Parliament or Soviet. A Reply to the ‘Proletarian’ (U.S.A.) (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our August number we pointed out that a certain John Keracher, of the American “Proletarian”, contributed an article to their July number which contained a covert attack on our principles and policy. That although our Declaration of Principles was quoted, our name had not been mentioned.

The October number of the “Proletarian” contains a reply to our criticism. Although Keracher had not thought it worth while mentioning our name in the previous article he now finds the matter so important that he devotes nearly twelve columns (nearly half of the paper) to us. And further, the matter was of such urgency that copies of the “Proletarian” were sent to the branches of our Party!

Throughout these twelve columns Keracher quotes portions of paragraphs of Marx and Engels in the effort to wring out of them an interpretation they will not bear. We pointed out in our criticism that quotations in the previous article had been made without the source being indicated. Keracher now tries to take refuge in the statement that we ought to know the source! The “Proletarian” is supposed to be a paper written for working men, and therefore, if working men are to test the truth of the evidence brought forward they must be able to go to the source for that purpose. But as the “Proletarian”, like other Communist organs, depends upon the ignorance of the workers, its writers are not over-anxious to give the workers the opportunity to see the frailty of the case put forward. As we cannot spare twelve columns to deal with Keracher, we will only take his leading points, and demonstrate his slipperiness, without following up all his by-paths.

At the end of our criticism of the “Proletarian” article we asked how they proposed getting rid of the armed force, at present controlled by the capitalists through Parliament, which stood in the way of any attempt to alter the foundations of society. This is the reply:

“Getting control of Parliament does not mean that the workers have gained control of the public power of coercion, the state. At such a critical moment the capitalist class (not so stupid as the S.P. of G.B.) will send its ‘armed forces’ to disperse Parliamentary representatives. The real State will show itself.”

For sheer stupidity the above takes the palm. How can the “capitalist class send its armed forces”? Are the capitalists sitting in a room somewhere, issuing orders?

The issuing of orders, the appointment and control of officials, and everything else connected with the operation of the armed forces, is in the hands of the group in Parliament that for the time constitutes the Government, i.e, has the majority. Time after time we have given abundant evidence of this fact in these columns.

The armed force is a part of the governmental machinery, the whole of which depends for its efficiency upon co-ordination. If the co-ordination breaks down the machinery becomes useless, or anarchy sets in. The co-ordination comes from the centre—Parliament.

After the above quotation comes the following paragraph:

“If ‘the armed forces of the nation’, most of it working men, remains loyal to the ruling class, then the proletariat will have to submit to a military dictatorship of the capitalists. If, on the other hand, the rank and file of the army and navy goes over to the working class, then the political power will have passed from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat. It is during this period that the new state form…will make its appearance. The Paris Commune and the Russian Soviet arose spontaneously out of the revolution itself.”

A couple of “ifs”  are very weak material to base a course of action upon. Secondly, as the capitalists are alleged to be able to send their armed forces where they like, irrespective of the intentions of Parliament, surely the only inference to be drawn is that there is already a military dictatorship here and now. Thirdly, how is “the new State form” going to make its appearance; pop up suddenly like a mushroom over night? Fourthly, the Russian Soviet did not arise in 1917, but many years before. Fifthly, according to Trotsky, “It is true that the English Trades Unions may become a powerful lever for the revolution; they may even, in circumstances and for a certain time, be a substitute for the Workers’ Soviets.” (The Lessons of October, 1917, p.75.) Sixthly, the Paris Commune was able to arise because the armed force of the French Government was “resting” in German prison camps.

In the cases of both the Communards and the Bolsheviks they were able to seize power because, owing to an unusually favourable set of circumstances, the armed force that would have stood in the way would have stood in the way had already been got rid of, or rendered innocuous by those who previously controlled State power. Are we asked to depend upon such a situation in the future instead of using the weapons we have at hand? Could stupidity go further?

Now let us gave an example of Keracher’s slippery method of arguing. He says:

“ ‘The Communards proposed decentralisation,’ writes Gilmac approvingly.”  There is nothing approving or disapproving in a statement of fact. But Keracher, unable to meet the point, takes refuge, like other wrigglers, in trying to foist upon his opponents views which they do not hold.

Mr. Keracher wants to have it both ways. To him the Paris Commune and the Russian Soviet Government are both “the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labour.”

Let us give quotations from authorities upon each form.

Engels, in his introduction to the Paris Commune, points out that the Blanquists in the Commune acted in a way exactly the opposite of their former attitude:

“The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the School of Conspiracy, held together by the rigid discipline essential to it, they started from the conception that a comparatively small number of resolute, well-organised men would be able not only to grasp the helm of State at a favourable moment, but also through the display of great energy and reckless daring, to hold it as long as required; that is, until they had succeeded in carrying the masses of the people into the revolutionary current, and ranging them around the small leading band. To accomplish this, what was necessary, above all else, was the most stringent dictatorial centralisation of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government. And what did the Commune do—which in the majority consisted of these Blanquists? In all its proclamations to the French people in the Provinces, it called upon them for a free federation of all French communes with Paris, for a National Organisation, which for the first time was to be the real creation of the nation. The Army, the political police, the Bureaucracy, all those agencies of oppression in a centralised government, which Napoleon had created in 1789, and which since then every new government had gladly used and kept up as ready weapons against its enemies, were to be abolished everywhere as they had been abolished in Paris.”

(The Paris Commune ,p.10, N.Y.L.N.Co)

The following quotations from Lenin and Zinovieff show the rigid centralisation of the Bolshevik Government, and the way a portion of the Russian Communist Party kept power to themselves:

“It proves that unqualified centralisation and the strictest discipline of the proletariat are among the principal conditions for the victory over the bourgeoisie.” (Left Wing Communism, N. Lenin, p.110.)

“If Bolshevism could successfully, and under the greatest difficulties, achieve in 1917-1920 the strictest centralisation and iron discipline, it was due simply to a series of historical peculiarities of Russia.” (Left Wing Communism, p.11)

“Our central Committee has decided to deprive certain categories of party members the right to vote at the Congress of the Party. Certainly it is unheard of to limit the right of voting within the party, but the entire party has approved this measure, which is to ensure the homogenous unity of the Communists.

So that, in fact, we have 500,000 members who manage the entire State machine from top to bottom.” (Report by Zinovieff to First Congress of 3rd International, March, 1919. The Socialist, 29th April, 1920.)

“One of our misfortunes was that we had to take over the old State apparatus.” (The New Economic Policy, by Lenin. The Communist, 16th Dec., 1922.)

Now, Mr. Keracher, which is “the political form at last discovered,” the Commune or the Soviet government? Attempted witticisms are no answer to facts.

Keracher quotes a statement from Engels’ Origin of the Family. But he only quotes a few lines from a paragraph, but in connection with a different matter. The part he quotes first and attempts to make considerable use of is as follows:

“Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be anything else in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.”

Keracher, at the end of his article, asks us what Engels meant by this. We will tell him in Engels’ own words. First from another, and later writing of Engels, and then from the paragraph from which the above is torn, as well as from what is probably the most read of all Engels’ writings, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

In 1895, the year of his death, and twenty-three years after the Paris Commune, Engels wrote an introduction to a reprint of Marx’s Class Struggles in France. In his introduction Engels says:

“When Bismarck now found it necessary to introduce universal suffrage as the only means of interesting the masses of the people in his designs, our workers were not slow to make a serious use of the new opportunity, and they sent August Bebel to the first constituent Reichstag. From that day to this they have utilised the suffrage in a manner which has rewarded them a thousandfold, and been an example to the workers of all other lands. To quote the words concerning the suffrage in the French Marxist programme, ‘ils l’ont transformé, de moyen duperie qu’il a été jusqu’ici , en instrument d’émancipation—they have changed it from a means of deceit, such as it has been hitherto, into a means of emancipation… even if it did no more than allow us to gauge our own strength and that of our opponents, thus preserving us alike from undue faintheartedness and from overweening rashness—if that were all universal suffrage had done for us, it would have been amply worth while.

But it has done more than this. Electoral agitation supplied us with a method of unsurpassed value for getting into contact with those strata of the populace which still held aloof from us, and for compelling the other parties to defend themselves publicly against the attacks we delivered upon their opinions and their actions. Moreover, in the Reichstag it provided our representatives with a platform from which to their opponents in Parliament and to the masses outside they could speak alike with far more authority and with greater freedom than had been possible in the Press and in public meetings. Of what use to the Government and to the bourgeoisie was their Socialist Law when electoral agitation and the speeches of Socialist deputies in the Reichstag were continually rendering its restrictions in the nugatory?

With the successful employment of universal suffrage an entirely new proletarian tactic had come into being, and this tactic speedily underwent further development.  It was found that the governmental institutions in which the dominion of the bourgeoisie had secured organic expression provided a leverage whereby the proletariat could work for the overthrow of these very institutions. The workers participated in the elections to the diets; they voted in the municipal elections; they took their places in the arbitration courts; in their conflict with the bourgeoisie they disputed the possession of every post. The result of all this was that the bourgeoisie and the government grew far more afraid of the constitutional than the unconstitutional activities of the working class party, and came to dread the results of an election far more than they dreaded the results of a rebellion.

The day of surprise attacks has passed, the day when small but resolute minorities could achieve revolutions by leading the masses to the onslaught. Where the question is one of a complete transformation in the social organism, the masses must wittingly participate, must fully understand what they are about. We have learned this from the history of the past 50 years. But if we are to enlighten the masses concerning the issue, prolonged and arduous toil will be requisite. This is the task on which we are now engaged, and with so much success that our adversaries are becoming desperately alarmed.

The irony of history turns everything topsy-turvy. We, the ‘revolutionists’, thrive better by the use of constitutional means than by unconstitutional and revolutionary methods. The parties of law and order, as they term themselves, are being destroyed by the constitutional implements which they themselves have fashioned.”

The paragraph in the Origin of the Family, from which Keracher quotes, is a long one, and starts on page 209 of Kerr’s edition. In the early part of it the following sentences occur:

“The highest form of the State, the democratic republic, knows officially nothing of property distinctions. It is the State, which under modern conditions of society, becomes more and more an unavoidable necessity. The last decisive struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie can only be fought out under this State form.”  (Italics ours.)

The paragraph then ends as follows:

“The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage. For as long as the oppressed class—in this case the proletariat—is not ripe for its emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing form of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class. But the more the proletariat matures towards its self-emancipation, the more does it constitute itself as a separate class and elect its own representatives in place of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It can and never will be that in the modern State. But that is sufficient. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage reaches its boiling point among the labourers, they as well as the capitalists will know what to do.” (Italics ours.)

On the day when the thermometer reaches its boiling point the workers will have elected a majority of delegates to Parliament. That is Engels’ answer to the question. For further evidence let us turn to Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, pp.74-77. (Sonneschien, 1892).

“Whilst the capitalist mode of production more and more completely transforms the great majority of the population into proletarians, it creates the power which, under penalty of its own destruction, is forced to accomplish this revolution. Whilst it forces on more and more the transformation of the vast means of production, already socialised, into State property, it shows itself the way to accomplishing this revolution. The proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.

But, in doing this, it abolishes itself as proletariat, abolishes also the State as State. Society thus far, based upon class antagonisms, had need of the State. That is, of an organisation of the particular class which was pro tempore the exploiting class, an organisation for the purpose of preventing any interference from without with the existing conditions of production and, therefore especially for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited class in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labour). The State was the official representative of society as a whole; the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the State of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole; in the middle ages, the feudal lords; in our own time, the bourgeoisie.

When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as the class rule, and the individual struggle for existence based upon our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these, are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society—the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society—this is at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then it dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of the processes of production. The state is not ‘abolished’. It dies out. ” (pp.74-77.)

“ III. Proletarian Revolution. – Solution of the contradictions. The proletariat seizes the public power, and by the means of this transforms the socialised means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie, into public property. By this act the proletariat frees the means of production from the character of capital they have thus borne, and gives their socialised character complete freedom to work itself out. Socialised production on a pre-determined plan becomes henceforth possible. The development of production makes the existence of different classes of society thenceforth an anachronism. In proportion as anarchy in social production vanishes, the political authority of the State dies out. Man, at last the master of his own form of social organisation, becomes at the same time the lord over nature, his own master—free. (p.86.)

Note the commencement of the last paragraph: “The proletariat seizes the public power, and by means of this transforms the socialised means of production…into public property,” and take along with it the following, from the end of Engels’ 1891 introduction to The Paris Commune (New York Lab. News. Co.):

“But in reality the State is nothing else than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and that no less so in the democratic republic than the monarchy. At the very best it is an inheritance of evil, bound to be transmitted to the proletariat when it has become victorious in its struggle for class supremacy, and the worst features of which it will have to lop off at once, as the Commune did, until a new race, grown up under new, free social conditions, will be in a position to shake off from itself the State rubbish in its entirety.”

The above quotations prove the correctness, according to Engels, of paragraph 6 of our Declaration of Principles, to which Mr. Keracher takes exception, and also the correctness of the summary of the Marxian view, given in our August number, to which Mr. Keracher also takes exception, i.e., that you cannot carry on socialism with capitalist governmental machinery; that you must transform the government of one class by another into the administration of social affairs; that between capitalist society and Socialist society lies a period of transformation during which one after another of the political forms of to-day will disappear, but the worst features must be lopped off immediately the working class obtains supremacy in the State.

In the last column Mr. Keracher, speaking of ourselves, says:

“They have not yet discovered how the workers of Paris and Russia got "rid of the armed forces controlled by the capitalists." ”

The answer is that neither Communists nor Bolsheviks got rid of the armed forces of the capitalists. In each case the capitalists, owing to the exigencies of war, did it.

Marx’s view of universal suffrage was clearly given in his article on the Chartists, in which he said:

“But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of itself as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants,  but landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England, would, therefore, be a far more Socialistic measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent.

Its inevitable result here, is the political supremacy of the working class.”  (‘N.Y. Tribune,’ 25th Aug. 1852; quoted by ‘Labour Monthly,’ Dec., 1929.)

Keracher, like the rest of the pro-Bolsheviks, tries to foist upon Marx and Engels their own views of “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” As was pointed out in the May number of the “S.S.,” in all the voluminous writings of Marx and Engels they only use the expression three times. Marx twice; once in a private letter criticising the “free people’s state” (The Gotha Program), and once in the Class Struggle in France, where, dealing with the large peasantry and small working class in France, he said that if the workers got power there would be a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” Engels used it only once, at the end of the Paris Commune, were he advised opponents to look at the Paris Commune, that was the dictatorship of the proletariat. And these three references (one of which was not intended for public consumption) are the basis  of all the post-war talk of “Dictatorship”!

We have no further space to spare for Mr. Keracher’s other twists and turns. The above, however, will give a fair idea of the shifts he is compelled to resort to. In the whole of twelve columns he failed to show how the working class could obtain control of the armed forces, by ignoring parliament, and what force, and how, the Proletarian Party would meet the political power of the capitalists. We are evidently supposed to guess this!

Gilmac.

Light on Soviet Russia. (1930)

Book Review from the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Economic Trends in Soviet Russia.” By A. Yugoff. (George Allen & Unwin.)

The above volume is intended as a broad general outline of affairs in Russia. It affords considerable support to the position maintained by the Socialist Party since the Bolshevik upheaval.

“Soviet Russia,” says the author, in his introduction 

“is a land of economic contrasts and oppositions. In the towns there are huge factories and workshops; in the countryside, a natural economy is still almost exclusively dominant. Huge trusts and syndicates, embracing whole branches of industry and commerce, confront independent home workers and itinerant traders. Theoretically, and as a matter of principle, all the economic life of the country is under State control; whilst in practice currency crises, crises of production, gluts, crises of demand, press hard on one another’s heels, and are renewed ever and again by the spontaneous play of economic forces and by the lack of due proportion between the various branches of economic life.

Furthermore, in latter-day Russia we can see a peculiarly vivid picture of the results of artificially cultivated Socialist economic forms in a country where neither the economic nor the social conditions are ripe for anything of the kind; we can note what a caricature of true Socialism such an enforced ‘Socialism’ must be.

Two conflicting tendencies arc at work in Soviet Russia to-day. One of them has originated out of the new economic and social situation created by the revolution, the overthrow of Tsarism, and the freshly-created possibilities for a rapid unfolding of productive forces alike in industry and agriculture. The other, which Communist policy has artificially introduced into the realm of economic reality acts as a brake upon economic progress, rivets Utopian fetters upon these same productive forces, and gives rise to a pendulum swing from ‘right’ to ‘left,’ and then back to ‘right’ again.”

Yugoff holds that not only is Russia unripe for Socialism, but that the elaborate bureaucratic structure of nationalisation which the Communist rulers have built up, is a barrier to the capitalist development, which is an essential preliminary to the establishment of Socialism. Nationalisation, he points out, is not Socialism; it has been adopted by the most reactionary governments on occasions when it has suited their interests, and does not in itself necessarily constitute economic progress. In this, Yugoff merely repeats what Engels says in his little work, “Socialism ; Utopian and Scientific” (see footnote and text on pp. 83-4-5)); but he shows also the practical bearing of this fact on the Russian situation.

Nationalisation was adopted by the Bolsheviks as a result of the chaos ensuing from the economic collapse in 1916-17, their seizure of power and the civil war. It was an emergency measure and was carried a good deal further than Lenin had suggested as being desirable in his writings just prior to the events of October-November, 1917. (See “Preparing for Revolt.”) Having adopted it as an immediate policy, however, the Bolsheviks proceeded to make the most extravagant claims for it. The collapse of the currency was hailed as the prelude to the final disappearance of money ; the system of compulsory rationing became the first step towards a planned economy. Small wonder then that the partial reversion to normal capitalism, represented by the N.E,P., should have been regretted by a considerable section of the ruling party as a retreat. Yugoff, however, maintains that the logical implications of the N.E.P. have never been carried out, and the reason is not far to seek.

“During the process of nationalisation thousands upon thousands of private property owners were replaced by new hosts of ‘red’ bureaucrats, trust managers and commissaries, who gobbled up all the savings which might otherwise have been made by the expropriation of the expropriators” (p. 99).

The Bolsheviks nationalised thousands of small enterprises whose owners were also their managers; but the new rulers lacked the technical resources necessary to the reconstruction of these enterprises upon a larger and more economical scale. Hence the surplus value extracted from the workers’ labour did not even provide fresh capital for the expansion of industry. It was swallowed up in “administrative expenses.” The motive of private gain remained the only one capable of acting as a stimulus to the accumulation of capital.

The Bolsheviks, in introducing the New Economic Policy, of course, recognised this fact; but having entrenched themselves in the realm of State industry, their parasitic, bureaucratic supporters are loath to surrender to outsiders the privileges which they enjoy. So far from having been smashed, the State in Russia has expanded into an excrescence which stands in the way of further economic development.

Hence the struggle between those who claim to be intent upon “building up Socialism” and the new class of private capitalists who are arising partly in spite of the Bolsheviks’ efforts, but partly also as a result of them.

In order to provide the capital for the expansion of State industry, the old Tsarist expedient of taxing the peasantry is adopted; but carried beyond a certain point, this defeats its own object by checking agricultural accumulation and the growth of food supplies and raw materials. The experiment of State farms, as Yugoff shows, involves inroads upon peasant cultivation which reduce numbers of peasants to beggary and increase the drift to the towns. The increase in the unemployed is greater than the industries of the State can absorb, and the way is thus opened up for private exploiters to embark upon industrial enterprise. Thus, sooner or later, Yugoff argues, the heavy hand of the State upon trade and industry will be relaxed. In the interests of an expanding capitalism, the State monopoly of foreign commerce will be broken down ; but in so far as these measures involve the abolition of the economic basis of the dictatorship, a serious political change is the essential preliminary. Yugoff puts the question : What form is this likely to take?

He sees three possible alternatives. 

“A democratic State authority might be set up; or part of the Communist Party might be transformed into a party of the possessing classes (Thermidor); or, finally, there might be a Bonapartist, or reactionary coup-d’etat. No one can foresee which course development will take. This much, however, is certain, that the party which now rules in the U.S.S.R. is no longer a party of the working class; is not a party which can carry out a policy of socialisation; is not even a party competent to promote in any consistent or enduring fashion the interests of the working class” (pp. 335-6).

Not that Yugoff blames the Communists for their failure to work a miracle. Indeed, his work is, in its way, a masterpiece of scientific method. He sees in the “dictators” the creatures rather than the creators of the present transitional period in Russia from feudalism to capitalism. Even the very illusions, which he credits them with sharing with their followers in the early days of the Revolution, have in Yugoff’s eyes an historical function. Intoxicated with the idea of an impending world Socialist revolution, the workers of Russia accomplished a task which the Russian capitalists were incapable of doing for themselves. They swept the last vestiges of feudalism from Russian society. They assisted the peasants to lay hands upon the land and free themselves “from the burden of high rents, land taxes, and interest on mortgages,” which Yugoff describes as the main historical task of the revolution.

No sooner, however, had the peasants overthrown the old ruling class in the country than a new one began to appear in the towns. This new class grows at the expense both of the peasants and the urban working-class, converting by degrees the former into the latter. Thus, in spite of certain differences, economic history in Russia repeats that of Western Europe.

The temptation to quote Yugoff’s three final chapters at some length is great, but the following brief extract must suffice:

“Behind the Socialist facade the features of a society which, though new, though born out of the revolution, is fundamentally capitalist, are disclosing themselves more plainly day by day; we must do our utmost to dispel the illusion that this revolution is a Socialist one, so that the working class (hitherto deceived) may be enabled to hold at least the second line of its revolutionary position, and may escape being crushed politically and morally as soon as the nature of the masquerade becomes plain to all the world.” (pp. 320-1).

For Yugoff sees quite plainly that the adversaries of Socialism can make good use of the Communist Party’s failure.

“They declare that the failure of nationalisation in Russia is tantamount to the failure of Socialism. . . . They consider that the Russian experiment provides them with a powerful weapon of defence against the struggle of the working class for Socialism” (p. 95).

To thoroughly appreciate Yugoff’s book, however, it is necessary to compare it with others that profess to cover similar ground. Mr. Maurice Dobb’s volume, “Russian Economic Development,” for instance, while more fully detailed, is vitiated by economic inaccuracies, chief of which is the fallacy that Russian development is Socialist. Mr. Farbman’s writings, while illuminating in many particulars, make no attempt to offer an explanation for the effects which he describes. They cannot therefore be classed as scientific. Anatole Baikaloff’s little book, “In the Land of Communist Dictatorship,” remains equally superficial, in spite of the author’s industrious accumulation of data exploding the stories of the Workers’ Paradise.

Yugoff’s book will be far from welcome to so-called reformers, Communist and Labour Party alike, to whom nationalisation is the panacea for working class ills. Miss Ellen Wilkinson, for instance, in the July “Plebs,” finds it somewhat “disturbing.” More important, however, than this, it spikes the guns of reactionaries, Tory and Liberal, who, ever since the introduction of the New Economic Policy, have sedulously paraded the legend that Socialism has failed in Russia. By laying bare the economic forces actually at work the author has stripped the Russian Revolution of its romance and enabled us the better to understand its reality.

Both publishers and translators (Eden and Cedar Paul) are to be congratulated on the results of their efforts,

Eric Boden

A Socialist Searchlight. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

An “intellectual” on Marx.

“To avoid any confusion in the reader’s mind it must be explained that at the time when this Manifesto was given to the world, what we know to-day as Socialism, was generally referred to as Communism. Karl Marx was therefore attempting to forecast the evolution of Socialism towards world power. That being so, and considering his confident prediction of class conflict, how can anyone honestly uphold Marxism while in the next breath accepting the theory of Parliamentary evolution as opposed not only to revolution but also to direct action in any form.

It is true that the ballot-box and the doctrines of Marx do not mix very well together.” (H. H. Tiltman, in his Life of Ramsay MacDonald, p. 31.)

Such a mass of confusion in one paragraph shows the shallowness and stupidity of Marx’s “critics.” Class conflicts didn’t happen, but Marx predicted them ! This from a writer who spends many pages dealing with the miners’ lock-out and the General Strike ! Mr. Tiltman, full of regard for the sanity of MacDonald, scorns Karl Marx. He does it by erecting a bogey. Any reader of the Communist Manifesto can read Marx’s own statement, that the first step in the emancipation of the working-class is the conquest of political power—the winning of the battle of democracy. MacDonald’s biographer does not tell us where Marx opposed the use of “the ballot box”—because he can’t.

The insinuation that Marx was the apostle of “direct action” clearly shows how little Ramsay’s admirer knows of Marx’s conflict with Bakunin and the other believers in direct action. Mr. Tiltman evidently conceives of revolution as a drama of knives, noise, fireworks and barricades. The use of Parliament by revolutionaries is unknown to these men who “make their own history.”

* * *

How Great Men don't make revolutions.

THE BLOKE IN THE SIDE STREET. 

“The course of revolution, like the course of true love, never did run smooth. All revolutions have some features in common. They are born, not made. They never run to programme, and they can he led down a side street hy a great man. It is never possible to have the mass so drilled or imbued by common ideals that a combined push for an agreed goal can be made.”

This picturesque view of history, more like a six-reel film than actuality, appears in “Forward,” the I.L.P. paper (July 19th). It is the brain wave of John P. Hay, M.A., of the I.L.P., and Workers’ Educational Association. Picture the revolution being led down the alley by the great man ! These people think every attempted uprising is a revolution. They never explain why leaders are able to shepherd their ignorant flock ; nor do they explain why this great man fades out and another supplants him. Our “great man” philosopher wrote the above while reviewing the situation in China. He tells us that “the revolution happened too soon,” and refers to “the frequent splits and divisions among the revolutionaries” there. The great men who make history, according to the hero-worshippers, surely ought not to let little things like starting in advance of the conditions, or meeting with other great men, stand in their way.

Mr. Hay, who always likes to sneer at the Marxist, supplies the knock-out to his own theories in the same article.

FACTORS IN SOCIAL CHANGE.

“The Manchu dynasty fell, not on account of a powerful push from the rear, but simply because it could stand no longer. The use of telephone, telegraph, and railway, foreign pressure from the international money lenders, were factors which induced an increase in the number of Chinese with an outlook on the fate of their country. The return of foreign educated Chinese with ideas of the run of history and economics in the West, gave a powerful impulse to the searchings of heart among the thoughtful.”

That’s what comes of being an opponent of the materialist conception of history. No powerful push by a great man lurking in the rear, but all the factors of modern development are brought in to explain the rise of revolt.

He next tells us that “the lump of national go-as-you-please was too big to be leavened for the economic change.” The “great men” could not lop off the “lump,” to use the scientific language of our Master of Arts. Sun Yat Sen, he tells us, had to teach economics in order to win support for his policy. Economics comes in, you see, even with the gift of being able to lead revolutions down side streets. Borodin, the Russian Communist, Mr. Hay tells us, could not work a Russian pattern into the Chinese material, conditions again defeating leaders making plans for coups and triumphs.

Mr. Hay, M.A., presents just as sad a picture trying to upset Marx’s Materialism as he does when trying to upset Marx’s Economics.

* * *

The German Fascists.

It is interesting to notice how the German Fascists, led by Hitler, outmanoeuvred the reformist parties, the Labour Party and the Communists, by promising reforms of capitalism more drastic than either of them had thought of.

According to the News Chronicle and Star (17th October), Hitler’s programme, now embodied in Bills before Parliament, includes the following reforms : Limitation of interest rate to 5 per cent., of which 1 per cent. is to be taken in taxes ; incomes of company directors to be drastically reduced ; and all banks be taken over by the State without compensation to the shareholders.

Hitler’s attempt to outbid the reformists was so successful that some of his most spectacular successes were in working class constituencies, where formerly the Labour Party or the Communists had been strong. So much for the Labour-Communist theory about leading the workers to Socialism by dangling reforms like carrots in front of their noses. They overlook two things of importance, first, that the workers occasionally want to bite the carrot, and, second, that rival reformists can always step in with sweeter-looking carrots.

Adolph Kohn

Answers to Correspondents. (1930)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

W. Jennings (Harringay).

If you or the anonymous member of the Manchester Reform Club will give some evidence (as distinct from a mere unsupported assertion), that the workers “are immeasurably more comfortable than in the most prosperous pre-war times,” we shall be prepared to consider it.

* * *

Taxes and the smallholder.

A correspondent asks if smallholders would be better off if taxes were lowered by the abolition of unemployment pay. Small scale producers in general are at a disadvantage because small-scale production is uneconomic, because they pay heavily for transport, and because they are in competition with big and powerful rivals. If the total amount of taxes were reduced it does not follow that those who control the Government would pass on the benefit to smallholders; and if they did it does not follow that the smallholder would actually benefit. The conditions might very well permit the land owners to put up the rent. Moreover, a lowering or abolition of unemployment pay might well increase the number of those trying to make a living as smallholders and thus make competition among them still keener. In U.S.A. where there is no unemployment pay, millions of small farmers have been squeezed out of business since the war.

* * *

The pay of civil servants.

A correspondent writes to criticise our statement in the September issue that the pay of the various grades of civil servants is no better than the pay of outside workers. To support his point he compares the pay of a policeman with that of a watchman, and the pay of an L.C.C. school teacher with that of a private governess. Our correspondent makes the error of not comparing like with like, and the comparisons therefore have no point. If he imagines that his comparisons are sound will he tell us of any police force recruited from watchmen, and any education authority which appoints unqualified governesses as its teachers?

We did not say that civil servants are paid less than outside workers (although incidentally the higher grades are paid less in many cases than comparable grades outside).

Our correspondent objects to our comparison between the Post Office staff and the London Underground Railway staff, on the ground that the latter “prides itself on the high wages it pays.” The objection is pointless. In the first place the Post Office also prides itself on its high wages, and in the second place every firm of any size and standing makes the same claim.

We would emphasise that although our correspondent challenges our statement he is unable to give a single instance which will support his assertion that civil servants are “an aristocracy among the working class.” The illustrations which he uses break down because he gives untenable comparisons. (In passing it may be mentioned that neither Teachers nor Policemen are civil servants in the proper meaning of the term.)

We do not deny that the ruling class would, if they thought necessary, protect their interests by paying their state servants generously. The facts, however, bear out our view that in practice the ruling class have not in general found that policy necessary. We would in conclusion return to the main point, which is that nationalisation or state capitalism does not solve any problem for the working class.

Editorial Committee.

SPGB Meetings. (1930)

Party News from the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Knowledge. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our circulation. (1930)

Party News from the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The efforts of our readers in response to the appeal in the November issue have brought a considerable increase in the number of our postal subscribers, and in the requests for information about the Party. Do not relax your efforts.

What The Socialist Party Stands For (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many new readers of the Socialist Standard are puzzled when they find that the Socialist Party claims to be opposed to the Labour Party and I.L.P., not merely in matters of method, but also in respect of the object to be worked for. This puzzled state of mind is easy to understand. It arises from the use, by ourselves and by those other parties, of terms and phrases which appear to have a similar meaning. When a member of the Labour Party speaks of “Nationalisation, ” the newspapers will assume that he means Socialism, and the Labour Party leaders often have no interest in removing the false impression. It is the practice of many of the widely-read newspapers always to describe Labour M.P.s as Socialist M.P.s. Confusion has been increased in recent years by the use in the Labour Party’s official programme of a form of words which resembles a passage in our Object. Where we say, "The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the whole community”; the Labour Party’s object, as set out in "Labour and the Nation,” is "to secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”

The phrasing of the Labour Party’s object tends to be vague, and is in one particular plainly inaccurate. It speaks of securing for the producers the "full fruits of their industry”; but if this were to be carried out the non-producers—among them the young, the infirm, and the old—would get nothing. The Labour Party here refer to common ownership, and it is very important to us that the apparent similarity with our aim should be challenged. We would rather be opposed for what we are and for what we aim at, than be supported, under a misapprehension, for what we are not. Let it, then, be clearly understood that the aims of the two parties are essentially different. The Labour Party stands for nationalisation, which is a form of capitalism embodying all of the chief features of the system of society which the Socialist Party works to abolish. When the Labour Party writes "common ownership” they have in mind such institutions as the Post Office and Mr. Morrison’s proposed London Traffic Corporation; but these are not "commonly owned.” The owners of the Post Office are the capitalist investors in Government Telegraph and Telephone loans and other Government stocks, and the capitalist class as a whole. Their tax burden is reduced by the Post Office profits.

Ownership to the capitalist no longer ordinarily involves the actual personal possession and control of plant, land, factories, etc. It is good enough for him that his stock or share certificates entitle him to a portion of the unearned property-income, which flows from ownership by the exploitation of the workers. The railway shareholder does not own any particular part of the railway system, nor does he wish to do so. If the Labour Party gives him shares in Government loans instead of his company shares he will not be a penny the worse. He will, on the contrary, have gained through the increased security of his holding.

The capitalist will not be a penny the worse and the workers will not be a penny the better for the change. The workers will still be wage-earners producing wealth for others and receiving back as wages and salary enough to enable them and their families to live. That is not Socialism or common ownership. The Socialist Party opposes it without qualification.

If there are Labour Party supporters who doubt the accuracy of the outline given above, we would refer them to the words of Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden on the subject.

Mr. MacDonald, in his book, “Socialism: Critical and Constructive," first published in 1921, deals (Chapter VII) with the part which the capitalist will play in society moulded on Labour Party lines. On pages 302 and 303 (Cassell's pocket edition), he says that property becomes defensible “when Labour uses capital and pays it its market value." (“Urges" in the Cassell edition is a misprint for “uses.") Mr. MacDonald's wording is odd, but his meaning is not in doubt. He envisages a retention of capitalism with the capitalist shorn of some of his present privilege.

Mr. Philip Snowden, writing in the “Manchester Guardian Commercial Reconstruction Supplement," on 26th October, 1922, put the case in a nutshell:—

  The nationalisation of . . . public services does not carry the Labour Party further than many Radicals, who would vigorously disclaim being socialistic, are prepared to go. The nationalisation of mines has been recommended by a Royal Commission, not preponderantly Labour or Socialist. The Land Nationalisation Society has among its vice-presidents a large number of M.P.s who do not belong to the Labour Party.

Mr. Snowden wrote in the same issue:— 

  The British Labour Party is certainly not Socialist in the sense in which Socialism is understood upon the Continent. It is not based upon the recognition of the class struggle; it does not accept the teachings of Marx. . . .  The Socialism of the Labour Party is just a matter of fact, practical aim for the extension of the already widely accepted principle of the democratic ownership and control of the essential public services.

And that aim, as we have explained, is not Socialism at all. It is Slate capitalism. It is not “democratic ownership and control," but State control for the private owners.

It may be mentioned that Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden were at that time active and influential members of the I.L.P., whose object is indistinguishable from that of the Labour Party, to which it is affiliated.

The Labour Party, in “Labour and the Nation," promises to “introduce the maximum possible publicity as to costs and profits." Our aim is quite different. We propose not to give publicity to profits but to abolish profits and all forms of living by owning property, a way of life which can continue only through the exploitation of the workers.

Under Socialism there will not be a class of property owners, and a class of non-owners compelled to sell their labour power to an employer in order to live. The wages system will have disappeared for ever. Men and women will produce the articles all need, not for sale and for profit-making, but for the use of all. If this appears to be a staggering proposal, just stop and ask what other remedy there can be for the colossal and permanent over-production and unemployment from which the workers suffer in a capitalist society. If it seems strange to suggest that people will easily fall into the habit of working without being driven by the threat of unemployment, remember that even under capitalism probably three-fifths of the population, men, women and children, get their living in some other way than by selling their labour power to an employer. We see the capitalist class living without any compulsion to work. We see children, invalids and the aged, more or less well cared for by relatives and friends. We see wives working for husbands and families, and rarely doing so on the job-and-cash basis which the economists like to pretend is so essential to civilisation. We even see millions of workers who have a greater or less degree of security against unemployment, working in much the same way as workers differently placed. Finally, we see a vast network of voluntary organisations carrying on every kind of activity outside, and without the stimulus of, the wages system. And who will venture to assert that the work of the genuine amateur is less conscientious, less thorough, and less fruitful than that of the paid employee?

There remains another question which interests many who have grasped the outlines of the case for Socialism. “What," we are asked by a reader, “will be done under Socialism to secure the distribution of luxuries like diamonds, pearl necklaces, fur coats, motor cars, etc. Would we all have these things if we desired them; only a few of us; or nobody at all?"

There are really two quite different questions raised here. There are people who want and will want jewellery, fur coats and motor cars, because they like these things; because they want to be adorned, want to be warm, and want to travel comfortably. Under Socialism society will have to weigh up the merits and demerits of producing a supply of such article's adequate for those who want them. Society will have to decide whether it is worth while trying to produce fur coats as well as, or in place of, cloth coats, if to do so will involve a considerable inroad into the powers of producing other things. Before the community as a whole will consent to give up all-round comfort in order to secure luxury in some one direction, it will have to be persuaded that the choice is a wise one. The advocates of diamonds and fur coats will have to get down to the task of converting their less luxuriously- minded fellow citizens.

The other aspect of our reader’s question is easily disposed of. At present diamonds are worn by the few only because they are beyond the reach of the many. The diamond companies get the Governments to intervene by force of arms to prevent outsiders from tapping new diamond areas, and thus flooding the market. Should Socialist society decide to provide diamonds for all, probably 99 out of a 100 of those who now have or who now hunger for diamonds would want diamonds no more.

Socialist society will not be able to provide the fantastic needs of every dreamer who craves for the moon, but it will plainly have to produce many articles not required at all by some of its members and required in unequal quantities by others.

Edgar Hardcastle

The French Socialist-Communist Party. (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received from Paul Louis, General Secretary of the French Socialist-Communist Party, a letter concerning the article on International Organisation in our November issue. Below is a translation of the chief passages :—

   Comrade,—I reply briefly to the remarks in your journal relating to our party: (1) Our object is identical with your own; (2) we are advocates of an International Conference to be attended by all the Socialist and Communist parties of the world. The Conference would discuss a programme of action based on Marxian principles. It is on this basis that unity ought to be achieved; (3) for us electoral action is only a means of propaganda. The proletariat will obtain power by revolution or by the breaking up of the capitalist class.

It will be seen that the proposed international conference is to be founded on the illusion that a gathering of socialists and communists could find common ground “based on Marxian principles.” We claim that the anti-working class actions and policies of the communists are in direct contradiction to the essential policies worked out by Marx and verified by experience.

The third point of the letter indicates a dangerous defect in the policy of the French Socialist-Communist Party. The rejection of the vote as a means of obtaining control of the political machinery leaves only one apparent alternative, i.e., the communist policy of attempting to overthrow the armed forces of the State by a working-class uprising. That way lies nothing but disaster.

Edgar Hardcastle

How To Study Socialism (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers of the Socialist Standard and listeners at our meetings will have realised that we attach great importance to the workers having a knowledge of certain basic principles and being able to apply them to the questions of the day. That is how Socialists are made, and it is the only way. The worker who wishes to save himself from taking in and acting upon the theories and policies of the various capitalist parties must himself get to understand the economic and political problems which face him. This requires a certain amount of study, but it is well within the reach of the average worker. It is less difficult than many of the technical studies which workers have to pursue in order to get and keep their jobs in the employers' factories, workshops and offices. The study of economics and politics from the working class viewpoint is not only interesting in itself—something which can be said of all systematic expansion of our knowledge of the world we live in—but it has the additional attraction that it touches at every point the actual conditions of the life of the working class. That is to say, it is a study which, so far from being divorced from action, leads directly to the adoption of policies in line with our own economic interests. Knowledge of Socialism colours the everyday thoughts and actions of the Socialist, enables him to understand and appreciate at their true value the social forces with which he has to deal, and gives him that confidence which is indispensable for the organisation of the working class, the conquest of the powers of government, and the building up of Socialism.

How is such a study to be undertaken? What books should be read, and how are the students’ difficulties to be dealt with? These questions are in the minds of all who approach the task for the first time. To the limit of our present resources we hold, meetings, and arrange study classes and discussions at Head Office and in the branches. The student should attend these meetings and classes.

He should read the books advertised in these columns. They are works which we can recommend, and we shall be pleased to advise as to the works which a beginner should tackle first.

But above all there is The Socialist Standard itself. From month to month, over a period of 26 years, Socialist principles have been applied to current problems, every aspect of capitalism has been examined and explained, every policy presented to the workers has been criticised and its value assessed, every anti-working-class party has been exposed. Hundreds of well-informed articles have made accessible useful knowledge from almost every field of study, and hundreds of students' difficulties have been answered.

The Socialist Standard is not like a “news" journal, out of date almost as soon as it is published. It is a record of the past history of working-class movements, packed with invaluable information on their failures and on the false theories and policies which made failure inevitable. It is no exaggeration to say that there is no other comparable source to which the worker with his limited leisure and means can go for reliable guidance in the study of social problems. It is to meet this need that we offer bound volumes for sale. They are well bound and are sold at a price which leaves only a small margin over the actual cost of binding and postage. We cannot too strongly urge members and sympathisers to order one or more volumes and get down to study during the winter months. An announcement as to prices is printed elsewhere in this issue.

Editorial: Wages Under Labour Government (1930)

Editorial from the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the things Labour Governments are supposed to do is to keep up wages. Since the present Government came in, there have been big reductions in the wool, cotton and jute industries, and there are now pending movements to reduce wages in building, agriculture, mining, boot and shoe production, and railways. These applications for reductions cover about three million workers.

But the biscuit must be awarded to Air. Snowden and Mr. Addison.

Mr. Snowden, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, controls the Civil Service. Their cost of living bonus is governed by an agreement, made as a temporary measure in 1920. The agreement never gave them the full increase corresponding to the rise in prices, and it is admitted that their cost of living has not fallen by as large a percentage as is indicated by the Ministry of Labour index. The staff's claim for a revised agreement was side-tracked by being referred to the Civil Service Royal Commission, and they therefore contend that until the Commission reports, no further reductions should have taken place. Mr. Snowden replied by giving them a 5 point reduction. When they protested, he replied by lamenting the “ingratitude" of the Civil Servants.

Why workers in Government employ should be grateful when a Labour Government, contrary to the whole theory of the Labour Party, reduces their pay, it is difficult to understand.

Mr. Addison, Minister of Agriculture, went one better.

According to the Landworker, of November, the employers’ representatives on a Yorkshire Agricultural Wages Committee moved for a reduction in wages, but were outvoted by the workers' and “neutral” representatives. The employers thereupon withdrew, and Mr. Addison has now asked the neutral represenatives to resign, and refuses to re-appoint them. He indignantly denies that he is looking for “neutral” representatives who will agree to wages reductions, but admits that he wants people with whom the farmers will consent to sit. But this, of course, means precisely the same thing. The farmers are not objecting to neutral representatives because of the colour of their hair, but because they voted down a wage reduction. The farmers will continue to decline to sit until they get their way, and the Minister of Agriculture, who has power to prevent this, helps the farmers under a veil of “impartiality.”

The Labour Government has failed to offer to the workers any means of escape from the capitalist system. It fails equally to help them make the best of capitalism by resisting wage reductions.

An Important Event (1930)

From the December 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Formation of the Workers' Socialist Party, (U.S.A.)

Ten months ago we announced that our comrades in the Socialist Educational Society of America had launched a monthly paper, "The Socialist." After a short but useful life, publication of the new journal had to be suspended owing to the aggravated unemployment which hit the U.S.A. The promoters of the paper found their own pockets less able to meet the expense of publication because many of them were out of work, and the audiences at street corner meetings were in a similar plight, and could not buy the paper, or give so generously to collections. For the time being the American organisation has to manage without a journal, but this has not prevented the carrying on of meetings and educational activities, and we are pleased to chronicle the founding of the "Workers' Socialist Party of the United States," on September 8th.

Like ourselves, the members of the American Party are asked why they are adding to the number of Socialist parties. Is America not already blessed with a multiplicity of so-called Labour, Farmer, Socialist, and Communist parties? Why start another? Why increase the confusion? The answer is the one given by the S.P.G.B. in this country; there is no way of challenging and destroying the confused theories and spurious programmes of the parties which promise to reform capitalism except by building up from the ground an organisation of Socialists working only for Socialism.

It will, perhaps, sound odd to justify the new party in America by referring to something outside America, but it will, nevertheless, be found true on examination that the condition of the working class in Great Britain is proof enough of the need for the Workers' Socialist Party in the U.S.A. In Great Britain we have the counterpart of all of the reform parties of the U.S.A., but with a difference. Here they have been more successful, and one of them, the Labour Party, has twice formed the Government, and before that was represented in Coalition Cabinets. In this country, a very large part of the reform legislation demanded by bodies such as the "Socialist Party of America," which is the American equivalent of the I.L.P., has been put on the Statute Book. But to what effect? Every year that passes, despite its certain crop of new reforms, shows the working class rather worse off than before in relation to the wealth and power of the capitalist class. Every year shows more clearly the need for a Socialist Party striving for Socialism, and the uselessness of all of the parties of reform. Reform of capitalism through Communist violence is no better than reform through the Fabian "inevitability of gradualness." Only the Socialist Party has consistently pointed to the one sure road. After our years of effort it is, then, encouraging to see comrades taking up the task for themselves in other countries. Like the Socialist Party of Australia, the Workers' Socialist Party of the United States is based upon our Declaration of Principles, with only the minor alterations required because of the different terminology of the institutions of that country.

We offer our congratulations and good wishes to our companion parties.