70 Years of the S.P.G.B. and the Socialist Standard (1974)

Party News from the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Both the May and the June 1974 issues of the Socialist Standard carried details of an exhibition that was to be held at Head Office in June of that year marking the history of both the Socialist Standard itself and of the SPGB.

We are lucky enough that a slide show of the exhibition and a recording of a narration by Edgar Hardcastle ('H.' in the Socialist Standard) was preserved, and it has been uploaded onto YouTube by 'DJW' on his excellent YouTube channel, The Monument.

Embedded below is the video of that slideshow with 'Hardy's' narration. Obviously, it would have been wonderful if there had been actual close-ups of the individual photographs, leaflets, journals and pamphlets from the exhibition but that wasn't to be. We will enjoy what we have. According to Hardy's narration, there were over 400 visitors during the course of the week, and there was a write up of the exhibition in The Guardian. I'll have to see if I can find that Guardian piece. If I locate it, I'll post it on the blog.

Photographs and illustrations from the 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

This special 70th anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard carried a number of historical photographs within its pages. Some of the photographs tied in with specific articles, but a number appeared as standalone images illustrating aspects of the history of the SPGB. I thought it best to place all the images in one separate post. For certain images that tie in with a text, I've provided a link to the article where they originally appeared.

The handbill below was issued by the Watford Branch of the SPGB in 1905. This image appeared within Robert Barltrop's article, "Seventy Years for Socialism".

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The undated photograph below is of the party headquarters in Great Dover Street, which was located in the Southwark area of South East London. This was the party's head office from 1929 until it was hit by a bomb - and partially destroyed - in 1941.

'Gilmac' mentions Great Dover Street in his September 1954 article, "Our Many Head Offices":

In 1927 Fitzgerald, with the aid of map and compass, succeeded in proving to a majority of the E.C. members that the Elephant and Castle was really in the centre of London. Anyhow we moved over near there to 42, Great Dover Street. We took an old house with three floors and a basement. One of the members made fittings for keeping the S.S. and literature in proper order in one basement room. The other basement room ( a very small one) had tables and chairs, and a stove on which a woman member cooked for those who wanted a meal. The smoke and heat in the little place was stifling, and getting out when one had finished was a problem.

The ground floor front room was used for selling literature and packing. There was a small shop front in which literature was displayed. The first floor consisted of one good sized room in which meetings were held as well as an occasional social—when the place shook as if it was about to collapse. E.C. meetings were also held in this room. Here we had some interesting discussions on the Spanish Revolt and at the beginning of the last war. In the room above lectures were given on many subjects during the winter months.

I know 'Gilmac' mentions 1927 in the excerpt above but Great Dover Street is first listed in the Standard as the Party's Head Office in its June 1929 issue.

I've always wondered if the young woman front and centre in the photograph was May Otway. I guess I'll never know.

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The text accompanying the photograph below from the Standard was 'Conference photograph, 1928. at Fairfax Hall. Harringay, where Party Conferences were held from 1910 to 1936.' 

There's a strong chance that the bald man holding the board at the bottom centre of the photograph was Ted Kersley.

 

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The text accompanying this photograph was 'No leaders: The Executive Committee in session, 1956.' It was part of the article "This is Socialism !'" I believe the younger man with the darker hair in the right of the photograph was Robert Barltrop, and the older, bald man to his left was Harry Young. ('Horatio')

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Clifford Groves contested the Paddington North constituency for the SPGB at the 1945 General Election. He also stood in the same seat in the 1946 by-election. The July 1945 issue of the Standard carries the Party's election manifesto.

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Both the photograph of Jack Fitzgerald and the cartoon caricature of Charlie Lestor were part of the "Some Members" article. I'm guessing that Robert Barltrop drew the image of Lestor.

 

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The Metropolitan Theatre was located in Edgware Road, and was used on many occasions in the 1940s and early 1950s when the SPGB were contesting parliamentary seats in Paddington, but also when the Party held mass rallies. By all accounts these mass meetings had upwards of two thousand people in attendance. This photograph accompanied the "Early Election Campaigns" article.

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No name for speaker on the platform. This photograph illustrated the "On the Platform" article.

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Sadly, no names are listed but members of Walthamstow Branch in the late 1920s included, amongst others, Mr and Mrs Francis Brooks, Maurice Cole, Thomas Davis, C. Elliott, A. J. Godfrey, A. McDermott, May Otway, L. Otway, Jane Robinson, Frederick Wellavise, J. Wilkinson, S. E. Williams, Byron Young and Percy Young.

Surely May Otway is in this photograph? I know I keep mentioning her but she was one of my favourite Socialist Standard writers in the interwar years.

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So, here's the conundrum: The June 1974 Socialist Standard states that the Conference photo below dates from 1950 but when it was included in the June 2004 Socialist Standard, the text said the photo was from the 1951 Annual Conference. I demand a recount.

As a point of interest, the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a letter from Richard Botterill, identifying two of the delegates from Dartford Branch in the photo. (Spoiler alert: one of them was his dad.)

With regards to the June 2004 Standard already mentioned above, that was also a special anniversary issue  and it also carries a number of photographs relating to the history of the SPGB. I recommend you check it out. It serves as an excellent companion to the June 1974 issue.

Seventy Years for Socialism (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in June, 1904. Those who formed it had been members of H. M. Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation, and to understand all that animated them it is necessary to look first at that organization and why it failed.

The SDF was the first party to exist in Britain in the name of Marxian Socialism. That is not to overlook the old International Workingmen's Association in which Marx himself had been a principal; however, it was an association and not a political party as such, its aim to foster and stablilize revolutionary thought. The Federation was alienated from Marx, and in other respects its start in 1881 was unfortunate. Almost inevitably, it drew strong but immensely varied support. The membership contained the conflicting outlooks of freethinkers, single-taxers (Progress and Poverty was published only the year before), militant working-men, well-to-do radicals—and William Morris.

Hyndman's concern with Marxian economics did not extend widely among his supporters. Shaw's biographer, Hesketh Pearson, relates how the young G.B.S. attended the Democratic Federation, was told that without reading Capital he had no right to discuss, went to the British Museum and read it in French, and returned to find that he and Hyndman were the only ones who had done so. But when the Federation joined with the Labour Emancipation League its liberal-radical support dropped away sharply.

The new programme aimed at "The Establishment of a Free Condition of Society, with Equal Social Rights for All, and the Complete Emancipation of Labour", and simultaneously a series of "measures called for to palliate the evils of our existing society . . . for immediate adoption". It was from this point that considerations of expediency were posed, more and more often, against those of Socialism. For the new society automatically became the long-term, deferred, objective and "something for now" the effective one not only in propaganda but in tactics too; the Federation became prepared to ally itself anywhere, anyhow, for its temporary ends.

The hard core of revolutionary socialists remained in the SDF, but by the end of the century a serious division of aims was plain. With the growth of the ILP and the formation in 1900 of the Labour Representation Committee, Hyndman and the other leaders were eager for broadening the Federation's outlook to include all "sympathizers who were against social injustice". The report in the Labour Annual of the 1897 SDF Conference referred to "an informal conference . . . between several members of the SDF and the ILP, and certain recommendations for amalgamation drawn up for submission to the two Executives".

By 1902 a small, determined body of dissidents was pressing for a return to the fundamentals of Socialism, to independent political action based on class-consciousness and the excision of reformism. They were quickly dubbed "Impossibilists", but they put their case strongly in the correspondence columns of Justice. There were two main groups, in London and in Scotland. The Scottish faction, with James Connolly at its head, broke away by itself in 1903 to form the Socialist Labour Party in imitation of the American party of the same name.

Despite being thus let down, the Londoners continued their campaign within the SDF. The controversy was brought to its crisis at the 1904 Conference at Burnley. The Executive sought and obtained summary expulsions and the power to deal with more Impossibilists in this way. Plans to manipulate the Conference leaked out. A post-conference meeting to discuss the expulsions was held at Shoreditch Town Hall, and the critics now formed a Protest Committee and issued a leaflet setting forth fully their disagreements with SDF policy.

The statement was signed by 88 members and ex-members, and demanded a political party pledged to Socialism alone. The class struggle must be the guiding principle, and compromise — either by alliance or by seeking the reform of capitalism — rejected unconditionally. And no less important was the re-framing of the organization itself to keep control out of the hands of elites and cliques and vest it in the entire membership.

Within the SDF the cause was lost, and only more expulsions followed. On 15th May a meeting of the Protest Committee's supporters took place at Battersea, and the decision was made. A new party should be formed, entirely independent, based on clear-cut principles and devoted to the establishment of Socialism. A "Provisional Committee" was charged with making arrangement for its formal inception. On Sunday afternoon, 12th June 1904, the Inaugural Meeting  was held in the Printers' Hall, Bartlett's Passage, off Fetter Lane, Fleet Street.

The Standard and the Platform
A hundred and forty-two people gave in their names at the meeting in 1904. Three names were afterwards found to have been false. The last of the hundred and thirty-nine founders, Tom King, died — still a member — in 1971. Of the others, a few were to become notables in movements to which they now vowed hostility: Hicks a Labour Minister, McEntee a Lord, T. A. Jackson an eminence grise of the Communist Party, Jack Kent the Conservative Mayor of Acton.

The Object and Declaration of Principles drawn up by the Provisional Committee and adopted by the Inaugural Meeting have never been altered. Nor has their status been that of a “historic document” preserved but not pursued; today as in 1904 they are the Party’s directing force. Their intention was to define capitalism and what Socialists must do, for as long as capitalism lasted. It was understood too that propaganda for Socialism must depend first and foremost on the knowledge and exposition of Marxian economics. The working class must be shown the mechanics of exploitation from which the only release was the abolition of capitalism.

The Party had no money and no premises. The Provisional Committee had met in one another’s houses (several times, in a bedroom), and for the first Executive Committee meetings Hans Neumann arranged a room on alternate Saturdays at the old Communist Club in Charlotte Street, off Tottenham Court Road. While a committee went into ways and means for a Party newspaper, a makeshift list of acceptable pamphlets was published — Marx, Engels, Morris, Kautsky, Aveling, one or two others and Liebknecht’s No Compromise !

The Socialist Standard first came out in September, 1904. The printer and the only advertiser (advertisements were afterwards stopped) was A. E. Jacomb. He had a little printing-shop in Stratford under the name “Jacomb Brothers”, and as a member he was determined that no-one but he should print the Socialist Standard. The estimate of £7.10s.6d. for 3,000 copies was made simply by undercutting all the other estimates. Jacomb never sent in his bill, and from time to time the Executive Committee was obliged to set up sub-committees to discover or assess how much was owed to him.

Apart from publications, the backbone of propaganda was outdoor addresses — indeed, except for occasional meetings in hired halls, they were the only means available. In 1904 the sects and parties vied with one another in the streets and parks, and the Socialist Party flung itself enthusiastically into the fray. There were several organizations with such names as the Anti-Socialist Union, the Liberty and Property Defence League, and the Middle Class Defence Organisation, called “the societies whose purpose it is to combat Socialism”. In a short time, with twenty speakers holding forty or fifty meetings a week, the Party’s reputation grew out of proportion to its size. It demanded, and had, to be noticed.

Trade Unions and Religion
One of the major questions for the Party at its foundation was that of the trade unions. The LRC was in existence, to become the Labour Party in 1906. Ideas of syndicalism, embraced by the other Impossibilists who formed the SLP, were in the air. In 1906 a clumsy attempt to reconcile the Party with the SLP led — albeit indirectly — to “the Islington dispute” in which a whole Branch was expelled (one of them was the Party secretary Con Lehane, who later became a leader of Irish nationalism).

After a series of meetings and discussions, the Party’s attitude was formulated by the Easter Conference of 1905. Its decision ran:

 Whereas the Trade Unions, while being essentially economic organizations, are nevertheless taking political action either to safeguard their economic existence or for ether purposes, and
 Whereas any basis of working-class political action other than that laid down in the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain must lead the workers into the bog of confusion and disappointment, be it therefore
  Resolved that this Conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain recommends that all members of the Party be instructed to actively oppose all action of the Unions that is not based on the Principles of this Party.

This attitude was amplified in the Party’s first pamphlet Manifesto, published in June 1905. The economic function of the unions was recognized and “any action on their part upon sound lines should be heartily supported”; their participation in “practical politics” under Labour leaders was “criminal folly”. This has remained the Party’s standpoint, and it has been justified again and again over seventy years.

With great social issues in the air the Party had many public debates with Conservative, Liberal and Labour politicians. It was constantly under pressure to support reform demands for “special cases” — women’s (and men’s) suffrage, education, pensions. In 1910 new ground was broken with the publication of Socialism and Religion. In it, the Party unequivocally declared itself to be against religion and unaccepting of the principle “Religion is a private affair”. Socialism and Religion was a best-seller among political pamphlets for nearly twenty years, while churchmen and capitalist politicians held it up as living proof of the terrors of Socialism.

It was revealed that the Party would accept no-one with a religious belief in its ranks. In fact from the beginning all applicants for membership were questioned, and this has always remained the practice — no casual enrolments for numbers’ sake, but convinced Socialists only. Likewise in election campaigns (the Party first contested municipal elections in 1906) every effort has been made to repel impulsive votes and secure only firmly Socialist ones. It can be added too that from an early stage speakers for the Party have been subject to a rigorous test in economics, history and political theory; it has been reflected in a high reputation for SPGB speakers.

The first headquarters rented for the Party’s exclusive use, after a series of meeting-rooms, were at 10 Sandland Street, Bedford Row, in 1909: two rooms above a corner junk-shop, which were left for a place in Grays Inn Road in 1912. The membership slowly crept up to about 200 by the outbreak of war in 1914. The hammering-out of policies in the first ten years had its price, and the memory of the SDF made for an extra sensitivity: members were often too readily convinced that a decision of which they disapproved was the first step to compromise and confusion. However, in 1914 the Party was tested — and not found wanting.

War and Revolution

On the outbreak of war the Socialist Party published on the front of the Standard its uncompromising statement “declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood”, and ending:

  Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

No other organization took such a stand. With a few exceptions, the labour leaders zealously supported the war and gave their services to recruiting — Hyndman and co. included. Individual members of the ILP were pacifists but the party leader, Keir Hardie, declared for “the national interest” and recruitment.

Plans had to be shelved (it had been intended to have a member employed full-time speaking and organizing); but this was the lesser inconvenience. The major ones were the disruption of meetings and the victimization of members, and the Party decided in January 1915 to close down meetings before there was more serious trouble under the Defence of the Realm regulations. The Socialist Standard continued to come out, but public libraries refused to have it and the War Office forbade its being sent abroad.

The membership was dispersed. Many went to prison as conscientious objectors, others joined the “flying corps” — the brotherhood of men on the run. One or two made for Ireland, and Adolph Kohn and Moses Baritz for America. Kohn lay low, sending occasional articles to the Standard, but Baritz was incapable of self-effacement and was imprisoned as an agitator when America entered the war. The Party administration was carried on largely by women members; but all kept in touch as best they could and there were even surreptitious reunions. When the war ended, much of the building of the ten years after 1904 had been shattered. Money and offices were gone. The Party knew as never before that it stood alone, and as the errant members reassembled there was a sense not of defeat but of fresh vigour and resolve.

The war had contained one other remarkable vindication of the Socialist case. The Russian Revolution took place in 1917. The Party had a slight, sympathetic contact with the Bolsheviks. In March 1915 the Socialist Standard had on its front page a statement headed A Russian Challenge in which the Russian party condemned the war and the “monstrous crime against Socialism” of the labour leaders who had entered war governments. Every left-wing paper refused to publish this declaration before it was received by the SPGB; ironically, the same “left” was soon to adulate the Bolsheviks in power while the Socialist Party made a critical analysis with a different conclusion.

From the outset, the Party maintained that Socialism had not been established in Russia. The formation of the Communist Party in 1920 was only a return to old and futile theories: assorted radicals and the rumps of the BSP (the former SDF) and SLP embracing the armed insurrection and conspiracy prescribed by the Third International. It took forty years for savants to discover that the Bolsheviks had transformed a vast backward country into a highly centralized capitalist state. The Socialist Party said so, against all other voices, from 1917 onward.

Times of Crisis

Having no illusions of over-toppling capitalism by coups or confrontations, the Party was not disillusioned by the failures of Labour governments, the outcome of the General Strike, or the perfidy of Ramsay MacDonald. The hardest blows it had to bear in the nineteen-twenties were the early deaths, within four years of each other, of two men who meant much to it: Alex Anderson and Jack Fitzgerald. Anderson was a magnificent orator, Fitzgerald was outstanding as theorist, debater and writer. Both were working men. In any of capitalism’s big battalions they would have been national celebrities but they gave their lives to Socialism instead. Had they not died prematurely their lives and influence would have continued up to and after the second world war. Yet the loss proved the soundness of the Party’s repudiation of leadership; because it depended on no special person, the work went on unaltered.

The strongest political delusion of the ’twenties and the Depression years was the belief that the capitalist system was about to break down. (It was not new: Hyndman had been a perpetual prophet of collapse.) All the left shared it, urging that a militant push or two would bring the allegedly crumbling structure down in ruins. The Socialist Party analyzed the theory and showed its fallacies in a pamphlet called Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse. Mistaken ideas are usually exciting ones but that does not make them less damaging in the end. We were right; the others were not only wrong but, as so often, disillusioned.

As from 1904, the Party showed a small but steady growth. In the mid-thirties its membership was about 350, with a huge activity for its size. Outdoor meetings were prolific and lectures numerous, and there were frequent public debates with well-known politicians — Harold Macmillan, Michael Stewart, Barbara Wootton and many others. In 1929 the Party moved to headquarters at Great Dover Street, Southwark, where it remained until the building was bombed in 1941. Plans were made for what it had always been sought to do, the putting up of a Socialist parliamentary candidate for the first time.

As well as depression, unemployment and hunger-marches, the nineteen-thirties were the years of the rise of Nazism and the Spanish Civil War. Fresh questions were posed to the Party about whether we should fight “for democracy”, or to demolish a foreign government which was persecuting Jews. On the other hand, the fear of a war with terrifying new weapons — in particular, the use of the aeroplane — was so intense that we were also urged to forgo our independence and join with organizations which hoped to prevent it.

Inevitably there were controversies on these matters in the Party, and a few members were lost; but our independence was not given up for any alliance, or reason found for proposing to support another war of capitalism. The questions which to many people then were over-riding and exceptional have been answered by subsequent history. What is noteworthy in retrospect is that the loudest clamour to “defend democracy” and fight dictatorship came from the Communists — whose own favoured regime in Russia had now become as tyrannical as any in the world.

Another War, and Hard Labour

In the 1939-45 war hysteria was not widespread as in 1914-18; the common working-class feeling was of having been led into it by governments which were cynical or incompetent, or both. Conditions for opponents of the war were less severe, though that is not to say they were comfortable. After some initial difficulties the Party was able to hold regular propaganda meetings indoors and outdoors. The only department which was hamstrung was literature. The Government’s Defence Regulations introduced in May 1940 were directed specifically against printed matter, and the Party decided — wisely, as was shown by what happened to other publications — to with-hold from sale its 1936 pamphlet War and the Working Class and to refrain from anti-war material in the Socialist Standard.

Nevertheless, a policy of vigorous opposition to the war was laid down and pursued. At the same time, the Party made itself more difficult to join: applicants had to have two sponsors and were questioned even more carefully. The reason was that at such a time numbers of people who were not Socialists would have joined the Party for its anti-war policy. The harm in admitting one or two vague well-meaning people might seem small, but enough of them would drown the Socialist object in other intentions. We had to see that it did not happen.

As the war progressed the Party had to deal also with the plans and promises for a brave new capitalist world when it was over: Federal Union, now forgotten, and the Beveridge Plan which outlined welfare legislation — pamphlets were published and meetings and debates held on both. When Russia became Britain’s ally and was depicted for war propaganda purposes as a holy land of freedom, the Socialist attitude to Russia had to be stated fresh. (One result was that in 1943 the Communists’ Daily Worker named the venue of the Party Conference and hinted that loyal Britons could do worse than smash up the proceedings.)

The end of the war in 1945 brought the long- awaited parliamentary candidature, and the result of the General Election was the Labour Party in power with a majority of 180 seats. The Labour promise was of a new order severed from the miseries of the past, made in the name of “socialism”. The Socialist Party knew this to be a muddled misnomer for a mixture of ill-conceived reforms and attempts to apply Keynesian economic theory, but it knew also the immense damage done and about to be done.

Unable to control capitalism, the Labour Party conveyed to millions that Socialism was a mess. While everything the SPGB had said about reform, nationalization and “economic planning” was borne out, disenchantment over them redounded against the Socialist movement.

Nevertheless, activity remained at a high level. In 1948 the Labour Government, abandoning promises of plenty, told the population to tighten its belts with posters crying “We Work or Want”. The Socialist Party matched them with its own posters nationwide stating the facts of capitalism: “We SOMETIMES

Work, We ALWAYS Want”. The membership rose to 1,000 in 1947 and 1,100 in 1948. Another pamphlet in a fresh field, The Racial Problem, was published. The Party’s headquarters at this time were at Rugby Chambers, Holborn, and in 1951 it left there for the present head office at Clapham.

Yet within a short time unforeseen and unprecedented difficulties appeared. As the Party approached its fiftieth year the meetings which throughout that time had been its life-blood vanished almost into thin air, through a conjunction of social circumstances. The swift spread of television, nailing three quarters of the population to their armchairs every night; the regulation of shop hours, clearing busy streets after six o’clock; the growth of traffic, making it impossible to assemble round platforms at road junctions and street corners — these and other factors meant that suddenly audiences were no longer to be had, in or out of doors.

Other problems resulted. The sale of the Socialist Standard had always been largely a by-product of meetings. Now, forced into dependence on the printed world, simultaneously the main avenue for distributing it was closed. For several years a few Branches — Ealing, Islington, Hackney, Camberwell — sustained the circulation by door-to-door selling in the London area. The situation also drew attention to the shutting-out of minorities from the mass media: Socialism could not have its voice heard in television, the newspapers, the so-called “means of communication”.

From CND to the Seventies

The political movement which arose while the Party coped with changed circumstances was one claiming to be apolitical, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. As before the war, Socialists were urged that the importance of the subject relegated everything else: the survival of mankind was at stake. The reply could only be that the problem was war itself, not its weapons, and in turn the economic system in which the danger of war is always latent. Moreover, it had been possible for seers a generation before (H. G. Wells, for instance) to envisage the world devastated with pre-nuclear weapons. Indeed, CND disintegrated as its supporters realized a single issue could not be isolated from the rest of society’s causes and effects — which was what the Socialist Party said at the beginning.

It was argued, in other fields, that capitalism had changed. The full employment which had lasted since the war, the absence of a major depression, the possession by working people of cars and cocktail cabinets, were seen by many as evidence that the old problems had gone. In a few more years they reasserted themselves, however. The Party has never failed to consider and analyze whatever proposals and theories are advanced, but has never found reason to alter its case that capitalism is incapable of favouring the world’s population and that only Socialism will end the problems.

In fact the scene now resembles the pre-war one. There are unemployment, widespread poverty and industrial discontent, and capitalism — everywhere else besides in Britain — lurching from crisis to crisis beyond control. As an inevitable accompaniment, left-wing groups call for militancy and bring out again the theories with which their predecessors fell down: direct action, infiltration of the Labour Party, the collapse of capitalism.

Seventy years with an object unattained may look like failure. We claim success in many ways. First and foremost, the Socialist Party is alive and well. That surely merits attention. During our lifetime innumerable people and organizations have been going to show us quicker ways to Socialism, or render it unnecessary by reforms. Where are they now ? Extinct, or negligible.

At various times in seventy years the Party could surely have made a splash and gained a bigger membership by becoming Russophile, or whipping-up industrial agitation, or advocating attractive reforms. By not doing these we have irritated many people; but we are still here because we have not been wrong. There is a sad side to that question, too. Most of those who wanted our support for immediate campaigns have said they agreed with us but could not wait for Socialism — yet if they had come in with us instead of wasting efforts elsewhere, we should have had Socialism long ago.

So the work for Socialism goes on. As always, we have our problems. We still need avenues for distribution of the Socialist Standard. For every member we have several sympathizers — if only they would make the effort and join! We always need money. But the enthusiasm and optimism of our several hundred members are as bright and keen as were those of the founders in 1904. We do not think of ourselves as carrying on an old struggle, because it is a new one all the time. If the Socialist Party had not existed for the past seventy years, it would be necessary to start it today.

Robert Barltrop

Chapter Three: Unemployment or Employment— Reject Both (1984)

From Samuel Leight's book, 'The Futility of Reformism'

We oppose the existence of private property relationships which force those without ownership rights in the means of production and distribution to “seek employment.” This, to be sure, is a revolutionary concept for it is an approach that leads to the very core of an understanding of the case for common ownership. In essence, the problem arises from the poverty of the working class which is inseparable from the wages system. If we were living in a society which conveyed to all its members common ownership rights of all the means for producing and distributing wealth then, as and when we made our individual contributions to the process of wealth production, we would, from an economic and social standpoint, be working for ourselves and not for an employer.

From this viewpoint, it can be discerned that the socialist regards employment under capitalism as an inescapable and degrading condition for the working class, one that reformism is incapable of curing. We refuse at all times to politically support a system of society that, because of the ownership rights belonging to a class, forces the majority to seek their survival and livelihood by employment from the owning minority. Those with proprietorship, whether it be an individual, corporation or state, possess the monopoly and legal right entitling them to employ. This compels the rest to be employed, or as circumstances dictate, to be unemployed. 

It is significant to observe that unemployment becomes a focal point whilst “employment” is accepted as a way of life, seemingly destined to remain with us forever. Unemployment appears as the persistent challenge awaiting an eventual solution, notwithstanding that the class struggle embraces both conditions. Statistics verify that the problem of unemployment is an insoluble one as long as capitalism remains. The “experts” and “the economists,” true to character, disagree as to exact causes and applicable remedies. However, they are all apparently in complete unison in their approach to the existing system. This sacred cow is never accused or pin-pointed as the cause of the quandary. Such an attitude, of course, would pre-suppose the possession and acceptance of socialist knowledge coupled with a disregard for the security of their jobs should they ever publicize the correct scientific approach.

Capitalism operates as a gigantic worldwide market place in which commodities are produced primarily for sale and profit. Should the market place fail to absorb the commodities produced, unemployment, either on a comparative large or small scale, occurs. In addition, the actual employment of members of the working class depends upon the wishes and economic requirements of the capitalist class. For example, increased productivity resulting through the utilization of labor-saving machinery, with the consequent displacement of workers, could create unemployment to a limited degree. These various factors give rise to a standing army of unemployed, whose numbers from time to time may vary dramatically, but its existence is assured as long as the system remains.

In August, 1982 unemployment in Great Britain reached 3,292,702 or 13.8 per cent of the work force, its highest level since comprehensive records began in 1948, topping the 2,979,000 registered unemployed at the height of the Great Depression in January, 1933. True, this figure represented 19 per cent of a smaller work force but when you transfer the numbers to actual human beings, pitifully trying to survive, what difference does it make?

Unemployment in the U.S.A. reached nearly 12 million in November, 1982. These figures only disclose part of the situation. They do not take into account large numbers of demoralized workers who have stopped looking for jobs and others who are working part-time. Far higher percentages of unemployment are to be found amongst various sections of workers such as teenagers, black and Hispanic minorities, and those in heavily industrialized areas that have been hardest hit, such as the automobile and steel factories. A CBS news broadcast on October 10, 1982, contained a report from the AFL-CIO which claimed that there were 14.5 million actually unemployed who were looking for full-time jobs. In April, 1982 black unemployment in the U.S.A. climbed to 18.4 per cent, teen-age unemployment rose to 23 per cent and the unemployed in Detroit was 15 per cent.

The prestigious Wall Street Journal in an editorial on May 11, 1982 suggests the following:

“The answer to the unemployed problem is simple and obvious, but it is being resisted by Congress because of political fears that are only a little short of craven. The answer is to shift the nation’s priorities back toward production, away from non-production . . . All it needs is better leadership in Congress, that is to say removing the people who got us into this trouble and who refuse to admit that their politically convenient ideas were all wrong.”

Unemployment is linked to a market place unable to purchase the commodities already being produced. Therefore, it is surely ridiculous to suggest shifting “the nation’s priorities back toward production,” or in other words producing more for a market already incapable of coping with existing inventories. Industry, of course, does not function altruistically to provide employment for needy workers. The purpose of capitalist production is not to produce goods and services per se but to produce commodities for sale and profit. Unless a market can be reasonably expected production will not be forthcoming. As to the hoary plea for “better leadership,” this is the time-worn favorite peddled by the reformers when they imply that the cause is always with the shortcomings of the individuals or parties running the system but never, the Lord forbid, does the fault lie in the way in which capitalism functions.

Prime Minister Thatcher, in England, has blamed the unemployment rate increases on the recession and the failure by previous governments to tackle Britain’s economic problems. She apparently has not been able to improve matters since her government assumed power—in fact the reverse has happened. President Reagan, in the U.S.A., blames high interest rates, but history will show that when interest rates were comparatively low, unemployment was still with us. And when Canada’s jobless rate rose to a postwar high of 9.6 per cent in April, 1982 the Finance Minister, Allan MacEachen, volunteers some choice trivia:

"The key to world recovery at the present time, for the U.S. and for other countries, is a change in the monetary policy that is being pursued in the U.S.”

President Warren G. Harding in 1921, after listening to conflicting opinions offered by his economic advisers, at least possessed somewhat of an insight and frankness when he confided to a secretary, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1977:

“John, I can’t make a damn thing out of this . . . I listen to one side and they seem right, and then—God! I talk to the other side, and they seem just as right.

“I know somewhere there is a book that will give me the truth, but hell, I couldn’t read the book.

“I know somewhere there is an economist who knows the truth, but I don’t know where to find him and haven’t the sense to know and trust him when I do find him. God! What a job!”

In October, 1982 unemployment in the Netherlands increased to a postwar peak of 13.4 per cent of the work force. West Germany’s jobless was reported in early March, 1983 as having surpassed the 2.5 million mark, climbing to 10.4 per cent of the labor force in February, 1983. Sweden’s unemployment rose to 3.6 per cent of the labor force in February, 1983. Belgian unemployment in March, 1982 stood at 12.2 per cent of the labor force. In December, 1982 unemployment in the 10 European Economic Community countries reached 12.035 million—a post World War II record. In December, 1982, 12.8 per cent of the Canadian work force were unemployed— the highest level since the 1930’s. Japan’s jobless rate for January, 1983 topped 2.7 per cent, a 30-year high. In November, 1982 unemployment in Australia was reported at 8.2 per cent.

It should surely be obvious by now that if a formula existed to cure unemployment, then it would have been discovered long ago. Further, even if there were an absolute solution, it would not serve the interests of the ruling class to implement it. The continued presence of an unemployed segment of the working class enables the employers to exert downward pressure on wage levels, assuring them of surplus workers as and when they are needed.

The U.S. federal job-training program financed by the Labor Department under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act has already been termed a fraud by avowed supporters of the system. The program assumes that unemployment is caused by persons needing job training and job skills, whereas in actuality there is a shortage of jobs available even for those possessing the necessary skills. In effect, people are being trained for non-existent jobs. 

Reformist approaches towards unemployment have included government subsidization, nationalization, and the Keynesian goal of full employment through appropriate government intervention. All have failed as evidenced by current worldwide unemployment.

Governmental attempts at industrial intervention by means of subsidies are really an artificial process that ignores the prevailing economic climate. They might temporarily keep some workers employed, but this would be at the expense of the capitalist class as a whole since the funds would be provided through taxation. Such schemes tinker with the problem at best, are always short-lived, and can only be used on a very limited scale.

Nationalization in no way guarantees a solution because the same market conditions that create the challenges in private industry, namely selling commodities at a profit, predominate whether the businesses are owned privately or by the state. A graphic example of the desperation of American workers in government or nationalized occupations took place in March, 1982 when it was reported that

100,000 swarmed the post offices in the Miami area during a period of one week, applying for 700 positions that may not be available until 1985.

The U.S.S.R. has state capitalism operated on a national basis under the tyrannical dictatorship of the so-called Communist Party. Employment is controlled without any semblance of democracy, without legitimate trade union activity, and without permitted political opposition. The centralized control allows individual industries to be maintained financially, should the need arise, by support from the budget. However, as a consequence, efficiency in production is impaired and jobs are unnecessarily overstaffed. Denied the protection of unfettered trade unions (they exist in name only as they operate under direct Government control), and with no democracy, “employment” in Russia is wage-slavery at its very worst. Should you be designated a “dissident,” even your slave status could be jeopardized and you might find yourself among the 2 million people currently imprisoned in the Soviet penal system.

The Keynesian doctrines, formulated by J. M. Keynes, supports government action in order to maintain a demand for commodities through its own direct investments in the economy, which would hopefully result in more or less full employment. None of these devices, used and supported by past governments, in particular by both the Labour and Tory parties in England, have prevented recession, depression, inflation and massive unemployment.

It should be borne in mind that any growth in the total number of employed reported at any time is related to the fact that greater numbers of workers in the same family have had to seek employment in order to maintain the standard of living of the household. The numerical glorification that is sometimes touted as an example of more people being employed now than in the past is an attempt at making a virtue of the necessity of survival. Mothers, for example, are forced to leave their infant children in day-care homes in order to go to work and supplement their husband’s pay—this out of dire need and not as a means of “achieving economic freedom” or so-called “equality” with the menfolk. In a study, conducted by the Federal National Mortgage Association by the Louis Harris organization and reported in the Wall Street Journal on September 15, 1982, 91 per cent of those polled said they believe it takes a two income household to afford a mortgage today.

The working environment is geared to a profit motivated society which at all times places the successful production and realization of surplus values in a priority position as compared to human welfare. Physical conditions in a multitude of industries and instances, viewed from certain aspects, have of course improved substantially as capitalism has progressed from the 18th through to the 20th century. But this surface appraisal can be most misleading without further probing and evaluation. Although the socialist supports all trade union activity which results in the improvement of working conditions, our prime concern has never been, nor ever will be, the refinement of capitalism in order for profits to be accrued in more conducive surroundings. Granted, wage levels and working conditions are of paramount importance for the very survival of the vast majority as long as capitalism exists. We nevertheless limit our energies in this regard to trade union support and activity, but politically refuse to become involved in how best to run a system that we want abolished in the shortest possible time.

It should be recognized that plant, retail and office modernizations are not related to the activities of political reformists at all. Rather, they are the result of either trade union pressure to improve working conditions or the desire of the capitalist to remain competitive by providing up-to-date facilities. Within the bounds of certain economic considerations, to the degree that the workers are kept comparatively happy and healthy, so to that extent their exploitation is that much better accomplished. In a world which literally can be described as an armed camp, wherein the majority are economically imprisoned, you will not find us clamoring for more “humane prisons,” but for a society in which prisons are non-existent. Likewise, we will not be found in association with the reformists—they decry the inhumanities of capitalism but never urge for its abolition in order to effectively deal with fundamental causes. The main task therefore confronting the “imprisoned” should be the abolition of the prison and not in diversions which look for improvements in its operation.

In any event, the superficial, physical upgrading of working conditions that have been accomplished are more than offset by the pollution of the environment that capitalist industrialization has created. Its waste products, indiscriminate use of chemicals and materials, radiation and nuclear poisons have all resulted in an enormous detriment to health over the past several decades. Cancer, for example, has enveloped us like a plague. I, for one, do not need any further proof beyond my own common sense and personal experience to realize that there isa relationship of cause and effect between our modern-day pervasive pollution and cancer. Furthermore, the mental health of the population, as evidenced by the inundated clinics, hospitals and sanitariums, and directly caused by the stresses and insecurities of a competitive, anti-social environment, should be taken into consideration when comparisons are made between past and present conditions.

The analysis of the environment should be examined in its entirety. This would take us beyond the factory gates and offices, to be confronted with a world balancing on the precipice of nuclear war. Such an approach, together with a veritable multitude of deplorable working conditions and social circumstances that still prevail, and for that matter will always remain in some form or other under capitalism, should remove all reasons for complacency or satisfaction from the reformists.

In March, 1980 The International Labor Organization reported that more than 55 million children under the age of 15 are being exploited around the globe. They stated, as an example, that match factories in India employ more than 20,000 children, some as young as 5, for a 16-hour work day beginning in some instances at 3 a.m. On a visit to Toledo, Spain several years ago, after being charmingly offered a glass of port by one of the factory managers, we were escorted through the factory where I was horrified to see young children 8/10 years old, working at the benches with detailed and intricate filigree which of course could be ruinous to their eyes at such an early age.

On February 27, 1981 it was reported in the Arizona Daily Star that in the New York City garment industry sweatshops have grown from fewer that 200 to 3,000 in the last decade.

It was reported in the New York Times, February 5, 1982 that according to Dr. Loren Kerr, a leading authority on occupational disease, the deaths of 4,000 coal miners each year can be safely attributed to black lung disease. He is quoted as saying:

“Most coal operators are anxious to increase production, even when it raises dust levels above legally defined limits. Federal inspectors must insist on adequate ventilation and water spraying to control this dust today, or else years down the road, miners will suffer an avalanche of new breathing problems.”

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, June 18, 1981 it was stated that after a Supreme Court ruling on cotton dust it could be expected that the textile industry would be installing new, more efficient equipment that could help eliminate the incidence of brown lung disease. The article further states:

“Even as mills modernize and reduce dust levels, problems concerning brown lung disease remain unresolved. Questions regarding compensation for workers who contracted the disease long before mills began to clean up, how smoking affects susceptibility and what specifically causes the disease are still unanswered.”

In April, 1978 the U.S. Government, through its Health, Education and Welfare Secretary, said that as many as 5.6 million Americans may die of cancer or other diseases as a result of the exposure to asbestos in shipyards and other workplaces since the beginning of World War II. As a sequel to this the Manville Corporation, the nation’s largest producer of the mineral fiber asbestos, filed in August, 1982 for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The company had become inundated with thousands of law suits, together with the potential of many more in the future, most of them filed by workers claiming the inhaling of asbestos fibers, which damaged their health and often led to death. The cost of this pending litigation had been estimated at $2 billion or more—hence the reason for the company seeking the protection afforded by the bankruptcy laws.

It is glaringly obvious that through the years the working class have never had disclosed to them the true occupational hazards of their employment. Such disclosures might well have deterred some; it would certainly have given others leverage in wage and environmental negotiations; but, notwithstanding, most no doubt, out of economic necessity, would still have been forced to an exposure resulting in ill-health and untimely death.

Whether employed or otherwise the dark cloud of insecurity will always permeate the lives of those living in a class society. No reform can ever properly convey the precious attribute of security to those dependent on their masters, within a capricious, anarchical system impersonal to human values. When the working class finally awaken to their true position of servitude as employees, with socialism on the horizon, it is more than likely that the international atmosphere will be resounding with cries of “take this job and shove it!” And such crudity may well be forgiven in view of the historic and belated justification.

Cyprus—A Mediterranean Hotspot (1958)

From the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cyprus is the healthiest place in the world—for anyone except a policeman. It exports false teeth and fine lace and the seeds from which many an English gardener raises his cauliflowers. It is an island in a state of confused emergency, where the Greeks riot because they want the British occupation to end and the Turks riot because they want it to continue. The British don’t intend to leave, anyway. The island has been a trouble spot for centuries; what is the background to the present disturbances ?

History and Economy

The history of Cyprus is the history of sea-power in the Eastern Mediterranean; the island has always been occupied by a dominant naval power. In 1571 it became part of the Ottoman Empire and this lasted until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 revived European interest in its strategic position. At the time Russia was penetrating into Asia Minor, and when in 1877 they inflicted a tremendous defeat on the Turks at Adrianople and Armenia, London decided to intervene, (In the music halls they were singing the song which began, “We don't want to fight, but by jingo! if we do. . . .") Turkey accepted Russia’s terms at San Stefano in 1878; at the same time she signed a “Convention of Defensive Alliance” with Great Britain which agreed to British occupation of Cyprus, in return for an undertaking to fight with Turkey against future Russian expansion. On the outbreak of war in 1914 Britain annexed the island by Order in Council, on the grounds that Turkey was then an enemy country. In 1923 Greece and Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which recognised British possession of Cyprus as part of the territorial balance in the area.

The first Britishers found Cyprus an impoverished land, with backward agricultural methods and suffering from chronic soil erosion. Forests had been ruthlessly destroyed and there were few useful roads, bridges or harbours. As British occupation became established, capital flowed into the island and reafforestation and agricultural development schemes were started. The copper mines (reputed to be the first in the world, but neglected since the Romans left) were reopened. By 1928 the Cypriot population was twice as large as in 1878 and everything was controlled by a police force and legal system similar to the British patterns

The Cypriot economy remains based on its agriculture, which absorbs over half the working population. Mineral production is of great importance, and there is a little minor industry, producing buttons, hand-made shoes, and the like. Most of the exports go to West Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy, in that order; the United Kingdom supply the bulk of the island's imports. The death rate in Cyprus is among the world’s lowest—at 6.3 per 1,000, lower than the U.S.A. and Great Britain. Although it was once called one of the most malarious places in the world, Cyprus has not had a single case of the disease since 1949. At the moment there is virtually no unemployment on the island (unless EOKA can be said to be out of work!), but this could easily change, for 60 per cent. of the exports are made up of minerals, at prices at the mercy of world trading conditions.

EOKA, the Greeks and the Church

EOKA (the letters stand for the Greek words meaning National Organisation of Cypriot Combatants), emphasises the campaign for enosis (union of Cyprus with Greece) by acts of killing and sabotage. At its head is Colonel George Grivas, a romantically 'moustached character who once led the KHI. This undercover royalist movement was held responsible for many murders in the 1946-47 disturbances in Greece.

The EOKA guerrilla hide-out in the Troodos mountains, coming down into the towns to kill selected persons, or to toss a bomb (as many as 20 a day have been known recently). The organisation has been active for about three years, killing over 100 and wounding over 350 British people. For the past year or so things have been quieter until the recent bomb incidents. Now EOKA are threatening another campaign unless the Cyprus question is settled quickly. General Kendrew, who once captained the England Rugby team and who now commands the British security forces, has promised that if EOKA starts up again they will get treatment which will make the Harding regime seem "mild and benevolent" by comparison.

The idea of enosis is not new. The first British Governor in 1878 was greeted by the Bishop of Kition with the hope that “. . .  Great Britain will help Cyprus . . . to be united with Mother Greece. . . ." In 1931 there were violent demonstrations in favour of enosis, after which 10 Cypriots, including two bishops, were exiled and the island's Legislative Council suspended. This upset may have been aggravated by the extreme conditions which Cyprus was experiencing in the world slump, but it is difficult to find any similar reason to explain the enosis movement to-day. As we have seen, most of the colony's trade is with Europe, and certainly Greece, with her low standard of living, infantile trade union movement and lack of political freedom should offer little to attract a thoughtful Cypriot. If the emigration figures are a guide, few Cypriots are attracted to Greece. 6,441 Cypriots left the island in 1956; 5,233 of these came to the United Kingdom and 730 went to Australia. Between 1952 and 1955 only 15 Cypriots went to Greece. The principal force behind the enosis movement stems from the fact that 80 per cent. of Cypriots are of Greek origin and are easily misled into supporting the Greek effort in her age-long struggle with Turkey over the territorial carve-up of Asia Minor. The Cypriot Communists also support enosis, even though their counterparts in Greece have been very roughly treated and General Grivas is their fanatical opponent.

The Greek Orthodox Church is a substantial landowner in Cyprus and a powerful supporter of union with Greece. The Church's political influence began with the Turkish occupation, when leaders of the Church were granted the Sultan's commission to collect taxes and to keep an eye on the not always submissive local officers of the Ottoman Empire. These leaders became associated with the illegal anti-Turkish movement; when the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821 nine of them were publicly hanged and several more beheaded. The British put an end to the tax gathering, but the Church was unwilling to abandon all its temporal activities; it therefore devoted itself to political affairs and, as tradition foretold, gave support to the enosis movement. Now that the movement has gathered its own momentum, the Church dare not drop its support, for fear of losing influence to laymen. Because of their attitude, Archbishop Makarios and the Bishop of Kyrenia were deported to the Seychelles Islands in March of 1956. A year later they were released and allowed to go anywhere except Cyprus.

The Turks

As the Greeks rang their bells to celebrate Makarios’ release, and as Lord Salisbury left the British Government in disgust, so Turkish Cypriots sent a protesting telegram to the Prime Minister of Turkey. What are the Turkish interests in Cyprus ?

Although Russian penetration may present a greater threat, the Turkish Government must still worry about the long struggle with Greece. It remembers the attack of 1922, when the Greeks almost reached Ankara, but were thrown back upon Smyrna, where Kemal Attaturk massacred them with indescribable bestiality. They cannot forget that Cyprus is only 40 miles from the Turkish mainland and commands the approaches to the important ports of Mersin and Iskenderum. They look on a Greek Cyprus as an intolerable threat.

Yet a Turkish Cyprus is out of the question, for the Turks make up only 18 per cent, of the island's population. So Ankara is in favour of British occupation of Cyprus and supports British power in the Middle East, as a check on Greek ambitions. No Cyprus question, therefore, existed for Turkey, until recently they sensed a change in British policy. Then the Turks began to kick over the traces. Only after protest did they make the “final sacrifice" of accepting the idea of partitioning Cyprus. Now, convinced that London is preparing to betray them, they have started rioting, complete with killings and demonstrating schoolchildren. They have called for the dismissal of the liberal" governor. Sir Hugh Foot and the return of the "tough" General Harding. There is a Turkish Resistance Movement which has declared itself “on the verge" of starting its (ominous words) "struggle for freedom.” The Turks have shown that they can be as violent as the Greeks.

British Interests

In all this confusion of interests, the policy of the British Government remains firm to the point of stagnation. Gone are the days of 1915, when the Greeks were offered Cyprus in exchange for support of Serbia against Bulgaria (Athens declined). Every proposal made by the British Government in recent years, including those of the Radcliffe enquiry in late 1956, have clearly presupposed the continuation of British occupation of Cyprus.

Why is Whitehall so adamant ? The 1956 Colonial Office report on Cyprus stated that ". . . Her Majesty's Government formally recognised the principle of self-determination, but considered its application not to be a practical proposition at the present time on account of the existing situation in the Eastern Mediterranean." That is the clue to it. Great Britain was once the dominant power of the Middle East. Now, with the oil discoveries throwing up nationalist Governments, British influence has been squeezed out of one country after another. Apart from her own interest in the oilfields, Britain has a number of strategic obligations to protect the sheikdoms on the Persian Gulf against attack by their neighbours (the most powerful of these is the American-influenced Saudi Arabia). Cyprus, the one remaining toehold in the area, is vital to this conception of British interests, as a convenient springboard from which the Persian Gulf can be reinforced.

Great Britain also has commitments to the Bagdad Pact, which joins Pakistan, Persia, Iraq and Turkey in a defensive alliance with the classical aim of preventing Russian penetration of the Middle East Cyprus—1½ hours’ flying time from Bagdad—is important to British participation in the pact. So the British stay in Cyprus and, for fear of being voted out of the island, will not, allow the Cypriots to express their preference on enosis. To put the matter into sharper perspective we should remember that the bloodshed in Cyprus is small beer compared to that in, say, Algeria. And Greece is not the only small country with imperialist designs; the Yemen, Spain, Guatemala and Mexico are others.

Tragedy

There are people (they often call themselves Socialists) who like to think that the Cyprus struggle is a special sort of regrettable tragedy. They thought the same about Kenya and Malaya, and before that of Ireland. The ignorance and don’t care attitude, which never tries to find out the reason for these problems—that is the real tragedy, in Cyprus and England and over all the world.

Ivan.

May Day and the Class Struggle (1958)

From the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

May Day demonstrations used to be held on the 1st of May: how they came to be changed to the first Sunday in May is one of life’s little ironies, or should we say one of working class life’s little ironies?

It happened during the first World War when the British and German sections of the working class were killing each other. Then the British Government suggested that in the interests of winning the war it would be greatly obliged if the Labour Party, who were also "winning the war” as well as organising May Day, would hold it on the first Sunday in May. To hold it on a week day would mean thousands of workers might be absent from munition factories and that would mean a drop in war production and what was more vital it would mean a drop in the rate at which the British uniformed workers were killing their German comrades.

It always rains on Sunday

After the first World War the Labour Party, presumably on the grounds that a week day demonstration would affect “peace production,” continued to hold May Day demonstrations on the first Sunday in May. There were also “influential people” who thought that if workers wanted to demonstrate they should demonstrate in their own time and not on a day normally devoted to the bosses. And further, as it could be shown statistically that the first May Sabbath was a case—”That it always rains on Sunday" — or nearly always, and so was likely to dampen the demonstrators’ ardour, everybody that is everybody apart from the workers seems to have reached a happy May Day solution.

The First of the May Days

There are, of course, four May Days historically considered. Two in the past, one in the present, and a hypothetical one in the future. May Days go back a long way, even the Greeks had a word for it, or more accurately a day for it. So did the Romans, Mais was a month of celebration, games and feasting a time when even austere Romans like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony took their hair down.

In Feudal England it was a day of celebration for the return of spring. On that day our forbears consumed quantities of cake and ale and made whoopee. It was sort of “Knees up Mother Brown” of the Middle Ages, and when the warmth of the day had subsided the young men full of cake and ale picked up the young women, also full of cake and ale, and bore them off into the woods, and a new warmth entered into the proceedings. It is even said, and I hope that I do our forbears no injustice that the girls entered the woods as immature maidens and came out of the woods experienced women. It seems that our working forefathers had more definite ideas about May Day than their modern counterparts.

Exit file First May Day

But Feudalism went and those sorts of May Days went with it—as a result of economic development a new class was emerging who were displacing the old Feudal order, a class of merchants and merchant adventurers who burst asunder the dosed Feudal economy and opened up the world. And what with piracy and plunder and the slave trade and colonisation they were so busy amassing vast wealth that they had little time for anything else, least of all for such things as May Days.

But the peasants and draftsmen of England not only lost their May Days, but their immemorial rights. The Land Enclosure increased in severity—as the 17th and 18th centuries went by a vast mass of peasants became landless and in some cases homeless. At the same time economic development led to a bitter, competitive struggle between the old craft guilds and the new merchant class and in the end the guilds went down in ruins before the impact of a new and superior method of wealth production and organisation.

Thus at the end of the 18th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, a landless, unprivileged and unorganised mass were hungry to enter the new factories built by the new factory owners, i.e. the new ruling class which had emerged from this process of economic development. And these new factory owners equally hungry from the standpoint of profits to receive them into their factories. It was this uncouth, unorganised mass who were the nucleus and origin of the modern working class, yet an unorganised mass who were to become organised by the very process of production. And as the weight of misery and oppression bore more heavily upon their shoulders they were involved in the riots and machine breaking and other acts of violence. From this class struggle between owners and non-owners, the workers began to throw up their own class organs of defence, which later emerged as the modern Trade Union Movement. 

The Second May Day

It was out of this class struggle that the idea of a second May Day emerged. Not a May Day merely symbolical of a resurgence of nature, but of labour carrying a promise of a new life. The idea was mooted in France, Germany and England during the 19th century for by this time capitalism had become international and the working class had become international also, and it was felt by groups of workers in different lands that as they had common interests they should also have common aims.

Yet it was not until 1888 that the 2nd International set aside the first day of May to be a day symbolical of international working class solidarity, with an advocacy of the eight-hour day. The first May Day Demonstration was in 1890. On that and subsequent May Days, Negroes, Indians, Chinamen, Germans, Frenchmen, marched in the name of the International working class in different parts of the world, transcending their national boundaries.

In England on May Day, workers marched in various towns and cities and often many of their women marched with them. They marched to the open spaces and parks and those who lived by the sweat of their brow gathered round coal carts and platforms to listen to those who lived or were later to live by the sweat of their tongues. 

Workers of the World unite

It was the high tide of working class international feeling. A time when Marx's slogan, “workers of the world unite” seemed to have more significance than ever before—or since. These workers were not Socialists; perhaps the nearest they got to Socialism was a passionate conviction to remould things nearer to the heart's desire, but they felt a common purpose in face of a common enemy. But this promised spring-time of the working class movement never flowered. The early blush on its cheek, faded before the long, hard winter of growing national sentiment and reformism.

By the turn of the 20th century a change had come o'er the spirit of the dream. The workers still marched, they still gathered round the same coal carts and still listened to the same old speakers. But the old speakers were now saying new things. No longer did they cry, down with the powers that be, for they were trying to start a political movement with the help of the trade unions which hoped to become part of the powers that be and in fact did become part of them—eventually what is more, some of the old agitators and speakers who boasted of their lowly origins successfully took part in that process. So successfully that in their ripe, or rotten ripe old age they recorded their success by writing books like “From Doss House to Debrett" or “From Pigstyle to Parliament," a perhaps not unnatural evolution.

Excelsior!

And so the Labour movement began to carry banners bearing strange signs. There were some in it demanding votes for women. Demands for the nationalisation of the Railways and Mines. Munidpalisation of gas, water and later electricity. The fact that these things came about has little to do with the early demands of the Labour Movement, but for other reasons. There was even a demand for the building of Labour Exchanges.

These things were now represented as being steps towards what was then termed the Millenium. The only trouble was that the more steps they took towards the Millenium the further it got away. In fact, they took so many steps towards it that it finally disappeared altogether and has never been seen since.

Freedom for Everybody

At the beginning of the 20th century there appeared the first of the Freedoms. Big banners proclaimed: "Freedom for the Boers." In due course the Boers got their freedom, but like so many such freedoms it turned out to be the freedom of the few to deny any sort of freedom to anybody else. Then there were demands for freedom for the Poles, freedom for the Slavs, etc., in fact, the only thing the workers never demanded was freedom for themselves, freedom from the servility of class domination.

Then the Labour Movement got mixed up with international politics, but international capitalist politics not international working class politics. They began by declaiming against "secret diplomacy." Then the Entente Cordiale. They demanded "No trafficking with Russia” against "The Big Navy Bill,” "Abolition of the Territorial Army,” etc.

So the Labour Movement, and with it May Days, instead of being the sounding board of international working class sentiment, became a big drum for national rivalries and conflicting foreign politics. A sort of Empire Day in reverse, but much more effective in compounding, confounding, complicating and obfuscating the pattern of working class politics.

After the war, with the advent of the communists in May Day demonstrations and other activities, British Foreign Policy got mixed up with Soviet Foreign Policy and things got in a glorious muddle. Then the communists started the "Hands off Movement" " Hands off China," "Hands off Spain," "Hands off Czechoslovakia," etc., although this did not prevent violent hands from being laid on all of these countries. Then there was the great down and up phase: "Down with Bonar Law," "Down with Baldwin,” "Up with Ramsay Mac and Snowden. “Down with Ramsay Mac and Snowden,” "Up with Cook and Maxton," "Down with Cook and Maxton,” "Down with Churchill," " Up with Churchill," then "Down with Churchill ”—ad infinitum.

Down with Fascism

Then in the years prior to the second world war there was “Down with Fascism" and a demand for a democratic military alliance against Hitler—Russia was then part of the " democratic alliance.” To show how May Days were only consistent in their inconsistency there were at the same time demands for drastic disarmament by the Tory government and devoting the savings to road making and increased doles. There were even demands that future wars should be conducted minus bombers and tanks. Although in demonstrations during the second world war unlimited quantities of both for the Second Front were the subject of slogans.

Now there are no longer cries, such as “ Down with capitalism—" Down with war." Nor even that tanks and aeroplanes should not be used in war. Only the Hydrogen Bomb should be taken off the war list so that war might once again become humane, decent and friendly. Such then has been the rise and fall of the second May Day.

May Day in Russia

One cannot, of course, omit May Day in Russia. No doubt the communists' dialectic skill has more than anywhere else turned May Day into its opposite. The communist boast that Soviet May Days are bigger and better than anywhere else. Unlike any other government they have made them state subsidised ceremonies, replete with the panoply and pomp of circumstance. As a show they probably make even a coronation look like a seaside carnival. All the great ones in Russia occupy the seats of the mighty on this day—symbolical of international working class solidarity. In Czarist times the police and military marched with the workers, but they were only with them, not of them. Now under the formulae of the unity of opposites they are included.

Tanks and jet bombers are also thrown in to show that communist war weapons can kill quicker and faster than bourgeois ones, thus demonstrating the superiority of "Socialism" over capitalism. And perhaps if Engels could have seen these Soviet May Days he might have thought that his aphorism—"the irony of history turns everything upside down," was an historic understatement.

To draw an historic parallel, one might think of the British Government in the 19th century organising the workers' May Day. Of thousands of workers with banners headed by old Queen Victoria in the gilded state coach and as they wheeled into the park massed bands of the guard playing with a row tow row tow to the British Grenadiers. And Gladstone, Disraeli and choice spirits from the House of Lords standing on coal carts with faces grimed for the occasion, proclaiming "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your brains." Only the communists could turn such a May Day fantasy, into a Russian May Day nightmare.

No doubt in turning back the pages of May Day demonstrations we might laugh at our Victorian working class grandfathers. We tend to laugh at many things in the past especially the Victorian past if only perhaps to prevent us from laughing at ourselves, because that might not be so funny. Whether if they could' see across the years to the present May Day demonstrations they would "look forward in anger” one cannot say. But one feels whatever they did they wouldn’t laugh at us but blush for us instead.

May Days of To-morrow

It might be that when the clock of history has gone forward by establishing a rational society we might so far as May Day is concerned put the clock back and make it once more a day of celebration and merry making. Then there will be no need to demonstrate. No need to cry “Down with secret diplomacy,” because there will be neither secrets nor diplomacy. Nor to call for disarmament, because there will be no need to arm or disarm Neither shall we organise for the abolition of the Hydrogen Bomb because it, or a miniature specimen of it, will have been relegated to the museum of pre-human history. Men will at last have become truly human, and in the light of that development I will conclude by saying—MAY DAY IS DEAD—LONG LIVE MAY DAY.

Ted Wilmott.

Blogger's Notes:

"Yet it was not until 1888 that the 2nd International set aside the first day of May . . . " This might be a typo. The 2nd International wasn't formally launched until 1889.

The May 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard carries a notice for a May Day meeting, entitled "The Class Struggle and May Day", to be held at Denison House, 296 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. The speakers listed were Lisa Bryan and Ted Wilmott. There's a strong chance that this article by Wilmott is the text of his speech at that meeting.