This Month's Quotation: J. F. Bray (1933)

The Front Page quote from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

"It is not a form of Government which the working class must blame for their wrongs, but the system of society from which that form springs."

J. F. Bray (from "Labour's Wrongs and Labour's Remedy", page 91, published 1839.)

Notes by the Way: The Housing Problem Solved Again. (1933)

The Notes by the Way Column from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Housing Problem Solved Again.

The housing problem has been solved at least half a dozen times since the end of the war. At any rate, each Government in turn has confidently announced that it was in process of being solved. The present Government is relying on its own slum-clearance schemes plus the activities of private builders and the building societies. Sir Paul Latham, who is Conservative M.P. for Scarborough and a member of the London County Council, writing in the Evening Standard (October 23rd, 1933), says that the present rate of dealing with unsatisfactory housing conditions, even the increased rate which is being urged by the Act of the Ministry of Health,

will do little in the lifetime of our generation to solve the housing problem in London.

The Architects' Journal, “After an exceedingly careful and detailed investigation," states that 1,400,000 houses are needed to abolish overcrowding (quoted in Evening Standard, November 17th, 1933).

Other authoritative statements quoted by the Evening Standard (November 17th, 1933) are the following: —

On the basis of the houses condemned in Manchester there must be a million slum dwellings in the country (Sir E. Simon).

Of the million slum dwellings which are estimated to have been in existence in 1918 only 20,000, equivalent to 2%, have been demolished and replaced by new buildings. In the last 60 years only 200,000 slum dwellers have been rehoused.

There are houses which were condemned 40 years ago and are still standing and being used. 

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The Cause of War.

Mr. A. A. Baumann, who writes for the Evening Standard over the initials A. A. B., is known as an old, crusted Conservative, who often shocks a more mealy mouthed generation by his crude statement of his principles. On October 4th, 1933, he dropped a brick by a candid statement about war. He said: —

It is the lust of money, and nothing else, that provokes and protracts modem war . . . the cause of all wars is lust for money.

The late Lord Brentford, when he was plain Mr. Joynson-Hicks, was equally candid. He said: —

We conquered India as the outlet for the goods of Great Britain. We conquered India by the sword, and by the sword we should hold it (quoted by A. G. Gardiner in Daily News, October 17th, 1925).

It is interesting to notice how the Liberal Manchester Guardian managed to convey precisely the same idea as the Tory Joynson-Hicks, but without his bluntness:—

There are two chief reasons why a self-regarding England may hesitate to relax her control over India. . . . The second is that Great Britain finds in India her best market, and that she has a thousand millions of capital invested there. (Manchester Guardian, December 30th, 1929.)

A last comment on the Great War is provided by Mr. A. G. Gardiner. Writing in the Star (October 11th, 1933), he discovers that the Kaiser was really quite a democrat: —

“Even under the Kaiser there was freedom of the Press, freedom of organisation, and a freely elected Parliament. . . ."

Those who have long memories will recall that Mr. Gardiner, in 1914, was Editor of the Daily News, and in that capacity was one of those who backed up the war on the plea of guarding English civil liberties against being reduced by a victorious Germany to the state of suppression supposed to exist in that country.

Now, 15 years after the war to end Prussianism, Mr. Gardiner discovers that Hitlerism is the real evil, and that the Kaiser was not so bad after all.

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Arms and the Workers.

When Communist advocates of armed revolt were asked from what source the workers would obtain arms, dark hints were sometimes thrown out indicating that Russia would oblige. Incredible as it may seem, this has at last been partly realised, for the Russian Government has made a gift of five bombing planes to the neighbouring State, Turkey, as a little memento on the 10th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. (See Daily Herald, October 27th, 1933.)

The promise is, however, only partly fulfilled, for the planes have been given, not to the Turkish workers, but to the capitalist Government. 

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Woman in a Sack.—40 Years of Progress.

Mr. George Lansbury related recently (see Daily Herald, October 23rd) how it was he first became converted to what he calls Socialism. He was making a canvass of the Devons Road area of Bow for the voting register when the door of one house was opened by a poor woman dressed in a sack, in which three holes had been cut for head and arms.

That must be nearly 40 years ago—40 years of reforms introduced by the Liberals, Tories and Labour Party, 40 years which might have been devoted by Mr. Lansbury to working for Socialism but for the fact that he decided instead to follow the line of trying to get “something now."

Yet he admits that, touring the same district recently, he “Was horrified to see the conditions in which the people are still living."

Even the sack is not entirely gone, for two weeks later the Daily Herald published a letter in which a correspondent, who signed himself “ Disillusioned," said that he had just seen “ The huddled form of a woman, covered by a dirty piece of sacking," sleeping out on a seat near Buckingham Palace.

The writer was disillusioned about the “peace" which has followed the war. He could, with equal justification, have been disillusioned about the 40 years spent in vain trying to patch up the evils of capitalism bit by bit. The Rev. William Dick, of Trinity Church, Poplar, says that there are, to his knowledge, hundreds of families in the East End hungry—“They have absolutely no food in the house." He claims that in Poplar alone (where there has long been a Labour Council) “40,000 people are living on the poverty line or are in actual want " (Daily Herald, November 3rd, 1933).

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How Reforms Divide the Workers.

Of all the political errors which have hampered the growth of Socialism there is hardly any so ill-founded as the idea that the way to unite the workers is to get together a list of non-Socialist demands, relating to so-called practical, every-day questions. The truth is that each such demand provokes opposition among one section of the workers while eliciting approval from another.

The Daily Herald (November 4th) provides an example. Mr. Alfred Barnes, Labour ex-M.P. for East Ham South, speaking at Enfield on November 3rd, said: —

“. . . a few years ago the Tories asserted that Socialism meant the bureaucratic State—industry being directed from Whitehall by well-paid officials, and initiative disappearing.

“That was just what they were doing themselves—Electricity Commissioners, London Transport Board, Milk and Bacon Boards. . . .

“All these represented the regulation of industry from Whitehall by well-paid officials in a desperate effort to bolster up capitalism.”

Now quite apart from Mr. Barnes' criticism of these Boards as being an effort to bolster up capitalism, there is the important point that while one body of workers inside the Labour Party accept his view, another body of workers inside the Labour Party are actively pressing for the multiplication of such boards. Indeed, it was Mr. Herbert Morrison who, as Minister of Transport in the Labour Government, introduced the London Passenger Transport Bill.

By one of those curious coincidences that sometimes happen even in the most judiciously sub-edited Labour papers, Mr. Barnes' speech attacking Mr. Herbert Morrison’s London Passenger Transport Board was published in the Daily Herald immediately below the report of a speech by Mr. Morrison.

Edgar Hardcastle

Northern Ireland “Socialist” Party. (1933)

From the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A correspondent in Northern Ireland has sent us the Constitution and Rules of an organisation calling itself the "Northern Ireland Socialist Party," and affiliated with the Labour Party.

The Constitution is a mixture of the Constitutions of the Independent Labour Party (up to 1931) and of the Labour Party. It contains, therefore, the usual large and small inaccuracies and unsound notions cherished by those parties.

For example, the object consists of the meaningless phrase that Socialism "is that state of society in which land and capital are communally owned, and the processes of production, distribution and exchange are social functions.”

Even Mr. Maxton had to confess when his attention was drawn to it, that "capital” by its nature cannot be communally owned. Capital is not merely machines and other instruments of production; it is those things in a particular social relationship—the capitalist form of private ownership. When the means of production become the property of society as a whole, they will cease to be means of providing profit for private owners; they will no longer be capital.

Similarly, it is absurd to talk about ”exchange” under Socialism. Exchange only has a place when goods are privately owned. Under Socialism goods will be produced and distributed. There will be no process of exchange.

Again, the Constitution states that the basis of Socialism will be "the organisation of the wage and salary earners.” Actually Socialism involves the abolition of the system of wage-labour altogether. There will be no capitalist class and no working class, and, therefore, no wage and salary earners.

This so-called Socialist Party is merely another attempt to build up in Northern Ireland one of the vote-catching, reformist organisations with which we are familiar in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

It is not a Socialist Party in anything but name, and is not deserving of working-class support.

P. S.

Letter: Banks and Credit. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Banks and Credit.

We have received a further letter from Mr. Hobsbaum, whose criticisms were dealt with in the November Socialist Standard: —

Tottenham, N.17.

7/11/33.

Dear Comrade,

That bank deposits result mainly from lending operations is testified to by Mr. McKenna, chairman of the Midland Bank, Ltd., in his book on Post-War Banking Policy. He says, on page 7, “bank loans are the main source of the growth of deposits ”; and indeed, how else would you explain the fact that total deposits in January, 1932, were £1,714 millions, while currency notes were only £400 millions? If deposits were created by depositors placing surplus funds with the banks, how on earth would the total deposits exceed total of notes in existence by such a huge figure? (£1,314 millions.)

In one section of your reply to my letter you both admit and deny that loans by banks increase deposits. You say an advance of £50,000 would result in an increase in total deposits, whereas an overdraft of the same amount would leave deposits unchanged! Why?

I did not wish to imply that cheques were currency. A cheque book handed to a borrower entitled to draw up to £50,000, means that that amount has been credited to him, and the cheques he draws are the instruments by which he transfers that credit or portions thereof to others. Clearly, if he does not utilise the whole of the credit, it does not become cancelled as you suggested, but remains available.

How are prices affected? There are many influences which condition changes in prices, one of which is the variation in the quantity of those units in which prices are expressed. Granting that Mr. McKenna is right in attributing growth of deposits to loans (mainly), since these loans swell the quantity of money (or more precisely its representative forms), then the tendency is for prices to rise, unless, of course, a proportionate increase in the productivity of labour follows. To deny this is to deny the possibility of inflation. Too full lending by banks always carries that danger, and though it increases the indebtedness to the banks, it is not until the banks slow down their lending, i.e., deflate, that the value of that indebtedness is realised, for restrictions on lending make it difficult for borrowers to obtain money, enhance the value of money itself, which is reflected in a tendency for prices to fall, and the bankers find that their loans in terms of goods have risen in value.

Yours fraternally,

R. Hobsbaum.

Reply.

The contradiction which Mr. Hobsbaum thinks he has discovered in the reply given to him in the November issue is the product of his own confused thinking. If he will read again the section which we assume he has in mind, he will see that its purpose was to show the futility of maintaining, in the face of all experience, that the price level is a function of the total deposits shown in the books of the banks. It was pointed out that one method of recording a loan transaction in the books of a bank can produce an effect on that total which is different from the effect produced by another method. If a bank agrees to make an advance of £100, it debits the client immediately with £100 in an advance account and credits him with a similar amount in current account, thereby causing an immediate increase in the total of deposits shown in its books. If, however, it should agree to allow a customer to go debit in his current account, there is no immediate effect on the total. But even if, for the purposes of book-keeping, the total of deposits shown in the books of a bank are increased immediately to record the fact that the bank has agreed to make a loan, this increase does not represent something created by the bank. Until the borrower draws a cheque on, or cash from, the bank the latter, in fact, has lent him nothing and so certainly cannot have created anything. In due course, however, the client will avail himself of his borrowing facilities. Suppose him to draw a cheque for £100 with which he pays a car manufacturer for a car. The latter pays the cheque into his own account, thereby increasing his bank balance by £100. The balance (if any) in the borrower's account is now the same as it was before the bank agreed to make the advance. The total of bank deposits is, therefore, higher by £100 than it was before the bank agreed to grant the loan, but if the car manufacturer was told that the bank had “created" the increase he would quite rightly tell his informant not to be a fool, and would point out that it arose from a car having been produced. It should also be noted that the increase has not occurred in the deposit? of the bank which made the advance; so that the "credit creation" theory comes down to a statement that a bank creates deposits of the other banks, but not for itself! The fact that banks make loans to customers is not inconsistent with the statement that banks must borrow before they can lend, and cannot lend more than a part of what they borrow, for before the bank could undertake to lend £100 it had to have that amount of cash available. Mr. Hobsbaum has not yet brought forward a single argument to prove his claim that a bank actually lends more than it borrows (i.e., than is deposited with it). He seeks to support it with a statement by Mr. McKenna that "bank loans are the main source of the growth of deposits." However objectionable this phrase may be, there is a world of difference between it and Mr. Hobsbaum’s statement that bankers create deposits. Mr. McKenna's views on the subject are not free from confusion, but the following passage taken from the report of the examination of Major Douglas before the MacMillan Committee is quite dear: —

Mr. McKenna: “ Are you quite familiar with the banking system? "

"Well, reasonably, I think."

Mr. McKenna: "I suppose you appreciate its working? Supposing for a moment that you are a borrower and I am a banker. If you come and borrow £10,000 from me you take £10,000 from my cash."

"Not from your cash, do I? "

Mr. McKenna: "From my cash absolutely." ("Minutes of Evidence," Vol. I, Page 301.) 

This is quite a definite statement that the banks can "create" nothing but can only lend what they have. Other bankers, with a larger experience of banking than Mr. McKenna, are equally definite. The late Mr. Walter Leaf, at one time Chairman of the Westminster Bank, wrote: —

The banks can lend no more than they can borrow—in fact not nearly so much. If anyone in the deposit banking system can be called a “creator of credit," it is the depositor;. for the banks are strictly limited in their lending operations by the amount which the depositor thinks fit to leave with them.

("Banking," Home University Library, Page 102.)

If the evidence before the MacMillan Committee of bankers, like Sir W. H. N. Goschen (former Chairman, National Provincial Bank, Ltd.), Mr. J. W. Beaumont Pease (Chairman of Lloyds Bank, Ltd.), Mr. Hyde (Managing Director of the Midland Bank, Ltd.), etc., is studied, it will be seen that they quite certainly regard their lending as controlled by the amount of deposits with them, not vice versa. The last-named quite definitely stated, in reply to a question regarding the granting of advances, "We have to be guided by the position of our deposits " (Vol. I, page 59) while the reply given by Sir W. Goschen to the question, "Have you any views regarding the proportion of your deposits that you should advance on loan and current account?" was, "If the remainder of your assets are very liquid, I think you are entitled to lend a higher proportion of your deposits than you are if you have unliquid assets." (Page 116.)

After reading into Mr. McKenna's statement more than it says, Mr. Hobsbaum goes on to argue in effect that "Banks must create deposits, otherwise how could the total of bank deposits greatly exceed the total amount of currency in circulation?" This is an entirely illogical and fallacious argument. At the date Mr. Hobsbaum mentions, deposits in the Post Office and Trustee Savings Banks totalled about £480 million, or about £80 million more than the total notes as given by Mr. Hobsbaum. Nobody has ever claimed that such banks “create" deposits. If their deposits can exceed the total of currency notes without their creating deposits, why should a similar position in other banks be impossible ? The following illustration may help Mr. Hobsbaum to understand the matter.

Assume Mr. Hobsbaum starts business as a banker on a desert island on which there are only 100 units of currency. To begin with he has 10 units of currency representing the capital of his bank, and nobody has made any deposits with him. Then along comes "A" with the other 90 units of currency on the island and deposits them in Mr. Hobsbaum’s bank, thereby raising the deposits to 90 and the currency holding to 100. Mr. Hobsbaum now lends 95 to "B," who takes currency and pays it to “A” for coconuts. “A” deposits the 95 units of currency with Mr. Hobsbaum, thereby raising the total of deposits to 185, although all the currency in the island was only 100. If the process is repeated, deposits would rise to 280, but Mr. Hobsbaum, the banker, would not have lent more than he borrowed, he would not have “created" any credit or deposits, and he would have received currency in respect of all the deposits, despite the fact that the island never held as much currency as he has deposits. On a larger scale this is what happens in the banking system of the real world. So much for the power of banks to “create” deposits!

Mr. Hobsbaum has abandoned, or not sought to defend, the other claims made in his first letter. Faced with the figures which show that in recent years prices have not moved with, but in the opposite direction from deposits, he falls back on the implied defence that if prices fail to rise when deposits are increasing it is due to an increase in the productivity of labour. The ridiculousness of this assertion is soon apparent if the figures are examined. Thus, from May, 1920, to January, 1922, deposits rose by 8%, so that on Mr. Hobsbaum’s theory, prices should have also risen by 8%, unless labour became more productive. In fact, prices fell over this period by 50, which, on Mr. Hobsbaum*s theory, meant that labour more than doubled its productivity. Does he really believe this?

Another correspondent, Mr. Wright, sends us a letter in which he expresses the belief that “A Socialist State" could be founded upon £2,000 millions of money, and urges us to adopt a policy of gaining control of the banks so as to be able to use them to create this amount of money to “finance Socialism." Mr. Wright, like Mr. Hobsbaum, has still to prove that banks create money, deposits, or anything else, out of nothing.

B. S.

Answers to Correspondents. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

J. W. Rimmington (West Ham).—If you had read the whole of the article instead of only part of it (as you state is the case), you would not have supposed that it was an attack on the character of Sir John Ellerman.

Your suggestion that the railwaymen should pay £40-millions a year into the funds of their union, and use this money for houses, pensions, unemployment insurance, etc., for themselves, is fantastic. You propose that the railwaymen shall obtain the necessary money by demanding higher wages, but you do not explain how the railwaymen or any other body of workers are going to compel the employers to pay these higher wages. Trade unions have been trying to do this for generations.

The fact that a few workers climb into the ranks of the capitalists and that some capitalists are forced down into the ranks of the workers, does not alter the subject position of the working class as a whole. The only way out is for the workers to conquer political power and make the means of production and distribution the property of society as a whole.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Political and Social Reforms. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political and Social Reforms.

Clapham,

September 24th, 1933.

Dear Comrades,

Seeing that the S.P.G.B. claim that, in this country, at any rate, at the present time, the only known course open to the workers to capture the seat of Government is the vote, that being so, one can logically claim that the franchise is a social reform that will eventually fundamentally benefit the working class.

The reason I express this point of view is that, was one of your speakers correct when he asked an audience to name one “ social reform ” that has fundamentally benefited the working class?

Now, Marx, writing on the Chartists, said : “But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat form the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground, civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position 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 Socialist 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.” (New York Tribune, August 25th, 1852. Quoted by Labour Monthly, December, 1929.)

Your speaker took the opposite viewpoint, saying “that the workers had recently returned the Nationalist Government. Also that the ruling class Had given further suffrage to the women.” Quite so, that is because the workers are not mentally equipped with the necessary Socialist knowledge, and, therefore, is not a condemnation of the "social reform,” namely, “the Franchise,” which Marx agrees is a Socialist measure. Your reply to my letter, re “ The Vote,” in September, 1927, said, “We would strongly urge them (black workers) to agitate for the franchise.”

Yours fraternally,

T. W. C.

Reply.

Our correspondent has, we think, completely misunderstood the speaker whose remarks he quotes.

It is usual to refer to changes in the machinery of Government as “political" reforms, and to keep the phrase “social reforms” for such measures as old-age pensions, health and unemployment insurance, etc. The speaker in question would therefore not expect his statement, that no social reform had “fundamentally benefited the working-class," to be understood as meaning that the franchise is useless.

Our correspondent falls into a second misunderstanding when he fails to separate the present misuse of the franchise from its future correct use. It is true, as Marx said, that the franchise will inevitably result in the political supremacy of the working class. It is also true to say (as our speaker is reported as saying) that the workers have used their votes to return a capitalist Government to power. Our speaker would therefore have been quite correct if he had also said that the franchise has not yet been used by the workers in such a way as to be of fundamental benefit to them.

When they become Socialists the working class will know very well how to use the vote.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: The dirty work under socialism. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The dirty work under socialism.

Hunts.,

September 22nd, 1933.

The Editor,

Socialist Standard,

42, Gt. Dover Street,

S.E.l.

Sir,

As a reader of the Socialist Standard, I should be interested to read some observations on the probable method of procedure of a Socialist Administration once it gained power, because it seems to me that certain difficulties would arise which would need very careful consideration. To-day, men work at jobs requiring more or less skill, incurring greater or less danger or pleasure; for example, one man goes down into a coal mine, among the dirt and danger, to perform hard labour, while another spends his time pleasantly, designing handsome buildings in an architect’s studio. And quite possibly the coal-miner might have made a better architect than the other, if he had had the opportunity for training, etc. It is plain that, under Socialism, as under Capitalism, the “ real ” work would still have to be done. But why should this man be compelled to risk his life in a coal mine while that one works on a design for a house; or this man again be compelled to clean out drains while that man performs the cleaner job of tuning pianos. In short, how would Socialism share out the pleasant and intellectually satisfying work and the unpleasant and laborious work?

Yours truly,

Ralph Sewell.

Reply.

In general, when we are asked what methods will be used under Socialism to solve the various economic and social problems that will arise then, we can give no other answer than that we do not know, for we do not know in what form the problems will arise nor what means will be available to solve them. Our correspondent’s letter serves as an example of the difficulties in which Socialists would place themselves if they accepted the rôle of prophets. How does our correspondent know that coal-mining will be dirty and dangerous in ten, twenty or thirty years' time ? How does he know that an architect's work will at that time be relatively pleasant? Indeed, how does he know that there will be any coal miners or piano tuners or architects ? They may all have gone the way of the coal tubs that were hauled by women and boys 100 years ago.

It is worth recalling that before the War the question used to take the form: “Who will sweep the crossings under Socialism?" Nowadays, the relatively much better paid and pleasanter occupation of driving a motor sweeper has driven most of the crossing sweepers into oblivion.

We do not wish to give the impression that there will be no problems to solve once Socialism is established, for, of course, there will be problems. What we do say is that these are questions which would be of small importance to us now, even if we could profitably attempt to answer them. We are not telling the workers that they ought to support Socialism because it has a beautiful cut and dried scheme and an answer to every problem. What we urge is that there is one problem existing now—the poverty problem—which is of such fundamental importance that it overshadows every other problem. The only solution is the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and distribution. Once Socialism is achieved then society will have a new and entirely different foundation on which to work. In keeping with that different foundation the problems which will present themselves will be different. Some will be new, while old ones will have taken on a greater or less importance than now. Most important of all they will be solved by Socialists working with greater freedom and with greater means at their disposal than society can utilise now.

Of course, every effort will be made to eliminate dirt, danger and laboriousness from all occupations as far as possible.

More than that we cannot say.

It may be added that the end achieved will colour the view of each individual on the question of dirt and discomfort. Wealthy men and women put up with considerable dirt and discomfort when hunting, etc., and hikers accustomed to refined surroundings will live exceedingly "roughly” while pursuing their pleasures.

Ed. Comm.

Thousand Shilling Fund (1933)

Party News from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1933)

Party News from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Words and Men. — Part 3 (1933)

From the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Link to Part 2

During the post-Renaissance period we notice a striking increase in popularity of “subjective" literature—that is to say, works in which man turns his attention inwards to his own thoughts and feelings, instead of preaching a doctrine or uttering conventional sentiments. Individual human reactions and the relations between small groups of individuals take on paramount importance; so much so that even in describing inanimate objects or external nature writers project their own feelings on to the thing described and give it human characteristics.

This development is, of course, part and parcel of the new spirit of free expansion and expression of the individual which in terms of economics meant unfettered competition. 

Let us turn back to France and see how /the work of the Renaissance progressed there.

The seventeenth century in France is known as the Great Century, and its typical king as the Great Monarch. Its literature presents a dazzling array of famous names; its books are intoxicating in their diversity and verve. Yet through even the wittiest of them runs a streak of melancholy and disillusion. To comprehend this we have to examine the underlying structure of society. The French Renaissance, as we have seen, was as brilliant as any: but it heralded a growth whose maturity was to be long delayed. England, owing to the circumstances of being an island, had an efficient navy long before France; she utterly routed the fleet of Spain, her only serious trade rival, while France was still plunged in civil wars. Moreover, England had furnished since as early as the thirteenth century the main wool supply of Europe. France, though a much larger country, was undeveloped, having many tangled forests and wild mountains overrun with wolves, bears and bandits. Her economic development was retarded, but the power of the aristocracy was weakened, and a strong absolute monarchy was set up under Louis XIII and XIV, like the Tudor dynasty in England; unlike the latter, however, the French Bourbons were able to retain their authority unchallenged for nearly two hundred years. The Protestant Reformation was checked, and society remained fossilised in a semi-feudal structure. The work of the Renaissance and the influence of expanding England remained, however, to modify the trend of men’s ideas. New thought had been introduced into literature; knowledge was spreading.

In the thirties of the seventeenth century France produced a philosopher, Descartes, and a poet-dramatist, Corneille, who, in their different manners, expound similar ideas. Descartes is a materialist to this extent: he insists on the physical basis of emotions and the “soul”; but he urges very strongly the idea of free will and the power of mind to dominate matter. He is an anti-theologian, but finds room in his philosophy for “faith,” and keeps discreetly just within the shelter of Mother Church. The dramas of his contemporary Corneille are uniformly concerned with conflicts in individual beings or groups between their intellects and their passions; as, for example, the prolonged battle of love and duty in his tragedy “The Cid.”

Towards the middle of the century the Regency of Anne of Austria ended, and her son, Louis XIV, “the Sun King,” began his reign in earnest. There ensued the “classic” period of French literature, comparable with the “spacious times” of Elizabethan England, but surpassing that age in polish and sophistication. It was an aristocratic literature commissioned by a small leisured class, and, so far, typically feudal; all the classic poets uphold the divine right of kings and the sanctity of tradition. Their style is remarkable for its elegance and clarity; their subject-matter deals with problems of individual human beings, not with traditional “types": here is the Renaissance at work, striving towards free personal expansion. Within the limits of their subjects they are startlingly real in their treatment; but those subjects, narrow and over-simple, soon become unreal and pretentious.

Perhaps the best-known author of this time is the actor-comedian, Molière. His satirical portraits of men and manners, his grim lack of faith in "human nature" reflect on the one hand the general dissatisfaction of the shackled bourgeoisie and on the other the writer's personal misery. Although humorous, his work is very narrow and formalised; this is typical of the time. A similar but rather mellower outlook is expressed in the form of rhymed fables by the poet La Fontaine.

The writer of this age most esteemed in France, however, is the dramatist Racine. Each of his plays is a concentrated and flawless piece of craftsmanship; he has no trouble in abiding by the art-conventions of the time; he exalts the State and depicts devotion to it as the noblest of man's passions. Yet even he, the idol of the court, retired disillusioned. The most disillusioned man of the great century is, however, that immortal cynic La Rochefoucauld, whose slender volume of Maxims and Thoughts compresses into a few pages all the soured weariness that lay behind the glories of the Sun King's court. The brilliance of his penetration is in part due to personal disappointments; he attained popularity because his mood found an echo in many brains. A few examples from his epigrams will suffice to indicate his scope. "Our virtues are generally vices in disguise." "We refuse praise in order to have it repeated." "Virtue would not go so far if vanity did not keep it company." “Love of Justice is generally fear of suffering injustice." “However well men speak of us they teach us nothing new." "We would rather vilify ourselves than not speak of ourselves at all."

The close of this classic period brings an essayist. La Bruyere, and the beginnings of the novel. La Bruyere's book of “Characters" is a series of pen-portraits in the manner of Molière and La Rochefoucauld. He was embittered by the constant necessity of toadying to an effete aristocracy who ignored or insulted him; so that his sarcasms are the very epitome of the slowly gathering feelings of revolt that were later expressed in the philosophic literature of the eighteenth century. The novel, at first a narrative of adventure imitated from the mariners' accounts, was becoming more topical and realistic; soon, with the Gil Bias of Lesage, it developed strong satirical tendencies.

Meanwhile in England the restoration in 1660 of the Stuart line and the subsequent prosperity and relative tranquillity, gave at first a literature calm and courtly; in poetry there is the benign Andrew Marvell, with his flowers and gardens and his equable temperament; the religious but not fanatical Henry Vaughan; and the exuberant heroicisms of Dryden. In prose the continued interest in religion shows itself in Bunyan's "Pilgrim’s Progress"; this sober work presents a lively contrast with the spate of wittily wanton plays by Wycherley and Congreve, soon to come into favour. These two opposing tendencies in literature have their political and economic backing in the Whig and Tory conflict just then taking shape owing to the hostility between the dominant court faction and the merchant class.

Stella Stewart

(To be continued.)

Link to Part 4

Editorial: Hitler and Marx (1933)

Editorial from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hitler knows well how to use the demagogic arts to attract and inflame his audiences. He is the typical “hero as gasbag" which is what the majority of electors at present require of their political leaders. Yet in the mass of chaff, there are grains of sound criticism of the existing economic system and its institutions. He is contemptuous of the snobbish and limited outlook of many University professors and Government officials, and rightly despises much of the useless learning with which their heads are stuffed at schools and colleges. As he says, the high school system is largely organised to insert mechanically just that kind of book learning which will enable the pupils to pass civil service and other examinations, and most of it is of little use afterwards. He also derides the cash basis of personal estimates: “In these days whole hosts of people have no other standard of measurement for each other than their salary scales.”

One cannot help being struck by the fact that although Hitler constantly denounces Marx and Marxists, his criticisms of the school system are very much like those to be found in Marx’s writings. It is an amusing thought that Hitler’s diatribes are probably based on what he picked up from Marx’s works, and as in his youth Hitler was associated in Vienna with an Austro-Marxist group, it is quite possible.

On the other hand, nothing demonstrates more clearly the ignorance or dishonesty of the Nazi leaders than their description of the German Social Democrats and Liberals as “Marxists.” Anyone who knows what the Social Democrats thought and did, knows that knowledge of Marxism played very little part in the practical aims, policy and organisation of their movement. They repeated Marxist phrases and professed adherence to Marxist principles, but this had little more influence on their conduct than the profession of Christianity has on the policies of the governments of Christian Europe and America.

How ill-informed or ignorant the Nazis are can be seen in Dr. Eismann. He is a learned writer’ on political affairs, and “proves,” in an article in a journal of public administration (“Beamten-Jahrbuch,” Berlin, October, 1933) that the British Labour Party is Marxist. His proof takes the form of the assertion that Marxism has been instilled into the Labour Party by the Social Democratic Federation, the Socialist Labour Party and the I.L.P.! He evidently does not know that the S.L.P. is dead except for one or two moribund groups, and that it was opposed to the Labour Party and was never affiliated to it, and had little or no influence on it, and that its Marxism was always tainted. He does not know that the I.L.P. was born, and in turn helped to give birth to the Labour Party, not as a Marxist, but as an anti-Marxist party, and that it has never been anything but a radical-reformist organisation, occasionally flirting with Marxism without ever understanding it. The S.D.F. was an active party before the Labour Party was born, but has never exercised any great influence, still less any great Marxist influence. It also is now nearly dead, and its Marxism was even more tainted than that of the S.L.P.

Dr. Eismann may be forgiven for not knowing these facts, for he may have been misled by the rubbishy histories Written by muddle-headed Labourites in this country. That excuse cannot, however, apply to his belief that the Labour Party is going Marxist. If he knows anything about Marxism, he must know that the Labour Party is no more a Marxist party than the National Government Party now led by MacDonald, the former leader of the Labour Party.

"We are all Socialists Now" (1933)

From the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is more than 40 years since the late Sir William Harcourt made his jocular remark in the House of Commons, a remark which Sir John Simon repeated the other day. During that 40 years the political scene appears at first glance to have been changed almost out of recognition. The old issues in the forefront of party controversies have given place to new ones. The names of parties have changed. At that time there was no Labour Party and no National Government. Labour Governments were hardly dreamed of. The world had not yet been made safe for Fascism by a war to defend democracy. For every person who then called himself a Socialist, there must be a hundred now; and those who would seriously admit being prepared to support what they regard as Socialistic and semi-Socialistic measures must have been multiplied a thousandfold.

Yet when we look below the surface what kind of foundation do we discover for all this talk ? Much as we would have liked to say otherwise, we cannot escape the admission that there is all but no foundation at all. When the Morning Post, in an unusually discerning editorial (“Is Capitalism Dying?” November 16th), chides Mussolini for his statement that capitalism is tottering, the Morning Post is right and Mussolini is wrong.

As the Morning Post justly points out, Laissez-faire, the early unregulated period of capitalism, has been largely done away with, but the surface changes of the past 100 years “have left intact the essential foundations of capitalism as generally understood, which are the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and private, initiative in economic enterprise.”

When, therefore, Harcourt and Simon, Hitler and Henderson claim that they are Socialists, we reply that they are nothing of the kind.

They are not all Socialists now. Sir William Harcourt’s death duties were not Socialism or Socialistic. Sir John Simon is not a Socialist. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald is not and never was a Socialist. Nor is Henderson. Nor are the parties represented by these men. Our institutions are not Socialistic. The Post Office is not Socialism. Nor are the municipal trams and water works and gas works. Nor is Mr. Herbert Morrison’s London Passenger Transport Board, in spite of his description of it as the typical modern form of Socialisation. We live in a capitalistic world, capitalistic through and through.

Lest it be said that we are avoiding the real issue, the alleged building up of Socialism in Russia, let us examine that claim also.

We are told by enthusiasts for everything Russian that a new non-capitalist world is there coming to birth. That never before and in no other place could be found such a multiplicity of successful State enterprises, such rapid social progress raising millions of people from a lower to a higher stage of development.

To all of which the answer is that it is not true. That industrial progress is being made in Russia is not disputed, but that progress is not unique or original, and it is not Socialism or directly in the path towards Socialism.

Let us make a rapid world tour in order to test the Russian claims by comparison with other countries. Russia has State enterprises of one kind or another. Is this original? England has State posts, telegraphs and telephones,, financed by huge interest-bearing loans just like the Russian State enterprises. Probably the majority of countries have either State railways and State ports and telegraphs or both. Australia has experimented at length in a large variety of State enterprises, including State shipping, State railways, State clothing factories, State banks, State woollen mills, State batteries. Prussia has had State iron mines, potash and salt mines. Many countries have had State forests, including Czarist Russia, which also had State coal mines.

At the present moment the Canton Government is setting up State factories for cottons and woollens, and the Government of the Dutch East Indies is also intending to go into cotton manufacture. Roosevelt is trying to encourage municipal enterprise of many kinds in U.S.A.

Has Russia been able to show a great increase in the amount of industrial production during recent years? So have Turkey, Latvia, India, and half a dozen countries in Europe and the East. Has this growth in Russia taken place under the control and with the direct encouragement of the State?—so it has in many other countries. Long before the war, India complained that Japanese exporters were able to undersell in India owing to the help and encouragement given by the Japanese Government to industry. Japan tried out the idea of State factories as a means of speeding up industrial development many years before the Bolsheviks thought of it. Thus in 1912 the British Consular Report (No. 5161, annual series) reported that the Japanese Government steel works had an output of 180,000 tons, “but with their new extensions they will soon be in a position to produce some 300,000 tons.” (See “The State in Business,” Emil Davies, p. 60.)

Between 1908 and 1918 the number of industrial establishments in Japan showed the startling increase of about 96.6 per cent (See Encyclopaedia Britannica, 12th edition, vol. xxxi, p. 644). Thus in 10 years the number of factories had been doubled.

It is interesting to notice, however, that although the Japanese Government led the way by means of State factories and State encouragement of industry, when private factories had found how to fend for themselves the State factories were allowed to go. Thus between 1908 and 1918 the number of Government factories fell from 196 to 161. (They employed over 150,000 men and women in 1918.)

Has Russia got rid of a monarch and established a dictatorship? So have Turkey, Poland, Germany, and Austria.

Did Russia break up the big estates and hand over the land to the peasants ? So have territories which were formerly Russian, and are now independent (e.g., Latvia), and also neighbouring countries in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Has Russia seen great social changes? So has Turkey. Turkish industry has made considerable strides in the past 10 years, and further development of industry is planned, partly under Government auspices (textiles, for example). In a period of a few years, 2,200 new factories have been built, and 1,200 miles of railways.

Turkish women, like their Russian neighbours, are now entering more and more into all kinds of public activities. They are now allowed to vote in village elections and to become town councillors, magistrates, doctors, civil servants, etc.

One great change carried out in Turkey has been the abolition of the Arabic alphabet and the use in its place of a latinised alphabet more suited to the needs of commerce.

The upshot of all this is that the changes brought about in Russia are not Socialistic, but part of the general development of the backward nations towards industrialisation and commercialism. With the changes at the base, the social superstructure, religion, political systems, the law and social conventions have also changed in greater or less degree.

The world has changed and is changing, but not yet towards Socialism. “We are all Capitalist now” is becoming day by day a more accurate description of the social system from Moscow to Buenos Aires, and from pole to pole.

The Fascist nations are, of course, no exception. Mussolini claims that his plans of a "corporative State ” are not State capitalism, but something new and different, but the claim is no better founded than the claims of Hitler and Stalin, that they are introducing Socialism., The chief thing to observe about Mussolini is that his “corporative State” is still entirely on paper. After 11 years, the “man of action,” who was put into office on the slogan of clearing out the mere talkers, now writes in the Morning Post (November 6th) soft-peddling on action like any other politician who racks his brains for new excuses for doing nothing to give to his impatient supporters. He has discovered that “Fascism has amply demonstrated that, in economic matters, it is necessary to act by degrees. .. . . Many situations have ripened and many minds have opened themselves to the new necessities.” .

After 11 years of dictatorial power, the “man of action" tells us we must "act by degrees"— and the action, the formation of the guilds, has for all practical purposes not yet begun.

The "man of action" turns out to be a Fabian, an apostle of gradualism.

No, we are not all Socialists now. The number of Socialists is still very very small, and the essential problem still remains before us. State capitalism, municipal enterprise, public utility corporations, "corporative guilds," and all the rest of the forms of capitalism have got to be cleared away before Socialism becomes a reality.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Hoary Illusions of Youth (1933)

From the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Jack Edwards, Chairman of the League of Youth Advisory Committee, in an article in the Daily Herald of September 21st, 1933, states the case, as he sees it, for youth.

He says: “Modern youth is in fact better, brainier and more inquisitive.” He ascribes the terrible effects of war upon the mothers of that period as being due to “The blunderings of a generation tied to antiquated traditions.” He goes on to say that youth now is different, opposes war and, instead of marching off to the next war, will pause and ask why!

He says: “The more whys we ask, the more unsatisfactory becomes the answer.”

“We do not believe that there is no work amidst such want. Given the opportunity now we would free the world from the misery, want and suffering caused by uneconomic management and bolstered up by armed force. Peace is our object.” 

He suggests a world parliament, where “Men of heart and will, men and women of knowledge, doctors, teachers and mothers,” could all come together and thrash out the world’s problems. Then as to practical measures for settling these problems, he suggests that if youth had the power, it would do the following:—

   “A drastic cut in working hours, without reduction in pay; wider and greater opportunities in education; a new and adequate pension scheme; compulsory retirement from industry for those on pensions; directions to local authorities to speed up housing and public works, with public finance to aid them; Government control of the banks and the closing of the Stock Exchange, the establishment of a national investment board to direct money into the channels most advantageous 1o the community.”

This seems a tall enough order, but Mr. Edwards then airily says: “These are but some of youth’s plans to grapple with poverty at home.” To plan seems the only indulgence which the L.L.Y. is allowed. It is not allowed representation on the E.C. of the Labour Party at the moment, and much as its members resent this, their “plans” certainly prove that they will need to ask more whys and get a sounder understanding of the position before they can be given serious consideration.

From the point of view of soundness, however, the parent body can certainly not teach its child anything worth knowing.

The rest of the article is devoted to obvious facts of the capitalist system which need not be repeated, but it is rather amusing to hear Mr. Edwards cite the civil servants as being those who work for OUR common good, and deploring the fact that THESE should be subject to wage attacks.

Why these any more than any other worker, and if they are workers for the “common good,” how about all the rest of us, who are producing all the necessaries of life, not for use, but for the profit of our masters ? Mr. Edwards evidently has not asked enough whys yet.

It is now time for us to ask a few whys of Mr. Edwards.

First of all, then: Why does he give us a rigmarole about antiquated traditions being the cause of war?

Economic conditions are not antiquated traditions. They are the natural workings and outcome of the existing system of society. The economic conditions of capitalist society are such that production for profit, which is commodity productions, demands an outlet for the goods produced. When a market cannot be obtained through ordinary trade treaties, etc., then the capitalists have to engage in war in order to put their rivals out of action on the productive field, and so that the agreements after the war can be arranged advantageously for the victor; which, of course, they hope to be themselves.

Disarmament Conferences, to which Labour politicians can be invited, are the scratching grounds upon which the capitalists can sort out the tit-bits. The Labour politicians give the assemblies an air of realism and serve to keep the workers quiet. When war occurs during a Conference, such as the Chino-Japanese affray recently, the family gathering breaks up to allow the fight to continue; when it is over, the naughty children are scolded and the happy family is once more reunited. No, we are not dealing with antiquated traditions, but the very much up-to-date methods of modern capitalism.

Why is it that there isn’t employment for some workers under capitalism? Mr. Edwards proves clearly why, later in his article, when he says “Youth bids its elders no longer to tolerate a world in which people cannot buy bread because there is too much wheat; where crops from the tea plantations must be restricted, while people cannot buy tea ”; etc., etc.

We Socialists do not cry out for more work. Many workers do far too much, and needlessly unpleasant work; become, in fact, merely beasts of burden, knowing nothing of the delights of living. Art, music and literature are only fine-sounding words to them.

Mr. Edwards only states a half-truth in the previously quoted passage.

It is not only because there is too much tea, wheat, etc., but because the goods produced are privately owned. Unless they can be sold at a profit, further production is stopped or restricted; hence unemployment. This is the necessary outcome of capitalist society, and neither Mr. Edwards, with his youthful demands, nor the Labour Party can abolish it without first of all abolishing capitalism, which is the cause of it.

But this Mr. Edwards does not want to do. Otherwise there is only need for him to advocate one policy instead of the many plans laid down by him and previously quoted. That policy is Socialism.

Let us examine his plans.

First of all, then, who pays the wages? The capitalist, obviously.

Higher wages with less hours means a reduction in capitalist profit, unless output per head can be increased. This gives the capitalists an added inducement to speed up production, and instal labour-saving machinery.

Who advances the money for the State to take over or nationalise the essential services? The capitalists. In other words, people with money to invest, would-be bond holders. Who is it who runs the Stock Exchange? The same people. We see, then, in order to do any of the things which Mr. Edwards suggests the first thing to do is to dispossess those who now own and control the wealth. This is the only measure that needs enforcing. It is, in fact, the key to the situation. Although Mr. Edwards gives lip service to this idea, he goes on to deal with all the ramifications of capitalist society. Why, when the workers are in control and the capitalists dispossessed, Mr. Edwards still wants a National Investment Board is beyond us.

If Mr. Edwards thinks that the workers and the capitalists can work together advantageously to both, then there is no need to render lip service to Socialism. He is quite in order in trying to get support for his plans to rejuvenate capitalism, but he and other confusionists do the cause of Socialism incalculable harm by tacking its name upon their projects.

The point which stands out clearest in the whole article is Mr. Edwards' lack of knowledge of the fundamentals of Socialism. The end of the workers' troubles must and will come with the dawn of Socialism.

Socialism means the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and distribution that goes with investment boards, public finance, Government control, money, in fact, everything which Mr. Edwards has taken such pains to impress upon his Daily Herald readers that they must build up under youth's guidance.

As Socialists, we know that our job is to teach Socialism in every possible place and way we can. We can only do that when we understand it ourselves, and we can only get it when the majority of the workers understand it and are prepared to work for it.

Mr. Edwards is either a very muddled thinker or a deliberate confusionist.

May Otway

Death of Comrade F. Cudlip (1933)

Obituary from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to announce the death of our comrade Fred Cudlip, from blood poisoning, on November 8th, at the early age of 35. He was a member of the West Ham Branch of the S.P.G.B. for 15 years, and was ever ready to take part in the varied work towards making the organisation efficient. He was cremated at Ilford Cemetery in the presence of his wife (a comrade) and many party members and sympathisers, on Monday, November 13th.

He was a thorough and untiring worker, prepared to turn his hand to anything that would help on the work of the party. We will sadly miss his jolly face and unfailing good humour.

Marx and Lenin - Distorted Views (1933)

Book Reviews from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx by R. W. Postgate. 1s. 6d. 

Lenin, by R. Palme Dutt. Is. 6d. (Hamish Hamilton, Ltd., 90, Great Russell Street, W.C.1.)

The above two booklets form part of a series purporting to deal with the pioneers of Socialism and issued at a uniform price. Containing less than a hundred pages each, it is obvious that the subjects suffer a great deal from compression. This is particularly noticeable in the case of Marx. Unfortunately, this is not the only serious defect.

Mr. Postgate's volume has its good points. The thirty pages dealing with Marx’s life are brightly written. The first part of the Communist Manifesto is fairly well paraphrased in the shorter chapter on Historical Materialism, and the first book of Capital is summarised in another chapter somewhat longer. Then follow the final ten pages, in which the author seeks to show that Marx’s dialectical method is out of date and useless. The attempt is cheap, scrappy and quite unconvincing. Because the Bolsheviks obtained political control in Russia and the Nazis have followed suit in Germany, Mr. Postgate thinks that Marxian dialectics have gone phut! He would substitute "Modern psychology." Apparently, what we require to know, in order to understand latter-day history, is (not the material conditions existing in Russia or Germany, as the case may be) but the psycho-analytical interpretation of the dreams of Lenin and Hitler. Which is as good as saying that any such understanding is for ever impossible. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that Hitler is a sadist, or that Lenin suffered from paranoia; does that teach us anything worth mentioning about the movements with which they were associated ? Obviously not.

On page 89 we are told that "Socialism may be possible, it may be probable, but it cannot be inevitable." Mr. Postgate repeats the stale dualism that the inevitability of Socialism would make action in its favour unnecessary. His difficulty reminds one of the poser put by Alfred Lester to the old lady whom he showed round the village fire station: "Does a hen lay an egg because it wants to or because it can't help it?"

To the dialectical materialist the answer is obvious. The hen's "want” is simply the more or less conscious reflection of an unavoidable, organic necessity. Mr. Postgate is evidently of the opinion that the hen could (if it wanted to) keep on twiddling the egg round the interior of its anatomy for an indefinite period.

The economic conditions which make Socialism possible simultaneously make it necessary. Indeed, logically, there can be no distinction between the terms. Socialism can be possible only if the forces making for its establishment are stronger than those retarding it, in which case it is inevitable. Seeing, however, that society consists of human beings, social development must inevitably consist of the more or less conscious activity of human beings. The social development will force them to recognise the problem and the solution to it. Mr. Postgate's final chapter, however, merely sums up the fallacious attitude which peeps out in his winding up of his earlier chapters.

For example, on page 72 he says: "We see that the labour theory of value explains the growth and composition of capital as accurately at least as any other." What acuteness! One would have thought that if the theory which finds the source of value in labour is accurate, then “other" theories (which find it elsewhere) are decidedly inaccurate. On page 80 he rehashes Bernstein's doctrine of the survival of the "middle-class," and regards the “Fascist revolution" as the work of this section. He fails entirely to see that the intense political reaction of this section on the Continent is the strongest possible evidence of the desperate insecurity of their position as a result of the development of large-scale capitalist production.

Mr. Postgate follows the current fashion among "intellectuals" of professing to regard the economics of Marx as of much less importance than the materialist conception of history. The absurdity of this is apparent on the face of it. According to Marx's view no epoch can be understood apart from its economic basis. His critical examination of capitalism as a system of production is, therefore, of fundamental importance. The understanding of previous history is necessary, since out of the past capitalism arose; but, in Marx’s own words, we have not merely to explain the world but to change it, and must therefore understand what it is that we wish to change.

To sum up, Mr. Postgate displays the stamp of superficial mediocrity; patronising genius, he endeavours to push it aside. It is almost a relief to turn from this flippant, over-grown schoolboy to the somewhat humourless Mr. Dutt.

In spite of the manifest bankruptcy of “Communist" theories (both official and opposition), he eulogises Lenin as having added something of importance to the work of Marx. Approximately two-thirds of the book are taken up with a general description of the life and times of Lenin, especial stress being laid upon his critical attitude towards the leaders of the Second International. Lenin, however, rejected one type of opportunism only to fall into another. The circumstances of the large class of small property owners in Russia, mainly peasants, were different from those of their counterpart in Western Europe, such as the peasantry of France. They still had an active role to play in relation to Tsarism. They had no notion or intention of abolishing capitalism, but they did wish to enlarge their property by breaking up the landed estates of the nobles, large and small.

Lenin was largely instrumental in securing an interchange of support at the critical moment between the politically active elements of this class and the Party which he led. He did this in the name of the world revolution of the working-class; but sixteen years after the Bolshevik seizure of power that revolution is not above the horizon. The attempts of Lenin’s followers to foment it by hot air have failed, from China to Peru. In Russia itself we find Stalin, with his doctrine of "Socialism in one country," occupying the place of Lenin and Trotsky, with their notions of immediate world change.

Like Mr. Postgate, Mr. Dutt cannot forbear to have his little dig at the Second International parties succumbing to Fascism and Nazism, and writhing under the whip of the counter-revolution. He forgets that his own withers are rather badly wrung. Just over ten years ago, The Worker's Weekly (of which he was then Editor) repeatedly assured us that a Communist Revolution would occur in Germany in the course of the following month. Apparently it is still waiting for a German Lenin to descend from the clouds.

Mr. Dutt devotes several pages to an outline of Lenin’s views as to the relation between the workers in the large capitalist countries and the populations of the relatively backward areas of Asia and Africa. On page 70 he advances once more the fantastic notion that part of the tribute from the Colonies is used by the capitalists "To buy off the upper strata of the working class in the imperialist countries." Does Mr. Dutt seriously contend that the workers of these countries fail to produce the equivalent of what they consume as a class ? What kind of "revolutionary Marxism" is this?

On page 77 we are told that "The dictatorship of the proletariat is a dictatorship of the immense majority against the minority of exploiters." This is an attempt to make Lenin's position square with that of Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto. We have ample testimony from Lenin himself that his dictatorship was, on the contrary, one of the few over the many. See, for example, "The Soviets at Work" (pp. 33-37), where he defends the decrees “Granting dictatorial powers to individuals," and "Demands the absolute submission of the masses to the single will of those who direct the labour process."

In supporting the Bolsheviks the workers and peasants of Russia merely changed their political masters. These new masters may be more efficient and humane than the old, but they are masters none the less. The emancipation of “the masses" remains to be accomplished. The Russian dictatorship was the outcome of Russian anarchy—the counterpart of the well-nigh hopeless chaos, both in the workshops and on the land, which followed the military debacle of 1917. It is one thing to import ideas into a country like Russia, however, and quite another matter to import the conditions to which these ideas correspond. Under such circumstances even a hundred Lenins could not prevent “Socialist" ideas becoming a cloak for reactionary practices.

Eric Boden

Letter: Socialism and Red Shirts (1933)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent sends the following letter of enquiry:—

Tottenham, N.15.

Dear Sir,

Will you please tell me, through the "S.S.," and not by the post, how long is the Socialist Party of Great Britain becoming theatrical?

For some months past the members of your Party, in Victoria Park, on Sunday, have now taken to wearing red shirts, so the indication of a class conscious men will, in the near future, be determined by the colour of his shirt, and not the state of his upper story.

On Monday evening last, I attended a "debate" at Ridley Road between a member of the Communist [Party] and another of your party. Wonder of wonders, —the Communist was wearing a white shirt and collar and a green tie, and your representative was wearing a red shirt. Various members in the crowd, within my hearing, passed remarks about it.

I have been interested in Socialism nearly all my life. Nearly thirty years ago I first listened to Fitzgerald and Anderson at our local meeting place, but not once have I seen them in red shirts or "Bread or Work" banners.

If red shirts stood for anything intelligent it would not be so bad, but it is a latter-day stunt of a so-called Communist Party, and to it the red shirts should be confined. There is no room in a class conscious party for theatricals. It is pure and simple  an advocacy of a physical encounter with the Capitalist class.

Yours for Socialism,

       W. J. Palmer

Reply.

Our correspondent bases his question on an implication which is not in accordance with the facts. He writes: "For some months past the members of your Party in Victoria Park on Sunday have now taken to wearing red shirts . . . "

This statement would convey to those who do not visit Victoria Park that all or most members of the S.P.G.B. who visit Victoria Park wear red shirts as a sort of uniform. This is not correct. What is correct is that our correspondent has seen a few members of the S.P.G.B. whose shirts happen to be red in colour.

We can therefore assure our correspondent that the S.P.G.B. has not changed its view that membership of the Socialist Party must be based on the understanding and acceptance of Socialist principles. The S.P.G.B. has not adopted red shirts or any kind of uniform. If individual members of the S.P.G.B. happen to have shirts and ties which are red in colour, that has no significance whatever, any more than the fact that other members wear blue shirts, grey shirts, or shirts of any other colour or mixture of colours.

We assure our correspondent that the S.P.G.B. is not deserting Socialist principles for theatrical display. We would also draw his attention to the significant fact that he nowhere suggests that the individuals he saw in red shirts (including the S.P.G.B. representative in debate) departed in the slightest degree from the enunciation of Socialist principles. If he ever finds members of the S.P.G.B. doing so he will have reason to criticise. Until that happens our correspondent has no ground for his suggestion that such a departure has occurred merely because he sees a shirt of some particular colour.

Ed. Comm.