1960, The Prospect Before Us (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Acquisition and coveting are the ruling social ideas. “You have never had it so good” is an accurate and cynical summing-up of attitudes in the 1950's. This is not a triumph of higher wages and improved social conditions, it is a triumph of things over human relationships. The Commodity reigns supreme, and Humanity is hardly anywhere.

A New year is beginning and what are the prospects for the workers? Let us look at the immediate past and see what that foretells. During the past year the following phrase has been dinned into us by representatives of the employing class: “You have never had it so good—and its going to be better.”

We have been told that prices have risen, but wages have risen faster—and company profits have also risen. (Daily Express, 31/7/59.) We have read of huge company mergers, which are still going on, in which some sections of the employers have further enriched themselves.

The facts, however, do not bear out the glowing testimony. except for the class that lives by the exploitation of the workers. The constant strikes during the year for higher wages and improved conditions are evidence of this. Taking the workers as a whole, conditions are little different from what they were in 1938, in spite of the boasted “full employment,” and the prospects for “full employment” continuing are growing thin. What has happened is that some sections of the workers have improved their conditions, but other sections have gone backward. There has been a levelling up and down of wages and salaries.

In spite of some reductions in hours large sections of workers find they can’t make ends meet without working overtime. Overtime has become part of their necessary weekly employment, which makes a farce of reductions in hours, as overtime is now regarded in numerous instances as part of the working day.

Some workers have cars, motor-cycles, washing machines and refrigerators. This is sometimes given as an instance of how much better off workers are. But the car and motor-cycle has frequently become a necessity, either on account of the difficulty of getting to work without them nowadays, or as a necessity for the work they do. Many workers have to have cars for their work in the same way as a carpenter has to have a plane and other tools. Washing machines and refrigerators have also become a necessity where so many married women have to go out to work in order to keep the family going. It may be added that, although hire-purchase has generally enabled them to acquire these things, it also puts a load on their backs which is hard to remove. In spite of this, however, the large majority of workers are without motor cars, washing machines, etc.

As to employment, a pointer to the future is the programmes already being put into operation for economies in the mines, on the railways, and in the cotton and other industries. When these programmes are in full swing the effects on employment will be drastic. In the mining industry alone over two hundred pits are scheduled for closing. It is worth while noting that when a nationalised industry, like the mines and railways, makes workers redundant most of them have a poor chance of employment elsewhere on a par with what they are doing at present. There are no other pits or railways to go to so they must start at the beginning in some other industry.

The boom in automation is another thing that is going to have an effect in the future on employment. The object of automation is not only to produce faster and more prolifically, but also to save labour. In other words, to reduce the number of workers required to produce a given quantity of goods. How far electronics will go and how soon its effects will be felt is still matter for conjecture, but the ultimate aim is the “push-button" factory — not a promising outlook for employment under present conditions.

Let us take a glance at the housing question which has been the subject of much boasting by each of the governing parties when in power.

There have been tremendous building programmes in operation during the past few years, most of them sponsored by the local councils, like the London County Council programmes, which extend far into the country. These programmes are partly subsidised by the government and by the floating of large loans. The emphasis is on huge blocks of flats where people live like rabbits in a warren. The old argument was that under Socialism we would all be living in barrack-like buildings. Capitalism has gone one better. The country is being gradually covered with huge ugly buildings, alike in appearance, in which it is easy to get lost, and in which children have nowhere to play. Added to these are rows upon rows of small houses, alike as peas in a pod.

In spite of the building programmes there are still millions of people living in slums and near slums. Millions of them with no baths and having to share a toilet. A report in the Daily Express (22/6/1959) gives an indication of the position. The reason for the news item was the fact that a Mrs. Coles had given birth to quads: “Mrs. Coles husband, Albert, aged 29. is an £11 a week plumber. They live in one room in Glasgow with their four other children.”

Slum clearance has been a major point in the programmes of Tory, Liberal, and Labour for over fifty years — but still the slums remain! No sooner are they cleared in one area than they begin to grow again or are transferred to another area. The reason is not far to seek. Low pay and other conditions of labour prevent a large number of people from acquiring decent accommodation or being able to keep what they have in decent living condition.

If we add to the above the possibilities of war, which are always hovering on the horizon in spite of abortive “summit Conferences,” we cannot envisage the New Year holding out any brighter prospects for the workers than what they have suffered in the past, and this will continue to be the position until the workers make up their minds to abolish the cause of their miseries the present system of Capitalist ownership of the means of production.

Gilmac

Editorial: Hopes For 1960 (1960)

Editorial from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether it is reasonable to hope for small blessings in 1960, or wiser to fear the worst, depends in some measure on the view taken of 1959. Well, what did happen in 1959? First, the too-obvious happening, which no newspaper or radio commentator ever mentions, that nine workers out of ten just went on working. They were glad to have had the chance, glad that they didn't lose their jobs and glad if nothing happened that forced them to strike. They did it for a living and they are glad to go on doing so: they hope their luck will hold out for another 12 months.

Among their troubles in 1959 was being preached at and moralised about by the rich, the learned and the famous; who told them they ought to work harder, stay away from work less, be more thrifty, spend less on drink, tobacco and gambling, and generally to behave themselves in a way that will do credit to their British masters when the latter are showing them off to V.l.P.’s from Russia and other foreign countries. There is not a chance that this will end in the year now beginning and anyway most workers do not even think of the possibility that it could end; their hopes are more modest. They are told they have never had it so good and that it is going to get better in the next twenty years or so. but in the next twelve months most of them would settle for a lot less. Mr. Peter Townsend, research fellow at London University, got together a few facts in the Sunday Dispatch (29/11/59). He pointed out that there are 4,000,000 retired people and old age pensioners who cannot count on an income of much over £4 a week; and that pensioners living alone have been shown in an official survey to be spending less than 22s. a week on food; and that there are 2½ million homes without piped water and

6½ million without a bath. Perhaps by January 1, 1961, the position will be a little better—unless, as may happen, it is a little worse.

Let us say that most of the workers would deem themselves fortunate if in a year’s time they are earning a little more, or working a slightly shorter week, and that prices and fares and rents have not gone up.

Of course the pleasant picture may be marred by workers having to spend still longer time waiting at bus queues or in traffic jams, but you can't have everything.

In politics the British workers decided to give the Tories another term of office because, among other things, there looked like being early high level talks between Russia, America, British and French heads of government. There is no reason at all why the workers should not hope that those high level talks will take place in I960. They can't very well make things worse and it will mean that the countries are not at war: Though why not low level talks between the workers?

It is one of the good things about 1959 that apart from the Tibetans having been “saved” by Chinese invaders and Cuba having been “saved” by revolution, and Nehru having been caught by surprise and therefore too late to save some almost uninhabitable territory from being occupied by other Chinese soldiers, most parts of the world have been lucky enough not to have been specially saved by anyone.

We can all hope that no "national saviour" has an opportunity of shedding other people's blood in 1960. Our hopes in that direction should be shared by the 20 million refugees, homeless and unwanted, who linger on after past wars.

According to United Nations agencies nearly half the world's people were undernourished in 1959 and may hope to do no worse in 1960. Meanwhile, the American government, having been unable to sell enormous stocks of unwanted wheat, butter, etc., may hope to be able to give it away to the needy, provided other would-be sellers of surplus foods can be persuaded to give up their objections.

Turning from the likely hopes and fears of non-Socialist workers, to the hopes of Socialists, we can say that we start this year with something gained. The year 1959 saw a real improvement of the prospect for Socialist principles to make headway against those two hindrances to progress, the Labour Party, and the myth of Socialism in Russia. Both suffered crippling blows in the year just past. Here's to more of the same in 1960. And here's to the workers learning to be a lot less humble, and deciding to have Socialism.

10 years of the "Peoples" Republic - Part 2 (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

It would be misleading to paint too dull a picture of China on her 10th birthday, for there is a small section of the population for whom every day could well be a day for celebration. Those fortunate few are the capitalists. Capitalists in “Communist” China! But why be surprised, for Article 10 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China begins as follows: —

  The State protects the right of capitalists to own means of production and other capital according to law. 

Perhaps the best plan would be to let one of the leading capitalists tell all about it. which he did to the Editor of Eastern World, April, 1957. Mr. Y. L. Kan is Managing Director of the Nanyang Bros. Tobacco Company, one of the largest companies in the country, owning a number of factories. One of the shareholders of this Company was formerly T. V. Soong, a member of the Nationalist Government who absconded to Formosa. The Chinese Government have seized his shares which makes their shareholding 40 per cent. of the stock; 35 per cent. are owned by Mr. Kan’s family and the balance by 8,000 other shareholders. Mr. Kan’s father was a former managing director of the Company, but the son was only appointed to his present position by the Government in 1950 on his return to China from abroad. And this is what Mr. Kan said:

 Immediately after entering into joint ownership with the Government we realised that we were benefitting by that move. Production and capacity went up continuously until it reached, today. 250 per cent. the output of 1949. This has been mainly due to the incredible enthusiasm of the workers. I confess that I had never thought possible such complete change of atmosphere and such incredible improvement in output owing to this different attitude of the workers to what they, quite rightly, consider a factory of which they are part owners. Our Company, to my astonishment, proved to be about 50 per cent. more efficient than those enterprises which had remained entirely in private hands. Also we had none of the labour difficulties or frictions with the workers as became frequent in the private sector of industry.

The account further described the luxury in which the Kans live and explains that in addition to his salary a fixed dividend of 5 per cent, is paid free of income tax, and this, the report adds, on his substantial holding of shares makes for considerable income, far more than the net income which would be received in the West. “I am only a managing director.” Mr. Kan went on to say.

  But I am also an executive member of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, as well as on the committee of Light Industry which has to deal with the interests of 6.000 factories. Altogether there are 37,000 factories of mostly light, but some heavy industry in Shanghai, and the total number of commercial and industrial concerns amounts to 160,000.

Capitalism is capitalism all the world over, with its gulf between the exploiter and the exploited. Riches at one end of the scale presupposes poverty at the other no matter whether in China or the West. When the worker is fooled as to where his real interests are, and, as a consequence. is induced to work like a maniac, it is the capitalist who, waxing wealthy, congratulates the worker. This task of misleading the worker is made easier when by means of partial or complete nationalisation, the worker can be induced to believe that he is a partner in the enterprise and that his interests are no longer opposed to those of the exploiter.

The Indian Incident
This anniversary review could hardly be concluded without reference to the border fighting when China overran and seized part of the Indian province of Ladakh in Kashmir, in the process killing the Indian guards. These events have sometimes been presented in a sensational light as though they were the precursor of large-scale warfare. In this case the war mongers watching out for the main chance on the side lines may well be disappointed, for it is likely to be merely a matter of bargaining over a road from Khotan to Gartok in Tibet (secretly built by the Chinese for the subjugation and subsequent colonisation of Tibet) which crosses a corner of the Indian province.

The incident may prove useful to the Indian Government who seem to be using it to work up a sense of patriotism among their workers and patriotism can be very useful in some emergencies when ruling-class interests are really threatened. And what do they stand to lose in exchange? Just a piece of barren and unpopulated land. It is the Chinese workers who have built the road and Indian workers who have lost their lives repelling the Chinese. In this system of society, whichever capitalist group succeed, it is the workers who always seem to be at the sticky end of the wicket.

No one who remembers the sheer poverty, starvation and street deaths under the old regime can deny the overall improvement in physical conditions and also in the security for the workers. Achievements in industrial construction, agrarian expansion, health, education and sanitation constitute a remarkable story. On the debit side, as the Sunday Times 27/1/57 says, there is bland but total suppression of freedom of thought and expression. imposed under a puritanical regime, which is mass-producing a race of robots in blue overalls.

The robots, it must be conceded, are apparently happy. "Communism” has not yet changed the innate friendliness. charm and generous human behaviour of the Chinese; maybe it has not changed their subtlety and expedient patience, either.

The Chinese have had recent experience of living under a regime of oriental feudalism. Now that they are living in Capitalism (even though some label it Communism), they can compare the two systems. With the tremendous intellectual fervour the vast upheaval has made, argument and discussion continue at high pitch. Like the British under Macmillan’s Tory Government, the Chinese under Mao-tse-tung. it is claimed, have never had it so good. Certain it is, all observers agree, that Mao-tse-tung could win a free democratic election with perhaps greater ease than Macmillan’s party won the last general election here. The Chinese workers, surrounded by new-fangled commodities such as radios, bicycles and tinned foods and ball-point pens that they can now buy, like their British counterparts with their televisions, scooters, cars and council flats, do not realise that exploitation goes on just the same.

When productivity increases, the workers may themselves absorb a greater amount of goods without any radical change in their state relative to that of the master class. But sure it is that the Chinese have got Capitalism whether they know it or not. and that, by-and-large, being subjected to similar economic conditions as workers in the rest of the world of Capitalism, they will develop Socialist ideas.

China, with her vast sea of people increasing by about 12 million per year, was civilised and ruled by an aristocracy of culture a millenium before the tiny speck of island now known as Great Britain was redeemed from barbarism by the Roman invaders. But in the course of time the face of the world changes and Capitalism first took root in England. The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was the political event which marked the entry of that country into the world of Capitalism.

So we of the Socialist movement of Great Britain, the oldest Capitalist country in the world, in a spirit of comradeship. and breaking through the barrier of language which is perhaps more of a bar to communication than mere distance itself, give you—the youngest working-class in the world—this, our anniversary greeting coined by a Socialist a century ago:

Workers of the world unite. You have only your chains 
to lose, you have a world to win.

Frank Offord

Letter: Sectarianism (1960)

Letter to the Editors from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

While I appreciate your aims and your consistency in the struggle for Socialism, I must tell you that your party makes one fatal mistake. Since your formation when you broke away from the Communist wing just before the formation of the Communist Party you have failed to distinguish between a reformist Workers’ Party and a bourgeois party. Albeit that the leaders of the British Labour Party have as much in common with Socialism as chalk has with cheese, the Labour Party is the mass party of the workers. Every true Socialist who is working for Socialism in Britain should be an active member of the British Labour Party and fighting from within to turn that party to the way of Socialism. A Socialist organisation must be an integral part of the workers' movement. I accuse the

S.P.G.B. with the deadly sin of sectarianism.

R. Lennark.

London, N.16.

Reply

First let us correct our correspondent’s statement regarding the origin of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Our Party was formed in 1904 by a group of Socialists who had left the Social Democratic Federation after its acceptance of a policy of reformism. The British Communist Party was founded in 1920 and at no time has the S.P.G.B. been connected with it.

Our predecessors saw the complete futility of the position our correspondent propounds. Further, our record shows quite clearly the distinction we make between the bourgeois and workers' reformist parties. At the same time we point out that attempts by the working class to realise their true interests through such parties must fail.

Such organisations, in being wholly concerned with and committed to capitalism. inevitably must abandon or reject any Socialist aims and principles. Being a reformist party it must accept the values of Capitalism. The Labour Party in fact sees no alternative to the State, private property, or the profit motive in society. In office it must seek to further the interests of British Capitalism, regardless of whether such action is detrimental to workers in this and other lands.

The ludicrous position of a Socialist inside such an organisation can only result in his loss of identity as a Socialist and his being carried further away from his objective. If a majority of non-Socialist workers choose to support the Labour Party, or any other party, it is no justification for Socialists to do the same.

It must be obvious that there is only one party for the true Socialist and it is this party alone that is worthy of his support. For, as far as we are concerned with ’’deadly sins,” we consider deadliest of all that which betrays the cause of Socialism by supporting non Socialist organisations, and by doing so, supports Capitalism.

Editorial Committee.

Canals and the Growth of Industry (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Across the face of England, a familiar feature of the landscape, run those half-forgotten waterways, the canals. Like the railways that superseded them, and which often followed their routes, they link the vast industrial areas of the North and the Midlands with London and the seaports. They cross the lines of hills that divide river from river to make a highway from coast to coast. For many miles they are derelict and abandoned. the subject of indignant letters to the press. Weed-choked and in some cases dry, they link small towns and villages that were once centres of industry and commerce. Only between the big cities and the ports are they still busy. But even here, with their slow-moving boats and their quaint hump-backed bridges, they suggest to most people a quieter and less hectic age.

It is difficult to associate them with speed. Difficult to realise that they were once the most modern of highways. Yet for half a century the canal packet-boats were the fastest means of transport at the service of the public. Fatal accidents in the cause of speed were once quite common.

The canals were the transport system that helped to make possible the Industrial Revolution, which was under way by the middle of the 18th century. At that time the new industrial centres of the North and the Midlands were expanding fast. Liverpool, Manchester, and many other towns grew apace as the older industrial areas declined. London, Cobbett’s “Great Wen," sprawled increasingly over the market-gardens that surrounded it. The need for food to feed the growing populations, and the increased profits to be obtained from its production, resulted in new methods of farming. These methods were to be as far-reaching in their effects as the steam engine.

While water-power was still the main source of power, the infant steam-engine had arrived and needed coal. The expanding towns called out for fuel, building materials, and the manufactured goods that poured from the new factories. The factories needed raw materials, ores, timber, and a host of other things. Equally important they needed carriage for their commodities to the ports and to the markets at home.

But the roads, few and far between, were in an intolerable condition, while vast areas were covered only by tracks and bridle-ways. Inadequate for centuries, they had finally broken under the weight of heavy traffic. Difficult in summer, they were almost impassable in winter. Responsibility for their upkeep rested on parish councils and local landowners, who took a parochial view of the problem. The fact that wool, England's main export for medieval times, lent itself to carriage by pack-horse had not provided an incentive to improvement. The principal means of transport was still the pack-horse train.

From Manchester to Liverpool, a distance of only 35 miles, the journey took a whole day, from London to York a week, and from London to Edinburgh 12 days.

These conditions made transport slow, difficult and dangerous: and what was more important to the Capitalist — expensive.

Josiah Wedgwood
An enthusiastic advocate of canals was Josiah Wedgwood. Creative artist and super-salesman, Wedgwood had set up his new Etruria works near Burslem in Staffordshire. Let us glance at the problems confronting him.

The high grade pottery produced at Etruria called for china clay from Cornwall and Devon, flint from Kent and Sussex, and coal. Most important, safe and smooth transport was needed for the fragile products of Etruria. Clay was pack-horsed to Bristol, carried by ship to Liverpool, and from Liverpool transported by broad-wheeled carts along the turnpike road at a rate of two miles an hour. Flint was shipped from the ports of the South-East to Hull, carried by boat on the navigable Rivet Trent to Burton, and once again by pack-horse. Coal and lead came in by the same ancient method. One possible answer to the problem of transport was the turnpike road. But the turnpike roads were few and far between, and crudely constructed. Most of them had restrictions on heavy traffic, and insisted on broad wheels for carts. The “modern” roads of Macadam and Telford, with their fast coaches, were half a century away.

An alternative means of transport was the navigable river, which had been used from ancient times. For 150 years constant improvements had been carried out on them, but river transport had serious limitations. Currents, tides, shallows, low water in summer, and flood in winter, all hampered progress and added to the expense of transport. Mill owners and possessors of fishing rights placed weirs across rivers, which obstructed the passage of barges and caused delays. But, most important of all, rivers do not cross mountain chains or climb high ground; and Britain, being an island, has no river crossing from one side to another.

What was needed was a transport system that was free from these obstructions, and free from administrative muddle, above all, a system that would overcome natural barriers. The rivers could not supply this need, but the experience gained in their improvement and development pointed to the answer—a tideless highway, the canals.

The way of the pioneer is ever hard and the way of the canal pioneer was no exception. The Duke of Bridgewater, a wealthy landowner, who had travelled on the Continent and seen the achievements of French and Italian canal builders, was the owner of coal-mines at Warley near Manchester. He wanted a cheap and easy method of bringing coal to his nearest market, Manchester, and he decided that a canal was the answer. He secured the services of James Brindley, a millwright and an experimentalist with steam engines. Brindley, semi-literate, but with unusual ability, was to canal construction what Stevenson and Brunel were to the later railways. Work began on this project in 1759, and two years later the first coal boat sailed into Manchester. The price of coal dropped immediately from 7d. a hundredweight to 3½d. A second project to extend the canal to Liverpool began and the “Canal Age” had arrived.

Canal Mania
Before this second canal was finished a much more ambitious scheme began, the Grand Trunk Canal. Moving South from Manchester, this was to become the main trunk from which the branches were to cover the country.

When the first canal was begun capital was hard to obtain; and to finance his second—the Manchester-Liverpool canal—Bridgewater had to mortgage his first. But as the canals slowly advanced interest in them grew, and a wave of speculation culminated in the “Canal Mania ” at the end of the century, when unsound schemes, many of them doomed from the start, were given eager backing.

The construction of canals presented great problems, and the lessons learned in solving them were invaluable to the later railway and road builders. Reservoirs were needed to supply the canals with water and bridges, locks, aquaducts and extensive tunnels were made to carry the canals.

As the canal advanced, its impact on the country through which it passed was immense. Often 2,000 workers would be employed in an area, and the problem of supply was vast. These “Inland Navigators” or navvies, as they became known, were usually rough characters. and disrupted the settled life of the towns and villages in the path of the canal. When they had passed on, the silent highway that they had created had changed the country beyond recognition. Villages once isolated were now on the main highway, and grew as industry followed in its wake. New canal towns, like Stourport came into being whilst old river ports sank into obscurity.

The packet boats
Although the prime need was the transport of heavy goods, passenger transport and delivery of packages became an important part of the canal trade. The packet boats, the “expresses of the canals,” were specially constructed to enable them to travel fast on a narrow canal. They were pulled by two horses ridden by a postillion, the horses being changed at 4 to 6 miles intervals. They kept up an average speed of 8 to 10 miles an hour for many hours, had 1st and 2nd class cabins, and ran to a strict timetable. Some were heated by hot-water pipes. The packet boat had the right of passage, and all other craft had to give way. It was dangerous not to, for they tore along with complete disregard of any other traffic on the canal. One of the most famous, the “Duchess Countess,” mounted a curved knife on the bows to sever the tow rope of anything not giving way.

The decline of the canals began in the 1830's, when competition from the railways began to make itself felt. The faster and more comfortable trains rapidly drew passenger traffic away from the canals: and the packet boat, like the stage coach, disappeared in a decade. The application of steam to shipping made coastal travel quicker and safer, and this finished canals, which had been specially constructed to reduce sea travel. The decline was hastened by the canal companies themselves. For half a century they had held a monopoly, and had exploited their position in a manner common to monopolists. Like the River Navigation Boards before them, and the railway companies after, they failed to take action that could have postponed their decline.

Nothing illustrates better the headlong rush forward of Capitalism than the story of the canals. Beginning in the mid 18th century—ultra modern and with far-reaching effect—within a lifetime they were obsolete.

Les Dale

See also:

February 1960 Socialist Standard, 'The First Age of Speed' .

50 Years Ago: On The Labour Party (1960)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour M.P.'s cannot be completely separated from the Liberals in politics, for their political independence is non-existent. “My Budget,” says Mr. Lloyd George. “My Budget,” says Mr. Philip Snowden. They are “wholeheartedly” for the Capitalists' Budget. And it is amusing to find them trying to assure the murmuring rank and file that no understanding with the Liberals exists, in face of the withdrawal of “Labour” men in favour of Liberals, and of Liberals in favour of “Labour” men. One does not, of course, expect to find a written compact. It might become awkward evidence while, as the Times says, “With friends who understand each other so well, it is unnecessary." Quite so. The compromise of the last General Election, in fact, is being repeated on a more complete scale.

The legislatively impotent “Labour" members claim as theirs measures passed by the Liberal majority, and are now engaged in booming the bogus agitation over the Lords and the Budget, and in rallying the workers once more to the support of the Liberal section of the exploiting class.

That there is no Socialism in the “Labour” group is proven by the welcome given them by the anti-Socialist Liberals. Mr. Churchill said:

  “Don’t let there be any division in our ranks at this juncture. I know that the Lords and their backers are counting on divisions between Liberal and Labour. But I think they are likely to be a little bit mistaken."

From the Socialist Standard, January 1910

Labour's Lost Chord (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Against all the precedents, and to the: surprise of many Labour supporters, the Tories have won their third election in succession; and have even managed to increase their majority. The most interesting aspect of this was not Supermac's victory, but the changed attitudes and moods of the electorate, that were revealed more clearly than before. These changes affect the Labour Party far more than the Tories, and in some ways appear to be a major disaster for Labour, causing much heart-searching and what John Foster Dulles called “agonising re-appraisals.”

In spite of high polls and a fairly steady Labour vote, something has gone from British politics, and gone for ever. This “something” might loosely be called “left-wing idealism.” Where is the enthusiasm of Labour’s early years; where the desire to make the world a place of dignity, free from slavery and oppression; where the striving to make man master of the machine instead of its mere adjunct. Labour in the past expressed, however incoherently, all these aspirations of a working class just out of its infancy, crying out, not for charity and mercy, but for political power with which to change the world.

The Labour Party was formed in 1906, yet despite its recent emergence (as compared with Liberal or Tory) its appeal is already fading, its policies old-hat, its ideals threadbare and increasingly lost in vague verbiage. Fifty-three years have seen the rise and decline of that sincere idealism that sent hundreds of thousands of workers onto the streets campaigning, not for “we can make ‘You have never had it so good’ even better.” but to build a society worthy of Man’s sense of his own dignity. Left-wing idealism has died, and all the trumpeting of Bevan. Barbara Castle, Mikardo and “Tribune” cannot bring it to life again. Labour today can only mimic its former styles; and the result, with even the rebels supporting H-bombs, rearmament and the trade struggle with foreign powers, sounds as hollow as an old biscuit-tin.

Labour’s Lost Image
Images—religious, military, national or political have nothing precise or rational in their make-up. A political image is created by a thousand-and-one vague impressions gained from speeches, articles (and even catchy phrases remembered out of context), the personal appearance and integrity (real or assumed) of the politicians, and the manner and methods of presenting promises to the electorate. The practiced politician is aware of this, and seeks more to create a favourable image than to present a coherent political programme. The measures presented must likewise have quick appeal, the thoughtful must make way for the sensational. The image which Labour built was of the working-man turned politician who by a judicious use of Parliament would strike a blow for the workers against the forces of exploitation and oppression. Labour became the embodiment of “Us.” “Them” being not just the ruling class, but the whole Establishment, right down to the foreman. With this image Labour could rely on millions of votes from embittered workers who were never sufficiently politically aware to state any specific revolutionary aims.

In furtherance of this image, Labour became a political Father Christmas offering something to every shade of radical, reforming opinion. A political pap, made of Reformism, Fabianism, Pacifism, Nationalisation, Cooperation, Patriotism and Christianity, provided a diet for everybody—almost. This diet may not be very nourishing, but the promise of working-class victory was enough to blind many to Labour’s defects. Five-and-a-half years of Labour Government helped to disillusion many, but the malaise of the Labour Party goes deeper. Times have changed, and the changed attitudes of workers are posing a big problem for Labour. It seems that in an era of full employment their message has become irrelevant. Since 1950, they have had difficulty in finding a policy that marked them off from the Tories. A rather damaging thing to say about a party whose prominent members are fond of talking about “Principles of Social Democracy”; “Public Ownership”; and “Co-operative Commonwealth.” Big words, and words that are extremely obscure as used by the Labour Party. They have in any case lost a lot of their old appeal, and Labour might as well drop them.

The Rise of the “Middle Class”
It is the spread of what is called the “middle class” and its ideals that has so much changed the character of British Politics. “Middle Class” is not a valid term in the economic sense; the middle class or rising Capitalist class of Marx’s day have vanished from the scene. A rough definition of them today would be “all those members of the working class who, for reasons of tradition, snobbery and aspiration, identify themselves with Capitalism and its institutions.” They are a part of the Establishment; seeking social solidarity in the pretences that their employments are valuable and that they form the backbone of society. The correct ethics and morals must be observed, the correct sort of clothes worn, and the right sort of house occupied. Income is to some extent secondary, though the most lowly-paid workers cannot qualify. The £12 a week clerk is frequently “middle class” in outlook, while better paid workers on bench or machines are usually “working class.” “Middle class” aims and aspirations are however becoming more widespread, even among Labour’s traditional supporters.

One change is the growth of the unproductive tasks. This process is continuous, but it has received fresh impetus in the boom conditions prevailing since the War. New office-buildings thrust their outlines into every city skyline, and they are much bigger than the bombed or demolished buildings they replace. More and more office staff are required, and their activities are mechanised and organised on a large scale. Capitalism requires more and more people to calculate, organise, publicise and litigate.

As the office-workers have grown, so the industrial workers, considered as a proportion of the population, have declined. In industry, too, important changes are taking place. The technicians, designers, draughtsmen, and supervisors become increasingly important, and are becoming cut off from their proletarian roots. Many such people are “middle class” in outlook, and are usually on the side of the “Supermac” angels.

Most important of all is the growth among all sections of what D. H. Lawrence called “the new money pleasures.” The past sixty years has seen tremendous changes in consumer goods. Modern Capitalism, with its mass-production of pressed-steel and plastic gadgets, its electronic marvels and its motor-cars, has conditioned people to the continual discarding of the old and the buying of new things. No longer need the furniture last a lifetime it must be glossy, bold-as-brass. and changed every few years. Acquisition and coveting are the ruling social ideas, and there has been as a consequence a decline in social life and a decline in interest in real human questions. The furniture, radiogram and T.V. may be new, but the emotional experiences are second-hand, gained from T.V., best-selling novel or film. "You have never had it so good” is a pretty accurate, and cynical, summing-up of attitudes in the 1950's This is not a triumph of higher wages and improved social conditions, it is a triumph of things over human relationships. The Commodity reigns supreme, and Humanity is hardly anywhere. There is a constant barrage of T.V.. press and film advertising to help keep the Commodity secure.

What can the left-wing idealists of the Labour Party say against this? The Labour Party, with its catchpenny prosperity schemes, its sensational appeals, its exhortations to workers to work harder in the cause of increased prosperity, its support of the trade struggle, contributed its share towards Man's enslavement to the Commodity.

What Labour failed to see was that Capitalism could be modified again and again—and still remain Capitalism. Poverty is a permanent feature of Capitalism. However many gadgets workers acquire (and the process need not be continuous, for slumps can return again) they remain workers; and the ruling class are still there—on top.

The Squawking, Chattering Jay
Labour need not be stuck for an answer. There is the quick gloss, the clever evasion, the downright lie; all useful weapons in politics. There is the Jay approach, a truly cynical one: cast away the old ideas, keep up to date, be in with the times! It doesn't matter what you do so long as you kick wicked old Mac out of office! The argument is of course justified by the cry: “spare a tear for the poor electorate under Tory rule!” Labour members are certainly confused, but this kind of argument hasn’t gone down very well. They have, after all, an attachment to what they call their “principles.” Many would like to see more Nationalisation, but are prepared to admit it hasn’t made much difference so far. And why and how should it?

The bulk of the Party will probably come round to Gaitskell’s views on the subject which are: keep a fair smattering of high-sounding phrases for the more thoughtful (but Keep it Vague!); an abandonment or modification (or in any case soft-pedalling) of the garbled and obscure definition of Socialism in the Party’s 1919 constitution: and plenty of gloss on those policy statements. Labour’s post-election conference suggests that for the time being they will be satisfied with a patchwork job. with Uncle Nye (how genial the old firebrand is getting!) suavely proclaiming the Party’s essential unity. Labour's next programme might be envisaged as promising a thousand miles more motorway than the Tories, bigger and better Hire-Purchase and house buying facilities, and a suggestion that Labour is an up-to-date slick Party in a slick world. They might on the other hand become the victims of their own traditions and go into a gentle decline. In any event Socialism will become more and more distant, the “principles” more and more obscure and more and more a cloak for ruling class ideas.

In spite of sixty years of “inevitable gradualness": in spite of increasing Government interference in the running of almost everything: Capitalism is still carried on for the benefit of a ruling class. Its hold over people’s minds appears as strong as ever. “Appears” is used deliberately; although people still support Capitalism, it is support on a rather cynical level. Outright enthusiasm is becoming rare. Perhaps in a way this is an advance; perhaps disillusion comes all the quicker. .

Capitalism, in spite of “improved” education, better social services, motor-cars and other gadgets of all sorts, remains an unworthy system: throwing its peoples’ lives away in futile battle; damaging the very basis of Man’s biological inheritance: submitting its peoples to the rat-race scramble for jobs and favours; subordinating Man to the machine and productive method: crushing individuality; battering at peoples' consciousness with hideous advertising, and misusing language in the same process (adding “triteness” to “brightness” is one of Capitalism’s more subtle and insidious crimes): and fostering avarice, envy and hatred where there could be human cooperative happiness.

Out in the Cold
More and more motor-cars and motor-ways, and more intricate gadgets, do not suggest Wonderland to the Socialist. They suggest that Mankind is going mad over mere things, over what should be simply aids and adjuncts to living, and in the process are forgetting how to live, forgetting their own humanity.

Not being interested in cadging votes (though we would certainly like to see more workers supporting Socialism, at the Polls and elsewhere); not wasting our time in collecting the crumbs of Reform; not trying to resolve the impossible by offering a Foreign Policy that will reconcile Eisenhower, Khruschev, De Gaulle and the British Government; we are in a position radically different from any other Party, and our problems are different. We are the victims of the general hostility and apathy towards politics. People dismiss all politicians—including Socialists—as frauds, even though our views are not “politics” in the sense that other Parties use the word. We have to break through a thick armour of apathy and hostility, to show people that we are really different. Still, we find few Labour supporters left prepared to argue, and perhaps out of the apathy and cynicism will come a more positive attitude, an attitude favourable to Socialist ideas. In the meantime we remain unrepentant, and to Labour jeering we can reply “we would rather be in the Political wilderness than have supported a Government that began the biggest peace-time armaments programme in this country’s history” (where were the left-wing mixed-up kids then? Cringing under the lash of three-line whips!)

Petrol-station, sham-Tudor house and shiny gadgets provide an unworthy material setting for mankind; just as irrational politics, reformism, “publicity” sensationalism and herd-appeals provide an unworthy ideological setting. Along with all this and the other rubbish that Socialism will consign to the dustbin will go the Labour Party. For they are a symbol of working-class political immaturity, and the sooner discarded the better.

F. R. Ivimey

From The Branches (1960)

Party News from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Islington

Islington Branch continue to run successful lunch hour meetings at Tower Hill every Thursday, and those comrades able to attend would be doing a useful job in supporting the meetings.

All work and no Social? Did you enjoy dancing to Joe's (McGuinness) Group at the last Social? Islington Branch have again engaged them to play for you at their forthcoming Social and Dance to be held at the Co-op Hall, 129. Seven Sisters Road, N.7 (Finsbury Park Tube station) on Saturday, January 16th. Admission is 2s. 6d. and tickets are obtainable from Comrade Carr, Islington Branch Secretary, and from Comrade Blomeley who at Head Office every Tuesday evening.

The Branch also invites Comrades and Friends to their Branch meeting—same address as the Social—and in particular on Thursday, January 21st. when Comrade Hardy will be speaking on “ Inflation." Time, 8 p.m.

Film Lectures 

The first of a new series commences on Sunday, January 10th, and will be held every Sunday following until March. Time, 7.30 p.m., at Head Office, 52, Clapham High Street. S.W.4.

Sunday Lectures

The Propaganda Committee have arranged a series of eight Sunday meetings commencing January 24th, to be held at the Central Club Society, 127, Clerkenwell Road, E.C.1 (Near Holborn Hall), 7.30 p.m. This is a new venue and it is hoped that the meetings will have the support necessary to make them successful. Please make a note of the new address and pass it on to friends who would be interested.

Socialist Standard

A reminder that a subscription form is in this issue-—a moment or two to fill it in, and a remittance of 7s. 6d., will ensure the delivery of a copy early every month for a vear.

the Branches

Special March Issue

The March issue of the Socialist Standard will be a special one on Africa. Writers are asked to let the S.S. Production Committee know as soon as possible whether they will have anything to submit on the subject.

Phyllis Howard

January 1960

There is no avail in the wish “Happy New Year." Only a hope that the next twelve months will be better than the last. We said it to each other last January and what has happened since then? We have had over 600,000 unemployed. In May there was the scare over Berlin: in the Summer the reports from Hola and Nyasaland. The Autumn brought another Tory government. However much we wish for a new start, Capitalism does not change. It is time to stop wishing and to begin working for a better world, where peace and plenty are perpetual reality instead of an annual aspiration.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN IS DESPERATELY SHORT OF MONEY. HELP US WITH A DONATION TO THE TREASURER AT OUR HEAD OFFICE!

Islington Branch cordially
 invites you to their

Social & Dance

DANCING TO JOE'S GROUP 

Saturday, 16th January at 7.30 p.m. 

Co-op Hall, 129 Seven Sisters Road, N.7 

2s. 6d. Refreshments

"Penny Tenement" (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is the same old story! Despite the promises of one party after another, the housing problem is still with us. Frederick Engels was writing about it more than eighty years ago. In fact it is a problem about as old as Capitalism itself.

From the front page of The Guardian (23/11/59) we learn of a tenement in Edinburgh, which collapsed recently, injuring a two-year-old baby girl and her mother. Apparently the building had been known as the “penny tenement ” because its original owner attempted to sell it for one penny on being ordered to carry out repairs considered necessary for public safety. The place had been condemned twenty years ago as unfit for habitation.

The local Labour Party kicked up a fuss about the matter, of course, conveniently forgetting the dismal failure of the Labour Government to deal with such places during their six years of power. Yet, if we remember correctly, they were more extravagant than any other party in their 1945 election promises.

In another Scottish city, Labour-controlled Glasgow, the city architect had to admit a few months ago that . . .  there is housing which . . .  includes some of the worst buildings in Western Europe” (The Guardian, 9/2/59). Apparently, in the past six years or so, they have built 30,000 houses and flats in Glasgow and in that period, their “waiting list” has grown from 100,000 to 126,000 persons.

Do not let us underestimate this problem of Capitalism. In England last year, there were over a million houses totally unfit for habitation, whilst others were falling into decay at the rate of 100,000 per year. But great though the problem is, Capitalism won’t solve it— only the removal of Capitalism will do that. Unlike the “Penny Tenement,” however, this crazy set-up will not just collapse. It will have to be demolished.

Eddie Critchfield

The Passing Show: Churchill at Omdurman (1960)

The Passing Show column from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Churchill at Omdurman

In his book My Early Life (quoted in The Observer, 6/12/59) Sir Winston Churchill talks of his part in the Battle of Omdurman. Just before the battle he was on patrol:

Talk of Fun! Where will you beat this! On horseback, at daybreak, within shot of an advancing army, seeing everything. and corresponding direct with headquarters.

Yes, it must have been exciting. Too exciting, perhaps, for some tastes. After taking part in the battle itself Churchill records what he saw:

But now from the direction of the enemy there came a succession of grisly apparitions: horses spouting blood, struggling on three legs, men staggering on foot, men bleeding from terrible wounds, fish-hook spears stuck right through them, arms and faces cut to pieces, bowels protruding, men gasping, crying, collapsing, expiring . . . In all out of 310 officers and men the regiment had lost in the space of about two or three minutes, five officers and sixty-five men killed and wounded, and 120 horses-- nearly a quarter of its strength.

But the men killed and maimed had not been sacrificed for nothing. The battle at Omdurman was a triumph for the British ruling class over the native Sudanese leaders, and meant that henceforth the British workers and the Sudanese peasants would labour for the same masters. It was not surprising that British Capitalism hailed this waste of life as a glorious victory.

The Bishops

In these decadent days bishops are always complaining about their half-empty churches, and it must be disappointing to them to find that their brand of aspirin is not selling so well as it once did. They can be forgiven, then, if like other firms they try a little self-advertisement now and again. Their managing director, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had this to say the other day (The Guardian, 20/11/59):

(The bishops) have no other means of directing or steering the clergy or laity except by their own quiet, loving pastoral discretion, and 1 believe that if there arc people who stand out far and away for their grace and wisdom, it is the bishops of the Church of England.

Since Dr. Fisher is the head bishop, he should know.

Poaching

Mr. D. L. Blunt, the Kenya Minister for Game and Fisheries, has warned the Kenya Legislative Council of the serious effects of the “large-scale poaching” of Kenya's wild animals (The Times, 9/12/59). He said that poaching had become “systematically organised and a commercial money-making racket.” No one would wish to see the wild life of Kenya slaughtered to extermination, but two comments may be made. Firstly, when the Kariba Dam was built by the white settlers in the Rhodesias, to provide the power needed for the development of Rhodesian Capitalism, they were not deterred by the thought of all the wild animals that would be drowned as the waters rose. And secondly, can the Kenya whites complain about the poaching of wild animals when they themselves have poached an entire country?

All-Powerful, All-Good?

According to the Italian commission of inquiry, “the 31 people—26 passengers and five crew—killed when a British European Airways Viscount crashed near Anzio in October last year after a collision in daylight with an Italian jet fighter, died because of ‘‘an act of God'" (The Guardian, 25/11 /59). The commission also found that a “further cause” of the disaster was that the Viscount had gone off its course, and was flying in an area reserved by the Italian Government for military activity.

Ruling classes have found since the beginning of civilisation that the idea of a God was very useful to them—no doubt one of the main reasons why the idea has survived, instead of vanishing along with the other frightened imaginings of primitive man. They still find it useful. The real cause of this disaster appears to be that the Viscount flew into an area reserved for war preparations: those killed in it were among the first casualties of the next war. But the Italian authorities could not be expected to admit that. It isn't the first time a ruling class has sheltered behind a God

Sweet Music

The latest move to “improve” factories is like reforms: ostensibly it is for the workers’ benefit, but really the advantage goes to the Capitalist class, or that section of the Capitalist class which introduces it. This new development is the continuous playing of background music, piped into the factory or office by any of half-a-dozen companies in this field. The aim is simply to increase production and therefore profits. As The Guardian says 110/12/59): “The pace must be stepped up at the times when workers flag.” No doubt our reformers, those staunch allies of “progressive" Capitalism, will lash themselves into a fever of enthusiasm in support of this step forward as well. Socialists will prefer to work for a system in which those who want to listen to music will be able to, and those who don’t want to listen won’t have to.

Alwyn Edgar

Nobody Really Cares (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

I knocked on the door and the sounds echoed through the bare hall. After a short while, bolts were withdrawn and chains undone. The door creaked open an inch or two and Nanny H—peeped out. “Oh! It's you, Sir! Just wait while I get the money,” and she disappeared into the musty back room of her ground floor flat, to reappear with money for “The Book” and a couple of extra coppers “for the good cause.”

My first encounter with Nanny had occurred several years before, when canvassing a London suburb for Socialist Standard sales. A woman in her eighties, she had a mind as alert as a person many years younger, and despite the privations of working class old age, she was never without a cheery word whenever we met. She lived entirely alone—not even a cat to keep her company.

Sometimes, I managed to glimpse the interior of her flat. It certainly bore the marks of neglect. An old mattress had been rolled tightly against one wall of the hall, and against the other stood numerous empty jars and bottles. What little wallpaper was left, hung in odd strips here and there. The drain outside in the front garden, its original purpose forgotten, was blocked with all manner of filth, and some of the window panes were stuffed with rag.

Yet Nanny herself was always neatly and cleanly dressed and managed to assume a calmness and dignity, doubtless a relic of better times. Indeed, I learned during our many doorstep discussions that she had for a number of years been employed as a nurse for the children of a wealthy family, and was now living on a small pension. With true working class humility, she was most grateful for this pittance.

Her one fear was the loss of her independence. “They want to put me in a home, Sir,” she confided fiercely on one occasion, “but I won’t let them ” And for some time she managed to withstand efforts to this end by various social welfare visitors. But advancing age was taking its toll, and even this courageous soul could not hold out for ever. Besides, the landlord was getting mighty worried about the depreciation of his property and was making regular complaints to the local health authorities.

So into a home she went, and there she died. I had managed to visit her twice before a bout of winter bronchitis carried her off. The matron at the home allowed me to keep a portrait of her as a memento, for there was no one else to claim it. Her few relatives and previous employers had been informed of her illness and death, but had shown not the slightest interest or concern. They did not even bother to attend her funeral. She died as she had lived for many years —alone and unwanted.

Could it be argued that her's was an isolated case? It could be, but it would just not be true. The problem of old people—working class old people—has become one of the scandals of the modern world. It is well known that many are forced to lead a miserable existence after retirement. As the Royal Commission on Population has stated:

“Enquiries have revealed the existence of very large numbers of old people living in most unsatisfactory conditions.” The Monthly Digest of Statistics for September, 1959, tells us that of 5,340,000 persons drawing old age pensions, some 894,000 are also having to receive National Assistance grants.

Loneliness

But worst of all, it is the loneliness and hopelessness of such conditions which illustrate the essential inhumanity of our private property society. Some idea of the desolate existence which old age entails for many people is given by Trevor Howell, M.R.C.P. (Edin.) Writing in his book Our Advancing Years (page 18), he tells us:

It has been estimated that there are 85,000 old age pensioners over the age of 80 who live alone, as well as some 200,000 married couples over 70. Loneliness becomes one of the greatest enemies of such people. There is evidence that senile mental changes occur more readily among those old folk who live a solitary existence.

Nobody really cares very much about the “Nannies" of this world, for the appalling truth is that they are the human scrap-heap of modern industrial Capitalism. They are one of the uncomfortable problems which the politicians swear to solve when out of office and signally fail to solve when in. The few shillings more which they were offered in the recent election manifestos of the Labour and Liberal Parties barely scratch the surface. And as for the Conservative promise that the old ones would “share in the rising prosperity of our country"—this probably meant most things to most people and precisely nothing to the pensioners.

Let us face it! For the majority of us under Capitalism, old age is an insult. We have worked for the best years of our lives in the interests of a parasitic minority and at the end are told that we in our turn are parasites. Mr. Howell is quite blunt about it and tells us (p. 13) “. . . . from the economic point of view, most old people are parasites.” Thank goodness there is an alternative to a social system which condemns old people to a sordid existence, instead of the dignity which is their due.

E. T. C.

The Savage Eye (1960)

Film Review from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE SAVAGE EYE, at present showing at the Curzon, is something of an emotional block-buster. Staggering out into the neon lighting, the dazed cinema-goer finds himself asking, “Is life really as dreadful as this, are people usually so hopeless and despairing?” or worse still, "Am I one of them?”.

Certainly the eye is savage enough giving a conducted tour of present-day society as seen by a bitter, disillusioned and dejected divorcee. Finding herself in a spiritual vacuum, she wanders about the city, draws her alimony cheque regularly, and spends much of her boredom increasing her disgust at the behaviour of human beings. Sourly she views the world at large from the pavement, and a singularly depressing view it is. Bad debts at the dog tracks, screams for blood at wrestling matches, vicious brawls in pubs. Men looking for women, women looking for men. and fat ladies pedalling wildly on stationary bicycles in a beauty parlour. Candid shots of gaping mouths, sagging waists and false smiles. Yet beneath their phony, gilt-edged pretensions, people struggling for recognition, love and affection. Even in one of the most pitiful and truly horrific scenes of the film struggling for their health at a faith healing ceremony ("Dear God, it's her liver. Move along friend and pray awhile.”) During all of this she conducts a cynical and at times slightly pretentious dialogue with a resonant manly voice that identifies itself as “Your inner self, your angel,” and the unhappy wanderer is finally persuaded to face reality and come to terms with the people she despises so much.

The film shows you nothing new. People are seen doing the things you know that they do, living the life that you know they live. But it does make clear the fact that society is made up of people, and that people within modern society need more than new flats, health insurance and hair driers to make them feel that life is worth living. They need to belong, to feel that they are doing something considered worthwhile to the community, to give and to receive. In a society such as ours it is quite obvious that these needs are for the greater part unrealised. Our world is dominated by fear, hatred and confusion, where cash, profit and ‘‘What's in it for me?” are so often the criteria for doing anything. When half the population do not even have their basic requirements of food, clothing and shelter met, much less their emotional needs, how can they find personal satisfaction and harmony in their every-day lives? To retain a sense of ordinary humane values requires a conscious effort. Divorced from emotional security at home, in spite of vast housing estates and modern gadgets: alienated from pride at work, for all the new machinery: still there is little sense of achievement and pleasure.

This is all shown clearly, but the film offers no solution to the problems. Surely to reorganise society on a basis of common humanity and the social considerations of the well-being of all human beings is not such a difficult task. While Socialists may feel that The Savage Eye does not look far enough, it is none the less well worth seeing for it does extend an invitation to its audience to (misquoting the faith healer) “Move along friend and think a while."

John Higgins

Those War Films (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

War films, like Westerns, are always in fashion. From Hollywood and elsewhere, there flows a constant stream of films about heroism, cowardice, battles, bombings and butchery generally. So, at regular intervals, we sit transfixed in our cinema seats, while jet planes zoom overhead and the U.S. marines go in to finish off yet another bunch of anti-democratic savages. Satisfying? Maybe. Harmless? Improbable. But useful? Very rarely.

War is, after all, a serious subject. Yet, of the enormous number of films that have been made about war, one can count on one's fingers those which say something intelligent, useful or constructive about it.

Generally speaking, war films, like thrillers and westerns, follow well-defined patterns and fall into a few set groups. The commonest kind is the heroic battle-story with a slender plot and perhaps a little love interest. The hero, rugged and clean-living, goes into battle and, after inevitable setbacks, crushes the enemy practically single-handed. Sometimes he dies at the end, murmuring beautiful thoughts and accompanied by a celestial choir.

In these films the sort of thing that one remembers is, perhaps, Robert Taylor defending Bataan single-handed against hordes of Japs; or Veronica Lake gallantly walking into the enemy camp with a bosom loaded down with hand-grenades; and other similar epics of true-to-life bravery. Occasionally the story is more sophisticated and the background a little less false. But, basically, the same pattern is there—heroism, and the defeat of an evil enemy.

Why should one object to this ostensibly harmless kind of fairy tale? What is important is that the audience is expected to participate by identifying itself with the hero and the victorious army. It is objectionable for films to blatantly glorify the sordid business of killing. It is harmful to glamorise the slaughter of one's fellow-men. Above all, it is dangerous to suggest, as these films do, that war is inevitable and necessary and that "fighting for one's country" is a natural and desirable thing.

Another (and much smaller) category of films is the semi-documentary type, usually without love-interest, in which the portrayal of the fighting is much closer to reality. A few of these films have been extremely good, A Walk in the Sun, for instance, telling of one brief sortie by an American patrol in the Italian campaign. The Polish film Kanal is also worthy of mention, with its horrifying account of the crushing of the Warsaw uprising and the miserable and wretched deaths suffered by the survivors, either in the sewers of Warsaw or at the hands of the Germans. It is interesting to see, however, that this otherwise admirable film makes no mention of the Russian army which stood outside Warsaw for weeks, allowing their "allies" to be butchered in the sewers. But, of course, one should not expect too much from film-makers in countries now dominated by their Russian "liberators."

Probably the best of this type of film is the Finnish film The Unknown Soldier, which portrays the tiny, ill-equipped Finnish army in its war against Russia. In this, war is stripped of glamour and adventure and shown for what it is—a brutal and fearful business. This kind of film may, and sometimes does, inspire a genuine horror of war an all that goes with it, which in itself is a good thing. However, as these films never put forward a positive point of view, or any alternative to war, the overall effect is to make people think that war is a terrible and terrifying thing, but also that it is necessary and justifiable in the right circumstances.

During the war, and shortly after, there was a spate of documentary films, most of them made by the Crown Film Unit. The intention was to boost morale and convince the public that our cause was just and that victory would inevitably come. Some of them were well-made (for example, Fires Were Started), and did at least give an unsentimental and fairly accurate picture of what went on in the war. Many documentaries, notably The March of Time series, held out extravagant promises of the wonderful world that was to be ours after the war, a world freed from economic disasters, international tension and all the unpleasant things that occurred before the war. This is one good reason why these films are never shown today.

Since the war, we have had the opportunity of seeing documentaries that put the other side's point of view—Blitzkreig, for instance. Although the uniforms are different, the message is the same—"We are right and the enemy is wrong."

Another fairly common type of war-film is the prison-camp story, with the usual ingredients of escape, brutal punishment, cheerful and heroic prisoners and bullying prison-camp commanders. The pattern of these films is much the same as the heroic battle-epic. The prisoners attempt to escape because it is their duty to get back home to fight again. So insistent is the escape theme in films like The Wooden Horse and The Colditz Story and many others, that one gets the misleading impression that prison-camp life consisted of never-ending escape attempts, and that captured soldiers couldn't get back in the front line quick enough. Some of these films have depicted revolting brutality, not so much from a desire for authenticity, but rather to encourage national hatreds. One of the few prison-camp films to explore the possibilities of genuine human contact between captors and captives was La Grande Illusion, a French film, which itself was made long before the Second World War.

The one comes to the very few films about war which put forward a clear point of view—that war is unjustifiable, perhaps, or that war is harmful to all who take part in it. One or two even suggest that the war leaders and officers are not disinterested saints, but people with a vested interest in warfare. Attack, for example, did this badly, by showing the harm caused by a fanatical officer, but negatived this point by suggesting that "good" officers would have solved the problem. Paths of Glory, on the other hand, presented a picture of army officers scheming and competing like business men, and the disastrous effect this had on the men at the bottom, many of whom died as a result.

The films where a humanist or pacifist view is presented are few and far between. Apart from Paths of Glory, there is the old All Quiet on the Western Front, with its sympathetic portrayal of the German soldiers in the First World War. It had the temerity to suggest that German soldiers were human, too, with the same wants and desires, and cutting the same poor figure in the muddy trenches as their counterparts on the allied side. La Grande Illusion put forward a similar point of view, and exposed "the great illusion" of national enmity.

The result of the tally is not a very encouraging one—a handful of worthwhile films: a negative but accurate ones; and an enormous number of misleading, sentimental and harmful films glorifying war, extolling films, and justifying cruelty and murder. Cynics will say that the public are only getting what they deserve. Maybe, but this is only half of the story. Films themselves are the outcome of social forces, and at the same time help to fashion the climate of opinion in which they appear. So it is that Capitalism, a harmful and irrational system, produces the harmful and irrational by-product—war. This engenders the phony justifications for national enmities, which war films reflect and help to bolster up.

This process is endless—post-war situations produce new justifications and new hatreds, which themselves help to make new wars possible. The only thing that will stem this tide is knowledge and criticism. Working people are gradually coming to realise that wars are not glamorous affairs, that battles are not mere backdrops for heroes, and that national hatreds are not natural and praiseworthy.

One hopes that this trend will be reflected in the cinema, and that if films do deal with war, they will approach it in a critical, constructive and conscious way. Perhaps this is expecting too much of Capitalism, but if the cinema doesn't catch up, one at least knows that the working class eventually will.

Albert Ivimey