The Barbary Coast (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is much in the saying, one thing leads to another. When Wellington’s military alliance knocked out Napoleon they ended one thing and laid the foundations of another. French capitalism, new and vigorously youthful, lost for all time it’s hope of becoming the dominant power in Europe. Being young and healthy, it soon recovered from its fall and set out to become a colonial power with an Empire outside Europe in place of the once dreamed of one inside Europe. It was now a question of where? Capitalism always seeks to advance its expansion as cheaply and with as little conflict as possible. French capitalism had to take into account the wisdom of not muscling in on any other powerful capitalist power's preserves. In addition to this, her Napoleonic venture had left her weak and in consequence the founding of an Empire must not put too big a strain on her resources in man power or money. This meant grabbing territory within striking distance without dangerous opposition from other powers. All the fore-mentioned factors favoured her in one part only—the tip of North Africa, which was accessible from her Southern ports (Marseilles, etc.), and where the only opposition that could come (Spain or Italy) did not count. At this period the whole of North Africa, from Tangier to Egypt, was "nominally" part of the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire.

In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia there was a limited form of "independence" under Turkish appointed vassal rulers (Beys), but conquest would not entail much trouble in this ramshackle Empire. For a couple of centuries this coast had been the regular haunt of the Arab slaver and Moorish pirate, and Christian Europe found no cause for its suppression; in fact, they joined in the merry game and shared the spoils, building the city of Bristol out of the profits. When capitalism, however, chooses to make a move it can always find a good slogan. One time it is “freedom of the seas," another time it is "democracy," and this time the slogan suited to French capitalism was the “suppression of piracy."

In the early years of the nineteenth century there lived in Algeria a firm of financiers—Bacri. This firm lent money to Europeans just as Europeans lent money to them. During the Napoleonic wars the French Government borrowed large sums of money from the Bacri firm to pay for the army's supplies in Africa. When the wars ended the money was not repaid, and the debt owed by a “civilised" government to an "uncivilised" financier was allowed to lie in cold storage. It was the custom in later times for European States to see that Europeans got any money they lent repaid to them by threats of force. The Bey of Algeria (Hussein), as ruler of his country, tried to do the same on behalf of one of his firms. Repeated evasions of the subject by the French Government so exasperated this tin-pot ruler that he struck the French Consul in the face. That settled it! That smack not only cost him the 13,000,000 francs owing, but his kingdom as well.

The French capitalists now had two slogans to work upon : (1) The suppression of piracy; (2) their “National honour". How swiftly they discovered their "honour" except when it came to paying their debts! In a memorandum read to the Council of the King (Charles X) reference was made by the Minister of War, De-Tonnere to "all the advantages France might derive from the conquest of a fertile country whose mountains contained mines." The projected seizure of Algeria led to a lot of hot air on the part of Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, etc. The Times of May 23, 1830, remarked as follows: "The French Government cannot seriously think of forming colonies on the coast of Africa, for a war would break out between France and England." This was followed by an ultimatum from the British Government; however, on May 25, 1830, the French army sailed from Toulon. Algeria was conquered. The English Press yelled for blood, the Balance of Power was upset, the status quo disturbed, the French King driven from his throne, and—retired to England! (Some 90 years later the Kaiser settled in Holland after they were going to hang him.) French capitalism was now on the march; she had acquired her first colony in Africa.

The acquisition of Tunis (1881) was the next point of penetration in the Imperialist programme of French capitalism. The seizure of Algeria now brought colonial France to the border of Tunis—a Moslem kingdom, and therefore ripe for conversion. Tunisia is very rich in phosphates, iron-ore, copper, lead and mercury, and these were also ripe for conversion. In 1857 Tunis was ruled by a Bey— Muhammed. According to these Moslems blasphemy and adultery is punishable by death. In the sixties a young Italian was convicted of adultery with a Moslem woman. The woman was thrown into a lake, and the Italian executed. Here was the excuse! Under pressure from the European Powers the Bey signed a declaration of "rights" for Jews and Christians. French capitalism obtained concessions in the form of (1) Control of all telegraphic services; (2) The reconstruction of aqueducts and supplying of water. British capitalism obtained the "right" to construct a railway from Tunis to Goleta.

There now descended on Tunis a storm of traders, financiers and speculators from Europe. They lent money to the Bey on ruinous terms. In payment of interest they extorted further concessions for opening up unexploited mines. Under threats the Bey made the concessions exempt from taxation. An era of rapacity set in for the speculators, money-lenders, and joint stock companies of Paris, London and Rome. To do this the Tunisian peasant and craftsman was bled white. Hunger, misery and starvation led to numerous revolts, all brutally suppressed. About this time France had to face the opposition of Italy, now a fully-fledged capitalist power geographically nearer to Tunis.

At the beginning of the eighties France had become financially interested in Egypt and the Suez Canal. Smashed in the Franco-Prussian war the loss of her rich Alsace and Lorraine iron and coal compelled her to seek elsewhere for them. Now firmly settled in Algeria she sought to extend eastward. Bismarck said at the Congress of Berlin (1878), "England should let Russia have Constantinople and should take Egypt in return. France might be given Syria or Tunis." All nicely arranged! Britain agreed that France should have Tunis as long as she was blind when Britain took Cyprus. One good turn deserves another. Using as an excuse a petty raiding border tribe, France in 1881 invaded the province and forced a "protectorate” on the Bey, disclaiming all attempts at annexation, but has been there ever since. As one thing leads to another, this was the decisive factor which forced Italy into the Austro-German alliance until the war of 1914-18. Italy, through the medium of her Blackshirt shouters, still calls in slogan form for Nice, Savoy and Tunis. Not Rome or Carthage, but Rome—Paris—or New York. Not negro slaves this time, but the exploitation of wage-slaves and the seizing of mineral resources from the land where Carthage ruled.

Lew Jones

Work for Socialism (A Thought for the New Year) (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Three years have passed since the outbreak of the Second World War. Three years which have taken their toll on the aspirations and hopes of millions; three years which have undermined many desperately held illusions. The first bomb that dropped destroyed the illusion that capitalism could continue without war. Many thousands of sincere men and women who held anti-war views veered in viewpoint almost overnight. Leaving out of account the Communists, the considerable anti-war sentiment which existed and grew between the two wars died on the first day of world war the second. The spectacle was not inspiring. Except for conscientious objectors, many of whose objections were mostly personal anyway, any hope that optimists had nursed of any real resistance to war was annihilated. Those who for years had cried "never again” now argued that Nazism must be defeated, and the only way to achieve that end was in the military defeat of Germany. To that end millions, most of whom yet knew little of life, must die. Millions have died. Millions more will surely die in the battles yet to be fought: "decisive” battles, we are told. To the Socialist, as the non-Socialist, supporter or opponent of the war, the prospect arouses anything but joy. True we are free from that pious respect for human life which is proclaimed but less often practised by the religious-minded, nevertheless, we experience the primitive will to live as strongly as all normal social beings, plus the conscious will to organise society so that all will live to the full. And young human life is precious: yes, and not because of sentiment only. The Socialist movement cannot afford the loss of the eager, inquiring mind of youth, particularly in a world where the numerical balance of the age groups grows more to its disadvantage.

The point surely does not need to be laboured.

The stark tragedy of world war fosters self delusions. One, a completely false evaluation, interprets the willing support given to the war by the workers as expressing a conscious seeking after a new or better social order. The most that could be said of some workers is that they believe they fight to avoid a worse world than the one they have known. Of others (perhaps the majority) the only explanation is that they are completely State-disciplined, the result of inheriting the accumulated experience of generations of workers. It is the job of the Socialist to face the facts. It is no service to the Socialist movement to paint rosy pictures or make "optimistic” prophecies except they rest on the surest of foundations. In the face of the present activities of the world's workers the surest prophecy that could be made is that the Socialist is faced with years of plodding propaganda and educational work for which no measurable result can yet be seen. Socialism will yet gain recruits, conscious of all the difficulties and despite them. They will work for Socialism with the will of those who know that the world is ready for the Socialist solution for its problems and its achievement is possible the moment a sufficient number of workers want it. Now, if events could produce that moment out of a hat now. They will work for Socialism now because there can be no other alternative to the world we know, and in order to enjoy its benefits with their fellow men. If in the years following the war the worker is lured again from Socialism by rosy promises of reform, so that those whose active life is behind them would cease to hope to see the dawn of Socialism, this would not affect their work for Socialism. It is in the nature of man as a social being that he works not only for himself but for society and posterity. The worker who understands what Socialism offers to the world will work for it that his children escape the horrors he had to endure. Can it be denied, for example, that many who are fighting in the present military struggle are not conscious of what chance they have of surviving to enjoy the world they risk their lives to save.

But of the capitalist world after the war? What sort of place will it be? If the assurances of the social reformer meant anything then doubtless it would be a very different world indeed. Poverty, insecurity and unemployment will be things of the past; and profit, says the new Archbishop of Canterbury, will be relegated to second place. It all seems so simple to the social reformer: Just so much a question of goodwill, of so many do's and don'ts on the Statute Book. But what is conspicuously absent in the proposals of the advocates of a “New World" after the war is that private ownership should give way to common ownership, and production for profit to production solely for use. They fail to propose this mainly for two reasons. First, they have not grasped the fact that there can be no fundamental social changes without it, and, two, even if this had been grasped, few of them would want to abolish the capitalist form of ownership anyway. What is likely to happen after the war, therefore, is that a number of social reforms will be introduced; that is unless the inevitable competitive struggle which must break out between different sections of the capitalist class tempers capitalist gratitude first. But no number of reforms, whatever the sincerity of the promoters, will touch the problems of poverty, insecurity, and the industrial crisis. Whilst production is for the purpose of profit and not for the purpose of satisfying the needs of the producers, capitalism will throw up these problems. For a few years after the war production of peace-time products is likely to expand rapidly as a consequence of the removal of the restriction on production that has operated during the war. Whilst this is so, conditions for the workers may be relatively good. The pendulum, however, will swing back. Competing capitalists will glut the markets, goods will become unsaleable, unemployment will grow, there will be strikes and lock-outs and reductions in wages. These things will happen because they are inseparable from capitalism—in fact, they are capitalism. There will be friction and "misunderstandings" between national groups of capitalists, as happened in the early thirties between British and American capitalists: "We cannot pay our war debts," and "buy British goods " were the high spots of those years. Fools, cranks, and the "experts” will strut the stage, offering their solutions. One is reminded of a famous and respected British economist who, in 1930, begged that all should spend another five shillings a week, and gave the solemn assurance that unemployment would disappear as a result!

These things happened after the Great War. Will they happen again? They will—because it is certain that the workers are not going to abolish capitalism in' the years immediately following the war. And whilst this is so, capitalism will provide abundant opportunities for the ill-informed social reformers and the charlatans. New movements will arise which promise an easy road to the "New World.” There will be disappointments and set-backs. But out of the struggles and their lessons there will be some who will learn, and they will add to the strength of the Socialist movement, preparing the way for the inevitable time when masses must accept the Socialist message. Historically, the stage has not yet been reached when workers in large numbers grasp the Socialist's message. But it can be hastened the more our message is spread. It is the business of all Socialists to work for this end. We are confident in the soundness of our case and tenacious in our purpose. The terrible wounds on the social organism which the present world war must surely inflict will harden us in our purpose: our hatred of capitalism and what it stands for, undiminished and increased. Socialism is an historical necessity thrown up by the economic and social development of centuries. The alternative to it is chaos and conflict. As Socialists we are conscious agents of the process of history.

Our job is to continue the work of Socialist propaganda at all times without fear or compromise. It is your job, friend and reader, if you are a Socialist, to lend a hand in every possible way and so help the movement to take all the shocks and use all the opportunities that the future may hold for it.

In this, the first month of the year 1943, we do not wish workers a "Happy New Year”—we point them to a new world, Socialism. When they want it it is within their grasp. If they have to fight for it with only a fraction of the courage, sacrifice and determination they fight the quarrels of their masters, then no combination of powers, even were they a thousand times more powerful than they are, could stand against it.

Harry Waite

Notes By The Way: Should Coal Miners be Abolished? (1943)

The Notes By The Way column from the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Should Coal Miners be Abolished?

Socialists are always being asked who will do the dirty, dangerous, arduous or menial tasks under Socialism. It is a question that seems to worry some people, though we have not noticed that the workers actually performing such tasks under capitalism arc overmuch concerned. The simple answer to the question is that if dirt, fatigue, and danger cannot be eliminated, then a sensible solution would be that all should take their turn at such tasks. As for so-called “menial” work this is merely a piece of capitalist snobbery—no useful work is inherently menial. Too little attention is, however, paid to the possibility of eliminating the particularly objectionable features now attaching to certain kinds of work. It should not be assumed that because capitalism has not eliminated them that they could not be eliminated. An illustration of this was provided in an article by J. B. Davidson in the Sunday Express (December 13, 1942). He relates that over 60 years ago an eminent scientist, Professor Ramsay, suggested a scheme for the utilisation of coal by converting it into gas in the seams of the earth. The coal-owners were not interested, but Lenin, 40 years ago, came across an account of Ramsay's scheme in the British Museum, and "to him the idea seemed to offer a heaven-sent opportunity for saving the back-breaking toil and degradation of millions of workers." Davison states that by 1938 Russian engineers and scientists successfully applied the idea in a Russian mine and "gas from subterranean gasification had been supplied to the furnaces of a chemical coking plant." Davison ends his article with a quotation from Professor I. Bardin, of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Science:—

   By the application of this technological process, coal can be used in its most convenient form (gas) and the miner's arduous toil thus eliminated.

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The Socialist and the Reformer Contrasted

The Socialist aim is to abolish poverty. That can be done only by abolishing the system based on class division—those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess.

The social reformer does not want to abolish poverty in the only way in which it can be done. Instead he wants to diminish poverty or remove some of the features that result from poverty. The most fatuous form this desire takes is to be found in the recurrent schemes for keeping rich and poor, but mixing them up a little—just as a defender of slavery might dwell on the beautiful thought of occasional friendly gatherings of slaves and slave owners.

Thus at the Conference of the Association of Headmistresses a speaker urged what she called "equality" in education—"Let the Duke’s son learn with the Dustman's son." “The first essential was that all children, rich and poor, should spend their school life together, irrespective of the incomes of their fathers.”—(Daily Herald, April 9, 1942.)

A similar proposal conies from the Bishop of Leicester, who asked that we abolish for good "that snobbish expression, 'the better class residential districts.' "—(Evening Standard, December 2, 1942.)

  The bishop said England took a wrong turning in the last century when great cities were built, so that the poor lived at one end and the rich at the other. 

War has the result of enforcing temporarily a certain amount of contact between rich and poor. Did they not meet together in the same air-raid shelters? But note the comment made by Father Groser. of Stepney: —

  When Mrs. Churchill went to see him in the heavy air-raid period and asked how people sleeping in the shelters could remain so cheerful, he told her : 'These shelters are better than their homes. They have at least a bed each, and more privacy than ever before in their lives."—(Manchester Guardian, April 15, 1942.)

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The Rich are no Longer with Us

All sorts of people who profess to know the facts go on telling us that the old inequalities have disappeared and the rich are no longer with us. All we can say is that if the rich have gone there are still some people about who are able to spend a lot of money as witness the following headline in the News-Chronicle (December 23, 1942): " Grapes 85/- a pound; Roses 4/6 each in West End Orgy of Spending.”

But the facts are not really in dispute. The ownership of land, factories, railways, etc., is still predominantly vested in the numerically small capitalist class, and if their profits are being heavily taxed during the war they have no doubt that things will improve for them when the war is over. We have yet to hear of heirs to millionaire estates refusing to accept them because they will be valueless or unnecessary in the new world after the war.

Lord Glanely, 71-year-old shipowner and racehorse owner, recently left estate worth £1,813,625, on which death duties amounted to £860,722 (Daily Telegraph, November 27, 1942), and note the following from the Evening Standard (December 15, 1942) :—

  The Duke of Westminster's estates have been estimated to be worth about £20,000,000. He has sold portions of them, such as the great family mansion in Park Lane, on the site of which Grosvenor House now stands, and eight acres in Millbank, on which Thames House stands. He still owns 600 acres in Mayfair and Belgravia, in addition to 30,000 in Cheshire, and an estate in Scotland.
  The Duke, now 62, lives at Eaton, in Cheshire. He was in the Home Guard for a time, but the reduction of the age limit barred him from further service.
   He has been married three times. His first wife was Constance Edwina, daughter of Colonel William Cornwallis-West; she obtained a divorce in 1919. His second wife was Violet Mary Geraldine, daughter of Sir William Nelson; she obtained a divorce in 1926. In 1930 he married the Hon. Loelia, daughter of Lord Sysonby.
   There is no direct heir to the title. It will pass to a cousin, Captain Robert Arthur Grosvenor. Captain Grosvenor is 47. He was at Dunkirk, but was invalided out of the Army in October last year. He is now farming near Banbury.

Then there was the court case in which Lady Furness secured an Order that the annuity of £8,380 a year (about £160 a week) left to her by Lord Furness, which had been stopped by the Board of Trade owing to her residence in France, should be continued (Manchester Guardian, December 22, 1942).

After all, it does not seem that the rich are expecting, after the war, to work for their living or depend on the Beveridge Report to save them from want.

It is only for the workers that the social reformers hand out Beveridge pension schemes.

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New Political Constitutions in China and Abyssinia

Much of the vague talk about democratic political methods as understood in a country like Great Britain, where the Parliamentary system has had centuries in which to evolve, has not much relationship to the political trends now at work over a large part of the globe even outside the Nazi- Fascist countries. Russia, of course, has its one-Party system—as Bukharin said many years ago, one Party in power the other in prison. Now it is reported that China has formally gone over to a one-party system. The Manchester Guardian correspondent in Chungking, Mr. Gunther Stein, reports decisions reached by the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang, the Chinese Government party: —

  First it has strengthened the basis of single party rule and made closer the integration of party and Government in local as well as national administration through the decision that from now on the district Kuomintang secretary shall be simultaneously the district magistrate. Secondly, there is a more uncompromising exclusion of the opposition with the exception of those who have "repented."—(Manchester Guardian, December 3rd, 1942.)

Earlier in 1942 Abyssinia, when freed from Italian rule, reverted to the Constitution of 1931. Here is a description from the Manchester Guardian (May 6, 1942):—

  "This provides for certain limitations upon his (the Emperor's) powers as monarch. A legislative body will, under the Constitution, be set up. It provides for two Chambers—an Upper Chamber of nobles nominated by the Emperor, and a Lower Chamber whose members are nominated by the nobles and local chiefs."

The Guardian's comment is interesting: —

  This is, of course, far removed from a Parliament on the democratic model, but it corresponds to the needs of Abyssinian society. Above all, it expresses and preserves social discipline.

The Guardian writer also makes the significant remark that "Ethiopian society is in the feudal stage and was disrupted by the Italian conquest."

Whatever he may think about this Constitution corresponding to the needs of Abyssinian society, it seems highly improbable that this intention of reverting to the condition of affairs before the Italian conquest is going to satisfy the lower orders for long. Abyssinia will find itself forced into growing relationship with and dependence on, the capitalist world, and the growing needs of capitalism will not for long accept the fetters of a feudal order.

Edgar Hardcastle

Suffer Little Children (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “Children’s Magazine” of May, 1920, affords some interesting reading. “It has shut her out from real knowledge of the world. . . . It has shackled her afresh with a system of government based upon spying, on force, and on secret punishments as bad as in the worst days of the Tsar.” A wealth of accompanying pictures reveal to the young mind such horrors as “Aristocratic women cleaning the streets,” “ Peasant shot at sight for stealing bread.”

Of course, the blessings of Deans and Archbishops has wiped all memories of these things out. What truth was there in the allegations. If true, by what miracle has the Soviet regime transformed itself just at the time when a super gangster crowd is threatening the existence of a smugly reformed Old Times and its Artful Dodger young “Ally”?

Good Advice (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

In an article on the future control of industry, a writer in The Times (September 19, 1942) remarks that many shareholders look forward to nationalisation for the same reason that shareholders "rejoiced when the London Docks were nationalised." He adds : -

  We must beware of the people who advocate Socialism in order to make the world safe for capitalists.

What The Labour Party Proposes After The War (1943)

Editorial from the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Miss Ellen Wilkinson in a speech at Tooting on October 26, 1942, is reported by the Evening News to have said :—

  You cannot expect to get a planned Socialist State the day after the armistice, tied up with pink ribbon, as a present from Mr. Winston Churchill.—(Evening News, October 27, 1942.)

Miss Wilkinson was stating the obvious, and it is to be doubted whether anyone in her audience needed such assurance; but if Mr. Winston Churchill, the Tory, cannot be expected to make us a present of Socialism, what of Miss Wilkinson and her Labour Party friends? Mr. Herbert Morrison, for example, has recently made two pronouncements on the world after the war. In a speech at Manchester he warned against abandoning war-time organisation and said that if we scrap sensible war-time planning

   We shall be heading for muddle and disaster, and out of that may come anything, including Fascism.— (Manchester Guardian, September 26, 1942.)

In a later speech, at Swindon, on December 20, he sketched what form post-war control of industry might take.

    Social control of production, however, might take many different forms. How much of it we wanted and in what forms could not be settled in terms of any political dogma. The sole test must be whether the public interest was served by such measures in particular cases or not. Some forms of economic activity would, like our postal and telegraphic communications, respond well to ownership and management by a department of State. But the public concern in this form was certainly not a universal panacea. Rather was it likely to be exceptional. What, for instance, should we do with our natural monopolies, industries which could not be carried on properly at all except on a monopoly basis? It might be that instead of leaving them in private hands . . . we should get better national service from them if we turned them into public corporations like the Central Electricity Board, the London Passenger Transport Board, or, in another sphere, the B.B.C.—(Times, December 21, 1942.)

He went on to suggest that other industries which are not natural monopolies though near-monopolies, such as the iron and steel and chemical industries, might be made into public corporations or put under "some form of management under a board of directors with a nationally nominated chairman."

So what sort of choice do Miss Wilkinson's Labour Party friends offer us? If capitalism is uncontrolled we shall have muddle and perhaps Fascism, and as a choice of alternatives we are to have supervised private monopolies or public corporations. Does Mr. Morrison believe that these forms (workable as a phase of capitalism though they may be) will prove satisfactory to the working class? They are forms of private ownership, and subject to all the stresses and strains inseparable from class divided society. Dividends for the investors will be their prime purpose, and they will be subject to the usual industrial conflicts with the workers employed by them. They will leave untouched the problem of converting private ownership into common ownership in the interest of the whole community.

The position is, then, that if Mr. Winston Churchill does not intend to give us Socialism neither does Mr. Morrison, and since there is no sign at present of the workers deciding to achieve Socialism for themselves we shall be left with capitalism even if it be agreed by Miss Wilkinson and others not to call it by that name but to label it "public control," or by some other fancy name.

Rocky Foundations of the New World (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The “brave new world" is still news, bat as its vague outlines emerge in the public speeches of allied statesmen and in various articles and statements by prominent people, the new world of dreams recedes farther and farther away. The jokes made by working men on the subject suggest that in general the view is held that the high-sounding phrases which have travelled round the world are but “sound and fury, signifying nothing."

An article in The Spectator (October 30, 1942), under the title "The Quest for Aims," put as definitely as anywhere else an interpretation of governmental view on the subject. Discussing the criticism that Russia and China “were not sure whether we knew what we were fighting for," the writer goes on :—

    Russia and China are both fighting because the soil of their country was wantonly invaded, the United States because her fleet, lying in a harbour of one of her oversea possessions, was made the object of outrageous and treacherous aggression. We, as a plain matter of history, because not our own territory, but that of Poland, which we had pledged ourselves to defend, was attacked by Hitler. Having entered it we have bound ourselves to make no peace till Hitler, and all he stands for, is swept away, and till Japan is finally crushed. That is a simple and sufficient statement of war aims.
    Peace aims are another matter. We did not go to. war, and never should have, to reconstruct the world, but so much of the structure of the world as it existed before 1939 has been destroyed by war that reconstruction is essential, and the task of planning that enterprise and carrying it out will tax all our wisdom and all our energies. Here it is a question of proceeding from the general to the particular, from agreement on principles to their application. The difficulty of even making a beginning is illustrated by the vigour of some of the protests against the apparently innocuous statement that we are fighting for the defence of Christian civilisation. That, it might be supposed, was of the nature of a truism, or near enough to a truism, to be incapable of being an irritant. A Christian civilisation is not a condition of life in which (to quote from last week's debate in the House of Commons) belief in the Athanasian creed is forcibly imposed. It denotes rather a regime, based on common conviction and consent, in which the virtues, Christian, but by no means exclusively Christian, of justice and truth and good faith and freedom of conscience and defence of the weak—the very antithesis of the qualities inculcated in the Germany of to-day—are accepted as the guiding principles of national as of individual life. 

We regret the length of the quotation, but the elusiveness of the ideas hidden in clouds of words makes it necessary in order to extract something concrete.

Here we see that the war is for the purpose of defending Christian civilization and the peace aims to reconstruct it from the ruins of war. In the first place reconstructing is rebuilding what has existed, not building something new, and secondly, justice, etc., etc., was the alleged object of the French Revolution, the American Revolution and various other upheavals since. The civilization we got from these was first of all the factory system with all its early abominations of child labour and so forth, and in recent years all the evils that church dignitaries and statesmen are now holding forth upon as ugly features that must never reappear.

As, however, the social system of pre-war days (Christian civilisation) based upon private ownership of the means of production, which involves the two antagonistic classes of capitalist and worker, is to be reconstructed then it requires no great thinker to prophesy that the evils of pre-war days will be with us in the future like old but disreputable friends.

This forecast is substantiated by the plan for the post-war world drawn up by 120 leading industrialists, who are, of course, typical representatives of the capitalist outlook, and, moreover, are the type of people who in the past have determined social policy and are economically and politically strong enough to continue to do so.

The signatories to the plan are interested in various industries such as banking, chemicals, munitions, engineering, coal, steel, etc. Among them is Lord Melchett, Lord Perry, Sir Samuel Beale, Sir Francis Joseph and Mr. J. V. Rank.

The Daily Express (November 11, 1942), discussing the plan in an article entitled "120 Big Business Men Plan their Post-War World," says it is “ based on the first essential: Private enterprise must stay,” with the profit motive included. They are against the extension of State ownership and operation in peace time, which they contend would he a national calamity. And further:

They do not think it is "theoretically possible” for “big combines and amalgamations to retard invention, restrict production, or maintain or raise prices unduly. It would, however, be checked,” they say, "by public opinion.”

This project of the “new world,” as sketched by influential capitalists, has a far better chance of reflecting reality than either the hazy promises of politicians or the groundless expectations of well-intentioned reformers.

An American writer, examining the future position of Britain in an article entitled “Can Britain Live in the New World Order” (Asia, October, 1942), has no illusions about the shape of things to come. To him it means an alteration in the balance of competitive power with Britain taking a back seat and helped along like a lame dog, as the following extract illustrates, and the lamest part of the dog is represented by the workers :—

No doubt the British will have to reorganise their economy. They will probably find it necessary to reduce the national standard of living. They will simply have to consume less and to produce more. British industry will have to be modernised and placed on a competitive footing; it will have to change to different lines of production. Britain will have to rely less and less on the traditional export stand-bys:—cotton goods, bulky iron goods, simple consumer articles, coal—and turn increasingly to the production of industrial machinery for export, machine tools, chemical products, complicated consumers goods, high quality textiles, including textiles of artificial fabrics. Above all, Britain will have to rely less on income from interest, banking and insurance services. Local agriculture will have to produce more of the foodstuffs consumed by the population. Finally it may prove necessary to resort to planned emigration.

It may be thought that the above unpleasant forecast is an over-statement by a prejudiced "foreigner,” but it also has a fair chance of representing the grim reality, and we may once again witness, as happened after the last war, posters on public hoardings with pictures of labour leaders embellishing exhortations to “produce more” in order to enable industry to get back on a paying basis.

It is taken for granted that Britain's carrying trade is gone beyond recovery, but it may well be, owing to war time concentration upon the production of the huge transport aeroplanes, that competition for sea trade will be replaced by competition for aerial transport, and thus a fresh fight for economic supremacy be inaugurated that will blot out the bulk of the present New World ideals.

Gilmac.

Inequality in Russia (1943)

From the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Rowland Evans, a Liberal politician, in a letter to the Times, stated that 

Whereas statistics indicate that in Britain before the war the upper 10 per cent, of the population received 45 per cent, of the national income, an authoritative analysis of statistics published in the Soviet Press in 1939 showed that the upper 11 per cent, or 12 per cent, of the Soviet population then received approximately 50 per cent, of the national income.—(Times, December 15, 1942.)

One correspondent challenged the figures on the ground that the rural population ought to be excluded as it is impossible in rural areas to find members of an upper category. He claimed therefore that what the figures would really show would be that in the towns

every third worker or employee or member of their families . . . belongs to an upper category, similar to the upper 10 per cent, of the population in Great Britain.—(Times, December 16, 1942.)

The figures were then challenged by Andrew Rothstein, Chief Correspondent of the Russian Official Tass News Agency (Times, December 21, 1942). His principal ground of objection was that the estimate came from "an article by a counter-revolutionary terrorist, anti-Soviet propagandist and agent of Hitler." This is relevant, but it does not settle the real question, which is "was the estimate accurate?" Rothstein had the opportunity of answering Sir Rowland Evans's demand for his own figures. Rothstein is in a position to give the Russian Government’s own figures about inequality of income, but though he gave various other pieces of information he did not answer the question. Instead, he dwelt on the point that “in the Soviet Union the share of the national income which comes to the individual depends exclusively (unless he is a criminal) on the work which he does."

He did not question that artists, scientists, engineers, factory managers and State officials, etc., receive larger incomes than the mass of the population, but maintained that this group is certainly not large enough to account for 50 per cent, of the national income or anything like it.

One significant feature of Rothstein's letter was that it nowhere even mentioned the fact that millions of Russian citizens draw income from their investment in Government bonds. Rothstein may, of course, argue that income derived from interest on such investments is indirectly the result of the work orginally performed, but why did he not mention it? At January 1, 1934. the amount of Government loans outstanding was about 14,000 million roubles (about £560 million at 25 roubles to the £—Whitaker's Almanack, 1942, page 944). This figure will have been greatly increased since 1934 as thousands of millions of roubles are raised each year. In April, 1942, a new War Loan of 10,000 million roubles (£400 million) was raised (Soviet War News, April 16. 1942, and Evening Standard, April 15, 1942). The interest is 2 per cent, but in addition each holder of a 100-rouble certificate has a chance of winning a prize of 50,000 roubles (£2,000), or smaller amounts.

It was also announced (People, December 7, 1941) that the Russian Government were to run a lottery to help the war effort, tickets being issued to the amount of £40 million.

With regard to inequality of income, it was stated in the Sunday Dispatch (August 17, 1941) that the “average minimum wage is 250 roubles monthly, though specialists may receive an average as high as 2,000 roubles a month." (This article was shown to the Soviet Ambassador before publication.)

Other ways of obtaining large sums of money are indicated by the announcement that Ilya Ehrenburg, the Russian journalist, received the Stalin prize of 100,000 roubles for his book, “ The Fall of France" (Evening Standard, May 19, 1912).

With regard to the Russian Income Tax, Mr. J. C. Jagger, Honorary Secretary of the British Association of Officers of Taxes, who visited Russia in 1936, made the following statement:—

Earnings up to 250 roubles per month are exempt but sums in excess of that figure are charged at progressively increasing rates, commencing at 80 kopecs per 100 roubles (100 kopecs—1 rouble) to a maximum of 260 kopecs per 100 roubles at 800 roubles a month. Tax is not charged on earnings in excess of 800 roubles and, in these days of output or sales in excess of the “plan" many of the citizens escape taxation at a point for which we have no legal parallel."—Taxes, October, 1936.)

In conclusion here ore two statements which throw further light on inequality in Russia. One is from the American journalist. Negley Farson, cabling from Moscow in Feb., 1942 (Daily Mail, February 28). He remarked on the “ beggars, the halt, the blind, mewling their woes and thanks " in gratitude for gifts obtained from a queue of people waiting to go into the Cathedral.

The second is from the Daily Worker (September 25, 1942) from the pen of John Gibbons, writing from Moscow. He explains that in addition to the ordinary vegetable ration at fixed pre-war prices, workers in factories and offices buy extra vegetables from their place of work. There are, however. other markets of tin rationed goods “ for those who have money and inclination "—

For those who have money and inclination, collective farm markets, of which there are dozens in Moscow, contain a rich and varied assortment of un-rationed farm products. Here prices are higher, varying according to the season. Potatoes, for instance, now cost less than half what they did six weeks ago.

It certainly seems that Mr. Rothstein might usefully have added many things to his statement made in answer to Sir Rowland Evans.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: The Communists and Beveridge (1943)

Editorial from the January 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist Party is giving its support to the Beveridge scheme, subject to certain amendments. This has, however, not entirely pleased the readers of the Daily Worker. In their issue of December 22, 1942, J. R. Campbell confessed that the attitude of the Communist Party paper "perplexes a number of our readers, who ask us whether this system of benefits represents our ideal of a new world." Campbell answers that it does not represent the ideal, but that the report, "if it becomes law, would be a definite improvement on the existing chaotic muddle in the social services. Why not support it?"

To a reader who asks why not consider instead ways and means of ending the capitalist system, Campbell replies that "he is presenting an unreal alternative."

The gist of the argument is expressed in the following passage from Campbell's article: -

Will we get nearer to Socialism if we stand aside from the struggle around the Report and indulge in Socialist propaganda? On the contrary, we will only reduce our propaganda to impotence. Surely no reader is suggesting that we should organise a campaign to force the Coalition Government to introduce Socialism? Or that we should forget the war and go out on a campaign for the overthrow of the Government, which could only divide the British people, prolong the war, and reduce the chances of Socialism to zero.

One comment on the above is that made by the Manchester Guardian: - "There in a nutshell is the political philosophy of the Fabian, of the once-despised reformist, of every Socialist member of the Labour Party." - (Manchester Guardian, December 24, 1942.)

Also the reader to whom Campbell addressed his question about the war might have recalled that it is not so long ago that the Communist Party was quite ready to call off what it called "an Imperialist war, like the war of 1914." The Daily Worker of October 4, 1939, said :-

We are against the continuance of the war. We demand that negotiations be immediately opened for the establishment of peace in Europe.

And the Communist Party wholly approved the People's Convention demand for the overthrow of the Government and the setting up of a People's Government, which in the words of D. N. Pritt, K.C., M.P., "would know that its first duty to the people was to secure the earliest possible termination of hostilities by a peace that was neither one of conquest nor of capitulation, but a peace that safeguarded the interests of the peoples and enabled them to build a new world without war and economic crises." - ("Forward to a People's Government," published by the People's Convention Committee, D. N. Pritt, page 12.)