Tooting elections. (1912)

Party News from the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the recent Borough Council Elections the Tooting Branch ran three candidates for Tooting Ward. The result was gratifying, the figures showing an increase of 80 per cent. over those for our last effort, in 1909.

The branch intended concluding the campaigu with a demonstration at one of the L.C.C. schools, and had made all arrangements for same, hut although we had paid for the use of the school, we were precluded from holding our meeting by being informed at the last moment that the room would be required for polling purposes.

The other candidates included three “indepen­dents,” whose independence consisted of claim­ing to be the People’s candidates. They will, no doubt, now they are elected, demonstrate how they represent the people by supporting any and every measure brought forward in the in­terest of capitalism and to the detriment of the working class.

Another candidate was a Municipal Reformer, and the decrease in the number of votes polled for him was doubtless largely due to the active Anti Socialist Union propaganda carried on in this district

The other candidates were Labourites, whose programme consisted of reforms none of which, had they been elected, could they have carried into effect. Reforms will be passed by the capitalist class when they think fit, and not at the dictation of “Labour” candidates. Minorities do not usually rule the roost.

Besides, they had the assistance of that notorious misleader, Ben Tillett (who, by the way, does not believe in political action), and possibly that accounted for the decrease in the “Labour” poll.

It added to the gaiety of things to find that the Tooting Branch of that party of “unity,” the B.S.P., supported the “Labour” candidates, while the Battersea Branch of the same organi­sation were actually in opposition to the “Lab­our” candidates there.

All the foregoing should act as a tonic and give renewed energy to carry on the propaganda for Socialism. We feel confident that the truth will ultimately prevail.

W. T.

Blogger's Note:

'W.T.' would have been the Tooting Branch secretary, W. Thomas. Sad that the neither the names of the SPGB candidates nor the actual voting figures are listed in the article. Maybe those details are buried away in the SPGB EC minutes. Bob Ambridge does mention an earlier Tooting Branch election campaign in the September 1954 anniversary issue of the Socialist Standard:

"About the same time Tooting Branch put forward Comrades Cooper, Joy and Barker for the Tooting Ward, the result being 60, 58 and 56 respectively. The Socialist Standard’s comment was: “We think we found fifty six supporters for the Revolution, and are encouraged in the hope that it is not altogether hopeless to appeal to the Electorate on the straight issue—Socialism."

Jottings. (1912)

The Jottings Column from the August 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It is astonishing to the ‘businessmen’ to find how ‘practical’ the ‘Socialist dreamer’ is when he is on public committees. His ideas nearly always work out best as ‘business propositions.'” 

The above is culled from the columns of “Justice” (29.6.12) in order to give wider publicity to the self-condemnation of the B.S.P. which is therein contained. Any comment would spoil it.

* * *

The Anti-Socialists are fond of indulging their vivid imaginations by weaving tales to the effect that ability is bound to make its way while competition prevails, and that under Socialism talents would cease to be used for the common good because of “a lack of incentive.” How ability is rewarded under the existing order may be judged from the Civil List Pensions for any year.

Take the financial year closing March 31st, 1912, for instance. There are 17 awards to 19 persons, total amount, £1,200 per annum. Eight of the persons whose qualities are the basis of award are still alive ; three of these have been awarded their pensions on account of ill health and necessitous circumstances, and of the remaining eleven awards to dependents of well-known workers in the realms of the graphic arts, literature, research, and science, eight receive their pensions because of “reduced circumstances,” “inadequate means of support,” necessitous circumstances and “ill health.”

Of course these 19 cases are only an infinitesimal portion of the vast number where talent fails to get its due reward under capitalism.

Professors Tyndall and Huxley for a large portion of their lives were very poor, Herbert Spencer had to struggle long with poverty, and Karl Marx had to depend upon the kindly aid of Engels. A rather striking illustration is the case of Colonel Robert Hume, R.E., a brilliant officer, who, according to Sir William Butler, “was finding brains and knowledge, geographical and other, for Ministers and Statesmen whose names figured largely in the European congresses that preceeded and followed the Russo-Turkish War. He frequently sat late into the night at home, working a sewing machine to keep his children in clothes.”

This was the man who “coached” the Ministers in charge of foreign affairs at the time of the Russo-Turkish War, 1877.

Talk about “the reward of ability” and “incentive to gain” ! Ye gods !

* * *

By an error, in the paragraph in last month’s issue dealing with the B.S.P. and the St. Rollox bye-election, the word “Liberals” appeared instead of “Tories.” This will be sufficient intimation to those readers who know the old S.D.F. policy of “voting against the men in office”.

* * *

Substantiation of the Socialist explanation of the why and wherefore of war is to hand in the comments of the “Daily Telegraph” (11.7.12) on Sir E. Grey’s speech on the relations between England and the foreign powers. I could not, for instance, add much to the following :

“The solid truth—if only it could be realised abroad—is that we have no vaulting ambitions or schemes which can run counter to the aspirations of neighbours unless these aspirations are essentially inimical to our welfare. The real rivalry of nations in this generation is the rivalry in commerce.”

* * *

The “Manchester Guardian” (8.7.12) also assists in the confirmation of our contention that wars to-day are fought in the economic interest of the capitalist class. Dealing with Mr. J. W. Graham’s book “Evolution and Empire” it says :

“With remorseless logic Mr. Graham traces the economic interests moulding Imperialism and enforcing a policy of armaments as an instrument in this sordid game. He shows how the loan-monger, the concessionaire, and the investor become more and more the directing influences in foreign policy, utilising for their profitable ends the ambition of politicians and sentimental patriotism of the peoples. . . . The pressure of surplus goods and surplus capital for foreign markets is everywhere at work making history. . . . Nothing that Mr. Graham can say about the waste and folly of modern warfare disposes of the fact that it may pay, or seem to pay, powerful interests within the several nations to expose these nations to risks and sacrifices of unknown magnitude in order to gain their private profitable ends.”

This is plain speaking.

* * *

When some of us have criticised the B.S.P. from evidence appearing in “Justice,” exception has been taken to the evidence on the ground that “Justice” is not the official organ of the party. The first number of the official organ of the party is to hand, and judging from the report of an Executive Council meeting held July 8,1912, the same confusion repudiated in “Justice” is to figure as officially certified. Take this as a sample:—

“Some correspondence and a resolution were read announcing the intention of the Aberdeen branch to attack the I.L.P. locally: decided to write the branch that such action was contrary to the decision of the Conference to send fraternal greetings to the I.L.P., and the branch must refrain from such action or withdraw from the Party.”

Which makes the “Appeal” leaflet of the B.S.P. lie when on page 3 it says :—

“The British Socialist Party, therefore, refuses to consider any reforms as beneficial which presuppose the continuance of poverty.”

For in so far as the I.L.P. stand for reforms which are only necessary because of a continuance of poverty, to that degree do the B.S.P. acquiesce in the workers being misled when they prevent their branches opposing the fraudulent campaign of the I.L.P.

* * *

Take also the matter dealt with on page 3. (“Bye-Election Policy.”) :—

“Consideration was therefore given to the bye-election proceeding at Holmfirth, but in view of the presence of the Labour candidate and the absence of any branches in the division, it was decided to take no action.”

From which it can only be assumed that the B.S.P. is unnecessary since it is not to oppose Labour candidates and the I.L.P. Especially is one driven to the conclusion that the B.S.P. is entirely superfluous when one considers that it is “a union of Socialist (!) forces which have hitherto been divided on method and detail” (“Appeal,” page 1). For if the I.L.P. is reckoned a Socialist organisation by the B.S.P., and its method and detail have not altered, why the B.S.P. ?

J. B.

Correspondence. (1912)

Letters to the Editors from the August 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

F. S (Queensland). — As all the laws, including “eminent domain,” are accepted, or made, and enforced by the capitalist class through their control of political power, it is evident that when it suits the interest of the capitalist class as a whole (or the majority thereof), they will be quite prepared to take over any industry from its particular owners and run it to suit themselves.

This has been shown in the case of the Post Office and Telephones.

Probably compensation would be paid, though this is only distributing the burden on the whole capitalist class by way of taxation, instead of letting it fall on the particular capitalist.

(2) Probably most of the anxiety on the part of many scientists to deny the term “materialist” applied to themselves is due to snobbishness and conceit. A “materialist” is usually looked upon as a “vulgar” or “low class” person, or something worse. Hence the haste of the scientist, who wishes to stand well with “society,” to repudiate any suggestion that he is a materialist. Hence also the hair-splitting and attempts to find infinitesimal shades of difference in the descriptions of what are at base he same set of facts.

When to this is added the fact that many of them depend directly upon the capitalist class for their living, it will he easily understood that they do not care to offend their employers.

J. F.

W. Ward (Watford). — Our declaration of principles embodies the minimum points on which the Socialists can unite. The class struggle in society so clearly recognised in our principles is repudiated by the actions of the B.S.P. Realising that the interests of the Liberal and Tory sections of the master class are opposed to those of the working class, Socialists can never ally themselves with or support those parties, but must ever oppose them. What other word, then, but “treachery” describes the advice given by the B.S.P. to the workers during the St. Rollox and S. Hackney bye-elections, urging them to vote for the Tory party ? You say the B S.P. is opposed to compromise, but their actions belie you. You say they believe in getting Socialism “in portions, which in due course must mean the whole,” showing again that they do not accept the class struggle as their guiding principle, for Socialists know that the masters’ interests being opposed to ours, they will not give us Socialism “in bits.” Socialism will be established by the working class when they control political power. Our work then is to convert the workers to the Socialist policy. Those who delay that conversion by leading the workers into the masters’ camp must be opposed. The “unity” of jingoes like Blatchford and Hyndman, Liberal vote-catchers like H. Quelch and Thorne, and Syndicalists like Leonard Hall, is not Socialist unity but Anarchist confusion.

Ed. Com.

T. Sawyer (Balham) and E. J. Higgins(Philadelphia) — Next month.

Bolshevising the Red Flag (2025)

Book Review from the July 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Raising the Red Flag. Marxism, Labourism, and the Roots of British Communism 1884-1921. By Tony Collins, Haymarket Books.

In his 1969 pioneering work The Revolutionary Movement in Britain 1900-1921: The Origins of British Communism (reviewed July 1969), Walter Kendall advanced the view that Bolshevism-Leninism was something that was alien to the formally democratic traditions of the working class movement in Britain, introduced from an economically and politically backward part of the world where conditions were quite different. Collins, writing as a Leninist, argues that in fact those who founded the British Communist Party were all too much in the tradition of reformist labourism. Both views have some merit.

The main constituents of the CPGB when it was founded in January 1921 were the British Socialist Party (BSP), part of the De Leonist Socialist Labour Party (SLP), Workers Dreadnought (Sylvia Pankhurst), and some from the Shop Stewards Movement and the left-wing of the Independent Labour Party (ILP).

The British Socialist Party was the name the Social Democratic Federation adopted when it amalgamated with some branches of the ILP in 1911. It was essentially the same organisation from which the SLP and the SPGB broke away in 1903 and 1904 respectively over its lack of democracy, and its reformism and opportunism. It was to provide the bulk of the original membership of the CPGB and, Collins argues, its political approach too of seeing itself as the left wing of the Labour movement.

Collins examines the origin and practice of the founding factions and finds them all wanting in one way or another from a Leninist point of view. The defect they all (except the Shop Stewards Movement) share, he says, is what he calls ‘abstract propagandism’ as opposed to seeking to lead a discontented but non-socialist majority in an insurrection against the capitalist state. The Shop Stewards Movement is criticised for restricting itself to purely industrial matters and the 1911 pamphlet The Miners Next Step for advancing the slogan of ‘no leaders’. His view is that, on the contrary, new leaders were required, but the leaders of a vanguard party of dedicated revolutionaries. In fact, he argues that it was the absence of this ‘subjective’ factor that was the reason why there was no workers’ revolution in Britain just before and just after the First World War.

Tendentious

Explaining his criticism, Collins writes:

‘The SLP’s answer to the syndicalists was that a party was necessary to win a parliamentary majority which would then support the workers as they took over industry, whereupon parliament would hand over state power to the industrial unions. … Shorn of its industrial militancy, this was not very different from the SDF or the SPGB, who believed in the manner of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists that the working class would come to socialism through being educated about its benefits and thus vote for socialists in parliamentary elections’ (p. 58).

‘The Bolshevik conception’, Collins goes on to bemoan, ‘… did not exist in Britain’.

His criticism is a caricature, and tendentious in suggesting that ‘education’ meant something other than the action of workers, who had become socialist through their experience of capitalism, persuading their fellow workers to realise, on the basis of the same experience, that socialism was the only solution. It was true, though, that the implication was that a majority of workers who wanted and understood socialism was needed before socialism could be established and that, if that majority existed, workers should, among other things, vote for it. The Bolshevik conception rejects the principle that a socialist majority is necessary, indeed even possible, as it teaches that workers can only reach a trade-union consciousness and so require a vanguard party to lead them politically.

Although the SPGB is mentioned in passing a number of times, as here, only one short paragraph is devoted to our political position:

‘By this time the SDF leadership had completed its purge of leftists with the expulsion of the leaders of the London opposition, who formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904. Once out of the SDF, its leftism proved to be a chimera. The SPGB declared its object to be ‘the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery [of government] including [those] armed forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation’, and pursued a grim messianic parliamentary reformism for the next hundred years and more’ (pp. 30-1).

None of our opponents at the time (and even our honest opponents today) would have accused us of ‘parliamentary reformism’, as what characterised us was a refusal to advocate reforms to capitalism (called ‘palliatives’ at the time). We did advocate using parliament but not to try to reform capitalism but to deprive the capitalist class of their ownership of the means of production and their ability to use the armed forces of the state to maintain it.

Collins’s accusation is outrageous, obviously biased and possibly dishonest. It is also ignorant. The term ‘instrument of emancipation’ was consciously taken from the preamble to the 1880 programme of the Parti Ouvrier Français, a preamble that Marx himself had drafted and which speaks of the working class needing to form themselves into a political party which should use ‘universal suffrage which will thus be transformed from the instrument of deception that it has been until now into an instrument of emancipation’ (tinyurl.com/bdf7vmj8). Clause Six of our Declaration of Principles which Collins is misinterpreting is saying the same — that to end capitalism the workers need to gain control of the machinery of government (state power) which currently upholds capitalist ownership of the means of production. It is a call for the revolutionary, not the reformist, use of parliament.

It also makes Collins a bad historian as the views of the SPGB are just as relevant, if only in terms of the numbers who held them, to his subject of Marxism during the period he is studying as are those of the SLP, John Maclean and Sylvia Pankhurst. In fact, five of the people mentioned by him either were to become or had been members of the SPGB (Jack Fitzgerald, E. J. B. Allen, T. A. Jackson, Valentine McEntee and George Hicks).

Because he didn’t bother to go into the matter in detail, Collins seems to think that the SPGB favoured participation in elections and nothing else. Actually, like the SLP, the SPGB was (and still is) in favour of industrial as well as political action, the difference being over which was the more important. The SLP said industrial, we said political. Ironically, this is the position Collins himself takes up in criticising The Miners’ Next Step and the Shop Stewards Movement, though, as a Leninist, by political action he envisages a vanguard party staging an armed insurrection to seize state power in a period of acute industrial unrest.

He doesn’t list the Socialist Standard as among the contemporary publications he looked at. Which will explain how he missed that in March 1915 we published an anti-war statement by the Bolshevik representative in Britain, Maxim Litvinov, when he couldn’t find anyone else prepared to do so . He also ignores, while noting that the BSP, the SLP and Keir Hardie wobbled on the outbreak of the war, that the SPGB immediately denounced it in a manifesto dated 25 August 1914. Nor does he mention that our members were among those imprisoned or going on the run for refusing to be conscripted.

Two issues

The groups which founded the CPGB initially disagreed on two issues which Collins examines in detail — affiliation to the Labour Party and participation in elections. The BSP was in favour of both. Sylvia Pankhurst was against both, while the SLPers favoured electoral action but not affiliation (which would have been our position but we are proud to have had nothing to do with the founding of the CPGB). In the end Lenin and the Communist International decreed that the new party should accept both, which was easy enough to ensure as the bulk of its members had come from the BSP (born SDF).

Collins’s point about the early CPGB being a continuation of the reformism of the SDF/BSP is valid, as we recognised at the time from having opposed for the previous sixteen years the views and actions of those involved. However, in the mid-1920s the Communist International decided to ‘bolshevise’ the CPGB and imposed on it a strictly Leninist organisational form with a leadership that told its members what to do and which way to turn (and which itself took orders from the rulers of state-capitalist Russia). This was, as Kendall had pointed out, quite alien to the traditions of working-class organisations in Britain. Unfortunately, it resulted in the ‘Bolshevik conception’ getting established here and in Leninist theory and tactics passing as Marxism and revolutionary socialism, as Collins’s book itself bears witness. It was left to us, alone for most of the time, to keep the standard of anti-Leninist Marxism flying high.

Adam Buick

Manifesto To the Proposed International Congress. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain

To the proposed International Congress

COMRADES,—

Residing as we do under the control of the “democratic” British Government, we are not permitted to send Delegates to the Congress to state our views, present our case, and defend our policy, as we so strongly wished. All the more is this to be regretted as our organisation is the only one in the British Isles that takes its stand upon a definite and avowed Marxian basis and follows a policy logically deduced from that basis.

We hold that the Working Class must march to its emancipation from wage-slavery and the domination of the Capitalist Class, by the conquest of political power. In the British Isles the means wherewith to accomplish this are already in the hands of the workers, as, despite certain anomalies in our franchise, the workers have the overwhelming majority of the votes at their disposal when an election takes place. Hence the great, immediate, and pressing work requiring to be done is the education of the Working Class to an understanding of Socialism—to a realisation of their slavery and the method of their emancipation.

The Working Class are slaves to the Capitalist Class. While the Workers produce all existing wealth by applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, this wealth, and the instruments necessary for its production, along with the great storehouse of Nature’s materials -the earth- are owned and controlled by the Master Class under a system of private ownership that necessitates the selling of the bulk of the products upon the markets. But while powers of production increase by leaps and bounds, the markets grow but slowly. Hence the struggles between the various groups of Capitalists for the control of these markets and the routes thereto so that they may dispose of the commodities the wage-slaves have produced. Practically all the wars of the last three centuries, from the struggle against the Dutch and Portuguese in India to the present colossal carnage which is devastating the whole world, have had their essential causes rooted in the demands of the various groups of Capitalists to control these markets and routes.

The Workers’ share of these conflicts has been to slaughter each other in their Masters’ interests, to find a grave if killed, or be offered the degrading and comfortless shelter of the workhouse if disabled or maimed. The hardship, misery, want, and suffering following these wars fall always upon the Working Class. Thousands of cripples and tens of thousands of men with constitutions ruined by military service will feel the horrors of the struggle for existence with tenfold bitterness after the war. In the midst of the conflict the Pensions Minister, Mr. G.N. Barnes – a member of the ILP and of the “Labour Party”, and “Labour” Member of Parliament for Blackfriars Division of Glasgow – has admitted that over 100,000 men have been discharged from the British Army as medically unfit for Service without allowance or pension of any kind. To soothe the ruffled feelings of these unfortunate victims of capitalist brutality this so-called representative of the Workers said:

“It has been claimed that these men should be put on pension . . . . inasmuch as the doctors have passed them in . . . . I want to say that they will not get it while I am in the office.”—Official Report, col. 254, March 6th, 1917.

No matter which group of the Masters win the struggle, the Workers remain enslaved. The division of interests is not between the peoples of the world, but between the classes — the Master Class and the Working Class. Not, therefore, in their fellow Workers abroad, but in the Master Class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found.

What interest have the Workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none.

Every Socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow Workers. All those who on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-Socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist.

Moreover, where the Working Class have the necessary means —the franchise— for their emancipation within their grasp it is clearly an anti-Socialist and treacherous act to urge them to use those means for the purpose of placing political power in the hands of the masters. The flimsy excuses so often used to cover up such acts of treachery to the Working Class merely add evidence to support the truth of this statement.

Applying these tests of real understanding of Socialist principle and correct action to the organisations in this country claiming to be Socialist, we find all of them except the Socialist Party of Great Britain failing to stand that test. The Fabian Society, with Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Sidney Webb at its head, merely wishes for an extension of the Civil Service system under the control of a bureaucracy, and is opposed to the Workers being emancipated from their slavery. In addition to supporting the carrying on of the war, both the society and its individual members readily support the return of Liberal Capitalists to Parliament.

The so-called Independent Labour Party is ready at all times to make political bargains with the Capitalists and to urge the Workers to place power in the hands of the masters. Thus Mr. Ramsay MacDonald at Leicester, Mr. Philip Snowden at Blackburn, Mr. F. Jowett at Bradford, Mr. James Parker at Halifax, Mr. G.H. Roberts at Norwich, Mr. G.N. Barnes at Glasgow, and Mr. Clynes at N.E. Manchester all owe their seats in Parliament to bargains made with the Liberals, in return for which they gave their support to Liberals in these and other constituencies. While protesting — in some forms — against the war, and now urging “Peace by negotiation”, the ILP allowed its members like Mr. Parker and Mr. Clynes to assist in the recruiting campaign.

In a letter sent to his constituency on 11th September, 1914, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald said:

“I want the serious men of the trade unions, the brotherhoods and similar movements, to face their duty. To such it is enough to say ‘England has need of you’ and to say it in the right way.

“They will gather to her aid; they will protect her.” Daily Chronicle, September 9th, 1914.

In the Merthyr Pioneer for 27th November, 1914, the late Mr. Keir Hardie, another ILP Member of Parliament, said:

“I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting. I know too well all there is at stake.”

How is all this different from assisting in carrying on the war? How clearly it shows the treachery of the ILP leaders and Members of Parliament!

Moreover, the ILP has allowed its members to accept office in a Capitalist government without making any protest or repudiation. It is true that their 1917 Conference passed a resolution dissociating the organisation from Mr. Parker’s action in taking a Government office, but not only is Mr. Parker allowed to remain a member of the ILP, but no protest at all is made when other members, as Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Roberts, accept office under similar conditions. While protesting against German Social-Democrats voting war credits in the Reichstag, ILP members have steadily voted for war credits here.

The claim of the ILP to be a Socialist organisation is fully repudiated by the actions of its members, of which the above are but examples.

The British Socialist Party has been just as ready — if with less success — to try and enter into arrangements with the Capitalist parties for seats and offices. At General Elections they have shown their impartiality by advising the Workers to vote for Capitalist candidates of the Tory brand in some constituencies — as South Hackney, Norfolk, etc. — and for Capitalist candidates of the Liberal type in other constituencies. The one MP who until recently was a member of the BSP — Mr. W. Thorne owes his seat to the Liberals and Tories in West Ham combining to make him a present of that constituency. In the early days of the war he, with Mr. Hyndman, Mr. Hunter Watts, and others, took a prominent part in the recruiting campaign, calling upon the Workers of Great Britain to take up arms for the slaughter of their fellow Workers on the Continent, although Mr. Hyndman admitted that whichever side won the Workers would not benefit a single jot. Just lately Mr. W. Thorne has returned from a trip to Russia, taken, along with Mr. O’Grady and Mr. W. Sanders, on behalf of the British Capitalists, to persuade the Russian Workers to continue the war on the Eastern side.

In the ranks of the BSP a division of opinion has developed, resulting, after a struggle between the two sections, in the secession of the defenders of the war – Hyndman, Hunter Watts, Lee, Irving, and the rest — and the formation by the secessionists, of the National Socialist Party. The absurdity of the title is balanced by the merit it has of showing how completely pro-Capitalist and anti-Socialist these individuals are.

The BSP has now joined hands with the ILP in a so-called peace propaganda, but the confusion and double-dealing lying behind this movement is shown most glaringly by the fact that both these organisations remain affiliated to the Labour Party that has whole-heartedly supported the war from its inception.

One of the rewards given for this support was the appointment of Mr. J. Hodge, “Labour” Member for Gorton, as Labour Minister. Within a week of his appointment he tried to show his utility to the masters by threatening to use the powers of the Defence of the Realm Act against the Boilermakers of Birkenhead, who were protesting against the rotten conditions imposed upon them by the employers.

The organisation calling itself the Socialist Labour Party has never understood how the Workers are enslaved, and for years has propagated what it calls Industrial Unionism as the method of emancipation. Its attempts to reconcile this position with its claim to be a political party has led to such confusion in its ranks that when the war broke out it was divided as to whether it should support or oppose it.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN alone takes up the Socialist position here. At the beginning of the war we pointed out the essential factors forming its cause which we have given above, and we have steadily and consistently pressed this view by all the means in our power, and maintained it upon all occasions without change or deviation. Thus we said in the first issue of our official organ to be published after Britain’s entry into the war (Sept. 1914):

“THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN . . . whilst placing on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home.

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity . . .”

While in the February 1915 issue we said:

“We . . . declare again that there was nothing in the conditions of any country which justified Socialists voluntarily supporting either side in the war, and record our condemnation of such action as a betrayal of Socialist principles arising from lack of political knowledge and unsound political organisation.”

So, with our own hands clean and our every action in accord with the CLASS struggle and the solidarity of the interest of the Working Class the world over, we bring before the international proletariat our DEMAND FOR PEACE without any change of attitude or re-adjustment of policy. We stand for PEACE without reference to terms, since the fruits of Capitalist war are the Masters’, and only the pains and penalties thereof the Workers’.

The grim humour of the claim that Britain is fighting to “crush Prussian Militarism” is clearly shown by the fact that a Bill is being passed through the liberty-loving, democratic British Parliament establishing “Militarism” in a far worse form than either the present Prussian or the late Russian rulers ever attempted. Men who have crossed the seas because they refuse to accept military service are to be forced into the army of the “allied” country they may be in or brought back to serve in the army here!

To the Socialists of other countries we extend our fraternal greetings. As soon as conditions will permit us to do so we shall endeavour to join forces with our Comrades for the purpose of establishing a Socialist International Congress where Socialist policies shall be decided, where misleaders and tricksters who use the name and fame of Socialism will be exposed and denounced, where the message of Socialism will be sent forth to the toilers of all countries in clear and unmistakable terms, where the gage of battle against the Capitalist Class will be thrown down to the clarion call:

“WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS; YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.”

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

193 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1

20th June 1917

Fools and their—idiocy. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The class struggle as understood by the writers of the B.S.P.’s so-called official organ, “Justice,” is not to be fought out upon the political field, but on our highways.

Writing of motorist road hogs who kill and maim pedestrians and others, “Justice” (4.6.14) says, these pests “will have to be treated very differently by the law, or the common people will take the law into their own hands. We hope that the reckless disregard shewn by these motorists for the pedestrian, for the unfortunate cottagers who live on main roads, and for the children who have no other playground than the street, will stir up the class-consciousness that is so very latent in many of our class. The mad lust for change; for pleasure, and above all, for excitement, is making the class line clearer.” (Italics mine.)

It’s a desire for change, pleasure, and excitement that drives many a working man living a monotonous, dismal, and dull life to drink, but I don’t know that he recognises the line of class-cleavage the clearer as a result of his imbibing. Some may, but they are exceptions; there was Harry ———— and Will———— and Pete ————, the “task of filling in the blanks I’d rather leave to you,” gentle reader.

Whilst the laws are made by capitalist politicians, whom the B.S.P. from time to time support by urging their members to vote for them, the only remedy seems to be that of “propaganda by deed,” in other words, the Anarchism advocated in “Justice,” (17.8.12), when they advised lynching of some motorists as a preventive of undue speed and caution to others to drive more carefully.

And to paraphrase a well-known saying, “Of such is the camp of confusion.”

But out of the same camp comes this, by Mr. Hyndman (“Justice,” 11.6.14).

“Unorganised ‘rebellion’ is idiocy, which merely provokes anger and strengthens resistance. Spasmodic outrage in a free (italics mine) country is sheer madness. It is imperatively necessary, I consider, to put all this quite plainly, because an endeavour is being made to confuse disciplined resistance to a majority with sporadic outrage by a minority: two very different things.”

* * *

At last ! Away with Socialism as a solution for the problem of poverty facing the working class hitherto. A new solution is to hand judging by the display posters issued from time to time by the “Daily Citizen.” Like other newspapers, it is assumed that the item of greatest interest is announced on their posters, and in the case of a Labour (!) newspaper, that item affecting the working class nearest.

Take heed, therefore, and follow the racing tips given in the “Daily Citizen” if you would emancipate yourself from wagedom.

Look! here’s how to do it:

ROCKINGHAM

GAVE FIVE

EPSOM WINNERS

YESTERDAY

Paying politics for the people. What ?

J. B.

Blogger's Note:

A 'J.B.' is listed as writing in the Standard in this period but also in the late 1920s. I've no idea if it's the same person. In my head, 'J.B.' is Manchester Branch's Jim Brough. At least for the 'J.B' for this pre-war period. Just an educated guess on my part. I'm probably wrong.

This wee passage intrigued me:

"It’s a desire for change, pleasure, and excitement that drives many a working man living a monotonous, dismal, and dull life to drink, but I don’t know that he recognises the line of class-cleavage the clearer as a result of his imbibing. Some may, but they are exceptions; there was Harry ———— and Will———— and Pete ————, the “task of filling in the blanks I’d rather leave to you,” gentle reader."

A wee dig at Labour Movement figures who liked a drink? My attempt at filling in the blanks: An educated guess is that 'Harry' and 'Pete' were Harry Quelch and Pete Curran? The 'Will' one is a bit more difficult. The passages suggests that all three are deceased. When you think of a 'Will' in the British Labour Movement pre-1914, you think of either Will Crooks or Will Thorne. Both were very much alive in 1914. Suggestions on a postcard, please.

The old old story. (1914)

From the December 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The B.S.P., keeping up its reputation of madness, has recently issued to its members and friends a circular entitled: “A Call to Vigorous Effort,” and with it a letter—begging subscriptions for carrying on a National Winter Campaign, to stir up public opinion in order to obtain from the master class “stepping stones to Social Democracy.”

In the letter, which is dated Nov. 4th, it states that: “In a matter of ten weeks, more progress has been made in the direction of Socialist legislation than during the previous ten years.” From this it would seem that if the war continues as long as some of the half-penny daily “military experts” inform us it will, Socialism will have become an accomplished fact !

Go ahead, then, B.S.P.! Go ahead !

—–O—–

But, as usual, the B.S.P. puts the noose round its own neck, for when we turn to the “Call” we find that it endeavours to describe what actually has taken place, and what the B.S.P. calls in its letter, “progress towards Socialist legislation.” It says: “The Government, which promised that the real producers and defenders of the United Kingdom should receive fair treatment, and that their dependents should be fully cared for, is breaking every pledge it made.” By the way, who produced the United Kingdom ? “Cumbersome and unworkable machinery has been set up in order to evade responsibility ; doles have been cut down below the slow starvation limits; the workers in distress are being left to the tender mercies of the ‘charitable rich’ . . . capitalists have taken advantage of Government subsidies, Government guarantees and Government protection to increase their profits.” Progress ! Socialist legislation !

—–O—–

Perhaps we are just getting to it. Further it reads : “Public opinion must be stirred to follow actively on the lines of National Control of Railways, National Fixation of Prices, and National Insurance of Shipping already secured.”

So far as the control of railways and the insurance of shipping goes, we venture to assert that the majority of capitalists in other industries would be only too pleased to have their profits guaranteed and secured in a similar manner. That the B.S.P. jubilates over this action only goes to prove what we have always maintained, viz., that, like the other pseudo-Socialist bodies, it is composed either of misguided mortals or deliberate frauds deluding their fellows in the interest of the capitalist class.

The Government has not fixed prices, nor can it do so. All it has done is to state a price arranged beforehand with the capitalists beyond which certain commodities must not be sold. And here again the Government took particular care that profits were not in any way reduced. It was officially stated that these prices allowed “a good profit both for the wholesale merchant and the retailer” ; and when the representatives of capitalists talk about “a good proft” they usually mean what they say. Far from the prices being fixed, they have fluctuated even more than at ordintry times. Take sugar, for instance; the maximum price has been bobbing up and down all the time, 4½d., 3¾d., 4¼d., 3¾d. and so on. And don’t forget it that in most cases out of ten the dealers charged the maximum.

—–O—–

The S.L.P. is also in a bad way. So bad that the editor of their official organ has to warn its readers not to understand any of the articles therein as expressing the Party’s attitude or view regarding the war. This, mark you, after the war has been in progress for three months ! In fact, he admits that he does not know what the official view is ! One of its contributors, presumably a member of the Party, says “The S.L.P.—let us admit it freely—has been taken by storm, though not so disastrously as other parties. . . . What policy does the S.L.P. follow with respect to this war ? We don’t know. We are disunited. We are groping for a lead at the present time.”

Lead kindly light !

J. W. Pyle

Birds of a feather. (1914)

From the November 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charity, we are told, covers a multitude of sins. And War, it seems, covers a multitude of lies. One doing duty just now is called “The Need for Unity.”

Tory and Liberal papers are full of enthusiasm at the “united front” shown to the enemy by Unionist, Liberal, Labour and Socialist alike. If we were to question the inclusion of the last, doubtless we should be referred to members of the so-called Independent Labour Party and mis-named British Socialist Party, who have vie with the most rabid Jingoes in urging the working class to take up arms for their masters, or in spreading the stupid illusion that it is the German Kaiser who caused the war.

The poor, deluded wage-slaves are to be urged to join “Kitchener’s Army” for the purpose of fighting for “their” country and “their” liberty.

The factory worker, whose “country” is usually limited to the amount that would fill a flower pot, and whose “liberty” is of the kind that allows him to go to work (if he is lucky enough to have a job) when the factory hooter howls in the morning, and to leave off when it repeats its dirge at night, now finds himself with a whole load of other liberties launched at him.

In thousands of cases he can stay away from work altogether—in fact, they won’t let him in because they have closed down the factory. He is at liberty to leave his domicile, and is even assisted by the bailiff and broker’s man, who, with kindly solicitude for his failing strength, save him the trouble of moving his few belongings by taking them in lieu of the rent he cannot pay.

Fired with enthusiasm for these liberties, and not having the faintest idea where his next meal will come from otherwise, he rushes to the recruiting office in such numbers that the “Directive Intelligence” of the masters is overtaxed to the extent that their servants cannot even register the recruits nor give them a number. So, to get out of the difficulty, they have raised the physical standard—not daring to tamper with the mental one.

The agricultural labourer has a different notion of what is meant by “our country.”

It is a place on portions of which he is permitted to work on six days a week, from about sunrise to sunset, except when he looks after cattle, when the permission is graciously extended to seven days a week. More days per week would be granted him—if they existed. The other portions are places he may admire from the roadway, not for too long, of course, or the gamekeeper might think he was “loitering with intent” and Hodge would lose his job. But he may reflect on the enjoyment Lord Shoddy or Sir Arthur Ale-Adulterate derives from the ownership of these fine preserves, and vow that while he can hold a gun the Germans shall never take that country from Lord S. or Sir A. A.-A. He may further reflect that his own life reeks with variety. Night is followed by day, Autumn follows Summer. It does not always rain, nor is it always dry—though he may be. The place he sleeps in will emphasise this by letting in both wind and rain. And he will wonder how the Germans can stand the monotonous life he is told they lead. Now a chance to find out presents itself, for by joining the Army he is promised a free passage out to where they actually are, at——— (the next words were cut, out by the Press Censor.—Ed. “S.S.”) so he enlists.

Before war was declared by Great Britain on Germany, the Labour Party, the I.L.P., the B.S.P., the Fabians, etc., held an anti-war demonstration in Trafalgar Square, that, possibly much to their own surprise, was by far the largest gathering held there in recent years. Even after war was declared the British Section of the “International Socialist Bureau” issued a manifesto against war, signed by Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. Arthur Henderson (“Labour Leader,” 6th Aug., 1914). The I.L.P. still opposes the war—in the columns of the “Labour Leader.”

But the I.L.P. is a portion of the Labour Party. The Labour Party is a small part of the Liberal Party, and is entirely dependent upon the latter for the seats—with attendant salaries—that they hold.

At the orders of their masters, the Liberal Party, the Labour Party join the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee formed to combine all the persuasive powers of the capitalist politicians in urging the workers to join the Army, and “Mr. Arthur Henderson, Mr. Frank Goldstone, and Mr. J. Parker have been appointed as its representative speakers at the united demonstrations which are to be held to arouse enthusiasm for the war,” and “the head office of the Party, its entire machinery are to be placed at the disposal of the Government in their recruiting campaign.” (“Labour Leader,” 3rd Sept., 1914.)

In the same article we are told :

“The decision of the Parliamentary Labour Party to co-operate with the Government in the series of meetings it is organising to encourage enlisting, and the endorsement of that decision by the National Executive of the Labour Party, constituted a grave betrayal of the principles of the Party and an outrage upon its traditions and hopes.”

The “Labour Leader” would be hard put to it to justify such language. The guiding principle of the Labour Party, so strenuously defended by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, is to keep the Liberals in office at any price ; and its traditions and hopes are to persuade the Liberals to give them a few more seats in Parliament. How, then, can their present action be a “betrayal” of these principles or traditions ?

On another page of same issue we are told that : “The I.L.P. representatives on the Labour Executive opposed the decision and reported to Head Office” ; while the National Council of the I.L.P. “recommends branches to take no part in the proposed campaign.”

But if branches are to take no part prominent members do. Mr. W. C. Anderson objects to the language about the Labour Party quoted above, and says: “It must be very plain that the I.L.P. cannot remain inside the Labour Party and yet brand its actions in these heated terms” (“Labour Leader,” 10.9.14). Why not ? The only rule rigidly enforced by the Labour Party is that its candidates for Parliament must not run as Socialists, and there is nothing in the “Labour Leader’s” statements against that. Again, Mr. R. C. K. Ensor opposes Mr. Keir Hardie’s views on Russia, and makes the following profound pronouncement:

“The Russian democratic and constitutional movements have welcomed in this war a unique opportunity of securing at once two things which can only be secured together—the liberalising of Russia and the creation of a permanent Anglo-Russian friendship. It would be difficult to name any two objects more important for the world’s future.”

And all this was Mr. Ensor’s secret till the war broke out. Alongside of such stupendous results the “neutrality of Belgium” and “the safeguarding of small States” fade into insignificance. May we also enquire how long it is since Mr. J. Parker ceased to be a member of the I.L.P. ?

Still more follows. A recruiting meeting was held at Leicester on September 11th and the Mayor read a letter from Mr. Ramsay MacDonald in which, among a series of canting hypocrasies, the following occurs:

“I want the serious men of the trade unions, the brotherhoods and similar movements, to face their duty. To such men it is enough to say ‘England has need of you,’ and to say it in the right way.

“They will gather to her aid ; they will protect her ; and when the war is over they will see to it that the policies and conditions that made it will go like the mists of a plague and the shadows of a pestilence.” (“Daily Chronicle,” 12.9.14.)

Lord Roberts could hardly say more. Yet Mr. MacDonald is still a member of the I.L.P.

We thus have the illuminating spectacle of that organisation through its National Council and branches opposing the war, its prominent members supporting that war by encouraging enlistment, and the organisation as a whole forming part of the Labour Party that lends “its whole machinery” to the aid of the Government. Truly, a “supreme ironic procession,” as Meredith would say.

In these acrobatic and contortionist actions a serious rival is found in the B.S.P.

Like the I.L.P. it joined in a protest against England going to war. Then it wobbled for a while, and now it presents a pretty spectacle. In a paper called “Justice” (Aug. 25th), Mr. Hyndman says that all they can do at present is “to denounce the infamous German invasion of Belgium, to applaud the splendid resistance and self-sacrifice of that noble little people, and to hope for the speedy and total rout of the Prussian military caste.”

One may ask why the latter sentiment is restricted to Prussia ? Has Russia no military caste ? Is France free from such a thing ? And has Mr. Hyudman ever heard of Mr. Blatchford and Lord Roberts in England ? The British Navy League, so strongly supported by Mr. Hyndman, is, of course, a “caste” to spread peace and amity among the nations, not to prepare for and urge on the war.

When Mr. Norman objects that Belgium’s treatment of the people of the Congo was hardly the best example of brotherly love, Mr. Hyndman replies by saying: “We all know that the late King Leopold’s rule in the Congo was abominable. Was Louvain sacked on that account ?” (“Justice,” 17.9.14.) If we may venture to answer the latter query we are inclined to say No ! But in the interests of fair play we should also have to admit that we have not yet heard that the Germans gave this as a reason for their action.

He also says in,the same issue: “The treacherous and ruffianly attack upon neutral little Belgium settled the matter for me. It would have been infamous if we had failed to declare war on her behalf, and in order to save France from destruction.”

Several questions at once crop up at this answer. How many attacks upon little States by big powers have been other than “treacherous and ruffianly”? And who are the “we” that are going to “save France from destruction ” ? Of the two classes in this country which should take on this task ? Obviously the capitalist class, as it is their quarrel. But they are exactly the class that are not doing so, while the workers, of whom Mr. Hyndrnan has said over and over again that they are as well—or as bad—off in Germany as in England, evidently have no interest in the matter at all.

And Belfort Bax, who is supposed to be well-acquainted with German affairs, says : “The military camarilla which dictates to Germany, and which has engineered the present war, is of Prussian origin.” (“Justice,” 10.914. Italics ours.)

Where the “intellectuals” lead the lesser lights will follow. Mr. W. Thorne, M.P., assisted Major Hogg, Captain Passingham, Colonel Palmer, and several other agents of the capitalist class in running a recruiting meeting at the Public Hall, Canning Town, on Monday, Sept. 14th, and moved a resolution stating his profound belief that: “We are fighting in a just cause, and to vindicate the right of small States and the public law of Europe.” (“Stratford Express,” 19.9.1914.) The latter phrase sounds important, and having neither sense nor meaning behind it, it is just the sort of claptrap Thorne could give off.

He also said that when the news of the battles at Mons and Cambrai came “he put his International Socialism in the reference library for the time being.” (Ibid). Carping critics may object that he never had any “Socialism,” International or other, to bring out, but they may be ignored in this crisis. “When his party met he was one of the first to be in favour of the Chairman and the two Whips being part of the Recruiting Committee, and he did not regret it.” (Ibid). Referring to the treatment of the soldiers and their dependants, he said: “These men, when they come back maimed, should not be allowed to go into the workhouse, or walk about the streets selling laces and matches.” What they should be allowed to do Mr. Thorne did not say. Perhaps he thinks they had better sell bananas ! Anyhow, “If that happened again it would be a standing disgrace to the country.” (Italics ours. Ibid). “Standing” disgrace because, we suppose, it has such a huge number of disgraces already that there is no room for any of them to sit down.

Besides, seeing the large amount of distress existing in Canning Town now among the dependants of the soldiers, we can give a guess as to the conditions that will prevail when these men “come back maimed.” Starvation will be their share. One disgrace more or less can hardly disturb the equanimity of “this country.”

One result of the “unity” shown above is that no contests will take place at the next Municipal election in West Ham so far as Labour, Progressive, and Alliance Parties are concerned. They are all agreeing to leave the Wards represented as they are at present. “The Kaiser,” to quote the above mentioned issue of the “Stratford Express,” “has brought peace to West Ham” !

Finally, the B.S.P. issue a manifesto wherein they state : “Recognising that the national freedom and independence of this country are threatened by Prussian militarism, the Party naturally desires to see the prosecution of the war to a speedy and successful issue.” After a list of the usual hopeless hopes that it terms a practical programme, the Manifesto winds up as follows: “The British Socialist Party advises its representatives who are invited to take part in the general recruiting campaign, to accept such invitations provided they are permitted to speak from the common platform in support of the national programme and policy set forth above.” (“Justice,” 17.9.14.)

So their wobbling ends by their coming down on the side of the Government. Yet not altogether. In “Justice” for Sept. 24th it is stated that Stepney, North West Ham, and Bow and Bromley branches of the B.S.P. are opposed to this Manifesto. But doubtless such impertinence will be nipped in the bud by the Executive Committee publishing the amount of dues these branches owe the Centre.

The various and varying phases of capitalist development give many opportunities to the working class to discover their enemies. The gigantic war now in progress, involving the maiming and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of our class, has shown clearly how those enemies, from Bonar Law to Asquith, from Sir Edward Grey to Ramsay MacDonald, from Carson to Redmond, from Keir Hardie to Hyndman, and from W. Thorne to R. C. K. Ensor, are lined up in one camp—the capitalist camp—with the various organisations they represent.

The Socialist alone remains to point the moral, draw the lesson, and show the workers that not until they take control of affairs for themselves will they have the decision of Peace or War in their hands, and to show them how the necessity to do this means the carrying of the CLASS WAR to its conclusion, whereby wars of all kinds will be abolished.

Jack Fitzgerald

Cutlets. With S.P. Sauce. (1912)

From the June 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Home Rule looms large in that vital organ, the public eye. Whether the Bill will kill the Pope or whether the Germans will land at Belfast are questions that agitate the minds of patriotic Britishers. Of course, the Labour Party cannot be left out, and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald gave the Home Rule Bill his sanction and blessing. In view of this, the following extract from the “Labour Leader” of November 10th last, will not be out of place.

In an article entitled “Liberalism and Progress” the writer, Mr. H. Dubery, lets fall this brilliant gem :

“What is ‘the pathway of progress ‘from the Socialist standpoint’ ? ‘The test I bring to every measure introduced in the House of Commons,’ recently said one of our leaders, ‘is this. Will this Bill on the whole increase that share of national wealth and comfort that goes to the working class ? If it does that by even a fractional amount, I will support it. If it does not, then it is to me a non-essential.’

“Taking this statement as a test, let us apply it … to the Home Rule Bill. we shall see that when the smoke of battle has cleared and the horrible din has subsided, not one working man will be a whit the better off, nor will the nation be a step further along the true ‘pathway of progress.’ ”

Yet the Labour Party, whose organ is this self-same “Labour Leader,” support the Home Rule Bill. They are playing the same game of chasing the Will-o’-the-wisp, of leading the workers “up the garden.”

* * *

Mr. A. Henderson, M.P., the P S.A.-tin bethel-monger, speaking at a Brotherhood meeting on April 13th, remarked that Christianity had failed to arrest the masses. From the masters’ point of view it hasn’t : it still does its dirty work well. But one of the leading clerical lights, the Bishop of the Falkland Isles, thinks that its sphere is not large enough, and urges the necessity of a fund to extend the movement in South America.

In an appeal that is being widely circulated among the frauds of Christendom the Bishop says : “The Bishop of the Falkland Islands” Fund. For religious, educational, and medical work in Western South America, which must be carried out before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1913. The future success of British influence depends upon the answer to this appeal.”

The appeal has the support of Lord Northcliffe, the well-known Salvation Army field-officer, and from the accompanying explanation we gather the following extracts :

“The Chairman of the London Chamber of Commerce represents the business men of the capital of the Empire. He asked to be convinced as to the use of the £100,000 for which the Bishop asks. The case was put before him, and at a Mansion House meeting he said : ‘This is the finest commercial investment the traders of this country could make.'”

“The Archbishop of Canterbury writes : ‘I am impressed and interested by the Appeal which the Bishop of the Falkland Islands is now making, and earnestly hope that he may elicit a really adequate response from those who have financial and other interests in South America, and especially on its Western coastline. The conditions are unique, the possibilities are immense, and the Bishop, in addition to his personal gifts as a religious teacher, is eminently well qualified to arrange and control the work wisely. I very cordially wish him God-speed.'”

“The Archbishop of York writes : ‘The cause for which the Bishop of the Falkland Islands appeals is one which ought specially to commend itself to all who care for the welfare of our own people in the vast territory entrusted to his care. I trust that the very large number of persons in this country who have personal interests in that part of the world will be ready to acknowledge its claim.'”

And so Christianity continues, propped up by interested men, supported by the capitalist class as a means whereby they can keep the chains of wage-slavery bound more tightly around you. The position laid down in our pamphlet “Socialism and Religion” has yet to be shaken, and the worthy bishop, in his blindness, comes and amply substantiates that position. Christianity closely reflects modern capitalist interests. We are out to slay capitalism. Look to it that the end is speedily brought about.

* * *

Amidst the turmoil and strife of the last coal strike at least one idea was prominently heralded as the means of salvation for the working class (and let it be quietly known—for the master class). I refer to the “dark horse” known as Co-partnership.

To those who have freely imbibed at the fountain of Co-partnery the following document will serve as a kind of “digestive tablet.”

“SOUTH METROPOLITAN GAS CO.”

“TO ALL CO-PARTNERS.”

“We now know the cost of the coal strike to this Company, and it has been very heavy. A very big price has to be paid (the larger part going out of the country) for coal purchased abroad in substitution for that undelivered to us by reason of the unfortunate disagreement between the owners and men. But our obligations to our consumers could not be set aside at any cost. To have done so would have in some respects irretrievably damaged our business, and as a result seriously harmed the employees who are our partners in it.

“My object in issuing this statement is to urge that all Co-partners will try by special endeavour to replace the lost tens of thousands by zealous working, and scrupulous economy in the materials used in our undertaking. Much has been accomplished, more can be, to avoid waste either of Time or Stores, and I feel sure I shall not ask in vain for the help of all our employees in the very anxious time through which we are passing.

Charles Carpenter, Chairman

April 24th, 1912.”

There is Co-partnership !

Profits are shared,—oh ! yes, and the workman may get a problematical increase (although in comparison with the wealth produced he is poorer), but when it comes to losses, well, one class of Co-partners share that, and that class is called the Working Class, alias “the Great Unwashed.” In spite of the use of the plural (“our” and “we”), when losses are incurred you must “try by special endeavour to replace them by zealous working.”

Co-partnership is merely a narcotic for the working class, to imbue them with the idea that they have an interest in the business, and under its influence they are speeded up, made to economise in materials, and all the sooner driven onto the scrap-heap. No, Socialism is the only hope, and Co-partnership is only—a hope.

* * *

“The B.S.P. Babes” have been at it again. In spite of their frequent protestations of the similar nature of Liberal and Tory, they still play the game of voting “agen the Government.” The following is culled from “Justice” of May 25th, 1912 :

“At South Hackney the Liberals in their panic have rushed the election so as to prevent a three-cornered contest. In that, unfortunately, they have succeeded ; but we hope every Socialist and Labour elector in the division will vote Tory and so deal a blow at the present Government.”

Poor old B.S.P. ! Just as a burglar does not become honest by calling himself King George, so the S.D.P. has not become Socialist by changing its name. That work has still to be done, and we are the Party to do it.

* * *

After a week of revelry, of riotous living, of gay feasting, of nautical cake-walks, and of splashing saucy mermaids, the Sea-King has now returned from seeking his fleet. It is quite possible, nay, probable, judging by the newspaper reports, that he is now able to tell the difference between an aeroplane and a battleship.

* * *

Of interest to race-goers. Just as “White Star” did not come home in the “Two Thousand Guineas,” so the King of Denmark did not come home in the Monarchy Stakes. He was unknown to the police, which is strange for a Royal scion.

A. L. Cox

The S.L.P. and Formation of the Communist Party, 1920 (1942)

From the January 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard 

In our October issue we dealt with a complaint by the Socialist, organ of the Socialist Labour Party, that we had published an incorrect statement to the effect that the Communist Party was formed in 1920 by the “fusion” of several organisations, including the S.L.P. The Socialist, in its issue of November, replied to our statement of October.

We will deal with the various points one by one.

First there is our original statement that the S.L.P. and other organisations were fused into the Communist Party in 1920. That statement was made in good faith by the writer of the article, and passed in good faith by the Editorial Committee. That it came to be published could justify a charge of negligence, but the Socialist, instead of making only that charge and giving their version of the facts, wrote an abusive article imputing that the statement was a deliberate falsehood:—”The facts could have been easily verified, and there is no excuse for the falsehood unless it be that he lied deliberately with intent to deceive his readers, and thereby create a false belief regarding the S.L.P. His assertion has not even the shadow of fact behind it.”

This imputation of deliberate falsehood is one for which the Socialist has and can have no kind of evidence, and in their November statement they so far forgot their complaint that we knew the facts and falsified them deliberately, that they offer instead the explanation that our statement was made “without knowing the facts.” As we do not wish to copy the Socialist’s methods of controversy, we do not ask for an apology, though it would certainly seem to be called for.

Since, however, the Socialist is evidently under the impression that we are attempting to justify the original statement, we state that it was wrong, and offer our apologies for publishing it.

As the original statement is agreed to be incorrect, we come to the next point, What were the true facts? In our October issue we drew attention to two published statements, one by a Communist to the effect that “the main part of the S.L.P.” was fused into the Communist Party, and another by Mr. G. D. H. Cole that “most of its more active members . . . passed over to the Communist Party in 1920.”

On the plea of first things first the Socialist, in its rejoinder, declines to deal now with this aspect except to argue that it is necessary to distinguish between the whole and the part (which is true) and that to say that the “main part of the S.L.P.” went into the Communist Party is “in flat contradiction” with the statement that the S.L.P. went in. The Socialist having declined except in its own good time to say what is its version of the facts that matter must be left there for the present.

One other statement made by the Socialist does, however, require comment. In their September statement they say: —

“Never in the whole of its history has the S.L.P. fused, united, federated nor anything of the sort with any party whatsoever.”

Readers who are not familiar with the history of the S.L.P. may be led by those words, “nor anything of the sort,” into assuming that the S.L.P. has not been prepared to associate with other parties towards which it from time to time declared its hostility. This is not the case. One instance of its willingness to do so may be found in the Socialist of December, 1918. Under the heading “The Crisis: A Call to Labour,” the Socialist prominently displayed a manifesto calling on the British workers to take action against the Defence of the Realm Acts, against the intervention of Allied troops in Russia, against the blockade of Germany, etc. It ended with an appeal to British workers to rouse themselves and join hands with their fellow workers in other lands and “march through the gates of freedom now opened wide.” This manifesto is expressly stated to have been “issued jointly by the Executives of the Independent Labour Party, the British Socialist Party and the Socialist Labour Party.”

It was the British Socialist Party which was mainly instrumental in forming the Communist Party.

While, therefore, the Socialist is entitled to object to statements that the S.L.P. fused with the B.S.P., the knowledge that it was prepared to issue joint manifestos with the B.S.P. does suggest that the display of indignation is excessive.

Editorial Committee.

Labour legend (2021)

Book Review from the November 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Victor Grayson. In Search of Britain’s Lost Revolutionary. By Harry Taylor. Pluto Press. 2021.

Victor Grayson is still a myth in some left-wing circles, as evidenced by Corbyn writing a foreword for this book. He came to fame when in August 1907 he sensationally won a by-election at the age of 26 while standing as a ‘socialist’ without the backing of the Labour Party.

A member of the ILP, he was a protégé of Robert Blatchford, author of Britain for the British, and his paper The Clarion which campaigned for Labour candidates to stand explicitly as ‘socialists’. This, in opposition to the policy of the ILP’s leaders, Keir Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald, of getting working men into parliament through deals with the Liberals.

Grayson went into parliament as a rebel and didn’t join the Labour Group. He got himself suspended on a number of occasions. The most famous was in October 1908 when he caused a scandal by insisting in the middle of another debate that parliament discuss the plight of the unemployed as a matter of urgency. The Speaker refused and Grayson was escorted out of the chamber by Black Rod. The Labour Group accepted this, some even voting for his expulsion. Outside he made fiery speeches saying that, as the unemployed couldn’t get attention in parliament, they should get it outside, by rioting armed with broken bottles.

Naturally, the Socialist Standard commented on this, in a 2,700-word front-page editorial in November 1908 entitled ‘Revolution: The Problem of the Out of Work’, saying that if incidents like this exposed the Labour parliamentary group as anti-working class ‘it will be of some satisfaction’. It went on to say, however, that ‘Grayson is a man who has no very clear idea of where he stands on questions of economics, who certainly does not understand the Socialist position, and who cannot, therefore, be accepted as in any adequate sense a representative of Socialism.’ The article agreed that rioting might work to get more crumbs from the capitalist state but didn’t advise it. We weren’t the only ones to see him as a bit of a showman and dandy – the March issue had noted him turning up for a debate with a Tory leader ‘in immaculate evening dress (which we suppose is typical of his revolutionary views)’.

He lost his seat in the January 1910 general election but continued to oppose the strategy of the ILP leadership and in 1911 was instrumental in a number of ILP branches breaking away to join the Social Democratic Party (as the SDF had changed its name to by then) to form the British Socialist Party, which was supposed to unite all those calling themselves ‘socialists’ in a single party but just turned out to be SDF 3.0.

When the First World War broke out he took a pro-war stance and was sent by the government to Australia and New Zealand to persuade workers there to join in the slaughter. He himself joined the NZ contingent and fought at Passchendaele, so at least put his money where his mouth was. After the war there was some talk of him re-entering politics but in 1920 he mysteriously disappeared and was never heard of again, and so became the subject of various conspiracy theories.

Taylor recounts his life from his manual working-class background in Liverpool – he was trained as an engineering worker – to his disappearance in 1920. The explanation he offers for this is that he was blackmailed because of past homosexual behaviour into retiring from politics, changing his name and going to live somewhere in Kent where he must have died in the 1940s or 50s.

One conspiracy theory is that this was done to prevent him becoming a radical Labour politician. However, in view of his pro-war stance and the arguments he put forward for it, if he had stayed in politics this was arguably more likely to have been as a Tory, as at one point Taylor hints at.

The Socialist Party gets a couple of mentions. A letter (in full) published in the Brixton and Lambeth Gazette (2 December 1910) when Grayson was a candidate in Kennington in the general election that month, stating that he was not the socialist candidate. The second is a quote from an article in August 1912 (the footnote mistakenly says September) commenting on a passage in Grayson’s book The Problem of Parliament. The article quotes the definition he gave there of socialism which confirmed that his ‘socialism’ was the same elitist state capitalism advocated by the Fabians and the Labour Party. Socialism, he had written, was

‘merely another and better form of government… The ruling of a State or municipality is the highest form of industry and commerce, and must be put in the hands of the most experienced and highly trained men of business who can be discovered… Control by expert officials… that is the ideal before Socialists.’

It is rather strange that left-wing Labourites should still see him as a hero. True, he was a firebrand orator who had called himself a ‘revolutionary socialist’ at one stage of his life, but then so did Mussolini (who also gave up on parliament).

Taylor’s biography is worth reading, especially for those interested in the period up to WWI. It is unfortunate that at one point he seems to suggest that William Morris was a ‘Christian Socialist’.

Adam Buick

Jottings. (1912)

The Jottings Column from the July 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Councillor W. C. Anderson, presiding over the I.L.P. conference at Merthyr Tydfil, is reported to have said : ‘‘Social justice is not compatible with private ownership of land and industrial capital "

Seeing that capital is the exploiting form of wealth, and that the capitalist is capital personified, I should like to know from Mr Anderson how that ‘‘social justice” he prates of is going to come about by the exploiting form of wealth merely changing ownership and not being abolished. There is “industrial capital” under State ownership (the only form of ownership in which it can exist other than private ownership) in the State railways of various countries Mr. Anderson may have heard of, even if he has never visited. Let him give us an instance where the workers have obtained “social justice," and I will show that his conception of “social justice” includes exploitation.

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Mr. J. Burgess (Bradford) said at the same conference that there was “nothing in the Parliamentary Report of the Party to show that the I.L.P. was a Socialist organisation.”

I wonder what Mr. Burgess wanted? Did be want the Parliamentary Report to lie by stating something that was not and is not true? For shame, Mr. Burgess!

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Mr. George Lansbury passed through a fit of paralysing candour at the I.L.P. conference. He said: -

  “When the vote on the Akbar incident was taken the Labour whips were running about scooping their members up for fear anything should happen to the Government. I, for one, have always felt ashamed of the vote I gave on that occasion.”

Mr. Lansbury, like the old bird he is in the game of spoof, is wide enough to appreciate the value of the sack-cloth and ashes dodge among such a conglomeration of sentimentalists as the I.L.P. But the old what-d’yer-call-him has the brazen effrontery to call himself a Socialist, which essentially implies internationalism. Then how’s this, from the report of the Parliamentary proceedings of May 21st ?

Mr. A. Shirley Benn (U , Plymouth) “thought the time had come when the great shipping industry should have one Government department devoting all its attention to maritime affairs. He would like to see every ship flying the British flag manned with British officers.”
Mr. Lansbury: “ And men.”

More sack-cloth and ashes for Mr. Lansbury.

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The mission of the B.S.P., as outlined in their organ, “Justice,” June 1st, 1912, and defined at their recent conference, is “to give political voice and vision to the blind and inarticulate discontent of the workers ; to bring their political organisation at least abreast of their industrial, so that they will not continue to vote into power the very men whose class greed they are continually forced to strike against."

The italics are mine.

It was only provisionally, then, that they advised the workers to vote for the Liberals at the St. Rollox and East Northants bye-elections.

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According to “Justice” (1.6.12) Mr. H. M. Hyndman, in his presidential address to the B.S.P. conference said:

 “Though the British Socialist Party was a definitely revolutionary organisation, he took it there was not a single delegate there but would hold up both hands and use his best energies to secure forthwith the Free Maintenance of Children, the Co-operative Organisation of Unemployed Labour, the Minimum Wage in all industries, and the Eight Hours Law, for which Socialists have agitated continually for a full generation. Such measures properly used were stepping stones to peaceful revolution.”

Here I might say that to properly use the measures presupposes possession of political power by the working class, which dispenses with their necessity. But the above extract was uttered on the Saturday morning; hear him now on the Monday evening, as reported by the “Manchester Guardian ” (28.5.12.):

  “The capitalist parties seemed to have pretty nearly exhausted the possibilities of blundering. There was not a measure before the country, from either of the political parties to-day, which, if carried into effect to morrow, would benefit the men, women and children of this country to any appreciable degree.”

There you are, Hyndman on Saturday and Hyndman on Monday. Which is the Hyndman and which the behindman, eh ? Why, me little man, yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice. It’s the same H. M. H., only he has such a bad memory.

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It has been stated previously by Socialists and is here repeated, that Capitalism knows no national boundaries, that labour is the source of all value, and that to economise in labour-power with as great or greater output is the very acme of efficiency.

That has been stated by opponents of the existing system of production for profit. Hear now a witness for the defence, an upholder of the present capitalist system. Sir Alfred Mond is the witness, and on the matter of establishing better relations betwixt Germany and England he delivered himself thus in "Nord und Sued”:

   “In all countries the great world of commerce knows no national bounds and tolerates no interference with its labour by such limitations. The cohesion of the various parts of the business world is more one by industries than by nationalities. The relations between the captains of industry of all countries are getting more friendly every day, and exhibit a growing mutual respect and inclination to co operate on a labour-saving basis.” (Italics mine.)

That phrase “captains of industry” seems familiar—or at least its definition does. It is alluded to by Karl Marx in the XIII. chapter of “Capital” thus:

  “It is not because he is a leader in industry that a man is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property.”

Stand down, Mond, the Socialist case has been well upheld by you.

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Mr. Andrew Carnegie in his rectorial address to the Aberdeen University students said: “Youths should have a decisive voice, if possible, in the selection of their future occupation.”

There is another thing he might have advised them to do, viz, choose their own parents. If they did what large families the Carnegies, Rockefellers, Goulds, and Morgans would have! Why, no poor man could have any children at all, unless some foolish young man chose a labourer on 16s. a week to be his father.

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The question of leaders and their actions commented upon and replied to in the last issue of the “S.S.” recalls to mind the case of Mr. Havelock Wilson (Seamen’s Union). This leader stood as candidate at South Shields bye-election in 1910. He then spoke against the action of the Board of Trade in raising the load-line of British ships and thus imperiling to a greater degree than formerly seamen’s lives and permitting an increased tonnage to be carried in the same ships. That was as candidate for Parliament. But the evidence given on June 11th, 1912, before the Commissioner of Wrecks (Lord Mersey) by Mr. A. M. Carlisle was to the effect that Mr. Wilson had signed the report of the Board of Trade Advisory Committee of 1911. This report’s recommendations would have involved the “Titanic” carrying even fewer lifeboats than she did. And of such is the kingdom of labour leaders.

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Methought the enquiry being held in London under Lord Mersey was to investigate the circumstauces of the lose of the “Titanic” and to fix the responsibility for the disaster. It appears not to be so, however, judging from the following passage, taken from the evidence given on June 6th:

Mr. Sanderson (White Star manager): "I understand that the purpose of this commission is to find out how we are to reduce those risks (i.e., incidental to sea travel) to an absolute minimum.” Lord Mersey : “That is quite true.”

 #    #    #    #

All our judicial and semi judicial enquiries are above suspicion of being impartial. The “Titanic” enquiry shows this to great advantage in the following comment of Lord Mersey : 

Lord Mersey (to Mr. Harbinson, counsel for third class passengers, who had asked whether the captain in handing in a Marconigram to Mr. Ismay was inviting an expression of opinion as to what the vessel’s speed should be):—“When you come to address the Court—if ever you do—I don’t know whether we shall ever reach the time to make your speech—you may make such a comment to me, but at present yon must confine yourself to facts.”

Even the third class passengers’ counsel can make a speech commenting upon a steamship director—if there’s time!

J. B.