Letter: Housing in Russia and "Socialism in one country" (1958)

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

A reader (Mr. R. L. Rhodes, Trowbridge) writes as follows:—

Dear Comrade,

In “Notes By The Way” (Socialist Standard, December, 1957) you comment on bad housing in the Soviet Union. Surely after having about 25 million people made homeless after the last war had ended and added to other problems of reconstruction, only a person who could perform miracles could have solved the problem over night. The SP.G.B. claims the Soviet Union to be a capitalist state, and that Socialism cannot be brought about in any country unless the whole world turns to Socialism. This theory in my opinion is wrong, as for instance say, Britain’s working class were prepared to elect a Socialist government and in the United States they still elected a capitalist government. What would be the attitude of the S.G.P.B.?

Yours fraternally

R. L. Rhodes.

Reply.

Housing in Russia

Our correspondent thinks it quite reasonable in view of wartime destruction, that the Russian government has not bear able to “solve the problem overnight” This is of course precisely the excuse given by the British and other governments. It is a characteristic piece of capitalist double-talk. With the resources available in Russia, Britain, America and elsewhere it would have been technically quite practicable to have the population decently housed but for the fact that in each country priority is given to other things, notably the fantastic expenditure on armaments, including the American, British and Russian A bombs and H bombs. Since each government places “guns before butter,” and before working class housing, they can all plead that the residue of materials and labour is not sufficient for decent workers’ houses. And of course the inability to build houses only applies to working class houses, not to the abundant, luxurious accommodation made available for the rich and the leading politicians in all countries.

We would also draw our correspondent’s attention again to the statement about Russian housing in our December issue. How does his plea that houses were destroyed in vast numbers in the war that ended over 12 years ago justify the present building (for the workers only) of new houses that are “one storey buildings very little larger than a one-car garage?" And of course the masses of slums and near-slums were there in Russia before the war broke out. They are not the product of the war.

"Socialism in One Country”

There are two quite distinct notions about the possibility of getting Socialism in one country alone.

One is held by people who think that Socialism can be imposed on the people by the government and that all you need therefore is for the government to be taken over by a group who want Socialism. The point about this theory is, of course, that it assumes that you can get Socialism without having to wait for the workers to become Socialists. If this theory had been sound our correspondent would not have written to us asking a question but would have written giving us the answer. He would have been able to tell us that in 1918 the Russian Communist Party seized power and then, in accordance with the theory of Socialism in one country, had triumphantly introduced Socialism in Russia without having to wait for the workers in Russia to become Socialist or for the workers out of Russia to become Socialist. Our correspondent does not tell us this because it is not true. After 40 years of power, what they have produced is State capitalism, and we readily agree that you can have State capitalism in one country.

The other theory about Socialism in one country is the one our correspondent asks us to consider, the notion of the workers becoming Socialist in one part of the capitalist world but not in other parts, this theory has been put to us ever since the S.P.G.B. was formed but it has undergone repeated changes—the country in which this is supposed to happen is never the same. At one time, it was Germany where the workers were supposed, to be on the verge of Socialism; then the purblind I.L.P. told us that it was Australia (they even had it happening in one state alone in Australia, in Queensland). Then Mexico and France, Austria, Russia, Sweden, New Zealand and numerous other countries, each had their turn—not forgetting Britain where Socialism was about to dawn with the Labour Government of 1924. All of these examples were based on the supposition, now put in the letter above, that the majority in one country become Socialists while those elsewhere do not. Which brings us from fanciful assumptions back to reality. Our correspondent gives us no reason whatever for supposing that something will happen which is contrary to all experience. The overwhelming majority of workers in Britain, Russia, U.S.A. and everywhere else have not yet abandoned their belief in capitalism. Those who have become Socialists are everywhere a small minority, and everywhere at present the Socialist idea spreads only slowly. Experience everywhere supports the view that the progress of the Socialist movement will be much the same everywhere because broadly the workers’ experience of capitalism is everywhere similar. Also the movement in one country influences growth in other countries. The tempo will at some stage increase but again there is no evidence of any kind to suggest that it will quicken in Britain and hang back in U.S.A. and Russia or vice versa. On the contrary the only expectation is that the growth of the Socialist movement everywhere will be accompanied by increasingly effective common international action by the Socialist movement. The international Socialist movement will be strong everywhere before the possibility of Socialism arises, and if the election at which Socialists take governmental control out of the hands of the capitalists in one country slightly precedes the elections at which the workers elsewhere do the same, the situation will present no problem of any moment The capitalists everywhere will be at the end of their rule, and will know that they are at the end of their rule, in face of the worlds’ Socialists acting as one united movement

Editorial Committee

Party News Briefs (1958)

Party News from the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow Branches (City and Kelvingrove) are holding regular Sunday evening propaganda meetings and full details are given in the local press. These meetings are being well attended and the Branch members are anxious to see that interesting subjects are dealt with and also to maintain the already good start made for 1958. Please make a note—full details of meetings in your local paper.

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Wales. The Party’s name is frequently in the news and the Western Mail (calling itself the National Daily of Wales) publishes letters from our Swansea Comrades in its “Letters to the Editor” column. The Swansea Group members, being few in number, not living very close to one another, rely on correspondence as their main source of propaganda. In the issue of the Western Mail dated December 4th a feature article quotes “The Western Mail seems to me to have been quite generous to political minorities. I noticed for example at least one letter from the Swansea Secretary of the Select Party of Good Boys, as I call the Socialist Party of Great Britain which still claims to be the only true Socialist Party in these isles.”

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"Socialist Standard.” Another reminder that a subscription form is in this issue, and although the Standard is now 6d. a month, 7s. 6d. will secure the Socialist Standard for a whole year, posted to any address in Britain.

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Camberwell Branch has not been mentioned in News Briefs for sometime now. This is not due to lack of activity; on the contrary, the Branch has been very busy. Two outdoor meeting stations have been maintained— East Street and Rushcroft Road—and although during the winter, months, these meetings are not so well attended as in the Spring and Summer, literature sales have been well maintained. The Branch Members regularly canvas the Socialist Standard and in the November “drive” nearly 20 dozen copies were sold.

One member who was very active in the Branch has moved out of London and the Branch has lost contact with him. The member is Comrade Goodman and the Branch would be very pleased to hear from him again.

Currently, the branch is arranging film-shows and lectures and mock debates at the branch room. Details of these activities will be given shortly. As in other branches of the Party, non-members are always welcome at branch meetings and lectures.

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Activity in Morecambe. Comrade Shaw of Morecambe sends us from time to time cuttings from local newspapers containing many letters of his putting the party case in answer to articles and letters from other readers. Recently he has had letters in the Barrow News, the Lancaster Guardian, Morecambe Times and Morecambe Visitor. In this way Comrade Shaw is able to put over the Socialist case on matters of current interest and it is an example other members could usefully copy.

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Our Advertising. In response to a recent advertisement we received the following letter:

“your strikingly-worded advertisement in the News Chronicle causes me to write for the free specimen copy offered.

I am still looking for a Socialist journal free from the omniscience of Tooley Street and the greasiness of Uriah Heep.

Is such to be found in Clapham High Street?”

It is pleasing to receive this tribute to our advertising. We only hope that the literature which has been sent to this enquirer will stimulate his interest sufficiently to induce him to make a fuller study of the Socialist case.

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New Journal published by our Irish Comrades. We welcome as an addition to Socialist literature the Socialist, published by the Socialist Party of Ireland. It is a brightly written and informative 8-page duplicated journal, issued monthly at 3d. Those who wish to get copies are invited to apply to the S.P.I., 29, Lincoln Avenue, Belfast, or to P. Boylan, 115, Walkinstown Drive, Walkinstown, Dublin, or to our head office. We wish our Irish Comrades success in their venture and urge readers of the Socialist Standard to give them support.

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Speakers’ Class. The Propaganda Committee is arranging a Speakers class to be held February—April. The last class was very successful as members know and the Propaganda Committee will be pleased to hear from Comrades who intend to join. Details are being sent to Branch Secretaries.

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Passing of an early member. We have received from Leonard F. Bailey a letter about the death of his father, B. S. Bailey on 17th December, at the age of 78. He writes:—

  “I understood he was a founder member of the Party in 1904, and was for many years an active member of Wood Green Branch, and mentioned to me amongst other comrades, the names of Anderson and Fitzgerald, which would take us back to the first world war of 1914.

    I know he had the party movement deeply at heart and should like, if I may, to send the Party a small donation each year to commemorate his memory on December 17th.

   His sons are scattered, one at Helpringham, Lines., another at Ringstead, Northants, and myself at Ilford, but I can safely say we have all father’s ideals at heart.”

Phyllis Howard

Golden Fleece (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Out-of-Town readers and others will be interested in an item which appeared not long ago in Life Magazine. “Doyle Goldy, a sheep rancher, of Palisades, Wash., was fed up with wrestling with his sheep. Every time he tried to shear them they wriggled and kicked so much that they wore him out, especially the rams. Then Goldy heard about tranquilizers and their effect on people. He asked a doctor whether a tranquilizer would work on a ram. Probably so, answered the doctor, and he doubted that it would have any long-term effect. Goldy gave one of his rambunctious rams a specially prepared injection of it and a wonderfully tranquil expression spread over the animal’s face. Then as Goldy applied the shears and his son David watched, the ram submitted without a wriggle.”

This is a wholly new venture with sheep, of course, but its use has been well known in the human world for a hundred and fifty years. The large-scale shearing movement which began in Britain in the second half of the eighteenth century necessitated new techniques generally; to-day the variety of tranquilizers is so considerable that the fleece merchants are spoiled for choice (that’s putting it mildly);

The first great name in tranquilizers is Wesley. Before his time the fleece merchants had to contend with wriggling and kicking wholesale. Most of the herds were newly driven in from the countryside and did not take kindly to their new environments; some, indeed, kicked and broke the machines used for shearing them, and there were occasional signs of whole herds refusing to be shorn at all. Near Manchester in 1819 several head were openly butchered as an example to the others, in spite of protests from humane societies.

Wesley’s prescription was an adaptation of several old formulae. The chief ingredients were Sky Pie and Humble Pie, laced with Mumbo. The tranquilizing effect was remarkable for its time: a full injection of Wesleyism produced pleasant dreams of pasture and cud and made the subject at once quiescent and willing to be sheered. A revolution in herdsmanship had taken place. Some old-fashioned fleece merchants ignored the new methods, preferring the heavy hand and the big stick (there was, in fact, a proprietary brand of big stick now known as Calvin’s); nevertheless, tranquilizers were in.

Their use spread rapidly in the nineteenth century, but Wesley’s formula found no rival (though many imitations, such as Booth’s Salve, tried to take the market by advertising). After a time, however, an interesting scientific fact showed itself. In modern times, certain insecticides have apparently lost their power because slight mutations have taken precedence and produced new bug generations which are non-susceptible to those bug powders. The same thing happened in the shearing world; before the nineteenth century ended it was apparent that the herds were no longer being tranquilized by the Sky-Pie formula.

The fleece merchants' backroom experts produced several interesting experiments while they searched fresh avenues for a new tranquilizer. In the face of one outbreak of kicking, their episcopal and mayoral section made effective use of a sedative called Charity; its chief ingredient was a minute quantity of the base metal Handout. It was commonly believed that an overdose of this would be dangerous (to somebody or other); the discovery that it was not so paved the way for one of the great tranquilizers of modern times.

Testing doses of the new mixture (ninepence and fourpence) were given in the early nineteen-hundreds, and it was brought to full strength after the second world war. The basic formula of Thin Soup and Crumbs remains; only specifics for various purposes have been added. Injection with the mixture produces an expression of heavenly bliss while the shearing is going on and even, it is thought, inability to feel the shears; one large group known as the Labour herd seems acquiescent to almost anything with this tranquilizer (though its old rams are suspected of being self-immunized).

Different localities have different tranquilizers, of course. In some parts of the world the Soup-and-Crumbs concoction has not caught on and they have the Yewtoo drug. This induces a trance in which the subject, while actually being sheared, sees himself doing the shearing in a Cadillac. Another local preparation is Krushchov Salts (formerly known as Stalinoids), which gives an illusion of boundless freedom at the same moment as a copper’s club descends; where the injection does not take place, the subject is removed to a cold climate for further treatment

With the pace of shearing being continually stepped up, new tranquilizers are on the way all the time. It has been discovered, for example, that the ownership of any small piece of imitation fleece is itself a tranquilizer, since it gives an impression of having somehow shared in the shearing. Another handy phenomenon is the occasional emergence in a herd of a young female with over-developed hindquarters and thorax; watching her, they can be sheared twice over.

Summing up, what has changed is the tranquilizers' basic ingredient The old one, Pie in the Sky, has given way to Pie on Earth—the Papal dose to be taken timidly. Even Wesley’s and similar brands have had to fight competition by going over largely to this formula, while Graham’s Hotgosp (a new and much inferior product) consists almost entirely of it. The contemporary “tranquilizer dream” does not hallucine the subject with his nightgowned, harp-pinging self on a cloud. Its vision is of a super-gadget home for him, with super-chassis creatures in the garage and the kitchen. There is hardly a difference, except that the shears snicker a good deal faster nowadays.

Watch out for mutations, however. About fifty-three years ago a new variety appeared which had developed sensitivity to shearing to such an extent as to be immune to tranquilizers. The tendency of this group is to pass on its acquired consciousness, so that the logical outcome of its growth would be a complete rejection of shearing altogether. Since it’s a damnfool business anyway, that would be a fine thing for everybody. As mutations survive or not according to their suitability to the environment, this obviously is the one with the future. Watch out!

Robert Barltrop

Is the Vatican freedom’s only foe? (1958)

Book Review from the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are aware that when we state our case against religion we come up against deeply rooted prejudice. Of course religious people do not like to think of themselves as being prejudiced but, as wrong as they may think us to be, they must fairly examine our position if they are to have anything other than emotional convictions about their own ideas.

It is fundamental to the Socialist case that belief in gods and their powers over human affairs is one of the things that stands in the way of the workers' understanding and ending their subject and exploited condition. It is with religion as the prop to the present system of property rights and privileges—as sanctifier of capitalist laws, wars and institutions, as an agent of the capitalist class in keeping its wage-slaves docile—that as Socialists we are concerned with exposing and opposing it

If the workers of the world are to take the stage and proclaim the world to be theirs, if they are to realise the powers lying dormant in their own heads and hands, they must cast off the fog of religion together with the other fallacies maintaining this system. We claim that there are no “divine” solutions to housing, poverty, hunger, war and insecurity. Faith and prayers can only delay the day when discontentment with these things organises to abolish the system that brings them.

A small book has been written by one Adrian Pigott, which plays its role in the farce of Catholic versus Protestant, entitled Freedom's Foe—The Vatican, from the Wickliffe Press. The way Adrian Pigott sees it, the world would be a wonderful place but for the sinister intrigues and the domineering and dictatorial nature of the Roman Catholic Church. The H-Bomb in the hands of a Protestant Eisenhower is a gift from heaven, but would be a threatening menace if controlled by a McCarthy Catholic. Taking the sincerity of the author for granted, we feel a little guilty at having to shatter such unworldly innocence, but it is nevertheless necessary.

Although Materialism recognises that men make history (that is to say it is the activities of men in relation to the environment which changes the face of the earth) it is nevertheless true that men are thrown up by the times they live in and conditioned by the social and economic forces around them. Blissfully unaware of this, our author is a “great-man” fan.

Two lists are produced in the first chapter which are supposed to show “that nearly all the human benefactors are non-Romanists—and that the ‘Black Sheep' generally are Romanists." Before we cast the light of our class scrutiny on some of the major anti-working class defenders of Capitalism it is curious to note in passing how Lord Baden Powell, who saved the British Army training time with the Boy Scout idea, is listed as a benefactor, while Hitler, who did the same for the German Army with Hitler Youth, is on the black list. How a religious reformer like General Booth,, who founded the now multi-millionaire Salvation Army qualifies as a “Sociologist" is rather mystifying. The Gin Houses of East End London were ready material for anyone looking for “sinners." That the underlying cause of poverty and degradation is rooted in the system where a relatively few own, and the many are wage slaves whose lives are conditioned by the state of the labour market upon which they have to find hirers, of course completely escaped Booth and his successor, whose only answer is to bend the knee and pray.

IT MUST BE REALISED THAT THE PROVISION OF SUCH AVENUES OF ESCAPE AND SMOOTHING OF ANY DISCONTENT IS A SERVICE OF GREAT IMPORTANCE TO THE CAPITALIST CLASS AND THE WELL BEING OF THEIR SYSTEM.

Amongst the statesmen listed as “human benefactors" are Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Lenin, Lloyd George, Nehru, F. D. Roosevelt and Truman. If the virtue of these men lies in their not being Catholics, it is nothing to boast about. Lenin did more than any man with the possible exception of Stalin to distort Marxism and pass Russian State Capitalism off as Socialism; perhaps the greatest single piece of mischief ever to bring confusion to the world's workers as to what Socialism is and where their interests lie. The rest of them have all broken strikes and supported wars and deceived the workers (including Adrian Pigott) as to the issues involved in wars. Let us stress here again it is not that they are Protestants or Hindu’s that they behave as they do, not because they are “bad men" and that “good" men in the same circumstances would have been different. It is the word “circumstances” which needs studying. The circumstances are those produced by a system of production for sale and profit and competition for markets and materials. The folly of accepting the responsibility of trying to make Capitalism work in peace and harmony lies as much on the heads of working class millions as it does on the “statesmen" they vote for. Adrian Pigott has seen fit to include Henry Ford, Rockefeller and Lord Nuffield as non-Catholic “philanthropists." These men like the rest of the class to which they belong have amassed vast wealth out of the unpaid labour of the working class. We can only describe the attitude of those who accept the world of rich and poor and go looking for the rich to be “philanthropists" as a grovelling one.

There is also a list of warriors. Now a warrior is one skilled in the “art” of mass butchery known as making war. It is strange, to say the least, that a writer who condemns the violence and blood-letting of the Roman Catholic Church, should look upon Eisenhower, Montgomery and Tito, etc., as “human benefactors.” While it is true, as the author points out, that Senator McCarthy was a Catholic the whole of the vileness for which he was responsible was carried out under President Eisenhower. There are several worthwhile chapters on the distant and recent past of the Roman Catholic Church, which well illustrate its brutality, but in drawing attention to the harmful effects of ignorance fostered by the Romanists, the author all the time writes as a patriot and a Protestant and adopts a “holier than thou” attitude which blinds him to the equally harmful nature of Capitalism generally, and all its religious sponsors. When Adrian Pigott talks of “Freedom” he means the conditions obtaining in the non-Catholic countries and speaks in equally glowing terms about Britain, America and Russia. For the friction which exists between them he blames the “Vatican Schemers.” What really sets the major (and minor) powers at one another’s throats is, of course, their rivalry for markets, resources and trade routes which are the foundation of their profits. To whatever extent the Catholic Church is concerned in the commerce of Capitalism it is no worse than the rest of them. As for freedom, the wage slaves the world over are “free” to work for wages or starve if they refuse. Factory fodder in boom time, cannon fodder in war time, they are free to rot on the labour market when no employer finds it profitable to exploit them.

Yes, the Vatican is freedom's foe, but not its only one. The lack of understanding of their position in Capitalist society on the part of the world's workers, makes the continuation of all the barriers to their freedom. The word “freedom” is indeed a high sounding one, ' but while the productive majority have to hire themselves out of their weekly keep to a non-productive minority, it can have only a very limited significance. Only when the means of living belong in common to everyone will freedom from want, wars and insecurity begin to have meaning. We in the companion Parties for Socialism need your help urgently to bring that condition about.

Harry Baldwin

Note on inspiring conference in U.S.A. (1958)

Party News from the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

I learn that some American readers are disturbed by the fact that, in the write-up of my trip to America in the November Socialist Standard, I did not mention the festering slums, the dingy tenements, the innumerable houses like large dog kennels only more dilapidated, the turmoil inside the factories, and the other social sores. To the people for whom I was writing it is common knowledge that every modern city in the world has its large cesspools of misery—American cities no less than others. Likewise that the insides of factories are places where tortured humanity toils and sweats for the class that owns.

The paragraph that led to a misconception is preceded by the sentence: “I would add a few words on my impressions—necessarily scanty." I then mentioned a few things that I thought would interest members and sympathisers here—among them a reference to wood-built houses to indicate that they could be as pleasant and comfortable as those built of brick. I did not think it necessary to add that there were thousands of them that were practically uninhabitable. In another column of this paper there are references to the appalling state of housing in the United States.

Perhaps I should add that I was only making a comparison of a few externals to indicate how factories and streets could be laid out in the future. I did not need to go inside the offices and factories; I knew what they were like before I set out on the visit, and so did those for whom I was writing. Of course there is rush and tear inside, but I was interested in some differences outside, compared with here. Naturally my references only concerned the particular places I visited, which are mentioned in the write-up.

Need I also add that I did not go to America to study conditions and report on them—that would have taken months. I simply went out to meet, and become closer acquainted with, the members and sympathisers connected with our companion parties over there. When ' I came back I wanted members and sympathisers here to know how warmly I was received, and those in America to know how much I appreciated the reception they gave me.

Gilmac.

50 Years Ago: Lancashire Textiles and Chinese Competition (1958)

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

Lancashire Textiles and Chinese Competition, 1908

“Mr. Theodore C. Taylor, M.P., recently visited Japan and China, and, as a result of his investigations, he urges that if we (i.e., British capitalists) are to retain our hold upon the world’s markets, our aim must be better work and more work in the time, to correspond with the shorter hours we now work. As yet, he says, it is mainly in coarse counts that China and Japan compete with Lancashire, but he sees nothing to prevent their spinning finer counts as well.”

(From the Socialist Standard, Feb., 1908).

Lancashire Textiles and Chinese Competition, 1958

For the first time for 200 years Britain is buying more cotton textiles from foreign lands than Lancashire is exporting for sale overseas. So says Roger Malcolm Lee, chief of the mighty Lancashire Cotton Corporation, who tells shareholders that imports are now exceeding exports because of cheap cloth coming in from India, Hong Kong, Pakistan, and China.

“Latterly,” he says, “imports from China have attained alarming proportions.”

Sales of Chinese cloth are made at prices “unrelated to actual costs of production.” They are obviously made “at political prices” he says.

(From the Daily Express, 31 December, 1957.)

Sound Currency or No Currency (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The above title might read a bit “haywire” to the stockbrokers of Throgmorton or Wall Streets, but if such is the case, this is merely because their vision is limited to that of a buying and selling, production for profit system of society. A world of banks and bombs, courts and prisons, parsons and prostitutes, “Official Receivers' and un-official “receivers,” Merchant-Brokers and broke “merchants”; flood-lit palaces and gas-lit bad alleys, nuclear “progress” on one hand and National Assistance Boards on the other, plus all the rest of the paraphernalia of this “sorry scheme of things.” 

Anything outside this crazy world of Capitalism is —to the upholders of that social system—a “flight of fancy.”

A recent account by Tom Stacey (Daily Express) describes a fund formed in America, with donations of the “Almighty Dollar” already flowing in, to complete a sum to present to—Guess Who ?—“Our first visitor from outside space.” This is a classical example of bourgeois mentality. For them it is a foregone conclusion that “filthy lucre" could not fail to be held in esteem by any possible inhabitants of the whole vast Cosmos!

Such reasoning is of course fallacious. Social systems change in relation to changes in the mode of production and distribution. There can be no eternal Capitalism any more than there could have been an eternal Feudalism. The “Embryo” of Socialism has long existed within the aging Capitalism in the form of social production and distribution by the working class in the complicated arrangements required by world markets. It needs but the "midwife" of Socialist knowledge on the part of the working class to complete the “delivery" of the new society. A society wherein the beloved “currency” of the stockbrokers and their ilk will find its historic place as an exhibit in the museums.

This is an historic possibility overlooked by such writers as Frederick Ellis, Daily Express financial columnist, who, having his own ideas on what is “good for us all ” offers the following advice in his contribution towards the (doubtful) benefit of suffering humanity:—

   “A strong £ is essential to the welfare of the nation—as, a whole. Monkey about with the £ and you monkey about with Britain’s living standards. The bold and politically courageous moves of the Government, unpopular as they may be, are essential for a sound currency, and a sound currency is good for us all."—(Sunday Express, 3/10/57.)

This statement is typical of the general “run" of these writers who speak for King Capital. In their view, society is made up of nations within whose boundaries exists a total population with identical interests— “happy family” wherein strikes official or unofficial are “bad for us all”; for ever and anon, more work and higher production are “good for us all” with the “Almighty Dollar" as an eternal basis for their financial juggling.

In the first place we take it for granted that Mr. Ellis includes the working class when he talks about the “nation as a whole.” After all where would the “Nation” be without them ! As regards ”monkeying about with the £ and Britain’s living standards”—this advice is rather belated in view of the fact that various Governments since the turn of the Century have been performing tricks in this field, otherwise how explain the vast reduction in volume of commodities bought by the 1957 £ as against its 1900 counterpart? Then again what is Mr. Ellis' basis for a “living standard”? Is it the “Plimsol line” of the old age pensioners “ standard” or perhaps the “standard" of the habitues of the Dorchester. We have to quote these two extremes because Mr. Ellis is himself continually concerned about what is “good for us all.”

The standard of living of the working class in Britain as elsewhere, is determined by the fact that they are a wage-slave class, dependent on the sale of their bodily energy (labour-power), which precludes their participation in the luxury standard of their masters— the Capitalist ruling class. So long as the working class support politically this state of affairs, their living standard will remain what it is today—A MEAN AND SHODDY EXISTENCE IN RELATION TO THE WEALTH THEY SOCIALLY PRODUCE BUT DO NOT OWN.

To sum up—in a class-divided society like Capitalism, wherein the Capitalist owning class buy the labour-power of the working class at its market value, whether they pay for it with a “strong” £ or a “weak one” (to use their own lingo) makes no difference to the working class.

Furthermore, the Capitalist Class buy this labour power of the working class, not from any benevolent motives, but because of its potentiality for producing a value over and above its cost in wages, i.e., for profit The relationship therefore in this transaction is that of exploiter and exploited; rather an unsound basis, to say file least for Mr. Ellis' “sound currency” social theories.

Fortunately we are not depending on the confused theories "of financial “experts” to get us out of the social morass of Capitalism. As Socialists we stand for the abolition of the wages system with its “currency madhouse” or “Sound Pounds,” “Almighty Dollars," State Roubles, Widows' Mites and Pensioners Pittances.

To replace it—something that will be good for us all—Socialism

G. R. Russell.

“How to save millions of lives” (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following quick guide to Nuclear War is based on material supplied in a ninepenny booklet issued by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, and is given free by the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

To Save Millions of Lives you must first start a war which would make Genghis Khan's activities look like the Boy Scout Movement.

Using 10,000,000 ton bombs, which are 500 times bigger than the Nagasaki Horror (which we were told, and some were stupid enough to believe, brought peace in 1945) you would drop them on the most densely populated areas, such as cities. The expense would not be great, for one of the above can make a hole (?) one mile wide and 200 feet deep. Again looking on the bright side, this would be a quick war, with good prospects for jerry-builders and black marketeers to put civilisation back on its feet when peace came.

The three dangers in this sort of war are Heat, Blast and Radio-Activity. Any others would be very secondly.

Heat. A very good way of saving some of the lives is to see people are not within four miles of any individual bomb. If possible, too, see people are not within sixteen miles, for they might get so burnt they would wish they were underneath file bomb. A good tip in connection with burns is to urge folks to wear hats and gloves (you know, like Ascot). These garments are a great help against a 10,000,000-ton explosion!

As this is only a brief resume on Saving Lives, we must pass on to the next point, blast

Here we are on rather more shaky ground, as we understand “irreparable” damage is done up to five miles in all directions. So we are not clear where the people would be who were going to be Saved. We hold out no hope for retired couples who have bought bungalows in the country, in which to pass the quiet even-tide of their lives. For we know stairs are an excellent way of Saving Lives, just as they were in the Last Lot. Better to dig slit-trenches and learn to live in those.

And now we pass on to Ratio-Activity. Its discoverers, Marie and Pierre Curie, saw it as a great boon. They hated war. But when it came, in 1917, M. Curie used her brain-child to mend the lumps of quivering flesh which once had been man.

Radio-activity, we would say, right at the start is tricky, because many of the Saved Lives might have to stay in a well-protected windowless room of their house for days until the R.-A. had lost its lethal content This room would have to be the bathroom-cum-toilet For there could be no discreet “Back in a minute” nonsense. Also food and water would have to be stored, plus tins of milk for the baby. We have no information about anti-suffocation measures to be taken while all these good folk are in their little Black ’Oles of Calcultta. The unlucky ones outside would vomit, develop fever, a ghastly thirst, bleed inside, lose hair outside, and not feel particularly hungry. But at least "they would feel little pain.” The French have a proverb—“ He who wears the shoe knows best where it pinches.”

Particular attention should be paid to hair and nails; they should be washed with soap and water. This would be most convenient as the victim would be in the bathroom anyway.

Finally, do remember to tell people who are anxious to be among the Saved (your contributor is not—the shrinking coward) that “The best defence against chaos and confusion would be a resolute spirit of self-reliance, based not on groundless optimism, but on knowledge of the facts.”

M. Brown

Where Are You Going (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

By this time, you the reader, will once again have embarked on another year’s effort, which like all previous efforts, is a two-fold one—to maintain some kind of a living, the best you can get under the circumstances, whilst continuing to be the wealth producing agent for the minority who control your destiny; not a very dignified position to be in you will agree but one that you have accepted far too long.

You had your Christmas respite and indulged in the traditional manner. Throughout the holiday you strove to foster the spirit of good will; the “live and let live” idea. Now, it is once again all over and you must face up to the stern reality of life under Capitalism without the cap and bells. In fact you are expected, those of you who have one, to get back on “the job.”

It is at this juncture that we in the Socialist Party without wishing to be impertinent, ask the question “Where are you going this year?” Naturally we arc not referring to the spate of advertisements already filling the press, extolling the joys of wintering in the Bahamas, and other exotic places. We mean “What are your plans for improving your lot in 1958 ?” You will agree that 1957 took more out of you than you received in return. This situation is what industrialists would call “bad business.” and bad business indeed it was for the working class. This was true also for your fellow workers in the U.S.A., Russia and everywhere else. Everywhere, the sum total of dividends accruing to the world's workers in 1957 after payment of “overhead expenses” (food, clothes, shelter and an occasional “ break ”) was merely an increase in strain and stress; an increase in genuine, all-round fear. 1958 it now appears is already given over to an increase in the scientific armament race with all the above-mentioned evils attached and perhaps more.

The writer, has, for some time past, been in the habit of reading (in the same way as many renew the acquaintance with Dickens’ Christmas Carol) at the commencement of the New Year, some of the curious reasons and antidotes for the phenomena of poverty. He finds that the reasons are extremely varied and in most cases amusing. Economists and philanthropists together with our old friends the politicians and clergy offer all kinds of excuses including “sun-spots” which affect the weather and crops, mysterious psychological brain disturbances which affect the business acumen of industrial magnates and so on not forgetting the theory of the inherent wickedness of Man’s heart.

So you see, we are told to be patient, virtuous and hard working in the hope that, Micawber like, somehow, things will turn out all right.

In the light of all this, you may of course decide to run for the nearest hatchet, believing that humanity will not free itself “till the last Capitalist is hanged by the entrails of the last priest.” We don't think, however, that you are so foolishly energetic. Rather, you are more likely to put away your bells and lanterns, place the frost fairy back into her cardboard box and live in hope that you will be in a position to reverse the process next Christmas.

Readers of the Socialist Standard will know that it is not our custom to mouth empty platitudes and perhaps the phrase “Happy New Year” has fallen into nothing more than a platitude these days but what we do urge is that you take upon yourselves the business of seeing this year—1958 as the year in which you commenced to do something about putting things right You can best do this by supporting the Socialist movement which in your case is the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Better still send us a real New Year’s card—an application for membership.

W. Brain

Bank of England Swindle (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Shabby "Tribune" Stunt

Professional politicians put over so many impudent stunts, made possible by the short memories of the electors, that they understandably grow careless and expect to get away with murder. But surely they cannot perpetrate the same swindle twice in a dozen years? It seems that Tribune, “Labour’s Independent Weekly,” is confident that they can. Its stunt at the end of 1957 was to launch a campaign for the next Labour Government to “take over the Bank of England.” Its issue of 20th December, 1957, carried the bold, front-page headline: “Let’s Nationalise the Bank of England!” with the sub-heading: “You thought we had done it already? You were wrong.”

Who Led the Workers Up the Garden?

As a fact, of course, the Bank was nationalised in 1946 by the Labour Government's “Bank of England Act.” So when Tribune comes along now and pretends that it wasn’t, it is a piece of trickery, designed to cover up the blatant failure of nationalisation to make any difference to the workers. The nationalised Bank is no more popular with the voters than was its privately-owned predecessor under Montague Norman, and Tribune is trying to lay the blame for the failure of Nationalisation on other shoulders. But the responsibility rests squarely on the Labour Party, including the group behind Tribune, who, as M.P.s or Ministers, fully supported that Act in 1946. It was they who told us what a fine thing it was going to be; an instalment of Socialism, they said. It was they who spoke and voted for the Act and later boasted of its “success” when they fought the next election in 1950. Bevan and Mikardo were two of those who voted for the Act, and neither they nor any others got up, in the House or outside, to say that it was a fraud and would not make a ha’porth of difference to the workers—that was left to the S.P.G.B. to say.

It is only now that Tribune, in effect, admits that the Act changed nothing.

Then the story was different. Typical claims made by Labour Ministers and M.P.s (backed by the Tribune group) were that the Act had given the Government “undivided control ”; which was said to be “helping the Government to maintain full employment and to further economic recovery” (Labour Party, Speakers' Handbook, 1949-50, page 115). And: “The Bank is another industry under public ownership which is both serving the national interest and paying its way.”

When the Act for Nationalisation was being voted in Parliament the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Dalton, rapturously declared that “it is a model It will, in due course, make a streamlined Socialist Statute” (House of Commons Report, 29th October, 1945).

"Tribune's" Charges

To the thoughtless reader who has forgotten what happened when the Bank was nationalised Tribune's slashing charges may make convincing reading. How telling for Tribune to point out that only one of the 18 directors “comes from the trade union movement”; that 15 of them went to those “well-known nurseries of privilege,” Winchester, Marlborough, Rugby and Wellington; that “ten of the eighteen spend only a small part of their time at Threadneedle Street. The rest is devoted to running some of Britain's most powerful industrial and financial groups.” And is it not true, as Tribune says, that these, part-time directors, “are bound to think and act as businessmen and there is' plenty of doubt whether what is good for capitalism is good for Britain.”?

Tribune (20/12/57) publishes the photon of ten of these part-time directors of the Bank with the caption: “They’re all Bank of England directors and City men!”

Fine virile stuff, you think ? But it is less than half of the full story. Let us now look at the rest

What "Tribune” Keeps Dark

Of course it does not really matter whether the men in charge of a capitalist institution came from the coal mine and the elementary school or from Eton and Winchester, but Tribune now pretends that it does and the innocent reader may think that the selection of men from those public schools is a nasty Tory plot. But Mr. Dalton, who piloted the Nationalisation Act through the Commons went to Eton, and one of Winchester’s proud sons is Mr. Gaitskell, present leader of the Labour Party, whom Tribune will be supporting at the next election. And who is responsible for many of the directors being part-timers (as if that mattered either)? The answer is that the provision for part-time directors is in the 1946 Act that the Tribune group then supported. And is it true that ten of them have other business and banking interests? Sure it is, but so it was when the Labour Government (including the Tribune's idols) appointed the court of governors in the years 1946-1951. Seven of the men now named by Tribune (L. J. Cadbury, Sir John Hanbury-Williams, Basil Sanderson, Geoffrey Eley, Lord Kindersley, Michael Babington Smith and Sir Charles Hambro) were actually appointed directors in the first place by the Labour Government—supported by Tribune. So that everything that Tribune lists as items in the present spurious campaign about the Bank of England was true also in 1946-1951 when Tribune was backing the Nationalisation Act and the Labour Government that carried it through. The only change is that then they were promising what great "socialist” benefits it would bring and now the voters don't believe this any more.

Trick in Preparation for the Next Election

Tribune now declares that control of the Bank of England is not in the hands of the Government but is “kept in the hands of a formidable team representing the Minority rent, interest and profit class.” They say this is intolerable and must be put right; presumably at the next election.

As we have already pointed out, the existing arrangements were created by the Tribune group and the rest of the Labour Party.

But the deception has another angle too. The Labour candidates and M.P.s who backed Tribune, fought the 1950 General Election on the Labour Party Declaration of Policy called “Let Us Win Through Together." It contained the following clause :-

  “Finance must be the servant and not the master of employment policy. Public ownership of the Bank of England has enabled the Government to control monetary policy. Subject to the will of Parliament, we shall take whatever measures may be required to control financial forces, so as to maintain full employment and promote the welfare of the nation.”

So Tribune were telling the electors in 1950 that the nationalisation of the Bank of England, already five years old, had “enabled the Government to control monetary policy.” Now they say that control is really in the hands of a group of capitalists, yet this very group were put there, as directors of the Bank, by Tribune's political friends! And the Labour Government, returned again to power in 1950, kept the same arrangements in being. Now Tribune says that the Bank of England is “run by the same old crowd as before,” that is by the crowd they put in control! Could humbug go further?

Bits of Socialism

When the Labour Government nationalised the Bank of England the S.P.G.B. stated that it was no concern of the workers and nothing to do with Socialism. Tribune, of course, was telling a different tale. Now Tribune largely admits the truth of what we said :-

  “What has actually happened provides a classic illustration of the failure which follows from the attempt to insert a small element of Socialism into institutions left in capitalist hands—the very doctrine since revived by the Labour Party Executive in Industry and Society. The small dose of Socialism is quickly swallowed up in the capitalist mass and nothing is changed.”

Of course as a statement of principle this is true, you cannot insert bits of socialism into capitalism, but for Tribune to say so is humbug. They were believers in that futility in 1946, are in favour of it now, and will be asking the workers to vote for it (and for the ex-Winchester leader of the Labour Party) when the next election comes.

What is more, the Tribune writer takes care to let us know that when he talks about Socialism it is with his tongue in his cheek. If he were a Socialist he would know that Socialism will have no use whatever for the financial banking, and currency machinery of capitalism, including its central organ the Bank of England. Yet the forefront of his demand on the next Labour Government is that it shall make the directors full-time instead of part-time; as if the difference between the capitalism that we have and the Socialism socialists want, is a question of the number of directorships capitalists shall hold.

If Tribune were interested in Socialism it would know that the way the Bank of England is owned, controlled and administered is a concern of the capitalist not of the workers, but Tribune couldn’t care less.

Here's hoping that at least some of Tribune's readers have long memories.

Edgar Hardcastle

Crisis in Indonesia (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Television, radio and newspapers for several weeks, on and off, have been announcing news from Indonesia: Military Coup in Sumatra, Oil Installations in Rebel Hands, Banks Seized in Indonesia, Take-Over Flags Hoisted, Dutch Alarm Over Communist Threat, Air-Lift for Dutch from Indonesia, Dutch Navy Moves, British Firms Fear Loss of Staff, Sea Claim By Indonesia.

Why the Western Capitalists are worried

Western capitalists with investments in Indonesia are, of course, worried about the seizure of property and investment in Java belonging to the Dutch. While the Western capitalists are prepared to cut one another’s throats in the struggle for trade, when there is a threat to their general interests, then they become brotherly. Of a total foreign investment of U.S. $1,400 million in Indonesia, the Dutch own U.S. $1,040 millions, the British U.S. $200 [millions], and the U.S.A. $90 millions. The Daily Express, which expresses a viewpoint of some of the capitalists in an editorial column, pressed the British Government to take action against die rebels.

But the map shows the strategic importance of the threat there to Western Capitalism. Indonesia, the sixth largest country in the world as far as population is concerned, consists of a string of islands stretching for 2,000 miles from Northern Australia across the Pacific Ocean to the mainland of Asia. Were Indonesia to fall to rebels favourable to the “Communist” group, the latter would leapfrog S.E.A.T.O. defences, the U.K. Far East Command in Singapore and the Commonwealth Strategic Reserve in Malaya. Forming a barrier between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, it would endanger “Free World" communications. Indonesia is the focal point in the S.E Asia collective defence system. How the great powers fish in troubled waters is indicated by U.S. aid totalling $33 million, while the Soviet Union have granted a credit of $100 million.

An Adolescent Ruling Class

These individual items of news are only facets of changes that are going on, mere symptoms of a grander development, and it might be as well if we look behind the news items at the developments taking place there. The Dutch East Indies, as Indonesia was called before independence, was sternly ruled by a Civil Service under the Netherlands. The native ruling class increased from small beginnings without training in the administration necessary for the efficient running of a modem state, for the Dutch filled practically every job. This had the effect of making the Indonesian capitalists rely particularly heavily on their workers for support for the Nationaist Party (P.N.I.) in attaining independence and in the running of that country since.

Workers in Indonesia

Strictly speaking the Indonesian working class started in the 18th Century as employees of the Dutch colonists, but it was with the opening of the Suez Canal and the demand by industry for rubber and oil, the two chief exports of the country, that led to rapid development. In 1919, the formation of the Central Workers' Union led to a wave of strikes. The Colonial Government was at first sympathetic but when they saw the conflagration spreading they soon turned on the workers. In 1923 the Communist Party (PKI) was formed and grew in popularity, claiming to be a Workers’ party. Although its policy was one of reforming capitalism, many gave their support as the one hope (or so it seemed to them, not being socialists) in a repressive colonial set-up. The pressure of the Dutch workers and administrators forced the concession of freedom of the press and assembly for the whites, but the Indonesian workers also benefited to a lesser extent. The workers who bore the exploitation were supported by the native capitalists who found it quite simple to lay the blame for the workers' troubles on the foreign exploiters and also by the student body who had poor hopes of suitable employment whilst the Dutch filled the Civil Service jobs. In 1927 a Communist Party insurrection was suppressed.

Meanwhile, the radical transformation of village life proceeded apace as the great plantations with their demand for wage-labour and the oil wells were developed. Strikes grew more frequent and in 1926/7 there was a particularly serious outbreak.

During World War II the Japanese seized the colony from the Dutch, and partly because they were heavily committed elsewhere, gave a measure of self-rule to the budding native capitalist class. After the War was over the Dutch tried unsuccessfully to resume control of this former colony but it was already too late; the Native Government, with the support of the workers, were too firmly entrenched. In 1947 the Dutch resorted to warfare, and the Indonesian workers fought for their masters with Japanese arms.

But in 1948/9, the U.S.A., dreading the setting-up of a Communist Government in Indonesia hostile to western capitalism, suspended Marshall Aid to the Dutch, and their attempt to resume control failed.

Trade Unions flourished and in 1953 they had a total membership of 1,400,000. The reforms advocated by the “Communist” PKI and their hostility to the Free-World Bloc brought them support and in June, 1954, 17 of their members were elected to the Indonesian parliament. In the provincial elections of last year the PKI made further advances.

Thieves fall out

But things have not gone too well for the ruling class. Having seized control of the machinery of government they are now quarreling over the division of part of the spoils; on the chief island of Java, where the capital is situated, they are fiddling the central government taxes to the anger of the exploiters on the other islands of the Archipelago. Although this passing of the taxation buck to less powerful groups is quite a normal procedure for some capitalists, those who are being mulcted of their hard won proceeds of exploitation have not been philosophical about it but have rebelled, under the leadership of the local military. It is this that chiefly lies behind the news of revolts in the outlying islands earlier last year.

Indonesian Meat but with Different Gravy

But with the rebellion in Java there are other factors. One of the dangers in Indonesian society is that of authoritarian political methods above the village level. The authoritarian tradition and the related habit of dependence upon orders from above, both stemming from the long period of colonial rule and from the absence of democratic methods in the past and the ignorance of the workers as to their true class interests, has left the working-class movement wide open to reprisals from their masters. The latter have had enough of the well-nigh endless demands for better conditions. It has for some years now been fairly generally recognised there that it only required a market setback to spark off a general attack on the workers. The falling prices of rubber and other tropical products and the surplus of oil on world markets in recent months have done the trick. In the mixed reports from Djakarta can be seen the anti-working class trend of events. The situation here recalls our comments on Hungary and on Malaya in past issues of the Socialist Standard where we said “In other countries whenever the ruling group is firmly in the saddle of government they lose no time in turning on the workers.” This attack was under the cover of a New Life Movement aimed at getting the workers to work harder. All party leaders are agreed that the seven hour day, existing on all estates and mines, is wholly inadequate. Workers were recently taken during working hours from a variety of coffee houses by military police and excoriated as “time corrupters.”

Another red herring is the Government’s claim on New Guinea. This vast undeveloped area 1,000 miles away would be nothing but embarrassment to the Indonesian Government unable even to control their existing domains, but it serves to distract attention from their anti-working class actions at home. Visitors to the lush tropical islands of Indonesia may find the landscape a great change from the more temperate parts of the world but if they listened to the utterances of the Indonesian government leaders they might well imagine themselves back home again. The current policy of telling the worker to take his finger out and get cracking with a developing welfare state as an inducement, is another instance. To an extent, then, the crisis in Indonesia is the pay-off for the workers there.

Homeless Dutch Refugees

But we cannot conclude without a comment on the Dutch refugees. Once again the similarity with the fairly recent events in Hungary is in the plight of these people. The inhumanity that results from the decision to expel the Dutch residents by the Indonesian Government acting in the interests of the capitalist class there is revealing. The break-up of families and the horror of both young and old at being uprooted and driven out is an almost continuous process in a class-dominated society. The Dutch refugees now join the grim procession; before them the Hungarians, the 900,000 Arab refugees in the Middle East, the Muslims who have fled from India, the Hindus from Pakistan, the continuous stream from East Germany and the enormous number of White Russians in China now being forced to move again. It seems that this column of spectres will go on while the present system of society lasts.

Frank Offord

Marx and Soviet Reality (1958)

Book Review from the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and Soviet Reality by Daniel Norman. The Batchworth Press, 1955. 2s. 6d. 

This is a very useful little booklet of 72 pages which demolishes, with numerous quotations from Marx and Engels, a large number of the myths the Bolsheviks have built up to delude the uncritical: particularly their claims to be Marxists and to have established Socialism in Russia.

The author shows that the Russian revolution was fundamentally a revolution, similar to the French revolution of 1789-93, for the purpose of bringing Russia out of semi-feudalism into modern capitalism. Its ruthlessness and barbarity were part of the hot-house process. He also shows that the revolution never went "off the track,” as the Trotskyists pretend, because Stalin only carried on the Lenin programme.

The opening paragraphs of the booklet indicate the author’s standpoint:

  “There it at least one point on which Soviet propaganda and the opponents of Marxian—and Socialism in general— agree: both describe the U.S.S.R. as the embodiment of the Marx-Engels conception of a Socialist society. Both claim to see in the masters of the Kremlin the heirs and faithful pupils of Marx, and in the Soviet policy the extension of Marxian policy in our time.
   "Nothing could be wider of the mark; nothing would have infuriated Marx and Engels more. For under its Marxist veneer of Bolshevik terminology, Soviet reality can be easily identified with everything abhorred, criticised, and fought against by Marx and Engels all their lives.”

Of unemployment in Russia the author has this to say:-

   "How can there by any question of unemployment where important part of the working population is permanently behind barbed wire, working for wages far under subsistence level, that is, in worse conditions than a slave of ancient times.” (Page 27.)

Although the means of production are owned by the State the new privileged class that has grown up in Russia had their position legalised by the Stalin Constitution of 1936, which confirmed the right to private property and the right to inheritance. So the claim of the wealthy to the products of the workers’ labour is protected in the same way as in other capitalist countries. Of the relation between the Russian State and the workers the author describes as follows:—

   “The fact that in the U.S.S.R. the State is the owner of the conditions of production—'the general capitalist’—and the direct producers are wage-earners, that therefore the relations between them, according to Marx, are still the relations between capital and labour, between employer and proletarians, whether or not this pleases the Soviet leaders. And there is no difficulty in discovering that all the characteristics of the capitalist system of exploitation are to be found in the Russian system of relationship between the State, owner of the means of production, and the direct producer, the worker." (Page 23.)

The author makes the following general observation on Soviet planning:—

   “The general aim of Soviet planning being the industrialisation of the country, the immediate task for the Russian State capitalist planners is 'augmentation of Capital,' and capital, be it State or private, is accumulated surplus value. The planning of wages is thus naturally reduced to squeezing as much unpaid labour as possible from the worker, and the planners see to it that they are not robbed of their part” (Page 21.)

There are numerous quotations from Capital, as well as from other writings of Marx and Engels to illustrate how different their conception was from that which the Bolsheviks have tried to foist upon them, and how truly the progress of Russian industrialisation has followed the path which Marx had forecast as necessary in order to establish capitalism there.

Marx pointed out that “The expropriation of the agricultural producer, of the peasant, from the soil, is the basis of the whole process.” The author shows how the Russian plans accomplished just this, increasing the number of industrial workers by over 20 millions between 1928 and 1940, "without taking into account the millions of peasants who, during this period, were sent to hard labour in Siberia find Central Asiatic Russia, nor the further millions who perished during the famines of the thirties.” (Page 32.)

A letter from Engels to Vera Zasulich April 23rd, 1885, is quoted in which Engels gave an astonishing forecast of events in Russia. After saying that a revolution in Russia was imminent, he goes on:—

    “This is one of the exceptional cases where it is possible for a handful of men to make a revolution . . .  Well, if ever Blanquism—the phantasy of turning a whole society topsy-turvy by the activity of a small conspiracy—had a certain justification for its existence, it is certainly in Petersburg.
   “Once the fire is set to the powder, once the forces released and the national energy transformed from potential into kinetic energy . . .  the men who have set the mine ablaze will be blown away by the explosion, which will be a thousand times stronger than they and which will seek its issue as it can, as the economic forces and resistances determine.
    "Supposing these men think they can seize power, what does it matter ? Provided they make the hole which will burst the dam, the torrent itself will soon rob them of their illusions. But if it so happens that these illusions had the effect of giving them a superior force of will, why complain of that? People who boasted that they had made a revolution have always seen, next day, that they had no idea what they were doing; that the revolution made bore no resemblance whatsoever to that they wanted to make." (Page 45.)

We have now given sufficient to enable the reader to judge the character of this booklet. We can certainly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the subject matter and who has hitherto been misled by the fraudulent propaganda of the Russian Communists and their supporters.

What the author’s own outlook is, apart from the subject with which be is dealing, is not clear. We would be interested to know what he means, for instance, by "the alternative contained in our society: a revolutionary evolution towards a Socialism which implies freedom and democracy” (page 68). Also whether he supports Marx’s mistaken view about the value of the cooperatives “as forms of transaction from the capitalist mode of production to the associated one.” (Page 22) 

This booklet puts views we have been expressing for nearly 40 years—see pamphlet “Russia Since 1917.”

Gilmac.

Editorial: Heralding 1984 (1958)

Editorial from the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Daily Herald, early in January, ran a series of articles by “experts” to answer the question whether 25 years ahead we shall be living in George Orwell’s nightmare, “with common man enslaved by the State” or will 1984 “be a year of dazzling brilliance of scientific promise—with common man enjoying the new fruits of the earth?” (Daily Herald, 6/1/58). Sir Miles Thomas foresees that travel will be faster, cheaper and safer. Sir Adolphe Abrahams does not think we shall have the 3½ minute mile; but football will still be the top national game, we shall still have the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race and the Cup Final will still be at Wembley. Jane Drew, “leading woman architect” thinks houses and streets will be more attractive, houses won’t be cold, and the “the TV set will take the place of the fireplace as the centre of the family circle.”

The Anti-Utopia Builders

Now the Herald is the organ of the Labour Party and claims to be socialist and the reader might well have expected to be told that 1984 would have seen the introduction of Socialism. The articles did not say that Socialism would be here or that it wouldn’t be here— the subject was just not mentioned. Several of the “experts” have either never heard of it at all, or, they think that it has nothing to do with their specialist subject; which goes to show just how little they know about Socialism.

In each of their supposedly isolated worlds the choice is between capitalism and socialism, there isn't any neutral no man's land. The kind of house you live in, the kind of vehicle you travel in and the kind of entertainment and sport you enjoy will depend on your position in society. If you are a wage-earner in a capitalist 1984 what you get will be what you can afford. All of this is a closed book to the Herald's writers and obviously doesn't have any importance for the Editor, or he would have directed his inquiries to the real question, whether Socialism will be here by then.

Capitalism, 1984 Variety

But one of the writers, Mr. Harry Nicholas, assistant secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, stands out from the rest, for he mentioned the word “socialist” His article, on the job situation, was the most deplorable of the lot. He answers the question very clearly, though without knowing he answers it. Capitalism it will be, with not a single essential feature altered. Not that Mr. Nicholas is pessimistic about it. He does not think “we will have any unemployment in the next 25 years, provided we have sanity in the financial sphere.” (He has clearly never examined the financial system if he thinks it isn't inherently idiotic). Automation, he says, will create jobs and markets. We shall be charitable and “in a good socialist way” we shall assist the backward countries and thus “create markets which will absorb the products of our industries” There will be fewer “'unskilled'” and more “skilled” workers, and higher standard rates of wages and less piecework. There will be more Company pension, sickness and other benefits to supplement the State schemes. Evidently Mr. Nicholas' optimism does not extend to the elimination of the wars that go with the struggle for markets. All he says in this field is that “because of the changes likely to take place in weapons of attack and defence, many of our Royal Ordnance factories and naval dockyards will have to be utilized for peacetime production.” He does not risk a forecast about the kind of weapons the other factories will be producing.

We may wind up by saying that while most of the contributions were useless, because the writers don't even know about the capitalist world we live in, Mr. Nicholas is pernicious as well because he has obviously heard about capitalism but sees no reason why or how or when it should be abolished: just like the Herald, and the Labour Party for which it speaks.

Old Familiar Faces (1958)

From the February 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

They're at it again! Take hold of yourself. Who? The lotus-flowers. The teeny-weenies with long hair. Gaiety Girls. Seventhday Adventists? No, no. Worse. The tea-shoppe Jacobins. Good Lord! You don't mean —? Listen and I'll whisper. Well I never! Left-wing intellectuals. A magazine, eh? I bet they mention Colin Wilson and Kingsley Amis a lot of times. Lots of long words. Funny bits about Marx. Professor Deutscher. And you'll never guess who else. Not—not him? Professor Cole it is. Here, take it away. February's filldyke month, isn't it? Expensive way of filling dykes, at three-and-six a time.

Here it is, then: Universities and Left Review. Very well got up, good typography; indeed, the Abbey Press (the people who print it) are to be complimented on having a range of bold, large and display types almost sufficient to keep up with the editors' delight in Names. The cover bears the contributors' names (Isaac Deutscher, Claude Bourdet, Peter de Francia, E. P. Thompson, G. D. H. Cole, Joan Robinson, etc.) in massive black letters, their topics in small ones. The first page has the editor's names in large heavy type, underlined, across the top; there are the contributors' names in not-so-large heavy type, and the titles in type so small that myopic left-wing intellectuals presumably have to guess them.

Page three lists the names (in capitals) and achievements of the editors and contributors. Universities attended, articles accepted by the New Statesman; books published, masterpieces, intended, all four editors are writing theses on, respectively, The Novels of Henry James, Charles Dickens, the dockers of London, Bristol and Liverpool, and "the theory of alienation, from Hegel to the Existentialists." Even the Business Manager's name (in caps.), and a piece to show that he, too—"scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford," it says. Is it a Freudian urge that makes one want to write naughty additions to this portentous list? How about "Cigarettes by Nosegay-Rizla"? Ah, no—too non-U: Abdulla it must be. "Underwear by St. Michael" might do, though. Quick, turn over before the temptation takes us. But no, no! not more names, more capitals . . . 

However, there are still the articles. After all, they have trumpets and spotlights and "My lords, ladies and gentlemen" before a prize-fight, but sooner or later the boxers, left alone, must come out fighting; and tonight there are reputed champions in the ring. Did we not pay three and sixpence to come in? Alas, the bigger they are the flatter they fall. The spryest of the lot, in fact, is Professor Cole, because he was wise enough to bring his own opponent: an old guy he cobbled together years ago ("tarted-up," of course, to quote one of Mr. Amis's most charming expressions) called "What Marx Really Meant," at which Professor Cole throws haymakers until his seconds lead him away, breathing heavily but unmarked.

The rest of them are unmarked, too, in a way. Hold them up to the light: not a stain—not a shadow, nor a trace, of an original idea or a thought which has not been raked out from the rag-bag of the nineteen-thirties. Not a stain, and shining pink. Here is E. P. Thompson, arguing whether it was right or not to have fought in Spain; the Art Critic writing-up artists who "represent a menace to the very foundations of the bourgeois idea of art"; the town-planners working-out nattier, more aseptic hutches for the working class. Here is the windy, outmoded vogue-language of left-wingers a generation ago: "significant," "chauvinist," "reactionary" and the rest.

Do they realize it, one wonders? Does any of them know that it's all past tense, that the Universities and Left Review is a dodo-house? Vol. I, No. 1. Spring 1957: but for this, one would be back with the Left News, the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals, or The Controversialist. Perhaps they don't realize it after all: one contributor actually writes of "a new social type in this country—the intellectual." Perhaps Claude Bourdet really thinks he has something new and unprecedented when he writes:

"The rehabilitation of the French left, then, depends upon a converging action of the Socialist Left still fighting in the Socialist Party, the democratic Communist opposition fighting inside the Communist Party, the left wing Mendesiste Radicals, along with the 'new left.' Under this four-fold influence the distant prospect is the reconstruction . . . of a strong united workers' Party, mingling Christian and traditional liberal influences with a dominant Marxist one."

The star performer, however, is Professor Deutscher. Professor Deutscher writes on "Russia in Transition" in No.1. Does Professor Deutscher say anything, in fifteen thousand words? Professor Deutscher does not. The sharpest intellect could find no quarrel with Professor Deutscher's conclusions, because there are none. Every statement is hedged with "may," "seem," "perhaps" and "should it arise." It is an extended version of one of Professor Deutscher's television interviews where some news-reader almost visibly touching his forelock, seeks enlightenment:

"'Please tell the viewers, Professor, just what is happening in Russia now.'
"'Well, you see, Lenin is reputed to have said to Trotsky just before the Russian Revolution . . . '
"'Thank you, Professor. And what do you think will happen in Russia?'
"'Well, Stalin was a dictator, you know. And Trotsky said to Bogdanov . . . And, of course, there were Nichaev and Lenin's grandmother . . .'
Thank you very much, Professor. Have you a final prophecy to leave with us?'
"I think Trotsky may have been right. On the other hand, Lunacharsky may have been right. Who knows? Somebody must be right.'
"'Very grateful to you, Professor. Well, viewers, I'm sure we are all, etc.'."

There is an expectancy throughout it all that suddenly Mr. Spike Milligan's face will peer over somebody's shoulder, crooning adenoidally. It is, in fact, very much like the evening paper's football forecasts, where all results except the stone certs are predicted in such phrases as "Anything can happen." And when anything has happened, the expert remains, of course, an expert. 

What purpose, then, does the Universities and Left Review serve? Pretentious, empty of ideas, its material picked from ideological dust-heaps, it has set out to make a splash—or, as the first editorial put it, to take a beachhead. Its avowed purpose is to publish discussion on "the common ground of a genuinely free and genuinely socialist society." Its way, the editors say, is "to take socialism at full stretch—as relevant only in so far as it is relevant to the full scale of man's activities."

If that were true—"the full scale of man's activities"—it really would be interesting. But, of course, it isn't. Search the Universities and Left Review, and only in a line here and a phrase there will you find the working class mentioned. Professor Cole has a good word for them, and there is a little lofty patronage from David Marquand ("in the thirties, there had to be an effective mass movement for the intellectuals to join") and E. P. Thompson ("the experience of rank-and-file political activity enriches us and keeps our ideas on the ground"). The names in the Universities and Left Review see themselves (bear witness, the articles on art, the cinema, architecture) as members of an élite: the General Staff on that beach-head the upper crust of the "genuinely socialist society."

This is the oldest, weariest idea of all. Its resurgence just now is probably more important to the "intellectuals" than ever before, however. The present-day world has very little use for them: a young man with a First in English Literature or a prize for philosophy is himself something of an archaism when the whole structure of education is being changed to produce physicists, technologists and other atom-age men. Unless the University men can succeed as writers or get into commercial television, their doom is schoolteaching or Government offices.

Some of them, aware of the situation, have responded angrily: the Angry Young Man is a useless young man whose abilities and ideals the world won't venerate any more. For others, there is another way to take: if the ruling class doesn't want them then the working class shall have them as its guides and philosophers, if not exactly friends. That in itself might not be so bad if the "intellectuals" were thereby realizing that they had an identity with the working class. Universities and Left Review shows nothing of the kind, however. The only affinity shown is in the advertisement for The Observer inside the cover, making the position sadly clear: U cries out to U.

Universities and Left Review seeks comment from the socialist viewpoint. It can be simply made. There is not a word concerning Socialism from beginning to end of the Universities and Left Review. Reformist claptrap, yes; pretentious verbiage, indeed; chatter about how things are for the intellectuals, above all. But of the interests of the working class, the great majority of mankind—not a whisper.

The most useful left-winger we ever saw was Tom Finney. The day he scored against the Arsenal—now, that was worth three-and-six.

Robert Coster