Utopists New and Old. Where They All Fail. (1917)

From the October 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just now it is the fashion to prophesy or construct milleniums. Airy futures for society are everywhere in the air. When the taxi-cabs were carrying round appeals to the manhood of Britain to fight for King and Country, the capitalist Press, recapitulating the wrongs of the workers, printed in bold type and in italics, not once but a thousand times, “Never again.” And the weak minded, blind leaders of the blind, thinking it a genuine repentance, a sincere resolve of the exploiting class to render a long-delayed justice to the class they had unconsciously wronged, thought the time had come for them to speak.

All the reformers of pre-war days—whether they realised the existence of the class war or not—were deceived, or made pretence of being deceived, by the “never again” cry. Had not Ministers—of State and of religion—editors of great newspapers, and big captains of industry, said that the war had broken down class barriers, destroyed class antagonism, and made us one people, united and resolved on a common object ?

The innocent, unsuspecting reformer, bleeding inwardly for the toiling, suffering poor, took them literally, and out of the chaos of a million suggestions and a few hundred thousand policies for “lifting up the working classes,” extracted half-a-dozen or so, and built up his Utopia, his dream of a social reconstruction. Every newspaper was inundated with letters containing suggestions for the re-organisation of industry on such a basis that antagonism and discord would be eliminated once and for ever.

So genuine were the editors in their “never again” determination that they even went so far as to encourage them by publication, thus giving to the whole discussion of re-organisation—for the time—a serious nature.

Which attitude still further deceived, or encouraged, the simple Simons of the labour movement who, while they hurled their thunder their thunder at the “profiteers,” proclaimed the millennium (after the war) because the “public” had recognised the wrongs of the workers and were determined to right them. They never stopped to ask themselves who or what was the “public.” That question had been answered for them by the captains and agents of the “profiteers” (exploiters disguised as robbers of the consumer). Classes no longer existed, but the capitalists, some of whom were “profiteers” and some just capitalists, under the stress of military conditions, were prepared to discuss any wild-cat scheme if its discussion would convince the workers of their sincerity to reform. Because just then it was necessary that capital’s intolerant and brutal past should be replaced in the mind of the workers by the promise of a golden future.

For over a century—ever since the days of Fourier—the workers had been regaled with smoothly-working, ready-made Utopias that were full of promise and nothing else. They had learned to scoff at them, so much so that when Socialism was first placed upon a scientific basis and presented to them, they mistook it for another reformer’s dream, and where they took any interest in it at all, tried to subject it to ridicule, only to find that, boomerang-like, it came back and settled on themselves.

We know from experience and history that the capitalist in his relations with the workers, studies no interests but his own ; that the capitalist class, in itself, presents an impassable barrier to all experiments in social re-construc­tion. Consequently both capitalist and reformer are discredited, and suggestions, like that of Lord Leverhulme for a six hours day, where they do not provoke a smile, are regarded by us as deep-laid plots to further enslave the workers.

Those who have read Fourier’s Utopia, with its beautiful gardens and its costumes of cloth and gold, will recognise the genus Utopia whenever they meet it. Robert Owen’s well-intentioned efforts, the exchange of products by labour tickets that followed it, and the dream of co-operators to gradually absorb industry are Utopias that have had their day—though the last-named, snowed under and insignificant in comparison with the forces they set out to absorb, can still boast a number of members prepared to play the role of fanatic in a movement long ago captured by the capitalists.

The more modern Utopias, like the “New Theology,” lack the wealth of detail that charac­terised their predecessors. Their founders can only escape ridicule and preserve a semblance of dignity by the utterance of highly embellished phrases and vague abstractions that seem to convey a solemn portent, but, when analysed, are found to contain nothing but wind—or ink. Thus the National Guilds’ League says :

“Therefore if the control of industry is in any measure and in any real sense to pass to Labour, it must be, not by any impossible endeavour to co-operate with employers on joint bodies, but by the transference of powers absolutely to bodies exclusively representative of Labour. The right and only path to such control is for Labour to demand and secure exclusive control, first within the sphere of the workshop, and then increasingly over a wider and wider domain.”

Of course, everybody knows that, to get control—or anything else—all that is necessary is to “demand and secure it.” Many would dispense with the “demand” and proceed straightway to the securing, if the road were clear and there were no police. But the road is not clear. The police are there, and they take their orders from the class that is jealous of every threatened encroachment or advance by the workers. With physical force arrayed against them, and a bitter competitive struggle, always intensifying, frustrating all their efforts on the industrial field, it is not surprising that the best organised workers not only fail to make any advance, but on the contrary, find themselves drifting from bad to worse, while the feeling of impotence grows on them.

The Syndicalist and the Industrial Unionist are examples of the modern Utopians. They sketch the plan of a future State and pretend to trace its consummation from such ordinary trade union actions as the strike, with a long series of stepping-stones between. Every stepping-stone is a new kind of drill invented by the economic quacks to educate and perfect the workers in the art of striking, which they tell us will, more often than not, mean only the threat to strike. Even when the workers have learned the whole series, of striking by companies, battalions, industries, and nationally and internationally ; when they have learned all the things which they are told they must demand, and organised themselves according to the doctrine of “direct action,” they must still go through with the whole senseless performance, still practice the goose step, till the signal goes forth from their economic leaders to “take and hold.” In that supreme moment the bubble, pricked by the State sword, bursts, and the millenium is postponed sine die.

But long before the economic quacks can “take and hold” the workers the latter will wake to the absurdity of such methods. Their propaganda only meets with success where they continually denounce the “politicians.” They would have us think that it is only the political labour leader that turns Judas. But what would the ruling class not give, in the coming years of market fluctuations, of alternate periods of feverish production and stagnation, to have under their control working-class leaders who could persuade or command their wage-hungry legions to cease work or re-commence, just as the markets dictated. Thus treachery dogs the footsteps of the workers, whether they chase the industrial will-o’-the-wisp or follow the politician. For the leaders on both fields can and do betray the workers into actions and policies that run counter to their own interests. Their glittering Utopias, plausible policies, and subtle arguments, sway the worker to his own undoing because he is ignorant of the very elements of political economy.

If this were not so “The Herald” could not impose upon many the “New Charter for the Workers,” which is claimed to be “thorough, bold, practical.” Those who have read Fourier and St. Simon will acknowledge they were thorough and bold, though they were not practical. Those who read the “New Charter” will find absurdities, contradictions, and fruitless demands, but they will Reek in vain for the qualities with which they describe their own programme.

Their first item, “Conscription of wealth and £1 a day,” may be bold as demands go, but it is not thorough because it still leaves the workers wage-slaves. Neither is it practical, because the New Chartists, like the old ones, are relying on a capitalist government to inaugurate it. The second item, “Ownership by the State, management by the workers,” has the same objections, while in addition it preserves the capitalist State and perpetuates the working class, making it responsible for production. It is neither thorough nor bold, because it is not even suggested that the means of production should be owned in common and democratically controlled.

Their third, “An Industrial Chamber : Abolition of the Lords,” links them up in its latter part, with the B.S.P. and the Liberal Party, while its first part acquits them of collusion with the working class, because they say “Labour and Professional bodies [would] thus become a constituent part of the country’s government,” thus reaffirming their intention that the workers must remain a governed class, instead of becoming a co-operative commonwealth producing for use and administrating through assemblies in their own interests.

Their fourth, “Self-Government and a Living Wage for Soldiers,” is evidently a bait for the Army, though why soldiers should be content with a mere living wage when civilians would have their pound a day does not transpire.

Self-government is evidently gleaned from the Council of Soldiers and Workmen, and the extreme simplicity of the New Chartists becomes apparent when we read further the demand for “Democratisation of the Army and Navy (so long as they exist) by the effective representation of the rank and file in all military and naval administrations not dealing with strategy.” Blind leaders are the New Chartists who would hand over their blind followers to be massacred wholesale on the plea of strategy !

But this is not all. After anticipating the conceding of the vote to women by baiting for that vote with number five—”Payment of Wives”—they urge as their sixth and last, “The Workers Organised Against War.”

In number four they would strengthen the Army and increase its efficiency, while in six they would organise to make it useless.

Such are the glittering beads with which this Utopian necklace is strung. Taken separately they seem to be either culled from other capitalist programmes or impracticable and futile absurdities. A jumble of pre-war reformist plans, faked and modified as a lure to the workers and a demand to the master class. Because these Chartists fail to understand the economic basis of capitalist society they can only build their policies and programmes in accordance with capitalist notions and within the ring of capitalist ethics and standards. With every change in capitalist methods reforms become obsolete, and capitalist agents are not slow to invent new ones to dangle before the noses of the patient masses. Thus reformers and dreamers sheltered from the maelstrom of capitalist production and blind to all indications of a class war increasing in bitterness, pick and choose here and there the materials to build their Utopias, as children build a house of cards that tumbles into ruins with the approach of something real and solid.

Fourier’s coloured panorama, Shaw’s “State Socialism,” “The Guild Idea,” and the “New Charter for the Workers,” are the fantastic bubbles thrown to the surface by the forces that contend in the depths of capitalist anarchy. Ephemeral productions of impractical dreamers, they dissolve with a touch of ridicule, or burst and scatter before the ever-broadening stream of science. Their glory is only for a day—the day while the workers believe that all is gold that glitters.

Bat their eyes will weary of watching empty bubbles. They will not always gaze where the finger of the charlatan points to the milleniam coming to meet them. Their faith in leaders, already straining to breaking-point, will one day snap, and, seeing themselves for what they are, the victims of a ruling class, they will recognise with us that they alone can work out their destiny. Then will they learn with astonishment that for over seventy years their class position and the road to emancipation has been clearly defined and within their reach.

F. Foan

Blogger's Note:

At first glance there is not much information online about the “New Charter for the Workers,” but I did find the above page and the two further pages below. The pages are incredibly helpful as they flesh out the arguments F. Foan was making in his article. Found via this fascinating website.

"The New Charter for the Workers. Reprinted from the "Herald" (The National Labour Weekly) of June 23, 1917."

By the Way. (1917)

The By The Way Column from the October 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The contempt of the master class for the workers is seldom so clearly shown as in the discussion which took place on foreign policy prior to the House of Commons adjourning for the summer recess. Several speakers had been presenting the point of view that foreign policy is the exclusive affair of the foreign office, and, as a contemporary states, that everybody else ought to be kept off the sacred grass. It goes on to say that “The time has gone by for the Cecils or any other governing family to expect the people to put their trust blindly in them and their officials. Lord Hugh Cecil, in a lofty lecture to the workers on their unfitness to meddle with foreign policy, says:

“Labour is quite unfit mentally and by training to deal with the questions that will come under discussion ; in fact, I would as soon send a child of three up in an aeroplane as let the Labour Party send delegates to Stockholm.”

The article continues “Labour is fit to fight and die by the hundred thousand, but it is not fit to decide for itself what it shall fight and die for ! . . . It is preposterous to pretend that the millions of workers can be treated like children, and given the war or the peace that the high priests think good for them. It is theirs to do and die : It is also theirs to know the reason why.” (“Star,” 18.8.1917.)

We move even though slowly. It is at last beginning to dawn upon some that those who are called upon to do the fighting, and also the suffering, should likewise know what the trouble is all about; that they should no longer be the pawns of kings and diplomats; and why they should continue to offer themselves upon the altar for capitalist gain. For, after all, to the imprisoned wage slave what does it matter what kind of flag sets the seal to his slavery ?

The gratuitous insult hurled at the workers by the “cultured” Lord is an eloquent example of the narrowness of vision of our masters and pastors. The workers are fit mentally and by training to produce wealth, which they hand over to the employing class, and which ensures a life of ease and idleness to the Cecils and their tribe. Some day ere long we hope to see the workers rise triumphant in their might and throw the parasites from off their backs and end forever the domination of these noble nonentities.

* * *

 

The assumption of the Cecil type of individual that they and they alone are the people fit to rule and shape the destiny of mankind is easily seen to be false by even the most cursory glance at current events. One has only to briefly examine such things as the munitions muddle, the food question, and so on, to observe what frightful confusion they have brought into being. The crowning infamy of all is to be found in the Mesopotamian Commission Report (published at 2s.), which is a sorry spectacle of lack of business ability and mediocre mentality of those entrusted with the campaign. At a future date I hope to give some extracts.

* * *

 

In the “Evening News” (7.8.1917) I read: “The paper used by the British and Foreign Bible Society for its cheap editions of the Scriptures cost just 2d. a lb. in pre-war times.” It would be interesting to know what the pay of the workers producing paper to be sold at 2d. per lb. at a profit might have been in those far-off days. Was it a case of getting their reward in “heaven” ?

* * *

 

The same source informs all and sundry that “The Clergy of Willesden Parish Church have been granted war bonuses.” Evidently a case of “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

* * *

 

The new honours list is an interesting document. How the capitalist powers that be estimate the value of the labour misleaders is clearly shown in the lavish bestowal of these new honours. One error seems to have occurred. Should not they have been created “Dames” of the order ? A good reference to some of them occurs in an article in the “Daily News” (25.8.17) which asks:

“Is it seriously possible to pretend that Mr. Appleton, for instance, or Mr. Havelock Wilson have performed services to the Empire so conspicuous that they deserve recognition which is not conferred on the mass of men who have been fighting abroad for the last two or three years ?”

Verily they have deserved the “Well done thou good and faithful servant” of the capitalist class in so far as they have diverted the attention of their dupes from things that really matter.

* * *

 

A farewell dinner was recently given to the departing Premier of New South Wales. As is usual at these functions a large amount of gas was let off. Our of the English Labour members, Mr. G. N. Barnes, in supporting the toast of Mr. Holman’s health, delivered himself of the following :

“He did not agree with the talk about “class consciousness.” He never endorsed the phrase nor had he any sympathy with those who talked on those lines, because class consciousness and class war engendered bitterness and an atmosphere of suspicion, out of which nothing good could come. There was something infinitely superior, and that was social consciousness.”—”Daily News,” 28.8.17.

Of course, when one attains to such heights as Cabinet rank it is quite easy to understand how respectable such people become. But surely the time has arrived when the workers should take a leaf from the book of the masters, and look to their CLASS interest—the only class that matters is the working class. The master class organises along class lines, though some may be Liberal while others are Conservative, yet they combine in order to dominate and rob the workers. Just prior to the war our liberty-loving masters established a 50 million pound fund wherewith to fight labour, proving conclusively thereby the existence of the CLASS-WAR, which our sycophant “friend,” Barnes, deprecates hearing anything about during the war. To-day there is “national unity”; the labour leader decoys are busy kidding the lambs of labour to lie down with the capitalist lion.

The “class,war engenders bitterness,” and it is our aim to accentuate this. Would Barnes have us kiss the hands of his cold and callous capitalist friends who strike us ? Let him read the history of the working class under capitalist rule—a long chapter of oppression and murder most foul and bloody. Let him give up also speaking in the name of labour. Labour is sick unto death of him and his kidney.

* * *

 

One of the facts we Socialists frequently point out is that rates of wages are determined by the cost of living, and it is interesting and instructive to receive confirmation of this from capitalist sources. When the Corn Production Bill left the Commons the minimum rates were to be fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board appointed for the whole country. This Board was to receive advice from the District Wages Committee, but was not to be bound by it. The Lords reversed the position of the central and local bodies, and the “Daily Chronicle” (20.8.1917), commenting on this says :

“The change has doubtless been made to please the farmers, who can expect to overbalance the local committees much more easily than the Central Board. It is a disastrous change, not merely for that reason, but because the Central Board alone could be expected to make a really scientific survey of the question, and to fix rates not by higgling and guesswork, but in the light of thorough data as to cost of living, prices, cottage rents, and the wages paid in other industries. The whole of the large experience now available from the fixing of minimum wages under the Trade Boards Act tells dead against the transfer from the centre to the locality proposed by the House of Lords. There is really nothing to be said for it, except that it is a cleverly disguised class-manoeuvre in the interests of the agricultural employers.”

Another instance of the Press letting the cat out of the bag.

* * *

 

From a review of a book entitled, “Under Fire,” I cull the following which states there is nothing in war except “frightful and unnatural weariness, water up to the belly, mud and dung and infamous filth . . . befouled faces . . .. tattered flesh” (Daily News, 17.8.1917.) Some opportunity yet for the fight to a finish type of person to sample the above, not in picnic tours to the front but in real equality of sacrifice style. “Greater love hath no man,” etc., we have heard a lot about. Deeds not words, my masters.

* * *

 

The war for freedom, honour and truth brings in its wake a steady yet persistent policy of suppression and doctoring of news items. This is only part of what takes place, for in addition to the above there is another feature, that of “elaborating” what are called successes. In the columns of the “Daily Telegraph” (13.9.1917), under the heading “Inaccurate War News,” their New York correspondent states :

“The Publicity Department of the Admiralty at Washington, established to give “war news,” yesterday announced that American warships off the coast of France in one fell swoop had sunk six submarines. Naturally we had special editions, and joy bells rang everywhere. In succeeding reports, however, the sinkings diminished from six to one,, and regarding that one there is much doubt. . . . In the case of the Fourth of July victory, Mr. Daniels, Secretary of the Admiralty, and Mr. Creel, the department’s publicity agent, both highly successful newspaper reporters in their day, admitted that there had been some “elaborating,” but not enough to justify severe criticism.

In the case of yesterday’s “victory,” the censor’s man is blamed for reading one submarine as six. It is admitted that there was no wilful intent to misrepresent, but the mistake certainly fooled the entire country for twelve hours. It is urged by newspaper critics here that some compromise in reporting war news, which should not lean too much to the conservatism of the British news bureau or to the sensationalism of the American Yellow Press “writers, would probably meet the situation.”

The concluding paragraph quoted above is distinctly good, for apparently the better method of telling the truth is not desirable and, indeed, would appear to be the last thing the master class think of doing. A “compromise” in the case of the six and one is a really brilliant idea !

* * *

 

At a luncheon party held at the House of Commons a few days ago in honour of a Mr. Medill McCormick, a Congressman representing Chicago, a little plain speaking was indulged in. We have on many occasions been informed that this war had nothing to do with capitalist development ; its origin was to be looked for outside such a paltry affair as seaports and commercial rivalries. But lo and behold this wise man who has travelled from the West informs us that:

“We purposed to abandon, and to make Germany abandon, wanton bloodshed as a means of acquiring markets—the Kaiser’s “place in the sun” which any people might win by industry and skill.—”Daily News,” 13.9.1917.

One by one and in strange places the international master class let the cat out of the bag. For which, thanks.

* * *

 

From an unsigned article in the “Daily Express” (31.8.1917) I recently strayed across the following :

“The German loves order and discipline. He has a genius for obedience. Germany is perhaps the best governed country in the world. Her cities are well kept. Her poor are well looked after. She possesses a competent, rigid, and honest bureaucracy. The German appreciates all this. If he is a Socialist, he really does not want to change the system fundamentally. He probably only wants to give the wage earner a chance to become a bureaucrat.”

Really amazing, is it not ? How often have we been told of the awful things that would happen if German militarism was not crushed and we came under the heel of German rule. Terrible pictures have been conjured up in the imagination of our masters and pastors concerning the terrible Hun, and yet withall the Distressites print the above. I leave them to reconcile the seemingly absurd and contradictory statements.

* * *

 

We have grown accustomed to hearing the pathetic wail of the anti-Socialist in his puny effort to stay the onward march of Socialism. How he repeats like a gramophone the statement that Socialism will break up the home life, and so forth. In this connection I have read and re-read a long article under the heading : “Should the State have the Babies?” in a weekly newspaper. It is enough to make the hair stand on end of the average anti. The writer of the article sketches two pictures: one the ordinary working class home conditions on a washing day, and the conditions of “home” life in the State creche. The former needs no repetition here, but the latter is indeed illuminating. After describing the idealistic conditions under the new arrangement which he suggests he goes on to say :

“There are women about the palace—women in humble circumstances of life, but so much healthier, and happier, and less careworn than the half-distracted mothers of the old days, whose poor backs ached from morning till night, and whose knees trembled with the endless fatigue of trying to bring up a large family and earn money for it at the same time.

These mothers are paying their weekly visit to their little ones. Each week, since the State Creche received the babies into its wise, strong and bounteous arms, they have been able to note the advance made by the children. Clean, well fed, sanely clothed, fearless, happy, eager for life—what a nation will ours be when this new generation of young people stand forth to carry on the work of the Empire!

WILL THE DREAM COME TRUE ?

And why not ? Will that dream ever come true ? Will any Government, seizing the moment when all minds are receptive, many conventions shattered, most weak sentimentalising gone by the board, have the courage to gather up the little ones, take them out of the reeking gutter and the awful slum and the fetid cottage, and bring them up in its series of States Creches?

Or shall I be told that nobody can bring up a child but its own mother ? That the mother’s knee is the best school, and the mother’s love the best protection, and the father’s example the surest guide in life ?

Namby-pamby rubbish, I retort ! Go into the slums of the big towns, and into the poor quarters of the country towns and villages, and look into the dwellings. Listen to the language, and examine the food the children eat and the clothes the little things have on their bodies ! And look at the little unwashed bodies and heads ! Look at their mouths ! 

Shall all this continue because no leader has the courage to say to the mother: “When your child is twelve months old, when he can toddle about and is beginning to be a nuisance and to get into danger, when another child, perhaps, is on the way, and you are distracted for want of money, and health, and strength—then the State (which needs him so badly) will take your child, and tend him, feed, clothe, educate him. And all this we will do within a few miles of your home, so that you may see him every week of your life and mark his progress !”—”Sunday Pictorial,” 24.6.1917.

There you are, my working-class sisters, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. The scheme is only for the poor ! Up to the present I have seen no appeal for funds for the Anti-Socialist Union to combat such a “pernicious doctrine.”

Such a condemnation of capitalist society from this quarter is truly valuable. We could hardly be more emphatic ourselves.

The Scout.

[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