How Now, Mr. Pritt ? (1937)

From the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the various Russian trials, in which the prisoners all confessed many astounding things, including some which were shown to have been untrue, a whole host of simpletons took their stand on the proposition that as the prisoners themselves said these things they must be true, and no other evidence was required to prove them. Mr. Pritt, K.C., according to a Manchester Guardian report of a speech delivered by him at Conway Hall, on September 30th, 1936. said: “The corroboration that the confessions gave each other was such that they could not have been invented stories" (Manchester Guardian, October 1st, 1936). Mr. A. J. Cummings, reviewing a pamphlet by Mr. Pritt, was satisfied with the confessions—“Now all was discovered, and they confessed all” (News Chronicle, October 6th, 1936).

Mr. P. A. Sloan, staunch defender of anything Stalin’s Government says, ridiculed the notion that the confessions could have been “play-acting” (Manchester Guardian, February 3rd, 1937). The Daily Herald correspondent, who attended the trials in January, was quite satisfied that the prisoners were telling the truth.

Now read the following report in the Daily Herald (June 21st, 1937): —

From Our Own Correspondent.

Moscow, Sunday.

Radek, Pyatakov, Zinoviev and other accused men in Moscow’s sensational trials deliberately lied in their confessions in face of death.

Vyshinsky, all-Union Prosecutor, who appeared at the trials, makes this declaration in an official report —“How Enemies Work”—published to-day.

“There was not 50 per cent. of truth in their evidence,” says Vyshinsky.

He pictures experienced Bolshevik revolutionary plotters glibly unfolding fictitious stories before a court consisting of former comrades.

Their intention, says Vyshinsky, was to conceal the extent of their activities and divert suspicion from their confederates by giving an appearance of complete frankness.

“We have become convinced of this after each trial,” asserts Vyshinsky.

So it seems that the Public Prosecutor in Russia does not believe the confessions were true; more than 50 per cent. were false. It remained for his silly English dupes to believe the whole 100 per cent., and to suppose that such things constitute proof in the absence of independent evidence.

P. S.

More About the People’s Convention (1941)

From the March 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political organisation in this country takes many forms. There are organisations which exist solely in order to gain one reform. When it has been gained their purpose has gone. This was true of the women’s suffrage organisations. There are the Tory and Liberal parties, agreed on the retention of capitalism but divided over such questions as free-trade and tariffs, and the amount of taxation to be laid on the backs of different sections of the propertied class. Until capitalism is ended such parties can go on existing, there are always new problems arising for them to deal with, always new opportunities of fighting for their respective sectional interests, and always the need to obtain working-class support for capitalism by the offer of reforms to alleviate the most distressing hardships. Then there are the Labour Party and Co-operative Party, which came into existence primarily to defend the interests of the trade unions and co-operative societies respectively. They have attained stability by taking over much of the former support given to the Liberal Party by workers desiring reforms of one kind or another. Then there is the S.P.G.B., which exists solely for the achievement of one purpose, though a fundamental one, the establishment of Socialism in place of capitalism.

Another category of political parties is what may be called the parasite parties. They live by exploiting the disgruntled supporters of the bigger parties. Among these have been the Communist Party, and all the brood of organisations hatched out by the Communist Party. Every crisis that happens at home or internationally produces its groups of persons dissatisfied on personal or other grounds with the policy adopted by the majority in the bigger parties. Always there are a certain number of workers who vaguely see that there is something wrong with asking for moderate reforms and think the remedy is to ask for bigger reforms—so if the Labour Party asked for a 5s. increase of old-age pensions they would easily fall for propaganda which tells them it is more “revolutionary” to ask for 7s. 6d. As the Labour Party by tradition is nowadays the normal gathering ground for discontented workers it follows that the parasite parties have their most favourable opportunity whenever it happens that the Labour Party is otherwise engaged; for example, when the Labour Party is in office wrestling with problems of the administration of capitalism, or when it is part of a Government carrying on war. While this situation lasts everything plays-into the hands of those adepts at political scheming and wire-pulling, the Communist Party. Their latest venture is the so-called People’s Convention, which met on January 12th, 1941, at the Royal Hotel and Holborn Hall, London. A pamphlet, “The People Speak,” has been published by the National Committee (price 3d.), described somewhat erroneously as “The Official Report.” It does not contain a full report of the proceedings. Out of 62 pages, 34 are given up to the speeches of three of the leading lights—Mr. Harry Adams, Mr. Pritt, K.C., and Mr. W. J. R. Squance. Then follow 15 pages consisting of “points from speeches” of 26 delegates, prominent among them being leading Communists. The remainder of the pamphlet is taken up with messages sent to the Convention, resolutions passed, and particulars of delegates, etc. The claim is made that there were present 2,234 delegates “directly representing 1,200,000.” Since the Convention took place several organisations have repudiated the representative capacity of the delegate who claimed to represent them; nevertheless, it may well be true that the Convention had something like the support it claims; there are, unfortunately, very large numbers of muddle-headed people capable of supporting the hotch-potch programme of the Convention.

The People Speak—Under Direction

The claim is made early in the pamphlet that the Convention was for democracy. “Here, indeed, were the People. Here, indeed, was democracy in action.” It is a little odd, therefore, to find no sign that the “people,” i.e., the delegates, had any hand in selecting the star speakers or in deciding that what purports to be an official report should contain very little of what the rest of the delegates had to say. Equally odd is the way in which “the people” selected their National Committee. On page 61 we are told that the Standing Orders Committee (who elected them, by the way; and how?) “recommends that 26 be elected by this Convention to the National Committee.” And on page 62 we are told that the Standing Orders Committee itself also presented to the delegates a list of 26 persons whom it recommended to be the elect! “Here, indeed, was democracy in action” !

What was Said and left Unsaid

On every page of the report are the unmistakable signs of the nature of the Convention and of the handiwork of the wire-pullers behind the scenes, carefully leaving the well-meaning muddlers to have their say “from their hearts.”

The first point to notice is that among the prominent figures are men who claim that Socialism is their aim and who have (elsewhere) been heard to admit that Socialism is the only hope of the workers. On this occasion there was, it seems, a curious reluctance or forgetfulness to say anything about Socialism. The resolutions contain no reference to it. Nor do the speeches, although here and there were appeals to Socialists to support the campaign. About the nearest approach was that of Mr. Palme Dutt, Communist Party, who (page 37) mentions Socialism and suggests that “a People’s Government” is “the first step forward.”

This coyness about mentioning Socialism prompts the question whether “the People” had spoken prior to the Convention urging all and sundry not to raise such a disturbing question. Or perhaps the idea of soft pedalling came from some other quarter.

The Chairman, Mr. Harry Adams, was frank and enlightening about the origin of the Convention. On page 9 he is reported as saying : —

“The mighty movement of popular anger surged forward last year after exposure of ruling class incompetence and bankruptcy as shown in Norway and at Dunkirk in the corruption of war profiteering and the neglect of the needs of the people. This was the starting point of the People’s Convention Movement.”

What happens to a Party which owes its birth to a mood of pessimism about the war when the tide turns? “Born after Dunkirk, died after Benghazi,” may well be its epitaph.

The Programme adopted by the Convention contains about a couple of dozen demands, ranging from “adequate A.R.P. bomb-proof shelters” to increased wages, soldiers’ pay, pensions, compensation, insurance and unemployment allowances. Also, of course, a “People’s Government,” and a “People’s peace.” Some delegates added a few things of their own. The Chairman favours nationalisation of the mines (page 12). Mr. Pritt calls the League of Nations “an admitted swindle” (page 21) but did not say a word about the Russian Government and the British Communist Party who tried for several years to foist that swindle on the workers. He demanded that the banks “must serve the whole people.” It would be entertaining to have that scintillating legal mind explaining just how a bank can serve the whole people. He also wants men to be “free to speak or write, not merely without losing their liberty, but without losing their jobs” (page 24), but gave no reason why that very desirable end is good for this country but not for workers in Russia. Mr. Pritt was scathing about the charge that the Convention is “against the Labour Party” (page 25). But surely, Mr. Pritt, either the Labour Party is in favour of the Convention Programme, in which case there is no need for the Convention, or the Labour Party is against the Programme, in which case Mr. Pritt, on his own showing, should be against the Labour Party?

Mr. Pritt does indeed answer this question. The only way in which the Convention Programme cuts across Labour policy and principles, he says, “is the linking up of its leaders with their class enemies” (page 25). This means, of course, the present Government. But who are the present Government? A large number of them are the leaders of the Labour Party, and the Prime Minister is Mr. Churchill. “Ah,” Mr. Pritt would say, “they ought not to be in the Government with Mr. Churchill.” Elsewhere in the pamphlet (page 48) Mr. Pollitt of the Communist Party made this quite plain. He spoke of the real enemies of the workers being “in the Churchill Government,” and wants the Churchill Government to be removed to make way for the People’s Government.

But has Mr. Pritt really forgotten that it was Mr. Pollitt and the Communist Party who were bellowing in March, 1939, for Mr. Churchill, Sir A. Sinclair and Mr. Attlee to get together and form a Government? What about it, Mr. Pritt?

All the delegates and speakers appear to have had not a particle of doubt that a “People’s Government” (whatever that is, nobody troubled to explain) would solve all things. In particular they saw in a “People’s Government” the Open Sesame to Peace. Perhaps they have all forgotten that this is not the first occasion a lot of them have wanted a “People’s Government.” As recently as September 19th, 1939 (when the Communist Party was still all in favour of the war) the Daily Worker was demanding “a People’s Government capable of prosecuting that war.”

“The war to halt Fascist aggression,” shouted the Daily Worker, “must go on with redoubled energy, and the British people will insist on a People’s Government capable of prosecuting that war.”

On the subject of war it is also worth while to recall that, although the Communist Party denounces the present Government and the Chamberlain Government for not building adequate deep bombproof shelters to protect civilian population fully against air-raids, the non-existence of such shelters did not deter the Communist Party from calling for the war before it came and demanding its energetic prosecution after it had begun, knowing full well what the consequences would be for the civilian population.

Among other objects of the Convention are the strengthening of the Co-operative movement, but simultaneously “we will work to safeguard the interests of the small shopkeeper, small farmer and consumer” (page 57). Mr. Squance, in his speech introducing this, went a bit further and claimed that the Convention also represents the interests of “small business men” (page 32). One delegate, who claimed to speak for landworkers, does not seem to have thought such a lot of helping small farmers, for she spoke up for “collectivisation” (page 44).

Altogether as much nonsense was talked as it was possible to crowd into a one-day Conference. The cost to the National Committee was £2,200, a lot of steam was let off, and a good time was had by all.

Edgar Hardcastle

Happenings in Hungary (1956)

From the December 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Freedom” has been the battle cry in countless revolutions and revolts throughout the ages, and recent events in Hungary must have recalled past sacrifices immortalised by poets, such as Byron's “Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, tom but flying, streams like the thunderstorm against the wind.”

At the present time the conscience of the world is being stirred by the heroic but unequal struggle which the Hungarians are wielding against the military forces of the Soviet Union. The iron fist closes and the rebels drown in their own blood as another paragraph is completed in the history of Hungary—another event in a chapter of foreign invasions.

Western Bloc governments and their newspapers have mostly made statements sympathetic to the rebels. American government leaders in expressing their feelings for Hungary, were reported as saying that nothing could be done until after the elections, as they did not want to do anything to prejudice their re-election—surely touching a new “low” in cynicism.

The Western Bloc of capitalist powers desire to oust the Soviet Union from Hungary in order to enjoy the same material advantages, and not because of any lofty ideals. It is a question of business, not of ideals, for the latter do not flourish in the jungle of capitalist go-getters.

The Daily Express of 9th November printed an appealing photo of a small girl under the caption— “Stepping out to a new life; a small Hungarian refugee who has arrived at the Austrian border. Behind her are horrors that her young mind could not comprehend. Ahead of her—who knows? A succession of camps and hostels; or perhaps a new home in England. But she is wary. After these last weeks suspicion is instinctive.” Then there was a report to the effect that a Wolverhampton firm offered a house, rent free, to a family of Hungarians; while a number of countries were reported as having offered sanctuary to numbers of refugees. There have been no reports, however, of sanctuary in Britain for Egyptian victims of the British military action in Suez.

The Daily Express published a series of articles by Dr. Edith Bone, who was released in the recent fighting after seven years solitary confinement in Hungary on a spy charge. Dr. Bone revealed that she had gone to Hungary as correspondent for the Daily Worker. The writer, who is a reader of that paper, is unable to recollect any agitation at any time over the disappearance of this colleague. Following her revelation, the Daily Worker confirmed her statement, and, believe it or not, added that they never could understand what had happened to her all this time. However, this newspaper is inundated with letters from comrades horrified at what has been going on in Hungary, and D. N. Pritt, Q.C., has written an article entitled “Hungary; Keep your Heads” (Daily Worker, 9th November), apparently in an effort to calm these comrades. He charges the popular press version of events as a complete fabrication of the U.S. capitalists, and ends his article with the following astonishing paragraph: “We should all be as happy to realise, in 1956, that the Soviet Union prevented the establishment of a fascist government in Hungary.” Another article in the same issue plugs a similar theme, and is headed “ Deep-laid Plot,” and the penultimate paragraph reads: “In the circumstances, Soviet counter-intervention, if one may call it so, has surely been justified on grounds with which every British democrat, and especially every British worker, must sympathise.”

The line on Hungary that this organ of the so-called Communist Party publish, and appear to get away with, is surely a scathing criticism of the low level of Socialist understanding on the part of their supporters. Perhaps the most brazen statement of all is on the front page of the same issue, in heavy print, describes the Daily Worker as “the only paper that puts the class and peace issues fair and square,” and then goes on in the next sentence to put a question to their readers: “Friends of the Daily Worker everywhere—we ask you to settle one question with yourselves and then, immediately, with us. Could you, in our national situation, do without the Daily Worker NOW? ”

The pro-Soviet press claim that the revolt is an attempt by Hungarian fascists to seize control from a workers’ government. The Western Capitalist press, on the other hand, report the trouble as a clash of two irreconcilable ideologies, that of Communism versus the democratic way of life—they see materialised the combat between evil and good, between the powers of darkness and of light, of the machinations of the Devil against the will of God.

A Socialist analysis of events in Hungary reveal the revolt as a nationalist movement determined to seize control for the benefit of the budding Hungarian capitalist class and, as such not worth the spilling of one drop of working-class blood. Like nationalist movements in other industrially backward countries, the revolt is led by students and supported by disillusioned workers and peasantry.

The Observer (4/11/56) contains an article headed “Students Led Hungarian Revolt,” and starts with the statement that

  “The Hungarian revolution began as a student movement. This I can say with absolute conviction, having just returned from Budapest, where I discussed the matter with the insurgents themselves.”
  “The events in Budapest on that Tuesday evening had in fact been slightly preceded by uprisings in two other university towns—Szeged and Pecs. There the students had simply called upon the town councils to resign and had re-elected emergency committees from their own numbers.”
  “These committees of 15 to 30 members containing professors and students, had a single president, who in more cases than not was undergraduate. The attitude of the older members of the community was that this was a student movement, and as such should be led by them.”
  “The Student committee of the revolution in Budapest itself seems to be an even more powerful body. Its president, a young man named Josef Molnar, works in constant liaison with Colonel Meleter. commanding the Hungarian Army in Budapest. Almost all the students at this university of technology are armed.”

Hungary is only partially industrialised, and the expansion of the budding capitalist class is hampered by the Russian Government, who wish to keep the country as a market for their own industrial products and as source for. raw material and food supplies as well as for strategic reasons. Russian political and economic experts help to manage the country and give less opportunities for educated patriotic Hungarians to rise to the top jobs. University students, particularly in backward countries, are mostly members of better-off families. They are usually firm supporters of their national capitalism, and their educated sons have the training to act as spokesmen and leaders. It is economic interest that is the mainspring behind the action of the students, even though it is concealed by high-sounding ideals. While the personal courage of the Hungarians may be recognised, how often the call for “Freedom” masks the need for the development of a new class in society!

Some of the workers, believing that the Hungarian control will solve their poverty problem, give their support The peasants consider that an independent government will enable them to get a better market for their produce, though complete independence in the present-day world is more of an unobtainable ideal than practical power politics will allow, as Poland and Yugoslavia (not to mention a host of other small countries) have found out. This, then, is the Hungarian economic set-up which lies behind the barrage of propaganda.

The tragic bravery of the Hungarian students should not blind the workers to the fact that it is not in their interest to support the struggle of either the developed state-capitalism of the Soviet Union or the indigenous capitalism of Hungary. In other countries whenever the new ruling group is firmly in the saddle of government they lose no time in turning on the workers.

F. E. Offord

The People’s Convention (1940)

From the December 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Party, through the Daily Worker, are giving great publicity to a so-called People’s Convention which is to meet on January 12th, 1941, and will inaugurate a campaign for a People’s Government. The following six-point programme is the basis of the movement between now and the holding of the Convention: —

1. Defence of the people’s living standards.
2. Defence of the peoples democratic and trade union rights.
3. Adequate air raid precautions, deep bomb-proof shelters, rehousing and relief of victims.
4. Friendship with the Soviet Union.
5. A People’s Government, truly representative of the whole people and able to inspire the confidence of the working people of the world.
6. A people’s peace that gets rid of the causes of war.

Among the signatories are, naturally, leading members of the Communist Party, including Mr. Harry Pollitt, Mr. R. Palme Dutt, and Mr. William Gallacher, M.P. Others are trade union officials, present or past members of the Labour Party, officials of the Co-operative movement, etc.

It will be noticed at once that the programme is mostly phrased in general terms, about the only specific item being “deep bomb-proof shelters.” All of the others are items that every member of the present Government could and would support. They declare every day that they are anxious to defend the people’s living standards the war being waged for that purpose and with the aim of securing a “people’s peace that gets rid of the causes of war.”

It is therefore obvious that proclaiming vague aims like these six points tells us nothing. What we want to know is the meaning placed on them and the means by which they are to be attained. In the meantime the signatories, who day by day explain in the Daily Worker why they support the Convention, each give their own interpretation. One sees in it "the destruction of Fascism,” another wants “the conscription of wealth,” another sees in the Convention the means of making the transport industry efficient. Others want no more “appeasement” in foreign policy, action to deal with rising prices, and bigger old-age pensions. The one thing they all agree about is, in the words of Mr. Pritt, K.C., that the movement "is winning the support of people of various parties and of no party at all ” (Daily Worker, October 21st, 1940).

The Trades Union Congress is opposed to the movement on the ground that it is a new Communist Party manoeuvre and that its people’s government is to be one “in which apparently neither the trade unions nor the Labour Party had any part ” (Manchester Guardian, November 18th, 1940).

Incompatible Aims

It will be seen that this "new movement” has not been unwilling to use the familiar old method by which other reformist bodies like the Labour Party and I.L.P. were built up. By drafting its aims in terms which are capable of various interpretations and will cover all kinds of piecemeal demands for reform, the movement hopes to bring together numerous small bodies of discontented people and thus give the appearance of a great united body, driving towards one common aim. Mr. D. N Pritt, K.C., one of the signatories, has promptly made such a claim. He declared in a speech at Newcastle (Manchester Guardian, November 18th, 1940) that "the aim of the People’s Convention was a working-class government pledged to establish a Socialist State and which would eliminate the causes of war.” In spite of Mr. Pritt’s belief there is nothing whatever in the six points committing those who support it to the establishment of Socialism.

Other criticisms present themselves. The movement is to seek the overthrow of Fascism, and also friendship with the Soviet Union which is closely bound in friendship to Nazi Germany!

The movement wants to overthrow the present Government, including its Labour Party members, and is already at loggerheads with the T.U.C. Yet the T.U.C. and Labour Party have declared themselves to be wholeheartedly in favour of all the points.

And what is to be the composition of a “people’s government, truly representative of the whole people”? No names are given, but early in 1939, when the Communist Party was likewise demanding a truly representative cabinet, the three names they mentioned were Winston Churchill, Attlee and Sir A. Sinclair. All three are now in the Government.

What about war? For the first month or so after the war broke out, the Communist Party, in line with its pre-war policy, was proclaiming the necessity of waging war on Germany as the only means of safeguarding democracy and the workers' standard of living.

An Echo of 1917

The new People’s Convention is, of course, an echo—and a faint echo at that—of something which took place on June 3rd, 1917—the so-called Leeds Convention. A similar Convention, called by the same type of person and organisation, met to form workers' and soldiers’ councils, and to "hail the Russian Revolution and organise the British democracy.” It was to begin “a new era of democratic power in Great Britain.” It passed flamboyant resolutions, proclaimed the beginning of a great movement which would sweep away the Government and the war, and after frightening a number of Tories who took it seriously, it just faded out. Historians of the period now barely mention it, and Mr. G. D. H. Cole, although he claims that it set the anti-war movement definitely on foot, has to add "though many of those who took part in it had no really revolutionary intention.” (“A Short History of the British Working-Class Movement,” Vol. Ill, Page 123.) Looking back, and recalling that among the prime movers of the Leeds Convention of 1917 were Ramsay MacDonald, Philip Snowden and H. Alexander, it will not be difficult to understand why the Convention counted for nothing and gave no help to the movement towards Socialism.

The present movement is, of course, an admission that the Communist Party recognises its utter failure to catch the support of “people of various parties and of no party at all” for its own programme, just as the Leeds Convention was a sign of the failure of the MacDonald I.L.P. group to do so in 1917.

The only noticeable difference is that the demands made by the Leeds group in 1917 were far too bold in appearance to suit the organisers of the present movement, so the revival of the political "co-optimists” is on a much censored and toned-down programme. Thus do the “left- wing” groups reach ever lower levels, so that MacDonald-Snowden, low as their political understanding was, appear to tower by comparison with Pollitt and Gallacher.

 Edgar Hardcastle

More about Trotsky (1964)

Book Review from the July 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Prophet Outcast, by Isaac Deutscher, Oxford University Press, 45s.

This is the last of the three volumes of Deutscher's magnum opus -  the biography of his hero Leon Trotsky.

It is not likely that many members of the working class of our affluent society will be able to afford to buy it. Nor, in truth, is a great deal of its bulk (nearly 500 pages) worth ploughing through. Much of its value is of a rather negative kind, demonstrating the type of thought and action we should avoid. And, willy nilly, the author tells us at least as much about his own mental processes as a "trotskyist" (the inverted commas are essential; one is no surer at the end than at the beginning what kind of an animal a trotskyist is) as about the career of his subject.

The book takes us from the banishment of Trotsky from Russia by Stalin in 1929 to his butchery (the phrase is literal enough; the end was achieved with an ice-axe) by a Stalinist thug in 1940. It consists of a record of his life in the various countries of his refuge (Turkey, Norway, France and Mexico) and of his personal and family hardships and tragedies, which were indeed many and moving. At the same time, it recounts the story of his political and action during those eventful years. It is, of course, with these that we are mainly concerned here.

Immediately, we are up against the negative aspect of the whole Trotsky saga. The first thing any student of politics would like to know is: what was the real difference that divided the hero of this book from the villain? What profound principle formed the basis of the murderous feud between these two men, both of whom called themselves communists? Well, here is one reviewer at least who is no wiser now that when he started.

On the contrary, time and again we find that on issues which appear to be really burning matters like the forced collectivisation of the peasants, for example, fierce invective against Stalin for doing the opposite of what Trotsky in exile advocated, is followed by bitter criticism of Stalin for in due course altering his tactics and doing the very thing that Trotsky advocated. As usual among politicians this leads not to gratification but to sour frustration and accusations of stealing clothing (or thunder, as the case may be).

How familiar all this is to us in England; and how excruciatingly boring. How often have we heard the Labour Party moan that all its best policies are pinched by the wicked Tories? It never seems to occur to them that either way the masses they are supposed to represent are going to get the "benefit" of the policies they claim will be so good for them. Nowhere in this book do we get the slightest hint that either Trotsky himself, or Deutscher, or any other of the characters that flit across the pages has the faintest realisation that there must be something odd about their policies if a monster like Stalin can adopt them, even tardily. And, above all, if the result of this adoption left all the evils of capitalist society as prevalent in Russia as they could be.

Trotsky was undoubtedly a man of considerable intellectual capacity. The author proudly tells us at the end that a postmortem on his hero's brain necessitated by the murderous smashing of his skull, revealed a brain weighing two pounds and thirteen ounces, which is apparently very much larger than normal. His ability is revealed all through the book in copious quotations from his writings. And it is impossible to dispute the fact that Deutscher, too, has a brain of some weight. But what does all this amount to? For practical purposes, it all adds up to nothing of any moment at all.

One searches in vain for some sort of focus to find out what all the fire and fury was about. In all the thousands of words not a word to tell us what is this "communism" that the two great protagonists were supposed to be fighting about. On the contrary, it is made abundantly clear that both sides agreed that State capitalism was Socialism. And Deutscher makes no secret of the fact that he, too, is satisfied to swallow and indeed to propagate this flagrant contradiction.

On page 55, for example, he makes it clear that he agrees with Trotsky that the working class in Russia cannot be exploited because there is no class which owns the means of production. He apparently does not even begin to see the truth of the matter which is that the Russian worker has to get up to the sound of a similar alarm clock as wakes his British counterpart, and do his stint by the day or the week for a wage which will enable him to keep himself and his family until the next wage comes along. That his only choice is to do that or starve. And that, as the fruits of his labour are removed from him in the same way as they are here, then someone must be enjoying the fruits of that exploitation.

Instead, Deutscher blinds himself with talk about power being in the hands of the proletariat—without, of course, a tittle of evidence to show that this is anything other than a grotesque fraud and that the proletariat in Russia is as powerless as in England; more so in fact, since it has not even the power of a free vote in a semblance of a democracy.

It is as a result of such a basic misconception that we get episodes which are merely farcical, but to Deutscher are intensely puzzling—such as the difference between groups of Trotskyists as to whether they should support Russia or China over the possession of the Manchurian Railway. Or, still more breathtaking, the spectacle of Trotsky supporting the treacherous grabbing by Stalin (by arrangement with Hitler) of Eastern Poland and the Baltic States because the local capitalists were thereby expropriated. It never seems to occur to these intellects that whenever the workers of such countries get a chance to show what they think of their "improved" position as a result of such happenings, they vote with their feet by the hundred thousand so that the communists have to build walls and barbed wire fences to keep the faithless ones in their compulsory heaven.

Running through this book like a grisly thread is the story of the terrible purges which Stalin was perpetrating in this period, and which indeed went on long after Trotsky's death. Trotsky's friends and his children were, of course, among the prominent victims of this appalling holocaust and it is impossible not to feel profoundly moved by his sufferings, even though one is ever conscious of the fact that the basic philosophy of it all, the reign of terror and the slogan that "the end justifies the means," was born of the basic flaw which we exposed right back in 1917—namely, the theory that a small clique of elite communists can capture power for the purpose of giving Socialism to a non-socialist working class. Trotsky himself was one of the arch-perpetrators of the Bolshevik reign of terror and he himself must have been haunted by the ghosts of those who he had sent to their doom.

The purge trials, in which Stalin staged the judicial murder of all the famous old bolsheviks he could lay his hands on, may seem like a dim and distant history to most people, but some of the names in the book make one realise that it is all not so long ago and that there are still people very much with us in England today whose attitude while the murders were actually being committed was to justify them. Trotsky complains bitterly, for example, about the equivocal attitude of Kingsley Martin who was the editor of the New Statesman in those days and who defended the stand taken by the then Labour M.P. and barrister D. N. Pritt, Q.C., the man who appointed himself the apologist-in-chief in this country for Stalin's murders. The former would no doubt like to forget, but Pritt is still being trotted out by the communists here at their rallies and it really is quite eerie to see, as large as life and as brazen as ever, one who insisted that the confessions were genuine of people who are being resuscitated (though not revivified) by Stalin's former accomplice Khrushchev.

But one turns quickly from such people to Deutscher himself. And here we must find room to single out one case which throws a lurid light on the whole dreadful business and on the attitude of Trotskyists and Stalinists alike, the case of Krestinsky, a former Soviet Foreign Minister. This leading Trotskyist did something that apparently nobody else did in all those fearful years; he retracted in open court and in the presence of foreign journalists the confessions that he had made to the secret police. The sensation this made at the time can well be imagined and, of course, this very episode gives the lie to all those apologists who said that the unanimity of the confessions made them beyond reproach. What happened as a result of Krestinsky's avowal that his confessions had been extorted from him by the police? The judge, instead of ordering a full enquiry into all the facts, hurriedly adjourned the proceedings. And next day, after a night in the hands of his tormentors, Krestinsky came back into court and retracted his complaint about extortion.

This one instance threw the whole thing into the open and Krestinsky's heroism was plain for all to see—as well as its tragic futility. But although one does not expect anything from the apologists of the time, what of Deutscher, who would presumably have saluted this gallantry in the part of his fellow-Trotskyist? He refers to Krestinsky's gesture as "feeble." This is written now, long after the revelations of the Khrushchev "secret" speech in which he made it clear that Stalin extracted his confessions by barbaric torture. And to add to the dreadful irony of it all, one reads in a recent issue of the New Statesman an article, by this same Deutscher, in which he mentions that Khrushchev has just "rehabilitated" Krestinsky as innocent of the crimes for which he was hanged and whose confession was the basis of the charges for which Bukharin and Rykov and so many others were hanged with him. Incidentally, this is, we believe, the first case of a prominent Trotskyist leader being exculpated. If the masters of Moscow get round to rehabilitating the arch-enemy Trotsky himself, then our tame communists will really have some words to eat.

L. E. Weidberg

Editorial: The Communists and Beveridge (1943)

Editorial from the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Party is giving its support to the Beveridge scheme, subject to certain amendments. This has, however, not entirely pleased the readers of the Daily Worker. In their issue of December 22, 1942, J. R. Campbell confessed that the attitude of the Communist Party paper "perplexes a number of our readers, who ask us whether this system of benefits represents our ideal of a new world." Campbell answers that it does not represent the ideal, but that the report, "if it becomes law, would be a definite improvement on the existing chaotic muddle in the social services. Why not support it?"

To a reader who asks why not consider instead ways and means of ending the capitalist system, Campbell replies that "he is presenting an unreal alternative."

The gist of the argument is expressed in the following passage from Campbell's article: -

Will we get nearer to Socialism if we stand aside from the struggle around the Report and indulge in Socialist propaganda? On the contrary, we will only reduce our propaganda to impotence. Surely no reader is suggesting that we should organise a campaign to force the Coalition Government to introduce Socialism? Or that we should forget the war and go out on a campaign for the overthrow of the Government, which could only divide the British people, prolong the war, and reduce the chances of Socialism to zero.

One comment on the above is that made by the Manchester Guardian: - "There in a nutshell is the political philosophy of the Fabian, of the once-despised reformist, of every Socialist member of the Labour Party." - (Manchester Guardian, December 24, 1942.)

Also the reader to whom Campbell addressed his question about the war might have recalled that it is not so long ago that the Communist Party was quite ready to call off what it called "an Imperialist war, like the war of 1914." The Daily Worker of October 4, 1939, said :-

We are against the continuance of the war. We demand that negotiations be immediately opened for the establishment of peace in Europe.

And the Communist Party wholly approved the People's Convention demand for the overthrow of the Government and the setting up of a People's Government, which in the words of D. N. Pritt, K.C., M.P., "would know that its first duty to the people was to secure the earliest possible termination of hostilities by a peace that was neither one of conquest nor of capitulation, but a peace that safeguarded the interests of the peoples and enabled them to build a new world without war and economic crises." - ("Forward to a People's Government," published by the People's Convention Committee, D. N. Pritt, page 12.)

An Ancient Russian Custom (1936)

From the December 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Mr. Pritt, K.C., was asked to explain why the prisoners in the recent Russian "Terrorist" trial confessed so readily and abjectly, he thought he had answered the question by saying that the Russians do this sort of thing—it is a characteristic of the Russians. Now we learn that a new batch of 21 prisoners have been arrested in Russia, charged and found guilty of military and economic espionage, distributing Fascist literature, and plotting terrorist acts in company with Trotsky. Reuter's Moscow correspondent states that he was told by M. Litvinov, the Russian Foreign Minister, that the majority of the prisoners "had already confessed to the charges made against them" (Daily Telegraph, November 18th).

The prisoners are not, in this case, Russians, but Germans.

We now await a statement from Mr. Pritt that it is a characteristic of the Germans to confess.

A statement published by the Evening Standard has bearing on this point.

Certainly a Russian trial bears no relation to democratic ideas of justice. But the Bolshevists, wo are cynical in these matters, may point out that German methods of justice differ little from their own. When a Communist, spy, or traitor is tried in Germany the proceedings are secret. No doucments are produced, and, as often as not, the public is informed that the victim has confessed to his alleged misdeeds.—(Evening Standard, November 23rd, 1936.)

Gilmac.