The Passing Show: Time and Money (1958)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time and Money

Capitalism comes to different countries in different forms. The more recently a country has become Capitalist, the more efficient—from the point of view of the Capitalists—its system is likely to be: for it can draw on the experience of the rest of the Capitalist world.

Capitalism’s first need is for plenty of workers. One of the most important steps in any Capitalist revolution is to drive many of the peasants into the towns, where they can form the new urban proletariat. If this is done too quickly, agricultural production will suffer; if too slowly, industrial production will be held up. Again, even in peace time each Capitalist state must maintain a standing army, to preserve internal "order” and to deter and to threaten other states. If this army is too small, other countries are not sufficiently impressed; if it is too big, it means that some men are kept in idleness when they could be working in factories or on farms for the profit of the Capitalists.

As the Capitalists see it, one drawback of their system is that these categories—town-worker, farm-worker, soldier—are too rigid. It takes prolonged economic discomfort before a town-worker will become a farm-worker, or vice versa; if only because it usually means a man and his family leaving the area they know and moving away to another district altogether. And when in war-time the army has to be rapidly expanded, it takes time and money to set up the large organisations necessary to conscript' and train workers as soldiers.


Latest Model—Convertible

But China, which has been setting up its state Capitalist system only in the last ten years has been able to draw on the experience of British, American and Russian Capitalism, and has apparently been able to avoid some of the shortcomings of earlier Capitalist systems—shortcomings, that is, in the estimation of the ruling class. For example, over-rigid classification seems to have been avoided. According to press reports (e.g. The Observer, 9th November, 1958), the unit in the new Chinese Capitalism is not the factory or the farm, but the commune, the average size of which is “about 8.000 households”. The great advantage of these, to Mao Tse-Tung and his fellow-rulers, is that the Chinese worker is not allowed to settle down as one thing or the other; instead, he is organised in a thousands-strong labour corps, and then he and the rest are used as “workers peasants or soldiers, according to actual needs.” If this scheme succeeds it will make the American and Russian boss green with envy.

The Chinese have gone further. Communal mess halls are set up to feed the workers, and kindergartens to take care of their children: and thus the women of the commune too are “set free”—to join the labour corps. Shantung Province chums that it has "liberated six million women for productive work.” The commune owns all the land, the peasants having been compelled to hand over their individual plots to it. It runs agriculture within its boundaries on the lines of a great state farm. It also runs schools and broadcasting stations, collects the taxes—and organises the militia. But it does even more. In the last year or two thousands upon thousands of small factories have been set up throughout China: these, too, are run by the commune. It is "industrialisation without towns.” By these means the Chinese ruling class hopes to avoid the waste of the years of starving out the peasants, and the diversion of resources to build great new towns, which slowed up the British and the Russian Capitalist revolutions. The commune has replaced the town or the factory as the unit of industry, the village or the farm as the unit of agriculture, and the regiment as the unit of the reserve army. If everything which is reported is true, China’s system may turn out to be the most profitable Capitalist system we have yet seen.


Back to the alphabet

But why is this system mistaken for Socialism or Communism? Both those who support China's rulers—the Communist Party—and the majority of those who oppose them, call China a “Communist” country. The Observer article mentioned above had a sub-title "A New Communism.” This is to get the very ABC of economics wrong. A more efficient form of Capitalism does not become Communism. All the well-known features urban (and rural) proletariat, owning neither the tools they work with nor the things they produce; a money-system of exchange, which is pointless except to deprive the workers of the full value of their produce; and a resulting surplus value, which goes to support the ruling class, for whose benefit the whole system is run.


Heredity

Another book has been published recently about the Churchills, from the Duke of Marlborough and his forebears down to Sir Winston. The idea behind it is a common one: that social characteristics, such as the quality of “leadership,” are passed down from parents to their offspring. No one doubts that physical characteristics. such as the colour of eyes and hair, are passed on to children in all animals, including human beings. But that social characteristics can be passed on seems a lot more doubtful, to say the least of it. In any case, full investigations are seldom made. To trace Sir Winston Churchill’s descent from the Duke of Marlborough, and to conclude that Sir Winston inherited some of the qualities of the Duke, is often done. But Sir Winston is in the eighth generation from the Duke, which means that he had two hundred and fifty-six ancestors in the Duke's generation, all of whom, according to this theory, presumably contributed as much to Sir Winston's character as the Duke of Marlborough did. And of these two hundred and fifty-six, sixteen were full-blooded Iroquois Indians. (Sir Winston Churchill’s mother had one Iroquois great grandparent). So if we accept the theory, whatever Sir Winston got from the Duke of Marlborough, he must have got sixteen times as much from the Iroquois. But whoever wrote a book about that?

The velvet glove

As a postscript to the events at Famagusta last October (when four lives were lost and two hundred and fifty people were injured in the British “search for suspects” after a woman was found murdered) a remark of Brigadier Terence Clarke, Tory M.P. for Portsmouth West, is not without interest. The Brigadier says (Reynolds News, 9th November, 1958): “We’ve had too much of the velvet glove : what we want is a bit of the mailed fist”

If four deaths and 250 injuries appear to the Brigadier to be too much like the “velvet glove,” one wonders what scale of casualties among the civilian population would be produced by his “mailed fist”

Laugh of the year

Sir Anthony Eden is reported to be among the possible candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize for 1958 (Sunday Express, 9th November, 1958). This Peace Prize award is always ridiculous; how can it be anything else, when it is inevitably presented to someone who supports the present system of society, which leads to wars as surely as old bread goes mouldy? But the consideration of this man, whose last service to peace was to commit aggression against Egypt on the grounds that Israel had already attacked her, makes the whole thing even more of a farce.

Scandal

Those who live on the exploitation of the workers have of late years become much more coy. Once no gentleman would admit to an occupation; now the wealthy often conceal their idleness by becoming directors of companies. Nevertheless, members of the upper class themselves sometimes let slip in unguarded moments just how much work is attached to being a director.

One such admission was recorded on October 12th in the Sunday Express, which in its hot pursuit of scandal often allows the rest of us illuminating insights into the lives of the rich. Some time ago a “Kentish squire” disappeared from his home, at the same time as a riding mistress nearby disappeared from hers. The Sunday Express had to give its readers a long report on the matter, with all the details, of course: no doubt in fulfilment of the high moral duty of the newspapers to the public, about which they so often tell us. But what concerns us is the fact that the squire was a director of an estate company. If the holding of a directorship fools the world at large, it doesn’t seem to have fooled his wife. Her husband, she said, “ hasn’t worked for twenty years."

We all have our worries

On the topic of directors, an interesting little booklet has appeared recently. It is entitled “Health Problems of Directors,’’ and it is published by the Institute of Directors. Among the dangers and causes of ill-health that these gallant men have to contend with are mentioned: (1) Eating too much; (2) Drinking too much; (3) The blows to. a director’s self-esteem which come from being theoretically in charge of a concern about which his subordinates know a lot more than he does. The man at the factory bench or clerking in the office seldom realises the risks run by his boss. The Institute of Directors, of course, might lengthen its list. For any new edition of this stimulating little work may we mention these further hazards of a director’s life: (1) Falling off his horse when playing polo; (2) Barking his shin when his chauffeur is helping him from his Bentley; (3) Spraining his wrist while tucking into the turtle soup at official banquets.

Alwyn Edgar

Problems of Trade Unions in Canada (1958)

From the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rail Workers Take a Beating
The Socialist Standard frequently comments on government stumbling blocks placed in the way of organised workers trying to gain improvements in wages and working conditions. Regular readers of the Socialist Standard will not be surprised to learn that Canadian workers also have troubles of this kind.

A trade union in Canada establishes its right to become the legal bargaining agent for a group of workers only after a government-supervised vote of the workers has been taken. It must also, of course, convince the employer of the advisability of conceding this representation. In this it is not always successful, and the law does not compel the employer to deal with the union.

When a union has become “certified” or legally recognised as a bargaining agent, and is so recognised as well by the employer, its next step is to approach the employer for a contract that will govern the wages and working conditions of its members for the duration of the contract. If the union had been previously certified and is already under contract, it must, in order to change the contract, serve notice of this desire with the employer at least thirty days before the contract expires. Then the long journey begins.

The employer and the worker, in the persons of their respective representatives, get together at a time and place agreed upon and talk things over. These talks are usually continued as long as the employer can manage. Why hurry? The law requires that a lot of red tape be unwound before a strike is legally permissible, and no matter how slowly it unwinds the employer is protected. And prolonged negotiations usually tend to wear down the determination of the workers to stand by their original demands, causing a settlement more favourable to the employer. So it is not unusual for the preliminary conversations to break down.

The next step is the appointment by the government of an arbitrator, whose ostensible function it is to get the contending parties together again and see if something can be accomplished that wasn’t accomplished before. The arbitrator can generally be depended upon to devote as much time to the task as possible. This writer knows no instance of an arbitrator helping to bring about a settlement.

Next comes the main event—a conciliation board.

The conciliation board is also appointed by the government. It is made up of three members, one named by the employer, one by the union or unions concerned, and one by the government. The government nominee is the chairman. The findings of this board are not legally binding on the disputing parties, but they often form a base from which a settlement develops.

It is the stated purpose of the conciliation board to hear the case of the parties in dispute, sift the material presented, and try to agree on what they would consider to be a “just settlement.” This type of board will hold hearings for a long time and often stays in business for several months.

Then, after being subjected to all this pompous time-wasting, if he has gotten nowhere, which often is the case, the worker may, by permission of the government, and if he has any steam left, go on strike—although, in certain instances, the government may insist on compulsory arbitration, according to a bill passed recently through Parliament.

The most representative example of what can happen to workers in Canada in dispute with employers is provided by the railway shop workers, presently trying to increase their wages and improve their working conditions. A review of their travels might be of interest.

The rail workers' contract with the railways (Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, etc.) expired on December 31st, 1957. On the previous November 12th, in line with government regulations, they informed the railways of their desire to sign a new contract embodying improvements in wages and working conditions and asking the railways to meet them in discussions. The discussions were held, but did not last long, being described in a report of the railway unions to their members as having been “brief and abortive.”

The brevity in this instance was a departure from the usual practice. The railways rejected the union proposals and made no substitute proposals, claiming they were not in a financial position to consider an improved contract for the workers. As became apparent later, this unyielding abruptness arose from an intention to use the demands of the workers as a lever to gain increased transport rates on freight, these being regulated by a government board.

Ordinarily, the next step would have been the appointment of an arbitrator, but the unions, momentarily aware of what was going on, asked the government to waive this appointment, since the railways had made no offer and there was nothing to arbitrate. They asked instead that the conciliation board be appointed.

The government concurred in this request, perhaps knowing no good reason for declining. But it managed to delay matters in another way, by naming as chairman of the conciliation board a well known and consistent nominee of employers on other conciliation boards, which raised a clamour of protest from the unions and his ultimate replacement by another who, the unions felt, would be more impartial. A prominent union spokesman described this replacement as a victory for the railway workers. It was also the source of a time lapse of more than two months.

It must be pointed out that the unions are to a large extent to blame for the delay that followed. In spite of all their previous experiences they still, gravely and in detail, follow the devious course mapped out for them by the government, and they still accept, as something akin to gospel, the government's mumbo-jumbo on employee-employer relations. In the present instance they hired an “economist” to help in the preparation of their submission to the conciliation board. The result was not surprising. In another of their reports to the men the union representatives declared that “during the first eight days of presentations, some 250,000 words of testimony were placed on the record.” The old time trade unionist, who often made his presentations before lunch and completed his business after lunch, could not have thought up that many words in a lifetime.

The hearings before the conciliation board lasted nearly four months. Then the board went into seclusion, presumably to sift these mountains of words into the substance of a “just settlement.” This took another six weeks, which in the charitable eyes of the rail workers indicated “a long period of sifting evidence and reaching conclusions.”

The findings of the board were released on July 21st This was followed by a period of silence during which the wisdom of its content was digested by the parties concerned. After an interval the unions declared their willingness to accept its provisions. After another interval the railways rejected its provisions. At the moment of writing, nearly twelve months after the unions served notice on the railways of their desire for a new contract, a strike vote has been taken the result of which has not yet been made known. The purpose of the strike will be to enforce acceptance by the railways of the settlement proposed by the conciliation board, which will provide the workers with less than half the amount of their original demands!

The railway workers, even if they gain a complete victory, will at the same time be getting a bad beating, having allowed themselves to be manoeuvred into the position of being willing to go on strike for trifling ends. An important thought for their future guidance is to refrain from allowing their time, energy and stamina to be frittered away by those whose chief concern must always be to protect the interests of the ruling class.

The workers need also to learn that the size and quality of the material brought before a conciliation board is not important to the final outcome., No matter how impressive or convincing this material may be, the board, with promptings from the government, is guided by considerations designed to leave the worker not far from subsistence level. Evidence of this may frequently be found in board reports, an example being the following from the report of the railway conciliation board:

  The Chairman throughout was concerned about the conditions of the economy as a whole and the need for moderation in wage demands.  . . . 

What caused the chairman to become concerned about these things was certainly not contained in the material submitted for his consideration!

An even more blatant disregard for the alleged functions of a conciliation board is contained in the report of the board conciliating the recent dispute between the Steel Company of Canada and its employees at Hamilton, from which the following is taken:—

   “It is our view that in coming to a decision on what should be done about wage and other economic demands, made by the Union at this time, our decision must be governed to a very considerable degree on our interpretation, of what is in the national interest and what effect should be given to it.
   "The interpretation of the Government itself as to what is presently in the national interest as far as wages and prices are concerned, is to be found in the speeches and statements of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance and need not be quoted here at length. In general, both Employers and Unions have been aborted to 'hold the line'." . . . 

This conciliation board awarded nothing at all, and although its deliberations were given the added weight, prestige and genius of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, it is with some satisfaction that we are able to report that its findings were ignored and the steel workers went on strike, gaining an increase in wages of some 26 cents an hour.

Railway and other workers are at present showing too great a tendency to place their problems of wages and working conditions at the discretion of government boards. That this is an unsafe thing to do is shown by the quotations above. The lesson provided by the steel workers is quite plain. The strike is still their most effective argument.

Jim Milne

Is It Funny? (1958)

From the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE writer was once with a group of South Africans listening to the wartime experiences of one of them in Egypt:—

  "There were we at the station crowded into the train, when a wog got on with a tray of fruit. Nobody wanted any, but he kept hanging around. So Charlie put a foot in his belly and gave a good shove. The wog went flying in one direction, and his fruit in another." 

This anecdote was received with roars of laughter, except from the writer, who said he could see nothing funny in it.

The attitude revealed is only too typical of South Africans, most of whom readily believe that they are superior beings compared with the non-white majority who live in the same country.

The Nationalist Government has recently been re-elected for a third term, and now has Dr. Verwoerd at its head—a man who, by his speeches and actions, has indicated that he is thoroughly in agreement with this view. So convinced is he of white superiority that he will not even discuss their future with any delegation of non-whites. What is laid down for them is their future, whether they like it or not.

In general the South African non-whites are an easygoing, cheerful, extrovert lot. They will usually accept life as they find it, without taking too much notice of the fact that the whites seem to be so much better off than they are. Had they shown as much aggressiveness as the North American Indians, for example (who had reached pretty much the same stage of social development), their present position might be much the same. That is, they might have the Indians’ alternative of a tribal life on a reservation, or of becoming integrated, with full citizenship rights, in the white community.

Being in a majority of four to one, the South African natives could run things entirely their own way, if they chose to get together for that purpose. They are kept apart by language—there are about twelve native languages, with many dialects, and by the fact that all native men need a pass to move from one place to another.

This pass system has existed for a long time in South Africa, but it is only within the last two or three years that it has been rigidly applied. In its present form it gives the police the power to move the native population around at will if in their view, and the view of others in authority, there is too great a concentration in any area.

The procedure is to descend on native dwellings, usually at night, and demand the passes of all those kept therein. Those with official permission to be in that particular area are usually left alone, except for such minor indignities as the police see fit to inflict. Those who can produce passes, but not permission to be in that particular area, are summarily removed to the places they came from. Those who can produce no documents at all are flung into gaol.

The most recent development of the pass system is the inclusion of native women for the first time. Perhaps this is the last straw that will break the long-suffering patience of the non-white South African. We quote from the Johannesburg Star of October 29th, 1958:—

  “It may, of course, be true that the demonstrations in the last few days against the issue of reference books to native women in Johannesburg have been instigated by agitators, including Communists. Indeed, it is obvious that a concerted effort of this kind cannot have been spontaneous and that a good deal of organising has gone into it.
  "This is, unfortunately, never the complete answer to movements of discontent and protest. Agitators can only work with the material that is there and exploit grievances that really exist. In the present instance, there has never been any doubt about the opposition of the native people to the issue of "passes" to their women. They believe that it will expose the women to constant molestation and harassment by the police, as well as interfering with their freedom of movement.
   "Is this opposition reasonable? The question immediately raises another. Should laws be imposed on people without any attempt at consultation and without regard for the fears they may entertain; whether these fears are justified or not?
   "No machinery of any value exists for consulting the Natives about measures that affect their lives intimately.
   “It is the practice to make such laws as the Government and a White electorate think desirable for the ‘ control' of Natives without any thought of Native reactions to them. They are treated as aliens who are here on temporary permit only and must subject themselves to any rules that authority may devise." (Our italics.)

We have two pictures from the Johannesburg Star of the following day—October 30th, 1958. The captions underneath read as follows: —

   “Tear Gas, batons and handcuffs were used by policemen today to disperse Native women outside the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court. The women were ordered twice to disperse. Then the police charged. This photograph shows a policeman using his handcuffs instead of a baton, chasing some women—one has a baby on her back.
   "A young police constable wields a thin case as he chases a stout native woman away from the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court this afternoon. During the excitement a baby was found in the gutter—its mother had a gashed leg."

The Star is the Johannesburg English evening newspaper. Its politics can be described as "United Party ” or opposition, though it has, over the past few years, shown somewhat more sympathy with the Nationalist regime than have the other South African English newspapers.

We, in Britain, and the more advanced countries should not congratulate ourselves too much on the intellectual and other "freedoms” that we enjoy. It is not such a long time since strike meetings and even mere attempts to form trade unions led to the use of police and troops. And it is only twenty years since international capitalism got ready for its last all-out conflict, and assumed arbitrary powers over the lives of the working class.

We have, however, the right to organise consciously for the overthrow of Capitalism, something that would not be possible in South Africa without running foul of the "Suppression of Communism” Act.

In the circumstances at present, however, we can do little more for South Africans, black or white, than to express our sympathy.

Britain, America, France and other “advanced” countries are not without problems arising from antipathy of workers with one colour of skin for those of another colour. Capitalism is competitive, and competition for jobs is part of it

Socialism will be co-operative and moneyless, with no economic reason for racial or other antagonisms. There will only be the common task of using the natural resources of the world for the benefit of those who live on it.

J. O. B.

Letter: Is the S.P.G.B. Correct? (1958)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Critic’s Misconception Answered

Dear Sir,

Having attended your various meetings, going through your Socialist Standard and pamphlets and discussing with your party members, I was made to understand that your party wants to achieve Socialism only through academic discussion and preaching to the working class various slogans and dogmas of Marx and Engels disregarding their material aspect of life. You also advocate that Socialism will come as and when majority people of the world understand and desire Socialism.

It seems to me that your preaching will bear fruits only when some people have paved the way for you by changing the material condition of working class so that they are in a position to listen, understand and act upon your philosophy.

Do you believe in the teachings of Marx that “It is not the consciousness of man that determines their being but on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness”?

It is a historical truth that the little liberty we enjoy today in the various part of the world, is the result of years’ ceaseless struggle of millions—Most certainly the visionaries have played no part in it.

While you are enjoying the freedom and liberty disregarding the process it came through, would you kindly suggest a way to Socialism for the people who are under perpetual subjugation and tyranny and not allowed by law to speak or publish anything that goes against the interest of the ruling class?

Yours faithfully,

A. A. A. Rashid

Reply:
In a not very long letter our correspondent manages to bring together a surprisingly large number of misconceptions about the Socialist case. He certainly did not hear S.P.G.B. speakers say that our declared aim is merely “Academic discussion” and the preaching of “various slogans and dogmas of Marx and Engels"; nor did he read this in Party publications. He will find a summary statement of our position in our Declaration of Principles, which, however, he ignores.

What are the salient features of Capitalism, the social system in which the S.P.G.B. operates and whose abolition it works for?

It is a class-divided social system. No matter what the anti-Socialists say, and irrespective of what politically uninformed workers think, the class struggle between the owning class and the working class is a fact and they are in it. Most of them, individually and in their industrial and reformist political organisations, have no greater aim than to try to fight the effects of Capitalism and to try to reform the Capitalist system. They are not aware of the need to abolish it and establish Socialism. They have been doing this for a century and a half without in any way altering the fundamentals of Capitalism, without abolishing poverty, insecurity, unemployment, wars, etc.

Members of the S.P.G.B. are likewise inescapably in the class struggle, but with a difference. Unlike the non-Socialist and the reformist organisations, the S.P.G.B. seeks to make the working class aware of the nature of Capitalism, the necessity of establishing Socialism in its place, the need for democratic political action to achieve this and the impossibility of doing so by means of social reforms.

It is for our correspondent to meet this case, not an imaginary one, and to show us how Socialism can be attained in any other way.

He does indeed offer us a formula, which is that “the material condition of working class” must be changed “so that they are in a position to listen, understand and act upon your philosophy.” But it is an empty formula. The “material condition” of the working class is that of being a wage-earning, exploited class in a class society. How can that be changed except by the method we show, that of a Socialist working class organising consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government with the aim of establishing Socialism?

It is true that the struggles of the working class, their resistance to exploitation, have helped to gain “elbow room” and that these struggles, along with the needs of industrial Capitalism, have brought about, in varying degrees, the electoral franchise and the possibility of organising and carrying on propaganda. But after about 150 years all that our correspondent can claim for it is “the little liberty we enjoy today in the various parts of the world.” Nowhere has it produced Socialism, nor will it do so. That will be done only after the working class have been won over to Socialism—the function of Socialists and carried on by no-one else. If by the ambiguous term “visionaries” our correspondent means Socialists, he invites our challenge to show us how Socialism can ever be accomplished without a Socialist working class.

Our correspondent refers to “people who are under perpetual subjugation and tyranny,” without specifying which people he has in mind. Perhaps it is the working class in Russia and her satellites or in the military dictatorship established by the Capitalist Nationalist movements in former colonial territories, or the workers in the existing colonies. He is wrong in describing this as “perpetual” The British and other sections of the working class used also to be in the same position, but the developments of Capitalism and the struggles of the workers have brought about “the little liberty” he mentions. How much farther and faster the movement for working class emancipation from Capitalism would have gone if, instead of allying themselves with sterile movements to “reform” Capitalism, and nationalist movements to establish one Capitalist rule in place of another, the working class had understood and acted upon the international Socialist message of the S.P.G.B. and its companion parties.

Editorial Committee.

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Socialist Standard” Sales. Members will know that a committee was formed to investigate the ways and means of improving the “Standard.” The object being to produce an even better journal for propagating Socialism. The recommendations of the committee are being discussed by the E.C., but whatever the outcome, it must be realised that a better journal should help to sell more copies per month and, to complete the circle, get our case over to more and more people. However, we have a good journal now and it is up to Party members to see that it circulates to as many people as possible. This month is a good time to make the extra effort and if individual members would really try to further this end, a suggestion is to get sympathisers to fill in the subscription form (elsewhere in this issue, and send to Head Office) and start 1959 with new readers subscribing for at least twelve issues.

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Basildon and Southend Branches. Unfortunately, the report on activities of these branches arrived too late for insertion in the November issue, but our Essex Comrades are pleased to report that now that these two branches are “pooling” their resources, results are much more fruitful than when the branches (Basildon was previously Wickford Branch) were working separately. They have appointed a joint organiser who is arranging a series of propaganda lectures and film shows during the winter. A joint literature drive has proved most encouraging. Standard sales have increased in both branches, Basildon has increased its order by seven dozen since last quarter. The Organiser welcomes enquiries from members and sympathisers living in the district, details of the branch addresses are given on the back page in the Branch Directory.

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Indoor Lectures. Bloomsbury Branch is holding discussions on the first Thursday in each month at Conway Hall at 8.30 p.m., Islington. Paddington, and Lewisham Branches are holding regular discussions, details are given in this issue, and the Documentary films at Head Office are being shown every Sunday throughout the winter with the exception of December 28th.

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Marx and Darwin. The year 1959 marks the 100th Anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. The year 1859 also saw the publication of Marx’s Critique of Political Economy. It is proposed to publish articles on the contribution of Darwin and Marx to society and their present standing. Members who would like to contribute are asked to let the Editorial Committee know immediately what they would like to do on these lines.

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Mitcham Group. This new group, formed during the summer by a few members living in the Mitcham area, has already served a useful function in bringing several members and readers of the S.S. in Surrey into contact with one another. So far four lectures have been given and attendances have ranged from 14 to 30 people. Secretaries of local organisations have been circularised of the meetings, but these invitations have yielded a nil result. However, short reports of the lectures have been sent to the local press and a correct summary was printed following Comrade Hardy’s address on: “The Cause of War.’ The correspondence column of the local has carried several letters outlining the Party’s attitude to different questions.

To date, Group members feel results have been reasonable. They appreciate the support already given by members of neighbouring branches, mainly Camberwell, Lewisham and Kingston, and hope this support will continue while the group builds up local interest. Now the Group is making an effort to draw in local workers by the door to door direct approach. In addition to the December meeting (advertised elsewhere in this issue), a series of Thursday meetings for the first quarter of next year are being arranged on subject of topical interest.

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Swansea Group. A weekly series of lectures on Social and Economic history have been arranged by the Group. Up to date three lectures have been given. A small but interested group of building workers form the nucleus of the class and there are indications that more interested sympathisers will eventually come along. The sympathisers have purchased the Standard and other Party literature. The Group was recently in touch with the Socialist Party of Ireland. It is intended to visit them in the near future.

A recent challenge issued to the Llanelly and Swansea branches of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to debate, has in both cases been ignored!

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Islington Branch continues to hold well attended meetings, with lively and interesting discussion following Branch business. In co-operation with Wood Green & Hornsey Branch it is proposed to run at least one large public meeting in the North London area (possibly a series of three meetings) beginning early in the New Year. The first meeting will probably deal with the question of nuclear warfare, and the organisers of both Branches are now busily engaged in making all arrangements, including writing letters to individuals and organisations who have been engaged in recent months in holding protest meetings and marches concerning the banning of the “H Bomb” It is hoped that these people will attend the meeting, and perhaps it may even be possible to get one of them to debate.

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Camberwell Branch has not been reported in News Briefs for some time, but has maintained its usual high standard of activity. This includes two weekly outdoor meetings at which really encouraging sales of Socialist Standards and pamphlets have been made. Branch meetings also canvass throughout the year. 

Currently, during the winter months, indoor lectures are being arranged once a month. On Monday, December I5th, Comrade Lawrence will speak on "The African Conflict” starting at 8 p.m. sharp. A fuller account of Branch activity will be given in the near future.

Phyllis Howard

The Welfare State: Have Things Changed? (1958)

From the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are always being told how different the world is from the world our fathers and grandfathers knew at the beginning of the century. That takes us back to the time when the Socialist Party of Great Britain began its activities. Nobody can deny that lots of things have changed, but just how much has the social system altered in those years? That is what the founders of this Party were concerned with. They looked on a social system in which the accumulated wealth was concentrated in the hands of a small minority, the propertied class; a world in which the workers' life was harassed with poverty, unemployment, bad housing, pauperism and the threat of war.

The S.P.G.B, has always maintained that you can't do anything useful with this social system: if you want something better it has to be a new social organisation, Socialism. Our opponents would not have this. They believed that, through social reforms, they could make things essentially different. These opponents, Liberal, Tory, Labour, have all had their chance to show, as the government, what they could do.

During the first years after the end of the second world war they found themselves largely in agreement in claiming the great change had already taken place, in the founding of what they called the Welfare State. This was to be the foundation on which would be built the progressively different and better state of affairs. Of course, they differed among themselves on some things, as the Opposition thought they could do better than the Government but they were all at first of one mind that poverty, unemployment and slumps had been abolished and deep foundations laid for something very fine to be built on afterwards. They were all agreed that slums were on their way out.

The Labour Party, being in office from 1945 to 1951, claimed that these six years were the crowning achievement of their political lifetime, the ripe harvest of all their strivings, the proof of how right they were and how wrong was the S.P.G.B.

But in the argument, Socialists always had and have one thing on their side: it is that nobody can prevent Capitalism from breaking through and showing itself for what it is. Let us look at some of the problems that were occupying the social reformers half a century ago, unemployment, slums, poverty, crime, war. They were all going to be abolished.

In the early years of the century there had been the British war with the Boers in South Africa, the war between Russia and Japan, trouble between the Powers and China, wars in the Balkans, and between Turkey and Italy; and a few years earlier, war in the Sudan, war between America and Spain and war between Turkey and Greece. Trouble was building up over Morocco and the Middle East. This belligerent chaos was accompanied by negotiations to settle the particular disputes; and to settle all disputes by international organisation through the Hague Court.

It all has a familiar ring. Nothing whatever has been solved. There have been two world wars and lots of smaller ones, means of destruction are vastly greater, and world tension is just the same as it always was. Everlasting peace talk, but no peace.

But how are things at home ?

Forced to admit this, the reformist will ask us to look at internal affairs, “the condition of the people” Well, let us do just that. There are now half a million unemployed, and the figure is officially expected to rise to 600,000 in the New Year. This is worse than it was fifty years ago, and the worst since 1945, though not nearly as bad as it became between the wars. True, we are assured by the Government (though how do they know) that things will later get better. But what has happened to the almost universal claim of ten years ago that the Keynesian-trained economists and politicians now knew how to manage things without those ups and downs of boom and slump?

Adding the dependents, there will now be a million people affected by unemployment, and this is not anything like the whole story.

The Annual Report of the National Assistance Board for 1957 shows that at the end of the year 1¾ million National Assistance payments were being made, and that, including dependents, there were nearly 2,400,000 people wholly or partly dependent on National Assistance.

This isn’t what the social reformers promised to do for us.

Most of the recipients of National Assistance are people too old to work. But they were all supposed to have been looked after by the Beveridge plan, the National Insurance Scheme enacted by the Labour Government. Yet in the House of Commons on November 11th, when the Labour M.P., Mr. Crossman, was showing why his own Party’s new scheme for additional pensions (and additional contributions) is better than the Government’s scheme, he declared that his Party’s objective “was to deal with the greatest social challenge to the welfare state, the existence of grinding poverty among old, retired people.” (Times, 12th November, 1958.) Has it a familiar ring? Of course it has. The phrase about the “grinding poverty” of the worker too old to work was being hawked round half a century ago by the late Lloyd George, the father of the first old age pension scheme in this country.

Surely not the children too ?

If the old are half-starving, at any rate the children are all bonny and well fed! But no, as the editor of the Manchester Guardian (21st April, 1958) was “alarmed” to discover. The evidence was provided by a report just published, carried out by the Population Investigation Committee.

  “A quarter of all families with children under five in 1950 may have been unable to provide a diet fully adequate for the children’s growth. This is the alarming conclusion . . . " (Manchester Guardian, 21st April, 1958.)

The Report, which was compiled with the help of local health departments, confirmed the conclusion of other investigations that “the poorest children were the shortest,” their growth stunted by under-nourishment. The Guardian could find no reason to believe that any changes since 1950 would have nullified the Reports’ conclusion. The reason for this inability to buy enough food was stated to be insufficient income just as it was 50 or 100 years ago.

And crime

Another benefit supposed to follow the reform of Capitalism was the progressive reduction and eventual elimination of crime. It has all gone according to plan, except that the progress has been upwards. The present Government is “going to do something about it,” and has been assured that the Labour and Liberal parties heartily approve of something being done. In the House of Commons on 31st October, the Home Secretary, Mr. R. A. Butler, had this to say:—

  “Crime was increasing during the 1930’s, but during the war the figures took a sudden upward leap and in 1945 they were more than half as much again as in 1939. There were 478,000 indictable offences known to the police, or 11 per 1,000 of the population in 1945, against a figure of 304,000, or 7 per 1,000 of the population in 1939. . (Col. 496.)

Mr. Butler went on to say that “crimes of violence and sexual offences” have increased, as also the rate of crime among young men. He said, too, that the total number of offences in 1957 was about 13 per cent. higher than in 1956 and that in the London area figures were available for 1958, showing that in the first seven months there was “a continuing steep rise.”

And all of this has to be taken in conjunction with the comparison with the beginning of the century. Sir Sydney Smith, formerly of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Edinburgh University, pointed out three years ago that crimes in 1953, at 500,000; were ten times as numerous as in 1900 (50,000), and that crimes of violence had increased from 3,500 to 23,000. (Manchester Guardian, 18th February, 1955.)

And what of the slums? This problem has been solved on paper many times, but there are now about a million unfit houses and the number falling into decay each year has been recently estimated at over 100,000. The total is far greater than it was between the wars.

The list of unsolved social problems that were going to be solved by the reformers could be greatly extended— the cost of living about four times what it was at the beginning of the century, in face of the pledge of every government to keep it from rising; the increasing drunkenness and drug-taking; the industrial disputes that were going to be smoothed away by arbitration, yet the strikes go on and the number has been increasing in recent years.

And, to go back to the basic question, the accumulated wealth of the country is still concentrated in the hands of the propertied class—which is where we came in.

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: Why the Unemployed are Necessary Under Capitalism (1958)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The position may be summed up as follows. As under present conditions, all commodities are produced for profit, production must cease with the cessation of profit. As profit and wages between them constitute and have their only source in the value created by the worker, profit can only appear while wages are prevented from consuming the whole product of labour. As wages, the price of labour power, are regulated by the relation of supply and demand, a surplus of labour-power (the unemployed), is necessary to prevent wages swallowing up all profit. Therefore the unemployed army is a vital necessity to Capitalist production, and there can be no solution under Capitalism. 

[From the Socialist Standard, December, 1908.]

Youth in the Modern World (1958)

From the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the features of English social life in the post-war years has been the ascendency of the adolescent age groups. Not only have entire new branches of the entertainments industries sprung from the enthusiasms and the spending-power of the young; a popular press exists for them as it has always done for the so-called middle class, and a small popular culture has grown round their emotions and their “rights.” At the same time, the spread of juvenile crime and hooliganism has alarmed the police and a good many other people. What has happened to the younger generation?

Before the war a school-leaver was lucky if he was paid fifteen shillings a week, and luckier still if he had any of it for himself. He was fettered on the one hand by the lowness of wages—especially his—and on the other by his new status in the home, bringing in money when it was usually urgently needed. More often than not he handed in all his pay; clothes and fares were bought from the family exchequer as in his schooldays, and he might have a shilling to blue on Saturday night.

It was largely on this little-to-spend dependence that the serious, character-training organizations for adolescents thrived then: Scouts, Guides, Boys' Brigades, and the like. They offered companionship, horseplay and games for next to nothing, and cheap camping holidays ad lib. Nowadays their membership above the school age is fractional and their influence on youth insignificant; the difference can well be seen in the fact that the pre-war Rover Scout movement for young men has had to be disbanded in recent times.

The changed circumstances of today hardly need pointing out. They are not universal, of course; plenty of adolescents can never grasp the well-known present-day educational opportunities because they are needed as wage-earners in the home. Nevertheless, it has been part of the economic conditions of the full-employment era that employers have had in general to woo the younger generation. There have had to be rewards and attractions to recruit typists and comptometer hands for the post-war volume of commerce and trainees for the new armies of engineers—and, correspondingly, greater inducements for the less-favoured jobs as well.

The adolescent has become, in fact, emancipated financially. He (as a matter of course, this includes she) has some money in his pocket, can buy his own clothes, purchase his own amusements. Two additional factors set the seal—within its limits—on this emancipation. First, older generations, mindful of their hard times and unyouthful youth, tend to gain compensation and pleasure from seeing their children “not going short.” And second, in a great many cases the adolescent himself knows that he is never likely to have so much money to spend again. The boy of eighteen earning a man’s wage may be fortunate; by definition, however, it is as much as he will ever earn when he has to keep a family.

But the shackle-breaking has not been just a question of income. That is one side of it. The other is the severance from tradition that changes in society’s superstructure have forced. In earlier times, and even for working people within the last sixty years or so, one generation’s experience was closely like that of another. In work, education and domestic detail, a son’s life was unlikely to differ much from that of his father; the traditions and ideals of the older generation were guides for the younger one.

What has happened in more recent times is that the development of new industrial techniques, greater specialization and division of labour, and with them changes in the education of the young, have led to the breakdown of these patterns. The adolescent of today does not have to learn his way of life from previous generations. He is emancipated from tradition, too.

There are innumerable reflections of this relative freedom, most of them reflecting also that American youth had it first. The absence of long-standing traditions in America, and the twentieth-century surge there of technical development, produced effects which were quickly communicated to this country by the cinema: the Andy Hardy films of the ’thirties gave clear glimpses of what was happening to adolescence. There have been the songs—"Too Young," "Teenage Love" etc—laying down the claim to earlier marriage; the TV programmes and picture-strip mags, for the under-twenties, often with the same slightly defiant don't-you-find-fault-with-youth overtone; the films concerned sentimentally with the adolescent's emotions, or noisily with his fun.

Is this a good thing? From the mass of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stuff about "modem youth," some evaluation ought to be possible. The fact is, however, that the commentaries are made from severely limited viewpoints, almost never from the social one. When they are not Christian pronouncements (or, occasionally, psychiatrical ones: the Sunday Pictorial recently advocated cuddly toys as therapy for mixed-up adolescence). they are heavily loaded either sentimentally or, culturally—either assuming that youth is necessarily admirable, or arguing from antipathy to rock 'n' roll. Nor is the sympathy disinterested: the emancipated adolescent is a source of income to all kinds of people.

And this leads to the real point. Has youth really gained in freedom? The modern teen-ager has, for a probable maximum of five year, some financial independence, and he is no longer bound by former conventions. On the other hand, he delivered whole to the greedy commercial class to dress up in, swallow, read and recreate himself with their gaudy mass-produced rubbish. The sad thing about such a phenomenon as rock 'n' roll is that the adolescents who jig and bound to its metronome rhythm think they are letting their hair down, whereas in fact it is being held down firmly in a fixed position by the film and record companies and other interested parties.

The belief that modern youth has generated for itself a separate culture is at bottom a mistaken one. True, there are all its appearances. Basically, however, adolescent behaviour is only the juvenile (and therefore cruder-looking) version of the culture-pattern of the grown-up world of modern Capitalism. Adolescents are given to showy display of dress and possessions: but this is the world in which conspicuous consumption is equated with “higher living standards.” They make and follow heroes of brash, hollow and ephemeral figures: are these different from the heroes of the world at large?

Indeed, the typical teen-age hero is the teenager's own reflection, a little larger and louder, and this complies fully with the requirement for political leadership remarked over forty years ago by Trotter in Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War:—

  "He must remain, in fact, recognizable as one of the flock, magnified, no doubt, louder, coarser, above all, with more urgent wants and ways of expression than the common sheep, but in essence to their feeling of the same flesh with them.”

The place of violence and greed in the present-day world should be mentioned, too. It is fairly obvious that youth wanting to claim grown-up privileges will see physical and sexual prowess as the things to show; and equally obvious that so far as unscrupulousness, brutality, and general disregard for human personality go the grown-up world provides precedents and examples in plenty. One does not have to think only of the Bomb. There are the well-known facts of How to Get On in the World—the ruthless treatment of other people and the morality that ends can justify all means. It used to be pretended to the young that honesty was the best policy; now nobody tells them anything so patently at variance with the facts of life.

For all the attention demanded and given to him, the adolescent has not gained much. Release from one set of circumstances and conventions has led only to others which seem hardly more desirable; the "mixed-up" young person is a creature of his time. And the truth is that there can be no emancipation for anyone, in the real sense of the word, in the society in which we live. The emancipation of women, of slaves, of empire-trodden peoples, has meant in actuality only freeing them from one kind of bondage to secure them in another. What is the matter is not the young people or the old people, but the organization of society: the only freedom which can mean anything is freedom deriving from common ownership of the means of life.

It is worth saying also that only in Socialist society will it be possible for the first time for young people to develop freely towards satisfying and full lives. In the Capitalist world they are viewed not as people at all but as future wage-workers, soldiers, consumers, and adherents to this and that. Not long ago the Daily Mirror, in an article called "The Beanstalk Generation." claimed that the facts of physical maturity were changing in the emancipated-adolescent age. It goes to show how little is really known about youth, and how little can be known until the entire social environment is changed.

It is not the kids, but the world that is mixed-up and crazy.

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: Russian Riddle Explained (1958)

Editorial from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Winston Churchill, in one of his little oratorical exercises, once described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” If he meant that it is hard to foresee where Russian internal strains and stresses will thrust out next, and the precise form they will take in foreign policy, it could have represented his true opinion. But on a rather larger scale he was doing himself an injustice. With his background and outlook, and his own easy disregard for political party shibboleths and loyalties when British capitalist interests are concerned, he could have no difficulty in understanding long-term Russian state policy and actions: one representative of aggressive imperialism can hardly fail to appreciate his opposite numbers in Russia.

But if Churchill chose to write himself down as more ignorant than he is, there are many others who claim to understand about Russia much more than they do.

These reflections are provoked by an article by Emanuel Litvinoff, reviewing E. H. Carr’s Socialism in One Country (Manchester Guardian, 14th November, 1958). Carr’s book describes developments in Russia in the years 1924-1926. His theme is that “Mother Russia was digesting the Bolshevik Revolution.” “As the Soviet. Government became more and more openly the heir of Russian state power and attracted to itself traditional feelings of Russian patriotism, it proclaimed its mission in terms which conveyed to sensitive ears unmistakable echoes of the Russian past  . . .  the cause of Russia and the cause of Bolshevism began to coalesce into a single undifferentiated whole.”

It is on this theme that Carr explains the passing of the “Westerners,” Trotsky, Lunacharsky and others and the rise of Stalin with his isolationist slogan “Socialism in one country.”

Emanuel Litvinoff accepts this proposition and opens his review by recounting a remark made to him by a Communist friend who is troubled about the Russian tyrannies. He said: “For me the important question now is whether these arise out of something inherent in the Communist movement, or whether they are specifically Russia.”

Carr and Litvinoff and the “Communist” friend are all wide of the mark. Of course, different countries have different histories, different geographical features, different institutional developments and different traditions, but in their study of these the men we are criticising have been so obsessed with the detailed differences that they cannot see the underlying capitalist development that marks Russia and the West, and the whole of the modem world of Capitalism. They cannot see that the democracies of Western Europe had a history that mirrors Russia’s present stage of institutional evolution. They have been so busy studying the varieties of leaf and flower that they cannot even see the trees, let alone the wood.

What basis is there for their repetition of the popular misconception that Russia is “Socialist,” or for their new misconception that Russia is not Capitalist but ‘‘Russian.”? Apart from the political dictatorship—which they could study in the past of Britain and Western Europe—where are or ever were these so-called Socialist features of Russia? Commodity production, the production of goods for sale and profit, the existence of a great propertyless wage-earning class, the huge national debts and bond-holding, the banks and insurance institutions, the inequalities of income and the complex taxation systems, the preoccupation with Capitalist investment, foreign trade and the military struggle for territories and the control of trade routes—these are the features not of Russia as such or America or Britain as such, but of world-embracing Capitalism.

Their defence for their unsupportable notions always is that Russia has gone further in State intervention, in the form of the great nationalised industrial and commercial monopolies. This, of course, is the crux of the question and the source of their confusion. These features are not Socialist, but Capitalist: State Capitalism is not Socialism and cannot be shown to be anything else, but a form of Capitalism and one familiar enough in all countries.

And if thrown out of that indefensible position, they retire to their second line of defence, i.e., that “Socialism” now means “State Capitalism,” because they and so many others profess to think that it does, they have to explain away the fact that the early Bolsheviks in Russia never held that view, but always lined themselves up with the Marxian conception which flatly rejected it.

What has happened in Russia is not the mere continuation of Russian tradition under another name, nor the development of a different “Socialism” (which would be like deciding to call chalk, cheese), but the emergence of Capitalism, growing more marked with the passage of time, in place of feudalism. Russian evolution is Russia’s delayed version of the Revolution which brought Capitalism to supremacy in France a century and a half ago.

The turn of events in Russia is not the failure of Socialism or its corruption by Russian tradition, but the total failure of the Bolsheviks to impose Socialism on an unready country, against the wishes of the population who were not and are not Socialists.

The S.P.G.B. foretold this failure at the start, forty years ago. How long will it take the Carrs and Litvinoffs to see the riddle as it really is, no riddle at all?

Blood in the Mud (1958)

Film Review from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

I don't like war films. But a Socialist will find much to interest them in "Blitzkrieg," even though it is the latest propaganda effort from Germany.

This film does not tell you anything about why the war arose. Nor does it ask how war can be avoided. But it gives, nevertheless, a devastating picture of what real war is like.

Propaganda films are interesting for one who does not take them at their face value, but recognises them as such. These pictures are made with the intention of making us think, and feel along certain lines. Knowing this beforehand, we can study the methods used by those who hope to influence us.

The makers of “Blitzkrieg” are “good German”a patriots. And, though they have used real news films from all countries in its production, their commentary (in English) is an alibi for their actions and for their defeat: Why did we Germans lose the war? Because of the mud and unending snow which trapped our tanks in the steppes of Russia: because the distances we had to cover were too vast; because of American superiority in production: because our allies—the Italian, the Hungarian and Rumanian troops—fought badly on the Eastern front; because Hitler was a very bad general, and a fanatic, whose strategy was disastrous: because he interfered constantly with the experts of the High Command: and because the Reds outnumbered our soldiers ten to one.

But—as we are incessantly reminded throughout the film—the brave German army and its heroic soldiers were never really defeated. They proved their worth . . . One German soldier is worth several Russians or Italians . . . one can almost hear the commentators say “ Wait till next time; when we try again—with the lessons in snow warfare which we have learnt at such a cost, and with the armed might of Britain and America behind us instead of against us—we shall beat the Russians.”

What caused the war? What were the interests at stake that persuaded the British and German ruling classes to spend so much money fighting each other?

For the Socialist the essential lies in what the film conveniently omits to tell us: How the German Capitalists, undoubtedly with the approval of a good many German people, exterminated millions of Russians, Jews, and Gypsies—and why; how they terrorised and tortured and murdered tens of thousands of German and other Communists, pacifists, and other opponents. It does not tell us of the huge numbers of patriotic men who returned from the war legless, armless, and worse; nor are we shown how the leaders of each country, Nazi and Labour Party leaders, Communists, Christians, Conservatives and Fascists enthusiastically urged the peoples of the world to butcher each other.

What we Socialists are opposed to are the implications that are behind these war films. They are an attempt to justify a past war in order to make a future once more acceptable and they do so by playing on the emotions of the filmgoer. The film is good. But the better it is the more dangerous it is to human well-being. War films are made to glorify war. The majority of those watching no doubt identify themselves with the hero, whether the hero be an individual or army. It is they who, in imagination, perform those deeds of valour, which stripped of their glory, are nothing but killing and terror. This picture is no exception to the rule, and is essentially similar in outlook to British and American war films.

War films reinforce thinking in terms of nationalism and the fake ideals for which fie various countries profess to fight. Films such as this help to prepare people for war, and educate them in its basic ideas: they justify the struggles of the ruling class and they present war as inevitable. And, when they shout “Égalité, Fraternité, Liberté! ” they mean “Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry."

H. L. R.

Life or Death, 1958 (1958)

From the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is something cold and detached about the world of statistics, for it forms a part of a science based upon self-evident truths and abstract relationships, and there was certainly something chill about the proceedings in the Central Hall, Westminster, on the evening of September 22nd.

On the platform were three eminent scientists—Professor Linus Pauling, of Pasadena, U.S.A., Professor Marcus Oliphant of Australia, and Professor Powell of Bristol University; three men whose contribution to science is acknowledged as great within their own lifetime. They were there at the invitation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, to be cross-examined “about nuclear and hydrogen bombs and the responsibility of the Scientist in the Nuclear Age.” Their interrogators were two journalists, a liberal politician, and a Q.C.

In expert and erudite terms—terms which any layman could well understand—Messrs. Pauling, Oliphant and Powell explained with the cold compulsion of science the horrors of living in this nuclear age. To have been unmoved would have been to deny that one was a human being. To have accepted their conclusions would have been to deny the very “scientific method” that they had earlier evoked to their aid.

What did they say?

They told us that the genetic mutations caused by radiation from one 20 megaton bomb would cause the birth of 15,000 deformed children, and that consequently mankind had already mutilated 150,000 of its future offspring; and that there is no defence against a nuclear weapon, as indeed there is no defence against high explosives or bullets, save not to have them.

They told us that a limited nuclear war is impossible. That once a nuclear weapon is exploded, retaliation is certain. It had been estimated that even if 630 H bombs were dropped on the U.S. (which number would kill 150 millions of the total population of 175 millions by direct action alone), America’s retaliation potential would not be seriously impaired. This because U.S. missile bases were spread throughout many parts of the globe, and atomic weapons are standard equipment carried by patrol aircraft and submarines.

They told us that though it was possible to detect nuclear explosions and control the making of nuclear weapons, it would be impossible to detect a store of nuclear weapons already assembled. Nuclear materials can be buried conveniently underground, and a plot of earth 30 foot square could house enough nuclear potential to blow the earth out of the universe.

We were told that clean bombs are the starting point for all conventional nuclear weapons. That a clean bomb can be converted into a dirty bomb of twice the power by the simple expedient of changing the nature of the outer compartment metal. And that far from cleaning its bombs, the U.S. was at the moment removing all its nuclear weapons from stock and dirtying them up, by adding something to them. According to Professor Pauling, such a dirty bomb if dropped on London would kill the populations of Manchester and Liverpool by the direct fall-out of radioactive material.

They told us that in a matter of a few years the number of nations which possessed nuclear weapons would be doubled. That a nuclear weapon could be exploded anywhere without anyone having the slightest idea where it came from.

And one thing was said which shows the barrenness of supporting campaigns like the one organised by the nuclear disarmament people. Even if it were possible to destroy all stocks of nuclear weapons and prevent the manufacture of more, even then, in the event of a war, it would take but a year to re-assemble the knowledge of the past and make further bombs. As Professor Oliphant said: “You cannot banish nuclear war without banning all war.”

What is the answer ?

Our three scientists thought that international agreements and pacts, designed initially to ban the further testing of nuclear weapons, were the starting point. From this, they thought, growing confidence and mutual trust would finally make complete disarmament a possibility.

Such, a position is untenable because it is unscientific. If, as our scientists admit, nuclear disarmament cannot be divorced from the problem of war itself, a solution of the former can only be accomplished within a general solution of the latter. War is no act of God, no manifestation of human nature. War is a product of the nature of society. A society whose basis, private ownership of.the means of living and_sale of goods for a profit, is the cornerstone of man’s inhumanity to man. It is the result of international competition by groups of property-owners for raw materials, markets, and strategic positions. Though the players may be disguised and masquerade as governments, the game is just the same, the spoils just as large, the rules just as ghastly.

What place has mutual trust in a world which exhorts the act of legalised plunder and pillage as its premise? Where a sense of growing confidence as half the world’s population dies of slow starvation? What price international agreements with a ballistic missile levelled at your head?

It is difficult to conceive the horrors of an H.B. war; to realise that each bomb is 20 million times bigger than the biggest block buster used in the second world war. Who can imagine London lying obliterated and the peoples of Leeds and Birmingham dying by the same act? Such things are almost beyond the grasp of human comprehension. And yet they may become reality tomorrow. The choice is yours. Is it to be Capitalism or Socialism, private property or social equality, war or peace, life or death? 

Michael Gill

Quare Phenomena (1958)

TV Review from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another month come and gone, and the writing of these notes an almost frightening reminder of how many hours of the best years of one's life have been spent in glassiness before the screen, a woodbine-smoking Lady of Shalott gazing in one's Magic Mirror.

Not every month, however, yields two plays of such quality as The Quare Fellow and The Greatest Man on Earth. The Brendan Behan piece came over well in its television version, in spite of the condensations of both text and space. A tremendous indictment of prison-keeping, this, all the more because it never explicitly indicts at all: only shows the stupidity and barbarity and humbug, and what it does to everyone concerned.

The Greatest Man on Earth was fun to make you think. In case anyone didn't see it, its situation (developed from a James Thurber story) was simply the dilemma of American heads of state when a suddenly-sprung national hero turns out to be also hoodlum, illiterate, sex-fiend and general loudmouth. The pace and the amusement never let up, but it seemed as if a point were being made all the time and someone was slyly telling us that this wasn't so far-fetched, either.

What else? Well, there is the news that someone has been appointed to supervise the children's programmes: a beam of hope for the anti-cowboy zealots. Much less hope, however, of any falling-back in the main, most depressing trend in children's television. This is not gunplay and rough-stuff (except possibly the reiteration of the appalling Popeye cartoons, with their interminable beatings-up), but the steady intrusion of juvenile editions of quizzes, panel games, and the rest of YV "light entertainment."

It is about a hundred years since children began seriously to be educated as future wage-workers and soldiers. The last few years have seen a new addition to the prospects: educating them as future consumers as well. Here it is on the telly, the view presumably being to produce a younger generation which no longer wants to be sheriffs and engine-drivers, but wants to watch "Dotto" instead.

There has also been the shattering allegation that quiz contestants are primed beforehand. Nobody so far has made much of a reply, and one wonders why they should. There is a good deal to be said for it. The questions themselves (What is a Zulu? Which way is south?) are insulting enough; why add humiliation by revealing that the subjects in a good many cases don't know the answers?

Robert Barltrop

Wild Strawberries (1958)

Film Review from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

This film, shown at the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals, and now showing, at the Academy cinema, was made by Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director who has already created a considerable reputation with his earlier films, Sawdust and Tinsel, Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal.

Although Bergman has again attempted to reveal the mainsprings of human motives and emotions and made free use of mystical symbols, he has in this film presented his ideas in a much clearer and comprehensible form.

The story is simple. An old doctor, his cold, unhappy life drawing to its close, is tormented by guilt-ridden dreams which, in his own words, "try to tell me things which I cannot admit to myself while I am awake." The dreams tell him that he is hard and egotistical, and without kindness and compassion.

Accompanied by his daughter-in-law, he journeys by car to the town where he is to receive his jubilee doctorate, and on the way gives a lift to two adolescent boys and a young girl, who represent the unfulfilled hopes of his childhood. He also picks up a married couple, who, as in his own marriage, dislike each other intensely, and spend their time quarreling and inflicting verbal cruelties upon each other.

Through these dreams and experiences, and also because of his natural fear of loneliness and death, the old man learns the importance of human relationships, and brings belated warmth into his associations with other people.

With this simple theme, Bergman ably demonstrates the horrors of loneliness, and man's desperate need for kinship with his fellow-humans. Unfortunately, what he does not show is the social foundation of much of man's present-day loneliness and lack of satisfactory human relationships, and the way in which modern life has broken down much of our social contact. However, it would be churlish to let this complaint blind us to the many fine qualities of this remarkable film.

Technically the film is excellent, and Bergman uses a multitude of brilliant devices to accentuate the theme of loneliness, The dream sequences never seem overdone or out of place, and the first dream, particularly, with empty streets, driverless hearse, and coffin which spills its ghoulish contents, is a superb piece of the macabre.

Although Bergman is concerned with man's personal predicament in a world of decaying values and collapsing faiths rather than with the social nature of these changes, such is the quality of his perception that he invariably brings to the screen situations and characters in which we can recognise a social application.

However, Bergman provides a purely personal examination and explanation of human motives, and it would be misleading to suggest that his films are designed as pleas for social change; rather, they are pleas for personal development or change of heart. No matter how satisfying these films may be artistically, they do indicate that the director is mistakenly looking into men's minds for the explanation of human frailty and suffering, whereas the explanation is to be found in the social structure that inflicts itself upon and moulds the minds of these men (including that of Bergman himself).

Loneliness, fear, frustration and unhappiness, if examined closely, in most cases reveal a recognisably social and not personal origin. While sympathising with Bergman's concern for the plight of individual men, one cannot help wishing that he would look a little further for the social basis of much of what he examines.

Albert Ivimey

Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy (1958)

Book Review from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan

Brendan Behan at the age of sixteen came from Dublin to Liverpool with an I.R.A. "do it yourself Kit." for the purpose of blowing up Cammell Lairds. He was arrested, and after a stay in Walton Detention Prison, Liverpool, was sent for three years to a Borstal Institution in East Anglia. The book (published by Hutchinson) tells of his experiences in these places.

He speaks of the filth and brutality which existed at Walton Prison, and there is no reason to disbelieve it. Life in Borstal, however, was much different. In fact, it smacks of Tom Brown's Schooldays and the Gem and Magnet. Chaps played the game - the Borstal game - apart from the occasional cad, house masters and house captains were sports. There were escapades, larkies and some horseplay. In fact, Behan and Co. at Borstal looks rather like Harry Wharton and Co., at Greyfriars. The youthful I.R.A. terrorist even assumed a Borstal school tie attitude, and he said his chinas came to regard the college boys they met via the Rugby field as being something of bounders. Behan also considered that he had a more cultivated and educated mind than the college products.

One of the defects of the book is that the conversation is so loaded or over-loaded with barrack room lingo that it fails to trigger off effectively. In fact, the constant repetition of stereotyped swear words takes on the chant of a litany. If one wants to substitute the soporific effect of counting imaginary sheep-jumping over a stile, then counting the swear-words which appear at such regular and monotonous intervals in the book will prove just effective. One feels that the author exploits the swearing gimick in an attempt to impart a vitality and excitement to the conversation which it often lacks. In any case, bad language is not necessarily a criterion of bad boys, even "good boys" often indulge in it.

Behan himself outswears the wide boys, the screws, toughies and ponces. But surely if one is describing a drug addict one does not have to take dope for the purpose of so doing. He seems naive enough to believe that "wicked words" are the hall mark of masculinity, especially his masculinity, when more often than not they are a bawdy blanket to cover a paucity of effective expression.

In spite of all the tumult and violence of the book, it has a monastic quality in that nothing of any significance from the outside world ever seeps in. Not even the war which was going on at the time is mentioned, in fact, the author never seems to have really noticed it. There is no serious discussion, not even about Ireland. Behan indulges in rodomantade about Irish politics, religion and history, but never indicates that he has any grasp of the underlying economic and political factors of Irish history.

Behan might say that he takes the world as he finds it. But what he finds in it is precious little, although he is often a little precious about it. His characters might be incorrigible and by certain standards a little impossible, but it seems vide the author that they live in the best of all possible worlds. He sees nothing wrong with the world and his only "revolutionary" aim, it seems, to use his own words, is to become a rich red.

Behan at least went to Borstal wearing a slightly glamourised would-be Martyr's crown. He came out none the worse, perhaps even a little better for it. But what of the mal-adjusted, the misfits and the unfortunates; what happened to them? That, perhaps, is the most disquieting thing of all, but Behan never mentions it.

He has nothing to say against patriotism or nationalism either of the English, Irish or any other variety. He seems to regard many Englishmen as stiff-necked and arrogant, but sees no reason why they should not be either in their native country or to people who come from other countries. But in a world of conflicting national interests, being pro Irish, English or American, means even at the best of times being negatively anti-something else. In the worse times such feelings take on an active and hostile form.

Behan's book is of a piece with Behan himself, bumptious, bouncing and bawdy, with a hint of hindsight and flashes of poetry. It is genuinely funny in places, but suffers from repetition. Behan at least has a sense of bubbling humour which pops and fizzes in all sorts of unexpected places and is a refreshing contrast to the "look back in anger," chip on the shoulder, the world owes me a living, writers who have set a literary fashion.

He has himself become rather fashionable, but literary fashions, like women's fashions, change quickly, and unless his future output is more significant than his past and present ones, Behan might easily become an has Behan.

Ted Wilmott