Sunday, November 1, 2026

50 Years Ago: Reflections on wartime (1990)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Doubtless there are some adherents to Socialism who, seeing the appalling state of the world to-day and suffering the nightmare of the beleaguered city, are inclined to despair of the future and feel that the prospect for Socialism is wearing thin. It is understandable that such ideas should take root as it is so difficult to tear one’s mind away from the maelstrom in which we are living and take a dispassionate view of events.

Yet in this miserable hour the future is by no means as dark as it may appear. The movement for Socialism is of necessity only a trickle for a long lime, and this partly deludes people into the belief that little progress is made when in reality great progress has and is being made. The mass of people move as a mass. That is to say their political knowledge grows slowly but steadily at an even pace and it is in a mass and not by ones and twos that the great body of the workers will come to the conviction that in Socialism lies their social salvation. In fact the progress is more real than apparent.

[From the article 'Reflections in War Time' by Gilbert McClatchie, Socialist Standard, November 1940.]

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