War and Increased Production (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Over a year has passed since military operations on a large scale were temporarily suspended and the economic struggle between sections of the capitalist class was resumed with renewed vigour, reinforced by the enormous speed up in productive operations by the application of war-time discoveries to peace-time production. The Conservatives and the Labour Party are at one in claiming a heartfelt desire for lasting peace, but the seeds of fresh wars are being sewn with a prodigal hand.

U.N.O.

Between the last Government and the Labour Government there is a continuity in foreign and domestic policy; support of the United Nations Organisation, an intensive drive for export trade, and a campaign for increased production per worker. At the Trade Union Congress these were also the principal issues and the Congress gave its support, even if somewhat grudgingly, to the Labour Party’s programme.

The United Nations Organisation bears a misleading title; firstly, because it is not united, and secondly, because it only includes some of the nations, many are still excluded from its charmed circle. It is completely dominated by the deliberations of four governments, England, Russia, the United States, and France, who watch each other suspiciously, spitting and scratching like angry cats most of the time; harmony is the one thing that is conspicuously absent from their conferences. Referring to the draft Peace Treaties that had so far emerged, the Manchester Guardian (10/7/46) commented: “Each one is a compromise between rival powers who openly fear and distrust each other.” Mr. Ernest Thurtle, Labour M.P. for Shoreditch, wrote in the Sunday Express (1/9/46): “Let me confess that I, along with other Labour candidates at the General Election, in stressing the importance of good relations with Russia, avowed confidently that a Labour Government would win the co-operation of the Soviet. We believed that. How wrong we were! ” Finally the News Chronicle (18/10/46) reports the following item from Washington, from the United Nations Organisation itself: "Sir John Boyd Orr, Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation, said here to-day that there was only a fifty-fifty chance of avoiding a third and disastrously final World War.” Thus the early operations of U.N.O. are anything but encouraging. In fact a fatalistic feeling is seeping into people’s minds that another war is inevitable; even Mr. Churchill is abandoning his flummery and returning to his anti-Russia bias, in spite of the fact that the United States, France, or some not yet obvious power, may be the next "aggressor.”

All over the world shipping lines, air lines, oil lines, spheres of influence and markets are subjects of bitter diplomatic strife between capitalists of leading and smaller countries. In these, circumstances can there be such a thing as a United Nations policy that will outlaw war? While the present organisation of society exists the answer is emphatically no, and the reason is not hard to understand as the impotent League of Nations bore witness.

The Basis of Wars.

Capitalism is a system whose roots are embedded in conflict. We have to face the fact that goods are produced to-day, under a Labour Government just as under a Conservative Government, for the sole purpose of profit; this profit is only realised when the goods are sold, and in order that they may be sold they must be marketed in competition with each other. Competition determines that goods shall be produced as cheaply as possible, and this in turn means that as much production as possible shall be extracted from the workers at as small a cost in wages as the workers are prepared to accept, which also includes obtaining raw materials from the cheapest source of supply. These conditions are the basis of wars. The hectic scramble for markets and sources of supply, as well as trade routes, culminates in war when threats and diplomatic jiggery pokery fail to give sections of the capitalists, in their internal strife, the sought-for supremacy in the limited markets of the world.

Work Hard For The Dole Queue.

The real object of the campaign for more production is to capture markets for the British capitalist, as well as increasing the profit obtained from the workers’ toil. When Mr. Eden spoke at the Metropolitan Music Hall on November 2nd, he put the capitalist outlook clearly: “We shall soon be exposed to international trade competition that may be even more serious than before the war. The sellers market will not last for ever. The only solution to these problems is to increase production per man-hour throughout British industry.” But will this solve any of the workers’ problems? In June, 1919, Sir Walter Runciman wrote in the Daily News (30/6/1919): “Now that peace is signed, the first necessity for the British Empire and for the world is to get trade going everywhere. . . . Only by a full stream of trade can the flow of goods between all peoples wipe out hunger, misery and unemployment, and probably anarchy.” The Labour Party then, as now, blindly swallowed the bait. Subsequently London was placarded with posters (some of you may remember them) displaying the faces of prominent members of the Labour Party with the phrase, in large letters, “PRODUCE MORE.” Two years later the inevitable happened; the markets were over-stocked, production slowed down, the workers had worked themselves out of jobs and “hunger, misery and unemployment” stalked the land. We have no hesitation in prophesying a similar result from the present campaign; it is a foregone conclusion. Not only will the export drive in itself help to saturate the market, but the exporting of plant and machinery will do what it has always done, help the capitalists of other lands to participate in the work of over-stocking the markets all the more rapidly. Capitalists are always exporting their own trade competition in this way, and, although they know it, the lure of profit is too much for them. When the struggle for markets has reached the peak of intensity the shadow of war becomes ominous; capitalists will not lose the privilege of reaping the results of the exploitation of workers without the resort to armed conflict, particularly as these same workers may be pursuaded to risk their lives in their masters’ battles. Terrible though the prospects of the last war were, the capitalist class of the world did not hesitate; in spite of the threat of rockets and atom bombs you may be assured that they will not hesitate next time, as the present concentration on large scale means of destruction makes clearly evident. The profit motive kills all human feelings and excuses the most fiendish brutality.

New Frauds For Old!

In 1919 the League of Nations was constituted with the avowed object of preventing war; now it is the United Nations. One of the provisions of the League was the necessity of unanimity before action could be taken; the same provision binds the action of the United Nations and the resulting futility has already been demonstrated, particularly by the actions of the Russian delegates. The United Nations has only the power of the governments that decide to hang together, and this decision is determined by the economic interests of the governments concerned; the League of Nations was in a similar position and fell to pieces when the unity dissolved into war. When different governments lined up in opposition, which neither League nor United Nations can prevent, the mighty edifice of the League collapsed like the house of cards it was. When the conflicting trade interests of capitalist sections reach a point where each is prepared to gamble on the outcome of war, all fine phrases about world unity are drowned in vituperating the other fellow for pulling the trigger. The Labour Party issued a leaflet (“The Citizen”) in September, 1933, on the back of which they said: "At this period of unrest the Labour Party affirms its unshaken belief in the policy of arbitration and in the machinery of the League of Nations.” Now, in spite of the catastrophe that overtook the world in 1939, they are backing a similar sham solution for war to the joy of the exploiters of labour.

The Only Solution.

There is only one solution to the problem of war, removal of its cause. War arises out of the private property basis of capitalism, which drives capitalist sections into conflict over the disposal of the wealth produced by the worker. This conflict will only disappear when the workers of the world take possession of the means of production and distribute products freely wherever they are needed. Then there will not be markets to fight for because buying and selling will have been abolished. Socialism is the only solution to the problem of war in the modern world.

Editorial: The Slippery Slopes of Labourism (1946)

Editorial from the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to R. L. Stevenson, “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." He put into words what Labour Party supporters learn in the hard way about Labour governments. They march hopefully towards their appointed goal only to discover when they reach it that it was not where they wanted to be. They ought then to stop and ask themselves whether they have been on the right road; instead they start denouncing the MacDonald or the Attlee whom they chose to lead them. It has not taken long for the cleavage to come in the ranks of the present Labour Government. In the House of Commons, on November 18th, well over a hundred Labour M.P.s— though they would not actually vote against their own Government—forcibly expressed their dislike of its foreign policy by abstaining from voting. The Government got its vote of confidence, 353 to nil, with the help of many Tory M.P.s. It is a symptom of a spreading discontent with the Labour Government, which carries on a foreign policy largely taken over from its Conservative predecessors. One Labour writer, Mr. Hannen Swaffer, claims that it is supported by millions of trade unionists. He quoted one of the Labour M.P.s as saying: “We are heading for war. We had to do something about it” (People, 17/11/46).

The failure of the “rebels" to back their condemnatory speeches with their votes was a farcical end to the revolt, and naturally the Tories jeered, but for many sincere supporters of the Labour Party it is the beginning of a tragedy, the tragedy of seeing the Government of their choice turn its back on long- proclaimed hopes and pledges.

How the minds of the Labour Ministers are working was shown by several revealing passages in their speeches, the keynote being that the fine words of pre-election programmes have little bearing on the realities of the world as it is. Prime Minister Mr. Attlee trounced the rebel Labour M.P.s and charged them with holding views “which . . . do not correspond with the facts and which are based upon profound misapprehension of the inevitable conditions under which foreign affairs are conducted ’’ (Hansard, Nov. 18th, col. 589). He defended Mr. Bevin with the plea that "he is not the slave of an abstract theory. He is a practical man of affairs seeking to get things done." This was ever the defence of the politician who won't or can't fulfil the rosy hopes he held out before entering office. Mr. Dalton, defending the Government's decision to retain conscription, put it more crudely when he begged one of the Labour rebels “not to mistake catch phrases of long ago for the realities of to-day.’’

The real tragedy, from a working-class standpoint, is that the sincere Labour supporters of both sides fail to see why the present situation was bound to arise. To the rebels it appears merely that Mr. Bevin is the wrong man with the wrong policy for Foreign Secretary. To the loyal majority, on the other hand, it appears necessary to drop impractical ideals and be realists. Neither side will face up to the stubborn fact that foreign policy is determined by the position the Labour Government occupies of trying to administer capitalism in a capitalist world.

Some of the rebels would, no doubt, like to vote in accordance with their uneasy feeling that it is wrong for a Labour Government to be in this position, but their fatal weakness is that they have not got backing in their constituencies. One loyal Labour M.P., Mr. W. Nally, took refuge behind the views, held “rightly or wrongly," of “ the average man in the average pub." It is, of course, true, as we have always maintained, that until the “average man" has been won over from his wrong ideas to Socialism, no other policy is possible than a capitalist policy.

It is not only in foreign affairs that Labour Government deeds are destroying the confidence and enthusiasm of Labour supporters. On the home front the Labour Party is in wholesale—though, as yet, not fully recognised—retreat. As long as the Labour Party has been in existence its most prominent propagandists have given lip-service to the Socialist condemnation of the capitalist system for its “profit motive." Now a changed line has been announced without any attempt being made first to get it endorsed by the members of the Labour Party. This line was defined by Mr. Herbert Morrison in a speech at Birmingham, reported in the Daily Herald (October 28th, 1946). “There is no need," he said, “to abolish the profit motive,” all that is required is to rid it of abuses. Three days later the Daily Herald told its readers that one of the reasons for the Labour Government's drive for increased production and the most economical use of labour was that these are essential “to preserve the real value of both wages and profits" (Daily Herald, 31/10/46). Many Labour voters will be astonished to learn that one of the objects of their Party is to “preserve the real value of profits." Some may ask themselves, too, how the present policy of discouraging wage increases fits in with pre-election promises and with the increase of M.P.s’ salaries from £600 to £1,000 a year in April last. They may also notice a significant exception, the increase of police pay by 15s. a week. The Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, rather indiscreetly let the cat out of that bag when he stated that he hopes the increase will produce a contented police force “to enable us to deal with the difficult circumstances which still confront us and will confront us for some months ahead” (Times, 18/11/46). A few days later one “difficult circumstance” occurred in Manchester, where the police came into conflict with bus workers out on strike.

Many other examples can be found of the widening gulf between promise and performance. In 1944 Mr. E. Bevin said that after the war “There will be . . . no fear of unemployment for several years” (People, 26/11/44). Recently we have seen Mr. Marquand’s admissions about possible industrial depressions, and Mr. Morrison’s confession that no government can guarantee full employment ” (Reynolds News, 27/10/46). Already unemployment is not far below the 400,000 mark.

Then there is the question of taxation of profits and of big incomes. Mr. Dalton, who reduced Excess Profits Tax this year by 40 per cent., also told the House of Commons, on November 18th, 1946, that he hoped gradually to diminish Surtax (the tax levied on incomes above £2,000 a year), but that the financial burden of conscription means that "Surtax will not be able to be reduced quite so rapidly as it otherwise would have been” (Hansard, 18/11/46, col. 630). On November 13th, addressing the Fabian Society, Mr. Dalton blandly threw overboard the Labour Party’s very old claim that direct taxation (income tax, etc.) is better for the workers than indirect taxation (taxes on tobacco, beer, etc). "The old idea that direct taxation is, in all circumstances, better than indirect taxation has been disproved by recent experience ” (Daily Worker, 14/11/46).

Lastly, on November 14th, Mr. Eden entertained the House of Commons by quoting from Mr. Strachey’s “Why You Should be a Socialist” (revised and republished in 1944) a sweeping condemnation of the increased production stunt that Mr. Strachey and the rest of the Government are busily preaching up and down the country. Though capitalism is now run by the Labour Party, it is just as true as when Mr. Strachey wrote it that "however hard the workers work, they will remain workers, and poor workers at that. Hard work will not make the workers any richer.”

Another group that has turned a somersault like Mr. Strachey is the Communist Party, with which he used to associate. They used to be all against the "work harder” campaign and are now all for it, and on the same day that the vote of confidence took place in the House (their two M.P.s abstaining) the Times published an interview with M. Thorez Secretary-General of the French Communist Party, in which he boasted that the French miners are now producing 15 per cent. more than before the war as a direct response to the Communist Party’s appeal. He went on to assure the readers of the Tory Times that if his Party became the Government of France they have no intention of abolishing capitalism: —

  "We repeated deliberately in our electoral campaign that we do not ask a mandate to apply a strictly Communist programme—one, that is, resting on a radical transformation of the present regime of property and of the conditions of production that flow from that. 'We have put forward a programme of national reconstruction, such as all democrats may accept, including some nationalisation, but also the support of medium and small industrial and craft undertakings, and the defence of present property against the trusts’” (Times, 18/11/46.)

The lesson to be drawn from this spectacle of British Labour Party dissension and of compromise with capitalism in Britain and France is that the whole policy of trying to operate capitalism is fallacious and full of danger for the working class. What the workers need is not Labour Party or Communist Party administration of Capitalism, but its abolition and replacement by Socialism; but that will be done only when a majority have been won over to Socialism, and the instruments for its accomplishment will not be the Labour and Communist Parties.

Whose Brains? A Question For Mr. J. R. Clynes (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having landed themselves in a false position by taking over the capitalist government, while professing sympathy with the working class, the Labour Party have no alternative but to adopt the capitalist policy and attitude towards the workers. Hence their repeated appeals for harder work combined with restraint in wage demands. Some of the Labour leaders are doing their best to inject into the workers’ minds a sense of humility by comparison of their tasks with those of big business. Mr. J. R. Clynes, for instance, on a recent occasion, caused immense satisfaction to leader writers in the Press when he gave utterance to the following:—

  "Workmen, for the most part, move in a narrow circle, and are not in a position to measure the service of others. They cannot know the part which brains play in the pursuit of trade and business.” (Daily Sketch, 19/3/46).

In modern industry the intricate sub-division of labour makes it well nigh impossible for any one section of workers to know much about the details of other sections. But there is one fact of which they can all be aware, that their combined efforts are responsible for all the wealth produced. Furthermore, the real brainwork involved in securing trade and business is done by members of the working class. Commercial travellers and advertisers push the goods on the market. Office clerks keep records of sales, costs and overhead charges, and prepare the balance sheet for the director, who reads it and congratulates the share holders.

Nearly all concerns to-day work on orders. When orders fall off it is not long before workers become redundant. So that when the trade and business chasers fall down on their job the workers bear the brunt. It works like that. No orders, no work; no work, no wages; no wages, no orders. For if wages cannot buy back the wealth produced, the dole certainly cannot. But what about the director? If he moves at all, he most certainly moves in a narrow circle. He sanctions an increase in the number employed when orders come in. He deplores the necessity to sack them when orders fall off. To the share holders he is either a financial genius or an attractive figurehead. At general meetings he informs the shareholders, with an assumption of dignity and a natural complacency, that they have the double satisfaction of earning a rich reward and serving a public need. The ordinary shareholders, knowing little or nothing about how it is done, take their reward and look round for like opportunities to serve the public on similar terms. We search in vain among this dividend-hungry crowd for any evidence of brains being actively engaged in useful work.

   "Managers, superintendents, designers, inventors, directors and the like are far removed from the workers’ sphere,” says Mr. Clynes.

As far as managers and superintendents are concerned, this statement is untrue. .They are normally drawn from the rank and file and still belong to the working class. They understand and supervise the technical processes, performing a useful function all the more efficiently because of their training in the actual work. But their main task is to keep down costs, and they have at their command foremen in every department to speed up workers and machines. The foreman's aim is to become a manager, and the average worker knows in his own mind that he is quite as capable as his foreman to induce or drive his fellow workers. In a concern where understudies are ready to take over from the highest to the lowest none are far removed except that some understudies are appointed and some are not.

Designers are men and women who have qualified in art schools and technical colleges for the job. They work, for the most part, in studios and workshops under the supervision of someone who has acquired his skill in the same way. In fabrics, pottery, motorcar and shipbuilding this practice is general. The designer knows only the one job. The actual work of production is as much a sealed book to him as the supervising. He works for wages, is dependent on wages for a living, and is consequently a member of the working class.

Inventors to-day are in much the same position. They work in groups under supervision, a method that has been largely accelerated during the war. They have been regularised as a section of the working class and are exploited in the same way as the rest. Inventors no longer work independently, except in an amateurish way on gadgets of a personal kind, or for minor purposes in the home, etc. In their present position and status their ability can be directed into the channels required by their masters. Their relation to the capitalist has changed but little. The capitalist has always sucked their brains. In the old days they suffered from the lack of funds to enable them to drive a bargain, or were deliberately cheated of their inventions.

All this applies with equal force to the scientist. All have been brought under the wing of big business Their value has been assessed according to what it costs to produce them, no doubt enhanced because they are in short supply. But competition for such jobs Increases in proportion as work in the lower grades becomes more arduous, insecure and unremunerative. Mr. Clynes continues:—

  “The complex aspects of industry and its national and international problems are beyond the man. The tendency to look at our national problem from just our own group standard is nearly a common mistake."

That tendency is most strikingly in evidence in the attitude of the Labour Government towards the workers. They promised an era of prosperity under Socialism if returned to power, only to find themselves confined within the narrow limits of the same old capitalist system, which they are bound to defend in the face of ever-growing resentment and hostility from the workers.

  "Community interest is often upset by the vigour of a class prejudice."

In this last statement Mr. Clynes has managed to include two quite contradictory ideas. There can be no community interest in a society made up of two opposing classes, which is the actual condition in every capitalist country. Where, as in society to-day, one class owns the means of life, the rest, the working class, are enslaved. A class that is enslaved must be hostile to the master class, though, as yet, they only show it by demanding an increased share of the wealth they produce.

Mr. Clynes’s assumption of community interest is based on the lie that the capitalist class provide work and wages, thus enabling them to live. They provide neither. Wages are paid out of wealth previously produced and taken from the workers, and if orders do not come in there is no work to be provided.

There can only be a real community of interests when the working class carry their antagonism to its logical conclusion and organise for the sole purpose of establishing community ownership of the means of life.

F. Foan

The Last Hope of Humanity (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

We must abolish war. The alternative is wholesale destruction of life by the new and, as yet, little developed method of atom-bomb warfare. Millions of people who visit cinemas will have seen a film that was unearthly and strangely fascinating as a picture but horrifying in its significance. The film recorded the exploding at Bikini of the fifth atom bomb. The audience watched in silence.

After the 1914-18 war, many people thought the world was entering an era of peace. With the ending of a second world war it would be difficult to find anyone who would forecast even 10 years of peace between the major powers. Indeed, as our newspapers tell us quite openly, the major powers of the world are spending large sums of money on developing schemes for defensive and offensive warfare. No one knows whom they are going to attack or who is going to attack them. It is a vast game of “just in case.” The sad fact remains that the peoples of the world view with apathy all the preparations for war, even the increasing “efficiency’’ of the latest instrument of death. As long as people feel there is no immediate danger to themselves or their loved ones they are prepared to let things “work themselves out.” Nevertheless, the inhuman act of using atom bombs on Japan had its effect on the minds of millions of people. It will be a difficult task for the government of any country to gain the support of its people in a future war. The unpleasant alternatives to war used as threats in the past, such as fascism, loss of freedom, invasion by a foreign power, lowered standard of living, and so on, lose much of their terror when compared with the wholesale obliteration of towns.

One ray of hope emerges from the terrifying events of the day. The will to survive is strong enough to make people question the necessity of war, and, in doing so, they will try to discover its cause. In seeking the cause of wars, we start on the road to understanding something about the system of society under which we live to-day, known as Capitalism. Under this system, the supply of the necessities of life and life itself have become subordinate to an essential characteristic of Capitalism—the sale of goods at a profit. Once we understand that the root-cause of all wars is the need of rivalling groups to control sources of raw materials and markets for the finished goods, it then becomes an easy matter to accept the Socialist case as the way out.

In the Socialist world there will be no boundaries to countries. The world will become a single unit. It will not be necessary for people to fight for food or living room or a “standard of living,” or any of the thousand and one reasons given from time to time to various nations in order to gain the support of the people in a war. In the Socialist world the people will produce food and clothing and build houses for all. The natural wealth of the world is more than enough to amply satisfy the needs of all humans, be they Jews, Arabs, Indians or English. There need be no shortages. The necessity for struggle as a means of deciding which section of the world's people shall have access to the products of the world has long since passed away. Money and wars will become fantastic memories together with atom bombs just as soon as the people of the world lift their miserable, bowed heads and listen to the teaching of Socialism, the last hope of humanity.

K. M.

Endnotes (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Price Nationalisation? Mr. Shlnwell Tells the Miners

After Mr. W. Lawther, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, had told delegates at the Labour Party Conference that the miners are impatient for better conditions, Mr. Shinwell, Minister of Fuel, disclosed the attitude of the Labour Government.

He said:—

    “You are not entitled to ask from us what you were always unable to gain from the private owner.”

(Daily Telegraph, 12/6/46.) 

This was received, says the Telegraph, with "cheers and some dissent.” The miners are in process of learning that nationalisation or State capitalism solves none of their problems.

"Progress"

   "The poorest people in pre-war unemployment areas are certainly consuming more than they did in 1938.”

(C. R. Attlee, House of Commons, 27/2/46. Daily Herald, 28/2/46.)

  "Half a dozen social surveys carried out in British cities in the decade before 1939 showed that, at the prevailing wage rates, the normal wage-earner, even in steady employment, barely earned enough to keep two adults and three children out of ill-health.”

(“The Condition of the British People,” 1911-45, Mark Abrams, Gollancz.

Quoted News Chronicle, 28/2/46.)

The Worker who Leaves his Brain In the Workshop

   "The man who would at work contemptuously reject a piece of metal which was not true to a thousandth of an inch came home, opened his newspaper, turned on his radio, or went to the cinema and took whatever rubbish was offered him without question. If he only stopped to think for two minutes it could never happen.”

(Professor T. W. Manson,
 Manchester Guardian, 25/7/46.)

Bold Mr. Bevan

As Minister of Health Mr. Aneurin Bevan issued a circular to public assistance authorities early in July urging them to be firm with "work-shy ” tramps

   "The hard core of habitual vagrants, including men who are work-shy, anti-social or recalcitrant, should also be given suitable treatment. For the limited number of men in this group firmness must, when necessary, be applied if reasonable discipline is to be maintained, and a spread of idle vagabondage discouraged.”

(Reynold's News, 7/6/46.)

The Daily Herald (13/7/46) published from a reader a sensible letter of protest. He said that Mr. Bevan’s circular reminded him of another group of individuals who surely come under the same heading —"I refer to the idle rich. They don’t tramp from place to place, but they have been riding around on the workers’ backs for years.”

It would be interesting to hear from Mr. Bevan exactly why the poor tramps should be glad to work producing profit for the rich tramps, including amongst the latter the stock-holders who are receiving generous compensation under the Labour Government’s compensation schemes for the nationalised industries.

A Labour M.P. Protests (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Referring to Sir Stafford Cripps’ recent tour of South Wales, Mr. Daggar, Labour M.P. for Abertillery, said: 

  “If the Government could spare him for two months to visit India it could spare him for more than an eight-hour run-round in Wales.
  “If a Tory had done that round, it would have been described as a fraud or a farce. I am dissatisfied with the progress made in providing employment for my people.
  “To ask those at work to work harder while others are idle is sheer political humbug and cant” (Daily Express, 29/10/46).

Mr. Daggar has a point here, but we wonder if the possibility of unemployment under a Labour Government was mentioned to constituents when he was asking them for their votes.

It seems he has yet to learn that, no matter what label is placed on the Capitalist box, the contents are always the same.

Only “Socialism” can cure unemployment.

Phil Mellor

No Equality Under Capitalism (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a speech to the Society of Individualists, at Birmingham, Mr. J. Gibson Jarvie, Chairman of the United Dominions Trust, and Deputy Chairman of the Austin Motor Co., delivered himself of the following mixture of admission and conundrum.

  “Socialism, which is totalitarianism and the antithesis of democracy, is already out of date. Italy, Japan and Germany lie beaten in the dust, and the whole world bears the scars which preceded their defeat.
  “Russia still stands. But, ironically enough, in Russia there is no equality; there is capitalism. Russia is breeding a new aristocracy and, given time, will emerge as a wholly capitalist State ”

(Daily Graphic, 15/11/46).

Our thanks to Mr. Jarvie for the admission that capitalism and equality are not found together. In effect he says there is no equality in Russia, because Russia is capitalist. We leave him to explain how Russia can be capitalist now, and yet “emerge as a wholly capitalist State” some time in the future.

Surely capitalism is capitalism, whatever the form. Whether it exists as one-man concerns, companies, rings, cartels or State monopolies—called nationalisation—it is still capitalism with the same parasitic nature: Private or class ownership of the means of life and enslavement of the working class.

F. Foan

North Paddington Gets Another Chance (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

November 20th, 1946

Once again we have entered the parliamentary campaign in North Paddington. Once again working men and working women of Paddington have the privilege of striking a blow for Socialism. Writing on the eve of the poll, we do not know how many will take advantage of this grand opportunity to send a shiver through the capitalist world, but we do know this: whatever the number of those who cast votes for our candidate, they will be socialist votes, and these are the only ones worth while; all the rest are wasted votes.

This time our masters’ press have had to take notice of us as an entirely new phenomenon on the political horizon, the real voice of the workers’ interests at last; a party that is antagonistic to all the other political parties, whether they call themselves Labour, Liberal, Tory or Communist; a party that alone represents the fundamental interests of the workers, advocating nothing but Socialism as a solution to the workers’ many problems.

Members and sympathisers have rallied splendidly for the contest; canvassing, speaking, organising, folding literature, bill-posting, and doing all the other work necessary to get socialist ideas over to the electors as clearly as possible. Our insistence in our literature, at our meetings, and on the doorstep, that we do not want votes unless they are registered by workers who understand Socialism, is a new attitude to electors and a revolutionary and mystifying one to newspaper reporters. The latter are still further mystified by our insistence that our candidate is only the mouthpiece of socialist workers; they were also perturbed by the lack of the customary biographical details.

The Tory candidate was a very unwilling guest on one of our outdoor platforms in a debate—though it is a travesty to call it a debate. He was given an opportunity to state his policy and defend Capitalism. He attacked the Labour Government but made no attempt either to deal with our position or to defend Capitalism. He was given a second opportunity, after our speaker had stated the case for Socialism and challenged him to defend Capitalism. The Tory candidate then only occupied the platform long enough to say that he did not agree with what our speaker had said, but he could not stay any longer; off he went without another word, in spite of jeers and boos from members of the large crowd who had been expecting at least some defence from him.

We have had two excellent meetings on two Sundays at the Metropolitan Music Hall, about 1,600 attending on each occasion. At the second meeting there were a great many questions, and Communists turned up for the first time in the election. They had had time to consider the wobbling "party line” and at the last minute decided to support the Labour Party. The collection at the two meetings amounted to nearly £110. We have also had good meetings at smaller halls, but bad weather has seriously interfered with outdoor meetings, although we have had some very good ones.

We got out an Election Address and an “Election Special" (a large news sheet), both of which were delivered by hand to every house in the constituency; also the Candidate's final address, which went through the post to every elector. One of the articles from the "Election Special” is reproduced in this issue (“ War and Increased Production ”).

In spite of the fact that we have had only two weeks to get things going, we have had an excellent campaign, and members and sympathisers have thoroughly enjoyed themselves explaining the socialist position to the workers of Paddington.

On the eve of the poll we held an open-air meeting at the Prince of Wales, a well-known place for outdoor meetings. Although it was a cold, wet evening, over five hundred people came to listen and remained until late at night. A Conservative opponent, who asked questions, was invited to take the platform for twenty minutes to state the Conservative policy in opposition to our case. When he got upon the platform he informed the audience that he was Major Beamish, Conservative Member of Parliament for Lewes. All he did was to attack the Labour Party. Our speaker then pointed out that we were just as much opposed to the Labour Government as we were to the Tories. He then put the case for Socialism, dealt with the past history of the Tories, and invited Major Beamish to have another twenty minutes dealing with our speaker's contribution. Again Major Beamish restricted his remarks to an attack upon the Labour Party. He showed total ignorance of the Socialist position that had been laid down, which was evidently new and bewildering to him. Groves pointed this out, and also asked him why he was opposing Nationalisation when the Tories agreed with it and had already nationalised various industries themselves. Major Beamish, from the ground, said emphatically that he opposed Nationalisation. He was asked if he would restore the Post Office and other nationalised industries to private owners. He said “No." He was offered another ten minutes to state a case in opposition to ours, but declined. He offered to go on the platform for thirty seconds to wish Groves luck, and wanted to shake hands, but the latter pointed out that when we said we were bitter antagonists of both Tory and Labour parties we meant it, and there was no room for hypocritical gestures.

To-day, election day, we have stopped all activity. A Press reporter called and we pointed out to him that we had done all we could to convince the working men and women of Paddington that our case against Capitalism and for Socialism was sound, and it was now up to them to show how far they had travelled on the road to understanding Socialism. We are opposed to doing anything on polling day that could in any way influence their vote, in spite of the fact that the opposition parties have loudspeaker cars running round, and supporters at the polling booths. Our loudspeaker was dismantled this morning.

 

Our effort in Paddington will have an effect far outside the narrow limits of a London district. It will bring fresh hope to, and enthuse, those who think like us in the provinces and the lands beyond the seas. We are now in the parliamentary contest in this country to stay, and we will not rest until the working class have captured the control of Parliament for the purpose of introducing Socialism. That day may not be as far distant as many imagine.

Gilmac.

Since going to Press we have learned the Election result, the figures being:—

Labour       13,082
Conservative 10,165
S.P.G.B.            286