The Salvation Army and the Working Class. (1910)

From the March 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Safety of England lies in her Sunday.”—Guizot.

A Notable Utterance.

At the time this famous bon-mot, was uttered (1848) any one who had travelled much on the Continent of Europe would naturally contrast the mental equipment of the English workers with that attained by the proletariat of other countries. To such an one the witty saying of the “great” French statesman would have been pregnant with meaning. Sunday was the “day of rest.” The tavern and its next door neighbour, the chapel, were then practically the only means of Sabbath recreation open to the worker. This being so, he would be little likely to bother his head with theories about the reorganisation, of society.

Drugged and stupid with heavy doses of “Beer and Bible” Sunday, but little inclination on his part would be evinced to rise in revolt against his masters. The bourgeois could therefore comfortably settle himself in his cosiest arm-chair, and, as he sipped his glass of after-dinner port, purr softly to himself, “God’s in his Heaven, all’s right with the world!”

Could the shade of the astute middle-class Gaul in this our present day revisit this country, we can well imagine him adding further point to his epigram in some such words as : “and in her Salvation Army.”

Two great assets the masters rely on to keep their wage-slaves in a state of subjection. The armed forces of the nation—which they are able to manipulate to suit their own ends—and secondly the lamentable state of almost hopeless ignorance in which the workers are still steeped.

Chloroforming the Workers.

In fostering and keeping alive this state of ignorance numerous charitable and philanthropic agencies play an ever-increasing and important part. The bourgeois in this our beloved country is a greater adept than his French or German confrere at the gentle art of building temporary bridges across the yawning chasm which lies between him and the proletariat. In the attempt—too often, alas, successful—to hide the running sore of working-class degradation, more time, money and effort are spent in this country than in any other under the sun. Coals, blankets, soup and the visitation of the sick are a very present help whenever it is desired to trail a red herring across the path of the deluded worker.

This, of course, also applies to Continental Europe, but there either the drug is administered in much smaller quantities, or the trick is clumsily performed. Verily, his “charitable institutions” are a tower of strength to the British “employer of labour.” This being so, we shall not have far to seek for one of the chief reasons why the English worker is as yet so unresponsive to the teaching of the Socialist. “Where ignorance is bliss, t’were folly to be wise.”

The Vicar of Hell.

Among the many agencies employed by the capitalist class to bring about this state of affairs, the Salvation Army is one of the most successful.

We have no hesitation in saying that the influence of the Salvation Army on the mind of the working class is wholly evil.

In two ways : Firstly, by its drum and trumpet performances at the street corner, coupled with the exhortations of the “captain” and the “Hallelujah lasses” to “come to Salvation,” a by no means inconsiderable section of the workers is persuaded that “conversion” is the one thing needful, and that the reformation of the individual and the building up of character must precede any attempt to better material conditions.

In this way the worker, being “well saved” “snatched from Satan” (or whatever form of expressive but inelegant cant is used), his eyes turned from his material interests (the only ones that matter) towards a heavenly throne (which doesn’t), is gradually reduced from a potential thinker to a docile, humble and obedient slave.

And that is exactly what the masters want.

The “Great Idea” Fraud.

Thus in a recent issue of a great daily paper [Daily News Dec., 4, 1909] we read the following:

“SALVATION ARMY IDEAL.

In a “foreword” to the annual report of the social work of the Salvation Army—written by Mr. Arnold White under the title of “The Great Idea”—the author expresses “the conviction that in the Salvation Army we have a strong barrier against Godless Socialism,”

“To grasp the Great Idea,” he adds, “is to understand the height and depth of the self-sacrificing devotion, the reason for the common-sense, the resource and readiness of the Booths and their officers, in seeking the rescue of the Lost Brigade. It imparts hope to the man whose failure in the battle of life is due to his own character and conduct.”

Now science knows no such thing as an individual character, apart from social surroundings.

In the second place, the worker’s mind is muddled and befogged by the “Army’s” ministrations to his creature comfort in the shape of “Soup and Shelter.”

Sentimental Slosh.

How often is the Socialist critic met with some such question-begging argument (!) as this ?—”When I was out of work the officer came round and helped my missis and the kids. Don’t say anything against the Salvation Army or I’ll, etc., etc.”

(This, of course, loses sight of the fact that our diatribes are levelled at the “Army” as an institution, not at the inoffensive and often sorely-sweated wage-slaves of that venerable fraud, the autocrat of Queen Victoria Street.)

Or again—”Whilst you fellows are spouting at the street-corner, General Booth and his men are feeding people and giving them shelter from the cold ! Why don’t you do something for the poor? ”

Saving the Rates.

The fact cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the Salvation Army provides the bourgeois with a cheap and effective form of sticking-plaster wherewith to cover up the hideous ulcer which is eating out the vitals of our class. For are we not told by Mr. F. A. McKenzie—the “Army’s” spokesman for 1908—that “it is the business of the Salvation Army to help and reform. And where I have worked out costs on both sides the Salvation Army does for £1 what costs the Guardians £3.“—”Waste Humanity,” 1908, p. XVIII. (The italics are ours.)

This is letting the cat out of the bag with a vengeance !

We are well aware that the workers in other capitalist countries enjoy the blessings of the “Army’s” efforts to please, both on the religious and the material side. Stray items of news do sometimes filter through from “foreign parts” to show that the rate-saving dodge is not confined to British soil. The following paragraph will serve as an illustration.

"COUNCIL SEEKS ARMY’S AID. 

The Helsingfors Town Council has again turned to the Army for a solution of its unemployment problem. Numbers of out-of-works had adopted a threatening attitude towards the authorities, and demanded 10,000 Finnish marks from the council for food and clothes.

In their dilemma, the authorities approached The Army and handed over the sum of £200 (half the money demanded), with the request that we should find some of them work.”—War Cry, Feb. 12, 1910.

But it is in Britain and “our” colonies that the operations of this gigantic many-sided fraud can best be observed from the point of view of working-class economics.

The “Army” and the Public.

Articles and paragraphs criticising the Salvation Army have from time to time appeared in various magazines and newspapers. We nevertheless believe that no detailed attempt has yet been made to approach the subject from the Socialist point of view. Even Mr. John Manson’s monumental work on the subject [“The Salvation Army and the Public,” by John Manson. Routledge, 4½d] (to which we have gone for many of the facts and figures to be herein quoted, and which should be read by all Socialists) deals mostly with the “Army” from the public’s (i.e., the capitalist public) standpoint. We are emboldened to quote, when necessary, from Mr. Manson’s work for two reasons.

First, it is almost impossible for anyone who does not possess an inexhaustible stock of time and patience to gain direct and straight forward information from the Queen Victoria Street authorities themselves. Secondly, although the work above referred to was first published in July 1906—a subsequent and cheaper edition being issued in 1908—General Booth and his assistants have never yet thought fit to make any reply to the charges brought against them, although repeatedly urged to do so by their journalistic supporters in the capitalist Press. The vague and airy nothings of the “General” on this subject can be at once eliminated—e.g.: “These attacks are too silly to need refutation” [General Booth, 1906.] (although a few months previously an interviewer was informed at “Headquarters” that the book was officially admitted to contain “a good deal of truth.”)

(Here let us state that, in accordance with our custom, the columns of the SOCIALIST STANDARD are at all times open to apologists for the “Army,” official or otherwise.)

With the manipulation and management or mismanagement of the Salvation Army’s funds the Socialist is not directly concerned. The money collected is subscribed out of surplus-value, the donations of the workers being, we believe, in proportion to the whole a negligible quantity.

As Socialists our business is first and foremost with the effect the “Army’s” schemes have upon the economic position of the working class. Our enquiry will naturally fall into two divisions.

A. The results of the purely “tradesman” or “shop-keeping” operations of the “Army.”

B. The inception, growth, and present position of the “Darkest England” scheme with its manifold ramifications, viz., Elevators, Farm Colonies, Emigration, etc.

With the first of these divisions: “The ‘Army’s’ Trading Schemes,” we shall at once proceed to deal.

“Fritz”

(To be continued.)

The Salvation Army and the Working Class II. (1910)

From the April 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The “Army” in Trade.

“The army of friars should be absolute mendicants, keeping themselves sternly apart from all worldly entanglements . . . Within thirty years of Francis I death in 1226, the Franciscans had become one of the most powerful, wealthy and worldly corporations in Christendom, with their fingers in every sink of political and social corruption, if so be profit for the order could be fished out of it. . . . Who is to say that the Salvation Army in the year 1930 shall not be the replica of what the Franciscan order had become in the year 1640” —T .H. Huxley, “Social Diseases and Worse Remedies.”

A Prophecy Fulfilled.

In its haste get rich quick “for God,” the Salvation Army has literally fallen over itself, thereby justifying Huxley’s forecast with ten years to spare.

It must be borne in mind that the Booth trading concerns are a religious growth, carefully to be distinguished from those undertakings to which the “Social” Scheme has given birth.

“Each territory or country,” we are told, “has its own trade department, but that connected with International headquarters . . . buys and manufactures largely for oversea territories.” In the early days of the “Army” a penny song-book and monthly magazine were published. The latter afterwards became the “War Cry.” Later on “certain articles of uniform were required by our officers. These being difficult to procure elsewhere, we had them prepared and sold them ourselves. From these modest efforts the present trade operations—in their large and ever-increasing proportions—sprang.” (Salvation Army Year Book, 1907)

We are further assured that “trading is now a Salvation Army necessity,” and that “the ‘Army’ must buy and sell.”

Wage-Slavery for God.

After this authoritative pronouncement, if any doubting Thomas yet remains, he is passified by being told that “the entire profits are devoted to the extension of the spiritual work. Sovereigns mean souls. The trading is done for God, and the aim of the ‘Army’ is that strict truth and righteousness actuate every transaction. Every Salvationist ought, therefore, to buy all he needs or can from the Trade department.”

Let us glance at what is being done “for God.”

In addition to religious publications and uniforms, the official list of articles sold includes among others too numerous to mention :

Women’s dresses.

Men’s and children’s suits.

Drapery.

Hosiery.

Boots and shoes.

China and glass.

Earthenware.

Cutlery.

Pianos and organs (hire system).

Flannelette and “Non-Flam.”

Sewing machines.

Furniture of all kinds

Bicycles and mailcarts.

Printing, bookbinding and stationery.

Books.

Watches and clocks.

Bags and portmanteaus.

Underwear.

Bread—families waited on daily.

Tea, coffee and cocoa.

Etc., etc.

The Heavenly Whiteley.

Here we have (in this extract from an official trade department catalogue) proof positive that the ‘Army’ thinks it is justified in competing with the ordinary tradesman in the supply of almost everything, by taking advantage of its peculiar position, reputation and influence.

Moreover it is not only to “members” that the goods in which it deals are supplied. The circulation of the “War Cry” and “Social Gazette” is mainly amongst a class of folk who, whilst perhaps in sympathy with the Salvation Army, are not actually members of that body. Specious advertisements in both the journals referred to, constantly invite the reader to apply for this or that particular trade list or catalogue. In these advertisements all the well-known catchpenny devices for attracting “business” are employed. The following is an example—one out of many. It speaks for itself (“Social Gazette,” Dec. 4. 1909).

OUR CHRISTMAS GIFT TO YOU.

Christmas is the season for giving. The custom has suggested our doing something for our friends which may add a drop to the cup of gladness which we hope will come full to the brim to all our customers this Christmas time. To make a direct gift would be impossible, however great the desire to do so. We propose to do something, however, that will, we hope, be regarded as almost, if not quite, as acceptable to those able to participate. 

FIVE USEFUL AND SERVICEABLE ARTICLES AT HALF-PRICE.

A. A pair of Trousers, usual price 11s, for 5s. 6d.

or B. A Woman’s Honeycomb, Jersey Blouse, usual price 5s. 6d., for 2s. 9d.

or C. A pair of Men’s ‘Fortress’ Boots, usual price 9s. 11d., for 4s. 11½d.

or D. A pair of Women’s ‘Favourite’ Boots, usual price 8s. 11d., for 4s. 5½ d.

or E. A Girl’s Winter Coat, usual price 7s. 6d., for 3s. 9d.

HOW IT IS DONE.

1. One of the Half-Price Articles supplied with every order not less than £1 in amount, not counting the half-price article, cash for which must be sent in addition. Customers may send as many £1 orders as they wish. For every such order is given the option to purchase one of the half-price articles. 

2. The goods to be selected from our Uniform and Outfit Catalogue, or from our Christmas Sheet of USEFUL PRESENTS which will be sent FREE ON APPLICATION.

Under the cloak of religion then the strongest possible appeal is made to the prospective customer’s love of—not God, but—a good bargain.

How it is done.

It is moreover the duty of the “field-officer” (wage-slave commanding a religious corps) to take a lively interest in the trade, push it and try to increase it as much as possible. He must announce the visits of Trade Headquarters’ representatives . . . and afford every facility . . . for getting into touch with his soldiers and friends. These poor wretches are so badly paid (18s. a week if unmarried and 27s. a week if married) that they are forced to push the sale of goods. (Orders and regulations for Field officers. 1904)

For this they receive commission. And mind you, the wages are only paid after all the local expenses of the corps have been met. In case the unfortunate officer, for some reason or other, is unable to meet the weekly expenses, he gets practically no wages at all. A pretty picture, forsooth. Enough to make one’s blood boil. The harassed victim of the malpractices of Booth & Co., forced to undersell and cut the price of commodities which have themselves been produced by sweated labour. And this in good “Salvationese” is called “earning a sovereign for the Kingdom of God” !

Booth and Boots.

Apropos of underselling, a quotation from the “Army’s” boot and shoe catalogue makes interesting reading :

“The following argues in favour of the low price of our boots :

The representative of a manufacturing firm remarked recently that we were selling a certain class of their boots 1s. 9d. per pair less than they were to be obtained at several shops mentioned by him. We were ignorant of the prices of any of the goods sold by the retailers mentioned . . . Any idea of “cutting” the price was, therefore, quite out of the question, showing that either we buy better or are content with smaller profits.”

The official apologist does not tell us which of these two factors—the ‘Army’s’ ability to buy better or its being contented with smaller profits—determines the price of boots.

Possibly a jocular remark made by “General” Booth when about to leave for America (Sept. 1907) may throw a little light on the subject.

“If you are not willing to be sweated,” said he, “don’t have anything to do with the Salvation Army.”

The pious old jester referred to the “field-officers” in the religious work, but inasmuch as we are told that “the trading is done for God” it is quite likely—if the truth were known—(not so easy to come at, that same truth) that the workers and distributors in the “Army’s” trade departments are not paid such handsome salaries as obtain in shops and stores, where profit is the primary consideration and “God” has to be content with a back seat (or shelf) for six days in the week. These factors will probably be found to have some bearing, not only on the price of the “Army’s” boots, but upon its successful competition with the ordinary labour market.

And at this point we are brought face to face with the crux of the whole matter.

The Cheap-Jacks of Religion.

Is the Salvation Army able to create a new or increased demand for the commodities it supplies through the agency of its huge religious staff ? If it is not, then the effect of its participation in the production and distribution of such commodities must necessarily diminish the demand for goods which are produced under the ordinary conditions of the labour market.

In proportion as the “Army” increases its production of those commodities more workers will be employed (by the “Army”) under especially bad economic conditions, and fewer will be the number of those employed (by the ordinary capitalist) at ordinary wages.

The following is taken from the cover of a juvenile clothing catalogue issued by the “Army,” and will serve to give some slight idea as to whether the “Army” is creating a new demand or merely competing with and underselling the ordinary market:

“I am a representative of the Salvation Army Outfit department … I am glad that I belong to the Salvation Army, as people will not only listen to what I say, but will know they can believe what I tell them. I am devoted to the selling of children’s clothing. Every moment of my life, night and day, is given up to it. I am in every way up-to date, although it is myself that says it … I am not afraid of the keenest competition. Compare my prices with those of other sellers of juvenile clothing. I shall like it, and have no doubt about my coming out on top.”

With the “Army’s” launching out into the wholesale and retail tea and coffee business—its incursion into many other departments of trade—we have, unfortunately, no space to deal. For fuller details of this interesting subject we must commend on readers to Mr. Manson’s work.

The “Flannel” Fraud.

But as a final illustration of the lengths to which this hydra-headed monstrous fraud is prepared to go in its desire to “sell,” the story of the “flannelette” is too good to be passed over. We accordingly rescue it from an undeserved oblivion, leaving it to our readers for judgment.

On September 22, 1906, a column advertisement appeared in the “Social Gazette.” This took the form of an “Open letter to Parents” signed by Lieut.-Col. Simpson (the “Army’s” trade Secretary). Big black capitals were splashed all over the page directing urgent attention to the dangers incurred by little children from the use of ordinary flannelette— “1,500 children burned to death in 1905—Save the little ones,” etc., etc.

“Your duty then is plain,” said the worthy Colonel, “send for the Army’s ‘Non-Flam,’ an excellent safety flannelette . . . Your duty is plain . . . Not to use for the precious little ones the dangerous fabric, which has been the cause of so much suffering and death.”

Now the colonel’s own department had been selling ordinary flannelette for years before the date on which this advertisement appeared. It is, to say the least, remarkable that his department continued to advertise it even after the discovery and adoption of “Non-Flam.” Six months later we find a drapery catalogue advertising—yes—”Non-Flam,” but giving precedence and nearly three times the space to—flannelettes at 2¾ d to 8½d. per yard !

None of these were described as non-inflammable. People were even urged to write for patterns of these dangerous materials as being “of exceptional value”—”cheaper than many leading drapers,” etc.

Apparently Colonel Simpson’s principles were his own and could, therefore, be sacrificed. The remainder of the flannelette was Booth & Co’s. and could not !

Fritz.

(To be continued)

The Salvation Army and the Working Class III. (1910)

From the May 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part II.

The Social Scheme.

 The indirect features of the scheme must not be such as to produce injury to the persons whom we seek to benefit.

While assisting one class of the community, it must not seriously interfere with the interests of another. In raising one section of the fallen, we must not thereby endanger the safety of those who with difficulty are keeping on their feet. . . . It is no use conferring six pennyworth of benefit on a man if, at the same time, we do him a shillings worth of harm.

—”In Darkest England,” page 81.

The Book that Made a Stir.

General Booth, when launching onto a sea of controversy his now celebrated book : “In Darkest England and the Way Out,” told his readers that, from calculations he had made himself and from the figures supplied by various authorities on the subject, in these islands fully one-tenth of the population was hopelessly submerged. Hopelessly that is, so far as all previous efforts on their behalf were concerned. This section of the people he nicknamed with his cant phrase “the submerged tenth.”

The purpose of his book was to arouse the public interest in these “lost ones,” and to obtain financial support for the starting of his “social scheme.”

We were shown at great length how hopelessly inadequate to cope with the evils of want and destitution had been the efforts of well-meaning reformers who worked in connection with various “charitable” agencies.

“It is no use trying to bale out the ocean with a pint pot,” said he (“In Darkess England,” page 253). What was wanted, we were told, was an all-embracing plan. “This scheme changes the circumstances of those whose poverty is caused by their misfortune. To begin with it finds work for the unemployed. This is the chief need.”

The Legion of the Lost.

The way in which our octogenarian professor of philanthropy proposed to go to work may best be set forth in his own words :

“The Social Problem presents itself before us whenever a hungry, dirty and ragged man stands at our door asking if we can give him a crust or a job. That is the social question, what are you to do with that man? He has no money in his pocket, all that he can pawn he has pawned long ago, his stomach is as empty as his purse, and the whole of the clothes upon his back, even if sold on the best terms, would not fetch a shilling. . . He asks for work, which he will set to even on his empty stomach and in his ragged uniform, if so be that you will give him something for it, but his hands are idle, for no one employs him. What are you to do with that man ? . . . To deal with this man is the problem of the unemployed. To deal with him effectively you must deal with him immediately, you must provide him in some way or other with food, and shelter, and warmth. Next you must find him something to do, something that will test the reality of his desire to work. This test must be more or less temporary, and should be of such a nature as to prepare him for making a permanent livelihood. Then, having trained him, you must provide him wherewithal to start life afresh. All these things I propose to do. My Scheme divides itself into three sections, each of which is indispensable for the success of the whole. In this three-fold organisation lies the open secret of the solution of the Social Problem.

The Scheme I have to offer consists in the formation of these people into self-helping and self-sustaining communities, each being a kind of cooperative society, or patriarchal family, etc. 

These communities we will call, for want of a better term, Colonies. 

There will be

(1) The City Colony,

(2) The Farm Colony,

(3) The Over-Sea Colony.”

(Before proceeding to our dissection of results we have troubled to quote Booth at some length, in order that those of our readers to whom ”Darkest England” is inaccessible may gain a clear and definite idea as to what his main object was when he set out to conquer “the powers of evil” and bring about “a new heaven and a new earth.”)

The “City” Colony.

By the phrase “City Colony” was meant a number of institutions which were to act as “Harbours of Refuge.” Into these havens were to be gathered all who had been “ship-wrecked.” Food and shelter were to be provided in return for work. Employment found for him, the mariner wrecked on life’s stormy sea was to be rescued and “reformed.” He was then to be restored to the joyful bosom of his happy family, or (in case the wild happy family were not having any) he was to be passed on to the Colony of the second class.

The second stage in this new Pilgrim’s Progress was intended to work out as follows :

Farms for the Famished.

The Salvation Army would buy land near some great city (the neighbourhood of London being chosen for the first experiment). Buildings would be erected and a farm stocked. The “wretched outcast” having passed through the refining fires of the city shelter and workshop, was then to be dumped down into a real live farm—there to be taught the whole art of husbandry.

In fine a regular “Garden City” would arise wherein our friend the W.O. would work out his economic and moral salvation.

Just here we may note a significant remark of the General’s when discussing the prospects of this portion of his scheme. (“In Darkest England,” page 249.)

“As the scheme progresses, it is not irrational to expect that Government, or some of the varied Local authorities will assist in the working out of a plan which, in so marked a manner, will relieve the rates and taxes of the country”.

(The last passage was not originally italicised.) 

In our examination of the actual, every-day working of this famous scheme, we shall have occasion to again refer to this pious hope that the “authorities” would patronise the concern. He then goes on to say: “From the Farm, as from the City . . . large numbers would be restored to friends up and down the country. Some would find employment in their own callings” (thereby pushing others out and lowering the rate of wages), “others would settle in cottages on a small piece of land that we should provide, or on Co-operative Farms which we intend to promote ; while the great bulk, after trial and training, would be passed on to the Foreign Settlement, which would constitute our third class, viz., the Over Sea Colony.”

As the last-named section of the Scheme has up to the present failed to materialise, we shall not let it worry us.

The Return of the “Golden Age.”

The Scheme, in its entirety, was, in the General’s own words :

“To draw up these poor outcasts, reforming them, and creating in them habits of industry, honesty, and truth . . . forwarding from the City to the Country, and there continuing the process of regeneration, and then pouring them forth on to the virgin soils that await their coming in other lands . . . Why not ?”

And Echo—after twenty years of scheming and planning, with money poured out like water ; after twenty years of “food and shelter depots,” Elevators, City and Farm Colonies, et hoc genus omne ; after twenty years of bluff and brag in the capitalist Press, self-denial weeks and special collections—shouts across this awful waste of time, “WHY NOT?”

The Answer.

The answer must be because the whole “Darkest England” Scheme from top to bottom has proved a gigantic fraud and failure. In our detailed examination of the actual working of the Scheme, reviewing the various divisions in their due order as set forth by Booth in his Vade-mecum, much damning evidence in support of our statement will come to light.

At the base of the “Social Scheme” were to be the food and shelter depots of the City Colony.

It was proposed to establish in connection with every Food and Shelter depot a workshop or labour-yard (ominous term) in which any person who came destitute and starving would be supplied with sufficient work to enable him to earn the 4d. needed for his bed and board.

The Salvation Army’s official figures for 1908 tell us that nearly six million meals were supplied at cheap food depots, and over two million cheap lodgings for the homeless were provided.

Specious and Misleading Advertisements.

Judging from the advertisements which appear under the “Army’s” aegis daily in the papers—of which the subjoined taken from the Westminster Gazette is a fair sample—anyone not in the know would naturally imagine that the 6,000 poor referred to had only to present themselves in all their abject misery at a Shelter, and lo and behold—they would be welcomed with open arms.

“STARVATION AND MISERY

are found on every hand among the Poor and Outcast by the Officers of the SALVATION ARMY who live among them, and are qualified to help them in the most economical and able manner. PRAY SEND HELP for so needy a work. £150,000 annually needed for the Army’s Central Funds alone. Over 6,000 Poor sleep in the Homes nightly. 170 Branches of Social and Relief work; are in operation.

Please address cheques (crossed “Bank of England, Law Courts Branch”) to GENERAL BOOTH, 101, Queen Victoria-street, London. Balance-sheets forwarded.”

In reality nothing of the kind takes place. “I was a stranger and ye took me in.” Yes, but there’s an if. The tune they play at the door is “The Absent Minded Beggar” with its haunting refrain of “Pay ! Pay ! Pay !” There is no work test applied at these “poor men’s hostels,” and the “crowd of hungry, desperate wretches, without even a penny in their pouch, demanding food and shelter”—over whose woes twenty long years ago William the saintly waxed so tearfully eloquent—unless they can furnish the needful coin of the realm, are met with that sternest of all arguments on a winter’s night, a closed door !

Fritz.

(To be continued)

The Salvation Army and the Working Class. (1910)

From the June 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to the last issue.

III—Continued.

(B) The true story of the "Elevators." 

Mr. F. A. McKenzie (the Army’s official trumpeter for 1908-9) in his Booth-inspired work of fiction : “Waste Humanity” writes as follows :

“Let us trace what becomes of the man anxious to leave the streets, who appeals to the Salvation Army for aid. He first goes to the Social Headquarters in Whitechapel-road, where he states his case. . . The Army’s officials say to him. Here is a chance for you to rise again. Make the best of it. Do what you are told. Put your heart and back into the work given you. . . . This is not a place of worship—it is a place of work. God bless you !

The man who appears to be genuine, etc., etc., . . . is sent, if there is room, to one of the City Colony Elevators in Spa-road, Bermondsey.”

The process of “Elevation” is both curious and instructive. The “out-of-works” are put to sorting waste paper and refuse. This the Army collects for nothing, under the plea that souls are thereby to be saved and wastrels (!) “elevated.” As no wages are paid, the luckless inmates experience all the refined tortures of an elaborate “truck” system.

Tickets are given them with which to obtain food and shelter. “At Spa Road and Old Street waste paper sorting elevators, the man, whether on the barrows or at the screens, are lucky if, in addition to their keep (valued at 7s.) they get more than a money grant of 6d. or 1s. for a very long week’s work. Many of the inmates remain for years, without showing any sign or seeing any prospect of Elevation.

“It is only natural that many men leave from dissatisfaction after trying the system long enough to learn that, instead of raising them, it is designed to keep them in perpetual submersion.” (“The Salvation Army and the Public,” p. 66.)

Until recently one of the principal industries connected with these depressors (beg pardon, “Elevators”) was the manufacture of firewood. So keen was the Army on getting orders for elevated firewood that many of the ordinary makers were forced to engage fewer hands.

Picture to yourselves these aforesaid hands turned on to the street owing to the operation of this precious schema, there to make their way to the nearest Shelter, thence to find work at an Elevator, pushing more hands out, and so on ad infinitum !

In 1892 the average earnings of an Army wood chopper were 1s. 2½d. per day, paid in tokens thus : Breakfast 3d, Dinner 4d., Tea 3d., Bed 2d., and 2½d. reserved as money grant and to cover cost of Sunday meals.

The average wage (!) paid was therefore 7s. 3d. par week, while the highest possible was 11s. per week—7s. of it being in “truck.”

As regards underselling, whilst on the one hand the officials make loose and vague statements to the effect that “no underselling takes place,” on the other hand we have the definite declaration of certain firewood makers that they have lost orders and contracts through being undersold by the Army, and were compelled to employ fewer hands owing to the capture of their trade by the Army.

When confronted with these definite pronouncements (full data being supplied) the Army found a safe refuge in discreet silence. In au interview published in the Blackburn Times, Aug. 3rd, 1907, General Booth said :

“We have practically no firewood-making now. It raised so much prejudice and silly opposition that we gave it up.”

Doubtless the touching pictures in the Social Gazette of March 21st 1908—”Wood-Chopping” and “Preparing Firewood”—were directly the result of “giving it up” !

IV

Concerning Hanbury Street.

There is no discipline so brutal as that of the sweater ; there is no slavery so relentless as that front which we seek to deliver the victims.”In Darkest England,” p. 166.

Although our factories will be permanent institutions they will not be anything more than temporary resting places to those who avail themselves of their advantages.—Ibid, p. 109.

One of the most famous—or rather, infamous—of the Salvation Army’s social institutions is the Joinery Elevator in Hanbury Street, Whitechapel. Every man who goes into this den has to sign an agreement. From this agreement—a copy of which we have been fortunate enough to obtain—a few quotations will prove very instructive.

CLAUSE 1. “I declare that, being unable to find work elsewhere, and being homeless, friendless, and destitute, I have been admitted to the City Colony, to work only for my subsistence and shelter, and that everything allowed me beyond this will be so allowed by the kindness of the Governor.”

CLAUSE 5. “I understand that no payment of any kind is promised beyond food and lodgings, etc.”

CLAUSE 6. “I agree to give my clothes over to the Officer on entrance, and if, in the opinion of the Officer, they are incapable of further use, the Colony to supply me on loan with the necessary clothes, for which I am prepared to give a receipt, with the distinct understanding that should I on leaving the Colony take these clothes with me without written authority for my so doing, I render myself liable to be charged with embezzlement.”

CLAUSE 7. “I understand that in the event of my giving the Officer cause for dissatisfaction by bad behaviour, or for any other reason, I am liable to instant dismissal, and also to the forfeiture of my reward promised for industrious work.”

From sixty to eighty men are usually employed at these “works.”

Except in the case of a very few outside or “paid hands” taken on from time to time, all the men taken in are “out-of-works.”

“The joinery works,” says Mr. Manson, “are well equipped, the machinery being driven by electricity. Practically every kind of work is undertaken—inside doors and front doors, windows, office partitions, flights of stairs, benches for halls, kitchen tables, and train indicators. To do such work at all competently a man must be a very good joiner. No inexperienced man could do it.”

The hours worked at this “Labour Hospital” are from 6.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. (except on Saturdays). Three-quarters of an hour is allowed for breakfast, and one hour for dinner, both of which are supplied at Quaker Street (a sort of soup kitchen run by the Army) half a mile away.

The working week is 53½ hours, with frequent overtime. And an 11¾ hours’ working day is not uncommon.

The work done is rated by time or by piece. 2s. a day or 12s. a week is the wage or allowance given for time or day work.

9s. a week is deducted as the cost of board and lodging, thus leaving an average of 3s. a week by way of money grant.

Much light from various sources was from time to time thrown upon these “elevating” methods. Forthwith the Salvation Army officials made strenuous efforts to excuse their damnable practices by depreciating and vilifying the quality of the men’s work. “Piece-work” was flatly denied.

Apropos of this last some comparisons of official statements will prove amusing as well as most instructive:

COMMISSIONER STURGESS. (Memorandum July 22nd, 1908.)

“Hanbury St. is not a piecework shop

COLONEL JACOBS

(Commissioner Sturgess’ assistant.)

“When a man becomes experienced we put him on piecework.”

————————

(Agreement signed by men.)

“In the case of task work,” etc.

————————-

(An Army official to a representative of the Times. “It is all piecework.”

——————————–

(War Cry, May 1st, 1909.)

“We said that the majority of those provided with employment had lost their skill, and could only do the commonest class of work, and little of that.

Salvation Army Year Book, 1908. Page 43. “The majority are accomplished hands, and are able to do any hind of work usually carried on in the trades.” (Carpentry, joinery, and painting).

——————————–

A knowledge of what the Army professes to pay its hands for piecework is of great importance, because we can then discover, with a fair degree of accuracy, how these prices compare with those paid outside for exactly the same work. The work-tabs which have—unfortunately from the Army’s point of view—come to light, show this clearly.

These tabs supplied to the men for each job give the price to be paid to the man for making, and bear the signature of the officer in charge.

“Comparisons are odorous,” as the old lady said in the play, but the following list (by no means a complete one), showing the prices paid by the Army for certain work, and the prices estimated by a master-builder as those which he would have to pay for the same work, is positively damning.

No amount of plausibility can possibly explain away these stubborn facts.

——————————–

Fritz.

(To be continued)

The Butcher of the Commune. (1909)

From the August 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It is a lie—their Priests, their Pope,

Their Saints:—their . . all they fear or hope

Are lies, and lies …”

Had Robert Browning’s victim of the Inquisition lived in our own time she could have added “their Press” to her list of lying agents. The truth of this is never more clearly seen than on the occasion of a popular military “hero” shuffling off this mortal coil.

On July 8th, at his house in Paris, expired General the Marquis of Gallifet, Prince of Martigues, etc., at the advanced age of 79. This old Bonapartist scoundrel, referred to by capitalist journals, both French and English, as “Famous French Fighter,” “Friend of King Edward,” “Great loss to France,” etc., etc., was in reality an unscrupulous and abandoned wretch, who, by his cold-blooded murders at the time of the Commune, earned the undying hatred of all who hold dear the cause of working-class freedom.

As Socialists we cannot fail to be struck by the wonderful and significant unanimity displayed by the organs of Capital on both sides of the Channel, when estimating the dead “hero’s” character.

Thus the Daily News, peaceful persuader and mouthpiece of reform, whilst lightly touching on his “severe repression in 1871,” gave due prominence to “his services to France.” The Petit Journal of July 9th wrote as follows :

“Eccentricities of character could not justify the story of executioner in civil warfare. It is said he took a fiendish pleasure in butchering conquered federals who had fallen into his hands. No trustworthy evidence of any weight has ever come to light to support these accusations, against which he was always unwilling to defend himself; finding that, as he himself once wrote in a letter, ‘to apologise would be wanting in elegance’ !”

No trustworthy evidence !

The Commune was dead. The last barricade had been captured and its brave defenders either massacred or taken prisoners.

The special correspondent of the Daily News (how “the whirligig of time brings in his revenges”) whilst searching for appropriate “copy” amongst the barricades, had the misfortune to fall in with Gallifet’s soldiers, who, despite the fact that the pressman held a pass from the Versailles Government, forced him to join a herd of unarmed prisoners.

These poor wretches were being marched from Paris to Versailles.

The description by this eye-witness of the scenes on the road has often been quoted.

“The column of prisoners halted in the Avenue Uhrich, and was drawn up, four deep, on the footway, facing to the road. General the Marquis de Gallifet and his staff, . . . dismounted and commenced an inspection from the left of the line. Walking down slowly and eyeing the ranks, the General stopped here and there, tapping a man on the shoulder or beckoning him out from the rear ranks. In most cases without further parley, the individual thus selected was marched out into the centre of the road, where a small supplementary column was thus soon formed. . . It was evident that there was considerable room for error. A mounted officer pointed out to Genera! Gallifet a man and a woman for some particular offence. The woman, rushing out of the ranks, threw herself on her knees, and, with outstretched arms, protested her innocence in passionate terms. The General waited for a pause, and then with most impassive face and unmoved demeanour, said : ‘Madame, I have visited every theatre in Paris ; your acting will have no effect upon me’ (ce n’est pas la peine de jouer la comedie) . . It was not a good thing on that day to be noticeably taller, dirtier, cleaner, older, or uglier than one’s neighbours. One individual in particular struck me as probably owing his speedy release from the ills of this world to his having a broken nose. . . Over a hundred being thus chosen, a firing party told off, and the column resumed its march, leaving them behind. A few minutes afterwards a dropping fire in our rear commenced, and continued for over a quarter of an hour. It was the execution of these summarily convicted wretches.” Daily News, June 8th, 1871.

This description was deemed worthy of a leading article on the next day. The following is a brief abstract:

“. . For the touch of M. de Gallifet’s fingers meant death. The appearance of the unfortunate men and women who were thus singled out for execution is described as being something horrible. One already wounded, his shirt soaked with blood, sat down in the road and howled with anguish . . . others wept in silence ; two soldiers, presumed to be deserters, pale but collected, appealed to all the other prisoners as to whether they had ever seen them amongst their ranks. . . The huddled mass of corpses which was subsequently seen by several horror-stricken correspondents showed where M. le Marquis had passed.”—Daily News, June 9, 1871.

From the “Manifesto of the Working Men’s International” we take the following:

“The captured soldiers of the line were massacred in cold blood ; . . . Gallifet, the kept man of his wife, so notorious for her shameless exhibitions at the orgies of the Second Empire, boasted in a proclamation of having commanded the murder of a small troop of National Guards, with their captain and lieutenant, surprised and disarmed by his Chasseurs.”

Does the Petit Journal want any further evidence ?

Our message is to the working class. We bid them to remember that at all times the powers that be are determined to maintain their supremacy by every means in their power. If they cannot gull the workers by political cheating, lying and chicanery, they are prepared to shoot down men, women and children by thousands rather than surrender one jot or tittle of their beloved “rights of property.”

Like every other class in the course of history, the ruling class came into power by means of the command they held of armed force. When we have sifted and winnowed out the chaff of “comforts of religion,” “respect for law and order,” “adaptability.” and all the other canting phrases beloved of labour niisleaders we find that the ultimate appeal is to force. Ignorance plays a great part in helping to keep the workers in subjection, but it is by force the “super” class hold their position. We must consciously organise therefore for the capture of the armed forces in order to convert them from an instrument of oppression into an agent of emancipation. Let this “consummation devoutly to be wished” once become a fact, then those brave souls who perished in the Commune will not have died in vain.

Fritz.

World Crises. by Victor Mage. (1908)

From the August 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Revue de Paris has recently given to the world some hitherto unpublished pages by Waldeck-Rousseau. There (he is speaking of the revolutionary programme) you may read the following words:  

“Changing the face of the world in eight days by getting rid of the troublesome shackles of legality, and suddenly throwing every institution, all that now is into the melting-pot of violent reform. Yet it took three centuries for a prodigious being to found Christian society, and from that fact the inference is drawn that he really was God”.

As to the point that it needed three centuries for the doctrines of Christianity to transform society, I think we can contest that. The institutions of the Roman State were rotten to the core; they made no real resistance in spite of all their outward show. Of their own weight they fell into decay.

We Marxists of to-day are awaiting the Revolution as a measure indispensable for the substitution of a new order of things for that at present in existence. Nevertheless, as determinists, we are convinced believers in Evolution. Whereas the liberal school of thought sees everything as a fixed, stable, and immovable system, our whole scheme rests on the idea of continued and infinite change. Whilst liberals look upon human society as something fixed and eternally frozen, as it were, and in consequence dead, we look on it as it really is, a changing, living thing, like a plant or an animal, which from the moment of birth to death is in a process of being unceasingly changed.

But this idea of Evolution is by no means incompatible with that of Revolution. On the contrary, Evolution is sometimes accomplished through crises, and by sharp and violent transition from one stage to another. When the chicken comes out of the egg  is it not with heavy blows of its beak that it breaks its shell? Before the birth of this animal there has been a very slow and gradual evolution from a germ. To the ignorant onlooker this “changing” is invisible and even incomprehensible. Then one fine day, when evolution is in a sufficiently advanced stage, a shock takes place: the shell, which to all appearance was quite hard, is broken. There has been a revolution.

Just so in this society of ours the change has gone on very slowly. Business enterprises pass into fewer hands, production becomes collective. The only thing remaining is to break the shell which stands between us and full flight. But one needs very little foresight to see that, in view of certain symptoms, the “shock” is not a great way off. These symptoms are crises, harassing and overwhelming in their frequency. In America a money crisis, making itself felt more than any other because of its recoil on all the various branches of production. In England, Germany, France, all the world over, crises of over-production and unemployment resulting from the progress of machine-power and the under-consumption which the lack of resources on the part of the great mass of consumers brings in its train. These latter comprise the working class, wage earners who have not the means wherewith to buy back the products of their own toil!

Moral crises follow in the wake of economic crises. Was it not a leading theatrical newspaper, circulating amongst the middle-class, which recently proved to its own satisfaction that the bourgeois public, which alone has the means of attending performances, is incapable of appreciating and understanding things of beauty?

Crises even in love, as a great daily paper proves, the industrial system making woman a foe to every family tie.

These crises are getting bigger, awaiting the rapidly approaching day when they will allow the capitalist regime to topple over and be buried under its own ruins; as it is destined to perish owing to the very circumstances to which it has itself given birth.

(Translated for the Socialist Standard from from Le Socialisme by "Fritz.")

The First Duty of Socialists by Charles Vérecque. (1908)

From the June 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our class can only supplant another in controlling Society when it becomes conscious and organised. When the bourgeoisie brought about their revolution, they had been ready for it for a long time. Doubtless they didn’t amuse themselves by looking into all the details of the Society they were about to establish, but they knew what it was they had to realise in order to throw down all obstacles in the way of their development.

The working class, which is at the present time the lowest and the most downtrodden, can only acquire cohesion and strength and finally reach the goal aimed at, by organising and at the same time becoming class-conscious. This is the position they (the workers) must resolutely take up. They must, so far as possible, completely detach themselves from all sections of the bourgeoisie, republican as well as reactionary, insomuch as all these sections have, each in turn, deceived, bought, exploited and massacred them, and equal each other in defending the capitalist system, and in crushing down the proletariat.

What the workers have got to do is to establish their own party, as a class party: their only hope of freedom being their own united and disciplined forces.

The two things in question then are: education and organisation. It is to these that Socialists are directing their efforts. So long as the workers form the “tail”, the following of any section whatsoever of the bourgeoisie, they will remain tame and incapable of gaining their freedom. They will merely secure the ends of those very bourgeois against whom they think they are fighting; and since they are not looking after their own interests, they will either forget those interests or be unable to distinguish them.

It is incontestable that the political colours in which the bourgeoisie wrap themselves are only a means to bind the workers more closely to them, in order to keep intact their political power, and, consequently, their rule over Society.

Since 1789 the bourgeois have been masters of political power in France: every section – legitimist, royalist, imperialist, and republican of different degrees – has had its turn in arranging matters.

This power could have – ought to have – changed hands, but it has remained the business of the same class, the bourgeoisie, divided into sections for the purpose of sharing profits, but all of them united in order to defend these profits against the attacks of the workers.

Accordingly the workers ought never to favour any political colour borne by no matter what section of the bourgeoisie. The same ditch should be dug between the radicals and the workers, as between the workers and “reactionaries”. In what respect do the radicals differ from the last named? They are, perhaps, in favour of more advanced reforms, but like the “reactionaries”, they are all for keeping intact the status quo. That is enough to condemn them, and they must be fought just like the others.

In their struggle for the possession of political power, the workers should be and remain by themselves, in order to constitute the class army which the course of events will allow them to throw against and rout the bourgeois army. Besides, the class struggle teaches the proletariat that only to know the bourgeoisie is to treat its members as the enemy, and fight them upon every ground. This is what the congress at Marseilles in 1879 wanted to do.

At a time when Socialist doctrines were completely unknown, the workers might still cling to the skirts of these gentlemen, the bourgeoisie, awaiting at their hands a modification or change in their own wretched existence. Today, after 30 years of propaganda of scientific Socialism such an attitude is impossible of justification.

The organisation of the workers into a class party has been forced to shape itself in a two-fold way – one by way of trade unions, the other in politics.

Even as the very conditions of their labour, conditions under which production and distribution of commodities are carried on, force the workers to join unions in order to defend themselves against longer hours of work and lower wages, in a word to defend themselves against the masters; just so, with a view to overcoming the master class, are they obliged to look beyond their extremely limited everyday horizon, and form themselves into a political party, the Socialist Party, for the transformation of society by the socialisation of its productive forces.

The part to be played by the Socialist Party is one of adopting every useful means for gaining recruits, by propaganda and organisation; above all to spread far and wide, both in the towns and in the countryside, the idea of the political and economic expropriation of the bourgeoisie. By it the class consciousness of the workers must be awakened, in this way leading them towards their definite emancipation.

In order to bring about the speedy triumph of the socialist revolution, the thinkers of the working class must become familiar with Socialist principles and conclusions.

That is why the Socialist Party ought not to neglect any occasion that arises in order to marshal the workers under the red flag for an attack on bourgeois Society. Under actual present-day conditions the Socialist Party is only, to use an expression of Guesde’s, a kind of drill-sergeant and recruiting officer, and can only act as such, teaching and gaining recruits by every means in its power.

In order to lead up to it, the next social revolution needs a proletariat well taught and organised. To become conscious of its absolute right to every form of social wealth, and to be gathered into one class party; these are the two conditions which a proletariat intent on transforming Society must necessarily fulfil.

It cannot be too often repeated that what keeps the proletariat from its emancipation is the fact of its ignorance. If it could only understand it would free itself. The new form of Society is ready to take shape under its direction and for its benefit. Its consent is the only thing lacking. The daily task of Socialists is therefore to prepare the workers for the historic mission which they have to accomplish.

(Translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain from Le Socialisme by Fritz)

Blogger's Note:

There's a French language wiki page for Vérecque at the following link. He was part of the Guesdist wing of French Social Democracy pre-1914. 

I'm unsure who 'Fritz' is. My first inclination is to say it's Hans Neumann but I really can't be sure.

The Parable of the Table. (1909)

From the July 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Being a further extract from the speech of Gustave Hervé of his trial (vide June S.S.) translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain by Fritz..]

Ah! I know that I wound your conscience, gentlemen of the jury. Your conscience pricks you all the more because you feel that I am speaking the truth. I feel sure that when I say this I wound the universal conscience which the Paris Bar with its eloquence, knows so well how to interpret.

But do you believe that Voltaire, Diderot and the rest of the encyclopaedists were able to avoid treading on people’s corns?

It is a lamentable fact that every time a new form of society is about to come forth from the womb of one on the point of death, it always does so by a long and painful child-birth, producing in every family, and in every heart, trouble and anguish; suffering that every innovator would fain spare those whose convictions he hurts.

As for us revolutionary Socialists, we have discarded the folds of this flag on which the names of so many deeds of butchery are displayed in letters of gold.

Flags are but emblems; and are worth something only in so far as they represent something worthy. What, after all, is one’s native country? Or what, in actual fact, do all these “fatherlands” consist?

Allow me, if you please, gentlemen of the jury, to draw for you a mental picture, to speak if I may a kind of parable, which will the better help you to understand what our feelings are. One’s native land, every country, no matter under what form of government it be masked, is made up of two groups of men, consisting on the one hand of a quite small number, on the other including the immense majority of people.

The first of these is seated round a well furnished table where nothing is lacking. At the head of this table, in the seat of honour, you find the great financiers; some, perhaps, are Jews, others Catholics or Protestants, or it may be even Freethinkers. It is possible for them to be in entire disagreement on questions of religion or philosophy, and even on questions affecting their individual interests, but as against the mass of the people, they are as thick as thieves.

Seated on their right and left hand you have Cabinet Ministers, high officials of every department of civil, religious or military administration. Paymasters-general with salaries of 30, 40, and 60 thousand francs a year: a little further off fully fledged barristers, by their unanimity glorious interpreters of the “Universal Conscience” – the whole Bench and Bar, not forgetting their precious assistants, the solicitors, notaries and ushers.

Large shareholders in mines, factories, railways, steamship companies and big shops: manorial magnates, big landed proprietors; all are seated at this table: everybody that has two-pence is there too, but at the foot. These latter are the small fry, who have for that matter, all the prejudices, all the conservative instincts, of the big capitalists.

Ah! gentlemen of the jury, I wish that you may be of the number of these privileged ones seated around this festive board. Verily, you are not so badly off there, after all, you know. In return for a little work – when you have any work at all – work I say which is oft-times intelligent, occasionally agreeable, which always leaves you with some spare time for yourself, directive work that flatters your pride and vanity – in return for this you can enjoy a life of plenty, made pleasant by every comfort, every luxury that the progress of science has placed at the service of Fortune’s favoured ones.

Far from the table I see a great herd of beasts of burden doomed to repulsive, squalid, dangerous, unintelligent toil, without truce or rest, and above all without security for the morrow; petty shop-keepers chained to their counters, Sundays and holidays, more and more crushed by the competition of the big shops; small industrial employers, ground down by the competition of the big factory owners; small peasant proprietors, brutalised by a sixteen to eighteen hours day, who only toil that they may enrich the big middlemen: millers, wine factors, sugar refiners. At a still greater distance from this table of the happy ones of this world, I see the crowd of proletarians who have but their strength of arm or their brain for sole fortune, factory hands, men and women exposed to long periods of unemployment, petty officials and shop-assistants forced to bow and scrape and hide their opinions, domestic servants of both sexes, labouring flesh, cannon fodder, matériel of “pleasure”.

There are your beloved countries! Your country to-day is made up of this monstrous social inequality, this horrible exploitation of man by man.

When the proletarians doff their hats to the flag as it passes by, it is to this that they uncover. They in effect say: “What a splendid country is ours! How free, kind and just is she!”

How! how you must laugh, Mr. Attorney-General, when you hear them sing:

“ah! glorious is death indeed,
When for our native land – for liberty – we bleed!”

The Socialist in Action – the Two “Possiblisms”. by P. M. Andre (1908)

From the November 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is only one Socialism, but there are at the same time two ways of conceiving its realisation: the scientific way – that of the international Socialism – and the “possiblist”. Quite a large number of French Socialists have for a long time been suffering from the latter. Scientific Socialism does not believe that the Social Revolution can be brought about by stages. It is waiting for the social change to take place through the seizure of political power by the working class, and it is with a view to that seizing by force that it is organising the proletariat into a class party. The efforts it makes are all those of recruiting, educating, and organising. To get the greatest number of workers, both hand and brain, to understand that, in the words of  Sieyès, “they are everything in the nation, and can be everything whenever they want to”, to show them that the inevitable necessity for socialising the means of production, to draw them towards Socialism by a propaganda they can understand, and suited to their respective spheres; to use, in order that this propaganda should be as effective as possible, every means at our disposal under capitalist rule, legal means being thereby understood; to repudiate any proceeding capable of doing harm to the recruiting and educating of the masses – such are the essential methods of international Socialism.

This method has for reformers the serious inconvenience of condemning Socialists to what certain busy people call “inaction”. To recruit, educate and organise is, it seems, to do nothing. We must, perforce, wait until the recruiting, educating and organising of the proletariat is far enough advanced for the revolutionary seizure of the “State” to be brought to a triumphant issue.

And those who, in imitation of [the] Roy [king] of France, are “afraid to wait”, are full of praise for a swifter method, that of “possibilism”. By virtue of this last they begin the revolution all at once. This beginning takes place in different ways: by peaceful penetration or by direct action. They pretend to “act according to one’s temperament” but in fact, try to realise, from this very moment, in the midst of capitalist rule, all the immediate possibilities of slices of socialism. On the one hand they are associated with bourgeois reformers, in order to make popular and vote for reforms which, if added together, end to end, all along the centuries, will accomplish the transformation of property “without a blow being struck”. On the other hand, not having enough patience to recruit, educate and organise their workmen comrades, they reckon solely on the “active minority” in order to reduce in succession the rights of the masters, and for the expropriation of capitalism, workshop by workshop and factory by factory.

Radical “possiblists” and Anarchist “possiblists” have each in turn made trial of their own method. Every one of their experiments has proved an admirable lesson in facts for the French proletariat. The attempt made in 1893 by the railway union showed that merely proclaiming “general strike” and voting for it at congress was not sufficient for this pretended possibility of freedom to be actually realised by the will of a bold minority. Bomb-rule à la Ravachol and Emile Henry ended in a complete fiasco. Millerand’s entry into the ministry proved that “peaceful penetration” in the Government laboratory changed the victor into a servant of the bourgeoisie. The recent manoeuvre of revolutionary syndicalism only succeeded in decoying into a military trap those whose eyes were blinded by direct action. Finally, even the supreme manifestation, by which the General Federation of Labour [CGT] wished to protest against the massacre of its troops, could not reach its full extent, because the active minority by itself alone would not be able to arrange for a general cessation of work, if only for the space of 24 hours. On the contrary, the 21st section of the Livre, because it is an educated and organised union, because it has not exhausted its adherents by ceaseless strikes, was able, inspite of the uncertainty of the movement, to save the honour of union organisation.

Thus, one after another, all the workings of “possibilism”: reformist and Governmental preparation, Anarchist preparation, far from being the beginnings of the Social Revolution, have provided capitalist Governments with an occasion for easy victories.

Victories of a day, doubtless, for if the hard lessons of experience discourage for a moment those amongst our people who “do not know how to wait”, the greatest number of militant workers derive from those lessons greater confidence in the old method of international Socialism. Don’t let us look for impossibilism under the pretext of possibilism. To fight by hundreds against thousands, with stones or wretched revolvers against sharpened swords and repeating rifles is useless heroism. Firing on proletarians in uniform, while exhorting them not to fire upon proletarians in work-a-day dress, is to put back the hour when the army will be on the side of the insurrection. To excite by vain threats public opinion against workmen’s organisations is to fetter the work of education which should go on before and at length make possible the Social Revolution. Let us get ready for the victory of the proletariat by preparing the forces indispensable for that victory: recruiting, educating and organising.

P. M. Andre

(Translated  for the Socialist Standard from Le Socialisme by Fritz)

In The Train: Bermondsey Bunkum Baulked (1909)

A Short Story from the November 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Characters: PETER PIP—a Bermondsey voter.

                     VIATOR—a traveller.

Scene. Third-class “smoker ” on the S.E.C. Railway. Peter Pip is seated in corner smoking his pipe. Enter Viator, who takes opposite seat.

VIATOR : Good evening. I suppose things are pretty lively just now down Bermondsey way?

PIP : Yes, the election’s in full swing—all three candidates are hard at it.

VIATOR : Who do yon think will win ?

PIP: Oh! The Socialist, Dr. Salter. He’s bound to get in. I and my mates are for him, anyhow.

VIATOR : I thought the doctor called himself “Labour” candidate.

PIP : Well, it’s all the same. Labour is Socialism, isn’t it ?

VIATOR : May I ask you some questions by way of trying to answer yours ?

PIP : Certainly.

VIATOR : Well then, the doctor was chosen by your local branch of the I.LP., wasn’t he ?

PIP: Yes.

VIATOR : The local branch had to get sanction from the National Council of the I.L.P. ?

PIP : Why, yes, of course.

VIATOR : Of course you know that before the doctor could be run as a candidate for Parliament, the I.LP. had to get sanction from the Labour Party executive, being affiliated to that body?

PIP : That’s so.

VIATOR : The candidate must sign the Labour Party ticket and agree to obey the Party whip?

PIP : Yes.

VIATOR : One of the conditions to be agreed to is, I think, that the candidate must stand as “Labour,” and not as “Socialist.”

PIP : Quite true.

VIATOR : Doesn’t it strike you as odd that a Socialist should not be allowed to run as such, and that if returned he must obey the Labour Party whip, nine times out of ten voting with the Liberals?

PIP : It never struck me like that. But all the same Salter’s a real good Socialist. Why just look at his programme!

VIATOR : Ah, let me see it. (Pip hands him a copy of the election address.) Yes! I thought so. Same old story.

PIP : What’s wrong now ?

VIATOR : The first article in his confession of faith is the dear old “Right to Work Bill.” Hum!

PIP : But you surely don’t condemn the “Right to Work Bill?”

VIATOR : No need to: it condemns itself! What about the clause empowering a municipality to find work for the unemployed? If the unemployed are not satisfied with the kind of work allotted them, or the rate of pay, and refuse to do the work, the municipal authorities, who are representatives of the master class, have power given them to haul the offending workers before a magistrate. That means six months gaol! Fancy a Socialist voting for such a measure.

PIP : But I say—

VIATOR : Next item. General Eight-Hours Day. Well suppose you get it—and mind you, you have got to get it from the masters; many of them are in favour of it and would vote for it. That fact alone ought to make you suspicious of it. “Timeo Danaos et dona ferantes.” That’s French or Figian—you know, for “When the masters send you a gift horse, look in the beggar’s mouth.”

PIP : (Rather uneasily, feeling he is being “got at ”) Well but—

VIATOR : But me no buts! Can the master class—or employers as you call them— can they or can they not speed you up in the factory to the highest possible pitch, 8 hours day or no 8 hours day ? Aren’t they doing it now? If you are going to cross the road to vote, vote for something that’s to do you good!

PIP : I think you will have a job to get round the next item.

VIATOR: Then I’ll go under it. Minimum wage! Minimum fiddlesticks! Do you suppose the labour market is a thing to be played with so? There was a "maximum wage” law as the result of the dearth of labour after the plague in the middle ages, a law strengthened by far more severe penalties than any a capitalist government is likely to attach to a mere "minimum wage” enactment in these days of “freedom of contract”—the futility of the attempt to enforce this law should be a lesson for all time. When labour was scarce the labourer was master of the situation, in spite of the Statute of Labourers which the employers of labour themselves caused to be enacted, in their anxiety to obtain labour power cheaply, but which they were compelled to evade. Now that labour power is so terribly redundant the masters will remain masters of the situation, minimum wage laws notwithstanding, for starvation will compel evasion on the one hand, and profit-hunger on the other. But if such a law can have any effect at all in preventing sweating, there is one counterbalancing factor that will rob it of all benefit to the working class. When any one talks to you about minimum wages, shorter hours, and so on, don’t forget that grim spectre at the worker’s elbow—his constant competitor— machinery. Every restriction placed upon the exploitation of labour power, makes for the advantage of machinery; every lifting of the price of labour-power handicaps it against machinery. So far then as a minimum wage law can affect the situation it can only result in the extended use of machinery and the factory system, and the further displacement of workers.

PIP : That seems to make the struggle hopeless. (Removes his hat, wipes his brow, and looks out of the carriage window.)

VIATOR : It makes Socialism the only hope, at all events. (Pointing) That’s a very nice piece of land over there, isn’t it? Look well nationalized, wouldn’t it? “For sale. Apply Law, Jaw, Wynstun & Co.” I see your worthy doctor has “nationalization of land” on his card. In Japan they have nationalization of land; in Russia the mines are national; in Germany the railways are national property. Yet the proletariat (that’s you and me, you know) who work all those services are not a whit better off—worse off in some cases. German and Belgian State railway workers for example.

PIP : That’s true.

VIATOR : Then : “Municipalisation of means of transit, lighting, water, milk, electricity and power.” Let’s see. In Bermondsey you have all these things run either by the County Council or the Borough Council. Milk, you say,—better milk. Yes, quite so, but a doubtful advantage if you’re a milkman out of a job. Can’t you see, my dear fellow, that you can nationalise and municipalise ’til you’re black in the face, but so long as you leave the masters in full possession of the political power, they will take good care to keep top-dog?

PIP : Surely you will support the next item : “Votes for all men and women of adult age”?

Viator : The principle’s all right, but as a vote catcher it’s all wrong. Besides, aren’t there enough votes now to get Socialism if they were used properly? What we want to do is to educate the present working-class vote— which greatly preponderates—as to the meaning of Socialism, not to bother about extensions of the franchise, and above all, not to use such issues, however much we may agree with them in principle, as bait to catch the voles of those who are opposed to us on the question of Socialism.

PIP : (With an air of conscious superiority) Well, you must agree that raising the amount of old age pensions and lowering the age limit, as our candidate suggests, would be a good thing ?

VIATOR : Yes! for the master class! Shifting the burden of the aged poor off the rates on to the taxes, neither of which affect the worker tuppence. No' if that's the best your doctor can do for you you might as well vote : for Dr. Cook.

PIP : What shall I do then?

Viator : Stop at home this time and don't vote. I tell you the disease Bermondsey is suffering from can’t be cured by medicine. What is wanted is a surgical operation. Here you are, this will tell you all about it. Read this (hands him a Manifesto). Full details - how to cure poverty and when you're tired of messing about with quacks and their nostrums, take your courage in both hands and try “the knife.” Here’s my station. Good night! (He gets out. Pip is left thinking.)

“Fritz”