Watching big brother (1978)

TV Review from the October 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

On three consecutive Tuesdays in October (one of them ironically the wedding day of millionairess Onassis to a top Soviet official) Granada TV presented Decision: British Communism, a study of the Communist Party of Great Britain as it prepared for and carried on its 1977 Congress. Permission for the filming of branch and committee meetings was doubtless intended to confirm the Party’s new found enthusiasm for the democratic process; the result did no such thing, however. The programmes showed well the CP’s authoritarian structure. The seven member Political Committee dominates the Party, pushing through its policies against opposition from ‘liberals’ (Eurocommunists) and hardliners. At one branch meeting a ‘liberal’ stated that a recent suggestion to the London District Committee for a greater degree of internal democracy was quashed by two groups — one considering the existing level too great because it had led to division, and another which regarded everything fine as it was. When the ‘liberals’ on the committee pressed the matter, ‘‘all the old talk of CIA infiltration was dragged up”.

At a time when the USSR is busy prosecuting dissidents, sight of the CP’s Executive giving a standing ovation to a representative from the Soviet party confirmed a commitment to pluralism. A major cause of friction between the leadership and the liberals concerns the relationship of the CPSU to the European parties. When the leadership stated that Brezhnev had publicly declared each CP to be sovereign, it was pointed out year before the Czechoslovak invasion.

The last, and most interesting, programme focussed on congress itself, and in particular a dispute over the wording a place on the agenda of a pro-Soviet resolution. The Party’s Arrangements Committee (responsible for vetting resolutions and ensuring that nothing too anti-leadership gets a good hearing) scored a tactical victory in moving the motion to the last day, thus avoiding a display of disunity in the presence of the man from Moscow. McGahey, the wily Congress chairman, denied the right of discussion or opposition from the floor, roused the faithful with a few words on the “great and historic” events of 1917 and moved swiftly to the vote.

The clearest thing to emerge from the series was that the Communist Party has no conception of Socialism at all. Their aim is a state dominated economy (“an alternative to the power of the big monopolies”), not a society in which the state, together with money buying and selling will have ceased to exist. Their idea of the socialist revolution is still the elitist one of a vanguard party dragging the workers to socialism, entering into pacts with other political parties and "classes” (!) along the way.

Brian Philips

Blogger's Note:

Episode 3 of this Granada series is available on YouTube. Sadly, the first two episodes are unavailable at the time of writing. The documentary maker who filmed the series, Roger Graef, died in 2022.

An Apology to The Right Honourable Eric Heffer, MP (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

House of Commons, 28 April 1981

Dear Sir,

It has been drawn to my attention that your journal on May 1980 said that I had written in Socialist Revolt of April 1957 the following:

“No one can deny that Communists in the past have made grave mistakes, but does anyone believe that Russia would have retained its socialist basis . . . without Stalin’s iron rule during the most difficult period in Communist history? Would subversion, direct aggression, economic sabotage etc. not have crushed the germinating seed of world Communism if Comrade Stalin had not “enforced” the unity of Communists in Russia, and throughout the International Communist Movement?”

In fact the article was written by someone called Ian Watson, and was on pages 13 and the back page. At the head of that particular article the Editor wrote, “We do not agree with anything in this article. It is however, an example of the apology put forward by the Communist Party.”.

Writing of the Communist Party Programme, “The British Road to Socialism” in that issue of Socialist Revolt I in fact wrote “What do they mean? The same as in the Soviet Union and the “People’s Democracies”? “Workers” who become transformed into a Party of bureaucrats. Only real control at all levels with industry separate from the State apparatus can guarantee real democracy and genuine socialist participation”. That can hardly be called support for Stalin.

I expect an apology and retraction in your next issue.

Yours sincerely.

Eric S. Heffer,

MP for Walton.

We Apologise.

Eric Heffer is right. The passage we reproduced was not written by him and was preceded by the editorial disclaimer he quotes. We regret this mistake and unreservedly apologise.

It is also true that Eric Heffer wrote an article in the same April/ June issue of Socialist Revolt (“organ of the Socialist Workers’ Federation”) criticising the Russian regime. What he does not say is that the article in question also criticised the Communist Party as “reformist” for maintaining that “socialism can be achieved peacefully through the Parliamentary method”. The SWF (of which he was a leading member) declared that it rejected “the concept of supporting a Labour Government or any other Parliamentary Government as a means of establishing socialism”. Eric Heffer’s views have evidently changed since he is himself now a leading parliamentarian and reformist! What makes him a reformist, we hasten to add, is not his (present) view that Parliament can be used in the abolition of capitalism, but his belief that capitalism can be abolished gradually by a series of reform measures passed by a Labour Government.

Editors.

Communist Commotion (1957)

From the June 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

“FREE HARICH, SACK HARRY,” painted with true Communist zeal in large white letters on the roadway greeted the faithful as they entered Hammersmith Town Hall over the Easter week-end to receive their annual dose of dogma from the cardinals of King Street, and to indulge in some public confessions of political sins. This slogan was not a rabble-rousing challenge to strike fear into the hearts of Yankee capitalists or warmongering Tories; it was directed not outwards, but inwards, to the heart of the Workers’ Mass Party itself. Harich is the young intellectual imprisoned by the East German government, and guess who Harry is? Yes, none other than Cardinal Harry Pollitt. Alas! we confidently predict that this slogan will have as little effect in altering the status quo as others which have appeared on walls from time to time to enliven the working-class scene have had (e.g., “Hands off Guatemala,” “End Eden’s War,” “Chuck The Tories Out,” etc.). Harry is still there, and so, presumably, is Harich – but in a different place.

The irreverent slogan was, however, a sign of a definite air of revolt which hung over the proceedings, a revolt which, if not quite amounting to “ruthless self-criticism,” was at least an indication of a fairly advanced state of political masochism. Cardinal J. Gollan, the Party secretary, had to announce that 7,000 of the faithful had left the flock during the preceding year: others were all too ready to voice their doubts, especially about the Russian intervention in Hungary. One delegate remarked that in 22 years he had never known a Congress that had such a ‘type of discussion getting down to it.'” (Observer, 21/4/57). The college of cardinals, including Gollan, Matthews, Mahon and Pollitt, struggled manfully with incantations and holy writ to exorcise the devils of heresy.

Representatives of the Labour press were excluded from the conference. Could this be because Mr. Peter Fryer (who resigned from the Daily Worker over the treatment of his reports from Hungary and who was later expelled from the C.P.) was the would-be representative for Tribune?

Hungary

Although the hierarchy’s policy obtained an “overwhelming majority” of votes in its support from the Congress, there were some rather frank things said about the Russian intervention in Hungary. For instance, Mr. J. McLoughlin, the famous Dagenham campanologist, was most vociferous: “Don’t dig your heads in the sand,” he said “and ignore Hungary. Terrible things have happened.” And, he added, in a final fling at the platform, “I want to come to the next Congress and see at least a partially new front bench – not the Dutt-Pollitt-what’s-his-name axis.” (Observer, 21/4/57.) Tut, tut, John. flattery will get you nowhere.

J. McLachlan (Scotland); “The Daily Worker told us that there was black counter-revolution in Hungary, but, in fact, there were popular demonstrations against a bureaucratic regime,” he said. “I agree that these were used by reactionary forces, and I agree that the final intervention by Soviet forces was necessary. But terrible mistakes had been made by the Soviet and Hungarian leaders and we should condemn those mistakes at this ingress.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57.)

Another outspoken critic was Mr. Brian Behan. “At meeting of the executive,” said Brian Behan, “he had moved an amendment that they should dissociate themselves from the crimes of the Hungarian Communist Party. but this had not been printed in the Daily Worker. He had been told that this was due to a technical error (!) and accepted this, but he believed that his amendment should have been reported to Congress.” (Daily Worker, 20/4/57.) Readers who may be prematurely rejoicing at the thought of free speech pervading the upper layers of the Communist hierarchy will no doubt be saddened to learn that Mr. Behan did not gain a place on the new executive: the above statement, and others we shall be reporting later in this article, may offer slight clues as e cause of his unfortunate political demise.

Mr. Fryer was not permitted to put his case before Congress, but copies of a speech he would have made were distributed. A portion of this speech (reported in the Manchester Guardian of 22/4/57) is most revealing, and is worth reproducing here: “You can cross out my name from the membership list with a stroke of the pen. But you cannot cross out the truth about Hungary with a stroke of the pen. The truth about Hungary is known perfectly well to many of you who will vote for the rejection of my appeal. In the privacy of his office J. R. Campbell (editor of the Daily Worker) speaks of Kadar as a puppet. I am expelled for blazoning abroad what Campbell knows to be the truth.”

The Bomb, and Conscription

Male Communists are capable of making some monumentally fatuous remarks, but it takes a female Communist (Comrade Frances Silcocks, from Yorkshire) to reach the ultimate low in fatuity. After dilating on the struggle of working-class women against the horrors of the H-bomb, this Diana of the barricades said: “Now we are told that the Soviet Union is testing the bomb, and we are asked what we say about that,” she said. “We are opposed to tests in any country, including the Soviet Union. But what is the Soviet Union to do? Is it to sit on the fence until we throw bombs at them and they have none to throw back?” (Daily Worker, 20/4/57.) Certainly not, Comrade Frances, we hero mothers of the Communist Party would consider it an honour and a privilege to be liquidated by a real, class-conscious, Soviet H-bomb.

“There was a short, sharp debate on conscription. By 321 votes to 135 Congress defeated a proposal that the Party should fight to end conscription.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57.) The ubiquitous Mr. McLoughlin also had some words to say on this subject: “The Tory Government had announced a new policy on conscription, but the Communist Party was still committed to it. Why?” he asked. “Perhaps because the Russians have got conscription.” “Don’t be provocative,” called out a delegate. (Daily Worker, 20/4/57.)

Democracy

The election of the executive committee was democratic in the extreme; 42 members were “recommended” for election, and, would you believe it, “a party spokesman said . . . that there would be 42 members on the new executive.” (Manchester Guardian, 20/4/57.) How convenient! As we mentioned before, careless talk cost Mr. Behan his seat on the band-wagon.

Lest we appear too harsh on the comrades, we should mention that they stage-managed quite a nice little show of “democracy” during the congress. The minority formulation in the draft revised text of The British Road to Socialism relating to “fraternal relations between Socialist Britain and the countries of the British Empire” received a majority of votes over the majority (executive committee) version. However, we defy anyone to show us any fundamental difference between the two drafts as reported on the front page of the Daily Worker of 22/4/57. The debate was, as the immortal bard said, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

A final indication of the degree of democracy which pervaded the congress is that 57 general resolutions submitted by branches were not discussed, and “before delegates had seen them they were asked to agree to remit them to the National Executive, and in the end they did so.” (Manchester Guardian, 23/4/57.)

“Revisionism”

Cardinal Gollan admirably defined this fine old Bolshevik euphemism for criticism of official party policy in his weighty address to his flock (Daily Worker, 20/4/57). “We use the word ‘revisionist’ advisedly, not as a bit of name-calling, but to describe objective tendencies. These were the contributions attacking the essential basis of the Party, democratic centralism and its leading role.” He later said (Daily Worker, 22/4/57): “Lenin and the Bolsheviks had to fight revisionists all their lives.” Exactly; the modern disciples of Pope Lenin have to carry on the good fight – no wonder they don’t have any time to discuss Socialism.

Another outspoken delegate was Professor Hyman Levy, who denied that the loss of 7,000 members was due to “revisionism,” “but to the attitude of the leaders to events in Russia and Eastern Europe.” (Manchester Guardian, 22/4/57.) Professor Levy “challenged his chairman, Mr. Harry Pollitt, to explain his silence about ‘a gangsterism’ in the Soviet Union. How often has Harry Pollitt been told about this? How often has he told people to keep their mouths shut?” Need we add that Professor Levy’s utterances were nowhere reported in the pages of the Daily Worker! Much prominence was, however, given to a “reply” by Andrew Rothstein, a reply deeply embedded in party dogma. (Daily Worker, 23/4/57).

Kerala

The recent coming to power of a “communist” government in the State of Kerala in India received much plaudits from the assembled comrades. Cardinal George Matthews said (Daily Worker, 22/4/57): “The victory of the Communist Party of India in the State of Kerala is a portent of far-reaching political developments which will take place among the teeming millions of India.” No one outside the Communist Party phantasy world, however, will be surprised to learn that business in Kerala continues much as before, on sound capitalist lines, and the revolutionary Communist ministers’ ” deeds and sayings in one single day are too bourgeois for words,” according to Miss Taya Zinkin in the Manchester Guardian (24/4/57). ‘She continues: “The Chief Minister attended Acharya Vinoba Bhave’s prayer meeting yesterday, bought a copy of his book on the Gita (Hinduism’s Bible), and asked for an autograph of India’s walking saint . . . Meanwhile the Health Minister, Mr. R. A. Menon . . . told the Palghat Poor Home Society that the beggar problem must be solved by private institutions because the Government can do very little,” etc.

“The British Road to Socialism”

Some heretic voices were even raised against this blueprint for revolution (1957 version, with all the latest tactical amendments and deletions to match the day-today, struggle. E. & O.E.). A genuine, old-fashioned kind of Bolshevik is T. Connor who “opposed the draft as a revisionist (ouch; that word again) programme, and he was fighting for a return to revolutionary Socialism. He moved an amendment calling for the formation of workers’ councils and councils of action through which power would be seized.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57.) Cardinal J. R. Campbell rebutted this idea, evocative as it is of sterner, ruder, Bolshevik days. “The amendment put forward by Huyton, suggesting that workers’ councils and councils of action would elect a Socialist Government, proposed to substitute for the pure milk of Marxism the skimmed milk of Trotskyism,” he said. (Laughter). May we remind the reverend Cardinal and all the sheep who laughed so heartily at his witticism, that once upon a time “councils of action,” “workers’ councils,” “united fronts,” etc., were all the rage on the revolutionary front. For instance, a circular issued by the “Red International of Labour Unions” came into our hands (Socialist Standard, March 1923) before the word “Trotskyism” (one of the foulest swear-words in the Communist vocabulary) was invented. This circular advocated the concentration of “all available strength” by the formation of “councils of action through the medium of conference composed of delegates from trades councils, trade union branches, and district committees, working class local and national political organisations, unemployed organisations, co-operative societies and guilds.” Stick that in your milk and skim it, Campbell. Cardinal Campbell opposed the nationalisation of certain types of land, not because it is not Socialism, but because “it would also lead to endless complications pushing masses of people on to the wrong side of the class struggle.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57). Yes, but which side? With true revolutionary zeal the good Cardinal also opposed the policy of “no compensation,” because it “would alarm those we are seeking to neutralise, would create the maximum opposition and make most difficult a peaceful transition.”

To prove that the female of the Communist species is more deadly than the male, Mrs. Gwen Shield moved an amendment to reject the draft’s proposal to compensate former owners of nationalised industries. “She wanted them to get only the opportunity to work and when prevented by physical incapacity to get National Insurance benefits.” (Daily Worker, 22/4/57). Good news for all you capitalists!

What of the Future?

Thousands of members have left the Communist Party during the past year, and many more may do so after this year’s conference, which has conclusively proved the party hierarchy’s refusal to budge one inch from its rigid pro-Russian line. But the “hard core” will carry on, for, in Cardinal Pollitt’s own words, “We all owe everything to the party, whatever we do and whatever our job” (Daily Worker, 23/4/57).

Professor Levy summed up the Communist Party’s political influence thus: “The working class of this country have constantly rejected the Communist Party,” he said. “You keep on talking as if you were the leading group.” (Manchester Guardian, 22/4/57). Whatever future party line the diehards adopt in following the tortuous changes in the policy of the Russian ruling class, it will inevitably be anti-working-class and anti-Socialist. The Communist Party’s past history has been a chapter of misrepresentation, trickery, deceit and humbug. Its future is likely to be no different.

Michael La Touche

Communists in Name Alone (1960)

Pamphlet Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people are taken in by the apparently Socialist phrasing used in Communist Party literature. The fact that Moscow publishes some of Marx's works tends to convince such people that the Russian system is based on Marxism and is building Socialism. Without going any further into the matter, they find it hard to believe that the so-called Communist Party is not genuinely Marxist or Communist in character.

Even people who are opposed to the Communist Party, or who are not interested in politics at all, accept the myth that a basically different system exists in Russia. The propaganda machines of both East and West agree that Russia. China, and their satellites, are Communist. They simply disagree as to its desirability, although it is doubtful whether the ruling class of either side are really so naive.

A careful reading of The British Road to Socialism, the most recent programme of the Communist Party, gives some indication of how utterly confused and muddle-headed that organisation is. They freely'use the term “Socialism,” but their “explanations” betray only too dearly the fact that they have not the vaguest notion of what it means. Having stuck a Socialist label on their State enterprise capitalist programme, they proceed in great detail to show us how different it is from private enterprise capitalism.

The more they elaborate the more familiar becomes the ring of reformism, compromise and collaboration. The capitalist terminology is not disguised, it is blandly called Socialist.

The most important question that arises from the pamphlet is—if this programme were put into effect would it at least be a greater advance towards Socialism than continued Tory and Labour administrations? The answer is an emphatic “NO.“ If the working-class were to support the Communist Party on a programme of State Capitalism, as outlined in the pamphlet and called Socialism, the only result would be disillusionment. In Russia and her Empire all the ugly features of capitalism are clearly to be seen. There is no evidence that state bosses are any better for the working-class than private bosses.

The state is essentially an instrument of class rule and will not exist in a classless society—Socialism. This is a fact which some of the old Bolsheviks knew, but having taken power when historical development was bringing capitalism into being, they turned their backs on it. They have also turned their backs on Marx’s analysis of capitalist society.

As the programme makes repeated references to a “Socialist Government" and a “Socialist Britain” and uses such terms as the “Socialist State” and the “Working-Class State,” it is clearly evident that the so-called Communist Party imagines that nations, states and governments will continue to exist under Socialism. A few quotations will show how capitalism has made them eat their words on the question of the state and how they have adulterated Marxism in order to try and make it support its opposite.

Engels writes in Anti-Duhring: 

The modern state, whatever its form, is an essentially capitalist machine; it is the state of the capitalists, the ideal collective body of all capitalists. The more productive forces it takes over as its property, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme.

Lenin knew this to be the Marxist view of the stale. In a pamphlet (Lenin and Stalin on the State), for example, he tells us “. . . the State is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonism. The State arises when, where, and to the extent that class antagonisms cannot be objectively reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the State proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.” (Page 26).

The truth that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has all along been the instrument for the building of modern industrial capitalism in Russia can be seen from the wage labour and capital basis of the Russian system. Vishinsky who, unlike many of the old Bolsheviks, died of natural causes, contemptuously stated that the so-called doctrine of the withering away of the State has been a favourite subject of petty-bourgeois chatter about Marxism. “What we want is a strong State with a redoubtable repressive apparatus." (The Patriotic War of the Soviet Government, published in Moscow, 1944).

It has been necessary to show the true nature of the State in order to make clear the all-important fact that the existence of the State is incompatible with common ownership of the means of production. Common ownership means class-less society, therefore, the absence of the class State or repressive apparatus. Furthermore, it is vital to establish this point because the “Socialist State,” a contradiction in terms, is the central theme and the basic proposition of the so-called Communist Party’s programme.

It follows that the rambling list of reforms which make up the programme to be carried out by a “Communist” government brands them as a purely state-capitalist party.

Although the British Road to Socialism consists of only thirty pages, there are so many fallacies and misconceptions that a hefty volume would be needed to thoroughly deal with each anti-Socialist proposition.

It is suggested, for example, that the Labour Party could join with the Communist Party to establish Socialism in Britain. This, despite the fact that the Labour Party has never stood for Socialism and when in power has run capitalism and been guilty of every anti-working-class act in the book. When in opposition, the Labour Party is obsessed with trying to find a policy that will get them elected to run capitalism again. To talk of a Socialist Britain with a "foreign policy” is to contradict the essential world-wide nature of Socialism, which in a world system there will be no "foreigners.”

To talk of foreign trade is to deny production for use and free access. Distribution according to needs is the basis of Socialism. To talk of trade at all is to talk of the struggle for markets, and rivalry for resources. To talk of trade is to talk of war. To talk of “independence for colonial peoples ” is to propose the setting up of more national states on the lines of home ruled capitalism with still more rivalry. Independence is the cry of the nationalist but it does not end the dependance of the working-class upon wages. Nationalism atomises the world into a number of mutually hostile fragments, where the workers in each fragment line up with their native capitalists. Internationalism expresses the oneness of working-class interest in the struggle to overthrow the wages system and establish the world community of Socialism.

For the Communist Party to talk of “the withdrawal of all armed forces from colonial and dependent territories or occupied spheres of influence and the handing over of sovereignty to governments freely chosen by their peoples," is hypocrisy in view of the imperialist record of the Soviet Union.

Socialism means the end of the employer to employee relationship, the end of landlord and tenant. Under Socialism there will be no pensions or benefits, which are the hall-marks of poverty under welfare capitalism.

To say that the Communist Party “will raise pensions and benefits for the old, the widows, the disabled and the chronic sick . . .”, is to say they will continue with a system of rich and poor. They promise to provide cheap houses at “a low rent.” Once again, it is only poor people who need low rents. Socialism means no rents because accommodation, like everything else, will be produced solely for use.

To anybody with half an eye the fact that the Communist Party talks of “reduction of mortgage interest charges,” “lower cost of repairs,” “finance,” “lower prices and higher wages,” shows how firmly they are in the grip of the economics of Capitalism.

In the final chapter, another futile effort is made to woo the Labour Party and the co-operative movement. Marx is linked with Lenin (with whom he has less in common than chalk has with cheese), and we find “church organisations” and “business people” listed amongst the “progressive forces" which will “open up the way for the advance to Socialism.”

It is indeed tragic that workers are so easily fooled by names, for even the most rudimentary understanding of Communism will expose the sham of those who are Communist in name alone.

Harry Baldwin

Darkness at Noon (1969)

Pamphlet Review from the July 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Party of Great Britain, like Tennyson’s immortal brook, seems to go on and on forever. Brooks, however, can normally be relied upon to follow a predetermined course with some consistency; this is outside the capabilities of the Communist Party. This can be assumed from the latest edition of The British Road to Socialism, a remarkable document in which the CP sets out to woo the workers with the glorious principles of Reform. Not that this is a new technique; the Communist Party has never advocated anything other than a few petty alterations to the existing social system, capitalism.

This pamphlet, however, does include one or two new features, or, more precisely, new details of old ideas.

It is not necessary here to record an endless list of “policies” along these lines; anyone willing to pay the Communist Party piper for the modest sum of two and sixpence can call any tune he could possibly wish for, ranging from the Balance of Payment Blues to the Social Security Symphony, and even the Technology Tango. No longer need any worker feel left out of the CP’s plans—every prejudice is catered for. Should you disagree with any of the “policies”, don’t despair; Communist Party promises change regularly.

Out of so much trash only one fact emerges which is relevant to Socialists and the interests of the workers, namely, that the "Communists” are no more concerned with Communism or Socialism than are the Labourites or Tories. They still see Communism and Socialism as being different systems, a throw-back to the days when the CP in Britain acted exclusively as a foreign agent to the Russian ruling class, and was obliged to echo well-known libertarians like Stalin, who excused the brutalities of the day with the “means to an end” argument. Page seventeen contains the disquieting intelligence that Russia is still a “Socialist State”; this means, probably, that the type of life “enjoyed” by workers there is an insight into lives of workers in Britain should the CP ever come to power.

David Ramsay Steele

The Demise of Thatcher (1990)

Editorial from the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who the hell cares which political dinosaur will lead the Conservative Party? What possible difference does the conclusion of this thieves' quarrel make to the vast majority of people living in Britain? 

The Tories represent the interests of the parasite class which lives on the profits which are legally robbed from the wealth-producing majority. The workers, who are the overwhelming majority, have nothing to be gained by supporting the sordid ambitions of politicians. The Prime Minister is not the workers' representative, but the chief mouthpiece of the profit-protecting government. 

The function of government is to rule over those who are the productive majority. The system in which the majority allows itself to be ruled - governed - oppressed by leaders is not democracy. Democracy means the rule of the people by the people. It means the administration of things, not the government over people. In a democracy there can be no leaders or led, for all people will co-operate to make the decisions which affect the life of the human community. 

The irrelevant leadership battle is a sordid fight between defenders of capitalism who think that it is their role to govern and ours to be governed. We are not invited to vote in their election; all we are asked to do is to sit in front of our TV screens and gaze at the cynical tactics of a gang of political tricksters. 

The Tory contestants were united by one policy; their complete and unequivocal support for world capitalism. In this they are at one with Kinnock and Ashdown. All of the politicians and parties of the profit system are solid in their rejection of any alternative to the way the world is run now. We live in a society where needs come second to profit and where those who possess do not produce while those who produce all goods and services do not possess the resources of the earth. 

The real political contest is not about who will lead the Tory party and draw the prime ministerial salary. It is a battle of ideas about whether the working class majority will support and vote for production for profit or production for use. If workers vote for the profit system, then it matters not a jot which of the con men leads which party of fakers. If workers opt for socialism, as historical necessity demands that we should, then the question of leadership is irrelevant. No socialist would ever follow a leader; no socialist seeks to lead anyone else. 

To the Tory tricksters we say "A plague on both your houses!". Socialists have better things to think about than the dirty fighting of those who run this dirty social system. 

In 1979 Mrs Thatcher came to power heralded as the saviour of British capitalism. She now quits the stage with British capitalism in economic decline. Far from realising her boast "to bury socialism", her political career has been buried by capitalism. 

Cooking the Books: State monopoly capitalism (2010)

Cooking the Books column from the January 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

David Cameron is on record as attacking ‘markets without morality’ and ‘capitalism without a conscience’. It’s all part of his attempt to rebrand the Tory party from the openly nasty party it was under Thatcher to a caring party, in the hope that this will bring in a enough votes to win the next election. One of those he has called in to help do this is a former theology lecturer, Phillip Blond, who the media have dubbed a ‘Red Tory’ for his critique of ‘unfettered capitalism’.

According to the London Times (25 November), Blond “argues that successive governments sought to deregulate for the sake of market competition, but ended up creating monopolies that dominate Britain’s high streets, arguing that this created ‘state-sanctioned monopoly capitalism’.”

‘State monopoly capitalism’ was a term employed, indeed coined, by the old Communist Party. For instance, in the 1968 edition of their programme The British Road to Socialism they stated that “Stage by stage British capitalism has developed into monopoly capitalism . . . Monopoly capitalism, the basis of imperialism, has now developed to state monopoly capitalism where the capitalist state is intertwined with the great banks and monopolies” and called for “a broad popular alliance drawing on all those whose interests are threatened by state monopoly capitalism”.

Although this ‘broad alliance’ was envisaged as including non-monopoly capitalists, it has to be admitted that there was a difference between this and what Blond has in mind. They wanted to go on to ‘state-monopoly capitalism’ such as then existed in Russia, whereas he wants to go back to a non-monopoly capitalism with lots of small and medium-sized businesses competing against each other.

Actually, ‘monopoly capitalism’ is not an accurate description of present-day capitalism. Certainly, most sectors of production and distribution are dominated by a small number of large companies, but this is not a monopoly situation where there is only a single seller. It is rather what economists call an oligopoly situation, domination by a few big companies (from oligos, the Greek word for ‘few’).

So, a more accurate description of modern capitalism would be ‘oligopoly capitalism’, even though the term sounds barbarous and is not likely to catch on (but ‘oligarch’ did).

Marx identified a built-in tendency under capitalism towards ‘oligopoly’, though he called it the concentration and centralisation of capital, a trend which has been amply borne out as, through mergers and take-overs, the number of firms in all sectors of industry has become fewer and fewer. It is this trend that Blond wants to reverse. As do the Green Party and the former editor of the Ecologist, Zac Goldsmith, who will be standing as a Tory candidate in the coming general election.

They won’t succeed of course because the concentration and centralisation of industry corresponds to the logic of capitalism and cannot be overcome by government action. If the Tories win, the most that would happen is that steps would be taken – or rather would be continued – to stop any one oligopolistic firm becoming too powerful. Other capitalists don’t like this as it allows the firm in question to hold them to ransom and make them pay over the odds for some product or service. Which is why there is trust-busting legislation in the US and a Competition (formerly Monopolies) Commission in Britain. But no government is going to try to break up the oligopolies into smaller, more competitive firms, whatever the small business element within the Tory party might dream about. State-sanctioned oligopoly capitalism will survive.