Janet Carter

I just discovered via Spintcom, the SPGB discussion list, the incredibly sad news that Janet Carter has passed away. 

Janet originally joined the Socialist Party in the 1960s, and was an active party member during all her years of membership. I originally met Janet in the late 1980s when she was the secretary of Central Branch and, as a young Central Branch member, I remember her kindness and encouragement. She later served as the General Secretary of the Party for a number of years and, to the very end, Janet was an regular participant in the Socialist Party Friday night zoom meetings. She was predeceased by her husband, Joe Carter, eight years ago, who was also a very active member of the SPGB.

I am sure an obituary for Janet will appear in a future Socialist Standard, but I just wanted to mark her passing on the blog. Socialists like Janet are the backbone of the SPGB, and she will be sorely missed by all who knew her.

On the thread on Spintcom, Mike Foster posted the text of an interview that Janet gave as part of the programme for the Socialist Party's 2019 Summer School. I think it's worthwhile reposting the text of that interview here:

Mike Foster wrote:

"In 2019, Janet kindly agreed to be interviewed for an article in that year's Summer School publication, which had the theme of 'being a socialist in a capitalist world'. Carla Dee put together some questions and wrote up Janet's replies about her life as a socialist and the people she met. Here's the text of the interview":

Carla: How did you first come across the Socialist Party?

Janet: I went up to Trafalgar Square during the Vietnam demonstrations in 1968 and I was wandering around collecting various leaflets from people and came across this older man looking rather dishevelled, standing in front of me holding a bundle of Socialist Standards; Jim Doherty, I think it was. There was one copy that took my eye with a cover slogan of ‘Who Needs Leaders?’ and that rang a bell with me so I bought it.

I had been investigating left wing politics and was starting to get political, but under my own instigation, for which I pride myself because there was no-one in my family or no-one that I knew who was political - no conversations at home or anything like that. I was going to the library and reading various left wing articles on Marxism and it all seemed to make sense, but there was no-one really to talk to, so I suppose I must have been a thinker. I’d already discarded religion in my teens.  

The Aberfan disaster in 1966 really affected me, and I saw how nothing had been done to avert a disaster in the name of profit and that propelled me towards the party too.

When did you join the SPGB and which branch?

I joined the party in 1969ish at the old Wood Green branch, which held meetings at a kind of evening class place in a community hall, I think. I remember the application interview as if it was yesterday. There was Jack Bradley, a leading member of that branch at the time; I was very fond of Jack though I didn’t know him very well then. John Lee, Ken Leggett and another chap whose name I can’t remember were there too. I can tell you I got a bit sweaty under the collar because it felt like a bit of an inquisition.

Were there any women in the branch?

No there wasn’t. It seemed like I was always the only woman in the branch.

How did your family react when you joined the party?

They would say “oh she’s getting on her soap box again”. I was getting the Standard delivered, reading it and giving it to everyone I knew, but there was no sympathy or interest, which I found frustrating but I was never a chatterer so I tended not to bring up the subject of socialism. I regret that, and I wish I had been more forthright, more combative.

How were you affected by the party case?

Absolutely delighted when the penny dropped! At last I thought I was sane and it was others that were mad, whereas it was the other way around before. I felt enlightened, if I hadn’t found the party I think I would have gone on thinking that I was a little bit mad. 

I was attending meetings and studying on my own. Well, I had the time as I didn’t have any children in my twenties, and I can’t imagine being able to be so active if I had children to attend to and clinics to go to.

When did you meet husband and fellow socialist Joe Carter?

I met Joe at Wood Green branch; he had been a member for about three years. He was very active and I had been to a couple of outdoor meetings where Joe was speaking and was quite impressed by him. We also shared a great enjoyment in long distance walking and wish we had done more of it.

You said there were no women in your branch but there were quite a few women in the party 

Yes. Though I can’t recall any women outdoor speakers there were some very impressive women like Eva Goodman and Florrie Evans - who was general secretary during the war - and Phyllis Lawrence and a woman called Helen whose surname I can’t remember. She was married to a bus driver; they were quite an impressive couple.

Funnily enough when we attended general meetings you would see a lot of the women knitting. I think it must have been a throwback from the days when women couldn’t be seen doing nothing. It was also considered to be saving money by making your own woollens. It was very fashionable, and I even started knitting myself.

Looking at the world now through ‘socialist eyes’ what are your thoughts?

I’m exasperated, sad and disappointed.  When I first joined the branch, Joe and I used to get the bus from Muswell Hill where we lived down the hill to Wood Green, and I would look around the bus with such optimism and think that very soon all the people on the bus would be socialists. Society is in such a mess and so many horrendous things are happening that it’s no wonder people are suffering from depression and anxiety. I don’t believe in hell of course but it seems that society is going to hell in a handcart.

Why do you think socialist ideas don’t seem to have been more popular?

The party has worked so hard. We must have tried everything to get our ideas across. But the party case is not easy, contrary to what some members say, especially the economics side: the explanation of surplus value for instance and the idea that the working class do not pay taxes. People have got distracted by single issues, charities and identity politics and blaming individuals for the mess. I don’t blame people for being exasperated with politicians.

But I have no regrets and cannot ever imagine not being a socialist - it’s who you are, isn’t it?

Letter: When did socialism start? (2003)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

When did socialism start?

Dear Editors

Your exchange with Ron Smith (no relation) in the February issue was, as usual, well answered by yourselves but does pose the questions: When did socialism start and how and when do individuals accept the indisputable logic of its truth?

I can only relate my own story but it would be interesting to hear from others of their own experiences and enlightenments.

Born on the even of the 39/45 war into a large but poor family, father an uneducated window cleaner (and after serving abroad for five years with an aptitude for hard work and drink) and mother (a cleaner when financial needs demanded and time allowed) allegedly from a middle class family who, amongst all the poverty, educated all her children into the niceties of life including manners, respect and discipline.

Fortunately, as with my siblings, 11-plus took me on a free place to a local public school and until the age of 16, when family need for money demanded that I leave, I had my mind stretched, titillated and forced into action. At that time I had been an ardent believer in christianity for 10 years and was so until National Service in the Far East and other life experiences had convinced me of the futility of religion. Nevertheless attendance at a “posh” school and exposure to Christian beliefs and history did flood my subconscious with all the inherent inequalities, privilege and hypocrisy of private schooling and formal religion.

By the time I was 30 good business fortune had visited and I was happily married with three children living in a superb house in a select locality, driving the latest large saloon (hers) and dashing sports car (mine).

This lifestyle continued for the next 20 years and I do recall feeling on many occasions; why me, what have I done to be so lucky, what about all my ex-friends who are still grafting at their lathes, down the mines and existing day to day? A few pangs of guilt, feelings of general unfairness in life and then – back to the good life…

It all ended in 1990 when my lawyers, personal friends for many years, would not stand their corner in a large business deal in which they had been employed to protect my legal interests. They betrayed and deserted me which resulted during the 1990s in unemployment , life on income support for three years, self-built home repossession and homelessness.

Why me again? – but this time with the boot on the other foot! Why after all these years of being a “true blue” and avid supporter of the system (capitalism) have all my friends (sic) and acquaintances deserted me and left me for dead? It didn’t make sense but I now had the time to reflect and think long and hard about life, people, politics, systems and capitalism and out of this came the realisation that millions of people were being subjected to the harsh realities of capitalism every year in the UK alone. It wasn’t right, not fair, why so much hypocrisy and ruthlessness and why so many lies all the time? Where was the justice in our legal system and, if I was disenfranchised with all my accumulated knowledge of the workings of capitalism, what about all those people who had not enjoyed my good fortune, wealth and privileges?

Up to now Marx, Lenin, Morris, Communists, Socialists etc. were all unacceptable lefties who had no place in the world and whose ideas must be stamped out at all costs. Can you believe such arrogance, stupidity, lack of real consideration for others and shallowness in a supposed intelligent 50-plus-years-old man?

Looking for answers I started to buy the Big Issue and came across your advertisement in the small ads. Duly applied to be a reader and the first few issues were an absolute revelation to me! After years of mental turmoil and survival, all the thoughts I had had about a better world for all were springing out at me from the pages of the Socialist Standard. As the years have gone by and I have continued to enjoy your magazine and continued to research into how life could be! The mists of time have drifted apart and memories of an earlier learning period in my life have surfaced.

It strikes me that the similarity between much of the truth, logic and reason of socialism is akin to many of the teachings of christianity – less the mumbo jumbo of course (this mumbo jumbo is surely man’s add-on for personal greed and self-aggrandisement).

I put it to you – just a thought – could Jesus Christ, an ordinary man or a fictional character, be the first and best socialist? Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself – think about it! Surely to get socialism all we need to do is to live truly by that sentiment!

Finally, the capitalist sun is shining again for me but I am exploiting them now and much of my accumulation is voluntarily passed on to fellow workers in my current business venture – as you say, we all have to make a living under capitalism until socialism happens – just a pity that more of our resources are not directed to “marketing the brand”.

On the campaigning issue for a fairer and better life for all humanity (socialism), I talk and debate with anyone who will listen and lobby anyone – politicians, the corporate world, religious worthies et al – under the guise of Campaign for Morality, Fairness and Truth (with financial self-sufficiency this would be a full time job).

When will socialism happen, when will the majority understand logic and reason, is it a natural progression, are European integration, globalisation, the US current muscle-flexing activities all indicators that the world is becoming one and will this give socialism a better chance of happening in our lifetime or are we all pissing in the wind?

Recently I had a letter in the anarchist magazine Freedom suggesting that more co-operation between them, the SPGB and all other far left tendency organisations (Christians included) is the only way to avoid Armageddon – can I put that to you, too?

Trevor L. Smith, 

Bury, Lancs

Reply: 

We hope our previous correspondent is still there to read your tale of woe. It might teach him something about how the present system works.

Actually, the so-called golden rule – of “do as you would be done” (“Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself”seems a bit extreme and unpractical) – has nothing to do with the mythical (or possibly factual) character called Jesus. It’s a feature of all human codes of behaviour, whether incorporated into some religion or not (and, as you say, all religions are mumbo-jumbo), reflecting the fact that humans are social animals who depend on co-operating with each other to survive. No society in which everybody competes against each other and in which “anything goes” could survive. This is indeed capitalism’s ideal but, fortunately, it can’t achieve it as humans just aren’t like that. Even under capitalism humans’ basic social nature comes through and most of the time most people behave to each other in a decent way.

But this in itself is not socialism. It merely shows that, if anything, it is capitalism not socialism that is “against human nature”. Socialism is not a code of behaviour. It is a system of society, one based on the common ownership and democratic control by the whole community of the means for producing the things we need to live and to enjoy life. It is, as you hint, the next stage in social evolution and for which developments within capitalism – such as the building up of a world-wide productive system capable of turning out plenty for all – have paved the way. In fact, today, everything is in place for the establishment of socialism except one vital ingredient – the desire and political will to establish it.

This is where we in the Socialist Party come in. Our members have got together for the single purpose of helping the emergence of an understanding of and a desire for socialism. When this does emerge – fortunately it does not depend on our own meagre efforts but more on people’s experience of capitalism and its failure and inability to solve the problems they face – it is our opinion that will express itself, among other ways, through the ballot box. Those who want socialism will use their votes to send delegates to elected bodies with a mandate to use political control to end class ownership and usher in the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and to dismantle the apparatus of class rule.

We certainly think that all those who want socialism and are agreed that this is the right way to proceed to get it as quickly and as peacefully as possible should get together in a single organisation, a single socialist political party. But Freedom , the anarchist publication, does not stand for socialism; it seeks to cater for all those who want to abolish the state for whatever reason, including those who are resolute opponents of socialism. And even the minority among them who do stand for socialism (in the same sense as us) don’t think it can be achieved by democratic political action and advocate the suicidal policy of trying to take on head-to-head the fully armed capitalist state.

As to other “far left tendency organisations”, by which we take you to mean the SWP, Militant and the others, our experience is that they don’t stand for socialism but for state capitalism (nationalisation misnamed socialism) and the rule of a vanguard party (preferably themselves).

Besides, both Freedom and them have other priorities in that they consider campaigning for this or that reform – or, more often these days, against this or that measure proposed by the government – more important. If they were prepared to drop campaigning for reforms and to accept campaigning for socialism as the immediate priority then of course we should all get together and have a bigger and better socialist organisation, so helping to speed the demise of capitalism and avoid the miseries it has in store for us if allowed to continue.

—Editors

A reasonable journey (2025)

From the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Richard Headicar describes how his socialist viewpoint on the world developed, and some of the people he met along the way.

Few, if any, of the guests at my 21st birthday party in 1954 would ever have imagined that their cheerful host – then a chauvinistic, Tory-supporting Christian monarchist – might someday become a member of the SPGB. Indeed, I would myself have dismissed such a proposition as utterly delusional. Yet while some may consider such a comprehensive transition remarkable, I simply regard it as nothing more than the consequence of a number of eminently reasonable decisions taken in the light of changing circumstances.

In fact, although I was blissfully unaware of it, the first seed of change had already been planted. It had been surreptitiously sown a week previously by Dr Donald Soper on my very first visit to Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park. Soper was one of three brilliant Methodist preachers who had held me spellbound from the age of 14 by their outstanding oratory (the others were Dr Leslie Weatherhead and Dr William Sangster, then the doyen of Westminster Central Hall and the grandmaster of the craft of homiletics). What Donald Soper said that day about the use of atomic bombs against Japan completely shocked me. He cast doubt upon the official version of events offered in justification: that doing so averted the need for an invasion, thereby saving millions of lives. So profound was my disbelief that I departed the park firmly resolved to prove him mistaken. Surely, I thought, governments – well, Western governments anyway – would never countenance such an extreme act without incontrovertible reasons. My shock was much greater, however, on discovering that not only was everything Soper said absolutely true, but there was so much more that he had omitted to say. For several years I became immersed in trying to learn all that I could about the real situation, following a trail from Gottingen (where research into nuclear physics had been carried out) to Los Alamos (in California where the first atomic bombs were developed) through to the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Needless to say, I had not the faintest notion of where this newly-acquired knowledge would lead me, never for a moment thinking that it would affect my political allegiance. Very soon, however, a series of events occurred that were to have a significant impact in that respect.

The first of these was the Suez crisis in 1956. Out of curiosity, I joined a march from Speakers’ Corner to Trafalgar Square where a massive anti-war rally was taking place. All I knew about Egypt was that it had pyramids and that according to headlines dominating the popular press, a scheming Egyptian politician named Nasser was causing trouble. Also that the British Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, seemed to be changing his mind every week about what he should do. But, once again, my political complacency was challenged when I learned of the dubious motives of the Western powers, centred on the protection of their substantial economic interests in the Middle East. One of the speakers that day was Anuerin Bevan, another compelling orator, and the passionate humanity of his words persuaded me that perhaps the Labour Party was the place to be in order to restore my faith in our political leaders…

Over the ensuing years, as a result of my ongoing investigations into the labyrinthine deceptions surrounding the manufacture and use of the first atomic bombs, I developed a particular concern regarding the rapid escalation of the arms race, especially in relation to nuclear weapons. My next reasonable step seemed only logical: on 7 February 1958, I attended the inaugural public meeting of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Appropriately enough, given my wavering but just about extant Methodist beliefs, the meeting was convened at Westminster Central Hall.

The promising news that over 70 Labour MPs had pledged their support to the cause provided precisely the nudge I needed to join the Labour Party. At its 1960 conference in Scarborough, a unilateralist motion proposed by Frank Cousins, the leader of the Transport and General Workers Union (T&GWU) succeeded in winning a narrow majority. It was countered immediately by Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell with his oft-quoted, highly emotional avowal to ‘fight and fight and fight again to save the party we love’. Amazingly, it was at this point in the Labour Party’s long history that a group of MPs came to the realisation that the use of the ‘block vote’ was ‘undemocratic’. This was something the left-wing minority had been pointing out for many years, but obviously such a belated recognition of their previously disregarded submission was in no way related to the fact that, on this occasion, it had worked against the Executive Committee. Bill Rodgers, aided and abetted by four other ‘moderate’ MPs – Dick Taverne, Anthony Crosland, Douglas Jay and Roy Jenkins – wasted little time in forming the Campaign for Democratic Socialism (CDS). These fervent supporters of democracy, however, appeared determined to devote most of their energy in a concerted effort to portray CND as a haven for ‘communists’.

A deliciously ironic confirmation that my initial optimism about the Labour Party might have been misplaced occurred on the publication of the Tory government’s 1961 Statement on the Defence Estimates about military budgets. Five Labour Party MPs, including future leader Michael Foot, had the whip withdrawn (basically, expelled) for voting against the government. I was not altogether surprised, therefore, when at Labour’s Blackpool conference, the combination of a dodgy ‘compromise’ proposal, more skulduggery and blatant vote fiddling, by which certain Unions were permitted to reverse their original mandate, ensured that the 1960 unilateralist resolution was duly overturned. In his excellent pamphlet Nuclear Disarmament and the Labour Party, Tony Southall comments ‘one important effect of the new events in 1960-1 was that a whole generation of CND activists shunned the party’.

So far as I was concerned, fully awakened at least to the routine misappropriation of the word ‘democracy’ in pursuit of political expediency, I left the Labour Party, never to return. It was a disappointment to me that so many of my unilateralist comrades chose to remain. By now thoroughly despairing of party politics and sadly disillusioned with the efficacy of ‘democracy’, I was increasingly drawn to the philosophy of anarchism. Nevertheless, I remained firmly wedded to the unilateralist cause while undergoing a number of shifts and slides in my personal evaluation of the official CND position. I found it too narrow and confining and much preferred the intellectually stimulating atmosphere of the divergent attitudes I encountered in the Committee of 100 direct action group. Although broadly supportive of CND’s work, it remained absolutely independent and welcomed other speakers who presented the anti-war case in varying styles and from an individual perspective.

For some time I had been running a platform every Saturday and Sunday at Speakers’ Corner centred around CND. I also participated regularly in acts of civil disobedience and eventually ended up in jail for protesting at the Soviet embassy. I was sentenced in October 1961, a day or so after the Labour Party’s infamous Blackpool conference. Coincidentally, I was due to take part in a much-anticipated debate with an eloquent SPGB representative, Melvin Harris, but was prevented from doing so at Her Majesty’s pleasure. I often wonder whether had I not been so inconsiderately detained, my SPGB membership would have been more expeditious? A much-missed friend and comrade, Edmund ‘Eddie’ Grant, relished relating his own version of my non-appearance, that I simply got cold feet at the last moment and deliberately chose prison as a means of avoiding the superior reasoning of the SPGB.

During the years I spent speaking in Hyde Park on behalf of CND, I’m afraid that I regarded the SPGB as an arrogant bunch who found it almost impossible to see merit in anyone but themselves. In relation to CND, although the SPGB’s criticism of it was correct, the unengaging, predominantly negative manner in which it was presented was decidedly counter-productive. Eddie Grant was one of only three members with whom I enjoyed regular dialogue in a friendly and non-judgemental manner then. Eddie, especially, was a welcome visitor to my platform and in his deceptively disarming way invariably raised thought-provoking questions.

An excellent example of Eddie’s method of patient, albeit politely persistent interpolation is the imaginative ruse he employed to breach my unyielding refusal to entertain the possibility of a society devoid of money or markets. The apparent immutability of both had been deeply ingrained in my psyche from a very early age. Following the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s pioneering book Silent Spring, Eddie had listened to me orating passionately on the disastrous effect on the environment resulting from military activity and developments. On the next occasion we met he presented me with a piece of paper on which he had copied a quote from William Morris:

‘Is there money to be gathered? Cut down the pleasant trees among the houses, pull down the ancient and venerable buildings for the money that a few square yards of London dirt will fetch; blacken rivers, hide the sun and poison the air with smoke or worse, and it’s nobody’s business to see it or mend it: that is all that modern commerce, the counting house forgetful of the workshop, will do for us herein’ (The Lesser Arts) .

He also recommended two books: Morris’s News From Nowhere and Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. Unfortunately, my reading at the time continued to be dominated by the tedious and complex tomes concerned with weapons and ‘defence’ strategies. I was also becoming increasingly interested in the ideas propounded by various philosophers. Consequently, some 20 years elapsed before I finally read Robert Tressell’s heart-breaking but inspiring masterpiece and grasped that the rational implications of the William Morris quotation spoke of the necessity for a change far more fundamental than environmental intervention. It was only many years after I joined the SPGB that I finally got round to reading News From Nowhere, prior to a talk I gave at Fircroft on ‘The Stateless Society’. With Eddie very much in mind, I included the quote he had handed me all those years previously.

It was at Speakers’ Corner also that I met the Hungarian philosopher Alfred Reynolds (Reinhold), who was to prove by far the greatest influence in my life. He somehow managed to transform my thinking and attitudes without once telling me I was ‘wrong’ but instead patiently explaining his points of disagreement without once claiming they were ‘right’. Two areas in which he shared valuable insights were the danger of ‘group thinking’ and the ‘nature of truth’. He held much respect, even affinity, for the SPGB and claimed that at some point in the 1930s he was briefly a member, though for reasons that I recount in a brief biography I have just completed, it would have been under an assumed name that he joined.

In the mid-1980s, when I gave a talk for the Islington branch of the SPGB (prior to becoming a member myself), a telling contribution from Eddie Grant, challenging my rejection of the democratic process, removed the final obstacle to SPGB membership. I became a member of the Party in 1988 and Eddie’s lucid rebuttal of my contention that the right to vote was meaningless was instrumental in that decision. Given my many conversations with him during the preceding years, my protracted journey to membership should have been much shorter. Alas, I had been too preoccupied with saving the world from perceived nuclear annihilation to pay proper attention to his wise illuminations.

In the process of change, interspersed with landmark episodes, there are countless subtle and often subconscious influences too complex and personal to properly record, and some are perhaps destined to remain unfathomable. I frequently ponder upon my own readiness to take the reasonable steps that led me to my eventual destination.

Was I born with a predisposition to more readily embrace ‘logical’ development? How much importance should be given to the impact the Methodist preachers had and the early lessons they conveyed to me about listening, constructing and delivering an argument and the use of humour? Would I ever have moved on at all if I had not been confronted with those dramatic political events? How much does the chance of circumstance play? Meeting with such exceptional individuals as Eddie and Alfred was most assuredly not pre-ordained.

Are we simply the products of our personal, social and political environments? If this is so, why are we not ‘behaviourists’ like B F Skinner? Is becoming a socialist the result of a conscious choice, and what do we mean by this? If choice is assumed, can we ever be sure it is not merely the result of circumstance? In presenting the case for socialism, should more consideration than at present be given to the philosophical and psychological implications?

Richard Headicar

Blogger's Note:

Richard's obituary appeared in the same issue of the Socialist Standard.

Letters: Who are the cowards? (2000)

Letters to the Editors from the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who are the cowards?

Dear Editors,

There could hardly be a better symbol for how governments treat their mass public, than the 306 “cowards”, executed by British authorities during the First World War. Nothing has changed, either. There is no essential difference between the military, flexing its muscles, or the Thatcherite revolution throwing people out into the street, or even a Blairite dogma to “modernise”, but actually preparing everyone and every aspect of life to be merely the plaything of global capitalism. Then, if war is an extension of diplomacy, and business is a substitute for war, all this becomes more understandable, but not defensible, given the catastrophic effects on society’s weaker members.

The incompetent Earl Haig treated his troops as cannon fodder; Thatcher said there is no such thing as society; and Blair’s modernity will expose the unwary to a life of being only a marketing statistic. All these three were, and are, immune to the shock imposed on others less able to defend themselves, by pursuing their social revolutions. They also maintain their advantage, through an elite status. Hence, “deserters”, the dispossessed and disabled, or the incapacitated, are treated by their elected leaders as inferior, and therefore, fair game. These people are losers, and consequently seen by the elite as an embarrassment to their inflated opinion of themselves—and here we have the underlying reason for New Labour’s attitude to voters in wheelchairs: punish them.

Jeffrey Wheeler, 

Nuneaton, Warwicks

The Morgenthau Plan

Dear Editors,

The article “Why war is no accident”, (August Socialist Standard) claimed that “on the eve of allied victory the leaders of the victorious countries accepted a plan drawn up by . . . Morgenthau to de-industrialise Germany” Not so. The Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt on proposals to de-industrialise Germany was “initialled” (i.e. agreed to informally) by them on 15 September 1944. Neither Churchill nor Roosevelt had with them their top advisors and there were no representatives present from the Soviet Union, the third of the wartime alliance.

British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and American Secretary of State Cordell Hull were “horrified” by the proposals. Eden recalls in his Memoirs “I did not like the plan, nor was I convinced that it was to our national advantage.” Hull rejected it as being “a plan of blind vengeance.” The American Secretary of War Henry Stimson also strongly opposed it; it was “just fighting brutality with brutality.”

Historians have variously characterised the Morgenthau Plan as being “still-born”, “abandoned”, “pigeon-holed”, “did not…become official policy” and was “never put into effect.”

It was realised that a weak Germany with high unemployment brought about by de-industrialisation would be prey to political extremism (as it had been in the 1920s and 1930s) and liable to fall into the Soviet camp. American policy-makers planned for an “open” Europe of free trade which would be a market for US produce.

It has been suggested that Churchill had been reluctant to go along with the Plan but did so because he was at the time in negotiations with Morgenthau over post-war Lend-Lease arrangements. Britain had been offered $6.5 billion post-war credit and he did not want the promise jeopardised. His claimed that the Morgenthau Plan would leave Britain “chained to a dead body”. Although a de-industrialised Germany would remove an economic rival it would also entail the loss of a lucrative market for industrial goods produced in Britain.

A Germany integrated into a “United States of Europe” would be economically more efficient which would in turn (in the view of the US Department of State Division of Economic Studies at the time) give higher levels of real incomes leading to an increased demand “for imports of raw materials, food, and manufactured articles, of which the United States would be the primary beneficiaries.” (In 1937 Europe had been the destination for 41 per cent US exports and the source of 27 per cent of its imports).

It was these arguments that eventually won the day. Germany was not subject to “ongoing economic attacks” as the launching of the European Recovery Programme (the “Marshall Plan”) in mid-1947 demonstrates.

By 1946 there were an estimated 14 million “displaced persons” (i.e. refugees) in Europe—10 million in Germany (7 million in the Western Zones.) Deaths “may have been anything between 2 and 3 million” according to Hugh Thomas (Armed Truce). In their two volume study A History of West Germany D.L. Bark and D. R. Gress estimate that two million Germans died as a result of the immediate post-war disruptions. It is not clear on what authority the author of the article bases his claim of 5 million deaths and on what evidence it rests.

John E. Farquharson (in The Western Allies and the Politics of Food.) shows that the Allied system of food rationing was a continuation of the German one already in place. Ration allowances were supplemented by theft, forgery of ration documents, barter, recourse to the black market, self supply (e.g. allotments), and additional allowances for those employed in heavy work. In one area of occupied Germany the number of ration cards presented in one accounting period was twice the number officially issued. Less than a quarter of the population of the Western Zones were “normal consumers”, the majority claimed supplements of one kind or another.

This not to say that hunger and malnutrition did not occur, it did. However the “hard” figures represented by official ration issues for calories per day do not represent the true state of affairs. In the circumstances the Western Allies did what they could and it is incorrect to state that the Allies imposed blockade and starvation upon the defeated German nation. We do not need to exaggerate to make out a Socialist case against the pernicious nature of capitalism and its wars.

Gwynn Thomas, 

Colchester, Essex

Reply: 

Thanks for your interesting and useful clarification. The article’s main point was that blockading a rival state is a policy capitalist states are prepared to consider (as the existence of the Morgenthau Plan shows) and to implement (today as in Iraq) regardless of the consequences on the civilian population. And, as your letter brings out well, again as in Iraq, those capitalist politicians who oppose this option do so because they are more interested in export prospects than in the plight of the population. The source of the 5 million figure was the book Crimes and Mercies by James Baque, mentioned in the article.

Editors.

How I became a socialist

Dear Editors,

In the beginning, way back in the 1960s, I became, in my late teens, a so-called “hippie”. The hippies were a more progressive, creative and imaginative development from the beatniks in the USA—who were basically scruffy, layabouts, poets and artists. I remained in the hippie phase for about eight years, until the early 70s, when I changed my outlook gradually and became, so to speak, politically “radicalised”. I began to support the left wing, and joined CND, voting Labour, attending meetings, and taking part in protests and demonstrations.

By 1979 I grew deeply disillusioned with Labour and rejected its policies and ideology: I was then far-left in outlook. Almost a Trotskyite, in fact. It seemed to me that only a violent mass movement would change society, and that “direct action”, including the general strike and armed insurrection, could and would overthrow the state and ruling class.

This barricades mentality persisted in my mind until the mid-1980s, when I began to study the various “schools” or styles of anarchism. Reading the works of Peter Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin, Errico Malatesta, Emma Goldman, etc, etc. I became a militant anarchist. I was very determined and began fighting the police; even after several jail terms (in which I fought the screws), I persisted and persevered in anarchism. But by 1986, grave doubts and misgivings surfaced; I discovered serious flaws and errors in anarchist theory and practice. My conclusion was that it actually leads nowhere and achieves nothing but more bloodshed and frustration.

So, early in 1986, I abandoned anarchism altogether. A few months later my attention was drawn to some examples of Socialist Party literature. By chance, I came across a few issues of the Socialist Standard. After reading carefully and reflecting on it, I accepted the concept of socialism. Then I obtained some of the works of Karl Marx from a public library—in particular, the Communist Manifesto of 1848.

This really transformed my whole outlook on history, society and politics. Marx profoundly impressed and inspired me in a way no-one and nothing ever had before. Thus, acquiring a Marxist understanding and analysis of capitalism and of how to get rid of it, I became a scientific socialist by the spring of 1986: after which I contacted the Socialist Party, and subsequently joined.

The one thing about the Socialist Party that persuaded me, above all else, to join, was that all its literature is strictly honest, truthful and accurate; also that the party is fully and truly democratic in its organisation and activities. This meant a lot to me: I realised that here was one political party which not only had genuine principles but stuck to them through thick and thin without any compromise or “sell-out”.

So that is how and why I became a socialist, fourteen years ago. I lapsed from membership some time ago—but that is solely due to chronic, incurable disabling illness and my personal circumstances, which make it impossible for me to travel around and attend its debates and meetings. The only sort of contribution I can make is by writing articles and collecting the party’s audio tapes. I also argue the case for socialism with friends and acquaintances—and, occasionally, with strangers I meet in pubs, cafés, etc. (I’ve made a lot of enemies this way!)

Through the years, I have amassed a great deal of vital information on many subjects—including political history, religion, ecology and conservation, anthropology, the history of the socialist movement, and so on—and have written a book on the origins and development of capitalism, comparing it with the only sane alternative, World Socialism. My final draft typescript of this book is now in the possession of the Socialist Party’s archivists. I hope some day that it will be published.

In conclusion, I want to express my gratitude to the Socialist Party for providing me with the understanding and insight I sorely lacked before; and to Karl Marx too, of course: we all owe him a great debt for the tremendous work he did and his great achievements. We can’t all be like Marx, but at least some of us might approach his level of intellect if we make the necessary effort. Marxian knowledge can increase intelligence, I have found: and it produces the “quantum jump” in consciousness among workers everywhere which makes socialism possible. Speed the day!

David E. Finlay, 

Brighton

Labour history

Dear Editors,

I am writing on behalf of the North West Labour History Group. As part of our work in popularising knowledge of labour history we publish an annual journal and I would like to appeal to your readers for contributions to two forthcoming issues, one on the 1960s to be published in 2001 and one on the 1970s to be published in 2002.

We believe the time has come to examine the radical social, political and labour movement of those decades in the North West. We invite anybody interested in writing an article to contact us in the first instance at: North West Labour History Group c/o Working Class Movement Library, 51 Crescent, Salford M5 4WX.

Michael Herbert, 

North West Labour History Group

Letter: My journey to becoming a socialist (2021)

Letter to the Editors from the July 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

One cold Friday night some 40 years ago, I had what I have now come to realise was something of a serendipitous encounter with a complete stranger while enjoying a beer or two in The Horseshoe Bar, Glasgow, just before making my way to London on the overnight train to take part in what was called ‘The People’s March For Jobs’ demonstration at Hyde Park.

As a young member of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT) printer’s union, I felt quite proud to be a banner-wielding protestor against Prime Minister Thatcher’s government and their total disregard and contempt for the working class, and somehow felt the need to express my anger the only way I knew how.

There was a good few dozen of us print-workers gathered from all around the multitude of factories based in and around Glasgow, with one particular thing in common – a distinct hatred of Thatcher and her Tory cronies.

Anyway, whilst in the throes of alcohol-induced rage and fury, I was approached at the bar by a chap with a distinct goatee beard who was also enjoying a refreshment or two.

‘What you up to young man?’ he asked.

‘Oh, on my way to London to join the People’s March For Jobs,’ I proclaimed proudly.

‘Whit the fuck ye daen that fur?’ he bluntly enquired. Somewhat taken aback, I was a bit stuck for words. ‘Waste o’ fuckin time, if ye ask me pal,’ he went on. ‘Whit difference dae ye think it’s gonnae make son?’

‘Well,’ I said ‘that bitch is closing down all the factories, and causing misery for everyone. I’m a socialist and I want to do something about it,’ I chelped back.

He erupted in laughter and told me that I had a lot to learn. He bought me a beer and invited me to get myself down to the Stirling Library at Royal Exchange Square in the heart of Glasgow some Saturday afternoon where I will find out ‘what a real socialist is’. Somewhat disgruntled by this I vowed to accept his challenge and see for myself just what this guy was talking about the next time I happened to be in the city centre.

The People’s March For Jobs came and went, and several months passed during which time I’d actually forgotten about my encounter with this strange man who dared to doubt that I was anything but a bona fide socialist. True to my word, I eventually headed on down to Royal Exchange Square whereupon I did indeed come across a group of mainly men taking it in turns to address a fair-sized crowd who had gathered to listen to them shouting about the forces of ‘capitalism’ and how ‘real socialism’ was the only solution to addressing the problems inherent in that disruptive and destructive worldwide system.

I was blown away and more than just a wee bit curious about the concept of this new world order that would revolutionise the way in which we functioned and interacted together as humans. A complete change from the current system of competition, to one of cooperation. From each according to their ability, to each according to their need. I just had to find out more.

There was about an hour or so of questions and answers from the assembled crowd — some of them quite forceful and aggressive, some very supportive and showing genuine interest — all of them answered articulately with superb confidence and knowledge by the same man who I met in the pub a few months earlier. The meeting began to come to a natural end and I hung around until there was only a handful of guys and a couple of women left. I was approached by one fairly well-spoken chap in a grey trench style raincoat, who asked me if I enjoyed the session and would I like to join them for a beer? Not one to turn down such an invitation, I found myself being made most welcome by this group of strangers in a local hostelry who were only too happy to answer this inquisitive young man’s enquiring mind about this thing called ‘world socialism’.

What an incredible experience! I left a couple of hours later completely awestruck by what these ‘genuine socialists’ had described to me as a ‘world of abundance’ where everyone will be free to live a life of their choosing and for the benefit of all. Instead of the way things are now, whereby we’re all enslaved by the wages system, and if you don’t have a job, you cannot afford even the basics of human needs. If you do, it’s only because you’ve been forced to sell whatever skills you have to the highest payer, and even then, only just about manage to survive. It all gave me food for thought, and I thought it was corrupt.

A lot has happened in my life since that fateful day. But one thing remains, my absolute conviction and determination to continue along with other like-minded fellow workers and true socialists – not the kind of wishy-washy reformists who think that by accepting piecemeal reforms handed down by the capitalist class and the politicians that they employ, we will somehow reach social equality for all – that’s not going to happen.

What I have discovered is that although we may well be slightly better off in terms of material goods and commodities than those of our forebears, this is still a far cry away from what is possible when the majority of us come to understand and realise what can be achieved with the will and determination to make it happen. Then and only then will we realise the true fruits of our collective labours, instead of handing them over to that privileged minority of parasites who feed off of our labour in order to feather their own nests with luxuries. The kind of luxuries that they proudly show off and boast of, while the rest of us look on in despair of their greed and the gross inequality that we have to endure under capitalism. Come join us, fellow workers. You’ve got nothing to lose but your chains. Who knows, maybe one of these days you too will be writing all about your journey to becoming a socialist in the pages of this journal.

Paul Edwards

How I became a socialist (2021)

From the February 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Up until Brexit politics didn’t really feature much in my life except for a brief time at university. Brexit changed all that, it made me look deeper into current affairs, which made me realise that the system was broken and socialism could be just the thing to fix it.

I was originally from a small mining village in the North East of England. My mum was of Irish extraction, a pious catholic and salt-of-the-earth working-class woman. She married my dad, an émigré from Portuguese India. The house was a 2-up-2-down terrace with an outside toilet that always froze up in winter. I remember the backyard had cobbled stones with an open drain for the sink waste. Dad had knocked it up with old tin cans and it would block up, he never was any good at DIY. Working for the National Coal Board (NCB) Dad received the free allocation of coal. I guess that would be described as a company perk these days but in fact just helped keep wages down for the NCB. The coal truck would dump a ton of coal out the front and mum would wheel-barrow it around into the backyard, where it was stacked. In the 60s when the pit closed and Dad lost his job, he managed to find a storekeeper’s job with Wimpey, the house builder, in Birmingham. So we upped sticks, dad, mum and six kids to join the exodus of many other families from the Durham coalfields. I was 8 years old.

As a child and adolescent I didn’t have any great political awareness, I was more interested in playing football and cricket with my mates. However, I do remember the Aberfan disaster in 1966; principally because of my mum’s reaction to the horrendous deaths of all those innocent children. The political significance of that disaster was lost on me at the time but would come to influence my views of government in later life. Any political awareness I had was probably socialist coming from my mother who described Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as: ‘the best book she had ever read’. My dad had come to the UK in the 1950s and, after a short time as a clerk in the civil service, joined the British army, the first six years in the regulars during the Suez crisis and a further 27 with the part-time territorials. He would often take me along to the territorial pay corps offices on the back of his Vespa 90 scooter, hoping I would join up when I grew up, but I only went along for the ride. I couldn’t stand all the uniforms and tipping your forelock to the officers. I remember dad always complaining that I was always asking ‘why’ when he would assert some Catholic religious dogma; mystified as to why I didn’t share ‘the faith’.

I never shared my parents’ religious views as I found them impossible to reconcile with science and reason. I was always keen on physics at school and left home to study electronics at Salford University in Manchester. Whilst at university I became involved with student politics and joined the Anti-Nazi League, an offshoot of the Socialist Workers Party. I participated in many demos protesting against the National Front. After graduation I dropped out of active politics and concentrated on my engineering career. In the 80s and 90s my involvement in politics was restricted to just casting a vote.

In the early 80s the company I worked for at the time sent me to Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales to install some electronics in the main telephone exchange. When I arrived I was shocked to find the whole town shrouded in the dark shadow of huge coal slag heaps. It was then I realised that this was just four miles from where the tragedy took place at Aberfan some 20 years previously. I can remember being moved to tears visiting the cemetery seeing so many gravestones for the children that died. I was incredulous that governments could have allowed that to happen and not even bothered to restore the landscape after the horrendous mess the industry had made to the environment. The scruffy terraced housing, run-down shops and impoverished locals left an impression that this place had been forgotten by the powers that be.

Thatcher’s assault on the miners, the unions and her profuse use of police violence to break up strikes was shocking to witness. The charade of the Falklands War to bolster her re-election in 1983 just reinforced my opinions of the Conservative Party. The imposition of the Poll Tax in 1989 seemed the last straw, and even I considered joining one of many demonstrations against that unfair tax against the working class. Her fall from grace and replacement by centrist John Major did seem like a change for the better. I didn’t have any great understanding of politics, believing Labour to be a socialist party that cared more about the working class; therefore, deserving of my vote.

When New Labour finally regained power with the Blair/Brown regime in the 90s there was great expectation in the country, which was reflected in the sweeping victory in 1997. However, with the tragedy of the Iraq war, the selling of public utilities, the Private Finance Initiatives, etc it became almost impossible to differentiate between New Labour and the old Tories, so there didn’t seem any point in voting.

Brexit

In 2016 I retired, providing lots of free time and which happened to coincide with Brexit. The propaganda from the Tory Vote Leave side and UKIP had such a ring of xenophobia it was reminiscent of the National Front back in the 1970s. Alarmingly, fuelled by the media this polemic seemed to resonate and rekindled latent nationalistic fervour in a large section of the public. This level of public support seemed perplexing as the arguments didn’t seem to stand up to any scrutiny, particularly from an economic perspective. In the media, many commentators were citing neoliberal economics as one of the main causes of this rise in right-wing populism. Not having any idea of what that actually meant I started reading some of the popular political commentators: Robert Peston’s WTF; Finton OToole on Heroic Failure; and Ian Dunt’s What the Hell Happens Now? I discovered Yanis Varoufakis’s, Adults in the Room, which was a great eye-opener for the workings of the European Union.

Austerity

The first time I saw the 2015 movie The Big Short I found it somewhat confusing with all the references to financial derivatives such as Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs). It was only after reading Robert Peston’s How Do We Fix This Mess? that the shocking reality of what happened in 2008 became clear. The financial system was built on debt and required the subsequent bail out of the banks. Labour chancellor Gordon Brown then embarked on his ‘balancing the budget’ austerity programme, which continued under subsequent Tory administrations. This has been the main factor in the effective decline in living standards (real earnings) in recent times, particularly for those on low incomes. Brown had constantly claimed that, with his policy of sticking to tight inflation targets, the age of boom-to-bust economics was over – so much for that prediction.

New Hope

I joined the Labour Party in 2018, attracted by their new manifesto which promised to reverse some of the Tory and previous Labour sell-offs of public utilities. Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell promised a more cooperative and democratic economy starting with a limited programme of renationalisation, a National Bank, increased spending on the welfare state, increasing corporation tax, reducing student tuition fees and scrapping Trident. These seemed at the time to be a great reason to sign up to Labour.

However, as a leader Corbyn came over as indecisive and easily undermined by many on the rightwing of the parliamentary party. This indecision, exemplified with his position on Brexit and accusations of antisemitism, established him as weak in the eyes of the public and an easy target for the media.

The election result in December 2019 and the collapse of the Labour vote in Labour’s key heartlands of the North gave the green light for a centrist takeover and the marginalisation of the Left.

I started reading economic theorists such as Stiglitz, Krugman, Piketty and Ha Joon Chang, authors of several texts on the crisis facing neoliberal, free-market capitalism. They all suggest state interventionist methods to reform the system to prevent this recurrent boom-to-bust cycle and rise in inequality. What they don’t seem to want to admit is that these Keynesian reformist methods have been tried many times in the past and as yet haven’t managed to prevent the boom-to-bust cycles which repeat every few years.

A social-democratic Labour Party can’t achieve its expressed aim of liberty, equality and fraternity by reforming capitalism. The capitalist ethic of dog-eat-dog, grow-or-die is diametrically opposed to a truly democratic, mutual, caring, equal and ecological society.

Discovering socialism

My awareness of socialism started when an old friend suggested I read some Murray Bookchin. Bookchin, an American theorist from New York, has written copiously on everything Left and has certainly shaped my ideas since reading his books and essays. The material on YouTube from Richard Wolff, Double Down News and alternative media like Counter Punch and Byline Times have also helped shape my views.

Having previously been a member of the Anti-Nazi League as a student I had some knowledge of the SWP and so thought they might be worth having a look at. I attended a few online discussions to get an idea of where the party stood against my view of socialism. It soon came apparent that they have a strict ideological commitment to a Leninist/Trotskyist interpretation of Marx. I didn’t feel comfortable with this, being aware that this revolutionary approach of overthrowing the state has always led to state capitalism, not socialism.

On Google using the search string ‘list of socialist parties in the UK’, then following the most popular result, Wikipedia; a huge list of parties is revealed. Browsing through the list you come across around 20 allegedly socialist (non-capitalist) organisations. I checked out those and found most were in the same mould as the Trotskyist SWP or supporters of the Labour Party.

But the SPGB welcome page is clearly laid out with a straightforward statement of Party goals. The Party’s declaration of key socialist principles is clear: common ownership, democratic control and free access to goods and services. This contrasts markedly with other so-called socialist parties where a lot of policy is hidden. The website also had a wealth of well-researched articles and literature; all this encouraged me to join one of the online meetings to find out more.

After attending a few meetings and reading the literature I decided to join. What particularly struck me was the requirement to complete a questionnaire. A little bit intimidating at first compared to entering your address and credit card details to join the Labour Party. However, as an option you can just answer the questions over a call should you so wish.

Having been in the Party for just a few months, I was quite surprised when some of the experienced hands asked me to write about myself and what motivated me to join the Party. However, support and helpful advice was at hand. Just a word too on the informal online group meetings through Discord which are run twice a week. They give you a chance to learn new stuff and discuss current issues with like-minded people in a friendly environment.

The party is democratically organised in small groups and branches rather than being focused on direct action, public demonstrations and confrontation with the state, and I would heartily recommend anyone with like-minded views to join.

Nick Sampays

Why I left CND (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

I was one of the enthusiastic teenage supporters of CND who took part in the 1964 Easter March. That was the last year I marched, because by Easter 1965 I had ceased supporting CND and had become a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

It is difficult to recall when I first became attracted to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. I think I was automatically thrown into sympathy with it by the foolish outlook of many of its fiercest opponents. I was visiting London one Easter, saw the March pass through Trafalgar Square and was surprised by the huge number of marchers. Later I bought CND pamphlets from a “Communist” bookshop. One in particular impressed me—Win We Must by Bertrand Russell. This decided me to join my local CND group.

I went on public demonstrations, sold the CND organ Sanity and frequently argued about war with members of the public. As well as arguments with supporters of the deterrent theory (the “we’ve-got-to-have-it-as-long-as-theyve-got-it” gang) there were arguments within CND. One of the biggest blows to the “Peace Movement” was the Moscow Test Ban Treaty, after which it became an unsurprising experience to hand someone a pamphlet and be told; “Haven't you heard, mate? They’ve already banned it?”

From the outset one of the biggest weaknesses of CND was that its supporters had no clear idea of what it was all about, and where they did have clear ideas, these were in opposition to the clear ideas of other supporters. I don't mean that they were altogether ignorant of the facts of nuclear war. Quite the contrary: the public image of the CND supporter who wears the badge merely because of the dope-peddling and copulation on the Easter March is mostly fiction. I found the average active CND man was better informed about politics than his opponent. What I do mean is that the objects and principles of CND were not always very precise, and where they were there always existed sections of the supporters which were trying to extend them or tone them down. CND has no official membership, and supporters include Pacifists, Anarchists, “Communists,” Trotskyists, Conservatives, Labourites and Liberals—plus many other groups, and even more who have no party affiliation. Each of these sections accepts the principle of leadership, in fact approval of this principle is axiomatic to CND policy. Naturally, therefore, each section tries to pull in its direction the entire organisation.

Perhaps the main broad division is between what we could call the Pacifist-Anarchist wing, and those more interested in the preservation of Britain as a matter of expediency. I was definitely in the latter camp. On the Pacifist side it was pointed out that nuclear weapons were no longer the most fearsome available, and that as weapons of war could not be rigidly classified on the basis of destructive power it was not reasonable to see the banning of some weapons as more important than the banning of the rest of them. I can now see there was more in these arguments than I had supposed. H-bombs are NOT to be seen as divorced from other sorts of armaments. They have their own particular features but there is no longer anything peculiar about their destructive powers. They are simply weapons. They cannot be lifted out of the context of weapons as a whole, neither can weapons be lifted out of the context of the social system which produces them. This was one of the many awkward questions left to fester in my mind, slapped down for the moment with the stop-gap argument that nuclear weapons should be especially opposed because they were not only a means of war, but also—due to the “instant retaliation" policies of Russia and the US and the probability of war by accident—a possible cause of it.

The Committee of 100 (which is often confused with CND. There is no official connection between the two) began to crystalise an ideology, based on the concept of the “nonviolent society.'’ I dismissed this as mere idealism, though in fact it was the natural corollary of an obvious train of reasoning: we want disarmament. How are we to enforce it? Obviously by something more than a treaty, since treaties can be broken at will. We need something more fundamental. Go on thinking like this for a bit and you will start to consider the cause of war. Had I thought more analytically from the outset and gone straight to the question “What causes war?” instead of wasting time over silly red herrings like disarmament treaties, neutral initiatives, UNO etc., I should never have supported CND. What it comes to is this: if the human race is to survive in peace, the very antagonisms which create war, or even the machinery of war, must be removed.

However, my thoughts 'didn’t follow this chain, because I didn’t accept the first link: that there is no way of enforcing disarmament between nations. I thought it could be done, as outlined in Russell’s Has Man A Future? by means of world government, or at least a super-UN. It should have occurred to me that if we can persuade nations to give up a tremendous part of their sovereignty to a world authority it should be an easy job to get them to perform the' much less demanding task of refraining from annihilating each other.

But this point was glossed over by another piece of Russell’s reasoning which seemed to me perfectly valid at the time: that the interests of nations lay in co-operation. Russell used to say that Russia and America had ninety-nine per cent of their aims in common, and it was silly of them to destroy each other for the sake of the remaining one per cent. He called on the nations to treat the prospect of war as he thought they would the possibility of being exterminated by a comet from outer space—by uniting together to oppose what was threatening them all. By this very analogy he gives the real key to the situation. War is not a comet from outer space. The whole point about war is that it does not come from outer space, but from the social system which exists on Earth.

It is easy for the non-Socialist to fall into the error of thinking that it is in the nation's interest to co-operate. This is because he identifies the nation with the people. In fact the nation is not the people; it is the capitalist class and its machinery of coercion. The people—ninety per cent of them —are not the nation. They are the nation’s employees, the working-class who have no country. It is certainly in the interests of all the peoples of the world to co-operate. But it is not in the interests of all the nations of the world to co-operate. It is not in any nation’s interest to combine with another nation, except to form a supra-national bloc in order more effectively to assault other nations or blocs.

CND supporters stress the importance of “escalation,” and quite rightly so. Escalation is the process by which relatively minor conflicts develop into major conflicts, because of the ever-increasing force which each side finds it necessary to bring into the field to equal and overcome the other. It is a pity people can’t take their realisation of escalation a stage further and see that it is present at the very genesis of war. Military conflict is an escalation from economic conflict. War, it has been said, is fought for vital interests. The trouble is that the same thing is likely to be a vital interest to more than one nation at a time. It is rather naive in these circumstances to discover which nation actually possesses the particular interest (i.e. which nation managed to steal it first) and label the other nation the “aggressor.”

A lot of people talk as though there is nothing really at stake in a war, as though wars were caused by “arrogance" or “hatred” or the desire not to lose face. Russell even compares brinkmanship policies to the American teenagers’ game of “chicken” on the motorways. Surely it should be evident that wars are fought over something, that they are not just misfortunes, that something is at stake.

However at the time when I came into contact with the Socialist Party I was a convinced follower of Russell, of CND and (with reservations) the Labour Party. I first heard of the Socialist Party about four years ago. I saw the name in a Central Government textbook giving voting figures for all the parties at general elections, then I saw the advert in Sanity. I asked a Communist Party friend of mine what the party was, and he replied inaccurately: “The Trots.” Later I met members of the Birmingham branch.

At first I was inclined to scoff. It is somewhat difficult acclimatising oneself to the idea that a party of 600-odd members can be right, and nearly everyone else wrong. I already called myself a Socialist, of course. By this I meant something rather vague, to do with support of the “left-wing” of the Labour Party.

My main objections to the Socialist Party were: first, I thought nationalisation was a step towards Socialism, I saw the increase of state control throughout the world as a praiseworthy thing I ought to support (whether through the Labour Party, the Communist Party or some other body I considered merely a matter of tactics). Second, I could not appreciate the Socialist Party’s opposition to CND and other disarmament groups, which I thought had great potential influence for peace. I would say (as scores of people have said to me since): “Let's make sure of our survival first, then we can decide on the system of society.” (As though the two had nothing to do with each other.)

The answers to these points are, of course, first that state ownership is a device for running society more smoothly in the interests of the capitalist class; second that Capitalism is the cause of modern warfare. Capitalism without war is as absurd a proposition as a deciduous forest without dead leaves.

Any effort expended on reforms is effort unexpended on revolution. When we consider that parties which have started out for revolution and “immediate aims” have ended up with no revolution and immediate aims gone sour, we realise what a wild goose chase the pursuit of reforms is, even if they are connected with something as vital as the possible end of civilisation. The only way to prevent war is to establish Socialism.

Steele. 

Why I Joined the Socialist Party of Canada (1965)

From the 1965 - Number 2 issue of The Western Socialist

While walking that damp and dreary spring evening I came to a shop which, in my mind, sold odd things. At first I was interested in the things I could see in the window, then I looked beyond. After the fancy of what I saw beyond was gone did I suddenly realize there were people in the shop and I wondered what were they doing there.

The next thing I knew a young man came to the door and said, "We are having a socialist meeting. Come in, for you are welcome."

"Good," I said, "for I am also a socialist."

I sat down and (listened to a general discussion that was going on. Finally, the meeting was called to order, and the Chairman said, "This meeting is on behalf of the Socialist Party of Canada." I wondered to myself, "I have never heard of the Socialist Party of Canada."

I listened to what was said and agreed with much of it, but when he said, "Under socialism you do not need money," I thought he was mad.

At long last, he was finished. He said, "We will now have a question and discussion period, as this is part of the Socialist Party of Canada policy."

Asked I, "Mr. Speaker, what will people do without money. What incentive will they have to work?"

He replied, "Today, goods are produced for the profit motive, not for use. They have a use value, but the motivation is profit and not use. Under socialism, goods will be produced for the first time in history for the use and comfort of all mankind." I agreed and could see part of what he said, but as far as I was concerned you still must have money as an incentive. So, anyway, I bought a Western Socialist.

After reading it all, but only understanding a part of what I read, I came to the conclusion they were fairly sound. I had given up on politics as I had been to all types of political meetings and was just fed up with what I heard. My exact promise to myself was: "I am finished with politics forever."

I went back to that shop with the curious things in it and talked about the things I had read in the Western Socialist. We agreed and disagreed. The only conclusion we reached was that we agreed to disagree.

So back I went to my newly purchased reading matter. I found the more I read the more I understood. Finally, I realized they were, oh, so right, in all they wrote and said. I got mad and tore up the literature because it is hard to know the truth. Yes, facing up to reality in life as it really is is a very hard thing to do. Well, after much discussion, reading, thinking and so on. I realized the facts and the facts are these.

Socialist philosophy is not the idea of any one or more people. It has arisen from the problems which confront mankind today and are happening every day, such as poverty in the midst of plenty. Example, paying the farmers not to produce; annihilation of the human race and, whether or not people accept it, we are wage-slaves. The only means we have to live is to sell our mental and physical labour power.

Socialism offers the solution to these problems. But this is still not the reason why I joined the Socialist Party of Canada. Here is the reason.

People, today, judge a man by his wealth and it matters not how he got it, as long as he has it. Now before people can have an understanding of a person for what he is and not what he has, they must have socialism.

Today, the working class are so wrapped up in their own little world, struggling to eke out an existence, they have no time to really think about much else in life, struggling to buy a car, trying to save a little money to have a small amount of what they believe to be security... There is no security under capitalism. There never has been nor will be, but under socialism, where each will give according to his ability and take according to his need, all the goods society can produce will be available for the benefit of man, his comfort and pleasure. He will then have free access to all his material needs and will then have time to look for human relationship fulfilment, a world where men and women alike can be honest, sincere and be what they are, not like today where they are subjected to the will of the people who own the means of production and wealth.

I quote from one of long ago. His name is William Shakespeare. "He who owns the means by which I live owns my very life."

Join with us for freedom — for socialism.

Ronald Yurkoski, 

Toronto

What makes a socialist? (1996)

From the February 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists are not fabricated. They are people who have reached a state of understanding about the society they live in, known as capitalism, and all its attendant problems and iniquities. Out of understanding arises the desire to forge an alternative, a new society free society from poverty, oppression, war, apathy . . . So what does make a socialist? What makes a mind reject the disreputable and repugnant basis of capitalism and opt instead to follow the course of sanity and logic in committing itself to the ideal of socialism? So let's hypothesise for a moment.

Let's take the case of a young person, newly enfranchised, who in 1983 decides to vote Conservative. Within the narrow scope of capitalist thinking this may seem to be a sensible option, the Tories ostensibly being the party most likely to run the economy efficiently, with their free-market philosophy and sound business policies. Labour of course are simply out to disrupt industry and nationalise anything that isn't growing wild, and on top of that they're in the pocket of the unions.

So our new voter is quite happy with his choice, apart from one or two niggling doubts. Being a fair-minded person, he is perturbed at the great variations in the amounts of wealth that accrue to different levels of society, but of course enterprise and hard work are always rewarded.

The miners' strike

Then in 1984, comes the miners' strike, the last great showdown between organised labour and the capitalist establishment. Our voter is partisan, and condemns the reckless behaviour of the striking miners while praising the actions of the strike-breakers. The strikers have of course been duped by NUM leader Scargill's spurious claims of a few pit closures; the idea that the government had any plans for the decimation of the coal industry was of course preoposterous.

Then comes a turning point. Our voter (who let's say lives in a coal-mining area which is fully in support of the strike) is involved in a discussion about the strike between a few colleagues at work. One of the contributors, a union representative, defends the strikers against criticism regarding tactics used against the police. He points out that with the threat of pit closures the dispute differs from many others because it is an attempt to defend the livelihood of miners and their families, and to protect the communities they live in.

If there can ever be an equivalent for an atheist of "seeing the light", then this is it for our voter. he begins to realise that his support for the Conservative Party is misplaced, and to think that only the unions and the Labour Party will fight for his interests. Having diverted his thinking on to a new track, he begins to ask more and more pertinent questions, the principal one being "why do we need money?" Why indeed. It is gradually becoming clear that society isn't merely flawed, it is utterly insane and full of paradoxes. Our voter concludes that money has become a barrier to equal and free distribution of wealth. Why else would there be people starving when the EC destroys or stores food it can't sell? Why else are there unemployed builders and yet thousands of homeless people? Why are people dying of curable diseases when there are ample resources and workers to help the,?

Our voter, now turned sceptic, hasn't quite arrived at the answer to these questions, and in the meantime inquires about joining the Labour Party. Fortunately before he does so, he spots a small advertisement in the back of a magazine. The advertisement is offering free literature published by an organisation unknown to our sceptic—the Socialist Party. He replies to the ad, and is astounded to find that the ideas espoused by the Socialist Party precisely coincide with conclusions he has reached independently.

That is but one example of how a person may become a socialist. As you've probably guessed, the story is not hypothetical; it was my own experience. I thought it worth recounting here to demonstrate that even someone as dogmatic as an electronic rottweiler can grow to understand what and who is really calling the shots in our lives.

Hope and understanding

What really makes a socialist is not wool (thought wool is often applied in the visual region to deceive us), or indoctrination, or deception, or proselytisation. The making of a socialist can be attributed only to the utilisation of one of the most fundamental faculties of the human brain: the ability to reason—to ask "why?" Why do things have to be this way? And by simply asking the question, you have already partly answered it: things are the way they are not because it is unavoidable but because we, the dispossessed working class, allow them to be.

Nick Brunskill  

How I became a Socialist (1977)

From the December 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looking back, I can see that I was nearly a middle-of-the-road floating voter, swayed by whichever tricky-slick talker promised me the most in the shortest possible time—be he Conservative, Liberal, Labour, Communist or whatever. How your head swims at election times when all the MPs and prospective MPs are in top gear! All they need, they say, is to get into Power and everyone's worries will be over. What bloody optimists!

I was born and live in Stoke-on-Trent, the grimy industrial city somewhere in the middle of England. And take it from me, the air isn't much less murky now that can be seen in those old photographs taken during the bottle-kiln days. It's just that when you live in a certain kind of atmosphere for most of your life you tend to take it for granted. It's only on a return to the Potteries after a day in the country or seaside that you notice what a depressing place it is.

Like most people, I grew up with ambitions of becoming someone famous—great footballer, pop star, TV personality, anything that would make me plenty of money, enable me to live a life of luxury. Then BUMP! I left school. Oh yes, marvellous at first, money in my pocket, high hopes of climbing from the lowly dogsbody of junior employee to the dizzy pinnacle of Chairman. "It can be done," they drill into you. But of course, the time comes when reality seeps in—no matter how hard you try to thwart its progress. At that point you take a stone-cold look around. And what do you see? Thousands and thousands of ordinary people just like you, dreaming exactly the same impossible dreams, people who you come to fear and regard as competitors—or putting it in its sober perspective, deadly enemies. You grow to hate them, despise every penny they make more than you, completely unaware that you are giving life-blood to the system that thrives on such emotions.

Then came the time when I gave up such hopes of becoming somebody and settled down to accept my lot. But when I'd reached this stage I became frightened: no overstatement, I can assure you. I saw myself in five years, ten, twenty, thirty, maybe even longer, working at the same place, doing the same job week in week out. It's enough to make anybody contemplate suicide if dwelt upon. So what was the answer? Change jobs. I trued that: clerk, factory worker, labourer, cleaner. Still I had that nagging sensation that something wasn't right. So what was the answer? I couldn't see one. I tried to tell myself that there are people a lot worse off than me, people dying of starvation, homeless, living in poverty. But that type of negative thinking gave no lasting satisfaction but led to questioning more deeply the whole set-up, adding even more questions to my tired mind. Questions like: Why are people starving? Why are people homeless? That's when I turned my hopes for a solution towards the field of politics.

Being a city of mines, pot-banks and other factories, it's not surprising that the Labour Party has held a monopoly in Stoke. The false, though understandable, theory is that as most people in the area "labour" for a living, it follows that the "Labour" Party have their interests at heart. I was no exception in arriving at this conclusion, helped by the older generation's barrage of remarks to the effect that Labour was on the side of the underdog. (When I think of the breath I've wasted in the past defending such notions myself, I honestly struggle not to blush, even in an empty room.)

Anyhow, I was then a Labour man, and with my vote helped the LP into Power. The slow realization crept over me that the Labour Party dealt in nothing more tangible than promises.

Facade

Sad and shattered I looked around, increasingly aware of the injustices in the world. I'm too sensitive, I tried to console myself, so started to listen to the Conservatives and Liberals, but for all their expressions of sincerity I could see through the facade. There's no difference between the lot of 'em, just various methods of giving nothing, So what's left? The Communists: I inquired of a couple of self-confessed reds but there seemed to be no clear aim. "Overthrow the Government! Put our Leaders in power like in Russia!" In fact they were merely another version of all other parties, wanted to dictate to the masses—namely me—what they wanted us to do. That wasn't freedom. 

Dejected I concluded that the world was as it was, that there was nowt anybody could do. There'd always be poverty and starvation. All we could so was to send a few bob when we could afford it to one of the hundreds of charities in the vain hope that we'd relieve the suffering of some poor soul whose belly was forever rumbling. But what satisfaction was there in that when you could see and hear of people spending hundreds of thousands on paintings, jewellery, driving round in chauffeured Rolls, going on cruises of the world three times a year, never having to lift a finger, yet never going short of a thing?

That's how I was feeling when I came across the Socialist Party of Great Britain in an advert in the Socialist Worker, the organ of the then International Socialists, a so-called left-wing group, whatever that might mean. It was the first time I'd heard of such organizations as IS, testifying to my ignorance of how the world revolved. I bought the paper in the hope that it would shed some light on how to get a better deal from life. It offered little hope at all, concerned itself mainly with slagging off the other political parties, not even sparing the Labour Party who it urged people to vote for. Very confusing! The little hope turned out to be the small advert asking the reader whether he would like to see One World, a classless, moneyless system of society based on the common ownership of land, buildings, means of production, ect., and democratically controlled by free individuals. Sounded like a set of cranks to me. Still, what had I got to lose? I'd tried everything else so I sent off for literature.

Suspicious 

Naturally, the proposition of a world without money and of co-operative human beings put to a person in a state of mind whereby he thinks things can never alter and is suspicious of all politics seems ludicrous. What about human nature? Who'd do the work? Surely there'd be leaders to influence and coerce people? All these questions and many more come to mind to batter these mad views. How else can you react when right from childhood you've been conditioned into thinking purely in terms of money, buying, selling, competition, winning, etc.

Gradually, after reading the straightforward articles which explained how nearly every problem on earth is caused primarily because of the system known as capitalism that we live under, it dawned on me that not only was such a new system desirable—indeed essential—it was so easily possible with majority understanding.

At last here was hope for the future, something positive to aim for, I'd broken free from the muddled thinking of my past, un-brainwashed myself from the conditioning we are all subject to. What a sense of enlightenment! And what's more gratifying is that I am now in the knowledgeable position of being able to urge you to do the same, to find out about the REAL Socialism of the SPGB and its companion parties abroad.

It's a fact that the world we live in is sickening but it need not be so. Don't just accept things as they are. Do a little enquiring, question all you see and hear, and you'll discover that Socialism is the ONLY way of making life a pleasure instead of a burden!

Paul Breeze