What! Another Mistake? (1950)

From the February 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

1. Old.

In the October, 1936, Socialist Standard there appeared an article “The Russian ‘ Terrorist ’ Trial,” dealing with the infamous “Moscow Trials.” It contained extracts from a special number of “International Press Correspondence,” Vol. 16, No. 41, September 9th, 1936—a journal of the late, unlamented “Third International” (“Comintern,” Moscow). The article is contained in the pamphlet "Russia Since 1917” (Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1948, 1s.) from which the following is quoted (pages 59, 60):—

(Vishinsky, prosecutor, cross-examining Holzman):

" 'We drove in a taxi—Holzman continued his deposition—but I do not remember the street. Sedov took me into a flat. It was on the fourth floor. Here I gave him the report and code. ... I met him like this six to eight times in the course of four months. 'In November,' Holzman continued, 'I again 'phoned Sedov, and we met again. Sedov said to me: 'As you are getting ready to go to the U.S.S.R., 1 would advise you to go with me to Copenhagen, where my father is.' "

“Vishinsky: ‘That is?'

“ Holzman: 'That is, Trotsky?'

“Vishinsky: 'You went? ’

“Holzman: "I agreed and told Sedov that in two or three days I would go to him in Copenhagen and stay at the Hotel Bristol, where we could meet. I went straight from the station to the hotel, and met Sedov in the lounge.' (Page 1120)."

The writer of the “ S.S.” article commented:

“ Let us consider this statement.

“ The second paragraph states that Holzman went to a flat with Sedov, but Holzman could not remember the street, although he visited the flat ’six to eight times in the course of four months.' How very curious!

“This paragraph states that they met in 1932 at the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen. Unfortunately for this statement the diplomatic correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (September 17th, 1936) points out that the Hotel Bristol was pulled down in 1917! Possibly one of those who took part in preparing the case had been in Copenhagen during the war but did not know the dirty trick someone had played in 1917! ”

There is much more in the article quoted from, which throws grave doubts, to say the least, on the reliability of these confessions and the evidence on which conviction is obtained.

2. New.

“. . . Two and a half years ago, ... the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party passed a resolution of congratulation on the occasion of ... (the) birthday ... of the party’s general secretary.” (Vernon Bartlett, News Chronicle, December 19th, 1949.) 

He continues: —

“ One sentence in it is worthy of repetition: ‘ Your deep Marxist-Leninist knowledge, your great culture, your well-known industry and steadfastness, your modesty, your iron will, your unquestionable loyalty towards the Party and [! ] the working class, are those Bolshevist characteristics which beautify your whole life.’ ” 

This was for Traicho Kostov!

Later, when his Bulgarian Nationalism appeared to be superceding his Russian Nationalism, “Kostovism” became “Titoism on Bulgarian soil,” according to a report from Sofia. (“Titoism” appears to mean Yugoslav Nationalism superceding Russian Nationalism “ on Yugoslav soil.")

The following is quoted from the Evening News December 13th, 1949. If a correct report of proceedings it would indicate an incident similar to the “Hotel Bristol 'mistake'. "

"The Foreign Office said to-day that Mr. 'Billy' Watson, whose name has been mentioned in the treason trial in Sofia of Traicho Kostov and others, was a business man who lived in Sofia. It was alleged that Mr. Watson had contacted Kostav in February, 1948; in fact, he died in January of that year . . ."

Perhaps this is a case where we should add : "Psychic News: please copy ”!

Alec Hart

Letters: Making allowances (2004)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Making allowances

Dear Editors,

The review of Beyond Capital in the December Socialist Standard deals with the question of wage determination as affected by the balance of class forces, there being no automatic passing on of workers’ higher living costs or taxes in higher wage levels. But government’s unceasing tinkering with the social wage in the form of benefits and subsidies shows that they are very much concerned with their role in maintaining and trying to regulate such a link.

The role of post-war Family Allowances in influencing wage levels is well known to Socialist Standard readers over the years. Rent control, introduced to prevent a wage explosion in the first world war, is another example.

More recently government has openly acknowledged Family Credits to be a top-up for low wages. Junior Employment Minister in the 1994 Conservative government, Philip Oppenheim, was reported as saying (Observer 28 August 1994):

“Employers cannot be expected to have regard to the family commitments of each of their employees. This must be the role of the tax and benefit system, which ensured that households have sufficient income upon which to live. That is why we introduced Family Credits and other benefits for lower-paid employees with a family to support. It would make no sense to outlaw every job which did not pay wages high enough to support a family.”

At the time now Deputy Prime Minister Prescott criticised the Conservative Party policy of this topping-up low wages, saying, “Family Credit is now part of wage negotiations”, encouraging low pay.

What is surprising is not Prescott’s tacit admission of his earlier ignorance of the purpose of much social welfare legislation, but the Conservative Party’s frankness in acknowledging the purpose of such “benefits” as being government policy in their attempts to regulate wage or, certainly income levels for the low-paid.

It is a case of government being compelled to throw its weight in the balance of class forces mentioned in the review, in order to maintain competitiveness and profitability of the national economy. Seen as a necessary response to capitalism’s compulsions and priorities, political and economic, it might well be considered “automatic”.

Bill Robertson, 

Brighton

RMT and the SSP

Dear Editors,

Now that the RMT has been expelled from the Labour Party, the party they helped found 100 years ago, I wonder how long it will be before they are expelled again if the Scottish Socialist Party develop into a total British party whose reformist policies will no doubt evolve into what the Labour Party practice, as any other party who promises to manager Big Business.

Joe Boughey, 

Newton-le-willows, Merseyside

Alec Hart

Dear Editors,

Further to the obituary published in the February Socialist Standard, I have received the following story from one of Alec’s friends in Johannesburg:

“During the apartheid era he (Alec) was visited on many occasions by the ‘Special Branch’. Alec had an enormous picture of Karl Marx on the wall and when asked by one of these detectives ‘Who’s that man?’, he quite blandly said it was Johannes Brahms. Fortunately they believed him!”

I would have included this in the obituary if I’d had this story at the time

of writing!

Phyllis Hart, 

Westerham, Kent

Letters: Apartheid (1970)

Letters to the Editors from the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Apartheid

In denouncing South African apartheid in "Socialism or Anti-Apartheid" (June Socialist Standard) as "essentially a pre-capitalist form of oppression", you apparently neglect the Marxist view of the historical process as expounded in the Communist Manifesto, in which you "support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things". Any form of revolution in the Republic of South Africa, whether resulting in a bourgeois or proletarian dictatorship. would represent a stronger class consciousness than in the present repressive totalitarian regime.

A strong proletarian class consciousness in which the workers can achieve emancipation, with or without a vanguard party, can never be obtained while one race is institutionally repressed by another. The treatment of Anti-Apartheid can of course never be separated from the issues of Socialism, but support for anti-apartheid can be justified by any revolutionary socialist who cares about the quality of life within an institutionalised repressive society.

Under bourgeois democracy the exploited worker can choose his own jailor, but under apartheid the key has been thrown away. In deciding that all forms of capitalism (including apartheid) are equally repulsive you are in danger of completely alienating yourselves from the people you claim to care about.

David Melvin, 

Huddersfield. Yorks.

Reply: 
It is quite true that the Communist Manifesto does say "the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things”. This was an expression of the 1848 policy of the Communist League, for whom the manifesto was written. But, as Marx and Engels pointed out in their preface to the 1872 German edition, the practical application of the Manifesto's general principles depends "everywhere and at all times on the historical conditions for the time being existing.” This is the Marxist view.

In the middle of the 19th century when there was a very real danger that emerging democracy in the capitalist parts of Europe might be overrun by reactionary feudal powers like Russia, Austria and Prussia a case for Socialists helping capitalism to establish itself could be made out. Marx and Engels and the Communist League, therefore, supported bourgeois-democratic revolutions against feudalism while always bringing, as the Manifesto also says, "the property question" to the fore.

By the end of the 19th century, however, the reactionary powers were no longer a threat to capitalism and all three of them were broken up after the first world war. In these new historical conditions a different application of socialist principles was called for: a struggle everywhere, even in those places where pre-capitalist forms of oppression had yet to be overthrown, for the immediate establishment of world Socialism. In the context of South Africa this means that the struggle against apartheid should not be separated from the struggle for Socialism. We urge workers there to struggle for Socialism, not mere anti-apartheid which would leave capitalism intact.

The June Socialist Standard did point out that "the Socialist Party of Great Britain is opposed to apartheid” and that "racist policies will be undermined to the extent that socialist ideas spread". This last point should be obvious. To the extent that socialist ideas do spread anti-racist sentiment is strengthened. It is not as if concentrating on socialist propaganda alone and refusing to join with non-socialist antiapartheid movements hinders the ending of apartheid even under capitalism. It may even help it — but we do not accept David Melvin’s view that socialist ideas cannot spread now under apartheid in South Africa.

Finally, we always wonder whether those who talk of "proletarian dictatorship" and "vanguard party" and “bourgeois democracy" really do share our (and Marx’s) conception of Socialism in the first place.

Editorial Committee

After the fine article on South African capitalism in the May Socialist Standard, I was somewhat shocked at the view expressed in the article "Socialism or Anti-Apartheid” in the June issue:

  “. . . the overthrow of the National Party government in South Africa and the end of its apartheid policy . . .” “. . . under the United Party or Progressive Party government. The biggest part of the South African working class would be freed from oppression on grounds of colour . . .”

I have quoted out of context, but the impression I get from this complete paragraph is the inference highlighted in my quotes, that such a change of government could/would lead to the end of apartheid. Correct me if I’m wrong, please.

The United Party does not stand for "non-racial capitalism", but for “enlightened white leadership" or "humanised" apartheid! That’s why. ostensibly, the Progressive Party formed with the slogan "Merit not Colour", a nice vague banner which can be elaborated and "diluted” as/when (or if) the Progressives became more popular.

The U.P. laid the basis for Nationalist government apartheid legislation which is basically a more rigid and logical extension of U.P. between-wars legislation.

The white working class has no qualms about this here — they generally oppose the idea of socio-economic integration of all "races” and they wield the bulk of the votes.

In any ease, the promises, half-promises and hints of out-of-power capitalist parties must always be taken with a ton of salt! What they say they’d do, what they’d like to do and what they can and will do are three (or four!) often different things.

The Progressive Party is well sketched in the May Socialist Standard as representing the hopes of certain capitalist interests outside South Africa.

Names and address supplied.

Johannesburg.

South Africa.

Reply: 
We are sorry our correspondent got the wrong impression from this passage in the June Socialist Standard:

  The unpleasant fact is that the overthrow of the National Party government in South Africa and the end of its apartheid policy would mean that political power would pass into hands more friendly to capitalist magnates like Oppenheimer. This would be so under an African nationalist government (as it is in Zambia or Ghana, for instance) as much as under a United Party or Progressive Party government. The biggest part of the South African working class would be freed from oppression on grounds of colour, but they would still be propertyless and still have to work for wages on the farms, down the mines and in the factories.

The passage he quotes, on his own admission out of context, should be read "This (i.e. the passing of political power into hands more friendly to capitalist magnates) would be so under an African nationalist government . . . as much as under a United Party or Progressive Party government”. The word this does not, or was not meant to, refer to the end of apartheid or colour discrimination. We know full well that the “non-white" people of South Africa would continue to be oppressed on grounds of colour under a United Party government and that even Oppenheimer’s Progressive Party is opposed to universal suffrage.

We still say that the replacement of apartheid by "non-racial capitalism" rather than by Socialism would be in the interests of South African big business and its overseas allies. Workers in South Africa, whatever their colour, should like workers everywhere be struggling for the immediate establishment of Socialism.

Editorial Committee

South African Notes (1960)

News From Africa from the August 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fight between the major political parties of South Africa takes the form of Afrikaner Nationalism versus English South Africanism. The Nationalist and United Parties are really, however, struggling over the control of the labour-power—more truly, over the surplus-value to be realised from the utilisation of the working-power—of the vast African proletariat. More simply, it is a squabble over which group, land-owning or industrial and finance capitalists, shall benefit more from the exploitation of the underfed, under-educated, under-privileged Bantu workers. Of course, the “progressives” and their allies, Liberals and crypto-"Communists,” support the abolition of the quasi-feudal restrictions on the mobility of workers, e.g., the hated Pass Laws, residence permits, etc., and favour the “freeing” of labour to develop into a fully-fledged industrial proletariat, available to add ever faster to the wealth of the Oppenheimers, Hambros, Engelhards and their fellow industrial-and finance-capitalists.

*     *     *     *

Mining in South Africa is based on the unskilled and semi-skilled labour of thousands of low-paid, low-living African workers. Usually, the "coloured” workers are thought to be less poverty-stricken. The following is no isolated example, and surely indicates the poverty, if not actual destitution, of the parents of the children. Headed "Hot stew and clothes for children in rags,” the news-item, from The Star, Johannesburg (1/6/60), contained the information that:

  The Red Cross has adopted a ramshackle coloured school on the Main Reef Road and has undertaken to feed and clothe the schoolchildren.
   The school, Aurora West Coloured School, is housed in a converted church building at the foot of the Maraisburg radio mast.
   The Roodepoort centre of the Red Cross Society described the 40 pupils there as "pathetic little figures ranging in age from five to 12, obviously undernourished and dressed in rags.”
    From today the schoolchildren will receive a daily supply of hot stew. Many of them have already received warm clothing.
    A spokesman for the Red Cross centre said that many local firms had contributed—but much more warm clothing is needed.
   Some of the children walk six miles to the school in almost freezing weather with no food in thin summer clothes ”

It is of interest that many of the parents of these children are more than likely employed by those "many local firms” at very low pay.

By contrast, an item in the same newspaper of the same date, entitled "Profits and distributions,” indicates that the practical application of apartheid in keeping the African "in his place,” i.e., poorly educated and extremely poor, and socially separate from his "white” co- worker, pays off. Top of the list comes General Mining Finance Corporation Ltd., whose taxed profit for 1959 was £1,929,000 (1958: £1,824,0001: of which dividends took £1,067,000 (1958: £912,000). With eleven other listed companies or groups, this news-item totals taxed profits for 1959 as £3,470,000 (1958: £2,377,000); of which dividends took £2,377,000 (1958: £2.144,000). Of course, "we” cannot afford substantial wage-increases!

Alec Hart

Obituaries: Alec Hart and Alf Crisp (2004)

Obituaries from the February 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Alec Hart (1924-2004)

Alec Hart died in his 80th year in South Africa where he had lived for almost 50 years. Alec came across the Socialist Party when he heard a young speaker, Doug Verity, at a meeting in Finsbury Park, North London. He was so impressed with the case for Socialism that he arranged for Doug to address the youth club he attended, and politically, Alec never looked back.

He joined the Party in 1944 and influenced some of his siblings, two of whom (including the writer at the age of 16) also joined. Alec was a member of the old Islington branch and was sometime branch treasurer. He much valued the Education Classes held in the 1940’s at the Rugby Chambers Head Office, especially the Economics Classes. He always challenged non- or anti-socialist comments and arguments and often crossed political swords with Father and other members of the family. In 1956 he followed and later married a girlfriend when she went to live in South Africa, and although they eventually parted, he couldn’t face returning to the English climate and the problems of resettling there.

Throughout the repressive regime of apartheid he remained staunchly socialist, even though the South African Special Branch paid attention to him, by visiting him and also examining his mail, and at one time the Socialist Standard and Party pamphlets were gazetted in South Africa as prohibited literature. However, at Alec’s insistence, and with little concern about the risk this posed for him, the Socialist Standard was sent to him regularly as well as Party pamphlets etc. as they were published. He wrote and often had published, letters to the South African press giving the socialist view on current topics and replying to other correspondents in the press.

He was very knowledgeable about classical music and built up a large collection of records. A keen cyclist, he took many holidays touring by bike in the UK and in South Africa. Ill-health in his last few years took him into residential care where he shared a room with a very deaf old Trotskyite, and political arguments between them usually ended with Alec’s opponent removing his deaf-aid when he’d “had enough”. Alec though never gave up.

Phyllis Hart

Alf Crisp (1908-2003)

We are sad to announce the death in November of Alf Crisp at the age of 95. Alf was a Londoner who for most of his life lived in Forest Gate. He joined West Ham Branch in August 1930, and remained in that Branch, though the name changed, until moving to Cambridgeshire in 1991 to be near his son Malcolm. Thereafter in Central Branch he maintained his close interest in Socialism and friendship with members. His wife died in 1967 so Alf had 36 years on his own.

Until the age of 75 he worked as a printer, for many years in his own business, but subsequently for other printers - colleagues. Printing was more than a job, his attitude was that of a craftsman, but he never made a fortune at it. He undertook printing for the party which included membership cards and posters for meetings. In most cases no charge was made.

Alf was a conscientious objector during WW2, as was his brother. West Ham Branch made the most of the post-war environment, and Alf joined in with the activities. In later years his contribution would be in the form of regular support for Branch meetings. He is remembered as a pleasant and thoughtful comrade who would on occasion express his opinion in a forthright manner. He would make his political views known whenever an opportunity was presented. Malcolm tells of an incident not many years ago when his father was virtually ejected from the afternoon tea session at the Day Centre in Over; he had made loud protestations when the National Anthem was sung there to mark some royal event.

He made new friends in Cambridgeshire and was able to pursue his hobbies, notably woodwork and music. Alf was a skilled pianist and had a lifelong interest in musical instruments, making a hammered dulcimer in his eighties. We extend sympathy to Malcolm and his family.

Pat Deutz

Myth of overpopulation (1990)

From the November 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to T. A. Pahl. in a letter in the Johannesburg Star (27 February) under the heading ‘Villain is high birthrate', “irresponsible black birthrate" is the cause of poverty, hunger disease, housing problems. unemployment, etc. This racist version of discredited Malthusianism is just as false as it was originally, in 1798.

Of course, no proof is offered, nor is possible. for this miserable doctrine. On the other hand, according to Dr Org Marais. Deputy Minister of Finance: “About 1.7 percent of the total tax-paying public pays 73 percent of the country's tax” (Star, 16 February). The Receiver of Revenue has also shown that about one-third of workers in this country do not earn enough to be liable for any Income Tax.

Housing? “Blacks earn too little to qualify for home loans”, reported Norman Chandler ". . . 91 percent of blacks could not afford the R800 a month minimum requirements of the Urban Foundation. Banks and Building Societies, while 83 percent were unable to meet the Housing Trust's £600 a month minimum requirement" (Star 22 November 1989). Most whites face similar problems.

The bottom line is that capitalism is responsible for all the miseries of, and linked with, poverty, while apartheid has concentrated them on blacks, in this country. Not overpopulation, but the chronic and often planned underproduction of food for the market, with access limited to what people can afford, is the cause of those social sores. Only with the establishment of real socialism/communism, with production and distribution solely for direct consumption, can humanity start to end the menace of starvation for millions.

As long as the means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by the capitalist class, privately or through the state, the workers will continue to make wealth for the rich to enjoy and the producers will remain in servile poverty. In fact, poverty in underdeveloped regions promotes population growth, while in Europe a negative birthrate is worrying governments and employers.

In any case, the main point is: can this world sustain present and future populations, expanding or contracting? Again, let the Star reply: “Every demographer knows that world resources are easily capable of supporting a population many times its present size" ('The Other Ethics of Birth-Control'. 22 July 1976).

What a cruel joke: blaming the productive majority, the poor, for their poverty. In any case, proliferation of the poor can hardly threaten available resources: their buying powers do not expand in proportion to their numbers. The facts are readily available in such works as The Legacy of Malthus by Allan Chase (University of Illinois Press, 1980) and The Economic History of World Population by Carlo M. Cipolla (Penguin Books, 1970).

Alec Hart

Letters to the Editors: The Real World (1990)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The real world

Dear Editors.

As a reader of the Socialist Standard for several years now and interested in your analysis of the capitalist system and its replacement by Common Ownership, I am left wondering at times if it is not some wonderful dream that captivates us all from one time to another when we become so depressed at our horrible grey surroundings that we need some escapist illusion to take our minds away from it all. However, be that as it may, I would now like to comment on aspects of the SPGB’s case:

You heavily criticise the Left Wing' stating that it's just another part of capitalism, but surely these elements which exist, no matter how negative, unruly and disorganised they are most of the time, are also a necessary part of material reality. They are also surely every radical youth's first introduction to political rebellion—where they see themselves as dangerous 'revolutionaries'—and, no matter how crazy you think they are, they exist as part of the opposition to a terrible exploitative system.

Come on, let's be realistic. When I was 18 back in the mid-sixties and ‘raring to go' I didn't run to the good old SPGB. I investigated the 'Socialist Labour League', the International Socialists, the IMG. All right, no way did they hold the same credentials as yourselves in consistency in their adherence to the ideas of Marx and Engels—but they have adopted some of the radical notions of these two major revolutionaries who also believed in a quick demise of the system. You can rail against the Left's romanticism and their political confusion but I repeat they are a necessary part of reality.

You say that the 'Socialist Workers Party' should fight to establish socialism instead of campaigning for the 'Right to Work'—or against the Poll Tax or whatever other issue is thrown up by capitalism—but wouldn’t it be completely extraordinary if workers didn't campaign and vent their anger against varying detrimental aspects of the system?

You say that real socialists do not get involved in such futile ‘goings on', yet these are real people in a real capitalist world acting out of despair and frustration—can you really imagine a strong-minded worker getting so angry about what is happening that he rushes to join the Socialist Party of Great Britain to sort things out once and for all!

You are talking about workers with no patience who want quick solutions which are being offered by various sects on the 'Left' and I agree if they follow these ratbags up the blind alley they will become even more disillusioned and apathetic, but what do the Socialist Party offer in its place? Do you seriously expect workers to abandon their ‘Right to Work' signs and 'Maggie Out' demands for the placards of the Socialist Party who would have us marching through the city streets with 'Abolish the Wages System' written on them!

Come on SPGB. come into the real world—capitalism will end one day; other systems will evolve in line with conflicts, confusions and contradictions, and whether future systems are based on common ownership, exploitation, state dictatorship, or something as yet unconceived will be determined by humankind's expediency at crucial stages—not by a small clique who forever professes to be more Socialist Than Thou' without advancing the cause of positive human progress one whit!

Paul Cash

Sheffield

REPLY:

The "left wing" are not a "part of the opposition" to capitalism. On the contrary they advocate merely a variation to its form (that is the state capitalist one) in which the wages system, buying and selling, police, armies and so on will continue to exist. They peddle the illusion that it is in our class interest. Do not be fooled by their use of the words “socialism” and “communism" or by their use of Marxist terminology. The test to use is a simple one—will the successful outcome of their policies result in the abolition of class exploitation and its replacement by a world-wide system of common ownership of the means of life with production for use and free access by all to the wealth produced?

Clearly the political organisations you mention do not work for this end as an immediate practical possibility. Indeed at election times they urge the working class to vote for the Labour Party. Nothing could be more dangerous and futile because, as they themselves admit, the Labour Party is a reformist and capitalist organisation committed to running the system of production for profit.

Agreed that many sincere and well meaning people "vent their anger" with the system by actively taking part in "left wing" activity. We are unclear why you consider this exercise in futility "necessary". It will not remove the cause of working class misery, rather it will confuse the issue which workers everywhere should have always before them—capitalism or socialism?

Confusion gives rise to frustration and often to apathy which is a barrier to the democratic class conscious political action which must be undertaken if we are to liberate ourselves. Changes in society don't just happen, they are the result of human activity in pursuit of class interest. This is how the change from capitalism to socialism will come about, and it will take a lot of patient hard work to build a socialist majority because there are no short cuts. We do expect workers to give up their support for organisations which simply tinker with the problems of class society. Sticking plaster solutions must be abandoned if we are to free ourselves by taking control of the state and its armed forces, using them to take into common ownership under democratic control the whole of the means of wealth production and distribution. Until that time comes (and it cannot come quickly enough) capitalism and its horrendous problems will continue to afflict the useful majority in society.

EDITORS

South Africa

Now that the Communist Party of South Africa has been unbanned, it is possible to discuss its mistaken policies openly in South Africa. We reprint below a letter published in the Johannesburg "Star" on 26 February.

In the article "Alone is my joy—after 40 years" [The Star, February 8), Joe Openshaw states: "After 1948 I ceased being an active communist but continued to have faith in the economic arguments propagated in ‘Das Kapital’ and in Marxism".

And he concludes: "The upheavals in the Soviet Union and in the communist bloc have shaken me, but joining the Communist Party seemed a good idea at the time. My conviction still is that socialism could work if not perverted".

The last point, "the perversion' of socialism”, has been the central deception of the Bolsheviks from before 1917: and their followers, as well as their mainstream opponents and detractors, have "gone along with" the distortions of Marxism, to support the introduction and development of state capitalism in Russia and elsewhere. The Leninists "adapted” Marxism to suit their programmes after the overthrow of Tsarist feudalism.

Joe, your "faith” in Das Kapital and Marxism is very sad, in view of the obvious fact that you have never understood either of these. Das Kapital defines capitalism as a system of commodity production based upon wage-labour and capital, whose purpose is the realisation of the surplus- value wrung from the working class and contained in all commodities. This system prevails in Russia and in all modern countries in this world.

Finally, Marxism does not propose or support minority and/or insurrectionary action for/by/on behalf of the world's working class, but insists on the need for the democratic self-conscious, political act of the said class—when sufficiently enlightened—to replace commodity production by production solely for use, freely and willingly, based on the new relationship of common ownership and control of social production by the whole of society; not by the state, which will no longer function.

Alec Hart 

Johannesburg

Proceeds to charity (1974)

Film Review from the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent in South Africa has sent us this account of the screening of a film based on life there.

"Gold" has well-known actors in the leading parts, and several hundred Africans — of whom two are named in the printed programme. This film, recently screened in Johannesburg, was made in and around this city and London. It was produced with the co-operation of a major South African gold-mining corporation, so it would be safe to assume that it does not misrepresent the gold mining industry — adversely, at least. 

The plot revolves round (apart from the cuckolding of the villain by the hero) the machinations of an international syndicate of investors led by the grandson-in-law of and heir to the good-natured, scrupulously honest, uninvolved big boss of the Mining House. Their aim is to flood the mine secretly (with the loss perhaps of a hundred or so miners' lives — "but then there's a price on everything") in order to cause a sudden rise in the price of gold and a drop in the share prices for this particular mine. With their foreknowledge of the event they hope to make a "killing" on the Stock Exchanges of the world.

Near the beginning of the film a "normal" mine disaster occurs with the usual fatalities and injuries among the miners, of course, though this time the underground mine manager is also killed. At a ceremony in an open-air stadium, to signify the company's appreciation of the sacrifices of the miners, a black hero is presented with a "gold" helmet and the widow of another African miner is awarded a pension for life of R120 — about £80 — per annum. (The pension of the mine manager's widow is not mentioned.)

I noticed that the sleek preview audience made no audible response; maybe they were asleep. Later, I looked at my seat-ticket (a complimentary one, I hasten to add!) and saw that the price stamped on it was R20, about £13.50; and it was not for one of the best seats by any means. This "Gala Première" was in aid of charity — oddly, not for silicosis or other mining diseases but for teaching aids for dyslexic pupils. Either way, the need for charity from the wealthy springs from the very social system which maintains them in economic supremacy.

Scenes of magnificent homes with high living and conspicuous consumption for the mine-owning minority and their scenic playgrounds in the bush-covered mountains alternate with shots of working conditions underground — though we are not shown the barrack-life living conditions for black miners in the mine compounds.

I can recommend the film for its scenes of how some of the rich live in South Africa and for shots of (typical ?) underground working conditions here. Also, for those interested, some fine aerial views of the Highveld bush and mountain scenery in the Transvaal. Mainly, however, one sees how false issues — a "moral conflict" — are made from different evaluations of human beings in the search for gold and profits.

Alec Hart