News in Review: Mandela Speaks (1964)

The News in Review column from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mandela Speaks

In Pretoria Nelson Mandela has stood trial, with eight others, on charges of attempting revolution by violence. If he is found guilty—and he does not deny that he helped to organise acts of sabotage— Mandela could be sentenced to death.

It is inevitable, in the prevailing conditions and atmosphere in South Africa, that Mandela's case should arouse considerable sympathy. To many of those who resent the repressions and indignities which the coloured people of South Africa are subjected to, Mandela's admitted activities are anything but crimes. They are his people’s cries for help.

It is a truism that violent repressions are bound to provoke violent resistance. Because of this, a man in Mandela’s predicament can often come to be thought of as almost a saint. But history has shown how a saint under duress at one time, can be a devil in command at another. The past is crowded with men who have been imprisoned—and even sentenced to death—for their opposition to a repressive power and who, when they eventually themselves took over their country, proved to be no better than the power they had deposed. DeValera, Nkrumah, Ben Bella are only three like this who spring to mind. 

What of Mandela?

During his trial he set out his views in a four and a half hour speech. It is instructive to examine this speech, especially some of the more revealing passages in it.

We all (Ghandi, Nehru, Nkrumah, Nasser) accept the need for some form of Socialism to enable our people to catch up with the advanced countries of the world . . .

It is common for the leaders of rising nationalist movements to tag the name of Socialism onto the measures of state control they would like to impose to try to advance their country's economy. The correct description for these measures is state capitalism, which in large .doses has often led to the imposition of a dictatorship, and which in any case never offers a country’s workers a future any better than private enterprise capitalism.

But even more significant is another passage.

I approached this question (guerilla warfare) as every African Nationalist should do . . . I attempted to examine all types of authority on the subject. . . . covering such a variety as Mao Tse-Tung and Che Guevara on the one hand, and the writings on the Anglo-Boer War on the other.

The point in this, which Mandela’s sympathisers arc bound to miss, is that both Mao Tse-Tung and the Boers were once lighters against oppression. They used the same sort of arguments about human dignity and freedom which Mandela now uses. Yet in the end they have themselves imposed hard dictatorships, under the thrall of which Mandela and his friends have suffered.

What reason is there to believe that the African Nationalists, if they ever got power, would be any improvement on the Boers? The history of capitalism says that there is no reason whatever.

Spy exchange

Of all the dirty jobs which capitalism needs to have done, spying is one of the worst.

And not the least unpleasant aspect of spying is its calculated indifference. A spy knows the score. He knows that he is out on his own and that if he gets caught he must take what is coming to him. The government which sent him out will not—indeed cannot—help him. Except in the very rare occasions when their hand is forced—the U2 is an example—they will not ever admit that the man is a spy.

This was why the Russians never officially recognised Gordon Lonsdale as one of their agents. For the same reasons, the British government’s protestations, that Mr. Greville Wynne was just a harmless business man, should not be automatically believed.

What seems most likely is that Wynne was a small cog in the British espionage machine, perhaps convinced that he was only doing his patriotic duly by being a messenger boy. The freedom which the press were given, to interview him and to follow him around, when he returned to England suggest that he was anything but an important spy.

The striking thing about the affair was the grisly cynicism with which Wynne was used. The British government held off agreeing to the exchange until they were given a “humanitarian” reason for doing so. The Russians duly obliged by ill-treating Wynne, so that he came back an unrecognisable shadow of the man who went out.

Thus the newspapers were given sonic interesting photographs to take and some interesting stories to print and presumably someone, somewhere, was satisfied that all the niceties of international double-dealing had been complied with.

It never seemed to strike anybody—except the Wynne family—that they were playing with a man's life.

Ah, well, Capitalism has shown again and again that it has an order of priorities and that human welfare is nowhere near the top of it.

Ready for the Unions

More than ever convinced that they are a sure bet to win the next election, the Labour Party are turning anxious eyes upon the problems they are likely to meet when they take office.

One of these problems will be the size of our wage packets. Despite the airy assurances which the capitalist parties give at election times, all of them know that one of their knottiest problems is to hold wages in check while doing nothing which they think might affect the conditions which give rise to a heavy demand for labour.

The Tories have played this one pretty cool, but the Labour Party are convinced that they have a special advantage in meeting this problem. Their leaders never tire of telling us that only a Labour government, with its close ties with the unions, can effectively control wage claims. And now, as the autumn draws near, they are busily rallying the unions to accept the restrictions which lie ahead. 

Listen to these.

A Labour Government and trade unionists have shown how to work wholeheartedly for the same thing. Sometimes they will have to share uncomfortable responsibilities and consequences. [Who said that? Deputy Labour Lender George Brown.]

. . . unless the unions face the facts of life as they are in the late 1960’s, then in seven to ten years’ time the State will have to intervene. [Who said that? Labour's Shadow Minister of Labour Ray Gunter.]

The miners never had a better friend than Alf Robens. They would be in a mess if he had not come to the Coal Board in I960. [Who said that? Alf Robens, of course.]

These statements—and there are many others to choose from—have a nervously sanguine tone to them. Do the present Labour leaders remember the fights which the Attlee government had over wages? Do they remember the wage-freeze? The strikes, and how the Labour government did their best to break them? Do they fear that they will have to face the same battles, when they are the government?

And is that why they are so determinedly whistling in the dark?

Big time divorce

One of the fashionable tendencies in big business over the past few years has been to merge and to concentrate into gigantic industrial and commercial combines. We need hardly say that the drive behind this fashion has been the need to hold their own in the jungle war that is capitalism.

This tendency has accounted for firms which once seemed to be implacable rivals. An example of this was the merger between the Austin and Morris motor companies, which produced the British Motor Corporation.

These mergers have happened because the companies involved in them have been convinced that they stood to gain a lot by the marriage. And it is that same conviction that has persuaded ICI and Courtaulds apparently to go against the trend and to break up their partnership in the jointly owned British Nylon Spinners.

This divorce will entail Courtaulds surrendering their half share in BNS and ICI giving up their holding of 30 million Courtaulds shares which they were left with after their unsuccessful takeover bid in 1962.

Despite this big shareholding, ICl had no director on the Courtaulds boards, which meant that although they had a substantial amount of capital at stake in the company they did not have a commensurate amount of control over its day to day affairs.

This was one of the results of the strained relations between the two firms which came out of the great takeover battle.

At the same time, Courtaulds have become interested in Nylon 6, a new fibre which they are already producing in a few countries abroad. Dutch and American firms are starting production of Nylon 6 in this country (on the very day the ICI/Courtaulds divorce was announced Chemstrand, a subsidiary of the US Monsanto Corporation, gave out that they intended to build a £6 million Nylon 6 plant in Scotland), and Courtaulds, restricted by their interest in the BNS fibre Nylon 66, saw that they might be losing a trick.

By all the profit-conscious, competitive, standards of capitalism, then, the divorce was a logical move. But it does not mean that there is any reversal in the trend to concentrate.

Rather, in the manner of living cells, ICI and Courtaulds have divided only to become larger and to multiply. It is very much on the cards that one day in the not too distant future we shall see them in a head-on battle over the nylon market. That will be a contest with a horrible fascination all of its own.

Labour or Tory? — Tory or Labour? (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sometime before next November the people of this country will decide on their next government.

Although both Labour and Tory parties have a large nucleus of loyal supporters who would never vote for any other party, there is a vast number of voters who arc not committed beforehand. It is these, commonly lumped together as the “floating vote”, who determine which party victory goes to in present day political conditions. The further away from the solid nucleus of a political party the voter is, the more is his vote likely to “float”, and the governments under which we suffer are in effect determined by the most indeterminate of voters—victory goes to that party which is able to capture the temporary support of a few million voters.

The way in which the tide can ebb and flow is well demonstrated by the fluctuating percentages of support published in the public opinion polls. But even these are often not accurate prophets of the actual results, and elections have been won or lost on the strength of the smell of red herrings drawn across the path by the Tory or Labour fishwives just before the votes are cast.

Most voters think the art of government is some mystical thing which is the prerogative of professional politicians; once their votes are cast they are prepared to leave the job to “those who know best”. No small wonder then that the working class get the government they deserve.

Such results inevitably produce a certain amount of disillusionment. From time to time, there arise movements clamouring for the reform of the electoral system or, even more misguided, for the total rejection of the electoral system itself. But the adoption of various systems of proportional representation in other countries has demonstrated that such reform does not solve the basic problem, as the sway of government still passes between the major parties or major coalitions according to the temper of the day. Although it is possible for more shades of opinion to be represented in the debating chamber, the general effect is usually only to lead to greater instability in the government.

Stability or non-stability is not, however, what we are after. What we are after is the establishment of an administration we want—not a government we deserve! To achieve this object two things are politically necessary:

First, the right to vote—this we already have; second, the ability and knowledge to use the vote in the right way—this statement immediately poses the question —What is the “right” way?

Obviously the right way is to vote for what we want. But this involves the ability and knowledge to judge whether the policies of political parties will in fact achieve the desired results; that what the politicians say will happen, will in fact happen! From lifetimes of experience we know only too well how contrary these results have been.

There are two main lessons for this. First, the short term expedient, the shaping of immediate policy into election pledges to try to capture the floating vote. Second, the long term impossibility, the complete inability, of any political party to control the present economic system. The familiar pattern of governments which are incapable of carrying out all their policies and which are inevitably forced to repudiate their pledges and promises will continue so long as the electorate has insufficient knowledge of the causes of Such political duplicity.

Both the major political parties are prepared to use expediency to gain office and neither has a policy designed to rid us of the present economic system of capitalism. Consequently, whichever party forms the government after the next election, the pattern of events which follow will be similar to what we have experienced before.

Some people think there are fundamental differences between the Labour and Tory parties—others, and this view has gained more credence in recent years —think there is very little difference between them. The latter view is nearer the truth the more we consider fundamental issues; the former view reflects more correctly the views of those who are concerned mainly with surface appearances. It is the fundamental issues which are more important but we should not blind ourselves to the fact that there are considerable differences between Tory and Labour Parties on the ways and means of organising the economics and politics of the country. It is these differences which will decide the result of the next general election.

N.S.

Shakespeare and Elizabethan society (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this article it is aimed to outline briefly Elizabethan Society and its effect on the work of Shakespeare. It is necessary to look into the social background in order to see how conditions gave rise to new ideas of society and how they were reflected by Shakespeare.

The feudal system was in a dying state towards the end of the 16th century. The first upheaval and the greatest was due to the change in the methods of production. The most important development was in the growth of the wool industry with its expanding export markets. This led to the enclosure system —the forcible seizure of the lands from the peasants by the rich landlords. Here we had the development of early capitalist industry, and the exploitation of the former peasants.

The feudal system was crumbling and power began to move from the feudal aristocrat to the new landed bourgeoisie.

Now for the political aspects of the time which followed from the change in economic conditions. The intensive reorganisation of sections of the landed nobility and their unification with the bourgeoisie (the new merchant class) which in its early period (almost to the end of the 16th century), brought about the desire for an absolute monarch to. combat rebellious feudal lords.

The victory of the House of York in the Wars of the Roses, brought Edward IV (1461-1483) to the throne. He was the friend of the merchants and during his reign the mercantile system and absolutism in the political arena first made their appearance. Edward IV ruled almost without Parliament. Absolutism reached its climax during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Everybody was affected by the revolutionary changes in the social conditions.

Shakespeare (born 1564, died 1616) was a champion of the new forces. He recognised the barriers of the old feudal order and was in favour of absolutism to crush feudal rebellion. The history plays show this very clearly. The essential theme is the affirmation of absolute power. His fore-runner, Marlowe (1564-1593), likewise reflected in his work the aspirations of the bourgeoisie.

His plays expressed all the passion of an exultant class, eager to rush into the fray for the conquest of the world. Marlowe develops the heroic tragedy. “To know everything” is the motto of Marlowe's heroes. Shakespeare has his roots in Marlowe, but picked up the pen of Marlowe and developed his style considerably.

Above all Shakespeare recognized the necessity of a strong central power, to put down rebellion. The English bourgeoisie favoured not only monarchism, but even absolutism for a time, which still served their ends. This is a problem that occupied Shakespeare.

This also explains the peculiar omissions in his works. In “King John”, for instance, there is no mention of the Magna Carta, one of the most important events of that epoch; this would have lowered the stature of the ruler, and defeated Shakespeare’s purpose.

The bourgeoisie, the squirearchy and the absolutists were united in their common struggle against the feudal nobles who stood for the old order. The history plays leave little doubt as to where Shakespeare’s sympathies lay. The powerful feudal nobles depicted by him—the Percies, Glendowers, Mortimers—are arrogant and refractory. To him they were the scourge of the land. He saw Henry IV’s reign as an uninterrupted series of tragic events due to the feudal uprisings which resulted from the King's usurpation.

A strong King, according to Shakespeare, is the greatest political blessing a nation can enjoy. Title alone does not make a King—he must justify his rank. Henry VI and Richard II perish because they are not such Kings. In the play Henry V we have the only sovereign who has completely crushed feudalism. He embodies all Shakespeare’s hopes which were to be realised by absolutism. In Richard III the King represents a strong ruler who firmly holds the reins of power and puts an end to the intrigues and quarrels of the Court cliques.

The history plays are permeated with the idea of the inevitability of the historical process: “evil inevitability”, Richard II calls it. There are many references to the “times” and the “spirit of the times”.

The Earl of Westmoreland (Henry IV, Part 2, Act IV, Scene 1) replies to the accusation of the rebellious feudal nobles with:

O, my good Lord Mowbray,

Construe the times to their necessities,

And you shall say indeed, it is the time 

And not the King, that doth you injuries.

Then we have the speech by Warwick (Henry IV, Part 2, Act III, Scene I)—

There is a history in all men’s lives,

Figuring the nature of the times deceased;

The which observed, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim, of the main chance of things 

As yet not come to life.

Shakespeare not only states the casual conditioning of events but demonstrates it through all the means at his command. One of the chief means is to relate events to the social background. In Henry IV, the scenes in which Falstaff appears; in Henry V, the scenes in the camp; and in Richard III, the scenes of proclamation depict the life which is the foundation from which spring the major political events.

Shakespeare was a powerful poetical dramatist opposed to the feudal system and in the history plays he used the history of the previous times to help further the object of crushing feudalism. It was a tradition in those days, handed down from medieval times, that drama was to entertain and to teach.

During the first period of Shakespeare’s work until around 1601, there occurred the coalescence of all the foremost forces of the country: upper middle-class, the monarchy, the gentry, and even part of the old landed nobility. This process is reflected by the joyous optimism of Shakespeare’s early work which was filled with a bold and happy affirmation of life, with obviously aristocratic elements. He has two main themes:

1. The assertion of the absolutist national state; and 
2. The joy of living now available to society, at last emancipated from feudal bondage.

To the first theme he dedicated the history plays: to the second the series of enchanting, gay comedies like “Two Gentlemen of Verona”, “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and “The Taming of the Shrew”. But the effects of the disintegration of the class alignment are already apparent in the plays written towards the end of the 16th century, plays like “Much Ado About Nothing” (1598) and ‘Twelfth Night” (1599) with their bitter sweet atmosphere which is never very far from tragedy. The decomposition of the Court had set in, the Puritans were becoming more and more aggressive, the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the nobility had already begun. Hence the tragic treatment of power in “Julius Caesar” (1599) with its confused conclusions and its pessimism.

Shakespeare lived in the period which saw the rise of the bourgeoisie, later to become the capitalist class. Here is an extract from the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels which sums up the situation:—

“The bourgeoisie . . . has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors' and has left no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest and callous ‘cash payment'. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. . . . The bourgeoisie has stripped off its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. . . . The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and has reduced the family relation to a money relation.”

During the second period to 1609—years which marked the decline of Elizabeth's reign and the advent, under James I, of feudal reaction—the process of disintegration was completed. Corruption was rife and the nobility, with the support of the monarchy, was preparing to defend its position against the bourgeoisie and the gentry. The literature of the time was teeming with pessimism.

These events, plus the execution of the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Southampton, who was a friend of Shakespeare, had a profound influence on the poet. He did not write any more gay comedies but created the powerful tragedies “Hamlet” and “Troilus and Cressida”. In both these plays Shakespeare gives us a picture of the social background as being ripe unto rottenness.

In “Measure for Measure” (1604) there can be seen the internal problems of absolute monarchy. The characters comment on the ruler and on current political events. We have portrayed the dregs of humanity; young profligates of the Court; procurers; corrupt constables and swindlers.

Then came the later tragedies like “Macbeth” and “King Lear", again dealing with the question of Kingship and the troubles of society. “Macbeth” may be seen to be another “Richard III”, but the play is much more profound. It is the portrayal of the mental troubles of Macbeth after he has usurped the throne. “King Lear” can be seen as a powerful representation of Shakespeare's familiar theme showing spurious feudal ideas as opposed to ideas of genuine powerful love. The play also contains doubts about the money grabbing bourgeoisie. Edmund is like the bourgeoisie, a ruthless machiavellian, crafty and ambitious for personal gain.

In “Coriolanus" (1607) we have one of the gloomiest tragedies. It reflects disillusionment in the rulers. There can be seen a criticism and condemnation of the feudal aristocrat trying to rule under the new conditions but wishing to retain his feudal privileges. An interesting feature, also in this play, is the language of the lowly plebians. There is no indication of hypocrisy, greed or baseness and they are presented in a sympathetic manner.

Shakespeare was a powerful poetical dramatist and the language and dramatic intensity of the plays develops beautifully. In the early plays blank verse intrudes on the drama, but later he developed his art and reached a fusion in the heights of poetic drama. His achievement, however, is not only in the form of poetry and drama, but also in his presentation of the social background, and it is only by recognising this that we can fully appreciate his work.

In “A Companion to Shakespearian Studies", G. B. Harrison makes the following remarks:—

A serious student of Shakespeare's plays cannot neglect the national background, for in an age that was in many ways cribbed and confined, the problems of the individual were inseparable from the problems of the state. The picture of a Shakespeare magnificently aloof from life may be pleasing to romantic critics, but it does not square either with the facts, or with Shakespeare’s own comment upon his art. “Players”, said Hamlet to Polonius, “are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time”. Besides the purpose and end of playing “both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as ’twere, the mirror up to nature”; “to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure”.

Shakespeare was at first a supporter of the bourgeoisie, the exponent of the program advanced by them when, in the name of humanity, they first challenged the feudal order, but which later they disavowed.

Towards the end of Shakespeare's life the bourgeoisie were already strong enough to throw off their cloak of being in the interests of humanity, to reveal their money grabbing and narrow-minded puritanism. Then he subjected the bourgeoisie to a keen and profound criticism. The rapacity, greed, cruelty, egoism and philistinism so typical of the growing bourgeoisie are scathingly portrayed and attacked. He placed on stage the social types of his day and through them reflected more clearly and profoundly than anyone else, the predominant social ideas of the times.

W. Waters

[Reprinted from the Socialist Standard, June 1951.]

The Australian Scene (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sweet Sugar . . . .

Capital investment in the Australian sugar industry complex is either high or low, according to the higher or lower profit margins to be gained. As with other industries, sugar has known both these aspects of the trade cycle. At the time of writing, however, it is a booming industry for the cane grower.

Queensland is the sugar state of Australia, and in reviewing the past decade of the industry there, Frank Devine says that the average value of the crop has been in the region of £60 millions a year. It’s an ill wind that blows no capitalist any good, so in 1962, following the United Stales’ decision to stop trading with Cuba, the Australian sugar growers enjoyed a season of almost perfect conditions. The result, according to Mr. Devine, was a record production of 1.8 million tons of raw sugar (500,000 tons better than 1961) and a rake off for the year of £85 millions.

But the sugar men were just flexing their muscles. The income from the 1963 crop (120,000 tons less than 1962) is expected to be at least £105 millions. . . . By 1970 it is estimated, sugar growing in Australia will be close to a £200 millions a year operation. . . . The North Queensland sugar country has almost the atmosphere of gold rush days. (The Advertiser, South Australia, 5/4/64.) 

Not all the growers there are happy about the prevailing conditions, however. “Will the boom go bust?” is a question on the lips of some of the older and more established gentry, who have experienced the leaner and more difficult times of a few years back. They balk at the idea of throwing everything madly into the current boom and have expressed fears about the dangers of over-expansion.

Yet despite themselves, they are hurried along by the tide of frantic boom conditions. To do less would mean falling out of the race altogether and leaving the field to the younger men “. . . full of optimism and busy with plans for mechanisation to make even more competitively efficient one of the most efficient industries in Australia.” An idea of just what this means can be glimpsed from the Commonwealth of Australia Yearbook for 1963, which tells us that about ninety-two per cent of raw sugar is now handled in bulk, with no bagging at any stage.

As we might gather, not all cane growers are rich. Some of them (“battlers” they are called) do their own cane cutting, working terribly hard, but whose return can only be described as meagre after meeting mortgage and hire-purchase payments on plant and equipment. However much they may strive, theirs is a hopeless struggle against the growing efficiency of the big men. They are doomed in the main to bankruptcy, with little else left but their labour power.

Doomed also to extinction (after the manner of the English hand loom weaver of the eighteenth century) is the Queensland cane cutter. During the course of his comparatively short existence, he has become one of the symbols of the tough, cheerful, self-reliant rural battler, resistant alike to smugness, oppressive authority and religious cant. But the rapid growth of mechanisation, as Devine points out, will mean the end of the seasonal worker in the sugar country. ” . . . But it will bring to Ingham and Innisfail and other sugar centres a small army, of new permanent citizens who will sell, maintain and operate the machines.”

So it is the same old picture of emerging industry demanding a specialised labourer, and then casting him into oblivion as further development renders his acquired skills obsolete. Indeed, as though from afar, we hear again the voice of Marx:—

This change may possibly not take place without friction, but take place it must. (Capital, Vol. I.)

. . . . And Sour Grapes.

Grapes grown and harvested for the wineries, for fresh eating, or for dried fruit purposes, are among the most succulent of fruits. Yet because of their commodity status in the modern world, and because of the complications which arise from this, grapes can, and do. acquire a sourness of which perhaps only the grower is aware.

We are beginning to sec the grower viewing his commodity with concern as it becomes evident that demand is not keeping pace with his increasing supply unlike the present position of his fellow grower in the sugar industry. Reading again from The Advertiser of March 5th, Mr. Retalic, secretary of the Primary Producers’ Union of South Australia, airs a dispute between the grape growers and the wine makers. The growers complain that the wineries are refusing to buy much of this season’s harvest. The obvious solution, thinks Mr. Retalic, is to increase the price of sultanas by another £2 a ton. ,

This is clearly a case of man (Retalic) proposing and capitalism disposing, for it is the very uncertainty of the export market for dried fruit that has driven the growers to compete fiercely with each other for sales to the wineries. Just where the buyers are to be found who will agree to pay an extra £2 per ton in a falling market, Mr. Retalic does not say. However, he does seem to know enough about the basic conditions of the market when he admits that:—

The grower could not be blamed for trying to ensure the sale of his grapes, nor could the wine maker be blamed for trying to purchase his requirements at the best price.

So it is simply astonishing then, to hear him round off with a bout of moralising over something which is equally a fact of capitalist life, thus:—-“ What was blameworthy was the complete indifference of each party for the business of the other."

Competition is often lauded by our bosses as something desirable in itself and for its own sake. That sort of philosophy may be alright, when you’re on the winning side, but not when (like Retalic) you start to take some of the knocks. It is then that you begin to deplore “indifference” and want to get together against the other fellow, because he is now bigger than you.

Cold Water on Troubled Oil.

With commendable detachment, The Commonwealth of Australia Yearbook for 1962 informs us on a burning topic of the day. 

The discovery of oil in commercial quantities in Australia has been the object of oil exploration companies for many years. Recent discoveries in Queensland could indicate that this country is on the verge of proving commercial oilfields.

But less detached than the sober appraisal in the Yearbook, and understandably so, is the concern felt and voiced by Senator Maher, when dealing with the results of these expensive oil-seeking ventures. The senator has claimed that “. . . the search for oil in Australia would collapse unless provision was made for the purchase and distribution of the whole of the Moonie (well) production at a fair price.” Investors would lose heart, he said, if all the oil already produced could not find “an immediate market at equitable prices in Australia.” The senator is, of course, after the government to see that this does not happen.

To find and produce the oil is one thing; to sell it in a buyer’s market is another, and apparently more than one capitalist has got the jitters over the prospect of heavy financial loss. It seems that the oil-producing geological processes of the past few million years have played a lousy trick on the companies drilling for a paying flow in this continent, for there are suggestions that the quality of the product is not up to the standard of competitors. Apart from this, however, the adverse factor bugging Australian oil is the meagre flow by average world standards. The local flow rate may prove profitable next century when other wells are drying up, but this is cold comfort to the capitalists who want "a reasonable return” quickly on die millions they have spent. This “reasonable return” apparently carries Australian oil above current world prices to a degree noticeable and discouraging to buyers, so naturally they remain indifferent to the business problems of the sellers.

National Development Minister Sir William Spooner has denied that the question of price has bogged down negotiations between the government and the companies, yet this did not prevent him from saying that:—

If the oil companies remained adamant on the matter of a just price and also failed to lift the whole of the Moonie production, the situation would certainly provoke a head-on collision between some Australian governments and the oil companies.

Oil has had a troubled history wherever it has appeared in the world of capitalism. Australia is no exception. It will be interesting to watch the outcome of the struggle, although it will be of academic importance only as far as workers arc concerned. They had nothing before the oil was discovered. They will be in the same position long after the Moonie well has yielded its last drop.

Peter Furey

SPGB Meetings and Debates (1964)

Party News from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Pamphlets (1964)

Party Notice from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Links to the above SPGB pamphlets from 1964:

• The Case for Socialism (1962)
• 50th Anniversary of the Socialist Standard (1954)
• Art, Labour and Socialism by Willam Morris (with a modern assessment, 1962)
• Questions of the Day (1953) 
• Is Labour Government the Way to Socialism? (1946)
• Nationalisation or Socialism? (1945)
• The Communist Manifesto and the Last 100 Years (1948)
• The Socialist Party – Its Principles and Policy (1956)
• The Socialist Party and War (1950)
• Socialist Comment (1956)
• Schools Today (1961)

Blogger's Note:

No links for Questions of the Day (1953) and The Socialist Party – Its Principles and Policy (1956) because the versions of both pamphlets on the SPGB website are different editions.

The Passing Show: Cheddington—The Reckoning (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cheddington—The Reckoning

In just thirty-two minutes during the morning of April 16th, twelve men were sentenced to a total of 307 years imprisonment for their part in the great train robbery. Seven of the unfortunates received thirty years apiece and even the lowest sentence—on John Wheater the solicitor—was three years. Well might The Guardian describe the sentences next day as “a break from tradition", and point out that even in murder cases, a long term is only occasionally given.

It is no part of our business to argue for either side in the case, or to fall in with the idiocy of Methodist Dr. Donald Soper, who condemned the severity of the penalties but wanted Anglicans and Methodists to co-operate in working out a “Christian punishment". Justice Edmund Davies anyway would have had his reply — “A grave crime calls for a grave punishment"—and could probably quote plenty of Bible references and Christian ethics to support him. Probably, too, the majority of people would agree with him, although not without a sneaking admiration for the sheer daring and ingenuity of the whole plot.

Most of those sentenced said they would appeal, but whatever the outcome of this, it is worth repeating the point we made at the time. Those who practice armed robbery are just as much supporters of private property as any capitalist. The robbers of the Cheddington train, did on a much smaller scale of course, what whole groups of capitalist powers do when they go to war from time to time. There is no basic difference, even down to the detail of carving up the spoils afterwards.

In pronouncing sentence, the judge admitted that the crime in its enormity was the first of its kind in the country, and said “I propose to do all within my power to ensure that it will be the last". Which brings us face to face with the old question: does punishment prevent crime? The judge talked earnestly of deterring others “similarly tempted" but clearly failed to face up to the fallacy in his own argument. The thought of punishment obviously did not deter the men who did the robbery. It is too much to imagine that most of them at least had not weighed the possibility of arrest as one of the risks of the game, and carried on planning it just the same. In fact it has been seriously suggested that the Cheddington venture was financed from the proceeds of previous robberies, and if this is true, the deterrent power of punishment has obviously been sadly overrated 

No, crime is just one of the many facets of capitalist society and neither punishment nor a police force can stop it. For the modern criminal has merely responded to the conditions of a scientific and technological age, himself becoming a technician, mastering the know-how of oxyacetylene cutters, explosives, electrical gear and many other gadgets in the practice of his work. So that most of the time it is a see-saw battle between the police with all their modern means of detection and the boys who seek to outwit them. A battle, after all, between those who already own private property and those who want to take some of it from them. How can this sort of problem be solved by one set of robbers punishing another? The conditions of robbery of any sort must go, and that means the end of capitalism.

Health Charges and Hypocrisy

Perhaps one thing about being a member of H.M. Opposition in The Commons is that you can get away with just that bit more hypocrisy than H.M. Government. After all, the electors won’t blame you for things which go wrong while the other lot are in power and workers’ political memories are notoriously short. Anyway, it is about thirteen years since the last Labour government.

And thirteen years is a long enough time to forget the indignities of Labour rule, to forget that quite a number of present Tory policies had their origins in the years of Labour government, and that the Tories have been no more successful in solving working class problems.

Maybe then you would have missed the point of the statement made in the Commons on April 20th by Mr. Kenneth Robinson, Labour M.P. for St. Pancras North and Shadow Minister of Health. The next Labour government would, he said with a flourish, end prescription charges without making cuts anywhere else in the health service to make way for it. Now does your memory stretch back far enough to recall that the very first charges of this sort were imposed by the 1950 Labour government ? But not a whisper of this from Mr. Robinson.

Such a pledge will of course go down well with pensioners and others, whose plight forces them lo count every penny they spend. At the same lime it gives us an inkling of the contempt in which Labourites as well as Tories hold those who vote for them, the assumption being that a miserable few shillingsworth of pep pills and potions mark the limits of working class ambitions. Ironically and tragically, though, this is pretty near the truth, because working class ignorance means that arguments over crumbs like this can often cause a heated election tussle, while a terrifying problem like nuclear war can be all forgotten.

But health charges or H-bombs, the one thing which does not occur to workers is that they have their origin in the Capitalist system. Stubborn in their political ignorance, they hope to eliminate these problems and leave the cause intact—and that perhaps is the supreme irony of all.

Good Grivas

It’s funny how in the field of statesmanship, supposed enemies of yesterday can become friends of today, and vice versa, depending on the needs of the various ruling groups at the time. History is full of such instances. Stalin after 1945 for example. That was a right-about-turn if ever you saw one. Forgotten were the days when he was a comrade in arms of Churchill and Roosevelt, as the cold war got under way, and more than once the world was pushed perilously close to the brink of another major war. Now the pendulum could be swinging the other way as China develops and Mao becomes the bogyman of the Russian rulers. Then there is President de Gaulle with whom the British government must on many occasions have sworn eternal friendship, but who has been cutting up rough against British interests in Europe and pursuing his own semi-isolationist policies. Will he be the villain of the piece at some future date?

Take a look as the struggle in Cyprus. A few years ago, Makarios was interned in the Seychelles, only to come back later and shake hands over a peace agreement. But the peace was short lived and the British press rediscovers the blood-stained hands of the Cypriot president. Then into the news steps Grivas, another former enemy of earlier years, described by The Guardian of April 13th as “the brains of terrorism”.

General George Grivas was prominent for his direction of the campaign against the British from 1955 to 1959, and waged a ruthless struggle against an equally ruthless enemy, with murderous attacks against soldier and civilian alike. So in your innocence you might be astounded to see The Guardian editorial, again of April 13th, saying this about him:

. . . Whether we like it or not, Grivas is a man of influence, purpose, and decision, and ex-enemies with these qualities have helped us mightily in the past. . . If the General does go back . . . it might not be the worst thing that has happened to the Cypriots lately. The combination of a strong general and a weak president is not usually desirable, but in a country as lawless as Cyprus it can often bring peace more quickly, even if it does not bring justice.

A few years ago no name was too bad for this Grivas as British troops hunted (but never caught) him from one place to another. But times are changing, and with them the whole balance of strategy in the Mediterranean. What’s the betting they'll he pinning a medal on his chest yet?

Status Symbols

The world is full of them, and workers are among their most ardent supporters. What are we talking about? Status symbols of course. In a sane world where things were produced for use, you would expect an outlook in keeping with it. People would have a pride in producing the best at any given time because this would be the only way to give satisfaction to anyone, either in producing or using a particular article. Within Socialism, therefore, we would take great pride in producing things and in using them but not in owning them.

For pride of ownership is one of the false values that arise from capitalist society, where the forces of production are geared to the profit motive, and social approbation for a person is usually in direct ratio to the amount of wealth he owns, not to his usefulness to society as a whole. It is not surprising then that the status symbol has such a firm place in working class affections, and is encouraged by the advertising blurbs with words like ". . . You can be the proud owner of a . . . " But more than that, for many the status symbol is the pie thin crust that conceals the poverty beneath. This is the explanation for the paradox of enormous (mainly second-hand) cars often parked outside the slummiest dwellings, in Windsor a few years ago, over two hundred houses were checked by the G.P.O. and found to have T.V. aerials— but no sets.

Since then, the T.V. craze has slowed down, and people arc beginning to discover that cars are not an unmixed blessing in present frantic road conditions. Anyway, a status symbol loses its purpose if everyone has it so when this happens, the seekers must turn their eyes elsewhere. One certainty is that they will never stop looking. According to The News of the World recently, sun tans are now much sought after, and for as little as thirty shillings you can get your neighbour thinking you’ve just come back from a spell in the south of France. A travel agency in London's West End has started a sun bathing salon with ultra-violet lamps, to acclimatise their clients before they go abroad. Now they find that the majority of those using the salon are not going abroad anyway.

Pitiful, you might think? Tragic would be a better word, and as damning an indictment of capitalism as any. This is the system which never lets us really be ourselves, untrammelled and unashamed, but subjects us all the time to the strain of pretence. For many workers self-delusion plays a part in all this—the vain hope that maybe the pretence will one day be transformed into reality if they can only keep it going long enough and strong enough. Socialism, if it did nothing else, would release us from that sort of indignity at least. 

Eddie Critchfield

50 Years Ago: Forerunners of Marx (1964)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The author claims that the great forerunners of Marx—standing between the Utopians and the latter— was an Irishman named William Thompson, who, among numerous notable statements, laid bare the source of value in his work entitled, “An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth most conducive to Human Happiness”, etc., published 1824, where it is laid down that all labour can be reduced to unskilled labour of the average kind at a given time.

Miss Potter says Marx took his notion of “homogeneous human labour” from Thompson and incorporated it in “Capital”.

The author says, “In the English speaking world the work of this Irish thinker is practically unknown, but on the Continent of Europe his position has long him established'" (p 115)

Now what is common to both Connolly and Miss Potter is the curious fact that neither of them state who established Thompson's position and made him known on the Continent. The uninstructed reader may learn with surprise that the person responsible was—Karl Marx!

Many years ago Dr. Aveling pointed out in a little book called “Darwin Made Easy”, that the various “objections” by ignorant Christians and parsons to Darwin's work were all first formulated by Darwin himself in the “Origin of Species”, and no opponent had ever brought forward any other. So with Marx. All the opponents of Marx who are so loud in their claims to have discovered “forerunners” of his work and ideas are all of them—German, English and Irish alike—indebted to Marx, who first discovered and gave full credit to them in his various works, particularly in the “Poverty of Philosophy” and the “Critique of Political Economy”.

And among others he points out that Benjamin Franklin had already in 1721 stumbled on the secret of undifferentiated labour as the source of value, though he (Franklin) did not work the idea out to any extent.

However, it is the fashion today among the shallow critics of scientific Socialism who are unable to refute the case or show a flaw in the arguments of Marx to pretend to demolish that genius by finding someone who “anticipated” him, and keeping “gradely dark” the fact that the very person they are indebted to for such discovery is Marx himself.

(From the Socialist Standard, June, 1914. Extract from a review of “Labour in Irish History" by James Connolly)

Finance and Industry: Oil under the sea (1964)

The Finance and Industry column from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil under the sea

In our April issue we reported on the scramble now going on to stake out claims for oil concessions under the North Sea. As D-day draws nearer the Liquid Gold Rush is becoming more and more hectic.

D-day will be when the Minister of Power announces the regulations covering the issue of licences to prospect the sea bed, and asks for applications from interested firms. According to the Financial Times, the successful applicants may be hard at work by September.

Already the big boys are moving in, consolidating and amalgamating to impress the government that they are well in a position to cope should a licence come their way. Just to be on the safe side I.C.I. has set up shop with Burmah Oil and the Murphy Corporation of America, and the Gas Council has linked itself to U.S. Pan American International. Even more ambitiously, no less than six big British industrial firms, including Dorman Long and A.E.L, have set themselves up into a consortium with the impressive title of the North Sea Marine Engineering Construction Company. Asked about the prospects of finding oil, the managing director of the new company was very terse and to the point. “All I would say,” he said, “is that 46 oil companies would not be doing seismological work if there was not any oil”. Which, knowing our oil companies, seems apt enough comment.

Nobody knows at the moment just how many licences are going to be issued. But it won’t be long before the lucky contenders are announced. It looks as though it is going to be quite a race—with some very tempting prizes for the winner.


and on land

The race for oil near at home should not make us overlook happenings further afield. British troops are not being shot at in Aden by trigger-happy Yemeni tribesmen for nothing; not the least of the reasons they are there for is to keep an eye on the neighbouring oil installations, in which British capitalism has a large stake.

If we include Libya, which is not all that far away, the Middle East produces about 60 per cent by value of British oil requirements. British military pretensions have long since precluded active intervention in Iraq and Persia, but there are still treaties of '‘protection” with the fourteen petty states of the South Arabian Federation—these include, in particular, Kuwait with its annual output of 100 million tons of oil, in which B.P. has a fifty per cent interest. Some of the other sheikdoms are also fair oil producers, and exploration for new fields is going on in all of them, both on land and under the sea.

There are many people in British capitalist circles, who would be very pleased to get away from British dependence on Middle East oil. It has always been a risk politically, and is becoming more and more of a risk economically, particularly as the local ruling classes put increasing pressure on the oil companies for a greater and greater share of the revenues.

Which brings us back home again to the explorations under the North Sea. There is nothing probably the government would like better than for a hefty deposit of oil or natural gas to be found in British territorial waters. Something on the scale of the recent big find in Holland would be just the thing. Then they and the oil companies would really be able to put the screws on when it came to the next squabble over royalties with the sheiks.

The last bastion

Of all man's activities under capitalism, it is agriculture that has most resisted change. But change it does, in spite of all the obstacles, natural or man-made, that serve to impede it.

In the United States, the barriers have long since been broken. But, mechanisation apart, the rest of capitalism has been slow to follow the other developments which have become such a feature of the American agricultural scene during recent years. Yet within the last few years, in Britain especially, there has been a drastic change. Once upon a time farmers could think only of mass production in terms of crops; today, all is talk of applying this process to animals and animal produce.

As we have ourselves reported in these columns, one company alone is planning to produce about one-fifth of future British egg supplies, and it has since been announced that other firms are considering entering the egg industry on a similar scale. Linked with this development is another, again already prominent in the United States. This is vertical integration, the process whereby a single company controls the whole sequence of production — it has already been introduced into the broiler industry where some firms produce the feeding-stuffs, hatch out the young chickens from eggs laid by their own hens, rear them to broiler weight, and handle even the marketing themselves.

All this has come about in Britain in the space of two.or three years—remember that the broiler industry itself was unknown ten years ago. Now the same process is being applied to cattle and to pigs; the Financial Times recently reported a project by one group to set up a gigantic pig-rearing unit estimated to cost £300,000, complete with sausage factory alongside!

One side effect is already troubling the millers and makers of animal feeds, since the fundamental feature of the new combines is that they produce their own fodder requirements. The reaction of the millers has been, as often happens in these circumstances, to jump on to the band waggon themselves. Thus Spillers were quick to move in with Buxted Chicken, the big broiler chicken firm, to operate jointly their own feeding stuffs plant.

The small farmer, already feeling the squeeze from a host of directions, can hardly cope with this type of development. The alternatives for him will be either a constantly worsening existence if he chooses to stay on his farm, or a new life as a wage-worker in the town. Britain already has the lowest proportion of its population living on the land, but it is obvious that the forced emigration to the towns has still to exhaust itself. Agricultural mass production and vertical integration between them look like finishing off the process.

Stan Hampson

May Day in Trafalgar Square (1964)

Party News from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

A group of individuals standing in Trafalgar Square were shocked—shocked at what they obviously regarded as an act of profanity, a desecration, a catastrophe, taking place before their very eyes.

We assumed that these gentlemen came from some military establishment, as they were all wearing bowler hats and dark lounge suits and were carrying rolled up umbrellas. Had they been wearing bearskins we might have said they were Guards officers. But then of course, as everybody knows, rolled up umbrellas don't go with bearskins; the best thing to match a bearskin is a bear. But we must not lose the thread of our story.

We should point out that at first we experienced some difficulty in understanding what they were saying. At one point we were of the opinion that they were using some primitive dialect interlaced with Esperanto. But we were wrong; one of our brighter members remarked that it was extremely difficult to speak English without opening the mouth and at the same time keeping it full of marbles. But with practice it can be done, as these gentlemen were now demonstrating.

Our first clue came very quickly when, during one of their rare periods of articulation, one uttered a “four letter word". This, mark you, on the Sabbath Day.

Now a four letter word in English is the most fundamental expression of annoyance one is capable of. These military gentlemen were indeed very annoyed.

The seat of the trouble lay below Nelson’s column. For the benefit of overseas readers, Nelson's column is the most famous monument in the British Empire, or Commonwealth as they prefer to call it nowadays. It is a veritable pillar of British capitalism, a symbol of Imperialism ; and what’s more, it was built with scab labour. Apart from keeping Nelson up, it is very useful to the large pigeon population whose visiting cards are clearly visible in great numbers. On this occasion, however, this May Day Sunday in nineteen hundred and sixty four, the monument was performing the most useful role in all its history.

Draped round the column was a large red banner with the name of the Socialist Party on it. A little below this a large printed slogan—a very sensible slogan— “Abolition of the wages system”. The famous lions had posters over their front paws, and one had the Socialist statement on war attached to his posterior. On the plinth itself was a table at which sat four Socialist speakers, each waiting to speak to the audience of well over a thousand people. A hundred or so members of the SPGB were there, each playing his part in making this a great occasion. The whole scene was enough to make Lord Nelson turn in Lady Hamilton’s bed.

Yes, this was the Socialist Party holding its first May Day Rally in Trafalgar Square. Hitherto, on previous May Days, we have been plagued with the Communist circus and the Co-op adverts in Hyde Park advising workers to eat Stork margarine. (After sixty years of the "progressive” Labour Party, surely it ought to be butter?) But here we were without any distractions; no bagpipes, brass bands or skiffle groups.

We took full advantage of the situation —God was on our side as far as the weather was concerned—it was a lovely afternoon. For three hours all within the Square heard the Socialist case through our loudspeakers. To see lots of Party members selling the Socialist Standard, and a well-stocked literature stall carrying every Party publication, was a grand sight. Nearly £12 of literature, including 300 copies of the Socialist Standard were sold, and a collection of £19 10s. 0d. was taken up.

The meeting was temporarily interrupted by the appearance of two rather motley processions in the roadway outside. Composed of Labour and Communist supporters, they depressed the intellect with the forlorn and futile slogan they so dearly love—"Hands off Cuba”— "Hands on Makarios"—"Hands oil Fanny Hill”.

After this dreary and cheerless assembly had wound its pathetic way up the Mall we continued to enjoy the optimism of the Socialist message. Comrades from Birmingham, Glasgow, Brighton, London, combined to make the day. Many members brought their families—and why not? Stimulating speeches, comradely faces, sympathetic listeners—who would not be a Socialist on this pleasant afternoon in the month of May?

P. C.

Aden: The Cost of Oil (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is nothing the press loves so much as a bogy man. Whenever Great Britain is in dispute with another country, almost without exception the newspapers spill their inky venom in caricatures of the "enemy” leader, showing him as stupid, or bloodthirsty, or power mad, or in some other, equally unpleasant, way.

So it is at the moment with President Nasser, who, ever since he first pressed the claims of Arab nationalism against the entrenched British interests in the Middle Past, has been one of the principal stand-bys for the headline writers and editors of Fleet Street.

"Get Out! Says Nasser” bellows one headline, and workers in bowler hats and boiler suits all over Great Britain feel their hackles rise as they read a carefully bowdlerised, pepped-up version of a speech by the Egyptian ruler. How dare he, they fume. It's about time we sent in the paratroops. A pity we stopped at Suez when we did. What he's asking for is an H-bomb on Cairo. And so on.

In this atmosphere, the story of the beheading of two English soldiers by the rebel Radfani tribesmen—who are said to be armed by the Egyptians—found a hysterically receptive audience. Big, slashing, screaming headlines, supported with the boy-next-door pictures of the soldiers and details of their families, blazoned the story across the nation's breakfast tables.

It did not seem to occur to any of the newspapers that, even if the story were true, they were adding an intolerable burden to the grief of the men's families by their eager publicising of it. Or, if this did occur to them, the papers ignored it. They, after all, had a job of muckspreading to do and in that great enterprise what concern can there be for an unimportant detail like human feelings?

This was one of the most squalid aspects of the affair, in which not only the press but the men's commanding officer and the government were implicated. For the alacrity with which the first story was accepted, without checking by reliable observers on the spot, suggests that those who noised it may have suspected its total veracity—but had objects in mind other than publishing the truth.

The story started at a Press conference given by Major General John Cubbon, the General Officer Commanding British Land Forces in the Middle East. General Cubbon, who seems to be one of the less subtle of military minds, said that the report of the decapitation was based on “reliable information”. And he went on to hint at the reason behind it all; “If this is true . . .  It will have a profound effect on our troops."

As it turned out Gibbon's story was only partly true, which caused a lot of red faces for a time but did nothing to put the affair in a better light. General Cubbon, with his musing upon the effects which atrocity stories are likely to have on his troops, is only the latest in a long, undistinguished line. The world is accustomed by now to the methods which are used to inflame the patriotism of the working class - although unhappily it is not inured to those methods.

There was, for example (and we shall probably be hearing more of this during the next few months), the atrocity myths which came out of the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. The usual "reliable sources” reported that the German soldiers were running amok, raping women of all ages, bayoneting babies and cutting off children's hands.

(At the same time, the German ruling class were feeding their workers on similar lies. In their version, Belgian soldiers made a sport of tearing out the eyes of wounded German soldiers. Entire hospital wards were said to be filled with men who had suffered this fate and one small boy was reported to have seen a bucketful of gouged out eyes.)

These stories probably did their evil work effectively enough and persuaded many a man, who later in the trenches came to doubt the truth of what he had been told, into khaki. In fact, there was no reason at the time to believe the stories. In 1914, when the British propagandists were weeping crocodile tears over "poor little Belgium”, the world had only just recovered front the shock caused by the revelation of the atrocities which the Belgians themselves had committed in the Congo. The extent of the outrages are difficult to ascertain, but there is no doubt—and there was none in 1914 -that literally millions of Congolese natives had been murdered, with the active connivance of (he Belgian government, in the mad hunt for the Congo's rubber.

All of this was forgotten. There was no real evidence to support the 1914 atrocity stories, hut nobody bothered about that. In their hysterical patriotism the working class were eager to gobble up any rubbish. As late as 1917, Belgium was still considered good for a propaganda theme. An American poster of that year showed a lecherous, helmeted Prussian dragging an innocent young maid off to a fate worse than death, all silhouetted against burning houses and topped by the caption- "Remember Belgium.”

This sort of propaganda finds a lush breeding ground in the basic ignorance with which most people regard Capitalism. It is this ignorance which persuades many of them so readily to see the inevitable conflicts of capitalism in terms of the personalities of national rulers. It persuaded them to see 1914/18 as a consequence of the Kaiser's imperialist ambitions, 1939/45 as a result of Hitler's murderous insanity, and the endless small clashes in the Middle East as the fruits of President Nasser's insatiable conceits.

This ruinously naive conception does not permit of the asking of any penetrative questions. The British worker who regards Nasser as a comical, but dangerous, dictator does not ask himself why the Egyptian ruling class is nowadays so often in conflict with their British counterparts. He does not ask why British troops are in the South Arabian Peninsula, in the same way as his father did not ask, in 1914, why the Britain which had so recently fought the small Boer Republic became suddenly protective of the rights of poor little Belgium.

So let us ask the questions for him.

It is difficult to unravel the politics of the Arabian Peninsula, complicated as they are by the feudal structure of a multitude of sheikdoms and sultanates. It has long been British policy to exploit these complications—to play off one ruler against another and to conclude deals with some of them, if necessary helping them to stamp out any republican or embryonic trade union movements.

If Egypt is at the moment the big threat to British interests in the Middle East it is only because the Egyptian ruling class want to unite the various countries there in a common stand against foreign domination. Several attempts at formal unity have largely come to nothing, which has meant that the workers and the natural resources of the area are to some extent still exploited by foreign capitalists, instead of exclusively by a native ruling class.

A glance at any map shows the strategic importance of the Arabian Peninsula, standing as it does at the outlet of the Red Sea, which is part of Great Britain's vital sea route to the Far Fast and Australia. Another sort of map will show up the peninsula's abounding oilfields, which are by no means a pacifying ingredient in an area which would have been inflammable enough without the discovery of thick, black, vital ooze beneath the hot sands. All of this explains the existence of the British base at Aden, and the deep and longstanding British interest in what is incorrectly called the Aden Protectorate—incorrectly because the troops are not there to protect the people of Aden. They are there to safeguard the interests of the British capitalist class, which means that they might be used in all manner of enterprises which have nothing to do with protecting anybody.

Many of the Arab rulers are insecure, faced as they are with the rumblings of nationalist, republican movements. Even King Saud of Saudi Arabia, who was once thought to be safely cushioned by thick wads of Yankee dollars, has been virtually deposed by his brother. The constant dream of British governments has been to stabilise the peninsula under rulers who are amenable to Whitehall's commands. So it was that in 1962 the South Arabian Federation was imposed on the Aden area, part of the border of which faces the Yemen Republic.

The Yemen is one of the Middle East’s young republics whose ambitions are being encouraged and exploited by the Egyptian government. The country has its own internal troubles, in the shape of a dissident royalist movement but this has not, apparently, prevented it supporting the rebel tribesmen just over its border.

The British government has complained that the rebels are supplied with arms by the Yemen, which gets them from Egypt, which gets them from the Soviet Union. The Yemenis in turn charge that the British-supported sheik of Beihar, whose territory borders on the Yemen, has been supplying weapons to the royalist rebels in the Republic.

Both stories could well he true. The Middle East is in jus! the sort of mess we might expect in an area which, ruled by a lot of feudal aristocrats, is of enormous economic and strategic importance to the great powers of capitalism All sorts of despots are propped up by Western arms and money. and many rebel movements are nurtured by material expressions of sympathy from more developed lands.

It is an explosive situation.

And all of this because industry and transport need oil and because Western Europe needs its trade routes to the Far East. Because capitalism, inevitably, has split the world into competing nations and factions, all of them striving lo get the cushiest concession on an oil field, all of them out for the easiest, fastest selling market. These are the basic reasons for the ugly, violent mess which is the Middle East today.

Capitalism causes war and war itself is an atrocity. And part of its atrociousness is the lying which both sides always indulge in, and the receptive ignorance which ensures that the lies are believed—at any rate for the critical period. The story of the beheadings in the Yemen was gruesomely distressing. But there should he no surprise that the propaganda machine fed it out so eagerly.

Instead, there should he disgust—a fruitful disgust—at it all, at the lies and the cynicism and the ignorance which are so essential a part of property society. At such times we see capitalism for what it is and it is not pleasant to look upon.

Ivan

A historic event (1964)

From the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Besides the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Shakespeare, another anniversary that will be universally noted this year is the Jubilee Year of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

During the early days of the present century a group of young people within the Social Democratic Federation, at that lime the most advanced of the English radical parties, aimed at transforming the Federation into a genuine socialist organisation free from the fetters of reformism and leadership. A decade or so previously, dissatisfaction with the Federation had already led to the ill fated breakaway which formed the Socialist League, led by such notables as William Morris and Karl Marx's daughter, Eleanor. Unfortunately the "League" soon abandoned parliamentary action and came under the control of anarchists.

In 1903-4, however, the later group that had formed within the Social Democratic Federation made desperate efforts to head off the reformist policies of the Federation’s leaders and thus help to bring it into line with the class struggle basis of revolutionary political action. But the Federation, refusing to be thwarted from its reformist policies, its penchant for making agreements with capitalist parties, and its idea of working class leadership, commenced expulsion of the militants. 

In London on June 12th 1904 the expelled militants formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the members immediately set about framing principles and rules to guide them. The party also arranged to publish a monthly journal which first appeared September 1904.

Though similar parties have since been formed in other parts of the world, all adhering to the same socialist object and principles, the growth of socialist knowledge among the masses has been slow in comparison with the growth of confusion as to what socialism is. This will be readily admitted by anyone who has followed recent world polities, or even local politics. Yet through the past sixty years the S.P.G.B. has remained stable in character and consistent in its attitude and principles in spite of the bitterness and contumely that has appeared in other parties. It has also seen two world wars, the rise of state capitalism in Russia, the undemocratic attempt to impose by force the trappings of capitalist industrialisation on the populations of feudal China and Tibet, yet has maintained its original thesis: that the socialist revolution will not be brought about by its being imposed on the workers by a body of leaders, but will only come when a working-class majority understand and want socialism, and vote for it at the polling booth.

Sixty years on (1964)

Editorial from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was on June 12th, 1904, that a hundred odd men and women, at a meeting in London, formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

We do not intend to let the sixtieth anniversary of our foundation pass unnoticed—but neither shall we celebrate in the manner so popular with other political parties. We shall not arrange any great banquets (they would be a flop if we did) or balls (dancing has never been one of our strong points) or any of the other events which are notable only for their false glitter and pompous self- congratulation.

We regard our sixtieth birthday as an occasion for reviewing the work we have done, and the contributions we have made to the international Socialist movement; for intensifying our propaganda both written and spoken; and for planning more work to occupy the busy years ahead.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain came into existence without premises, a journal, literature or funds. Its founder members were derided on all sides as “Impossibilists” who would soon go out of existence. In some way the new party was a very feeble infant but it had a powerful heart—Socialist principles and understanding—the like of which no other organisation possessed.

It was that heart which brought our party through its first, anxious months. It conceived and nurtured the Socialist Standard and it built and expanded the Socialist Party into what it is today—an established revolutionary organisation with its own permanent headquarters in London, its own monthly journal, companion parties in a number of other countries and a library of pamphlets the consistency and correctness of which we feel entitled to take pleasure in.

That strong heart brought the idea of Socialism through the persecution of the First World War, through the black days of the rise of Fascism in Europe and through the battering of 1939/45. It has always been a heart which has beaten true. The members who make up the Socialist Party today have exactly the same principles and understanding as did the gallant few who set out on their seemingly impossible task so long ago.

In September this year the Socialist Standard too will be sixty years old. We shall mark the event with a special issue, which will review in some detail the history of our party.

For the moment, let it be enough to put on record our admiration for the comrades who took on unflinchingly the hardest job the Socialist movement will probably ever have to face—its own foundation. And let us declare that we who are the Socialist Party in the nineteen sixties will carry on the work.

We shall uphold the principles which were formulated, for the first time as a consistent whole, sixty years ago. We shall continue to be an independent, democratic, political party which maintains that Socialism can only come as a result of majority understanding. A party which has no leaders, which opposes all capitalist wars and is hostile to all other political organisations.

And lastly, a party which stands for Socialism; a social system in which the things which man uses to make and to distribute his wealth are owned by the whole of mankind, in which the barriers of race and colour are recognised for the falsities which they are and in which man is truly free.