Letter: Some Questions about Socialist Policy. (1932)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

1. In the event of the Socialist Party attaining a majority in Parliament, would they endeavour to pass legislation in the “House” for the purpose of obtaining the means of production and distribution for the working class?

2. If so, how would the Socialist Party act in the event of the Capitalists impeding the passing of the legislation, by force or otherwise?

3. I take it, that the Socialist Party is against cuts, including the biggest cut of all (the exploitation and robbery of the working class through the appropriation of the surplus value created bv the workers). How would they organise the workers against the attacks which are now taking place—unemployment, Means Test, wage-cuts, extension of hours, etc. Would they combat this by mass action, demonstrations, strikes, or what is the Socialist Party’s method of immediate policy, if any ?

4. Does the Socialist Party believe in running candidates for the immediate local and Parliamentary elections?

Thorne, Nr. Doncaster. “SEEKER”

Reply

(1) The working class need to obtain control of the political machinery before they can institute socialism. Having obtained control of Parliament and the machinery of local government, the workers would enact the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and distribution.

(2) Given a majority of the population determined to achieve socialism and politically organised for that purpose, they could obtain control of the political machinery by the vote unless the capitalists then in power decided to suspend democratic elections. In either event it would have been shown that the majority wanted socialism. If Socialists had obtained control of the political machinery, including the armed forces, the capitalists would not be able seriously to impede the passing of legislation. They would not have at their disposal the means of resisting by force.

If, on the other hand, the capitalists were in power and had suspended democratic elections in order to prevent the Socialist majority from obtaining control of the political machinery, steps would have to be taken to make the position of the usurping minority impossible. In view of the fact that the organised majority would be hostile to the Government and able to interfere with the smooth running of industry, the Government would find it in the long run impossible to make capitalism function in a way satisfactory even to the capitalists. The political position of the Government would be weakened owing to its undemocratic basis and the state machine would be unable to function on account of the conflicting views among civil and military employees.

When it is recalled that capitalists have in the past had to institute democratic elections in order to make capitalism stable and efficient, even with the population overwhelmingly in favour of capitalism, it will be perceived how hopeless would be their position if they tried to go back on democratic methods in face of a united Socialist majority. Any attempt on their part to carry on without a mandate from the electorate would be bound to break down in time. Even the capitalists themselves would be forced to see the necessity of choosing socialism in preference to chaos.

(3) The S.P.G.B. is against all attempts to reduce the workers’ standard of living, and in favour of actions which will raise, it, above all, the act which alone will end exploitation, i.e., the institution of socialism. It is only possible to organise the workers to resist “cuts” if the workers wish to resist and believe it to be possible to resist. Similarly, it is only possible to organise the workers for the purpose of achieving socialism when the workers want socialism and believe it possible to achieve it. Neither the S.P.G.B. nor any other body can, at present, induce the working class to organise for the resistance to cuts or for the achievement of socialism, because the majority do not believe either to be possible. As our correspondent will have observed at the last election (if, indeed, such evidence were needed), the overwhelming majority voted for capitalism, and the majority were also prepared to accept cuts because they believed them to be necessary for the maintenance of the social system. Having voted power into the hands of the capitalists, the workers must act in accordance with the situation they have produced. They cannot act as if the situation did not exist. If they attempt to take “mass action” they will be bludgeoned into subjection by the weapon which they placed in the hands of the capitalists last October. Within the limits set by the fact that the capitalists have political power, the workers can demonstrate or strike in order to resist as far as possible further attempts to reduce their standard of living, or in order to raise it. Any sound action on these lines would be supported by the S.P.G.B. in the future as in the past. The actual control and organisation of such action must, however, be a matter for the workers themselves, since only a small minority are in the S.P.G.B. It is the policy of the S.P.G.B. to point out what such action can achieve and also to point out its limits, i.e., that it is dealing only with the effects of capitalism, and cannot lead to socialism.

(4) The S.P.G.B. is a political party, and therefore, in line with its principles, recognises the necessity of running candidates for local and Parliamentary elections. The question of doing so immediately is one to be decided in the light of many factors outside our control. There is no constituency in which there is more than a small minority of socialists, and, therefore, participating in elections at the moment would be only a propaganda effort. It has to be considered in relation to its cost in money and effort, and in relation to alternative and less costly forms of propaganda. This applies particularly to Parliamentary elections in which a deposit of £150 is required and is forfeited if the candidate polls less than one-eighth of the votes. With a growth in the number of socialists the arguments in favour of contesting elections will be stronger and the means will become available.—Ed. Comm.

Letter: Marx and the State (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and the State

Many of your members and readers may feel that the SPGB is a truly Socialist and Marxist Party. But I doubt if Marx would think so if he were alive today.

One of your biggest theoretical blunders is assuming that society can be changed through Parliament. The state machine of every bourgeois society has as its principal aim the preservation of the supremacy of the ruling class, and the consequent enslavement of the proletariat. So how you expect to use this state machinery against the ruling class is beyond my comprehension. As Marx said in The Civil War in France " . . . the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes”. So how are we to achieve Socialism? Engels provided the answer in a letter to G. Trier dated December 18th 1889. “The proletariat cannot conquer its political domination, the only door to the new society, without violent revolution”, (my emphasis) If the SPGB supposes for one minute the bourgeoisie is going to simply hand over one iota of their power power and privilege just because, by some miracle, the SPGB has a majority in parliament then they are living in a dream world.

For the revolution to be successful we need a strong organized proletarian party. Let us hear what Marx has to say on this in a letter to F. Bolte dated November 23rd 1871. “The political movement of the working class has as its object, of course, the conquest of political power for this class, and this naturally requires a previous organization of the working class developed up to a certain point and arising precisely from its economic struggles”. But we see that the SPGB refrains totally from indulging in these “economic struggles” i.e. fighting for higher wages, against unemployment and public spending cuts etc. Certainly not Marxist tactics!

In number eight of your Declaration of Principles we find the wholly dogmatic and élitist statement that the SPGB is “determined to wage war against all other political parties”. Engels had something to say on this in the above mentioned letter to G. Trier, namely "For the proletariat to be strong enough to win on the decisive day it must form a separate party distinct from all others and opposed to them, a conscious class party. But that does not mean that this party cannot at certain moments use other parties for its purposes. Nor does this mean it cannot support other parties for short periods in securing measures which either are directly advantageous to the proletariat or represent progress by way of economic development or political freedom”. So much for the SPGB’s dogmatism.

In conclusion I have this to say about the SPGB, principally that it is not the Marxist or Socialist party it claims to be and will certainly never lead the proletariat to emancipation. Socialism will only be achieved by a truly Marxist Party (e.g. The Socialist Workers’ Party) that is active within and able to lead the proletariat to victory, not by the passive élitist theorising of the SPGB.

A. Mounsey

Sunderland

Reply:

Selecting quotations out of context has been the stock-in-trade of the so-called Communist party throughout its existence, and now the non-Socialist Workers’ Party, (formerly IS) are trotting out the same time-worn fallacies.

If society cannot be changed through Parliament, why does the SWP go through the ritual of putting up candidates? Presumably they hope to get elected.

It is perfectly logical for us to aim at capturing Parliament, because we hold that capitalism can be ended in no other way. It is contradictory for the SWP to say Parliament is useless, then try not only to capture it but try to use Parliament, not to establish Socialism but to reform capitalism by modifying the useless policies of Labour governments. This is what “fighting the cuts”, etc., means. In so doing they accept that the power for change resides in the political arena.

Yes, the state machine is there to preserve the supremacy of the ruling class. No less so in places like Vietnam, whose ruling class has SWP support. All the nationalist struggles fought ostensibly against imperialism, and supported by IS or the SWP, have as their aim control of the state to preserve class supremacy. The political parties which support capitalism, including the Labour party which is urged workers to vote for, gain power because they are elected by a majority of workers who as yet are reform, not revolution, minded. When the reverse situation is reached, a Socialist majority will elect their own delegates, and the state will then be in the hands of those who have a mandate to end capitalism. It is good of the SWP to expose themselves as advocates of violence; the workers will wisely ignore them.

Marx’s letter to Bolte makes exactly the opposite point from your selective quotation. He shows that the economic organization of the workers precedes the political, which is decisive.

And in this way, out of the separate economic movements of the workers there grows up everywhere a political movement, that is to say a movement of the class, with the object of achieving its interests in a general form, in a form possessing a general social force of compulsion. (Marx’s emphasis)

(Selected Correspondence, Lawrence & Wishart edn., p. 318-9)

So with The Civil War in France. Marx, writing about the Paris Commune (see March SS), explains what happened to “the ready made state machine":

While the merely repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority usurping pre-eminence over society itself and restored to the responsible agents of society.

And:

Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of the Commune than to supersede universal suffrage by hier-achaic investiture.

(Selected Works, p. 472)

The repressive relics like the standing army, the bureaucracy and hierarchy which the state-capitalist advocates of the SWP seek to preserve, are what Marx sought to scrap.

Show us what specific advantage can be gained by the Party for Socialism supporting parties for capitalism. If you cannot do this (and you can’t) your final quotation is meaningless.

Finlly, while calling us élitists you say the "SWP" will lead the proletariat to victory. Leadership is élitism. The SPGB has never set out to lead the workers anywhere. We are confident of their capacity to understand and organize on a conscious basis; only sheep need leaders.

If you can get one of your “leaders” to debate us on Socialism, we will be happy to continue the tuition.

Editors.

Letter: Soviets and Socialists (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Soviets and Socialists

I thought that the article in your December issue on the International Socialists made a lot of good points. But one point I am not yet convinced about is your preference for Parliament as a means for the Socialist working class to take power over and transform society.

Parliaments as institutions don’t seem to me to suit the practical work of delegates, under the direct control of their constituents and recallable by them. Parliament is geared to the deliberations of so-called representatives, controlled not by their constituents but by rival Party bureaucracies who make all important decisions behind the scenes.

“Soviet” is only a Russian word for “council”. If by Soviet we genuinely mean a council of direct delegates, then surely this would be a better way of establishing a society in which we all take an active rôle in social affairs. If they were based on workplaces of all kinds, educational institutions, neighbourhoods and so on, they could easily be made as universal and democratic as you think Parliament is. Of course, you could convert Parliament and other State bodies into the form of workers’ councils, or you could develop the councils independently in the course of the struggle, or maybe some of both — I don’t think that is the crucial point.

The Soviets which existed in 1917 were not real Soviets in the direct democratic sense, but often little parliaments in which different supposedly Socialist parties — Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, SRs and so on — competed for power. The Party leaders took the decisions, like in present-day Britain, not the workers. Otherwise how could Lenin and Trotsky have taken part in the Soviets — as delegates of fringe journalism? Lastly the Soviets were not a Bolshevik tactic, but a form of organization that Russian workers set up to cater to their needs. The Bolsheviks manipulated them (because the workers were not conscious enough to prevent them, and not because Soviets are particularly fishy organizations) and then suppressed them into tools of their Party dictatorship.

As far as State power is concerned, both your idea of capturing and using it, and the Bolshevik or anarchist idea of “smashing” it, seem to assume that the armed forces are things which must be seized or destroyed. But isn’t State power not a thing, but a form of social behaviour by which we all allow ourselves to be things, the blind tools of others? Surely conscious organized Socialists won’t allow themselves to be used against the revolution — in the armed forces (if they still exist) or in the industries and services which support the forces? State power would fade away.

By the way, do members of the SPGB have views on this or other subjects (Women’s Lib. etc.) which are different from the Party line — or have members differed on interesting issues in the recent past? If so, do they have the right to express minority views, clearly labelled as such, in the Socialist Standard? It would improve your journal still more if the ideas were sometimes discussed from more than one point of view. Otherwise some readers may gain the false impression that Socialists are all identical in their attitudes, without variety.

Cicely Joyce 

London N.10

Reply:

The capitalist class have economic power because they have political power and not the other way round. They control the state machine and the armed forces through Parliament and are confirmed in their control by the working class at election times.

We are organized as a political party not out of preference (which implies that there are other ways of achieving our object) but because all the evidence of history and an analysis of capitalist society shows that this is the only way to achieve working-class emancipation. Without first gaining control of the state (the public organ of coercion and repression) through which the capitalists maintain their privileged relationship to the means of life by keeping the working class in its propertyless position, any minority movement seeking to challenge them will inevitably be beaten by the armed forces and the police who remain under the control of the capitalist class.

It does not follow that because Parliament is at present an institution of so-called “representatives” it must necessarily remain so. Once a working class who know what they want and how to get it send their delegates to Parliament with a mandate to capture political control of the state machine, it will cease to function as an instrument of class rule and become the indispensable instrument for our emancipation.

Soviets cannot establish Socialism

1. because they are economic organizations and not political; and
2. because they are based on the workplace, not on the centre of political power (See Gilmac’s articles in the Socialist Standard for January and February, and Horatio’s article in the October Socialist Standard.)

Before an electoral demonstration of a Socialist majority, Socialist ideas will have penetrated all strata of society — including central and local government, the police and the armed forces and this would strengthen the growing demand for Socialism.

However, control of the state machine is necessary

1. to lop off its repressive features; and in order:
2. to prevent any possibility of their being used in desperate attempts by counter-revolutionary groups to frustrate the wishes of the majority.

Armed forces will continue as long as capitalism because capitalism needs them. The capitalist class won't simply give up armed forces in the face of opposition. That is, they will still exist until consciously done away with.

On your final point we must point out that membership of the SPGB is dependent on acceptance of our aims and object set out in our Declaration of Principles. No-one is forced to join or prevented from leaving through disagreement. What for example would be the point of an advocate of minority action attempting to join the SPGB, other than possibly to be disruptive? Such a person is at liberty to join organizations which advocate his or her views. Party members finding themselves in disagreement with the Declaration of Principles invariably leave the Party — what would be the point in remaining in an organization dedicated to a method and object with which you disagree?

New situations faced by the SPGB have to be thrashed out, e.g. the Russian revolution of 1917, the rise of CND etc. The Socialist Standard is under the control of the whole of the membership and must reflect the democratically arrived-at Party case. The Socialist Standard does not exist to propagate anti-Socialist views — these are to be found in abundance elsewhere.

Editors.

Revolution’s Reply to Reform. (1909)

Pamphlet Review from the December 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The answer to “Arms for the Workers: A Defence of the Programme of the Social-Democratic Party.” (E. C. Fairchild, Lon. Organiser S.D.P.)

“By common consent, Socialists agree that the control of the National Executive by the working class must precede the use of land and the instruments of production for the common good. Conflicts between the classes in society are but struggles to secure possession of the central authority that decrees the law, which registers or changes the conditions of property holding. Control of politics means control of property.”

Thus Mr. Fairchild opens. But he is incorrect. Politics is the science of government, or, the contests for power of government. Our author means neither the control of the science nor of the contests, but the control of political power. Then Control of political power is political power. Henceforth we shall transcribe the sentence : “Political power means control of property.”

The palliator then deals with his subject under sectional headings. We will do the same, using his headings.

The Principle Common to Socialists

“We cannot escape restraints upon our freedom imposed by our life in the past. Custom and tradition weigh as heavily in politics as in other departments of human activity.”

Is this the language of regret ? It seems so, for as a consequence :

“The political party that appealed to electors upon a statement of object only, would soon find the average man so far rational that he wished to know the means by which the object would be realised.”

Exactly. Were it otherwise Socialists, optimists as they are, might deem the fight hopeless. But reformers dread the question, and for fear of it will not appeal to the electors upon a statement of object only. We read:

“For this reason, the Socialist Party in every country has formulated a number of proposals, variously known as palliatives, platforms, or stepping-stones.”

The object of Socialists, reduced to the utmost limits of brevity, is—Socialism. Not so sententiously, but with more information, the S.P.G.B. states its object as “The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.”

The “rational” man at once asks “Is present society so based ?” No. Then how is the property change to be effected ? Mr. Fairchild himself supplies our answer to the dread question.

“Control of the National Executive by the working class must precede the use of land and the instruments of production for the common good.” 

Then we must get control of the National Executive, or, to lift ourselves above the S.D.P. loose verbiage, must capture the political machinery. Why ? Because it is “the central authority that decrees the law, which registers or changes the conditions of property holding.” Because, to use a less questionable phrase, “control of the National Executive” means political power, and “political power means control of property.”

The answer is clear and easy. Why then, does the reformer try to put ‘”the electors” off asking the question by giving them “a number of proposals” which are not Socialism to think about?

Of course, the reform defender has the alternative that his language is as loose in this passage as elsewhere, that these “proposals” are not formulated to avoid the question, but to answer it—and the use of the term “stepping-stones” would bear him out. But to submit these “palliatives” as the answer to the question “how is Socialism to be attained?” is to claim that they are indeed stepping-stones to Socialism ; that they are revolutionary, and undermine the capitalist basis of society. Perhaps we shall see later if he dare take up this position.

Concerning the proposals we read :

“While the private possession of land and capital continued, these proposals could be applied by a government representing the interests of the capitalist class, or by a government acting on behalf of the workers and having Socialism as its aim.”

So we are asked to imagine that the working class have obtained that “control of the National Executive” which “must precede the use of land .and the instruments of production for the common good” ; have captured that political power which means “control of property” ; are installed (in the persons of their “Socialist” representatives) as the “central authority that decrees the law, which registers or changes the conditions of property holding.” And this “Socialist” Government, with its control of property, its power of “changing the conditions of property holding”—what does it do? Does it announce the fructescence, the fruit-time longed for by the tired labourers of “myriad meetings” ? Does it, having attained all that is needful for the purpose—control of the armed forces and the other instruments of government—change the property condition from private to common ownership, and so establish Socialism and free humanity from the curse of wage labour and all its concomitant evils ? Oh no ! At the moment when exploitation should cease for ever it begins to dabble with Eight Hours Days and Minimum Wages !

But this seeming idiocy can be easily accounted for. The palliator puts forward “palliatives” in order to catch votes. When we are invited to suppose a government “having Socialism as its aim” installed at Westminster, we are really asked to imagine the most complete realisation of the “get there at any price” policy. The pseudo-Socialists have captured the seats, but, as our author knows well enough, they have not captured one shred or vestige of political power. As a matter of fact, as far as essentials go, the position remains unchanged. The working class have control of the “National Executive,” but only in the sense that they had it previously. Formerly, in their ignorance, they elected their masters ; now, in their ignorance, they elect men of their own class who are not honest enough, or intelligent enough, or brave enough, to come before them with the plain statement of Socialist object only, but have formulated a number of proposals which were perhaps intended to carry them into power, but have only carried them into place. The minds of those who elected these misleaders have undergone no change, and since it is the mind of the electorate which controls the National Executive, the control of this “central” authority means exactly what it did before—the perpetuation of capitalist control of property, decreed by working-class ignorance.

The “government having Socialism for its aim” occupies a false position. Seated on fraudulent pretensions, it is utterly impotent. The most honest of it members thought to snatch a victory for Socialism on the votes of those opposed to the revolutionary principle, and now they find that, true as it is that “political power means control of property,” it by no means follows that political power and political place are synonymous, or that property is controlled in the interests of those who have control of the “central authority.” That depends upon their consciousness of those interests.

In order to have obtained political power for working-class interests it was necessary for the working-class representatives to draw their strength from an electorate cognisant of those interests, instead of which, in the case we are invited to imagine, they are upheld by a working-class electorate with the capitalist mind, who have given them no mandate for revolution, no authority for changing “the conditions of property holding.” If it is true, then, that “conflicts between the classes in society are but struggles to secure possession of the central authority that decrees the law which changes the conditions of property holding,” then the recognition that this “Socialist” government which has become the “central authority,” is powerless to interfere with the property condition of present society is a confession that the palliator’s vote-catching policy is fighting the battle on wrong lines.

Without political power, and therefore without control of property, our “government having Socialism as its aim,” is reduced to its Minimum Wage bill, its Eight Hour act, and so on. But whether these things are “applied by a government representing the interests of the capitalist class, or by a government acting on behalf of the workers,” the result must be the same. “Political power means control of property,” but, given the property conditions, the economic laws which arise out of them are beyond its reach. Political power may sweep away private ownership of the means of production, but so long as that property condition continues, the exact degree of misery of the workers as a class will be determined by industrial development, and will be unamenable to palliatives.

Concerning the central idea of the section, that “the principle common to Socialists” which our palliator observes “beneath, or running through,” the various proposals, is “the extension of collective or communal action for the general well-being, in place of the use of national resources for private gain,” this implies “control of property,” which only political power can give the workers. To say that they have this political power is to say that they have the power to abolish private property in the means of life and to establish Socialism; to say that they have it not is to say, on our opponent’s own showing, that they cannot extend “collective or communal action for the general well-being,” or, as he earlier put it, use “land and the instruments of production for the common good.” To maintain that they have that political power which should accompany political place (and which is only important to the workers because it confers the power to change the property conditions of society) and yet allow “the private possession of land and capital” to continue while they apply their “palliative” is to rebuke the lie that they have Socialism as their aim, and expose themselves as willful perpetuators of capitalism.

Further, so far from true is it that there is any “principle common to Socialists” running through these proposals, that the principle common to capitalists—exploitation—is implied by and writ large over most of them, for example the Eight Hours Day and the Minimum Wage.

The Socialist in Politics.

There is little in this section that Mr. Fairchild has not touched upon in the previous one. He claims that “the items of the Socialist (!) programme are a recognition that the claims of society are greater than the rights of private property in land and capital.”

Are they, indeed ! It seems to the present penman that if anything could have denoted the utter abandonment of all and any rights, claims or hopes by the workers, it is to hear “Socialists” talking of the application by “a government acting on behalf of the workers, and having Socialism as its aim,” of Eight Hour Days, Minimum Wages, feeding necessitous children, and (p. 2) “public control of those agencies which supply public needs, on lines that will secure release from the burdens imposed by the payment of interest to idle money-lenders.”

What touching solicitude for the property owners’ welfare !

“The Socialist in politics,” it seems, is bound to formulate a palliative programme. We take the opposite view.

We hold that only by the change of the property basis of society from private to common ownership can the workers’ position be improved. “Political power means control of property.” To have political power we must have political place, but we may have political place without having political power. But since it is not political place which controls property, that alone is useless to us, and its attainment would prove calamitous for working-class interests. For in such a case the “Socialist” government must be on the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand they would be pushed in the direction of revolution (the direction of changing the property conditions of society) by the “Social-Democrats” and others who believed they had won power for Socialism, on the other hand they would be expected by the vast majority of their constituents, who had elected them upon reforms and for reforms, to institute those reforms they had promised.

Mr. Fairchild’s statement that, “while the private possession of land and capital continued” the reforms “could be applied by a government having Socialism as its aim” indicates the direction he anticipates they would be forced to move in. But we shall show presently that these “palliatives” will not palliate, that all the economic laws which govern commodities are against the “palliatives,” and must inevitably render them powerless to affect the economic condition, of working-class existence. If we are correct in this; if, being applied the “palliatives” prove to be inoperative, what will be the result ? They will be detected for the misleaders they are and incontinently thrown overboard. Should they, on the other hand, attempt the revolutionary property change, they will quickly find out what it means to be without political power. Their political castle, built upon the rotten foundation of a non-Socialist electorate, will collapse at the first blast of their own trumpets, crumble beneath the tramp of their own feet.

Whichever course the “government having Socialism as its aim” should follow, the result must be the utter waste of all the precious working-class enthusiasm and weary effort—blood and treasure in the very essence—and consequent apathy and loss of confidence in themselves among the workers.

In order to avoid this misfortune, the Socialist Party of Great Britain takes the field without palliatives or other vote-catching devices. Holding that the duty of “the Socialist in politics” is to build up a position upon a thoroughly sound, revolutionary foundation, it discourages support from those who do not hold its principles. It is with this object it has framed a rule (31) to the effect that all or none of the vacant seats in any particular ward or constituency must be contested and that all must be elected or none allowed to take their seats. Our political place must be the measure of our political power.

A. E. Jacomb.

To be Continued.

Letter: Socialism and the Abolition of the State (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and the Abolition of the State

Dear Editors.

In a brief article on page 106 of the June Socialist Standard we read: "Socialists are not pacifists. If. at the time of the establishment of a socialist society, the overwhelmingly socialist majority were confronted by a recalcitrant pro-capitalist minority intent on sabotage and violence, we would have no compunction in using whatever force was necessary to suppress them"

This, however, appears to contradict the view expressed in the reply to Lynn Stabler in the April Socialist Standard. In the section headed "Counter Revolutions" we find: "Will socialism need to use the state machine to combat a counter-revolution, begun perhaps by former members of the ruling class? The answer, in a word, is no'". Apart from the fact that "Socialism", like any other abstraction, is incapable of using anything - Men make history" how. as "Marxists", do you square this latter view with Marx's own comments on the subject. as exampled in a letter to Domela Nieuwenhuis dated February 22. 1881:

One thing you can at any rate be sure of: a socialist government does not come into power in a country unless conditions are so developed that it can above all take the necessary measures for intimidating the mass of the bourgeoisie.

The working class must be in a position to dictate the terms of its own emancipation by using, if necessary, coercive force against those who would stand in its way. After all. as the Communist Manifesto proclaims, what else is political power but the power of one class to suppress another? That this transitory coercive power would recede, "wither away", as the danger of counter-revolution receded, "withered away", was. I assumed, the viewpoint of the SPGB. For instance, in the April 1979 Socialist Standard in an article reviewing, pointedly. Plekhanov's Anarchism and Socialism, we read: "The State will not be abolished; it will wither away, like an uprooted weed"

However, in a back page article in the October 1984 Socialist Standard this view was briskly dismissed: "Having gained control of the state machine for the sole purpose of democratically dispossessing the capitalist minority, the state will be abolished immediately” Before the triumphant working class could use political power, apparently.

At a meeting in September 1985 in Glasgow your speaker was emphatic that the transitory rule of the working class, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. was an outdated concept. His basic view can, justly, be summarised as follows: "If the proletariat becomes the ruling class over whom will it rule?"

Curiously enough the direct reply to this question which, of course, was raised against Marx in Statism and Anarchy by Michael Bakunin, can be found in the March 1983 Socialist Standard. Although the question is rephrased in the article, the reply to question 13 in the supposed "interview" with Marx is composed mainly of Marx's attempt to answer Bakunin. However, as the writer of the article suggests, the reader would do well to check the precise answers, in this case Fernbach's translation in The First International and After (Penguin. 1974). It will be seen that Marx's references to the proletariat's use of forcible means" (p. 333) and to "general means of coercion" (p. 335) have been omitted from his "reply" in the Socialist Standard.

In the same issue, in the article "Lenin's Legacy", you quote, correctly from a letter by Engels to van Pappen dated April 18. 1883:

With the disappearance of an exclusively wealth-possessing minority there also disappears the necessity for the power of armed suppression, or state power.

But why stop here? Why not continue with the sentence immediately following?

At the same time, however, it was always our view that in order to attain this and the other far more important aims of the future social revolution, the working class must first take possession of the organised power of the state and by its aid crush the resistance of the capitalist class and organise society anew.

And, as a rejoinder to the predecessors of the "modern" SPGB, Engels continues:

The anarchists put the thing upside down. They declare that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state.

Engels goes on to add that the state may require "considerable alterations", then adds the vital point:

But to destroy it at such a moment would be to destroy the only organism by means of which the victorious proletariat can assert its newly-conquered power, hold down its capitalist adversaries and carry out that economic revolution of society without which the whole victory must end in a new defeat and in a mass slaughter of the workers similar to those after the Paris Commune.

And, Engels adds, concerning the "immediate abolition of the state":

Does it require my express assurance that Marx opposed this anarchist nonsense from the first day it was put forward in its present form by Bakunin?

And. as self-professed "Marxists'. how do you explain away Marx's biting and incisively sardonic comments in the never-ending debate with the petty-bourgeois anarchists?

If the political struggle of the working class assumes violent forms and if the workers replace the dictatorship of the bourgeois class with their own revolutionary dictatorship, then they are guilty of the terrible crime of lèse-principe, for, in order to satisfy their miserable profane daily needs and to crush the resistance of the bourgeois class, they, instead of laying down their arms and abolishing the state, give to the state a revolutionary and transitory form ("Political Indifferentism", see The First International and After, p. 328)

Yours sincerely.

Davie Donaldson

Glasgow G20

Reply:

If we have understood him correctly, our correspondent is suggesting that in our attitude towards the abolition of the state we commit the heresy of departing from the sacred texts of Marx and Engels. He attributes to us the same view as that held by the anarchist Bakunin and criticised by Engels, "that the proletarian revolution must begin by doing away with the political organisation of the state". But we have never expressed this view.

The passage in the October 1984 Socialist Standard — "having gained control of the state machine for the sole purpose of democratically dispossessing the capitalist minority, the state will be abolished immediately' — which our correspondent cites to back up his case does not bear such an interpretation, as he himself recognises by his comment "before the triumphant working class could use political power, apparently" This is indeed only an appearance due to the faulty grammatical construction of the sentence. Our correspondent is just as well aware as we are that the sentence means; after the state machine has been captured and used for the sole purpose of democratically dispossessing the capitalist minority, it is then immediately abolished.

Before going into the views of Marx and Engels, let us state our own position as clearly as possible. We advocate that socialism should be established by the democratic, political action of a socialist-minded working class. The establishment of socialism, as the establishment of common ownership in place of class ownership, necessarily involves depriving the capitalist class of the monopoly control they currently exercise over the means of production. As this is not something they can be expected to welcome, it will have to be imposed on them and it is in order to do this that the socialist majority must first gain control of the "general means of coercion", the "organised political power of the state". After considerably altering it. the socialist majority uses the power of the state to impose the democratically-expressed will for common ownership on the capitalist class, employing "forcible means" if necessary as a last resort. Having done this — having taken political action to dispossess the capitalist class and establish common ownership — the socialist majority then immediately abolishes the state since a society of common ownership has no need for a "power of armed suppression" but only for an unarmed democratic administration. In this sense socialism entails the immediate abolition, and not the gradual decline, of the state.

Socialism is a society without a state — without any special organ of repression — because it is a society without exploitation and class conflict. This is why the only possible answer to the question "will socialism need to use the state machine to combat a counter-revolution, begun perhaps by former members of the ruling class7" is "No, because there will no longer be any state machine in socialism" Hence our reply to the letter in this April's Socialist Standard, which of course went on to explain that it would be very unlikely, once socialism had been established, that anybody would want to return to capitalist class society, let alone be able to organise a violent conspiracy to this end

Though of course we are not bound by everything Marx and Engels may have said, they were in the same political tradition as us and. as can be seen from the quotes our correspondent cites, did take up a basically similar position to ours on this question. There is one very important difference however: being active in the relatively undeveloped political and economic conditions of the 19th century they envisaged a prolonged period before the final establishment of socialism during which the working class would be exercising political power to revolutionise society. Hence their use of terms such as "dictatorship of the proletariat", "socialist government", "revolutionary dictatorship". "working class rule" as various alternative ways of describing the exercise of political power by the working class against the capitalist class during this period. If we reject these terms today, it is not because we reject using political power against the capitalist class but because we do not believe that any prolonged period of revolutionary social reorganisation is now necessary; in fact the dispossession of the capitalist class can now be carried out as a single, short, sharp revolutionary act.

But if Marx and Engels considered that a relatively extended period of exercise of working class political power would be necessary — a position which in our view has become outdated — they were always clear that, at the end of this period when a classless society of common ownership has been established — the state would be immediately abolished or. as Engels once put it. the state would have virtually died out (absterben, sometimes also translated as "wither away") In other words, there was no question of the state continuing on into socialist society. Socialist society would be a society without a state, without a "special repressive force" as Engels put it.

The metaphor of "dying out” — which has been twisted into meaning that the state would gradually "wither away" within socialism rather than before it was established — has also become inappropriate. not that it really ever was appropriate (since it is clear that the state cannot just die out of its own accord, only the need for it can; the state machine itself has to be consciously dismantled, abolished). We never use it except when summarising the views of writers like Plekhanov

Editors.

The Revolutionary proposition (continued) (1910)

From the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our last instalment we saw that the Revolutionary Proposition must be achieved, firstly by the education in its principles of the only class that, in the nature of things, can become revolutionary—the working class—and secondly by the capture of the political machinery.

The Revolutionary Proposition is a proposal to dispossess the master class, therefore the first axiom of the revolutionary politician is that, as a politician, he must necessarily be in conflict with the master class.

The political machinery exists for no other purpose than to serve and conserve material interests. Its every action finds its motive power in the all pervading “bread-and-butter” question. Why should it be otherwise ? The first passion is the passion to eat. The poet, whose mission under capitalism has been to supplement the work of the Church in the endeavour to depreciate the material, has tried to lift love to the first place, and calls it “truth,” while the modern novelist, true product of the bestial conditions of modern life, makes lust the premier passion, and calls it “realism.”

But how many of us, having the courage to speak as we find, give assent either to Beauty or The Beast ? How many of us, being “Men in earnest” who

“have no time to waste,

“Weaving fig-leaves for the naked truth. ”

dare assert that mankind in general would toil and moil and suffer, from the cradle to the grave, as mankind in general does toil and moil and suffer, for love, or lust, or any other passion than the passion to eat ? And history, indeed—the history of the slave peoples of all times—proves that neither is the poet’s frenzy truth, nor the novelist’s grossness reality ; for it shows, in its records of suppression, and violation, and emasculation—the concubines and eunuchs of the East, the “right of the first night,” the enforced celibacy, and the prostitution of the West—shows in these how love and lust have universally been trampled under foot. And history further shows that no other passion than the passion to eat, no other question than the earthy “bread-and-butter” question, no transcendent conception of justice or liberty or equality or fraternity, has ever led a subject class to revolution. Enslaved classes have been subjected to every indignity, deprived of the opportunity of satisfying every human passion, but withal the worm has only turned for food, and the one protesting appeal has been: “Bread ! More bread !” Earth is more powerful than heaven ; preservation stands even before procreation.

Since the power of economic interests dominates all others, the bitterest of all struggles must centre about the possession of the political machinery—the machinery of the ruling class for conserving their economic interests.

The political struggle is in very essence the struggle for life, therefore it must be supreme. This struggle to capture the machinery of government, in order that it may be used to disarm the possessing class, preparatory to dispossessing them, must take the first and foremost place in the working-class political life. All other things must be secondary to this endeavour. Therefore the votes and support of the workers must be won openly and above-board, on the plain, clear issue of the Revolutionary Proposition,—for or against the abolition of private property in the means of living ; for or against the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership of the means and instruments of production and distribution.

The vote belongs to the idea behind it ; the seat, hence, no matter what manner of man fills it, belongs to the political faith of its constituents.

If then, a seat is won by revolutionary votes, and the man who fills it should turn out to be a traitor, the seat still would be a revolutionary seat, though temporarily perverted from its proper use. If, on the other hand, well-meaning enthusiasts desirous of the new social system, displaying all their gaudy baubles—cures for unemployment, State maintenance of children,and the like—gain by these means the votes of those who want the reforms but cling to the system, and through these votes get seated, their seats still belong to capitalism, and they, willy-nilly, become henchmen of the capitalists. In such case no atom of progress has been made in the struggle for the revolutionary capture of the machinery of government; and if it can be shown that the reforms are either impossible or futile (a future consideration), then it is demonstrated that working-class effort has been utterly wasted.

But experience shows that the result of this building on unsound votes is worse than mere waste of energy. It affords opportunity to the wily and unscrupulous demagogues, the Burnses and Hardies of England and the Briands and Millerands of France ; and the workers, finding those whom the fondly hoped were to do their bidding, made Cabinet ministers, and suppressing them with bayonet and ball cartridge, heap curses on Socialism, and, losing faith in political action, fly to the sophistries of Anarchism, or sink in the sluggish waters of indifference.

The political struggle is the struggle for the instrument of class domination, therefore it must be a class struggle. The very fact of the existence of this machinery of government proves that. It is a strange superstition that conceives the possibility of the master class assisting in the work of giving the working class control of the legislative and judicial machinery, the police and the armed forces of the nation. The fight for these instruments—the only power which to-day maintains the dominant class in their position—will be long, stern and bitter, and every weapon and artifice the ruling class can resort to they will.

The political party of the working class, therefore, must stand opposed to all other political parties, must, in short base their activities upon the fundamental principle of the class struggle. The issue is one that can only divide men into two camps—those for and those against the Revolutionary Proposition. This issue must be clear of all befogging issues and illusions, on the principle that only the revolutionary is of any use for the revolution, and the revolutionary will always vote right on the clear, simple issue of the revolution.

A. E. Jacomb

[To be Continued.]

Answers to Correspondents. (1910)

From the December 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Barber.”—(Wigan.) 1. In Adam Smith’s day 3 per cent. was the usual rate of profit for sound security. To-day L.C.C. stock, second only to Consols, are issued at 3 ½ per cent. In many cases as large rates as ever are made to-day. The Cold Storage Co. paid over 100 per cent., some of the electric power companies have made similar profits, while some of the catering firms pay dividends of 30 to 40 per cent year after year.

The amount of profit apart from the rate, has of course increased enormously with the increased productiveness of labour.

2. Surplus value is the portion of wealth remaining after paying wages, cost of raw material and of machinery used up in the given time. But this as a rule undergoes further deduction for rent for the land, interest, and rates and taxes. The portion of the surplus value that remains is the capitalist’s Profit. Profit, therefore, is only a part of surplus value.

3. What you pay for your tobacco and sugar is their market prices, and taxes are the smallest factor in fixing these prices. The workers only receive sufficient to keep them in working condition, hence have no margin wherewith to pay taxes. See ” S.S.” for October 1904 and June 1905 where the matter is fully dealt with.

4. If you will send particulars of numbers joining we shall be pleased to help you.

5. Yes, old age pensions etc, do come out of surplus value, as shown by answer to question 3.

************************************************************

E.C.R. asks “How do the S.P.G.B. propose to overthrow the present system of society and establish Socialism on Democratic lines and legislative means without Man and Woman Suffrage?”

The Socialist Party is not opposed to Adult Suffrage, but maintain that the working class have quite sufficient votes at their disposal to effect the revolutionary purpose when the class are sufficiently class conscious to make the time opportune. It is a question of education, not of extensions of the franchise ; and since the line of social cleavage is drawn through classes and not through sexes, there is nothing undemocratic in proposing to proceed even with our present limited male suffrage.

************************************************************

E. Garvey asks how non-producing workers (instancing insurance collectors) can be exploited.

If 5 hours social labour produces a day’s energy, and the worker is compelled to render ten hours labour for the day’s necessaries which have taken only 5 hours to produce, then, no matter what the result of his labour (and the capitalist will see that it has some tangible result), he is exploited. Apart from this, however, even the so-called non-producing workers are necessary to the operations of the capitalist class, and Friend Garvey must not forget that the workers are exploited as a class since as a class they are deprived of the means of living except through wage slavery.

Replies to other correspondents held over.

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VIII.] (1912)

From the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VII.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VIII.

It now remains but to consider the general conclusions which logic demands shall be drawn from the seven aphorisms which have occupied our attention. For this purpose a brief recapitulation will be useful.

The implication of our first clause is that

1. The basis of the present social system is the private, sectional ownership of the means of living.
2. This property condition divides society into two classes—possessors and non-possessors.
3. The class of non-possessors must exist where there is a set of social conditions which, involving at the outset the sale of their labour-power in the competitive market, makes them the sole producers of the wealth of society, without giving them any share in the control of that wealth. This condition is expressed by the phrase “the enslavement of the working class.”

Our second aphorism follows as the logical deduction from the first. It asserts that as society is divided into two classes, one of which lives upon the labour of the other, there is an antagonism of interests between the two classes, and that this antagonism of interests induces a class struggle.

The implication of the third is that the antagonism of interests, and therefore the class struggle, can only be abolished by the abolition of the cause—the condition which the first aphorism states is the base of the whole social fabric; that is, the ownership of the means of living, and the substitution therefor of common ownership of these things.

The next aphorism pronounces that the workers, in emancipating themselves, will emancipate the whole of humanity “without distinction of race or sex” and it is next declared that only the working class itself can be the instrument of this emancipation.

The sixth aphorism states that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, is merely the instrument for maintaining the present social basis and the oppression of the workers which necessarily proceeds from this basis, and it deduces therefrom the conclusion that the workers must organise, consciously and politically, first, for the capture of this machinery of government, and secondly, having done this, to convert it into the agent of emancipation.

The implication of the last aphorism is that, as there are only two classes, and therefore only two class interests, which are diametrically opposed, the political party of the workers must be opposed to all other political parties.

That is a brief summary of the implications of the seven aphorisms which have been set out in these pages.

Now what attitude do logic and common-sense impose upon those who believe these implications to be fundamental truths?

First of all they must elevate them into the position of principles, of guides for their every step and activity in the direction of the economic betterment of their class. Their course of action will then be clear.

If it is true that the basis of present society is the class ownership of the land, factories, and other means of living, then every feature characteristic of, and peculiar to, the working class as such—the weary toil, the insecurity of livelihood, the grinding poverty, the enforced idleness, the cruel cheating of childhood’s pleasures, the hopeless outlook of old age, the thousand and one brutal, humiliating and painful details that make up the miserable total of the workers’ cankered existence—can be referred to that class ownership of property.

The very central point of the workers’ attack, then, beyond all dispute, is this social base. the class ownership of the means of life. The possessors must be dispossessed.

If it is true that the machinery of Government, including the armed forces, exists only to preserve that social base, then, clearly, the barrier of the machinery of government must be surmounted before the social base can be interfered with. The method, therefore, must be political while and where that method is possible. The political power must be captured through the ballot, in order that the control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, shall pass into the hands of the working class.

We must enter the field of political action in order to capture political power, with the object of using it as the means of dispossessing the propertied class.

If it is true that all political parties are but the expression of class interests, then political parties must be exactly as antagonistic and irreconcilable as the interests they express. The logic of this is inexorable. And if it is true that there are but two classes in society, and that their interests are diametrically opposed and irreconcilable, then the political party of the working class must be at all times and in all places, utterly opposed to every other political party.

Hence the policy of the party seeking working-class emancipation must, under conditions identical with those obtaining in this country, be identical with that expressed in the final clause of the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which declares that: —

“The Socialist party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.”

This is the only policy for a party holding the principles set forth and explained in these articles, the only policy of a party (under the given conditions) seeking working-class emancipation, the only policy for a party aspiring to establish “a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community,” the only policy of a Socialist party.

Let every man and woman of the working class, therefore, who is interested in the welfare of that class, who is weary and sick at heart with the miserable tragedy of the workers’ position, take up the premises of the Socialist principles and examine them, Let him (or her) take them up as a challenge to his intellect, and either convince himself of their truth or prove their falsity. Let him then bring his actions into line with his convictions, rejecting the Socialist principles if he finds them unsound, but adopting them and cleaving to them if he finds them true and unassailable.

True, these principles and the policy they dictate offer nothing but battle and victory—nothing but the last arduous campaign of the class struggle—and the fruits thereof. But it is sufficient. It must not be exchanged for the power and pelf of office and a place near the fleshpots of Egypt for a few who dub themselves Labour leaders.

We who know the class to which we belong, and build up all our hopes on our faith in the capacity of its intellect, know that it will not be so exchanged. We know that the working class, as a class, is capable of judging all things for itself, and of marching on to its emancipation under the guidance of its own avowed principles, without leaders or use for leaders, to its emancipation.

A. E. Jacomb

THE END

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VI.] (1912)

From the October 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorisms IV & V.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VI.

As the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.

The machinery of government is composed of the governing bodies, from Parliament down to the Parish Councillor the Board of Guardians; the instruments of the law, from the Lord Chief Justice down to the “Labour” J. P. and the armed forces, from the army and navy, down to the policeman, the jailor, and the common hangman.

To say that all these exist merely to conserve to the master class the plunder they wrest from the workers, looks, to the man who views things through the glasses the masters provide for him, very much like “drawing the long bow,” but it is nothing of the kind.

It is often argued that the hangman is necessary to square accounts with the murderer of the working-man’s daughter, that the policeman is the sweet little cherub who sits up aloft and keeps watch and ward over the teapot the prosperous proletarian banks his surplus money in.

Well, what if he does? What if the hangman is the only protection of sweet and innocent seventeen? It does not follow, by any means, that this is anything more than an incidental — that is why these appendages of the present social system exist.

As a matter of fact it is in the very nature of the “State” to wear a mask — to assume a physiognomy that is not, in reality, its own. It exists to maintain “order.” That is the fundamental hypocrisy of its existence. It exists in a false atmosphere of impartiality, as something above the division of class interests, and therefore as competent to deal impartially with petty class squabbles.

But first of all it postulates a social condition which is entirely in favour of the class whose instrument it is, and the basis of that social condition in the present day is the private ownership of wealth.

The “order” which the State maintains must be in harmony with that property condition. Anything which is out of harmony with that basis is disorder, and must be suppressed. Therefore, of course, “order” must include the robbery of the working class.

Under that condition the State and its machinery pretends to be the servant of the whole of the people, but it is ridiculous, on the face of it. The fact that some working men have a little money in a teapot, or that the system breeds a certain number of maniacs or desperate beings against whom society at large needs protection, only serves to obscure the real reason for the maintenance of armed forces.

It is not the private property of the workers that the armed forces of the nation exist to protect. It is not even the private property of the master class that it is primarily maintained to conserved. It is the central point, the pivot, of the present social system — the private property institution which is to be protected.

It is this private property institution that is the vital spark of the capitalist organism, hence its preservation unruptured is of incomparably greater importance than the protection of present property from petty pilferers.

As a matter of fact the State is itself an instrument for the violation of private property, as witness the “Death Duties.” One section of the ruling class may use the machinery of the State to plunder another section, and that without straining a joint of it. But every atom of its composition is formed to resist any attack upon the private property institution.

It was shown in an earlier chapter that the basis of society as at present constituted is the ownership by the master class of the means of living. At the time society was placed upon this basis the machinery of production was in a very different stage of development from that to which it has attained to-day. The steam engine was not invented, and machinery was practically unknown.

The vast strides made by the development of the means and instruments of production have brought about a veritable industrial revolution, but the basis of the social system has not shifted one jot. It was ownership by a section of society of the land, material, factories, and implements of production in the beginning of the capitalist system — it is the same to-day.

How could it be otherwise? The very working of the system itself precludes the broadening of the private ownership so as to include all the people, for the steady tendency of competition has been and is to narrow that base by crushing successive circles out.

The only way in which the base can alter is in the direction of common ownership, and in this direction there is no halfway house. Bits of common ownership cannot exist in a world of private ownership by a class. The case is not the same where, even though private ownership is the rule, it takes the form of ownership of the means of production by those who use them instead of by those who do not. In such a system certain portions of the woods and pastures, for instance, might be commonly owned, as indeed they were under feudalism, and people owning their own products would derive benefit from them.

But where the workers have to sell their labour-power in a competitive market in order to live, the benefit of all property, whatever the legal form of property may be, will accrue to the master class. However it may be called, they have control through their system, which determines that the wealth produced by the working class shall surrender the whole of their labour-power to them at the cost of its production.

If there were any possible way in which the social base could be gradually changed from private ownership to common, it is doubtful if all the armed force could prevent that gradual change taking place — but we should have seen a commencement made long ere this. As a matter of fact not one shred of commonly-owned wealth can be pointed to. Our Post Office is under the control of the master class, who use it to sweat profit out of the workers for the relief of the taxpayer, and to provide fat sinecures for their own sons. Even the “nation’s pictures,” and the public parks, are under the control of the capitalist class, who decide how they shall be conducted, and when they shall be opened or closed. The people have nothing at all to say on these matters.

It is quite impossible, therefore, for the base of present-day society to undergo any process of evolution. Society itself does, but the present base of society cannot. It started in the same form that it now possesses, and it must retain that form until it finishes its career. It came in as private ownership by a class, and as private ownership by a class it must go out.

While it is true that in the long run the social system is determined by the stage of development of the means of producing wealth, the social system and this stage of development may, nevertheless, at a given period be totally out of harmony. Indeed, at recurring periods it must be, at least so long as society is divided into classes. The reason is that while the development of the means of production is not under men’s control, the social system, within certain limits, is. The industrial development, which men cannot arrest, is ever shifting the social centre of gravity, changing dominating values. Thus, at one time, whoever controlled the land controlled society. As industry developed, however, the implements and machinery became of greater importance. This change of values brought another class to the surface – the owners of the factories, machinery, and raw materials. But the industrial development which brought to light this new class did not arrange a social system under which they could reach their highest pinnacle of power; it gave them strength by altering the values of the sources of wealth it gave them education by making the stage of development of industry incongruous with the social base. It prepared the way for a social change but the actual work of bringing the social basis into line with the method of production was left to the initiative of the class whose interests demanded it.

And at the same time the old ruling class, whose interest lay in maintaining the system under which they were paramount, opposed the attack upon that system to the utmost,

The social system, then, is within certain limits under the control of men, Each system that permits of class distinctions favours a given class, and that class naturally employs every means to prevent the system from falling.

It is for this purpose that the present ruling class maintain their army, navy, and police. By means of these they hold back social change until the social basis of sectional private ownership has got to be quite out of harmony with the means of producing wealth by social effort. It follows, therefore, that the revolutionary class must dispossess the capitalists of these armed forces before they can change the social basis.

The machinery of government is controlled through Parliament. Parliament provides the money without which no army or navy can be equipped or maintained. Parliament, which pays the piper, calls the tune to which Jack Tar and Bill Adams must dance. The moral is plain : the working class must organise for the capture of Parliament.

When they have possession of this instrument they will have control of the armed forces, and will be in a position to proceed to the abolition of private property in the means of living and the organisation of industry on the basis of common ownership of the machinery of production and of the product.

The organisation must be consciously for this purpose. That is to say, the organised workers must understand thoroughly the object for which they are organising. The strength of the revolutionary party does not depend, in the time of crisis, upon the number who have been voting for fragments “they believe in,” but upon the number who understand what the Revolution means, and whose adherence is founded upon this understanding.

What is the position of the man who has voted with the Socialist party because he thought they stood for, say, nationalisation of the land, which he believes in, when he finds that they do not stand merely for that by itself, but for the abolition of private property in every social necessary ? He withdraws, and discouragement is bred of his defection. But suppose large numbers have been induced to give support to an object that they do not understand, and therefore cannot believe in, what is the position of a party attempting to take revolutionary action on such a miscalculation of strength? The result might very well be disaster.

Even if it were no worse than a fluctuation of strength at the polls, that would be sufficiently disastrous to condemn such pandering to ignorance, for Socialism must have no backwash, but must clearly indicate, in every trial of strength, the steady advance which is inevitable to it.

But there is another and vastly more momentous reason why the Socialist organisation must be free from political ignorance.

One of the most fruitful causes of working-class apathy in political matters in the past few years has been the way in which so-called Labour leaders have neen bought over by the master class.

A sort of wholesale instance of this is the present Labour (!) Party in the House of Commons. In order to attach to themselves the vote of “organised Labour,” which was raising a cry for a party representing working class interests as the “organised workers” understood them, the Liberals assisted certain “Labour” candidates to scrape into Parliament in divisions where a split vote between “Labourites” and Liberals would let in the Tory.

The result is that “organised Labour” is treated to the spectacle of a “Labour” party putting down amendments that they dare not move for fear the Tories should side with them and defeat the Liberal Government.

There is only one safeguard against this sort of treachery. The working-class party must build-up its strength only on the votes of those who understand the working-class position and working class politics. If this is done the master class will realise that they are up against democracy: that the representative is only the representative; that the “rank and file” crule the roost, and that as the elected person cannot switch votes to one side or another he has nothing to sell. In such case they will realise that all there is left for them to do is to fight him.

All the reasons here set forth demand the utmost clarity of issue. Only the revolutionary is a fit instrument to work for Revolution. It would be placing the Socialist Party in a false position to have them occupying seats to which they had been elected by the votes of those who were not revolutionists , for in the first place they would have to pander to these un-class-conscious voters in order to retain their seats; secondly they would be unable to obey the commandments of their revolutionary coadjutors, for if they did it would involve the alienation of those who did not stand for revolution.

The revolutionary and the reformer are as far as the poles are asunder. The one stands for the abolition of what the other clings to. It is folly, then, to attempt to unite the two in one political organisation. Each must fight for his interest as he understands it – therefore they must fight each other. The place for the reformer is in the master’s camp, for however they may differ as to matters of detail, they do agree to the fundamental point – the necessity for the maintenance of the present system.

It is the duty, then, of Socialists to see that the workers organise consciously for the revolution. To this end they must keep the issue clear. They must do all they can to discourage those who do not understand the meaning of revolutionary politics from attaching themselves to them, either through the political party or through the ballot. They must at all times clearly put forward the principles of Socialism, asking only for the acceptance of those principles. Anyone who intelligently accepts those principles will need no inducement in the way of vaporous promises of reform and palliation. He becomes part of the revolutionary movement, an atom of vital force helping to push it along, instead of an addition to the dead-weight of ignorance and apathy which retards the progress of any forward movement.

Let us stand for Socialism alone, then, without obscuring our teaching and our object with other issues, and therefore without lumbering our backs with paralytics who cannot walk and who won’t be carried. Thus only can we build up a political organisation composed of the sound, healthy material necessary for our purpose. Thus only can we base our actions upon exact knowledge of our strength.

A.E. Jacomb

Socialism and democracy (1986)

Book Review from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Battle of Democracy by Keith Graham, Wheatsheaf Books, £8.95

What is democracy? Why should it be considered a good thing? Why should an individual accept a democratically-arrived-at decision with which they disagree? These are the questions Keith Graham sets out to answer in the first, more philosophical, part of his book (The Battle of Democracy, Wheatsheaf Books, £8.95)

The simplest definition of democracy is that it is decision-making by the whole people (“rule by the people”, as the Greek words from which it is formed mean) involving procedures such as free and open debate, free access to information, one person one vote, and the accountability of public officials and elected representatives. Graham argues that such a decision-making system can be regarded as desirable because one key aspect of the nature of human beings is their ability to reflect and weigh up options before deciding what to do. In other words, a system in which the people as a whole freely decide what to do is the only decision-making system worthy of humans as self-determining (“free”) agents.

The idea of democracy is also bound up with that of equality, if only in the sense that it is a decision-making procedure in which every human deemed capable of making a reasoned decision has a vote of equal weight. Pursuing this further, Graham shows that ensuring each person an equal as possible say in the decision-making process requires a high degree of social equality and not mere equal political rights. This introduces the idea that it is not only political democracy that is desirable for humans as self-determining agents but a democratic society. As Graham makes clear in the second, more political, part of his book where he discusses the views of Marx, Lenin and others on democracy, this democratic society would have to be “a world where private ownership of the means of production, buying and selling, the wages system have all been abolished, in favour of the communal ownership of the earth’s resources”. In other words, the philosophical justification for democracy is also, even more so in fact, a philosophical justification for socialism—though, of course, as Graham is quick to point out, Marx himself did not justify establishing socialism on such “an appeal to abstract, timeless principles to do with the nature of human beings”.

Graham’s discussion of the views of Marx and Lenin on democracy—in which he convincingly makes the point that “the terrible fate which befell Marx was that he was Leninised—corresponds exactly to our own position on this subject: Marx stood for the establishment of a democratic, classless society as a democratic act on the part of the wage and salary working class as a whole. In contrast, Lenin saw the agent of social revolution as a minority “vanguard” of professional revolutionaries who, on winning power, would establish their own undemocratic, even if supposedly temporary, rule over the rest of society. Graham’s discussion of the differing views of Marx and Lenin also allows him to clarify the reform versus revolution dilemma, often seen as a choice between gradual, constitutional change and violent insurrection. He can also set out, for the first time in a book of this sort, the case for a revolutionary but essentially peaceful use of existing political institutions as the means of establishing socialism.

Marx’s presuppositions enable a distinctive challenge to be made to the two alternative positions on the question of constitutionalism as we have been considering them. In one way, the most important political development for Marx takes place prior to any revolution and outside parliamentary institutions, namely in the growth of working class consciousness. This is distinct from Kautsky’s parliamentary constitutionalism, where the entry of a party into parliament, which may form alliances with non-revolutionary groups and the like, is seen as the chief means to revolution . . . On the other hand, Marx’s position is distinct from Lenin’s. The state is not to be smashed but taken control of, so that it cannot be used against a revolutionary working class: and some of the institutions of a parliamentary system, notably universal suffrage, will be something to foster for a majoritarian like Marx, though not for a vanguardist like Lenin. In the light of Marx’s presuppositions, there do seem to be oversimplifications in the terms used to express the original dilemma of the route to the new society. There need be no straight-forward, exclusive and exhaustive choice between constitutionalism and violent seizure of power. Certain elements within existing institutions may be valued, and action taken in conformity with them, while others may not. Connectedly, the aspiration to a peaceful transition need not be identified with an attempt to effect it by piecemeal means, an identification which both Kautsky and Lenin are prone to make. It is consistent with Marx’s presuppositions to recognise parliament as an institution geared to the needs of capitalism, and therefore inappropriate as the vehicle for a fundamental transformation, but yet to regard its connected electoral practices as coinciding, to some extent, with the principles governing that transformation, and to that extent adding the possibility of a peaceful transition. This is not tantamount to the view parodied by Lenin as the expectation that the ruling class will meekly submit to the working class, as minority to majority. It does, however, limit violence to the role of counter-violence in the event of resistance when a clear majority for revolutionary change is apparent, rather than seeing the use of violence as itself a primary means of change, even in the absence of majority support.

Leninists sometimes try to argue that this is only a question of tactics, that they too share the ultimate goal of a truly democratic society (socialism) but that because a majority of workers can never be expected to acquire a socialist understanding within capitalism (“the ruling ideas of an epoch are those of the ruling class”, as Marx put it), a minority must act on their behalf. Graham answers this by pointing out that, in the case of socialism as the democratic society, there is a very real sense in which the end determines the means to achieve it.

What is the nature of the transformation which, according to Marx, it is the role of the proletariat to bring about? In place of the compulsion to work which is characteristic of their position in capitalism, there will be a free association of people. In place of the exploitation of one section by another there will be common ownership of the means of production. In place of the political domination of a bureaucratic elite there will be widespread participation and revocable delegation. Leaving aside all question of the realism of Marx’s proposals, these are the arrangements which he regards as meeting the real interests of the proletariat. But these are arrangements which in their very description are incapable of attainment without the voluntary co-operation of the proletariat itself. Whereas you can make people do what they do not wish to do, you cannot make them adopt a set of social relations which require their voluntary co-operation if they do not voluntarily co-operate (Graham’s emphasis).

In other words, democratic organisation and methods are not just one among many possible means to establish a democratic society; they are the only such means. Leninist minority action can only lead, as historical experience has confirmed, to some form of minority rule—in fact to a more undemocratic society than the sort of capitalism we know in countries like Britain.

The Battle of Democracy, is a very useful book about the nature of democracy written by a socialist. It is hoped that it will spark off a wide-ranging discussion about the desirability and feasibility of “a world-wide society of common ownership” and of the means of bringing it into being.

Adam Buick