Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received a further letter from the critic to whose letter we replied in the August issue.—Ed. Comm.)

Golders Green, N.W.11.

22 August, 1955.

The reply to my letter on the subject of Class Struggle and Socialism (August issue) makes no serious attempt to meet my criticisms. The class struggle, in any meaningful sense, is a struggle between class and class. The struggle for Socialism (I would not dhoqse the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion) is not of one class against another but is against the whole theory and practice of classes in society. It may be deplorable that benevolent old gentlemen say, in ostrich fashion, “Let us ignore classes . . ." but when they add “. . . let us regard each other as human beings" they are stating no less than the essential truth about how people will regard each other in Socialist society. And if the achievement of such a society is our conscious aim, then we cannot start too soon to put into practice the theory we value so highly.

The Ed. Comm frequently uses the phrase “the Socialist working class.” This is not a very helpful classification, because it confuses two quite different functions. In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e., a classless society. This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists. It is a criticism of the statement “I want Socialism because I’m a worker.” This statement is misleading. You want Socialism because you want to change society from a class-divided one in which you are a worker to a classless one in which you are simply and more fully a human being.

“The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” There is some truth is this. to the extent that workers are struggling against the Capitalist system and to introduce a system more worthy of human beings. But the separate interests of either of two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term “ class ” is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one,

An individual Capitalist can be a Socialist and can join in the work of achieving Socialism on the same terms as any other person. Obviously he doesn’t have working-class aspirations—except in the sense that he seeks the welfare of workers. He, in common with the worker, can have no greater aspiration than the welfare of the whole of humanity. Whatever makes one aspire to Socialism, one certainly does not do so from the standpoint of a class that is to disappear with the realisation of Socialism.

It is quite true that I reject the conception of a Socialist working class taking political action to end class society. The Ed. Comm calls this “the Socialist conception.” Let us see to what extent this is true. The statement by the Executive Committee in the August issue on the interpretation of Cause 6 of the Declaration of Principles explains that “when the workers understand the source of their subject position and the action they must take to abolish it, they can do so by sending representatives to Parliament to take control of the State power for this purpose.” Coming into what the Executive Committee calls the region of conjecture, allowance has then to be made for “a theoretically possible attempt in some form of violent sabotage during the revolutionary reorganisation. The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent to any such violent attempt without these forces having necessarily to be used. Should a violent minority attempt to destroy Socialism they would have to be forcibly dealt with.”

There are good grounds for the doubts that those both inside and outside the Socialist Party have about the validity of this approach. Note the curious view that Socialists would be justified in threatening or using violence to deter the violence of others. Remember that Socialism is a society in which, to quote from the Party pamphlet on War, “no coercion will be needed because each will gain from co-operating harmoniously with his fellows.” Many Socialists feel that it spoils the whole thing if the rider is added “but we are prepared to bash those who won’t co-operate.” And they have some reason for feeling this. “A violent minority attempting to destroy Socialism” does not present a picture of any kind of possible social situation that I could imagine. If it was an attempt to destroy London or the Red Army, for example, it would be meaningful to me. However, a majority at least of the E.C. must be able to visualise circumstances in which Socialism could be physically battled for. We must then proceed to ask what further social arrangements will accompany the Socialist armed forces. Are we to have Socialist prison camps, judges, and spies? Fortunately, as a “critic” I do not expect to be called upon to take up arms to defend the revolution.

Another objection to the view expressed by the E.C. is more serious, and will be treated accordingly. We are asked to imagine a stage in the future development of society when the mass of people will be Socialists, i.e. will have abandoned support of Capitalist institutions, and will have in general the attitudes to social issues that Socialists have today. What will have happened to institutions while these tremendous changes in attitudes will have taken place ? The E.C. writes of such entities as Parliament, the State, the powers of government, the armed forces, as though they will remain substantially unchanged and function as they do today, but in an environment in which the barometer of social attitudes will be registering Socialism. For such a colossal disparity to exist between prevailing attitudes and institutions in any human society would be as major a denial of all that has been learned in terms of every social science as the denial of the law of gravity would be in physical terms.

I have so far largely only criticised the case put forward by the Socialist Party. For a statement of positive views which are consistent with the above criticisms, readers are referred to the article “The Socialist Movement,” in the April, 1955 issue of Forum (published by the S.P.G.B.) and to the publications of the Movement for Social Integration.

Yours sincerely,

S. R. Parker.

Reply:

This correspondence started with our critic objecting to a statement published in these columns which declared that the interests of the human race are bound up with the triumph of a Socialist working class in the struggle to establish Socialism. (See August issue.) Our critic’s first line of attack was to state that victory in the class struggle could only be a class victory because the class struggle is the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power.

In reply we pointed out that this is a complete misconception of the term class struggle. In his second letter no reference is made to this; from which we conclude that that line of attack based on misconception of the class struggle has been abandoned.

The second line of attack is on the idea of a “Socialist working class ” striving for Socialism. Our critic writes:— “In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e. a classless society.”

This is a statement that may have the appearance of containing some meaning but which in fact says nothing. As all the people are members of a class it asks us to accept that all people “think and act in class terms.” If this meant anything it could only imply that they therefore cannot act and think in terms of a classless society. But our critic hastens to explain that it does not mean this, for he writes:—“This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists.” (To which we would add that some individual Capitalists become Socialists, for example Marx’s collaborator F. Engels.)

We are therefore left to wonder what the statement does mean. And whatever it does mean it would have to apply equally to our critic's conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between two “groups”, Socialist and non-Socialist. It would then read:—“In so far as people are members of a group they think and act in group terms.”

Our critic carries this point about class a stage further when he says that “the separate interests of either of the two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term 'class ’ is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one.”

Certainly on a long-term view Socialism is in the interest of the human race as a whole. A current illustration of this is the fact that war, inseparable from Capitalism, threatens the existence of civilization. The fact remains, however, that it is in the immediate interest of the working class, the exploited class, to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism; the same cannot be said of the exploiting class.

Again we must point out that the above passage also necessarily applies to our critic’s conception of a group struggle, for, “ by definition ” a group is “descriptive of less than the whole of society.”

A further point made by our critic needs to be dealt with, that is the curious passage in the first paragraph of the present letter in which he tells us, in reference to the struggle for Socialism, “I would not choose the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion.”

What precisely does our critic mean by this? Anyone coming to the correspondence now for the first time might imagine that, since our critic says he would not choose the word struggle, someone else must have foisted it on him. The fact is that the word was chosen by our critic and by nobody else. In his first letter (see August issue) he wrote of his own conception of Socialism coming by way of struggle between two groups, Socialists in one group and “those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions” in the other group. He repeatedly referred to it as a “ struggle.’

In our reply to our critics first letter we pointed out that he omitted to tell us how this group struggle is to lead to Socialism. This of course is a crucial question. He rejects the conception of a Socialist Working Class taking control of the machinery of government to establish Socialism and offers instead the conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between the two groups. But instead of answering our question as to how this struggle will lead to Socialism he offers the disingenuous plea that he “ would not choose ” the word that he did choose, the word struggle.

We can, of course, understand his difficulty. In our August issue a statement was published setting out the view of the S.P.G.B. on the unlikely but “theoretically possible” attempt by a minority of opponents to Socialism to sabotage the establishment of Socialism after a Socialist majority had gained control of the machinery of government.

Our critic wishes to attack this, but apparently does not wish to explain how that same hypothetical possibility would be dealt with on his own proposition of a struggle between a Socialist group on the one hand and on the other those “ who . . . support... the continuation of Capitalist institutions ” (his description in his first letter).

On the question of institutions of political power changing because of changing “attitudes” it would surely be to the point if our critic had produced evidence from history of a new class not needing to gain full or shared control of the machinery of government because of changing “attitudes or if he produced current evidence of such attitudes having changed and having already brought about essential changes in the Capitalist institutions of political power.

Ed. Comm.