Socialist Sonnet No. 234: Patriotic States of Mind (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Patriotic States of Mind

Problem is not simply Zionism:

Nation states however constituted

Are, by definition, ill-reputed,

The foundation of discord and schism.

Meanwhile, picking on one to vilify

And then promoting another to toast

Is to risk taking route to holocaust,

In which not only the selected die.

Power may grow from the barrel of the gun,

But justice doesn’t, nor finds solutions,

As conflict grows from national illusions:

Poll the too many dead as to who’s won.

Patriotism might motivate crowds,

While patriotic flags turn into shrouds.

 

D. A.

Editorial: The Budget (1948)

Editorial from the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Budget time there is always a certain amount of excitement among the workers, rather like that about the result of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race—and with about as much justification. Always there is that mixture of hopes and fears—will beer and cigarettes go down? Will overtime be freed from income tax? Will purchase tax be reduced? Sir Stafford Cripps managed to please and displease nearly everyone, a bit on here, a bit off there. Beer and tobacco up a little, income tax down a little, purchase tax up on some things and down on others. The other principal features of the Budget were the capital levy which will raise about £100 millions from 140,000 of the very rich, the reiteration of the policy of freezing wages at their present level except where special factors justify an increase, and a refusal to freeze profits or to tax them more heavily. On this last point Cripps contented himself with a warning that if companies do increase their dividends to shareholders this year he will consider imposing a limit next year.

Speaking for the. Conservative opposition, Sir John Anderson, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, criticised certain features of the Budget, particularly the special levy, but otherwise be welcomed Sir Stafford Cripps’ “realistic and honest approach.” The Manchester Guardian (April 7th, 1948) praised it as “a strong, honest, and radical Budget,” and remarked of the capital levy that it is “in fact a stiff individual profits tax winch falls where it should, on the large personal capital.” That newspaper’s City Editor (April 7th, 1948) went further and showed that it is not even very stiff:–

”The levy on capital will not be severe even for those holding very large amounts of capital. Assuming an investment yield of 5 per cent. the tax would amount to 2½ per cent. on a capital of over £100.000.”

We may sum up by saying that if the workers find that the Budget makes little difference to their position so do the capitalists, and this is true of all Budgets no matter whether the Government is Conservative, or Labour. It explains why the Socialist refuses to get excited about Budget prospects.

What the working class get out of the capitalist system is the wage or salary they receive for selling their energies to the employers (including the Government and the administrative Boards which are Ihe employers in nationalised undertakings), and wages follow fairly closely the rises and falls of the cost of living. This is not an automatic process of adjustment, but takes place through the pressure and counter pressure exerted by the employing class and the workers in strikes and lockouts. When prices are falling unemployment is usually heavy enough to enable the employers to force down wages. When unemployment is at a very low point, as at present, it is easier for the workers to struggle for higher wages and thus try to maintain their standard of living in face of recently rising prices. Those who urge the workers not to take advantage of the present low unemployment to press for higher wages may discover at no very distant date that the opportunity will have passed. Unemployment will be the order of the day; or, as the City Editor of the News Chronicle puts it (April 10th, 1948), ”with the country probably over the inflationary hump and perhaps set on the, road to deflation with the help of the recent Budget.” Mr. Arthur Horner, Communist secretary of the Miners’ Union, apparently is among the short-sighted. According to the Daily Worker (April 6th, 1948) he said at Leicester, “The miners had not taken full advantage of the law of supply and demand of labour. If they had wages would have been much higher.”

When Cabinet spokesmen oppose higher wages they do so because their immediate and predominant responsibility, by virtue of being the Government, is to keep the capitalist system functioning in the only way that capitalism can function, that is by enabling the capitalists to make profits. The Labour Party grew up on the mistaken belief that under Labour Government there would be great possibilities to raise wages by cutting into profits. Rather late in the day some of them, certainly Sir Stafford Cripps, have come up against the, harsh truth that those who administer the capitalist system have very limited freedom of action—on all important issues they can depart little from the practice of their Conservative predecessors. Official figures on the proportion of the national income which goes as salaries, wages and rent and profits, etc., bring this out clearly. In 1938 wages accounted for 39 per cent., salaries for 24 per cent., and profits, rent and interest for 37 per cent. In 1947 wages accounted for 44 per cent., salaries 20 per cent., and rent, profits, etc., 36 per cent. (See Economist, April 10th, 1948, p. 596.) In each case the figures are after meeting income tax.) It will be observed that the percentage going to wages and salaries together, i.e., 63 per cent. in 1938 and 64 per cent. in 1947 has hardly changed at all, likewise the percentage to rent, profit, etc.—37 per cent. in 1938 and 36 per cent. in 1947.

This is the dilemma of all Labour Governments, but no such dilemma faces Socialists. Socialism is not a scheme for redistributing wealth and income inside capitalism, but a system of society to replace the capitalist system

Notes by the Way: This Millionaire Business (1948)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

This Millionaire Business

Mr. Bernard Harris, of the Sunday Express, is worried because under Labour Government (he calls it “Socialism”) “you have no chance to-day of starting a business in Britain which will make you a millionaire before you die.” (Sunday Express, April 11th, 1948.) It seems that the harvest of millionaires has been falling for generations so that to-day “there are only 244 millionaires in Britain. They are the people with incomes of £50,000 a year or more.”

Mr. Harris does not go so far as to say that there will be no new millionaires, but he fears they won’t be hard-working lads like their fathers, but will become millionaires the easy way, “by inheritance or out-and-out speculation.”

“The self-made millionaire, in the sense of the man who has created a vast business from small beginnings, is a fast disappearing species. And he is the only valuable kind.”

He quotes an unnamed jam millionaire who was asked 50 years ago “to give 12 rules for making a million,” and replied, “Repeat ‘hard work’ 12 times.”

So the good millionaires make their money by hard work, and the other millionaires are not good ones. This leads to some curious conclusions. Lord Derby, who died in February last, left property valued at £1,937,838 (Evening Standard, April 8th, 1948), but though he inherited his estates and therefore does not fall into Mr. Harris’s group of valuable millionaires, we do not recall that the Sunday Express ever condemned him as an example of a no-good rich man. Nor did Lord Derby think it of himself. When he was Tory Postmaster-General in 1905 it was the postmen whom he thought were no good. He had nasty things to say about some of them who were trying to work up electoral opposition to him and other M.P.s because, after a Committee appointed by the Government had recommended increases of pay, the Government would not carry out the whole of the recommendations. Lord Derby called the postmen blackmailers and bloodsuckers though later he withdrew the “bloodsuckers” when he found what a storm of criticism it produced The postmen, most of them earning probably between 25s. and 30s. a week, were certainly hard-working— their employer saw to that—but it never got them anywhere.

Mr. Harris also tells us that “there were the Wills, of tobacco fame. Eleven members of that family have died since 1909 leaving a total of £38,000,000 between them.”

In November last Sir William Churchman, a director of the Imperial Tobacco Co. and partner in Churchman’s, died worth £1,102,719. (Evening Standard, 7/2/48).

These ladies and gentlemen got their wealth out of business, in the way Mr. Harris approves but if hard work is the explanation one wonders why the hard-working cigarette makers never get into the millionaire group like their employers.

The truth is, of course, that all great fortunes, whether inherited or acquired during the owner’s lifetime, came out of the unpaid labour of the working class.

* * *

The Garibaldi Communists

When Communists fight elections it is on the principle that no dishonesty is barred provided it gets votes. In Italy, according to a correspondent of the Sunday Express (11/4/48), they are appealing to patriotic sentiment.

“The Red Flag is nowhere to be seen; no hammer and sickle signs disfigure the walls. With a lack of scruple that takes the breath away they proclaim Garibaldi their hero. His head appears on most of their posters.”

However, it seems that Garibaldi’s 81-year-old daughter is still alive and she objects to Communists “hiding behind her father’s picture.”

“Her father,” she said, “never approved of Communism.” “It was founded by a German (Marx) who always hated Garibaldi.” (Daily Mail, 12/4/48.)

* * *

“Freedom of the Press” in Russia

In Russia no political party is legal except the Communist Party and no publication is permitted that opposes the Communist Party. At the United Nations Conference at Geneva on 29th March, 1948, an American delegate, Mr. Harry Martin, president of the American Newspaper Guild, was challenged to produce proof of his statement that in Russia the press is controlled by the Government. According to a Reuter and Associated Press report Manchester Guardian, 30/3/48) he did so by reading out the Statute which in 1931 gave control of publications to a State organisation known as “Gavlit.”

“It authorised the Gavlit administration to forbid the publication of any works containing ‘agitation and propaganda against the Soviet authority and the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ It entrusted Gavlit with ‘preliminary and subsequent control over published literature both from the political-ideological and from the military and economic viewpoints,’ and authorised confiscation of disapproved publications and the prosecution of persons ‘violating the demands of Gavlit, its organs and authorised representatives’.” (Manchester Guardian 30/3/48.)

The News Chronicle's own correspondent at Geneva reported that although the Russian delegate addressed the Conference after the above had been quoted “he made no reference to Mr. Martin’s quotation.” (News Chronicle, 30/3/48.)

* * *

Japan’s the Friend, not China

Honor Tracy, correspondent in Japan of the Observer, reports that American policy has taken a new turn. “Under this policy Japanese economy is to be restored as quickly as possible, with liberal American help, in the hope of creating better conditions, not only in Japan herself but in the Far East as a whole. Japan is thus to become ‘the workshop of Asia’ as she has always claimed is her proper function.” (Observer, 11/4/48.)

The Report continues :

“Travellers returning to Tokyo from China report . . . indignation that the proposed grants and loans to Japan during the present year should be so much greater than what is being offered to China. The American view, on the other hand, is that China is now disintegrating so fast as to make outside help ineffective.”

It looks as if the “brave Eastern allies” in next war may be the Japs, while China qualifies for the position of a horrid dictatorship.

* * *

Lancashire’s Exports

Mr. Harold Wilson, President of the Board of Trade, speaking in London on 9th April, 1948, referred to the struggle to find markets abroad for textiles. “Although the problem of production of textiles this year’ is going to be the biggest problem this country has ever faced, the problem of selling them is going to be even greater, particularly in face of the enormous import restrictions in three-quarters of the trading world. We have put strong diplomatic pressure on every country which is imposing restrictions against us and we have in our various trade negotiations made it a cardinal point to try to open the market wherever possible …” (Manchester Guardian, 10/4/48.)

One of Lancashire’s competitors is Japan and another is U.S.A. Mr. Ewing, Chairman of the Bradford Dyers’ Association, according to a Manchester Guardian report of a speech, “was worried about Japanese competition. Exports of Japanese cotton textiles increased rapidly during 1947 and were equal to three-quarters of Lancashire’s trade. The United States was also developing export trade. Mr. Ewing therefore stressed the need for quality and inventiveness.” (Manchester Guardian, 12/4/48.)

In the meantime, while Japan fights to sell more textiles outside Japan, U.S.A. to sell more textiles outside U.S.A., and Britain to sell more outside Britain, the President of the Board of Trade tells us that “if textile, production does not buck up the clothing ration may have to be reduced.” (Daily Mail, 13/4/48.)

* * *

Is the Church an Essential Industry?

A News Chronicle reporter tells readers that “latest figures show that only 4,000 vicars and rectors have a net income of between £400 and £500 a year. Five thousand earn less than £400—and some hundreds have even less than £300. (News Chronicle, 10/4/48.) He says that parents today will not enter their sons for the Church because of the low pay and “a drive has begun to establish a £500 minimum for vicars and £260 for assistant curates.”

This is all very well but is the Church so other worldly that it hasn’t heard about “wage-freezing” and the policy of allowing increases only in essential industries or where there is increased production?

* * *

Social Reform is not Socialism

While the Daily Express (8/4/48) tells us that things are worse here than in America because “in Britain we have Socialism,” the Daily Mail will have none of it. Criticising a speech in which Mr. Attlee claimed we have had our Socialist social revolution the Mail wrote (24/1/48) :

“For such claptrap read ordinary ‘social reform.’ Bigger names stand upon that role than those of Attlee and Bevin. We cite Disraeli, Chamberlain, Asquith, Lloyd George, Churchill, Baldwin.”

We can leave them to fight out the issue which party achieved more reforms of capitalism. As Socialists we heartily endorse the statement that it is claptrap to describe social reform as Socialism.

* * *

The “Daily Worker” is disappointed with Indian Capitalism

Socialists never supported the Indian Nationalist movement, knowing well that the propertied interests which financed and controlled it were only concerned with making India safe for Indian capitalism. Not so the Communists. They urged Indian workers to support Nehru and the Congress Party. Now the Daily Worker professes to be astonished because Nehru’s government treats the Indian workers in the same way that they were treated under British rule.

“What is happening in India? The British trade unionist may well rub his eyes in astonishment. Trade union leaders are being arrested and repressive action is being taken against the Communist Party . . .

“Such happenings were frequent under British rule, but India is now said to be free . . . The plain fact is that little has changed in India except that it is now ruled directly by the Indian capitalists, landlords and princes by grace of the British Imperialists.” (Daily Worker, 9/4/48.)

There is nothing to cause astonishment in the discovery that Indian capitalism is like any other hut how comes it that the Daily Worker should ever have supposed that it would he different?

Edgar Hardcastle

Alberta Calling—and the Socialist Reply (1948)

From the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Most people, I suppose, regard Karl Marx as the prophet of Communism, but that is not really correct. 

“Communism — meaning the common ownership of goods—was known in the world for many years before Karl Marx was even heard of. What Karl Marx preached was Marxism—a form of Communism which relies upon force and oppression.”

This statement, together with many others equally vague or inaccurate, comes all the way from Alberta, broadcast by one Richard J. Needham. Unlike most modern critics of Marx—who usually commence by paying him tribute for the scientific character of his works—Mr. Needham tries to belittle him by referring to him as prophet arid preacher. A good critic should never belittle the object of his criticism at the start, that should emerge as he unfolds his criticism. If Marx had been a mere ranter there would be no special virtue in having exposed him. But what is of even greater importance, Mr. Needham should have made himself acquainted with Marxism before he rushed to the microphone to talk about it.

It is true Communism existed before Marx. It was practised in ancient society, was, in fact, the normal mode of social life, but was obviously not known by that name at the time. The word was first used in the early days of the working-class movement and was derived from the French commune, or village community. The communal way of life prevailed, too, among savage tribes discovered in fairly recent times. It is said to have been practised by the monks in the early days of the Christian era. But none of these examples, as Marx said, is to be compared with the higher communism to come; which is only possible when the working class have come to realise that class ownership of the means of life is inconsistent with the free development of humanity.

To Mr. Needham Russia is the embodiment of Marxism. Soviet Russia, for him, is Marxism in practice, hence, for him, to expose the Russian way of life is to smash Marxism. He says :

“This, of course, is what has happened in Russia. Capitalism has been destroyed, but we can scarcely say that Communism has taken its place. What has happened is that a dictatorship has been set up—not exactly a dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship acting in the name of the proletariat. Sympathisers with Communism tell us that this dictatorship, as Marx proclaimed, is purely temporary, but it does not seem very temporary. Although it has been in effect thirty years, it still shows no signs of giving way to parliamentary democracy as we understand it.”

Capitalism in Russia destroyed; a temporary state called dictatorship established; and, as yet, no signs of parliamentary democracy as we understand it, Which means: we destroy capitalism, establish dictatorship and progress backwards, or is it forward? to capitalism. What is the truth?

America and Russia are the two greatest capitalist powers in the world, the two greatest powers in the present conflict of power-politics. America with her dollars and her atom bombs, and Russia grabbing oil fields, plutonium and other raw materials in readiness to answer the American challenge for world supremacy.

From this survey of the external facts it would appear that Russian capitalism is very much alive. What about the internal facts? The Supreme Soviet of Russia with all its political and industrial machinery is built on wage labour. The surplus value, over and above the cost of living of Russian workers, now flows into the coffers of the totalitarian state and is divided among officials, political, military and industrial, according to their usefulness in the Soviet schemes for power.

The leaders of the so-called Russian revolution have achieved power over the mass of their fellow countrymen. They lead, or push them into the industrial or military conflict for world domination in a capitalist world, under the dictates of the supreme Soviet. They are as firmly in control of their subjugated millions as the American capitalist class with its control of the political machinery. No Russian worker can escape the efficiency and widely flung tentacles of the Russian Government.

Orders are issued from the top, and they must be obeyed. They are obeyed. What would Wall Street not give to have their wage-slaves under such perfect control? Scared stiff by Hollywood reds and talk of Communists in official positions, they would care little at being dubbed fascist or gestapo, if their power to enforce their orders were equal to that of the Russian leaders.

It is obvious, that there is no dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, nor anywhere else, nor at any time, now, or in the future. When the working-class is in a position to dictate they will be democratically organised for the purpose they have agreed upon, and their organisation will be intellectually and technically equal to the task. Until then it is the capitalists that dictate, and the workers’ task is an individual one: to understand and help to organise for the day when deeds of ownership and share certificates in the land and means of wealth production will be abolished; and the working-class will carry on production, in a truly democratic manner, for the satisfaction of their needs. Next Mr. Needham quotes from Marx as follows:

“In proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer must grow worse. Accumulation of wealth at one pole means at the same time accumulation of misery, toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality and mental degradation at the opposite pole.”

All this is substantially true. With regard to the accumulation of wealth Mr. Needham might have discovered that it was beyond dispute. An American work entitled The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Berle and Means, gives the information that one half the corporate wealth of the United States is controlled by no more than 200 companies. While 2,500 officers and directors own between them two thousand million dollars of capital; most of it in the hands of about 250 men who occupy the decisive executive positions.

Mr. Needham does not agree that this accumulation of wealth at one pole means poverty at the other, he says :

“The wages paid to factory workers in Canada and the United States are higher than have ever been paid to factory workers anywhere—not only in the money sense, but also in actual purchasing-power. Millions of factory workers in North America own comfortable houses and up-to-date automobiles.”

A higher standard of living is only made possible by the industry of the workers. But enjoyment of that higher standard by the workers is always opposed by the capitalists. The realisation of it can only come through hard bargaining and often strikes. Higher wages are not the result of generosity or fairness. They are paid for special qualifications, or as a compromise against still higher demands.

But ownership of a comfortable house and automobile is not confined to America. In most capitalist countries, there may not be millions, but there are more or less in a comparable position. This was proved in the last depression, when many thousands worsened the crisis because they could not keep up payments for cars, radio sets and refrigerators.

From the millions of factory workers owning houses and cars take a look at the other side of the picture. Of the slums in all the large towns, where millions do actually live in the grip of perpetual poverty. Where the conditions of existence are below any decent civilised standard. An American periodical, “Fortune,” ,says:

“About 31 per cent. of American homes lack running water; more than ten million dwelling units have no modern plumbing facilities. Eighteen million families are without baths. More than eight million families are without electric light, or power.” (Quoted in Daily Worker, August 1st, 1947.)

These figures possibly cover America’s notorious slums, but weighed in the balance against Mr. Needham’s doubtful millions, the misery side of the scale sags definitely. From the mortgaged or slum home to the factory:

“The factories, of course, have vastly improved under capitalism. People do their jobs under conditions strictly laid down by law. The manufacturing plants of Canada and the United States are the roomiest, the best lighted, the safest and most comfortable in the world. The milk and bread, the fruit and meat consumed by Canadian and American workers has to pass the most rigid tests.”

Who makes the factories roomy and keeps them clean? Not the capitalist owners. Neither is it permitted by them out of consideration for their wage-slaves. The housing of the machine must keep pace with its development. Machines are expensive, and must be suitably housed and protected from weather if they are to replace their value with the sale of products before they are worn out. While the workers who keep them running at top speed must work with ease if they are to last out the shift. And the capitalists who rely on these workers will not tolerate any tampering with food that would diminish their workers’ efficiency or constitute a danger to themselves.

According to Mr. Needham Marx made many mistakes. No doubt he did in minor matters, but in the general analysis of the capitalist system, and the part the workers should play to achieve their freedom he was sound. Mr. Needham says :

“Marx made the greatest mistake when he told the workers to rise up, in blood and fury, and destroy their compatriots: He made his greatest mistake when he called upon them to engage in class warfare.”

Is there a class war? Is there class hatred? The Socialist knows that the capitalists in America, as elsewhere, suppress strikes in blood and fury.” He knows that those strikes are evidence of the conflict of interests in. the basis of capitalist society. Evidences of these conflicting interests are present all over the world; in America, the most advanced capitalist country, more so than anywhere else. The workers all over the world to-day struggle blindly on the industrial field to maintain their meagre standard of living. When, they realise that their struggle is inherent in the system because of its class ownership of the means of life, they will organise consciously for control of the machinery of government, in order that they may abolish class ownership and establish Socialism. A truly democratic system of all the people, who will control production and distribution according to their needs.

F. Foan

“The Third Way” by Wilfred Wellock. A Review (1948)

Pamphlet Review from the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

This topical pamphlet accepts the common outlook to-day that the people of Britain must choose between “Russian Communism,” the “American way of life,” or “a third way,” and Mr. Wellock gives us directions so that we may go with him along his “third way.”

In the present state of world affairs, Mr. Wellock realises that the policies of the great powers in scrambling for export markets is a hopeless solution to their national problems and that when the markets of the world are again glutted a slump will occur. He also realises that the logical end of such policies is a third world war, complete with atomic atrocities.

He also mentions the point that many countries which previously were good markets for the older established producers are now producing many things within their own frontiers which hitherto they have purchased. The extension of this process makes it much more difficult for the, older nations to export more than they used to.

In order to gain the support of the workers for their programme of increased production the Labour Government has produced its version of the old illusion that only by this means can they raise their standard of living. Mr. Wellock, although an ex-Labour M.P., disagrees with this policy, but from a peculiar point of view.

He is much concerned with the spiritual uplift of the people. “The unbalanced economics of to-day are the product of greed and naked power politics, have wrought untold economic and spiritual harm, and must he superseded by an economy that is based on human need, spiritual and economic.” (P. 23.)

He appears to think that an increase in the standard of living will simply result in the workers spending more money on beer, cigarettes, football pools, and other frivolous pleasures and pastimes. The development of mass production has produced the “mass mind and the mass man.” Is the drive to increase the standard of living worth while, then? Mr. Wellock does not think so, unless we change entirely our scale of values, and in doing so revise entirely our concept of the meaning of “standard of living.”

“Our job, in fact, is to find that better way of life for which the whole world is looking, and not- east the people of Britain. That ‘way’ will place in their right order material and spiritual factors so that both may make their maximum contribution to the achievement of that abundant life which the human soul in its silent and better moments knows to be within man’s reach.” (P. 24.)

Following such a “change of heart,” society would demand, according to Mr. Wellock, a reversion to decentralised small-scale economy in which each individual could feel he had a responsible place. Machines would be put to “their right use which is to assist man in making things of the highest quality and beauty.” Consequently, Mr. Wellock visualises a return to an economy of craftsmen and craftsmanship, and his “way” calls for nothing less than the rebuilding of civilisation on new foundations, which are, he believes, the creative and social values of Christianity.

Like the bulk of these petty reformists, Mr. Wellock has a totally false conception of the world in which we live. Whilst he is able to see a lot of the evils which exist, on the surface, they are the results of causes which he has not yet grasped, causes of which he has no knowledge.

All the evils which Mr. Wellock criticises—modern war, dictatorship, “money values,” monotonous labour, etc.—arise from the kind of society in which we live, capitalism. These evils arise from certain material causes, e.g., war from national capitalist rivalries over sources of raw materials, markets, trade routes, etc. ; “money values” from the production of commodities for sale at a profit; monotonous labour from the introduction of machinery for the purpose of cheapening prices. These bad things do not exist because man is bad. These bad things are the normal workings of capitalism. Neither are these bad things bad for everybody. There is no doubt they are had for the workers, the vast majority of the people—not because workers have bad thoughts but because they have no property. Conversely these things are good for the capitalist class, or sections of it, because they serve a purpose in protecting private property and profits.

Mr. Wellock has no knowledge, or studiously avoids disclosing it, of the division of society into two classes, propertyless workers and propertied capitalists, or of the historical development of human society from primitive communism through chattel slavery and feudalism to capitalism, otherwise he would not be wastiug his time advocating a return to the conditions of a mediaeval economy.

His pamphlet bears the hall-mark of the well meaning social reformer who, failing to understand the material causes which underlie the great and grave problems confronting the working class, takes refuge in the worn-out belief that only by retreating to pre-capitalist conditions will these problems be solved.

Far from it—the clock cannot be put back.

The “way” lies forward, along paths not yet trodden by the foot of man, but clearly marked on the map for those willing to read, “To Socialism.”

N.S.

A Letter from Vienna (1948)

From the May 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amongst cables and letters of greeting and good wishes received by our 44th Annual Conference in London at Easter, was the following letter from an early member of the Party now in Vienna.

16th March, 1948.

“Please convey to the Conference a salute and good wishes from a number of comrades and sympathisers in this city.

“If the promises and hopes held out in previous messages to Conferences have remained unfulfilled— which no one regrets more than I do—let us find consolation in the fact that we have at least survived bombs and totalitarian terrorism so that we can still kindle the light that must eventually pierce the dark clouds and penetrate the hearts and brains of the workers. Greater efforts in these past years might very possibly have led to the extinction of even these few torch bearers in this tortured Continent. Remember we are not in England, but East of it. As it is, we can still watch our opportunity, and opportunity is a fine thing for us also. So, when the stock taking is made at the Conference, delegates might be justified in booking even this weak point of contact as a small asset for the movement.

“The existence of the scientific and solid instrument of the S.P.G.B. has always been a strong ray of hope and comfort to me. It seems to shine brighter and brighter as the world situation is deteriorating and increasingly menacing, and confusion in the labour movement is growing apace. As the bankruptcy of ideas, policies, and the general helplessness becomes glaringly more evident, can it be doubted that when the third crisis approaches, the party’s message will at last be heard and taken up in wider circles as the only possible way out of an appalling dilemma?

“I am forever grateful for the education received at the S.P.G.B. University, which puts people on the track of understanding and explaining social phenomena when every other theory and action has failed and events leave men utterly bewildered. The scientific outlook on and attitude to life which Socialism gives, has enabled me, too, to steer clear of all vicious temptations and avoid the pitfalls of quackery and confusion.

“As long as I live, you can always count me amongst the most ardent and steadfast upholders of the cause. My work has in the past had to be on a very limited scale, but who can say whether even the humblest of us will not sooner or later become the medium of quickening the pace of progress and find his hands strengthened and forced by events? At this juncture, we cannot, of course, escape the vital importance of seeing at least Democracy maintained as against the renewed evil onslaughts that are being made in many quarters, including the country from which I write.

“With renewed good wishes for the success of your Conference, I remain, Yours fraternally……”

Rudolf Frank

Although the Socialist message penetrates to and finds acceptance in many parts of the world, the points of contact are small and limited, hut we definitely assure our Viennese comrades that we regard our contact with them as a real asset to our movement. We can also assure all our well-wishers in other lands, that if hopes held out in messages to this Conference remain unfulfilled by the time we hold our next one, it will be our misfortune and not our fault.

Overseas Secretary.