Manifesto To the Proposed International Congress. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain

To the proposed International Congress

COMRADES,—

Residing as we do under the control of the “democratic” British Government, we are not permitted to send Delegates to the Congress to state our views, present our case, and defend our policy, as we so strongly wished. All the more is this to be regretted as our organisation is the only one in the British Isles that takes its stand upon a definite and avowed Marxian basis and follows a policy logically deduced from that basis.

We hold that the Working Class must march to its emancipation from wage-slavery and the domination of the Capitalist Class, by the conquest of political power. In the British Isles the means wherewith to accomplish this are already in the hands of the workers, as, despite certain anomalies in our franchise, the workers have the overwhelming majority of the votes at their disposal when an election takes place. Hence the great, immediate, and pressing work requiring to be done is the education of the Working Class to an understanding of Socialism—to a realisation of their slavery and the method of their emancipation.

The Working Class are slaves to the Capitalist Class. While the Workers produce all existing wealth by applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, this wealth, and the instruments necessary for its production, along with the great storehouse of Nature’s materials -the earth- are owned and controlled by the Master Class under a system of private ownership that necessitates the selling of the bulk of the products upon the markets. But while powers of production increase by leaps and bounds, the markets grow but slowly. Hence the struggles between the various groups of Capitalists for the control of these markets and the routes thereto so that they may dispose of the commodities the wage-slaves have produced. Practically all the wars of the last three centuries, from the struggle against the Dutch and Portuguese in India to the present colossal carnage which is devastating the whole world, have had their essential causes rooted in the demands of the various groups of Capitalists to control these markets and routes.

The Workers’ share of these conflicts has been to slaughter each other in their Masters’ interests, to find a grave if killed, or be offered the degrading and comfortless shelter of the workhouse if disabled or maimed. The hardship, misery, want, and suffering following these wars fall always upon the Working Class. Thousands of cripples and tens of thousands of men with constitutions ruined by military service will feel the horrors of the struggle for existence with tenfold bitterness after the war. In the midst of the conflict the Pensions Minister, Mr. G.N. Barnes – a member of the ILP and of the “Labour Party”, and “Labour” Member of Parliament for Blackfriars Division of Glasgow – has admitted that over 100,000 men have been discharged from the British Army as medically unfit for Service without allowance or pension of any kind. To soothe the ruffled feelings of these unfortunate victims of capitalist brutality this so-called representative of the Workers said:

“It has been claimed that these men should be put on pension . . . . inasmuch as the doctors have passed them in . . . . I want to say that they will not get it while I am in the office.”—Official Report, col. 254, March 6th, 1917.

No matter which group of the Masters win the struggle, the Workers remain enslaved. The division of interests is not between the peoples of the world, but between the classes — the Master Class and the Working Class. Not, therefore, in their fellow Workers abroad, but in the Master Class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found.

What interest have the Workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none.

Every Socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow Workers. All those who on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-Socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist.

Moreover, where the Working Class have the necessary means —the franchise— for their emancipation within their grasp it is clearly an anti-Socialist and treacherous act to urge them to use those means for the purpose of placing political power in the hands of the masters. The flimsy excuses so often used to cover up such acts of treachery to the Working Class merely add evidence to support the truth of this statement.

Applying these tests of real understanding of Socialist principle and correct action to the organisations in this country claiming to be Socialist, we find all of them except the Socialist Party of Great Britain failing to stand that test. The Fabian Society, with Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Sidney Webb at its head, merely wishes for an extension of the Civil Service system under the control of a bureaucracy, and is opposed to the Workers being emancipated from their slavery. In addition to supporting the carrying on of the war, both the society and its individual members readily support the return of Liberal Capitalists to Parliament.

The so-called Independent Labour Party is ready at all times to make political bargains with the Capitalists and to urge the Workers to place power in the hands of the masters. Thus Mr. Ramsay MacDonald at Leicester, Mr. Philip Snowden at Blackburn, Mr. F. Jowett at Bradford, Mr. James Parker at Halifax, Mr. G.H. Roberts at Norwich, Mr. G.N. Barnes at Glasgow, and Mr. Clynes at N.E. Manchester all owe their seats in Parliament to bargains made with the Liberals, in return for which they gave their support to Liberals in these and other constituencies. While protesting — in some forms — against the war, and now urging “Peace by negotiation”, the ILP allowed its members like Mr. Parker and Mr. Clynes to assist in the recruiting campaign.

In a letter sent to his constituency on 11th September, 1914, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald said:

“I want the serious men of the trade unions, the brotherhoods and similar movements, to face their duty. To such it is enough to say ‘England has need of you’ and to say it in the right way.

“They will gather to her aid; they will protect her.” Daily Chronicle, September 9th, 1914.

In the Merthyr Pioneer for 27th November, 1914, the late Mr. Keir Hardie, another ILP Member of Parliament, said:

“I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting. I know too well all there is at stake.”

How is all this different from assisting in carrying on the war? How clearly it shows the treachery of the ILP leaders and Members of Parliament!

Moreover, the ILP has allowed its members to accept office in a Capitalist government without making any protest or repudiation. It is true that their 1917 Conference passed a resolution dissociating the organisation from Mr. Parker’s action in taking a Government office, but not only is Mr. Parker allowed to remain a member of the ILP, but no protest at all is made when other members, as Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Roberts, accept office under similar conditions. While protesting against German Social-Democrats voting war credits in the Reichstag, ILP members have steadily voted for war credits here.

The claim of the ILP to be a Socialist organisation is fully repudiated by the actions of its members, of which the above are but examples.

The British Socialist Party has been just as ready — if with less success — to try and enter into arrangements with the Capitalist parties for seats and offices. At General Elections they have shown their impartiality by advising the Workers to vote for Capitalist candidates of the Tory brand in some constituencies — as South Hackney, Norfolk, etc. — and for Capitalist candidates of the Liberal type in other constituencies. The one MP who until recently was a member of the BSP — Mr. W. Thorne owes his seat to the Liberals and Tories in West Ham combining to make him a present of that constituency. In the early days of the war he, with Mr. Hyndman, Mr. Hunter Watts, and others, took a prominent part in the recruiting campaign, calling upon the Workers of Great Britain to take up arms for the slaughter of their fellow Workers on the Continent, although Mr. Hyndman admitted that whichever side won the Workers would not benefit a single jot. Just lately Mr. W. Thorne has returned from a trip to Russia, taken, along with Mr. O’Grady and Mr. W. Sanders, on behalf of the British Capitalists, to persuade the Russian Workers to continue the war on the Eastern side.

In the ranks of the BSP a division of opinion has developed, resulting, after a struggle between the two sections, in the secession of the defenders of the war – Hyndman, Hunter Watts, Lee, Irving, and the rest — and the formation by the secessionists, of the National Socialist Party. The absurdity of the title is balanced by the merit it has of showing how completely pro-Capitalist and anti-Socialist these individuals are.

The BSP has now joined hands with the ILP in a so-called peace propaganda, but the confusion and double-dealing lying behind this movement is shown most glaringly by the fact that both these organisations remain affiliated to the Labour Party that has whole-heartedly supported the war from its inception.

One of the rewards given for this support was the appointment of Mr. J. Hodge, “Labour” Member for Gorton, as Labour Minister. Within a week of his appointment he tried to show his utility to the masters by threatening to use the powers of the Defence of the Realm Act against the Boilermakers of Birkenhead, who were protesting against the rotten conditions imposed upon them by the employers.

The organisation calling itself the Socialist Labour Party has never understood how the Workers are enslaved, and for years has propagated what it calls Industrial Unionism as the method of emancipation. Its attempts to reconcile this position with its claim to be a political party has led to such confusion in its ranks that when the war broke out it was divided as to whether it should support or oppose it.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN alone takes up the Socialist position here. At the beginning of the war we pointed out the essential factors forming its cause which we have given above, and we have steadily and consistently pressed this view by all the means in our power, and maintained it upon all occasions without change or deviation. Thus we said in the first issue of our official organ to be published after Britain’s entry into the war (Sept. 1914):

“THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN . . . whilst placing on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home.

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity . . .”

While in the February 1915 issue we said:

“We . . . declare again that there was nothing in the conditions of any country which justified Socialists voluntarily supporting either side in the war, and record our condemnation of such action as a betrayal of Socialist principles arising from lack of political knowledge and unsound political organisation.”

So, with our own hands clean and our every action in accord with the CLASS struggle and the solidarity of the interest of the Working Class the world over, we bring before the international proletariat our DEMAND FOR PEACE without any change of attitude or re-adjustment of policy. We stand for PEACE without reference to terms, since the fruits of Capitalist war are the Masters’, and only the pains and penalties thereof the Workers’.

The grim humour of the claim that Britain is fighting to “crush Prussian Militarism” is clearly shown by the fact that a Bill is being passed through the liberty-loving, democratic British Parliament establishing “Militarism” in a far worse form than either the present Prussian or the late Russian rulers ever attempted. Men who have crossed the seas because they refuse to accept military service are to be forced into the army of the “allied” country they may be in or brought back to serve in the army here!

To the Socialists of other countries we extend our fraternal greetings. As soon as conditions will permit us to do so we shall endeavour to join forces with our Comrades for the purpose of establishing a Socialist International Congress where Socialist policies shall be decided, where misleaders and tricksters who use the name and fame of Socialism will be exposed and denounced, where the message of Socialism will be sent forth to the toilers of all countries in clear and unmistakable terms, where the gage of battle against the Capitalist Class will be thrown down to the clarion call:

“WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS; YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.”

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

193 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1

20th June 1917

Jottings. (1917)

The Jottings Column from the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just now it is the fashion for everybody to ask everybody else to define their attitude, to state their war aims. Not to be outdone, God has lined up with the rest in so far as he has made a pronouncement as to his attitude. At least, so we are told in a “Prophetic Message" that is being circulated. I don’t know what enterprising individual has managed to secure an interview, or what pressure has been brought to bear; that, I suppose, is a diplomatic secret. He is pro-Ally, of course, as the message below will show.

“If it were not for the prayers of mine own chosen people, who are calling unto me day and night, I would have swept the people of this nation from before me,'' saith the Lord. "But it is the prayers of my people who are saving this nation and withholding me from destroying them utterly. But I am still the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, and for mine own people’s sake I will not destroy, but I will pour out the vials of my wrath till they humble themselves and repent, and seek me to deliver, for I am the Lord God of Hosts, and I am still the God of battles as well as the God of peace. 

Taking it on the whole, it is about at clear as anybody else's “attitude,” but I have a strong suspicion that God has told the same tale in other than Allied quarters. He can hardly be blamed for trying to keep square with everybody, as his reflections cannot be at all comforting, considering the mess he has made of the human race. If I might venture to give him a tip, the best attitude he could have adopted, to my thinking, was that of "benevolent neutrality.”

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Speaking of "attitudes,” there is no mistaking that of the Labour Party. To anything savouring of democracy they are in deadly opposition. They make no effort to hide it. In fact, they are brazen over it. Their members never seem to tire of affirming their allegiance to the capitalist class, and the capitalist Press is invariably at their disposal for the purpose of voicing their their support of capitalist interests. But one of the clearest official pronouncements is made by Mr. W. F. Purdy, chairman of the party executive and assistant secretary of the Shipwrights Union in an interview with a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian” (7.6.17), from which I take the following extracts. Speaking on the party's attitude toward the war and the Stockholm Congress he said:

At the Annual Conference at Manchester in January there was an unmistakable decision that the Labour Party should not take part in any international congress on peace and war until victory was achieved, and then only with the Socialists and trade union organisations of the Allied Powers. . . it was an honourable obligation on all sections of the party to respect it or get out. (This latter is a rub at the I.L.P. peace delegates.) . . . They (the I.L.P.) opposed the voluntary recruiting scheme, they opposed Labour taking any share in the first coalition Government, they opposed the Military Service Act, they opposed our joining the present coalition Government; yet all these decisions have been endorsed by the legally elected and constituted conference of the party. As chairman of the Executive of the Labour Party, I am not going to meet or sit in conference with representatives of the enemy countries while we are at war. I mean to carry out the policy of British Labour as laid down by our representative gathering. That policy is to pursue the war to a successful termination—which means to a complete victory over the enemy.

So there you have it. Capitalism for ever! On with the orgy of blood !

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Perpend. Lord Hugh Cecil in the Debate on the Franchise Bill (6.6.17) “cheered himself by thinking that the Labour Party hardly ever knew its own interests; indeed, the political incompetence of the Labour Party was much the greatest safeguard of our constitutional system.” 

Gee!

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Such is the prevailing ignorance and confusion regarding the real causes of the war and the issues involved—due, in the first place, to the indifference, before the war, to matters political and economic, and secondly, to the deliberate lying and bluffing of the capitalist and pseudo-labour Press and politicians—that it does not come as a surprise to find sections of “organised” workers hotly denouncing and and repudiating each other, for all the world as if the responsibility for the war was theirs as well as their masters’.

Such a position was the outcome of the recent peace convention at Leeds. It claimed to be a representative gathering. It was. I.L.P.ers, B.S.P.ers, Labour fakers, Quakers, Syndicalists —in fact a regular hotch-potch—rubbed shoulders with each other. From such a mixture of elements nothing tangible and clear could emerge, and, as one foresaw would be the case, the issues put forward for discussion were capitalist issues pure and simple.

Of course, the mere cry, of “peace” was sufficient to rouse the Labour Party into immediate opposition, along with other organisations, some of which were allied to those represented at the convention! Can you wonder at the success of every move made by the master class ? Some want peace, others don’t. Those who want peace suggest negotiations on terms that concern only the capitalists. Those who deprecate any “premature” or “patched-up” peace do so also for reasons that only concern capitalists. The latter are usually led by the type of idiot who believe that “capital and labour ought to be reconciled” in a time of national stress, and who devote their energies to bringing about such a condition (they believe it possible!)—that is, when they are not wholly engaged in the service of capital.

A great many there are, of course, as we happen to know, who thoroughly understand the correct line to be taken up—based on a dear conception of Socialist principles—and there is no reason whatever why anyone should be left in the dark. The matter is quite ample. Yet when one examines the composition both of convention and opposition, and reflects that all of them derive their knowledge from the same source, is., the stuff emanating from such people as Lansbury, MacDonald, Blatchford, Hodge, Bottomley, etc., etc., it makes one-wonder if the light will ever down on them—whether order will ever come out of chaos.

Due to this condition of things, it is unfortunately true that the majority of the working class of Britain, despite the suffering entailed, accept and support, and very often defend, the principle of the “right” to fight, to suffer, and to die in defence of the interests of their masters.

It remain for Socialists to combat and banish this fatal principle. Only by the permeation of Socialist doctrine will capitalism and labour-fakerism, with their concomitant evils—war and ignorance-cease to exist.

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A minister, asked in the House of Commons how many British airmen lost their lives in the last German air-raid on London, replied that he did not know. Such a reply must add greatly to the general confidence in the veracity of the war figures the Government treats us to.

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Anyone familiar with the protean accomplishments of Bill Thorne will not be surprised at his latest stunt. As a versatile artist Bill is Class A, and it should not be long before he is top of the bill. His latest “turn” is a visit to Buckingham Palace to see the King. Bill describes it as very interesting. ” It was marked by an entire absence of formality or convention. It was my first visit to Buckenham Palace, but I went there as if I had known the place all my life.” That’s just Bill all over. He can adapt himself anywhere. I wonder if he went in the coat Sir F. E. Smith gave him. I can imagine the look of imitative dignity on Bill’s face as he was ushered in by the flunkey!

And what would the flunkey have thought could he have known that he was bowing and scraping to one of the biggest flunkeys in the country ? But perhaps the coat did the trick. Good old Bill! If cheek can accomplish anything you’re the boy for the job. Hobnobbing with Royalty ! Gee! I wonder what’s in the wind!

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A report is current that the extensive work of the German missionary societies in Togoland is being taken over by Scottish missionaries, and that a large sum of money is being raised for the purpose. This would appear to mean that the country itself, as in the case of Uganda, where the flag followed the missionary, will be “taken over”—in the interests of British capitalism, forming, as it does, a valuable source of raw material which the manufacturer at home is anxious to take advantage of, along with an available amount of labour-power requisite for its supply. It used to be said that “the flag follows the missionary, trade follows the flag," but, as a writer in the “Daily Mail” (9.6.17) points out, the old motto is amended in this crisis—trade directs the flag. One aspect of it that is never amended is that exploitation follows the lot, every time. The following lines by A. C. Benson should be appropriate to the occasion :

“Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How can we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds beset: God, who made thee mighty, make mightier yet."

Gott mit uns! Truly we are a great nation !

May Field

"Peace In Our Time." (1921)

Editorial from the December 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several years ago a Conference was called together in Holland to consider the important question of Peace. Representatives of the ruling class in various nations (the territory-stealing, maiming and murdering sections of society) gravely discussed the best means of abolishing war, or, with sardonic humour, how to make it more humane. Sonorous sounding resolutions were put forward but—not passed. Each representative declared that his nation was simply bursting to abolish war, and if only the other nations would at once disarm—to show their good faith—his nation would at once follow suit—or—er—nearly so.

For by some curious freak of Fate each nation had had some particular cause for retaining one or other items in their armaments which, for practical reasons, they could not give up.

The net result was that after passing a few minor and ineffective resolutions, the Conference dissolved. And the cause of their failure was simple. Despite the old adage about “Honour among thieves," this particular Conference of cut-throats found it was impossible for them to trust each other, and so the efforts to reach an agreement upon the reduction of their general costs of throat-cutting ended without result.

1914-18 gave a lurid example of their brotherly love. It also showed how utterly ludicrous were the prophecies made by the various experts, French, English, and German, as to the length of time to which a vast war could be continued, and the absurd under-estimate of the quantities of munitions required to carry on such a war. The staggering loss of life and enormous destruction of wealth has shaken, to some extent, the complacency of the master class. The gigantic amounts the various sections of this class owe to each other—on paper, threatens arithmetical indigestion in their ledgers. So they are looking for a way out of their difficulties. A bright idea strikes one of these sections. “Let us call a Conference.” Carried away by the startling originality of this suggestion, the others agree, and date and place of meeting are decided.

For this resurrected farce a new stage is found, and Washington displaces The Hague. One or two new turns are introduced and a fresh song is sung by a chief comedian, but otherwise the farce remains, in all essentials, as originally produced.

For several years a fierce debate has been waging among naval experts on the relative value of the big gunboat usually known as the “Dreadnought.” Far from settling this problem, the naval activities of the war only intensified it. But while the “big” boat and “little” boat men are wrangling over their respective pet theories science has carried the question of armaments into new channels. The enormous development of the aeroplane and airship, along with the sudden introduction of poison gas, has given an almost entirely new aspect to the problems of war. The smartest agents of the master-class recognise this, and so the new comedian is ordered to appear and sing his latest song, entitled “ Let us scrap our Dreadnoughts ere they grow to old. ”

America, practically self-sufficing and protected by great sea spaces, starts the song. England and Japan, to whom naval activity is still of large importance, join somewhat stutteringly in the chorus. Then while the audience rises and cheers in a frenzy of enthusiasm, the actors retire behind the curtain to discuss the serious business of the day—how to carry out their burglary of China and the rest of Asia without strangling each other in the division of the “swag.”

Only a sunny optimist would imagine that burglary is going to be abolished by burglars.

Honesty may be the best policy, but they have found the second best very profitable up to the present. Modern wars are the results of the conflict of economic interests between various sections of the capitalist class. As these sections diminish in numbers, they increase in power, with the result that when conflicts do arise they are on a scale undreamt of before and with a slaughter roll staggering to contemplate.

Is there a solution?

Yes! But it will not be found at The Hague or Washington. It depends upon the understanding of the working class. When this class sees clearly that in peace or war they are but slaves to the master class, that this slavery is due to the masters' control of political power, and that this power is placed in the masters’ hands by the workers, the end of Capitalism is at hand.

By organising to take control of this power the workers will be able to establish the social ownership of the means of life, and so abolish the division of economic interests that results in war, misery, and increasing insecurity of life.

Then a real Peace Conference will have been called.