“Labour” Fails, Why Not Try Socialism? (1929)

From the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Had the Labour Government been prepared with schemes dealing effectively with unemployment they could not have set the stage and billed Mr. Thomas’ performance with greater assurance than they did for the drab fiasco that resulted.

All parties criticise his schemes for their inadequacy. His own party were not the least dissatisfied and critical. The “New Leader” pretended to see in his refusal to call himself a Socialist the real cause of his failure. That journal said (8th November) :

“The fault is not his entirely. Upon the Cabinet itself rests a very considerable measure of responsibility. Where, for instance, is the National Economic Committee of which such a great feature was made in “Labour and the Nation”? Where is the Employment and Development Board which was to take a lead in scientifically developing the National estate? Where are there signs of the harnessing to the State of the great Civil Servants who had such invaluable experience of mobilising the nation’s resources during the war?

But provided all this is remedied, Mr. Thomas must still fail unless he tackles the problem far more fundamentally than there is any indication of his doing at present.”

Because unemployment is fundamentally necessary to capitalism it must of necessity be dealt with fundamentally. Because it is the working-class that suffers from unemployment, only that class can deal with it fundamentally.

Because Mr. Thomas has no mandate from the workers to interfere with the basis of capitalism he can only attempt to palliate the evil. What is the difference between him and his friends of the “New Leader“? Merely a difference in the kind and the number of reforms.

Mr. Thomas, in order to pose as the friend of the unemployed, provides work for some of them out of the arrears of his predecessors in office. A system of fast and heavy motor traffic has been allowed to grow up on roads totally unsuited for it. The ever-mounting total of casualties has already forced Governments to act, but in a sluggish and inadequate fashion. Mr. Thomas has made a virtue of necessity; more than half the work he is so ingeniously (?) providing would have been done years ago but that capitalists and capitalist governments lack foresight and directive ability—the very qualities they boast of possessing.

“Mr. Thomas,” says the “New Leader,” “during the next few months may put some 50,000 people into employment— but at the same time rationalisation is putting others out of employment with increasing rapidity. Poor Mr. Thomas is like a man pouring water into a pail without a bottom.”

This is putting it mildly. Labour-saving machinery, new methods and rationalisation are all utilised in Mr. Thomas’ schemes, as well as the world over. Their effect is such that all the reforms conceived by the I.L.P., plus the good will of the capitalists—if that were possible—could not prevent unemployment increasing. What of other reforms? A Minimum Wage ! Capitalists will always pay that and no more without compulsion. Increase the Dole ! Then it is still a dole and must remain inadequate. Children’s Allowances ! On top of present wages ? Not at all likely while capitalists pay wages. These and many other reforms advocated by the I.L.P. have been exposed in the columns of the Socialist Standard.

Careful examination by the workers would prove their worthlessness. Those who advocate them do so with the ultimate object of doing what Mr. Thomas is doing : pouring water into a pail with no bottom, for a Minister’s salary and a place in the limelight.

The “Daily News” (14/11/29), commenting on Mr. Thomas’ failure, says :

“What the vast mass of the electors are thinking about all the time, however they may vote and however they may pray, is how they are to get work, how they are to keep it, or how they are to bear the burdens, which in one form or another the existence of a vast army of unemployed people imposes upon them.”

What is the natural deduction? That the vast mass of the workers are deeply concerned in a solution of unemployment. Not merely in some temporary expedient that will tide them over a winter, or bring the figures back to pre-war level. The need of the capitalist class is a normal army of unemployed, to drive their wage-slaves in the mad race for markets through the cheapening of commodities. The need of the workers is release from the nightmare of unemployment and assurance of the necessaries of life.

Capitalism in its competitive struggle shortens the labour-time required to produce all commodities; with the twin results of increasing unemployment and perpetual surfeiting of markets.

But unemployment is only one of the evils of modern society. Alongside it is a shortage, throughout the working-class, of all those things necessary to human well-being : houses, clothes, pure food, time and opportunities for recreation and enjoyment, etc.

This is the greatest contradiction in the history of human society. The vast mass of the people are in perpetual anxiety about their necessaries of life, or actually deprived of them. Yet millions all over the world are forced to remain idle and unprovided for when their labour, applied to the nature-given materials, could more than supply all needs.

It is no wonder that Mr. Thomas has failed. No one man, no government can remove, or even permanently remedy, unemployment. The problem is an indication of the underlying poverty and insecurity of the whole working-class. All are affected. The call for a conference of parties can only result in more water being poured into a pail without a bottom.

As all are affected, all must interest themselves. The need is great. It is for a working-class movement, intelligent, organized, and consciously directed towards controlling governmental powers, that the means of life may be owned by the people and controlled by them. Only by this means can unemployment be removed and only by the work ing class can it be achieved.

F. Foan

The Delusions of a Critic. (1929)

From the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

An individual of any standing cannot with impunity set out a criticism of a subject such as Physics, Biology, or Chemistry, without the necessary qualifications for the task. Among the defenders of Capitalism this same disqualification does not appear to matter, providing the subject to be criticised is Socialism. In the “Nineteenth Century and After,” a 3s. publication, a Lieut.-Col. Stewart Murray writes in two monthly issues (August and September) upon what he terms “Socialism.” If we are to accept his own statements as evidence he is little acquainted with the subject he sets out to criticise.

 As a sort of apologetic preliminary we are told that:—”Capitalism, or private enterprise, or self interest, or whatever name we please to give the system or right of private property, has done, and is still doing, wonders for Labour.” It has enabled Labour to “live and multiply,” and whilst so doing, “to improve its standard of life.” It has enabled “manual labourers” to obtain an ever-increasing share of the ever-increasing value of production, “and to become Capitalists themselves in vast and ever-increasing numbers.” So says this defender of Capitalism. Truly the Capitalist is a Capitalist solely for the benefit of the Worker—and yet, despite this philanthropic sacrifice, we read on the following page that :— “The truth is that Labour is discontented to-day . . . because human nature is such that man is never satisfied.”

How sad to reflect! Labour dissatisfied with its slums, adulterated scraps and offal, overwork and enforced idleness, misery galore—ungrateful Labour! The Capitalist Class, being of course of a different nature, are perfectly contented with things. Why shouldn’t they be? Next we learn that it has been to most people a “great surprise” that 8,000,000 electors have “voted Socialist.” You must be careful not to jump to conclusions, because, on the next line, we read that:—”not one in a hundred of them, and probably not one in ten, properly understood what they were voting for, or could have even rightly defined Socialism if they were asked.”

In order to explain what Socialism is, “properly understood,” our critic, who claims to have carried on for 30 years discussions with “Socialists of all sorts and of all camps,”—then defines it. It is, he says, “the nationalisation of all the means of production, exchange, and distribution.” According to this definition Capitalist industry is Socialism if it is State or Government controlled as it was until recently by a Labour Administration in Australia, or as it is here in the Post Office and the Municipalities.

Having thus assumed that State Capitalism is Socialism, and that those who voted for the State Capitalist programme of the Labour Party are Socialists, we are prepared for what our critic wants to pass off as Socialism. How many, he says, “would have voted Socialist if they had properly realised it?” Let Lt.-Colonel Stewart Murray make his horrifying revelation thus :

“Ask a Socialist to describe in detail the working of a real complete Socialistic State, and you will find that he will very soon land himself in the most hopelessly insurmountable difficulties. No one can tell you, for example, if Socialism in power should or will allow wages of ability or not, or only equal remuneration for all work ; nor how Socialism is going to nationalise ‘all the means of production, exchange, and distribution’; nor how it is to avoid the conscription of labour and telling everybody off not to do the work they wish to do, but to whatever sort of work the State orders them to do ; or how it is to avoid the greatest and most hopeless tyranny ever seen in the world as in Russia.”

It is a reasonable assumption that our critic knows as much, and no more, about Russia, than he gives evidence of knowing about Socialism. He doesn’t even know that in Russia, where he says “Socialism has had absolutely free scope,” the bulk of the population are peasants, whilst the industrial workers work for wages as in this country. Wages are the price of labour-power, whether that labour-power is employed by the Capitalist State or by a private employer. The Working Class are compelled to sell that labour-power, their only possession, to a non-producing class who own society’s means of life, and who consequently can retain much of the product of the workers’ labour. Socialism means the abolition of classes, wage payers, wage receivers, nations, states and tyrannies. It means, in short, a system of society in which the commonly-owned and commonly-controlled means of social living would make such things absurd and unnecessary. A statement of Stalin’s makes it clear that these things, classes, wages, exploitation, do exist in Russia. He says in his book “Leninism” :

“When Lenin analysed the nature of State Capitalism, he was thinking mainly of concessions. Well, then, let us consider these concessions, and consider whether two classes are represented in the work of production. Yes, certainly, two classes are represented here ; the class of the Capitalists, the concessionaires, who are exploiters, and who for the time being own the means of production, and the class of the proletarians, who are exploited by the concessionaries. Here, obviously, we have nothing to do with Socialism.” (“Leninism,” page 388.)

To make his criticism appear intellectually deep and, above all, destructive of Marx’s teachings, Stewart Murray pretends to a wide knowledge of what he terms the views of various groups in the Labour Party. So different are these views, he says :—” that it is difficult to find any important points on which they agree, except a common allegiance to Karl Marx’s antiquitated exposition of Socialism,”

Poor old Marx—strange why so many should be trying to-day to show that his exposition of Socialism is antiquated. This brainy defender of Capitalism marshals a number of what he seems to think are brand new objections. These he declares Marx overlooked. They include “Racial differences” ; “Psychological attributes”; “Inequalities, mental and physical, of men at birth”; heredity; evolution ; and production and distribution. Surely a formidable lot—but only to those unacquainted with the writings of Marx. Possibly one paragraph in an early work of Marx and Engels (The Communist Manifesto) summarises the whole lot.

There Marx says :—

“Does it require deep intuition to comprehend that man’s ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man’s consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life?”

Did racial differences prevent Japan from becoming a Capitalist country with a Western culture and a constitution developed on lines similar to that adopted by all Capitalist countries in their course of development? Does not the development of India and China show like tendencies? Regarding national differences, even the Capitalist League of Nations does not consider these of any importance where their own problems are concerned. Mental and physical inequalities at birth, we are told, “produce economic inequalities.” If this were so, then we should expect to find the present economic classes at every stage in society. Any student of the subject could tell our critic that the greatest part of the time of man’s existence upon the earth has been lived in communities in which classes and private property were unknown. Biologically a Capitalist is born the same as a Worker.

Says Marx :—

“One thing, however, is clear : nature does not produce on the one side owners of money or commodities, and on the other men possessing nothing but their own labour power. The relation has no natural basis, neither is its social basis one that is common to all historical periods. It is clearly the result of a past historical development, the product. of many economical revolutions, of the extinction of a whole series of older forms of social production.” (“Capital,” pp. 147, 148.)

To-day any child or imbecile could be the recipient of Rent, Interest, or Profit, providing he or she owned the legal right to the particular form of property. The less said about the reward meted out to superior mental attainments under Capitalism the better. Compare the rewards of a Rothschild and a Schubert, General Booth and Karl Marx, Crompton and Carnegie. Which wins through to-day, money grabbing mediocrity, or painstaking, scientific enquiry and efforts that will benefit posterity?

Says this would-be critic:—”The Marxian hypothesis, even in its most evolutionary forms, demands a change in human nature for any possibility of success. But the elements of human nature do not change.” When we reach the opposite page we are told that the conditions of one age are fallacious if used dogmatically as data for those of another.

“The Marxists forget this when they cite as authoritative the economic theory or speculation formulated by Marx in the middle of last century, since which period, so many and so great changes have occurred.” This reminds us of the old-time song, ” ‘E dunno where ‘e are.”

Let us, in conclusion, again quote Marx, and note how his masterly summary meets practically every objection raised :—

“No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore, mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.” (Critique of Political Economy, pages 11-13.)

Let the Capitalist apologists proclaim the death of Socialism from the turrets of their cowards’ castles. When the Workers in any numbers become acquainted with Socialist principles efforts to rebut scientific Socialist teachings will be impotent.

W. E. MacHaffie

Editorial: Russia: A Dangerous Delusion (1929)

Editorial from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

When in 1921 the Bolsheviks introduced their ”New Economic Policy,” they stated plainly what they were doing and why they had no alternative. Their early hopes of the immediate establishment of socialism in the advanced capitalist countries had been shown to be illusory, and it was necessary for Russia to develop on capitalist lines. The Bolsheviks consciously adopted the policy described by the late Leonid Krassin as “nationalisation,” or ”state capitalism.” (See report of lecture by Krassin reproduced in “Labour Monthly,” January 16th, 1922.)

They saw that Russian industry could be developed on no other basis than a capitalist basis, and in respect of a large area of industry and transport they preferred state capitalism to private capitalism.

The Socialist Party does not support nationalisation or state capitalism in this country, because that policy is contrary to working-class interests, and is not in this country a step towards Socialism. Russian conditions are different. Russia was, and is, very backward industrially, and the problems there are not those which face the workers in the more advanced countries. We have therefore no criticism to offer of the general policy of hastening capitalist development in Russia. No other policy is practicable. What criticisms we offer relate to methods of applying that policy and to the policy of suppression.

We do, however, strongly protest against the attempts to misrepresent Russia as being run on socialist lines. It is untrue, and such misrepresentation makes more difficult the work of preaching Socialism. Russia presents, and will continue to present, in spite of any good intentions of its rulers, the conflicts and evils normal to the capitalist system. Nothing but harm to the Socialist movement can come from propaganda which misrepresents the very real achievements of the Bolsheviks by calling them the building up of Socialism. Socialism—the common ownership of the means of production and distribution—is not to be found in Russia any more than in Great Britain or the U.S.A.

Sometimes this misleading propaganda is the work of persons who have never troubled to understand what capitalism is. Calling themselves Communists, they merely apply to Russia the confusing propaganda used by the Labour Party in this country. They support State capitalism and call it Socialism because they know no better and really believe that the change from private capitalism to State control of capitalist industry represents a fundamental change. Others who associate themselves with this confusion do know better and are guilty of deliberate falsehood.

We find Scott Nearing, a prominent American Communist, writing in the “New Masses” (October), about Russia, and saying : “Profiteering has been largely eliminated. Exploitation has been wiped out.”

It will be noticed that Scott Nearing uses the loose and undefined term “profiteering” instead of “profit making,” and implies that the “profiteering” which has not yet been eliminated is not “exploitation.” We say that such misleading statements from Scott Nearing can only result from a deliberate intention to deceive.

The “Trade Union Bulletin” (August-September, 1929) issued by the U.S.S.R. Central Council of Trade Unions, Labour Palace, Solianka 12, Moscow, describes the plans for large State farms under the title “Socialistic Reconstruction of Rural Economy.” In fact this is simply an application of State capitalism to Russian agriculture.

The “Sunday Worker” on September 15th made the deliberately false statement that “All the products of (Russian) industry go to the workers and peasants,” and asked, “What do they want parasites for?”

When it was pointed out to the editor that the State industries are largely financed by means of loans and that the receivers of interest are “parasites,” the editor replied with the evasive and untrue statements, which follow :—

“The loans which are being raised to finance the Five-Year Plan are largely subscribed by Russian workers and peasants. These, using their own money to build their own Socialist state, can hardly be parasites—unless they are to be regarded as parasites upon themselves. There are also non-working-class investors, who would be glad to live on the interest from these loans, and become parasites. But the laws of the Soviet Union prevent that. These people cannot acquire land or any of the means of production which would enable them to exploit workers. They are not allowed to be parasites.” (Sunday Worker, Sept. 22nd.)

Such arguments from a so-called Socialist paper are pitiful. To suggest that Russians calling themselves ”workers and peasants” cannot be “parasites on themselves,” is equivalent to saying that there cannot be parasites in England because persons calling themselves “English” cannot be parasites on themselves. The simple truth is that a minority of persons in England have large investments and draw incomes from them; the majority do not possess such investments. So also in Russia, a wealthy minority having relatively large incomes from various sources, from salaries, from legal and illegal trading, from farming, and from investments, are able to accumulate capital for further use in legitimate and illegitimate business, or for investment in State loans. They draw property incomes from these investments and are “parasites.”

To say that those who receive incomes from investment in Russia cannot “become parasites” (they are that already) because they are prevented from acquiring land or other means of production, is like saying that those English capitalists who invest in Government loans and live on the proceeds without buying land or other means of production are not “parasites,” but that their fellow investors who derive similar property incomes from investment in farming or other productive concerns, are “parasites.”

Inequality of incomes and of property in Russia is great and growing, although less than in this country. According to figures from official Russian sources given in his book, “Three Months in Russia,” by W. J. Brown, M.P., the pay in the Russian Civil Service rises, according to grade, from less than £5 a month up to £45 a month (see pages 113 & 114). Mr. Brown, it may be remarked, is more than sympathetic to the Bolsheviks, and is in fact highly gratified because the inequality of pay in Russia is less than elsewhere.

A correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian” (Oct. 21st) states that the pay of engineering experts is as high as £1,750, £2,500 and even £3,500 a year. The average wage of manual workers, on the other hand, is 73 roubles a month, or less than £90 a year. (See “Ministry of Labour Gazette,” October, for figures from Russian official sources.)

According to the Soviet Union Year Book, 1929, out of a population of 140 millions, the number of persons with deposits in the Savings Banks on October 1st, 1928, was only 3,825,900, the average deposit being 82 roubles (see page 449). (A rouble is worth about 2s.)

The loans being issued at high rates of interest in connection with the Five Year Economic Plan are comparable in amount and in kind with the annual investments of capital in the rest of the capitalist countries.

The Russian State Debt stands now at about 2,100 million roubles (about £210 million). Interest ranges up to as much as 12 per cent. on some of the issues. It is planned to increase the debt under the Five Year Economic Plan by borrowing another 6,000 million roubles (£600 million) in five years (see Bank for Russian Trade Review, June, 1929). Other fields of capital investment are the co-operatives and the concession companies. The profits on the concessions are extraordinarily high.

The existence of a class of large investors is clearly shown by the relative amounts of State lottery loans and non-lottery loans. On page 406 of the “Soviet Union Year Book,” it is stated that “Soviet State loans that are intended to be placed among small investors are lottery loans, since these are more attractive to the small subscribers.”

On pages 408 and 409 are details of the various loans. It will be seen that the total of non-lottery issues is more than four times as great as the lottery loans— i.e., the small investors’ loans.

From these particulars it will be seen that Russia is making encouraging progress along the road of capitalist industry. It is impossible for Russia yet to progress on any other basis than capitalism.

But Communists who pretend that it is socialism are deliberately or unknowingly propagating a falsehood and hindering the work for socialism.

A Soviet Apologia. (1929)

Book Review from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

“An Outline of Political Economy.” I. Lapidus and K. Ostrovityanov. (Martin Lawrence, 12/6. 546 pages.)

The above volume reminds one very forcibly of the curate’s egg. Roughly, half of it is occupied with a summary review of Marx’s conclusions concerning Capitalist society generally, and this is done, on the whole, simply, accurately and clearly. The main aim of the book, however, is obviously not the popularisation of Marxism, but the vindication of the claim of the Bolshevik rulers of Russia to be Marxists.

In their introduction the authors state that, “Together with the laws governing the productive relations of Capitalist economy, we shall also study the laws of Soviet economy.”

“The peculiar feature of Soviet economy lies in the fact that it is in transition from Capitalism to Socialism.” (p. 4.) The attempt to prove this claim takes the form of chapters interspersed among those presenting the Marxian analysis.

For example, after three chapters dealing with value and surplus value, Marx does a rapid fade-out and the limelight is focussed on Lenin, who in 1918 specified the various economic elements in Russia as follows :—

1. Patriarchal, i.e., largely self-sufficing, peasant economy.
2. Petty commodity production (this includes the majority of those peasants who sell grain).
3. Capitalist production.
4. Elements of State Capitalism.
5. Elements of Socialism, (p. 92.)

By State Capitalism Lenin appears to have meant undertakings which were bound to the State by some agreement (such as concessions, leases, trading commissions, etc.) as distinct from undertakings actually run by the State itself.

These latter he classed as “Socialist,” and gave as his reasons that “the State is the workers, the leading section of the workers, the advance guard—it is ourselves.” (p. 93.)

Somewhat reminiscent of the French kings, “The State? that is me !” This statement of Lenin’s is the only evidence which the authors offer throughout their volume to support the claim that the workers of Russia are supplanting Capitalism by Socialism. This claim, however, has been repeatedly exploded in these columns, most recently in the issues of August and September, 1929.

Once grant their claim and the rest is easy. Surplus-value becomes surplus-product, since the former phrase implies exploitation which cannot be admitted to exist in State industry ! Wage-slavery likewise is “non-existent” in the State workshops, although the workers therein are paid wages ! Curiously enough these workers “also strive first and foremost to obtain as high a wage as possible.” They fail to recognise “the radical difference” between Soviet production and the usual forms of Capitalism. “This explains the existence o] standards of output and piece-work payment in Soviet State industry.” (p. 132.) (Italics the authors’.)

Apparently the workers in Russia have taken possession of the industries there without knowing it.

In spite of their “Marxism,” the authors are not above trotting out the stale Capitalist argument about the necessity for the workers “producing more.” Thus (on p. 127) we are told that :—

“Granted an unchanging productivity of labour, the higher the wage the greater will be the expenditure for each commodity turned out by the worker, and the dearer will be the cost of that commodity; and thus the worker himself will have to pay more when purchasing it (thus neutralising the rise in wages).”

The I.L.P. could not beat this !

The authors make no attempt to deny “the facts that the Soviet workers live in greater poverty and on no higher a standard than the workers of the foremost Capitalist countries, and the workers in the State enterprises sometimes live under worse conditions than the workers in private enterprises.” (p. 100.)

They do claim, however, that as the workers’ productivity rises so does their share of the produce. But their own figures hardly bear out the claim. According to the table shown on page 135 wages rose only 60 per cent. in the two years, 1923-1925 while productivity rose nearly 90 per cent. !

On page 210 we have another glaring example of the authors’ fondness for verbal conjuring tricks.

“That part of the surplus product created by the workers in State industry which is appropriated by the merchant capitalist is transformed into surplus-value. Thus exploitation can penetrate partially into Soviet State industry through the channel of private trade.”

Thus if the State sells its goods through a merchant the workers are exploited, but not otherwise ! Much play is made with the fact that the State builds schools, organises defence, supervises health, etc., oblivious of the fact that Tory, Liberal and Labour Governments do the same thing here.

On the subject of State finance very little is said, but the following paragraph (p. 264) illustrates which class really owns the State industries :—

“As to the rate of interest, it is quite high in the U.S.S.R. The rate of interest is higher still on the clandestine exchange. The high rate of interest in the U.S.S.R. is due to the insufficiency of capital, in which there is such a stringency owing to the very rapid growth of Socialist (!) construction.”

In other words, Russia has a special brand of ultra-revolutionary “Socialism” which is financed by the Capitalist class and is, of course, State Capitalism.

Figures are given showing the rapid recovery of State industry to the low pre-war level which had been lost.

In spite of the overwhelming importance of agriculture we are told (p. 504) that “The productive potentialities of individual peasant agriculture have not yet been exhausted.” Rykov declared (“The Present Situation,” 1928) that the State organisation of peasant co-operatives “is now the most important task of the party.” Yet (p. 529) we learn, “the collective and Government farms put together now produce a total of a little over 2 per cent. of farm products and supply 7 per cent. of the farm products on the market. Their relative strength, as compared with the millions of small farmers, is negligible.”

The transition is evidently not from Capitalism to Socialism, but to the former from semi-feudal forms of land tenure. The much-vaunted State planning schemes are but the emergency measures thrust upon the urban population by agrarian upheaval and the industrial collapse brought about by the strain of modern warfare upon a backward nation.

The transition from Capitalism to Socialism can only commence when and where the productive forces have outstripped capitalist ownership. They have not done that yet in Russia.

In conclusion, it may be noted that the “Sunday Worker” review (October 13th) passes over entirely the points in the above volume of interest to the Socialist worker.

Its chief complaint is that the authors ignore the principal bugbear of the British petty-bourgeois—”the money monopoly” —and uncritical praise is meted out to its “dialectical method.” When the Bolsheviks try to explain away what is obvious (namely, the exploitation of the workers in Russia) they make much play with the “dialectics,” but like Hegel they stand it on its head. They appear to imagine that things can be changed by changing their names. For the last twenty or thirty years we have fought a similar tendency in this country, namely, Fabianism, according to which the Post Office and the tramways are “ours” ! Now the Communists are carrying on the same tradition of confusion under new names.

Eric Boden

Letter: Socialism and the Gold Standard. (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following’ letter has been received from a correspondent :

38, Bromar Road, S.E.5. 

13/11/29.

To the Editor.

Sir and Comrade,

I am surprised at you for bolstering up vested Interests by following statement in [the] November issue :—

“Banks receive money on loan and lend it out at a higher rate of interest,” and put this forward as an explanation of how banks make their profit.

Mr. McKenna, Chairman, Midland Bank, has for eight years been impressing on us that banks also create money (and get interest on such money).

Since 1913 the total amount of bank deposits has increased by £1,000,000,000, whereas gold has increased by about £7,000,000. Treasury Notes are credit money and need not cost anything.

The only interest due to money system is at most the interest on £130,000,000 of gold which is all there is in Britain, say, £7,000,000 a year.

We actually pay £1,000,000,000 or more in interest.

People fail to see through this fraud because Marxians and others approve of a gold standard.

See pages 68-102 of “Capital,” I Vol. edition ; also pages 27-33 of “Value, Price and Profit.”

The quickest and best way to establish Socialism and Communism is by money reform and by nationalising money, starting with this bank credit.—Yours fraternally.

E. Wright.

Will join the S.P.G.B. when you cease to bolster up present system in this way.

___________________________________

Reply:

In previous correspondence Mr. Wright urged us to support what he calls “nationalising money,” because that is the way to build up “State owned industries” (see October issue). As we are Socialists and are therefore opposed to nationalisation or State industries, we invited Mr. Wright to give us reasons why we should abandon our work for Socialism in order to support State industries. Instead of giving us his reasons, Mr. Wright calmly replaces the words “State owned industries” by the words, “Socialism or Communism,” thus showing that his terms mean so little to him that they are interchangeable, and showing that he has not troubled to learn the most elementary Socialist principles. It is plainly impossible to treat seriously the arguments of one who evades every issue by substituting one loosely-used term for another. The present letter merits reply only because Mr. Wright repeats a not uncommon misrepresentation of Marx and of ourselves.

Most of his criticisms originate from his inability to distinguish between statements of fact and statements of principle or policy. Thus he charges us with “bolstering up vested interests” because we allowed to appear in the November issue of the “Socialist Standard” the statement that banks receive money on loan and lend it at a higher rate of interest than they pay to depositors. Mr. Wright reads into this an expression of opinion about the merits or demerits of bankers and the banking system. It is nothing of the kind. It is a statement of facts, and although Mr. Wright lets us know that he disagrees with it, he is careful not to risk telling us which part of the statement he thinks is untrue.

Then he goes on to tell us that Marxians and Marx “approve a gold standard.”

Here Mr. Wright pretends to quote authorities for his statement by referring to a passage 34 pages long in Volume I of “Capital.” He refrains from giving any specific quotation either from “Capital” or from “Value, Price and Profit,” or from any other work of Marx, or from any publication of the Socialist Party to justify his assertion. He does not quote such a passage because no such passage exists. The statement is completely false.

Marx did not, and Socialists do not, approve the gold standard or any other currency system. Socialism means a system of society in which goods are produced for the use of the members of society, not for the profit of a privileged class. There will, under Socialism, be no buying and selling, and therefore no need for any currency system, on a gold basis, or of any other kind. That is Socialism, and that is what we work for. Until Mr. Wright takes the trouble to acquaint himself with the objects of the Socialist Party his attempts at criticism will necessarily continue to be irrelevant.

In his postscript, Mr. Wright threatens to join the S.P.G.B. While we cannot prevent him from applying for membership, the decision—fortunately for Socialism— rests in the hands of the Socialist Party.

Editorial Committee.

Good News from America. (1929)

Party News from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A New Socialist Paper.

Onr American Comrades of the Socialist Educational Society published in November the first number of their monthly journal, “The Socialist.”

We welcome this valuable addition to the forces of socialist propaganda and urge readers who wish to be informed on developments in the U.S.A. to become regular subscribers. “The Socialist” can be obtained from the publishers at 35, West 20th Street, New York City, or from this office. Subscription rates, 1 dollar, or 4s. 0d. per annum post free. Single copies 10 cents, or 3d. Bundle rates given on application.

Southwark Branch. (1929)

Party News from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In order to extend the activities of the Party in S.E. London, the Clerkenwell and Camberwell Branches have united to form the above branch.

The new branch meets at 42, Great Dover Street on Friday evenings at 8.30, and all those in the district who agree with our Object and Declaration of Principles are invited to attend and help forward the work for Socialism.

Membership of the branch will also be open to those who are able to attend Head Office and are living in districts where there is no branch of the Party.

Party Library. (1929)

Party News from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are in need of books, periodicals, and publications of all descriptions, especially Marxian works, for the Party Library at 42, Great Dover Street. Our object is to build a sound reference and lending library for Socialist students.

There must be many older members and sympathisers who have books that are no longer useful to them. We earnestly request their assistance. If we receive more than one copy of the same book, we would —with permission of the sender—sell these for Library funds.

Also wanted :—Copies of International Soc. Review for Nov., 1907; Dec., 1904; May, Sept., Nov., Dec., 1908; Feb., 1906; Jan. to June, 1902.

Social Democrat, July and December, 1904 and any copies for other years.

Letter: Need The Workers Understand Socialism? (1929)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (whose name we unfortunately cannot make out) writes from Stepney, expressing his views on several points and asking for our comments and reply.

The first point relates to the struggle of the workers against wage reductions and for wage increases.

This was fully dealt with in the October “Socialist Standard," to which we would refer him.

Our correspondent is mistaken in thinking that we oppose such struggles.

His second point is the following:—

  Seeing that the dominant class, the capitalists, control the Press, which moulds to a great extent opinion (especially in rural districts), the churches, also the cinema, an excellent propaganda weapon, besides other channels of influencing thought. That the workers, despite the rottenness of their conditions, cannot understand “scientific Socialism," will it not be that as capitalist crises occur—the workers—will eventually gravitate to a united organised resistance to their conditions?
   This only after bitter struggles, strikes, lockouts, brutality of the authorities, after such a process the climax will come. On one side will be the workers; on the other, the lackeys of capitalism, managers, high officials, ignorant police, and soldiers, who are kept in mental darkness, but for one thing, obedience. Nothing but violent struggle in my opinion.

What our correspondent overlooks is that while a politically ignorant working class may unite for some purposes they will not unite together and replace Capitalism by Socialism. They may unite to resist a wage reduction, but such resistance, whether successful or not does not bring Socialism. Quite apart from the question of the conquest of power, Socialism as a working system of society is impossible without a Socialist working class to carry it on. Resistance to some effects of Capitalism might temporarily result in reducing the Capitalist system to a greater or less degree of chaos (with consequent aggravated suffering for the working class), but the bringing of chaos is not the bringing of Socialism.

In any event, the outcome of such resistance depends always on the Capitalist class themselves. They have the choice either to give way to the particular demand which unites the workers, or to resist. The discontent of people who want only some reform of Capitalism, or any thing less than Socialism, can be bought off by granting what they want, and thus destroying the very platform on which this non-Socialist working class is united. The Capitalist class are not so blind or foolish that they will in the long run endanger their system by withholding the concessions necessary from time to time to bring off or side-track working class discontent.

Our correspondent also forgets one very important thing. Soldiers may be politically ignorant, but they are not ignorant of the science and art of organised coercion by violent means. After the politically ignorant workers have voted control of the machinery of government and the armed forces into the hands of the Capitalist class and their agents, it is nothing but madness to talk of waging a “violent struggle" against those who have a monopoly of the weapons and forces of violence.

Our correspondent’s third point concerns resistance to war :—

  If, as a result of national economic rivalry, war occurred in the course of which spontaneous opposition is given by the workers (though not intellectually understanding Socialism) and a change is desired by them, could not the situation culminate in the overthrow of the dominant class and the laying of the “ foundation for the sway of the proletariat,” if the mass feeling is correctly led?

This point is really a particular aspect of point Number two. Resistance to war is not resistance to Capitalism, and can always be removed in the last resort by stopping the war, leaving Capitalism intact. Furthermore, we suggest that instead of considering some hypothetical situation arising out of a hypothetical war, it would be more instructive to consider the war of 1914. In August, 1914, far from there being “spontaneous opposition," the working class in the overwhelming majority, owing to their political ignorance, were enthusiastic supporters of their respective sections of the Capitalist class, and if they had been otherwise there were Capitalist politicians (e.g., Lloyd George, Lord Morley, John Burns) ready and willing to lead the opposition to war. Our correspondent talks about “correctly leading" the "mass feeling” of the workers, but does not tell us how workers who still accept Capitalism and Capitalist leaders are to be induced to forsake them and follow people, whose general principles they reject, into a struggle for Socialism which they do not understand and do not want.

It is true that towards the end of the war the workers were becoming war-weary. But did they in fact do what our correspondent suggests? Did they overthrow Capitalism? On the contrary, in every country, not excepting Russia, the great majority of votes were cast at the first general elections not for Socialism, but for Capitalist parties of one kind or another. These are facts which show our correspondent’s hypothesis to be fantastic.

Finally, our correspondent writes about workers not “understanding Socialism,” but laying the “foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” Does he really believe that workers who still vote for Capitalism are capable of acting as a ruling class? You do not change the character of the workers by changing the labels of their leaders.

The fourth point concerns democratic methods. Our correspondent writes :—

  Is not democracy being superseded when capitalist crises occur—by capitalist force; witness events after the war. Hungary, Italy, etc. At present the threatening coup d'état by the Weim-wehr in Austria.

Our correspondent asks, “Is not democracy being superseded . . . by Capitalist force?” His question shows that he has failed to understand what is the meaning of democracy, and what is the Socialist argument in favour of democratic methods. The use of force by the Capitalists who have been placed in power by the electors is not a supersession of democracy; it is as democratic as any other use of their power. It is not peculiar to the after-war period. Has our correspondent forgotten the brutal crushing of the Commune of Paris, in 1871, or the use of armed forces against the workers at Tonypandy and elsewhere?

The Socialist’s argument is that it is control of the machinery of Government which puts the Capitalist class in a position to compel obedience from any section of society. Those who control the political machinery, including the armed forces, are in a dominant position and literally their word is law, which they can enforce if need be by the methods of armed force. While the working class continue to be politically ignorant they will continue to vote into control of the political machinery parties which will use their power for the maintenance of Capitalism. The workers will not act differently until they become Socialists. Then they will use their votes to secure political control for themselves instead of handing it to the Capitalists and their agents. There is no other way under the conditions of modern Capitalism by which the workers can gain political control. Attempts to organise armed attacks on the Capitalist-controlled armed forces are foredoomed to failure. Therefore Socialists oppose them.

When our correspondent refers to Hungary, Italy, Austria, etc., he fails to see that these cases bear out our statement, that control of the political machinery is the deciding factor, enabling the Capitalists to coerce their opponents. For example, as has often been pointed out in these columns, Mussolini’s forces were financed, armed, and allowed to organise by successive Governments democratically elected to power by the votes of the Italian electorate. Far from crushing him, as they easily could have done, they deliberately chose to place him at the head of the State.

In Austria now the Heimwehr have no power or importance except to the extent that they are aided by the forces of the Government. If they are now placed in charge it will be by the deliberate act of the present Government, which owes its position to having been voted into political control. To repeat our main argument: those in control of the political machinery are able to impose their will and alter the constitution as they may think fit. That is why the workers must gain political control which they can only do in the advanced capitalist countries by means of the vote.

Editorial Committee

The I.L.P. in Parliament (1929)

From the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is argued on behalf of the I.L.P. that their propaganda methods are justified by their success. As proof of this they point to a relatively large membership and to the fact that more than 200 of their members are Labour Party M.P.'s. How hollow is this success can be seen from the inability of the I.L.P. to control its members in the House of Commons. Mr. Maxton, Chairman of the I.L.P., criticised the Labour Government’s Unemployment Insurance . Bill, and threatened to oppose its second reading. The prompt result, as reported in the Daily Herald of November 19th, was that,

between 50 and 60 I.L.P. M.P.s last night signed a memorial repudiating the right of the I.L.P. officials to speak on their behalf.

Moreover, Mr. W. Leach, M.P., who prepared the memorial and is himself an I.L.P member, explained that he had not approached any of the 80 holders of offices in the Government, and could have obtained many other signatures (apart from the 80 referred to) if he had had more time to approach Labour M.P.’s not immediately available. (Daily Herald, 20th November.)

The following day, November 19th, Mr. Maxton stated his case against the Government’s Bill at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. The Daily Herald reports that he received the support of only half a dozen M.P.’s (Daily Herald, 20th November); this, although over 200 of them are members of his party, the I.L.P.

The same evening he stated his case again at a meeting of the I.L.P. M.P.’s, but was turned down by 41 votes to 14 (Daily Herald, 20th November).

On November 20th, Mr. Maxton and his supporters put their names to an amendment, as follows:—

  This House records its profound regret that the Bill, while abolishing the fourth statutory condition for the receipt of benefit, imposes a new condition, which still leaves the burden of proof of his search for work on the applicant for benefit; which does not provide £1 a week for the adult unemployed man, 10s. for his wife, and 5s. for each dependent child, but leaves young persons inadequately provided for; and which fails to restore the waiting period of three days as in the Act of 1924.

It will be noticed that the demand of the "rebels” differs little from the offer of the Government. They only ask for 2s. more per week for an unemployed man, and are presumably of the opinion that £1 a week is enough.

Mr. P. C. Hoffmann, one of the 33 signatories (32 Labour M.P.’s and one Independent, Mr. Scrymgeour), explained to a Herald correspondent that “if the motion were one for the rejection of the Bill, or if it were a vote of censure on the Government, I should have nothing to do with it.” 

That many others of the 33 were in the same boat and were counting on the amendment never going to a division is shown by the fact that 12 of the signatories withdrew their names next day (see Herald, 23rd November). Finally they all voted for the Government Bill. What is obvious is that the members of the I.L.P. who have scrambled into Parliament on the non-Socialist votes of Labour Party supporters are not controlled or controllable by the I.L.P. Elected on the Labour Party’s non-Socialist programme and dependent on the machinery and on the financial support of that party and of the trade unions, these M.P.’s are powerless to work for Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

A Communist Sums up the Communist Party (1929)

From the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Quoted from the November 1929 issue of the Communist Review:

  Indeed, what with the anxiety of the “Rights” to prove themselves to be “Left,” the Party leadership is in such a state of confusion that one almost stands aghast at the situation. I will illustrate the criticism. First examine the way in which the anti-war question is being handled, and especially the Russo-Chinese crisis.
  In Workers’ Life of August 30th, headlines of a splash article on the Russo-Chinese crisis proclaim : “Hostilities have broken out.” It goes on to tell that we are on the brink of world war. We must “Organise demonstrations and strikes against the war-makers' Government.” The first paragraph of the article qualifies the headlines. The second and third paragraphs hold America responsible as the devil behind the Chinese Government. The fourth tells us that the Labour Government is assisting the Border States to prepare for war. But it does not say a word as to what the Labour Government is doing in relation to the Russo-Chinese war. How shall we get the British workers to strike against the Labour Government because America is pushing the Chinese on to war in Manchuria is not explained to us at all.
   Then, please turn up the next issue of Workers' Life, September 6th, and it will be found that the Russo-Chinese crisis has vanished into thin air and nobody knows why. There is no news of the strike we were to call the previous week; no news of the world conflagration that was overwhelming us. This also has vanished. Surely we ought to have been told how this happened. But by September 13th the Russo-Chinese crisis quietly re-appears.
  Can we hope to win influence amongst the workers so long as the most serious questions are treated in such an irresponsible manner? The Party appears to be wildly gesticulating and nothing happens, except that we continue to report decline in sales of Party papers. Is it surprising? (J. T. Murphy, in the Communist Review, November.)

Another Life of Marx. - Part 2 (1929)

Book Review from the December 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from October.)

I have now given sufficient information to enable the reader to judge of the biased and unreliable nature of Ruhle’s "Life of Marx." The last few pages of the book give us the apparent reason for this attempt to blacken the personal character of Marx. All through the book the writer is endeavouring to show (but without sound evidence) that Marx was a very clever thinker —but allowed his personal feelings to override his judgment. The author is compelled to admit time after time that Marx’s judgments were ultimately sound, as witness quotations given. But he persists all through the book in trying to give the reader this impression of uncertainty. Why? Here is the explanation :—

Marxism, being primarily called upon to stir up the proletarian masses, to make them collect their forces, and to lead them on to the battlefield, must necessarily display itself at the outset in a guise which would encourage optimism; in a guise which, by representing historical evolution as the guarantee of the liberation of mankind, would make the workers believe in their own mission. To gain headway, it must relentlessly clear out of the path all rationalistic and utopian systems of Socialism, and must inexorably proceed on its own course. To-day, when its work is finished, Marxism begins to assume a new aspect. In our own time, not merely can Marxism occasionally recur to the systems of the Utopists and the rationalists; it is directly faced in this direction by the practical demands of the day by the growing claims for positive achievements in the class struggle. (p. 396.) (Italics ours.)

There you have it. Marxism was all right in the past, but now times have changed—Labour rules !—and we can indulge in wars, and all the rest of the reformer’s stock-in-trade. Actually, of course, there has been no change, and practical affairs of the day demand a still stricter adherence to the basic principles taught by Marx unless the workers are to flounder in the morass of Labourism for another century.

Mr. Ruhle, however, in branding Marx as a neurotic, is really making a special plea for himself and his friends. On the last page of the book he writes :—

The main thing was the work which had to be done; the qualities of the doer mattered little. Or, rather, the doer of the work which had to be done, had to be spurred to his task by an impetus such as could only be furnished by the neurosis from which Marx suffered! To-day, we have different problems to solve, and they must be solved by highly qualified persons who have freed themselves from neurosis; must be solved by champions of the class struggle who approach the undertaking with a keen sense of responsibility, an awakened consciousness, and a strongly developed community feeling, (p. 397.)

Now we begin to see light. We must forget Marx’s view, that the workers must accomplish their own emancipation, and put our trust in nice, kind, gentlemanly people like Ruhle and MacDonald, and the rest of the silk-hatted, frock-coated crowd.

It will be observed that I am now suffering from “stomach-ache” and getting personal. Ruhle’s attack on Marx is a fitting reflection of the former’s practical career. A disciple of Alfred Adler, of Vienna, he belonged to the German Social Democratic Party and voted with Liebknecht against the war in 1914. In the German post-war upheaval he took a leading part and was a member of the Council of Workers and Soldiers. Now he is neither in the German S.D.P. nor in the Communist Party, but is a kind of anarchist and has written books on “The Soul of The Proletarian Child,” and similar topics. Hence his kindly feelings towards Lassalle and Bakunin.

In one respect, however, this book can certainly be recommended. It contains voluminous extracts from some of the earlier and less known writings of Marx. These extracts reveal how early Marx obtained a clear grasp of the driving force in history.

Marx’s approach to Socialism was from the philosophical side. His early studies were concerned mainly with law and philosophy. His father wished to make of him a lawyer, but philosophy had a greater appeal at the beginning and ultimately he obtained a degree as Doctor of Philosophy, though he did not make use of it.

While working on the “New Rhenish Gazette,” Marx found his ignorance of economics constantly placing him in difficulties when dealing with questions of the day. When that paper was suppressed he immediately set about making up for the deficiency. In 1843 he did a tremendous amount of reading in history and economics, the first fruits of which was an article in the French and German Year Book entitled ‘‘Introduction to a Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right.” The following extracts give an idea of his early progress towards Socialist knowledge (at the time he was only 25 years old):—

   'Man makes religion; religion does not make man. Religion, indeed, is the self-consciousness and the self-feeling of the man who either has not yet found himself, or else (having found himself) has lost himself once more. But man is not an abstract being, squatting down somewhere outside the world. Man is the world of men, the State, society. This state, this society, produce religion, produce a perverted world consciousness, because they are a perverted world. Religion is the generalised theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compend, its logic in a popular form . . . The fight against religion is, therefore, a direct campaign against the world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
   Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.
  . . . . Thus the criticism of heaven is transformed into a criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into a criticism of law, the criticism of theology into a criticism of politics, (pp. 57 and 58.)

Thus early in his mental development Marx saw in religion an attempt on the part of the oppressed to escape from the troubles that afflicted them in the world of practical affairs. He also saw that the solution lay, not in theological disputations, not in new philosophical views, but in changing the constitution of society:—

    The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the highest being for man; it ends, that is to say, with the categorical imperative that all conditions must be revolutionised in which man is a debased, an enslaved, an abandoned, a contemptible being . . .  a radical is one who cuts at the roots of things.
    A radical revolution, the general emancipation of mankind, is not a Utopian dream for Germany; what is Utopian is the idea of a partial, an exclusively political revolution, which would leave the pillars of the house standing.
    What, then, are the practical possibilities of German emancipation? Here is the answer. They are to be found in the formation of a class with radical chains, a class of civil society which is not a class of civil society; of an estate which is the dissolution of all estates; of a sphere which is endowed with a universal character by the universality of its sufferings; one which does not lay claim to any particular rights, the reason being that it does not suffer any one specific injustice, but suffers injustice unqualified; one which can no longer put forward a historically grounded title, but only a general human title; one which is not in any sort of one-sided opposition to the consequences, but only in general opposition to the presuppositions of the German political system; and, finally, a sphere which cannot emancipate itself, without emancipating itself from all the other spheres of society—one which, in a word, has been completely deprived of its human privileges, so that it can only regain itself by fully regaining these human privileges. This dissolution of society as a particular estate is—the proletariat.
    If the proletariat herald the dissolution of the world order as hitherto extant, it is merely, thereby, expressing the mystery of its own existence, for it is the actual dissolution of this previous world order. (p. 60.)

In the above extracts we have a remarkably clear foreshadowing of Marx’s final conclusions as embodied in his materialist conception of history and theory of surplus value which together form the foundations of scientific Socialism. And it is a remarkably clear and logical contribution from one so youthful considering the range of the subject and the state of philosophical, historical and economic science at the time he was writing.

I would like to give many more extracts from these earlier works of Marx, but, unfortunately, they would lengthen out this review too much. I must therefore refer anyone who wishes to watch the mental development of Marx to the book itself, in which there is a great deal of useful quotations from these early writings.

There are one or two further points, however, I must mention before concluding.

On page 198 "Hic Rhodus, hic salta!” is translated as "Here is the Rose; dance here!” Surely this really refers to the traveller in one of the ancient classical tales, who, returning home after considerable wanderings, boasted to his friends of his wonderful achievements; among others that while at Rhodes he saw a tremendous statue with gigantic legs spread far apart, and that he had leaped from one of the feet to the other. His friends, already sickened by his tall stories, and wishing to "take down” the boaster, cried, "Here is Rhodes, now leap,” or, in other words— "pretend this is Rhodes, now show us how you can jump.”

On page 199, writing of Engels, Ruhle says he "unselfishly devoted his evenings, year after year, when the day’s work was over, to writing the necessary articles for the 'New York Tribune.’ ” In a review of a previous book on Marx by Ryazanoff we gave our reasons for contesting this view, and we must refer the reader to that review for a full statement. Engels certainly helped Marx by putting his articles into English at a time when Marx had not yet acquired a complete command of English, and he also wrote some of the articles dealing with military matters, but that is all. Ruhle’s appetite for detraction leads him to make these sweeping statements where opportunity offers.

We cannot commend the translators for the bibliography at the end. They seem more concerned with their own translations than with giving the reader a list of Marx’s writings that are accessible to those who can only read English, e.g., "Value, Price and Profit,” "Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy,” "Lord Palmerston,” "The Eastern Question,” “Class Struggles in France,” etc.

Ruhle, in his book, has taken his evidence of Marx’s personal character from those who were his bitter enemies, and who knew comparatively little of Marx’s private life. Let me give the evidence of one who knew Marx for the greater part of his life and one who also suffered greatly and gave the whole of his life work—apart from the time necessary to earn a living—to the struggle for working class freedom. I refer to Frederick Lessner. Liebknecht’s tribute to Marx is well known, but Ruhle is pleased to look upon Liebknecht with the eye of suspicion. No one, however, has yet presumed to throw any mud at Lessner. Here is an extract from his "Recollections of an Old Communist,” with which I very fittingly close this review:—

   Marx was, as are all truly great men, free from conceit, and appreciated every genuine striving, every opinion based on independent thinking . . . as already mentioned, he was always eager to hear the opinion of the simplest working man on the labour movement. Thus he would often come to me in the afternoon, fetch me for a walk, and talk about all sorts of matters. . . . Generally he was an excellent companion, who extremely attracted, one might say, charmed, everybody that came in touch with him. His humour was irrepressible; his laugh a very hearty one. . . .

*****

   Some comrades proposed to erect a monument to him. But no monument could be of finer foundation than his teachings, his actions, and his struggles, which are engraved now into the hearts and heads of millions of workers for ever.

Gilmac.