Mad Monx (2023)

From the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In 1327 a Benedictine monastery in northern Italy suffered a calamitous fire which destroyed a magnificent collection of irreplaceable books and manuscripts. It was determined that the cause was arson. The perpetrator was an aged fanatical monk who sought to keep certain knowledge hidden away. Oh, that was fiction, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.

Marx was one of those whose books were destroyed by the Nazis, also keen to keep knowledge hidden. Burnt too were the works of Heinrich Heine. Heine’s 1821 play, Almansor, contains the line: ‘Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too’.

Science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury was also queasy at the repression being practised by the Soviet Union. Russians resorted to manual copying of literature (samizdat) and passing it from hand to hand.

In 1953, Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, appeared. Fahrenheit 451 refers to the temperature at which books burn. Set in a future America, it was the job of firemen not to extinguish conflagrations but to initiate them for the purpose of book burning.

‘Sticks and stones might break my bones but words cannot hurt me’ goes the old anti-bullying children’s rhyme, but publishing words can certainly lead to the violence it rails against.

Recent burnings of the Koran in Denmark and Sweden, which have freedom of speech enshrined in their constitutions, have led both countries to contemplate introducing laws to stop such actions. This is not the first time that such events have occurred and the consequences have, in some cases, resulted in extremely violent protests. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned that a spate of Koran burnings in the country has triggered ‘the most serious security situation since the Second World War’. One cannot believe he is referencing the Religion of Peace (sic).

Violent protests followed the publication in 1988 of Salman Rushdie’s novel Satanic Verses. Ayatollah Khomeini, then leader of Iran, called for the death of Rushdie. In August 2022 a stabbing attempt was made resulting in Rushdie losing the sight of one eye and the use of a hand.

A Pew Research Center analysis found that 79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied around the world (40 percent) had laws or policies in 2019 banning blasphemy, defined as speech or actions considered to be contemptuous of a god or of people or objects considered sacred. Twenty-two countries (11 percent) had laws against apostasy (abandoning one’s religion).

In March 2023 the Spectator wrote:

‘No religion ought to be given the power to constrain political discourse or behaviour in order to protect its adherents from being scandalised, and no government should help it by silencing its critics. If a Wakefield resident was to burn the Quran publicly in protest at the pretensions of the fundamentalists (something, incidentally, that can now cause you to be arrested on serious public order charges by police increasingly desperate not to appear anti-Islamic, as happened some years ago), we should fight to protect his right to free speech in the same way as we would if he had been a secularist or left-winger who had burnt a Bible or an American flag’ (tinyurl.com/bdebukkd).

Theory at odds with reality?

Earlier in 2023 an American Tennessee pastor live-streamed a book-burning event urging his flock to throw their Harry Potter and Twilight copies into a bonfire. Because why? Because, he said, ‘IT’S WITCHCRAFT 100 PERCENT! All your Twilight books and movies. That mess is full of spells, demonism, shape-shifting and occultism. Stop allowing demonic influences into your home’. Does he know it’s 2023 not 1933? Or perhaps he thinks it’s 1633.

Whatever the literary merits, or otherwise, of J K Rowling’s works – Harry Potter has sold over 500 million copies since 1997– in an example that modern heresy will still get you burned at the stake, metaphorically, Rowling’s defence of biological women has seen her banned from events celebrating her own books and films. The three main actors whose careers were kickstarted in the Potter film series have been vocal in condemning her.

Not much support for Voltaire’s ‘I don’t agree with what you say but I will defend with my life your right to say it’ there. Nothing is free under capitalism but free speech increasingly comes at a price.

‘Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past’. In George Orwell’s 1984 the protagonist Winston Smith is employed in the Ministry of Truth’s Records Department. Here he altered historical newspapers and photographs to concur with whatever the Party line was at the time. The removal of ‘unpersons’ was often carried out in this manner in the Soviet Union.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union statues of Lenin were systematically removed from the state the Soviets had previously controlled. Understandable if you’ve been subject to repression for many years but the removal of literary figures seems churlish.

As part of its de-Russification, Ukraine has been removing monuments to Alexander Pushkin the Russian poet, playwright, and novelist, thought to be the greatest Russian poet and founder of modern Russian literature.

A few years back Iran was, allegedly, (the report comes from the American-supported Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) considering removing Persian astronomer, mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam from its education curriculum. Changes were because ‘Officials believe that in order to attract the younger generation they must increase the intensity of their religious and ideological propaganda in schools. They think that a large proportion of young people are turning away from religion and government ideology because of the weakness of propaganda in the education system and the mass media’. Shades of Goebbels?

When William Caxton introduced the printing press into England in 1476 he would have been unaware of the law of unintended consequences. Pity that so many are now experiencing them.

Dave Coggan

Karma and the Bible (2023)

The Halo Halo! column from the July 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Karma is a bummer. Karma is a Buddhist concept allied to reincarnation. Be nice this time and your next life will be good. Be an illegitimate so-and-so in this life and look out buddy because who knows what you might come back as.

This column eschews karma and all religious fairy tales but seeing someone get bitten on the bum for previous unkindness is gratifying to the atheistic too. For future reference, we do not endorse schadenfreude. Well maybe just this once. American censors, it’s you we mean.

At the mention of Galileo, Freddie Mercury and Queen fans, and others, will start singing to themselves, ‘Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro – magnificoo,’ from Bohemian Rhapsody. Galileo Galilei was a sixteenth/seventeenth century Italian astronomer who came into conflict with the Catholic Church. His support of Copernican heliocentrism, ie, the planets revolve around the Sun, and not the prevailing religious view that the Earth was the centre of the universe put Galileo on a collision course with the Catholic hierarchy. He was fortunate to get out of it without serious bodily injury.

Nobody expects the Roman Inquisition! Whether Galileo did or not expect it, when science contradicted theological mumbo-jumbo, a heap of trouble was the result. Founded in 1542 the Roman Inquisition is still going strong. It’s now known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Among other things, Galileo found himself on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, which is a list of books catholics were forbidden to read. The index was discontinued in 1966. History is littered with examples of censorship of all kinds. It never bodes well for someone or other. Which brings us to the present day.

An American writers’ organisation, Pen America (Guardian, 20 April) has been monitoring the incidence of book banning and, over a period of six months, has seen a 28 percent increase in such activities within American public schools.

Shades of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Sounds like the USA is determined to carry on the fine traditions of the Soviets and the NSDAP to name but a few.

Won’t somebody think of the children! Helen Lovejoy, wife of the Reverend Lovejoy, was forever crying out in The Simpsons. She sounds like the sort of person who would use that as emotional blackmail to impose their own views upon others.

Pen America says that bans are more common in states that are Republican-run.

A Utah school district – home of the Mormon church and a place that Joe Hill didn’t want to be seen dead in after Utah executed him – has banned the Bible (for vulgarity and violence) from school libraries and is considering banning the Book of Mormon too. (Guardian, 3 June). That’ll teach the proselytising equivalent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses! Your fairy story got banned! How’d you like that evangelists? Guess you reap what you sow. Last word to the Simpsons’ Nelson Munz: ‘Ha Ha!’

DC

Censors at odds (1973)

From the May 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

In November our front-page article dealt with the Lord Longford report on pornography, and stated our case that all censorship is against the interests of everybody but the ruling class.

David Holbrook, a member of the Longford committee, has produced a new book called The Masks of Hate in which psychiatric examination of some popular present-day writers is used to make an argument for their perniciousness. His targets include the James Bond novels, Iris Murdoch, Harold Pinter and Kingsley Amis.

What is interesting is that Kingsley Amis also contributed a chapter to the Longford Report, advocating censorship as Holbrook does. Among his recommendations was to ban books which are “not unsuitable because of anything : just unsuitable”. Holbrook finds Amis’s writings unsuitable because they are “devaluing human nature” and “present false solutions”. Perhaps a duel with blue pencils at ten paces is imminent.

However, this demonstrates one or two things. First, that what amateur censors really seek is not “social good” but the removal of what they dislike. Second, their failure to realize that governments impose or approve censorship on political grounds, and only to a very minor extent on theoretical (e.g. psychiatric) ones. And third, that proponents of social reform in general terms are unable to foresee its detailed application and outcome. Both Holbrook and Amis believe, of course, that more extensive censorship laws would be used to prevent the working class from seeing their bêtes noires; but The Masks of Hate serves to show that if it happened they might find their own books deemed “just unsuitable”.

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: Do we want a censor? (1928)

Editorial from the November 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

The question of censorship has recently been raised here and in Ireland. Discussion in the newspapers has been interesting chiefly as an indication of the confused thought of most of the “advanced” writers. The first case concerns a book — “The Well of Loneliness,” written by a woman novelist, Miss Radclyffe Hall. It deals with homosexuality.

Following an attack in the “Daily Express” and “Sunday Express,” the publishers offered a curious double defence. One that the book is a very proper book, and two, that they had published it at a high price in order to limit its circulation. They rashly then invited the Home Secretary to pass a “personal” opinion on the book, and promised to abide by his opinion. Sir William Joynson Hicks promptly replied that the book should be withdrawn from circulation, and it was.

One incidental result was a big jump in the price of copies already issued. A Gossip Writer in the “Daily Express” then related how a friend of his had made a few pounds by supplying the increased demand for what his paper denounced as obscene literature.

The book has subsequently been published abroad, and the publishers are contesting the action of the customs authorities in seizing imported copies.

Journalists of many schools of thought have protested, but none of the protests seen by the present writer has shown any clear understanding of the situation. Most of them have treated it as a dangerous, unnecessary, and narrow-minded abuse of his powers by the Home Secretary. They all proclaim their belief in what they call the “Freedom of the Press,” but none of them questions the necessity for a system of suppression.

They all say, in effect, “Yes, we think indecent, pornographic literature should be suppressed, but this book is not indecent. We think it proper for the police to prosecute the publishers of indecent books, but we object to a backstairs censorship by the officials acting under the orders of the Home Secretary.” The simple fact is that the case that can be made for the unfettered expression of opinion, is a case for the unfettered expression of “indecent” opinions, the publication of “pornographic” literature and the discussion of any and every subject under the sun. The extension of knowledge has been the result of controversy, of the clash of opinions and interests, both of individuals and classes. But it is not always the desire nor the interest of a ruling class to permit the extension or dissemination of certain knowledge.

Sir William Joynson-Hicks says (“Daily Herald,” 16th October) that:—

“there must be some limit to the freedom of what a man may write or speak in this great country of ours. That freedom, in my view, must be determined by the question as to whether what is written or spoken makes ‘one of the least of these little ones to offend’.”

Here we have Joynson-Hicks lining himself up with all his critics. They also accept the view that certain opinions must not be expressed or discussed. The only difference is that they do not see eye to eye with Joynson-Hicks as to where and how the limit should be fixed.

In Ireland a Censorship Bill is being introduced which will make it illegal to advocate birth control, and which, in addition, will set up a board to deal with any publication which is “against public morality.” The board is to consist of five censors nominated by the Government to hear complaints of any kind from recognised associations. If four out of five censors agree to condemn any publication, on any subject whatever, its suppression will follow. In effect this will place the censorship of literature largely in the the Catholic Truth Society, which has been instrumental in working up public opinion to induce an unwilling Government to introduce the Bill.

The Catholic Truth Society objects to the “Daily Herald,” the “Spectator,” and several English Sunday Newspapers which circulate in Ireland (“Daily News,” 10th September). The Catholic Truth Society is now demanding that the Board shall have many more members than five, in order to give full representation to the opinion of the country (“Manchester Guardian,” 17th October). This holds out really amusing prospects of the Irish authorities suppressing as obscene the journal which denounced Miss Radcliffe Hall’s book. If Joynson-Hicks is a bigot, the average Irish Catholic is far more bigotted.

The Socialist View.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is unique in keeping open platform for the expression of the point of view of opponents.

We oppose all forms of suppression, not in response to some abstract principle, but because we recognise that Socialist Society demands for its operation, as for its achievement, a responsible, intelligent population, used to drawing its own conclusions from the observation of facts and the weighing up of the arguments of opposing schools of thought. We only know our position to be correct because it survives continuous criticism. We do not deny that suppression may be immediately useful to the British or the Irish governing class. We do deny that it can serve the purpose of the Socialist movement.

On broader grounds we challenge the usefulness of suppressing such books as that of Radclyffe Hall. Inability to vitalize any problem except in its relation to their own class interests and class prejudices is the failing of ruling classes in general. They “solve” the problem of street games by punishing the youthful offenders (or their parents), instead of providing playing fields. They jail starving men who beg or steal, instead of providing them with food. They impose severe penalties for the drinking of alcohol, or the selling of it within certain hours, instead of finding out the causes (over-fatigue, malnutrition, etc.), which induce people to seek stimulants. They try to stop sexual perversions by prohibiting the discussion of the numerous accurate and inaccurate ideas on the subject instead of encouraging the search for specific causes. Their combination of class and religious prejudice prevents them from even examining the question from the rational standpoints which suggest that it is a problem of physical ill-health, or sex-starvation, or both.

The censorship of books like the “Well of Loneliness” is no more a remedy than the prohibition of unemployed demonstrations would be a solution of the problem of unemployment.

The Power of Words (2022)

Book Review from the February 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Burning the Books: a History of Knowledge Under Attack. By Richard Ovenden. John Murray £10.99.

Probably the best-known case of book-burning was on 10 May 1933, in Berlin and other German cities. The Nazi authorities consigned many books, by Marx and Freud among others, to the flames. This was, however, only the first step in the Nazi attack on learning and scholarship, which led to over 100 million books being destroyed. Jewish culture was a specific target, of course.

This is one of many examples discussed in Richard Ovenden’s wide-ranging study, which also deals with efforts to rescue or replace destroyed works. For instance, the YIVO archives in Vilnius, and later in New York, were able to preserve many Jewish books and documents. In many other instances, too, people have risked their lives to rescue books and other documents.

Loss has sometimes been a matter just of neglect, and the removal (theft) of texts has on occasion been an unintended consequence of war. The German Peasant War of 1525 was a rare example of documents being destroyed by those who lacked power: feudal charters and tax rolls that kept peasants in servitude. But in most cases the destruction of works has been a deliberate policy by power-holders, as a means of controlling the past and hence the present and future. The sixteenth-century Reformation, for instance, ‘was in many ways one of the worst periods in the history of knowledge’. In England, tens of thousands of books were burned or broken up, especially in monasteries and other religious communities, and an Act of 1549 provided state sponsorship for this. It was all part of Henry VIII’s declaration of independence from the rule of Rome. As another example, the destruction of Bosnian archives by Serb forces in the 1990s was in particular aimed at removing records of the presence of Muslims.

Oppressive regimes tend to keep massive amounts of information on their ‘subjects’. In South Africa, officials in the apartheid regime destroyed large numbers of documents, making it difficult for subsequent inquiries into the oppressive system. Around the time Malaysia became independent in 1957, British colonial officials destroyed countless archives and documents, in order to conceal their racist and prejudiced behaviour. In East Germany, many files held by the Stasi were disposed of, though many citizens were still able later to view the files and see what information the state held on them. In 2019, the Turkish government began to destroy books associated with one of its opponents.

The web has resulted in a major change to how knowledge is recorded and preserved, but that does not mean written texts are redundant. Websites often disappear or change their address, and web archiving is a challenging task. Ovenden’s book shows clearly the importance of recording information, how the powerful have often tried to manipulate this in their own interests, and how some people have managed to resist this.

Paul Bennett

Bird’s Eye View: ‘Don’t you wish you were free…?’ (2022)

The Bird’s Eye View Column from the February 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard 

‘Don’t you wish you were free…?’

‘There’s a debate going on among the disaffected/terrified over which dystopian novel we’re now living in. Some point to social media addiction and designer drugs to suggest Brave New World. Others see mass surveillance and pandemic lockdowns. Each of these opinions seems valid, which is confusing… Turns out we’re not in a single dystopian novel. We’re in all of them simultaneously’ (dollarcollapse.com, 17 December).

George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 also form part of the Venn diagram of our overlapping dystopian oppression along with A Handmaid’s Tale, Brazil, Clockwork Orange, Gattaca, Logan’s Run, as well as Soylent Green, Farenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, and The Matrix.

‘You’re bought as soon as they pay you a salary.’

The film Soylent Green, which is loosely based on Harry Harrison’s novel Make Room! Make Room!, dates from 1973 and depicts a future (2022!) in which food shortages and overpopulation feature prominently – New York City alone has forty million inhabitants, which is over four times the current total – and there are many who opine that such ‘problems’ form part of reality today. They are wrong.

‘In 1798, Thomas Malthus argued that human populations tend to increase more rapidly than their food supplies, which would lead to mass starvation. More than 150 years later, Paul Ehrlich predicted that “hundreds of millions would starve to death” in the 1970s and ’80s due to overpopulation. What both men missed is mankind’s propensity for problem solving and innovation, which, thanks to capitalism and globalization, has seen rates of food insecurity decrease, while the world’s population has skyrocketed’ (nationalpost.com, December 23).

Yet under capitalism, where the profit motive reigns supreme, food is destroyed and famines persist in a world of potential abundance.

‘Do you ever read any of the books you burn?’

Socialists do not call for The National Post to be censored because it promotes the dystopia known as free market capitalism. Indeed, we oppose censorship and, of course, its extreme expression in the form of book burning.

‘It had started two meetings prior when two parents addressed the board during Public Comments to complain about two books on the high school’s shelves, Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman and 33 Snowfish by Adam Rapp. In response, the board voted 6-0 to remove all “sexually explicit” books from the high school shelves, though it never defined what constituted “sexually explicit”. Going further, two members, Mr. Rabih Abuismail and Mr. Kirk Twigg, suggested that they might burn any books they found to be inappropriate’ (bookandfilmglobe.com, 19 December).

Ray Bradbury’s classic Fahrenheit 451 has itself been censored, but not, like copies of Capital and the Communist Manifesto, burned in public. His novel concerns a future American society where books are outlawed and ’firemen’ burn any that are found. Arguably, perhaps the most horrifying depiction of book burning appears in Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose. Guy Montag, a fireman in Bradbury’s Farenheit 451, who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge (he eventually quits his job and commits himself to the preservation of books) might just agree.

‘Who cares?’

William Golding, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983, is (in)famous for his debut novel Lord of the Flies which concerns a group of schoolboys who are stranded on an uninhabited coral island and their struggle to survive. The boys’ differing personalities soon determine their function within the group: leaders, followers, outcasts. Soon they are organised hierarchically and, shortly after, divided into tribes. The adventure is provided by the boys’ growing fear of The Beast, an apparently natural danger which threatens to destroy them. Life adapts to a chain of ordered survivalism in defence against the Beast. There are those who think The Beast an invention and others who seek to hunt and kill it. But the reader, guided by Golding, comes soon to see The Beast is neither an infantile invention of self-torment nor a conquerable enemy from without. Few novels have so eloquently served the cause of capitalist ideology which contends that humans are inherently aggressive, gullible, self-serving, easily led and un-cooperative. Growing evidence from modern anthropology and archaeology tells us otherwise. Graeber & Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything ‘reins in history’s rules and replaces them with a radical, uncompromising play, not such that we are overwhelmed with an infinity of nihilistic political choices, but so we may finally articulate and follow the values that lead to our better possible world’ (theqiuetus.com, December 18).

Neo: ‘What truth?’ Morpheus: ‘That you are a slave.’

We have a choice, not unlike that of Morpheus in The Matrix 4.

‘As Bugs offers Morpheus a blue pill or a red pill, she remembers her own experience with initially discovering the truth about the Matrix and receiving the same offer to pursue the truth or return to her false reality…For characters such as Bugs and Morpheus, once they have realized the deeper truth about existence they could never be satisfied going back to living a lie. In a franchise about enlightenment and self-discovery, this quote speaks to the powerful nature of truth’ (screenrant.com, 26 December).

We need to take the red pill of socialist understanding. ‘All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind… He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race’ (The Communist Manifesto, 1848).

Editorial: The German Slaughterhouse (1934)

Editorial from the August 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Hitler was fighting for power in Germany one of the most important of the planks in his platform was the routing out of what he called Marxism, which was joined by him to the Jewish question. He professed to be out for the abolition of class warfare and the clearing away of class- consciousness, and all that it implied.

After Hitler and his party had obtained control of political power they proceeded to make good their promises. The German Social Democratic Party, the Communist Party, and all those groups professing adherence to Marx's views, were smashed up. As the Jews were also supposed to be tainted with Communism, along with other alleged vices, a determined campaign was organised for their suppression, and appears to have met with considerable success.

All the writings of Marx and those writings of others that were officially considered to be tainted with Marxism, were banned, and in some instances destroyed by public bonfires carried out in the spirit of the earlier Aryans, who sought to silence the wisdom of the Greek philosophers in a similar way, but then in the name of the Jewish Christ.

In the fulness of time we were assured that Hitler and his supporters had conquered, that the deadly views of Marxism had been destroyed, that peace and contentment had come to the German nation, who were now at last united in a desire to bring to birth a new and powerful people built upon new foundations, and worshipping at the shrine of some pagan or oriental deity. General Goering bellowed this good news at many public meetings— and threatened with dire penalties any who denied it.

Into these idyllic conditions, like a bolt from the blue, came the news of the ruthless shooting by the Government of those who were formerly at the head of the Nazi movement. It is interesting to notice that those who were killed were not turncoats from the Communist or Social Democratic Parties, but were full-blooded supporters of the National Socialist Party, without any suspicion of a Marxian taint, as is shown by Hitler's defence of the shootings.

The single-minded ruthlessness of the summary executions is evidenced by the shooting of the wife of Von Schleicher.

The way in which the holocaust was organised shows the premeditated character of the slayings, which are evidently calculated to strike fear into the opponents of Hitler. Hitler himself triumphantly takes the responsibility saying, according to the report of his speech in the Reichstag:—

   “I gave the order to shoot, as only ruthless and bloody intervention could have stopped the revolt.
  “I myself was the Supreme Court of the German people for this 24 hours." (News-Chronicle, July 14th.)

How many were killed is not known, but Hitler, in. the speech just mentioned, states that number was 77. An example of the type of people attracted to the Hitler movement is also given by his statement that three S.S. men (his own trusted bodyguard) were shot for “shamefully mishandling prisoners”—an ominous remark.

After the so-called incipient revolt had been quelled there occurred an event which is worth pondering over by those who believe in the unshackled power of dictators. Hitler called the Reichstag together in order to explain to them the nature and the reason for his action. It is true that the Reichstag is a “packed” body, but even so, it is of considerable significance that Hitler who, in his own words is “Germany," should yet have considered it necessary to explain and defend his action before a body elected, however corruptly, by the German people or, to put it another way, a body which claims to represent the will of the people.

If Marxism brought class warfare into German life what can be said of a movement that turns in upon itself and slaughters its own votaries? It shows how such movements demand terrorist measures like these in order to ensure the continuance of leaders who have climbed up with support of terrorism.

As usual, the self-styled promoters of “peace upon earth and goodwill towards men” hastened to make their voices heard. The Evangelical Bishop of Hessen-Nassau, Dr. Dietrich, sent the following telegram (a letter might not have beep quick enough!) to Hitler: —

  "Thanks for strong liberating action. Congratulations. Renewed vows unswerving loyalty. Praying God’s help for beloved Fuhrer." (News-Chronicle, July 9th.) '

What lies behind the curtain in Germany it is not easy to gather. But it appears to be fairly evident that the work of destroying opposition to normal capitalist procedure having been accomplished, powerful industrialists want to curb the activities of the extremists in the National Socialist movement.

It is certainly significant that two “leaders" of German economic life appointed by the Nazis in pursuance of their scheme for introducing the leader principle in business, have recently been removed. Dr. Kessler, the Nazi engineer, who has been acting as Dictator of Industry, and Dr. A. Pietsch, the leader of the Chemical industry, are the people in question. It is alleged that the resignation of Dr. Kessler was the result of pressure exerted by the Trust Ring, including Herr Krupp von Bohlen, Dr. Fritz Thyssen and Herr Vogler, all of Essen, who want to see an end put to State intervention in their business.

Rear View: Censorship (2018)

The Rear View Column from the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Censorship

The banning of books by governments is a form of censorship which took place in the Roman Empire and continues to this day. ‘No book, it seems, is too substantive or too insignificant to be banned in Kuwait. Recent targets of the government’s literary censors include an encyclopedia with a picture of Michelangelo’s David and a Disney version of The Little Mermaid.  David had no fig leaf, and the mermaid, alas, wore half a bikini. ‘There are no hijab-wearing mermaids’ said Shamayel al-Sharikh, a Kuwaiti women’s activist. ‘The powers that be thought her dress was promiscuous. It’s humiliating.’ . . .  Responding to the demands of a growing conservative bloc in Parliament, the government is increasingly banning books. In August, the government acknowledged that it had banned 4,390 books since 2014, hundreds of them this year, including many works of literature that had once been considered untouchable, setting off street demonstrations and online protests’ (nytimes.com, 1 October).

No to no platform

Socialists, by contrast, oppose any form of censorship. We have always been prepared to give opponents of socialism a chance to express their views from our platform. This is because we are convinced that our views are right and that this will emerge from full and free debate — and if we are wrong we want to know, so that we can stop wasting our time. Censorship, whether through the legalised violence of the state or that of self-appointed political and/or religious guardians is anti-socialist and anti-working class and must be exposed whenever it rears its ugly head. No view (not even religion) should be exempt from being criticised. The main case against censorship is that it considers that people are too ignorant to decide for themselves and so must be protected from hearing certain views. All censors, actual or would-be, consider themselves a cut above the rest. They are not corrupted by reading De Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom but their servants would be. They are not affected by reading anti-Christian or anti-Muslim writings – Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is viewed in this way by many faithful – but their followers would be. They are not affected by rants of the Left or Right but other, less enlightened people would be.

Corrupted by socialism?

The Marquis de Sade died over 200 years ago in an insane asylum, yet much of what he had to say remains relevant today. He championed democracy, was opposed to every form of punishment (‘it is far simpler to hang men than to find out why we condemn them’), saw the class-divided nature of society and sided with ‘those who can only get a living by their labour and sweat.’ Indeed, Geoffrey Gorer in The Revolutionary Ideas of the Marquis De Sade (1964) points out that Sade stood in opposition to contemporary philosophers for both his ‘complete and continual denial of the right to property,’ and for viewing the struggle in late 18th century French society as being not between ‘the Crown, the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy or the clergy, or sectional interests of any of these against one another’, but rather all of these ‘more or less united against the proletariat.’ Gorer thus argued, ‘he can with some justice be called the first reasoned socialist.’

End censorship

The Ayatollah Khomeini called in 1989 upon all good Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses, a novel with a dream sequence in which the prophet Mohammed indulges in a few last temptations of his own. This fatwa resulted in numerous killings, attempted killings, bombings and book burnings. The Communist Manifesto was banned by Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany. Along with volumes of Capital, copies were burnt openly in Berlin on 10 May 1933 by students from the Wilhelm Humboldt University, all of them members of right-wing student organisations,  and watched by some 70,000 people. Ironically, it was Marx’s friend, the poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote some one hundred and ten years earlier ‘where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings’ (Almasor: A Tragedy, 1823, as translated in True Religion, 2003, by Graham Ward). By contrast, ‘…communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!’ (The Communist Manifesto, Marx & Engels, 1848).