Editorial: Bad Advice From A Trade Union Leader (1944)

Editorial from the December 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Charles Dukes, C.B.E., is general secretary of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, which has about three-quarters of a million members, according to the Daily Express (January 20th, 1942) he is one of the small number of Trade Union officials in the £1,000  a year class. Starting work at eleven as an errand boy, he went through various jobs before reaching his present position as a Trade Union official. In the intervening period he has been a Member of Parliament, was for many years in the I.L.P., and is now in the Labour Party. In the last war he was an opponent of war. If experience teaches, it might be assumed that his life and political activities should have taught him much about the problems facing the working class. He claimed, many years ago, that apart from what he picked up in his brief school days up to age 11, he was self-educated. He writes articles on the problems of the day in his Union’s monthly journal that betray a painful lack of understanding, but that lack certainly cannot be ascribed to his own educational difficulties. What they do disclose is a complete failure to appreciate the nature of capitalism and the position of the working class in that system.

In an article in the May, 1944, issue of the Journal he lamented, but accepted, the fading of the dream of working-class internationalism. “It is no use pretending,” he wrote, "that there has not been a moral collapse in respect of internationalism. Whether we shall see its revival in the next decade is exceedingly problematical. . . . Our Labour Movement believed fervently that we could build the International Labour Movement across national frontiers, and ignore the ties of race and nationality. For the second time this theory has been disproved. It is not that the ideal is wrong, but rather that in its practical application it ignored the influences of race, which are deeper than association between peoples of different nationalities. The moral code is not enough. . . . The physical sanction throughout the ages has been necessary to enforce civic law, and there can be no doubt regarding its necessity in the enforcement of international law. Until this simple truth is grasped, we are merely fooling ourselves in pretending that a peaceful world can be ensured without the means to enforce the International Code.”

A little analysis shows the flaw in this argument. Mr. Dukes, in effect, despairs of working-class internationalism because ties of race and nationality prevent the workers from coming together effectively, and in his despair he turns to the idea of some international body which shall wield armed force to restrain national groups. But who shall make and control the international body? Since all the governments are capitalist governments, it is the capitalists who are to do this: but, according to Mr. Dukes' earlier remark, they too would be prevented by ties of race and nationality from getting together in an international body! We see here the sad spectacle of the workers’ chosen representative who despairs of his own class and hopefully bestows his trust on the capitalists, believing that they will do what the workers are incapable of doing. Truly reliance on a broken reed.

And why, we may ask, did the efforts at working-class internationalism fail? Basically they failed because the workers have not yet grasped the truth that all over the world they have a common interest in destroying capitalism by their own class unity and efforts; but this hits Mr. Dukes too. Internationalism, like charity, is something that should begin at home, it ill becomes the supporter of a capitalist government in one country to lament the lack of international class sentiment among the workers in other countries.

In a later article (July, 1944) Mr. Dukes starts off by urging trade unionists not to concentrate too much on social reforms; ”there is always the danger of becoming obsessed with these palliative measures,” he writes. This is a hopeful beginning, but what follows is the amazing statement that the real basic issue deserving attention is ”work and wages,” which “must, for all time, remain the primary consideration.”

Later on, to show that he means just what he says, he adds that “not even a Social Revolution will solve the vexed problem of WORK AND WAGES” (his capitals!).

Mr. Dukes—who at least at one time will have claimed to be a Socialist—goes on to make his reader’s flesh creep at the post-war problem of capitalist governments having to budget “to meet the colossal indebtedness of war-time circumstances,” which includes, of course, paying millions of pounds of interest to investors in government loans. Because of this he warns us that “those who expect big margins out of which to finance great schemes of social development will encounter almost insuperable obstacles.” Then follows a piece of further advice to his own hard-working and low-paid members. “Unless production can be stepped up far in excess of our pre-war production, no juggling with national finance will bring into being any great improvement in the lives of the people of this country. Let us, therefore, understand that the chief responsibility of the post-war government is to ensure full production and full employment. . . .”

This is history repeating itself, for after the last war most of the trade union officials were lending themselves to government propaganda to increase production, and one of the outstanding figures was Mr. J. R. Clynes, an official of this same union, who likewise still writes for the journal. The S.P.G.B. told Mr. Clynes then that the result of the increased-production campaign would be the more rapid rise of unemployment, and events justified our warning to the hilt. Capitalism needs unemployment just as it needs the poverty of the working class. It will abolish neither.

We tell Mr. Dukes’ members that, instead of following his despairing policy of making the best of capitalism (or, rather, of making even less than the best of capitalism), they should turn the other way. Start by appreciating that capitalism necessarily means the exploitation of the working class, and recognise the common interest of the workers everywhere of resisting that exploitation as far as they are able, but, above all, of ending capitalism by international Socialist action. Ponder the wise advice given by Karl Marx instead of chasing Mr. Dukes' will o’ the wisp of “full work at full wages.” Marx said over half a century ago to trade unionists:—

  Instead of the Conservative motto, “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work !” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, “Abolition of the wages System!”

Don’t heed Mr. Dukes’ ignorant assertion that the social revolution will still leave us facing problems of work and wages. They are part of the capitalist wages system, and will go when it goes.

Letter: The Cause of Crime (1944)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The letter below from Mr. Whitehead continues the correspondence published in our May issue.

Newcastle.

Sir,

Without challenging one of the many examples I gave showing that capitalism and poverty could not be the most serious causes of crime, the Socialist Standard instead is much more concerned with what is my view of the cause of crime.

Actually there is no cause of crime or of any other sociological phenomena, but many causes. And in showing as I did that neither capitalism nor poverty is the cause of crime, I am no more called upon to give the true causes than is a critic logically bound to supply the real explanation when he says spirits are not responsible for the flying tambourines at a seance.

By showing that India, a poor country, has the lowest crime rate, and the United States, the richest country with the highest standard of living among the workers of any nation on earth, has also the highest rate of crime, I demonstrated that poverty could not be the cause of crime. The low violent-crime rate among Jews in any environment and the high rate for violent crime of Italians in Italy or in any other environment shows again that capitalism per se cannot be the cause of crime. The far greater crime rate of Catholics compared with Jews, Protestants, or any other class in Britain, America, France and Germany is not due to their greater poverty and insecurity, as is proved not only by India, where crime is less frequent, but by the fact that Southern Europe and the Latins in general have a greater ratio of crimes of violence (often connected with sex) than the peoples of Northern Europe, but the latter in turn have a greater ratio of crimes against property. These Latin characteristics go with their owners to America, North and South, and even to Australia, where Italians are famous for their ready use of the knife—so much so, that I have a peacetime report of Australian workers striking rather than work in company with Italian colleagues. Germans, by the way, are law abiding in almost any community. And almost everywhere agricultural communities, usually more poverty stricken and insecure than industrial, have a far lower crime rate in the same countries, and as a class all over the world tend to have a lower rate than the industrial populations.

Crime is far more complex than Socialists assume, and crimes of violence are far less associated with economic causes than are crimes against property. Sex, jealousy, revenge, passion, drink, uncontrolled temper and other temperamental idiosyncracies have more to do with crimes of violence than has capitalism or poverty.

The causes of serious crime must be sought not only in the sphere of economics, but in morals, biology, psychology, religion and race; and not only in environment but far more in heredity and parental and other training of the young. Even temperature cannot be excluded, crime and insanity being more rife in summer than in winter, in spite of there being more unemployment and poverty in winter.

The psychological and inherited factors all have causes and are obviously associated with material conditions without, however, being, as the Marxians assume, the direct or indirect reflexes, being more often themselves causes of economic reflexions. This, I hasten to add, is not the prelude to a long controversy on the Materialistic Conception of History. My present intention is merely to expose the absurdity of the claim that capitalism is the cause of crime, criminals being rife scores of thousands of years before capitalism became the King Charles' head of Socialists. Finally, if capitalism is responsible for economic insecurity, which causes crime, why do 95 per cent. of the workers suffering from insecurity never commit serious crime, and why are Jews, who in many countries are penalised and relatively insecure, far less prone to crime and drunkenness than Catholics in the same countries?

Yours, etc..

G. Whitehead.

Reply.

Mr. Whitehead introduces too much detail for us to cover all his statements in the space at our disposal. We will therefore consider the broad aspects of the question, and refer the reader back to the previous reply to him, which he has not met.

First of all, we note that Mr. Whitehead has no remedy for crime. He argues that there is not one but many causes of crime. He has entirely missed the point of our previous reply, which stated that crime "is to lie explained by the capitalist environment in which we live."

Crime did not flourish in early communistic communities because there was no private property and sex relations were free. It grew with the development of private property.

Crime consists of infringement against the social rules of the time. These rules in turn depend upon, or rise out of, the nature of the human communities. In the early communities these social rules were based upon communism and were formulated freely by the community as a whole. With the growth of private property the owners of private property became the rulers and law makers. Infringement of their laws became “crimes.” For example, to-day sex is a private property institution and sex relations outside of wedlock are regarded as crimes, except in circumstances where it suits the rulers—when the birthrate of prospective workers and fighters is going down, rich appetites have to be met, or the needs of soldiers attended to for the sake of morale.

What constitutes “crime" has varied as communities have developed. Among the Spartans in early Greek times thieving was a virtue because the Spartan ruling class was a small body among a host of subservient, and their wits had to be developed to the highest pitch for the purpose of repression. In Elizabethan times piracy by English sailors was a virtue because it brought maritime wealth to the English ruling class. In the later centuries private property owners stole millions of acres of common land from the people, but this was not regarded as crime because the new laws based upon private property excluded from their influence the land that had no individual owner but was free for the use of all. In our own day millions of men are trained to strangle, drown, blow to pieces, shoot and maim their fellow-men, but this large scale slaughter and destruction is not regarded as criminal because the rulers of a capitalist society justify it on suitable abstract principles. If a poor man kills another man no abstract principles will save him from the hangman. If a rich man kills another man he has many avenues to escape from the hangman.

Prostitution, over-drinking, over and under eating, the blind pursuit of wealth and the enslaving of native people, war, and the strain of modern life are all consequences of capitalism, and have a demoralising influence on people. All these things contribute to a weakening of the social instincts. They were present in previous forms of society, but have reached their highest expression and their greatest power for evil in the capitalist system.

Poverty and laborious lives induce a low intellectual condition and a brutalised outlook on life. These together with prostitution and unhealthy sex unions produce degeneracy and insanity.

Crime ratios are misleading. Numbers of people commit what Mr. Whitehead would call crimes but never appear in criminal courts because they are rich or crafty. The poor prostitute figures in records, the rich rarely. While proof is difficult, it can hardly be doubted that much evasion of tax and similar regulations is carried on by monied men who are in a position to “know the ropes," or who can afford expert legal advice on ways of finding loopholes.

From the foregoing it will be seen that Mr. Whitehead's references to the ratio of crime in different countries and among different people is no answer to the question. “What is the cause of crime?" nor is it a refutation of our claim that crime can only be explained by social conditions. The rate of crime depends upon the influence of the social factors mentioned above in the countries and among the people in question. This is too wide a subject to be dealt with here. Surely his reference to law-abiding Germans is strange in the light of the rise of the Nazi party and the Gestapo, whose performances rival any criminal propensities of the Italians anywhere. What greater volume of crimes have Catholics committed than those committed by Protestants upon native peoples and upon men. women and children in the mines and factory hells of this country during the last century? The opera “Madame Butterfly" is based upon the attitude of Western man towards his Eastern sister, and many of those who go to see it and enjoy the luxury of shedding tears over the tragedy of Madame Butterfly are blind to their own share in similar tragedies.

We would remind Mr. Whitehead that an understanding of the cause of crime requires also an understanding of what crime is.

When wealth becomes commonly owned and each can obtain what he needs, there will be no crimes against property, the intellectual condition of people will rise, and the heritage of degeneracy and insanity will disappear; when woman has no economic need to sell her body, prostitution will disappear; when the relations between the sexes are free and partnerships can be made and unmade according to the emotional requirements of each, sex crimes will disappear. Then at last we shall really live, healthy, happy and crimeless—morals, biology, psychology, religion, race, heredity, and every other ology notwithstanding!

Editorial Committee

By The Way: Give the Dogs a Thousand Lashes, Damme ! (1944)

The By The Way column from the December 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Give the Dogs a Thousand Lashes, Damme !

The mentality of some Tory M.P.s is weird and wonderful.

Thus we have Mr. D. Robertson (Conservative, Streatham) dilating on the idleness of the men employed on bomb damage repairs.

  He mentioned a case of men who were brought to Streatham in luxury coaches from a hostel at 8 o'clock and went off to breakfast at 10 o'clock.
  They should have had their breakfast before they left the hostel, but did not because they had lain too long in their beds. (Evening Standard, October 27th, 1944.)

Just fancy! Luxury coaches—the louts! Of course, M.P.s don't ride to the House in luxury coaches, not them— usually plain private (“unluxury”) cars, or just common old taxis.

  "If this idleness continues,” declared Mr. Robertson, "I say put the young men into the infantry and let the older men have a spell of unemployment.”

There for you! The young men can smash more houses up in the Army and the older ones do nothing! How Mr. Robertson can imagine this is going to put anyone's roof back, we can't think!

One or two members of the Socialist Party working on war damage repairs in South London have a suggestion; they propose that Mr. Robertson have a week off from the House of Commons and take a turn on the roofs down in Streatham. He won't do much work, of course, but it would give him a marvellous appetite for those wonderful dinners they serve in the Commons restaurant. Perhaps he might feel like lying in his bed Sunday morning as a result; he wouldn’t have to be at the House, anyway, for they don't sit Saturdays or Sundays.

Our comrades say they are quite willing to do a week in the House of Commons for every day Mr. Robertson gets his hands dirty down at Streatham.


Trouble Down on the Farm

As if in answer to Mr. Robertson, the Norfolk War Agricultural Committee has informed the London Star (November 4th) that the Italian prisoners are rather difficult.

  When they are slack, lazy or disobedient we can report them to their camp, but what happens? They may get a spell of detention, but while they are away doing their punishment the farms are deprived of their services, indifferent though they may be.
  We have also found that punishment does not seem to improve them. As a fact, a spell of detention does not have any salutary effect on them, neither does it seem to have any terrors for them.
  And when they return to the farm they are worse than ever. The result is that the farmers will not report them for minor breaches of discipline.

And these are the boys we went to Italy to “liberate”!

This War

More Trouble. Now Thorburn Wiant, Associated Press correspondent back in London after two years in China, wrote : —

   There is probably no more efficient dictatorship than General Chiang Kai-shek’s party.
   There are secret police, concentration camps and firing squads for those who dare to speak, write or act out of turn. (Daily Mirror, November 1st, l944.)

Come, come, Thorburn! Chiang may be more efficient than Hitler—but not more than .Marshal Stalin!.

He also says the Chinese are not fighting the Japs at all—but one another.

We give it up!

A General Tells About the Cause of War

Lieutenant-General Sir G. Le Q. Martel, K.C.B., is writing on Conscription after the War.

  There is a universal hope that after the war the great nations will get together and solve the international problems of trade and currency, and thus eliminate unemployment and poverty. This would remove the main causes of world wars and the need for large fighting forces. (Evening Standard, September 27th, 1944.) 

Unemployment and poverty are not solved by trade or currency reorganisation, but the worthy General is certainly getting rather warm on the causes of modern war.

Perhaps, as he has retired, now he can write this sort of thing. We can’t imagine General Montgomery telling his troops that the war is caused by unemployment and poverty, though.

Virtue is its Own Reward

The Press is already speculating on how much Parliament is going to give the heads of the fighting services when the war is won. After the last war a sum of £585,000 was voted by Parliament to be distributed to Admirals, Generals and Air Marshals.

Admiral Jellico got £50,000, as did French and Lord Allenby. Sir Hugh Trenchard got £10,000 (Air Force), Sir David Beatty £10,000, and Sir Douglas Haig £100,000 and a statue in Whitehall.

  “It seems clear that any sum voted by Parliament must considerably exceed the £585,000 of the last war,” says one London evening paper (Star, September 7th).

Oh! quite clear! And most essential to cut down on expenditure for the rank and file to do so. Those who lose limbs will lie supplied with mass-produced standardised “Woolworth” arms and legs—free of all charge. Better artificial legs—for the benefit of the workers.

Dreaming of Thee !

The following is from the Daily Mirror (October 25th, 1944):—

   Have Your Holidays by Hypnotism, says Doctor.
   Tired and jaded war workers can have all the invigorating benefits of a seaside holiday without ever going near a beach. It can all he done at home—by hypnotism.
  So, at least, says Dr. Alexander Cannon, of the Isle of Man, former psychiatrist to the L.C.C. mental hospital service.
  Dr. Cannon suggests the hypnotism may be based on a wavelength in some way common to the length of the so-called short wave.”
  “The tired and worn-out worker in this dreamland of hypnosis,” he says, “can be made to walk along the seashore on a warm, sunny day, with a cool, refreshing breeze, and to feel the magnetic power being drawn in through the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet as he leisurely walks until he feels wonderful.”
  “Having allowed this dream picture to be implanted in his mind for a period of from twenty to forty minutes,” the doctor adds, “the worker can then be awakened with no recollection of his dreamland tour but with a feeling of energy, power and revitalisation which may last anything from one to four weeks or longer.”

So this is where “psychology” has got us to. Starting out with telling us that the cause of the trouble is our repressions, going on, like Max Eastman, to inform us that the reason Karl Marx expounded scientific Socialism is because be wanted Hegel for his father, finishing up with fortune telling and psycho-analysis.

We are quite amenable to the idea of having this dream implanted on us if Dr. Cannon will undertake to implant one on our guv'nor on the same terms—viz., are will go away to the seaside for twenty minutes in our dreams, if he (the guv'nor) will agree to dream that we’ve done a week’s work and pay us for it (in real money --not dreams).

Great “Legal” Victory of the Working Class

We gather from the Socialist Appeal (September) that the quashing of the sentences of imprisonment passed on the members of the Revolutionary Communist Party is “one of the most important legal victories in the struggle against anti-labour legislation” which the working class has gained.

We must confess to some mild surprise. For ourselves, we have always held that the only real “legal victory” was when the working class captured the machinery of government (including the armed forces) by voting themselves IN and the boss OUT, which would enable them to enact and enforce laws.

Are we to understand that “revolutionary” Trotskyists have now forsaken armed insurrection and direct action for pleading at the bar of (capitalist) justice?

The New Statesmen !

Every week the New Statesman awards five shillings for the most idiotic statement published in the Press sent in by its readers.

We submit the following :— 

  Somebody should now get up, as they did in 1940-41, and point out that Southern England is part of the same battlefront as Normandy, and that the toughest part of the war is still to come. If the German threat to send rocket shells does mature, something of the sort will have to be done. I believe the response would be much as it was in 1940—production would increase and so would popular resolution. We should in our hearts all rejoice that in this war we are not “sending our sons” only, but sharing in some small way in their risks. (New Statesman, July 1st, 1944.)

Please send our five shillings award to Socialist Standard, Rugby Chambers.

New Insecticide

Reference has already been made in these colmuns to the new insecticide, D.D.T.

It is stated that this new compound has already stopped an incipient typhus epidemic in Naples, and been used with deadly effect on bugs, fleas, cockroaches, beetles, moths, lice and mosquitoes. 

It is a great preventative of malaria and dysentery. British troops now have a standard issue of D.D.T. impregnated shirts which effectively protect the wearer against lice for two months even after regular washing. (Times, August 2nd.)

It will be available to civilians after the war. So. perhaps, ends the career of some of the greatest pests of poverty-stricken workers—their poverty, however, will remain.

D.D.T. was discovered by an obscure German student chemist employed by the Basle firm of J. R. Geigy in 1874.

It lay dormant until 1942. when the British branch of the Geigy Company brought it to the notice of the British Government. What became of the inventor is not known.

Explosions for all

  “The reason given on Thursday for the dismissal recently of 1,000 war workers, 900 of them women, from a factory in the West Riding of Yorkshire was that the country is so overstocked with shells that to get rid of them, firing day and night, would take two years. “Two hundred workers are reported to have been dismissed by another Yorkshire firm, but all the 1,200 are said to have been absorbed by engineering concerns in Bradford and Leeds or given jobs as conductresses on buses in these two cities. About fifty have been permitted to return to their peace-time jobs in the textile trade.”—(Manchester Guardian, November 11th, 1944.)

Free Health (? !) Service for Workers

  “Frank statements about the methods of some medical men are made to-day by Dr. Andrew Kefalas, of Sheffield. After pointing out that one reason why many people go to the chemist instead of the doctor is that they cannot afford to pay both, he says this in the British Medical Journal:
  There is a more ugly side to this scandal and that is that so many of us neither prescribe nor dispense at all. We simply dope out stock mixtures. 

Cutting the Cards.

  For myself, I would, in case of illness, as soon lay out at half-dozen patent preparations, select one of them by cutting a pack of cards, and take my chance on the one which turned up, as swallow some of the  'mist this' and ‘mist that' which are foisted upon the people who chance the doctor instead of the chemist.” (Evening Standard, September 12th, 1944.)

“ Good God! said God. I've got MY Work Cut Out.”

  “Britain as a nation is not ready to have victory granted to her,” says Rev. A. M. Hay. of St Paul's, Braintree, Essex, “and that is why the weather—God's weather— has been almost persistently against us since D-Day.”
  Writing in the church magazine, he says: “If there is any doubt that we are not ready for victory, let us ask ourselves how are the majority of people in onr land preparing to celebrate? With revelling rather than with humble thanksgiving.”
Mr. Hay told the Daily Mirror last night: “It was God's good weather at Dunkirk and in the Battle of Britain that saved us.
  “I believe strongly that God uses the weather as an instrument in his moral government,” Mr. Hay added.

(Daily Mirror, November 9th, 1944.)

Horatio

Lights Up (1944)

From the December 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The writing is on the wall. Victory for the Anglo-American capitalist class and defeat for its German counterpart. Once more the Governments of France, Belgium, Holland are about to return after four years in London, presumably controlling the underground movements in their respective countries. Queens are returning from Canada, and Kings and Princes are polishing their buttons and medals, and shaking the moth-balls from their best uniforms, ready for the victory parade. At this stage one could ask what it was in the first place that induced them to leave, but that would create a certain awkwardness, to say the least. Besides, who are we to doubt the bravery of the ruling class?

Older members of the working class, with not too short memories, will remember the victory parades of the last war—the military displays, the victory balls, bands playing, flags waving, etc., etc. Perhaps, too, they will remember the days of the General Strike and the slump years of the late twenties and early thirties, when the ruling class made wholesale onslaughts on their standard of living—the dole queues, the hunger marches, the means test.

This was the interlude between the two world wars, and even to the most obtuse members of the working class it must have been painfully obvious that there were two classes in society, and that they (the working class) were to have all the pleasures and thrills which accompany job-seeking, bringing up a family, paying rent, and in general keeping the proverbial wolf from the door. For the capitalist class there was roulette at Monte Carlo, a bungalow on the Riviera, the playground of Nice, a trip to the Mediterranean or Florida.

Sun-chasing has been a popular pastime with our masters. In latter years several of these places have proved just a bit too warm, so they have had to content themselves with a shooting lodge in Scotland, a fishing trip on the lochs, or maybe a few racehorses.

The contrast between the classes is so striking that one constantly wonders why it is that the most useful section in society, the working class, don't set about the job of finding a solution to the problem—that most peculiar problem of poverty in the midst of plenty. This social phenomenon has its roots in the capitalist system of production, and will persist as long as capitalism persists. Sooner or later the workers will tackle this state of affairs, and we feel sure of the result. A social system which breeds slums, disease, malnutrition, poverty and war must go, and capitalism as such cannot possibly survive without the acquiescence of that overwhelming majority—the working class. No doubt its demise would come much quicker were it not for the existence of reformist organisations, who, even granting them the best possible intentions, do no more than cloud the issue and generally land up either hand in glove with the capitalist class or else go out of existence.

The black-out has been replaced by dim-out. but we are very much afraid that when the lights finally go up they will illuminate the same old sombre surroundings, the filthy poverty for the wage slave, the wealth and opulence for the capitalist parasite. To prophesy in detail is both foolish and dangerous and would avail nothing, but we in the Socialist Party of Great Britain are not posing as political Isaiahs when we say that the transition from war to peace will not be the smooth running affair that our politicians, and planners fondly imagine. The working class have been subjected to all sorts of controls and anti-working class legislation. These they have accepted with little or no demur. They have watched the formation of new political groups, the political chicanery of others—life-long enemies drinking each others toasts and becoming friends and bed-mates.

The trend of events plus the attendant inconsistencies and contradictions of capitalism at war has given the worker food for thought, sharpened his political wits, and in general made him more wary. Consequently the task of changing the wartime harness for the peacetime chains isn't going to be an easy one. and the apostles of the status quo and "the good clean healthy competition” school are going to have a. few spanners in their planning mechanism before this delicate operation is over.

Without being unduly optimistic, we regard this as a healthy sign because workers who are critical of existing conditions will be more receptive to the Socialist idea; and will ultimately join with the S.P.G.B. in working for the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism. In the meantime our advice to workers of all lands remains unaltered. Comrades, arm yourselves with the most potent of all weapons—Socialist knowledge.

Jim D'Arcy

The Future of China. (1944)

From the December 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The history of China during the last hundred years is intimately bound up with the expanding capitalist production of Britain, France, Russia, U.S.A. and Japan in that period. These powers not only struggled with the Chinese, but also amongst themselves for access to the vast market and abundant supply of raw materials which exist in China. That struggle is still raging, but there are signs that it is being resolved.

It would be interesting, as well as useful for the purpose of this article, if we could examine in some detail the salient features of the struggle from 1842 to 1921, but a detailed analysis is precluded by the lack of space due to war-time paper rationing.

With the overthrow of the antiquated and corrupt Manchu Monarchy and the formation of the Republic in 1911, the newly arisen capitalist class had to solve many problems if they were to maintain and strengthen their hold on the State. The instrument which they had fashioned to lead the forces of the republican revolution, the Kuo Min Tang (National People’s Party), was developed to meet the new situation. Reactionary forces were threatening the survival of the revolutionary movement, and had to be eliminated. The conception of nationalism had to be inculcated in the “village-minded” peasantry. Much of the tradition and ideology natural to an agrarian economy had to be dissipated. This was achieved to some extent, partly by propaganda, and as far as possible by modernising the economy.

It was imperative to unify the provinces by establishing a firm centralised authority over them. Not least amongst the problems to be solved was how to compel the foreign powers to relinquish their extra-territorial rights, which were a very serious obstacle in the way of complete native sovereignty. Apart from these sharply defined issues, the country was sunk in indescribable chaos—“War Lordism,” famines, floods and disease were making life a nightmare existence. Nevertheless, the Kuo Min Tang pursued its objective, which is the transformation of China into a modern capitalist state, as the following will show :—

   The teachings bequeathed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Republic and founder of the Kuo Mill Tang, who died in 1925, form the ideological basis of the Kuo Min Tang rule in China. His trilogy, the San Min Clin I, or the Three People’s Principles of nationalism, political democracy and economic democracy, constitutes the highest guiding principles in China. The new China he had in mind is free, independent, possesses equality in its relations with other nations of the world, and is a country wherein the people will have a constitutional form of government. There will also be an equitable distribution of wealth through the enforcement of three policies—the equalisation of land ownership, the development of state capital, and the regulation of private capital. (“China after Five Years of War,’’ page 30. Chinese News Service (official). New York.)

The Kuo Min Tang does not label the above as “Socialism”; indeed, its spokesmen go out of their way to make it clear that they are opposed to Socialism.

By 1921 some of the aforementioned problems had been tackled and partially solved. Nationalism had taken hold of a large section of the people. Some reactionary and rival military governments had been smashed. The scourge of “War-Lordism” had still to be eradicated, when a new trouble appeared. The so-called Communist Party of China came into existence, and in the years up to 1927 recruited military forces and set up soviets in certain provinces. As the Kuo Min Tang regards itself as the only legitimate political party in the land, it quickly manifested its violent opposition to the "communists,'' whom it accused of being under the influence of Soviet Russia.

However, as a matter of expediency, Gen. Chiang Kai shek, who had assumed national leadership, entered into an alliance with the “communist” armies for the purpose of crushing the War-Lords. When this job was completed, he broke with the “communists,” and carried out a massacre amongst them in Shanghai in 1928. These two moves enabled the Kuo Min Tang to extend its rule not only to Shanghai, but to a large area of central territory. The remnants of the “communist” armies fled to (he West and North-West.

Meanwhile, Soviet Russia, if not openly annexing the vast border provinces of Sinkiang and Outer Mongolia, had gained control of them by setting up puppet “communist” governments. Britain countered the potential Russian threat to India (in the case of Sinkiang) and her interests in China by increasing her influence in Tibet, another Chinese border province adjoining Sinkiang. Japan countered Russia move by establishing a puppet regime in Inner Mongolia, and invading Manchuria in 1931 for the additional purpose of preparing a springboard for the invasion of China proper.

Britain and the U.S.A. (to say nothing of the minor powers which possess interests in China) were uneasy at the growing menace to their extensive interests by the Japanese and Russian encroachments. But they were not agreed how to deal with the menace.

The Kuo Min Tang was in no position to offer successful resistance to the Japanese annexation of Manchuria, so its attention was again focussed on the “communist” controlled provinces. After a series of sanguinary campaigns lasting until 1934, the “communists” were finally driven to the north-west of the country, and the Kuo Min Tang settled down to developing economic resources. A blockade of the so-called “Soviet Republic of China” was instituted by the National army pending an opportunity to smash it.

Japan struck again in July, 1937, with the object of “beating China to her knees.” In September of the same year, the Communist Party of China rallied to the support of the Kuo Min Tang government: —

    . . . on September 22nd the Chinese Communist Party issued a formal declaration wherein it pledged to fight for the realisation of Dr. Sun’s principles, to abandon its policy of insurrections which formerly were aimed at the overthrow of the Kuo Min Tang's political power, to abandon its policy of land confiscation and subversive propaganda, to abolish the system of soviet government, to reorganise the Red Army and to place it under the unified command of the National Military Council.

(“China after Five Years of War,” page 32.)

Gen. Cbiang Kai-shek accepted this pledge, and expressed the hope that the “communists” would abide by it.

The unity in the years which followed has been more apparent than real. In its issue dated May 1st, 1944, Life magazine summarises the attitude of the Kuo Min Tang to the Communists and vice-versa :—

    The case of the Nationalists against the Communists is explicit. They claim that unity comes before all else, that the nation cannot be strong nor its army powerful if there are two governments independent of each other, two armies under independent command, if the Communists make their own laws, print their own currency and give no obedience to central authority.
     The Communists on the other hand, claim that so long as they receive no supplies from the central government they need give it no allegiance. They claim that they cannot yield up their independence of action for a share in the Nationalist state unless it is a democratic state in which they have freedom of speech, assembly and press. Were they to give up their armies and their independent areas and submit themselves to the present governing group, they would be wiped out as a political entity and many would lose their lives. (Page 109, “Life Looks at China.”)

It is amusing to observe the communists’ concern for democracy: like the Kuo Min Tang, they would not tolerate the existence of Socialists or any other political group in their midst.

The Chinese Government is very touchy on the subject of national unity: it is afraid lest its Allies take advantage of any weakness resulting from a cleavage, hence the heavy censorship imposed on news of communist activities. Although the Chinese Government has never renounced its claim to sovereignty over Russian controlled Sunkiang and Outer Mongolia, it has to exercise restraint over this question, because of the presence of the powerful “communist” armies in other parts of China. Moreover, Russia might cease trading vital war materials with the Chinese. Russia, no less than Britain and the U.S.A., is deeply involved in the sordid game of power politics.

A hint of what may well be the official U.S.A. attitude towards Russian aspirations in China is given in the editorial of Life (August 1st, 1944):—

   For half a century U.S. policy in Asia has stood soundly for a strong China. . . .
  The U.S. needs and wants China as her firm friend in Asia. Why? Not for military security alone; for that purpose, friendship with Russia would suffice, or even an alliance with Japan. (Our italics.) We need China because she is a great potential force for freedom and democracy in Asia. If China should cease to be that, and go the way Japan went, we could not long stay friends.
  The longest border in the world is that between China and Russia. In view of the mounting tension between the Kuo Min Tang and the Chinese Communists, this border may be the world's most dangerous spot after the defeat of Japan. If the geopolitical interests Of Russia and the U.S. must clash anywhere (which they must not), it may be on that border. The nature of our post-war relations with China may therefore be a matter of peace or war for the U.S.

Notwithstanding the passing reference to “freedom and democracy” in the above quotation, could there be anything more revealing of the true nature of the struggle in the East?

Within the narrow limits of an article, we have tried to indicate the trend of China's development, which is often obscured by the maelstrom of international power politics.

Workers throughout the world are becoming increasingly interested in China, but their sympathies are not always identical. Some regard the Kuo Min Tang Government as “progressive,” inasmuch that it professes its intention to establish democracy and raise the standard of life of the people. Others support the “communist-soviet” regime and hope that it will succeed in sovietising all China. Neither of these attitudes is in the interests of the common people of China or the rest of the world. Whichever regime emerges, the masses will be enslaved to some form of capitalism.

Therefore Socialists are hostile to all the rival contenders for power in China. Our sympathies are whole-heartedly with the common people, who for decades have endured horror upon horror. Is there a way to put an end to their sufferings? There surely is. The workers of all lands—especially in Britain, U.S.A., Canada, Germany, and other advanced industrialised countries—must resolve to do away with capitalism and establish in its place international Socialism. The Socialist Party and its companion parties abroad are playing their part by helping the workers to get hold of Socialist knowledge—the pre-requisite for this task. Once established in the advanced areas, Socialism would quickly bring countries like China into line. The masses of China would not be slow to realise the incomparable advantages of common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.

The international working class will triumph in the end: meanwhile, let us redouble our efforts to bring the end nearer.

H. G. Holt

Poverty in Australia (1944)

Book Review from the December 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Poverty of the People in Australia," by F. Oswald Harnett and A. G. Pearson, M.A. Published by The Good Companions Christian Social Order Group, 422, Collins Street, Melbourne.

There was a time, well within the lifetime of those of middle age, when Australia gained a reputation abroad as a world leader in the field of Social Reform, And some so-called Socialist Parties proclaimed the achievement of Socialism in Australia.

About the same time Australian Capitalist Governments and astute shipping companies cooperated to advertise Australia throughout the old world as “The Land of Gold and Sunshine," and to spread the lie that poverty was non-existent in Australia. Prospective immigrants were supplied gratis with pamphlets showing glowing pictures of model homesteads, herds of cattle standing knee deep in water by the river's edge, with the vista of a prosperous countryside behind them.

The unfortunate immigrant, befooled by the stupidities of the so-called Socialists or the clever propaganda of the Governments and their commission-chasing allies, soon received a hard lesson in the difference between the ideal and the real, between propaganda and fact. Once arrived on the shores of the Great South Land, he discovered that, while there was land and gold in plenty, most of what was worth having had been grabbed long before by Johnny-on-tbe-spot—the Australian capitalist, and that sunshine as a staple article of diet is quite unsatisfactory. He also discovered the harsh reality that lay behind all this specious propaganda—that the towns and cities of Australia were just as full of poverty, misery and unemployment as the land he had left, and that Australian capitalism desired cheap labour for the already established farmers, and he found himself compelled to work under conditions and for wages which the native white Australian regarded as the last refuge of the otherwise incompetent.

The pamphlet under review shows clearly that the conditions which then existed, still exist, and that 30 years after the outbreak of the First World War the victory over poverty has still to be achieved in Australia, as elsewhere. The work consists of two articles, one by each of the authors named above, and they prove conclusively, on the basis of the statistics gathered and tabulated by the Commonwealth Statistician and by other equally competent authorities, that poverty is widespread even in times of so-called prosperity. So easy is their task that Mr. Barnett says, “One is almost embarrassed at the wealth of the material available."

As members, of the working class, Socialists need no reassurance, either from the Commonwealth Statistician or the Good Companions, as to the existence of poverty, misery and unemployment; they have been part of our everyday experience. However, the pamphlet will be valuable to those whose limited experience renders such proof necessary. After considering the statistics of the Commonwealth Census completed for June 30th, 1933. and the report of the Slum Abolition and Rehousing Board (Melbourne, 1936), Mr. Barnett says:—

It is thus established that—
   (1) In 1933 more than three-fifths of the male breadwinners in the Commonwealth (20 years of age or over) were receiving less than the basic wage.
  (2) At the same time more than one-half of the married men of the Commonwealth received less than the basic wage.
  (3) In 1936 the survey of the industrial areas of Melbourne revealed that at least 6,000 families in Melbourne were living in houses unfit for human habitation, and the total income of these families averaged £2 10s. 4d. per family.
  Quoting his conclusions as a result of a personal survey of thr working-class suburb of Fitzroy (Melbourne), he says on page 6:—   More than two-thirds of its poorest inhabitants are classed as ordinary decent citizens, whose only crime is their abject poverty. . . . The attempt to blame the poor for their poverty is either the result of ignorance or the desire to avoid the real issues that are involved. 

Speaking of unemployment, Mr. Barnett says (page 7):

"The present economic system demands a vast pool of idle labour. Into the pool men are thrust when times are slack, out of the pool they are drawn when times are good. . . . A little thought will show that unemployment and casual labour are the inevitable product of the present so-called system, the main characteristic of which, as Mr. H. G. Wells points out, is the entire absence of system."

Here, again, Socialists have the advantage of Mr. Barnett and Mr. Wells, for this discovery of the inevitability of unemployment under capitalism is an old story to us; not only from bitter personal experience hut also because Karl Marx demonstrated the necessity of an industrial reserve army (the unemployed) and the inevitability of its progressive growth under capitalism about 80 years ago. (See "Capital,” Vol. 1. Chapter XXV., Sect, 3, pp. 642 et seq. W. Glaisher, Ed.)

The second article in the pamphlet under review, written by Mr. Pearson, reinforces and brings up to date Mr. Barnett's demonstration of the failure of Australian capitalism to provide an adequate standard of living for the great mass of the population. As a concise and adequate proof of the Socialist's contention that capitalism and poverty are inseparable, we can heartily recommend the pamphlet. It is when we come to consider the solution offered for the lamentable conditions so vividly described therein, that we part company with the authors.

Divested of its religious trimmings and put into plain language, it is just another variant of State or State-controlled capitalism, and while a development in this direction seems inevitable in the immediate future, it will result in no more than the reorganisation of poverty.

The solution of the poverty problem lies in the hands of those who suffer most from it—the working class, and can only be achieved when that class realises its historic mission, when, freed from tho illusions bred by capitalism and fostered by religion, it goes forward to solve for ever the problem of poverty by establishing Socialism.

F. F. W. 

(Reproduced from “Socialist Comment,” April-May, 1944, published by Socialist Party of Australia.)