Is Britain Going Fascist? (1938)

From the December 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Parties in the Melting Pot

Mr. Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler has had the effect of bringing to the surface some hitherto hidden currents in the political parties. Mr. Anthony Eden, who speaks for the Conservative group which favours a strong line against Germany, Italy and Japan, is now criticising Mr. Chamberlain’s policy and possibly challenging him for the leadership of the Conservative Party. That he is acting with the advice and guidance of Lord Baldwin is an indication of the amount of support he can count upon in Conservative circles.

On the Opposition side of the House of Commons the Labour Party and Liberals are both divided internally on foreign policy. In each party is a group who favour Chamberlain’s ideas of international ”appeasement ‘ and another and larger group which leans more to Eden’s policy of using the League of Nations and the appeal to safeguard democracy as a means of rallying as many Powers as possible to make a stand against the dictatorship countries.

Still another group of Conservatives are anxious to prevent Mr. Chamberlain giving back colonies to Germany.

The small I.L.P. contingent of M.P.s back Chamberlain, while the solitary Communist takes the opposite side.

Here is a mix-up, out of which a new party grouping might emerge, and already Mr. Eden is counting on getting followers from all three of the larger parties. Time alone will show whether Mr. Eden’s group will succeed outright or whether their purpose will be sufficiently served if Mr. Chamberlain is forced to speed up re-armament and adopt some other planks in their programme, and much will depend on the reception the Eden programme gets in the constituencies.

Two factors emerge which throw light on the political confusion. One is the nature of the Eden programme, the other is the peculiar position now occupied by the Labour Party. Mr. Eden, in his speech in the House on November 10th, demanded a greatly speeded-up re-armament programme, and wants “every citizen in this country given the opportunity for some training in one or other of our vital defence services.” He demands a reorganisation and speeding-up in the working of the democratic machine, action to reduce unemployment and help the depressed areas, and more attention to housing and nutrition. “It is no use,” he said, “having the finest armaments in the world unless you have a fit nation to wield them ” (Hansard, November 10th, 1938, col. 378). He wants unity between the classes – “an England in which comradeship was the spirit of the nation” – all, of course, in order to meet the threat from abroad.

The wealthy would be called upon for “some measure of sacrifice in their present standard of life” in order to meet the two-fold cost of armaments and social services.

Thus, in a manner typical of the British ruling class, Mr. Eden is putting forward a programme which echoes more than faintly the slogans of Italian Fascism and German Nazism. Suitably toned down for the English scene, it is the Nazi formula of exaggerated nationalism as a cover under which to enforce national unity, linked up with social reform trimmings to make it attractive to the industrial workers. It is the same political swindle as that worked off in Germany and Italy, devised for the purpose of winning the workers over to the service of capitalism in its struggle with its competitors in other lands. It is called a policy of peace, security and social reform, but it points to war and destruction.

There is no need to argue that the Chamberlain policy – even though it fails in the eyes of some Conservatives through its inability to appeal strongly enough to the workers and in its inability to tackle the re-armament programme with sufficient drive – is in essentials the same as Eden’s. But where does the Labour Party stand ?

At once it is obvious that the Labour Party has no real alternative to offer. One Labour group could easily fall in behind Chamberlain and another group behind Eden with nothing fundamental to distinguish them from those leaders. The truth is that the Labour Party no longer possesses any characteristics to mark it off from progressive Liberals or social-reform Conservatives. Thirty or even ten years ago the Labour Party stood, above all, for nationalisation, but now that nationalisation has, for all practical purposes, ceased to be a live political issue what is there left? The Labour Party every day and in every way becomes more and more a reborn Liberal Party, but without that Party’s political fire and its capacity for the rough and tumble of the Parliamentary battle.

And, in the meantime, more than a few representatives of British capitalism are thinking that there is much to be said for the totalitarian idea to replace the party system. One of those who is toying with this is Mr. Eden’s supporter, Duff Cooper. Writing in the Evening Standard, November 15th, 1938, Mr. Duff Cooper concludes an article on “New Parties for Old” with the suggestion that “the challenge of the totalitarian States seems to demand a degree of national unity and national efficiency which the party system cannot provide.”

Without being prophetic, it may be said that British workers will show a disinclination for totalitarian ideas which will surprise Mr. Duff Cooper and any others who think on those lines. But whether that is so or not, one deplorable charge made by him has to be admitted to the full. Read the following passage from his article, remembering that when he writes “Socialism” he does not necessarily mean it literally, but has in mind rather the old-time “nationalisation” propaganda of the Labour Party. Yet what he says is largely true of Socialism, too.

  "There has probably never been so much political discussion between private individuals as during the last two months, but it would be hardly rash to assert that Socialism has never been discussed.
   “We are approaching the end of a week’s debate in Parliament in which any subject may be raised. It has not occurred to anyone to raise the subject of Socialism.”

Here we are facing a critical situation for which Socialism is the sole remedy, and one of our opponents can boast that the population all but ignore it. The S.P.G.B. is, however, not surprised or dismayed by that. For years we have said that the popularisation of reforms would end up by reducing the Parliamentary struggle between Liberal, Labour and Tory Parties to a shadow battle. We added, however, that our insistence on keeping alive the issue of Socialism would one day make the struggle a fierce reality, in Parliament and in every constituency. The S.P.G.B. has not failed to do its part, and Mr. Duff Cooper will yet learn that Socialism is neither dead nor sleeping, but a virile and growing movement. It will achieve a double victory. In gaining Socialism it will at the same time save democracy.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Assisting Workers Abroad (1938)

Editorial from the December 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

For a long time now working-class organisations have had a splendid tradition of helping workers in other countries in their industrial and political struggles. This has not been confined to any one country, though some workers shed their extreme isolation earlier than others. The fine way in which Continental unions rallied to give their help to British workers during the General Strike and Mines struggle of 1926 is matched by the occasions when workers in Great Britain have given money and other practical aid to their fellows abroad. One aspect of this has been the help given to refugees suffering under the dictatorships, and to Spanish workers.

Yet along with all of these activities there is a harmful side, particularly evident in Great Britain. It consists of well-intentioned but ill-informed pronouncements on any and every event in other countries, to the neglect of a proper attitude towards affairs at home or within the Empire. A case in point is the clash of nationalities in a dozen countries in Europe. Telling foreign governments what they ought to do about Jews and Czechs, Poles and Sudeten Germans, helps nobody, and gives support to the false idea that an all-round solution of the nationalities problem is practicable in a capitalist world. The clash of nationalities will never end under capitalism, because every capitalist state, when it has an object to serve, fosters the clash in order to further its own trading and imperialist ambitions. Hitler has only to point to India, Palestine, and Ireland, to convince his own working-class admirers that British workers who give expression to such views are merely acting as the tools or willing partners of British imperialism. As a German anti-Nazi told Miss Ellen Wilkinson, “the difficulty to contend with is not so much the Nazis as the belief among the [German] workers that the British and French workers are behind their governments—and particularly the British—in keeping Germany down." (Manchester Guardian, August 29th, 1938.)

In other words, the first duty of working-class organisations when they declare their abhorrence of the iniquities of foreign capitalist governments is to show clearly and unmistakably that they are opposed to their own ruling class and free from the suspicion of condoning its actions.

A more positive harm done in the international sphere is the unintentional misleading of groups of workers abroad. It is good to send resolutions of sympathy to organisations in foreign countries, but time after time the effect has been to create the impression that really decisive help could be given when this was not the case. Perhaps the most glaring instance was the impression conveyed to the Russians in 1918 and the following years, that British workers were on the verge of coming to their aid by overthrowing capitalism. Incredible as it may seem now, the Bolsheviks did literally believe that this was in large measure true.

Coming to more recent events, contact with refugees from Austria, Germany and Czechoslovakia shows that many of them feel they have been betrayed by workers in France and Britain. Receiving resolutions of sympathy and support, they translated these expressions of goodwill into concrete pledges of effective help—help which, of course, could not be given.

The fact is that there has been a great deal of misunderstanding among continental trade unionists and Social-Democrats about the power or influence of the British trade unions and Labour Party. They have thought that the latter would be able to force the British Government to give protection against the dictators. Some—in Spain, for example—have even counted on the British ruling class itself taking action on their behalf out of pure love of democracy.

All of this indicates a failure to understand the nature of capitalism—whether governed by dictators or self-styled democrats. That lack of understanding is to be found in every country, and the task of fostering an international working- class outlook and international organisation is made more difficult by ignoring it. Internationalism will only have a sure foundation to the extent to which such illusions are ruthlessly cut out. A first step is to tell foreign workers frankly that with the best will in the world the amount of practical help that can be given is strictly limited, and therefore it is necessary for them not to build great hopes on succour from abroad to make up for their own weakness.

The best help that the workers anywhere can give to their foreign comrades is to redouble their efforts to strengthen the Socialist movement in their own country and hasten the day when the workers will control social affairs.

Capitalist Hypocrisy (1938)

From the December 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a letter to the Manchester Guardian Weekly (September 16th, 1938), Jawaharlal Nehru, an Indian Nationalist, asks how the British Government can claim to be interested in democracy, Czechoslovakian or any other, when it denies independence to India. He writes: —

    The people of India have no intention of submitting to any foreign decision on war. They only can decide, and certainly they will not accept the dictation of the British Government, which they distrust utterly. India would willingly throw her entire weight on the side of democracy and freedom, but we heard these words often twenty years ago and more. Only free and democratic countries can help freedom and democracy elsewhere. If Britain is on the side of democracy, then its first task is to eliminate empire from India. That is the sequence of events in Indian eyes, and to that sequence the people of India will adhere.

No, the concern of the British Government is not democracy, or the maintenance of independence of foreign states. It is the representative of the British capitalist class, and its function is to defend the interests of British capitalism at home and abroad.

British workers, beware! Appearances are often deceptive.

Democracy? Humbug!

Clifford Allen

Letter: The Russian Workers under the Czar and under the Bolshevists. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrade,

Reginald, in the August “Socialist Standard," makes a most bitter attack upon Soviet Union. With part of what he says (growth of nationalism, adoration of Stalin) I am in agreement. He goes gravely wrong, however, when he attempts to show that there hasn’t been an “all-round amelioration of conditions for the worker."

He quotes Kléber Legay and Yvon as authorities. Now I have never heard of these gentlemen before. As far as I know they may not exist and may only be the disguises assumed by anti-Socialist publicists. I prefer to get my information about Russia from sources in which I can place greater confidence—Sydney and Beatrice Webb, Sir E. D. Simon, the various official delegations of British trade unionists to Russia, Walter Duranty, Sir B. Pares. Now these aren’t Communists or Communist sympathisers. But they all tell the same tale, and that is that material conditions in Soviet Russia are very much better than they were in Czarist Russia. Not only has the output of industry and agriculture been enormously increased, but health services (1917—13,000 doctors, 1937—106,000 doctors) and education services (1913—8,000,000 children at school; 1937—30,000,000) have been improved; output of books increased five-fold since 1913, illiteracy almost stamped out.

All these are solid improvements, and we will be foolish if we shut our eyes to them. They have been made possible by the introduction of the rudiments of Socialism. Russia is far from perfect and has a long way to go before it reaches Socialism, but Russia of to-day is enormously better from the workers’ point of view than Russia of Czarist days.

Yours fraternally,

H. Heather

Manchester

Reply:

Our contributor, “Reginald,” in the August The Socialist Standard, in an article headed "Stepfather Stalin,” quoted from André Gide, Kléber Legay, and Yvon, statements made by them about things they saw in Russia. “Reginald’s ” conclusion was that “claims for a general, widespread, all-round amelioration of conditions for the worker must be received with the utmost caution”; surely a very reasonable conclusion to reach in face of the statements made by the admirers and the critics of Russian conditions. But our correspondent, Mr. Heather, will not have it. He has read the admirers and has not read the critics, and he does not want to read the critics. In fact, he doubts whether they exist at all! May we suggest that his first obligation, if he really wants to know the truth, is to supplement his reading of the admirers by reading the statements of such men as Gide and Yvon, who were formerly supporters of the Bolshevist regime but who, on further knowledge, have become critical? Yvon, for example, lived for eleven years in Russia and was a Communist. (Yvon’s pamphlet is obtainable at 1s. and was reviewed in The Socialist Standard for June, 1937. Gide’s “Return from Russia” was reviewed in The Socialist Standard for December, 1937.)

Our correspondent says that he places greater confidence in the writings of the Webbs, Sir E. D. Simon, the various official delegates of British trade unionists, Walter Duranty and Sir B. Pares. He does not mention Sir Walter Citrine’s book, which is decidedly critical of many aspects of working class life in Russia.

The one thing, of course, which ought to be available, and which would be more valuable than all the rest put together, is the freely expressed views of the Russian workers’ own democratically controlled organisations, trade union and political. These views are not available because such organisations are not allowed to exist under the Russian dictatorship. If, therefore, the truth is hard to come by, the dictatorship itself is responsible.

Our correspondent points to the unquestioned advances made in Russia in such matters as getting rid of illiteracy, but claims that these advances “have been made possible by the introduction of the rudiments of Socialism.” The latter claim is utterly unsupported and unsupportable by any evidence. Similar and greater advances have been made in countries such as Britain, which make no claim to being Socialist.

Editorial Committee.