Letter: Political and Social Reforms. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political and Social Reforms.

Clapham,

September 24th, 1933.

Dear Comrades,

Seeing that the S.P.G.B. claim that, in this country, at any rate, at the present time, the only known course open to the workers to capture the seat of Government is the vote, that being so, one can logically claim that the franchise is a social reform that will eventually fundamentally benefit the working class.

The reason I express this point of view is that, was one of your speakers correct when he asked an audience to name one “ social reform ” that has fundamentally benefited the working class?

Now, Marx, writing on the Chartists, said : “But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat form the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground, civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more Socialist measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent. Its inevitable result here is the political supremacy of the working class.” (New York Tribune, August 25th, 1852. Quoted by Labour Monthly, December, 1929.)

Your speaker took the opposite viewpoint, saying “that the workers had recently returned the Nationalist Government. Also that the ruling class Had given further suffrage to the women.” Quite so, that is because the workers are not mentally equipped with the necessary Socialist knowledge, and, therefore, is not a condemnation of the "social reform,” namely, “the Franchise,” which Marx agrees is a Socialist measure. Your reply to my letter, re “ The Vote,” in September, 1927, said, “We would strongly urge them (black workers) to agitate for the franchise.”

Yours fraternally,

T. W. C.

Reply.

Our correspondent has, we think, completely misunderstood the speaker whose remarks he quotes.

It is usual to refer to changes in the machinery of Government as “political" reforms, and to keep the phrase “social reforms” for such measures as old-age pensions, health and unemployment insurance, etc. The speaker in question would therefore not expect his statement, that no social reform had “fundamentally benefited the working-class," to be understood as meaning that the franchise is useless.

Our correspondent falls into a second misunderstanding when he fails to separate the present misuse of the franchise from its future correct use. It is true, as Marx said, that the franchise will inevitably result in the political supremacy of the working class. It is also true to say (as our speaker is reported as saying) that the workers have used their votes to return a capitalist Government to power. Our speaker would therefore have been quite correct if he had also said that the franchise has not yet been used by the workers in such a way as to be of fundamental benefit to them.

When they become Socialists the working class will know very well how to use the vote.

Ed. Comm.