SPGB Meetings (1988)

Party News from the October 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Click on the image to enlarge.

That Party and its Promises! (1976)

From the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

By “that party” we mean of course the Labour Party, sometimes called the Socialist Party, but which does not stand for Socialism.

In the opinion of Ron Hayward — and he should know — the Labour Party stands for “equality in education”. At least that’s what he told the writer on an LBC phone-in. Whether “equality in education” is feasible or not, desirable or not, is hardly worth investigating. The dole queues are full of graduates, and millions of well-educated women find themselves reluctantly at the kitchen sink. Let us, however, take a good look at what the Labour Party in office has done about education and compare its record with its promises.

The Labour Government has been proposing cuts in local authority spending, and as the biggest share of local authority spending goes on education, the schools are going to take the brunt. Surrey County Council is reported (Guardian, 5th July) as planning to cease all nursery education, to increase class sizes in the schools and to raise the fees for higher education courses. This is a pattern which we can expect to see followed by most other education authorities.

Let us compare this situation with the picture presented in Labour’s 1959 manifesto — The Future Labour Offers You. Under the heading “Our Children”. Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan and Co. told us:

The worst handicap a child can face at school is the oversize class. Overcrowding in the schools is a nightmare to teachers and to parents. That is why our first task must be to cut classes in primary as well as secondary schools to a maximum of thirty.” (our emphasis.)

Contrast this “first task” brainwave with the actual reality. Many children going through what the state calls “education” have done so, even in the good years and “good” areas, in classes of 35, some rising to 40 or more. Now the size of classes is likely to rise again, not from a real shortage of qualified teachers, but because there is not enough money forthcoming from the Treasury to pay the teachers.

In 1959, Labour also told us: “Most important of all, our plans will require many more teachers. We shall launch a big drive to recruit and train them as swiftly as possible.” Well, at least one of our recent governments has done that. And the result is that with the present Labour Government saying “less money for education”, a large proportion of these expensively-trained teachers are experiencing the frustration of joblessness. While the classes get bigger and bigger. Talk about waste!

Returning to 1959 we find the Labour Party declaring : “The main fault with our present State education is that there is not enough of it. In order to give every child a fair chance to choose a career and to train for it, we must be prepared to spend more.”

Exactly the opposite of what they are doing now. The fact is that the political parties’ manifestoes are like the apples the greengrocer puts in his front window. They look mouthwatering! So you go inside on the promise of all that lovely, glossy, sound-looking fruit, only to get sold wrinkled, bruised, unsound fruit that the greengrocer dredges up from under the counter or some dark corner that you can’t quite see.

The professional reformist politician is like the most unscrupulous greengrocer you could ever have the misfortune to meet! You even become so carried away in your enthusiasm that you don’t stop to ask the vital question “Can he produce the goods?”

If you did ask, you’d get no meaningful answers out of him, but only specious assurances. Here’s a sample from that 1959 Labour manifesto: “A programme for one Parliament is not a blueprint for Utopia. What we have summarised here can be done in that limited time. We can make such great social advances as bringing real security into old age through our National Superannuation scheme. We can cut down the size of school classes. We can turn shabby old houses into modern homes. So this is a practical assessment of the jobs to be done, and a realistic account of the way we propose to do it.”

Which means that they want to do these things and hope we’ll take their word for it that they can. To which we reply: if it could be done, why wasn’t it? And conversely, if it was not possible except when the economic climate was right, why claim so confidently that it could be done? This charge of making promises that cannot be carried out is one that can equally be levelled at the Tories, the Liberals, and other assorted reformists, including the Nationalists among those who have swindled the electorate.

The moral of the story is this. A political party without principles is merely a vote-catching machine, governed by expediency. Its soup-kitchen philosophy of being kind to the kiddies is easily ditched whenever it should appear to be in conflict with the short-term economic interests of capitalism.

Capitalism just does not work for our benefit: it’s the bosses’ benefit show, not ours. There is only one way we can use our votes in line with our economic and social interests as workers. And that is by voting and working for Socialism and the end of this wages, waste and want system.

Charmian Skelton

Letter: Women's Movements (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Women's Movements

It is seldom that the Socialist Standard gives cause for complaint on factual grounds, and also it seems rather churlish to quibble at anything in the lavish, and extremely interesting, 70th anniversary issue.

But in The First and Only Liberationists I read that “the idea that (women) might need a wider horizon than could be provided by a home and family had scarcely dawned”. And the writer also asks, “Who else (other than the founders of the Socialist Party) in 1904 was interested in the freedom of women?”

The answer is, women. The modern assumption that the women’s movement only started up recently is false. The evidence is that there have been women demanding “emancipation” or “equal rights”, as a sex, since the Eighteenth century. In America the First Woman’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls in 1848 and resolved “that the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities”.

Other national conventions were held annually in America right through the nineteenth century and the Washington Convention in 1900 was dominated by the question of working class women and women’s position as wage-earners—“without political expression woman’s economic value is at the bottom of the scale . . . She must do better work than men for equal pay or equal work for less pay”. (Voices from Women’s Liberation) That such a situation still prevails today is proof of our Party’s contention that it is nothing to have a vote if you don’t use it properly.

If I can add something personal on this question, it is that as a women I am proud to be a member of this Party which has never treated me as a (mere) women, has never pigeon-holed me into some specifically “woman’s” work, but has always treated all members, white or black, male or female, as comrades in a common struggle.

C. Sultan 

Woking

Reply:

Thanks for the compliments, which are among very many received, on the Anniversary Issue.

In the context of that article it was not possible to enlarge on the point but “scarcely dawned” was not meant to imply that no one had questioned the  rôle of women in society. Rather that this questioning was not widespread. It is of course true that some women, and a few men, had been actively involved in campaigns for women’s rights over many years. For example the first leaflet on female suffrage had been issued in 1847. The vote was originally seen as a way of obtaining “social justice”. To the sometime scorn of the modern women’s movement its attainment became an end in itself.

The question “who else” was, at that time, interested in women was about political parties. Here the position taken by the SPGB at its formation, in 1904, was unique.

Editors.

Lenin's Legacy (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is irrelevant that in Russia the means of production are (mostly) not privately owned. Capital can be owned collectively: "the capitalists as a whole take direct part in the exploitation of the total working class by the totality of capital". [1] Bukharin emphasised the "class monopoly in the means of production", when "vulgar economists” had eyes only for private capitalists. [2] Engels wrote:

State ownership of the productive forces is not the answer . . . neither the conversion into joint-stock companies nor into state property deprives the productive forces of their character as capital . . . The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians”. [3]

Russian economic and political conditions differ from the West in that the means of production and distribution are formally owned by the state, and that there is a monopoly of political power by one party which consequently exercises monopolistic control over the means of production and distribution. Inequalities arising from the Party’s dictatorship have created a new exploiting class, powerful and privileged. "The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians."

Lenin preached and practised what Marx condemned. Lenin, a product of the Russian "intelligentsia", was caught up in the struggle against feudalism when the Russian proletariat was still only a fraction of the workforce. His policy was to control workers’ organisations by setting up secret cells. “The Party must be the vanguard, the leader of the broad mass of the working class”, he wrote. [4] Marx however declared: “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves". [5]

Engels considered that in Russia "both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie exist only in sporadic form and have not passed beyond the inferior stage of development" Against Tkachev's view that Russians were "the chosen people" who could bypass capitalism altogether, he argued: "the existence of the bourgeoisie is . . . as necessary a condition for the socialist revolution as the proletariat. A person who maintains that this revolution could be carried out more easily in his country because it has neither proletariat nor bourgeoisie proves by his statement that he has understood nothing of socialism”. [6]

Marx held that Russia was not yet capitalist: “if Russia is tending to become a capitalist nation . . . she will not succeed without having first transformed a good part of her peasants into proletarians’’. [7] Fifty years later, Stalin presided over the ruthless process of primitive accumulation when

great masses of men are suddenly and forcibly torn from their means of subsistence and hurled as free and "unattached" proletarians on the labour-market . . . And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire. [8]

In 1918, the Socialist Party of Great Britain declared: "there is no ground whatever for supposing that (the peasants) are ready or willing to accept social ownership of the land". Could Russia be ready for socialism? “Unless a mental revolution such as the world has never seen before has taken place, or an economic change has occurred more rapidly than history has ever recorded, the answer is ‘No'.” [9]

Since the essential preconditions for a socialist revolution did not exist, the irony of history changed Lenin and his successors into midwives of capitalism, not socialism. The “vanguard party” with its "advanced theory” had to follow the bloody path of primitive accumulation, to clear the way for the capitalism they had willed to destroy.

Lenin gained power in a backward country whose economy had collapsed. The European revolutions he confidently expected failed to occur, and no class in Russia supported socialism. “The worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme Party is to be compelled to take over a government in an epoch when the movement is not yet ripe", wrote Engels.[10] Since neither the economic nor the political conditions for socialism existed, any attempt to introduce socialism by abandoning the market economy and commodity production was utopian and doomed to disaster.

The Vanguard Party

Lenin claimed that "by its own forces the working class can only arrive at a trade union consciousness . . . the workers can acquire class political consciousness only from without, that is, only outside of the economic struggle, outside of the sphere of relations between workers and employers".[11] This view did not come from Marx but from the Narodnik tradition “Neither now nor in the future is the people, left to itself, capable of achieving the social revolution. Only we. the revolutionary minority, can". wrote Tkachev. [12] In 1891 Axelrod argued that the workers' struggle was industrial, not political: “in the struggle for political freedom. the advanced sections of the proletariat follow the revolutionary circles and the fractions of the so-called intelligentsia". [12]

Lenin believed in this leadership role: “the intellectuals are good at solving questions ‘of principle'. They are good at drafting plans and supervising the execution of plans". [12] His view reflected the undeveloped state of the Russian working class. It was not held by Marx who, while recognising the importance of theory, also recognised the workers’ ability to organise themselves without the leadership of a self-appointed élite. The early utopian socialists, he wrote, saw in the proletariat only "the most suffering class . . . incapable of any historical initiative"; to them "the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat" was inconceivable. [13] These comments apply equally to Lenin.

Marx's view of the socialist revolution was that it will be achieved by the working class — "the only really revolutionary class”. They will organise themselves. Vanguardism is a denial of Marx's most basic proposition.

The Dictatorship of the Party

On leaving Switzerland, Lenin wrote: "the Russian proletariat is less organised, prepared and class-conscious than the proletariat of other countries . . . Russia is a peasant country and one of the most backward of European countries”. [14] He seized power knowing this, and knowing the Bolsheviks were a minority. To retain power he established a dictatorship.

Within weeks he created the Cheka, an “absolutely independent organisation . . . with power to carry out searches, arrests and executions". [15] Dzerzhinski. the head of the Cheka, was to become head of the VSNKh, set up to control the economy. The Constituent Assembly was dissolved, and trade unions were under the control of the Party.

Tackling starvation in the cities, Lenin declared the problem “has to be solved by military methods, with absolute ruthlessness". [16] Terror was not ruled out. “The dictatorship is a rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws", he wrote. [17] Forget democracy: "no essential contradiction can exist between the Soviet, that is, the socialist democracy, and the exercise of dictatorial power by a single person”. [18]

Marx wrote of “the dictatorship of the proletariat" meaning the organisation of the proletariat as the ruling class, as exemplified in the democratic Paris Commune. Lenin, latching on to the phrase, interpreted it to mean instead dictatorship by the vanguard with himself at the head. He echoed the Blanquist theory of "a dictatorial power, whose mission it will be to direct the revolutionary movement . . . to be strong, to act quickly, the dictatorial power will have to be concentrated in as small a number of persons as possible". [19]

Rosa Luxemburg protested:

the historical mission of the proletariat . . . is to create, in place of the bourgeois democracy. a Socialist democracy, and not to destroy democracy altogether . . . The dictatorship of the proletariat consists in the manner of application of democracy, not in its abolition . . . this democracy must be the work of the class and not of a small minority in the name of the (working) class.

She was particularly opposed to “the abolition of the most important guarantees for a healthy public life and for the labouring masses — the freedoms of the press, of association and of speech”. [20]

Marx loathed press censorship: "the censored press . . . is a flabby caricature without liberty, a civilised monster, a horror even though sprinkled with rosewater". [21] Lenin’s dictatorship demanded it.

The Missing Link

Lenjn argued that “socialism" was a transition stage to “communism”. During this "rather lengthy process”, when "all citizens would be converted into workers and employees of one huge ‘syndicate' — the whole state”, the state would wither away. [22] This confused theory is contrary to the views of Marx and Engels, who both used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably.

Lenin asserted that "the first fact that has been established with complete exactitude by the whole theory of development, by science as a whole . . . is that, historically. there must be a special stage or a special phase of transition from capitalism to communism”. [22] “Science as a whole" had nothing to do with this “fact”: believing that the workers were not ready for socialism, since their class-consciousness had to be taught them by intellectuals, he did not accept that they could make "complete communism" work. That was "utopian” — so in the meantime, the aim had to be the “transition” stage.

In this "first phase” he decreed: “all citizens (would be) transformed into the salaried employees of the state, which consists of the armed workers . . . the whole of society will have become a single office and a single factory . . . escape from national accounting and control will inevitably become incredibly difficult, a rare exception, and will probably be accompanied by swift and severe punishment". [22] Russia did indeed become one vast labour-camp, but it differs from what Lenin claimed for his “socialism". Bureaucracy multiplied instead of disappearing, "equal pay" was soon abandoned, and "strict accounting and control" was replaced by widespread corruption.

The unpleasant reality of the totalitarian state was masked by theories about a "socialist state” — a contradiction in terms. The existence of the state ("the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie” [24]) implies and reflects the existence of an exploiting class. The state in Russia has the same function as in any other country: "the main object of the state has always been to secure, by armed force, the economic oppression of the labouring majority by the minority which alone possesses wealth”. [25]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Marx’s conception of socialism means that, as Engels explained, “with the disappearance of an exclusively wealth-possessing minority there also disappears the necessity for the power of armed suppression. or state power”. [25] Since the state in Russia has not disappeared, after more than sixty years, we must conclude that its existence is proof positive of the existence of “an exclusively wealth-possessing class”, and exploiting class.

Ironically, Lenin in 1917 wrote opposing "the widespread view that . . . state monopoly capitalism is no longer capitalism, but can already be termed "state socialism’.” [26] However regulated and planned, he argued, the system remained capitalism. On this, at least, he was in agreement with Marx and Engels.

Charmian Skelton

References:

1. Capital Vol. Ill, chap. x.

2. The Economic Theory of the Leisure Class, 1914.

3. Anti-Dühring

4. Quoted by Rudolf Sprenger. Bolshevism.

5. Inaugural Address to the International Workingmen’s Association.

6. Social Problems in Russia (1874), quoted by Daniel Norman, Marx and Soviet Reality.

7. Letter, 1877.

8. Capital Vol. I. chap. xxvi.

9. Socialist Standard, August. 1918.

10. The Peasant War in Germany.

11. What Is To Be Done? 1902 .'

12. Quoted by Sprenger, Bolshevism.

13. Communist Manifesto.

14. Quoted by R. Payne, Lenin.

15. Decrees of 20 Dec, 1917, and 26 Sept, 1918.

16. Speech of 2 Feb, 1920, quoted by Alec Nove, An Economic History of the Soviet Union.

17. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, 1919.

18. Speech 28 April 1918. quoted by Kautsky, The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

19. Quoted by Martov, The State and Socialist Revolution. 1919.

20. The Russian Revolution, quoted by D. Norman. op. cit.

21. Quoted by D. Norman, op. cit.

22. The State and Revolution, 1917-18.

23. Left-wing Childishness and Petty Bourgeois Mentality, 1920.

24. Communist Manifesto.

25. Engels, letter to van Pappen, 1883.

26. The State and Revolution.

Marx's partner (1983)

From the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists cannot pay tribute to Marx without at the same time noting the role of his comrade and collaborator, Engels. It was Engels’ financial support which enabled the penurious Marx to carry out his researches into political economy.

But this financial support was not the least of Engels’ contributions. It is reckoned that about 1500 letters passed between Marx and Engels. They thought along the same lines, they spoke the same language, yet their life-experience was different. For Engels, there was the practical world of the Manchester cotton trade, he read widely, keeping himself fully informed of the latest developments in physics, chemistry and other sciences, with a special interest in comparative physiology and the controversies surrounding Darwin’s theory of evolution.

To Engels we owe volumes II and III of Marx's unfinished Capital, which he completed with difficulty from quantities of rough drafts and notes. After Marx’s death. Engels continued to publish translations and new editions of Marx’s works, providing prefaces in many languages. Yet it would be wrong to regard Engels only as Marx's editor, publisher and lifelong friend. His contributions to the socialist movement stand in their own right.

Many of the issues he discussed in his early work, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, were taken up again by Marx in volume 1 of Capital. Engels' passionate indictment of slums, and the diseases and deformities of children at sweated labour (as in his analysis of the real cost of lace for fashionable ladies), such themes permeate his book. Yet there is more in it than indignation at the social evils of industrial capitalism.

Engels described how new technology and the division of labour were accompanied by the emergence of a new class, the urban proletariat. He posed the fundamental question: "What is to become of these propertyless millions who own nothing and consume today what they earned yesterday?’’ Industry, he wrote. ". . . regards its workers not as human beings but simply as so much capital for the use of which the industrialist has to pay interest under the name of wages”. Describing how competition affected the level of wages, he also emphasised the "cycles of boom and slump”; the Malthusian "surplus population” was the reserve army of the unemployed, available for industry's booms, and condemned to destitution and the Poor Law workhouses between-times.

Discussing both the value and the limitations of trade unionism (a theme to which he returned in some later writings [1]), and the main working class movements of the time. Engels criticised the English socialists for being metaphysical, lacking awareness of the significance of historical development. It seemed to him that they preached "philanthropy and universal love . . . the improvement of humanity in the abstract". He reiterated this criticism in his preface to the 1892 edition:

And today, the very people who. from the ’impartiality' of their superior standpoint, preach to the workers a Socialism soaring high above their class interests and class struggles, and tending to reconcile in a higher humanity the interests of both the contending classes — these people are either neophytes, who have still to learn a great deal, or they are the worst enemies of the workers — wolves in sheep’s clothing.

This first socialist examination of the effects of industrial capitalism, written from the standpoint of historical materialism, touched on many issues later developed in other works by Marx and Engels. Written in Germany on Engels’ return from two years in Manchester, The Condition of the Working Class has some faults. He was not able to check all of his quotations, and some are inaccurate; later, he acknowledged that his prediction that with the next crisis would come the revolution was “youthful ardour”.

Although the Communist Manifesto was published as their joint work, Engels himself expressly stated:

The basic thought running through the Manifesto — that economic production and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom constitute the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently (ever since the dissolution of the primeval communal ownership of land) all history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social development; that this struggle, however, has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time forever freeing the w'hole of society from exploitation, oppression and class struggle — this basic thought belongs solely and exclusively to Marx. [2]

One persistent criticism of Marx is that human behaviour is said to be influenced exclusively by class interests and material factors and nothing else. This is a gross distortion and Engels explicitly argued against such nonsense:

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I has ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic role is the only determining one he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. [3]

In much of Engels' writing, we find the dialectical method explained. He considered phenomena as evolving through often complex interactions. His conception of history was not a simplistic model of a superstructure of laws, religions, ideologies and dogmas perched on top of a separate economic base, with something like a damp course separating one from another. On the contrary, the various elements of the superstructure "also exercise their influence upon the course of historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form"'. [3]

Criticisms of Marx as an "economic determinist” arise from "the common undialectical conception of cause and effect as rigidly opposite poles, the total disregarding of interaction. These gentlemen often almost deliberately forget that once a historic element has been brought into the world by other, ultimately economic causes it reacts, can react upon its environment and even on the causes that have given rise to it" [4]. In Anti-Dühring Engels showed that science had revealed just such a dialectical process in nature. There are no absolute truths, everything is changing: "motion is the mode of existence of matter".

Anti-Dühring supplies a thorough grounding in dialectical materialism, applied not only to science and philosophy (attacking with gusto the nonsense about "eternal truths" propounded by metaphysical thinkers), but also to the development of socialist theory from "Utopian" socialism to "scientific” socialism. Some chapters from Anti-Dühring were soon republished as a pamphlet, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, and the central section of the book ("Political Economy”) serves as a helpful introduction to Marx’s Capital. Both the book and the pamphlet had an immediate and lasting influence in many countries.

In his next book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884). based on Lewis H. Morgan’s Ancient Society, Engels analysed the way civilised, class-divided society had evolved from barbaric and savage societies, and how property relationships changed family relationships. Engels also showed how the changing division of labour, with the introduction of herding, "forced women into second place": mother-right gave place to father-right. He showed how the state arose from the need to hold class antagonisms in check, so that the state "is, as a rule, the state of the most powerful, dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the politically dominant class". It follows that the socialist has no choice but to emphasise that every class struggle is a political one.

The superficial objection to socialism — that it is against "human nature” — is based on ignorance of the fact that civilised society, with its class divisions and state coercive institutions, "has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it (the state), that had no conception of the state and state power". Engels described primitive societies which managed their affairs democratically and without the coercion that is considered right and natural today. Such societies demonstrate that it is not "human nature" which requires humanity to be divided into nation-states and opposing classes, or which would make socialism impossible.

This article has only discussed Engels's main works. There were others which are both readable and helpful. How far was the theory of "Marxism” his work? His own view was emphatic and consistent:

What I contributed — at any rate with the exception of a few special studies — Marx could very well have done without me. What Marx accomplished I would not have achieved . . . Marx was a genius; we others were at best talented. Without him the theory would not be what it is today. It therefore rightly bears his name. [5]

Charmian Skelton

References:

1. Cf. The Wages System (Progress Publishers)

2. Preface to the German edition. 1883

3. Letter to Bloch, 1890 (Marx and Engels — basic writings ed. Feuer, Fontana)

4. Letter to Mehring, 1893 (Feuer)

5. Ludwig Feuerbach, 1886 (Chap. IV. footnote)

SPGB Meetings (1978)

Party News from the January 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the Spot at Con-Mech (1973)

From the December 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nor entirely satisfied with the mass media’s reporting on the Con-Mech dispute, I went along to find out for myself. As I arrived outside the Sheerwater factory, I saw a group of four or five men on the pavement. Among them I recognised Lindsey Greig, who is one of the two shop stewards. He is 21. A graduate of Warwick University, he joined Con-Mech this summer. From the company’s point of view he is a “trouble maker” and had “spent much of his working time soliciting membership for the AUEW”. The other shop steward, Ron Connor, an ex-miner from Co. Durham, has experience of trade union membership, but is also young.

Con-Mech is a small factory-cum-office on Sheerwater GLC estate outside Woking, Surrey. The Group make bread slicers and parts for bulldozers and other earth-moving machinery. According to a circular issued by Mr. Robert Dilley, the company’s chairman, on September 28th, there are 67 people employed of which he claims 51 are “eligible to join a Union” — any union. I asked him over the phone if this figure included staff workers, typists, etc., but he emphatically denied this. However the workers and the AUEW who have checked the branch’s books, assert that the total number of shopfloor workers eligible to join the AUEW was only 31. Indeed I would think that this is the correct figure, as Dilley’s 51 could only have got in with dangerous overcrowding. It is a small factory.

Before September 19th the union had only four members, of whom Ron Connor was one. At the branch meeting 22 Con-Mech workers including Greig became union members. Next day the union members elected Greig and Connor as their shop stewards and decided to apply for a meeting between the District Secretary Geoff Hardy (a member of the Communist Party) and the Company to discuss recognition, etc. The shop stewards’ account of how this application was met is indicative of the employer’s attitude:

Our first discussion with the Management was brief and to the point. We were told that under no circumstances would they afford recognition, and that the two elected Shop Stewards could “pick up their cards” on the way out. (Undated leaflet issued in the name of Ron Connor as Secretary of the Strike Committee.)

It seems that on every point at issue there are two different and mutually contradictory stories. How many shop-floor workers were eligible for the AUEW? Dilley says 51, the union only 31. How many came out on strike? Dilley says only 20, the union 26. How many are still out on strike now (Oct. 26)? Dilley says only 9 — the rest, he says, are either back at work or else have collected their cards and got jobs elsewhere. But the union say they are paying strike pay to 16 men on their books. Were the shop stewards sacked? Not according to Dilley, but it is hard to see why, immediately after their interview with him, there was a mass walkout and decision "to withdraw labour until such time as not only the two stewards were reinstated, but the Company conceded recognition”.

On September 28 Dilley took the case to the National Industrial Relations Court under Sir John Donaldson on the grounds that the strike constituted an "unfair” industrial practice because there had been no seven days’ notice. At which stage the question ceases to be a relatively simple one of an industrial stoppage over a recognition issue, but becomes bedevilled by the AUEW’s stoic masochism and boycott of the NIRC (surely they could have countered Dilley by putting their case on reinstatement of the shop stewards and recognition?), but also by the Labour and TUC opposition to the Industrial Relations Act and NIRC.

At which point I’ll get back to those pavement pickets. Their main motive for being out was nothing to do with the Industrial Relations Act and party political matters. What they wanted was union recognition, not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, a means of compelling management to do something about unsatisfactory conditions. I was told of safety hazards on some of the machines, of poor ventilation, of the shopfloor being cluttered and dirty. I heard that rates of pay were arbitrarily and unfairly fixed — the longer you stayed the less you got in relation to blokes who had just come in on "outside” rates of pay. For instance, Lindsey Greig, a young newcomer, got a lot more than an older, better and more experienced worker.

Another factor was the high speed arrival and departure of shopfloor workers. There would be seven or eight new ones every Monday, and of these hardly a couple would still be in the place on Friday. There was a tendency to take young workers, including students, and there was a high proportion of immigrant workers — Italians and Pakistanis came to nearly half the workforce. In the event, the Pakistanis have mostly stuck with the union so far, but the Italians went back in.

In the absence of a union, inexperienced, young or immigrant workers are least likely to be aware of safety hazards in operating the machines, and in case of accident are unlikely to be aware of their legal rights on compensation; also they might not be in a position to press any claim. Is this why Dilley is so opposed to recognition of the union? Is he afraid that someone might report him for empty firebuckets? Or get him to modify some of his plant, e.g. the monstrous machine outside in his backyard which chops up metal into different lengths and which the operator can only switch on or off when inside the building? Or to give up some of his old-fashioned habits, like sacking people at the drop of a hat?

The first sentence of Dilley’s circular of September 28th claims: “For twenty-five years the employees and the management have enjoyed excellent labour relations.” The men totally disagree, and they point out that last November there was a stoppage lasting several hours over pay and conditions, which ended when another director conceded a pay increase. In the next sentence, we read: “the conditions of employment have always been superior to those laid down by any Union”. The proof of the pudding is in the eating: there would be little cause for men to stay out on strike with only £6 strike pay for weeks on end and still remain resolved to force union recognition if conditions were as "superior” as Dilley alleges. The men however know very well how badly their conditions and rates of pay compare with other factories in the area, whose workers are solidly supporting them (e.g. in such practical ways as laying on hot tea twice a day, or getting statements photo-copied for the pickets to hand out, not to mention helping out with picket duty).

The employer seems an awful ass, dogmatic and intransigent, characteristically the type who has been using NIRC. The Union leaders seemed at times to have had a stronger eye on making party policy propaganda for the Labour Party than with the immediate interests of their members on strike. But the strikers themselves have shown commendable solidarity and stamina — qualities which, added to socialist understanding, will overthrow capitalism and establish Socialism.

Charmian Skelton

Blogger's Note:

By the look of this obituary for Lindsay Greig from 2015, he would have been a member of the International Socialists group (now known as the SWP) at the time of the dispute. In fact, the strike at Con-Mech is mentioned in the obituary.

Workers versus the “Vanguard” (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

In signing the Gdansk agreement in September 1980, the Polish government promised to allow independent trade unions, the right to strike, access to the mass media, free Saturdays, and to abolish the nomenklatura system by which the PUWP (the Communist Party) controls all important appointments. But paper promises and piecrust pledges are easily made, easily broken.

Every concession pledged on paper had to be struggled for. Last October the independent trade union was still being denied legal recognition. Free Saturdays and access to the mass media were still denied in January, five months after the agreement. When another strike was threatened, within ten days the number of work-free Saturdays was increased from 25 to 38 still less than originally agreed. Later the government “conceded” to the new unions 0.8 per cent of TV time and 0.2 per cent of radio time, subject to censorship.

Such concessions were wrung with difficulty from a reluctant government using every available form of dirty trick, provocation and intimidation. The union’s experience was: “Members are fully aware that . . . the only successes they had so far were in those instances where Solidarity was willing to stand firm. In all other cases there was no progress at all.” [1]

The Roots of Solidarity

“Nothing starts from square one: everything has roots in another time and another place”, said Andrzej Wajda. There were memories of the Poznan revolt when Gomulka came to power in 1956, and of the 1970 demonstrations over food prices and low pay, when Gierek came to Gdansk. “Just like the others I believed that they were real tears that ran down the gentleman’s cheeks as he spoke, and that while he remained Minister of Internal Affairs there would be no bloodshed in Poland.” [2]

But tanks attacked in Gdansk, in Gdynia strikers returning to work were fired at from helicopters, and in Szczeczin “the militia shot at random into the dense crowd of shipyard workers . . . They began taking the wounded away, and from that moment I became a union activist . . . We left the shipyard having won nothing . . . All that changed were the authorities at the top.” [3]

Gierek’s new economic policy brought a boom: foreign credits enabled industry to import machinery and expand. Each year 500,000 people left the countryside for the cities. In agriculture, the government discriminated against “family farms”. Private farmers were denied machinery and fertiliser, and the the state fixed prices too low for them to make a profit. The increasingly unprofitable farms are manned by an ill-equipped and ageing population, a third of whom are over sixty.

The tide turned in 1975, with rising prices and workers’ protests. Gierek introduced a new Labour Code, whose Article 52 was used in 1976 as an “anti-strike” law. He also changed the Constitution, stressing that “the Party is the leading political force in society”. This gave birth to an ‘‘unofficial opposition.”

In 1976 higher food prices caused strikes and demonstrations. Many workers were beaten, jailed or sacked. Some—like Lech Walesa—were blacklisted. In reaction to police brutality, KOR—the Workers’ Self-Defense Committee—was formed, and succeeded in getting an amnesty next year for all the jailed workers. NOWA, an independent publishing house, was set up to break the state’s “publication and information monopoly”. The number of uncensored publications increased. Along with other workers’ journals, the fortnightly Robotnik (The Worker) had a growing circulation from 1977.

In 1979 Robotnik published a Charter of Workers’ Rights, declaring that: “We have entered upon a course of action whose long-term aim is the creation of a self-defense system for employees, first and foremost, independent trade unions”. The Charter argued that the official trade unions did not protect workers, that Gierek’s 1975 Labour Code was used as an anti-strike law, and urged workers wherever possible to set up “free trade union committees”. [4]

Workers’ Grievances. . . .

As exports to the West dwindled due to the recession, repayment of Gierck's foreign loans became increasingly difficult. This brought pressure on the workers. Poles had the longest working week in Europe-forty-eight hours. The four-shift system caused serious mining accidents, due to lack of maintenance. In October 1979, at least 66 miners died in 4 accidents in pits using this hated system. [5]

Where health and safety were concerned, the official unions were as callous as management: “these matters were totally neglected by the old unions. Bosses ordered the workers to do jobs that could damage their health: in theory it was possible to refuse but in practice there was always someone else willing to do the job, and besides the bosses would take revenge.” [6]

Workers’ living standards worsened. There was a staggering increase in cases of TB, especially in the 23-25 age group. In Poland TB is still the main killer disease, reflecting poor food and housing. [7] The government admit that “nearly 2 million people are waiting for flats. The average time of waiting is 7 years, in many regions it exceeds 10 years”. [8]

Hunger was already a major problem last summer, made worse by hoarding and profiteering. One of the strikers’ “21 Demands” was for meat rationing. This summer’s hunger marches drew the world's attention to the fact that rationing did not end this man-made famine.

. . . . and the Gaffers

The official unions’ role was to enforce labour discipline by carrot-and-stick methods. For carrot, read the distribution of scarce goods, housing, welfare benefits, perks and privileges. For stick, read petty harassment, witholding benefits, fining workers and contriving dismissals. They acted as a branch of management against the workers’ interests.

Last summer the workers' anger boiled over: “the official trade unions have not only failed to defend our interests . . . they have been more hostile to the justified strike action than the Party and State organs.” Szydlak, chairman of the Central Trade Union Council, said, “we will not give up power, nor will we share it.” Their angry reply: “He wants to represent us without our consent . . . Our mandate is for him of no consequence.” [9]

At that time, Gierek was still preaching—like Callaghan, Thatcher and Co.—that “rises in the standard of living have to be earned.” Like his crocodile tears of 1970, this was a lie: just consider his standard of living. In only ten years as Party boss, he had acquired a “luxurious residence”. Gierkowka stands in 3,000 acres. Outside, an illuminated fountain and a 2½ acre lake. Indoors, a swimming- pool, cinema, billiard-room and a grand reception-room, all paved with marble slabs. [10]

Corruption permeated the PUWP at all levels. In Walbrzych, officials used coal-mine materials to build themselves villas while “other materials were being ordered from abroad and charged to the mines while going straight into the officials’ private building activity”. The regional Party secretary, no less, was up to his neck in this embarrassingly entrepreneurial activity. [11]

Workers died because money was used for private profiteering instead of safety equipment! For over a decade, the “red Bourgeoisie” fattened itself unscrupulously. A top sociologist described the PUWP as full of “degenerate elements” for whom Party membership was “a springboard leading to riches, to positions of importance and power.” [12]

Every foreman, trade union official and factory manager owes his appointment to a Party committee. Through the nomenklatura system, these have the power to blacklist him from higher posts. If he wants to get on in his career, he will be only too eager to do the Party bosses any small favours they want. The nomenklatura system is still intact: today’s black-market profiteering in food in the starving cities is a consequence of this.

But even without corruption, no party running a state capitalist economy — whether as a dictatorship or as a lukewarm pretend democracy (the Party Congress reforms were only window-dressing) — can be expected to act in the interests of the working class, regarding our living and working conditions as a higher priority than profits. Governments are not philanthropic institutions; no reform will change this.

Strikes in a “socialist” country?

Sociologists, like politicians, were baffled by this theoretically impossible phenomenon: “what rational explanation could be found for the fact that the rightful owners of the means of production, and the people governing the country, rise up in revolt against themselves?” [13] So why do strikes happen, and not just in Poland? Russia, Ukraine, Rumania. East Germany — all so-called “socialist” countries have this problem. No sensible explanation can be found among Poland’s rulers but workers understand things better.

“The strike is the law of the downtrodden, who have been deprived of all other means of social action. It is a radical act of self-defence . . . The historical experience of the Polish People’s Republic clearly proves that the power apparatus does not represent the interests of the working class. (If it did, how can we explain the events of 1956, 1970, 1976 and 1980?). . . Between the power apparatus on the one side and labour on the other, a deep class conflict exists, which causes antagonisms and conflict in the social life of our country . . . (Labour’s interests are opposed to) the politico-state and economic apparatus, acting as a whole as a collective monopoly, as de facto private owners.” [14]

Together with this awareness that the wages system, under whatever label, is against the interests of workers, goes the knowledge that Poland’s “Socialism” is a fraud: “State ownership and social ownership of the means of production are two completely different concepts which should never be confused. The means of production may be owned by the state but this does not mean that they are thereby the social property of the working class.” [15]

From this point of view it follows that “the real liberation of the proletariat can only take place by means of the socialisation (something quite different from state ownership) of the means of production.” [16]

This is a minority viewpoint but one which has real support. Jednosc, the journal quoted, has had impressive support from local Szczeczin workers, especially the print workers, and by January this year its fortnightly print run reached 100,000 copies.

The Vanguard Party and “Dual Power”

“Solidarity” can only act as a trade union, to defend workers’ interests within the system. It gave up any chance of political action by signing the Gdansk Agreement which, instead of the workers’ demand for trade unions “free and independent of the party”, declared that “the new unions . . . will recognise the leading role of the PUWP in the state.” [17] 

However, as no political organisation genuinely represents workers’ interests, any organisation which purports to represent their interests takes on the role of an unofficial opposition, whether or not it organises as a political movement or even has a declared platform. As one Party member commented: “Solidarity represents all those who define themselves as ‘we’ against a Party and State defined as ‘them’. A system of dual power is gradually emerging.” [18]

Solidarity’s policy has been clear from the start: “in the cause of independence we will not link ourselves, let alone subordinate ourselves, to any political or social organisations.” [19] Yet the Government and its Moscow puppet-masters continually attack Solidarity as subversive enemies of the state. Such tactics are familiar to trade unionists here: Reds under the bed or CIA agents of Counter-Revolution, the same ploy used for the same purpose, to discredit union activists and prejudice public opinion against the unions.

Kania has made every effort to delay, minimise or renege on his signed agreements. Realising that — for the time being, at least — brute force, tanks or truncheons could not be used, the government strategy was to play for time while harassing, provoking or intimidating the union and its supporters.

The Chief Public Prosecutor circulated instructions on how to frame union activists. From his circular (leaked to Solidarity) we learn that the forces of “law and order” were in the habit of raiding workers’ homes to such an extent that “the large number of sequestrated objects — typewriters, duplicators, paper, and above all illegal publications — in some cases creates problems of storage”. Prosecutions were brought against workers distributing leaflets (“dropping litter in public places”) or wearing badges “without permission”. [20]

A Politburo member, Zabinski, privately reassured the security forces that Kania’s apparent concessions did not mean any underlying Wetness. There was a Machiavellian strategy behind the concessions:

“The aim was to quench the strikes, calm the nation and consider the situation later . . . (The workers' committees should) taste a little power: it will have a cooling effect on them.” Ending the four-shift system would cause redundancies: “these workers’ commissions are to suggest who is going to be dismissed from the mines. Let them do this untypical work . . . These inter-factory workers’ committees have to fire them. We have to involve them in a thousand problems.” He concluded: “We should see to it that, first, they do not get rid of Party members, second, that they do get rid of the ‘KOR’ people, and then the rest must be simply slowly broken up.” [21]

This strategy, whose failure is self-evident, is based on the special fear felt by all Bolsheviks when workers form an alliance with “intellectuals”. Like Lenin, Kania and his colleagues believe workers are helpless without intellectuals to lead them. Lenin wrote that “the history of all countries shows that by its own forces the working class can only arrive at a trade union consciousness.” [22] The corollary to this is that only if workers unite with “intellectuals” is there any risk to the powers-that-be.

In Poland the KOR intellectuals supported the militant workers, and vice versa. Did the result support Lenin’s view? In the Gdansk strike, the workers took the initiative and the KOR “experts” were much less militant than the workers. The “intellectuals” were moderates while “the workers were really very opposed to the system, to the point where they wouldn’t even touch it, still less reform it”. [23] The workers wanted a trade union that would be independent of the party. Negotiating behind closed doors, the experts presented them with a “definitely agreed” formula which acknowledged “the leading role of the Party”. The workers “were very annoyed ... (they) wanted to throw all the experts from the shipyards”. [23]

Lenin’s theory is insulting baloney. Workers can have a clear understanding of their real interests and of their actual strength when united and militant. The “experts” and KOR sympathisers were nervous of Russian intervention and more easily intimidated. (They were also more soft when appeals to the “national interest” were tried.) From fear of putting the cause of “free trade unions” at risk, they shackled the new unions with “the leading role of the Party”, which meant the continuance of the nomenklatura system.

One lesson of the Gdansk negotiations is that workers should do their own negotiating, openly. They are the experts.

The Self-Limiting Revolution

Socialists have a special interest in the development of independent trade union movements in totalitarian state capitalist countries. Embryo movements have sprung up in Russia, under enormous difficulties, and still operate underground, as used to be the case in Poland. [24]

In Poland the achievement has been greater, but — like Marx — we realise that “the real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever- expanding union of the workers.” [25]

We are not uncritical of Solidarity. Its policy is made by leaders. It is influenced by the Catholic Church, an influence which gives the “national interest” a higher priority than class interest. It has taken up the cause of the peasant farmers whose demands — higher food prices and private ownership of land — are in conflict with Solidarity members’ need for cheaper food and, ultimately, for common ownership of all means of production, including land.

However it has established a strong organisation of at least 10 million members, voluntarily enrolled, without any “closed shop” agreements or coercion of any kind. It is capable of defending workers’ interests.

Its existence has demonstrated that state and party control of the media cannot forever stifle the voice of the common people, and that police brutality and draconian penalties cannot prevent determined, class-conscious workers from striking and organising on the industrial field.

But, even if all Solidarity’s demands become reality, not mere promises from a Party notorious for breaking them whenever expedient, Poland’s workers would remain wage-slaves. Solidarity is not a revolutionary organisation. It is a trade union, whose role is to defend workers interests within the wages system. Meanwhile the PUWP still holds political power, dictates economic policy, laws, and — the ultimate sanction — controls the police and armed forces which protect the property of the state and which can be used, have been used and may be used again, to “defend the national interest” against the working class.

The PUWP’s power-monopoly will continue until Poland’s workers organise themselves for a political struggle as effectively as they have organised themselves on the industrial field. There is still work to be done. But until they get up off their knees, stop genuflecting to Popes, Cardinals and suffering Saint Lech Walesa, stop saluting the national flag, become deaf to appeals about the “national interest”, and take their stand exclusively on their class interest, they will fall short of becoming a revolutionary movement. They will remain mere heroes of protest.

Charmian Skelton

References

[1] Solidarity communique. Jan. '81 (Information Centre for Polish Affairs)

[2] Anna Walentynowicz (Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, winter-spring '81)

[3] Stanislaw Wadolowski, vice-chairman of Szczeczin Solidarity (Labour Focus, ’81)

[4] Full text in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, spring-autumn ’80

[5] PSC News (Polish Solidarity Campaign), March ’81.

[6] Interview with Two Gdynia Workers (Labour Focus, ’80)

[7] Solidarnosc Strike Bulletin, 28 Aug. (Labour Focus ’80)

[8] State of the Economy Report, July ’81 (Polish Press Agency)

[9] Solidarnosc Strike Bulletin. 20 Aug. (Labour Focus, *80)

[10] Information Centre for ' Polish Affairs, 14 May ’81

[11] Labour Focus ’81

[12] Prof. Markiewicz, Kultura 21 Sept. ’80 (Contemporary Poland, official digest of media and government statements)

[13] The same 

[14] Jednosc, no. 16, 12 Dec. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’81)

[15] Statement of the Inter-College Co-ordinating Committee of Solidarity (Szczeczin region), Jednosc no. 14, also printed in Kommunikat, the Warski shipyard workers’ bulletin (Labour Focus, ’81)

[16] Jednosc no. 11, 30 Oct. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’81)

[17] Full text of the “21 Demands” and the Gdansk Agreement (Labour Focus, ’80)

[18] Article by B. Rogowski, 14 Nov. ’80 (Labour Focus, ’80)

[19] Inter-Factory Founding Committee of the Independent Trade Unions of the Coastline, statement, 17 Sept. ’80, published through KOR (Information Centre for Polish Affairs)

[20] Full text in Labour Focus, ’80

[21] Transcript of secret tape published in The Free Unionist, 5 March ’81 — Information Centre for Polish Affairs

[22] Lenin, What Is To Be Done?

[23] Jadwiga Staniskia, Experts and the “Leading Role” — (Labour Focus, ’81). Her statement that workers disliked the “agreed formula” is supported by another “expert”, Geremek—interview in Que Faire Auiourd’hui? (no. 9)

[24] See Workers Against the Gulag, ’79 (Pluto Press)

[25] Communist Manifesto

Letter: Poland is state capitalist (1982)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

In the article "Poland is state capitalist", a quotation from a Polish journal is given, indicating the distinction between "state ownership and social ownership of the means of production".

However, our agreement with the Marxian analysis contained in this and other articles published by Jednosc (see Labour Focus on Eastern Europe, winter-spring 1981) should not draw us into the mistaken and unrealistic assumption that such views are widely held in Poland. This was, and unfortunately still is, a minority point of view.

While the article we quoted was re-published in one other workers' journal, other, more forthright articles were not re-printed elsewhere.

C Skelton 

Woking, Surrey

Letter: Existence and purpose (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Existence and purpose 

George Pearson remains persistently puzzled about why man should glory in natural phenomena. This question is, for me, answered by the following quotation from Sir Walter Raleigh: “We are compounded of earth, and we inhabit it.”

The emotions that George Pearson describes as “spiritual” are entirely natural. There isn’t an atom of our being that is not a part of the natural universe. External factors such as natural or artistic beauty on the one hand or the degradation of the dole queue on the other will serve to trigger our reactions. But to ask why we react is meaningless, like asking why trees can’t walk.

Of existence the only meaningful statement we can make is that “existence is”. No reason, no purpose is implied in existence, only its reality. Likewise with our emotional reactions: they are as much a natural part of human life as the ability to breathe.

C. Skelton,

Woking

SPGB Meetings (1990)

Party News from the October 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The anarchist way (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anarchists derive their ideals of justice, liberty and equality from the eighteenth century, since when they and their followers have wandered up one blind alley after another in their search for the right road to their utopia.

In the early nineteenth century, there was “the immortal Proudhon” with his “mutualism”. He held that capitalism could be persuaded to wither away by the simple yet so practical expedient of reducing interest rates to zero, and allowing anyone to print money and operate as a banker. As he told Marx in a letter of 1846:

we should not put forward revolutionary action as a means of social reform . . . But I believe that I know the means of solving this problem with only a short delay.

Instead of Socialism, Proudhon’s goal was “social liquidation”. Indeed, liquidation and bankruptcy could be the only possible consequences of such a policy! But mutualism was an idea already in the air when Proudhon wrote What is Property? in 1840: an Equity Store, or Time Store, and similar ventures, were operating in the USA from about 1827. Capitalism, however, survived.

In the mid-nineteenth century, socialists and anarchists worked together in an uneasy alliance. The split came in 1872 when the anarchists, led by Bakunin, were finally expelled from the First International. Bakunin denied that there was any need for the workers to form a party in order to gain political power. In place of the Marxist policy of developing working-class political organisations to take over the powers of government, the anarchists argued for industrial organisation and the use of the general strike to destroy the state.

The Syndicalist Fallacy

In ABC of Anarchism (1929), Alexander Berkman devoted a whole chapter to the organisation of labour, and the use of the general strike, the work-in and workers’ control as the means of social revolution. Nowhere in the book, however, does he give any hint of what the police and armed forces would be doing while the workers were busily occupying factories, mines and railways. Perhaps they were to be away on holiday during the social revolution.

Yet Berkman was perfectly aware that, when necessary, governments are ruthless in their use of force and coercion against the working class:

There is no record of any government or authority, of any group or class in power having given up its mastery voluntarily. In every instance it required the use of force, or at least the threat of it.

It follows that a government faced with an attempt to expropriate the means of production would use all powers at its disposal to protect the "rights of property”, not stopping short of massacre (remember the Commune).

While Berkman followed Bakunin in arguing against political action and for the syndicalist folly of using the unions and the general strike against the state, the Italian Malatesta argued in Amsterdam in 1907 that working class unity is a myth, that the rôle of union officials is as “corrupting” as parliamentarism, and that a general strike without armed insurrection must fail, as workers would starve faster than the rich and could easily be crushed by the state’s armed forces. He concluded that workers should seize political power by armed insurrection, a policy as suicidal as syndicalism, and for the same reasons.

The Propaganda of Deed

The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a period when some anarchists, in America as well as Europe, pursued yet another policy. It was named the “propaganda of deed”. Various spectacular assassinations and bomb outrages took place, much publicised by the bourgeois press.

It was the failure of the tactics of riot, especially in Italy after the attempted insurrection of 1877, which led Bakunin’s followers to support terrorism. As Louise Michel said:

We have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain urgent reforms. What was the result? The people were shot down. Well, we think the people has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people should sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of violence whose object is to terrorise the government and the bourgeois.

To this day, we hear of individuals and groups who practise this policy. The Angry Brigade in this country, and in Italy the Red Brigade, who describe their actions as “striking at one man to educate a hundred”: propaganda by deed is exactly what they mean.

The consequences of such acts are entirely negative. They give the state popular support for reactionary and draconian measures. To reject the need to gain political power, to gain control of the state machine, to organise the working class politically, is all too often to accept defiant but pointless gestures— demonstrations, squatting, assassination, armed insurrection, kidnapping.

For those anarchists who follow Bakunin, it is the State that has to be abolished. For George Woodcock, as for Berkman, it is the “principle of government”. Kropotkin dreamt of making bonfires of laws, edicts and all sorts of rules and regulations, while Faure's basic definition of the anarchist viewpoint was:

the negation of the principle of authority in social organizations and the hatred of all constraints that originate in institutions founded on this principle. Thus, whoever denies Authority and fights against it is an Anarchist.

But if laws are destroyed, there is still a government to fight. If the entire government is murdered (something of this sort did happen in Russia, remember) there will still be no change in the economic basis of society. It will not have tackled the root cause of most of society’s problems—the class ownership of the means of production and distribution. The working class would still be wage-slaves since they do not own the means of life.

The anarchist demand to “smash the state” is based on a lack of understanding of the role of the state and of the whole reason for its existence. This is that in a property-based society the owners of capital need to defend their class interests as against those of the workers. But merely to “smash the state”, without first abolishing capital, is a wasted effort. It would be like trying to get rid of nettles in one’s garden without digging up the roots.

“Pure and Simple Destruction”

Nechayev — a friend of Bakunin, and a man whose Revolutionary Catechism influenced Lenin — wrote naively:

The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire state to the roots . . . Our task is terrible, total, universal and merciless destruction.

Berkman was consistent to the destructive streak in anarchism when he wrote:

when government is abolished, wage slavery and capitalism must also go with it, because they cannot exist without the support and protection of government.

(ABC of Anarchism)

Yet, neither explains just how the state and the government can be abolished while the workers remain mere wage-slaves, dependent for next week’s meals on this week’s pay-packets. Go on strike? The workers and their families would starve a lot sooner than the rich. Try to occupy the factories, shops, mines, farms and so forth? Not a chance if they are defended by government-paid mercenaries, imported if necessary, armed to the teeth.

Unless and until the working class organizes itself politically so that the state’s coercive forces may be used for rather than against the revolution, we cannot expect to change society. As Engels wrote (letter to Cuno, 1872):

Do away with capital, the concentration of all means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall of itself . . . Without a previous social revolution, the abolition of the state is nonsense; the abolition of capital is precisely the social revolution, and involves a change in the whole mode of production.

As long as capitalism lasts, workers will be plagued with well-meaning idealists who rebel against the double standards, and violence of the system. But the social revolution must be built on more solid foundations. The best basis for the creation of a new world is a community of class-conscious working people who realize that it is in their interests as a class to end capitalism and who understand that they can never end commodity-bondage unless they organize, democratically and politically.

Charmian Skelton

Blogger's Note:

The following correction appeared in the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Correction. 

In “The Anarchist Way”, an article which appeared in our September issue, it was stated that Malatesta held the view “that workers should seize political power by armed insurrection”. This is incorrect. What Malatesta advocated was that workers should destroy political power by armed insurrection. We apologise for this mistake.

Editorial Committee

The Price of Nationality (1975)

From the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is worth noting that anyone can acquire British nationality in the usual way we buy other “commodities”, in this case by paying down a mere £40.

The Home Secretary has decided to raise the fee for the naturalisation of a foreign national as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies from £30 to £40.

(Home Office Press Notice 18th Feb. 75)

For the foreign wives of UK citizens the price is still a paltry £10.

Considering that men are sometimes expected to get themselves killed to protect our sacred Britishness, you’d think they’d put a rather higher price on this rare treasure — Nationality. At present the equation works out at L = N = £40, where L — lives (any number) and N = nationality. So much for defending the Red, White and Blue !

Charmian Skelton

Letters: Trade Unions & Jobs (1975)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trade Unions & Jobs

You have repeatedly pointed out, in the SS that membership of a Political Party, other than the SPGB, only strengthens Capitalism and brings Socialism not a wit nearer. Your reasoning compels me to accept the logic of this viewpoint. The Labour Party, beloved by so many of the working class, has proved itself a hypocritical fraud on innumerable occasions.

One of the main props of the Labour Party, the Trades Unions, must also support Capitalism as they are a reformist body and nowhere do they support Socialism, therefore it follows that membership of the SPGB and any Trade Union are irreconcilable, or so I should have thought. Could I have your thoughts on this.

I should also like your views on another point that has been bothering me. In the April edition of the SS paragraph 3 page 63, R. Barltrop says that unemployment means a loss of respect for the worker. As I am unemployed I would concur, but how can you advocate employment when to work degrades us to the position of being a mere wage slave. Surely the SPGB should not concern itself with employment, full or otherwise. The object of the Party is the establishment of Socialism, there are plenty of other parties to concern themselves with such things.

P. Steed,

Tyne & Wear

Reply

We are aware of the limitations of Trade Unions but workers are in a better position to bargain over pay and conditions if they are organized in a Union. The jobs of some of our members may necessitate their Union membership. No Socialist pays the political levy to the Labour Party.

In the article you mention, past Labour Party aims concerning unemployment were contrasted with the fact that, despite the Welfare State, unemployment is still a dread prospect for the working class. It is essential to be well informed about capitalism the better to show that the system has outlived its usefulness. This does not mean we advocate reform of the problems we analyze. You will not find Socialists in the ranks of those demanding “the right to work”. In fact the article said that reform cannot remove a problem “in-built in capitalism”. As you rightly say the object of the SPGB is Socialism.

Editors.

Can We Predict ?

The article “Is Socialism Inevitable?” is a model of left-wing revolutionary positivism, and underlines the crude deterministic interpretation given by the SPGB to the Materialist Conception of History.

Let me remind your readers of the sentiments expressed. “Socialist society will be the result of historical necessity. There is a law of social development which traces the birth, growth and decay of social systems . . . its scientific validity has been demonstrated repeatedly . . . Socialist ideas are indestructible and cannot be destroyed any more than you can abolish the law of gravity”.

Comparison is therefore made between the “laws” of natural science and those social laws of development supposedly discovered by Marx and Engels. As the Law of Gravity enables us to predict with certainty that the apple will fall, so the social laws enable us to predict with equal certainty the eventual fall of capitalism.

Such is the stuff of which dreams (and SPGB dogma) are made. Evolutionary positivism, with its portrayal of nature and a vast mechanical structure operated by the laws of science now long since expired — put out of its misery by Planck and Einstein. Events can no longer be predicted with certainty only with a degree of statistical probability. The apple does not necessarily fall, neither do men necessarily become “conscious of the need for social change”.

But this is perhaps a philosophical (do I hear you say bourgeois?) quibble. A more serious objection to be made against assertions such as “There is a social law of development which traces the birth, growth and decay of social systems” is that no distinction is made therein between a law and a trend. A law is a statement of regularity such that of two classes of event the occurrence of an event of the other kind. A knowledge of the laws which hold in a given situation is never by itself sufficient to enable us to predict. To predict we must know both the relevant laws, which enable us to infer correctly from the occurrence of certain causes, the occurrence of certain effects — and in addition, the antecedent and concomitant conditions which hold. A man who tries to make predictions without a knowledge of these is a man who tries to infer the conclusion “an event of type Y (e.g. men changing society) will occur”, with the premise whenever an event of type X occurs (e.g. men seeking and gaining Socialist knowledge), an event of type Y will occur, without seeing that he can only derive his conclusion validly if he is also able to assert that “an event of type X will occur” — and to do this he must be certain that no external interests will prevent the occurrence of an event of type X. Can you be certain that these will not occur, can you be certain for instance that reformist propaganda will not continue to spread?

A trend is a sequence of historical events moving in a certain uniform direction. Clearly one cannot predict a trend without knowledge of both the relevant laws and the relevant antecedent and concomitant conditions; when the SPGB and its mentor Engels try to predict trends unconditionally that is, independently of antecedent and accompanying circumstances, they are both mistaken.

T. J. Caulfield, 

Manchester

Reply

Our correspondent’s criticism amounts to this: (1) the SPGB interprets the Materialist Conception of History is a crude deterministic way: (2) that it is impossible to predict the eventual fall of capitalism: (3) that men do not necessarily become conscious of the need for social change; (4) we do not distinguish between a law and a trend.

Our correspondent objects to our maintaining that there is a social law governing the activities of men living in society. The law referred to in the text of the article is the law of social growth known as the Materialist Conception of History, which explains the rise, growth and decay of social systems throughout history, and the reasons why social change occurs. He appears to recognize the existence of the MCH but attacks us because of our alleged crude deterministic interpretation of the theory. We are left in the dark as to what his interpretation is, as he offers no evidence, nor does he state his own view. He claims that we predict the demise of capitalism without having any knowledge of the factors involved. Again, he does not name the factors which we have failed to take into account. He accuses us of confusing laws with trends: a trend he tells us is a “sequence of historical events moving in a uniform direction”, but he adds that you cannot predict this trend without knowledge of the relevant law. But even this is insufficient. We must also know the antecedent and concomitant conditions in addition to knowing the law. We find this very confusing. The law of social growth to which the article refers is a scientific proposition and as such takes into account all the factors dealing with the evolution of society, past, present and future. It is these factors which go to make up the law. Whoever heard of a metereologist predicting the weather without taking into account all the factors involved — wind, sun, time of year, local conditions, etc? It is part of the science of metereology that everything that relates to that particular science is considered. So it is with the science of socialism. It is a historical fact that men, again and again, socially organized in different social classes, did take part did become conscious of their conflicting interests in class struggles, did change the basis of society, and did promote the unrestricted development of the productive forces. What is there to prevent men doing this again? Surely, if through a study of the evolution of human society you are able to identify a pattern of social change and development, and the causes responsible, you are entitled to arrive at certain conclusions as to the future course of social change. We predict correctly that capitalism causes unemployment, crises, war and poverty. We explain the laws governing its operation. In the same way we predict that we will get control of the political machinery when we have a majority of Socialists. At the moment we do not know the speed of the socialist revolution but we do know its specific direction. We are certain of our goal and of the efficacy of the methods we use to achieve it.

The substance of our correspondent’s letter suggests to us that the writer does not wish to be hampered in his criticism by the existence of the laws of history and economics, and would prefer to keep his purely negative criticism on some academic philosophical level. For our part, the simple issue is — are the historical conditions present which will enable Socialism to be established; can the workers understand Socialism and establish it, and where are the factors which prevent it?

Editors.

Fair Comment

Let no-one say the readers of the Socialist Standard are uncritical! In the May issue, in writing of the “Myth of the Middle Class”, I commented: “There’s no such thing as fairness in fixing the price of labour-power, any more than in the fixing of the market price of any other commodity.”

In case these words seem ambiguous (and I have at least one critic sharpening his hatchet), I wish to stress that I was not saying that wages are unfair. In general, labour-power is sold at or around its value — like other commodities.

The point I was trying to make is that all talk of fairness (or unfairness) in connection with wages, the price of our labour-power, is as irrelevant as talk of a fair or just price for a house. The question of fairness just doesn’t come into the picture. Perhaps it ought to, but that’s not how capitalism works.

I would like to add that capitalism’s inefficiency is, if anything, understated in the Socialist Standard. For instance, in the article on “The Housing Shortage”, we learn that it takes almost 21 months to complete a dwelling for local authorities and over 14 months to completion in the private sector. Yet on a Woking site some houses on a prepared site were built in May from start to finish in the course of one week. I repeat, one week. On the assumption that site preparation took about 3 weeks on average, that gives 4-6 weeks as necessary time from the production side. The rest of these endless months are presumably frittered away in legal and financial haggling, tax juggling and the like. Meanwhile the tele-pundits wring their hands and wonder why there are battered wives and battered babies, broken families and millions taking pills for unhappiness and depression . . .

Finally we should note that capitalism does one thing very well indeed. It is continually producing evidence to support our arguments. In April I wrote that “even Civil Servants go on strike”. By the time the May Standard reached its readers, the university dons and professors had followed suit, and as of now the hospital consultants are still in dispute with the NHS. No wonder John Gorst’s Middle Class Association was still-born!

C. Sultan, 

Woking

The Helping Hand

I read with great interest your article “Charity begins and never ends”. As a receiver and a giver of capitalist charity you put me in a great dilemma. Looking at the problem of the homeless from both sides I ask myself how does one get these humans politically orientated towards a socialist programme. I find the answer, sad as it may seem, negative. Do I now await the great day while my friends on the embankment die of exposure and malnutrition, or do I continue to try and rehouse and feed these unfortunate people? I would like your opinion on this.

One point about your article; you state the Salvation Army provided 8,001,323 meals and 1,636,578 beds. This is very misleading. The Sally Army charge extortionate prices for the food and shelter; dormitory accommodation at 80p a night, tea at 5p a cup etc. which is another example of capitalist exploitation.

George Watts,

London S.W.1

Reply

Over the years we have been asked many times about the plight of those in desperate need, the implication being that solving their problems could not wait for Socialism. So decades of well-meaning effort have been wasted in attempts to solve the problems in isolation from their cause. Socialists are not different from other individuals in that we will give in a personal way such help as we are able to those we find in distress — but one of the reasons why we are in the Socialist Party is our awareness that the distress remains as a social problem. When attempts to relieve distress are put on an organized basis, the inevitable result is reform movements perpetuating it. A little help to friends is part of being human, but not to be confused with the need to change society.

Editors.

Population & Plumage

You should be ashamed of yourselves for attacking Thomas Malthus. By attacking Malthus you are helping the Catholic Church and also the so-called Communist Party. The wise man has always had bother from the masses as well as the boss-class. You should know the boss-class like the ignorant masses to have big families so they can get more cheap labour.

Your Party does rather keep within the bounds of legality. One good way to refute that reputation would be for Party members to be more non-conformist in dress. Most people are cowardly conformist in dress. Why not some Marxist clothing? I should like to see garments with “Abolition of the wages system”, "Why tolerate buying and selling?” and the head of Karl Marx. Why not be different?

J. E. Catercole,

London N.4.

Reply

The Catholic Church does not oppose birth-control from enthusiasm for Malthus, but for its own reasons. The argument that by attacking a false theory one is helping different opponents of it would, if heeded, prevent any criticism of anything. We criticize Malthus because he was wrong.

The Socialist Party keeps “within the bounds of legality” because that is the means to attain our Object, not for the sake of reputation. If you like garments with slogans and pictures, by all means wear them; but don’t imagine that conformity or non-conformity in dress has anything to do with working for Socialism.

Editors.

More About Art

Your reply to my letter “Art and the Ruling Class” (May SS) seemed to me to be quite superficial. Because of your assumption that Historical Materialism can explain all art and aesthetic tastes then, no doubt, from your point of view I am confused.

You say if the ideas embodied in Beethoven’s music — or Shakespeare’s plays or Burns’s poems — did not come from society, where did they come from? The obvious answer to that is from the minds of these creative men of genius. Can you explain Burn’s “Tam O’Shanter” through economics? And what had Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” to do with capitalist society?

And again, why did the Muslims who believed in the same God as the Christians build mosques and not cathedrals? What is the historical materialistic explanation of the aesthetic taste of the Muslims? And why did the Chinese prefer pagodas to Indian temples?

You also talk about Socialist art, but where is it, and what is it?

Ron Smith,

Dundee

Reply

Part of your letter is not reproduced because it only repeats assertions made in the previous one. It will be in place here to recall a line from Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village:

E’en though vanquish’d, he could argue still.

We do not at all dispute that there are differences in ability among people: good poets, composers, engineers, etc., while the capabilities of others run in different directions. Do you imagine that Socialists don’t appreciate Shakespeare, Beethoven and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner? We say of the arts what Marx said of all human activity: “Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth, he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of conditions such as he finds close at hand.”

This is opposite to your sweeping claim that it all comes from “the minds of these creative men of genius”. You do not mention Shelley, but he wrote: “The mass of capabilities remains at every period materially the same; the circumstances which awaken it to action perpetually change.”

Variations in architecture arise from the technical means available: in particular the local materials and the state of scientific knowledge. Building a pointed arch requires the solving of a mathematical problem (which precedes “aesthetic taste” in the matter). Classical Greek architecture was the elaboration of the one arch-shape available — the lintel — in the material available. Its magnificence shows those restrictions caused by the organization of society to have been the source of what you would call works of genius.

Likewise, other architectural forms have been the making grandiose of one of two shapes which were technically possible — the round arch, the ogee, and so on — and of structural necessities like the buttress. Why the ancient Egyptians did not build a St. Paul’s can be explained from their stage of society, but not by words like “preference”.

Socialist art is the products of man in the Socialist future.

Editors.

Women's Lib, Go Home

When the equal pay for Women Law becomes operative hell will be let loose, and Speaker’s Corner (where the SPGB speak). Charing X Road and Lincoln Inn Fields won’t be in the picture !

Women only use the industrial field as a stop-gap till such times as they get married, then the men become enslaved and tied up with capitalism more than ever!

The capitalist class don’t fear women on the industrial field as they can easily be used, thus increasing the profits of the capitalist class.

Women under capitalism play a rôle, a dominant middle rôle, and playing a rôle is not the same as being a product of capitalism. If my remarks are correct, then it is the duty of all men to avoid and not work with women on the economic jungle.

R. J. Todd,

London S.E.17

Reply

We hope you will soon feel better. In the meantime, give some thought to the following.

First, women have had equal pay in a number of occupations for several years. Have you noticed hell being let loose among teachers or Civil Servants?

Second, you want women out of "the economic jungle” but say that marriage makes men worse enslaved in capitalism. If you had your way on the first count you would be still more discontented on the second: men would then have to support not only wives but non-working daughters, sisters and others.

Third, you do not explain how women getting equal pay would increase the profits of the capitalist class. The latter do not seem to be grasping the opportunity you discern. The Equal Pay Act has been on the statute book since 1970, and the complaint of those specially interested in it is of lack of progress and a general lack of concern on the part of employers.

We do not understand your remarks about “a dominant middle rôle”. Middle of what?

Editors.