SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the January 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the March 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

As per usual when posting old meetings from old Standards, I don't have enough space in the label section of the blog to list all the speakers and all the branches, so I have to play favourites. My bad.

It's interesting to note that two of the meetings advertised feature speakers who were not originally from the UK. All too often during this period  - and before and after, to be frank - the SPGB were accused of simply being a British and its Commonwealth/former Empire phenomenon. Lewisham Branch featured a meeting on Tito's Yugoslavia, where the speaker was Remy Starc, who I believe was Slovenian, and Paddington Branch featured a meeting on the Italian working-class movement where the speaker was 'Beppe'. Unfortunately I don't have any further information about this speaker. That meeting would have been especially interesting to me, 'cos it was only a couple of years after Visconti's film, 'Rocco and His Brothers'.

On the subject of films, I notice that both Birth of a Nation and October are listed on the meetings page. I'm guessing this refers to the Griffin and Eisenstein's films. The film, The German Story, which was shown at the SPGB's Wembley Branch was a 1956 East German film which was banned in West Germany because of its subject matter.

Adding some background to some of the SPGB speakers featured in the March 1962 Socialist Standard, listed below are links to a number of their obituaries. Yep, grim I know:

• Aug 1995: Edgar Hardcastle (E. Hardy)
• Jun 1976: Gilbert McClatchie ('Gilmac')
• Nov 2003: Cyril May (C. May)
• Feb 1996: Harry Young (H. Young)
• Apr 1982: Tony Mulheron (T. A. Mulheron)
• Oct 2006: Joe Richmond (J. Richmond)
• Jun 2008: Robert Russell (R. Russell)

SPGB Meetings (1963)

Party News from the December 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

Sam Orner and Len Fenton were both longstanding members of the World Socialist Party of the United States, who were obviously paying a fraternal visit to the comrades in Britain. For more background on them both, their obituaries give some flavour of their contribution to the cause:

• Sam Orner (October 1973 Socialist Standard)
• Len Fenton (World Socialist Review #21)

SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the December 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1961)

Party News from the April 1961 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1966)

Party News from the March 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1957)

Party News from the October 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The Union Movement's 'E. J. Ham' mentioned above was Jeffrey Hamm, who eventually succeeded Oswald Mosley as leader of the Union Movement. There's a very brief mention of the debate in the December 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard. I'm presuming the debate passed without too much incident. There were 150 people in attendance.

Obituary: Joe Richmond (2006)

Obituary from the October 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Joe Richmond died a few months ago. He was a marvellous member. He taught me what little I know about the Materialist Conception of History and he was the best member I ever heard on Engels’s Transformation From Ape To Man. He was a great guy. He was a shipwright on the Clydeside and came across the socialist case from a trade union background (as an apprentice he has been involved in the unofficial – and illegal – 1944 apprentices’ strike). He later became a school teacher. I remember him best as a lecturer at the Glasgow branch rooms in Berkeley Street using fretwork pieces of wood to show how the continents were formed. Years later on television I saw the same thing. He was also an attender at various classes on philosophy at extra-mural Glasgow University courses where he embarrassed the lecturers with his corrections about the works of Hegel, Engels and Marx. After retiring Joe emigrated to Australia to be near his two sons. He rejoined the Socialist Party and kept up his interest in political matters. We have had many great members, he was one of the best. To his wife Anna and his children we extend our sympathies.

Thanks a lot Joe,

Richard Donnelly

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the April 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1958)

Party News from the October 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letters: Let them eat meat (1995)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Let them eat meat 

While substantially agreeing with Adam Buick’s analysis of the question of animal rights in the April Socialist Standard and in particular with the view that in a non-profit socialist society of production for use cruelty to animals can be expected to stop, I cannot agree that in such a society most human beings are necessarily going to continue to eat meat, as the article states. They may of course, but then they may not. And it is not a good argument to say, as the article does, that they will because they always have done. History shows perpetual change in human ideas and practices and one of the main points about socialism is that it will allow people to transform many aspects of the societies they have lived in.

Furthermore, it is not part of the Socialist Party’s agreed case that in socialism people will eat meat. This is a detail one can only speculate and express a personal opinion on. It should not therefore appear as other than a personal opinion in a journal whose articles express the agreed view of the organisation.

And how different in the end is what Adam Buick says from a recent anti-vegetarian letter in the Western Mail which stated: "In truth, it [an end to the farming of animals] will never happen because you want your chicken and chips, your lamb cawl and your Sunday roast."? 

Howard Moss,

Swansea

Reply:

The article wasn't "anti-vegetarian". It didn’t criticise people for being vegetarians. Quite the contrary. It said that vegetarianism was a perfectly legitimate personal choice (which had been made by some Socialists) and that the debate would continue into socialism where individuals would make their own choice as to whether or not to abstain from eating meat.

As you correctly point out, the Socialist Party as an organisation has no policy on vegetarianism; we are neither for it nor against it. We don’t presume to tell people what they should eat and what they should not eat; that’s a purely personal decision, it's entirely up to individuals as individuals. This implies, however, that some will choose to abstain from meat while others won’t. We equally respect both decisions.

Will this diversity of decision continue into socialism? You say that to answer "yes" is merely to give a personal opinion, but it can also be seen as—and was meant to be so taken—a reasonable assumption that can be made equally by a vegetarian as by a non-vegetarian.

But if some people are going to eat meat in socialism then animals are going to have to continue to be raised to be eaten in socialism. Not to have faced this, in an article on animals rights, and to have replied "the problem probably won't arise because by then we could all be vegetarians" would have been a cop-out. Besides, it would have infringed the neutrality we as an organisation maintain between vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

Editors

Hunting and killing at Tescos

Dear Editors,

As a Socialist Party member and a vegan, I'm afraid that I am forced to take issue with some of the points raised by Adam Buick in his article "Do Animals Have Rights?" (April Socialist Standard).

Firstly, it is highly debatable whether humans "have always eaten meat". There is a good body of evidence to suggest that early humans lived primarily, if not solely, on nuts, fruits and berries—a reasonable assumption, given that we are descended from herbivorous primates. The length of the human intestine, as compared with the much shorter bowels of obligate carnivores in, say the cat family, suggest that it is designed to deal with slowly digested vegetable matter rather than fibre-free meat.

Secondly, it is disingenuous to compare a human being eating meat to a fox eating a rabbit—as I have already stated, certain animals are obligate carnivores who cannot derive sufficient protein from plant sources. Human beings are not—and we are capable of making moral choices regarding our diet. In any case, visiting the meat counter at Tesco scarcely equates to hunting and killing one’s own food!

Adam Buick is, of course, quite correct to state that animals are cruelly treated largely because of the need for farmers to produce profitably. However, does he seriously believe that sufficient meat can be produced to satisfy the world's population even under socialism without the need for some kind of factory farming? Readers are doubtless familiar with the arguments that land can be used far more efficiently to produce plant proteins than to raise animals—that's even allowing for the intensive farming of animals which we all know takes place under capitalism. How much more inefficient in terms of land use would it be to attempt to farm only free-range animals?

Further, I would suggest that, just as farmers are compelled under capitalism to try and make a profit, so most of those who work in the meat industry do so in order to survive rather than because they enjoy it. With the need to work for a wage being removed by socialism, how many people will be prepared to continue killing animals when other essential and more rewarding work needs to be done? Those who wish to eat meat will of course be free to do so—however. they may well find that's this necessitates killing it themselves as few other people will be willing to do it for them.

Finally, Adam Buick is doubtless aware that vegetarianism is already growing at a rapid rate— particularly among young women. This means that’s more and more children are being brought up as vegetarians, which will almost certainly accelerate the trend. I feel that’s Adam Buick's comment that's "most humans are obviously going to continue to eat some meat" will be proved wrong quite soon— possibly even within his lifetime. 

Shane Roberts,

Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex

Reply:

Have humans "always eaten meat"? That depends on what you mean by "humans". Members of the existing—and only surviving—human species. Homo sapiens, have always eaten meat. We evolved not more than 100,000 years ago. but preceding species of Homo had been eating meat for many hundreds of thousands of years before that.

Going back even further, it is indeed true the now extinct species of upright-walking apes from which we are descended would have been mainly, but not exclusively (since even today chimpanzees eat meat, when they can get it), eaters of nuts, fruits, roots, etc. But at some point our ancestors began to add more and more meat to their diet. Most anthropologists see this changed diet as a key factor in the evolution of pre-humans into humans. Richard Leakey, for instance, writes in his book with Roger Lewin, Origins Reconsidered: 

  “Although some anthropologists argue that regular meat eating was a late development in human history. I believe they are wrong. I see evidence for the expansion of the basic omnivorous hominid diet in the fossil record, in the archaeological record, and. incidentally, in theoretical biology . . .
   "The initial expansion of brain size in hominids. which established the genus Homo, was more mundane. It concerned an adaptation that required more complex behaviour: the hunting-and- gathering way of life in embryo. But it also fueled itself, in a kind of positive feedback. Part of Bob Martin’s thesis about a species' ability to afford a large brain is that it must have a stable environment. stable in terms of food supply. Stable and nutritionally rich. The robust australopithecines managed to stabilise their food supply in the new prevailing environment 2.5 million years ago but their tough plant foods were not rich nutritionally. By broadening the diet to include meat, early Homo achieved both stability and rich nutrition. Meat represents high concentrations of calories, fat and protein. This dietary shift in Homo drove the change in pattern of tooth development and facial shape. The links in the chain join up yet more closely.
  “Our ancestors achieved this dietary shift through technology, and thus opened the road to the potential—but. remember, not inevitable—development of yet bigger brains."

In other words, modern anthropological research and theory confirms the 19th century view, as summarised by Engels in The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man, that “with all due respect to the vegetarians, man did not come into existence without a meat diet”.

This is not a reason, we hasten to add. why people should not be vegetarians. One of the features of human behaviour is flexibility and we could all become vegetarians if we chose to. even though our distant ancestors had to eat meat for this flexibility to evolve. If this happens. as you seem confident it will, then Engels would no doubt see this as a neat example of the negation of the negation. 

Editors

Socialist cops & prisons?

Dear Editors,

Having read Adam Buick’s "Do Animals Have Rights?", I now know why so many animal rights activists so deeply distrust socialists. Of course neither human workers nor animals are born with natural rights. Such rights as they enjoy are the results of centuries of bitter struggle; by virtue of its power the capitalist class has the right to do anything it can get away with including exploiting animals and workers on a massive scale. Just as socialists want an end to the exploitation of workers so the animal rights movement wants an end to the exploitation of animals. Many want both as is evidenced by the slogan “Animal Liberation. Human Rights—One Struggle. One Fight!"

Adam Buick appears to oppose suffering and cruelty, but what can be more cruel and involve more suffering than raising an animal with the utmost care and kindness and then killing and eating it? If a socialist world is to be one without suffering and cruelty then the imposition of suffering and cruelty on animals by humans must end! And the debate isn’t just about the higher land mammals—it’s about sea mammals, insects, fish, reptiles and amphibians all of which appear on somebody’s dinner table. And “eccentrics" is a term of abuse not a scientific Marxist category, many people regard socialists as eccentrics but that does not invalidate socialism anymore then the alleged eccentricity of the animal rights movement rules out its argument.

On what evidence does Adam Buick base his claim that humans have always eaten meat and will continue to do so? The shape of our teeth, our lack of claws, the length of our get. the tiny genetic difference between ourselves and the vegetarian great apes, indicates the diet of the first humans was vegetable and that meat eating was a fairly late development caused possibly by food shortages resulting from climatic changes. Furthermore. many people do not associate the burger on their plate with the animal from which it comes. Many become vegetarian when they discover the shocking truth. And when was Adam Buick last on a farm? Farm animals aren't fed on vegetation and scraps unacceptable to humans—they’re fed on grains and beans which could be used far more efficiently by being eaten by humans. And it makes better economic sense to rear goats and sheep on marginal land for their milk rather than their meat.

It’s nice to know vegetarians will be free to put their case in a socialist society. But what if we employ civil disobedience? Will socialist cops kick and baton us and throw us into socialist prisons? And what of blood sports, vivisection and the trade in fur, skins and shells? Will such horrors continue in a socialist society?

Adam Buick is right when he says the problem is capitalism and socialism is the answer. But if he is to convince animal rights activists of this his critique needs to be far more informed and sympathetic.

Terry Liddle

London SE9

Reply:

What are you talking about? There won't be any cops or prisons in a socialist society. Nor will there be any trade in furs or anything else.

Editors

Calling an old comrade

Dear Editors,

I admired Paddy Small (Letters. March Socialist Standard) for his craftsmanship, his steadfastness to his principles, his support of his union and of the Socialist Party. I owe him a personal debt for guiding me to the Socialist Party and for helping me to acquire a Socialist library and helping me to understand it.

I would like to contact him again, so would it be possible to insert the following appeal in the Standard:

"Dear Paddy. 

Your recent letter to the Standard has really opened the floodgates of my memory. I would dearly like to write to you and share our experiences since last we met. Please write to me at: 26 Fig Street. Dromana. Victoria 3936. Australia.

Yours Aye. Joe Richmond." 

Party News Briefs (1957)

Party News from the July 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

London Propaganda. A series of indoor meetings are being arranged to be held in many parts of London it is to be hoped in Ealing. East Ham North. Lambeth, etc., in addition to the meetings held in June at Denison House. More details will appear in the next issue of the Standard. The Propaganda Committee is planning these meetings on an extensive scale, and the areas affected will be well supported by the local branches. The last of the series will be at the time of the Autumn Delegate Meeting.

#    #    #    #

Ealing Branch has taken over responsibility for the outdoor station at Gloucester Road (8 p.m. on Wednesdays). First experiences have been very encouraging, and meetings have been well attended, with good literature sales. Members are asked to support the branch in this venture, which promises well.

Sunday, 16th June, was a very pleasant and successful occasion for the Branch. A visit was made to the Wallace Collection in the afternoon, followed by a social in the evening at a member’s house.

The first propaganda trip this year to Southsea will be taking place in July, and there will probably be a second visit in September.

Will all members note that as many members will be away on holiday during August, it has been decided to close down the branch for three weeks; i.e., 16th, 23rd and 30th August.

#    #    #    #

Swansea. During the Whitsun week-end a London member visited our Comrades in Swansea, the idea being to hold some outdoor propaganda meetings. Unfortunately the weather decided not to co-operate, but despite a cold, windy evening on Saturday and rain on Sunday, two fairly successful open-air meetings were held. Sixteen current Socialist Standards were sold and a number of back issues and leaflets, Introducing the Party, were given away. An indoor address was planned for friends and sympathisers, but due to the bad weather only members turned up, and they held a useful discussion on Parliamentary activity.

The week-end, however, was pleasurable and worthwhile. It is hoped to arrange a full week's propaganda before the end of the summer.

The members of Swansea Group are keen and hardworking, and are planning a canvassing drive for the Socialist Standard in the near future.

#    #    #    #

Wood Green and Hornsey Branch challenged Lyn Mostyn (Labour) and Lady Gammans (Conservative candidates—in the Hornsey by-election—to appear on Socialist Party’s platform at Rokesley School, Hornsey, to state their views in opposition to the S.P.G.B.

Mr. Mostyn replied that owing to pressure of by-election work he was busy and could not attend. No reply was received from Lady Gammans.

Neither Mr. Mostyn nor Lady Gammans appeared, although the challenge was published in the Hornsey Journal, and our challenge letter had indicated that their representatives would be welcome instead if they were busy.

However the meeting was held by us and was well attended.

Indoor and outdoor (Muswell Hill Broadway) meetings will be held during the summer.

#    #    #    #

News From Glasgow (City and Kelvingrove Branches).— “We don’t deal in emotion and sentimentality; we adopt a scientific attitude,” quoted the Glasgow Herald. The speaker was Comrade Shaw, addressing an interested audience in Queen’s Park Recreation Grounds on May Day. While Comrade Shaw was presenting the revolutionary proposition, Mr. Frank Cousins, the official May Day demonstration speaker, was dishing out the sentimentality in the Bandstand in Queen’s Park. Our audience, however, showed their appreciation of the scientific attitude by donating £2 for the purpose of carrying on the good work. It was a grand start to a promising May Day. The Glasgow membership were more active than in recent years, and about 16 members scurried busily about Queen’s Park selling literature to the tune of 11 dozen Socialist Standards. The evening meeting was held in St. Andrew’s Hall, in opposition to the Communist Party and a Skiffle Group competition. A lively audience of 70 heard Comrades Richmond and Higgins expounding “ The Socialist Way Out.” Several nights before the meeting the centre of the city was “decorated” with whitewash advertising our activities, but the Fates and the rain were against us.

A fortnight later, at Rothesay. Comrade Richmond, on behalf of the Party, addressed a Week-end School of the Amalgamated Union of Foundry Workers. His subject was “Modern Trends in Marxism.” The school consisted of about 40 trade union branch delegates, and provided Comrade Richmond with an alert and interested audience. Socialist literature was sold at the meeting, and the venture seems to have been very successful. This is the first time a Trade Union School has requested a speaker from us, but judging by the amount of interest Comrade Richmond’s incisive lectures aroused, it does not seem like the last.

All during May the Socialist Platform has been erected in West Regent Street, where large and interested audiences have gathered to hear the antidote to Capitalist Propaganda. Literature sales and propaganda collections have been encouraging, and there is a possibility of some more members airing their vocal chords there during the rest of the summer.

Phyllis Howard