SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let’s have common ownership, not Common Market (1971)

From the September 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A pathetic spectacle provided by the reformist parties and their satellites as they work themselves into a lather over the issues thrown up by capitalism. They fall for it every time. Whether it be the balance of payments, export-chasing, or gold reserves, at the drop of a hat they form up into positions and start to do battle for the capitalist class, whose interests alone are involved.

Capitalism has always provided plenty of distractions to take working class attention away from the real issue, and every time the self-styled leaders of the workers have proclaimed them as vital issues that will lastingly effect the future course of history.

The Common Market is just another distraction. The arguments for and against joining are equally irrelevant. One thing is certain, that the real issue has not been and is not being debated by the pundits of the “left” and “right”.

Capitalism often produces strange bedfellows, but when the mutual commitment to capitalism of both “left” and “right” wing groups is understood, it is not surprising to find the so-called Communist Party and National Front in the same camp, and the Trotskyists trailing along as usual behind the Tribune set, with Enoch Powell thrown in for good measure. The Labour Party front bench, which maintained a precarious unity while in power, have gone their different ways. Wilson complains loudly about “knives” and “hatchets”, but is not listened to by Roy Jenkins, Michael Stewart or Lord George Brown. The petty demagogues line up in a power struggle inside the Labour Party, as Michael Foot seeks to purge pro-market members from the shadow cabinet.

The two sides bicker incessantly about the “terms”, about New Zealand, and the possibility of better pickings for British capitalism elsewhere. None of these things is of the least concern to the working class. And, by working class, we do not mean the wage-slaves of just Britain and Europe, but of the entire world. What then is the real issue?

Throughout the world the means of production are concentrated in the hands of an owning minority — the capitalist class. This means that the vast majority own nothing but their physical and mental abilities to work. They must sell these abilities for wages or salaries in order to live. This vast non-owning majority is the working class. There is an antagonism of interests between the capitalist class owners and the working class non-owners since the fundamental relationship of capitalism, that of employer to employee, rests upon exploitation. The interest of the capitalist class is to maximise their profits and accumulate capital through the exploitation of wage-labour. To serve this interest, the whole world has been turned into a market for the profitable disposal of commodities (or wealth produced by wage-labour under conditions of private property and exploitation). The entire globe is the hunting ground for minerals and other resources to feed the hungry machines of industry, to keep up the flood of commodities and expand profits. The rivalry between national and international capitalists promotes their military power and fashions their alliances. War, like poverty, unemployment, slums and hunger, is inseparable from capitalism.

Both the pro- and anti-marketeers work on the same false assumptions, namely, that the market economy is indispensable, and, that there, is a unified national or European interest which workers and capitalists have in common. Socialists totally reject these assumptions. The interest of the working class is to end the system that exploits them; to abolish the employer-to-employee relationship; to do away with commodity production and get rid of the markets profits mad-house. This will mean the abolition of the wages-system and of buying and selling. In short, the interest of the working class, is to get rid of capitalism. The real issue is one of ownership. The workers in the six countries which at present belong to the EEC own none of the vast industrial or other resources of those countries. They are wage-slaves, just like the workers in Britain.

The only market that awaits British workers, like their European fellow-workers, is the labour-market, and the dictum “hired when it pays, fired when it doesn’t” will remain in force.

Instead of accepting the bogus arguments being trotted out by both sides, for and against joining, workers should be asking questions like: In or out of the Common Market, will wealth continue to accumulate in the hands of a few and will food still be destroyed while people starve? In or out of the Common Market, will poverty and insecurity continue to blight the lives of many millions ,both here in Britain and throughout the world? In or out of the Common Market, will H-Bombs remain both within Europe and outside to threaten the existence of mankind? In or out of the Common Market, will the massive power blocs, America, Russia, China, Japan and Europe, continue to struggle for advantage with war as their last desperate card?

These are questions which put the Common Market in its real capitalist perspective.

There are those who oppose entry because they fear loss of national identity. The workers have always been taught to be proud of their master’s country. If the barriers of nationalism are weakened through the EEC, this would not be a harmful effect, though there is little sign of it happening. All that is taking place is a grouping together of States, which has happened before, in earlier stages of capitalism, in America, Germany and Italy except that the EEC has yet to go for full political union.

Modern capitalism operates with such massive plant and investment levels that grouping together is the only way to stay in the big league. The military strategy of modern capitalism, and the costly technology of modern warfare, also dictate the coming together of groups of nations. If nationalism on the old scale diminishes, a continental scale of nationalism will develop as the rivalry between the emerging groups grows hotter.

What is really relevant to the world context in which we live today, is not new groupings, but a society without frontiers. Not bigger markets and fatter profits, but an end to all markets and all profits. Not the concentration of ever greater wealth into fewer hands, but the common ownership of the Earth and all its resources. This is the real issue which faces the workers of the world.

Harry Baldwin

China and America (1971)

From the September 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

After more than twenty years of waging a propaganda war against each other and working up suspicions and hatred among their respective working classes, the American and Chinese mobster politicians are to seek some kind of reconciliation.

To those numbered in their millions all over the world, who mouthed and continue to mouth the slogans of Chinese capitalism denouncing “American imperialism”, and equally to all those who mouthed the phrases of American capitalism denouncing “Chinese expansionism”, it must seem as bewildering as were the Catholic church to suddenly get together with the League of Militant Atheists. After mountains of vitriolic propaganda, oceans of hate and the widespread belief that a real and unbridgeable ideological chasm separates the two sides, what explanation can there be for such a momentous reversal of attitudes?

Such about-faces are far from unheard of in the double dealing world of lies and hypocrisy which is capitalism. Stalin and the Bolshevik heads of Soviet capitalism got together with Nazi Germany and, after denouncing the war as imperialist, wound up on the side of British and American imperialism against their former Nazi friends. Conversely, Churchill who had spent twenty-five years denouncing the Soviet regime as a “cancerous growth”, wound up as head of British capitalism, supporting Soviet state-capitalism against Hitler and Mussolini (whom he had formerly admired).

Russia and China are capitalist countries, whose foreign policies, quests for world markets, world investments and military power only make sense when seen as part of the world-wide rivalry that characterises capitalism everywhere.

If the British capitalist class (or most of them) are jubilant at the prospect of multiplying their profits in the European market of 250 million people, large sections of the American capitalist class must have been biting their nails for years at the frustration of missing the pickings of the Chinese market.

During the years since 1948, trade, and even more so investment, has been rigidly restricted between Western capitalism and China. Successive American governments have pursued a policy of “containment”. For many years developing Chinese capitalism depended heavily on Russian equipment and technicians. But during the last ten years when the Russian and Chinese rulers have been embroiled in mutual abuse, technicians have been withdrawn. All this has forced capitalism in China to rely on its own resources and know-how. It has been found that containment and trade embargoes only meant less reliance on the outside world and a greater impetus for developing internal technology.

The priorities of capitalism in China are the same as in other powerful capitalist countries. They exploded their first A-bomb in October 1964 followed by their first H-bomb two years later. From then on it was only a matter of time before they mastered the rocket techniques for delivering them. This marked a significant turning point in how the West regarded the threat of China. When China put her first satellite into orbit in April 1970, Time magazine (11 May 1970) discussed the prospects of rockets and guidance systems and declared, “Peking beyond any doubt will, within weeks or months, possess at least the first elements of a nuclear missile force.” The article went on to review the likely impact on other countries and said “As Japan assumes a larger role in Asia, the country may feel the need for the superpower weapons to match its growing international status”. Which is all very ominous and shows how commercial struggles and military power go together.

During this period there was diminishing opposition to China’s entry into the so-called United Nations. It became known that despite all the mud-slinging, American and Chinese representatives had for years been meeting secretly in Warsaw.

True to their dedication to profits and military force, it took the possession of nuclear weapons to make American capitalism take Chinese capitalism seriously.

Nixon has pulled off the political coup of a life time—if things continue to go in a direction favourable to both sides. Which is not bad considering he does not officially recognise the existence of the Peking government. However, these get-togethers can burst into flame one moment and freeze over the next. But no doubt the masters of mass head-fixing on both sides will be ready to blame each other if it all turns sour. Just as Nixon and Chou-En-Lai will be seen on television smiling and embracing each other, having forgotten the threats of war and mutual destruction so the threats will be revived and the smiling forgotten, if after all it does not come off. An additional irony is that it should fall to Nixon to go sweet-talking in China, since it was he who first made his name as a red-baiter in the post-war years.

Peace is avowed as the heart-felt desire of both sides. And no doubt many millions of ordinary workers will welcome the prospect of diminished hostility. Any sign of hope will be grabbed at by a generation that has seen nothing but wars and military build-ups. But here again there is plenty of evidence to show how hollow these hopes are. There have been hundreds of conferences since the end of the Second World War and the major powers (America, Russia, France, China and Britain) have endlessly negotiated and yet there have been 73 wars including Korea and Vietnam, between 1945 and 1968. Many times hopes have been built up of reducing nuclear weapons, but despite negotiations they have steadily proliferated. After years of friendly relations, Russia and China came close to war in 1969. These two giants keep up the pretence of being different from imperialist America and Britain and used to heap admiration upon each other as “socialist” brothers. Yet they were driven to each other’s throats by the same sordid territorial ambitions as any openly capitalist countries.

What chance is there of China and America forming a relationship where commercial, strategic and territorial ambitions do not clash? It is precisely these interests which make capitalism what it is. The struggles for trade, investments, strategic positions and profits, make clashes inevitable.

The war in Vietnam has dragged on despite years of negotiations. All the suffering, death and destruction are as nothing to the negotiators who ruthlessly stick out for the interests they represent. China may now be expected to use her influence to pull American chestnuts out of the fire. Despite their support for North Vietnam and all the years of anti-American propaganda, such a service to American capitalism must now be regarded as a good bargaining lever. During 1966 China supplied the American air-force with steel for building air-bases in full knowledge of what this meant for their allies in the North. So both sides are well versed in the arts of cynicism and double-cross.

The Japanese government seems enthusiastic at the prospect of a new approach to China. Japan fought a long and bitter war to get her hands on the loot from China. What they failed to achieve by arms they now hope to achieve through the circulation of commodities. Japan is in an expansion frenzy and is hungry for raw-materials and markets.

There may be a period of mad scramble to get into China with capital investments to develop industry and extract minerals, but in the long-term, another massive rival for markets will emerge. Capitalism can operate in no other way. The smiles and frowns of politicians only reflect the prevailing situations presented to them by capitalism.

The final irony, to this latest stage of developments between China and America, might be Russian opposition to China’s entry into the UN. The Russian ruling class too have established “better relations” with Washington, so they may well play it cool. Their reaction will in any case be calculated to create whatever pressure is need to make Russian interests felt in what is going on.

Regardless of the public face they show, Russia, China and America will watch each other very closely. They are each in the same game for what they can get. The fact that friendly relations may exist for a time between each of them, should delude nobody. Trade does not mean trust. They will continue to spy on each other. Investments do not receive peace. They will each maintain their nuclear and other weapons.

Only the working class can get rid of this system of mutual suspicion, rivalry and war. This will involve establishing a world community where trade and investments and military force will have no place. Neither will the cynicism and hypocrisy of politicians.

Harry Baldwin

The "Prosperous" Working Class (1957)

From the February 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are often told by people who do not really understand its meaning, that poverty no longer exists. Largely they mistake poverty for destitution, and think in terms of pre-war days of dole-queues, hunger marches, and the general hardship suffered from not being able to afford sufficient food, clothing and shelter.

Workers who feel secure in their jobs at the moment must bear in mind that the era of full employment was started by the last world war, when a vast amount of industry was smashed up, and the world market at the end of it had six years dearth of consumer goods to make up, and, all the while, massive preparations have gone on for World War III.

If our measure of prosperity is to be that we have all got "jobs,” it still leaves Capitalism, with a great deal to answer for. In the first place, our jobs are not really “ours ” at all, because they can be taken away from us, and today, just as before the war, how long they last depends on how long our employers can sell, at a profit, the things we produce.

Neither poverty, nor destitution, has been abolished, and these evils of Capitalism only smite the useful people of society—the working class. Poverty is not something which depends on what Government is in power, it is a permanent condition of the wage-earning class.

Poverty can be recognised in the existence of hire-purchase; it can be seen amongst the crowds of window-shoppers looking in at the things they cannot afford; it is the reason why workers “save” for holidays, Xmas, clothing or furniture; why they live in low-rent homes; take out insurance against their old age; shop more in Brixton than in Bond Street; buy one necessary thing, and forego others; and generally live from pay-day to pay-day.

There are many other instances of the condition of poverty, but the above will be sufficient to take any heads from the clouds, in order to take a closer look at the world we workers “live’ in. Destitution is always a threatening possibility to wage-earners, as their only source of income is through finding hirers, and, as we shall see, all kinds of dire consequences can follow when the hired are dispensed with. The old age pensioners, the disabled, and the sick, ca still be found destitute, on the pittance doled out by the “Welfare State.” .

One example of the prosperity we are all supposed to be enjoying, comes from a report in the Daily Express of 15th October, 1956. In Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, the Chamber of Trade is starting a “Black Book” of customers who do not pay. “The idea is to protect traders from people who run up accounts at one shop, and then open accounts at others, when they cannot pay off the first In another town, housewives may be secretly investigated, and find it difficult to open accounts at a second shop, after exhausting credit at the first.” 

Mr. Raymond Broad, President of the Chamber said:—

“ Many people who formerly paid cash now want credit. Things are getting more difficult for traders."

" Some women in Axminster have been going 10 miles to Honiton, to run up new bills. But a woman who leaves her grocer, when he asks for his money, will find her new grocer more cautious,’ said Mr. Herbert Jeffery, Secretary of Axminster Chamber of Commerced."

We are sure to be told that people who cannot pay the grocer must be buying television sets or motor-cycles but, after 17 years of full employment, for workers to have to choose between paying the radio shop or the grocer, is poverty.

The Daily Express, a day later, carried an even more remarkable story. After we have been told, by Eden and others, of the terrible fate in store for "us,” if “we” lose the Suez Canal, the Express gives an account of what happened to the family of a reservist, who was called back while the Canal dispute raged. The income of Mrs. Bedford was "chopped from £14.16.0 a week, to 16/- for children’s allowances. Food ran out. Her three little daughters, Anne, aged five, Christine, three. Denise, two —began to fret, and then weep with hunger.” The mother “broke open the gas meter at her home in St. Paul’s Road, Middlesbrough. She was found out. Yesterday, she was conditionally discharged, on payment of 15/- costs. The electricity authorities have cut off the current, because she has not paid the last bill.”

It is indeed ironic that the same Capitalist State machine, which took the man away from his work, was responsible for cutting off his electricity, and imposing the Court costs on his wife. Even more remarkable, in view of the story of the Canal being vital to our survival, and the fact that we are told that the public own nationalised electricity.

The eventual allowance from the Army was £4 0s. 6d. per week, and, being a member of the working class, with no property income, Mrs. Bedford had “9d. left out of the allowance, after she had paid:—

Rent                  £1    8   9

Clothes on credit      £2    0   0 

Furniture, H.P. ... 11   0

Total                   £3 19  9

This woman had a child “ recovering from polio,” and “was expecting another baby.” Before her allowance arrived, she had taken sheets and blankets off one of the beds, and gone to the pawnbroker with them. “ He allowed me 18/-. With that, I bought bread, margarine, and milk, and gave them to the kids. They were ravenous.”

The fact that workers do not own the Empire, the oil, or the Country, is often tragically brought home. As the S.P.G.B. pointed out at its formation,“ the machinery of Government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the Capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers.” (See clause 6 of our Declaration of Principles).

The last example we will give here, is of how the “benevolent” State treats wage-slaves from whom profits cannot be made, as they are too old. It is from a letter to the Sunday Graphic for October 14th, 1956:—

“There are large groups of humans, men and women, who suddenly cease to belong economically to the everyday world that swirls around them, almost over them. They grope and scheme for a little food, a little warmth, and, above everything else, a little security.”

The writer is a pensioner, aged 71, with a semi-invalid wife.

“ We receive a weekly sum of £3 18s. 6d., for all our needs. After budgeting for rent, gas, coal, and clothes, it leaves 6s. a day between us and starvation. And the dread of the winter is on us. The little extra something an old body craves in the winter, is beyond the few shillings needed for sheer necessities to keep alive.”

After going to a rally of the Old Age Pensioners’ Association, and listening to the speeches by the High Sheriff, a padre, and others, about what must be done, "Hope surged again,” and, after the collection was taken, “I trudged back home. My twopenny bus fare was in the plate. The heart and soul shrink from the dreary, hopeless future that stares bleakly at us. For how much longer now? Who knows? Who cares?”

As Socialists, we care about the poverty suffered by workers. We also know how long it will last. It will last as long as the working class are content to work for wages; for as long as they look for solutions to their problems within Capitalism.

Whilst a minority owns the means of production, and profit remains their goal, older workers, who have slowed down, will always have to make way for younger, faster ones. Consideration of human suffering and hardship is a luxury which Capitalism must always place as a poor second to profits. It is only with Socialism that the peoples’ needs will count first

When the means of production are held by society in common, the fruits of our social labour will be available for use. Goods of all kinds will be freely distributed without the barrier of money.

If only workers, young and old, would ponder the possibilities of this sure but simple solution, instead of allowing competing reformist parties to deceive them into the continued support of Capitalism, the misery, poverty, destitution, insecurity, and war threats, with which our whole lives are cursed at present, would be banished for ever.

Harry Baldwin

SPGB Meetings (1975)

Party News from the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Branch News (1962)

Party News from the March 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another of our Central London Rallies has been arranged for Wednesday, March 21st at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, W.C.I. The title SOCIALISM OR CHAOS. Comrades H. Baldwin and M. Harris are the speakers. Doubtless as many Comrades as possible will attend this meeting and if everyone brings at least one non-member or sympathiser and tells as many people as they can about the meeting, there should be a large audience. The more people who can hear the Socialist case, the nearer we arc to Socialism. The Literature Committees will see that, there is a good supply of pamphlets and Socialist Standards so that after the spoken word the written word will be available to ensure that the case for Socialism is more readily understood.

Glasgow Branch has re-arranged their March series of lectures and titles and full details appear on page 48. They have passed the half-way mark in their series—’Problems of the Sixties’. The results show they have been successful. Thirteen different speakers have participated, three from London. Collections £31, and literature sales £8. Audiences have averaged 30, thirteen members attending regularly.

The first large indoor meeting was addressed by Comrade H. Baldwin, subject —“Demonstration for Socialism.” and the most recent large meeting was on ‘America —Land of Paradox’, Speaker, Comrade Gilmac. audience 126. Despite fogs! A social was held on Saturday, January 27th whilst Comrade Gilmac was there for the Sunday meeting. A very jolly evening was enjoyed by all.

The meetings are causing the Party to become known to an increasing number of workers. Things seem to be looking up for the Party in Glasgow and the activities of members are increasing. An article appeared in the Glasgow Herald after Comrade Gilmac’s meeting, as follows: —

“SOCIALIST PARTY TO CONTEST NORTH KELVIN. The Socialist Party of Great Britain intend to contest the North Kelvin Ward of Glasgow in the next Municipal Election, and they hope to contest, the Woodside Constituency in the Parliamentary election, an official said yesterday. The Glasgow Branch of the Party has about 40 members.”

also

“The Party must have the necessary members in the Constituency to fill in their candidate’s nomination paper. The Socialist Party enters these elections opposed to all other political parties, whether they are avowedly capitalist, or allegedly labour.”

When similar reports can be made from other towns in Great Britain, it is hoped that not only the British Isles, but many other parts of the world will have become familiar with the ideas of Socialism.

Swansea Branch now hold regular talks. Comrade Rollings recently gave an excellent talk on Crime and Society. Comrade Brain spoke on the ‘Russian Phenomenon’; and a series of talks by Party members have been arranged for the future.

At present the Branch is proceeding with arrangements for a debate with the Liberal Party in Swansea, when this is finalised it is hoped to get as much publicity as possible. Branch members still succeed in getting the Party case published in the Local Press and the Party is becoming well known in the district. A local bookshop has agreed to accept six copies of the SOCIALIST STANDARD for a trial period of three months.

Needless to say the local Labour Party and Communist Party (so called) show their customary opposition to Socialist ideas. It is hoped, when funds allow, to purchase a tape recorder so that talks can be recorded to build up a ‘tape library’ for propaganda purposes.

Phyllis Howard

SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the March 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

As per usual when posting old meetings from old Standards, I don't have enough space in the label section of the blog to list all the speakers and all the branches, so I have to play favourites. My bad.

It's interesting to note that two of the meetings advertised feature speakers who were not originally from the UK. All too often during this period  - and before and after, to be frank - the SPGB were accused of simply being a British and its Commonwealth/former Empire phenomenon. Lewisham Branch featured a meeting on Tito's Yugoslavia, where the speaker was Remy Starc, who I believe was Slovenian, and Paddington Branch featured a meeting on the Italian working-class movement where the speaker was 'Beppe'. Unfortunately I don't have any further information about this speaker. That meeting would have been especially interesting to me, 'cos it was only a couple of years after Visconti's film, 'Rocco and His Brothers'.

On the subject of films, I notice that both Birth of a Nation and October are listed on the meetings page. I'm guessing this refers to the Griffin and Eisenstein's films. The film, The German Story, which was shown at the SPGB's Wembley Branch was a 1956 East German film which was banned in West Germany because of its subject matter.

Adding some background to some of the SPGB speakers featured in the March 1962 Socialist Standard, listed below are links to a number of their obituaries. Yep, grim I know:

• Aug 1995: Edgar Hardcastle (E. Hardy)
• Jun 1976: Gilbert McClatchie ('Gilmac')
• Nov 2003: Cyril May (C. May)
• Feb 1996: Harry Young (H. Young)
• Apr 1982: Tony Mulheron (T. A. Mulheron)
• Oct 2006: Joe Richmond (J. Richmond)
• Jun 2008: Robert Russell (R. Russell)

Party News (1966)

Party News from the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism V the Rest

About 40 people attended a lively meeting at our Head Office on September 19. The meeting, to which our political opponents were invited, was part of our Seven Days for Socialism campaign. On the platform were George Kiloh, national chairman of the Young Liberals, Chris Parkinson, Tory councillor for Streatham South, and our comrade Baldwin. The Labour Party speaker failed to attend and the Communist Party, which had also been invited, did not send anybody.

The meeting opened with each speaker briefly outlining his party's case. Comrade Baldwin explained that all his opponents (including the absent Labourite) were “tarred with the same brush” because they all stood for capitalism. Only the Socialist Party stood for Socialism. Councillor Parkinson admitted that his party was an avowedly capitalist party but declared that Tory policy was to move everyone up the social ladder by a general improvement in living standards The Young Liberal declared that capitalism was “unjust and immoral” and that Socialism was state capitalism. He went on, however, to outline YL plans, such as “joint-management” and “worker’ control in the nationalised concerns,” which, he claimed, would be a first step in producing industrial efficiency.

Southend

Southend Group maintained vigorous and lively activity through the summer with regular group meetings and canvassing. Members of London and Mid-Herts branches helped to run outdoor meetings on the seafront from time to time. It is intended to make these meetings weekly next year.

Sales of the Socialist Standard locally, through canvassing, have been good — 22 dozen of the August issue were sold. Further canvassing and other literature sales are planned for the autumn. Sympathisers should get on our mailing lists for details of indoor meetings and the like. Details from Secretary, Southend Group (write or call), 19 Kingswood Chase, Leigh-on-Sea.

Brighton

A brief report on the work of the Literature Sales Committee’s work at the Labour Party Conference. Five members covered the conference throughout the week. Three hundred and seventy-eight copies of the October Socialise Standard were sold, in addition to pamphlets. An excellent effort. It is hoped that even more comrades will be available for such sales in future, as the more sellers, the more sales.

Black Muslims

On September 7 Michael X, a leader of the Black Muslims in Britain, spoke “In Favour of the Separation of the Races” at our Paddington branch. He claimed that “the black man’s greatest problem was the white man”. White men had shipped black men to the West Indies; they had deprived them of their names, their language, their religion and their culture. Christianity was a slave religion. That was why people like him returned to Islam, the religion of their forefathers. He was president of an organisation that admitted no whites. This was because if they did the whites would help the organisation to death; the “white liberals” would do all the work so that black people would never learn to act for themselves. Black people from the West Indies were basically agricultural; they were unused to the disciplines of industrial society. They had to learn these “to catch up with the whites". But they could only do this, Michael X said, through “separate development”; by keeping away from, and not trusting, white people and by learning on their own.

In discussion it was pointed out that Socialists did not see themselves as white people or black people or as British or any other nationality, they knew they were members of a world-wide working class without any country. They knew that the only solutions to our troubles as workers was, whatever our skin pigmentation or what not, through the establishment of a world Socialist community. Members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain had come from all kinds of religious backgrounds—Christian, Jewish, even Muslim, had seen through all this mumbo-jumbo. When the Black Muslims had "caught up", what then? They would only be ordinary wage slaves like the rest of us. Was this all they wanted? 

In reply Michael X said that Socialism was a "white man's theory".

SPGB Meetings (1966)

 Party News from the October 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1976)

Party News from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Presidential Circus (1976)

From the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where mindless buffoonery is another name for statesmanship, just about anybody could qualify as President of the USA; or as top political henchman anywhere in the world.

It must throw serious doubt upon the sanity of anyone who is prepared to be a candidate for one of the dirtiest jobs on earth. A job which involves being ready to command the use of H-bombs and other nuclear weapons, and to preside over the annihilation of countless millions of people. American Presidents have already either used nuclear weapons or considered using them. Every post-war President has pursued policies for testing and stockpiling H-bombs. Wars involving so-called conventional weapons are commonplace throughout the world. The influence and interest of American capitalism are concerned more often than not.

The job also means having a string of glib excuses ever ready to trot out as to why poverty, unemployment, slumdom, and crime continue to blight the lives of most Americans in one form or another. During the Primaries, and indeed right up to election day, evasion and cynicism are essential to survival. Of course, whoever wins will have to be doubly evasive and cynical once in office. It is as though under the influence of mass-hypnosis a primitive ritual were taking place, and serious adult discussion of major social problems was a taboo to be breached only on pain of extinction. Never mind what it’s all about, win the nomination. The object is to get elected. If that means wearing a gormless grin and a Stetson hat for months on end, so be it. The art is to be as sensitively tuned as possible to the rumbling of band-wagons, and not to be caught on the wrong one at the wrong time.

Anything in the way of fundamental principles would be a gross liability. Popular prejudice and mass political ignorance must never be offended. Candidates must strike the proper balance between being patriotic, religious and anti-Communist. Vagueness is vital, so that no-one can ever quote you as saying anything for sure.

Ideally, candidates need to personify as many of the myths associated with capitalism as possible. Be enterprising, successful, rugged, ultra-American, strong yet flexible. Insofar as behind those myths lie the realities of capitalism, “enterprising” means wheeling and dealing. “Success” means climbing on the backs of others. “Rugged” means knowing how to survive in the rat-race. “Ultra-American” means appealing to nationalism to achieve political ambition. Being "strong” means standing up to the recurrent crises of capitalism and not appearing to be too confused by the conflicting advice of your aides. To be “flexible” means hypocrisy, bending with prevailing winds and pandering to popular opinion, to lie and deal and double deal. On the basis of those criteria, Richard Nixon was a first-rate President. Perhaps the real reason why he was pushed out was because too much of capitalism was too clearly reflected in him.

A great deal of reverence is vested in the office of the Presidency. The President is regarded as a kind of national father-figure. Image-building of this kind is important to the capitalist class as a whole, for while the office and the person of the President are highly respected by the working class a useful camouflage is provided for the “normal operation” of the system.

They could, no doubt fill the post by placing a simple notice in the want-ads, but then some joker may apply who does not support war, or who won’t agree to play ball with the wheeler-dealers. So the circus and the sickening ballyhoo are indispensable to the final outcome. Even the also-rans play their part in stoking up the drama in what might otherwise become the non-event of the year. The whole thing is astutely stage-managed so that only personalities are seen. The miserable continuity of capitalism slips by unnoticed. We are expected to respond with breathless anticipation to the world-wide commentary, as they jockey for position round the three-ring circus donated by courtesy of Rent, Interest and Profit.

In the realms of personality, mediocrity is the order of the day. What the votes on polling-day really declare is not who shall be the next President of the USA; that is of little importance. They spell out loud and clear the readiness of American workers to go on accepting capitalism and their willingness to swallow the small-talk while the major social problems remain as glaring as ever. To reaffirm this fact and to take a sounding of any latent unrest is worth all the clowning and the expense to the ruling class. It assures them of the continuing “safety” of their system.

Anyone who thinks that Ford and Reagan (or any of the others) are not interchangeable should remember Johnson and Goldwater. Johnson campaigned as the man of peace who would pull out of Vietnam. Goldwater was for staying in and fighting it out. The American working class voted Johnson a landslide, but they got Goldwater anyway. It was not long before they were chanting “Hey, Hey, LBJ, how many kids you killed today?” When Reagan says he would send American troops to Rhodesia and Ford calls this “irresponsible” it does not mean Ford would not send troops to Rhodesia. It means that it is irresponsible to say such things during an election. Reagan said the troops would be for peace-keeping. Would they then leave their guns at home? What would-be President talks of sending soldiers anywhere to make war these days?

The whole situation has its parallel in every country throughout the world. Rival politicians jostle and manoeuvre to gain or hold on to power for the running of capitalism. The working class is taken in by a privileged minority who wield political power to preserve their domination of the means of wealth production and distribution. It is not that the American workers are more ignorant than their fellows elsewhere, just that their circus lasts longer.

Are we saying that elections are like circuses and should therefore not be taken seriously by the workers? On the contrary, it is because the real issue is not treated seriously that elections have all the farcical features of a circus. This does not discredit the democratic process of voting, it indicates the urgent need for workers to back their votes with class-consciousness. When they understand what is involved in changing society to the classless world of common-ownership, they will use their votes to sweep away the puppet politicians of capitalism.

Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as saying: “It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.” Whoever is elected the next us President certainly will not be deterred from trying.

Harry Baldwin

SPGB Meetings (1964)

Party News from the July 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism's deadly foes (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

It used to be an axiom of Party speakers that if the Labour Party did not exist the capitalist class would have to invent it. The same is true of the so-called Communist Party, though in a different historical context.

The Labour Party throughout its vile and bloody history has stood ever ready to serve British capitalism, as government, loyal opposition, and in coalition with Tories and Liberals. Bloody history? Yes. Did they not support and help organize the slaughter of millions of workers in two world wars? Did they not endorse the atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Were they not the government when the Korean war started in 1950? Did they not support and aid the American butchery in Vietnam? All this is viciously anti-working class. Yet these are only some major crimes that spring to mind. The catalogue is a long one.

While their cloth-capped pacifist Keir Hardie was playing recruiting-sergeant during World War I, the SPGB was opposing the war and propounding Socialism. While one-time conscientious-objector Herbert Morrison was in the Churchill War Cabinet during World War II, the SPGB was arguing the common interest of the world’s workers.

The post-war Labour government started Harwell and the development of nuclear weapons in this country. They fostered the lunatic justification: “They’ve got them — so we must have them”. It was Aneurin Bevan, the darling of the mutton-headed left, who did not want to go “naked” to the world’s conference chambers. “Negotiation from strength” meant being “clad” in nuclear armoury. They hold the distinction of being the first government in this country to carry on conscription in peacetime.

They used troops to break strikes. Their Attorney-General (now Lord Shawcross) prosecuted dockers in April 1951. Seven dockers had been charged under the Conditions of Employment and National Arbitration Order. Shawcross is recorded in Keesing’s Contemporary Archives (May-June 1951) giving a warning to strikers generally that, if there were no trade dispute involved, a strike which was calculated to cause a breach of contract, or so interfere with the course of justice, or affect the policy or interests of the state, “might constitute a grave criminal offence”. Bevan then had the job Foot now holds as Minister of Labour (members of NALGO please note).

At every election since the war, including 1945, the Communist Party has worked for the return of Labour governments, supported Labour candidates and urged workers to vote Labour. They are equally guilty. It is manifestly absurd to work for the return of Labour governments and then disclaim responsibility for what those governments do.

The guilt of the “Communist” Party goes deeper than supporting the Labour Party. As mouth-piece of Soviet state capitalism they too support wars. They supported the atom-bombing of Japan. They applauded the development of the atomic bomb in Russia because it broke the American monopoly, saying it “will encourage peace-loving people everywhere” (Daily Worker, 24 September 1949). Two years later when the British bomb was announced they called it: “A cowards’ weapon, designed for the unrestrained massacre of the civilian population” (Daily Worker 18 February 1952).

After Russia was attacked in 1941, nobody was more in favour of fighting for capitalism in World War II. They even supported the return of Tory candidates in by-elections to better prosecute the war. For more than 50 years they have slavishly followed Russian foreign policy; even stooping to support Stalin’s pact with Hitler, calling it a “victory for peace and socialism” (Daily Worker 23 August 1939).

They also supported the wars in Korea and Vietnam though, being motivated by the interests of Russian capitalism, they were on the other side to their Labour buddies in these two bloodbaths.

Flash back

How did all this come to be? How can it happen that these two parties which use Socialist-sounding phrases and (in the case of the Labour Party with the support of millions of workers) come to be buried in the dirty business of maintaining capitalism? The answers are to be found in fundamentally wrong assumptions right from their beginnings. It is a long story and from the standpoint of working-class interests and Socialism a sad and futile story.

The Labour Party in 1906 and the “Communist” Party in 1920 embarked upon the day-to-day struggle to do “something now”. The former being a native product of British capitalism in the quest for reforms, the latter taking its cue from their masters in the Kremlin. They are both the heirs to the fallacy of the old Social Democrats that Socialism can be an ultimate objective, while “in the meantime” they build a movement to seek votes on the basis of a list of reforms.

The false assumption behind this idea is that the working class cannot understand Socialism; they have to be baited by reforms. Above all, workers cannot consciously organize and free themselves, they must have leaders. So the trap is set. The trap is capitalism and the quarry is reformist.

Starting out on the wrong foot and facing the wrong way all subsequent developments were inevitable. Instead of being stepping-stones, reforms became the only attainable ends. Their spurious socialism is reforms and nationalization. As if to rub salt into the wounds of mockery, they used to say they were in a hurry and could not wait for the SPGB and workers’ understanding.

Given a working class who are overwhelmingly non-socialist, the Labourites and Communists have to appeal to the same politically ignorant electorate as the avowedly capitalist parties. If you play their game, “you” must have a policy for everything they have a policy for. To get votes you must do what they do. No use talking about the abolition of the wages system, common ownership and production solely for use. Talk about pensions and housing. Make promises. Outbid the Tories and Liberals. Sound plausible. Promote leaders. Be British. Be concerned about the nation and British interests. Their game is running capitalism. To sound plausible means you must convince millions of workers that you can run capitalism better than they can. Though all your policies pre-suppose the continuation of capitalism, you must foster the illusion of attacking the system and being indignant.

How many times during the seventy years of the Socialist Party of Great Britain have we been asked : “Where have you got? What have you achieved?” While the clamour for popular demands has become a way of life the voice of Socialism has remained small. In fact, the two things go together. The massive proportions of the one presuppose the relative smallness of the other. The point is that for all their mass appeal the Labour Party and the CP have solved not a single problem.

Despite many years of Labour government, capitalism is still here. They are a living demonstration of the futility of reformism. There has been continuous legislation of reforms concerning every aspect of capitalism. The only argument advanced has been that the reforms were necessary to solve problems. History is littered with the wreckage of their useless enactments.

Look where you will, there have been no solutions. Health and welfare, Act piled upon Act while the chaos gets worse. The wages struggles of doctors, nurses and welfare workers run parallel with the continuing poverty of the workers who need health and welfare services. Instead of ending poverty, the chief function is to administer it.

Pensions? Despite all the reforms, wretchedness and misery continue to the accompaniment of sentimental slush from the hypocrites in government getting £16,000 per year who think £10 per week is enough for one and £16 enough for two old workers.

Education. Another sorry story. While newspapers carry headlines about “class-room jungles” the reform-mongers reach for their bottomless bucket to start another round of bailing-out operations.

Rents and mortgages make the bitterest mockery of all. Nothing screams more loudly the irrelevance of reformism. From the first Housing Act in 1851, every government has been going to solve the housing problem.

The post-war Labour government was finally going to banish it in five years. In 1948 Aneurin Bevan promised : “When the next election occurs there will be no housing problem in Great Britain for the British working class”. (Hansard 14 July 1948). They were going to clear away the slums. Now, nearly thirty years later, the present Labour government blandly informs us the slums are here to stay. A report by the National Economic Development Office calling for the clearance of 380,000 slums was rejected as being against the policy of both this government and the last one. The Daily Mirror (11 April 1974) which supported the return of the Labour government quotes a spokesman for the Department of the Environment as saying: “Demolition is a dirty word now. Renovation is the best thing for slum areas”. By their own criterion of “something now” they are abysmal failures.

They were going to abolish the House of Lords and tax the rich out of existence. The rich and the Lords are still on our backs and the party which in 1945 used the catch-phrase “Fair shares for all” is still talking nonsense about “fairness” in a society that rests upon legal robbery.

Nationalization was to be the way to run industry and transport as public services not for profits. Millions of workers were kidded to regard nationalization as the answer to social problems in general and to maldistribution in particular. This was how the Labour Party was able to exploit the misguided loyalties of the workers. The economics of capitalism made short work of their silly schemes.

The bitterness and disillusionment that followed did more than give the Tories thirteen years in power. It caused many workers to regard Socialism as a failure and to become suspicious of politics generally. The fact is that the policies of the Labour Party are conceived for the running of capitalism, not its abolition. They are ignorant of or indifferent to what Socialism means. When this is coupled with the cynical quest for power by the shabby upstarts who lead this blind mass it is easy to understand how damaging to the cause of Socialism the whole futile exercise has been.

The Tories have been able to poke fun at the founderings of the Labour Party and, by misrepresentation, to discredit Socialism. In the same way they are able to point to the tyranny of capitalist Russia. Socialism suffers on the one hand because of the distortion of those who control the mass-media, and on the other hand because the great majority of the working class have so far accepted those falsehoods.

Our main indictment of the Bolsheviks is not that from 1917 they have built up capitalism in Russia. Given the historical conditions of the time — industrial backwardness, a largely illiterate peasant population and a working class outside Russia not yet ready for Socialism — capitalism was the only possible outcome. This is what the SPGB said at the time. The fact that they have passed off a million outrages as Socialism — this is our indictment. They have twisted Marxism into its opposite for more than half a century. Marxism demands the abolition of the wages-system, so the political frauds in the Kremlin invent “socialist wages”. Marx saw the state as a product and instrument of class society, so the Leninists invented a contradiction in terms called the “workers’ state”. Marx wanted a conscious majority of the working class (see The Communist Manifesto) to gain control of political power for the purpose of ending class society, so the Bolsheviks called their minority seizure of power “the dictatorship of the proletariat”.

Their brutal hierarchy is worthy of comparison with the medieval Papacy. Their terrorist secret police. The purge trials and slaughters of their own comrades. Their deals with Hitler and later with Churchill. Their vast military machine. The use of military might to crush workers’ risings in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Their stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Their commodity production and rivalry with western capitalists for world markets and investments, all carried on to the accompaniment of propaganda calling it Socialism.

These are just headings under which their deeds may be listed. The reality in human suffering is incalculable. Can there be any wonder that the progress of Socialist understanding has been slow?

For a generation they worshipped Stalin and his “greatness” while millions lived in fear of his secret police. All criticism was brutally crushed. New crimes were invented to cover any rivals for power. To be denounced as a Trotskyist or a Titoist meant that you were an enemy of the state. (Those who were shot were spared years of degradation as political prisoners.) During this period meetings of the Socialist Party of Great Britain were disrupted by members of the Communist Party who would tolerate no criticism of their Soviet Fatherland. Three years after Stalin’s death some of those who had served him denounced him, and the faithful were thrown into confusion.

It is impossible to estimate the harm all this has done to the spread of Socialist ideas. At every meeting someone asks “What about Russia?” We have to waste time debunking myths before we can expound the positive Socialist case of the SPGB.

Understanding as we do the realities of capitalism, we know that our fellow-workers in this country, as in Russia and throughout the world, are confronting similar problems. We are as confident as ever that the world’s workers will come to reject the spurious palliatives of Labourites and “Communists” and will achieve their own emancipation by establishing Socialism. Working to this end has always been the sole commitment of the SPGB. There could be no task more worthwhile.

Harry Baldwin

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

Sam Orner and Len Fenton were both longstanding members of the World Socialist Party of the United States, who were obviously paying a fraternal visit to the comrades in Britain. For more background on them both, their obituaries give some flavour of their contribution to the cause:

• Sam Orner (October 1973 Socialist Standard)
• Len Fenton (World Socialist Review #21)

SPGB April Events (2025)

Party News from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

"Socialism, one world, one people" says Harry Baldwin, the Socialist Party candidate for Hampstead (1966)

Reprinted below is the 1966 election address of Harry Baldwin, the SPGB's candidate for the Hampstead parliamentary constituency at that year's General Election. An election in which Harold Wilson's Labour Party won a landslide victory. 

This election address is also available as an audio file on YouTube. An important point of information about the audio file. It's not actually Harry Baldwin reading the election address himself, but is in fact a AI generated voice file where the uploader has used other recordings of Harry Baldwin speaking to provide the recording. Apparently, those who knew the late Harry Baldwin, say it's a faithful rendition of his voice and sounds uncannily similar. I'm not sure how I feel about such technological advanced practices. I have my worries and my doubts.

The SPGB received 211 votes (0.4%), and finished bottom of the poll.

Fellow Working Men and Women,

The message of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, which I am representing in this General Election, is fundamentally the same as in every other election in the past. While capitalism lasts Socialists have only one task; to explain, and struggle for, Socialism.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904. Our object is the establishment of Socialism; a world-wide social system in which the means of wealth production and distribution (factories, mines, the land, railways, steamships, etc.) will be owned by the entire population of the world.

We are associated with our Companion Socialist parties in the U.S.A., Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and Australia. We have no connection whatever with any other political party or organisation.

We oppose every organisation which stands for capitalism, which includes the Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Communist, Independent Labour parties and many others. We oppose the wars which capitalism persistently throws up. We oppose political campaigns which appeal for votes on programmes of reforms (better housing, higher wages, etc.), which in fact do little or nothing to alleviate working class problems. We oppose Nationalisation, which is just another way of organising capitalism.

We support Socialism. Nothing less will do.

We work for Socialism. We spread among the working class the knowledge without which Socialism cannot be established. Our leader does not exist. Leaders are for the politically ignorant. The worker who has Socialist knowledge does not need a leader to interpret political affairs for him and to tell him what to do. There are, therefore, no leaders in the Socialist Party of Great Britain and we do not set out to become leaders of the working class.

We recruit Socialists and nobody else. We examine all applicants for membership to ensure that they understand what is entailed by being a Socialist.

We appeal to the working class to examine the case for Socialism and to vote for our candidate only if they understand, and want, Socialism.

We recognise that the road to Socialism lies through Parliament. At the moment, the number of Socialists is small and our resources are therefore limited; unfortunately, we can afford to run only a few candidates. But as the conscious desire for Socialism spreads among the working class we shall contest more and more constituencies, giving more and more workers the chance to vote for a world of abundance, peace and freedom.

THIS IS CAPITALISM

We live today in a social system which is called capitalism. The basis of this system is the ownership by a section of the population of the means of producingi and distributing wealth—of factories, mines, ships, and so on. It follows from this that all the wealth which we produce today is turned out with the intention of realising a profit for the owning class. It is from this basis that the problems of modern society spring.

The class which does not own the means of wealth production—the working class—are condemned to a life of degradation and dependence upon their wages. This poverty expresses itself in inferior housing, clothes, education, and the like. In the end, it expresses itself in the pathetic destitution of the old age pensioner—a fate which no elderly capitalist ever faces. Implicit in capitalism is the class struggle between capitalist and worker.

The basis of capitalism throws up the continual battle over wages and working conditions with attendant industrial disputes. It gives rise, with its international economic rivalries, to the wars which have disfigured man’s recent history.

Every other party in this election stands for capitalism, whatever they may cal! themselves. And whatever their protestations, they stand for a world of poverty, hunger, unrest and war. They stand for a world in which no human being is secure.

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

Socialism will be a social system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, by and in the interest of the whole community. This definition was composed by the Socialist Party of Great Britain when it was formed in 1904. We have never altered it; not because we are stubborn and blind to changing conditions but because the word Socialism means the same today as it did in 1904—and as it will mean when Socialism becomes a reality.

Common ownership of the means of wealth production and distribution means that the things which are needed to make and distribute wealth will be owned by the whole human race. At present these things are the land, factories, mines, railways, steamships, etc. But common ownership does not mean that everybody in the world will own an equal share of every factory, mine, railway train and the rest.

What common ownership does mean, is that there is one way in which all human beings will be equal. Everybody will have an equal right to take however much wealth they need and to consume it as they require. Because the means of production will be commonly owned the things which are produced will go into a common pool from which all human1 beings will be able to satisfy their needs.

Now if there is unrestricted access to wealth for everybody it must follow that nobody, in a sense of an individual or a class, owns wealth. This means that wealth will not be exchanged under Socialism; it will not be bartered nor will it he bought and sold. As a rough parallel we can consider the air we breathe. Everybody has free access to the air and we can all take in as much of it as we need to live. In other words, nobody owns the air; nobody tries to exchange air for anything else, nobody tries to sell or buy it. Similarly there will he no buying and selling under Socialism; no need for the complicated and widespread organisations which deal in commerce and banking in capitalist society. Socialism will have no merchant houses, no banks, no stock exchanges, no tax inspectors, or any of the paraphernalia of capitalism.

In a Socialist society wealth will he produced solely to satisfy peoples' needs and not for sale as it is today. Because of this there will be no deliberate variations in quality of wealth. Socialism will have only one quality. Whatever is produced will he the best that human beings are capable of. Homes, for example, will be designed and built with the only motive of housing human beings in the best possible style. The materials of which they an made, their facilities and location will all conform to this. They will be the best homes that society knows how to build.

Nobody will be employed by another person—nobody will sell his labour-power or work for wages. Everybody, in fact, will work for the whole of society. Work will be a co operative effort, freely given because men will realise that wealth can only be produced by working unless wealth is produced society will die. Yet it will not only be a reluctance to commit social suicide Ibid will keep us working under Socialism. Men will be free — free from the fetters of wage slavery, free from the fears of unemployment. free from economic servitude and insecurity. Nobody will be found doing a job which he hates but tolerates because it pays him well. Healthy young men will not grow pigeon chested over fusty ledgers. Nobody will waste his time learning how to kill scientifically. We shall be free to do useful work, making things which will add to society's welfare, things which will make human life better and happier.

There will be no war — the cause of war will no longer exist. This means that there will be no armed forces with their dreadfully destructive weapons. It means that the people who arc in the armed forces, together with the rest of the enormous social effort which is channelled into them, will be able to serve useful, humane purposes instead of destroying and terrorising.

When production is only for human use we shall see a great development of society's productivity. First of all, an enormous number of jobs which are vital to capitalism will become redundant. Socialism will have no use for such jobs because its wealth will not be produced for sale, There will probably be statisticians to collect information about society's productive resources and to relate this to out needs. A lot of people will work at transporting wealth all over the world. These are useful occupations, just as all work will be.

Capitalism has veined the world with frontiers and has fostered patriotism and race hatred, none of which has any scientific basis. Frontiers are purely artificial and are often altered at international conferences. Many workers ate proud of their nationality although in logic they cannot take pride in something over which they had no control. Socialism will have none of this. No frontiers, no racial barriers or prejudices. The world will be one with only human beings working together for their mutual benefit.

Socialism will end the wasteful, fearsome, insecure world we know today. It will remove poverty and  replace it with plenty. It will abolish war and bring us a world of peace. It will end fear and hatred and give us security and brotherhood.

Now what about the other political parties?

PROMISES! PROMISES! PROMISES!

A few months ago, Mr Harold Wilson told us that nineteen-sixty-six was going to be “Make or Break" year.

This was nothing more than another way of making a promise which we have heard many times before; that if we all work harder, cut out restrictive practices, increase our productivity, go easy on wage claims, a Golden Future of prosperity will be ours.

Although this is a very old promise, it has never been fulfilled. However hard the working class work, they never get rid of their problems, they never get any nearer the Golden Future.

The reason for this is simple. Working class problems are caused by the capitalist social system and until that is abolished the problems will remain.

Mr. Wilson's government were not, however, concerned with solving the problems of the working class. They devoted a lot of effort to battling with their difficulties over the balance of payments, the international standing of sterling and so on. These are all matters which concern only the British capitalist class.

The difficulties which faced the Wilson government were not peculiar to this country. Take wages. In France, Germany. Sweden, Australia, the United States—to name only a few—unions are at logger- heads with governments and employers over wage claims.

Similarly, employers in these countries are trying to increase the productivity—in other words the intensity of exploitation—of their workers and to make their products more competitive on the world’s markets.

They, too, have been telling their workers that this is a time of “make or break".

What about the problems of those workers? They are not confined to any one country. All over the world millions of workers suffer bad housing, inadequate medical attention, poor food. They live sub-standard lives, catch diseases they could avoid, die before they need.

All their lives, in every land, workers face the strains of poverty—of struggling to live within the restrictions of their wage packet, of having always to leave a mass of needs and desires unfulfilled.

As much as poverty, war is a condition of our lives under capitalism. In between the massive World Wars, minor conflicts are raging, perhaps setting the scene for a greater clash. At present it is Vietnam, Not so long ago it was Kashmir, Algeria, Suez, Korea.

There seems to be no end to it—nor can there be, as long as capitalism lasts. For behind the military conflicts the economic rivalries of capitalism, which are the basic cause of modern war, are as acute as ever. The world is still divided into spheres of influence and "protection”, there are still great power blocs confronting each other, the nations of the world still hold mighty arsenals of frightening power.

Capitalism, in short, creates a mass of problems for its people. It restricts, represses, degrades and destroys them. For many people, life under capitalism is made tolerable only by their faith in the politicians' promises of a Golden Future.

Yet however much the politicians assure us that they have the solution to our problems, they never succeed in solving them. The future, as long as the workers are content to trust their leaders, and to keep capitalism in being, is grim.

The expansion of Socialist knowledge and action is the only hope for a sane world, a world which is safe and abundant and free.

WHAT THEY DO

Why do the various political parties keep breaking their election promises? The Labour Party and the Conservative Party accuse each other of incompetence and trickery and the Liberal Party blames them both. But these are all superficial explanations. The real reason is more basic; the Government is not the free agent when it comes to tackling social problems that the manifestos, slogans and promises of these parties suggest.

All these parties aim to take power within the framework of capitalism and through legislation to solve the many social problems of the day. The function of a government is to manage the day-to-day affairs of capitalism so that it is the needs of capitalism rather than election promises or abstract moral principles that determine how it acts. By its very nature capitalism cannot be made to work to the benefit of the immense majority of its people, those who work for a wage or salary. Any party, whatever its intentions, which takes on the task of running the governmental affairs of capitalism is sooner or later forced to act to the detriment of the working class. Time and time again this has been confirmed. The Labour government has been no exception as its record on wages and salaries, war and immigration shows.

When the Labour government took office its first problem was to deal with the financial mess that British capitalism had got itself into. This took priority. “We shall have to defer some of the desirable social reforms we had hoped to do in the immediate future,’ said Callaghan last July. The government did all it could to keep down wages and salaries so that more profits would be available for re-investment. In fact in this it has had little success. The economic forces of capitalism have made a mockery of the Prices and Incomes policy and the first year of the so-called National Plan.

In Aden and Malaysia the Labour government is involved in wars to protect the oil, tin, and rubber supplies of the owning class of Britain. In Vietnam it has given its support to the American government’s policy of killing and destruction there. Again, as any government in capitalism must, it has had a ‘defence” policy based on the latest weapons of destruction, including nuclear weapons. It has even appointed an arms super-salesman.

The Labour Party has always talked of standing for human brotherhood. Yet the present government has pursued a thinly-disguised policy of colour discrimination. In August last year immigration controls were tightened and vague talk of “illegal immigrants” by the then Home Secretary has no doubt helped to fan racial prejudice.

Once again the Labour Party has failed to tame capitalism. Indeed over the years the opposite has happened: Capitalism has tamed the Labour Party. It is now openly and obviously little different, in words as well as actions, from the Conservative and Liberal parties which don’t claim to be against capitalism.

Governments of all parties fail not through incompetence or insincerity or sabotage. They fail because they cannot do what they claim. They are elected by cruelly exploiting people’s hopes of a better world and then find they can’t deliver the goods.

Now we come to the important point—what about you, the voter?

HOW YOU LIVE TODAY

Capitalism is essentially a system of inequality; it can be nothing else, and all the claptrap of its Lab/ Lib/Cons politicians cannot alter that unpleasant fact. The Board of Inland Revenue has recently issued its annual report for the financial year 1963-64, showing that over ten million people earned £500 or less, before tax, while at the other end of the scale, 110 enjoyed a pre-tax income of £100,000 or more. An interpretation of the Board’s report by “The Economist” for February 26 says that “two thirds of British people in 1964 had no wealth worth recording at all, while eighty per cent. of all personal wealth, including property, was owned by some five million individuals, nine per cent. of the population. ’

It is this division of wealth—this glaring inequality —which is a constant feature of capitalism. It is moreover a fundamental fact of capitalist life and colours the whole of your existence, so that by comparison the promises of the Heaths and Wilsons amount to so much trivia. Not that Wilson or Heath will tell you that, of course. All their attention will be directed to securing your vote for the continuation of a world where your life and that of many others, will be devoted to keeping the nine per cent. minority in the ease and comfort of their eighty per cent. stake.

If you think that’s a bit far-fetched, take a look at some of the issues which will be tossed back and forth this time. Have the politicians made yet another promise to solve the housing problem? Yes, we thought they had—the same promise they make in all elections. But just who is it who will be queueing for council “dwellings” or worried about mortgage rates? For whom, in fact, is housing a problem? Certainly not the nine per cent.

The question of education has threatened to become a major issue and “grammar versus comprehensive” has been debated angrily by worried working class parents. Understandably enough, but whatever emerges from the melting pot, real education for your children will not be part of it. There will be a training of some sort or other for the jobs which will be going in the capitalist world of the 1970s', and that in general is what the kids will get—except for the lucky few whose parents belong to the nine per-cent. and can afford something very much better.

And do the nine per cent. have to worry about high prices, lagging wages and pensions? Of course not, but you do, and it’s because you don’t look further into the background of these problems that politicians can keep you stocked with promises, and that’s about all. Your vote can be used to do something really positive about all this, but only when it is backed with determination which stems from knowledge of the world in which you live.

THINK FOR YOURSELF

Apart from the Socialist Party, all other parties will be seeking support for a political leader. The fact that the Socialist Party emphatically rejects the cult of leadership is another basic difference between ourselves and all other parties. To us, political leadership symbolises immaturity; it is inherently corrupt. By supporting political leadership in this election, the working class will relinquish yet again the power they can have to act in their own interests.

Over the years, politics has given us a procession of various leaders and a great deal of attention has been given to their various personal qualities, but the electorate has a fickle appetite for the men it consumes. The magic Macwonder image can easily give way to something outworn and flabby. It is convenient under Capitalism to associate individual personalities with various phases of its administration. It is convenient to be able to associate failure with a man instead of a system. It is convenient to be able to swap the man but keep the system, to create the illusion of fresh opportunities by introducing a new personality. Political leaders come and go, but the institutions they administer remain. We do not attack one leader as against another. We argue that no man, or for that matter no team of men, can administer Capitalism in the interests of the whole community.

The political leaders in this election claim that they can work on behalf of the majority. By now the cheap electoral promises that crumble in the hard test of actual policies and subsequent experience is more than familiar. As ever, this process will repeat itself in this election. Regardless of the endless auctioneering that takes place between parties seeking to form a government, the stark tacts of Capitalist society must assert themselves, We live in class divided society that operates in the interests of a privileged minority. Regardless of intentions. Capitalism can only be run in their interests. There can be no choice. The defence of interests that are hostile to the working population must go with the job of government.

The administration of a society that is based on privileged interests requires the cull of political leadership. Workers who accept economic exploitation will abdicate their political interests by supporting a leader. Socialists have a knowledge of Capitalism that enables them to know where their interests lie. For us leadership is an irrelevance. We combine in a democratic way with the object of realising our mutual interests through the establishment of Socialism. Action for fundamental social change is beyond individuals. This must be the act of a majority who assert demociatic control over their social affairs through knowledge and understanding. For us leadership and the confused support that it rests upon walks a political path fraught with disaster.

In this election, the Socialist Party of Great Britain does not seek your blind support on the basis of empty promises which are easy to mouth and cheap to print but, which, having no prospect of success, are in reality deceptive lies We do not offer you a leader with an allegedly magic touch. We do not ask for your vole unless you understand our case.

There is no easy way out. We ask you to put in socialist perspective the realities of everyday life. We seek to spread knowledge of Socialism and secure your understanding. When we have that, we shall ask you for more than your vote; we shall ask for your comradely help in establishing Socialism.

I urge you seriously to consider our case, for the issues before you at this Election are vital. Upon your knowledge, and your action, depends the hope for the future.

Yours for Socialism ..

Harry Baldwin

Published by M. Davies, 245 Finchley Road, N.W.3. Printed by R. E. Taylor & Son Ltd (TU) 55 Banner Street, EC1.

Socialist Party of Gt. Britain

OBJECT

The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

The SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN holds:

1. That Society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
2. That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.
3. That this antagonism can be abolished only by the emancipation of the working class from the domination of the master class, by the conversion into the common property of society of the means of production and distribution, and their democratic control by the whole people.
4. That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex.
5. That this emancipation must be the work of the working class itself.
6. That as the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers, the working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government, national and local, in order that this machinery, including these forces, may be converted from an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation and the overthrow of privilege, aristocratic and plutocratic.
7. That as all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working- class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.
8. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour of avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of this country to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.