This Month's Quotation: Oscar Wilde (1937)

The Front Page quote from the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard 

“To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.”

- Oscar Wilde

"Bedaux" and the Workers (1937)

From the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Charles E. Bedaux is the inventor of the high-pressure system which bears his name. For many years the system has been well known among workers, who mistrust and detest it. Recently, Mr. Bedaux was to have "managed” a tour by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to U.S.A. On November 3rd, the Baltimore branch of the American Federation of Labour passed a resolution strongly condemning the tour, and this was followed by other resolutions. In 1916 a company, was formed to exploit the Bedaux system, with headquarters in New York and branches throughout the world. The company pays a highly respectable dividend. Bedaux, who began life as a semi-skilled worker, now employs a large income in extravagant and expensive tastes.

According to the official account, the “ Bedaux” principle is a means of measuring human power in terms of a common unit. This unit is christened “B,” and equals so many seconds of work and so many seconds of rest, always totaling one minute. The “rest” is by no means actual but only that natural relaxation of effort which, as part of a process, allows work to proceed. The completion of a certain job requires so much “work and rest,” i.e., a certain number of B’s. Sixty B’s per hour is regarded as normal, and Bedaux engineers calculate from observations of factory conditions how much work and rest on an average would make up one B in order that there may be sixty B’s per hour.

The method by which the investigators manage their computation is, however, a closely guarded secret. The Trades Union Congress, in their inquiry, remark:—

   As regards the assessment of the B.’s. it must be said that in the opinion of experts in industrial psychology the task undertaken by the Bedaux engineers is an impossible one. There is no known method of calculating the unit of work (in this sense) scientifically. It is not a question of merely measuring physical effort. It is rather a problem of measuring physical and mental effort undertaken in complex and varying circumstances. It is impossible to evaluate such a unit scientifically, and the Bedaux claim in this respect must be dismissed as unsound."—(“Bedaux,” Trades Union Congress, page 11.)

One thing is certain, that such a unit will be chosen as will in practice reduce running costs, and substantiate Bedaux’s claims to the capitalist. The “ expert "engineers" are sometimes unaware of the specific factory conditions, and the times set are difficult or unworkable; with the result that workers complain or resist. When their opposition is successful, a lower “B” unit is set up after “investigation." The high-flown claims of the system to scientific accuracy become, therefore, nothing more than mere trial and error carried out at the expense of the workers; the usual factory practice of finding out just how much the workers will stand. Moreover, since the Bedaux engineers are highly paid, the management is anxious to hurry the job, which increases the inaccuracy. In recent years the engineers have also advised on factory management, etc., with a view to higher efficiency and speeding-up.

Wages are based on a basic hourly rate. The Bedaux system is said to guarantee to workers this rate based on sixty B's per hour. But it is obvious that once a “norm" has been established, any workers who fall below that productive level are not retained. Those who do more than sixty B's per hour receive a bonus, but only seventy-five per cent, of the normal rate. The remaining twenty-five per cent, is paid to indirect labour— partly foremen and overseers, who thus have a direct incentive to speeding-up.

It is plain that, when applied in the workshop, the system becomes deeply intricate. Usually (unless as sometimes occurs, a worker is trained specially to check up the pay sheets) the staff are dependent on the employer’s good faith. This is the worker’s first and most natural resentment— that the, system is unintelligible. The boss may be “doing” him. A deeper grievance is in the nature of the intensive speeding-up, required by the maintenance of a normal rate. Not only does this increase the strain, mental and physical, endured by the worker, so that only the youngest and fittest survive, but also sets up a sense of conflict between workers themselves.

On November 6th the Daily Express reported a visit to an East End factory. One of the workers, aged twenty, said to their correspondent: “The Bedaux system is all right in some ways. But we were more contented before. Now we are always arguing with one another over little things. We work so quickly that small things upset us.”

Another worker in the same factory said: ”. . . I would sooner work as we did before. It seems to make the time go quickly, but we are not all friends any more. We were always laughing and singing and happy-go-lucky. Now we have time for nothing—but cross words.” This rosy view of the past is perhaps exaggerated; but both workers reveal what Bedaux means to the workers in nervous weariness and strain.

Workers become more than ever before cogs in a machine. There is no room here for a worker taking pride in his work. He will probably be discharged as too slow, and increase the number of those whom reorganisation has already thrown out of work. Bedaux claims that employment is increased by its introduction. This may apply to a particular worker, or even factory, but it is patently untrue over industry as a whole. This, of course, applies equally to every other. “efficiency” system.

A number of cases are quoted in the T.U.C. pamphlet referred to above, in which trades unions opposed the introduction to Bedaux, and in many cases concessions were obtained. The pamphlet adds, however: “It is not suggested that in those cases where the system thus modified has been accepted that there is any enthusiasm or even approval for this method of wage payment."

The reaction of the trades unions in U.S.A. to a tour organised by Charles E. Bedaux is therefore understandable. In England, where the system has sold less well, there have been strikes against its introduction at Norwich, Wolverhampton, Acton, Leicester, Silvertown, Birmingham, and elsewhere.

Essentially the Bedaux system, apart from certain special features, is a piece-work system, concealed behind a complicated theoretical structure. Its attractiveness to certain capitalists is in the results achieved. Productivity per worker, according to the Bedaux Co., Ltd., has risen in many cases from fifty to-seventy-five per cent., and sometimes to over 100 per cent. Workers' earnings, however, lag behind with an increase of ten to twenty per cent. (New Statesman and Nation, November 13th, 1937). The system is plainly one in which high organisation plays the part of additional labour-saving machinery, exploiting the worker more fully than would otherwise be possible. In the meantime, British Bedaux, Ltd., with a capital of £300,000, makes profits averaging nearly £50,000 a year. First and foremost, Messrs. Bedaux, Ltd., is a business house engaged in making profits for the shareholders.

By holding out to workers the inducement of higher-wages it saps their health and energies in an orgy of production. Labour laws and agreements, notwithstanding, the capitalist has succeeded, by methods more subtle than ever before, in extracting the last ounce from the worker before he is scrapped, no longer able to keep up the pace.

C. Kilner

A Prophet Who Faded Out (1937)

From the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The passing of Ramsay MacDonald prompts comment on the career of one whose life reflected much of the history of the Labour movement in this country. That movement mirrored many of its weaknesses, its mistakes, in MacDonald.

MacDonald’s political career commenced in the Liberal Party. He later joined the I.L.P. and fought an election for them at Southampton, when he obtained a few hundred votes. He joined the I.L.P. because, as he stated in a letter to Keir Hardie, the Liberals would not adopt him as their candidate for Southampton.

In 1900 the Labour Representation Committee was formed; and MacDonald became its Secretary. It has been suggested that when the delegates at the first conference voted for him, they did so in error, confusing him with a J. MacDonald, who was a Northern trade union official. The aim of the L.R.C. was to promote Labour representation in Parliament, primarily to gain security for trade union funds after an adverse court decision in the Taff Vale case. The aim was not at first a new political party, nor of evolving a policy of opposition to the capitalist parties. Some of the delegates, in fact, that year, contested elections as Liberals. It was in 1906 that the Labour Party was formed out of the L.R.C. That year 29 Labour candidates were returned to the House of Commons. It thenceforth attempted to formulate its own policy. One of the 29 was MacDonald, who was elected for the double-barrelled constituency of Leicester, running in harness with a Liberal. MacDonald stated after the election that practically all those who voted for him voted also for the Liberal.

Circumstances favoured MacDonald. As Secretary of the L.R.C., and, after 1906, of the Labour Party, he was in a position to exert a powerful influence on the incipient Labour movement. His impressive appearance and powers of oratory served him as great personal assets, and, with the possible exception of the War period, he maintained his spell over the Labour Party until his break with them in 1931.

Unquestionably, the Labour Party was flattered by the man, as early literature shows. His writings and utterances were like papal encyclicals; they suggested, almost, the divine word from the sacred presence, an authority that should silence criticism, a withering, pitying disdain for unbelievers. Yet how superficial it all was! Underneath that appearance of brilliance there was no grip, no real understanding of the events of which he was the central figure.

Socialists Saw Through MacDonald

Socialists were never taken in by MacDonald. Those who were taken in were his reformist associates in the I.L.P. and the trade unions, who, like himself, were Liberals at heart and dependent on Liberal votes. It is now 32 years since MacDonald’s “Socialism and Society” was reviewed in the Socialist Standard (November, 1905). It was there pointed out that MacDonald utterly repudiated all the essentials of Socialism. He repudiated the class-struggle, devoted a quarter of the book to criticism of Marx and Engels, and claimed that “the ethics of Socialism are provided by Evangelicalism; its politics by Liberalism.”

His own boast was that he brought respectability to the Socialist movement. “Respectability,” yes; deference to the prejudices of the so-called middle-class; but not to the “Socialist” movement. Only to the I.L.P. and Labour Party.

Yet the leaders of the Labour Party and I.L.P., from Maxton to Attlee, who knew MacDonald’s writings as well as he did himself, say they only discovered that MacDonald was not a Socialist in 1931!

MacDonald made some harsh criticisms of Marx and offered an admiring Labour Party a system of his own for the improvement of society, but he never understood Marx as well as Marx understood the MacDonald type of politician. Our reviewer in November, 1905, quoted the following passage, written by Marx in the “Communist Manifesto,” years before MacDonald was born:–

  A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society. To this section belong economists, philanthropists; humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working-class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole and corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems.

MacDonald and the War

On the outbreak of war MacDonald acquired a reputation for being in opposition to it. All that he did, in fact, was to oppose the then Liberal Government’s foreign policy, which he claimed was responsible for the outbreak of war. This was soundly in line with the strategy of an opposition leader. But the capitalist government then was confronted with a critical situation. They wanted unconditional support for the War, not pious platitudes. Before MacDonald was able to recover from the infatuation of his own ponderous opposition speech he found himself branded as pacifist arid anti-war and an outcast from capitalist political and social circles. He was caught napping. It is difficult to draw any other interpretation from his speeches in the House of Commons at the outbreak of war in 1914. Still he sat the fence and managed to write ambiguous letters in favour of recruiting. Many times we drew attention to this. Indignant denials came from Labour quarters in the years after the War, when reaction to the carnage was on the upgrade and pacifist sentiment popular. MacDonald did not give unqualified opposition to the War on Socialist or any other grounds. He was, however, never the stamping jingo that many prominent Labourists were. He suffered the obloquy of political friends and foe alike.

Continuity in Foreign Affairs

There is no doubt that up to a point capitalist politicians feared him, not because of his “Socialism,” but because he might interfere with their long-established administration of capitalism. They were quickly to learn from nine short months’ office (1924) that they had nothing to fear. For years MacDonald had sedulously fostered the notion that he was an authority on foreign affairs and would introduce drastic changes in British foreign policy when he took office. In 1924 the opportunity came. Rumour had it that a certain Trade Union leader wanted to be Foreign Secretary. The Daily Herald, The New Leader and prominent “left-wingers” urged him to take the job himself. He did. Foreign office permanent officials were nervous. But let us quote from an article published in the Labour Monthly (January, 1925), written by an anonymous author, V.D.C., whom it was suspected was an old adviser and colleague of MacDonald’s:–

  He came to the Foreign Office, he saw, and was conquered. Those skilled dealers with men took his measure swiftly. They praised him to his face and paid seeming deference to his love of authority. Behind his back they smiled and wondered at the anxiety with which they had looked forward to his coming. “He is the easiest Foreign Secretary I have ever had to manage,” was the complacent summing-up of one of the most powerful of them. They flattered him, deluded him, despised him, and, finally, by a shrewd stroke which his foolish confidence in flatteries made easy, brought him crashing to his political ruin. That would have been a tragedy – but the fall of little men does not stir our tragic senses, which demand that our pity shall not be mingled with contempt.
  He has written his own epitaph in that amazing article in the Spectator in which he boasted naively how he – who had been sent to Downing Street to change the whole current of our Foreign Policy – had preserved its continuity.

Those nine months nearly eclipsed MacDonald. His stock sank, but, safe again as opposition leader, he recovered his prestige. The Labour Party could not take his measure as easily as these wily Foreign Office officials. In 1929 he was again the Premier.

From MacDonald to Morrison

In the 1929-31 Labour Government he started off amid the plaudits of his colleagues and followers. In 1931 he parted company with them and formed the National Government, the composition of which was predominantly Conservative. A few Labour M.P.s followed him. Many others would have done so but for the fact that he made it quite plain that he did not want them, and the fact that the T.U.C. had given out threatening hints to those that did. He sold the pass. Millions of Labour votes went over to the National Government. Each vote a measure of his worth to his new masters. How jubilant were the Conservatives. How bitter the Labourites. Even constituencies they had held since 1906 had deserted them. How they loathed him, how they sneered. Yet not one serious criticism could they make which did not at the same time mirror their own lack of Socialist principle and their intellectual poverty. He, the man they had made, the leader who was to lead the workers to “Socialism,” led them instead into the camp of the enemy. Had they the intelligence to understand, the experience would have destroyed the illusion of leadership for ever in the Labour Party.

Not a bit of it. The mugwumps are at it again. Mr. Hamilton Fyfe tells us that Mr. MacDonald was a leader of the “old school” and that “Mr. Morrison is the new type of leader, as MacDonald was the old.” Poor Herbert! Will he refuse to wear the Court dress and the cocked hat? Will he refuse to kiss the hands of kings and bow to the mighty? Will he, unlike MacDonald, whose chief sin was that he liked it, plead expediency and pretend that he does not approve really. And even if he does, will it make a great deal of difference? Is Herbert’s “Socialism” any different to that of MacDonald? MacDonald, in his book, “Socialism and Society,” said in 1905: “Public ownership, after all, is Socialism.” Morrison says the same. Another Labour leader of the “new school,” Mr. Arthur Greenwood, M.P., says: “Local government is, in essence, Socialism in action” (Manchester Guardian, November 15th, 1937). There is no real difference between the “new” and “old” schools. MacDonald incurred the hatred and displeasure of Labour leaders because he broke the rules of the Party game. He led his men into the enemy ranks. He tore down the discreet lace curtains that hid the petty reformist outlook, the jealousies, the limitations, the incompetence of these ambitious men in the Labour family who had deluded their sheep-like following (as they perhaps deluded themselves) that they were storming the citadel of capitalism’s rights and privileges. There is no difference. He led, now they lead. And if present international tendencies develop to that sharp point they will yet lead their followers into the bloody carnage of another war.

MacDonald’s life exemplified the immaturity of the working class in its painful march towards Socialism. As it grows stronger in understanding so it will move forward more independently, and the less opportunities will there be for men like Macdonald.

Harry Waite

Some aspects of Russia (1937)

Book Review from the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Russian Revolution took place in 1917, the Socialist Party of Great Britain pointed out that it would not result in Socialism, but in a development of capitalism. We laid great emphasis on the fact that Russia, being still very backward, was not ripe for Socialism. The population of Russia was composed chiefly of peasants. How could they, illiterate and individualistic in outlook, have any understanding of Socialism, or any desire for it?

Whilst we were urging these views, other parties, claiming to represent the working class, asserted that the Bolsheviks had discovered a short cut to Socialism. They ignored the lessons of history, which show that there are no short cuts, that society passes through various phases and that none of these phases can be “jumped” in the course of society’s evolution. They ignored the past failures of workers to establish Socialism by intelligent minorities. After claiming to be “Marxists”, they paid little real attention to the theories of Marx and Engels.

Alas, thanks to these parties (chiefly the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party) a legend was created, a legend that Russia was Socialist. It was a harmful legend, too, for many workers began to imagine that they could copy the Russians, and establish Socialism with-out first having a Socialist working class.

When the S.P.G.B. said that soon the opponents of Socialism would be pointing to Russia and telling the workers to see what evils Socialism (!) had brought, in order to make them hostile to it, the C.P. and the I.L.P. just smiled (to put it mildly) and told us to be patient. “Soon,” they said, “everything in the garden will be lovely."

Unfortunately for these optimists, every so often facts about Russia are published, which prove the S.P.G.B.’s case up to the hilt.

Recently the French writer, André Gide, has written a book, Retour de l’U.R.S.S (“Return from Russia,” by André Gide; pp. 152; 6 francs; published by Gallimard), after a visit to Russia. This book is the more significant because its author has, on several occasions in the past few years, announced his sympathy and admiration for Russia.

Now, however, Gide shows himself to be disappointed with the state of affairs there. This disappointment is largely due to his having been misled by Communists into believing that Russia is the fatherland of Socialism. Even after his visit, he writes: “The exploitation of a large number for the profit of a few no longer exists in Russia” (p.46). Thus he expected to find poverty abolished from the land and was shocked to find it so rampant (p.65). We told the Communists long ago that disillusionment would be the effect of their extravagant propaganda!

Gide observes that, even now, twenty years after the Revolution, the problem of production has not been solved, and he thinks that, for a long time to come, the supply of goods will not satisfy the demands (p.38). Hence the necessity imposed on the Russian State of paying attention to quantity at the expense of quality (p.39).

Social contrasts are easily seen in Russia, and Gide fears that these contrasts will grow more pronounced as time goes on, especially as these tendencies are encouraged by the State.

“I fear,” he writes on pp. 62-4, “that soon a new kind of ‘working-bourgeoisie,’ satisfied (and indeed even conservative), will be formed, too much like our own class of small capitalists. Everywhere I see symptoms of this.” And again: “I am greatly disturbed to see in the Russia of to-day these capitalistic instincts indirectly flattered and encouraged by recent laws.” (Gide refers to such laws as those authorising the possession of private property, legacies, etc.)

Gide gives us a picture of the social differences one sees next door to each other. He describes (p.60) the Hotel of Sinop, near Soukhoum, where everything is up-to-date. Each room has its bathroom attached, its own terrace and furniture of perfect taste. The food is supplied from an up-to-date farm, where one must sterilise one’s shoes before entering. Yet, separated by a stream from all this luxury, are houses where poorly paid workers live. Here four share one room less than nine feet by seven, and they are compelled, through poverty, to live on bread and dried fish.

In the Appendix (p.118) Gide gives us some idea of the vast differences in wages that prevail on the collective farms (Kolkhoses). Here he says: “These privileged persons can earn 600 roubles a month.” The “qualified” workmen receive very often much more. For the “non-qualified workers, who form the immense majority, the daily salary is from five to six roubles. The simple workman earns still less.”

Gide describes also the scorn or indifference that the relatively rich show towards their “inferiors”, and the servility of poor work-people towards their “superiors”. No equality here!

The ruling clique in Russia pursues a policy similar to that of all ruling classes. It tries to keep the poor quiet by persuading them that they are as happy as they can be till better times come, and that they are more happy than people in other countries (pp.50-2) “The citizen of Russia is extraordinarily ignorant of other countries. More than that, he has been made to believe that everything abroad goes on less well in every respect than in Russia. This illusion is skilfully upheld” (p.52).

All criticism in Russia is confined to deciding whether or not theories or things are orthodox. Anyone who expresses views differing from those held by officials is considered a Trotskyist. “To-day,” says Gide, “it is a spirit of submission, orthodoxy, that is demanded. All those who do not declare themselves satisfied are considered ‘Trotskyists’” (p.76). Woe betide those people who cannot hold their tongues, or who cannot always raise a cheer! “What is desired and what is demanded is applause for everything that is done in Russia . . . The least protest, the least criticism is punishable by the severest penalties” (p.67).

Other interesting things in this book could be dealt with (e.g., the “deification” of Stalin, the influence of the official newspapers on the minds of the people); but enough has been said to show that, for one admirer who went to see Russia, it is a capitalist state with wide contrasts in economic and social status, and that the ruling clique maintains its power by ruthless suppression of criticism.

With Gide, however, we agree that social contrasts in Russia will become more evident as time goes on. Then the masses will become impatient and criticism will spring up on every side. May this criticism be directed, not so much against persons, as against the exploiting nature of capitalism!

Clifford Allen

Notes by the Way: "Capitalists" at the Rubbish Heap (1937)

The Notes by the Way column from the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Capitalists” at the Rubbish Heap

Lord Iliffe, speaking at the Annual Conference of the British Junior Chambers of Commerce at Coventry on September 26th (Daily Telegraph, September 27th, 1937), said that “we” (presumably he meant the Government) are “curing the ills of capitalism as well as of Communism by creating capitalists as quickly as we possibly can.” A fortnight later the Daily Express (October 8th) published a striking photograph of dozens of women—some of Lord Iliffe’s "capitalists”—groping in a heap of colliery refuse at Longsight, Manchester, for bits of coal: —

   Three days a week are reserved there for women gleaners, three for men. . . . The women, here, were too busy to think of the camera. A lorry had just sent its load of refuse down the slope. Before the black dust had settled, seventy women were on their knees. For twenty minutes only the rasping of metal scrapers among the refuse was heard.

This is one of the "rights” free-born Britishers are asked to defend against foreign powers!

* * *

Beaverbrook is Candid—or Is He?

Conversation overheard in a Lyons’ tea-shop : —

   “I prefer the Daily Express, particularly now that Lord Beaverbrook says it isn’t run for profit.”
   “But isn’t it?” 
   “No. Lord Beaverbrook doesn’t get a penny out of it.”

That was the impression conveyed to one reader of the Daily Express, and, doubtless, to many others, by Lord Beaverbrook’s personal statement published on September 24th. It is one of those very candid statements which conceal more than they disclose. It starts off by saying that the profit of Express newspapers is limited to just under £150,000, “which is less than three per cent, of the gross turnover ”; but it does not tell us what is the capital and what percentage the profit represents of the capital. To relate profit to turnover in this instance means nothing at all.

Then, after telling us that “more than seventy-four per cent. of the ordinary shares are owned by me,” Lord Beaverbrook makes the statement which so impressed his admirer in the tea-shop: —

   I have never drawn a penny of salary from the newspaper. My sole and only object is to serve the public interest . . .” (italics ours).

Of course nobody supposed he did draw anything as salary, but what about his ownership of three-quarters of the ordinary shares? The accounts of London Express Newspapers, Ltd., show that the amount of profit available for dividend on ordinary shares averaged nearly £39,000 a year on the past three years. As Beaverbrook owns three-quarters of them, it appears that he is in a position to draw nearly £30,000 a year. Whether he owns any preference shares as well is not known. If he does his income will be correspondingly greater.

What about a little more candour, Lord Beaverbrook ?

* * *

The 'Daily Herald's’ Case for Capitalism 

Mr. Douglas Jay, formerly on the staff of The Times, then of the Economist, is now City Editor of the Daily Herald. He has written a book called "The Socialist Case" (Faber & Faber, 12s.6d., 362 pages). The publishers declined to send us a review copy, but it does not appear that we have missed anything. Mr. J. A. Hobson, reviewing it in the Manchester Guardian (October 15th, 1937), finds in Mr. Jay two merits, one of which is that—

   he discards from practicable Socialism the indiscriminate attack on profits, rent and interest which Marxism put into the Socialist theory.

Mr. Jay proves why it is necessary to retain rent, interest and profit. ‘The interesting point about this is that it goes even further in its acceptance of capitalism than the Labour Party itself. The policy in the past has always been to attack profits and rent, and even promise to destroy them, but to retain interest. Now along comes Mr. Jay and states the case for a monstrous edifice which is called Socialism, but which stands on all three of the capitalist pillars.

The unkindest cut of all, delivered at Mr. Jay, comes from an old colleague on the Economist, who says: —

   Purists, perhaps, may doubt Mr. Jay’s Socialism, and dub him rather an enlightened democrat . . .”— (Economist, Oct. 9th, 1937.)

Mr. Jay may be a democrat, but is it really enlightened to rehash all this old stuff about a reformed capitalism?

* * *

History Embarrasses the Communist Party 

The Evening Standard (November 12th, 1937) tells the following entertaining story about the Communist Party's embarrassment over a written record (which carried Lenin's endorsement) of Trotsky's part in the Bolshevist seizure of power. The record in question is "Ten Days that Shook the World," written by the late John Reed, which the News-Chronicle proposed to serialise: —

   This contemporary account of the Bolshevist uprising was written by John Reed, the American Communist, who was a close personal friend of Lenin. When he died in 1921 he left the British copyright in his book to the Communist Party.
    When the News-Chronicle approached the copyright owners for permission to serialise the book it was gladly given. The Communists asked no fee, and made only one stipulation—that all reference to Trotsky should be eliminated from the text.
    Confronted with this modern version of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, the Liberal organ abandoned the project.

The book was filmed by the Russians prior to Trotsky’s downfall, and shows him taking an active part. The Communists still show the film in this country, but their commentator now tells the audience that Trotsky was sabotaging the efforts of  the Bolshevists! What is more, one of the commentators, when questioned about this, admitted that he had not read the book and therefore did not know how his instructions falsify the written record.

* * *

He Could Not be Worse than the Others

One writer on the career of Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Frank Owen, who is well aware that MacDonald was never a Socialist at all, sums him up neatly and briefly, and his former associates as well: —

   I will say this of him, that he was perhaps not less of a Socialist at the finish than he was at any other time. And I will add for the benefit of old colleagues who have abused him so savagely in later days that he was no worse a Socialist than most of them.—(Daily Express, Nov. 10th, 1937.)

* * *

Dictator’s Diversion

Reynold's Illustrated News (October 24th, 1937) publishes the following extract from a book written by Mussolini's airman son, Vittorio, on his Abyssinian adventures. It shows the appalling gulf dictatorship creates, so that a young man can be entirely bereft of all sense of the consequences of his actions for other human beings: —

   I have never seen a fire. . . . Probably someone here was aware of my frustration and therefore some planes of the 14th squadron were ordered to effect a bombing in the zone of Adi Abo and to use incendiary bombs exclusively. I do not believe a more important reason existed. . . . It was most diverting.

* * *

Dilemma of Sir Stafford Cripps

The position of the man who says it is desirable to stay inside the Labour Party in order to convert it to Socialism is hopelessly false. In the New Leader, organ of the I.L.P. (October 29th, 1937), Mr. F. W. Jowett asks Sir Stafford Cripps how he squares his new declaration of loyalty to the Labour Party with his other statement that its policy is "Liberal Imperialism in Foreign affairs" and "Capitalist Reformism in Domestic affairs."

* * *

The Russian Wages System

The News-Chronicle recently published some articles on Russia by a special correspondent, Mr. Paul Winterton. It was noticeable that, though his avowed intention was to describe facts, there was a considerable admixture of opinion, some of it of a kind which obscured rather than explained the subject matter. In particular, Mr. Winterton went to some trouble to explain that, though there is great inequality of income in Russia, this is not a sign of a drift to capitalism. He reported, for example (News Chronicle, July 30th, 1937), that the lowest paid worker receives 125 roubles a month, the highest (with a few exceptions) 3,000 roubles a month. He expressed the opinion that “there is no such range in Russia as that between the 30s. a week of the British unemployed family and the £10,000 a year of the company director," but admitted, at the same time, that he had been told of the head of a Russian constructional enterprise reported to be in receipt of 12,000 roubles a month. It will be noticed that 12,000 roubles is 96 times as much as 125 roubles, and the range between the two figures is therefore not so very much less than the range between 30s. a week and £10,000 a year. The latter is 130 times the former. Even 3,000 roubles is 24 times as much as 125.

The point of major interest is that Mr. Winterton appears to be quite unaware that the present Russian practice in this matter is in flat contradiction with the views of Lenin and the earlier Bolshevists, who were firm advocates of equality. Not only Mr. Winterton, but most of the present-day British Communists are unaware of it, and the reason is that Communist and "Left Wing" books and papers are nowadays curiously silent about the former advocacy of equality. A good illustration is to be found in a Left Book Club publication, “A Handbook of Marxism" edited by Emile Bums. It runs to nearly 1,100 pages and contains reprints of many of the smaller works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. But when you look up the index to see what Lenin, for example, had to say about equality, you discover the regrettable omission of references to Lenin’s opposition to inequality.

In his “Soviets at Work,” Lenin regretted the necessity in 1918 of paying high salaries to specialists, and said: —

   Such a measure is not merely a halt in a certain part and to a certain degree of the offensive against capitalism . . . but also a step backward by our Socialist Soviet State, which has from the very beginning proclaimed and carried on a policy of reducing high salaries to the standard of wages of the average worker.

He went on to say that “to pay unequal salaries is really a step backward; we will not cheat the people by pretending otherwise.”

But Lenin’s “Soviets at Work” is not one of the works reprinted in the “Handbook of Marxism.”

Lenin had also emphasised this principle of equality in his “State and Revolution.” But while two chapters of this work are included in the “Handbook,” the chapter containing the references to equality of wages is one of those omitted on grounds of space.

The “Handbook” does, however, find space for Stalin’s latter-day Bolshevist doctrine ridiculing equality and actually quoting Lenin to. that end and making it appear that Lenin was opposed to equality (see pages 939 and 940). Needless to say, the quotation from Lenin does not really support Stalin’s view, but is concerned only with ridiculing the bourgeois notions that Socialism is based on the assumption that all men are equal. But even supposing that Lenin had on some occasion shared Stalin’s view, it is still most misleading to publish only a one-sided selection of his statements and omit the others, thus giving the false impression that the Bolshevists had always taken up the same attitude that Stalin and his Government take up now.

Before Mr. Winterton and others express opinions about what they find in Russia, and say there is no drift to capitalism, they could usefully acquaint themselves with what Marx, Engels and Lenin had to say on the subject of equality. But to do this they will have to go outside the publications of the Communist Party and the Left Book Club.

Edgar Hardcastle

Bazaar and Social (1937)

Party News from the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Bazaar and Social to be held at the Trade Union Club, 24, New Oxford Street, W.C.l, on Saturday, December 18th, commencing 5 p.m. until 11 p.m., is in aid of the Parliamentary Fund.

The Social Committee, who are arranging this event, are still asking for goods from members and sympathisers. Anything suitable for sale at a bazaar will be welcome. Goods should be sent or brought to Head Office on Tuesday nights and given over to the above Committee. If you are prepared to help, but are at a loss what to give, donations of money will be most acceptable.

Request No. 2.—Please endeavour to bring your relatives and friends, and advertise this to everybody you think will be interested. Tell them to come along and buy their Christmas presents, and remind them that, besides the Bazaar being a solution to their “presents problem,” they will be aiding the Party.

We would like to take this opportunity of thanking all those who have already given either gifts or money, and are looking forward to seeing them on Saturday, December 18th.

A social will be held during the evening, and the aid of members and friends has again been sought, so here is a chance to kill three birds with one stone, they are: (1) Aid the Party; (2) make all our helpers’ efforts worth while; and (3) have a most enjoyable evening.

We close on a Runyonese note, by stating that we hope that one and all will turn up with plenty of potatoes to spend and that one and all will enjoy themselves more than somewhat.

Social Committee.

Editorial: The Popular Front and the Struggle Against Fascism (1937)

Editorial from the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not accept the view that Fascism can be fought by uniting all anti-Fascists into a Popular Front or other group. In Great Britain Fascism will only be a serious danger to the extent that it succeeds (as it did in Italy and Germany) in winning over large numbers of the employed and unemployed workers to its side. In what way might that happen and how can it be prevented? It can happen only to the extent that workers who have for a time placed their trust in capitalist or reformist movements and leaders become disillusioned but cannot find any alternative except Fascism. It is of the utmost importance that Socialism should stand boldly and clearly as an independent movement ready to show the workers the right road of escape from capitalism when they had turned in disgust from Liberalism and Toryism and from the Labour Party idea of reforming capitalism. If it were possible for Labour Government or Popular Front Government to be genuinely successful then there would be justification for abandoning Socialism and concentrating on the administration of capitalism by the so-called “progressives." But it is not possible. No matter how capitalism is governed, the struggle between the propertied class—seeking rent interest and profits—and the working class—trying to resists exploitation—goes on. Where there is capitalism there is poverty and unemployment, the oppression of the weak by the strong, social unrest, strikes and rock-outs, and discontent with the Government which stands at the head of the system.

Popular Front Government or Labour Government is bound to bring eventual discredit on the parties associated with it. It is essential that the Socialist movement should not be engulfed in that general discredit.

Fascism can only be fought successfully by Socialists. Labourites cannot fight it because the Fascist social reform programmes are largely made up of points taken from the Labour programme. Communists cannot fight it because they are tarred with the same brush of dictatorship. Open defenders of capitalism cannot fight it because the workers are sick of naked capitalism.

Only Socialists—themselves consistent critics of capitalism, reformism and dictatorship—can combat Fascism.