So They Say: Marching & Chanting (1976)

The So They Say column from the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marching & Chanting

TUC general secretary, Mr. Len Murray, found himself in a somewhat awkward position on the 26th November when an “anti-unemployment march” of 20,000 marched past Congress House chanting “Murray, out. Murray out.” In earlier times man, still groping for a greater understanding of the world in which he lived, used at least to vent his ignorant outbursts towards ends which could be respected, or which expressed some basic emotion — for rain in times of drought or even, Ee-ai-addio, we won the cup. Now we are reduced to “Murray, out. Murray, out.”

But the false god of employment, much displeased at these unfriendly overtures, felt it necessary to point out immediately that although many of those on the march were “sincere and honest” there were others, “extremist groups which are callously exploiting this concern and the plight of the unemployed for their own political ends.” But what of the many “sincere and honest” workers who were protesting at the level of unemployment: what advice could the bogus champion offer? Something which shows that the ritual chanters are not alone in their ignorance.

  The best way of overcoming the problem is by the TUC working together with the Government — not by taking part in anti-Government demonstrations.

Guardian, 27th November 75

He went on to concede charitably that the level of unemployment was “unacceptably high,” a chant which may even be heard from the Conservative congregation. But all evade the central issue: that capitalism will never run in such a way as to remove the recurring problem of unemployment. Its very seeds lie in the nature of a society which produces solely for profit. All the caterwauling cannot remove the need for workers to look for themselves into the nature of capitalist society. Only then will they recognize the implications behind Mr. Murray’s pleas to cooperate with the ruling class, even if he may not.

Shuffling Back and Forth

If asked to name a political party made up from an assortment of men and women who have ill-conceived principles individually, and none whatsoever collectively, the Labour Party must surely qualify for a high rating. It may be argued that its members are generally agreed on one notion, that capitalism is the only way in which society may be organized, but as many of its members see some imaginary difference between private capitalism and state capitalism, we can only conclude that it is a “principle” of which they are only dimly aware.

In recent months the Labour Party has been called “a coalition government” in its own right, both by opponents and by its own members. So many shades of what we are loath to call “opinions” lurk within the membership that it was hardly surprising to find the Prime Minister commenting on the disunity within the ranks. As a result of Reg Prentice’s dismissal by the Newham constituency party, an internal struggle has taken place in which the dreaded extremists have emerged. Mr. Wilson has taken them to task and in doing so he seems to have found so many members whose “views” he rejects that we visualize the rest of the membership desperately shuffling back and forth like a flock of sheep trying to keep on the “safe ground.”

  I want to warn the national executive about the situation which is developing. I reject the arrogance of extremists on the non-Party anti-Party Left — people who have always opposed what we are trying to achieve — and equally the arrogance of the anti-Party Right . . .
  I have spent 13 years so far, trying to keep this party together and I do not like what is going on.

Guardian, 27th November 75

Mr. Wilson may not like what’s going on, he may “reject” this faction or that, but never so far as to discourage any and everyone from voting Labour. He does not reject the votes, because that is all the Labour Party requires from its supporters.

Back to Earth

Like the man who clutches at straws, Mr. John Stonehouse MP is valiantly trying to show that he, like so many other MPs, once had principles too. That is before he entered the cruel world of “public life.” He was signing copies of his book “Death of an Idealist” on 24th November when he remarked:

  People entered public life with ideals but found that the pressures of life warped and changed their personalities so that they were prepared to throw away their ideals.

Guardian, 25th November 1975

And as if to prove that he has now become a “realist” in the day-to-day affairs of capitalism, we note that he has reverted to his former practice of entering the lobby together with his unprincipled colleagues at the first sound of a “division bell.”

Two Views

In recent weeks the newspapers have carried several Government-sponsored advertisements which read “Inflation — we can beat it together.” The current layout shows two sincere and trustworthy faces each with a small personal commentary assuring the reader that the defeat of inflation is of paramount importance. Trades Union leaders among others have appeared. The version in the London Evening Standard of 1st December gave the views of one Pat Cole, Docker at the Royal Docks of London, whose view as an “ordinary working man” was that “knowing the cause of inflation isn’t important. Stopping inflation is.” On the other half of the page, concurring with Mr. Cole’s view, was Sir John Cohen the life president of Tesco Stores.

  Inflation is the greatest danger facing this nation. It saps our energy and lowers our morale. It leads to higher prices. It leads to unemployment, which is a useless, wasteful, and almost immoral thing to do. We at Tesco have always been aggressive traders . . . Over the years we have been committed to fighting rising prices . . . We are doing everything possible to increase our productivity and to keep our costs down so that we can minimise what is passed on to our customers.

But before Mr. Cole, and millions like him, applauds too loudly at Cohen’s drum beating, he would do well to consider their respective positions. Mr. Cole complains that most dockers “don’t even see £50 a week in take-home pay” but if he cared to examine the financial pages of his newspaper on the 27th November, he would have noted that Pre-Tax profit at Tesco improved in the twenty-four weeks up to 9th August 1975 to £9,381,000 from £8,362,000 in the same period of 1974. When Cohen says that Tescos are “aggressive traders” and that they are “committed to fighting rising prices” and increasing “productivity”, all “ordinary working men” should appreciate that wage increases to the Tesco boss, as to any other member of the capitalist class, are rising prices and as such they will fight them. The increase in productivity can only come from the working class, but the benefit accrues to the owners of the means of production and distribution in terms of increased Profit. Tescos for example anticipate “materially higher profitability” in the second half of their financial year.

If workers are given the impression that the “Fight against Inflation” is one in which the owners put aside their class interests to fight a common enemy, they are being deluded. Let the capitalists dress up as dockers themselves if this falsehood is to be projected.

Missile Order

The Society of Business Economists held a conference on the 2nd December in which they discussed the “Economic Outlook for 1976”. The report in the Times of 3rd December told us that this assortment of experts were “pessimistic about inflation and the balance of trade” and that they were “gloomy” on unemployment. The view of those attending the conference was that the unemployed would number between 1,400,000 and 1,800,000 by the end of 1976.

However, elsewhere the British Aircraft Corporation was announcing that it will be able to maintain the jobs of 10,000 of its own skilled workers for at least ten years, as well as many jobs within other factories supplying BAC with components. The Corporation had just received an order from Iran for the supply of the Rapier anti-aircraft missile system, valued at £186m. The Chairman of BAC, Mr. G. R. Jefferson commented

  We are delighted by this further expression of Iran’s confidence in us and our product.

Times, 3rd December 1975

The charmingly titled “Missiles Sales Director”, Mr. Eric Sanson, let us have more details of the “product”

  Tracked Rapier uniquely provides cross country mobility at 38 mph and is able to operate in soft sand or snow. It has armoured protection for crew and missiles, eight missiles ready to fire, high kill probability with proximity fuses, and a blind firing system.

We maintain that with the establishment of Socialism a tremendous increase in the numbers of those performing useful work will occur. Here for example are 10,000 skilled men and women who will not be engaged in making products with “high kill probabilities.”

Alan D'Arcy

Letters: Would like to know more (1976)

Letters to the Editors from the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Would like to know more 

I saw your ad in Tribune and I think I would like to know more about the Party and its policies/views.

Firstly how would you help solve the problem of starvation today in the third world, in a capitalist society? Would the people living in the industrialized countries have to cut their standard of living to feed these people? Do you think they would stand for this? Even the unions — the members of which claim to be socialists — might say to the third world “We’re not going to have our standard of living cut!”

Do you think some unions have become too powerful — so powerful as to be able to over-ride the elected parliament and take what they want at the expense of the members of weaker unions?

Is our present police force and our over-all judicial system working satisfactorily and fairly or not? If not, what would you replace it with?

I understand your ideal is to have a world in which there are no barriers between countries (or to have no countries as such). Would there then be a world parliament to govern the people? Please give a rough outline of your system.

Also what are the Party’s views on nationalization, education, religion and the EEC (did you say "Get out”? If so, was your only reason for taking this stand because the system on which the EEC is based is capitalist?). Could a Socialist Europe be obtained through the EEC?

Does your party have any intention of putting candidates in any general or local elections? How many members have you got, and how would I go about joining you if I support your views?

Derek Clarke

Windsor.

Reply

1. A great deal of humbug is talked about “starving millions”. The basic fact is that capitalism does not produce food for people to eat: it produces only what can be sold at a profit, regardless of what needs exist. If the starving, or the homeless, found themselves able to pay after all, they would no longer be faced by a shortage. The case against capitalism is not that it distributes wealth inequitably, but that it cannot develop the productive powers. Socialism, by removing the monumental restriction of production for profit, will enable man to produce to meet the needs of the world’s population.

2. Trade unions do not and cannot over-ride Parliament (nor is it correct that all trade unionists even claim to be Socialists). Their function is the limited one of working to keep up the price of labour-power against counter-pressure from the employers. How much they can gain for their members depends chiefly on the state of the economy: in boom times they are relatively successful, but in times of depression and mass unemployment they are obviously in a weak bargaining position. There is no “wages fund” in which one union dips at the expense of others. If, say, the engineers gain a pay rise that does not obstruct agricultural workers from gaining one: in each case it is obtained from their respective employers, and no-one else.

3. Yes, they are working satisfactorily for the ruling class for whom they exist. “Fairness” does not enter into it. Our aim is not to improve on “justice” but to do away with it and have Socialism instead.

4. Socialism will be world-wide, with full access by everyone to everything which is produced, and therefore no money. There will be no parliament “to govern the people”, because government is required only in class-divided societies to maintain the monopoly by the owning class and keep the subject class in restraint.

5. Nationalization is a change in form made to meet capitalist requirements, and is favoured by the Conservatives and Liberals as well as the Labour Party; it has nothing to do with Socialism. The SPGB is opposed to all religion. Education is the process of training the young to take their place in society; in capitalist society, therefore, it is designed for the needs of capitalism and nothing else.

We were wrongly reported in The Guardian as advocating “Get out of Europe”. Being in or out makes no difference to the working class, whose problems can be solved only by establishing Socialism.

6. The SPGB has between six and seven hundred members. We put up candidates for Parliament and in local elections when possible. Membership is conditional on a full understanding of the Socialist case. When you think you are ready for it, apply to your nearest Branch or to Head Office.

Editors

Brainy people

Some years ago I saw a film in which the principal topic was that the wealthy were impractical, all right at brain work but not much good at mundane operations. The plot included two men, a girl and a stoker on a yacht. The two men were wealthy Parisians. The yacht was wrecked on a deserted island. The two wealthy men were always giving the stoker, the working man, money to buy something. In the end he saw they were impractical and when the money ran out he took their boots and so on. He himself adapted to the situation and caught fish with pieces of wire. Of course there came a day when an aeroplane saved them all and back to civilization.

My question is this. Has it been surveyed that, say, 60 per cent, of the wealthy cannot do practical things but are good at brain work? What do you say?

W. Popplewell

Knutsford

Reply

Though we have not heard of a survey, we are quite prepared to believe that most of the rich are not proficient at practical work. There is nothing inborn about it. The reason is simple — they don’t have to do it, but get their livings provided for them. The working class, on the other hand, have to be proficient in endless ways.

However, you say the rich may be “all right at brain work”. They want you to think so. That is an excuse dating back to Plato for the class division in society ("we have explained the reason why the good are useless”; “the multitude cannot be philosophical”). “Brain work” is not a separate realm from practical work: the wealthy have the working class do that for them equally.

Underlying the myth that the ruling class have all the intellectual powers is the long tradition of “culture”, i.e. the arts and philosophy pursued by leisured sections of society. We do not reject them: on the contrary, we acknowledge the contribution every social system and ruling class has made to human development until it outlived its usefulness. Subject classes have participated relatively little in this culture, except to work as required.

But modern capitalism would fare badly if it stuck to the ruling class for “brains” to run it. Hence the continual extensions and reorganizations of public education in the last hundred years, picking over the mass of working-class material for the abilities the system needs. We need Socialism — don’t we? — to allow everyone’s abilities to be realized, and to get rid of the silly superiority-distinction between “brain work” and “practical work”.

Editors

Anarchists and Violence

I don’t think you can dismiss Peter Newell’s comment as not being serious enough. These “stupid anarchists” as you call them under your article “50 Years Ago — Revolution and Violence” said right from the start that the Bolsheviks with their authoritarian socialism and centralized powers would lead to state capitalism.

Your two main criticisms of anarchists seem to be (a) they use violence and (b) they are opposed to parliamentary democracy. By definition, an anarchist is someone who holds a certain attitude and resists oppression. Not all anarchists promote violence, but the violence adopted by the state is used to keep capitalism going. To resist and fight this force is a step towards liberty, even if violence has to be employed. Obviously the use of force is inconsistent with freedom and Socialism, but how else is one to organize against capitalism which is inherently kept going by violence?

When anarchists say they are against democracy it means they are against parliamentary democracy which is the path for a party or person to take government. Anarchists see governments as representing the fetters upon society and maintaining the state’s class divisions. We fight for true democracy without political parties competing for power. Workers’ control is economic freedom and we’ll fight for it.

As an advocator for Socialism you are utterly unrevolutionary as you see it only through parliamentary methods and take up a policy of advocating and giving “Socialist understanding” to the workers.

G. Goss

Camberley

Reply

Your letter provides the reason why it is impossible to take these contentions seriously. You say anarchists said right from the start that the Bolsheviks “with their authoritarian socialism” would produce state capitalism. This is a proposition quite contrary to the one made by P. Newell, whom you think you are supporting. We should be interested to hear how Socialism could lead to capitalism.

It is not disputed that anarchists in Russia opposed the revolution and suffered for doing so. That may give rise to personal sympathy, but why should we assume that “this resistance was in good cause for Socialism”? Many individuals and organizations refuse to accept the state’s authority — for example, numbers of Jehovah’s Witnesses went to prison in the last war as objectors to military service — but to suggest we therefore accept them as revolutionaries is ludicrous. The ending of your letter makes clear that you as an anarchist reject Socialism.

We note that you accept our statement that anarchists accept violence, and admit that it is “inconsistent with freedom and Socialism”. In the light of that, you must not blame anyone for the surmises they make as to the meanings of the “true democracy” and “workers’ control” you promise to fight for. Similarly, you object to our policy of “Socialist understanding”, and we have to take this as meaning an intention to minority action unsupported by understanding.

We are aware of the long-established anarchist attitude to the state, and know nothing in favour of it. The state controls legal and military machinery, and you assert that “to resist and fight this force is a step towards liberty”. We would have thought anarchist experience would indicate it is a step towards prison and early graves. Our case is the different, realistic one of aiming at possession of the state machine so that it cannot be used against the Socialist revolution.

Editors

World Communication

After buying my first Socialist Standard at a dance in Bolton and having gone home and read it from back to front and being somewhat shocked at finding a party that thought along the same lines as myself and had never heard of it, I decided to find out more about it. This I did, and now subscribe to the SS although not yet having joined the party.

To get to the point, I would like to give my opinion and some of the many people with whom I have had discussions. This being the fact that whilst agreeing totally with the SPGB principles of a world socialist system, we thought the chances of the whole world voting simultaneously would be impossible. So we came to the opinion hat it needs starting off in one country. Taking our own as an example the only problems we could foresee in doing this is that people would not be able to have free movement in and out of the country for holidays etc. until other countries followed suit and joined in the Socialist revolution. Our reasons for thinking like this are that this country needs to import and see no reason reason why this could not continue as long as we controlled what we bought against what we sold instead as at present leaving it all to chance. We felt this could work as long as the difficulties were explained to the electorate and if they then still voted a Socialist Party into power it would mean they were willing to sacrifice some things for the advantages a Socialist system would bring.

Have you ever thought what we would do if the majority of British people wanted to vote Socialist at the present? Would we have to say you cannot have it because the rest of the world don’t want it?

R. A. Roscow

Bury

Reply

Capitalism covers the globe and must therefore be replaced on a worldwide basis. Socialism is by definition a worldwide social system. It would not be possible to replace the market economy, with production solely for use and free access to goods and services, in one country.

Ideas do not develop in isolation. The conditions which give rise to the need for Socialism are experienced by workers in every country. It is extremely unlikely that Socialist understanding will reach maturity in only one country. (Think also of modern communications).

An immense majority of the worldwide working class ready to implement Socialism will constitute an irresistible social force. A small time lapse between the final voting for it in different areas would be of no consequence.

Editors

Fighting Talk

“Government of the people, BY the people, FOR the people” is often quoted — rightly so — as the basic principle of democracy. This form of government does NOT yet exist in Great Britain or anywhere else. Certainly there is government OF the people. We are faced at very important decisions of our lives with legal and political restrictions, enforced by an hierarchy of judges, courts, police, taxmen, local councils etc.

This governing is done BY only some of the people, namely 635 of them and several thousand civil servants. Some of these — the MPs — are, in an occasional way, responsible to the electorate, but there are more faceless men with the real power than we ever had nightmares about. With so many sanctions placed upon us the government can hardly be said to be FOR the people.

Democracy does not exist at the polling booth, and I cannot believe it ever will. Why should I be expected to choose someone to tell me what to do, instead of choosing what to do myself. True democracy lies in the brotherhood of the streets. Take up your weapons and fight, brothers!

Alan James Edward Hardy 

Suffolk.

Reply

We are at a loss to know what fighting in the streets has to do with democracy. It can only be the policy of minorities who seek to impose their will by force.

The present form of government has the support of the vast majority of people. The electorate — at least 85% of whom are members of the working class — demonstrates this support through the ballot box. To this extent it is democratic. The working class votes for political parties which are pledged to continue capitalism (in whatever form) but this is no reason to abandon the polling booth.

Our object is Socialism. A social system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means for production requires the active participation of all of its members. It cannot therefore be achieved until the vast majority of the working class are organized consciously and politically for that sole purpose.

When the working class wants Socialism it will use the vote, a powerful weapon, to gain control of the machinery of government. Socialist delegates will go to Parliament with the clear mandate to dispossess the capitalist class, so that the means and instruments for production can become the common property of all. We will then have democracy in the fullest sense.

Editors

Leisure

It has occurred to me that the Standard might help to clarify a question that has been popping up constantly of late.

"What will people do with their leisure time, when the hours of labour are reduced, as they are bound to be when we have finally introduced true Socialism?” “At the moment, many people are being thrown out of work or made redundant and are not very happy with all this leisure time on their hands.” This cannot be said to be due entirely to monetary problems because most of them are “doing very nicely on unemployment or redundancy pay” (their opinion, not mine).

What would be the difference? Can you elaborate on what you think it would be like under Socialism; how can you be sure that people would be able to fill their days satisfactorily as a community? It is generally considered that a high proportion of child delinquency and vandalism is due to boredom.

Doris G. Featherston 

Stonesfield.

Reply

Along with considering those to whom leisure is a problem, it is useful to think of those for whom it is none at all. People lucky enough to have interesting and creative work often scarcely know there is such a thing: the division, and the problem, do not exist. There are others, including most Socialists, who have keen interests and regret having to give up their time to go to work. We think these will be the characteristic situations in Socialism.

The problem of leisure arises from the division and circumstances of labour. Working people are obliged to spend eight hours a day at more or less unattractive occupations, with scheduled breaks and a now-you-can-go-home at half-past five, for fifty years on end. They are conditioned to this from early childhood — the school day is a rehearsal of the working day. Having gone home, they are not free at all Many are tired, not in the sense of dire exhaustion but in that they are inclined only to passive amusements which are felt to be unsatisfying. Lack of money plays a part: numbers would say that if they could afford it they would do this and that. Insofar as they have any money to spare, the grasping hand of commerce furnishes leisure-time “attractions” which fail to re-create as recreation should.

Delinquency and vandalism no doubt do result largely from boredom, but not necessarily with leisure The more likely source of them is work or school, and resentment at empty and humiliating days. It is usually said “they could find something to do”: what? It is a condemnation of capitalism that it provides such a sterile life for great numbers of people, denying them satisfactions and then reprehending them for not making better use of their time.

Editors

Transition Stage

The material you sent me seems to pose two problems: (a) If there is no intermediate stage between capitalism and Socialism (communism) there seems to be the implication that capitalism must raise the level of production to that necessary for communism. I cannot see that happening. In fact, if it did, there would be the paradox: why bother about Socialism if capitalism raises production to such a level as to allow free distribution? (b) What happens to Socialist propaganda under fascism?

J. A. Wilson 

Swindon

Reply

There can be no intermediate stage between capitalism and Socialism. We either have class-owned means of production and capitalism, or common-ownership, which is Socialism. There is nothing between the two, which is neither one or the other.

Why you find the implication that “capitalism must raise the level of production to that necessary for communism” unacceptable, is a little puzzling since this is precisely what capitalism does. We refer you to The Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels where they trace the history of change from one social system to another and point to the dynamic role of the class-struggle, which centres upon the question of the ownership of the means of production.

Engels explains what he calls the “fundamental proposition” of the Manifesto in his 1888 preface and concludes

  now-a-days, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class — the proletariat — cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class — the bourgeoisie — without, at the same time, and once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.
(page 56 SPGB edition.)

Marx was over-optimistic in thinking that Socialism would be established in his lifetime. This led to the view he expressed in The Critique of the Gotha Programme, that during a transition period the means of the wealth production would have to be rapidly developed. But all this was more than a century ago. Today advanced technology spans the earth. The potential for abundance exists.

This leads to what you imagine is a paradox, “why bother about Socialism if capitalism raises production to such a level as to allow free distribution?” It is the continuation of class-ownership with its restrictive profit-motive and antagonistic market-economy, which bars the way to free distribution. Only from the basis of world-wide common-ownership, can modern science and industry be geared to free-access and production solely for use. The property relations of capitalism are obsolete and form a barrier to social progress. When working-class thinking catches up with the implications inherent in these facts, they will remove the barrier.

This has a bearing on your final point about Socialist propaganda under fascism. Fascism is only a dictatorial, police-state, means of administering capitalism. Fascism cannot hold back the spread of ideas or the developments which lead to changing society. Fascism, like other forms of capitalism, exists because of working-class acceptance, acquiescence and support, in a word, because of their political ignorance. But this is not a fixed and static situation. The social problems and contradictions of capitalism continue to provide the raw material for working-class thinking. This is how Socialist propaganda was born. Socialist ideas alone hold the solution to the problems, nothing can prevent their growth and ultimate triumph.

Editors

Russia: Leftists in Dispute (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1968 was published an English translation of Ernest Mandel’s monumental work of Trotskyite orthodoxy, Marxist Economic Theory. This was reviewed in International Socialism and led to an exchange of pamphlets between I.S. and Mandel’s supporters in Britain, the International Marxist Group. IMG have republished this controversy with the title Readings on State Capitalism, which has a certain interest for Socialists as discussion centres on the view that Russia is State capitalist.

Mandel, Kidron and Harman (who took over the IS banner half-way through the controversy) agree that Russian society is not Socialist. Mandel, however, maintains that Russia is a very degenerate workers’ state, which has begun a transition towards Socialism with an economy “marked by the contradictory combination of a non-capitalist mode of production and a still basically bourgeois mode of distribution”. A capitalist mode of distribution on the basis of a non-capitalist mode of production is not only contradictory but, from a Marxist point of view, an absurdity; for it is the mode of production which in the end determines the character of all other aspects of society, including the mode of distribution (i.e. the way the social product is divided).

Kidron and Harman describe Russia now as state capitalist, but think that “Russia in the 10 years after 1917 . . . was not itself capitalist”. What then was it?

Discussion about the nature of Russian society is discussion about the meaning of both capitalism and socialism, and Mandel has well grasped the nature of Socialism as a moneyless, wageless, stateless society, with the “free distribution of goods and services”, existing on a world scale: “Socialism means a classless society. It therefore presupposes not only the suppression of private property of the means of production, henceforth managed in a planned way by the associate producers themselves, but it also calls for a level of development of the productive forces which makes possible the withering away of commodity production; of money, and of the state”.

Kidron, on the other hand, describes “socialism” vaguely as “workers’ control of production”, with the implication that this could be control of the production of commodities.

So we have Mandel denying Socialism properly, but saying that a world Socialist revolution is an impossibility and that instead the working class of each country should aim at establishing “a society in transition from capitalism to socialism”, based on nationalization under workers’ control; and we have Kidron saying correctly that no transitional society between capitalism and Socialism is possible (“socialism is a total system; it cannot grow piecemeal within the interstices of a capitalist society”), but defining Socialism wrongly and meaning by it precisely the same as Mandel’s impossible “transitional society”!

If Mandel were claiming that Russia cannot be described as capitalist, but some new form of exploitative society, then his argument would be stronger. But he is claiming that Russian society is better and more progressive than what exists in the West: basically a society which workers should support. This is dangerous nonsense. To suggest that Russia, where trade-union rights like strike action and democratic rights available in the west are denied, offers a precedent for future working-class development, is to mock the sufferings of the working class there.

But the main reason for saying that Russia is capitalist is the existence of the wages system there. As Marx pointed out, wage-labour and capital presuppose each other. Wage-labourers produce value, some of which returns to them in the form of wages, the rest going to those who monopolise the means of production as surplus value; this surplus value is re-invested in production and so becomes capital, wealth invested in production with a view to profit.

That capital accumulation out of the surplus value produced by wage-labour has never ceased in Russia since 1917 should be obvious enough, but Mandel puts forward the view that what has governed production in Russia has been “the consumption desires of the bureaucracy”. He paints Russia as a society where usurpers (the bureaucracy) have come to power and live off the workers who continue to produce under non-exploitative conditions. Mandel actually says that Russian workers, though paid wages, are not exploited at the point of production as in the West; but that they are robbed as consumers by a “parasitic and pilfering” bureaucracy

Mandel says the IS view is essentially a Menshevik one. According to Mandel the Mensheviks held that “a socialist revolution in a backward country is impossible and that whatever you do, capitalism, and only capitalism, can flower there,” and that “whatever one did, capitalism was on the agenda in that country (as long as it would not have been overthrown in all or most of the industrially advanced countries of the world)”. The Mensheviks may have held these views, but the fact remains that it is an analysis and in accordance with the Marxian materialist conception of history. Socialism can only be established on a world scale and on the basis of an advanced industrial economy; in the absence of the Socialist revolution all that can develop in so-called backward countries is capitalism.

We in the Socialist Party of Great Britain have always been logical on this point. Yes, we reply; Russia is state-capitalist and, yes, the Russian revolution was not a Socialist revolution, but a seizure of power by a political party which later came to form the nucleus of a new state-capitalist ruling class. This was inevitable, given the absence at the time of Socialist consciousness amongst the majority of the workers of the world. This is what we said at the time and subsequent developments in Russia have proved the soundness of the Socialist Party’s analysis.

Adam Buick

Crosland: His Kind of "Socialism" (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anthony Crosland, Labour Cabinet Minister and “guru” of the moderate wing of the Labour Party (vide The Observer) has delivered a lecture, at the invitation of the President of Costa Rica (another “socialist”?) on the above theme. It has now been published by the Fabian Society — who else? — and, as it is an artful ploy to kid Labour voters, it calls for a reply from us.

First, it will be noted that Crosland has his very own special brand of Socialism. Socialists have always held that Socialism is definite and unique, like oxygen or silicon: not so! says Tony. But, if everybody is inventing his own brand of Socialism, it ceases to mean anything and is all things to all men — as befits a Labour Party. One difficulty that arises when you run round inventing your own do-it-yourself Socialism is that you have to indicate what you mean, so that the others will think they know what you are talking about.

This our “guru” kindly did. Socialism (Crosland variety) is (1) a set of aspirations which socialists wish to achieve, (2) the relief of the poor, (3) a wider equality in the distribution of property. (Taken from “Social-Democracy in Europe” by A. Crosland, Fabian Society.)

Anybody who has read two issues of the Socialist Standard could tell Crosland that this piffle has nothing to do with Socialism. And a good few who’ve never read it at all — in fact, Disraeli or Gladstone would have agreed with it; in public anyway. It is nothing but good old Liberal (or Tory) baloney.

Just for the record: “relief” of poverty is perpetuation of poverty. Socialism is the abolition of poverty. Socialism is not the re-distribution of wealth (property) but the abolition of property.

Stirring manfully to give his vapourings a semblance of reality, the “guru” has to drag in Karl Marx. Social-Democracy, he declares

  requires, and indeed can be defined as the nationalization of the means of production, distribution and exchange (sic).

He maintains:

  The ownership of the means of production is not now the key factor which imparts to a society its essential character.

Apart from the absurdity of the obsolete notion that nationalization has anything to do with Socialism, this does not even tally with the notorious claims of the Labour Party constitution, which states nationalization (“public ownership”) as one of the party’s numerous objectives.

The artful trick consists in implying that Marx advocated this (nationalization or state ownership). Marx did not. He was crystal clear about it. And in case Crosland is kidding anybody — as the old- time Commies used to try it — that because the very first edition of The Communist Manifesto contained a demand for nationalization, that Marx was a “nationalizer”, the explanation is perfectly clear as Engels indicated in the last edition.

These demands were aimed at a fragmentary, underdeveloped continental transport and industry, and considered (rightly or wrongly) progressive by Marx in 1847. In subsequent polemics with the German social-democrats Marx, and particularly Engels, emphatically denounced the claim that state ownership was Socialism. Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring:

  Recently, however, since Bismarck adopted state ownership, a certain spurious socialism has made its appearance — here and there even degenerating into a kind of flunkeyism — which declares that all taking over by the state, even the Bismarckian kind, is in itself socialistic. If, however, the taking over of the tobacco trade by the state was socialistic, Napoleon and Metternich would rank among the founders of socialism . . . Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal Porcelain Manufacture, and even the regimental tailors in the army, would be socialist institutions.

Our lecturer proceeds to inform us that the dictatorships were easily the most inefficient regimes during the last war — which we have been telling left-wing insurrectionists for years. But this is the lead-in for the suggestion that the “Communist State” has something to do with Marx and Socialism; whereas actually the dictatorship was the invention of one Lenin.

We are treated to a few figures (no Fabian lecture complete without them!) which purport to show that “the trend” is in the right direction. There is less inequality, he claims, because the Diamond Report showed:

  “‘That the top 10% of earners now command only 21.4% of total personal incomes, compared with 34.6% before the war.”
  “That ownership of capital by the top 10% has fallen considerably, and the top 1% very markedly.”

— and that this re-distribution continues. Now these figures by themselves are extremely suspect; and can be juggled to almost any result required, by ignoring inflation and taking special periods (e.g. post-war boom).

But even accepting all his statements — so what? Is this Socialism — that a few rich capitalists have become comparatively less rich? or a few wage- earners less poor? How long before the next figures completely refute this lot?

We now come to the guts of the matter. Crosland says this “statistical evidence” is confirmed “by our own experience”. The beaches in Spain are crowded with “working people, enjoying the pleasures previously reserved for the few”. And (here we go again) "the motor car has brought new freedom to millions of people”.

Right back to the old “the workers are better off” syndrome. Incidentally, thousands of workers today complain that the motor car keeps them poor, not “free’. But what is all this but the hoary old rigmarole of the Theory of Increasing Misery in reverse? Marx wrote that the workers would sink down into ever-increasing poverty — and they haven’t — so there!

First, Marx never wrote anything of the sort. What he did write was:

  Along with the diminishing number of the magnates of capital . . . grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself.

(Capital, Vol. I p. 836, Kerr edn.)

Yes! the modern working class has cars, washing machines, colour telly, hot water, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, because this is 1975, not 1875; and because the capitalists spend millions kidding the workers to buy these things (they go broke if they don’t); and because sheer technical progress enables cheap production in factories in thousands instead of ones in laboratories.

  A house may be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But let a palace arise alongside the little house. It shrinks from a house into a hut. Its owner now has no redress however high it may shoot up, if the palace grows to a greater extent, the small house owner will be cramped and dissatisfied.

(Wage Labour and Capital)

What is Marx saying? Suppose two men on ladders, one on the bottom rung, the other on the tenth. If while the bottom one moves up ten rungs the top moves up as well, their relative position is unchanged. The top-dog is still the same degree higher than the bottom dog.

“The contradictions of capitalism today are not those analysed by Marx 100 years ago”, says Crosland. The contradiction of all the contradictions which Marx analysed was that between wage-labour and capital, now rapidly engulfing the last continents of this earth. Crosland’s panacea for all this, his kind of Socialism, is “more industrial democracy”.

In the immortal words of Joe Bloggs: What a load of rubbish!

Horatio.

Socialism or Reformism? (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Summary of a debate between the SPGB and the Labour Party Young Socialists —

Greenford Co-op Hall, Greenford Road. Tuesday 2nd December
For SPGB : T. D’Arcy. For LPYS : M. Brooks, Acton Labour Party.

SPGB Opening Statement
The title of the debate is: “Which party should the working class support, the SPGB or LPYS?” Today we live under a system called capitalism. The basis of this society is division into two classes: the working class virtually propertyless, having only their labour-power to sell, and the capitalist class, the tiny minority who own the wealth of society. There exists therefore a class antagonism between wage-labour and capital which is irreconcilable. We say Socialism is in working-class interests and by Socialism we mean our object, contained in all our literature. This is not what exists in Russia and other places and as yet it does not exist. The LPYS do not advocate this system which implies abolition of the wages system, private property and its relationships, banks, trade unions etc. Socialism means a fundamentally different kind of society where the means of production are owned and controlled by society as a whole.

The LPYS make socialist noises but there is a world of difference. They want capitalism run in working-class interests — this is nonsense, capitalism cannot benefit workers; only the capitalist class. One outstanding disagreement is on reforms. The LPYS have a list of reforms: Free Spanish political prisoners, oppose cuts in social services, Rent Act, nationalization, abolition of the House of Lords, etc.

The SPGB is opposed to reformism because: (a) it makes capitalism run more smoothly (b) it is the capitalists who pay for reforms and decide which ones, and (c) we have had them for 150 years and they have not led to Socialism and never will. At most they are a temporary appeasement to some sections of the working class and can be withdrawn, e.g. free milk for schoolchildren. Why do the LPYS need [a] “radical Labour Government” to push a reformist programme? Surely the Tories and Liberals have a better record on that count? Can you imagine the fury of the left if we had a Tory government now with a £6 limit and 1¼ million unemployed?

Nationalization is a main part of the Labour programme but it is irrelevant to the working class. Are workers for British Rail any better off because they are exploited by the state? Nor does nationalization bring Socialism any nearer. Lenin admitted that what existed in Russia was state capitalism. The LPYS have misconceptions about the state. To them it is something which, if you push hard, will do what you want. But it is a coercive body to maintain the rule of law, i.e. protect private property society. I refer you to Engels’ Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. The LPYS have the idea that with good leadership and 10 million trade unionists you can combat capital and take it over, leading to the promised land. The SPGB rejects leadership and insists on the majority understanding Socialism before it can be established. No need for intellectuals, vanguardists, élitists, Trots etc. Understanding is the key.

The LPYS hold that inflation is caused by rising prices; but a wage is a price. It is caused by the depreciation of the currency — printing paper money. Unemployment is a normal part of capitalism but the LPYS want to fight it. How? It provides a reserve industrial army for when production picks up again, and it tends to keep wages down. Taxation is not a concern of the working class; it is a levy on wealth and the burden of taxation falls on the owners of wealth, the capitalists. LPYS ideas are not new. They should learn the lessons of history. The SPGB holds that Socialism is not only possible but the essential step if mankind is to progress.

LPYS Opening Statement

The SPGB rejects leadership yet goes to some lengths to put forward its ideas — this is playing with words. Leadership means offering a way forward; we have no ability to enchain the working class, only ideas and a political programme to offer them. The Labour government has false policies and is on the wrong course — we try to change these policies within the Labour movement. The LPYS have their own conferences, programmes and policymaking bodies.

The LYPS believe themselves to be socialist. We believe unemployment, rising prices, poverty, can only be solved by a fundamental transformation of society, in the direction of socialism. What’s stopping us? The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself and there is only a minority of socialists. It is absolutely true that the Labour Party has not led to socialism. Nor has the SPGB. It is necessary for the socialist movement to work within the labour movement putting forward the day-to-day interests of the working class, but it is necessary both to build understanding and to relate this to the struggles of workers. The LPYS attempt to do this. We don’t talk of solving unemployment in the framework of capitalism, we explain the need to take over the means of production and run them in the interests of the working class. SPGB history shows they have done service to the labour movement in the field of propaganda if in no other. The method of Marxism shows that during times of capitalist boom (the 1950s) workers aren’t interested in revolution, but they are in desperate economic crisis (e.g. 1848). The present crisis gives some hope of the working class questioning the basis of society but there is no certainty of this.

The SPGB contradicts itself by supporting trade-union action and not reform action. The trade unions are not revolutionary and yet Socialists work in them. In the same way the Labour Party is not revolutionary yet we work within it. Labour Party policies are no different from Tory policies, but radicalization will multiply as the crisis deepens. To cut yourself off from the Labour Party and the trade unions is to cut yourself off from the organized working class.

The SPGB likens reforms to crumbs from the capitalist table; if capitalists had infinite ability to give crumbs, socialism would be forever a dream. Marx hailed the 10-hour-day as a political reform, it was an indication to the working class of how to act. Would the SPGB support the 7-hour-day if brought about by trade-union action and oppose it if legislated? The 7-hour-day would be one of the first steps of a socialist government. The workers should take over industry and run it in their own interests, and this only leads to socialism when workers have control of the state.

The SPGB denies need for transition period but the level of production is not high enough to do away with money, and workers will need a period of training. The SPGB says it wants the democratic way. Who doesn’t? but most workers live under dictatorships and capitalists stop democracy when they want to, e.g. Chile. Capitalists will behave like wild beasts when they see their interests threatened. We must warn workers of the tricks and guiles capitalists will use in a country. As Guthrie says "Take it easy, but take it”.

(Several questions were asked by the audience, for the speakers to answer in summing up).

SPGB Second Speech

My opponent says he agrees that he wants Socialism as I defined it, yet LPYS propaganda is full only of “real issues”. If you don’t take Socialism seriously, of course it will seem years away. The SPGB is not prepared to water down its case by pushing reform programmes as the LPYS do. If we did this we could increase our membership with the support of non-socialists. On trade unions I refer you to Value, Price and Profit, where Marx calls for the abolition of the wages system. Workers organize under capitalism to try to safeguard their wages whether or not the SPGB urges them to.

A Socialist party must maintain independence and have no compromise with capitalism. It neither supports nor opposes reforms even if they appear to benefit workers at some time. Personally I have no objection to free milk for schoolchildren but it is not the task of a Socialist party to advocate such things.

The transition to Socialism takes place in capitalist society whilst men’s ideas are changing. The LPYS do not talk of abolishing the wages system, they talk of a £40 minimum wage.

Aim must be linked to method. Socialists in countries like Spain put forward the Socialist case as best they can alongside propaganda for political democracy for Socialism and not anything else. Socialist ideas, when they start spreading, will go to all parts of the world. Democracy will realize its true meaning in Socialist society. Capitalists cannot stop a vast social movement when it gets going, especially as the working class run capitalism from top to bottom.

The policy of boring from within is dishonest. I submit that the LPYS have no separate identity from the Labour Party and that they carry out their own rule “to secure the support of young people for the principles and policy of the Labour Party.”

LPYS Second Speech

We try to relate our programme to the day-to-day needs of working people. The SPGB reacted against the split in the 19th century socialist movement by resorting to preaching the final end without involving themselves in the mass movement.

On the question of taxation when VAT was introduced the retail price index did go up and this obviously would cause hardship to workers who could not get increases in wages. You have to support the working class on such issues.

The LPYS demand ‘“Work Or Full Pay” is not achievable within capitalism. It requires a transformation of society, but it is a reform attractive to workers who have no conception of Socialism. We base ourselves on not forming a party away from the main movement. Otherwise, no-one listens to you.

We agree that nationalization is state capitalism and that capitalists get their income in the same way as if they owned shares, but if the commanding heights of the economy were taken over that situation would be transformed. We would be prepared to give a better deal at the Social Security to poor workers with a few shares, say in ICI, to supplement their income. Nationalization is a necessary first step. There are just not enough resources available to immediately abolish money, and there will have to be a transition period with certain inequalities.

With the deepening economic crisis the working class is going to move to the left, and you have to be there explaining the need for the transformation of society. If not then you’re writing off the working-class movement.

As regards boring from within, the Labour Party has capitalist-minded leaders but the working class don’t regard it as such and that will be the cause of the radicalization of that party. During elections we don’t stress the bad points of Labour Party policy but instead put the LPYS programme and ask workers to get involved.

It is an admission of failure to say that the SPGB could not exist in Spain. Most workers live under dictatorships. It’s all very well to talk of taking over the state but what if the generals etc. don’t let you? The need to change society will not be realized in a flash of light. You must prepare against the reactionary violence the ruling class are likely to use in defence of their privilege and profits.

Tony D'Arcy

Mr. Foot and the Closed Shop (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Times change. Not long ago Michael Foot was the uncrowned king of the parliamentary left with the Tribune group gathered round him. In the Labour Party his reputation was all liberty, equality and Up the Workers; to Conservatives he was a demon king aspiring to fearsome r-r-revolution. Nonsensical as all this was, few people could have imagined a day when The Times would have an editorial asking: “is Mr. Foot a fascist?” and finding the more relevant question to be: “does Mr. Foot know he is a fascist?”

The matter arose from the dismissal of six men from Ferrybridge Power Station. As members of a breakaway union, they were dismissed under a closed shop or one-union agreement. They were then refused unemployment benefit under the “misconduct” rule in the Social Security Act. The General Secretary of the Confederation of Employee Organizations wrote on their behalf to Foot, who is Secretary of State for Employment; and Foot’s reply stated that he found nothing wrong with the procedure:

A person who declines to fall in with new conditions of employment which result from a collective agreement may well be considered to have brought about his dismissal. The consequences of his refusal in terms both of loss of his job and of his possible ineligibility for unemployment benefit must be taken into account by the individual when he decides not to accept his revised conditions of employment.

The cries from The Times and Conservative MPS that this is a suppression of liberty are miserable hypocrisy, of course. Under the last Conservative government it was proposed to try to deal with strikes by refusing Social Security benefits to strikers and their families. The “misconduct” rule has been applied in the past to obtain conformity with government policies: during the last war employees who refused, for instance, to fire-watch at night in their employers’ premises were dismissed and refused unemployment pay. There is a further parallel with the war. The Minister of Labour then was Ernest Bevin, chosen because his standing with trade-unionists would make them more amenable to government discipline, and the “libertarian” Foot occupies the same position now when Labour-run capitalism wants extra sacrifices from the workers.

The Labour Party’s promise in 1972 to repeal the 1971 Industrial Relations Act included an undertaking to bring back the closed shop, which had been made illegal by the Act. This was done in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, 1974, with “safeguard” provisions on the lines proposed in Labour’s document In Place of Strife (1969):

Nevertheless the Commission recognized that the closed shop was liable from time to time to cause injustice to individuals and it therefore proposed safeguards . . . to protect the trade union member; it is also necessary to consider those who have conscientious grounds for not joining a union and who are dismissed from their employment in consequence.

The principal safeguard was the right of appeal to an industrial tribunal, which would have the power to award compensation for unfair dismissal. Foot is now bringing before Parliament an amendment to the 1974 Act which, if passed, will repeal the safeguard provisions. Thus, under Michael Foot, a worker who declines to join a specified union may now find himself unemployed and not even on the dole.

While The Times expresses its view about democracy, there is something more important to be said: it shows Foot to be — as we have always known — an anti-Socialist. Socialists recognize and uphold the necessity for all workers to organize to protect their wages and conditions. Far from being an instrument in that continuing struggle, the closed shop works against it. Its basic principle is that of the “wages league”, the desire of craft workers to maintain wages superior to other workers’ and hold at bay any threat of undercutting by less skilled sections.

The classic argument for the closed shop is that, when trade unions in a particular industry have obtained gains in pay and conditions, all those who reap the gains should contribute a union subscription. What can be pointed out at once is that there are advantages also for the employers. The legitimacy of the closed shop, established in 1942, was to a considerable extent produced by capitalists’ own litigation; in Trade Unions and the Law (1968) Gerald Abrahams names several cases which contributed to it. During the period 1971-74 when closed shops were illegal, in the industries where they were long-established they continued through special arrangements between unions and employers. As an extension of this, can it be said that it is in the interests of workers to have their leaders promise “wage restraint” in exchange for legislation which makes official what they are doing anyway? Or that unwilling members are of any use to any organization?

Workers should look carefully at what is happening. The Times blames Foot alone. As the former Labour minister Lord George-Brown pointed out in a letter to The Times on 5th December, “it must be assumed of course that Mr. Foot has the passive acquiescence, if not the active encouragement, of all of his Cabinet colleagues”. It has been shown repeatedly that workers in trade unions will accept and rationalize from Labour governments what they would not wear from the other parties.

They may be ready to create fury against the manipulation of unemployment benefits as a means of getting compliance, and then be placated by the thought that if it is for closed shops and ticked by Michael Foot it is probably all right. Let them consider that the closed shop is divisive and privilege seeking; and that Foot, however he has talked in his time, is a government minister whose concern is to help capitalism out of trouble.

Robert Barltrop

The Poverty of Sociology (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member has written to us as follows:

   “I have just started a WEA course in Sociology and have purchased a copy of the book recommended by the author—Sociology: An Introductory Course by P. Selfe (Nelson £2).
    Page 1 defines Sociology. ‘It studies the behaviour of people in a careful and scientific way. Sociologists study the way in which a society is organized', and so on.
      On page 55 we get a photograph of Marx and a chapter entitled ‘The Marxian Theory of Class’. It starts with definitions of the two main class groups and that Marx ‘argued that to own the means of production is to be in possession of political and economic power’. It goes on to say: ‘In his interpretation of history (which he claimed was a scientific interpretation) he placed a great deal of emphasis on the struggle between the owners of the means of production exploiting the class of wage earners. He predicted that after a succession of crises capitalism would collapse, a revolution would occur and power would be transferred to the proletariat, and a more egalitarian society would emerge. His concept of class was based on the single economic dimension — that of economic power. But sociologists do not consider that this alone is a satisfactory way of defining class membership. Furthermore, many of the predictions made by Marx in relation to his theory of class and social evolution have not been borne out. One can also question the extent to which it is possible to develop a “scientific view” of the unfolding of history and a blueprint for the ideal society. If you were to draw up a plan for the perfect society, how many of your friends would find it acceptable? Marx looked towards a society in which there would be complete equality between all citizens, no distinctions of status or class, total co-operation between all members, and the gradual elimination of any form of organized govrnment — the state eventually “withering away”. Some of his ideas have been put into a novel by William Morris entitled “News From Nowhere”.’ So much for Marx!
     As this purports to be written in ‘a careful and scientific way’, would you care to comment?”

The most illuminating thing about this summary is that practically every sentence is wrong, and a WEA student who learned it by heart would have acquired a collection of erroneous ideas about Marx.

Classes and History

“The Marxian theory of class” is a theory Marxists have not heard of before. Marx laid down two detailed propositions: the materialist conception of history and the labour theory of value. The first deals with the reasons why societies take the forms they do and why they change, and the second is his analysis of capitalism.

Marx did not argue “that to own the means of production is to be in possession of political and economic power”. The contrary is true. A class cannot make itself effective as the owners of the means of production and distribution until it obtains political power. A large part of political history is about struggles to that end. Numerous examples can be given. In Britain, the upheavals of the 17th and 18th centuries were for the breaking-down of the rule of the monarchy and aristocracy as an essential to the replacement of feudalism by capitalism. The French Revolution had the same purpose. Similarly, the establishment of Socialism requires a political act, the conquest of the powers of government, to replace class ownership with common ownership.

Nor is it correct that class is based on “economic power” (or that this phrase has any meaning). Class is the relationship of groups of people to the means of production. In capitalism there are two classes only, owners and non-owners — capitalist class and working class. Rather loftily, the writer says “sociologists do not consider” that this is a satisfactory definition of class — without explaining why. Certainly society is riddled with “false consciousness” of class: do sociologists accept these conditioned evaluations, or do they seek categories in “a careful and scientific way”? However, the alleged concern is to render Marx’s view, and his done—wrongly.

The writer shows another misconception in saying that “in his interpretation of history” Marx “placed a great deal of emphasis” on the struggle between those two classes. Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Prior to capitalism, many classes were involved. The critical struggles were not between slaves, plebeians or serfs and their masters, but between existing and aspiring ruling classes. Each time the outcome was, as The Communist Manifesto says, “either in a revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” It is the class struggle under capitalism that is a confrontation between the owners of the means of production and wage-earners.

These mistaken observations are followed by a string of assertions which might be headed “fallacies about Marx”. First, Marx did not claim that as a result of crises capitalism would collapse. The idea of capitalism collapsing is drawn from a section in Volume III of Capital, “The Theory of the Law of the Falling Tendency of the Rate of Profit”; included in the chapter is a list of “counteracting causes”, which operate separately or together at different times against the tendency Marx described. Second, the sole avenue to revolution for Marx and Marxists is the working class organizing consciously: not to get “power transferred” to it (by whom?) but to take ownership and control of the means of living.

New World

To speak of a “more egalitarian” society “emerging” is completely misleading as to the nature of Socialism. Inequalities in society all arise from the single fundamental inequality between owners and non-owners of the means of production. When common ownership is established, all people then stand in the same relationship to society and its wealth. There is no question of inequalities being removed by degrees, as the words “more egalitarian” and “emerge” imply: they all go, as an organic consequence of the change.

The writer says Marx “looked towards” a society of complete equality in which there would also be “gradual elimination” of the state. It is true that when The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848 Marx and Engels had to take into account conditions which are now different; their preface to the 1872 edition observed that some measures they had proposed would be “very differently worded” after twenty-four years. They were perfectly aware, however of the state’s nature as “the executive committee of the ruling class” and that its function would end after the establishment of Socialism. Today we can say that would not be a gradual abolition but an immediate one.

The writer attributes to Marxism the idea of “a blueprint for the ideal society” and asks if people would find it acceptable. A reasonable question — only there is no blueprint; indeed, Engels pointed out that is was not Socialists’ business to provide “recipes for future cookshops”, or tell the working class what it was going to like. The outlines of Socialism, implicit in common ownership, are: complete equality; free access to all the wealth of society and consequently no money; the absence of the problems of capitalism — wars, economic crises, poverty and the countless problems associated with it. People are at liberty to infer or surmise details about work, social life and effects in personal relationships. The important point is that whatever vision is formulated is not a strait-jacket for the entire community; Socialism will afford not a single way but many ways of life. In that connection, a final error must be pointed out. News From Nowhere is Morris, not Marx. Morris said he had never read Marx; conceivably, Marx might not have cared for Morris’s enthusiasm for the mediaeval. But does the writer not think Socialists capable of independent thought?

This is, of course, only one of a great many cockeyed accounts of Marx. The majority are found in weightier works where the author is concerned to push an economic or political viewpoint and claims “scholarship” for misrepresentations. The serious thing about this book is that it is an elementary work for students, and for a good many will provide their only information about Marx. Where do these garbled snippets masquerading as “careful and scientific” knowledge come from? They are notes, passed on in endless scrappy courses. A lecturer who hasn’t read Marx gives out the notes and comments he took from his lecturer; his students reproduce them, and any who become lecturers hand them on; one writes a study-course incorporating them, and they are turned into notes again . . . It is like the party game where a message is whispered from ear to ear round a circle, for the fun of the inevitable distortions — “Going to advance, require reinforcements” comes out as “Going to a dance, need three and fourpence”.

Any WEA student is recommended to write to us for some pamphlets and issues of the Socialist Standard that will put him in the picture, as well as Marx’s own work. There is no substitute.

Robert Barltrop

Enoch Powell & War (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Enoch Powell is no friend of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. His divisive views on race are enough to make any self-respecting Socialist shudder. Yet amongst politicians he is undoubtedly one of the more coherent defenders and theorists of the present social set-up. His opposition to government spending, for example, does not extend to the police or prison services. He is in no doubt that crime is an unavoidable part of competitive society and maintains that economies in this field can only hamper the smooth running of that system. On inflation, too, he is uncompromising. He fully understands that inflation is caused by governments having an excess of paper currency printed, an explanation given (although Enoch may not realise it) by all Socialists since Marx.

In a recent edition of the BBC’s Any Questions Mr. Powell “came clean” once again, this time on the subject of war. He expressed the view that, with nations obliged to defend their interests against possible attack by outsiders, all grandiose, well-meaning schemes to disarm or to abolish war were pie-in- the-sky; the best governments could do was to stave off for as long as possible the wars that were bound to break out sooner or later. This is a bold, objective description of conditions in the world today and we must congratulate Mr. Powell for his frankness and lucidity. What he might have added, however, is that a nation’s interests are rarely susceptible to objective interpretation. The recent tension in the Spanish Sahara is a case in point. It arose from three different nations each claiming to defend its legitimate interests. In reality the three groups are after the mineral wealth which possession of this territory would give  them. And here is the rub, for it is competition for the earth’s resources that causes confrontation and armed conflict. Do we infer from this that people are greedy or anxious to grab from others? If so, it is not natural but depends on circumstances and is not what happens in the case of wars. In modern wars leaders use the insecurity, ignorance and frustrations inseparable from competitive society to persuade the led to fight and slaughter their fellow human beings in the “national interest”, which in reality is the interest of the ruling class.

Enoch Powell is simply acknowledging what we have said: in a commercial, nation-divided world, war is inevitable. If the politicians are unable to avert wars, it is quite simply because they are committed to looking after a system that breeds them.

What is our alternative? We suggest a truly united, wholly democratic world with no nations, no money and with the satisfaction of human needs as its first priority. Impossible? We don’t think so. All that is in fact needed to bring it into being is peaceful political action by a convinced majority of ordinary people.

Howard Moss

Terrorism is not Revolution! (1976)

From the January 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The increase in the activity of terrorist organizations has produced the usual denunciation from all public figures and the press. Mr. Justice Donaldson at a recent bombing trial sentenced members of the IRA to life imprisonment; he did not spare them the additional punishment of listening to his epilogue on the virtues of law and order and the British abhorrence of violence. Nauseous cant like this from overpaid servants of the State, reminds us of Belfort Bax's description of the High Court judge, whom he referred to as "whited sepulchres in wig and gown" administering the law he did not make, much in the same way that Bill Sykes did not make his own jemmy—he only administered it.

Sir John Donaldson has probably forgotten when he was at Cambridge University he was chairman of the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations, to which the Ulster Unionists were affiliated, and which formed the government of Northern Ireland from the very beginning. Those who have followed the course of events in Ulster will know that one of the features of this government was to arrange the voting procedure in such a way that their political rivals, Republicans and SDLP among others, could not wrest political power from them, even should they obtain a majority, which in the nature of things was high unlikely. Gerrymandering, or the corrupt use of the ballot box, made their return to power at each election a virtual certainty. It was largely the Catholics being for all practical purposes disenfranchised, and the frustration of being unable to do anything about it, that produced the very conditions for violence that Sir John now rails against. He is not alone in failing to see the logic of the situation which is created by the actions of those who are now loudest in their condemnation. This is capitalist society, and we must expect every backwoodsman of both sexes and all parties to depress and sicken us with their double standards of morality: by their "shocked horror" at bombing, murder and kidnapping. This hypocritical pattern is world-wide now that practically every country in the world has spawned a terrorist organization — yet another expression of class society.

Terrorism is as old as capitalism itself, although most people believe it to be something to have arisen with the IRA. Unquestionably people are shocked at bombing and murder, but they would be shocked even more were they to look at the number of ex-terrorists who are now respectably installed as heads of government, or ministers of state, etc., within the areas of their previous activities. Who remembers the Stern Gang, the Jewish terrorists of the forties; the Mau-Mau of Jomo Kenyatta; the Algerian and Moroccan terrorists of a few years ago? Very soon we shall have Yassar Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, whose main talents consist in organizing the hi-jacking and destruction of airliners, the slaughter of airline passengers, and attacks on school-children with Russian arms, becoming a head of state somewhere in Palestine. The ex-terrorist, like the ex-prostitute who has become respectable, is more virtuous and dedicated to upholding the state authority on the one hand and while the other hand is firmly riveted to the state coffers. That's what terrorism is all about — who shall have the legal right of exploiting the working class within their borders, and who shall own and control the wealth of that community.

The fact that most terrorist organizations have high-sounding objectives like freeing the population from the tyranny of Imperialism, or restoring the rights of minorities, which incidentally is invariably coupled with territorial demands usually for mineral-bearing land or sea, does not alter the capitalist nature of their objectives, nor will it make any difference to the end result as far as the working class are concerned. A successful coup by a terrorist organization will only produce a change of masters, as capitalism will continue. The entire history of terrorist organizations from the 19th century onwards is proof of this.

No modern capitalist state will allow its authority to be undermined by a minority using violence. Only in a backward country under Colonial rule where the franchise is absent, and political representation stifled, can a nationalist terrorist organization have any chance of success. In any case, most nationalist movements are sponsored and supported by one or other of the big powers. In the world today the independence of little powers only exists on paper. Their rulers are errand-boys for the well-established world powers like America, Russia, Britain, France, and now China. There is always an antagonism between these major powers due to their conflicting interests, consequently they will support and encourage any action, violent or otherwise, which will weaken their opponents. The terrorist organizations of all countries receive aid in the form of arms, or financial aid, and ideological support in the form of propaganda from the erstwhile pillars of law and order. The present struggle in Angola between Russia and America is an example of what happens in fact.

Murder, assassination, kidnapping, are not just the preserve of the terrorist organizations. The Sunday Times of 23rd November 1975, carried a long account of a Senate Committee report on the activities of the CIA, the Central Intelligence Agency of America. According to this report, the CIA made eight attempts to have the President of Cuba, Fidel Castro, assassinated at the behest of President Kennedy. The Mafia was even enlisted on some occasions to help out. Earlier, President Eisenhower directly ordered the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo, and the assassins of Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican dictator, received vital aid and arms from the American government. President Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of South Vietnam, was assassinated in 1962 with the connivance of the CIA. President Nixon is alleged to have been involved in the military coup in Chile which led to the death of Allende, and also the assassination of General Schneider, the Chilean army chief. This report makes very interesting reading, and shows the utter disregard for the alleged moral propriety where American capitalists' interests were threatened. All governments, like the Russians, are armed against dissidence either at home or in organizations abroad. The number of coups, purges and assassinations carried out by the Russian dictatorship will never be fully known, but the savagery and ruthlessness of those within our knowledge are almost beyond belief.

Violence is not something which is natural to men: on the contrary, the overwhelming mass of people are peace-loving. They may not love their neighbours, but they have a mutual respect, an understanding and affinity with each other. The capitalist plays upon this when it suits him. If violence has to be deprecated, as at present in this country, they will open the dustbins of parliament and release the hordes of resident neophytes, many of whom, given half the chance, would bring back the Rack. This unseemly bunch of tattered intellects then proceeds to denounce violence and talk about protecting civilized communities. There is, however, a distinction which they make (there could hardly be a difference) between official violence and unofficial violence. When the first atomic bomb fell on Japan in 1945, a number of Japanese schoolgirls were boiled alive in the swimming pool where they happened to be at the time. This was only one of the hideous results of official violence. Since then, millions of people have been killed or maimed in the multifarious official violent incidents known as modern war. Where is the condemnation from these opponents of violence? There is a difference in degree but no difference in principle. An official bomb will kill just as surely as an unofficial one, yet they are silent on this fundamental aspect of violence because the are ignorant, or hypocritical, or both, but above all because they are committed servants and spokesmen of the system of violence — capitalism.

War, violence and terrorism are not instruments which can be used in the establishment of Socialism. The modern state represents the ultimate development of the social power of coercion and destruction. The armed forces are under control of the political machinery. The control of the political machinery is based upon universal suffrage. This means that if the workers vote capitalist representatives to the seats of government, as they habitually do, they can, if they have a mind to, vote them out of office. It is not that the working class are enthusiastic supporters of capitalism — their experiences have taught them to expect little from any party. It is because at the moment they see no alternative to capitalism. This is the situation Socialists hope to remedy. The establishment of Socialism is not just based on the control of political machinery: this is the end of the process. Socialism is not a change of government, it is a fundamental change in the nature and purpose of society. It is a democratic body of social opinion which provides the mandate for the continuance of Socialism.

For this reason terrorist organizations can never be revolutionary or Marxist (a) because they are dictatorial (b) because they repudiate the class struggle, and (c) because their objectives are non-Socialist. By the same token, terrorist organizations, or any other form of minority insurrection, could never succeed in removing Socialism once established. Force cannot be successfully deployed against a body of ideas. Unless the working class are prepared to stand idly by and allow the capitalists of the world to wrangle over the division of society's wealth as if they, the workers, did not exist at all, they have to get control of the political machinery for Socialism. In the meantime, let the supporters of capitalism reflect on terrorism: their system caused it.

Jim D'Arcy