Cooking the Books: Outdated measures (2026)

The Cooking The Books column from the April 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Manifesto was published on 21 February 1848. The Morning Star, the paper run by nostalgics for the former USSR, chose that date this year for an editorial headed ‘The Communist Manifesto is as relevant today as it was in 1848’. Yes, most of it is. It is a brilliant description and analysis of the development of capitalism, its role in history in bringing into existence a working class struggling against exploitation and to replace capitalism with a society based on the common ownership of the means and instruments of production. It remains today a good introduction to socialist ideas which those interested in understanding the society we live in should read.

However, it was not this part that the Morning Star considered ‘relevant today’ but the ten measures listed at the end of Chapter 2, which include: abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes; a heavy progressive or graduated income tax; centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly; centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state; extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; and free education for all children in public schools.

The Morning Star sees them ‘as a series of direct demands which challenge the material basis of existing society’, as reforms which the working class should campaign for under capitalism. But this is a misinterpretation as the context, both textual and historical, makes clear. The preceding paragraphs indicate that they were measures that the working class should implement after it had won control of political power. One of the measures — the ‘confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels’ — doesn’t make sense except in that context.

The historical context is the uprising that had broken out in Germany against autocratic dynastic rule. Marx and Engels thought that this ‘bourgeois revolution will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution’. In other words, they were measures for the working class to implement on winning political control in 1848. This didn’t happen and, in exile in London three years later, Marx and Engels recognised that they had been mistaken and that this was never really on the cards. So the listed measures weren’t relevant even in 1848, let alone today 178 years later.

Some of them, such as a progressive income tax, a state bank, railway nationalisation, and free education, have since been implemented under capitalism; which rather undermines the Morning Star’s claim that they ‘challenge the basis of existing society’. In fact, that claim reveals that those behind it envisage existing capitalism being gradually transformed into state capitalism by a series of reforms and nationalisations.

But the killer quote that disposes of the Morning Star’s misinterpretation is what Engels wrote in the Preface to the 1872 re-edition:

‘The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today’ (Our emphasis).

Today of course they would be even more differently worded, not that it would make sense to draw any up today since we don’t know what the conditions will be in which the working class will assume control of political power. But we can safely say that they won’t need to include any of those listed in 1848.

Forum: Free Maintenance. (1908)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Statements of difficulties, criticisms of our position, contributions upon any question of working-class interest, are invited. Members and non-members of the Party are alike welcome. 

Correspondents must, however, be as brief as possible, as bright as possible, and as direct as possible to the point.

1. Does poverty prevent class consciousness ?

2. On state maintenance of children.

A.P. (Walworth.) writes a “friendly criticism” of our position extending to three folios, urging that although he recognises Socialism to be the only remedy, the working class are too unintelligent and ignorant in their present poverty-stricken condition to be able to achieve it. Free maintenance, he argues, is a necessary preliminary. He does not deny that it will bolster up capitalism, but says “the very process of patching up would play no small part in its downfall.” In the first place A.P. errs in confusing ignorance with a lack of intelligence : intelligence meaning a capacity for knowledge rather than the knowledge itself. We deny that the working class are not sufficiently intelligent to understand Socialism, one of the reasons being that we are workers ourselves. What prevents the workers accepting Socialism is the confusion introduced into its propaganda by persons calling themselves Socialists, preaching and doing that which is inconsistent with Socialism. Poverty by itself does not incapacitate a person from understanding anything—many of the intellectual geniuses of all times having struggled with poverty ; nor does poverty prevent a class from being revolutionary. Although the Peasants’ Revolt in this country was undertaken when the peasants were in a condition of comparative prosperity, the revolt of the continental peasants—the Jacquerie of France, in particular—was undertaken at about the same time, when at the lowest ebb of degradation and poverty. To-day, the revolutionary spirit is certainly as manifest in the East End as in respectable Suburbia.

Regarding free maintenance of the children, the very necessity of this as being the necessary outcome of capitalism is an indictment of capitalism, and the only remedy is Socialism. The working-class effort needed to agitate for and administer an adequate measure of state maintenance is about equal to that needed for the Social Revolution, and the working class capable of conducting the one is certainly equal to conducting the other—while Socialism would render the former unnecessary. And seeing also that while the capitalists rule they can only be persuaded to grant anything in that direction, apart from that which suits their own interests, by fear of something worse to follow, we know of nothing more calculated to impress the capitalist class with fear than the concentration of the workers on Socialism. It is quite a mistake to suppose that it is a tenet of this Party that reforms, sops, palliatives, and ameliorative measures generally would be refused. In the first place we cannot refuse them if we would, not having the power ; in the second place we know that the danger lies not in having these things offered as a substitute for Socialism—that would not lessen one class-consciousness—but in stultifying our Socialism by advocating that which is not Socialism. To talk of the patching being necessary to its downfall is simply a contradiction in terms and in fact. The illustration used seems most unhappy. If an eloquent S.P.G.B’er were to convert Haggerston to Socialism, the next week a nice, kind gentleman with a cheque book would be able to convert it back again to Tariff Reform. If the eloquence of the former were successful in converting the working class ia any constituency, that working class would be proof against the cheque book of the Tariff Reformer or any other agent of the master class, The cheque book is only powerful to-day because the workers are not converted and are not class-conscious.

Just Stop Oil: the failure of a tactic (2025)

From the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just Stop Oil was set up at the beginning of 2022 as an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion (XR) which had been launched four years earlier. The disagreement was over tactics not strategy. Both were committed to the strategy of getting 3.5 percent of the population to engage in non-violent, disruptive civil disobedience, the minority considered sufficient to spark off a popular movement to topple a government and impose a new policy. This figure was based on calculations by Erica Chenoweth, an American academic.

XR say on their website that they are committed to:‘mobilising 3.5% of the population to achieve system change – using ideas such as “momentum-driven organising” to achieve this’.

At one time they had added: ‘The change needed is huge and yet achievable. No regime in the 20th century managed to stand against an uprising which had the active participation of up to 3.5% of the population (for Erica Chenoweth’s research, see bit.ly/3Gn0NoV)’.

Roger Hallam, the driving force behind JSO, has put it this way: ‘You can basically save the next generation with 2 per cent of the American population mobilised, engaged in an intense intra-relationship between high-level disruption and intense mobilisation’ (Times, 24 October 2022).

And in his book Common Sense in the 21st Century (subtitled Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown And Social Collapse) he writes:

‘We should not make the mistake of thinking “the people have to rise” in the sense of the majority of the population. We need a few to rise up and most of the rest of the population to be willing to “give it a go”.’

‘Momentum-driven organising’

The formal aim of XR was a non-violent rebellion to get a government that would adopt measures to achieve net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. Hallam, one of XR’s founders but more hard-headed and a more experienced agitator than the others, considered this too remote an aim to mobilise the 3.5 percent minority. In his view, the aim needed to be more concrete, but also one that was more immediately achievable. Initially, he chose ‘Insulate Britain’, to get the government to insulate every home in the country, as the immediate mobilising aim. Then at the beginning of 2022 he switched to stopping further drilling for oil in the North Sea.

His thinking was the opposite of the Trotskyists. They put forward demands that they know can’t be achieved under capitalism in the expectation that those they get to support the demand will, when the campaign fails, turn to them for leadership to overthrow the capitalist state. Hallam’s view was to put forward a demand that could be achieved and that, when it was, could be presented as a victory for the movement, giving it self-confidence to carry on struggling for more, and more ambitious, objectives, eventually the toppling of the government and its replacement by one seriously committed to reaching zero net carbon in a few years.

We don’t have to judge whose tactic — Hallam’s ‘momentum-driven organising’ or the Trotskyists’ ‘transitional demands’— is the less realistic since we reject the basic assumption of both self-appointed vanguards of a leadership manipulating followers. If there is going to be successful and lasting system change a majority must want and understand what it involves and actively take part in bringing it about.

Self-delusion

At the end of March Just Stop Oil announced that it was disbanding. The formal reason given for this was that its goal had been achieved. Oil had been Stopped. The current government had suspended giving further licences to drill for oil in the North Sea. Their website proclaims that ‘we have kept 4.4 billions of oil in the ground’ and that this was ‘one of the world’s most effective climate campaigns’ (juststopoil.org). This is just bombast and self-delusion.

The suspension of licences to drill in the North Sea had nothing to do with their campaign of disruptive civil disobedience. If anything, that was counter-productive as the stunts they pulled inconvenienced and annoyed people. It was in fact brought about through the ballot box when a new government, committed to suspending new drilling, was elected. That said, should the ‘economic headwinds’ prove too strong the government could easily reverse its position and may well.

In any event, JSO’s self-proclaimed ‘victory’ did not give the movement the momentum anticipated and so, from their own point of view, they failed. Their only achievement has been 15 of their members in prison under legislation brought in by the government to counter their actions. That includes Hallam himself who is serving four years, though he probably thinks that having martyrs is part of ‘momentum-driven organising’. That will prove to be a delusion too.

Their disbanding statement does, however, say that ‘nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms’. This is a change from previous statements whose language suggested that they would be satisfied with a change of government or of governance or even just of government policy. But what kind of revolution — minority-led or majority — and with what aim — a change in the basis of society from class ownership to common ownership or something less?

Adam Buick

Letter: The Belgian “Socialist” Party (1972)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following from a correspondent in Belgium and reproduce it without necessarily subscribing to viewpoints conveyed in parts of it.

The Belgian Social-Democrats are going through a crisis at the moment. Every election they lose votes to the nationalist parties (Flemish nationalists and Walloon nationalists). The most important reason for the decline of the party is the ideological turn to the right of their leaders. They want to reform the party into a pragmatic “centre-party”, after the example of the “Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands” (SPD).

The Social-Democrat Ministers in the present government are nearly avowedly capitalist. Henri Simonet, theoretician of the right-wing and Minister of Economic Affairs, is a supporter of free trade. He only wants a few reforms, so that the capitalist system works “at its best”. In opposition to his policy are the left-wingers (mainly “Young Socialists”) and the Trade Unions. They want a turn to the left; that means, in their opinions, nationalisation of the basic industries under workers’ control. So in fact they want state capitalism.

The majority of the left wing is in favour of the so-called “revolutionary-reformism”, an idea of the French “Marxist” Andre Gorz. They believe that by struggling for reforms the workers will become socialists. In their opinion the B.S.P., reformed into a new vanguard party, will lead the masses gradually to the “inevitable” socialist revolution.

But among the left-wingers there are a few who are in practice in favour of world socialism. They want to give the workers a socialist consciousness, so that the workers can make their own revolution in future. Of course, those who are in practice for world socialism constitute a very small minority in the left wing. But, most important: there are socialists in Belgium.

In March 1973, an Ideological Congress will be held. There are only two possibilities: either the Congress will be in favour of a “centre-party” which can win the votes of the middle class, or the Congress will be in favour of the nationalisation of basic industry. It’s almost sure the right-wingers will be in the majority. For real socialists it doesn’t make any difference: in practice the party will always support capitalism.

There is only one alternative: to unite all socialists in a new real socialist party; only then the establishment of Socialism will become possible in future.

Dirk Wouters, 

Mechelen, Belgium.