Is This The Last War? (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are signs indicating that the war in Europe may soon end, at least our masters seem to think so. They are now busily engaged in removing from the shop window those glowing promises they used as bait for the war effort.

The Presidents of Chambers of Commerce no longer speak of full employment, but the necessity of developing “our" export trade. The wages, of course, are to be as high as possible, but costs must be kept low enough to enable the foreigner to buy our goods.

During critical periods a glowing picture of the future is portrayed, but when the exploiter perceives the war is in the bag he quickly gets down to rock bottom business.

It is strange but true that amid the chaos and confusion that accompanies the attempts of the capitalist class to adapt themselves to the changes they anticipate the truth of the real situation is more clearly revealed.

Mr. E. W. Collinson, President of the Halifax Trade Protection Society, in the “Yorkshire Post” of February 27th, says, "Full employment would cure nothing. To be of value, it must be full employment in producing goods which could be consumed. Stocks in themselves were a liability until they were sold, and paid for. It was the crux of the business they should be paid for the goods they had made otherwise they would be piling and locking up their capital. What was really wanted in this country was a rational incentive to work, and work hard, with standards of efficiency, and bonuses as an incentive as in Russia.”

He perceives what many of the ruling class are becoming cognisant of, and that is that certain features of the Soviet System can be introduced in most capitalist countries with advantage to those who are the recipients of surplus value. It may be that the rivets of the chains on the wage slave’s limbs will shortly be tightened with the hammer borrowed from the only "socialist” country in the world, you never can tell.

The Communists are along with others advocating nationalization as the cure of the miners ills. The former should be sure that this is the correct orientation. In “Truth” (February 23rd), we have the following: "Plans for the nationalization of Industry and the Banks put forward by the Finnish Social Democratic Party are opposed by the Russian Control Commission on the ground that they are contrary to Russian interests. The Commission is reported to have said they take the view that if the plans were carried out, Finland’s productive capacity would decrease, and the Finns would have difficulty in fulfilling reparation deliveries.”

There you are! Where are you?

Anthony Eden stated in the House the other day, "We do not say we can establish the conditions again where there will never be a war, but I believe if we can hold this unity we can establish peace for 25—or 50 years—who can say? But unless we can hold it there will not be peace for anything like that period of time. The moment this fighting ceases Germany will be out on the old theme of propaganda again. She will play off us against Russia and Russia against American and ourselves. She will play on all that self pity she knows so well.”

Eden did not mention the Lublin committee in this connection. What hand will they play? There are many Lublin elements scattered around. He said neither he nor Churchill liked the look of the Lublin committee. The question arises, who is responsible for the establishment of this body? The matter was not raised in the House of Commons, but it will raise itself in the not far distant future.

There can be no peace under Capitalism.

Harpers Magazine for December on the future strength of Germany has something to say on the problem.

Reparations alone will not be sufficient to decentralize European Industry.

Certain sacrifices on the part of the principal United Nations will also be required. If Russia for instance manifests an unduly expansionist attitude in the post hostility period the forces of Britain and the United States, most sensitive to the Soviet threat, will demand .a strong Germany. If Britain pushes for European markets at the expense of the initially weak industries of non-German states, Britain's own political security will be thereby undermined. On the other hand if the United States aggressively enters present British markets, Britain in order to live, may feel bound to take a political risk in a continental trade drive that may stifle the growth of industry in non-German countries.

You see fellow wage slaves where you get off at—where you were before the war.

Your children will be used in the next conflict to do something similar to what you have done in this. We do not wish to rub it in, we must be cruel only to be kind. There is nothing in this system for us as workers except what we are getting. The ruling class cannot do anything.. It is up to you. If you want economic security realise you can not have it under Capitalism, it is economically impossible. Those who tell you otherwise lie to you or do not understand. The Labour Party is a reactionary body, and so is every political party that supports the wages system. In order to abolish war it is necessary to abolish the cause of war and that is production for sale. If you have a sincere desire to promote the welfare of mankind you should realise that only by becoming active in an organization that stands for the complete overthrow of the existing system can you do effective work in this connection.

We need no national barriers, the interests of the workers can best be promoted by international fraternity. We need no money we aim at producing wealth for all We need no wages; so long as workers are paid for their labour power others, who are non-workers, will receive the results of their labour. The means of production commonly owned and wealth brought into being for the enjoyment and well-being of mankind. That is our goal and eventually we shall make it. You fellow worker may not see eye to eye with us at the present juncture. You may be under the illusion that peace and plenty can be obtained in some other way. There is no other way. Socialism or Capitalism that is the choice. We refuse to try to please you by making false statements or inducing you to believe that which is not true. We echo the sentiments of the man who wrote the “History of the Paris Commune." “He who tells the proletariat fairy tales or who leads them to believe their history has been different to what it has been is as criminal as the navigator who draws false charts for mariners."

The S.P.G.B. has a record of which its members are justly proud. In all the ups and downs of the proletarian struggle the Party has stood like a rock for Socialism; every other party has wobbled and gone after the rainbow of something now. When you are anxious to find out what is wrong in human society, look us up.

Charles Lestor

Letter: The Cause of Crime (1945)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The letter below continues the correspondence in our December issue.

Sir,—If, as you say, crime “is to be explained by the capitalist environment in which we live," how is it crime flourished in pre-capitalist eras in Europe and also in ancient civilisations?

As for crime not flourishing in early communistic communities "when there was no private property and sex relations were free" that is a mere dogmatic assertion. If Morgan's “Ancient Society," or Engels’ “Origin of the Family" are accepted as authoritative, sex relations were never “free," but were rigidly controlled even under the system of “group marriages," the men of one genus being forbidden to marry outside other specified gens. Those who violated this “social rule of the time" were criminals, and judging by what we know of primitive tribes to-day, severely punished for violating this or any other tribal taboo. All anthropologists show that primitive tribes are more rigidly restricted than civilised, and their “criminals" are outlawed or more drastically punished.

To-day sex relations outside wedlock are not treated as crimes among the civilised, not are those responsible punished by the authorities. An unmarried couple living together are treated as married in respect to soldiers' allowances, and I believe also with regard to receipt of unemployment benefit. In any case, sexual relations outside marriage are almost the rule among millions of people in Britain, and few normal men have failed to indulge in some intercourse some time in their lives without being punished.

War, you say, is not regarded as criminal because the rulers of capitalist society justify it. Actually war is as enthusiastically supported by Communists inside and outside Russia, and by Socialists all over the world, as by capitalists; otherwise war would be impracticable. Incidentally, how many pacifists went to goal in this war or the last who were members of the S.P.G.B.? I never heard of one. Socialists are to-day the most enthusiastic supporters of war and even Marx supported the Franco-Prussian War. Poor men as well as rich kill in war and justify the killing, and I have not noticed any very robust protest against Britain's participation in the present war in the “Socialist Standard."

You say that poor men who kill cannot be saved from hanging by any abstract principles. Actually, a large proportion who kill are, for one reason or another, not hanged. But I should like the details of the “many avenues for escaping hanging" you say are available for rich men who murder, that are not available to the poor murderers in Britain, who, incidentally, have adequate legal defences provided free of charge.

You say that prostitution, over-and-under-eating, over-drinking, war, blind pursuit of wealth, and enslaving of native people “are all consequences of capitalism." Yet every one of these evils was as rife in days of ancient Rome, Babylon, etc., many centuries before capitalism was ever thought about.

If poverty is the chief cause of crime, how is it many rich persons are convicted, and why is it that America, the most prosperous nation, has the highest crime-rate and India, the poorest, has the lowest?

As for the suggested greater crimes of Protestants compared with Catholics upon native people and in mines and factories, while not defending Protestant crimes any more than I defend the colossal crimes and persecutions by Marxians in Russia, I might remind you that it was Catholics who introduced slavery in South America, and who, according to Buckle, destroyed two native civilisations in one generation. Also Catholics founded the Inquisition long before Capitalism was established.

Again, I remind you that Catholic Italy had the biggest homicide rate in pre-war Europe, and that Catholics in any environment are notorious for criminality. In a pamphlet recently written by Alderman Longbottom of the Liverpool Education Committee, you will find that 82 per cent. of the boy criminals of Liverpool in 1930 were from R.C. schools which had a minority of scholars. Council Schools with a far greater number providing only 6 per cent., the other 1.2 per cent. being from C. of E. Schools.

Alderman Longbottom meets the point about the alleged greater poverty of Catholics by comparing the children of Council Schools with a tiny crime rate with the Catholic children in the same area having an enormous crime-rate. Similar disparities were tabulated by Sir Percival Sharp (in “Education," May 10, 1941), regarding Leeds, Wolverhampton and Newcastle.

Thus economic conditions are only one, and by no means the most important cause of crime. Improved economic conditions since 1939 have been accompanied by a still greater crime-rate among children and, judging by the reports of investigators and the striking increase of venereal diseases, among adults by greater immorality which you wrongly say is due to poverty. Actually sexual licence is greater to-day in Britain and America than ever before in history, although prosperity there was never so widespread. Over 20 per cent. more beer was consumed in Britain in 1943 than in 1938, and thefts among dockers and on railways were six times as rife in 1943 when wages were twice as high as in 1938.

Yours, etc.,

G. Whitehead.

Reply.

Mr. Whitehead still side-steps the question at issue by putting forward irrelevant statements and repeating arguments that have previously been answered. Nearly all that lie brings forward in his present criticism was answered in the December “Socialist Standard" and be has not replied to those answers. It was our contention that what constituted crime and what produced it was the social conditions of the time and therefore crime to-day “is to be explained by the capitalist environment in which we live." Obviously we can’t repeat all that we have written in the previous reply and must refer the reader to it for the detailed answer to Mr. Whitehead. However we will make one quotation from this reply :

  “Prostitution, over-drinking,over and under-eating, the blind pursuit of wealth and the enslaving of native people, war, and the strain of modern life are all consequences of capitalism; and have a demoralising influence on people. All these things contribute to a weakening of the social instincts. They were all present in previous forms of society, but have reached their highest expression and greatest power for evil in the capitalist system.”

When we have thus pointed out that the causes of crime were also present in past forms of society, why does Mr. Whitehead ask again the question "how is it crime Nourished in pre-capitalist eras in Europe?” We have already said it did! and we have explained why.

Mr. Whitehead says that he is not defending Protestant crimes—but he is much concerned to urge that Catholics are greater criminals. And what is his evidence? He “reminds” us that Catholics introduced slavery in South America and founded the Inquisition. He has forgotten that later it was Protestants who introduced slavery in North America and did their best to exterminate the native Indian population. He has also overlooked the fact that at the time the most powerful military nations of the world were Catholic—Spain was in the plenitude of its power—and that Protestantism was professed by a small fraction of the world's population. It was mainly Protestants who introduced child slavery into the factory hells of England and America. No, it won't do! It is not because the dealers in human flesh and tears were Protestants or Catholics that they perpetrated the vile crimes that have blackened the pages of history, but because they were owners of private property and were adding to their wealth by exploiting their fellows. This apparently does not concern Mr. Whitehead, who seems to be simply anxious to whitewash one of the groups who vend “the opium of the people."

Bad economic conditions in Italy and in other places have produced high rates of crime—most of which are crimes against property. We notice that in quoting the crime rates in Liverpool—a veritable cesspool of working class misery— it is the poor scholars and not the rich that are the basis of his rates. May we add that Liverpool is notorious as one of the first landing grounds of poverty stricken (and Catholic) Irishmen, Mr. Whitehead should pay more attention to the basis of his crime rates otherwise his figures produce an illusion. But the final joke. He tells us that crime among children, and venereal disease among adults has increased since 1939—in spite of “improved economic conditions.” Does Mr. Whitehead really grasp the meaning of economic conditions? Children have been moved all over the country.; families have been bombed out and are living in shelters; there is an acute housing shortage and families are crowded into unhealthy dwellings; children have been running wild on the street; a capitalist-produced war has made thousands of young men and girls in and out of the forces irresponsible and has brought into existence the black market and many other lures to crime. Yet Mr. Whitehead is surprised and nonplussed at the spectacle of increasing crime and prostitution! Why is it only during wartime that the government go to such lengths as putting up posters to warn people against the dangers of venereal disease ?

It is reasonable to infer from Mr. Whitehead's letter that he is well acquainted with the contents of the “Socialist Standard" and therefore he knows how insistently we have urged that Russia is not a Socialist country and the Communist propaganda is a disservice to the cause of Socialism. In spite of his statements to the contrary he must also know that we have been opposed to the War from its outbreak until to-day. Our pamphlet “Questions of the Day” is sufficient answer on these points.

Mr. Whitehead asks for details of the avenues by which rich men can escape hanging when poor men can't. The answer should immediately occur to him. Wealth can purchase medical testimony of useful kinds to impress judge and jury; it can fetch witnesses from all over the world; it can provide a barrage of the most skilful barristers and solicitors with assistants to hunt up records and precedents; it can also buy witnesses. There is also the general fact Mr. Whitehead overlooks—the undiscovered crimes committed by the wealthy which they can commit because they are wealthy, and which do not figure in crime statistics.

Now a few words about sex. Mr. Whitehead's logic is peculiar. He asserts that intercourse outside of wedlock is committed by nearly everyone, therefore, it is not regarded as a crime. Very well. Theft is also committed by nearly everyone in one way or another is it on that account not a crime? Is he of opinion that only those who are found out commit a crime? If promiscuous intercourse is not regarded by present society as a crime, why is it kept so secret and why are "keepers :of disorderly houses” prosecuted? When a married man or woman has intercourse outside of wedlock and is found out they are liable to divorce procedure and punishment for committing adultery. If two unmarried people live together their union is unlawful, as they often find out to their cost, and their children are likely to be penalised by society in many ways. During war-time, and at other times when it suits our social rulers, the restraints on the production of children are relaxed so that factories and war machines may be kept well supplied.

In the earliest days of social development there was no private property and no restrictions on sexual intercourse. The restrictions came in slowly and for thousands of years were simply aimed at preventing intercourse between close blood relatives—brothers and sisters, fathers and daughter. mothers and sons, grandparents and grandchildren. Since Mr. Whitehead cites L. H. Morgan we will quote from him. The extracts are taken from the 1887 edition of “Ancient Society” :

  “The organisation into classes seems to have been directed to the single object of breaking up the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, which affords a probable explanation of the origin of the system.” (page 58).
   “If then community of husbands and wives is found to have been a law of the savage state, and, therefore, the essential condition of society in savagery, the inference would be conclusive that our own savage ancestors shared in this common experience of the human race.” (page 59).
   “Intermarriage between brothers and sisters had not entirely disappeared from the Sandwich Islands when the American Missions, about fifty years ago, were established among them. Of the ancient general prevalence of this system of consanguinity over Asia there can be no doubt, because it is the basis of the Imanian system still prevalent in Asia. It also underlies the Chinese.” (page 386).
   "The growth of the idea of property in the human mind commenced in feebleness and ended in becoming its master passion. Governments and laws are instituted with primary reference to its creation, protection and enjoyment. It introduced human slavery as an instrument in its production; and, after the experience of several thousand years, it caused the abolition of slavery upon the discovery that a freeman was a better property-making machine.” (page 505).

Thus the rigid control, in the sense in which Mr. Whitehead is arguing, at the dawn of human history is a figment of the imagination.

It is a waste of time for Mr. Whitehead to blindly repeat the same contentions without meeting the arguments we have put against them. We have given ample evidence to show that crime in general can only be explained by the social environment, and modern crime by the capitalist environment in which we live. He has been given plenty of scope, but has not attempted to meet this case and we therefore consider it useless to discuss the question further with him.

Editorial Committee

Herrenvolk in South Africa (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "But assuredly South Africa is a land of bitter divisions.
  This fact stares you in the face as soon os you set foot in the country. Benches in public places are labelled in English and Afrikaans “ Europeans Only.” The trains are divided into First and Second Class: European, first. Second, and Third Class: Non-European. These things are symbolic. They stand for the division into Black or White. They hint at the division into Boer or Briton. South Africa is apparently fairly liberal. But behind the facade lurks that brutality which Alexander Campbell has cleverly called the Sjambokracy.
  As far as the Boer-Briton division is concerned they are doing far too little. This is not only regrettable—it is calamitous.”
Rev. W. M. Macartney, M.A., in ‘‘Life and Work,” official organ of Church of Scotland. 

(Quoted in " Forward,” March 3, 1945.)

How Socialism "Works" (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

A difficulty with most people is that they do not understand “How Socialism would ‘work.' ” Especially mysterious to them is the idea of anything being able to “work" if it does not “pay.” Now, we cannot blame these people for their inability to comprehend these matters. We should not get sore when they accuse us of being unpractical theorists. For the plain simple fact of the matter is that the great majority of people are far too busy working —i.e., producing, first of all, a profit for their boss, and second, a wage for themselves—to worry about the scientific whys and wherefores of these things. What we call “politics" embracing as it does, or should do, the complicated subject of economics, is pretty well big enough to be a full-time job to study adequately.

Nevertheless, some at any rate of the salient facts of the matter are easy enough to understand when summarised, once we get out of our minds the mass of unnecessary complications, misrepresentations, and lies with which the ruling class seeks to discourage and confuse the enquirer.

The great central truth of Socialism tests on a straightforward, elementary fact that a moment’s reflection will show to everyone as valid and obvious. It is this: that there is in the world sufficient of everything for everyone’s requirements, and where it is not immediately available (as, for instance, cotton does not grow in England), it exists somewhere, or can be produced end transported. In other words, we have the raw materials, the crops, the factories, the transport, the labour, and the machinery (or the means of making new, extra machinery): all we need is a sane, simple method of setting all these to work, move, and be used by means of a co-operative interdependent plan.

There is no need to ask, “Will it ‘pay’?” Because, under Socialism, there won't be any need for a thing to “pay” anymore. If everything everyone requires is provided, that is all there is need to worry about. The worker—worker “by hand or brain”—need only contribute the amount of (physical or mental) effort required of him (or her) and all will be automatically entitled to whatever they require in the way of food, clothing, shelter, travel, etc., etc. We must look at the necessary activity of mankind as one process, not as we are encouraged to do under Capitalism, as a host of different actions, most of them for different ends.

The whole character of this process can be summed up in the time-honoured phrase, “production solely for use instead of profit.”

But, the confirmed objector will interpose, if nothing “pays,” if nothing yields a profit, how about the replacement of worn-out machinery, how about all the costs involved and the materials, etc., required in the processes of production? The answer is obvious enough : all needs, will be automatically met by the overwhelmingly plentiful production under a planned Socialist economy : but it is a fact that the deliberate under education and miseducation of the masses which is a deliberate and fundamental part of the capitalist art of government has succeeded in presenting this as a major, practically insoluble, problem for the “uninitiated.”

Skilful, and unprincipled, use of this “Will it pay?” bogey has driven many of the unwary into accepting the “nationalisation” idea, instead of Socialism. Nationalisation conforms to the “profit and loss” method which is familiar to and understood by all who have lived under capitalism. It conforms very neatly to all the capitalist rules, and produces pretty much the same results.

John Jennings

Racket Led Geo. Heath to His Death (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much has been written regarding the murder of Geo. Heath, the private-hire car driver, in the famous "cleft-chin’’ case. Ernest Bevin pointed out that in the case of the girl Marina Jones, the trouble “started with the dole."

Now we are told that Heath regularly made £120 a week. He used to "contact parties in the clubs in the West End, and take them out to various road houses in the Maidenhead area. . . . George had a very good business picking up people at Ascot, bringing them to town and taking them back.” (Evening Standard, January 25th.)

This means that Geo. Heath secured about £20 per trip to Ascot or Maidenhead.

This .tallies with the report in the People (February 12th) that 300 taxis were chartered on the 11th at £10 a cab for the return journey from London to Windsor for the races. Evidently some people have money to burn in spite of taxes!

Glasgow Branch decides to contest election (1945)

Party News from the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow Branch of the Socialist Party of Great Britain has decided to contest a seat at the next municipal election in Glasgow.

Already, candidates have been selected, a campaign committee is busily engaged in the task of organising meetings, and planning the assault on Woodside (the ward to be contested), and a tremendous wave of enthusiasm has enveloped the members of the branch, who are now making an all out effort to put the S.P.G.B. bang on Glasgow's political map.

Years of unremitting toil by the small group of pioneers who struggled on determinedly against the apathy and political backwardness of the working class, is now bearing fruit; and whatever vote the party obtains at the forthcoming election, in Glasgow at least, our opponents are going to know that the S.P.G.B. is on the march, and that we mean business!

Over a dozen young speakers are now in training for the outdoor propaganda season. They will be assisted then, by a number of London speakers who will be visiting Scotland during the summer months.

In the meantime, a series of indoor lectures are being held every Sunday in the Central Halls, and the response here has been encouraging.

We expect to be installed in our own election premises very shortly:—a shop where literature will be sold, and discussion groups, etc., held every evening. Members are resolved that we must make more headway in Scotland this year than ever before in the history of the organisation.

Here is the opportunity of all members and friends to “come to the aid of the party."

We will need money, and plenty of it! How about digging deep into the pocket. Every little donation will help, and you can be assured that it will be made good use of. Address all envelopes to Socialist Party of Great Britain, Central Halls, 25, Bath Street, Glasgow, C.2. And mark envelopes "Campaign."

Every donation will be acknowledged as received.

Do not fail us, in this hour of endeavour. We have the members and the speakers, you can help us obtain the funds!

Fred Crowe (Campaign Organiser).

America Land of Millionaires and Poverty (1945)

Editorial from the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The illusion still persists that capitalism is all right provided it is run on proper lines, “proper” meaning the way it is done in some ether country. U.S.A. has often been paraded as the land of successful capitalism, high wages, no unemployment, no poverty. Below are some facts about that country of opportunity.

 "Another bold plan for wiping out all slums in the United States will be introduced in Congress within the next few days, and it is believed that it has a good chance of being passed.
 The plan would provide 110,000,000 dollars (about £22,000,000) annually in Federal subsidies for public housing in both cities and rural areas, where, although it is not generally known, some very bad slums exist."— (New York Correspondent of “Manchester Guardian.” March 6th, 1945).

And here are some extracts from “The Rest of Your Life," by Leo Cherne, secretary of the Research Institute of America, based on an official census. They were reproduced in the “Daily Mail" (February 23rd, 1945). First the towns:—

•   One in four city dwellings have no private bath.
•   More than 1,000,000 dwellings, have no gas or electricity.
•   Many buildings have only one lavatory and one cold water tap to serve as many as a dozen families.
•   Almost half all city tenement houses have no central heat.
•   About one in three homes, apartments, or tenements could stand some major overhauling or basic plumbing.
•  Altogether, more than 10,000,000 city families live in substandard slum dwellings—too many jammed into too small an area, lack of recreation space for children, dark, vermin-infested rooms.
•   In Hartford, Connecticut, before the city's war boom made things worse, one out of every four people lived in a slum area.
•   Across country, to Butte, Montana, more than a quarter of that city's residential buildings were “not fit to live in or needed major repairs," according to official surveys.
•   Out to San Francisco, where the city's housing authority declared in 1942 that one out of every five homes was substandard.
•   Down to Dixie, where the situation in Louisville, Kentucky, is all too typical, with "96 per cent, of the families living in substandard homes"—according to the city's own Municipal Housing Commission.

The "Daily Mail" quotes Cherne as saying that in 1944, two million people in New York City alone were living in tenements that were officially condemned 60 years ago, in 1885, as "foul, unsanitary, and unfit to live in."

Then the farming people of the countryside:—

•   Nine out of ten had no private both or shower;
•   Five out of six had no running water at all;
•   Seven out of ten had no electric light;
•   One out of ten had no indoor lavatory or privy at all;
•   Three out of five had no refrigeration of any kind;
•   Seven out of ten were without telephones

And unemployment:—

  Something has to happen in America, Cherne declares, because if after war the nation does no better than it did in 1940—its best-ever peace-time year—between 10,000,000 and 15,000,000 Americans will be without jobs.
  In 1940, despite vast civilian output, one out of every six workers was looking for a job—8,500,000 unemployed altogether.

America, like Britain, is going in for prefabricated houses and for the same reason, that the poverty stricken cannot afford anything more costly.

Of course, there is guile in the publicity given by British newspapers to this sort of thing. They believe that British workers will more readily accept their own troubles as unavoidable when they know that "rich" America exhibits the same sordid poverty. Poverty is not a necessity anywhere. Poverty to-day is due to the capitalist system and will not be remedied except by establishing socialism.

Trade Unions in the Post War Picture (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the early stages of the present conflict, the leaders of the British Trade Union movement temporarily relinquished, at the request of the Government, many rights and privileges which had been won by struggles both on the political and industrial field during a period of sixty years.

It is very doubtful, if, with the information now available, the leaders consulted the rank and file of their members before agreeing to relinquish these rights and privileges, and appears to be a case of the dispensation of largesse without consultation. In addition to the rights and privileges forfeited—which the ruling class and the leadership of the Trade Union members “assure” the working class will be restored immediately the present conflict is brought to a successful conclusion—many additional embargoes and restrictions have been placed on the Trade Union movement by numerous legislative acts. These too have been, almost without exception, accepted on behalf of the membership by the leaders—again without consultation—and the assurance that all restrictive legislation will be withdrawn at the cessation of hostilities given by the capitalist class through its political mouthpiece, the National government.

Whilst the position has perhaps been accepted in a laissez faire manner by most trade unionists who have at best a very limited knowledge of capitalist society and its mechanics a minority of class conscious trade unionists are extremely sceptical concerning any assurance given by the capitalist class through its political machine. A sound knowledge of the industrial and political history of capitalism—in this or any other country—fully justifies this sceptimism. In spite of the fact that the old adage "History repeats itself" is generally considered to be moth eaten and obsolete, it remains nevertheless true.

It appears conclusive that the restoration of rights and privileges and the removal of restrictive legislation, either wholly or partially, will only be accomplished-by an intensive struggle on the industrial field. Whilst a struggle of this nature may be necessary, and even if the working class are able to secure the restoration of industrial rights and the withdrawal of repressive legislation—and the writer is by no means sure that will be accomplished either wholly or in part—the class position of trade unionists as members of the propertyless class will remain generally unaffected. Whilst the working class operate the machinery of production and do in fact produce wealth in superabundance, they do not own the machinery of wealth production. The ownership is vested in the hands of a small minority who play no part, or at best a very insignificant part in wealth production. All that is possessed by the working class as a whole is its labour power. In return for producing wealth, it receives a small proportion back in the form of wages, in order that it might purchase the common means of life. The working class is obliged to sell its labour power in an open market, a market wherein the possessing class follow the inexorable maxim of buying labour power as cheaply us possible. During periods of so-called booms or prosperity within capitalist society, when there is what is termed a shortage of labour power, the working class or at least sections of it may be able to secure a higher return for labour power. Daring periods of so-called depression, when unemployment looms large on the industrial horizon, the working class as a who!e is forced to sell its labour power at a much lower figure. "When ten men compete for one job, wages will of necessity fall " said Marx.

Trade Unionists will sooner or later realize that capitalism—i.e., the private ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution—is the cause of their poverty and its attendant evils, and that any and all reforms within capitalist society will do nothing more than to bring about some slight amelioration of the poverty problem. Trade Unionists will ultimately accept the Socialist case of the S.P.G.B., that the only solution is the ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution by the working class, to be administered in the interests of the community as a whole. With this understanding clearly established in the mind of the working class, we shall be standing on the threshold of a new and happier era in human history.

Lewis Lee

By The Way: Juries are Wiser To-day (1945)

The By The Way column from the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Juries are Wiser To-day

  So says “A Barrister, writing in the Star: “Juries to-day are quite different from what they used to be. They need very different treatment from prosecuting and defending counsel alike, as well as from the judge. Jurors to-day are sophisticated and educated men and women."
  "Bullying witnesses, desk-banging, strident and over-emphatic oratory are useless with modern jurors. . . . Modern juries resent such tactics. Counsel to-day has, to rely on quiet, careful, logical argument. Sophistry and' flattery are often detected. . . . Jurymen and jury women have to be treated as highly intelligent."
  "In war time there are only seven jurors instead of twelve, and they are very mixed—housewives, professional men, tradesmen and mechanics." (The Star, January 10th)

In other words, the working class is growing up. Barristers will find, in future, that when they appear before the final jury in the highest court of all, the electorate, that sophistry, flattery and oratory will no longer do the trick. When "mechanics" and "housewives" prefer "quiet, careful, logical argument" to histrionics, the Socialist propagandist has the ball at his feet.

Boy Gang Chief Shot Dead in Rome

  "Seventeen year old Guiseppe Albano was shot dead in a Rome battle in which 300 police with armoured cars took part. . . .
  "For some time after the liberation of Rome, Albano was known as the 'Boy Patriot.’ He boasted of having murdered 40 Germans or Republican Fascists.
 "He and his followers lived in a villa in the Quarticciolo district, which was surrounded day and night by armed guards with tommy-guns. Clad in a sheepskin coat and throwing out banknotes right and left, ‘The Hunchback’ used to stride through the streets, but always with his bodyguard in attendance."—(Daily Herald, January 16th.)

But Guisseppe made the fatal mistake of failing to distinguish between German "tyrants" and British "Liberators," and raided an Allied car park. He at once ceased to be a "Boy Patriot "and became a "gang leader," like the one-time "patriots" in Greece, and received nine bullets (Mark I., British, Liberation) in his body.

Like Karl Hulten, who said after shooting George Heath, "people in my profession have no time to worry about that"; or Private Smith, the American soldier who shot Sir Eric Teichmann, the diplomat, dead on his estate in Norfolk, about whom his commanding officer asked the psychiatrist, "Does he know it is wrong to kill?" Albano did not understand that it is wrong (at the moment) to kill Allies—but right to kill Nazis. Though, in a war where whole nations have changed sides with bewildering ease and rapidity, perhaps these boys might be expected to be confused.

After all, Mr. Churchill and Sir Walter Citrine and others have now alternately denounced and praised Finns, Russians, Frenchmen, Italians, Slavs, Greeks, Belgians, Roumanians, etc., until at least half of them don't know whether they are "Allies” and "Patriots" or "gangsters" and "ruffians."

The Socialist idea of having nothing to do with any of it is the best.

Coming Down? (Wages)

Lord Woolton has declared in a speech at Bristol on January 20th that the Government’s plan for full employment would be jeopardised if the Trade Unions pressed for better wages. (Reynolds News, January 21st.) "The general wage level cannot lie raised more rapidly than our productivity increases."

This is yet another reference to P.M.H. (Production per Man Hour) which is the main concern of industrialists after the war.

Mr. Oscar Hobson, City Editor of the News-Chronicle (February 2nd), points out quite bluntly: —

  Some of my friends who have a knowledge of conditions both here and in the United States assert roundly that to no small extent America’s advantage in P.M.H. is due not to better mechanisation but to the fact that the American worker does a much better day’s work than the British.
  . . . It is vital to our future prosperity that the facts relating to that and other matters of American and British industrial experience should be established and fearlessly made public, even if they are unflattering to ourselves or to some section of our community.

Fascism will NOT be Eradicated

The issue of the People for 12th February in an article by The Philosopher on "After Victory—Realities," declares:—

  At intervals a figure, absent three or more years, will turn up in each neighbourhood until the event passes unnoticed by all except those intimately concerned.
  Each will be faced with his own problem, re-starting a business, training for a job, resuming an old, or finding a new one.
  There will be common difficulties, too. The house shortage will increase the need of being with "in-laws," and tempers will become frayed.
   When a house is wonderfully come by, home building will prove provokingly expensive.
   Meantime, those conscious of trends outside their own circle will be amazed at the ease with which democratic leaders will forget their war-time promises.
   Fascism in Europe will not he eradicated as we were once told it would be. Murdering Fascists and their accomplices will escape punishment.—(People, February 12th.)

Who were the "democratic leaders” who told us Fascism would be eradicated? Morrison, Bevin, and the Labour Party crew. Which publications re-iterated it? Those of Odhams Press, publishers of The People.

More than a Thousand

  "You are now being told—and in the next few years you will be told again a thousand times—that there is a third way, neither Socialism nor Capitalism, but something culled a planned economy, which will benefit everyone equally. . . .
  “If sacrifices are to be made, there will be 'equality of sacrifice.’ The divergent interests of rich and poor will be obscured by an appeal to emotional nationalism and an emphasis on service and national discipline."—Prof. P. M. S. Blackett, F.R.S., in a talk broadcast in March, 1931, published in "The Frustration of Science," page 139.

Fitness of Service Girls

Mrs. Gowing, who is responsible for organising "vast numbers" of the A.T.S., says that "the fitness of the girls appeals strongly to employers, in a nation which has largely lacked medical attention in the war years; these girls have had their bodies, teeth and feet cared for; they have the energy which breeds initiative." (Observer, November 26th, 1944.)

Perhaps Mrs. Glowing is unaware of the published statements of the authorities, Ministry of Health, etc., claiming that the nation’s health has improved during the war. We agree with Mrs. Gowing—the nation (the working class) has largely lacked medical attention during the war—but it had none during the peace, either. It is not war which prevented medical attention, but poverty—which is here always. We go farther and claim that the nation would not require this sort of medical attention at ALL, if poverty— the main cause of social disease to-day—were abolished by Socialism.

It is interesting to have an official statement that the girls’ bodies, teeth and feet have been looked after—proving that, when needed, the capitalists are quite ready to do what reformers have demanded for years—care for the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Horatio.

The "Friends" of Scottish Workers (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the working class was granted the vote there has never been a shortage of busy-bodies who—hand-on-heart, have declared their ardent sympathy and interest in workers' problems.

When elected, of course, the workers become the "constituency" and each M.P. "looks after his constituency" and looks ahead to the next election. W. Gallacher, A. Woodburn, D. Kirkwood and other Parliamentary luminaries are engaged at the moment—amid other equally laudable pursuits—in pressing the post-war claims of Prestwick Aerodrome. All three are campaigning for the "Forth Road Transport Bridge and have endorsed Hector McNeil, Labour M.P.'s efforts to modernize the Clyde so that the largest ships can be docked at Greenock and Glasgow"

Other Scottish M.P.'s—with an eye on their constituency—are eloquently expatiating on Scottish needs and problems. The "Daily Express," February 15th, gave considerable space to a report of a Parliamentary debate on a Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Bill. Thos. Johnston—the mover the bill said: "In the Tradeston division of Glasgow, for example, there are 127 houses or more than 700 persons to the acre." He said: "The measure won't bring a new Jerusalem to Scotland, but would assist local authorities to deal with problems." In short, a confession of impotence unuusal in its frankness. In the came report there is a gem of a phrase coined by Campbell Stephen, I.L.P., M.P.:— "We in Scotland have had a raw deal. Our association with England has not given us an opportunity to deal with housing and industry." Characteristically, however, W. Gallacher, M.P., capped the lot with "Effete Sassenachs were incapable of dealing with the planning problems which confronted them in Scotland and in consequence the Sturdy Scot had been bound hand and foot and dragged behind them in this miserable bill." He then went on to talk about the class war, which, he said, had done a thousand times more damage that the War.

Have the Scottish workers any doubts that Gallacher, Woodburn, Campbell-Stephen and Co., are really interested in working class affairs? Could they have?

Those of them who have, however vaguely, identified Socialism with an international outlook will be bewildered at Gallacher's talk of "effete" Englishmen and "Sturdy" Scots, particularly in view of his later and inexplicable reference to a class war.

They will think of "effete" "Scots," who bide here in Scotland for the "Glorious 12th" and "sturdy" Englishmen who "carry hods" here all the year round.

Supporters of the "Socialist" I.L.P. should feel uneasy about Campbell Stephen's "Our association—hasn't given us an opportunity."—They will, or should wonder who "Our and us" means and conclude that if it was Scottish workers—that is was Capitalism rather than association with England that had been and still is the source of working class problems.

The England, Irish, Welsh and American capitalists with investments in Scottish aviation, building, shipping and transport will applaud the efforts of the Scottish Communist, Labour and I.L.P. M.P.'s.

Kirkwood has already earned the title of "M.P. for John Brown's" among Clydeside workers: now it will be Woodburn "M.P. for Scottish Airways," McNeil "M.P. for Clyde Trust" and Gallacher "M.P. for Arrols and Wimpey's."

What all this has to do with the interests of the working class in Scotland no one knows. Perhaps the M.P.'s could tell us?

It certainly does not require genius or a microscope to perceive that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owning workers and a minority who are non-working owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large concerns whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world.

Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" concerns merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.

The Scottish workers don't have to attend a University to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "clearances" referred to by Marx in biting terms in "Capital" (Vol. 1), are any less brutal and avaricious than their English counterparts. Or do they?

Thos. Johnston's burning indictments of the Scottish ruling class make curious reading nowadays when he is Secretary of State for Scotland and seems to be on terms of easy familiarity with the present scions. The same remark applies to old copies of the "Forward" during his period of editorship.

There is a story told by John S. Clarke regarding Lenin's estimate of Gallacher in which he described Gallacher as a "_____ fool"; a story which Gallacher repudiated indignantly and inexplicably as "an insult to Lenin." Whether the story is true or otherwise is unimportant but at least reflects a view of Gallacher, increasingly common, among workers with memories and intelligence.

The ability of the Gallachers, Johnstons, Maxtons, Kirkwoods in getting away with their anti working class nonsense and buffoonery rests on the—as yet, political ignorance of the Scottish workers.

Their political and social interests—like their fellows everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy.

The political power that enables the privileged class to retain their social privilege is vested in control of the machinery which has its centre in Westminster.

This fact enables the Scottish, English and Welsh working class to co-ordinate their task of intelligently wresting this supremely vital control of political machinery from the hands of their class enemies—the masters; a co-ordination which has a fit and ready instrument in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The duty of the Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise in the Socialist Party democratically to take over power to establish Socialism.

Capitalism in Scotland, in England, America, Germany, Russia, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on.

These problems arise with sublime impartiality as to forms of government, climate and previous political history, they arise in democracies and dictatorships in the two hemispheres and in big and wee countries.

The Socialist analysis and solution is international in scope and outlook and the only way in which the Scottish workers can assist their fellows in India and Greece as elsewhere is to study, understand and organise for Socialism. As they do so, the boloney of the Labour, I.L.P. and Communist M.P.'s will become clearly apparent. "Our" problems are the problems arising from the capitalist nature of Society which is now world-wide and the solution for "us"—World Socialism in which wealth will be produced, controlled and enjoyed by all.

Thomas Anthony.