A class warrior (1988)

Book Review from the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Churchill's War, Vol I: The Struggle for Power by David Irving (Veritas. 1987)

Despite the detailed research which goes into many historical works, they often tell us more about their authors than the subject matter in question. This offering by provocative right wing historian David Irving is a case in point

Churchill's War is a companion study to Irving s earlier work Hitler's War, remembered by many for its claim that the Nazi dictator knew nothing about the Holocaust. The main thrust of this volume is that Churchill, conspiring with Jewish leaders and Russian diplomats, helped provoke a war that Hitler did not want and ultimately led to the dissolution of the British Empire. In turn this resulted in the post war ascendency of the United Slates and, worst of all, Russia

The author s basic premise — that during the 1930s the British Empire had reached its most "magnificent extent" — is to say the least, superficial. After the 1914-18 war Britain ceased to be the major commercial and financial centre of the world and the Second World War merely served to confirm America's ascendency, along with state capitalist Russia.

It is a pity that Irving's erroneous interpretation of history tends to overshadow much of the detail he has uncovered about Churchill himself, for some of it is well worth reading and sheds a good deal of light on a man who was an implacable opponent of the working class until the end. For instance, he reveals that Churchill's fascination with war and his indifference to public suffering were documented again and again

In 1944 crowds jeered him when he appeared in dazzling RAF uniform in a newly blitzed suburb of London and declared "This the thing! It is just like being back in the best days of the blitz again".

For those who choose to remember him as a bulwark against fascism, the book records his praise for the "discipline, order, goodwill and smiling faces" of Italy's corporate state. The future ally of Joseph Stalin also commented to Roman Journalists in 1927.

If I had been an Italian I would have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism . . . your movement has rendered a service to the whole world

When First Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 Churchill recommended selling enplanes to Italy in return for motor boats, as a way of developing fruitful Anglo-Italian trade. Rather better known is his reference to Hitler in the Evening Standard of 17 September 1937:

If our country were defeated I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to out rightful place among the nations

Of course, statements and actions such as these make a nonsense of the claim that Britain fought a war against the Axis Powers for ideological reasons, or to protect freedom and democracy. Churchill acted in the interests of his class and was a protagonist for war when circumstances dictated it. While il is not for socialists to comment on the strategic conduct of wars, it is worth remembering that Churchill was responsible for a number of disastrous battle campaigns in both World Wars, which resulted in the loss of thousands of working class lives.

Roosevelt apparently labelled Churchill a "drunken bum". David Irving provides him with perhaps a more fitting epitaph still: "He was rarely a creator, always a destroyer".

DAP

Answers to a Correspondent: How Should Socialists Vote? (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Should Socialists Vote?

Several questions have been put to us by two readers at Brighouse, Yorks. The first concerns the use of the vote.

Must a Socialist refrain from voting at the Parliamentary and Municipal Elections until such times as the S.P.G.B. membership warrants its own candidates’ standing ?

If so (and we gather from your paper that such is the case), do you not thus help establish a permanent Imperialistic Tory rule? In advising your readers and members not to vote, surely this has the effect of strengthening the anti-Labour parties.

Reply.

If the S.P.G.B. case is sound then the Socialist must vote for Socialist candidates only, and if there are no Socialist candidates then not vote for any of the non-Socialists, whether Liberal, Tory, Labour, Fascist or Communist. The only object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to achieve Socialism, which necessitates first gaining a majority of convinced Socialists and then gaining control of the machinery of government. To win over the workers to Socialism involves convincing them that capitalism and all the parties which take part in administering capitalism are undeserving of working-class support, and that Socialism is literally the only thing worth fighting for. How could we do this if at the same time we were telling the workers that the difference between Liberal and Tory, or between Tory and Labour, is worth fighting for? Our certainty that in the long run the workers will come over to Socialism is based on the impossibility of any party making capitalism run smoothly and in a way satisfactory to the workers. But if it is in fact an impossibility to make capitalism satisfactory to the workers, then it inevitably follows that any party which associates itself with the administration of capitalism must sooner or later find itself an object of working-class hatred and discontent. In other words, every party which becomes the Government under capitalism is bound to fall into disrepute with the workers. The only possible and logical course for the S.P.G.B. is, therefore, the one it adopts of dissociating itself from the Labour Party and every party which is prepared to administer capitalism. Our strength is bound up with our independence and with the fact that we have never misled the workers by telling them that capitalism can be made to work to their advantage.

Our correspondents draw the unwarranted conclusion that the attitude of the S.P.G.B. helps the Tories. Actually our membership is drawn from men and women who were formerly in all the capitalist parties, or in no party at all. The Socialist Party grows at the expense of Liberals and Tories, Fascists, I.L.P. and Communist, as well as at the expense of the Labour Party and the unorganised. The possibility of Socialists voting for any non-Socialist candidate does not and cannot arise. If those who proclaim themselves Socialists were to vote later on for non-Socialist candidates, it would be because they had ceased to be Socialists—or had never understood Socialism—and in that event, having lost their political bearings, they are just as likely to vote Tory as to vote Labour. Take, for example, those so- called Socialists who voted for the National Government.

Finally, we would remind our correspondents that all over the world there are Governments of the kind they describe as “Imperialistic-Tory.” Who was it made those Governments possible? Obviously not the small minority of Socialists, whose votes are so few that they could not make any difference to the result of elections. No, what made those Governments possible was, among other things, the disgust and disillusionment created among the workers, by the attempts of Labour Governments to administer the capitalist system.

Is the Labour Party the lesser evil? 

Now, agreeing that some economic system must operate until the establishment of Socialism, and that system is capitalism, is not the Labour reformism type (with all its faults) preferable to the shade that extends beyond to the Hitler extreme?

For International policy alone, is it not worth our while to support the Labour Party?

Reply.

This question, like the first one, takes no account of the impossibility of making the workers satisfied with capitalism. Because of that every party which comes into office on a wave of discontent and temporary popularity, is fated to be kicked out of office after a brief term—discredited, disliked, disheartened and disunited; to give way to another party rising on a new wave of discontent. To say that the Labour reformism type of party is preferable to other parties, up to Hitler's party, is to overlook the fact that all of these parties are reformist parties of the same general type. No political party can nowadays gain power unless it appeals successfully with a programme of reforms to the mass of the electors. Hitler is playing this game strictly according to the rules. Indeed, his promises of drastic reforms and Socialism in a few months, and his pretence of bustling energy show that he has beaten the Hendersons and Webbs and Maxtons, and the other reformist leaders at their own game.

The reference to the international policy of the Labour Party is somewhat staggering. The party which entered the war-time coalition Governments, and shares responsibility for every action of those Governments at home and abroad, is not in a position to boast that it is in any respect more enlightened than the Liberals and Tories. The international scene is not to be changed by fair words and humanitarian sentiments uttered from behind the ramparts of the British armed forces. International discord exists because of capitalism, and the two Labour Governments in Great Britain, with their five new cruisers, their bomb-dropping on native villages in Iraq, and their “continuity" of suppression in India and elsewhere, were quite unable to remove the discord or materially alter international relationships. They were regarded abroad simply as the mouthpiece for British capitalism.

Trade Unions and Politics.

We note the S.P.G.B. agrees with Trade Unionism and such protective activity for the proletariate under the present conditions.

Can you, then, deny the view that those unions, to be most effective, must send representatives (at present Labour) to Parliament?

Reply.

We do most emphatically deny that the trade unions have become more effective through sending Labour M.P.s to Parliament.

The majority of the men and women workers are not supporters of the Labour Party, but are sympathetic to the Liberals, the Tories, or to no party at all. The way to get the workers to come together most effectively in trade unions is to emphasise their common interest as workers. This cannot be done if the unions are affiliated to one party—the Labour Party—and supporters of other parties are made to appear almost unfit for trade union membership. A great deal of harm is done to the trade unions through their support of the Labour Party. (A few unions have tried to get over this difficulty by running candidates as Liberals and Tories, as well as Labour.) The dangers of the position become most obvious when a Labour Government is in office. When that happens the influence of the Labour Party is at once used to prevent the unions from embarrassing “their" Government, that is, to prevent them pressing demands for higher wages.

It is not denied that against these big disadvantages the presence of trade union representatives in Parliament has certain advantages, but the disadvantages are far weightier. From the Socialist point of view one of the most serious is that the trade union M.P. almost invariably comes to regard himself as speaking for the “industry," so that we see so-called non-party groups in Parliament, representing the railways, the mines, agriculture, road transport, etc. Periodically this brings its natural consequence in the shape of trade union M.P.s in one group backing the employers against a similar group in a rival industry. This has happened, for example, in connection with the rivalry of railways and road transport.

Such a position cuts right across the lesson the Socialist is trying to teach, that the interest of the working-class is opposed to that of the capitalist class.

Socialism in one country. 

Can one country, having elected a Socialist Power, and the rest of the world remaining capitalistic, operate Socialism within its own borders? 

If not, what would that Socialist Government do?

Reply.

The possibility of one country having a Socialist majority long before other countries need not be seriously considered, and certainly it is idle to consider it now when the number of Socialists in all the countries together is almost negligible.

The factors which govern the growth of the Socialist movement (the contradictions of capitalism, the more and more glaring evidences of wealth and poverty, the inability to plan production and distribution or to abolish unemployment, and the carrying on of Socialist propaganda) operate everywhere under capitalism. There is no sign that the Socialist movement will grow more quickly in one than in another of the more developed capitalist countries. If it should happen then it will not be a question of a Socialist Government deciding what it will do about the matter, but a question of the whole international Socialist movement deciding what it will do about it. They will have to decide in the light of all the conditions then existing. As we do not know the conditions we cannot prophesy what decision the Socialist movement will arrive at.

Ed. Comm.

Racism and free speech in Canada (1987)

From the Winter 1987-88 issue of the World Socialist 

Racism is as much at home in Canada as apple pie with ice cream, according to a native Indian spokesman. Racism is also American, British, Russian, Japanese and German. It encompasses most if not all industrial nations, because all countries are class divided into owners and non-owners of the means of life, all are based on the employer versus employee social relationship.

We live in a class-divided, oppressive world system in which an owning class in every country has a monopoly of the means of disseminating ideas because it owns and controls the means of production and distribution. The majority class at the bottom of the social scale is allocated a small measure of free expression is some countries — that is, civil rights, or elbow room for workers to have a say in the running of their own exploitation — and relatively none in others. In some of the older "democracies" free speech exists in a few open-air speaking centers, parks and town or city squares. All other speaking to audiences, distribution of written material or mass broadcasting has to be paid for, and the owning, ruling class possesses most of the property and money. The world's workers do not own and control TV and radio stations, movie studios, churches, "educational" institutions or newspaper chains.

The limited freedoms of speech and assembly are rights granted by the state. As such they are not absolute. They are relative, i.e., concessions, allowed by a dominant class, and partly struggled for by unfree masses. In some countries in the past these rights have been removed without enough protest from the ordinary people to prevent it. This is partly because wage and salary workers are conditioned to accept authority, to follow leaders, as part of the milieu of being separated from most of what they produce. An undemocratic economic process makes them easy targets for fallacious concepts of democracy and freedom which confuse existing rights in "democratic" countries with the freedom which would pertain in a classless society of social equality.

Wherever parasites live off the labor of a lower class, friction and frustration inevitably arise. It is impossible for exploitation to occur without causing problems of hopelessness, insecurity, humiliation and alienation for the exploited majority. A large proportion of "ordinary people", being unaware of the social source of their miseries, fears and frustrations, look for scapegoats to blame their problems on, in various visible minorities.

Prejudice is widespread and usually misconceived. Example, Barbara Amiel of Macleans said racism is a common human vice, as if it was innate, a part of the nature of humans. Sidney Harris, a North American columnist, was near to the fact of the matter when he quoted a psychiatric assessment — "paranoid projection" — and then admitted that "there can be very few of us who do not unthinkingly entertain . . . prejudices about groups other than our own which will not stand in the light of critical examination . . . which serve to bolster our self-esteem".

The world system we live under, which inherently causes racism, obviously has no cure for it. Governments at times directly sponsor racism with extreme nationalism in the interests of what they think to be the profitability of the economy, as in the case of the German Nazi regime and to a lesser degree of the USSR. Canadian governments have, covertly at least, supported bigotry, as in the instances of the internment of Canadian nationals of Japanese ancestry during the early part of the second world war, the vilifying of native Indians in elementary school books, the operations of the Indian Affairs Department, and denying entry of German Jews on the "voyage of doom" ship, the St. Louis, trying to escape the Nazis. But they usually try to keep racism to a minimum, trying to prevent strife and disruption, so as to enhance an "orderly" extraction of profits. Appeals are made for "tolerance" of minorities by workers, and legislation exists to curb the extremist or organized racists.

Two such zealots achieved prominence in the news recently in reference to the anti-semitic sphere of discrimination, through being criminally charged with "wilfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group". They are Ernst Zündel who, among other things, produced the book The Hitler We Loved and Why, and James Keegstra, former Alberta schoolteacher who indoctrinated his students for fifteen years about the Nazi holocaust being a hoax. They, with several organizations, promote the fiction of an international Zionist conspiracy to rule the earth through a single world government. Acting on a 19th century forged document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, they cite rich Jews in positions of power who they call the "illuminati". One faction of this faith idolizes Hitler but is contradicted by another which sees him as having been a witless tool of the illuminati.

The judge in Keegstra's trial accepted an argument that the Canadian Charter of Rights "is not meant to guarantee absolute freedom". A Victoria Times/Colonist editorial of July 27 1986 quoted Voltaire's assertion that the right to speak one's mind is absolute, but the editorial inadvertently revealed the limitation of free speech as a mere right granted by the state when it said that" law enforcement agencies will decide if Zündel should be prosecuted for what he has said".

Both men were convicted of spreading hate, but it is the antagonistic, anti-social environment of the present world system which naturally generates hatred, and it is never put on trial. Keegstra was condemned for preaching hatred to a captive audience of school children in their impressionable years. But the state authority, which had him on trial, itself preaches hatred in its schools such as "native people admire and esteem murderers"; "bombing cities is an exciting and courageous activity" (Times/Colonist, August 21, 1986). And leaders and the workers of nations at war with Canada have been portrayed as inferior or evil.

Not surprisingly, Keegstra and Zündel were displeased about being forcibly prohibited from airing their ideas publicly by a government claiming to be a champion of "freedom and democracy". So these two admirers of Hitler, the dictator who ended marginal free speech in Germany fifty years before, with their supporters and their lawyer, Doug Christie, founder of the "right-wing" Western Canada Concept Party, helped in founding the "Canadian Free Speech League". Christie later legally banned a CBC TV docudrama, loosely based on the career of Keegstra, from being broadcast, and he has sued for defamation against parts of the media.

When the League brought Zündel to Victoria to speak at a meeting at which $5.00 was to be charged at the door, an opposing "free speech" body was hastily organized by some liberal-left, labor and church groups called "Coalition for Responsible Free Speech" (CRFS) to stop him. Attempts to hold the meeting in two different halls to talk about free speech (Zündel was forbidden by law to talk about the holocaust) were defeated after threats of violence and a death threat from an unknown source.

The CRFS saw itself as an influence against the occurrence of another anti-Jewish atrocity. They did not appear to know that the history that Keegstra and Zündel were attempting to rewrite was a "history" that had already been distorted by the Allied victors in the second world war, which was fought not for "freedom and democracy" but for the usual reasons of markets, resources and exploitable populations. And it was caused by all of its national participants as they jostled to protect and further their economic interests. The Jews, Gypsies and others of Europe were convenient scapegoats to divert German workers' attention from their own problems, channelling maximum energies toward winning their bosses' war to retrieve and increase the colonies and markets lost in the previous conflagration.

The CRFS adopted the shallow concept of "fighting fire with fire", or trying to defeat undemocratic theory with undemocratic methods. The alternative method of open discussion to defeat racism, by trying to first identify its cause by inviting prominent racists to speak, was attempted by some universities across the country. Most of them were stopped by "anti-racism" groups who, by imitating the evil they wished to stamp out, were really compounding the problem.

The capitalist class cannot allow democratic, free discussion on problems. The social structure demands that they try to keep the useful class, the majority, in political ignorance. The rules of society also use their privileged monopoly of the machinery for spreading ideas to make a dirty word of Socialism, contributing to the docility and passiveness of the millions they oppress. So, there is a perpetual problem for civil rights activists who try to preserve or extend limited free speech against the class dictatorship of the owning minority in the face of changing conditions.

If the solution, for us who must sell our lives for a ration called a wage or salary is to do the best we can with the existing limited rights, which are being gained in more countries, to build up the movement for world socialism and to take democratic political action to change the basis of society. Democracy, i.e., freedom, can be realized only in a society of social equality based on the common (not state) ownership and democratic control of the Earth by and in the interest of its inhabitants.

George Jenkins (Canada)

Letter: Supporting a Capitalist War for Freedom (1939)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (S. H. O., Highgate) puts the following question : —

“Suppose, in the recent crisis, one had to choose between a certain suppression of freedom of expression and association (as, for example, is at present enjoyed by the S.P.G.B.) and fighting in a capitalist war, with, nevertheless, a chance of preserving such freedom, what should the Socialist decide to do? 

“N.B.—I am not implying that such was the choice; I am asking you to suppose it was.”

Reply

Our correspondent’s letter well illustrates the difficulty of giving a satisfactory reply to a question based on a hypothetical case. What line Socialists should follow in a given situation must depend upon a consideration of all of the important factors, but in any hypothetical case some important factors are not stated, and the situation itself may be one which, in the opinion of the Socialist, could not happen.

In the present case our correspondent tries to give the hypothetical situation actuality by instancing the recent crisis; but this is not a legitimate parallel, for the recent crisis was not a situation in which the assumed choice of alternatives presented itself.

Our correspondent does not explain how opposition to a capitalist war could make certain the suppression pf freedom of expression, etc. Does he mean that defeat in war by Germany would make that result a certainty? If so, we must reply that there can be no certainty about it. The German capitalist class (like their British counterparts) are interested in the acquisition of colonies and markets, and in weakening the armed forces of their rivals. It is impossible to say what their wishes about the form of Government of Great Britain would be. One guess is as good as another. If a victorious German ruling class shared Mr. Winston Churchill’s view about dictatorship they might even use their influence to prevent it in this country.

Mr. Winston Churchill: “I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war, I hope we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations.” (Daily Telegraph, November 7th, 1938.)

Actually, it is the attitude of the working class which is in the last resort decisive. If Fascism arose in Britain, with or without war, it could only be because the British capitalists wanted it and the workers supported it or were apathetic.

Our correspondent does not mention, and may have overlooked, that the line to be followed by Socialists is not one for British Socialists alone but for all Socialists. His proposal can, therefore, be tested by its application in other countries.

The British-French capitalists would be waging war in defence of their class interests, in alliance with one or more of the Russian, Polish, Turkish, Yugo-Slav, Italian or Rumanian dictatorships. Socialists in those countries would be in a position of having to support their own dictatorships and thus give up their own struggle for “freedom of expression and association.”

But if it is desirable for Socialists to fight in a capitalist war because of the chance of preserving freedom of association in one country, it must logically be equally desirable to fight in a capitalist war because of the chance of gaining such freedom in another country. Consequently, the Socialists in those dictatorship countries would be considering helping the “enemy” group (Germany and her allies) against their own Governments, because defeat of their own Governments might assist the establishment of a democratic or, at least, a weaker Government, and give them freedom of association. (This line was followed by some alleged Socialists in 1914.) Then the Socialists of the world would be fighting each other, all on the basis of the principle contained in our correspondent’s question!

As against such opportunism we say that Socialists must maintain the independence of the Socialist movement and its international solidarity, recognising that the preservation of freedom of expression depends ultimately on the degree of class-consciousness of the workers, and war weakens that class-consciousness.

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Party exposes Mr Chamberlain and his Labour Critics (1938)

Blogger's Note:

 As I just scanned in the October 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard, which covered in some detail Neville Chamberlain and his actions in and around what is now known as the Munich Crisis, I thought I'd take the opportunity to also post on the blog the full text of the 1938 SPGB pamphlet, 'The Socialist Party exposes Mr Chamberlain and his Labour Critics'.

In its long history the SPGB has not made a habit of rushing out special pamphlets dealing with an 'issue of the day' — that is what the Socialist Standard is in place for  — but the Munich Crisis was self-evidently such a burning issue with the threat of possible impending war that the SPGB felt it was necessary to publish a standalone pamphlet which went into greater detail on the matter. It exposed the hard nosed political hypocrisy of Chamberlain's actions and the double-talk of both the Labour Party and the British Communist Party.

Such turbulent times called for special measures, and the SPGB were to publish another 'issue of the day' pamphlet the following year under the title of 'The Socialist and Conscription'. War was for the working class the issue of the day.

The Socialist Party exposes Mr Chamberlain and his Labour Critics (1938)

 

So the crisis is over. Representatives of the four major European Powers sat round the table and concluded arrangements that carve up Czechoslovakia, freeze Russia out of Europe, and, we are fervently assured, lay the basis of “peace in our time”. Lest there should be any doubt about this peaceful future, a great drive to develop armaments is proposed, and plans are being made to ensure that everybody will have a niche in defensive and offensive operations. The temporary popularity of Chamberlain, the general relief at the banishing of immediate war danger, and the united support worked up on behalf of the Czechs, are being utilised to push forward the increased armament campaign.

On September 30th hysterical crowds went wild with joy and hero-worship. War had been averted, and it was believed that Chamberlain was the man who accomplished that deed. His smiling face appeared on placards, in newspapers, and on the moving-picture screen. His wife shared in his fame, and crowds fought to shake her hand. For a while he was the most popular man in England. Yet the strange part of it is that Chamberlain’s fame is based on the circumstance that apparently his plans nearly went entirely wrong; raised the spectre of war, and eventually brought the Munich instead of the Godesberg Agreement. The British Government have been landed in a position in European affairs that was not expected by them. So far Hitler and not Chamberlain has gained most out of the diplomatic manoeuvres of months past.

What were the real facts of the situation? On what does Chamberlain’s claim to fame rest?

The immediate source of Chamberlain’s popularity is not hard to find. For a few days modern war, with its horrors, weighed like a black cloud on the minds of everybody. The subsequent relief on hearing the message of peace released an uncritical joy that deified the messenger.

What part has Chamberlain really played in this dangerous business?

For a long time the capitalist government of this country has been split into different camps over foreign policy. The reasons for this are too long to go into here. It is sufficient to say that they are partly economic differences and partly differences of view as to what best serves the general capitalist interest. One group favours “minding our own business” and leaving other nations to mind theirs; another group urges a better understanding with Russia and the resisting of the imperialist policies of Germany and Italy; a third group presses for a general pact between England, Germany, France and Italy, and the shutting out of Russia from any influence on European affairs.

The third policy is the one that has been urged by the Chamberlains and their supporters for some time past. It was given expression to by Chamberlain on the eve of the Munich meeting when, in his Parliamentary statement, he criticised the provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty.

Even while a member of the Baldwin Government, which had taken half-hearted measures to resist Italy’s policy in Abyssinia, Chamberlain made clear his disagreements on foreign policy. Sir Charles Petrie, an admirer of Chamberlain, describes the circumstances of the public statement in 1936 and, at the same time, made plain the nature of the support behind Chamberlain. He describes the incident as follows:

“Mr Chamberlain stepped into the breach. On the 10th June he was the guest of honour at the annual dinner of the 1900 Club, and he took the opportunity to declare against the continuance of Sanctions. The effect was tremendous. An audience which represented the wealth and power of Great Britain cheered the Chancellor to the echo” (The Chamberlain Tradition, page 249).

Since Chamberlain became head of the Government, foreign policy has changed its direction. The efforts of Government diplomacy have been turned towards finding a basis of agreement with Germany and Italy and the weaning of France away from its alliance with Russia.

The Munich conference of the four Powers appears to have been a long step towards accomplishing this object, though it occurred under dangerous circumstances, with the threat of war hanging over it. The fact that Czechoslovakian unity was sacrificed in the process was a small matter to the imperialist powers concerned.

The attitude of the Chamberlain group towards Italy’s Abyssinian venture and Germany’s march on Austria, gave Hitler a hint that further territorial conquests would not be seriously opposed providing these conquests did not interfere with British capitalist interests. When Chamberlain made his first trip to Hitler, on what was wrongly presumed to be an effort to save Czechoslovakian independence, he evidently went with the intention of being a party to the slicing up of that territory. His explanation in Parliament, on the eve of his last visit, makes this clear to those who examine the statement critically.

Taking into consideration the nature of Chamberlain’s foreign policy, as briefly outlined, the war situation out of which he “rescued” peace was largely of his own making.

While the Prime Minister was basking in the sunshine of mistaken adulation, one of his supporters pointed out that the real danger that menaces the interests of British capitalists is outside of Europe. On the morrow of the Munich pacts, while Germany was sending emissaries to Turkey and Yugoslavia, to widen its markets and its sources of raw materials, British politicians were heaving sighs of relief and turning to face “the danger again displayed by the Dominions and India, which has not passed unnoticed in Europe”.

The last remark is taken from an article in the Evening Standard (October 3rd) by Sir Arnold Wilson, who also makes the following significant statement:

“The Parliamentary Opposition parties are representing the redrawing of the map of Europe, now in progress, as a victory for Hitler, which it is, and a defeat for Britain, which it is not”.

This is another way of showing that Chamberlain went to Germany prepared to accede to the plans for dismembering Czechoslovakia. And why not? What does it matter to the British capitalist class whether the Czechs are independent or incorporated in Germany? The “National Honour” idea is a myth only invoked when it suits the interests of our rulers to beguile us with it. If Chamberlain, as is claimed, really set out to help Czechoslovakia, then “National Honour” went down on its knees before Hitler along with Chamberlain. Or, as the Daily Express (October 3rd) put it more genteelly:

“But this fact must be recognised by all: Britain accepted the Munich Agreement because our defences were not in a condition enabling us to take any other decision”.

This plea relating to the defences is being popularised as a means to obtain workers’ support for A. R. P. and similar defensive programmes—with all that these things will eventually mean.

One piece of information, relating to the crisis, that has now some significance was published in the News Review on July 14th, over two months before the crisis occurred:

“‘August, 1914’, is a date poignant with memories. What is it that makes Georges Bonnet, France’s Foreign Minister, so mysterious about August 1938?

To journalists who discussed the holiday question with him last week, Bonnet’s tendered the advice, ‘Certainly, take your holidays in August, but don’t leave Paris if you can help it’.

Though pressed for an explanation, he refused to say more than that ‘there will be a great deal to do,’ and that he himself would be at his desk throughout the month”.

What was in Bonnet’s mind? It could hardly have been war. Was in Godesberg?

The shameless diplomatic methods adopted have misled a number of people into believing that the whole business, including the threat of war, was a fake, deliberately contrived to secure acquiescence in the provisions of the Munich Agreement.

Two writers in the New Statesman (October 8th), J. M. Keynes and Robert Dell, make out a plausible case to show that it was a put-up job. That the crisis and the eleventh hour conference, with its solution, had been arranged beforehand. Although there are curious incidents that lend colour to this view, there are solid objections to it. The risk of war did ultimately enter into the game. Apart from other reasons it is too much to allow that a capitalist government would go into the huge expenses of war preparation, running into over £20 millions, either to lend substance to the shadow or for practice purposes.

The threat of war appeared in the scene because Chamberlain, in shaping his policy, apparently overlooked the fact that Hitler might not be inclined to bargain over territory that he felt strong enough to take if he wished to do so.

One purpose, among many, has been served by the crisis. It has been used as a means for enabling the British and French Governments to recognise officially the Italian conquest of Abyssinia without too much sanctimonious dust being raised about it. Now the way is open for British capitalists to invest freely in Abyssinia and to share with their Italian brothers the wealth squeezed from the Abyssinians.

In this time of stress where did the self-styled leaders of the working class, the Labour and Communist Parties, stand? The answer is easily given. They stood ready, if necessary, to man the guns and shoulder the burden of Empire in the mistaken idea that they were defending democracy against autocracy. Which shows how easy it is to divert movements that are anchored in the shifting sands of mere discontent. Such movements are easily directed into channels that serve the interests of the capitalists. The experience of decades has shown that when the cry “the country is in danger” is raised, the propertyless workers are urged by their leaders to flock to its defence, and to be ready to lay down their lives for a system that does not even guarantee to them the satisfaction of their elementary needs in food and shelter.

Over and over again the workers have been told by the Labour Party and the Communist Party that capitalism is on the down-grade, and that therefore they cannot hope for much improvement in wage conditions. Yet the country has been shown lately to be so wealthy that it could afford to throw away millions of pounds’ worth of goods in defensive measures, when it was believed that war threatened. Under a sensible social system workers would have bread instead of gas-masks.

Now that a great drive for armaments is proposed, the Labour and Communist Parties are logically bound to support it owing to their attitude during the war scare. This fact has been seized upon by all influential newspapers, which point out that the country is united in its desire to build up huge armaments.

Extracts from official sources show clearly the folly and the panic of those who claim to lead the workers.

On September 27th the Daily Herald published an article by the Editor, which contained the following statement:

“If there is war, it will be faced with calmness, with resolution, with unshakable courage. All that could be offered to Germany in honour and justice has been offered—far more than that, indeed . . . But if war there must be, since Herr Hitler is set on war, then it is better that it should be now, when Britain has strong allies beside her and to support her, the united opinion of the civilised world, than hereafter, when Germany, by successful aggression has won the mastership of Europe”.

Again, on September 30th, the Daily Herald spoke officially:

“In these last days two emotions have sustained the British people. One has been the desire for peace, if peace consistent with honour were possible. The other has been the determination to stand firm, if necessary to the ultimate degree—for the great principles of equity and justice in international affairs by which alone civilisation can flourish”.

International Information (September 12th), a typed sheet issued by the “Labour and Socialist International”, contained this statement:

“Whatever the risks involved, Great Britain must take its stand against aggression. There is now no room for doubt or hesitation”.

The above quotations are sufficient evidence of the Labour Party’s readiness to back the Government if war had been declared. The workers should also note also the insistence on “Honour”, “Justice” and “Equity”, all of which, it was contended, would be flouted if Czechoslovakia were split up. It is another example of the fatuity of the utterances of Labour when one remembers the official view of 18 years ago. In 1920 the Labour Party declared:

“Permission to the predominantly German areas of Czechoslovakia to determine their political future should be granted”—Quoted by the Evening Standard (September 16th).

If it were honourable, just and equitable for these areas to determine their political future in 1920, why has it become dishonourable, unjust and inequitable for them to do so now? Above all, why is it necessary that thousands of lives should be sacrificed now for something that was quite proper 18 years ago? The plain fact is that the Labour Party leaders do not know where they are.

The Communist Party is in a like position, and in addition responds blindly to the changing signals from Moscow. On October 3rd the Daily Worker published an article by the Editor. The following extracts from it are interesting as a logical interpretation of the Communist Party’s demand that Britain should stand firm in opposition to Hitler’s designs on Czechoslovakia.

“Had war broken loose on Saturday, as seemed almost certain up till Friday, the corpses of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, would now be strewing the streets of Prague, Paris, Berlin, and even London”.

(. . .)

“That the ‘peace terms’ signed by Chamberlain are such that they strike a mortal blow at the interests and security of the British people”.

(. . .)

“The leaders of the British Labour Movement have to bear a great measure of responsibility for the sullying of British honour. For they who had the power to mobilise a tremendous public opinion, powerful enough to compel Chamberlain to have stood resolutely by France, Russia and Czechoslovakia, fell into the trap of assuming that Chamberlain was intent upon making a stand against Hitler, when actually he had no such intention”.

(. . .)

“There must be no further confidence in Chamberlain. Labour must stand firm in Parliament to-day and give a lead which will rally all the truly patriotic and progressive forces in Parliament against the shameful Munich betrayal”.

Two days later the Secretariat of the Communist Party repudiated the article. But they probably did so because it was too outspoken a statement of the logic of their position—that Britain and France should take a strong line against Hitler. That this would in all probability have led to war is shown by Russia’s war preparations and Litvinov’s explicit statement that Russia was prepared to join Britain and France in going to war in aid of Czechoslovakia if it were attacked.

It must be clear to anyone not blinded by prejudice that the Editor of the Daily Worker (who presumably was familiar with the attitude of the Party of which he was an official spokesman) based his article on Communist policy.

The Communist Party, like the Labour Party, has completely changed its attitude on Czechoslovakia. It has gone even further in its change of front. Consider its present insistence on Britain rallying to the support of Czechoslovakia and resisting the march of “reactionary Fascism”, and then examine the following quotation from The Struggle against War, and the Tasks of the Communists, a 6d pamphlet issued by the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1928:

“In the last imperialist war the Allies made use of the slogan ‘Fight against Prussian Militarism’, while the Central Powers used the slogan ‘Fight against Czarism’; both sides using the respective slogans to mobilise the masses for the war. In a future war between Italy and France, or Yugoslavia, the same purpose will be served by the slogan ‘Fight against reactionary Fascism’, for the bourgeoisie in the latter countries will take advantage of the anti-Fascist sentiments of the masses to justify an imperialist war” (page 14).

“In Czechoslovakia and in the Balkan countries, in Italy, in France, Spain, Belgium and Great Britain (Ireland) there are also oppressed nationalities. The Communist Parties must support the liberation movement of the oppressed nations and national minorities in all these countries, lead them in the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and unreservedly champion their right to self-determination, which must include the right to complete separation” (page 31. Italics in the pamphlet).

It is doubtful if anyone but the Communist Party could make such a blatant and complete somersault in policy. Possibly the greatest joke of the whole tragic business, though it might have been a tragic one, is the spectacle of the Communist Party urging the British and French workers to be ready to lay down their lives in defence of democracy—and “bourgeois” democracy at that!

One thing at least can be said. Chamberlain’s actions were consistent, in line with his views on Czech dismemberment and his desire for unity with European Powers. But the attitude of the Labour and Communist Parties is a complete reversal of their former views. They held previously that Czechoslovakia should be allowed to be split up—in the name of “Justice” and “Liberty”. Now they want it to remain intact in the name of the same deities.

The reversal of policy by the latter two parties, just as much as the tricky diplomacy of the Chamberlain group, should be a warning to workers not to be misled by high-sounding phrases, but to look behind these phrases. Base their attitude on their class interest alone and they will not be led into the support of groups or parties that pursue a policy which obscures the fundamental antagonism of interest between worker and capitalist, of all races, colours and creeds.

The attitude of the Labour Party, the Communist Party, and others of like views, relating to the position of the Czechs, is due partly to fright, which has developed an acute attack of anti-Fascitus. They are prepared to see cities littered with the corpses of hundreds of thousands of working men, women and children, for what? To prevent what would be in the main merely a change of rulers.

While the workers of the world are prepared to put up with capitalism, and all that capitalism means, a change of rule is a minor question. Certainly not worth a war which would put back the movement for Socialism amongst both victors and vanquished. The present position of Germany, Austria and Italy is a striking illustration of this fact.

In conclusion, we must stress the fact that the only attitude for the workers to adopt, if they would free themselves from the horrors of both war and peace, is to organise together for the purpose of establishing a system of society in which the wealth of the world will be commonly owned by all the people of the world.

Letter: Intellectuals (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Intellectuals

As socialism like death is inevitable, can we not sit back and wait for it? If it is determined by the materialist conception of history then surely it will take its course and arrive when capitalism reaches its zenith or utmost point of development. Under these circumstances, how can we hurry it? Can we hurry the rise of the sun before the laws of the universe are obeyed?

I am of course open to correction, as you so kindly did when I stated that Hitler gained power by coercion and bully-boys. You proved by figures that a majority voted for him. Will you do the same service for your member who wrote “Why I joined the SPGB”, wherein he says Hitler held fake elections and polled 99% of the votes.

I shall be grateful if you will define “intellectual”. “Ivan” describes Crossman as a glamorous one. Does it mean one of high intellect; good education; deep knowledge of politics, economics, so enabled to discern one system from another? If such a person then fosters or preaches that which is not compatible with his learning, can he qualify as intellectual? Is he as with MPs who, too modest to call themselves honourable, allow others to append the distinction? Or are they covered by the words of Tom Paine — “When a man has so corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.”

The point is: What is an intellectual?

R. Rellenck

London S.E.

Reply:

On your first point, perhaps you have seen the letter and reply headed “An evolutionary view” in the August Socialist Standard. The materialist conception of history does not hold that society unfolds inexorably in perpetual motion. This was not the attitude stated in “Is Socialism Inevitable?” It emphasized on the contrary that men make history.

Your question about Hitler involves a misunderstanding of the two items you put together. The first, which we are glad to learn was illuminating to you, concerned how Hitler and his party gained political power in Germany. The statement in “Why I joined the SPGB”, that Hitler held fake elections in which he got nearly all the votes, referred to when he was established in power.

Last, what is an “intellectual”? We might have used the inverted commas, or said “self-styled”, to make our attitude clear. Your remarks are to the point. The intellectual posture is of having higher knowledge and being altogether superior to the common herd. The article on Crossman was intended to show what a sham this is.

Editors.

Letter: By their works we know them (1975)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

By their works we know them

Although I appreciate the candid openness of the article "Why I joined the SPGB” in the July Socialist Standard, it must be said that on a few points it verges on the naive. For example, his assertion in paragraph 8: “Lenin’s books (I’ve read the complete works) are little more than a verbal attack on Kautsky, on Bernstein, and of course any Russian who opposed him. Hitler’s Mein Kampf is also a tirade of abuse against Jews and Communists.

It must be pointed out that Lenin’s works differ both in quality and quantity from Hitler’s works or work, which in Mein Kampf is a short tirade against Communism, with a few short superficial chapters on Germany’s defeat in the first world war. On the other hand, Lenin’s works range from the twenty-odd books in his Collected Works. These range from dozens of speeches to Russian workers and peasants, to hybrid works such as Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism and The State and Revolution. This comparison can be made in any good public library.

On the positive side, I would agree with his personal revulsion with the degeneration of the Russian Soviet State and the political culmination of this process in trials of the old Bolshevik guard in 1936-38. The result being Stalinism for decades after this period.

Mike Whalen, 

Edinburgh

Reply:

We think that in the context of the article, where the writer summarizes what he chiefly found in Lenin, the statements are adequate.

You appear to believe that “Stalinism” was all the trouble in Russia. The writer of the article said nothing about “the degeneration of the Russian Soviet State”. We hold the different view that the Bolshevik revolution led inevitably to the growth of state capitalism in Russia; indeed, we — alone — said so from the regime’s earliest years. In a one-party state the rivalries and struggles for power take place among individuals instead of political parties, and this was the cause of the purges in Russia in the nineteen-thirties and in Russia and other countries since then. It was not degeneration but development, once the capitalist basis was established.

Editors.

Editorial: The Rise of Hitler: A Warning to the Workers (1933)

Editorial from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rise of Hitler to power in Germany is an event which the workers of all countries should study with care. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a world-wide overflowing of discontent. It is not a coincidence that the three years since the oncoming of the crisis late in 1929 have witnessed the abrupt and sometimes violent overthrow of governments in different parts of the capitalist world. “National” Governments in the United Kingdom and many of the British Dominions; the advent of De Valera in the Irish Free State; the colossal defeat of “Prosperity” Hoover in the USA; repeated cabinet crises in France; political revolutions and counter-revolutions in South America; the Republic in Spain; political crises in Scandinavia; expulsions of leaders and reversals of policy in Russia; no country has escaped the economic consequences of a capitalist world which is seriously out of joint.

Each country has witnessed the consequent political stresses and strains of new discontents, and new slogans, which had generally brought about new political groupings and new figure-heads. The universal insurgency expresses itself in different ways according to the traditions, experience and constitutions of the various countries. A century ago such economic crises brought to a head deep underlying social conflicts and produced the revolutions of  ’30 and ’48, with their violent overthrow of kings and absolutist constitutions. Nowadays the more advanced countries have developed systems which permit easier adjustment to new pressures, avoiding the disturbance and expenses of the appeal to violence. Countries which have not travelled so far along the road of capitalist democratic government still resort to the old method of the bomb, the rifle, and the machine gun, the mass demonstration, the barricade, and the organisation of insurrection in the armed forces.

In a broad way the cause and the effect are the same everywhere. Everywhere capitalist private ownership reigns. Everywhere the rulers must serve the interests of the capitalist class, but everywhere it is an over-riding condition of social life that rulers cannot ignore the active discontent of the mass of the population. The discontent, even the open rebellion, of individuals and minorities can be bludgeoned into acquiescence, but when great masses of the population are driven by intolerable conditions into organising for common action then the rulers must sooner or later provide a safety valve; placate the movement or find means of dividing it; turn it into new directions or harness it directly to the capitalist state. In no other way can capitalism maintain itself.

Long before the war the British ruling class learned how to incorporate radical politicians and labour leaders in the parties of capitalism. The German capitalists in 1918 jettisoned the Kaiser for a similar end. Fifty per cent of the German voters had registered their disillusionment and war-weariness by voting for the reform programme of the Social Democratic Party. German capitalism thereupon “digested” the SDP and watched it stabilise German capitalism in the troubled post-war years. The military and civil associates of the Imperial Kaiser humbled themselves to the “upstart” labour leaders because they had to have someone who could control the workers and keep them loyal to the fundamentals of capitalism. So for fourteen years the Social Democrats, either in coalitions or in “friendly opposition”, worked out their policy of bargaining for reforms as price of their support. The outcome was inevitable. They have shared the fate that has always overtaken “Labour” politicians and parties when they accept responsibility for the administration of capitalism. Discontent with the effects of capitalism cannot for ever be stifled by Labour promises of better times or apologetic assurances that things might be worse. The membership and influence of the German SDP declined year by year until it had shrunk to a third of its former size. Part of the loss was picked up by the Communist Party, but in the meantime a new group had arisen, led by Hitler. At the election on March 5th he received 17,266,000 votes (43.9 per cent) and his allies, the Nationalists, received 3,132,000 (8 per cent), giving him a clear majority. The Social Democrats received 7,176,000 (18.3 per cent) and the Communists 4,845,000 (12.1 percent).

In one important respect Hitler’s Nazis are just like the Social Democrats and the Communists; they are all parties of discontent. Hitler promises work for the workless; secure government jobs in the police, the Army or the Civil service for 100,000 of his members; higher prices for agricultural products to help the peasants; and protection for the small investor and little shopkeeper squeezed by the big stores and the banks.

Immediately on taking office Hitler imposed fresh taxes on the big departmental stores and chain stores with the professed object of helping the small shopkeepers. He promised also to find posts for out-of-work professional men (doctors, lawyers and others), and it is because a relatively large number of bankers, proprietors of big stores and the more successful professional men are Jews that the party has taken on a violently anti-Jewish character. Every Jewish doctor driven out of practice, every Jewish lawyer barred from the courts, every Jewish schoolmaster and civil servant dismissed, makes another vacancy for one of his members. He was supplied with funds by German heavy industry, by armament manufacturers both in Germany and in France, and by American and other business men and financiers who had investments in Germany for which they needed protection. With the help of these funds Hitler’s party has known how to rally all kinds of discontent into a great movement representing half the electorate of Germany. Therefore Hitler has had to be “digested” as fourteen years ago were the Social Democrats. The stately and imperious Hindenburg and the aristocratic Von Papen, representing the military caste and big landowner, have had to receive on terms of equality the Austrian house-painter Adolf Hitler. Dr Hugenberg and the Nationalist Party, representing big industrial capitalists, have had to enter into coalition with him. Hitler will now have to administer capitalism. He will have to curb the demands of his followers, disappoint them, and ultimately lose many of them to new political adventurers, whereupon the capitalists and landlords who now use him will scrap him and use his successor.

The great lesson to be learned from the decline of the Social Democrats is the sterility of the policy of reforms and of reform parties. The day on which a reform party reaches power is the day on which the evil effects of capitalism begin to sap and undermine the strength of the party, turning the members’ blind loyalty first into bewilderment and then into dissatisfaction, causing them to drift into new parties.

The depths of mental bankruptcy of the reformists are shown by the comment of the Fabian New Statesman (London, March 11th, 1933). After explaining that Hitler scored because he appealed, with banners and uniforms and parades, to the electorate’s love of glamour, the German correspondent of the New Statesman says that the Social Democrats should have done the same, and should have given more prominence to pageantry and less prominence to social reforms. In other words, the workers are to be enticed, not even by the old plan of “bread and circuses”, but by circuses without the bread! This is what forty years of Fabian reformism has brought to the working-class movement!

The second lesson is one which has been entirely missed by the Labour Press in Great Britain, that is the evidence given by the Hitler episode of the overwhelming importance of controlling the political machinery. Six months ago, although the largest party in Germany, Hitler was not in control of the German Parliament and the machinery of government. He was ridiculed and derided by the members of the Government, and insulted by President Hindenburg. His party officials were hauled into court on charges of treason, and thrown into prison. Others were forced to flee the country. His newspapers were suppressed, his offices were raided by the police, his troops were forbidden to parade or wear uniforms in the street. When they attempted defiance they were driven off just like the Communists.

Now, having become possessed of the political machine and confirmed in power by the electors, he is able to turn the tables on his former opponents. He has removed the Governments of all the States of Germany. Former Cabinet Ministers have been arrested, beaten and made to suffer many indignities. Newspapers have been suppressed and their offices raided – from Conservative Catholic newspapers at one end of the scale to Social Democratic and Communist newspapers at the other. The Communists, in spite of their 5,000,000 voters and their year-long boasting of their belief in “mass action” and military revolt, have been cowed into complete submission without offering any real resistance whatever. Events are proving to them what they refused to learn. The organised political majority which controls the political machinery of the modern State is in a position to dominate, and can enforce submission on minorities. There is no road to Socialism except through the control of the machinery of government by a politically organised majority of Socialists.

50 Years Ago: The Rise of Hitler (2003)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the late nineteen-thirties German Capitalism was labouring under an intense expansionist pressure. Its industry, ever virile, had largely recovered from the reverses of the 1914-18 war, and was casting about itself for colonial sources of raw materials, and markets upon which it could sell the products pouring from the factories. The eyes of the German capitalists were upon the industrial strength of the Saar, upon the oil of the Balkans and the Middle East, and upon the African Colonies of which they had been deprived in 1919. At every turn Germany stood thwarted by Great Britain, France and Russia. And all the time the pressure from the great industries, gathering their strength day by day. The situation was explosive and it threw up an explosive character. Adolf Hitler, with his brainstorms, his Gestapo and his concentration camps, was a peculiarly approximate expression of German capitalism and so was supremely suited to play the role of the Bad Man of Europe: the pens of Fleet Street ran warm in the depicting of this newest bedtime threat. But Hitler was only the expression of the desperate ambitions of the German capitalists; and Chamberlain and Daladier – his opposite numbers in Great Britain and France – were representative of the fears and determinations of the ruling classes in their countries. The 1939 war arose from Germany’s struggle for a place in the European economic sun, opposed by the need of her opponents to keep her in the shade.

It is worthwhile noting the appeal which Hitler made to the German working class in order to arouse them to the acceptance of an inevitable war. He spoke of oppressed minorities of German nationals in the Sudetenland. He demanded the return of Germany’s lost territories in Eastern Europe. He sketched the plight of the inhabitants of East Prussia, cut off by the Polish Corridor from overland communication with the rest of Germany. The phrase “the right of self-determination” flew thick in the air. It was effective matter and the German workers accepted it. They went willingly to a war in which Hitler himself lost his life. But did the ambitions which Hitler voiced die with him? We shall see.

(From article entitled “The Truth About Bogey Men” by “Ivan”, Socialist Standard, December 1953)

Notes by the Way: “Forward’s” Views on War and Socialism (1938)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Forward’s” Views on War and Socialism

In its issue of August 6th, the Scottish Labour weekly, Forward, reproduced from the July issue of The Socialist Standard our reply to a correspondent who wanted to know what the workers should do if Hitler and Mussolini attacked Great Britain. Nothing to complain of in that, and we are only too pleased to help any of our foggy-minded contemporaries with a little clear thinking. But though the point of view put in our statement is very nearly the same as that held on this question by some of the people responsible for Forward, the Editor of the latter thought fit to accompany the statement with some irrelevant comment of his own, intended to discredit the S.P.G.B.; the usual jibes about our small membership—as if that has anything to do with the soundness of our position. The most charitable explanation is that one person decided to reproduce our statement because he agreed with it, and some other person could not resist the temptation to add a little spiteful paragraph in the good cause of inducing the readers not to examine the statement on it merits. Then person number one appears to have had his turn again at the end of the column, where the bouquet was handed out to us that some of the passages in the statement showed that serious thought had been given to them, and that they might have been written by Mr. George Bernard Shaw. It may seem ungenerous to refuse a bouquet, but since when has that clever but often very muddle-headed gentleman been an authority on Socialism? That is the trouble with the writers for Forward. They know how to produce an attractive and well-informed journal, but they ought to give up sitting at the feet of Mr. Shaw and others of his kind and do some solid thinking for themselves, about Socialism.

Mr. Shaw and Mr. MacDonald

Mr. G. B. Shaw has recently been accused of favouring dictatorship. He replied in Reynolds Illustrated News that he had been misunderstood. His object, he says, is to make democracy effective. As evidence of the inadequacy of British democratic institutions he pointed out that it was democracy which made possible the career of the late J. R. MacDonald.

Quite a telling point if it were not for the fact that, throughout MacDonald’s career, one of the very clever gentlemen who told the workers to go on putting their trust in MacDonald was Mr. G. B. Shaw. Now if Mr. Shaw had listened to the S.P.G.B. from its formation, 34 years ago, and had used his powers to give publicity to our warnings against MacDonald (and against the whole idea of leadership), the workers would have had a better chance of escaping the disasters that fell on them through following the MacDonald policy. So before Mr. Shaw sets up as a teacher of others he should explain how he came to be so consistently wrong on this issue.

The Basis of International Politics. Profit Not Sentiment

While prejudice and patriotic feeling will sometimes blind the capitalists to their own interests, such factors will not, in the long run, stand up against the pull of profit. In this the capitalist sets an example that the workers would do well to follow. Instead, we find many of the workers still ready to believe their rulers when the latter pretend to be guided by noble sentiments of religion or patriotism. Just now the German, Italian and Japanese rulers are supposed to be sworn to common action against what they call “ Bolshevism," a claim that will not stand a moment’s examination. It was Mussolini who, from the first, entered into the closest and most friendly relations with the Russian Government.

A pact of friendship is still nominally in force, and until quite recently, if not at the present moment, Russia supplied oil to Italy (used to bomb the the Abyssinians) and had warships built in Italian naval yards. In the ten years from 1918 onwards, Germany and Russia were for most of the time in the closest possible relationships in their joint resistance to pressure from France and Britain, and there is not the least doubt that Russia secretly assisted in German re-armament. After Hitler come to power the German-Russian treaty was renewed “in order to further the collaboration between the two countries in the interests of peace." (These are the words used in the “ U.S.S.R. Handbook," page 94, published by Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1936.) During Hitler’s five years of power he has done nothing to interfere with trade relationships with the home of the Bolshevism he pretends to hate so much.

The Japanese Government claims to be saving China from Bolshevism by getting rid of Chiang Kai-Shek's Government, ignoring the fact that the latter for years campaigned to destroy the same alleged Bolshevist elements.

One recent example of the relative importance to the capitalist of sentiment and profit is given by Mexico. The Mexican Government, hard-pressed for money, decided to expropriate the foreign oil companies, and offered what they regard as very inadequate compensation. Here, surely, was one of those wicked Bolshevist actions which would horrify Hitler! But Germany needs oil, and the Government saw the opportunity of getting it cheaply. So while Britain, the U.S.A. and Holland denounce the Mexican Government as robbers, Field-Marshall Goering, for the German Government, pats the Mexican robbers on the back. The following report is taken from the Daily Telegraph (July 23rd, 1938):

An article in the “Four-Year Plan,” the official organ of Field-Marshal Goering, Commissioner for the Plan, defends the Mexican Government’s action in seizing British and United States oil concessions.

The article explains that the Mexican Government, although popular in character, cannot be termed “Bolshevik,” and represents “a peasant and middle-class policy.” Foreign capital in Mexico, it adds, had clearly abused its powerful position.

These opinions are of interest in view of recent purchases of Mexican oil made by the German Government through the medium of an American agent. 

When the Spanish Popular Front Government, broadly similar to that in Mexico, tried to enforce its social reform programme. Hitler and Mussolini, being interested in controlling Spanish mineral wealth and in using Spain to strengthen their naval and military position, found that they were “Bolshevists,” and used that as screen for waging war against them, yet only a few years ago Italy was backing the same “Bolshevists” in Catalonia in their opposition to the Madrid Government.

There is only one safe rule to be followed by the working-class in their effort to understand capitalist politics, whether at home or on the international field. If capitalist governments proclaim their adherence to some noble-sounding ideal or principal, disbelieve them. Seek, instead, for the real motive, one related directly or indirectly to capitalist wealth and capitalist power.

There are Birds at the Bottom of Adolf's Garden

The ways of advertisement are manifold, but there is no essential difference between the publisher who sells literary tripe by the appeal of the highly coloured “blurb” on the cover, the patent medicine vendor who shows pictures of the imaginary patient “ before ” and “after,” and the politician who kisses the babies of potential voters. In each case the advertisement has little or nothing to do with the merits of the article. The extreme case is the military adventurer who covers up his bloodthirsty actions with press puffs and pictures of his passionate love for the little children, or the birds, the beasts and the flowers. Hitler's speciality is birds. The aged military man, Sir Ian Hamilton, recently visited Hitler in his home (and was given a tooth-brush! isn’t that wonderful!). This is what he told the Sunday Express (August 7th, 1938): —

He has a bird sanctuary there.' There are eight thousand nests in it, and they are not nests, as some might think, for eagles, vultures and owls. They are for nightingales and other nice birds that do not prey on their kind.

Perhaps Hitler does not keep vultures because they might give him prickings of conscience. But why didn’t he have some bats for Hamilton’s belfry ?

Senegalese Troops Used Against French Strikers

The old principle of “Divide and Rule” is used as much by the democratic governments as by the dictatorships. While the French Popular Front Government protests against Hitler’s policy of setting the non-Jewish workers against the Jewish, it has no objection to using Senegalese troops against white workers. At Marseilles, on August 21st, Senegalese troops and French navy men were used to unload ships and thus help the employers against the dockers who were on strike (Daily Herald, August 22nd, 1938). Not that the use of black troops is any worse than the use of white naval ratings, but governments know that it is appreciably more difficult to get locally recruited soldiers and sailors to act against their fellow-workers. Men brought from a distant province or another continent — unless they fully appreciate the common interest of the workers against the capitalist class — are more easily induced to act against the workers.

The Prime Minister, M. Daladier, who was responsible for this, also, according to the Daily Herald (August 22nd), gave a broadcast address the same night, in which he made “an amazing attack on the 40-hour week, leading achievement of the French Popular Front to which he belongs."

“The 40-hour week," he said, "must be made more elastic. As long as the international situation remains as delicate as it is, it must be possible to work more than 40 hours and up to 48 hours a week in concerns working for national defence." 

He admitted that the 40-hour law already permits longer hours to be worked, but he “wants the extra hours to be worked not at prohibitive overtime rates, as they must to-day, but with increases which should not go beyond 10 per cent." 

How long the international situation will remain “as delicate as it is" he did not say, nor did he round-off his speech by announcing that Cabinet Ministers had decided to reduce their own pay to the level of a workman’s wages. In war and peace, Cabinet Ministers habitually prefer to preach sacrifice to others rather than set an example themselves.

Why Some Workers Like Prison

A retired judge, Sir Holman Gregory, is writing articles on crime for the Sunday Dispatch. In the issue dated August 21st, 1938, he admits that some workers commit crimes because their lives when at “liberty ” are worse than in prison: —

Their lives when free are so drab and cheerless that a few months’ imprisonment with regular food, under the care of a medical officer, is a relief.

Mussolini Grabs the Money of the Jews

There was a time when Mussolini used to scoff at Hitler’s anti-Semitism, and he scored a neat hit at his young German imitator by pointing out that the Nazi gospel of the superiority of the Nordics was an idea invented by the Jews in the form of the “Chosen Race.” Why, then, has Mussolini suddenly decided to go in for a milder form of Jew-baiting himself? The reason is to be found in the financial difficulties of the Italian Government. Seeing how Hitler plundered the wealthy Jews in Germany arid Austria, Mussolini is doing likewise. The Rome correspondent of the Daily Telegraph (August 6th, 1938) writes as follows: —

Most of the Jews in the country are well-to-do. A small minority is extremely rich. Their influence in banking, insurance, public works contracts, the law. medicine, and retail trades is avowedly out of all proportion to their numbers.

Those with most to lose fear that some form of capital tax may be levied on their possessions. There is no question of exporting capital, because this has been prohibited to all Italians for several years.

It has also been pointed out that the attack on the Jews in Italy will help Mussolini in his propaganda campaign as protector of the Arabs and the Mohammedans generally.

A correspondent in The Times (August 2nd, 1938) recalls that as recently as 1932 Mussolini was telling Emil Ludwig that "there are no pure races left; not even the Jews have kept their blood unmingled. . . . Race! It is a feeling, not a reality. . . ."

National pride has no need of the delirium of race. Anti-Semitism does not exist in Italy.

Are the Jews a Race

It is useful to have Professor Griffith Taylor at the British Association confirming the absurdity of Nazi race theories. He is Professor of Geography in the University of Toronto and spoke on the way the social sciences are being challenged by “the forces of reaction."

About the Nazis and the Jews he said (The Times, August 19th, 1938):—

We are surely all agreed that the term Aryan can only be applied to speech; and that Nordic indicates a “breed ” and can only be applied to race. But few folk realise that the term “Jew” should only be used in connection with religion. We need a new term to express a group linked by purely cultural characters such as language or religion. For such groups I have been extending the use of the word “cult." For instance, in Canada we have in reality no French race, since Frenchmen may belong to one of three distinct races, but only a French cult, linked by common language and religion. So also we should learn to speak of a Jewish cult, since this large group is linked closely by religion and to a lesser degree by language. The Jews, like the Germans, are of two different races. If they come from Poland they belong to the Alpine race; if from Spain they are of Mediterranean race, like all the original Jews of Palestine:

The logical linguistic divisions in Europe, Professor Taylor showed with the aid of diagrams, were undoubtedly Aryan and Altaic. The race divisions were Nordic, Alpine, and Mediterranean. The German nation, he said, was half Nordic and half Alpine. The Jew belonged to a “cult,” but the dominant Jews in Europe, including about three-quarters of the whole body, were broad-headed Alpines like the rest of the mid-European peoples.

The most logical explanation was that the Polish Jews were the result of the widespread conversions carried on by the Jews in Eastern Europe. A year or two ago the German authorities were specifically excluding the German Jews as of “non-Aryan” race. Racially, of course, they were Alpines like the South Germans, and their language was best called Judeo-German. (The Times, August 19th, 1988.)

Edgar Hardcastle