An Apology to The Right Honourable Eric Heffer, MP (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

House of Commons, 28 April 1981

Dear Sir,

It has been drawn to my attention that your journal on May 1980 said that I had written in Socialist Revolt of April 1957 the following:

“No one can deny that Communists in the past have made grave mistakes, but does anyone believe that Russia would have retained its socialist basis . . . without Stalin’s iron rule during the most difficult period in Communist history? Would subversion, direct aggression, economic sabotage etc. not have crushed the germinating seed of world Communism if Comrade Stalin had not “enforced” the unity of Communists in Russia, and throughout the International Communist Movement?”

In fact the article was written by someone called Ian Watson, and was on pages 13 and the back page. At the head of that particular article the Editor wrote, “We do not agree with anything in this article. It is however, an example of the apology put forward by the Communist Party.”.

Writing of the Communist Party Programme, “The British Road to Socialism” in that issue of Socialist Revolt I in fact wrote “What do they mean? The same as in the Soviet Union and the “People’s Democracies”? “Workers” who become transformed into a Party of bureaucrats. Only real control at all levels with industry separate from the State apparatus can guarantee real democracy and genuine socialist participation”. That can hardly be called support for Stalin.

I expect an apology and retraction in your next issue.

Yours sincerely.

Eric S. Heffer,

MP for Walton.

We Apologise.

Eric Heffer is right. The passage we reproduced was not written by him and was preceded by the editorial disclaimer he quotes. We regret this mistake and unreservedly apologise.

It is also true that Eric Heffer wrote an article in the same April/ June issue of Socialist Revolt (“organ of the Socialist Workers’ Federation”) criticising the Russian regime. What he does not say is that the article in question also criticised the Communist Party as “reformist” for maintaining that “socialism can be achieved peacefully through the Parliamentary method”. The SWF (of which he was a leading member) declared that it rejected “the concept of supporting a Labour Government or any other Parliamentary Government as a means of establishing socialism”. Eric Heffer’s views have evidently changed since he is himself now a leading parliamentarian and reformist! What makes him a reformist, we hasten to add, is not his (present) view that Parliament can be used in the abolition of capitalism, but his belief that capitalism can be abolished gradually by a series of reform measures passed by a Labour Government.

Editors.

So They Say: People in Glass Houses (1977)

The So They Say Column from the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

People in Glass Houses

When a leading authority on a subject makes a judgement, it is an important one. On February 28th Mr. Eric Heffer described the entire Conservative Party as hypocrites. He was taking part in a mutual exchange of hot air in Westminster Palace on the question of the British Leyland toolmakers’ strike.

It was hypocrisy for the Conservatives to say there should be higher incentives for the higher paid but when workers sought incentives they were accused of being disruptive.

Daily Telegraph. 1st March 77

This is a part of what is romantically referred to as the cut and thrust of debate, which in reality resembles nothing so much as the moronic lowing of cattle. It does not strike Labour MPs as odd that their own Minister for Industry, Mr. Kaufman, advances the argument that the Leyland strikers have brought the company into “danger of bleeding to death”, while two days later their Industry Secretary, Mr. Varley, was informing his cronies that “the effect on profits was critical.”

How is it possible for workers to bleed a company to death by withholding their labour-power? That is putting the cart before the horse. One certain effect a strike will have is to prevent the workers’ own life-blood being pumped in to emerge later as the profits so dearly sought by the Labour Party. Where has the accumulation of capital now vested in British Leyland come from, if not from the “bleeding” of surplus-value from previous generations of workers? That is the process which the Labour Party wishes to continue.

Marx, out of date ?

As Heffer pointed out, the Conservative backwoodsmen have emerged wanting to back it both ways by condemning Leyland workers on the one hand, while claiming that the “erosion of pay differentials” is to blame on the other. Mr. George Gardiner, Conservative MP for Reigate, added his tuppence worth in a Sunday Express article of March 13th. “There is nothing praiseworthy about suicide”, he decided in reference to the strike. With a little twisting and turning, two paragraphs further on he is commenting on the size of wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers. On behalf of the toolmakers he asks: “Was all that early training worth it?” 

Aware of the fact that he has to produce something more “praiseworthy" than this, he goes on to argue that “squeezed differentials” have taken the edge off what he calls "our national competitive ability”. The Conservatives will change all that.

More powerful influences than Mr. Gardiner or his Party however will determine the levels of differentials, and the Labour government will be unable to keep the lid down for long as the laws applying to the value of labour-power begin to be felt. No doubt the Conservatives would be horrified to think that something which they are now promoting as a policy, was outlined by Karl Marx as one of capitalism’s economic laws, more than 100 years ago.

Upon the basis of the wages system the value of labouring power is settled like that of every other commodity; and as different kinds of labouring power have different values, or require different quantities of labour for their production, they must fetch different prices in the labour market.

Wages, Price and Profit, Chapter 7.

It is doubtful that the Conservatives will refer to this passage when proclaiming their “policy”, but then they would happily take the credit for restoring the law of gravity should the Labour Party try to ignore it.

More from Mr. Gardiner

Once warmed to his theme, the MP for Reigate is a hard man to stop. He gushes: “Let us not only recognise differentials, but positively welcome them.”

For virtue lies not in enforced equality, but inequality, provided it is founded on merit and not on privilege.

Sunday Express, 13th March 77 (His emphasis)

From a working-class point of view the above is pure humbug. The ownership and control of the world's resources, the means of life, rest in the hands of a privileged minority of men and women. They have taken the inequality which Mr. Gardiner sees as so desirable to its logical conclusion—they have left the members of the working class with nothing except the ability to work. If Mr. Gardiner seriously wishes to question the “virtue” of the situation, the first thing he must do is to leave the Conservative Party and look around him.

The News of the World of the same date published their “Wills of the Week” column—their equivalent of the last rites—and the gross value of tho three wills reported came to just under £l.5m. The three deceased must have indeed been meritorious workers by any standard to have accumulated an average of £500,000 each. The answer is that all the talk of merit is a carrot (or a stick) and applies only to members of the working class. The answer to workers’ problems does not revolve round the question of pay differentials within capitalism, but on a clear understanding of the need to abolish the wages system itself.

Higher productivity would help solve some of our problems, but it will only help employment if it is reflected in higher profitability. The union leaders can be forgiven for not knowing this, for it is a branch of economics outside the mainstream of thinking on which British economic management has been based.

Sunday Times, 13th March 77

And he has proved it all with the help of “coefficients of determination of a regression equation”, so it must be official. Union members previously labouring under the misapprehension that employers were in business primarily to provide employment will now see that there is something in it for the governors after all.

There's no fool  . . .

Now that Harold Wilson is trying to assume the mantle of “an elder statesman” he feels at liberty to speak with even more ambiguity than we had previously thought possible. Addressing the Financial Times conference on the future of Europe on 11th March, he discussed political problems in Britain.

The Communists presented no political problem apart from marches and demonstrations. Britain’s problems were on the one hand Fascists and the National Front, and on the other the various kinds of what were usually lumped together as Trotskyists, the International Socialists, the Workers Revolutionary party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, and various others.

Daily Telegraph, 12th March 77

Wilson does not say that he is doing the lumping together, but as he is the only one in sight it is difficult to avoid the conclusion. However, be he as pure as the driven snow in the matter, we have some useful advice for him so that he may not compound the error. Read our Object and Declaration of Principles published on all our literature. They will appear unfamiliar at first and that is because they are Socialist principles. Pay especial note to principle number 7—that applies to the Labour Party and all the other non-Socialist organizations referred to.

Alan D'Arcy

Caught In The Act: Eric Heffer (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the July 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Eric Heffer's death came at an awkward time for the Labour Party. It ensured that the party's problems with Militant in Merseyside would get all the concentrated publicity of a by-election swarming with media hacks, when Labour might have hoped that it would be obscured in a general election. And just as Neil Kinnock is congratulating himself on the apparent success of his single minded drive to tune up the the Labour Party into a winning machine, he finds his open cynicism being contrasted to Heffer’s stubborn loyally to principles. For example Heffer's dramatic exit from the platform at Labour's 1985 conference, in protest at Kinnock's assault on Militant, receives kinder treatment now than the speech which provoked it. One obituary put the boot into Kinnock by recalling two episodes from his past as an attention-seeking left winger. On the first occasion he enraged Heffer by calling for a one-day general strike. A few years later, when he had come on a bit, he made a point of lounging on the front bench during the Queen's Speech. Royalists who were upset by this puerile demonstration will have been reassured when Kinnock recently informed the Commons, with a coy simper, that he had spent the previous night as a guest of the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Frustrations

There is, however, a problem about these supposedly unyielding supposed principles of Eric Heffer because there is no certainty about his ideas nor about whether he held them consistently enough for them to deserve to be called principles, let alone unyielding. He began his active political life at the age of 16 or 17 in the Labour Party but he soon became frustrated at the party's lack of commitment so he joined the Communist Party. However the CP were perhaps a bit too committed for him; in 1948 they expelled as a "left wing deviationist" which was their way of describing his stand against their support for a government of national unity and their opposition to strikes during the war.

Heffer then decided that his frustrations could after all be contained in the Labour Party and he rejoined it but by 1954 he had resigned again, propelled by another bout of impatience. The misguided lesson he drew from his political oscillation was that there was a need for a new party which would treat left wing fantasies seriously. With a few others equally deluded, he helped form the Socialist Workers Federation but it did not take long to dawn on him that the SWF was outside the mainstream of the workers' movement — where no self-respecting left winger could ever be comfortable. So Heffer (by now you know what’s coming) joined the Labour Party for the third time. On this occasion his membership survived, perhaps because he took out his frustration by being consistently out of step with the leadership and joining the left wing gadflies in Tribune Group and then the Campaign Group.

Along the way he became famous for what might kindly be called inconsistencies. For example, was it really a loveable eccentricity which caused this righteously left wing MP to like and admire arch reactionaries like Margaret Thatcher and Auberon Waugh? Or was the naive vanity which Heffer's friends said somehow existed in him alongside kindness and sincerity? How could this rigidly principled Marxist also be a devout Christian, dispensing the opiate of the masses from the High Anglican church, where it is more usual to find crusty Tories than Merseyside militants? What happened to the SWF policy of opposition to the Labour Party or any other parliamentary party and to the parliamentary "peaceful" road to socialism, when Heffer became what his admirers called "a great parliamentarian"? How many such contradictions can one person cram into one lifetime?

Militant

Still, they all loved him. Tories like Robert Rhodes James (". . a very special and for me remarkable friendship") and Kenneth Baker ("He has won the respect of the House"); right wing Labourites like Joel Barnett ("He will be much missed by all who knew him") and of course Militant, whose cause he defended on the Labour NEC (". . . he felt it his duty to stand up and speak for me" said Derek Hatton). In fact there may have been rather more than that to Heffer’s relationship with Merseyside Militant. There was every reason for him to respect their organisational talents and their ability to marshal votes; every reason for him to want them on his side rather than to antagonise them with one of his famous outbursts of candour, vanity, kindness, stoical principles and parliamentary greatness. We can only speculate about his reaction if Militant had put up a candidate against him as they have in the by-election caused by his death. Perhaps, among his irritation, there would have been a sneaking admiration for this policy change, worthy of Heffer at his best; for by contesting the election they are challenging the Labour Party openly instead of trying to change it from within.

Heffer spent a lot of his time clinging to the wreckage of the theory that the Labour Party lost elections because it was "not socialist enough". It is difficult to reconcile this with what has actually happened to Labour in recent elections. Even someone as divorced from reality as Heffer was would be hard put to find any convincing evidence that Labour would have stayed in power from 1945 until the present if only they had behaved as if capitalism is not a social system in which everything has to be paid for, the books must be balanced and a nice profit made for the class who are in ownership over us. In any case Heffer was not excessively eager to do the donkey work in applying his theory about the electoral harvest to be reaped from "more socialist" policies. In 1967 he was offered a junior ministerial post but he turned it down; when he agreed to be Minister of State under Tony Benn at the Department of Industry in 1974 he lasted only a year. Far from trying to change Labour policies from within the government he took one of his "principled stands" and left Harold Wilson with no choice but to sack him.

Futility

Heffer is not the first left wing politician to be kindly assessed after their death and he will not be the last. So far no one has mentioned the confusion people like that are responsible for and the effect it must have on workers who are aware of what capitalism does to them and are genuinely looking for a better way of organising society. In his Liverpool constituency, plagued by desperate poverty and scarred by the memory of the Toxteth riot, Heffer persuaded thousands of workers to vote for him on the assurance that his intellectual muddle of irreconcilables could tame the worst features of capitalism. Well he failed: the Militant by election candidate. Lesley Mahmood, promised to fight on the same issues like council redundancies, unemployment and hospital closures which Heffer had been supposedly dealing with since his election nearly thirty years ago.

Did Heffer ever wonder, from the depths of his futility, if there was another way? In April 1981 he wrote a pompous letter to The Socialist Standard ("It has been drawn to my attention . . I expect an apology and retraction in your next issue".) when we mistakenly attributed to him a piece in the SWF journal Socialist Revolt. He was right and we said so unreservedly. We also pointed out some important inconsistencies in an article which he definitely had written in the same issue of Socialist Revolt. The point is that Heffer must have read — or at least had his attention drawn to — The Socialist Standard and so to the ideas of Marxism, of socialism and the democratic revolution necessary for its establishment. It meant that all of his confusion and wobbling from one daft idea to another was unnecessary. He should have known better.

Ivan

So They Say: A Moral Stand, Not Taken (1974)

The So They Say Column from the May 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Moral Stand, Not Taken

“Disillusionment” sweeps among Labour supporters like influenza after, usually, a year or two of the government they put in. This time a month or two has set the virus on its feet. One Labour journalist whose readers may already feel the symptoms is Matthew Coady of the Sunday People. In his “Week in Politics” on 31st March he wrote:

  Britain’s helping hand to Chile is to be withdrawn — and rightly. Mrs. Judith Hart. Minister for Overseas Aid, has made the only possible decision.
. . . This Generals’ bloodbath, which overthrew a Left Wing regime, is reckoned to have cost 10,000 lives, many of them executed after secret trials.
Is this the kind of set-up that Britain should help to under-pin ? Of course it isn’t.
. . . There is always a price for a moral stand. In this case it is the price of copper.

Brave words, but mistaken ones. Contrast them with the front-page story in The Guardian only two weeks later, headed Heffer may go after defying Wilson:

  Mr. Eric Heffer, Minister of State for Industry, last night faced imminent disciplinary action over his speech on Saturday in which he threw overboard the traditions of collective Cabinet responsibility and sharply criticized the Government’s decision to complete an arms contract with Chile.

(Guardian, 15th April)

Perhaps before writing “there is always a price” Coady should have seen what was in the News of the World on the day he said it: Wilson warns of price spiral.

Grow Old Along With Me . . .

A second strange story from a Labour figure was that of Mrs. Marcia Williams, Wilson’s private secretary. On 11th April she made a statement to the press about the “land deals affair” in which her brother bought property with a highly profitable future. Saying “My conscience is dear”, Mrs. Williams explained:

  Employed as I have been, personally, there has been no pension attached to my job . . . I became involved in this venture, nominally, because it was felt that my 25 per cent interest (later reduced to 20 per cent) would provide income over the period of working which could be invested in a pension fund for my retirement.

(Daily Mirror, 11th April)

The fact that there is no pension attached to her job means that Mrs. Williams would have to depend on the State retirement pension. She finds the prospect unacceptable. That is understandable; and it leaves us with the thought that what the Labour government doles out with such self-praise to the working class, its members see as unsufficient to live on

Yes, Sir, That's Whose Baby?

Strange story no. 3. Newspapers on 5th April reported that consultation papers on the road and town accompaniments to the intended Maplin Airport were being rescinded, and the project was therefore now as good as killed off. The Guardian described it as “the Conservative Government’s multi-million pound plan”, and said:

  Mr. Crosland [Secretary for the Environment! has long been opposed to Maplin. On January 16, six weeks before the election, he assured the Commons that a Labour Government would cancel the project within "a matter of weeks”.

The fact is that a Labour government originated it all. In 1966 Labour said that a third London airport was needed and should be at Stansted — motorway, town development and all. After protests other sites were named, and in turn protested over, until Maplin was settled upon.

Claiming credit for squashing one’s own idea is quite novel. Perhaps that is the idea behind trading arms to Chile — to take “a moral stand” and stop it, later.

A Fertile Suggestion

Socialists always welcome old friends, and a venerable one has turned up this month. In a letter to The Observer on 7th April A. Rees of Bradford asserted that the poor make themselves poor by having too many children:

  I cannot help thinking that the people in the poverty trap have reproduced themselves into it. The problem is surely the folly of trying to raise children on low wages, breeding poverty as they breed children.

There is scope for some fascinating calculation here. Lord Longford has a large family but is well breeched; how many children would he have had to have to make himself poor? What about Lord Sainsbury? To get into the “poverty trap” by this method he’d have to put out the work to contract.

On the other hand, Mrs. Marcia Williams did not think of avoiding poverty by going to a birth-control clinic. She had a slice of a property deal instead — showing she knows the facts of life better than A. Rees of Bradford.

Unions and Politics

The General Secretary of the TUC made a speech on 28th March which contained valuable information for left-wing militants. First:

  Mr. Murray . . . said yesterday that no Government would do things for the trade union movement without expecting something from the unions in return. Mr. Murray, who was speaking to a parliamentary press gallery luncheon, said the union movement could not expect unquestioning co-operation.

This should dispose of the idea that “political strikes” can bring compliance from governments, or even that a change of government will give militants what they have been shouting for. And to make the point clear, he later referred to the high-spot of the 1972 agitation against the Industrial Relations Act:

  Mr. Murray accepted that the actions of the Pentonville five — the dockers who were saved from gaol only on the intervention of the Official Solicitor — had been regarded as stupid by some. But the incident had shown how important it was not to make martyrs.

(Guardian, 29th March)

At the time, the five dockers were claimed to have been released by the threat of a strike — a great victory for militant solidarity etc. Len Murray now confirms that it was not so. He might have added that six other pickets went to gaol last year without any suggestion that they were martyrs, and the only protest was a mild one at the severity of their sentences.

A Continuing Mess

What would be thought of a newspaper which, through failure of organization, had two blank pages in every issue? or a tobacconist whose packets of twenty cigarettes had only eighteen in? Presumably, that if they could not put their businesses in order they would soon be out of business.

Yet capitalism tries to educate children and fails in an equally elementary respect. A group in the Manchester College of Education wrote in the Education Guardian on 9th April:

  In research carried out recently by the Cadmean Trust it was revealed that 15 in every 100 children leave school virtually illiterate.

The writers call it “a national disgrace”. But after more than a century of educational expansion, continual reorganization, extension of the school-leaving age and so on the basic problem of education is unsolved. Is it not time capitalism was thrown out for inefficiency in this and every other direction?

Robert Barltrop

Sting in the Tail: Competition Humbug (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the April 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Competition Humbug

Every Chairman and Director of every company will insist that competition is essential, indeed, is a sacred principle of capitalism.

But look at this: several top companies in the concrete business, Tarmac, Redland and RMC among them, have just been convicted of having 65 secret deals to keep concrete prices high.

The same situation exists in every industry. During the last few years 60 glass companies, including the largest, Pilkington, operated a price-fixing racket; 66 private bus operators colluded to avoid competing with one another, while ICI, BP and Shell did likewise in plastics. The list is endless.

Yes, they will all agree that competition is essential — for everyone else, but not for them.


Spare a Tear

Yet another left-wing firebrand has mellowed somewhat. Eric Heffer MP, recalls that when he first entered parliament he thought it was like "a great church which practised ancestor worship". (The Guardian, 20 February).

Now that he may be forced to retire through ill-health, he will "miss the place", especially "the friends . . . from all sides of the House". Tories too? Certainly, indeed he even admired Enoch Powell who could whip-up a bit of racial hatred.

Above all, he will miss "the great debates", or, put another way, those bawling sessions which often degenerate into near-riots, and is

  ". . . glad that Churchill insisted that the Chamber be restored exactly as it was . . . with the seats facing each other, like choir stalls. It gives an intimacy . . ."

Isn't that touching?

So remember, the next time some Labour MPs follow Heffer’s example by singing "The Red Flag" in parliament or mucking around with the mace, it doesn’t follow that they don't fondly embrace the hoary Institutions of what has been called "the best private club in the world".


Opportunism Knocks

Gorby's attempt to boost his waning status through his Gulf "peace" initiative had Labour leader Neil Kinnock worried.

Delaying the ground attack, he fretted, might encourage Saddam to regroup his forces and

  he feared a hold-up in military action could give Iraq a wrong signal, possibly prolong the war and causing more loss of life.

ITV's Oracle (22 February)

Once he was Kinnock the left-wing firebrand, then he became a "Statesman", now he's a military strategist.

The opportunist tradition set by all previous Labour leaders is obviously safe in Kinnock's hands.


War for Freedom?

After the cessation of hostilities in the Gulf many newspapers went well over the top with claims such as "Kuwait City is freed". Anything approaching freedom in that city has a long way to go, whether ruled by an Iraqi or Kuwaiti dictator.

The Anti-Slavery International recently reported a case of how the Kuwaiti ruling clique treated their workers in London, never mind Kuwait City.

  Alice, a Filipino domestic who said she worked for Kuwait's ruling al-Sabah family, said: "I was forced to sleep on the floor between the bedroom and the bathroom. I had to wear a bell so they could call for me at any time.
  I worked from 6am to 2am each day. They fed me their left-overs and used to kick me at night, on their way to the bathroom.
  They kept my passport".
  The 29-year-old woman, who was too frightened to give her full name, said she ran away after an attempt to rape her. At the time she was so thin from lack of food she escaped by crawling through a cat flap.

The Independent (7 March)

Super Sports Event?

One of the less publicised aspects of the Gulf War was the way hundreds of US companies poured their products free of charge into the area for the US troops. Behind this apparent generosity there is a sordid economic reality.

  The ferocious soft-drink war is the sub-text of the larger better known conflict. "Anyone who helps someone out there is making a friend for life" according to Coke, and no doubt the same logic is driving the other US companies sponsoring the war effort — 1,127 had signed up before a shot was fired.

The Independent (17 February)

The view of the marketing people on war is worth noting:

  "One tries to associate a product with an experience", says David Stewart, a US marketing expert. "War is a particularly intensive experience. War alone is not attractive, but there are aspects which are. There are heroes. There’s style, magnanimity . . . It's like a super sport event".

This view of war contrasts sharply with what actually happens in these hellish conflicts as reported in the same newspaper on 28 February 1991:

  "Don't be surprised", the man said, "I had two neighbours who the Iraqis thought were in the resistance. So they pushed them into drains, closed the grill, poured petrol on them and set them on fire. Their families buried them later — you can't leave bodies in drains."

War as a super sports event is typical of the sick morality of the capitalist system.


Praise me Blame them

It is an old political ploy for politicians to claim the praise if anything ever works out well in capitalism (a rare event); and it is equally part of the strategy that if anything goes wrong ( a not unknown occurrence) to blame someone else. But Kenneth Clarke, Secretary of State for Education and Science, has probably overplayed that much used ruse.

On the same day he was pointing the finger of blame in two different directions as reported in The Independent on 7 March.

  Politicians often have louder voices than scientists, Sir David Phillips, chairman of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC) told the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology. Kenneth Clarke, Secretary of State for Education and Science, has insisted that scientists cannot blame him for the current financial crisis. He says he is acting on the advice of the ABRC.
   Leaks suggest that the ABRC this year recommended spending at least £50m more on science than was allocated.

Brought to task on declining reading standards at primary schools he was equally blameless according to him:

  He startled members of the Commons Select Committee on Education who are investigating claims of a decline in reading in English primary schools by telling them: "I won’t take responsibility for things that are utterly beyond my control." Mr Clarke Insisted:"Today's schools are the best resourced we have ever had", and went on to criticise some local education authorities for "extravagance and incompetence".

It will be interesting to see if at the next General Election Clarke is talking about "things that are utterly beyond my control" or has resorted to the usual arrogant electioneering pose of all his kind.

Parliament and Power (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently the I.L.P. published a pamphlet “The Way To Workers’ Control,” which is a reprint of chapter 6, section II., of the book “Workers’ Councils ” by Anton Pannekoek. In an introduction the I.L.P. states:—” This pamphlet is necessary as an antidote for those who have stressed the importance of the Parliamentary struggle. It is important to remind M.P.s who believe that their power rests on a mathematical majority of seats that real power exists outside Parliament (and the courts, as Sir Hartley Shawcross found when he tried to prosecute the dockers in February, 1951).” They also state:— “We believe that the tasks of a political party today do not preclude Parliamentary action. It is our view and, we believe, that of the author, that Socialist policy should not be determined by Parliamentary expediency ...”

There is also a new journal, “Revolt,” published by so-called Marxist Groups, which is putting forward old ideas which have helped to mislead the working class in the past.

We therefore once again have to refute the idea that Socialism can be established before the understanding and acceptance of it by the majority of the workers. Despite all the defeats, hardship and bloodshed experienced by workers in trying to oppose the powers of the State machine by force, these so-called Marxist Groups are once again advocating methods which, if put in effect, could only lead to further defeats. Despite all the experience they have to draw upon, they appear to have learned nothing from the errors of the Anarchists and Communist Parties.

The S.P.G.B. has since its foundation stressed the need for the working class to organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government in order that the machinery of government, including the armed forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation. The importance of Parliament as the centre of power is dealt with in our pamphlet “Questions of the Day.”

What does the I.L.P. mean by the statement “That Socialist policy should not be determined by Parliamentary expediency?” Gaining control of Parliament to introduce Socialism is not Parliamentary expediency. When we of the S.P.G.B. have contested an election we have always put the Socialist case. We have always requested the working class not to vote for the Socialist candidate unless they understand and accepted Socialism. It is the I.L.P. whose election campaigns are determined by Parliamentary expediency, it is the I.L.P. which fails to put the Socialist case to the electors, it is the I.L.P. which puts forward what they believe to be vote catching reforms only to find that the majority of the workers believe that the Labour Party is more likely to obtain these reforms. The I.L.P. is wrong in stating that real power exists outside Parliament.

Power and the Law
Clearly the strongest power in the State, wherever it resides, cannot be limited by law or anything else, since otherwise it would not be the strongest. Parliamentary sovereignty in Britain means that the validity of an Act of Parliament cannot be called in question in any court of law. There is no legal limit to the power of Parliament in Great Britain and consequently no court of law can ever declare, as can an American court with an Act of Congress, that an Act of Parliament is unconstitutional and therefore cannot be enforced.

Sir H. Shawcross, as the Attorney General in the last Labour Government, did not fail in his attempt to prosecute the dockers, because the power of the courts was greater than that of Parliament, but because he was in too much of a hurry. The Labour Government could have changed the law, it had a majority in the House of Commons, but it was bound by previous laws which it had not changed. The Labour Government knew that if they did change the law it would have to bear the consequences in the next general election.

E. S. Heffer, writing in issue No. 2 of the paper Revolt, states: “The lessons of the 1926 General Strike must be learned. During that revolutionary upsurge, the workers created their own embryonic State organs, when the Trades Councils were in varying degrees transformed into Councils of Action. Parliament, as such, was powerless, and it was only the reformist spinelessness of the leadership of the T.U.C. and the Labour Party that led to defeat.”

This is nonsense. Parliament was not powerless, it still controlled the posse, it controlled the armed forces and, as many workers found, was prepared to use all the powers of the State to defeat the General Strike. Talk of defeat because of the leaders of the T.U.C. and the Labour Party, is an old, old story. Who elected these leaders? Who supported them after the defeat? The fact that the working class had the need of leaders showed that they did not know what to do but were prepared to follow leaders. It is, too, in odd explanation to give that the all-powerful upsurge of the workers was too weak to overcome a handful of leaders.

Up to the present the mass of the workers have lacked political knowledge and have voted for people instead of principles. The members of the so-called Marxist Group and people with similar ideas on “revolutionary action ” have never grown up, they are like children playing at revolution and no doubt enjoying themselves for a time, then, when things go wrong they blame the leaders.

With regard to Parliamentary action Marx and Engels had no doubt about the position as the two following quotations show.

  “The working classes will have learned by experience that no lasting benefit whatever can be obtained for them by others but that they must obtain it themselves by conquering, first of all. political power. They must see now that under no circumstances have they any guarantee for bettering their social position unless by universal suffrage which would enable them to send a majority of working men in the House of Commons (“The Ten Hours Question” by F. Engels).”
   “But universal suffrage is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat form the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground, civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but landlords, industrial Capitalists (farmers) and hired labourers. The carrying of universal suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more Socialist measure than anything which has been honoured with that name on the Continent.
   “Its inevitable result here is the political supremacy of the working class.”

From an article by K. Marx on the Chartists, New York Tribune, August 25th, 1852, Marx was too optimistic as to how the workers would use their votes. Unfortunately the workers had not a clear consciousness of their position as a class. They still have not. But at least Marx and Engels recognised the necessity of capturing the political machinery and the necessity of gaining a majority in the House of Commons. This is something the members of the so-called Marxists Groups have yet to learn. No doubt they recognise that the majority of the workers would not elect their candidates if they contested an election. But the answer is not to belittle the powers of Parliament but to propagate Socialism. This is the method of the S.P.G.B. We know that once the majority understand and accept Socialism the powers of government will soon be conquered by the working class.

D. W. Lock

Political Notes: Stalinists in the Labour Party (1980)

The Political Notes column from the May 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Stalinists in the Labour Party

Those on the left wing of the Labour party are often caricatured as well-intentioned fools with admirable morals but little sense. While this may be true of many of them, we should not forget that some Labour leaders have rather unsavoury political pasts. Here is one of them writing in the journal, Socialist Revolt, in April 1957:

“No one can deny that Communists in the past have made grave mistakes, but does anyone believe that Russia would have retained its socialist basis . . . without Stalin’s iron rule during the most difficult period in Communist history? Would subversion, direct aggression, economic sabotage etc. not have crushed the germinating seed of world Communism if Comrade Stalin had not ‘enforced’ the unity of Communists in Russia, and throughout the International Communist Movement?”

The author of that hymn of praise to Stalin was Eric Heffer. Another admirer of the Stalinist system was the present leader of the Labour party, James Callaghan, who wrote in Reynolds News in March 1946:

“The rewards given to ability in the USSR at all levels are far greater than those given to the employed in Capitalist Britain. I have seen it and it works.”

So, the next time you hear Heffer or Callaghan talking about socialism (a practice they usually reserve for Party Conferences and other such occasions), recall what it is that these men understand by the term and recognise them for the enemies of the working class that they are.

Gestapo deaths

Remember the war over markets that they said was fought to defeat the evil of German totalitarianism? Well, the Gestapo may have been defeated, but many West German workers are still concerned about the degree to which the State is interfering in their lives. According to a report in German International of September 1979, 

   “In February 1978 the former Bonn Defence Minister Georg Leber, resigned after disclosures that the Military Security Service had been involved in bugging operations without his knowledge. In May of that year library staff reported that intelligence agents had been keeping a watch on the reading habits of book borrowers and feeding their findings into the government computers. In June last year the former interior Minister, Werner Maihofer, resigned after the publication of reports that border guards had been keeping an eye on the reading matter carried by travellers.”

The most comprehensive West German police computer is “Inpol”, short for Information system der Polizei. In 1972, when it became operative, it was linked to 20 data stations; now it is fed by 1,200, thus putting the West German government’s capacity for spying on its workers on a par with that of East Germany. In Britain, jury-vetting, hugging and secret police computers are known to exist. As 1984 approaches we are forced to take the Orwellian fear more and more seriously.

Cheap Chinese labour

State capitalism, not socialism, exists in Russia and China. And because workers in these countries are not free to combine in trade unions, the rate of exploitation tends to be higher than in the more industrialised parts of the world. The Socialist Standard has often shown that it is more profitable for Western capitalists to invest in the cheap labour of the East than the unionised labour of the West. The Electronic Times of 28 February provides us with further evidence:

  “To reduce production costs, Citizen Watch is planning to have electronic watches assembled in China — in the Guangdong province. The plan is for quartz watches at the Chinese plant using Japanese movements in Chinese cases. The Chinese local government authorities at Guangdong are keen for local assembly to alleviate the shortage of watches, and to limit imports from Hong Kong. Consignments of watches have already been assembled for Hong Kong manufacturers in Guangdong, and so the authorities are keen to exploit the local knowledge.”

China is part of the world capitalist market, with all of its concern for imports and exports, production costs and — the hallmark of all capitalist production — exploitation of wage labour by capital.

Profits before health

The Electronic Times of 6 March contains another noteworthy report. The United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has recently been investigating the health hazards at a semiconductor firm called Signetics in Sunnyvale, California. The investigation followed complaints from three employees that their work was literally making them sick. Such symptoms as burning tongues, nose bleeds, chest tightness, and metallic tastes in their mouths were reported. According to the Electronic Times: “The three (who complained) were fired from the company in July, 1979), four days before the NIOSH-contract physicians were denied entry to Signetics.”

NIOSH reported that the majority of workers in the firm complained of the same symptoms as the three already sacked. Their report stated that the health hazards could have been prevented had there been improved ventilation in the workplace. But,

“This would mean additional investments in expensive ventilation and other such equipment at a time when most companies already have trouble finding capital to finance their research and development projects.” 

So it’s profits before people once again.

Steve Coleman

Political Notes: Humbug & Heffer (1980)

The Political Notes Column from the August 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Humbug & Heffer

In our May issue, we had a piece referring to the murky Stalinist past of the Labour MP Eric Heffer, who has now announced his intention of entering the race for the leadership of his pseudo-socialist party. As late as 1953, after the death of Stalin, he was extolling the virtues of the monster who had done to death millions of Russian workers in the process of building up the power of the state-capitalist regime. In the Guardian of June 28 there was a long interview with Heffer by John Torode, complete with the usual description of his fondness for smart clothes, good food and fine wine. (It is beginning to seem as though a would-be leader of these pseuds has first got to prove that he has all the worst attributes of a capitalist Pig.)

In the course of the article, Heffer is quoted as reviling the Fabians (who are of course members of his own party) as being “the other side of the Stalinist coin” and went on to remind readers of the way the Webbs had swallowed Stalin. No readers of this journal will have any illusions about the Webbs or any of their ilk; we have on many occasions publicised their appalling views, which fitted so ill with their claims for the Labour Party as a guardian of democracy.

There was never, at any time, the slightest excuse for the Webbs to eulogise Stalinism in the teeth of all the evidence of its atrocities. But by the time Heffer did his grovel, even those who had fallen into the Stalinist trap had, in the main, realised what a murderous dictator he had been. But not Heffer he was still kissing the dead tyrant’s feet. And yet here he is, a quarter of a century later, having the gall to criticise his fellow Stalin-lovers.

Workshy myth

This too is a headline taken from an article in the press (Guardian June 28). It is not bad enough that workers are made redundant (apart from those referred to in the previous note who cannot be thrown onto the scrap-heap because they simply live there and know- no other home). They have to be insulted as well. Workshy, lazy, do better on the dole than working. And the insults are not hurled merely by the capitalist class. All socialist propagandists will be familiar with members of our own class who are all too ready to heap insults on fellow members even less fortunate than they are. (They forget they are always liable to join them!)

Of course it is true that some jobs are so badly paid that workers can actually do better on social security. A fine advert for capitalism that is, to be sure. But the report in the Guardian made it clear that “the vast majority of the unemployed experience serious financial difficulty . . . on average their benefits total only 44 per cent of their former earnings”. We are further told that the “mean benefit” (le mot juste!) for men is the vast sum of £26.34 per week. Also that only 19 per cent get redundancy pay from all sources totalling more than £200. Riches indeed.

Bitter price for youth to pay

The above heading is not our own, but appeared over an article by Shirley Williams, the former Labour Minister of Education, in the Observer (June 29). The article was on the subject of youth unemployment, the fearful prospect facing thousands of school-leavers of never having the privilege of becoming an employed wage-slave. One of the gems offered by Williams was that the government should pay special benefits to young people engaged in training or further education at least on a means-tested basis.

The very term “means test” was always calculated to make a Labourite foam at the mouth, and yet here is one of their own leaders advocating it — and not a single twitch in the paper’s letter columns. In all of its 700 words, there was not room for one single mention of the word socialism. How can someone like Mrs Williams pretend to be a socialist and yet manage to deal with ways of solving capitalism’s problems without even mentioning the word? Let alone understanding what it means.

Make sense of this

In Portugal there is a Conservative government acting under a recently enacted constitution whose second clause provides for the “transition to socialism”. (Taken from an article in the Times Literary Supplement of July 4 which points out that nowhere in the constitution is the term socialism defined!) 

Praising Mosley!

“What Mosley so valiantly tried for, could have saved his country from the Hungry Thirties and the second world war.” Michael Foot.
“Mosley is a superb political thinker, the best of our age.” A. J. P. Taylor.

Now it is well-known that Mosley is the hate-figure supreme of the Left. It is equally well-known that Foot has been a leading Leftie since time began and is now deputy leader of the Labour Party; and that Professor Taylor, that great historian, has also claimed to be a socialist. So it is possible that you might think the above quotes are figments of an overheated imagination. They may be incredible but they are still true. They are taken from the same edition of the TLS of the previous note and are part of the blurb to an advert of Mosley’s memoirs. Further comment would be superfluous.

L. E. Weidberg

Paying the Piper (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

As an addition to background music we play a subliminal message in a store, a message which you can't consciously hear, but which is going to be subconsciously received. We are in a sense an improvement in that we can focus more specifically on what we're trying to achieve with the pro-active system than you can with background music. We are trying to create a subtle effect, for instance using it for theft prevention. We've had systems in for two and a half years now and our results have ranged anywhere from 20 per cent reductions on theft to 90 per cent reductions on theft
(David Tyler. President of Pro-active Systems Inc., interviewed on Omnibus. BBC TV. 16 July 1984.)

The system described in this quotation — appropriately enough in the year 1984 — includes the words “I do not steal. I do not steal. I am honest . . . " repeated in a whisper which cannot be consciously heard as it follows the sound level in the supermarket. Policing the workforce has certainly come on a long way since the days of the Bow Street Runners. Rediffusion now exports the sedative effects of "Muzak" to 135.000 large subscribers in over 30 countries, from Africa to New Zealand and Japan. But the power of music has long been recognised by those in power. In Ancient China there was the Foundation Tone, a "sacred" pitch believed to guard against disorder. In Ancient Greece, music was legally regulated as a potential force for good or evil. In the nineteenth century, the emotive quality of music was shamelessly prostituted to enhance many nationalist movements, despite its intrinsically global appeal. In the 1920s. Catholic missionaries introduced brass bands into Papua to "subdue the dangerous energy" of native headhunters. And when the BBC lengthened the last pip of the radio time-signal after the Second World War, a number of angry listeners complained about unwarranted interference with the true and proper order of things.

Music and songs can, of course, be great forces for change, although recent cases where this has been claimed are in fact nothing but shams. Take the boom in musical charity projects which began a few years ago with Bandaid. Liveaid and the We Are The World record. The fine sentiments of global unity and compassion fizzled out in the old holy trinity of "faith, hope and charity"; the attempt to redistribute poverty failed utterly. Even Bob Geldof himself now freely admits that it solved nothing and changed nothing. Some still say "Well, we know it's not the answer, but . . . " in a defeatist tone which accepts that this society of insane contradictions will just have to do for the time being.

The subversive rebel music of the fifties and sixties — the tradition of sticking two fingers up at the establishment — found its seventies expression in punk rock. Once again, there is a long history of such musical defiance, with jazz in its day having enjoyed a similar reputation, even if it did not embody the punk idea of participation and access to the music for anyone. In 1928, W.H. Hadow wrote that "the jazz band . . .  puts itself outside the pale of music by the coarseness and vulgarity of its utterances" and four years later Arthur Bliss pronounced that jazz was "a subject for the pathologist rather than the musician". These fearful reactions continue today, particularly among the "moral majority" in the American South where an MCA executive refused to produce an album by the punk group Black Flag on the grounds that it was “anti-family”.

The ways in which such music has been accommodated into the mainstream have been well documented. Speaking of the punk album Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols, the Virgin Records Press Officer, Al Clarke, said: "The LP was released eleven days ago. It brought in £250.000 before it was even released and went straight to Number 1 in the charts". Once Castro was in power in Cuba he used the tradition of subversive music, La Trova Cubana to consolidate the new régime, with an official festival in Havana in 1967 called a "Protest Song Get Together". Likewise, reggae has been used in Jamaica by the state as a means of controlling dissent; it is perhaps significant that Bob Marley's first record was called Simmer Down. And in Britain, the idea of using apparently rebellious music as a means of control came readily to ex-teachers like Sting when he was singing with his old group The Police. In an interview he spoke of controlling the crowd and leading them to oblivion, and concluded "There isn't much difference between rock'n'roll and teaching, mind you. It's the same job. You're entertaining delinquents for an hour”.

The limitations of protest music were well summed up by the folk singer, Dick Gaughan in Folk Roots, September 1986:

 You can say what a bunch of villains the ruling class really are, what a nasty bunch of war-mongermg bastards they are. Bob Dylan made a fortune out of doing that in the '60s. Nothing wrong with that. But as soon as you go over the edge and take the step of saying the solution to the problem is ordinary working class people who are actually not just going to say the world is a terrible place, but are going to take the power off you and stuff it up your arse . . .  say that we are actually going to lake control . . . at that point you have gone too far. You can say anything you like except suggest a change of power into the hands of the working class. You can argue for socialism as long as you don't define what you mean by socialism. 

This safety has been well noted and acted on by some of the commercially promoted and quite successful artists who form the eighties equivalent of protest music, the (mostly pro-Labour) ‘agitprop” bands and singers affiliated to campaigns like Red Wedge.

Whereas an earlier generation of protest singers like Dylan sang the poetry of dissent without campaigning for presidents or prime ministers, the present wave have been recruited into British party politics by the ogre of Thatcherism rather than the capitalist system itself. In some cases artistic popularity has been used to sell stale and second-hand ideas for an alternative brand of "people's capitalism”.

During 1985. Billy Bragg performed 50 concerts as part of the "Jobs For Youth" campaign in conjunction with the Labour Party, and that tour led directly to the founding of Red Wedge, a coalition of performers which declared itself "committed to a Labour victory at the next election'. Billy Bragg himself was quoted as saying of the earlier protest singers that “All that generation came to nought. They thought that if they joined hands and sang Imagine the world would change" (Sunday Times, 26 January 1986). But this eighties "realism" is not all it seems, and John Lennon's plea for people to “imagine — no possessions" will prove to have been more challenging than Bragg's badge of slavery in Between The Wars: “I'll give my consent, to any government that does not deny a man a Living Wage . . . " In the same article, Andy McSmith. Labour's Jobs and Industry campaign co-ordinator said “Billy is worth his weight in gold to us”, and Eric Heffer commented “it is a good thing that an ordinary working-class lad like Billy should identify himself with the Labour movement". The Red Wedge manifesto itself strengthened the myth that mass unemployment was invented in 1979 and could be cured by “Government and council spending", and on the subject of war only promises more of the same:

The Russians are making clear their commitment to world peace . . .  under Labour we would see a move to real defence . . .  This does not mean, as the Tories claim, that the country would be defenceless. It means strengthening and modernising our conventional defences, which are dangerously run down.

Which brings us full circle to the Ancient Chinese Foundation Tone, humming the monotonous tune of the present order, with its international rivalry and bombs, its poverty and despair. But there are far brighter things to sing about. The world and all its resources, including communication and entertainment, are still waiting to be taken into the hands of the world community, to be used by and for us all.

Clifford Slapper

To be continued next month with a look at how the music industry makes its profits.

From SDP to SDP (1990)

From the July 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once upon a time a bunch of dull politicians had a dream. They were going to “break the mould” of British politics. They would create a "sensible" political party which would be neither left nor right, but would offer all things to all voters. They were “moderate” politicians, not "extremists". By this they meant that they would not be so fanatical as to allow principles to get in the way of their quest for power. The political "experts" had an instant love affair with these very “sensible” politicians. The BBC and ITV commentators never ceased to sing the praises of this “sensible" new party, the SDP.

The SDP won millions of votes from workers who were sick of the two main parties. Many voted for it with blind faith in its promise of something different. These gullible people were to be sorely disappointed. The SDP was just like the other parties. Last month the SDP shut up shop, buried in the rubble of its monumental promises to make politics look different. In reality, the SDP stood for the running of the capitalist system, claiming that it could run the market more efficiently than Thatcher’s Tories. The SDP was a Tory party with an arrogant doctor instead of an arrogant Prime Minister as its leader.

Writing in the Guardian on 30 May. Eric Heffer MP stated that “Labour has now become the SDP Mark 2". We shall leave Mr Heffer to state why he supports such a party while claiming to be a socialist. He might like to consult Tony Benn MP who has admitted that the recent Labour Policy Review document, upon which the next Labour manifesto will be based, is a thoroughly anti-socialist statement.

To the Socialist Party the political logic is clear: the SDP was a Tory Party Mark 2; the Labour Party is now an SDP Mark 2: it therefore follows that the Labour Party is simply another version of the Tory Party. Just as a vote to make Owen Prime Minister was no different from a vote for Thatcher, it is quite clearly the case that a vote for Kinnock is exactly the same as a vote for Thatcher. The victory of a Labour government in the next election will be a victory for the continuation of the market system—of profit before human needs.

Socialists can only be encouraged by the demise of the SDP. With that party has died the fraudulent claim that there is a cosy middle ground between naked, ruthless capitalism and the socialist alternative. Now the Labour Party—or, the “new” Labour Party as it likes to be called—is doing its utmost to revive that pernicious claim. Labour presents itself as the comforting, undisruptive, moderate party which can be trusted to look after Great Britain PLC on behalf of all the people, workers and capitalists.

Do not be deceived: there is only one way to run the profit system and that is with callous indifference to the misfortune of those who must be poor so that the capitalist class can be rich. The Kinnock mob, if they get their hands on power, will be loyal servants of the millionaire class and that will make them enemies of the wealth-producing majority.

As Owen climbs from the ruins of his own political failure he has more than a slight smile on his face. Just as one SDP is buried a new one has come to life in the form of the remodelled Labour Party. There is only one way to knock the smile off the faces of the two-headed Owen-Kinnock monster and that is for workers to refuse to squander their votes on such reformist opportunists and instead unite consciously and democratically for socialist revolution and nothing less.

The Cloak and Dagger Brigade (1977)

From the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The knives are out. Sir Harold Wilson and a large section of the Labour Party are gunning for those who claim to be trying to “re-establish its socialist principles”. For a party who has never had any, their task is a hopeless one. Going for “Trots” and other so-called left-wingers is unproductive, and two members of the Labour Party National Executive have tabled a resolution asking the Party to cool it. The two members, MPs Eric Heffer and Joan Lestor, are considered by many to be “revolutionaries” in their own right. Their resolution contains the following:

Attacks which add nothing to solving the serious economic and social problems which confront this country.

Whilst we agree that attacks add nothing to solving the problems which confront this country, the solutions put forward by the Labour Government do not seem to be meeting with much success. Indeed, we might say that these solutions have added nothing at all to the old solutions that have been tried in the past, and failed.

We wonder if Heffer and Lestor are among those Labour MPs whose favourite reading today is, apparently, the works of Karl Marx? If so, we suggest they don’t just read Marx but study what he had to say, and see if it adds up to the world which they are trying to better. If they don’t read Marx, here is a glorious opportunity not only to find out how capitalism works, and the solution, Socialism; but a knowledge of Marxism will enable them to deal with the spurious “left-wingers” who are masquerading under the cloak of Marxism within the Labour Party. They could tell these quacks exactly what Marx was after.

In the present circumstances, we reiterate the idea that the principle (of tolerance must be one of the basic concepts of democratic socialism.

Is it only when the Labour Government are in a tight spot that the principle of tolerance must be one of the concepts of “democratic socialism”? If the Government had a thumping majority in the House, would such tolerance be so basic? Whilst tolerance might be a virtue (and we can well understand Labour politicians desiring it, particularly from the electors, who see their promises unfulfilled), it has nothing to do with democratic Socialism. How can a Socialist be tolerant of a man such as Callaghan who calls for the system to be more profitable and for the capitalist class to invest more in industry? Profit and investment have nothing to do with Socialism. Are we to be tolerant of a man who mouths such rubbish (in the name of Socialism), and tolerant of the Heffers and Lestors who will support him when the chips are down?

Mr. Heffer in the House of Commons, April 9th, 1975, said: “We determine the future of our country”. He and the others in the Labour Party have a lot to answer for.

Cyril May

Labour MPs in confusion (1989)

From the October 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party has always attracted a wide range of politically bewildered do-gooders and reformists. These believe that in spite of their many differences, they can all band together and run capitalism more acceptably than the Tories. In the past some, like David Owen, have decided that their ambitions would be better served by getting out and abandoning the principles they once claimed to hold. Others like Tony Benn have remained despite their out-of-step ideas, to become eccentric and embarrassing curiosities in the eyes of their more ambitious colleagues.

In his leadership acceptance speech of October 1983, Neil Kinnock attempted to forge a new unity by referring to "socialism" in the vague and misleading way that the Labour Party has often had recourse to when convenient:

Our function, our mission as socialists, is to see we gain the power to achieve that, and there is no other way but by Socialism—deliberate organisation of all the resources of humankind and talents. That is the definition of Socialism.

Such loose catch-all phrases may win standing ovations at Labour Party Conferences, but would also receive lip-service from all kinds of other capitalist politicians too.

In contrast to this, the Socialist Party has always held to a clear and precise definition of our aim, and being a democratic movement without leaders, any Socialist Party member could be relied on to explain this clear definition of socialism: a worldwide system of society in which goods and services are produced solely to satisfy human needs, not profit; which will only be possible when all the productive resources are democratically controlled, rather than at present where they are owned and controlled by private individuals or by the state on the "people's behalf". It cannot therefore be a system of buying and selling or bartering. Money will then be obsolete, as will be the need for human beings to starve while food is destroyed or allowed to rot because they cannot pay for it. This definition, of common ownership, production for use, and free access to all wealth, is expanded on throughout the journals and pamphlets of the Socialist Party.

Mixed Economy
In an effort to find out what was lift of Kinnock's so-called socialist unity after five years of his leadership, one of our members wrote to a number of Labour MPs late last year and asked for their definitions of socialism. The results were quite spectacular, confirming our suspicion of utter confusion, disagreement and bewilderment.

Both Kinnock and his right-hand man Hattersley simply sent copies of Democratic Socialist Aims and Values which at the time was the latest creation of the Labour Party's waffle factory in Walworth Road. The nearest that the pamphlet came to defining socialism was as a system of state capitalism, heavily decorated with a generous dose of liberal rhetoric. "The state', we were assured, "is an instrument for sustaining and enhancing the liberties of the whole community". "Free trade unions" would be vital to democracy; but Kinnock has been rather shy about any pledge to repeal the anti-trade union legislation of the past ten years. They trot out the old clichés about "redistribution of wealth" (and this is one promise which the 1974-79 Labour government did keep—the richest ten per cent became richer!) but there is no talk of changing the basis on which wealth is produced, only a recommitment to the "mixed economy", as "there are many areas of the economy where market allocation and competition between companies . . . is essential" and "democratic socialists believe in market allocation". Next they'll be telling us that defenders of capitalism "believe in common ownership".

Tony Benn was one of several respondents who referred us to literature on the subject, in this instance a list of the many books and pamphlets he has written since 1957. He also sent the Aims and Objectives of the Campaign Group, which advocates "a steady expansion of common ownership . . . covering the commanding heights of the economy". It is clear, however, that this refers to state capitalism again, as the leaflet elsewhere speaks not of ending the state, government and law which are all parts of the profit system and of class division, but of subjecting these institutions to "fundamental reform" only. Likewise, when interviewed in the Socialist Standard in 1980, Benn upheld the Clause Four blueprint for nationalisation.

Gwyneth Dunwoody also referred us to the old chestnut of Clause Four of the Labour Party Constitution, while Dale Campbell-Savours plumped for "a collectivist approach" with a bit of "democratic accountability" on the side. His comment that "I could have spent several hours pondering in the most subtle detail exactly what I do mean by Socialism, and it might be good for me personally to do so" could well be taken to heart by many of the other respondents. Peter Shore, on the other hand, went for "a society of equals . . . to end the exploitation of man by man". He seems to have forgotten that saying that under Labour governments the exploitation of "man by man" is replaced by its opposite.

Stuart Bell sent several typed sheets, the gist of which can be summed up by his assertion that "the Labour Party believes in a mixed economy where profits are accepted but where profits are accepted but where a better use of them would be re-investment". He also showed an unfortunate lack of prescience by stating (in November 1988) that "Mikhail Gorbachov and the leader of the Chinese people . . . are seeking to democratise their socialism, to make it accountable and therefore flexible and responsive to the needs of people rather than bureaucracies". So, according to his defence of state capitalism referred to as "socialism", is the wholesale slaughter of Chinese workers part of this new "flexible" response?

Self-Publicity
Michael Foot declined to provide a definition, instead recommending various books by Aneurin Bevan, John Strachey, himself and others. Several others also found themselves more inclined towards arrogant self-publicity than to define for us what they stand for. Ken Livingstone assured us  that we would find his definition of socialism in an interview he had had with Tariq Ali. Eric Heffer complained to that to define socialism "would take a lot of time and effort" and recommended instead that we get his latest book. Likewise, Bryan Gould recommend his own book and, as a teasing taster gave us this morsel, that socialism is "a political system designed to break down the concentrations in society and to defuse power as widely as possible". There was certainly a breakdown of concentration as far as these definitions were concerned.

Bearing in mind that many of these people have been elected to power on the basis of standing for something called "socialism", their general reluctance to give a clear and practical definition of what they stand for shows a quite outstanding contempt for the people who elect them to such positions of power. Perhaps the best example of this arrogance came from Robin Cook, whose assistant wrote that "Robin Cook has asked me to thank you for writing to him, unfortunately he does not feel that he is in a position to respond to your request." You could probably get a more helpful response from the queen.

Jeremy Corbyn wrote of an absence of exploitation, respect for the natural environment, and production for need and not profit. In this last phrase, he came dangerously close to a genuine definition of socialism. But the capitalist class need not fear; production for need cannot be introduced on the basis of minority control of the means of production, whether through private enterprise or through the state control which Corbyn stands for. Tam Dalyell limply offered "a system based on the advantage of the community rather than the individual". Finally, Denis Healey (don't forget the MBE) suggested "collective control of society" with the rider that "I hope my views will be clear to you in the enclosed pamphlet". In what might be regarded as a symbolic gesture, however, there was no pamphlet enclosed.

Politically Bankrupt
Then, for some light relief, some Tory MPs were also asked the same question. Teresa Gorman and John Carlisle both felt too bound by parliamentary protocol to be able to answer correspondence from a constituent of another MP. Dame Jill Knight quoted tediously from the Universal English Dictionary about collective ownership of capital. Henry Bellingham wrote passionately about "restrictions of an individuals freedom". Leon Brittan would not offer a definition as he would prefer to leave that to those who claim to be socialists. (He seems unaware that he would have as much claim to call himself a socialist as some of the other respondents!) Finally, our member was warmly reassured by Graham Bright that "as a Conservative MP my aim is to preserve the liberties of my country and ensure its peace and prosperity".

The conclusion to this enquiry, then, must be that the Labour Party remains quite bankrupt politically. Even when invited to define socialism, the rhetoric of confusion continues to churn out. Even in their most visionary moments, these people continue to fluctuate narrowly between the limited horizons of private and state forms of capitalism. They are unable to define socialism clearly or in practical terms because they are caught up entirely in the idea of trying to run capitalism. For a clear explanation of the socialist alternative then, workers must turn to the uncompromising, principled aim of the Socialist Party and our companion parties in the World Socialist Movement.

NW/CS

Rallying For Jobs (1981)

From the August 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

How many marchers were there? The police said seven thousand. The organisers said between fifteen and twenty thousand. At any rate there were a lot of them and the procession seemed never-ending as it wound down Cardiff's main street away from the centre and out towards a large field on the edge of the city. Sweet fresh-faced little girls from the Welsh valleys played drums, xylophones and kazoos for the march to proceed by. Badges and banners gave colour and spectacle. Rhythmic chants of "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie-Out, Out, Out" broke out frequently as the march progressed. This was the latest in the series of anti-Tory unemployment rallies organised by the Labour Party.

The marchers, as their banners showed, came from many different places—not just Wales but Glasgow, Southampton, Manchester, London—and represented a wide range of occupations, manual and professional. But the one thing they all had in common was an ardent desire, expressed in the flags, placards and choruses, to "kick Maggie out".

All kind of left-wing newspapers could be bought, from the least to the best known and all kins of leaflets were given out. There were times when the majority of people there seemed to have papers to sell or leaflets to distribute.

It was a close, warm day and after the two-hour march to Pontcanna Fields everyone was tired and over-heated. Banners were laid down, sandwich packets were opened up and queues developed at the stalls selling food and drink. No queues developed at the stalls selling left-wing books, badges, posters and more newspapers.

Organisation was efficient. A brass band was on hand to entertain the arriving marchers, followed by a girls' choir. With powerful loudspeakers the whole thing was relayed across the two-acre field from the large platform at the far end. Clearly a lot of trouble and expense had been gone to.

As the girls sang, the important people mounted the platform and took their places. After the choir had finished, the master of ceremonies asked over the loudspeaker if all the "platform party" was present on stage. It seemed that they were, so the speeches began.

First, a trade union official or two talking almost identically about the need to "save jobs" and "get the Tories out". Then a local MP who said a few words in Welsh. Then a message of fraternal greetings from Tony Benn, too ill to attend but whose words brought cheers from some of the crowd, especially those wearing "Benn for Deputy" badges. Finally the first of the big-name politicians—Michael Foot himself. He talked in tired platitudes about "investing in public spending", "silly, wicked Tories", "the first essential attack on the present appalling unemployment total", and "how we can save ourselves and the whole world". He admitted that there was a slump in world trade and that this was partly to blame for unemployment but added that some governments, especially 'socialist' ones (he didn't name any), had been able to protect their people from the effects. He mentioned the "magnificent socialist victory" in France and said that in the coming months Mitterand would be pursuing the same socialist policies as a Labour government itself would put into effect when next elected. His speech bore little resemblance to the report carried the same evening by the local papers up and down the country and by the nationals the following day. The prepared press release on which the reports had been based dealt in detail with the precise reforms a future Labour government would bring in to "combat inflation" and "reflate the economy".

But no matter, for the next big name to speak, Eric Heffer, had a whole detailed programme of "socialist" reforms to offer, He started promisingly: "The reason we've got unemployment is that we've got capitalism and we can only get rid of unemployment when we have socialism". But the promise didn't last. We soon found out that what Heffer meant by socialism wasn't a moneyless, wageless society of common ownership, free access and production for use, but "a 35-hour working week", "earlier retirement", "a wealth tax", "the baks and insurance companies in public ownership", "abolition of the House of Lords", "unilateral nuclear disarmament", and so on  . . . 

The crowd responded warmly to Heffer's old style oratory. They responded less warmly to the next major speaker, the bête noire of the Labour Left, Denis Healey. "Healey out", "Tony Benn", "Traitor", "Join the SDP" were some of the cries. Foot intervened and angrily told the hecklers that they were playing into the hands of the Tories and that they must allow Healey the right of free speech. Some did, some didn't. But by this time many of the crowd were drifting off. It had been a wearying day for everyone, especially for those who had travelled long distances. Even the most ardent anti-Tories were looking jaded. They weren't relishing the walk balk to the city centre and perhaps an evening's travel to follow.

What is there to be said about rallies of this kind? Firstly they undoubtedly show a remarkable degree of solidarity among a cross-section of those who, in order to live, have to sell their energies to an employer (if they can find one) for a wage or salary—the working class. Secondly, however, they show that many workers have short memories for, as I heard one disgruntled participant say after Michael Foot had spoken about fighting unemployment, under the last Labour government with Foot as Employment Minister unemployment doubled to 1½ million. Thirdly, and this is the truly sad thing, a host of people are exhibiting an enormous amount of social concern, but unfortunately it is pointing in the wrong direction. Unemployment, one of the worst evils of capitalism, cannot be eliminated by a change of government.

One lone brave marcher carried a crude home-made placard that said it all. One side read "Kicking Maggie out won't make any difference", and the other "Production for need not for profit". He was not a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain but his scrawled slogans neatly summed up the essence of the socialist case. He knew, as the vast majority of the demonstrators seemed not to know, that as long as the buying and selling system remains, "Maggie" can only be replaced by another leader committed to administering that system. And that leader, however labelled and whether they like it or not, will be obliged to adopt all the anti-working class measures imposed by the system.

Enthusiasm and good intentions were what the demonstrators had.  Understanding was what they did not have. Hasten the day when as many will make mature socialist demands for a world of free access, common ownership of the world's wealth, and the abolition of the wages system.

Howard Moss