New Pamphlet: The Socialist Party: its Principles and Policy (1934)

Party News from the November 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Blogger's Note:

The text of this pamphlet is available on the SPGB's website.

Below is the Executive Committee's brief preface which appeared in the 1934 pamphlet.

 

S.P.G.B. Library No.12

The Socialist Party – Its Principles and Policy 1934

PREFACE

THE Socialist Party of Great Britain, together with its associated parties in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America, is sharply distinguished from other organisations claiming to be socialist by the care that it takes to ensure that none but socialists shall become members. At first sight it may be questioned by the onlooker  whether any such distinction exists. It may be said, for example, that there are many organisations the members of which are required to declare that they are socialists. Nevertheless, the difference is a real one, for the Socialist Party of Great Britain demands of its members something more than a formal declaration that they are socialists.  Applicants for membership are required to sign the Declaration of Principles printed on the inside cover of this pamphlet, and are expected to satisfy the branch before which their application comes that they understand and accept the principles in question.

The purpose of this care is not to retard the growth of the socialist movement, but to secure a firmly grounded and united membership. Effective socialist organisation cannot develop more quickly than the spread of socialist knowledge. To ignore this lesson, taught by the many failures in the history of the working class movement, is to invite the dissensions and desertions which always occur when a party based on a large but disunited membership has to face a crisis calling for firm decision.

In order, therefore, that the Socialist Party may be a fit instrument for the great task before us, we wish to provide applicants for membership with an explanation, as simple as possible, of our Declaration of Principles. That is the purpose of this pamphlet.

A pamphlet of this kind is bound to make somewhat difficult reading. for those who are not yet accustomed to a closely reasoned explanation of political and economic problems. Any reader who finds this to be his experience is urged not to be discouraged. The effort to understand the various clauses of our Declaration of Principles and to explore the lines of thought opened up in this pamphlet cannot fail to be of value, even if at first it presents a little difficulty. Readers are advised also to read our pamphlets “Socialism” and “The S.P.G.B. and Questions of the Day,” in which the treatment of different aspects of socialism is more general and will present less difficulty to the beginner.

Executive Committee, S.P.G.B.

August, 1934.

To German-speaking readers (1949)

From the September 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

[At the request of a comrade who is trying to make the Party’s case known among German-speaking workers, we publish below a German translation of the S.P.G.B.’s Object and Declaration of Principles. Other comrades who are in touch with workers in Germany or Austria may be able to make use of it.—Ed. Comm.] 

ZWECK DER S.P.G.B.

Die Gründung einer Gesellschaftsordnung, welche auf Gemeingut und demokratischer Verwaltung der zur Erzeugung und Verteilung der Lebensguter dienenden Produktionsmittel durch und für das gesamte Volk beruht.

Leitsätze:

Die S.P.G.B. steht auf dem Standpunkt:

1. Dass die Verfassung der heutigen Gesellschaft auf dem Privateigentum der Lebensmittel (d.s. Land, Fabriken, Transportmittel, etc.) seitens der Kapitalisten-oder herrschenden Klasse und der zur Folge habenden Versklavung der Arbeiterklasse, deren Arbeit allein Reichtum erzeugt, beruht.
2. Dass in der Gesellschaft daher ein Interessen-Gegensatz zwischen jenen welche besitzen aber nicht erzeugen und jenen welche erzeugen aber nicht besitzen, besteht, welcher Gegensatz in einem Klassenkampf seinen Ausdruck findet. 
3. Dass dieser Gegensatz nur durch die Befreiung der Arbeiterklasse vom Joch der herrschenden Klasse abgeschafft werden kan und zwar durch Umwandlung der Produktions-und Verteilungsmittel in Gemeingut und deren demokratische Kontrolle durch das gesamte Volk.
4. Dass, nachdem in der Reihenfolge sozialer Entwicklung die Arbeiterklasse die letzte Klasse ist, die ihre Befreiung noch zu vollbringen hat, die Emanzipierung der Arbeiterklasse gleichzeiteig die Befreiung der ganzen Menschheit, ohne Unterschied der Rasse oder des Geschlecht mit such bringen wird.
5. Dass diese Befreiung das Werk der Arbeiter-klasse selbst sein muss.
6. Dass, nachdem die Einrichtung der Regierung, einschliesslich der bewaflfneten Macht der Nation, nur zu dem Zwecke besteht, um das Monopol und Eigentumsrecht der Kapitalistenklasse auf die von den Arbeitem genommenen Reichtumer aufrecht zu erhalten, die Arbeiterklasse zielbewusst und politisch zur Eroberung der Regierungsgewalten (national und lokal) organisieren muss, um diese Staatseinrichtung einschliesslich jener Gewalten, von einem Werkzeug der Unterdrückung in ein Instrument zur Befreiung und zum Sturze von Privilegien (aristokratisch und plutokratisch) umzugestalten.
7. Dass, nachdem alle politischen Parteien nur der Ausdruck von Klassen-Interessen sind und das Interesse der Arbeiterklasse den Interessen aller Glieder der herrschenden Klasse diametral entgegensteht, die die Befreiung der Arbeiterklasse anstrebende Partei jeder anderen Partei feindlich gegenuberstehen muss.
8. Die Sozialistische Partei tritt daher auf das Feld polifischer Tätigkeit, entschlossen zur Bekamp- fung aller anderen politischen Parteien, gleichviel ob angeblich Arbeiterparteien Oder ausgesprochen kapital- istisch, und ruft die Mitglieder der Arbeiterklasse dieses Landes auf, sich unter ihr Banner zu scharen, damit dem System, welches sie um die Früchte ihrer Arbeit beraubt, ein rasches Ende bereitet werde, damit Wohlstand an die Stelle von Armut trete, Gleichberechtigung an die Stelle von Privilegien, und Freiheit an die Stelle von Sklaverei.

This Month's Quotation: Socialist (1933)

The Front Page quote from the August 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The 

emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex"

                                                                                 From the SPGB's Declaration of Principles.

Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received a further letter from the critic to whose letter we replied in the August issue.—Ed. Comm.)

Golders Green, N.W.11.

22 August, 1955.

The reply to my letter on the subject of Class Struggle and Socialism (August issue) makes no serious attempt to meet my criticisms. The class struggle, in any meaningful sense, is a struggle between class and class. The struggle for Socialism (I would not dhoqse the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion) is not of one class against another but is against the whole theory and practice of classes in society. It may be deplorable that benevolent old gentlemen say, in ostrich fashion, “Let us ignore classes . . ." but when they add “. . . let us regard each other as human beings" they are stating no less than the essential truth about how people will regard each other in Socialist society. And if the achievement of such a society is our conscious aim, then we cannot start too soon to put into practice the theory we value so highly.

The Ed. Comm frequently uses the phrase “the Socialist working class.” This is not a very helpful classification, because it confuses two quite different functions. In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e., a classless society. This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists. It is a criticism of the statement “I want Socialism because I’m a worker.” This statement is misleading. You want Socialism because you want to change society from a class-divided one in which you are a worker to a classless one in which you are simply and more fully a human being.

“The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” There is some truth is this. to the extent that workers are struggling against the Capitalist system and to introduce a system more worthy of human beings. But the separate interests of either of two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term “ class ” is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one,

An individual Capitalist can be a Socialist and can join in the work of achieving Socialism on the same terms as any other person. Obviously he doesn’t have working-class aspirations—except in the sense that he seeks the welfare of workers. He, in common with the worker, can have no greater aspiration than the welfare of the whole of humanity. Whatever makes one aspire to Socialism, one certainly does not do so from the standpoint of a class that is to disappear with the realisation of Socialism.

It is quite true that I reject the conception of a Socialist working class taking political action to end class society. The Ed. Comm calls this “the Socialist conception.” Let us see to what extent this is true. The statement by the Executive Committee in the August issue on the interpretation of Cause 6 of the Declaration of Principles explains that “when the workers understand the source of their subject position and the action they must take to abolish it, they can do so by sending representatives to Parliament to take control of the State power for this purpose.” Coming into what the Executive Committee calls the region of conjecture, allowance has then to be made for “a theoretically possible attempt in some form of violent sabotage during the revolutionary reorganisation. The control of the armed forces during this period will be an effective deterrent to any such violent attempt without these forces having necessarily to be used. Should a violent minority attempt to destroy Socialism they would have to be forcibly dealt with.”

There are good grounds for the doubts that those both inside and outside the Socialist Party have about the validity of this approach. Note the curious view that Socialists would be justified in threatening or using violence to deter the violence of others. Remember that Socialism is a society in which, to quote from the Party pamphlet on War, “no coercion will be needed because each will gain from co-operating harmoniously with his fellows.” Many Socialists feel that it spoils the whole thing if the rider is added “but we are prepared to bash those who won’t co-operate.” And they have some reason for feeling this. “A violent minority attempting to destroy Socialism” does not present a picture of any kind of possible social situation that I could imagine. If it was an attempt to destroy London or the Red Army, for example, it would be meaningful to me. However, a majority at least of the E.C. must be able to visualise circumstances in which Socialism could be physically battled for. We must then proceed to ask what further social arrangements will accompany the Socialist armed forces. Are we to have Socialist prison camps, judges, and spies? Fortunately, as a “critic” I do not expect to be called upon to take up arms to defend the revolution.

Another objection to the view expressed by the E.C. is more serious, and will be treated accordingly. We are asked to imagine a stage in the future development of society when the mass of people will be Socialists, i.e. will have abandoned support of Capitalist institutions, and will have in general the attitudes to social issues that Socialists have today. What will have happened to institutions while these tremendous changes in attitudes will have taken place ? The E.C. writes of such entities as Parliament, the State, the powers of government, the armed forces, as though they will remain substantially unchanged and function as they do today, but in an environment in which the barometer of social attitudes will be registering Socialism. For such a colossal disparity to exist between prevailing attitudes and institutions in any human society would be as major a denial of all that has been learned in terms of every social science as the denial of the law of gravity would be in physical terms.

I have so far largely only criticised the case put forward by the Socialist Party. For a statement of positive views which are consistent with the above criticisms, readers are referred to the article “The Socialist Movement,” in the April, 1955 issue of Forum (published by the S.P.G.B.) and to the publications of the Movement for Social Integration.

Yours sincerely,

S. R. Parker.

Reply:

This correspondence started with our critic objecting to a statement published in these columns which declared that the interests of the human race are bound up with the triumph of a Socialist working class in the struggle to establish Socialism. (See August issue.) Our critic’s first line of attack was to state that victory in the class struggle could only be a class victory because the class struggle is the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power.

In reply we pointed out that this is a complete misconception of the term class struggle. In his second letter no reference is made to this; from which we conclude that that line of attack based on misconception of the class struggle has been abandoned.

The second line of attack is on the idea of a “Socialist working class ” striving for Socialism. Our critic writes:— “In so far as people are members of a class they think and act in class terms. In so far as people are Socialists they work for a Socialist, i.e. a classless society.”

This is a statement that may have the appearance of containing some meaning but which in fact says nothing. As all the people are members of a class it asks us to accept that all people “think and act in class terms.” If this meant anything it could only imply that they therefore cannot act and think in terms of a classless society. But our critic hastens to explain that it does not mean this, for he writes:—“This is not to say that workers cannot be Socialists.” (To which we would add that some individual Capitalists become Socialists, for example Marx’s collaborator F. Engels.)

We are therefore left to wonder what the statement does mean. And whatever it does mean it would have to apply equally to our critic's conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between two “groups”, Socialist and non-Socialist. It would then read:—“In so far as people are members of a group they think and act in group terms.”

Our critic carries this point about class a stage further when he says that “the separate interests of either of the two antagonistic classes cannot be identical with the interests of the whole. The very term 'class ’ is by definition descriptive of less than the whole of society, and that is why Socialism is not a class issue but a human one.”

Certainly on a long-term view Socialism is in the interest of the human race as a whole. A current illustration of this is the fact that war, inseparable from Capitalism, threatens the existence of civilization. The fact remains, however, that it is in the immediate interest of the working class, the exploited class, to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism; the same cannot be said of the exploiting class.

Again we must point out that the above passage also necessarily applies to our critic’s conception of a group struggle, for, “ by definition ” a group is “descriptive of less than the whole of society.”

A further point made by our critic needs to be dealt with, that is the curious passage in the first paragraph of the present letter in which he tells us, in reference to the struggle for Socialism, “I would not choose the word struggle here, but accept it for the purpose of the present discussion.”

What precisely does our critic mean by this? Anyone coming to the correspondence now for the first time might imagine that, since our critic says he would not choose the word struggle, someone else must have foisted it on him. The fact is that the word was chosen by our critic and by nobody else. In his first letter (see August issue) he wrote of his own conception of Socialism coming by way of struggle between two groups, Socialists in one group and “those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions” in the other group. He repeatedly referred to it as a “ struggle.’

In our reply to our critics first letter we pointed out that he omitted to tell us how this group struggle is to lead to Socialism. This of course is a crucial question. He rejects the conception of a Socialist Working Class taking control of the machinery of government to establish Socialism and offers instead the conception of Socialism coming through the struggle between the two groups. But instead of answering our question as to how this struggle will lead to Socialism he offers the disingenuous plea that he “ would not choose ” the word that he did choose, the word struggle.

We can, of course, understand his difficulty. In our August issue a statement was published setting out the view of the S.P.G.B. on the unlikely but “theoretically possible” attempt by a minority of opponents to Socialism to sabotage the establishment of Socialism after a Socialist majority had gained control of the machinery of government.

Our critic wishes to attack this, but apparently does not wish to explain how that same hypothetical possibility would be dealt with on his own proposition of a struggle between a Socialist group on the one hand and on the other those “ who . . . support... the continuation of Capitalist institutions ” (his description in his first letter).

On the question of institutions of political power changing because of changing “attitudes” it would surely be to the point if our critic had produced evidence from history of a new class not needing to gain full or shared control of the machinery of government because of changing “attitudes or if he produced current evidence of such attitudes having changed and having already brought about essential changes in the Capitalist institutions of political power.

Ed. Comm.

The Confusion of a Confusionist (1955)

From the October 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

W. Faulkner, writer of a letter (3rd September, 1955) in the “Socialist Leader," under the heading of “Static Socialists,” says: “I get the feeling that there is some confusion over the meaning and purpose of Socialism.”

The heading “Static Socialists” is an absurdity to start with. When a non-Socialist becomes a Socialist he cannot be anything else but a live wire doing his utmost to change society from private to common ownership. Says Faulkner:—”It has always been difficult to define Socialism.” If he had taken the trouble to read the Socialist Standard and analysed the Object and Declaration of Principles he would see the difficulty exists in his imagination only. It would puzzle Faulkner to find a better definition Socialism than the following:—

“The establishment of a system of Society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community."

Then we are told:—"This looking backwards and asking what Marx did or some other leader, say, many years ago, is like asking, 'What did Gladstone say in 1868’ ” Faulkner has got the absurd idea that looking backward is wrong. Yet every schoolboy knows by his study of history, by looking backward, many useful lessons are learned. He ought to have learnt by now that the past, present and future are linked together. If he had no grandfather or mother he would not be alive today to write nonsense. The thing that matters is not that Gladstone or Marx lived years ago, but are the statements still true today. If Faulkner will take the trouble to read Marx, he will see the evidence that shows how the workers are robbed of the fruits of their toil.

The changes that have taken place during the past 50 years owing to wireless, television, the motor-car, jet planes, etc., could not have taken place if our forefathers had not prepared the way, but these changes have not altered the fundamental basis of Capitalism. Faulkner shows how confused he is when he says:—“The S.P.G.B. for example boasts that it has not changed in any way since it was formed in 1904.” It needs no argument to realise that the S.P.G.B. has changed over the years, some have died, new members take their places and their activities change from time to time. What Faulkner does not understand is that principles do not change. It is by analysing these principles, which act as a guide or compass to change the basis of Society; then they will no longer be needed. Says Faulkner, “It is science and improved technique that have transformed society and made possible a much higher standard of living for the workers.”

To be sure there is a large measure of truth in this, but the real benefits which science has made possible can only be fully realised when common ownership of wealth takes the place of private ownership.

In his concluding remarks, Faulkner writes:—"Remember that there is nothing constant but change.” Of course this is in flat contradiction with 'Static Socialists.' He cannot understand that there are things that do not change. Under Socialism, water will still be wet, fire will still bum and if he is still alive, he will have to breathe. Again, according to medical science, every living human being in one sense completely changes every seven years. That does not alter the fact, whether Faulkner used a typewriter or a pen for his letters, his fingers are anatomically the same fingers. Then there is the change that takes place after a hen has laid an egg, if left long enough the matter inside the shell changes, that splits up and divides, and for this to happen, the shell , is absolutely necessary. But later the shell becomes a fetter and has to be broken to bring forth the new life in the shape of a chick.

The changes that are taking place in Capitalism today are like the changes that take place in the egg-shell, with this difference, in the one is blind matter, in the other, the Capitalist frame-work, are men and women who are becoming more and more class-conscious and realise the Capitalist shell, so to speak, must be smashed in order to bring about the change for a new basis of society. We all want to live healthy, happy, human lives. This will only be done when we have decided to abolish Capitalism and establish a class-less system of society.

J. E. Roe

Letter: Mr. Rennolls Again. A Fine Part for Shopmen. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Rennolls Again. A Fine Part for Shopmen.

(To The Editor)

Sir,—You have been fair enough to publish two letters I sent to you under your own headings. In these letters I tried to make plain a few ideas which I thought of considerable importance, and apparently I have failed, at least as far as “F.F.” is concerned, to make them plain, for he doesn’t seem to have any notion of the whereabouts of my arguments. His Calvinistic adhesion to a few shibboleths called a “party programme” prevents him from seeing anything outside the glass case in which he keeps his precious doxology and benediction. He replies to me by answering questions I do not ask, by explaining intensively and extensively the obvious, by trotting out from the glass case facts and arguments which are expected to, but do not, fit any criticism and explain any difficulty, as if they were the dependable elixir of wisdom, and by getting into an awful state of alarm lest the sacerdotal arrangement of his revolutionary diary gets deranged.

Such a reply only goes to support my impression of the inadequacy of this doctrinaire state of mind. “F.F.” has not yet considered my essential question to Socialists to answer, viz., “What would be done to-morrow morning by all the people if all the people were like . . . any member of the S.P.G.B., . . . class-conscious, revolutionary Socialists ?” to be out of order, or ridiculous, or unnecessary, or what not. On the contrary he answers it, and I gather from his answer that they would “capture the political machine.” Here again is an “abstraction.” Yet “F.F.” dares to challenge me to prove that “abstractions” exist in the S.P.G.B. view of things. Perhaps his is not this view, in which case why is he put up to answer me ? [It is rather remarkable that Mr. Rennolls has forgotten that this discussion commenced with a criticism of his upon an written by our contributor, “F.F.,” and that therefore there is no question of the latter being “put up” to answer him.—Ed’s. “S.S.”] If his reply is the official one, I beg of him to see how he provides the very evidence he demands to be brought.

There is another side to his reply. As I gather we should all “capture the political machine,” we shall, whilst messing about doing this, work for the capitalist. Fancy Socialists doing this ! And here’s the rub. It is all very well for an isolated Socialist now working for a capitalist under economic stress and strain yet at the same time not losing hold of his principles, but withal more strongly adhering to them and desiring their consummation. That position of his holds good, but when everyone or nearly everyone is like him—rabid, red-hot, and revolutionary, it is not their business to work for the bounders for five minutes.

If we can get an idea of revolutionary action that will cover this contingency, then Socialism is something to us. If, however, we are still going on talking about capturing (sic) the political machine, if that is all you can offer, then Socialism to you, by this test, is what your “abstraction” is, an abstraction buttering no parsnips.

Why should we not consider ourselves in the light of everyone being like us ? To “suppose” or “if” that is quite in order. It stamps us individually, for what we are worth. We prate of what we would do IF we were “in power.” That itself is “iffing” it. But as soon as “F.F.” does it he lands himself into a no-man’s-land of “looking up the book,” and then just recites, Psalms-like, something about “capturing political power.” But to “if” what would-be done TOMORROW is still a more searching test into our concreteness of Socialism. Timing the thing leaves “F.F.,” and I take it the S.P.G.B., stranded.

“F.F.” gets out of it all by saying : “If all the people were Socialists to-night could anything be mores impossible or absurd?” Yes, this reply. Which is the absurdity, the “if,” the “to-night,” or the “all the people” ?

Anybody can “if,” so it cannot be that, and as you’ll want all the people or most of them with you, it cannot be that, and as I never said the people would be Socialists “to-night,” it isn’t that. We are left, therefore, with a typically anti-Socialist “argument” pretending to reply to a Socialist question. Yet “FF” admits in a previous breath that underlying the dictum “Labour-power produces all economic wealth” is intimated one possible answer—to this “absurdity.” Should I succeed in finding exactly what people would do to-morrow morning on the strength of my impressions and understanding of Socialism, why should it not be done ? What they would do I would do and what I would do they would do. It is a mere accumulation of my individuality acting on the basis of my impressions of Socialism. Why should I put off thinking out what would or should be done to give live Socialism a chance, a start, just because others have not troubled ?

Socialism is not to me, and ought not to be to anyone else, what others would do without me, and as it must, under those circumstances, present itself to be, a pure speculation, a nebulous programme of well-juggled phrases, that does not satisfy me, if it satisfies you.

I put the extreme test my essential question, to myself, and I answer that if all were like me, say to-morrow, we would go to work just as usual, in the old coal-pit or saw-pit, in the same field or factory, ship-yard or show-room, bakery or workshop—just as usual. We would go on producing, but the shopman—the keystone to the edifice of “realising” surplus-value, the man who does the trick for the capitalist in that he takes money for the products, sells them, exchanges them, would do nothing of the kind anymore. He would give the “goods “away instead.

Herein the least interference would be made with the existing social order with all its complexities, but the greatest damage would be done to the exploiting principle in it. It would be annihilated, in fact.

The effect of such action would be immediately felt in free-everything instead of looking to the moonshine of a remote democracy of intellects. While the old strikers were charged with stopping production and starting starvation, the boot would be now on the foot of those who would interfere, in this case, with production.

Instead of delegating some bounder to perform the miracle of “representing” you, you set about the job yourself. And so on and so on. Any Socialist can work it out for himself.

The lack of concreteness, suggestive of an active part for everyone to play in the economic revolution, giving no momentum to propaganda, has created the stagnation and mistrust that has overwhelmed working-class movements in the world of Socialism.

The overbearing interpretation of Society as a gutter of material phenomena through which marches a helpless working class that can only find salvation in general elections and mechanics on the Woolsack, is a looking-backward proposition of no earthly use. The decrying and tabooing of initiative and assertiveness, qualities of great value possessed by every Socialist, and left to rot for want of probing, has given place to the worship of such self-contradictory absurdities as “Democracy” and “social-property,” and to the study of our revolution as if it were a lesson in mathematics and an “As it was in the Beginning ” affair.

My dear sir, Socialism is the greatest psychological proposition of the age, and from that standpoint has received scant consideration.

Let Socialists organise and come together with open mind, plain speaking, earnestness and mutual respect.

—Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls 

“F.F.’s” Reply.

If Socialism is a proposition it is more of a social or an economic than a psychological one. The relation of Socialism to psychology was the subject which first attracted Mr. Rennolls’s none too definite criticism, though his intervention has provided us with a sample of working-class mind that is, unfortunately, all too numerous. He scorns and overlooks the obvious truths of Socialism, whether concrete facts or general statements. The latter he stigmatises as abstractions. I pointed out in my first reply that Mr. Rennolls did not define “abstractions” for us according to his conception of the word, therefore I refrained from replying to his charge. Now that we know from Mr. Rennolls himself that any general statement is an abstraction, I have only to point out that all such general statements contained in our Declaration of Principles are deduced from concrete facts and placed in that form in order to give expression to general or abstract truths. If this is not scientific, logical, or practical ; or if the principles are not correctly deduced, if there is not sufficient evidence to justify them, if they are too sweeping or not broad enough, it was, and still is, open for Mr. Rennolls to show.

In my first reply I also referred to my critic’s slipshod methods of reading and quoting, and proved conclusively that he had been guilty of misquoting. He ignores the charge and commits the same offence once more, when he pays that I challenged him to prove that abstractions exist in the S.P.G.B. Had I known at the time that according to him an abstraction was a generalisation arrived at by surveying a number of concrete facts upon which it was based, and the truth of which could be proved by both the inductive and the deductive method ; had I known this and known also that Mr. Rennolls held such generalisations in contempt—irrespective of their truth—I should not have “passed over” his “discovery of abstractions” without showing that such “abstractions” are necessary to any organisation and to a working-class party are absolutely essential.

Again, my critic put the question : “What would be done to-morrow morning if all the people were Socialists ?” and says that I answered it by saying “capture the political machine.” Good advice to the working class, but it was not written in answer to his question, the absurdity of which he is still unable to see. “Why should we not,” he says, “consider ourselves in the light of everyone being like us? To ‘suppose’ or ‘if’ that is quite in order.” Of course it is—for the dreamer. If Mr. Rennolls likes to spend his time imagining situations like that contained in his question he is free to do so ; but the only practical thing for the Socialist is to make Socialists—until Socialists are in a majority over all other parties ; until their representatives dominate the Parliamentary, urban and rural councils, judiciary, etc. That time will come long before Mr. Rennolls’s night of Socialists ; it may even come before he realises that his question is one that does not apply, that the situation he envisages cannot possibly arise, still, for his sake, let us hope not. 

“Timing the thing,” he says, “leaves ‘F.F.’ and I take it the S.P.G.B. stranded.” The position is the reverse : the S.P.G.B. makes a definite statement with regard to time—when a majority of the electorate are Socialists. But Mr. Rennolls would wait until the whole of the working class are Socialists. Why, he does not say, and this omission is all the more surprising seeing that the success of his plan only depends on the conversion of the “shopmen.”

Mr. Rennolls is quite sure of his plan, quite sure that the shopman is the keystone of the system, and equally sure that he would give the goods away instead of selling them. But he does not tell us what would happen when the shopman had parted with all his goods and applied to the capitalist for more. Would the latter give the goods instead of selling them ? Would he allow them to be taken ? Or would he call on the Government to provide the physical force necessary to protect his property ? On all these questions my critic is silent. His plan is deadlocked as soon as the shopman has given away all his goods, and the class that controls the political machine locks out the workers from all the chief sources of supply—by means of the fighting forces—and starves them into submission.

“Herein,” to quote from Mr. Rennolls’s following sentence, “the least interference would be made with the existing social order.” That is quite true : it would be a case of “as you were,” and Mr. Rennolls could ask himself his previous question once more—”Why should I put off thinking out what would or should be done to give live Socialism a chance, a start,” etc. The fact that his plan had failed because its supporters came up against physical force, which was controlled through the political machine by the capitalist class, might cause him to take the political machine into consideration. Without respecting it, he might still recognise that it was the source of power, and the simplest, easiest, and most direct way to overcome capitalist opposition to Socialism is to control it.

The political machine can only be controlled through representatives or delegates. But Mr. Rennolls jeers at the idea of being represented.. He calls it a “miracle,” and says, “you set about the job yourself. And so on, and so on. Any Socialist can work it out for himself.” Well, so he can, in fact the question of representation is so simple that it does not require working out. A concrete example is before every Socialist (and incidentally before Mr. Rennolls as well), which proves without the shadow of a doubt its inestimable value. The capitalist class by means of representation controls the political machine, and through it subjects the whole working class to its rule. Here is a practical illustration of the value of representation. If the master class find in that method all that is necessary to retain their supremacy—everything else being added unto them as a consequence—surely the working class cannot afford to ignore it.

Let Mr. Rennolls think it over instead of dreaming about “nights of gladness” when all will be Socialists, to wake up in the morning ; and get on with the game old job ; when all the shopmen will “give their goods away,” when none of us will work for the capitalist” bounders for five minutes,” when “F.F.” will get some “notion of the whereabouts” of his arguments, when “live Socialism” will get a start, when you set about the job of representing yourself, and all the other absurdities that are roosting in his brain to the exclusion of rational and consecutive thought.

To sum up, all Mr. Rennolls’s bombastic jeers, anent the “dependable elixir of wisdom,” the “sacerdotal arrangement of the revolutionary diary,” and the “doctrinaire state of mind,” fall flat, because he absolutely fails to show that our declaration of principles are not genuine, scientific generalisations. Those epithets would more aptly fit his own confident but confused state of mind. His dream of the benevolent shopman, is Utopian and impossible. His imaginative conception of a working class entirely Socialist and Socialism still awaiting establishment is childishly absurd. His careless assumption that “you” can always represent “yourself” shows that he has yet to learn the first principles of organisation. His contempt for political action is not based on reason or argument, and therefore stamps him as an Anarchist. He would preach discontent, but can present no feasible or scientific method by which the working class can achieve its emancipation.

F. Foan

Letter: Mr. T. Rennolls again. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. T. Rennolls again.

He promises to clear up the "mystery" of the "Hows of Socialism" next time.

Sir,—Socialism suffers the ignominy of having itself interpreted by a motley assortment of thoroughly earnest and conscientious dogmatists, whose self satisfaction with their own verbal and inspired platitudes is a replica of our education system, both in religion and politics. If Socialism is anything at all, it is something to US, something of imminent worth —only most of us don’t know it. There is contained within its teachings and interpretations a live principle of action that consists in the revolution itself, and which opens wide the door to the primary and definite growth of the social order implying Socialism. This principle of action, and the pointer indicating its residence in one of the commonest teachings of Socialism, has hitherto been encumbered and hidden with the rags and wrappings and insignia of the ambiguities, abstractions, and meaningless phrases, the latter of which I instanced in my last letter to you, which were taken from the programme of the S.P.G.B., and which are as plain as a pikestaff to any open-minded Socialist. Such things reduce Socialism to a Sociological hereafter, whereas it is of vital consequence and importance to the immediate future, an affair of OURS here and now. Having failed to make it this ; having neglected one of its first principles, which meant the loss of this vital active force in Socialism, it is up to us to retract and to make good the waste of energy that constitutes the trail of our progress.

Socialists have had the effrontery on their public platforms to tell their audiences who were rightly, logically and naturally interested in the “hows” of Socialism, i.e., “How can you get it?” “What must be done to attain it?” that that matter must be left to the people who, at some probably distant date, have made up their minds to have it. Or they have put it down to poor old Evolution, that seems to have to answer for all our difficulties, much as Christ is supposed to answer for all our “sins.”

These answers illustrate the bankruptcy of the Socialist propaganda. And to tell the people that we must “seize and hold,” “take over,” or “transform,” or “convert” private into public property, or “nationalise” this, that and the other, also illustrates the fact that these Socialists, the S.P.G.B. included, cannot answer the question, have no answer to it and simply don’t know. All these terms explain nothing ; there isn’t a ghost of a “how” in it, and until you can answer that question properly the capitalist has a walk over.

What guarantee have you that some other generation will know better than you “how to set about the revolution,” except through the lead you give them gratuitously, that you don’t know yourself ?

To confess that you cannot answer this question is a step in the right direction. To desire to be able to answer it is another. To bolster up your non-activist platitudarian Socialism with personal accusations of your critic’s “inability to comprehend what he reads,” his “deplorable form of second sight,” his “excessively imaginative mind,” his “slipshod method,” and his “twists and inversions,” simply won’t do. They may pass for slashing attacks with people who only too commonly construe personalities for arguments, but times are too serious and momentous for such indulgences, and Socialism has to pay the penalty all the time.

Socialism has depth as well as breadth. Analogically it is more the padding than your pancake.

In it there is something for every man and woman to do, undelegated and without the “you leave it to us business,” or the “wait till the clouds roll by,” “get-out.”

I call this “how” question an essential one. Disputation arises mostly upon it. People will agree about the Broad principles while disputing the Depths. And no wonder, when they see Socialists out of their depths in it. These disputations eventually give rise to the final neglect of Socialism as a FORCE, and the “new member,” passing through, in addition, the polemics of “Branch business,” routes of processions, prices of concert tickets, the seven categories of Capital, water on the Sahara or the price of eggs in 1844, disappears into the throngs of Blackfriars Bridge at twilight, only to find that “getting his living” must resume its former place in his mind, accompanied with strong indifference toward a Socialism that first tempted him, but afterwards left him bereft of hope, and a permanent instrument of capitalist slavery for him and joy-rides for them.

The slow growth of Socialism can be traced to the persistency of platitudes and palliatives (I don’t know which is worse), to the permeation of passivism (wait and see Socialism), and to the want of recognition of Activist Socialism—the thing I am driving at.

Let me put my “essential” question another way with the intention of making it more forceful and making its inner meaning stand out.

Question: What would be done to-morrow morning by all the people, if all the people were like “F.F.,” or you, Mr. Editor, or any member of the S.P.G.B., were like you in conviction, determination and understanding, were like you, class-conscious, revolutionary Socialists, what would you all do to-morrow morning ?

The answer to this question will jolly soon find out what Socialism is to YOU, and what you are to it.

Let us have a “slashing attack” upon this question ; an eye-opener answer.

It will find out and measure the amount of practical force, vim and activity impressed upon you as a result of your understanding of Socialism and its worth to you, the individual. It will indicate on its test dial, and on yours, whether Socialism sleepeth in you or is an active, vital, kinetic force, prepared with revolution and reaction proof.

The solution of this question lies in that simple Socialist teaching: Labour-power produces all economic wealth.

Thanking you for an answer to this question, I propose in another letter and with your permission to answer it myself, as if it were put to me.

—Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls.

The Reply.

In this second letter from Mr. Rennolls there are three things he has done and two he has left undone.

1. He has repeated the wild charges he made previously without proving or even attempting to prove them, then or now.
2. He has repeated his accusation re “ambiguities and abstractions” in a long letter composed from beginning to end, of abstractions, indefinite and ambiguous phrases.
3. He has repeated the lie that he built up his case on quotations from the “Socialist Standard.”

What has he left undone ? .

1. He has not touched upon a single point I raised in my reply.

2. He has failed to show any error in the details, principles, or general policy of the S.P.G.B.

In my first answer I showed that he had misquoted the Declaration of Principles, picking out words and half sentences, and generally making abstractions in one sense, that he might charge us with the use of abstractions in another sense. If he were practised in missing word competitions and such-like amusements it would be an easy matter for him to re-arrange all the words in the Declaration of Principles to make them read the exact opposite of their present meaning. But if, after having done so, he asserted that it was our “programme,” that would be a lie. On the other hand it is permissible for a critic to take a sentence or paragraph for his purpose, so long as it is complete and is an expressed opinion or judgment.

What Mr. Rennolls did was to drag half sentences from their context in order to give a false impression of the whole, though, even apart from it, they might teach him something; for surely Mr. Rennolls—with his professed knowledge of Socialism— cannot be ignorant of the meaning of such a term as “The conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, etc.”

For “abstractions and ambiguities” let the reader note that portion of his letter commencing “If Socialism is anything at all it is something to US.” He appears to be impatient with us, because “the live principle of action that consists in the revolution itself,” in other words that mean exactly the same, the revolution itself, is not here. In spite of his impatience, however, the revolution will only be achieved by arduous and steady propaganda. Socialism is something for us—to work for. Meanwhile, the evolutionary process continues, that process of development that characterises every form of society : the growth and modification that goes on continuously from the revolution in which it was born to the revolution that ends it, to give birth, phoenix like, to yet another system.

Capitalism of to-day, with its collossal machinery of production and distribution, has evolved from a beginning in which the greatest mechanical powers known were the water wheel and the windmill. Capitalist evolution is that process of growth or development that must continue while capitalism lasts ; it can only cease with the establishment of Socialism. Evolution is a process, and when Mr. Rennolls finds the SPG.B. ascribing to evolution “difficulties,” or anything else, that will be the time for him to jeer at us ; but let him find it first.

Mr Rennoll’s repeats again and again in his second letter, the question he asked in his first, and which was answered in the Declaration of Principles before he asked it. His “essential’ question as he terms it : “How?” “If all the people were class-conscious revolutionary socialists, what would you all do to-morrow morning?” The solution to this question he says lies in that simple Socialist teaching : “Labour-power produces all economic wealth.” That is no solution : but it intimates one possible answer to the question. As we live by the consumption of wealth, some of us would have to get up, dress and get on with the production of it. Even when asking questions, Mr. Rennolls’s imagination leads him into absurdities.

IF all the people—IF, as though some subtle essence from the tail of a comet could open the eyes of the workers and give them an understanding of Socialism ; make Socialists of them all without the labour of educating and organising. “If all the people were Socialists” to-night could anything be more impossible or absurd ? We, at least, do not look for miracles, nor do we expect to see nor do we think for a moment that anyone in the future will see, such a position as he outlines in his question : “all the people Socialists, capitalism still triumphant, and the people, i.e., the workers, not organised to capture the political machine as the first, and most important step to the establishment of Socialism. In the modern political State it is the majority that rules. The ruling class, smaller in numbers than the workers, make up a majority from the unclass-conscious material among the latter. With the growth of the Socialist Party this will become increasingly difficult and finally impossible. When the Socialists are in a majority over all other parties they will be able, through their representatives, to control the political machine ; this will place in their hands the power to take whatever steps are necessary to establish the new order. What these steps may be will depend upon the circumstances and conditions that apertain at the time. Depend upon it, a working-class organisation built up to a majority in the face of all capitalist parties and methods of opposition, will possess the knowledge, ability, determination and courage to carry through the revolution in spite of every obstacle flung across their path by reactionaries and capitalist politicians. Without the power they will acquire through control of the political machine, the workers can change nothing. They must either submit to capitalist rule or revolt and be bludgeoned into submission by the agents and tools of the class that controls the political machine. Political control is the key that unlocks the door of the new order; to-day it is in the hands of the capitalist class—hence their power. The accomplishment of the revolution is dependent on the knowledge and power of the working class ; the Socialist Party imparts the knowledge, control of the political machine will give them the power.

F. Foan

Correspondence: Wants to know what to do. (1917)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wants to know what to do

A critic concerned for our "soul" answered by one who hasn't got any. 

Sir,—”F.F.” in the August Socialist Standard puts an interesting question to Socialists, and then gives his only “solution.” The question refers to the mean and slavish mind of the worker, how he does not think for himself on vital questions, and how his environment weakens and degrades his mind, the question being: “How to induce the toiler to think for himself.” I suppose the question should be: “How to get the worker to think.”

In “F.F.’s” “solution” he alleges lack of real knowledge and apathy on the part of the worker. To counteract or solve this he looks to “a Socialist party alive to its task,” to a clear and easily understood Socialist position, to the avoidance of confusion and to the clearly defined and precisely stated object of this Socialist party.

This is rather well put, and if it were added that this Socialist party should be able to tell the worker what to do, one would be able to call it a “solution” of some merit. But I know of no such party, and Socialism is a long way off without it and withall needs it very badly.

Put all the “programmes” extant before our eyes, let alone before the apathetic worker, and there is nothing “clearly defined,” “precise and easily understood,” among any of them. Put all the programmes condemned by the S.P.G.B. aside and consider its own alone, and it is in the category of the others. I turn to the last page of the “S.S.,” and I find platitudes, abstractions, ambiguities, and no way out of slavery, nothing to be done to get out of it excepting a faithful awaiting for something to turn up.

For instance, I read that class antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class … by the conversion into the common property of society (whatever that means) of the means of production and distribution and their democratic control by the whole people. I further read about the conquest of the powers of government and its usage as agent of emancipation and as an overthrower of privilege, and about the working class mustering under the banner of the S.P.G.B. for the speedy termination of poverty, privilege, and slavery. These are all fine-sounding phrases that signify nothing concrete, definite, plain, and well understood. Underneath them lies either a self-confessed inability to give clear expression of what it is driving at, or a confession that beyond the terms “emancipation,” “common property of society,” “conversion,” etc., no other explanation is thought out or even dreamed of. As for “government” being the agent, democratic or otherwise, of emancipation and a kind of miraculous terminator of poverty by mustering under any body’s banner is too thin to deceive.

What does it all mean ? What is it to any live Socialist to for ever enunciate, iterate, and reiterate terms and phrases that have no backing of concrete acts which in themselves should constitute the very revolution ? Will any working man be drawn by them? Can Socialism under the dead weight of these abstractions be anything more to a Socialist than Heavenly Bliss is to a Salvation Army lass? It can be less, for she believes she has her consummation when the bell of her demise tolls one !

A little introspection is good for the soul. [So stout a champion of the definite and concrete might have been a little more clear with regard to his last term.—Eds. “S.S.”] I trust this letter will lead to a much-needed stocktaking.

Yours fraternally,

Tom Rennolls

The Reply.

Mr. Rennolls is not to be complimented on the ability he has acquired of being able to read without comprehending what he reads. He says the question I put is “How to induce the toiler to think for himself?” And he further “supposes” the question should be, “How to get the worker to think ?” If, however, he turns to the article in question he will find that both his guesses are wrong. The actual question, or, rather, problem is put in a single continuous sentence : “How to induce the toiler to think for himself on the all-important question, ‘Socialism” versus Capitalism.’ ” And even if Mr. Rennolls, either unwittingly or to suit his argument, is prepared to cut a sentence in two and leave out what is necessary to make sense of it, he must, in common fairness, admit that the worker, before he can think intelligibly on this subject, must rouse himself, or be roused, from his apathy, and acquire some knowledge of the subject. The mere statement, “To get the worker to think,” is nonsense unless we get him to think about something totally different to what engages his mind at the present. For, as was pointed out, though Mr. Rennolls failed to read and comprehend, every worker thinks, but his thoughts are mainly about work, how it should be done, or “how to dodge it,” as the case may be. Anything else he thinks, politically or spiritually, is manufactured for him by capitalist agents. Even on the question of Socialism itself an army of agents is engaged to misrepresent it to him and prevent him from obtaining clear and rational ideas on the subject.

Having failed to read or quote correctly, Mr. Rennoll’s second point does not arise ; because when the worker “thinks for himself on the all-important question, ‘Socialism versus Capitalism,’ “ “what to do” is included, as a more careful reading of the “S.S.” will prove to our critic.

But Mr. Rennolls, besides having a mote in his eye that—conveniently—blots out phrases and whole paragraphs when he reads as a critic, is possessed of a deplorable form of second sight ; a creative faculty that “finds”—not on the printed page before him, but somewhere in the associated ideas of his own mind—just the very phrase or idea that he is in need of in his capacity of critic. I pass over his discovery of “platitudes, abstractions, and ambiguities,” because he does not define what he means by them. But when he says that somewhere in our declaration of principles he finds the expression, advice, or even the insinuation, that there is “nothing to be done to get out of it, excepting a faithful awaiting for something to turn up,” I pity him, not because he is blind, but because his sight is abnormal and his mind excessively imaginative.

But Mr. Rennolls’ slipshod methods do not end here ; as he reads, so he quotes. Always, there is either something left out or added, something twisted or inverted, that alters the sense. As anyone can see by comparing his quotations with the Declaration of Principles, which, in itself, is the essence of the working-class position. Every paragraph and sentence is pregnant with axiomatic and scientific truth. If it errs at all, it is on the side of simplicity and clarity, which, of course, would be right for the average worker, but would constitute a stumbling-block for Mr. Rennolls and the Anarchists and Industrial Unionists whose phrases he has adopted. Simplicity is not for them: they delight in being recondite, notwithstanding their inability to translate their ideas and phrases into language intelligible to the man in the street—that is, of course, crediting them with the capacity to understand them themselves.

For instance, we are told that the S.P.G.B. “enunciate, iterate, and reiterate terms and phrases that have no backing of concrete acts which in themselves should constitute the very revolution.” On the nature of these “concrete acts” Mr. Rennolls is silent. Why ? Is he ashamed of the “direct action” piffle so often exposed in these columns ? He might well be so when placed in comparison with the policy of the S.P.G.B.

Beside the Object and Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party, the Policies and programmes of every political party and economic organisation are mere shuffling and wasted energy, because they leave intact political control by the ruling class. Anarchists and Syndicalists may prate of Direct Action and Freedom, but they, and the workers with them, will remain nonentities in the working-class struggle for emancipation until they realise their slavery, recognise the means by which they are enslaved and take the necessary steps to control the forces that, to-day, control them. The source of power is the political machine ; until the workers have control of that they are powerless to change their status or conditions ; therefore we urge them to understand and organise for control of the political machine, that the power to transform society may be theirs, in spite of capitalist opposition. Where is another party that urges this obvious course—let Mr. Rennolls answer—we stand alone, and by that token are the only Socialist party.

F. Foan

Letter: Marx and the State (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and the State

Many of your members and readers may feel that the SPGB is a truly Socialist and Marxist Party. But I doubt if Marx would think so if he were alive today.

One of your biggest theoretical blunders is assuming that society can be changed through Parliament. The state machine of every bourgeois society has as its principal aim the preservation of the supremacy of the ruling class, and the consequent enslavement of the proletariat. So how you expect to use this state machinery against the ruling class is beyond my comprehension. As Marx said in The Civil War in France " . . . the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes”. So how are we to achieve Socialism? Engels provided the answer in a letter to G. Trier dated December 18th 1889. “The proletariat cannot conquer its political domination, the only door to the new society, without violent revolution”, (my emphasis) If the SPGB supposes for one minute the bourgeoisie is going to simply hand over one iota of their power power and privilege just because, by some miracle, the SPGB has a majority in parliament then they are living in a dream world.

For the revolution to be successful we need a strong organized proletarian party. Let us hear what Marx has to say on this in a letter to F. Bolte dated November 23rd 1871. “The political movement of the working class has as its object, of course, the conquest of political power for this class, and this naturally requires a previous organization of the working class developed up to a certain point and arising precisely from its economic struggles”. But we see that the SPGB refrains totally from indulging in these “economic struggles” i.e. fighting for higher wages, against unemployment and public spending cuts etc. Certainly not Marxist tactics!

In number eight of your Declaration of Principles we find the wholly dogmatic and élitist statement that the SPGB is “determined to wage war against all other political parties”. Engels had something to say on this in the above mentioned letter to G. Trier, namely "For the proletariat to be strong enough to win on the decisive day it must form a separate party distinct from all others and opposed to them, a conscious class party. But that does not mean that this party cannot at certain moments use other parties for its purposes. Nor does this mean it cannot support other parties for short periods in securing measures which either are directly advantageous to the proletariat or represent progress by way of economic development or political freedom”. So much for the SPGB’s dogmatism.

In conclusion I have this to say about the SPGB, principally that it is not the Marxist or Socialist party it claims to be and will certainly never lead the proletariat to emancipation. Socialism will only be achieved by a truly Marxist Party (e.g. The Socialist Workers’ Party) that is active within and able to lead the proletariat to victory, not by the passive élitist theorising of the SPGB.

A. Mounsey

Sunderland

Reply:

Selecting quotations out of context has been the stock-in-trade of the so-called Communist party throughout its existence, and now the non-Socialist Workers’ Party, (formerly IS) are trotting out the same time-worn fallacies.

If society cannot be changed through Parliament, why does the SWP go through the ritual of putting up candidates? Presumably they hope to get elected.

It is perfectly logical for us to aim at capturing Parliament, because we hold that capitalism can be ended in no other way. It is contradictory for the SWP to say Parliament is useless, then try not only to capture it but try to use Parliament, not to establish Socialism but to reform capitalism by modifying the useless policies of Labour governments. This is what “fighting the cuts”, etc., means. In so doing they accept that the power for change resides in the political arena.

Yes, the state machine is there to preserve the supremacy of the ruling class. No less so in places like Vietnam, whose ruling class has SWP support. All the nationalist struggles fought ostensibly against imperialism, and supported by IS or the SWP, have as their aim control of the state to preserve class supremacy. The political parties which support capitalism, including the Labour party which is urged workers to vote for, gain power because they are elected by a majority of workers who as yet are reform, not revolution, minded. When the reverse situation is reached, a Socialist majority will elect their own delegates, and the state will then be in the hands of those who have a mandate to end capitalism. It is good of the SWP to expose themselves as advocates of violence; the workers will wisely ignore them.

Marx’s letter to Bolte makes exactly the opposite point from your selective quotation. He shows that the economic organization of the workers precedes the political, which is decisive.

And in this way, out of the separate economic movements of the workers there grows up everywhere a political movement, that is to say a movement of the class, with the object of achieving its interests in a general form, in a form possessing a general social force of compulsion. (Marx’s emphasis)

(Selected Correspondence, Lawrence & Wishart edn., p. 318-9)

So with The Civil War in France. Marx, writing about the Paris Commune (see March SS), explains what happened to “the ready made state machine":

While the merely repressive organs of the old governmental power were to be amputated, its legitimate functions were to be wrested from an authority usurping pre-eminence over society itself and restored to the responsible agents of society.

And:

Nothing could be more foreign to the spirit of the Commune than to supersede universal suffrage by hier-achaic investiture.

(Selected Works, p. 472)

The repressive relics like the standing army, the bureaucracy and hierarchy which the state-capitalist advocates of the SWP seek to preserve, are what Marx sought to scrap.

Show us what specific advantage can be gained by the Party for Socialism supporting parties for capitalism. If you cannot do this (and you can’t) your final quotation is meaningless.

Finlly, while calling us élitists you say the "SWP" will lead the proletariat to victory. Leadership is élitism. The SPGB has never set out to lead the workers anywhere. We are confident of their capacity to understand and organize on a conscious basis; only sheep need leaders.

If you can get one of your “leaders” to debate us on Socialism, we will be happy to continue the tuition.

Editors.

Letter: Not That Sort of War (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not That Sort of War

I am not a member of the SPGB. Why? I object to Principle 8, line 4. War can prove nothing but who has more money or more brawn.

Winifred Mawson 

Horsham

Reply:

Your objection comes from too literal a reading. The statement that we “wage war against all other political parties” means that we oppose them uncompromisingly and seek to dissuade workers from supporting them, not that we envisage using armed force (or even fisticuffs) against them. War with weapons is not an instrument which Socialists can use. Means have to harmonize with ends. A regime brought into being by force thereafter depends on force: our instrument is understanding.

Editors

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VIII.] (1912)

From the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VII.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VIII.

It now remains but to consider the general conclusions which logic demands shall be drawn from the seven aphorisms which have occupied our attention. For this purpose a brief recapitulation will be useful.

The implication of our first clause is that

1. The basis of the present social system is the private, sectional ownership of the means of living.
2. This property condition divides society into two classes—possessors and non-possessors.
3. The class of non-possessors must exist where there is a set of social conditions which, involving at the outset the sale of their labour-power in the competitive market, makes them the sole producers of the wealth of society, without giving them any share in the control of that wealth. This condition is expressed by the phrase “the enslavement of the working class.”

Our second aphorism follows as the logical deduction from the first. It asserts that as society is divided into two classes, one of which lives upon the labour of the other, there is an antagonism of interests between the two classes, and that this antagonism of interests induces a class struggle.

The implication of the third is that the antagonism of interests, and therefore the class struggle, can only be abolished by the abolition of the cause—the condition which the first aphorism states is the base of the whole social fabric; that is, the ownership of the means of living, and the substitution therefor of common ownership of these things.

The next aphorism pronounces that the workers, in emancipating themselves, will emancipate the whole of humanity “without distinction of race or sex” and it is next declared that only the working class itself can be the instrument of this emancipation.

The sixth aphorism states that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, is merely the instrument for maintaining the present social basis and the oppression of the workers which necessarily proceeds from this basis, and it deduces therefrom the conclusion that the workers must organise, consciously and politically, first, for the capture of this machinery of government, and secondly, having done this, to convert it into the agent of emancipation.

The implication of the last aphorism is that, as there are only two classes, and therefore only two class interests, which are diametrically opposed, the political party of the workers must be opposed to all other political parties.

That is a brief summary of the implications of the seven aphorisms which have been set out in these pages.

Now what attitude do logic and common-sense impose upon those who believe these implications to be fundamental truths?

First of all they must elevate them into the position of principles, of guides for their every step and activity in the direction of the economic betterment of their class. Their course of action will then be clear.

If it is true that the basis of present society is the class ownership of the land, factories, and other means of living, then every feature characteristic of, and peculiar to, the working class as such—the weary toil, the insecurity of livelihood, the grinding poverty, the enforced idleness, the cruel cheating of childhood’s pleasures, the hopeless outlook of old age, the thousand and one brutal, humiliating and painful details that make up the miserable total of the workers’ cankered existence—can be referred to that class ownership of property.

The very central point of the workers’ attack, then, beyond all dispute, is this social base. the class ownership of the means of life. The possessors must be dispossessed.

If it is true that the machinery of Government, including the armed forces, exists only to preserve that social base, then, clearly, the barrier of the machinery of government must be surmounted before the social base can be interfered with. The method, therefore, must be political while and where that method is possible. The political power must be captured through the ballot, in order that the control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, shall pass into the hands of the working class.

We must enter the field of political action in order to capture political power, with the object of using it as the means of dispossessing the propertied class.

If it is true that all political parties are but the expression of class interests, then political parties must be exactly as antagonistic and irreconcilable as the interests they express. The logic of this is inexorable. And if it is true that there are but two classes in society, and that their interests are diametrically opposed and irreconcilable, then the political party of the working class must be at all times and in all places, utterly opposed to every other political party.

Hence the policy of the party seeking working-class emancipation must, under conditions identical with those obtaining in this country, be identical with that expressed in the final clause of the Declaration of Principles of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which declares that: —

“The Socialist party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.”

This is the only policy for a party holding the principles set forth and explained in these articles, the only policy of a party (under the given conditions) seeking working-class emancipation, the only policy for a party aspiring to establish “a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community,” the only policy of a Socialist party.

Let every man and woman of the working class, therefore, who is interested in the welfare of that class, who is weary and sick at heart with the miserable tragedy of the workers’ position, take up the premises of the Socialist principles and examine them, Let him (or her) take them up as a challenge to his intellect, and either convince himself of their truth or prove their falsity. Let him then bring his actions into line with his convictions, rejecting the Socialist principles if he finds them unsound, but adopting them and cleaving to them if he finds them true and unassailable.

True, these principles and the policy they dictate offer nothing but battle and victory—nothing but the last arduous campaign of the class struggle—and the fruits thereof. But it is sufficient. It must not be exchanged for the power and pelf of office and a place near the fleshpots of Egypt for a few who dub themselves Labour leaders.

We who know the class to which we belong, and build up all our hopes on our faith in the capacity of its intellect, know that it will not be so exchanged. We know that the working class, as a class, is capable of judging all things for itself, and of marching on to its emancipation under the guidance of its own avowed principles, without leaders or use for leaders, to its emancipation.

A. E. Jacomb

THE END

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VII.] (1912)

From the November 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VI.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VII.

As all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

The political machine, as we have endeavoured to show, is essentially an instrument of class government. It does not anywhere come into existence until society has assumed a class form — until there has developed within society a class who govern and a class who are governed.

The political machine exists to preserve order in society according to the existing basis of that society; but just as there can exist sections with opposing sectional interests within the ruling class of a given society, so that political machinery can be wielded in different directions to further the several interests of those warring sections of the ruling class – and that without in any way threatening the social base.

Political parties consist of those who organise to gain control of or at least to exert their influence upon, the political machine, in order to advance their interests as they understand them.

But if it appears from this that capitalist political parties rather indicate sectional than class interests, it must not be forgotten that this is merely because these parties, comprising sections of the ruling class, are at one with the basis upon which their position as a ruling class is founded.

Though it is true that each of these sections will use the political machinery in a slightly different way, this difference can only apply to matters of superficial detail. In anything deeper than this every political party among the ruling class stands for the interest of that ruling class.

This is inevitable. Before these sections can exist as such those comprised in them must be a ruling class. Before the landed interest can clash with the manufacturing interest both the landowner and the factory-owner must be established in privilege on a private property basis. Before Tariff Reform or Protection can become burning questions of the day, those whose sectional interest is wrapped up in either detail of capitalism must first have their deeper interests identified with one and founded upon the capitalist system.

The class interest, therefore, is paramount; in the last resort it overshadows all sectional interests. Indeed, the fact that sectional interests loom so large in capitalist party politics at the present day is no proof of the importance of those interests but is evidence only of the weakness of the pressure exerted politically by the opposing class.

The truth of this is seen in the tendency of capitalists to “close the ranks” against any political party which, in fact or in their idea, threatens their class interest, and the increasing pressure of the organised political party of the workers is destined to reveal with the utmost clearness the fact that capitalist parties stand primarily for capitalism and for the capitalist class — is destined to reveal it by exhibiting them a united party at bay with revolution.

There are certain so-called political parties such as the I.L.P., the B.S.P., and Labour Party, and in Scotland, the S.L.P. who, it might be argued, are not covered by the above remarks, but in reality these have no separate political existence. Two of them are nothing but appendages of the Liberal Party, one is trying which wing of the capitalist bird of prey it can find most comfort (if any) under. As for the remaining group, they have postponed political action until it will not be required — until the workers have gained in the teeth of the political machine all that they could gain with it. They have cut their political throats with the anarchist razor, and by this contribution to anarchy, to say nothing of other matters, have added their service to the preservation of capitalism.

As a matter of fact all political parties must express the interest of one or other of the only two classes in society. In this connection, Frederic Engels finely says (“Origin of the Family,” Kerr & Co. p. 211): “For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class.”

This is strictly true, and therefore, not only was it inevitable that these pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties, composed as they are, of a working class element which is “not ripe for its economic emancipation,” should express capitalist interests, but it was inevitable that they should express the sectional brand of capitalist class interest appertaining to the particular phase of capitalism by which they are immediately environed – namely, the manufacturing interest, as expressed in the Liberal Party.

Hence, despite their pretended hostility at the moment, the eventual destiny of the B.S.P. is the Liberal fold – just as soon as its leaders can get their price.

The political activities of all who are not ripe for their economic emancipation must necessarily express capitalist interest, for the simple reason that they are helping to maintain the existing order of society. This is so even if they managed to gain admission to a sound, revolutionary organisation. There they work out the ruling-class interest by weakening the revolutionary attack – probably the worst form opposition to working-class emancipation can take.

The interests expressed or reflected, and striven for, by political parties, therefore, fall into two main groups – capitalist and working-class. These are diametrically opposed, since they involve wage-slavery on the one hand and emancipation on the other. The position of the party seeking working-class emancipation, then, must clearly be one of uncompromising hostility to all other political parties. It does not materially matter whether these parties are organisations of working men with capitalist ideas or avowedly capitalist organisations with a working-class tail.

The object of the last is to secure working-class votes, because, as Engels puts it: “The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage” – and the vast bulk of that suffrage is working-class. In this object they find, increasingly as the workers get a dim idea that their masters’ politics are not their own, great assistance in the pseudo-Socialist parties. These parties, led by men on the look-out for billets and personal aggrandisement, spread confusion by teaching the workers that the difference between themselves and the capitalists is merely one of personality, and not of class, principle and system; that the difference between their interests and their masters’ is so slight that for the “immediate end” of getting a Labour leader into Parliament, that difference can be composed, the battle stopped, and the two rival classes work together politically.

This is, where it is conscious, the worst form of treachery, in as much as it prevents the working class realising the fundamental antagonism of interests between themselves and their exploiters. It prevents them, therefore, becoming “ripe for their economic emancipation,” and from organising politically as a class, apart from and hostile to those who hold them in bondage, ever seeking, working, fighting for deliverance from their chains.

Again, as Engels says: “Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class.” The ballot is indeed the means of gauging the working-class strength and maturity, and for that reason it must be kept free from compromise and the entanglement of alliances. It must stand as the clear index of the progress made by working class consciousness, the clock ticking off the last moments of our long slavery. To this purpose it is scared. If, however, it is to have any significance of this character, it must indicate a working-class mind free from the obsession of capitalist illusions. This is a final reason why the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party.

The political struggle of the workers must of necessity be waged along class lines, for it is one form of the highest phase of the class struggle. It is on the political field that the sternest battle of all is to be fought. That fight is not for mere votes as such, but for the enthroning of the REVOLUTIONARY IDEA in the seat of power. The enemy, then, is no less the political ignorance of our own class than the educated master class, therefore we must attack that ignorance, even when it is organised in so-called working class political parties, just as relentlessly as we attack the orthodox parties of our masters.

A.E. Jacomb