Correspondence: Ought We to Back the “Left-Wing” Labour Leaders? (1931)

From the November 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Case of Mr. W. J. Brown, Ex-M.P.

A correspondent (“Robbo”) asks an interesting question. He writes : —

“If an opportunity occurs to support a man like W. J. Brown, who though not an S.P.G.B.’er, has done much to expose the hypocrisy of Labour Party leaders, would it not be advisable to do so?”

On the face of it the question probably implies rather more than our correspondent intended, for it suggests that we should support all who expose the Labour Party leaders, which would mean supporting Liberals and Tories. We are therefore no doubt safe in assuming that our correspondent selects Mr. W. J. Brown because he considers the latter’s criticisms to be essentially different from those of Liberal and Conservative opponents of the Labour Party. In other words, we are asked to believe that Mr. W. J. Brown speaks from a Socialist standpoint. Let us examine this.

It is true that Mr. W. J. Brown has often spoken harshly of some of the Labour Leaders, and has urged what he has called a Socialist policy. But obviously that alone is not enough, for there is hardly a single Labour M.P. who has not done the same. Let us probe more deeply. Does Mr. Brown expose the: Labour Leaders and their policy consistently, or only on rare and obscure occasions when it suits him? Does he show up the uselessness of the Labour Party programme? And does he do this from the standpoint of Socialism?

What is his political history? In 1923 and 1924 he fought West Wolverhampton as Labour Party candidate. But there was no criticism then of those who now draw his fire. On the contrary, in 1924 he had Mr. MacDonald on his platform during the election, soliciting votes for him. It was after the general strike that Mr. Brown launched out on his career of “left-wing” criticism of his leaders. In 1928 at the Labour Party Conference he vigorously assailed the programme “Labour and the Nation,” which was under discussion. Much of what he said was true and might have come from a Socialist. Listen to this : —

“I would say this, that if the whole of this document were carried into effect—and that will not be done by one government or many governments—the result would he, not Socialism, but a State-subsidised Capitalism, which is an entirely different thing.

My advice to the Conference would be … above all to make this clear—that we are in earnest about Socialism, not as a thing for subsequent generations, not as a thing for perorations for our speakers, not as a thing for the dim and distant future, but for this generation to achieve.” (Conference Report, p. 207.)

Mr. Brown’s speech showed, that he had a fairly clear grasp of the nature of the Labour Party programme, and was fully aware what the game was the Labour Leaders were playing. He saw, and said, that they were using the discontent of the workers as a means of getting into office, without any intention whatever of doing other than try to patch up the capitalist system. But to what use did he put his knowledge, his undoubted charm of manner, and his gifts of oratory? The subsequent general election, in 1929, shows only too clearly. Instead of using the election to denounce the Labour Leaders and their capitalist programme, he played exactly the same game as they did. Instead of showing that he was “in earnest about Socialism” by fighting on a Socialist programme, he fought on the very programme he had denounced. His election address boldly displayed the announcement that he was the “Labour Candidate,” committed, therefore, to “Labour and the Nation” and “state-subsidised capitalism.” It was full of all the usual capitalist reforms.

Did he expose the Labour Party Leaders? Not at all. A passage of considerable length was devoted to the wonderful things Mr. MacDonald was supposed to have done for disarmament, describing him as the “Peace Leader of the World.” Did he advocate Socialism in his address? Not by a single word. The only reference to anything other than reforms is the smug phrase, “The Labour Party stands for a new and more Christian and Social Order,” intended obviously to catch the religious vote. The dominant note of the whole address is the emphasised assertion, “Labour is the only alternative to another 5 years of Conservative misrule.”

During the subsequent Labour Government Mr. Brown, as General Secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association, came into conflict with the Labour Ministers owing to the repeated reductions in Civil Service pay. So he resigned from the Parliamentary Labour Party, but not from the Wolverhampton Labour Party, or from the I.L.P. But was it in order to support Socialism against the Labour Leaders? Again No. It was to join Mosley’s Party, whose Manifesto he helped to draft, and to which he added his signature. (Published early this year under the title “A National Policy.”) This document expressly excludes from consideration the very question about which Socialists are concerned; “Questions of the ultimate goal of society arc excluded by the very urgency of the problem which confronts us ” (page 6). It was not an appeal to Socialists to work for Socialism, but an appeal to “employers and workers” to “meet the emergency by a common effort.” Underlying it throughout was the policy of workers and employers uniting to attack one section of the exploiting class, the bankers. That policy of uniting with the capitalists would on any ground be dangerous for the workers, but Mr. Brown goes further and preaches the deadly doctrine that workers and employers have interests in common. This, if accepted, would destroy the basis of all working-class organisation.

Having had second thoughts about the expediency of joining the Mosley Party, we next find Mr. Brown, in August of this year, associating with prominent Liberals, Tories, and Fascists to issue a document, “The World Crisis and Unemployment,” on behalf of the “Financial Freedom Committee.” It contains nothing whatever about Socialism, but preaches salvation by means of currency juggling.

“The world’s industrial plight can be relieved within a few weeks if the Governments of all nations agree to destroy the Money Monopoly. . . The Government should nationalise the Bank of England and and put an end to the circulation of the present independent promissory notes and substitute for them Treasurv notes which are backed by the whole wealth of the nation.”

So speak the quacks. And with them Mr. Brown. Can Mr. Brown deny that his associates are frankly determined that what they are pleased to miscall “the national wealth” shall never on any account cease to be what it is now, i.e., private property? In other words, that they are open enemies of Socialism?

On August 22nd, in a speech at Wolverhampton, reported in the “Times” (24th August), Mr. Brown was attacking the Labour Government and still demanding a united front of employers and workers against “the parasites who prey upon both” ; a false but plausible device for misleading the workers.

So far we have not seen Mr. Brown’s 1931 election address, but he repeatedly stated that he intended to fight as an “independent” candidate, as indeed he did, “on the same programme as I fought at the last election.”

The Socialist Party stands for Socialism. Nothing but confusion would result from supporting Mr. Brown or any other of the ambitious politicians who delude the workers into the belief that the social problem can be solved without Socialism.

Besides, if we ought to support Mr. Brown because he exposes the Labour Party Leaders, we should also have to support them for exposing Mr, Brown.

P. S.

Editorial: The Labour Party and the Future. (1929)

Editorial from the June 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the time of writing, a few of the Election results have yet to be announced, but the general position is clear enough. The Labour Party will be the largest of the three Parties in the new House of Commons, and although lacking a clear majority over the other two parties, it will presumably take over the Government with the tacit consent of the Liberals, more or less as in 1924.

The Labour Party will have 288 seats, as compared with 251 Tories and 54 Liberals. As regards voting strength in the constituencies they polled 8,337,407 votes, as against 8,575,532 given to Tory candidates and 5,238,054 to Liberals.

In 1924 81 per cent. of the electorate went to the poll, as compared with about 79 per cent. this year. In the meantime the electorate has grown from about 20 million to over 28 million, largely owing to the extension of the franchise to millions of young women.

In the last House a clear majority (over 60 per cent.) of the Labour M.P.s were members of the I.L.P., although the number actually financed by the I.L.P. was of course much smaller. In the present Election, out of 56 candidates, for whom the I.L.P. accepted financial responsibility, 37 were successful (two results have not yet been declared, but are not likely to be I.L.P. successes). How many of the other Labour M.P.’s are also members of the I.L.P. it is not yet possible to say.

The Communists, with their Russian money, paid very dearly for an elementary lesson in electioneering. They sent 25 candidates to the polls and scored 25 failures. In 21 constituencies they forfeited their deposit through failing to poll one-eighth of the votes. Out of the 25 constituencies, seven (including Saklatvala’s seat at Battersea North) have been fought by the Communists on one or more previous occasions. In every one of these seven constituencies the Communist vote declined, in spite of the big increase in the size of the electorate. Saklatvala’s vote fell from 15,096 to 6,554 and the loss in the other six constituencies was in most cases very heavy. In the other areas their vote was insignificant.

The lesson they had hitherto not learned is that votes for a Communist who fights on a reformist programme are not votes for Communism. Their success at Motherwell a few years ago, and more recently at Battersea, was possible only because they received Labour votes owing to the absence of an official Labour candidate. (In face of the vast increase in the Labour vote and the insignificant Communist vote, it is amusing to recall that the Communist excuse for supporting Labour in 1923 was that the Labour Party would be discredited and the Communists would gain at their expense.)

The I.L.P. long ago recognised that they must carefully avoid anything which would cause the Labour Party to oppose the I.L.P. candidates. Between elections the Maxtons and Wheatleys and other incipient leaders of revolt can produce their thunder on the left as noisily as any communist. But election time finds them hastily deserting their rebel colours and rallying round the Labour Party and fighting as Labour candidates.

Is It Socialism.

What is the real significance of the Labour vote? Does it mean that 8 million people want Socialism? The Daily Herald says that it does. In the editorial of June 1st we read the following :—

  This great appeal to the people has shown that Socialism has no terrors for millions of men and women in this country of all classes and callings. The magnificent results we record to-day are an earnest that at no very distant date the banners of Socialism will be carried to that final victory of which the present triumph is only a prelude.

Without in the least imputing dishonesty to the writer of that passage, we confidently assert that his view is hopelessly wrong. The Election shows that 8 million people are not afraid of the word Socialism; it shows that millions of workers have satisfied themselves that men and women of their own class are at least as capable administrators as the men of the ruling class and their professional politicians. That is all to the good, but it is very far removed from a desire for Socialism. The working class have lost their horror of the word Socialism, but they have hardly begun to understand the meaning of the word. To them Socialism means the administration of capitalism by people calling themselves Labour or Socialist. And therein lies the problem which no Labour Government can solve. We deal elsewhere in this issue with the failure of Labour Government in Queensland. We prophesied that failure and with absolute confidence we prophecy the similar failure of Labour Government here. No matter how able, how sincere, and how sympathetic the Labour men and women may be who undertake to administer capitalism, capitalism will bring their undertaking to disaster. As in Queensland, those who administer capitalism will find themselves sooner or later brought into conflict with the working class. Like their Australian colleagues the Labour Party here will find themselves in a cleft stick. Having no mandate to replace capitalism by Socialism, they have pledged themselves to solve problems which cannot be solved except by doing the one thing for which they have no mandate. That thing is the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production and distribution, and its replacement by common ownership : the production of goods for use not for sale; the discarding of all the paraphernalia of wages, prices, and profits. The millions of Labour voters who are not afraid of the word Socialism because they do not know what it means, would regard as absurd and Utopian common ownership and the production of goods for use. Yet it is in sober truth the only solution for the pressing economic problems of the day. Even those workers and their “left wing” leaders, like J. Maxton, W. J. Brown and others, who are prepared to make inroads into the possessions of the capitalist class, have still another great lesson to learn. They have still to learn that the use of political power for the purpose of forcing capitalism to function in a manner beneficial to the workers is a temporary and a dangerous expedient. It will produce as many and as grave new problems as those it solves. Capitalism is a system, the parts of which are interdependent. You cannot remedy the evils and yet keep the system, and you cannot abolish the system without a mandate from a Socialist electorate. This is the dilemma which faces the Labour Party. They are pledged to solve a problem, but lack the means of its solution.

Letter: Answer to Correspondent (1929)

From the June 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The correspondent who asked how to vote is referred to the article in this issue “A Push for Socialism.“

50 Years Ago: Unemployment and the General Election (1979)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has been agreed by the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Labour Party that the main question on which the election is to be fought is unemployment and the possibility of finding a cure for it.

Mr Baldwin in a speech at Bristol on April 25th was content to point out that even if some 10 per cent of the workers are unemployed there is great comfort to be derived from the knowledge that the other 90 per cent are working and “are enjoying a higher standard of life than has ever been enjoyed before.” He also expressed a modest hope that given freedom from social "hurricanes and cataclysms” unemployment will be “reduced to normal by a natural process in three or four years”.

The Liberals, knowing full well that they are not in the least likely to receive a majority of seats in the new House of Commons, are fighting on Mr Lloyd George's schemes for providing work for the unemployed.

The Labour Party have pointed out that neither in principle nor in details, is there anything new in Mr Lloyd George’s schemes. The Labour Party, with a much better prospect of securing a majority than the Liberals, are equally confident that their development schemes, coupled with nationalisation of various industries and transport services will secure even more than a mere reduction to normal. They will not be content with anything far short of total abolition.

What all three parties and their advisers on economic questions persistently ignore is that the “natural process” referred to by Mr Baldwin operates not in the direction of reducing unemployment; but in the reverse direction.

(From an unsigned article “The parties and the Election”, Socialist Standard May 1929)

Socialism and the General Election. (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fellow Workers.—

The Capitalist class who, through their nominees, rule this country to-day, decreed that a General Election shall take place, and you are now called upon to cast your votes.

Many candidates are put forward, each claiming to serve the interests of the bulk of the population. The history of the last hundred years or so has been in the main the record of alternative Liberal and Tory Government, and the result to your class has been a gradual worsening of conditions. Unemployment has grown steadily until it has now reached a permanent level well over a million. In every election both Liberals and Tories have brought forward proposals alleged to be “certain cures” for the evil, but time has always shown the inadequacy of their remedies.

In the present election the past will be repeated and again you will have the “certain” remedy put forward.

These remedies are put forward to catch your vote, because you are the majority of the nation and can put in or put out whom you wish. Beware, therefore, of golden promises, and do not too readily accept assertions as evidence, nor be bewildered into agreement by the figure juggling of artful politicians.

Your position is simple, and your attitude is clear if you will but give a little time and thought to certain basic truths. Briefly your position to-day is as follows :—

1. You are poor to-day .and haunted with the dread of unemployment because you do not own the means for producing wealth. In consequence you depend for your living upon the wishes and the whims of employers.
2. The employers take no active part in the work of production, yet its fruits are reaped by them.
3. The employers pile up great riches for themselves by paying you less as wages and salaries than the value of what you make by your work. This must be true, otherwise they could not enjoy the good things of life without working whilst you are hard put to it to live at all though spending your lives in toil. .
4. There is no natural or supernatural law that gives to any one the power to take land or the things on the land from his fellows. Social laws are made by man, and in civilized society by the rulers, and these rulers have been and are the owners of property, the employers. The laws they have made have spread a mantle of rightness over their exploitation of the worker. To use the labour of another in order to achieve riches for oneself is to exploit that other, and the employers, or capitalists, live by the exploitation of the workers.
5. The Capitalist are one class, owning the means of production, and having them set in motion only when profit is expected either immediately or at a later date. The workers are another class, owning in the main nothing but their power to work, and compelled to sell this working power to the Capitalist in order to live. These two classes make up the vast bulk of the population.
6. The interests of these two classes are opposite interests. The Capitalist aims at securing as much production as possible with the least employment of labour—that is with the smallest expenditure of wages. The interest of the worker, on the contrary, is to obtain as much work as possible and as high wages as he can. The ultimate interest of the Capitalist is the obtaining of secure and peaceful control of the whole of Society by a small group living in magnificent style and employing the minimum amount of workers. What then is to become of the rest of the population is the problem that has so far eluded the politicians. The ultimate interest of the workers is to remove from their backs the useless drones they have fed for so long. In other words, to obtain control of the means of production they operate, and, along with that, the control of all social machinery.
7. Between Capitalist and worker, therefore, there is not and cannot be an identity of interests. One is an exploited, the other an exploiting class. The remedy for the social troubles that no soft words can hide does not lie in the direction of a harmony of interests. The interests conflict at the base and, consciously or not, there is in society a struggle between the two main groups of the population which, in a minor way, breaks out in the form of strikes, that are met by ruthless repression. Neither by holiness nor by hellishness is there a way out, leaving untouched the fundamental cleavage into classes based upon the private ownership of the main resources of wealth production.
8. The way out then lies in one direction only, the revolutionizing of society; the overturning of its base; the converting of the means of production into the common property of society, commonly owned and democratically controlled by and in the interests of the whole people. The emancipation of the wage slaves from their age-long thralldom.

This is where the Socialist Party stands. We do not advocate reform, we advocate revolution. Reforms in the main are an effort to hide and not to get rid of evils. At the best they have only a temporary effect, and the more determined the workers show themselves in the movement to take from the Capitalists their power, that is to say, the more dangerous to the Capitalist regime the workers become the more ready will the Capitalist be to put forward reforms in the effort to stem the revolutionary flood.

The control of society resides in Parliament, the centre of State power to-day. To get this power the workers must send delegates to Parliament in sufficient numbers to obtain their majority. The Capitalists know this, and use their utmost resources to ensure that their nominees shall be returned. Where they fail they buy over the workers' representatives by promises and praise.

The success of the Capitalist efforts to buy over the workers' nominees depends upon the attitude of the workers. Where the worker votes for a man and not for principles then the buying of the man is the buying of the followers. Herein lies the danger and the curse of leadership. Where, however, the workers vote for principles only, then the buying of delegates ultimately becomes a problem beyond even the vast wealth of the Capitalists.

We therefore urge the workers to obtain a firm grasp of the simple facts of their slave position and the way out. To send delegates to Parliament to carry out their instructions and under their control.

In the present election the Socialist Party are putting forward candidates whose object is to work for the ushering in of Socialism as speedily as possible; to remove the Capitalists from power, not to compromise with them.

Remember no Heaven-sent Saviour is coming to lead you out of your difficulties. The problem is yours, and you must solve it for yourselves.

“The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself."

We are a group of working men and women. We publish a monthly paper, the “Socialist Standard," in which the position of the Party is set forth month by month with views and criticisms on various matters that arise. We invite you to read it carefully and question our speakers so that you may thoroughly understand what we are and where we are making for. We know that once you understand us you will be with us and help in the work of establishing Socialism.

The Parties and the Election. (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Party of "Deeds"—The Conservatives.

The Conservatives are fighting the election on their past record. They survey the existing condition of this country and ask you, the electors, to agree that it is good. In the words used by Mr. Baldwin in his speech at Drury Lane Theatre on April 18th—

  You may judge us by what we have done.
(Reported in “Daily Telegraph,” 19 April, 1929.)

It has been agreed by the Conservatives, the Liberals and the Labour Party that the main question on which the election is to be fought is unemployment and the possibility of finding a cure for it. Mr. Baldwin in a speech at Bristol on April 25th (See “Times" Report, 26th April) was content to point out that even if some 10 per cent. of the workers are unemployed there is great comfort to be derived from the knowledge that the other 90 per cent, are working and “are enjoying a higher standard of life than has ever been enjoyed before." He also expressed a modest hope that given freedom from social “hurricanes and cataclysms" unemployment will be “reduced to normal by a natural process in three or four years."

This kind of pledge is as safe as any of the ambiguities produced by Old Moore. What, to begin with, is normal? When an unemployed army of about 1¼  millions exists over a period of some eight years or more it is “normal." And what is to prevent the Conservative Government, whenever it may wish to do so, from producing the requisite “social hurricanes," as in 1926, by engineering large industrial disputes? And even without that rather drastic method, they can fall back on the simple device of “abolishing unemployment" by disentitling claimants for unemployment pay and passing them on to the Poor Law, or giving the older workers a meagre pension to secure their withdrawal from the labour market.

The Labour Party and the Liberals—The Parties of "Promises."

The Liberals, knowing full well that they are not in the least likely to receive a majority of seats in the new House of Commons, the fighting on Mr. Lloyd George’s schemes for providing work for the unemployed. Whereas Mr. Baldwin believes that “by a natural process" the volume of unemployment will be reduced to normal in three or four years, Mr. Lloyd George promises to secure the same result in a year.

The Labour Party have pointed out that, neither in principle nor in details, is there anything new in Mr. Lloyd George's schemes. The Labour Party, with a much better prospect of securing a majority than the Liberals, are equally confident that their development schemes, coupled with Nationalisation of various industries and transport services, will secure even more than a mere reduction to normal. They will not be content with anything far short of total abolition.

What is the “ Natural Process”?

What all three Parties and their advisers on economic questions persistently ignore is that the “natural process" referred to by Mr. Baldwin operates not in the direction of removing unemployment, but in the reverse direction. The “natural process" of capitalism is in the direction of greater and greater productivity; more wealth produced by fewer workers; machines replacing men. This is the natural process everywhere at work, and constantly aggravating the problem. Given capitalism, that is the private ownership of the means for producing and distributing wealth, and the continued tendency for that ownership to be concentrated more and more in the hands of the wealthy few, unemployment is not to be solved by any of the familiar devices of increased production, greater efficiency, more exports, or the purchase of home produced goods. The position in the coal mines of this country illustrates the factors at work in every land and throughout industry. Between March, 1928, and March, 1929, coal exports increased, and coal production increased by nearly 500,000 tons a week (nearly 10 per cent.), but the number of miners employed decreased by 20,000 (2 per cent.) (See Board of Trade Journal 28th March).

The wealth of the capitalist world is in the hands of a few. They own the factories, and they alone decide whether and when those factories shall be used for the production of goods. The luxurious living and sheer waste of the capitalists and their Governments are far outstripped by the ever-growing powers of production. Whatever name Liberals or the Labour Party may give to their schemes, they can only keep off the labour market the ever-growing army of men thrown out of employment through rationalisation, new machinery, etc., by various forms of wasteful expenditure, private and State charity, whether these take the form of relief works, a huge standing Army and Navy, expenditure on wars and battleships, hordes of officials, or unnecessary domestic servants. That is not a solution of the unemployment problem. Unemployment can be removed only by the abolition of capitalism.

Unemployment not the cause of poverty.

There is, however, a more important question. These Parties are all content to fight the election on the issue of unemployment. The Socialist Party alone is not. Poverty is not caused merely by unemployment. The working class in general are poor, in work or out, and in every part of the world where capitalism prevails. When Mr. Baldwin says that the workers enjoy "a higher standard of life than has ever been enjoyed before,” he blandly ignores the fact that the workers' standard of life is far below the ordinary standard of the privileged class of non-producers—the capitalist class. They own and control the land, the railways, the factories, mines, ships, and other means of producing and distributing wealth. Out of the whole vast wealth of this country it is estimated by Professor Henry Clay (Liberal) that "it is probably safe to say that over two-thirds of the National capital is held by less than 2 per cent. of the people.” (“Times," 24th March, 1925).

The working class are the majority of the population. They produce the wealth and organise industry from top to bottom. They provide the sinews, the muscles and the brains of industry.

The capitalists are the small minority, but they own and control industry. Of the goods produced each year by the working class, Professor Clay states that 94.5 per cent, of the population have only 56 per cent. of the whole annual income. That is to say that nearly half the National income is enjoyed by 5.5 per cent of the population. (See "Times,’’ March 24th, 1925.)

That is why the workers are poor.

What is Socialism?

We stand for Socialism, which means the transfer of the means of production from the hands of the few to society as a whole, involving the ending of the whole system based on a class of owners who enjoy but do not produce, and a class of producers who do not own. 

The method of doing this is for the working class majority to understand Socialism, organise in the Socialist Party and vote their delegates into control of the House of Commons. Nothing short of Socialism will abolish working class poverty and unemployment. But Socialism will at the same time solve all the economic problems which are the subject matter of the long and intricate programmes about which these three big parties are disputing.

They fight this and every election on plans to remedy some of the effects of capitalism. The Socialist Party fights for the abolition of capitalism.

Our First Prospective Candidate For Parliament. (1929)

Party News from the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a meeting of the Battersea Branch, Comrade Barker, of the Tooting Branch, was adopted as prospective candidate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain for Battersea.

It now remains for those who desire to see our candidate go to the polls to give practical effect to their wishes by swelling the Parliamentary Fund to the required dimensions.

As we pointed out originally, our candidates will go to the polls if we are provided with sufficient funds to carry the business through.

Our First Prospective Candidate For Parliament. (1929)

Party News from the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a member of the Battersea Branch, Comrade Barker, of the Tooting Branch, was adopted as prospective candidate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain for Battersea.

It now remains for those who desire to see our candidate go to the polls to give practical effect to their wishes by swelling the Parliamentary Fund to the required dimensions.

As we pointed out originally, our candidate will go to the poll if we are provided with sufficient funds to carry the business through.

The Socialist Message. (1929)

From the March 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A General Election is coming and all parties are using their resources to the utmost in the effort to persuade the workers that one or other of the programmes put forward will meet the difficulties that face the workers to-day. These difficulties are not new; they are simply intensified as time goes on.

Leading advocates of the two older parties, Liberal and Tory, admit the difficulties, but claim that they are an inevitable and unalterable consequence of civilised society. For this reason these two parties seek only to remedy the most glaring evils whilst leaving unaltered the present basis of society. Each of the two parties have had turn and turn about in supreme control of social affairs in this country, and each in turn has failed to develop any line of attack that made, or would make, any appreciable difference in the poverty, unemployment, and general insecurity and misery of the workers' lot.

The Labour Party, now the Opposition in Parliament, plead for time to carry out their ever-lengthening list of reforms. Their leading advocates claim that they are eminently practical people and repudiate the charge that they aim at revolutionising the basis of society. Their conduct, during the short period of Labour Government gave a clear indication of their intention to follow in the footsteps of the two older parties where matters affecting the basic organisation of society were concerned.

An examination of the programme of any one of these three parties leaves the worker bewildered with the mass of intricate matter concerning taxation, banking, etc., of which he must acquire an accurate knowledge if he wishes to correctly estimate the more or less usefulness of one programme against another, unless he is prepared to take one or the other at its own valuation. And yet the position is a relatively simple one when not deliberately overloaded with useless and cunning statements and arguments.

Wealth (food, clothing, and so forth) is produced as a result of the application of human energy to natural resources in one form or another. To produce this wealth, the means of production (land, machinery, and the like) and human energy are needed. At present the employers as a class own the means of production, and the workers as a class supply the human energy, mental and manual.

In return for their labour the workers receive, at the best of times, little more than represents the food, clothing and so forth necessary to keep them in fit condition to go on working and bring up a family to replace them in the workshops. At the worst of times, the wage is inadequate for even the bare needs of life, as the condition of large masses of workers have given pitiful testimony; for instance, the position of large sections of land-workers at different times and the present position of the coal miners.

The land the workers work upon, the machinery they use, and the articles they make do not belong to the workers, but belong to the employers who pay the wages. The difference between the value of the wealth the workers produce and the value of the wages they receive back in payment for their work represents a surplus of wealth which enables the employers, who take it, to live without working.

Broadly speaking, the whole of society is made up of the two classes—Employers and Workers. The worker, on the average, owns nothing but his power to work; the employer owns everything. When a worker sells his working power to an employer he is in effect selling himself, as he must work on the conditions laid down by the employer or lose his employment. Without employment the worker, with few exceptions, is without the means of living and must die of starvation or allow himself to be put in jail under some pretext. However thinly it may be disguised, the ultimatum the employing class present to the working class to-day is “ Work under the conditions we lay down or die.” The workers are therefore slaves. They are slaves to the employing class who determine how, where, and why they shall live.

The object of production to-day is to sell goods for profit so that the employers may have a surplus to take. The markets of the world for the sale of goods are limited. New machinery and improved methods of production fill these markets ever more rapidly as time goes on. When markets are filled production slackens and workers are thrown out of employment. While production is for the market unemployment will continue grow to even larger dimensions. The million and a half that have been unemployed in this country for years are still awaiting the constantly promised return of prosperity, which, like the thaw we were waiting for during the recent frosty spell, keeps taking the wrong turning. In spite of this the Blue Train and the First Class Liner still carry their cargoes of people able to enjoy the best of life.

Apart from unemployment, which is the direct outcome of the conditions mentioned above, the employers are interested in always having on hand a large body of unemployed in order to keep down and defeat the workers’ demands for an improved standard of living by dangling before individual workers the fact that there are other workers waiting at the factory gate wolfishly waiting to take their jobs. This explains the reason for the regularly organised campaigns to induce the workers to bring into the world large families and the spasmodic interest of the State in child welfare, during these times of widespread unemployment.

To present society the name of "Capitalism” has been given because every complete process of production commences with the investment of capital—wealth invested for the purpose of profit. It has at its root the acceptance of the private ownership of the means of production as the normal and unalterable basis of productive operations. While this condition remains present evils in the mass must continue and flourish. Capitalism, therefore, and all parties that accept its basic condition, has no solution for the workers' troubles. It can only dabble here and there with some of the minor evils.

To the workers who read this article we would address ourselves in a more personal manner.

Are you satisfied to let things go on in the same old way? You are slaves to-day because you allow your masters to own the things you produce and thereby control in the main your lives.

You associate together to produce all things, the good and the bad. Your masters take no part in production, yet they take what you have produced. In return for the labour you spend in the field, the factory and the workshop you receive, at the best of times, only a beggarly pittance that does little more than keep you alive and enable you to bring up children to replace you in slavery. Even when in work you are always watchful lest, through no fault of your own, you lose your job. Out of work, your lot is miserable indeed—often a more or less rapid journey to the grave through insufficient nourishment. In numbers you are the overwhelming majority of the nation, and yet you hand over to a relatively small group of masters the product of your work.

There is no absolute law of Nature decreeing that one man shall have and another shall not have. The land of this country was never given by Nature, nor by any mysterious power, as a free gift to anyone. Those who hold it to-day inherit what their forerunners had taken. And those who hold the means of producing wealth obtained possession in a like manner though the possession is sanctioned and sanctified by legal forms.

There is no common interest between you and your masters within the present social conditions. It is their interest to extract from you as much wealth as you can produce for the lowest outlay in wages, as by this means they wax wealthy. It is your interest to obtain possession of the means of production with which you produce wealth in order to produce wealth for your own benefit, letting the idler and parasite go to work for his bread.

It is your class who organise the whole of production to-day—those who get a living by selling their mental and manual energies to the capitalist class. It can be organised to-morrow for the equal benefit of all by the same class that organises it to-day—your class.

Do not heed the smooth-tongued orator who would tell you to work in harmony with your masters for your mutual benefit. The capitalist lives by the exploitation of the worker. Between exploiter and exploited there can be no harmony of interest. When exploitation as a system is done away with, then there will be neither exploiter nor exploited.

Between you and the possession of the means of production stand the laws of capitalism, and behind these laws stands the State—the organised oppressive power of the ruling class. Before you can obtain control of the means of production you must, as a first step, capture the State power. This State power is centred in Parliament and the group in a majority in Parliament has the power to control society.

In the evolution of capitalism the capitalist has gradually relinquished one after the other the functions he once performed, and has therefore been compelled to delegate these functions to officials he pays. Along with this the size and complicated nature of modern society have compelled him to concede to the workers facilities which place within their reach the means of ousting the capitalists from their privileged position if and when the workers wish to do so.

Circumstances therefore compel you, if you wish to get out of slavery, to send delegates to Parliament to capture the control of affairs.

In choosing your delegates, you must remember it is servants you want, not masters nor leaders.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain is a political party of working men and women organised together for the purpose of getting control of political power in order to introduce Socialism. Its Parliamentary candidates arc selected as fitting tools for the job. Its members control the party throughout and determine, by majority decisions, the policy of the organisation. This policy is set forth in all the literature the party publishes. The party is, controlled entirely by its members and is not at the beck and call of either a place-hunting individual or a group of self-seekers.

If you are tired of the chains of slavery, join the party and thereby give us your aid in the work of speeding out of existence the system that oppresses us all.

The earth and its fullness is for no man's private possession. Let the workers of the world determine that it shall be for the equal benefit of all.

Gilmac

50 Years Ago: After the election (1979)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

How and why is it that the majority of the people are worse off than their employers—the few? Mainly because the workers do not realise that their vote plays so important a part in influencing their conditions of life. Let us remember that whatever government has been in power its influence has been used, for instance, in deciding industrial disputes, even to the extent of using the police, soldiers etc; and don’t forget that those who have to work for a living are those who have the majority of votes and are themselves responsible for having elected the governments which have used their power against the workers . . . But if the majority have no decided views or are divided, the capitalist minority will go on as now, turning the world in the way which is very comfortable for them, but not for us. We tell you the way out, and we are sure that if you think about it you will sooner or later agree with us. You have tried Conservative, Liberal and Labour. We ask you to try socialism instead.

(From an article “To wives, mothers and others” by Hilda McClatchie, Socialist Standard June 1929)

Our First Prospective Candidate For Parliament (1929)

Party News from the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a meeting of the Battersea Branch, Comrade Barker, of the Tooting Branch, was adopted as prospective candidate of the Socialist Party of Great Britain for Battersea.

It now remains for those who desire to see our candidate go to the polls to give practical effect to their wishes by swelling the Parliamentary Fund to the required dimensions.

As we pointed out originally, our candidate will go to the polls if we are provided with sufficient funds to carry the business through.

50 Years Ago: The Coming General Election (1979)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The year 1929 is the most tremendously important year the world has ever seen. Perhaps that is an overstatement. It could be the most profoundly momentous year the human race has experienced. This year that portion of humanity which inhabits the British Isles will be asked to decide whether it wishes the reign of King Capital to continue or that it should come to an end. The preliminary call has gone forth, and those who say it should end and a saner social system established have banded themselves together in an organisation called the Socialist Party. We cannot, honestly speaking, say the response has been overwhelming. Had it been of sufficient magnitude, the year 1929 could have been the most epoch-making year in the history of mankind.

If . . . you decide that Socialism is desirable and practicable, do not fold your arms and wait for something to happen, but do the only logical thing and join our organisation and help to get it.

(From an article “Imagination” by W. T. Hopley, Socialist Standard. February 1929).

The Communist Party and the General Election. (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

As usual, the Communist Party is trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Since its formation it has repeatedly denounced the Labour Party leaders and programmes, and at the same time, in obedience to its Russian paymasters, has alternately supported and opposed Labour Party candidates. In 1921 it ran a candidate at Caerphilly against the Labour Party candidate, and opposed MacDonald at Woolwich. At the 1922 election it first put forward candidates in opposition to Labour Party candidates; then withdrew them at the last moment and told the workers to vote "Labour." That year at Gorton Mr. Harry Pollitt was put forward as Communist candidate against Mr. John Hodge. Mr. Pollitt denounced the Labour candidate and his programme, but in due course he withdrew and “held large and successful meetings in the constituency, urging the workers to vote for Mr. Hodge." (See the “Communist Daily," November 13, 1922).

In their official Election Manifesto this year ("Class against Class”) they admit that their attitude has again changed.

  Prior to the formation of the Labour Government in 1924, the Communist Party, although the leaders of the Labour Party were as treacherous then as now, advised the working class to push the Labour Party into power. . . (page 9).

Now, although they describe the Labour Party as "the third Capitalist Party” (p. 8) and say “no Party can serve two masters” (p. 7) they have already declared their willingness to support that Party, i.e., to serve two masters.

In a statement issued to the Press on April 13th of this year, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party made the following declaration (“Sunday Worker,” April 14th).

  A Labour Government at the present day would be a Government of capitalist rationalisation, only differing from the Tory and Liberal Parties as to the best methods whereby rationalisation could be brought about at the expense of the workers.
 It is, therefore, no longer possible for the Communist Party to advise the workers to give unconditional support to Labour candidates, even in constituencies not being contested by the Communists.
 The Communist Party is advising the workers only to vote for such Labour candidates as are prepared to accept a policy of minimum working class demands, involving the repudiation of Mondism, of imperialism, and of the policy of trade union disruption now being actively operated in the trade union movement.
  Unless these demands are accepted the Communist Party will advise the workers to refrain from voting.

The policy of asking a Labour candidate to endorse “a policy of minimum working class demands, etc.,” as a condition of giving him their vote is a piece of the pettiest election trickery. If the candidate wants their votes and chooses to give a pledge in order to get them, he can do so without the least danger of ever being compelled to carry out the pledge. The pledge itself in its terms is so general as to be largely meaningless.

But to see how dishonest or foolish the Communist Party is we need only consider the result of their applying a similar face-saving expedient in earlier contests.

This same policy was applied at the 1922 General Election. When Mr. Pollitt withdrew from the contest at Gorton, the Openshaw Branch of the Communist Party put a series of questions on unemployment to Mr. John Hodge in order to decide whether or not they could support him. The official organ of the Communist Party (“Communist Daily,” 13th November, 1922) reported that “It is not clear from the Labour candidate’s reply whether he agrees with this point in the Communist Party’s programme or not.” Nevertheless they supported him.

In other words, their attempt to excuse their support of Hodge and their betrayal of the workers by seeking a pledge from him broke down because he did not want their support and refused to give the pledge. They had then, as now, to act not in accordance with some settled principles but as Moscow may from time to time dictate.

And even where they did endorse some Labour M.P.'s who were willing at the time to accept their support, the result has clearly shown how little control they have over the men in question. After the 1923 election Mr. Tom Bell, Editor of the “Communist Review" (January, 1924) stated that the Labour M.P.'s on whom would fall the task of maintaining "the proletarian opposition” to the leaders of the Labour Party, were "Wheatley, Maxton, Johnston, Kirkwood," and others unnamed. Every one of these four stalwarts they have since roundly denounced as "traitors to the working class.”

The Communist Party A Reform Party.

Knowing full well that in spite of their liberal supplies of money they do not stand any chance whatever of getting a candidate returned by Communist votes on a Communist programme, their Election address consists largely of a long list of reforms. Under the title “Our Immediate Programme of Action" the number of reforms listed is no fewer than 94, in addition to a large number of other reforms included in its “Programme of the Revolutionary Workers' Government.”

Among the "revolutionary” demands in the list of 94 are such ancient and (to the workers) useless Liberal panaceas as the "abolition of all indirect taxes” (p. 30). As they know full well, cheapening the cost of living is reflected automatically in a lowered cost of living bonus throughout the Civil Service and the Municipal services, and in many other industries, and is rapidly followed by lowered wages throughout the country generally. The great fall in prices since 1920 has brought no improvement in the condition of the workers.

Other reforms, such as "non-contributory pensions at 60," are the common stock-in-trade of all the Parties advocating the reform of Capitalism.

It is amusing to notice that the Communist Party has now been outbidden by its » reformist rivals in the I.L.P. For while the I.L.P. is proposing that the unemployed be given pay equal to that of an employed man, the Communists are more moderately asking for only 30s. (p. 21).

This also represents a very big decrease on the claim made by the Communist Party at the 1923 General Election. At that time they were demanding "£4 a week for all . . . employed and unemployed." (See "Workers’ Weekly," 30th November. 1923). They are also supporting the demand for children’s allowances (p. 24), a reform which has the backing of prominent members of each of the Parties—Liberal, Tory, Labour, and I.L.P.—and has been applied by numerous Capitalist Governments.

The Policy of Armed Revolt.

Lastly, the Communists are repeating their dangerous nonsense about the armed overthrow of the Capitalist State. They say (p. 5) the Communist Party recognises

that the working-class can only conquer capitalism and become the ruling class by the creation of its own instruments of power (i.e., workers’ councils, composed of delegates from the factories and the mass organisation of the workers), and the impossibility of the working class capturing and utilising the capitalist State apparatus for the exercise of its own class powers for the building of Socialism.

They say further 

. . . It is only possible to conquer this class domination when . . . the majority of the workers are prepared forcibly to throw off the capitalist class control. . .

This policy of unarmed workers attempting the forcible overthrow of the capitalist state with its armies, navies and other organised forces of destruction, would lead only to the slaughter of thousands of helpless communist dupes.

The simple truth, here ignored by the Communists, is that it is not only the capitalist minority, but the working-class majority which keeps Communists out of the House of Commons unless they creep in under false pretences. It is useless, they say, for the workers to try to capture and utilise Parliament. But so anxious are they to get inside this institution, which they say is useless, that, rather than fight and lose elections as Communists, they descend to the electioneering devices of the other vote-catching parties and fight the election on this programme of capitalist reforms.

Control of Parliament by persons returned on such a programme and by the kind of votes which such a programme will receive, is indeed useless for the purpose of achieving Socialism. Socialism, as a system of society, cannot be carried on, nor can power for Socialism be obtained without first securing a Socialist majority. The Communist short and crooked cuts lead not to Socialism, but to disillusion and despair.

Edgar Hardcastle

The I.L.P. and the Election. (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the “New Leader” (26th April, 1929) the Chairman of the I.L.P., Mr. James Maxton, M.P., issues a special appeal for funds in order that the I.L.P. may play its part “in the achievement of Socialism.” Surrounding the appeal are the photographs of some of the I.L.P. candidates, one of them being Miss Jennie Lee, who was recently elected as Labour M.P. for North Lanark. She was the I.L.P. nominee, and was financed by the I.L.P. It is interesting, therefore, to notice that she played her part “in the achievement of Socialism,” by standing for election on a Programme which contains no reference, direct or indirect, to Socialism. It does not mention the word Socialism, and does not contain any reference to the I.L.P.’s latest programme—“Socialism in our Time.” It does not mention the I.L.P. nor Miss Lee’s membership of that body, and this in spite of the fact that they financed her and were responsible for her candidature. Like every other member of the I.L.P. who succeeds in getting into Parliament, as Labour M.P. Miss Lee was prevented by the Labour Party from running as a Socialist candidate, even if she wished to do so. She was compelled to stand as Labour candidate on a programme of reforms acceptable to the Labour Party, a party of which Mr. Maxton wrote only last year that its programme “must be regarded not as a Socialist programme but an enlightened Liberal programme.” (See one case by A. J. Cook and J. Maxton, M.P. Page 11). Mr. Maxton added:—

  If every measure in the Labour Party Programme was carried, then we would not have Socialism, but rationalised capitalism. (Ibid, p. 17).

Thus does the I.L.P. win illusory “victories” for “Socialism.”

The reason is obvious, and was frankly admitted by Dr. Alfred Salter, member of the I.L.P. and Labour M.P. for Bermondsey, in a letter to the “New Leader” (12th October, 1928). He said:—

   There is not a single constituency in the country where there is a majority of convinced Socialist electors. We have plenty of districts, such as Bermondsey, where there is an overwhelming Labour majority, but it is a sheer delusion to think that the greater number of these people understand what we mean by Socialism. They nether understand it nor want it.

The only way to secure the return of Socialist candidates on a Socialist programme is to win the working class over to Socialism. Instead of doing this the I.L.P. devotes its resources to the preaching of reforms and deludes itself that it is “achieving Socialism” by securing the return of Labour M.P.’s on the votes of non-Socialists. Only the Socialist Party devotes its energies to the propagation of Socialist principles, and refrains from securing Parliamentary seats under false pretences.

Edgar Hardcastle

Tory Gold in Battersea: An Ancient Gibe. (1929)

Party News from the September 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was our intention, as we stated before the General Election, to run a candidate in North Battersea provided the necessary financial support were forthcoming. Outdoor and indoor meetings were held making known our intention, but when nomination day came the minimum amount necessary had not been secured.

The former M.P. (Mr. Saklatvala) lost his seat because, although he is a reformist politician, he is not a popular politician. Whether it was as a result of gloomy disappointment at the election results, one cannot tell, but supporters of the ex-member for North Battersea have been trying to spread the view that our adopted candidate was intended to conjure money from Tory pockets. This took the form of a question at an open-air meeting addressed by the present writer, and was as follows : “Is it not a fact that Commander Marsden offered to pay Barker’s election expenses?” Now of all the things ever said about us, the implication in that question is about the silliest, but when the speaker replied to the question in the negative, he was called a liar by another member of the audience. It has since been established that, in spite of the denial, the statement is being given currency by persons who, it seems, do not relish the idea of a Socialist candidate putting up for the first time in the constituency. We therefore declare here that the statement is entirely untrue. No such offer of financial assistance was made by the Tories or anyone else, and if money were offered from doubtful sources it would be refused by the Socialist Party as it has been refused in the past when that situation has arisen.

While on the subject of the North Battersea election, we notice with interest that the Communist Party, who pleaded poverty as their reason for not contesting more constituencies, were able to spend on Mr. Saklatvala’s contest £845 4s. 8d., which is hardly less than the amount (£847 6s.) spent by the Tory, Commander A. Marsden.

The successful Labour candidate spent only £431 2s. 4d. (See Returning Officer’s statement, South-Western Star, July 5th.)

J. B.

A Push For Socialism (1929)

From the June 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

A friend has written asking our advice as to what he and his friends are to do on May 30th. Are they to vote for the “do-nothing Labour Party,” or to write the word “Socialism” across their ticket once more. Our friend confesses himself tired of waiting for the Socialist Party to put up candidates, and expresses his wonder that the teachings of Karl Marx and Engels are not more stimulating on such occasions. It is unfortunate, but this issue was not published in time to help our friend to make up his mind, but if he is a regular reader of our paper, he will have perused our April number, where this point was purposely dealt with in ample time for the General Election. It may comfort our friend to know that we are more tired than he, awaiting the opportunity to vote for the first Socialist candidate. That opportunity would have occurred last week but for one thing: the workers were not ready. We had the candidate and the constituency. All we wanted was the deposit money. The Representation of the People Act provides that a candidate must deposit the sum of £150 on nomination, and be prepared to forfeit that sum if he fails to poll an eighth of the total vote cast. Among the differences that distinguish the Socialist Party from the Labour Party is the marked paucity of millionaires, majors, peers, professors and divines in our ranks. We therefore have to rely solely and entirely upon the voluntary coppers of the poor. We have not, nor would we desire, a loose arrangement with the Trade Unions by which they provide the funds and we the candidates. Nor do we receive subsidies from the Russian Government. So that until a sufficient number of the working-class want the Socialist solution of the poverty problem, and further are prepared to stint themselves to provide the immediate sinews of war, we can only do what is within our powers.

Our Correspondent is disappointed. So are we. But in our disappointment there is no despair. On the contrary, we were never more hopeful. To anyone who can read the portents, the future is full of promise. Although these lines are written before the General Election, it is obvious that we are in for a politically livelier time for the next generation. It is extremely doubtful if any Parliament in the immediate future will last the time or have the heavy majority of the last one. Political instability, coupled with economic worsening should, as rationalization proceeds apace, give us the audience we wish for. Five years of political torpor dulled concern in things parliamentary, but with interest keyed up by change and economic insecurity, we believe the working-class will respond to the message of the Socialist. Our overwhelming concern of the moment is to get that message across, and to keep hammering it home. Thousands of pamphlets, thousands of leaflets, monthly, weekly and daily journals, those are what we want. Then will follow thousands of members, hundreds of thousands of members, and then — Socialism.

Perhaps our correspondent will feel more hopeful if he learns that after years of patient and crippling effort, we have succeeded in getting offices a little more worthy of the Party. With a building of four stories and a basement, we shall be better equipped to make our name and message known throughout the world. When one thinks of the work that has been accomplished in the old cramped premises, and contrasts what should be confidently anticipated from the new, one feels youthful again and filled with golden hope. When we are settled down, we hope our friends and those interested will come and see us. But more of that another time.

And what about our motor propaganda van? Ah! you have not heard of that. There is every possibility that you will see it in your district before very long. Does not that open up visions of wide and rapid propaganda; of our message being earned wherever a road exists; of provincial towns; of relays of speakers and batteries of literature? The possibilities are immense. Why, instead of feeling disappointed, we know that we are just about to commence in earnest. We see that things are moving and that we are about to take a great leap forward. There is one great and pressing immediate need: MONEY. If we were presented with a whole fleet of motor-vans to-morrow, not one would turn a wheel without petrol. And petrol is not bought with promises. As our dear friend the Prince said recently, "Sympathy is not enough.” It won't buy an eyeful of petrol. So if there is any friend, sympathiser, or well-wisher, who would like to see not one, but a hundred Socialist candidates at the next General Election, let them implement their good wishes with something more solid in a Capitalist world—money.

It can be done in hundreds of small ways. Remember the Thames has been flowing night and day for thousands of years, and it is made up entirely of raindrops no larger than a pea. Buy an extra "Socialist Standard” every pay-day and give it away to a pal. Buy our pamphlet, "Socialism,” 48 packed pages, for twopence; better value than Benns’ sixpenny booklet, three times the price and only double the number of pages. Keep on buying the pamphlet and sending to your friends. They will never become Socialists if they never hear about it. Above all, no matter how small the effort you can make, be regular. A regular income to the Party means regular progress, and regular progress means Socialism — in our lifetime. Look out for the Socialist Van, but if it does not show up soon enough for you, reflect that we have petrol and oil to buy, and tax and insurance to meet. And then, be practical.

W. T. Hopley

To The New Women Voters. (1929)

From the May 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

All the newspapers are vying with each other in giving advice to the new women voters.

Each paper is gravely urging the newly-enfranchised to give their vote to the Party it happens to support. Judging by the Liberal, Labour and Tory Press the future prosperity and happiness of this generation and the next is to be settled finally at the forthcoming election.

We want to give some sound advice to the new women voters, and it is the same advice that we have given to all the workers, men and women alike.

We are not going to draw pretty posters of chubby babies, with touching headlines, or any other slushy, sentimental nonsense to tickle their fancy. We want to talk to women as responsible, intelligent people, with the ability to think and judge for themselves. Are you satisfied with conditions to-day? Can you read the newspapers without feeling keenly and bitterly the reports of continual hardships and sufferings endured by our class? Fellow feeling is strong in some of us, and when one reads of a thousand men fighting, yes, literally fighting, to get into a Town Hall where one hundred were to be chosen for a temporary job, and one thinks of nine hundred going wearily home to report no luck to their anxious families, then the chubby faced babies fade from the picture and stern realities take their place.

Think of all the suffering miners and their families without sufficient food or clothing, think of the broken-down aged men and women tramping from one workhouse to another; thrown out on the industrial scrap heap. Think of the one million maimed, many so hideous that they shock their own families, relics of the last war. Think also of those who, not actually wanting food, clothing and shelter, are starved in other ways, yet possessing talents they have no chance of using. Musicians, painters, artists and students of every conceivable subject, all held back by the lack of cash and opportunity to further their studies. Thousands die every year in the hospitals because the cures they need are too expensive. What about your own struggle to make ends meet?

Here now are stern realities, day to day happenings, and we ask you, what are you going to do about it? Not one of the Parties in Parliament can or will obtain the remedy for these ills. Why? Because the remedy lies in Socialism, and they are opposed to common ownership of the means and instruments for producing the necessities of life. Women have got to understand that political power must first be obtained by a Socialist working class, who then will reorganise society on Socialist principles. The workers will be in possession of the fields, factories and workshops, and production will be for use and not profit. Those fit will work, and working time will be adjusted to the needs of the population. All will be entitled to what they need, providing it can be produced, and at a glance one can see that the economic ills we are suffering from must of necessity disappear.

There is only one organisation in this country which is working for these ends, and that is the S.P.G.B. We do not say "vote for us and we will do it for you." We simply tell you, first understand Socialism and then send your representatives to Parliament to carry out your wishes. Knowing what you what, none could bamboozle you.

This is the advice we give to new women voters, and it is advice that we have given to the workers, both men and women consistently for twenty-five years.

May Otway

What To Do With Your Vote. (1929)

From the April 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a few short weeks you will again be invited to attend at various schoolrooms and public buildings labelled: "Polling Booth," and there inscribe against the name of some individual or other a little cross. Quite a simple little process, and one which, in our dull world, becomes every now and then invested with an air of excitement and festivity. Some of you will be voting for the first time in your lives, most will have voted at several previous elections. The great majority will feel that the occasion is such a rare one, and the excitement so general, they must, if only from a sense of duty, affix their little cross upon the ballot paper. There will be no lack of advisers. The hoardings will groan beneath ten-feet posters calling your attention to the enormous achievements of the party whose power is expiring, and, in contrast, to the millennium about to dawn if you vote for the other side this time. Each side—so called—will call your attention to the shocking lies now being disseminated by the other. Each will tell you that a vote for the other is a vote for catastrophe. Little windows in shabby streets will break out in a rash of cards, begging the passer-by to "Vote for Spoofem," or some other. Halls and schoolrooms will be hired, street corners and market places annexed, whereat hoarse and fervent orators will pour forth tales of their opponents' rascality and the stained-glass, saintly purity of themselves. The newspapers and the Press generally will join in the national fever, and if report be true, the ether will be exploited by means of the radio. Leather-lunged loud-speakers are to squawk their message from touring vans, and altogether we are in for a hell of a time.

In the face of all this racket and excitement, to ask you to make no use of your vote seems rather feeble, doesn't it? In point of fact, we do not ASK you to do anything. When you try and quietly figure it all out, the feebleness lies in a rather different direction.

In the first place, why all this pother, why this hectic atmosphere, why these repeated emphatic appeals for your vote? Very briefly, it is because they want to GOVERN you. There is a tremendous emphasis on that word "govern." Familiarity has dulled appreciation of its essential meaning to most people, but it is worth pausing just there, and saying the word "govern" over and over again to yourself until it takes on a little flavour if strangeness, and you try and realise what government means. Time was when people were not asked to vote for government. They got it, hard and heavy, and they knew it. And when it hurt too much, rebellion was born, and riot, insurrection and discontent. Now, after generations of struggle, you have gained the right of being asked whom you wish to govern you. But notice, in particular, you are still to be governed. Even the Labour Party promises you a Labour Government. Now, if you still retain enough of the flavour of strangeness about that common word, government, you should ask yourself, "Who are the governors, pray, and who are the governed?" and "Why Government at all?" A critical survey of the world around you should supply you with the answer. The governors are the rich, those who hold the keys to our means of life. The governed are the poor, those who have to hire themselves for wages to the rich and powerful. The rich govern the poor, that is, they keep you in order and stamp upon any sign of revolt or discontent, and by long experience they have found that the way of retaining their power to govern you is by getting your assent to its continuance. So they arrange themselves into two or three groups, whose opinions differ upon trifling administrative details, and represent themselves to you as dire and bitter antagonists and ask you to choose or the other for master. Now, in theory, this is a dangerous proceeding, for you might see through the trick and say "A plague on all your houses." In practice, it has worked out very satisfactorily for the rich, for as they own the Press, the Pulpit, the Schools, the Broadcasting service, and your means of livelihood, any alternative opinion is heavily handicapped. But in spite of all, no monopoly can be complete, or eternal. The little sheet you are now reading is a proof of that.

The system in which a small rich class own the means whereby all live, and a large class have to hire themselves for wages in order to live, is called Capitalism. It is the system in which we are living to-day. The Socialist Party of Great Britain suggests as an alternative that the means of living should be taken away from the small parasitic class at present owning them, and commonly owned and administered by the whole people. That alternative is called Socialism. You will be asked some day to vote for the one or the other. That question will not be asked of you at the next General Election. What you will be asked is: "Do you still want to be governed; do you still believe in Capitalism? If you do, it will not matter to Capitalism whether you put your little cross against the Conservative, the Liberal, or the Labour candidate. They will have secured your voluntary assent to the continuance of Capitalism, and your willing acceptance of the fact of being governed. That is all that matters to them. If, where a Socialist candidate is not running, you write the word "Socialism" across your ballot paper, your vote is spoiled. True, but at any rate you have not signified that you are a willing supporter of Capitalism. The best thing, of course, is to join the Socialist Party and see that at the next General Election there is no need to spoil any ballot paper.

W. T. Hopley