Editorial: The Faking of Reports by the Beaverbrook Press (1956)

Editorial from the January 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Beaverbrook newspapers the Sunday Express and Daily Express have a long record of faking certain kinds of reports. In reporting speeches they consider it legitimate to alter certain words and phrases and present their own doctored version as if it were the original. In our issue for January, 1945, we showed how the Daily Express of 2 December, 1944, took a speech made by Mr. Anthony Eden in the House of Commons, altered his specific references to “Labour Government” and to the “hon gentlemen opposite ” into “Socialist Government” and “Socialists” and presented this version as Mr. Eden’s actual words. Shortly afterwards the Manchester Guardian (10 April, 1945), caught the Sunday Express (and the Daily Telegraph) doing the same with a speech by Mr. Ernest Bevin. The Manchester Guardian in a leading article with the title of “Hard of Hearing ” doubted if the reporters could be blamed for this and wondered if the true explanation was not a “directive” that this doctoring should always be done. Unable to ignore the Guardian's rebuke the Daily Express (12 April, 1945), came to the defence of its stable companion, the Sunday Express, by explaining that the trouble was about “a mistake in one of the provincial editions” of that paper. But they craftily refrained from saying what the Guardian had charged against the Sunday Express, so their readers were left in the dark. Of course the explanation explained nothing and the practise of faking has gone on ever since. We are therefore presumably to believe that by strange coincidence Beaverbrook reporters then and since have been afflicted with a defect of hearing that causes them to go on making the same mistake.

It becomes more curious still when we find that a reporter can be not only deaf but blind. For on 14 June, 1945, the Daily Express published what purported to be an extract from an article by Mr. John Yarwood, official of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, in the Union Journal far June, 1945. In that journal Mr. Yarwood wrote:—

    "I admit that we have union members who are professed Conservatives. I can't understand them. Further, there is reason to suspect that considerable numbers who pay lip service to Labour Party policy cast their votes for Conservatives in the secrecy of the ballot. 1 cannot understand them either."

In the doctored version of the Daily Express this became:—

   “We have members who are professed Conservatives and members who pay lip service to the Socialist Party and then vote Conservative. 1 can't understand either."

In 1945 we also took up with “Candidus” of the Daily Sketch (not one of the Beaverbrook group) his practice of referring to the Labour Party as the Socialist Party. He dealt with our protest in an article on 1 April, 1945 and gave what we considered the unsatisfactory explanation that he considered it to be a justifiable practice; but at least he gave space to our protest.

The recent attitude of the Evening Standard has been quite different. In their issue for 12 October, 1945, they published an article by Sir Beverley Baxter in which he reported the conference of the Labour Party as the conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Our letters to him and to the Editor of the Evening Standard brought curt replies which made no apology and offered no defence or explanation. We have therefore sent the correspondence to the National Press Council which is to consider the matter. There for the present it rests until we receive the further reply promised by the Council.

The Fabians, Bernstein and Revisionism - Part 1 (1956)

From the January 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now and again old ideas turn up and, after some refurbishing, are presented as fresh discoveries. The old wine in new bottles is then described as the sole product of the very latest and most highly developed vineyards. The working class movement has been no stranger to this fraudulent or ignorant artifice, and many a reputation has been built upon the deception.

Since the Socialist movement began most of those who claimed adherence to it have been obsessed with the idea of a mass movement. Even most of those who claimed to be Marxist have hedged, compromised, and thrown principles to the winds in order to swell the numerical support for a movement that put Socialism in the forefront as its theoretical aim, and then took practical action that denied this aim. The result has been defeat, disaster and the submerging of much that was valuable.

Examples of this craving for a mass following have been the Fabians, the Bernstein Revisionists, Independent Labour Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Labour Party, the Communists and, recently, movements, like the one sponsored by G. D. H. Cole. Supporters of these movements have brought up old arguments and ideas as if they were newly discovered examples of progress.

As some useful lessons can be drawn from it we will describe the circumstances in which one of these movements, the Bernstein Revisionist Movement occurred. It produced a bitter controversy in the Social Democratic Parties at the turn of the century. What exaggerated the importance of the theoretical dispute was the fact that Bernstein had been a prominent advocate of Marxism for many years, was regarded as an outstanding leader of German Social Democracy, had been a friend of Engels and, along with Kautsky, had been appointed by Engels as one of his literary executors. True, he did not disclose the cloven hoof until Engels was dead.

The controversy was set going by a series of articles on Problem of Socialism, contributed by Bernstein to the German Social Democratic paper, the Neue Zeit, in 1897. A demand was thereupon made that the German party state its position with regard to his ideas, and particularly to his contention that the task of social democracy was “to organise the working classes politically and develop them as a democracy and to fight for all reforms in the State which are adapted to raise the working classes and transform the State in the direction of democracy.” 

In 1899 Bernstein published a book gaining a complete statement of his views. This book was translated and published in England by the Independent Labour Party in 1909 under the title Evolutionary Socialism, with an English preface by Bernstein. The quotations of Bernstein's views that we will give later on will be taken from this edition, although the controversy ranged round the original German edition.

To begin with, let us see what the views were that Bernstein held. Briefly summarised they were the following:

That the numbers and wealth of large and small Capitalists tended to increase and society to become more democratic. That class antagonisms were being modified by ethical and patriotic considerations. That crises were decreasing in size and frequency through a process of adaptation largely influenced by trusts, cartels and the like. That the Materialist Conception of History overestimated the economic factor; the influence of the economic factor was diminishing whilst the influence of ideological factors, including the ethical, was increasing. That Capitalism had undergone fundamental changes since the middle of the 19th century when Marx made his analyses, but, though true for the time of which he was writing, they no longer applied.. That the theory of surplus value was incomplete and needed the addition of the theory of final utility. That the workers have now become citizens of the country and therefore have a fatherland to defend. That as Germany is becoming more and more dependent upon products from the colonies, these colonies should be developed and protected. Savages have only a conditional right to the land occupied by them; the higher civilization of advanced countries can claim a higher right. That Socialism is a long way ahead and will only come by a process that is gradual and almost imperceptible; consequently we should not worry about the future but concentrate on the present, on the extension of the political and economic rights of the working classes and “In all Advanced countries we see the privileges of the Capitalist bourgeoisie yielding step by step to democratic organisations” (Preface, page XI). That the Social Democratic Party should form alliances with the Capitalist parties nearest to them.

These were the views that Bernstein put forward. The controversy that developed was two-fold. On the one hand it was concerned with Bernstein’s ideas, on the other it was a struggle to keep him in the Party, in spite of his heresies, on the ground of democracy. On the latter question Liebknecht made the following observations:— 

“No socialist, therefore, has the right to condemn attacks on the theoretical ideas of the Marxian teachings or to excommunicate anyone from the party because of such attacks. But it is wholly different when such attacks imply a complete overturning of our whole conception of society, as, for example, is the case with Bernstein. Then vigorous defence is in order.” (p. 38, “No Compromise, No Political Trading.”)

However, it is well to remember that all the participants in this controversy accepted the reform policies of the Social Democratic Parties. Where they differed among themselves was that some advocated a reform policy but, at the same time, insisted that the Party should remain independent. The muddled attitude of the German party is made plain by a report of the two conferences at which the Bernstein position was debated. The report is taken from the Social Democrat of January, 1902.

At a Congress at Hanover in 1899, after Kautsky and Bebel had bitterly attacked Bernstein’s views, Bebel moved a resolution that was carried by 216 votes to 21. The resolution began as follows:—

“That the party remains as heretofore on the basis of the class-struggle whereby the freedom of the working class can alone be effected."

But it finished up in this way:—

“The party, without in the least deceiving itself as to the character of the bourgeois parties, does not, on principle, refuse to co-operate with the parties of order from time to time, if the party can thereby obtain some definite advantage, whether for the purposes of election, or in the acquirement of political rights and freedom for the people, or in the event of obtaining some real improvement in the social condition of the working classes, or in the struggle against elements and measures hostile to the masses. . .  and has no reason to change either its principles or fundamental demands, or its tactics, or its name.”

This weak-kneed resolution in fact gave Bernstein his case for reforms and alliances, and he was not slow to realise it. He was precluded from visiting Germany, and consequently could not attend the Congress. As soon as the terms of the resolution were conveyed to him he telegraphed his willingness to vote for it!

The Congress resolution did not settle the question. The controversy went on though Bernstein took no part in it until the middle of 1901, when he delivered a lecture in Germany under the title “ How is Scientific Socialism Possible?” In this lecture he argued that “ to be purely scientific Socialism must cease to be the doctrine of a class, the expression of the class interests of the working class.” This lecture stirred up the flames of controversy again, particularly as the Capitalist press lauded Bernstein as one of their own men. Thus the question came up again at the next Congress, which was held in Lubeck. Bebel opened the attack upon Bernstein, and Bernstein, who was present this time, defended his ideas claiming that he had not attacked the programme, the agitation or the practical working of the party, but only the theory which could not conceivably injure the party, and that he could not recant any of his views.

Two resolutions were moved. The first, for Bernstein, was rejected. The second was carried by 203 votes to 31, and was as follows:—

  “The Congress recognises the unreserved right of self-criticism for the intellectual development of the party. But the thoroughly one-sided manner in which Bernstein has conducted his criticism in the last few years, while omitting to criticise bourgeois society and its leaders, has placed him in an equivocal position, and aroused the displeasure of a large portion of his comrades. In the expectation that comrade Bernstein will accept this view and act accordingly, the Congress passes over the resolutions [there were four demanding a formal vote of censure] to the order of the day.”

After the resolution was carried Bernstein rose and made the following declaration:—

  “As I declared to you at the Congress at Stuttgart, the decision of the Congress naturally cannot cause me to abandon my convictions. At the same time, the decision of the majority of my comrades is never indifferent to me. My conviction is that the resolution is unjust towards me, being based, as I have pointed out, on erroneous suppositions. But since Comrade Bebel has declared that the resolution contains no vote of censure, I declare that henceforth I will respect and observe the decision of the majority of the Congress in the manner due to such a decision.”

This ended the dispute over Bernstein's membership as far as the German Party was concerned. In the next contribution we will discuss the repercussions in England of the German party’s decision.

We will end this section by pointing out that the ideas Bernstein put forward were not original. He himself had taken them from the Fabians, about whom we will have something to say later on, but there were groups on the Continent holding similar ideas before he put forward his. One of these groups held a view which was described as Integral Socialism. A member of this group, Benoît Malon, published a book in 1891 entitled “Integral Socialism.” Malon was opposed to Marx’s conception of economic motives and class-consciousness, arguing that Socialism was an outlook not for the workers alone but for all humanity, and was inspired by spiritual as well as economic aims, directed at conciliation rather than antagonism of classes, and trying to obtain benefits for all who suffered hardships. An outlook that required the co-operation of the liberal elements in society and involved the moral betterment of the workers.

Believing that Socialism was gradually seeping into society Malon, César de Paepe and others of like conviction, were opposed to any drastic proposals that might interrupt this process and advocated state ownership and the usual multifarious baggage of reformism in their proposals for practical action.

The seeping Socialism must have seeped out as fast as it seeped in, because 60 years later the class struggle has not eased; the workers are still wage slaves of capital and the ruling class is still in the seat of power and opulence.

Gilmac.

(To be continued)

Austrian Democracy (1956)

From the January 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

In their political innocence or inexperience, a number of workers in a Vienna automobile factory left the “Socialist" - party - controlled Trade Union as a protest against the Union’s passive attitude to various grievances including a 50 per cent, increase of the city’s tramway and bus fares. Others distributed leaflets calling upon fellow-workers to join another union—with the result that the factory owners, supported by the "Socialist” trade union, sacked the malcontents. Is Vienna in Russia? No, but your confusion is pardonable for the reason that the city is called "red” Vienna, and that such things as victimising people for expressing opposite political views are thought to be typical only for countries behind the iron curtain. Let us further enlighten you and say that if such persecution does not happen here on a larger scale, it is because among the 100,000 State employees and workers of the huge “red” Vienna's municipal enterprises there are few innocent or foolhardy enough to risk their jobs, i.e., the only share of the country’s wealth that Capitalism has left them after centuries of struggle and technical progress. The mass of the workers at the Post-Office, on the State railways and other nationalized industries, on the municipal tramways and buses, in the electricity and gas works and the rest of the huge municipal profit-making concerns know that the much vaunted freedom of speech, of criticism and democracy, does not go so far as to allow open criticism of the State’s exploiting system to pass with impunity. Even though that punishment is not as severe as in "right to work’’—Russia where malcontents and those guilty of “subversive activity” are deported to forced labour camps, workers in our "free world” are wary of jeopardizing their jobs.

Let us hope that the victims, having probably been cured of their error of accepting the shadow for the substance of democracy, will now also have learned that, as far as the workers are concerned, the rest of the wordy professions of equality, freedom of association, independence and social justice are little more than illusions, deceit and fraud. .

As was only to be expected, the incidents at the automobile factory, while embarrassing to the Socialist Party., were a welcome opportunity to their opponents, who are not slow to make political capital out of it. The Federal Chancellor, whose party dealt that crushing blow to Austrian social democracy in 1934, now poses as the Lord Protector of democracy. He declined to attend the opening session of the Trade Union Congress that happened to be sitting in Vienna, "until this matter has been satisfactorily cleared up, until justice is done to the victims, and democracy restored ”!

As against this nauseating show of hypocrisy, another incident glaringly portrays the real attitude of governments towards the working class. It arose over the handling of affairs in connection with the execution of the State Treaty after the end of the Russian control over hundreds of large and small industrial enterprises. As is now common knowledge, the return of part of these Concerns was made subject to a payment of 150 million dollars to Russia in addition to a whole series of other heavy concessions (see SOCIALIST STANDARD for July 1955). With so much talk of Austria re-entering at last into possession of her patrimony (Austria for the Austrians, you know), and the ofher usual platitudes and patriotic tunes, the illusion is ever fostered that the country belongs to the people—all evidence to the contrary, as an for example their continued poverty—notwithstanding. In reality, the Concerns which had been seized as war-booty (German property) were owned by a bunch of international Capitalist investors. The American, British. Dutch interests in the Austrian oil fields and other industries are notorious, while the others are less widely known. Certainly not a particle of any of these sources of wealth belongs to the workers employed therein, and it must be a matter of perfect indifference to them whether the shareholders are Austrian or foreigners. Indeed, it would be hard for any foreign exploiter to beat German and Austrian Capitalists’ talents for organizing the extraction of surplus-value, i.e., profit, from other people’s labour.

Yet, a delegation of workers from the Austrian Fiat Automobile Works could be induced by labour leaders to go to the Finance-Ministry and demand the cancellation of a meeting of shareholders which was to formally sanction the re-transfer of the Italian Fiat’s 51 per cent, holding. Since the workers are generally acquiescing in a small clique owning and controlling all the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution, why— you may ask—should, they single out this particular Concern for their protestations? What difference would it make to them if the Fiat Works were even to renounce all their rights and titles to the factory in favour of Austria, i.e., the Austrian Capitalist State?

Of course it would make no difference to the slaves producing the goods, but the Austrian CAPITALISTS who have to pay 4,000 million Austrian Schillings to Russia for relinquishing their control over these Concerns, now fear that their money will all be “thrown out of the window." "What happens today with Austro-Fiat," the Arbeiter-Zeitung laments, “can to-morrow happen with dozens of other enterprises." In the end, they say, “ it would come to this that of all the German property for which 4 we * must pay 4,000 million to Russia, nothing is left to the Republic.** 44 We may only pay, but do not get anything for it.”

So the workers were mobilized, i.e., misused for and misled into some action (there was also a short strike) on behalf of their masters. How State employees fare under Capitalism, the railway, postal and all other workers know only too well. And as there can be no question of the Italian Fiat owners handing over to the WORKERS, it is clear that their position could not alter even one iota under any other transfer of property rights.

But, as already said, some of the workers having been persuaded that their interests were at stake, a delegation went to see the Finance Ministry to demand the cancellation of the shareholders' meeting. The reply of the State Secretary (a political rival of the S.P.) was not only a sharp refusal of the workers’ demand, but he added defiantly that he would do everything he could to ensure the holding of the meeting. He pointed out that the shares were rightly in the hands of the Italian Fiat group and that they could decide what was to be done. (The meeting has since been held.) At the same time the State Secretary bluntly told the workers’ delegates "to mind their own business.” Socialists will not be accused of holding briefs for Capitalists or their henchmen, but we must agree with this one, advising the workers to mind their own business. Their business is, of course, not to assist Capitalist cliques in fighting out their quarrels with one another, whether in State chancellories or on the battlefields, but to organize and vote for the removal of Capitalism and its managers, administrators and labour leaders, from the face of the earth.

Of the few freedoms that have not yet become mere illusions, the Right to Vote is the most important. With dependency on the employing class (private or State) for your means of livelihood, there can be no real democracy for you. Yet it is still enough, at least in the Western world, to lay the evil ghost that is haunting humanity, to exorcise the demon capital, to oust it from its nefarious rule, and to lay the foundations for a sane order of things: Socialism, whenever the people are ready and wish to . have it.

The working-class hold the overwhelming majority of the votes, and there can be no question of sacking or otherwise victimizing you for casting your vote AGAINST the continuation of the present barbaric system, and FOR revolutionary Socialism. By such action you can at the same time help your brothers behind the iron curtain to rid themselves from the Bolshevik octopus and nightmare.

Therefore, when you are again asked to vote, remember it is the most important thing in your lives! Only, to cast an intelligent vote, presupposes UNDERSTANDING of the functioning of the decrepit system under which you live—knowledge that will almost automatically introduce you to Socialism and answer the questions and doubts which may assail you, concerning its practicability. To disseminate and impart that essential knowledge, is the purpose of the S.P.G.B. and companion parties. Year in, year out, their members, pamphlets and periodicals, do their best to spread the message of Socialism.

Perusing some former editions of the SOCIALIST STANDARD, this writer chanced upon a Comrade’s "Christmas Carol" in last December’s issue, ending with the words with which I wish to end my to-day’s message:

"Understand . . . understand . . . understand”!

Rudolf Frank

Sermons in Stone (1956)

From the January 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

To some people the fact that the Socialist Party has existed for 50 years is objectionable. At least, that is what they say. We suspect in many cases they would object equally strongly if it had existed one day, or even one hour. But they try to give their criticism the appearance of reason and logic by saying that the Party must be wrong because it has talked for 50 years and still very few workers are aware of the idea of Socialism.

Modern speleologists, in their delvings below ground, have discovered blind albino fish that have never seen the light because the earth's surface interposes between them and the sun.

Many workers are like these blind fish. They cannot see the light of day because they live in a mental cave.

Our critics would have us believe that the cause of these workers' darkness is the light—Socialism itself. They would deny that it is the reformist worker's abject acceptance of the orthodox and conventional, without even trying to think, which condemns him to monotony.

Because the idea of Socialism has existed many years no more makes it wrong than the idea of flight, or radium or radio. All these things existed as ideas in people's heads for several years before they were actually achieved, and most of the ignorant and stupid mob went on denying their existence for years after they had been working.

In fact the original stuff of the earth from which life itself emerged; water—has existed for ever—yet there are still those whose acquaintances with it might be described as limited.

A most striking example of a commonplace object of this kind which exists in masses almost everywhere is "The Pebbles on the Beach." With this title Mr. Clarence Ellis has produced an utterly fascinating book—the result of an active hobby of collecting and studying pebbles, for many years.

And yet millions regularly loll and sprawl on the beaches during their summer holiday without the beginnings of a ghost of a notion that in the pebbles around their feet lie the secrets of the history of the earth, the formation of the rocks, the different kinds of rocks, the birth of rivers, the existence of ice ages and the reasons which go to produce a piece of jet in Yorkshire, basalt in Scotland or granite in Cornwall. Mr. Ellis points out what an interesting pastime this can become when one starts to make a collection of suitable specimens.

Our critics of the Socialist Party's long existence, were they logical, would condemn the pebbles which have lain on the beach for millions of years and not the ignorance of those who take no intelligent interest in the world around them. The Socialist stands in relation to the working class as the geologist; in this case, Clarence Ellis, to the world at large.

It is the duty of those who know, to make their knowledge available in the easiest form. All that is true. But without the intelligent desire to learn the workers will get nowhere.

Horatio