Manifesto To the Proposed International Congress. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain

To the proposed International Congress

COMRADES,—

Residing as we do under the control of the “democratic” British Government, we are not permitted to send Delegates to the Congress to state our views, present our case, and defend our policy, as we so strongly wished. All the more is this to be regretted as our organisation is the only one in the British Isles that takes its stand upon a definite and avowed Marxian basis and follows a policy logically deduced from that basis.

We hold that the Working Class must march to its emancipation from wage-slavery and the domination of the Capitalist Class, by the conquest of political power. In the British Isles the means wherewith to accomplish this are already in the hands of the workers, as, despite certain anomalies in our franchise, the workers have the overwhelming majority of the votes at their disposal when an election takes place. Hence the great, immediate, and pressing work requiring to be done is the education of the Working Class to an understanding of Socialism—to a realisation of their slavery and the method of their emancipation.

The Working Class are slaves to the Capitalist Class. While the Workers produce all existing wealth by applying their labour-power to the materials provided by Nature, this wealth, and the instruments necessary for its production, along with the great storehouse of Nature’s materials -the earth- are owned and controlled by the Master Class under a system of private ownership that necessitates the selling of the bulk of the products upon the markets. But while powers of production increase by leaps and bounds, the markets grow but slowly. Hence the struggles between the various groups of Capitalists for the control of these markets and the routes thereto so that they may dispose of the commodities the wage-slaves have produced. Practically all the wars of the last three centuries, from the struggle against the Dutch and Portuguese in India to the present colossal carnage which is devastating the whole world, have had their essential causes rooted in the demands of the various groups of Capitalists to control these markets and routes.

The Workers’ share of these conflicts has been to slaughter each other in their Masters’ interests, to find a grave if killed, or be offered the degrading and comfortless shelter of the workhouse if disabled or maimed. The hardship, misery, want, and suffering following these wars fall always upon the Working Class. Thousands of cripples and tens of thousands of men with constitutions ruined by military service will feel the horrors of the struggle for existence with tenfold bitterness after the war. In the midst of the conflict the Pensions Minister, Mr. G.N. Barnes – a member of the ILP and of the “Labour Party”, and “Labour” Member of Parliament for Blackfriars Division of Glasgow – has admitted that over 100,000 men have been discharged from the British Army as medically unfit for Service without allowance or pension of any kind. To soothe the ruffled feelings of these unfortunate victims of capitalist brutality this so-called representative of the Workers said:

“It has been claimed that these men should be put on pension . . . . inasmuch as the doctors have passed them in . . . . I want to say that they will not get it while I am in the office.”—Official Report, col. 254, March 6th, 1917.

No matter which group of the Masters win the struggle, the Workers remain enslaved. The division of interests is not between the peoples of the world, but between the classes — the Master Class and the Working Class. Not, therefore, in their fellow Workers abroad, but in the Master Class at home and abroad, are the working-class enemies found.

What interest have the Workers, then, in either starting or carrying on war for their masters? Absolutely none.

Every Socialist must, therefore, wish to see peace established at once to save further maiming and slaughter of our fellow Workers. All those who on any pretext, or for any supposed reason, wish the war to continue, at once stamp themselves as anti-Socialist, anti-working class, and pro-capitalist.

Moreover, where the Working Class have the necessary means —the franchise— for their emancipation within their grasp it is clearly an anti-Socialist and treacherous act to urge them to use those means for the purpose of placing political power in the hands of the masters. The flimsy excuses so often used to cover up such acts of treachery to the Working Class merely add evidence to support the truth of this statement.

Applying these tests of real understanding of Socialist principle and correct action to the organisations in this country claiming to be Socialist, we find all of them except the Socialist Party of Great Britain failing to stand that test. The Fabian Society, with Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Sidney Webb at its head, merely wishes for an extension of the Civil Service system under the control of a bureaucracy, and is opposed to the Workers being emancipated from their slavery. In addition to supporting the carrying on of the war, both the society and its individual members readily support the return of Liberal Capitalists to Parliament.

The so-called Independent Labour Party is ready at all times to make political bargains with the Capitalists and to urge the Workers to place power in the hands of the masters. Thus Mr. Ramsay MacDonald at Leicester, Mr. Philip Snowden at Blackburn, Mr. F. Jowett at Bradford, Mr. James Parker at Halifax, Mr. G.H. Roberts at Norwich, Mr. G.N. Barnes at Glasgow, and Mr. Clynes at N.E. Manchester all owe their seats in Parliament to bargains made with the Liberals, in return for which they gave their support to Liberals in these and other constituencies. While protesting — in some forms — against the war, and now urging “Peace by negotiation”, the ILP allowed its members like Mr. Parker and Mr. Clynes to assist in the recruiting campaign.

In a letter sent to his constituency on 11th September, 1914, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald said:

“I want the serious men of the trade unions, the brotherhoods and similar movements, to face their duty. To such it is enough to say ‘England has need of you’ and to say it in the right way.

“They will gather to her aid; they will protect her.” Daily Chronicle, September 9th, 1914.

In the Merthyr Pioneer for 27th November, 1914, the late Mr. Keir Hardie, another ILP Member of Parliament, said:

“I have never said or written anything to dissuade our young men from enlisting. I know too well all there is at stake.”

How is all this different from assisting in carrying on the war? How clearly it shows the treachery of the ILP leaders and Members of Parliament!

Moreover, the ILP has allowed its members to accept office in a Capitalist government without making any protest or repudiation. It is true that their 1917 Conference passed a resolution dissociating the organisation from Mr. Parker’s action in taking a Government office, but not only is Mr. Parker allowed to remain a member of the ILP, but no protest at all is made when other members, as Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Roberts, accept office under similar conditions. While protesting against German Social-Democrats voting war credits in the Reichstag, ILP members have steadily voted for war credits here.

The claim of the ILP to be a Socialist organisation is fully repudiated by the actions of its members, of which the above are but examples.

The British Socialist Party has been just as ready — if with less success — to try and enter into arrangements with the Capitalist parties for seats and offices. At General Elections they have shown their impartiality by advising the Workers to vote for Capitalist candidates of the Tory brand in some constituencies — as South Hackney, Norfolk, etc. — and for Capitalist candidates of the Liberal type in other constituencies. The one MP who until recently was a member of the BSP — Mr. W. Thorne owes his seat to the Liberals and Tories in West Ham combining to make him a present of that constituency. In the early days of the war he, with Mr. Hyndman, Mr. Hunter Watts, and others, took a prominent part in the recruiting campaign, calling upon the Workers of Great Britain to take up arms for the slaughter of their fellow Workers on the Continent, although Mr. Hyndman admitted that whichever side won the Workers would not benefit a single jot. Just lately Mr. W. Thorne has returned from a trip to Russia, taken, along with Mr. O’Grady and Mr. W. Sanders, on behalf of the British Capitalists, to persuade the Russian Workers to continue the war on the Eastern side.

In the ranks of the BSP a division of opinion has developed, resulting, after a struggle between the two sections, in the secession of the defenders of the war – Hyndman, Hunter Watts, Lee, Irving, and the rest — and the formation by the secessionists, of the National Socialist Party. The absurdity of the title is balanced by the merit it has of showing how completely pro-Capitalist and anti-Socialist these individuals are.

The BSP has now joined hands with the ILP in a so-called peace propaganda, but the confusion and double-dealing lying behind this movement is shown most glaringly by the fact that both these organisations remain affiliated to the Labour Party that has whole-heartedly supported the war from its inception.

One of the rewards given for this support was the appointment of Mr. J. Hodge, “Labour” Member for Gorton, as Labour Minister. Within a week of his appointment he tried to show his utility to the masters by threatening to use the powers of the Defence of the Realm Act against the Boilermakers of Birkenhead, who were protesting against the rotten conditions imposed upon them by the employers.

The organisation calling itself the Socialist Labour Party has never understood how the Workers are enslaved, and for years has propagated what it calls Industrial Unionism as the method of emancipation. Its attempts to reconcile this position with its claim to be a political party has led to such confusion in its ranks that when the war broke out it was divided as to whether it should support or oppose it.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN alone takes up the Socialist position here. At the beginning of the war we pointed out the essential factors forming its cause which we have given above, and we have steadily and consistently pressed this view by all the means in our power, and maintained it upon all occasions without change or deviation. Thus we said in the first issue of our official organ to be published after Britain’s entry into the war (Sept. 1914):

“THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN . . . whilst placing on record its abhorrence of this latest manifestation of the callous, sordid and mercenary nature of the international capitalist class, and declaring that no interests are at stake justifying the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood, enters its emphatic protest against the brutal and bloody butchery of our brothers of this and other lands, who are being used as food for cannon abroad while suffering and starvation are the lot of their fellows at home.

“Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity . . .”

While in the February 1915 issue we said:

“We . . . declare again that there was nothing in the conditions of any country which justified Socialists voluntarily supporting either side in the war, and record our condemnation of such action as a betrayal of Socialist principles arising from lack of political knowledge and unsound political organisation.”

So, with our own hands clean and our every action in accord with the CLASS struggle and the solidarity of the interest of the Working Class the world over, we bring before the international proletariat our DEMAND FOR PEACE without any change of attitude or re-adjustment of policy. We stand for PEACE without reference to terms, since the fruits of Capitalist war are the Masters’, and only the pains and penalties thereof the Workers’.

The grim humour of the claim that Britain is fighting to “crush Prussian Militarism” is clearly shown by the fact that a Bill is being passed through the liberty-loving, democratic British Parliament establishing “Militarism” in a far worse form than either the present Prussian or the late Russian rulers ever attempted. Men who have crossed the seas because they refuse to accept military service are to be forced into the army of the “allied” country they may be in or brought back to serve in the army here!

To the Socialists of other countries we extend our fraternal greetings. As soon as conditions will permit us to do so we shall endeavour to join forces with our Comrades for the purpose of establishing a Socialist International Congress where Socialist policies shall be decided, where misleaders and tricksters who use the name and fame of Socialism will be exposed and denounced, where the message of Socialism will be sent forth to the toilers of all countries in clear and unmistakable terms, where the gage of battle against the Capitalist Class will be thrown down to the clarion call:

“WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS; YOU HAVE A WORLD TO WIN.”

THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF GREAT BRITAIN

193 Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1

20th June 1917

Jottings. (1917)

The Jottings Column from the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just now it is the fashion for everybody to ask everybody else to define their attitude, to state their war aims. Not to be outdone, God has lined up with the rest in so far as he has made a pronouncement as to his attitude. At least, so we are told in a “Prophetic Message" that is being circulated. I don’t know what enterprising individual has managed to secure an interview, or what pressure has been brought to bear; that, I suppose, is a diplomatic secret. He is pro-Ally, of course, as the message below will show.

“If it were not for the prayers of mine own chosen people, who are calling unto me day and night, I would have swept the people of this nation from before me,'' saith the Lord. "But it is the prayers of my people who are saving this nation and withholding me from destroying them utterly. But I am still the prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God, and for mine own people’s sake I will not destroy, but I will pour out the vials of my wrath till they humble themselves and repent, and seek me to deliver, for I am the Lord God of Hosts, and I am still the God of battles as well as the God of peace. 

Taking it on the whole, it is about at clear as anybody else's “attitude,” but I have a strong suspicion that God has told the same tale in other than Allied quarters. He can hardly be blamed for trying to keep square with everybody, as his reflections cannot be at all comforting, considering the mess he has made of the human race. If I might venture to give him a tip, the best attitude he could have adopted, to my thinking, was that of "benevolent neutrality.”

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Speaking of "attitudes,” there is no mistaking that of the Labour Party. To anything savouring of democracy they are in deadly opposition. They make no effort to hide it. In fact, they are brazen over it. Their members never seem to tire of affirming their allegiance to the capitalist class, and the capitalist Press is invariably at their disposal for the purpose of voicing their their support of capitalist interests. But one of the clearest official pronouncements is made by Mr. W. F. Purdy, chairman of the party executive and assistant secretary of the Shipwrights Union in an interview with a correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian” (7.6.17), from which I take the following extracts. Speaking on the party's attitude toward the war and the Stockholm Congress he said:

At the Annual Conference at Manchester in January there was an unmistakable decision that the Labour Party should not take part in any international congress on peace and war until victory was achieved, and then only with the Socialists and trade union organisations of the Allied Powers. . . it was an honourable obligation on all sections of the party to respect it or get out. (This latter is a rub at the I.L.P. peace delegates.) . . . They (the I.L.P.) opposed the voluntary recruiting scheme, they opposed Labour taking any share in the first coalition Government, they opposed the Military Service Act, they opposed our joining the present coalition Government; yet all these decisions have been endorsed by the legally elected and constituted conference of the party. As chairman of the Executive of the Labour Party, I am not going to meet or sit in conference with representatives of the enemy countries while we are at war. I mean to carry out the policy of British Labour as laid down by our representative gathering. That policy is to pursue the war to a successful termination—which means to a complete victory over the enemy.

So there you have it. Capitalism for ever! On with the orgy of blood !

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Perpend. Lord Hugh Cecil in the Debate on the Franchise Bill (6.6.17) “cheered himself by thinking that the Labour Party hardly ever knew its own interests; indeed, the political incompetence of the Labour Party was much the greatest safeguard of our constitutional system.” 

Gee!

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Such is the prevailing ignorance and confusion regarding the real causes of the war and the issues involved—due, in the first place, to the indifference, before the war, to matters political and economic, and secondly, to the deliberate lying and bluffing of the capitalist and pseudo-labour Press and politicians—that it does not come as a surprise to find sections of “organised” workers hotly denouncing and and repudiating each other, for all the world as if the responsibility for the war was theirs as well as their masters’.

Such a position was the outcome of the recent peace convention at Leeds. It claimed to be a representative gathering. It was. I.L.P.ers, B.S.P.ers, Labour fakers, Quakers, Syndicalists —in fact a regular hotch-potch—rubbed shoulders with each other. From such a mixture of elements nothing tangible and clear could emerge, and, as one foresaw would be the case, the issues put forward for discussion were capitalist issues pure and simple.

Of course, the mere cry, of “peace” was sufficient to rouse the Labour Party into immediate opposition, along with other organisations, some of which were allied to those represented at the convention! Can you wonder at the success of every move made by the master class ? Some want peace, others don’t. Those who want peace suggest negotiations on terms that concern only the capitalists. Those who deprecate any “premature” or “patched-up” peace do so also for reasons that only concern capitalists. The latter are usually led by the type of idiot who believe that “capital and labour ought to be reconciled” in a time of national stress, and who devote their energies to bringing about such a condition (they believe it possible!)—that is, when they are not wholly engaged in the service of capital.

A great many there are, of course, as we happen to know, who thoroughly understand the correct line to be taken up—based on a dear conception of Socialist principles—and there is no reason whatever why anyone should be left in the dark. The matter is quite ample. Yet when one examines the composition both of convention and opposition, and reflects that all of them derive their knowledge from the same source, is., the stuff emanating from such people as Lansbury, MacDonald, Blatchford, Hodge, Bottomley, etc., etc., it makes one-wonder if the light will ever down on them—whether order will ever come out of chaos.

Due to this condition of things, it is unfortunately true that the majority of the working class of Britain, despite the suffering entailed, accept and support, and very often defend, the principle of the “right” to fight, to suffer, and to die in defence of the interests of their masters.

It remain for Socialists to combat and banish this fatal principle. Only by the permeation of Socialist doctrine will capitalism and labour-fakerism, with their concomitant evils—war and ignorance-cease to exist.

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A minister, asked in the House of Commons how many British airmen lost their lives in the last German air-raid on London, replied that he did not know. Such a reply must add greatly to the general confidence in the veracity of the war figures the Government treats us to.

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Anyone familiar with the protean accomplishments of Bill Thorne will not be surprised at his latest stunt. As a versatile artist Bill is Class A, and it should not be long before he is top of the bill. His latest “turn” is a visit to Buckingham Palace to see the King. Bill describes it as very interesting. ” It was marked by an entire absence of formality or convention. It was my first visit to Buckenham Palace, but I went there as if I had known the place all my life.” That’s just Bill all over. He can adapt himself anywhere. I wonder if he went in the coat Sir F. E. Smith gave him. I can imagine the look of imitative dignity on Bill’s face as he was ushered in by the flunkey!

And what would the flunkey have thought could he have known that he was bowing and scraping to one of the biggest flunkeys in the country ? But perhaps the coat did the trick. Good old Bill! If cheek can accomplish anything you’re the boy for the job. Hobnobbing with Royalty ! Gee! I wonder what’s in the wind!

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A report is current that the extensive work of the German missionary societies in Togoland is being taken over by Scottish missionaries, and that a large sum of money is being raised for the purpose. This would appear to mean that the country itself, as in the case of Uganda, where the flag followed the missionary, will be “taken over”—in the interests of British capitalism, forming, as it does, a valuable source of raw material which the manufacturer at home is anxious to take advantage of, along with an available amount of labour-power requisite for its supply. It used to be said that “the flag follows the missionary, trade follows the flag," but, as a writer in the “Daily Mail” (9.6.17) points out, the old motto is amended in this crisis—trade directs the flag. One aspect of it that is never amended is that exploitation follows the lot, every time. The following lines by A. C. Benson should be appropriate to the occasion :

“Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free, How can we extol thee, who are born of thee? Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds beset: God, who made thee mighty, make mightier yet."

Gott mit uns! Truly we are a great nation !

May Field

Russia and Ourselves. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The situation created by the Russian Revolution is in many respects not without its humorous side. Hailed at first by the British Government as the “glorious deliverance of the Russian peoples,” the B.G. now takes up the “wait and see” stand with an occasional transition to the “come back all I have said” – both eyes being meanwhile centred on the Council of Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Deputies.

The maniacal ravings of the labour crooks, too, along with the quite-understood activities of the B.S.P., the I.L.P., and the rest, towards the Russian worker, is not without a touch of real humour. Each and all are tumbling over themselves in their efforts to advise the Russian how to make the best use of his diplomatic opportunity. The situation resembles, in some ways, that good time when the “Daily Herald” League sent Tom Mann to South Africa, during the period of the farcical strike, to teach the working class there the real art of economic organisation. It was just another example of the pupil knowing more than the teacher, with a simple reminder that it was sheer impudence that prompted the sending of Tom Mann.

Let it be said at once, the Council of Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Deputies requires no advice from the Labour recruiting sergeants on this side of the water. We of the Socialist Party of Great Britain make it plain that we are not prepared to congratulate the Russian peasant upon assisting the Russian capitalist class to a more complete dominance. True, the workers there, through the temporary dislocation of affairs, have seized certain advantages. True, also, it is, that the declaration “no annexations, no indemnities,” is a staggering blow for the Allied aims, yet we ourselves are not going into hysterics regarding it. Certainly we are not to be found crying peace talk along with those who, like Phillip Snowden and J. Ramsay MacDonald, have never ceased to vote war credits during nearly three years of mad, murderous slaughter.

Just how low down and despicable the part played by the labour crooks has been is shown by the following gem mouthed at the Leeds menagerie by one of the chosen Stockholm candidates :

“Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, moving the resolution hailing the Russian revolution, regretted that when war broke out British democracy had not kept hold of the situation.” – ‘Daily Express’, 1.6.17.

That the workers here were never in a position to resist the starting of the war chariots the merest child must know, but Ramsay Mac. took particular care that they never would stop them if it lay within the power of him and his party to prevent it.

The action of the labour leaders at the Trades Union Congress at Bristol in 1915, in crushingly voting down a resolution of censure for not having secured some sort of guarantee from the Government that adequate compensation would be provided for the disabled and the dependents of those losing their lives in the war proves conclusively how beautifully the labour fakers helped the workers to “keep hold of the situation” in the early days of the conflict. The activity of such people in mouthing peace talk just now is consistent with the laudable desire to “get right” with the war-sick Tommies, whose trade union contributions keep them fat jobs, ere those war-sick Tommies return to make a few enquiries.

That we have due justification for refusing to slap the Russian on the back, with expressions of sickly sentiment, congratulating him upon having achieved his emancipation (sic!) is clearly shown by the fact that the Council of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies despatched a congratulatory message to the Leeds conference in which an invitation to Stockholm was embodied.

Despite the dearth of news from Petrograd and other centres we are in a position to know that the Russian capitalist class still hold the field, both economically and politically. If it were not so, then M. Kerensky, clearly an agent of the Russian ruling class, would have been removed long ago. Indeed, his election could never have been even mooted by the victorious proletariat.

Signs are not wanting that the workers out there are already losing strength, as the following words issued in manifesto form by the Council of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies to the Commander of German troops on the Russian front in reply to the pourparlers with a view to concluding peace, bear witness :

“He has forgotten that Russia knows that the overthrow of her Allies would mean the overthrow of Russia and the end of her political liberty.”

—”Daily Chronicle,” 10.6.17.

Such words are hardly indicative of class-consciousness and form strong contrast to the much-lauded “no annexation, no indemnity” pronouncement.

When, too, it is pointed out that just prior to the issuing of this statement a meeting of the self-same deputies had stood up and vociferously cheered M. Kerensky, the new figurehead of Russian oppression, it will become increasingly apparent that in giving trust to such a body the Russian worker is relying upon the proverbial broken reed.

Small wonder, then, that the labour hacks in this country are so anxious to assist in their usual slimy, game of confusing working-class minds and conflicting vital issues.

If proof should be wanted of Kerensky’s little game ― and, needless to say, he has been pointed to as a genuine Socialist by the prostitute Press ― it is contained in the following extract from an Order of the Day issued by the wily Minister of War to the Russian troops:

“Remember that whoever looks behind, stops, or draws back will lose everything. Do not forget that if you defend not the honour, liberty, and dignity of the country your names will be cursed. The will of the people must rid the country and the world of violators and usurpers. Such is the high deed to which l call you.”― “Daily News,” 28.5.17.

It, would appear as though Kerensky’s mortal fear lest the wretched soldiers look back is prompted by a dread that his own game might be discovered. The chances are, to, that if he, the Russian soldier stands to lose everything, he will also be losing his chance of a German bullet. Certain it is that enough evidence has been forthcoming to conclusively prove the reluctance of a very large proportion of the Russian Army to continue the senseless slaughter which has transformed the European plains into vast graveyards.

Briefly examining the American intervention one is struck by the similarly black treachery of the labour leaders, such as Gompers and his crowd, to that of our own so-called Socialist parties. They too will adopt the same backing-out moves when peace seems imminent as our gang.

These moves, however, become increasingly difficult as the war drags on, for the age of learning is upon us. Proof of this could hardly be more obvious than the latest proposal of the Government to give sectional enfranchisement to women in order to hide the huge slump in votes that must face the master-class nominees at the elections that must follow a declaration of peace. Increasing evidence is forthcoming of the dread of the international capitalist class at the great unrest shown even now, during the carrying through of a great war ― an unrest as yet in its infancy, but which is rapidly expanding and will continue to do so.

Capitalist society is sapping its own strength ; it is staggering under the sheer weight of its own exhausting intensity. Mr. Balfour himself declared, in addressing the Canadian Parliament during his recent visit to Canada :

“We are convinced there can be only one form of government, whatever it is called, and that is where the ultimate control lies in the hands of the people. We have staked our last dollar on it, and if democracy fails us we shall be bankrupt indeed.” ― “Common Sense,” 9.6.17.

Whether Mr. Balfour does or does not believe that the ultimate control to-day lies in the hands of the people, the present writer is not seriously concerned with. The approaching bankruptcy of his class is as certain as the equinoxes. Meanwhile we of the Socialist Party will continue to fight straight, convinced that when we again face our fellow workers no man will be able to show that we have falsified, in the slightest particular, the cause we claim to uphold.

Let us not, therefore, be deluded into beliefs concerning the new Russian Constitution which we know to be fallacious. The Russian workers are still the bottom dogs, while the capitalists of Russia are still basking in luxury and idleness. A few more weeks and the dupes of the Russian financiers will lapse once more into their wonted miserable condition.

Only through class conscious organisation on political lines can the Russian proletariat emerge from their long-endured bondage. In this they resemble the workers of all other countries, and to the work of education necessary to achieve such organisation I commend all Russian Socialists. 

B. B. B.

By The Way. (1917)

The By The Way Column from the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the time of writing these paragraphs there has been going on in the daily Press a considerable agitation with regard to the prices of foodstuffs. For a whole week glaring headlines have appeared intimating to all and sundry what the great man of the “Business Government” Lord Rhondda (formerly known as Mr. D. A. Thomas, of the Cambrian Combine) is going to do when he gets into his stride. How these men who are alleged to be the be-all and end-all of great commercial undertakings, possessed of the bump of directive ability and so forth, come and go is indeed pitiful to behold. To mention two only who have recently strutted across the stage and departed, leaving behind them a record of dismal failure, one might cite Lord Devonport and Neville Chamberlain. Other instances will readily suggest themselves to students of current events.

One of the articles of food which plays a very important part in our existence is meat, though, of course, we wage-slaves seldom become possessed of the historic “roast beef of old England,” our masters considering that the foreign variety suits our tastes, and also our pockets, better. However, to come to the price of this said meat, let me quote:

“Lord Inchcape, the chairman of the P. and O. Company, has raised the question of the price of Australian meat in a manner which cannot escape the notice of Lord Rhondda.

In a letter to the “Times” Lord Inchcape states that he is chairman of the company which owns the steamers that bring the frozen meat from Australia and therefore has inside knowledge. The meat is sold in Australia to the British Government at the following prices : beef 47-8d. per lb., mutton 65-8d. per Ib.

Under the arrangement made by Mr. Runciman two years ago the shipowners carry this frozen meat to this country at a freight of 1d. per 1b. If cost freight, two months interest, and cost of insurance is added, the meat is delivered on the quay in London at these prices : beef 6 3-8d. per lb. mutton 65-81d. per 1b.

Mr. George Roberts, Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, stated in the House on Wednesday that the landed cost of New Zealand lamb in this country is 8d. per lb.

The price of Colonial lamb in London stores just now varies from 1s. 3½d. per lb to 1s. 5½d per lb. In small butchers’ shops it is more.”—“Star,” June 22nd, 1917.

Now from the above it will readily be seen that some of our patriotic capitalists are doing a fine thing out of the war. While “our heroes” are bleeding for their masters’ country, our Business Government stands idly by looking at the profiteers bleeding the wives of the men at the front, and the remainder of the workers at home. When will the day dawn ?

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The continual demand for men to keep up the strength of the Army is an additional factor for promoting the development of engineering science. With the taking from industry of men hitherto engaged in peaceful pursuits, an ever-increasing demand is made for what are called “labour-saving” devices. One of the latest of these is a machine for farms, and the claim is put forward that it takes the place of four men. The announcement reads :

“I have to-day witnessed a demonstration with a machine capable of doing the work of at least four men, and can be managed by one. It does away with “the man with the muck-rake.” There are no heaps to be spread ; the distribution is done by one operation.

The machine, which is a British patent, can spread, it is stated, a ten-acre field with manure in almost one-sixth of the time taken by hand labour.”—”Daily News,” June 9th, 1917.

From the foregoing it would appear that the war after the war will be very much intensified as a result of the advances which are being made in various directions, the case quoted being typical of many. How numbers of men are to regain possession of jobs which they held prior to enlistment, and which were promised them on their return from the field of battle, is an interesting question. It would seem that quite a number of these promises are of the pie-crust order. The scramble for work which is bound sooner or later to take place must inevitably lead to a general worsening of conditions of labour ; and the retention of the means and instruments of wealth production, including these so-called “labour-saving” devices, by the master class will be a curse instead of a power for good to the many. Work, then, for the social ownership of these necessary means of life which when thus owned will ensure more time for rest and recreation to those who use them.

* * *

On previous occasions reference has been made to the “patriotic” generosity of the master class. It is no new thing for these profiteers to seek to batten on the misfortunes of their wage-slaves. They are prepared at all times to suck the life-blood of the workers, whether they be men, women, or little children. In the course of debates on Pensions in the House of Commons some of the more honest members have frequently pointed out that the unscrupulous employer is always endeavouring to take advantage of the pension awarded to the discharged soldier in order to obtain his services cheaper than he otherwise would do. Recently I came across an advertisement which will further illus­trate the point. It is as follows :

“Army, navy, or police pensioners, or men invalided from either service, wanted as warehousemen ; wages 30s. to commence ; perm., with certain advancement to suitable men. Apply Kearley & Tonge, Ltd., etc.”

—”Daily Chronicle,” June 19th, 1917.

As some people change their names during their lifetime, and working men have a habit of forgetting these facts, let me say at once that the late Sir Hudson Kearley is now Lord Devonport, and was until recently a prominent member of the win-the-war government. Now, it is the firm with which he is connected that issued the advertisement above referred to. Does he think 30s. a week sufficient to exist on in these days of high prices ? And what of the specious promises held out to “our heroes” who “kept the Huns from our door”? Verily, the precepts and the practices of our masters are as wide as the poles asunder.

* * *

I notice that the Discharged Soldiers and Sailors Association are running a candidate for the Abercromby Division of Liverpool. The other nominee is Lord Stanley, the 22 year old son and heir of Lord Derby. It would be interesting to learn why it is that this “soldier” son of the Secretary of State for War is seeking Parliamentary honours when so many other mothers’ only sons are sent to the trenches. Is St. Stephen’s so much safer even than the staff headquarters in France or Flanders ? And where is the “equality of sacrifice” ?

The workers of Abercromby should remember that the present Lord Derby, at the time he was Lord Stanley and Postmaster-General, referred to the Post Office workers as “bloodsuckers” when they were seeking better conditions of employment. And also that in supporting Mr. Hughes, the “soldiers’ candidate,” they are voting for a continuance of capitalist exploitation and the misery arising therefrom. The only effective means of putting an end to the dirty, mean and despicable practices of the international master class is by understanding Socialism and becoming one in the class-conscious army. When the workers generally have done this and, only then, will they be in a position to write “Finis” to the anomalies and injustices which arise from capitalist society, including this manifestation of hostility toward the re-examination of discharged and rejected soldiers.

* * *

The loftiness of those noble souls who form the Cabinet and who have recently agreed to grant a general amnesty to the Irish political prisoners is nicely set forth in the terms of the announcement. Mr. Bonar Law said :

“The Government, after long and anxious consideration of the position of the Irish political prisoners, have arrived at a decision which it is now my duty to announce. They feel that the governing consideration in the matter is the approaching session of the Convention upon which Irishmen themselves will meet to settle the difficult problem of the future administration of their country.”

—”Daily News,” June i6th, 1917.

One can understand this act of condescension. With the loss of Nationalist seats to the Sinn Feiners and “our” protestations of concern and filial “affection for smaller nations,” the retort is being made in many quarters : What about your attitude toward Ireland ? It is said that America desires to see some concern shown for this country as well as for Belgium. And last but not least, it is just possible that by fixing up some kind of Home Rule the Government may be able to extend their recruiting campaign.

Notwithstanding the acts of grace on the part of the Government, a still larger expenditure of lotion will be required to eradicate the nasty taste left in the mouth as a result of the shootings in the early days of 1916.

* * *

The tit-bits that appear in the newspapers here regarding Russia and the revolution are of a very contradictory nature. However, some very interesting quotations do occasionally creep into the columns of the Press, as instance the following :

“The organ of the Council of Soldiers and Workmen’s Delegates, after quoting two English newspapers to the effect that the declaration of the Provisional Government and the pronouncements of the revolutionary leaders show that the Russian peace formula coincides with the British and French war aims, says :

“You are deceiving yourselves, gentlemen, or, rather, you are vainly striving to delude your fellow-countrymen concerning the real policy of the Russian revolution. The revolution will not sacrifice a single soldier to help you repair “historic injustices” committed against you. What about the “historic injustices” committed by yourselves and your violent oppression of Ireland, India, Egypt, and innumerable peoples inhabiting all the continents of the world ? If you are so anxious for ‘justice’ that you are prepared, in its name, to send millions of people to the grave, then, gentlemen, begin with yourselves.”—”Daily News,” May 30th, 1917.

After well chewing this delectable morsel I can quite conceive the need for sending the decoy ducks, Thorne, Henderson & Co., to Petrograd to counteract this rather frank statement of Russian opinion concerning the aspirations of their British and French Allies. Ireland, India, and Egypt ! A hit, a palpable hit, my masters !

* * *

It is recorded that the meek and lowly Nazarene once said : “A new commandment give I unto you that ye love one another.” But I read of a man of god who came many many centuries after, and who lives on the cross instead of dying on it, that his gospel is one of “tar and feathers.” He is a whole-hogger for the war, and wants two tribunals set up, one for determining essential businesses and what individuals are essential to those businesses. The scheme is to apply to single men. Those, essential, according to this divine, “he would dress up in red and purple so that there would be no doubt that they should stay.” He then says :

“Every man not so dressed he would make his life such a burden to him that he would get out somehow or somewhere.”

The other tribunal to deal with Government departments is to work along somewhat similar lines. Says Dr. Furze, Bishop of Pretoria :

“Get everybody exempted who is essential to stay, and as to anyone not essential, give him a week to get to the front or to Potch (training camp), and if he did not get there in that period, tar and feather him.”—”Daily News,” May 24th, 1917.

The scheme suggested is worthy of a Christian parson ! A mission to clergymen is indeed necessary.

* * *

Is this a joke ? The Coal Controller recently announced that now is the time to store coal. Lots of four tons may be ordered at a time, but the total tonnage to any one private house from now up to September 30th is not to exceed twenty tons ! Twenty hundredweight would be a devil of a lot for most working-class families to pay for, and quite beyond their means of storing.

* * *

Mr. Bonar Law a short while ago made reference in the House to the profits of shipping companies during the war. The shipping interest is strongly entrenched in that place, which may possibly account for their unique position. He thus unburdened himself

“As an illustration of what profits shipowners had made, he mentioned that he himself had a few hundreds invested in shipping, and last year he received on his shares a dividend of 47 per cent., which was after excess profits duty had been deducted.”—”Daily News,” May 25th, 1917.

The thought arises in one’s mind that, seeing that the shareholders are doing so well, are the seamen and others working on the boats sharing is this increased prosperity, or is their reward only the increased risk of finding a watery grave ?

* * *

Many strange and incomprehensible things have happened during the last three years in what is called the “war for liberty.” A contributor to the “Daily News” (8.6.1917) who writes under the heading of “Under the Clock” draws attention to a notice which was exhibited at the works of the South Metropolitan Gas Co. Here it is :

IMPORTANT NOTICE

“From and after this date no appointments to or engagements on the Company’s permanent or regular staff will be made until the close of the war. When peace is declared applicants for such positions will be required to produce satisfactory evidence of what they have done for their country in her hour of need.

19th August, 1914.

By Order.”

The “Daily News” writer says he objects to the last sentence, which suggests an inquisition that no private body ought to undertake. To which I say hear, hear. This is the firm where the employees have the doubtful blessing of a model system of co-partnership.

* * *

The present scribe recently came across an announcement that the Scottish burghs were allowing the sale of sterilized tuberculous meat, which was destined for the poor. Really, the poor are a long suffering lot, and one sometimes wonders when they will turn like the proverbial worm. However, to return to our sterilized beef, let me lift the following :

“While the Local Government Board is considering whether it will follow the example of Scottish burghs and permit the sale of sterilized meat, it is interesting to note that in a comprehensive report written by Dr. Howarth, Medical Officer of Health, City of London, he says : “In my opinion it would be inadvisable for the Corporation to undertake the sterilization of condemned meat with the object of subsequently selling it to the public.” –”Daily News,” June 1st, 1917.

True, members of our class build decent houses, but most of us live in bug hutches ; produce spacious and comfortable railway carriages, but are content to travel strap-hanging ; yet, at least, one hopes that our fellow workers will resent partaking of condemned meat which has been sterilized. If there is a shortage why not despatch this aforesaid meat to our old nobility for a change

* * *

We are still being urged to stave off the “German menace” by a more rigid economy of food-stuffs, and we are further informed that the latest key to victory is the kitchen. So to the whole bunch of keys already provided is added the skeleton key. But the way our masters muddle is enough to make the angels weep. Listen to this:

“The other afternoon I saw with my own eyes two piled-up lorries of putrid sides of bacon in process of conveyal through Paddington, what time such women of England as happened to be passing (and there were numbers of them) held their noses and did their best to cry “shame !”—”Daily Sketch,” June 21st, 1917.

* * *

When perusing the quotation which follows I thought I was reading an account of how the Germans treat British prisoners. The idea that such was not the case is almost unthinkable to one brought up in Christian England, and who is continually told that we English are clean fighters and love to play the game straight.

“Mr. G. Dyce Sharp writes “A story of how officers in charge of British prisoners divert themselves at the prisoners expense has recently come to my knowledge. The sister of one of the prisoners, who has just heard from him writes : ‘My brother then goes on to speak of the way in which the officer read through their letters, asking inquisitive questions about the writers jeered and commented upon the contents, and finally tore them up before their eyes. He thought it such fun that he took a fellow officer to enjoy it with him.’ These were English officers at an English barracks, and the prisoners in question were conscientious objectors.”—”Star,” June 22nd, 1917.

English militarism is on all fours with the Prussian variety.

* * *

The urgent need for men for the Army which we are again hearing a lot about, reminds us that there are quite a considerable number of sky pilots, or gentlemen of the cloth, who are firm believers in the righteousness of “our” cause and who are skulking around. Might I suggest a comb-out of the clerical profession beginning with my Lord Bishop of London, who, I notice, recently explained in Hyde Park to the procession he had led thitherward was no a pacifist one. He further stated that there were no more mistaken people than the conscientious objectors. “He had studied the Bible far more than they had, and his conscience was absolutely at peace as day by day he prayed for victory in the great cause.” (“Daily News,” June 11th, 1916.) How this divine is able to make so sweeping a statement one is at a loss to understand. His bald assertion that he has studied the Bible more than the objectors or I have cuts no ice. Then why is he so arrogant ? Has the mantle of the Pope fallen on his shoulders ?

The Scout.

"That putrid stink . . . " (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

That putrid stink is not from the corpses at the front: they have got plenty of sanitary men there. It is from your food released from cold storage by the profiteers.

The Capitalist View of the Worker. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

   The era of mere exploitation of workpeople as “hands” scrapping and discarding them when worn out, as if they were mere animals or machinery, has had its day and ought to cease. Such procedure is by no means universal, but it is far too prevalent; and the splendid work of engineering firms is too noble a service to the country to be spoilt by any such inhuman relations.—Sir Oliver Lodge, “Daily Chronicle,” 1.2.17. 

   I hope your readers will not doubt my sincerity when I say that I am out for the game and not for the stakes, and while I admit that I find business a very fascinating game I contend that by increasing the means of subsistence of the people I have in the aggregate contributed more to the material happiness and well-being of Welsh colliery workers and their families than have all the miners' leaders combined, . . .’’—Lord Rhondda," Daily Chronicle,” 7.13.16. 

   A system which renders it possible for the wage-earners to obtain too easily the money they require for the maintenance of their normal standard of comfort fails to provide a sufficient incentive. Report of “Health of Munition Workers’ Committee.” 

  The Labour troubles which are occurring in various engineering centres are most regrettable There is no real justification for them, and as the real facts get known we hope that the men’s minds will cool and that they will resume work. . . We strongly appeal to the men who are out to resume work on Monday. Their grievances, in so far as they are real, will be remedied. Fears as to what may happen after the war need not haunt them. Apart altogether from the solemn pledges of the Government, which are embodied in Acts of Parliament, the skilled worker may be easy in his mind: his future an this country is absolutely secure.—” Daily Chronicle," leading article, 13.5.17. 

   One incidental consequence of the state of war has been a considerable decrease in the number of civilian patients, out and in, dependent for treatment on the public hospitals. This decrease is a real decrease, and indicates improved health among the people for whom hospitals exist, and the improvement of health is accounted for by the abundance of food which the military separation allowances have assured to many women and children for the first time. —“Daily Chronicle,” 12.2.17.

The man in the street who may possibly have read the above Press cuttings in their context at the time of their appearance, will probably see no connection between them, nor any purpose that can he served by bringing them together. A brief examination of each item may, however, not only bring out a connection, but even prove instructive.

The kernel of Sir Oliver Lodge's statement is the admission that ’’exploitation” and “scrapping” goes on. He claims that the much boomed welfare movement will do much to remove them. Exploitation, he says, ought to cease. What is his conception of exploitation? Evidently only a portion of the workers are exploited, in his opinion—possibly the worst paid. He pretends not to see the real facts— that the purchase of labour-power only takes place because in its functioning labour-power leaves behind a surplus over the price paid for it, i.e., labour-power is bought so that the person in whom it is contained may be exploited.

Lord Rhondda, on the other hand, does not, presumably, believe that such a thing as exploitation exists at all. He claims that he increases the means of subsistence of the people by allowing the said people to work and produce the means of subsistence. The greater the amount of wealth produced, therefore, in any concern, the greater the “material happiness” of the people, irrespective of the wages paid. The essence of his statement is, however, one that is common to all capitalists — that he increases the world’s wealth by allowing the workers to use the tools of production and het raw materials of nature.

The report of the Health of Munition Workers Committee, together with the extract from the “Daily Chronicle” leading article, are both typical of the attitude of capitalists toward the workers everywhere. According to the first the poverty of the working class is ordained. The workers are born poor that their necessities may compel them to serve the capitalists. To ensure a continuance of their toil they must be kept poor—they must not “obtain too easily the money they require for the maintenance of their normal standard of comfort."

This being the attitude of “capital” toward “labour,” it is not surprising to find the “Daily Chronicle” lecturing the workers for striking “without justification,” hoping “their minds will cool,” aspersing them generally, and finally appealing to them to place confidence in the government that has given them such solemn pledges. “Their position in the country is assured after the war,” they say. Of course it is — the position that has always been theirs— material for exploitation. As such they are necessary to capitalists; without them surplus-value is unobtainable.

The last quotation is an inadvertent but withering commentary on the capitalist system as a whole. A system that admittedly fails to provide adequate sustenance for women and children except when all its resources are concentrated on destruction and slaughter, is self-condemned. With modern machinery and methods wealth can be produced far in excess of the needs of the people; yet because of capitalism, which stamps labour-power as a commodity, the bulk of the workers are unable, in normal times, to obtain the food necessary to maintain themselves in health. And capitalist newspapers cannot help noting the improvement in the health of the workers when war, with its imperative demand for blood and sinew, absorbs the human commodities that are in excess of the peace-time demand.

And now we can link up the quotations and show how they run like a descriptive serial portraying the tragedy of working-class slavery. There is little need to refer to the increased sufferings of the working class due to the war. 'Terrible as these sufferings are, we are reminded by the “Daily Chronicle” that separation allowances have assured to many women and children for the first time abundance of food: an admission that capitalism, in peace time, cannot guarantee to those who produce the wealth of society the necessaries of life. Labour-power before the war was so much in excess of the demand that men were too old at forty. After that age they were scarcely worth exploiting, and the system made no provision for them until they were seventy. Because the war has tipped the beam in the labour market, setting the demand for labour-power above the supply, we are told that exploitation and scrapping have had their day. But if wages rose till they stood at ninety-nine per cent, of the total wealth produced exploitation would not have ceased.

Before the workers can expend their energy on the materials supplied by nature, they must submit to capitalist organisation, discipline, and conditions. The wealth they produce belongs to the capitalists, who permit them to be paid out of it the market value of their labour-power— until circumstances connected with the disposal of the wealth produced on the world market bring about changes in the labour market favourable to the worker in the sale of his commodity. Then the boot is on the other foot. It demoralises the workers to earn their living too easily. Although the prices of necessaries have more than doubled and wages have risen but slightly over peace-time level; though trade-union safeguards against more vicious exploitation have been removed, strikers are told they have no justification for their action.

Acts of Parliament are passed against those workers who attempt to practice the first right proclaimed by capitalists—the right to withhold a commodity until the price demanded is forthcoming. Then, on top of all the insults and slander directed against the workers, they are coolly asked to put their trust in the representatives of the class that has robbed them— robbed them under the plea of freedom of contract — which is itself cancelled and made illegal when it begins to operate in favour of the workers.

The full story of capitalist exploitation, brutality and duplicity will never be told. But the five quotations given at least reveal the true nature of the system, the degrading conditions of the working class and the contempt in which they are held by their rulers. Such mall things as these are but as straws which show the way of the wind, but as straws have their use, so may these trifles have if the workers will only learn.

F. Foan

Letters To A Man. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Worker, - as your masters’ political agents are so fond of calling you at election times I may presume, by reason of your reading this paper, that you have at least a passing interest in “the things that matter.’’ viz., the eternal fight for existence. Being anything but a Socialist you are biased against Socialism. It doesn’t require a Sherlock Holmes to discover this fact, for if it were not so you would have joined the Socialist ranks long ago, because, as you will see, the Socialist Party is the only party, political or otherwise, which is fighting for the freedom of the working class.

Preposterous! I hear you say. But I have just cause for saying this. If a man in the street gave you a sovereign you would stay and listen with an interested mind to his explanation of why he did so. Socialism is not such a substance, to he bartered in the markets of the world, but it can assure even you and your children a life more pleasant than you can ever dream of.

As so many do, you admit, no doubt, that there is “something wrong,” and imagine that things will get better when party polities are once more the order of the day and the Liberals or the Conservatives get in—but will they?

You have been told, perhaps, that Socialism as an event is inconceivable. Was not a steam engine also “inconceivable” to the minds of men a thousand years ago?

Here are a few whys and wherefores for your digestion. Ponder over them and try, if you can, to disprove these statements.

Religion: An institution founded and resting upon the superstitions of mankind; a means whereby the superstitions regarding the unfathomable uncertainty of what is “beyond space,” is harboured and exploited to the end of keeping the people in subjection.

Army and Navy: Armed forces composed of, but nevertheless used for the suppression of, the working class; a means whereby the capitalist is enabled to exploit the people, and when the exploitation is so severe that the workers strike, to force them to submission; a weapon also to keep his markets in ether countries safe from brother capitalists, and to seize every opportunity that may be presented of extending his markets by force.

Capitalism: The present social system, based on private ownership of the tools and implements of production and the natural resources of the land, whereby the worker is forced to sell his labour-power for a pittance in order to obtain the necessaries of life. The improvements in machinery' and methods tending in all normal times to produce an army of unemployed, the capitalists are enabled to exploit the labourers to such an extent that the workers are crushed and beaten until their one absorbing reality is the struggle for existence.

Now Mr. Worker, ponder over these facts out in the “free and open” (but mind you are not standing on a landlord’s preserves) and ask yourself, not whether it is right—for with that we are not concerned but whether it agrees with your idea of the fitness of things that you should toil all your days for a bare subsistence, until age makes you no longer able to compete with your fellow workers in the labour market, when you are assisted out of this world through the medium of the workhouse or a dollar old age pension.

Not even then is exploitation complete, for a Board of Guardians has just found out that the soil in their cemetery, where the graves have been levelled off, is very fertile, and that potatoes should be grown there—"in the interest of the nation.”

Mr. Worker, it is to your interest, if you understand the position, to increase the membership of the only Socialist party in this country—the Socialist Party of Great Britain-- by yourself becoming a member of it.

A. J. Stuart

Wage-Slaves and Warriors. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

Apparently the one objective of the ruling class engaged in the European conflict at present is to “win the war,” no matter what the cost to the people they keep in subjection, and who wage the war for them. The one social distinction is to be obtained in the bloody ampitheatre of Mars. The saddest and most ironic thing about the world conflict is that the workers have waged the war against the wrong people.

In all history it is the greatest instance of misdirected energy: it should have been their own ruling and exploiting class that they should have struggled against, and in the countries called the workers’ own, and which will be their own when they take possession.

“Crush German Militarism!” is our masters’ cry here ; but they would dearly love to have an English militarism as well organised, efficient, and as much a menace to their rivals as that which they denounce. Meanwhile there is no need to take a personally-conducted trip to Flanders in order to crush “Prussianism”: we have plenty of the English variety here! The Germans alone can destroy their own particular brand of that pestilential growth. Let us hope that they will do so before long, uprooting, capitalism also in the process, once for all!

As the war proceeds, veil after veil of lying nonsense is torn aside, and the ghastly truth, —apparent from the start to the Socialist— appears to the disillusioned and war-harrowed masses, the truth that not one nation's rulers care a damn about “honour,” “truth,” and “liberty”; that in this war no great principle is at stake ; but that, instead, the most hellish war of all ages is being waged for capitalistic rivalry and gain, for world markets and commercial supremacy.

Whilst every secret of science has been probed to see if it can be pressed into the service of war, and the wage earners are annihilating each other in patriotic frenzy, they themselves have seen every so-called right and liberty they had suppressed by capitalist despots. In England there are at the present time (according to statements made at the Leeds Conference) 74 Englishmen incarcerated without a charge being preferred against them, and without any means being afforded them of making a defence. And many others who decline to take part in the war on principle, are in the prisons of “their own” country.

Nevertheless, the “fighting for freedom with the strength of free men” goes on, and the duped workers become more and more enslaved by the class whose interest they are lighting for. The civic rights of the vaunted “democracy” have been made to function as a door-mat; the incubus of debt rears itself daily to more colossal heights; the British casualty lists alone are some 30,000 weekly. The astounding apathy and complaisance with which the people accept these things is one of the features of this, the “Great War for Freedom,” the “War to End War.”

Every country involved is piling up its human wreckage of maimed and dead, creating sorrow and suffering to the one sordid end of capitalist advantage. Noble arid devout ministers of religion are “doing their bit” by preaching the incumbent duty of destroying the “Huns": vicarious sacrifice is a parsonic privilege. Others among them have become exemplars, and have gone out with rifle and bayonet to fight men equally as deluded as themselves, perhaps, in the vain hope that this is the “last war,’' and through it will come about the Brotherhood of Man.

Nature has made the world very beautiful, but, alas! Man has turned it into a veritable inferno. Whilst Spring has been decking the countryside in loveliness comes the news that 4r millions of the manhood of Europe have been killed and wounded ! Yet the war goes on!

Will the workers never learn the lesson of reason and wisdom except through untold suffering and unspeakable pain the lesson that they, as a class throughout the world, have but one enemy, the INTERNATIONAL CAPITALIST CLASS?

Under the present system, in time of peace or war, the workers are compelled to produce wealth prolifically ; they receive about one third of what they produce, the rest is legally stolen from them, and used to their injury. And so we get the most intensely ironical fact of millions of dispossessed wage-slaves, fighting each other in groups, in their masters’ interests alone, they themselves having previously produced all the wealth which the capitalists quarrel over. All their energies of mind and body have made the prodigious accumulation of wealth which the capitalists keep only to use against the workers, whose very lives are but pawns in the hands of the class that has exploited and continues to exploit them.

Apparently no sacrifice is too great for the working class to make when capitalist interests are at stake. When are the workers going to fight for their own interests ?

The most deplorable fact of our present social life is the lack of class-consciousness among the workers. They do not realise that they are wage-slaves. They do not grasp their own all-importance. They do not understand their own all-powerfulness. Chloroformed by superstition and custom; content to let the present regime continue, they drift into fatalistic folly, and political and intellectual thralldom. It is this attitude that has made the breeding bed for the war.

What a price is paid by the working class of the world for political ignorance! What a penalty is suffered for the proletarian misconception called “Patriotism”!

What, then, is the remedy? Reforms, palliatives of any kind, are useless. They are but anodynes to lull the ever-recurring pain that is produced by this system of production for profit. The cause of the evil must be eradicated. That cause is the capitalist system.

Workers, study SOCIALISM! Organise class-consciously for the conquest of the political machinery, and for your complete emancipation from your present slavery. Yours is an irresistible power: wield it, and win

The World for the Workers.

G.

The Blind Directing The Blind. (1917)

From the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are so often told how naughty we are because we so bitterly oppose the pseudo-Socialist parties that we feel doubly pleased when such organisations readily themselves hand us the weapon wherewith we smite them. The following extract from the organ of the Socialist Labour Party, an organisation which for months past has tried to explain how very much alone it has been in defining the true Socialist position in its relation to the war, is distinctly good when compared with its companion of earlier date. It reads as follows:

LOOKING FOR A POLICY.

What with capitalist development and the S.L.P. propaganda the I.L.P has a painful feeling that it s been on the wrong track. That the I.L.P. has decided to re-examine its policy at the forthcoming Summer School deserves nothing but praise; and we wish it every success. The S.L.P. sends its best wishes.-—"The Socialist," June 1917.

That the I.L.P. is on the wrong number after 25 years of shouting is a sad thing indeed—-for its supporters. But the idea of the S.L.P. taking upon itself the task of putting its sick relative upon the right track it frankly amusing, as will be seen from the following gem published by the S.LP. in the same journal in November 1914 :

A PERSONAL NOTE.

That there are differences of opinion in the S.L.P. as in other parties, on the question of the war must have been apparent to most readers of “The Socialist." Last month I tried to show what the different views were, but I have not been able to find out what support each side has, consequently I cannot say definitely what the official attitude of the Party is.

Three months after the declaration of war and still ignorant of its attitude toward that colossal butchery of the working class in the interests of their inveterate enemies! Could anything be put more clearly? The attitude of a Socialist party needed no discussion among its members at such a time. A true Socialist party would automatically fall into its only groove, as the S.P.G.B. did. This party did not find it necessary to discuss even for a moment what its attitude should be, or to adopt any other method of getting it defined. The path was made clear, the contingency fully provided for, by its formulated principles, and an examination of the Socialist Standard from August 1914 will show conclusively how steadfastly our position has been maintained, and how clearly our attitude of bitter opposition to the present war has been presented to the world. The workers themselves shall be the judge and jury- -our position is impregnable.

B. B. B.

Editorial: Our Peace Manifesto: Why We Issued It. (1917)

Editorial from the July 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

It will be observed that elsewhere in this issue the Socialist Party of Great Britain have addressed a Manifesto to the proposed international Congress. We wish to state here briefly the reasons which have compelled the Party Executive to issue this pronouncement.

It will have struck our readers that since the war broke out the word "Socialism" has loomed large in the international Press, and that since the Russian Revolution this prominence has rapidly increased. Interested parties with chestnuts to pull out of the particularly fierce fire of current events, turn to that conglomeration of letters for an instrument to serve their various purposes. From the German emissaries Grimm and Scheidemann, to the British emissaries, Thorne and MacDonald, there is, all round, an endeavour to exploit the name of Socialism for the purpose of leading the working class in the different countries and their different local circumstances, to believe that the demands of the war-mad ruling class are in reality the demands of the people, expressed through their most democratic mouth-pieces, the Socialists. In Russia, we are told by the English newspapers on the morning these words are written, Socialist opinions dominate everything—a statement which is belied by the new Russian offensive. Kerensky as the Socialist saviour of Russia, whereas we know him to be merely the Russian Lloyd George, the embodiment of capitalist cunning, the capitalist revolutionary who brought the workers to the aid of the revolutionary capitalists under the cloak of Socialism, and now, under the same cloak, essays to save his capitalist masters from their wage-slaves on the one hand, and from their German enemies on the other.

In other countries the same tale is to tell. Everywhere the name of Socialism is being linked with the manoeuvres of the master class with the object of throwing dust in the eyes of their victims, and meantime the pseudo-Socialists are given ample opportunity to add their quota of support to the confusion, while the Socialists are denied the means of communication and therefore of effective expression.

In order to dissociate the Socialist name from the trickery of those who would besmirch it we place in record our attitude toward the war and show that the class-struggle basis of our organisation sufficed to keep our hands unsoiled by the blood of our fellow workers, and we ask any foreign comrade into whose hands our manifesto may come, to assist us by bringing it before the notice of the Executive of the Socialist organisation of his country.