Confusion at the T.U.C. (1951)

From the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

When we were very young the gramophone was in its early stages. It was called the phonograph, it had tubular records instead of discs and each record, when played, ended with the spoken words, “Edison Bell Record.” We were reminded of this when we read the reports of the speeches at this year’s Trade Union Congress. For a number of years, since the end of the last war, in fact, the speeches of the “ big shots” at the T.U.C. have followed the same theme. So marked is the repetition that, as we concluded the report of each speech we felt like saying, “ Edison Bell Record.” Again, this year, as in previous years, unofficial strikes were denounced, support for the Government’s armament programme was urged, the Communists were castigated, increased production was demanded, continued austerity was forecast, and workers were warned to be moderate with their demands for wage increases.

The 83rd Trade Union Congress was held in Blackpool early in September this year and was attended by 917 delegates. The president, Mr. Alfred Roberts, in his opening speech, said nothing original. One has the impression that he read the speeches of his recent predecessors in the presidency and rehashed them with a slight variation of emphasis.

There was a minor revolt on the first day of the Congress when delegates voted for a reduction in the time allowed for speeches from members of the General Council and from fraternal delegates, thus allowing more time for general discussion. But, on the second day, following a bombardment from the General Secretary, Sir Vincent Tewson, the delegates rescinded the decision and gave back to the General Council the privilege of longer speeches. Sir Vincent said that the Council members needed the time to acquaint the delegates with all the facts before they made decisions. He did not give many facts in his speech on that occasion but hinted mysteriously of “certain people who cause the trouble” and “arrangements that took place outside the conference.”

The debate on foreign affairs developed into a battle between groups of delegates and the General Council,—”the floor against the platform,” as Sir Vincent had previously expressed it There were a number of resolutions, including one of over 250 words, but the General Council ruled the roost and its critics were defeated. The resolutions were a series of protests and appeals. A protest against the resumption of diplomatic relations with Spain, an appeal to abolish the atom bomb, a protest against the re-arming of Germany and Japan, an appeal for trade with Russia, and so on.

Of course, Sir Arthur Deakin—sorry, Mr. Arthur Deakin was there. We apologise for that slip of the pen. We are so used to having our Trade Union chiefs “honoured” by the representatives of the capitalist class that we were a little premature and lumped Mr. Deakin with his peers, Lord Citrine, Sir William Lawther and Sir Vincent Tewson. As Mr. Deakin has been elected president of the T.U.C. for the ensuing year he becomes an odds-on favourite for the next honours list. He treated Congress to his usual tirade against “reds” and Communists to the delight of some of the delegates who baited him. His anti-red mania has become a joke amongst Trade Unionists.

A new gang of critics of the General Council were present at the T.U.C. this year—the supporters of Mr. Bevan. These Bevan-ites were greatly discomforted by the support they received from Communists and by the insistence of some of the speakers on confusing them with the Communists. The confusion is easily understandable. The criticisms of both groups were so trivial 'and so far removed from the fundamental problems of the working class that neither of them is deserving of even the doubtful compliment of being termed rebellious.

The visiting high-light to this years Congress was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gaitskell. Prior to Mr. Gaitskell’s visit, some members of the General Council had reluctantly admitted the need for wage increases. But the Chancellor gave a warning. He said:—

“The cost of living here will go on rising in 1952, even with stable world prices, if we go on pushing up our costs through further substantial rises in wages and salaries. That is what we must avoid." (Manchester Guardian, 5.9.1951.)

He was full of warnings. He warned of the need to cut home production in favour of exports, he warned of the impact of rising prices on “our” balance of payments and he warned that fear and inertia was making our lives “thinner, poorer, harder and more burdensome than need be.” There you are, fellow workers, do not be frightened, work harder, cast off inertia and life will be fatter, richer, softer and oh, so cosy. Or will it?

The Chancellor talked of profits and dividends. He said that the total profit income of companies and public corporations had risen just over two and a half times between 1938 and 1950. He continued by claiming that the profits were taxed so that dividends had not risen so much and he concluded that part of his address by saying that he could not state that high profits had been an important cause of the rise in the cost of living. Naturally, Mr. Gaitskell, naturally! Such a statement would destroy the time-worn argument. that it is wage increases that cause rises in the cost of living.

The real plum in Mr. Gaitskell’s address, the real juicy tit-bit, came when he referred to the need for a more even distribution of property. To achieve this even distribution he suggested, ,

“. . .  some form of partnership by the workers in individual firms or industry through the distribution of bonus shares reflecting the rise in undistributed profits." (The Times. 6.9.1951.)

This is magnificent. It is novel. It is unique. Such acumen, such wisdom. A Daniel come to judgment. Yea, a Daniel. The Conservative Party has been talking about a “property owning democracy” for years; the Liberal Party has made co-partnership in industry its main plank for the past three years. Now comes Mr. Gaitskell to join hands with them in proclaiming this panacea for working class ills.

Co-partnership in industry has been tried in a number of fields at various times. The most noteworthy were the schemes of the gas companies and Lever Brothers at Port Sunlight. The object of such schemes is not to re-distribute property, but to encourage the workers to take a keener interest in the firm or undertaking whch employs them. They are expected to work harder to produce greater profits so that their share is larger. They are expected to do away with all restrictive practices, not to strike, to accept a minimum wage, in fact to tolerate all sorts of things in the interest of the undertaking in which they are co-partners. The share that the worker gets is so infinitesimal that it does not, or has not up to now, had the desired effect. The gas companies were probably the most generous in their co-partnership scheme. It is claimed that they devoted half the invested capital to profit sharing. When one considers the number of employees amongst whom this part of the profit had to be shared, and the much smaller number of investors who shared the other part, it gives a picture of the worth of such schemes to the workers. The benefit is to the employer who can use the idea of the co-partner to discipline his employees.

The Trade Unions in this country have never shown an interest in co-partnership schemes and Mr. Gaitskell had a cheek to make such a suggestion at the T.U.C. But there, fools step in where angels fear to tread. Trade Unionists who can swallow die rubbish that is handed out them by the Labour Party supporters may also fall for this idea. All it amounts to is an incentive bonus for greater production and a means to check wage increase demands.

Another screwy batch of proposals came from the General Secretary when he put forward a six point plan for peace.

His plan was that Russia should adopt the following six points,

1. Put the last touches to the Austrian treaty.
2. Let up on the people of Berlin.
3. Return the prisoners of war still held six years after the end of hostilities.
4. Wind up the Cominform.
5. Co-operate actively within the United Nations and cease making a fetish of the veto.
6. Co-operate in many specialised agencies of the United Nations—on economic, health and education issues and the I.L.O. (Daily Herald, 6.9.1951.)

All of which the Russian Government could agree to do and still declare war the following day, or have war declared against it the same day. Such tickling of the war problem is pitiful. There are numbers of workers who have not achieved Sir Vincent’s exalted position, who could tell him that the cause of war is deeper than these trimmings, that the conditions that his six points seek to remedy are the result of war, not the cause, and that to eradicate war from society the cause must be dug out by the roots.

The Congress went through its week arguing about industrial illnesses, children employed on the stage, bulk purchasing by the Government, National Health Insurance spectacles, the film industry, education of trade unionists, equal pay for women, and concluded its business with the usual votes of thanks and the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.” No. Not “The International” nor “The Red Flag,” just “Auld Lang Syne.”

Having appealed, urged and protested for a week the delegates went their several ways. The General Council? We hope they will not be bothered by ghosts from the 1926 or other bygone General Councils. What a set-up in the Trade Union world. If the workers continue to support Labour Government, the sting is taken out of their trade union struggles; if they use their unions as fighting machines they have to fight Labour Government. The solution to this queer contradiction is not to be found in Mr. Gaitskell’s proposal to re-distribute property but in the Socialist proposition to abolish private ownership in the means of production, and to make land, mines, factories, workshops, ships, road transport, air transport, warehouses, docks, garages—all the means of production—free of ownership, either by individuals, companies, public undertakings or the state.

W. Waters

Reflections on images (1961)

From the November 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Gaitskell has been saying it again. This time, it was at a meeting at Blackpool, organised by Socialist Commentary during the last Labour Party Conference. Perhaps the Labour leader was joking. Perhaps he was trying to cheer everybody up. Or perhaps he was serious. Anyway, he said it. He denied that the Tories have the predominant appeal to the electorate and added: “I think the Labour Party at the moment has a tremendous opportunity which I hope it will grasp.”

Now what must have struck the audience was that this is the sort of optimistic statement which political leaders are always putting out and which mean exactly nothing. The Labour Party reckoned that they were full of hopeful expectation just before Eden trounced them in 1955, and again when Macmillan came out on top two years ago. It is, in fact, curious that on one occasion when they did win, and with a thumping majority, there is evidence that they were not particularly optimistic. Mr. Shinwell once said that, although he expected the landslide victory in 1945, most of the other Labour leaders took a gloomier view of their chances. Naturally, nobody expects Mr. Gaitskell to say that he is looking forward to losing the next election and that there isn’t really much point in all this arguing about election programmes because the Conservatives already have it in the bag. When he muses upon the Labour Party’s great opportunities and the success which he says is in their grasp we know that, whether he is right or wrong, he is saying what he is compelled to by the necessities of his situation.

For Mr. Gaitskell must project an image of his party to the electorate Labour are out for power over the affairs of British capitalism and to get this they do not have to educate or enlighten people. They only have to persuade enough voters that they are the cleverest, most responsible, most humane bunch of would be ministers in the land. And, of course, the most successful. Most politicians must be attached to the slogan “Nothing, succeeds like success.” Like the salesman who tells you that his product must be good because it sells so well, the political leader must always strive to give the impression that their fortunes are set fair. It is all part of the business of projecting an image.

It does not end there, as we saw at the last Labour Party Conference. This year’s conference rejected once again the idea that they are a party of wholesale nationalisation. Let us say right away that nationalisation is not, and never was, anything more than an alternative method of organising capitalism. But the Labour pioneers used to cling to it as the cure-all for capitalism’s ailments. We may depend on it that they would have castigated Mr. Gaitskell for his milk and water version of their favourite potion. Yet in doing so they would be ignoring the reasons for the Labour Party going back upon itself. Nationalisation, which might have had a brief fling as a vote-getter just after the war, is now an electoral liability. The theme of Mr. Gaitskell’s great battle over Clause Four was his realisation that the surest way to lose votes was to declare for outright nationalisation. True, Gaitskell lost his battle over the clause. But his party’s attitude to State control has changed and to that extent so has their public image.

We also saw at Blackpool—as we expected to see—the Labour Party break off its short flirtation with the unilateralists. Now that was a vote loser if you like. The nuclear disarmers are a small minority in the population—so small that there is no point, in them testing their policy in a parliamentary election. It seems certain that if the Labour Party were to tie themselves permanently to C.N.D., it would not be long before they were counting their members in thousands instead of the hundreds of, thousands of today. That may not worry a party of rigid principle, but for those who are bothered about getting power before anything else, it is a different matter.

Then there is the little business of strikes and this, sadly for Mr. Gaitskell, is something which cannot be shaken off by a conference resolution. There are a lot of political correspondents who think that the London bus strike in 1958 did more damage to the Labour Party in the 1959 election than anything else. We all know why they are associated in the popular mind with strikers. The Labour Party built itself on a foundation of working class sympathy. At one time their members were proud to be at the head of the Jarrow marchers, to wear cloth caps to the Commons, to be militant trade unionists. Inevitably, strikers looked to the Labour Party for support and strikes became part of the party’s image.

That was all very well in the old days, when Labour were climbing to power; it’s very different now. Firstly, if they get into power over British capitalism, strikes are going to be a nuisance which they will have to deal with, just like 1945/50 all over again. Secondly, large numbers of workers regard strikes as stupid, or anti-social, or the work of layabouts, and so suspect a political party which they connect with them. This notion seems to be stubbornly held. If it were not, surely it would have been squashed by the stern anti-strike measures of the 1945 Labour government? Whatever the evidence, however much Mr. Gaitskell may soothe and reassure, no matter what his party may write in their manifestos, the idea will stay in working class heads. Strikes equal Labour. Labour equals strikes. This is the sort of thing which is so bad for the image which Mr. Gaitskell is trying to project.

For the Labour Party now wants to appear a moderate, adaptable party, ready to manage British capitalism without any complications like political theories. There is only one theory of management that is worth anything to capitalism, and that is that the system is administered in the interests of the capitalist class. Unless the Labour Party can convince enough workers that they conform to that theory they are out, and will stay out.

The Tories have fewer worries on this score. True, they have their wild men— the people described by one Labour Party delegate as “hangers, floggers and let’s-ban-the-woggers.” But there is little political kudos for the Labour Party in this. For many workers, among all their other false ideas, support-capital and corporal punishment and, although they may not practice a colour bar, in fact regard Negroes as inferior beings and would agree to some control on immigration. Here is one of the Conservative’s trump cards. Whatever mistakes they may make, however black their record, they always seem to have enough of what it takes to ride their storms and to touch the responses of the working class. This is ironical, in a party which so openly stands for the privileges and inequalities of capitalism. Perhaps it is the Tories’ empirical attitude which does the trick. Perhaps it is political flair. It could be that they are very clever, or that the working class are excessively stupid and forgetful. Whatever the reason for it, the fact is that the Tory image is a successful one.

The two great parties are not alone in worrying about their public image. Every day, everywhere, we are meeting the same thing. We see it in the advertisements which, since the days of fuller employment came to this country, have adopted an especially irritating image type. Now the earnest, well groomed, rising young executive is the chap who buys the right car, uses the right sort of after-shave and knows which wine will not upset his boss. We meet the image on radio and television, with everybody striving to convince themselves that capitalism’s all right and that what really matters is that, as the girl once said to Wilfred Pickles: “. . . people—are nice—to—people.” This is the theme, too, of the newspapers with their unctuous human interest stories telling us about rock ‘n’ roll stars who still love their deaf grandmothers, or rich greengrocers who would swap it all for the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

Irritating and shameful as this may be, it should lead us to the bigger question of why it should happen at all. The answer is that the image men always project an impression of general satisfaction with capitalism. The people who are depicted as wholesome and confident are, after all, supporters of a social system which has produced the terror and insecurity of the modern world. And if we accept their standards the one thing we shall never do is to question the whys and wherefores of capitalism.

That leads us to an even bigger question. Are we satisfied with the terror and insecurity? Are we satisfied with being treated like mental infants who will be impressed by any vapid image that the politicians or the ad-men like to squirt at us?

The working class could rise above this. They could develop their social consciousness so that the political and commercial images lose their appeal. They could do this—in fact, they must do it, if there is to be hope of solving the world’s problems. But there is no reason for the capitalist class to help in this. No matter; let us leave them with their images. We should be tackling hard, material reality.  

Ivan

How well is the "Welfare State"? (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from August Socialist Standard).

The reader of the previous articles under this title will have seen that all is not well in the “Welfare State.” It is, besides, significant that more often than not, the term is applied sarcastically, as a joke. If the writer quoted the pattern of Austria, this is only because of his first-hand information on a country with a reputation for, and boasting of, its social welfare schemes, even though equally frequent criticisms of its social evils flatly contradict the praise.

Thus a recent Vienna daily paper wrote: “We still have a fearful housing problem, with all the social evils and misery resulting therefrom. No long queues of automobiles, no fine facades, and no richly stocked and brilliantly illuminated shop windows should deceive us about the ugly pictures behind. Despite the enormous economic progress of the last few years, Austria is not yet among the well-to-do of this earth ” . . . "Let us carry the wave of readiness to help which we showed towards the Hungarian refugees, into our own land. Let us, when the appalling need of the neighbour has been alleviated, clear away our own misery! ” What? Misery in the Welfare State, of which the "socialist” Sozial-minister Proksch says: "The Welfare State brings welfare to everybody and therewith guarantees well-being to every citizen.”

Money for the Salzburg Festival

When the “socialist” Vice-chancellor was touring the country in a campaign to get himself elected as federal president, he discovered to what he called his "astonishment” that in addition to the large depressed areas of Lower Austria and the Burgenland, there are “depressed areas” also in Carinthia and in the province of Salzburg which had not directly suffered from Russian depredations and loot. In winter one-third of all insured persons are without work there. The burgomasters who had come to listen to the candidate, told him of their cares and their troubles. "When I am in Salzburg,” said one of them, "I see work proceeding on the Festival Playhouse; it is very nice, but when I come home and see the cows standing knee deep in water, because of the lack of protective river embankments against floods, which turn roads into an impassable quagmire, I ask myself whether there really is no money for us. Every day tractors have to haul out autos stuck in the mire.” (Millions throughout the world might ask themselves similar questions when they read of the astronomical sums spent on armaments, and that a small clique of parasites can live in luxury and idleness in the fine resorts of the world while the people everywhere are grappling with terrible housing problems and sink daily deeper into the quagmire of their misery). Similar conditions obtain in other countries, regardless of whether they are kingdoms, republics, democratic or totalitarian, whether they falsely style themselves Socialist or Communist, or what you will. The ruler of all of them is King Capital, with his retinue of privileged drawers of rent, interest and profit, and leaving to the mass of the people the residue, of poverty and misery. To those who want a distinction to be made between this and the other side of the iron curtain, here is what it amounts to:—

Two Sides of the Iron Curtain

Economically, the iron heel of capitalism treads and exploits the workers in the West as in the East, differences of standards of living notwithstanding. Whether private owners of property and bond-holders of nationalised industries use their wealth for the purpose of living on rent, interest and profit (the surplus-value wrung from the workers), as in the West, or whether all the surplus-value is exclusively collected, controlled and disposed of by a clique of usurpers of power, ruling by means of their secret police and the armed forces, as in the East, makes little, if any, difference to the exploited—the working class. The latter are without property anyway on either side of the iron curtain, and have to exist on the sale of their labour-power to the employers. And on BOTH sides the State disposes, as it thinks fit, of the wealth and the surplus value (exacted either direct from the industries or by taxation), a huge amount of it going, of course, to the maintenance of its coercive machinery: the judiciary, the police, and the armed forces.

Politically, the iron heel of capitalism crushes the critic and the opponent of the powers that be in the East by deportation to forced labour camps, prison or death; to the West by sacking him from his job, and so exposing him to pauperism.

King Capital still rules

Labour leaders and “communists” may prattle of past "proletarian revolutions," of “Declarations of the rights of man," of “social justice." The much boasted “Rise of the working class" finds the workers still on their knees before their master: Capital. He looks down upon them and only smiles a superior smile at assertions that he is supposed to be dead and done. And when last year in Hungary some of his infuriated victims attacked and felled to the ground a monument to one of King Capital’s particularly brutal and obnoxious defenders, thunder and lightning struck the earth, and the world still reverberates from the impact. 200,000 had to flee for their lives and others paid and are still paying, the penalty for their foolhardy desecration and blasphemy, and for their illusions.

No, the “Rise of the working-class" (which should more appropriately be called “the rise of the labour leader") and the socialism of the “Socialist International" has not affected the rule of capital and money. Kings, ex-kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, Indian and Arabian potentates, big land-owners, shipowners, and other millionaire industrialists and magnates, bishops and popes still live in their sumptuous castles and palaces, leading lives of luxury and idleness. They need not fear for their property and privileges as long as the working-class vote for the Gaitskells and the Bevans, as they did for the Attlees and Ramsay MacDonalds, and their colleagues on the Continent, the Guy Mollets, the Spaaks, the Ollenhauers, the Neeuis, the Schaerfs, and the rest of the lackeys of capital. Labour leaders now contribute their plans and suggestions to the so-called “Disarmament" talks in London and thereby demonstrate to the capitalist class that they are at least equal to, or claim to do better than the other statesmen in an effort to save the big Powers' talks from final breakdown. Like all the other statesmen, the “International Socialists" assembled in Vienna to July did not even mention the Cause of the multitude of problems confronting the world, but tendered advice to the Powers. They “viewed with deep concern the continued tension among the big Powers. A glance at the centres of tension in Europe, North Africa, in the Middle and Far East, confirms in a shocking manner the uninterrupted threat to, and violation of, the principles of self-determination of the peoples, the danger to the holy and unassailable rights of the personality, of freedom and social justice." (Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung, 7/7/1957). We will save the reader from more of the platitudes and claptrap of the Resolution agreed to by this “International Socialist Congress," but what Mr. Gaitskell said in the discussion on the international situation bears repeating and remembering. He called “for a separate agreement not tied to a general disarmament pact, to stop atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions." “It would be wrong," he said, “to make the suspension of tests dependent on a ban on nuclear weapons, although Socialists wanted this too."

So today it is disarmament and atom-control, tomorrow it will probably be a crusade against, or for. Colonialism (with the French “socialist" Guy Mollet for, and the Austrian “Marxist," Dr. Benedikt Kautsky, against), or any other problem facing the capitalist class. Kautsky describes England and France as the “sick men of Europe," and advocates the eradication of the last trace of colonialism, if the “unification of Europe" is to be achieved. Now Germany was unified before the war, America achieved its unification long ago, but has this solved the social problem? Is it really too much to ask of a “Marxist" to try advocating the eradication of capitalism for the solution of its problems?

It is a pity that Kautsky cannot persuade his comrade Mollet to write off the (French) colonial empire, as Holland has done, according to Kautsky, with such conspicuous success that it is “one of the economically healthiest states on the Continent." Millions of natives in the liberated colonies will probably still be looking for the benefits of having exchanged one clique of exploiters (the foreigner) for another set (the native).

Nonsense about India, Japan, etc.

Under the slogan: “ Like Renner, like Korner," the “Socialist Party of Austria" have been boosting one of their leaders. Dr. Adolf Schärf, for the job of Austrian President, and indeed, if these leaders emulate their predecessors in one thing more than in another, it is in betraying their ignorance of Socialism; or, if they do understand it, in betraying the great cause. If the late Dr. Renner asserted that “two of the greatest empires are already being controlled by the working-class," the S.P. of Austria’s vice-chancellor, back from a world tour, reported to the Party conference that:

“In India Socialism had become a matter of course. Gandhi had made the fundamental ideas of democratic Socialism the common ideal of the Indian people.”

“The Congress Party’s programme can be considered as almost socialistic. Even those who do not want to be Socialists, can no longer do without its ideas.”

Dr. Schärf found “big socialist movements in Nepal and in Pakistan"; to Ceylon the Prime Minister is a “socialist." In Burma the government is under “socialist leadership." In Indonesia one million “socialist" votes were polled at the last election.

Japan was also reported to have its tremendous “socialist" movement. One town—Kioto—with 1½ million inhabitants, has a “socialist" administration— like red Vienna.

Israel has its “socialist" Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion, whose party is the “strongest in the land." Emulating the British Labour Party, which brought in the A-bomb, the Israel “socialist" government is now said to be contemplating its introduction also. Although the Austrian “socialist" Vice-Chancellor was one of the chief promoters of the new Austrian army, there has been no suggestion yet of emulating the big brother across the Channel in the matter of A-bombs. They are apparently content with “conventional weapons"—for the time being, at any rate.

Concluding his report, Dr. Schärf said: “In the wide territories of which I have spoken. Socialism is so strong that even classes whose interests are not represented by Socialism acknowledge its superiority, and endeavour to benefit as much as possible by its ideas."

Ignorant of Socialism

The fact that prominent leaders like those quoted see millions of Socialists throughout the world and Socialism having already become a world power, proves that the misrepresentation of Socialism and the theft of Socialist symbols is either so deeply ingrained as to have made those leaders quite unconscious of their fraud, or that they have never at all understood the implications of the great cause. The dilemma which America presents to these pseudo-Socialists would seem to well bear out the point. Here is a country reputedly not only with a standard of living higher than in any “socialist" or "Welfare State” but also with social services on the European pattern, though denying that these things have anything whatever to do with Socialism. It is a policy of mere self-preservation for capitalism, nothing else. So, with a sneer at those "pundits” who would "represent America as purely capitalistic,” Dr. Scharf attributes it all to Socialist influence, although he has to admit that there is no big Socialist party in America.

Socialists could wish nothing better than that the statements that there are already millions of Socialists throughout the world were true, because the end of capitalism and war would then be within sight; but unfortunately it is not so.

A question that invariably crops up at “International Socialist” and “Communist” Party Conferences is the framing of a declaration of principles. A difficult job indeed for parties without principles, and operating with nothing but capitalist reform programmes fraudulently clothed in vague and distorted Socialist language. So the committees appointed to work out a new party programme usually shelve the task and no more is heard about it

Even when these leaders on occasion vaguely declare their aim to be the “liberation of the peoples and man from their dependency on a minority which owns and controls the means of production,” their actual policy is in direct contradiction to any such aim. The real implications of Socialism are completely ignored, so much so that most workers, when told that under Socialism there could, of course, be no buying and selling, will say that they never heard of it, and call it a Utopia. Yet if Socialism does not mean the end of these things, the word would be meaningless. The writer cannot do better than quote here from the leaflet “Introducing the SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain,” which says:—

“The aim of the S.P.G.B. is to replace Capitalism by a world-wide social system in which the means of production and distribution would cease to be privately owned and would pass to the whole community. This would bring to an end the present competition for markets and sources of raw materials between the different countries that causes international rivalries and leads to war. Under Socialism goods would not be produced for sale and profit but would be produced solely for the use of mankind. All forms of income derived from property (profits, rents and interest) would disappear. The economic problem to be tackled by a Socialist society would be the problem of organising the able-bodied population to cooperate in producing food, clothing, houses, and all the other articles and services needed for the full life of human beings. All persons would have free access to the things they needed, production and distribution being in accordance with the Socialist principle:—'From each according to ability; to each according to need'.”

"Socialism cannot be brought about inside the Capitalist social system. One social system must be replaced by the other and Socialism is necessarily international.”

Rudolf Frank

(To be continued).

Reported in Hansard (1949)

From the September 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Daily Herald” Leaves Something Out

Mr. Oliver Stanley (Conservative, Bristol West): ” . . .  I do not know whether hon. Members noticed a very curious omission only the other day. They will remember, I expect, as it is not very long ago, a little incident which took place on 20th July, when Lord Ammon, who had had a little difference with the Government the day before, made a statement in which he said that the Government had gone crazy. That was on the morning of the 20th. I should have thought that was of considerable news value. It is unusual for a Chief Whip to say things like that, whatever he may think. I am sure the Patronage Secretary will agree with me. It was not unimportant. It was important enough to ensure Lord Ammon the sack within 24 hours. Yet, if we look at the issue of the Daily Herald for 21st July, we shall not find any reference whatsoever to the statement by Lord Ammon.” (Royal Commission on the Press, 28/7/49.)

A Labour Minister on Nationalisation

Mr. Gaitskell (Minister of Fuel and Power): “ . . . First of all, the principle is perfectly clear: nationalised boards must be non-party in character and behaviour. We are all agreed about that, on all sides of the House. They must not take sides for or against any political party, whether it is the Government or the Opposition or, indeed, any other party. That has always been recognised by the Government and by the National Coal Board.” (Debate on Fuel and Power, 26/7/49.)

And Another Labourite on Trade Unions

Mr. Awbery (Labour, Bristol Central): ” . . . The trade union movement and its machinery was established 50 or 60 years ago to deal with circumstances and conditions which existed at that time. I feel that it has outgrown these circumstances and conditions, and that it is necessary for the movement to re-design its organisation to provide for the rapid changes that have taken place during the past few years. There is need for the men in the trade union movement to exercise self-discipline; that is one of the things which must be learned. Discipline shown by men themselves is more powerful than when it is imposed from outside. I appeal to the dockers and other members of the trade unions to exercise this self-discipline. (London Dock Strike, 26/7/49.)

A Capitalist’s Viewpoint

Sir A. Gridley (Conservative, Stockport): “ . . .  I and others like me, as I have said, are very much concerned with the amount of unrest which exists in so many industries of this country at the present time. Not only are Ministers gravely concerned, but I believe that leaders in the T.U.C. are as anxious about it, and I am quite sure that many representative employers are equally concerned. What we want in the grave crisis which confronts us is peace in our time, if I may use that old phrase. We do not want a kind of disturbance like that of the London dockers going on, which is such a disaster to the nation, to employees and to managements. Those of us who have had materials lying in ships in London docks in these last few weeks know full well the consequences of that, because we have not been able to send our products to dollar and other countries. It is in the national interest that we should get together if we can.” (London Dock Strike, 26/7/49.)

London—Russian Version

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Mayhew): ". . . First, I would quote this broadcast by Moscow Radio of an article which appeared in Pravda on 13th July by the well-known commentator, M. Zaslavsky. He commented upon a speech by the Prime Minister in which Fascist and Communist disturbances in London were mentioned. He said:

“In Britain, the Fascist cut-throats, hooligans and bandits, the adherents of Hitler, organised a demonstration against democracy. . . . They were well guarded by the police, but the honest workers who came out into the streets to protest against the instigators of a new war and the revival of Fascism were beaten up, thrown into police torture chambers, tried and imprisoned. Such all-powerful, arbitrary police action is impossible and unthinkable in a true democratic State. The workers were making preparations for the peaceful celebration of international May Day, but the Government said ‘ No ' and the police transformed the town ”

— that is, London— .

“into an armed camp. Armoured cars assembled in front of the workers’ districts. Lines of police waited in full military preparedness. Mothers hid their children so that they should not fall before the merciless bullets of the police of the enemies.” (Jamming of B.B.C. Broadcasts by Russians, 30/7/49.)

[Incidentally, not one word of reference to this Debate appeared in the columns of the Daily Worker.]

Worthy of Record

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): ”. . .  I think I ought first to express the thanks of the community, and those of the Government and the House also, to the troops for the way in which they undertook the duties imposed upon them, not only for their actual service but for the cheerfulness with which they undertook it.” (The Dock Strike, 26/7/49.)

Taunt from a Tory

Earl Winterton (Conservative, Horsham): “In view of the difficulty of training the Army at the present time and of the frequency with which troops have been used in the last year or so in this and similar strikes, will the right hon. Gentleman consider in future adopting the alternative method of calling for civilian volunteers, after a clarion call by the Minister of Labour, singing, for example, ‘ The Red Flag ' ”? (Question Time, 26/7/49.)

Stan Hampson

Editorial: Two budgets (1952)

Editorial from the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Budgets are the concern of the capitalists, not of the working class, though it suits the Labour Party, like the other reformist parties, to pretend otherwise. The workers are not poor because of the Budget, but because the capitalist class own society’s means of production and distribution. It was admitted by the Economist (25th December, 1943) that:—

"1,800,000 persons, who are 7 per cent. of the adult persons in the country, own 85 per cent. of the private property and draw 28 per cent. of the individual incomes of the country."

The Economist said that their readers would be surprised to team this. Why they should be surprised was not explained; this inequality has been a feature of social life in Britain and the rest of the world throughout the capitalist era, and is equally true now despite all the talk of redistribution.

The capitalist State has to meet the cost of its civil service, armed forces and re-armament programmes and all the rest of the organisation necessary to the capitalist system. It does this through taxation the burden of which falls on the shoulders of those who alone can bear it, the propertied class. The wealth the workers produce belongs to the capitalist class and what the workers receive as wages and salaries is far below the value of what they, the workers, produce. That is how the workers are legally robbed and why they are poor. Rises or falls of prices, rises or falls of taxation and changes from one form to another, do not affect the fundamental position of the working class—at most they have temporary effects. White capitalism continues, the only sound policy for the working class is to struggle at all times to the fullest extent that conditions permit, to raise their wages and resist downward pressure.

During and since the war, under the abnormal conditions then existing, and with unemployment at a very low level, successive governments used the system of food subsidies in order to discourage the trade unions from pressing for higher wages. It was linked with high taxation on drink and tobacco, and, from 1946, the grant of children’s allowances to level the condition of the workers. The whole scheme was a device to lessen the movement for a general rise of wages and to divide the married workers against the unmarried. With it went the incessant demand of the Labour Government that the workers should refrain from "unreasonable” wage claims. Now that the fierce struggle against foreign competitors is hotting up again in the markets of the world, the policy is being modified because it has served its purpose. It was merely a wartime interlude in the running of capitalism, which is now getting back to normal pre-war conditions.

Against this background it will be seen how nonsensical is the Labour Party case against the Butler budget. They call is a “rich man’s budget,” as if any budget could be anything else. Mr. Douglas Jay, Labour M.P., speaking in the House of Commons on 17th March, accused Mr. Butler of "robbing the poor to pay the rich”—as if the details of any particular budget were of any importance by comparison with the ceaseless exploitation of the working class \\hich went on unchanged during six years of Labour government.

They charge the Tories with raising the cost of living, forgetting that while they were in power it went up about 40 per cent. They say that he is against wage increases, as of course he is, but forgetting the years in which they also preached "wage-restraint.” They denounce him for reducing food subsidies, but forget that it was Sir Stafford Cripps who decided not to permit any increase in the subsidies even though that meant a rise of the cost of living; a flat departure from the statement of his predecessor, Mr. Dalton, who in 1945 said:—

“I have decided to hold the present cost of living steady until further notice, even if this means an increase in the necessary Exchequer subsidies." (Hansard, 23rd October, 1945. Col. 1877.)

It was on that occasion that Mr. Dalton admitted the purpose of the subsidies as being "to restrain any disproportionate increase in wage rates,” and paid tribute to the "steadiness and good sense which the trade unions and their leaders have shown during the war in this regard.”

In April, 1951, when Mr. Gaitskell, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, repeated the decision not to increase the food subsidies, he admitted that this decision would mean a further rise of food prices and indeed the official food index figure rose from 131 in April, 1951, to 143 in October.

Other Labour Party critics charge the Tories with tenderness towards high profits, and one misguided Labour journal Forward, in its issue for 23rd February, 1952, chides the Tories on the ground that company profits repented during January, 1952, were up by £10,000,000. What it overlooked was that the company reports issued in January, 1952, related to profits made under the Labour Government in 1951!

Now that the Labour Party is in Opposition it will wage the sham fight about the details of running the capitalist system, but there was every justification for the jibe of the Liberal leader, Mr. Clement Davies, that if Mr. Gaitskell had been in Mr. Butler's place his Budget would have been "much of a muchness.” All budgets, no matter who introduces them, are designed to promote capitalism, not to undermine or abolish it.

Mr. Butler’s budget of 11th March had been preceded on 6th March by the budget report of the Russian Finance Minister, Mr. Zverev. They differed by five days, and little more.

The Russian Budget

The Russian Finance Minister’s budget report was reproduced in full in Soviet News (12th March, 1952) published by the Russian Embassy in London. It makes interesting reading particularly as evidence of the similarity of capitalism's problems and their treatment in the two countries.

They both have their re-armament problems; naturally both offered as instruments of “ defence,” not of "aggression.”

In 1952 the Russian Government plans to spend "for the defence of the country” 113,800 million roubles (£10,346,000,000 at the Russian official rate of exchange of 11 roubles to the £).

The amount of money to be raised from State loans in 1952 is set at £3,864 millions, and the estimated expenditure on the lottery prizes and interest to bondholders (“to pay out winnings to the population and interest on loans”) is estimated at £800 million. This latter figure relates, of course, to the interest, etc., on the total amount of loans outstanding, not merely to the additional loans to be raised during the year; at the average rate of 4 per cent. it implies that the total amount of bonds outstanding in 1952 will be about £20,000 million.

Turnover Tax (similar to the British purchase tax) brought into Budget revenues in 1951 the amount of £22,500 millions, an increase of 4.9 per cent. over 1950. It is to be increased this year by another 4.9 per cent. 

Mr Butler stepped up the taxes on profits by means of the Excess Profits Levy. His opposite number in Russia, Mr. Zverev, is going to do the same.

“Total profits in the branches of the national economy will amount to 88,100 million roubles in the current year as against 74,700 million roubles in 1951. The rise in profits makes it possible to leave a substantial part of them at the disposal of enterprises and Ministries for expanding production. At the same time, the profits tax paid into the State Budget will be increased and the share of this tax in the State Budget revenue will rise from 10.2 per cent. in 1951 to 12.2 per cent. in 1952.”

“The profits tax paid by State enterprises will be increased by 14,000 million roubles, or 29.2 per cent. more than last year. . ."

Conservative and Labour Party speakers are always urging the workers to produce more and lower the cost of production. Mr. Zverev’s report contained numerous remarks of the same kind. He reported that in 1951 “the labour productivity of workers in industry rose, by 10 per cent. compared with 1950.” But he was not satisfied with this and asked for more. His report also contained many complaints about industries which had failed to keep down their wages bill and operate sufficiently profitably:—

"It should be said that certain Ministries, enterprises and economic organisations are for from making full use of available potentialities for the further reduction of production costs, cutting trade outlays and making the work of economic organisations more profitable.”

“One of the main requisites for the further reduction of production costs is also the improvement of the organisation of labour at enterprises and the frugal expenditure of wage funds. Not all enterprises, however, live up to those requirements.”

For example, he complained that the Ministry of Paper and Woodworking Industry “permitted the mills to cover the over-expenditure of the wage fund,” and the Leningrad engineering plant of the Central Textile Machinery Administration of the Ministry of Machine and Instrument-making Industry “did not fulfil its production plans last year and overspent 13,500,000 roubles on wages.”

Time and time again he came back to this theme of not spending too much on wages, improving the control of “labour per unit of output,” and watching over “the expenditure of wage funds” and of “the timely and complete receipt of payments into the Budget.” Numerous branches of industry were named as being among those which illegally “overdraw the wage funds.” Others were charged with allowing expensive machinery “to stand idle a great deal,” thus adding to production costs, and many State farms were criticised because they “do not yet have a sufficiently high productivity of labour.”

We are told by Communists that in Russia the trade unions have control over the fixing of wages. What they do have (a very different matter) is the right to discuss the way the “wages fund” is allocated to different grades of workers; but of course the real control resides with those who fix the total amount of the wage fund for each enterprise, that is the Government and its agencies. How true this is can be seen from the Finance Minister’s report. Not once does he even mention as a possibility that the workers or the unions might have pressed for a bigger expenditure on wages. In each of the dozen cases that he refers to he tells the managements firmly that once the Government has fixed the wage fund they have got to stick to it and devote their energies to cutting down production costs and increasing the workers’ output.

British capitalism’s financial wizards and productivity experts would feel very much at home if transplanted to Mr. Zverev’s department.

It is only necessary to add that the Budget Report was unanimously approved. The session ended as follows, according to the Soviet News account:—

“Stormy, prolonged applause. All rise. A prolonged ovation in honour of Comrade J. V. Stalin resounds in the Kremlin Palace.”

It seems to have been like the Tory cheers for Mr. Butler.

The Socialist comment on British and Russian budgets is simplicity itself. The aim of the working class should be to end private and State capitalism and bring the means of production and distribution into ownership by the whole community as the basis of Socialism. While the workers continue to neglect this real issue and devote their attention instead to capitalism’s budgets and taxation they will remain a poverty-stricken exploited class and the exploiters will continue to be safe in the enjoyment of the privileged position that capitalism bestows on them.

The Rise and Fall of Clause Four (1994)

From the November 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1918 the Labour Party transformed itself into a national organisation. At the same time it adopted a list of Party Objects, the fourth of which read: ‘To secure for the producers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry, and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible, upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry and service.”

This was the nearest the Labour Party ever came to committing itself on paper to Socialism, since this could be interpreted as a somewhat wordy definition of real Socialism not all that different from the Object we in the Socialist Party adopted when we were founded in 1904: ‘The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.”

However, since it was drawn up by the Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and since the Fabians stood for a state capitalism run by an educated elite, it was meant to be understood as a reference to state ownership, or nationalisation, i.e. state capitalism.

This was confirmed when in 1929, as a result of left-wing pressure to commit the Labour Party to the nationalisation of the banks, the words “distribution and exchange” were added after “the common ownership of the means of production”. This made it absolutely clear that what was envisaged was not real socialism but state capitalism.

To talk of the common ownership of the means of exchange is a contradiction in terms. Where there is common ownership there can be no exchange since exchange can only take place between separate owners, i.e. where private ownership not common ownership exists. In a socialist society based on common ownership goods are simply distributed not exchanged, so there is no need for money, banks and the rest of the financial system.

After Labour lost the 1959 election the then leader Gaitskill tried to get rid of Clause 4 on the grounds that it was an electoral liability, but had to back down in face of the opposition. Now Tony Blair is going to try again, with more chance of success it appears.

In a sense he his right: Labour does not stand for state capitalism – it stands for working within the present profit-driven market system dominated privately-owned companies. It stands for capitalism pure and simple. The dropping of Clause 4 will merely make this absolutely clear.

Wasting time at the seaside (1966)

From the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is very considerate of the Labour, Liberal and Conservative Parties to hold their annual conferences in the autumn.

At any rate, the seaside hotel keepers must think so, because the conferences bring them some welcome business just as the season is dying; and so must all those seaside landladies, who can keep the secret machines which put lumps into the porridge and burn the toast in profitable operation for another week or so. There is even the sea, which everyone expects to be cold in the autumn, allowing politicians to prove what lovable eccentrics they are by having themselves photographed taking a dip.

It is all good fun, although since the object of it is to win the game of power politics it can hardly be described as clean. But more than other any other reason for feeling grateful for the autumn conferences is that they provide us with something to chuckle over in the long, dark evenings ahead.

There are two types of annual conferences. One sort is run by the parties which are out of power; a certain amount of freedom is allowed here. In most cases—although there have been some famous exceptions, of which more later critics can be treated indulgently, as living proof of ruthless self-criticism, a restless drive for new ideas and a young, zestful heart.

When, for example, Edward Heath was asked on television what he thought about the prospects of receiving a lot of criticism of his leadership at this year’s Tory conference he replied, with a huge grin, that he enjoyed conferences and would be there all the time. Jo Grimond, far from being upset at the noisy activities of the Young Liberals at their conference, went out of his way to praise them and was photographed having an amiable drink with some of them.

There is no such carefree goodwill towards the rebels in a party which is in power. At their conferences the leaders on the platform, are trying to justify broken promises, to explain away diametrical changes in policy and, above all, to convince everyone that, although the present times are hard, with patience and support and unity all will be well. In this situation, critics are not welcomed as a stimulus; they are condemned—sometimes outlawed—as traitors to their party and to what politicians like to call the country.

There are many weary hours to be spent in the conference hall, and it is common for the newspaper men to try to brighten these up a little by fastening their attention upon some so-called personality of the conference. This usually means a lot of publicity for someone who, although he does no more than repeat the same weary platitudes and misconceptions which have been heard so many times before, wakes everybody up by sounding as if he actually believed what he says.

So it was this year with the Young Liberals, who came storming down to Brighton to demand all sorts of reckless things like “workers control” in industry (the inverted commas are intended, and necessary). These young people laid about them and one of them went so far as to shatter the peace of the conference by swearing—or at any rate he said “bloody” and “damn”, which in this age of Kenneth Tynan probably no longer rate as swear words.

The newspapers loved it and decided that no title would be appropriate for the Young Liberals short of Jo Grimond’s Red Guards. It is interesting to wonder what the fanatical young hooligans in Peking would think about being compared with a few hysterical students daring to say “bloody” to an assembly of Liberals on an autumn afternoon at an English seaside resort.

Such, however, are the ways of the press, which also has a liking for putting the finger on what they consider to be political stars of the future who enter the limelight at a conference. This is what the papers did some years back to Ray Gunter, who has now risen so far and so fast that he has the important job of implementing the very policy on wages which his party once scorned. This year, at the TUC, some reporters decided that Leslie Cannon, President of the Electrical Trade Union, showed by his speech that he is a future MP, perhaps even a Minister.

It is hardly necessary to point out that to win this nomination for future stardom a man has to agree with official policy. No member of the Labour Party has ever been selected as a rising leader after making an attack, no matter how capable, on his party’s line on wages or nuclear armaments; Frank Cousins, the most prominent of the critics on those issues, has always been regarded as something of a joke. Still less would a person be noticed for attacking the fundamentals of the Labour Party—its capitalist policies, its obsession with leadership, its unavoidable failure. The newspapers have their own standards of success and they are sticking by them.

Behind all the ballyhoo and the alleged drama and excitement what are conferences for? Every man in the street knows that they are supposed to lay down their party's policy and to take decisions based on that policy. A simple man in a backward street may even think that, because the capitalist parties profess to be democratic, the decisions taken by their conference delegates are binding.

The first thing to say about this is that some of the delegates’ votes are cast in ways which are anything but an expression of their members’ opinions. At this year’s Labour conference the voting policy of the Amalgamated Engineering Union changed suddenly from support of the government to opposition. This was not because the AEU delegates had received different instructions from their members. It simply happened that their leader, Bank of England director Sir William Carron, who is an unmovable supporter of the government, left Brighton for a meeting of the board of the Fairfield shipyard.

This apparently left the AEU delegation floundering, until a series of other absences gave the leadership to Hugh Scanlon, who is generally critical of the government. The result of this was that the AEU, voting as whoever was their leader at the time wished, was one day for the government and another against it.

Yet even without this sort of maneouvering, the votes of a conference are anything but decisive. Labour this year declared several times in favour of the government—on wage freezing, Rhodesia, foreign policy. But when the conference went the other way on other issues—redundancy, Germany and support for America over Vietnam—Ministers made it plain that they would take no notice. It was all summed up by Harold Wilson himself, in one word, when he asked what he intended to do about the famous Cousins victory over work sharing—“Govern”.

This has of course happened before. In 1959, when Labour was licking its wounds after Macmillan had thrashed them at the polls, they decided at one of their rowdiest conferences not to follow Hugh Gaitskell’s advice to delete Clause Four from their constitution. So in theory, and by conference decision, the Labour. Party stands for the sort of capitalism where all the means of production, distribution and exchange are nationalised. But of course they have not the slightest intention of doing anything about it.

Poor Gaitskell had a knack of infuriating his party’s conferences. Another example of a refusal to accept inconvenient decisions was when, after the 1960 vote in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament, he declared his intention to “fight, fight and fight again” and, because on that occasion some of the big unions had voted against him, questioned the morality of the block vote which had always been accepted as long as it docilely accepted the policy of the platform:

I sometimes think, firmly, that the system we have by which great unions decide their policy before even their conference can consider their executive's recommendation is not really a wise one or a good one.

It is clear that when a conference agrees with its leaders it is the authentic voice of democracy, rich in wisdom. When it disagrees it is irresponsible and treacherous. The peculiar thing is that, although the members of the capitalist parties must know this very well, they are still prepared to be delegates to their conferences, they still work for their party, they still welcome its taking power.

The plain fact is that whatever a conference may decide, a party’s policy is already fixed. No matter how bloodthirstily the Tory hangers and floggers pursued their prey at conference, Conservative Home Secretaries stuck out for penal reform. No matter what support the Rhodesia lobby gathers, the Conservative leadership must agree that the Smith regime should be brought to an end.

Similarly, even if the 1960 vote on nuclear weapons had not been reversed, no Labour government would have surrendered the British Bomb simply because their conference had told them to. Whichever way the vote went on this year’s battle over incomes, the government's mind was made up and the more coercive Part IV of the Prices and Incomes Bill was ready to be brought into operation.

And while we are on the subject, there is something which we should notice about the Prices and Incomes Bill. It is the first openly anti-trade union legislation for something like 40 years—and it is the work of a party which came into existence as a result of a conference decision of February, 1900, to establish

a distinct labour group in Parliament . . . which must embrace a readiness to co-operate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interests of labour and . . . with any party in opposing measures having an opposite tendency.

What, we asked, are conferences for? Even if their decisions can be, and are, ignored they are often an opportunity for a party to pronounce on its policy. Perhaps some people may prefer to describe this as warning the working class what to expect, or as making the promises the breaking of which later conferences will have to explain away. In 1963, for example, Labour was hypnotised by the Wilson vision of a technological Britain, with a wise government guiding massive investment into the “science based” industries, with technicians enthusiastically at work in their laboratories and at their drawing boards and with everyone’s wages going up in a nice, steady, organised curve. It was all very good for the headlines, for the electoral image and all the other political public relations man's obsessions.

It usually happens that at such times there is so much concern with a party’s public image that nobody notices the policies which are being expounded from the platform do not amount to much. Consider George Brown’s unoriginal idea of settling the Vietnam war by recalling the Geneva conference—the very conference which first set up the division of the country and so played its part in bringing about the present war there.

At other times the publicity a conference receives can be disastrous for the party, like the 1960 Labour uproar over CND and the public spectacle of Tory leaders savaging each other as they clawed for the place left vacant by Macmillan’s retirement during the 1963 Blackpool conference.

Or a conference can be an outlet for a party's donkey workers. It can give them a break from the hard slog of committee work, canvassing, addressing. They can come to express their doubts and disappointments, to wonder what happened to the visions they once had, Then they can stifle their doubts, admire their leaders and finally submerge themselves in what they call loyalty, but for which there is an unkinder if more accurate name, at a mass rally. Then they can go back to the donkey work with renewed energy.

No conference ever probes, or even discusses the facts. No resolution ever says that the parties of capitalism exist to run the social system which oppresses and degrades millions of human beings, that this system can only be run in the interests of a minority and to the detriment of the majority. Labour’s “left wing” come to their conferences convinced that they are looking for the lost soul of their party—none of them points out, perhaps none of them realises, that a capitalist party is bound to deceive, to override its members’ wishes and to disappoint its followers by pushing through unpleasant and inhuman measures.

Conferences make a lot of noise, exhale a lot of hot air, attract a lot of publicity. But when it is all over, when the delegates have gone home and the hall has been cleared and the seaside has sunk back into its out-of-season doze, one thing is abundantly clear.

It was all a waste of time.

Ivan

The Leader and the Labour Party (1960)

From the November 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

At Scarborough it was outwardly politics that were being discussed, but the Leader and his supporters were also on trial. The questions were what should be the policy and who should be the leader.

On the main resolutions decisions were reached which will hold unless and until they are reversed, but the question of leadership was not decided, though various groups which think it was are looking round for Gaitskell's successor.

On different aspects of the dominating issue of nuclear weapons there were four resolutions, and Mr. Gaitskell and the Labour Party executive were defeated on all of them, though not by large majorities. It was a severe but perhaps not yet fatal blow for Mr. Gaitskell and the Labour M.Ps, the majority of whom stood for the official policy.

A resolution was carried that “Labour policy is decided by the Party conference which is the final authority,” but the executive gave it an interpretation which seems to rob it of much of its meaning. Mr. Len Williams, the Party's National Agent, told the Conference that “the Parliamentary Labour Party” (that is, the Labour M.Ps.) is under no direction from conference or any other body. Mr. Williams said the National Executive did not wish to oppose the composite resolution if it was understood that it involved no change in the long-established principle governing relationships between conferences, National Executive and Parliamentary Party. And it had to be understood that nobody had the power to instruct the Parliamentary Party on the way it carried out its responsibilities." (Daily Herald, 5/10/60.)

And the day after the Conference Mr. Gaitskell made it clear that he has no present intention of resigning and on the contrary is preparing to overturn the Scarborough votes. Speaking in a TV interview he declared: “I regard it as absolutely vital that we should reverse this decision at next year's conference and I shall do everything I can to get that done.” (Daily Mail, 9/10/60.)

He also gave it as his opinion that the Parliamentary Labour Party will by a majority support the policy defeated by the delegates at Scarborough, the implication of which is that they will also confirm him in the Leadership, which incidentally carries with it the leadership of the Opposition at a government- provided salary of £3,000 a year.

Many Tory and Liberal newspapers, while criticising and regretting Mr. Gaitskell’s unsuccessful tactics, lavished praise on him and openly hoped that he may survive his defeat by Conference.

But whether he goes or stays the prospect for the Labour Party is bleak indeed. In the constituencies and in Parliament there will be rival groups each determined to put their point of view, and laying the Party wide open to attack from Tories and Liberals. This may, as the Liberal leaders proclaim, give them an opportunity to win back former supporters who joined the Labour Party. One political commentator, Mr. Robert McKenzie, thinks that even if Mr. Gaitskell survives for the moment it will solve nothing for the Party. His opponents will regard it as a cynical trick that Mr. Gaitskell only claims the right to defy the Trade Union block vole when it ceased to support his policy.

It is almost inevitable that the victims of this “trick” will fight on, either until they are expelled from the parliamentary party, or until Gaitskell himself is destroyed. And as the next election looms ahead, even some of those who admire Mr. Gaitskell's courage may decide that he must make way for someone who has at least a chance of reuniting the party.

(Observer, 9/10/60)

His own opinion, and hope, is that a new anti-H-Bomb Labour Party will be formed and that the Gaitskell faction will then come to terms with the Liberals.

Another danger for the Labour Party is that the conflict will lead to loss of some trade union support and may influence relationships between the Party and the TUC. Sir Thomas Williamson. Secretary of the General and Municipal Workers Union told conference that some of the branches would withdraw support from the Labour Party if the anti-nuclear resolutions were carried. (Daily Telegraph. 6/10/60.) The correspondent of The Times (7/10/60) reported that events at the conference had strengthened the already existing movement to reduce or sever the TUC’s connection with the Party.

It is an accepted convention of professional politics that the politician always claims to speak “for the people or, as he sometimes qualifies it—“for all intelligent people.” It is not so easy to decide what a Labour Party conference vote represents. Mr. Cousins claimed that he speaks “for Britain ,” a claim that Tory newspapers angrily rejected. Out of more than 22 million workers in this country, of whom 9,600,000 are in trade unions, the TUC has in its affiliated unions about 8 million, and the Labour Party 5,600,000. If Labour Party conference votes represented the views of its affiliated trade unionists and the additional 875,000 individual members who belong to local parties, cooperative societies, etc., they could be taken as representing directly the considered wishes of the majority among 6 million workers. (A large, but unknown number of the individual members also count as part of the affiliated trade union membership). But Labour Party spokesmen are well aware that their voting methods, including the trade union block vote, can produce distorted results. Even so, the claim of the Daily Herald (which now supports the H-bomb) that the great majority of Labour supporters are with them on that issue is, to say the least, somewhat surprising. According to a poll undertaken by Odhams Press Research Division “an overwhelming majority of Labour supporters and trade unionists are against the West giving up H-bombs and nuclear weapons so long as Russia keeps hers . . . . more than four out of five Labour supporters think that Britain and America should keep the bomb.” (Daily Herald, 4/10/60.)

There are, of course, sceptics who think that public opinion polls may be no more accurate than block votes.

The Guardian shares the Herald's view of the vote and roundly declared that the Conference is not democratic “while it is governed by trade union block votes. . . . There is no democracy in giving Mr. Cousins one million votes. As the world will probably see today, one or two men can turn Labour's policy upside down.” (Guardian, 5/10/60.)

Mr. Gaitskell, defeated on the H-bomb, gained the day on a policy statement which in effect discards old aims of wholesale nationalisation, and puts in their place the possibility of nationalising a few selected industries, together with the plan for a Labour Government to buy shares in companies without taking them over. It recognises that “both public and private ownership have a place in society.” Delegates speaking in opposition called it “underwriting capitalism” and the abandonment of “Socialism.” Mr. Gaitskell retorted that the proposals were just as much “Socialist” as is Nationalisation, a fact on which Socialists can heartily agree, since nationalisation is state capitalism and has never been advocated by the S.P.G.B.

While the delegates were maintaining, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, that they still believe in nationalisation as the answer to the workers’ problems, strikes were going on in the nationalised coal industry (they break out at the rate of over 30 a week year after year), the Railwaymen were preparing for a strike over pay and Postal workers were discussing a strike resolution over hours of work. And it would seem from the rent strikes and the riots that followed forcible eviction of council tenants by a local council that nationalisation's little sister municipal ownership is no less unpopular.

The day that the Daily Herald reported the vote on the policy of the government buying company shares it reported developments in the direction of a little private enterprise by the local Labour parties themselves. They are planning to form a Unit Trust to invest their funds in company shares and thus cash in on the rise in the profits and prices of ordinary shares that has accompanied inflation. A trade union Unit Trust is already being organised.

Edgar Hardcastle

How Labour changed (2025)

From the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Originally formed in 1906 as a trade union pressure group in parliament, in 1918 the Labour Party adopted as its long-term aim a nationalised economy. This, together with a redistribution of wealth to create a less unequal society, was to be achieved gradually by measures taken by a succession of Labour governments.

This strategy — Labourism — failed, and how! Instead of Labour gradually changing capitalism, it was capitalism that gradually changed Labour. Learning from the experience of being in government, that the only way capitalism can run is as an economic system driven by profit-making and that this has to be given priority, Labour gradually evolved from an alleged labour party into an avowed capitalist party.

Here is how it happened.

1. 1906. 29 trade unionist MPs elected with Liberal support constitute themselves as the parliamentary Labour Party.
2. 1918. The party adopts a new constitution, Clause Four of which reads: ‘To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service’.
3. 1929. An amendment added ‘distribution and exchange’, spelling out that nationalisation (state capitalism), not socialism, was what was envisaged. (Link)
4. 1935. ‘A Labour government, therefore, not only by the transference of industry from profit-making for the few to the service of the many, but also by taxation, will work to reduce the purchasing power of the wealthier classes, while by wage increases and by the provision of social services it will expand the purchasing power of the masses’ (Clement Attlee, Will and the Way to Socialism, p. 42).
5. 1945. General election manifesto: ‘The Labour Party is a Socialist Party, and proud of it. Its ultimate purpose at home is the establishment of the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain.’
6. 1956. Labour intellectual Anthony Crosland published The Future of Socialism in which he argued that the aim of a more equal distribution of wealth did not require the nationalisation of industry.
7. 1959. Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell proposes to abandon Clause Four but this is turned down by the Labour Party conference.
8. 1974. February general election manifesto: ‘It is indeed our intention to (a) bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of working people and their families’.
9. 1995. New Clause Four adopted: ‘A dynamic economy, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and co-operation to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all to work and prosper with a thriving private sector and high quality public services where those undertakings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them’.
10. 2024. ‘Labour is the party of business’ (Starmer). ‘Be in no doubt, we will campaign as a pro-business party — and we will govern as a pro-business party.’ (Link )

The Political Background 1904-74 (1974)

From the June 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed there have been nineteen general elections in which the working class have testified to their faith that it is possible to reform capitalism in the interests of the majority and that the differences between politicians are real.

This conception can be lived with only by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear. The last seventy years is littered with broken promises and declarations. Lloyd George urging men into the trenches with his picture of them returning to Homes fit for Heroes; Jimmy Thomas burbling that he had “the complete cure” for unemployment (1930, just before the number out of work climbed to an all-time high); Wilson’s “new age” of technology. And the numerous pledges to provide us all with a rising standard of living.

The SPGB came into existence about the same time as the Labour Party. In the 1906 election of a Liberal government, there were 52 MPs from the new Labour Party, claiming to represent trade-union interests but promising to flower into a full-blown reformist party:

. . . It will require all our collective efforts to break down the forces of privilege and monopoly that have so long dominated the political life of this country.

That reads like Harold Wilson, promising to clean things up in 1974; in fact it is Arthur Henderson, celebrating Labour’s triumph in 1906.

But the tide receded and the Labour Party was losing seats in 1914. Labour leaders who had mouthed slogans about international working-class unity became patriots, joined the war government and persuaded workers to join up. In contrast, Socialists were standing against the war. That was no easy time to resist. Our propaganda was restricted, our members thrown into prison or forced to go on the run. The SPGB hung on, and there are many stories told of how we did it.

In 1918 the working class looked hopefully for all the speeches to become reality. They reasoned that the men who had organized mass murder should organize something in peacetime and the result was an overwhelming victory for Lloyd George’s coalition. Then came unemployment with its lines at the Labour Exchanges and ex-servicemen selling matches in gutters.

At this time a man who was to deceive the working class for a long time emerged. Stanley Baldwin’s vote-winning image was of the pipe-smoking, country-loving Englishman, which went down well with the workers, even those who had never seen a green field. In truth Baldwin was among the craftiest of political operators.

Baldwin battled to get rid of Lloyd George, and eventually accomplished it. (In the opinion of A. J. P. Taylor, Lloyd George was ". . . the first Prime Minister since Walpole to leave office flagrantly richer than he entered it.” The same could not be said for the people he had ruled over, buried among the battlefields of Europe or sunk in despair.) In 1923 Baldwin tried to persuade the workers that a tariff on imports would cure unemployment, and on that issue fought an election. He failed and for the first time Labour was in office.

Labour supporters rejoiced while their leader Ramsey MacDonald confessed himself “appalled at the poorness of the material” on the Labour benches. Anyone who feared wild revolutionaries was reassured when MacDonald, in full Court dress, showed that British traditions were to remain unharmed. But MacDonald’s government lasted only nine months.

The period which followed held the General Strike, which has been called a great betrayal of the working class. In truth, had the strikers been conscious of their class interests, betrayal would have been impossible. Their leaders were not traitors but expressions of the strikers’ lack of that consciousness. It was a bitter episode for the trade unions and the Labour Party.

By 1929 unemployment had reached serious proportions. In desperation, the workers tried another Labour government, again dependent on the Liberals. In 1931 unemployment reached nearly three million. MacDonald insisted that capitalism needed the unemployed to consume less, and took Snowden, Thomas and others to join Liberals and Tories in a National Government. The workers were allowed to join in the applause for this act of statesmanship; they elected 554 National MPs against only 52 to Labour.

Meanwhile in Germany, the Nazis harnessed working-class despair to rampant nationalism. They were the first steps towards the next war. One effect of that was to revive the Labour Party through support for Winston Churchill — Churchill, who never hid his contempt for the working class. Of course Labour leaders did get jobs in the Churchill government, sharing responsibility for the slaughter of millions.

Again, Socialists opposed that war and were made to suffer. Our stand was clearly justified when from the post-war election emerged the first majority Labour government. Many of its ministers had learned to run capitalism in co-operation with Churchill and the Tories during the war. The new government promised better relations with Russia; they brought in reforms in the social and medical services which would, they told us, end poverty; and they could apply their schemes of nationalization.

The Labour government, with its Foreign Secretary Bevin, fought out the first days of the Cold War, which on occasion came near a hot World War. The health service was a more efficient method of servicing workers back to work. Nationalization was discredited. One of the ministers in that government, Alfred Robens, later said of the nationalization schemes he had championed:

I do not believe that in 1945 those of us who were nationalizing these industries would have done it with so much enthusiasm if someone had told us that they were going to turn into state capitalism. (The Times, 1 April 1968)

“We are the masters now” said Attorney General Hartley Shawcross, but Labour looked anything but masters. Their response to crises was to try to force down working-class standards; to keep conscription; to start a hydrogen bomb. Charges on the Health Service caused a storm of protest led by Aneurin Bevan. By the next election the Labour Party was broken; in October 1951 Churchill returned. There was little difference between the two parties. This may have contributed to a mood of cynicism and apathy which oppressed political activity in Britain for several years.

In 1955 Churchill, so far into his dotage that he was an embarrassment, handed over to Anthony Eden, one of the glamour boys of British politics. But Eden’s rule turned out anything but a romance. British capitalism was in retreat as the mighty sphere of control, mineral resources and markets once known as the British Empire had shrunk. Most politicians had accepted the reality but Eden seemed to live in another world. In the Middle East, British oil interests had been badly damaged by nationalist takeovers. When a new government in Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, Eden ordered an invasion of Egypt and in the resultant uproar he lost not only the Canal but his job as Prime Minister.

Eden was replaced by Macmillan, who looked and spoke like an Edwardian fop but knew how to outmanoeuvre opponents and deceive the voters. Macmillan’s party seemed in ruins and Labour hopes were high : the new leader Gaitskell appeared to be convinced that power lay within his grasp. His chance came in 1959, but when the votes were counted he was openly aghast at his party’s defeat.

Disappointed not to find himself Prime Minister, he tried to persuade Labour to say that what they had been advocating was wrong : such as the meaningless Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution, which was interpreted to mean outright nationalization. The result was an enormous battle at a Labour conference in 1959, when Gaitskell bluntly put his reason: “Nationalization,” he said, “is a vote loser.” The following year the Labour Party was in uproar again, as unilateralists fought for the abandonment of British nuclear arms. Gaitskell was not worried about having to take notice of conference decisions; what did concern him was that such decisions would be unpopular among the workers and damage the chances of returning to government.

Soon, however, Macmillan’s Tory government, caught up in another economic crisis, made an assault upon wages. Partly in an attempt to win back popularity Macmillan sacked part of his Cabinet, applied to join the Common Market and pushed the first racist laws on to the Statute Book, in the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962. As these bids failed, Macmillan was doomed and the Profumo scandal in 1963 damaged him beyond repair. He resigned and Douglas-Home was appointed — by what one disappointed aspirant described as the “magic circle” of the Conservative Party.

But Home was simply not up to the job. Harold Wilson (who became Labour’s leader after Gaitskell died in 1963) rang rings round him, although when the election came in 1964, the Labour Party scraped home with the slimmest of majorities. Hoping that capitalism would not blow up a storm too soon, Wilson stated Labour’s aim to control wages :

For a Labour Government, no less than for the Conservatives, success or failure In the battle against inflation would depend on its ability to secure an understanding with the unions which would make wage restraint possible. (The Guardian, 25 October 1957)

A “Department of Economic Affairs” was set for the attack on working-class standards. It told everyone that the “norm” for wage rises was to be 3½ per cent, a year and we would all have to work harder.

Nevertheless, when Wilson timed another election for 1966 he got an increased majority. He was “Britain’s clever little man” (The Economist, 26 February 1966), Kosygin, the Russian ruler, is reputed to have said: “Sometimes I think you must have joined the Labour Party to save it from Socialism.”

Pundits are still analyzing the fall of the Wilson government in 1970. They had outdone the Tories in racist legislation, imposed statutory restraint on wages, supported the American war in Vietnam, kept up the British nuclear armoury. Having abolished prescription charges, they brought them back again. They made another attempt to get into the Common Market, and sketched out their plans for anti-trade union laws. Whatever the workers thought, many businessmen approved :

. . . I have had to rather reluctantly recognise that the current Socialist administration seems to have a better appreciation of business matters than did its Conservative predecessors. (Frank Kearton, chairman of Courtaulds, The Guardian, 27 October 1966)

Edward Heath’s alternative was a refusal to apply statutory controls because, apparently, if wages and prices were left to their own levels we should be swamped in prosperity. In practice his government became famous for changes in policy, but failed to hold down prices, which ran higher than ever; eventually it too imposed controls, and the anti-union laws which had been among the ambitions of Labour and Tories. In a confused election, Heath was turned out. Wilson promised workers that he would get them back to work — and they cheered him, like galley-slaves cheering the whip.

This has been the background to the seventy years of the Socialist Party’s life. We have seen the working class oscillate between Liberals, Labour and Conservative, forgetting the past. Seventy years and still capitalism is entrenched. The working class have misused the vote, which can bring into being a society of human wellbeing. The work of the Socialist is to show its proper use.

Ivan