Socialist Sonnet No. 225: Collateral Damage (2026)

    From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Collateral Damage

The primary target has been destroyed,

By a surgical strike designed to leave

Blasted and charred ruins for those who grieve

To pick through, for all who couldn’t avoid

Being reduced to statistics, a body count

On the evening news. Strategy is clear,

It’s the brutal diplomacy of fear,

Leaving far too few remains to amount

To complete human beings. There is concern,

International stock markets are falling,

With speculation, futures are stalling:

How many losses before fortunes turn?

The enemy is easily identified,

Being those barbarians on the other side.

 

D. A.

Corrections: "The Menace of Aerial Warfare" (1936)

From the October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. L. G. Savage, the writer of this series of articles, asks us to point out that the instalment which appeared in the August issue contained two errors. In column one, page 123, last paragraph, "magnetic or coil" should read "magneto or coil."

The figures in the last paragraph, column one, page 124, are incorrect. 27,000 square yards is not 15 square miles, but only a small part of a square mile. It will be observed, however, that 27,000 square yards is the area likely to be contaminated by liquid mustard gas, and bears no relation to the area likely to be affected by gas in vapour form.

Ed. Comm.

The Menace of Aerial Warfare - Part 3 (1936)

From the September 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

In 1923 the League of Nations arranged for an authoritative investigation of the possibilities of bacteriological warfare. The result of the investigation is summed up in Victor Lefebure's “Scientific Disarmament."

Open the book at page 215 and skim the pages which follow: —

. . . they referred to the use of cultures of cholera and typhus, mainly by infecting water supplies. Professor Pfeiffer, although pointing out the obstacles in the way of successful use by infecting the supplies of larger towns, stated, “There are, no doubt, other possibilities. Infectious germs might, for instance, be thrown from aircraft direct into pure water reservoirs. In such a case filtration would be ineffectual.” He refers to the possibility of inoculation, but goes on, “An epidemic whose very name recalls the horrors and devastations which it caused in former centuries, and which is, therefore, particularly likely to spread terror and dismay, is the human plague. The most likely way of spreading an epidemic of plague would, no doubt, be the scattering of plague-infected rats, which might very easily be achieved with the help of aircraft. In this way an epidemic of bubonic plague might almost certainly be brought about in the trenches, which in any case are alive with rats; in the interior of the enemy country, also, the dissemination of plague germs on a large scale would be possible, resulting undoubtedly in the formation of centres of infection. . . Professor Pfeiffer also deals with artificial infection of projectiles with . . . anthrax, glanders and perhaps rabies. . . . Professor Cannon comments on crop attack. . . . Professor Madsden gives a balanced view of the possibilities as to the present and the future. . . . The means which bacteriology possesses in its present state of development would certainly suffice to give rise to epidemics of greater or lesser extent; airmen or persons with a knowledge of the topography of localities might infect the central sources of the water or milk supply of a big city, and thereby propagate epidemics of typhoid fever, cholera or other intestinal diseases. Epidemics of this nature might even be fairly serious.

Major Lefebure continues to point out that, although Professor Madsden and some others believe that epidemics could be got under control without much damage being done, they obviously are not taking into full account the special circumstances of war and the fact that diseases would be propagated on a far larger scale than is usual under peace conditions.

He says, quite rightly: —

Now if an attack of this nature were to be made producing hundreds of thousands of casualties requiring (special) treatment quickly, it would take us far and away outside our normal medical facilities both as to appliances and personnel. (The word (special) here replaces a phrase of the same meaning to reduce the necessary quotation to a minimum. L.G.S.).

In addition, resistance to a particular disease is not nearly so high if the population is not exposed to the bacteria of the disease in normal life. It would, therefore, be very unsafe to prophesy the possible rate at which an epidemic of (say) Bubonic plague would spread, since Europeans have not been exposed to this bacteria for several hundred years.

The position at the present time cannot be calculated, but I think it cannot be denied that bacteriological warfare is an additional menace to the security of civilian populations as well as to combatants. Its possibilities we shall learn if we experiment, although the value of such an experiment is yet to be established, but it is certain that expert opinion is firmly convinced that, be the damage great or small, bacteria are definitely an addition to the armoury of destructive weapons.

The quotations I have used were taken from a report made in 1923—it is now 1936.

Protection

There is, and can be, no possible protection whatever for civilian populations against chemical warfare from the air—(Major-Gen. Jackson, ex- Assistant Director, War Office).

There is no protection for the civilian against aerial attack.

Nowhere must this be better realised than in Government circles which have access to knowledge denied to the general public, and the services of experts in all departments of warfare and technology.

They suggest, as a precaution, that the people be instructed in methods of protection, when they know quite well that there are none.

The very best that can be done is to arrange and organise essential services, such as power-stations, fire brigades and doctors, so that they can function and perhaps relieve some part of the suffering with a minimum of interference. That this much is possible, if only gas be considered, is admitted, but high-explosive, thermit and the inevitable stampede of the people, we have not even begun to take into account.

The Government plans decontaminating centres, i.e., receiving stations where the injured can be medically treated and have their dangerous clothing destroyed or made safe for use. It plans to make respirators available for the essential services, and, possibly, a modified form of mask for the civilian population which would afford partial or temporary protection for the lungs, the assumption being, presumably, that this latter type would be used as a subsidiary protection.

The cost of an efficient respirator at the moment is about £4, but mass production would probably result in a considerable drop in price—to (say) 30s. if the manufacture was unsubsidised. Taking war-time production as a basis for calculation, about six months would be required to manufacture 10,000,000 masks. This does not take into account the special needs of young children or aged persons, for whom respiratory protection is a very difficult matter. It has been suggested that very small children might be placed in a sack of some gas-proof material, the air to be supplied by a pump through a filter, but the efficacy of the idea is doubtful, and no useful suggestions have yet been made to overcome the fact that a gassed or injured parent would be unable to continue pumping. Presumably, too, it would be necessary to anaesthetise the child before inserting it into the sack. Otherwise it would probably act in the same way as a cat in a bag—struggle furiously to get out.

To the suggestion of gas-shelters I oppose the following facts and figures. If bomb- and gas-proof shelters could be constructed to house (say) 500 people, and such large shelters present a considerable engineering problem, about 10,000 would be required as a minimum to house the population of London in immediate danger.

These shelters, which at present exist on paper and in the minds of optimistic speculators, would take months, if not years, to build. They would need a reinforced concrete roof 13 feet thick, or to be sunk to a depth of 80 feet underground to provide reasonable safety from high-explosive. The walls, if the shelter was built above ground, would need to be strong enough to carry the roof and to withstand the shock of high-explosive on the roof or the side-thrust on the walls if it dropped in the immediate vicinity. Such shelters would have to be constructed to admit no air whatsoever except through special filters. Apart from the fact that no device is known that will go on filtering indefinitely, and, therefore, if intensive attacks were carried out over a period of several days the filters would probably release the gas in ever-growing quantities into the chamber, the smallest crack in the structure would admit air directly from outside and make the filters useless.

Chimneys could be used to draw pure air from above the gas-cloud, but to be reasonably safe they would have to be constructed to a height of at least 150 feet—an excellent target for high-explosive. The following facts should demolish any arguments in favour of chimneys: —

A 500/1,000 kg. explosive bomb can demolish a whole block of houses, even if it only explodes in the vicinity.

A 100/200 kg. explosive bomb can destroy a house of several stories.

A 50 kg. explosive bomb can cause serious damage.

(General Von Haeften.)

The chimney that could withstand the explosive force of a 100-200 kg. bomb planted reasonably near the base cannot be built.

Water would be a serious problem since mustard gas, in particular, sinks to the bottom of reservoirs and renders water drawn from such a source undrinkable.

Food supplies would have to be rigorously protected from mustard and lewisite, and as attacks on docks and wharves with high-explosive, thermit and mustard gas would be an enemy's certain course of action, it is difficult to see how it could be done.

If an air-raid on London was signalled, the city would be plunged into total darkness. At the same time the public would be told of the impending raid in some way or another, and, human nature being what it is, would attempt to evacuate the city. Almost the whole of London’s private car traffic would be thrown, in pitch darkness, on to roads already incapable of providing for normal traffic. Buses would leave their routes and head for open country. People would make for the country on foot, by cycle, lorry or any kind of transport they could commandeer. The rate of evacuation would not, perhaps, be very great until the raid commenced, but when the dead and wounded and fires springing up in every direction became an actuality, then it cannot be doubted that something {in the nature of a stampede would commence. Necessarily, thousands would be killed in the raid, but the problem would take on its most serious aspects when the question of food, shelter and sanitary arrangements for several million panic-stricken people became of urgent importance. It is more than possible that famine and epidemic diseases would have to be dealt with.

If it is thought that I exaggerate possibilities, here are the words of the military correspondent of the Daily Telegraph: —

It has been suggested that in the event of severe air attacks, 40 per cent. of London's population would leave the city within the first 48 hours, and 80 per cent. within the week. Such an estimate may be exaggerated, but it is, nevertheless, essential to consider ways of controlling any such mass evacuation and of feeding and housing refugees. 

Gerald Heard has expressed much the same opinion recently, and from occasional items of news it is permissible to assume that the Government are awake to this probability.

Even if efficient gas-shelters were in existence, it is mere likely than not that their protective capacity would be doubted and an evacuation take place on nearly as large a scale.

The imagination refuses to function except in vague generalisation. To fill in details would be beyond its scope.

For man, woman or child there is no sure protection.

Summary

War would inevitably lead to destructive air attacks on the cities, not only of England, but of all belligerent countries, with effects very much as I have described.

Modern warfare is, above all, a battle of productive capacity, and a necessary condition of the factory operative being able to function is that he shall be reasonably free from attack. It is therefore very much to a country’s advantage to harry its enemy’s centres of production and distribution.

It is more than possible that, after simultaneous raids on the capital cities of all the belligerents, the effects would be so grave that an immediate armistice would be sought by ail parties. The vulnerable spots in any country are its great centres of population and production, but without such centres it is impossible to wage war on a modem scale with modern weapons, and, in spite of opinions to the contrary, there can be little doubt that the full possibilities of unrestricted warfare in Europe are well-known to all European Governments and military experts. The present spectacle qf elderly statesmen trying to adapt the diplomacy of Metternich, the Napoleonic wars and the fin-de-siecle to modern conditions, would be amusing if it did not carry within itself the germs of gigantic tragedy.

We may observe the fear in action in the bluff and counter-bluff that has characterised the dispute between Italy and England. There is no doubt that Italy's action threatened British capitalists' African and Imperial interests, and, in pre-war days, strong military action would have been taken at the commencement of the dispute. Now the case is altered. By using the League of Nations to declare an economic siege against Italy, Britain hoped to protect its interests without resorting to that unknown quantity—war. Mussolini had already made tentative arrangements to evacuate Naples, but it is doubtful if his advisers would have allowed him to declare war.

It would be a very bold speculator indeed who would dare to predict the future, but the possibility of war will be more remote when its dangers are more widely realised.

L. G. Savage

[Concluded.]

The Menace of Aerial Warfare - Part 2 (1936)

From the August 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

Towards the end of the War we sat in our cellars and whispered after each bomb that dropped nearby, “Can you smell gas?” We didn’t know what it smelt like, but we sniffed apprehensively and hoped there would be no strange smell. What if we had smelt gas? We should have died like rats in a sewer. We should have been merely part of the dead incidental to war. And not even the useless consolation of a place on a Roll of Honour. The war-dead, whether they are civilians or civilian soldiers, are victims of a predatory anarchy, which exists between nations by virtue of the profit system. They are not even romantic victims. They die terror-stricken, in mud and filth. They crouch in holes, waiting for high-explosive and asphyxiating and excoriating gases to put a period to their lives. Their monument is an interim dividend.

What is the answer of capitalism to this? Aeroplanes, more aeroplanes, and yet more aeroplanes, with bombers in the ratio of two to one.

Let me give you another little picture, this time drawn by Major Endries, in his book, “Gift Gaskreig.” This is an English raid on the German manufacturing town of Dusseldorf: —

Light bombing squadrons arrive quickly in the darkness. They drop on the largest and most important factories, now working on night shift, bombs filled with white phosphorus. A torrent of inextinguishable flames overwhelm the buildings. Workmen attempt panic-stricken escapes to the cellars—the population, more panic-stricken, flies underground. The raiding party wireless to H.Q. “successful raid,” and calls for a second raiding party. These arrive with light gas bombs, spreading first an irritant gas that can pierce masks, followed by a second, stronger and more lethal gas, which kills the populace as they flee from underground cellars made uninhabitable by the first gas. Every two or three hours similar attacks are repeated on different parts of the town until everything is enveloped in flames, and clouds of poison gas mark the place where before hundreds of thousands of human beings lived and moved.

It has been suggested that an electric ray or system of electrical power projection might be used against hostile aircraft. Apart from widely scattered articles in the sensational press, there has been no evidence that such a ray or power projection is contemplated or possible, but presumably it would operate by interfering with the ignition, either magneto or coil, and—a remoter possibility—by exploding the fuel tank. It is a matter of fact, however, that intensive experiments have been in progress during the last few years with the application of the compression ignition engine (the Diesel) to aircraft, and the engine will be available for use in heavy aircraft within a matter of months. A ray of the type suggested would, therefore, be quite useless, since the Diesel has no electrical machinery to be affected, and the crude oil fuel is practically non-inflammable.

It is not difficult under a regime of unrestricted development to contemplate bomb and container designs which would release poison gas to dissipate uniformly in a low-lying cloud or death blanket not higher than our tallest buildings. But assume a blanket one hundred yards high, which gives a big margin of error, and we find that less than half a ton of chemical is sufficient to produce effective saturation over a square mile. Even if you multiply this by a thousand to allow largely for wind losses, barriers and higher concentrations, you are still far within the limits of practicable gas attack from the air.—“Scientific Disarmament,” Victor Lefebure.

Mustard gas, which, with Lewisite, is the gas best adapted for the destruction of civilian populations, is known technically as diclorethyl-sulphide. With Lewisite and chlorpicrin it is classified as a vesicant gas because it attacks not only the respiratory organs, but also the eyes, skin and surface tissue of the body. The mask, therefore, is not an efficient or a complete protection. Ordinary clothing will protect against mustard or Lewisite for two or three minutes, after which the gas, which is an easily vapourising liquid, penetrates to the skin. A complete suit of oilskin, so constructed as to be airtight, is a protection, but as such suits could not be worn for more than an hour or two without collapse, it is a matter of Hobson’s choice. As an emergency protection against low concentrations, motor grease smeared thickly on the exposed parts of the body, and especially between the fingers, in the elbow joints, and the parts of the head uncovered by the mask, is said to be effective. The manufacture of oilskin suits in useful quantities is impossible, and the cost would necessarily prohibit wide distribution among the class of people most in need of them—the workers.

Low concentrations of mustard do not kill if the respiratory organs are properly protected, although Lewisite, so far as effective concentration is concerned, is largely an unknown quantity. It causes painful lesions of the skin and tissue, and ulcers and sores, which may lead to prolonged invalidism. The ulcers may be gangrenous and, in the case of Lewisite, will, unless dealt with rapidly, be arsenically poisoned.

The injuries are very difficult of healing. A resultant tendency to despondency and lowering of morale in the patient is often seen. The combating of this must be made a special point in nursing these cases.—“First Aid in Defence Against Chemical Warfare” (Collins & Blackmore).

Both mustard and Lewisite are known as persistent gases, i.e., they persist in the place where dropped for periods varying between seven and fourteen days. The contaminated areas must be treated immediately with “ bleach ” (chloride of lime in powder form) if they are to be moderately safe for use. These gases also persist on the clothing of persons who have been in contact with them, and, if they entered a warm room or gas-shelter, unless their clothing was removed, they would injure the persons in the shelter. Mustard does not affect the skin immediately, the period of delay being from three to twenty-four hours. It is therefore quite possible for such persons to transmit the gas unknowingly for a considerable time. Used against disciplined troops, with proper respiratory protection, the proportion of deaths to casualties from mustard gas is very low, but it cannot be too greatly emphasised that the population of our large cities have not the necessary discipline and knowledge to protect itself.

On cold nights mustard is liable to lay in liquid form on the ground, becoming a dangerous vapour when the temperature rises in the morning.

Food contaminated by mustard gas is uneatable. Mustard burns are as painful inside as out— and fatal. It is certain that docks and wharves would be heavily bombed with mustard to contaminate essential food supplies.

Water is easily contaminated, and boiling is not a protection. To drink affected water might easily be fatal. Reservoirs are easily bombed, and cannot be covered, because water depends upon contact with air to keep it fresh.

Chloride of lime is an efficient neutralising agent, but it is doubtful (to say the least) if enough could be manufactured to supply the civilian population and the forces actively engaged, and since very large supplies of this chemical would be a tactical necessity for the armed forces, the amount available for civilian defence would be inadequate. It is not an exaggeration to say that adequate supplies of chloride of lime will be the deciding factor in any future European war. Lewisite has the definite disadvantage of being efficiently neutralised by water, large supplies of which are usually available. Mustard, on the other hand, can be used to infect large areas for several days, and during this time no troops could use the areas in question. To gain contact with the opposing forces it would be necessary to make “neutral” lanes through the gas by spreading large quantities of chloride of lime.

The most usual type of mustard gas bomb weighs 50 lbs. and contaminates about 600 square yards; the average load of a bombing aeroplane would, therefore, be 90 bombs capable of infecting an area of 54,000 square yards. In practice, of course, there would be a great deal of overlapping, and the figure given cannot be regarded as accurate. Even if we reduce the area by 50 per cent., however, we are left with 27,000 square yards, or 15 square miles, and, although the population of such an area would not necessarily be killed in its entirety, the total of fatal and non-fatal casualties would be extremely high, and it would be dangerous in the extreme for the survivors to move until the gas had been neutralised. There is, too, the additional problem of dealing with injured persons, which, at the present time, seems impossible of solution.

When, during the late War, it was proposed to use mustard gas in shells, it was discovered that the use of liquid presented serious problems in ballistics, which had to be overcome before it could be used. Although these technical difficulties were overcome, gas shells will always remain complicated and expensive things to make. The gas bomb, on the other hand, is not fired by percussion, but dropped. The difficulty, therefore, does not arise. A certain amount of streamlining is used for greater accuracy, but, quite apart from the fact that a gas bomb does not require to be very accurate, even petrol-tins filled with liquid gas and dropped, almost without discrimination, would be effective.

The practice of spraying gas from containers has not yet been used against civilians, but, given reasonable weather conditions, there is no reason why it should not be effective.

It is improbable that gases of the phosgene type would be used against large centres of population, chiefly because mustard is much more effective, easier to handle and as cheap to manufacture. A large distribution of masks capable of protecting the respiratory organs, the provision of gas-shelters arid the efficient gas-proofing of rooms (a comparatively easy job) in the better-built private houses, would provide adequate protection against this gas, which is deadly enough in its effects upon the unprotected, but non-persistent and relatively easy to keep out. Stemutator gases, to stampede the people, might be used, but to assume that the enemy in time of war (whoever the enemy might be) would wish to stampede the people when they could kill them as quickly and easily is a little naive.

It seems clear, then, that we shall have to deal almost entirely with the vesicant gases, high-explosive, thermit and possibly bacteria, and I therefore proceed to a consideration of these three last factors, which, in the anxiety to provide against the major threat of gas, are too often overlooked.

High-Explosive, Thermit and Bacteria

High-explosive is chiefly valuable in air attack for cutting essential connections, such as light, power, gas, water and drainage, in the spreading of general panic by reason of the violence of its effects, and in the destruction of shelters.

There has been great development in the destructive power of high explosive since 1918, and also in the technique of its use.

As an example, the time-delayed bomb may be considered. This bomb explodes between four and 36 hours after it has been dropped, the time of explosion being under full control. In regard to this weapon, the report of the German Red Cross in 1928 to the 13th International Red Cross Conference says: —

It is obvious that all rescue and protective measures would be practically useless if such a bomb exploded in a town after several hours or days. Even the best organised rescue services could scarcely be brought into action under such conditions, and such a step would really mean useless sacrifice.

High-explosive bombs used in aeroplane attacks on London during the last War weighed about 30 lbs. Airship bombs were somewhat larger. Bombs at that time were sufficiently “delayed" to explode after passing through two or three storeys, and could destroy a large house.

It is now possible to construct bombs carrying upwards of a ton of explosive.

In the section dealing with protection I quote some figures given by General Von Haeften, and there is no reason to regard them as exaggerated. Explosive is much more dangerous and destructive than it was twenty years ago.

Thermit has not yet been used against civilians. Its use in times of peace is for welding iron and steel, particularly under-water welding, It can produce a fire-centre of 3,000 degrees Centigrade— above the melting temperature of steel. There is-no method of extinguishing it.

Thermit is a mixture of magnetic iron oxide and aluminium powder, and it can be used equally well in shells or bombs. Thermit bombs weigh approximately 2 lbs., and each bomb is capable of starting a fire centre. Aeroplanes can carry large numbers of these bombs, and it would be a simple matter to start several hundred fires, which might or might not be serious, within the space of an hour or so.

The London Fire Brigade quite recently required most of its personnel and equipment, and the assistance of several fire-floats, to put out a wharf fire, and spent five days doing it. They could not even start to mitigate. the effects of several hundred fires springing up in rapid succession.

The question of the use of bacteria is one that has often been written round, but never seriously examined, in the public Press. This is probably because the effect of this type of warfare is largely incalculable.

It has been rumoured that, at the close of the last War, preparations had been made in several countries to use bacteria, and, in particular, that glanders cultures were discovered in a German embassy for the avowed purpose of infecting Rumanian cavalry horses. Rumour, of course, is proverbially the lying jade, but the technical resources of the time permitted it, and war, after all, is the art of inflicting the maximum of destruction upon the enemy with the minimum of damage to oneself. It would be absurd to expect any considerations of humanity or ethics to temper the tortuous workings of the military mind. The recent bombing of Red Cross units in Abyssinia was quite predictable. It is merely the military mind running true to type.

L. G. Savage

(To be continued.)

Blogger's Note:

The October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard carried the following correction in connection with this particular article.

Mr. L. G. Savage, the writer of this series of articles, asks us to point out that the instalment which appeared in the August issue contained two errors. In column one, page 123, last paragraph, "magnetic or coil" should read "magneto or coil."

The figures in the last paragraph, column one, page 124, are incorrect. 27,000 square yards is not 15 square miles, but only a small part of a square mile. It will be observed, however, that 27,000 square yards is the area likely to be contaminated by liquid mustard gas, and bears no relation to the area likely to be affected by gas in vapour form.

Ed. Comm.

The Menace of Aerial Warfare (1936)

From the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

(The following article contains a very full examination of the effects of aerial bombing on large centres of population. This writer is not yet a member of the party, but in view of the present importance of the subject, and the support the information gives to the Socialist attitude to war, we have decided in this instance to suspend our rule against including articles by non-members.

There may perhaps be some exaggeration of the probable effects of modern warfare, but on this the reader can form his own judgment from the facts set down. One thing is certain— the effects of another war on a large scale, with the weapons now available, hardly bear thinking about.

Ed. Comm.)

Dye Factories as “Merchants of Death."

Prior to 1914 the I.G. (Interessen Gemeinschaft) possessed a virtual monopoly of the world’s dyestuffs industry. In other countries the industry was in a crude and embryo stage of development. To the general reader it may seem a long way from the manufacturer of dyes to the “merchant of death”—so far, indeed, that this industry has not yet figured, as it deserves, in any of the recent enquiries into the arms traffic. It must remain undisputed, however, that all the motives of the manufacturer of guns, shells, aeroplanes and tanks, in keeping war to the forefront as an instrument of policy, must apply with equal force, to the manufacturer of dyestuffs.

The next war will find the Yorkshire dye factories the most important manufacturers of weapons of offence in England.

When considering all the information made available after the last War had ended, it seems certain that the I.G. played the major part in prolonging the German resistance and, furthermore, had the strategic advantages of this enormous plant been fully realised, the War would have terminated in a German victory by the end of 1915. That she did not understand is now history.

When the first shock of surprise was over, and the immense advantage gained by the German’s use of chlorine was not followed up, the manufacture of poison gas was started in England and France, and it was realised that the pre-War monopoly of the dye industry was making possible the large-scale use of poison gas by the German Army.

Dye factories can be changed over to the production of war gases in a very short time. Indeed, most of the gases have a legitimate industrial use in times of peace. It is for the latter reason that it will always be impossible to disarm, so far as gas is concerned.

Before the last War the dye industry was practically non-existent in England and France, and when it became necessary to manufacture mustard gas (dichlorethyl-sulphide) on a scale suitable to the requirements of modern warfare, new plant had to be erected, which, in many respects, was identical with the normal aniline dye plants. It was not until late in the War, after many failures and many casualties, that production was commenced, but, by the Armistice, it was possible for the Allies to boast that they were in a position to “drown the Germans in mustard gas.” If there had been a well-developed dye industry in England or France, the time required to start production could have been reduced by perhaps as much as 95 per cent.

The importance of the dye industry was realised by England during the Great War by reason of these costly and laborious experiments in gas-production, and, in 1919, the import of dyes was prohibited, except under licence from the Board of Trade. That this order was illegal, having regard to the law at that time, led, in 1920, to the Dyestuffs (Import Regulations) Act, which became operative in January, 1921, whereby the import of dyestuffs and intermediates was totally prohibited for ten years except under Government licence. About the same time France, the U.S.A. and Italy created high import duties to foster the development of the industry.

At the close of the year 1918, the world’s capacity to produce dyestuffs was double that of 1914, the figures standing at 300,000 tons.

The following tabulation of the annual production figures for 1929, of the principal manufacturing countries, is of interest:

Germany (tons) 72,000

U.S.A                 38,000

France         16,000

England         15,000

It will be seen that, at this time, the combined production of the three latter countries did not equal that of Germany. The next in order is the U.S.A., with 38,000 tons, and it is significant that the menace of chemical warfare has been realised more fully in the U.S.A. than in any other country, with the exception of Germany. The U.S.A., in addition to encouraging the manufacture of dyestuffs, possess a large factory (the largest of its kind in the world) at Edgewood, devoted to the manufacture of all types of poisonous gases and equipment.

In 1926 the Imperial Chemical Industries (I.C.I.) was formed with a capital of £65,000,000 to take over and co-ordinate the activities of Brunner Mond & Co., Ltd., Nobel Industries, Ltd. ' (manufacturers, among other things, of explosives), United Alkali Co., Ltd., British Dyestuffs Corporation, and a good many others. The ramifications of this huge combine are extensive, but largely unknown. The merger certainly has had the effect of unifying the potential producers of poison gas with the heavy chemical and high-explosives industry.

Nothing is more certain than that we have here a huge plant that could be mobilised at a moment's notice for the production of war material, and would make profit by the prosecution of war. Therefore, even in the absence of proof, the I.C.I. must be suspected, as must every other potential producer of war material on a large scale, of favouring war as a means of settling the international disputes of capitalists.

It cannot be denied that the chemical industry is of enormous benefit to man, but it is also his potential destroyer. Explosives are necessary to human progress, but the I.C.I. is not organised to help human progress.

For my own part I do not think that there is anything particularly dishonourable in the activities of armament makers in general, or this side of the I.C.I.’s business in particular, because they are merely working within the framework of a system or social organisation that determines their business methods. I do not intend this to be an apologia for armourers, but it is indisputable that, during the last year or two, they have been made scapegoats for evils inherent in the profit system, and my purpose is to draw attention to the wider issues involved.

Shortly after the War the I.G. concluded price-controlling agreements with the dye factories of France, Russia and Italy. It is more than possible that there has been some exchange of personnel and formulae. The I.C.I. also hold large blocks of shares in the I.G.

Even a substance so innocent as beet-sugar, the manufacture of which is subsidised by the Government, can be used as the means of producing supplies of glycerine, alcohol, acetone and hydrocyanic acid. Alcohol is a base for the manufacture of cordite, which probably explains what has been a very unprofitable subsidy.

Chlorine, used as a bleach for fabrics, is a war gas that has been largely superseded, but combined with so common a gas as carbon monoxide, it becomes phosgene, the deadliest of the non-persistent lung-irritants, with the power of corroding metals.

In conclusion, it is fair to say that profits can be made in the chemical industry from war, and the profit system being what it is, the industry’s motives must be suspect.

The Aeroplane

It is well for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can prevent him from being bombed. Whatever people may tell him, the bomber will always get through. The only defence is in offence, which means that you have got to kill women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves.—Stanley Baldwin.

Fighting in the air on a large scale only takes place by accident or by mutual consent.—Air-Marshal Sir R. Brooke-Popham.

CREATE A NEW WINGED ARMY OF LONG-RANGE BRITISH BOMBERS TO SMASH THE FOREIGN HORNETS IN THEIR NESTS.—Hands Off~Britain Air Defence League.

The last quotation is the only answer that has so far been evolved by the present system to the threat of the first two.

The development of the aeroplane since the close of the Great War has been rapid.

Within the last few years we have seen nonstop flights of over 4,000 miles; Australia reached in a little over three days; the Dornier DO X and Soviet aeroplanes to carry over one hundred passengers; aeroplanes annihilating conceptions of space and time remaining to us from quieter days. But we have not yet seen the aeroplane as the destroyer of cities and the slaughterer of millions. Yet, at the present time, this power could be demonstrated at almost any moment. Certainly within a few days.

Unless the people, on whom, ultimately, the power of governments depend, stop thinking in terms of war and think in terms of mass extermination, unless they can force the governments of the world to do something which, so far, has been found impossible, by reason of inordinate self-interest, to do—internationalise civil and military air-fleets, then the present civilisation will become a closed chapter in the history of man’s struggle against barbarism. The collapse that would immediately and inevitably follow the commencement of another war between industrialised countries would be bloodier—more destructive of human life and welfare—than ever before in man’s short history.

Knowing this, Lord Londonderry boasted in the House of Lords (in May, 1935) that he “Had the utmost difficulty, amid the public outcry, in preserving the use of the bombing aeroplane, even on the frontiers of the Middle East and India.” It seems as if Lord Londonderry wishes to immolate the population of our large cities for the convenience of the Indian Army and it is not surprising, therefore, that the Prime Minister should have taken the first possible opportunity to sacrifice him to political expediency.

The standard bomber now in use has an out-and-home range of about 1,000/1,500 miles. Greater range can be attained by substituting extra supplies of petrol for part of the bomb load. The average load is two tons of bombs, in addition to personnel and protective weapons. Fifty tons, a load for twenty-five such aeroplanes, is the quantity necessary, according to the Earl of Halsbury, to destroy every man, woman and child in the London area.

“ Mustard gas,” he says, “is the most deadly of known gases. In an area, say, Richmond to Barking and from Finchley to Streatham, an effective lethal dose would be only forty-two tons. In twelve hours every man, woman and child in that area might fail to live.”

“Fail to live” should be read “subjected to an agonising death.” I am sure that the Earl of Halsbury knows sufficient about the physiological effects of mustard-gas not to object to this trifling emendation.

In December, 1928, Brigadier-General Crozier, writing in the Times, said: —

”During the Great War 380 tons of bombs were dropped in and around London. That quantity could now be delivered in less than twelve hours.”

Although this is quite bad enough, I question the General’s figures. Three hundred and eighty tons is a load for about 200 bombers. I suggest that almost any country within striking distance of London could and would detach a good many more bombers from their air fleet for the important purpose of destroying the city, and could do this without appreciably weakening it. In addition, the large night-flying commercial machine would be very suitable for distributing mustard-gas and lewisite in large quantities. These machines have a lift of from three to six tons, and would require very little structural alteration. Normally they have a low ceiling and a slow speed, but this is not a serious handicap to night bombing, especially if the weather is cloudy.

Air manoeuvres have proved time and again that bombing aeroplanes can gain position over London as and when they like; that they can destroy between dusk and dawn nearly seven million people—almost as many as were killed on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918.

Let me draw a little picture. Towards the end of an evening in 1915 I was sitting in an armchair, reading, when, without warning, a terrific explosion shook the house and blew the window glass into the room. I knew at once that this was an air-raid, the first of the airships to reach London. There were several more explosions followed by silence. Obeying my primary impulse I ran for the cellar, which was an extremely flimsy affair, unlikely to offer much protection, and I knew that the bombs had fallen very close. In the morning I set out to see the damage, and found that, two streets away, most of the houses had been destroyed. I was fortunate enough to see the road before it was closed to the public, and to see for myself the aftermath of an air-raid that was, in relation to the destructive possibilities of modern armament, as a bow-and-arrow to a fifteen-inch gun. The fronts of several houses had been blown out. A bedstead stuck out of one at a sickening angle, the iron contorted into bizarre shapes by the violence of the explosion. The road was covered with debris and rubble, and the surface was gashed and torn. A young man had said “good-night!” to his fiancee, and crossed the road. When I saw the place the body had been removed, but his brains remained as a patch on the wall. I heard, subsequently, that the (inquest verdict was “ Murder against the Kaiser,” an interesting example of war mentality, but of very little use to the dead. 

L. G. Savage.

(To be continued.)

50 Years Ago: Control: Remote or Direct? (1994)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Five years of war have dragged by. Countries have been devastated. Food, machinery and lives lost. Millions of people have been moved about like cattle, cajoled or threatened into working long hours, and the products of their labours have gone up in smoke. In this country, we read, tuberculosis and neurosis are increasing. Little wonder, when the present state of affairs is taken into account. To add to all this, science, harnessed to the war machine, has ushered in a new and diabolical piece of machinery— the flying bomb.

From the stone hammers of the Stone Age we have now developed to the stage when it is possible to inflict destruction by remote control. The flying bomb is only a crude foretaste of what is in store for future civilian populations in wars to come. (. . .)

No doubt an antidote will be found to the flying bomb, but the fact remains that it is a form of warfare come to stay. What then is to be done? Are we to go on perpetuating capitalism, with its wars, booms, slumps crises and general poverty for the workers, or are we to substitute a sane form of society?

It is for the working class to decide. Take no notice of the priests and politicians with their social reforms, housing schemes, and foolish ideas for a "new world."

We urge workers to study the case of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, that they may understand the economic causes of the phenomena already mentioned, and work for the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.

[From an article by Chester in the Socialist Standard, August 1944.]

Editorial: Atrocious Argument. (1917)

Editorial from the August 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those German atrocities ! The last raid on London gave opportunity for an almost unprecedented flood of feeling, mostly cant. It is not the agony of the parents who have lost little ones, the wives who have lost husbands, the husbands whose mates have been cruelly butchered, the mutilated remnants moaning in the hospitals, that finds expression in the horrified Press. No. They are horrified to order, and with a set purpose, and that purpose is not to deter the Ge­rmans from making such raids, but simply to inflame popular feeling against the “enemy.”

Those who want the war, and shout for it, and shove other people into it, and exhibit so much aptitude for bloodshed in the smashing up of pacifist meetings as one would hardly expect to find outside the trenches or the House of Commons, try to blind themselves to the true facts of the case. War is a serious business—a much more serious business than one would imagine from a perusal of the report of the Mesopotamia muddle. People wilfully entering upon war, in order to take that calm view of it that is essential to its prosecution to the “last man and the last shilling,” should themselves be above military age, or at least sure of a staff job, well behind the firing line, and not too adjacent to the miseries of the trenches—and they mostly are. But having embarked on war; having consented to this most serious business in life, having adventured thousands, and perhaps millions, of human lives in the trial by brute strength, it is folly to talk of putting any limit on the appeal to brute strength. Such talk is usually mere cant and humbug, and where it is not it arises from a boss-eyed sort of view of things.

Much has been made of the fact that women and children have been numbered among the victims of the German air raids. But it is no worse to kill a woman or a child than it is to kill a man, notwithstanding all the sloppy nonsense that has been written on the subject. As a matter of fact the mental torture of a man dying in consciousness is probably far greater than that of a child similarly placed, while as for women, the fact that they find themselves brought within the range of actual hostilities may help them to realise their responsibility for the war—and it is not a little.

A harsh judgment this may seem to be, but then every phase of war must be judged by harsh standards, and the only ones who have any grounds for complaint are those who are opposed to the conflict, or at all events are no consenting parties to it.

It is stated that the Germans can have no military object in these raids, but this is sheer rubbish. They may have several perfectly legitimate military objects. In the first place there is the popular clamour for protection. This, of course, cannot be ignored, but it admittedly can only be satisfied by weakening the striking forces on the British front. Those living a few miles out on the Eastern side of the metropolis may from their own observation gather some idea of the effectiveness of the raids in this particular.

It is also common knowledge that there are in and about London numerous munition works even the temporary disturbance of which, to say nothing of a lucky hit with a bomb or two, is a distinct advantage to the Germans, while it was openly stated in the Press a few days back that the wrecking of the War Office might be a bigger disaster to the Allied cause than the loss of an army corps. And finally, if only the Hun airmen could find the House of Commons with a fat bomb, dropped plump through one of the ventilators onto the table while Lloyd George stood there with his mouth open ! Ah, if only they could !

People in Glasshouses (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Guardian (April 7th, 1937) published a letter appealing for its help and influence in securing the release from a German concentration camp of Anton Hausladen, a German social-democrat, who had been interned for four years without a charge being brought against him. If the Manchester Guardian can help Anton Hausladen it will be doing something useful. It could do something else just as useful. In its issue for the same day the Guardian reported a speech by Mr. Carl Heath at Friends' House, in which it was stated that between 1,500 and 2,000 people were detained in Bengal prisons without charge or trial. They are chiefly trade union and political leaders.

Another Press report, Daily Telegraph (March 10th, 1937), shows how embarrassing criticism of the policies of foreign governments can be to the British Government. The Telegraph quotes from the Italian Giornale d'Italia about:—

Atrocities committed by the British quite recently on the Afghan frontier. There the tribes were bombed by British air squadrons well supplied with poison gas.

The Italian statements were in answer to the British Government’s concern about the massacre of Abyssinians in Addis Ababa by the Italians. The Italian allegation that the British used poison gas on the Afghan frontier was denied by Mr. Eden in the House of Commons. A minor point really. The Italians can teach the British very little in the business of Empire building.

War and Humanity (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

After what is now cynically referred to as World War I, there sprang into existence a number of organisations whose propaganda could be summed up as “No More War.” One line of approach was to publish illustrated pamphlets showing in vivid photographic detail the effect of near explosions on the bodies of human victims, adding such captions as “This was a man.” They reasoned that the coming of another war could be prevented if they successfully appealed to the human sense of self-preservation. How mistaken they were in spite of their humanitarian motives, we who have passed through World War II know only too well. We became “hardened” to the daily scenes of destruction caused by air raids and V weapons, and knew from our own experiences what the great bomb loads were doing to the people of Germany. They, like us, for all that was assumed to the contrary, could and did “take it.” The Burgomaster of Hamburg in an interview with Edward J. Hart of the Sunday Express said : —

“But like Londoners we have shown we can take it. even when the streets were piled with our dead in their thousands. You have seen for yourselves what has been done to us here, yet when your 18 hour curfew is lifted and you meet our people going about their daily business in street and shop you will find there is no hatred in Hamburg for British or R.A.F. During four raids in July 1943, incendiary bombs destroyed 70,000 houses in Northern and Eastern Hamburg alone. In the eastern section where 700,000 people used to live all but 3 per cent. of the houses were burned down in one night. Temporary wooden structures to house 30,000, have since been built. Burgomaster Krogman added that of a pre-war population of 1,700,000 more than 1,000,000 remain in Hamburg in roofless dwellings.”—Forward, May 19th, 1945.

All this has a familiar ring especially if one shifts the location to the London dock area, where the workers dwellings were clustered around their place of work just like those of the dockers of Hamburg. It further shows how far our rulers are removed from the life of those dependent on wages, when Churchill told the German industrial workers, in a warning of heavy bombing to come to “take to the fields.” Whether the like advice was tendered to Japan’s millions by American spokesmen is not known, for according to the latest news, 5,000,000 are homeless in Tokio, while Yokohama’s docks are burnt out. British workers with over 60,000 civilians killed, can without “giving comfort to the enemy” realise what tragedy and horror the bombed workers of Japan are suffering.

The war before it became “global” was openly described as the struggle between the “haves” and the “have nots,” that is between the formation called the Axis consisting of Germany, Japan and Italy who had arrived late in the field of capitalist trade and colonies and found themselves frustrated in their national capitalistic expansion and the powers that had long ago partitioned the world into their respective spheres of influence and protected trade routes.

This naked view was soon covered by the welter of propaganda inseparable from modern war; the German workers who had known mass unemployment were told that victory would mean that they would be “swimming in fat,” while Italian and Japanese workers were told a like tale of empire and prosperity. The British Empire fell back on the time honoured “democracy and freedom,” while Russia, relied on her hastened industrialisation man-power, and aid from capitalist America.

The “ideologies” in the line-up presented some strange bed-fellows ; the Nordic “herrenvolk” whose pure Aryan stock “entitled” them to rule “lesser races,” found themselves the allies of the Latins and yellow men of Japan, while democratic Britain and America opposed Nazism as the allies of authoritarian Russia which had never known a free democratic election in her history.

Meanwhile with the Italo-German part of the Axis defeated, the victorious powers sitting at San Francisco are concerned not with any humanitarian motives, but with how their rival claims can he met without a major war breaking out between themselves.

Nor are they neglecting their preparations for such an eventuality; America has already an advanced type of “doodlebug,” while Britain’s House of Lords recently discussed the development of “novel devices.” Lord Darnley said “he visualised the possibility of the atomic bomb destroying not only humanity, but the globe on which humanity lived. The world he said must reach some general agreement to avoid these conseriuences.”

Lord Cherwell replying ended with : —

“Unless the nations could agree on some self-denying ordinance it was certain that the range and lethality of weapons would continue to increase. Unfortunately this country had most to lose by this. Our geographical advantages were rapidly diminishing. Unless and until our safety could be absolutely guaranteed by some into international organisation we must insist that we not only keep abreast of but ahead of any nation who might conceivably attack us in every scientific device. No effort should be spared to ensure this.”—Manchester Guardian, May 31st, 1945.

The noble Lords were discussing the world dilemma of how to carry on Capitalism with its trade rivalries, and territory protected by force, without wiping out humanity in the end; a problem before which capitalism stands impotent.

To-day man must either abolish capitalism or end his own existence. The forces of destruction must be struck from the hands of the capitalists and their hordes of militarists, by the workers. The workers can only effect this when armed with the knowledge of their power to end the system under which they are wage-slaves to the capitalist class. Thus in a classless society with abundance for all will the world be free from want and fear.

Frank Dawe

Notes by the Way: “Financial Sacrifices from Both Sides” (1932)

The Notes by the Way Column from the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Financial Sacrifices from Both Sides”

United Dairies, Ltd., is a very prosperous concern. The Directors’ report for the year 1931-32 stated that “the business of the Company continues to expand.” Net profit rose from £518,000 in 1929-30 to £549,000 in 1930-31, and to £592,000 in 1931-32 ; which is not too bad in these hard times. The rate of dividend on ordinary shares rose from 10 per cent. in 1929-30 to 11 per cent. in 1930-31 and to 12½ per cent. in 1931-32. So much for the shareholders. What about the workers ? During the past year, after considering the matter for several years, the firm decided to extend to the milk distributing stall a six-day week, hitherto confined to the bottling stalls. Doubtless it was, as the Chairman said, of benefit to the “health and happiness” of the workers not to have to work seven days a week. He also stated (Times, October 29th, 1932) that. “the efficiency of the service has been maintained and increased,” but the change-over to a six-day week “involved certain financial sacrifices from both sides.”

Now we are able to see what is meant by “sacrifices on both sides.” The workers make financial sacrifices and get a six-day week, while the shareholders get increased efficiency, plus the “sacrifice” of seeing their dividend raised from 11 per cent. to 12½ per cent.

Death from the Air

Mr. Baldwin, in a speech on war, in the House of Commons on November 10th, reminded us of the way in which we shall be bombed to pieces in any future war. He said: —

“I think it is well, also, for the man in the street to realise that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed, whatever people may tell him. The bomber will always get through. …. The only defence is in offence, which means that you have got to kill more women and children more quickly than the enemy if you want to save yourselves….. How have the nations tried to deal with this terror of the air ? I confess that the more I have studied this question the more depressed I have been at the perfectly futile attempts that have been made to deal with this problem. The amount of time that has been wasted at Geneva in discussing questions such as the reductions of the size of aeroplanes, the prohibition of bombardment of the civil population, the prohibition of bombing, has really reduced me lo despair.” (Times, November 11th, 1932.)

In the meantime, attention was drawn by the Daily Express to the fact that British armament manufacturers advertise in German and other newspapers their willingness to supply tanks, bombing ‘planes, etc., to foreign Governments. Mr. T. O. M. Sopwith, the aircraft designer and manufacturer of the Hawker “bomber,” defended this. He said (Daily Express, November 12th, 1932) that aeroplanes of recent design are not allowed to leave the country, but that he sells Hawker bombers both to the Air Ministry and to foreign Governments because “no foreign Government will buy British machines unless they are identical with those sold to the Air Ministry.”

If another war comes, and, in Mr. Baldwin’s words, “European civilisation is wiped out,” it will be cheering to know that the bombers on both sides are of identical make and the product of a home industry !

Lenin and Trade Unionism: A Correction

In the November Socialist Standard, under the heading “Tall Stories from Russia,” the statement was made that Lenin advocated “lying and subterfuge” as a means of gaining control of the trade unions.

Although the words used by Lenin in this connection make it quite clear that he recommended using all kinds of deception, he did not actually use the word “lying.” His words (reproduced in the Australian Communist, (April 22nd, 1921) were:

“It is necessary to be able to withstand all this (i.e., expulsion) and to go the whole length of sacrifice if need be, to resort to strategy and adroitness, illegal proceedings, reticence and subterfuge, to anything in order to penetrate into Trade Unions, remain in them and carry out communist work within them at any cost.”

The utter failure of the Communists to gain tangible results by this policy shows how unsound it is.

The Inequalities of Pay in Russia

Nowadays the Soviet Government and the Communists pretend that their policy of increasing inequality of pay as between one individual and. another according to output at the same work, or according to the grading of the work, is in line with Marxian teaching and is compatible with Socialism. Socialists recognise that these inequalities are features of capitalism and can have no place under Socialism, which involves the abolition of the wages system altogether. It is interesting to recall that Lenin shared our view and did not put forward the arguments now used by the Communists. In “The Soviets at Work,” an address delivered in April, 1918, Lenin admitted that the need to attract specialists at high rate’s of pay was a sign of Russia’s backwardness and was accepted only under necessity. He said:—

“Furthermore, it is clear that such a measure is not merely a halt in a certain part and to a certain degree of the offensive against Capitalism …. but also a step backward by our Socialist Soviet State, which has from the very beginning proclaimed and carried on a policy of reducing high salaries to the standard of wages of the average worker. . . . Of course there is another side to this question. The corrupting influence of high salaries is beyond dispute–both on the Soviets . . . and on the mass of the workers.”

He also said: –

“We were forced now to make use of the old bourgeois method and agreed to a very high remuneration for the services of the biggest of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that such a measure is a compromise, that it is a deflection from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule, which demand the reduction of salaries to the standard of remuneration of the average worker—principles which demand that career-hunting; be fought by deeds not by words.”

(The quotations above are from pages 17, 18 and 19 of the edition published in 1919 by the Socialist Information and Research Bureau, Glasgow.)

Now, when the inequality is rapidly increasing, the Russian rulers pretend that it is a feature of Socialism. Lenin, however, said, “To pay unequal salaries is really a step backward; we will not cheat the people by pretending otherwise.”

Viscount Snowden on the Labour Programme

Rather late in the day, Viscount Snowden tells his former Labour Party associates something which the S.P.G.B. told them (and Snowden) many years ago. In an article in the Sunday Express (October 16th) he wrote as follows of the Labour Party:-—

“It gained its former political strength neither from its Socialist idealism nor its election programme. It was an electoral refuge for a vague discontent.

The old political parties had failed. Here was a new party which made the social condition of the people its claim to popular support.

. . . . . .

Millions of men and women who know nothing about Socialism, and who have never read the Labour programme, vote for Labour candidates because they believe that this is a party which is going to do something—they don’t know what-—to improve their condition.

. . . . . .

I have been in this programme-making business for forty years. I have always realised its futility. Every programme in which I have had a hand I have seen discarded and another put in its place, later to share the fate of its predecessor.”

He finished the article with a very cruel blow, he told the Labour Party, which has always rejected Socialism in favour of “something now,” that it ought, to drop its silly promises to establish the millennium by Acts of Parliament immediately, and find “a practical policy.”

Mr. Cole Scores 30

The following is from the Star (October 18th, 1932) and refers to Mr. G. D. H. Cole:–

“A leading Socialist who has been busily counting up the number of organisations Mr. G. D. H. Cole has had a hand in starting tells me he has checked off thirty !

‘The latest he is connected with is the Socialist League,’ he said ‘and some of us are wondering how long it will hold Mr. Cole’s affection before another body is created’.”

Mr. Cole’s past loves have included the Fabian Society, the I.L.P., the National Guilds League, and, of course, the Labour Party. Recently he shared in the formation of the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda, which, after only 18 months, has been wound up alter a conference had failed to give a sufficient majority for merging with the Socialist League.

Mr. Cole is an example of the so-called “intellectuals” who have invaded the working-class movement in recent years, much to their own pecuniary benefit and to the detriment of the working-class movement. Surrounded by worshipping students and trade unionists, Mr. Cole reaps the double reward of adulation and large sales for his books, a new one appearing at frequent intervals each time he changes his mind and takes up another unsound theory.

Mr. Cole is a bad judge of political parties. It is interesting to recall what he wrote about the S.P.G.B. and about his own organisation, the National Guilds League, in the “Encyclopaedia Britanmca” (Twelfth Edition, 1922, Vol. XXXI, page 324, and Vol. XXXII, page 507).

Of the S.P.G.B. he wrote: —

“The Socialist Party of Great Britain is a very small and unimportant body of rigid Marxians of the extreme left wing.” (Vol. XXXII., p. 507.)

At that time he was full of the idea of Guild Capitalism (miscalled Guild Socialism), and recorded with gusto the growth of the Guild Movement and the formation of Guilds like the Building Guild.

Within a year or so, the Building Guild was hopelessly bankrupt, and the mushroom crop of Guilds which had sprung up in many other industries had completely disappeared. The National Guilds League, like many other of Mr. Cole’s enthusiasms, is now as dead as the Dodo, and even when it was alive its organ (The Guild Socialist) had a much smaller circulation than the organ of the S.P.G.B.

The Labour Leaders and the “Intellectuals”

Just at the moment, Mr. Cole, in his foreword to the new edition of his “British Working Class Movement,” is telling the trade unions that their policy and methods of organisation should be changed. We agree; but Mr. Cole is one of the least likely persons to have any sound ideas on the subject. Although never constant for long to any idea, he shows no sign of having learned from his past mistakes.

It is popularly believed that the workers gain through having the so-called intellectuals available to advise the Labour Leaders how to lead. What actually happens is rather like this. The trade union official, who is generally far better able to form sound opinions on trade union policy than are the academic Coles and Laskis, observes a stirring among his members in the form of interest in some new or resuscitated theory. Mistrusting his own judgment, he dashes off to seek the guidance of the “intellectuals.” The “intellectuals,” who are equally hesitant about putting forward definite suggestions, lest they should clash with the prevailing sentiment among the workers (and thus spoil their popularity and book sales), promptly set about discovering which way the wind is blowing and how strong it is likely to be. Having made up their minds on this, they then offer their advice, suitably tricked out in university jargon, the advice consisting of whatever theory they believe the workers are beginning to take up. The trade union official and the “intellectual” then feel mutually reinforced and comforted in their beliefs, and jointly offer their new wisdom to their members, the members being under the two-fold illusion that they are being given a lead and that the lead is the outcome of some solid thought by a reliable guide.

A Confusion of Parties

A few years ago the final argument of the Labour Party supporter who could not make headway against the case of the S.P.G.B. was a complaint that our separate existence confused the seeker after Socialist knowledge. “Why could we not all get together inside one big party?” The answer is that it would be fatal and absurd for a Socialist Party to lose its identity inside a conglomeration of reformists like the Labour Party. And it is curious to notice how loath are even the reformist groups to give up their separate existence in the great family party. In addition to the I.L.P. (Maxton), which left the Labour Party over the matter of Standing Orders, and the Communist Party, which wanted to get in the Labour Party but was rejected, there are now the following competing bodies all under the Labour umbrella: The Social Democratic Federation, the Fabian Society, the Socialist League (formerly the affiliationist wing of the I.L.P.), the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda (now dissolved after a short life), the Scottish Socialist Party (the Scottish wing of the League), the Clarion Fellowship, and the Co-operative Party.

And in face of this medley the reformists still have the impudence to tell us that the way to unite the workers is on reform programmes !

Incidentally, how William Morris, of the old Socialist League, with its fierce opposition to reforms and to Parliamentary action, would snort if he could hear the new Leaguers claiming that they have inherited the spirit of Morris.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Atrocities in Spain (1936)

Editorial from the December 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rebellion in Spain has taken on more and more the character of wholesale warfare, with all the ingenuities of cruelty which modern science and industry have made possible. Day and night the civilian population of Madrid has been subjected to artillery bombardment and the almost indiscriminate scattering of explosive and incendiary bombs. The deaths and casualties have run into thousands, while the number rendered homeless is estimated at far over 100,000. All of this has been done by the rebel generals on the plea—a common one with the higher ranks of the military profession, who, for some obscure reason, are still associated with notions of bravery—that it is simply their job to smash the Government and its civilian supporters. Behind the rebel generals, and running less personal risk even than they, is the Catholic Church, which lent its support to the rebellion, and the forces of monied and landed property which fear the workers and peasants, whether in Spain or outside, more than anything else.

Among those sympathetic to the rebels in this country may be included the Times and Daily Telegraph. It is for that reason worth while placing on record what they reluctantly admit about the conduct of their friends in Spain. The Times, in a review of the Report published by the rebels on the atrocities committed by Government supporters, says: —

. . . the fratricidal strife in Spain has been peculiarly envenomed by recourse to the taking of hostages and by ruthless reprisals, and there is, unhappily, reason to suppose that General Franco’s opponents could level against the forces under his command counter-charges equally valid though probably less numerous.—(Times, October 28th, 1936.)

Earlier the Times, in an editorial, said : —

. . . there can be little doubt that the insurgents arc conducting the war with a cold-blooded ruthlessness as revolting as any of the cruelties perpetrated by the supporters of the Government.—(Times. October 10th, 1936.)

The Times and Daily Telegraph have both had something to say about the wanton slaughter from the air of civilians in Madrid.

The Daily Telegraph says that

. . . the ruthless bombardment of Madrid by General Franco’s forces is shocking his friends as well as his enemies . . . .—(Daily Telegraph, November 19th, 1936.)

While the Times' own correspondent in Madrid sent the following report on November 18th: —

Although shrapnel takes a constant toll, air-raids cause most damage, and it is estimated that 50 tons of bombs have fallen on Madrid in 10 days. The damage to historical buildings is impossible to give in detail here, but the worst loss so far has been the Palacio de Liria, seat of the Duke of Alba, which was hit by an incendiary bomb yesterday evening. The palace contents are second only in artistic value to the collections of the National Palace. The fire burned all night—a terrifying torch symbolising the destructive agency of the civil war. It is believed that some of the principal treasures were removed several months ago, including a painting by Titian, armour, tapestry (the gift of Louis XIV), and part of the archives. The chief groom, Letheridge, his family, and the Duke’s dog are refugees in the British Embassy.

Not content with destruction by day, which may to some extent be directed against military objectives, the insurgents come at night, bombing round the conflagrations already existing, and throwing flares which water cannot extinguish.—(Times, November 19th, 1936)

So much for the forces of “culture,” “civilisation ” and “ religion,” which deliberately and for motives of class interest plunged Spain into this civil war.

Before leaving the subject there is the question of the employment of Moorish troops. We do not share the view that brutalities carried out by human beings with black or yellow skins are any worse than those carried out by white men, and in any event, the responsibility rests with the white-skinned high command, which gives the orders. Moreover, as has been pointed out by Franco’s friends, black troops were used by the Allied Governments in the War, and by France in the occupation of the German Rhineland.

It is, however, one of the ironies of history that the Moors, now being employed to crush the Spanish Government, are the same Moors who only a few years ago were praised to the skies by the British Labour Party when they were fighting to resist French and Spanish occupation of Morocco.

In order to bolster up its mistaken notion that national independence is something the workers should fight for, the Labour Party then idealised the Moors. Now it can find nothing good in them.

50 Years Ago: Humanity and Reason (2002)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

On August 17th the following news item was reported from Hamburg by Reuter:

“Dr. Hermann Ehlers, President of the West German Lower House, speaking yesterday during the unveiling ceremony to Hamburg’s 50,000 men, women and children who were killed during air raids in the 1939-45 war, said that nobody in Germany and few people in Britain had raised their voices against total warfare.

Therefore we must think of the one man who publicly protested against this kind of warfare – the Lord Bishop of Chichester, he said.

Today our special respect is due to the lone caller for humanity and reason.”

This will be news to members of the Socialist Party. Socialist speakers and writers protested many times during the war both against the war itself and against the inhumanity with which it was being conducted. It seems hard now to see the credit going to a member of the Bench of Bishops, who, as a body, were among the most bloodthirsty supporters of the war. Socialists agreed that the Germans suffered under the Nazi regime but we never saw the argument that we should help to kill them off in their thousands just to prove our sympathy for them. Socialists refused to help in the murder of the German and Japanese workers, and, for that refusal, some of them spent the war years being hunted by the police. Still, we may take this opportunity of telling Dr. Ehlers that we shall be publicity protesting against total war in any third world war too. We shall be calling for humanity and reason, that is to say, for Socialism, at every opportunity we have. And we shall be opposing the slaughter of the Russians, or of any other enemy our rulers may select for us.

(From Passing Show by A.W.E., Socialist Standard, October 1952)

In the news (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

More devastation for the working class

Almost immediately after the latest UK/US air strikes on Iraq, it was perhaps quite strange to read in a Guardian headline: “Allies ready to ease Iraq sanctions.” According to Whitehall sources, “Britain and the US have agreed to rethink their policy towards Iraq in the face of mounting hostility from the Arab world, inflamed by airstrikes.”

Was this the final throw of the dice—going out with a bang rather than with a whimper? Perhaps it was a show of strength by the new president, cementing relations with Tony Blair to assure everyone that the special relationship is still intact. This said, the strategic timing could not have been worse given current Arab-Israeli relations (with the remote possibility of a wider regional conflict). We also have to consider the potentially damaging relations with OPEC, which could react by squeezing oil production—thus pushing up oil prices—as Arab opinion becomes ever more hostile to Western interests.

Of course, with it being an open secret that the oil sanctions are already being routinely flouted (especially via the new Iraqi-Syrian pipeline)—combined with the fact that the major players such as France, Russia and China want sanctions to be lifted—it could well be that the US/UK are about to bow to the inevitable and bring Iraqi oil back on tap. The rehabilitation process may have already begun with a new proposal to move towards “smart sanctions”. These sanctions would be predominantly concerned with arms control and controlling the freedom of movement for leading members of the Iraqi regime. However, as the Guardian further points out: “Imports for rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure and oil industry would be allowed.”

We have previously documented the murderous and hypocritical policies of the US/UK towards Iraq with the resulting mass slaughter of the working class and we condemn it once again.

It now appears that the US/UK hegemonic policy is slowly giving way to what the other major powers wanted all along—the rehabilitation of Iraq. But this does not mean that the US/UK strategy has been in vain. On the contrary, it has kept a brutal dictator in power, Iraq’s borders intact (thus also containing Iran) and it has devastated the working class.

Screened for profit

Insurance firms were questioned by members of the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee on genetic testing on 7 February. The spokesman for Norwich Union said that only tests for Huntingdon’s disease had been carried out by his firm, as agreed by the insurance companies’ self-regulating body.

“But during questioning Mike Urmston, chief actuary at Norwich Union, was forced to explain that breast and ovarian cancer tests were also being used,” says the Times.

Shock, horror and gasps of amazement from the committee. Could this be a capitalist firm putting profits before human wellbeing? Surely not?

“Dr. Ian Gibson, a member of the committee, accused Norwich Union of trying to set up a ‘genetic ghetto’. He called on the Government to stem the tide of genetic testing by insurance companies. Self-regulation is clearly not working. These companies are attempting to identify a genetic underclass which can only lead to them profiting and individuals being discriminated against.”

The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has also carried a report that such screening was putting people’s lives at risk. “The risk, the authors say, is that people will be discouraged from taking tests with potential medical benefits because they fear insurance companies will discriminate against them.”

The mapping of the human gene code, with its possibilities of a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, breast and ovarian cancers, should be celebrated as a great triumph for humanity. However, we live in a capitalist world where profit is paramount and where human health and happiness count for very little.

The snows of Kilimanjaro and the drive for profit

At least one-third of the massive ice field atop Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa has disappeared or melted in the last dozen years, according to Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological sciences at Ohio University, speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. About 82 per cent of the ice field has been lost since it was first mapped in 1912.

A similar picture emerges from his research for South America, China, Tibet and for glaciers around the world. “These glaciers are very much like the canaries once used in coal mines,” Thompson said. “They’re an indicator of massive changes taking place and a response to the changes in climate in the tropics.”

Dealing with the dramatic loss of glaciers in the Andes, he said: 

“The loss of these frozen reserves threaten water resources for hydroelectric power production in the region, and for crop irrigation and municipal water supplies. What they’re really doing now is cashing in on a bank account that was built over thousands of years but isn’t being replenished. Once it’s gone, it will be diffficult to reform.”

“In such cases, the countries will probably have to switch to burning fossil fuels to meet their power needs. And by doing so, they’ll add more carbon dioxide and water vapour to the atmosphere—two gases that are known to enhance the greenhouse effect and intensify global warming.”

This is typical of capitalist society which, in its drive for profit, uses cheap fossil fuels to deal with the effects of global warming, and thereby causes more global warming. See www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/research/archive/glasgone.htm.