Letter: Political and Social Reforms. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political and Social Reforms.

Clapham,

September 24th, 1933.

Dear Comrades,

Seeing that the S.P.G.B. claim that, in this country, at any rate, at the present time, the only known course open to the workers to capture the seat of Government is the vote, that being so, one can logically claim that the franchise is a social reform that will eventually fundamentally benefit the working class.

The reason I express this point of view is that, was one of your speakers correct when he asked an audience to name one “ social reform ” that has fundamentally benefited the working class?

Now, Marx, writing on the Chartists, said : “But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat form the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground, civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more Socialist measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent. Its inevitable result here is the political supremacy of the working class.” (New York Tribune, August 25th, 1852. Quoted by Labour Monthly, December, 1929.)

Your speaker took the opposite viewpoint, saying “that the workers had recently returned the Nationalist Government. Also that the ruling class Had given further suffrage to the women.” Quite so, that is because the workers are not mentally equipped with the necessary Socialist knowledge, and, therefore, is not a condemnation of the "social reform,” namely, “the Franchise,” which Marx agrees is a Socialist measure. Your reply to my letter, re “ The Vote,” in September, 1927, said, “We would strongly urge them (black workers) to agitate for the franchise.”

Yours fraternally,

T. W. C.

Reply.

Our correspondent has, we think, completely misunderstood the speaker whose remarks he quotes.

It is usual to refer to changes in the machinery of Government as “political" reforms, and to keep the phrase “social reforms” for such measures as old-age pensions, health and unemployment insurance, etc. The speaker in question would therefore not expect his statement, that no social reform had “fundamentally benefited the working-class," to be understood as meaning that the franchise is useless.

Our correspondent falls into a second misunderstanding when he fails to separate the present misuse of the franchise from its future correct use. It is true, as Marx said, that the franchise will inevitably result in the political supremacy of the working class. It is also true to say (as our speaker is reported as saying) that the workers have used their votes to return a capitalist Government to power. Our speaker would therefore have been quite correct if he had also said that the franchise has not yet been used by the workers in such a way as to be of fundamental benefit to them.

When they become Socialists the working class will know very well how to use the vote.

Ed. Comm.

The Chartist Legacy . . . 175 Years On (2023)

From the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 10 April, 1848, the grounds of Kennington Common shook as 150,000 working men and women assembled to present a petition to Parliament demanding political rights. The rights for which they campaigned, radically democratic for their time, were enshrined in a document titled ‘The People’s Charter’. These Chartists, as they had become known, were described by historian Dorothy Thompson as the world’s first working-class political party and had existed since the first drafting of the Charter by a joint committee of London working men and Members of Parliament in the winter months between 1837 and 1838. The document itself called for six main demands: universal male suffrage, the abolition of the property requirement for MPs, equally sized constituencies, annual parliaments, a fixed salary for elected MPs, and the secret ballot. While their campaigns were unsuccessful at the time, the spirit of Chartism suffused the Victorian working class with the irrevocable knowledge that they had political rights of their own. Now, 175 years later to the day, supporters of the Chartist legacy in Great Britain gather again at Kennington Park, on that same ground that rallied the democratic hopes and dreams of an entire working nation.

Chartist historian Malcolm Chase called Kennington Common ‘a major piece of political theatre’; an apt description for an assembly that was intended as a display of solidarity more than a show of force. The arrayed forces of the Victorian state employed Royal Engineers, special constables and retired generals to turn London into an urban fortress, with the Royal Family displaced to the Isle of Wight to avoid any outbreak of revolutionary violence. Such violence, however, was never to be forthcoming. In contrast to the overt militancy of the establishment in seeking to suppress the Chartist cause, the arrayed workers on Kennington Common that day were exemplary in their peaceable, moral and orderly conduct. Feargus O’Connor, Chartism’s leading orator and Parliamentary spokesman, declared to the assembly that ‘We are Chartists, not pickpockets, and we will not jeopardise our cause by a single act of wickedness or folly’.

After the rejection of the 1848 petition, signed and supported by roughly a third of Britain’s population, Chartism entered a decline from which it would not recover. Most of the movement’s support was split between Marxism and popular Liberalism as the century went on, both benefiting from the grassroots organisation and ideological conviction that had sustained the world’s largest mass political movement throughout the ‘Hungry Forties’. One of the greatest strengths of Chartism’s organisation was that it was both democratic and highly literate; subscriber-funded newspapers such as the Northern Star were filled with pages of working-class poetry, lectures in Chartist localities and open letter columns through which readers could correspond with one another to strengthen Chartism from within and without, as political strategy was both disseminated and debated by the membership itself rather than being proclaimed by diktat or decree. Not only was Chartist literature journalistic, but the movement also created a thriving literary counterculture with both poetry volumes and popular novels that turned radicals like T.M Wheeler, Ernest Jones and Thomas Cooper into both household names and vital spokespeople in the movement’s developmental processes, described by one Chartist historian as ‘thinking out loud’. This is the legacy that Chartism leaves to us, and one that bears honouring in our radical press; the democratic power of the written word.

Modern grassroots movements owe a lot to Chartism. Progressive for their time, they provided an example of a functioning democratic framework for mass organisation and were millions-strong when Engels and Marx wrote both The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848). Chartism was also directly responsible for introducing Marxist philosophy to the English-speaking worker; Engels himself contributed several articles to the Northern Star and an English [translation of the] Manifesto appeared first in the Chartist press thanks to the translation efforts of Helen MacFarlane, a fact that pays due homage to the thousands of female radicals who also fought for the Charter. The movement has ample reason to be celebrated today, with the anniversary of Chartism’s largest assembly turning Kennington Park into an annual site of radical pilgrimage. In recent years, the Kennington Chartist Project and Friends of Kennington Park have regularly marked the anniversary of the assembly with a small rally of their own at which all are welcome. Other Chartist history events are also held occasionally in the Park, with recent examples including an introduction to William Cuffay, a London Chartist leader and important figure in the history of Britain’s black radicals. The Friends of Kennington Park and the Kennington Chartist Project inform us that, by way of marking the 175th anniversary of the protest, they are in the final stages of developing a Chartist History Trail around Kennington Park with an optional audio guide and posts dedicated to covering the events of the Chartist rally. This trail will open on 10 April as a permanent fixture in the park and will be supplemented by larger, more permanent monuments in due course.

It is worth adding that, while having a well-organised national executive and leadership, Chartism was also local to its core. Integrating a vast, extant network of recognised and respected regional activists gave the movement a sense of familiarity and widespread appeal that allowed the mill workers of Manchester, the miners of Durham and the farm labourers of Dorset to unite behind the Charter. An elective system of district delegates (that, in some cases, were organised street by street) meant that Chartists campaigned for local issues alongside their struggle for national political recognition. Kennington Park is ably supported by Newport, Blackstone Edge, Kersal Moor and many others, these being sites of equal importance in honouring the memory of a decentralised and democratic workers’ movement. Many will doubtless have good reasons for being unable to attend the commemoration at Kennington Park; it would therefore be well worth the time of local Branches to both research and attend sites of Chartist significance in their own localities where possible.

Duncan Hamilton

50 Years Ago: On leadership (1973)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The leadership idea has cursed the working class movement from the beginning. At an earlier period those supporting the idea had motives of benevolence, its later supporters have also benevolent motives—but the benevolence is directed towards themselves. They make stepping stones of their followers to reach comfort and security.

★

In France in 1793 Babeuf and his friends sacrificed their fortunes and lives in the attempt to relieve the misery of the mass of oppressed. The method was a sudden attack upon the central seat of power by a courageous and determined minority . . . Babeuf’s intentions were excellent, but his method was rotten at the root. Instead of first getting the mass of the people to understand and desire the new programme, he proposed to force it upon them from without The idea being that the intellectual few knew better what was good for the masses than the masses did themselves. 

★

In 1836, an association of working men was formed in London that blossomed out into the first national movement of wage workers. This association took the name of ‘The London Workingmen’s Association’ and published an address, the concluding words of which put forward a new outlook for the oppressed, telling them to have done with leaders and trust only in themselves:

‘Be assured that the good there is to be must be begun by ourselves’.

Marx has put the case more definitely, as follows:

‘The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working-class itself’.

★

In working out his emancipation, the worker must study the conditions that surround and oppress him. He must look to ‘great principles’ and not to ‘great men’ in the struggles.

From an article “Abandon the Idols” by G. McCIatchie, Socialist Standard, May 1923

Letter: A vanguardist writes (1998)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

A vanguardist writes

Dear Editors,

With reference to the February 1998 issue of your journal, most modestly I want to raise a few questions on the articles published on “The Communist Manifesto” written by Lew Higgins and Gwynn Thomas respectively.

The article by Higgins

(1) fails to trace the historical background of the Communist Manifesto and at the time of the Communist League. Both were mainly the product of the Chartist movement. It is implicit in Marx’s realisation that “the proletarian movement is the independent movement of the immense majority in the interest of immense majority” which has been expressed in the manifesto.

(2) Based on this false premise, Higgins has arrived at a false hypothesis that “the Manifesto was written with Germany in mind”. Whereas the Manifesto has been working as guideline for Communist Parties of the World for the last 150 years, he further writes that it was written for a particular organisation with particular purpose. This is not only unjustifiable, but also it is a biased opinion that tends to misinterpret the Manifesto.

(3) In the concluding part, Higgins has found out six ideas of the Manifesto valid for the 21st century. But in the second point he appears to make one believe that Marx wants to replace the class society through democracy. This idea has also been expressed in another place of the article. But, if one looks at the fourth point, one will find that the change must be brought about by revolutionary political action of the working class. Both the points put together may lead to the idea that Marx’s views were contradictory. But the fact is that Higgins’s views are rather contradictory.

(4) That communism must be world-wide as the system it replaces, i.e. capitalism, is world-wide is a fact, as maintained in the third point; but simultaneously it is also true that the proletariat of one country can not wait for their unprepared counterparts outside their own territorial limit and postpone their struggle even if the conditions in their country are favourable for them. That is why the Manifesto rightly states that proletariat of one country must battle against the bourgeoisie of their own country. The line can not be ignored.

(5) In the penultimate point, Higgins observes that the revolution must be brought about by the majority of the working class, not a minority. The idea is not merely contrary to the science of dialectics that the forces of progress or development, though minority at present, must emerge as the winner, it is also subjective. In order to negate the fact that the November Revolution of 1917 was a socialist revolution and, that though a minority, the working class was in a position to lead the revolution, the notion has been placed. That there may be different phases of Socialist Revolution, as happened in China, has also been deliberately ignored by the author. The attempt is highly condemnable.

(6) The last point as it is written appears to be contradictory in itself. It is beyond my knowledge, if the Communists are being the most organised and political section of the proletariat, why they cannot be the vanguard of the working class. It is almost like the views of anarchist Bakunin.

The less said about the article by G. Thomas, the better. In the very beginning of para 2 under the sub-heading “From Capitalism to Socialism” he writes “. . . Socialist Revolution must be world-wide and cannot be achieved in one country alone”. Marx, while expressing such a view in the Manifesto, also observes, as I wrote earlier that the proletariat of a country has to win the battle with the bourgeoisie of that country at first. Thus the view observed by Thomas is misleading, such view is that of Trotsky, who whatever may he be, was not a Marxist.

In the penultimate sentence of the same paragraph he writes “The Bolsheviks had no possibility of introducing Socialism.” I personally do not agree with the view because I think, though a minority, the proletariat can be and had become the vanguard. The basis of my views is the science of dialectics (as mentioned earlier) which, I suppose, has been ignored in this respect.

From the two articles, it has appeared in my mind that, in the name of Socialism, the World Socialist Party, if it represents the views expressed in them, is a mere petty bourgeois party. It preaches the petty-bourgeois view in the name of Socialism. And that’s why the Socialist Standard does not deserve any attraction for me.

Prof Sakiranjan Basu, 

Bishnupur, India

Reply:

1. The article did give a paragraph on the historical background to the Manifesto. The Chartist movement did have an influence on the Communist League, though it is an exaggeration to say the League and Manifesto were both “mainly the product of the Chartist movement”.

2. The article did say that the Manifesto was written with Germany in mind, “though not exclusively”. The article also did say that in the final section of the Manifesto we can read that in 1848 “Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution”. So the Manifesto was written for a particular organisation with particular purposes, such as the measures for a bourgeois-democratic revolution at the end of the second section. You offer no evidence for your claim that this is unjustifiable, biased and a misinterpretation. But if necessary we can provide plenty of evidence that the so-called Communist Parties of the world have consistently misinterpreted the Manifesto.

3. In the concluding part of the article, the second point refers to the replacement of class society with a democratic society. Nevertheless, it is true that this must be brought about democratically, for as the Manifesto pointed out “the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, which is the struggle of democracy”. You appear to think that democratic political action cannot be revolutionary. Or perhaps you think revolution is synonymous with minority violence and so cannot be democratic? Marx thought a socialist revolution must involve the working class in a democratic struggle. So do we, and the force of numbers means the revolution can be peaceful. We and our comrades in India and elsewhere are living proof of democratic revolutionary political action for socialism.

4. You are right that the Manifesto says the working class must defeat the capitalist class of their own country. That is why we are organised as a political party. It is why we and our companion parties around the world are working for the democratic capture of state power and the replacement of international capitalism with world socialism. However, you would be wrong in supposing that one country alone could throw off capitalism under a global capitalist system of society. The Manifesto does not suggest it and the 150 years since have shown that it was right not to.

5. The working class struggle for socialism, as you note in (1), “is the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interests of the immense majority” (Communist Manifesto). You now say this is contrary to “the science of dialectics” and subjective because the minority must emerge as the winner. You offer the experiences of the Russian and Chinese revolutions, where the working class was a minority of the population in both cases. But this is the dialectical opposite of what Marx argued. Socialism is not possible in one country, especially a semi-feudal country with an overwhelmingly peasant population, where only a minority of the working class supported those who falsely called themselves Communists.

6. There can be no socialism without socialists. Socialism, which can only be democratic world, must be brought about democratically. This point should become obvious if you think about it. Democracy rules out leadership and self-appointed vanguards. Socialists who know what they want and how to get it do not need leaders to tell them what to do.

The capture of power has to be done on a state-by-state basis because this is the way political power is structured in the world today. As the Manifesto pointed out, it will first be necessary for the working class of a country to win the struggle of democracy over the capitalists in that country. But this does not mean that there can be socialism in one country. Nor does it mean that we can expect the workers of one country to be ready for socialism while the rest of the world lags behind. The idea of world socialism cannot be confined to one country.

You disagree with our argument that the Bolsheviks could not introduce socialism because it is your personal view that the working class had become the vanguard. Again you base this on “the science of dialectics”, whatever you may mean by this.—Editors.

Workers have no country (2022)

From the April 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

Out of the discontent of the Industrial Revolution arose the Chartist movement. The need for the whole working class to unite in one movement had come to the fore.

Many are aware of the International Working Men’s Association (the First International), in which Marx was an active participant. Few know of its precursor which most probably served as its prototype.

In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels stated that:

‘The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got.’

Three years before this, the Chartist campaigner George Julian Harney declared:

‘There is no foot of land, either in Britain or in the colonies, that you, the working class, can call your own.

‘All men are brethren’

In September 1845 the society of Fraternal Democrats was formed, adopting the motto, ‘All men are brethren.’ It was founded by some in the British Chartist movement such as Harney along with a variety of political refugees from across Europe.

Part of the Fraternal Democrats’ political platform declared:

‘We denounce all political and hereditary inequalities and distinctions of castes… that the earth with all its natural productions is the common property of all; we therefore denounce all infractions of this evidently just and natural law, as robbery and usurpation. We declare that the present state of society, which permits idlers and schemers to monopolise the fruits of the earth and the productions of industry, and compels the working classes to labour for inadequate rewards, and even condemns them to social slavery, destitution, and degradation, is essentially unjust.’

It also made a commitment to internationalism:

‘Convinced that national prejudices have been, in all ages, taken advantage of by the people’s oppressors to set them tearing the throats of each other, when they should have been working together for their common good, this society repudiates the term ‘Foreigner,’ no matter by, or to whom applied. Our moral creed is to receive our fellow men, without regard to ‘country,’ as members of one family, the human race; and citizens of one commonwealth – the world.’

In one of his addresses to the Fraternal Democrats, Harney explained:

‘Whatever national differences divide Poles, Russians, Prussians, Hungarians, and Italians, these national differences have not prevented the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian despots uniting together to maintain their tyranny; why, then, cannot countries unite for obtainment of their liberty? The cause of the people in all countries is the same – the cause of Labour, enslaved, and plundered… In each country the tyranny of the few and the slavery of the many are variously developed, but the principle in all is the same. In all countries the men who grow the wheat live on potatoes. The men who rear the cattle do not taste flesh-food. The men who cultivate the vine have only the dregs of its noble juice. The men who make clothing are in rags. The men who build the houses live in hovels. The men who create every necessary comfort and luxury are steeped in misery. Working men of all nations, are not your grievances, your wrongs, the same? Is not your good cause, then the same also? We may differ as to the means, or different circumstances may render different means necessary but the great end – the veritable emancipation of the human race – must be the one end and aim of all.’

He elaborated on his internationalist ideas in the journal, The Northern Star (June 19, 1847):

‘The people are beginning to understand that foreign as well as domestic questions do affect them; that a blow struck at Liberty on the Tagus is an injury to the friends of Freedom on the Thames; that the success of Republicanism in France would be the doom of Tyranny in every other land; and the triumph of England’s democratic Charter would be the salvation of the millions throughout Europe.’

‘But let the working men of Europe advance together and strike for their rights at one and the same time, and it will be seen – that every tyrannical government and usurping class will have enough to do at home without attempting to assist other oppressors.’

In 1848 when a British military intervention against France looked possible, the Fraternal Democrats issued a manifesto which said:

‘Working men of Great Britain and Ireland, ask yourselves the question: why should you arm and fight for the preservation of institutions in the privileges of which you have no share… why should you arm and fight for the protection of property which you can only regard as the accumulated plunder of the fruits of your labour? Let the privileged and the property owners fight their own battles.’

Harney also published a newspaper, The Red Republican, to educate his working-class readers about socialism. The journal of July 1850 explained:

’As regards the working men swamping all other classes the answer is simple – other classes have no right to exist. To prepare the way for the absolute supremacy of the working class preparatory to the abolition of the system of classes, is the mission of The Red Republican.’

In 1850 The Red Republican carried the first English translation of The Communist Manifesto, describing it as ‘The most revolutionary document ever given to the world’.

‘The poor have no country’

Another Chartist activist, Ernest Jones, wrote in The People’s Paper of 17 February, 1855:

‘Is there a poor and oppressed man in England? Is there a robbed and ruined artisan in France? Well, then, they appertain to one race, one country, one creed, one past, one present, and one future. The same with every nation, every colour, every section of the toiling world. Let them unite. The oppressors of humanity are united, even when they make war. They are united on one point, that of keeping the peoples in misery and subjection… Each democracy, singly, may not be strong enough to break its own yoke; but together they give a moral weight, an added strength, that nothing can resist. The alliance of peoples is the more vital now, because their disunion, the rekindling of national antipathies, can alone save tottering royalty from its doom. Kings and oligarchs are playing their last card: we can prevent their game. No movement of modern times has therefore been of such importance, as that international alliance about to be proclaimed…’

In yet another article in The People’s Paper (3 March, 1855), Ernest Jones declared:

‘Let none misunderstand the tenor of our meeting: we begin tonight no mere crusade against an aristocracy. We are not here to pull one tyranny down, only that another may live the stronger. We are against the tyranny of capital as well. The human race is divided between slaves and masters… Until labour commands capital, instead of capital commanding labour, I care not what political laws you make, what Republic or Monarchy you own – man is a slave.’

It reflected the view as later expressed by the First International:

‘…The poor have no country, in all lands, they suffer from the same evils, and they, therefore, realise that the barriers put up by the powers that be the more thoroughly to enslave the people must fall. It is the poor, above all the poor, who will realise the dream of the gentle Anacharsis de Cloots, the orator of the human race, who will bring into being the great federation of the peoples. So come, young people, and help us accomplish this lofty task of the nineteenth century…’ (To the Paris Students, To the Students and Young People of All Countries From the Workers of All Countries, 1866.)

The Fraternal Democrats, the Chartists and the International Workingmen’s Association disappeared but not their principles. The idea of working peoples’ international solidarity persisted.

Today, it is put forward by the World Socialist Movement.

ALJO

Radical London History (2007)

Book Reviews from the February 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Keith Scholey: ‘The Communist Club’, (Past Tense (c/o 56a Info Shop, 56 Crampton St., London SE17 0AE), October 2006. £1. 

Stefan Szczelkun: Kennington Park, (Past Tense, June 2006. £1)

The Communist Club was the informal name under which German Workers Educational Association came to be known. Established in London in February 1840, as the name implies, the Association functioned mainly as an educational and social club for German workers in London. Usually meeting in rooms above pubs, the Association’s first venue was the Red Lion pub in Great Windmill Street.

Some of the same members were also involved with the Communist League, the organisation which commissioned Karl Marx to write the Communist Manifesto in 1847. The reading and adoption of the Manifesto probably happened at the Club’s new premises in Drury Lane.

The Club went on to play important roles in the Chartist movement, the First International, anarchism and socialism in Britain. In 1903 the Association now at Charlotte Street played host, in part, to the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The main outcome of this Congress was the emergence of Lenin’s Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP.

The Socialist Party had its first headquarters at the Communist Club (June 1904 to September 1905) and often held its Annual Conferences and Quarterly Delegate Meetings there up to 1919. The Club was closed a few years later and the building was destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. In view of its importance in the history of the British working class and the Socialist Party, it is to be hoped that a more detailed version of this short pamphlet will be forthcoming.

The subtitle of Szczelkun’s pamphlet, “The Birthplace of People’s Democracy,” is something of an misnomer. The allusion is to Chartism. But the Chartist rally of April 1848, held at Kennington Park, marked the end of working class agitation for democracy in nineteenth century Britain. And this pamphlet contains other contentious statements. We are told, for example, that “History is not objective truth.” Undoubtedly much history is written from a ruling class point of view, but this does not mean that an objectively true account of the past is unattainable.

Presumably Stefan Szczelkun intends this work to be more than merely his point of view, particularly if he wants to persuade others about what really happened in the past. We are also told that “Socialist parties” (apparently including us) either considered working class culture to be a distraction or were active in encouraging our members to follow “middle class” forms of recreation (p. 14). Of course, the author provides no evidence for this preposterous assertion insofar as it refers to the Socialist Party. Apart from that, this work tells you all you could reasonably want to know about the history of London’s Kennington Park. There is much that is valuable in this short pamphlet and works like it.

Both publications are produced in conjunction with the South London Radical History Group. It is part of the process of rediscovering the truth about what happened in the past in our localities, and forms an indispensable part of the struggle for our socialist future. Where is your equivalent?

Lew Higgins

Economics and ideas. Their influence on political institutions (part 6) (1925)

From the September 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from last month).

The workers demand the franchise.

But the revolt of the workers though it could be repressed could not be destroyed. In spite of all opposition their Trade Unions, though declared illegal by the Combination Acts, persisted and waged a never-ceasing war of resistance against low wages, the extension of the working day and intolerable conditions of labour.

Side by side with the industrial struggle went on a ferment of political ideas at length issuing in demands that were the outcome of the antagonism between the social relations of capitalist economy— fostering ideas of “equal rights” and “individual liberty”—and the actual oligarchic form of the state with its assumption of unequal rights and of different grades of social status.

At first the workers’ aspirations for political and legal rights were inarticulate and unorganised, but the spread of workers’ associations, of discussion and reading and the growing ease of communication facilitated the growth of an organised movement. Political groups aiming at constitutional reform sprang up in the cities and these, though dominated by intellectuals and bourgeois radicals had considerable influence amongst sections of the working class. One of the earliest was the London Corresponding Society, founded in 1797 by Hardy, a bootmaker. With it Paine and Godwin were associated. Its leaders nearly all suffered imprisonment or transportation. At a later date Cobbett carried on a vigorous agitation amongst the workers :

“When he reduced ‘The Weekly Political Register’ from a shilling and a halfpenny to twopence, 50,000 copies were scattered over the country, and everywhere men gathered in clubs to hear the paper read by one of them who had schooling” (Green’s “Short History,” p. 846).

But the great political movement of the period was that of the industrial bourgeoisie. Their struggle for the Reform Bill was undoubtedly instrumental in rallying masses of the workers. But the political demands of the working men had roots independent from and antagonistic to the basis of the bourgeois movement. To them electoral reform was primarily a means of alleviating their economic miseries. At the same time it is impossible to separate, in the stimulus behind their demands, the economic discontent that was the chief spur to action, from the force of the political ideas which gave their discontent expression in aspirations towards political democracy and demands which spoke eloquently of the extent to which they had moved from their old confirmed belief in the necessity of “status” and the inevitability of political privilege.

The details of the Reform Movement need not detain us, but it was a severe and a bloody struggle in which the workers bore the brunt of the fight. After forming the backbone of the struggle for the Reform Bill of 1832 which enfranchised the new capitalists but excluded themselves, the exasperated workers threw their strength into their own Chartist movement and carried on the conflict afresh. Again we may note that, though the Chartist working men meant political reform as a means to economic ends, the purely political demands of the Charter—manhood-suffrage, vote by ballot, etc.—indicate how widespread “democratic” and “libertarian” ideas had become.

Though the Chartist movement broke down and its demands were resisted, the concepts that it had done so much to popularise were now permanently rooted and could not be eradicated. But for a period the agitation for political reform died down. After the worst excesses of the factory-system had been alleviated by the Factory Acts, after a period of comparative prosperity due to the rapid extension of British production and its supremacy in the World Market and to the rising strength of their Unions, the workers had become reconciled to the system. Their Trades Unions, now tacitly recognised by the masters, became benefit societies and means of diplomatic negotiations with the employers. Their leaders declared the common interests of Capital and Labour, and counselled conciliation and mutual good-will between the classes.

But in the “sixties” events revealed the legal insecurity of the Unions and their funds, and a strong demand ensued for their definite legalisation. Along with this movement began an active revival of the agitation for the franchise. Reform Leagues sprang up spontaneously all over the country. The “International,” founded in 1864 and led by Marx, actively supported the new movement.

“All through the autumn and winter (1866-7) great meetings were held in the great towns and cities to promote the cause of reform. A most significant feature of these demonstrations was the part taken by the organised trades associations of working men.” (McCarthy— “Our Own Times.”)

At length, as Engels says, “the workers’ claims to the franchise gradually became irresistible,” and the ruling class gave way.

Significantly enough, it was the Tories who passed the second Reform Bill of 1867, which enfranchised a great mass of the town workers, thus demonstrating that even the most traditionally, cautious party of the master class had seen “the writing on the wall,” and were convinced that working-class suffrage was inevitable. In 1872 the secret ballot was instituted, and in 1885 the vote was further extended to the counties and the agricultural workers.

The ruling-class had made in 1867 what Lord Derby called a “leap in the dark,” but, to their relief—though this must have been half-expected — the plunge proved harmless. It was soon overwhelmingly apparent that the working-class — though jealous enough in the defence of their immediate interests—had no thoughts of disrespect to or revolt from the “rights of property,” and that they believed and acted on the assumption that “capital” and “wages” were eternal categories, and the only practical basis of social life.

Before this, in America and in France, the workers had already achieved the franchise, and since then all over the capitalist world an enfranchised working-class has been recognised as the indispensable basis of stability in the State.

The Great Illusion.

With the vote, with his Unions legalised (1871 in England) and other legal rights established, the workers seemed to have achieved what bourgeois historians regard the be-all and end-all of social evolution—full “civic rights and liberties.” They had in actuality reached the very fullest “freedom” as a class that they could achieve or even conceive so long as their ideas and aspirations kept within the bounds of the capitalist system. The facts of law and politics now no longer seemed in contradiction with the “liberty” and “individualism” of economic life. Did not the “people” now “rule the country,” did not they decide the fate of statesmen and governments, did not the politician plead and struggle for their support and tremble at their indecision? At last, the son of toil seemed truly a free man, and he could sing “Britons never, never, never !” with never a twinge of conscience.

That the overworked, ill-fed slave of the factory-blast can live in the same city with the gilded drones who live in luxurious leisure upon the product of his toil— and yet believe in the reality of his freedom— in liberty of contract and the reward of enterprise seems a ghastly joke. Yet the positive reality of the belief is a fact to which anyone who knows the workers can testify.

The wage-slave does not perceive that the unequal distribution of property into which he is born exercises as compelling a tyrannical control over his destiny as any law that the State can make. He is blind to the fact that freedom for property means slavery for those who possess none. He explains the inequality of wealth op the theory that the rich have been “lucky” or particularly clever. The man who has “got on” he admires, and he lives in the shadowy hope of following in his steps. His hero is the “self-made man.”

It is essential to clearly understand that the resignation of the average worker to the capitalist system and, indeed, his active support of it arises directly from the fact that he accepts private property in the means of life without question. Once this basis is granted, the support of the whole system follows of necessity. The worker may and does desire economic security, but this only results from control of the means of life. In the early, days of the system the workers did endeavour to return to the measure of such control that the hand-tool period allowed them. They fought the machines and tried to turn back the wheels of history. But with the generations that had grown up amongst and known nothing other than the machine system, such aspirations could have no place. The means of production were now giant mechanisms jointly operated —no one worker used them. So long as the traditions of individual ownership persisted, therefore, the workers could not own or even with sense think of owning the instruments they operated. The social productive mechanisms of modern society can only be owned by the users in common —and the idea of social ownership had not yet taken wide and deep root.

But the impossibility of security for the workers did not prevent them continuing to seek for it—but as they accepted the system they had also to accept the only method of aiming at security that the system offers — increase of income, through collective bargaining largely, but also through—if only as a vague but persistent aspiration—”getting on,” if possible, accumulating property—processes that naturally foster the outlook of individualism.

R. W. Housley

(To be continued.)

Bronterre O’Brien (2008)

Book Review from the February 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bronterre O’Brien and the Chartist Uprisings of 1839 by David Black. (Radical History Network, 2007)

James O’Brien contributed articles to the Poor Man’s Guardian under the pseudonym “Bronterre” and eventually adopted it as his middle name. O’Brien soon became the Poor Man’s Guardian editor as it campaigned for universal suffrage at the time of the 1832 Reform Act. This Act however merely redistributed the vote amongst the ruling class, leading to the drawing-up of the People’s Charter in response (“essentially a program for universal male suffrage,” according to Black) in 1838 by the suppressed its leader, John Frost, was sentenced to death (later commuted to transportation for life) and O’Brien was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for making seditious speeches.

Black’s short tract on this particular episode reads like a Trotskyist analysis of the event as a failure of leadership (in Trotskyist literature working class setbacks are always the result of a betrayal of leadership). Thus Black argues: “if the Rising in Monmouth had not been led by John Frost it might well have succeeded.” Succeeded in doing what? Taking and holding Monmouth? Creating a revolutionary situation? Such fantasies were dismissed by O’Brien who had withdrawn from active involvement by this stage. According to Black:

“He explained later that he could not conscientiously take part in secret projects which could only at best produce partial outbreaks, which would easily be crushed and would lead to increased persecution of the Chartists.”

The Chartist campaign lasted another 10 years before collapsing in failure.

Lew Higgins

Blogger's Note:

David Black replied to Lew's review.

May Day and the Heritage of the Past (1953)

From the May 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the early years of this century there was a ferment of co-operative ideas in the International Labour Movement that two world wars since appear to have killed. 

In those years mass meetings attended by thousands of workers were held on the 1st of May. At a conference of the 2nd International in 1889 this day was set aside for international demonstrations in favour of the eight-hour day; subsequently they became demonstrations in favour of working class international solidarity and from numerous platforms, attended by crowds in holiday dress complete with the banners of different groups, a varied assortment of speakers delivered passionate orations condemning the actions against strikes, the subjection of nations and groups, and glorifying the martyrdom of individuals. Speakers representing all sorts of groups took part, including Indians, Chinese, Russians and Negroes.

Over the years changing national and internal lineups have so altered the aspect of affairs that the passion of May Day and its misguided hopes have departed. All, all are gone. The story of them must come as a tale from a strange world to the young generation of today. Even the passion that inspired the misguided ranter against wrongs has departed with them, converted into the acceptance of privilege. Impassioned radicals became bulwarks of governments based upon privilege; fiery denouncers of imperialist oppression took their places amongst the privilege supporting a new imperialism in the erstwhile subject nations; bitter spokesmen of subject groups came to the top and in their turn exercised as ruthless an oppression as their privileged forebears. Underneath it all, and cutting across all frontiers as of yore, there still remained the fundamental class cleavage between propertied and propertyless, between the relatively small section of the world's population which occupies the seat of privilege, reaping power, leisure and luxury, and the vast mass which remains the pedestal upon which power and privilege rest; labouring that others may enjoy.

The budding international solidarity of the past has been swallowed up by the armed and antagonistic camps of to-day, but our independent May Day message still remains as urgent and as alive as when it was first delivered, the message of Socialism, the only message of hope, of solidarity, of certainty in a world of hatred, strife and uncertainty.

This message has its roots far back in the past. The germs of communistic ideas go back centuries, but the germs of socialistic ideas, as we know them to-day, were synonymous with the growth of capitalism. Their vague beginnings are to be found amongst a group of French writers who were raising a ferment in the 18th century, when Capitalism was rising to its feet. Borrowing from Hobbes, Locke and their contemporaries, these writers put forward ideas some of which fit the present in spite of their somewhat confused context.

The earliest of these French writers appears to have been Jean Meslier, who, in “The Testament of Jean Meslier," at the beginning of the 18th century, used phrases that sound singularly modern. These are some of his ideas: He was opposed to property, believing in the common control of the wealth of society. He argued that among the evils which oppressed mankind and called for reform the worst was private property. Property meant inequality; Inequality led to injustice and oppression. The rich were respected and honoured, while the poor must toil in neglect. Property was a cause of idleness; the idle rich class found its complement in an idle poor class. This latter class was made up of the unemployed, who, because of the existing system, had nothing to do and were hence in poverty. Cupidity and its attendants, ambition and greed, are the evils in a society based upon property. Property does not unite people; but through jealousy tends to break up social harmony, and hence destroys social unity. Fraud, deception, theft and murder find their cause in property. Society might be happy were goods made common and equality secured. The basis of equality is equality of economic condition.

Later on another writer, Morelly, carried some of the ideas further. He had a definite plan for the future in which each would labour according to his ability and share according to need. He argued that it was not labour but the conditions of labour that people objected to. That there would be no exchange as goods would be stored and distributed according to needs. On property he made the following remarks

  “From the sceptre to the shepherd's crook, from the tiara to the meanest monk's frock, if one asks who governs men, the answer is simple; personal interest or the interest of others which vanity makes one adopt and which is always dependent on the first. But where do these monsters get power? From property.” P. 100-101 “Code de la Nature,” 1755.

He denied the existence of innate ideas as also did his contemporary (Helvétius), who said:

  “The ideas supposed to be innate are those that are familiar to and as it were incorporated with us; they are the effect of education, example, and habit.” P.15 “System of Nature.”

Barnave, another of Morelly’s contemporaries, saw a bit farther than the rest. He could see the rise of classes and considered the part which economic changes played in history.

Morelly laid down definite plans for a new social order based on natural rights, the heritage of everyone born into society. There was no room for historical development in the systems of those who thought like him; history and its results had no value. Society did not grow out of the past, the present had to be obliterated root and branch, to make way for the future. This form of thought, together with the revolutionary tradition, dominated radical movements until the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Morelly’s merit was that he looked for the cause of social evils in society as organised in his day; the environmental theory later pressed so vigorously by Robert Owen.

The Babuef “Conspiracy of the Equals" at the end of the French Revolution drew from these early French sources, justifying their rising, like the Trotzkyists, on the ground that the Revolution had got off the track. They advocated the conspiratorial seizure of power.

One of the members of the “Society of Equals" who escaped from France formed the Babouvist movement after the Fall of Napoleon. The object of the movement was to carry on where Babuef had left off. This movement became tied more and more closely to the workers' movement in France, finally becoming a definite working-class party under Blanqui and exercising a considerable influence upon the French risings of February and June, 1848.

In the beginning of the 19th Century the Revolutionary tradition was carried on, associated with the Utopian experiments of Owen, Fourier, Cabet and Weitling, but in a less turbulent fashion than formerly. Weitling studied in Western Germany, where working men’s clubs were being formed for reading and discussion. At these clubs radical literature was available to those who otherwise would not have had the means to obtain it. Weitling had considerable influence on those who founded the “League of the Just”—a secret society with communistic ideas that eventually merged into the Communist League, that published the Communist Manifesto.

In England machine production brought ruin to masses of hand workers and by simplifying productive operations, introduced women and children into factories and mines to work under conditions that were appalling. It was the hand workers who were the prime movers in the revolt against the new world of industry, and who sought a way out of their difficulties; first, by incendiarism and machine breaking, and later by vague visions of some sort of co-operative world based upon small proprietorships.

Some of the earliest reactions to the industrial revolution were political reform associations, the Utopian schemes of Robert Owen, and the land reform ideas of Thomas Spence and William Qgilvie. Owen argued that abundance was the cause of crises and misery. This turned the attention of some writers to an examination of economics. They came to the conclusion that as “labour was the source of all wealth” the labourer was entitled to the fruits of industry. Ricardo's book, “Principles of Political Economy,” published in 1817, established that labour was the source of value and, working on his conclusions, writers like Thompson, Hodgskin and Bray demanded that all products should belong to the labourer.

Under the inspiration of the American War of Independence, a corresponding society was formed in 1780 under the title of “ The Society for Constitutional Information.” Its formation was mainly through the instrumentality of Major Cartwright and Horne Tooke. It had a programme that included the Six Points that later formed the basis of the “People's Charter.” The French Revolution gave a fillip to the movement for reform and corresponding societies sprang up all over the country, engaging in bitter and thinly-veiled attacks on the government. In 1792 the first genuinely working-class movement commenced with the formation of the “London Corresponding Society'' by Thomas Hardy, Robert Boyd and George Walne, holding its first meeting in January of that year. The motto of the Society was “Unite, Persevere and Be Free.” It was formed for the purpose of corresponding with other societies that had the same ends in view. It only lasted a few years and repressive action compelled it to disperse, but agitation continued to simmer, finding expression in various ways, in lectures, Utopian writings, the publication of the “Gorgon,” the first trade union paper, in 1818, and eventually the formation of a new London Corresponding Society, “The London Working Men's Association, in 1836. Members of this Association, such as Lovett, Cleave, Hetherington, Watson, Vincent and Harney, were afterwards active in the Chartist Movement. The Association published an address to Workingmen’s Associations that concluded with the words, “Be assured that the good that is to be must be begun by ourselves.” It also started the practice of sending addresses to working men of different countries, beginning with Belgium in November, 1836. One of its members, Lovett, drafted the “ People’s Charter,” that started the Chartist Movement, and another, Harney, formed the “Fraternal Democrats,” which brought the English movement in contact with the Continental.

In 1848 the genuinely Socialist movement began with the publication of the “Communist Manifesto.” A brief history of the working-class movement from that time onwards will be found in the Introduction to our pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto and the Last Hundred Years.” An examination of this history will reveal how wayward the movement has been, and how ready to chase after will-o’-the-wisps. But the movement goes on and understanding is growing, although the struggle has been long and die disappointments bitter.

So this May Day we again call attention to the only bright gleam in the heavy clouds that hover over us—our message of hope. The determination to establish a new form of society in which everything that is in and on the earth shall be the common heritage of all mankind; where security, comfort and harmony will be the lot of all. All that is necessary for the establishment of this society is understanding and the will to achieve it.

Gilmac.

"The people do not know their power . . ." (1977)

From the May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The people do not know their power . . . The union of twenty million is irresistible. Such members, such resources can enforce anything that is just."

- Ernest Jones (Chartist), 1854

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 9) (1928)

From the August 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Continued from July Issue.)

"Spartacus and Tyler are examples of 'good' leaders, men of courage, sincerity and ability; but history records far more examples of 'leaders' who have betrayed their followers. Indeed, the ruling class in all ages have employed agents to obtain positions of dominance in revolutionary movements that it might be warned of all plans and be prepared against sudden outbreaks. The movements of the Luddites (the name taken by a 'secret' organisation which sprang up when modern machinery was being introduced, its objects being to smash the machines which deprived them of their living as handicraftsmen) and the Chartists were made largely ineffective by such laudable stratagems. The last words spoken on the scaffold by Brandreth, one of the boldest of the Luddites, were: 'I have been betrayed by Oliver the Spy.' This same Oliver, by the way, was also instrumental in causing one of the best organized risings of the Chartists to be abortive. But the supreme tragedy of the Chartist movement, imbued with ideas of the necessity for leadership, was in the support given to its worst enemies—the liberal capitalists— lured by some of its followers by the latter’s promises to gain for them their objects.

"In more recent times, Marty, it has been shown that often the most violent 'leaders' of secret revolutionary organizations are in reality secret police agents. Before the Bolshevic Revolution in Russia, many such agents were proved to have urged bomb outrages against ministers and even to have committed such deeds themselves. The infamous Father Gapon, who led the Russian workers to the terrible shambles at the Tsar's palace in St. Petersburg, Bogrov, who shot the premier Stolypin dead, and Azeff, one of the most influential of the 'social revolutionaries,' were proved to be such 'agents provocateurs.'

"So much for 'secret' movements and the part of 'hero-worship’ in the disintegration of them, whilst for the workers this rule may be formulated: The penalty of trusting to others to do what can be done by themselves has been and always will be the same—trust and you will be 'trussed.'

"I have already pointed out, Marty, how capitalism has weakened the hold of genuine 'hero-worship,' and I now come to a factor which is tending to destroy the idea of 'leadership' in the workers' movements. The growth of industrial and political organizations professing to promote the interests of the workers has led to a wild scramble for 'jobs’ in these bodies. Consequently, we see would-be 'leaders' seeking to shift the old well-entrenched 'leaders' by every kind of denunciation of their words and actions. Thus 'leader' succeeds 'leader' with bewildering rapidity, and the logical outcome of this sordid struggle must be the realization by the workers that all 'leaders’ are equally useless to them in their march to emancipation. The use of 'catch words' and slogans many times repeated has become so familiar as to breed, if not contempt, at least a desire to see something resembling 'results.' Even oratory fails to convey the 'herd-thrill' to the same degree as in the past, and the old 'leaders' are retained only from sentimental feelings of attachment as one keeps an old pair of boots or a threadbare coat. These are hopeful signs, Marty, but only the realization by the workers of their slave position and the knowledge of the means to escape therefrom can finally dispel any fears as to their ability to dispense with 'leaders’ and themselves organize for their own emancipation, which wilL involve the emancipation of all mankind by the setting up of the Universal Classless Republic wherein all will be free to enjoy (without the sanction of 'great' men) the entire bounty of the earth."

I had hoped that this peroration would have ended our conversation, but Marty has the tenacity of a bulldog and the curiosity of a jackdaw.

"When Socialism is finally established and 'hero worship' no longer exists, what ideals do you conceive will produce the effects formerly obtained from personal idolatry—will sincere, able men continue to inspire others less endowed by Nature? ”

“Your question, Marty,’’ I replied, "is like that of the patient to the doctor: 'You have cured me of smallpox, what do you propose to put in its place?’ However, assuming the role of the prophet, I shall attempt an answer. Under Socialism the people will be not only the producers of wealth but the owners of it. At the present time we are told by 'advanced’ capitalists that in firms which allot a portion of the profit for division among the employees, the men work more eagerly, knowing that each will receive a large bonus if the 'common product’ is increased, and become more vigilant and interested in their work. (Although, of course, these capitalists do not point out the fraud of the 'beneficial innovation,' the cheap increased output of the masters, the impaired health of the workers, the speedy glutting of the market and the resultant unemployment.) Also the experiments of Leclaire and Godin show that inventiveness receives a stimulus by this supposed share in the common product. If a zeal is created by participation in a minute fraction of the 'common product,’ how great a zeal will be inculcated in the independent-minded men who will possess in common the entire fruits of their labours —freed from the dominance of the master class. No longer in fear of losing their livelihood, no longer forced to toil the whole weary day in a frantic effort to secure the bare material necessities for sustaining life, each will have the opportunity to develop himself (or herself), physically and mentally, as a member of the Classless Republic. The increase in leisure will lead to a higher level of culture, while the desire to excel, then no longer necessary to be indulged at the expense of others, will be directed towards the betterment of the community. As to your question whether able men will still inspire men of less ability, the answer is that great deeds and thoughts will be acknowledged with approbation by the community, but reverential awe or idolatrous glorification must needs be absent in a Commonwealth based on equality and not privilege."

At this point the Martian arose. "Thank you for your patient explanations," he said, "but I must now return for a season to my planet as the strain of your climate is too much for my Martian constitution." "Look me up when you are down here again," I replied. "For the present, bon voyage, and mind the skylight as you go out!"

W. J.

(Concluded.)

A Rare Bird (2005)

Book Review from the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Helen Macfarlane. A Feminist, Revolutionary Journalist, and Philosopher in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England. By David Black, Lexington Books, 2004. £15.

Helen Macfarlane was radicalised in Austria by the revolutions of 1848 which swept through Europe. On her return to Britain she took up revolutionary journalism under the pseudonym Howard Morton for the Chartist George Julian Harney. It was in Harney’s weekly newspaper Red Republican in 1850 that Macfarlane produced the first English translation of what became known as the Communist Manifesto. In the German original it was called Manifesto of the Communist Party but in the Red Republican its title was German Communism: Manifesto of the German Communist Party. Black is critical of this name change because the insertion of the word “German” into the title twice over “de-emphasises its internationalist thrust.” But this misses the point of the change, a reason the Red Republican seems to have understood but which is now widely misunderstood. That is, while the theoretical parts of the Manifesto have universal application the practical proposals (particularly at the end of Section 2) were put forward with Germany in mind at that time. That is why Marx and Engels later said that some parts of the Manifesto, particularly in Section 2, were obsolete (see the Preface to the German edition of 1872).

In the Red Republican version of the Manifesto, some parts are missing and others changed mainly to suit its English readership. In the 1888 English translation, supervised by Engels, the famous opening line begins: “A spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre of Communism.” But in Macfarlane’s translation this becomes: “A frightful hobgoblin stalks throughout Europe. We are haunted by a ghost. The ghost of Communism.” Black states that her use of “hobgoblin” rather than “spectre” is unfortunate, but it is possible that her English readers at that time more readily understood the hobgoblin metaphor.

Marx called Macfarlane “a rare bird” – “the only collaborator on his [Harney’s] spouting rag who had original ideas.” She was the first person to translate and explain in English the work of the German philosopher Hegel. She wrote a few other articles for the Red Republican in the 1850s but almost nothing is known of her in the years before or after. What seems certain however is that Macfarlane could be described as the first British Marxist, a generation before that term came into use.

Lew Higgins

The Communists and the Labour Party Alliance. (1922)

From the March 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

There has of late been much talk in Communist circles for and against assisting the Labour Party into power at the next election. The position at the moment is that the Communist Party officially favours the idea of getting inside the Labour Party, but that the latter body nationally (and often locally, too) rejects the request for permission to affiliate. There now arises the problem of whether or not the Communists are to support Labour candidates when Lloyd George thinks fit to appeal to the electorate.

In the main the Communists do not pretend to believe that the accession to power of the Labour Party will directly and of itself solve the problems facing the workers. It is true that Malone, the C.P.’s solitary M.P., is of the opinion that the “few divergences between the Communist Party and the Labour Party … will soon be settled by affiliation” (Daily Herald, January 23rd), but probably the majority of the Communists who desire affiliation regard it as a tactical weapon likely to be of value to them, not as an admission that they and the Labour Party have much in common.

This kind of discussion is not new: for generations the question of alliance with capitalist political parties has agitated the minds of sections of the working class. Our attitude is clear and definite enough. We want Socialism, and we are convinced that we should not be bringing it nearer by angling for the support of anti-Socialist bodies, even although it might seem superficially that some gain would accrue.

The discussion only interests us in so far as it serves to expose the danger to the working class of following those who advocate such a course.

What is strikingly new is the claim for this idea that it has had its origin in Russia, as one of the lessons of the Revolution there. W. Paul, who for years in the S.L.P., opposed alliance with the reactionary Labour Party as a principle (although in practice joint demonstrations, etc., did take place), now that he is in the Communist Party has seen the “Light from the East” and stands forth as a convert. Lenin has taught him what his own knowledge and experience could not.

The object aimed at is, to gain the sympathy of the rank and file, discredit the present leaders, and then capture or disrupt the party. In addition, Paul has in mind the urgency of removing the Coalition in order to save the Bolshevik Government. The Bolsheviks, fully aware at last of the futility of expecting revolution in Western Europe or America, and equally aware that they will only with difficulty maintain themselves in power in face of internal and external pressure, seek to gain relief by aiding their alleged enemies of the Labour Party to gain a Parliamentary majority.

John S. Clarke, in the Worker (November, 26th), opposes the view point of W. Paul. He deals very successfully both with the lack of tactical value of this move, and with its history. His main arguments are that it is not new, having been tried before in this country with unfortunate results, and that the possibility is that the Bolsheviks themselves, far from having; originated; it, actually learned it here.

  “As a political tactic it has had an interesting history and by no means successful one. Not to carry the reader too far back, we see it operating in the year 1841. The Whigs and the Chartists met together in that year on the 21st January to try and arrange a ‘bloc.’ Three months later at a parliamentary by-election (Nottingham), the Chartists actively supported the Tory candidate, Mr. Walter, in order to deal a blow at the Whig Government.”

The Chartist paper, the Northern Star, commented as follows, says Clarke :

  “It is better at all times to submit to a real despotism than to a government of perfidious, treacherous and pretended friends. We are the natural enemies of Whiggism and Toryism, but, being unable to destroy both factions, we advise you to destroy the one faction by making a tool of the other.”

In 1921, eighty years after, we find the Communist Party seeking to destroy one “natural enemy” (the Coalition) by making a tool of another, (the Labour Party). What 1922 will bring forth the Lord only knows.

The Chartists alternately supported. Whigs and Tories, sometimes neither, and sometimes both together. In the Northern Star, on June 12th, 1841, were two leading articles advising opposite policies. We now have the Communist Party actively opposing some Labour candidates (e.g., MacDonald at Woolwich) and taking up a non-committal attitude towards others (Naylor at Walworth).

   “Chartism collapsed in 1848. The Social Democratic Federation was not born until 1885. In 1908 it changed its name to Social Democratic Party, a distinction without a scrap of difference. In 1911 it was joined by a few Clarion Scouts and I.L.Pers, and changed its name again to British Socialist Party.
  "Each of these different political parties (if thy can be writ as different parties) was practically dominated by the same personalities—Hyndman, Quelch, Lee, Hunter-Watts, Belfort Bax, Dan Irving, Tom Kennedy, Jack Jones, and Will Thorne. Each party practised the ‘tactic’ inherited from the Chartists.”

The S.D.F., alter seeking in vain for an alliance with the Liberals, went to the Tories, and fought the 1885 Election on their money, with the avowed object of splitting the Liberal vote. This very nearly brought the party to an unhonoured end, the only good that could have come to the workers out of the transaction.

This policy of political bargaining went on, with varying success in the shape of Parliamentary honours for the auctioneers of working-class votes, until in 1903 the Scottish, and in 1904 the London, branches left in disgust to form the S.L.P. and S.P.G.B. respectively. Old readers of this journal will remember that our pages between 1904 and 1914 contained ample evidence of the persistence of the S.D.F.’s peculiar conception of working-class antagonism to capitalist political organisations. It changed its name to S.D.P. without discarding its errors, and in 1910 another attempt was made to form a “bloc” with the Liberals, who, however, like the Labour Party now, were indifferent if not actively hostile.

In 1901 the S.D.F withdrew from the Labour Party (then the Labour Representation Committee), and for twelve years remained outside, supporting first one and then the other of the capitalist parties. It incidentally carried on a guerrilla warfare with the I.L.P. rather in the nature of a squabble for the spoils attaching to the disposal of the corpse of working-class independence.

The S.D.F. stuck tight to the alliance idea, and in 1913 had decided to re-affiliate with the Labour Party, when the war came. The inevitable then took place, and the B.S.P. went all out for the murder of the workers at their masters’ behest.

In due time another split took place: Hyndman and the jingo group called themselves the National Socialist Party, while the others, still the B.S.P., first worked the I.L.P., and later affiliated again with the Labour Party. Both sections kept their belief in the use of helping one enemy to fight another. The N.S.P. reverting to its old name, S.D.F., is now again urging that the Labour Party should link up any party which will endeavour to oust the Coalition.

The B.S.P. eventually formed the bulk of the membership’ of the Communist Party and that body—having re-discovered the “tactic”—proclaims amid great flourish of trumpets that if only they can help the Labour Party, to help the Liberals, to turn out Lloyd George, the Russian Revolution will be saved and all will be well. They are urged by the Bolsheviks to this course as the last word in political strategy, but, as Clarke points out, many exiles from Russia towards the end of last century were studying the English political world, and at a later date many of those now prominent in the Bolshevik Party, including Litvinov, Rothstein, Tchicherine, and Petrov, were members of the S.D.F. or B.S.P. This, then, was where they picked up the idea, which

“was conveyed to Russia, where the masses are not more, but less, advanced than they are here (vide  Lenin), and where it is alleged to have been successful in the hands of a party of ‘iron discipline,’ which is due, to quote Lenin again, ‘to a great many historic peculiarities of Russia.’ In the process of time it arrives back to the land of its birth, where it succeeded in sowing only distrust and dissension and is dished out to British revolutionaries as ‘Lenin’s revolutionary strategy’ and  ‘the adroit tactic of the Bolsheviki’ in the pious hope that the reiteration of such alluring phrases will convince the unsuspecting that they are marrying a comely damsel of tender years, whereas in truth they are being saddled with a withered-up, pre-historic hag.”

The foregoing brief history of the “tactic” is commended to the notice of those who think that the Socialist Revolution can be achieved by some energetic political wire-pulling, and by cunning manoeuvring of the votes of the “masses.” In a game of that kind the ruling class and their hirelings know all there is to be known. They have been at it for centuries, and if the outcome of it is to be somebody’s funeral, it won’t be theirs. The result of this fooling will be what it has always been, suffering and disillusionment for the unfortunate workers who are taken in by it.

The antecedents as well as the present activities of the “intelligent minority,” who, as the Communist Party, are to shepherd the mere untutored workers, are sufficient to justify describing them as in the main blind leaders of the blind. Under the guise of revolutionary discipline, that party shows just the same slavish hero-worship arid ignorant chatter of revolution as typified the S.D.F. at its worst. A recent incident will serve to illustrate this internal rottenness of the “Burlesque Bolsheviki.” At a meeting of the London District Council (October 8th) the delegates were asked to rise to their feet as a token of respect when ‘‘Lord” MacManus entered the room, and with hardly an exception the request was immediately complied with !’

Could “Jimmy” Thomas expect or receive more?

Whether these people are good or bad leaders is, however, not the important point. The particular course they are advising has in the past proved disastrous, not only here, but in Germany, France, and everywhere else where working-class organisations have left the safe path of independence for the morass of alliances.

Socialism will be achieved by Socialists; by the deliberate action, that is, of those who, understanding. what is at the root of the present evils, know what is necessary for their removal.

The existence of a considerable proportion of convinced Socialists precludes the possibility of swaying the electorate by emotional appeals. Without ignorant emotionalism there is no need, no possibility, of political leadership, whether from a traditional ruling class or from a minority of superior intellects.

Political bargaining exists because Socialist knowledge is lacking. Without such knowledge neither the Communist Party nor anyone else can give you Socialism. Do not, therefore, waste time trying to dragoon the working class into striving for an object which they do not understand;

HELP US TO PROPAGATE SOCIALISM.

Edgar Hardcastle