Socialist Sonnet No. 134: Kitchener’s Finger (2024)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Lord Kitchener is flexing his finger,

A beckoning to come hither once more,

Inducing young men and women to war.

In the cenotaph memory lingers,

Although it appears amnesia prevails

When a call to the colours comes their way

And they sleep-march towards their beds of clay;

Too often, it seems, humanity fails.

Enough now of the lame old excuses

For yet another bellicose mission,

When it’s rivalry and competition,

And the prospects of profit seduces.

A radical change is required because

The price of peace is capitalism’s loss.

D. A.

The Socialist Party and Trade Unionism. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first day’s Session of the Party meeting on Trade Unionism was held on Saturday, May 12, at 6 p.m. at the Communist Club, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.

Comrade A. J. M. Gray, was elected to the Chair.

It was decided to discuss resolutions to be placed before the meeting in the order in which they appeared on the printed paper supplied to the members.

J. Kent accordingly moved the following resolution :—

“Whereas The Socialist Commonwealth will be established by the conscious act of the revolutionary working class wresting from the master class the ownership and control of the means of wealth production, for which conscious act the working class must prepare by organising industrially and politically, and, whereas existing working-class industrial organisations, being based upon the superstition of the brotherhood of capital and labor, and representing only sectional interests, are stumbling blocks in the revolutionary path, the S.P.G.B. while re-affirming that ‘The first duty of the Socialist Party is the teaching of its principles and the organisation of a political party on a Socialist basis,’

“(1.) Declares war on existing Trade Unions and their leaders.

“(2.) Urges its members, while not neglecting their ‘first duty,’ to advocate the formation of an industrial organisation based upon the irreconcilable antagonism between the capitalist class and the working class, and having as its object the taking over and administering of the means of wealth production ; such industrial organisation to be affiliated to or working in complete unison with The Socialist Party, thus ensuring that the class struggle shall be waged as effectively as possible on both the industrial and political fields.”

In moving his resolution, J. Kent said that if the trade unions were stumbling blocks in the revolutionary path, those stumbling blocks had to be removed. He thought that recognising the necessity for political action, the Party should affirm its decision to organise a political party on a Socialist basis. The Party, however, had never laid it down that we should carry on war on the existing trade unions, but had merely opposed the trade union leaders through its press and through its propaganda. The economic organisation should either be affiliated to the political party, or should work in unison with it, or otherwise, it would be as well to abandon political action and simply carry on an economic fight. It would be absolutely necessary for the action of the one on the political field to be supported by the action of the other on the economic field, and the action of the one on the economic field to be supported by the action of the other on the political.

Phillips seconded the resolution.

A. Anderson moved to amend the resolution by inserting “Socialist” before “industrial organisation” in lines 3 and 7 of clause (2), which was accepted by the mover and seconder, and to substitute “and controlled by” for “working in complete unison with” in lines 8 and 9.

Anderson said he agreed with Kautsky that the political organisation must dominate the economic. The political must control the economic or the contrary would occur. He did not want to see repeated the farce of the S.L.P. in America and the S.T. and L.A.. or the tragedy of the S.L.P. in England and the I.W.W. Dix seconded the amendment. Barker asked whether it would be possible for men and women to join the political organisation and not belong to the economic and vice-versa.

Anderson replied that in joining the S.P.G.B. members of the working class would join it in both its political and economic aspects. They would pay subscriptions to THE organisation—that organisation comprising both wings.

F. S. Leigh asked whether, in the event of a union being formed, a workman refusing to join the political party would be compelled to become a blackleg.

Anderson : If he did not adhere to the principles of the party he would not be fit to join it. T. A. Jackson said he had always understood that we had to capture political power and then to proceed to the administration of the means and instruments of production. The difficult point was that while present Society existed the wage-workers would be compelled to join permanent or temporary trade unions. Trade unions were a necessity under capitalism.

With regard to the leaders of the trade unions, a trade union leader was what the rank and file allowed him to be. A trade union was the arm which the worker instinctively raised to protect himself. As Marx said in his “Value, Price and Profit,” “if the workers did not struggle to maintain the price of their commodity they would rapidly become degenerated into slaves incapable of revolt.” If the resolution was carried the only logical course open to the Party would be to withdraw all its members from the existing trade unions. What it was necessary to wage war on was the economic ignorance which rendered these trade unions ineffective.

It was our purpose to wage war upon their faults and the source of their faults—their economic ignorance. It was necessary that the political party should dominate the economic. When the workers had been educated by the political party they themselves would see to it that their trade unions were no longer ineffective. 

Neumann said he was opposed to Kent’s resolution. When war was declared on the unions war would be declared on the leaders. But he did not agree that the declaration of war on existing trade unions was an anti-trade union declaration. There was no reason that these existing trade unions should not be Socialist trade unions. If war was declared on the unions, however, it would be impossible for the members of the S.P.G.B. to remain inside the existing trade unions. This attitude was impracticable at the present time, because it was a question of their daily bread that members of the Party should be members of the trade unions. He would not support the resolution because it was unsound.

Cole asked had Jackson ever been in a strike or conducted one. The trade unions were not organised to fight the capitalist class, but to protect the capitalist system and support it. He supported Kent’s resolution.

Fitzgerald said that the S.P.G.B. was the first party which had at its inception held meetings on the trade union question. If we declared war on the existing trade unions we should be waging war upon them in every shape and form. Certain members of the Party had to remain in trade unions. The question was how could war be best waged on the wrong basis on which the trade unions were organised. If men were engaged in a works at 30/- a week, and 5/- per week reduction was threatened, they would naturally come out to resist that reduction, then what would be our position ? At present we could do no more than propagate the right idea inside and outside the trade unions in favour of the proper method of organisation. He was opposed to the resolution.

Fairbrother said that if men were on strike our position was to support them, yet all the time to point out how they were wrongly organised. The unions should be based on the class struggle. The economic organisation was more important than the political. The political was but the reflex of the economic. The L.R.C., for instance, had got their position on the back of the existing trade unions, not by any fight on the political field. If the workers were organised on the class struggle on the economic field he could not conceive their action on the political field being anything but that of Socialists. The majority of the working class were outside the trade unions, and the trade unions could not permanently improve their conditions as long as the condition of the unorganised mass outside was not improved.

A. W. Pearson asked whether Fairbrother wanted the Party members to be allowed to join an economic organisation not affiliated to the Party. If members and non-members of our Party were to be admitted to an economic organisation they too would soon find themselves in the House of Commons as political mountebanks. The union advocated by Fairbrother would allow members of other parties to come into it and so dominate it on the political field. If the Party was to form an industrial union it must be formed to act in unison with the Party. Barker wanted to know what was to be done with members of the Party inside the existing trade unions in view of the proposed war on the unions. He was opposed to the position laid down by the resolution.

T. W. Allen said he proposed a revolutionary economic organisation which would soon know how to deal with those who wanted to “wangle” who came into that organisation. The organisation should not be affiliated to the political party until the class consciousness of the workers would bring about unity on the political field. That the working class were ignorant was the effect of certain causes. The labour leaders wilfully betrayed the interests of the workers to the capitalist class. The present trade unions were based upon the idea of the finality of the capitalist system. Under the present unions one section of the workers went into the fight with the capitalist class whilst another section black-legged upon them. When a sturdy, sound, economic, revolutionary organisation had been formed, then the political would come as the reflex of the economic.

A. Anderson replied that the trade unions were shams and frauds and delusions. Just as long as you had a separate organisation from the political party the movement would be sidetracked whether it was called the I.W.W. or any other combination of initials. Since the trade unions were stumbling blocks in the revolutionary path, they must be fought. It did not follow that if it was decided to oppose the unions that the members of the S.P.G.B. should be immediately called out of the existing trade unions. As the political party controlled the members of the political party so also would they control the members of the economic organisation.

J. Kent replied that the resolution urged that the members should advocate an economic organisation, not immediately proceed to organise it. The time had arrived when we should go beyond the words of the manifesto, and advocate the formation of a Socialist industrial organisation. The trades unions, as Marx said, failed because of the guerrilla warfare they were carrying on. Had we not said in the columns of the Party paper that the proper organisation of the working class was their organisation as a class. Further, no organisation would be effective that was not affiliated with or working in complete unison with the political party. If you were going to form an organisation apart from the political party, then in that way lay danger.

The amendment was carried by 30 votes to 20.

The amendment having thus become a substantive resolution, the vote was taken and the resolution was carried by 30 votes to 26.

(To be continued.)

A Workingman's Education. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is difficult to see what connection the present “Education” Bill or the outcry regarding it has with education itself. Indeed, the frothy struggle for religious domination almost completely obscures the really important matter beneath.

Most people do not distinguish between education proper, and the mere imparting of information, but the distinction is vital. To educate is not to merely pack the brain with facts or cut and dried formulae, but is to bring out the powers of the mind, to train the faculties for the reception and use of life’s present experience and of the knowledge handed down from the past; to prepare the mind for the first-hand gathering of knowledge, and the co-ordination and right use of it.

To pith children’s minds with facts and dead formula; whose inner significance is not understood, may make excellent parrots, but cannot make thinkers. Such a procedure causes a one-sided, mechanical development, and leads to a taste for snippetty bits. It does not enable the mind to draw useful knowledge from the facts of life; it brings about an incapacity for sustained and logical thinking, and creates a habit of mind that is eagerly receptive of superficials, but in no wise creative.

Mere surface information, however well tabulated, cannot take the place of, and is a poor preparation for, the first hand experience of life. Our personal experience is the foundation of our appreciation of the great works of the world, and our early information has to be recast in the mould of our later experience.

It cannot, be denied that the so-called education of to-day resembles more a packing of the brain than an unfolding of its capabilities, and this defect is but the reflex of the mechanical, specialised and hurried character of modern society.

It is, of course, with the “education” of the working class that we are most concerned, although the defects of this are reflected to a great degree in the education of the class above. Naturally, also, we find that the quality of the worker’s instruction is traceable to the demands of the prevailing methods of wealth, production. There is no necessity to the capitalist of a mass of fully-educated, original-minded and high-spirited men as wage-slaves ; they would be in the way, and far too costly. The necessities of the day demand workers who are mechanical, one-sidedly developed, and eminently submissive. It is necessary to the capitalist, not only that the workers be not taught things which may injure his domination, but also that their energies (and his wealth) be not used unproductively for him ; that they be trained so far and no farther ; that they be disciplined in routine work, and pithed with just sufficient knowledge to do the master’s work cheaply and fairly efficiently.

Our system of education has, in general, the appearance of being deliberately planned to a sinster end, so well does it suit the master’s interests. A few who may be required as hired captains of industry, instructors and such walks of life (and the few only), can be sifted from out the mass of the people by means of a sieve of “Higher Education” (save the mark !) which contains a special hole here and there labelled “Scholarship,” through which a fixed and very small number of the more able or more fortunate may pass ; but for the mass there is nothing but the compulsion, under threat of hunger, to go out to earn their bread as soon as they have passed the point, no more no less, at which their masters say they are fit for the factory.

The history of “education” in this country is a curious mixture of cupidity and hypocrisy, being largely the story of the struggle for religious domination. The modern system is the direct descendant of that which was born of rival religious struggles for power, with the various religious bodies competing viciously for a larger number of children into whom to force their dogmas; and on the poor children was inflicted the proverbial pound of Bible to the ounce of useful knowledge.

To-day the squabble in the capitalist camp is almost entirely over religious instruction, the question of education itself taking a quite insignificant part in the controversy. The length and breadth of the land is stumped in the interests of rival religious factions, (representing as they do, the interests of various sections of the master class,) anxious to inculcate the dogma of their sect and interest into a larger number of the nation’s young.

In this question the workers, (who seldom, if ever, go to church) have had impressed upon them the views of sections of the ruling class by means of the newspaper and platform, and have been stirred into a flabby semblance of interest in a question of dogma which, in reality, does not concern them at all.

What does concern them is the fact that they and their children are members of a subject class deprived of light and life by a system of class-domination out-worn.

What does concern them to know is that the associated industry of to-day places it within their power to become masters of their own destiny, and to themselves enjoy the wealth their labour creates, and so prevent the consumption of hard-earned bread by the wilfully idle mouths of others.

What does also concern them is the fact that an education, worthy the name, is a possibility for them only when they have conquered the power of the State, abolished class parasitism, and organized industry, in order that the wealth, health and leisure that form the indispensable foundation for education and happy life may be theirs.

F. C. Watts

S.D.F. apologist and S.P.G.B. critic. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Speaking at Watford on June 24th last Mr. A.S. Albery, of the S.D.F., a one-time member (for a few months) of this Party, in answering questions put to him from the audience, stated

1. That he was not a consenting party to the appearance of his name on the manifesto issued by most of the active London members of the S.D.F. prior to their withdrawal from that body (because it had ceased to be the political party of the working class) to found The Socialist Party of Great Britain.
2. That he protested against the use of his name in that connection and that a Party must be corrupt that would use names in such away without authority.
3. That he was no sectarian Socialist and did not therefore withdraw from the I.L.P., of which he was a member, during the period of his association with The Socialist Party of Great Britain.
4. That he was a Marxian Socialist.
5. That the S.P.G.B. did not seem to understand what Marxian Socialism was.
6. That it was true that members of the S.D.F. were members also of the National Liberal Club, but only for social purposes. Membership of that club had no political significance.

We take the trouble to deal with these statements because Mr. Albery is a fairly prominent member of the S.D.F. whose methods we attack and may be accepted as representing the views of that organisation upon the questions raised. Also because Mr. Albery’s brief association with the S.P.G.B. may incline some to the view that he has special knowledge of this Party’s position and has expressed that knowledge in the statements recorded above. Further, because we welcome any criticism of our position and are glad of any opportunity to reply to it and remove any misapprehension that may exist, our desire being to discuss plainly and properly all matters of working-class concern and vindicate the correctness of our attitude thereupon or acknowledge our error.

Our replies to these assertions therefore are, (1 and 2) that the individuals who drew up the first manifesto containing an indictment of the S.D.F. position and a justification of the attitude of the protesting members, included A. S. Albery, who framed part of it himself; that he was present at the several meetings, held at his own house, at which the manifesto was discussed in detail and finally approved of; that Albery was a member of the Provisional Committee which arranged the matters preliminary to the formation of this Party ; that as a member of that Committee his name appears upon a second manifesto issued prior to the establishment of the Party, a document which confirmed the first manifesto in every particular and added considerable additional evidence for the conclusion that the S.D.F. was politically corrupt. This second document also called the meeting at which the Party was inaugurated. Albery was present at this inaugural meeting. He said no word of opposition to the formation of the Party, nor of protest against any unfair use of his name. He accepted nomination for membership to the first Executive Committee and was elected. He approved the Declaration of Principles, which all members must sign, and we have his signed form in our possession. As a member of the E.C. he endorsed the attitude of the Party, and undertook the administration of the Party policy and the application of the Party rules. He never questioned, because he could not then and cannot now, the accuracy of any statement appearing in the two manifestoes (which, as we have said, he was part author of), nor can we find any record or recollection of any protest of the sort now entered.

If in the face of all this Albery asserts that he did not acquiesce in the publication of the document referred to, he either deliberately fabricates or is the victim of a woeful mental aberration. If it was not issued with his full knowledge and approval, he has to explain his large participation in the subsequent development of that document. If, on the other hand, the recital of particulars contained in the foregoing enables him to remember sufficient to justify the withdrawal of the statement now made, he has to explain when the S.D.F. ceased to be the corrupt organisation he asserted with good evidence it was, two years ago. So much for numbers 1 and 2.

(3) The Declaration of Principles (see page 1 of this paper) signed by Albery pledges opposition to all other political parties. If, therefore, he was a member of the I.L.P., which he was pledged to fight as a member of the S.P.G.B., Albery is correct when he says he is not a sectarian Socialist—he is merely a fraud.

(4) Actions speak louder than words. The acts of Marxian Socialists express consistent and unwavering antagonism to Capitalism and the capitalist class. The acts of the S.D.F. which Albery claims membership of, do nothing of the kind on Albery’s own shewing in the second manifesto previously referred to. Albery, therefore, either does not know what Marxian Socialism is or asserts what he knows to be untue.

(5) This statement certainly lacks the only thing that can give it weight—evidence. Albery was challenged to produce his and could not.

(6) The subscriptions of members to the National Liberal Club are used for Party purposes. The Club is the Head Quarters of Capitalist Liberalism and its sycophants. It is directly concerned with the organization of the Liberal vote and the direction of the Liberal forces. Its act in donating £100 to John Burns wages fund in the old days was chock-full of political significance. Every member who joins it is a supporter of the Liberal Party if only to the extent of his subscription.

That is our answer to Mr. Albery’s allegations. In defence of his present unfortunate, not to say ludicrous, position as a member of a Party whose actions on his own shewing will not bear analysis, he may be making the same or similar charges and assertions in other places. We shall always be glad to deal with any such directly they reach us. Misrepresentation and inaccuracy are exceedingly difficult to overtake and we prefer to give them as short a start as possible. We are, therefore, obliged to our Watford Comrade for his prompt action.

We only need add that if Mr. Albery has any desire to communicate with us direct upon any point which may constitute a grievance with him or a charge against us, we shall be happy to hear from him.

Books Received. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

My Right To Work: Free Trade, Protection or Socialism? by R. B. Suthers, Clarion Press, 72, Fleet Street, E.C.  Paper 6d,. Cloth 1/-

The Ethics of Corporal Punishment, by H. S. Salt, Humanitarian League, 53, Chancery Lane. One Penny.

Notes and Comments. (1906)

From the July 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

WHY THE LABOUR PARTY IS A FAILURE.

THE PRINTING TRADES DISPUTE.

ASQUITH’S WHITEWASHERS.

Mr. Frank Smith has passed from the Salvation Army to the Labour Movement and from the Labour Movement to the Salvation Army until one hardly knows where he is at any given time. At present he appears to be in the Labour movement as the secretary of a side-tracking, self-appointed Committee, who advise the unemployed to deputise and to beg of their masters to recognise the “right” of their slaves to work, instead of pointing out that they, the slaves, should organise to end their slavery and establish their right to live. In this connection he has a bone to pick with the “Labour” Party in the House of Commons.

* * *

He complains that the “Labour” members are permitting, without protest, the Liberal Cabinet to fool with the unemployed question, and wonders what it is “that is sapping the fight out of the majority of the Labour members?” “What is it,” he asks, “that appears to be turning the lions into lambs ?” He suggests that they are forgetting that they are still agitators, with a wider platform and a greater opportunity to push the war into the camps of the enemy, and are attempting the role of “statesmen,” and adds that they will lose their way and get side-tracked, for the politicians can beat them at the game of bluff every time.

* * *

The Executive of Mr. Smith’s Committee includes G. N. Barnes, M.P., J. Keir Hardie, M.P., and J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P. Has Mr. Smith discussed the matter with his Executive or does the Committee merely consist of Mr. Smith, and the pretence of an Executive merely part of a “game of bluff” which Mr. Smith, as well as his “Labour” Party friends, play so well ?

* * *

Now why should the “Labour” M.P’s be expected to “put up a real fight in the House”? They were not elected to put up a fight. Men who will throw over their principles of independence in order to secure votes, as did so many of the few Labour members who ever professed any, are not going to make a fight against the very men with whom they made compacts at the General Election.

* * *

Take Mr. J. Ramsay MacDonald, for example. He made a compact with the Liberals of Leicester, because he was more anxious to get to the House of Commons than to fight the enemies of the working class. At the meeting at the Temperance Hall, Leicester, held on January 5th, where he was adopted, he expressed himself in hearty sympathy with the proposals of the government, as voiced by Sir H. Campbell Bannerman in his Albert Hall speech, and asked the working men of Leicester to use both votes in order that Mr. Broadhurst and himself might be returned. He explained that “both the L.R.C. and the Trades Council had declared against ‘plumping’ in order that every member might utilise both his votes to return two Progressives, and so promote the more urgently needed industrial reforms.” And the speech which he delivered after the poll was declared, quoted in our March issue, amply proves that he was returned to support the capitalist Liberal Government, not to put up a fight against it.

* * *

Then there is Mr. Will Crooks, M.P., who is also supposed to be one of the “independent” Labour M.P’s. There has hardly been a Liberal function of any importance since the General Election that Mr. Crooks has not attended. In April, for instance, he and his wife were present at a back-scratching banquet at the Trocadero, which included “some of the best known names in Liberal politics.” The Lord Chancellor presided, Dr. Macnamara and Mr. H. C. Lea, M.P., were the head cooks and bottle washers, John Burns and Lord Monkswell spoke, and Mr. James Stuart and Sir H. Campbell Bannerman sent their congratulations by letter. The speeches mainly concerned the “great Radical victory,” and many were the references to “the dark days from which Liberalism had just emerged.” Does any sane person expect that Mr. Crooks is going to “put up a real fight” against the exploiters whose hospitality he is so willing to accept ?

* * *

Of course, at this function Mr. Crooks did not preach about the evils of drinking, smoking and gambling. That he reserves for the class to which he once belonged. It is part of the decoy-duck game he is playing for the capitalists.

* * *

Then we have Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., now made a Justice of the Peace for the Borough of West Ham, in which capacity he will be called upon to punish those victims of the capitalist system who have offended against capitalist laws, passed to protect capitalist property and capitalist institutions. Mr. Thorne is a member of the S.D.F., who, no doubt, will claim that a “revolutionary Social Democrat” can serve the working class and at the same time serve in the capacity of a tool of the capitalist class. There is now no real difference between Burns and Thorne, excepting that Burns is well paid for his job and Thorne is one of the great unpaid.

* * *

I am here reminded of the words of Wilhelm Liebknecht: “A Socialist who goes into a bourgeois government, either goes over to the enemy or else puts himself in the power of the enemy. … He may claim to be a Socialist, but he is no longer such. He may be convinced of his own sincerity, but in that case he has not comprehended the nature of the class struggle—does not understand that the class struggle is the basis of Socialism.”

* * *

Before elected persons can put up a real fight they must be elected to do so, they must have a guiding principle and a definite policy. They must know what they want and how they must go to work to get it. And above all, they must have the knowledge that behind their actions lies the full strength of the electors who voted for them and the non-electors who also helped to return them. They must clear their minds of the fallacy that place necessarily means power for those claiming to represent the working class. That power can only come when the working class understand their position, and will return men as rebels. “No compromise” must be the watchword, and as the “Labour” M.P’s have not been returned as rebels, as they do not endeavour to enlighten the working class as to their position of wage slaves, as they merely hanker after reforms in a mild and quite respectable manner, they are useless to the working class, and therefore are, as they must be, a failure.

* * *

The dispute in the London Printing Trade has, apparently, only ended as far as the Compositors are concerned, and it is quite evident that in ending it the Compositors were guilty of two false moves—one in not recognising that the matter affected all the workers in the industry, and therefore that all should have been considered and consulted before any agreement was entered into, and another in falling so easily into the trap laid for them by the astute newspaper proprietors, who in future will form a separate employers’ organisation, apart from the Master Printers’ Association. If the Compositors were in a position to exact terms from the masters, they should have insisted that the cause of one employer should be considered the cause of all, that all the employers should join one and the same masters’ association, and thus action against one would have been action against all. The policy of the working class is to get all its enemies, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, into one body in front of it.

* * *

A great and enthusiastic throng gathered together at the National Liberal Club on Friday,June 16th to meet the members of the Government and to make merry over the Liberal victory. As might be expected, the Social Democratic Federation was represented—by Mr. A. E. Fletcher.

* * *

Mr. W. P. Byles has taken upon himself the whitewashing of Asquith, who, he claims, was in no way responsible for the murder of the Featherstone Miners. Against Mr. Byles’ opinion we have Asquith’s own avowal, previously quoted in these columns. It was made at Glasgow on the l7th October, 1893, and he said :—”In his character as Secretary of State for the Home Department, it had been his duty to take executive action in more than one of those cases for the maintenance of the law and for the prevention of disorder, and he accepted the full responsibility for everything that had been done.”

* * *

Of course, whatever Asquith’s whitewashers may say, Asquith is bound to take the responsibility. If he repudiated it, it would be tantamount to admitting that the Imperial troops could be ordered to murder in cold blood the Imperial workers, at the instance of a local capitalist, without the consent of the Executive Government. It is too much to expect a member of the Executive Government to plead that the Government does not control the Executive’s forces, and therefore Asquith takes the full responsibility. And glories in it, gloats over it, smiles in grim satisfaction at the thought that his class had so crushed the workers as to make it possible, without a protest, either from the workers outside or from the “Labour” Members who were then inside the House. They did not “put up a real fight” then, any more than the present “Labour” members will over questions which really concern the working class.

J. Kay

Why Not Socialism? (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Government asks to be judged by what it has done in its five years of office. “Compare our record,” they say, “with what the Tories did before the war and with what they are likely to do if they win the election.” It is a cleverly-chosen electioneering platform, for most of those who voted “Labour” in 1945, however disappointed they may be, will find nothing in the Tory record or programme to make them want to change over to a Churchill-Big Business Government.

But is that a good enough test to apply to the Labour Government? They say they have done their best “in the circumstances”—they have made as good a job of running Capitalism as anyone could make— but it is “the circumstances,” the capitalist system of society, that has got to be abolished, and the Labour Government will never do it.

What Is and What Might Be

Mr. Bevan claims that while he has been Minister of Health hundreds of thousands of houses have been built; but you know the housing problem has not been solved. It never will be under Capitalism.

The Labour Party leaders told you for years that Labour Government would mean rising wages and falling prices. What they have given you is higher prices and wage-freezing.

They promised to destroy the profit system. Now they see that Capitalism cannot be run without profits, so they tell you it is not possible to raise wages by reducing profits. Capitalism does need profit-making— but Socialism will not.

They promised peace, international friendship and disarmament, yet you find yourselves facing 1950 with conscription for your sons, bigger armed forces than in 1938, a “cold war” with Russia, and the fear that before another election comes round. Great Britain, this potential “anchored aircraft carrier” in another world war may be threatened with devastation from atom bombs.

Capitalism cannot let the people of the world prosper in peace, but Socialism will ensure it. Capitalism, whether administered by Tory, Labour or so-called “Communist” Governments, breeds economic rivalry, hatred and destruction. Only Socialism is based on the international community of interests of the working class of all lands.

What Have They To Be Proud Of?

In their well-known 1945 Election Declaration the Labour Party boldly declared, “The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it.” That sounds like the sincere statement that might be made by genuine socialists, but it was nothing of the kind. They were more anxious about catching votes than in furthering Socialism, so they put another statement in their Declaration, to let non-socialist voters know that they never meant business. “But Socialism,” they wrote, “cannot come overnight, as the product of a week-end revolution. The members of the Labour Party, like the British people, are practical-minded men and women.”

Just ask yourselves to whom those timid, half-sneering words were addressed. Is that the speech of socialists to socialists? Was it not really the cynical double-talk of politicians wanting to get the votes of people who had a vague idea that Socialism is something humane and progressive, but wanting at the same time to assure the non-socialist electorate that nothing would be done to endanger British Capitalism?

Their talk of being “practical-minded” is laughable. Is bigger armaments and fewer houses being practical? Is higher prices and no wage increases? Are atom bombs and germ warfare? The history of politics should warn us against those who boast of preferring “practicability” to principle. They are always the men who tinker with social evils instead of removing their cause.

We have had five years of Labour Government with a full Parliamentary programme of legislation; but what has it produced? Capitalism is with us still: festooned with bureaucratic controls and ornamented with social reforms; but as strong, as vicious and as destructive of human happiness as before, The Labour Government claims that it has done a great work in the National Insurance Scheme, but the increase of prices has already whittled away the value of the benefits so that unemployment and sick benefit are not worth any more than were the lower rates paid before the war.

You Work Harder, But For What?

If you read the pre-election speeches of the Labour Ministers you will notice a curious thing. It is that many of the things for which they claim credit are things performed by you and from which you get no advantage.

It is the workers who have worked harder and undergone austerities to make good the destruction of the war. It is the workers, not the politicians, who have raised production to 30 percent higher than in 1938 and who have gone without in order to increase exports so that they are half as much again as in pre-war years. It is the workers who have made easier the payment of larger profits to the propertied class while doing without wage increases to compensate for higher prices. It is on the strength of these feats of production that the Government claims that it has been successful; but what will the working class get at the end of it? Capitalism is already warning us that shipbuilding is slowing up for lack of orders, oil is being over-produced, and there will soon be too much wheat, too much sugar, too much steel and too much of everything for capitalist markets to absorb. Then the workers will reap the harvest of more crises, more unemployment, more insecurity and the threat of further wars.

It is the workers who keep Capitalism going, for the benefit of the capitalists. It is time the workers determined, by international socialist action, to refashion human society on a socialist foundation. Neither avowedly capitalist governments nor Labour governments can save the world. It is a supreme task for the world working class and unless it is achieved the whole world faces chaos, misery and destruction. The productive power and the administrative ability are present for the making of a new world. Do not delay the decision to use them. The Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties abroad show you the way to working class emancipation and the happiness and well-being of humanity.

Edgar Hardcastle

Can the Workers Understand Socialism? (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, in contradistinction to so-called “Socialist” organisations, maintain that the workers can and must understand what Socialism means. These other parties, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., and the Communist Party, frequently pay lip service to the need for the majority of the working class to have socialist knowledge, but the pages of their dailies and periodicals seldom contain any propaganda which will enlighten the worker as to his position in society and the solution to his problems. Their propaganda is of the vote-catching variety. They centre attention on topical reformist measures, “immediate demands,” as they call them, by which means they hope to attract the majority of the workers—and once in power they claim they will set about establishing Socialism.

Socialism is a system of society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community. Therefore by its very nature the establishment of Socialism requires the conscious participation of the majority of the population. The workers, making up the majority of the population, must understand what Socialism is and want it. Socialism can’t be set up behind their backs. When this is realised it will be understood that parties basing their propaganda on the belief that the workers are incapable of assimilating socialist ideas cannot have Socialism as an object, whatever they may think their object is. They cannot be called socialist.

And what about those individual members of the working class who claim that the workers can’t understand Socialism and yet consider themselves socialist? How do they reconcile the belief that they have gained “socialist” consciousness with the belief that members of their class can’t understand Socialism?

The support the so-called “socialist” parties receive is for the mitigation of certain effects of Capitalism, not for the abolition of Capitalism and the establishment of a new society. The supporters who have some idea of an alternative form of society and think they can establish this alternative without receiving a mandate to do so, why haven’t they done it? There are numerous occasions when so-called socialist parties have been in power. The reason put forward is that the leaders betrayed the rank and file. But leaders only express ideas of the majority of their supporters; if they didn’t they wouldn’t receive support.

There is plenty of experience from the history of Capitalism of the inability of governments to pass and operate legal enactments in the face of the opposition of the majority of the people. A fairly recent example was the capitulation of the Labour Cabinet on the abolition of the death penalty. Dictatorship doesn’t alter the fact that governments require the support of the majority of the population. This is shown by the expenditure on propaganda by the dictatorial powers to keep the support of the majority.

Societies change. The only alternative to the present system of society, which is based on the private ownership of the means of living, and the consequent enslavement of the working class—is Socialism, where all will have free access to the means of living. Throughout his long history man has solved many difficult problems, the discovery of fire, agriculture, and the smelting of ores. Through his knowledge of the laws of nature he can produce materials more suitable for his use than those that exist under natural conditions. There is no reason to suppose that man can’t solve the problem confronting him to-day. The capitalist class, that privileged minority in whose interests present society functions, are not likely to give their support or their sympathy to a movement which will abolish the system of society that allows them such a privileged, exalted position. The working class are the overwhelming majority of the population, to them the present order means poverty and destitution, and their living conditions drive them on to struggle for a better life within Capitalism and ultimately to question the capitalist system.

Those who claim that the working class are unable to grasp Socialist ideas maintain that the evidence brought forward by intelligence tests support their contention. We have yet to hear of any intelligence tests constructed which test the capacity of workers to assimilate Socialist knowledge. The only thing along these lines is the test of applicants for membership of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and these tests have proved conclusively that members of the working class can understand Socialism. Academic intelligence tests are constructed to find the suitability of certain individuals for certain occupations. As for ascertaining if they show up any capacity of intelligence, the experts are not at all clear on what these tests show. In fact they can’t reach any agreement on what they mean by intelligence. Even if intelligence tests do show something they only test one person in relation to others. The Socialists maintain that the workers have sufficient capacity to understand Socialism. In modern capitalist society the working class manage affairs from top to bottom.  If the working class run society in the interests-of a privileged few they are certainly capable of running society in the interests of all.

J.T.

Socialism? (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The S.P.G.B. have always maintained that the Labour Party has nothing in common with Socialism, in spite of many claims and statements by other political parties to the contrary.

It would seem we have a champion in Sir Stafford Cripps judging by the following extracts from his speech (reported in The Star 11th January):—

“. . . profits were not immoral provided they were not excessive. They were a necessary and essential factor in capitalist industry and must be made and suitably taxed."

It should be noted that Sir Stafford omits to state what are considered "excessive profits.”

Sir Stafford also praises the great efforts made by the workers in this country, saying that voluntarily exercised restraint in respect of personal incomes was still necessary. The same old story. Surely the workers have experienced sufficient of Labour Government to realise that their position remains the same.

It is evident that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find markets for our exports and inevitably will come the time when these markets become glutted and full employment programmes will sadly fail. The Labour Government can no more save the situation than any other party advocating the continuance of Capitalism.

The General Election is once more upon us are; you again going to support one or other of the capitalist parties and consequently your own exploitation, or are you going to examine the position and come to the conclusion, as we have, that the only hope for the working class is Socialism?

Only when the majority realise the need for Socialism will it be established. When this stage is reached there will be no need for personal incomes with or without restraint.

Phyllis Rogers.

War Propaganda, Past and Present (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a time when “bigger and better" reasons are being found every day for waging a third world war, this time against Russia, it is instructive to remember some of the main reasons given by ruling classes in the past for their wars. The truth, of course, is excluded from the start: for no capitalist will admit that wars are fought in order to protect his profits. So other reasons have to be invented.

Nationalism has always been one of the mainstays of war propaganda. In the sixteenth century, the great enemy of this country was Spain; the merchants of Spain had a monopoly of the trade of the great Spanish American Empire, and the British merchants naturally wanted this trade for themselves. So it was soon discovered that the rascally Spaniards were the unalterable enemies of the English people. Sentiments were spread abroad in Devon—from which county came a large number of the sailors who were expected to risk their lives fighting Spanish seamen—that one West-country man could fight three Easterners, and that one East Anglian could take on five Spaniards. This line of talk was a great success, and thousands of stout Devonian seadogs left our shores eager to win great glory for themselves, and even greater profits for their masters.

In the next century, the position changed. Spain, in decline, was no longer a powerful enemy, and the chief danger to English profits came from Holland. The Dutch had built up a large fleet, and while the energies of their English competitors were being diverted to civil wars, they captured a large part of the trade with the East and with the American colonies. But the natural resources of the Netherlands were not sufficient to support a long struggle with England on the sea, and the Dutch challenge was repulsed.

In the eighteenth century the place of enemy No. 1 was taken by France. In India, in the East and West Indies, in Canada, and in what is now the United States of America, the French were trying to build an empire for themselves at the same time as British merchants and manufacturers were also expanding their overseas trade. Collisions were inevitable. In the long series of wars between 1688 and 1815, Britain and France were always on opposite sides. It did not take our propertied classes long to find out that the French were ineradicably the enemies of all true Englishmen, and from this time dates the picture of honest beef-eating John Bull on one side of the Channel, and the sly frog-eating Frenchman on the other. Nelson was not going much further than thousands of his countrymen when he developed his inveterate hatred of the whole French people.

There were no prolonged wars for many years after Waterloo, largely because Britain had undergone its Industrial Revolution well in advance of the rest of the world; which gave it an economy much more productive than those of other nations, and made it economically almost unassailable. True, there were always fears about Russia's designs on India, and Russophobia was a fashionable disease. But the Russian economy was, in comparison with the British, almost completely undeveloped, and the only open struggle between the two countries—the Crimean War—ended in a victory for the British capitalists; Again, there were a few colonial wars, and trading wars on the outskirts of the Empire; but these were mostly local affairs, and a little propaganda about the inherent superiority of white men over those with skins of a different colour was sufficient to keep up the necessary martial spirit.

But with the end of the nineteenth century came the end of Britain's economic supremacy. Other European countries had been undergoing industrial revolutions, notably Germany. During the opening decade of the twentieth century it became obvious that the British capitalists would shortly have to defend their profits against the rising German capitalist class. Once again nationalism was summoned to the aid of the propertied classes of both sides. In Germany—especially between the two wars—it was proclaimed that Rhinelanders, Bavarians, people from Prussia and people from the Sudetenland, were (as H. G. Wells puts it) one pure and perfect "Nordic” race, all blue-eyed and blond. Correspondingly, in Britain, the discovery was made that the entire German race was unchangeably evil and aggressive. With incredible ease the old stories about the wickedness of our former enemies were dropped in favour of stories about the wickedness of the Germans. The lines in the song—”Frenchmen and Dutchmen, and Spaniards and such men, as foemen they fear them, the yeoman of England,” were changed to "Austro-Hungarians, and suchlike barbarians, as foemen they fear them,” and so on. There are Vansittarts in every generation, ready to preach about the essential evil of some race or other: and the Vansittarts of the last two generations have given their energies almost exclusively to attacking the German nation. To do this it was necessary to forget that the English people are in origin only an offshoot of this hated German people; but this was not too hard, since capitalist apologists have a lot of practice in forgetting inconvenient facts.

The leaders of the U.S.S.R. realise as well as the leaders of any other capitalist country the usefulness of racial propaganda in wartime. Russian writers during the last war—notably Alexei Tolstoy and Ilya Ehrenburg—wrote about the immutable enmity of the Teuton and Slav races with as much fervour as any pre-Revolutionary Russian. And this is the country which claims to subscribe to international Socialism!

Religion has been used almost as much as nationalism in creating warlike feelings. It was found especially effective in wars against countries professing a different brand of Christianity to our own. Wars with France and Spain were turned into crusades for the defence of the Protestant religion against the Papists, and the Pope was freely called the “anti-Christ.” Both contestants always assumed that God was on their side, and the more foreigners were slaughtered, the higher rose the hymns of thanksgiving. “Ten thousand Frenchmen sent below, praise God from whom all blessings flow ” sums up the attitude of many Christians to war.

After the Industrial Revolution, the machinery of production become more complicated, and a system of elementary education for the working-class had to be introduced. But this had its drawbacks, since the more education the workers received, the more questions they asked. Still better reasons had therefore to be thought up to explain away the periodic wars which the capitalist system inevitably breeds. Attention was drawn to the vile systems of government under which the unfortunate foreigners suffered, and it was clearly demonstrated that our own hard-won democracy, and indeed all the inalienable rights and liberties of freeborn Englishmen were in grave danger of being overthrown. The usefulness of this argument was little, if at all, impaired by the fact that in both the 1914 and 1939 wars just as many countries with non-parliamentary systems of government (e.g., the British colonies and Russia) fought on the Allied side as fought against it. Another line of thought, which was put out after the actual fighting had begun, went something like this: granted that wars are bad, and that we must put a stop to them as soon as possible, let us finish off this war we have on our hands now, and then we can get down to the job of building a “lasting peace." This idea was not as prominent as it might have been in 1939, owing to its having been rather overdone in the 1914 holocaust, which was, par excellence (as you may remember) the war to end all wars.

British capitalism has now been on the down-grade for half a century, and the main world conflict at present is between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., each striving to build an economic empire for itself. When these two countries, and their allies, resort to open war, what will be the ostensible reasons for it? So far, little has been done in the racial field. It still remains for the Russians to prove the inextinguishable villainy, and natural aggressive passions, of the “Anglo-Saxons,” and for the British and Americans to prove the same things about the “Slav race.” But on the religious front the first shots have already been fired. Listen to Admiral of the Fleet the Earl of Cork and Orrery speaking from the pulpit at Steeple Ashton, Wiltshire, some months ago (Jersey Evening Post, 11/7/49): “The next war will be a religious war, fought with material weapons, but for a spiritual object.” The Russians are not behindhand. They realised in the last war how useful a Church can be to prop up the State, and now, their patriarchs and archbishops follow the Stalinist line as faithfully as the Anglo-American bishops follow the Anglo-American line. The propaganda about “fighting for peace” seems to be surpassing in volume even the 1914 agitation on that theme. It must be noticed that the Russians stole a march on the Americans by the speed with which they took advantage of the world-wide pacifist feelings which naturally follow every great war, and organized peace-conferences. But the Americans can be relied on to make it quite clear, either before or immediately after the outbreak of hostilities, that they too are engaging in war merely to preserve the peace. As for the attitude of the contestants to democracy, that goes without saying. Everyone is in favour of democracy, since now it means simply the kind of government of which you approve. The term Socialism is nowadays applied almost equally freely. Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, Attlee and Chiffley, Franco and Peron all claim that their systems are “Socialism" although they usually add a qualifying adjective, whether Soviet, or National, or Democratic. Even in one of the few countries in the world which will still admit being capitalist—the U.S.A.—Republican Senators regularly warn the electorate that Truman is steadily leading America to “Socialism.” So at least some of the countries on both sides in the third world war will be fighting for what they call Socialism. In fact, they will both, in their propaganda, take the same line about every point at issue. The Russians and their allies will be killing the Americans, and the Americans and their allies will be killing the Russians, with all the weapons at their disposal: and they will both claim to be doing it in defence of (1) peace, (2) God, (3) democracy, (4) “Socialism,” and (5) the mother-country, against the aggressive foreigner.

The only way the workers can put an end to this criminal farce, and prevent a third world war being fought, is to understand that society as at present constituted cannot avoid war, and that peace can only be permanently established by the overthrow of Capitalism and the setting up of a Socialist system of society.

Alwyn Edgar

"Nor Prison Bars a Cage?" (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since Russia became the main rival to Western Capitalism, the capitalists of the West have seen fit to acknowledge, indeed to publicise, the vicious acts of their counterparts in that country. Their purpose, as we shall see, is not in the noble cause of truth, for they could have told that at least fifteen years ago, but the far more practical reason of getting the workers “at it.” And. many of the workers who four and five years back were wearing hammer and sickle badges in their lapels and cheering the mention of Stalin, are now prepared or even eager to fight their ex-allies. Not so the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Just as we took the line in both 1914 and 1939, that the workers of this country had nothing to gain by slaying fellow workers in Germany, so do we point out that a future war with Russia will benefit neither British nor Russian workers, but will be no more than a further dispute between the capitalists of these countries. But in the meantime it is our bounden duty to lay these distortions of the truth and show up this propaganda for what it is really worth.

A few months ago the Daily Express carried the headline, “Britain publishes Russia’s forced labour laws," the Evening Standard, "Soviet slave laws revealed," and the Daily Herald, so different from the days of not so very long ago had the biggest headline of the lot saying, “Soviet slave camp code shown to world." Many workers, who previously sympathised with the system of administration in capitalist Russia, rapidly changed their ideas. Those who looked just a little farther than the news put right on their plates by their masters, were not surprised. As long ago as 1935, a translation of the “Corrective Code ” was obtainable in Britain. It has taken the capitalist class a long while to find it!

Anyway up to this time, far from deploring this penal code, various spokesmen and apologists of Capitalism, both British and Russian, were quite vehement in applauding it. Sir Montague Burton said, “A better opportunity for prisoners to become useful members of society" (Yorkshire Evening News, 25710/35). Canon F. J. Shirley, in a sermon in Canterbury Cathedral, preached "Russia is reclaiming the criminals; the system is redemptive and men are restored to good moral life, assets once more to the community” (Kentish Gazette and Canterbury Press, 7/9/35). In March, 1937, the A.E.U. delegation published a report applauding the system, as did the Quakers in 1933. So we see that there has been a great deal of change in their ideas; there has been none in the Russian penal system.

But in slating the propagandists of Western Capitalism, we must not allow those of the East to escape scot free. Equal trickery comes from such Moscow henchmen as the Communist Party and its subsidiary Anglo-Soviet Society. While one group attacks the Russian system, the other attempts to defend it.

In its pamphlet "The Forced Labour Swindle” the British Soviet Society try to smooth over these revelations and get into such deep water that if their words were true the Russian worker would be better off in prison than out of it.

They begin by trying to establish a wealth of difference between the words "corrective” as used in the Russian text and “forced" in the newspapers. Surely this treatment is not voluntary?

Prisoners have much more freedom, we are told. When they are not performing their tasks, they are free to indulge in “political” education. In a country which recognises the need for only one political party, we can well imagine what form that education takes. Incidentally political prisoners are treated exactly the same as criminals.

Apart from these points it seems, in theory at least, that the conditions in Russian prisons are similar to those in the rest of the capitalist world so far as material conditions are concerned. In accordance with modern ideas they may attempt to rehabilitate the recalcitrant worker as an honest and servile wage-slave, but as a recent report by several psychologists pointed out, such systems are doomed to failure, for no matter how ideal the conditions in one of these centres may be, the subject must eventually return to the environment which was the cause of his misdemeanours.

The right of exile is excused by the author of this pamphlet and made to sound as if it doesn’t really matter. The exile is allowed to take his family with him and pays "only” five to fifteen per cent, of his income as cost. They are allowed twelve free days per year. They fail to emphasise the vast climatic and geographic difference between, say, Moscow or Kiev and the frozen wilds of Siberia.

It is, by the way, possible to imprison without a trial in Russia, and the writer compares this law with Defence Regulation 18B. Countering the argument that this Regulation is only enforced during a war, he says that Russia has been in peril for the whole thirty years of the Communist Party’s regime. But if the conditions in that country are as rosy as he would have us believe, who on earth would want to sabotage them?

As a conclusion the pamphlet points out that forced labour exists in many parts of the world, and cites the forced porterage in Tanganyika, Papua, Indonesia and Malaya. Attack, they say, is the best form of defence. But we know all this, and expose it wherever it exists, whether in Russia or Timbuctoo. And furthermore we know that wherever slaves exist there must be a class of masters, in other words, Socialism does not exist.

In 1917, the Russian revolution and what followed, transformed a semi-feudal society into an effective capitalist state. The fact that the particular organisation of Russia is worded with a hotch-potch of "left- wing” jargon counts for nothing. In Russia wage-labour exists as the counterpart of capital: there are armies, navies, airforces, police and prisons. All are hall-marks of Capitalism. That being so, the task which faces the Russian worker is similar to that which faces the workers throughout the modern world—the casting off of the yoke of exploitation and the establishment of Socialism.

Ronald.

Editorial: How will you use your vote? (1950)

Editorial from the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the General Election in 1945 the S.P.G.B. had a candidate at North Paddington, and contested the same constituency again in November, 1946, when the Labour Member elected in 1945 resigned on grounds of ill-health. This time we are again contesting North Paddington and also putting up a candidate at East Ham South. Southend Branch is carrying on electoral activity and if sufficient support is forthcoming the candidate will be nominated. Our candidates, according to present information, will be opposed by Labour, Tory, Liberal and Communist candidates. All four parties will be calling on the workers not to vote for the only candidates who represent the Socialist challenge to capitalism. It is right that all four parties should do this and we welcome the opportunity of putting the election in its proper setting. It is our task and ours alone to press home the truth that for the working-class here and in all countries there can be no escape from the poverty, insecurity, hatreds and wars of the world as it is except through the abolition of capitalism and establishment of Socialism.

It is a hard lesson and one the working class are slow to grasp. The bitterness with which the other parties conduct the struggle for power lends colour to the belief that there are fundamental working-class interests at stake in the choice between them. In truth none of the four will touch the fundamental issue of Capitalism—Tory, Liberal, Labour or Communist administration will all leave the working class in the wage-slave position from which only Socialism can emancipate them. Whatever the detailed way in which the capitalist system is administered there will still be luxury and privilege for the rich, poverty and arduous toil for the working class. This is a basic feature and one that is common to all the superficially different forms of Capitalism, whether it be private enterprise America, Labour administered Britain or Russia under Communist dictatorship. A Minister in the Labour Government, Mr. Glenvil Hall, M.P., Financial Secretary to the Treasury, admitted in the House of Commons on 18th May, 1949, that: —

"Of the 550.000 people who die each year only 10 per cent. own more than £2,000 but these ten per cent. between them own 90 per cent, of the total property."

Inequality is inseparable from Capitalism, and while all the non-Socialist political parties profess to deplore “extreme inequality,” all of them, including the Communists, advance specious arguments in defence of inequality itself. They are all concerned to defend and perpetuate the system that gives wealth and privilege to a minority.

During the election campaign, the S.P.G.B. will put in its election literature and from its platforms the same Socialist message that our propagandists address to the working class at all times. There will be no vote-catching programme and appeals specially designed for election purposes.

The inauguration of Socialism demands the understanding of the working class. Votes and support given for anything less than Socialism would be only a source of weakness and confusion. We will do all we can to ensure that the Socialist candidates receive only the votes of those who understand and want Socialism; no other votes are sought.

What of the result? The number of votes given for Socialism will serve as a measure of the growth of Socialist understanding. Knowing how far the great majority of the working class are from accepting the Socialist case we know that the Socialist vote must be small. We are not discouraged by that. We have on our side forces that constantly add recruits to the army of Socialism as the other parties repeatedly betray their mental bankruptcy in their vain attempts to bring order, well-being and peace out of the chaos that is Capitalism.