Jottings. (1921)

The Jottings Column from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Hon. William Jennings Bryan has been having a fling at the scientists in the Pentecostal Herald (Louisville, Ky.). He falls foul of Darwinism and the doctrine of evolution in general. He flatly refuses to believe that evolution has taken place by the processes described and proved by the scientists, and asks : "Isn't it strange that they can teach this tommy-rot to students and look serious about it? "

The strange thing to-day is how people can believe the tommy-rot that Bryan and his friends teach, in view of the fact that there is enough evidence on every hand not only to discredit it, but to pulverize it.

Unfortunately, the scientists themselves are not straightforward in these matters. When persons of the standing of Bryan get up, there are very few scientists courageous enough to get up in turn and put the quietus on the dope dispensers. Either they remain silent, or, if they do reply, they hasten to say that science in no way clashes with the Bible. This in spite of the incontrovertible facts they have established. Why is this? Are they afraid of these people? Only recently a serial publication was issued claiming in its prospectus that its sole aim and purpose was to provide a clear and concise view of the essentials of present-day science, in the interests of the general public, yet finished up by saying : 

"Matter, as now viewed by science, is something as little materialistic in the old sense as could be well imagined . . .
"True science does not seek to deprive man of his soul, or to drive the Creator from His Universe."

Can you beat it? Either this is cowardice or fear—or both. Why? We may hazard a guess. It may be that if the scientists of to-day were too assiduous in the spreading of accurate knowledge of the facts of life within reach of the working class, they would find their support, financial and otherwise, withdrawn and, like Othello, their occupation gone. We know that under a capitalist system those who pay the piper call the tune.

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A shocking state of affairs has been disclosed by a Capt. Bagley in the Sunday Times, arising out of the policing of white people by coloured troops in the occupied regions of Germany.

Readers are now contributing their impressions of what they have seen in this area, and are asking what the British people intend to do about it.

We can tell them what they are likely to do about it—Nothing.

  

"There are men who often stand forth in questions, of morality; one heard their voices when German atrocities were to the fore. Why are these men's voices silent now?" Why, because it is now "up another street." When they concerned themselves before it was part of a policy "to win the war." It was all claptrap, of course, but it served its purpose.

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Blatchford's patriotic sentiments have been hurt by an article of Bernard Shaw's, in the Nation, in which the latter states his reasons for not attending the Washington Conference. Shaw states that the Conference will fail because nobody is really sincere.

  

". . . though the Conference may stage one or two public meetings within earshot of the Press, nothing real will be done or told there. . . . In Washington the delegates who really matter will confer; but they will not confer in public." This is exactly what did happen, so that Blatchford's sloppy adulation of our ruling class receives a bit of a set-back. ''We shall learn nothing about this Conference from the Conference itself. Its business is now avowedly not disarmament, but the old task of arranging a balance of power that will be satisfactory to all parties." (Shaw.) Blatchford won't have this ; but can anyone imagine the capitalists of the world disarming—even partly—and living in complete concord? The idea is absurd. To call it a step in the direction of total disarmament, as Blatchford does, is simply nonsense. Their interests will not permit it. What would they do in cases of wholesale working class repression? Surely they will not relinquish quietly the most effective method—Force !

However, they are not thinking of doing this. A little  item in the Observer (20.11.'21) goes to show that Shaw was nearer the mark than Blatchford— "The War Office is making its plans for the organisation of twenty-three general hospitals, to be located in large towns near Universities and civil hospitals, and capable of dealing with from 25,000 to 35,000 casualties. It appeals for the valuable co-operation of the Universities and civil hospitals."

No; war will not be "outlawed" so long as our masters have something to start a fight over, fools to do the fighting, and prominent men to encourage them. When Blatchford (Sunday Herald, 20.11.'21) says : "There is no Power represented at the Conference that wants war, that does not hate war," we—well, we simply smile.

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The "Great Silence" dope was pulled off all right. Except for the howling of sirens, the blowing of whistles, the hooting of horns, the banging of guns, and the noise of running engines in standing motor cars, you could have heard a pin drop. Like most swindles, it has caught on, and there is talk of making it a permanent institution—that is, until some selfish employer one day discovers that the slowing down, preparatory to the two minutes, and the gradual starting up again interferes with production, and consequently profits.

Thousands of troops and ex-service men (chiefly unemployed through the Big War) dutifully lined up and paid their tribute to that section of the working class known as the "Glorious Dead."

One man, according to the Manchester City News (12.11.'21), who either forgot the solemnity of the occasion or chose to ignore it, was forcibly stopped in one of the main streets of Manchester by an Army officer and compelled to stand. At the expiration of the two minutes an ex-service man walked up to him and bashed him in the face.

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Some of the beer now being consumed by the public is alleged to  contain injurious chemicals. It has been noticed lately that the beer spilled on the counters in bars is having a burning action on the wood. — Daily Mail (1.11.'21).

That, taken in conjunction with what G. H. Roberts, M.P., said at the Brewers' Exhibition luncheon recently, explains a good deal.

He told them that when he was Food Controller during the war, the Government caused the beer to be diverted to places where industral unrest was most acute, in order to induce the workers to maintain their output.

Although some members of the Government were staunch teetotallers, they were obliged to face the fact that if they had not had that beer at their disposal, our gallant men in various theatres of the war might have been hampered in their great task.— Observer (30.10.'21).

So we can be told now that it was a mentality induced by bad beer that won the war ! And a Labour man takes the credit for it ! This is a point worth noting.

There is no doubt about it that the mass of the workers to-day are both mentally and physically poisoned. What with religion and labour faking, cinemas and bad beer— is it any wonder? Probably this will account to some extent for their indifference to the slammings they keep getting. The amount of mental damage inflicted by various forms of dope is appalling.

Will readers assist us in providing the necessary antidote by a small donation to our Thousand Pound Fund?

Tom Sala

Ghosts. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world is suffering from a plethora of fat boys who will persist in trying to make our flesh creep. We have no objection to them practising their black magic in the privacy of their back parlours, to the prostration of their maiden aunts, but the limit is reached when they insist upon the rest of the world witnessing their performances. We refer to that cult of neurotics of both sexes, viz., "Spiritualism," and to the publicity that the "sensation press" is giving it.

Some time ago the Weekly Dispatch worked overtime getting out extra copies, while it was running a series of articles by Mr. Vale Owen which purported to convey "communications from departed spirits." Now Mr. James Douglas, the editor of the Sunday Express is performing similar stunts albeit in the guise of a "not-yet-convinced agnostic." Yet it is easy to perceive that Mr. Douglas, as a smart journalist, is, among other things, endeavouring to emulate the commercial success of his contemporary and draw the coppers from the pockets of the mystified working class to the coffers of Lord Beaverbrook, "the apostle of success."

Although one may have a doubt as to whether Mr. V. Owen was a knave or a fool, Mr. Douglas has a more accessible public record, and we know he is no fool. It is perhaps only just, however, to concede him the point that he is the tool of an exploiting master class, to whose interest it is that confusion should exist in the minds of the workers.

It is not our mission, or of any propagandist value to debate "Spiritualism" as distinct from any other phase of religion. Socialism as a system of society means the end of supernatural beliefs. Our work has as its objective the overthrow of Capitalism, and we do not care to spend much time on its various side shows. We therefore are not primarily interested in exposing the credulity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or the senility of Sir Oliver Lodge. Mr. Joseph McCabe and others can do that quite well enough in their professional capacity. But where we are concerned with the question of Spiritualism is that Capitalism prolongs its lease of life while the minds of the working class are confused and side-tracked from the path of progress towards their emancipation.

That the phenomena supposed to have been experienced by Mr. Douglas at the "Black Seance" cannot be substantiated by any scientific fact is obvious to the logical mind, but that the working into a hysteria of nervous apprehension of a great proportion of the populace is a direct advantage to the Capitalist class in their business of keeping the working class submissive and enduring is obvious to the Socialist.

If a table can defy the law of gravity and float round the room of its own volition, well and good; scientists must alter their texts books accordingly. And if a spirit can sing "The long long trail" without a larynx, anatomists must also revise their opinions ! But what we do discover about these seances is that no dead Socialist has come back to tell the readers of the Capitalist Press how they are exploited in the interests of the humbugging Capitalist class! And there must be many of our comrades wandering about the Astral Plane we think! Perhaps—horrible thought—the spirit of Capitalism reigns up there too, and has clapped our departed pals into ghostly jails so that they shan't blow the gaff on the fat men below !

But, maybe, we wax flippant. The situation has really no funny side. It calls for the same stern comment that the Armistice Day hypocrisy demands, and indeed, as do all the dodges that Capitalism uses to maintain its existence. The Cenotaphs and bunting, the ceremonies and sentimentalities, the panem et circenses, that seem to be more in evidence than ever before, all serve their turn, and the brutal rapacity of the Moloch we endure battens on the ignorance they signify.

Spiritualism will have its brief turn on the stage of history and make its exit, and something else will take its stead in the public mind and eye; but in the meantime the facts remain that Society here below is rotten to the core, that a small section of it lives in luxurious idleness on the profits rung from the remainder, who, as a consequence, suffer the pangs of hunger, the diseases attendant on slum working class should fix its mind upon. Directly the master class discover that flying tambourines and mystic ventriloquisms no longer absorb the attentions of an awakening proletariat they will command the spirits they have summoned to emulate the Arabs by "folding their tents and
silently stealing away." It will be almost time then for the Capitalist class to do likewise.

S.

"Agriculture and Community." by J. F. Duncan. (1921)

Book Review from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Agriculture and the Community by Joseph F. Duncan (Queensgate, Stirling, Scottish Farm Servants' Union, 1921)

Mr. Duncan is secretary of the Scottish Farm Servants' Union, but his knowledge of agriculture is by no means limited to the Trade Union aspect. He displays quite an extensive grasp of the organisation and technical development of agricultural production. What he lacks, and this is not merely a drawback, but makes the book a positive danger to the landworker who wants to understand his place in the workers' movement, is a conception of the working class point of view on social structure. Mr. Duncan is apparently unaware even that there can be a working class point of view. He speaks for "the Community," his object being to "discuss a policy by which the community will be able to make the industry contribute its proper share to the public welfare."

What is the Community? Mr. Duncan assumes that his readers know; but he is quite evidently at sea himself. Webster's dictionary says it is a body of people having common interests. Given, therefore, a group of people geographically associated, unless they have interests in common, community is a myth. Have the workers in general, or in agriculture, interests in common with the employers? Mr. Duncan admits they have not. He says (page 40) a policy based on such an idea "would be disastrous to the workers," and (introduction) ''The interest of the community does not coincide with these sectional and class interests" (i.e., of farmers and landowners). On every page are instances of the confusion which arises from Mr. Duncan's failure to realise the necessity of clear thinking.

In one place the community is the taxpayers who object to subsidising farmers, in another those who want cheap food, and again, the "nation" which wants protection from foreign enemies; and, as might be expected, Mr. Duncan's notion of the State is equally out of keeping with the facts. How can some central body represent impartially the conflicting elements which compose the nation? Actually it represents the dominant class against the subject class, and incidentally at any particular time as between divergent capitalist interests it will represent that section which is in the ascendant.

Ownership of land may still carry with it social prestige, but it is no longer an important source of political power. Although a few years ago probably 2,500 people owned half the land of this country, the land owners are losing cohesion and political importance as a class, and the land is looked at with great and increasing longing by the industrial and financial capitalists as a means of lightening their own burden of taxation. Whether they tax it or get rent revenue by nationalising it, the result will be the same for them. Mr. Duncan thinks the tendency is in the direction of State ownership, but that is not of great importance. Besides revenue there is another vital question. It is that of cheap food. The industrial capitalist wants his workers' food prices to be low, not because he wants them to live well, but because he wants them to live cheaply; the reason being that their cost of living is the basic factor of their wages. Most of the workers, like Mr. Duncan, don't realise this, and therefore advocate Free Trade, the Liberal remedy for high prices. From about 1880 onwards there was a great slump in agriculture owing to the importation of cheap corn from such countries as America, where owing to the apparently unlimited supply of virgin soil expensive fertilising and rotation of crops were unnecessary. So long, however, as food was cheap agriculture at home could be neglected. Now however, those virgin soils are rapidly reaching exhaustion, and the same methods of cultivation have to be applied there as here. Prices have therefore, apart from abnormal war conditions, been steadily rising, with the result that since the early years of the century the capitalists have again been getting keenly interested in the agricultural industry. In brief, their idea was that by raising the whole level of agricultural production ultimately to the high standard of technique and efficiency of other branches of production, they could not only add to revenue, and thus decrease taxation, but also ensure a supply of cheap food, sufficient to check the world rise in prices. Mr. Duncan here sets out to show them how it can be done.

During the war when the submarine campaign was at its height, the Government was really panic stricken, and offered guaranteed prices for wheat and oats to encourage production. They have now recovered from their fright and have decontrolled the industry, but their subsidies were not by any means thrown away. The guaranteed prices were accompanied by minimum rates of pay, and although the Agricultural Wages Boards have now been abolished the effect of them has been to induce vast and lasting improvements in methods of cultivation. High wages are always an inducement to the introduction of machinery, and Mr. Duncan remarks that organisation to raise wages has led to the introduction of labour-saving appliances. At present the production per head in agriculture is £90 per annum, as against £200 in some industries, and the result of the raising of productivity will be shown eventually in cheaper food, from which the industrialists will reap their harvest. This, however, is no concern of the workers, as Mr. Duncan would have us believe. To use an old but useful illustration, the price of food no more concerns them than does the price of fodder concern the horse. One would have thought that this lesson would have been brought home to Mr. Duncan from the Anti-corn Law agitation of the early part of last century. The workers were foolish enough to lend their weight to that agitation, but the manufacturers it was who benefited. It is most touching to recollect how generously the manufacturers offered the workers cheap bread—at the expense of the landowners—and how the latter offered them factory legislation—at the expense of the manufacturers; all, of course, for the benefit of the workers! Mr. Duncan so little appreciates this as to wonder why factory legislation was not applied to agriculture until some time later.

Having shown that landowners do not serve any useful function, seeing that they do not to any degree sink capital in improvements or equipment, nor do they supervise or organise, Mr. Duncan wants their dead weight removed so that production can be intensified, free from their incubus. Like the good capitalists who suffer from the exactions of landowners, Mr. Duncan thinks it immoral that the landlord class, which now performs no useful service in production, should continue to receive a share of the spoil which another functionless class, the capitalists, have taken from the workers.

Outlining his case for State ownership of land and large scale farming, he usefully demonstrates the enormous economy in working and avoidance of overlapping that would be possible, but as is usual with advocates of nationalisation, he omits to show what benefits such developments can be to the workers, whose job is economised out of existence. "With more and better machinery the output could be as great from the 1,000 acre farm as from the five (200 acre farms) with fewer men employed." (Page 89.)

He assumes the continuance of production for sale in the competitive world market, and, of course, the continued exploitation of the workers, although he suggests safeguards against too low wages. He says the whole question is: Can we produce corn cheaper than it can be imported from abroad? Sir A. D. Hall is quoted to show how uneconomical is small-holding production as compared with the possibilities of the extended use of machinery on large farms, and it throws an interesting light on political stunts to learn that the demand for these holdings does not come in the main from land workers.

He is very severe on the middlemen, who, he says, "cheated the consumer," and shows how in Derby in October, 1919, the Co-operative Society, with 84 employees, men and women, distributed 17,000 gallons of milk per week, as against 224 retailers who handled only 15,000 gallons.

It is when Mr. Duncan deals with the policy to be adopted by the agricultural workers that he is most confused and confusing, a condition he shares with his English colleagues.

He admits that agricultural wages and prices have no direct relation (page 5), and instances the retailing of milk as a trade in which high prices and sweating prevailed side by side, and that "in good times as in bad they (the farmers) always fight stubbornly against any increase in wages. The workers need expect nothing from farmers except what they are able to force from them" (page 6). Yet, like Mr. R. B. Walker, of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, he assumes that relatively high prices will gurantee high wages : "the price must be such as will secure to the producers a proper standard of living" (page 94). Again, quite inconsistently with the statement made above and contrary to general experience, he lays it down that "steady improvement in the productive power" is essential to "progressive improvement for the wage earners" (page 41), and yet confesses (page 109) that higher wages have not resulted from better farming.

One cannot but be amazed to read on page no 110: "Given a more efficient and a larger scale industry . . . rural society would not be divided horizontally as it is to-day" ; and wonders whether Mr. Duncan really does believe that the more highly developed industries are free from conflict between employer and employed.

Lest it should be thought that muddled thinking is peculiar to Mr. Duncan, it is as well to note that an utter disregard for accuracy and consistency is shared by most of those teachers of the land workers, who justify their opposition to Socialist propaganda on the ground that it is beyond the comprehension of their pupils at present.

If there were any justification that could be pleaded for leaders it would be that they actually do give a lead to their followers ; but can those who have no considered policy themselves provide one for others?

Mr. R. B. Walker, secretary of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, quite correctly condemns "the vicious rubbish . . . that their prospects and conditions have not, and cannot have, any relation to those of urban workers " (Labour Leader, October 13th, 1921); while Mr. H. R. Lovell, assistant secretary, " wanted to make it clear that they were a purely land workers' union. They did not want to be mixed up in any shape or form with the Industrial Unions of the country " (Wages Board Gazette, December 11th, 1920). Incidentally, it is the boast of this Union, which is affiliated to the Trade Union Congress, that it is an industrial Union .

Mr. Lovell continued : "They were therefore running along with the Farmers' Union, so far as they could, to make agriculture one of the first industries of the country—an industry which would give to the people who had their capital invested in it a fair return for ther money and brains." This same Farmers' Union, with in a month of the abolition of the Wages Board, had obtained more than 20 per cent, reduction of wages on the standard prevailing at the end of August.

Mr. Duncan, who sometimes does and sometimes doesn't want co-operation with the employers, refers to other people who do, as "well-meaning persons whose emotions are more easily stirred than their brains." (Page 40.) Mr. Lovell and Mr. Walker support the policy of giving sub sidies to farmers; Mr. Duncan opposes. (Page 40.)

After the workers' minds have been confused by this sort of stuff, is it to be wondered that Socialist propaganda is difficult?

The outstanding defect of Mr. Duncan's book arises from his inability to see the out lines of capitalist social structure and the urgent necessity for a new organisation. He discusses what will be a problem of the new society (i.e., organising agricultural production) in relation to existing social conditions, which renders the discussion largely valueless. As conditions change so does the problem, and with it the solution of the problem. While the system remains and the capitalist class continue in power, industry can only be considered on a profit-making basis.

The present interest of the workers is to resist their exploitation to the full extent of their power, not to trouble about the technical problems which confront their exploiters.

P. J. L.

On Illegal Organisations. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the July issue reasons were given for our opposition to the Communist Party. Among other things, the opinions were expressed that "it is impossible to organise the working class secretly," and that, with the possible exception of politically and economically backward countries, no necessity for illegal methods of propaganda exists, and no useful purpose is served by devoting energy to them.

America provides interesting confirmation of the inevitable failure of the illegal organisation. In that country a serious attempt was made to apply the Moscow policy, and it was in fact the, boast of the American Communists that "the United States is the only country in the world where the Communist movement, as such, is an underground movement."

In the October Liberator (New York), Max Eastman, himself a supporter of the Third International, examines the present deplorable condition of the American Communist Party, and endeavours to explain it. His appreciation of the result of their work is this: "Two years have passed (since the secession from the Socialist Party), and except for the deepening and confirming of that split, nothing of appreciable value to the cause of Communism has been done by the Revolutionists. A good deal has been done to the detriment of the cause." This is all the more striking because the conditions considered, favourable to Communist propaganda have been present to a degree perhaps never previously known. "In spite of an 'increasing misery' that surpasses the demands of any theory, the workers in America seem to be less friendly to Communism than they were two years ago."

The mistake lay in the acceptance of the fallacy that capitalism had broken down beyond hope of recovery, and the supposition that the form of activity dictated by the semi-Feudal Russian autocracy must have application to the capitalist democracies. The first simply is not true, and the experience has again proved the falseness of the second.

There never was any necessity for propaganda to be illegal in America, any more than in this country. "It is not so much the ruthlessness of the American capitalists as the romanticism of the American Communists which accounts for their being underground. The majority of the leaders want to be underground. They enjoy disciplining the devotees of a rebellion, but educating the workers for the revolution is a less interesting task, and they are not fulfilling it."

The Communists "formed an elaborate conspiratorial organisation excellently adapted to promote treasonable and seditious enterprises, although they have no such enterprises on foot"; yet when subjected to police persecution for their activities they, like the Communists over here, are forced into the position of using the ordinary legal machinery for their protection. "The folly of this policy becomes tragically apparent when members of this underground organisation defend themselves in Court with the eloquent and perfectly truthful assertion that the propaganda they are conducting is not in violation of the laws." It becomes still more tragically apparent when they resort to the distribution of circulars advocating methods of terrorism—for the mere purpose, so far as we can judge, of sustaining and justifying the illegality of their organisation." This degeneration into the futility of sabotage has always been the fate of those who have never been nearer to an appreciation of the class struggle than that of throwing broken bottles at policemen.

Their failure is that they will not recognise the realities of the present situation, and the attitude of the workers towards capitalist institutions.

The capitalist class is, and will remain, in power until such time as the class conscious organised workers are strong enough to wrest that power from them. That power depends on the support of the great mass of the workers, unthinking though that support may be. Capitalist domination will not be overthrown because some relatively weak organisation declares its preparedness to defy constitutionalism, and to damn the consequences. It is a question not of intention, but of effectiveness, and the object of the revolutionary organisation is to strengthen itself until it is a force which cannot be ignored or suppressed. This means neither more nor less than the spreading of the knowledge of Socialism— the unexciting task of making Socialists. The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia because, for the objects they had in view, they had the mass of workers, peasants, and soldiers behind them. Those supporters were not Socialists, and those objects were not Socialism; but the position elsewhere with regard to the needs of the Socialist revolution is the same. The workers of America and Britain have not yet the requisite knowledge of, and sympathy with, Socialism ; in short they do not want it.

The Communist Party therefore, in its insurrectionary attitude to the American Government, alienates those very people for whose ears its propaganda is intended. In the eyes of the average worker the Government which he elects represents his interests, as its proclamations do actually mirror his opinions. It is a fact, and not a surprising one, that the average unthinking worker believes that the existing machinery of Government does give expression to the will of the people. What, then, is he to think of those who deliberately set themselves against what appears to him as the forces of law and order?

It would not matter so much if the Communists bore the burden of their own mistakes ; but the harm they do is much wider than that. They provide the Government with the excuse it desires for repressive legislation such as at ordinary times it would be difficult to introduce; and this legislation is used against every revolutionary propaganda body. They provide the openly capitalist political parties, and more particularly the reactionary "Labour" parties, with easy material for their attempts to discredit Socialism. They confuse, without educating, those workers who are reached by their propaganda, and antagonise the much larger number who hear only the misrepresentation to which it so readily lends itself.

It is a slow and difficult task to remove from the mind of the typical wage earner the pathetic belief in the inevitability of his sufferings, and in the permanency of political institutions and economic forms of society; but there is only one way, the educational way, and to think of challenging those who are now in control, before this educational work has been accomplished, is mere foolishness.

Knowledge of the evolution of human society, and of the origin and development of existing political institutions on the one hand, and knowledge of the present economic structures which makes possible the exploitation of the workers, an exploitation not superficially observable, are the necessary forerunners of successful organisation for the emancipation of the workers. Spectacular defiance of the powers that be has no place in this scheme of things.

P. J. L.

The "Crusader" Again. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the August issue I dealt with what I considered to be the weakness and insufficiency of the policy of the "Crusader," in so far as it is concerned with the emancipation of the workers. In reply the Editor wrote (August 26th) :

  "The writer, in his opening sentence, says that we believe in the power of the ethics of Christ to overcome all the difficulties and to combat all the evils which trouble mankind. That is just what we don't believe. The ethical system of Christianity by itself is a trunk without a head, a tree without a root. Christianity is based on attachment to a person of transcendent authority. When it is detached from this foundation, it loses all its distinctive characteristics, and becomes, what its adversaries declare it is, an impossible dream, a set of barren principles."

As a matter of fact, I am still of the opinion that my statement of the "Crusader's" attitude was a fair one, but evidently Stanley James thinks not. May I, however, quote from the "Crusader" itself (September 23rd) on this point, asking it to be noted that the Editor does not dissociate himself or the journal from the opinions of other writers in it? Mr. Wilfred Wellock, a regular contributor, writes, under the title "The Way Out," as follows :

  "Labour needs the lead of people who are prepared to take the straight road to the new world, to adopt a revolutionary programme based on the ethics of Christianity." 

And again : 

  "How magnificent it would be were Labour to stand four square on the principle of service and co-operation, and fight a General Election with such slogans as 'The Meek shall inherit the earth. . . ' "

Comment on this is not required.

Incidentally, to return to our opposition to the "Crusader" policy, I repeat, the militant and not the meek will inherit the earth.

Edgar Hardcastle

Plechanoff, Engels and Kautsky (1921)

Quotes from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “The Bourgeoise destroyed the feudal conditions of property; the proletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property. Between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a struggle, an implacable war, a war to the knife, is as inevitable as was in its way, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates. But every class war is a political war. In order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves, and not by any abstract consideration.” 

G. Plechanoff.

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   “The entire development of human society from the position of savagery began from the day when the labour of a family resulted in the production of more than was necessary for its support, from the day when a part of the labour was no longer expended on mere means of living but was transformed into means of production. A surplus of labour product over and above the cost of the maintenance of labour, and the creation and increase of a social production and reserve fund out of this surplus was, and is, the foundation of all social, political and intellectual development. In history, up to the present time, this fund has been the property of a certain superior class which has, with its possession, also the political mastery and spiritual supremacy. The approaching social revolution will make this social production and reserve fund—that is, the entire mass of raw material, instruments of production, and means of life— for the first time really social property, in that it will put an end to its monopolisation by the superior class and make it the common possession of the entire society.”

Engels.

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   “But however necessary were the capitalist system and the conditions which produced it, they are no longer so. The functions of the capitalist class devolve ever more upon paid employees. The large majority of the capitalists have now nothing to do but consume what others produce. The capitalist to-day is as superfluous a human being as the feudal lord had become a hundred years ago.”

K. Kautsky.

"Peace In Our Time." (1921)

Editorial from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several years ago a Conference was called together in Holland to consider the important question of Peace. Representatives of the ruling class in various nations (the territory-stealing, maiming and murdering sections of society) gravely discussed the best means of abolishing war, or, with sardonic humour, how to make it more humane. Sonorous sounding resolutions were put forward but—not passed. Each representative declared that his nation was simply bursting to abolish war, and if only the other nations would at once disarm—to show their good faith—his nation would at once follow suit—or—er—nearly so.

For by some curious freak of Fate each nation had had some particular cause for retaining one or other items in their armaments which, for practical reasons, they could not give up.

The net result was that after passing a few minor and ineffective resolutions, the Conference dissolved. And the cause of their failure was simple. Despite the old adage about “Honour among thieves," this particular Conference of cut-throats found it was impossible for them to trust each other, and so the efforts to reach an agreement upon the reduction of their general costs of throat-cutting ended without result.

1914-18 gave a lurid example of their brotherly love. It also showed how utterly ludicrous were the prophecies made by the various experts, French, English, and German, as to the length of time to which a vast war could be continued, and the absurd under-estimate of the quantities of munitions required to carry on such a war. The staggering loss of life and enormous destruction of wealth has shaken, to some extent, the complacency of the master class. The gigantic amounts the various sections of this class owe to each other—on paper, threatens arithmetical indigestion in their ledgers. So they are looking for a way out of their difficulties. A bright idea strikes one of these sections. “Let us call a Conference.” Carried away by the startling originality of this suggestion, the others agree, and date and place of meeting are decided.

For this resurrected farce a new stage is found, and Washington displaces The Hague. One or two new turns are introduced and a fresh song is sung by a chief comedian, but otherwise the farce remains, in all essentials, as originally produced.

For several years a fierce debate has been waging among naval experts on the relative value of the big gunboat usually known as the “Dreadnought.” Far from settling this problem, the naval activities of the war only intensified it. But while the “big” boat and “little” boat men are wrangling over their respective pet theories science has carried the question of armaments into new channels. The enormous development of the aeroplane and airship, along with the sudden introduction of poison gas, has given an almost entirely new aspect to the problems of war. The smartest agents of the master-class recognise this, and so the new comedian is ordered to appear and sing his latest song, entitled “ Let us scrap our Dreadnoughts ere they grow to old. ”

America, practically self-sufficing and protected by great sea spaces, starts the song. England and Japan, to whom naval activity is still of large importance, join somewhat stutteringly in the chorus. Then while the audience rises and cheers in a frenzy of enthusiasm, the actors retire behind the curtain to discuss the serious business of the day—how to carry out their burglary of China and the rest of Asia without strangling each other in the division of the “swag.”

Only a sunny optimist would imagine that burglary is going to be abolished by burglars.

Honesty may be the best policy, but they have found the second best very profitable up to the present. Modern wars are the results of the conflict of economic interests between various sections of the capitalist class. As these sections diminish in numbers, they increase in power, with the result that when conflicts do arise they are on a scale undreamt of before and with a slaughter roll staggering to contemplate.

Is there a solution?

Yes! But it will not be found at The Hague or Washington. It depends upon the understanding of the working class. When this class sees clearly that in peace or war they are but slaves to the master class, that this slavery is due to the masters' control of political power, and that this power is placed in the masters’ hands by the workers, the end of Capitalism is at hand.

By organising to take control of this power the workers will be able to establish the social ownership of the means of life, and so abolish the division of economic interests that results in war, misery, and increasing insecurity of life.

Then a real Peace Conference will have been called.

The Communist Party: Communists in a Hurry (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Communist, September 10th, 1921, F. Willis remarks on the passing of propaganda pamphlets like "Socialism and Bimetallism" and "Socialism and Old Age Pensions" ; relics of a bygone age. Our present-day Communists need "sterner stuff"; they want something quickly. One wonders why those professing to be Socialists ever came to propagate solutions for the domestic difficulties which beset the Capitalists, such as those mentioned above; but "J. B., " in the same issue of the Communist, evidently doesn't agree with Willis that the day for such things is no more. He has rediscovered an old friend, although it is dressed in a new garb, with Communist trimmings. 

Discussing the problem of unemployment, he points out that while food and clothing are abundant the unemployed are starving and freezing, and, not unnaturally, the sufferers demand sustenance.

  "The unemployed have a right to share in these; they have, a right which the capitalist has not." . . . "The righteous demand for relief must be fully met. That, is the first, and most urgent reply of the Communist to the evasion of the Capitalist . . . All possible pressure must be brought to bear on Boards of Guardians and the Government to meet the demand."

Unfortunately, the Capitalist class have an irritating habit of' ignoring demands, even "righteous" ones, demand the Communists ever so urgently.

The reply will be that foreign trade, on which as a nation we depend for food, in return requires low wages to permit low prices. "J. B." says this is a fallacy, but goes on to say "nevertheless, it is a business proposition that what we do produce should be produced as economically as possible, and to do that we must remove capitalism."

To remove capitalism would mean, one might suppose, to remove the need for competitive commerce; but evidently the goal to which the Communist Party hastens is not our goal at all, for this is what follows : "But we must still face the fact that, that advantage would not be permanent, as other countries are bound to follow in the same path. " If that means anything it means that "J. B. " envisages the possibility of the seizure of power here by an intelligent minority, before similar seizure in the rest of the world and the continuance of production for the world market in order to get food, until other countries see our superiority and do likewise.

That other capitalists would allow such even if it were likely to happen, is incredible, and "J. B. " sees this, for he gives his remedy. "We are thrown back, then, to the need for developing agriculture, . . . and here is the central problem which emerges from the unemployment crisis. Food production must be organised to produce, not profits, but food. " What land is cultivated "is treated merely as a tool to make landlords and farmers rich. . . . The financial interest of the farmer must go. " Here incidentally arises a pretty little problem. Suppose farmers join the Communist Party to gain "relief from the unendurable burden of landlordism, " as they are invited to do (see Agrarian Thesis—Introduction), then to the extent that the Communist Party is successful they will have become richer than before, only to have their riches taken away; a mean kind of trick, to say the least of it. However, who would refrain from admiring such masters of tactics as the intellectual giants who conceived this?

  "Communists then, while devoting every possible effort to compelling immediate and adequate maintenance for the unemployed, as a right and not charity, declare that the only way to end the menace of unemployment is the reorganisation of industry, removing private ownership, arid working with the knowledge that the branch of industry which primarily needs developing and organising is agriculture. "

"J. B.'s" argument is that because the first and most urgent need of the: unemployed is for food, that the reorganisation of food production is the solution of their problem. That agriculture has been backward under Capitalism no one would deny, but that backwardness can be and is rapidly being overcome by the Capitalists whose concern it is. The workers are poor because they are robbed, not because their employers in agriculture or elsewhere mismanage production. Under Socialism food would be produced where it could most economically be produced.

It is only the military necessities of capitalist states which induces them to become as nearly as possible self-supporting, and it is because capitalism has broken down national barriers and has made production social and world-wide that the workers' movement is international. The idea that each nation must aim at being self-supporting is in reactionary in the extreme, for it encourages the false notion that the workers have an interest in promoting the national welfare.

Agriculture does not present a problem different in kind from the general social problem; it is merely a branch of industry and will be included in the transfer as a whole to common ownership. Those questions of technique and organisation with which the present owners are unable or unwilling to deal, cannot usefully be grappled with by the workers until after the revolution.

Some Communists are in a hurry—backwards. Back to the Land.

Edgar Hardcastle

Ireland, the Labour Party and the Empire (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

After a long and bitter struggle, there is at last the prospect of peace in Ireland. The workers of Ulster and the South have fought with a fervour only equalled by the frenzy of the late world war, and are now to be able to see what it really was they fought for. If they hope for anything better than the fate common to ex-soldiers in all the countries of Europe—victors and vanquished alike—then disappointment awaits them.

Sinn Fein, behind a screen of fine-sounding no-surrender proclamations, appears to be preparing to forego the demand for full recognition of Ireland’s status as an independent Republic; while the English Government, under the pressure of a variety of political and financial factors, considers the cost of continued refusal of concessions prohibitive, and offers a form of Dominion Home Rule.

The chief, the economic, causes of the dispute are not far to seek. The northern Capitalists, whose prosperity lies in their easy access to markets within or protected by the British Empire, could never submit to being cut off from the source of their wealth. Similarly, the numerically strong body of farmers and traders in the South, plundered and thwarted for centuries by successive English Governments, and seeing themselves, for the benefit of their competitors, denied the right of freely developing commercial relations abroad, looked to the victory of Sinn Fein as the precursor of a new era of expansion for their trade. Add to this the hopes of the younger generation for satisfaction of their hunger for land, hitherto inaccessible to them owing to foreign ownership and profitable use for non-agricultural purposes, and we have some idea of the material basis for the Irish war.

The workers were called upon to take up arms for objects far enough removed from these, “Protestantism and the Flag” or “Catholicism and Liberty,” as geographical accident ordained: it was always the trade of the politician to provide plausible excuses. They responded with the usual disastrous results for themselves. Under the pretext of the necessity for presenting a united front to the external enemy, robbed and robbers, workers and employers, closed up their ranks to the manifest advantage of the latter.

Trade Union organisation was wrecked by internal dissension, or rendered innocuous in the larger interest of patriotism, that is, of the employers, whether Belfast shipbuilders or Southern farmers. Now, with the coming of peace, the class struggle will once more be forced to the front, and whether the wage-earners are in a position to resist attempts to lower their standard of living or not, they can at least learn the lesson of their recent folly. In Erin, no more than in this or any other Capitalist country, do war slogans or the sentiments of national brotherhood weight heavily where they conflict with profit-making.

The cessation of guerrilla warfare and the raising of martial law will provide a welcome removal of political and mental obstacles to our propaganda, but it must always be remembered that the form, the time, and the terms of the peace are in the hands of the Ruling Class. Theirs is the political control, and the accompanying military power enables them to give or withhold, and to bargain as they think fit. On neither side have the workers the deciding voice.

As might be expected, the Labour Party, which has long put at the forefront of its programme the solution of the Irish problem, has something to say at this juncture which incidentally is of interest to us. The Labour Party, as also might have been expected by those who know that body, puts the case for the English Capitalist Class.

At the height of the conflict, when there was no sign of a weakening on either side, of or any kind of rapprochement, the Labour Party, somewhat vaguely it is true, stood for Ireland’s right to Independence with but two qualifications: guarantees for the protection of minorities and against the possibility of future military or naval menace to this country. Now, however, that changed circumstances or changed feeling in the constituencies lead the Government to negotiate, the Labour Party withdraws from the attitude it had taken up. When war is the order of the day, it is useful but harmless in bye-election tactics to promise Independence, but when Capital decides to have peace and the actual terms are to be settled, the Labour Party is called to heel and must follow its masters.

Thus we have Mr. J. H. Thomas declaring (Daily Herald, September 2nd) that “no political party in England can hold out any hope of an Irish Republic.” The Herald, commented adversely on this “astounding” remark, and dismissed it as a private opinion only, not representative of the Labour Party.

Curiously enough, a week before H. N. Brailsford has written in the Herald, under the title “Ireland and Sea-Power,” expressing the same opinion in even more vigorous language, and it is with this that I propose to deal. The Daily Herald, did not comment on Brailsford’s article!

Brailsford is a Labour candidate, and in the Labour Daily which in this instance claims that it represents the real attitude of the Labour Party, he writes as follows (August 30th):

  The British Government (with the nation behind it) is, I believe, sincere in its readiness to yield everything except naval control . . . In plain words the issue for the British people is our world power. That is the only issue for which we ever fight . . . but it is an issue for which we always fight, and will fight. It was the issue in the world war; first, because the German navy challenged ours, and, secondly, because a German occupation of the Belgian coast must have interfered with our control of Dover Straits . . . For sea-power is the instrument of our economic expansion. Upon it rests our possession of half Africa and all India, and our ability to expand at will in China or elsewhere.

This is somewhat staggering, and one cannot help wondering whether the hundreds of thousands of out-of-work ex-soldiers are fully appreciative of the advantages that accrue to the through their “possession” of “half Africa and all India.” To continue with the quotation:

   No instinct is so deeply rooted in us all (the exceptions are negligible) as the instinct which teaches us without talk or exhortation, or reflection, to guard our naval ascendancy against any risk. None even of the sincerest advocates of the League of Nations (not even Lord Robert Cecil) had a word to say in support of Mr. Wilson’s proposals for the freedom of the seas. No one criticises (I except the eccentrics) the virtual British seizure of Constantinople.
  One may feel sure in advance that while we may accept, or even propose at Washington, a limitation in shipbuilding, we shall not agree to abate by a single vital concession our unlimited and uncontrolled right to blockade.

Incidentally this throws an interesting light on the bona-fides of the League of Nations and on the use to the workers of it and its Labour Party backers. We notice, too, that the “eccentrics” are excluded from those Labour Party claims to represent. For my part, I must confess to being one of them: the deep-rooted instinct of guarding “our naval ascendancy” seems to have passed me by, and I simply never froth at the mouth at the mention of this bloody old Empire.

  We are ready to concede much . . . , but we will no more give up our naval stations on the Irish coast than we will give up Gibraltar or Malta or the Suez Canal. To do so would be to begin to give up world-power.
   On the ordinary level of thought (Tolstoyans, Quakers and Communists are the only exceptions) we are acting rationally. An independent Ireland would be a danger. Our next enemy at sea would assuredly occupy, or try to occupy, it. Belgium was not the only violated neutral in the last war. China, Greece, Persia and Albania were all used or over run. There will be no yielding here . . . and Irishmen who expect us to yield eventually will have to wait till our Empire is overthrown and our sea-power vanished like Germany’s.

Have you grasped the full import of this frank statement of what the Labour Party stands for? The class privileges of the Capitalists are in question, and the Labour Party is forced into the open to defend them.

Of course, the Ruling Class will not allow the Empire to be endangered by an independent Ireland. The Empire is theirs, and they won’t see their private property damaged, unless superior force compels. That is simple enough. They have the power, and use it to protect and further their interests against opposition from workers and other States alike. But what is the Labour Party doing in this?

They offer themselves as an alternative to the Coalition and are in great hopes of early success. We consider them worthy of condemnation for their past record alone, but are told we should give them a chance, and wait and judge by results. Well, here is their own promise of their intentions. The fulfilment may be worse; it can hardly be better. Not only Ireland is touched upon:

  The (Washington) Conference may then be futile, and, over the issue of Imperialist exploitation in the Far East, the naval rivalry will begin in earnest, and ultimately we may find ourselves involved even in war.

What does this mean in brief? Just this: The wealth of the Empire, built up by the toil and sacrifice of generations of British workers, is to remain what it now is, the exclusive possession of our exploiters, and for their acquiescence in this the Labour Party is to be graciously permitted to take over the Government. Only nominally in power, they will be, in reality, as helpless as the Labour Governments in Australia, and will serve, as they are intended to serve, as the last defence of the Capitalist system.

Hoodwinked by a repetition from the mouths of their leaders, of the old fiction of the alleged community of interest between themselves and the employers, the workers are again to be privileged to defend the country they do not own, against all comers, from the Capitalists of USA to the Irish Republicans. Their reward will be the reward the unemployed are reaping now.

Did the last war concern the workers, or will the next? Does it matter to them that “our” naval supremacy should remain intact, any more than it matters whether Sinn Fein colours or the Union Jack fly over Dublin, or whether the German Black, Red and Gold, or the flag of Poland mocks their poverty in Silesia?

While the Capitalist Class dominates the civilised world, and owns and controls all the means of wealth production, the disposal of nations in this or that empire or sphere of economic interest is not the business of the Working Class. If you think the choice of war ministers as between, say, Churchill and Col. Will Thorne, to direct you to the slaughter-house, is worthy worrying about, then, of course, you will select your respective champions in the Coalition or the Labour Party.

If you don’t, and if you consider it time that any fighting the workers may have to do, be done for their own emancipation from the system which makes wars inevitable, you will be well repaid for the devotion of a few hours to the study of Socialism. There is urgent need for you inside The Socialist Party.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Force of Conditions. (1921)

From the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

How correct was Marx’s deduction from his social studies, that a society

   “can neither clear by bold leaps nor remove by legal enactments the obstacles offered by the successive phases of its normal development. But it can shorten and lessen the birth pangs." (Preface to Capital.)

is shown by the present position in Russia. When the Bolsheviks had obtained control of power it was pointed out that the economic conditions of a country still largely in a feudalistic state, with the bulk of its population consisting of peasants, prevented the establishment of social control of the means of life. The blind followers of the Bolsheviks answered by pointing to the vast mass of propagandist literature circulated among the peasantry—8o per cent. of whom could not read!—which had converted the large majority to Socialism in two or three months.

What was the magic in this wonderful literature that accomplished more in days than the Socialists of the Western World had been able to achieve in years? Or was it that the Russian peasant is possessed of an intelligence immensely greater than that of the Western worker? Generally the answer was in line with the second query. The Russian peasant’s mind, we were told, had not been poisoned by the teaching and the propaganda of the capitalists, and so was far more able to understand and appreciate the Socialist teaching than the Western worker. It is true that no evidence, beyond the continued rule of the Bolsheviks, was ever given for these statements. Still this did not prevent the claims being constantly made.

For some time past certain writers in the capitalist press,. i.e., M. Farbman in the “Observer,” had stated that small production and trading for private profit, was not only being allowed, but even encouraged in Russia. At first these reports, that were in such flat contradiction to the claims of Lenin’s followers, were denounced as “capitalist lies.”

Now, however, in the “Labour Monthly” for November, appears an article by J. Larin, a Bolshevik official, entitled “The New Economic Policy in Russia," in which he attempts to defend this policy (embodied in Decrees of April 7 and May 13) of allowing free trading and domestic industry for private profit. Not only does he defend these decrees, but to the utter confusion of Lenin’s followers here, he claims that these things were on the original programme of the Bolsheviks in 1918 and had existed for some time after the Bolsheviks had come into power.

In 1919 and 1920 small production and trading for private profit were forbidden. It is true that the Bolsheviks were not able to suppress this trading altogether, and a great deal of illegal business was done during those years. Still, the law was passed and all business was supposed to be under Government control.

Why this new change of policy? Larin’s explanation is worth noting. A Decree had been issued in November, 1918, under which

  “Trading in the products of domestic, craft, and small private industry remained free both for individuals and for the co-operative societies. . . . But here we met with political reasons which paralysed our policy in practice—and these reasons must be sought for not amongst the peasantry, and not amongst the workers. The town bourgeoise itself simply refused to trade and refused to carry on its small undertakings. The laws remained, but the stores and workshops became empty, as the owners would not any longer risk their capital under the Bolsheviks. ” P. 431-2.)

Here we have not only the claims of Lenin’s followers torn to shreds, but also a splendid example of how conditions force policies in spite of all theories to the contrary.

Larin’s explanation, however, is to some extent, contradicted by Lenin. In the weekly edition of the “Manchester Guardian” for 11th November, is a report of a speech by Lenin, taken from two Communist papers—the Berlin “Novy Pont” and the Riga “Novy Mir.” According to this report Lenin stated that 

   "their economic policy during the first period assumed the possibility of passing directly from the old economic system to the State control of production and to distribution on a Communist basis."

It will be seen that this statement contradicts Larin’s claims, while further on, Lenin, after referring to their being compelled to wage civil war, continues :—

   "Under the influence of this state of things and of the desperate situation in which the Republic then was, under the influence of other circumstances of which this is not the time to speak, we made a blunder; we decided to pass immediately to Communist production and distribution," 

and a little later he describes the result as “a severe economic defeat,” and said they were “falling back in a disorder.”

Despite the contradictions between Larin and Lenin, they are both agreed upon the fundamental fact—namely, that it was impossible to establish Socialism in Russia to-day, and that, therefore, they must allow capitalism to operate, beginning with small industry and trading. Surely a striking vindication of Marx.

Jack Fitzgerald