Nuclear questions (1982)

From the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now three years since the nuclear “accident" at Three Mile Island. The full effects on the health of people working or living in the area will perhaps never be known. The release of radiation was not effectively monitored and in any case most of the resulting sickness and deaths will take up to 20 years to occur. This lack of information has enabled speculation by both the supporters and opponents of nuclear energy to obscure the real lessons of the accident.

Three years on we are still learning the extent of the disaster. In July the first examination of the fuel rods in the core of the reactor was made possible using special cameras lowered through a screw hole in the container vessel. This revealed that the uranium oxide fuel had in fact melted, which means that the nuclear reactor core was far closer to a "meltdown” than had earlier been presumed. The massive heat necessary for the melting of the fuel, over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit, was all but sufficient to have also melted the container vessel which encased the radioactive core. Had this happened the highly radioactive molten mass would have been totally exposed, with consequences so disastrous that it is extremely unlikely that they could have been dealt with.

Not surprisingly, there is now a lot of concern at the Central Electricity Generating Board's proposals to build a Pressure Water Reactor (PWR) at Sizewell in Suffolk. Three Mile Island was also a PWR and Sizewell will be the first of this type to be built in this country. The enquiry into these proposals begins in January and as many as two thousand individuals and groups have lodged objections. But the enquiry will not deal with the real problems of nuclear energy. It will look into the scientific, technological or engineering issues, and perhaps consider the architectural or even the employment effects. It will not look at the question of how a society based on class monopoly of the production of wealth can handle such potentially dangerous technology while serving the interests of a small minority of the population.

There are three areas that have to be looked at: radioactivity anti its effects; the design and construction of nuclear plant; and nuclear waste.

Radioactivity

All radiation is dangerous to human health. There is no accepted safe level, whether it be the “natural" radiation from the environment or whether it is the result of human labour. Although there are disagreements over the effects of low levels of radiation, the International Commission for Radiological Protection (ICRP) accepts that all levels of radiation are liable to cause damage to health. The guidelines laid down by the ICRP are accepted by the nuclear industry. Consequently, when governments or other institutions fix a "safe" level of radiation they are really saying that so many deaths or so much sickness is acceptable.

At present this "safe" limit is fixed for the average person at 0.5 rem per year — three times the radiation emitted from the normal background conditions. This figure is partly arbitrary, based on how many increased deaths or illnesses are acceptable for running capitalism; the "safe" level is derived more from the estimates of what is necessary for operating a profitable nuclear industry than from the estimates of what is desirable in terms of human health. Nuclear power stations, even when working under normal conditions, need to emit a certain level of radiation into the environment only because the cost of overcoming the problems would affect profits.

The main difference between the working conditions of nuclear reactors and the conditions on, say, a building site are that the effects of radiation can take many years before becoming apparent. Radiation induced cancer may cut a worker’s life by 30 years, but the death may not occur until 20 years after contamination. On the other hand, the effects of an accident on a building site or in a factory are usually immediately noticeable. But even when the effects are known, the question is what level of human sacrifice is acceptable when priority must be given to profitable production? Even when governments introduce legislation to restrict the use of potentially dangerous materials or practices, the incentive for employers to cut corners means that constant surveillance is necessary. Nuclear power stations have been under tighter inspection than most industries, and yet Three Mile Island and other, less disastrous nuclear accidents have shown that safety problems remain.

Design and construction

The Marshall Study Group Report on the Integrity of Pressurised Water Reactor Pressure Vessels was published in April by a group which openly supports the nuclear programme. (Dr. Walter Marshall was at the time of the report the Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and is now the head of the Central Electricity Generating Board.) It shows the close association between concerns about the safety of the container vessels housing the radioactive core of a reactor and the problems of profitability.

In the PWRs there is no real means of preventing a large release of radiation if the vessel is badly fractured. As far back as 1969 an IEEE report stated that a container vessel fracture was "the most fearful of nuclear accidents that can occur in any plant with a highly pressurised primary system” and that no solution was possible “short of putting the plant underground or inside a mountain". This last proposal has in fact been recommended in the past but has been rejected as being economically unsound since the whole purpose of building PWRs is to reduce the cost of producing energy. Any concern for the safety of human beings is secondary. The CEGB statement, outlining its case for the new Sizewell B PWR, makes this clear: “economy, in that it is estimated to give lifetime operational savings that more than offset its original capital cost in a wide range of futures, and to have a superior economic return to investment in an AGR (Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor) or coal fired station”.

But that still leaves such problems as having to avoid fractures of the container vessel. The Marshall Report recognises the need for high standards of materials and welding, for detailed procedures in quality control, and wider measures for inspection during the manufacture of components. In the USA manufacturers on a number of nuclear sites were taking short cuts; standards were not being met and, because of the complexities involved in building a nuclear power station, the inspection process was to say the least inadequate.

The forces operating against safety are not just the employers’ prime incentive to make profits. There is also the question of the workers’ attitude. It is no coincidence that the Three Mile Island catastrophe arose through a succession of faults and mistakes which ended with a decision to turn off the water coolant. The prime reason for a worker seeking employment is to get the money in order to live. The workers’ product, whether it be a piece of equipment for a nuclear power station or an inspection job in the everyday running of that plant, is not the main purpose for working; it is a means to an end rather than a first concern. The alienation of the worker from the production process means that the incentive to create a quality product needs to be constantly enforced by external means.

To try to overcome this problem of the productive relations being in conflict with the desired technology, the Marshall Study Group recommended vast improvements in the inspection of equipment and procedures at all stages of manufacture and operation. But the problem remains.

Radioactive waste

Perhaps the most emotive issue in the field of nuclear energy in recent years has been the creation and disposal of radioactive waste. The secrecy that has surrounded the transporting and disposing of the waste has added to speculations about the dangers involved. Because the nuclear energy industry is closely associated with the nuclear weapons industry, the transportation of nuclear waste between power stations and reprocessing plants or to disposal sites has to be clouded with secrecy partly because of fears that terrorist groups may take advantage of the situation.

Nevertheless, the problems of nuclear waste are not merely of secrecy. There are three classifications for radioactive waste material, each presenting different problems. The first classification, low level waste, consists of a variety of materials that are mildly radioactive — old laboratory clothing, chemical sludges, but not of used fuel elements or materials from them. This is the type of waste that is packaged in large drums and dumped at sea. The International Atomic Energy Agency sets limits to the amount that can be disposed of in this way but, as all radiation is potentially dangerous, these levels are related more to the demands of a profitable nuclear energy programme than to any concern about human health. Dumping at sea is a cheap means of disposal and reflects the general aim of maximising profits rather than the technical problem of a particular industry.

Less publicised, but of greater concern as regards PWRs, is the intermediate level waste. This is radioactive material which even under the criteria laid down by the ICRP is too dangerous to be released into the environment and yet the quantity produced by the nuclear industry is too great to keep in store. The PWRs produce about five times the quantity of this type of waste as do the AGRs. This means that disposal and its costs are crucial issues with the PWRs. The latest report of the Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC) recommends that the go-ahead should be given to dumping the expected 70,000 cubic metres of this material in some deep cavity or old mine shaft. The Sizewell Enquiry into the proposed PWR will certainly have to deal with the issue of whether damage to the environment and human health is a necessary sacrifice in the interests of production for profit, it is unlikely that the increased production of dangerous radioactive waste by this type of reactor will be a determining factor.

The third type of radioactive waste, high level, has received some publicity mainly because of the deep rock drilling programmes carried out recently on a number of sites in different parts of the country. High level waste consists of the remains of old fuel elements after recyclable materials such as plutonium and uranium have been removed. Compared to low level and intermediate waste this forms a small quantity, but because it is highly radioactive is requires constant attention for 50 or 100 years. At present this waste is kept in acid in stainless steel tanks but it is proposed to transform this liquid into solid glass blocks.

Scientists, even from the UKAEA, have emphasised the desirability of being able to monitor this waste material and have looked to some form of storage. The Royal Commission, on the other hand, was concerned about the possibilities of war or terrorism and their effects on such a store; it objected to the idea of long term storage and advocated disposal in some form or other. This is what the rock drilling in various parts of the country has been about. Last December the government decided to abandon the rock drilling surveys for prospective disposal sites because they realised that the heat problems from high level waste are such that it cannot be dumped for at least 50 years. As a result, no effective programme for dealing with high level waste exists. So workers in the plants where the waste is now kept are being exposed (and are likely to be for some time) to greater risks from radiation. Concern over this has been expressed in the latest RWMAC report. The differing approaches by scientists and politicians has already led to one resignation from the RWMAC. that of Dr. Stanley Bowie. The latest report also warns of the possibility of radioactive waste management getting seriously out of hand in the absence of an effective decision about its future.

Human beings are exposed to constant risk as statistical compromises are made in the trail of devastation left in the drive for profits. One effect of the industrial revolution was the destruction of human life in the new factory system. Capitalism's use and abuse of nuclear energy reflects the way 20th century technology is handled by a society which serves only a minority of the population. Behind the white coats and white walls that are everywhere in the clinical nuclear establishments, the anarchy of production that drives millions into poverty, unemployment, sickness and war rolls on.

Will a socialist society have a place for nuclear energy? Such decisions will be made by the majority of people, in contrast to the minority who at present own and control the means of producing wealth. It will not be a question of which energy source is the most profitable, but of what is in the interest of the whole community. If nuclear energy is developed in a socialist society it will not be driven along by market forces but will develop under conscious social control, to ensure that it serves human beings instead of the market system. And lastly, in a socialist society all work will be voluntary. Consequently the motive for work will not be because it is necessary in order to get a pay packet, but the satisfaction that can be gained from it.

MD

The nurses' dilemma (1982)

From the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In any dispute over their pay, nurses are in an extremely difficult position. The desire to care for other human beings and to accept responsibility for them when they are in need is a compelling desire for most, if not all of us. The gratification of this desire is intensely rewarding and the great majority of working people, their lives eclipsed by a nine-to-five routine, may speak with envy of the nurses' privileged role. It is true that nurses may in some instances be moved to acts of gross inhumanity. whether by occupational stress or shortcomings in their private lives; this is amply demonstrated by recent well-publicised reports of sustained brutality towards patients at the Rampton Hospital. But for the overwhelming majority of nurses, and for all workers with a direct involvement in patient care, the patients' needs command immediate concern and attention.

Thus it is only in the last few years that nurses in this country have even threatened industrial action. In their ballot on the initial 6.4 per cent pay offer. RCN nurses refused an offer for the first time ever. Even while some nurses are striking in defence of that refusal a few creep back, conscience-stricken, through picket lines, to bring fish and chips to the patients or reassure themselves that the remaining staff can cope. After the IRA bomb attack in Hyde Park, large numbers of local health workers called off their strike in order to look after the victims; and the TUC Health Services Committee still insists upon its code of conduct, according to which emergency services must be maintained throughout the strikes. In effect, all health workers (but above all the nurses) are morally blackmailed not to strike.

Can anyone doubt their desperation, when people accustomed to such selfless actions can bring themselves to dismantle beds (at the West Cheshire Hospital) to prevent further non-emergency admissions? Can anyone believe that they watch the waiting list for surgical operations at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London mounting to the 8,000 mark, and hear a district health administrator in Doncaster announcing that "it may be the case that some patients are dying" with equanimity? Some health workers even called for a one-day suspension of the accident and emergency services. These people are not murderers, whatever the newspapers may say.

The tragic fact is that there can be no progress towards their simple quest as they do their gruelling work for the benefit of others, unless they are also ready at times to endanger the lives of their patients and dependants by industrial blackmail. All workers are mercenaries, who must sell their abilities to an employer or else go hungry; and just as the buyer must learn those highly-valued attributes of the successful businessman — hard bargaining and ruthless persistence — so also must the worker, if he or she is not to be degraded to the barest minimum of subsistence. Mercenaries learn quickly that conscience and devotion to "duty" are luxuries which, at times, they cannot afford.

Any illusions about the NHS being a service created with the humane motive of free care for all, are dispelled if we consider why health services in a rudimentary form were available to workers as early as the mid-nineteenth century. Is it credible that tyrannical employers, bleeding their workers for every last drop of profit, should have subsidised medical attention for their sick and injured wage-slaves, solely for the latter's benefit? The major improvements in sanitation, the building of many early hospitals and workhouses and the proliferation of doctors in Britain during the nineteenth century, were generally limited to those areas where industry needed a fit and healthy workforce, rather than those parts where people's needs were greatest. London and the major English conurbations had well-established systems of relief for the sick, the disabled and the most impoverished males, long before the centuries-starved and diseased peasants of Ireland (then part of the Empire) received any succour. And when conditions at last began to improve in Ireland, as in underdeveloped parts of all nations, they did so first in industrial centres (in the North), only benefiting people in the populous but economically backward country districts as they gave up their ties with the land and put themselves at the service of their new industrial overlords.

The myth of the NHS as an island of welfare in the sea of capitalism is fast waning as the recession puts increasing pressure on the provision of services. The taxes levied to finance these services are a burden ultimately on employers, who are prepared to provide maintenance services to their workers for reasons of efficiency; but in a recession even this is threatened. Workers cannot withhold taxes or channel them as they might wish. If someone earns £4,000 a year "after tax", that is all he or she earns. Taxes are only what the boss is prepared to give his government, in order that we may be fed and watered, trained and controlled, and mended when we are broken. "Our"national income tax has been a confidence trick from the first, to make us seem better off than we are, and to encourage in us a spurious pride in "public" projects — be they hospitals or wars — over which we have no control.

The NHS did not represent a departure from the economic imperative of capitalism, although this is not to say that some politicians and reformists might not, in 1944 as in previous years, have had humane motives. But the important point is that only while such relief brought economic advantage to the owners of industry would they fund such a programme. The NHS aimed to extend the existing "breakdown service” for workers to the poorest and most vulnerable to disease after the slaughter of the Second World War — who would be needed to rebuild the profitable economy in the post-war years. Similar attempts were made in other European countries at the time. In the end, however, the proclaimed commitment of the government of 1944 to ensuring "that in future every man, woman and child can rely on getting . . . the best medical and other facilities available" was empty verbiage. The amount of money spent on building new hospitals and health centres remained virtually constant throughout the 1950s, and staff training showed only a moderate increase. The prosperous industrial centres, where health services had previously been concentrated, continued to see the largest developments in health care, while the most outlying districts and those inner city districts where viable industry had been depleted by war, depression and the decline of established trades were generally neglected. Julian Tudor Hart, a GP in South Wales (one of the more deprived areas) has referred to this as the "Inverse Care" law, according to which the greatest effort is devoted to providing for those least in need. The others, who because of their birthplace or their bad fortune offer insufficient returns on commercial exploitation, must go short.

The same artificial economic restriction leads to an emphasis on "curing" rather than caring, and to the neglect of services to the elderly and the mentally handicapped. Life expectancy has increased since 1870 as a result of improved food and water supplies and sanitation. Therapeutic medicine has had little effect. Improvements in the conditions of the working class within capitalist society are only paid for if they can generate an overall increase in profitability. It has been clear since 1948 that the NHS could not hope to improve health care for workers up to the standards enjoyed by the rich.

Aneurin Bevan's Ministry of Health, after protracted squabbles, left the consultant physicians and surgeons ample opportunity to keep pay beds in NHS hospitals, even giving their private patients priority in the use of NHS staff and facilities (the practice is still widespread). From the start, these private beds were set in comfortable surroundings which contrasted sharply with the spartan appearance of the wards. Private clinics continued to grow separately, and Labour administrations have turned out to be as keen as any other to scotch moves towards their abolition. For while no government would dare to cut off its pay-masters' access to the best medical care, at the sort of price that only they and their best-paid hirelings could afford (up to £1,600 a week in some chic London hospitals) no government could hope to provide such facilities for the whole working class. Even BUPA can provide its poorer clients with no more than cheap nursing-home accommodation and decidedly second-rate treatment.

All this must not be taken to mean that the NHS is cheap. Government predictions put its net cost next year at £8-9 billion (around 40 per cent of total "public expenditure"). So it is hardly surprising that in a recession expenditure is cut back — by Labour and Conservative governments. The closure of hospitals, the growth of waiting lists, the continuing discrimination against the "Cinderella services" and the mounting toll of deprivation and disease (for example, whooping cough) in under-financed districts are in a very real sense inevitable to the working of the present social system, as is the call for increased efficiency (lay-offs) to compensate. This is the profit motive in action: this is the legacy of capitalism. And if, at the same time as the hospitals are closing, ad-men still pimp for the booze and tobacco companies, fortunes are spent teaching children to suck their teeth away, factories spew their toxic wastes into the environment. and homelessness, poverty and unemployment eventually drive one in nine of us into mental illness — then that is also the inevitable legacy of capitalism.

So no special responsibility for the plight of the patients can be laid with the health workers. The profit system created much of their sickness to begin with. The profit system required the running-down of the health service in response to the recession in the trade cycle. And the profit system obliges nurses and porters, like all other workers, to resort to desperate and sometimes inhuman measures, if they are necessary for their survival.

Strategy for victory

Certainly, the history of the trade union movement contains some relative successes. After 1824, when unions were first legalised in Britain, wages and working conditions showed a marked improvement. Since that time, employers have seldom dared to impose such inhuman conditions upon unionised workers (in peacetime at least) as were commonplace before 1824. Both private employers and governments regularly consult unions over wage-fixing, and from this fact there has arisen the popular myth of union power.

But, like the provision of health care, the legalisation of union activity could only take place when it was likely to contribute to the smooth running of capitalism. To a certain extent, legalisation was prompted by the realisation that the unions simply would not go away; but there was more to it than that. For in so far as they discipline their own members, maintaining order on the shop floor, unions play an important part in capitalist production. In a recession. when production is being cut back anyway, the strike weapon is far less effective than in times of boom.

Trade union action is weakened by the lack of democracy, where decisions about the running of strikes are left to minorities. The elevation by union members of some workers as leaders makes it easier for the employers to defuse the impact of the action by selective sackings, such as that of Philip McIntee. NUPE shop steward at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, on 19 August.

Workers are forced to struggle constantly through trade unions even to prevent living standards being reduced, and sometimes in this circular struggle the insanity of the system of wage labour leads to painful dilemmas such as that faced by the NHS workers. Strikes by any workers, be they coal miners, sewage workers, lorry drivers or fruit pickers, if they are to hurt the employer are also likely to hurt other workers. They must also hurt the strikers themselves, if only by the temporary drop in earnings. It may make them generally unpopular, and it may lose them their jobs. If they win their dispute, it may be at the cost of other concessions; if they lose it. much bitterness will remain. Whether the industry concerned is private or state owned, and whether the government is Labour or Tory makes no difference to this. Labour governments tried to limit wage increases by legislation and have called in troops to break strikes, as well as making cuts in public services. British Rail workers are the latest to have learned the true position of state employees, and the NHS workers must do so too.

The real solution to the health workers' dilemma lies beyond the struggle over wages. All of the wealth in society is produced by wage- and salary-earning workers. This society exists because workers consent to profits and wages, the factories which provide wealth as well as poisoning us, the media which enlighten and mislead us, and the hospitals which cure us, only to send us back to be damaged further. It now is time for us to take control of them all. to realise the next economic and social stage of human social evolution. Then, medical resources need be limited only by the rate at which it is possible and desirable to produce them, rather than by the artificial barrier of financial viability. The task of caring can be a joyful one, in which all can participate freely. 

PC

Letter: Anti-semitism (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anti-semitism

Dear Editors.

Your September cover and Coleman's Holocaust 2 article discredit your journal and your party — with whose aims I have been largely in agreement for a long time.

I prefer not to believe that Coleman's article was intentionally anti-semitic. But the fact remains that it is no different in tone or choice of language from those articles in scores of newspapers and journals throughout the world, whose content on the Israel-Lebanon conflict has been characterised by thinly disguised hostility to Jews.

Like Coleman, the writers of those articles are ever quick to remind readers of the involvement of prominent Israelis in proscribed organisations. "Thug" is the standard word used to describe them, usually prefixed by "Zionist". Zionists are largely "trigger-happy", except for the handful of British and Israeli soul-searching Zionists whom they all claim to know.

Like the press everywhere, the Standard. via Coleman, finds the Lebanon war more horrifying and more horrible than other wars. "Not for a long time", writes Coleman, "has the horror of war been so evident as in Lebanon." True. I suppose. Since, until the war in Lebanon, neither Press nor Television were so public-spirited as to show readers and viewers the true consequences, in human terms, of war. I daresay that there were a few horrors in the Falklands that we will never be shown — though that war was practically simultaneous with the one in Lebanon. Come to that. I have heard some pretty hair-raising stories in connection with the Iran-lraq war. That war is still going on: but neither reading nor viewing public are treated to a daily dose from that front. No Jews, no news.

The photograph which accompanies Holocaust 2 is journalistic weaseling of the worst kind. Take any old photograph, fill your caption with innuendo and let your readers draw the wrong conclusion. Your photograph could have been taken in scores of differing circumstances: and anywhere in the world. How do you and Coleman know that the clenched fist of the man in the foreground is that of (presumably Israeli) nationalism?

As for your cover. It could easily "grace" the magazines of the traditionally anti-semitic “right" or those of the new. far more anti-semitic. "left". Whatever the intention behind the cover, it will be received gleefully by those who maintain that the Jews want to conquer and possess the world — an age-old charge, but one never so "cleverly" made as on your cover.

But these are relatively minor protests. For Coleman has been unable to write of events in Lebanon without recourse to those twin gibes of “anti-Zionists" Holocaust and genocide. The first of those words was coined by Jewish historians to describe the terrible fate which overtook Jews in Nazi Europe. The second word — genocide has no long etymological history. It was coined only in 1945. for the purpose of giving a name to the crime committed against European Jews. Its meaning is: the calculated, total and deliberate destruction of one race by another. But to Jews the word is also a reminder of the terrible methods used to accomplish the deed: the highly organised transportations, the extermination camps, the gas chambers, the vile experiments on Jews and even viler tortures practised on them before they were "mercifully" gassed.

I hold little brief for military operations whatever their objectives: and I know too well that civilian populations (and soldiers) suffer in wars. But there has only been one Holocaust in our time — that which engulfed the Jews of Europe. And in the whole of recorded history, there has only been one authenticated and determined attempt at genocide the attempt against European Jews. Every writer on Lebanon whose Jew-hatred masquerades under pretended concern for Palestinians, has used Holocaust and genocide as a calculated sneer and libel, not against Israelis, not against Zionists, but against all Jews. If Coleman has any proof that the Israelis (and by implication and association, the majority of Jews in the world) have an official policy of genocide, he had best produce it. word for word and chapter for chapter.

I began by saying that I preferred to absolve the Standard and Coleman from the charge of being tainted by anti-semitism. But, I repeat, there is no discernible difference between the tone of Coleman's article and that of "anti-Israeli" writers whose motives are of the basest kind.

I believe that you owe it to yourself to weigh every single word used in the Standard and to ask yourself the precise effect it is likely to have on your readers — not all of whom are members and many of whom come to you for the first time, totally unaware of your history and aims.

Further, I believe that you ought to express regret to your readers for a serious lapse of taste in publishing Holocaust 2 and your September cover.

L de Swart, 

London N19 

Reply:

Mr. de Swart begins by stating that he has been largely in agreement with the aims of the Socialist Party for a long time. It is always pleasing to discover such people outside the Party, but what is the small reason that has kept Mr. de Swart away from the active struggle for socialism in all this "long time"? Could it be that he agrees entirely with the materialist conception of history, but for the "minor qualification" that he thinks there is something worth preserving in the religious mumbo-jumbo of Judaism or Christianity or Islam? After all, if he is not “anti-Jewish” — Judaism being a set of outdated religious beliefs and no more — we must assume that he is pro-Jewish. Or is it that he completely agrees with the socialist aim of establishing a world without frontiers and class possessions, but “in the meantime" thinks that certain forms of national chauvinism — such as Zionism — should not be attacked too severely? After all, if he is not an anti-Zionist — in the sense of opposing the nationalist aspirations of the Israelis — we must assume that he is pro-Zionist. Mr. de Swart does not tell us what his disagreements are with the Socialist Party.

What he does tell us in terms which are as clear as his "long time" disagreements with the Socialist Party are hidden — is that the cover of the September Socialist Standard and an article on the Lebanon in the same issue have offended him; he does not suggest that they did so because they conflict with our established views. Seven specific criticisms are made.

1. The article refers to members of the Israeli government as ex-terrorists. Perhaps Mr. de Swart thinks it's unjustifiable to refer to the perpetrators of calculated violence, including murder, as "thugs". We consider it a quite appropriate description. The Socialist Standard cannot be accused of using the term discriminately: as far as we are concerned, "thuggery" aptly describes killings on behalf of the Stern Gang, the PLO, the Provisional IRA or the Christian militia. Furthermore, we do not distinguish between the thuggery of terrorists and that engaged in by state armies. The terrorist founders of the Israeli state were referred to for a particular reason: it has become common in recent times for certain Zionists, such as the Poale Zion (Labour Zionists), to refer to "Beginism” as a new form of Zionism. This is a myth, based on the belief that Israeli nationalism once was, and still could be, less oppressive and chauvinistic than any other form of nationalism. The point was to show that Begin and his ruthless form of nationalism have not just arrived on the scene — they have been there from the start.

2. The article did not state that the war in the Lebanon was either "more horrific" or “more horrifying" than other wars. Socialists are not interested in making comparisons of human suffering. What the article said was what Mr. de Swart quotes in his letter. In the weeks prior to the publication of our September issue the media provided detailed coverage of the Israel-Lebanon war and the article was written because the event was in readers' minds. It is true that atrocities are committed in other wars, but if our critic is a “long time" reader of the Standard he will know that these have been dealt with in the journal. For example, the writer whose article he criticised also wrote a lengthy analysis on the Falklands war only two months earlier.

3. The statement about the photograph is entirely incorrect: it was not “any old photograph” but one taken in the Israeli town of Hebron showing a specific Israeli Zionist — a member of the Koch movement. It is true that similar pictures may have been taken elsewhere — such as a PLO rally or a National Front get-together — but the fact is that it happened to be a picture of Israeli nationalists.

4. The intention of the cover was not to imply that "the Jews want to conquer and possess the world". The point was to show that "defensible borders" (which are what the Israelis claim to be fighting for) are impossible to achieve within capitalism unless a country dominates the entire globe. We accept the possibility that anti-semites might use the same illustration to make a different point. But then, so may Tories use our anti-CND position and fascists our opposition to African dictatorships in order to make points with which the Socialist Party is in total disagreement. We regret these facts, but will not refrain from stating our case for fear that it is misinterpreted by those who have an interest in doing so.

5. The dictionary describes holocaust as "wholesale slaughter”. Certain historians may reserve the term for one particular "wholesale slaughter", but socialists do not respect such exclusivity of meaning. Thatcher insisted that the war in the South Atlantic was a military conflict, but not a war: the Socialist Standard ignored her distinction. Similarly, we refuse to accept that the murder of millions of Jews was a holocaust, whereas the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the devastation of West Beirut are merely "wholesale slaughters".

6. Unfortunately. Mr. de Swart’s letter is dated 10 September, one week before the Beirut Massacre. There is considerable evidence to prove the complicity of the Israeli government in this terrible act of human slaughter. (Even a Jewish Chronicle editorial made the point — and Mr. de Swart could not accuse that paper of being anti-semitic.) To be associated with a military operation in which hundreds of men, women and children are murdered in cold blood is close to being "an official policy of genocide". Mr. de Swart may disagree with the use of that particular term on the grounds that it does not fully match his dictionary definition (although we would inform him that the Nazi act of genocide was not genocide either: firstly because the Jews were not totally destroyed by the Nazis, and secondly because the former are not a race), but we think he should be more concerned about the act committed rather than the precision of the term used to describe it. Mr. de Swart informs us that he holds "little brief for military operations": we are glad to know that he largely opposes wars, but would be pleased to also know about the "little brief" which he does hold for some of them.

7. Mr. de Swart's final argument amounts to the claim that a friend of an enemy is an enemy: if what you write looks like what someone else writes, the two views must be the same. So, for example, if the Tories state that they do not enter elections in order to abolish the monarchy (because it is "a great institution") and the Socialist Party state that we do not enter elections in order to abolish the monarchy (because it is irrelevant to the main electoral task of winning conscious support for the dispossession of the capitalist class), does that make both the Tories and the SPGB supporters of the monarchy? When the Socialist Standard provides a Marxist criticism of the PLO we are accused of being "Zionist agents"; when we criticise Zionism we are told that we are no different from anti-semites. But if our critic did not confine himself to odd words — and he does only refer to three words, a sentence, two pictures and a "tone" — he would see that the whole article makes a case about nationalism and war which is both unique and correct. The writer specifically makes the point that, unlike others, socialists are not opposing Israeli nationalism more than we oppose other kinds of nationalist ideology. Our battle with Zionists is not because they are Jews, but because they are usually members of the working class who support the capitalist system. The article can only be seen as a "serious lapse of taste” by those whose taste is offended by the honest exposure of social and political ugliness.

The socialist attitude to all wars, including the Israel-Lebanon one, is to show, firstly, that the conditions which cause war are rooted in the present, capitalist system and. secondly, that the only way to provide security from war is by establishing socialism. “Holocaust 2" made both of those points. Since it was published there has been even more killing and suffering in the Middle East; those who are mourning the dead of Sabra and Shatila and those who live in fear on the border towns and villages of Israel and the Lebanon have no secure and peaceful option short of the immediate organisation for socialism. Today they are the victims of capitalism's war — tomorrow it may well be us.

Editors.

Letter: Spiritual needs (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spiritual needs

Dear Editors.

Reference your recent article “Socialists Against Religion" and the letter from Ms Garwood. Your reply did not adequately cover the point raised about the spiritual uses of religion. Perhaps socialists do not understand what spiritual needs mean to a religious person. Perhaps socialists do not even realise that spiritual needs are, in fact, catered for within socialism.

Without being religious it is still obvious that "man cannot live by bread alone". With a little sunshine, food and water the tomato plant will thrive in its little pot on the window sill, it will even bear fruit and reproduce. But man is not a vegetable. To be human, in the generally accepted way, is to have feelings and thoughts. Man has emotional and moral needs as well as physical ones.

Socialism, along with all other political factions, has concentrated on man's physical needs and largely ignored his others. All religions, on the other hand, have concentrated on man’s emotional and moral needs and largely ignored his physical ones. This is why politics and religion can usually work side by side, because they concentrate on different aspects of man's needs.

When religious people refer to "spiritual" needs, they merely mean emotional needs. When religious people refer to the “soul", they are referring to the state of mind, the way a person thinks, in short, his morality. His "soul" will be saved if his thoughts mirror those of his religious dictators. There is nothing magical or mysterious about the spirit or soul, they are only terms used by religious people who have avoided serious thinking about emotions, minds and thoughts.

In my opinion socialism satisfies physical needs better than capitalism, it also satisfies "spiritual" needs far better than any religion.

Under capitalism man competes with man for everything — fame, success, property, the "right" to work, he even competes for love and affection. Man regards his neighbour as an enemy, he cannot trust him. Man is totally insecure. he lives in perpetual fear, fear of violence, fear of losing his assets, fear of failure, fear of being considered useless and worthless. Capitalist man cannot protect himself from this fear, he cannot rely on his fellow man for protection because he is a potential enemy. Man is alienated not only from his work, but far more important, he is alienated from his fellow man. His only hope of protection comes from outside the real world — he appeals to religion. God will protect, God will provide, God will consider him equal, God will relieve his fear and offer some emotional comfort in times of conflict.

Under socialism man co-operates with man, they work together for a common cause. Man regards his neighbour as a friend, he trusts him, he can turn to him for help. Regardless of abilities and potentials each man is considered equal to the next, so there are no failures. Surrounded by friends, man has no fear of his fellow man. he feels totally secure. Instead of going outside the real world to satisfy his spiritual needs, he can find emotional comfort and security from within his civilised socialist society and from his many friends.

Even the "soul" or moral needs are better catered for under socialism. Thousands die of starvation while capitalist Christians burn their surplus food. Is this right? If I were a Christian my soul would not rest watching people starve while food was being deliberately destroyed. Socialists have the best answer to this problem — produce for people's need, not profit and greed is it not the right thing to do?

Capitalism produces conflict, which inevitably leads to war, with millions of lives needlessly lost. Each side prays that "God" is on their side. Is this right? Does this not cause conflicts in the Christian soul or mind? The socialist mind is at peace, he does not want to fight his fellow man, he wants to work with him.

Under socialism your spiritual needs will be well catered for. you will feel emotionally secure and your mind will be at peace, knowing society has made the best use of its resources. You do not need to go outside socialism for "spiritual" guidance.

J. P. White 

High Wycombe

Reply:

It is no mere quibble on our part when we have misgivings about the use of the word "spiritual" in connection with socialism. We are concerned to communicate the socialist case to workers and in this struggle words are vital: there must be a consistent clarity in their use. The case for socialism is a materialist — not a moral — one. based on a materialist conception of human history, it is confusing and diverting to introduce incorrect terms like "spiritual" when there are perfectly clear and accurate ways of expressing our case without it. We also take issue with J. P. White’s persistent use of the masculine description of the human race; socialism will bring the emancipation of all humanity without distinction of sex and the way we state our case must reflect this.

Editors.

Letter: The Falklands War (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

L. Weidberg's letter on the total lack of economic motive in the British sending of a Task Force to the Falklands is not supported by available evidence. It is true that for some twenty years, Tory and Labour governments have been dubious about holding on to the Falklands. but there is also much evidence that capitalist interests in Britain were dubious about letting the islands go. The following extracts from a Sunday Times (13 June 1982) article are not without significance:

Looking to the future. economic development of the islands will be based on a complete reversal of previous neglect. Lord Shackleton, author of a largely ignored report on the islands' potential in 1976, is working on a new version at Mrs. Thatcher's request.

Whitehall has been reawakened to the importance of Antarctica's resources and the strategic possibilities of Britain's South Georgia Dependencies . . . This triangular sector . . . contains more than one million square miles. Over this area a large amount of revenue has been expended on maintaining a chain of meteorological and scientific bases. The surveyor's reports reveal some interesting facts. The mineral deposits in the East (soft coal seams) are known to extend over an area of many thousands of square miles, and it is likely that Uranium, gold, iron and manganese are also present.

Many states have claimed sovereignty over wide areas; Britain's being called the Falkland Island Dependencies. Argentinian and Chilean claims in 1949 overlapped the British area. The US and USSR had made no claims up to 1954. but the US would not recognise the claims of other powers and made abortive attempts to induce the interested powers to accept some form of international sovereignty.

. . . the difficulty of defending the Falklands has been recognised for some time, and British policy has been based on that reality . . . On the other hand the island base is conveniently close to the Antarctic scene of operations — some 9,000 miles nearer than Britain.

Is it likely that British interests would give up this strategic link with the FID without more sacrifices of working class blood? L. Weidberg says that Mrs. Thatcher "knows that the working class, who comprise the bulk of the electorate, would like to think that "we" were going to get some material benefits in addition to saving the world from a fascist dictator " This is turning reality upside down. More often than not the workers have been mugged into believing that wars are fought to uphold great moral principles, while the economic causes are played down.

C. Kincaid

Milton Keynes

Letter: Poland is state capitalist (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In the article "Poland is state capitalist", a quotation from a Polish journal is given, indicating the distinction between "state ownership and social ownership of the means of production".

However, our agreement with the Marxian analysis contained in this and other articles published by Jednosc (see Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, winter-spring 1981) should not draw us into the mistaken and unrealistic assumption that such views are widely held in Poland. This was, and unfortunately still is, a minority point of view.

While the article we quoted was re-published in one other workers' journal, other, more forthright articles were not re-printed elsewhere.

C Skelton 

Woking, Surrey

50 Years Ago: Demonstrations against Unemployment (1982)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

While it is desirable that the unemployed should be aggressive, yet if they get some concession (sometimes even if they get nothing but cracked heads) these movements, based on the uninstructed discontent of non-Socialists, simply peter out and leave nothing permanent behind. What happens is that if the discontent is sufficiently great the capitalist parties rush in and lead it into safe channels or buy the gratitude of the discontented with small concessions. As soon as conditions look more favourable to them, the capitalists—always seeking to keep down the burden of taxes—cut the concession to whatever limit they and their political agents consider safe.

[From an editorial The Steam and the Safety Valve, Socialist Standard, November 1932]

SPGB Meetings (1982)

Party News from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Audio recordings of the following meetings from the November 1982 Standard are available on the SPGB website.

DEBATE: DID LENIN DISTORT MARX? 

YES – Steve Coleman, SPGB

NO – Monty Johnstone, CPGB & ‘Marxism Today’

Venue: Islington Central Library, London

Date: 11th November 1982

BRONTERRE O’BRIEN AND WORKING-CLASS RADICALISM

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 21st November 1982

Speaker - Steve Coleman

BELFORT BAX AND THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 28th November 1982

Speaker - Steve Coleman