Editorial: The Greater War. The National Thrift Campaign and the Workers. (1915)

Editorial from the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

One notable feature of the campaign of thrift that is being curried on is that it is directed almost exclusively at the working class. A National Thrift Conference is held, but who are the invited ? Are they the society dames whose vanity and extravagance deprive of health and sunlight the wives and children of workers? Are they men of wealth and leisure whose harems have branches in the various fashionable resorts, whose town and country residences are filled with domestics and luxury, whose high-powered motors maim and kill the workers’ children, and whose whole wealth is a toll levied on the labour and happiness of wage workers ? These are not the invited. It is they who invite the trade union executives and officials to confer with ministers of State in order to farther the campaign of thrift among the have-nots !

Readers of the daily Press are treated to ridiculous stories of workers in one-room tenements who instal pianos therein, of workers who spend large sums on beer or jewellery ; and one journal, with unconscious humour, gives as evidence of the unprecedented prosperity of the labouring class, the great demand for second-hand clothing that is caused by thousands being able for the first time to purchase complete suits of cast-off clothes ! So grave does the Government profess to consider this extravagance that it is even proposed to make thrift among the working class compulsory.

All this, it should be noted, is because a number of war workers are toiling overtime, and undergoing thereby a wastage of muscle and brain and life that the increase in pay and total lack of leisure entirely fail to enable them to replace.

The increase in cost of necessities has been variously estimated by capitalist authorities at from 43 to 50 per cent., and they are careful not to over-estimate. In most cases during the same period wages have not increased at all ; in many cases they have seriously decreased ; while in those industries in which more wages are paid the average amount of the increase by no means equals the increase in the price of living.

In normal times the remuneration of the workers leaves not the slightest justifiable margin for either waste or saving. Theirs is a life-long training in economy. It is a profound truth that man cannot live by bread alone, yet too often the workers lack even this ; and we know that one-third of the population of these islands exists upon a remuneration that is insufficient to provide bare physical efficiency. As Mr. Chiozza Money states in his “Riches and Poverty,”

“When we realise that 38,000,000 out of our 43,000,000 are poor, the statistics of Booth and Rowntree cease to surprise us. In analysis, the United Kingdom is seen to contain a great multitude of poor people, veneered with a thin layer of the comfortable and the rich.”

How, then, can the workers be expected to save ? Why is there this attempt to get blood out of a stone ? Is there not the strongest presumption that it is to ascertain if possible the lowest limit upon which the workers can subsist, in order to adjust wages to the lower level in the masters’ interest ?

The campaign with regard to the well-to-do seems to take a different form. It is largely evidenced in the advertisements that fill the journals read by the comfortable class. Thus under the heading of “War Economies” there are displayed “war bargains” in fur cloaks and the like at 30 guineas upward, special bargains in mansions and new automobiles, war bargains in highly profitable investments, or there are announcements of luxurious and costly hotel and restaurant fare made still more palatable by the efforts of celebrated artistes and musicians.

But the indulgence of the workers in such “war economies” would be an utterly unheard-of thing. The bare possibility of it would shake the foundations of capitalist society.

Why is this ?

The ruling class cannot give the true answer without condemning their whole regime. Yet they, who enjoy all good things and produce none, brand as extravagant those who produce all but are not able to enjoy, and whose reason for not saving is simply that they cannot.

The capitalists, indeed, always have done and are still doing their utmost to make it totally impossible for the workers to save. Those who can are taking advantage of the war-time restriction of supply or increase in demand to realise, temporarily, at least, abnormal profits. A man could go stone blind, in fact, trying to see evidences of sacrifice on the part of the employing class.

The sudden expansion in the demand for house-room all around every munition area is taken full advantage of to extort more rent, and magistrates support the sacred principles of capitalist political economy by granting ejectment orders. So glaring has this “wide-spread brigandage” become that even an M.P., Mr. Alfred Yeo, says in the “Daily Chronicle” of Nov. 5th :

“The noblest of our sons are giving their life’s blood to defend from German horrors not only their own hearths and homes, their own wives and children, but the hearths and homes, the wives and children, even the sacred persons, of the landlords themselves.

And what thanks do they get ?

‘We are proud of you,’ is what in effect these landlords say. ‘You are fighting to keep a German invasion from us, and to show our appreciation of what you are doing at the front, we have decided in your absence to raise your rent one shilling a week or turn your dependents into the streets.’ ”

A Bill to deal with this is spoken of at the time of writing, and its provisions as now outlined entirely miss the tenements which are the chief source of complaint, while the nature of the Bill may be safely judged by the fact that the great London Property Owners Association has given it its blessing. As with other such Bills of recent memory, it can be little else than a legal sanction of the daylight robbery that is already going on.

So it is all round. Coal is still rising in price, yet we find an item like the following in the “Daily News and Leader” of Nov. 17th :

“MINERS’ WAGES REDUCED

A meeting of the South Wales Coal Conciliation Board was held at Cardiff yesterday, when Earl St. Aldwyn, independent chairman, presided, and the owners’ application for a five per cent. reduction in the general wage rate was granted.”

The profits of shipping companies are up on an average over 50 per cent. Factories connected in any way with war work are making admittedly large profits, though the true extent of these is hidden by the outlay on new machinery and improvements in the works, or other well-known dodges. The restriction of supply upsets the balance of the market price at, the labour cost of production, and enables dealers, for the time being, to raise prices wholesale. These give as their excuse in most cases (despite the greater employment of cheap woman and child labour) the lying statement that the higher price is due to the greater cost of labour. Flour millers and the like are also increasing their dividends—and their reserves—so that a decrease in the price of wheat has come to mean an increase in the price of bread !

The contrast between the position of the employers and that of the workmen is significant; and though the employees are full of patriotism, it may be noticed how clearly their patriotism has the accent on the pay !

That, in fact, is the essence of the whole position. The workers are called upon to sacrifice their remnants of liberty, their health, their limbs, their lives—for what ? They are threatened with starvation in order to make them save a voluntary system that is voluntary only to the idle class. Newspapers display notices that “in the national interest” advertisers must not give employment to workmen of military age. But though the worker has to sacrifice all he possesses, the capitalist only offers his wealth against the highest security and for a thumping interest! The worker’s sacrifice is dead loss to him : that of the wealthy is all profit. That is the difference.

These facts are incontrovertible. The class cleavage in society must, to use a common expression, hit every thinking man in the eye. Yet the workers in the main appear to be hypnotised into vacuous acquiescence in this class tyranny by the tireless mendacity of capitalist Press, platform, and pulpit. The workers have brains, though the fact might sometimes be doubted ; but they prostitute their brains to their masters’ interests. They run the industries, do the work—and get the kicks. Is it not, therefore, about time they started in dead earnest to use their brains on behalf of their own families, their own work-fellows, their own too humble selves ? The future of humanity depends upon their doing so, for it is a profoundly true saying that “militant, the workers’ cause is identical with class ; triumphant, with humanity.” In sober truth, indeed, despite the fearful European shambles, a true perspective will show that the greater war is the class war.

A Fakir Floored. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Small incidents often illustrate large truths. Constantly the Socialist urges upon the working class the necessity for depending upon themselves and their own efforts to accomplish their emancipation, and to drop the superstition, so widely taught by the agents of the master class, that “they must have leaders,” “somebody at the head,” etc., to guide them on their way.

The formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain was an important instance of the understanding by those who formed it, of the folly of relying on “leaders,” and of the determination to rid themselves of such hindrances. But the potential “leader” is always wandering round looking for his opportunity, and the S.P.G.B. seemed to offer such an opportunity to one of these persons of the name of C. Lehane.

He was one of the original members of the Party, and was is first secretary, in which position he worked hard for some time. Then he began his scheming. Resigning his post as secretary he indulged in some underhand work to push one of his satellites into the position he had vacated. The attempt failed and Lehane began his intrigues at the Islington Branch of the S.P.G.B. that ended in his being expelled the Party, by a Party vote, along with several members of that Branch The facts of the case are set out in an article in the February, 1907 issue of the “Socialist Standard.”

Even then his attempt did not end, for he and his followers claimed still to be members of the S.P.G.B., although in the same breath they denounced the Party as “rotten,” and “corrupt,” and further ran. meetings etc. against us; but their farcical situation fizzled out in a few weeks.

The memory of this incident is revived by some newspaper cuttings from America, added to some notes from a couple of correspondents there. Some months ago Lehane left England for America, and a farewell supper was given to him that was attended by a number of notorious Labour frauds and leaders.

Evidently the name of the S.P.G.B. and its reputation were important assets in Lehane’s estimation, for shortly after reaching America, in an interview published in the “New York Call,” we find the following paragraph:

“He [Lehane] led the revolutionary wing of the English Socialist movement during the internal struggles of 1904, and founded the Socialist Party of Great Britain, whose first secretary he became. He founded and edited for the first two yeas the London ‘Socialist Standard’.”

All the statements in the above paragraph are false with the exception of the one stating that he was the Party’s first secretary, while with a modesty somewhat unusual in Lehane, he quite omitted to tell the reporter that he had been expelled from the S.P.G.B.

The formation of the S.P.G.B. was not due to any individual, but was the result of the agitation by a section of the rank and file inside the old Social Democratic Federation (now the B.S.P.) for a straight Socialist policy. This agitation had been going on for some years before Lehane came to England, and so far was he from “leading” this wing, a thing they refused to allow any one to do, that he sat on the fence most of the time apparently trying to judge where the best chance of a job existed, and only threw in his lot with the seceders from the S.D.F. at the last moment. Neither did he found the “Socialist Standard.” This was done by the Party at the suggestion of the 1st Executive Committee, and R. Elrick was first editor of the paper. Neither then nor at any other time had Lehane any hand in the editing or making up of the “Socialist Standard.”

The “Call” reporter stated that Lehane showed him “credentials” from Bob Williams, Jim Larkin, Ben Tillett, Jim Connolly, Harry Lee, etc. Every one of these names stinks in the nostrils of the Socialists here because of its notorious record. Tillett’s slimy fakirism and dirty capitalist crawling is known the world over, and has reached its present limit in the cowardly, lying recruiting campaign he is conducting to-day.

The reporter opens the interview with the remark: “We usually associate the qualities and character of a man with those of his friends”—a wordy paraphrase of a terse Irish saying: “Tell me your company and I’ll tell you your character.” The application in the present instance is striking. The association with such glaring frauds upon the working class as those given in the list above is a fair indication of the character and attitude of those deliberately seeking such association—as Lehane has done.

One of our correspondents sends us some statements Lehane made at a meeting in Detroit, Michigan, and they bear out completely the character one would be led to expect from such companions. Thus he is reported to have said, among other things:

“We do things different in Ireland, There we have ONE GREAT UNION, which includes everybody, from bank managers to the ordinary labourer.

For instance, this is the way we organise in Ireland. In Sligo there are docks, and instead of having the members go out to find the jobs they go to the union headquarters, and the bosses telephone for the number of hands they want. We then send the men, and when the work is finished the men DON’T GET PAID, but the union gets the money and DIVIDES IT BETWEEN ALL THE MEN, WHETHER THEY WORKED OR NOT.”

If such a travesty of a union should ever exist it is clear that it would only be an agency of the masters, as, apart from other points, it would be quite illegal to pay such wages to the union. Of course, no one on this side of the Atlantic has ever heard of such a comic-opera organisation, even in Ireland, while the ruthless and  successful actions of the bosses in Belfast, Dublin, etc, where the men were completely defeated under Larkin’s leadership, show how stupid a liar is Lehane.

When he said he “knew France well” because “he had been in Brussels,” he was simply illuminating his appalling ignorance, that would appear to be matched only by his colossal conceit.

Another absurd statement was that: “Before the end of the war we are going to establish the Co-operative Commonwealth in Ireland,” and “in case we have to fight we will be able to use our Citizen Army which consists of 4,700 men armed with Springfield rifles and 3 machine guns.” To give the measure of this statement it is only necessary to say that England has over 4,000,000 men under arms at the present moment; large numbers are also joining every day—either from fear of the sack or conscription—her navy is larger now than ever in its history; her munitions of war, despite all the muddling, are amazing in quantity; and her credit good in all neutral countries. To pretend to pit 4,700 men, even if armed with Springfield rifles (that are inferior to the British service rifle) and 3 machine guns against this powerful combination of forces is not even farcical—it is utterly idiotic.

The cream of the joke, however, is the ironic fact that, except for the purpose of putting a rapid end to the rising, the English Government need not move a single soldier or gunboat to crush it. When the Home Rule Bill was passing through Parliament a great deal of bluff and bluster was indulged in by both “Unionists” and “Home Rulers” and both sides began to raise and arm “Volunteer” forces to fight over the question. Large claims were made as to the numbers each had—sometimes figures of over 100,000 men on each side being given. The War came and then these “opposing” forces joined in their declaration to fight the German and sent men to the Front. In a newspaper controversy a short time ago each side claimed to have sent over 30,000 men. to the Army—a rather nasty knock to their previous bluff. The important point, however, is that these 60,000 “Volunteers” would readily combine to shoot down the 1,700 men of the “Citizen” Army to whose objects and views they are strongly opposed. The English Government could therefore easily win by merely setting one set of Irishmen against the other, as they did at Dublin and elsewhere.

The “New York World” of July 3rd, 1915 quotes from an address by Lehane to the American Labour unions where he states that: “The moment that the first British officer places his hand on the shoulder of an Irish working-man to draft him for war will be the moment when the socialist revolution which has been brewing in Ireland for years will break out.” This statement shows either an astounding ignorance of the conditions in Ireland or else the lengths to which Lehane is prepared to go in his attempts to bluff the workers of America.

In the fulsome flattery poured out, in the interview published in the “Call” we are told: “Perhaps no man of his time has brought more worthy recruits to the ranks of the International Socialist movement.”

It would be interesting to know the reporter’s reasons for such a claim. How baseless is the boast is best shown by the fact that the recruits Lehane could in any sense claim to be responsible for were those members of the Islington Branch who, sheep like, followed him into—and out of—that Branch without ever having understood the principles of Socialism.

Doubtless the difficulty he found in getting hold of a soft job over here has been the decisive factor in his journeying to the wider land of the West, where, thousands of miles from those who know him, he may fancy himself free from any danger of exposure while gulling and exploiting the workers there. And for a time, under the peculiarly suitable patronage of the “Socialist” Party of America he may succeed in his mission. But sooner or later the truth will catch him up and our repudiation of his claims upon our work and organisation lay him bare for what he is.

Ed. Com.

Blogger's Note:

Some further biographical information on Lehane — from a non-party source — at the following link.

Socialism or Utopia? (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the present writer’s experience there still appears to be a considerable number of people who regard the Socialist as a Utopian—a kind of mystic idealist who spends his time dreaming about a beautiful New World, weaving all manner of fanciful details from that ethereal entity, imagination. Yet why ?

If we turn to the official Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party we find no trace of this fantastic frame of mind. It expresses nothing but the relations of forces actually existent at the present time, and only asserts anything concerning the future as the direct outcome of these relations. To the “genuine idealist” this attitude must appear “grossly materialistic,” while even the “practical man” is invariably found criticising it for the very reason that it is devoid of any detailed elaboration.

Seeing, however, that all erroneous notions must reflect some facts albeit in a distorted out-of-focus fashion, it is well to discover such modicum of truth as may exist in anti-Socialist criticism before considering the case settled. While the modern Socialist, following the scientific method of Marx and Engels, can effectually clear himself of the charge of Utopianism, so much cannot be said of the forerunners of the movement such as Owen, St. Simon and Fourier. Our opponents are welcome to all the satisfaction they can get out of this, considering that we now-a-days recognise the efforts of the above named thinkers to be getting on for a century out of date so far as their ideal reconstruction of society is concerned. Their criticisms of existing society, however, still hold good, and have been preserved by the analysis of Marx and placed upon “the solid rock” as Engels terms it.

The law of evolution holds good in the realm of theory no less than in the physical world ; consequently Socialism could hardly be expected to spring itself on the world full-fledged and complete. Its germ came into being as the result of certain definite historical events, and has developed alongside of the full fruition of other results of these events.

About the middle of the eighteenth century mechanical industry took its rise, seized upon trade after trade until by now it has revolutionised the entire character of the production of wealth, converting isolated groups of workers into a vast economic network, and replacing competition between a large number of small manufacturers by that between a small number of Titanic concerns.

Early on it commenced to intensify the poverty of the workers and widen the gulf between them and their employers, and it was these facts, following on an increase of wealth produced, that gave the Utopists the data for their criticisms. Hard on the heels of the industrial revolution in England followed the political upheaval in France which, in its turn, left the workers there worse off than before. Thus almost simultaneously the application of science to production and the establishment of “liberal institutions,” so far from improving the condition of the majority of the people, brought increased misery for them.

This glaring contradiction could hardly fail to arouse the curiosity of such members of he educated class as had not completely prostituted their intellectual faculties to the service to the new capitalist order of society, and out of the genuine research thus developed arose certain definite critical opinions which extended to the conventionalities of society, religion, the state, marriage, etc., in addition to its economic basis, i e private property.

As yet, however, the class antagonism had only manifested itself in spasmodic conflicts such as the machine smashing riots, consequently these original critics of society had nothing to point to as the factor which was to supplant the existing structure by a new one. The organised revolt of the workers against exploitation was quite foreign to their notions. Hence they had to imagine some way out and started experiments according to elaborate schemes for the regulation of communal affairs. They ignored the fact that it was the new industrial change that made a social change possible, and cut themselves off from that change by forming small groups of co-operators and endeavouring to be independent of the rest of society. Such ventures were foredoomed to failure, not because of some imaginary innate individualism of mankind as some self-styled “practical people” insist, but by reason of their insufficient economic basis. To these ideal fantasies the term “Utopian” can correctly be applied. Curiously enough, however it was the further development of industry and the growth of the class-war which simultaneously scotched them and gave birth to the scientific Socialism of the Communist Manifesto.

In the early half of the nineteenth century the workers commenced to organise for the conflict with capital. Trades Unions sprang up and the movement for political rights, Chartism, came into being. The fact that these first efforts did not realise the sanguine aspirations prompting them rendered necessary a scientific analysis of the conditions of the field of battle, in other words, the pressing of critical research to fundamental issues. This led to the discovery of the method by which the workers are exploited and condemned to poverty, and of the necessary outcome of the consequent struggle, i.e., the conquest of political power by the workers and the abolition of exploitation by the conversion of the implements of social production into common property.

The key to the future was obtained not by imagination but by science. The class-war, which is the basic fact upon which modern Socialism as a theory rests, is no mere fantasy but bitter truth.

Socialism, i.e., the criticism of existing society and speculations concerning the future was only Utopian so long as the class-war between wage-earners and capitalists was in its rudimentary stages. No sooner did this struggle develop into the most vital and glaring phenomenon of social life than Socialism became a science. On the other hand, Utopianism, i.e., the deliberate attempt to plan beforehand a social ideal, while it became obsolete, nevertheless persisted in a new form. Instead of being part of an honest criticism of society it became a phase of capitalist politics. The more the workers commenced to chafe against their fetters, the more necessary it became from the capitalist view-point to provide them with visions of economic improvement. The “practical” class, which had scorned the earlier Utopists’ plea for social harmony on the ground that struggle was the law of life, now became anxious that the workers should not put this notion into practice. Hence the “brotherhood of capital and labour” became a most respectable doctrine, and all capitalist legislation took on the form of measures for “the amelioration of the lot of the masses.” Every blessed section of the ruling class developed its own special kind of social policy. The Tory landowners boomed factory legislation, the Radical manufacturers went in for anti-Corn-Law agitation, all apparently for the benefit of the class they were mutually plundering, i.e., the working class. All the latter had to do was to allow the masters to continue to wield the political machine.

So soon as the workers acquired the franchise (as a result of the competition of different sections of the masters for their support) a new aspect of the question arose. In spite of all the promises of Tory and Radical, the onward march of machine industry rendered life ever more burdensome to the workers and the class conflict more acute. The science of revolution spread, much to the rulers’ dismay. A more elaborate Utopia became necessary to play the will-o’-the wisp; and the more nearly it caricatured the revolutionary policy the better.

“Advanced wings” of the capitalist parties composed of “middle-class” parasites, journalists, lawyers, parsons, professional intellectuals of every description arose with a “new Socialism” which had the advantage of not being revolutionary—oh! dear no !—while it appeared on the surface to grant all that the “extremists” asked for. All that was done was to substitute the capitalist “State” for the “community” in the revolutionary formula.

From the standpoint of the capitalist, of course, there is no difference between the words. What community does he know of other than the organisation of his class ? A community of organised workers is to him something outside the realm of “practical politics.”

To the genuine Socialist, however, the gradual purchase by the State of various concerns is but a phase of capitalist evolution. There is in it nothing more Socialistic than in the transformation of “private firms” into joint stock companies. In each case the transaction is conducted on approved business lines, the nominal ownership of material things being exchanged for interest hearing credit. Which means, for the worker, continued exploitation. Practical—isn’t it?

Parties whose political prestige is based on the boosting of this sham Utopia can never be anything but the catspaw of the master class;—of this the compromise-stained records of the I.L.P. and B.S.P. are sufficient proof.

They may pretend to be building the future “step by step,” but their imaginations, like everyone else’s, are limited to the experience of the past and present. To try and project a detailed castle in the air as “the ideal State” is, therefore, nothing more than wandering round in a circle, for their “details” are all derived from the capitalist system itself, and can, therefore, never get them out of it, and the Socialist Party of Great Britain is following the only scientific course in opposing their endeavour to get the workers to indulge in such peregrinations.

We are not keen on drawing pictures of the future. Shall slaves imagine freedom they have not known ? We are concerned with the vital present—the oppression of our class and our struggle to end it. There is only one way—to unite and seize the actual means whereby we live.

There is nothing Utopian about this. All that is lacking is the consciously revolutionary organisation powerful enough to effect the change ; and this is growing, slowly, maybe, but surely, as the results of the present relations between the workers and the tools they use, force themselves upon our attention, along with the means by which these relations are maintained, i.e., the forces of government.

Every Socialist principle is but the actual reflection of existing circumstances which, when correctly analysed and grasped in their entirety, provide us with the essential programme of a working-class political party.

Eric Boden

By The Way. (1915)

The By The Way Column from the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a result of the long and bloody struggle, which has now engaged the world’s attention for something like fifteen months, we find our masters and their agents taking a keen interest in the question of mother and baby. The “Daily Chronicle,” in large headlines, informs us that “Good Motherhood means bigger and stronger Armies of the future.” This is decidedly funny ! What need is there for large armies in the future ? Have we not been repeatedly told in the capitalist Press and on the platform that “this war is to end war.” Verily, verily, I say unto you: Liars need good memories.

Of course, our masters know that so long as their vile system of society lasts—this catch-as-catch-can do-my-neighbour form—so long will the germs of warfare exist, and hence their increased interest in a plentiful supply of healthy infants.

In passing, one must notice the difference that exists in the methods employed by our masters and those of the common or garden working men when meeting to discuss some item of importance. The former, as a preliminary canter, have “a dinner,” whilst the latter get immediately to business, and, if financially strong enough, after might adjourn to the sign of “—…..Old and Mild.”

However, this all important question of cannon fodder for the future was discussed at a dinner at the Lyceum Club, when Mrs. Philip, the chairman, referred to it as “The noble art of mothercraft,” and said, “What we want is a better chance for all children, and not merely those of the poorer classes.”

Dr. Newsholme, of the Local Government Board, gave some interesting figures and facts about this important population question. He pointed out that:

“We might have had many more potential soldiers if the birth-rate of 1914 had been equal to that of 1876. If it had kept up to the former level 50,000 more babies would have come into the world last year than the number recorded. This decrease has been going on for 38 years. We might have had a much larger number of fighting men if small families had not become so fashionable.”—”Daily Chronicle,” 26.10.15.

With the development of schools for mothers, meals, etc., for expectant mothers and sterilised milk depots for young children, our masters are hard put to it in their endeavour to raise and maintain an adequate number of slaves, who shall serve them in the industrial army or as a fighting force in days to come.

* * *

Mr. Will Crooks recently addressed a meeting in the People’s Palace, Mile End Road, with the object of securing recruits. In the course of his remarks he said: “Don’t some of you want to join ? What are you hanging back for ? Are you waiting for a safe job till somebody doesn’t come back for it ? I can imagine what will happen. The employer will ask where you were in 1915-16, and if he finds that you belonged to the ‘Stay-at-Home-Rangers,’ he will say to you, “Good morning; mind the step.’ ”

“It is a people’s war; a war for the people’s rights and liberties.’”

Doubtless it never occurs to the Woolwich gent, that some “hang back”’ to maintain their “rights and liberties” ; but, of course, here the small number of people have no “rights and liberties.” We are fighting on behalf of small nations ! The threat of the employer saying “Good morning” may be a good incentive to “voluntary enlistment” ! Finally we would suggest to our hon. friend that there are other places than Mile End where he might try his prentice hand, for has not that other great recruiting sergeant, Ben Tillett told us over and over again that “95 per cent. of our fighting forces are enlisted from the ranks of the working class.” Here, then, is a new field for the recruiting agent.

* * *

An Oxford undergraduate serving with the Royal Engineers in France gives the following account of a scene behind the British front :

“I went up as far as the entrance to the communication trenches and watched the wounded coming out. It was a sight I shall never forget. About one-fourth of the men coming out were Germans, wounded . . . the wounded and our wounded were straggling out, apparently the greatest friends. It was a fellowship bond of suffering, a brotherhood of pain.

Those who could walk were supporting those who could not. I saw two Germans, wounded, the one in the head, the other in the arm, supporting between them a Scottish soldier with a shrapnel wound in both thighs.”—”Daily Mail,” 13.10.15.

“Apparently the greatest friends. A fellowship bond of suffering.” Yes, possibly, until then they had never realised that they had had no quarrel, perhaps never met before ; but, alas, the trumpet-call had sounded, their masters had fallen out and were going to settle their differences by force of arms and they had been goaded to take sides in the dispute.

* * *

The increased rent campaign of a section of the masters serves a useful purpose in once again emphasizing the unique “oneness” of the nation in this its hour of suffering. In our perusal of the Press we notice that there is complete unanimity in this respect with the international master class. So strong is the pressure in some parts that we find the wives of the men who are fighting “our” battles so filled with righteous wrath and indignation that a deputation, accompanied by thousands of women, waited upon the Glasgow Corporation to protest against increases of rent. We are told that they carried a banner with the inscription :

“Our husbands, sons, and brothers are fighting the Prussians of Germany ; we are fighting the Prussians of Partick.”—”Daily Chronicle”,” 8.10.15.

Such pungent sarcasm as this was not allowed to go unnoticed and we find the matter raised in the House of Commons on the motion for adjournment, when a member stated that “this kind of thing (raising rent) is going to sow industrial discontent and unrest.”

* * *

A few days later in the columns of the same paper we find half-a-column devoted to the case of a woman in Germany, whose husband had been at the front since the beginning of the war, and who had received a letter from her landlord asking for the payment of the balance of her rent within 24 hours, otherwise steps would be taken. She had paid her rent regularly until two months ago, when bad health had overpowered her.

“Vorwaerts then points out to its readers that the woman’s husband has been fighting for more than a year to defend this landlord’s house, a man who is sitting at his ease in Berlin raking in his rents which have not been reduced by one pfennig. The shop-keepers also are charging the woman exorbitant prices for every necessary of life. Thanks to their skill in exploiting the poor and wretched, the woman got behind with her rent. She found it impossible to make both ends meet . . . and thereupon down comes this blood-sucker and threatens to throw her out of house and home. And all the time her husband, who was torn away from his work, is keeping the Watch on the Rhine and endangering his life for the Fatherland.—”Daily Chronicle,” 11.10.15.

We would once again reiterate the Marxian slogan: “Wage Workers of the World, Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a World to win !

* * *

We have for months past received exhortations to economy from all quarters. Printing machines have been busily engaged turning out handbills and posters by the thousand adjuring us to eat less meat, to waste nothing, and be careful with our bread. Yet it is only about three years since that Lloyd George stated that: “You had got side by side with most extravagant wealth, multitudes of people who cannot consider ‘even a bare subsistence’ as assured to them. What do I mean by bare subsistence ? I don’t mean luxuries. I exclude even comforts. I mean that minimum of food, raiment, shelter, and practically the care which is essential to keep human life in its tenement of clay. The wolves of hunger prowl constantly round millions of doors in the land.”

Do our masters really imagine that the working class can do ought else than practise economy now, as ever, particularly bearing in mind that capitalist statisticians admit a 34 per cent. increase in the cost of living ? However, we have noticed during times past that things are vastly different with our bosses, as instance the following :

THE LORD MAYOR’S MENU

Turtle Clear Turtle

Fillets of Soles, Sauce Tartare

Mousses Lobster Casseroles of Partridge

Barons of Beef Capons Bechamel Smoked Tongues

Game Pies Orange Jellies Creams

Meringues

Maids of Honour Princess Pastry

Charlotte Russe

Ices Dessert

Wines.

“Daily Express,” 10.11.15.

We would suggest that practice is better than precept.

The Scout.

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

Kaiser and the German 'Socialists' (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article in the “Daily Express” (28.9.15) entitled “Kaiser and the Socialists,” reference is is made to the Kaisers’ conquest of the Socialist (so-called) leader of Karlsruhe, one Fendrich, who has been serving with the Kaiser’s legions. It seems Fendrich has written his war experiences for the Imperial benefit. An interview resulted and the royal personage shook Fendrich by the hand and thanked him. The scribe says regarding Wilhelm’s persuasive way :

“He has already convinced men like Scheidemann, Haase, Franck, and all other governmental Socialists. Fendrich is only one more. He will get the Iron Cross. Dr. Sudekum, the Socialist leader, got it.”

Yes ! And when the International working class cease letting their brains out on hire, all the ruddy lot will get it—where the chopper hit the chicken. Meanwhile we hourly expect some similar royal greatness to be thrust upon us.

B. B. B.

Blogger's Note:

The Workers' Liberty website carries a 1915 article on Anton Fendrich, which was originally published in the San Francisco Call, and which was reprinted in James Connolly's Workers' Republic on the 4th December 1915.

Notice to contributors. (1915)

Notice from the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Editorial Committee desire to impress upon Comrades that it is advisable that literary contributions to the Party Organ should come to hand before the issue for which they are intended is in the hands of the public, as after that it is awkward to include another matter.

“Brilliant” speech. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Seddon, as president of the T.U. Congress, addressed the delegates, the Press scribes showered unstinted praise upon him for a more than usually “brilliant” speech. But listen to this, from a contemporary :

“The Chairman’s address, capital in itself, was marred by the fact that printed copies of it had been circulated to the delegates beforehand. It might as well have been taken as read !”

Dear ! Dear ! How very distressful ! For the brilliant assembly had not only the pain of reading it, but a second dose in the reciting of it by the writer. Still, they deserve all they get.

B. B. B.

'Our Enemy At Home.' (1915)

Pamphlet Review from the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Our Enemy At Home' by Mr. Cecil Shirley (Anti-Socialist Union, 1915)

If the above-quoted phrase were mentioned to a Socialist in "peace" time or in war time his (or her) mind would immediately incline toward a consideration of the capitalist class. An anti-Socialist would obviously place a different construction upon the phrase from that placed upon it by a Socialist.

That this is so is apparent from a pamphlet, bearing the title : "Our Enemy at Home," issued by the Anti-Socialist Union, and the authorship of which is claimed (or admitted) by a Mr. Cecil Shirley. The cover is a colourable imitation of that now familiar eye-sore, khaki, and it bears two crossed Union Jacks on a white background—the latter symbolical of purity, and the former of—England.

The pamphlet is ostensibly an exposure of Socialist activities during the present war, but the "Socialist" character of the activities exposed can well be measured when it is discovered that the sources of the majority of the extracts are given as "The Daily Herald," "The Labour Leader," "The New Statesman," and “Forward." Some of these papers may be anti-war in character, but they do not thereby assume a Socialist aspect, just as a hatred of pork does indicate an adherence to vegetarianism. Two extracts are given front the Socialist Standard, as a saving grace, presumably.

The author's knowledge of and acquaintance with Socialism is admirably illustrated by the following gem, which appears on the title page: 

  The Socialists demand that the State should provide them with all the necessaries of life.
  Yet the Socialists are the least willing to help the State when its very existence is threatened.
  The Socialist idea of Patriotism seems to be to obtain as much as possible from the State, but to give nothing.

In view of this the person who induced Mr. Shirley to pose as a pamphleteer against Socialism has a heavy responsibility lying at his door. Much water has flowed under Westminster Bridge since Louis XIV remarked "The State: I am the State"; but that the introduction of Socialism means the disappearance of the State is a truism for all who have taken the trouble to understand the meaning of the terms "State" and "Socialism." From this it will be seen that to talk of Socialists demanding benefits FROM the State would be on a par with a demand that the "No Lights" order should be applied to the harvest moon. All that Socialists demand OF the State is its supersedence by Socialism. Simply that and nothing more.

The head and front of our offending seems to be that we have remained Socialists during the war. Therein lies our crime. Had we fallen into line with the great political parties as regards the war, our peace-time transgressions could all have been forgiven. The pamphlet says (p. 20) : "All honour lo those Socialists who have put the claims of their country before those of their political doctrines." Mr. Shirley has been at great pains to discover that which is self-evident, namely, that Socialists are not patriotic. Dr. Johnson has laid it down that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and it is to be hoped that the learned lexicographer will not turn in his grave when I add that it is the first refuge of a capitalist.

At the outbreak of the war much was heard of the political truce and the united front, which front, incidentally, has been well laundered with the soft soap of orthodox politicians. This political truce resulted in the formation of the Coalition Government and merely means that the two political parties of employers have agreed to see the war through to a fitting conclusion, the time for and fitness of such conclusion to be adjudged by them. Their one-time implied understanding has yielded place to an open and avowed coalition. The traitors and traffickers in dishonour of yesterday have become the patriots of to-day. It is still "Business as usual," but no longer under the guise of "It is the duty of the Opposition to oppose." Mr. Shirley complains (p. 20) that "Socialists advocate politics as usual." Had we, as Socialists, decided to side with the liberal or Tory patriots we would have reaped a harvest —and a whirlwind. We could have been patriotic, but hear let the late Lord Roberts speak. I quote from his “Message to the notion” (1912). On page 43 he said : "The conditions amid which millions of our people are living appear to me to make it natural that they should not care a straw under what rule they may be called upon to dwell, and I can quite understand their want of patriotism."

And again on pp. 44 and 45: "Yet recent unimpeachable evidence makes it clear that, to tens of thousands of Englishmen engaged in daily toil, the call to ‘sacrifice' themselves for their country must seem on insult to their reason ; for those conditions amid which they live make their lives already an unending sacrifice.” Thus the late Lord Roberts — a patriot whose integrity Mr. Shirley will not question. It it the "unimpeachable evidence” and the causes thereof that have given ground to the Socialist attitude of which our pamphleteer complains, which give rise, in fact, to the whole Socialist propaganda. Remove them, and there will be no anti-Socialist complaints, for there will be no anti-Socialist to complain.

The pamphlet gives two extracts from the Socialist Standard, as follows : "The working class is not in our masters' schemes except to afford the latter riotous luxury and, in time of war, providing food for cannon" (July 1915) and "Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism” (September 1914). Of these extracts, needless to say, we are unashamed. And strange though it may seem in the circumstances, both the quotations are verified at the sources given.

We are told (p. 26) : "But the opponents of Socialism can never forget what has been done and said by so many Socialists at a time when the country and the Empire were struggling for their very existence,” and again (p. 28) ‘‘Patriots one and all . . . will certainly remember what has been mud and written during these critical times by Our Enemy At Home." This remembrance will serve its purpose (if it comes to pass), and it is as well that the extracts from our paper are recorded, for in the future we need to justify our attitude, not in the eyes of the capitalist class, but only in those of the working class. It is hoped that these foreshadowed memories will be active when the present awful holocaust has ended. And not only this, but those patriots who are to-day so smitten with war-fever may remember also what has been said by their present day friends. The promises made; the attractions offered; the glittering appeals; the honourable thoughts: let these be remembered and contrasted with the conditions which will then be experienced.

Mr. Shirley goes into the questions of pre-war diplomacy, of opposition to recruiting, of Socialists’ sneers at Belgium. He protests against jeering at the German atrocities, forgetful that the war is in itself, one huge atrocity—a necessary concomitant of that human bane called capitalism. Against the Socialists be uses all those weapons that are to-day used by each sect against all others because they do not see eye-to-eye on certain war transactions. Against the Socialists these weapons fail. The powder is wet or else the gun has a faulty bore.

Our attitude, from a working-clam standpoint, will bear the light of day and the test of time and truth. Were we to hang our beads in shame at what we have said and done our opponents would immediately be half-victorious. But we are not ashamed; we glory in the fact that during one of the greatest catastrophies that has yet overwhelmed mankind, we nave kept our heads—and our feet; we have remained true to our principles. The war is not yet over, and our victory has not yet come, but our present attitude augurs well for the future. and it is the consciousness of this that disgruntles the capitalist Shirleys.

Perhaps, after the war, one bright little urchin will approach our pamphleteer with the well-rehearsed question : "What did you do, Daddy, in the great war?” and Daddy, filling hit chest with pompous pride, might reply : "I wrote a pamphlet. I helped to crush Prussian militarism by telling Socialists that which they already knew and convincing those who were never in doubt”

A. L. Cox

Words to the Wise. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Men are running short — save the kids!

*     *    *

Capitalism is no longer a system, it's a bloody mess.

*     *    *

Socialism, therefore, is not a mere theory, it's a necessity.

*     *    *

In short, Socialism is not a dream, though capitalism is a nightmare.

*     *    *

To do nothing to end it is to maintain this regime of murder and robbery.

*     *    *

Socialism, said the holy friar, will destroy civilisation ; well! what is capitalism doing? 

*     *    *

Churchill has gone to the front. Now perhaps we shall soon hear of the Germans being gassed. 

*     *    *

There is one certain remedy for Socialism, said the statesman, and that is war. But will capitalism survive it ?

*     *    *

Bill Nye said : “It is the duty of the great orator to howl for war, and then hold some other man’s coat while he fights.” The orators are not tired yet.

*     *    *

The workingman who votes for and champions the class that robs him is like the ill-treated cur that licks the hand that thrashed it.

*     *    *

Oh yes! The boss and his workers are partners. They do everything and he gets everything. They do the work and he does them.

*     *    *

A lesson in Eugenics 

Lady: —Have you any experience of children? 

Woman : — No, Ma'am, I've always work'd in the best families.

*     *    *

The “Daily Mail" says "Single Men First.” It wants cheap soldiers, hut that's not all. It was stated during the South African War that the “Mail” was staffed by office boys. Since then it appears they've all got married. Hence the noble offer of the single men first. It recalls what Artemus Ward wrote to King Edward: “I have already given two cousins to the war. and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother ruther'n not see the enemy krusht. And if wuss comes to wins, I’ll shed every drop of blood my able-bodied relations has got to prosekoot the war."

*     *    *

It was pay-day and the wage-slave crawled into the pay-office of the Gas, Light and Coke Company. A shiver ran down his back as his eye fell on the “writing on the wall”

“ONLY SEVENTEEN MORE DAYS!

GO! DON'T BE PUSHED!"

“ Its come at larst'" he gasped, staggering forward to meet his fate. "This meant the sack - and another bloomin' volunteer "

A minute later the wage-slave was being earned out on a stretcher.

“It wasn't the poster as did it, Maryann." the wage-slave was explaining “But arter readin’ ‘only seventeen more days, go, don't be pushed!" and then ter find, insteader bein' pushed they'd given us all a bob-a-week rise — and without arstin', rekerlec; without arstin' — that's what done it. That's the third without ever bein' arst. Lumme, they don’t arf luvus these days, they don’t, not arf!"

The Slacker.

What is Patriotism? An Analysis. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Johnsonian Definition and Others.
The answer depends largely upon the point of view. From one standpoint patriotism appears as the actual religion of the modern State. From another it is the decadence and perversion of a noble and deep-rooted impulse of loyalty to the social unit, acquired by mankind during the earliest stages of social life. From yet another viewpoint, that of capitalist interests, patriotism is nothing more or less than a convenient and potent instrument of domination.

The word itself, both etymologically and historically, has its root in paternity. In tribal days the feeling of social solidarity, which has now become debased into patriotism, was completely bound up with the religion of ancestor worship. In tribal religion, as in the tribe itself, all were united by ties of blood. The gods and their rights and ceremonies were exclusive to the tribesmen. All strangers were rigidly debarred from worship. The gods themselves were usually dead warriors. Every war was a holy war. Among the ancient Israelites, for instance, the holy Ark of Jehovah of Hosts accompanied the tribes to battle. It was this abode or movable tomb of the ancestral deity that went with the Jews in their march through the desert, and even to Jericho, playing an important part in the fall of that remarkable city. All the traditions of the Jewish religion, in fact, were identified with great national triumphs.

The Merits of the Early Brand

Thus tribal religion was completely interwoven with tribal aspirations and integrity. Tribal “patriotism" and religion were identical. Indeed, without the strongest possible social bond, without a kind of “patriotism" that implied the unhesitating self-sacrifice of the individual for the communal existence, it would have been utterly impossible for tribal man to have won through to civilisation. Natural selection insured that only those social groups which developed this supreme instinct of mutual aid could survive; the rest were crushed out in the struggle for existence. Is it a matter for wonder if it be found that such a magnificent social impulse, so vital to the struggling groups of tribal man, received periodical consecration in the willing human sacrifices so common in primitive religious ceremonial ? Bound up with the deliberate manufacture of gods for the protection of the tribe and its works, there is indicated a social recognition of the need for, and value of, the sacrifice of the individual for the common weal.

This noble impulse of social solidarity is the common inheritance of all mankind. But being a powerful social force it has lent itself to exploitation. Therefore, with the development of class rule this great impulse is made subordinate to the class interests of the rulers. It becomes debased and perverted to definite anti-social ends. As soon as the people become a slave class “the land of their fathers” is theirs no more. Patriotism to them becomes a fraudulent thing. The “ country ” is that of their masters alone. Nevertheless, the instinct of loyalty to the community is too deep-seated to be eradicated so easily, and it becomes a deadly weapon in the hands of the rulers against the people themselves.

With the decay of society based on kinship, religion changed also, and from being tribal and exclusive it became universal and propagandist. “Patriotism” at the same time began to distinguish itself from religion. The instinctive tribal loyalty became transformed, by the aid of religion and the fiction of kinship, into political loyalty. In a number of instances in political society, as in Tudor England, the struggle for priority between religion and patriotism became so acute as to help in the introduction of a more subservient form of religion. Thus patriotism became emancipated from religion, and the latter became a mere accessory to patriotism as handmaiden of class rule.

A Most Accommodating Conception.

Though universal religion did not split up at the same time as the great empire that gave it birth, patriotism did so. The latter has, in fact, always adapted, enlarged, or contracted itself to fit the existing political unit, whether feudal estate, village, township, county, kingdom, republic or empire. No political form has been too absurd for it to fill with its loyalty. No discordance of race, colour or language has been universally effective against it.

What, then, is patriotism in essence to-day? It is usually defined as being devotion to the land of our fathers. But which is the land of our fathers? Our fathers came from many different parts of the world. The political division of the world in which we live is an artificial entity. The land has been wrested from other races. The nation they call “ours” is the result of a conquest over original inhabitants, and over ourselves, by successive ruling classes. Unlike the free tribesmen we are hirelings; we possess no country.

Nationality, of which patriotism is the superstition, covers no real entity other than that of a common oppression, a unified government. It does not comprise any unity of race, for in no nation is there one pure race, or anything like it. It does not cover a unity of language, for scarcely a nation exists in which several distinct languages are not indigenous. Nor is it any fixity of territory, for this changes from decade to decade, while the inhabitants of the transferred territory have to transfer their allegiance, their patriotism, to the new nation.

The Product of the Analysis.
The only universal bond of nationality or patriotism that exists for us to-day is, then, that of subjection to a single government. Patriotism in the worker is pride in the common yoke imposed by a politically unified ruling class. Yet it is this artificial entity that we are called upon to honour before life itself. This badge of political servitude is called an object worthy of supreme sacrifice. The workers are expected to abandon all vital interests and sacrifice all they hold dear for the preservation of an artificial nationality that is little more than a manufactured unit of discord: a mere focus of economic and political strife.

Ignoble Exploitation

Thus one of the noblest fruits of man’s social evolution—the impulse of sacrifice for the social existence—is being prostituted by the capitalist class to maintain a system of exploitation, to obtain a commercial supremacy, and preserve or extend the boundaries of a superfluous political entity. The workers are duped by the ruling class into sacrificing themselves for the preservation of a politico-economic yoke of a particular form and colour. Many so-called Socialists have fallen headlong into this trap.

Had social solidarity developed in equal measure with the broadening of men’s real interests, it would now be universal in character instead of national. The wholesale mixture of races, and the economic interdependence of the whole world, show that nationalism is now a barrier, and patriotism, as we know it, a curse. Only the whole world can now be rightly called the land of our fathers. Only in the service of the people of the whole world, and not against those of any part of it, can the instinct of social service find its highest and complete expression. The great Socialist has pointed the way. He did not call upon the workers of Germany alone to unite. He appealed to the toilers of the whole world to join hands; to a whole world of labour whose only loss could be its parti-coloured chains. And in this alone lies the consummation of that tribal instinct of social solidarity of which patriotism is the perverted descendant.

Something Better than Patriotism.

Capitalism, therefore, stands as the barrier the destruction of which will not only set free the productive forces of society for the good of all, but will also liberate human solidarity and brotherhood from the narrow confines of nationality and patriotism. Only victorious labour can make true the simple but pregnant statement: “Mankind are my brethren, the world is my country.” Patriotism and nationalism as we know them will then be remembered only as artificial restrictions of men’s sympathy and mutual help; as obstacles to the expansion of the human mind; as impediments to the needful and helpful development of human unity and co-operation; as bonds that bound men to slavery; as incentives that set brothers at each other's throats.

Despite its shameless perversion by a robber class the great impulse to human solidarity is by no means dead. Economic factors give it an ever firmer basis, and in the Socialist movement it develops apace. Even the hellish system of individualism, with its doctrine of every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, has been unable to kill it. And in the great class struggle of the workers against the drones, of the socially useful against the socially pernicious, in this last great struggle for the liberation of humanity from; wage-slavery, the great principle of human solidarity, based upon the necessities of to-day and impelled by the deep-seated instincts of the race, will come to full fruition and win its supreme historical battle.

A Vile Use of a Noble Sentiment

That is our hope and aspiration. For the present, however, we are surrounded by the horrors of war added to the horrors of exploitation, and subjected to the operation of open repression as well as to the arts of hypocrisy and fraud. With the weakening power of religion to keep the workers obedient, the false cult of nationality and patriotism is being exploited to the full. Like religion, patriotism has its vestments, its ceremonies, its sacred emblems, its sacred hymns and inspired music; all of which are called in aid of the class interests of our masters, and utilised desperately to lure millions to the shambles for their benefit. Thus is an heroic and glorious social impulse perverted and debased to the support of a régime of wage-slavery, and to the furtherance of the damnable policy of the slave-holding class: to divide and rule.

F. C. Watts

Why The Light of Truth Should Be Extinguished. (1915)

From the December 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

There recently appeared a new weekly devoted to matters of interest to those who patronise the Cinema. Its title is "Film Flashes," and one of the plashes that illuminated its first number is reproduced below. It is worth noting as a manifestation of the class war: as one of the methods employed by the master class to suppress anything that would tend to enlighten the workers. The cutting follows.

We should regret to see exhibitors give much prominence to the new Metro picture, "The Bigger Man," recently exhibited at a trade show at the Shaftesbury Pavilion. "The Bigger Man" introduces the highly controversial subject of Capital and Labour, and shows a fight in progress between Strikers and Strike-breakers, which culminates in the appearance of a large body of troops under orders to fire on the mob. It is obvious at a time like this it would be very unwise, if not dangerous, to awaken thoughts of the old and bitter strife of past years, and we sincerely hope that Ruffells will reconsider their attitude in regard to the release of this picture. Many of the scenes, which are intended to contrast the great gulf existing between the master and man, are overdrawn and although these things may portray American labour life correctly enough, they are happily not true in regard to this country. (Italics mine.) 

Choice, isn't it?

In these days it is "very unwise, if not dangerous," to comment too freely upon the doings of our masters. (I believe it is considered treason even to whisper to your next-door neighbour that you always preferred Kiel butter to British waggon fat.) Else the writer would dearly like to quote from a few other sources, material is never wanting with which to confute the case for capitalism. Further that this the writer makes no comment, preferring to leave it to thinking readers to provide their own.

May Field