News in Review: Disobedience campaign (1960)

The News in Review column from the November 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Disobedience campaign

It would appear that true to their policy statement most of the CND leaders have completely disowned Lord Russell’s proposals for a civil disobedience campaign. According to Lord Russell the proposals are an appeal to the conscience and intelligence of all men about the dangers of mass extermination. What concerns us is the kind of society reflected in these measures to flout authority. The real tragedy is that at election times the overwhelming majority vote for the retention of Capitalism and consequently for most of the policies which go with it, including the H-bomb. For this reason the Socialist is not being cynical when he makes the remark: “You got what you voted for.”

To those CND supporters still undecided as to their next move it could be pointed out that by supporting any kind of civil disobedience they are fighting and will continue to fight the effects of the present system rather than abolishing it altogether and replacing it with a new and much less frustrating society.

Right to Strike

Patrick Neary has been released after spending six weeks in prison. He was the leader of the recent seamen’s strike, and was sent to jail because he did not comply with a court order which told him (in effect) to give up all connection with the strike. Some newspapers have claimed that he was imprisoned not because he was a striker, but because he disobeyed the court order. This is to reject the substance and catch at the shadow. The reason Neary went to jail was because he had been elected chairman of the strike committee, and had therefore emerged as the figurehead of the strike. The shipping companies wanted to remind the seamen of the Merchant Shipping Act. under which any striking seaman can be sent to jail. As far as the mass of strikers were concerned, the companies were perhaps afraid of having them all sent to jail, for fear of repercussions: and so decided to call in the state machine (which after all they maintain to look after their interests) only against one man, the figurehead, Neary. Therefore Neary has had to endure for six weeks the vile indignities which are the lot of anyone in jail, because he took part in a strike and was elected chairman of the committee which ran it.

And what happened to the protests which we might have expected? The last war (our leaders told us) was fought to defend democratic freedoms. The right to withhold labour is a central democratic freedom. The alternative—sending men to jail because they refuse to work on the terms offered them by the capitalists—is slavery. But our ruling class had no objection to Neary's sentence. Their newspapers applauded it. Let us remember this the next time our rulers want our help to “fight for freedom and democracy."

Kennedy v. Nixon

BBC television has given up an hour of its time to show one of the debates between the rival candidates for the Presidency now being staged in the United States. It isn't clear why, unless it wants to demonstrate to British workers that there would be no point in emigrating. For the debate showed that politics have reached much the same stage over there as they have here. There are two great parties contending for the support of the working class. One of them holds that the system as it now stands is as near to perfect as anything ever devised by man. The other, which has the support of the unions, wants one or two reforms, which would do nothing whatever to change the class basis of society. Each of them has a programme and a policy, the essence of which is that each would run capitalism better than its rival.

In one respect the parallel is even closer. Over here we have become used to the Government of the day (whether Labour or Conservative) attacking any claim made for higher pay made by members of the working class, and treating any strike or threat to strike as if it heralded the end of civilisation. And then at each election, the Government, with superb effrontery, brings out any figures of higher pay won by the workers against the strenuous opposition of that very Government, as if it alone was responsible (and, at the same time, usually skates over any figures showing how inflation has left the workers in much the same position as they were before). In the televised debate Nixon, who has been vice-president for the last eight years, performed this very trick. He brought out the figures of wage increases as if he individually had led the workers in all the struggles which must go before the smallest pay rise. And no doubt if Kennedy wins this time, he will re-appear in four years using exactly the same argument which Nixon uses now.

The Referendum

The South African government has been given a majority vote in favour of a republic—a majority, that is, of white voters, as the vast mass of the population (the Africans, Indians and Cape Coloureds) in this referendum, as in all elections, have no vote. This winning of the referendum has, no doubt, pleased Dr. Verwoerd and his Nationalist supporters, but not all white South Africans are so pleased, although Dr. Verwoerd hoped that the creation of a republic would at last end the bitterness and hostility existing between the Boer South Africans and the English-speaking South Africans, which has remained since the Boer War. But this has not, so far, happened, and one of South Africa's leading industrialists, Mr. Harry Oppenheimer, is frankly worried that the Republic may have a harmful effect on industry, should it not be readmitted to the Commonwealth, partly because of loss of the imperial preference.

Suicides

From a recent meeting of the British Medical Association at Middlesbrough, comes further evidence of the anti-social consequences of competition and production for profit. Dr. Sargent, physician-in-charge of the Department of Psychological Medicine at St. Thomas's Hospital. raised the matter of the 5,000 suicides which occur in this country yearly. According to Dr. Sargent, many patients who go on to commit suicide do so after wrong courses of treatment often resulting from confusion created by drug manufacturers in their publicity campaigns. Recently, advances have been made with a new group of anti-depressant drugs. “Unfortunately intensive competition between drug manufacturers to capture their share of an enormous potential market had resulted in excessive claims being made for them and wrong groups of cases suggested for their use," said Dr. Sargent.

Clearly the human considerations of treatment of the sick are secondary in the drive towards commercial success. Even so, anti-depressant drugs can at best only hope to treat symptoms. A far more satisfactory way of preventing suicides would be to establish a society based on more harmonious social relations and which takes no toll of the individual in terms of emotional stress.

Nigeria changes

Nigerians living in London marked Nigeria's coming to independence by publicly wearing their colourful and roomy national costumes. Was it worth celebrating? At the most, Nigeria will develop into another minor capitalist state; and we have seen enough of those to know that they have no more to offer their workers than any of the older established powers. Dr. Michael Okpara, the President of Eastern Nigeria, stated in the region's Assembly on 8th October that Nigerians would rather lay down their lives than lose their newly won freedom. At a guess this is a correct estimation of the loyalty of patriotic Nigerians who, like any other politically ignorant workers, are wide open to the propaganda of their masters.

But Dr. Okpara's statement gives the lie to those who pretend that the emerging capitalist countries are basically different from those whose power they have replaced. All over the world, workers are periodically called upon to die for the protection of their master's interests—and always they are told that they are dying to defend some high minded principle. British workers, for example, have fallen for this for a very long time. Now, the Nigerians are getting the same treatment. With, presumably, the same results—bloodshed and tragedy.

Blowing their tops

Mr. Khruschev had a rare old time at the United Nations. Hugging Fidel Castro, making violent speeches, banging his desk and shouting. He even heckled Mr. Macmillan, which gave the British Prime Minister the chance to show how an Old Etonian deals with that sort of thing in the House of Commons. Such bad behaviour, it was reported, upset Mr. Eisenhower, who cancelled any intention of shaking hands with, or talking to, the Soviet Premier.

Now diplomatic conferences are not like chats over the garden wall, when boorishness can cause a man to be bad friends with his neighbour. Capitalist powers do not split on points of etiquette—their disputes are over rival economic interests. International politicians know better than to lose their tempers as openly as Khruschev did—unless it suits their purpose to do so. And all of them will willingly hobnob with people guilty of worse than bad manners. If the immediate interests of their capitalist class demand it, they will talk to, shake hands with, embrace, pose with, other diplomats who are little better than murderers.

The disputes of capitalism have always involved a large measure of humbug. The stakes are high—and no trick barred. A dirty game.

Letter: The Committee of 100 and Politics (1967)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received a letter from Mr. L. Otter, of Witney, listing and enclosing various anti-Labour and anti-political leaflets handed out by the Oxon Committee of 100 during the 1964 and 1966 elections. He makes the following criticism of the article “Is Politics Corrupt?” in the July Socialist Standard:

“Your attack on the Committee of 100 implies that the Committee were in 64 and 66 campaigning for one of “Conservative, Labour, Liberal or Communist”. The 100 did not exist in the 59 election so we must start with 64. As you reviewed at the time of the 59 election the Voters’ Veto leaflet, and as you are aware that the groups that came together on this were later active in building the Committee, you would hardly have had a case even if you were going back before the formation of the Committee.

“The black on red sticker—”Conservative . .. they are all alike, Vote for humanity” was in fact printed for the 1964 election by the National Committee. Various local committees had their own stickers and posters as well as publishing their own leaflets.

“It is true that some people left the Committee in 1964 disagreeing with its quasi-anarchist position, the majority of these however were not Labour Party supporters but supporters of INDEC (which became the Radical Alliance).

“Since you have not the honesty or the intelligence to know that this position of the Committee’s dates back to the 1964 election it is hardly surprising that you also do not know that both before and after the 1964 election the Committee published leaflets giving social analysis.

“The Harlow CND-Committee of 100 which publishes its own paper Candis, whose editors were in 62 flirting with Anarchism, became so struck by the fact that Stan Newens (Labour MP for Epping since 1964), an ex-trotskyist, became their candidate that though they did not themselves adopt entrism, they did take the same position that the ILP rightwing and the Socialist Leader took at that stage. But the committee as such was very firm on the matter, insisting that all committees should oppose the major parties of the “left” since all supported one or other of the nuclear powers and the social system that makes powers become nuclear.

“This meant that it was regarded as consistent with the Committee position, to support independent unilateralist candidates or to take an uncompromisingly anarchist position. The committee journal contained at least one letter advocating ND support for your own party. It is notable that not merely did the few remaining Labour Party and Communist Party members who had for a time supported the Committee drop out in 1964, but also the Trots, the ILP right-wingers, groups such as Candis and

“In 66 there was no debate in any committee circles, as far as I know, on the matter.”

We thank Mr. Otter for pointing out that the Committee of 100 did not support Labour, Tory, Liberal or so-called Communist in the last two elections. We admit we may perhaps have been a little vague and thus may have caused some misunderstanding. But we did not in fact say that the Committee supported Labour in 1964; nor did we mean to. What we said was that “the Nuclear Disarmers were among the supporters which the Labour Party had when it took office for the first time in some thirteen years” and then went on to quote from a leaflet issued, we assume, by Edgware Peace Action Group, advertising the 1967 Aldermaston March. Our point was this: In 1964 many nuclear disarmers backed Labour and were now becoming disillusioned and rejecting political action altogether. This, we argued, was a mistake. It was not political action as such that was wrong but reformist political action. 

Mr. Otter does not deny that the attitude of the Committee to politics has changed in recent years. He even describes the process in some detail. But, let us go back to the beginning. The Committee came into being in early 1961 as a breakaway from CND over tactics. It backed civil disobedience to get the same aim of unilateral nuclear disarmament by the British government. It was made up of much the same people as CND, viz, pacifists, Christians, supporters of Russia, Labourites, anarchists. The man who was President of the national committee for its first two years. Earl Russell, was throughout this period a member of the Labour Party (he did not tear up his card until October 1965). There was also a curious, and revealing, incident in January 1962. The Spectator of 5 January published part of an abusive letter from the secretary of the Scottish Committee. Bernard Levin took the writer to be a supporter of the Russian government and challenged the national committee on it. Next week two replies were published. One from the Acting Secretary, Tony Southall (now secretary of Glasgow Woodside Labour Party), said:

“The Committee of 100 has never attempted to disguise the fact that our movement contains people of widely differing political persuasion. We have stood for mass non-violent civil disobedience against nuclear weapons. Beyond a belief that this is a viable and necessary programme of action for the people of this country we have never demanded any political qualifications of our members.”

The other, from Nicolas Walter, said:

“The central Committee has no official policy beyond unilateral nuclear disarmament.

No doubt there are Communists who belong to or support the Committee of 100.

The Committee exists solely to organise its demonstrations.”

So, at that time, the Committee was an amorphous body, a kind of ad hoc committee for organising civil disobedience against nuclear weapons (by Britain). Beyond this it had no policy. It was not opposed as such to the Labour, or even the so-called Communist, or any other party. How could it be if it allowed its members to belong to these parties also? But times change. Now, the Committee has a much wider programme, including such reform measures as:

“USE the taxpayers money to build more houses, schools, hospitals and colleges. (One Polaris submarine costs £70m—enough to build and service two new towns).

LAUNCH a ‘crash’ programme for the training of teachers.

CUT rates by reducing the interest rate on loans to Local Authorities to what it was in 1946—1½ per cent.”

(“Our Candidate—Humanity”, 1966 election manifesto).

Editorial Committee.

Extinction? Rebellion? (2023)

From the February 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Extinction Rebellion (XR) was founded in 2018 based on the following:

1. That there is a ‘Climate Emergency’ due to an imminent threat of extinction from global warming not just of other species but of humans too.
2. That because the government has failed in its duty to protect the security and safety of its citizens, they are no longer obliged to obey its laws.
3. That net-zero carbon emissions should be achieved by 2025.
4. That 3.5 percent of a country’s population practising non-violent civil disobedience can bring about political regime change.

Just Stop Oil is an offshoot inspired and led by one of XR’s founders, Roger Hallam. In 2021 it was called Insulate Britain. Last year it became Just Stop Oil. The difference with XR is over the immediate aim and tactics. Basically, Hallam is more militant. While they talk of love, he talks of toppling the government.

Extinction

In his Common Sense for the 21st Century, that came out in 2019, Hallam wrote of ‘the system spiralling out of our control and the likelihood of global collapse within a decade or two’ and of ‘6-7 billion people’ dying as a result of climate change ‘within the next generation or two’ (bit.ly/3jQIFMx).

He repeated this claim in an interview on the BBC Hardtalk programme on 16 August:

‘The capitalist system, the global system that we are in, is in the process of destroying itself and it will destroy itself in the next ten years. The reason for this is because it’s destroying the climate.’

‘I am talking about the slaughter, death and starvation of 6 billion people this century – that’s what the science predicts’ (bit.ly/2MDBhSZ).

Actually, it wasn’t what science said or says. It was just a worst-case scenario should average global temperature rise to 5 degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial level, which no scientist expects to happen. Admittedly, if it did it would be catastrophic. But it is not going to happen, not even those who rule under capitalism are so stupid as to allow that.

Rebellion

XR subscribes to the myth that the government exists to serve and protect its citizens and argues that, in not doing enough to protect them from climate change, the government has failed in its duty and, worse, has betrayed those they are supposed to protect; the government having broken its side of the bargain, they as its citizens are absolved from having to obey its laws.

The political philosophy behind this justification for engaging in civil disobedience, ie, not obeying the law, is surprisingly old-fashioned. It’s based on the ‘social contract’ theory of the origin of government that underlies the 1776 American Declaration of Independence. This famously declares that all humans have

‘certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…’

And goes on:

‘That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.’

XR say they are exercising this ‘right to rebellion’. Hence their name.

In short, they subscribe to the conventional view of what governments are there to do, whereas in fact governments are there to protect the interests of the rich owning class. It is their government not ours.

Beyond politics

In the beginning they considered themselves to be ‘beyond politics’ as the situation was supposedly so urgent that politics must be set aside. This included not just the trivia of everyday conventional politics — the Westminster Passing Show — but talk of ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ was also part of politics that they were beyond.

They have since come to recognise that they too are involved in politics in the broad sense and now say that they are beyond only ‘party politics’. In fact they have gone further and say they want political, economic and social change and spell this out as ‘a rapid change in wealth distribution and power structures, preventing a rich elite from perpetuating a self-serving ideology’ (bit.ly/3QjCug2).

That should mean that they are now open to discussion about ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ as well as discussion of the best means to get to the sort of society they say they want. They still dismiss ‘socialism’, though, no doubt because of what the word has unfortunately come to mean.

Changing slogans

XR’s demand of net-zero carbon by 2025 was unrealisable. Even if socialism had been established in 2019 we wouldn’t have been able to reach that by then. Yet this demand is still on their website where – with only two years to go – it is even sillier than it was in 2019.

Hallam didn’t think that this was good enough as a slogan to mobilise enough people to engage in civil disobedience on the scale he envisaged. He thought that what was needed was something felt as more immediate. The first such mobilising slogan he came up with was ‘insulate Britain’. Not that this demand would make much difference to global warming as the contribution to this from poorly insulated houses on an island of 65 million people off the north-west coast of the Eurasian land mass will be fairly minimal.

At the beginning of last year this slogan was dropped and later replaced by ‘Just Stop Oil’. Originally, it was meant as a slogan for a campaign to stop any further licences being granted to drill for oil and gas in the North Sea.

Hallam’s Common Sense in the 21st Century – which, subtitled Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown And Social Collapse, is intended as a handbook on how to topple a government:

‘We must adopt the most successful model for regime change shown by the social scientific research – the civil resistance model. This involves mass participation civil disobedience: tens and hundreds of thousands of people blocking the centres of cities to demand change. There are a number of tactical options, but the main process is as follows:

• The people conduct mass mobilisation – thousands need to take part.
• They amass in a capital city where the elites in business, government and the media are located.
• They break the law – they cross the Rubicon. Examples include blocking the roads and transport systems.
• They maintain a strictly nonviolent discipline even, and especially, under conditions of state repression.
• They focus on the government, not intermediate targets – government is the institution that make the rules of society and has the monopoly of coercion to enforce them.
• They continue their action day after day – one-day actions, however big, rarely impose the necessary economic cost to bring the authorities to the table.
• The actions can have a fun atmosphere– most people respond to what is cultural and celebratory rather than political and solemn.

After one or two weeks following this plan, historical records show that a regime is highly likely to collapse or is forced to enact major structural change.’

At the beginning of the year XR announced what seemed to be an attempt to implement this ‘model for regime change. They are going to organise a mass presence over a number of days of at least 100,000 people in Parliament in London beginning on 21 April. Describing it as the ‘Big One’ and part of ‘Project 3.5‘, they declared:

‘Gathering peacefully in such large numbers at the nation’s seat of power will create a positive, irreversible, societal tipping point’(extinctionrebellion.uk/the-big-one/#).

If they really think that this way they can topple the government and usher in ‘a fair society and a citizen-led end to the fossil fuel era’ within a couple of weeks, only one word comes to mind — delusional.

In praise of minority action

The underlying assumption of XR and Just Stop Oil is that political change can be brought about by as little as 3.5 percent of the population practising civil disobedience. The XR website says that its mission involves

‘Mobilising 3.5% of the population to achieve system change – using ideas such as “Momentum-driven organising” to achieve this. The change needed is huge and yet achievable. No regime in the 20th century managed to stand against an uprising which had the active participation of up to 3.5% of the population’ (for Erica Chenoweth’s research, see bit.ly/3Gn0NoV).

XR typically give three instances of this working: the Civil Rights movement in the US, the collapse of the ‘Communist’ regimes in Eastern Europe, and the Arab Spring. What these have in common is that they were political changes in the political superstructure of capitalism that were not incompatible with the operation of capitalism as an economic system. There are no examples of the economic laws of capitalism being overcome by this kind of action.

Supposing (just for a moment) XR or Just Stop Oil managed to topple the government, what then?

There’d still be capitalism, the cause of the problem and an obstacle to its solution, and to get rid of that requires majority understanding and democratic political action, not civil disobedience by a small minority. The capitalist economic and social system could not be toppled by the determined ‘rebellion’ of some 2 million activists, as they claim (2.3 million being 3.5 percent of the population of Britain).

Their strategy is not a democratic one. It is an attempt by a minority to impose its will on society by coercion (blocking roads is a form of coercion even though non-violent).

In his Common Sense in the 21st Century Hallam openly stated:

‘We should not make the mistake of thinking “the people have to rise” in the sense of the majority of the population. We need a few to rise up and most of the rest of the population to be willing to “give it a go”.’

Citizens’ Assemblies

He envisages that, once the 3.5 percent had toppled the government, decision-making power should be handed over to a National Citizens’ Assembly (chosen by lot) to decide the precise measures that should be taken to deal with the ‘climate emergency’.

Leaving what to do to citizens’ assemblies is a cop-out. For all the merits of such assemblies, most ‘citizens’ today will have the same ideas that they express in elections, ie, that they see no alternative to capitalism, and so would come up with proposals to be implemented under capitalism and which in all probability would accept its constraints. A majority of them would still have to change their ideas about society before they could decide what was required to deal with global overwarming.

Helping this change of consciousness to emerge – ‘making socialists’ –must be the priority as a majority in favour is a precondition for any effective ‘change in wealth distribution and power structures, preventing a rich elite from perpetuating a self-serving ideology’.

Hallam himself is still thinking within the capitalist box. His long-term goal seems to be the sort of mixed state/private economy geared to the market that we have today (plus a few social reform measures) ‘only there will be no oil, coal or gas industry’, as can been seen from the sort of measures he thinks his National Citizens’ Assembly would have to take:

‘the application of taxes, subsidies and mandates by government. Some examples include: Carbon taxes and dividends to both drive behaviour but also to compensate the poor;’ ‘taxes on all virgin materials to encourage investment in recycling; feed-in-tariffs to drive distributed energy and storage in homes, schools and factories.’

In claiming that we should give priority to campaigning for ‘climate justice’ rather than socialism, XR and its offshoots are begging the question by assuming that the threat of serious climate change can be lastingly and effectively tackled without getting rid of capitalism. But it can’t. In rejecting the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s natural and industrial resources – socialism, properly understood – they are rejecting the only framework within which the climate change crisis can be lastingly and effectively tackled.

Adam Buick

News in Review: Unemployment figures (1963)

The News in Review column from the March 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment figures

The unemployment figures keep on rising and the government assure us that we have not seen the last of them yet.

Mr. Hare, the Minister of Labour, has blamed the weather for some of the unemployment and pleads that that is something which he cannot be expected to have foreseen.

The economic experts have sharpened their pencils and have swamped the government with their advice. The government, of course, has already plenty of its own experts with their schemes and advice; unemployment increases despite them.

Are the experts, then, so useless? Many of them have had a long and expensive education. They have access to all sorts of information which is supposed to help them in their planning to control capitalism.

It is fair to expect them to come up with something special when the problem demands it, as unemployment does.

Well, have they?

Consider, for one, the experts employed by The Guardian. We might have expected that newspaper, with its tradition of sometimes saying the unusual, to have some startling proposals on the out of work problem. And in a way that is what they did have. Here is what The Guardian's first leader proposed, among other similar suggestions, on January 25th:

Lastly, could the schools not be asked to take back all those pre-Christmas school-leavers who have still not found jobs? To lay on proper teaching might not be easy; but better that they should be in classrooms than waiting idly at home or on the street corners.

Read that again, slowly. Ask yourself whether sending back to school the youngsters who have only just left, whose parents are probably relying upon them to help the housekeeping budget, and for whom you know there are not enough teachers, is a solution to the unemployment problem—or even a sensible suggestion.

Then ask yourself if the experts can do anything about capitalism’s shortcomings. And wonder why you do not do something about them yourself.

The expense of cold weather

Most of us have had our grumble about the Arctic conditions which have had us in the grip since the end of last year. The weather itself is beyond anyone's control, but is there nothing that can be done about the effects of it?

Some of the electricity failures in the Big Freeze Up were caused by frozen insulators on the power lines. This problem could be avoided—and incidentally some lovely landscapes preserved—if the lines were carried underground. But the Central Electricity Generating Board claims that this would cost up to eighteen times more than hitching the lines up to pylons and would, therefore, not be worthwhile.

Some of the breakdowns and delays on the railways were the result of frozen points. This is something which could have been solved easily, in a number of ways long ago, but the railways were reluctant to invest in something which they might not want to use very often.

The efforts at clearing snowbound roads were simply pitiful. But the government reasons that there is no sense in keeping a lot of expensive snow clearing equipment which will probably lie idle for about eight years in every ten. And that seems to clinch the argument against having it.

Over here, in short, capitalism gambles on the weather; something it cannot do in other countries where extreme conditions happen more regularly. From the point of view of the British capitalist there is no sense in spending money preparing for something which is likely to come along very occasionally. That is why Britain is so often caught napping by severe cold or floods or some other vagary of the weather.

Anyway, it is only the working class who bear the brunt of the weather. It is only their houses which become draughty hell-holes in the winter. It is poor, working class pensioners who silently die of cold in their unheated rooms, cut off from the hurrying world outside,

It is the working class who have to face the added torture of the rush hour, on rail or road, in the icy spells.

Capitalism has always shown a ruthless concern for its own economic priorities. So can we expect it to spend money uneconomically to prevent such suffering? Not likely, we can't.

The Common Market

Well, it didn't come off.

Mr. Heath and his men came back defeated from Brussels and presented the British public with another bogy man who was yesterday’s friend. President de Gaulle is now the evil man of British capitalism.

The Beaverbrook press took a somewhat different view, implying hopefully that the British government had seen the light from the Express building and had themselves broken off the negotiations.

“And Now—Forward,” screamed the Express headlines. Forward, we may ask, to what? Whatever the Express, or the Government, or anyone else, has to offer can only be another of capitalism’s gambles.

When the British government decided, several years ago, against joining the European Common Market, they were gambling. When they decided that that gamble had failed they put their money on another—on the application to join Europe. They made it quite clear that that was a gamble, that they were not sure whether membership of the EEC would benefit them or not.

So it is with all capitalism's attempts to defeat its own problems.

President de Gaulle is gambling, now that Europe can unite as an independent capitalist power dominated by a Franco-German axis. But there have been plenty of other such gambles and plenty of other such pacts and many of them have failed even by capitalism's standards. There is no reason to assume that France and Germany, whatever their pact says, will not end up fighting one. another again.

Capitalism, in fact, is one big gamble. Since its fortunes hang on the tail of its unpredictable market, it can never be sure of what to do to secure its own interests.

The great tragedy is that the gambles are always paid off in working class lives and security.

Civil Disobedience

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, as it breaks up into its opposing factions, is displaying some typical symptoms of the dying reformist organisation.

One of the unilateralists’ arguments has been—and this applies especially to the Committee of 100—that nuclear weapons were such a threat to human society that anything was justified which helped to get rid of them.

Demonstrations and marches were justified. So was civil disobedience, like sitting down in the roadway. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, we were told, would be justified in forgetting about Socialism to campaign against the bomb. Recently, stirring up and exploiting social unrest at places like the LCC accommodation centres was justified on the same grounds.

This must have convinced many people that the unilateralists were prepared to go to any lengths to save us from nuclear annihilation.

It certainly seems to have convinced those soldiers who want to form an active CND group in the Services.

But the unilateralists will not touch this one with a barge-pole. Because what the soldiers are trying to do amounts to inciting troops to disaffection, and for that you can find yourself in jail for seven years.

That is too much for the campaigners, even for the reckless Committee of 100. So they have all officially disassociated themselves from any move which can be interpreted as stirring up disaffection in the Forces.

It was, of course, the unilateralists who first said that people should be prepared to face imprisonment in the cause of banning the bomb. But having urged this futile action on their followers, what sort of consistency is it which then shrinks from seven years in jail?

We know that the unilateralists are breaking up. Are they at the same time cooling down? Are they, as we said they might, becoming respectable?

Arms Budget

There are no surprises in the United States Budget for the coming year.

The American capitalist class expects to be spending a total of $98.8 billions during the twelve months up to June 30th, 1964, and of this well over half—$55.4 billions—will be spent on the armed forces and their weapons. In addition, $4.2 billions will go to space research and technology where, we fear, the weapons of the future will be conceived and designed.

This sort of expenditure has been rising steadily over the past few years; the USA now has an impressive nuclear arsenal to show for the money it has spent.

There are about 650 American bombers on a fifteen minute ground alert and more than 200 missiles ready to be fired from the ground. Apart from these, 114 missiles are in Polaris submarines, prowling beneath the seas.

Arms expenditure, then, is the first preoccupation of the Washington Budget just as it must be for any capitalist government which knows that its international interests are threatened by a rival.

Other things must take their place, lower down the queue. The USA will spend $0.3 billion on housing next year—less than in the current year—$5.6 billions on health, labour and welfare and $1.5 billion on education.

It is no coincidence that the very things which could make human life a little easier are the least likely to get any money spent on them, while the things which are meant to kill and destroy are lavished with funds.

Capitalism works that way.

The Kinder Scout Trespass (1982)

From the April 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year sees the fiftieth anniversary of the legendary Kinder Scout Trespass. On 24 April, hundreds of ramblers are expected to converge on Hayfield, in the Peak District, to celebrate the event. It was from here that the original march began, a march that to end with six of its members being jailed. This action caused a sensation at the time and controversy still occasionally flickers, in exchanges between old members in the Rucksack, the journal of the Ramblers Association. However, the trespass has now become part of the folklore of the rambling fraternity.

Kinder Scout is a high point in the Peak District, overlooking the densely populated lowlands of industrial Lancashire. It is claimed that on a clear day the suburbs of Manchester can be seen from the summit. So it is natural that workers in these crowded area should turn to the hills for an escape from dreary surroundings and for a chance to breathe clean air. But these same hills were the cherished grouse moors, playground of the rich. Here the wealthy indulged in an annual blood sacrifice, politely called sport. Here half-tame birds were driven into a circle of guns: it may be possible to miss them, but it is very difficult. The birds had to be closely guarded and allowed to breed in comfort and safety, in case a carelessly placed proletarian should cheat an aristocratic gun of its prey.

Clashes between walkers and landowners were not confined to the North; but here it took on a more brutal form, with actual assaults by gamekeepers on walkers. Some of the contemporary reports of clashes with gamekeepers make alarming reading. Many of the guardians of the moors seem to have bordered on the insane. Thus it was against a background of great bitterness that the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass took place.

Walking in the country, usually called rambling, was a well established pastime, dating from the nineteenth century or even earlier; but in the 1930s a new name came in from the Continent—"hiking'. For a decade hiking became the in thing. The song I'm Happy When I'm Hiking became a hit, and paved the way for a host of imitations. The hiker, with his "hiker's uniform" of open-necked shirt, baggy trousers and rolled down socks, became a familiar figure, not only in reality but on posters and advertisements. They were a godsend to music hall comics and along with nudist camps, another 1930's phenomenon, contributed generously to the subject matter of seaside post cards. They were, in fact, an example of uni-sex, with men and women sporting the same casual outfit. They can still be seen on old newsreels and on nostalgic television programmes. One of the attractions of hiking was that it was cheap—particularly appealing in areas of high unemployment.

As a result of the popularity of hiking, political and religious organisations began to see possibilities in hiking clubs as a means of propagating their ideas and gaining members by back door methods. The old rambling clubs had been largely non-political, and are so today, but clubs with political or religious aims sprang up. This reflected continental practice, where such clubs were openly political.

The body which organised the trespass, the British Workers Sports Federation, or BWSF, has been accused of being a Communist Party front organisation. This is hotly denied by others, and there is no point at this distance in trying to sort out the truth or otherwise of this claim. Certainly there were political overtones. Bernard Rothman, who led the trespass, is a Communist as he himself states, but he claims that the BWSF was a very real sports body. True or false, at the subsequent trial of the six people much was made of communist links, and undoubtedly this went against the defendants and reflected the anti-communist hysteria prevailing at the time. The jury at the trial included two brigadier generals, three colonels, two mayors, three captains and eleven country gentlemen—not exactly an unbiased collection. Ten years later they would be singing the praises of the Soviet Union and the Red Army, and expressing admiration for that pillar of democracy, Joseph Stalin. That however lay well in the future; in 1932 they saw in this handful of young men a threat to society.

The details of the trespass were as follows. On the afternoon of 24 April 1932, a Sunday, four hundred people gathered in Hayfield. The ground had already been well prepared. An announcement in the Manchester Evening News was splashed in bold headlines. In the 30s, before radio and television robbed newspapers of much of their importance, evening papers were widely read. Other papers joined in, and leaflets were distributed at railway stations. There was also much chalking of pavements (Chalk was widely favoured for political slogans, before the coming of the aerosol paint spray. It had the advantage of washing away in the rain, so you did not get political slogans years out of date still visible.) Chalking squads were a common sight before an event like this. The official rambling organisations stayed away, but the police turned up in force.

The crowd began to march off in the direction of Kinder Scout, singing the Red Flag and the Internationale as well as the usual songs. On the way up a fight broke out between keepers and demonstrators, in which one keeper was injured. They walked to Kinder Scout, held a meeting, and then returned to Hayfield in a body. It was on return to Hayfield that the arrests were made. There is even disagreement as to whether they actually reached Kinder Scout or Ashop Head, which is 400 feet lower, but it seems unlikely that people with knowledge of the area would make such a mistake. However, doubtless all such disagreements will be absent from the coming re-union.

The Kinder Scout Trespass was a romantic and exciting episode in the long, dour struggle for better access to the mountains. This struggle still goes on. In the fifty years which have passed since that day much progress has been made. Better access to mountains, the creation of national parks and long distance footpaths have brought improvements; there will, in fact, be a fell race over Kinder Scout itself. But fresh problems keep arising. The grubbing up of hedges and ploughing of footpaths in pursuit of greater profits, the wrecking of green lanes by heavy farm machinery, turning them into quagmires, and the ugly concrete buildings of the modern factory farm are just a few examples of this. The whole question of access to the countryside is just one small aspect of the continuing struggle between those who own and those who do not.

Les Dale 

Resistanbul: Confronting the Arrogance of Power (2013)

From the July 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

(from Turkey)

(the first ten days)

Understanding a society and culture that you have not grown up with is a tough call and Turkey, because of its geographical location, is surely one of the toughest of all. Trying to draw conclusions based upon European/Western perceptions and values will not benefit you one jot. Turkey is complex and contradictory and the unrest sweeping the country and centred on Taksim in Istanbul exposes the tensions of the modern Republic.

The significance of this uprising cannot be overstated. Since its foundation in 1923 Turkey has been an autocracy with an occasional flirtation with a bit of freedom. During the 1960s and 70s there was a rise in ‘revolutionary socialism’. This period ended on 1st May 1977 when hidden (and still unidentified) snipers murdered 34 leftist demonstrators in Taksim Square. Clashes between fascist and leftist groupings escalated to the verge of civil war and led to the coup of September 1980. Thousands of activists, citizens and public figures were murdered by rival factions that were being manipulated by hidden vested interests and the military that were later identified as the so-called ‘Deep State’. Thousands more faced imprisonment and torture. The coup broke up the trades union movement and banned all existing political parties. Shell political parties populated by hand-picked lackeys were formed and the constitution was re-written. To counter any resurgence of the leftists a mix of racist nationalism and Islamic conservatism was encouraged to replace the secular nationalism of the Kemalists.

Over the subsequent years harsh crack-downs on dissenters from the government line have been the trade mark of the establishment. The media as well as individuals self-censored, either to gain or retain influence or to keep their jobs. Those who bucked the party line found themselves without work or their businesses harassed. In more recent years businessmen, politicians as well as individuals would attend the mosque, cover their wives and even make pilgrimages to Mecca to demonstrate suitability for promotion or consideration for a government contract. Shackled by a corrupt and vindictive political elite, ham-strung by tolerance-free policing and the ever-present military, Turks remained cowed – until now.

The spark that has unleashed the fire-storm of rebellion was not, as many think, about the destruction of trees and Gezi Park at Taksim. It was all about the brutal, unprovoked violence of Istanbul’s notorious ‘Robo-Cops’ in clearing away some 30 peaceful protesters against the loss of one of the city’s last green, public places. Gezi Park was to be sacrificed to build yet another shopping mall to benefit government cronies. The protesters returned, their numbers doubled, and were met with heightened police violence. By day three tens of thousands of enraged citizens were fighting with police for control of Taksim Square – their square! A place of huge significance to Turks, Taksim is the very essence of what belongs to the people.

This was no longer about trees or parks, it was and is about years of repression, of police violence, about successive governments that did not listen to the people, it is about corruption and cronyism, the Kurdish issues, religious homogenisation, freedom of expression, of sexuality, rampant neo-liberal economics, the government’s support for and arming of foreign jihadis fighting against the Syrian government, freedom, democracy and, increasingly against the autocratic, micro-managing prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In the street fighting that followed the world has witnessed, through iconic photographs and videos, the scale of the state’s violence and the will of the people to resist. The world has also witnessed the dramatic moments when the police withdrew. For the first time in this the most heavily policed city in Europe they and their huge, armoured TOMAs (Public Incident Control Vehicle), had failed to break the people and the people celebrated. The sight of these monsters being chased out by a huge tracked digging machine driven by protesters was surreal.

Taksim sits on a hill and in order to protect the square and what it represents human chains thousands strong raised two metre-high barricades on every street leading to it – the only way through now is on foot or by bulldozer! Taksim has become what the people insist it will remain – their place. A place for families, for concerts and ballet, impromptu parties and discussion groups, for diversity and tolerance and unity:

‘It is also about the possibility of bridging the many fault lines of Turkey’s complex society. In the park and the square, Kurdish activists, Kemalists, Turkish nationalists, Socialists, and “Anti-capitalist Muslims” have been able to fight and celebrate together, despite occasional confrontations, which were resolved by immediate intervention of bystanders.’ (Contours of the New Republic and Signals From the Past – Kerem Öktem)

As Turkish media ignores or plays down what is happening, such coverage as does exist is focussed on Taksim. The brutal crackdown continues in cities and towns across the country as more and more citizens take courage and inspiration from Taksim and demonstrate. With mostly only social media available to get the story out, impressions can be blurred, misleading and sometimes fraudulent. That said, enough of the truth is emerging to show very clearly that Turks can, if they choose, build a different and more inclusive society based firmly on respect for the individual, freedoms of expression, conscience and speech and a determination to stand up against over-bearing government. Statements by the prime minister where he threatened to demolish the Ataturk Cultural Centre on Taksim and build a mosque, or when he accused the people on the streets of being terrorists, alcoholics, perverts, looters and worse, have only inflamed matters, brought out more protesters and hardened opposition.

So, will the protesters succeed? That is a question that only they and time will answer. That said, any prime minister who can so divide a nation and unite the street-fighting supporters of Istanbul’s three famous soccer clubs has a serious problem on his hands.

Why now? There is so much else that is contributing to numbers on the streets all over Turkey – each would make an article in its own right:

Syria is a huge concern for most Turks who regard Syrians as their brothers and sisters and this government’s support for jihadi insurgents as unforgivable.

Alevi are a mystical sect and an offshoot of Shia Islam. They have long been persecuted including in Turkey where there have been attempts to assimilate them into mainstream Sunni Islam and to impose the building of mosques in villages instead of the traditional cemevi (meeting house). Describing Turkey as 98percent Muslim may be correct but conceals the fact that Alevi form around 20percent of that.

Generals: there is intense anger, particularly amongst the secular middle classes at what they see as a vendetta against the military. Investigation of coup plotting seems to have degenerated into nothing more than mass show trials with little regard for evidence or due process.

Police in Turkey are a national force and officers are posted around the country, they therefore have no local connections or affinity with the communities they serve. They have a reputation for unrestrained methods of policing which has been well documented. There is also ample evidence that their ranks have been infiltrated by adherents of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. It is widely believed that other followers include members of the governing party although indications are that as the prime minister has tightened his grip on political power his desire to be ‘guided’ by Gülen has declined.

Gül vs Erdoğan: splits between prime minister and president have been evident for some time. The fact that Gül and the deputy prime minister acted immediately to try and defuse the tensions in Taksim as soon as Erdoğan left the country on a working trip is evidence of differences of style and approach.

Kurds: this is a hugely complicated and divisive issue. Erdoğan and the government have been edging towards a settlement with the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan that has resulted in the withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkey into the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq. Nationalists are deeply opposed to any settlement which they see as the thin edge of a wedge that will hive off parts of Turkey into a Kurdish state. It is interesting that the largest population centre of Kurds in Turkey is Istanbul, where they settled after being driven west by 30 years of conflict. In polling carried out recently the majority of Kurds do not want an independent state – they seek recognition of their ethnicity, culture and language within Turkey. As this is being written the PKK has declared its support for the uprising.

Gerrymandering: blatant manipulation of the electoral process, buying of votes, and control of the media.

Executive Presidency: there is much opposition throughout the country, including his own party, to Erdoğan’s push for an executive presidency. If he succeeds in changing the constitution and winning a subsequent presidential election it would extend his control over the country by a possible further 10 years. Under the present constitution members of parliament are limited to three terms and presidents to two.

Anti-US sentiment of which there is a great deal is growing. When US forces were planning to use Turkey, with government support, to invade Iraq such was public anger that the government was forced to reverse course and send the US troops out of the country. As they left they needed police protection from stone-throwing citizens who bombarded their convoys.

So, who are on the streets and occupying the parks? Just about every grouping you can think of including some supporters of the governing party – from ‘Revolutionary Muslims’ and ‘Anti-Capitalist Muslims’ to those opposed to the Syrian intervention, Kurdish and Alevi activists to LGBT and civil rights campaigners, the middle classes and secularists to socialists and Kemalists and suited business types, students, academics and intellectuals to artists, performers and pop stars – you name it. Any one of those protesters could give any number of examples of what they don’t want. A very small number of groupings have articulated some very well-reasoned arguments for change and political development but they are not speaking for the movement as a whole which remains what it is – a representation of Turkey’s fractured opposition to Erdoğan. Erdoğan’s stated understanding of democracy is simply ‘put your vote in the box’ but Turks in ever-growing numbers see a huge deficit of democracy in their everyday lives.