Letter: Capitalist power: economic or political? (1986)

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

Capitalist power: economic or political?

Dear Editors.

The lead editorial in your April 1986 issue. "Lessons of the fall of Marcos” indicates that it is the SPGB that has not learned the lesson from this event.

You state that you "have always argued that it is possible to establish socialism by peaceful democratic means, through the working class organizing into a mass political movement and using existing elective institutions, imperfect as they are from the standpoint of pure democracy" You further state that your "attitude has often been criticized by people who argue that 'no ruling class has ever given up power peacefully' and that the capitalist class will never let the workers use elections to dislodge them but would refuse to accept a socialist electoral victory ".

You state that "recent events in the Philippines which led to the downfall of President Marcos have confirmed this analysis of what is likely to happen when a government enjoying only minority support tries to defy a majority movement". Obviously you draw the lesson from this event that the capitalist class will relinquish power whenever the socialists attain an electoral majority.

Turning the pages of your April issue we find a lengthy article, title "People power", dealing with the fall of Marcos. A photo shows a picture of a huge demonstration with a large sign stating "We won" and your writer s comment "But not for socialism"! This article proves that the ruling class did not give up power! So what is really the lesson to draw from this event? Certainly not the lesson that you drew from it. Your "People's power' article shows that Aquino had the support of the most conservative elements of the immensely Catholic hierarchy, that the US sent Philip Habib to discover what they might expect from Aquino and having got a satisfactory response, decided to cut their losses and run. They advised Marcos to leave with $240,000 in cash and crates containing $1.179.000 in cash. The writer states that Aquino promised more than she can deliver, that much of Philippine industry is owned by American multi-nationals, which have been only too happy to exploit cheap domestic labor. That Marcos supporters still hold crucial positions in the judiciary, civil service and local governments. That two-thirds of Marcos' supporters are in power until 1990 That Generals Entile and Ramos were architects of Marcos martial law but have been incorporated in the new administration. That the Aquino family own one of the world's largest sugar plantations, that her cabinet contains not one single representative of "the people" they are all businessmen and members of the political elite.

Does this indicate that the ruling class gave up power?

Those who argued that no ruling class ever gave up power peacefully simply because the majority voted against them is true. What happened to Allende in Chile? Did the ruling class accept the decision at the ballot box? What lesson did the SPGB draw from that episode?

It was Daniel De Leon who warned that the ruling class will not allow the revolutionary socialist majority to take political power unless the working class were organised with an economic power (Socialist Industrial Unions) that could enforce their decision at the ballot box by taking possession of the industrial establishments of the land and assuming the conduct of the nation's production thereby locking out the capitalist class.

The motivating force in society is economic. The Capitalist class maintains its dominance of society because it owns and controls the industrial facilities of modern society. The only force that can unseat them is a superior economic power. Today the working class runs and operates the industrial facilities of society but are not conscious of their latent power. If the working class is made class conscious and organizes into an economic organization that has as its goal the taking over of the industries they operate, they will have organized a superior economic power to that of the capitalists. If they then constitute a majority at the ballot box they would be organized to take, hold and operate the industries whether or not the ruling class recognizes their political victory.

The "Lessons of the fall of Marcos" confirms that the ruling class did not give up power and that De Leon's warning was correct. The lesson the SPGB must learn from the Fall of Marcos and the fall of Allende is that the socialist ballot must be backed up by an economic force capable of enforcing it.

Fraternally.

Sam Brandon

Riverdale, New York

Reply:

Our correspondent is labouring under a misapprehension. We never said that the change of President in the Philippines was an example of a ruling class giving up power peacefully, and certainly not that it was a "socialist electoral victory" (any more than Allende‘s was). We merely said that it represented a case of, as we put it in a passage Sam Brandon himself quotes, "what is likely to happen when a government enjoying only minority support tries to defy a majority movement".

Such a government cannot hold on to power for any length of time because, to function, any government has to have a minimum of support and acquiescence among the population. When this support turns into active opposition then the government in question cannot continue. This has some relevance to the establishment of socialism to the extent that, faced with the majority wage and salary-earning class organised into a socialist movement, the last government of capitalism will have no choice but to bow out. gracefully or otherwise.

Oddly enough, as far as we can tell. Sam Brandon agrees with us on this point since he. like us. envisages the possibility of an essentially peaceful abolition of capitalism and for the same sort of reason: that if the socialist-minded working class is sufficiently determined and organised (he says at the point of production) then they can force the capitalist class to respect any socialist election victory We didn't say anything different in our editorial on the fall of Marcos when we stated that "what is decisive is not so much the socialist electoral victory as the understanding and the determination to achieve socialism which this would reflect". It is absurd to imagine that all the workers need to do to achieve socialism is to vote for it. Certainly this is not. and never has been, our position. The workers must play an active part in the establishment of socialism for the simple reason that, socialism being a society based on voluntary co-operation, it can only work with majority understanding and participation. 

In other words, it is not the socialist victory at the polls as such that would lead to the last capitalist government relinquishing power but the fact that this victory would be a reflection of the understanding, determination and. naturally, organisation of the vast majority of workers. This organisation for socialism will also extend to the places of work (the existing trade unions will obviously be completely transformed when a majority of their members are conscious, determined socialists) but it will be essentially political.

Sam Brandon cites the example of Allende in Chile. Here he is on very dangerous ground since if he really thinks that Allende was a socialist and that his election as President of Chile in 1970 was a socialist electoral victory, then we would be forced to challenge the extent to which he himself has grasped the meaning of socialism. Allende and his so-called socialist party stood for the establishment of a state capitalist regime in Chile (and did not even have majority support since he only polled 36 per cent of the votes). But we will give Sam Brandon a chance and allow him to withdraw the absurd implication that the coming to power of Allende was an example of a socialist electoral victory not backed up by the "superior economic power" of workers organised in "socialist industrial unions" that he advocates.

Certainly the capitalist class do possess immense economic power which they use to force the working class to work for them on their terms but the question at issue is the source of this power, not its existence or non-existence. In the last days of feudalism and the early days of capitalism this power did derive in large part from the fact that the capitalist entrepreneur did play a key role in the process of production. Organising and trading skills were essential to the economic process and it was this that gave the rising capitalist class a base from which to challenge, on the political field, the power and privileges of the then land-based ruling class.

But once they had won political power it was this, not their economic power, that enabled them to dominate society and reshape social institutions in their interest. The subsequent evolution of capitalism led to the disappearance of the original economic power of the capitalist as an essential element in the process of production. Now, and for a long time, it is paid workers who can and do run industry from top to bottom. The capitalists do indeed still possess immense economic power but this is now entirely a result of the fact that they possess political power.

Capitalist ownership of the means of production no longer rests on the personal role of the capitalist in the productive process, but purely on the fact that (in the West) they possess legal property deeds entitling them to draw a legal property income from the exploitation of the working class. As these legal titles are enforced by the state, capitalist ownership of the means of production is "political" in the sense that it depends entirely on their control of political power (as is immediately obvious in the case of the state capitalist class in Russia and other such countries). Their property titles are merely a licence to exploit wage-labour granted, and enforced, by the state.

That the economic power of the capitalist class now entirely depends on the fact that they control political power has of course important implications for socialist tactics. For it means that the struggle to overthrow the capitalist class must be political, not economic. The "economic power' of the capitalist class cannot be overthrown by organising a general strike to take and hold the means of production because the source of this power is political not economic. In any event, in any trial of economic strength the capitalist class will always be able to win as long as they control political power.

So the working class must aim at gaining control of political power. Once they have done this then the "economic power” of the capitalist class will burst like a bubble. All the revolutionary socialist majority on the political field will have to do to achieve this is to declare all property titles null and void — to revoke the state licences to exploit wage-labour — and that will be that. Of course, at the same time, workers will also need to be organised in their places of work ready to take over and run industry when capitalist ownership has been abolished. So we are talking about the socialist-minded working class being organised both politically and industrially to achieve socialism, but it will be the political organisation and action, not the industrial, that will abolish capitalist power

Daniel De Leon and Sam Brandon have simply got it the wrong way round: the capitalists' economic power depends on their control of political power rather than vice-versa. This is why we have always advocated that, to achieve socialism, the working class should organise itself into a vast political movement whose aim will be to destroy the capitalists' economic power by depriving this of the political backing without which it is today unable to exist.

Editors.

That Blessed Word : Unity ! (1908)

From the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Con)Fusion in America.

A few years ago the question of Socialist unity engaged the attention of the two “Socialist” parties in this country. Votes were taken of the rank and file and large majorities voted in favour of fusion, but as the leaders did not desire fusion they did not allow it to come to pass.

Similarly the cry for “unity” has been raised in America, and again those first in raising the cry have been the smallest of the parties concerned.

As in England a knowledge of the mental make-up of the parties enabled many to see through the fake proposal, so will similar knowledge of the American “fusionists” enable us to value their “unity” cry for what it is worth.

In 1896 the Socialist Labour Party of America declared for the “new” Trade Unionism, and started the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, a union affiliated to the Socialist Labour Party, and out to smash the “pure and simple” trade unions. This caused a “split” in the Socialist Labour Party, a large section leaving and, with the “Social-Democracy” of Eugene V. Debs, forming the Socialist Party of America.

A fight then commenced between the two, most of the fighting being done by the Socialist Labour Party, who long and loudly denounced the prominent members of the latter party— Debs, Carey, Mother Jones, Simons, and so on—as “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers,” while the Party as such was in turns termed the “Multi-cocoa Party,” the “Kangaroos,” in fact, anything but a Socialist party, and no Socialist Labour Party member was allowed on their platform except in opposition.

After some nine years of this fighting, and at the same time attempting to organise the working class in the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, the membership was found to be declining at such a rapid pace that something had to be done.

Mr. F. Bohn, organiser, visiting Chicago, found himself among the “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers” that the S.LP. and the S.T. and L.A. were fighting—Mother Jones and A. M. Simons among them—and without instruction from either the S.L.P. or the S.T. and L.A. (his paymasters), he joined with them in signing a manifesto calling for a new union to be formed. In thus proclaiming the failure of his own union Bohn was supported in the Weekly People by such writers as Olive M. Johnson and Dan. De Leon. The Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance was thus crucified, betrayed by the leaders of the S.L.P. into the hands of the “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers,” and a new union—the Industrial Workers of the World—was formed. This new union, having for its object the organising of the workers to “take and hold” what they produce, enrolled a large membership, including men of all shades of political thought and of none. Those who had been “freaks” and “fakers” now became honest and earnest comrades on the economic field ; and to hide political differences politics were relegated to the rear, economic organisation and action being given the place of prime importance, and Mr. De Leon, editor of the American Weekly People, “discovered” that Marx had in 1869, said somewhere, sometime, to some one, that “only the economic organisation could set on foot the true political .party of Labour.”

Did Mr. De Leon know this before he helped to form the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, and before he joined the Socialist Labour Party, or is it now that he is wangling ? As there is no evidence that Marx ever made such a statement, I beg to answer the latter question in the affirmative.

But in case Marx is not sufficient, Engels is dragged in, and one need not be surprised if at any time we are told that Christ talked Industrial Unionism in the Sermon on the Mount, or that even if he did not, what he did say may be “adapted to American conditions.”

When, as a result of capitalist persecution, W. D. Haywood had become the momentary idol of thousands of American workmen, and, while still in prison, was nominated by the Socialist Party as candidate for Governorship, the S.L.P. found itself in a dilemma. Haywood was member and nominee of the “rotten” Socialist Party —yet he was a member of the pure I.W.W. According to the S.L.P. rules they could not support him, but could they risk opposing the popular Haywood ? Eventually the Colorado State Executive decided to call upon every member of the S.L.P. in Colorado to withdraw from the Party until after the election, so that they could vote for Haywood ! This remarkable wangle was supported by O. M. Johnson and Mr. De Leon, and we were told the S.L.P. refused to oppose Haywood politically because they were supporting his “economic side” !

On his release from prison, however, Haywood toured America for the Socialist Party. This roused the ire of the S.L.P., who then denounced him as a coward and a craven.

Meanwhile the I.W.W., which for a time had proved a happy hunting-ground for S.L.P. literature sellers, had had a serious split. Most of its original founders had left it. E. V. Debs, had joined the staff of the Appeal to Reason, an anti-I.W.W. paper, and those who were left were largely inclined towards the Socialist Party. This not suiting the “fighting” S.L.P., who, not content with fighting the “cravens” like Haywood, outside, and the “physical force-ists” like Williams, inside, wanted a new excuse for a declaration of war on the Socialist Party, up went the cry for Socialist “unity.”

The E.C. of the S.L.P. invited the Socialist Party to consider proposals with a view to fusion, knowing they would be rejected. They were rejected, and now the S.L.P. can forget the fond embraces indulged in with the “freaks,” “frauds,” and “fakers” at the funeral of the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance, and clears the decks anew for hostilities.

Had the “unity” proposals been accepted bj the Socialist Party and a juncture fixed up, splits would, of course, immediately have followed; but the chance would have been taken. and the S.L.P. would have been scuttled and swallowed up in a new party, with the consent and approval of its friends, as was the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance in 1905.

In either case it was a wangle on the part of the S.L.P. leaders, a case of heads I win, tails you lose, but the Socialist Party leaders declined to enter the game.

It will thus be seen that, as in Britain, so in America, the “fusion” trick is but a move in the long game practised by faction leaders at the expense of the principles they are supposed to be advocating. It is therefore, up to the rank and file, as the Americans would say, to checkmate the players, to overthrow the “leaders,” the “intellectuals,” to act on the truly Marxian dictum that “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself.” When they will place principles above personalities, and understand the difference between capitalist reform and social revolution, they will find there is but one party for them. Here it is The Socialist Party of Great Britain ; in America it has yet to be born.

A. W. Pearson

American Parties and the Unity Question. (1908)

From the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The article under this heading appearing in the last issue is simply the expression of the opinion of the writer alone and must not be taken to imply that the S.P.G.B. has in any respect changed its open and avowed hostility to Mr. DeLeon and the American and English S.L.P.

Only a socialist working class can replace capitalism (1994)

From issue 11 of the World Socialist Review

The concept of an industrial union implies a condition of wage-slavery. When workers organize in unions, they are carrying out a defensive strategy—exerting pressure on their employers (the owners of capital) to increase wages and improve working conditions. By doing this they hope to counteract the continuous tendency on the part of the capitalist class to keep wages down. Employers want to maximize profits, and the way they do that is to exploit the working class as much as possible. Employers deploy a battery of pressures to keep wages down (and profits high)—pressures ranging all the way from lockouts to death squads—that workers resist by organizing into unions.

Unions—a tool of resistance

Before capitalism trade unions did not exist. No one had ever heard of one, and no one had ever formed one. Artisans had formed guilds to regulate standards (although they also wanted to keep out unwanted competition); peasants and slaves had risen up in insurrectionat intervals. But only wage-laborers, those possessing nothing but their own working abilities, could experiment doggedly with what the bourgeoisie once liked to style “combinations against trade” until they had fashioned a tool of resistance to use against the owners of capital.

Wage-earners have in principle no other means of survival than selling their working abilities to some employer for a wage or salary—no means, at least, recognized by what passes for economic “science.” This alone suffices to make employment slavery; but the whole reason for employing anyone is that, by reducing the bulk of the population to depending for its survival on employment, capital can accumulate itself by maximizing the difference between wages and the total value of the product reaching the market (surplus value or profit). [1]

Empirically speaking, people are compelled to pay to stay alive via this system of legalized robbery. Most people have considerable difficulty obtaining the money to pay with. Only in this context do unions (trade or industrial) make sense. The very notion of a union assumes a condition of wage-slavery—of employment—whether or not the union itself aims to eliminate production for profit.

The only “mission” of unions is to improve the conditions of wage-slavery within the capitalist system. To accomplish this, unions need only be anti-capital. Nothing requires them to be anti-capitalist; and ordinarily they aren’t. Workers may be anti-employer some or all of the time—but the most compelling argument for unions is that they enable workers to sell their labor-power on the market at its value. One way or the other, unions promote employment (which, again, is slavery). In system terms, they favor the continuation of a system that requires poverty to be the lot of the majority. Daniel De Leon’s notion that “the mission ofUnionism is to organize and drill the Working Class for final victory” [2] in the class struggle between workers and capitalists has little basis in history and no basis in fact.

Economic organization

Resistance to capital, furthermore, can take innumerable forms that don’t need to originate in the workplace. It can appear as political action, as social protest or as some combination of the two. While these are in the main reformist initiatives intended merely to improve the functioning of a bad system, they foreshadow the growing importance political action will assume as the number of socialist workers grows worldwide. If anything, the role of unions in the class struggles of late capitalism faces an uncertain future. As the “economic organization of the working class,” they do not bid fair to “organize and drill” it for anything but short-term resistance.

The need for unions implies the poverty of a class-divided society; their persistence into a classless society is in any case unlikely, since common ownership is grounded in free access to abundantly available goods and services. What differentiates socialism from capitalism is precisely that no one can conveniently “accumulate” the usefulness of goods and services, and no one can be denied the use of what they need. Abundance cannot coexist (as a basis for organizing society) with employment and poverty—with exploitation, the very condition whose intensification, at the dawn of capitalism, gave rise to the need for unions in the first place. A world of abundance will require no defense against exploitation. (Unions might very well on the other hand—after the revolution—serve as a good point of departure for organizing the production and distribution of wealth.)

Reorganizing production

The free associations of workers that under socialism will replace capitalism’s companies and enterprises (as we know them today) will take forms that must remain hidden from our eyes even at this late date; for the working class as a whole has yet to put the same originality into experimenting with ways of reorganizing production as it had earlier demonstrated in learning to resist capital—transforming the wild, inchoate rebellion of individuals into a socialized, organized resistance. Not until such experimenting has reached a fairly advanced stage on a fairly large scale will we be able to make intelligent guesses as to how society may organize the production and distribution of wealth after capitalism. Such experiments (under capitalism) could even, to take a hypothetical instance, assume the form of organized labor “taking and holding” the function of capital investment in a reactionary effort to save the system from revolution.

Without faulting De Leon’s Marxism, his “socialist” industrial unions seem more explicitly designed to fit into this hypothetically described scenario than to cultivate a socialist majority determined to replace capitalism entirely with common ownership and democratic control of the means of production by the whole of society. His theory does not give workers an adequate basis for uniting to cast off the chains of wage-slavery. 

[1] Workers who don’t actually produce wealth—and these are in the majority nowadays—have the dubious privilege of suffering their employers to preserve the surplus value the latter have scooped up at the point of sale. The same pressure tactics work just as well, and for the same reason: cheaper workers mean a higher return on invested capital.

[2] Preamble to the Industrial Workers of the World.

The S.L.P. of America again. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Weekly People” (New York) returns in its issue of October 16th to the controversy which has been carried on recently in its pages and those of the Socialist Standard. Things are in a bad way, however, with the “Weekly People,” as is evidenced by the fact that it is forced to strain every nerve to keep its readers amused in order to hide the fact that it has nothing more to contribute to the discussion. It is humour of the first water, of course, to depict the “S.S.” as a band indulging “itself in the spoil of furnishing the ‘music'” which it told the Socialist Labour Party of America it would have to face sooner or later. That humour, however, is only the grimaces our antagonist is indulging in in the hope of detracting attention from the sorry figure it is dancing to the music supplied.

It may be remembered that in our September issue we took from the S.L.P. “Address to the Affiliated Parties of the International Socialist Bureau,” the following :

“Besides, we believe that after the war is over the political conditions will be so adjusted as to compel the European comrades to give their undivided attention to the question of industrial unionism.”

and that we adduced this as disproving our opponents’ claim that their Address made “NO attempt to keep the workers from turning their eyes to class-conscious political action.” Of course, they don’t like to have this brought up against them. This unfortunate utterance, which arises out of their rock-bottom contempt for SOCIALIST political action, they think we should have been blind to. That it appeared in an Address issued by the Executive of the S.L.P. to the International Movement is nothing. It should be ignored, regarded as a meaningless vapouring—or if it was referred to at all it should have been accompanied by its context with special annotation making clear that, though the authors of the Address said in this place that they thought that after the war the European comrades would have to abandon political action (“give their undivided attention to the question of industrial unionism”), other parts of their Address indicated that they didn’t think anything of the kind. If we had only done that we should have produced harmony that our opponents would have been delighted to dance to. Also it would have saved them the trouble of playing that dreamy waltz themselves.

For this is all they have been able to achieve. The statement in the Address that its authors thought that after the war political conditions will be so adjusted as to compel the European comrades to give their undivided attention to the question of industrial unionism is plain enough for anything. How this is to come about might, be open to astonishing explanation, it is true, but no explanation that does not demolish the statement can affect its definite pronouncement that its authors think that after the war the European comrades would be compelled to give their UNDIVIDED attention to the question of industrial unionism. The statement does not depend on its context. To insist on the context is simply to whine to be allowed to drop the statement out.

Now it is clear that the same adjustment of “political conditions” that the S.L.P. Executive conceive of as compelling “the European comrades to give their UNDIVIDED attention to the question of industrial unionism” must perforce compel them to cease bestowing any of that attention upon political action. No appeal to the “context” can alter this fact, nor can any sarcastic references to “ingenious logic-choppers who are more concerned with the twisting awry of words and the fitting together of phrases to a syllogistic subtlety than they are in gathering the meaning or extracting the essence of an argument or declaration.” There is a rich roll in all that, but it is so familiar. The illogical cornered usually raise the cry, “logic-choppers.” But if there is any other “meaning or essence” in the declaration than that which we have found, why do not our opponents “extract” it for us ?

They do not because at the very bottom they do not believe in the vital necessity for political action. In spite of the reiteration of the demands for political organisation this note of disbelief in the essential need for political action runs through the Address. The vagueness of this document makes it difficult to illustrate this by extracts (which also have the disadvantage of leaving behind a “context”), but the atmosphere of the Address has been translated in an answer to a correspondent in the “Weekly People” of Sept. 4th, in which it is said :

“If the Socialist forces of Europe had been industrially organised, and when we say “industrially organised” we mean revolutionarily industrially organised, they could with their present numbers, have PREVENTED THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR.”

There it is, plain enough. In spite of the fact that the S.L.P. recognises that the “European comrades” are “so enmeshed in bourgeois politics” that they have lost sight of Socialism—in other words, they are politically rotten—yet there is no single word in the reply to their correspondent to indicate that that political rottenness is even a factor in the failure of the International in the face of the crisis of August 1914. This contempt for the political weapon, prevailing in the Address, belies all our opponents’ mouthings about being “committed to class-conscious political action.”

The fact is the S.L.P. have not grasped the true aim of Socialist political action—the real value of the political weapon. De Leon never grasped them, and those who still preach his absurdities, being mentally bound by the legacy of shallow thought he bestowed upon them, have no glimmering conception of the true function of the political weapon in Socialist hands.

On the 10th July, 1905, Daniel De Leon delivered an address at Union Temple, Minneapolis, Minnesota. This address was published by the Socialist Labour Party of America under the title : “The Preamble of the Industrial Workers of the World.” On pp. 36-7 of that publication De Leon is reported as saying :

“The bourgeois shell in which the Social Revolution must partly shape its course dictates the setting up of a body that shall contest the possession of the political Robber Burg by the Capitalist Class. The reason for such initial tactics also dictates their ultimate goal—THE RAZING WITH THE GROUND THE ROBBER BURG OF CAPITALIST TYRANNY. The shops, the yards, the mills, in short, the mechanical establishments of production, now in the hands of the Capitalist Class—they are all to be “taken,” not for the purpose of being destroyed, but for the purpose of being “held”; . . . It is exactly the reverse with the “political power.” That is to be taken for the purpose of ABOLISHING IT. . . . Suppose that at some election the class-conscious political arm of Labor were to sweep the field ; suppose the sweeping were done in such a land-slide fashion that . . from President down to Congress and the rest of the political redoubts of the capitalist political Robber Burg, our candidates were installed ;—suppose that, what would there be for them to do ? What should there be for them to do ? Simply TO ADJOURN THEMSELVES, ON THE SPOT, SINE DIE.”

That is the conception De Leon had of the end of political conquest. His idea of “razing with the ground the robber burg of capitalist tyranny” was simply to capture the machinery of Government and instantly abandon it. His idea of a political organisation was a body so hide-bound that it could have no consciousness outside politics. It could not know that its economic counterpart purposed “taking and holding” the “plants of production and distribution,” therefore it could not continue to hold the “robber burg of capitalist tyranny,” in order that it might control the armed forces that the capitalists have provided against any attempt to take and hold their property. No, that (says De Leon) would be usurpation.” The elected representatives could only “adjourn themselves sine die.” They could not even stop to take away the policeman’s baton and disband the armed forces to make things easier for the economic arm in its task of taking and holding.

Where such a conception as this exists of the political triumph how can there be any fundamental belief in the essential necessity for political action or any respect for it ? If the political triumph means no more than the capture of the enemy’s guns and the immediate abandonment of them to the enemy again, then we also should say to blazes with political effort. If the political triumph would still leave the armed forces and other instruments of oppression in the capitalist control, then we also might pass as near enough the S.L.P. dictum that the “economic organisation [is] . . . the only conceivable force with which to back up the ballot”—which wouldn’t then be worth backing up. If nothing more was to be gained by political conquest than the S.L.P. imagine, then we should have to find a sole reason for political endeavour in De Leon’s ingenious argument that the institution of the suffrage “is so bred in the bones of the people that . . . chimerical is the idea of expecting to conduct a great Movement, whose palpable aim is a Socialist Revolution, to the slogan of ‘Abstinence from the Ballot-box.’ ”

But we have other views regarding the political weapon—views which prevent us from harbouring even a thought of such shallow and cynical expediency, the mere expression of which reveals a contempt for the true function of Socialist political action which give the lie to our opponents’ claim to political integrity.

But there is more music to come on this phase of the discussion. The report of the First Convention of the Industrial Workers of the World quotes (p. 226) De Leon as saying :

“The situation in America . . . establishes the fact that the “taking and the holding” of the things that labor needs to be free can never depend upon a political party. (Applause.) If anything is clear in the American situation it is this : That if any individual is elected to office upon a revolutionary ballot, that individual is a suspicious character. (Applause.) Whoever is returned elected on a program of labour emancipation ; whoever is allowed to be filtered through by the political inspectors of the capitalist class ;—that man is a carefully selected tool, a traitor to the working people, selected by the capitalist class. (Applause.)”

These well-applauded but dismal sentiments lead to the logical conclusion that political endeavour is futile. Surely, in face of such a hopeless situation the only sensible thing to do is to foreclose on the political organisation and have done with it. Any talk of dismantling the capitalist “political Robber Burg,” if this is the position, is sheer rainbow-chewing. It does, however, throw an illuminating ray over that passage we are accused of having torn from its context, and justifies our reading of it. For if, as the S.L.P. Address tells us, the “country that is more developed industrially [America] only shows to the less developed the image of its own future,” then when, the political situation described by De Leon as existing in America, develops in Europe, the “European comrades” will probably be forced into the non-political lines of action prophesied for them by the S.L.P. That, however, only substantiates what we said that the Address was a deliberate attempt to prevent the workers from turning their eyes to class-conscious political action.

Now for another point. We challenged our opponents upon their implication that the action of those who “have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have lost sight of the ultimate goal of the Socialist Movement can be Socialist action. “Ha,” laughs the “Weekly People,” “how the challenge rings . . . calling upon us to prove—if we maintain it—that the action of those” and so on. If they maintain it ! What caution ! To confirm our view of the matter we quote the Address as follows :

“We recognise the fact that the Socialists of Europe have been confronted with many problems which had to be solved before the real issue, Socialism versus Capitalism, could be decided. These problems have been largely of a political nature Politically, Europe as a whole is far behind the United States. Here the issue is clip and clear, Socialism versus full-grown Capitalism. Not so in Europe. There large remnants of feudalism remained, blocking the path of Socialist revolutionary progress, and the attention of the European, comrades has therefore been given almost exclusively to these problems, with the result that they have become so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have apparently lost sight, for the moment at least, of the ultimate goal of the Socialist movement.”

And now this from the “Weekly People” of  Dec. 12, 1908 :

“The enlightened conduct of the German Social Democracy will be misunderstood only by the pure and simple Socialist politician of America, for the identical reason that the German Social Democracy deserves applause for temporarily suspending its Socialist work and assisting the bourgeois Radicals, such a policy in America deserves condemnation, As an applauder of the German Social Democracy, the S.L.P. of America rejects, for America, the tactics that German conditions demand.”

The S.L.P., then, applauded those tactics of the German Social Democratic Party which led to the latter “becoming so enmeshed in bourgeois politics that they have apparently lost sight, for the moment at least, of the ultimate goal of the Socialist movement.” They praised that “enlightened conduct” which culminated in the vote of credit for the war. In face of that endorsement of action which has had so sad a result one might expect a little caution in replying to the question whether the actions of such people can be Socialist action. If they maintain it, indeed ! Let them deny that they maintain, it and they are up a tree ; let them admit it and they concede the point.

And we are here up against the whole crux of the matter, which is that it is this building of the political organisation on an unsound basis and with unsound material, the following of that corrupt and rotten path of political opportunism so vigorously applauded by the S.L.P., which is responsible for the failure of the International in the present crisis (and that failure is not that it did not prevent the war [which was beyond its power in any event], but that it did not maintain the Socialist position).

As we have said, it was in order to hide this result of the political obscurantism they had applauded, and to turn the workers from the political means to industrial unionism that the S.L.P. Address was issued. It is clear that the S.L.P. could hardly denounce conduct they had themselves applauded—and practised. In 1907 the mine-owners in Goldfield issued scrip, and demanded that their wage-workers should accept it as payment for wages. This led the “Weekly People” (Dec. 21, 1907) to issue a touching, cap-in-hand “Open Letter” to the “Robber Burg of capitalist tyranny” in America (Congress) identifying the interest of the occupants of that “Robber Burg” and the workers in the following words :

“An issue has arisen in which Labor and intelligent Capital, Capitalists (if intelligent) and Socialists alike have a common cause—THE CAUSE OF AVERTING SOCIAL CALAMITY.”

That is how they “reject, for America, the tactics German conditions demand.”

Now then, let us see where this brings us out. The so-called Socialists of Germany, the so-called Socialists of France, the so-called Socialists of Britain, have all acted under the same specious plea as the S.L.P. The threat of the “foreign foe” was in their idea a threat of “social calamity,” and like the S.L.P., they made “common cause” with the capitalists to avert it. Thus the American pseudo-Socialists who say that the “capitalists and the Socialists alike have a common cause—the cause of averting social calamity,” and the pseudo-Socialists of Europe who say (as the German “Socialists” are reported to have told their Belgian comrades at the Maison du Peuple in Brussels) “as the development of the proletariat was bound up with the development and economic prosperity of the nation, German Socialists were bound to side with the Government,” are tarred with the same brush, and may be feathered with the same feathers.

Which is why the S.L.P. still claim that those in Europe who have lost sight of Socialism are “still the Socialist movement of Europe.”

There are one or two other points in our opponents’ latest screed which may be dealt with at a future date ; but meanwhile, would the S.L.P. spokesman like to confirm and explain that champion idiocy propounded in the Address—that industrial unionism is the embryo, the undeveloped fcrm of future society ? Or has he not the courage ?

A. E. Jacomb

Editorial: The Passing of De Leon. (1914)

Editorial from the June 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The death of Daniel De Leon in America recalls the controversy over so-called Direct Action by the working class. Joining the S.L.P. when it was nominally, as well as actually, a reform party, De Leon also affiliated with the corrupt Knights of Labour, and as a result of the secession of some elements the Socialist Trades and Labour Alliance was formed to act in co-operation with the S.L.P. But a union of opposing elements could not succeed. In spite of the claim that by economic unity political unity would also be established, a split soon took place, and the Socialist (!) Party of America was formed.

In 1905 “Industrial Unity” was again the cry, and once more it was urged that by uniting economically, political harmony would be secured.

De Leon, Debs and other political enemies came together in the I.W.W., which taught that Industrial Unionism would establish Socialism. Politics was but a reflex or an afterthought, so to speak. Anarchists as well as “Socialists”, reformers as well as others, came together in the Industrial Workers of the World. Some of them believed in politics, while others did not.

Such fictitious unity could not last, and soon it was found that, instead of uniting, it made those it embraced more divided than ever. It was not long before Debs and his “Socialist” Party friends were outside the I.W.W. Soon arose the question of what Industrial Unionism meant, some contending that politics were unnecessary and others that they might be useful, and so on.

The arrival of Wm. Haywood from jail soon caused a split among the unity-hunters of the I.W.W., and we were faced with two I.W.W.’s – one forced to give some vague recognition of the value of political action, and the other, embracing Haywood, Bohn, Ettor and Giovannitti, yearning for sabotage, physical force, and such moonshine.

The closing years of De Leon’s life were practically a sea of troubles on this “industrial action” question. One after another his lieutenants went over to the so-called Socialist party, or to the rival I.W.W. Frank Bohn, James Connolly, Trautmann (who has now come home to the I.W.W. fold), and even his own son, Solon De Leon, making tracks for that ark of confusion, the S.P. of A.

Verily the Industrialist rubbish spelt Nemesis for the S.L.P.

There is a lesson for the workers on this side of the Atlantic to leave the suicidal policy of Industrial Unionism severely alone.

Correspondence: The S.L.P. And the S.P.G.B. (1906)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gents.,—It is a fitting finish to the two years and more of cowards’ silence that a feeble, unsigned attempt has been made to explain the differences between the S.L.P. and the S.P. Anyone of average intelligence can easily see that the writer defeats his own object. To give a detailed history of the London “Impossiblists,” and to correct Mr. Jack Fitzgerald’s fables in full I should require an issue or more of your paper, therefore I shall simply point where he has mis-stated the truth, and, if my Party (the S.L.P.) are disposed to re-open the matter, I shall go fully into the matter in the columns of our Party Organ (The Socialist). If your readers obtain a copy of our paper for July, 1906, they will find therein a reply to some questions of Comrade E. J. B. Allen, a reply to some of the fiction circulated by Mr. Fitzgerald and others. There were several members of the S.D.F. in London who corresponded with our Scotch comrades ; and as the so-called London section was unorganised it would be interesting to know who gave Mr. Fitzgerald power to act as correspondent. Granted that Fitzgerald was asked, or took upon himself the task, of writing to London men to turn up to the joint Conference at “Cock and Hoop,” on Easter Sunday, 1903, that had nothing to do with his supposed official correspondence with our Scotch comrades after Friedberg had left this country. The London section (so-called) did not suggest that Anderson and MacGregor be invited to that Conference, and I don’t imagine for one minute that Anderson would have showed his face there if such an arrangement had been made. Fitzgerald and McNicol were not asked to tell Comrade Geis he was not wanted, and ask him not to turn up to Conference. But there, I see that Mr. Fitzgerald has forgotten to mention that fact. I might state here for the benefit of your readers that I was Chairman of that Meeting, and also elected Secretary of the London Section that really came into being in an organised manner that night, therefore I am competent to know what took place. Yates did not state “that they had been building up a new party during the last two years.” What Yates did say was “that they had built up an organised section during the last two years, consequently they had the necessary organisation to form a new party when necessary, and after the 1903 S.D.F. Conference that was the only thing they could do.” Elrick who also spoke said “that no self-respecting man could remain any longer in the S.D.F. He was in favour of a London Party affiliated to a Scotch Party.” Yates said he “did not want merely a Scotch Party but a party covering England, Scotland and Wales.” L. Cotton of Oxford also spoke for formation of a new party covering Great Britain and said we should not succeed as mere local societies. Matheson did the same. If Fitzgerald really believed the fables of Alexander Anderson why did he not bring the so-called charges against the Scotch section forward at that meeting. There was plenty of time after he had returned from seeing Matheson and Yates off at St. Pancras, and if necessary, we could have arranged for a meeting on Easter Monday. No ! Fitzgerald preferred to wait until the Scotch Delegates had returned before spreading his charges that have never been proved. His fable about De Leon and his actions at the Amsterdam Conference was refuted before De Leon came to London, and he could have put the question to De Leon at that meeting if he desired, but somehow he did not desire that. My information re De Leon and his credentials came from De Leon himself when I put to him the tale that I had heard from Elrick and that was being circulated among members of your Party. I believe that De Leon also dealt with the yarn in the “Post Box” of the Weekly People, but as I have lent my back copies of that paper I cannot say definitely. In conclusion I would point out one can prove anything by merely taking certain sentences out of a man’s speeches or writings. Mr. Fitzgerald has done this in his anonymous article (A Statement of Differences) and while it proves him to be a tricky debater it does not say much for his honesty of purpose.

—Yours etc.,

W. S. Jerman

Reply:

[We are sorry Mr. Jerman has preferred to prejudice his criticism of our article by an exhibition of bad manners that may well be taken as evidence of an ignorance—deplorable in a correspondent of the mere decencies of discussion. A case is not improved by random and entirely unsubstantiated charges of cowardice and deliberate misrepresentation; nor is it benefited by the laboured irony of, for example, the suggestion that to anyone of average intelligence, our article defeats its own object. Mr. Jerman, of course, does not himself believe that or he would not have been at such pains to endeavour to defeat what had already been defeated. Irony is a two-edged weapon which may only be handled by the literary tyro at the imminent risk of damage to himself.

That Mr. Jerman is a tyro is clear from the fact that he does not understand that unsigned articles are always editorial. The article in question is from the E.C. of the S.P.G.B., not, as Mr. Jerman so hastily concludes, from our Comrade Fitzgerald writing anonymously.

As, however, Mr. Jerman’s letter largely consists of personal references to Fitzgerald, we have asked our comrade for his comments upon the points raised and append his notes. To those notes we have nothing to add except, in all friendliness, to suggest to Mr. Jerman the advisability of seriously endeavouring to free himself from the limitations of a vocabulary and the heavy handicap of a literary style which are not better but worse for having been imported from America and imperfectively transmitted to us through a sadly defective Scottish gramaphone.—ED.]

A careful comparison of Mr. Jermau’s letter with the article mentioned will, I think, render anything in the nature of an extended reply unnecessary. For Mr. Jerman’s benefit, however, and as my name is so frequently mentioned, I will briefly deal with the points he attempts to raise.

1. He asks “who gave Fitzgerald power to act as correspondent ?” As mentioned in the article, and as Mr. Jerman well knew, when Friedberg, who was the recognised correspondent of the section, left England he handed that business over to myself.

2. Mr. Jerman says “the London section did not suggest that Anderson and McGregor be invited to meeting.” Quite true, as a section, but several members made the suggestion, as Mr. Jerman was aware.

3. As the question of Mr. Geis is not raised in the article Jerman’s remarks are entirely gratuitous. I asked Geis to stay away on my own responsibility as he was not a member of the S.D.F. at the time and he promised to do so but broke that promise and came to the meeting place.

4. It is true that Mr. Jerman was chairman of the meeting but there was no secretary, nor were any minutes taken at that meeting. He was appointed secretary to the committee elected to receive information from Scotland and is, therefore, in no better position to speak of what occurred at that meeting than any other member present. His attempted quibble about the words “organised section” as against “New Party” for what difference there may be in them can be refuted by the evidence of several others attending the meeting besides myself, but it is best met by the fact that at the next meeting of the London section held at the “Hope” Coffee Tavern when I repeated the statement now disputed Mr. Jerman did not deny or in any way question that the words “New Party” had been used by Yates.

5. Mr. Jerman’s next point re. Anderson’s fables would be charming in its naivete were it not so clumsy an attempt to avoid an awkward point. Nowhere in the article is anything said about “Anderson’s charges.” What is said is that it was the Scotchmen who made the charges against Anderson and then refused to meet or face the man they charged and this also Mr. Jerman knew well. The only occasion upon which Anderson’s name is used is on the point of forming a New Party behind our backs which Mr. Jerman admits when he says that they (the Scotchmen) “had an organisation ready” and which is fully admitted by J. C. Matheson in the September issue of the Socialist. Moreover, if Mr. Jerman was so convinced on these points it is a wonder he did not at once join the London Branch of the S.L.P. instead of waiting several months, before doing so.

6. Regarding De Leon’s position at Amsterdam, why did Mr. Jerman ignore the points made in the article and try to shuffle out of it by saying he spoke to De Leon himself ? Why at the London Meeting did he not bring the matter up while I was speaking to De Leon as he was leaving the Hall ? Mr. Jerman will, I think, find the points in the article are posers enough for him to answer—whenever he makes a genuine attempt to do so.

Jack Fitzgerald

The Socialist Party and Trade Unionism. (1906)

From the September 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

[All Resolutions adopted during the course of this discussion have to be referred to the Party Membership through the Branches for ratification or otherwise. The decision of the Party will be published after the full Report of the Debate has appeared.]

[Continued from August issue.]

Fitzgerald said he was sorry Jackson had moved this amendment because the substance of it was contained in a resolution he intended to move. He opposed the resolution because it contained “terminological inexactitudes” and committed the movers of it to a position which he thought they perhaps did not understand. Because he contended that if the class principle was to be first it was contradictory to say the industrial was not non-sectional. The word “industrial” gave certain impressions in certain directions. The man in the street would have the idea that it was something different from the ordinary Trade Unions. But to the Socialist the word “industrial” conveyed something distinct. It conveyed I.W.W. The members of the Party who met to form an I.W.W. club during the week went there either to form a club to propagate Industrial Unionism or they went there as deliberate frauds. He would read the call:—

“LONDON NEXT.

“Following on the resolution passed at the S.L.P. Annual Conference, April 15th, endorsing Industrial Unionism and pledging our membership to set up clubs for the spread of Industrial Union principles, several members of the London S.L.P. and of the S.P.G.B. have decided to call together a meeting to the end of formally constituting such a club. 

The meeting will be held at the Communist Club, Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, W. on the evening of May the 16th at 8 p.m. Sympathisers of whatever political party are invited to attend and assist in the formation of a revolutionary economic organisation.”—Socialist, May, 1906.

The call fairly and squarely was to those who sympathised with the resolution of the Annual Conference of the S.L.P. on the I.W.W. The resolution referred to in the call was :—

“Considering that the task of emancipating the workers demands economic organisation as well as political, the Socialist Labour Party endorses the new international union known as the Industrial Workers of the World and urges the members arid adherents of the Party everywhere to set up clubs for the spread of Industrial Union principles as a preliminary to the definite establishment of the I.W.W. in Great Britain.”—Socialist, May, 1906.

Leigh, interposing, said that at the meeting at the Communist Club an entirely different resolution was put.

Fitzgerald said they had to examine their position in regard to the organisation known as the I.W.W. A certain preamble was laid down in the constitution of that organisation which they were told was revolutionary. The question was raised at the last meeting whether this preamble did not denote a revolutionary organisation. He said, no. What were the constituents of the I.W.W. ? First, the Western Federation of Miners. He read from the stenographic report of the Chicago Convention which said :—-

“I am … a member of the Western Federation of Miners, a revolutionary industrial labor organisation. We have not got an agreement existing with any mine manager, superintendent or operator at the present time.” (Page I54.)

But the I.W.W. had agreements with certain people : Haywood said, “We are a revolutionary organisation,” yet in the industrial war in Colorado the Western Federation of Miners asked its members to vote for capitalist candidates after lessons against which Featherstone was child’s play. And the W. F. of M. formed the backbone of the I.W.W. ! They therefore had a rank and file not understanding Socialism adopting a Socialist preamble. They claimed that the L.R.C., although it had certain members Socialist, and had passed a resolution in favour of the Socialisation of production, was to be opposed. They had again from the stenographic report the following statement by Delegate Klemensic:

“We must not overlook the fact that we are here as working men, and as such we do not recognise the Socialist, the Anarchist, or any other kind of ‘ist.'” (Page 232.)

At that conference De Leon and others, all members of the S.L.P. and the S.T. & L.A., were present, and not a single one got up to deny that statement. Another man, Delegate Murtagh, said, referring to a clause in the Preamble:

“I think that this clause is just exactly the thing, and is born of exactly the same need that the old live trade unions mean when they say ‘no politics in the union’ . . . It is useless for us here to attempt to disguise this fact that we have every shade of political opinion. We have the Socialists—I happen to be one of them who believe thai action in the political line is absolutely necessary. We have the Socialist on the other hand, who is so near the Anarchist that he is beginning to think as the Anarchist does, that action along the political line is absolutely harmful instead of being useless.” (Page 228.).

Now several people had made an attempt to explain that. They could not do it, but had to talk about something that might occur in the future. That is what Murtagh did. Another delegate, Clarence Smith, said :

“It seems to me that this paragraph of the Preamble particularly is intended, not to represent the Principles and purposes of Industrialism, but represents a toadyism to three different factions in this convention. (Applause.) … It seems to me that this paragraph could not have been more involved or more confusing if it had been written by the platform committee of the Republican or Democratic party. . . It seems to me that this paragraph is intended to be such that the supporter of this movement can point to it when talking to a pure and simple unionist and say ‘that is just what you want and expresses what you believe in.’ I believe it is intended to be such that a Socialist can be pointed to this platform with the statement that ‘this is Socialism.’ I believe it is intended to be such that an Anarchist can be confronted with this platform and told that ‘this means Anarchy as it is written right in this paragraph.’ … I am going to talk to individuals wherever I find them for this movement, and I cannot afford to have Bro. De Leon along with me every time I meet a man to explain what this paragraph means.” (Pages 220—230.)

As Smith said, it meant all things to all men. He hoped a lot of them had read “What Means this Strike.” In that you had one of the clearest expositions of the Socialist attitude to an economic strike. Moreover, some of them had heard De Leon in London. He knew of no man who could put the Socialist principle simpler than De Leon. It could not be said he did not understand the position. Then why did he attempt to wangle round the Preamble of the I.W.W. when he said :

“I know not a single exception of any party candidate ever elected upon a political platform of the emancipation of the working class who did not sell them out as fast as elected (Applause). Now it may be asked, ‘that being so, why not abolish altogether the political movement ? Why at all unite the workers on the political field ?’ The aspiration to unite the workers upon the political field is an aspiration in line and step with civilisation. Civilised man, when he argues with an adversary, does not start with clenching his fist and telling him, ‘smell this bunch of bones.’ . . . He begins by arguing ; physical force by arms is the last resort. Civilised man . . . will always give a chance to peace. But civilised man, unless he is a visionary, will know that unless there is Might behind your Right, your Right is something to laugh at. And the thing to do, consequently, is to gather behind that ballot, behind that united political movement, the Might which is alone able when necessary to ‘take and hold.’ Without the working people are united on the political field; without the delusion has been removed from their minds that any of the issues of the capitalist class can do for them anything permanently, or even temporarily; without the working people have been removed altogether from the mental thraldom of the capitalist class, from its insidious influence, there is no possibility of your having those conditions under which they can really organise themselves economically in such a way as to ‘take and hold'”. (Page 227.)

For sixteen years the S.L.P. had been endeavouring to get on all the ballots on a revolutionary basis. Now we come to the statement that any man elected on that basis would be a suspicious character. That was the fact of the situation.

He said :

“If any individual is elected upon a revolutionary ballot, that individual is a suspicious character. (Applause). Whoever is returned elected to office on a program of labour emancipation ; whoever is allowed to be filtered through by the political election inspectors of the capitalist class, that man is a carefully selected tool, a traitor of the working people, selected by the capitalist class.” (page 226)

In other words he used the same argument as Jack Williams used to E. J. B. Allen in connection with the unemployed that it was necessary to go to the Government and ask for something to find that you would not get it ! We fight for control of political power because the armed forces of the capitalist class were controlled by the political party. It was a fallacy that an industrial organisation could take and hold anything which the capitalist would not allow you. They could blow you out of existence when they liked while they controlled those forces. He opposed the resolution.

Phillips said he rose to oppose both the resolution and the amendment. He thought Fitzgerald was wrong when he said that the man who went to the I.W.W. meeting and did not take a part in it was a fraud. He (Phillips) went with the idea of seeing that the organisation had a sound political basis and a sound economic expression. He took up the same position with regard to the resolution as he took up towards the I.W.W. They were bound to fight existing Trade Unions and organise the workers on the economic field but he did not think the Bexley resolution good enough because it would allow the members of the economic organisation proposed, to ‘monkey’ on the political field. Upon the political as well as on the economic they should have sound organisations supporting one another, and they should not allow any members to in any way support Capitalism on either field. He did not think a case had been made out for the doctrine of ‘permeation.’ Therefore they had to organise the workers in an economic organisation to which they could point the members of the political party. He believed, however, that the rank and file of the S.L.P. and of the S.P.G.B. were honest and consistent Socialists and that neither organisation had departed from the principles of revolutionary Socialism. The only point was that the S.L.P. had endorsed an organisation which would allow its members to take any action they liked on the political field. He claimed that when members of the S.P.G.B. joined with members of the S.L.P. to form an economic organisation without a clear political expression they were not holding correctly to their principles. But while the S.P.G.B. allowed its members to belong to unsound economic organisations like Trade Unions the Party itself was unsound.

A. W. Pearson said during the week he had picked up a copy of the Weekly People in which De Leon points out that the S.L.P. in America should dominate the S.T. and L.A., or the economic organisation. The economic organisation should now, however, dominate the S.L.P., yet the I.W.W. will accept any brand of politics. He supposed a member of the working class would come to an I.W.W. meeting and ask what political party he should join. Then they would have the members of all the political parties shouting at once and claiming that their party was the only one. Leigh was speaking about members of the S.L.P. being quite willing to throw over their leaders. The S.D.F. and I.L.P. members were also saying they only needed unity conventions of the rank and file to effect unity. The S.L.P. only existed in Scotland because the S.P.G.B. was not there. It was already dead in London. If they were going to have a Trade Union let them have one affiliated to the Party. They did not want men in a Trade Union under false pretences—men who would accept a preamble said to be Socialism but who were class-unconscious. At the bottom of the I.W.W. business was merely the old anarchist principle.

E. J. B. Allen said he noticed Fitzgerald laid great stress on what the I.W.W. delegates had said at its convention. If they were going to take the speeches of any individual delegate they could make a great deal out of any convention. Trouble had been made because there had been an economic organisation established without affiliation to a political party and he maintained that the Socialist organisation could be formed without affiliation. The l.W.W. Propagation Society was formed to propagate what they believed to be correct. Let them look at the so called contradictory statement of the I.W.W. Preamble. The party that stated “until they come together on the political field” could not be an anarchist organisation. He had never said that it was not necessary to capture the political machinery. How were they going to take and hold the means of production ? He had always held that it was impossible until the political power of the capitalist class was smashed. When the political power of the capitalist class was smashed they would no longer have use for it. Last Wednesday five-and-twenty men decided to start a propagandist organisation. Did that look like seeking after big numbers ? When at the first conference of the S.P.G.B. he moved the resolution to establish a Socialist Union when sufficient members had joined he did not get a seconder. There were men who saw that a political party not the expression of a sound economic organisation could never make any progress. The workers had to be drilled with an understanding of their economic position, and the best way of getting them to recognise their class interest was to organise them on that field where they came every day in direct conflict with the capitalist class. The propertyless class interest of the worker could only be reflected in the politics of Socialism. Till the workers were united on the economic field as a whole they would have several types of so-called Socialist parties. The organisation of the present political State was a direct negation of the organisation which would prevail under Socialism. Therefore it was necessary to organise them on that basis. Men who may come into an industrial organisation, even if they were ignorant, could not but come to have a clear expression of their economic class interest. Educational work could be done effectively from an economic organisation. A political party not backed up by an economic organisation was trying to rush ahead faster than the rest of the working class. If they had these various political parties fighting one another and claiming to be Socialist they could do nothing until they had a sound economic organisation of the working class. The Socialist Republic had got to live on its economic foundation, and until they had a political party representing an economic organisation their efforts would be futile. While claiming that they should continue their political propaganda, they should have a sound industrial organisation. He claimed they had a Socialist union even if it was not affiliated to the S.P.G.B. Whilst the S.P.G.B. may be claimed to be the only sound organisation it was another thing to claim that there were no sound Socialists outside that organisaton. There were men in the S.D.F. to-day still trying to pull the S.D.F. straight. Had we the greater interest of the S.P.G.B. before us or the interest of the working class ? If there were S.D.F. members saying and advocating that the only sound principle was that of uncompromising hostility to the whole of the capitalist class at all times there was no reason why they should not work with them. He would say to these men, are you in favour of an economic organisation based on the class struggle and aiming at the overthrow of the capitalist system ? And there were such men. He was willing to unite on that basis with any man with honest principles, believing that men in a straight economic organisation could not but take straight political action. If they said the unions must take up the Socialist position what organisation must be offered to them instead of the present unions ?

Anderson asked whether Allen knew that the only parts on the Continent where the Socialist Party had been successful was where the political party had dominated the trade unions.

Allen said the political parties, as far as he knew, never ran a trade union.

Jackson in reply said Allen thought it was necessary that an economic organisation should be formed for taking and holding the means of production. An economic organisation alone could take and hold nothing. The question was one of class consciousness. He did not accuse anyone of dishonesty. The point was were they mistaken or were they not ? When the working class became class-conscious then such a modification of their economic organisation would take place that the necessary correct action on both fields would be taken. The logical conclusion of the principle of the I.W.W. was Anarchism, the General Strike, and street riots. Only when the mass of the workers had been organised in a political party of the workers could sound progress be possible.

The amendment was carried by 25 to 18 and became a substantive resolution.

Here A. J. M. Gray had to leave and W. Gifford was elected to the chair.

Anderson moved to amend by substituting the words “wage workers” for “trade unionists,” which was carried.

The substantive resolution as amended was then put and defeated by 20 to 13.

The discussion was adjourned.

Workers’ education (2009)

Pamphlet Review from the December 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

Plebs. By Colin Waugh, Post-16 Educator. 221 Firth Park Road, Sheffield S5 6WW. £3

This large-size pamphlet is misleadingly subtitled ‘The lost legacy of independent working-class education’, giving the impression that it deals with a larger subject than it actually does. As an account of the Ruskin strike of 1909, it is a useful summary, giving extensive background to the decision of the highly politicised Ruskin students to boycott lectures in defence of Dennis Hird, the Principal dismissed in the struggle to extend University control over the college. There is a section on the influence of Daniel De Leon on some of the students and on the choice of the word “Plebs” (from his pamphlet Two Pages of Roman History).

However, rather more information would have been appreciated as to the results of the strike – namely the establishment of the Central Labour College as a radical alternative to Ruskin and what became the National Council of Labour Colleges as a riposte to the Workers Education Association. The fate of these organisations, namely withdrawal of funds by the trade unions, is particularly important because the author asserts a need for ‘independent working class education’ in the present day. We in the Socialist Party agree that it is necessary to understand all aspects of capitalism in order to bring about social change but point out that such education cannot be the work of defensive organisations such as trade unions but must be part and parcel of the work of the offensive political organisation of the working class.

Kaz.

Lives of the Left: Daniel De Leon (1990)

Book Review from the July-Aug 1990 issue of the Discussion Bulletin

Daniel De Leon by Stephen Coleman [Manchester University Press, "Lives of the Left" series] Manchester, England, 1990; cloth, 192 pp. U.S. readers see below for ordering information.

This volume differs from the two earlier De Leon biographies (Reeve 1972 and Seretan 1978) in that its author does not regard DeLeon's anti-reformist, anti-statist socialism as an aberration. Stephen Coleman'a political thinking derives from the same turn-of-the-century opposition to social democratic reformism from which De Leon and the post-1900 Socialist Labor Party sprang, and he can understand the political situation and the choices that faced the SLP and DeLeon.

Coleman has divided his book into eight chapters, which we can assume reflect his interests and concerns: The Enigma of Daniel De Leon, The Socialist Labor Party, Trade Unionism and the Abolition of the Wages System, the Battle against Reformism, De Leon and the Wobblies, The De Leon-Connolly Conflict, De Leon's Conception of Socialism, and the Last Years and Legacy of De Leon.

Part of the "enigma" Coleman sees is the irony that the man he characterizes as ". . . the most outstanding American thinker, writer, orator, and political organizer of the years from 1890 until the eve of the First World War" should be so hated by his contemporaries on the left and in the labor movement. In addition to a list of these historians of the Hilquit school of labor history, he points out what he calls ". . .  the legacy of contemporary vilification by the likes of Dubofsky et al., who have accepted without thought the prejudices of the Hilquitians."

In "The Socialist Labor Party" Coleman traces De Leon's influence on the SLP and the dynamics that brought about the 1899 split between the reformists and revolutionaries. As the European socialist parties of the Second International grew during the 1880s and 90s, the possibility of gaining political office and presumably bringing about socialism piecemeal through capitalisms political machinery became vary real. The success of "socialist' politicians in transforming the "immediate demands" of the socialist parties into their dominant programs caused splits in nearly all the parties of the Second International. In the U.S. the anti-De Leonists left to help form the Socialist Party identified with Hilquit, Debs, and Haywood. In Britain both the Socialist Party of Great Britain (to which Coleman belongs) and the British SLP left Hyndman's Social Democratic Federation. In Russia the situation produced the Menshevik-Bolshevik split and in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and elsewhere splits and factional disputes that were often resolved by events precipitated by the Russian Revolution.

In Coleman's judgment "The 1899 split was not essentially about specific SLP policies, but was a final effort by approximately half of its members to assert the compatibility between a socialist party and a possibilist [reformist] strategy or, conversely, to remove what they saw as the theoretical shackles of De Leon's uncompromising impossibilism." While recognizing that De Leon's confidence in his own wisdom and eagerness to combat error sight easily give rise to accusations of authoritarianism, he disposes of the charges of bossism by citing the record: ". . . De Leon enjoyed no power within the SLP to which he was not elected, and made no decisions alone but as a result of winning a majority."

The evolution of the SLP's position on unionism, which culminated in the organization of the Socialist Trades and Labor Alliance in 1895 was not, in Coleman's view, a sectarian plot by De Leon but had already been initiated in 1889 before De Leon joined the SLP by socialist trades unionists in Now York City, who had called for "New Trades Unionism' and split from the Central Labor Union to form the Central Labor Federation. Coleman sees the lack of success of the STALA as well as the isolation impossibilism entailed for the SLP as the reason behind De Leon's eager embrace of the IWW in 1905.

As one might expect, Coleman's SPGBist differences with De Leonism become clear in the chapter, "De Leon's Conception of Socialism." While giving De Leon credit for attempting to answer the hard questions workers ask about the nature of the new society, he expresses serious doubts about De Leon's answers, finding the source of much of what he considers the less desirable elements in De Leon's and the SLP's vision of the future society in Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward. He sees not only the idea of labor vouchers and of the socialism-in-one-country concept as arising from De Leon's association with Nationalism in the 1880s but the roots of the whole concept of socialist industrial unionism, which he relates to Bellamy's work-oriented, militaristic view of the social organization of the future. Coleman's conclusions here will offend not only the most orthodox of De Leonists but revisionists of various degrees as well. Space doesn't allow this reviewer to combat Coleman's findings. But we will find space for readers of the book to refute him.

Also offensive to some readers will be the final chapter in which, among other things, he examines what he regards as De Leon's efforts to break out of the isolation that anti-reformism (impossiblism) imposed on the SLP. These included the embrace of the IWW and its reformist SP contingent and the 1905-8 unity effort, which culminated in his Unity address. Interestingly Coleman presents Reinstein as De Leon's ally in 1908, not his enemy as official history suggests. He rather decently finds De Leon not guilty of the official SLP's claim [charge?] that his writings influenced Lenin. The final chapter also contains an interesting section on the differences between the British and American SLPs. Part of De Leon's legacy is the SLP. Here is Coleman's verdict: "De Leon stamped his authority upon the SLP because he was the party's most able and active thinker. That De Leon’s comrades offered him such deferential respect . . .  respect created a tradition that was abused terribly by the less intellectually vivacious, sterile dogmatists who succeed the De Leon role."

Although there are a couple of flaws—De Leon was referring in Reform or Revolution to the future socialist society, not the party of socialism, with his illustration of the orchestra director—, Coleman has done his reading and his research. Indeed this is a political biography in the finest sense of the term. Coleman in not a De Leonist and his critical stance and political differences are apparent, as indeed they should be. But I think that De Leon would not have wished for a fairer, wittier, more sympathetic treatment from a political opponent. We can only assume that had Coleman been afforded more time and more pages, he would have modified his views on Socialist Industrial Unionism.

Like all books worth reading, the price is steep even for a clothbound book. U.S. readers can obtain the book directly from St. Martin's Press for $29.95 or send a 25-cent stamp to DB for a flier that offers a 20 percent discount making the price $23.95.

Frank Girard

Marx, Lenin and Industrial Unionism. (1930)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Armley, Leeds.

Dear Comrades,

In your review of Clausen's book in June S.S. you state that Clausen does not show how the economic organisation can "take and hold" ; nor did De Leon. How did De Leon come to epitomize that statement which you point out Marx never made about the economic organisation, as being '' typically Marxian"? (p. 37 "Industrial Unionism”).

In ''The Revolutionary Act" Engels says (p. 20), "History has proved us wrong," and advocated political supremacy rather than armed insurrection. '

He also says, "The irony of history turns everything upside down."

This implies change of opinion, and if Engels could change from advocating barricade tactics to that of the ballot, might he not change his opinion again if alive to-day, and give same countenance to Industrial organisation?

Did De Leon "forge" the "link" between Marx and Engels and present Industrial development ?

The backwardness of Russian Industrial development precluded Lenin from applying Industrial Unionism, which, it is reported he said was "the Basic thing," and that "De Leon first formulated the idea of a Soviet Government which grew from his idea."

Will you please give your opinion as to why Lenin thought Industrial Unionism was the "Basic thing"?

Yours fraternally,

H. Scott.

 

Reply:

Marx versus Direct Action.

The above letter illustrates how easily critics dodge the question at issue. Neither our critic nor De Leon, nor anybody else, has been able to show that Marx held that the workers could only win possession by economic action. We have once again to remind critics that Marx's essential point was that the workers must first of all win political supremacy. Both Marx and Engels waged continuous war against Bakunin, who advocated economic action as the only way.

De Leon's gymnastics.

Daniel De Leon, however, held quite a number of conflicting ideas as to the nature of the Marxian method. De Leon's and the S.L.P. 's first economic child—the Socialist Trade and Labour Alliance—laid it down in their Declaration of Principles that "the economic power of the capitalist class, used by that class for the oppression of labour, rests upon institutions essentially political."

Explaining the policy of that body, De Leon in What Means this Strike declared : —

“Shop organisation alone, unbacked by that political force that threatens the capitalist class with extinction, the working-class being the overwhelming majority, leaves the workers wholly unprotected.”

In his " Two Pages from Roman History," De Leon said: —

“Obviously, independent class conscious action is the head of Labour's lance. Useful as any other weapon may be, that weapon is the determining factor.

Entrenched in the public powers, the capitalist class command the field. None but the political weapon can dislodge the usurpers and enthrone the working-class : that is to say, emancipate the workers and rear the Socialist Republic.” (Italics ours.)

When, however, De Leon and Co.'s next economic child was born he discovered another alleged "typically Marxian" position which is completely opposed to the statements just quoted. The Industrial Workers of the World, formed in 1905, had a platform which stated that the taking and holding of the means of life must be done by an economic organisation without affiliation to any political party.

De Leon, in his address "The Preamble of the I.W.W.," said:—

“It does not lie in a political organisation, that is. a party, " to take and hold " the machinery of production ; 

And he tells us in the same work : —

“In the act, however, of taking and holding the nation's plants of production the political organisation of the working-class can give no help.”

The anti-political views of De Leon were made clear at the first convention of the I.W.W. in his speech : —

“The situation in America . . . establishes the fact that ‘the taking and holding’ of the things that labour needs to be free can never depend upon a political party. If anything is clear in the American situation it is this : That if any individual is elected to office upon a revolutionary ballot, that individual is a suspicious character. Whoever is returned elected upon a programme of labour emancipation ; whoever is allowed to be filtered through the political inspectors of the capitalist class : that man is a carefully selected tool, a traitor to the working people, selected by the capitalist class. (Report, p. 226.)

A favourite phrase of De Leon's was that the day of political victory was the day of defeat unless the workers had the economic might to enforce their political victory.

De Leon and Marx.

Our critic asks if De Leon forged a link between Marx and Engels and present industrial development.

If, as our critic claims, De Leon's position was "typically Marxian," why forge a link to put it right? Modern industrial development has shown the overwhelming importance of political power and the weakness of the workers on the economic field. Riddles such as what opinions Engels would hold if he were alive to-day may provide amusement but it is for our critic and those agreeing with him to show that the views of Engels in 1895 (See " Class Struggles in France ") are out-of-date to-day.

Why chase the shadow?

The S.L.P. position led logically to Anarchism, for if politics was a shadow and a reflex only, as they claimed, and if the real power lay on the industrial field, why bother with shadows, and why not go in for the substance of economic action? And that is what happened. The Industrial Workers of the World took De Leon at his word and concentrated on industrial organisation.

Then De Leon and the S.L.P. gave birth to a third economic child (in 1908) made up of the minority of the I.W.W., which was called the Workers' International Industrial Union, but after a flicker of life it went the same way. Like all industrial organisations it was compelled to enrol workers of all political opinions, and so the members who were united industrially were fighting each other politically.

After its organisers, etc., had supported the freak parties called Socialist, the Industrial Union refused to endorse its parent— the S.L.P., and so the third economic child was buried quietly by the S.L.P.

Lenin the next witness.

Our correspondent asks why did Lenin say that Industrial Unionism is the basic thing?

The only information on the point is the reference by two journalists to Lenin's remark to them about De Leon after he had seen some of De Leon's writings in 1919, Did Lenin make use of or actually support Industrial Unionism? There is not a scrap of evidence to prove that. The Socialist Labour Party pointed out that the workers of Russia were not organised in industrial unions and their National Secretary, Arnold Peterson, after pointing that out, concluded in the following words : ''So long as the Bolsheviki were in opposition it was doing excellent agitational work. Now that it is in power it faces failure. The day of its victory was the day of its defeat." (Weekly People, Nov. 24th, 1917.)

The "basic thing" that Lenin referred to was the organization by industry instead of by territory. Nowhere did Lenin support the chief idea of the Industrial Unionists that they could take and hold by economic means alone, and nowhere did he embody it in Third International policy.

On the contrary, in his "Open letter to the I.W.W.," Lenin attacks their Anarchist idea of relying upon economic action.

In actual practice Russia's government was not an industrial government chosen from the industries but simply an ordinary party government—that of the Communist Party.

Lenin and the Third International advocated many policies from open violence and insurrection to support of a Labour government. From minority action to going with the "Labour" masses. Certainly industrial unionism was not one of them. Lenin found that Russian workers organised in trades and economic bodies were using their organisation in hostility to the wider interests of society as a whole (see "Soviets at Work" and Phillips Price "Capitalist Europe v. Soviet Russia"), and he had to curb their narrow industrial actions.

Soviets or councils were old in the history of Russia and did not need De Leon or Lenin to invent them.

Lenin had to teach the same lesson that Marx taught, that the control of the State power was the essential thing. So neither Marx nor Lenin nor Engels assists our critic in his support of industrial unionism.

Why do our critics not attempt to show how unionism of any kind is the might that can take and hold the means of life?

Adolph Kohn