Slings and Arrows: “Qui s’ecuse, s’accuse” (1952)

The Slings and Arrows column from the September 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Qui s’ecuse, s’accuse”

The return of the Dean of Canterbury from his recent visit to Peking has aroused an outburst of fury from the Press. Enormous quantities of newsprint have been devoted to the publication and denial of the germ warfare charges made against the Allied forces in Korea. While we have no doubt that both the Allies and the Chinese or any other warring power in the capitalist world would not hesitate to use germ warfare if it suited their interests, we would say that the Dean has not made out his case on sound evidence. We are not, however, concerned with taking up the cudgels on behalf of the Allied powers. They have quite enough apologists without our joining their ranks. What does interest us is the fact that those who drop atom bombs, and Napalm bombs, and indulge in the most fiendish forms of mass destruction, hold up their hands in such pious horror and appear in the white sheet of innocence. Is burning a Korean peasant by a bomb which is so speedy in its action that he retains in death the last postures of his life any better than dropping bacteria on him? Why does the Chinese Government and their supporters make such vehement protests against the use of infected missiles? Is it because they have been outsmarted in their search for effective weapons? Note that neither side has anything to say, other than the usual pious platitudes, about war itself, and note also that though the Chinese Government are alleged to have established Socialism, or, to use the latest fashionable term, “people’s democracy,” they say nothing about the causes of war. Of course, the allies talk about the “rule of law ” and “freedom and democracy,” in order to justify themselves. In the welter of charges and countercharges we may be sure of one thing. Both sides are concerned with maintaining or improving their position in the world of Capitalism.

No Room at the Inn

When Marx wrote that “the Church of England would sooner give up 38 of its 39 principles than one thirty-ninth of its income,” he was not indulging in mere rhetoric. The Daily Express (15.7.52), reporting a case of eviction relates how the family spent the night in a church, and although they refused to leave when asked to do so, church officials took no action. It appears that the householder had been the church sexton and occupied a house that went with the job. When he was unable through ill health to continue working he was asked to vacate his house. Having nowhere to go he did not comply and the Vicar applied for possession in the Courts. This was granted and with all the ruthlessness of a profit-making capitalist, he called in the bailiffs, evicted the family, and in his desire to show Christian Charity allowed them to sleep unmolested in the church. Non-socialists may be surprised that the Church should behave in such a callous manner. We are not. Acquainted as we are with the Church’s defence of Capitalism and its constant affirmation of the “sacred rights” of private property, this behaviour neither shocks nor amazes us. In spite of the high-sounding platitudes with which Bishops and their ilk sermonise, the Church has ever been in the forefront in defence of the prevailing system. It imitates with faithful accuracy the actions of those in whose interests it functions. And so, when they say to an ex-employee, “You are unable to work for us. so on to the streets with you,” they are being quite consistent, and behaving as all capitalist institutions do.

Who Supports Who?

In a debate in the House of Lords on the Housing Bill, Lord Silkin, former member of the Labour Government, observed that he was alarmed at the growth in the amount of subsidies and then went on to say that the position would arise where “90 per cent. of the people would be housed at other’s expense.” (Manchester Guardian, 15.7.52.) Why should Lord Silkin be disturbed at this prospect? Was it not part of his Party’s policy to “redistribute” income. As it has been established by indisputable figures that a small minority of people own the lion’s share of the national wealth, surely here was Lord Silkin’s opportunity to see in this housing subsidy a means of carrying out Labour’s policy. But he does not see things in this light. He says that it is a “National and not a Party problem.” Thus does he betray the fact that the Labour Party is merely another political organisation pledged to the efficient running of Capitalism. If he knew anything at all about Socialism he would realise that at the moment a small minority of people are being kept and subsidised at “other's expense.” If he knew anything at all about economics he would know that subsidies whether for housing or for food are devices introduced to help Capitalism run more smoothly, for the capitalists. It is not by subsidies, great or small, nor by the substitution of government for private ownership that present-day problems will be solved. And this situation where “90 per cent. of the people would be housed at the expense of others ” is hardly likely to arise since those who produce the wealth from which these subsidies are drawn are the very people who are allegedly subsidised.

S.A.

Letters: Russia & China (1966)

Letters to the Editors from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia & China

Dear Sir,

You state in your journals that China and Russia are state capitalist countries but this is different to what Engels had to say on capitalist countries:—

Active social forces work exactly like natural forces, blindly, forcibly, destructively, so long as we do not understand, and reckon with them . . . and this understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production and its defenders . . . With this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the productive forces of today, the social anarchy of production gives place to a social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community, and of each individual (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific).

With Russian and Chinese plans for production this would surely mean that they are in no way capitalist.

Harold Brown, 

Carshalton, Surrey.

Reply:

It is true that we deny that Russia and China are socialist and describe them as state capitalist. We say this because we see in these places the basic features of capitalism, namely, class rule, production for sale and the wages system.

We don't of course believe that a quotation from Engels can settle anything. Even so we can't see how Mr. Brown's quotation helps this case at all. In the passages he quotes Engels is saying what socialists have always said: under capitalism where production is for sale anarchy reigns as it is the market and not society that controls production. As soon as the means of production are commonly owned production for sale is abolished and replaced by production for use. Production for use, by its very nature, involves planning for the various needs of people, both as individuals and as a community.

Mr. Brown implies that in Russia and China "social anarchy of production” has been replaced by the "social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each individual". We must ask him to prove this since what socialists mean by anarchy of production is the results of production for sale. And production for sale has most certainly not been abolished in Russia and China.

In fact in the passage following where Mr. Brown ends his quotation, Engels, discussing distribution in a socialist society, makes it quite clear that he is talking about the abolition of production for sale:

Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products based upon the nature of the modern means of production: upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production—on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment.

Direct appropriation means what it says: people (and society) get what they need not by buying them but by taking them directly.

Is this so in Russia and China?

In a later passage Engels is just as explicit:

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization.

Has commodity production (that is, production for sale) been done away with in Russia and China?

We think we have shown that the passage Mr. Brown quotes from Engels does not mean what he takes it to mean. We can only suggest that he reads the excellent socialist pamphlet that Socialism, Utopian and Scientific is once again, this time more carefully.

Editorial Committee.

Religion

Dear Sir,

I believe Socialists who attack religion are acting against the interests of the people and against the establishment of Socialism.

I am referring specifically to your article "Catholics In Confusion" in the April Socialist Standard. Of course there was much in that article which is true—where it describes the evil doings of some clergy— but evil doings are not religion they are just evil doings.

The point is that true religion is pro-Socialism and anti-capitalism. The Bible is very anti-usury which is the corner stone of capitalism.

Did not Jesus knock the rich money-lenders? He was in fact a Socialist as every decent religionist must be.

By all means knock bad religionists but praise the Socialist principles in true religion—such as brotherly love and compassion. There are many good Socialists who believe in God—for example the Rev. Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean. Indeed I would go so far as to say that to be a sincere believer in God one has to be a Socialist.

To be an out-and-out materialist is getting a bit old-fashioned. Universities (even in Russia) are devoting part of their efforts to research into such things as telepathy and prediction and even survival of the human soul after bodily death. 1 have had cast iron proof of such things as telepathy, prediction, yes and even survival.

There is no irreconcilable conflict between Socialism and religion.

H. Horwood,

London, N.W.9.

Reply:

Mr. Horwood claims that his is the true religion but so do the clergy whose "evil doings’' he condemns.

Usury is not the cornerstone of capitalism; it is only one branch of capitalism's structure which derives its unearned income from the surplus value produced by the working class. The basis of the workers' exploitation is not usury; it is private ownership of the means of wealth production.

Even if we accept the Bible story of Jesus turning the money-lenders out of the temple it does not alter the fact that the basis of religion belief in the supernatural and a life after death is directly opposed to Socialism.

The religious person accepts the conditions in this life because he thinks that there is a better life coming. His philosophy explains society in terms of "good" and “evil"; the Socialist explains it in means of society's economic development.

Dr. Hewlett Johnson is a well-known supporter of capitalism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe. These countries are run by dictatorships which show little brotherly love and compassion to their political opponents.

Universities have been studying telepathy, life after death and so on for a very long time. Up to the present, despite all the investigations, there is no scientific proof whatever to support the claim that such things exist.

There is no reason to believe in the existence of a supernatural. This is the only life which we know of and Socialists work to make it the best possible, by establishing a humane world: In this, one of the barriers we meet is religion.

Editorial Committee.

Then and now

Recently I was presented with a bound volume of the Socialist Standard for 1911/1917. Reading of the events of those far-off days gives one a weird feeling of having been here before.

Of particular interest is the leading article of July 1911, which stated the attitude of the SPGB to the strike of the British Seamen's Union. The tangible and known enemies of the seamen were clearly the Shipmasters (the owners), the Liberal government and all their agencies. But their intangible, unknown enemies were their own leaders, officials. Labour M.P.s who were knifing them from behind.

Now the 1966 strike of the National Union of Seamen was certainly not premature—the last one, 55 years ago, seemed to have dispirited them thoroughly and laid them under a spell which lasted right through two major wars, through two “Brave New Worlds" and through all the intervening years of "good" and bad times.

From Australia it appears the seamen again had the usual open enemies to face as well as the Labour government and the TUC. Yet it must be conceded that this is the very set-up the seamen in particular, and the working class in general, so vigorously support.

Peter Furey, 

Melbourne, Australia.

The Dean and the Chop Sticks (1952)

From the August 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

If we charitably concede that Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury, is, as he claims, a devout and peace-loving Christian, filled with loving-kindness for all humanity, anxious to promote happiness and to avoid violence and war, it is only possible to do so on the assumption that he is capable of self-deception and mental blindness to the point of absurdity. This assumption is, however, an easy one, for the Dean’s public utterances over a long period have shown him to be naive almost beyond belief, highly susceptible to flattery, with an unparalleled capacity to be misinformed on the economic and political questions he studies and writes about and a pathetic readiness to believe the most incredible stories without, or against, evidence when once his emotional interest has been aroused. At one time he espoused the currency mumbo-jumbo of the credit creationists, at another he was backing the idea of a communist Britain, with the present monarch at the helm, and as member of the Editorial Board of the communist Daily Worker he was able to square his Christian doctrines with that journal’s barely veiled campaign of national hatred against Americans. He has long sought to reconcile the irreconcilable, by holding that Marxist materialism is compatible with Christian mysticism, though it must be said in excuse that he was in this matter merely a gullible dupe of two-faced communist propaganda. His principal published contribution to political confusion has, of course, been his “Socialist Sixth of the World,” in which, against all evidence, including much that he provides in the book, he maintains that Russian State capitalism is its opposite. Socialism. He easily took in his stride the notion that dictatorship is democratic provided it happens in Russia. In recent times he has been active in trying to show why the Russian war preparations and glorification of the weapons of destruction are quite different from identical manifestations in other countries, and has achieved particular prominence by proclaiming his belief in the Russo-Chinese Governments’ propaganda about germ warfare in Korea and China.

Here let us clear the air by stating the obvious about the use of germ warfare. Governments at war—all governments —will use any weapon that they think will help them to gain the ascendancy over their opponents. The Dean would doubtless assent to this general proposition, but with the exception that he does not believe this of the Russian government and its allies because they say they are peace lovers. To which, of course, there is a brutally simple answer, For what purpose does the Dean think the Russian government makes atom bombs if not for the purpose of using them?

The Dean is equally naive about war propaganda. Words are a weapon of war, used to stimulate die home front and weaken the enemy. The truthfulness of the words is irrelevant except that some experts in war propaganda hold the view that propaganda that is built up on some truthful elements is more effective than total untruths.

Among recent efforts of the propagandists of Russia and her satellites have been the Colorado beetles said to have been dropped by American planes beyond the Iron Curtain to destroy the potato crop, the dropping of poisoned food in Albania, British poisoned cannon balls in the Crimean War of a century ago, and alleged dropping of lepers by British troops into' North Korea. Bv contrast, the Daily Worker's horror at the sending of “savage dogs” from Britain was a puny effort. The only story that has really justified its use is that of the germ-infected flies and fleas said to have been showered down on the Koreans and Chinese. The Dean believes this to be true mainly because it is vouched for by certain Christian bodies in China, and though he can, it seems, stomach all the horrors of war waged by “conventional ” weapons he cannot condone germs.

Since we know that all governments when at war will stop at no horror, the most pertinent point made by the Dean’s opponents is that researches into germ warfare by Western Powers have produced nothing likely to be at all effective. This—if true—would carry more weight than all the denials, and as it happens the Dean confirms this. He denies that the germs alleged to have been dropped have had any appreciable effect because a simple remedy has been evolved. He told a Press Conference on 8th July “how the little Chinese, when germs had been dropped, formed sanitary cordons in the fields and went about 'collecting the germs with chop sticks’ and popping them into bottles.” (Manchester Guardian, 9th July, 1952.)

So effective is this that, according to the Dean, “the direct effect of germ warfare will be a rapid lowering of the mortality rate with consequent rise in population.”

The logic of his conclusion is perhaps open to question since lowering the mortality rate due to germs can hardly increase the population, unless indeed the children also collect germ-laden insects native to the countryside as well as those dropped by planes; but the Dean’s belief is clear.

If, therefore, we are to believe the Dean his course is obvious. He should now open a campaign for the abolition of dangerous weapons like rifles, artillery, tanks, high explosive bombs, etc., etc., and get the governments to agree to fight wars only with germs. “ The germ, the whole germ and nothing but the germ.” Then, with our issue of chopsticks and bottles we shall all be safe and sound in a third world war and shall all live to bless the Dean of Canterbury.

One other aspect of the battle of the germ deserves notice. His fellow Christians in Britain have denounced his lack of patriotism and sorrowed over his absence of any critical faculty that would deter him from accepting statements on trust even from fellow Christians in China. But why should anyone expect a Dean, nurtured in the bosom of the Christian church, to be able dispassionately to weigh the evidence of what is alleged to have happened this year in the Far East? Are not all Christians taught to accept on faith astonishing stories of wonders and miracles supposed to have taken place in the Middle East nearly 2,000 years ago?

Edgar Hardcastle

Is Russia Socialist? (Concluded) (1943)

Book Review from the July 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

Another teaching of Socialism ignored by Hewlett Johnson and the Bolsheviks is closely bound up with the above; Socialism can be established only when the working class are ripe for it. The development of capitalism creates a world-wide working-class with identical interests, and presents it with problems the solution of which requires the abolition of capitalist society and the establishment of Socialism. Not for any other class is the task of accomplishing the Socialist revolution! But to achieve Socialism, it does need, not a handful of workers, but the majority of them, class-conscious and with an understanding of what Socialism is. Marx and Engels deal with this point in their “Communist Manifesto,” as Hewlett Johnson must know. They write: 

“All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the conscious movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority.” 

This was penned in 1847. Nor the founders of Scientific Socialism change their minds on this point. On the contrary. After many more years of experience and study, Engels wrote about this question of “majority or minority,” His words make it plain that he was convinced that only a class-conscious majority of workers could achieve Socialism. “As conditions have changed for warfare,” he writes, “so not less for the class struggle. The period for sudden onslaughts, of revolutions carried out by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where the question involves the complete transformation of the social organisation, there the masses must be consulted, must themselves have already grasped what the struggle is about, and what they stand for.” “This is what the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is needed …” Thus Engels in the last thing he wrote: The Preface to “Class struggles in France.”

The point Engels makes above is a fundamental of Scientific Socialism. But the Dean ignores it. He believes that a handful of men with some knowledge of the trends of history and with determination can lead the masses from a semi-mediaeval system direct to Socialism – that society which needs for its establishment a working class desirous of Socialism and organised politically to achieve it and which needs also, as Stalin said, “a high productivity of labour” (p. 209). The Bolsheviks won the support of the peasants and power with their “Bread, Peace and Land” programme. And the Dean believes Socialism has been achieved in this way.

According to Hewlett Johnson, Russia is a classless state. This does not mean, however, that its citizens enjoy economic equality for, to quote from his book, the classless state “was never intended to mean strict equality, save at the end of a very long process. It left freedom, of instance, for inequality of wage.”

Thus again the Dean distorts the teachings of Socialism. In the first place, Socialist writers have shown that with the end of classes, the state will disappear, since it is only necessary where class-rule obtains. The state arose with the private property and the growth of an exploiting and exploited class. When private property is abolished – and classes cease to exist – the state will have no function left and will wither away. It is strange that the Dean does not know this considering that he claims to have studied Socialism, especially since the state is dealt with by Engels in his “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific” – one of the most widely-read of Socialist classics. The Dean uses a useless phrase when he talks of “the class-less state.”

Secondly, Socialism does mean economic equality, in spite of all Hewlett Johnson may say to the contrary. It involves the abolition of the wages system, and the creation of a society wherein every member has free access to the means of life.

Now, in Russia, of course, the worker has not “free access to the means of life.” There exists in Russia, as elsewhere, money, invested in Government bonds, buying and selling and other paraphernalia of capitalism. This being so, we cannot see the point when we read: “The Soviet plan stands in vivid contrast to the planless world of capitalism … where if I possess money I can buy; if not, I must continue in unrelieved want” (p. 89). In Russia, as in other countries, those with large incomes have the advantage; as in other countries, the rich will see they are comfortably housed, well fed and pleasantly entertained. The poor in Russia, like their fellows in all capitalist countries, will have to make do with shoddy.

Certainly Russia has its privileged section of the population and they will buy (because they can afford to do so) the bulk of the luxury articles which the average worker cannot afford. These privileged people are the party officials, technical experts, writers, doctors, lawyers, etc. Some of these people receive incomes a hundred times bigger than that of the average worker. With the legality of inheritance in force, accumulation of wealth is to-day bound to be taking place in Russia among the wealthy. They are the exploiters, and the Dean is wrong when he says (p. 282) “exploitation of man by man is entirely abolished.” They can obtain their big incomes only out of the wealth produced by the workers.

It is not surprising, then, that the Socialist slogan, “from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs,” was thrown overboard by the Bolsheviks in 1936 Constitution, and replaced by the slogan, “From each according to his ability and to each according to the work done.” These Russian exploiters claim that their work is more specialised, more important, more skilled than that of the ordinary workman. Capitalists of other countries have argued the same way. “We are entitled to profits, because we have to think the thing out.”

Before leaving the Dean’s misrepresentations of Socialism, we must draw the reader’s attention to the fact that he has distorted the meaning of Socialism itself. In this respect, he has again followed the Bolsheviks, who now propagate that Socialism is a transitional stage between capitalism and communism. Socialism never had this meaning until the Bolsheviks found it convenient to foist it into the word. For Marx and Engels, especially after the events caused the disappearance of “Utopian Socialism” just after the middle of last century, Socialism and Communism were synonymous terms. Hence the title of Engels’ masterpiece (which the Dean should read), “Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.” In his Preface to “The Communist Manifesto,” written in 1890, Engels makes it clear that he nor Marx had in mind what the Bolsheviks mean when the term “Socialism” is used. Why then did the Bolsheviks give another meaning to word? In the first place, they doubtless wished to attract support of the workers at home and in other lands and therefore used phraseology which appealed to workers. Later the Nazis did the same with their “National Socialism(!).” Then, again, it was obvious to the Russian people after 1917 that not yet had the millennium arrived. With the impossibility of abolishing poverty it was necessary to hold out hopes of better things to come. In effect they said: “This, you will get, Comrade Worker, when Communism is possible. But you cannot have Communism yet; we must finish building up Socialism first.” In this respect, therefore, the Bolsheviks have proved themselves equal to other exploiters of the workers: they have (so far) succeeded in keeping them “contented” with promises of a good time in the future. They have succeeded too (incidentally) in adding to the confusion which already existed in the worker’s mind as to what Socialism means.

What of Russian Progress ?

A large portion of the Dean’s book is concerned with showing the great progress that Russia has certainly made since 1917. The reader is told of the enormous strides that have been made in industrial development, agriculture, education, etc. The reader is reminded by the author that these advances must be judged, not by the standards of Western Europe, but by the conditions prevailing in Russia in the days of the Tzars.

The facts given of Russian progress may be true. But what if they are? What do they prove? Not, as the Dean thinks, that a Sixth of the World has gone Socialist. Let us consider education. Illiteracy is being rapidly abolished. But does this prove that Russia is Socialist? Of course not. Any country which wishes to make some show in international trade today – which wishes to keep pace with technical improvements in industry, etc., must have an educated population. It was all the more necessary for the Bolsheviks to attempt a hot-house growth of literacy, for in 1917 Russia was backward in almost every respect. If she wished to hold her own, progress had to be rapid. And as it was with education, so it was with industry, agriculture and scientific progress. As we have said earlier, the revolution of 1917 resulted in a development of capitalism. At the most, the Dean has shown us that this development has been rapid.

There are literally scores of other points which we could take up with the Dean, but we think sufficient has already been written.

In conclusion, then, we will content ourselves with emphasising these points:-

1. The book contains nothing new about Socialism or Russia.
2. Hewlett Johnson has borrowed most the Communist misconceptions about these subjects, and without first having critically examined Communist propaganda, he passes it on to his reading public.
3. The Dean fails to prove that a Sixth of the World is Socialist. His book, then, carries a false title.
4. The Dean is not a Socialist as he does not understand Socialism. In spite of his claim to have studied Scientific Socialism, we must say that he shows little sign of having benefited from his study.
5. Russia to-day is passing through a period of capitalist development. This is inevitable, for in 1917 none of the conditions were present which are imperative for the achievement of Socialism (i.e., an advanced industry and a class-conscious working class).
6. Lastly Socialism will come to Russia as to the rest of the world when the conditions are ripe.

Clifford Allen

Is Russia Socialist? (1943)

Book Review from the June 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most of the misconceptions regarding Socialism and Russia that have been propagated during the past twenty odd years by the Bolsheviks and the Communist Parties are to be found rehashed in "The Socialist Sixth of the World.” This book was written by Hewlett Johnson, the Dean of Canterbury, just prior to the outbreak of the war. An abridged edition of it, with the title "Soviet Power,” has sold widely in America.

“The Socialist Sixth of the World” is worth notice, as it gives us an opportunity of explaining some of the fundamental principles of Socialism and of dealing with the economic base of Russian society. Let us say at the outset that the Dean of Canterbury makes out a good case against capitalism, and exposes many of its contradictions. His book, however, is intended to point to a solution of these contradictions, and the solution he offers is not Socialism. Moreover, his "programme” is full of weaknesses.

Where the Dean Fails
Though the Dean of Canterbury can see the contradictions of Capitalism, he is unable to explain how they arise, and the weakness of his whole case hinges on this point. He does not carry his analysis of Capitalism far enough. He can see that it is a society run for profit, and that the worker is exploited. What he does not understand is how this exploitation of the worker is effected; he does not understand what are the essentials of Capitalism—those features which distinguish present-day society from preceding systems of society: in brief, those features that are the hall mark of capitalism.

This brings us to the very important question: "What is Capitalism?" "What are the essentials of Capitalism?”

Every society has a very definite basis, and every class society a very definite method of exploiting its subject class. This exploitation was not veiled in slave society; one man owned another and made him work. The master gave the slave the necessities of life and retained for himself what was produced over and above the slave's maintenance. The exploitation and slavery of present-day society are to some extent veiled. They are there all right, none the less. The capitalist does not own the worker, but still the worker is dependent on the capitalist class for his livelihood. And how is the worker exploited? Before production takes place today we have capital. This is money invested, for the purpose of profit, in the purchase of machinery, raw materials, factories, etc. But these things are useless without workmen, so capital engages too the energies of the worker. The energies of the worker are used up in producing articles for sale, commodities, but the worker is not paid for the produce of his work for the whole duration of the day. In a working day of eight hours a worker may receive wages equivalent to, say, four hours' produce of his work. The other four hours are given free to the capitalist. It is thus that the worker is exploited under capitalism. Were he paid for the full produce of his eight hours' work there would be no profits for the capitalist class. Whatever minor modifications present-day society may undergo, this is, simply and briefly put, an explanation of the productive process. It is plain to see that wage-labour and capital are the roots of the whole system. Machinery, in simple or complex form, may be employed in any social system—but WAGE-LABOUR AND CAPITAL ARE PECULIAR TO CAPITALISM, and it is by their presence or absence that we can decide whether a society is capitalist or not.

In his "Wage-Labour and Capital" Marx rightly points out that the two are complementary. The one does not exist without the other. He writes: "Capital and wage-labour are two sides of one and the same relation. The one conditions the other in the same way that the usurer and the borrower condition each other. As long as the wage-labourer remains a wage-labourer, his lot is dependent upon capital" (P. 33. Lawrence and Wishart edition.) And again: "Capital therefore pre-supposes wage-labour; wage-labour pre-supposes capital. They condition each other; each brings the other into existence." (P. 32. Emphasis by Marx.)

It is true that with the development of capitalism and in different countries the form of ownership and control of capital may differ. But the form of ownership of capital is not the vital question. It may be owned by the small private trader, the large owner, the trust or by the state—"the executive committee of the capitalist class." But in all cases its presence proves the existence of capitalist society.

The Dean's Proposals

Dean Hewlett Johnson does not see that the roots of capitalism are wage-labour and capital, that these are the features distinguishing capitalism from all earlier forms of society.

It is not surprising, therefore, that he fails to understand the need for their abolition if we would be rid of capitalism. So it happens that in the "new order" proposed by the Dean we still have wage-labour and capital—which, as we have seen, spell exploitation and poverty for the working- class.

For the Dean, the term "modern capitalism" means unbridled competition, and his solution to the whole problem is the scientific planning of capitalism, so as to cut out competition and make the most efficient use of wage-labour and capital. His "new order," then, is still capitalism, even if he wants wages to be paid according to ability and according to the work done. He relegates to the very distant future Socialism, wherein each will give of his best to society and partake of society's products according to his needs. It is the old story. He is like other reformists, in that not accepting the Socialist case, he is bound to put forward proposals to remodel capitalism—proposals which would still leave the worker a wave-slave and in poverty.

It is from Russia that the Dean has obtained his inspiration and ideas. He would like to see "the Russian experiment" attempted here and in other countries.

We must now examine what he tells us about Russia and see if the title of his book is justifiable. Has Socialism been established over a sixth of the earth's surface?

Some Fundamentals of Scientific Socialism

Hewlett Johnson claims to have studied Scientific Socialism. More important, he claims that since 1917 Russia has been attempting to put Socialist principles into practice.

The book under review proves two things; first, that the main teachings of Socialism have completely escaped the Dean: and secondly, that Russia is not, and never has been, Socialist.

The principles of Socialism are to be found defined and elaborated in the works of Marx and Engels, who gave a scientific basis to Socialist thought.

Scientific Socialism explains how and why society evolves, how one social system is replaced by another. It is one of the main conclusions of Socialist thought that Socialism cannot arise BEFORE the economic basis is ripe for it. And this is sound common sense. Each economic system is a growth—out of the previous system. Capitalism grew out of Feudalism, and could not, as a system, precede it. A new society cannot come into being until the need for it and the practicability of it, arises. Hence Socialism could not precede capitalism, for Socialism requires a very high level of production, giant machines, and an educated and trained population to work them. It is capitalism which provides these, and it is because capitalism cannot use the means of production for the benefit of society that the need for Socialism arises.

The Dean ignores this very important teaching of Socialism. He admits that in 1917 Russia was backward economically, much more so than Britain, Germany, the U.S.A., France, etc. With a semi-feudal economy, the Russian population too was naturally backward. Illiteracy and superstition were both rife. Stalin is quoted as follows: "We inherited from the old regime a technically backward and ruined country reduced to semi-starvation. Ruined by four years of imperialist war, and again by three of civil war, a country with a semi-illiterate population, primitive means of production and small oases of industry scattered in the desert of petty peasant farmsteads " (p. 167). The mass of the people being peasants, they neither needed nor desired Socialism. This the Dean admits (p. 101) when he writes: "Not only was Russia handicapped with a mediaeval agriculture, but possessed . . . a peasantry the most ignorant, superstitious and backward that Europe could show; a peasantry not only using the wooden plough, but wishing for no better; a peasantry capable of fighting burning thatch in a cottage conflagration with gallons of milk, through superstitious dread of using water for the purpose."

And yet he proclaims that of all countries Russia was the one most suited for the first Socialist revolution. "Providence," he says (p. 87), "surely planned Russia as the stage for the first Socialist civilisation."

Providence indeed! Scientific Socialism which the Dean is supposed to have studied proves that evolution and revolutions are not haphazard affairs, dependent upon miracles. Before leaving this point, let us quote one more passage from Marx. The sound common-sense it contains becomes all the more evident when placed alongside the confused writings of the Dean:—

  "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have been matured in the womb of the old society. Therefore, mankind always takes up only such problems as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation." (Preface to " Critique of Political Economy.")

Clifford Allen.

[To be continued]

News in Review: America Votes (1966)

The News in Review column from the December 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

America Votes

The mid-term elections in America provided the customary festival for the devotees of the Great Man Theory.

Disgruntled Democrats were ready to blame President Johnson for their losses. The Daily Telegraph's Washington correspondent passed on a report that Democratic leaders in Michigan were thinking about opposing Johnson as their Presidential candidate in 1968.

On the other side, jubilant Republicans surveyed their leaders — Reagan, Romney, Percy, Nixon—and began planning the build-up to present one of them as the nation's saviour at the polls the year after next.

Whichever party is defeated at the election, the Great Man Theory remains unbeaten. The Democrats who now blame Johnson for their setbacks are conveniently forgetting that they once adored him as the man who would build the Great Society. The only remedy they have to offer is to peddle the same sort of nonsense about another man.

In the same way, the Republicans who are now come to praise men like Reagan and Percy may yet stay to bury them in unforgiving recrimination.

This is a familiar spectacle. Capitalism’s leaders are always being credited with more power over the system than they actually have. No man, and no government, has ever been able to control capitalism; in the end the system wins.

When we have an election in which the votes reflect a developing knowledge of that fact, we shall be somewhere near getting rid of the problems the great men are always promising, and always failing, to solve.

The “new” NAZIS

A small, black cloud has been observed over the politics of Western Germany. Coinciding with the fall of Ludwig Erhard, there are signs of a growing support for parties which resemble the old Nazis, and some of whose leaders were followers of Hitler.

In particular, the recent electoral successes of the National Democratic Party in Hesse have given cause for concern. And more than one eyebrow has been raised at the fact that Erhard’s successor Kiesinger was himself a member of the Nazi Party.

How far is the surprise and concern justified?

All capitalist parties stimulate the fallacies of patriotism among their working class. This patriotism is only a short step from extreme nationalism, express ing itself in violence and dictatorship.

The last war, of course, was supposed to have finished dictatorship. Yet the so-called peace settlement, part of which divided Germany into two, provided a fertile field for nationalist propaganda there. The NDP is taking full advantage of this, and patriotic German workers are receptive.

Capitalist parties continually promise to solve the workers’ problems and when they fail, as fail they must, the workers all too often decide that political democracy itself has failed.

In this situation, the parties have often fallen into confusion and bitter internal quarrels, heightening the impression that they are crooks and muddlers.

The failure of, and the squabbles in, the Christian Democratic Union, and now the fall of Erhard, have given/the new Nazis every chance of making their point.

As long as capitalism lasts there can be no security for democracy. Capitalism itself provides the tools with which demagogues can undermine democratic rights. The political ignorance by which capitalism lives is always ready to be exploited.

The NDP is at present small and has no influence. But it is hopeful, and perhaps with good reason.

Christian Communists

While Dr. Hewlett Johnson—the Red Dean of Canterbury—was alive it was never clear which had the greater claim to him: the Communist Party as an outstanding capture from the Church or the Church as a prominent convert from the Communist Party.

He himself, like many other members and supporters of the Communist Party, never had any difficulty in reconciling the two. It is now clear that he was in good company.

Dr. Johnson’s funeral service, on October 27 last at Canterbury Cathedral, was well attended and among the congregation were Communist Party secretary John Gollan and Morning Star editor George Matthews.

It would be interesting lo know how fervently Gollan and Matthews joined in the prayers for the Red Dean’s soul, how lustily they sang the hymns which disseminate the opiate of the people.

The funeral service is one which stresses the essence of religion — its mysticism, its false beliefs, its acceptance of the burdens of life under capitalism in the hope of a better time after death.

What were Gollan and Matthews doing at such a service?

Were they trying to prove that the Communist Party is becoming respectable? Were they showing that the organisation which professes, when it is convenient, to stand for Marxist materialism can see nothing wrong in its leaders contributing to religious mumbo-jumbo over a dead man’s body?

The Red Dean was a master of double think. Obviously, he would have approved.

No Bankers’ Ramp

Many of the present members of the Labour Party were brought up on the myth that the 1929 Labour government was destroyed by a banker’s ramp.

The story behind the myth is a simple one. In 1929 it was, the MacDonald government were doing so much for the working people of this country, they were so determinedly undermining the privileged position of the British ruling class, that financiers abroad began to fear for the very existence of capitalism.

They determined that MacDonald must be stopped, and conspired together to bring about the economic storm which swept the Labour government out of existence.

The “bankers ramp” story persists to this day; it was at any rate some sort of excuse for the dismal failure of the 1929 Labour government to tame capitalism and fulfil its promises.

At this year’s Labour conference, ASSET secretary, Clive Jenkins, while attacking the incomes policy, gave the government a chance to justify themselves in the same way: “I believe positively” he said, “that the government were told to do it.”

But Callaghan had already rejected the chance: “The measures were not taken because the bankers recommended them—there was no banker’s ramp.” 

The Wilson government is doing its best to prove that it is in control, and will not be pushed around by anyone. They are in no mood, at present, to make excuses.

Let this be remembered, then. Nobody forced the Labour government to do what they are doing. The foreign bankers did not plot to bring them down.

The Prices and Incomes Bill is part of a policy they are carrying out because they want it. It is their responsibility. But would anyone care to bet.

Who’s for Profits

The human sufferings caused by production for profit are so obvious that they lend themselves to cynical exploitation by tear-jerking demagogues of all sorts. In the past this was the speciality of Labour orators with their emotional denunciation of “profiteers” and their “profit motive.” But times change. Who said this?

   Profit is necessary to keep our stock of assets up to date and to enable them to be modernised and to give a return on savings. Companies must earn a proper return on their capital, and profit is not, and should not be, a dirty word where it is properly carried.

The Investors Chronicle, perhaps, or Enoch Powell? In fact, this defence of capitalism was made by Chancellor James Callaghan in a speech in Cardiff on September 9 (quoted in a letter to the Financial Times, September 21)—the same speech, by the way, in which he called for a permanent incomes policy. Callaghan was not just expressing his own prejudice. This has been a consistent Labour theme since they got power in October, 1964. Within a week Douglas Jay was saying:

  Profits, provided they are earned by efficiency and technical progress, and not by restrictive practices or abuse of monopoly, are the signs of a healthy economy, (quoted in the Guardian, 21 October, 1964).

Junior Minister George Darling has put it this way:

  This Government believes in high profits so long as industry uses them properly. (Financial Times, 24 November, 1965)

and George Brown in the House of Commons on August 3 this year: 

 I ought to make it plain that we are not, as a party, opposed to profits. In a mixed economy such as ours, the earning of profits is a necessary incentive over a large part of industry.

Crossman, who is now adding insult to injury by telling us that the repressive anti-working class policy of his party has something to do with Socialism, foresaw this in 1960 when he wrote in a Fabian pamphlet Labour in the Affluent Society:

  If the motive of your economy is the profit-making of large-scale modern private enterprise, a Labour Chancellor must be prepared to allow very large profits indeed and to admit that the number of golden eggs he can remove is extremely limited.

The fact is the Labour Party, like the Tories, is an avowed capitalist party with its leaders openly defending capitalism, both in theory and practice, to the best of their abilities.

Hang it on the wall?

Those people who are unable to resist sending off half-a-dozen packet tops and fifteen and six in cash to get a brand new, up-to-date plastic dwarf for the garden will be interested in the latest offer from the 3M Scotch tape firm.

This offer, obviously intended for technologically minded bargain hunters, is for pictures of space vehicles—and of a Polaris missile.

Now Polaris, as anyone who has seen a CND march, is a fearfully destructive thing. Because it is fixed from a submarine under water, it was once considered to be the ultimate weapon.

The picture which 3M is offering shows a rocket zooming out of the water, on its way to goodness knows where to do goodness knows what. 

Anyone got an odd piece of wall to fill? We forgot to mention that “each picture comes elegantly framed in white painted wood . . ."

Religion and Reaction in Russia (1943)

From the November 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The news that Stalin has approved the election of a Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia and the formation of a Holy Synod is not the least surprising to Socialists, especially after the information published in the Daily Worker (see August Socialist Standard) about the increasing numbers of rouble millionaires. 

Perhaps one of the best comments is that of General de Gaulle's paper, La France. It compares the present developments in Russia to the end of the Robespierre regime in France in 1798, and further points out that the old official Greek Orthodox Catholic Church in Russia has energetically supported the war against Germany, openly threatening denunciation as a traitor and ex-communication for any priest guilty of failing to lead the people against the enemy. According to the Moscow correspondent of the Daily Herald (September 6, 1943), "Since the war there has been an upsurge of religions feeling by no means confined to the older generation." This is simply one further aspect of the profound truth of the contention of the Socialist Standard 23 years ago that the people of Russia were not Socialists—but largely illiterate peasants. They still are— and are therefore priest-ridden.

  It is the development of industrial forces, and mankind's consequent growing control over nature, and increasing knowledge of her working, that provides a wider and firmer basis for science, and leaves less room for superstition in the minds of working men. (Socialism and Religion, S.P.G.B., p. 15-16.)

The position of the hapless British Communists becomes ever more ridiculous. One-time sponsors of the "League of the Godless" they are now forced to whitewash what is the most reactionary Church in Europe—the Russian Church— former organiser of pogroms against the Jews, spiritual managers of the Czar's public brothels, and breakers of strikes. Meantime, the British Archbishops and Deans of Canterbury, York, etc., have proved how astute they are and how well they understood that the backward conditions of Russia would serve religion.

According to the Daily Worker (September 16), the Dean of Canterbury welcomes the visit of the Archbishop of York to the Soviet Union. In an article in the same issue he states that "the Russian Church of to-day differs widely from the Russian Church of Tsarist days, proving itself by a whole series of acts, especially in war time, a loyal ally of the Soviet Regime." The Dean considers that this recognition of the Holy Synod in Russia makes it "the first great union of peoples to practise things which for 1,800 years the Church has been preaching."

When we recall the books written by these people, The Socialist Sixth of the World (extensively debunked in the Socialist Standard) and hear the statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the radio that they (the Church of England) have long been on the most friendly terms with the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia, and are now exchanging delegates, it becomes clear that the clergy are up to their age-old game, consistently played throughout the ages, of repainting their theological scenery to suit the political policy of the ruling clique of the day. In the same way that Ancient Rome and the Incas of Peru took the idols of conquered tribes and placed them in the Pantheon, so the Patriarch of the Holy Synod is quite willing to send greetings to Joseph Stalin so long as Stalin recognises the Church, or vice versa. Once Churchill "recognised" Stalin, the Church of England follows suit. Stalin has done this, as the Times indicates, because the Greek Church is the most suitable machinery for influencing Russian and Balkan peasants, not the Communist International, which it has superseded. Eleven years ago they said: —

   In all the Catholic Churches in the Liverpool diocese a pastoral letter from the Archbishop was read during the High Mass last Sunday. After stating that the abolition of religion is a fundamental tenet of Russian Communism, the Archbishop asserts, "Almost from the outset the price which the workers paid for the somewhat fictitious benefits of Communism was very real slavery; and slavery not merely of body but of mind, for the serfs of the soil in their misery soon discovered that the only free-thinkers in Russia were the despots who ruled them.
   Even at this late hour the world's ports should be closed to the commercial fleets of Russia and the plague of Bolshevism isolated within the Soviet State." (Daily Worker, November 29, 1932.) 

The official Church of England, through the Dean of Canterbury and others, will try to pass this off as "Socialism," and surely, if Hitler and Stalin can call themselves "Socialists," so can the Dean of Canterbury and the Russian Church. Yelping at his heels, the Daily Worker and Russia Today announce that the modern Russian Church, like the new Soviet millionaires, is " quite different."

Unfortunately for them, information is not lacking to the contrary. In the Daily Mirror for September 17 is a report from Moscow by Marion Sinclair entitled "An exhausting time was had by all," on the reception of the Patriarch by Stalin and his enthronement in Moscow Cathedral.

  "Never in the history of Soviet Russia has there been such a blaze of colour, jewels, candles, velvets, brocades—or such a concourse of people in an ecstasy of religious fervour."

The Cathedral Dean was fussing about like the stage-manager before the opening performance.

   "Don't forget those candles, line up the beggars at the door—they're blocking the entrance. Where are the people who are to line the path to keep back crowds? "
   Sergei (the Patriarch) put on the golden mitre blazing with rubies, sapphires, amethysts and pearls. One girl whispered "they can't all be real." But they were, for canonical law forbids the wearing of false jewels. (Italics ours.)

So we see. It is almost the same old superstitious Russia in spite of everything. Great wealth for priests—based on crowds of beggars at the door as they always were, with "modern" rouble millionaires and masses of pauper-workers added. And yet not quite the same, for somewhere in the back streets of Moscow there are working men and women who recall the words of one of Russia's outstanding sons : —

   Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weigh upon the masses who are crushed by continuous toil for others, by poverty and deprivation. The helplessness of all the exploited in their struggle against the exploiters inevitably generates a belief in a better life after death, even as the helplessness of the savage in his struggle with nature gives rise to a belief in gods, devils, miracles, etc.
  Religion teaches those who toil in poverty all their lives to be resigned and patient in this world, and consoles them with the hope of reward in heaven. As for those who live upon the labour of others, religion teaches them to be "charitable"—thus providing a justification for exploitation and, as it were, also a cheap ticket to heaven likewise."Religion is the opium of the people." Religion is a kind of spiritual intoxicant, in which the slaves of capital drown their humanity, and blunt their desire for a decent human existence.
  But a slave who has become conscious of his slavery, and who has risen to the height of fighting for his emancipation, has half-ceased to be a slave. The class-conscious worker of to-day, brought up in the environment of a big factory, and enlightened by town life, rejects religious prejudices with contempt. He leaves heaven to the priests and bourgeois hypocrites. He fights for a better life for himself, here on earth. The modern proletariat ranges itself on the side of Socialism, which, with the help of science, is dispersing the fog of religion and is liberating the workers from their faith in a life after death, by rallying them to the present-day struggle for a better life here upon earth.

The same Russian writer went on :—

  Marx said : "Religion is the opium of the people"—and this postulate is the corner-stone of the whole philosophy of Marxism with regard to religion. Marxism always regarded all modern religions and churches, and every kind of religious organisation as instruments of that bourgeois reaction whose aim is to defend exploitation by stupefying the working-class.

And finally perhaps Josef Stalin ponders these words written to Maxim Gorky : —

   By redecorating the idea of God you actually repaired the chains by which the ignorant workers and peasants are bound. "There!"—Messrs. Parson & Co. will say—"see what a fine and wise idea (idea of God) this is ! Even ' your ' democrats, your leaders, admit it; and we (Messrs. Parson & Co.) are the ministers of this idea." . . . Now in Europe, just as in Russia, every defence or justification of the idea of God, even the most refined and well intentioned, is a justification of reaction.

The Russian writer from whose work the above quotations are taken is N. Lenin (Lenin on Religion, Lawrence & Wishart, 1943, 1s.), and Mr. Harry Pollitt has been so busy at the back of the Second Front lately that he hasn't got round to suppressing it yet.

Horatio.

So Much Alike! (1941)

From the January 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia, according to the Stalin Government and its unthinking groups of devotees, is a Socialist country. We have the strange spectacle of a prominent clerical dignitary declaring one-sixth of the earth to be Socialist. Now, surely, it is a sound guide to know your fundamentals first. Thus, if an object is declared to be triangular, we can only agree that it is so, if we first know a triangle. On the same principle, if Russia is declared a Socialist country, is it not the surest and safest thing for us to understand Socialism first, otherwise how are we to be sure we are not being sold a pup ? Therefore the knowledge of Socialism is vital. What then is Socialism? Socialism is a system of human society of a special kind. Its fundamental is the common ownership of all that is necessary to the common good. This implies the end of buying and selling and the end of the wages system. From this fundamental we must look at Russia. When we do look we find that buying and selling and wages obtain there as elsewhere—wages varying in rate, etc. Then, as Russia does not conform to our fundamental she cannot be Socialist. The Communist party, Left Book Club and similar people, however, have a ready answer. This is it! The fundamental (no wages) is a fundamental of Communism, and Socialism is a half-way house in which wages, money, buying and selling must exist until, by a slow process, they are eliminated and Communism is then reached. Russia, we are told, is going that way. Let us take them at their own word. If Russia is Socialist and moving towards Communism, according to the Stalinites each move should be away from payment for goods or services. The recent decree of the Russian rulers, however, is away from free education in schools to payment for it, ranging from one hundred to four hundred roubles. Let us face the facts and declare openly—Russia is not a Socialist but a Capitalist country, approximating to, though not identical with, totalitarian Germany. The German capitalist class have bluffed millions by styling their system “National  Socialism," the bulk of their population being German. Russia could not do this as easily, large chunks of her people being non-Russian. In order to gain support for her capitalism Russia has to delude millions of people that she too is Socialist (though not national). In order to slip this across the world she has made a “Socialism” of her own (like Germany), and subsidises numerous organisations to boom this for her (again like Germany). Those in her own borders who do not agree because they perhaps understand Socialism she shoots or imprisons (how like Germany). Prominent people (not understanding Socialism) write about a Socialist sixth of the world. Socialists, however, see through the game.

Lew Jones

Notes By The Way: Should Women Have Equal Pay with Men? (1941)

The Notes By The Way column from the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Should Women Have Equal Pay with Men?

The propaganda of the organisations which favour equal pay for men and women doing the same job has made much progress recently and a poll organised by the British Institute of Public Opinion showed a majority of over two-thirds in favour. (News-Chronicle, November 17th, 1941.)

The main reason for the change of attitude this poll indicates is, however, not propaganda, but the fact that under war conditions there is a limitless demand for women’s labour. As the Economist says: “. . . temporarily, at any rate, the war has done the reformers’ work for them. The demand for women workers has increased; and the number of occupations into which they are eagerly admitted is growing. But in spite of the greatly increased number of women coming forward, there is still a shortage . . .”—(Economist, November 29th, 1941.)

It should not be imagined that the propaganda for equal pay is new. It was in full swing 40 years ago and was, for example, commented on in The Socialist Standard for December, 1904. Apart from the war-time demand for women workers the problem has only changed in the past 40 years in one respect, that there are now a larger number of occupations in which it is normal for women to be employed. The claim that the job should carry the same pay whether done by a man or a woman is still a mere tinkering with the real problem of the working class, both men and women. Short of getting rid of the wages system and the employing class, as under Socialism, the whip-hand is always that of the employing class. They will always seek what is for their particular concern the cheapest labour and will always use unemployment as a lever to force down wages towards the minimum of subsistence. The advocates of equal pay who imagine that the acceptances of the principle by the employers will make any material change are overlooking the easy loophole it provides. If an employer accepts the principle of equal pay for a certain grade of work and then finds that there are plenty of unemployed women able and willing to do the job for a lower wage, all he has to do is to take all the men off that work. The work then becomes a purely woman’s job, and the principle of equal pay ceases to have any application.

Douglasites Repudiate Douglas

The following paragraph appeared in the Daily Telegraph (November 17th, 1941): —

   Three persons have been excommunicated this weekend by the Green Shirts. They are Major C. H. Douglas, who invented Social Credit, the Dean of Canterbury and the Duke of Bedford.
  This information I obtain from The Message from Hargrave, the weekly sheet of foolscap expounding the views of the “Social Credit Party of Great Britain,” which I have been receiving since I announced, last July, that Mr. Augustus John had become a Green Shirt.
   I read that the Social Credit Party repudiated the "authority and directives” of Major Douglas in July, 1938. He is now once more repudiated for “confusing his own economic logic by developing an anti-Semitic propaganda.”
   Dr. Hewlett Johnson’s excommunication is for becoming that “quite ridiculous thing—a Christian Bolshevik.” The Duke of Bedford, who, as I read, is even better known than the dean for his advocacy of Social Credit, is placed under the ban for his out-and-out advocacy of the views he holds on the war.

Under-Feeding Among Edinburgh Workers

The Weekly Scotsman (July 5th, 1941) summarises the result of a recent inquiry into the income and expenditure of a number of families on the ”unskilled labourer" level of income.

  Out of 75 families whose food bill was investigated, only 8 were spending enough to buy an adequate diet. From various causes none of the families was in fact getting a diet adequate in every respect. There are figures of the large slice of their income which some families spend on hire purchase or sickness and burial insurance. Over half the families were living beyond their incomes and running into debt; in particular, “it was found that a high percentage of Service families were in part dependent upon hospitality from relations.”

Restrictions on Political Propaganda

On November 27th, 1941, the News-Chronicle published the following: —

                                                        POLITICS BANNED.

   While the war is on, politics are to be banned in the factories (writes the Labour Correspondent).

   The T.U.C. has agreed with the Government that political parties shall not be allowed to propagate their policies inside the establishments of private firms, as well as Government factories and dockyards.

    This does not apply to trade union meetings.

Probably, though it is not stated, the justification offered for this ban is that political discussions interfere with output.

A Question to Federal Unionists

Reviewing a book (“Scum of the Earth," by Arthur Koestler), Mr. A. J. P. Taylor, writing in the Manchester Guardian, puts a pertinent question to supporters of Federal Union. Koestler, who supports Federal Union, had recounted some of the brutalities he witnessed in French and Spanish jails. Mr. Taylor asks: —

   "Koestler believes in European Union. Why should the police of the Union be any improvement on Koestler’s French or Spanish gaolers . . . ? In short, why should European Union—even if it ended wars—end man’s inhumanity to man?”

It is a good point because it brings out one of the fallacies of Federal Union. Is the world out of joint because of the way frontiers are drawn or because of the existence of a class-divided society, with oppression of one class by another, behind each frontier?

Socialists carry Mr. Taylor’s question further and ask whether Federal Union will end wars or only alter and enlarge the frontiers of the warring powers.

Echoes of the People’s Convention

It is an old saying that new converts are more zealous than old believers. The People’s Convention since its overnight conversion to war on the night of June 22nd is now a whole-hogger.

   The Peoples Convention, which in January wanted immediate peace and an appeal to the German people over Hitler’s head, now presses for intensified war effort and. the creation of a second front.
    At an Anglo-Soviet rally in Friends' House, Euston Road, London, yesterday, every utterance in favour of our more active participation in the war was loudly cheered.
    “We are letting the golden days go past,” said Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury.
   “If we had invaded the Continent in June the Dneiper Dam would still be working and Russia would have retained most of her lost industries. We have lengthened the war immeasurably.”—(“Sunday Express,” November 2nd, 1941.)

Mr. Pollitt, in his new role, writes as follows : —

   Russia is working, fighting and dying in a manner unknown in world history. So must we in Britain. So we can in Britain if the Government sets out to command the unstinted support of the people by proving by every one of its actions that Russia and Britain are in a real alliance, in which we take our full share and make the same sacrifices that the victory over Hitler is demanding. —(“Workers’ News.”)

Communists Support for Conservative Candidates

The Communists have a simple faith : Whatever the Russian Government does is right, whether it be Pacts with Hitler or war with Hitler. Whatever helps the Russian Government is right, whether it be denouncing the Labour Party for associating with Conservatives or voting for Conservatives.

Viewed thus there is no inconstancy in the recent Communist support for Conservative candidates at Lancaster and Hampstead. At Lancaster, where the National Conservative candidate was opposed by an Independent Liberal and by Mr. Fenner Brockway of the I.L.P., "a Communist deputation visited the Conservative campaign headquarters in Lancaster this afternoon and offered to work for the return of Mr. Maclean, the National Government candidate."—(Daily Telegraph, October 14th, 1941.)

At Hampstead there were four candidates, all with the same policy, vigorous prosecution of the war and aid for Russia. The Communists supported the official Conservative candidate, Flying Officer Charles Challen, who won the seat.

An interesting sidelight on the Lancaster election was the statement made by the I.L.P. candidate to the Manchester Guardian : —

   Mr. Brockway himself told the writer that a number of Labour voters who did not wholly accept his views about the war had told him they would vote for him for “old acquaintance sake ” and as a protest against “too much Toryism in the House of Commons."

Edgar Hardcastle