A Fabian and his Fabianism (1947)

From the December 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

If Fabianism came to be the political Bible of the Labour Movement then Sidney Webb (the late Lord Passfield) was its Prophet. Of him, Lord Listowel in the House of Lords said: “That the Labour Party came to regard him much as the Children of Israel must have regarded Moses . . . who pointed a way through the ‘Wilderness to the Promised Land’.” (Hansard, 20/10/47.) Undoubtedly, Webb, more than any other Fabian, foretold of the New Jerusalem which was emerging, painlessly, inevitably, almost imperceptibly from the present Social Order. The Labour Government’s historic mission is, it seems, to demonstrate that this Fabian New Jerusalem is merely Capitalist “Old Babylon,” writ large.

The Liberal Lord Samuel also spoke of Webb as a political pioneer and one of the principal founders of a Great Party. The Conservative Lord Salisbury called him the founder of the Fabian Society and intellectual father of the Labour Party. The Archbishop of Canterbury mentioned the close connection between Webb and the Church on the question of Social Reform. “He also desired to associate himself with the Tributes paid.” (Hansard, same issue.) Speaking for ourselves, “We come to bury Caesar not to praise him.”

The Fabian Society was founded in 1881. A group of “educated people,” so their historian, Mr. Pease, assures us, not without a little unction it seems : “We were aware of Marx,” he says, “but I do not think at the time the Society was founded we had read or assimilated his ideas.” (“History of Fabian Society,” p.24.) A statement probably as true now of the Fabian Society as it was then.

Non-acquaintance with Marx’s ideas has not prevented successive generations of Fabians from solemnly pronouncing him “A great thinker.” It was apparently only what he thought about that for them is of so little consequence. Mr. Pease even thought “That every passing year brought added conviction that the broad principles of Marxism will guide the evolution of Society during the present century.” (“History of Fabian Society,” p.236.) The sentence before, however, had noted that the first achievement of Fabianism was to break the spell of Marxism in England

As against Marxism the Fabians began by denying that Socialism could only be the outcome of historic development. Webb on behalf of the Fabians assured us “that no special claim is made that Socialism has a basis in history.” (“Fabian Essays,” p.36.) Instead we are presented with a plurality of Socialisms each dependant on their particular environment and, it appears, geographical location. “Thus Fabianism,” Mr. Pease told us, “was English Socialism,” The political and industrial conditions being somewhat different in degree in Scotland, he added. While in Ireland an application of socialist principles had not been seriously attempted. Nor, we presume, Wales or the Channel Islands.

Marxism, we must add. is a unified world conception based on an analysis of the sum totality of existing social productive relationships—Capitalism. If is thus able to demonstrate that the very development of capitalism provides the economic and social conditions for its replacement by an entirely different social arrangement based on common ownership and production for use. The present system being universal in character the Socialist Society which supersedes it must have the same universal character. There can then be no different kinds of Socialism, i.e., a Scotch Socialism in contrast to an English Socialism. Socialism being world-wide in extent the same social system must operate and be universally valid throughout the entire Socialist world.

Such is the stuff of which Fabian “Socialism” was made. Indeed Fabianism cut this “stuff” into even smaller parts, and presented us with such microscopic “socialist” portions as “Socialist London,” “Socialist Birmingham,” even “Socialist Poplar” and “Socialist Bermondsey.” Shaw’s admission in the Fabian Tract 41 that “he and the early Fabians had no true knowledge of Socialism” is hardly a confession. For Shaw still holds most of Mr. Pease’s “Socialist illusions.” The venerable Shavian beard would seem to illustrate in this respect that wisdom is not necessarily denoted by whiskers—not even when they are Fabian whiskers.

What then are the fundamentals of Fabianism? Even the Fabians themselves seem wholely ignorant of them. “There never has been a Fabian orthodoxy,” said Mr. Pease, “because no one was in a position to assert what the true faith was.” (“History of Fabian Society,” p.237.) Nevertheless continued Mr. Pease, “We obtained freedom of thought,” An attribute which Pease seemed to think highly desirable.

No doubt for a “Socialist” organisation which included all shades of political opinion advised voting against what it termed Socialist candidates if it meant splitting the vote and keeping the more popular “progressive” candidate out, and which supported Imperialism and war, such “freedom of opinion,” was not merely desirable but essential.

Apparently for the Fabians Socialism, like the poor, has always been with us. According to Webb “Socialist philosophy is but the recognition of the principles of social organisation in great part unconsciously accepted. The history of the 19th century was an almost continuous record of progress in Socialism.” The Socialist cat is thus out of the Fabian bag. Fabian Socialism is merely the acceptance and extension of all State activity. In pursuance of this theme Webb in a grotesque passage records what for him seemed the progress of Socialism. He enumerates such things as State control of the Armed Forces, Gas-works, Parks, Cemeteries, Slaughter Houses, Pawn-broking Establishments and Leper Islands. (“Fabian “Essays,” pp.18-51.) Even State registration of hawkers, dogs, cats, cabs, and inspection of baby farms and Scotch red herrings are all evidence of Socialist legislation ! For Webb a pedlar’s licence was proof that we were enjoying a semi-socialist existence. While such institutions, as the War Office and Scotland Yard were important milestones on the high road to the full Socialist Commonwealth.

The Socialism of Webb, in spite of protests from some Fabian quarters, became the accepted and authorised version. It merely turns out to be but the bureaucratic organisation essential for the maintenance and upkeep of Capitalism. Social reforms can likewise be included under this category. The 19th century Factory Acts constituted State intervention against the unrestrained character of prevailing capitalist exploitation. Such exploitation would finally have led to a catastrophic decline in workers’ productivity and thus profits. Sanitation laws constituted a safeguard for the wealthy against epidemics. Education Acts are designed to give workers’ children the training necessary for the wage-labour status they will one day assume. Unemployment Acts. Health Insurance, Old Age Pensions, merely denote the need to regulate the wide-spread poverty and destitution caused by the economic effects of capitalism on the working class. While certain reforms may give the worker slight but often merely transient amelioration they leave untouched the poverty resulting from his class-position in present society. The undertaking by the State of such activities are on the grounds of cheaper and more efficient administration. At the same time they spread the burden of taxation evenly over the entire capitalist class.

As for Nationalisation of Key Industries, advocated by Fabians for many years, it has come to pass. Nevertheless, the Tories or Liberals do not propose to denationalise them if returned to Power, while the theme of a “planned Capitalism” is as much their theme as that of the Labour Party.

Even the Fabian “Gas and Water Socialism” was but a Radical legacy bequeathed by Joseph Chamberlain. Municipalism, its other name, merely seeks to prevent the whole capitalist class from being used as a milch-cow by the private ownership, often of a monopolistic character, of such things as heat, light, power, etc. As for parks, libraries, museums, etc., being bits of Socialism, Chamberlain, with brutal frankness, regarded them as merely “the ransom paid for the privilege of holding property.” Fabianism is then a thing of shreds and patches. Shoddy remnants, second-hand from the Tory and Liberal political shops, sewn into a Fabian patchwork. Finally, on the subject of Municipal Socialism, we have Pease’s admission that it needed for its adoption and extension no advocacy from the Fabians. (“History of Fabian Society,” p. 81.)

The maturing of Capitalism into monopolistic forms and the integration of the State into its economic functions and activities, have been idealised by the Fabians into a programme of State Capitalism. The very developmental trends of Capitalism and its associated bureaucratic growth has then been presented as its opposite—Socialism.

It was this very evolution of Capitalism towards monopolistic forms that gave to Fabianism its automatic and ineluctable character. If the Mills of Capitalism were grinding small they were nevertheless grinding out “Socialism” every day. Such was the cumulative effect of all this that one day Capitalist Society would become a Socialist Society and no one would notice it. The economic revolution is going on every day, said Mr. Clarke, practically independent of our desires or prejudices. (“Fabian Essays,” p.62.) The Tories and Liberals, declared Webb many times, were committed to “Socialism” as much as the “Socialists.” He added, even people who believe Socialism a foolish dream were its unconscious instruments. According to the Fabians the coming of Socialism was as inexorable as an act of Nature. While the Fabians assigned themselves the role of midwives in the period of social gestation, the existence and growth of the “Socialist” seed inside the womb of Capitalist Society was apparently innocent of human agency. No greater miracle has been claimed since the birth of Jesus. This is a denial of the Marxist dictum, that given the material conditions to hand, men make history. Dressed up in its Sunday clothes this piece of Fabian fatalism is called “the inevitability of Gradualism.”

This was also a denial of the class-struggle and of the need of the working class to capture political power for the overthrow of Capitalism. For effective Socialist action and understanding they substituted political auto-suggestion. Because society was evolving gradually in the “Socialist” direction, they said, things were going to get better and better for the workers. Given the Fabians in control the results were, guaranteed. Such was the pernicious Fabian doctrine which sought to insulate the working class from a true perspective of their class position in Capitalist Society.

With this automatic process went a peculiar Fabian opportunism. With typical Fabian discreetness they called it “Permeation.” While telling the workers they should have an independent party of their own, they felt that they, the Fabians, should be free to work in and with every group or party for the favourable growth and influence of their ideas. Telling the Tories and Liberals “we” were already half way to Socialism, from which there was no turning back, the other half may as well be travelled in unison nnd together.

The Fabians also helped form the Labour Party by their active association with that party’s parent body—The Labour Representation Committee. So well did the Fabians, permeate the Labour Party that it could at length have uttered with some truth, “We are all Fabians now.” This Fabianisation of the Labour Party made, however, the Fabians superfluous. After a time they became an integral part of the Labour Party and as an independent political organisation for all practical purposes the Society permeated itself out of existence. Such is the inevitability of gradualness. However, Sidney Webb could claim that the Labour Party was. not a class party but one representing National interests who were ready to take over the Government of the country. Appropriately enough the Labour Party’s 1918 programme. “Labour and the New Social Order” was drafted by Webb.

Little wonder that “Fabian Socialism” representing its establishment as “the co-operative outcome of all sections of the community” was regarded as a welcome substitute by those in the saddle for the Marxist ” Class Struggle ” and “Social Revolution.” A “Socialism”—State Capitalism—that left their real class position undisturbed they could regard with equanimity, even interest. They might even agree with Shaw. ” That it was as easy and matter of course for the average respectable Englishman to become a Socialist as a Liberal or Tory.” (“Fabian Essays” 1908 preface.) The Fabians not merely made their Socialism respectable, they made it fashionable. Thus the announcement by an heir of wealthy interests that be had become a Fabian convert to his family might have merely occasioned a remark from his Mamma that his father had become one at an even earlier age.

The adoration of the State and its administrative functions by the Fabians has interesting implication’s. Thus Webb said “We must take more care to improve the social organism than our individual development. It. is not the individual’s development which is the highest cultivation of his personality but the filling in in the best possible way of his humble function in the great social machine.” Shaw, going perhaps even further, implies in Appendix I of the “History of the Fabian Society” that Parliamentary democracy as understood is a mere calling of fools into a ring. He said “Society could never be reconstructed by the type of men produced by popular elections.” Without qualified rulers a Socialist State is impossible, be declares. In a preface to the “Fabian Essays.,” he also states “the very existence of society is dependent on the skilled work of administrators and experts.” Further in the appendix Shaw hoped that “Democracy would demand that only suitable men should be presented to its choice.” Fabians, of course. This is, of course, a. favourite device of dictatorships which, also scorning the notion that people are intelligent enough to run Society in their own interests collectively, demand that only people favoured by nature and circumstances are qualified to take charge. That Shaw himself at length came riding home politically on the shoulders of Mussolini seems not an illogical deduction from his own premises. Fabian State efficiency rather than Fabian democracy would seem their cardinal doctrine. From this it would also seem that Webb and the Fabians anticipated certain features of Fascism.

When Sidney Webb and his wife, Beatrice, were old people, they went to Russia. Previously they had considered Bolshevism no better than Czarism. “Under Bolshevism the prisons were as full and the rifles as active as under Tsardom.” (“Decay of Capitalist Civilisation,” p.101.) What they now saw on their visit was a vast administrative machine run by a privileged bureaucracy. And what the Webbs saw, they liked. The Stalinists hailed the Webbs’ approval of their bureaucratic machine as evidence “of the establishment of Socialism in one Country.” For the Webbs it was the establishment of that State Capitalism par excellence which they had advocated for years. And the Webbs were right. As their fellow Fabian, Bernard Shaw, announced on returning from a visit to Russia, “The Bolsheviks have merely realised the Fabian Ideal.”

When the Webb’s came home they wrote a book of 1,200 pages;: “Soviet Communism a New Civilisation?” In subsequent editions the question mark was removed. Apparently this indicated their full approval and sanction of the state of affairs in Russia. In such a truly Fabian fashion did “Socialism” in Russia come into existence.

This, of course, led to a New Communist line on the Webbs. True Lenin had referred to them as bourgeois humbugs . . , social chauvanists . . . guilty of the worst kind of treachery, etc. (“Lenin on Britain,” p.152.) Likewise the Communist International had denounced Webb and the Fabians as apologists for State Capitalism under the guise of Socialism. (“Handbook of Marxism,” p. 1,026.) Now the Webbs became “Social Scientists,” “objective thinkers,” etc. In such a fashion did a Communist Party scribe called Allen Hutt, eulogise Webb in the Daily Worker (15/10/47.) Incidentally in a book called the “Final Crisis” (p.96) the writer had approvingly quoted Engels as to the Fabians being a band of place hunters. He also considered the influence of the Fabians to have been disastrous on what he called the Socialist Movement.

The Fabian belief in the silent and peaceful evolution of Capitalism with its bedtime stories to the workers of constantly improving conditions has been shattered by the history of Capitalist developments. No such progress has taken place. Economists like Chiozza Money, Bowley, Campion and others have shown how decade after decade road little change in the share of unpaid labour appropriated by the capitalists. Webb, himself, confessed, over 30 years after the founding of the Fabian Society, that one-half of the social product was taken by one-ninth of the community.” (“The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation,” p.17.) While Pease admitted that “little progress has been made towards Socialism. Private ownership flourishes almost as vigorously as it did thirty years ago.” (“History of the Fabian Society,” p.243.) Indeed the Webbs’ “Decay of Capitalism” was a tearful admission that mass unemployment, slumps, and wars were catastrophes not provided for in the peaceful Inevitability of Gradualism, On p.174 these curious Socialists admitted they had never during thirty years in the Socialist Movement, framed an indictment of Capitalism. True that in doing so they seemed to have discovered that there is something inherent in Capitalism which prevents it from functioning in the interests of the vast majority. (Same book, p.18.) What they never saw was that the “Decay of Capitalism was also the decay of Fabianism.” For that reason they did not disappoint us by failing to reach a truly Fabian conclusion. “In order for the workers and capitalists to understand their problems and each other a little better” they said in the last paragraph, “we offer, perhaps in vain, this little book.” The Webbs in setting out to find out what was wrong in Capitalist Society ended up by offering “a little book” as the solution for its social problems. As usual Class Co-operation was their panacea. Thus the long-chanted formula of these disciples of John Stuart Mill’s humanitarianism, “if only sections of society would be reasonable and sympathetic to each other’s claims.” If, of course, the lion was a vegetarian he might be persuaded to lie down with the lamb.

Such was Sidney Webb and his fellow Fabians. “Educated people” and tireless, seekers after statistical facts, yet never once in their researches did they discover the simple and fundamental truths which underlie present class society; simple truths known to the humblest student of Socialism. While these truths remain simple the confusion caused by people like Webb makes the work of expounding them infinitely much harder. By his advocacy of a Capitalism reformed in working-class interests he helped to blunt the sharp edge of the clear-cut Socialist solution. By accident or design he and the Fabians became formidable political fifth columnists in the ranks of the International working class. As an investigator of social facts and part author of a work like “The History of British Trade Unions,” he may be remembered. As a sociologist and a scientific interpreter of his times he is already in the process of being forgotten.

Ted Wilmott

World Socialist Radio - All Socialists Now? (2025)

Adapted from the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

All Socialists Now? by The Socialist Party of Great Britain

This episode criticises how Labour and other self-described “socialist” parties trumpet the label without a coherent understanding of socialism, arguing that most of their proposed reforms—such as nationalisation, higher taxes, expanded public services—do nothing to challenge capitalism’s fundamental logic of production for profit. It describes a “Your Party” meeting, where despite participants’ rhetoric about socialism, discussion centered on reforms rather than systemic change. True socialism means abolishing the market system entirely in favour of a moneyless, cooperative society, and that efforts to rebrand or tweak capitalism as “socialist” are misleading.

Adapted from the October 2025 issue of The Socialist Standard

World Socialist Radio is the official podcast of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. We have one single aim: the establishment of a society in which all productive resources – land, water, factories, transport, etc. – are taken into common ownership, and in which the sole motive for production is the fulfilment of human needs and wants.

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All socialists now? (2025)

From the October 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

That august publication the Daily Mail recently ran the headline ‘Another Day in Starmer’s Socialist Utopia. When Did Britain Become North Korea?’. It reported that Starmer was ‘hiring a raft of high tax fanatics’, was ‘threatening ‘ID cards for all’, and that ‘fury erupted’ when armed police arrested the writer of Father Ted ‘over online comments about transgender activists’.

It goes without saying that no one with the slightest good sense or judgement could fail to see this for what it was – a pile of breathless and exaggerated bilge. The comparison to the repressive, authoritarian dictatorship that is North Korea was particularly ludicrous, as was the assumption that that regime is somehow ‘socialist’. Equally mind-boggling was the notion that Starmer’s government is socialist too (a ‘socialist utopia’ in fact) and thus to be equated to North Korea, when neither set-up has anything to do with socialism.

Socialism: what does it mean?

What gives impetus to such sneering declarations, intellectually empty as they are, is the fact that Labour and its supporters are themselves fond of talking about themselves as socialist, even though the real task they are involved in is finding ways of running capitalism. It’s true that Starmer himself has not uttered the ‘s’ word for some time, but others in his party have, and do so continually. The Labour MP Dawn Butler, for example, recently stated that ‘the Labour Party is a socialist party’ and that ’socialism isn’t a dirty word’. That moved this writer to email her and ask the question ‘Since socialism can be such a confusing word, can you please explain how you see it?’ Receiving no response at all, I thought I would try putting a similar question to another ‘socialist’ MP, Zarah Sultana, who had actually just left Labour to join Jeremy Corbyn in the setting up of a prospective new party (currently calling itself ‘Your Party’). I wrote: ‘I very much sympathise with what you say, in resigning from the Labour Party, about the failure of governments to deal with poverty and inequality and note your point that the issue at the next election will be “socialism or barbarism”. But, since socialism can be such a confusing word, can you please explain what you mean by it?’ I did at least get a response from her, but only the standard acknowledgement of receipt (‘Thank you for contacting me. Please read this automated response to your email, which confirms that I have received your correspondence’) and nothing thereafter.

The unfortunate thing is that, whether in the Labour Party or outside, MPs and others throw the ‘s’ word around without having a clear notion – and sometimes no notion at all – of what it means other than a vague wish for wealth to be spread more evenly and reforms to be brought in which will make life easier and less uncomfortable for those lower down the earnings scale – all with a view to somehow making things more ‘equal’. It rarely if ever crosses their minds that such changes, even if they were possible or feasible, would not change the basic structure of the system we live under which determines that production and distribution of goods and services takes place for profit not need, with overall dependence on money and buying and selling.

‘Your Party’

But despite getting no meaningful answer from the MP calling herself a socialist who had defected to Corbyn’s party-to-be, when I found out that there was to be a local gathering, open to all, to discuss the nature and setting up of the new ‘Your Party’ organisation, I decided to go along to observe, to listen, and maybe to speak. The turnout was 60-70 people, biased towards the older age group but in gender terms pretty much even. Yet if I was expecting to hear talk of socialism, in any of its possible conceptions, that’s not what I got. Most of the hands that shot up were from members of small left-wing groups or parties damning the current Labour government and seeming to envisage some kind of ‘entryism’ into the new party. There were also some non-affiliated attendees with apparently good intentions and maybe looking to find a home in a new ‘caring’ party. But what virtually all the contributions from the floor had in common was talk of the need to press for reform measures of various kinds: eg, nationalisation, higher taxation for the wealthy, expansion of the NHS, more funding for education and other services, ending of anti-protest measures, action against pollution and climate change. Only one speaker stood apart in saying that the main problem was that most young people nowadays have no idea what socialism means and a priority should be to fix that. I agreed with this, even though I doubted whether that person’s conception of socialism coincided with mine.

As for a contribution of my own, my hand wasn’t among those pointed to by the chair and I had to accept that. But had I been chosen, I would have said that I agreed with the idea that a clear view needed to be established of what socialism means. I would have added too that, as far as I was concerned, socialism didn’t mean ways of ‘fixing’ capitalism (impossible anyway) or trying to make it more palatable. Instead, it meant getting rid of the whole system of production for the market and buying and selling and replacing it with a moneyless cooperative society of voluntary work, free access and democratic control worldwide. I would have also said that, short of this, the ‘real change’ Jeremy Corbyn has said his new party will bring is destined to be the same mirage as all previous attempts at radical reform of capitalism have been, ending up as a predictable recycling of the status quo.

HKM

Zarah Sultana spoke at a meeting in Raynes Park (South West London) on 10 September. She said that the new party’s aim was to ‘materially improve people’s lives’. The Labour Party, she said, had betrayed its past principles and was ‘dead’; Starmer should be sent to the Hague for trial as a war criminal. She was in fact surprisingly radical for someone selected and elected as a Labour candidate, calling for the new party to support demonstrations and strikes as well as to get MPs and councillors elected. She favoured the new party being called ‘The Left’ and said it should be organised democratically with provisions for One Member One Vote.

She also said the new party should be ‘proudly socialist’, and that she wanted to ‘bring our country to socialism’ and that the election of local councillors would ‘pave the way to the socialist challenge’. But she didn’t explain what she envisaged socialism as being. The rest of her speech suggested it would be capitalism reformed into a less unequal society with properly funded public services and state-owned utilities and that put people before profit. As she was pretty approachable after the meeting, I could have asked her about it but she was surrounded by people wanting to take selfies with her.

ALB

I went along to a Your Party meeting at a pub in my local seaside town, to find around 40 people, a few youngish but most of retirement age. Many of them were undoubtedly keen for a left alternative to what they saw as a right-wing Labour government. Quite a few others, like wolves at a Bambi picnic, were predatory undercover Trots keen to get themselves on the group’s steering committee. Two facilitators spoke at length, one in an inaudible drone, the other in a grating whine, to the effect that this was to be a workshop event, in which small groups would discuss and then feed back their responses to the questions: (a) what the priority of the new party should be, (b) what name it should have, and (c) what the immediate focus of the local group ought to be. It occurred to me that my answer to all three questions would be the same, and very likely not appreciated by anyone present: abolish capitalism.

The assembled gathering dutifully knuckled down to the task, while I fell into conversation with an enthusiastic ‘socialist’ who believed that China and Russia had a thing or two to tell us about how to run an economy, and wasn’t our government just as fascistic as them nowadays anyway? He left before the end, to catch the football, but accepted a leaflet and promised to look us up. I also bailed out, having regretfully concluded that no open debate was likely, that reformism was the only item on the agenda, and that this new left surge was history repeating itself in a kind of desperate and perpetual amnesia.

PJS

The Greens too?

The Green Party has just elected a former LibDem candidate as their leader. He too says he’s a bit of a ‘socialist’, as this report of the launch of his leadership campaign recorded:

‘One member asked whether Polanski thought the Green Party was “explicitly a socialist party”. His response was, “On a personal level I agree with the majority of socialist principles”, and said that, “we are a left wing, left of centre party”. But he also clarified, “The reason why I wouldn’t say explicitly, yes, we’re a socialist party kind of in public and as a slogan is I think that’s going to unnecessarily put people off”. He went on to argue that in defining the Greens as a socialist party there would be a need to, “appeal to all the socialists and kind of struggle with all the people who are anti socialist who might have voted Green if we didn’t say we were socialists.” Instead of describing the Green Party in this way, Polanski instead argued that Greens should be talking about a “fair, equitable society where we make sure that everyone is looked after”, and advocating policies like a Universal Basic Income.’

He is in fact on record as having described the Green Party explicitly in public as a ‘socialist party’. In a video debate in February this year he argued that there was no need to set up a new left party as ‘there is, after all, a socialist party in the UK already: it’s the Greens’ .

He doesn’t say what he means by ‘socialist principles’ but it is certainly not a socialist principle to not say you are a socialist in case you lose votes or to seek the votes of anti-socialists. He does, however, give a hint as to what he thinks ‘socialism’ is when he mentions a ‘fair, equitable society where we make sure that everyone is looked after’. That’s probably what he said was his aim when he was a candidate for the LibDems. Which party doesn’t promise that? More important is how such a desirable if rather vague end is to be achieved — by trying to reform capitalism or by making the means of wealth production the common ownership of society under democratic control?

Polanski has also described himself as an ‘eco-populist’. That sounds about right.

ALB

Letter: A reader's criticism of the socialist attitude to Russia. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader's criticism of the socialist attitude to Russia.

A reader asks us to deal with the following letter of criticism of our attitude:

Finsbury Park, N.4.

Dear Comrades,

Do you realise how much harm you are doing to the cause of Socialism in this country by your persistent and consistent condemnation of Russia and Russia’s rulers? Granted, it may not be the particular brand of Socialism which you advocate. But, surely, you don’t forget to take into account Russia’s pre-revolution history? Do you expect a Social Nirvana in 20 years? And please don’t forget you are trying, by British standards, to sit in judgment upon the Russian temperament, one of the most baffling and complex races in the world. And have you no word of encouragement to say of her material and social achievements? I repeat that your attacks upon Russia are doing your movement far more harm than good. The Daily Express surely does the job with a lying completeness. that you could never overtake!

But let me point out to you the core of the danger. For good or ill, the undiscriminating average person always identifies Russia with Socialism. This, of course, is political ignorance. But you will agree with me that the majority of people in this country are politically uneducated. When you teach a small child to read you teach it to utter words. You don’t devote most of your time to teaching it the difference between a consonant and an adjective! That comes later, when the child’s mind has been released from the strain of memorising. And my point is this. Until the masses have become possessed of a general all-round knowledge of the curse of Capitalism in practice, and the solution of Socialism, they will have neither the patience nor the selective knowledge to want to investigate as to whether “ B ” Socialism is more sensible, humane, efficient and just than “ A ” Socialism. To condemn Russian Socialism, to our particular type of worker, is not to give them a true picture of Russia, so much as to damn Russia in their eyes, and in so doing all other Socialism stands equally damned. Concentrate more on the evils of capitalism, which they think are so normal and natural, demonstrate the simple answer of Socialism; and leave the raping of Russia to Beaverbrook’s ignorant paid hacks. Why do the dirty work for the Daily Express ?

M. F. Smyth (Mr.).

Reply.

Before dealing with our correspondent's temperate criticisms of our attitude towards the present rulers of Russia, it is necessary to protest against the unwarranted and unsupported insinuation that we are doing the dirty work of Lord Beaverbrook. We are quite prepared to defend what we do and say. We are not called upon to defend Lord Beaverbrook. If our correspondent, however, thinks we are paid by Lord Beaverbrook to attack the Russian Government it is his duty to provide some sort of evidence. If— as is no doubt the case—he knows perfectly well that his insinuation is absolutely false he should not try to score cheap points by making it. Incidentally, our correspondent appears not to know just what line Beaverbrook does now take towards Stalin. What Beaverbrook’s newspapers have been doing recently is to express admiration for Russia and to argue that the progress made in that country is a tribute to capitalism.

Our correspondent's first point is to say that Russia is a Socialist country, but not “the particular brand of Socialism" advocated by us. This is an old and dangerously muddled form of reasoning and one not confined to Russia. The S.P.G.B. does not advocate a “particular brand" of Socialism: there are no brands of Socialism. There is capitalism, in which goods are produced by wage-earners for sale at a profit, and in which there are privileged sections of the community with large incomes and accumulated wealth, and, on the other hand, there is Socialism, in which things are produced only for use and in which there is no system of wage-labour, no rents, interest or profit, no privileged and unprivileged sections of the population. All the so-called “brands” of Socialism, from Hitler's “pure National Socialism" to the various forms of State capitalism administered by Labour Governments, and including Stalin's State capitalism and Mussolini's system, which he claims is superior to both capitalism and Socialism, are one and all nothing more nor less than varieties of capitalism in various stages of development and under various systems of political control.

The first duty of Socialists in their task of explaining Socialism is to make it crystal clear that none of these varieties of capitalism is Socialism.

This brings us to our correspondent's analogy of teaching a child to speak; He says that we teach the child to utter words and do not devote most of our time to teaching the child the difference between parts of speech. True, but you do take care to teach the child approximately the correct meaning of the words. You do not point to a cat and say, “ That is a dog.” Similarly, as Socialism is a democratic system of society based on the common ownership of the means of production and distribution, nobody who appreciates the vital need for clarity and understanding would dream of pointing to the Russian dictatorship, in which inequality is great and growing as part of the declared policy of the rulers, and say, “ That is Socialism.”

We are asked to take into account Russia's pre-revolution history and the question is put: "Do you expect a Social Nirvana in 20 years?” The first argument is one used by every apologist for things as they are. Ever since there was a Socialist movement anti-Socialists have been trying to fog the issue and impede progress by telling the workers that things were worse still 50 years earlier, and that we must above all avoid going too fast. Naturally, the privileged group in Russia, living on a standard out of all reach of the mass of the population, reply to the latter's complaints by saying that Russia's pre-Bolshevik backwardness prevents things being improved for the masses. When the masses begin to think they will notice, however, that this factor has not prevented the minority from doing very well for themselves.

Our answer to the particular question is that we never accepted the early Bolshevik claims that Socialism was an immediate possibility in Russia. We pointed out from the first that Socialism will not be possible in Russia or anywhere else until industry has developed to a highly productive stage and the majority of the-population want Socialism. These conditions do not exist in Russia, so the Bolsheviks were either themselves mistaken or they were hoodwinking their followers when they promised Socialism.

It is correct, as our correspondent says, that the average worker identifies Socialism with Russia. He also identifies it with Labour Government and, if he is a typical non-Socialist German worker, he no doubt accepts Hitler’s claim that Germany is now a “pure Socialist” country. All of which are very urgent reasons why Socialists should lose no opportunity of proclaiming that the Russian secret police-ridden dictatorship is not Socialism. We do not want workers to be made lastingly hostile to Socialism by the belief that it means the suppression of speech, organisation, and a never-ending, sickening story of plots, murders, and shootings.

When our correspondent asks us to concentrate on the evils of capitalism he forgets that dictatorship and suppression are two of the most important evil results of capitalism. We shall go on denouncing them, whether in Germany, Russia, France, the British Empire or anywhere else.

We may add that, whether our correspondent is right or not about the Russian temperament, there is a growing mass of Russian workers who object to Stalin.

Ed. Comm.

Editorial: The Spectre at the Labour Party Conference (1946)

Editorial from the July 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Labour Party is not the Government, Labour Party conferences can happily agree to denounce whatever government is in power. When the Labour Party is itself in power the tune changes; delegates are then brought face to face with the fact—surprising to them, though not to Socialists —that capitalism is just as much the enemy of the workers, even though the Prime Minister is a MacDonald or an Attlee instead of a Baldwin or a Churchill. Out of office the Labour leaders shout “forward.” In office they exhort their followers to rest on their oars or at least to refrain from rocking the boat. In this respect history repeats itself. Just as, in 1924, Labour's official organ hoped that the miners ‘‘will not embarrass the first Labour Government by pressing untimely demands ” (‘‘Labour Magazine,” January, 1924), so at the Labour Party Conference at Bournemouth in June, 1946, Mr. Shinwell and other Government spokesmen found themselves at variance with miners' delegates who were pressing for the five-day forty-hour week and other demands that have long been in the Labour programme. This time the Labour leaders had a new plea with which to fob off the workers, the plea that as nationalisation has been achieved, the miners are now working for themselves, not for the capitalists, and must subordinate their demands to the paramount need of making nationalisation a success. Mr. Shinwell laid down the principle, "Nationalisation must pay. Nationalisation schemes taken by and large must not be subsidised by the Exchequer” (Daily Express, 12/6/46). Mr. Morrison, speaking on the Government's general policy for wages, amplified with the trite remark, “We have to remember as a nation that we cannot spend what we do not earn” (Daily Telegraph, 14/6/46.). The thing is a transparent fraud. Making nationalisation pay means making it pay the millions that the Government is handing out to the former owners. The exploiters are still living on the backs of the workers, with the difference that the Labour Party, as the Government, undertakes official responsibility for maintaining the exploitation.

Mr. Morrison spoke to the Conference about the Government’s policy for unemployment. Listening to his statement that ‘‘full employment has never yet been attempted as a policy in peacetime Britain. It has never been attempted by any country in the world with our form of democratic government .  . . ” (Telegraph, 14/6/46), delegates must have wondered what the two previous Labour Governments were attempting to do when they said they had a policy to cure unemployment. This Government will fail like other Labour Governments. Mr. Morrison, unlike some of his less cautious colleagues, does not pretend that world depression will not happen again and would only commit himself to the promise that, if it does, ‘‘the Government was preparing to do what was possible to avoid repercussions on the economic life of this country.” Delegates who cheered this were no doubt reading into "what was possible” much more than Mr. Morrison believes. In the meantime unemployment grows, and dole queues are back in Jarrow, the town that Labourites so often quote in their denunciation of the Tories. On the day of Mr. Morrison’s speech an event occurred that showed the gulf separating Labour Government planners from the workers who suffer from their plans. The Government are transferring Short Brothers' seaplane works from Rochester to Belfast. Even if the thousands of workers wanted to be uprooted, only a few hundred of them are to be allowed to transfer. Instead they are offered the project that other industries will eventually be set up in Rochester. Dissatisfied with this, the men walked out and held a protest demonstration, at which local Labour M.P.s came in for denunciation. "During a stormy meeting complaints were made that local Socialist M.P.s had acted as buffers between the Government and the workers’ representatives instead of putting the workers’ case forward : (Telegraph, 14/6/ 46). The men at Rochester have discovered what Labour Government administration of capitalism really is and what, of course, it must be. Some capitalist spokesmen are aware of the function of Labour Government to act as buffers and are duly grateful. On May 27th the Manchester Guardian, in an editorial, contrasted the bitter and widespread strikes in U.S.A., with Truman threatening to call up strikers for the Army, with the comparatively easy and smooth transition from war to peace in this country. Mr. Morrison, at the Labour Party Conference, made a similar point by comparing the few strikes in the past 12 months under Labour Government with what happened under Lloyd George in 1920. Because the workers do not realise that Labour Government cannot serve their interests, the Labour Ministers are able to persuade them to accept quietly hardships that would stir up violent protest and resistance if a Tory Government were in power.

Conference not only overwhelmingly rejected the Communist plea for affiliation, but altered the constitution to rule out the affiliation of any political party not already affiliated. This is a formal recognition of the change that has taken place in the make-up of the Labour Party since 1918. In the early days, affiliated bodies, notably the I.L.P. and Fabians, provided many of the Executive Committee members and officials of the Party. Now the place of the affiliated outside political bodies has been taken by the local labour parties. In 1910 affiliated trade unions constituted 1,394,000 out of the total membership of 1,431,000. Now, with a Party membership of over 3,000,000, trade unions account for 2½  million and individual membership through local labour parties amounts to nearly 500,000. Although the trade unions still provide all but a relatively small part of the funds, they have lost their former predominating position on the Executive. In 1910 there were 11 elected trade union representatives on an executive committee of 15. Now the constitution provides for 12 trade union E.C. members out of a total of 27, the remaining 15 being nominees of local labour parties, except one who represents the outside affiliated parties. In none of the three Labour Governments have trade union officials held more than a minority of Cabinet posts, and it will be observed that when the trade unionist, Sir Ben Smith, resigned from the Ministry of Food his place was taken by Mr. Strachey, one of the Labour Party’s so-called intellectuals.

What has happened since 1918 is that the Labour Party has fully established itself as the heir of the Liberal Party, but in so doing has moved away from the old conception that it was first and foremost the party of the trade unions. It is safe to predict that the gulf between the Labour Government and the workers will widen. To the extent that the discontent of their members makes itself felt the trade unions will become more and more critical of the Labour Ministers and will voice their criticisms at Labour Party conferences. The Ministers will be lucky if they receive in succeeding years anything like the amount of approval shown at the Bournemouth Conference. The Communists will exploit the discontent and try to gain control of the trade unions here as they have already done with greater success on the Continent. In France, the reformist party, corresponding to the Labour Party, has, like the British Party, inherited the place once occupied by the Radicals, but it has not thereby become the governing party, because, in the meantime, it has lost control of the trade unions to the Communists. Léon Blum made a revealing statement on the French situation to the Bournemouth Conference.

“He said that on the Continent the Socialist principles for which they had always stood were now opposed by scarcely anyone. The action of the true Socialist parties had become most difficult because of two other parties claiming to be both Socialist and democratic, the Communists and the Christian Democrats.”

(Times, 14/6/46). 

Oscar Wilde once remarked “nothing succeeds like excess.” It might he said of Blum that nothing succeeds like moderation—but just at the moment of success, when ‘‘scarcely anyone” opposes what Blum all his life has preached, the success turns out to be a tragic and pathetic failure. If the French Party really preached Socialism they would he glorying in the fact that almost everyone had been won over to it. Instead they preached reformism and State capitalism, and now find that it turns bitter in their mouths. They taught the workers to believe in a fraudulent “Socialism” and now find that Catholics and Communists can do the same with even greater success in the way of vote-catching at elections. If events had not taken quite the same course in this country, at least not yet, no-one need doubt that the workers who have put their trust in Labourism will some day rue their error.

Blum, a visitor, appears from the published reports to have been the only speaker at the Conference who correctly described the position occupied by Labour Governments and the dangerous path they are treading. Like a spectre at the feast, he warned the revellers who had come to toast their victory that they have not destroyed capitalism.

“For 25 years I have studied how you can exercise governmental power within the framework of a capitalist society. I know how much its action must be limited by the continuance of the capitalist framework. I know that is true even when a party holds power, as you do, with an absolute majority. It may lead to confusion of thought on the exercise of power as a prelude to and a condition of social transformation. That confusion leads by iron logic to disappointment, and, indeed so long as the capitalist structure remains any Socialist government is condemned to disappoint some hopes.”

(Manchester Guardian, 14/6/46).

It is to he hoped that the delegates will remember Blum’s words when, a few years ahead, they are meeting to discover why the Labour Government failed.

Tiny Tips (2025)

The Tiny Tips column from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

The watch is a limited edition of only 150 pieces that’s already being delivered to customers. The retail price is $330,000…prices on the secondary market will get a bit bonkers. 

[HODINKEE]

Pakistan’s claims to all of Kashmir are driven by the region’s hydrological importance, its majority-Muslim population, and the military’s interest in rallying the nation behind it on these grounds. 

[Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter]

‘That’s where I sleep, under that bridge’ he says, pointing to a nearby cluster of tents beneath a highway overpass. ‘And the dogs are up there with their own private pool. They probably eat more in a day than we do in a month’. 

[NPR]

Underage workers, in some cases, have been hired to kill poultry flocks, handle dead carcasses and clean industrial poultry farms. Workers sometimes lack personal protective equipment or receive damaged gear, despite the risk of the virus jumping from animals to people. Dealing with a federal backlog, some farms have used killing methods considered inhumane, because it can be quicker and cheaper. ‘The biggest factor in agricultural safety is the urgency’ said Bethany Alcauter, director of research and public health for the National Center for Farmworker Health, a Texas-based nonprofit that advocates for worker safety and health. ‘Everything has to get done in a short amount of time, and that really can be problematic because there’s not the same amount of time to adequately train workers’.

[truthdig]

‘Trump’s view of a man at a desk moving pieces of the economy around like rooks and pawns on a chessboard is what socialism is all about—though the old tyrants in Moscow at least had the humility to assume that a committee of experts would be necessary to manage the economy according to ‘scientific‘ principles or at least the guile to pretend that they believed it, whereas Trump apparently has swallowed his own silly god-man horsepucky, being, as he is, an ass of exceptional asininity’. 

[MEDIAITE]

On July 28, 2024, Venezuelans turned out to vote in large numbers despite more than a decade of systematic repression and human rights violations under President Nicolás Maduro. Hours after polls closed, the Electoral Council declared that Maduro had been re-elected, with over 51 percent of the vote. The United Nations Electoral Technical Team and the Carter Center, which observed the elections, said the process lacked transparency and integrity, and questioned the declared result. The Carter Center said that the precinct-level tally sheets published by the opposition, which seemed to indicate that opposition candidate Edmundo González had won, were reliable and ‘authentic’. The Electoral Council failed to release the official tally sheets and did not conduct the required audits or citizen verification processes mandated by law. Thousands of protesters took to the streets in demonstrations, most of them peaceful, demanding a transparent and fair counting of the votes. They were met with brutal repression.

[HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH]

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Socialism and Social Reform. (1907)

From the December 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many people who regard Socialism merely as a demand for Social Reform, as a desire on the part of certain sections of the community for better conditions of labour and living for the working class. This misconception is largely due to organisations claiming to be “Socialist” but devoting their energies to the propagation of reforms, whereby the real issue is obscured, the sympathies of the kind-hearted are aroused and, at election times, the support and votes of those who know nothing of Socialism, but believe in some particular “ameliorative” measure, are secured. It is this kind of “Socialism” that leads people to talk of the Socialist demand as “the true development of the Liberalism which won the working classes the franchise and other privileges they now enjoy,” although, as the Tories justly claim, many of these “privileges” were granted by them in the teeth of the opposition of the champions of Liberalism. It was, therefore, refreshing to read Mr. Balfour’s speech at Birmingham on November 14th. In truth, he said, there is no difficulty or ambiguity about the subject at all. Socialism has one meaning and one meaning alone. Socialism means and can mean nothing else than that the community … is to take all the means of production into its own hands, that private property and private enterprise are to come to an end and all that private enterprise and private property carry with them. That, continued Mr. Balfour, is Socialism, and nothing else is Socialism. In discussing the difference between Socialism and social reform, he said : Social reform is when the State, based upon private enterprise, based upon private properly, recognising that the best productive results can only be obtained by respecting private property and encouraging private enterprise, asks them to contribute towards great national and public objects.

In other words, social reform leaves the basis of Society untouched, and does not affect the relative condition of the propertied class and the working class in the least. On the other hand, Socialism means the abolition of private property and the establishment of common ownership and control of the means of wealth production. It is therefore easy to understand why those who are opposed to Socialism advocate social reform, but it is inexplicable why those who claim to be out for Socialism should, by their advocacy of social reform, help the master class to maintain their supremacy, and side-track the workers from the only cause that can emancipate them, the cause of Revolutionary Socialism.

"We're All Marxists Now" (1983)

Advert from the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unconsidered Trifles. Being Letters not hithero published. (1907)

From the September 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the Editor of the Daily News.

Sir,— I observe in your issue of date that Mr. D. A.Thomas, M.P., has been threatening that unless the Government is prepared to bring in forthwith a radical measure of temperance reform, he will seriously consider the advisability of going over to the “Labour, Independent Labour, or Socialist Party.”

This I think is most kind and considerate of Mr. Thomas and I make no doubt that the “Labour and Independent Labour Party,” which is always on the look-out for persons of political or social standing, will be happy for the chance of welcoming the Welsh gentleman to its councils and adding his political scalp to the tent pole of its wig-wam. Particularly as he is in favor of a “radical measure of temperance reform,” which so far as I have noticed, represents the “Labour and Independent Labour Party’s” most revolutionary proposal. I cannot speak for that Party, but I can speak for The Socialist Party of Great Britain—the only real Labour Party of my knowledge—and on its behalf I must inform Mr. Thomas, M.P., that we cannot do with him.

Mr. Thomas would, I am sure, prefer to have it pointed out quite frankly that we have no use for M.P.’s whose political development has only reached the stage in which such grotesquely unimportant matters as temperance reform occupy pre-eminent positions. The Socialist Party has to deal with great working-class issues and until Mr. Thomas has given some evidence of his appreciation of those issues I am afraid it will be useless for him to apply for membership. Our measure of the fitness of a man to voice Labour’s claims is neither membership of a Westminster political club nor a standing in “Society,” but the indications he gives of a clear knowledge of the. working-class position, its causes and its only remedy, and of his determination to proceed to that remedy along the only lines that can logically be followed by any person claiming to be a Socialist, viz., the lines of relentless hostility toward all other parties of whatever political label.

This may sound strangely to Mr. Thomas but then clearly Mr. Thomas doesn’t understand. The Socialist can only justify his separate organisation upon the ground of the futility of all the other bodies claiming working-class support. Not being able consistently or honestly to support futilities or to stand by passively while his own object is obscured and his work frustrated, he must actively oppose. If he does not he is useless as a Socialist—worse than useless indeed. That is our complaint against all other political parties. If they are representing capitalist interests as is indisputably the case with the orthodox Liberal and Tory, they cannot represent working-class interests which are always and in every essential particular, in antagonism to capitalists’ interests,—witness Belfast where, by the way, Liberal sympathy with the workers in revolt under oppressive conditions, is manifesting itself in the same old way: through soldiery and quick-firing guns even as at Featherstone and Hull. If they are claiming to specially represent working-class interests (as in the case of the “Labour” Party falsely so called), they must establish their claim by giving evidence of their understanding of the working-class position and directly pointing their efforts to the overthrow of the prevailing (capitalist) method of production based upon the exploitation (robbery) of Labour. This evidence is entirely lacking and the conclusion is forced upon us that the “Labour” Party is either composed of ignorant persons, or those who have deliberately bartered their Socialist principles for the wages which the Party pays. If they are definitely asserting their Socialism as is the case (at times) with the Social-Democratic Federation, they are also, by supporting capitalist candidates, by arrangement with capitalist parties and by the propaganda of inconsequentialities sometimes called palliatives, nullifying any good effect of their occasional assertion of Socialism as admittedly the only hope of the workers, obscuring the class issue, confusing the working-class mind and, therefore, as Socialism is inconceivable apart from a class conscious working class, delaying the day of Labour’s emancipation.

For these reasons we are opposed to them all. For these reasons we claim to stand as the only party of the workers—the only Socialist Party in this island. And for these reasons we cannot at this stage of his development accept any application for membership from Mr. Thomas. It will save the gentleman some humiliation if he will try and understand this at once.

Yours etc.,

AGRA.

30.7.07.

__________________

The Menace of Socialism

To the Editor of the Daily Express.

Sir,—I pray you be gentle. As you value truth—and how much you value truth the world knows well—be merciful. Say what you will; do anything that seemeth you fit, but spare us who are Socialists the dire infliction of the public association with our movement of the names of such gentlemen as the vice presidents of the Land Nationalisation Society or similar organisations—names like Thomasson, Cornwall, Macnamara, Bell, Vivian, and unkindest cut of all, Burns ! Scourge us not with whips like these. Have pity ! We do not deserve it—really !

And, oh ! Sir, tell the trenchant, virile, truthful and painstaking author, of your articles under this head, to take it from me that there is nothing subterranean about our propaganda. We are loudly, openly, and unblushingly preachers of discontent, organisers of working-class revolt, propagandists of a fierce, unrelenting war upon Capitalism and all its works and all its champions and must remain so while we remain Socialists, until the working class, with whose well-being we are solely concerned, shall have taken control of the political machinery and through that the whole of the land and other means of life, in their own interests. And we include among the works and champions of Capitalism all shufflers and intriguers, all misleaders whether styling themselves Labour men or otherwise, or whether merely fools or arrant knaves ; Liberals and Tories to a man, Constitutionalists and Tariff or Municipal Reformers so called, literary pimps and panders, journals with the largest circulations, and so on. All who do not accept Socialism as the only hope of the workers, all who are not with us, are against the working class.

Of course we who are Socialists cannot help people taking our name in vain and working in dark ways for the realisation of their ends any more than you could help the good name of your paper (if it had one) being besmirched. But if these people think, as some of them, I believe, quite honestly do, to achieve Socialism by back-stair methods, they must be deplorably stupid people; and deplorably stupid people cannot be Socialists—any more than jingo editors can be honest. If they are not stupid they may be and probably are as you describe them, “political fakes working craftily in the dark” but they will be working for their own aggrandisement.

But that’s not our fault. Not every one who cryeth “Lord! Lord!” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven ; and not every one who sayeth (on occasions) that he is a Socialist will come through an examination creditably. In short, we are not all Socialists now, notwithstanding a certain fat and be-knighted person’s notorious asseveration to the contrary. We repudiate these men of craft and do our best to let in the light upon the stupid; and we are continually exposing the working-class misleader. The young person with a passion for righteousness who spreads himself on your front page every morning, should read THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, the organ of The Socialist Party of Great Britain. He would then be able to get a notion of what Socialism means, the only way it can be realised and the only position a Socialist party can take-up. And he would learn that the Express is not a Socialist paper because it is presumably in favour of the nationalisation of the postal service; nor are Belgium and Germany Socialist countries because they have nationalised railways ; nor is Japan Socialist because she has a form of land nationalisation. And then he may discover to his (probable) surprise that a man may even be a “Constitutionalist,” an anti-Socialist, and a member of the “Socialist” Land Nationalisation Society ! I say probable because I have some reason to know that the writer is quite as well aware as I am that he is writing “piffle.”

However, I note with more than ordinary interest that you include in your latest, list of “Spies and ‘plants’ and political fakes who work craftily in the dark and fight under any colour but their own” the name of your erstwhile particular political pet, your own levelheaded labour-leader, your strong anti-Socialist fighter, Richard Bell, M.P., who, I conclude from your remarks, is really working insidiously for Socialism in the “Socialist” Land Nationalisation Society” ! I hope poor Richard will be properly grateful.

Finally, Sir, I don’t suppose for a moment that you will publish all this. What you will do (if you publish anything at all) will of course be to select those sentences which you think may in themselves look rather atrocious and arrange them in an order that will either seem to reflect upon the writer or support your contention. That of course is the pretty way usually affected by the Northclilfe-Pearson combination. But as I have taken the precaution of keeping a copy which I expect will appear in THE SOCIALIST STANDARD, it won’t greatly matter what you do.

Believe me, Sir,

Yours appreciatively,

AGRA.

24.7.07.

The Revolutionary Proposition (1955)

From the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern Society is made up of the working class, the great majority, who produce but do not own and a small section (barely 10%) who own but do not produce. For the protection of the latter’s wealth and privileges against the have-nots at home and against covetous and greedy competitors abroad, the possessing class needs coercive machinery, police and armed forces, and so it is that every technical improvement in the tools of production finds its primary application to arms production. The discovery of nuclear energy is only the most recent case in point, though unique in so far as it has “revolutionized the entire, foundation of human affairs and placed mankind in a situation both measureless and laden with doom.” Churchill, who spoke these words, “had no solution for permanent peace between the nations, although,” he said, “we pray for it.” He also said that “it would be folly to suppose hydrogen-weapons would not be used in case of war.” Apparently Churchill knows his men and also his God.

Now, there is a solution, and if it is not for avowed defenders of capitalism like Churchill and the other avowed anti-Socialists to advocate that solution, honesty and consistency would require of those calling themselves Socialists to urge that solution especially since it is the only way out of the present appalling dilemma.

Though an exposé of the genuine Socialist case, i.e., the abolition of Capitalism, lock, stock and band, in other words: a fundamental' change in the constitution of present-day society, from production for profit to production of the means of life for use, on the principle: From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs, though such a proposition would fall on deaf ears in Parliaments and be promptly derided as a Utopia.

Yet, though “we are all Socialists now,” there has not been to the writer’s knowledge, any reference to Socialism as the only solution of society’s problems from any “Socialist” quarters. One is bound to conclude that actually all of them—save that of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the companion parties overseas—look upon the conversion of the means of wealth production and distribution from private or State control to COMMON OWNERSHIP and democratic control by the people as a whole, as a Utopia, just as do the Capitalists themselves. There is, for example, Attlee, saying in the debate on Defence: “There is sometimes a need for something more dramatic if a H-bomb-war and the destruction of civilisation was to be avoided. He believed that it was felt by the rulers of Russia, as well as by the President of the U.S.A., and by the rulers of France, but somehow the thing did not get moving. We were looking for an initiative.” Just as 40 years ago, at the outbreak of World-War I, another pseudo-Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, confessed officially that they had been taken by a storm and “were waiting for a lead.” Attlee said he had had talks with Malenkov, for he was “a very important factor.” (That this “important factor” became only a few days afterwards a mere factotum, shows the political foresight and intellect of these Western Capitalist factotums). What a Socialist indeed, who received the praise of H.M. Government for getting the atom-bomb for Britain and who is now “looking for an initiative” to avoid the destruction of civilisation—as if he had never heard of Socialism!

Others of Attlee’s ilk talked about the “tremendous catastrophe of another war, and that a superior ideology to put over to the people had to be found.” Any ideology will apparently do for these Socialists, as long as it does not end Capitalism and the good old “transition- period" on which these leaders and job-hunters prosper and thrive.  

R.

(To be concluded next month)

All “Socialists” Now. (1907)

From the February 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last issue I gave a few examples of the many brands of “Socialism” made up to suit the political complexions of the various class (and no class) organisations whose members are anxious not to be out of touch with the fashion. As indicative of the growth of the fashion, I notice that in addition to Shaw’s “Socialist” plays at the Court Theatre, the Stage Society recently put on that “Socialist” drama, “The Weavers” ; also Nelly Neil, the principal character in the musical comedy of that name, is a “Socialist.” At the Haymarket in the curtain raiser “Her Grace the Reformer” we have another “Socialist” as the leading part. That well-known “Socialist” mummer, Mr. Jas. Welch is shortly to appear in a new role, while a “Socialist” lady sustains the chief feminine interest in “The Bondman,” the author of which is that well-known “Socialist,” Mr. Hall Caine.

o o o

In good truth we are all “Socialists” now and we, who for so many years were as voices crying in the wilderness, ought to be overjoyed to know that we are now “the thing don’t you know.” We have been “taken up.” We bask in the smiles of the queens of “Society” and count the peerage and the stage (which perhaps are not quite the same thing—yet) among our “comrades.” In such circumstances it ill becomes a man to cavil. And yet it seems somewhat incumbent upon me to suggest that there is some little possibility of the undiscriminative failing to locate the wood for the obscuring trees. There are so many “Socialists” to contend with that the wayfaring man is in imminent danger of missing the Socialism he is searching for.

o o o

And probably that is one at least of the ideas lying behind some of this seeming enthusiasm for the “Socialist” cult. With so many brands of “Socialism” on the market and so many “Socialist” connoisseurs of those brands, it is no easy matter for the common workman to distinguish between the true and the false. The effect upon his mind must be of a confusion worse confounded. And it becomes an increasingly difficult thing to keep the class line clearly defined while there is, apparently, so much sympathy for working-class ideals existing among the representatives of the class whose interests (according to the exponents of the class struggle) are in such diametrical opposition to the interests of the workers.

o o o

There may easily, therefore, be more in this matter than meets the eye. Undoubtedly it is a concern for one’s own material interests that lies at the root of all our actions, however unconscious we may be of it. And with the pressure of economic conditions ever tending to impel the working class toward action in their own protection, it becomes obvious to the capitalist class that the workers, upon whose labour they maintain their useless and luxurious lives, must soon awaken to the real causes of poverty. With this awakening must surely come the downfall of capitalism. Wherefore—the dust of a simulated sympathy is stirred into a cloud in the hope that the attention of the workers may be diverted from the real issue.

o o o

The more reason for us to renew our efforts to combat the work and influence of the agents of capitalism in whatever guise they come. The more reason for us to shout our message from the house-tops; to persistently give emphatic voice to our warnings ; to stand always pointing the way along which our class must march to their emancipation. Of one thing we are certain : economic development cannot be retarded. And because that is so the confusing work of the representatives of capitalism, however successful it may be to-day, cannot endure. Sooner or later capitalism must definitely and irrevocably take its stand in naked antagonism to the workers. It is our business to do that which other organisations professing Socialism have not done, viz., to insist upon Socialism as the only hope of our class ; to show in what Socialism essentially consists ; to make clear and keep clear the class division; to demonstrate the real meaning of most of the sympathetic protestations of what are actually anti-working class bodies; in fine, to make of our education work an insistence upon essentials and the clearance of non-essentials to the end that the time may be hastened when capitalism shall shed its pretences and stand out for what it is. It will do that when it finds itself without the power to hoodwink or cajole, when its Carnegies and Burnses can no longer be relied upon to deceive or delude—when, that is, the working class have understood their position and their power. And just as surely as capitalism finds itself in that condition and is obliged to decide that the time has come when it must organise its forces openly and avowedly against the army of the workers, will the workers be on the eve of their emancipation. There is no doubt of the issue of the contest.. Nothing can prevent the defeat and extermination of capitalism; nothing can prevent the victory and development of Labour. We may hasten or retard the day of final struggle but we cannot affect the result, just as we cannot prevent the ultimate dawn of the day itself. But because we can hasten it by marching straight and speaking true and calling things by their right names we have come together to do it. Wherefore The Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Alegra.

Socialism. What it is and the Conditions for its Realisation. (1906)

From the March 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of the arduous years of propaganda—or perhaps because of them—of Socialist ideas and Socialist thought there exists an immense amount of ignorance of what Socialism really implies. Constantly during the last few weeks of political strife I have met with “Socialists” who have had not even the remotest idea of what really constituted Socialism; “Socialists” whose entire end and aim was the taxation of ground values ; “Socialists” who saw in Tariff Reform and a general support of Tory candidates, the surest method of furthering their ends ; “Socialists” who recognised that politics was all a farce, but must need canvass for Liberal Candidates; members of “Socialist” organisations who ran as “Labour” candidates, and members of “Socialist” organisations who ran as Liberal candidates ; “Socialists” of the S.D.F. and the I.L.P., of the Fabian Society and the Guild of St. Matthew : such were and are some of the causes of the confusion of what Socialism really is which exists among the working class to-day.

What these men cannot see is that for a rapid acceptance of Socialist principles a clear expression of those principles is required. The believer in Socialism must go to the working class and tell them the underlying ideas of Socialism ; must show them that Socialism is a distinct political and economic aspiration, capable of being explained in a manner at once brief, clear, and lucid, and remarkably fitted for practical adaptation to present-day needs ; must show that as the Liberal works for Liberalism, the Tory for Toryism, and the capitalist for his own individual gain, so too must the Socialist work only for Socialism, must support those candidates only who are pledged to Socialism and run as avowed Socialists on a Socialist platform, and so must the working class work in its own class interest.

To do this, however, clear thinking is expedient and, alas ! the gentry who form the membership of such bodies as the S.D.F., I.L.P., and the Fabian Society are seldom guilty of thinking clearly where the subject matter of their thought is Socialism.

I am forced to these remarks by the astounding spectacle which has been witnessed during the recent change in the personnel of our government bureaucracy. Men of all shades of “Socialist” opinion have been carried off their feet, and have been found openly and avowedly supporting the candidature of members of that party “which is in no sense more likely to do anything for the working class than is the Tory Party.”

One thing stands out clearly in the mind of the average worker, and that is that any “Socialist” who works for Liberalism or Toryism or in aid of the candidature of any member of either of the capitalist parties, might as well not be a Socialist for all the practical good he is to The Socialist movement. To those of us who are members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, who have never in any measure compromised our Socialism, they stand condemned as not merely useless to the Socialist movement, but a constant and increasing danger to it.

With every fresh day comes a furthering of the industrial development of capitalism, comes the hastening of that perfection of the capitalist system which means its downfall. It therefore behoves each and all of us who have the cause of Socialism at heart to avoid any confusing of the issues in the minds of those whose suffrage we seek. And this can only be done by keeping aloof from any party, movement, or tendency which is not, clearly Socialist.

The real reason why the members of the S.D.F. and the similarly constituted I.L.P. are not clear as to their methods of realising their avowed ideal is that they have never clearly grasped the meaning of what constitutes the class struggle. A lip homage they have given, and nothing more. A nominal adherence to the teaching of Marx they give, but a clear knowledge of Marx’s teaching they have not. Having failed to base their political policy upon the sound principle of the class struggle they have been at the mercy of every political current and thus, failing to understand their own position, they have failed to make others understand it.

We are all agreed that the ultimate end of Socialist propaganda must be the establishment of a Socialist regime through the common holding and common control of all the products of labour. This is to be secured by wresting the means and instruments of production and distribution from the possession of the present holders and utilising them for the common good.

To secure this end it is, of course, necessary that a very large proportion of the people must be in favour of the change, whereas to-day a very minute proportion of the people of this country are thus favourable. Hence it is necessary to propagate our principles in such a manner as to induce their acceptance by those who are now hostile or indifferent to them.

To ensure such a change of opinion it is essential that the differences between the Socialist position and every other position should be emphasised rather than minimised. We are something more than merely advanced Radicals, something more than Co-operators seeking cooperation in distribution. These latter are seeking to palliate present day conditions while conserving the present industrial basis of Society, whereas we strive to revolutionise the entire structure of Society by changing its economic basis. We are qualitatively as well as quantitatively diverse from every other political organisation.

At the same time that the preaching of our ideal is necessary we are fully aware that we have the economic forces of industrial capitalism ranged on our side, helping us to fight our battle for Socialism. The enforced introduction of improved machinery, through the operation of free competition ; the development of a complicated credit system ; the lessening of distance between manufactory and market owing to ’the betterment of means of communication ; the internationalisation of industry and trade : these among other causes lead directly to the throwing of men and women out of employment; more frequently occurring trade crises; and monopolies with their control of wages, prices, and the government of the nations.

All these economic changes, while making life more insecure as wealth increases, generate a seething mass of discontent which the Socialist must organise and educate. So, too, the changes towards monopoly are changes in the direction of greater social co-operation among the workers—a co-operation which leads to a constant interchange of ideas. Again, under the monopoly an entire industry is often worked by one organisation for the capitalist’s private gain, whereas the worker is being taught to see that it might as easily be worked in. the interests of the entire community.

It is needful, then, to understand that Socialism is a change from capitalist individual ownership to common social ownership, that the believers in this change must combine in an organisation for educational and political purposes so as to engineer the capture of the political machinery as a preliminary to taking over the economic.

Unfortunately the acceptance of the principle of common holding and common control of the instruments of wealth making does not involve the recognition of the necessity of forming a political organisation absolutely independent of every other. It is so very tempting to think that perhaps something may be done now by utilising the present political parties. Many men, indeed, have thought that they could permeate one or the other of the two political parties with Socialistic ideas. Bernard Shaw and his Fabian Society have endeavoured to secure the Liberals while Maltman Barry has made a similar attempt with the Tories. All such endeavours have failed as they were bound to fail. The political divisions are along class lines. The reason why to-day the lines of demarcation between Liberal and Tory are fading is because the two elements of the capitalist class are fast merging. The aristocratic landed class no longer exist as a separate class from the moneyed capitalist class. Money weds with title and divisions are blotted out. Not so with the working class. Here the line of demarcation is exceedingly clear and the economic division of class must evolve and be reflected in the capitalist division of party.

Marx, in his famous “Communist Manifesto,” contends—and rightly so—that all history is a history of class struggles. Not only this, but the political power in modern nations is being constantly wrested from the hands of prerogative by a class economically inferior which absorbs the class economically higher.

Thus in this country the last century saw the political power taken possession of by the moneyed capitalist class, and the dispossession of the titled landed aristocracy who formerly held it. This new class, with its pride of position, drew towards it the former ruling class, with whom it has gradually merged its identity. They twain have become as one flesh.

Over against this new composite ruling class is the working class, which is slowly asserting itself as an economic and political class. The struggle of to-morrow is between capitalist class and working class, and as the latter is numerically much stronger than the former, and being more in touch with the realities of production possess men of stronger brains and brighter intellects, there is no doubt as to who will ultimately prove the victor in the struggle.

The worker must win, and in his winning wall absorb the capitalist class in his ranks, thus procuring by his political emancipation the final abolition of all class. But this abolition of class can only arise through the removing of all class advantage and class privilege. And the removal of these mean the identification of all wealth as social wealth—the abolition of all private holding of commodities. Thus it is plain, that the final political and economic emancipation of the working class can only arise from the establishing of a Socialist Society.

The deduction I wish to draw from this is that an independent working-class party may start with whatever views it likes, but it must ultimately adopt and fight its battles on a Socialist platform. Its destiny must be to work along the same lines as The Socialist Party of Great Britain—lines of uncompromising Socialism.

Economicus.