We have had correspondence with a reader (P.C.O., London) who in the letter below raises the question of minority action and the effectiveness of strikes to stop war.
Editorial Committee,
The Socialist Standard.
Dear Sirs,
Thank you for your letter of the 20th July. I have taken in carefully all you have had to say. There is one point, however, you seem to have overlooked.
The general tone of your letter suggests that you think the individual can do nothing to alter affairs, and I would like to remind you of the Russian Revolution, started by a mere “handful,” also of the “Capitalist Trade Union ” (to use your own term) action which started with the refusal by the dockers to load the “Jolly George" and ended with the Capitalist Government being compelled to withdraw their armed forces from Russia, to which they had been sent to destroy the new “Workers’ State,” although the said “Workers’ State” may not be a very pleasant one to live under nowadays.
The “Jolly George” incident also compelled a Capitalist Government to cease conscripting working- class boys and young men into a Capitalist Army.
Why has there been nothing to rival it to-day? After the 1st G. War there were demobilisation riots, demonstrating in Whitehall, etc., etc. After the 2nd G. War there were no such disorders—the workers meekly waited for. their “Demob.”, their age group, etc., etc. Meanwhile they went to places like Greece and slaughtered foreign workers for the glory of the British and American Capitalist States. The only thing that nearly resembled anything like riots was the outbreak of mutiny at the Aldershot “Glasshouse” in 1946. If there were anything approaching the solidarity I would like to see, there would have been a General Strike in sympathy with the men imprisoned in the “Glasshouse” and protection from Capitalist Militarism given to all members of the working class by organised Labour. In Spain, an attempt might have been made to free the conscripts in a military prison, judging by the workers’ conduct in the Civil War. Personally I would like to see a General Strike take place whenever a deserter from the Capitalist Armed Forces is arrested.
Yours, etc.,
P.C.O.
Reply:
(1) Recipe for Revolution
The S.P.G.B. case is that the achievement of Socialism requires in the first place a majority of socialists, and the resulting democratic political action to gain control of the machinery of government. Our impatient correspondent replies by pointing to Russia and offers us his own recipe for starting a revolution: “Just take a mere handful of people.”
But why does he tarry to tell us this? Why hasn’t he already collected his simple ingredients and cooked his revolution? Why he has not done so is indicated elsewhere in his letter; where be tells us, for example, that the insurgent attitude of some workers after World War I has to be contrasted with the meekly accepting attitude of workers after World War II. He has left something out of his recipe; the handful of would-be leaders of riots and mutinies can put themselves at the head of bodies of rioters and mutineers only if there are such bodies to put themselves at the head of.
In Russia in 1917, because that semi-feudal economy could not stand up to war with industrialised Germany, army discipline, civil administration, and the transport system had all broken down, and there were millions of land-hungry peasants, mutinous soldiers and starving workers ready to support a movement to overthrow the Czarist regime. Having no electoral system through which to vote the Government out, the discontented Russians rioted and mutinied. If our correspondent in 1945 had called on the British workers to stage a “revolution” in order to get rid of the Churchill government they might reasonably reply by asking why go to all that trouble to get something they could and did get by using their votes at the election.
More important from the socialist standpoint is not whether a minority can do “something” but whether it can achieve Socialism. Doubtless the Russian Monarchist Liberals who started the movement to overthrow the Czar were a small handful, as also were the Communists who later started the movement which ended with the present State capitalist dictatorship. They did not and could not introduce Socialism and it is that which concerns us. What the Russian Communists did achieve, to quote our correspondent, is a condition of affairs “not very pleasant to live under nowadays.” But surely we don’t have to do anything to achieve that state of affairs; we have it already.
(2) The Legend of the “Jolly George”
But our correspondent has a subsidiary weapon in his armoury of argument. Without waiting for Socialism, a handful of dockers, he tells us. could start a movement which would force a government to withdraw its armed forces from war against Russia and compel them to abandon conscription. He is sure of this because it happened.
Never were so many errors compressed into so small a space.
It is of course easy to make the claim that the Government was forced to do certain things because of a strike by some London dockers, but there is not the slightest evidence to back up the claim.
It is a simple matter to show that the decision after the first World War to abandon conscription had nothing to do with the refusal to load the “Jolly George,” and we can only suppose that our correspondent’s memory is at fault. Immediately the war ended with the armistice on 11th November, 1918, new Conscription call-up notices were cancelled. (Hansard, 15th November, 1918, Col. 3110.) Existing conscripts were retained in the Forces after that date, but the Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, announced on 30th October, 1919, that conscription was being lapsed. "We have arranged that by the end of this financial year there will not be a conscript in this country.” (Hansard, 30th October, 1919, Col. 981.) The plan was adhered to and the period of compulsory service was officially terminated on 30th April, 1920.
Note particularly these dates, all of them before 1st May, 1920, for it was not until ten days later, on 10th May, 1920, that some London dockers refused to load arms for Poland on the “Jolly George,” so that incident cannot possibly have been the cause of events that took place long before it happened.
Nor was it the determining factor on Government policy about Russian intervention. One intervention, that of the British troops at Archangel was ended by their withdrawal on 27th September, 1919, a decision obviously governed by military and other considerations.
But then came the Polish war against Russia in April, 1920, and it is this our correspondent has in mind. The facts show how completely wrong are his conclusions:
As already stated the dockers refused to load arms for Poland (a free gift, incidentally, from the British Government) on 10th May, 1920.
Did this stop the war? No. For the Russo-Polish armistice was not signed until five months later, on 12th October.
Did it stop the British Government using naval forces to help Russia’s enemies? No. For British warships were still in the Black Sea when the war ended.
Did it cause the British Government to desist from its policy of hostility to the Russian Government? No. For early in August when the Polish armies were temporarily in retreat, the Government warned Russia off:
"The British Government now took up a threatening position, demanding the cessation of the Russian advance, failing which they would give all aid to Poland.” (Labour Research Department Monthly Circular," 1st September, 1920.)
And coming down to the specific issue of the flow of British armaments to Poland, did the dockers stop it? Here we can quote a witness who for this purpose can hardly be doubted:—
“Frankly, the National Council of Action has failed. . . . It was formed to prevent the supplies and munitions being sent in support of the attack on Soviet Russia, which it is quite obviously not doing. Somehow, and from somewhere in this country, these supplies are being sent. A Moscow report alleges that England has sent seven steamers of munitions, three tanks, and twelve small steamers with provisions in aid of Poland, and that these have been unloaded at Danzig."
That candid admission was published by the Communist Party of Great Britain in their organ, “The Communist” on 7th October, 1920, five months after the “Jolly George” affair. And if the Council of Action movement failed in Britain parallel actions on the Continent were equally futile. We read in Labour Research Department Circular of 1st September. 1920:
“The French Government now turned every effort to pouring munitions and officers into Poland. Supplies also came from Great Britain."
"So great was the flood that the same journal reported that ‘the Poles were firing ten shots to the Russian one.’"
The attempt by industrial action to save Russia from defeat by the Polish forces was a complete fiasco: —
". . . the unlimited foreign supplies . . . and the expert military advice were producing their effect, and the Russian advance was turned. By August 20 the Poles were in Brest Litvosk.” (L.R.D. Circular, September 1920).
So much for the legend of the “ Jolly George.”
(3) Why not a General Strike against the Labour Government?
Then our correspondent, filled with false recollections of what happened after World War I, tells us how he would like to see "organised labour” staging a general strike to help army deserters, etc., and he wonders why the workers now do not act as he says they acted after the first world war.
We have already pointed out that our correspondent on his own showing does not have to wait for “organised labour.” All he has to do is to collect his "mere handful ” and start something.
And could anything be more unrealistic than the talk of action by “organised labour”? The Council of Action of 1920 was a joint body formed by the Labour Party, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress and was directed (unsuccessfully as we have shown) against the Lloyd George-Churchill government.
So let us now repeat our correspondent’s advice in its proper form. “Why do not the Labour Party and the Labour M.P.s and the Trade Unions now organise a general strike to stop themselves from supporting the policies of their Labour Government which they uphold and agree with and vote for?”
We cannot conclude without drawing attention to a curious time-lag in our correspondent’s programme of action. If, as be believes, a "mere handful” could start a movement to stop war, why waste this potent weapon by bringing it into action only after the war is over and then only to help deserters and military prisoners. Why not do it before World War II began and stop the war itself?
Can it be that our correspondent knows as well as we do that “organised labour” in all countries in 1939 was not opposed to the war-making of the respective governments but was supporting it?
One last point. We do not know what our correspondent means in his letter when he says that the “Jolly George" action was described by us as "capitalist Trade Union action.”
Ed. Comm.
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