A call to bolster capitalism: Cripps appeals to the workers (1945)

From the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem that affects the working-class is one of poverty. It is not one of trade, good or bad. Poverty presses upon them almost as relentlessly in times of good trade as in times of trade depression. Times of prosperity are never enjoyed by workers although they read of them. What is the cause of poverty ? The private ownership of the means of wealth production. Those who own can compel workers to accept wages so low that they are barely able to restore their energies and rear families. The surplus produced by the workers above their wages is the source of the vast incomes of the capitalist class; this surplus is unpaid labour. The total product of society is divided between the workers who produce it and the capitalists who own it. There is no other participant in the division of wealth. Nothing stands between the workers and the abundance they produce but capitalist ownership. Poverty can be ended when wealth is produced solely for use and freely distributed. That 'means that we have to end production for sale and profit; in short we have to end capitalism.

There are some who give other reasons for working-class poverty and offer other plans for dealing with it. Either they have no understanding of capitalism or they have an interest in maintaining it. Sir Stafford Cripps falls into one of these two camps Before the election he stated, for the Labour Party, "the comfort of the people is the A.1 priority." Now he intends to set up a triple alliance — Trade Unions Employers and Government. — who will plan to bring "British competitive industries to the highest pitch of efficiency."—Daily Herald, September 10th, 1945. For "comfort”? No, the priority is the export trade. In his speech outlining the plan Cripps suggested that it will be difficult for people to realise that by going short now "they are in fact making sure of better and far more stable standards for the future.” What a stale feeble doctrine.' We will paraphrase it, "Put up with your poverty a little longer and shortly. —The Kingdom of Heaven." Really, Sir Stafford ought to be ashamed of himself. Isn’t he able to do better than this? Of course, this ruse has been used very successfully for decades. In 1931 the National Government used it and they obtained 14,000,000 votes. A slight variation in Germany was known as “guns before butter.' How amazing that a famous Labour leader should formulate "markets before butter,” or, what amounts to the same thing.

It is interesting to see how we are to reach this paradise; "there will be an obligation upon the workers to give of their best,” and should some agitating socialist murmur, "oh—big profits,”—that scalawag is already answered, "not for the sake of the owner's profits but for the sake of our national economic survival and prosperity." The thinking worker will realise by now that as he has to go short in the national interest and we have already shown that there are only two classes in the nation, that "national survival or prosperity” is synonymous with capitalist prosperity.

In fact, it is quite easy to see this if we examine another part of this great cali. Cripps says that the Trade Union movement "must also take in the question of markets and consumer interests.” Who is this consumer whose interest is of equal or perhaps of more importance, than the workers' wages and conditions? In the first part of this article we showed that wealth is shared by two classes only. The consumers in society are the working class and the capitalist class. If workers forego their own interests in favour of someone else, that someone else is the capitalist class, however high-sounding the words that mask their sordid interest.

Let us look more closely at the matter. We know from experience that high or low prices matter little to workers in the long run; but what of the capitalist? They are not only private consumers., but as industrialists they buy the means of production. They have to build factories, buy plant, tools and the raw materials necessary to the production of other commodities. The value of the plant and the raw materials is transferred piecemeal into the new products. The only additional value is the new labour that has been put into production. But they cannot obtain this additional value—the source of their profits—until the goods are sold. They are forced therefore to cheapen their products in order to compete in the market. This they achieve by making workers work harder, by using labour-saving machinery and by obtaining cheaper raw materials. We will give an example. Behind the agitation for more efficient coal production lies the hard economic fact that its cost as a raw material is embodied in the cost of the new or finished products. Mr. R. Summers, Chairman of J. Summers, Ltd., stated at their annual general meeting that critics of the steel industry did not fully appreciate that as the price of coal was more than double that of 1939 it had a serious adverse effect on the price of steel. —Economist, June' 9th, 1945. He was aware of the need for lower prices, “to compete in the export markets of the world,” but he emphasised,, “that everything possible must be done to lower the cost of vital raw materials.” The capitalist aim behind the struggle for lower prices is quite clear; it enables a quicker sale of products and a quicker realisation of profits.

But does Cripps' aim differ in any way from this? His aim also is to obtain lower prices and capture markets. He calls upon workers to. “give of their best.” To whom? To those who exploit them. Where will the working-class come in during the process of labour-saving? Some will clock in at the factory gates to work harder than ever before while the displaced and unnecessary workers will show their cards at the Labour Exchange. All will remain in poverty.

Cripps made one or two statements that should be noted. He warned the trade unions that; “the whole reputation of the Trade Union movement will be at stake.” and that the Government will be advised by the three party group (Triple Alliance) as to what, “ compulsions are required to see that the minimum plan is implemented.” The compulsion will be required for, “a few recalcitrant and non-co-operative members.” What does he mean by this? This is funny language from a leader of the party that only seven weeks before (July 26th) was hailing the “dawn of a new day.” This is the language of capitalism in extremity. Does Cripps intend to resemble Dr. Ley? Certainly this plan bears no resemblance to Socialism. Incidentally, it is an indication of the childish imbecility of the I.L.P. that their comment on the plan was “The Stafford Cripps plan to establish committees representing Government, employers and the workmen .... must be judged on how far the Government is really putting through a socialist plan.”—New Leader, September 15th, 1945.

The Daily Herald, described this speech of Cripps as a “great call” to the Unions. True, a cull to bolster capitalism. Three years ago Cripps visited India with proposals which were rejected. Nehru’s comment was biting; “ From our side there are going to be no approaches to the British Government, for we know that whoever comes from there speaks the same accent as of old: and treats us the same way”—Reuter, April 15th, 1942. Quoted in Forward May 2nd, 1942 (our italics).

Consider the truth of those last few words: "treats us. the same way.” . The ideas of Sir Stafford Cripps, by virtue of his position in the Labour Party,, command respect among many workers. They should examine him as critically as Nehru did. It may be claimed that he is sincere, but that is of no avail. In his pose as a Socialist he is hindering the Socialist movement by cluttering up the path of Socialist propaganda with his misconceptions and delusions.

We have always known that he is not a Socialist and now we will give him this advice. Drop your pose as a defender of working-class interests. Your job is to patch up capitalism; stick to your last.

L. J.

A new social revolution (1945)

From the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Faulty reasoning and as a result faulty conclusions are very often due to the lack of consideration of vital factors involved. Proposals, for instance, are often made by various would-be-reformers to improve the lot of the workers whilst retaining the present economic set-up, that is the capitalist system. Bearing upon this it is worth while considering an article written by a reformer of longstanding, Mr. B. Seebohm Rowntree which appeared in the "Evening Standard,” (February 20th, 1945), headed, “A New Industrial Revolution.”

We are told that if the aim of the Government as regards “the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment after the War is achieved it will revolutionise the status of the workers.” May we quickly add that if the aforesaid does occur it will also revolutionise the ideas that Socialists hold on capitalism, but since we are aware of the fact that the only time our masters seem to be able to keep all of us busy is in the preparation or in the actual waging of war we are quite confident that Socialists will need to make no changes of their ideas now that the slaughter has abated. The fact of the matter is that the only way the status of the workers can be revolutionised is by the abolition of capitalism. No such proposition is made by Mr. Rowntree.

The proposals that are elaborated are based on the contingency that “if a state of full-employment is stabilised, authority, based on the ability to dismiss employees will largely disappear.” Mr. Rowntree need not have gone to the trouble of racking his brain as to how to deal with this question. The Socialist assures him that this ticklish problem will not arise in peacetime, and that our masters’ authority to employ or dismiss us at his beck and call will remain unaffected. On the contrary, all the things point to the strengthening of his hand. However, let us pause for a moment to consider how the above assertion of the employer's freedom to employ or dismiss is contradicted, in almost the next breath. Apparently, it seems, that now the owner is not the authority any more. “As a matter of fact all those employed in industry are SERVANTS OF THE CONSUMERS. It is the consumers who give the orders, and the greatest industrial magnates must obey them if he wants to stay in business. So the master and servant relationship within an industrial enterprise is unrealistic.” Following from this one is inclined to suggest that employers should now unite to resist the encroachments of their common enemy, the consumer! This childish argument is based on the fallacy of ignoring the fact that the producers, that is the working-class, are at the same time the vast majority of the consumers and secondly, that they have by no means that independence of choice which Mr. Rowntree is too hasty in crediting them with. How many of us for instance would consume our daily “sausage and mash” at the factory canteen or local cafe if we could but take a stroll down to Claridges or the Dorchester and there exercise a freer and far more welcome independence of choice? Further, has Mr. Rowntree forgotten the extent to which our own tastes are artificially formed for us, and therefore restricted, by constant plugging and advertisement. For the vast majority of consumers, i.e., the workers, the ability to pick and choose between one product and another is largely nonexistent. They have to buy what the big monopolies have decided to produce and have to like it, for the simple reason that they cannot afford to do anything else. Freedom of choice is restricted to the rich consumers and that invariably means luxuries which workers never can enjoy so long as capitalism lasts.

As a result of his fallacious idea that the consumers are the real masters in society, Mr. Rowntree comes to the conclusion that “employers should regard themselves and all their employees as being fellow-servants.” That says he, “is their true relationship.” We are told that some employers would resent this suggestion. May we inform Mr. Rowntree that there are quite a lot of workers who would resent this equally as much. The cold fact of reality is that the production and distribution services under capitalism are incidental to the making of profits. And since the making of profits involves the exploitation of the workers we should like to know how the receivers of profit, i.e., the employers can be the “fellow-servants” of those who produce it for them.

Further we discover that Mr. Rowntree wishes to introduce a greater degree of democracy into industry. He proposes that (a) arbitration boards be set up to deal with breaches of factory rule and (b) to establish Works Councils “on which members of the administrative staff and representatives elected by the workers should serve.” His reasons for desiring these proposals to be put into effect are not hard to discover. According to Mr. Rowntree it “would remove the chance of a strike occurring where the workers consider that a worker has been wrongfully punished.” Workers, so we are led to believe, would “feel that they are part of the show.” Employers could confidently expect a good and a growing response front the workers and of course it would mean “Prosperity for industry.” As regards the latter slogan let it be once again emphasized that prosperity for industry means the OWNERS of industry. We note too, that the workers will only be allowed to “feel” part of the show; they will only be “treated” as co-partners. This vague language is not a strange one to our apologists for capitalism. Even if the proposal mentioned were put into effect the enslaved position of the working class would not be altered in the slightest. It is extremely doubtful even that they could possibly serve the interests of the workers in their daily struggle against their profit-hunting masters, if we are to judge by the biased behaviour of the war time arbitration boards. Most likely they would prove a very effective instrument in the hands of the capitalist class to perpetuate their system of exploitation. Remember well that in the war despite “full-employment,” arbitration boards and factory committees, strikes and industrial unrest have been very prevalent and peace and harmony have not been produced in industry. This must necessarily be so because the conflict of interests between master and slave, in this case capitalist and wage-slave, is irreconcilable, in war or out of war. Since Mr Rowntree seems to be very concerned with actualities let the Socialist Party inform him that as long as industry is monopolised by a small section of the population who use it as a source for their profit and power so long will peace and harmony of effort be an unrealisable fantasy. May we further suggest that there was no need of him to dwell upon the desirability of a “new industrial revolution.” This revolution has already been accomplished in the course of the last 150 years. What is urgently required, however, is a new social revolution, the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. This would place into the hands of the whole community the ownership and control of the instruments of production and distribution. The degradation and humiliation of wage-slavery would then be a thing of the past.

Max Judd

Letter: The simple life under Socialism (1945)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The simple life under Socialism

A Letter from a Correspondent.

Paignton, Devon.

Sept. 7, 1945.

The Editor, Socialist Standard.

Sir,

COMMON OWNERSHIP.

A man of simple tastes—and there are many such— might not desire theatres, cinemas, wine, beer, spirits, tobacco, or even books.

Why should he work, say, four hours a day labour time in a society which provides these, together with chewing gum, lipstick, powder, scent, nail varnish and much of the finery and fiddle-dee-dee of women, when a society of persons working on average, each, one hour per day can produce his comparatively simple needs?

What, then, does common ownership mean in this regard?

Yours faithfully,

Chas. E. Berry.

Reply.

Our correspondent's question arises partly from carrying over to Socialism a standard of judgment that is only appropriate to capitalism. Under capitalism the workers have good reason to dislike the conditions under which they work, because they are working for the benefit of the capitalist and under the harsh discipline the latter’s agents impose, and because hours are excessive and working places often drab, dangerous, uncomfortable and insanitary. From this many workers draw the erroneous conclusion the expenditure of energy on the production of articles useful to society is in its nature unavoidably unpleasant, and that the only pleasant expenditure of energy is on some activity not connected with production. This is absurd, as a little reflection will show. Every Socialist who uses his leisure time deriving pleasure from doing work connected with propaganda and organisation for Socialism is well aware that these same activities may be distasteful when performed for an employer. Under Socialism, when the conditions surrounding work have been freed from all capitalist features, labour will be, as Marx pointed out, “no longer the means to live, but . . . in itself the first of vital needs.” (Criticism of the Gotha Programme.)

Our correspondent may nevertheless maintain that the individual whose requirements are less than the average requirements of the members of Socialist society has a right to refuse to work as much as other people, even if the work is not distasteful. Suppose for the sake of argument, we concede our correspondent's claim. May we now ask him on what possible ground he can restrict this solely to the “man of simple tastes”? Why, on his contention, should not every individual object to working part of his time to produce articles that are going to be consumed either by non-producers or by those who, for one reason or another, cannot produce as much as the average? If the man of simple tastes can reasonably claim that he should work two hours against other people’s four hours, why should not every able bodied man and women who works object to the necessity of providing food, clothing and shelter for the non-workers, the babies, the aged, the sick, the disabled? If these “passengers” were allowed to starve, the able-bodied working population could produce their own requirements with much less expenditure of energy!

The whole proposition overlooks the fact that we have, as human beings, an interest in the well-being and happiness of the rest of human society, and under Socialism normal people will not desire to segregate themselves from the generally agreed arrangements for producing the requirements of all.

If, however, some individuals really think it important to discourage a high standard of living, they will have the obvious democratic remedy. They can try to convince the majority. Clad in a simple loincloth (though not in the English climate), eating only the simplest foods, living in plain, easily erected dwellings, or a hole in the ground, eschewing alcohol, tobacco, books, theatres, cinemas, etc., etc., they can set out to persuade the unregenerate majority that there is within their grasp a peace and pleasure yet unknown to them if only they will go and do likewise and cut the working day to one hour instead of four.

Alternatively, why should not the men and women of simple tastes, who are not interested in the ways of the rest of humanity, be left alone to enjoy their simple life, segregated like the insane, surrounded by a band of silence, to live and die in splendid isolation?

Ed. Comm.

Democracy in the Russian army (1945)

From the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

In “Soviet Democracy” (published by Gollancz in 1937), Mr. Pat Sloan contrasted the democracy of the Red Army with the relationship between officers and soldiers in the old armies. He declared (p. 157) that “the old relationship between soldier and officer was completely abandoned, and all ranks mixed together as equals when off duty. . . .” 

The following report from the Moscow correspondent of the Daily Mail (September 3rd, 1945), shows the latest development:—

“The Russian Army Newspaper Red Star to-day announced the formation of Officers’ clubs for the exclusive use of officers. Army clubs have up to now been open to all ranks. The newspaper says 'under present conditions of cultural enlightenment work, it is necessary to have sharp differentiation and separation.' ”

By The Way: The Labour Government’s Communist Friends (1945)

The By The Way Column from the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Government’s Communist Friends

The Communist Party helped Labour M.P.s everywhere at the July elections, rejoiced in their success and is backing the Labour Government. Now read what choice epithets they applied to the last Labour Government.

“It shoots down the workers and peasants in India; it imprisons such gallant workers as the Meerut prisoners, who have fought for the economic and political freedom of the Indian workers and peasants; it sends warships to intimidate the Egyptians; warships and soldiers to China. The Labour Government is the most open and blatant tool of imperialism, both in its attacks on the workers at home and in its policy of bloodshed and violence abroad.”—(Mr. Harry Pollitt in “The Workers' Charter,” published in 1930, by the National Minority Movement).

#    #    #    #

Communists Denounced Nationalisation and Now Support it

The Communists now approve of the Labour Government's nationalisation schemes, but read what the Communists said about the schemes when they were drawn op.

“The Labour Party and the trade union leaders try to hide their policy of surrendering the workers’ daily interests to the capitalists, by using socialist phrases, so called Socialist schemes, such as were adopted at the Leicester and Newcastle Conferences.

“All their schemes for the 'control of banking system,’ 'public control of industry land trade,’ 'transport boards’ are schemes of capitalist reorganisation, designed to strengthen capitalist monopoly at the expense of the working class.” 

(From “Resolutions adopted by the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain.”—Published by the C.P.G.B., 1932. Pago 6)

#    #    #    #

“A Third Labour Government Will be Even Worse than the Second ”

After the collapse of the second Labour Government, when MacDonald had joined the National Government and the 1931 Election was in progress the Communist Party published “The Workers’ Answer to the Crisis,” by R. P. Dutt.

Here are some extracts: —

“But the policy of the Labour Party was and remains the policy of maintaining capitalism, of attempting reforms within the framework of capitalism, of taking over the capitalist state, of administering capitalism, of denial of the class struggle, of unity with capitalism. . . . The outcome for the workers who trust the Labour Party is disaster. The talk of socialism and reforms becomes only deceiving the workers, because the practice is capitalism.

“This is the lesson of the two Labour Governments.” And again:—

“Will a Third Labour Government be any better than the second Labour Government? Will a Henderson Labour Government be any better than a MacDonald Labour Government?

No, a third Labour Government will be even worse than the second Labour Government, because of the greater intensity of the crisis of capitalism, will deal even heavier blows against the workers, will lead to worsening of the crisis and end in intensified capitalist dictatorship. . . .

What are the promises of the Labour Party worth ? Nothing, as experience has abundantly shown. The Labour Party speak of ’socialism,’ of ’Nationalisation of the banks/ of ' public ownership and control ’ of the key industries. This is a paper programme of promises to deceive the workers. . . . It is meaningless deception so long as the capitalist exploiters are in fact to be left secure.”

#    #    #    # 

Less Compensation for Coal owners

“After the discovery of atomic energy we are unlikely to want coal as a source of power 20 years hence. If the mines stayed in private ownership, their value would be small. When they are nationalised it would be ridiculous to compensate the shareholders at anything like the present Stock Exchange prices. The railways will probably be obsolete in another 30 years, so the same applies to them.” —Prof. J. B. S. Haldane in Daily Worker, 2.8.45.

Was it not Professor Blackett who said on the wireless in 1935 in discussion on Science with Julian Huxley that “scientists, if in the position of politicians, would act like politicians”? So a man of Haldane’s unquestionable scientific ability—because harnessed to the C.P.-Labour Party policy of compensation for poor capitalists—can see nothing more in the supercession of the old forms of production and transport by atomic energy than a haggling point to pay less compensation.

The Communist Party, which started by “taking the Labour Party by the throat,” now pleads for lest compensation.

#    #    #    #

Too Unreliable

Gangsters for Commandos.

Proposal Was Dropped.

“Among recruiting suggestions considered in the early days of the commandos was whether it would be better to use real toughs or gangsters either from the United States or British cities rather than soldiers. The view taken, it is revealed in 'Soldier,' the British Army magazine, by Brig. Dudley W. Clarke, who recruited the first commandos, was that the gangster was too unreliable. The idea was dropped.

“So, too, was a proposal from a convict who offered to form a commando of convicts And warders.”—Sunday Times, August 12, 1945.

#    #    #    #

Liberation

German charges that Moroccans attacked Girls. 

“Rumours arising out of German allegations that more than 1,000 women were raped by Moroccan troops during the first few days of the French occupation are still growing in the German city of Stuttgart. Hundreds of girls in the city were Poles or Russians brought there by the Germans as slave labour.

“The German police chief in the new administration working under U.S. occupation, Karl Weber, said most of the women were attacked in their own homes by the dark-skinned, turbaned Moroccan troops, who broke down doors in looting forays.

“The official German police report lists 1,198 rape cases involving women whose ages ranged from 14 to 74. Weber claims that each case has been verified and estimates that twice that number of women were attacked but were ashamed to report.—Sunday Express, August 12, 1945.

#    #    #    #

Reluctant “Comrades"

A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian reports the extremely difficult problems which repatriation of Russian “displaced persons” involves. First, he points out that by the Yalta agreement the Soviet authorities do not recognise “ non-repatriables” like the other powers—i.e., they insist on the handing over of all Russian citizens. 

Secondly, and more importantly,

“Apart, however, from certain questions of principle involved, there are practical difficulties about doing this, as some are prepared to fight rather than be arrested. Individuals or groups may well have arms, and there is an obvious reluctance to risk the lives of British or American soldiers for what is essentially a matter of internal Russian policy.”—Manchester Guardian, August 31, 1945.

So what does emerge is that thousands of former Russian citizens, having escaped the “Socialist Fatherland” during the war, are prepared to risk their lives fighting to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Utopia.

We have a splendid solution! Let all those hysterical and vociferous Communists who haunt Socialist Party meetings volunteer to go back to Russia in place of the missing Russian nationals in Germany, who will remain where they prefer. A good time will then be had by all! We wonder!

#    #    #    #

Strikers Shout Down Officials!

The Telegraph for July 30th reports that officials were shouted down at a railway strikers’ meeting. Delegates called for nationalisation of the railways.

A Birkenhead representative declared: “If we continue our present (strike) action the new Government will be able to turn to the companies and tell them they cannot manage their business. It would then be an easy step towards nationalisation. ’'

He got his answer on July 31st, one day later, when “three hundred soldiers swept in through the Surrey Commercial Docks at 1 p.m. to-day in lorries to take over loading and unloading of ships which had been at a standstill because of the dockers 'go slow.’ ”—Evening News, July 31.)

Strike action of itself will never achieve nationalisation of the railways or any other industry—even if nationalisation were in the interests of the workers. Only political power can do that, because it involves the State. The Labour Government will “nationalise” certain industries because it has a mandate (power) from the electorate to do so. It has persuaded working-class electors that it does so in their interests—though it is actually the policy of some of the industrial capitalists. Strike action against the State-brings the Army in to do the job, and breaks the strike.

#    #    #    #

Bombs and Trade

“Post-war trade relations in the Far East are being rewritten by B.29 Super Fortresses and India’s Industrial future—particularly in textiles—looks extremely rosy in the glow of firebombs on Japan, 'Every time the Superforts hit Osaka’ said a leading Indian textile operator, ' I say to myself: There’s another year free of Jap competition in the Indian textile market.’ ”—(New York Herald Tribune, June 13th, 1945. Quoted in Plebs, September, 1945).

#    #    #    #

That Odd Bird the Labour Party

Mr. Laski is reported to have said: “The bright bird of Socialism needs two wings—it can’t fly on a right wing only, or a left wing only.”—(Daily Mail, September 4th).

If Mr. Laski had stopped to consider the kind of progress made by a bird with oddly assorted wings, one pushing forward and the other pulling back, he would have realised that his analogy is very apt though not in the sense he intended.

Horatio.

Trade union dissensions in Eire (1945)

From the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The old maxim of “divide and conquer” has been well illustrated by the turn of events in Irish Labour circles.

For some time certain reactionary elements in the Irish trade union movement have been attempting to disrupt this movement and in the past twelve months or so have succeeded to such an extent that those with a genuine understanding of the position fear that the death- knell of working-class agitation and organized trade unionism has been sounded.

Chief offender and instigator of this retrograde movement is one Mr. William O’Brien, Secretary, Irish Transport and General Workers Union, who has allowed personal ambition and private feuds to over-ride all considerations for the working-class in general and members of his own organisation in particular.

Twelve months ago he administered his “stab in the back” to the Irish Labour Party.

The reason for this secession, he stated, was because the Irish Labour Party was “communistic.”

Even in Ireland where the favourite trick of the enemies of the working class is to label any progressive line of thought, or action, as “anti-God,” “bolshevist,” or “communist,” this declaration of O’Brien’s was taken with the proverbial “grain of salt.”

Indeed it was well known that the real reason for O’Brien’s withdrawal was because of his failure to gain control of the Irish Labour Party.

His act of political sabotage being successful (the number of Labour members returned to the Dail dropped considerably at the next election), O’Brien’s next move was a step towards his dream of “one big union” and his dictatorship of the working class.

Thus at a conference held in Dublin during March the delegates of certain trade unions decided to break away from the Irish Trade Union Congress. The reason for this decision was given in a resolution which said that “the opinions and aspirations of Irish Labour cannot be expressed by the Irish Trade Union Congress, which is controlled by British trade unions, and that the Irish Unions affiliated to Congress occupy an intolerable and humiliating position.”

The lie has already been given to this sweeping statement in sections of the Irish Press, but for the benefit of readers unacquainted with the Irish trade union position I will endeavour to give a clear picture of the situation.

The Irish T.U.C. was the strongest all-Ireland working-class organisation. For it, the border was non-existent, and representatives of the workers of both Northern and Southern Ireland worked in a spirit of harmony and unity.

It had established fraternal contact with the workers of other countries and because of these facts it was able to put a strong challenge to any coercive measures attempted by the Eire Government.

That this was the principal reason for the action of the trade union “Quislings ” will be illustrated later on. As for the allegation that British Unions controlled the I.T.U.C. the plain fact of the matter was that the Irish Unions who represent 80,000 members had 115 delegates at the Congress while the British or Amalgamated Unions, with a membership of some 110,000 workers, were represented by 88 delegates. The charge that these unions are British can hardly be considered correct, for though their headquarters may be outside Eire they are affiliated to the I.T.U.C. in respect of their Irish Membership and are governed by councils elected by these members and receive no interference from their executives in Britain. In any case these so-called British Unions have always been to the forefront in the struggle waged by the Irish workers against their bosses.

The part played by the N.U.R. in the munitions strike in 1921 is only one of the numerous points in question.

And so we see that the I.T.U.C. was not controlled by the Amalgamated (or British) Unions but that rather the boot was on the other foot.

Another interesting point is that while these Eire Unions claimed that their quarrel was with the Amalgamated Unions yet it was they themselves, who were responsible for refusing to allow the affiliation to the I.T.U.C. of such prominent Irish Unions as the Workers Union of Ireland, the Grocers’ Assistants and the Irish Engineering and Foundry Workers Union.

The seceding group consists of ten Unions with a total membership of 55,000. The biggest and most powerful of these Unions is, of course, O’Brien’s I.T.G.W.U. with 36,000 members. The decision to break away from the I.T.U.C. was taken by their delegates without informing the rank and file of their unions and without their permission.

Here it will be noted the total disregard for trade union principles and the introduction of totalitarian methods. The “Council of Irish Unions” as this group has styled itself could not .have been formed at a more critical period of Irish Trade Unionism for Mr. O'Brien is nothing if not an opportunist.

What the Trade Union Act of 1941 of the De Valera Government—aimed at crippling the entire trade union organisation—failed to do, the action of this group, at the time when the proposed Vocational System of Legislature for Eire has shown what a struggle trade unionism will have for an existence in the future, has gone far to accomplishing, Mr. O’Brien makes no secret of his intentions.

In a letter inviting those unions to the conference, at which the decision to break away was taken, he referred to the report of the Commission of Vocational Organisation and its recommendation that British Unions should not be allowed to operate in Eire.

Mr. O’Brien was not perturbed at this. He, of course, welcomed it and outlined his proposals for his “One Big Union." To quote Mr. O'Brien :

"The changes likely to be made in the near future present a reason and an opportunity for putting our house in order." 

Every trade unionist must wonder how far this group will progress. Not very far, one would say, were it not for the fact that it is modelled on lines which must be very pleasing to the Eire Government. ’This Government whose each succeeding act of legislation is a step towards totalitarianism has already expressed its welcome to such a body. Indeed it must be a very satisfying thought to them to have the working-class handed to them lock, stock and barrel in one group. All this trade union intrigue must leave the ordinary worker very confused.

One can hardly blame the Irish worker if he forms the opinion that trade unionism is a racket, and being a member of a trade union is just because ho requires a licence to work. In Ireland especially, where the red herring of nationalism has so frequently been drawn across the path of the working class, this latest diversion must be very distracting especially when one remembers that in Ireland industrial development is in its infancy and, consequently, the standard of economic and political education is very low. But to a socialist viewing the situation in retrospect the whole matter is simple.

Society to-day is based upon the ownership of the means of living by the capitalist class and the consequent enslavement of the working class, and, therefore, there is on antagonism of interest—manifesting itself as a class struggle. The trade union movement is one of the ways the class struggle makes itself felt. But trade unionism is an effect and not a cause of the struggle. The Socialist, while recognising the value of trade unions in the day-to-day struggle of the working class for better wages, conditions, etc., realises that no amount of bargaining with the capitalist class can free the working class from the yoke of wage-slavery. This can only be brought about by the complete emancipation of the working-class from the domination of the capitalist class and the establishment of a socialist system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production. But trade unions cannot bring this about.

So members of the working-class, be you from Ireland or elsewhere—for Socialism allows of no distinction of race —put not your trust in trade unions which split and confuse the working-class, but go on striving towards that goal which can only be brought about by your own efforts.

Let nothing deter yon in your fight for the emancipation of your class and the establishment of a society where the need for trade unions is non-existent.

Workers, unite for Socialism.

Mick Cullen, Dublin.

SPGB Meetings (1945)

Party News the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Harry Hynd was the Labour MP for Hackney Central in 1945. There is little or no information about him on the net. I don't even know if he was on the left or right of the Labour Party.

Donations to Party Funds (1945)

From the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers versus the “Vanguard” (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

In signing the Gdansk agreement in September 1980, the Polish government promised to allow independent trade unions, the right to strike, access to the mass media, free Saturdays, and to abolish the nomenklatura system by which the PUWP (the Communist Party) controls all important appointments. But paper promises and piecrust pledges are easily made, easily broken.

Every concession pledged on paper had to be struggled for. Last October the independent trade union was still being denied legal recognition. Free Saturdays and access to the mass media were still denied in January, five months after the agreement. When another strike was threatened, within ten days the number of work-free Saturdays was increased from 25 to 38 still less than originally agreed. Later the government “conceded” to the new unions 0.8 per cent of TV time and 0.2 per cent of radio time, subject to censorship.

Such concessions were wrung with difficulty from a reluctant government using every available form of dirty trick, provocation and intimidation. The union’s experience was: “Members are fully aware that . . . the only successes they had so far were in those instances where Solidarity was willing to stand firm. In all other cases there was no progress at all.” [1]

The Roots of Solidarity

“Nothing starts from square one: everything has roots in another time and another place”, said Andrzej Wajda. There were memories of the Poznan revolt when Gomulka came to power in 1956, and of the 1970 demonstrations over food prices and low pay, when Gierek came to Gdansk. “Just like the others I believed that they were real tears that ran down the gentleman’s cheeks as he spoke, and that while he remained Minister of Internal Affairs there would be no bloodshed in Poland.” [2]

But tanks attacked in Gdansk, in Gdynia strikers returning to work were fired at from helicopters, and in Szczeczin “the militia shot at random into the dense crowd of shipyard workers . . . They began taking the wounded away, and from that moment I became a union activist . . . We left the shipyard having won nothing . . . All that changed were the authorities at the top.” [3]

Gierek’s new economic policy brought a boom: foreign credits enabled industry to import machinery and expand. Each year 500,000 people left the countryside for the cities. In agriculture, the government discriminated against “family farms”. Private farmers were denied machinery and fertiliser, and the the state fixed prices too low for them to make a profit. The increasingly unprofitable farms are manned by an ill-equipped and ageing population, a third of whom are over sixty.

The tide turned in 1975, with rising prices and workers’ protests. Gierek introduced a new Labour Code, whose Article 52 was used in 1976 as an “anti-strike” law. He also changed the Constitution, stressing that “the Party is the leading political force in society”. This gave birth to an ‘‘unofficial opposition.”

In 1976 higher food prices caused strikes and demonstrations. Many workers were beaten, jailed or sacked. Some—like Lech Walesa—were blacklisted. In reaction to police brutality, KOR—the Workers’ Self-Defense Committee—was formed, and succeeded in getting an amnesty next year for all the jailed workers. NOWA, an independent publishing house, was set up to break the state’s “publication and information monopoly”. The number of uncensored publications increased. Along with other workers’ journals, the fortnightly Robotnik (The Worker) had a growing circulation from 1977.

In 1979 Robotnik published a Charter of Workers’ Rights, declaring that: “We have entered upon a course of action whose long-term aim is the creation of a self-defense system for employees, first and foremost, independent trade unions”. The Charter argued that the official trade unions did not protect workers, that Gierek’s 1975 Labour Code was used as an anti-strike law, and urged workers wherever possible to set up “free trade union committees”. [4]

Workers’ Grievances. . . .

As exports to the West dwindled due to the recession, repayment of Gierck's foreign loans became increasingly difficult. This brought pressure on the workers. Poles had the longest working week in Europe-forty-eight hours. The four-shift system caused serious mining accidents, due to lack of maintenance. In October 1979, at least 66 miners died in 4 accidents in pits using this hated system. [5]

Where health and safety were concerned, the official unions were as callous as management: “these matters were totally neglected by the old unions. Bosses ordered the workers to do jobs that could damage their health: in theory it was possible to refuse but in practice there was always someone else willing to do the job, and besides the bosses would take revenge.” [6]

Workers’ living standards worsened. There was a staggering increase in cases of TB, especially in the 23-25 age group. In Poland TB is still the main killer disease, reflecting poor food and housing. [7] The government admit that “nearly 2 million people are waiting for flats. The average time of waiting is 7 years, in many regions it exceeds 10 years”. [8]

Hunger was already a major problem last summer, made worse by hoarding and profiteering. One of the strikers’ “21 Demands” was for meat rationing. This summer’s hunger marches drew the world's attention to the fact that rationing did not end this man-made famine.

. . . . and the Gaffers

The official unions’ role was to enforce labour discipline by carrot-and-stick methods. For carrot, read the distribution of scarce goods, housing, welfare benefits, perks and privileges. For stick, read petty harassment, witholding benefits, fining workers and contriving dismissals. They acted as a branch of management against the workers’ interests.

Last summer the workers' anger boiled over: “the official trade unions have not only failed to defend our interests . . . they have been more hostile to the justified strike action than the Party and State organs.” Szydlak, chairman of the Central Trade Union Council, said, “we will not give up power, nor will we share it.” Their angry reply: “He wants to represent us without our consent . . . Our mandate is for him of no consequence.” [9]

At that time, Gierek was still preaching—like Callaghan, Thatcher and Co.—that “rises in the standard of living have to be earned.” Like his crocodile tears of 1970, this was a lie: just consider his standard of living. In only ten years as Party boss, he had acquired a “luxurious residence”. Gierkowka stands in 3,000 acres. Outside, an illuminated fountain and a 2½ acre lake. Indoors, a swimming- pool, cinema, billiard-room and a grand reception-room, all paved with marble slabs. [10]

Corruption permeated the PUWP at all levels. In Walbrzych, officials used coal-mine materials to build themselves villas while “other materials were being ordered from abroad and charged to the mines while going straight into the officials’ private building activity”. The regional Party secretary, no less, was up to his neck in this embarrassingly entrepreneurial activity. [11]

Workers died because money was used for private profiteering instead of safety equipment! For over a decade, the “red Bourgeoisie” fattened itself unscrupulously. A top sociologist described the PUWP as full of “degenerate elements” for whom Party membership was “a springboard leading to riches, to positions of importance and power.” [12]

Every foreman, trade union official and factory manager owes his appointment to a Party committee. Through the nomenklatura system, these have the power to blacklist him from higher posts. If he wants to get on in his career, he will be only too eager to do the Party bosses any small favours they want. The nomenklatura system is still intact: today’s black-market profiteering in food in the starving cities is a consequence of this.

But even without corruption, no party running a state capitalist economy — whether as a dictatorship or as a lukewarm pretend democracy (the Party Congress reforms were only window-dressing) — can be expected to act in the interests of the working class, regarding our living and working conditions as a higher priority than profits. Governments are not philanthropic institutions; no reform will change this.

Strikes in a “socialist” country?

Sociologists, like politicians, were baffled by this theoretically impossible phenomenon: “what rational explanation could be found for the fact that the rightful owners of the means of production, and the people governing the country, rise up in revolt against themselves?” [13] So why do strikes happen, and not just in Poland? Russia, Ukraine, Rumania. East Germany — all so-called “socialist” countries have this problem. No sensible explanation can be found among Poland’s rulers but workers understand things better.

“The strike is the law of the downtrodden, who have been deprived of all other means of social action. It is a radical act of self-defence . . . The historical experience of the Polish People’s Republic clearly proves that the power apparatus does not represent the interests of the working class. (If it did, how can we explain the events of 1956, 1970, 1976 and 1980?). . . Between the power apparatus on the one side and labour on the other, a deep class conflict exists, which causes antagonisms and conflict in the social life of our country . . . (Labour’s interests are opposed to) the politico-state and economic apparatus, acting as a whole as a collective monopoly, as de facto private owners.” [14]

Together with this awareness that the wages system, under whatever label, is against the interests of workers, goes the knowledge that Poland’s “Socialism” is a fraud: “State ownership and social ownership of the means of production are two completely different concepts which should never be confused. The means of production may be owned by the state but this does not mean that they are thereby the social property of the working class.” [15]

From this point of view it follows that “the real liberation of the proletariat can only take place by means of the socialisation (something quite different from state ownership) of the means of production.” [16]

This is a minority viewpoint but one which has real support. Jednosc, the journal quoted, has had impressive support from local Szczeczin workers, especially the print workers, and by January this year its fortnightly print run reached 100,000 copies.

The Vanguard Party and “Dual Power”

“Solidarity” can only act as a trade union, to defend workers’ interests within the system. It gave up any chance of political action by signing the Gdansk Agreement which, instead of the workers’ demand for trade unions “free and independent of the party”, declared that “the new unions . . . will recognise the leading role of the PUWP in the state.” [17] 

However, as no political organisation genuinely represents workers’ interests, any organisation which purports to represent their interests takes on the role of an unofficial opposition, whether or not it organises as a political movement or even has a declared platform. As one Party member commented: “Solidarity represents all those who define themselves as ‘we’ against a Party and State defined as ‘them’. A system of dual power is gradually emerging.” [18]

Solidarity’s policy has been clear from the start: “in the cause of independence we will not link ourselves, let alone subordinate ourselves, to any political or social organisations.” [19] Yet the Government and its Moscow puppet-masters continually attack Solidarity as subversive enemies of the state. Such tactics are familiar to trade unionists here: Reds under the bed or CIA agents of Counter-Revolution, the same ploy used for the same purpose, to discredit union activists and prejudice public opinion against the unions.

Kania has made every effort to delay, minimise or renege on his signed agreements. Realising that — for the time being, at least — brute force, tanks or truncheons could not be used, the government strategy was to play for time while harassing, provoking or intimidating the union and its supporters.

The Chief Public Prosecutor circulated instructions on how to frame union activists. From his circular (leaked to Solidarity) we learn that the forces of “law and order” were in the habit of raiding workers’ homes to such an extent that “the large number of sequestrated objects — typewriters, duplicators, paper, and above all illegal publications — in some cases creates problems of storage”. Prosecutions were brought against workers distributing leaflets (“dropping litter in public places”) or wearing badges “without permission”. [20]

A Politburo member, Zabinski, privately reassured the security forces that Kania’s apparent concessions did not mean any underlying Wetness. There was a Machiavellian strategy behind the concessions:

“The aim was to quench the strikes, calm the nation and consider the situation later . . . (The workers' committees should) taste a little power: it will have a cooling effect on them.” Ending the four-shift system would cause redundancies: “these workers’ commissions are to suggest who is going to be dismissed from the mines. Let them do this untypical work . . . These inter-factory workers’ committees have to fire them. We have to involve them in a thousand problems.” He concluded: “We should see to it that, first, they do not get rid of Party members, second, that they do get rid of the ‘KOR’ people, and then the rest must be simply slowly broken up.” [21]

This strategy, whose failure is self-evident, is based on the special fear felt by all Bolsheviks when workers form an alliance with “intellectuals”. Like Lenin, Kania and his colleagues believe workers are helpless without intellectuals to lead them. Lenin wrote that “the history of all countries shows that by its own forces the working class can only arrive at a trade union consciousness.” [22] The corollary to this is that only if workers unite with “intellectuals” is there any risk to the powers-that-be.

In Poland the KOR intellectuals supported the militant workers, and vice versa. Did the result support Lenin’s view? In the Gdansk strike, the workers took the initiative and the KOR “experts” were much less militant than the workers. The “intellectuals” were moderates while “the workers were really very opposed to the system, to the point where they wouldn’t even touch it, still less reform it”. [23] The workers wanted a trade union that would be independent of the party. Negotiating behind closed doors, the experts presented them with a “definitely agreed” formula which acknowledged “the leading role of the Party”. The workers “were very annoyed ... (they) wanted to throw all the experts from the shipyards”. [23]

Lenin’s theory is insulting baloney. Workers can have a clear understanding of their real interests and of their actual strength when united and militant. The “experts” and KOR sympathisers were nervous of Russian intervention and more easily intimidated. (They were also more soft when appeals to the “national interest” were tried.) From fear of putting the cause of “free trade unions” at risk, they shackled the new unions with “the leading role of the Party”, which meant the continuance of the nomenklatura system.

One lesson of the Gdansk negotiations is that workers should do their own negotiating, openly. They are the experts.

The Self-Limiting Revolution

Socialists have a special interest in the development of independent trade union movements in totalitarian state capitalist countries. Embryo movements have sprung up in Russia, under enormous difficulties, and still operate underground, as used to be the case in Poland. [24]

In Poland the achievement has been greater, but — like Marx — we realise that “the real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever- expanding union of the workers.” [25]

We are not uncritical of Solidarity. Its policy is made by leaders. It is influenced by the Catholic Church, an influence which gives the “national interest” a higher priority than class interest. It has taken up the cause of the peasant farmers whose demands — higher food prices and private ownership of land — are in conflict with Solidarity members’ need for cheaper food and, ultimately, for common ownership of all means of production, including land.

However it has established a strong organisation of at least 10 million members, voluntarily enrolled, without any “closed shop” agreements or coercion of any kind. It is capable of defending workers’ interests.

Its existence has demonstrated that state and party control of the media cannot forever stifle the voice of the common people, and that police brutality and draconian penalties cannot prevent determined, class-conscious workers from striking and organising on the industrial field.

But, even if all Solidarity’s demands become reality, not mere promises from a Party notorious for breaking them whenever expedient, Poland’s workers would remain wage-slaves. Solidarity is not a revolutionary organisation. It is a trade union, whose role is to defend workers interests within the wages system. Meanwhile the PUWP still holds political power, dictates economic policy, laws, and — the ultimate sanction — controls the police and armed forces which protect the property of the state and which can be used, have been used and may be used again, to “defend the national interest” against the working class.

The PUWP’s power-monopoly will continue until Poland’s workers organise themselves for a political struggle as effectively as they have organised themselves on the industrial field. There is still work to be done. But until they get up off their knees, stop genuflecting to Popes, Cardinals and suffering Saint Lech Walesa, stop saluting the national flag, become deaf to appeals about the “national interest”, and take their stand exclusively on their class interest, they will fall short of becoming a revolutionary movement. They will remain mere heroes of protest.

Charmian Skelton

References

[1] Solidarity communique. Jan. '81 (Information Centre for Polish Affairs)

[2] Anna Walentynowicz (Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, winter-spring '81)

[3] Stanislaw Wadolowski, vice-chairman of Szczeczin Solidarity (Labour Focus, ’81)

[4] Full text in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, spring-autumn ’80

[5] PSC News (Polish Solidarity Campaign), March ’81.

[6] Interview with Two Gdynia Workers (Labour Focus, ’80)

[7] Solidarnosc Strike Bulletin, 28 Aug. (Labour Focus ’80)

[8] State of the Economy Report, July ’81 (Polish Press Agency)

[9] Solidarnosc Strike Bulletin. 20 Aug. (Labour Focus, *80)

[10] Information Centre for ' Polish Affairs, 14 May ’81

[11] Labour Focus ’81

[12] Prof. Markiewicz, Kultura 21 Sept. ’80 (Contemporary Poland, official digest of media and government statements)

[13] The same 

[14] Jednosc, no. 16, 12 Dec. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’81)

[15] Statement of the Inter-College Co-ordinating Committee of Solidarity (Szczeczin region), Jednosc no. 14, also printed in Kommunikat, the Warski shipyard workers’ bulletin (Labour Focus, ’81)

[16] Jednosc no. 11, 30 Oct. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’81)

[17] Full text of the “21 Demands” and the Gdansk Agreement (Labour Focus, ’80)

[18] Article by B. Rogowski, 14 Nov. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’80)

[19] Inter-Factory Founding Committee of the Independent Trade Unions of the Coastline, statement, 17 Sept. ’80, published through KOR (Information Centre for Polish Affairs)

[20] Full text in Labour Focus, ’80

[21] Transcript of secret tape published in The Free Unionist, 5 March ’81 — Information Centre for Polish Affairs

[22] Lenin, What Is To Be Done?

[23] Jadwiga Staniskia, Experts and the “Leading Role” — (Labour Focus, ’81). Her statement that workers disliked the “agreed formula” is supported by another “expert”, Geremek—interview in Que Faire Auiourd’hui? (no. 9)

[24] See Workers Against the Gulag, ’79 (Pluto Press)

[25] Communist Manifesto

Are socialists utopians? (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Look at the world around you. Millions starving while food is destroyed. Mass unemployment and an arms race which threatens human survival. Many murderous regimes overshadowing hints of democracy. But how should change be directed? How should society be organised? Socialists have a clear vision of the way forward, and for this are often branded as utopian dreamers. But Utopians base schemes for a future society on abstract principles such as “freedom” or “justice”, without suggesting how society can be transformed.

The Utopians

For most of human pre-history people lived in communal groups, sharing their food. Conditions were harsh, but hardships were shared. With the advent of slavery, people were forced to become the property of others, to be treated like cattle. The first utopias were romantic visions of a harmonious life, and were placed in the past, For example, this passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, written in the first century BC:

In the beginning was the Golden Age, when men of their own accord, threat of punishment, without laws, maintained good faith and did what was right . . . the peoples of the world, untroubled by any fears, enjoyed a leisurely and peaceful existence, and had no use for soldiers. The earth itself, without compulsion, untouched by the hoe, unfurrowed by any share, produced ail things spontaneously, and men were content with foods that grew without cultivation . . . it was a season of everlasting spring.

This tradition continued through the Middle Ages in poems such as The Former Age by Chaucer

What would have been the point of war?

There was no profit, no property;

But cursed was the time, I dare well say,

When men first did their sweaty business

To dig up bits of metal, lurking in the darkness

Looking for gems in the rivers 

With the development of capitalism, the search for a utopia became popular and urgent, and took on a more realistic element by being placed in the present instead of the past. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) was located in the “New World” across the ocean. By the nineteenth century, utopias were being placed in the future. Edward Bellamy, who[se] Looking Backward in 1887, said that “The Golden Age lies before us and not behind, and it is not far away”. But as early as 1652, Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, had tried to combine action with vision. His protest took the form of over the land at St George’s Hill near Cobham for common use, while his hopes were expressed in The Law of Freedom:

If any man or family want corn or other provision, they may go to the storehouses and fetch without money. If any want food or victuals, they may either go to the butchers' shops, and receive that they want without money; or else go to the flocks of sheep, or herds of cattle, and take and kill what meat is needful for their families, without buying and selling.

The eighteenth-century French ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity were seen as the essence of the 1789 revolution Five years later, Buonarotti and Babeuf organised the “Conspiracy of Equals”. They planned an armed insurrection as the way to communism, which they saw as an ideal to be put into practice at any time regardless of the historical conditions, with the help of Spartan asceticism and moral restraint. In the early nineteenth century, utopian socialists drew up detailed schemes as alternatives to the unbearable conditions under which rapid industrialisation was taking place. Saint- Simon envisaged a technocracy, with bankers directing production by the regulation of credit. He wrote of a time when the “administration of things” would replace “government over people”. Fourier explained how “Under civilisation, poverty is born of superabundance itself” and urged the formation of communal groups which he called phalansteres. At New Lanark in Scotland, Robert Owen directed a cotton mill as a “model colony” of co-operative efficiency.

Political action

The socialist movement became practical about a hundred years ago, with the formation of political parties such as the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist League. The latter was founded by William Morris, whose vision of socialism, News From Nowhere, was published in 1890. This work tells of an activist from the Socialist League arriving home after a political meeting and dreaming of the kind of society his party sought to establish. It ends as the people in the dream tell their visitor to go back and see

people engaged in making others live lives which are not their own, while they themselves care nothing for their own real lives — men who hate life, though they fear death. Go back and be the happier for having seen us, for having added a little hope to your struggle.

Socialism was placed on a practical footing when social development was to be based on the interplay of material forces and the class struggle. This was largely accomplished through the work of active socialist speakers and writers such as Marx and Engels. Capitalism was seen to be a struggle between owners of capital and their workers, the sellers of labour power; a struggle ultimately over control of all the productive resources of society. Marx showed how capitalist employers were able to accumulate the “surplus value” produced by their workers because the ages paid, merely enough to keep us fit for more work, are worth less than the the total value we produce. Previous revolutions have taken place when the forces of production (for example, factories) had grown to a point where further development was prevented by the old-fashioned relations of production (such as lord and serf). The contradiction in capitalism which Marx pointed to remains. Wealth is produced by millions of workers across the world, but appropriated by a small minority. This leads to further contradictions such as mass starvation alongside the destruction of food and the universal desire for peace alongside wars.

The end of scarcity

A report produced by the United Nations in 1970 stated that “the surface of the earth has hardly been scratched”. In 1976 the United Nations Food and Agricultural Yearbook showed that “enough grain is now produced to provide everyone on earth with more than 2 lb. (3000 calorics) per day”. In Bangladesh, where half the people are starving, enough grain is produced to provide 2,600 calories a person each day, but it is exported to be sold.

The Head of Policy Planning at the World Bank referred recently to twenty million tons of “surplus grain” guarded by soldiers in India, while chronic hunger continues. In 1966, the US President’s Science Advisory Committee reported that less than half of the world’s arable land was being cultivated, while in 1978, the EEC destroyed almost 200,000 tons of fruit and vegetables (The Times 14/11/ 78). In Nairobi in 1967 about a million coffee plants were burned (The Times 12/5/67). And in 1962, the Director of the International Agricultural Aviation Centre estimated that “the earth could support a population of 28,000 million if food production were organised on lines now known to be practicable” (The Times 24/9/62). (Present world population in 24/9/62 is about 4,000 million.) In September 1976, Robert Loomis declared in Scientific American that current resources could feed more than twelve times the present population. In the same issue, W.D. Hopper explains that

The world’s food problem does not arise from any physical limitation on potential output or any danger of unduly stressing the environment. The limitations on abundance are to be found in the social and political structures of nations and in the economic relations among them. The unexploited global resource is there.

The problem is that, from Moscow to Washington, production is based on the profit of a few rather than the needs of all.

This is most evident in what Kennedy referred to as “planned and subsidised under-production”, when he was US President. The quota system is a huge and barbarically anachronistic fetter on the production of wheat, rice, sugar, rubber, tin and copper. And all this to defend the dividends of shareholders in companies like Nestlés, which has a higher turnover than the Swiss government’s budget (Swiss Information Groups for Development Policy; Nestles Report 1976) and spends more on advertising each year than the entire budget of the UN World Health Organisation.

All this proves that talk of a problem of over-population is a dangerous lie. People’s impressions of population are distorted by living in small areas of absurdly concentrated population. Of 213 million people living in the USA in 1975, nearly three-quarters lived in cities which occupy only 1.5 per cent of the land. The world’s population could be fitted in theory into an area the size of the Isle of Wight with one square foot each. If overpopulation caused hunger, there would be a link between population density and the level of malnutrition. But according to the 1977 FAO Yearbook, France has the same number of people per cropped acre as India, but far less malnutrition. The US Department of Agriculture has estimated that there are about 16 billion acres in the world, as much as four acres per person.

Socialist visionaries

It takes some imagination to envisage a world cleared of the insanity which dominates it today. Alongside the relentless process of debate, persuasion and struggle in the movement for socialism, there is a need for some vision. Not a religious vision of a perfect “Golden Age” or a utopian, detailed plan for life in a future society. What is needed is the kind of passion with which William Morris portrayed work as the great pleasure when under conditions of democratic control, and creation as the driving force to end the destruction inherent in the profit system. Society will be transformed through people understanding capitalism and desiring socialism. Such consciousness inevitably involves strong human feeling.

About a hundred years ago, Paul Brousse boasted of being a “possibilist”. In other words, he was prepared to compromise politically with the system he claimed to oppose. Like thousands who have followed him since, from the SDF to the SWP, he supported what Karl Popper has called “piecemeal social engineering”. To campaign for mere modifications of capitalism is to be absorbed and swallowed by the very prejudices socialists have to fight against. When the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed, it was dubbed “impossibilist” because of its determination to stand openly and consistently for a system of society which is yet to be established. In that sense only, can socialism be called “utopian”: utopia is the Greek word for nowhere, and socialism does not yet exist anywhere, although the forces bringing it about are present everywhere within capitalism. Problems which are fully grasped contain their solution within them. Only humans can think conceptually, envisaging something before building it. This capacity can be used to look at history scientifically. By predicting and organising, we can assert control over the constant process of social change.

Anatole France said that “Without the Utopians of other times, men would still live in caves, miserable and naked”. It is because of the misery which still prevails that people are interested in the elusive utopias over the seas and far away. But the time has come to reject the American Dream of “free enterprise” and the Russian Dream of dictatorship flattering itself with the false name of “socialism”. To leave the nightmare of the present, all of the tools are to hand. The raw materials, the machinery, the organisation. The rest is up to you. 

Clifford Slapper

Space in British Aerospace (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The view is widely held that workers in the aircraft industry are somehow cosseted from the worst effects of booms and slumps in the economic cycle; the fact that, until very recently, the industry in Britain had apparently been little affected by the current recession gave some support to the idea. The truth, however, is that the fortunes of the industry fluctuate just as much as those of any other in the capitalist economy, as those aircraft workers involved in such recent traumas as the TSR2 cancellation will testify.

One of the reasons for this is the sheer size of the product, the design timescale of which has escalated tremendously in the industry’s comparatively short life. Nowadays the time from drawing board to entry into service can be twelve years or more, which means that a vast expenditure over a long period is required before there can be any hope of a profit. The necessary funding has therefore increasingly been provided by government agencies, so making the industry more and more susceptible to the political climate. Charles Gardner, in his history of the British Aircraft Corporation (Batsford, 1981), maintains that in 1970 Wedgwood Benn, Minister of Technology in the Labour Government, would have approved the loan requested by BAC for the 311 airliner, but the Tory government which was elected that year had other ideas. Similarly, a large defence contract signed with Libya in 1968, centring about Thunderbird and Rapier, was terminated after a military coup the following year. The main factors which influence these government decisions are thus not necessarily economic: the industry has suffered severe setbacks in times of general expansion and, conversely, has until recently expanded its workload in some areas in the face of recession.

Further political influences have been introduced as a result of international co-operation in the building of new aircraft. From such has come, among others, the Anglo-French Concorde, the European Airbus Industry and, in the military field, the Anglo-French Jaguar and Anglo-German-Italian Tornado. Amalgamation within the industry has also proceeded with breakneck speed. In Britain at the end of World War II there were 27 different aerospace companies; by 1960 the development of the industry, with some government pushing, had reduced these to only two — British Aircraft Corporation and Hawker Siddley, each with their aircraft and guided weapons divisions. The subsequent amalgamation into British Aerospace, involving so-called “nationalisation" followed by “denationalisation", will be considered later. The development of joint projects with European concerns is a natural continuation of the amalgamation process. If the separate governments concerned could always agree on all matters affecting the projects, perhaps no additional uncertainties would be injected. Under capitalism however such an idyllic situation cannot be expected. Differences between the partners have appeared in connection with all the projects just mentioned. Currently some French interests are pressing for the abandonment of Concorde, whereas earlier it was the French government, who had committed Air France to the plane, which resisted waverers on the British side. All these political factors increase the feeling of insecurity within the industry.

Running parallel with the amalgamation of the companies, and arising from the same economic causes, has been a change in the nature of the work itself. On the production side automation has proceeded much as in engineering in general. Big changes have taken place on the design side also, with the old type of boffin little in evidence. Computer aided design and the large structural analysis programmes now available have taken most of the glamour out of the process. Each worker can now be assigned routine, boring tasks. One effect has been to increase the militancy among designers as the apparent differences between them and workers on the factory floor are eroded. Another is that it is now possible to stress complicated structures more uniformly than before. Under the constant competitive pressure to reduce weight and cost, aircraft are being produced which have smaller safety margins, and this is reflected in an increasing number of fatigue problems.

The current recession is having its effect on the industry despite appearances to the contrary. Although Keynesian economic theories are still quite widely upheld, particularly in France and in the British Labour Party, governments have generally reacted to a slump by trying to reduce their expenditure, as was done in Britain in the 1930s. On defence, the commitment to Trident reduces the amount available for other projects. Another factor is that contractors whose markets in the civil sector have shrunk are delivering defence goods faster and presenting bills for payment more quickly than anticipated. In fact, there has been no overall reduction in defence spending and the 3 per cent increase promised to NATO may well be kept. But even with an increase in defence spending jobs can be lost, as Herman Rebhan, General Secretary of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, made clear when he addressed the United Nations.

There has been a steady increase in military spending in the United States in the past five years. In 1975 there were 97,300 members of the machinists union employed on military contracts. By 1978 there were 85,000, a drop of 12,300. It is because military production operates at the very fringe of technological development. Military industries are both capital intensive and technologically highly advanced. Both aspects mean a decline in labour. Even with a massive new twist in the arms race the military industry is the worst place in which to invest with a view to creating jobs.

(Tridents into Ploughshares by Bill Niven, New Statesman, 12.6.81)

The British Government, having earlier resisted the efforts of West Germany to cut back on Tornado production, is now having second thoughts, possibly reflecting a toughening attitude following the recent Cabinet reshuffle. At the same time British Aerospace has been forced to ask for aid on interest payments to enable it to continue as a partner in the Airbus project. These cashflow problems are threatening to strangle at birth the latest aircraft to appear on the drawing board, the P106/P110 (information on this project can be obtained from an article in The Times, 22.4.81 by the air correspondent Arthur Reed). The Lancashire Evening Post (15.9.81) reports that the Tory Conference would be lobbied in an attempt to save the enterprise.

How is the workforce in British Aerospace reacting to this escalating uncertainty? Some of the younger workers have gone on contract work, mainly in the United States. This offers high rates of pay in the short term, often enabling them to accumulate some savings. However, it does nothing to banish insecurity or lack of job satisfaction; indeed these are rather intensified — contract workers at Boeing have been on as little as one hour’s notice. It is noteworthy that the AV8B contract with McDonnell Douglas was presented on the British media (BBC1 9 o 'clock News, 24.8.81) in terms of the number of jobs it would “secure”. This would not have happened in the United States, where the effect on company profitability may have been stressed but “job security” is not considered possible. Attempts by British Aerospace workers to “do something about it” are confined to fights for a change in government policy. Despite the lip service now being paid to disarmament, this can lead to open advocacy of increased arms expenditure. The slogan “Jobs not bombs" has a hollow ring to these people because to them, bombs and bombers are jobs. The recent cancellation of Skyflash II and delays to the Sea Eagle programme in the 1981 Defence Estimates caused 600 redundancies at the Hatfield and Lostock (near Boston) missile plants. The New Statesman (12.6.81) reports that immediately shop stewards went to lobby Parliament to openly urge the continuation of these projects. The Chairman of Vickers combined shop stewards committee summed this feeling up when he said on television earlier this year: “We don’t sec anything else that could secure full employment. We would welcome five Tridents on our slipways” (New Statesman, 12.6.81). Behind all this activity is the old illusion that capitalism contrary to its nature, can somehow be run in the workers’ interests.

The forced amalgamation of BAC and Hawker Siddley in 1977, to form the “nationalised” British Aerospace, followed this year by "denationalisation” in the form of a public limited company, has introduced another red herring. Not even the most starry-eyed Leftie among the employees can argue that his position as a wage slave has been in any way altered by these changes. Indeed, management in both cases issued statements making clear that terms of employment would remain unchanged. Yet among those active in the trade unions and reformist politics there is still strong support for the nationalisation concept. These workers do not understand that nationalised industries under capitalism are intended to provide a service to the capitalist class as a whole, and are administered in this way by the state, “the executive committee of the ruling class”.

The present discussion on arms conversion and alternative products must not be confused with the position of future socialist society deciding how best to make use of available resources. In the latter case, arms production of all kinds will have ceased and things will be produced solely for use and not for sale with a view to profit. With production geared to satisfying human needs and free access to all goods and services, a decision to cut back on articles no longer required could not menace anybody’s livelihood; a complete contrast to the situation under capitalism. Most of those now discussing “alternatives” believe that disarmament is perfectly feasible under capitalism. While this is manifest nonsense, it does not follow that these ideas can be totally dismissed. We have already seen that increased arms production cannot always prevent contraction in the workforce employed. Also, both the United States and Russia have more than enough arms stockpiled to knock each other out. They could severely limit arms production and still retain this capability, although there is admittedly no sign of such a reduction right now. It is possible however to envisage the capitalists faced with the very difficult problem of unused resources formerly employed on arms production, and needing to convert these to other uses with the minimum of social unrest. The position of the Labour Party, as declared in their latest manifesto, is that

A Labour government will plan to ensure that savings in military expenditure do not lead to unemployment for those working in the defence industries. We shall give material support and encouragement to plans for industrial conversion so that the valuable resources of the defence industries can be used for the production of socially needed goods.

In the United States these ideas have been carried a stage further. A Defence Economic Adjustment Act has actually been introduced into the Senate (Congressional Record, volume 125, No. 50, 26.4.79), the principal sponsors being George McGovern and Charles Mathias. (The first Bill on these lines was put to Congress as early as 1963.) It legislates for the social problems resulting from the arms race. Professor Seymour Mellman, co-chairman of the peace organisation Sane, is quoted: “Economic conversion is the only way of reconciling fear of job loss with opposition to the arms race” (New Statesman, 12.6. 81).

Despite the optimistic phraseology in the wording of the Bill and by some of its supporters, suggesting belief that capitalism can disarm itself, such an Act never be more than a capitalist answer to one of capitalism’s problems. As for “socially needed goods”, even in the deepest recession a little cash could doubtless be found for a pilot scheme to produce a few of these. The problem, as shown by such absurdities as the butter mountain, is how to sell these goods once they are produced. It is this vital point that the Left and other well-meaning reformers seem unable to grasp.

E. C. Edge