Letter: Marx & Socialism — or . . . educating the educators (1994)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx & Socialism — or . . . educating the educators

We publish below part of an exchange of correspondence, which is self-explanatory, between one of our members and Collins English Dictionaries.

Dear Sirs,

I recently bought a copy of The Collins Dictionary & Thesaurus in One Volume as a reference work for my studies. I would like to advise you of a significant factual and historical error it contains.

This concerns the entry under "socialism". There are three definitions given: I refer to the third which states, "(in Marxist theory) a transitional stage in the development of a society from capitalism to communism". This is incorrect. Nowhere in the writings of Marx, nor indeed in those of Engels, are the terms “socialism" or/ and "communism" used to describe either a transitional stage or different stages of social development. In this sense Marx used the terms interchangeably to mean a society of common ownership and production for use, and therefore without buying and selling, an exchange economy, classes or the state.

As a matter of historical interest, this separation was first made by Lenin in an attempt to give credibility to the post-1917 situation in Russia, by frequently referring to that society, now generally acknowledged to be state capitalist, by the term "socialism". As a student of Marx's work for nearly fifty years, I assure you that the definition you give is derived from Leninist theory not Marx's as you state.

Bill Robertson

Reply:

Dear Mr Robertson,

Thank you for your letter of 15 August. In it you state that the definition of SOCIALISM (sense 3) refers to Leninist and not Marxist theory. I agree with your assertion as Marx did not describe any intermediate "socialist" stage between the collapse of capitalism and the establishment of communism. He used the terms "communism" and "socialism” interchangeably. It was. as you rightly point out, Lenin who created this distinction to describe the situation in the Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks seized power. Subsequent Soviet leaders, as you are no doubt well aware, also used this distinction, most notably Khrushchev who in the early 1960s described the USSR as a "socialist state" that would "achieve Communism by 1980".

Thank you for taking the trouble to point out this mistake.

Yours sincerely.

Andrew Holmes, 

Assistant Lexicographer, Collins English Dictionaries.

SPGB Meetings (1995)

Party News from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: Afghanistan (2002)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Afghanistan

Dear Editors,

Very little has been heard on the media to counter the general assumption that the Afghanistan war is an example of the result of an inevitable ideological/religious antagonism in capitalism between religions, languages, cultures – in this case Islam and Christianity.

In giving the lie to this theory as the cause of war in capitalism, an early Socialist Party pamphlet on war gave examples of countries or groups of the same and of different religions etc. who had fought both against and in alliance with, each other at different times. If the Socialist Standard could provide such information if could prove very useful in countering such theories at the present time.

W. Robertson, 

Hove, Sussex

Letter: BBC independence? (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In dealing with the ongoing spat between the government and the BBC, Pik Smeet (Socialist Standard, September) is of course, absolutely correct in stating that the elite control the media through structural predispositions than an automatic chain of command.

Nevertheless, government does directly invoke its powers of veto over BBC programmes when it thinks fit: for instance its suppression of programme material on Northern Ireland in the shape of the omission of the speech track on TV coverage of legally elected members of a legitimate party – Sinn Fein – in 1988.

These powers of government control over programme content, originally spelled out in the 1927 BBC Charter, appear also in the latest Charter renewal of 1996. and as before, BBC is not even required to publicise the fact when government so instructs it.

In any case, it would be difficult to envisage an institution, set up and operating under government licence, and being government funded, which could escape some level of complicity, however subliminal, with government, however vacillating and unclear the government line may be. For as Lord Annan pointed out in that section of his 1974 Committee on Broadcasting Report, headed “External Pressures”, which dealt with the compromising dependence of journalists on political sources for information, “the constitutional authority of radio and TV to function at all stems from an organ that political parties control”.

What seems to be overlooked is the glaringly obvious doublethink involved in appeals to government to preserve BBC independence. If government action can affect its alleged independence, then BBC is clearly not independent.

W. Robertson, 

Brighton

Despatch from Singapore (1973)

From issue number 4 (1973) of The Western Socialist

Edit. Comm. note:

The new little nation of Singapore has been (and will continue to be) more and more in the international news. A former member of our Companion Party in Great Britain has been living in Singapore for the last four years.  The Western Socialist takes pleasure in presenting to its readers the following despatch which has much of interest for those who would [like to] know what goes on in that sparkling city-state (as it is often designated) of 2.5 millions.

"In Singapore, we are trying to modernise and industrialise ourselves by stimulating men's natural desire for material gratification . . ."

This statement by a government minister expresses with typical bluntness. the no-nonsense pragmatism of which the ruling People’s Action Party are so proud. Singapore, small by any standards, is experiencing capitalist development at a hectic pace and the socialist, with his historical perspective, can find a very close duplication of British capitalist development.

For the greater part of its 150-year history, Singapore has been a colonial outpost. With few natural resources its revenue has been derived from trading, carried out with a largely immigrant work force, mostly Chinese and Indian. Since 1965 the stress has been on manufacturing Industries.

Poorly paid work force 

As in all capitalist states the chief concern of the government Is to expand industrially. With a large, poorly paid work force the pickings are profitable and capital from a host of countries is avidly solicited by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and is just as avidly forthcoming. mostly through multinational companies. At home, the PAP theoretician, Rajaratnam, justifies the exploitation — “Let them come to exploit us now with superprofit on their part" — with an aplomb that indicates the degree of political apathy of a working class as yet little aware of its powers either as a value-producing or a revolutionary force.

The appallingly low wages are a result both of the lack of trade union action and the surplus labour force. The government’s self righteous declaration of intention to absorb this surplus with labour-intensive industries has suffered a reversal, owing partly to the importation of ready made machine processes and the need for fewer skilled as against many unskilled workers. As in mid-19th Century Britain, capital-intensive industry is developing, with the stress on greater worker productivity. Henceforth it is to be expected that trade union struggle will centre increasingly around the problem of machine made redundancies.

One-third of the population is housed on gigantic estates. At Jurong, one of the largest industrial complexes in Southeast Asia outside Japan has been constructed, and also a number of council estates of high-rise flats, including one incredible jungle housing 130,000 persons. These flats, one unit of which is completed every 14 minutes, are inferior to those in Britain, but the social amenities are vastly better.

New image needed

One of the most pressing problems faced by the PAP government is the creation of a national ideology. This must grow, not as in Britain, from centuries of history strengthened by tradition and education, but from the dire, immediate need for a viable work-force owing allegiance to none but the new republic of 1965. Chinese, Indians. Malays — all are being enjoined to dissociate themselves from their cultural background and develop loyalty to the state only. The once derided figure of the colonialist Raffles now has an honoured place in the mythology as the founder of Singapore, a combination of St. George and King Arthur! The government has stated that he has been rehabilitated, as, being a European, no racial jealousies are likely to arise among the work-force. It has justified its multi-racial policy in hard-headed economic terms. Preference and prejudice on a racial basis is seen as being likely to misuse the full range of workers’ talents. The role of the mass media in this process is blatant and naive in the extreme and is the cause for some embarassment to the more sophisticated Singaporeans concerned for their national image.

Weak dissent

The political situation is ambiguous. Opposition parties can legally start up, although members of the Barisan Socialist and others with Communist Party sympathies are arrested and held without trial. It is declared PAP policy to imprison them until they recant, relent and make abject confession, whereupon they are rehabilitated in the ex-political detainees Association’s shoe factory set up by the government in order to more effectively supervise them.

Most people take the ’practical’ approach. “As an efficient business unit it works so leave the government alone” — an attitude that is encouraged by the PAP. Nevertheless, political discontent exists, but most of this simply consists of claims to be able to run Singapore capitalism more smoothly than the government.

These attempts to forge, in hothouse fashion, a nation with a loyal working class out of disparate cultural elements have resulted in problems in many aspects of social life.

On the industrial field strikes have been few — but the penalties are great. A go-slow by a group of port workers in protest against provisions of the Employment Act limiting overtime working brought vicious reaction. Dismissal, deprivation of citizenship and deportation were threatened by Lew Kuan Yew. This was in sharp contrast to his recent plea to employers to give a little of the extra profits made by the increased exploitation of the workers back to them. The legislation on overtime was itself a recognition of the unemployment problem, which in some fields is very high and likely to increase with the British rundown.

Virtues & suicides 

Calls for the practice of the puritan virtues of self-denial, thrift and hard work for the workers contrast with the tawdry opulence of the many new skyscraper tourist hotels and penetrate every walk of life. Schoolchildren, their paramilitary training and flag ceremonies over for the day. face a heavy homework schedule. The increase in student neuroses and drug addiction is attributed by a senior psychiatrist to the stress of modern living. Lee warns continually against "permissiveness” and drugs and warns "Bring in alien fads at your peril.” Over half of Singapore’s population is under 20, and the student population is high. Education represents a large investment in the human raw material needed for the new industrial society and the government is concerned about the economic wastage due to drug addiction. Caught between the pressures of a highly competitive educational system and the fear of losing one's acceptability (which permits of higher education) through political or cultural nonconformity, student suicides have increased. Among the young, the expression “taking a flyer” has found a sombre significance in the city’s high rise jungles; in recent months cases have occurred of mothers jumping with children in their arms. With suicide running as seventh highest cause of death throughout the age groups, Rajaratnam can say of the Singaporean with pride:

"His diseases today are those of a civilized and progressive society . . . from heart disease and a variety of neuroses. He can leave this planet in style and his choice of exits is wide.”

Perhaps. But not as wide as the gulf separating the workers' conditions from those of the Singapore capitalists and their office-boys in government.

Poverty & prostitution

The uprooting of communities for rehousing has led to much social unrest and in many cases a worsening of poverty. Inability to meet newly increased rents has resulted in many tenants quitting their flats. Particularly for the ex-village Malays this poverty has been compounded by their inability to supplement their income and diet from poultry and backyard produce. With the GNP growth of around 15%, malnutrition in Singapore is still very high. About 20% of child hospital attendees are suffering from this aspect of poverty. Increased organized prostitution in the industrial estates has drawn from one police official a condemnation of the factory girls for lowering the image of Singapore’s womanhood. Some of these same girls earn a total daily wage that would just about buy a small beer in one of the new hotels.

Government employees, even more than those of private capitalists, suffer insulting restrictions on their freedom. The maximum length of hair permitted for civil servants is gazetted (with diagrams!) and their instructions manual forbids them to speak disparagingly of the government. They were even forbidden to read on government premises the English-language newspaper, “The Herald,” before it was banned.

For all this, Singapore is an interesting and exciting city. Many traditions, languages, racial types and religions form a colourful cross-cultural complex in what must be one of the cleanest of cities, with the friendliest of people, who show, when they are not worked upon by external and internal divisive interests, how tolerantly human beings with different cultures can live together.

To watch the Singapore working class being created and then subjected to a continuous barrage of propaganda by a government intent on developing a world of capitalist values is a frightful experience for those who know something about such values. But the rapid industrialization within a newly created national ideology has obliged the government to justify its actions in a blend of plausible political theory, practical expediency and pure apologetics. In some areas such as the University, where a certain political sophistication is claimed, government policy, particularly its undemocratic actions, is severely criticised.

Prospects for Socialists

Whether diverse political opinions lie below the surface of this society, we have no way of knowing yet, but in his four years in Singapore, this writer has been struck forcibly by one thing. Unlike Britain, the workers of Singapore are not plagued by a 150-year history of reformist agitation. Apart from those who view things natlonalistlcally. and want to do the government’s job of running capitalism for them, and those who, often more for cultural reasons than political. lean towards China, discussions on socialism are fairly straightforward and generally sympathetically received. Rarely does one hear a counter-argument about “transitional demands” or reforms leading to socialism. The effects of capitalism as it impacts upon a newly formed society, and the de-humanising effects upon the working class, are perfectly plain to the workers in Singapore, unsure though they may be at present about its precise cause or solution. Short shrift would be given to those self-elected leaders of the revolution so often found in Britain, who have such a low opinion of the workers that they urge them to embrace capitalist institutions in order to demonstrate that they won’t work.

Lack of what passes for political sophistication may well be a factor In keeping the issue clear, and might well lead to readier acceptance of socialism as the only alternative to what they are forced to suffer, in spite of the retarding effects of still strong religions. Already a group of workers has expressed interest and enthusiasm for the Party’s case. Literature is being circulated under the most trying circumstances, and they have requested permission to print extracts from our publications. It may be too soon to call them socialists; perhaps they never will be. But the Party may, even so, find a lesson to be learned here.

Bill Robertson

Letters: Making allowances (2004)

Letters to the Editors from the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Making allowances

Dear Editors,

The review of Beyond Capital in the December Socialist Standard deals with the question of wage determination as affected by the balance of class forces, there being no automatic passing on of workers’ higher living costs or taxes in higher wage levels. But government’s unceasing tinkering with the social wage in the form of benefits and subsidies shows that they are very much concerned with their role in maintaining and trying to regulate such a link.

The role of post-war Family Allowances in influencing wage levels is well known to Socialist Standard readers over the years. Rent control, introduced to prevent a wage explosion in the first world war, is another example.

More recently government has openly acknowledged Family Credits to be a top-up for low wages. Junior Employment Minister in the 1994 Conservative government, Philip Oppenheim, was reported as saying (Observer 28 August 1994):

“Employers cannot be expected to have regard to the family commitments of each of their employees. This must be the role of the tax and benefit system, which ensured that households have sufficient income upon which to live. That is why we introduced Family Credits and other benefits for lower-paid employees with a family to support. It would make no sense to outlaw every job which did not pay wages high enough to support a family.”

At the time now Deputy Prime Minister Prescott criticised the Conservative Party policy of this topping-up low wages, saying, “Family Credit is now part of wage negotiations”, encouraging low pay.

What is surprising is not Prescott’s tacit admission of his earlier ignorance of the purpose of much social welfare legislation, but the Conservative Party’s frankness in acknowledging the purpose of such “benefits” as being government policy in their attempts to regulate wage or, certainly income levels for the low-paid.

It is a case of government being compelled to throw its weight in the balance of class forces mentioned in the review, in order to maintain competitiveness and profitability of the national economy. Seen as a necessary response to capitalism’s compulsions and priorities, political and economic, it might well be considered “automatic”.

Bill Robertson, 

Brighton

RMT and the SSP

Dear Editors,

Now that the RMT has been expelled from the Labour Party, the party they helped found 100 years ago, I wonder how long it will be before they are expelled again if the Scottish Socialist Party develop into a total British party whose reformist policies will no doubt evolve into what the Labour Party practice, as any other party who promises to manager Big Business.

Joe Boughey, 

Newton-le-willows, Merseyside

Alec Hart

Dear Editors,

Further to the obituary published in the February Socialist Standard, I have received the following story from one of Alec’s friends in Johannesburg:

“During the apartheid era he (Alec) was visited on many occasions by the ‘Special Branch’. Alec had an enormous picture of Karl Marx on the wall and when asked by one of these detectives ‘Who’s that man?’, he quite blandly said it was Johannes Brahms. Fortunately they believed him!”

I would have included this in the obituary if I’d had this story at the time

of writing!

Phyllis Hart, 

Westerham, Kent

Letter: Censorship or conformity? (1999)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Censorship or conformity?

Dear Editors,

1. Michael Gill’s experience (May Socialist Standard) in having his invitation to participate as a Socialist Party representative on Kilroy withdrawn on the researcher learning of his political views, will surprise only those who thought that audience participation involved no pressure from the production team.

Whilst dissent is acceptable with the framework of conventional left-right politics, that is, over which party can run capitalism better, pressure to conform exists at all levels of broadcasting. That this happens at the highest level is made quite clear by the original 1927 BBC Charter. This state “Government has the last word . . . an absolute power of veto over BBC programmes”, and it can also instruct the Corporation to withdraw programme material even before it is sent.

But censorship such as Michael Gill experienced may result not from government instruction, but from either the personal bias, conscious or otherwise, of the production staff, or, as probably in this case, the sheer pressure on staff themselves to keep within the bounds of political conformity. They too, are workers afraid to step out of line and dare not risk being accused of introducing either irrelevant or contentious material.

The sympathetic presentation of Kilroy tends to obscure the fact that many personal issues touched upon are trivialised by not relating them to a deeper social causation. But then, if it were to do this, every such programme would point the finger at the wider audience’s acceptance of capitalism as the cause, and the closing catchphrase, “Take care of yourselves” would take on a wider significance. The banal might even give way to the exciting and adventurous.

But does the Socialist Party really expect the government media to provide a free unbiased platform for their views? I am not optimistic. Despite a number of Broadcasting Reports recommending that broadcasting provide an outlet for minority political views, I feel that the Socialist Party must rely on its own slender material resources for this.

2. Stewart King’s letter (May Socialist Standard) on the anti-working class activities of the Labour government evoked many memories for me. As one of the conscripts he mentions, dragooned into the army by that government, I refused their order to help break a London dock strike—one of the eleven occasions that government had used troops in industrial disputes. I was of course punished. In a perverse way, the 1945 Labour government helped make me a socialist.

But the history of politics is shrouded in myth, especially where the “social welfare” legislation of the post-war government is concerned, and I hope I may correct the misconception in Stewart King’s letter ascribing child benefit to them. The principle of Family Allowances had received general cross-party support in the wartime coalition government, but the Family Allowance Act was, in fact, given Royal Assent on 16 June 1945, the operational date being set for August 1946, to be implemented by whichever party was then in power. The government on 16 June was a Conservative-led caretaker government and the legislation was put forward by Hore-Belisha, a Conservative minister.

The Family Allowance Bill was therefore enacted some six weeks before the General Election put Labour in power on 26 July 1945. For obvious reasons neither Labour nor Conservative parties are keen to publicise this fact.

W. Robertson, 

Hove, Sussex 

Russia still in Afghanistan (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rulers of many ‘Third World’ countries often distinguish between foreign aid programmes from the USA and those from Russia, seeing the former as the efforts of a capitalist superpower to dominate their nation, while the latter are regarded as kindly gifts of good faith from a “fraternal” power.

Of more importance than the beliefs of Third World capitalists, bankers, landlords and lackey politicians, is the fact that the same mistaken view is held by many workers not only in the so-called “developing” world, but also in the industrialised west. They think the USA is an expansionist power, always attempting to make Third World countries mere client states of its economic and strategic empire, while the friendly Soviet Union has no such imperial intentions. The latter power is often seen as the champion of the Third World underdog, due to the help it gives to “national liberation” movements such as in Angola, Vietnam and Cuba.

Unsurprisingly, this belief in the benevolent aims of Soviet foreign aid is fully endorsed by the Russian economist V. Rymalov:

Unlike the leading capitalist industrial powers, the USSR gives extensive aid to other countries without imposing terms incompatible to their national interests and dignity. There are no strings attached. (Asiaweek 30/1/81) 

However, this view of Russia as the “goodie” and the USA as the “baddie” (or vice-versa) in international affairs is incorrect. While not wishing to imply that the ruling classes of the USA and other Western capitalist powers are without imperialist schemes and aims, the ruling class of Russia and other Eastern Bloc nations are prime examples of countries with expansionist goals. This is because Russia behaves like any other capitalist nation: constantly seeking opportunities to secure and extend its sources of supply of natural resources, its spheres of influence and its markets. A clear case of Russia's imperialist aims is its involvement in the much troubled country of Afghanistan.

Russian imperialism in Afghanistan did not begin with the December 1979 occupation of that country; for decades prior to that event, Afghanistan was well on its way to becoming a colony of Moscow. The 1979 invasion was clearly a brutal and successful attempt by Brezhnev and his politburo cronies to tighten their grip on Afghanistan at a time when squabbles among that country’s own politicians and ruling class could have led to civil war, which would probably have suited American interests.

However, despite this background, strategic considerations constituted one of the main factors behind the invasion. According to a South-East Asian journal: 

The temptation to occupy a strategic position within 300 miles of the Gulf, and acquiring the choice of marching south and/or east at will could have been too strong to resist. Occupation of the Shindand base and the erection of missile launchers at that base are strong pointers. Equally important are the latest intelligence reports that the Soviets have set up surface-to-surface missiles in the Wakhan salient overlooking the Karakoram highway linking Pakistan and China. (Far Eastern Economic Review, 23-29/1/81)

Additionally, recent evidence suggests that strategic military considerations were certainly not the only factors that influenced the decision to invade. In fact, there was also a blunt economic motive behind Moscow's military action, which originated in the 1950s. According to Louis Dupree, a specialist in the politics of West and Central Asia from the mid-1950s, Afghanistan became “a primary ‘guinea pig' in the Soviet plan to penetrate developing countries economically” (Asiaweek 30/1/81). Since an American loan of $100 million to Afghanistan in 1955, Russia has been steadily increasing economic aid to Afghanistan in an attempt to beat the American ruling class at securing a hold over their neighbour. Dupree adds:

Just as the Soviets tested the US and its allies militarily in Korea, so they have tested the US economic reaction in Afghanistan. The country has a number of characteristics that make such an experiment tempting, among them, a common boundary with the USSR that facilitates commerce and communications.

Furthermore, Afghanistan has many of the features typical of certain Afro-Asian countries, such as a history of European imperialist penetrations; possession of a “false'’ national border, cutting across various ethnic groups; a slowly developing capitalist class and wage-earning class, products of the industrialising process; and a dictatorial, highly centralised political system. If a Russian plan of imperialist infiltration could be formulated and successfully applied to Afghanistan, then such a scheme could be implemented in other, similar, developing nations.

Between 1955 and 1979 Russian investment in Afghanistan, Excluding military aid, reached a mammoth $1.5 billion compared to the American investment of $1 billion, the aim, according to Dupree, being “the ultimate exploitation of Afghanistan’s natural resources”. So what exactly are these natural resources which make the Russian government (and the American government?) so interested in Afghanistan?

First, natural gas. Before the invasion, Russia imported about 3 billion cubic metres of Afghan gas each year through a pipeline running over the Ainu Darya River. Absurdly, loans to Afghanistan which have yet to be repaid include the cost of installations and pipelines transporting gas to Russia! Since 1967, when gas production started, Russia has extracted over 30 billion cubic metres of Afghan gas, mainly all for use in the industries of Soviet Central Asia.

Furthermore Russia gets this gas at well below the world price. It also seems a little more than coincidence that, at the time of the Soviet military take-over of Afghanistan in December 1979, a deal regarding Iranian gas sales to Russia had fallen through. Iran’s price was too high, and by April 1980 Russia had ceased to import gas from Iran. In turn, since the collapse of the deal, Afghan “natural gas output has risen to 3.5 billion cubic metres a year, almost all of it going to meet the growing energy demand of Soviet Central Asia” (Far Eastern Economic Review, 23-29/1/81).

Finally, for many years, Afghan governments have made frequent requests for Russian help in building internal gas pipelines in order to power the wheels of Afghanistan's own industries. Russia has declined to give help on the grounds that such a scheme would be too expensive and that the mountainous Afghan terrain would render such a project technically impossible. This appears a strange line of argument in view of the Russian construction of a longer gas pipeline at considerable cost, erected over equally mountainous areas from Afghanistan to Soviet Central Asia. Subsequently, until 1978, when Afghan “freedom fighters” took to the hills making many roads impassable, Afghanistan had to import bottled gas from neighbouring Pakistan.

Second area of interest — oil. Like its neighbour Iran, Afghanistan has immense untapped reserves. It is commonly believed by disgruntled Afghans that the Russian government was well aware of these oil deposits. This suspicion does seem to have foundation as in a recent article deceitfully entitled “New Horizons: tasks of the Afghan Revolution”, which appeared in Komsomolskaya Pravda, the official journal of the Youth League in the Soviet Union, it was stated that several oil deposits have been located and oil extraction organised by Russia. No doubt much of this oil will be pumped north to power Russian industry.

The third source of attraction is Afghan’s mineral resources — coal, copper, iron ore and emeralds. The article mentioned above also reported that copper deposits at Atinak, south of the capital Kabul, are “huge” and that Russian finance would help build an ore mining and smelting works, to be completed by 1985. The article also described Afghan iron ore deposits as “the world’s biggest”, while also commenting that Afghanistan was rich in emeralds. Finally, according to the World Bank, Afghanistan has about 100 million tons of coal reserves and an estimated potential for approximately a further 400 million tons.

Fourthly, cement, of which Afghanistan produces a very high standard. This commodity comes mainly from two plants, both built under a 1954 loan agreement by Czechoslovakia. Of the 150,000 tons of cement produced in Afghanistan between 1977 and 1978, most was exported to Russia. In an absurd exchange, Russia exports an equal amount of cement to Afghanistan, but of a much lower quality.

The fifth and final area of interest is citrus fruits and olives. Most of these goods grown at the Russian-financed and directed Ningralar Valley project are exported to Russia, but, like Afghan gas, their price is much lower than that which would be offered on the world market. Russia then sells much of this produce to its Eastern Bloc allies at a high profit.

Thus, one cannot help but agree with Louis Dupree’s assessment that Russia’s “aid projects remind one of the Afghan system of gerau, under which a farmer borrows a sum of money and agrees to give the borrower one half of his annual crop as interest until the debt is fully repaid. Russian assistance developed into exploitation, and Afghanistan has been virtually mortgaged into perpetuity”. (Asiaweek 31/1/81)

In conclusion, it is clear that Afghanistan is a virtual colony of the Russian ruling class for strategic, experimental and especially for economic purposes, as is South Korea to the USA and Niger is to France. One cannot distinguish a difference of “aim” in the foreign policies of the Western capitalist nations or the Eastern Bloc state capitalist nations, but there is some difference in the means. To secure markets and sources of supply of natural resources, the ruling classes of America and Europe generally use multinational companies; the Russian ruling class tend to use “foreign aid” programmes.

RSB

Letter from India: Conflict with Pakistan (1981)

From the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

If recent official statements are to be believed, and if one is to accept at face value the sensationalist Indian press headlines, Pakistan and India could soon be involved in another bloody war.

Mrs. Indira “Vasectomies All Round” Gandhi, in a recent speech, warned against the military build-up by certain neighbouring countries and called for preparations to meet any external or domestic challenge. The main (unnamed) neighbour she referred to was clearly Pakistan, a fact made plain when she said: “It is also in the air that they are preparing an atom bomb” (Times of India, 9/1/81). In “peaceful” contrast, Mrs. Gandhi hypocritically explained, while addressing a large crowd at Sanswara, India’s use of atomic energy was for “peaceful” ends. It is, in fact, common knowledge that India has atomic weaponry.

In December of last year Mrs. Gandhi spoke of the possibility of General Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistani President attempting “to divert the attention of the people” of Pakistan with military conflict with India (Times of India 20/12/80). This accusation contains more than an element of truth, as General Zia is overlord of a ravaged economy producing much discontent and is also under pressure to liberalise his harsh regime. These domestic uncertainties, coupled with the Soviet armed occupation in neighbouring Afghanistan, have made Zia look for external scapegoats, and no other countries fit this role better than India, Pakistan’s old rival, and the imperialistic Soviet Union.

Unable to muster the same popular support of his predecessor Bhutto, General Zia has tried to safeguard and strengthen his position by increasing Pakistan’s military potential in terms of both manpower and armaments. Additionally, Zia has recently been able to turn parts of his army into a profit-making concern by hiring out divisions to the Saudi Arabian ruling class at a high price.

Both China and America have greatly aided Zia with armaments and money in his military build-up programme. And it is no accident that when the Indian government went arms shopping recently in America, the latter tied such strings to the deal as to oblige the Indians to withdraw from the negotiations. The American government had no serious intention of selling arms to India; the reason for this is their foreign policy of wooing the Chinese and Pakistanis onto their siIte against the Soviet Union. It thus looks likely that military sales to India from Russia will increase, thereby drawing Ghandi more and more into the Russian sphere of influence.

Ghandi’s inference that Zia is trying to export his domestic problems can equally be applied to herself. For it is no coincidence that she has made these references to Pakistan’s threat at a time when she herself, like Zia, is trying unsuccessfully to manage an unstable economy which has produced waves of worker and peasant protest against her ruling Janata Party. In old-style Gandhi fashion, she is meeting these hostile responses with greater government powers of detention while increasing India’s military weaponry. Both Gandhi and Zia are preparing to deal harshly with potential domestic or foreign threats to the respective ruling classes they represent.

The main conflict point between Pakistan and India is, as with many inter-state conflicts, a border issue. In this case, the fertile and mineral-enriched northwest Indian state of Kashmir is the disputed region. In 1965, the political representatives from the ruling classes of India and Pakistan eagerly sent in their armed forces to butcher one another over the ownership of this region. The Indian ruling class won; the workers of India and Pakistan lost. To depict the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965-6 as a religious one, as was done at the time, is totally incorrect. It was not a case of Hindu India versus Moslem Pakistan, but purely one of the Indian versus the Pakistan ruling class, with the exploited classes of these two countries doing their masters’ filthy work for them.

Indo-Pakistan relations have tended towards frequent breakdowns during the last 30 years and on each occasion the Kashmir question has been a central issue. It is indicative of Zia’s desires to see this region incorporated into Pakistan that even the name “Pakistan” —“P” Punjab, “A” Afghan, “K”Kashmir, “I” Indus, “Stan” Baluchistan—serves as a continual reminder of the Kashmir question. In fact, there is not even a clearly-defined Kashmir border between India and Pakistan, as it appears differently on Indian and Pakistani maps.

Kashmir, and its capital city Srinigar, was once a summer escape from the heat of the plains for the Moghul Emperors who overran much of India, bringing with them their Islamic religion and introducing the caste system. While much of India resisted Islam, the Kashmiris more readily adopted the Moslem faith and even now Kashmir, like Pakistan, is predominantly Moslem. Now many Kashmiris do not consider themselves Indians and indeed there is a growing Islamic-based independence movement, which must please General Zia although it is not clear if this small, but developing political movement identifies with him. In fact, it seems more a case of regionally-minded Kashmiris wanting to set up their “own” state, apart from India and Pakistan—an aim similar to the confused thinking of the Basque separatists of Spain.

China has recently intervened in the. Kashmir dispute and called on India and Pakistan to settle their differences and face what is called “The Soviet Threat” in South Asia (New China News Agency, 15/1/81). The announcement attempted to quell Gandhi’s fears by stating that the Pakistani military build-up, much aided by China, is not directed against India. In other words, it is directed against the Red Army in Afghanistan.

However, despite all the Sino-Pakistani reassurances to the Indian government, the Kashmir problem will not go away. And as long as Kashmir remains a source of dispute (which will be just as long as capitalism remains to engender such antagonisms) Indo-Pakistani relations will remain tense, with possible eruptions into war, as in 1965. But assuming that General Zia and his governmental associates can collectively muster together three or four brain cells, they might then realise that in terms of population, land mass, GNP, industrial and military production and even size of armed forces, India dwarfs Pakistan.

Of more importance than the choice of war or peace by Zia or Gandhi is the decision by the exploited classes of these two nations, that is, those who fill the armies’ ranks, as to whether they wish to be used as cannon fodder in their masters’ dispute.

RSB

The Four Tigers (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A weary Asia out of sight  

Is tugging gently at the night  

Uncovering a restless race; 

Clocks shoo the childhood from its face.

W.H. Auden

A trade union demonstration in Singapore is a rare sight; one protesting a decision of the United States Congress is unheard of. That it was permitted is a measure of the government's concern at Singapore's inclusion with South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong as one of the Four Tigers allegedly threatening the economic life of the US. and therefore scheduled to have its GSP privileges withdrawn on 1 January, 1989. The Generalised System of Preferences allows free or low-tariff imports of certain goods into the US; Japan and the EEC have similar schemes. Its purpose is. ostensibly, to encourage the trade and economic development of Low-Developing Countries. But trade is at least a two-way business, and developed countries are involved as much for the purpose of their economic health.

Growing up in capitalism is a painful affair, as any worker knows. Having successfully responded to the urging of their US mentors to modernise and achieve newly industrialised country status, these LDCs are reaching out for some of Uncle Sam's bourbon and cigars and have been told that they will be "graduated" from their trade privileges as a consequence.

The present trade deficit of the US. and its changed role from creditor to the world's heaviest debtor nation, is something that capitalism's supporters would have found difficulty envisaging ten years ago. Some blame Reaganomics, but this cannot explain how the exceptional economic superiority of the US after the Second World War appears to be progressively deferring to the rapid growth of Europe and Japan. Although persistent trade imbalances can be reversed and do not indicate the permanent demise of a country's economic strength, it does seem that the automatic assumption of US economic hegemony is being challenged by the development of capitalism itself in the shape, in this instance, of the Newly Industrialised Countries.

Asian NICs
These countries have all experienced colonial status and their development in the last decade has been outstanding. The UN Economic and Social Commissioner for Asia and the Pacific states that the Four Tigers achieved a remarkable 11.7 per cent growth in real GDP in 1987. Even the growth at 5.7 per cent of another Asian ex-colonial LDC, the Philippines, exceeded that of the most developed countries. And despite the continued general slowdown in world economic growth projected by the IMF at 2.9 per cent this year, the Tigers' expansion rate, in keeping with ESCAP's regional projection of 5.6 per cent, is expected to continue well above those of developed countries.

The scheduled withdrawal of GSP privileges is an example of increasing US protectionism which highlights the international nature both of markets and investment capital. The Singapore American Business Council's call on its government in Washington to reconsider withdrawal, argued that cheap imports of Singapore products into the US — in particular from their own factories in Singapore — help lower costs in US-finished products, increasing US competitiveness. In a demonstration of their capitalist maturity, the NICs took immediate steps after the announcement to support their separate economies. Trade delegations between the Tigers followed, as well as between them and areas such as India, Pakistan and East and West Europe. And Taiwan and South Korea, with a competitive eye on China's cheap and abundant raw materials, agreed to reverse their previous trade policy with her and to open their markets.

The role of the Tigers' exports in the US trade deficit is an indication that capitalism can still develop increasing productivity and output, and that industrialisation still results from investment in low-wage areas. US, Japanese and EEC capital have played the major part in this.

But the Four Tigers represent only part of the picture of Third World development in East Asia. Thailand, better known for export of rice and rubber, now exports Japanese cars, its manufactured products swelling from two per cent to 60 per cent of exports in 25 years. With the highest growth rate in the ASEAN group of six countries, and an IMF forecast of a seven per cent annual growth until 1991, she is expected to become the next NIC. Like the Tigers two decades earlier, Thailand has a flourishing labour-intensive textile industry with low wages — about US$3 daily. The increasing use of machine-intensive industry, staffed round the clock by an adaptable, young labour force, could well follow their pattern by keeping labour costs low and the economy competitive. At one-third of the cost, industrial productivity almost equals that of South Korea. Already a magnet for US and Japanese capital, investments now flood in from the economies of the Tigers and the EEC. to share in the fruits of exploitation.

Malaysia, another ex-colony attracting foreign investment, has urged Singapore and Taiwan, already the second and third largest investors in the country behind Japan, to avoid GSP restrictions by relocating their industries there, stating its aim as wanting to form an "economic power to replace the weakening US and EC markets". Its manufacturing sector's growth of 12 per cent, and its 69 per cent growth in trade surplus in 1987, reflect the surprising fact that Malaysia is now a significant producer of electronic and electrical goods, and that machinery and transport equipment head both its import and export lists.

Keeping a watchful and wary eye on these developments — and on her trade surplus with the NICs — Japan is in the forefront of OECD moves to include them in a new Pacific OECD. However, they already account for 25 per cent of the US deficit, and as they turn to the EEC to avoid US protectionism, the European trade situation could worsen. Expected by OECD to surge past Japan's surplus, and to double that of the EC and EFTA combined in 1989, it is not surprising that their inclusion in economic dialogue is seen by Japan and the other major powers as essential.

When Auden wrote the lines at the head of this article, much of Asia and the Pacific rim were colonies. Fifty years and decolonisation have passed, and many countries seem ready to move into what is referred to in Singapore as the "chopsticks century", as fully-fledged capitalist powers experiencing the same competitive pressures. As exploitation in South Korea intensified. leading to a series of strikes and a 20 per cent pay increase last year, suicides among housewives increased sharply. And in a rare demonstration of strength and solidarity, Thai workers in reorganised unions are demanding a social security system from birth to death.

Increasing US protectionism, and the anticipated strengthening of EC external tariffs with the community's impending economic unification, have led to calls for an Asian Common Market. We are not in the business of making predictions, and treat economists" forecasts with a caution derived from our knowledge of capitalisms' economic anarchy. Whichever scenario obtains — free trade or protectionism — Asian workers will indeed have lost their childhood.

Bill Robertson

Letter: Profound Disequilibrium (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Profound Disequilibrium

Dear Editors.

The article “World Recession Closes in Quickly” (October) makes the undeniable point that "the capitalist economy is in a period of profound disequilibrium". However, I feel that coupling this with the statement that it would get better may suggest to some readers that the Socialist Party holds the mistaken view that equilibrium is the normal state of a healthy capitalism, that is, one of boom.

Traditional bourgeois economic theory leans heavily on the concept that production serves consumption, and that equilibrium is achieved as all factors of production receive their just recompense in the market, which is supposed to regulate technical/organisational decisions necessary for this alleged balance.

Marx’s value theory demonstrates that capitalism's normal state is, in fact, disequilibrium. Quite apart from the anarchy of production, this arises from the fact that on the level of the whole economy capital accumulation can proceed only through the realisation of surplus value by reinvestment in new means of production, capitalists' and workers’ personal consumption being met out of the remainder of surplus value and by wages respectively.

This reinvestment is made by individual businesses under competitive pressure, and in anticipation of a market demand over and above that currently existing. It must bear a favourable relationship to the mass of capital already accumulated if the economy is to expand and they are to stay in business. Whether the rate of profit is maintained, and slump deferred, depends firstly on whether this new investment enables a corresponding increase in surplus value production. But this competitively-compelled investment in new means of production is a permanent feature of disequilibrium normal to capitalism, driving it forward beyond current market bounds and ultimately to a period of over-investment, declining profits and slump. Incidentally. I believe that it is only in this sense that Marx’s contentious reference to crises being ultimately caused by the restricted consumption of the masses can be seen as relevant.

As capitalist production is essentially production of and for capital, it is enabled to proceed only when it can produce enough surplus value to satisfy its accumulation needs, and ceases when it cannot. No equilibrium state is involved.

W. Robertson,

Brighton

Reply:

We didn't really suggest that equilibrium is the normal slate of the capitalist economy, did we?

Editors.

Obituary: Bill Robertson (2012)

Obituary from the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are sorry to have to announce that comrade Bill Robertson died in Brighton in March at the age of 84. He first came across the Party through outdoor meetings in Hyde Park and originally joined in 1947. He trained as a wireless operator and in 1960 went to work for the British Forces Broadcasting Network in Singapore. He returned to Britain in 1981 and played an active role in the old Brighton branch but still retained an interest in the Far East. He visited contacts in Kerala and India and spoke at outdoor meetings (we have a recording of him speaking in English with his talk being translated into the local language). In 1984-5 he spent some time in Perth, in Western Australia, transferring to the World Socialist Party of Australia and helping to produce and write for their publication of the time Socialist Comment which enabled him to display his considerable knowledge of Marxian economics. Later he returned to Britain again and settled in his home town of Brighton.

We extend our sympathy to his wife and children.

Letters: Hierarchical? (1988)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hierarchical?

Dear Editors.

In an otherwise interesting and informative article on "Computers in a Socialist World" in the November Socialist Standard, George Marcelo makes the strange statement that in a Socialist society “it is likely that the system will be hierarchical". He further states that "bigger decisions . . . would be decided on higher up the hierarchy".

Strange indeed, because the last thing a socialist society will be is "hierarchical". It will, by its nature, be a society of freedom from compulsion where people will work together cooperatively without having to take orders from anyone above them. A society of common ownership, free access and democratic control could not work in any other way. It is the present society that is shot through with hierarchy reflecting the power given by ownership of wealth.

George Marcelo's reference to "hierarchy" in Socialism may of course just be an unfortunate use of words. Since he uses the word in the context of decisions being made according to their importance at local, regional or world levels, perhaps by it he means a system of decision-making according to the number of people the decisions will affect. But. whatever the case, it should be made clear that the notion of hierarchy, with its associations of leadership and minority decisions from above, could have no place in the organisation of a socialist society.

Yours for Socialism.

Howard Moss

Swansea

The SWP and Russia

Dear Editors.

It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the SWP would nail their colours to the mast and declare in favour of Leninist state capitalism — Russia 1917 model — in their literature. Despite this, when confronted with the anti-socialist nature of their case, SWP members and supporters continue to claim that they want the same society as the socialist — eventually.

But as the article, Leninist State v World Socialism in the October Socialist Standard points out, the socialist is as opposed to the state run by the SWP as to the Russian or any other state. Any doubts as to how socialist criticism in such a state would be judged may be dispelled by reference to the Russian state's attitude to similar criticism of its system. This is indicated in a pamphlet published by Novosti Press Agency entitled Socialist Economics Today. The writer, an economist of Moscow University called Professor Margarita Bunkina tells us.

 The essence of socialism has become the subject of keen debate in the course of which, the opponents of the new social system [Russian State Capitalism - W.R.] frequently pose as supporters of socialism — not of that which has actually existed in the world for 60 years, but of some other kind of socialism which they claim has still to be built

So Russian workers criticising Russian state capitalism from a socialist viewpoint are regarded, correctly, as "opponents of the new social system" attempting to propagate “some other kind of socialism". As such, they become victims of that state's corrective institutions. Can anyone believe that socialist criticism of the state run by Lenin's political heirs in the SWP would be dealt with differently in view of that party's clear support for Bolshevik tactics and aims?

               Yours fraternally,
W. Robertson

                                                                                                                        Brighton

Socialism v Anarchism

We have received two letters which raise some points about the above article (Socialist Standard, October 1987). We hope to publish these, with our comments, in the February issue.

Editors

Letters: Is "god" a Socialist? (1996)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is "god" a Socialist?

Dear Editors,

Re your November editorial: “We only have one life: this one" and Adam Buick’s “we do know that it (the human mind and consciousness) can’t exist in the absence of a body that functions” in his Is-David-Icke-Serious? Same issue article.

First and foremost, if socialism is to be established, it's unreasonable and self-defeating to make unwelcome all those who believe in, or are open-minded about life after death, as these views alone are irrelevant.

Opinion polls have shown a majority think some sort of post- mortem survival likely, and there’s very strong evidence from Near Death Experiences (NDE) and mediumships.

Many cardiac-arrested patients have had NDEs, which, after resuscitation, have proved to be accurate accounts of events in hospitals etc. observed by detached “spirits” looking down upon their own physical bodies.

It can be argued that NDEs are "just" a psychic phenomenon associated with a dying brain, but they do show a perceptive consciousness can operate externally at the brink of death.

Furthermore, several sceptical and painstaking investigators of different mediums have been impressed and converted by considerable and precise spiritual information (some only knowable by those who “died").

Just because many people conclude souls may survive briefly, eternally, multi-incarnately etc. doesn’t mean they can’t see a better world for the living will come about through socialism. Such rationalists can readily see that capitalism must go if they’re not shut out.

Religions only grew because an afterlife has been a mystery for aeons, and their leaders are even now suing their claims on this enigma for their own personal. political and capitalistic advantages.

However, no system of faith has exclusive ownership of, or justifiable rule by reason of a hereafter whatsoever, since it would rightfully and equally belong to all (like the means of living while alive): so "god” can logically be seen as a universal coalescent synergy of spiritual entities. Or in other words, if it exists, god's a socialist!

Max Hess, 

Folkestone

Reply:
We have never said that those who believe in an afterlife can’t want socialism. They can, and we know of a number of examples. People can be inconsistent and hold contradictory views: basing one part of their views on what experience has confirmed but basing another part on unverified, and often unverifiable, beliefs, speculations and superstitions.

All we say is that such people are ineligible to join the Socialist Party (but they can be sympathisers), as we feel they would undermine our claim to have a case based on rational, logical argument from scientifically verified facts about history, capitalism, and human nature and behaviour.

It is on this last point in particular that such people fall. If it really was part of human nature to have a spirit that could exist in the absence of a body this would be a very important fact that would have enormous implications for explaining human behaviour. The fact that most people do believe this (or want to believe it) doesn't make any difference. There is no evidence for it. On the contrary, all the evidence goes the other way, confirming that human behaviour and thought, including thinking, can be explained in purely materialist terms.

So-called "Near-Death Experiences” and "Out-of-Body Experiences" don't prove that there is a spiritual life separate from the body since, in any event, they are linked to the existence of a functioning body. They are hallucinations, mental distortions, brought on by the brain being deprived for a short period of enough oxygen. It has been suggested that the particular form the hallucination takes—of floating out of the body, among other things—is due to the particular physiology of the human brain and to the way it organises and interprets the experience of the senses. (For one such explanation see the article by Susan Blackmore on "Near-Death Experiences: In or Out of the Body?" in the Fall 1991 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer.)

You can't be serious about mediums. We thought that it was common knowledge that they were either entertainers (whose tricks can be reproduced by other conjurers and illusionists who make no claims about really being in touch with the spirit of a dead person) or frauds (the list of those who have been exposed as such over the last hundred years is a long one). For the techniques employed to fish for and extract information from vulnerable persons and then re-presenting it to them as if it came from a spirit, see Chapter 4 of James Randi: Psychic Investigator (the book of the 1991 television series).

Finally, would "god” if it existed, be a socialist? Clearly not since, unless it is a useless abstraction incapable of influencing human affairs, it would have used that influence to have got humans to establish socialism long ago. But what do we find? That this "god" allows 14 million or so children under the age of 5 to die each year of starvation and starvation-related diseases. Some socialist!

Editors.

Pressure valve for the working class

Dear Editors,

I found Coleman's comments about the National Lottery (November Socialist Standard) particularly interesting, although I felt that he said far too little about the real objectives behind what is probably one of the most seductive capitalist ploys in history. Apart from the obvious fact that the National Lottery is designed to act as yet another pressure valve for the working class, I feel that its hidden agenda is of a far more sinister nature.

The simpering puppets of the Parliamentary Establishment are finding it increasingly difficult to hide the progressive degradation of British society. The ruling class has had to come to terms with the simple fact that laissez-faire capitalism cannot function without decimating whole sections of our community. The clutter of sleeping bags which fill the shop doorways of our major towns and cities are becoming an embarrassment to an exploitative system keen to conceal the inevitable consequences of its own soul-destroying policies.

In the last century, the capitalist class was able to postpone the full effects of social decay by throwing working class people into workhouses or by relying upon the well-meaning but futile efforts of Victorian philanthropists. The National Lottery is a similar ploy which has been implemented for precisely the same reason. By diverting the squandered revenue of the average gambler into specific charities the Tories can retain an essential facade of comparative normality, thus ensuring a continued acceptance (at least by a sympathetic minority) and managing to stave off the persistent threat of a Socialist alternative at the same time. Sadly, the National Lottery is not simply a "bit of fun”, it is a cynical and manipulative plot to deceive the increasingly credulous masses.

Christian McLean, 

Dover

The ability of capitalist authority

Dear Editors,

Your [November] Socialist Standard review of Charles Derrick’s book A Question of Judgement mentions the vital issue of the ability of capitalist authority, indeed of capitalism, to survive in the face of the withdrawal of the willing co-operation of a majority of class-conscious workers like, presumably, Derrick. My own experience in the army as another unwilling conscript of the 1945 Labour government, whilst not as varied as Derrick's, forced me to consider the effects on capitalism’s stability of even a small minority.

Having refused an order to accompany my unit to help break the London Dock strike of the winter of ’46, I was given military punishment. At this stage the barrack-room politicians of the Communist Party were solidly behind the Labour government in smashing the workers’ attempts to better their living standards, and as far as I know, mine was a one-man revolt. As such it received no publicity.

I had time to reflect on the effect that even a small number of such refusals could have had if made with the integrity and strength of socialist conviction and argument, and backed by a sound party statement. The publicity given by local and national newshounds anxious to embarrass the government, and possible questions in parliament could have pushed the issue of a socialist alternative, however distorted, and the resultant discussion in office, factory and pub would have been out of all proportion to the numbers of socialists involved.

Like everyone else, socialists behave in conformity with their convictions as far as possible. I believe that the effect on capitalism’s workability of a minority of even 5 percent of socialists behaving like Derrick in their various activities would be so profound, that the question of capitalism’s viability would confront the non-socialist majority as a critical issue demanding their political and ideological decision and commitment, at an earlier stage than the assumptions implied by majority action normally suppose.

Bill Robertson, 

Brighton

Cyprus Report (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is now almost a year since Cyprus’ Black Christmas erupted into the headlines. Since then, frequent murders and incidents of vandalism have kept the inter-communal mistrust simmering; a lasting settlement between the Greek and Turkish populations seems almost impossible.

The dispute between the Greek and Turkish factions centres round the island’s Constitution. This, in its first article, prohibits activities aimed at promoting the union of Cyprus with any other country or at the partition of the island. The Turks have insisted on the inviolability of the Constitution as their best hope of defeating enosis; by the same token, the Greeks have tried to amend it. In fact, in a population openly divided by national allegiances, the Constitution has proved unworkable.

Whichever side started the fighting last December, it is a fact that both had been spoiling for it for a long time. The Turkish underground (TMT) had secretly landed arms and EOKA was still in organised existence. When the flare-up came, nobody should have been surprised.

The Turks probably erred in walking out of the Cypriot government. Although in theory this made illegal any decision by the Greek side, in fact it left the Greeks to perform all the necessary state business, including sending a delegation to UNO. This in turn made the Turkish Cypriots appear to be an insurgent minority; the whole weight of the state forces was turned against them. The police force (minus its disaffected Turkish members), the Army and the Greek vigilante groups (transformed by some propaganda alchemy into “Security Forces”) were used in the fighting.

The Greeks also took over the organs of propaganda. Mr. Yiorgadjis took charge at the Ministry of Defence and in his other capacity of Minister of the Interior dictated policy to the press, radio and Public Information Office. The Turks erected their “Bayrak" radio station but this was quickly jammed. Revolting atrocities committed by the “legally established State Security Forces” lighting the “insurgent illegally armed Turks’’ were either not mentioned, or reported only when given prominent publicity in the foreign press. This is not to say that the Turks were innocent of committing atrocities, but the Greeks' control of the official propaganda channels enabled them to distort the news in their own favour.

Television and radio appeals by Makarios and Küçük for an end to the fighting were ignored. The arrival of the British troops and the Red Cross workers brought a lull, but. the fighting soon broke out again on the news of more atrocities. A press campaign against the British troops (who were themselves guilty of acts of vandalism) was supported by demonstrations of school children shouting for the return of General Grivas. Such demonstrations, with their inculcation of nationalism into young minds, were one of the most frightening and disgusting aspects of the crisis. I saw the logical consequences of it all, as a small group of young Greeks watched with callous disregard the shot and still bleeding body of an unarmed Turkish driver, lying beside his NAAFI vehicle.

What is the background to the bloody struggle? in Cyprus the class structure has not yet hardened into the classical capitalist form. The majority of the subject part of the islands’ population are not proletariat, landless and propertyless in the means of production. Agriculture accounts for over half the labour force and in both Greek and Turkish communities there are many peasant farmers, often struggling in debt. In this situation official decisions on matters like the provision of irrigation become not only a subject of husbandry but also of politics, with many only too ready to suspect officialdom of partisan bias. This makes the nationalists’ exhortations more readily accepted.

The official Turkish attitude, according to the press, lay in conformity to the strict letter of the Constitution. But that was not the whole story. The Turkish Cypriot aim, based on their claims to be a separate community, is Taksim, or perhaps federation. The statement of their leaders Küçük and Denktash, backed by the voice of Ankara, leave no doubt on this point. The Turkish suffering at the hands of Greek terrorists created sympathy for their aims but should not persuade anyone that these are any better than the other so-called solutions to the Cyprus crisis.

The apparent Greek aim of a unitary and independent state can see nothing strange in a strategically important island of half a million people trying to steer its own course through the tortuous channels of big power line ups. American intervention now seems to indicate that, if enosis comes, it will do so on some sort of compromise. For sure, the Turkish desire for partition would cut across the complex Cypriot landholding system, since most of the land, livestock and industry is in Greek hands.

The Greeks, who make up 80 per cent, of Cyprus’ population, say that they will not be thwarted. They make much play of what they call ancient Greek democracy, overlooking the fact that 80 per cent. of that society's population—the chattel slaves—were ruled by the other 20 per cent. Enosis remains the real object of the Greek struggle; their spokesmen have often referred to the London and Zurich agreements as stepping stones to this end. The demands for enosis were noticeably absent from Cypriot government functions after the Spring of 1963, which led some people to conclude that the idea had been shelved. Now all that is changed.

The Greek faction in Cyprus is now faced with a considerable problem, of its own making. Legalising the bands of gunmen in the “Security Force” meant condoning the private armies of men like Nicos Samson. These men had wielded considerable power, and caused the Greek Cypriot leaders much embarrassment. The Conscription Bill passed in June, ostensibly “to defend the country from aggression from without, or subversion . . .  was in fact designed to regularise the State Forces and to disarm and outlaw the volunteers.” In this way, apprehensive Greek ministers hoped to neutralise the power of the private armies.

Inevitably, the businessmen of Cyprus are concerned to procure political and economic stability. Some have suffered heavy financial losses and in private will admit indifference to enosis. For them, self determination is one thing, enosis another. Characteristically, the Cyprus Employers Consultative Association, during the crisis, called on all employers and workers to return to work, as the best way of solving the problem.

If only because it is numerically strong, and stands an outside chance of coming to power, we should mention the Communist Party. Almost exclusively Greek, and not having studied such foreign vote-catching plans as Home Rule for Wales, Scotland, Cornwall, etc., it regards the Turkish advocacy of partition as subversive. As usual, the Communists are hunting with the hounds while also being prepared to run with the hare.

But hypocrisy does not end with the Communist Party. With the return of Grivas—now probably on his way back to respectability—and the apparent United States support for enosis, things seem to be going Athens’ way. Behind the cloak of legal arguments, and in the name of self-determination, enosis, federation, taksim and the rest, thousands of people have been killed, have been made homeless, have suffered in a multitude of ways.

That is not the end of the tragedy. The young man next door who takes up a gun in the Cyprus struggle is not a barbarian. He exists, in one way or another, all over the world. Ignorant as yet of the real nature of the inhuman society of sovereign states, political and economic blocs, nationalism and the rest, be blindly follows his leader, if necessary to kill and be killed.

In that fact, and in no other, is to be found the ultimate cause of the suffering in Cyprus and in the rest of the world.

W. Robertson

Letter: Lenin - "Shoot the idlers" (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the July 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Yes indeed, Lenin did say, "One out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot" (Gary Cubbage's letter, June Socialist Standard). This is from his "How to Organise Competition" written in December 1917, well before Stalin or the market economy of the NEP had provided Trotskyist excuses. It is also quoted in the article, "Lenin & Blanqui, Victims of Self-Deception” in the Nov/Dec 1984 issue of “Socialist Comment” journal of the WSPA.

In researching that article and checking through the three volumes of the Moscow edition of Lenin's Selected Works, I was struck by the numerous times that Lenin made statements that differed depending on the type of audience. One of the most significant is his address to the Conference of Political Education Workers in 1920 admitting that it is a “utopian view that workers are ready for socialism” contrasting with his more optimistic statements to a wider audience.

This demonstrates the opportunism forced on leaders trying to capture and hold onto power, and to influence events in the face of working class lack of understanding, cooperation and support. And the Russian working class was, in addition, a minority class.

Of course, if majority understanding existed it would negate the need for leaders anyway and change the whole concept of the revolutionary capture of political power and its implications, and to come back to Gary's letter, also of the question of 'the lazy man'.

Latter-day Leninist parties have learned little from Lenin's experience as revealed in his writings, of trying to deal with those problems to which he, his tactics and his hopes ultimately succumbed. A few months before his death, a disillusioned Lenin admitted, 'we lack enough civilisation to enable us to pass straight on to socialism”. Coining a new confusing definition of the system in Russia, he bemoaned the fact that “Not a single book has been written about state capitalism under communism. It did not occur even to Marx to write a word on this subject; and he died without leaving a single precise statement or definite instruction on it”. Why Marx should have written instructions for running state capitalism Lenin doesn't say.

In thus finally, and perhaps unwittingly acknowledging the vast gap between his and Marx's concept of a post-capitalist revolutionary society, Lenin also gives the lie to those of his followers who hold the opposite view - that they corresponded.

Lenin's life should be read as a cautionary tale by would-be revolutionaries, although it could provide a few drastic pointers to those seeking to organise competition.

Yours fraternally,

William Robertson