50 Years Ago: Armed revolt in Spain (1984)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

From a working-class and socialist standpoint the revolt was a piece of criminal irresponsibility. The overwhelming majority of Spanish electors are not socialist, and do not understand or desire socialism.

No minority, whether in Spain, Russia, Austria or anywhere else, can impose socialism on a hostile or apathetic majority. Forced, therefore, to abandon the idea of introducing socialism, the new rulers sooner or later accommodate themselves to the job of administering capitalism. Finding power sweet they develop the century-old technique of intrigue, deception, bribery, and arbitrary violence in order to keep themselves in power. Unable to give the reality of socialism they learn a new propaganda, which consists, crudely put, of calling the unregenerate capitalism by a new name — socialism.

Knowing this the Socialist Party of Great Britain refuses in any circumstances to countenance the policy of minority armed revolt. That road does not lead to socialism. In truth it leads nowhere, for workers who head that way must sooner or later retrace their steps if they are to play their part in achieving socialism.

[From an article, “A Vain Sacrifice” published in the Socialist Standard, November 1934.]

Letter: Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain. (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent (Mr. J. C. Carr, Salford) puts several questions. Two of them, and our answers, are printed below. Others will be dealt with as space permits.

Suppose Hitler and Mussolini attack Great Britain.

The S.P.G.B. naturally does not agree with imperialist war, but what would you do if Hitler and Mussolini were to attack this country? Would the workers he expected to stand still with their arms tied as it were behind their backs?

Reply.

The answer, of course, is yes! Why ever not ? Hitler and Mussolini (which means the German and Italian sections of the robber class) would have only one object in threatening war against the British section of the robber class, that is, to plunder them right and left of the wealth they have accumulated and are now accumulating by the exploitation of the working class in the British Empire. The British ruling class would howl with pain and fury, but if the British workers stood still and declined to get all worked up over the thieves' quarrel the British would have to buy off their German and Italian rival bandits by handing over some of the spoil. For example, they would have to hand over lumps of the overseas Empire and, perhaps, pay colossal “reparations," thus reversing (as far as Germany is concerned) the process going on after 1918. But why should the workers worry about that? They might even find, as German workers in the post-War years, that unemployment would decline, while deliveries of goods were being made to the foreign powers, and also that when a ruling class has its hands full dealing with a stronger foreign power it is apt to be much less dictatorial and much more accommodating to its own subject class. It needs their loyal support and has to pay for it.

To put the matter in proper perspective, it should be observed that the German and Italian Governments would not want to add to their burdens by actually occupying Great Britain, but even if they did temporarily do so (as the British and French occupied German territory after 1918), it would perhaps be a trifle irritating, but the working class would go on living (or partly living) just as usual.

Moreover, and this is important, if the British workers behaved sensibly and refused to fight for their masters, Hitler and Mussolini would find their difficulties multiplied at home. German and Italian workers may be war-mad and imperialism-mad for a while (but their record is no worse and is, indeed, a trifle better than that of the British workers), but when they found that stories of Germany and Italy being threatened by British workers were false they would begin to turn their attention to their own wrongs once more.

Ed. Comm.

Would arms be useful to the workers?

Question.

I suppose you would say don’t re-arm for the capitalists. Did the possibility ever strike you that arms would be useful things to seize and capture for the establishment of the workers’ State?

Reply.

Regarding the first part of the question, our answer can only be that it does not matter what we say about re-armament at the present time. The British workers, because they are not Socialists, returned the present Government to office at the last election with power to re-arm, and the capitalists are going on with it, no matter what anyone says.

Regarding the main part of the question, the possibility of gaining control of the armed forces of the State struck the S.P.G.B. so forcibly and so early that it was embodied in our Declaration of Principles when they were formulated in 1904. But it all presupposes several things. For the workers to have arms means nothing whatever apart from the ideas in the workers' minds. In 1914, when many British workers were war-mad, they did not want arms in order to establish Socialism, but in order to kill their fellow-workers abroad and, incidentally, to kill members of the S.P.G.B. at home.

So, until the workers want Socialism, having arms will not help. When the workers do want Socialism then they will indeed be able to gain possession of the armed forces, along with the rest of the machinery of Government, by means of the vote, just in the same way that Hitler and Mussolini and the British ruling class have done.

We are reminded of the story (it is related by men who are now members of the S.P.G.B.) of how in 1919, just after the War, they were so disillusioned that they listened readily to some organisation preaching armed revolt. They discussed it before demobilisation and as soon as they had handed in their rifles, on being demobilised, they rushed round to a meeting of the organisation to consider ways and means of getting arms!

It shows the absurdity of the idea, for in practice the soldier has no more control of his gun than the worker has control over his employer’s factory. While the workers as a whole are prepared to vote the capitalist class into power it is they, through the State, who control the soldiers’ guns and everything else.

Ed. Comm.

By The Way: Concern for Workers (1944)

The By The Way Column from the October 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Concern for Workers

As everyone knows, there is a most terrible housing crisis in London now. The newspapers are full of appeals to the authorities to get something done about it. The Government has brought thousands of building workers from the provinces and arranged for them to work a 65-hour week, Mr. J. J. Mallon, the Warden of Toynbee Hall, has written to the Times pointing out that long hours under modern conditions do not make for greater production.

Let Mr. Mallon speak for himself: —

HOURS OF WORK. 

To the Editor of the Times, 

Sir,—It is disquieting to learn that building operatives are to work 65 hours a week on first-aid repairs to houses in the London area. Even though the arrangement is to apply only for three weeks, it is deplorable and against the teaching of all industrial experience. The Regional Joint Committee for London express the view that the Government is “ill advised to propose such hours,” and suggest “that the maximum hours of work should not exceed 60.” Sixty hours are also too many. If 55 or even fewer hours are worked more will be done.

For nearly 40 years as a member of innumerable trade boards and other industrial bodies I have had to do with hours of employment. When these hours are excessive they tend to lessen rather than increase production, to add to illness, accidents, and absenteeism, and so to fatigue the worker as to do him cumulative injury. The reduction of excessive hours always leads to greater production. Surely the example of America, where miracles of war production have been achieved, should not be disregarded. Early in their associated war efforts the relevant American Government departments decided in favour of an eight-hour day and a 18-hour week “as the best working schedule for sustained efficiency in most industrial operations.” The results of their decision fully justify it. The Government should reconsider the 65 hours proposal.

Yours sincerely, J. J. Mallon, 

Toynbee Hall, 

28, Commercial Street, E.I. July 26.”

—(Times, July 28, 1944.)

Mr. H. C. Harland, the President of the Master Builders’ Association, has written to the Times to confirm Mr. Mallon’s verdict. The point that Socialists are concerned with is that Mr. Mallon and his apparently kindly well-meaning fellow Lib.-Labourals are not really worried about the worker, as such, at all. They reduce hours and give medical treatment, holidays, music while you work, etc., in the same way as one puts expensive oil into a motor engine—to make it run better.

They are not the first or the only ones to realise that the old big stick methods of treating the workers are out of date.

Even King Farouk of Egypt is busily running round telling the tale to the workers—a very good reference for Egyptian workers, incidentally. The Times for July 31st records his “visit to the M.I.S.R. Co.’s spinning and weaving (cotton) works, where he had an enthusiastic reception from 26,000 employees.” “In an address to the board of directors he emphasised the importance of the Egyptian worker, and impressed upon them the necessity of providing better living and working conditions. He invited representatives of the workers to the royal table and made a gift of £1,000 to their benevolent society.” “King Farouk is missing no opportunity of establishing closer and more personal relations with the humbler classes of his subjects.” (Times, July 31st.)

Naturally, British capitalists don’t call representatives of their workers to their table to present them with £1,000. They get Sir William Beveridge to do it. The idea is always the same—to get the workers to work better. “All that glitters is not gold.” Working men who allow this talk about concern for them, by capitalist Lib.-Lab. politicians, to delude them into supporting reforms of capitalism will get improved capitalism, not Socialism—that is, increased exploitation and relative poverty.

* * *

“How U.S. Airmen are Taught New Technique"

Under this heading a London evening paper reports that mobile training units, miniature technical schools on wheels, are now following U.S. airmen as bases move deeply into France. “Though airmen are fully trained before coming to Europe, continual aircraft modifications due to experience in battle make it necessary for mechanics to study constantly.” The training has speeded up aircraft repair so much that the director of the training units has sent mobile units to every war theatre in which U.S. aircraft are fighting.

What is happening to-day on the battlefields happens yesterday and to-morrow in industry. The complex nature of the productive methods developed by capitalism force mechanics to “study constantly.”

When mechanics are studying constantly nothing on earth can prevent them eventually contacting and completely grasping the Socialist idea—which is the application of study to problems of society. The reply to those who claim that “the workers will never learn,” is “look around you”—the workers are learning at aeronautical speed, every day, at their work.

* * *

Last Days of the Barricades

A great deal has been written and said about the insurrection in Warsaw. That the plight of the insurgents is rather pitiable can hardly be disputed.

Most ironical of all, the high-priests of insurrection, at all times, in any places, during the past twenty-five years, the Moscow politicians, are supporting their own special Committee of Liberation as against the British sponsored Council of National Unity of the Polish Government in London. Incidentally, the London Council of National Unity is more “radical” than the Committee of Liberation, making play with the phrase “socialisation of industry.”

For this reason, Pravda says that “the Red Army has always warned people against such risings. Handfuls of men armed only with fiery sentiments and cold steel have no chance against modern weapons in battles for large cities.” (Our emphasis.) (The Observer, August 20th.)

To this the Poles reply that the Soviet radio had, in fact, on several occasions shortly before the rising, called on the Polish people, and especially the people of Warsaw, to rise against the Germans.

Apart from this, such statements from the Bolshevik leaders of to-day are the clearest confirmation of the Socialist Party’s repeatedly expressed view on insurrection. Years were spent proving how the Russian Communists were distorting the writings of Engels—for example, in his well-known preface to “The Class Struggles in France”—to try and justify their unprincipled attempts to embarrass foreign governments by riots and street fights.

As if the Soviet’s statement on the futility of insurrection in Warsaw were not enough, further confirmation is to hand from Paris : —

“The Patriots had a very had time, but they recovered and managed to form a defence line in the streets near the building with the aid of barricades built of anything they could lay their hands on.

The barricades were not strong enough, backed by our small arms, to hold the tanks. The German armour smashed them down, then went through the Patriots, firing right and left and affecting shocking slaughter. We had not the weapons to prevent them. . . . All Paris is waiting for the Allies to enter the city and clear out the German tyrants.” (Star, August 25th, 1944; our italics.)

It may be added that in Paris, as in Warsaw, practically the entire population was in support of the revolt; arms had been freely distributed by parachute by the Allied Air Forces. Yet both failed completely, though the circumstances could not have been more favourable.

The Editors of Pravda are quite right. “Handfuls of men with fiery sentiments and cold steel have no chance against modern weapons in battles for large cities.”

In other words, without the all-powerful State machine, with its complex armed forces, revolts are doomed to disaster. And yet there are still “direct action” maniacs in public places urging the workers to commit suicide in barricade revolts.

The statement of Pravda will be chalked up for those post-war C.P. and “Unemployed” fire-brands who will once again urge workers to bash their heads against the State machine.

The Socialist Party urges the workers to think before they act, and then vote intelligently for Socialism, thus giving incidentally an infallible indication of the progress of the Socialist idea and the intellectual development of the working class.

With a Parliamentary majority it is the capitalists who will be faced with the prospect of illegal barricades, which the Socialist controlled army and air force will go through like cardboard, if they ever get put up.

To those who claim that the capitalists will close down Parliament before the Socialists can attain the majority, the reply is that’s their funeral—if they are ever stupid enough to do so.

* * *

Easier for Lord Latham

The evening papers (The Star, September 7th, 1944) inform us that one man whose task has been easier by the relaxation of the black-out is Lord Latham, who since 1940 has been mainly responsible for Civil Defence in the L.C.C. area. He is Chairman of the L.C.C.

By the queerest coincidence, in addition to being Chairman of the L.C.C. and in charge of Civil Defence in London, Lord Latham happens to be Chairman of the London and Thames Haven Oil Wharves, Ltd. Lord Latham, as Chairman of the L.C.C., is very concerned in the re-planning of London. According to the Evening Standard (August 29th), Lord Latham is also very interested in the port of Havre. The Company of which he is Chairman owns about (about) £1,000,000 of property there. “It is the largest shareholder in an oil installation, a hotel, and wharves. Now the shares, like those of other concerns with interests in Occupied Europe, are on the rise.”

Following is the City Editor’s report on the Company (Evening Standard, August 28, 1944) : —

London and Thames Haven 

Feature in the market recently has been the further rise in the shares of London and Thames Haven Oil Wharves. These 4s. shares are now up to 15s. 6d., which compares with a low of 1s. 1d. in 1941. This price gives the Ordinary shares a market valuation of around £3,100,000, which compares with a market valuation of around £5,700,000 in the years when the company was paying tax-free dividend of 10 per cent, plus a less tax bonus of four. Since then the capital has been written down to provide for losses.

The company has paid no dividends for six years, but secured earnings last year of 3.8 per cent. tax free. The prospect is that the company will shortly recover the property which it owns at Le Havre. It has been improving its position steadily and has reduced its bank overdraft to £331,000. The directors are considering issuing more capital to pay off the bank overdraft, and no doubt, once the French position is more clearly seen, some action may be taken along these lines.

Mr. Churchill has a word for this. He said the war “as it progresses becomes less ideological.” In this case about £1,000,000 less.

* * *

Lend to the End (of What?)

Peace Savings Soon.—Sir Harold Mackintosh, Chairman of the National Savings Committee, said last night at the jubilee dinner of Birmingham Municipal Bank that the time would soon come when the war-savings campaign would become a peace-savings campaign.”— (Manchester Guardian, September 2nd, 1944.)

* * *

“Out of the Mouths of Babes and Sucklings”

The New York Times Magazine, April 30th, carried an article by a young British evacuee, Anselm Acker, describing his impressions of American life, in the course of which this schoolboy says of New York: “The sight in the subways, when the people are returning from work, sitting and standing like sodden bales of hay with their mentality apparently all drained from them,” displeased him. Good for you, young Anselm, you are a perspicacious youth, whose keen eye will assist him much in penetrating the surface to see the real nature of the things beneath.

No wonder American magazines carry ads. for “No-Dozies,” guaranteed to keep you awake. And the comic strip of the Philadelphia Tribune shows a small child asking its mother : “Mom, what do these candies do to me ? Nothing, Son. What, don’t make me regular? No, Son. Don’t make my complexion clear? No, Son. Don’t make my breath sweet? No, Son. What! you mean I can eat ’em because I like ’em? ”

All the most simple elementary things of life are utterly commercialised and distorted. Everything is “packed,” “processed.” American troops are issued “Energy” crackers. Ham becomes Spam. Life is in a packet or carton.

If you would like to turn up the writings of a man who never went to New York, Anselm, by the name of Karl Marx, who wrote over sixty years ago, you will find that he said :—.

"Within the capitalist system all methods of raising the social productiveness of labour are bought at the cost of the individual labourer . . . they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work, and turn it into hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process, in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power : they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital: as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his pay high or low, must grow worse."—(“Capital,” Vol. I., chapter 23.)

Nowhere is this clearer in the world to-day than New York.

Horatio.

The anarchist way (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anarchists derive their ideals of justice, liberty and equality from the eighteenth century, since when they and their followers have wandered up one blind alley after another in their search for the right road to their utopia.

In the early nineteenth century, there was “the immortal Proudhon” with his “mutualism”. He held that capitalism could be persuaded to wither away by the simple yet so practical expedient of reducing interest rates to zero, and allowing anyone to print money and operate as a banker. As he told Marx in a letter of 1846:

we should not put forward revolutionary action as a means of social reform . . . But I believe that I know the means of solving this problem with only a short delay.

Instead of Socialism, Proudhon’s goal was “social liquidation”. Indeed, liquidation and bankruptcy could be the only possible consequences of such a policy! But mutualism was an idea already in the air when Proudhon wrote What is Property? in 1840: an Equity Store, or Time Store, and similar ventures, were operating in the USA from about 1827. Capitalism, however, survived.

In the mid-nineteenth century, socialists and anarchists worked together in an uneasy alliance. The split came in 1872 when the anarchists, led by Bakunin, were finally expelled from the First International. Bakunin denied that there was any need for the workers to form a party in order to gain political power. In place of the Marxist policy of developing working-class political organisations to take over the powers of government, the anarchists argued for industrial organisation and the use of the general strike to destroy the state.

The Syndicalist Fallacy

In ABC of Anarchism (1929), Alexander Berkman devoted a whole chapter to the organisation of labour, and the use of the general strike, the work-in and workers’ control as the means of social revolution. Nowhere in the book, however, does he give any hint of what the police and armed forces would be doing while the workers were busily occupying factories, mines and railways. Perhaps they were to be away on holiday during the social revolution.

Yet Berkman was perfectly aware that, when necessary, governments are ruthless in their use of force and coercion against the working class:

There is no record of any government or authority, of any group or class in power having given up its mastery voluntarily. In every instance it required the use of force, or at least the threat of it.

It follows that a government faced with an attempt to expropriate the means of production would use all powers at its disposal to protect the "rights of property”, not stopping short of massacre (remember the Commune).

While Berkman followed Bakunin in arguing against political action and for the syndicalist folly of using the unions and the general strike against the state, the Italian Malatesta argued in Amsterdam in 1907 that working class unity is a myth, that the rôle of union officials is as “corrupting” as parliamentarism, and that a general strike without armed insurrection must fail, as workers would starve faster than the rich and could easily be crushed by the state’s armed forces. He concluded that workers should seize political power by armed insurrection, a policy as suicidal as syndicalism, and for the same reasons.

The Propaganda of Deed

The last quarter of the nineteenth century was a period when some anarchists, in America as well as Europe, pursued yet another policy. It was named the “propaganda of deed”. Various spectacular assassinations and bomb outrages took place, much publicised by the bourgeois press.

It was the failure of the tactics of riot, especially in Italy after the attempted insurrection of 1877, which led Bakunin’s followers to support terrorism. As Louise Michel said:

We have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain urgent reforms. What was the result? The people were shot down. Well, we think the people has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people should sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of violence whose object is to terrorise the government and the bourgeois.

To this day, we hear of individuals and groups who practise this policy. The Angry Brigade in this country, and in Italy the Red Brigade, who describe their actions as “striking at one man to educate a hundred”: propaganda by deed is exactly what they mean.

The consequences of such acts are entirely negative. They give the state popular support for reactionary and draconian measures. To reject the need to gain political power, to gain control of the state machine, to organise the working class politically, is all too often to accept defiant but pointless gestures— demonstrations, squatting, assassination, armed insurrection, kidnapping.

For those anarchists who follow Bakunin, it is the State that has to be abolished. For George Woodcock, as for Berkman, it is the “principle of government”. Kropotkin dreamt of making bonfires of laws, edicts and all sorts of rules and regulations, while Faure's basic definition of the anarchist viewpoint was:

the negation of the principle of authority in social organizations and the hatred of all constraints that originate in institutions founded on this principle. Thus, whoever denies Authority and fights against it is an Anarchist.

But if laws are destroyed, there is still a government to fight. If the entire government is murdered (something of this sort did happen in Russia, remember) there will still be no change in the economic basis of society. It will not have tackled the root cause of most of society’s problems—the class ownership of the means of production and distribution. The working class would still be wage-slaves since they do not own the means of life.

The anarchist demand to “smash the state” is based on a lack of understanding of the role of the state and of the whole reason for its existence. This is that in a property-based society the owners of capital need to defend their class interests as against those of the workers. But merely to “smash the state”, without first abolishing capital, is a wasted effort. It would be like trying to get rid of nettles in one’s garden without digging up the roots.

“Pure and Simple Destruction”

Nechayev — a friend of Bakunin, and a man whose Revolutionary Catechism influenced Lenin — wrote naively:

The only form of revolution beneficial to the people is one which destroys the entire state to the roots . . . Our task is terrible, total, universal and merciless destruction.

Berkman was consistent to the destructive streak in anarchism when he wrote:

when government is abolished, wage slavery and capitalism must also go with it, because they cannot exist without the support and protection of government.

(ABC of Anarchism)

Yet, neither explains just how the state and the government can be abolished while the workers remain mere wage-slaves, dependent for next week’s meals on this week’s pay-packets. Go on strike? The workers and their families would starve a lot sooner than the rich. Try to occupy the factories, shops, mines, farms and so forth? Not a chance if they are defended by government-paid mercenaries, imported if necessary, armed to the teeth.

Unless and until the working class organizes itself politically so that the state’s coercive forces may be used for rather than against the revolution, we cannot expect to change society. As Engels wrote (letter to Cuno, 1872):

Do away with capital, the concentration of all means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall of itself . . . Without a previous social revolution, the abolition of the state is nonsense; the abolition of capital is precisely the social revolution, and involves a change in the whole mode of production.

As long as capitalism lasts, workers will be plagued with well-meaning idealists who rebel against the double standards, and violence of the system. But the social revolution must be built on more solid foundations. The best basis for the creation of a new world is a community of class-conscious working people who realize that it is in their interests as a class to end capitalism and who understand that they can never end commodity-bondage unless they organize, democratically and politically.

Charmian Skelton

Blogger's Note:

The following correction appeared in the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard:

Correction. 

In “The Anarchist Way”, an article which appeared in our September issue, it was stated that Malatesta held the view “that workers should seize political power by armed insurrection”. This is incorrect. What Malatesta advocated was that workers should destroy political power by armed insurrection. We apologise for this mistake.

Editorial Committee

Correspondence: The Ballot or the Barricade? (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent writes asking questions as to the need for the Socialist movement to make use of methods of violence. Here is his letter :—

East Street, S.E.

To the Editor, Socialist Standard.

I wish to put some questions to the S.P.G.B., and hope you will answer them in an early issue of the S.S., as there are several sympathisers of the S.P.G.B. resident in Bermondsey who await your reply with considerable interest. Now, for my questions.

1. You say in your “Declaration of Principles” that the S.P.G.B. is out to conquer Political Power, etc. Now, as the Party disavows “Violent methods,” how are you going to do it?

It seems to me, that by this disavowal the Party cannot claim to be “Revolutionary” in any sense of the word, nor Marxian, either. Marx, in his “Address to the Communist League,” insists that the workers “must prepare for the bloody struggles that lie ahead of them.” Engels also says much the same in his “Revolutionary Tactics.” Lenin, in his “State and Revolution,” page 25, says, “We have already said above, and shall show more fully at a later stage that the teaching of Marx and Engels regarding the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the Capitalist State—it can not be replaced by the Proletarian State (the Dictatorship of the Proletariat) through mere withering away, but, in accordance with the general rule, can only be brought about by a violent revolution.” See also “Hymn of Praise” sung in its honour by Engels, and fully corresponding to the repeated declarations of Marx, in the concluding passages of the “Poverty of Philosophy” and the “Communist Manifesto” with its proud and open declarations of the inevitability of a violent revolution. Lenin, himself, said, “The substitution of a Proletarian State for the Capitalist State is impossible without a violent revolution.” (Page 26 Ibid.)

2. My own point of view is as follows : Assuming that the whole of the working-class voted the Socialists into “Office” or “Power,” it is in the power of the oligarchy to refuse to let the workers’ Socialist representatives take their “seats,” and declare their election to have been gained by fraud, etc. Assuming this to have taken place, the Socialists could only contest the legality of the election in the Courts. The Courts being dominated by capitalists the result would be a “foregone conclusion,” the workers would then have to appeal to force of arms.

3. As the S.P.G.B. has opened an Election Fund, with all that is implied by Election Funds, how is this going to bring about a speedy termination to the present system of exploitation? I have written this under the impression that although anti-Socialist papers like the “Herald,” “Sunday Worker,” and “The Communist,” etc., often ignore letters and criticisms, the Socialist Standard always gives a straight forward reply to relevant questions, etc. 

I remain, Yours faithfully,

Robert Chapman.

Reply:

Is Violence Revolutionary?

It will be seen that our correspondent starts off by assuming that revolution implies violence, and that since we do not advocate violence, therefore we are not revolutionary. This is an assumption which will not bear examination. The Socialist Party aims at changing the foundation of society, at replacing the private ownership of the means of production by common ownership. It is therefore a revolutionary party. Conversely, the use of violent methods to secure minor reforms does not turn a reformist party into a revolutionary one. The use of violence by the suffragettes in pre-war days did not entitle them to be described as revolutionary ; they were not seeking to revolutionise society. The American miners on strike at Herring, Illinois, a few years ago, who used machine guns against the employers’ armed strike breakers, were only resisting a wage decrease; they did not want to overthrow Capitalism, and were not revolutionary.

Violence, What For?

On looking closely into our correspondent’s statements and quotations, we see that he has himself not troubled over much to define precisely what is the object of the methods of violence advocated by him. The Socialist Party lays it down that Socialism pre-supposes the conquest of the powers of government and the conversion of the machinery of government, including the armed forces, from “an instrument of oppression into the agent of emancipation.” We lay it down, further, that the vote is the only means open to the workers in developed Capitalist countries to conquer the powers of government. Mr. Chapman (see paragraph 2 of his letter) says that the workers “have to appeal to force of arms,” but he does not explain what would be the purpose of the appeal to arms. This is a very important point, because, having rejected the possibility of conquering the powers of government by means of the vote, he is forced into the position taken up by the Communists, and illustrated by his quotation from Lenin. That position is the setting up of a “Workers’ State,” based on Soviets, in opposition to the existing State at present under Capitalist control, and the destruction of the latter by the former.

Thus we have the Workers’ Weekly (official organ of the Communist Party) stating that, “The power of the Capitalists must be wrested from them. The workers must set up their own State” (February 24th, 1923); and again, “The workers must destroy the Capitalist State, and set up their own Workers’ State, before they can make any real change” (March 17th, 1923).

Now this doctrine, shared by our correspondent and the Communists, is a piece of impractical and dangerous romanticism. It is not revolutionary. It leads not to Socialism, but to the shambles.

 That it is impractical will be obvious to those who will give it serious consideration, and remember that the conduct of warfare has developed and is developing even faster than industry itself. The Capitalist State has a strongly disciplined regular army, possessed of all the latest, most costly and most highly technical means of destruction. Mr. Chapman talks lightly of the workers “appealing to force of arms.” What arms? Where can the workers get and keep and manoeuvre tanks, bombing planes, poison gas and liquid fire plant? Where is the money with which to buy them ? How could they learn to use them even if they had them? And, above all, will the Capitalist class permit this concentration of hostile forces and implements? It is too fantastic for words. Mr. Chapman himself exposes its colossal unreality. He says the workers would have to appeal to force of arms against the hostile decision of Capitalist courts : does he imagine that these same hostile Capitalist courts would have turned a blind eye on the rebels during the years of preparation for the appeal to force of arms?

Lenin's Inconsistency.

But Lenin on occasion contradicted his own Communist doctrine. Writing in 1916 (reprinted in the Class Struggle, May, 1919), he said :—

“Socialists are willing to utilise the present Government and its institutions in the struggle for the liberation of the working class, and also insist on the necessity of so using the Government in the creation of a suitable transition form from Capitalism to Socialism.“

Lenin’s claim that Marx’s and Engels’ writings give him support in his other doctrine is fantastic. Throughout their works both of them emphasise the necessity of obtaining possession of the State machinery, and point the way to that end through the use of the vote. It is implicit in the Marxian theory.

The Attitude of Marx and Engels. 

Our correspondent refers to certain writings of Marx and Engels. A significant point about the quotations is the dates at which the various passages were written. “The Address to the Communist League” was written by Marx in 1850; “The Poverty of Philosophy” was written by Marx in 1846; and the ‘”Communist Manifesto” in 1847. Of the works referred to, the only one written late in life is “Revolutionary Tactics,” by Engels. This is a preface to Marx’s “Civil War in France,” and was written by Engels in 1895. We will return later to this question of the dates of these works.

Mr. Chapman says that Engels in this preface (Revolutionary Tactics) gives support to the advocacy of violence, but curiously enough our correspondent does not quote any passage to support his claim. This is all the more curious when it is remembered that Engels devotes a large part of his space precisely to this question.

The simple fact is that Engels draws exactly the opposite conclusion, and unhesitatingly condemns armed revolt. It is impossible to avoid the belief that our correspondent made his statement without troubling to verify it from Engels’ writings. Let us see what Engels says in 1895 :—

Engels on the Use of the Vote.

“The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed that the conquest of universal suffrage, of democracy, was one of the first and most important tasks of the fighting proletariat, and Lassalle had raised the issue again. When Bismarck now found it necessary to introduce universal suffrage as the only means of interesting the masses of the people in his designs, our workers were not slow to make a serious use of the opportunity, and they sent August Bebel to the first constituent Reichstag, From that day to this they have utilised the suffrage in a manner which has rewarded them a thousandfold, and been an example to the workers of all other lands. The result of all this was that the bourgeoisie and the Government grew far more afraid of the constitutional than of the unconstitutional activities of the working-class party, and came to dread the results of an election far more than they dreaded the results of a rebellion. For here also the conditions of the struggle had been notably modified. Rebellion in the old style, street fighting and barricades, the methods that had proved universally decisive, down to the year 1848, had in effect become obsolete.“ (Translation by E. & C. Paul in the Plebs, January to April, 1921.)

Engels then goes on to show how the development of the instruments of war and the organisation of the armies had themselves, apart from other factors, utterly destroyed the possibility of armed workers overpowering or demoralising the regular armed forces.

In face of this, our correspondent’s claim is astounding.

Europe in 1918.

Now for the earlier works. Our correspondent refers to “repeated declarations of Marx in the concluding passages of the ‘Poverty of Philosophy’ and the ‘Communist Manifesto.’“ It is surprising and regrettable that he did not give us some of these “repeated declarations.” The “Poverty of Philosophy” does, it is true, end up with the quotation of two flamboyant lines from a poem by George Sand, in which she referred to the choice between “Combat or death; bloody struggle or extinction.” Our correspondent surely does not ask us to read into the selection of a purple passage of this kind to round off a peroration, the intention of Marx to convey a serious general lesson to the workers?

But our correspondent, in selecting these early works, has overlooked the essential point that Liberal and National movements in Europe in 1848 are not a model for a Socialist movement in a fundamentally different Europe in 1928, and, moreover, neither Marx nor Engels, then or thereafter, drew such a conclusion as he fastens on them ; they never omitted to stress the importance of gaining control of the machinery of government, as distinct from destroying it.

Except France and the Rhine Provinces and England, Europe in 1848 was still predominantly feudal. The capitalist class had not yet won their way to political supremacy, and the modern centralised nation-States had not come into being. To the force of Nationalism and Liberalism was added the largely blind discontent of a working-class movement just coming to birth. Marx and Engels thought that it might be possible for the workers to take advantage of the conflict between capitalist Liberals and the absolutist monarchies and their feudal supporters to win away the support of the State troops and rush the revolutionary movements forward to Socialism over the heads of the Capitalist and Nationalist leaders, who, of course, would not want to achieve by their revolt any such a result as that. The justifications for that error of judgment (frankly admitted to be such in later years) were many. Lack of experience led Engels and Marx to underestimate the potentialities of growth and expansion which lay in the Capitalist system. They also counted (not unreasonably at that period) on the possibility of demoralising the State troops by means of barricades and armed street demonstrations. Again, at that time there were not in existence throughout Europe, as there are to-day, either an immense administrative civil service and local government or a stable system of democratic government based on an extended franchise.

Engels, writing in 1895, candidly admits his error (“Revolutionary Tactics“).

“Yet upon us, too, time wrought her revenges, proving illusory the views we then entertained. Nay, history went farther than this, for the march of events served not merely to trample down our errors, but served further to bring about a complete transformation of the conditions in which the proletariat has to fight. The campaigning methods of 1848 are utterly obsolete to-day. . . .“

Engels particularly points out that even before 1848 victory of the armed workers over regular troops was “among the greatest of rarities,” and that by 1895 “there have been many further changes, all in favour of the regular troops.”

Since 1895, and especially since 1914, the position has changed again almost out of all recognition, and such an armed revolt to-day is ludicrous.

The Need to Capture Political Control. 

The “Communist Manifesto” (page 21; Reeves’ edition) says : “We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.”

The “Address to the Communist League,” to which Mr. Chapman also refers, was an address to the German workers dealing with the actual situation facing them in Germany in 1850, and proposing methods of action to be followed before and after the anticipated victory of the German Capitalists over their feudal absolutist enemies. It did not pretend to apply to the working class outside Germany, where different conditions existed, still less to conditions which came into existence during the following 30 or 40 years, and which, as Engels confesses, he and Marx could not, and did not then foresee.

In any event, the phrase which Mr. Chapman claims is a quotation from the Address is not to be found in the text taken from Max Beer’s ”Inquiry into Dictatorship,” and published in the “Labour Monthly” (September, 1922).

Marx urges the workers to obtain arms and organise independently of the capitalist liberals before and during the struggles which were expected to give the capitalists supremacy, but for the period “after those struggles, during the time of their ascendancy over the defeated classes and the proletariat” he lays down definite plans for contesting elections and running workers’ candidates in opposition to the democrats, and “for whose success all must work with every possible means.” He deals further with the policy to be followed by the workers with reference to the budget and other parliamentary work. In this section Marx made no mention whatever of an armed struggle by the workers.

Marx on the Franchise. 

If further evidence is needed of the value placed by Marx upon the use of the vote for the conquest of power, we have only to remember how he worked for the winning and the extension of the franchise. The following two letters to Dr. Kugelmann illustrate this :—

“K. Marx to Dr. Kugelmann. 

January 10th, 1866.

We have been very busy organising a large meeting in favour of universal suffrage, and at this meeting only working men spoke. The effect was very great and “The Times” in two consecutive numbers discussed the question in a leader.“ (Printed in “Social Democrat,” May, 1902.)

K. Marx to Kugelmann. 

October 6th, 1866.

“The agitation for universal suffrage here, in which I have had a large share, is growing more and more.“ (Social Democrat, May, 1902.)

Let Us Suppose  . . . !

Then Mr. Chapman asks us to consider the situation which might arise if the capitalists destroy their own constitution in order to prevent the workers coming into control after the winning of an election. He omits, however, to consider the effect of such a move on the capitalist system and on the capitalist class themselves. Democratic, representative government is essential to the stable and continued working of the capitalist system. It is the foundation on which rests the political machinery and its enormous and complex administrative departments. If the ruling class destroy this basis by repudiating the very means by which they themselves gained their control, they not only risk early administrative chaos, they also commit eventual political suicide, even although the move may serve their immediate purpose. It is the imperative pressure of the needs and developments of the capitalist social system which has compelled and is still compelling the capitalists to broaden the electoral basis of their control. If they cannot resist this pressure now, what chance have they of putting back the clock after further years of representative government during which ever-increasing numbers of the workers learn to use and to value the vote? The capitalist parties everywhere exploit the electioneering value of being “constitutionalists.” Even the so-called dictators invariably parade the fact that they are constitutional in origin and practice ; they all know the value of preserving certain legal forms and formulas. Mussolini, who came into power through the deliberate action of governments elected by popular vote on a wide franchise, so far from repudiating the elective basis of his position, has added millions to the number of electors. In January, 1925, the voting age was reduced to 25, and is now to be reduced to 21, and even to 18 for married men.

The capitalist class could not prevent this development in its infancy; they cannot now stay its growth. Every year it becomes more difficult and the consequences more dangerous to them to narrow the franchise.

But let us suppose that at the eleventh hour the minority of capitalist “die-hards” does succeed in rushing the more timid and more circumspect majority into a rash venture of this kind. The possibility is small and remote, but were it big and imminent, that would only add weight to the Socialist policy as against the policy of armed revolt. If the final struggle takes on non-parliamentary forms, then it is of the utmost importance that the Socialist working class should have on its side the powerful plea that its position is constitutional. Once the working class are predominantly Socialist it is a simple matter, involving; no sacrifice or material delay for them to record by means of the vote that they are the majority. Mr. Chapman wants the workers to throw away a card of so great value. If the workers are compelled to make use of their economic organisation to bring industry to a standstill, and to appeal to the armed forces to support the constitutional majority against the usurping minority, nothing at such a time could exceed in importance the possession of the backing of constitutionalism. This will strengthen them and serve to undermine and split the backing of the capitalist parties and armed forces.

In his final question, our correspondent talks vaguely about “all that is implied by election funds,” but gives no inkling whatever of his meaning. If Mr. Chapman thinks that he has read in these columns or elsewhere a statement by the Socialist Party that we believe that the opening of an election fund will “bring about a speedy termination” to capitalism, I can only suggest that here again he is criticising without taking the trouble to read and understand. If he will consult our Declaration of Principles, he will see that we claim that the political organisation of a Socialist working class and their use of the vote to capture the machinery of government, and thus control the armed forces, will put them in a position to bring about a speedy termination of this system of society. If Mr. Chapman has further objections to this position, or any feasible alternative, we shall be pleased to hear it.

Edgar Hardcastle

Conspiracy to convict (1973)

Book Review from the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Cologne Communist Trial. By Karl Marx, with an introduction by Rodney Livingstone. Lawrence and Wishart.

With the publication of Marx’s Revelations concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne (1852) a valuable addition has been made to Marxist literature in English.

Besides Marx’s defence of his friends on trial by exposure of the lies, deliberate forgeries, and plots to implicate them, the book also contains Marx’s satirical sketches of the romantic revolutionaries of Germany at the time.

The manuscript of this work had a most curious history and lay undiscovered for a century, having been given by Marx to a certain Colonel Bangya, a Hungarian police spy, who offered to get it published and stole it.

The book’s chief interest to us is, first, that the story of the incidents leading to the arrest and imprisonment of the members of the Communist League shows clearly the origin and development of Marx’s ideas away from romantic insurrection, and to the education of the workers.

Engels explains in his History of the Communist League; and Marx himself quotes his statement in support of a break with the comic-opera “revolutionaries” :

The point of view of the minority is dogmatic rather than critical, idealistic rather than materialistic. For them, revolutions are not the product of the realities of the situation, but the result of a mere effort of will.

What we say to the workers is “You will have 15, 20, or 50 years of civil war and national struggle and this not merely to bring about a change in society but also to change yourselves, and prepare yourselves for the exercise of political power.” Whereas you say, “either we seize power at once or take to our beds.” (p. 62)

As Engels reports, Paris and London, at that time, were hotbeds of revolutionary cliques and self-styled “liberators" who actually enrolled recruits into “invasion" armies to march back and take over Germany, or more exactly, Prussia. Whereas Marx and himself counselled exiles to go back home and patiently build a political Socialist movement.

This is not the place to itemize the whole sordid story of the conspiracy to convict innocent men, except to indicate one other interesting sidelight which has bearing on the position of the Socialist Party today.

The whole might and resources of the Prussian state, money, men and apparatus were mobilized, on the direct orders of the King of Prussia himself, to secure a political conviction. Incidentally, the Minister of the Interior who ordered the exercise and sought the extradition of German political refugees was Ferdinand von Westphalen, Marx’s brother-in- law.

Against this, on the other side, was Karl Marx, penniless and stranded in London, never losing his profound sense of humour in the most tragically desperate circumstances. He wrote to Weydemeyer in America:

You will appreciate the humour of our side of this pamphlet when you realise that its author is more or less imprisoned through his lack of adequate covering for his feet and posterior, and moreover at any moment expects to see real misery overwhelm his family, (p. 28)

The spectacle of the penniless and homeless Karl Marx, frantically endeavouring to maintain his family, forced to abandon productive work to defend his threatened comrades, pitting his brain against the organized power of the Prussian state will live in the mind of the reader of this book.

Horatio.

Bebel and Hervé: German Party Leader As A Jingo. (1907)

From the June 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “revolutionary” Bebel has again been distinguishing himself as a patriot, both in the Reichstag and in the Press. In the Reichstag he repudiated Liebknecht’s book on anti-militarism, and to a French journalist he made an attack on the anti-militarist propaganda of Hervé.

The Times of 31st April reported that:–

“M. Jules Hedeman, of the Matin has seen Herr Bebel, the German Socialist leader, in Berlin, and obtained from him the following statement in writing upon Mr Hervé’s anti-militarist propaganda in France:–

“The ideas and anti-militarist propaganda of Hervé are impossible in German Social-Democracy. German Social-Democracy is the avowed adversary of the present military system, but it considers that a military organisation is necessary in the States now existing so long as all the civilised nations shall not have established conventions and institutions which would once for all render war impossible. So long as the danger exists and wars are possible, every nation should possess a military organisation sufficient for resisting an aggressive war, and defending its own territory against the invasion of the enemy. If German Social-Democracy supports every local initiative with the object of avoiding war and assuring peace—for example, the organisation of international tribunals of arbitration for the settlement of conflicts between different States—it nevertheless considers a military organisation indispensable so long as the danger of war exists. It is for this reason that German Social-Democracy has inscribed in its programme—first, education which will render all citizens fit for military service; secondly, the substitution of militias for permanent armies.

“Consequently, if a member of the German Socialist Party propagates ideas and claims analogous to those that Hervé defends, one would be justified in asking, in virtue of the programme of the Socialist Party, does this member still belong to that party? The party could not admit a propaganda which goes directly counter to its programme, which seriously damages the party, and of which the aims are in existing circumstances unattainable, because they are contrary to the interests of our own country.”

Bluntly put, the above means that Bebel regards it as the duty of members of the German Socialist Party to sacrifice themselves in defence of their exploiters’ property should the latter be coveted by the exploiters of any other country. In other words it says that the working class of Germany should be prepared to slaughter workers of any other country should their respective masters quarrel over the division of the wealth that has been stolen from the working class!

Every Socialist must know that the problem of militarism—like that of unemployment—is inseparable from capitalism, and while Hervé undoubtedly errs in concentrating his energies upon anti-militarist propaganda since militarism is but an effect of capitalist exploitation, yet our sympathies are heartily with him as against Bebel’s patriotic clap-trap.

In his address to comrades of the Socialist Party, Hervé said:–

“All Socialists call themselves internationalists, and this, to every Socialist, means to be in favour of the international union of the workers.

“But there are two very different ways of understanding this international union; there is the patriotic way, and the anti-patriotic way.

“The patriotic internationalists say: ‘Present day countries, such as history has made them, are moral entities whose existence is useful to human progress. However imperfect they may be, however inhuman even they may be for proletarians, the latter have in each country the duty of defending them when attacked. We are internationalists, but if the country in which we chanced to be born is attacked we will defend it to the death’.

“This in plain language means simply; ‘Workers of the world unite; but if your rulers order you to massacre your comrades, do so!’

“This singular internationalism, a few months ago just missed producing what it threatened.

“If war had broken out over Morocco between France and Germany, the two proletariats, French and German, would have protested through the voices of their parliamentary tenors; resolutions proclaiming eloquently the fraternity of the two peoples would have been exchanged; and, then, fraternally, the French and German working classes would have gone to massacre each other in order to find out with which of the two capitalist classes Morocco would remain.”

Hervé also says in explaining his own attitude:–

“The workers are disinherited and ill-treated in every existing country.

“All nations are equal, or nearly so, in this respect, particularly now that the capitalist regime renders more and more uniform the material, intellectual, and political conditions of life for the labouring class in all countries; and now that the introduction of the capitalist system in Russia will compel even Tsarism to accord to the Russian workers the essentials of political liberty.

“No country at the present day, is so superior to the others that the workers of that country should get themselves killed in its defence.

“In case of mobilisation, no matter who is the apparent aggressor (it is, indeed, never exactly known, when war breaks out, who is the legal aggressor), the proletariats of the belligerent countries should reply to the order to mobilise by insurrection against their own rulers, in an attempt, each, in his own country, to establish Socialist Society.

“Rather insurrection than war!”

Certainly no one country’s exploiters are so superior to the rest that the workers should sacrifice themselves in defending them; but it is equally certain that if the proletarians were to rise in armed revolt against their rulers immediately on the outbreak of war, while the master class controlled the armed forces of the nation, and while the workers were yet unable and unready to assume control of Society, they would be courting a shambles that would make war peace by contrast.

And when the working class is able and ready to assume control of the political and industrial forces of the country, it is its bounden duty to do so, whether its masters are at war or not, for the lives of millions of workers under capitalist rule perpetuate horrors that are worse than any war.

Since, therefore, Hervé’s statement implies that the workers even though they are not in a position to successfully emancipate themselves should nevertheless sacrifice themselves in a fruitless and bloody attempt to do so on the outbreak of war, it is necessary to dissent from that position of his declaration.

Militarism is an inevitable effect of capitalist domination and the struggle for markets and profit, and so long as the workers are ruled by a master class, so long will their masters use them as cannon fodder. The only solution of the question of militarism from the proletarian point of view is the abolition of capitalist exploitation. It is then our duty to concentrate our efforts upon Socialism, upon the triumph of those who labour. The revolutionary Socialist is the truest peace advocate.

The particularly anti-militarist propaganda of Hervé has undeniably an educational value, and to that extent it is to be welcomed; it is also an inevitable reaction against the jingoism of men like Bebel. We have so-called Socialist advocates of militarism in this country, and indeed, though it appears a harsh saying to many would believe their parties and their leaders to be Socialist, it is true that The Socialist Party is the only party of which it can be said that it advocates undiluted Socialism.

All the various problems that affect the working class hinge upon the ownership of the means of life, and yet outside of our ranks practically the whole of the workers’ energies are being directed against effects rather than to the removal of the cause of the trouble. The origin of poverty, war and slavery lies in class ownership of the means whereby the people live. The straightest road is the shortest road, and the only way to get rid of the evil of militarism is to get rid of capitalism.

F. C. Watts

Marxist Anti-Bolshevik (2022)

Book Review from the May 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard

World Bolshevism. By Iulii Martov. Translated by Paul Kellogg and Mariya Melentyeva. AU Press, Edmonton, Canada, 2022.

When in 1938 International Review published, under the title The State and the Socialist Revolution, a number of essays written by Martov in the years 1918-1921 (he died in 1923) the translator omitted the first section. The whole collection had been published in Russian, in Berlin in 1923, under the title “Mirovoi bol’shevizm” (World Bolshevism). This explains why Martov has come to be called Julius, the German equivalent of Iulii (or Yuliy), his first name in Russian.

The whole collection has now been published in a new translation with an introduction by Kellogg. In the missing chapters Martov advanced the view that Bolshevism was popular amongst large sections of the working class outside Russia because they had been brutalised by serving as soldiers during the war, hence their belief in violent direct action and contempt for traditional working class institutions and activities (reformist parliamentary action and trade unionism). The newly-translated chapters don’t add much, in terms of Marxist analysis, to the points made in the parts that have been available in English since 1938. In any event, by 1921 the Bolsheviks had abandoned advocating an immediate armed insurrection in favour of electing left-wing governments, which brought them a different following.

As a further dissemination of Martov’s Marxist criticism of Lenin and Bolshevik ideology the new translation can only be welcome.

Adam Buick

Editorial: The Communist Party and Violence. (1926)

Editorial from the March 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Neither the Communists, nor any other section of the working-class movement, desire or advocate violence or civil war in any form.” Thus writes Palme Dutt, of the Communist Executive, in the Labour Monthly for Dec., 1925. Reading this and some of the speeches in the C.P. trial one would imagine the Communist Party were sworn enemies of insurrection and armed uprising. But the theses of the 3rd International on the “The Role of the C.P. in the Communist International” lays down a very different policy. Thus : “The working class cannot achieve victory over the bourgeoisie by means of the general strike alone and by the policy of folded arms. The proletariat must resort to an armed uprising.” The Statutes of the 3rd International are very clear upon this point. They state :“The aim of the Communist International is to organise an armed struggle for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and the establishment of an International Soviet Republic as a transition to the complete abolition of the Capitalist State.”

The Communist Wreckers. (1924)

From the March 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Towards the end of the war there was a small but growing body of workers who viewed with ever greater disgust the Labour Party, which they had previously supported. These Trade Unionists who had been tricked into enthusiastic approval of the war by appeals to their patriotism and to their natural sympathy for “defenceless” Belgium, had their suspicions aroused by shameless profiteering at home, and by rumours of secret treaties between the Allies. The discontent was fanned by the daring seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

The workers found themselves gagged and blindfolded by D.O.R.A., bound in industrial conscription and flung into the war machine. They saw all the liberties for which they were asked to fight taken from them, and the armed forces used to intimidate men at home who made spasmodic efforts to retain some few of their hardly won safeguards against workshop tyranny. When the war ceased and the soldiers returned, discontent grew in spite of attempts to set ex-Service men against the rest. They were beginning to think, and their anger was turning against the leaders and the policy of the Party which had betrayed them; against the Clynes’s and Thomases who had sold them for honours and turned the Labour Party into a recruiting machine, and against the minor officials of the Trade Unions who had bought immunity from military service themselves by defending and assisting the better known labour leaders in the work they were doing for successive Capitalist Governments. The workers were slowly groping their way to a realisation that these patriotic braggarts who were hand-in-glove with the ruling class were not fit and proper guides for the workers in their struggles; and always fresh evidence was forthcoming in campaigns for increased production, for making Germany pay, etc., led by Labour men. (It is interesting to note that Clynes is still an unrepentant advocate of increased production in spite of our 1½  million unemployed. See Current Opinion, Jan., 1924.)

Here then was material for the building up of a really powerful revolutionary movement ; but out of this ferment we got, instead, the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Worshipping, without troubling to understand, the very real achievements of the Bolsheviks, the leaders of this Party trumpeted forth their supposedly brand-new principles of working class action.

To hell with that “bourgeois shibboleth” Democracy! Hail the “Dictatorship” and revolution by a minority of intellectuals! Down with Parliament; “the Soviet form of government” is the “historically necessary form of this dictatorship.” (Statutes of Communist International, August, 1920.) Let us prepare for the armed struggle, let us form communist groups in the army and navy. War to the death against Henderson and Clynes and all the “lackeys of the Bourgeoisie.”

We, poor hidebound creatures, thinking that Socialist propaganda was still useful and necessary, were “cave-men” ; we were stranded on the mud-flats of  “Bourgeois ideology” (what a godsend that word "Bourgeois” was to the ranter as a cover for his ignorance of Socialist principles); we did not move with the times, and were unaware that Capitalism had crashed about our ears, and that we were plump in the midst of a “revolutionary situation.” In short, they were sorry for us, but we were simply played out.

So they had their glorious fling. In the joyful exuberance of youth these blind dreamers preached the necessity of “living dangerously”; they tickled themselves nearly to death with thrilling conspiracies and landed many of their followers needlessly in jail (usually themselves keeping well within the laws of that “myth” parliament.) They planned insurrections and drilled with broomsticks in secret places. They opposed MacDonald and Morgan Jones at bye-elections, furiously denouncing them for their infamy and frightening nobody but the ignorant and nervous readers of the Morning-Post. They went about preaching Sovietism and did great harm by butting in with this propaganda whenever an industrial dispute occurred. Each succeeding strike or lock-out was without hesitation (or thought) greeted as the revolutionary crisis, and as each passed without their hopes being fulfilled so their wrath against the criminality of labour leaders became more violent and uncontrollable.

They organised spectacular boycotts of the export of arms for wars in Russia and Ireland with “terrific” success. The boycotts only failed in the quite minor respect that the arms went through. (Communist, October 7th, 1920.)

They helped to organise the unemployed and were even more disastrously futile. This is their own estimate of their work :—

  “The unemployed have done all they can, and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable meetings and been told to be ‘solid.’ They have marched to London, enduring terrible hardships. . . . All this has led to nowhere. . . . In weariness and bitter disillusionment, the unemployed movement is turning in upon itself. . . .” (Workers’ Weekly, Feb. 10th, 1923.)

Consistent only in failure, the Communists were forced to find fresh stunts to hold the attention that their plentiful supplies of money had won for them.

In due course they were ordered to stage the “United Front” farce. They had to eat their bold words and line up with “Capitalist flunkeys” in the Labour Party. They had to prove themselves constitutionalists in spite of all their brave speeches, and had to humble themselves at the feet of Henderson and Ramsay MacDonald. It is only fair to say that some at least of them did so with every sign of shame; they excused themselves by saying that they wanted to “shake Henderson’s hand only in order to get hold of his throat.”

Later still all pretence was dropped and at the 1923 elections we find quite a number of Communists running as official Labour candidates. We find Mr. W. Paul, sometime firebrand, going to the poll with an election address graced by a message from Ramsay MacDonald (Socialist, Jan., 1924). We have these erstwhile Bolsheviks who were once too revolutionary to shake the “bloody hands” of the “Social patriots,” boasting of having given unqualified support to the worst of them, to Thomas, Clynes, and the rest. We have Harry Pollitt, writing in the Workers’ Weekly (Dec. 21st, 1923) to expose the latest trickery of Frank Hodges, and confessing that “we did not expose Mr. Hodges during the Election because we did not desire to split the workers’ vote. . . ” His article has a postscript, “Miners, away with this man !” Does Pollitt think that Frank Hodges cares twopence about people who keep their exposures until after the Election? He is now Civil Lord of the Admiralty and can snap his fingers at the people who might, had they known him, have checked his career at the polling booth. His power to do harm to the workers was increased by the deliberate action of these Communists. Do they anticipate that Frank Hodges will now organise “Communist nuclei” in the ranks of the men of the Navy?

And what has happened to the Soviets? You will search their Election literature in vain to find mention of Soviets now. They, with minority action and armed insurrection, have gone into the discard with other of their “brand-new” principles, which were really very old. Tom Bell, Editor of the Communist Review, an official C.P. organ (Jan., 1924), comments on the Election and jettisons almost all the remainder of them.

  “The advent of a Labour Government, even of a Liberal type, would nevertheless be a matter of tremendous importance in world politics. For one thing, it would help to spread confusion in the camp of the swashbuckling reactionaries now rampant in Middle Europe. This, in turn, may open a period of democratic pacifism, which would have the effect of stupefying such large masses of the working class, instinctively yearning for peace, as to postpone any revolutionary action for a decade, and certainly once the workers are affected by the illusions of pacifism and reformism,  and that upon an international scale, Capitalism throughout Europe may very well strengthen its position. A Labour Government, therefore, in Great Britain, especially supported by Liberalism, with its repercussions on the Continent, and particularly on that of the social democratic elements in Germany, might conceivably give rise to that era of  ‘Wilsonism' predicted by Comrade Trotsky at the Fourth Congress of the Communist International. That is a prospect to which we Communists cannot shut our eyes and ignore.”

We, who were “behind the times,” observe with some bewilderment Communists assisting into power a Labour Government;, which may have the effect of “strengthening Capitalism” and postponing “any revolutionary action for a decade.”

After affirming that “MacDonald, Webb and the other Fabian leaders of the Party will strike the road of  ‘Wilsonism.’ ” Tom Bell goes on to say that:—

  “As things are, the proletarian opposition to the Fabianism of MacDonald, Webb and the dominant Parliamentary leadership falls to Wheatley, Maxton, Johnston, Kirkwood, and the other proletarian element,”

who, he says, are

  “already committed to the policy of a fight to a finish with Capitalism.”

It is cheering to know that working class interests are in such safe keeping. Wheatley, the Jesuit, who, according to his Election address, sees the cause of our troubles in our not having “an unselfish ruling class,” and who wants to lead us “along a safe and sane course ” of the Labour Party, which is going to benefit “shopkeepers and every other class “; Maxton, whose Election address proclaims higher wages as the solution for unemployment, and who seeks to divide the workers on the Capitalist demand for Scottish Home Rule; Johnston, who condemns repudiation of financial obligations to bond holders entered into by Capitalist Governments as “dishonesty” (Forward, Feb. 11th, 1922); dishonest to expropriate the robber class! Kirkwood, who at the Election also prosperity promised to “merchants and manufacturers” and “every other class” (Election address.) These are the broken reeds on whom the Communists tell you to depend. Is their present advice more reliable than their past action would lead you to expect? In the Workers’ Weekly (Jan. 11th, 1924) Albert H. Hawkins, a C.P. official writes as follows :—

  “In the December issues of the Communist Review and Labour Monthly, no fewer than four members of the Party E. C. attempted to explain the underlying causes of the General Election, and each one had a different explanation. This tragedy was only surpassed by the greater tragedy that very few Party members appeared to notice the confusion of thought. It would appear that we are losing the arts of political discussion and criticism.”

Not one God but four Gods; not one United Front, but four United Fronts !

And these are the “intelligent minority,” the men of “first class brains” who were to be your heaven-sent guides.

In these few years they have revived a number or long-rejected policies and proved their futility once again; they have multiplied confusion in the ranks of the working class and boxed the political compass; and worst of all they have rallied the growing mass of discontented workers, led them up half a dozen blind alleys and then manoeuvred them back to where they were in 1919, in the ‘Labour Party. As the Daily News says (Dec. 10th, 1923), for the Labour Party to keep these elements where they can do no more harm is a “laudable and valuable service.” This Capitalist journal ought, however, if it would be fair, to give some of the credit to the leaders of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who, seeing that all of their candidates failed to get in, have so far been very inadequately rewarded for their unconscious services to the Capitalist class.

Edgar Hardcastle