Editorial: The Rise of Hitler: A Warning to the Workers (1933)

Editorial from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rise of Hitler to power in Germany is an event which the workers of all countries should study with care. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a world-wide overflowing of discontent. It is not a coincidence that the three years since the oncoming of the crisis late in 1929 have witnessed the abrupt and sometimes violent overthrow of governments in different parts of the capitalist world. “National” Governments in the United Kingdom and many of the British Dominions; the advent of De Valera in the Irish Free State; the colossal defeat of “Prosperity” Hoover in the USA; repeated cabinet crises in France; political revolutions and counter-revolutions in South America; the Republic in Spain; political crises in Scandinavia; expulsions of leaders and reversals of policy in Russia; no country has escaped the economic consequences of a capitalist world which is seriously out of joint.

Each country has witnessed the consequent political stresses and strains of new discontents, and new slogans, which had generally brought about new political groupings and new figure-heads. The universal insurgency expresses itself in different ways according to the traditions, experience and constitutions of the various countries. A century ago such economic crises brought to a head deep underlying social conflicts and produced the revolutions of  ’30 and ’48, with their violent overthrow of kings and absolutist constitutions. Nowadays the more advanced countries have developed systems which permit easier adjustment to new pressures, avoiding the disturbance and expenses of the appeal to violence. Countries which have not travelled so far along the road of capitalist democratic government still resort to the old method of the bomb, the rifle, and the machine gun, the mass demonstration, the barricade, and the organisation of insurrection in the armed forces.

In a broad way the cause and the effect are the same everywhere. Everywhere capitalist private ownership reigns. Everywhere the rulers must serve the interests of the capitalist class, but everywhere it is an over-riding condition of social life that rulers cannot ignore the active discontent of the mass of the population. The discontent, even the open rebellion, of individuals and minorities can be bludgeoned into acquiescence, but when great masses of the population are driven by intolerable conditions into organising for common action then the rulers must sooner or later provide a safety valve; placate the movement or find means of dividing it; turn it into new directions or harness it directly to the capitalist state. In no other way can capitalism maintain itself.

Long before the war the British ruling class learned how to incorporate radical politicians and labour leaders in the parties of capitalism. The German capitalists in 1918 jettisoned the Kaiser for a similar end. Fifty per cent of the German voters had registered their disillusionment and war-weariness by voting for the reform programme of the Social Democratic Party. German capitalism thereupon “digested” the SDP and watched it stabilise German capitalism in the troubled post-war years. The military and civil associates of the Imperial Kaiser humbled themselves to the “upstart” labour leaders because they had to have someone who could control the workers and keep them loyal to the fundamentals of capitalism. So for fourteen years the Social Democrats, either in coalitions or in “friendly opposition”, worked out their policy of bargaining for reforms as price of their support. The outcome was inevitable. They have shared the fate that has always overtaken “Labour” politicians and parties when they accept responsibility for the administration of capitalism. Discontent with the effects of capitalism cannot for ever be stifled by Labour promises of better times or apologetic assurances that things might be worse. The membership and influence of the German SDP declined year by year until it had shrunk to a third of its former size. Part of the loss was picked up by the Communist Party, but in the meantime a new group had arisen, led by Hitler. At the election on March 5th he received 17,266,000 votes (43.9 per cent) and his allies, the Nationalists, received 3,132,000 (8 per cent), giving him a clear majority. The Social Democrats received 7,176,000 (18.3 per cent) and the Communists 4,845,000 (12.1 percent).

In one important respect Hitler’s Nazis are just like the Social Democrats and the Communists; they are all parties of discontent. Hitler promises work for the workless; secure government jobs in the police, the Army or the Civil service for 100,000 of his members; higher prices for agricultural products to help the peasants; and protection for the small investor and little shopkeeper squeezed by the big stores and the banks.

Immediately on taking office Hitler imposed fresh taxes on the big departmental stores and chain stores with the professed object of helping the small shopkeepers. He promised also to find posts for out-of-work professional men (doctors, lawyers and others), and it is because a relatively large number of bankers, proprietors of big stores and the more successful professional men are Jews that the party has taken on a violently anti-Jewish character. Every Jewish doctor driven out of practice, every Jewish lawyer barred from the courts, every Jewish schoolmaster and civil servant dismissed, makes another vacancy for one of his members. He was supplied with funds by German heavy industry, by armament manufacturers both in Germany and in France, and by American and other business men and financiers who had investments in Germany for which they needed protection. With the help of these funds Hitler’s party has known how to rally all kinds of discontent into a great movement representing half the electorate of Germany. Therefore Hitler has had to be “digested” as fourteen years ago were the Social Democrats. The stately and imperious Hindenburg and the aristocratic Von Papen, representing the military caste and big landowner, have had to receive on terms of equality the Austrian house-painter Adolf Hitler. Dr Hugenberg and the Nationalist Party, representing big industrial capitalists, have had to enter into coalition with him. Hitler will now have to administer capitalism. He will have to curb the demands of his followers, disappoint them, and ultimately lose many of them to new political adventurers, whereupon the capitalists and landlords who now use him will scrap him and use his successor.

The great lesson to be learned from the decline of the Social Democrats is the sterility of the policy of reforms and of reform parties. The day on which a reform party reaches power is the day on which the evil effects of capitalism begin to sap and undermine the strength of the party, turning the members’ blind loyalty first into bewilderment and then into dissatisfaction, causing them to drift into new parties.

The depths of mental bankruptcy of the reformists are shown by the comment of the Fabian New Statesman (London, March 11th, 1933). After explaining that Hitler scored because he appealed, with banners and uniforms and parades, to the electorate’s love of glamour, the German correspondent of the New Statesman says that the Social Democrats should have done the same, and should have given more prominence to pageantry and less prominence to social reforms. In other words, the workers are to be enticed, not even by the old plan of “bread and circuses”, but by circuses without the bread! This is what forty years of Fabian reformism has brought to the working-class movement!

The second lesson is one which has been entirely missed by the Labour Press in Great Britain, that is the evidence given by the Hitler episode of the overwhelming importance of controlling the political machinery. Six months ago, although the largest party in Germany, Hitler was not in control of the German Parliament and the machinery of government. He was ridiculed and derided by the members of the Government, and insulted by President Hindenburg. His party officials were hauled into court on charges of treason, and thrown into prison. Others were forced to flee the country. His newspapers were suppressed, his offices were raided by the police, his troops were forbidden to parade or wear uniforms in the street. When they attempted defiance they were driven off just like the Communists.

Now, having become possessed of the political machine and confirmed in power by the electors, he is able to turn the tables on his former opponents. He has removed the Governments of all the States of Germany. Former Cabinet Ministers have been arrested, beaten and made to suffer many indignities. Newspapers have been suppressed and their offices raided – from Conservative Catholic newspapers at one end of the scale to Social Democratic and Communist newspapers at the other. The Communists, in spite of their 5,000,000 voters and their year-long boasting of their belief in “mass action” and military revolt, have been cowed into complete submission without offering any real resistance whatever. Events are proving to them what they refused to learn. The organised political majority which controls the political machinery of the modern State is in a position to dominate, and can enforce submission on minorities. There is no road to Socialism except through the control of the machinery of government by a politically organised majority of Socialists.

Notes on Industry (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Profits in the Depression

As is to be expected, the average rate of profit has fallen during the “ crisis ” years since 1929. A minority of firms have made little or no profit or have suffered a loss. Most firms have made profit, although not at the rate of the earlier period. Some firms have prospered exceedingly out of the general depression.

The following table shows the up and down movement of profits since 1909. It is compiled by the “Economist" and relates (as regards the more recent years) to about 2,000 typical companies. In each case the figures are based on profits and losses declared during the 12 months from January 1st to December 31st. The figure for 1932, 5.9 per cent, on ordinary shares, shows that the investors are still doing quite comfortably: —

             PROFITS AND DIVIDENDS

	Ratio	Average	Average
	of Profits	Dividend on	Dividend on
	to Pref. &	Preference	Ordinary
	Ord. Capital	Capital	Capital
	%	%	%
1909	7.4	4.3	6.3
1910	8.2	4.5	7.0
1911	9.9	4.9	8.5
1912	... 10.2	5.2	* 8.5
1913	... 11.7	5.1	10.2
1920	... 15.2	5.0	12.6
1921	... 10.3	5.2	10.2
1922	7.0	5.2	8V4
1923	9.8	5.3	9.3
1924	... 10.3	5.4	9.8
1925	... 10.9	5.5	10.3
1926	... 11.3	5.4	11.1
1927	... 10.5	5.3	10.8
1928	... 11.1	5.4	10.6
1929	... 10.5	5.5	10.5
1930	9.8	5.7	9.5
1931	7.2	5.2	7.2
1932	5.8	4.2	5.9

(“The Economist: Commercial History and Review of 1932,” February 18th, 1932.)

The Prudent Pro

Some companies have managed to do extraordinarily well. Woolworth’s paid 70 per cent. this year and held a dinner to celebrate it. Other companies in a comparable position have been more reticent. The Prudential Assurance Co., Ltd., have just declared a dividend of 37½ per cent, tax free on their “B” shares. The original shareholder paid 4s. for these shares, and can now sell at about 55s. The “A” shares are even more interesting. Starting with 40 per cent. tax free in 1919 the dividend rose steadily year by year until it reached 94⅙ per cent. in 1928 and 1929. Then came the slump and the dividend fell to 91⅓ per cent. in 1930 and 1931, and right down to 84¼ per cent. in 1932. But hard times cannot last for ever, and this year the shareholders were able to pick up again with 92 per cent. tax free plus a special bonus of 7⅙ per cent. These shares cost originally £l, and now stand at about £26. Another insurance company, the Pearl Assurance Co., Ltd., paid a modest 50 per cent. tax free for 1932.

The Daily Telegraph (January 6th, 1933) reported the Advertising Association Research and Publicity Department as authority for the statement that 80 firms which are prominent users of advertisement showed average profits exceeding 38 per cent. on their ordinary shares in 1932. This figure is, however, probably inflated by the inclusion of a few firms which paid a very high rate of profit.

Then Lewis’s, Ltd., of Liverpool, paid 275 per cent. on their deferred ordinary shares, the same as last year. Half-a-dozen newspapers which reported on Lewis's profits and on the Prudential's profits managed to convey that they had done well without disclosing actually what the rates of dividend are.

As the Pru. advertises extensively in the Press, including the “Labour” and “ Left-wing Labour” papers, the advertising revenue probably has what is known as a sweetening effect on the editors and their staffs. As a sub-editor on a well-known sensational weekly was heard to remark, “We are allowed to attack anyone and everyone—except our advertisers.”

The Ebb and Flow of Unemployment

Owing to the scrappy way in which newspapers treat social questions, it is not easy for the reader who has no other sources of information to get a full and clear view of what is going on even when the question is one which is always being written about, e.g., unemployment.

A very common misconception is that unemployment, owing to the displacement of workers by machines and to other factors, has been steadily growing since the end of the war. This view is particularly popular with those who hold that the present crisis is essentially different from pre-war crises, and that capitalism will never recover from it. Actually the changes in the numbers of unemployed have followed the same kind of course as in pre-war crises.

The years since 1918 can be divided into a number of well-defined periods.

In 1919 and 1920 there was some “demobilisation" unemployment, followed by a period in 1920, when unemployment was at a very low level, lower than in the years before the war.

Then, in 1921, came the sudden crisis which sent unemployment up to the 2½ million level.

During 1922 and 1923 unemployment declined to a level of about 10 per cent. or 11 per cent.

From 1923 to 1929 (apart from a short period in 1926 due to the General Strike) unemployment was not increasing, but remaining fairly stable at about 10 per cent. or 1,100,000. Actually, in July, 1929, there was less unemployment than in July, 1923, in spite of a very big increase in the total number of insured workers. In other words, there were many more workers in work than there were six years earlier.

The years 1923 to 1929, which newspapers at the time habitually referred to as years of “depression" were, in fact, years of expanding production and trade, and increasing profits; Then, late in 1929, began the “crisis," with unemployment soaring up to 2½ or 3 millions, and a percentage (23 per cent.) only reached before for a short period in 1921.

The present “crisis" will eventually give place to a new period of expansion, but the fact that there were never fewer than 1,100,000 unemployed in the “boom" year 1929, shows what may be expected by the workers when prosperity returns for the capitalists. At its best, capitalism in England holds out little prospect of reducing unemployment much below 1 in 10 of the workers. That will be “normal" unemployment.

The Displacement of Workers

Closely linked up with the question of unemployment is the displacement of workers either by labour-saving machinery and methods, or by the rise of new industries and the decline of old ones. That process goes on steadily, but it does not mean (as the “Technocrats" have thought) that the number of workers employed gets steadily smaller. This can be illustrated from the course of events in this country during the years 1923 to 1932, about which the Ministry of Labour has made a special inquiry. (See Labour Gazette, November and December, 1932.)

In the first place the total population of the United Kingdom increased by 1,800,000 during those nine years, and the number of insured workers, aged 16 to 64, increased by about 15 per cent., or 1,670,000; from 11,140,000 in 1923, to 12,810,000 in 1932.

The next thing to notice is that in July, 1929, the year of maximum production just before the crisis, the number of insured workers actually in work was more than 10 per cent. greater than it was six years earlier, and it had been increasing more or less steadily in the intervening years. So that, in spite of machinery and the decline of certain big industries, there were 11 men and women actually in work, in 1929, for every 10 who were working in 1923.

How can this be explained? Some facts and figures will make the position clear.

Between 1923 and 1932 a number of industries were declining or were installing labour-saving machinery, or both, and consequently the number of workers employed was being reduced. Nearly 300.000 men were pushed out of coal mining between 1923 and 1929, and another 300,000 by 1932.

The number of non-permanent workers on the railways decreased by 60,000 in nine years, and insured workers in Government employment decreased by 46,000. Including the miners, there were about 400,000 fewer workers actually at work in the declining industries in 1929 than in 1923, and a further decline of about 1,000,000 due to the crisis between 1929 and 1932.

But while these industries were reducing their number of workers, the expanding industries were taking on far more men up to 1929 than were being displaced elsewhere. While mining was shrinking, electrical generation and the manufacture of electrical machinery was rapidly growing. Artificial silk was replacing cotton. Motor transport was replacing railway transport. While the staffs of the Central Government were being reduced, the Local Authorities were taking on more men.

Dividing all industries and transport services into the declining group and the expanding group, we find that while the declining group got rid of about 400,000 workers between 1923 and 1929, the expanding group of industries and services increased the number of workers actually in their employment by 1,400,000—a net increase of 1,000,000 for insured trades as a whole.

Since 1929 the crisis has thrown another one million men out of employment in the declining trades, but the expanding group have still managed to increase, although only very slowly. As remarked above, for the whole group of insured trades, the number in work in 1932 and now is still about the same as in 1923, in spite of the heavy fall in employment since 1929, and, after making all due allowance for any increase since 1923 in the number of unemployed not on the register.

It is interesting to notice that while mining and many manufacturing trades have been badly hit, the distributive trades have increased enormously, from 1,100,000 workers in 1923, to 1,700,000 in 1932.

The National Income

Mr. Colin Clarke, M.A., has made estimates of the amount and distribution of the National Income in the years 1924—1931. ("The National Income." Pub. MacMillan, 1932. 8s. 6d.)

He shows (p. 72) that the National Income (including net income from Overseas) increased from £3,586 millions in 1924, to £4,006 millions in 1929, these being years of expanding production and trade.

He estimates that the wage earners receive about two-fifths of the total national income (39.9 per cent, in 1929).

On the assumption that the average family consists of, roughly, man, wife and two children, he estimates that the national income, if equally divided, would have been sufficient in 1929 to provide £349 per family, or £6 14s. per week. (P. 78.) If an amount were deducted to provide for the existing rate of new capital, and excluding income from overseas, the figure would be about £310 per family in 1929, or just under £6 a week.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: The Use of Trade Unions and Strikes (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent raises the question of the usefulness of strike action. As the letter is rather long and deals with other matters not directly concerned with the main point, we have omitted certain passages condemning the Communist advocacy of armed revolt, and the notion held in certain quarters that capitalist wars should be supported because, so it is argued, they hasten economic development and encourage the growth of the Socialist movement. The letter then continues:—

But precisely the same or similar arguments go to show that the strike is a weapon only advocated by anti-socialist elements of society. The argument usually put forward is that since wages are determined by the socially necessary time required to reproduce labour-power at the moral and historical standards of a particular epoch, there is a minimum level to which this tends under the pressure of the exploiting class. But wages are not the value of labour-power, hut the price of labour-power, that price being regulated by conditions of supply and demand. Thus, say the strikers, by temporarily withholding supply, we are able to resist the encroachments of our masters.

This reasoning is false. The practical results of strikes prove it to he utterly untrue.

The price of labour-power, like all other prices, is not determined until the buyers face the sellers on the market. Moreover, the price even then is not fixed until the actual transaction takes place. Does the strike give the workers greater bargaining power than they would have had without it ? The answer is “No.”

Until the workers strike they face the masters as an organised number of unions. They can hold their organisation intact by their economic power (the sum total of their subscriptions, and the discipline wielded within the union upon the members). Faced with the competition of the vast unemployed army, they have certain advantages in the form of sick benefit, pension, and other schemes which give them a certain extra bargaining power as long as they do not strike. As soon as a strike takes place, they lose those advantages. Their funds are depleted, the masters having far greater resources. A cunning compromise is usually the result of the strike, that compromise generally working in the favour of the masters because of the ineptitude of the average trade union leader. The unions go back to work, half- starved and without any financial backing. Then comes the real struggle. Now that they are thoroughly whipped by the strain of the strike, the masters insidiously undermine all the silly little concessions which .they thought they had gained, and within a few months the unions are back in their original position, except for the fact that they are now thoroughly demoralised and consequently less capable of thinking clearly on the real issues of the class struggle. Apart from all that, sectional frictions and the dead weight of the unemployed beat them every time. It is useless to argue that it hastens development, this strike business. Of course, it does, but that is no reason for a socialist to advise the workers to cut their own throats in the interests of historical development. That were merely suicidal insanity. I think that the socialist must look for some other weapon on the economic field. That weapon is Socialism. The only strike that could be successful would be a strike on the part of the majority of the workers, class-conscious and determined, but such a majority would have long since relegated the economic struggle to the background in their mighty fight for political control of armed force.

I am not arguing against ca-canny as a weapon. That is in a different category. But I think that there is some reason in the idea that to advocate strikes as an economic weapon is anti-socialist.

It seems apparent that the most important factor in the struggle for wages is not the bargaining power of an unconscious, unco-ordinated, uneducated. class such as ours is, but the necessities of capitalist production. When the wages of our class fall below the historical and moral standard of comfort, output falls with it, and capitalism has to rectify it. I don’t think we ever will get wages far above or far below that level. Certainly the strike will not help us.

Yours truly,

“ BARI.”

Reply.

In order to remove any possible misunderstanding let us first make dear why the S.P.G.B. supports trade union organisation and strike action. It is not because these are the road to Socialism: they are not and cannot be that. The only road is the conquest of political power by a politically organised Socialist majority. The case for organising in trade unions is that the conditions of working-class life and labour could and would be worsened if no organised resistance were offered to the downward pressure of the employers. Failure to make this organised resistance would, in addition, make Socialist propaganda and organisation even more difficult than it is now, for these are not helped, but hindered, by a lowered standard of living and a condition of disorganisation among the workers.

The argument of our correspondent is faulty in several respects. In the first place the value of trade union organisation does not consist solely in the number of strikes that can be brought about. The very existence of the trade union (with the weapon of the strike, or ca'canny, to be used in the last resort) is itself a factor which influences negotiations about the level of wages, just in the same way that the existence of armed forces is a factor in the negotiations between governments, even although in most cases war is not resorted to, but only threatened. When the employers in an industry contemplate an attack on wages or conditions of employment, they take into consideration the possibility of a strike and the expense they will suffer by it. If the expense appears too great for the gain anticipated they will not push the claim to the extremity. One of the “expenses" they consider is making their employees disgruntled. They know quite well that disgruntled workers do not make for high output. For this reason, even when workers have been beaten in a strike, the employers sometimes prefer not to reap all the fruits of victory. Hence, the strike emphatically does give the workers greater bargaining power than they would have without it. The process is by no means the mechanical thing our correspondent appears to think it is. Even if the workers were beaten in every strike (and they are not) it would still be true that the strike is not futile as an economic defensive weapon.

Unless the condition of the market at any given time is such that the employers would welcome a stoppage of work, there is usually some margin about which they are prepared to bargain. If there is in existence an organised body of workers, able to bring about a strike, the employers will make some concession (an increase in wages or the abatement of part of a decrease) in order to avoid the strike. One factor in negotiation is, of course, the ability of the respective sides to weigh up the strength of the other side. If either side underestimates the strength of the other there will be a strike or a lock-out. On the workers' side there is a fairly narrow limit to such a war of starvation, but even then it often does not pay the employer to have his works held up for so long. So that in fact strikes do in many cases result in some gain for the workers, and lock-outs do sometimes end in the employers withdrawing all or part of their demands.

A second error in our correspondent's argument is the implication that there is a fixed "historical and moral standard of comfort" of the working class and that if they are forced below this standard their output falls and the employers then have to raise wages again for their own benefit and without any effort by the workers.

It is true that output would fall if the workers were forced below a bare physical minimum of subsistence, but in the main workers who are in work are above that standard. They could therefore have their standard of comfort reduced without being forced below the bare minimum of subsistence.

It may also be true that a lowering of the historical standard of living would, for a while, result in less capable work, but it has yet to be proved that the workers in a given industry would not get used to the lower standard and ultimately provide work of the same class as formerly, assuming they were not actuated by the spirit of resistance. The English employers during the 19th century were considerably helped by the emigration of large numbers of active and dissatisfied workers.

Expressed in terms of purchasing power, the English workers' standard of living is considerably higher than that of workers in certain other countries and considerably higher than it was in England, say, eighty years ago. Part of the rise in the English workers' standard of living between 1850 and 1900 may be explained by changes in the technique and methods of industry, but another part can only be explained by the organised efforts of the workers to improve their conditions.

It is quite true that the employer who pays a higher wage will be induced to maintain his profits by reducing his total wages bill in other ways—for example, by introducing more labour-saving machinery. Consequently the effort to raise wages, shorten hours, and improve working conditions are themselves factors which influence the development of industry. However, this does not mean that the efforts are not fruitful from the working class standpoint. It is unquestionably better to be exploited at a higher wage in a modern factory than it was to be exploited at a lower wage in a less efficient factory fifty or one hundred years ago. But for the standards won and maintained by organisation and strikes the workers would be exploited under worse conditions and at a lower wage than actually exist.

One reason for under-estimating the value of trade union organisation since the war is that the heavy fall in prices has been overlooked. When prices are rising a strike for, say, 5s. will appear to be a victory for the workers if they get 2s. 6d., even although this may be insufficient to compensate for the increased cost of living.

When prices are falling, as they have been since 1920, the opposite error is often made. If employers demand a 5s. decrease in wages, and the workers can get this reduced to 2s. 6d., it may in fact be a victory, for the workers if the fall in wages is less than the fall in prices.

Actually the whole tendency since 1926 has been for the purchasing power of full-time rates of wages to rise, owing to the fact that prices have been falling faster than wages. Although the so-called General Strike of 1926 was a failure in its immediate purpose, it probably had a very considerable effect in warning off the employers in the big industries from lightly entering on lockouts to enforce reductions.

It is beyond dispute that had there been no trade union organisation the employers would have taken far greater advantage of the crisis to depress wages than in fact they have been able to do.

Editorial Committee.

Readers in the United States (1933)

Notice from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers of the Socialist Standard in the U.S.A. are invited to get into touch with the Workers' Socialist

Party at the following addresses:—

Headquarters, 138, East 28rd Street, New York City.

Local Bolton, Mass., Fred Jacobs, Secretary, 118c, Warren Street, Roxbury, Mass.

Local Detroit, Mich., Nils Akervall, Secretary, 70, Ferry W., Detroit, Mich.

Local Los Angeles, Calif., Helen Dyer, Secretary, 8011, Tillie Street, Los Angeles, Calif.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain and Questions of the Day (1933)

Party Notice from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain 

and Questions of the Day

Deals with the founding of the Socialist Party, the Liberal, Tory, Labour and Communist parties and the I.L.P., the Russian Dictatorship, War, Trade Unions, Social Reforms etc

80 Pages—Price 3d. (Post free—4d.)

War and Socialism

Do you know why modern wars occur ?

Do you know what is the Socialist attitude towards war ?

Do you know why Socialists are not  Pacifists?

Do you know that the S.P.G.B. was the only political organisation in Great Britain which proclaimed its Socialist opposition to the Great War immediately it broke out and kept to that attitude throughout the War ?

Do you know what attitude you as a worker should take up towards war?

For answers to these and other questions read

“THE S.P.G.B. AND QUESTIONS 
OF THE DAY."

80 pages for 3d. Post free 4d.

The German Communist Party (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent asks if the Communist Party of Germany represents a real revolutionary backing to the extent indicated by its vote of five millions. If not, what is the programme on which this vote is obtained.

The German Communist Party, like the Communist Party of Great Britain, is a party based in the main on discontent without any serious understanding of capitalism or Socialism. Because the German Social Democratic Party ever since the war has been associated with the Governments of Germany, discontent with capitalism has undermined the popularity of that party and built up the Communist Party and Hitler's Party. Although all three parties (including Hitler's Party) claim to be Socialist, none of them has tried to do more than to exploit every kind of discontent. Consequently, at all times, many items have been common to all three programmes. But beyond these common items each party has made its own particular appeal. The Communists have stressed their doctrine of street-fighting and armed uprising. Hitler has beaten the big drum of patriotism, and has exploited sentiments hostile to Jews, bankers and large-scale capitalism. The Social Democrats preached social reform, and appealed to anti-war sentiment and sympathy for internationalism and the League of Nations.

One consequence of the overlapping programmes of the three parties has been a large number of voters supporting now the one and then another. In the elections at the beginning of March, Hitler gained several million votes and the Communists lost nearly a million. The Manchester Guardian's Berlin correspondent says that "a great proportion" of the votes lost by the Communists went over to Hitler. (Manchester Guardian, March 7th.)

The Times' Berlin correspondent (March 2nd) said that the “really organised Communists, infected by the Russian Communist religion, number, at most, a few hundred thousand." The millions who voted Communist were described by this correspondent as disgruntled Social Democrats, "unemployed rendered desperate by poverty and insufficient food," and "even petty bourgeois ruined by the inflation."

A pamphlet published by the British Communist Party ("What Next in Germany?"— August, 1932) gives a summary of the programme of the German Communist Party early in 1932 : —

Already, some time before the elections, the Communist Party had issued its appeal for a United Anti- Fascist Front of the working-class with a programme which included; Resistance to all wage cuts and unemployment benefit cuts: for the extension of Social Insurance benefits; for the provision of funds to give work to the unemployed; for the reduction of hours to 40 per week with no reduction in earnings. For the withdrawal of prohibition against all working-class organisations, meetings and demonstrations; for the release of all class war prisoners; for the stoppage of all foreign debt payments and payments to the Hohenzollerns (the ex-Kaiser’s family) and other German princes.

Already this appeal had begun to receive increasing support from the workers in the factories and trade unions.

It will be seen that the programme was composed entirely of reformist demands. One disgusting feature of German Communist propaganda has been the appeal to national hatred, in the form of the demand that the debt payments and reparations (paid by German capitalists to foreign capitalists) should cease. This appeal was in the forefront of Hitler's programme also, and with it the Communists knowingly fostered the illusion that not capitalism, but foreign debts, are the cause of the misery of the German workers. Even the German Social Democrats and the breakaway party, the German Socialist Workers' Party (which rejoined the S.D.P. at the end of February) protested against this Communist exploitation of ignorant nationalism, bound to play into the hands of Hitler.

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Socialism and Toleration. (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and Toleration

A correspondent asks the following question: 

Would the S.P.G.B. forbid religious instruction and close down the churches, as has been done by the Bolsheviks in Russia, in view of the fact that, even after revolution, a minority will probably still cling to superstition; or, on the other hand, would the Party adopt an attitude of toleration, relying upon the march of science and progress to eradicate religion ?

Reply.

Although the Bolsheviks suppress their political opponents our correspondent is mistaken in saying that the Russian Government has closed down the churches. Subject to certain restrictions and disabilities religious worship is permitted in Russia and is fairly widely practised.

With regard to the main part of the question, of course, the Socialist majority after conquering political power, would not use that power for the needless and provocative purpose of suppressing the propagation of minority views, whether religious or political. The work of the S.P.G.B. is based on the fact that the Socialist case is sound and only needs to be understood by the majority of the workers for them to accept it. Our confidence in the correctness of our position rests on the only sure foundation, that is, that so far from trying to suppress criticism we permit and encourage our opponents (including religious opponents) to state their case on our platform. Ours is the only party in Great Britain which does this, and we can say with confidence that the movement built up in this way will never take refuge in the cowardly and in the long run unnecessary persecution of a religious or political minority. 

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Communism and Socialism. (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Communism and Socialism.

Reply to C. L., Vancouver Island B.C.

Engels in his 1888 Preface to the “Communist Manifesto" explained why in 1847 Marx and he called their Manifesto "Communist" and not "Socialist." It was to distinguish the revolutionary working class movement from the middle-class utopian movement, which at that time called itself Socialist. Later on this method of distinguishing the two movements ceased to be necessary, and Marx and Engels habitually used the terms Socialist and Socialism to indicate what they had formerly indicated by the terms Communist and Communism.

The Third (Communist) International called itself by that name to distinguish itself from the Labour parties and their International. They now use the term "Socialism" to mean the stage of development which in their view is intermediate between the future Communism and the present mixture of State and private capitalism as it exists in Russia. Thus Leontyev in his "Towards a Classless Society" (Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the U.S.S.R , Moscow, 1932) writes:—

The classless socialist society which we must build during the second five year period, represents only the first, the lower phase of Communism.—(Page 25.)

When the Russian Communists want to indicate something approximating to what the S.P.G.B. defines as Socialism, they use the term Communism.

With regard to the withering away of the State, see January Socialist Standard. 

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: Russia's Bondholders. (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia's Bondholders.

Reply to P. L., Poplar.

In addition to commercial credits obtained by the Russian Government abroad, and unofficially estimated at between £200 million and £300 million, the Russian Government has raised large sums at home to help finance the new industries. The total sum so obtained, according to information given in the Moscow Daily News (Weekly Edition, January 5th, 1933), has exceeded the original estimate of 6,000 million roubles (£600 million) and has reached a total of over £1,000 million. £800 million of this is held by the Government direct, and the remainder by Government industrial undertakings. The interest paid to the bondholders is in most cases at 10 per cent., or more; on some issues there is no interest, but in its place the chance of winning a big lottery prize. The Moscow Daily News states that the bondholders number 40 million persons, "the vast majority of whom are workers and collective farmers.” No figures are given showing the extent to which a minority of wealthy individuals have large holdings. While the Russian Government is now trying to sell its bonds abroad it is certain that the major portion of the £1,000 million is held internally.

Ed. Comm.

Hard Times in the Peerage (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spare a tear for the Duke. Even Dukes have their worries. Remove the envious leer from your countenance for a moment and listen to the sordid tale of struggle and penury unfolded by the Daily Express (March 9th, 1933). How often is it said, one half the world does not know how the other half lives? What a debt we owe to the intrepid representative of that public-spirited journal, who dared everything, even the Hall Porter of the Savoy Hotel, that we might know—and understand. He found the Duke of Manchester struggling to put a bold face upon his poverty, in a luxurious suite of rooms, and absently smoking fat Turkish cigarettes “specially made to his order, with a coronet on the tip.” Whilst his valet served whiskies and sodas he unfolded the heartrending tale of his fifty-seven years of vicissitudes. “I have been so broke,” he said, “ at one time or another that I have only just been able to pay for my valet's meals . . ."

Those of our readers who have been reduced to this extremity will know what it means and sympathise. However, dry your eyes, for you will be relieved to learn that his income "is sufficient, normally, to buy a couple of meals a day and to provide the reasonable comforts of life . . ." We had better pause there, in the middle of his sentence, so that the continuation may be savoured in all its dire significance. Draw forth your handkerchiefs again and learn ". . . but it has been reduced by £50 a week on account of depression, and £50 a week is a considerable slice out of most people’s incomes.”

It is; it most emphatically is. Millions of hearts will throb responsively when they realise this great home-truth. The Duke, with a penetration as creditable as it is rare, has made a profound discovery. Fifty pounds a week, docked from your income, does make a difference. We cannot recall a single economist, publicist or statesman who has publicly called attention to this devastating fact. And why not? You will see that a duke is just as seriously affected as a plumber, or a baked-potato man.

The Duke of Manchester is a genius, doomed, unfortunately, to the fate that mankind has so often reserved for its greatest benefactors. Hitherto, genius has been left to die in garrets; now we let them eke out a precarious existence in a suite of rooms at the Savoy. What could this brain have done, if not doomed to a dukedom?" The same thought has occurred to the Duke.

"My one regret in life is that I was never allowed to go into business when I was a boy. It was considered infra dig in those days for a duke to do anything of the sort. I never was able to go into business until I was forty-two years of age, otherwise I might have been in a much better position now.

"I go in for a little private business now. I can't say what it is. Of course, my name must not figure in the schemes, and I can’t put any money into them, but I supply the ideas. I think my head is screwed on the right way, and I should have been sitting pretty if the depression had not come along. Why, even to-day, I have £270,000 j tied up in commodities, but, for one reason and another, I can't touch a penny—not a penny."

Here is a story of human anguish. One can savour the bitterness behind that cry: “Not a penny"; behind that tale of thwarted ambition. Who can doubt that had fate been kinder the Duke, in business, would have been just as capable of introducing a ten per cent. cut as any great captain of industry. The hearts of all our unemployed, especially those who have appeared before the Public Assistance Committee, will warm to this engaging figure. One sees him condemned to occupy a luxurious suite in the Savoy Hotel, to smoke innumerable fat Turkish cigarettes, to drink incessant whiskies and sodas, to be attended by his faithful valet, and dream of the time when he was a young man.

"When I was a young man and I found I had not enough money to live as I liked, I used to go away on world cruises, spent next to nothing for eleven months of the year, and come home and spend nearly a full year’s income in the other month." .

Here the Duke, with prodigal generosity, seems to have given the world one of his great ideas. Why do not the unemployed utilise their enforced leisure in this way?

Mr. Chamberlain has cheered us all up by seeing no definite improvement ahead for the next ten years. Why not go for world cruises—so much advertised just now—and “ spend next to nothing for eleven months"? All of us have “next to nothing," so there should be no difficulty on that score.

Quite a lovable creature, the Duke, don’t you think? And so full of ideas. “Say I am a philosopher," he said to the newspaper man. How different from those misguided unemployed, who supply the newspapers with particulars of their domestic budgets, and complain of the difficulty of living on the “dole." It is safe to say that few of them have had their income reduced by £50 per week, and fewer still are philosophising in their own suites at the Savoy. Spare a tear for the Duke.

W. T. Hopley

Here and There: On Initiative (1933)

The Here and There column from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Initiative

It is a commonplace argument of the apologists of capitalism that the possession of wealth is the reward for and the result of the initiative of its owners. Socialism, they argue, would destroy this initiative and progress would be impossible. Three reports in the Daily Telegraph for January 1st and January 2nd completely upset this claim.

It was stated that Professor Haldane, who was Professor of Bio-Chemistry at Cambridge University, was resigning his position to take up a position at the London University. Some remarkable facts were given of his career. It was stated that he had produced in his own body the condition of certain diseases in order to discover a remedy for them. In doing so he had knowingly and deliberately endangered his own life in order to increase the knowledge of science in the conquest of these diseases.

Yet he does not appear to have had any pecuniary advantage in view.

Another instance was given in an appreciative obituary notice of Dr. Alfred Smith: Dr. Smith was one of the eighteen pioneers of X-ray work. In devoting his life to X-ray research, he fell a victim to X-ray dermatitis. The consequences for Dr. Smith were the loss of a leg, semi-blindness, and physical ruin. Unable to practice in his profession, his life savings gone, he was rewarded with a disused army hut to live in, and 35s. a week from the Carnegie Hero Trust.

The Daily Telegraph also gave the names of twelve others who had lost their lives in the cause of X-ray.

The same newspaper reported the trial of J. Geen, the associate of Factor, the fraudulent company promoter, who had successfully displayed initiative in relieving his fellow capitalists of millions' of pounds. It was stated of Factor that he was an illiterate, who "was even unable to sign his own name without difficulty.

Such are the rewards for initiative. It would be true to say that the ownership of wealth by the modern capitalist class is as much due to initiative as Factor’s millions were due to his academic attainments.

Some Effects of Capitalism

From Wépszava (“The People’s Voice”), the Hungarian Social-Democratic daily, for December 22nd, 1932: —

In 1932 down to December 20th 1,126 women began giving birth to children in the street, and were taken to a hospital or nursing home. 1,126 fearful blows in the face for Hungarian social policy, which does not even take steps to see that new-born children shall come into the world with a roof over their heads! . . . A mother who finds herself lying in the hour of her greatest stress in the filth of the street instead of on a clean operating table, not only feels that society has no use for her, but that her child is born with the chains of poverty shackling its limbs, and to a destiny devoid of hope.

And from The Star, December 22nd, 1932: —

The best study I have seen recently of the psychological effect of unemployment is the vivid report on life in the Austrian village of Marienthal which appears in “Character and Personality.” The 1,500 inhabitants have been workless since a local factory closed three years ago, and are living on 5d. per family per day.

The investigators got at the facts in an ingenious way. Before distributing clothing they called from house to house, inquiring into the need, and in this way secured an insight into the domestic conditions. They also organised sewing classes and made the keeping of household accounts a condition of membership.

The inquiry revealed that the unemployed, having time on their hands, lose all sense of it. They become unpunctual and slowly resign themselves to a state which renounces even the discussion of politics and the reading of newspapers.

After three years the inquiry tabled only 14 per cent. as unbroken in spirit. Of the rest most were resigned to enduring their present state and the remainder broken completely. “heedless of the future as of the present.”

We can imagine all the parsons and priests in the kingdom arising with a great self-righteous show of protests if animals were treated with a fraction of the inhumanity meted out to the unwanted wage-slave.

Incidentally, these conditions and their results on the workers in Austria are a somewhat tragic commentary on the notion held by many woolly headed persons that starvation makes Socialists.

In the House of Commons

During the debate on the Kenya New Lands Trust Ordinance, which deprives the Natives of Kenya of the right to their lands on it being required by the Kenya Administration or White Settlers, Sir J. Sandeman Allen, commenting on the protests on behalf of the natives made by several prominent clergymen, said: “ . . .  If Church dignitaries in East Africa confined themselves to their missionary work and did not try to do anything outside of their proper sphere it would be. better for all concerned.” (Hansard, February 8th, 1933.)

The social influence of the Church seems to be in its twilight. When it interferes in class conflicts, as in the “General Strike,” it is told—in the words of Mr. Baldwin to the Archbishop of Canterbury—to ” mind its own business.” In short, the business of the parson is to console and not to interfere.

The varied attitude of the British Government in foreign affairs makes a somewhat interesting and contrasting reading. Mr. J. H. Thomas, being asked in the House of Commons what there was to be gained in pursuing the policy of the Government in relation to Ireland, replied (amidst laughter): “I have got a few hundred thousand pounds more as a result of the increased duties.” (Hansard, February 9th, 1933.)

On Saturday, February 10th, a wireless debate took place between students of Yale University, America, and students of Cambridge University, England, on the subject of War Debts. The English case was for the complete cancellation of War Debts, thus summarising the attitude of the British capitalist class as expressed through its Press. The reasons given for cancellation were ingenious, and were to the effect that cancellation was really in the interests of the United States of America. Somewhat after the sanctimonious manner of the schoolmaster, who, having punished a pupil, claimed the punishing to have hurt the schoolmaster the most. In Kenya the attitude of the British capitalist class is one of the heavy boot; in Ireland, that of a. bullying braggart; but their attitude to America is—well, sycophantic is a mild word, perhaps Pecksnifian would be appropriate. The reasons, of course, are obvious. Beneath the tender solicitude for backward countries and the polished verbiage of diplomatic documents, there are hypocrisy and greed as crude and as vicious as that which characterised the early days of Capitalism..

Strange Bedfellows.

The Leader, February 7th, 1932, contained an article called “Blasphemous Attacks on Christianity.” Among other books that were quoted was our pamphlet (without reference to its source of publication), “Socialism and Religion.” The Leader is very concerned about these attacks and thinks leaders of the Labour Party, especially ”those who call themselves Christian Socialists,” should do something about it. The Leader is a "tipster’s ” journal, which thrives on the belief among millions of gullible workers that they can get rich quickly and easily from betting and competitions of the kind run by popular newspapers for large money prizes. (Quite recently, a mathematician publicly stated that the chance of winning a prize in one of these competitions was many millions to one.) It is perhaps quite fitting that those who thrive on one form of superstition should feel a brotherly concern for those who foster superstition in another form.

The I.L.P. Finds Inspiration.

During January, letters appeared in the columns of the New Leader from members of the I.L.P. on the subject of “ Religion and Revolution.” The varied views held aptly expressed the confusion of ideas of the I.L.P. on the subject, and ranged from the view that “Christianity is Socialism” to an attitude that more or less approached the Marxist position on the subject. In the issue for January 10th, Dr. John Lewis replies in what the Editor of the New Leader describes as an “able contribution” to the discussion. Dr. Lewis's reply is a typical piece of I.L.P. shuffling. He evades the essential points in the letters from critics of Christianity, and, like Paton in his reply to a similar discussion on "Parliament and Democracy,” attempted to placate and satisfy all the diverse elements that make up the I.L.P. Christianity, he says: —

. . . .Takes on a totally different form according to the period, and at no period is it a mere reflection of a static economic order. . . . At periods of crisis in which we are mainly interested, religion splits. One part sanctifies the obsolete; one part champions the new order.

Which, as historical summary, is fairly accurate. But his conclusion, based on the above, is as follows: —

To-day religion inspires, for the first time, a movement which can achieve its ideal by building a classless society, and finally overthrowing the exploiters.

Dr. Lewis's view, which he attempts to support with Marxist formulae, is that the demand for Socialism by the workers will express itself in a religious form inspired by Christianity. Dr. Lewis is, of course, entitled to his peculiar views, but to pretend that these are the views of Marx is sheer misrepresentation of Marx's explanation of religion. Had Dr. Lewis gone one step further he might have discovered that the forces which, in the past, determined that Christianity took on a “totally different form according to the period,” also determined the decay of Christianity in Capitalist Society. So much so that, for all practical purposes, Christianity is dead so far as the workers are concerned. It is almost a certainty that if Christianity ceased to be taught in the Schools and subsidised by the State, it would quickly take its place in the museums of antiquities.

It is an interesting explanation, however, that the I.L.P.'s latest pose as a “ real revolutionary party ” is so inspired. This is a new angle on the decisions of the Bradford Conference, which was perhaps a waste of time.

Harry Waite

SPGB Meetings (1933)

Party News from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Meaning of Class Consciousness (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

What does the Socialist mean when he claims to be “class-conscious” ? Class is one, the most important, of the social groups into which human beings tend to be divided by the mutual association of individuals with like interests. It is the most important of these groups because the common interest involved is the primary one of bread and butter. The class structure of society rises immediately out of the prevailing mode of production and distribution: and in general every individual must belong to one or other of the classes existing at a given period, though he may belong to comparatively few of the sets and circles which serve his secondary activities.

From this standpoint, class-consciousness is thus one kind of “group-consciousness,” about which many academic sociologists have offered various confused and unsound views. Particularly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the capitalist class rose to political supremacy, the “Nation-State” was exalted to the skies by political and social writers who spoke of the “spirit of the people,” of the “will of the nation,” of the “group mind,” as something which had real existence over and above the brain-boxes of the individuals brought together in the group. Much as the ancients conceived the sky as an inverted bowl fixed over the earth, so Hegel’s “Absolute Spirit of the Universe” became for him incarnate in the kingly representative of the Nation-State—thus moulding to capitalist needs the idea of the divinity of the sovereign power which is inevitably generated in every society divided into classes, into exploiter and exploited.

To the Socialist, the "mind” of a group is but a mental abstraction of the common features of thought of the individuals belonging to it, by reason of their like reaction to like conditions. Another word for the thoughts and feelings which constitute the common mind of Socialists, or to a less degree of the capitalist class, is class-consciousness.

Notice that we do not say “of the working class”: for the principal element in class-consciousness, the recognition of a paramount class interest opposed to the interest of another class, is not a common feature of the minds of the workers as a whole. On the one hand sectional differences still loom largely in their minds; and on the other hand, consequently, they are all too easily beguiled into believing that they have some common interest (of “nationality” or trade, for instance) with their masters, the capitalist class.

The workers still tend to be split by differences of occupation, by slight differences of dress, or speech or education, unable to see the working-class wood for the trees, because they have not thoroughly grasped the common economic bondage of all who have to sell their energies for bread, that unemployed labourer and “disengaged" expert are dike under the necessity to beg for a job from a master.

Nor does the capitalist openly recognise that his interests are opposed to those of the workers. He is, indeed, anxious to impress upon the worker that they have a common interest in the running of the nation. It goes without saying, however, that this “community of interests" lasts for the capitalist only so long as the workers are content to accept the economic status of wage-slaves, and to maintain the master class in their privileged position as owners of the means of living. The class-consciousness of the capitalist is thus little more than an instinctive conviction that existing conditions are best—the natural conviction of a dominant class, in contrast with the class-consciousness of a subject and revolting class, which tends to he altogether more virile of thought in proportion as it questions the validity of current ideas and institutions, in proportion as it becomes revolutionary.

The class struggles of society, because they grow out of its economic foundations, work themselves out, as more or less blind trial and error adjustments of conflicting interests, whether or not the participants in a struggle realise its historical meaning as a social process having a necessary origin and a necessary outcome. And it is the peculiar feature of capitalism that it generates in the workers just that historical perspective which other classes have lacked. Forced to question the beneficence of the existing order, and the need for its continuance, by the pressure of unrelieved want and anxiety which the defenders of capitalism can neither remedy nor explain, armed with the scientific knowledge which is one of capitalism's essential products, the working class has in addition the lessons of all other class struggles to learn from. Because the working class is the last class needing emancipation, because the struggle between capitalist and worker is the last of all class struggles, capitalism only can provide the historical material for an analysis of all class struggles, of class in general.

It is this historical attitude, this scientific analysis of the past used to illumine the present class struggle, which constitutes the essential core of the class-consciousness of Socialists.

The Socialist is simply the worker who has become class-conscious, and who organises with his fellows who are like-minded. But if the numerical strength of the world's Socialist Parties is thus a measure of the number of workers who have achieved mental emancipation, it is by no means the exact measure of capitalism's remaining days. Elements of class-consciousness are present in the minds of large numbers of workers who are still confused and unclear. In any large gathering of workers, such as the recent unemployed demonstration in Hyde Park, there can be seen writ large on the faces around a grim antagonism to some dimly conceived enemy, a half articulate knowledge of a conflict which knows no reconciliation, a muddled but profound resentment against the mounted representatives of capitalist law and order who ride ruthless through their unarmed fellows. These vague feelings of solidarity with the “poor" against the "rich," so long as they remain uncrystallised by Socialist principles, into clear-cut class-consciousness, readily lend themselves to exploitation by the numerous brood of Communist and Labour leaders, and indeed by every politician who is in opposition to the Government. The reformist Labour and Communist parties are no less parasitical in the political field than is the capitalist in the field of production. These “leaders of the masses" suck up the discontent of the workers, leaving them politically anaemic and helpless. They feed upon the mass emotionalism which, uninformed by sound knowledge, degenerates into hooliganism and hysteria. The Communist Party attempts to reconcile its reformist activities with its revolutionary pretensions by the tragi-comical plea that the way to generate in the workers a revolutionary Socialist outlook is to concentrate on immediate reforms of capitalism. The “tactical" value of going out for particular reforms is recognised no less by the capitalist than by the Communist Party. For such activities divert the workers from the main issue, befog their minds, pit one section of workers against another, and all too often turn their political energy and enthusiasm into exhaustion and despair.

It is only the Socialist, the class-conscious worker who has analysed his class position for himself in its historical setting, who is at once independent of leaders and proof against their entire stock-in-trade of sentimentalism and reformism. It is he alone who cannot be sold, because he has no need to put himself in pawn. It is he alone who realises that the defensive struggle to resist the encroachments of the capitalist class upon the workers' standard of living is essentially subordinate to the aggressive policy of dispossessing the capitalist class at their political seat of power.

The function of the class-conscious worker, organised in the Socialist Party of Great Britain, is to fertilise the discontent of his fellow workers with this knowledge, which alone has power to make the master class tremble. It is in this sense that the formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and comrade parties abroad, their steady growth in numbers and activity in the face of every obstacle, is the vindication of the Marxian prediction: "What capitalism produces above all are its own gravediggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are alike inevitable."

Frank Evans

The Passing of Eduard Bernstein (1933)

From the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The death (recently announced) in Germany of Eduard Bernstein recalls a life which spanned a period that saw rapid growth and development in working-class history.

He was born in 1850 of working-class parents. At the age of 22 he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and eight years later became editor of the Sozial Demokrat, the official organ of the party. When Bismarck's anti-Socialist laws came into existence he had to leave Germany and for some years carried on his work as editor from Zurich, in Switzerland. In 1890 the anti-Socialist laws were withdrawn, but still Bernstein was not allowed to return to Germany. As a result he came to England, where he stayed for about 12 years until the ban was lifted.

During his stay in England Bernstein published writings, notably "Evolutionary Socialism," which afterwards came to be described and known as "Revisionism." He held that Marx's theories had to be modified on the grounds that capitalism had not developed along the lines that Marx had anticipated. He held, for example, that the middle-class and the capitalist-class were not decreasing in numbers, but were increasing both in numbers and in the amount of wealth that they owned; that the theory of the recurring cycle of industrial crises was wrong. Bernstein produced statistics, based on income-tax returns, to show that at one period there were more millionaires than at a slightly earlier period: and this, he claimed, was a flat contradiction of the theory that wealth was becoming concentrated into fewer and fewer hands ! What he seemed unable to grasp was that in a period of rapid capitalist expansion the capitalist-class could increase in number and wealth without affecting the concentration of wealth into fewer hands. Nor did he connect the fact of an increase in the number of millionaires with a possible decrease in the number of smaller capitalists. Similarly, what he mistook for a middle-class growing in numbers and security was a growing army of relatively well-paid salaried workers and officials who were brought into existence by capitalist development. Bernstein's "Revisionism" was in the first place due to his failure to interpret modern tendencies in the light of Marxian teachings; and, secondly, to the anti-Marxist influences of the British labour movement. He was lavish in his praise for the Fabian Society—particularly Mr. and Mrs. Webb—and the "I.L.P.," and held the "progressive reformism " of these organisations before the Social Democratic Party as being suitable for Germany. Like the I.L.P. in this country, he advocated compensation for the capitalists, arid stated that to expropriate the capitalist class without compensation was "robbery."

Bernstein's standpoint caused great consternation in the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and on his return debates on Revisionism took place at the party's conferences. He remained in the party, however, and gathered round him considerable support for his views. The acceptance of Bernstein's position by large numbers of German workers who professed an understanding of Marxist principles pointed to something more than the strong personal position that he held. It showed, above all else, the unsound and shaky foundation of the German Social Democratic Party. Though it had claimed to be Marxist, and through its leading members had published many sound theoretical expositions of Marx's writings, so little had this soundness been translated into policy that so far as concerned practical politics the differences between the "Marxist" and Revisionist sections of the party proved to be negligible. The one claimed to accept Marx; the other refuted him. Both sections, however, supported the policy of electioneering on a reformist and anti-Socialist programme. The result of this policy has justified condemnation of it. In 1919 the Social Democratic Party held power in Germany; but it was limited—by the millions of non-Socialist supporters who had voted it—in the extent to which it could interfere with the legally established property rights of the German capitalist-class. It therefore had no alternative but to administer capitalism. In consequence many German workers learned that capitalism is still capitalism no matter what Government administers it. To-day the German Social Democratic Party commands little more than a third of the votes it did in 1919. Moreover, its failure has damaged the progress of Socialism since the workers do not realise that the S.D.P. is not Socialist.

Bernstein opposed the War in 1914, while the so-called "Marxists" supported it. In taking up this attitude he found allies—temporarily—in such working-class champions as Karl Leibknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

Harry Waite