppressive act of the Russian Party, deny now that they intend to suppress all other parties; but the Russian Communists who did, in fact, suppress all other parties likewise waited until they had got power before they showed their hand. At present in their efforts to gain popularity the British Communists pose as friends of democracy and parliamentary government. They were not always so reticent about their real aim. In a report to the 12th Congress of the Communist Party in 1932 they said: “ Any party which accepts parliamentary democracy, however revolutionary its phrases, is an instrument of the capitalists.” Another passage read: "We must expose the sham of parliamentary democracy, and show the positive results of the workers’ dictatorship based upon the Workers’ Councils.” (Report on the Crisis Policy of the Labour Party. Published by the C.P.G.B.)

We therefore repeat the charge that the Communist Party always intended, if they got the chance, to suppress all other political parties, though at present they choose to conceal their aim.

Letter: Medical Economics (1948)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following letter from a reader in criticism of the article in our December issue.

London, N.16. 

1947.

To the Editor,

The Socialist Standard.

Sir,

While visiting friends yesterday evening an ardent member of the S.P.G.B. arrived and within a few minutes polities cropped up. 1 expressed the view that I had Socialist leanings and on learning I was a medical man I was given a December copy of your journal, to read p.123, "Medical Economics,” which I did in the train while returning from my week-end leave (I am at present in the R.A.M.C.).

The article astounded me in its. many misinterpretations, but having had some psychiatric experience I realised that the author of this article was completely unable to give a rational view on his subject, but this nevertheless does not detract from the need to answer his amazing allegations.

I hope I may be permitted to do so in your journal.

A great amount of time is spent in research for prophylactic medicine and every medical journal contains articles on prophylactics. Your correspondent writes hospitals must have millions of sick people or go out of business—yet the nursing shortage is so great that there are long waiting lists which hospitals are trying to reduce as urgently as possible.

"In this country there are more doctors and hospitals per head of population than in most countries, and strange to say, there is also a vast and increasing number of sick or ailing people.” Shall we say more people in this country are able to attend a doctor for illness in the country as. doctors are relatively higher, and therefore the expectancy of life is higher and illnesses cured earlier in this country.

Then Mr. Jarvis writes certain complaints increase yearly. Cancer is increasing for two reasons; one, because people are living longer and this is a disease of the more elderly, and second, diagnosis has improved the number of cases diagnosed as such. Diabetes has increased because people are now kept alive and well with this illness when previously they all soon died—the increase is not a real increase year by year but only apparent by the longer life given.

Mr. Jarvis does not understand medical statistics, which is vastly different from normal statistics.

Concerning his remarks re surgeons and fees. Almost every surgeon works voluntary and free in hospitals for the poor.

I agree that many drug manufacturers are sucking the public, and many medical journals have attempted reforms but the advertising revenue to newspapers is so great that they can attain little publicity. Of course many manufacturers are honest and reputable in business.

"Rheumatism” covers many known medical diseases, and the disease Lord Trent suffered from was entirely different from the more common "rheumatic” diseases which can be alleviated by medical treatment. I, however, know nothing about this case other than that which Mr. Jarvis writes.

Concerning advertising and the B.B.C., Penicillin, Streptomycin and Pheno-Barbitone are none of them trade names of any firm; they are all official names of the drugs, the nomenclature being under the control of non-profit associations.

Concerning vaccination and inoculation. Smallpox has almost vanished from civilised countries (this is prophylactic), diphtheria is diminishing year by year. "The enormous amount of injections done during the war on soldiers . . .’’ let Mr. Jarvis compare the figures for medical illness in both wars and especially the Boer War to see the benefit. I heard General Slim say that the medical services in Burma won the battle—early in the Burma war illness ran into over six figures per year, yet later with more troops the figure was .reduced by over 90 per cent.

I have written about the "apparent” increase in cancer. The Cancer Laws were passed to prevent the public being hoaxed and given hope maliciously by quacks. Similar laws apply to diabetes, V.D., and a few other diseases.

I am not old enough to know the cause of death of Valentino*

Does the writer honestly consider doctors enjoy the illness of the workers. He has very poor faith in humanity.

Latin and Greek nomenclature increases the international element in medicine and also has other medical uses. Many of the younger generation write prescriptions in English—we are not hiding behind a cloak of mystery.

Blood transfusions save lives in civilian hospitals daily in maternity cases, pre- and post operative for large operations, in cases of haemorrhage and long debilitating illnesses.

Before Mr. Jarvis writes further articles on the medical profession I suggest he consult a doctor to get his facts correct; I will oblige him at any future date.

One last point. I hope Mr. Jarvis is not so embittered against our profession that he and his family refrain from attending a doctor in illness.

Yours faithfully,

A. Folkson, M.B., B.S.

(Lieut., R.A.M.C.)

Reply:

The Socialist Standard is the Party’s propagandist organ in the columns of which we endeavour to give as full a statement of our socialist principles as possible. As far as we can we avoid controversial  issues upon which the Party is not committed to any particular point of view. We do so because issues of this kind might lead to lengthy correspondence and the using up of valuable space upon matters that are outside the object for which the Party was formed. But in spite of our intentions, statements on controversial issues of the kind to which we refer may on rare occasions creep in. In the December number of the S.S., in an article entitled “Medical Economics," there were some statements of a controversial nature upon which agreement or disagreement was immaterial as far as our socialist attitude is concerned. As these particular statements have been criticised by a reader we are printing his letter in order that the opposite point of view may have equal expression, but, for the reasons stated above, we do not propose publishing a detailed reply to it. As far as we are concerned both attitudes will have been stated and, although we may not agree with some of our reader’s contentions, there we leave the matter.

Editorial Committee.

Power ! Atomic or Political? (1948)

Pamphlet Review from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The charge is made in certain quarters that, since the dropping of atom bombs on Japan, there has been deliberate damping down on discussion, particularly of the danger to life and health of the workers in the atomic plants. One of those who make the charge is Mr. J. C. Thomson, of Edinburgh, who puts in strong terms his own views and those of writers from whom he quotes. If there is an answer to his charges we do not know it.

“Our Expanding Atomic Stupidity” is a sixpenny pamphlet by James C. Thomson of the Kingston Clinic, Edinburgh. It is a strongly-worded exposure, not only of atomic bombs, but also of its extravagant promises for use in industry and therapy. Mr. Thomson collects a mass of evidence to show that the production of atomic energy in nuclear plants is, in itself, a menace to all forms of life, animal and vegetable. As a matter of fact, it would appeal from the statements of those intimately acquainted with the subject, that the rot has already started and is well on the way, that the radio-active material released by bombs or escaping from factories, has got beyond the control of man.

On the bomb tests at Bikini he quotes Vice-Admiral W. H. P. Blandy, U.S.N., who witnessed the tests, as saying: “The atomic bomb is a poison weapon.”

Mr. Thomson says that the ships from Bikini are still contaminated, the Atoll remains uninhabitable, and the radio-active cloud blown into the upper atmosphere still coheres and continues to move around the world. Early in May, 1947, it was claimed that the “death cloud” was circling the world for the sixth time. According to Dr. Rebman of the University of California, “The danger from the cloud was so great, that during its passage over U.S.A. planes were warned to stay below 17,000 feet to avoid it.” Dr. Stafford L. Warren, chief radio safety officer at the bomb tests, and Dean of the Medical School of the University of California, describes it as: “A blast that grows more and more sinister the longer scientists study its results . . . But that second one at Bikini really ties this business up in a knot. . . Literally astronomical quantities of radio-active materials had become intimately mixed with the sea water, mist and spray which accompanied the formation of the giant mushroom of water which rose from the lagoon. Such atomic mist will deposit huge amounts of radium-equivalent; anywhere from a ton to 100 tons. When this mist moves in over a city you have to evacuate the people right away or they will die from gamma radiation. You couldn't clean the area. The fissionable material would get into the water—into everything. It would get into next year’s crop. I'm not so worried about the killing of 50 to 75 million people as I am about the wiping out of resources.”

But bombs are no longer required, says Mr. Thomson: “More slowly, but quite as efficiently, the same result is being achieved through the fumes given off from atomic fission factories. Every wind that blows through such a factory comes out radio-active. The screening devices used in atomic factories slow down the spread of radio-activity, but even these absorbent and reflecting materials present danger. No matter how much, or what particular substance is used, it gradually acquires radio-activity, and a point comes when it must be broken up and dispersed. Not that dispersal solves all difficulties. It merely takes the danger to a new area. At the American factories the isotope garbage is placed in concrete chests and dumped in the sea or into swamps.”

But it is not only the screens that become radioactive. The scientists and workers in the factories become affected; though this is denied by Professor Mott, President of the Atomic Scientists' Association, who says: “Protection of these workers is so easily and strictly applied that it is inconceivable that workers could be affected.” in reply to this Mr. Thomson says:

“I wonder if Professor Mott has heard of the great hospital built to accommodate the damaged workers from the Manhattan Project? And how soon it was filled to overflowing? And of how a great annexe was hurriedly constructed to be likewise filled to capacity? And of how still another annexe had to he improvised to keep the radio-active workers from filtering back home to contaminate their families and neighbours? (And, incidentally, to prevent them from talking).”

According to Mr. Thomson the bodies of the victims remain radio-active. Cremation does not quench it. And grave yards can be affected. While the Daily Graphic (8/4/47) mentions a notice in a New York paper offering “atomic burial vaults with concrete walls, interlined with lead, ready for delivery in May. That, at the moment is the insoluble problem of the U.S.A. morticians (undertakers to you); how to dispose of their radio-active clients without exposing themselves to danger.”

In some sections of the press there have appeared strongly-worded attacks on scientists as a body. They have been blamed, not only for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but for all the indications of worse to come in the future. The truth is that those who control the political machinery of the state are alone responsible. It was the heads of the capitalist state who saw, in the splitting of the atom, the promise of a new force that would revolutionise war and industry in their class interest. In the early days they could not foresee the dangers, though scientists, with experience of radium, knew that precautions would be more than ever necessary. The press could see nothing but benefits for mankind. The press is still registering that opinion. When the dangers appeared; a mysterious sickness, lassitude, danger of contagion to families and friends, and sterility; the entire industry was sworn to secrecy. What mattered a few thousand wage-slaves with this colossal power within their grasp? But the demand goes on, and must increase because of wastage of manpower in these factories. "There is to be a training school for boys and girls of 15 and over, who have studied chemistry at school, to be opened by the Ministry of Supply at the Government atomic energy factory at Springfields, near Preston ... the first course would begin in August. . . Salaries will start at £140 a year at the age of 15, rising to £276 for men and £257 10s. for women by the age of 26.” (Scotsman, 5/5/47.)

On this Mr. Thomson comments as follows: "Is It possible that nobody at the Ministry of Supply knows of the biological disruption awaiting the majority of these youngsters? Not one word of warning appears. Just an alluring offer of free training to be followed with good wages.”

All this applies to the rank and file workers. As in most industries there are supervisors, and others, known as high-ups. Mr. Thomson's records do not present them in a favourable light. He has been at some pains to collect evidence of their callous indifference to the sufferings of atomic victims. He says:

"As James Cameron reported (Express, 25/9/46) "The most scared man in the world today are the atom-splitters.’ But Cameron also provides an indication that not all workers in the fission field are sensible of their communal responsibilities: ‘Many of the atomic scientists arc honest men already somewhat stricken by the fruits of their energy. But—one of them I met on the island of Bikini—was, I am sorry to say, British, and so far as I am concerned he has no name. But he spoke in terms so crude and heartless, propounded a doctrine so pernicious, held the happiness of his fellow men so low, that he sent away even a bunch of shellback American newspaper men, revolted and appalled'." The same James Cameron also said: “Let us not be too kind to the scientists. They have a tendency to protect themselves as the reluctant tools of a relentless military, forced . . . to debase their knowledge to barbarism. In actual fact, a few weeks before Hiroshima a poll of more than 150 scientists working on the project was taken . . . More than half of them voted for demonstration in an inhibited area.”

No doubt these scientists were the high-ups. Never-the-less it was not their votes that decided the fate of Hiroshima; that decision was made by someone with real power. Mr. Thomson says: "One authority is quoted as stating that the decision to drop the bombs on inhabited cities ‘was made by the Army and Navy.’ That is a direct contradiction of President Truman’s claim that he alone made that ‘least objectionable choice'. "

Whatever attitude the scientists adopt the ultimate power always rests with the political heads of the state. Mr. Thomson presents his case against atomic bombs and fission factories with admirable precision, but on this side of the question he is indefinite. He says:

“With more and more stations and factories coming into action, a steady poisoning of our atmosphere is already taking place. Unless the public become enlightened enough to force our rulers to call a halt, the sum total of radioactive 'dew' in the atmosphere must slowly increase until life as we know it—vegetable, animal and human—can no longer exist on this planet.”

If Mr. Thomson holds that our rulers must be forced to call a halt, he should have indicated the nature of the force that would be equal to the task. He has not done so. So-called public enlightenment today rests on the capitalist press, and is merely enlightenment on matters affecting the capitalist way of life. At the moment capitalist interests determine that atomic factories shall continue, and that all criticism of the work must he discouraged.; hence there is no question of the press being divided on the subject. There is no opportunity for a study of the facts for and against. The factories are State-owned. They may never pay dividends, but they are experimenting in the capitalist interest. They are capitalist property, part of the means of wealth production owned by that class. The only solution is to make them the common property of the people, along with all the other means of life; to be democratically controlled by the people as a whole. Under such a system poison factories would be eliminated; while the people would operate the rest for the satisfaction of their needs. The working-class alone can do this by organising for control of the political machinery that capitalist control may be superseded by the Socialist way of life.

F. Foan

Housing crisis 1984 (1984)

From the March 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Apart from a few exceptions such as tied accommodation and institutions, there are three types of homes open to the working class today — private rental, local authority rental and what is called owner-occupation. Since 1918 there has been a large shift in the relative shares of these types as Martin Pawley tells us in his book Home Ownership (The Architectural Press, London, 1978):

In 1918, a year within the living memory of our grandparents if not our parents, less than 10 out of every 100 homes in England and Wales were owned by the families living in them. Out of a population of 38 million less than 14,000 were council tenants. Out of 8 million dwellings more than 7 million were owned by private landlords whose tenants paid a weekly or monthly rent. The building societies, 1300 separate savings and loans establishments, boasted total assets of less than £70 million and only 600,000 shareholders and borrowers.

Today 55 out of every 100 homes in England and Wales belong to the families occupying them. Out of a population 10 millions greater there are 5 million council tenants. Out of 17 million dwellings only 2½ million still belong to private landlords. The building societies, their number reduced by more than two thirds, have nonetheless grown into mighty financial institutions whose total assets rival those of the banks and dominate any other repository of savings — their value in 1977 exceeding £30,000 million. Their total membership, shareholders and borrowers combined, now embraces nearly 20 million persons.

Since 1961 National Census returns have included information on household tenure. For earlier years figures have had to be deduced in a less direct manner and are not so reliable. The message is clear. Many maybe surprised at the dramatic slump in private landlordism, still more perhaps at the tiny number of council tenants in 1918. Much fewer will be surprised at the rise of "owner-occupation". which has been given such fanfare treatment by the news media. How ever because the lower paid workers are still mainly tenants and can be expected to show a larger than average number of persons per tenancy, the number of workers who are “buying” their homes is somewhat overestimated in the above figures. Remember that almost all the capitalists (roughly 10 per cent of the population) are also, and genuinely, owner-occupiers. Against this even the recession has not yet completely halted the upwards trend, and much pressure is still being applied to reduce council tenancies still further.

There is obvious confusion inherent in the term “owner-occupier”, although not so much in the occupier bit. Most owner-occupiers hold right of tenure only through loans — in most cases from building societies — which they have to repay with interest at regular intervals. While they are doing so, commonly over a period of 20 or 25 years, the title deeds are held by the loan making body, who are clearly the effective owners for the duration of the loan. Yet the law states that the building societies cannot become owners of real estate! The occupier thus has all the responsibilities of ownership like rates and repairs, while in reality looking after someone else's property. His/her status only differs significantly from that of a tenant if the debt has actually been redeemed, by which time the property may well have depreciated enough for maintenance costs to eat up as much money as the mortgage repayments. But in this article the term “owner occupier" will be used in its current sense, to cover mortgage repayers as well as outright owners.

It appears that 1918 represented a low point in owner-occupation. Before the 1884 Reform Act extended the franchise to all householders irrespective of mode of tenure, the qualification for the vote was ownership of freehold above a stipulated value. Consequently the Freehold Land Society Movement arose in the 17th century and became prominent in the 1840s. These societies operated on friendly society principles, but with the object of financing the purchase of plots of sufficient value to create voters and they were the forerunners of the building societies. After the passage of the Reform Acts the incentive to occupy freehold disappeared. It appears that the percentage of owner-occupiers actually dropped slightly between then and the First World War.

The Great War arrived with private landlords apparently unshakeable in their stranglehold on the supply of housing. What happened to loosen their grip? Simply that for a number of reasons, this form of investment in housing ceased to be as profitable. Those years were the high noon of the British Empire, with overseas investment attracting much capital previously employed at home. The war caused the government of the day to strike the first major blow. Military mobilisation and a massive increase in armaments production had led to large population movements. At the same time housing construction had almost ceased, leading to rapid rent increases with consequent evictions: in Glasgow there were rent strikes and then rioting. The government then passed the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restriction) Act. popularly known as the Rent Control Act 1915, which held rents and mortgage interest rates to their level at 3 August 1914. The original intention had been that the Act should lapse six months after the end of the war, but by November 1918 prices had risen 225 per cent above the level of 1914, thus making rent increases of this order politically impossible. Some form of rent control had to continue and has been operative in Britain ever since. Along with restrictions on rent increases went some legal curbs on the landlords' right to evict tenants whenever it suited.

The government's imposition of these controls, and the possibility of similar action on other occasions, had alarmed many rentiers. Their answer was to sell. In some instances to their former tenants. In others they sold when the property became vacant and invested the proceeds in building for sale. This withdrawal from house ownership. incidentally, was not matched by a corresponding decline in landownership. Massey and Catalano (Capital and Law: Landownership and Capital in Great Britain, Edward Arnold. 1978) reveal that what they term "former landed property” (covering the Church, the crown estates, the landed aristocracy and the landed gentry), together own 36 per cent of the acreage in Britain. The landowning interest, of course, controls the scarcest of all resources for the supply of housing, the building land itself. However the decline of the house renting landlord left a gap. the filling of which was to cause many problems for governments and local authorities.

The 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act included a section which allowed local authorities to build, convert and manage dwellings. A requirement that such housing be sold within ten years was dropped in 1909. These powers, as we have seen, were little used up to 1918. In the aftermath of the Great War. however, a boom in council housing construction saw 174.000 built in just over a year before the Geddes axe fell in the autumn of 1920. At the same time a boom developed in the building society mortgage business. Rent controlled houses could be bought cheaply and sold expensively to "owner-occupiers". The pattern of the inter-war years had been set. The gaps in the market for working class housing created by the diminution of the private rental sector were to be filled at the lower income end by council housing and at the upper end by mortgage owner-occupation.

According to the definition we have adopted, about 26 per cent of all households could be described as owner-occupied in 1945. Then came the 1945-51 Labour government and perhaps the only sustained attempt to boost council housing. The Labour Party is in an awkward position politically on housing as it relies to a much greater extent than the Tories on the votes of those workers unable to be other than tenants. This explains such differences as arise between the housing strategy of the two major parties. In 1945 the Labour government, like the government of 1914-19. had its policy largely dictated to it by the situation it found. As Pawley (op cit) relates: "By the end of the war 200,000 houses had been wiped out, 250,000 so badly hit that they were evacuated, and over 3 millions listed with the War Commission as having sustained injury of some kind". This damage had to be repaired. In addition while the physical fitness of potential army recruits was slightly up on the desperately low levels of the Boer and 1914-18 wars, once again the concern of the ruling class about the health and housing of the workers was at an unaccustomed peak. In these circumstances any government would have had to place a high priority on the construction of working class housing.

Within the constraints imposed by capitalism the Labour government tried hard to provide cheaper rented homes for the workers. The need for more investment in export-oriented sectors following the balance of payments crisis of 1947 reduced the funding available and the number of houses built was below expectation. Aneurin Bevan in particular was contemptuous of the private sector, stating that “The speculative builder was not amenable to planning a rational allocation of resources" (J. R. Short. The Post-War Experience — Housing in Britain. University Paperbacks, 1982), and castigating the building societies as “mere moneylenders" (Pawley op cit). Except for its last few months the government stuck to the recommendations of the Dudley Report (1944) which called for larger floor space and better equipped kitchens, even if this meant fewer completions. Those on the waiting lists probably took a different view and their discontent may have contributed to the defeat of the Labour Party in 1951. Between 1939 and 1951 only about 250,000 private houses were built (Pawley op cit).

The Tories came back to power in 1951 committed to building 300,000 dwellings a year. For the first three years (1952-54) council house completions were over 200,000 each year, but this figure was never to be achieved again. The Tories made an attempt to revive the private landlord; with the 1957 Rent Act by which all dwellings with a rateable value of over £30 (£40 in London and Scotland) were decontrolled. Apart from giving a handout to the landlords it was felt that increased rents would lead to more repairs being carried out. The dire consequences predicted by the Labour Party never fully came to pass and the Act largely backfired. Houses which were decontrolled were sold for owner-occupation rather than for reletting and landlords carried out very few repairs. The decline in the private rental sector continued, although even today the idea that it can be revived is still held by some Tories. But after the failure of the 1957 Act the Tory Party committed itself to extending owner-occupation the much heralded “property-owning democracy” they were allegedly creating. Present Tory policy is to encourage as many workers as possible to join the mortgage queue and to reduce council housing to what Short (op cit) brutally describes as the “residual tenure category". There is of course a still lower category — the homeless. In 1978, 53,100 families were accepted by local authorities and 57,200 in 1979, showing a rising trend (Short op cit). Attacks are still being launched on the better off council tenants in an effort to make them move out into owner-occupation. This has led to considerable stigmatisation, with its sniping at "scroungers" who are supposed to be parking their Jaguars outside their council homes as they live off the backs of the poor ratepayers! The 1972 Housing Finance Act aimed to reduce government subsidies so that rents would have to rise. The policy of encouraging the sale of council houses to sitting tenants was then introduced. Public spending on working class housing was to be cut if at all possible.

By the time the next Labour government was formed in 1964, the tide of owner-occupation had come in so far that they had to go along with it although the need to retain their traditional support meant that they were not as enthusiastic about it as the Tories. Labour controlled councils tend not to be too keen to sell council houses as, particularly in inner city areas, they have to bear the brunt of the problem of housing the homeless, and naturally don't wish to see their stock depleted. As might be expected, it is the best council houses which are most likely to be sold.

The earliest building societies were known as temporary societies. Members saved together and when enough was raised for one “share" this was allocated to one member to buy, rent or build accommodation. This member continued to pay his subscriptions until all had received a share, whereupon the society disbanded. From the mid-1850s permanent societies were formed. Now members could withdraw money at any time and borrowers paid back over a set period. They were given corporate status by the 1874 Building Societies Act.

The early societies were small and speculative in character. Inevitably their aggregate size increased as their numbers reduced through amalgamations and collapse. Even so from the passing of the 1874 Act up to the First World War the movement went through a rough time as the house market slumped and a number of scandals shook the confidence of potential investors. On occasions the state had to intervene to regulate matters. One of the largest, the Birkbeck, was saved by a government loan in 1892, promoting another Act of Parliament which compelled societies to publish details of members in arrears on their mortgages. The Birkbeck collapsed in 1911.

A few skilled artisans, the labour aristocracy of the time, were members of the earliest societies. However, it will already be clear that these bodies were not concerned with providing working class housing, as Frederick Engels noted in The Housing Question (1887). Kirkman Gray (A History of English Philanthropy, London 1905) notes that;

. . . societies afforded no training school for democracy; on the contrary the maintenance of the poor in a subordinate position was far from being an unimportant part of the aim of those who founded them. The charitable school bank, provident club, or friendly society was for the poor, but was not started or managed by them; it was under the control of the well-to-do.

E. J. Cleary (The Building Society Movement, Elek, 1965) adds the following: "The fact that the Droylesden Society (1792) collected subscriptions quarterly suggests that its members were scarcely weekly paid workers". Even more significant is Cleary’s passage concerning the reaction of the societies to the Rent Control Act of 1915:

It is an indication of the ambiguity of the building societies with regard to rental at this time that their reaction to a piece of legislation which, more than any other, launched the owner-occupation boom which has continued till the present day, was to describe it as “The gravest act of injustice ever inflicted by the British Parliament”. The author of that statement being not merely the Manager of the Temperance Building Society, but also a director of a property company owning 7,000 rented houses. (Cleary op cit p. 173.)

This does more than show that the building societies were profiting from private landlordism. It strongly suggests that much of the capital invested in this activity was before too long to be transferred to the construction of houses for “sale" on mortgage, to the benefit of the self same building societies! That the main concern of these bodies is with the interests of investors is shown by the following table quoted by Short (op cit). showing how share accounts are increasing quite a bit faster than either mortgage accounts or advances.

Short also reveals that in 1977, although 80 per cent of the share accounts held less than £2000. the remaining 20 per cent held by much larger investors constituted nearly three-quarters of the total balance. Also the ten largest societies out of the total of 287 registered in 1979 held 69.2 per cent of the total assets.

Further inequalities arise from the way the building societies allocate mortgages. Inevitably they tend to avoid risky propositions in order not to discourage potential investors. Good risks are those borrowers in salaried positions with good prospects. The bad are those not on salaries and with fluctuating incomes. There is also discrimination against older applicants, who receive shorter terms with higher repayments. The societies are not keen to lend on converted property, older property or property in industrial areas. Short (op cit) cites his personal experience in an interview with a branch manager. “He pointed to the St. Pauls district of Bristol and said ‘There are certain areas of the city where we won't lend’". Black workers and single mothers also encounter obstacles, even when they manage to raise the necessary cash, because their presence can “lower the tone” of the neighbourhood — and the selling price of the houses in it!

It is clear from all this that there are significant differences even between one mortgage-paying worker and another. Governments have at various times tried to counteract this through measures such as 100 per cent mortgages designed to push owner-occupation further down the pyramid, and reduce “public" spending on council housing.

E. C. Edge