Letter: 'Blacklisted' (2015)

Letter to the Editors from the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blacklisted

Dear Editors,

In the mid-1970s the Mail and the Sun attacked the ‘left’ in my union branch of the CPSA (now PCS), Department of Environment and Transport HQ, for 'concealing' their political views before standing for election to the Branch Committee. They could not charge me with dissembling' – because I was an open Communist and the papers' report noted this, without naming me. In fact, against trusted and CPSA ‘Moderators’, Janet Daly of the Tory Party, and Militant Tendency, I won three successive elections for Branch Secretary.

In 1984 Gordon Leake of the Express (a self-confessed ex-BOSS member-turned-journalist) claimed that the CPSA branch at GCHQ did not exist. In fact, Diane Green, its branch secretary, a member of the BL84 faction (the one in which Communists and Socialist caucuses and non-Militant members participated) was elected to CPSA’s National Executive.

In 1996, the GCHQ Staff Association (formed after Thatcher had barred GCHQ unions), lost its appeal to the Certification Officer (a Thatcherite creation), for funds from the Thatcher fund for union postal ballots. The reason was the heavy dependence of the 'union' on Peter Marychurch, the GCHQ director, for facility time, accommodation and telephone.

D. Shepherd, 

London NW4

BA strike at Warton (1984)

From the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

For three weeks during the height of summer the local communities where the employees of the Warton Division of British Aerospace live were buzzing with talk of “the strike". This is the time of year when most of the local carnivals are held, when brass bands, rosebud competitions, Morris dancing and a host of other pleasant things are supposed to put all thoughts of discord and strife into the background. This strike, however, was not the miners' strike, which is still with us, but involved so-called white-collar staff, members of AUEW-TASS. Compared to the prolonged miners' dispute the local Warton affair inevitably looks small beer. It only just managed to reach the national press, its start and finish being briefly reported in a few inside page sentences. The idea of white collar workers with degrees and smooth, uncalloused hands withdrawing their labour was almost unthinkable a generation ago. Times have indeed changed. Earlier this year a similar strike at Westlands, the helicopter firm based at Yeovil, lasted four weeks. The GCHQ situation at least shows how civil service employees have become unionised. The writer can even recall a long dispute involving the drawing office at Handley Page in the late 1950s, but that was really exceptional for those times.

Since 1970 when certain departments at Warton organised under the TASS banner there have been a series of actions such as go-slows and one-day stoppages, so that the final resort to a strike should have surprised no one. The situation which escalated quickly into a major confrontation started with a course of computer software training. Many who were put on this course came from the production side (the factory floor), reflecting the increasing importance of newer branches of technology in comparison with traditional industrial skills. As a result of the long period during which the shop floor unions have exhibited greater militancy, newly trained operators transferred from production were found in many cases to be on higher rates of pay than workers with some years experience of computer software operation. This led the union ( TASS) to demand a pay adjustment and the employers in turn to stall, saying that this could not be considered until the next round of pay negotiations at the end of the year. TASS then applied a policy of refusing to operate what was termed "new technology”. The company- responded by suspending those who refused to perform tasks within their job descriptions. The next TASS move was rather more controversial; suspended members were temporarily appointed as union officials and thus remained on site although not working, contrary to company rules on suspensions. A strike became inevitable when this breach of rules was used as an excuse to sack workers, but a stoppage would obviously have occurred anyway had the suspension policy been carried to its logical conclusion. The point here is that the company was in fact disciplining individuals for taking part in a collective industrial action.

The strike ended after a package had been agreed including unconditional reinstatement of all sacked and suspended employees but on the question of pay only offering to accelerate talks on a new structure. It still remains to be seen whether anything will be gained in the end. At the time rumours were rife that the employers planned to reduce the workforce and had engineered the strike situation to help towards this end. The projected merger with GEC was mentioned as a possible reason for a policy of contraction. However the current situation was that short term commitments had led to contract labour being employed in certain areas. Unless it was proposed to back out of these contracts the firm could scarcely consider losing the suspended workers permanently, contract labour being considerably more expensive. There is also the brain drain of young able workers to more lucrative contract work overseas. Israel. West Germany and the United States are the most popular places at present. Here the firm is probably unable and certainly unwilling to compete. Therefore it was always likely that reinstatement would be the outcome. Where however TASS do appear to have been successful is in disproving the persistent idea, widely held outside the actual membership, that despite all the evidence accumulated over the previous 14 years, the union need not be taken seriously. One head of department put it like this: "When their wives hear that there will be no pay packet next week, they will clonk them one and that will sort it all out”.

By comparison with the miners' strike certain similarities and also certain differences can be noted. The former are the more fundamental but there is value in discussing points from both categories. There have been some strikes which arose purely from sectional rivalry and which were not in the interests of the working class. The great majority, however, are directly attributable to the subject status of the workers under capitalism. There is no other means open to the workers to gain access to the means of living than to sell their labour power to the capitalists in return for a wage or salary. There is an inevitable struggle to increase the price of this labour power (and reduce the capitalist's profit margin resulting from the difference between wages and the value of the work actually performed) sometimes by striking or otherwise producing more slowly than the employers wish. Viewed like this there is no basic difference between the Warton strike and any others.

Indeed it can be argued that in one respect Warton actually puts one over the current miners’ dispute. The NUM protest centres on pit closures and impinges on reformist politics by implicitly arguing for a different energy policy (a greater use of coals from seams harder and therefore more expensive to mine) from that favoured by the government. On the other hand TASS has compromised itself in the recent past by joining hands with the employers in begging for government funding for new aircraft projects. As the Lytham St Annes Express put it (19 July 1984):

It is perhaps ironic that many of the men and women who went on strike in Warton's "Black June" were among those who fought most fiercely to aid the “Save British Aerospace" campaign launched last year.

And while no violence occurred. Warton saw both picketing and a police presence which the strikers rightly regarded as provocative. Generally speaking lorry drivers turned back of their own accord when they saw the official picket line. The refusal of drivers to deliver aircraft fuel led to a request from the firm that different drivers be sent next time! In the main the only awkward ones (who insisted on going in) were from small local firms staffed by non-union labour.

The differences arose largely from the inexperience of the strikers. Whereas miners from bitter experience have come to expect fairly frequent strikes and make communal provisions to ease the inevitable hardship, the Warton technicians had never really faced up to the possibility and had mostly made commitments to house purchase and so on which assumed continuation of current levels of finance well into the future. At Warton lack of solidarity was also apparent although in a somewhat different form to the NUM. The problem for TASS has been its inability to recruit members evenly throughout the technical area. In areas where membership was weak, those who were in the union tended to drift back after a few days and hand in their union cards. This sort of situation has obvious dangers as it opens the way for the employers to maintain a tolerable level of work overall by transferring labour from non-union departments. Contingency plans to do this were allegedly in preparation, but the virtually complete solidarity of the strike within the drawing office and among all but the newest recruits in the stress office meant a virtual halt to design work. But greater solidarity will obviously be necessary before a longer stoppage could be contemplated.

So-called junior management were put into an unusual position by the strike. These are group leaders whose job it is to decide on the share of work within their area of responsibility. Consequently their decisions could directly lead to suspensions. Yet whatever title they are given they are clearly members of the working class in no fundamentally different position to those whose efforts they supervise. Indeed many have recognised this to the extent of trying to organise themselves within TASS in what are termed Senior Staff Branches. During the Warton strike the local senior staff branch found itself unable to join and limited itself to advising members not to undertake work normally done by those on strike. This naturally caused some resentment among the strikers who expected fuller support from fellow union members, but the membership of what is known locally as Supertass is not yet widespread enough to adequately protect individuals who may have been disciplined by the employers. The main point here is that there is a growing recognition by sections of the working class who have previously adopted superior "middle class" attitudes, that they are in fact in basically the same position in society as the rest of their class. Maybe organising within different branches (effectively not greatly different from being in different unions) is not a good idea, but a further development of this encouraging trend will reduce the friction which has developed. A revealing incident occurred when the chief stressman criticised group leaders because fewer TASS members had been suspended in his department than elsewhere. "I get the feeling that you aren't going to do this, but it’s your job to do it" he said.

One of the things highlighted by the dispute was the persistence of the idea that a solution could be found that would not only end the immediate conflict but prevent any confrontations in the future. Those who talked like this, as though the strike had arisen only because of stupidity on both sides, were ignoring the class structure of capitalism where capital and labour clash as buyers and sellers of labour power and capital lives on the difference between what labour produces and receives. An illustration of this ignorance was the objections raised to making an interim payment to bring the more disadvantaged workers up to the level of those transferred from the shop floor. This, it was argued, would merely lead to other groups claiming they were hard done by, taking action themselves and the process would never stop. Internecine struggles often take place as one section of workers seek to keep another in their place. At Warton some strikers tended to sec the issue in these narrow terms rather than as part of a larger inevitable conflict. Expanding class-consciousness. backed up with the intensive efforts on the political field by the Socialist Party, will ensure that the bitterness between various sections of the working class gives way to an unshakeable realisation of the essentially common interests of all workers everywhere.

E C Edge

Proper Gander: Hack To The Future (2022)

The Proper Gander Column from the August 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A thread which runs through the work of film-maker Peter Kosminsky is exploring how people relate to ideologies which defend power structures. For example, his 2017 drama The State described the journeys of extremist British Muslims joining ‘Islamic State’ in Syria, while his latest series The Undeclared War (Channel 4) takes a different angle by examining how cyber-warfare is used to drive political agendas.

The drama is a high-tech take on the Cold War thriller genre, set in 2024 when a cyber-war between the UK and Russian governments is escalating. The lead character is Saara, a student on work experience at GCHQ who discovers what her colleagues miss when fighting on the cyber-front against the Russian state’s hackers and opinion-makers. Much of the plot relies on characters staring at rows of code on computer screens, which is livened up by being represented as Saara searching through dreamlike tunnels and rooms. Otherwise, the script goes for verisimilitude, unusually referring to many real organisations, not only GCHQ and its Russian counterpart the Federal Security Service (FSB), but also the BBC, Twitter, BT’s Openreach, Swift and the main political parties.

It’s one of those dramas set in under-lit rooms with tense conversations underlined by sombre music, but it’s convincingly acted, carefully structured and grounded in research into cyber-warfare. The fictionalised activities of GCHQ, the FSB and their associates are based on what’s been reported in the real world, and given some dramatic licence by the near-future setting. While The Undeclared War’s plot is driven by hacks and counter-hacks into the Russian and British state’s infrastructure, along the way we see strategies used by Russia’s authorities which aim to mould people’s views and behaviour. The result is an uneasy reminder that events and how they are reported can be manipulated to suit the narrative of power-hungry states. Ironically, this feeling of doubt about what’s real is mentioned in the drama as part of what the Russian government wants to encourage.

With social media being a conduit for many people’s interpretations of events, it’s also an opportunity to shape perceptions. Two of the drama’s main characters meet when working at the Glavset ‘troll farm’ in Russia, sending at least 80 tweets a day, chipping in to chats about British politics to stir up trouble. These places do exist, and not just in Russia. In 2017, Freedom House (a think tank funded by the US government) found that 30 states worldwide hired people to ‘spread government views, drive particular agendas, and counter government critics’ on social media (tinyurl.com/4tdsevez). As anyone who uses Twitter will recognise, its discussions can be easily derailed by crass or provocative comments of the kind knowingly spread by troll farms.

How television is used to push a particular agenda is shown in the drama through the activities of Russia Global News (RGN), with a studio in London and reporters in the open. This isn’t a real TV channel, and if it were, it wouldn’t be allowed to operate in that way during a cyber-war, given that its closest real-life counterpart, RT UK, had its licence withdrawn by Ofcom following the invasion of Ukraine. One of RGN’s staff makes the fair point that criticisms that it’s a ‘propaganda mouthpiece’ are hypocritical when they come from journalists told what to say by the media corporations which employ them. RGN’s broadcasts aren’t obviously pro-Russian, but convey their message through more devious tactics. Its back-office staff set up two bogus Facebook groups (the lefty ‘Luton For Labour’ and fascist ‘Take Back Control Of Luton’), wait for people to join and then post details of a demo at the same time and place on both groups’ pages. RGN’s reporter and camera crew turn up and record the subsequent violence when far-right numbskulls meet leftist demonstrators. This plot-point has a reportedly actual precedent. In his 2016 documentary Hypernormalisation, Adam Curtis described how pro-Russian state ‘Political Technologists’ sponsored fascist groups, anti-fascist groups and parties opposed to Putin, then let it be known that this had happened so no-one could tell how real those organisations were. As one of RGN’s staff explains, the point isn’t that their news is false, ‘the point is to get people used to the idea that everything’s a lie, that there is no truth. And once they accept that, well, biggest liar wins’.

The Undeclared War is set around a future general election, another target for the Russian state’s FSB. Databases are hacked, distorting exit poll results reported by the BBC and taking people from ethnic minorities likely to vote Labour off the electoral register. RGN reports this as pro-Tory election-rigging, and fakes footage of an ensuing riot in order to spread unrest. These scenes hopefully aren’t based on actual occurrences, although there’s evidence that the Russian state has interfered with US presidential elections and the Brexit referendum, and that the US state has a long history of intervening in other countries’ elections.

Cyber-warfare as described in The Undeclared War is as much about psychology as it is about technology. The script refers to the strategy of ‘reflexive control’: manipulating an enemy’s behaviour, in this case to promote the interests of the Russian state. This approach isn’t new, but it finds new applications as technology develops. In the drama, this is shown as attempts to influence the responses to hacks and to create interpretations through TV broadcasts and social media. The Undeclared War is set in the future, but much of what it depicts is already here.

Mike Foster

A day out in Cheltenham (1988)

From the March 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

An active member of the largest trade union in the country, I was recently asked by a colleague if 1 would attend a march and rally in support of trade union rights at GCHQ Cheltenham. The event was on our doorstep and it would look bad if so large a trade union did not attend the event.

I agreed to go only to find, on the day itself, just three of us there to show the district banner. But even that was not to be — not because we were unwilling but because our District Secretary would not release the banner for the day in case it got dirty or damaged. So the banner remained decorating the wall of his office.

We arrived early for the demonstration. It was bitterly cold and raining. The meeting place was the Pump Room, a huge building set in a park. After buying coffee from the refreshment stall we decided that shelter was needed and that everyone present must be a bit mad to be milling around outside the Pump Room instead of inside. At one end of the building we found double doors with the notice General Council Members Only. So we went around to the other end of the building only to find the same notice. So we went in.

The TUC steward challenged us, then reluctantly agreed to our staying in the building since it was so cold outside. When we had stopped shivering we had a look around at the columns, arches, chandeliers, a decorated ceiling — and then we spotted the bar. We all immediately felt better for arriving early. However we were told that the bar was for providing free drinks for the General Council. Of course there was no need to worry about drinking and driving since they had luxury coach transportation. We left the building in disgust and braved the elements between the Pump Room and the nearest pub.

When we returned the march had just started. There were bands playing, hundreds of trade union banners and many thousands of dedicated trade unionists from all over the country. We spotted one of our banners from the largest union in the country and marched behind it. This district had gathered much more support — at least six people were present before we joined them.

We stayed with the march until it reached the town centre. By now, none of us were interested in attending the rally and listening to the hypocritical bleatings of the leader of the General Council of the TUC. So we sneaked off to a pub and then went home. For trade unionists it was not an inspiring day.

Mike Tavener

Letter: I. T. — for profit or for democracy? (1984)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Further to the article by ALB in the July Socialist Standard which dealt with the possible use of information technology in socialism for stock control and the communication of needs to production, it was mentioned that computer operators would be using their skills to a socially useful end for the first time. A particular example of the present destructive use of this technology is the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) at Cheltenham.

It is now known that this benign title is a euphemism for an elaborate spy set up which employs about 9,000 workers in the headquarters and throughout the world wide network of listening posts, known as the Composite Signals Organisation. The work of these establishments is that of spying on other capitalist states, particularly state capitalist Russia and its dominions in the eastern bloc. It has its counterpart in America, which is the National Security Agency, and doubtless its even more secret equivalent in Russia.

This international espionage involves the most sophisticated communications technology. At GCHQ they have in use the CRAY I, the world’s most powerful computer, capable of making 150 million calculations per second and of storing 30 billion words. The principal function of the CRAY I has been to decrypt soviet and other information, transmitted in code. As well as the world distribution of listening posts, information is also gathered via satellite surveillance. Space technology is vitally involved for both photography and for listening in to telephone and wireless communications. Apart from the CRAY I, other computers are programmed to sift through the voluminous data which becomes available. Recently the Geoffrey Prime spy case, and the banning of trade unions at GCHQ. have focussed attention on its work.

In his article, ALB illustrated how the technology involved could be adapted for the organisation of production for need, but he quite rightly dismissed the idea that world production in socialism would be controlled by a single huge computer. He stressed the practical need for different scales of productive organisation on local, regional and world levels. He suggested a hierarchy of computer networks, or to put it differently, a decentralised information system, corresponding to the different scales of productive organisation which could monitor production in relation to needs and, for example, the availability and use of materials, etc. Can I suggest that this practical use of information technology for human needs would be vastly more simple and straightforward compared with the sinister complexities of its present use?

Moreover, such an information system in socialism would be completely open with free access to any part of it. This factor is vital to democracy, which cannot operate without freely available information. Although computers and communication systems are described as "information" technology, their use under capitalism is not to make information freely available. Both state and private enterprises and the state machine itself operate in secret, with dismissal or imprisonment for those who break the rules. By itself, the concealment of information condemns a society as being undemocratic and corrupt.

Yet when everything has been said, responsibility must come back to the workers on whose skills the running of these systems depends. Their skills could be adapted so easily for the running of a sane, democratic society concerned solely with needs. Adaptation would have to take place, yet with such establishments as GCHQ and the world Composite Signals Organisation the equipment and skills are already in place for the operation of a completely open world information system as part of the practical running of production for use. To repeat ALB's conclusion, "all that is lacking is the will to change society so as to be able to take full advantage of it"

Pieter Lawrence

Tatsfield, 

Kent

Official Secrets (1988)

From the August 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present Official Secrets Act. with its notorious "catch-all" Section 2, went through all its parliamentary stages in 1911 in just 30 minutes. As a result section 2 has been variously described as "a mess”, "a blunderbuss" and now. in the present White Paper on secrecy laws, as "unsatisfactory" and "in need of reform". The proposed new legislation is likely to be much more carefully drafted and. as a consequence, potentially more of a threat to those who want to find out what the state is up to.

As the Official Secrets Act (amended in 1920) stands, it is a criminal offence to disclose or receive any official information without prior authorisation. The White Paper proposes to legislate more precisely on which kinds of information cannot be disclosed without being subject to criminal sanction. Broadly speaking those areas are defence, security and intelligence; international relations; information obtained in confidence from other governments or international organisations; information useful to criminals; and information relating to telephone tapping and the interception of mail and other communications.

Despite this narrowing down of the categories of information to be covered by the new law, no-one should be under any illusion that this will be a "freedom of information" measure. Leaks of other "less serious" material will be dealt with by means of internal civil service disciplinary measures. In other words civil servants who leak information are likely to be quietly sacked without even having the chance to defend their actions in public. Furthermore, disclosure of certain kinds of information will be subject to an absolute ban — significantly some of those areas which have caused the government embarrassment in recent years. These are telephone tapping (details of which were revealed by former MI5 officer. Cathy Massiter) and the activities of GCHQ; disclosure of any information by serving or former members of the security and intelligence services (such as Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher); and confidential information from foreign governments.

It is also worth remembering that, despite the concentration on the Official Secrets Act, there exist approximately 100 other pieces of legislation that prevent certain categories of information from being disclosed. These range from price-sensitive material to information relating to the nuclear industry and also include information on health and safety matters.

What quickly becomes apparent from a close look at the White Paper is that very little (if any) information not disclosed today is likely to be available as a result of the proposed new legislation. So, far from being the "liberalising" measure that Douglas Hurd, the Home Secretary, has claimed it to be, by tightening up the existing law the current proposals will ensure that successful prosecutions for unauthorised disclosures can be bought more easily. And after the embarrassment caused by Clive Ponting's acquittal and the interminable fiasco over Spycatcher, that is precisely what the government wants to achieve.

For, in addition to the more precise specification of what kinds of information cannot be disclosed, the legislation will seek to outlaw the defence that disclosure is "in the public interest" — successfully used by Ponting in 1985. In other words, no civil servant will, in the future, be able to speak out about official negligence, malpractice or dishonesty without risking imprisonment.

The ending of the "public interest" defence and the abolition of the "prior publication" clause (that is. that a piece of information is already in the public domain) will particularly affect newspapers. They will no longer be able to make such disclosures as those by The Observer in 1984 that MI5 was secretly black-listing certain BBC employees who were deemed subversive, nor would it be able to publish details about the recent Stalker case, on the grounds that it was "in the public interest" to do so.

Furthermore there are other new laws in the pipeline which will require senior civil servants and employees of the security services to sign contracts of employment obliging them to maintain a life-long silence about their activities. Any breach of contract would lead to loss of pension rights and the possibility that they would be sued for damages by the government.

At the same time as official information is becoming more difficult for "us" to obtain, information about individuals' private lives is becoming easier for "them" to get their hands on. partly due to the potential created by new information technology. Currently Home Office. DHSS, Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise computers are being linked together to form the "government data network", which will allow information to be exchanged between government departments' own data banks. This will allow a huge amount of information on all of us to be networked together, enabling the possible construction of comprehensive “personal profiles". Once this happens it is unlikely to be very long before a national system of identity cards is introduced.

Why is this issue of information and access to it of importance to the working class? Increasingly we are subject to a diet of information that is distorted, manipulated and censored. That affects not only what we know about the world but also how we view and understand it. For example, we are frequently told that “we" are all better off now, and yet statistics about the distribution of wealth in this country are no longer available and so we have no means of assessing such statements. Information presented to us as "news" is frequently taken directly from government press releases or “leaked" officially. In other words we are hearing the news that the government wants us to hear.

Information and control over it are about power. Attempts to deprive us of information while at the same time building up data banks on our private lives, constitute a consolidation of class power.

Janie Percy-Smith

Tolpuddle and today (1990)

From the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The annual Tolpuddle Martyrs Rally is held every July to remember six Dorset farm labourers who in 1834 were sentenced to seven years transportation to Australia for the crime of organising a combination of workers to protect and attempt to improve their wages and conditions. In the past few years Socialist Party members and supporters in and around Dorset have attended this event, organised a stall offering a wide variety of socialist literature, and generally argued the case for world socialism and against capitalism in all its forms.

The Tolpuddle Rally, in common no doubt with many other trade union and working class events, shows the positive and negative aspects of working class organisation in the 1990s. On the more positive side, there is the anger of many workers at the problems, frustrations and limitations imposed upon us by a social system based upon minority class ownership of the means of life, production for profit and the exploitation of the useful majority; our ability to struggle and organise against such conditions is also clear. The problem is that workers seem too content to endlessly struggle against particular problems, attempting to treat them in isolation from the social system which creates them.

The events that the Tolpuddle Rally commemorates took place well over 150 years ago but despite the gap in time many similar problems remain today. One such example is trade union organisation. Workers at GCHQ are still involved in the basic struggle for the right to combine to protect and attempt to improve their wages and conditions of employment, following the ban on trade union organisation in that establishment in 1984. Trade unionists as a whole have in the last few years seen the introduction of legislation designed to weaken their ability to engage in effective industrial action. These events in themselves say much about the concept of freedom and democracy in capitalist society.

The struggle for trade union rights is of course a vital one so long as society is divided into two classes: those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. For the former, trade union organisation is the only means of protection from the encroachments of capital. However, trade union organisation needs to be more about working class self-organisation and democratic control from bottom to top and less about letting leaders make decisions on our behalf. Secondly, trade unions which attach themselves to political parties which support capitalism, such as the Labour Party in Britain, risk having their effectiveness reduced when that particular party is in government. Also, the effectiveness of trade unions is very much dependent on economic conditions. Finally, whilst trade union organisation is vital for working class industrial self-defense, it is not an end in itself; workers also need to organise consciously and politically to abolish the system which is the root cause of the need to engage in this endless day-to-day struggle.

Fruitless diversions
Workers have been distracted from engaging in all-out struggle against the root cause of their problems by becoming involved in fruitless diversions and worthless causes. The two distractions that were most evident at Tolpuddle this year were the Poll Tax and state capitalism.

The collapse of state capitalist dictatorships in much of Eastern Europe has not deterred small groups of extreme dogmatists from putting forward the obscene idea that state capitalism equals socialism. The group next to the Socialist Party stall, the Revolutionary Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), were putting forward the outrageous claim that Albania is a socialist country where people live in peace, harmony and prosperity. "Hands Off Albania!" their headline screamed. The one interest socialists have in Albania is in looking forward to the day when workers in that country follow the example of other workers suffering under the heel of state capitalist dictatorships and organise to bring down that system, not as an end in itself but as a prelude to co-operating with workers in the rest of the world to establish genuine freedom and democracy.

There are hopeful signs that the end of the detestable regime in Albania might not be that far off. Whilst most workers have quite rightly rejected the idea that systems similar to the one in Albania can in any way serve the interests of the working class, groups such as the RCP(ML) have succeeded in distorting the idea of socialism in the eyes of millions of workers across the world. The fact that any person, group or party should still put forward such undiluted crap is a testimony to their inability to understand the world they live in.

As for the Anti-Poll Tax Campaign, whilst this might be seen as less dangerous than the nonsense put forward by the Albania Supporters Club, in many ways it is just as damaging if only because more workers are attracted to it. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their actual campaign. what stands out is how such reformist demands direct workers' energies towards single issue campaigns and distract their attention away from analysing and acting on the real cause of their problems. Thousands and maybe millions of workers may be drawn to this campaign but. even if it is successful in abolishing the poll tax and replacing it with something else, workers would still be left facing a hundred-and-one problems. The poll tax is not the cause of workers’ problems, which existed in abundance before it was even thought of. Policies such as non-payment could well leave workers facing action by the state which will result in them becoming more impoverished than would have been the case had paid their poll-tax bill, and the failure of such campaigns will lead to political disillusionment.

Opposition to one specific policy such as the poll tax will not create conscious socialists as this can only be achieved by a movement whose one aim is the abolition of capitalism through education, organisation and democratic and conscious political action. This is not to deny that it is the experience of capitalism that causes workers to ask fundamental questions about the society they live in and to seek explanations and alternatives. The point is that more often than not reform movements lead only to dead-ends and disillusionment.

Socialist presence

What then can be achieved by attending events such as the Topluddle Rally? Whenever workers gather, and particularly at events where ideas are being discussed and exchanged, socialists have to be involved in putting forward the basic fact that capitalism cannot be reformed to work in our interests and that alternatives such as state capitalism are no alternative at all. Unclear ideas cannot be defeated by ignoring them.

What was achieved at Tolpuddle this year on 15 July was that the socialist movement was seen as being alive and active and putting forward a clear alternative. Participation was very encouraging. Apart from members and supporters from the Bournemouth area, support came from socialists in London, Brighton, Bristol, Surrey, Kent, Wiltshire and Devon. All in all about 20 members and supporters were engaged in selling literature, distributing leaflets and engaging in political debate.

To the workers we came into contact with at Tolpuddle and to all workers throughout the world, the socialist message is loud and clear. Don't waste any more time or effort attempting to reform capitalism or in the delusion that in some part of the world state ownership has proved itself to be a more effective or humane system than the private variety of capitalism.

Instead of campaigning for this or that reform join the movement which has as its sole aim ending a social system which cannot satisfy the needs of human beings and replacing it with one that could—one based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of producing and distributing the things we need to live, production directly for use. and free access to all goods and services on the basis of self-determined need: in short, a world-wide system run by human beings for human beings.

Ray Carr

Directing "direct action" (1984)

From the March 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

In trying to fight back against the suppression of their trade union, workers at the Government Communication Headquarters at Cheltenham have complained about an implied “slur" on their patriotism. Speaking on this, Len Murray was quoted (The Times, 26 January) as saying, “It is grossly offensive for the Foreign Secretary to imply that . . . trade union membership poses any threat to national security”.

We have no reason to doubt that these members of the working class are just as patriotic as any others in Britain. Unfortunately. But what if they weren’t? While we are indulging in hypothesis, let’s suppose that a significant number of workers, say 10-15 percent of our class, had come to accept the socialist case and that this proportion was rising, as we would expect once that level had been reached. What could the government do then? Might it not then decide to leave things as they are rather than risk widespread industrial disruption as other workers, more class-conscious of course than at present, came to the aid of the GCHQ staff? Might it not be more preoccupied with how it might stop the further spread of socialist ideas than with the possibility of a tea-break stoppage at Cheltenham? Might it not be thinking of what concessions it might try in a desperate attempt to buy off the revolution?

In contrast, the emphasis on patriotism simply encourages the ruling class to play on these feelings by trying to convince workers of how “the nation" would be harmed by any moves against capitalist interests. Of course we support action by workers in defence of their union organisations. However, although it sounds contradictory, we have always argued that the way to get “something now” is not to demand this or that specific item. The way forward is to organise for socialism and face the capitalists with the prospect of losing the lot.

The Silent Conspiracy (1993)

Book Review from the August 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Silent Conspiracy: Inside the Intelligence Services in the 1990s by Stephen Dorril. (Heinemann, London, £16.99.)

The existence, and function, of the modern state is accepted and not questioned by most people. Yet the state has not existed, in the words of Frederick Engels. “from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it. which hail no notion of state power" (The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State). The state came into existence with the emergence of class society.

The modern state, therefore, exists to facilitate the running of capitalist society as smoothly and efficiently as possible, and to look after and protect the interests, internally and externally, of the owners of capital—the capitalist class. Although at various times, and in varying degrees, in different countries, industries and means of transportation have been owned and run by the state (the nationalized industries), the central core of any modern state comprises the civil service, the armed forces and the police. Such organizations are there for all to see. But many of their functions, departments and offshoots remain secret, semi-secret and largely unaccountable. They are sometimes referred to as "the secret state”. This book deals in part, in some detail, with aspects of those parts of the modern state generally described as the security and intelligence services, largely in the 1980s and into the 1990s.

There are useful chapters on MI5, MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHO). Spying on trade unionists and unions as well as organizations such as CND are discussed. With the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the subsequent decline of the Communist Party, more emphasis by the security service, as well as the so-called secret intelligence service, is now put on other “subversives” and “terrorists" within the United Kingdom, and industrial spying by foreign capitalist states, "friendly” or otherwise.

The Silent Conspiracy provides useful information for socialists, striving for a world of production for use and the satisfaction of needs, and shows how necessary it must be for a socialist majority to gain control of the state. The book demonstrates just how impossible it would be for "revolutionaries" to abolish the state by “smashing” it. A socialist majority would have to dismantle the repressive apparatus of the state and, obviously, close down such organizations as MI5. MI6 and GCHO. No doubt the buildings, computers—and their staffs—could be put to different use. And as quickly as possible after a socialist majority wins control of the State. Socialism would have no use for a coercive stale machine.

Peter E. Newell

Political Notes: Britain at war (1985)

The Political Notes column  from the July 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Britain at war

According to the government Britain has a war on its hands with an enemy so threatening that it will require the combined efforts of the navy and the air force to defeat it. Have the Argentinians sneaked back to the Falklands? Have the Russians landed in the Outer Hebrides? Have the "red" Chinese walked into Hong Kong before the referee has called time out?

No! The new enemy is drugs. A report recently published by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee claims that Britain and Europe are about to succumb to an epidemic of drug addiction. After ten days in America the MPs on the committee, frightened by the scale of the problem there and the probability that it would affect Britain similarly, have recommended that the armed forces be used to cut off drug supplies, that greater effort be made to catch, prosecute and punish drug dealers and that civil courts be empowered to strip them of their assets.

Is it too cynical to think that the government is merely trying to divert attention from its own political misfortunes and the real problems that daily confront the working class — poverty, unemployment, poor housing and cuts in services — by starting a crusade against the new "enemies within" of drugs and, of course, football hooliganism? It is significant too that both of these social problems are used as justifications for granting increased powers to the coercive forces of the state — the police and the army.

Despite all their pious rhetoric, none of the capitalist politicians has yet come up with a remotely plausible explanation for why young people take drugs or behave violently at football matches. What is needed is a recognition that these are just two more manifestations of the sense of hopelessness that capitalism engenders and no amount of draconian legislation — and especially not the use of the armed forces — can solve such problems.

Official secrets

Our old friend "National Security" has been dragged out of the closet again, this time to stop publication of a book which reveals security scandals and corruption at GCHQ, Britain's spy centre (The Observer, 2 June. 1985). The book, entitled GCHQ: the Negative Asset, was written by Jock Kane, a former GCHQ supervisor. Government lawyers claim that it contravenes the Official Secrets Act by disclosing information which could damage National Security, and have secured a civil injunction to temporarily suppress the manuscript. Since Jock Kane cannot afford to challenge the injunction and is not entitled to legal aid he has effectively been silenced and the government is unlikely to have to justify its actions publicly in the courts.

The book does not sound particularly earth-shattering, dealing as it does with "security failures" during an operation in Aden in 1967 and corrupt dealings in currency and petrol vouchers, and fraudulent overtime claims by GCHQ staff in Turkey. But clearly the government feels that the book could be politically embarrassing.

In a country where freedom of speech is claimed to be a right of citizens, this is just another example of official hypocrisy and the limitations that can be placed on workers' civil liberties when it suits our rulers. "National Security" is an all too convenient shield behind which the shady world of political intrigue and corruption of capitalism can be hidden from the view of the workers.

Murdoch’s media

The power of the mass media in shaping people's ideas and opinions is undisputed. We should therefore be very worried by the concentration of ownership and control of press and television in the hands of a very few capitalists. In May this year Rupert Murdoch. the chief executive of News Corporation. took over six American television companies from Metromedia. Taken together these stations reach nearly a quarter of all American homes.

The take-over is in conjunction with Marvin Davis, an American oil magnate. Murdoch and Davis already own 20th Century Fox. the American film and television production company. Two of the television stations they are buying are in cities where News Corporation already has major newspapers: New York, where it owns the New York Post, and Chicago, where it owns the Sun-Times. In Britain Murdoch s interests include The Sunday Times, The Times, The Sun and the News of the World. In Australia he owns two television companies - Channel Ten-10 in Sydney and Channel ATV-10 in Melbourne.

But Murdoch's latest empire building exercise has run into a few problems. Under American law foreigners (Murdoch is an Australian) are restricted to 20 per cent direct or 25 per cent indirect control of American television stations. In order therefore for the transfer of ownership to take place Murdoch would have to become an American citizen. But if he did this he would fall foul of Australian law. which restricts ownership of television channels to Australian citizens. No doubt Murdoch will get round these problems by exploiting some legal loop-hole such as hiving off his Australian television interests to form a new company and taking in Australian partners. One thing is certain: Murdoch will not have the same problems with nationality laws that workers have to contend with. Capital is truly international in character and the capitalist class is not imprisoned by national boundaries, restrictions on immigration or rules governing citizenship in the way that workers are.

Education for profit

The government's adherence to free market dogma is now to be applied to higher education in an attempt to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit in universities, according to the recently published Green Paper (The Development of Higher Education into the 1990s. Cmd. 9524).

In addition to the usual catechism about the need to raise educational standards, save money through more efficient management and so on. the Green Paper also contains proposals that will tie universities more closely to industry. It seems that at present British universities are not turning out enough scientists, technicians and engineers to provide the appropriately skilled labour power for the capitalist class. So, resources are to be diverted from the arts and humanities towards technological and vocational courses. Coupled with this is a proposal to concentrate research in large "strong" departments. This will mean that some departments or even whole universities will lose their funding.

To those who dare raise the spectre of an earlier principle, namely that higher education should be available to all those who could benefit from it. the Green Paper argues that this principle will not be breached since the 18 year old population is expected to fall by 33 per cent after 1990. although demand for higher education places will fall by only 14 per cent because of increasing numbers of women and part-time students. However, these estimates are not accepted by the Association of University Teachers or the committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals.

These proposed changes are dearly part of a cost-cutting exercise, with the added feature of moulding workers more fully to the needs of the capitalist class by marginalising those areas of study which are not seen to be directly productive. The education system was born out of the need to produce workers educated to a level sufficient to enable them to run capitalism for the capitalist class. We should not therefore be surprised that as the needs of capital change, so does the education system.

Janie Percy-Smith