SPGB Meetings (1936)

Party News from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'Comrade Clifford', who was the London speaker at the Durdham Downs, Bristol meeting, was Clifford Groves.

The trade unions congress. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year’s Trades Union Congress has come and has passed to “that bourne from which no traveller returns.” At Bristol the galaxy of the Trade Union world sat in conference. They sat — and hatched nothing.

This year’s gathering was important and historic, in fact, the latter quality was so impressed upon us by the capitalist Press that one was almost inclined to think, from the point of view of posterity, that it ran a neckband-neck race with the Judgment Day. Leaving on one side that this was the largest congress yet held, no doubt the importance was augmented by the fact that no congress was held last year, owing to the war, and that this year’s gathering was held in time of war. “‘The time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to talk of many things,'” but the war and the problems arising therefrom, for the most part, occupied the attention of the assembled delegates.

This Bristol “chinwag” can, however, be differentiated, from its predecessors on two distinct grounds. Firstly, there was no mayor of corpulent rotundity to welcome the delegates. This duty devolved upon Widdecombe, chairman of the Bristol Trades Council, and in the course of his introductory remarks he said (I quote from “Justice,” 9.9.15).

“The Trades Council felt that there would be no interest on the part of the Congress in being welcomed by a representative of the class they were incessantly fighting for their rights and their trade unionism.”

Thus another cherished tradition is consigned to the melting-pot, and one is inclined seriously to doubt the truth of Mathew Arnold’s dictum that the age of miracles is past. Secondly, there was no Congress sermon delivered with special reference to labour by one of those who toil not neither do they spin. This, perhaps, can be accounted for when one remembers the sermon delivered at the Manchester meeting of 1913, in in which it was said : “The German, the French, the British workmen have no quarrel with one another.” (Official Report, p. 411) This is so true that it almost seems out of place at a Trades Union Congress, and therefore the possibility of its repetition from an ecclesiastic was dispensed with this year.

The president’s (Mr. J. A. Seddon) address is felicitously described by the “Clarion” (9.9.15) as “an admirably restrained and statesmanlike performance”—a phrase one has heard in other connections from far more avowedly capitalistic sources. He demanded that the Government should lift the veil of secrecy and stated that democracy was on its trial. Yes, “democracy” is on its trial ; and it has been found guilty of wilful negligence of its own interests. But despite his “admirable performance,” which was chiefly notable owing to his unacknowledged quotation from J. R. Lowell, the attention of the “world” was focussed upon two resolutions, the one dealing with conscription, and the other with the war.

The conscription resolution read :

“That we, the delegates to this Congress, representing nearly three million organised workers, record our hearty appreciation of the magnificent response made to the call for volunteers to fight against the tyranny of militarism. We emphatically protest against the sinister efforts of a section of the reactionary Press in formulating newspaper policies for party purposes and attempting to foist on this country conscription, which always proves a burden to the workers, and will divide the nation at a time when absolute unanimity is essential. No reliable evidence has been produced to show that the voluntary system of enlistment is not adequate to meet all the Empire’s requirements. We believe that all the men necessary can, and will, be obtained through a voluntary system properly organised, and we heartily support and will give every aid to the Government in their present efforts to secure the men necessary to prosecute the war to a successful issue.” (“The Times,” 8.9.15.)

Of course, this resolution was carried unanimously. In the course of the discussion Mr. Ben Tillett, full of ambition and table d’hote, of “rotters” and music-hall fame, said that “he was not opposed to conscription as a theory. If there were anything in it and if he believed that it would help us to end the war sooner he would vote for it straight away.” (Times, 8.9.15.) One is strongly reminded by this attitude, of that adopted by several other well-meaning folk who are against all war in theory and in favour of all war in practice. He also suggested that “in matters so serious the Government ought to approach the Parliamentary Committee of the Congress … to have a heart to heart talk.” Now the Cabinet is composed of Cabinet Ministers, and the foregoing suggestion contrasts strangely with his sweeping assertion at previous congresses that “no Cabinet Minister could tell the truth.” (Official Report, 1913, p. 136.)

A large number of critics have regarded the carrying of this resolution as evidence of a wholehearted antagonism toward conscription on the part of the “three million organised workers.” It appears, however, that in consonance with the Liberal Press, their opposition is against “Lord Northcliffe’s conscription,” and that, were it asked for by Lord Kitchener, they would swallow the pill without the bulge of a cheek. In other words, their antagonism is not to conscription per se, but to those who are engineering the present movement.

This view is, to a certain extent, borne out by the passing with but seven dissentients of the war resolution, which reads :

“That this Congress, while expressing its opposition, in accordance with its previously expressed opinion, to all systems of militarism as a danger to human progress, considers the present action of Great Britain and her allies as completely justified, and expresses its horror at the atrocities which have been committed by the German and Austrian military authorities, and the callous, brutal and unnecessary sacrifice of the lives of non-combatants, including women and children ; and hereby pledges itself to support the Government as far as possible in the successful prosecution of the war.” (“The Times,” 9.9.15.)

Its pledge to assist the Government as far as possible in the successful prosecution of the war does not bode well for the “anti-conscription” resolution in the event of the Government deciding to raise men by conscript means. Sexton (Dockers) moved the resolution, and in the course of his speech stated that this was not a capitalist war and added : “I am convinced that the Trade Unions of this country will have to put up the biggest fight when the war is over that they have ever put up in their history.” (“Star,” 3.9.15.) This is, no doubt, in anticipation of the way in which the capitalists will express their gratitude to the workers, and here Mr. Dooley on Capital and Labour would not be out of place.

“At Chris’mas time Capital gathered his happy fam’ly round him an’ in th’ prisince iv th’ ladies iv th’neighbourhood give them a short oration. “Me brave la-ads,” said he, “we’ve had a good year (cheers). I have made a million dollars (sinsation). I atthribute this to me supeerior skill, aided by ve’r arnest efforts at th’bench an’ at th’ forge (sobs). We have done so well that we won’t need so maiiny iv ye as we did (long and continyous cheerin’). Those iv us who can do two men’s wurruk will remain, an’ if possible do four. Our faithfnl servants,” he says, “can come back in th’ spring,” he says, “if alive,” he says. An’ the bold artysans tossed their paper caps in th’ air an’ give three cheers for Capital. They wurruked till ol’ age crept on thim, an’ thin retired to live on th’ wish bones an’ kind wurruds they had accumylated.”

Tillett had his say characteristically : “This was not a fight of the capitalists. . . . Instead of yapping like terriers, we should join hands in this great conflict.” He then proceeded to yap. There are some men in this world who are loud in shouting their willingness to give their last drop of blood for their country, but who are always careful not to risk shedding the first drop. Tillett has been to the trenches–on a conducted tour.

Roberts, M.P., regretted the backwardness of Russia, but, he added, she had found her own soul. No such resolution as following was on this year’s agenda ; it is found in the Official Report for the 1912 Congress, p. 204.

“That this Trades Union Congress in Newport expresses its sympathy with the severe struggle of their comrades in Russia, and protests against the brutal means by which the Russian Government tries to crush the increasing solidarity of the workers, as shown in their organisations, and expresses the hope that at the forthcoming elections for the Fourth Duma the forces of reaction may be defeated, and a strong Labour representation returned to work for the overthrow of capitalism and autocracy.”

The Russian autocracy, whose name was formerly synonymous with rape and rapine and ruthless repression, has now joined the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Small Nations, which prevention, it might be added, does not, like charity, begin at home. So criticism of Russia is tantamount to treason.

The Trade unionists, as befits their political complexion, still regard the world and its affairs through the capitalist spectacles with which their masters have so kindly provided them.

The “Daily News and Leader” should rejoice at the passing of this war resolution, for in its issue of September 6th (before the discussion) it said:

“It may be well that Labour should affirm its support of the Government in the conduct of the War. But everyone not willingly blind to the fact knows that unless Labour supported the war, the war would be over in a fortnight.”

This powerful organ thereby recognises the truth of our claim that in the ultimate it is the working-class upon whom the successful prosecution or, indeed, any prosecution, of the war depends. The workers are patted on their backs now, because they are needed : when the war is over it will be their heads that will be punched.

The discussion of the war resolution brought forth an attack on the Government’s promise to limit profits. This, in its turn, resulted, we are led to believe in a visit from Mr. Lloyd George, with halo intact. (No doubt the visit was arranged before, but anything will do for the workers.) This prophet of the promised land frankly recognised the dependence on Labour when he said “With you victory is assured; without you our cause is lost. . . The Government can lose the war without you ; they cannot win it without you.” In a carefully phrased speech he sought to show that the Government had kept its “fair, straight forward, businesslike” bargain, whereas the workers had not. The workers’ representatives handed their men over to the Munitions Minister, and he sought to speed up the working class by flogging them with words. He vilified the working class much on the same lines as during his Spring campaign, when it was alleged (but, of course, not proved) that England was waging a righteous war with a “drink-sodden democracy” at home. As Mr. Lloyd George proceeded to unfold his tale of woe, one can imagine. Mr. William Thorne, M.P., mumbling beneath his breath in characteristic Canning Town phraseology, “Blimey ! ain’t ‘e ot!”

Although the war occupied the greater part of the attention of the Congress, it was not allowed to crowd out everything else. The old stager regarding the free access of cabs to Hyde Park appeared on the Agenda and “the delegates to a Postal Workers’ resolution expressing the opinion that the nationalisation of the public services—such as the Post Office—is not necessarily advantageous to employees unless accompanied by steadily increasing democratic control and pledging the congress to work to develop public opinion on this point.” This can be taken us an unsolicited testimonial on the truth of our position.

According to the “Daily News and Leader” Mr. J. Robertson (Lanarkshire Miners) stated :

“Official figures showed that during the fifteen years that have passed since the South African War, 20,000 men have been, killed in the mines of the country, while no fewer than 4,500,000 have been seriously injured.”

Verily, Peace hath her horrors much more profound than war.

The foregoing is not intended even as a brief resume of the Trades Union Congress, but merely as a few comments. One fact stands out clearly (even if it were not discernible from other evidence) : that the workers are apparently almost unanimous for the war, “the war to end war,” as it has been felicitously termed. As the “Clarion” (10.9.15) put it in a very tuneless note, “The workers, as a body, are all right.” And this cannot be wondered at when one considers the multitudinous agencies all working more or less in the direction of keeping the workers “right” and from their rights. Unmistakably, the bulk of the workers think in capitalist channels and the discussion of the Trades Union Congress was nothing more nor less than the opinions of a heterogeneous collection of economists and politicians who know not whither they are going and never get there.

Presently, in “the future that yet shall be,” they will shake off their lethargy and the hypnotic influence of capitalism and then they will see the war against war; a death-struggle between two classes ranged respectively under the banner of Socialism, symbolical of freedom, and the black flag of Capitalism, standing for death and destruction. In that war no quarter is asked, no mercy is given and no cry for peace is entertained or can be entertained until the smoke of battle has cleared away and the din has subsided ; until society has emerged from slavery for the first time in its history since primitive communism, wielding its power for its own well­-doing.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

L. R. C.

Blogger's Note:

The poetry at the end of this article is a passage from 'Say not the Struggle nought Availeth' by Arthur Hugh Clough.

SPGB Meetings (1939)

Party News from the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

I don't know if I've noted this on the blog before, but by 1939 Clifford Groves had replaced Frank Grainger as the SPGB's parliamentary candidate in East Ham North. But for the outbreak of the war, there would have been a General Election in 1940 and the first SPGB parliamentary fight would have been in the East End of London. 

Fast forward five years, Groves was still the first SPGB parliamentary candidate but it was now contesting a seat in the west side of London. Groves contested Paddington North at the 1945 General Election. With regards to Frank Grainger - also known as Frank Ginger - according to Ken Weller in Don't Be A Soldier, he ended up as a lecturer for the Economic League. I'd be curious to know the time lag between him stepping down as the SPGB's parliamentary candidate, and when he joined the Economic League. There is no record of when he left the SPGB. I do know that he 'rejoined' the SPGB in 1932 via West Ham branch, and had previously been a member of the CPGB and the IWW. 

Other things of note from the meetings and lectures list:

• 'Robertus' was the party name of Robert Reynolds. By 1940 he had resigned from the party because of its position on the war.
• 'Reginald' was the party name of Augustus Snellgrove, a retired headmaster who had originally been an early party member - not a founder member -  and who had resigned over the WB of Upton Park affair. He rejoined the SPGB in 1933, and was an incredibly active speaker and writer. He is mentioned with affection in Barltrop's The Monument, and it's a crying shame that there was no obituary for him in the pages of the Socialist Standard.

Letter: Silly ceremony (2008)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

“I, […], do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that on becoming a British citizen, I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and successors, according to law.”

The above is the Affirmation of Allegiance required to be taken by applicants for British citizenship, at one of New Labour’s more inane gifts to the nation, the Citizenship Ceremony. Any applicant for British citizenship has to attend such a ceremony within six months of their application being accepted. Failure to do so means that one’s application is deemed unsuccessful, and that the whole tortuous process must be started again.

I recently found myself attending such a ceremony as a guest, struggling to keep a straight face as the Lord Mayor of Bristol, in his full regalia, informed us, while standing in front of a picture of the Queen, that, in Britain, “No-one is above the law.”

Twenty-three new citizens, plus their guests, were present to hear the Lord Mayor eulogise about the Greatness of Britain and its democratic institutions. Tellingly, however, he opened his speech by reiterating a couple of questions from the Citizenship Test (analogous to the Theory component of a driving test), which all of the new Citizens were required to have passed before reaching this stage. Unaccountably, not one of them could remember the literal meaning of Prime Minister or how many members the Welsh Assembly has.

I took some small encouragement from the fact that slightly more citizens chose to take the Affirmation of Allegiance, rather than the Oath (which beings, “I […] swear by Almighty God). However, the overall effect reminded me of nothing more than a school assembly, with a hall full of bored students intoning words to prayers which they find more or less meaningless.

And this, of course, is the point. The whole process has less to do with “citizenship” per se than with reminding workers who have often overcome massive difficulties and obstructions in order to be allowed to settle here (admittedly not the case for the person whose guest I was) of precisely who is the boss, and showing that they are expected to be good little boys and girls.

Needless to say the proceedings ended with the playing of the National Anthem. Not wishing to embarrass my partner, I confess that I did stand up for the wretched dirge (albeit with my fingers firmly crossed throughout!).

Surely the world can be organised more sanely than this? Why should it not be the birthright of every human being to settle in any part of our planet (or even to continuously travel around it, should one so require), and be accepted as an equal member of one’s community without having to participate in silly ceremonies to prove one’s worthiness to do so? Why should we have to swear (or affirm or whatever) Allegiance to anyone? As Leon Rosselson wrote in his song “The World Turned Upside Down”, “This world was made a common treasury, for everyone to share.” However, until the world’s working class unites consciously and politically to ensure that the treasury can indeed be shared, a minority class with retain control and the rest of us will continue to be expected to be grateful when we’ve passed enough of their patronising “tests” (and, of course, have sufficient funds) to be able to relocate from one part of the planet to another.

Shane Roberts,

Bristol.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the News: Nobody cares about you! (2001)

From the July 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

So, has anything positive come out of another instalment of British capital’s election farce? Well, 41 percent of those eligible to vote on 7 June turned their backs on it altogether. The representatives of capitalism and the media have done no end of moaning about our “apathy”, but then, of course, they are never going to give workers the credit that we might actually have seen through capitalist political “democracy”. So, maybe we can talk of rejection rather than apathy. But are there any positive challenges or alternatives coming from the working class?

Any readers from the Bristol area will have seen the posters and stickers stating “Nobody Cares” and “Vote Nobody”. Well, on 3 May (the date council elections were originally meant to take place) people in the Easton area of the city did indeed really have the chance to “Vote Nobody”. Thousands of forms were delivered ahead of an “election” held at Easton community centre, where those voting had a choice on the question “who do you want to run Easton?” between Bristol City Council and “Nobody”. 150 local people participated, with the result being Council – 5, “Nobody”– 145. The Nobody campaign then “derecognised” the council and invited people to meet on Thursdays at the community centre, at an assembly where they could discuss local issues. There are now a few “You are now entering free Easton” signs to be seen around the area.

As reported in the Big Issue South West (April 30–May 6 edition): “We’re telling people to ‘Vote Nobody’ for two reasons,” said campaign spokesman ‘Nobby O’body’.

“Firstly, we want to ridicule the idea that democracy is working. Democracy isn’t about ticking a box every four years to choose between a few cloned candidates whose manifestos say almost exactly the same thing. Secondly, on a more serious level, if the council is failing local people, we believe that the community has a right to say that it doesn’t recognise the council’s authority any more”. (The Vote Nobody campaign can be accessed at: http://uk.geocities.com/votenobody)

The “Nobody” team then went on to encourage people pissed off with the political con-game to express themselves by writing “Nobody” across ballot papers in the general election on 7 June. Spoilt ballot papers? Sound familiar?

Yes, in this respect there is more than a little common ground between the Socialist Party and the Nobody team in the elections just gone. We were both saying, if you are opposed to all the political con-merchants and the capitalist interests for which they stand – why vote for any of them? Why not vote for yourself, for a change, rather than just saying “voting changes nothing”? Why not vote “Nobody”? Or, better still, as we support the use of the vote as a potential revolutionary form of political expression, write “world socialism” across your ballot paper?

Both the world socialist campaign and “Nobody” rejected all the parties of capital. And, in the case of the 3 May Easton “referendum”, the Nobody campaign was perhaps tentatively exploring the sort of community/workers’ councils embodying direct working class democracy that would be vital in any future social and political movement for socialism. In our case though we are slightly more specific that this must be accompanied by electoral action to win control of parliament for the revolutionary working class. This in order to neutralise the capitalist state and its forces of repression, express the revolutionary desire of the working class majority and formally dismantle capitalism and its state apparatus. These, of course, are questions and situations for the future. But at least we have seen in Bristol, for any criticisms that could be made, a positive reaction to the evident failure of capitalist politics of all shades to work in the interest of the working class and their communities.

Local Socialist Party comrades delivered our own “anti-capitalist guide to the general election” leaflets to homes in Easton, putting our case for the rejection of capitalism’s election charade and for the rejection of the capitalist system entire – and for self-organisation to build a free society based on the principle of from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. So let’s put self-emancipation and the abolition of capitalism on the agenda. Let’s vote for ourselves for a change, and act for ourselves for a change – turning “apathy” into positive action.

Ben Malcolm

Sting in the Tail: The bubble bursts (1995)

The Sting in the Tail column from the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The bubble bursts

Bradley Stoke, near Bristol, is Europe’s largest private housing development where in 1988 people queued overnight to buy houses before they were even built.

After all, house prices were rocketing and this, along with mortgage tax relief, made buying a house seem like a sound investment, so buyers took out mortgages in the belief that they could always sell at a profit.

Then came the recession. People lost their jobs and tax relief was cut. Many homes were re-possessed and house prices tumbled. Bradley Stoke became the negative equity capital of Britain and residents renamed it “Sadly Broke”. On top of this, professor Doug Woods of the Manchester Business School predicts that house prices will stay depressed for another 20 years!

Of course, no one can be certain what any market will be like one year from now let alone 20, but what does look certain is that the agony will continue for many workers who, like those in Bradley Stoke, fell for the guff about "a property-owning democracy”.

Panel in a muddle

Remember the panel of “seven wise men” appointed by the Government in 1993 to advise it on the economy? And remember how one of them announced after their very first meeting that the other six hadn’t a clue about how the economy worked?

At their latest meeting the panel, now only six, deliberated over what the government should do about interest rates:

“Three of the Chancellor's six independent advisers believe he made a 'tactical error' in not raising rates this month. The three ‘wise men’ say the current 6.75 percent will have to rise. . . but two others oppose further rises and the sixth expect the cost of borrowing to fall. ” (Ceefax 23 May.)

Setting-up the panel was just a political stunt to reassure the public following the ERM debacle of 1993, so the government never had the slightest intention of paying any heed to what the panel would say, and it isn’t hard to see why.

Unhappy minority

A Mr Allen Hancock in the USA has been publishing a quarterly More Than Money since 1993. He is a compassionate man who produces this publication to comfort a forgotten minority of US society—the filthy rich.

Inheriting $500,000 in 1988 from his oil-rich grandfather, Mr Hancock found himself "feeling isolated, embarrassed and encumbered”. According to a recent Cornell University study, over the next 20 years $4,800 billion will be inherited in the USA and Mr Hancock is worried about the recipients.

“One third of that wealth will go to just one percent of the population, amongst whom the average will be some $1.6 million. That is going to create a lot of stress and even unhappiness, Mr Hancock argues. " (Times, 12 April.)

As the unhappy inheritors don’t seem liable to give away this money burden, don't you think a compassionate working class should abolish the stuff for them?

Elementary, My Dear Whitehouse

We are all familiar with the deductive methods of the fictitious Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately modern detectives are not quite so logical.

In the Observer (21 May) there appeared a report of the career of a real live detective Paul Whitehouse, Chief Constable of Sussex. Mr Whitehouse is an unusual policeman. He and a contemporary were the first Cambridge graduates to enter the police for 20 years. He is also unusual in that he can make deductions based on facts, even if these are rather obvious to socialists without the benefits of a Cambridge education:

“I started in Hartlepool. I couldn't help but notice that crimes were mostly being committed by the poorer people, who lived in the poorest areas. That is an interesting starling point. "

His deductive powers are somewhat less than Holmesian though, for he obviously understands less about policing in capitalism than Alan Clark:

“Alan Clark (the former Defence Minister) would say that we are here as servants of the ruling class. I would say we are here as servants of the people. ”

A look in the future

Those wearing red rosettes were happily chanting “easy, easy” while those with the blue rosettes looked on in dismay. Rival fans at a football match? No, only Labour and Tory activists on TV after the recent local elections.

“A great night for Labour” chorused the pundits, but party leader Tony Blair warned his followers that the night could well be Labour's high point. It probably was. If Labour wins the next (general) election and takes on the task of administering British capitalism then what can we expect to see?

First, the initial euphoria will evaporate as the new government struggles in vain to provide the jobs, security, improved social services, benefits, etc. which the voters were led to expect.

Next, public anger and media hostility, now aimed at the Tories, will be turned on Labour. Its popularity will slump in the opinion polls, seats will be lost at by-elections, Labour councillors will be ousted in droves from town halls, and finally there will be exultant Tories and dismayed Labourites on TV after a future election.

Colston verdict – the big picture (2022)

From the February 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tory MPs were spitting feathers last month after four Black Lives Matters activists were acquitted of criminal damage by a jury at Bristol Crown Court after pulling down the statue of a 17th century slave trader and chucking it in the harbour during the BLM protests in 2020.

The verdict will have come as a surprise to some who expected an open and shut case, as the defendants were filmed on CCTV and so were scarcely in a position to deny the deed. Their somewhat tenuous defence was that the presence of the statue was in itself a ‘hate crime’ and that therefore its removal was in line with current legislation. Even more dubiously, they argued that as the statue was public property, and they were members of the public, they had a right to dispose of their own property as they saw fit. It’s hard to imagine any jury being persuaded by either of these arguments, but they were probably more exercised by the prospect of appearing to endorse slavery if they went the other way, so delivered an acquittal verdict anyway.

Unsurprisingly the prosecution case was that it didn’t matter who Colston was, that the law was clear: people couldn’t run around wrecking monuments they didn’t like. This was also the line taken by government ministers and Tory backbenchers, who are always the first to leap nobly to the defence of a set of laws which protect their wealth and privilege.

Transport minister Grant Shapps spoke for many of them, saying ‘we live in a democratic country. If you want to see things changed you can get them changed, you do that through the ballot box, or petitioning your local council, etc. You don’t do it by going out and causing criminal damage’.

The problem with this is that there had already been legal campaigns, for no less than 100 years, to remove this statue, but from 1920 onwards these had resulted in no action because no government had ever bothered to establish a framework for the democratic removal of a public monument, on whatever grounds.

Tory yahoos immediately fulminated that ‘the result of this ruling will be that mobs will seek to tear down statues across the country – it gives a green light for mobs’, and that ‘as a country we need to protect our heritage from mob rule’. Note how quickly ‘the people’ becomes ‘the mob’ in government parlance when they do anything the establishment doesn’t like. It’s democracy when it pleases our masters, it’s ochlocracy when it doesn’t.

Respect for venerable monuments did not stop Shapps from muttering darkly about changing the rules of jury trials to prevent juries delivering verdicts that upset the government. Possibly sensing that red-eyed zombie rage was taking over the Tory camp, arch-Tory Jacob Rees Mogg felt obliged to state that, when it came to great monuments, the British jury system was up there with the best of them, and loose talk about pulling it down just because of one trivial verdict was not hugely constructive. Boris Johnson meanwhile, showing as ever his forensic grasp of historical matters, opined that it was wrong for people ‘to go round seeking retrospectively to change our history’.

The big picture

This echoes the recent furore engulfing the National Trust, whose current policy of daring to mention slavery in connection with the history of landed estates and country piles has provoked allegations of ‘wokeism’ and even death threats against its senior figures. But it seems clear to anyone who has ever visited these estates that slavery has been largely airbrushed out of the pretty picture to spare the blushes of the current owners. All that NT bosses have tried to do is restore the real truth about where the money came from that paid for these country piles in the first place. The argument that this is somehow ‘historical revisionism’ is as transparent as it is hypocritical. Many of Britain’s rich got to be rich through slavery, and consequently many of the monuments, palaces and public buildings of Britain’s cities, and of the former slave ports of Bristol and Liverpool, deserve to be understood in this context. This being so, it’s not unreasonable to suggest that statues of slave owners are a continuing and blatant affront to human decency which should have been removed decades ago. If the state wasn’t going to do it, then individuals would have to instead, and as it turned out, the Bristol jury had no problem with that.

The even bigger picture

But this is not what’s really bothering the frothing Tory MPs. They couldn’t care less about history, gesture politics, or statues. What worries them is that a jury can take such a cavalier attitude to the destruction of property, because property is what makes the rich rich. If the mobile vulgus can take down a statue today, what’s to stop them taking down Buckingham Palace tomorrow? Or taking over the lands of the Duke of Westminster, or any private mansion? Property is a concept that underpins capitalism, and it has acquired a fetishised totemic power in the minds of workers. It demands to be respected, worshiped even, as a sacrosanct and inviolable thing. But like all fetishes, its power is only apparent, not real. Once people stop believing in it, it ceases to exist. It is like a vast bubble of magical nothingness which holds society in its thrall. And, shock horror, the Bristol jury went and stuck a pin in it.

Not that capitalism will implode just because of that. But the rich are terrified of workers losing their awe of private property. Once they do that, they might start asking themselves why there are rich people at all, and why they, the workers, are obliged to be poor and waste their lives as wage slaves in order for those rich people to enjoy luxury and idleness. As socialists often say, the rich are much more class-conscious than workers, at least for now. They know that they owe their wealth to the despoliation of the planet and the utter subjection and exploitation of the overwhelming majority of the population. They also realise that workers, organised collectively, have a real and irresistible power that could sweep them away utterly, while their own power as a tiny minority resides in nothing but fetishised symbols, rituals and customs. In short, they know how weak they really are.

Society now accepts that slavery is an indefensible crime against humanity. The Bristol verdict suggests that workers now take a dim view of public monuments glorifying it, regardless of who the monuments belong to or what laws are in place to preserve them. But many of the arguments against slavery also apply to the practice of wage slavery, which is part of the machinery of capitalism and which condemns billions to relentless misery. We look forward to the moment when workers stop respecting its monuments and institutions too, and start pulling down more than a few statues.

Paddy Shannon

Letters: Class War (2007)

Letters to the Editors from the April 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class War

Dear Editors

I read the review of Ian Bone’s Bash the Rich (March Socialist Standard) with interest as a few years back I had a couple of pints with the author in a pub in Bristol. And until recently he could be found selling the excellent community news-and-scandal sheet The Bristolian in that same fair city.

Indeed, one of the most interesting sections in his “confessions” deals with his involvement in a similar publication in Swansea during the late 1970s called Alarm. Populist, pro-working class publications are evidently what he does best, and the mother of them all of course turned out to be Class War.

Here’s my “confession” . . . I always had a bit of a soft spot for CW. Their political positions (such as they were) were always closer to the Socialist Party’s than most anarchists and any lefties. And the paper in its heyday was something to behold. But – and it’s a big but – their avowed methods were, and are, different from ours in the extreme. Bone quotes a comrade of his criticising elitist violence (as opposed to political mob violence) by stating ‘petrol bombs are far more democratic than dynamite’. OK then, but isn’t democratic political action even more democratic still? And, of course, CW famously developed a veritable obsession with the “middle class” that they saw as standing between us and the ruling class.

As his memoirs end abruptly around 1985 we can presumably await further fond rememberings, no doubt featuring tales of the anti-Poll Tax conflict of the early 1990s. Until then, Ian, if you’re reading this, where on Earth did the bloody Bristolian vanish to?

Ben Malcolm, 

Bath.

Capitalism

Dear Editors

Thanks for the review of my book Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction (March Socialist Standard), which I appreciate. I introduce the notion of a stage of managed capitalism largely in order to contrast the tendencies of the period (roughly speaking) 1850-1970s with what has happened since the 1970s. I agree that there are continuities across this watershed – the concentration of capital has, for example, steadily increased – but I think we need some notion of a different stage since the 1980s in order to make sense of Thatcherism and New Labour, their similarities and their difference from old Conservatism and old Labour.

While it appeared to many in the 1970s that capitalism was collapsing, and there was plenty of evidence they could draw upon – notably the global decline in rates of profit – capitalism did seem to get a new lease of life in the 1980s.

On the issue of whether the Soviet Union was a form of state capitalism, I would argue that the institutional differences between the Soviet system and the capitalist countries are sufficiently great to warrant the treatment of the Soviet system as fundamentally different, though I would agree that the Soviet Union was a part of the capitalist world economy rather than distinct from it and that it was another means by which labour was systematically exploited. If one treats the Soviet system as a form of state capitalism it is also more difficult to make sense of the 1990s transformation of Russia and its consequences, which flowed from the introduction of capitalist mechanisms.

Perhaps you are too pessimistic on the possibility of changing capitalism, since there have been many important institutional changes in many different countries at many different times. By change you mean change from rather than change of! Are there any signs that a change from is going to happen?

James Fulcher 

War

Dear Editors

I agree with Bob Dixon (book of poems reviewed in the March Socialist Standard) that the working class do not give much thought to wars. Some regard them as part of life. You can see this from the way they buy poppies and the way they attend ceremonies which glorify wars. Although many join the forces for adventure and to escape poverty. But we must try to change this culture of war by any means we can including by poems like Bob Dixon’s. If you join the forces you will be expected to kill and be killed. All wars are illegal and you will be expected to fight for the ruling class. Who will put poppies on your grave? You will become part of the poppy day parade. No sympathy. No comment. Just silence. Like the dead.

Joe Boughey, 

Newton-le-willows.

Death penalty

Dear Editors

In his article (Socialist Standard, March) John Bissett explains some of the cruelties of the death penalty, and talks movingly of his own experience of trying to support someone on death row. As a constitutionally secular society that, ostensibly at least, champions the right of the individual, executions in America seem particularly perverse.

Of course, it’s unlikely that anyone reading this letter is likely to have any overly idealistic ideas about the American government (to say the least!) but couldn’t we at least hope for them to not engage in such a seemingly obvious contradiction of the values for which they claim to stand?

A real turning point for me, in my understanding of both the death penalty and my attitude towards it, came from reading the book ,Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment the American Conscience and the end of executions, by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell. I really found this to be one of the cleverest and most illuminating books I’ve ever read. I was honestly bowled over by the skill with which the authors tackled this subject. Rather than dwelling exclusively on the point that executions aren’t terribly nice for the person getting killed in this manner, and then vilifying anyone who possessed the inhumanity to express even the slightest sympathy for it under any circumstances ever (as I might have been tempted to do) the authors adopt a diametrically different approach – seeking to understand, rather than pass judgment, on everyone in any way involved in the death penalty process or expressing an opinion on it.

The authors draw a distinction between personal emotions concerning violent crime, and government policy. As they put it: “we can well understand how a husband or sister of a murder victim might want to tear the killer limb from limb; we’d probably feel the same way, at least initially. Yet this does not provide a clear indication about what society should do with convicted killers.”

I’ve had a few conversations with people who regarded themselves as supporters of the death-penalty who I’ve managed to bring around to agreeing it wasn’t a good idea, by first expressing sympathy for their sense of indignation and wish for vengeance, and then gently asking them if they thought the death penalty would really help stop such things (i.e. violent murders) from happening.

The authors explain how the condemned man comes to serve a symbolic purpose – representing evil that needs to be purged, and, a “hard” attitude towards crime generally. This is of course relevant to other groups that can come to represent evil, and towards whom a similarly “hard” attitude is seen as appropriate, i.e. “Islamic terrorists”.

The death penalty is significant not just from the point of view of the suffering it causes to its victims (and everyone else involved in the death penalty process – a point explained by Lifton and Mitchell), but also because it is related to fundamental moral and psychological issues that are a part of everyone’s lives, to do with justice, vengeance, forgiveness, and the value we place on human life. By improving our understanding of these, and learning to ditch the attitude of considering people as “evil” in favour of recognizing them as flesh and blood humans like ourselves, erring and misguided though they may be, we can start to gain a recognition of our shared humanity that, when shared by enough of us, will help bring an end to all instances of inhumanity and neglect.

Adam Waterhouse, 

Bristol

Another banker comes unstuck (1950)

From the April 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The assertion that higher productivity is the only solution to the problems facing the working class to-day has been repeated so often by the politician and his numerous henchmen that there is danger of the idea being accepted through the sheer force of constantly reiterated suggestion.

The latest interested party to lend the full weight of his personality as a “someone" in the financial world is Mr. H. Bibby, chairman of Martins Bank. Ltd., who was quoted in the Manchester Guardian of 13th January, 1950, as follows: “The truth is there is greater danger of unemployment if we do not use advanced mechanical aids." He also finds necessary “a willingness to work conscientiously when they [the workers] are at work. Any other course would lead to disaster. . . ."

So we are led to believe that increased efficiency is the all-important thing. Only through harder work and better machinery will we solve our problems.

In case you too have read this statement and are suffering from qualms of conscience, or developing a guilt complex over those stolen minutes in the only place where the foreman cannot follow, perhaps you will not feel too badly about it if you turn over the page of your newspaper and read the small item at the bottom of column three. For those who have mislaid their copies it reads as follows: —

“A further two hundred workers have been dismissed owing to redundancy in the engine division of the Bristol Aeroplane Company. This follows the dismissal of two hundred workers between July and November last year, and is described in an official statement issued by the company last night as ‘part of the normal continuous process of strengthening the efficiency of the company’s organisation.' "

And what is efficiency in industry but higher output per man, and how is this achieved but by Mr Bibby's advanced mechanical aids and harder work, and with the same inevitable results as those at the Bristol Aeroplane Company?

J.T.

After Spywatcher — What? (1987)

From the November 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will anything of lasting value come out of the Spycatcher affair? That was a question I asked myself on a hot evening in August. Along with many others I was packed into Bristol's Watershed centre to listen to readings from the great forbidden book. One well-thumbed copy was to be raffled at a pound a ticket. Another was to be given away by a local magazine, to the winner of a competition in which you had to image yourself a loony right-wing security agent bent on destabilising the Thatcher government: what rumour would you circulate? The Chair of the meeting reported apologies from a host of celebrities who were on holiday. It didn't matter that the TV cameras weren't here, he said (with only a hint of disappointment in his voice). We still roasted under the spotlights because a trade union camera was recording the proceedings.

The event itself had been preceded early in the morning by a warm-up bout between local MP William Waldegrave and a representative of the National Council for Civil Liberties on Radio Bristol. The NCCL representative had spoken in indignant and stirring tones about censorship and freedom of speech, but without any qualifications. This enabled Waldegrave to complain that the NCCL itself believes in censorship (because it supports the Race Relations Act's embargo on incitement to racial hatred). That point went unanswered, as did the counter-accusation against Waldegrave, that he ignored the seriousness of the charges made in Wright's book by echoing the government line about secret service officers' lifetime obligation of confidentiality. Never mind, a discussion was promised after the readings that evening. That might be worthwhile even if the Waldegrave view was almost certain to go unrepresented.

The readings themselves were entertaining if unremarkable. We can be fairly sure that all the interesting charges made in the book are now already in the public domain, and all that remain are the trimmings. So we heard about the familiar alleged plot to subvert the Wilson government. Khrushchev's vanity, the madness of the alleged plots against Nasser, and the dangers posed for secret service infiltrators of left-wing groups by the promiscuity of their members. The book was well-written and clearly very funny, usually unintentionally. I checked on the safety of my raffle ticket and kept my fingers crossed.

Came the discussion. The Chair suggested, at inordinate length given the tight time schedule, that we confine our attention to four main areas. Alas, he spoke with more insistence than clarity, and when I compared notes with a friend after the meeting we could still only discern three. The first person to emerge from the darkness and brave the spotlight and microphone said he was an ordinary person who belonged to no groups and had never spoken to more than half a dozen people in public. He was just upset to be told he couldn't read the book. A number of journalists spoke with convincing passion on a matter which affects them to a greater degree than, and in a different way from other people. There was the inevitable contribution from a member of the Smash The State Tendency, prompting early departures from the hall. "Thank you. comrade", said the Chair icily. But mainly it was "Thank you, Brian", 'Thank you. Dawn", as a succession of figures, doubtless familiar with one another, made their points

A CND representative reminded us of the extent of surveillance over members and conveyed successfully how upsetting it could be to be on the receiving end. A pleasant man from the Green Party said they were entitled to their paranoia too, and told of delayed mail and phones which didn't work around election time. Well, yes, problems suffered by tens of thousands at other times too. But then, as we all know by now, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. A lawyer pointed out cases where the public interest had been held to outweigh any duty of confidentiality. We were urged to support NCCL and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom.

Towards the end of the meeting the Chair remarked on the unanimity of the opposition which had been expressed to the banning of the book and invited anyone to speak in favour. No one did. The MI5 man (for he was surely there, and surely a man?) kept silent.

My own feeling was that the set pieces we had heard did little to advance understanding or to place the Wright Affair in a wide enough context. To be sure, more than one speaker reminded us that the dirty tricks of secret service agents go on under Labour as well as Conservative governments, that it was a Labour government which pushed through the Prevention of Terrorism Act in ten days, that it was under a Labour government that the ABC trial took place. And we had been urged to look at the broader political issues, and agitate for more accountability. But accountability in what form, and to whom?

Justified feelings of outrage had been expressed, but it was outrage of a very limited kind. Something had been done which was unfair by the rules of the game, but no one questioned the nature of the game. Did the speakers think there should be a secret service at all? If so, how far did they think it would be compatible with its effective functioning to demand that it be publicly accountable? If not, did they recognise that paranoia notwithstanding, other foreign powers had agents who got up to dirty tricks which might affect us? Were they all, as they seemed to be, content with the minimal degree of genuine accountability which elected representatives are subject to? If so, how much control could that possibly leave us, the ordinary members of the public, over "our” security services? If not, what ideas might they have for moulding a more adequate set of democratic institutions than those associated with twelve crosses in a lifetime? Without the raising of fundamental questions like these, there will be many more Peter Wrights and many more undetected dirty tricks.

Keith Graham

Obituary: Vic Heaven (1980)

Obituary from the August 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

For over forty years the socialist cause has been kept alive in Bristol by a trio of members with a happy collection of names—Force, Flowers and Heaven. Our small era came to an end when Vic Heaven died on 22 April, aged 81.

Vic joined the army as a boy trumpeter in 1914; political maturity came a decade later. In 1925 he became a socialist and gave his war medals to his children, saying "Here, you can have these begging irons as toys, they're only fit for standing on the pavement with and selling matches". A nice sense of proportion made him keep and cherish the eleven medals he won as an amateur footballer.

Soon after joining the Party he teamed up with a Comrade Howell. Heaven and Howell used to delight in walking around Bristol and calling out to the navvies digging trenches "when are you blokes going to realise that you're being exploited?" The night before Howell died of cancer he threw a party and Vic was pleased to play the piano as Howell sang the Red Flag for the last time.

I first met Vic in 1935, when I was studying for holy orders and was walking through Bristol with my vicar. Heaven was there, selling the Socialist Standard, and he put the case to us. After hearing it, the vicar intoned pompously, "young man, you are 200 years before your time". With his lightning tongue Vic flashed "old man, you are 2,000 years behind the times!" My religious belief evaporated.

Later Vic became a civil servant with the Ministry of Labour, and this cramped his public propaganda work. Nevertheless, he was pleased to have advised every conscript who passed through his department during the second world war of the alternative to fighting for capitalism.

On retirement Vic kept a beautiful cottage garden and, amid the pear trees, he would talk socialism with all his visitors. "The world's first socialist candidate, Clifford Groves" holidayed there; and "Fellow Worker White", so-called because anywhere, and without warning, he would shout "fellow workers!" and gather an audience to hear the socialist case.

Our sympathy and gratitude go to Vic's four daughters, who looked after him in his latter years.

J. Force