Recent Tapes Library additions (1975)

Party News from the March 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Blogger's Note:

An audio recording of Harry Young's meeting on Rosa Luxemburg is available on the SPGB website.

I wonder if any of the other meetings listed above are in the party archive?

The Town and Country Planning Bill (1947)

From the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

“A man will no longer be able to buy farmland at £200 an acre in the hope of reselling it as a factory site at £600 an acre. True, it will be worth more as a factory site—but the State, through a Central Land Board, will collect all or most of the difference” (Daily Herald, 8/1/47).

Thus the Labour Government carries out a longstanding demand made in the interests of the industrial capitalist. H. M. Hyndman, in his “Economics of Socialism,” dealt with this. After reviewing the Ricardian theory of rent and the many objections which present themselves to that theory, he wrote: —

“It seems, therefore, that a wider definition of the rent of land under Capitalism is needed than that, given by Ricardo, and the following is suggested: Rent of land is that portion of the total net revenue which is paid to the landlord for the use of plots of land after the average profit on the capital embarked in developing such land has been deducted.”

On the question of confiscating rent he pointed out that it “would not affect the position of the working portion of the community unless the money so obtained were devoted to giving them more amusement, to providing them with better surroundings and the like. . . . In fact, the attack upon competitive rents is merely a capitalist attack. That class sees a considerable income going off to a set of people who take no part in the direct exploitation of labour; and its representatives are naturally anxious to stop this leakage, as they consider it, and to reduce their own taxation for public purposes by appropriating rent to the service of the State. That is all very well for them.”

On this point Marx says: —

“We can understand such economists as Mill, Cherbulliez, Hilditch, and others, demanding that rent should be used for the remission of taxation. That is only the frank expression of the hate which the industrial capitalist feels for the landed proprietor, who appears to him as a useless incumbrance, a superfluity in the otherwise harmonious whole of bourgeois production.” (“Poverty of Philosophy,” Kerr edition, 1920. Page 176.)

“Rent,” says Marx, “results from the social relations in which exploitation is carried on. It cannot result from the nature, more or less fixed, more or less durable, of land. Rent proceeds from society and not from the soil.” (P. 180.)

(The above quotations are used by H. Quelch in his Introduction to Marx’s “Poverty of Philosophy,” Kerr edition, 1920.)

Horatio.

SPGB Meetings (1947)

Party News from the March 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard 

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)

Letter: Escape to happiness (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Escape to happiness

Comrades,

As a party member I would like to ask what purpose was served by the publication of Sputnik's article in the October Standard. As far as I can see no socialist viewpoint is advanced, rather the contrary; to suggest that "scraping the meat off the plate" is a practical attitude to vegetarians is obtuse and. in practical terms, counter effective. Further, stereotyping of the kind employed can do nothing other than alienate interested neutrals. A propagandist of experience must surely know that stereotypes are no more effective when purportedly factual than avowedly imaginary. Although this should make no difference, the article is not even funny; on my reading it did not even raise the involuntary and quickly regretted chuckle sometimes elicited by sick jokes.

If I did not know that Sputnik had published excellent articles under another name. I would suggest that he sends his next offering to Punch, a magazine long renowned for bridging the gap between seriousness and humour by eschewing both.

John Usher 

London SW4

Reply:

We have received many letters in a similar vein and note the points made

Editors.

SPGB Meetings (1947)

Party News from the December 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1946)

Party News from the November 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Escape to Happiness (or drama on the Trans-Siberian Railway) (1986)

A Short Story from the October 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

This summer I took a party of tourists to Lake Baikol and Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia. Any professional "courier'' will tell you that every package tour has its "freaks", and this one had two — both young women with college degrees in — "surprise, surprise" — sociology. One, who was quite small and looked like death warmed up. said "she was not getting enough fibre". The other, larger, with a huge shock of fair curly hair, shuffled around in a voluminous covering like a pair of old curtains — and large, soft, fluffy boots. She could have just escaped from the local pantomime, playing Widow Twanky. They were both engaged in local community projects. One was forming a group in Hounslow to help people "analyse their dreams

They were (or had been) "into" everything. of course, running the gamut of the so-called "Left Wing": ex-Socialist Workers Party; CND; Battered Wives; Women's Liberation; Greenham Common — and now "Animal Rights". The little one had been prosecuted for disrupting a fur auction, but did not believe in "violent action" (her boyfriend was doing six months for it) and now the very latest — they were "vegans'; not just vegetarians — but vegans. No meat, fish, eggs, butter. milk, bread or cakes baked with animal fat. etc. etc.

The manager on the dining car of the train (Trans-Siberian Railway) just could not grasp it. "Then what the hell do they eat?", he asked plaintively. The usual Russian attitude to vegetarians is very practical. They just take a knife and scrape the meat off the plate. Not with vegans they don't! They actually sent back an excellent Borsht (beetroot soup) because one suspected a sliver of meat in it — which is just not possible.

Nevertheless, all went well until we reached Ormsk. Here a handsome, almost beautiful Russian lady boarded our train with an enormous quantity (even for Russians) of luggage, including possibly a washing machine, and certainly a child's pram, and three very good-looking children. A boy of ten. a girl of five and a baby of a few months.

There are four berths to a compartment (second-class), obviously two up. two down. The newcomer with a small baby, two other children, and terrifying luggage was quite flustered, almost hysterical with anxiety. With that frank openness so typical of Russians, especially when travelling, she naturally assumed that she would be granted the bottom berths, whatever the tickets said, on account of the children, especially the tiny one.

Our vegans had omitted to master the Russian language prior to their trip, so that no dialogue or explanations were possible. She just plonked herself, her kids, the cradle, and her bags on the bottom berths, pointing heavenwards to indicate her proposal that our two "liberators" move up to oblige.

But no! Not a bit of it! Why should we move? They could not move their luggage. "These are our seats." "Besides", said Widow Twanky, "I've got a bad back"! A "bad back"? How many millions of working days are skived every year with "bad backs"? The one undiagnosable. indefinable gimmick known to all for a couple of days off.

By this time our Russian visitor found everything just too much — and with a voluble stream of rich Russian invective, rudely shoved poor little fibre-less No. 1 violently out into the corridor. Screams, tears, kids sobbing, everyone shouting, with calls for the unfortunate "courier" to "do something'. Calmly surveying the scene I announced portentously: "It's dinner time! Come along! We'll sort all this out later!!" Once our freaks left the compartment, their chance of retaining the bottom bunks was about as likely as snow in the Sahara.

Safely shepherded half-way up the quarter-mile-long train to the Diner, I was able to divert attention and calm hysteria by guaranteeing that the "Schee" (cabbage soup) was utterly meatless. So it was; the meat had been given to somebody else. "Now really". I started persuasively, "You are animal lovers. so am I! So are we all! But little children are animals too! Don't you think? Have they no rights? Is their mother wrong to want to care for them?" No dice. I was talking to a brick wall. "Yes. but we paid for our ticket! They are our seats! She should not be allowed to travel with all that luggage with children. Why should we have to move?" Argument was obviously futile.

But a solution was to hand. Our handsome newcomer had told me, through her tears, that she was joining her husband, an Army officer, in Budapest. This was my cue. Lowering my voice and wagging a finger. I whispered mysteriously "Do you know what I think?" They were agog. "I've suspected it from the start", I murmured. "She's escaping from the KGB." This completely flattened them. After a long pause, little Miss No-Fibre whispered. “Does this happen very often?" "Often", I breathed heavily, "almost every other day or night. We've got to help her. for the sake of the kids." The result was magic. All their sentimental longings for some practical worthy cause were aroused. They obediently and efficiently transferred to the top bunks, proud members of a dramatic liberation conspiracy. Harmony reigned. The Russian lady was now treated with reverential respect, more deeply convinced than ever that the English were nuts.

I am sure that for many months to come the local Community Centre at Ruislip will thrill to the story of how they helped a beautiful Russian lady with her three lovely children to escape the dreaded KGB. But 1 must be getting absent-minded, for 1 clean forgot to tell them that what I had meant was Kinky Girls from Britain.

SPUTNIK

Blogger's Note:

Mmm, what were the SSPC thinking? I grew up reading The Sun newspaper in the 1980s, and I was getting flashbacks as I was scanning this in. Understandably, this short story stirred up quite a bit of controversy amongst the readership at the time, and the following letter from John Usher appeared in the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Escape to happiness 

Comrades, 

As a party member I would like to ask what purpose was served by the publication of Sputnik's article in the October Standard. As far as I can see no socialist viewpoint is advanced, rather the contrary; to suggest that "scraping the meat off the plate" is a practical attitude to vegetarians is obtuse and. in practical terms, counter effective. Further, stereotyping of the kind employed can do nothing other than alienate interested neutrals. A propagandist of experience must surely know that stereotypes are no more effective when purportedly factual than avowedly imaginary. Although this should make no difference, the article is not even funny; on my reading it did not even raise the involuntary and quickly regretted chuckle sometimes elicited by sick jokes. 

If I did not know that Sputnik had published excellent articles under another name, I would suggest that he sends his next offering to Punch, a magazine long renowned for bridging the gap between seriousness and humour by eschewing both.

John Usher

London SW4

 

Reply: 

We have received many letters in a similar vein and note the points made.

Editors.

I believe 'Sputnik' was a one-off pen-name for Harry Young ('Horatio' in the Socialist Standard).

Party News Briefs (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Autumn Delegate Meeting will be held on Saturday and Sunday, October 6th and 7th, at Head Office (52, Clapham High Street). The Saturday session commences at 2 p.m, and on Sunday at 11 o’clock.

Meeting on Suez. At short notice, owing to the topicality of the subject, another successful Sunday evening meeting was held at Denison House, Victoria, on September 16th. The audience numbered over 200 and many non-Party members were present. Comrade Wilmott was the speaker and Comrade Fahy was in the chair.

Swansea Branch have had some good meetings this summer. Comrade Young went down from London and addressed two meetings. The members are very pleased with the result and no doubt will continue their good work of getting letters in the local Press regarding the Party and Socialism.

Sunday Evenings at Head Office, October 14th is the starting date for lectures at Head Office, illustrated with films. For full details see elsewhere in this issue.

The Literature Circulating Committee are planning an October Sales Drive of the Socialist Standard, and details are given in this issue of meeting places for canvassing. If Comrades rally to these sales drives and increase the Standard sales, they are propagating Socialism and reducing the loss we now sustain on literature.

Phyllis Howard

SPGB Meetings (1956)

Party News from the October 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Background to Joe Thomas and the Workers' League is available at the following link.

SPGB Meetings (1982)

Party News from the October 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

A number of the meetings listed are actually available as audio files on the SPGB website. Click on the links:

Debate: Did Lenin distort?

‘Yes’ – Steve Coleman, SPGB

‘No’ – Monty Johnstone, CPGB & ‘Marxism Today’

Venue: Islington Central Library, London

Date: 11th November 1982

Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

A series of talks by Steve Coleman and held by Islington Branch between 3rd October 1982 and 26th December 1982.

The venue was the Prince Albert pub in Islington.

Plekhanov and the Materialist Conception of History 

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 3rd October 1982

Dietzgen and Dialectical Thought

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 17th October 1982

Kautsky and the Critique of Religion

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 31st October 1982

Bronterre O'Brien and Working-Class Radicalism

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 21st November 1982

Belfort Bax and the Ethics of Socialism

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 28th November 1982

William Morris' Vision of Socialism

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 12th December 1982 (Part 2)

Martov and the Anti-Bolshevik Approach to Revolution

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 26th December 1982

SPGB Meetings (1982)

Party News from the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1976)

Party News from the July 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings and News (1950)

Party News from the July 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

By The Way (1946)

The By The Way Column from the July 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialist" Britain

“These other May Day campaigns were calling us to rise and unite. We had nothing to lose but our chains. And by our unity we would one day—in the far-off future—achieve a Socialist Britain, where the nation would be run for the greatest good of the greatest number.

“Today we have achieved that Socialist State.” 

(Daily Herald, 20/4/46.)

The Exploiters' Rake-off

“The private owner can have his rake off so long as his rake-off is not too expensive . . ."

(Mr. Shinwell, Minister of Fuel and Power, at Leeds. Sunday Express, 7/4/46.) 

Viscount St. Davids commented that City firms which hitherto “went into a panic whenever the Labour Government so much as blinked an eyelid, now take a second look at everything the Labour Government does, and then shout for joy, and up go the share values."

(News Chronicle, 16/5/46.)

12 Months After

“Famine will soon be killing civilians and turning out future Fascists more quickly than Hitler and Mussolini ever could.”

(Mr. Herbert Morrison to President. Truman. Daily Herald, 14/5/46.)

 

"You voted Left—You did Right! ”

Under this title the Labour Party has published its own account of its first six months’ record. It enumerates the following: —

1. Control of Finance.
2. Nationalisation of Coal Mines, Transport, Electricity, Gas, Cables and Wireless.
3. Working Parties for efficiency of private industry.
4. An Export Drive.
5. 24,000 Permanent Houses.
6. Social Services: Health Insurance.

Socialists have only one comment. Not one nor all these measures have any connection with Socialism — neither do they lead to it,

“ Workers Control ” of the Mines

“Salary of the chairman of the National Coal Board—Lord Hyndley—will be £8,500, and other members of the Board will receive £5,000.

“ Salary of the vice-chairman—not yet named—has not yet been fixed.

“ Other members of the Board so far appointed are: Sir Walter Citrine, Mr. Ebby Edwards, Prof. Sir Charles Ellis, Mr. J. C. Gridley, Mr. L. H. Lowe, Sir Charles Reid and Mr. T. E. B. Young.”

(Daily Herald, 13/3/46.)

Strachey—Before and After

Mr. John Strachey, M.P., formerly Under-Secretary for Air and now Minister of Food, now backs the programme and policy of the Labour Government. In his “The Nature of Capitalist Crisis” he showed why Labourism must fail.

“Capitalism is now, we are told, well on the road to permanent recovery; all talk of breakdown, of impending wars and revolutions is now happily out of date.; an epoch of peace and plenty is opening out before us.

What, are we to say of scientists who give way to such ‘wishful thinking'? A dozen times now the cycle of boom, crisis, depression, recovery, boom, crisis, has gone through its phases, and as each crisis has passed into depression, and then as symptoms of recovery have appeared to lighten the depression, the shallower prophets of capitalism have, told us that at length, but now for ever, all was well. Do they still believe it? Certainly we cannot.”

(“The Nature of Capitalist Crisis,” p. 19.)

“The whole of the present official leadership of the British workers looks forward, like Mr. G. D. H. Cole, to the possibility of an organised or planned, high wage paying, and centrally controlled capitalism. . . .”

“Nor is this the programme of all the leaders of the British Labour Party alone. It is the professed programme of all Fascist parties. . . .

“It is the professed objective of all those 'progressive' Conservatives and 'modern-minded' Liberals (of all nations and the League of Nations), who believe in what is called 'planning'—and form everywhere little societies for the study of their plans. . . .”

"All these parties, movements and groupings are, in fact, holding out to us (with, in some cases, perfect sincerity) the possibility of (establishing an economy which retains the essential principles of the present system, viz., the private ownership of the predominant part of the mean of production, their operation for profit, and distribution of the products by means of exchanges mediated by a monetary circulation, but which eliminates the crises and convulsions, with their consequent miseries, which this system at present produces.

“Nor is this aim any the worse for the number of diverse groups which subscribe to it.

“Unfortunately, however, as we have seen, whatever else may happen upon this uncertain planet, the establishment of a planned, stable and high wage paying capitalism is impossible.”

(The Nature of Capitalist Crisis, p. 354.)

Horatio.

A manager gets his cards (1953)

From the June 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Dear Sir,  it is with deep regret! ”

 

A man has written to the newspapers to make a complaint. His complaint is that his employers have given him the sack. A popular week-end paper gave it prominence, with the comment that “its the hidden tragedy that makes it worth the reading.”

As this is something happening to people every day, the reader may wonder what all the fuss is about The answer is that the complainant was not an ordinary man. By this, we do not mean that he had double joints, or second sight He was a works manager.

"If you are earning, as I was £1,500 or so a year, the men in the workshops envy you. They call themselves the under dogs. They think you've got it easy, ordering them about . . . But if the Company gets into difficulties, the first thing that comes under scrutiny is the higher salary list. . . They (the under dogs) have chances of several hundreds to my one of getting another post because there's only one works manager and 200 or more hands.” (News of the World, 5/4/53).

Our well-educated and expensively-trained manager who, of course, is not a mere “hand,” but a highly qualified “brain,” with technical qualifications, two degrees, and thirty years" administrative experience, has made some important discoveries.

“ Nobody wants a man of 53 whose job has collapsed under him,” he says.

And yet his own letter tells us that he knew what the end would be, “I had, in fact, spent the last twelve months in pruning the factory staff to the extent that if the firm ever got busy again it would be very short of skilled operatives.”

But even a common hand, without degrees, would know that “pruning” staff (giving other people the sack) is hardly likely to prove a permanent occupation, even in a large factory.

What would you do ? he asks, and answers, first you apply to your professional institute. No good, too old. Second, you go to the Special Appointments Bureau of the Ministry of Labour. No good, “things are quiet just now."" Meanwhile, your six months' cheque is being exhausted, you will have to live on your savings. Savings! You had to live up to the job, dress Well, run a car, entertain. What savings ?

Next, worry all your business friends. “ I should think 25 per cent. of British industry is bearing my name in mind,” he says sardonically. “Gone by now are the hopes of a job at the kind of salary I used to enjoy. Half the amount—I’d jump at it—go anywhere —do anything. Anyone want a secretary-stooge ? Or a butler-valet cum gardener-handyman, or a chauffeur?”

“The story of a man who climbed the ladder of success only to have it fall under him at the age of 53,” says the Editor’s blurb. A commonplace story, you think.

“I wonder what the remedy is for cases like mine ? Is it just rotten luck or is there something else wrong somewhere ? 1 cannot decide,” says our unhappy ex-staff pruner.

These are the most valuable lines of his long statement.

The first thing is the pathetic folly of imagining that anyone is immune from the hazards and blows of the profit system. There is no escape. There are no special cases. Whether a man is manager at £1,500, or messenger at £200, anybody employed by somebody, or something else, like Public Corporation, Company or Board, or just a “ guv’nor,” can be dis-employed (sacked) by those employers at will. Leering round the shoulder of every employed person, Dustman or Duke of Windsor, War-Lord, or Warehouseman is the malevolent demon called the Threat of the Sack, making the eternal dream of the employee “ security ” (Welfare State and all), a weary nightmare.

Employment is dependence and subservience of members of the property-less class upon the owners of wealth. Whether these workers are well-paid managers or low-paid domestic helots is irrelevant “Improvements” in the conditions of wage-takers, as our manager has now discovered, frequently turn out, in the finish, to be the reverse. The fact that a job carries £1,500 a year allows the employer to pick the youthful and energetic suitably-qualified man and burn him up quickly.

Small consolation for the employee, having gone for the big lot, to find it does not last. This is the simple explanation of the fabulous (?) salaries of actresses, athletic champions and boxers, whose fortunes and life may hang on one blow.

It also explains the basis of so-called “permanent” and “regular” employment, such as that of State employees, Civil Servants, Railwaymen, Teachers and Postmen as opposed to casual labour subject to rapid fluctuation in alternating trade movements (Dockers, Building, Snow-clearers, Canvassers).

So it is that the Postal Authorities, by offering “Establishment” in “permanent” employment, can take their pick of a larger bunch, without high wages. Thus the great “progress” of the workers under Capitalism is to find themselves raised higher up, only to be smashed harder down.

Having got his motor-driver’s or gardener’s job (and he will be by no means the first degree’d man to sweep the streets), our manager must now, at 53, start a stiff course in a new tricky subject, Marxian economics. There he will find the answer to his questions, and stop wondering.

He will read in Volume I of “Capital” these pregnant lines

“Just as little as better clothing, food and treatment, and a larger allowance do away with the exploitation of the slave so little do they set aside that of the wageworker. A rise in the price of labour as a consequence of accumulation of capital, only means, in fact, that the length and weight of the golden chain the wage-worker has already forged for himself, allow of a relaxation of tension of it.” (“Capital" Page 127. Dawson Edition).

Socialists work to break this chain of gold, replacing even well-paid employment by voluntary cooperative free labour.

Horatio.

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)

Smash! (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A New Election Programme?

The most hilarious buffoonery of the election was the International Marxist Group’s putting up three candidates. At a press conference their representative was reported saying hopefully: “In an atmosphere of confrontation a few hundred votes can turn into tens of thousands” (Times, 13th Feb.). A different view from the one in their leaflet distributed on 1st May last year: May Day — End or New Beginning.

Shorn of all its flowery phrases (like “Mass Action”. “Mobilization”, “Confrontation”, “Counter-offensive” and all the boring old stuff about the failure of the wicked trade-union leaders who won’t “mobilize a united struggle to smash through Phase 2”), what this leaflet does is advise strikers to fight the police. It actually says this explicitly. We quote:

To do this [defend the picket lines] the local Trades Councils have to centralize our resources for fighting the police.

The absurdity of the entire content of this ridiculous document is apparent, for instance, in the first paragraph :

A large majority of the working class are striking work together and coming out onto the streets.

In paragraph 2, however:

Millions of workers feel that this stoppage will have no immediate effect on the Government policies. In this they are correct.

We also would say that the millions of workers are quite right. Not only did the General Council of the TUC know this very well, as they showed by deferring their strike-call date till after the Government had passed the Phase 2 Bill; but we now know that the TUC leaders were having secret meetings with Prime Minister Heath one day before the May-day marches, to be followed by the open meeting to fix a deal.

What concerns us here is the dangerous folly of the baloney being peddled by the IMG. Why on earth they have the insufferable impudence to call themselves “Marxist” only they can know. Everything in this nonsensical and pernicious propaganda is utterly foreign and contrary to all of Marx’s teachings, and especially to his actions in the International Workingmen’s Association, of which he was a founder member and author of its address, or policy statement.

We would highly commend to the IMG the statement by Marx in that address which they would do well to deeply and quietly ponder:

One clement of success they [the workers] possess, that of numbers, but numbers weigh only in the balance if united by combination and led by knowledge.

Is there the slightest sign that, amidst all the hysterical outpourings about “smashing Tory governments” and “treacherous trade-union leaders”, the IMG have given one moment’s serious thought to the meaning of what they are spreading?

Read through their leaflet! The workers must centralize their forces to “develop a General Strike to get rid of the Government itself”. The central task in holding the line is to “prepare the counter-offensive in the autumn" because the Government “presented the leaders with a clear choice, either accept pay restraint, or mobilize a united struggle which would smash Phase 2, bring down the Government and so raise the hopes of the working population that the social order itself would be threatened”.

As was pointed out explicitly in a recent Socialist Standard (and even that was re-quoted from 1919 and has been confirmed by history ever since), in every strike, above all the 1926 General Strike:

The masters are in a far stronger position than the workers on the economic field and will beat them, at will, any time they wish.

This is why Marx wrote in the Inaugural Address of the International Workingmen’s Association that

To conquer political power has become the great duty of the working class.

(Selected Works of Karl Marx, Moscow, p. 440)

As for all the other rubbish about smashing (these idiots are obsessed by the word SMASH; it recurs repeatedly in their manifestoes) Tory or Labour governments, this cannot be done by strike action alone. If a government feels that it has lost popular support, as shown in Italy or Denmark, and estimates that it may lose the next election, it may well resign, go into opposition, and laugh its head off at the troubles of the new government trying to grapple with the problems. So far from being “smashed” by resignation, there is every sign that they positively enjoy it.

As for “threatening the social order”, this probably is the stupidest nonsense of the lot. Trades unions are organized on a job basis: the vast majority of trade- unionists are not Socialists and have no desire whatever to threaten the social order — they uphold it. Neither would “threatening the social order” mean any real progress in changing it in orderly fashion. It could merely lead to chaos.

As for all the other tripe about the naughty, wicked trade-union leaders, we have pointed out repeatedly that they operate by the approval and consent of the members.

Let all strikes be called at the most favourable moment — when the bosses are doing allright-thankyou and don’t want them. Let them be short and sharp; if they are not won quickly they won’t be won at all. Let the members decide by democratic vote and, if things go wrong, democratically decide to retreat back to work in an orderly united fashion.

Above all, ignore and reject the dangerous, meddlesome folly of these academic hot-heads and professional hooligans who run about “smashing” everything and call on trade-unionists to “fight the police”. This plays straight into the hands of the authorities and is in fact all they need to crush strike action. On the industrial field the workers’ strength is in the withdrawal of labour. This may get them a rise in wages; but only political action can control the police (and the army) and establish Socialism.

Horatio.

The nationalisation of mining royalties (1946)

From the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Great Labour Party Victory

"Six property owners have been paid more than £1,000,000 each by the State for the coal which lies beneath their estates The long campaign to nationalise these coal royalties ended yesterday with the report of the Coal Commissioners. . . . . At the time of the Sankey Commission . . . the most extensive royalty owners . . . were the Duke of Northumberland, the Marquis of Bate, Lord Tredegar, the Duke of Hamilton and the Earl of Ellesmere." "In addition to the four unnamed owners who got more than a million, six received from £500,000 to £1,000,000 each and twenty-eight between £250,000 and £499,000. More than 11,000 claimants had less than £1,000 each. More than 2,400 got nothing."—(Daily Express, October 31st, 1945.)

Which shows that nationalisation with compensation does not even change the personnel—the individual relationships of the capitalist class.

Nationalisation without compensation would still not be in the "public service"; it would merely transfer ownership from its previous owners to the investors in Government (State) Bonds.

Socialism is a change in social relationships; the abolition of the rich, and therefore, its counterpart, the poor—the workers. It transforms relationships by changing ownership. Private ownership becomes common ownership.

Socialism does not haggle about compensation or confiscation; both terms imply some injury is done the capitalists.

Socialism stands for restoration of the wealth produced to the producers—the workers; about nine-tenths of the people.

Horatio.

By The Way: The Labour Government’s Communist Friends (1945)

The By The Way Column from the November 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Government’s Communist Friends

The Communist Party helped Labour M.P.s everywhere at the July elections, rejoiced in their success and is backing the Labour Government. Now read what choice epithets they applied to the last Labour Government.

“It shoots down the workers and peasants in India; it imprisons such gallant workers as the Meerut prisoners, who have fought for the economic and political freedom of the Indian workers and peasants; it sends warships to intimidate the Egyptians; warships and soldiers to China. The Labour Government is the most open and blatant tool of imperialism, both in its attacks on the workers at home and in its policy of bloodshed and violence abroad.”—(Mr. Harry Pollitt in “The Workers' Charter,” published in 1930, by the National Minority Movement).

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Communists Denounced Nationalisation and Now Support it

The Communists now approve of the Labour Government's nationalisation schemes, but read what the Communists said about the schemes when they were drawn op.

“The Labour Party and the trade union leaders try to hide their policy of surrendering the workers’ daily interests to the capitalists, by using socialist phrases, so called Socialist schemes, such as were adopted at the Leicester and Newcastle Conferences.

“All their schemes for the 'control of banking system,’ 'public control of industry land trade,’ 'transport boards’ are schemes of capitalist reorganisation, designed to strengthen capitalist monopoly at the expense of the working class.” 

(From “Resolutions adopted by the 12th Congress of the Communist Party of Great Britain.”—Published by the C.P.G.B., 1932. Pago 6)

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“A Third Labour Government Will be Even Worse than the Second ”

After the collapse of the second Labour Government, when MacDonald had joined the National Government and the 1931 Election was in progress the Communist Party published “The Workers’ Answer to the Crisis,” by R. P. Dutt.

Here are some extracts: —

“But the policy of the Labour Party was and remains the policy of maintaining capitalism, of attempting reforms within the framework of capitalism, of taking over the capitalist state, of administering capitalism, of denial of the class struggle, of unity with capitalism. . . . The outcome for the workers who trust the Labour Party is disaster. The talk of socialism and reforms becomes only deceiving the workers, because the practice is capitalism.

“This is the lesson of the two Labour Governments.” And again:—

“Will a Third Labour Government be any better than the second Labour Government? Will a Henderson Labour Government be any better than a MacDonald Labour Government?

No, a third Labour Government will be even worse than the second Labour Government, because of the greater intensity of the crisis of capitalism, will deal even heavier blows against the workers, will lead to worsening of the crisis and end in intensified capitalist dictatorship. . . .

What are the promises of the Labour Party worth ? Nothing, as experience has abundantly shown. The Labour Party speak of ’socialism,’ of ’Nationalisation of the banks/ of ' public ownership and control ’ of the key industries. This is a paper programme of promises to deceive the workers. . . . It is meaningless deception so long as the capitalist exploiters are in fact to be left secure.”

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Less Compensation for Coal owners

“After the discovery of atomic energy we are unlikely to want coal as a source of power 20 years hence. If the mines stayed in private ownership, their value would be small. When they are nationalised it would be ridiculous to compensate the shareholders at anything like the present Stock Exchange prices. The railways will probably be obsolete in another 30 years, so the same applies to them.” —Prof. J. B. S. Haldane in Daily Worker, 2.8.45.

Was it not Professor Blackett who said on the wireless in 1935 in discussion on Science with Julian Huxley that “scientists, if in the position of politicians, would act like politicians”? So a man of Haldane’s unquestionable scientific ability—because harnessed to the C.P.-Labour Party policy of compensation for poor capitalists—can see nothing more in the supercession of the old forms of production and transport by atomic energy than a haggling point to pay less compensation.

The Communist Party, which started by “taking the Labour Party by the throat,” now pleads for lest compensation.

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Too Unreliable

Gangsters for Commandos.

Proposal Was Dropped.

“Among recruiting suggestions considered in the early days of the commandos was whether it would be better to use real toughs or gangsters either from the United States or British cities rather than soldiers. The view taken, it is revealed in 'Soldier,' the British Army magazine, by Brig. Dudley W. Clarke, who recruited the first commandos, was that the gangster was too unreliable. The idea was dropped.

“So, too, was a proposal from a convict who offered to form a commando of convicts And warders.”—Sunday Times, August 12, 1945.

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Liberation

German charges that Moroccans attacked Girls. 

“Rumours arising out of German allegations that more than 1,000 women were raped by Moroccan troops during the first few days of the French occupation are still growing in the German city of Stuttgart. Hundreds of girls in the city were Poles or Russians brought there by the Germans as slave labour.

“The German police chief in the new administration working under U.S. occupation, Karl Weber, said most of the women were attacked in their own homes by the dark-skinned, turbaned Moroccan troops, who broke down doors in looting forays.

“The official German police report lists 1,198 rape cases involving women whose ages ranged from 14 to 74. Weber claims that each case has been verified and estimates that twice that number of women were attacked but were ashamed to report.—Sunday Express, August 12, 1945.

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Reluctant “Comrades"

A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian reports the extremely difficult problems which repatriation of Russian “displaced persons” involves. First, he points out that by the Yalta agreement the Soviet authorities do not recognise “ non-repatriables” like the other powers—i.e., they insist on the handing over of all Russian citizens. 

Secondly, and more importantly,

“Apart, however, from certain questions of principle involved, there are practical difficulties about doing this, as some are prepared to fight rather than be arrested. Individuals or groups may well have arms, and there is an obvious reluctance to risk the lives of British or American soldiers for what is essentially a matter of internal Russian policy.”—Manchester Guardian, August 31, 1945.

So what does emerge is that thousands of former Russian citizens, having escaped the “Socialist Fatherland” during the war, are prepared to risk their lives fighting to avoid repatriation to the Soviet Utopia.

We have a splendid solution! Let all those hysterical and vociferous Communists who haunt Socialist Party meetings volunteer to go back to Russia in place of the missing Russian nationals in Germany, who will remain where they prefer. A good time will then be had by all! We wonder!

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Strikers Shout Down Officials!

The Telegraph for July 30th reports that officials were shouted down at a railway strikers’ meeting. Delegates called for nationalisation of the railways.

A Birkenhead representative declared: “If we continue our present (strike) action the new Government will be able to turn to the companies and tell them they cannot manage their business. It would then be an easy step towards nationalisation. ’'

He got his answer on July 31st, one day later, when “three hundred soldiers swept in through the Surrey Commercial Docks at 1 p.m. to-day in lorries to take over loading and unloading of ships which had been at a standstill because of the dockers 'go slow.’ ”—Evening News, July 31.)

Strike action of itself will never achieve nationalisation of the railways or any other industry—even if nationalisation were in the interests of the workers. Only political power can do that, because it involves the State. The Labour Government will “nationalise” certain industries because it has a mandate (power) from the electorate to do so. It has persuaded working-class electors that it does so in their interests—though it is actually the policy of some of the industrial capitalists. Strike action against the State-brings the Army in to do the job, and breaks the strike.

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Bombs and Trade

“Post-war trade relations in the Far East are being rewritten by B.29 Super Fortresses and India’s Industrial future—particularly in textiles—looks extremely rosy in the glow of firebombs on Japan, 'Every time the Superforts hit Osaka’ said a leading Indian textile operator, ' I say to myself: There’s another year free of Jap competition in the Indian textile market.’ ”—(New York Herald Tribune, June 13th, 1945. Quoted in Plebs, September, 1945).

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That Odd Bird the Labour Party

Mr. Laski is reported to have said: “The bright bird of Socialism needs two wings—it can’t fly on a right wing only, or a left wing only.”—(Daily Mail, September 4th).

If Mr. Laski had stopped to consider the kind of progress made by a bird with oddly assorted wings, one pushing forward and the other pulling back, he would have realised that his analogy is very apt though not in the sense he intended.

Horatio.