Notes by the Way: Are the Labour voters Socialists? (1930)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are the Labour voters Socialists? 

Dr. A. Salter, Labour M.P., stated in an article in the Daily Herald (May 2nd), that not 10 per cent. of the electors are Socialist. He said :—

“Labour candidates polled only 36 per cent. of the total votes at the last election, and of that 36 per cent. how many were those of convinced Socialists? I wish I could believe that 10 per cent. of the people of this country desire the establishment of a Socialist Commonwealth !”

Dr. Salter correctly concludes that in face of this the Government has no mandate to introduce Socialism. But in that case, why are they in office, and why is Dr. Salter in Parliament?

* * *

A Labour paradise.

Bermondsey has long had a Labour majority on the Council. The uselessenss of the Labour Party’s policy of reforming capitalism is well illustrated by the following facts about Bermondsey, submitted in evidence to the Licensing Commission by Dr. Salter, M.P. :—

“One in seven of its residents is in receipt of Poor Law Relief. The population is homogeneous in the sense that there are no social strata as in most townships. The middle classes have long since removed from the district, and, owing to obvious residential disadvantages, a steady efflux has been going on for years of all those who could afford to remove to a more open and more desirable neightbourhood. Clerks and artizans have gone, and to-day the people left are almost wholly belonging to the unskilled and casual waterside labour classes. The middle class element is represented only by a small handful of clergy and doctors. There is no resident solicitor or barrister, no civil engineer, architect, or accountant. Most of the non-conformist ministers live outside the borough, and there is no cab-rank or bookshop.”

“Wages are very low, and the average figure for regularly employed adult male workers is well under £3 a week. At the end of 1928 and beginning of 1929 I made an investigation into the wages of 860 successive male panel patients, seen by me with regard to wage rates. I found that the average wage of those in regular employment amounted to £2 16s. 4d. per week.”

“Parts of the borough are very densely covered with a network of small, closely-packed streets and alleyways, while in other districts there are acres of high block dwellings of five or six stories, where the density of the population amounts to between 400 and 500 per acre.”

* * *

Railwaymen's leaders win a "victory" in the Irish Free State.

The officials of the National Union of Railwaymen have won a great “victory,” having obtained recognition from the Irish Omnibus Co. As is usual in such cases what the members have gained is not obvious.

The Great Southern Railway recently bought out the road transport companies which were robbing them of their best paying traffic. They promptly celebrated that move by attacking the wages and conditions of the workers in their road transport concern, the Irish Omnibus Company. The men struck work in April and succeeded eventually in getting the railwaymen to come to their assistance.

The N.U.R. officials had resisted a strike movement among their Irish Free State railway members, but were compelled to recognise the railway strike after it had begun. They then threatened a general strike for Tuesday, July 22nd.

A meeting took place—in secret—between the two companies and the N.U.R. leaders. It was followed by Mr. Cramp’s announcement of a great victory. The terms were that the railway strike was called off, all railway strikers were reinstated, and the N.U.R. was granted official recognition by the Irish Omnibus Co. No guarantee was given for the immediate or ultimate re-instatement of all the ‘bus company strikers, and nothing is said about the wage and other questions which led to the ‘bus strike in the first instance.

As we have often pointed out, the only saieguard against this kind of thing is that the workers on strike should keep the negotiations under their own control, and not entrust them to leaders to conduct in secret with power to accept whatever terms they think fit.

It need hardly be added that the Irish Free State Government, the Government for which misguided Irish workers fought helped the employers just as the British Government used to do before the Irish Free State became “free.”

* * *

St. Thomas the Martyr!

What the Labour Government has done for the Unemployed

Mr. J. H. Thomas, addressing the Conference of the National Union of Railwaymen, in July, 1929, said :

“I have been entrusted with the responsibility of seeing how far within the limits of our Parliamentary traditions and our resources of the State—and accepting the present order of society—how far it is possible to mobilise, organise, institute, and get going useful works for those now unemployed.” (“Daily Herald,” 6th July.— Italics ours.)

Three months later Mr. Thomas had done nothing, but had gained more confidence. In a speech at the Labour Party Conference at Brighton, on Tuesday, October 1st, he told the delegates :—

“I am confident that when February comes our figures will be better than the figures of the late Government.” (“Daily Herald,” 2nd October.)

When February came the figures had gone not down but up—by hundreds of thousands, which drew from his defender, Mr. John S. Clarke, M.P. (who used to worship De Leon, then Lenin, then MacDonald), the explanation that Thomas really knew all the time that unemployment would not fall, he knew that the

“world depression . . . was bound to increase before it showed signs of lifting ; that there was and is no permanent cure for unemployment under a system of private control.” (“Forward,” 31st May, 1930.)

Mr. Thomas, it appears, was really a noble fellow, “suffering a distressing martyrdom without complaint,” and lying for the sake of you and me. Anyway, Mr. Thomas’ luck was out, and in due course he transferred his £5,000 a year martyrdom to another Cabinet ministership. Now the number of unemployed on the register is over 2,000,000, which is the highest figure since the national coal strike in 1921, and represents an increase of 900,000 during the period of the office of the Labour Government.

* * *

Dean Inge studies Socialism.

Not long ago, Dean Inge was presented with a copy of out pamphlet, “Socialism and Religion.” We see that he has been profiting by it. In the course of a lecture at the Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Leeds on July 18th, he spoke about Socialism and Religion and put very plainly the fundamental antagonism between them. He rejected the possibility of Christ having been a Socialist, and the claim that Socialism is based upon New Testament teaching. Speaking of Christ, he said :— (Manchester Guardian, July 19th).

“It is hardly necessary to say that even if He had wished to lay clown a scheme of Socialism, and such an idea never occurred to Him, the conditions of Palestine under Pontius Pilate and Herod would have put it out of the question. His travelling missionaries were to live on alms like begging friars, but this proves nothing. His own little band seems to have carried a bag with money in it, and to have bought food when they needed it. Christ was a prophet, not a legislator.

Some people reject Christianity because they do not understand it; others because they do understand it. To the latter class unquestionably belong the disciples of Karl Marx, for what excites their passionate hatred of Christianity is precisely that idealistic standard of values which cuts the ground from under the feet of their savage and vindictive materialism. If Christ is right, Marx is utterly wrong.”

Except that materialists are almost always less savage and vindictive than idealists, this is just what we point out in our pamphlet. We are, however, startled by Dean Inge’s association of Rousseau and Marx, and by his statement that had there been no Rousseau there would perhaps have been no Marx and no Socialist doctrine.

Dean Inge goes on to repeat a statement he has often made, and which, in spite of being challenged, he does not attempt to prove. That is his assertion that communist-administered capitalism in Russia is the result of applying Marxian theories. It is one of the privileges of being a Dean that statements which are sound sense and statements which are clotted nonsense are alike accepted without question by nine people out of ten. This is bad for the nine people, and has a most demoralising effect on Deans.

P. R.

The Communists and the Labour Party Alliance. (1922)

From the March 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

There has of late been much talk in Communist circles for and against assisting the Labour Party into power at the next election. The position at the moment is that the Communist Party officially favours the idea of getting inside the Labour Party, but that the latter body nationally (and often locally, too) rejects the request for permission to affiliate. There now arises the problem of whether or not the Communists are to support Labour candidates when Lloyd George thinks fit to appeal to the electorate.

In the main the Communists do not pretend to believe that the accession to power of the Labour Party will directly and of itself solve the problems facing the workers. It is true that Malone, the C.P.’s solitary M.P., is of the opinion that the “few divergences between the Communist Party and the Labour Party … will soon be settled by affiliation” (Daily Herald, January 23rd), but probably the majority of the Communists who desire affiliation regard it as a tactical weapon likely to be of value to them, not as an admission that they and the Labour Party have much in common.

This kind of discussion is not new: for generations the question of alliance with capitalist political parties has agitated the minds of sections of the working class. Our attitude is clear and definite enough. We want Socialism, and we are convinced that we should not be bringing it nearer by angling for the support of anti-Socialist bodies, even although it might seem superficially that some gain would accrue.

The discussion only interests us in so far as it serves to expose the danger to the working class of following those who advocate such a course.

What is strikingly new is the claim for this idea that it has had its origin in Russia, as one of the lessons of the Revolution there. W. Paul, who for years in the S.L.P., opposed alliance with the reactionary Labour Party as a principle (although in practice joint demonstrations, etc., did take place), now that he is in the Communist Party has seen the “Light from the East” and stands forth as a convert. Lenin has taught him what his own knowledge and experience could not.

The object aimed at is, to gain the sympathy of the rank and file, discredit the present leaders, and then capture or disrupt the party. In addition, Paul has in mind the urgency of removing the Coalition in order to save the Bolshevik Government. The Bolsheviks, fully aware at last of the futility of expecting revolution in Western Europe or America, and equally aware that they will only with difficulty maintain themselves in power in face of internal and external pressure, seek to gain relief by aiding their alleged enemies of the Labour Party to gain a Parliamentary majority.

John S. Clarke, in the Worker (November, 26th), opposes the view point of W. Paul. He deals very successfully both with the lack of tactical value of this move, and with its history. His main arguments are that it is not new, having been tried before in this country with unfortunate results, and that the possibility is that the Bolsheviks themselves, far from having; originated; it, actually learned it here.

  “As a political tactic it has had an interesting history and by no means successful one. Not to carry the reader too far back, we see it operating in the year 1841. The Whigs and the Chartists met together in that year on the 21st January to try and arrange a ‘bloc.’ Three months later at a parliamentary by-election (Nottingham), the Chartists actively supported the Tory candidate, Mr. Walter, in order to deal a blow at the Whig Government.”

The Chartist paper, the Northern Star, commented as follows, says Clarke :

  “It is better at all times to submit to a real despotism than to a government of perfidious, treacherous and pretended friends. We are the natural enemies of Whiggism and Toryism, but, being unable to destroy both factions, we advise you to destroy the one faction by making a tool of the other.”

In 1921, eighty years after, we find the Communist Party seeking to destroy one “natural enemy” (the Coalition) by making a tool of another, (the Labour Party). What 1922 will bring forth the Lord only knows.

The Chartists alternately supported. Whigs and Tories, sometimes neither, and sometimes both together. In the Northern Star, on June 12th, 1841, were two leading articles advising opposite policies. We now have the Communist Party actively opposing some Labour candidates (e.g., MacDonald at Woolwich) and taking up a non-committal attitude towards others (Naylor at Walworth).

   “Chartism collapsed in 1848. The Social Democratic Federation was not born until 1885. In 1908 it changed its name to Social Democratic Party, a distinction without a scrap of difference. In 1911 it was joined by a few Clarion Scouts and I.L.Pers, and changed its name again to British Socialist Party.
  "Each of these different political parties (if thy can be writ as different parties) was practically dominated by the same personalities—Hyndman, Quelch, Lee, Hunter-Watts, Belfort Bax, Dan Irving, Tom Kennedy, Jack Jones, and Will Thorne. Each party practised the ‘tactic’ inherited from the Chartists.”

The S.D.F., alter seeking in vain for an alliance with the Liberals, went to the Tories, and fought the 1885 Election on their money, with the avowed object of splitting the Liberal vote. This very nearly brought the party to an unhonoured end, the only good that could have come to the workers out of the transaction.

This policy of political bargaining went on, with varying success in the shape of Parliamentary honours for the auctioneers of working-class votes, until in 1903 the Scottish, and in 1904 the London, branches left in disgust to form the S.L.P. and S.P.G.B. respectively. Old readers of this journal will remember that our pages between 1904 and 1914 contained ample evidence of the persistence of the S.D.F.’s peculiar conception of working-class antagonism to capitalist political organisations. It changed its name to S.D.P. without discarding its errors, and in 1910 another attempt was made to form a “bloc” with the Liberals, who, however, like the Labour Party now, were indifferent if not actively hostile.

In 1901 the S.D.F withdrew from the Labour Party (then the Labour Representation Committee), and for twelve years remained outside, supporting first one and then the other of the capitalist parties. It incidentally carried on a guerrilla warfare with the I.L.P. rather in the nature of a squabble for the spoils attaching to the disposal of the corpse of working-class independence.

The S.D.F. stuck tight to the alliance idea, and in 1913 had decided to re-affiliate with the Labour Party, when the war came. The inevitable then took place, and the B.S.P. went all out for the murder of the workers at their masters’ behest.

In due time another split took place: Hyndman and the jingo group called themselves the National Socialist Party, while the others, still the B.S.P., first worked the I.L.P., and later affiliated again with the Labour Party. Both sections kept their belief in the use of helping one enemy to fight another. The N.S.P. reverting to its old name, S.D.F., is now again urging that the Labour Party should link up any party which will endeavour to oust the Coalition.

The B.S.P. eventually formed the bulk of the membership’ of the Communist Party and that body—having re-discovered the “tactic”—proclaims amid great flourish of trumpets that if only they can help the Labour Party, to help the Liberals, to turn out Lloyd George, the Russian Revolution will be saved and all will be well. They are urged by the Bolsheviks to this course as the last word in political strategy, but, as Clarke points out, many exiles from Russia towards the end of last century were studying the English political world, and at a later date many of those now prominent in the Bolshevik Party, including Litvinov, Rothstein, Tchicherine, and Petrov, were members of the S.D.F. or B.S.P. This, then, was where they picked up the idea, which

“was conveyed to Russia, where the masses are not more, but less, advanced than they are here (vide  Lenin), and where it is alleged to have been successful in the hands of a party of ‘iron discipline,’ which is due, to quote Lenin again, ‘to a great many historic peculiarities of Russia.’ In the process of time it arrives back to the land of its birth, where it succeeded in sowing only distrust and dissension and is dished out to British revolutionaries as ‘Lenin’s revolutionary strategy’ and  ‘the adroit tactic of the Bolsheviki’ in the pious hope that the reiteration of such alluring phrases will convince the unsuspecting that they are marrying a comely damsel of tender years, whereas in truth they are being saddled with a withered-up, pre-historic hag.”

The foregoing brief history of the “tactic” is commended to the notice of those who think that the Socialist Revolution can be achieved by some energetic political wire-pulling, and by cunning manoeuvring of the votes of the “masses.” In a game of that kind the ruling class and their hirelings know all there is to be known. They have been at it for centuries, and if the outcome of it is to be somebody’s funeral, it won’t be theirs. The result of this fooling will be what it has always been, suffering and disillusionment for the unfortunate workers who are taken in by it.

The antecedents as well as the present activities of the “intelligent minority,” who, as the Communist Party, are to shepherd the mere untutored workers, are sufficient to justify describing them as in the main blind leaders of the blind. Under the guise of revolutionary discipline, that party shows just the same slavish hero-worship arid ignorant chatter of revolution as typified the S.D.F. at its worst. A recent incident will serve to illustrate this internal rottenness of the “Burlesque Bolsheviki.” At a meeting of the London District Council (October 8th) the delegates were asked to rise to their feet as a token of respect when ‘‘Lord” MacManus entered the room, and with hardly an exception the request was immediately complied with !’

Could “Jimmy” Thomas expect or receive more?

Whether these people are good or bad leaders is, however, not the important point. The particular course they are advising has in the past proved disastrous, not only here, but in Germany, France, and everywhere else where working-class organisations have left the safe path of independence for the morass of alliances.

Socialism will be achieved by Socialists; by the deliberate action, that is, of those who, understanding. what is at the root of the present evils, know what is necessary for their removal.

The existence of a considerable proportion of convinced Socialists precludes the possibility of swaying the electorate by emotional appeals. Without ignorant emotionalism there is no need, no possibility, of political leadership, whether from a traditional ruling class or from a minority of superior intellects.

Political bargaining exists because Socialist knowledge is lacking. Without such knowledge neither the Communist Party nor anyone else can give you Socialism. Do not, therefore, waste time trying to dragoon the working class into striving for an object which they do not understand;

HELP US TO PROPAGATE SOCIALISM.

Edgar Hardcastle

Here and There: New Words for the Old (1939)

The Here and There column from the December 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Words for the Old

It is a cynical world, a brutal world, particularly for idealists. A few years ago millions placed their hopes for peace in the League of Nations and all that it was supposed to stand for: the “rule of law” in disputes between the national capitalist groups and the "independence” of small nations. The great hopes which were centred in the League have foundered on the rocks of reality. The test of experience showed that the "rule of law” was applied in a quite arbitrary fashion; that it was interpreted quite differently in different cases. Abyssinian "independence” was apparently a small matter compared to the ‘‘independence” of Poland. The latter, to the British capitalists, is worth incalculable risks in money and working-class lives. The truth is, of course, that the suppression of Polish “independence” expressed a growing dominance of German capitalism and a threat to the dominance of France and Great Britain. Hence the importance of Polish “independence” to the latter powers. Circumstances alter cases. And the circumstances which influence the greater powers of the world are those which affect their own interests. The fact that Germany swallowed certain small powers which were set up by her enemies under the Versailles Treaty is in itself evidence that the independence of those small powers was part of the defence policy of the powers who imposed the Versailles Treaty. It suited the interests of Franco-British capitalism to support "independence” for these small powers. The constitution of the League of Nations gave the appearance of support for the equality and independence of all nations as a general principle. The strain which the rivalries of the various capitalist groups imposed upon the League in recent years exposed that myth. Consequently, the “idealists” who pinned their faith in the League suffered bitter disillusionment.

Some show signs of having learned from the events of the past twenty years: others are chasing new panaceas. One such is the proposal for Federal Unionism. Several prominent people are toying with it. The basic proposals are world government on a federal basis. One writer (W. B. Curry) instances the Federal Government of the U.S.A. as an example of the form the proposal might take. If the governments of the world could enter a federal union and accept the authority of the Federal Government much in the same way as the states which comprise the U.S.A. accept the authority of their Federal Government, then world peace would be secured. The limitations to the application of the idea are enormous. And to do them justice many of the authors of it are not unaware of some of them. The baffling task, for example, of persuading nations with different traditions and in varying stages of development to be. bound by Federal decisions is met with the suggestion that the Federal Union should at first include Great Britain and its self-governing dominions, France, the U.S.A., and the smaller “democracies.”

What the supporters of Federal Unionism do not realise is that the proposals contain no principle which has not already broken down very pathetically in the League of Nations. It would not be difficult for all capitalist governments to accept “the rule of the law” as a form of words. It would be in the interpretation and application out of which the conflicts would arise. There could be no guarantee that those nations which refused to accept the “Federal Government’s” decisions would not break away and form alliances opposed to it, as happened in the League of Nations.

To expect the capitalists of the world to accept the judgments of a Federal Government regarding their rivalries is romanticism. What decisions would a Federal Government make different from those the League of Nations made on the Manchuko, Abyssinian and Spanish disputes? None whatever. What law would compel a nation in the Federal Union to go to the assistance of a “victim of aggression” when that nation sympathises with the aggressor and not the victim? Advocates of Federal Unionism would argue, of course, that these difficulties would not arise. That the markets of the world and raw materials would be open and available for all capitalists, that the resources of colonies would be pooled. In short, those capitalist powers who have the dominance and the power to use it would share their advantages with the weaker powers.

We can imagine the great capitalist powers accepting a form of words which gives the appearance of that rosy picture. But giving reality to the fiction is as conceivable as Unilever sharing its advantages with a village soap-boiler.

The authors of the Federal Union proposals suggest that Great Britain should take the initiative in starting the new Federal era. Unconscious humour? Perhaps. Anyhow, Mr. W. B. Curry, in particular, might try his arts of persuasion on the gentleman who recently broadcast for the British Government and boasted that Great Britain had been at peace for only a few weeks in the past three hundred years!

An easier task for him would be to get to grips with the implications of the Socialist case: that the rivalries and wars between the various groups of capitalists in the modern world are conflicts which arise out of the competitive private property basis of capitalist society and can only finally disappear with the abolition of capitalism and the introduction of common ownership in the means and instruments of production and distribution.

Mr. Brockway Learns

 “The Labour Party are defending capitalist interests in this war, not working-class rights. They are failing completely in their duty to the nation now and to the memory of the men who, in the past, fought, were imprisoned and banished, and who died to secure us the right of democratic representation.
 “This Bill (Government Bill, suspending local elections) is thoroughly reactionary. rockwTwenty years ago I would not have believed that I would live to see a Labour Party agreeing to a measure for the defence of the ruling class in war.
  “The right of the electors is a safeguard that ought to be retained, unless the Government wants to drive the people and their discontent into channels of insurrection.”

Life must be full of painful surprises for Mr. Brockway. We should hate to add to them deliberately. But we must remind him that the Labour Party did agree to measures for the defence of the ruling class little more than twenty years ago. And little less than twenty weeks ago the I.L.P. were negotiating with the Party that does not defend “working-class rights” the conditions for the re-affiliation of the I.L.P. and Labour Party.

Nasty? Well, Mr. Brockway, it somehow does not seem to square.

The “Real” War

Mr. Alexander, City Editor of the Evening Standard, has no illusions about the cause of war: —

   How goes the war behind the war? Most of us know that real wars, with their gunfire and bombs and bloodshed, are due largely to the breakdown in our commercial arrangements to secure a proper exchange of goods and services between nations. Normal trade itself is not war.
   It is only when the failure to exchange persists for a considerable time that trade takes on the nature of war. . . .
    More than that. We must carry the trade offensive into the enemy’s former territory . . .    Where shall we strike with this weapon, deadlier than any secret one that Hitler holds? Let us go through those German trade returns! Let us find out where they sent their chemicals and their machinery, their iron and steel goods, and then go into those markets in such a way that every ship that leaves these shores will be packed with British goods—and if needs be under a merchant captain who also knows how to sell. (Italics are Mr. Alexander’s.).—Evening Standard, November 2nd, 1939.

Enthusiasts in the fight for democracy and against aggression might do worse than letting the implications of the above really sink well in.


Squaring the Circle

The following, reproduced in the New Leader (October 27th), is a copy of a memo, issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party dealing with that Party’s recent support of the war policy of the Government: —

   Actual practice proved that the “struggle on two fronts” was a contradiction in terms. The only way of carrying on the struggle on the front against Hitler was by supporting the military measures of the Chamberlain-Churchill Government. How could we support those military measures and at the same time fight Chamberlain?
  Those contradictions quickly landed us in difficulties which resulted in the weakening of the fight against Chamberlain, shown markedly in the fact that (a) the Party lagged behind in the struggle of the workers against the capitalist offensive in Britain which quickly assumed enormous proportions; (b) no fight was waged against the Imperialist aims of the Chamberlain Government and the Party propaganda even tended to support the Churchill group, the exponents of the war to the knife policy.

We like that “ . . . even tended to support the Churchill group, the exponents of the war to the knife policy.”

Very delicately put. But it was the Communist Party which, only six months ago, wanted Churchill in the proposed Popular Front Government.

Anyway, most observers would say that it was the Communist Party who set the pace, not Churchill. In Communist Party propagandist jargon it is always they who formulate the correct line; others merely follow.


Mr. John S. Clarke on Revolution

Mr. Clarke, in Forward (October 14th), brings Marx into a controversy in support of the British capitalist class. The Labour Party, he says, "has followed the dictum of Karl Marx—to fight side by side with the bourgeoisie when it acts in a revolutionary way” (Mr. Clarke’s italics).

With Marxism and Christianity to inspire them, the British ruling class certainly appear to have a wide moral support.

However, Mr. Clarke amplifies his argument: —

   When the late Herbert Spencer wrote his memorable attack upon Socialism, "The Servile State,” even he did not foresee the full horror of a Nazi regime. He did not foretell the utter malignancy of the “Socialist” bureaucrats—the padlocked tongue, the family divided against itself, the imprisoned conscience, the tortured body, the concentration camps with their electrified barbed-wire entanglements, and the hangings, shootings and beheadings for political peccadilloes.

One can understand the point of view, though it is difficult to understand Mr. Clarke sharing it.

Mr. J. S. Clarke might ponder the question: Will the sacrifice he and others call upon millions of young workers to make achieve its purpose ?

At least he ought to be sure!

Harry Waite

Socialism and Religion. (1926)

From the March 1926 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Forward" looks Backward!

'Tis said that truth, like murder, will out; likewise, that when rogues fall out honest men come by their own. These old saws are called to mind by signs that the existence of the S.P.G.B. cannot be ignored indefinitely by its opponents. In their vote-catching contests these opponents see the party of revolution, watching and waiting, rigid and relentless, ready for the time when the workers shall tire of sham fights, and the game of the professional politicians is up for good.

The rise of the Labour Party, that vague, flimsy shadow of the substantial event that is to come, has provided frankly reactionary groups and individuals with the opportunity to indulge in attempts to raise the hair of the average elector by such means as the cry that “Socialism is Atheism!” The fact that the Labour Party does not stand for Socialism in the scientific sense of the term and consequently does not deserve to be reproached with materialism is, of course, ignored. The object is not merely to score points off the Labour Party, but to confuse the minds of the workers. If they can be persuaded that the Labour Party is Socialist, then the inevitable failure of that Party to justify the support it receives will be proclaimed far and wide as the “failure of Socialism." In its turn the Labour Party tells the workers that its “Socialism” has nothing to do with materialism and scornfully disowns any connection with the S.P.G.B.—fortunately for us!

An instance of this sort of thing is to hand in "Forward” (Jan. 16th). A certain Hon. Alan Boyle, in an effort to discredit the candidature of a “Labour” parson, quotes the “Catholic Herald,” which in turn quotes our pamphlet (No., 6) "Socialism and Religion.” Instead of facing the challenge from the Socialist point of view "Forward” sneers at us as an “insignificant organisation” with probably half-a-dozen members and professes to have had to drag in John S. Clarke “an antiquarian authority” (and, let us add, ex-member of another ‘‘insignificant organisation,” the S.L.P.), in order to discover the facts about our existence.

This would be a poor world without a sense of humour and we do not begrudge "Forward” and its like their little jokes. They have so little else to offer the workers. What “Forward” apparently overlooks is that by falling for the Tory bait it is helping to advertise its most determined enemies. There are three methods by which truth may be held back—persecution, ridicule and silence; and the most powerful of these is silence. Silence, both in the Capitalist press and the Labour rags alike, has helped to keep down the numbers of the S.P.G.B., but in their endeavour to settle accounts with one another our opponents are breaking the silence which has for so long been their only reply to our attack.

Eric Boden

Rhymeating lion tamer (1978)

Book Review from the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

John S. Clarke: Parliamentarian, Poet, Lion-Tamer by Raymond Challinor (Pluto Press)

This little book, published a couple of years ago, is well worth reading containing, as it does, illuminating sidelights on the genesis of the British Communist Party and its later left-wing off-shoots.

Clarke was an extraordinary character, leading a colourful life as a lion tamer (he came of circus stock) and merchant seaman. He travelled all over the world but, although entirely self-taught, showed remarkable gifts as a writer and Scottish "rhymeater" in the Burns tradition. He gravitated to the Socialist Labour Party where his journalistic talents soon made him the actual editor of The Socialist during the first World War. With the advent of the Bolshevik seizure in Russia, Clarke was the first (with Willie Gallacher) to make the Moscow trip. Whereas Gallacher (a muddlehead if ever there was one) swallowed the Russian bait, Clarke refused to come back to England and, as editor of the Glasgow Scottish Workers Committee paper The Worker, wrote critical articles, exposed the unsuitability of Russian tactics in Britain and, above all, the lying, glowing reports sent to Lenin by the greedy job hunters of the British Socialist Party. "Information by the mass, specially preened, pruned, doctored and cooked by the officials of the old BSP was sent to Russia with the deliberate object of misleading the Bolsheviks as to the true state of affairs in Britain" he wrote.

This certainly did not suit the new Russian paymasters who, after buying up The Worker, promptly had Clarke sacked. He was the first publicly to denounce the absurdity of Lenin's tactics of supporting the Labour Party. Challinor claims to have "subjected all Lenin's statements about Britain to a close analysis" and to have come to Clarke's view. "Lenin's mistake was his belief that most British workers considered the Labour Party to be Socialist, and that this myth could only be dispelled by seeing it in office but, in fact, most British workers are aware the Labour Party is largely the mouthpiece of the Trade Union leaders, whose limitations have been known for many years. Hence Lenin's tactic was an unnecessary exercise, telling workers what they already knew," he writes. What a pity that Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Foot, Tony Cliff, Gerry Healey, Chris Harman and co., many of whom were still, up to a few years ago, urging workers to vote for the Labour Party, did not know what "most workers knew". We would have been spared the rubbish of WRP, RWP, Big Flame, IMG etc., "New CP", "Old PLC." Chinese Leninists and so on.

Clarke was persuaded by the Glasgow ILP (Maxton and co) to run for Parliament. He was elected, sat for Maryhill for two and a half years and, to his, credit, chucked it up in disgust!

Borrow the book from the local library, like I did.

Horatio 

The "Friends" of Scottish Workers (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the working class was granted the vote there has never been a shortage of busy-bodies who—hand-on-heart, have declared their ardent sympathy and interest in workers' problems.

When elected, of course, the workers become the "constituency" and each M.P. "looks after his constituency" and looks ahead to the next election. W. Gallacher, A. Woodburn, D. Kirkwood and other Parliamentary luminaries are engaged at the moment—amid other equally laudable pursuits—in pressing the post-war claims of Prestwick Aerodrome. All three are campaigning for the "Forth Road Transport Bridge and have endorsed Hector McNeil, Labour M.P.'s efforts to modernize the Clyde so that the largest ships can be docked at Greenock and Glasgow"

Other Scottish M.P.'s—with an eye on their constituency—are eloquently expatiating on Scottish needs and problems. The "Daily Express," February 15th, gave considerable space to a report of a Parliamentary debate on a Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Bill. Thos. Johnston—the mover the bill said: "In the Tradeston division of Glasgow, for example, there are 127 houses or more than 700 persons to the acre." He said: "The measure won't bring a new Jerusalem to Scotland, but would assist local authorities to deal with problems." In short, a confession of impotence unuusal in its frankness. In the came report there is a gem of a phrase coined by Campbell Stephen, I.L.P., M.P.:— "We in Scotland have had a raw deal. Our association with England has not given us an opportunity to deal with housing and industry." Characteristically, however, W. Gallacher, M.P., capped the lot with "Effete Sassenachs were incapable of dealing with the planning problems which confronted them in Scotland and in consequence the Sturdy Scot had been bound hand and foot and dragged behind them in this miserable bill." He then went on to talk about the class war, which, he said, had done a thousand times more damage that the War.

Have the Scottish workers any doubts that Gallacher, Woodburn, Campbell-Stephen and Co., are really interested in working class affairs? Could they have?

Those of them who have, however vaguely, identified Socialism with an international outlook will be bewildered at Gallacher's talk of "effete" Englishmen and "Sturdy" Scots, particularly in view of his later and inexplicable reference to a class war.

They will think of "effete" "Scots," who bide here in Scotland for the "Glorious 12th" and "sturdy" Englishmen who "carry hods" here all the year round.

Supporters of the "Socialist" I.L.P. should feel uneasy about Campbell Stephen's "Our association—hasn't given us an opportunity."—They will, or should wonder who "Our and us" means and conclude that if it was Scottish workers—that is was Capitalism rather than association with England that had been and still is the source of working class problems.

The England, Irish, Welsh and American capitalists with investments in Scottish aviation, building, shipping and transport will applaud the efforts of the Scottish Communist, Labour and I.L.P. M.P.'s.

Kirkwood has already earned the title of "M.P. for John Brown's" among Clydeside workers: now it will be Woodburn "M.P. for Scottish Airways," McNeil "M.P. for Clyde Trust" and Gallacher "M.P. for Arrols and Wimpey's."

What all this has to do with the interests of the working class in Scotland no one knows. Perhaps the M.P.'s could tell us?

It certainly does not require genius or a microscope to perceive that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owning workers and a minority who are non-working owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large concerns whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world.

Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" concerns merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.

The Scottish workers don't have to attend a University to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "clearances" referred to by Marx in biting terms in "Capital" (Vol. 1), are any less brutal and avaricious than their English counterparts. Or do they?

Thos. Johnston's burning indictments of the Scottish ruling class make curious reading nowadays when he is Secretary of State for Scotland and seems to be on terms of easy familiarity with the present scions. The same remark applies to old copies of the "Forward" during his period of editorship.

There is a story told by John S. Clarke regarding Lenin's estimate of Gallacher in which he described Gallacher as a "_____ fool"; a story which Gallacher repudiated indignantly and inexplicably as "an insult to Lenin." Whether the story is true or otherwise is unimportant but at least reflects a view of Gallacher, increasingly common, among workers with memories and intelligence.

The ability of the Gallachers, Johnstons, Maxtons, Kirkwoods in getting away with their anti working class nonsense and buffoonery rests on the—as yet, political ignorance of the Scottish workers.

Their political and social interests—like their fellows everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy.

The political power that enables the privileged class to retain their social privilege is vested in control of the machinery which has its centre in Westminster.

This fact enables the Scottish, English and Welsh working class to co-ordinate their task of intelligently wresting this supremely vital control of political machinery from the hands of their class enemies—the masters; a co-ordination which has a fit and ready instrument in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The duty of the Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise in the Socialist Party democratically to take over power to establish Socialism.

Capitalism in Scotland, in England, America, Germany, Russia, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on.

These problems arise with sublime impartiality as to forms of government, climate and previous political history, they arise in democracies and dictatorships in the two hemispheres and in big and wee countries.

The Socialist analysis and solution is international in scope and outlook and the only way in which the Scottish workers can assist their fellows in India and Greece as elsewhere is to study, understand and organise for Socialism. As they do so, the boloney of the Labour, I.L.P. and Communist M.P.'s will become clearly apparent. "Our" problems are the problems arising from the capitalist nature of Society which is now world-wide and the solution for "us"—World Socialism in which wealth will be produced, controlled and enjoyed by all.

Thomas Anthony.

A Scotch Broth of Peculiar Composition (1944)

From the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the war nears its climax, the capitalist political representatives—and their sidekicks—are doing a lot of jockeying for place and power in what they consider will be the political set-up. In Scotland, as in England, recent events in Parliamentary by-elections have indicated clearly that the working-class electorate are not whole-heartedly enamoured of the National-cum-Labour Government. A definite swing of the pendulum "leftwards" has been observed, and a post-war continuation of that process has been envisaged. The "Commonwealth" movement has had some measure of success in stealing the thunder of the Labour and Communist Parties. This organisation, which receives the financial backing of Sir Richard Acland and other rich men, has made attempts—with varying degrees of success—to take united Parliamentary action with the other reformist organisations, the Labour Party, Communist Party and I.L.P. "Commonwealth" spokesmen have, of course, demonstrated their confusion and invincible ignorance of what the term "commonwealth" means. To them it means anything and everything, from State ownership to public utility corporations—in a word, anything but the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.

Enchanted, apparently, by the measure of success which has attended the efforts of Acland and Co. yet again to beguile the workers, a "Scotch broth" of various "lairds," "literary men, Communist gents and Labour politicians have arisen in Scotland in the form of a "Declaration on Scottish Affairs," in which various problems are discussed and palliatives set forth. The ancient slogan, "Scottish Home Rule," is revived from its centuries-old semi-torpor, and blazoned forth to an —as yet—incredulous working class. This specious document contends initially that "Scottish conditions are not identical with English conditions," a masterly and illuminating observation! In support of this, various evidence is adduced: "Hill farming, forestry and fishing are more important than in the South"; "depopulation of the Highlands is an entirely Scottish question"; "The Scottish housing question is different in scale." The solution to these perplexing anomalies is modestly claimed to be: "A Scottish legislature and Government should be established to deal with Scottish affairs, and that Scottish representation in the Parliament of the United Kingdom should be retained."

We have heard all this before, in varying guises. Yes, my Lords and Ladies and inspired Commoners, your "fresh" Scottish fish stinks of crumbling antiquity! It was also claimed by the Irish Nationalists over long years, that the problems of the Irish workers were uniquely different from the other workers of the world. After years of bloody struggle the Irish Nationalists—to some extent—had their way, with what results? Are not poverty and unemployment inevitable accompaniments of wealth and leisure in the "Emerald Isle"? Are slums, poorhouses, pawnshops, diseases, malnutrition and the other horrible characteristics of modern society the exclusive product of Scotland, Ireland or any other country in the world?

An amusing reflection that strikes me on examining the "Home Rule" claims is the one that arises when they claim that Home Rule for Scotland will result in more work. More work for whom?—for the Lords, Dukes, ladies, authors and Labour politicians who modestly sign the declaration? No! As is usual, for the already over-worked working class of Scotland! It could be thought that, at least, it had occurred to John S. Clarke (one of the signatories) that what is wrong with the working class is not lack of work, but their divorcement from the means of wealth-production. To talk of Scottish, as opposed to English, interests is to gloss over, to ignore the basic conflict of interests that inevitably arises from the structure of capitalism. The defenders of capitalism adopt sundry devices to hide this fundamental class-antagonism, and one of the handiest ones has been for years to play on the difference of nationality and seat of government. The defence against this stratagem is, as always. the re-statement of the Socialist case and an iron confidence in the working-class ability eventually to solve their own problems without the assistance of Lairds and Lords, or leaders.

Thomas Anthony.

Letter: Naked truth (2000)

Letter to the Editors from the October 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

I was impressed by David A. Perrin's history of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, well researched and well written. But I have a cavil relating to myself. He says my book. The Origins of British Bolshevism hardly gives a mention to the formation of the SPGB. This is correct. But surely the SPGB has never claimed to be Bolshevik, and therefore stood outside the remit of my frame of reference.

Moses Baritz was mentioned in the book because in those days the Left was inhabited by weird and wonderful creatures. Socialism at that time was a strange idea and consequently tended to attract strange individuals.

David Perrin could perhaps have said that I gave much more prominence to another eccentric—John S. Clarke—one of the SLP early leaders. I even wrote a short biography about him. It was entitled John S. Clarke: Parliamentarian, Poet and Lion-tamer. The Glasgow Herald, in its obituary of him, stated Mr Clarke claimed to have been the youngest and oldest person to enter the lion's den. He had around his body many scars which attested to the nature of his trade. On one occasion he was bowled over by a tiger with toothache. With the animal towering over him, he stroked it and pulled out the offending tooth.

One of my subsidiary reasons for writing his biography was that I hoped it would act as a model to other parliamentarians. In my opinion, British politics today would be much better if more Members of Parliament took up lion-taming, preferably specialising in tigers with toothache.

Then there was the SLP's general secretary Frank Budgen. He published the first cheap edition of The Communist Manifesto. He was a friend of the great Irish writer, James Joyce, who wrote a poem which begins "Oh, boozy Budgen and canvas dauber." He earned his living as an artist's model. I have a drawing of Frank Budgen naked, but, after much heart-searching, I decided not to include it in The Origins of British Bolshevism.

It might have tempted the general secretaries of other political parties to cast off all garments. That would have created the ultimate obscenity. For instance, would members of the SPGB like so see, plastered everywhere, drawings of their general secretary stark naked?

Raymond Challinor, 

Whitley Bay, Tyne & Wear