50 Years Ago: Armed revolt in Spain (1984)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

From a working-class and socialist standpoint the revolt was a piece of criminal irresponsibility. The overwhelming majority of Spanish electors are not socialist, and do not understand or desire socialism.

No minority, whether in Spain, Russia, Austria or anywhere else, can impose socialism on a hostile or apathetic majority. Forced, therefore, to abandon the idea of introducing socialism, the new rulers sooner or later accommodate themselves to the job of administering capitalism. Finding power sweet they develop the century-old technique of intrigue, deception, bribery, and arbitrary violence in order to keep themselves in power. Unable to give the reality of socialism they learn a new propaganda, which consists, crudely put, of calling the unregenerate capitalism by a new name — socialism.

Knowing this the Socialist Party of Great Britain refuses in any circumstances to countenance the policy of minority armed revolt. That road does not lead to socialism. In truth it leads nowhere, for workers who head that way must sooner or later retrace their steps if they are to play their part in achieving socialism.

[From an article, “A Vain Sacrifice” published in the Socialist Standard, November 1934.]

Letter: Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain. (1938)

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

A correspondent (Mr. J. C. Carr, Salford) puts several questions. Two of them, and our answers, are printed below. Others will be dealt with as space permits.

Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain.

The S.P.G.B. naturally does not agree with imperialist war, but what would you do if Hitler and Mussolini were to attack this country? Would the workers he expected to stand still with their arms tied as it were behind their backs?

Reply.

The answer, of course, is yes! Why ever not ? Hitler and Mussolini (which means the German and Italian sections of the robber class) would have only one object in threatening war against the British section of the robber class, that is, to plunder them right and left of the wealth they have accumulated and are now accumulating by the exploitation of the working class in the British Empire. The British ruling class would howl with pain and fury, but if the British workers stood still and declined to get all worked up over the thieves' quarrel the British would have to buy off their German and Italian rival bandits by handing over some of the spoil. For example, they would have to hand over lumps of the overseas Empire and, perhaps, pay colossal “reparations," thus reversing (as far as Germany is concerned) the process going on after 1918. But why should the workers worry about that? They might even find, as German workers in the post-War years, that unemployment would decline, while deliveries of goods were being made to the foreign powers, and also that when a ruling class has its hands full dealing with a stronger foreign power it is apt to be much less dictatorial and much more accommodating to its own subject class. It needs their loyal support and has to pay for it.

To put the matter in proper perspective, it should be observed that the German and Italian Governments would not want to add to their burdens by actually occupying Great Britain, but even if they did temporarily do so (as the British and French occupied German territory after 1918), it would perhaps be a trifle irritating, but the working class would go on living (or partly living) just as usual.

Moreover, and this is important, if the British workers behaved sensibly and refused to fight for their masters, Hitler and Mussolini would find their difficulties multiplied at home. German and Italian workers may be war-mad and imperialism-mad for a while (but their record is no worse and is, indeed, a trifle better than that of the British workers), but when they found that stories of Germany and Italy being threatened by British workers were false they would begin to turn their attention to their own wrongs once more.

Ed. Comm.

Would arms be useful to the workers?

Question.

I suppose you would say don’t re-arm for the capitalists. Did the possibility ever strike you that arms would be useful things to seize and capture for the establishment of the workers’ State?

Reply.

Regarding the first part of the question, our answer can only be that it does not matter what we say about re-armament at the present time. The British workers, because they are not Socialists, returned the present Government to office at the last election with power to re-arm, and the capitalists are going on with it, no matter what anyone says.

Regarding the main part of the question, the possibility of gaining control of the armed forces of the State struck the S.P.G.B. so forcibly and so early that it was embodied in our Declaration of Principles when they were formulated in 1904. But it all presupposes several things. For the workers to have arms means nothing whatever apart from the ideas in the workers' minds. In 1914, when many British workers were war-mad, they did not want arms in order to establish Socialism, but in order to kill their fellow-workers abroad and, incidentally, to kill members of the S.P.G.B. at home.

So, until the workers want Socialism, having arms will not help. When the workers do want Socialism then they will indeed be able to gain possession of the armed forces, along with the rest of the machinery of Government, by means of the vote, just in the same way that Hitler and Mussolini and the British ruling class have done.

We are reminded of the story (it is related by men who are now members of the S.P.G.B.) of how in 1919, just after the War, they were so disillusioned that they listened readily to some organisation preaching armed revolt. They discussed it before demobilisation and as soon as they had handed in their rifles, on being demobilised, they rushed round to a meeting of the organisation to consider ways and means of getting arms!

It shows the absurdity of the idea, for in practice the soldier has no more control of his gun than the worker has control over his employer’s factory. While the workers as a whole are prepared to vote the capitalist class into power it is they, through the State, who control the soldiers’ guns and everything else.

Ed. Comm.

The Gaelic American. (1906)

From the May 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Gaelic American. (New York.) In offering a new Mauser rifle, with knife-bayonet and ammunition, to readers securing subscribers, says in explanation, 

  "Ireland can only be made free by driving out the English. That can only be done by physical force. Physical force means war and the essential thing in modern war is good shooting . . . Until Irishmen learn to shoot straight they might as well be "whistling jigs to milestones" as talking of turning the English out of Ireland. Nothing but good shooting will drive them out . . . The Irish Nationalist in America who means business will learn to shoot. …"

However much we may regret that such spirited determination is evoked for an object which, even if realised, could only mean a change of masters for the Irish working class and not an appreciable change of condition, the unequivocal terms in which the reasons are expressed compel admiration.

Gospel According to St. Eldridge. (1971)

Book Review from the June 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Conversation with Eldridge Cleaver (Algiers) by Lee Lockwood. (Jonathan Cape. Paperback. 60p.)

The blurb of this book describes Eldridge Cleaver as ". . . an outstandingly fine writer, a brilliant theoretician and polemicist . . .  a dynamic, eloquent and fascinating talker.” And if that does not put you off you deserve all you get.

In fact the contents — a brief account of how Cleaver came to leave America and end up in Algiers, followed by a record of Lockwood interviewing him — is not so overpoweringly obsequious. Yet it is still, in the familiar Playboy style, a vehicle for telling us by phony probing, aggressive questions, just how brilliant a man Cleaver is.

And what does the brilliant man have to say? His conception of Socialism is something which can happen in one country, any country but which he wants in America — “a Yankee Doodle Dandy version of Socialism" he calls it. He defends what has happened in Russia with the wearisome excuse that ". . . the whole process of developing a socialist system has been distorted by security considerations.”

Little wonder that he is also a hopelessly confused admirer of the set-up in Cuba and China and that he thinks Socialism can be reality only through a violent upheaval. In fact, like Old Mother Shipton, he even has a date for this — by 1972 there will be full scale war going on in the United States and the Presidential election will be out of the question. After that the revolution . . .

In the meantime, this eloquent, fascinating talker expresses himself in such ways as ". . . the shit gets all fucked up and twisted up and you end up in the John Birch Society.” Of course Cleaver is capable of better than that; presumably it is in the book just to prove how human and earthly he is and that after all this is 1971. Perhaps we ought to be warned off by that blurb, after all.

Ivan.