So They Say: Marching & Chanting (1976)

The So They Say column from the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marching & Chanting

TUC general secretary, Mr. Len Murray, found himself in a somewhat awkward position on the 26th November when an “anti-unemployment march” of 20,000 marched past Congress House chanting “Murray, out. Murray out.” In earlier times man, still groping for a greater understanding of the world in which he lived, used at least to vent his ignorant outbursts towards ends which could be respected, or which expressed some basic emotion — for rain in times of drought or even, Ee-ai-addio, we won the cup. Now we are reduced to “Murray, out. Murray, out.”

But the false god of employment, much displeased at these unfriendly overtures, felt it necessary to point out immediately that although many of those on the march were “sincere and honest” there were others, “extremist groups which are callously exploiting this concern and the plight of the unemployed for their own political ends.” But what of the many “sincere and honest” workers who were protesting at the level of unemployment: what advice could the bogus champion offer? Something which shows that the ritual chanters are not alone in their ignorance.

  The best way of overcoming the problem is by the TUC working together with the Government — not by taking part in anti-Government demonstrations.

Guardian, 27th November 75

He went on to concede charitably that the level of unemployment was “unacceptably high,” a chant which may even be heard from the Conservative congregation. But all evade the central issue: that capitalism will never run in such a way as to remove the recurring problem of unemployment. Its very seeds lie in the nature of a society which produces solely for profit. All the caterwauling cannot remove the need for workers to look for themselves into the nature of capitalist society. Only then will they recognize the implications behind Mr. Murray’s pleas to cooperate with the ruling class, even if he may not.

Shuffling Back and Forth

If asked to name a political party made up from an assortment of men and women who have ill-conceived principles individually, and none whatsoever collectively, the Labour Party must surely qualify for a high rating. It may be argued that its members are generally agreed on one notion, that capitalism is the only way in which society may be organized, but as many of its members see some imaginary difference between private capitalism and state capitalism, we can only conclude that it is a “principle” of which they are only dimly aware.

In recent months the Labour Party has been called “a coalition government” in its own right, both by opponents and by its own members. So many shades of what we are loath to call “opinions” lurk within the membership that it was hardly surprising to find the Prime Minister commenting on the disunity within the ranks. As a result of Reg Prentice’s dismissal by the Newham constituency party, an internal struggle has taken place in which the dreaded extremists have emerged. Mr. Wilson has taken them to task and in doing so he seems to have found so many members whose “views” he rejects that we visualize the rest of the membership desperately shuffling back and forth like a flock of sheep trying to keep on the “safe ground.”

  I want to warn the national executive about the situation which is developing. I reject the arrogance of extremists on the non-Party anti-Party Left — people who have always opposed what we are trying to achieve — and equally the arrogance of the anti-Party Right . . .
  I have spent 13 years so far, trying to keep this party together and I do not like what is going on.

Guardian, 27th November 75

Mr. Wilson may not like what’s going on, he may “reject” this faction or that, but never so far as to discourage any and everyone from voting Labour. He does not reject the votes, because that is all the Labour Party requires from its supporters.

Back to Earth

Like the man who clutches at straws, Mr. John Stonehouse MP is valiantly trying to show that he, like so many other MPs, once had principles too. That is before he entered the cruel world of “public life.” He was signing copies of his book “Death of an Idealist” on 24th November when he remarked:

  People entered public life with ideals but found that the pressures of life warped and changed their personalities so that they were prepared to throw away their ideals.

Guardian, 25th November 1975

And as if to prove that he has now become a “realist” in the day-to-day affairs of capitalism, we note that he has reverted to his former practice of entering the lobby together with his unprincipled colleagues at the first sound of a “division bell.”

Two Views

In recent weeks the newspapers have carried several Government-sponsored advertisements which read “Inflation — we can beat it together.” The current layout shows two sincere and trustworthy faces each with a small personal commentary assuring the reader that the defeat of inflation is of paramount importance. Trades Union leaders among others have appeared. The version in the London Evening Standard of 1st December gave the views of one Pat Cole, Docker at the Royal Docks of London, whose view as an “ordinary working man” was that “knowing the cause of inflation isn’t important. Stopping inflation is.” On the other half of the page, concurring with Mr. Cole’s view, was Sir John Cohen the life president of Tesco Stores.

  Inflation is the greatest danger facing this nation. It saps our energy and lowers our morale. It leads to higher prices. It leads to unemployment, which is a useless, wasteful, and almost immoral thing to do. We at Tesco have always been aggressive traders . . . Over the years we have been committed to fighting rising prices . . . We are doing everything possible to increase our productivity and to keep our costs down so that we can minimise what is passed on to our customers.

But before Mr. Cole, and millions like him, applauds too loudly at Cohen’s drum beating, he would do well to consider their respective positions. Mr. Cole complains that most dockers “don’t even see £50 a week in take-home pay” but if he cared to examine the financial pages of his newspaper on the 27th November, he would have noted that Pre-Tax profit at Tesco improved in the twenty-four weeks up to 9th August 1975 to £9,381,000 from £8,362,000 in the same period of 1974. When Cohen says that Tescos are “aggressive traders” and that they are “committed to fighting rising prices” and increasing “productivity”, all “ordinary working men” should appreciate that wage increases to the Tesco boss, as to any other member of the capitalist class, are rising prices and as such they will fight them. The increase in productivity can only come from the working class, but the benefit accrues to the owners of the means of production and distribution in terms of increased Profit. Tescos for example anticipate “materially higher profitability” in the second half of their financial year.

If workers are given the impression that the “Fight against Inflation” is one in which the owners put aside their class interests to fight a common enemy, they are being deluded. Let the capitalists dress up as dockers themselves if this falsehood is to be projected.

Missile Order

The Society of Business Economists held a conference on the 2nd December in which they discussed the “Economic Outlook for 1976”. The report in the Times of 3rd December told us that this assortment of experts were “pessimistic about inflation and the balance of trade” and that they were “gloomy” on unemployment. The view of those attending the conference was that the unemployed would number between 1,400,000 and 1,800,000 by the end of 1976.

However, elsewhere the British Aircraft Corporation was announcing that it will be able to maintain the jobs of 10,000 of its own skilled workers for at least ten years, as well as many jobs within other factories supplying BAC with components. The Corporation had just received an order from Iran for the supply of the Rapier anti-aircraft missile system, valued at £186m. The Chairman of BAC, Mr. G. R. Jefferson commented

  We are delighted by this further expression of Iran’s confidence in us and our product.

Times, 3rd December 1975

The charmingly titled “Missiles Sales Director”, Mr. Eric Sanson, let us have more details of the “product”

  Tracked Rapier uniquely provides cross country mobility at 38 mph and is able to operate in soft sand or snow. It has armoured protection for crew and missiles, eight missiles ready to fire, high kill probability with proximity fuses, and a blind firing system.

We maintain that with the establishment of Socialism a tremendous increase in the numbers of those performing useful work will occur. Here for example are 10,000 skilled men and women who will not be engaged in making products with “high kill probabilities.”

Alan D'Arcy

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1983)

From the June 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

How do the views of both CND and the government relate to the current state of military technology and its impact on arms control? Are their propositions — respectively preventing the deployment of Cruise and Trident and multilateral and verifiable disarmament — tenable within capitalism in general and contemporary military technology and doctrine in particular?

The main focus of present CND policy is to prevent the deployment of the Ground Launched Cruise Missile (GLCM) and the replacement of the Polaris A-3 missile with the Trident D-5 missile — a qualitiative improvement, they argue, which brings the doctrinal concept of nuclear war-fighting closer. Moreover, Britain can only avoid being a major target in the event of war by cancelling Trident and Cruise as a step towards unilateral nuclear disarmament. While it is correct to say that the Trident D-5 Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) is a qualitative improvement on Polaris (it has a longer range, 11,000 km compared to 4600 km; 14 independently targetable warheads with a yield of 150 kt each compared to 3 re-entry vehicles each with a yield of 200 kt; improved accuracy and terminal guidance) its cancellation will not make Britain any less of a target in the event of war.

Targeting is the key to military doctrine. The CND argument loses sight of this, focusing on particular weapon types, such as Cruise and Trident, without attempting to relate them to overall force structures and strategic doctrine or to the political and economic conflict from which they originate. In terms of military doctrine CND miss the main point — the vital importance of command, control, communications and intelligence (C3') to the capacity to wage and win a war. Without C3’ Cruise and Trident are useless. The location and targeting of C3' installations determines priority in target selection. In this respect Britain is high on the list, irrespective of existing military-targets, because of its strategic importance in relation to C3'.

C3’ includes all modern communications systems: radio, telephone, air traffic control, early warning systems, satellite tracking stations and airports. In war installations such as those at Cheltenham, Rugby, Preston and Fylingdales would be priority targets. These facilities are elemental to the use of weapon systems; for example, C3' is necessary for the rapid transmission of targeting information and directions to offensive forces. The vulnerability of C3’ is not restricted to a direct hit by a nuclear device. The air detonation (the higher the better) of a thermo-nuclear bomb several kilometres from a C3’ target is just as effective. This is because such an explosion produces an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which creates a voltage surge in electrical circuits strong enough to be permanently- damaging; moreover, EMP can obliterate information stored in computer software. Other affects include “TREE" — transient radiation effects on electronics. The combined effect is the disruption and dislocation of C3', a communications blackout which seriously inhibits the capacity to wage war. An explosion at an altitude of 100 km would be more than sufficient to affect all of the British Isles.

Soviet military commanders could not allow C3' facilities in Britain to remain intact even though Britain possessed no nuclear weapons. (John Erickson, The War About Peace, Central TV, 21 April 1983 and a Radio Scotland Broadcast 2 April 1983). They would have to be "denied" to the Americans. So Britain is a major target, and from a military point of view, when C3' is so vital this is an eminently sensible policy. In this respect unilateralism is irrelevant. In fact, for Britain to avoid being targeted all telecommunication systems and airports would have to be dismantled, in effect reducing Britain to the level of a medieval agrarian society, and would then need to be towed to somewhere like the South Atlantic.

Target identification and location plays a major role in modern military strategy. Here the technical improvements to weapons, increased accuracy and yield to weight ratios for example, militate against a doctrine of "minimum deterrence" in which about 200 to 400 warheads would be enough to destroy either superpower. The identification of potential targets is no problem; there are 40,000 in the Soviet Union alone, and when one considers that there are only about 200 Soviet cities with populations in excess of 100,000 and relatively few specifically military targets, then it is clear that there are numerous non-military targets. C3' has already been mentioned, but other targets include petroleum refineries, power stations, railway yards, docks and shipyards. This form of targeting is known as "countervalue" and Britain has no shortage of such targets either; for example Grangemouth, Drax. Millerhill and Southampton.

The targeting of military sites, missile silos and troop concentrations is known as "counterforce” and despite the CND argument that preparation for fighting a nuclear war is something new, counterforce has been around since the late 1950s and early 1960s. The US Airforce was committed to counterforce by the early 1960s; this provided a rationale for the development of the Multiple Independently-Targetable Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) which would make more targets available per missile.

In 1964 . . . the Mark 12 Task Group realised that the MIRV system it was developing could not be justified by any existing mission requirement. Its members made a conscious effort to find a strategic rationale. Counterforce targeting and growth of Soviet missile forces promised the solution. MIRV could be justified by the need for greater target coverage.

(Making the MIRV: A Study of Defense Decision Making, Ted Greenwood, Ballinger. Cambridge. Mass.. 1975. p.53).

So what appears to be happening is that technology is running out of control in relation to weapon systems, doctrine and C3’. In short it is the technical improvements to weapons that shapes doctrine and not the other way around. Just how the banning of Cruise and Trident is supposed to reverse this process is not clear.

As civil and military technology develop the distinction between nuclear and conventional weaponry becomes blurred. In effect the major difference between different types of weaponry is time — conventional, chemical and biological weapons will take a rather longer time to destroy the world. The notion that war can be sanitised by the removal or barring of specific weapon systems is ludicrous; for example, there is a fuel air explosive (Arms Control and Technological Innovation, eds. D. Carlton & C. Schaerf. Croom Helm, London, 1977, p.65) which can create the same overpressures as a small yield nuclear weapon; secondly, the new Soviet 5.45 x 39mm bullet contains a mild steel core surrounded by lead which forms a plug toward the tip of the bullet but fails to fill the tip. The centre of gravity is far to the rear ensuring that it will flip over when hitting the human body. It will thus very effectively deposit its energy in the body, causing an “explosive type wound". (World Armaments and Disarmament 1982, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Taylor & Francis, London, p.451). Efforts to contain these technological developments have not been conspicuous by their success. This brings us neatly to the whole question of arms control in relation to technological development.

The British government insists that multilateral arms control is the best road to disarmament; however, it is clear that disarmament has never been a serious possibility. The Russians claim that they have tabled 150 separate disarmament proposals since the 1950s, all of which were rejected. The West could no doubt make the same claim. Such proposals were, and still are, for propaganda purposes and chiefly for internal consumption; arms control, on the other hand, seeks to “stabilise" the arms race; it can never provide “security". The object is to institutionalise the arms race by avoiding or limiting major quantitative improvements to existing forces. The superpowers agree to put certain areas out of bounds to save the expense of developing or deploying new weapon systems; for instance, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Antarctic Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty and the Seabed Treaty. In contrast, SALT actually fuelled the arms race since it placed no restrictions on qualitative improvements which in any case are very difficult to monitor, let alone enforce. SALT only limited launchers — holes in the ground or in submarines — not warheads or accuracy. The MIRV was left unchecked permitting a legitimate increase in the number of warheads. The US had 6784 in 1973, but 9000 in 1981. Since a Mirved missile is externally indistinguishable from a non-mirved one it is impossible for satellites to tell the difference. In this respect arms control achieved its principal aim which was to put the arms race on a more predictable course and avoid de-stabilising events. In any event technological improvements in weapons makes existing arms control procedures increasingly redundant.

As one American general said you cannot compare “apples and pears”; this refers to not only the asymmetries in superpower force structures, but also to their strategic doctrines. The Russians prefer large land based missiles, reflecting technological inferiority, 72 per cent of Russian warheads are land based. The Americans prefer to put their deterrent to sea, 50 per cent of warheads are on SLBMs. This presents accounting problems. Considerable time was spent in SALT II disputing the status of the Soviet Tu-22m, Backfire bomber. The Americans insisted that it was a strategic delivery system (intercontinental) whereas the Russians argued that it was for the Eurasian theatre only.

In the European theatre the asymmetries and technical complexities are even more acute making arms control more difficult, if not impossible, to come by. For instance, in the Intermediate Nuclear Force talks both sides cannot agree on what to count or include. The question of nuclear capable aircraft (those able to drop nuclear bombs) is a case in point; for example, should the Russian Mig 23/27 Flogger be classed as a “Primary long-range theatre aircraft" or a “marginal long-range nuclear aircraft"?

The inclusion of British and French forces is another area of contention. Both insist that their forces should be excluded; the Americans agree, but the Russians argue that anything that can hit Soviet territory, irrespective of origin, must be counted. All this despite the fact that a rationale for Britain’s “independent deterrent" is that it allows access to the “top table". Indeed the Nassau Agreement of 1962. when Britain bought Polaris from America, specifically allocated Polaris to NATO for targeting purposes, in other words a theatre role as opposed to a strategic one.

Conventional weapons control in Europe is equally confused and unsuccessful. The Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks have been going on since 1973 and have achieved little. NATO considered the number of Warsaw Pact divisions and tanks a problem, but then discovered that it could not even count its own. Arms control is more than a numbers game. The case of the British government, that deterrence has kept the peace since 1945, is quite irrelevant to the state of military technology. In fact no one really knows what deters in deterrence in the first place, and when one considers the technical barriers to arms control, the government’s position is untenable.

Nor has Britain been active in the field of arms control. Lawrence Freedman in Britain and Nuclear Weapons notes that Britain has judiciously avoided arms control since it would involve the complete dismantlement of Britain's nuclear force. Despite the fact that Britain signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968 in which Article VI puts the onus on the signatories "to negotiate in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race", Britain avoided the SALT talks, fearing that the US would bargain away the Polaris force or be restrained from transferring weapon systems in the future. Furthermore Britain has no interest in a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and as Thatcher has stated, "The British deterrent has no place at the INF negotiations" (Hansard, 18 January 1983. col. 109 written answers). Therefore, in addition to the technical obstacles to arms control, Britain has little enthusiasm for it, as is made clear by the decision to buy the Trident D-5. Just how arms control is supposed to lead to disarmament is never made clear.

Many in the arms control fraternity fear that technology is out of control making arms control an impossibility. The focus of concern is that it will be impossible to reassert human control; likewise with the talc of the Sorcerer’s apprentice who, having summoned up magical powers, lost control and was unable to regain it by himself since he did not understand the power he had brought into existence. The reassertion of social control over military technology is impossible even within the confines of capitalism; arms control, whether unilateral or multilateral, is an irrelevancy. Supporters of CND or the government would do well to consider such a proposition.

John Walker

Blue Streak (1960)

From the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the Government has decided to write off its new missile Blue Streak! It was so new that it was out of date before the project got under way. They never even had the chance to fire one.

Of course, it was said to be accurate and reliable. The only thing was, it was so heavy and cumbersome that the Russians could have dropped one of their missiles on every one before we could have counted down to forty minutes, let alone four.

When it first appeared in the Government Estimates they provided £6 million for it. By the time they came to scrap it the cost had risen to £120 million. And hardly anybody said a word. £120 million just like that—on nothing.

Yet only a few short days before we had seen the spectacle of a Chancellor of the Exchequer going into tortuous details to explain why he had been forced to put an extra 2d. tax on cigarettes to prevent the economy of the country going haywire.

Socialists talk about the absurdities of capitalism so much that the new ones, and they come along every day, fail to register. The mind ceases to take them in any more. But we have a suggestion to help you remember at least one. Every time you take a puff at that fag, swearing to give them up because you’re only paying for smoke, think of all the smoke that never came out of Blue Streak!

Come to that, looking at it another way, perhaps its just as well.

Stan Hampson