[Every word dropped.] (1917)

From the October 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every word of Socialism dropped anywhere has its effect, and makes its crater on the enemy’s front.

Letter: [Mr. T. Rennolls] (1918)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1918 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. T. Rennolls is informed that until such time as he seriously tries to add something to his former statements the discussion is closed.

Blogger's Note:

Mr. Rennolls three previous letters appeared in the September 1917, October 1917 and December 1917 issues of the Socialist Standard.

Letter: Mr. Rennolls Again. A Fine Part for Shopmen. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Rennolls Again. A Fine Part for Shopmen.

(To The Editor)

Sir,—You have been fair enough to publish two letters I sent to you under your own headings. In these letters I tried to make plain a few ideas which I thought of considerable importance, and apparently I have failed, at least as far as “F.F.” is concerned, to make them plain, for he doesn’t seem to have any notion of the whereabouts of my arguments. His Calvinistic adhesion to a few shibboleths called a “party programme” prevents him from seeing anything outside the glass case in which he keeps his precious doxology and benediction. He replies to me by answering questions I do not ask, by explaining intensively and extensively the obvious, by trotting out from the glass case facts and arguments which are expected to, but do not, fit any criticism and explain any difficulty, as if they were the dependable elixir of wisdom, and by getting into an awful state of alarm lest the sacerdotal arrangement of his revolutionary diary gets deranged.

Such a reply only goes to support my impression of the inadequacy of this doctrinaire state of mind. “F.F.” has not yet considered my essential question to Socialists to answer, viz., “What would be done to-morrow morning by all the people if all the people were like . . . any member of the S.P.G.B., . . . class-conscious, revolutionary Socialists ?” to be out of order, or ridiculous, or unnecessary, or what not. On the contrary he answers it, and I gather from his answer that they would “capture the political machine.” Here again is an “abstraction.” Yet “F.F.” dares to challenge me to prove that “abstractions” exist in the S.P.G.B. view of things. Perhaps his is not this view, in which case why is he put up to answer me ? [It is rather remarkable that Mr. Rennolls has forgotten that this discussion commenced with a criticism of his upon an written by our contributor, “F.F.,” and that therefore there is no question of the latter being “put up” to answer him.—Ed’s. “S.S.”] If his reply is the official one, I beg of him to see how he provides the very evidence he demands to be brought.

There is another side to his reply. As I gather we should all “capture the political machine,” we shall, whilst messing about doing this, work for the capitalist. Fancy Socialists doing this ! And here’s the rub. It is all very well for an isolated Socialist now working for a capitalist under economic stress and strain yet at the same time not losing hold of his principles, but withal more strongly adhering to them and desiring their consummation. That position of his holds good, but when everyone or nearly everyone is like him—rabid, red-hot, and revolutionary, it is not their business to work for the bounders for five minutes.

If we can get an idea of revolutionary action that will cover this contingency, then Socialism is something to us. If, however, we are still going on talking about capturing (sic) the political machine, if that is all you can offer, then Socialism to you, by this test, is what your “abstraction” is, an abstraction buttering no parsnips.

Why should we not consider ourselves in the light of everyone being like us ? To “suppose” or “if” that is quite in order. It stamps us individually, for what we are worth. We prate of what we would do IF we were “in power.” That itself is “iffing” it. But as soon as “F.F.” does it he lands himself into a no-man’s-land of “looking up the book,” and then just recites, Psalms-like, something about “capturing political power.” But to “if” what would-be done TOMORROW is still a more searching test into our concreteness of Socialism. Timing the thing leaves “F.F.,” and I take it the S.P.G.B., stranded.

“F.F.” gets out of it all by saying : “If all the people were Socialists to-night could anything be mores impossible or absurd?” Yes, this reply. Which is the absurdity, the “if,” the “to-night,” or the “all the people” ?

Anybody can “if,” so it cannot be that, and as you’ll want all the people or most of them with you, it cannot be that, and as I never said the people would be Socialists “to-night,” it isn’t that. We are left, therefore, with a typically anti-Socialist “argument” pretending to reply to a Socialist question. Yet “FF” admits in a previous breath that underlying the dictum “Labour-power produces all economic wealth” is intimated one possible answer—to this “absurdity.” Should I succeed in finding exactly what people would do to-morrow morning on the strength of my impressions and understanding of Socialism, why should it not be done ? What they would do I would do and what I would do they would do. It is a mere accumulation of my individuality acting on the basis of my impressions of Socialism. Why should I put off thinking out what would or should be done to give live Socialism a chance, a start, just because others have not troubled ?

Socialism is not to me, and ought not to be to anyone else, what others would do without me, and as it must, under those circumstances, present itself to be, a pure speculation, a nebulous programme of well-juggled phrases, that does not satisfy me, if it satisfies you.

I put the extreme test my essential question, to myself, and I answer that if all were like me, say to-morrow, we would go to work just as usual, in the old coal-pit or saw-pit, in the same field or factory, ship-yard or show-room, bakery or workshop—just as usual. We would go on producing, but the shopman—the keystone to the edifice of “realising” surplus-value, the man who does the trick for the capitalist in that he takes money for the products, sells them, exchanges them, would do nothing of the kind anymore. He would give the “goods “away instead.

Herein the least interference would be made with the existing social order with all its complexities, but the greatest damage would be done to the exploiting principle in it. It would be annihilated, in fact.

The effect of such action would be immediately felt in free-everything instead of looking to the moonshine of a remote democracy of intellects. While the old strikers were charged with stopping production and starting starvation, the boot would be now on the foot of those who would interfere, in this case, with production.

Instead of delegating some bounder to perform the miracle of “representing” you, you set about the job yourself. And so on and so on. Any Socialist can work it out for himself.

The lack of concreteness, suggestive of an active part for everyone to play in the economic revolution, giving no momentum to propaganda, has created the stagnation and mistrust that has overwhelmed working-class movements in the world of Socialism.

The overbearing interpretation of Society as a gutter of material phenomena through which marches a helpless working class that can only find salvation in general elections and mechanics on the Woolsack, is a looking-backward proposition of no earthly use. The decrying and tabooing of initiative and assertiveness, qualities of great value possessed by every Socialist, and left to rot for want of probing, has given place to the worship of such self-contradictory absurdities as “Democracy” and “social-property,” and to the study of our revolution as if it were a lesson in mathematics and an “As it was in the Beginning ” affair.

My dear sir, Socialism is the greatest psychological proposition of the age, and from that standpoint has received scant consideration.

Let Socialists organise and come together with open mind, plain speaking, earnestness and mutual respect.

—Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls 

“F.F.’s” Reply.

If Socialism is a proposition it is more of a social or an economic than a psychological one. The relation of Socialism to psychology was the subject which first attracted Mr. Rennolls’s none too definite criticism, though his intervention has provided us with a sample of working-class mind that is, unfortunately, all too numerous. He scorns and overlooks the obvious truths of Socialism, whether concrete facts or general statements. The latter he stigmatises as abstractions. I pointed out in my first reply that Mr. Rennolls did not define “abstractions” for us according to his conception of the word, therefore I refrained from replying to his charge. Now that we know from Mr. Rennolls himself that any general statement is an abstraction, I have only to point out that all such general statements contained in our Declaration of Principles are deduced from concrete facts and placed in that form in order to give expression to general or abstract truths. If this is not scientific, logical, or practical ; or if the principles are not correctly deduced, if there is not sufficient evidence to justify them, if they are too sweeping or not broad enough, it was, and still is, open for Mr. Rennolls to show.

In my first reply I also referred to my critic’s slipshod methods of reading and quoting, and proved conclusively that he had been guilty of misquoting. He ignores the charge and commits the same offence once more, when he pays that I challenged him to prove that abstractions exist in the S.P.G.B. Had I known at the time that according to him an abstraction was a generalisation arrived at by surveying a number of concrete facts upon which it was based, and the truth of which could be proved by both the inductive and the deductive method ; had I known this and known also that Mr. Rennolls held such generalisations in contempt—irrespective of their truth—I should not have “passed over” his “discovery of abstractions” without showing that such “abstractions” are necessary to any organisation and to a working-class party are absolutely essential.

Again, my critic put the question : “What would be done to-morrow morning if all the people were Socialists ?” and says that I answered it by saying “capture the political machine.” Good advice to the working class, but it was not written in answer to his question, the absurdity of which he is still unable to see. “Why should we not,” he says, “consider ourselves in the light of everyone being like us? To ‘suppose’ or ‘if’ that is quite in order.” Of course it is—for the dreamer. If Mr. Rennolls likes to spend his time imagining situations like that contained in his question he is free to do so ; but the only practical thing for the Socialist is to make Socialists—until Socialists are in a majority over all other parties ; until their representatives dominate the Parliamentary, urban and rural councils, judiciary, etc. That time will come long before Mr. Rennolls’s night of Socialists ; it may even come before he realises that his question is one that does not apply, that the situation he envisages cannot possibly arise, still, for his sake, let us hope not. 

“Timing the thing,” he says, “leaves ‘F.F.’ and I take it the S.P.G.B. stranded.” The position is the reverse : the S.P.G.B. makes a definite statement with regard to time—when a majority of the electorate are Socialists. But Mr. Rennolls would wait until the whole of the working class are Socialists. Why, he does not say, and this omission is all the more surprising seeing that the success of his plan only depends on the conversion of the “shopmen.”

Mr. Rennolls is quite sure of his plan, quite sure that the shopman is the keystone of the system, and equally sure that he would give the goods away instead of selling them. But he does not tell us what would happen when the shopman had parted with all his goods and applied to the capitalist for more. Would the latter give the goods instead of selling them ? Would he allow them to be taken ? Or would he call on the Government to provide the physical force necessary to protect his property ? On all these questions my critic is silent. His plan is deadlocked as soon as the shopman has given away all his goods, and the class that controls the political machine locks out the workers from all the chief sources of supply—by means of the fighting forces—and starves them into submission.

“Herein,” to quote from Mr. Rennolls’s following sentence, “the least interference would be made with the existing social order.” That is quite true : it would be a case of “as you were,” and Mr. Rennolls could ask himself his previous question once more—”Why should I put off thinking out what would or should be done to give live Socialism a chance, a start,” etc. The fact that his plan had failed because its supporters came up against physical force, which was controlled through the political machine by the capitalist class, might cause him to take the political machine into consideration. Without respecting it, he might still recognise that it was the source of power, and the simplest, easiest, and most direct way to overcome capitalist opposition to Socialism is to control it.

The political machine can only be controlled through representatives or delegates. But Mr. Rennolls jeers at the idea of being represented.. He calls it a “miracle,” and says, “you set about the job yourself. And so on, and so on. Any Socialist can work it out for himself.” Well, so he can, in fact the question of representation is so simple that it does not require working out. A concrete example is before every Socialist (and incidentally before Mr. Rennolls as well), which proves without the shadow of a doubt its inestimable value. The capitalist class by means of representation controls the political machine, and through it subjects the whole working class to its rule. Here is a practical illustration of the value of representation. If the master class find in that method all that is necessary to retain their supremacy—everything else being added unto them as a consequence—surely the working class cannot afford to ignore it.

Let Mr. Rennolls think it over instead of dreaming about “nights of gladness” when all will be Socialists, to wake up in the morning ; and get on with the game old job ; when all the shopmen will “give their goods away,” when none of us will work for the capitalist” bounders for five minutes,” when “F.F.” will get some “notion of the whereabouts” of his arguments, when “live Socialism” will get a start, when you set about the job of representing yourself, and all the other absurdities that are roosting in his brain to the exclusion of rational and consecutive thought.

To sum up, all Mr. Rennolls’s bombastic jeers, anent the “dependable elixir of wisdom,” the “sacerdotal arrangement of the revolutionary diary,” and the “doctrinaire state of mind,” fall flat, because he absolutely fails to show that our declaration of principles are not genuine, scientific generalisations. Those epithets would more aptly fit his own confident but confused state of mind. His dream of the benevolent shopman, is Utopian and impossible. His imaginative conception of a working class entirely Socialist and Socialism still awaiting establishment is childishly absurd. His careless assumption that “you” can always represent “yourself” shows that he has yet to learn the first principles of organisation. His contempt for political action is not based on reason or argument, and therefore stamps him as an Anarchist. He would preach discontent, but can present no feasible or scientific method by which the working class can achieve its emancipation.

F. Foan

Letter: Mr. T. Rennolls again. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. T. Rennolls again.

He promises to clear up the "mystery" of the "Hows of Socialism" next time.

Sir,—Socialism suffers the ignominy of having itself interpreted by a motley assortment of thoroughly earnest and conscientious dogmatists, whose self satisfaction with their own verbal and inspired platitudes is a replica of our education system, both in religion and politics. If Socialism is anything at all, it is something to US, something of imminent worth —only most of us don’t know it. There is contained within its teachings and interpretations a live principle of action that consists in the revolution itself, and which opens wide the door to the primary and definite growth of the social order implying Socialism. This principle of action, and the pointer indicating its residence in one of the commonest teachings of Socialism, has hitherto been encumbered and hidden with the rags and wrappings and insignia of the ambiguities, abstractions, and meaningless phrases, the latter of which I instanced in my last letter to you, which were taken from the programme of the S.P.G.B., and which are as plain as a pikestaff to any open-minded Socialist. Such things reduce Socialism to a Sociological hereafter, whereas it is of vital consequence and importance to the immediate future, an affair of OURS here and now. Having failed to make it this ; having neglected one of its first principles, which meant the loss of this vital active force in Socialism, it is up to us to retract and to make good the waste of energy that constitutes the trail of our progress.

Socialists have had the effrontery on their public platforms to tell their audiences who were rightly, logically and naturally interested in the “hows” of Socialism, i.e., “How can you get it?” “What must be done to attain it?” that that matter must be left to the people who, at some probably distant date, have made up their minds to have it. Or they have put it down to poor old Evolution, that seems to have to answer for all our difficulties, much as Christ is supposed to answer for all our “sins.”

These answers illustrate the bankruptcy of the Socialist propaganda. And to tell the people that we must “seize and hold,” “take over,” or “transform,” or “convert” private into public property, or “nationalise” this, that and the other, also illustrates the fact that these Socialists, the S.P.G.B. included, cannot answer the question, have no answer to it and simply don’t know. All these terms explain nothing ; there isn’t a ghost of a “how” in it, and until you can answer that question properly the capitalist has a walk over.

What guarantee have you that some other generation will know better than you “how to set about the revolution,” except through the lead you give them gratuitously, that you don’t know yourself ?

To confess that you cannot answer this question is a step in the right direction. To desire to be able to answer it is another. To bolster up your non-activist platitudarian Socialism with personal accusations of your critic’s “inability to comprehend what he reads,” his “deplorable form of second sight,” his “excessively imaginative mind,” his “slipshod method,” and his “twists and inversions,” simply won’t do. They may pass for slashing attacks with people who only too commonly construe personalities for arguments, but times are too serious and momentous for such indulgences, and Socialism has to pay the penalty all the time.

Socialism has depth as well as breadth. Analogically it is more the padding than your pancake.

In it there is something for every man and woman to do, undelegated and without the “you leave it to us business,” or the “wait till the clouds roll by,” “get-out.”

I call this “how” question an essential one. Disputation arises mostly upon it. People will agree about the Broad principles while disputing the Depths. And no wonder, when they see Socialists out of their depths in it. These disputations eventually give rise to the final neglect of Socialism as a FORCE, and the “new member,” passing through, in addition, the polemics of “Branch business,” routes of processions, prices of concert tickets, the seven categories of Capital, water on the Sahara or the price of eggs in 1844, disappears into the throngs of Blackfriars Bridge at twilight, only to find that “getting his living” must resume its former place in his mind, accompanied with strong indifference toward a Socialism that first tempted him, but afterwards left him bereft of hope, and a permanent instrument of capitalist slavery for him and joy-rides for them.

The slow growth of Socialism can be traced to the persistency of platitudes and palliatives (I don’t know which is worse), to the permeation of passivism (wait and see Socialism), and to the want of recognition of Activist Socialism—the thing I am driving at.

Let me put my “essential” question another way with the intention of making it more forceful and making its inner meaning stand out.

Question: What would be done to-morrow morning by all the people, if all the people were like “F.F.,” or you, Mr. Editor, or any member of the S.P.G.B., were like you in conviction, determination and understanding, were like you, class-conscious, revolutionary Socialists, what would you all do to-morrow morning ?

The answer to this question will jolly soon find out what Socialism is to YOU, and what you are to it.

Let us have a “slashing attack” upon this question ; an eye-opener answer.

It will find out and measure the amount of practical force, vim and activity impressed upon you as a result of your understanding of Socialism and its worth to you, the individual. It will indicate on its test dial, and on yours, whether Socialism sleepeth in you or is an active, vital, kinetic force, prepared with revolution and reaction proof.

The solution of this question lies in that simple Socialist teaching: Labour-power produces all economic wealth.

Thanking you for an answer to this question, I propose in another letter and with your permission to answer it myself, as if it were put to me.

—Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls.

The Reply.

In this second letter from Mr. Rennolls there are three things he has done and two he has left undone.

1. He has repeated the wild charges he made previously without proving or even attempting to prove them, then or now.
2. He has repeated his accusation re “ambiguities and abstractions” in a long letter composed from beginning to end, of abstractions, indefinite and ambiguous phrases.
3. He has repeated the lie that he built up his case on quotations from the “Socialist Standard.”

What has he left undone ? .

1. He has not touched upon a single point I raised in my reply.

2. He has failed to show any error in the details, principles, or general policy of the S.P.G.B.

In my first answer I showed that he had misquoted the Declaration of Principles, picking out words and half sentences, and generally making abstractions in one sense, that he might charge us with the use of abstractions in another sense. If he were practised in missing word competitions and such-like amusements it would be an easy matter for him to re-arrange all the words in the Declaration of Principles to make them read the exact opposite of their present meaning. But if, after having done so, he asserted that it was our “programme,” that would be a lie. On the other hand it is permissible for a critic to take a sentence or paragraph for his purpose, so long as it is complete and is an expressed opinion or judgment.

What Mr. Rennolls did was to drag half sentences from their context in order to give a false impression of the whole, though, even apart from it, they might teach him something; for surely Mr. Rennolls—with his professed knowledge of Socialism— cannot be ignorant of the meaning of such a term as “The conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, etc.”

For “abstractions and ambiguities” let the reader note that portion of his letter commencing “If Socialism is anything at all it is something to US.” He appears to be impatient with us, because “the live principle of action that consists in the revolution itself,” in other words that mean exactly the same, the revolution itself, is not here. In spite of his impatience, however, the revolution will only be achieved by arduous and steady propaganda. Socialism is something for us—to work for. Meanwhile, the evolutionary process continues, that process of development that characterises every form of society : the growth and modification that goes on continuously from the revolution in which it was born to the revolution that ends it, to give birth, phoenix like, to yet another system.

Capitalism of to-day, with its collossal machinery of production and distribution, has evolved from a beginning in which the greatest mechanical powers known were the water wheel and the windmill. Capitalist evolution is that process of growth or development that must continue while capitalism lasts ; it can only cease with the establishment of Socialism. Evolution is a process, and when Mr. Rennolls finds the SPG.B. ascribing to evolution “difficulties,” or anything else, that will be the time for him to jeer at us ; but let him find it first.

Mr Rennoll’s repeats again and again in his second letter, the question he asked in his first, and which was answered in the Declaration of Principles before he asked it. His “essential’ question as he terms it : “How?” “If all the people were class-conscious revolutionary socialists, what would you all do to-morrow morning?” The solution to this question he says lies in that simple Socialist teaching : “Labour-power produces all economic wealth.” That is no solution : but it intimates one possible answer to the question. As we live by the consumption of wealth, some of us would have to get up, dress and get on with the production of it. Even when asking questions, Mr. Rennolls’s imagination leads him into absurdities.

IF all the people—IF, as though some subtle essence from the tail of a comet could open the eyes of the workers and give them an understanding of Socialism ; make Socialists of them all without the labour of educating and organising. “If all the people were Socialists” to-night could anything be more impossible or absurd ? We, at least, do not look for miracles, nor do we expect to see nor do we think for a moment that anyone in the future will see, such a position as he outlines in his question : “all the people Socialists, capitalism still triumphant, and the people, i.e., the workers, not organised to capture the political machine as the first, and most important step to the establishment of Socialism. In the modern political State it is the majority that rules. The ruling class, smaller in numbers than the workers, make up a majority from the unclass-conscious material among the latter. With the growth of the Socialist Party this will become increasingly difficult and finally impossible. When the Socialists are in a majority over all other parties they will be able, through their representatives, to control the political machine ; this will place in their hands the power to take whatever steps are necessary to establish the new order. What these steps may be will depend upon the circumstances and conditions that apertain at the time. Depend upon it, a working-class organisation built up to a majority in the face of all capitalist parties and methods of opposition, will possess the knowledge, ability, determination and courage to carry through the revolution in spite of every obstacle flung across their path by reactionaries and capitalist politicians. Without the power they will acquire through control of the political machine, the workers can change nothing. They must either submit to capitalist rule or revolt and be bludgeoned into submission by the agents and tools of the class that controls the political machine. Political control is the key that unlocks the door of the new order; to-day it is in the hands of the capitalist class—hence their power. The accomplishment of the revolution is dependent on the knowledge and power of the working class ; the Socialist Party imparts the knowledge, control of the political machine will give them the power.

F. Foan

Correspondence: Wants to know what to do. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wants to know what to do

A critic concerned for our "soul" answered by one who hasn't got any. 

Sir,—”F.F.” in the August Socialist Standard puts an interesting question to Socialists, and then gives his only “solution.” The question refers to the mean and slavish mind of the worker, how he does not think for himself on vital questions, and how his environment weakens and degrades his mind, the question being: “How to induce the toiler to think for himself.” I suppose the question should be: “How to get the worker to think.”

In “F.F.’s” “solution” he alleges lack of real knowledge and apathy on the part of the worker. To counteract or solve this he looks to “a Socialist party alive to its task,” to a clear and easily understood Socialist position, to the avoidance of confusion and to the clearly defined and precisely stated object of this Socialist party.

This is rather well put, and if it were added that this Socialist party should be able to tell the worker what to do, one would be able to call it a “solution” of some merit. But I know of no such party, and Socialism is a long way off without it and withall needs it very badly.

Put all the “programmes” extant before our eyes, let alone before the apathetic worker, and there is nothing “clearly defined,” “precise and easily understood,” among any of them. Put all the programmes condemned by the S.P.G.B. aside and consider its own alone, and it is in the category of the others. I turn to the last page of the “S.S.,” and I find platitudes, abstractions, ambiguities, and no way out of slavery, nothing to be done to get out of it excepting a faithful awaiting for something to turn up.

For instance, I read that class antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class … by the conversion into the common property of society (whatever that means) of the means of production and distribution and their democratic control by the whole people. I further read about the conquest of the powers of government and its usage as agent of emancipation and as an overthrower of privilege, and about the working class mustering under the banner of the S.P.G.B. for the speedy termination of poverty, privilege, and slavery. These are all fine-sounding phrases that signify nothing concrete, definite, plain, and well understood. Underneath them lies either a self-confessed inability to give clear expression of what it is driving at, or a confession that beyond the terms “emancipation,” “common property of society,” “conversion,” etc., no other explanation is thought out or even dreamed of. As for “government” being the agent, democratic or otherwise, of emancipation and a kind of miraculous terminator of poverty by mustering under any body’s banner is too thin to deceive.

What does it all mean ? What is it to any live Socialist to for ever enunciate, iterate, and reiterate terms and phrases that have no backing of concrete acts which in themselves should constitute the very revolution ? Will any working man be drawn by them? Can Socialism under the dead weight of these abstractions be anything more to a Socialist than Heavenly Bliss is to a Salvation Army lass? It can be less, for she believes she has her consummation when the bell of her demise tolls one !

A little introspection is good for the soul. [So stout a champion of the definite and concrete might have been a little more clear with regard to his last term.—Eds. “S.S.”] I trust this letter will lead to a much-needed stocktaking.

Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls

The Reply.

Mr. Rennolls is not to be complimented on the ability he has acquired of being able to read without comprehending what he reads. He says the question I put is “How to induce the toiler to think for himself?” And he further “supposes” the question should be, “How to get the worker to think ?” If, however, he turns to the article in question he will find that both his guesses are wrong. The actual question, or, rather, problem is put in a single continuous sentence : “How to induce the toiler to think for himself on the all-important question, ‘Socialism” versus Capitalism.’ ” And even if Mr. Rennolls, either unwittingly or to suit his argument, is prepared to cut a sentence in two and leave out what is necessary to make sense of it, he must, in common fairness, admit that the worker, before he can think intelligibly on this subject, must rouse himself, or be roused, from his apathy, and acquire some knowledge of the subject. The mere statement, “To get the worker to think,” is nonsense unless we get him to think about something totally different to what engages his mind at the present. For, as was pointed out, though Mr. Rennolls failed to read and comprehend, every worker thinks, but his thoughts are mainly about work, how it should be done, or “how to dodge it,” as the case may be. Anything else he thinks, politically or spiritually, is manufactured for him by capitalist agents. Even on the question of Socialism itself an army of agents is engaged to misrepresent it to him and prevent him from obtaining clear and rational ideas on the subject.

Having failed to read or quote correctly, Mr. Rennoll’s second point does not arise ; because when the worker “thinks for himself on the all-important question, ‘Socialism versus Capitalism,’ “ “what to do” is included, as a more careful reading of the “S.S.” will prove to our critic.

But Mr. Rennolls, besides having a mote in his eye that—conveniently—blots out phrases and whole paragraphs when he reads as a critic, is possessed of a deplorable form of second sight ; a creative faculty that “finds”—not on the printed page before him, but somewhere in the associated ideas of his own mind—just the very phrase or idea that he is in need of in his capacity of critic. I pass over his discovery of “platitudes, abstractions, and ambiguities,” because he does not define what he means by them. But when he says that somewhere in our declaration of principles he finds the expression, advice, or even the insinuation, that there is “nothing to be done to get out of it, excepting a faithful awaiting for something to turn up,” I pity him, not because he is blind, but because his sight is abnormal and his mind excessively imaginative.

But Mr. Rennolls’ slipshod methods do not end here ; as he reads, so he quotes. Always, there is either something left out or added, something twisted or inverted, that alters the sense. As anyone can see by comparing his quotations with the Declaration of Principles, which, in itself, is the essence of the working-class position. Every paragraph and sentence is pregnant with axiomatic and scientific truth. If it errs at all, it is on the side of simplicity and clarity, which, of course, would be right for the average worker, but would constitute a stumbling-block for Mr. Rennolls and the Anarchists and Industrial Unionists whose phrases he has adopted. Simplicity is not for them: they delight in being recondite, notwithstanding their inability to translate their ideas and phrases into language intelligible to the man in the street—that is, of course, crediting them with the capacity to understand them themselves.

For instance, we are told that the S.P.G.B. “enunciate, iterate, and reiterate terms and phrases that have no backing of concrete acts which in themselves should constitute the very revolution.” On the nature of these “concrete acts” Mr. Rennolls is silent. Why ? Is he ashamed of the “direct action” piffle so often exposed in these columns ? He might well be so when placed in comparison with the policy of the S.P.G.B.

Beside the Object and Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party, the Policies and programmes of every political party and economic organisation are mere shuffling and wasted energy, because they leave intact political control by the ruling class. Anarchists and Syndicalists may prate of Direct Action and Freedom, but they, and the workers with them, will remain nonentities in the working-class struggle for emancipation until they realise their slavery, recognise the means by which they are enslaved and take the necessary steps to control the forces that, to-day, control them. The source of power is the political machine ; until the workers have control of that they are powerless to change their status or conditions ; therefore we urge them to understand and organise for control of the political machine, that the power to transform society may be theirs, in spite of capitalist opposition. Where is another party that urges this obvious course—let Mr. Rennolls answer—we stand alone, and by that token are the only Socialist party.

F. Foan