Letter From Vienna: Postscript on Skopje (1963)

From the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

When I learned of the earthquake in Yugoslavia and the terrible fate of the victims, it brought back to mind my own terrifying experiences in Vienna, as it must have reminded millions of others in the world, who survived the bombing of their homes and the carnage in the 1940s. The blind forces of nature could not then be blamed for it. No, these deeds were unspeakable crimes perpetrated by deliberate human design, scientifically organized and directed by the managers and other hirelings of capitalism, supported and blessed by the church!

That 20 years later this ogre of capitalist war should still have been able to stalk the earth, openly parade his armour, and boast of the ever-growing destructive power of the megation bombs and Polaris craft, will probably be one of the phenomena incomprehensible to a future society no longer afflicted with political mental inertia.

The suffering of the survivors of the earthquake in Yugoslavia has been temporarily mitigated, as usual under capitalism, by charity. Collections and other assistance have been organised by many countries, but when these helpful channels dry up, the surviving victims will, as usual, be left to their wretched fate.

Some details in connection with this disaster should be put on record, if only to nail the lie and show the hollowness of the assertion that capitalism has been abolished somewhere and replaced by a new and better social system. You may indeed ask how the mass of the people in Yugoslavia can be made to now accept a regime of despotism equal to that of Hitler—the squashing of democracy, the setting up of a Yugoslav Gestapo, forced labour camps, and prison for political opponents of the regime, supply the answer to that question. It is fear of persecution—the fate of Milovan Djilas' (seven years’ prison for free expression of opinion and publishing a book The New Class) it is government terror that makes people under ruthless dictatorship acquiesce in the horrible regime of State capitalism masquerading under the name of communism.

Among the many helpers of the earthquake victims, neighbouring Austria showed a quite remarkable zeal in assisting the great efforts to alleviate the distress. even though there is at all times great poverty, homelessness and helplessness in her own country. Poignant tales of human misery' and tragedies fill the columns of the daily Press. Who here has not read of evicted families with eight and more children seeking to spend the night in public parks or in ruined houses before being removed by the Police to some barracks? Every autumn every house in Vienna carries a big poster appealing for funds to help the needs and destitute by supporting the innumerable charitable institutions up and down the country. Our letter boxes are constantly filled with appeals for assistance to the countless local poor. But how much greater is the poverty behind the iron curtain and the helplessness in emergencies such as an earthquake!

So, in addition to all the funds the Viennese business firms and newspapers collected, and the trucks full of clothing, bedding, blankets, tents and toys sent to Skopje, a Welfare organisation under the auspices of the Arbeiler-Zeitung also invited seventy orphans to come to Vienna, where they would be taken care of as the guests of the organisation. Everything was prepared down to the minutest detail, and the children duly arrived at Marburg on the iron curtain border, where Austrian officials had previously arrived to receive the children and see them safely to Vienna. Here also the children were to have a grand reception by the Bürgermeister and a staff of welfare officials.

But—sad to relate the orphans never got beyond Marburg. Instead of proceeding to Vienna, they had to go back to the communist paradise. Not that there are no wonderful places in Yugoslavia, but these are not for the poverty-stricken wage slaves or the victims of earthquakes—they are for the new class, the new bourgeoisie.

Why had the orphaned children to be sent back?

Apparently the Yugoslav dictator and his close circle had been too busy with the preparations for a right royal reception of their Soviet visitors to he able to supervise and check up on all arrangements made by their underlings. Anyway, when the higher quarters learned of these particular welfare arrangement, the children’s exit from the communist paradise and their journey to “capitalist Austria” was stopped. The underlings in charge of the Skopje victims had received their instructions, plus lessons in communist superior “statesmanship" and diplomacy, the orphans had to remain in Yugoslavia, and Tito's preparations for his trip abroad (this time to America) on his luxury yacht, as befits a ruler, could proceed without further worries. What does the disappointment of poor children—not to speak of the zealous welfare organizers—matter to communist despots with axes to grind?

With humble expressions of regret, but undeterred by this snub, the Arbeiter-Zeitung sent all the clothing in a big truck-load to the Yugoslav children who of course were overjoyed with the gifts. According to a reporter, the coats and other garments were the first they had had in their lives. Obligingly, hardly any other newspaper commented on this episode and on the embarrassment of a so called communist government in its utter failure to cope with an emergency. With the exception of belatedly refusing the foreign help offered to the seventy Skopje orphans, this “communist ” government was not too proud to decline other western assistance and gifts to its poor people.

If, after 46 years of existence, further evidence was still needed to show the cold-blooded swindle, and demolish the impudent assertion that Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania and China are communist, recent developments and experiences there should provide that final evidence. Or will the working class, of Czechoslovakia, for example, for ever ignore such almost unbelievable episodes as those of the nine of the eleven prominent Czech communist politicians hanged in 1952, and now rehabilitated as not guilty of the accusations levelled against them 11 years ago? And will the fiasco of the Moscow so called Ideological Conference also be passed over in true capitalist style, like world-wars, as all in the days work?

Rudolf Frank

Finance and Industry: For the record (1963)

The Finance and Industry Column from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

For the record

Britain's industrial revolution was powered by coal and forged in iron. It was the Darby's of Coalbrookdale, a family of ironmasters, who pioneered the technique of first coking the coal which in turn enabled the use of English ores; in less than half a century, coal and iron between them had transformed the face of England. Since then coal has lost ground to oil, but iron and steel continue to dominate the economy of world capitalism.

It was iron that provided a material strong enough to stand up to steam and so paved the way for Watt’s engines. Industry was able to get away from the rivers and streams and its dependence on waterwheels. Hundreds of miles of canals were built in no time to cope with the increased demands of the blast furnaces for coal. Roads were built to carry away the manufactures.

In the I850's, iron gave way to steel with the developments introduced by Bessemer and Siemens of using “blowers” to raise the furnace temperature and get rid of the impurities in the iron. Since then there have been further improvements, using electric furnaces for special steels and, very recently, the use of oxygen instead of air for the blast. At the same time, as the industry has grown bigger and bigger, more use has been made of the integrated plant principle whereby all the processes of steelmaking are concentrated on the same site- hence the growth of the huge complexes which are the dominant feature today.

These installations need vast capital resources. United States Steel, the biggest producer in the world, has a share capital of over £1,000 million and its nearest rival. Bethlehem Steel, more than £500 million. The world is now scoured for iron-ore; mountains of it are literally taken away and transported thousands of miles to the furnaces. Marvels of engineering construction are built to load and unload it and bulk carriers of up to 100,000 tons ply a ferry service across the oceans. More and more, the furnaces are migrating to the coast to eliminate transport costs—the result is the huge new plants at Newport and Dunkirk, and the proposed giant complex at Rotterdam.

In the Darby’s time, a firm was big if it produced a thousand tons of iron a year; nowadays it is in economic danger if it produces less than a million, or even two million, tons. Steel is still one of the pillars of capitalism’s economy—it is still the barometer that can forecast whether the economy is set fair, or there are storms ahead, or just a period of doldrums.

As usual under capitalism, the tendency is towards bigger and bigger units. There are still absorptions and amalgamations going on, and more and more does an annual output of 2 million tons seem the minimum unit for present day efficiency and competitiveness. In the following table, showing the “top twenty” producers in the world excluding Russia and China, the minimum is actually about 2$ million tons a year.

The most striking impression from the figures is, of course, the overwhelming preponderance of the American firms, particularly U.S. steel, which on its own has a greater output of steel than the whole of the U.K. It is also interesting to note the apparently greater fragmentation of the British industry. United Steel is the only British firm to appear, in the table and there is only one other, the Steel Company of Wales, in the next ten, whereas there are three further German companies, three French, and one Japanese.

We hope to take a further look into the international steel industry in a later issue.

Rivalry v. Safety

We do not need to labour the point about the intense competition existing at present in the aviation industry. What with the excitement over Australia’s decision to buy American TFX's instead of British TSR-2's, the race between the Anglo/French Concord and the U.S. Mach 2 airliner; and the current struggle of B.A.C. to get their V.C.-10 into the air commercially before the Douglas D.C.-9; the aeroplane manufacturers must really be having a worrying time of it.

It was thus a major setback for B.A.C. when their prototype V.C.-I0 crashed recently, apparently as a result of trouble with the tail assembly.

As is well known, the V.C.-10 carries on a technique, engines set well back in the rear, that was developed originally by the French company, Sud-Aviation, with their Caravelle. And it is with Sud- Aviation that B.A.C. are developing the new supersonic Concord.

It has also been known for some time that the V.C.-10 has been running into snags with this particular tail assembly—only a few months ago B.A.C. announced publicly that they had had to modify it. Strong rumour also has it that the Caravelle went through similar troubles in its early development stages. What more natural, then, that B.A.C. should ask Sud-Aviation—after all, their collaborators in the Concord—for details of their earlier experiences of putting engines under the tail?

And what sort of an answer do you think they got? A very dusty one, according to an Insight report in the Sunday Times of October 27 -“Sud-Aviation would disclose nothing.”

A few months later, the V.C.-10 crashed, killing all its crew. There may conceivably be other crashes before the makers discover what is happening to the tail assembly.

In the meantime, the Caravelle flies on, with hardly a competitor. And the longer the V.C.-10 takes to get commercially off the ground the longer will Sud-Aviation enjoy this happy state of affairs. Co-operation may be all very well but under capitalism one must be very careful not to carry it too far.

Stan Hampson