A Fabian and his Fabianism (1947)

From the December 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

If Fabianism came to be the political Bible of the Labour Movement then Sidney Webb (the late Lord Passfield) was its Prophet. Of him, Lord Listowel in the House of Lords said: “That the Labour Party came to regard him much as the Children of Israel must have regarded Moses . . . who pointed a way through the ‘Wilderness to the Promised Land’.” (Hansard, 20/10/47.) Undoubtedly, Webb, more than any other Fabian, foretold of the New Jerusalem which was emerging, painlessly, inevitably, almost imperceptibly from the present Social Order. The Labour Government’s historic mission is, it seems, to demonstrate that this Fabian New Jerusalem is merely Capitalist “Old Babylon,” writ large.

The Liberal Lord Samuel also spoke of Webb as a political pioneer and one of the principal founders of a Great Party. The Conservative Lord Salisbury called him the founder of the Fabian Society and intellectual father of the Labour Party. The Archbishop of Canterbury mentioned the close connection between Webb and the Church on the question of Social Reform. “He also desired to associate himself with the Tributes paid.” (Hansard, same issue.) Speaking for ourselves, “We come to bury Caesar not to praise him.”

The Fabian Society was founded in 1881. A group of “educated people,” so their historian, Mr. Pease, assures us, not without a little unction it seems : “We were aware of Marx,” he says, “but I do not think at the time the Society was founded we had read or assimilated his ideas.” (“History of Fabian Society,” p.24.) A statement probably as true now of the Fabian Society as it was then.

Non-acquaintance with Marx’s ideas has not prevented successive generations of Fabians from solemnly pronouncing him “A great thinker.” It was apparently only what he thought about that for them is of so little consequence. Mr. Pease even thought “That every passing year brought added conviction that the broad principles of Marxism will guide the evolution of Society during the present century.” (“History of Fabian Society,” p.236.) The sentence before, however, had noted that the first achievement of Fabianism was to break the spell of Marxism in England

As against Marxism the Fabians began by denying that Socialism could only be the outcome of historic development. Webb on behalf of the Fabians assured us “that no special claim is made that Socialism has a basis in history.” (“Fabian Essays,” p.36.) Instead we are presented with a plurality of Socialisms each dependant on their particular environment and, it appears, geographical location. “Thus Fabianism,” Mr. Pease told us, “was English Socialism,” The political and industrial conditions being somewhat different in degree in Scotland, he added. While in Ireland an application of socialist principles had not been seriously attempted. Nor, we presume, Wales or the Channel Islands.

Marxism, we must add. is a unified world conception based on an analysis of the sum totality of existing social productive relationships—Capitalism. If is thus able to demonstrate that the very development of capitalism provides the economic and social conditions for its replacement by an entirely different social arrangement based on common ownership and production for use. The present system being universal in character the Socialist Society which supersedes it must have the same universal character. There can then be no different kinds of Socialism, i.e., a Scotch Socialism in contrast to an English Socialism. Socialism being world-wide in extent the same social system must operate and be universally valid throughout the entire Socialist world.

Such is the stuff of which Fabian “Socialism” was made. Indeed Fabianism cut this “stuff” into even smaller parts, and presented us with such microscopic “socialist” portions as “Socialist London,” “Socialist Birmingham,” even “Socialist Poplar” and “Socialist Bermondsey.” Shaw’s admission in the Fabian Tract 41 that “he and the early Fabians had no true knowledge of Socialism” is hardly a confession. For Shaw still holds most of Mr. Pease’s “Socialist illusions.” The venerable Shavian beard would seem to illustrate in this respect that wisdom is not necessarily denoted by whiskers—not even when they are Fabian whiskers.

What then are the fundamentals of Fabianism? Even the Fabians themselves seem wholely ignorant of them. “There never has been a Fabian orthodoxy,” said Mr. Pease, “because no one was in a position to assert what the true faith was.” (“History of Fabian Society,” p.237.) Nevertheless continued Mr. Pease, “We obtained freedom of thought,” An attribute which Pease seemed to think highly desirable.

No doubt for a “Socialist” organisation which included all shades of political opinion advised voting against what it termed Socialist candidates if it meant splitting the vote and keeping the more popular “progressive” candidate out, and which supported Imperialism and war, such “freedom of opinion,” was not merely desirable but essential.

Apparently for the Fabians Socialism, like the poor, has always been with us. According to Webb “Socialist philosophy is but the recognition of the principles of social organisation in great part unconsciously accepted. The history of the 19th century was an almost continuous record of progress in Socialism.” The Socialist cat is thus out of the Fabian bag. Fabian Socialism is merely the acceptance and extension of all State activity. In pursuance of this theme Webb in a grotesque passage records what for him seemed the progress of Socialism. He enumerates such things as State control of the Armed Forces, Gas-works, Parks, Cemeteries, Slaughter Houses, Pawn-broking Establishments and Leper Islands. (“Fabian “Essays,” pp.18-51.) Even State registration of hawkers, dogs, cats, cabs, and inspection of baby farms and Scotch red herrings are all evidence of Socialist legislation ! For Webb a pedlar’s licence was proof that we were enjoying a semi-socialist existence. While such institutions, as the War Office and Scotland Yard were important milestones on the high road to the full Socialist Commonwealth.

The Socialism of Webb, in spite of protests from some Fabian quarters, became the accepted and authorised version. It merely turns out to be but the bureaucratic organisation essential for the maintenance and upkeep of Capitalism. Social reforms can likewise be included under this category. The 19th century Factory Acts constituted State intervention against the unrestrained character of prevailing capitalist exploitation. Such exploitation would finally have led to a catastrophic decline in workers’ productivity and thus profits. Sanitation laws constituted a safeguard for the wealthy against epidemics. Education Acts are designed to give workers’ children the training necessary for the wage-labour status they will one day assume. Unemployment Acts. Health Insurance, Old Age Pensions, merely denote the need to regulate the wide-spread poverty and destitution caused by the economic effects of capitalism on the working class. While certain reforms may give the worker slight but often merely transient amelioration they leave untouched the poverty resulting from his class-position in present society. The undertaking by the State of such activities are on the grounds of cheaper and more efficient administration. At the same time they spread the burden of taxation evenly over the entire capitalist class.

As for Nationalisation of Key Industries, advocated by Fabians for many years, it has come to pass. Nevertheless, the Tories or Liberals do not propose to denationalise them if returned to Power, while the theme of a “planned Capitalism” is as much their theme as that of the Labour Party.

Even the Fabian “Gas and Water Socialism” was but a Radical legacy bequeathed by Joseph Chamberlain. Municipalism, its other name, merely seeks to prevent the whole capitalist class from being used as a milch-cow by the private ownership, often of a monopolistic character, of such things as heat, light, power, etc. As for parks, libraries, museums, etc., being bits of Socialism, Chamberlain, with brutal frankness, regarded them as merely “the ransom paid for the privilege of holding property.” Fabianism is then a thing of shreds and patches. Shoddy remnants, second-hand from the Tory and Liberal political shops, sewn into a Fabian patchwork. Finally, on the subject of Municipal Socialism, we have Pease’s admission that it needed for its adoption and extension no advocacy from the Fabians. (“History of Fabian Society,” p. 81.)

The maturing of Capitalism into monopolistic forms and the integration of the State into its economic functions and activities, have been idealised by the Fabians into a programme of State Capitalism. The very developmental trends of Capitalism and its associated bureaucratic growth has then been presented as its opposite—Socialism.

It was this very evolution of Capitalism towards monopolistic forms that gave to Fabianism its automatic and ineluctable character. If the Mills of Capitalism were grinding small they were nevertheless grinding out “Socialism” every day. Such was the cumulative effect of all this that one day Capitalist Society would become a Socialist Society and no one would notice it. The economic revolution is going on every day, said Mr. Clarke, practically independent of our desires or prejudices. (“Fabian Essays,” p.62.) The Tories and Liberals, declared Webb many times, were committed to “Socialism” as much as the “Socialists.” He added, even people who believe Socialism a foolish dream were its unconscious instruments. According to the Fabians the coming of Socialism was as inexorable as an act of Nature. While the Fabians assigned themselves the role of midwives in the period of social gestation, the existence and growth of the “Socialist” seed inside the womb of Capitalist Society was apparently innocent of human agency. No greater miracle has been claimed since the birth of Jesus. This is a denial of the Marxist dictum, that given the material conditions to hand, men make history. Dressed up in its Sunday clothes this piece of Fabian fatalism is called “the inevitability of Gradualism.”

This was also a denial of the class-struggle and of the need of the working class to capture political power for the overthrow of Capitalism. For effective Socialist action and understanding they substituted political auto-suggestion. Because society was evolving gradually in the “Socialist” direction, they said, things were going to get better and better for the workers. Given the Fabians in control the results were, guaranteed. Such was the pernicious Fabian doctrine which sought to insulate the working class from a true perspective of their class position in Capitalist Society.

With this automatic process went a peculiar Fabian opportunism. With typical Fabian discreetness they called it “Permeation.” While telling the workers they should have an independent party of their own, they felt that they, the Fabians, should be free to work in and with every group or party for the favourable growth and influence of their ideas. Telling the Tories and Liberals “we” were already half way to Socialism, from which there was no turning back, the other half may as well be travelled in unison nnd together.

The Fabians also helped form the Labour Party by their active association with that party’s parent body—The Labour Representation Committee. So well did the Fabians, permeate the Labour Party that it could at length have uttered with some truth, “We are all Fabians now.” This Fabianisation of the Labour Party made, however, the Fabians superfluous. After a time they became an integral part of the Labour Party and as an independent political organisation for all practical purposes the Society permeated itself out of existence. Such is the inevitability of gradualness. However, Sidney Webb could claim that the Labour Party was. not a class party but one representing National interests who were ready to take over the Government of the country. Appropriately enough the Labour Party’s 1918 programme. “Labour and the New Social Order” was drafted by Webb.

Little wonder that “Fabian Socialism” representing its establishment as “the co-operative outcome of all sections of the community” was regarded as a welcome substitute by those in the saddle for the Marxist ” Class Struggle ” and “Social Revolution.” A “Socialism”—State Capitalism—that left their real class position undisturbed they could regard with equanimity, even interest. They might even agree with Shaw. ” That it was as easy and matter of course for the average respectable Englishman to become a Socialist as a Liberal or Tory.” (“Fabian Essays” 1908 preface.) The Fabians not merely made their Socialism respectable, they made it fashionable. Thus the announcement by an heir of wealthy interests that be had become a Fabian convert to his family might have merely occasioned a remark from his Mamma that his father had become one at an even earlier age.

The adoration of the State and its administrative functions by the Fabians has interesting implication’s. Thus Webb said “We must take more care to improve the social organism than our individual development. It. is not the individual’s development which is the highest cultivation of his personality but the filling in in the best possible way of his humble function in the great social machine.” Shaw, going perhaps even further, implies in Appendix I of the “History of the Fabian Society” that Parliamentary democracy as understood is a mere calling of fools into a ring. He said “Society could never be reconstructed by the type of men produced by popular elections.” Without qualified rulers a Socialist State is impossible, be declares. In a preface to the “Fabian Essays.,” he also states “the very existence of society is dependent on the skilled work of administrators and experts.” Further in the appendix Shaw hoped that “Democracy would demand that only suitable men should be presented to its choice.” Fabians, of course. This is, of course, a. favourite device of dictatorships which, also scorning the notion that people are intelligent enough to run Society in their own interests collectively, demand that only people favoured by nature and circumstances are qualified to take charge. That Shaw himself at length came riding home politically on the shoulders of Mussolini seems not an illogical deduction from his own premises. Fabian State efficiency rather than Fabian democracy would seem their cardinal doctrine. From this it would also seem that Webb and the Fabians anticipated certain features of Fascism.

When Sidney Webb and his wife, Beatrice, were old people, they went to Russia. Previously they had considered Bolshevism no better than Czarism. “Under Bolshevism the prisons were as full and the rifles as active as under Tsardom.” (“Decay of Capitalist Civilisation,” p.101.) What they now saw on their visit was a vast administrative machine run by a privileged bureaucracy. And what the Webbs saw, they liked. The Stalinists hailed the Webbs’ approval of their bureaucratic machine as evidence “of the establishment of Socialism in one Country.” For the Webbs it was the establishment of that State Capitalism par excellence which they had advocated for years. And the Webbs were right. As their fellow Fabian, Bernard Shaw, announced on returning from a visit to Russia, “The Bolsheviks have merely realised the Fabian Ideal.”

When the Webb’s came home they wrote a book of 1,200 pages;: “Soviet Communism a New Civilisation?” In subsequent editions the question mark was removed. Apparently this indicated their full approval and sanction of the state of affairs in Russia. In such a truly Fabian fashion did “Socialism” in Russia come into existence.

This, of course, led to a New Communist line on the Webbs. True Lenin had referred to them as bourgeois humbugs . . , social chauvanists . . . guilty of the worst kind of treachery, etc. (“Lenin on Britain,” p.152.) Likewise the Communist International had denounced Webb and the Fabians as apologists for State Capitalism under the guise of Socialism. (“Handbook of Marxism,” p. 1,026.) Now the Webbs became “Social Scientists,” “objective thinkers,” etc. In such a fashion did a Communist Party scribe called Allen Hutt, eulogise Webb in the Daily Worker (15/10/47.) Incidentally in a book called the “Final Crisis” (p.96) the writer had approvingly quoted Engels as to the Fabians being a band of place hunters. He also considered the influence of the Fabians to have been disastrous on what he called the Socialist Movement.

The Fabian belief in the silent and peaceful evolution of Capitalism with its bedtime stories to the workers of constantly improving conditions has been shattered by the history of Capitalist developments. No such progress has taken place. Economists like Chiozza Money, Bowley, Campion and others have shown how decade after decade road little change in the share of unpaid labour appropriated by the capitalists. Webb, himself, confessed, over 30 years after the founding of the Fabian Society, that one-half of the social product was taken by one-ninth of the community.” (“The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation,” p.17.) While Pease admitted that “little progress has been made towards Socialism. Private ownership flourishes almost as vigorously as it did thirty years ago.” (“History of the Fabian Society,” p.243.) Indeed the Webbs’ “Decay of Capitalism” was a tearful admission that mass unemployment, slumps, and wars were catastrophes not provided for in the peaceful Inevitability of Gradualism, On p.174 these curious Socialists admitted they had never during thirty years in the Socialist Movement, framed an indictment of Capitalism. True that in doing so they seemed to have discovered that there is something inherent in Capitalism which prevents it from functioning in the interests of the vast majority. (Same book, p.18.) What they never saw was that the “Decay of Capitalism was also the decay of Fabianism.” For that reason they did not disappoint us by failing to reach a truly Fabian conclusion. “In order for the workers and capitalists to understand their problems and each other a little better” they said in the last paragraph, “we offer, perhaps in vain, this little book.” The Webbs in setting out to find out what was wrong in Capitalist Society ended up by offering “a little book” as the solution for its social problems. As usual Class Co-operation was their panacea. Thus the long-chanted formula of these disciples of John Stuart Mill’s humanitarianism, “if only sections of society would be reasonable and sympathetic to each other’s claims.” If, of course, the lion was a vegetarian he might be persuaded to lie down with the lamb.

Such was Sidney Webb and his fellow Fabians. “Educated people” and tireless, seekers after statistical facts, yet never once in their researches did they discover the simple and fundamental truths which underlie present class society; simple truths known to the humblest student of Socialism. While these truths remain simple the confusion caused by people like Webb makes the work of expounding them infinitely much harder. By his advocacy of a Capitalism reformed in working-class interests he helped to blunt the sharp edge of the clear-cut Socialist solution. By accident or design he and the Fabians became formidable political fifth columnists in the ranks of the International working class. As an investigator of social facts and part author of a work like “The History of British Trade Unions,” he may be remembered. As a sociologist and a scientific interpreter of his times he is already in the process of being forgotten.

Ted Wilmott

Some Publications. (1907)

Book Reviews from the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

More Books to Read on Social and Economic subjects. The Fabian Society. One Penny.

A list of books which the Editors think are likely to be required by Socialists and Social Reformers. The Editors do not pretend to have examined all the books catalogued, nor are they prepared to assert that the works are correctly classified, nor can they hope that there are no omissions, nor that every book named is rightly included. In these circumstances the pamphlet may conceivably be useful to the student who finds in it the information he wants !

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The Reformers' Yearbook. Paper, 1s., Cloth, 2s., net.

For 1907 this well-known annual contains those useful compilations of facts and figures which we have come to expect in it and which we, as exponents of the revolutionary method are able to use so effectively against the reform advocate for whose purposes, as the title signifies, the book was specially designed. Nevertheless its Editors have so far as in them lied, endeavoured to confine its scope to the records of reform agitations and reform parties and the views of those who are steeped to the eyes in unadulterated revisionism—if such a term is permissible as descriptive of methods essentially the result of the adulteration of the revolutionary idea. Therefore it is fitting that while such reform organisations as the S.D.F., the League of Young Liberals, the Young Scots’ Society, the Patent Law Reform Association and the Women’s Social and Political Union and the rest of the bodies which go to make up the weirdest packet of political ineptitude that was ever flung at the heads of a long suffering democracy, find adequate inclusion, and while the words of the sundry and divers mouthpieces of these bodies stand boldly up upon many a page there is no reference to the revolutionary S.P.G.B. or its work. However, as we say, the book contains much that is interesting and useful to the discriminative propagandist of Socialism and if it also contains much that is of no consequence such as the articles on the Decay of Liberalism, the propertied woman’s suffrage agitation, “Some Urgent Reforms,” “A Commune for London,” and so on, we cannot help it.

Editorial: Fabian Fallacies, or the Sorrows of Bernard Shaw (1944)

Editorial from the March 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fresh from a vain attempt to show that our Transatlantic comrades of the “Western Socialist” do not understand Socialism, Mr. G. B. Shaw has enlivened the columns of the Times (February 1, 1944) with a letter teaching the Chancellor of the Exchequer how not to suck the financial eggs of capitalism, and the Foreign Secretary the A.B.C. of using Quislings to run the new European governments to be set up at the heels of the departing Germans. Though the connection may not be obvious, the two pieces of advice are based on the same old Fabian principle that you cannot destroy an existing system unless you already have experts and machinery to operate a new one.

Mr. Shaw has raised the flag of revolt on behalf of the downtrodden dukes of England, the impoverished millionaires, and the payers of Excess Profit Tax. He and other rich men are being ruined by excessive taxation. So he implores the Chancellor to exempt from surtax “all legitimately earned incomes exceeding £20,000,” re-introduce the income tax three-years average system to meet the hard case of “the wretch who makes £21,000 in one year, and a bare subsistence in the years preceding and following,” and “abolish the Excess Profits Tax root and branch.” So long as we have pampered rich, he says, “we must pamper them for all they are worth, and far from crying that nobody must profit commercially by war, make war the most profitable of all businesses until it ends in victory.”

A paragraph from Mr. Shaw’s letter will make his argument clear, especially if read in conjunction with a statement made by him in a further letter to the Evening Standard : —

“It may be finally desirable to get, rid of landlordism; but while we have landlords let us have rich ones, and encourage them to be richer, rather than poor and persecuted ones. And what applies to private farming enterprise applies to all enterprises.” (Times, February 1).

“The question at issue is whether private factories are to be closed and private farmers evicted before the Government is ready to carry on the work they are doing without a day’s intermission. I say no.” (Evening Standard, February 10).

His advice to the Foreign Secretary is based on the same principle, that when governments are overthrown on the Continent new ones will not be able to function unless they retain the services of the trained functionaries who have served the previous German-controlled governments. Shaw has in mind men like the late Admiral Darlan, “the citizen who will obey and faithfully serve the established government of his country, no matter how often it changes.”

It is not our concern to enter into discussion about Shaw’s advice to the Cabinet—probably they appreciate the force of his arguments as well as he does. What we are concerned with is a deeper issue, one that Shaw ignores.

On the surface, the Fabian Society has been a superb success. Its ideas moulded the Labour Party and I.L.P., and some of its leading men reached high office and wielded great influence in the Labour Party and in Liberal and Labour Governments. It has claimed that those who rejected Fabian theories have never made any headway. What, then, were the theories .of the Fabian Society? They are well stated in “The History of the Fabian Society,” by Mr. E. R. Pease, its secretary for 25 years (published in 1916 by A. C. Fifield). Professing Socialism as its aim, the Fabians rejected the view “Make Socialists and you will make Socialism” (the view held by the S.P.G.B.), and declared instead that Socialism was a principle already in part embodied in the constitution of capitalist society. As Fabians and Fabian ideas permeated other parties, this Socialist principle would, they said, gradually be extended. Mr. H. G. Wells, who quarrelled with them over this, defined their attitude fairly enough when he said that they believed “the world may be manoeuvred into Socialism without knowing it” and that “society is to keep like it is … and yet Socialism will be soaking through it all, changing without a sign.”

Mr. Pease says in his “History,” “The work of the Fabian Society has been not to make Socialists, but to make Socialism” (p. 255).

Then the Fabians believed in government by the expert —”what it demanded was partly, indeed, a more efficient and expert central government . . . but primarily an expert local civil service in close touch with and under the control of a really democratic municipal government” (p. 248). Critics of the Society used to charge their largely civil service membership with being concerned with creating careers for themselves. As one leading member once said, “The government of the future will be by experts, and we, naturally, want to be the experts” (Mr. H. Snell, quoted in the Socialist Standard, February, 1907).

It will be noticed that Mr. Shaw is still worried about having somebody, the experts, to carry on in place of factory owners, landlords, farmers and government officials, and this brings us to the utter failure of 60 years of Fabianism. They were going to smooth the road to complete Socialism. Writing in 1889, Mr. Shaw declared that the transfer of private property to the nation had already been in progress for 15 years (“Fabian Essays,” p. 180), yet now, after a further 55 years, making a round century in all, we are told in effect that we are helpless to do anything because the propertied men in control are still indispensable. Shaw’s slogan now is “Dukes are better landlords than needy freeholders” (Times, February 1, 1944).

The Fabian experts half a century ago, like their Labour Party imitators afterwards, had a vision of municipal and state enterprises extending everywhere under their guiding hand and driving private concerns out of business. Wages of workers in the nationalised undertakings would rise, and landlords and capitalists would disappear. Mr. Shaw airily rounded it off thus in his “Transition” (Fabian Essays, 1889, p. 199) : —

“It is not necessary to go further into the economic detail of the process of the extinction of private property. Much of that process as sketched here may he anticipated by sections of the proprietary class successively capitulating, as the net closes about their special interests, on such terms as they may be able to stand out for before their power is entirely broken.”

We shall not be accused of exaggeration if we say that something seems to have gone wrong with the time-table. This has not escaped the notice of the Fabians, and Mr. Pease and Mr. Shaw have both had their say about the actual results of Fabianism. Mr. Pease wrote, in 1916 : “It must be confessed that we have made but little progress along the main road of Socialism. Private ownership of capital and land flourishes almost as vigorously as it did 30 years ago. Its grosser cruelties have been checked, but the thing itself has barely been touched” (p. 241).

That is as true now as it was in 1916, and note, too, that whereas in 1889 it was the Fabians who were very cleverly—as they thought—permeating the Liberal and Radical parties with their reform programmes, now the boot is on the other foot, and it is the Liberal Sir William Beveridge who is permeating the Labour Party with his scheme for removing a new batch of grosser cruelties in the campaign to make the world safe for capitalism.

Mr. Shaw lias been just as frank as Mr. Pease. In reply to the question whether Socialism had made progress during his lifetime, he replied to the News-Chronicle (January 6, 1936) : —

“Yes; but it is the capitalists who exploit it for their own profit everywhere except in Russia . . . The Socialists here broke down the old capitalist policy of laissez-faire, and showed that State help was indispensable in modern industry. Accordingly, the capitalists now will not build a Queen Mary unless the State helps them out; and mines are registered as Public Utility Societies instead of private ventures. Excellent Socialism for capitalists; but the sailors and miners get nothing out of it.”

So after half a century of building “Socialism for capitalists” but without making Socialists, we find that things are very much as they were. Vital change is still impossible because there is something lacking. We must, says Mr. Shaw, bolster up our dukes and landlords, pamper the rich, and depend on Continental Quislings to keep capitalism going. There is something lacking; Socialists are lacking. The Fabians never held with making Socialists, yet it is surely obvious that if the enormous effort devoted to advising the capitalists how to adapt their system to the changing circumstances of the past half-century had been devoted to making Socialists here and abroad, Mr. Shaw’s twin problem would be non-existent and his advice superfluous.

The early Fabians, the I.L.P. and the Labour Party were wrong, and the S.P.G.B. was right. The problem was not, and is not, one of extending state and municipal capitalism—(incidentally the present drift is towards monopolistic public utility corporations under some sort of state supervision, not towards state operated enterprises)—-nor is it one of finding experts and superior brains. There is no lack of able and experienced workers in industry, farming and the civil service to carry on, nor was there 60 years ago. All that is lacking is a Socialist working class to give orders to its delegates in Parliament and on the local councils for the ending of the private property basis of society. Socialism is still not here, but that is only because the workers are still not Socialists. What society needs now, as when the Fabians began their slow march to nowhere, is not Fabian experts to show the capitalists what changes are necessary to keep capitalism going, but a majority who understand Socialism and are determined to achieve it, through gaining control of the machinery of government.

A Useful Book. (1920)

Book Review from the May 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

"A Primer of Socialism," by Thomas Kirkup Third Edition. Revised and partly re-written by Edward R. Pease. London : A. & C. Black, Ltd., Soho Square, W.1.

In a prefatory note to this volume Mr. Pease informs the reader that the first nine chapters are reprinted from the second edition (July 1910) without material alteration, the remaining six chapters, which brings the story up to August 1919, being written by himself.

The volume, although somewhat scrappy, is interesting in two respects. First, it contains brief but clear descriptions of the most important working-class movements of the earlier period, together with items of biological interest about the leaders connected with them. Its second and most interesting feature is its arrangement. Economic changes in the past and the rise of the present system are lightly dealt with in the first and second chapters. Then follow four chapters dealing with the aspirations and efforts of the early reformers and Utopians. The story of their efforts is closed by Kirkup with a brief but fairly accurate survey of the "Marxian Philosophy," and the founding of the First International. Mr. Pease takes up the thread and, in the same brief but clear manner, recounts the history of the working-class movement since that time.

Kirkup tells of the blind groping of the early reformers after the truth and its final discovery by Marx. Mr. Pease tells of the blind groping away from the truth and the deliberate enthronement of confusion by the agents of the master class.

Necessarily brief, the chapter allotted to Marx merely gives a short summary of the meaning of surplus-value, the antagonism of interests between the working class and the capitalist class, and the necessity of working-class organisation for political supremacy with the object of taking possession of the means of wealth production. After this outspoken declaration the following chapters read like a betrayal of the working class by its leaders. The reformism of the British Labour Party—including the so-called Socialist parties that accept its electoral programmes for parliamentary seats—the suicidal nonsense of the Anarchists and Syndicalists, and the Utopian absurdities of the Guild Socialists are inexcusable. Once the position of the working class has been scientifically determined and the knowledge made available, those who pose as leaders and ignore it are guilty of treachery to the working class. Mr. Pease writes in full sympathy with the labour movement, but the discriminating reader will be at once struck by the inconsistency of a working class movement based on reform after the discovery by Marx that the working class must be revolutionary.

Kirkup is rather severe on the "Communist Manifesto," which he says gives "in a violent and exaggerated form, the views which Marx afterwards elaborated in his large work on Capital." But his previous summary of the Marxian philosophy takes the sting out of his own adjectives. Whether expressed in the cold, lofty terms of the critic or the forceful eloquence of Marx himself, the philosophy is always convincing, and as a Manifesto issued to the workers of all lands, the "Communist Manifesto" has never been surpassed.

On pages 69 and 70 Mr. Pease falls into a common error when he writes about "Marxian Socialism" not being the type of Socialism to make any progress in this country. This is the paltry excuse of the labour leaders who "know all about Socialism" but see nothing profitable in the work of propagating it. They try to throw the blame for their own treachery on the workers—but the workers look to them for the truth, expecting, in their simplicity, to get it because of the expressed sympathy of those leaders. They thus add meanness to their treachery, because it is impossible for them to know what the workers will accept until they try them.

On page 92 Mr. Pease tells the truth about the attitude of the Labour Party towards the war, and members of that party should cease to boast about their opposition. Our author is very emphatic. "The Labour Party," he says, "supported the Government in the prosecution of the war from first to last " The I.L.P., he states, was, however, split into two sections, supporters of the Government and pacifists, who worked loyally together in spite of what would appear to be a vital difference of principle. This is easily explained when we remember that the pacifists were merely in opposition on humanitarian grounds against war in general as a method of settling capitalist disputes. Their two main contentions were that peace should be obtained by negotiation, and that the conscientious objector should be released from the obligation to serve. All the so-called Socialist parties supported the Government in its prosecution of the war, and issued manifestoes declaring their loyalty. Even the prominent pacifists of the I.L.P. asserted that it was the duty of every man to assist the Government in carrying out its objects.

A rather curious slip is made on page 78 that the publishers might note. The organisation known as the I.W.W. is said to be the "Independent Workers of the World."

To those members of the English Labour Party who blame the Social Democrats of Germany for their support of the war an interesting statement is made by Mr. Pease. He says: "During the few days when war was still in doubt the German Social Democrats held big meetings all over the country to protest against it. But their action was in vain. Similar efforts on a smaller scale were made by Socialists in England and elsewhere." If this comparison is true, neither the English nor any other labour party have any grounds for accusing the German Social Democrats of giving support to their government, seeing that their own efforts to prevent the war were the feeblest.

Mr. Pease is optimistic about the near future of the labour movement. He says, "unless therefore, the course of events takes altogether a fresh turn, a few years hence will see the Socialist parties in control of stable governments, ruling some of the largest and most highly developed countries of the world."

Does this mean that in a few years Socialism will be established ? Not according to Mr. Pease, who has already told us that these "Socialist parties" are not built on Socialist principles. But what does government by these so-called Socialist parties mean ? We can best answer that question by an examination of their election programmes. When we do this we find that none of these parties run candidates pledged to the abolition of the capitalist system and the establishment of Socialism. The leaders of these parties who may be elected to the national assemblies have no mandate except for the reform of the present system. Before they can have such a mandate the workers must be educated to that degree of knowledge that will enable them to consciously give it; but the leaders do not educate the workers in that direction at all, they simply take advantage of their ignorance to persuade them to support capitalist governments. This is proved by their own statement that they can provide an alternative government to the present coalition. Some of the extremists of the movement talk of State ownership, guild Socialism, and even of common ownership, but the wiseheads of the movement, who interpret correctly the degree of working-class knowledge, are seldom mistaken. The so-called Socialist and Labour parties do not educate tho workers at all, they simply frame their own utterances on the superstitions engendered in the minds of the workers by other capitalist agents.

If the Marxian philosophy is correct, the workers cannot emancipate themselves until they understand it. The leaders of the various working-class parties in this country have not yet commenced to teach it; from any point of view, therefore, they have made no progress whatever. Real progress can only be measured by the numbers in the Socialist ranks, by the votes they register for Socialism, and by the strength and breadth of the movement. Any other sort of progress, such as obtaining parliamentary seats by compromise with Liberals, or on programmes identical with the Liberals, is merely progress for the leaders toward the goal of their ambitions—a share of the plunder and a place in the sun.

As a short history of working-class movements both Kirkup and Pease have given us something that is reliable, though that portion of the work that has been undertaken by Mr. Pease is a record of error and confusion spread by self-appointed leaders. To the intelligent worker this will be plain if he but recognises the significance of the chapters dealing with the Marxian philosophy.

F. Foan

The Pease that Passeth Understanding. (1908)

From the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

I have before me as I write a most interesting document. It is from Mr. E. R. Pease, the secretary of the Fabian Society, who writes under date of May 23rd, 1908, thus—

  "It would take too long to describe the difference between the S.P.G.B. and the I.L.P. in full. Briefly the I.L.P. is the most important political body of Socialists in England, and it largely controls the policy of the Labour Party. It is the form of Socialism which is going to win in England. The Fabian and the I.L.P. are different sides of the same movement, and work together cordially. The S.P.G.B. is, so far as 1 know, and I do not profess to speak with much information, a tiny body of half educated young men who think that the State can be reformed by the use of violent language and who are convinced that everybody who does not belong to their little sect is a traitor, a fool or a criminal. I understand that their main occupation is disturbing the meetings of other Socialists.”

So now you know what the genial Pease thinks about us. He doesn’t speak with much information of course, he is only half educated on the matter as it were, but we are only a half educated lot whose main occupation is disturbing the meetings of other Socialists. The justice of this Pease is a sweet thing. Let us treasure it. Let me go even further and attempt to emulate it. “I do not profess to speak with much information,” but 1 understand that Mr. Pease is regularly carried home drunk and knocks his wife about summat shameful. He doesn’t wash his neck and it is rumoured that Bernard Shaw has to keep his hand in his money pocket every time he visits the Fabian office for fear the hand of the secretary might stray into it! Let me add that I am prepared to lay six to four (I do not speak with much information but I understand that is a term well understood in the Fabian Society) that I have nearly as much evidence for my statement as Mr. Pease has for his.

But I’m comforted a little by the information that, although only half educated, we are Socialists. Obviously, we cannot disturb other Socialists if we are not. True, I had no idea before that a Socialist as such could be half educated, and even now I am not convinced. I prefer to think that this is another matter upon which my dear friend Pease speaks without information. Indeed, I am sure of it. It is the only possible explanation of his description of the I.L.P. as a body of Socialists. How can they be Socialists if they are another side of the same movement that embraces the Fabian Society? The thing is inconceivable.

Well, but what is this movement to which the I.L.P. and Fabian Society belong if it is not Socialist? ’Tis the voice of the earnest seeker after truth I hear. And he has put me a poser. 1 hardly know how best to answer. Perhaps, after all, the implied description of Mr. Pease himself is the best answer. It is the movement that is after the control of the Labour Party. And as the I.L.P. is the same sort of thing as the Fabian Society, and as the Fabian Society is the Lord High Exponent of the back-door and subterranean method which it glorifies by the name of the ‘‘policy of permeation,” it follows that the I.L.P. movement is after the control of the Labour Party without knowing anything about it.

If that is the idea, and I can see no other, and if that constitutes the I.L.P. the most important political body of Socialists (I deny them the right to the use of the term “Socialist,” of course), so much the worse for their movement. They will be found out one of these fine days, and then well, the Pease that passeth all understanding to-day will have a little more information upon the only method by which Socialism can be won by the workers.  Even now the I.L.P. leaders who wish to control the Labour Party, body and bones and money-bags, are rather concerned about the Labour Party seeing the game too soon. Consequently I am given to understand, as Mr. Pease would say, that no more I.L.P. candidates are to be run on Labour Party money until the number of Labour Party candidates more closely approximates to the proportion to which the amount of their contribution to the Party funds entitles them. Interesting developments are hourly expected.

As to the biting irony of the perfect Pease’s reference to our size and our youth, I’m afraid it is a case of pot and kettle as far as the first is concerned, and sour grapes in regard to the second. We are not a large body when compared with the Tory or Liberal Parties, but there’s more of us than a superman and an amanuensis. Can you say as much, prosperity Pease? And the virility of youth is preferable to the senility of the lean and slipper’d pantaloon period — what? Besides, the test of our membership is knowledge. The test of your membership is subscription. And even then you can’t get members. Oh ! Pease. Yours must be a rotten organisation!

A. James