Here and There: More About A.R.P. (1938)

The Here and There column from the October 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

More About A.R.P.

Through a sympathetic correspondent, our statement on A.R.P. found its way into a Leeds newspaper and received a reply from an A.R.P. official, who, referring to the correspondent in question, says:—

He is fortunate in living in a country where, despite the many faults, he doubtless finds in it, he can still express his personal opinions as freely and forcibly as he wishes, so long as he respects the bounds of order and good conduct.

I am not concerned with his political creed, but I would point out that in the logical sequence of things he should be prepared, in the event of an Air Raid, not to accept the services of those Volunteers who to-day are giving up time and energy to fitting themselves to be of service to their fellows should the need ever arise.

Our A.R.P. officer thinks that a Socialist logically should not accept the services that A.R.P. offers. Very well. But what about the other side of the argument put forward by our A.R.P. officer, viz., that war preparations and A.R.P. are “a safeguard of peace” ? If preparations for “safeguarding peace” fail and war results then surely the correspondent referred to, who is in favour of peace and opposed to war, could reasonably expect to be safeguarded!

However, the A.R.P. officer dodged the main contention of our article. That is, briefly, that preparations for war, including A.R.P., require a war-willing working class for their success. Without which war would be impossible. As a writer in Controversy (September, 1938), who might also have read the article, says:—

. . . British Capitalism must be reasonably certain of one thing—national unity. It dare not go to war if it is conscious that it may be stabbed in the back by a disloyal working-class.

Our article also pointed out that A.R.P. provides capitalist governments with the opportunity of canalising anti-war sentiments into support for A.R.P. with plausible humanitarian arguments. 

The Controversy article touches this point:—

A.R.P. has two functions, both psychological. First, if support can be obtained for the limited measures for civilian “protection" embodied in the scheme—or for any official measures for protection whatsoever—then the Government can logically point out that there is no reason for withholding support from the re-armament programme as a whole.

There is no logical) escape from this sequence. To support, however tacitly, A.R.P., is in effect to support British Capitalism. And for a working-class party to refuse participation after the first stage is merely to evidence a theoretical confusion, which is no incentive to confidence on the part of the masses.

We are grateful that our attitude on this aspect of the war question flnds agreement outside the Socialist Party.

Fools and Democracy.

Under the heading “Democracy Must Not be Fooled Again," H. N. Brailsford, writing on the Czechoslovakian question, says:—

Twenty years ago Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau made this problem for us. They included in the Czech Republic 3,600,000 unwilling German subjects.

It was not necessary to do so. This is not a scattered minority. It lies in a compact fringe round the frontiers, and could have been detached to join its kinsmen in Germany and Austria.

For strategical reasons this obvious solution was avoided. The mountains of the Sudetenland offered an easily defensible frontier. The French General Staff and French heavy industry, largely interested in Czech armaments, meant to erect here a formidable barrier against Germany, then a disarmed and pacific republic.

To-day, with Austria within his Empire, it is Hitler rather than the French staff who poses the strategical problem.

He is bent on dismantling or neutralising this fortress that lies on the flank of any German advance eastwards. It bars the road to the oil wells of Rumania and the black earth of the Ukraine.— (Reynolds', September 10th, 1938.)

From that it might be logically assumed that Mr. Brailsford would be in opposition to war. But no; what he says is: “To oppose it may be morally impossible, but Labour, if it is wise, will keep its independence . . . critical and ready when the moment comes to serve the cause of the workers—the Germans as well as the Czechs, the Russians as well as the French."

Why is it morally impossible to oppose war? And why serve the cause of the workers “when the moment comes"—why not now?

Unfortunately, this is the sort of nonsense that is being regarded as “anti-war" and in line with the Socialist attitude.

It looks as though Mr. Brailsford is being fooled.

“Progress" of the Communist Party.

In a booklet running to over one hundred pages the Central Committee of the Communist Party reports to its 15th Party Congress. It is a remarkable document. It is remarkable for its complete omission of any ideas the Party held up to only a few years ago, and for the energy with which it now puts over capitalist ideas and propaganda with all the righteousness of the Salvationist combined with the subtlety of the Jesuits. Gone is the agitation for the violent overthrow of capitalism, the supreme contempt for the “social-Fascist” Labour Party, and opposition to the League of Nations as an agent of the capitalists. The Communist Party is now the standard-bearer for democracy, for affiliation to the Labour Party, for collective security. In respect of the last named it goes further than others and opposes “reconciliation with Fascist countries,” which “bolsters up the National Government and encourages fresh Fascist aggression.” The “Fascist countries” are Italy and Germany, and not those dictatorial capitalist States who might line up with France and Russia in a military alliance. “No reconciliation with Fascist countries" sounds plausible to working-class sentiment, but in practice means that the Communists. will support any capitalist government that will resist German and Italian ambitions. This policy is in line with the foreign policy of the Russian Government, whose interests the official Communist Party in Great Britain cannot oppose.

The writers of this report show outstanding skill in one certain direction. They manage to review working-class activity in this country and throughout the world in a way which leaves the impression that any credit for improvements in working-class conditions is due to the Communist Party, who are the people responsible for taking the initiative. Thus commenting on the fact that three million workers won holidays with pay, the report says “. . . our campaign now aims to extend this provision immediately to embrace every worker.” And even in Africa the crusaders see their influence at work:—

East and West Africa: Whilst we have only irregular contact with these colonies, the recent cocoa war in the Gold Coast and the coffee trouble in Tanganyika indicates that here also the movement is gaining strength.

It is to be hoped that the natives in East and West Africa are conscious of their debt to the Communist Party. And in this way the report almost breathlessly describes the conflicts throughout the British Empire; conflicts which, it is inferred. arise out of Communist influence and leadership.

In a section dealing with “Work Among the Middle Class and Professional Sections,” the report speaks of the need “to mobilise the middle class and professional people on the basis of their own professional interests.” The section also refers to the growth of national movements in Scotland and Wales, and says:

It has been made clear that our Party stands for a policy which preserves the best traditions of the Scottish people, and the Welsh people, resists every attempt to encroach upon their national rights, and demands the fullest opportunities for the development of self-government.

That is, of course, one way of pandering to the ignorance and prejudice of the “middle class and the professional sections,” and of getting the support of reactionaries and any but Socialists.

A “popular pamphlet” dealing with the question before the end of the year is promised. 

Dealing with the Daily Worker, “ such innovations as well-known Scottish leaders of thought I acting as contributors” are to be a feature of certain improvements. Commenting on the present contributors the report says: “John Strachey’s commentaries are still well liked.” There seems to be a touch of unconscious irony in that “still.” 

Communist Party membership is stated to have reached fifteen thousand; Daily Worker sales have on occasions exceeded one hundred thousand.

Those figures express a growth of the influence of the Communist Party and the degree to which the ideas for which its original Russian founders stood have been deserted.

There is no Communist Party in anything but name.

Communists are so misunderstood.

The writer of “ A Worker’s Notebook,” in the Daily Worker (September 16th, 1938), says that some one had rung up the paper to tell them of her experience during a demonstration in Whitehall. She had apparently asked two policemen what the demonstration was about and each had given exactly the same answer: “ It is the Communists, who are demanding war with Germany.” 

“Their unanimity,” says the Daily Worker, “made her wonder whether they were answering according to instructions.”

Touching; but surely even policemen may be forgiven for not being able to appreciate that the demands of the Communists that the British Government, with France and Russia, should go to the aid of Czechoslovakia in the event of German attack are meant to be interpreted as love overtures.

Another Lost Leader.

Commenting on the Czechoslovakian crisis the Daily Worker (September 16th, 1938) refers b pro-Nazi circles in France “ extending from ex-Premier Flandin, a special friend of Chamberlain and Hitler, to Leon Blum. . . . ”

It is only a few months since Leon Blum was head of the “Popular Front ” Government in France and the pet of the British Communist Party.

On Coat-turning.

Mr. John McGovern, M.P., of the I.L.P., has resigned from the negotiating committee appointed by the I.L.P. to discuss terms for the proposed re-affiliation with the Labour Party. In an interview with the Daily Herald (September 1st, 1938) he says:—

“ I am an unrepentant believer in unconditional re-affiliation, and the majority of my fellow members in the East End of Glasgow hold a similar opinion.

“In the present international situation the working classes cannot afford the luxury of dissension, and all who believe in peace, international security and social progress should be prepared to unite under the banner of the Labour Party."

Now, Mr. McGovern is not a newcomer to the politics of the Labour movement.- He sat in the House of Commons as a Labour M.P. during the lifetime of the last Labour Government. After some experience of that Government he saw no disadvantage for the workers in the “luxury of dissension." Writing in Forward (August 2nd, 1930) he said: —

The only time in my life that I have allied myself with the enemies of the workers has been since I came to the House of Commons, and that is by order of the Labour Government, Almost every time I go into the Division lobby I join such tried and trusted friends of t.he Labour Party as Lloyd George, his daughter, Sir Herbert Samuel, etc. They are keeping the Labour Party in office on condition that the workers and the Labour programme are deserted.

Really, Mr, McGovern, isn’t there some explaining to do? Has the Labour Party turned its coat—or Lloyd George—or only you?

Unemployment in India.

India is a country which is becoming rapidly industrialised. In the process she passes through the familiar stages of social development. Millions of workers from the land have been attracted to industrial centres, with the consequence that when the capitalists have no use for their labour they have nothing to fall back upon, and in large numbers are thrown on the streets. According to the Indian Labour Journal (August 21st, 1938), “ they pass their days in hunger, only to be relieved by epidemics and diseases that cannot be prevented by poverty."

“Relieved by" is really a nice, delicate way of saying that workers die as the result of their poverty. In what numbers they die the Journal does not say, but it does estimate the numbers of ex-land workers who are thrown on the industrial scrap-heap in the manner described above. The. number is forty millions!

Fine place the British Empire—for the capitalists!

Robbery with Impudence.

 

Whilst the British and Italians pursue their struggle over Spain, agree to “non-intervention," and assure each other of noble intentions, a report by the City Editor of the News Chronicle (August 29th, 1938), shows one of the underlying attractions in Spain:—

The full text of a triangular trade agreement between Italy, Manchukuo and Japan has just been published in Tokio, according to Reuter’s correspondent. Italy has undertaken to import as from September 1st a fixed annual quota of Japanese and Manchukuan goods. One of the main items will be, soya beans.

In return, Japan and Manchukuo have jointly undertaken to import a fixed quota of Italian goods. These are expected to consist largely of motor-cars, aluminium and mercury,

Note the “and mercury." And remember that the sources for mercury in Spain are in the territory still held by the Spanish Republican Government.

A case of selling the swag before it is stolen.

Harry Waite

Here and There: Brailsford on the Russian Executions (1937)

The Here and There column from the July 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Brailsford on the Russian Executions

Mr. H. N. Brailsford, writing on the execution of Marshal Tukhachevsky and the seven Russian army leaders, says: —

No human society can for long live in health under a dictatorship that makes no provision for loyal opposition.

One thing or the other we must believe. Either these men turned traitors because they could not conduct an open and loyal opposition; or else Stalin destroyed them in their innocence because he feared their independence.

The truth it may be, we shall never know, because in Russia there is neither honest justice nor free discussion.—(Reynold's, June 20th, 1937.)

In his early days Brailsford was a Liberal journalist of the Manchester Guardian school. Since then he has been prominent in the Labour Party and I.L.P. in this country. From the time of the overthrow of Czarism he has been sympathetic to the Russian Government. He still regards it as “the greatest thing in history in Russia.” His critical attitude towards the Russian trials is typical of the attitude of many responsible journalists and prominent people in the Labour movement. The points made by Brailsford on Russia merit serious examination. To label him “traitor” or “Trotskyist" is abuse and not ananswer to his case.

* * *

Homes for Workers

An exhibition of model rooms with furniture designed for working-class homes was opened by Sir Kingsley Wood at the Building Centre, New Bond Street. The exhibition was an attempt to provide for small families with incomes between £3 and £5 per week. It aimed at artistry and “gaiety" in the design of furniture for a family consisting of father, mother and two children, with an outlay of £50. The News Chronicle (June 3rd, 1937) approved of the idea and pointed out that “three-quarters of the families in this country do not earn more than £5 a week.” That statement obscures more than it reveals. The News Chronicle could have mentioned that only a minority of the workers receive between three and five pounds a week. Or, better still, they could have pointed out that many thousands of workers in the Post Office receive less than fifty shillings a week, and that Sir Kingsley Wood (who opened the exhibition) took great pains when he was Postmaster-General to convince postal workers that the Government

could really afford no more.

* * *

The Labour Party and MacDonaldism

Labour Party leaders and propagandists would have workers believe that the ignominious failure of. two Labour Governments was due to the treacherous betrayal of Labour Party principles by Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and that “MacDonaldism” left the Labour Party along with MacDonald; Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, ex-editor of the Daily Herald, does not think so. He says: —

Unfortunately “MacDonaldism ” is a disease by no means extirpated. Among its symptoms are—greater respect for the good opinion of opponents than for that of supporters, fear of doing anything to suggest that Socialism means more than slight, harmless changes, desire to take over industry and show capitalists how to run it—on capitalist lines ! —(Reynold's, June 6th, 1937.)

Mr. Fyfe is confused. The disease symptoms he refers to are not the result of “MacDonaldism." They have been the essence of Labour Party policy for thirty years. Mr. Fyfe informed Reynold's readers: “I believed in him [MacDonald] intensely, felt a personal devotion to him, would have done anything for him. I was quickly disillusioned." It is gratifying to know that Mr. Fyfe is disillusioned. He could now usefully spend some effort in disabusing the minds of hundreds of thousands of workers who have as pathetic a faith in the present leaders of the Labour Party. 

* * *

Germany and Colonies

Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., writing in the Evening Standard (March 15th, 1937) an article called “German Colonies—the Case for Return," makes some telling points.

Answering the hypocritical arguments put forward by Mr. Churchill, that Germany would not benefit from colonies and that colonies could not be handed over to Germany without consulting the natives, he says: —

We did not ask leave of the Somalis of Jubaland when we handed them to Italy in 1925, or the people of Togoland when we transferred them to France, or of Ruanda and Urundi when they were taken over by Belgium.

Further, he adds:—

I would not ask the youth of this country to fight to exclude Germany from her former colonies, and in this, I believe, I speak for a great body of opinion in this country which is scarcely represented in Parliament or heard in the Press. If we are told that we must be ready to fight Germany in order to keep South Africa within the Empire. I would reply that I would not ask men to offer their lives for an ideal so shadowy and so unreal.

Time will see whether Sir Arnold changes his mind.

* * *

Hoodwinking the Workers

Speaking at a Co-operative Party Conference on a proposal to establish a flat-rate pension of £l a week to all persons at the age of 60, Mr. W. H. Green, Labour M.P. for Deptford, said: — 

The cost would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £250,000,000.

“ One of our failures as a Labour movement,” he said, “is that we are far too ready to promise all sorts of things which, when we get near to power, we find we cannot carry out.

“We ought not to hoodwink the electorate by promising things we cannot carry out.”—(News Chronicle,  March 30th, 1937.)

Nevertheless, the next General Election will see the Labour Party making promises as specious as ever. In order to get votes the “hoodwinking” business will become a riot. Promises that are not fulfilled will bring their own reward to those that perpetrate the fraud. The influence of the Labour Party on the workers will wane, if it is not already doing so. Workers who are without understanding of what is happening can only judge by immediate results. The failures of Labour Governments in other countries are pregnant with lessons for members of the British Labour Party who are intelligent enough to see them. A few of them do, and occasionally show by their writings and speeches that they are uneasy. Many look upon the Labour vote as their right, and upon the loyalty of the voter as something unchangeable. We foresee rocks ahead. Unescapable crises will bring down any government which claims to administer capitalism in such a way as to be able to solve working-class problems. The failure of Labour Governments is inevitable and it unfortunately casts discredit on the working-class movement as a whole. The task of the Socialist is made more difficult in consequence. 

* * *

Russian Statistics

In Russia To-day (June, 1937) Mrs. Margaret Cole reviews a book compiled by the State Planning Commission of the U.S.S.R. called “The Second Five-Year Plan. 1933-37."

She refers to the fact that statistics on English conditions “mean figures of fact and achievement, figures of things which have actually happened, and which can be checked from records in actual existence," but, she says,

Soviet statistics, on the other hand, are a mixture of fact, hope, and exhortation. The statistics in this book are of true Soviet type.

The majority of the tables, whether of wages, production, education, or whatever you choose, end with figures for 1937, which can only be a matter for conjecture, and compare them with figures for capitalist countries based upon the peak year of 1929—which is to compare one conjecture with another.

The foreword, by V. I. Mezhlauk, for example, says (p. xlvi) that the number of children in pre-school institutions in 1935 was approximately 6 millions.

The official table on page 652 gives 7½ millions for 1934 and 9 millions for 1935. The official figures make it seem credible that by the end of 1937 there will be 16 million children in kindergartens. But which of them is right ?

Briefly, Russian statistics have to be taken with a pinch of salt.

* * *

Land of Hope and Glory

From a speech in the House of Commons by Mr. J. Griffiths, Labour M.P. for Llanelly (Times report, June 20th, 1937):—

The report on maternal mortality in Wales showed that of 665 women about to become mothers who were sent to 17 infant welfare centres in South Wales, 30 per cent. were anaemic, emaciated, and were running very grave risks. This problem must be tackled and solved, but the local authorities in South Wales were too impoverished to do so.

As a commentary on capitalist values that report coincided with another announcing the gift of £250,000 to Earl Baldwin from an anonymous donor to be spent on any project fostering the Empire spirit.

* * *

Confessions of a Captain of Industry

Speaking at a tea and entertainment provided for retired works employees of the London Transport Board, Lord Ashfield said:—

He would always recall with pleasure and satisfaction the opportunities he had to walk through the Chiswick works, marvelling at the interesting and intricate work they were doing, appearing at the time to be very wise, but at the same time not understanding it.—(Brentford & Chiswick Times, May 28th, 1937.)

The statement was greeted with laughter.

It would now be interesting to hear an apologist’s explanation for Lord Ashfield’s £15,000 a year salary for doing a job perhaps little or no more “interesting and intricate” than the works engineers and mechanics and draughtsmen who receive only £3 to £4 a week.

Perhaps the father of the London Passenger Transport Board, Mr. Herbert Morrison, would oblige?

Harry Waite

Here and There: The Royal Mission to Canada (1939)

The Here and There column from the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Royal Mission to Canada

George VI is visiting Canada. It is a political visit, arranged by and in the interests of British capitalism.

Of late years, Canada’s attachment to the great family of British nations has shown signs of waning. Economic ties with the U.S.A., and other factors, have helped to weaken the political and traditional associations with Great Britain. The drift has reflected itself over a number of years in detachment from and even criticism of British foreign policy. The American journal, Nation (March 11th, 1939), points out that, at the time of the Czechoslovakian crisis, whilst the British Government received assurances of military support from other Dominions, Canada never committed itself beyond vaporous expressions of attachment. And so the spell of kingship has been called in to check the drift.

Will it succeed . . . ?

Since Dominion status was conferred upon Canada, a war in which the British Government is involved would not of necessity involve Canada. Consequently, its foreign policy has responded the more easily to interests which will keep it out of war. Unlike Australia and New Zealand, whose vulnerable position leads them to seek the protection of the British Navy, Canada’s policy more inclines to march in line with the U.S.A., whose geographical position and enormous resources offset the need for British protection. Hence the flagging enthusiasm for Empire, which George VI’s visit to Canada attempts to revive.

Several factors militate against its success. One, certainly the most important, is the ever-expanding influence of U.S.A. interests in Canada, as the following figures testify.

In December, 1936, the amount of American capital invested in Canada was approximately 4,000 million dollars, as against 2,725 million dollars invested by British capitalists.

The amount of Canadian capital invested in the U.S.A. was approximately 1,000 million dollars, as against 50 million dollars invested in England.

In 1937, exports from Canada to the U.S.A. were 425 million dollars.

In the same year, imports into Canada from the U.S.A. were approximately 400 million dollars, as against approximately 100 million dollars from England.

It is quite clear that the interests of Canadian capitalism are more closely linked with those of the U.S.A. than with those of Great Britain. The recent Anglo-American trade agreement, which was an attempt by the British Government to get U.S.A. sympathy for its difficulties in Europe, gives the U.S.A. still further concessions in the Canadian market. Hard economic realities tend to weaken rather than cement the attachment of Canada to the British Empire.

But what about the traditional ties to the “Mother Country” ? The facts, according to the Nation, are somewhat revealing. Fifty-one per cent. of Canadians only are of British extraction, one-third are French, and the rest are of mixed nationalities from Central Europe. Among those of British extraction the sentiment is fostered that they are Canadian or American rather than British. A sentiment which is hardened by the interchange of ideas, amusements and newspapers with the U.S.A. As for the French-Canadians, they regard the British as their oppressors and tend to sympathise with the enemies of British capitalism. During the last War the Canadian Government had to suspend conscription in Quebec for fear of an outbreak of civil war. During the war in Abyssinia, and in Spain, French-Canadian sympathy was with Italy. Mayor Haude, of Montreal, said recently: “In the event of war between Britain and Italy, the sympathy of the French-Canadians would be with Italy.”

Canada’s attitude to any future conflict in which Great Britain is involved is likely to be governed by her own interests and the policy pursued by the U.S.A. Whilst that policy is likely to be sympathetic to British interests, it is doubtful whether that sympathy will go beyond “moral” support, and of supplying the “democratic” armies with the implements of warfare.

It will take far more than the magic of George VI and his consort to obscure the vision of American and Canadian capitalists from the real explanation of the honour of Royal favour.

* * *

Onward, Christian Soldiers! 

Bleating Bishops, who are busy persuading their flocks that, in certain circumstances, it is not un-Christian for Christians to kill other Christians with poison-gas and other unpleasant instruments of modern warfare, might consider the following letter, which appeared in the Daily Telegraph (April 29th, 1939): —

“The Lateran Council in 1139 forbade the use of the crossbow ‘as being too murderous a weapon for Christians to employ against one another.’ It would be interesting to know if this is unrepealed !”

* * *

A Distinction Without a Difference

A letter to the Daily Express (March 5th, 1939) says: “I should say that about ninety per cent. of the ordinary public are still hazy as to the meanings of the following terms: Conservative, Liberal, Socialist, Labour, Communist, Right, Left, Red.”

To which the Editor replied : “The Conservatives believe in conserving what they consider best in the British Constitution. The Conservatives and the National Liberals support the Government policy of appeasement and Protection. The Opposition Liberals oppose the Government on these points. The Socialists and Communists both believe in national ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange; but Communists believe that nationalisation can only be obtained by means of revolution.”

Note that the only difference the Editor of the Express can find in the policies of the Labour Party and the Communist Party is one of method—not of object. They both stand for Nationalisation. If any real difference were implicit or apparent in Communist Party propaganda the Editor of the Daily Express, like others, has been unable to find it.

* * *

Another “Democracy” Guaranteed

The Manchester Guardian (May 10th, 1939) publishes the following despatch from its correspondent in Rumania, to which country the British Government recently extended a guarantee:—

“The Premier, M. Calinescu, announced to-day that a national election would be held soon for a new corporative Parliament, modelled on Fascist lines. It will meet on June 7th.”

Comment would be superfluous!

* * *

Capitalism is still Thriving

The Daily Telegraph (March 7th, 1939) reproduces figures from the surtax assessments in the reports of the Commissioners of the Inland Revenue, showing the distribution of income in the year ending March, 1938.

The number of millionaires or persons with incomes exceeding £30,000 a year was 917, an increase of 42 over the year before.

Persons with incomes of £2,000 or more numbered 95,750, an increase of 4,358. Their aggregate income totalled £483,739,386, a rise of £27,394,398.

There were 73 persons with incomes between £75,000 and £100,000, compared with 72 the year before; and 80 with incomes exceeding £100,000, as against 83. Incomes of this class amounted to £15,270,207, a decrease of £1,023.

It can be said with some confidence that capitalism will not collapse this year!

* * *

“Forward” and the “Daily Express” Advocate “Socialism”!

Forward (March 18th, 1939) protests that the Daily Express has stolen one of the “main items” from the Labour Party’s programme—increased pensions. The Express amplified its arguments in favour of pensions of fifteen shillings a week with a strip picture cartoon, which was reproduced in Forward. The first picture represents a benign Chancellor of the Exchequer handing the Minister of Health a bag of money. The captions over the pictures narrate the following simple story for simple people: —

“If Simon handed 25 millions to Elliott—Elliott could hand an extra five shillings to the old-age pensioner—the old-age pensioner could buy more bread—the baker could buy more flour—the miller could buy more corn—the farmer could buy more machinery—the machine maker could employ more men—the newly hired man could buy a radio set on the H.P. system— radio manufacturers could increase their dividends—shareholders could pay back Simon with their increased dividends.”

Economics for lunatics ! The tax on dividends from the sale of £25,000,000 worth of goods is apparently £25,000,000 according to this argument !

Says Forward: “This is the argument which has been appearing in Forward for a generation and which is the keynote of the Socialist argument for increasing expenditure on old-age pensions, widows’ pensions, increased unemployment allowances and increased wages.”

We will not dispute Forward’s claim that they have used these arguments for a generation, but we categorically deny that they have anything to do with Socialism. They are the arguments of wishy-washy reformers and crassly ignorant economists. Reforms carry minor benefits for the workers, but they cannot affect materially the fundamental character of capitalism—the extremes of wealth and poverty, unemployment and insecurity. If they can, then perhaps Forward will try to explain why, to-day, after generations of reforms, and relatively enormous sums spent on social services, these problems are as intense to-day as ever.

* * *

Brailsford and Conscription

In Reynolds (May 21st, 1939), H. N. Brailsford openly advocates conscription. He says, anticipating objection on democratic grounds: —

“The word “compulsion” has in this connection an ugly ring in our ears. Yet we should be indignant if any section of our Movement raised the banner of individualism against compulsory measures for education or health. Is defence less necessary ?

So far from objecting: when the State prescribes an obligation, we ought to welcome this as an arrangement that frees us from torments of conscience over conflicting duties.

This lad may feel that he would serve society better by continuing his studies. Another has a widowed mother.

It is right, it is even merciful, that society, weighing the general need against our personal interests, should prescribe our duties to us.”

That’s where “fighting for democracy” leads “revolutionary left-wingers.” For smugness it takes the cake. In doctrine it is more naked and unashamed than Nazism or the Catholic Church.

Harry Waite

50 Years Ago: Monetary Policy No Cure For Unemployment (1983)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Programme, published by the Independent Labour Party in November 1923. tells us that

general unemployment has nothing to do with tariffs or free trade. It is determined by the monetary policy pursued by a country and not by its tariff policy.

So they looked round to see if they could find some countries pursuing an ILP monetary policy: and sure enough they found several.

That is shown by the fact of unemployment in the world today. There is none to speak of in France and Belgium, very little in Italy, nor has there been ever since the war. Why? Because the Government and central banks of those countries have never restricted credit and thus destroyed the purchasing power of a large part of their population.

America, according to the ILP. was not merely perfect, it was better than perfect; not only no unemployment, but a shortage of labour.

The banks have lent freely, and there is now an actual shortage of labour . . . There is no unemployment and no depression in the United States today.

The ILP was. of course, largely wrong about its facts and wholly wrong about the effects of applying its capitalist credit theories. In due course they had to admit this, and a writer in the New Leader said of the American banking system:

I gather from some enquiries that we in England have gravely overestimated the scientific work of this banking organisation.

(Brailsford, New Leader 28 February 1928)

(From article "Lands Without Unemployment" — Socialist Standard. January 1933)

The Real Issue in Czechoslovakia (1938)

From the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

All sorts of people who ought to be able to remember the way in which fine slogans in the last War were used to cover secret imperialist aims have walked into the same trap again. This time it is Czechoslovakia, the argument being that the way, and the only way, to help democracy is to prevent the Germans in Czechoslovakia from carrying out the desire of the majority of them to come under German rule. Those who hold this view about democracy are prepared to go to war if necessary in order to preserve Czechoslovakia. It is, therefore, interesting to see that the special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who wrote up the whole question on August 20th, frankly admits that democracy is not the issue at all.

He shows how the capitalists of Germany are interested in the economic and the military penetration of South-Eastern Europe (the second as a means to the first), and how various countries are likely to act in the event of war, then he adds: —

. . . The true character of the struggle that is going on even now (though as yet without arms) is fully understood in the Balkan countries. It is not a struggle for democracy, but for national independence, an independence imperilled by German “peaceful penetration” and in danger of being destroyed altogether if Germany takes up arms against Czechoslovakia. If Czechoslovakia disappears there will, in time, be no genuinely independent countries left in Eastern or South-Eastern Europe.

It should be noticed that this statement appeared in the Manchester Guardian, which backs the policy of supporting Czechoslovakia against Germany at all costs. Mr. H. N. Brailsford, who takes the same line as the “Guardian," admitted in Reynolds Illustrated News (August 21st, 1938) that what we are witnessing is a clash between two imperialisms, the German trying to dominate Europe, and the French trying to prevent it.

The real issue is whether Hitler shall overthrow or the French retain this barrier that closes the road to the corn and oil of the Lower Danube. As always, since the Entente Cordiale of 1903, two armed Imperialisms are struggling for strategic posts.

Another factor which seriously occupies the minds of the French and British rulers is the possibility of Germany and Russia coming together again. As the Manchester Guardian correspondent says: —

Like the Franco-Soviet Pact, the alliance between Moscow and Prague is chiefly intended to counteract the chances of an alliance between Moscow and Berlin. (Manchester Guardian, August 20th, 1938.)

The Manchester Guardian and Mr. H. N. Brailsford are saying no more than the truth when they admit that democracy is not the issue dividing the rival imperialisms.

The argument, therefore that the British workers should be prepared to go to war for democracy, as represented by Czechoslovakia, needs to be amended to give due recognition to the fact that the British and French and German ruling class are not at all interested in democracy, but in world power as a means of safeguarding profits.

Still the advocates of war on behalf of Czechoslovakia, have a further argument. They say that, no matter what the motives of the ruling class may be, democracy will incidentally be preserved if we resist Germany. The answer to that is that it flies in the face of all experience. Another European war would be the signal instantly for the suppression of democracy in all the war making countries without the least likelihood that the end of the war would see democracy restored even to its present state. The last war was to make the world “safe for democracy." Instead it made the world safe for Mussolini, Hitler and all the other dictators, and in this country it paved the way for the 1927 Trade Union Act, which whittled away the powers of the Unions. '

It can be readily admitted that there is an evil side to the incorporation of independent small countries into large empires, as this invariably involves attempts to suppress local culture, language and customs, with consequent embitterment, but is it worth losing millions of lives to prevent this? If it were then we would be committed to the doctrine that war is worth while to secure the break-up of the British Empire (as the Communists used to argue), and the next step would be the policy of getting the assistance of rival empires in order to do this.

The Socialist answer to all such arguments is that the lesser evils cannot be remedied except by victory in the struggle for Socialism, and this victory is not helped but hindered by war. Our task is to go on preaching Socialism (which includes internationalism), and organising the workers of the world for the achievement of their emancipation. Only then will real democracy be gained, and local culture and language be safeguarded against persecution.

Edgar Hardcastle

Notes of the Month: Why Austrian Workers Support the Nazis (1938)

The Notes of the Month column from the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why Austrian Workers Support the Nazis

H. N. Brailsford, writing in Reynolds, in August 7th, 1938, on the campaign of anti-Semitism in Austria, shows how the expropriation of wealthy Jews of £96,000,000, by the Nazi Government, has given the anti-Semite campaign the appearance of being anti-capitalist in the eyes of the workers. He says: “A big section of the Austrian working-class, watching this attack on the middle-class of Vienna, has come to believe that National Socialism really is a fort of Socialism.” The S.P.G.B. has consistently opposed the stupid notion that State ownership of the means of production is Socialism or in any way even remotely connected with it. But the Labour parties in this and other countries have just as consistently upheld the idea. How then can the workers be blamed for believing that the so-called National Socialism of the Nazis is a “form of Socialism” when they see the possessions of wealthy capitalists, who happen to be Jews, taken over by the State. The taking over of capitalist undertakings appears to be in accordance with what the workers have been taught to believe is Socialism. Believing that, it is not surprising that workers are not very distressed when the capitalists are Jewish. Not only are they not distressed, but, according to Brailsford, “all down the Danube the news of these doings has run, and in the great excitement the Nazi movement grows in Hungary, while the Slovak-Autonomist Party turns openly Fascist.”

He goes on: “Brutal stupidity wins its way because a part of the Austrian workers had not begun to grasp what Socialism means. Yet for education that able party did more than any other in Europe.”

Mr. Brailsford and the Labour Party might do well to ponder the significance of the events in Germany and Austria.

Wherefore Anti-Semitism

“They tell me, by the way, that Musso’s threat to the Jews in Italy—they number between 50,000 and 60,000—is an artful way of getting round his pledge to Neville that he will stop his propaganda in the Near East.

“This anti-Semitism would please the rebel Arabs even better.” (Hannen Swaffer, Daily Herald).

The British Government’s interests are served by Palestine being a home for the Jews. If the Italian Government acquired it they would be in a similar position. Meanwhile the conflict between British and Italian interests expresses itself in Italian anti-Semitism, supporting the Socialist contention that material interests are the basis of sentiment and ideas.

Popular Frontism

George Padmore, author of ”Africa and the Next War,” has some very pointed comments on the “Popular Front” idea in an article in Forward, August 13th, 1938. He shows that Popular Front governments administer capitalism in just the same way as other governments. In Pondicherry, for example, the agents of the Popular Front Government in France shot 150 workers who attempted to stage a stay-in strike when they heard that the Paris workers had taken possession of the factories.

George Padmore shows how far Popular Front governments serve the interests of Democracy: —

“The Spanish Popular Front, looking for aid from France, and clinging to its Moroccan territory, refused the request to grant certain democratic and civil rights to the Moorish delegations which visited Caballero long before the Civil War broke out. Senor Vicens, the noted Spanish educator and adviser to the Republican Government on colonial problems, revealed the impotence of the Popular Front to assist the colonial peoples' progress towards self-determination.

Interviewed in March, 1938, by a representative of the American Negro Journal, Opportunity, he stated: 'The Republic would have granted autonomy to Morocco readily, long ago, except that France would not permit it. France was fearful of the effect on her adjoining African colonies. As soon as Morocco had become an independent state, the French colonies would have demanded their liberation and independence France was not ready to grant them this, and we were bound to France by a spirit of co-operation."

French capitalist interests dare not grant democratic rights to the Moorish colonies, and could not approve of the Spanish Government doing so. Popular Front governments would break up when any element in them tried to use them to grant concessions which undermined capitalist interests. It's a hard world for idealists, but the class conflicts in capitalist society cannot be abolished by Popular Fronts; they must serve capitalist interests or go.

Casualties in The War that is Always With Us

Arising out of a statement on conditions in the mining industry by the Secretary of State for Mines in the House of Commons (July 25th), the following facts came to light: —

In 1937, 869 persons engaged on underground work were killed as compared with 790 in 1936; and the figures for the first six months of 1938 were still increasing. While 471 fatal accidents had occurred up till July 16th, in 1937, the figure for the same period in 1938 was no less than 635.

In one pit it was found that: —

The men, who work naked, lose, on an average, 11 lbs. every time they go down.

In the Pendleton Pits, where conditions were even more severe, as much as 18½ lbs. in weight were lost per day.

And the not less pointed fact was revealed that “more lives were lost from explosions in Britain than in any other country.”

Harry Waite

The Plundering of Haiti (1945)

From the October 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Haiti was, on the eve of the French Revolution, the richest of all European colonies, for it accounted for no less than two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. Its wealth, drawn from its plantations of sugar, cotton and coffee, was derived from the merciless exploitation of half a million slaves. This island has always reeked of cruelty. The Spaniards exterminated a million natives before they had recourse to the African slave trade. The French were able organisers, but they, too, relied on the lash and reckoned that it paid them to work a negro to death in seven years." 

—H. N. Brailsford, Observer, June 17th, 1945.

Editorial: Is the Living Wage sound? (1927)

Editorial from the March 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The Living Wage” is a pamphlet written by H. N. Brailsford, J. A. Hobson, A. Creech Jones and E. F. Wise, and published by the I.L.P. It takes the form of a report submitted to the National Administrative Council of that party.

The opening chapter is entitled “The place of Wages in a Labour Strategy,” and is chiefly concerned with an attempt to strike a balance between the industrialists, on the one hand, and the political socialists, so-called, on the other. The latter, we are told, hope to tackle the problem of a living-wage, gradually, by nationalising, as occasion offers, the more essential industries one after the other.

“The New Leader,” 21.1.1927, page 7, devotes a column to proving that nationalised industries are run on business lines equal to anything under private enterprise. Expenses are cut down to a minimum, both in the number of employees and the wages paid. It would appear, therefore, that the I.L.P. have sufficient evidence to prove that the workers under nationalised institutions are no better off than those under ordinary capitalist concerns. At any rate, the enquiry now going on into the question of wages and conditions of Post Office employees should cause them to hesitate before accepting nationalisation as a means to raise wages or improve conditions for the workers.

But the writers of this pamphlet do not base their ideas on facts. To them nationalisation stands for Socialism, and Socialism stands for State control of all industries. According to them the workers remain wage-workers, living by the sale of their labour-power, whatever changes may take place; consequently they say :

“That to nationalise important industries in conditions which resemble those which prevail to-day would be a disappointing and even perilous proceeding.” (p. 3.)

We can now see the necessity for “labour strategy,” industries must only be nationalised by a Labour Government, when the possibility of raising wages will gain for them additional political kudos. How futile, even, such a policy as this would be is shown by the writers themselves :

“The industry of coal-mining is overmanned, and is carrying to-day a burden of surplus labour of anything over 100,000 men. A national administration would have to make its choice. It might maintain the uneconomic pits, risk the consequences of over-production, and continue to carry the burden of this surplus labour. In that case, it would either pay low wages or require a subsidy. The other alternative before it would be to close down the uneconomic pits and turn a big body of men adrift.” (p. 4.)

Exactly ! A Labour administration, neither elected for, nor understanding Socialism, would have to face the same responsibilities as the present capitalist Government. They would have to ensure the normal working of the system, including the exploitation of the class they pretend to represent. They could not excuse themselves for extravagance in administration because they have always preached economy in this respect in the workers’ interests. To the industrialists the writers say :

“Labour when it sells itself as a commodity in the market must usually accept a price which varies according to its scarcity.” (p. 6.)

While this statement is incomplete and unscientific in itself it is, nevertheless, an admission that wages are not determined by “public opinion” or “ethical principles that have been generally accepted.” In the body of the pamphlet there is a good deal of absurdity along these lines. All that kind of sentimental nonsense vanishes before their grudging admission that :

“In the last resort it is on the organised refusal of men to work for less than a living wage that our hope of securing it lies.’ (p. 7.)

It will be seen from the quotation in reference to coal mines that the writers appear to be impressed with the idea that capitalists are confronted with grave difficulties in the business of making profits. Hence a large portion of the pamphlet is devoted to assisting them with advice on (1) the reorganisation of industry, and (2) how to create a market.

It is now generally accepted that the enormous increase of unemployment in recent years is due to the extended application of machinery and labour-saving devices and methods. Yet the writers specifically stipulate that reorganisation of industry and mass production is a necessary condition of higher wages. They ignore the fact that in order to pay higher wages numbers of workers must be dismissed. They admire American methods, especially Ford’s, and seriously advise British capitalists to follow suit. They use the following figures as evidence of American prosperity :

“Mr. Hoover, in the annual report of his department for 1925, has published an official analysis of American prices and wages. Taking 100 as the index of the year 1913, he shows that wholesale prices had risen in 1924 to 150, while wages had risen to 228.” (p. 48.)

To understand the significance of this quotation we must first of all recognise that the workers’ improvement does not commence until his wages have reached the 150 mark. Moreover, he must buy his necessaries at retail prices, which will be much higher. The difference in 1924 was, therefore, only 78 minus the difference between wholesale and retail prices. However, this difference applies to the average worker when lucky enough to be employed. No account whatever is taken of unemployment and its increase resulting from the reorganisation. When reckoning the workers’ share of the national income, the writers should have expressed it as a proportional fraction of the total and not as the average wage of those workers lucky enough to be fully employed.

The facts regarding the Ford methods and the relation of production to wages were dealt with in the S.S. for December, 1926, and need not be repeated here. These facts show conclusively that mass production everywhere returns far less in wages per unit of production, and that it depends upon progressively doing this for its success as a business concern.

The contention of the writers that the higher wages of mass production constitute a market, becomes a myth when we realise that the total wages bill is actually reduced by this method.

The writers, however, do not rely entirely on reorganisation to bring about their eldorado. They have two further reforms. First, “An enlightened credit policy,” and second, “family allowances.” The object of the first, we are told, is to stabilise prices and employment.

“At the first distant signs of a slump, it must be the duty of the bank slightly to expand the volume of credit and to lower its price; at the first distant signs of a boom, it will gently apply restrictive measures. Our assumption is that in this way the price level can be kept steady, and the general level of employment constant.”

Their object is clearly stated. It is to wipe out the fluctuations in trade ; to reduce trade and consequently production and employment to its mean level. But there is no more water in the sea when its surface is calm than when it is boisterous. Trade is not increased by restricting it when it is inclined to rise and encouraging it when it flags. The volume remains the same. It is only the fluctuations that have been wiped put.

The second reform is easily seen to be useless as a means to increase the purchasing power of the workers. Capitalists and capitalist governments understand business methods too well to be induced to pay for the same thing twice over. If they keep the children by increased taxation through the State machinery, wages can be reduced to the cost of keeping man and wife.

This is clearly shown in the pamphlet under review. A scheme drawn up by an Australian Federal Commission is instanced. The Commission estimated the weekly sum necessary for a family of 5 persons to be £5 16s. When it was shown by the Federal Statistician that such a sum would absorb all profits, the Commission reviewed their figures and suggested a wage of £4 for man and wife with an allowance of 12s. for each dependent child.

Here, then, is an actual case, quoted by the writers themselves, where a Commission evidently favourably inclined towards the workers, did exactly what the capitalist would be expected to do. Moreover, it is obvious that the writers have this result in mind all the time. They say :

“It is important to note that family allowances provide the only hopeful method of realising the ideal of ‘equal pay for equal work’ as between women and men. There would, for example, be no reasonable objection to equal salaries for men and women teachers if the children of married teachers were provided for in this way.” (p. 26.)

In other words, the salaries of men teachers could be reduced to the level of women if they were relieved of the responsibility of keeping their children.

The net result of the three reforms : reorganisation of industry, stabilisation, and family allowances, so far as the workers are concerned, is a balance on the wrong side. Reorganisation increases unemployment, stabilisation does nothing, one way or the other, while family allowances merely reduce the employers’ wages costs.

But the futility of the reforms is nothing compared to the harm done to the workers by the publication of the work. Apart from the confusion it engenders, the real relations of capitalists and workers, the class antagonism, is glossed over and smothered. It puts on one side the opposing interests of the two classes and holds out the bait of a prosperous industry that will enrich capitalists and keep the workers fully employed.

It is an attempt to persuade the workers that it is possible so to reform the capitalist system that there will be no occasion to work for its abolition. Under mass production, stabilisation, and family allowances, the workers would find their interests identical with their masters’. Yet the writers of this work call themselves “Socialists.” If they have not written it with the deliberate intention of confusing the workers, they should begin at once to try and understand what Socialism means.

Editorial: Socialism v. The Labour Party. (1926)

Editorial from the November 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is equally inexplicable that Mr. Keynes should suppose that the British Labour Party …. includes (or has in its quarter of a century of existence, ever included) anything, either in politics or in economics, that can honestly be called Marxian Socialism. (Sidney Webb, “Economic Journal,” September, 1926.)

If a Parliamentary Labour Party is not to be trusted to handle Parliament and to advance Socialism, for goodness’ sake do not elect it to begin with. (J. R. MacDonald, “Daily Herald,” October 9.)

The second of the two quotations at the head of this column was addressed by Mr. MacDonald to certain sections of the Labour Party which sought to induce the Party Conference to pass resolutions which would have had the effect of tying the hands of the party’s parliamentary leaders. Mr. MacDonald candidly denounced some of these resolutions as “political jerry-building of a high order” (for instance, the minimum wage and family allowance proposals of the I.L.P.), but whereas we accept the logic of Mr. MacDonald’s challenge, his various critics inside the Labour Party fear to do so. We frankly do not believe that the Labour Party can be trusted to advance Socialism, and honesty to ourselves and to the view we hold, compels us to oppose the policy of helping to “elect it to begin with.”

This is not because of personal antipathy towards Mr. MacDonald or a belief that he and his colleagues are less trustworthy than other people. For certain purposes the Labour Party may be an efficient instrument, but such a party with such a programme does not and cannot advance Socialism. In order that our position may be made plain, let us apply a test which was applied by Mr. H. N. Brailsford (originator of the proposals described by Mr. MacDonald as jerry-building) in the “New Leader,” of which he has just ceased to be the Editor. That test is the recognition of the class struggle. Is the Labour Party based on a recognition of the existence of such a struggle in the capitalist system? Mr. Brailsford says that it is, and consequently that it is a Socialist Party. (“New Leader,” October 15th.)

The class struggle is defined by Mr. Brailsford in these words :—

“The broad distinction is between those who live upon rent, profit or interest, and those who live by rendering service useful to the community.”

The aim of the Socialist is to replace a society divided into property-owners and non-property-owners, by a system of society in which the only claim to the enjoyment of wealth produced, will be the rendering of service by all who are fit to do so. This involves the suppression of all incomes derived from the ownership of property; but does the Labour Party propose that suppression? If not, then Mr. Brailsford is wrong. If not, the Labour Party is not a Socialist Party, and cannot be trusted to advance Socialism.

At its annual conference, the Labour Party made many decisions which plainly disgusted its so-called left wing (or wings). It is, however, not necessary to criticise these decisions separately. They all arise because of the deliberate omission from the Labour Party’s programme of a recognition of the class struggle. The capitalist class does, at present, own and control the means of producing wealth, and will not, without compulsion, yield its legal right to live by the ownership of property. Rather than face this fact, rather than admit that the class struggle exists and can be abolished from society only by the victory of the working-class majority, the Labour Party proclaims its belief in the possibility of achieving Socialism without destroying the property rights of the capitalist class. It believes that it has found a solution to the ancient problem of making omelettes without breaking eggs. It will have “Socialism” without “confiscation.”

Mr. MacDonald, discussing the question of land-ownership (reported in “Daily Herald,” October 14th) defined his position thus :—

“If he could not get a thing done without compensation, and could get it done with compensation … he would do it. No moral issue was involved; it was simply a business proposition.”

This was greeted with applause, and no one troubled to ask whether the “thing done” would be Socialism. All of the Labour Party’s nationalisation proposals involve the payment of compensation in the shape of interest-bearing bonds to the former owners. Now, apart from the futility of trying to introduce Socialism piecemeal, industry by industry, what will be the position when the Labour Party has finished nationalising all the essential services? The capitalist class will still be property-owners —their property being Government Bonds instead of company shares, etc. They will still live by owning, and without rendering service. To return to Mr. Brailsford’s words, instead of extinguishing “Rent, profit and interest,” the Labour Party will at immense trouble have completed the great transformation of turning “Rent and profit” into “Interest.”

The working-class will still be engaged in producing wealth for the benefit of the capitalist class. Socialism will not be in existence, and no important working-class problem will have been solved.

The alternative advocated by us, is to propagate Socialism and organise the working-class in a Socialist Party on a clear-cut Socialist programme. This does not mean, as Mr. Bowen suggested, “Bloody revolution.” (“Herald,” October 14th). The working-class are the great majority. When they become Socialist they will endeavour to obtain possession of the machinery of Government in the usual “constitutional” way. The Socialist Party not having been guilty, as was the Labour Party, of helping to carry on the recent “bloody war,” is less likely than that Party to adopt irresponsible courses leading to bloodshed and disorder.

Editorial: The Fallacies of Opportunism. (1926)

Editorial from the May 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

Opportunism has been the grave of many a movement that commenced blessed with the brightest hopes. It has an old and disastrous history in the annals of the working class, and yet it flourishes still, alluring with bright but treacherous promises myriads of workers whose energy and enthusiasm is wasted on fleeting and harmful objects instead of being directed towards the abolition of wage slavery.

Opportunism takes two main roads, one the road that is very, very long but has flowers to be picked by the way; the other the road along which emancipation is to come like a thief in the night—ushered in by a handful of “leaders” behind the backs of the people.

But the wayside flowers wither rapidly, and in like manner the “benefits” that are obtained with much labour and misery wither and become burdens in a very short time. Such are Old Age Pensions, Unemployment Insurance, and the like.

The quick road is full of pitfalls and quagmires, and the travellers along it are brought to ruin by the ignorance of the masses, the duplicity of the leaders, and the power of the masters. Along this road secrecy is one of the watchwords, and one after another secret movements have collapsed through betrayal by some of those taking part.

There was one secret movement, however, nearly 100 years ago, which, from one point of view, worked out in an ideal manner until it came to the final plunge—and then its very secrecy sealed its doom. This was the Barbès insurrection in France in 1839. So well was the secret kept that the main body of those taking part knew neither the leaders nor the plan of action until the day appointed for the rising, and when the leaders turned up nobody recognised them and squabbles and disorganisation resulted.

The opportunist brings his panaceas on to the historical stage then bows and vanishes, only to return again with a fresh one or an old one in a new dress. One by one these panaceas fail to accomplish their purpose and are cast aside.

The question arises, how is it that people are so ready to try false paths when the real remedy for their troubles is so simple and lies ready to hand ? There are two principal reasons. First, leadership offers rich prizes to those who covet an easy life, and inflates the vanity of those who seek popular applause. Secondly, when someone offers to do the work and relieve others of the thinking and worrying those others are inclined to support the saviour.

Many of those who profess a desire for a change in the social system and contend that they aim at the same object as we do, yet fall out with us for our methods as being either “unpractical” or “too long.”

We urge that the workers must first understand before they act—understand Socialism before any attempt is made to introduce it.

The difference in method leads to a fundamental difference in propaganda We are all the time engaged in disseminating knowledge of society, in the past and present, among our fellow workers, whilst the opportunists are a great part of the time engaged in disseminating rallying cries, enthusiastic phrases, and heaping abuse upon great men who occasionally play them false.

The results of the opportunists’ methods are plain to be seen by those who care to study history. The Co-operative, the Labour Party, the Industrial Unionist Movement, and the Communist Movement, to name only four, are illustrations to the point. The first two have been netted by the Capitalists, the second is dead, and the third is truly “evolutionary”—in a state of constant change !

The “evolution” of the Reformists becomes more interesting as time passes. After years spent impressing upon the workers the necessity of achieving “something now” and not worrying about “the dim and distant future,” events seem to be bringing the I.L.P. up with a jerk, if the editorial columns of the “New Leader” are anything to go by.

The Editorial of 12th February, commenting on Snowden’s recent speech, runs as follows :—

“Sir John Simon, in his reply, narrowed down our case to ‘gas and water Socialism.’ To gas and water one may add electricity and even, as Mr. Churchill once proposed, the railways. Such changes, conceived in this spirit, would leave the fabric of Capitalism intact, and even the nationalisation of the land would be no more than the last blow at Feudalism.” (Italics ours.)

Well! Well ! So all the pother was simply about seeing the back seams of feudalism’s breeches !

The step by step “evolutionary” method of reaching Socialism has not been a success. Brailsford already made that admission by inference in an article entitled “Socialism in our Generation” in the “New Leader” on January 1st, 1926. The article opens up with the suggestion that the I.L.P. are turning over a new leaf. The opening is so interesting that we cannot refrain from quoting it at length :—

“From its earliest days the Socialist movement has drafted its programme in two chapters. In the first it set out demands attainable here and now. In the second it states its ultimate aim. The first chapter varied, as time went on, with the circumstances of each country : sometimes stress was laid on the Parliamentary vote ; sometimes on the Eight Hours’ Day ; or, again, upon reforms in education and housing, or on the needs of the unemployed. This was the “practical” minimum programme. The second chapter was much less modest: it called for nothing less than the ending of the capitalist system, and the public ownership of all the means of production and distribution.

There were good reasons for this division. Every Labour movement grew as it showed tangible results. It had to interest men and women who cared nothing for theories and Utopias. It could not ignore the needs and wrongs of the moment for the sake of the distant transformation. But the method has its evils : when once you have separated the two chapters it is not easy to bring them together again. You draw a line, you print your Chapter II, in bold capital letters, and straightway you have jumped from the humdrum world of Parliamentary debates and general elections into the millennium. As the pioneers passed away and the second generation of experienced Parliamentarians took their place, the consequences became everywhere apparent. More and more it is the detail of the “practical” programme which absorbs us ; the faith in a hazy, Utopia survives, but the will to realise it is no longer the driving force. Strangers who watch our movement often liken it to a “religion.” The analogy is dangerously true. We have our week-day creed and our Sunday visions. We make ourselves at home in the City of Destruction, and from time to time, with warm hearts, and uplifted eyes, we sing of the New Jerusalem.”

Surely the above is a damaging admission from the side of the “practical” men if ever there was one ! While picking the withering flowers they have forgotten the object they set out to seek. Verily out of their own mouths are they convicted !

If they did but forget the object it were bad enough, but they did worse and it is their leaders who furnish us with the information.

We have already had occasion to comment upon the South African Labour Party, but a little further comment will do no harm, and will illustrate how the “practical” programme of Labour Parties leads them to take action diametrically opposed to the interests of the workers.

“The Bill which enforces the “colour bar” in all the industries of South Africa has passed its third reading in the Lower House. It applies to Indians and to Kaffirs, though not to half-castes. It reserves to men of the white races every skilled or semi-skilled trade, and in effect forbids a native to manage a machine. His place henceforth is fixed by law as a mere labourer. He may contrive to educate himself, but the law forbids him to use his sharpened intelligence in the preserves of the white man. 

This Bill, one of the most inhuman in the records of the white race, represents the joint policy of the more Conservative Boers and the South African Labour Party. It aims at preserving the wage standards of white labour against native and Indian competition. (New Leader, 12/2/26.)

Such is the way of the opportunist. To the class conscious Revolutionist the workers of the world are one as against the International Capitalist Class, whatever be the race, the colour, or the creed.

The many workers who support the opportunist parties must eventually come to the conclusion that short cuts and “practical” programmes are worthless. If they would emancipate themselves from the present sordid struggle for bread then they must accept and struggle for the Socialist solution to their troubles, which involves the avoidance of both the shambles and the sheepfold.

Socialism and Empire. (1925)

From the October 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Patriotism and the problems of Empire have always proved stumbling blocks to the workers and to their immature organisations, and nothing has more clearly shown the danger of half-knowledge than the ease with which the ruling class have been able to muddle their minds and inflame their passions by raising such issues. The world war and late developments of capitalist imperialism have given the question prominence by making more numerous and more bitter the struggles for independence of colonies and subject races, and in the verbal dispute between Communists, the I.L.P., the Labour Party and others the air is thick with charge and counter-charge of treachery to the Empire and treachery to the working-class. The dispute, however, leads to no simple conclusion because, as so often happens, the disputants have neglected first to decide whether they can agree on a few elementary Socialist principles. Before we examine the various proposals we must have a clear idea of the economic position and class interests of the workers, because it is from this foundation that they ought always to approach the issues presented to them.

The Position of the Workers. 

Wealth (excluding the air and other things abundantly supplied by nature) is produced by work. The work is performed by the great propertyless mass, the working class, but the means of wealth production, the machines, the land and so on, are owned by a class of non-workers, the capitalists. From this arises a great cleavage of interests, for it makes the workers dependent upon the owning-class since they cannot live except by entering the service of the owners. Out of the total wealth produced by their labour the workers receive but a part as wages, the remainder being retained by those who employ them. The one class lives by selling its services and the other by owning property. The everyday struggle over the division of the product sets these classes in perpetual antagonism, but the Socialist urges the workers to aim consciously not merely at increasing their share but at destroying the system of society which compels them to maintain a propertied class at their expense.

For the Socialist all forms of “living by owning,” rent, interest and profit are in effect nothing more than forms of exploitation, or robbery, of the wealth producers.

If this is correct, then it follows naturally that it is to the interest of the workers all over the world to act jointly in resisting any attempt to heighten the degree of that exploitation, and in overthrowing the system which is based upon exploitation. The enemy of the working class is the capitalist class.

But certain complications exist which prevent many workers from seeing where their interests lie. Lack of knowledge and race prejudices prevent those in one country from realising how essentially similar is their condition to that of workers in foreign countries. There are too real differences between the present circumstances of the workers in the more advanced and the more backward countries. Standards of living, of education, of political and personal freedom, and of political knowledge vary from, say, England or America to the hardly developed Asiatic dependencies of Great Britain; this in spite of the quite marked tendency towards a general equalising of conditions as industrial developments become more uniform all over the world under the pressure of competition.

Again, this very competition leads many workers astray. Exceptional prosperity in the British coal industry at a given time is gained at the expense of some foreign competitors. Viewing the matter from an individual and local standpoint, the miners are only too liable to agree with their employers who argue that the interests of British workers and owners are as one against those of their German or American rivals. Extending our view from one section of a capitalist industry to the whole of the industries of a country or group of countries, national rivalry often presents itself in such a form—war, for instance—as to induce great numbers of workers to join their own section of the ruling class against other sections which are likewise supported by their workers.

The Position of the Capitalist.

Capitalist countries—all of them—must organise their forces and direct their policy to ends which are vital to capitalist society, they must seek markets for surplus products, endeavour to monopolise sources of supply of raw materials where these are geographically limited, and protect ocean and overland communications to these areas. Britain holds tenaciously to her practical monopoly of tropical rubber producing areas, sits tight in Egypt in order to guard the routes to India, and keeps firm hold on the latter because it is a market of first importance and an area for the profitable investment of surplus profit gained by the exploitation of workers at home. The necessities of such imperialist policy bring our ruling class into inevitable conflict with other imperialist powers who also seek markets and monopolies, and into conflict with the colonial and native capitalists who resent having to share with foreign investors the profits of the exploitation of their own working class ; hence the war of 1914, and the independence movements in Ireland, India, Egypt, Canada and elsewhere.

Now let us examine the various parties in this country which claim to represent the working class.

The Labour Party.

The Labour Party openly and unashamedly supported the war in 1914 and associates now with its German patriot prototypes, the Social Democrats. It interests itself in the political and economic difficulties of the British capitalists, offers remedies to solve their industrial problems, assists in maintaining armed forces to defend capitalist property, loyally supports the Empire and opposes the grant of unconditional independence to any part of it. It is unnecessary to labour this point or answer the assertion that the Labour Party has changed for the better since the war because Mr. H. N. Brailsford, Editor of the New Leader, has recently written of the position now occupied by his party.

“We must face our own record as frankly. (I speak, of course, only for myself.) From the date of Mr. MacDonald’s first letter to the Indians on the eve of taking office, down to the recent debates on China, India, and our rubber monopoly, he and his closest associate, Mr. Thomas, have been leading the Party, openly and plainly, towards a reconciliation with Imperialism. His Indian record in office was worse than negative. Not only did he do nothing to advance Home Rule or to help the sweated Indian worker : he sanctioned the shameful Coercion Act in Bengal. His most recent speech gave reasons for doing nothing in India of which an old-fashioned Liberal would have been ashamed. There were other symptoms—the attitude to Mexico, the curt refusal of the Cypriote petition for union with Greece. But the gravest matter was his plain rejection of the League of Nations as the arbiter in our dispute with Egypt over the Canal and the Soudan. . . . We stand, as the French Party stands, a buttress of capitalist Imperialism.” (New Leader, August 21st, 1925.)

Leaving aside the influence of Liberal tradition and the habitual unthinking acceptance of capitalist ways of regarding politics, the ultimate explanation of this Labour Party attitude is that they have no basic quarrel with the capitalists or capitalism. They regard “profiteering” (or excessive profits) as “unjust,” but they do not hold all profit-making to be robbery of the workers. When they speak of “exploitation” what they mean is the payment of exceptionally low wages, they do not recognise that there can be no wage-earning, no wages system without exploitation. Thus Mr. Thomas, in “When Labour Rules,” Mr. MacDonald in “Socialism— Critical and Constructive,” Mr. Sydney Webb in “A Constitution for a Socialist Commonwealth,” all justify private property and the payment of profits, or interest to property owners. As Mr. Clynes says, “It is no part of Labour’s policy to establish revolutionary Socialism or to confiscate private property” (Glasgow Evening News, Oct. 4, 1923). Thus again in 1914 the workers of this country were urged by the Labour Party to fight lest they should, through a German victory, become slaves; and when the French occupied the Ruhr the same Party protested on the ground that it would make the German workers slaves. We, on the contrary, recognise that all the workers in a capitalist world are already wage-slaves to the propertied class, and that no fortune of war, whether victory or defeat, can alter the essentials of that situation. As we propose to deprive the capitalists of their property and do not admit that they have any rights whatever, it matters nothing to us that capitalist groups strive to plunder each other. The Labour Party recognise those property rights and therefore quite consistently seek to defend those whom they consider to be the rightful owners. It is consistent with their views of property but it is decidedly not consistent with working class interests and with Socialism.

“The Communist Party." 

This attitude does not meet with the approval of the Communists who oppose to the patriotism of the Labour Party an inverted patriotism of their own. They can see clearly enough that the interests of British workers clash with those of British capitalists but they cannot rest content with urging the workers everywhere to concentrate on resisting exploitation and on fighting their exploiters. They accept the false reasoning used by Mr. Francis Meynell when he edited the Communist. He urged support of the Indian native capitalists in their struggle against the British Government, on the ground that all enemies of the latter are the friends of the Communist Party. They proclaim the necessity and practicability of disrupting the British Empire, and ally themselves accordingly with every independence movement. What they forget or intentionally gloss over, is that national independence for Irish, Indians or Egyptians is no more a concern of the workers in those countries and should no more be fought for by them than national defence should concern workers here. To exchange Irish exploiters for English ones does not better the condition of Irish workers in the slightest degree; in actual fact, by stressing racial differences it adds to the obstacles preventing international co-operation in the trade union and political world. The enemies of the British ruling class are not necessarily friends of the British workers. We want to increase, not to obscure, the antagonism between one class and the other, and this cannot be done by urging Indian wage-slaves to waste precious years chasing the will o’ the wisp of nationality. Their masters alone will gain from such a course.

The Communist mind is also perverted by the determination not to read the signs of the times in Russia. British governmental hostility to the Russian Government leads the Communists to completely uncritical praise of the latter’s actions, oblivious of the extent to which those actions are driven by pressure of circumstance against working class interests. The Communists know quite well that there is no solution for the unemployment problem to be found in developing foreign trade, yet they have for years lent themselves to the anti-working class propaganda which promises untold benefits for British workers if only full trading relations with Russia are opened up. At present much of the hostility to the Bolshevik Government arises from the wish of foreign capitalists to have free access to this relatively undeveloped field for investment and exploitation. But whether that field is developed with or without the direct control of foreign capital, the entry of this new competitor into the world’s markets can only result in a worsening of the industrial conditions of workers generally, and an aggravation of the clashing of interests between capitalist groups. The Communists, too, like the Labour Party, refuse to recognise that exploitation is the necessary accompaniment of wage-labour. When the Labour Government proposed a £40,000,000 loan to Russia, the Communists were overjoyed, and Russian trade papers in their anxiety to attract foreign capital are full of reports of high profits earned by foreign traders and concessionaires. They decline to face the plain fact that interest on loans and profits on investments can come only from the exploitation of the Russian workers.

T. Johnston, I.L.P. member of Parliament and Editor of the Forward, takes the Communists to task for what he calls their “Whiggery in a Red Cravat.” He rightly condemns the obscured vision which can draw distinctions between sections of the capitalist class and see a friend of the workers in every exploiter who happens to have a quarrel with the British Empire. But Johnston himself is open to equal condemnation. He also is prepared to support schemes for the improvement of Empire trade, schemes, that is, to assist Empire capital in driving competitors from the world’s markets. Neither he nor anyone else has ever yet explained how this will benefit the world’s workers. The poverty in work, and greater poverty out of work, of the wage-earner is not dependent on the temporary ups and downs in particular industries or of all industries together. However, the total product of industry may vary with foreign trade fluctuations, there always has been, and is now, an enormous residue over and above wages, doles and relief, which is retained and consumed by the propertied class. What idiocy it is to tell the workers they must revive trade in order to get work and increase their wages, while an idle class is living on the product of the workers’ labour. When the workers wish they have the power on their hands to cut into that existing surplus whether trade is good or bad, or getting better or worse. While there is a single able-bodied property-owner living without working, only ignorance or treachery could ask the workers to devote thought to the increase of production, or to the quickening of foreign trade.

Johnston, again, owes his confusion to his inability to grasp what is meant by exploitation. Thus in Forward (Sept. 19) he writes in favour of the Labour movement here giving more attention to and entering into more cordial relations with Queensland which has a Labour Government. On the strength of this latter feature, Johnston, while repeating parrot-like the necessity of fighting exploitation, dubs Queensland a proletarian State. Actually, Queensland Government publications and the speeches of Labour Ministers and Members of Parliament demonstrate the incontrovertible fact that capitalist profits and the degree of exploitation of the workers in Queensland are greater, and the proportion of total production received by them as wages is less, than in any other Australian State now, and than was the case in Queensland when the Labour Government first took office ! (See Socialist Standard, Dec., 1923, and Feb., 1924.)

The Socialist Position.

The only safe rule of conduct for the workers is to stand firmly on the basis of their class economic interests. From this standpoint there can be no circumstances requiring them to participate in capitalist wars or trade rivalries. Even the supposed hardships resulting from military defeat do not outweigh the arguments in favour of the Socialist course of action outlined above. We have always urged that Reparations like rates and taxes are and must be a burden only on the propertied class. We are therefore not surprised to learn from the Ministry of Labour Gazette (June, 1925, Page 217) that an enquiry by the International Labour Office shows that real wages in Germany are approximately what they were in 1914 as are also wages in London. In victory and defeat the workers are still wage slaves, their poverty and insecurity are their only lifelong possession. They should not fight for “country and empire,” because they have nothing to fight for. They should refuse to help solve the economic problems of capitalist industry, or the political problems of capitalist empires and concentrate all their energies on the fight for Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle