Världssocialism (1975)

From the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the name of a journal now being published by a Comrade in Sweden. Copies and information about it, can be obtained from

Ake Spross,

Garvargatan 22

112 21 Stockholm

or from the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High St., London S.W.4. The price in Britain is 10p plus postage.

From Sweden: Are there enough resources ? (1977)

From the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are the earth’s supplies of energy, ores and other raw materials coming to an end? Is a real society of abundance only a dream, impossible to realize because there are not enough resources to do it?

A yes-answer to these questions is a common assertion against Socialism.

It comes from people who think that capitalism is quickly draining the earth of its supplies of oil, forests, ores, etc. As Socialism cannot be built on a rubbish-heap it is impossible to establish according to them.

Instead of Socialism — a real society of abundance with free access to all that is produced — these people often talk about a return to “a simpler life” (as if the working class has ever had anything else).

It is true that because of its profit motive capitalism is misusing the earth’s resources so as to give rise to the fear that, by nuclear war or continued massive pollution, it really destroys the potential for abundance which is necessary for the establishment of Socialism. But it has not done that yet and this possibility only underlines the urgent need for Socialism here and now.

When Socialists are told that Socialism is impossible because of lack of resources, we reply that there is no direct connection between capitalism’s consumption of various raw materials and the standard of liv-

ing of the majority. Socialism will abolish all the waste connected with capitalism: no labour, energy or raw materials will any longer be wasted on banks, armament production, parking meters and the thousands of other articles which are only needed in a commodity-producing society.

Socialism will also be economical with the earth’s resources by only producing what is best. Instead of cheap consumption articles which will soon wear out, it will produce durable articles which will last.

Still many critics are not satisfied. “In any case”, they say, “it can only postpone the time when the earth has been emptied of its resources.” And they generally seem to think that this postponement will not be very long. Sometimes they are even producing “evidence” for this in the form of statistics over the world’s supplies of various raw materials and how long they will last with various paces of consumption.

In reality no one knows how big the earth’s absolute supplies of different raw materials are. No such investigation has ever been made. What has been investigated are supplies and resources which capitalism needs. And that is something very different.

A

s the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter some time ago pointed out in the headline to an article (13th December 1976): “Ore or not — a question of price”. In the article we learn:

Nobody knows exactly how big supplies of ore Sweden has — or the world as a whole for that matter . . . Ore only exists when it is profitable . . . When one has once established the economic definition the difficulty of measuring the supplies of ore in the world is realised. It varies with the price.

The article mentions that a ten per cent. increase of the world market price for a certain ore sometimes can double the supplies — which in reality were in existence all the time.

In the north of Sweden, five miles west of Kiruna, there is a place called Tjarrojaka. Here researches have been made during the last years and the supplies of copper ore have been estimated at ten million tons and the supplies of iron ore at 52 million tons. “These deposits would have been sensational in Bergslagen [in the middle of Swedenl”, Dagens Nyheter points out, “but in Norrbotten they are worthless”. This is because of the higher transportation costs which mean that they can not be used profitably — and therefore will not be mentioned in official statistics over ore supplies.

What is true of the ore is also true for most other raw materials and resources, oil, coal etc. This is the way capitalism counts and must count. It is a further argument for not worrying about lack of resources and instead setting about to work for the task of establishing Socialism.

Ake Spross

From Sweden: What is Marxism? (1978)

From the May 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Historically, Marxism has meant the materialist conception of history, the Labour Theory of Value and the political class struggle.

We accept the materialist conception of history as the only method that makes it possible to investigate and gain knowledge about historical and social events and changes. We regard Capital as a brilliant analysis of the workings and historical tendency of capitalism and an explanation of how the working class is exploited. We accept Marx’s theory that the working class can be liberated from exploitation only by its own class conscious, democratic political action for Socialism.

This is what we mean when we call ourselves Marxists. It does not mean that we accept everything Karl Marx said and did during his lifetime. Marxism was not something that came out all ready-made from Marx’s brain. It was developed gradually, with Marx as the main contributor.

Philosophical fantasy

The young Marx in his first presentation of the case for Socialism (the so-called Paris Manuscripts) based it on a philosophical humanism, using concepts and expressions like “human essence’’, “man’s alienation from his species life’’ and “man’s return . . .  to his human existence’’. Later however Marx came to base the case for Socialism on the interest of the working class under capitalism, not on any philosophical view of human nature. In the Communist Manifesto, written a couple of years after the Paris Manuscripts, he explicitly repudiates, in the section on “True Socialism”, views similar to those he had once expressed himself to the effect that Socialism represented “not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general who belongs to no class, who has no reality, who exists only in the misty realms of philosophical fantasy”.

But, whatever were the views of the young Marx, Marxism does not stand or fall with them. Marx’s early manuscripts were, for the main part, not available until the beginning of the nineteen thirties, but by that time Marxism—as we described it at the beginning of this article — had already existed for over half a century. None of Marx’s main theories stands or falls with his early philosophical ideas.

This does not mean that Marxism lacks a conception of Man. Man is throughout history a social being — not a “lone wolf”—and only in relation to other people is he human. This is the only basic human nature that exists; apart from this “the whole of history is nothing but the continuous transformation of human nature” (Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy).

The idea that Marxism regards mankind’s future as predetermined is wrong. It explicitly rejects this. In a letter he drafted but did not send to a Russian journal in November 1877 Marx himself took up the question and explained that his “outline of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe” was not “a historico-philosophical theory of the general course, fatally imposed on all peoples, regardless of the historical circumstances in which they find themselves placed, in order to arrive finally at that economic formation which insures with the greatest of productive power of social labour the most complete development of man” (i.e., Socialism).

Not inevitable

Marx’s analysis of capitalism points to Socialism as the next, higher stage in social development, but there is nothing of predeterminism in this. With today’s large stocks of nuclear and biological weapons and massive pollution of the environment the old socialist challenge “Socialism or Barbarism?” is more relevant than ever. Socialism will not be inevitable until the working class decides to establish it.

It is true that the young Marx sometimes saw the socialist revolution as a more or less spontaneous process. But the mature Marx — “Marx the Marxist” — stressed that the change-over to Socialism must be a conscious act, “the conscious reorganisation of society” as he put it in volume III of Capital (chapter V, section II). And this was not a question of consciousness among a small minority leading the great majority (as in the Leninist theory). As Engels put it in his 1895 Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France 1848-50:

Where it a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for, body and soul.

And in his 1890 Preface to the 4th German edition of the Communist Manifesto:

For the ultimate triumph of the ideas set forth in the Manifesto Marx relied solely and exclusively upon the intellectual development of the working class, as it necessarily had to ensue from united action and discussion.

Ake Spross (Sweden)

Remembering the Past (2004)

From the May 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Next month will be the centenary of the formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904. To mark this, the Socialist Standard will be expanded to 48 pages (the price will remain the same), with articles about the activities of the Socialist Party over the decades and how others have seen these as well as on our specific contributions to the development of socialist theory. In anticipation, we publish below some of the contributions we have received.

Glasgow Branch

To say times were hard when Glasgow branch was formed in 1924 would be a serious understatement. The branch consisted of working men, only some of whom had jobs, and money was so scarce that in the early days branch meetings were sometimes held in the open because members couldn’t afford to rent a hall.

If funds were lacking then energy and commitment were not, so members threw themselves into making the party known in the city. John Higgins, the first branch secretary, was particularly effective at this and his meetings Glasgow Green gave many Glaswegians their first introduction to the party’s case.

To branch members knowledge meant everything and they were determined to have as much of it as they could, so classes on Marxist theory, logic, etc, were an essential feature, but the main activity was always indoor and, especially, outdoor meetings. Glasgow branch always had a reputation for having first-class speakers and even our opponents, whatever else they thought of us, conceded that.

Two outstanding examples of this were Alex Shaw and Tony Mulheron. Shaw was an old-time street corner orator with an ability to have his audiences in stitches – his lampooning of some of Glasgow’s left-wing folk heroes, especially the “Red Clydesiders”, was hilarious. Mulheron, by contrast, was in his element on the indoor platform. Tony was extremely articulate and had a witty, flamboyant speaking style that could turn even the driest-sounding theoretical subject into an entertainment.

During the war activities were stepped up. Ever more meetings were held and new, younger speakers came forward. The wartime scene was brightened by visits from London speakers taking a break from the Blitz and, later on, doodlebugs and V2 rockets.

After “peace” was declared the momentum was maintained and the branch’s biggest ever audiences attended meetings at the St. Andrew’s Halls and the Cosmo cinema. Membership increased and the branch even acquired its own premises. In 1949 a second branch was formed in the city and this lasted until 1961.

In the late 1950s an influx of younger members revitalised activities, and in the 1960s candidates were fielded in three parliamentary and five municipal elections. More outdoor speaking stances were opened and there were public debates aplenty with Labourites, Leninists and others.

Added to all this was a winter programme of Sunday evening indoor meetings which ran from October to April and continued for many years. This meant that members had to wrack their brains to come up with titles for around 30 meetings every winter!

Today the old propaganda methods, which were the branch’s strength, are all but finished. People will no longer come to indoor meetings or stop and listen to those held outdoors, and this means that the branch has had to adapt to the new situation. Now we organize day schools, discussion groups, hand out leaflets at demos, provide speakers and other assistance for party activities elsewhere in the country etc.

Glasgow branch has for eighty years played its part in the party’s activities. Its members have, in the past, given generously of their time, effort and abilities, and today’s members, despite very different and difficult conditions, strive to maintain this record.

 V.V.

Memories of Camberwell Branch

At the end of World War II and a landslide victory for the Labour Party, there was a greater public interest in politics. The Communist Party had a large number of members as a result of pro-Russia sentiment at the end of the war. During this period the Camberwell Branch was formed with about a dozen members. A decent room was hired from the Labour Party in Camberwell. The local MP Freda Corbett used to enter the room apologising for disturbing the meeting. She was unaware of the fact that we were not the Labour Party. When the SPGB contested Paddington North in 1945, realising we were not the Labour Party we were given notice to quit.

The branch held meetings on Sundays at East Street, Walworth market place. These took place at 12 o’clock midday. The local stall-holders regarded our arrival with suspicion and puzzlement. They could not figure out what was in it for us. However, when we sold Party literature and took collections they considered we were getting the proceeds.

The meetings were successful. Only one meeting could be held at a time because of Home Office regulations. The Communist Party who, locally, had many more members were competing with us for the pitch and on one or two occasions they succeeded. The Camberwell Branch forced a vote to get to the meeting site earlier in order to “book the pitch”. This resulted in us getting there at one o’clock in the morning, so the pitch could be occupied. The Communist Party stopped competing and disappeared from East Street for many months.

A handful of dedicated socialists saw off an organisation with several hundred local members. The Communist Party today is virtually non-existent . . . The Socialist Party is still alive.

T.L.

Sweden

Since the beginning of the 1970s there have been socialists in Sweden, sharing the ideas of the World Socialist Movement. For a number of years some of them produced a journal, Världssocialism (World Socialism). Many of the articles in it were translations from the Socialist Standard.

After several years of informal work with Världssocialism and other socialist activities a handful of socialists living in Uppsala and Stockholm decided to organise themselves formally as Världssocialistiska Gruppen (the World Socialist Group). At its first meeting in Uppsala on Saturday 20 January 1979 the group adopted a slightly modified version of the Object and Declaration of Principles of the Companion Parties of Socialism. The modifications had to do with the fact that the Group was not a political party, but had as its object to work for the formation of a Socialist Party in Sweden.

The work of the Group centred on the production of a series of pamphlets called Världssocialistiska häften. The first of these booklets was a translation of the SPGB-pamphlet Questions of the Day. Other issues of Världssocialistiska häften dealt with Soviet state capitalism, capitalism and war, Marxism 100 years after Marx´ death, and how life is in capitalism and can be in socialism.

Most of the members and a few sympathizers were in their twenties when the group was formed. After a few years, as some of them established families or got jobs in other places -- and one or two lost interest in socialism altogether - it became increasingly difficult to maintain organised activities. During the past ten years or so Världssocialistiska Gruppen, although not formally dissolved, has not carried out any organised activities. Individual members read the Socialist Standard and sometimes see each other.

Hopefully there are people in Sweden who in the not too distant future will find that they agree with the object and principles of the World Socialist Movement and then take action in order to reawaken the group. To achieve its object, the establishment of a Socialist Party in Sweden, will be a tiny task compared with bringing about the object of such a party.

Åke Spross, Uppsala, Sweden

Socialist jailed in Sweden - "Times" uninterested (1973)

From the February 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish below a copy of a letter sent to the Editor of The Times but not published.

Sir,

Presumably it was the unexpectedness of the suggestion in the Freedom House study that civil rights are at risk in Sweden that led you to headline (2/1/73) this aspect of Peter Strafford's report from New York. It comes as no surprise to us. At this very moment our comrade Ake Spross, who shares our stand against all war whether classed as national defence or imperialist aggression, is in prison for refusing to join the army of a country much publicised as a haven for G.I.'s objections to their government's current war. His incarceration may be less harsh in other countries but the very efficiency of Swedish state-capitalism will ensure that upon release employment prospects in his chosen field will be considerably diminished.  Sweden as a refuge evidently does not extend to the Socialist objectors to service in her own forces.

Yours truly,

K. Knight,

2 January 1973                                                                                           General Secretary

Socialist Party of Great Britain