About five years ago the Socialist Party published a pamphlet entitled “Socialism,” which examined the position of the working class and indicated the only way to effect a change in that position. The Communist Party has recently issued a pamphlet, professing to cover similar ground, entitled “Capitalism or Socialism in Britain.”
An old tag has it that comparisons are odious. Let us be odious.
Our pamphlet contains forty-eight pages. Mr. Palme Dutt’s effort consists of only thirty-two similar pages. The Socialist Party’s pamphlet is sold for 2d. The Communist Party charge 3d. In spite of their superior financial resources, they want half as much again for two-thirds of the material. So much for quantity, Now for quality.
The Communist pamphlet contains no actual information that has not been given by the S.P.G.B., but it does contain statements which are false. Mr. Dutt repeats the long-ago exploded legend that Socialism has been established in Russia. We are told that the workers there own and control the means of production, in spite of the fact that the Soviet Government, like other capitalist Governments, has a large and growing national debt upon which it pays high rates of interest to the investors. It has just announced its intention of floating another £160,000,000 loan, upon which it will pay 10 per cent. (Manchester Guardian Weekly, June 12th). Although it is common knowledge that agricultural production in Russia is still largely in the hands of independent peasant concerns, and that the so-called collective and State farms are run on capitalist lines, Mr. Dutt glibly informs us that all production is organised according to a single plan (p. 16). “All production,” he goes on, “is directed solely to supplying the workers’ needs. It is for use, not profit.” Yet a few paragraphs further on he speaks of “the mighty Socialist productive machine flooding the world with cheap goods with which they (the capitalists) cannot compete.” Perhaps next time Mr. Dutt deals with this matter he will be kind enough to explain why British, American and German capitalists in particular are supplying Russia with the machinery upon which the success of its economic plans depends. Is it because they have conceived a laudable desire to assist in the “building-up of Socialism “?
The Labour Party, of course, comes in for a good deal of Mr. Dutt’s criticism, but he keeps judiciously quiet concerning the electoral support which the Communist Party gave to the Labour Party for years. We have yet to hear what the working-class (or even the Communist Party) have gained by this activity. In passing, it is interesting to note that where, as at Pontypridd and St. Rollox, by-elections are fought minus a Communist candidate, the Communist Party have taken to recommending the workers to write “Communist” across their ballot papers. Communist champions have, in the past, been remarkably fond of sneering at this form of action when advocated by the S.P.G.B. Now that their support has been ruthlessly spurned by the Labour Party, they have no choice but “to add” (in their own words) “to the gaiety of returning officers.”
While the Communist Party was busily engaged in 1923 and 1924 in securing the return to Parliament of ex-Coalition. Government office-holders, such as Clynes and Henderson (thus proving false to the Third International’s slogan, “Remember the Imperialist War”), the Socialist Party was consistently opposing the Labour Party. Our withers are unwrung, therefore, by Mr. Dutt’s diatribe against “Socialist Imperialism.” Unlike his party, we have never had truck nor lot with any such monstrous hybrid. We can, therefore, criticise his support of Indian Nationalism with a clean record so far as working-class interests are concerned. The maintenance of the British Empire is no concern of ours, but neither is “the national liberation of the colonial peoples,” which Mr. Dutt describes as “the first duty of free workers of Britain.” Experience of Nationalist movements from Ireland to China convinces us that the workers in these respective countries have nothing to gain by giving them support. Mr. Dutt attempts to deny that national liberation “means the strengthening of the native exploiters against the masses.” “On the contrary,” he says, “it is just British imperialism that maintains, buttresses and builds its power on alliance with the most reactionary blood-sucking native elements in each country—the decaying Indian
princes, the priestly powers, the landlords (often created ariilicially by British rule), the middlemen traders, the moneylenders. Remove the sword of British Imperialism which maintains and protects these, and the working masses will soon deal with them and advance to Socialism” (p. 30). It is necessary to note that he leaves unmentioned the newer industrial capitalist element who are the strongest supporters of the Nationalists and have probably the most to gain from some form of independence in India, and confines himself to attacking the “reactionary,” i.e., the feudal and semi-feudal survivals among the Indian ruling class, and the actual agents of the British Government. He ignores, in other words, the fact that a more modern mode of exploitation is developing in India and giving rise to a demand for political changes in accordance therewith. The Indian capitalists want a place in the sun on an equality with the capitalists of the rest of the world. Mr. Dutt’s pretence that the “working masses of India” are ready to “advance to Socialism,” once the British are out of the way, is the most pitiful childishness.
Those of his readers who are inclined to fall for that sort of thing would do well to ponder upon the fate of the followers of the Chinese Communists in 1927. Having helped the Nationalist Kuo-Min-Tang Party in its struggle with the “reactionary elements,” thousands of workers were butchered in the streets of Shanghai and Canton when the Kuo-Min-Tang was in the saddle. Whether the Indian Nationalists will succeed in acquiring a similar measure of power remains to be seen. One thing, however, is certain : their power will not be that of the workers and peasants.
The rest of Mr. Dutt’s pamphlet betrays a similar conflict between his revolutionary pretensions and reformist proposals. Although he tells us in his preface “that no policy of patching up capitalism can avail,” he cannot resist the temptation to suggest a few patches. Hence (on p. 28) we get the usual “Communist” demands for “minimum wages, seven-hour day, fortnight’s holiday with pay, workers’ control in the factories.” All this, mind, as an immediate result of “workers’ rule,” the capitalists having been “expropriated” on page 24 !
These demands, of course, do not present anything essentially different from the programme of the I.L.P. or the Liberal Yellow Book. Scientific exploitation is quite consistent with minimum rates, shorter hours, regular holidays, and factory committees. In Russia and Germany, where the works councils have statutory rights, they have long ago been subordinated to the Trade Unions and used by the State in capitalist interests. Shop stewards prove as helpless against these interests as do Trade Union leaders. Yet Mr. Dutt, like the Communists generally, goes on chanting the stale old “industrialist” tags about building up the workers’ power in the factories. Ex-shop-stewards who had to join the Communist Party because, with the post-war slump, they lost their industrial jobs, talk with their tongue in their cheeks about “workers’ control” ; not forgetting to mention, however, the necessity for the “leadership” of the Communist Party. That leadership has cost the workers dear wherever it has been accepted. Instead of “the capitalist State” being smashed, it has been the workers” heads, if nothing worse. The way to power is through organisation based upon knowledge. The Socialist Party through its literature assists in supplying’ that knowledge free from the confusing mixture of obsolete and unscientific Radicalism. Emancipation, not palliation, is our watchword.
Eric Boden
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