The Communists and Palestine (1948)

Editorial from the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as the capitalist declines to allow sentiment or humanity to interfere with the purpose for which he is in business—-the making of profit, so capitalist governments decline to be guided by sentiment in deciding their international policies. If the British Government holds that the oil of the Middle East and the need to protect Empire communications call for a policy of friendship with the Arab States, not all the past resolutions of Labour Conferences nor all the heckling by many Labour M.Ps. would move Mr. Mayhew, Under Secretary to the Foreign Office, when on 11th June of this year he refused to recognise the new State of Israel. But many workers who perceive that this is true of the British and other Governments, believe that it is not true of Russia. When, therefore, they see the Communist Party attacking Labour Government policy on Palestine they conclude that the Communist Party is more trustworthy than Mr. Bevin. A little delving into the Communists' record on this question will show, however, that there is not a ha’porth of difference, either in principle or in practice.

The cynical principle was laid down by Mr. Litvinov, who in 1933 was Russian Foreign Minister. The occasion was the relations between Russia and Germany, at a time when Hitler’s Government was busy persecuting Communists and other opponents of the regime. In a speech in Moscow on December 29th, 1933, Mr. Litvinov excused Russian friendship with Fascist Germany:

  “We, of course, have our own opinion of the German regime. We, of course, are sensitive to the sufferings of our German comrades, but we Marxists can be reproached least of all for permitting our feelings to dominate our policy. The whole world knows that we can maintain and are maintaining good relations with capitalist States under any regime, including also a Fascist regime. But that is not the point. We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Germany, just as in those of other countries, and our relations with her are determined not by her internal, but her foreign policy. We want to have the best relations with Germany, as with other States.” (Moscow News, 6/1/1934.)

As the reader will perceive this might be Mr. Bevin or his Under Secretary explaining that oil and Empire are thicker than sympathy for Jewish refugees. It might also be the present Russian Foreign Minister and Mr. Gallacher explaining that all the tears they used to shed for the Arabs were just a mistake and it is now necessary to shed tears for the Jews instead.

Up to 1941 Russia and the Communists backed the Arabs, opposed Jewish immigration into Palestine, and denounced Zionism as an instrument of British Imperialism. Now Russian foreign policy demands a change of front and Mr. Gallacher changes front likewise.

In the Daily Worker (29th May, 1948) Mr. Gallacher, M.P., and other Communists contributed articles explaining their policy of the moment and criticising the policy of the Labour Government. Mr. Gallacher accused Bevin of going directly against the declared policy of Labour Party Conferences. He wrote:

  “For the Labour leaders were all individually pledged to the support of Zionism and they were parties to the many resolutions passed at different Labour Party-Conferences.”

What Mr. Gallacher did not say was that when, before the war, Labour Party Conferences backed Zionism he and his Party condemned them for doing so, for at that time Russia and therefore the British Communists were backing the Arabs.

Mr. Gallacher now quotes from a poem written by a Zionist, Mr. Jabotinsky, in which the latter proclaims in romanic terms the aim of a Zionist State to control both banks of “Holy Jordan,” But, says Mr. Gallacher, “Jabotinsky didn’t know Mr. Bevin or the cunning, clever gentlemen in the Foreign Office.” These gentlemen have, it seems, tricked Mr. Bevin into backing the Arab States and thus double-crossing Mr. Jabotinsky. Readers of the Daily Worker would be astonished to learn what Mr. Gallacher used to say about Mr. Jabotinsky. They will find it in the Reports of Parliamentary proceedings. Back in 1936 the Arabs had staged an armed revolt against Zionism, against the attempt to set up a Jewish State and against Jewish immigration and Mr.. Gallacher was making a stirring plea on behalf of the Arabs. In the course of one of his speeches he replied to Colonel Wedgwood, a supporter of Zionism, with the following remark:

   ". . . if it is a question of ruffians, I would recommend the right hon. and gallant gentleman, the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, to give his attention to Mr. Jabotinsky and his Fascist organisation, who are deliberately' carrying on provocation.” (Hansard, 22nd February, 1937. Col. 1,732.)

Here are some other passages from Mr. Gallacher's speeches. Now he loyally backs up Russian policy of partition in Palestine, then, in his own words, "I rise as an absolute opponent of partition.” (Hansard, 21st July, 1937, Col 2,358). In his speech of that date Mr. Gallacher said that the Zionists “are not representing the interests of the Jewish people but . . . a particular political trend,” and he went on to explain that there would never be agreement between Jews and Arabs unless the Jews would give up their claim to become a majority in Palestine. He warned the Jews against partition and the setting up of a Jewish State:

  "I want to direct the attention of Members, particularly my Jewish friends, to the fact that partition is the greatest menace that can face the Jewish people at the moment. When the whole of Europe is being stirred up in the most criminal, dastardly and vicious manner against these people . . . are we to have a situation where the people with whom they have lived in amity for centuries are to be stirred up against them? It is going to encourage all the Jew-baiting and all the anti-Semitism that is being developed in Europe. Immediately they go over there, these people who for centuries have never known anti-Semitism will begin to develop it.” (Hansard, 21et July, 1937, Col. 2,358.)

In his warning Mr. Gallaclier was indeed prophetic, for on the day after the State of Israel was proclaimed the British section of the World's Jewish Congress in an appeal to the British Government stated “that Jews are being persecuted in Arab and Moslem countries following the proclamation of a Jewish State.” (Evening News, 19/5/48.)

Now the Communists demand armed action against the Arab States to enforce Zionism and partition. On 19th June, 1936, (Hansard, Cols. 1,367-1,368) Mr. Gallacher declared “Palestine can never be a home for the Jews.” He demanded of the British Government that they cease using military force against the Arabs. "Have the Arabs a case? Yes, they have a case. They have had a rotten deal. I ask the Government to stop the beastly, brutal murder that is going on . . . I say stop using brutal force against the Arabs.” He declared that the Zionist leaders had fooled the Jewish refugees and that those leaders “are the agents for British Imperialism against the Arab masses"; and that the Arab revolt against Jewish immigration was “a thoroughly justifiable revolt.” (Col, 1,369). He read out a cable he had received from the Arab Women Committee congratulating him on his “noble stand” defending the Arab cause. He called on the Government to recognise “the rights of the Arabs and the justice of their claim.” (Col. 1,371.)

Then, in Mr. Gallacher’s eyes, it was some of the Zionist leaders who were ruffians and Fascists, now,

of course, it is the Arab leaders. At that time Mr. Gallacher indignantly repudiated charges brought against his Arab friends:

  "I wish to take the greatest possible exception to the general accusations which have been made and which have suggested that this fine body of people, the Arabs, are murderers and blackguards . . . It has been said that they are ruffians and murderers, and I object to that.” (Col. 1,731.) 

On 19th June, 1936. he answered the charge that the Arab movement was a capitalist movement:

  "Many Arab leaders have been arrested. It has been stated that the leaders are wealthy capitalists. I challenge the Minister to give us the name of any wealthy capitalist among the leaders. They include doctors, teachers, and various others. (Hansard, Col. 1,369.)

To an interjector who said the Arab leaders in the fight against the Jews were Communists, he said: “Yes, Communists. Wherever there is an oppressed people, or wherever there is exploitation of the working classes, there you will find Communists.”

The tragedy of all this is the fact that there are workers, British, Jewish, Arab and others, who fall for the pleas of a man like Gallacher. They have not yet realised that whenever any Government wants to gain support for some foreign policy dictated by trade or strategy there are always muddle-headed men like Gallacher and the equally muddled sentimentalists of the Labour Party who will provide the impassioned speeches, the tears and the appeals to humanitarian feelings. Mr. Gallacher may be as sincere in his present policy as when he was rousing up emotions in support of the opposite policy but in effect his weathercock antics just serve the Russian Government. They certainly do not serve the Jewish and Arab workers.

Abolish the exploiting mechanism (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The mechanism of Capitalist production is a slave exploiting mechanism. It was not designed primarily to enable more wealth to be produced but to enable more profit to be made

The question is—can this mechanism, in its present form, be used to advantage under a system of production for use? Engels did not think so.

   “Just as far as society obtains the domination of the social means of production in order to organize them socially, it abolishes the existing servitude of man to the own means of production. Society cannot be free without every member of society being free. The old methods of production must be completely revolutionised, and the old form of the division of labour must be done away with above all. In its place an organisation of production will have to be made in which, on the one hand, no single individual will be able to shift his share in productive labour, in providing the essentials of human existence upon another, and on the other hand productive labour instead of being a means of slavery will be a means towards human freedom, in that it offers an opportunity to everyone to develop his full powers physical and intellectual in every direction, and to exercise them so that it makes a pleasure out of a burden." (P.240, “Landmarks of Scientific Socialism.")

This appears to indicate that it is not possible to form the new society or even its basis within the shell of the old as our I.W.W. friends proclaim. There is also another factor which does not seem to be generally realised and that is there will be in the new system no difference or separation between town and country. This is an essential condition for the success of a socialist form of society. I quote from Engels again.

  “Civilisation has left us a number of large cities as an inheritance, which it will take much time and trouble to abolish. But they must and will be done away with however much time and trouble it may take." (P.244, "Landmarks of Scientific Socialism.")

This clearly shows that the founders of scientific socialism did not contemplate the continuation of gigantic factories, they could never have conceived any such thing as the belt system existing under Socialism. They held the view that all machinery that dominates man in the sense that, when operated, he is an appendage to it, would be ruthlessly scrapped.

The machinery that we have today is for the express purpose of enabling surplus value to be obtained, and realised upon. For this the market is an essential factor. Under a system of production for use, will not a vast portion of the mechanism designed for a profit-making purpose be not only useless, but a hindrance to general well-being?

Judging from what one hears at public meetings and reads in the so-called "left" press, many so-called socialists appear to be under the impression that the mode of production is O.K. All that is required is an equitable distribution of the products of industry, and the problem is solved. Unfortunately Capitalism is a system of production for profit only; there has never been produced at any time under Capitalism sufficient to satisfy the needs of all. The object of Capitalist production is not the production of wealth; the mechanism was not designed for that purpose; where profit is not visualized Capital does not go; in other words, no profit—no production.

The mechanism, built expressly to exploit wage slaves, is becoming ever more efficient from that standpoint but this makes the situation ever worse for the exploited. The wage slave knows this instinctively, but cannot understand why it is so; there is a developing dissatisfaction and a desire to kick, but not understanding that the system is at fault, in the main workers act blindly.

When the proletarians perform their historic task it will be as a result of the fact that they are compelled to revolt against the exploiting mechanism, not because they desire to possess it, but partly because of the workers' disinclination to operate it under the then prevailing conditions. They, the workers, will be driven to take control of the State machine and register the fact that the means of production are from then on to be operated exclusively for use. As a means of ending chaos the tools of industry will be made common property. The dismantling process can then begin. Socialism entails the abolition of the wages system, and also the scrapping of the harness buckled on the limbs of the slave. It may be difficult for some to believe they can dispense with it; they have got so used to it they cannot conceive of life without it, and so-called socialists often go out of their way to perpetuate the false idea that man is free from exploitation when he is firmly rivetted to the mechanism of capitalism, in other words they want him to make it his own permanently in its present form.

The time is getting short, we are in for a period of incessant conflict; the workers must more clearly understand what they are called upon to do. All that is involved in the revolutionary act must be made plain. To make the machinery of production common property is not the whole of it. To establish a system of production for use through the operation of the present day machinery designed for exploitation is impossible. Many wage slaves vaguely realise this and once they comprehend that socialism means doing away with the tread mill that they now find themselves tied to, they will the better understand our message. Man will be so circumstanced that he may go from one machine to another producing things he enjoys producing because of their use to mankind and also because they are, to a considerable extent, the expression of his own personality. The desire to produce what one personally wants will be intensified.

In the earlier forms of society every member of the tribe could do practically what every other tribesman could do. We are returning to the communal life of our ancestors, but on a higher plane. A careful study of the life and institutions, of the old barbarian gens should enable us to form some idea of what is coming. Socialism means freedom. To be free man must control his means of life, and not only that, he must be at liberty to so develop himself that he is able to make the mechanism that he operates in order to live, subordinate to his will. In other words he must be a man. To be a cog in a machine is to be a slave no matter how well greased the mechanism is.

Nothing is destroyed until it is replaced. What is required is ever-increasing knowledge of constructive socialism. A study of what is inferred by the above may enable us to discern that is the root cause of the peculiar actions of Russia, and the Kremlin's will to power. From the period of the introduction of the modern machine the Russian workers found themselves cribbed, cabined and confined to an extent never previously known. When they resisted they were forced into the mould shaped by the economic conditions which the introduction of the profit machine brought into being. The rulers of Russia, once the thing started, had no option; they were determined to make their system run. They eventually succeeded in grinding slaves for profit more rapidly than their competitors, and to make good the loss they have not hesitated even to kidnap some skilled workers from other lands. Their suffering dupes must be stimulated; when they flag or show restlessness an appeal is made to “National pride”; they are deceived by cunning propaganda, soothed by lies and tricked in various ways as workers here are, and for what? To retain and extend the power of the ruling clique and increase the wealth of its members. Everything that can be utilized is ruthlessly applied towards the end the government of Russia has in view, and woe betide those workers who venture to oppose what is decreed by the group in authority.

Wage slaves in all countries are groaning under this soul-destroying power, the mechanism of Capitalism. Everything around them, together with themselves, is geared to it. Speed, speed and more speed is the slogan. It does not slow up, it cannot. Sometimes a stoppage occurs here and there, but when it restarts it goes quicker than before; faster and ever faster it must move, and so must those who attend it. Its slaves are killed and maimed in countless numbers when at work, and even when travelling to the places of exploitation. They contract diseases where they slave from which they prematurely die; periodically they are lined up to slaughter one another, and in various ways brutalized and butchered, to serve capitalism’s ends.

Charles Lestor

The Great Radio Drive (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

When an employer buys labour power the right to direct it goes with the sale. He has the last word in fixing the price, and he, or his overseers, supervise delivery of the commodity. Why, then, are the workers being subjected to a never-ending spate of propaganda for more production?

In normal times the supply of labour exceeds the demand; and the worker is always being squeezed by the overseers for that last ounce of energy. But since the war, times have not been normal. The nation’s factory gates have not been besieged by a million or two unemployed. Hence the drive for increased production along different lines.

The drive has consisted largely of appeals and straight talks over the air for individual effort. Leaflets, posters and pamphlets have been printed and distributed in millions. Few countries in the world have ever seen such a colossal effort to persuade people to work, and work harder.

The radio was used to its limit to the point of utter boredom. Economists—of the make capitalism work type—were brought to the microphone several times a week. Ministers’ appeals were reported in the news, and several hours of radio time were monopolised daily to put over the dreary propaganda of a government that had obtained power by making promises they were unable to implement.

It was obvious from the start that the main purpose was to exert pressure on the workers to increase production per man-hour. Some of the speakers emphasised the need for improved machinery and methods. In one series of broadcasts, “Management and Men,” stress was laid on the need for closer contact between managers and the lower grades. Production committees were advocated, and meetings arranged of all grades, where the firm’s plans could be explained, and their difficulties freely discussed, presumably, among other things, the need to keep costs, especially wages, low.

Sir George Schuster, who wound up the series, wanted managers, foremen and men to work as a team, as they did during the war. He entirely deprecated the notion that there were two sides in industry.

The idea of taking the workers into their confidence and seeking their co-operation is sure to meet with some response. Many would regard the move with suspicion. Others might look on it as an opportunity to ingratiate themselves with the boss. Such motives are quite common under the system. On that point read what Dr. John Murphy was reported as saying in the Sunday Express (6/6/48). His full title, by the way, is Dr. John Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Religion, Manchester University. He writes on gambling, but what he says explains the reason for much that seems incomprehensible in the relations of wage-workers. He says:

  “Gambling is the natural blossoming, true to type, of a competitive and acquisitive system of society, in which the poorer classes are struggling with each other for the means of life, and the richer are competing with each other for security and greater and greater wealth.”

Sir George may deprecate, but he cannot deny that there are two sides in industry. Otherwise to speak of capitalists and workers, as we all do, would be nonsense. Consciously, or unconsciously, he leaves out the capitalist and calls for team work between managers, foremen and men. Managers and foremen are just as much wage-workers as men. To call them salaried is no more than an appeal to vanity. What they sell to the capitalist is their ability to direct and stimulate the actual producers. Their place in the team is one of authority. They represent the owner. Their responsibility is over the production of surplus value; the reservoir of profits.

Sir George’s advice to managers, foremen and men to team up is, therefore, given on behalf of the capitalists. Managers, foremen and men are all subject to pressure from someone above them. All are liable to the sack for circumstances over which they often have no control. The capitalist has the last word in fixing their wages or salaries, and he dictates the terms.

The capitalist is no respecter of persons when buying labour-power. He naturally expects the brain worker to be more costly than the manual worker, but he takes advantage of either when the market is in his favour. The Daily Graphic (1/10/47) said: “The scientific mind, trained largely at private expense, through years at university, is today worth little more than the muscle of a stoker or the tongue of a shop- steward.” They instanced dock labourers, trawler men, garment cutters, miners, factory hands and truck drivers earning up to £15 per week; and compared them with doctors, dentists, physicists, metallurgists, chemists, designers and other technicians who, they say, "enter the labour market at five or six pounds per week after an education costing between £1,500 and £3,000.”

For those who aspire to these good jobs, so-called, the low salary is not the only snag. A paragraph in the Sunday Pictorial (6/6/48) throws some light on other business methods.

  "High premiums demanded from prospective employees are worrying the Ministry of Labour. Guarantees up to £500 are being asked from ex-officers directed to promising jobs through the Labour Exchange."

It does not follow that employers who ask for such guarantees are indulging in sharp practice. It may only be a form of barrier to protect themselves from an influx of ex-officers the government is unable to place. Ministers have been lavish in their promises, or prophecies, of the good jobs waiting for capable men of all ranks.

One speaker on the Third Programme (7/6/48) describing himself as a social statistician, argued that the pay of the black-coated workers had remained almost stationary since 1938. Taxation had hit them harder than either capitalists or manual workers, and they were almost helpless in voicing their resentment. It was they, he said, who constituted the floating vote for which Tory and Labour competed at elections. If that is true it is added proof of John Murphy's indictment of the capitalist system, and, what is perhaps still worse for the workers the readiness to vote sectionally for alleged sectional benefits as against working-class interests as a whole.

In one radio discussion (3/6/48) on the relative efficiency of British and American business methods the American speaker wound up by saying: “You point the finger at the worker all the time, but it is the management that is at fault." He charged British industry with an excessive number of directors with high salaries. Of their reluctance to instal up-to-date machinery, and their emphasis on increased production per man hour, instead of increasing the number of men on the job, with greater inducement in the shape of higher wages,

This question of increased number of workers as against increased production per man-hour is, to say the least, distasteful to big business. They object to paying four men to do the work of three, or even twenty to do the work of nineteen. If it were only a question of man-power to satisfy the needs of the people, and not one of profits, there are enough workers available in the field of commerce and finance, together with the armed forces, munition workers and a host of others engaged in tasks that add nothing to production, without mentioning the idlers who take the lion's share. There is enough man-power serving the capitalists which, if utilised in actual production would reduce by half the working time necessary for each.

Production comes first. Before men could trade, someone had to produce. All the vast machinery of exchange has been built up on production. Yet the object of production, the satisfaction of human need, takes second place in modern society. Today, the emphasis is on production per man-hour because, with the payment of less wages per unit of production, greater profits are available to each national group of capitalists to utilise in the international scramble for power.

In the past, trade has encouraged production, and the producers have responded to new demands. The two things have given us the enormous possibilities of the fuller life, that for the workers, is always just round the comer. The obstacle to that fuller life is big business—capitalism. Trade and commerce no longer contribute towards the well-being of the producers. It hampers and stops production directly profits are threatened. It has become a hard shell of class interests and privilege that constrict the social organism and prevent its emergence into that fuller life that its past struggles have made possible.

The Labour Party, pledged to make capitalism work and pave the way for socialism at the same time, have forgotten the second in face of the obstacles that have frustrated their efforts in pursuit of the first. Without a huge unemployed army they cannot drive, they can only stimulate by persuasion and utter warnings of either increased austerity or widespread unemployment. Two Labour governments have failed to make capitalism work. In 1930 because of the depression; in 1948 because there is no depression, and, therefore, no unemployed millions exercising pressure on those at work.

The Economist in May, 1947, had stated bluntly that the system could not be made to work efficiently unless there was five or six per cent, of unemployment. The Labour Party had promised full employment. The demand for labour, under the exceptional circumstances created by the war, favoured the workers if they chose to push their claims for higher wages and better conditions. They had to be side-tracked. Hence their appeals for loyalty to the Labour movement, their attempt to freeze wages, and their promise of profits-limitations they were afraid to enforce.

The government in its efforts to ginger up the workers was supported by all the big leaders in the Labour and trade union camps. They issued a monthly news sheet called "Target" which the Daily Herald (2/6/48) described as follows:

  “ 'Target,' which is backed by the T.U.C. and the F.B.I., as well as by the government, expounds in concentrated form today's supreme truth—that everything depends on production; that production depends on individual effort; and that individual effort can be greatly stimulated if every worker is given full and regular information about his task." 

Even before this the T.U.C. had already been busy in the drive. The Daily Herald (31/5/48) reported on a leaflet they had issued, in which they asked the question, “ How far do you walk after you get to work?” They discovered that quite a lot of time was wasted in fetching and carrying, which might have been to their credit if the savings had gone to wages instead of profits.

Labour M.Ps. and trade union leaders have vied with each other to get press notices about their participation in the F.B.I. and T.U.C. drive. One of the most naive was reported in the Daily Herald (10/6/48), Mr. Jack Jones:

  “Asking workers not to think of extra production as benefiting the profits of the ‘boss,' Sir . Stafford Cripps will look after that."

To the average worker the propaganda of the Labour Party has, no doubt, been confusing in the past. Today we see the Labour Party in power, and in combination with the Federation of British Industries and the Trade Union Congress engaged in the biggest drive that has ever been organised against the industrial workers of this country. Surely this is sufficient to give every serious-minded worker cause to reflect on the possibility of dispensing with all kinds of leaders and studying the cause of his incessant toil and poverty in the light of Socialist knowledge.

F. Foan

The Escape To Freedom (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The brave new world so glibly promised by politicians when workers were being urged to slaughter each other to maintain the material interests of their respective masters, is one of the many promises that has not materialised. No one with an ounce of realism, can deny that conditions in the world today are bristling with the possibilities of a war, an atomic, germ war, in the none too distant future. So much for the brave new world.

Instead of facing up to this situation in an attempt to find a solution, it is tragic that workers are seeking a temporary escape in the “entertainment” that Capitalism offers as a safety valve. Football, the “dogs” and “pictures,” all provide a temporary escape from, but no solution to, the many problems with which we are beset. Yet the solution is a simple one, and only requires a little serious thought.

The most formidable class in numbers is the working class. Its power lies not alone in numbers but in the knowledge of its members of their class position in society. If a majority of workers accepted this simple fact alone—that Capitalism runs in the interest of those who own and control industry—they would be better able to look after their class interests. Yet most workers think they have an identity of interest with their masters. “You must have Capital and Labour ” say they, while the world is seething with conflict and unrest.

When we talk and write about Socialism, we mean a classless society in which the means of producing food, clothing, houses, and all the amenities of life, shall be owned in common and democratically controlled by the community. There will be an identity of interests, for no one will covet what his neighbour has if there is an abundance to satisfy his needs. This is the foundation which we claim will solve war and the major evils of the world. Socialism is the only sane way. All other methods have been tried and failed. It does not follow that Socialism will succeed because it has never been tried. It requires thought and inquisitiveness on the part of workers, to understand why Socialism will succeed.

With the basis of Socialist society firmly established, it is not difficult to see that mankind will be free to enjoy life to the full. Man will give of his best to society, for he will know that society's resources will be there for the taking. He will produce the best and receive the best. He will be free to develop his natural desires and aptitudes. Production will be a task which men will enjoy, for they will be working in the knowledge that goods are actually being produced for the benefit of the community. Man will be free to enjoy the arts of the world.

No longer will man be assessed by his bank balance or his property, for money would serve no function under Socialism. Today, money in the form of wages keeps workers in subjection, and poverty, for they can only buy back a proportion of the wealth they produce. As all means of production would be owned in common for the benefit of mankind, war will be an impossibility, for a socialist society would not fight for something it already possessed.

Workers, do not attempt to escape from the problems thrown up by Capitalism by ignoring the cold facts of reality. Face up to the situation that Capitalism is now decadent, and that mankind can build a new world in which life will be a beautiful experience. The nightmares of yesterday will then gradually recede in the distance. When Socialism is obtained the Escape to Freedom will be complete.

S.W.C.

Party News Briefs (1948)

Party News from the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow Branch continue their outdoor propaganda with moderate success. Glasgow lacks a really well-established outdoor "Speakers’ Corner” and the branch is trying out one or two new stations. They have some promising young speakers coming along but could do with more. They had a public debate with the Trotskyists at the end of May on the subject “Is Parliament the road to socialism?" The hall was packed and many had to be turned away. The Trotskyist repeated the usual stale distortions of Marxism and incitements to mass action. The debate is being repeated at Hamilton with a view to stimulating interest there. A special branch meeting is being held to discuss future activities on the electoral field and all friends in Scotland are appealed to for assistance and are asked to get in touch with the branch.

Tottenham Branch have just lost by death Comrade C. J. Whitby, after a long illness. He joined the party in 1920 and always played an active part in everything the branch did. The branch will miss him very much, and particularly his sound expositions of the party’s policy at their meetings.

Islington Branch’s debate with the Communist Party filled the Hornsey Town Hall to capacity. A. Turner (who opened the debate for us) first explained the meaning of socialism in all its aspects, and dealt with the political and economic foundations of the class struggle, showing the road the workers must travel to their emancipation. The Communist Party, he said, had never sought working-class support for socialism or the overthrow of capitalism. They had during their career opposed Parliament and urged the workers to arm themselves. Their attitude to the Labour Party had from time to time been one of opposition and then of support. They had first supported the 1939 war, then opposed it, and on Russia’s entry had supported it again. The somersaults in their policy could only be explained by their support of Russia, a country in which capitalism existed. The Communist Party were reformists, formed in the first instance by a number of reformist parties getting together. It was true that the Communist Party prosecuted the class struggle, but their efforts in fact served the interest of the capitalist class. Against the Communist Party’s claim that a minority could take control without the backing of an informed working-class, the Socialist Party said that socialism will be established by the working-class when it understood the issues involved, and not before. Turner quoted statements made by prominent members of the Communist Party in support of his arguments. 

G. Jones (Communist Party representative) replied that the capitalists had always opposed the Communist Party: in the “Communist Manifesto” Marx had said that the spectre of Communism was haunting the world. The Communist Party were extending the work of Marx and Engels and engaging in the elementary struggles of the workers, which Engels had said was an attack on the capitalist class. It was not necessary for the Communist Party to state the case for socialism, because this had been expressed so many times before. Lenin had stood for a party which aimed at smashing the State machine and replacing it with a working-class State machine, and this was in line with Marx’s views. The Communist Party changed its policy as circumstances demanded, but the Socialist Party were Utopians. In Russia the working-class had taken power and the capitalists could never stage a come-back there. 

A. Turner in his second statement said that his explanation of capitalism and exposition of socialism had not been contradicted by his opponent, but that the Communist Party had never advocated these ideas. The Communist Party was not democratic and its changes of policy came from the leadership and were imposed on the members. He gave a number of quotations from Communist Party literature showing how they alternately opposed and supported the last war. Lenin himself thought that the State would wither away, and not be smashed. The object of the Communist Party was to maintain the security of Russian Capitalism, and that of the Socialist Party to establish socialism by means of a working-class understanding socialism taking control of the State machinery by obtaining a majority in Parliament. He quoted from the “Communist Manifesto” showing that both Marx and Engels from the beginning had understood the necessity of there being a majority of socialist workers in order to establish socialism. The present task of the Socialist Party was, therefore, to spread socialist knowledge. In Russia the means of production were not owned by the working-class. The Communist Party had never advocated socialism, but had tried to gain support by lies and trickery. 

G. Jones in his second speech claimed that Turner had arranged quotations in a way calculated to deceive. Russia was weakening the capitalist chain in the fight to build socialism, and Turner's statements were an amazing travesty of Marxism. There must be leaders in any movement, even though some may turn out to be bad leaders. 

Both speakers had another session, but towards the end of the debate some members of the audience became so unruly that it was difficult to hear what was going on. In spite of these well-known Communist Party tactics, members of our party present thought the debate well worth while, particularly as it is so rare an event for a Communist to risk himself on our platforms. A collection of £32 was taken up, and good literature sales resulted.

Ealing Branch's debate with John Parker, M.P., at Fulham Town Hall was also a success. The hall was full and the General Secretary had little difficulty in exposing the Labour Party in its true light Parker did his best but he fought a losing battle right from the beginning. A collection of £17 was taken and plenty of our literature was sold.

Further Public Debates are on the way as a result of the vigorous policy adopted by the Central Propaganda Committee and branches. Max Aitken, M.P. (son of Lord Beaverbrook), has expressed willingness to “have a go,” and Christopher Hollis (Conservative M.P. for Devizes) has agreed to debate on “ Is there a Class Struggle?” If final arrangements are settled in time an announcement will be made in this issue of the Socialist Standard. A debate which should be of great interest to members takes place at the Conway Hall on July 1st. We shall take the affirmative on the question “Is Russia capitalist?” and the negative will be taken by the Trotskyists. Our man will be D. Fenwick.

Manchester Branch are now holding regular Sunday afternoon and evening meetings in Platt Fields, and so far when weather has permitted, they have been uniformly successful—this in spite of big rallies by other political parties. On one evening the Trotskyists had to close down a widely advertised meeting owing to lack of support. Meetings have also been commenced on a bomb site in Market Street, where after hard slogging to begin with, good results were obtained. The May Day procession there was a poor and dispirited affair, in spite of light relief provided by a Communist Party banner which aimed to arouse the wrath of the workers by announcing that rabbits were now 3s. 6d. each compared with 9d. in 1939. We held a good meeting in Platt Fields during the Sunday afternoon and another well attended one in the evening.

Annual Conference of W.S.P. of U.S. We have received a brief preliminary report of the Annual Conference of our Companion Party in U.S.A. They appear to have had a number of disappointments but they consider that the Conference was stimulating and that much valuable work was done. The attendance of “out-of-town” visitors was small. When we consider the difficulties that our own provincial members have to get to our Annual Conference, we can appreciate the greater difficulties that are experienced in America. A programme of outdoor meetings that was organised for the Conference period was spoilt by rain and a debate with the Wallace Party was postponed by that party.

Here are one or two of the decisions that arose from the Conference discussions. There is to be an experiment for one month with a four-page supplement to the Western Socialist. The four extra pages are to be devoted to pictures, graphs, cartoons, etc.

A Socialist Seminar is to be held in Boston during the last two weeks in August of this year. This will be publicised and accommodation will be found for visitors. It is hoped that the seminar will include daily classes, discussions, street meetings, debates, tours of museums, etc.

Discussion groups, similar to those organised by the S.P.G.B., are to be started where possible.

A new pamphlet is to be published consisting of vital and outstanding articles from our papers.

A full report of the Conference will be sent later and we will enter in this column outstanding items of interest.

The Overseas Secretary reports that, following suggestions made by members at different times, he is now in contact with enthusiastic readers of our literature in Trinidad, the Gold Coast and Bombay.

Articles from the Socialist Standard have recently been reprinted in Klasbatalo, journal of a Worker’s Esperanto Federation and in Europe Tomorrow, published in Johannesburg.

Lewisham Branch continue their successful Socialist Standard canvass in the neighbourhood. A new outdoor meeting station has been opened in a prominent position on a bomb-site at the Clock Tower. Seven Saturday afternoon meetings have been held in succession with a good audience each time and growing literature sales.

Clifford Groves,

General Secretary.

Notes by the Way: Mr. Churchill won't commit himself (1948)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Churchill won't commit himself.

Conservatives, like the other opponents of Socialism, are fond of asking us for detailed plans of what will be done under Socialism. We reply that it is impossible to give more than the broad outlines of Socialist society. The next time a Conservative scoffs at this he should have his attention drawn to Mr. Churchill’s statement in a speech on 12th June at the Albert Hall when he declined to give details of what his Party will do if it comes to power at the next election, although the latter is only two years ahead.

   “We are asked what we should do. It is a great mistake for a party in Opposition and without executive power to try to furnish precise, elaborate programmes of what they would do at some unspecified future date and in circumstances which no one can yet foretell.
   “By so doing we should only fall into the trap that is set us by our political opponents.
   "But it is only right that we should give in broad outline what we believe to be some of the right and necessary steps.” (Sunday Express, 13/6/48.)

#    #    #    #

The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

In order to get the workers to accept the policy of ‘‘wage-freezing” the Government associated with it a request to companies not to pay a bigger dividend than they paid for 1946, to reduce their prices and profits and thus help keep down the cost of living. Most companies have observed the request not to pay higher dividends but many of them have been showing a vast increase of profits. The record is held by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. which made a profit for the year 1947 of £18,564,000, nearly double the profit made in 1946. the chief reason for the increase was that they have been selling their oil at very much higher prices, the result of the world shortage of oil in relation to a rapidly-growing demand. Although the Company did not increase its dividend, the rate paid on the ordinary shares is 30 per cent.

The interesting thing is that the Government has a big investment in the Company, holding just over half the ordinary shares and a small amount of the Preference shares. The Daily Express (2/6/48) credits Mr. Winston Churchill with having induced the Government to invest £2,000,000 in the Company in 1914 in order to ensure a supply of oil for the Navy. The Government’s shares are now shown in the accounts at the price they cost, £5,001,000 (“Finance Accounts, 1946-7, p.59), but according to the Daily Express “today the State holding is worth £102,000,000 in the markets.” The Government’s income on the ordinary shares for the year 1947 was £3,375,000.

With such fat profits to be made out of Iranian oil no wonder the Russian government has been trying to force Iran to let Russia join in the scramble.

What the Iran government and ruling class think of the arrangements under which foreign capitalists draw off much of the proceeds of the exploitation of the Iranian workers is another question.

#    #    #    #

High Profits under Labour Government.

Quoting from the Economist records of profits Labour Research (June, 1948) shows that some 500 companies publishing their trading results in the first quarter of 1948 earned an average of 27.2 per cent. on their ordinary capital and paid an average of 15½ per cent. During the later years of the war the average paid was about 13½ per cent. In the first quarter of 1947 it was 22.9 per cent.

#    #    #    #

The Increase of the Cost of Living.

According to the hopelessly inaccurate official cost of living index published by the Ministry of Labour the increase of the cost of living between 1939 and June, 1947, was 31 per cent. At that date the old index was discontinued and a new one started, which, however, only shows the increase since June, 1947, and not the increase since 1939. This latter index shows an increase of 8 per cent, between June, 1947, and April, 1948.

The Oxford University Institute of Statistics (Bulletin, May, 1948), after examining all the available material, estimates that the real increase since 1937-8 is probably more than 80 per cent.

Putting this another way, it means that it costs about £6 6s. to buy what could be bought with a wage of £3 10s. before the war.

#    #    #    #

The “Purge” of Fascist and Communist Civil Servants.

The action taken by the Government to weed out Fascists and Communists from certain government jobs is due, no doubt, to the apprehensions caused by the military power and expansionist policy of the Russian government, though an additional reason, that of conciliating the U.S. government, is suggested by the similar action now being taken in Japan. According to the Observer (13/6/48) the Japanese Prime Minister is considering the exclusion of Communists from government employment, and the Observer's correspondent who sends the report adds: ‘‘These and similar steps are to be expected, since Dr. Ashida’s whole policy is built on the hope of securing American capital investment.”

The British government’s intention is to remove Fascists and Communists from work “the nature of which is vital to the security of the State.” It covers not only members of the Communist Party and Fascist organisations but also any civil servant who, though not a member, is associated with one of these organisations "in such a way as to raise legitimate doubts about his reliability.” The civil servant who is removed from his job will ordinarily be found other government employment but if this is impossible because of the specialist nature of his qualifications he may be dismissed.

The Civil Service Unions that have seen in this the possibility of individuals being victimised for trade union activities, either under the present or under some future government, are only following ordinary trade union practice in trying to get safeguards, including the right of an individual who is charged to know precisely what are the grounds of the charge, the setting up of some form of appeal, and the right to be accompanied by a trade union representative when the appeal is heard. The government refuses to concede what the Civil Service unions wanted, in particular the right to be accompanied by a trade union representative when the Advisory Board is deciding on the facts.

Not content with this, however, the Civil Service National Whitley Council Staff Side included in its resolution a clause noting with satisfaction that the government intends taking action to safeguard State secrets. Socialists, of course, are not concerned with selling the secrets of one government to another government but here we have an illustration of the backwardness of the trade union movement and the gulf that separates the present state of organisation and outlook from the often proclaimed, but little understood, belief in Socialism and Internationalism.

If the workers of the world clearly understood the need to base their organisation on a recognition of the class struggle they would be internationalist in outlook. They would understand that their loyalty is not to any national capitalist states but to the international working class. Their aim would not be to help one capitalist State (even if administered by a “Labour” government) against the others, but to overthrow capitalism everywhere and replace it by Socialism. The Labour Party’s supporters, faced with a division of loyalty, have decided the question by lining up behind the Labour government on the supposition that their interests as British workers are tied up with British capitalism. As they are not Socialists that decision was inevitable. It is not so much that the British workers considered and rejected Socialist internationalism but that they have not yet understood what the latter means. What they or the majority of them have rejected is the alternative which they feel is associated with the Communist Party, that of supporting the Russian government against the British Labour government; which brings us to the hypocritical indignation voiced by the Communists and their defenders.

The social system in Russia is not Socialism but a form of State Capitalism and there is no case whatever for the workers anywhere to give allegiance to that regime or to the Communist Parties which exist to support it. And in view of the dictatorship imposed on Russian workers by their rulers it is the height of impudence for the associates of the Communists to protest against the activities of other governments. Among these individuals is Mr. L. C. White, General Secretary of the Civil Service Clerical Association and also a member of the Editorial Board of the Daily Worker. In his latter capacity Mr. White condones in Russia the worst form of tyranny while in his trade union capacity he protests against a less objectionable form of it in this country. As General Secretary of the C.S.C.A. he has been demanding of the government an assurance “that a civil servant could hold any lawful political opinion and belong to any party.” Is Mr. White so woefully ignorant that he imagines the Russian government would for a moment give such an assurance? And if he knows the facts has he ever protested? In Russia no worker, whether a civil servant or not, may belong to any political party at all except the Communist Party. All other political parties are suppressed. We leave it to Mr. White to explain his curious position.

#    #    #    #

Russia’s Industrial Progress.

It is not always easy to get information on the extent to which Russian industry is catching up with the output of such countries as U.S.A. and Britain but interesting figures that have just been released about the Russian automobile industry can be compared with similar figures published here and in U.S.A.

Soviet News (27/5/48) states that by 1950 the annual output of the Russian motor industry will be 65,000 passenger cars and 428,000 trucks and 6,400 buses and that this will be a 50 per cent. increase on 1947 output.

In Great Britain production during the first four months of this year is at the annual rate of 320,000 passenger cars and 156,000 commercial vehicles. It will be noticed that while Russian production of commercial vehicles greatly exceeds their production of passenger cars, in Britain, where production of cars is at present largely for export, the passenger cars are double the number of commercial vehicles. If for purpose of comparison we reckon one commercial vehicle as equal to two passenger cars (a relationship that is borne out by official value figures in the “Monthly Digest of Statistics,” May, 1948), and if we allow for the fact that the Russian figures are what is planned for 1950 after a 50 per cent. increase on 1947, the figures indicate that at present Russian motor production is about equal to that of Great Britain.

When we come to comparison with U.S.A., Russia and Britain are both dwarfed. According to figures in “The Motor Industry of Great Britain” the production of automobiles in U.S.A. in 1946 was 2,148,677 cars and 940,830 commercial vehicles. This total output is about six times as great as present output in Russia or Britain.

#    #    #    #

Another Russian Line on Religion.

The Manchester Guardian (16/6/48) reports another change in Russian government policy towards religion:

   "During the war anti-religious propaganda almost disappeared and the Orthodox Church was given a new privileged position in the State . . . Now, though the Orthodox Church is still given certain privileges—largely, one suspects, to impress believers in East Europe—there is a sudden renewal of anti-religious propaganda in the Moscow broadcasts.”

Possibly the Russian government fears that its handmaiden, the Russian Church, is making too many converts; in a country where the mass of the population are unaccustomed to think for themselves the mysticism and symbolism of religion may be proving too attractive by comparison with the State religion of patriotic-militarism. The Ikon and the worship of Christ may be ousting the Hammer and Sickle and the mummified body of Lenin.

Only last month the head of the Russian Church informed Reuter’s correspondent (Manchester Guardian, 13/5/48) that "Church communities . . . are increasing, as are equally the number of Churches’’ and that it is planned “to extend the printing of Church books and literature needed for Church consumption and for believers.”

Nowadays nobody ought to be surprised at shifts in Russian policy but it looks as if the British Communists have once more been caught on the hop. Just when it seems that anti-religion is the new Party line they announce (Daily Worker, 17/6/48) a new pamphlet, "Catholics and Communism,” in which Mr. Gallacher, M.P., "discusses the Vatican policies and shows that there is every reason why Catholics should be members of the Communist Party.”

Or can it be that the Russian Pope has given the British Communists a special dispensation to hold that "Religion is the opium of the people” but not in Great Britain?

#    #    #    #

Democracy In U.S.A.

Under cover of the alleged fear of Russian infiltration the authorities in U.S.A. are busy learning from Russia some of the arts of suppression of minority opinion. Mr. Alan Moorhead, writing in the Observer (16th May, 1948), writes:

  ‘‘One hears constantly of the Federal Bureau of Investigation checking up on people who are probably no more than mild Liberals. The arrest of Mme. Joliot-Curie recently was no accident. To be 'screened’ by the F.B.I. is apparently nothing remarkable. Nor is it regarded as particularly strange that the F.B.I. should tap the telephone calls and open the private mail of a suspect—or even seek information from his banker or doctor or employer.
   "Even in the far south-west I found patrols on the roads picking up tramps and out-of-work men who were suspected of being the wrong political colour, possible agitators. And this censorship has been taken up spontaneously as well by many employers, and by the committees of the many social clubs. It would not be wise for a clerk in some business houses to wear a Wallace button if he wished to keep his job.”

#    #    #    #

The Fabians In Difficulties.

The Evening Standard (2/6/48) quotes from the Annual Report of the Fabian Society about their financial difficulties and stagnation of membership. A drive for members produced 123 recruits in the year 1947-8, but “the total net gain was only 13 members.” In 1947 the Fabian Society’s membership as shown in the Labour Party's Annual Report was 3,367.

#    #    #    #

Tobacco Workers Drop Nationalisation.

Two years ago the Tobacco Workers’ Union voted in favour of the nationalisation of the tobacco industry. At their Conference at Bristol, early in June, they reversed the decision. The Daily Mail (11/6/48) reports the General Secretary, Mr. Percy Belcher, as saying: 

   "The 1946 decision was made in good faith, but in the light of experience now before us we feel it wise and good to rescind it" 

#    #    #    #

A Queer Defence of Russian Imperialism.

Writing in Forward (5/6/48) Mr. W. P. Coates of the Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee pleads for Russia to have control of the Dardanelles. His plea rests on three main points. The first is that the Czarist governments tried for centuries to get it. The second is that it was promised to Russia in the Secret Treaty made by Britain, France and the Czar’s government in 1915—a sordid bargain that the Communists loudly denounced and repudiated in 1918. Thirdly, he argues that it should be done because it is no longer true, if it ever was, that Russian control of the Dardanelles “would cut across the throat of the British Empire lifelines.”

He pleads for a "friendship policy” on the basis of "a joint British-Soviet naval collaboration" in that area, but does not tell us against whom this proposed pact of the two Imperialisms is to be directed.

Communists nowadays are indeed reduced to some curious arguments in their support of the Imperialism of their choice. There was a time when Lenin denounced all Imperialisms.

Edgar Hardcastle

Mr. Shaw and the Dictators (1948)

From the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

After Mr. G. B. Shaw’s article in the Daily Herald on 13th May and the attack on him by Mr. Michael Foot in the Tribune, Shaw wrote to the Tribune on 28th May and again on 11th June. Some of his points deserve comment. He admits his support of the dictators in the following terms:

   “I may remind Mr. Foot that we all very properly stood by Hitler and Mussolini until they went wrong, exactly as we stood by Ramsay MacDonald. The first years of a dictator are always to his credit. Power corrupts, but not in five minutes.” (Tribune, 28/5/48.)

The last sentence raises a nice point. The other dictator, Stalin, has been in power for nearly a quarter of a century and must therefore have had time to be corrupted by power but Shaw has not withdrawn his approval as far as we know. In the later letter (11/6/48) Shaw tells us why the early years of a dictator are good. He tells us that Hitler put an end to unemployment and tore up the Versailles Treaty, and Mussolini drained the Pontine Marshes, started rebuilding Rome and made a Concordat with the Pope. It is, of course, the silliest of arguments for it justifies support of every kind of government, past present and future. They have all claimed credit for other peoples’ work and lent their names to monumental projects and the making or breaking of Treaties. Are we to give blind support to Roosevelt for the Tennessee Valley Scheme, to Napoleon and to those who destroyed him, to the Pharoahs under whom the Nile waters were used for irrigation and the Pyramids built, to all the rulers of the slave and feudal and capitalist regimes? Incidentally, if the tearing up of the Versailles Treaty shows how good dictators are, what about Stalin’s part in the agreements for the plunder of the defeated at the end of the second world war. Does Shaw now execrate him for lunacies worse than Versailles, and get ready to hail the new German dictator who will tear it all up?

Shaw is angry with Mr. Foot for reminding him that Mussolini had Matteoti assassinated, and says that he (Shaw) was not a party to it. If the Labourites are in the absurd position of deluding themselves with the notion how nice capitalism would be if only it were freed from the evils that necessarily accompany it, Mr. Shaw is in the same silly position about dictators. He says in effect, how nice dictators would be if only they didn’t do the brutal things to their opponents that all dictators have to do.

Of course, when it is a question of flooring Mr. Foot, Shaw is on an easy thing. Arguing for industrial conscription (”compulsory civil service ”) he asks Mr. Foot what a Labour Government has to offer to make the workers work, in place of the whip of starvation. What he ignores is the fact that we still have capitalism, and as Socialists have always said, you can’t have an exploiting system without some bludgeon to drive the exploited to work. But what has this to do with Socialism?

Mr. Shaw gives his own version of events when he. tells us that “the careers of Mussolini and Hitler were produced solely by the disgust and disillusion of the proletariat with party parliaments . . . ” This is a gross misinterpretation, What made the workers disillusioned in Germany was not Parliament as such but the inability of the Social Democrats, alone and in coalition, to make capitalism function in the interests of the working class; but every Socialist knows that this is always impossible. If Mr. Shaw had added Lenin and Stalin to his list of dictators his argument would have exposed itself, for the Russians never had any experience of parliament and therefore could not be disillusioned with it.

On Shaw’s general argument that Parliament is too slow and faulty, and dictators speedy and efficient, do any of his dictators give proof? Hitler and Stalin were just as helpless as any Parliamentary government to prevent capitalism engulfing their countries in war. If dictatorship is swift why is it that 30 years after Lenin said that they must immediately introduce virtual equality of wages from top to bottom, we find Russia not only not doing so but producing greater and greater inequality between the privileged rich and the poverty-stricken masses? If dictatorship is sure and efficient how comes it that Russia, after spending years developing co-education, ease of divorce, and legalised abortion, then discovers its “errors” and sets about reversing all those trends in greater or less degree?

Mr. Shaw's defence of capitalism run by dictators is as weak as his opponents’ defence of capitalism run by Labour Governments.

P. S.

Labour Party Apologetics (1948)

Book Review from the July 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. John Parker's book, "Labour Marches On" (Penguin, 1s. 6d.) is a haven of peace after the exhausting thunder of its companion volume, Hogg's "Case For Conservatism." Mr. Parker writes quietly and modestly, and makes one think of him as a nice, modest man. After reading his book one realises that, in the matter of political understanding, he has plenty to be modest about.

Mr. Parker's case is that the Labour Party represents "the latest attempt of the forces of the Left to extend the rights of the common people against the forces of privilege which always tend to support the political Right." This, of course, means less than nothing, though it does seem a pity that in such a blaze of jargon the words "progressive" and "reactionary" have been left out. However, Mr. Parker goes on to inform us that two main strains went to the creation of the Labour Party: "the Socialist Idea" and the desire of the Trade Unions to secure representation in Parliament. Had he stuck to the latter in talking about the origins of the Labour Party, Mr. Parker would have been on fairly safe ground; as it is, he insists on the former, and thereby reveals that his "Socialist Idea" is as knock-kneed as most of the other ideas that march through "Labour Marches On."

"Socialism," says Mr. parker, "means the ownership or control of the main resources of the community on behalf of the community," but it turns out that all he means is nationalisation. Fortunately, we know that Socialism is nothing of the sort, and that the Parker definition is only a particularly juicy specimen from the bag of carrots that the Labour Party keeps for dangling before working-class noses. What Mr. Parker needs to be told is that capitalism, the system in which the whole community does not the means of production, does not become any more acceptable when it is dressed up in the terminology of the Left Book Club. The working class is concerned, not with the question of who administers wage-slavery, but with the existence of wage-slavery.

According to Mr. Parker, the whole conception of Socialism owes its existence almost entirely to those clever Fabian Society people. Mr. Parker is himself a Fabian, by the way. He tells us how it was the Fabian's hope to establish Socialism through the Liberal party, and how that hope was raised when many Fabians were adopted as Liberal candidates in the early 1900s. As the Liberal Party was, had always been, and is today an avowedly capitalist party, it would seem that the Fabians' "Socialism" was not altogether what it made itself out to be. Their hopes went awry, alas, because "Lloyd George did not become a Socialist"! There is a cursory mention of "the German refugee, Karl Marx," who merits no more than three lines because his writings "had far more effect upon Socialists outside this country." If Mr. Parker was not, like his fellow-Labourites, bound hand and foot by nationalism, he might not dismiss any Socialist as ineffective on such a ground.

There are the usual excuses for the failure of the two previous Labour Governments to produce the goods. Mr. Parker describes the period after 1918: "Most of the fine talk of 'Homes for Heroes' failed to materialise . . . profiteering was rampant . . . strikes and unemployment were soon the order of the day." Things are scarcely different in 1948. However, the Labour Party took advantage of these conditions and gained sufficient support for the first Labour Government to come to power in 1923. Of their short-lived reign, Mr. Parker says: "Labour was thus called on to take office for the first time without having anything like a majority for carrying out its specifically Socialist programme; in fact it was dependent for day to day support unpin the Liberal Party." This, of course, is the standard Labour excuse for that sorry episode. However, listen to another writer: ". . . this reason for the inability of the 1924 Labour Government to do anything tangible for the benefit of its supporters will not bear examination. The Liberal Party, which formed the necessary support of the Labour Government in the House of Commons, was anxious to press on with the extension of that system of social services which it had initiated." That was Mr. Strachey, that was. ("The Menace of Fascism").

Of the second Labour fiasco, Mr. Parker says the blame must be apportioned in part to the world economic slump and in part to ineffective leadership. Listen again to Mr. Strachey: "To their dismay, the Labour Ministers discovered that the real task of anyone who chose to administer the Government for British Capitalism was to apportion the sacrifices which the crisis was making necessary . . . And somehow or other it seemed inevitable that, under the existing economic system, by far the heaviest penalties should fall on the workers."

The remainder of "Labour Marches On" is the familiar hotch-potch of nationalisation, social security, promises of full employment and the like. We are concerned here principally with the historical case that Mr. Parker puts forward for supporting the Labour Party as a Socialist Party. As Strachey pointed out (in the days before he became a Labour Minister, of course) the previous Labour Governments failed for the precise reason that their object was not Socialism. Like the present Government, they discovered that capitalism can only be run in one way—against the interests of the working class. The Labour Party does not represent the desire of the workers for Socialism but, on the contrary, gains its support from their lack of political consciousness.

It is hardly necessary to say that the present Government will go the way of its predecessors. Socialism is not a promised land to which the working class will be guided by clear-sighted, high-minded leaders. When it comes, it will come through the action of the working class itself, without the need for leaders. Neither is Socialism the pet idea of Fabian intellectuals. There is only one "main strain" that leads to Socialism and that is the ever-worsening conditions of the present system. It might perhaps be said that in one way the Labour Party will contribute to the coming of Socialism, and that is by showing the working class than no amount of "planning" and no number of reforms can alter the basic facts of capitalism, and that the problems and paradoxes of that system will remain until it is abolished.

Robert Barltrop