50 Years Ago: I.S. stand for – confusion (2025)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Socialist Worker”, the weekly paper of the International Socialists, regularly publishes a statement of their main principles called “What We Stand For”. We would expect this organization to stand for Socialism. Surprisingly, Socialism is nowhere defined in the statement and it only appears as a word upon which various people and organizations have placed many different interpretations. Still it is possible to get some idea of what IS stand for by a careful reading of their statement. It is also possible to get very confused. For instance, the statement starts off:

“We believe that socialism can only be achieved by the independent action of the working class.”

Whereas, the last part says they are:

“For the building of a mass workers’ revolutionary party . . . which can lead the working class to power . . .” (our emphasis both times)

Now, unless the workers are supposed to be getting power for something other than Socialism, it is simply ridiculous to say that someone who is being led is taking independent action. Could IS tell us which statement they stand for and which is this week’s deliberate mistake? It would also be interesting to know just how large a “mass” the workers of this “revolutionary part y” are to be. Presumably, if it attracted too many workers the working class would be leading themselves!

The second part of the statement reads:

“We believe in overthrowing capitalism, not patching it up or gradually trying to change it. We therefore support all struggles of workers against capitalism and fight to break the hold of reformist ideas and leaders.”

We would wholeheartedly agree with this although we wonder if they only mean reformist leaders in the last bit. However, IS don’t appear to agree with this part of the statement themselves. Later on they say they are:

“Against unemployment, redundancies and lay-offs. Instead we demand five days’ work or five days’ pay, and the 35-hour week. For nationalization without compensation under workers’ control.”

What is this if it is not an appeal to patch up capitalism? No form of nationalization ever has or could solve the problem of unemployment in capitalism. This is a strange way to fight reformist ideas.

[From the article, I. S. stand for - confusion by Con Friel,  Socialist Standard, December 1974]

Blogger's Note:

Apologies for the end of the year SNAFU. Rather than this being a 50 Years Ago column, it is in fact a 51 Years Ago column. It happens. No worries, as it is a good article by Con Friel. The confusion may have arisen because there was an I.S. article which appeared in the December 1975 Socialist Standard.

50 Years Ago: Doubletalk (2025)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

An accomplished variation of the three-card trick was performed by Mr. Paul Foot — the International Socialist — in The Times of 14th August. After quoting the words of a dispirited shop steward at Norton Villiers Triumph where the Labour government has failed to provide further financial backing, Foot draws the following conclusion:

“These are dreadful times for socialists who put their trust in Labour Governments.”

This is coy stuff of course, one of the very last places a Socialist would put his trust is in the Labour Party. But there is method in the madness. He attacks the government in its attempts to run capitalism at a time, as he puts it, of “unprecedented capitalist collapse” for the following reasons:

“Labour’s elected representatives become isolated from their power base, impotent to resist the demands of the system which they try to manage. They mouth the mumbo jumbo of capitalism.”

All unsparing language of course, but we fail to recollect when this “power base” ie, the Labour Party supporters, expected or desired other than the continuance of capitalism. In thus discrediting the leaders specifically, the illusion could be created that they alone are deliberately perverting the desires of their supporters. He accuses the “helpless puppet” (the Labour Government) of recently being forced by economic conditions to “tear up two manifestos” but fails to note that each one of those manifestos was filled from cover to cover with “the mumbo jumbo of capitalism.”

Having pointed out that such an unlikely vehicle as the Labour Party has failed to introduce Socialism, he uses some loose logic to reject the whole parliamentary method:

“The parliamentary road to socialism has turned into another blind alley. The revolutionary road is beginning to open up.”

The “revolutionary” road to Worker’s Control is what he refers to. However we recall that Foot’s paper, the Socialist Worker, had little doubt, on 16th February 1974 when advising before the oncoming election that “The working class has to respond with a massive anti-Tory vote. And that means a Labour vote…” exactly which “helpless puppet” they favoured.

[From the So They Say column, Socialist Standard, September 1975.]

50 Years Ago: ‘Vote for them but . . . ’ (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The publicity organizers of the International Socialists certainly know how to produce an election poster to catch everyone’s eyes. Their technique is so simple too, even the most politically apathetic passer-by cannot fail to notice a poster designed to produce a laugh. ‘Defeat the Tories’ it cries, ‘Vote Labour, but no to social contract’. ‘Vote Labour, but’ indeed! It’s a bit different from the usual IS rubbish of ‘Vote Labour, then . . .’ (and then kick them out and put us in their place.)

Unfortunately it has a slight flaw. No-one seems to have told the IS that there is no provision on a voting slips for ‘buts’. How convenient it would be if there was, but there is not, there are no if’s, and’s or but’s about it at all. If you vote Labour you get Labour, you get continued uncontrollable capitalism, you get futile reformism, you get nothing for the future of the working class, and you get nowhere towards Socialism. And whether you get social contract or not is totally irrelevant.

No matter how sincerely a Labour government wishes to protect the interests of the workers, no matter how benignly they impose their unwanted ‘leadership’ upon us, they can do nothing other than be puppets of the economic forces of capitalism. It makes no difference whether Tory or Labour govern, the real power is that of the capitalist system and only its replacement by a genuine Socialist society will do.

When will International Socialists realise the futility of ‘Vote Labour’, and when will they realise that Socialism will only be achieved when we have awakened the social consciousness of the working class throughout the world? Socialism will be won by struggling to free the minds of the workers from their capitalist bonds, and never by putting in a Labour government and then trying to overthrow it by violently accentuating the evils of capitalism.

[From the article, 'Vote For Them But . . . ', Socialist Standard, November 1974]

Debate: SPGB v. International Socialists (1975)

Party News from the August 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The debate was held at the Clarendon Press Institute in Oxford, on Thursday 3rd July 1975. The SPGB was represented by J. D’Arcy and the I.S. by P. Gerhardt.

SPGB Opening Speech

The SPGB in opening defined their sole object, a system of society based on common ownership and distribution. They had no secondary object. During the past 70 years a number of organizations had claimed to be Socialist but on examination had different objectives. It was not only necessary that the working class should accept Socialism by definition, but also that they should understand its implications. An understanding of the implications was the test of Socialist understanding.

The SPGB case rested on 3 main points:- 1. Knowledge of the implications of Socialism; 2 Political organization within a revolutionary Party without leaders; 3. The conquest of political power through Parliament or International equivalents. The workers’ understanding of Socialism implied that they rejected the world of wages, prices, profits, employers, money, etc. The SPGB asked workers to re-think the whole purpose of their lives; this was revolutionary. Socialism could not be established by non-Socialists. Socialist workers would then make the SPGB a social force, an agent for revolution with the single purpose of abolishing capitalism and establishing Socialism, and seeking political power on this mandate. Political power was necessary, and Socialism could not be established without it. The way to political power was through Parliament and the vote.

I.S. (International Socialists) was a self-styled socialist party. It did not stand for Socialism but for State capitalism. Their pamphlet The Struggle for Workers’ Power (p. 8) describes Socialism: “Under Socialism the means of production are Nationalized without compensation and transferred into the hands of the workers”. They also refer to a workers’ State under workers’ control, that relies on the armed power of the workers’ militia. The Workers’ State defends the right to strike, the rights of Trade Unions. Socialist “wages” will be paid. Armaments expenditure will be cut and foreign debts cancelled. The SPGB regard this as State capitalism—borrowed from the early Bolsheviks who carried out the non-Socialist Russian revolution. I.S. believe the Russian revolution was Socialist, in 1920 under Lenin and Trotsky, but counter-revolutionary in 1928 under Stalin.

In fact Lenin led Russia to capitalism in 1918 and Stalin carried on the process. This unsound position of I.S. in relation to the Russian revolution is reflected in their general propaganda. They have been directly involved in every reformist campaign since their inception; recently in the anti-abortion Bill, the Common Market, Repeal of the Industrial Relations Act; support for Clay Cross councillors, rent strikes, squatters’ movements, Claimants’ Union, Shrewsbury pickets, Students’ Grant Campaign, Troops out of Ireland, and numerous other campaigns. In addition, they attach themselves to every industrial dispute uninvited and usually unwelcome. They hold the view that trade unions could be revolutionary organizations under proper leadership.

The SPGB say non-Socialist trade unionists cannot establish Socialism. I.S. reject the parliamentary road to Socialism, and talk of “smashing the State”, but do not say how this is to be done. The only thing which can smash the state is another state. Is the state to be smashed by armed revolt, general strikes, civil disobedience, or subversion? All these methods have been used here and abroad and have failed. They speak of workers’ control and workers’ councils, consisting of industrial workers running social affairs under Socialism. Why should industrial workers or any other section determine social need? Socialism means the democratic control by the whole community not just a section.

If I.S. reject the need for Socialist understanding how can we get Socialism? Advocacy of reforms does not promote Socialist understanding. On the contrary. Militancy and revolution are not the same thing. The economic conditions of capitalism tame the militant, but never the revolutionary. I.S. like the Communist Party, International Marxist Group, and other Left parties, are the small shop-keepers of social reform. The chain stores are run by the Labour and other large Parties. Posing as Intellectuals they have a contempt for the working class.

This can be summed up in a quotation from the Socialist Worker of 7th April 1973 during the election campaign: “The socialist case for voting Labour does not depend on any assumption that it will carry out its pledges. It will not, nor indeed cannot, carry them out, because it is committed to making capitalism work. We know it but millions of workers disagree . . . Power is the test, and we urge all our readers to swallow their distaste and vote Labour—vote Labour without illusions, but vote Labour.”

Considering that the is openly acknowledge that the Labour Party is a capitalist party, urging workers to vote for it was an act of treachery.

I.S. Opening Speech

The I.S. said that the SPGB was not Marxist and therefore was not a revolutionary party. The SPGB regarded political demands as a cul-de-sac. The I.S. worked for immediate partial demands and were also politically active in the trade unions. Marxism must be related to immediate demands. Marx supported this view in 1865 (First International and Communist Manifesto). Day-to-day participation in workers’ struggles helps them to Socialism. The struggle for reforms is clearly class struggle. Marx said the 10-hour bill had changed middle-class political economy to working-class political economy. Lenin claimed that it was not enough to be a revolutionary, workers must grasp every link in the chain. A quotation from the Socialist Standard stated that the SPGB did not support reforms. They lacked confidence in the working class, and showed idealism by assuming that capitalism can carry on reforms independently.

Marx recognised the revolutionary nature of trade unions; he never criticized their conservatism. Engels stated that trade unions and strikes were schools of war. Struggle could be pushed further beyond wages struggle. Marx and Engels over 100 years ago said that organization in trade unions was a sign of the maturity of the working class. How could the SPGB support wage demands and oppose reforms? Rent increases, wage freezes, cuts in public expenditure, were hidden wage reductions.

The SPGB said self-emancipation was the lynch-pin of Socialism. Do the uneducated masses have to wait to be educated by the SPGB? Engels on Feurbach said the workers got revolutionary ideas through revolutionary practice. The same point was made in The German Ideology. It is revolutionary acts which will enable workers to find the road to Socialism, not the SPGB. Marx and Engels dealing with the Paris Commune stated that the workers had taken revolution into their own hands. I.S. stood by Marx, and later Lenin, on the concept of workers seizing state power under workers’ control, which the SPGB denounce. The SPGB version of working-class self-emancipation through Parliament by merely voting for Socialist delegates was a wrong interpretation of Marx. Power did not reside in Parliament, it was merely a rubber stamp which can be snuffed away. Look at Portugal and Chile. The SPGB is a propaganda sect which abstains from the class struggle. Marx supported the Paris Commune, although he recognised it was not Socialist, because he wanted to keep up the morale of the workers. When has the SPGB been concerned with the morale of the workers on wage freezes, etc., Vietnamese revolution and the Portuguese revolution?

The SPGB originated from the SDF, and had carried over the inactivity of that organization in the class struggle. Members of the SPGB should leave it and join a real revolutionary organisation—the I.S. Action is the greatest educator on the face of the earth.

SPGB Second Speech

In reply, the SPGB stated that the issue of the debate was “Which party should the working class support?”, not what Marx and Engels said. I.S. must deal with the case of the SPGB as presented. The SPGB understands and accepts the main theories of Marx, the law of social growth, evolving class struggle, and the analysis of capitalism. Dealing with trade unions, Marx always maintained that if workers were unable to amalgamate to protect their living standards they would be incapable of forming a larger movement. It was Marx who used the famous phrase “the abolition of the wages system”, instead of the trade-union slogan of “a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work”. The entire energy of trade unions was used for higher wages and better working conditions. They bartered with capitalism about the terms under which they would work. It should be remembered that trade unions exist for the benefit of their own members and not for the benefit of the working class as a whole. The wages struggle was never ending, and in over 150 years had not produced a single revolutionary Socialist attitude. They were more entrenched behind the Government. The TUC was nothing other than a political party representing the industrial wing of the Labour Party. Trade Unions are not revolutionary — good or bad leadership made no difference.

The implication that Marx imagined that the workers need not obtain political power was nonsense. In an address to the First International he stated: “To conquer political power is the great duty of the working class”. This was consistent with his historical theory that class struggles are struggles about political power. The class which has political power controls society. If that is so, how do the workers get political power other than through Parliament? Why did the I.S. urge workers to support the Labour Party to political power? Why did they say power is the test, if political power is useless? Parliament is still the centre of the state machine. We are not interested at the moment in the Paris Commune—our case depends on the conditions of today. Does the advocacy by the I.S. of political demands lead to Socialism? There is nothing partial about the abortion and Common Market campaigns as advocated by I.S.. They went the whole hog. The entire literature of I.S. was devoted to these demands. They were too busy putting forward partial demands to the detriment of Socialism. The result was that workers became reform-minded. The SPGB consistently refused to engage in non-Socialist political activity for any reason. The issue was not whether a reform was good or bad, but the misguided efforts to get them. Non-Socialist reformist actions of any kind were detrimental to Socialism. Raising the morale of the worker, to which is referred, meant that you kept up his morale by offering reforms in the same way that the donkey was attracted by the carrot. It could be better if the worker had Socialist ideas with low morale rather than reformist ideas with high morale

I.S. Second Speech

Marx was concerned with the morale of the working class, and this is important. The Paris Commune is important for the lessons it gives to workers today; it still haunts the capitalists of Europe. The SPGB falsified Lenin about the smashing of the State machine. Lenin in fact was interested only in smashing the capitalist State machine. The SPGB also accused Lenin of falsifying Marx. The I.S. would not say here and now how workers could get control of the political machinery; they would have to find their own organs of power However, they should be warned against the futility of seeking their emancipation through Parliament. This was an illusion. There were many ways the worker could take away the property of the capitalist class; for example at the point of production.

SPGB : Conclusion

is nothing useful in trying to resurrect historical events like the Paris Commune unless you can apply them to the conditions of today. The Paris Communards did not smash the state, it was the state which smashed them. The seizure of power in similar circumstances today is impossible—the days of the barricades are over. The I.S. do not want to establish Socialism; they want the system of state capitalism with workers’ militia, nationalization and workers’ control. Workers with Socialist ideas can dispossess the capitalists through control of Parliament, and it is a lack of Socialist knowledge, not the failure of the parliamentary machine, which is responsible for the continuance of capitalism.

Letter: Wally Preston (2005)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I have just come across on your website the (undated) obituary of Wally Preston [it was in the November 2000 issue – Eds]. I had not heard of Wally’s death, and was saddened to learn of it. I met him several times when he was a member of the International Socialists in the 1970s, and he once stayed the night at my home. He was a splendid speaker, a genuine working-class intellectual and a very likeable human being.

However, I must correct your obituarist on one point. He quotes my short history of the IS/SWP and deduces that the comrade who told an IS Conference that a document was so bad it must have been written by a sociologist was Wally. It was not. That speech was made by the late Terry Barrett, a London docker. Barrett was a man of great courage and principle (he publicly opposed the dockers’ march in support of Enoch Powell in 1968), but he was on occasion given to a certain demagogic anti-intellectualism of a sort that I think Wally would not have indulged in.

Ian Birchall, 

London, N9

Blogger's Note:

See the comment below for more background about Terry Barrett.

50 Years Ago: Debate with “International Socialism Group” (2020)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Edinburgh branch have sent us the following report of a debate on “Which Way Socialism — International Socialism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain?” held in the Freegardeners Hall, Edinburgh, on before an audience of 70. (The local IS branch have seen this report and raised no objections to it) (…)

S. Jeffries opened for the IS by saying that he agreed with the SPGB’s Marxist theory but that there was a failure to link up theory with practice. He went on to quote Engels on the need to build the revolutionary movement within the trade unions. It was stupid to rely on the vote. He preferred the overthrow of the system by non-parliamentary means, and said that Marxists should always be prepared for the revolutionary situation when this overthrow would be possible.

Comrade Vanni replied that revolutionary phrase-mongering did not make a socialist and invited the floor to look at the dismal history of the IS. Using back numbers of the Labour Worker (now Socialist Worker) he drew attention to their lack of socialist understanding giving instances such as IS having urged workers to vote for the Labour Party in the 1964 and 1966 elections instead of fighting the real enemy — capitalism. It was not a Leninist elite that would bring about the revolution but capitalism itself by the contradictions inherent in it. IS far from being a vanguard, were in reality politically backward. They considered the workers too dull to learn from history but instead that they had to be taken through the struggles and learn from strikes. He went into some detail on the bankruptcy of their political theory, such as the permanent arms economy and their belief in the collapse of capitalism. IS did not even understand what Socailism was, as they saw a need for money, banks and the like, saying that instead of being sacked by a boss you would be made redundent by a ‘Workers Council’. In reality it all boiled down to a sophisticated state capitalism.

(Socialist Standard, July 1970)

Who are the Marxists? (1966)

Book Review from the June 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist Review, International Socialism, 18s.

This book is a collection of articles from a now defunct journal, Socialist Review. Its former followers are now grouped around another journal, International Socialism. It is one of the many trotskyist offshoots which claim to be Marxist, yet which depart radically from Marx’s basic ideas on many points.

Marx argued that only the working class can free itself from wage-slavery. By working class he understood all those who, having no property, had to sell their working abilities for a wage in order to live. Today this class, composed of managers, clerks, factory workers, labourers and so on, run society from top to bottom. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, with Marx, holds that only they, acting as a united class, can be the agent of the social change from capitalism to socialism. IS sees the agent as only a section of this class, those who work in the factories, mines, railways and docks. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that they idealise this section of the working class. Seeing that most of the members of groups like IS are not themselves workers in these sorts of jobs their attitude verges on the condescending, of doing something for the poor, down-trodden workers. This attitude is a left-over from their Leninist past. Lenin, in contradiction to Marx, held that the workers were incapable of becoming socialists by themselves; they had to be introduced to socialist ideas by an enlightened vanguard. This vanguard would lead them against capitalism.

The IS group, like similar groups, has a reform programme which they call a "transitional programme." This is a programme designed to create a socialist understanding and to be realised as a transitional stage to Socialism. When these reforms are examined, for example, nationalisation of banks, national planning, State monopoly of foreign trade, it becomes clear that IS is saying that State capitalism is a necessary stage to Socialism. More than this, in fact, many of their members including some writers in this book clearly don't understand the difference between State Capitalism and Socialism; they really believe that nationalisation is Socialism and that wages, buying and selling, money, etc., will exist in Socialism. In their day-to-day propaganda the emphasis is on State capitalism rather, than Socialism as the solution to workers’ problems. The Socialist Party of Great Britain holds that capitalism has outlived its usefulness and that Socialism is possible as soon as the workers want it; there is no need for any State capitalist stage.

Finally, there is the inevitable r-r-revolutionary romanticism, the dreaming of mass strikes and street battles (read Cliff on the Belgian General Strike of 1960). This leads IS to dismiss with contempt the historically-evolved means to freedom—the vote. But at election times we witness the spectacle of people who dismiss the vote as “a scrap of paper" and Parliament as a “gas house" eagerly working for, and urging workers to vote for, one of the major capitalist parties in this country. This devotion to the Labour Party is maintained even when, as in Hampstead at the last election, they were faced with a socialist candidate. Not understanding the significance of the vote they use it and urge others to use it, to give political power to the owning class. Are they really Marxists?

Adam Buick

Party News — Debate with “International Socialism Group” (1970)

Party News from the July 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Edinburgh Branch have sent the following report of a debate “Which Way Socialism – International Socialism or the Socialist Party of Great Britain?” held in the Free Gardeners Hall, Edinburgh, before an audience of 70. (The local IS branch have seen the report and raised no objections to it.)

The chairman was Alan McLean, a journalist.

Speaking on behalf of the SPGB were Jim Fleming and Vic Vanni from Glasgow branch, and on behalf of IS S. Jeffries and B. Lavery .

Comrade Fleming opened for the SPGB by pointing out that the SPGB was an international organisation that was democratically controlled by all its members; that it was opposed to leadership and the idea of an elite or vanguard leading the working class to Socialism . The muddled policies of the IS and other romantic left-wing groups only confused the working class.

S. Jeffries opened for the IS by saying that he agreed with the SPGB’s Marxist theory but that there was a failure to link up theory with practice. He went on to quote Engels on the need to build the revolutionary movement within the trade unions . It was stupid to rely on the vote . He preferred the overthrow of the system by non-parliamentary means, and said that Marxists should always be prepared for the revolutionary situation when this overthrow would be possible.

Comrade Vanni replied that revolutionary phrase-mongering did not make a socialist and invited the floor to look at the dismal history of the IS. Using back numbers of the Labour Worker (now Socialist Worker) he drew attention to their lack of socialist understanding giving instances such as IS having urged workers to vote for the Labour Party in the 1964 and 1966 elections instead of fighting the real enemy – capitalism . It was not a Leninist elite that would bring about the revolution but capitalism itself by the contradictions inherent in it. IS far from being a vanguard, were in reality politically backward .They considered the workers too dull to learn from history but instead that they have to be taken through the struggles and learn from strikes. He went into some detail on the bankruptcy of their political theory, such as the permanent arms economy and their belief in the collapse of capitalism. IS did not understand what Socialism was, as they saw a need for money banks and the like, saying that instead of being sacked by a boss you would be made redundant by a “Workers Council”. In reality, it all boiled down to a sophisticated state capitalism.

B. Lavery (IS) said the SPGB had made few mistakes, but this was only because they had always stood to one side of the real struggles . The SPGB’s ideas were grossly over simple and he could not see that how, when Labour MPs inevitably became corrupted by parliament, socialist representatives would not also become corrupted . There were not only two classes in society today but many, one of them being the peasant class. Whole areas of the world, Africa, Asia and South America were predominantly peasant. The peasants outnumbered workers on a world wide basis and the SPGB was wrong in not taking this into account. He realised the IS support of the Labour Party was a mistake but at least it had raised the consciousness of some workers.

Then followed a five minute break and a collection.

The first question from the floor was to the IS asking how soon after Socialism was established, money could be done away with.

The reply from IS was: only when we had eventually gone through the transitional stages and reached Communism.

The next question to the platform was asking for a definition of Socialism.

Comrade Fleming answered and first pointed out what the “revolutionary” demands of the IS were (again quoting the Socialist Worker) i.e. bringing the British forces back from overseas bases and five days work or five days pay in the car industry. This had nothing to do with Socialism. In contrast, the SPGB did not concern itself with petty reforms. The SPGB wanted the whole world, everything in it and on it, to be the common property of all mankind regardless of colour or sex; all people would take according to their needs and give according to their ability.

The IS then said that a utopian vision was pointless; what was needed to get the workers on your side was a realistic demand.

The next question was about the class structure of society, especially as regards the small shopkeeper.

Comrade Vanni pointed out that in modern society there were two basic economic classes, the capitalist class and the working class. Most small shopkeepers were of the working class as they had to work for a living. The small fringe of people who could not be definitely placed as workers or capitalists was diminishing all the time due to mergers and was relatively unimportant.

B. Lavery (IS) pointed out again that the SPGB was forgetting the peasant class, who were in a majority in Africa and Asia. Although small shopkeepers may be workers they usually supported capitalism. You cannot afford to ignore the people who come between capitalist and workers.

The next question regarded the role of parliament in the revolution.

Comrade Vanni started by quoting Engels on Parliament and the vote, about universal suffrage being one of the sharpest weapons of the working class had. (Introduction to Class Struggles in France). If universal suffrage allowed nothing else at least you knew how many workers were politically conscious. This would prevent the likelihood of the revolution coming about when socialists were in a minority.

The next question referred to Lenin’s role in the Russian Revolution.

The IS began by saying that the revolution depended on smashing the state machine. It was crucial that workers should set up soviets and workers councils The real power was in the factories and once the workers got control of them they would easily smash the state machine. A lot depended on the conditions prevailing e.g. whether sections of the army would desert to fight on the workers side.

Comrade Fleming said it was a grave mistake to think that the working class was capable of smashing the state machine. It was ludicrous to assume that because the workers had occupied factories they would be capable of resisting tanks and bombs. It was essential to make sure the state machine was in the hands of the working class and not leave it in the control of the capitalist class. He concluded by stressing that parliament had tremendous power.

The next question was about the danger of fascism and what were the to parties doing about it.

Jeffries for the IS said the SPGB were not interested in the real problems facing the working class. Socialists should concern themselves with things such as incomes policy and productivity deals.

Comrade Fleming replied by saying that capitalism had played its historic role in solving the problem of production. Now that an abundance of wealth was capable of being produced the only meaningful struggle was for the overthrow of capitalism, which would result in the major problems being solved.

The summing up then followed with Jeffries (IS) saying that only the middle class and small businessmen were interested in parliament. The power of the big capitalists was concentrated in the factories, boardrooms and monopolies; they did not bother with parliament. Working within the Labour Party had produced some results such as the political strike against the government’s white paper on Trade Unions. The IS had left the Labour Party along with the politically conscious workers. The revolutionary party must always be where the workers were and must try to generalize their struggles. It was essential to fight for reforms while pointing out that capitalism was the real enemy. He concluded by saying that it was essential to fight within the labour movement because that was where the action was.

Comrade Vanni wound up for the SPGB saying that it was essential to take parliament into account as there was no doubt as to the power it had over the state machine. Their [IS] meaningless activities centred round demonstrations outside embassies and other buildings usually only succeeded in frightening the caretaker out of his wits. The history of the IS showed their lack of revolutionary understanding; they always tackled the effects and never got to the root of the problems. The IS might call the SPGB’s vision of the future society a dream but it was much more preferable to the nightmare of the IS with wages and banks and all the paraphernalia of state capitalism. It was the job of revolutionaries not to reform capitalism but to leave that to the people who run capitalism like the so-called Communist Party, Labour Party and Conservatives. The real task to organise and agitate amongst fellow workers for the overthrow of capitalism by the majority of the world’s population using democratic processes if available. 'Peacefully if possible, violently if necessary' was the SPGB’s viewpoint. Instead of fighting for such reforms as “five day’s work for five day’s pay”, one should remember Marx when he said “away with the conservative motto, a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage and inscribe on your banner the revolutionary watchword ABOLITION OF THE WAGES SYSTEM”.

Capitalism Since the War (1968)

Book Reviews from the October 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Western Capitalism Since the War by Michael Kidron – Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 36s.

Theories of Imperialism by Tom Kemp – Dobson, 42s.

Both these writers are left-wing lecturers at Hull University. Michael Kidron is a prominent member of the ‘International Socialism’ group, while Tom Kemp is editor of Fourth International—the ‘Socialist’ Labour League’s theoretical journal. Kidron’s little book (which he rightly calls an essay) concerns itself with the economic trends which he can see, or thinks he can see, developing in Western Europe and North America. Kemp, on the other hand, has produced a commentary on the theories of imperialism elaborated by a number of writers—Lenin, Luxemburg, Hobson, Schumpeter; but the reader catches glimpses of what the SLL thinks is happening to capitalism today.

Slumps and crises are a permanent feature of the capitalist system. So, for relatively long periods, it often displays a marked tendency to stability. When this happened in the 1890’s one of its effects was to lend weight to the arguments of the revisionists, led by Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein claimed that capitalism was becoming more adaptable and was able to stabilize itself by means of the credit system, employers’ organisations and other devices. In the same way, since the Second World War, other theories have been put forward to explain the fact that no generalised slump has developed and one of the most .fashionable has been the so-called permanent arms economy.

The theory of the permanent arms economy, patented by the I.S. group, is a variety of Keynesism rather than Marxism. Keynes argued that government spending generally could iron out the ups and downs of capitalism. Kidron suggests that a particular type of government spending has achieved this:

  The impact of arms expenditure on stability and investment is no less direct. It is heavily concentrated on the capital goods industries which are responsible for the big swings in the traditional business cycle. It provides a floor to the downswings and has, in the US, been deliberately used in this way.

But the recent build-up in unemployment (which has now remained above the half a million mark in Britain for more than eighteen months) has obviously given quite a knock to the I. S. leaders. Kidron says in his preface that he completed his manuscript in March 1967. At that time he could still write that any “elements of instability are just a smudge on the horizon. So far, the weight of the arms economy has been on the side of stability, charging and recharging the more immediate causes of high employment and well-being.” A year later it is a different story; John Palmer, another of their prominent spokesmen, told a meeting in Hampstead on 13 May last that the permanent arms economy was coming to an end:

  The arms economy is no longer the provider of the capitalist system. Capitalists are now economising on arms spending. The boom years in Europe and America are a thing of the past.

The coming period, he said, would be one of crisis and instability.

The point is that capitalism docs not need a great deal of stabilising anyway— since it is not as unstable as I.S. claims. They subscribe to the underconsumption myth, that left to itself capitalism would collapse as it would not be able to sell what it produced. But, if you hold this view, you must explain why capitalism has not collapsed long ago. The answer Michael Kidron came up with was that capitalism would have collapsed had it not been for arms spending. It is true that consistency is not one of the I.S. group’s strongest points but their statement that the so-called permanent arms economy is coming to an end ought to mean that they think capitalism is about to collapse. For some reason, John Palmer did not give a date.

In fact, what is collapsing is not capitalism but the myth of the permanent arms economy. It has been discredited along with Keynes generally. It is a measure of I.S.’s theoretical bankruptcy that, faced with this, they fall back on the “crisis of capitalism” to create the conditions for social revolution, rather than the growing understanding and organisation of the working class.

The ‘Socialist’ Labour League, of course, never tires of telling us that the capitalist system is in a state of “crisis”. According to them, capitalism has been in this condition for years but recently it did look as though the unbearable tension (and the semi-hysteria it gives rise to in the League) might get some relief when the SLL central committee solemnly announced that the socialist revolution had started, (see Newsletter 25/5/1968). Tom Kemp, however, is relatively restrained in his book and, since he is a Trotskyist, the most interesting sections are those concentrating on Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism. Lenin came up with the idea that it was imperialism which had given rise to the opportunist trends in the social-democratic movement.

 The receipt of high monopoly profits by the capitalists in one of the numerous branches of industry, in one of the numerous countries, etc., makes it economically possible for them to bribe certain sections of the workers, and for a time a fairly considerable minority of them, and win them to the side of the bourgeoisie of a given industry or given nation against all the others.

Kemp writes that although “there seems no need to accept in a literal way what Lenin wrote about the relationship of the aristocracy of labour to the working class as a whole as valid for the present day”, nonetheless “Marxists have generally followed Lenin in accepting that the ‘aristocracy of labour’ in the metropolitan countries owed its privileged position to the existence of imperialism.”

As with Kidron’s theory, the Socialist Party is in fundamental disagreement with this view. In fact, we reject the Leninist concept of “bribery” as being as crudely mistaken as is the supposedly stabilising influence of the permanent arms economy. For a start, the capitalists have nothing to bribe the socialist movement with. But objections such as this are incidental in any case. The most important error Lenin and his followers made was to imagine that there was any need to bribe the working class into supporting the war effort in their various countries. The workers then, as now, were committed to capitalism. Come war or peace, crisis or slump, their support of the capitalist system has never wavered.

By refusing to face up to this, Lenin contributed to the mystical belief in the revolutionary aspirations of the workers which remains a characteristic of all shades of neo-bolshevism. It is this which accounts for the obsession with leadership which is displayed by groups like I.S. and the SLL. The revolutionary potential of the working class is being diverted by right-wing labour leaders, they argue. Hence the need for alternative “revolutionary leadership”.

The Socialist Party rejects this idea as well. What is needed is not leadership (the labour movement is rotten with “revolutionary leaders” as it is) but a working class equipped with an understanding of Socialism. The left wing are a valuable asset to the capitalist system, thanks to the confusion and disillusionment they produce. As a force for maintaining capitalism they are far more potent than any “bribery” or economic strategy which the ruling class, could resort to.

B. C.

So They Say: A Decent Idea (1974)

The So They Say Column from the April 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Decent Idea

“They fly forgotten, as a dream”: things said in General Election campaigns, of course. Here is one which should not be allowed to do so.

Before the election Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, as secretary of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, sent a five-point questionnaire to each of the party leaders purporting to seek their views “on the issues of indecency, obscenity and sex education”. In fact three of the questions were on that theme. The fourth asked for the leaders’ assurance that Christian religious teaching would retain a strong footing in schools. And the fifth? It ran:

  Would you establish a broadcasting commission to inquire into every aspect of broadcasting, particularly that of the facilities granted to the viewer and listener, and the effectiveness of existing safeguards against corruption and the exploitation of broadcasting by small and unrepresentative groups, whose activities enshrine anti-social and political aims.

(Guardian, 18th Feb.; our emphasis.)

Nothing about obscenity there. It means Mrs. White- house and her supporters want minorities to be refused expression of their views in the broadcasting media. Whose activities “enshrine political aims”?


Down With Profit — not Exactly —

During and after the Election the “big four” London Clearing Banks declared profits totalling over £600 millions, embodying increases over the past four years ranging from 67½ per cent. (Lloyd’s) to 99 per cent. (National Westminster). Whereupon Roger Opie, in The Guardian's Economic Notebook (4th March), carried on dreadfully — “effrontery”, “fantastic", “oligopolistic”, etc.:

  The Bankers have always had some excuse or other for their anomalous prosperity . . . Now a new one has been invented. The Chairman of the National Westminster Bank now has the impudence to argue that his and other banks’ vast profits are “in the national interest”.

Opie argues that the banks’ ordinary customers are made to subsidize their lending to pay for “the grasping excesses of the fringe bankers” and demands for advances from industry, and of the latter he says:

  Nor is this the only or the proper way to provide finance for industrial borrowers in liquidity trouble this year. Again, it is the responsibility of the Bank of England.

But this means Opie himself acquiescing in the myth of “the national interest”. He agrees that firms must be lent money at interest so that they can make profits. What is the difference? Is it nicer to see Carrington Viyella Ltd. on 11th March declaring a profit of £12,017,000 — or ICI’s £311 millions announced on 24th February? Presumably he would say these are features of the acceptable face of capitalism, as against the “unpleasant and unacceptable” one of the banks’ raking-in.

— in fact, Not at All

The source of all profit is the exploitation of the working class; where it goes is irrelevant. Part of the propaganda for nationalization (which Roger Opie ends up advocating, vis-à-vis the Clearing Banks) is that under State auspices workers are not exploited as they are under private ones.

The East German propaganda organ Democratic German Report (13th February) had a naive story on these lines. It told of Hermann Helbig, who had built up a small tailoring business after the war. It was one of 3,000 small enterprises nationalized in 1972, and he became manager. The article says:

   Property relations have changed fundamentally. Although the work is done on the same machines as two years ago, the workers are now the owners of the means of production.

That’s nice, Hermann. So the profit motive, wage- slavery and all that are abolished and . . . but what’s this?

  Hermann Helbig’s firm holds first place in the innovators’ movement of his district. Last year they achieved a per capita profit of 2,646 marks from innovations in the factory . . . New production techniques are to be introduced in the next few years and will provide for a further increase in productivity and reduction of costs.

So only the words are different. The actuality is the same.

Look, Mum — Twins !

We may have been wrong in insisting there is no difference between the “New” Left and the Old. There is a difference. The present lot are incontestably funnier, and International Socialists the most mirth-provoking of all.

Their paper Socialist Worker on 9th March had a front-page article headed keep your guard up! It began:

The Tories are out. Good.
The government that hammered workmg-class pay, living conditions and trade union rights for 3½ years has been kicked out of office.
Labour is back. That’s good, too.
We wanted a Labour victory because a vote for the Tories was a vote to carry on union-bashing, rent-raising, wage-freezing and profiteering.

Well, hurrah. And, having campaigned for a Labour government, what do IS anticipate from it?

For Labour supports the capitalist system . . .  it will surrender to the demands of the employers at home and the moneylenders abroad.
Don’t forget, the last Labour government — with a majority in parliament — froze your wages, hoisted your rents, boosted prices and profits and attempted to bring in anti-union laws.
This time the economic crisis is worse. Labour will attempt to shore up the tottering system by again turning on the organised labour movement.

Part of the System

IS, like the rest of the Left, want “organized labour” to take the form of extra-legal militancy. Something we have pointed out consistently is that workers’ organizations need trade-union law just as much as the employers and the government. One reason is simply to protect their funds which otherwise would be vulnerable.

As an example, in 1960 (chosen as a characteristic year, not an exceptional one) the Transport and General Workers’ Union lost £3,805. 4s. Id. through defalcations by Branch collectors. The standard resolution in each case includes that “proceedings be instituted under the Trades Union or other Acts” for the recovery of the moneys.

The sum is small in relation to the huge funds of the TGWU but the need for legal protection of funds is obvious. However, it can be added that in the same year the Union donated £75,000 to the Labour Party.

From Rags to More Rags

One of the myths of capitalism is that any man can become his own master and climb above the rest. The November issue of the New Zealand transport-union paper, Wheels, which has just reached us, has something on this subject. It cites a submission made by the Wellington Union to a Labour Bills Committee hearing:

The attraction to a worker to become an owner-driver is that:—
(a) His income will be greater than if he was an employed driver.
(b) He will, by physical effort and the application of his own initiatives, be able to increase even still further his income, and
(c) He will enjoy greater freedom of living, working, etc., due to being “his own boss”.
On examination it is found that in a great many cases this attraction is more illusory than real . . . The realities of this situation are that these workers are generally more heavily exploited than “employed drivers”.

Down to the See Again

On 3rd March The Sunday People, searching diligently as ever for scandals, found them among the priesthood in Rome:

I can inform His Holiness that when it comes to La Dolce Vita, the “sweet life” of Rome, there are no sweeter-living exponents than some of these young priests — and their more experienced seniors.

Lots about wine, night clubs, and permissive nuns. It would hold no interest — except that the Catholic Church lays great store by the text “By their fruits ye shall know them”, The common condemnation of Protestantism is that Martin Luther was a debauchee.

Will Catholicism therefore consent to being known by these fruits picked up by the Sunday People? Of course not. There are none like the religious for having their fruit and eating it. But how absurd they all are — reporter, Pope and priesthood alike!

Robert Barltrop

The International Socialists and Parliamentary Action (1975)

From the December 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “International Socialists” and their journal Socialist Worker declare that “There is . . . no parliamentary road to Socialism”. (See “What We Stand For” in any issue of Socialist Worker.) They use several different arguments to support their position. One of them was put in an article by Paul Foot published in The Times of 14th August 1975.

Mr. Foot’s theme was that “the parliamentary road to Socialism has turned into another blind alley”. To support this argument all that he had to do was to give us his example of a socialist working class having tried to use the parliamentary road to achieve Socialism and having failed. But Mr. Foot and I.S. do not know of any such example. What he did give was the British Labour Government, that is to say a party which rejects Socialism and tries to run capitalism. In his typically confused way Mr. Foot is half aware of this, because his description of Labour ministers and their supporters is that they are people “who have imagined that capitalism could be reformed by the periodical election of Labour governments”. But what has reforming capitalism got to do with Socialism?

In another muddled passage Mr. Foot wrote that these are dreadful times “for socialists who put their trust in Labour governments”; but Socialists did not and do not put their trust in Labour governments. It isn’t Socialists who have been led “down another blind alley” but the unfortunate workers who are bamboozled by Foot and is into voting for the Labour Party at each General Election.

But I.S. has another case against the parliamentary road. It was set out in Socialist Worker (21st July 1973) in an attack on another organization which, like I.S., urges the workers to vote for the Labour Party — the Communist Party of Great Britain. There it was argued that the working class cannot gain control through parliamentary elections because the working class is only a minority.

A majority of workers may want a complete transformation of society . . . but in parliamentary elections, with the middle class and ruling class voting against them, they would lose.

This is of course a nonsensical statement. The working class consists of all who get their living by selling their mental and physical energies, their labour-power, for a wage or salary. With dependents and working-class pensioners they constitute at least 85 per cent. (34 million) out of the 40 million electors on the parliamentary register; and on the same percentage basis they constituted about 25 million out of the 29 million who used their votes at the last General Election. (The remaining 4 million voters consisted of capitalists, the “self-employed”, and their dependents.)

So how did 4 million outvote 25 million? Even if we assumed that all of the 11½  million electors who voted Labour were working-class (and that is certainly not true) it would mean that more working-class voters (over 13 million) voted Tory, or Liberal or for the Welsh, Scottish and Irish Nationalist parties, than voted for the Labour Party. (To avoid possible misunderstanding, all of these 29 million supported private capitalism or state capitalism.)

Ruling out the possibility that I.S. cannot count, the basis for their peculiar conclusion appears to be the probability that for them “working-class” means only those workers actually producing goods, to the exclusion of the big majority of workers not so employed. (On this basis of course Mr. Foot and many of the members of I.S. would not be working-class.)

However, what is of most importance is the conclusion that follows from the I.S. view of “working class”. It is that is I.S. consciously basing its case on minority action, the forcible imposition of the will of the minority on the majority. This is carried a stage further in the I.S. declaration “What We Stand For”, where it is stated that the achievement of Socialism is to be by the organization in a revolutionary socialist party of “the most militant sections of the working class” — in other words, a minority of a minority. It is significant that “What We Stand For” never once uses the words “democracy” or “democratic”.

I.S. has in fact largely taken over from the Communist Party what was that party’s position half a century ago. Like the Communist Party then and now, the objective of I.S. is not Socialism but a variety of state capitalism. It differs from traditional Labour Party ideas on state capitalism, the nationalized boards, in that I.S. lays emphasis on workers’ councils — capitalism run by shop stewards.

Edgar Hardcastle

How to combat Fascism (1970)

Lutte Ouvrière 1970.

From the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

On February 3 the French trotskyist journal Lutte Ouvrière (No. 75) reproduced a passage from Socialist Worker criticising the Socialist Party of Great Britain for opposing the National Front in public debate. We sent a letter which was published in full in their issue of 17 March (No. 81). In it we pointed out:

   In Great Britain the public debate is traditionally a way of opposing another party and the SPGB has debated with Conservatives, Labourites, so-called Communists, trotskyists as well as with the fascists.
   We hold that the way to fight fascism is to build a strong and uncompromising Socialist movement and not to form a non-socialist anti-fascist front. This is why we are opposed to the policy of the "International Socialism” group of debating only with some capitalist parties (such as the Labour Party) but not with others (such as the National Front). We say this encourages the illusion of the “lesser evil” and the idea of a non-socialist “popular front”. 

Lutte Ouvrière replied:

  It is difficult for us to make a hasty judgement on the tactical differences of the English revolutionary movement as long as it is only a simple question of information. But we are in complete opposition to the principles set out here by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We make a distinction between bourgeois parties and parties such as the Labour Party which represent the interests of the bourgeoisie within the workers’ movement. We also distinguish between classical bourgeois parties, those which use essentially parliamentary and electoral methods, and fascist parties which try to mobilise the petty- bourgeoisie and the lumpen-proletariat to physically liquidate workers’ and even simply democratic organisations. That the attitude which revolutionary Marxists should adopt towards a party which counts many workers in its ranks, to one which groups only bourgeois notables or to one which mobilises its troops to beat up working class militants or to attack strike pickets should be the same at all times and under all conditions, on the grounds that in the last analysis all three represent the interests of the same bourgeoisie, seems to us one which could be adopted only with difficulty. This has nothing to do with the acceptance or rejection of any “popular front”.

Lutte Ouvrière here distinguishes three kinds of capitalist party, which we translate into the context of British politics:

1. Openly capitalist parties (Conservative, Liberal).
2. Allegedly workers’ parties (Labour. Communist).
3. Fascist parties (National Front, Union Movement).

They say that the attitude “revolutionary Marxists” should adopt towards these three types of capitalist party cannot always be the same. Unfortunately they do not tell us how the attitude should be different. We can only interpret their statement to mean that under certain circumstances they would urge workers to support a capitalist party of one type against a capitalist party of another and we challenge Lutte Ouvrière to deny this.

Our attitude is clear. As we say in our Declaration of Principles:

  As all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other party. The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters the field of political action, determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist.

Under no circumstances would we urge or have we urged workers to support any capitalist party since this would be to abandon the class struggle and betray the principle of no compromise.

We do say that the attitude a socialist party should adopt towards fascist parties should be exactly the same as that they adopt towards other capitalist parties: complete opposition. To single out fascists for special opposition can only lead to compromise with other capitalist parties.

Editorial Committee

Trotskyist vote in perspective (1969)

Alain Krivine, 1969.

From the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

“France — 200,000 vote for workers’ control”, declared Socialist Worker (June 5) reporting the presidential election results. "235,000 Say Revolution Now” was how Black Dwarf (June 14) put it.

Alain Krivine, the trotskyist candidate, had polled 236,263 votes in metropolitan France—a mere one per cent. Despite the fact that this confirmed our analysis of the May events—that a revolutionary situation did not exist because very few French workers really understood and wanted Socialism —the British trotskyist papers were exhilarated by the result:

. . .  the people who voted for Krivine can stand up and be counted for what they really are: men and women who have made a complete break with all the parliamentary parties, with their illusions of creeping socialism or bourgeois concepts of law and order. To vote for Krivine signifies an awareness of the necessity for revolution in France and a willingness to work for it. There are in Metropolitan France 235,000 revolutionaries who voted for a Trotskyist candidate and double that number if the disenfranchised foreigners, younger students, workers, and school children are included (Black Dwarf) 

Only Krivine stood for the abolition of the sham system of parliamentary democracy, for workers’ power as the alternative to capitalism . . . The campaign was a tremendous opportunity for using the machinery of the capitalist state in order to expose it. Krivine appeared on television with as much time as every other candidate—and hammered the need for revolution. His election address was delivered to every voter at the state’s expense (Socialist Worker)

We are sorry to dampen their ardour but let us put the whole thing in perspective. The vote for ‘workers’ control’ and for ‘revolution’ was minimal. Krivine polled about the same percentage as SPGB candidates have consistently done in national and local elections here. In addition, it has been our experience that on so low a percentage vote more than half our votes were cast by chance or in error so that the total vote cannot be regarded as an accurate measure of the real support for Socialism.

When in 1967 we contested four boroughs in the Greater London Council elections, putting up 14 candidates, the votes and percentages (taking those for the top candidate of each party) were:

Conservative             166,358     52.1
Labour                       120,735    37.7
Liberal                         18,033      5.6
Communist                    7,847      2.4
Socialist                         4,796      1.5
Others                            2,164      0.7

(At this time the trotskyist vote was included in that for the Labour Party.)

'Vote For Them But . . . ' (1974)

From the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The publicity organizers of the International Socialists certainly know how to produce an election poster to catch everyone’s eyes. Their technique is so simple too, even the most politically apathetic passer-by cannot fail to notice a poster designed to produce a laugh. ‘Defeat the Tories’ it cries, ‘Vote Labour, but no to social contract’. ‘Vote Labour, but’ indeed! It’s a bit different from the usual IS rubbish of ‘Vote Labour, then . . .’ (and then kick them out and put us in their place.)

Unfortunately it has a slight flaw. No-one seems to have told the IS that there is no provision on a voting slips for ‘buts’. How convenient it would be if there was, but there is not, there are no if’s, and’s or but’s about it at all. If you vote Labour you get Labour, you get continued uncontrollable capitalism, you get futile reformism, you get nothing for the future of the working class, and you get nowhere towards Socialism. And whether you get social contract or not is totally irrelevant.

No matter how sincerely a Labour government wishes to protect the interests of the workers, no matter how benignly they impose their unwanted ‘leadership’ upon us, they can do nothing other than be puppets of the economic forces of capitalism. It makes no difference whether Tory or Labour govern, the real power is that of the capitalist system and only its replacement by a genuine Socialist society will do.

When will International Socialists realise the futility of ‘Vote Labour’, and when will they realise that Socialism will only be achieved when we have awakened the social consciousness of the working class throughout the world? Socialism will be won by struggling to free the minds of the workers from their capitalist bonds, and never by putting in a Labour government and then trying to overthrow it by violently accentuating the evils of capitalism.

David Roberts

Confusion (1968)

Party News from the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ted Crawford, business manager of the Socialist Worker, spoke on August 7 at our Westminster branch on “International Socialism”. After tracing the origins of the group in Bolshevism and Trotskyism, he went on to explain the “permanent” arms economy and what IS was trying to do. He confessed that he was dissatisfied with the “class composition” of the group; there were too many lecturers, teachers and students and not enough workers.

Pressed to define Socialism, Crawford said “democracy”, “man in control of his environment”. Asked if this was compatible with the existence of banks, he said he could not give a blueprint but he expected that there would have to be some credit facilities in a “socialist state”. One of his supporters, coming to his rescue, pooh-poohed the idea of a society without money or government.

Socialists present pointed out that his concern about the class composition of IS showed that he did not know what the working class was; as lecturers and teachers were, and students soon would be, forced to work for wages they too were members of the working class. Discussion also centred on whether democratic institutions could be used by the working class to achieve Socialism (we said yes; they said no and thought there would have to be a civil war—but then they don’t aim at Socialism) and as to whether the ruling class could suspend democracy and unleash fascism at will (we said no; they said yes). The Chairman pointed out that there was not enough time to discuss our differing views on nationalism.

Another Lot of Insurrectionists (1968)

From the September 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the Labour Party and the so-called Communist Party become discredited and workers become more and more disillusioned with these parties in their futile efforts to run capitalism, it is vitally important to clearly present the socialist alternative. The emergence of self-styled leftwing groups is as dangerous to workers as that of their right-wing counterparts. If workers get bogged down with these organisations another generation could be wasted in the futile pursuit of petty issues and in swapping leaders.

One such organisation operates under the unwarranted title of "International Socialism". Their errors are basically the same as those of the Bolsheviks fifty years ago.

During the general elections of 1964 and 1966 they were urging the return of the "biggest possible Labour majority". For them this was a tactic because they knew that a Labour government would act "against the organised working class movement", but they argued that out of the struggles against the attacks made by the Labour government "can and will come the development of a powerful force for socialism". After four years of Labour government we are witnessing 17 per cent swings to the Tories in by-elections. Far from developing socialist ideas the confusion and despair resulting from Labour-run capitalism has helped to foster racist attitudes.

In 1966, even though they knew what the Labour Party's policy was, they lamely suggested:

Every Labour candidate should be pressed to give commitments on at least the following four points:
1. All out opposition to shackle the unions through new laws.
2. Total opposition to the leadership’s support for the Americans in Vietnam.
3. Opposition to the Immigration White Paper and its support for controls.
4. Full support for workers fighting a coercive incomes policy in defence of their living standards.

They knew there would be laws to shackle unions. They knew that Labour supported the American government in Vietnam. They knew there would be race laws. They knew there would be a coercive incomes policy. Now we have all these things and IS are helped to give the Labour government its big majority to be able to enforce them.

How naive they were to ask Labour candidates to give "commitments". Labour candidates are already committed to party policy and vetted by Transport House. If the working class are prepared to vote Labour they vote for official policy. Any undertaking outside this is worthless. IS admit that Labour candidates are controlled by Transport House as they give instances of two whom the party executive refused to endorse because they would give no "written undertakings to make no public criticism of any aspect of government policy until after the General Election".

Referring to racist attitudes, they say:

  If Enoch Powell has done one thing he has revealed just how little socialist consciousness exists today. We have to go back to square one and argue the ideas and theories of socialism to the people in the factories, the docks, the offices and on the vast council estates.

F or socialists it did not take Powell to reveal the lack of socialist consciousness among workers. This has been evident all along and voting Labour has been one aspect of it. As to arguing socialist ideas this is just what IS consistently fails to do. Despite the admitted lack of socialist consciousness they claim, in the same issue of their journal, in a reference to France "revolution in the advanced countries is the order of the day". But the first lesson to be learned at square one is that there can be no Socialism without Socialists. 

During the last election in discussing war preparation they said

   The Defence Review follows the pattern of the whole Labour policy, complete subservience to the most reactionary capitalist interest. Despite the fact that one in six of the population of this country live in poverty, the government like its Tory predecessors has callously decided that defence should continue to be the largest single items of government expenditure, over 26 per cent.

Knowing this they still urged the suicidal folly of voting Labour. They also stated quite clearly, on the penal clauses of the Prices and Incomes Act, that these involved fines of up to £500 and possible imprisonment for trade unionists who threaten to strike while a pay claim is in the hands of the Prices and Incomes Board. And yet, confronted with this outrageous piece of anti-working class legislation, they still worked and voted for Labour's return.

So far as IS are concerned, all this support of Labour candidates is just so much mockery and make-believe anyway as they have only contempt for political democracy and contempt, therefore, for the workers’ ability to understand Socialism. Socialist Worker, for June 1968, looking at the local council election results declared:

  It is clear that working class voters who have probably never voted for a Tory in their lives before consciously crossed the party line last month. Socialists now have a major battle on their hands if they are to recapture these working people for Socialism—for a real socialism that goes beyond the ballot box and the empty ritual of parliamentary elections and poses the question of workers' power in Britain.

What utter confusion! Workers who vote Tory were never socialists in the first place so cannot be "recaptured". When they start to understand Socialism it will be for the first time. This is the aftermath of their "big Labour majority”. Now. it's back to bloodshed on the street!

Like all who dismiss the idea of a socialist working class democratically organising for Socialism IS go along with the idea of leadership. Despite the experience of generations of leaders of all kinds, and their total inability to solve the problem confronting the working class, IS still maintain that out of the present struggle "a new political-industrial leadership has to be crystallised, a new labour movement created, and a new strategy for working class power forged". Where this “new” leadership and strategy will differ from the old they do not say, and they are equally quiet about what they will be able to do do in a situation where the majority of workers are non-socialist and aspire as yet to nothing more than reforms and leaders.

As is to be expected it is when such people as IS try to apply their false assumptions that they really expose themselves. In the June Socialist Worker they show that they thought Socialism could emerge from what was happening in France. Although they had eye-witnesses on the spot they do not seem to have seen very clearly. They thought that even without a socialist majority revolution in the advanced countries was “the order of the day". They said: 

   factory occupation is a crucial feature of the situation in France. . . . When the plant is seized the means of production are recognised by the workers as social property, as theirs to have and hold.

We can but wonder where de Gaulle’s massive landslide came from if workers wanted “social property". As IS sees it, “what is needed is a decisive thrust from the revolutionary left, providing the initiative to get the workers on the streets and expropriate the capitalists". What dangerous nonsense this is! If workers followed this line capitalist governments would not only use their control of the state against the workers (as they did in France) but could use the chaos as a pretext for making inroads into the hard-won rights of demonstration, assembly, organisation and free speech.

For Socialists the task remains one of expounding Socialism. If one thing emerges clearly from the confusion of the “left”, it is that until a majority of the world’s workers understand and vote for Socialism we are stuck with capitalism and all it implies.

Harry Baldwin