Churchill in perspective (1965)

From the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sufficient time has passed since Churchill’s funeral for popular emotions to wane—but not sufficient yet to make it likely that his words and deeds will be subjected to any analysis for popular consumption. No doubt historians in the future will discover reasons to doubt his greatness, but there is no need to await the passage of time.

In what way can he be considered great? His actions concerning the working class, his military prowess, his flair for foreign affairs?

It was he who called out the troops during the Dock Strike in 1911. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government which put on the statute book the 1927 Trades Disputes Act, prohibiting strikes by one group of workers in sympathy with another, curtailing the right of picketing, and preventing the Civil Service unions affiliating to the T.U.C.

He recognised the inability of economists to understand capitalism, and he admitted inadequacies in the system, particularly “the strange discordance between the producing and consuming power.” (Daily Telegraph, 20.6.30.)

The News Chronicle (10.11.43.) reported him as saying,

“I regard it as a definite part of the duty and responsibility of this National Government to have it set about a vast and practical scheme to make sure that in the years immediately following the war there will be food, work and homes for all.”

But by 1948, the war over and there not being the same need to urge workers to greater efforts, he was arguing against “precise elaborate programmes.” In 1952, back in office, he was stressing the need for three years to elapse before any improvement would show. He left the government in 1955 and today the old problems of “food, work and homes” are still with us.

Churchill the military man certainly had some grand concepts. Commenting on the expeditions to Antwerp and Gallipoli, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says:

“In both cases the strategic concept was brilliant, but the forces required for their success were not forthcoming, and Churchill’s own impatience contributed to their failure.”

It reports Churchill as describing the Dardanelles campaign as “a legitimate war gamble.” (The Encyclopaedia Americana records the British losses as over 33,000 killed, 78,000 wounded and 7,000 missing. Turkish and French casualties were also very high.) What sort of man can make a legitimate gamble of the lives of hundreds of thousands of men?

In the second volume of the Official British History of the Second World War by Major L. F. Ellis, it appears that in 1940, when Churchill was being built up as the great war leader, his telegrams and messages to Lord Gort, Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force were, “not always relevant” and he “did not grasp the nature of the German threat to the B.E.F. as a whole, nor the weakness of the Belgian position.”

What is the basis for Churchill’s claim to greatness in the field of foreign affairs? It is said that he was one of the few who in the Thirties understood the ambitions of Nazi Germany. But his own words show that he was not opposed to dictatorship in principle.

After the 1914-18 War, he stated his policy as “Peace to the German people, war on the Bolshevik tyranny.” In 1927 he was “charmed, . . . , by Signer Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing, and by his calm, detached poise in spite of many burdens and dangers.”

The Evening Standard (2.4.37.) reports Churchill as saying,

“It is certain that if Franco wins. he will be in no position to interfere with British and French interests in the Mediterranean. The Germans and Italians will have little or no influence upon Spanish policy once the firing stops.”

But by April 5th the same paper reports him as saying, “A thoroughly Nazified Spain, retaining its German nucleus, may well be a cause of profound anxiety to both France and Britain.”

Events were causing him to change his words, and not only towards Spain :

“We should not go cap in hand to Soviet Russia, but how improvidently foolish we should be. … to put needless barriers in the way of the general association of the great Russian mass with the resistance to an act of Nazi aggression (News Chronicle, 10.5.38.)

Compare this with his statement, reported in the Daily Telegraph, (7.11.38.); “I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war, I hope we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations.”

It cannot be more clear, Churchill was not oppose to the Fascist powers as long as they did not threaten British capitalist interests. He thought “great men” could secure Britain’s position in the world, but after the war he had to accept that Britain, compared with the USA and Russia, was a second-rate power. No Hitler or Churchill can do anything to change that.

What, then, has Churchill achieved? The economic, social and political problems remain broadly the same as 90 years ago — war, want, insecurity are as current now as when he was born. Perhaps there was some truth in the description of him by another, similarly unsuccessful and similarly revered, capitalist politician, Aneurin Bevan: “the mediocrity of his thinking is concealed by the majesty of his words.”

Churchill was a member of the British capitalist class and he served his class well. He maintained a constant anti-working class attitude throughout his life. In the military and foreign fields he was no more successful than other possible leaders. He became the spokesman for British capitalism during a period when its future was endangered, and used his gift for words to spur the working class to greater efforts for the benefit of their masters.

In death, as in life, he served our rulers well. The pomp and ceremony of his funeral was a circus for the diversion of the working class. The entire pulpit–religious, political, press and radio–have been loud in his praise. Here was a man, they said, for workers to look up to, to recognise as a leader, and in so doing to pay homage to future leaders and to the principle of leadership.

Here perhaps we may rephrase Bevan’s comment, and apply it to all leaders—The failure of their actions is concealed by the majesty of their promises.

Where did Churchill lead the workers? Where will any leaders take them? Workers have only to reflect on their experiences—not for Churchill and his class, but for those they dominate, is it a life of blood, sweat, toil and tears.

And it will remain so, until the same workers who are now deluded into an hysterical hero worship of men like Churchill, learn that their interests lie in dispensing with leaders and setting up a social system in which all men stand equally.

Ken Knight

SPGB Meetings (1964)

Party News from the October 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

George Brown in Cloud Cuckoo Land (1965)

From the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. George Brown, Minister of Economic Affairs, is convinced that there are such things as “fair" and prices, and has got the employers’ and employees’ organisations to agree to attempt to regulate prices and incomes. He knows “his people” so well to be sure that when the instructions get to the individual worker and capitalist they will make them work.

Briefly, the Prices and Incomes Policy is to regulate the growth of all incomes at the rate of three and a half per cent per year, whilst keeping prices stable. George Brown hopes that public opinion will influence capitalists to keep prices down when they could put them up, and that it will restrain workers’ wage demands.

This policy will fail for exactly the same reason as “free” enterprise regulated by the price system. Brown seems to forget that capitalism is a competitive class society and that the economic forces acting upon capitalists and workers are stronger than all the moral suasions and judgements. In fact already there are many claims by sections of the working class aiming to get on to a “platform of equality” with other workers, e.g. doctors, teachers, farmers, before the growth rate commences. Further, there are many workers, some recognised by George Brown as being lowly paid, who will have to press for increases considerably greater than three and a half per cent.

The big laugh is that if by some fluke George Brown were to succeed and peg wage growth rates at three and a half per cent, we may all be like Alice—running faster and faster to stay in the same place. There is not much point in having three and a half per cent increase in wages if you have to pay three and a half per cent more for the things that you require to get the health and strength to increase your productivity by at least three and a half per cent.

But then who are we to laugh at George? We can’t solve his problem either. In fact, within capitalism the problem is not soluble. If we widen our terms of reference however, the whole aspect takes a rosy, instead of blue, hue. The world has enough resources to satisfy the needs of man—we have the population capable of exploiting those resources, of producing the goods where man needs them—only capitalism, with its production for profit, stands in the way.

Rachman, Bloom, Ferranti are a natural part of capitalism. George Brown cannot change a society in which the hall mark, and professed route to efficiency, is competition, into one wherein co-operation prevails, without changing the economic basis of society; and we can rest assured that he cannot do that.

Ken Knight

SPGB Meetings (1949)

Party News from the December 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1949)

Party News from the November 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1973)

Party News from the September 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Universe (1965)

Book Review from the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Fabric of the Heavens by Toulmin and Goodchild, Pelican Books 6s.

This is the first of four books in a connected series entitled The Ancestry' of Science. It is a book of interest to socialists for the authors view of history is akin to the Materialist Conception of History, and they have applied it to the development of astronomy and dynamics, ".  .  . a man can do in his own time only a job which is there to be done; but there may be many different ways in which he can do it.” Although they raise this point with reference to Isaac Newton, their whole work is evidence of this development within history from the Babylonians through to modern times.

They contrast this view of history with the deterministic "the acts of historical drama will follow one another of the same general sequence regardless of what actor takes any particular part” and the concept of the great men who “leap far ahead of their times, forcing thought along genuinely new and creative paths.”

The Babylonians commenced the study of astronomy not merely for religious forecasting—the celestial bodies were regarded as gods, but because within their empire there were many different calendar systems based upon the sun or the moon and “commercial and official business alike called for a more predictable and uniform calendar.” They collected observations over many centuries in order to improve their celestial forecasting, which they did with great accuracy, but apparently without any attempt to explain the sequence of the events they observed.

The Greeks were later to speculate on the causes of what the Babylonians had observed. Greece before 300 B.C. was unlike Babylonia in that it was not an area of order and stability, and it was “a meeting point for different cultures.” This situation led to a minority, often unpopular, making critical speculation concerning nature, politics, religion, etc., a speculation which was to lead to theories, many of which contained ideas to be developed later in Western Europe.

The unification of Greece commenced the decline in the spread of science. The paths of mathematics and astronomy began to diverge, the study of physics declined—“By A.D. 200, astrology had recovered all the ground that it had ever lost, and had effectively displaced rational astrophysics.” The reasons were political, social, economic and religious. This decline had such an effect that the last questions of Ptolemy were the first to be asked by Copernicus some thirteen centuries later, that is after fifteen centuries of Christendom. The authors show that members of the church often critically analysed concepts of the heavens, despite the fact that dogma had to be accepted.

The authors give considerable evidence that the ideas of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and many others were milestones in the developing understanding of the universe, but assert that their ideas were expected developments from previous knowledge, and arose out of the problems confronting students of astronomy and physics in their times.

Inability to find an adequate explanation of the universe long led men to think “that divine revelation alone could give certainty.” But in the eighteenth century men thought that Newton had revealed “true laws for good. His theories seemed certain, correct, final. Later logical doubts and perplexities began to arise.”

When men solve problems it will often appear that their solutions are final. A problem has been removed, but neither nature nor society remain constant; new problems arise, the study of which extends man's knowledge.

According to the authors “the progress of science always involves a delicate balance between critical observation and speculative theorising — between careful piecemeal investigation of particular problems and imaginative general interpretation of the results obtained."

In capitalist society, in the fields of the natural sciences, it is possible to observe critically, to make speculative imaginative interpretations, but in the social sciences capitalist society, assuming itself to be correct and final, restricts scientific enquiry. Progress in social enquiry is prevented because the class nature of society and its consequences are ignored.

Freedom of enquiry in the natural sciences will continue under capitalist society, and astrophysics will not be an exception, for developments can usually be put to commercial advantage. Enquiry into the social and economic field will be encouraged only if it accepts capitalist society and aids commercial development, for example, market analysis or industrial psychology. Only Socialists can study problems of capitalist society uninhibited with ideas of its permanence. We alone are able to rebut the theories of capitalist social sciences—often from their own evidence. They stand condemned when comparison is made with the advances in the natural sciences in the past two hundred years, from canal to space travel, and yet in the social field the problems of poverty, insecurity, housing, etc., remain.

These problems arise out of the nature of capitalism and cannot be removed until society is changed. When that is done, and Socialism is established, the social sciences will be as free and unrestricted as are the natural sciences in their respective fields of study.

Ken Knight

Questions Answered (1985)

From the July 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

You in the SPGB agree with and teach the Materialist Conception of History and the Labour Theory of Value. You kicked off in 1904, but what have you contributed to the Socialist Movement, what else have you learnt or taught?

Before answering this question it is appropriate to state what the Socialist Party of Great Britain has not done. The problems facing the working class under capitalism broadly come under the headings War, Want & Insecurity.

The British capitalist class have been involved in two major wars in this century. The SPGB has not encouraged the working class to lay down their lives to maintain British capitalism or to defend the revolution, "gone wrong” or not, in Russia. In the First World War we issued a statement pointing out that war was endemic to capitalism and that only socialism could end war:

  Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our good will and socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of socialism.

In the 1914-18 war the Labour Party urged workers to fight in order to “crush militarism and end all war". It supported the 1939-45 war for "freedom and democracy". and promised a programme of social justice after the war. Organisations "left" of the Labour Party either supported the war to defend Russia, or because they thought the Russian revolution was socialist but had taken the wrong path and needed to be preserved to get it back on the correct one. The SPGB in 1918 had pointed out that Russia could only develop state capitalism — a fact widely accepted today.

Want & Insecurity are both endemic to capitalism. When the Beveridge Plan was proposed, workers were to be given the princely sum of £2 a week benefit. Conservatives and Liberals endorsed this amount. The Labour Party, the Communist Party and the Tories entered the market offering £2.10. £2.50 and £3 benefit respectively. The SPGB issued a pamphlet Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty. How right we were. Another policy in the left s attack on want is nationalisation; they all advocated it, and trade unionists supported it thinking that industries were being brought under common ownership and that they would take part in the control of their industry. The SPGB has continually pointed out that nationalisation is not socialism, but state capitalism. There is no evidence that nationalisation has guaranteed security for the worker. In some respects the worker is worse off, having no alternative employer.

With the fear of atomic annihilation and the periodic crises of capitalism, increasing the unemployed from hundreds of thousands to millions, in no way can it be argued that workers are any more secure today through the efforts of Labour governments. They have instituted reform after reform, but they have been powerless to remove any problem facing the working class.

Marx had another theory as well as the two mentioned in the question: the Theory of the Class Struggle. In any suggested political, social or economic programme the socialist asks: "What is in it for the working class as a whole in the long run and what are the consequences for the capitalist class?" The capitalist class want their system to run smoothly and so will offer reforms that may give temporary benefit to a section of the working class. Similar reforms advocated by organisations that have mass misguided support from the working class may also be acceptable to the capitalists. This is the reason why the parliamentary parties keep complaining that the other parties have stolen parts of their programme. Reforms do not change the basic structure of capitalism and do not endanger the class ownership of the means of production and distribution.

We have learned the correctness of the analysis of capitalist society made by our founder members, and which they detailed when they compiled the Object and Declaration of Principles.

We have taught:

• That the capture of political power is essential before any fundamental change in the social system can be made.
• That leadership is a necessary principle for capitalist society whereas the socialist revolution requires the conscious understanding and participation of the majority of the working class.
• That a socialist party cannot advocate reforms of capitalism, must not encourage support from non-socialists. and must be independent of all other parties.
• That socialism can only be a world-wide system, and therefore must be a world wide (not inter-national) movement; to this end the growth of companion organisations in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Austria, Sweden, as well as members in Belgium and France, demonstrates the developing geographical spread of socialist ideas.
• That there is no need for a transition period between capitalism and socialism.
• That all wars must be opposed, without distinction between alleged wars of defence, offence, or opposition to tyranny.
• That nationalism will not exist in socialist society.
• That taxation is a burden on the capitalist class and not on the working class, whose take-home pay must approximate at least to the minimum of wages in order to reproduce the commodity labour-power.
• That all Socialist Parties in different areas of the capitalist world must be open, democratic parties, with no leaders, no closed or secret meetings, with all members of equal footing, operating by majority decision, and thus demonstrating the society they seek to establish.
• That capitalism will not collapse of its own accord, but crisis will follow crisis until the working class of the world unites to abolish it.

Ken Knight

World Mineral Resources: Enough to Last (1970)

From the August 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Until the rise of capitalism as a source of energy mankind was mainly dependent upon wood which was also a major raw material. Today wood has been replaced by minerals as the major source of energy and for many of its uses as a raw material.

The development of industrial societies in the capitalist era is directly related to the expansion in the exploitation of the world’s mineral resources and there has emerged a significant correlation between the consumption of energy per head per annum and the Gross National Product per head per annum in any country. Countries with the highest energy consumption per head turn out higher values of product per head, and they tend to be large consumers of the non-energy minerals.

Capitalism’s need to form more capital, its drive for profit and a lower cost of production of minerals has often led to an irrational exploitation of mineral resources, and a constant search for alternatives. Flooded mines, collapsed workings, underground explosions and fires has made the future of some deposits difficult. Thousands of workers have lost their lives or had their bodies maimed just to meet the need of capital.

In the past coal, and more recently oil, has been the base for economic growth in the industrial countries. Since 1880 there has been an almost thirtyfold increase in the world’s production of commercial sources of energy. Although oil is now more important than coal the world output of the latter continues to rise because under-developed countries find its exploitation technically more feasible. As industrial development becomes more widespread throughout the world, and as population increases, the demand for energy will become greater.

One estimate of demand is that by the year 2000, compared with 1960, the population will have doubled and energy consumption will have risen five times.(1) Population forecasts can be said to be well informed guesses, and as consumption under capitalism depends upon the vagaries of the market and the extent to which such competition results in physical conflict, such an estimate can only be very tentative.

Nevertheless increases in consumption are historically obvious and present trends have at times caused concern about the ability to meet future energy needs.

The reserves of coal deposits are easier to prove than those of oil. The reserves of both change because of technical developments and new discoveries, which are both likely to be more significant in the future. For example although undoubtedly the most likely areas to contain minerals have been surveyed, only 20 per cent of the U.S.A. has been mapped geologically. (2)

One estimate of coal reserves maintains that even if coal supplied all energy needs up to the year 2000 there would still be enough coal for another 100 years at the level of consumption expected to be prevailing at the end of this century. (3)

Because oil reserves are never really proved until commercial exploitation takes place estimates vary widely. (4) Undoubtedly new techniques will increase the percentage of oil taken from existing fields, and although recently the extent of proven reserves has not kept pace with output this may be a reflection of the opposite situation in the twenty years after the war when there was not a fuel “glut” as there is at present.

It would appear that fossil fuels are likely to supply the world’s energy for many years to come for hydro-electrical power is of small importance outside a few countries and as yet solar radiation, an almost inexhaustible supply of energy, is technically limited to minor uses. Nuclear power with the development of the Advanced Gas-cooled reactor and the Fast Breeder reactor will be of more importance in the future despite the vast projects necessary and the doubts about the supply of high quality ores.

A similar situation exists for the non-fuel minerals. Some advanced countries have exhausted their better deposits of iron, copper, lead, zinc and other ores. Fears of shortage of the non-fuel minerals are largely a reflection of the fact that more ores have been extracted from ‘the earth since 1900 than in the entire period of man’s history before that date.

The total demand for minerals of all kinds is increasing as new uses are constantly being found for minerals already important to man as well as for those of little importance in the past. For example although steel output is constantly rising it is being replaced for many uses by aluminium and pre-stressed concrete.

The two world wars have played a significant part in depleting the non-fuel mineral reserves of Western Europe and America. Nevertheless discoveries elsewhere in the world are being exploited. The post war fears of shortages are being overcome by modern survey methods, i.e. electromagnetic surveying from the air and geochemistry aiding the discovery of vast new deposits in isolated backward areas of the world.

Despite increasing exploitation of the world’s mineral resources it is now becoming recognised that they never will be exhausted. Advances in technology permits exploitation of leaner ores and also creates new resources.

The fears of shortage of supply of all minerals is in reality a reflection of capitalism in which production for sale causes periodic gluts and shortages which are accentuated by political division. The needs of the market may dictate that mineral resources be exploited in a manner that is not technically the best. The British coal industry in the last century and the American oil industry in the early years of this century provide good examples.

Capitalist society accentuates the demand for minerals in a manner that a sane society would think ludicrous. The production of battleships, locks, cash registers, bombs and thousands of other articles designed to protect or secure property, or if only of commercial use, are wasteful of mineral resources.

If there were fears of world shortages of minerals it would be doubly criminal to use them in the production of articles to kill, to restrict the freedom of, and to assist the exploitation of man by man. But capitalism cannot be doubly indicted for its technology has amply demonstrated that man need not fear a shortage of mineral resources for hundreds of years to come.

Ken Knight

1. SEARL, M. F. Report to the. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

2. FEISS, J. W. Technology & Economic Development. Ch. Minerals.

3. AVERETT, P. U.S. Geological Survey.

4. SCHURR, S. H. Technology & Economic Development. Ch. Energy.

Party News: Conference Discusses Russian Rulers (1969)

Party News from the May 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

A resolution that "the ruling class in slate capitalist Russia stands in the same relationship to the means of production as does the ruling class in any other capitalist country (viz. it has a monopoly of those means of production and extracts surplus value from the working class) and is therefore a capitalist class" was carried by 30 votes to 3 with 10 abstentions at the Party Conference over Easter. All were of course agreed that state capitalism exists in Russia but the resolution’s opponents argued that it was premature to make so definite a statement at this stage.

Opening for Manchester branch Comrade J. Crump said that the issue was whether the Russian ruling class was a capitalist class. Some members argued that only direct employers or investors in shares and government bonds were capitalists. But this was not so. The capitalist class were those who monopolised the means of production and accumulated capital. Even though the Russian rulers might lead Spartan lives and were not employers they were still a capitalist class because they carried out these functions.

Comrade Hardy urged caution on the resolution because it seemed to say that the top political and managerial people in Russia were the capitalist class and because it overlooked the extent of private enterprise there. Margaret Miller estimated that in 1963 about a quarter of ‘economic activity' was done through private or non-official channels. The Russian government had also been very successful in building up private savings which now amounted to about £15,000m on which they paid tax-free interest. The ambition of the top salaried people in Russia was probably the same as in Britain: to become wealthy capitalists in their own right. Russia, said Comrade Hardy, was going through great changes and be tentatively suggested that it might move towards the mixed state/private capitalism of Britain.

Points from some of the other speeches:

Comrade Zucconi: In Russia there was a class enjoying the fruits of the workers' labour through political control rather than direct ownership. But this made no difference. They were still the Russian capitalist class.

Comrade K. Knight: The top salaried managers were a significant part of the capitalist class in Russia with a vested interest in accumulating capital not only for themselves but also for the state.

Comrade J. D’Arcy: A capitalist class had not yet emerged in Russia. All we could say was that they existed in embryonic form and that at some later time the bureaucracy might break up into wealthy individuals and strip the state industries.

Comrade Buick: There were private capitalists in Russia but they were not the ruling class. We might need a new name to describe the real rulers. They owned the means of production collectively and got their surplus value as bloated salaries, prizes, bonuses and other 'perks’ rather than as dividends or interest.

Comrade Cook: The bureaucrats now used their control to get surplus value illegally but in time they might want to legalise this. It was a fluid situation in which the dividing line between real control and legal ownership was unclear.

Comrade P. Lawrence: There was no reason why Russian capitalism should evolve along British lines. The state had always dominated Russian society so it was to be expected that it would play the major role it did in the development of capitalism there.

State Capitalist Steel (1969)

From the February 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

There was a time when the nationalisation of an industry was heralded as bringing it within the ownership of the whole people. Vesting day for the coal industry was marked with many pits be-bannered and placarded with displays recording the claim of common ownership. This delusion long demonstrated by the policies of the NCB, plus the experience of redundant unemployed miners from a declining industry, and the experience of workers in other nationalised industries, probably accounts for the lack of such claims when steel was recently nationalised.

Why then, it might be asked, are industries nationalised if it does not bring them into common ownership? Broadly speaking there are three answers: to control the run-down of a declining industry. (Back in 1948 this was thought to apply to gas); to control an industry best operated as a single-unit for the whole capitalist class because of its powerful position, e.g. electricity: and to rationalise industries in need of re-organisation—railways, coal and steel.

Prior to the nationalisation of the steel industry the British Iron and Steel Federation (Steel Co. owners) had set up a committee (Development Co-ordinating Committee) to look into the rationalisation necessary to meet the industry’s future. The reasons for this enquiry lie in the world’s steel market. Since the early 60’s all over the world there has been excess capacity in the industry. Not too much capacity for peoples needs for steel, but too much capacity for the purchasing power of the world, developed and under-developed countries. Put another way this means that there is intense competition on the world’s steel markets and the producer who can offer at the lowest prices increases sales and profits. Although the industry controls the bulk of the home market and is maintaining its share in world exports, long term prospects are not so favourable.

Based on home coking coal and a high proportion of home ore with relatively small plants, the British industry in the mid-sixties compared unfavourably with other areas with access to cheaper coking coal and ore, and which had constructed larger more efficient plants. The advantages of cheaper British coal went once American coal spread into Japan and with Polish coking coal, into Europe. Although devaluation may have redressed the price levels it is at the expense of lower standards of living for the worker.

Likewise with ore. After the second world war when ore was scarce British ore was cheap. It is no longer so. Using 1957 as a base year (100) by 1965 the index for foreign ore prices had fallen to 72 and home prices had risen to 126. Further, being richer, foreign ores requires less processing and need 6 cwt of coke less to make a ton of iron.

In the last ten years the pace of technological development in steel has been rapid. Plant sizes are expanding rapidly. British steel may be one of the six largest enterprises in the world, but it has no plants with a capacity of 4 cu. ingot tons and over, whereas America has 50 per cent, and Japan 20 per cent capacity in such plants (1968). (Is Big Best — A. Bambridge).


Large imports of ore in bulk carriers of 65,000 to 200,000 tons, plus the possibility of cheap coking coal from abroad and the need for large plants, points to coastal siting. Apart from recommending coastal sites for integrated works the Committee recommended that production be concentrated in fewer plants. In 1966 there were 34 steel works in Britain. If the committee’s recommendations come about, and something like it no doubt will, 90 per cent of capacity will be produced in some 8 to 10 plants.

Such a rationalisation will have a great effect on the levels of employment within the industry. Employment in the steel industry stood at 316,640—December 1965, a figure marginally smaller than 1957. The Report envisages a workforce in 1975 of 215,000 men, when the industry should produce a third more steel with a third less men.

Of the excess 100,000 the report states that they need not all be redundancies.

  Properly handled, normal voluntary departures should be sufficient to account for a substantial part of the reduction. Even ignoring the more volatile fringe of the labour force and considering only the relatively stable element, i.e. men over 26 with more than one year’s service—labour turnover in 1965 was 12 per cent, and this is more than three times as large as the average annual reduction envisaged in the labour force over 1965-75, which is 3.75 per cent.

If you are not a wage worker able to make a ‘voluntary departure’, for you there is the promise of reasonable increases in earnings, providing there are ’reasonable’ reductions in the labour cost per ton of steel.

But what does this really mean for the workers? First, we would say, do not be misled by this 12 per cent red herring. Annual turnover cannot be related to a reduction in the work force spread over a number of years. Secondly it is possible that in one or two areas employment opportunities will increase. In others it will decline or cease entirely. A young steelworker prepared to move might find a job in the expanding areas, but competition could be considerable. An older steelworker can see his future by observing the miners in areas where pits have been closed. Further if these plans, or something like them, are to be fulfilled, plant construction must begin shortly and the effects will be concentrated in the later years.

But if you do not get the golden handshake, the mobility bribe, your future is certain. Your productivity will have to rise, that is you are going to work harder, so that you can be paid increased wages to buy commodities the prices of which will probably increase. How well you fare will depend upon your trade union strength, which with a declining membership in a period with a full labour market, will be subject to great pressures.

Since nationalisation British Steel has not announced its plans for rationalisation. However it will have to be on the lines of that envisaged by the BISF Report. The prospects for the steelworkers are redundancy, unemployment, moving homes, harder work, struggle for better wages and conditions. The lot of all workers under capitalism. These next few years are likely to be harder for the steelworkers than any they have experienced since the war. Their day to day struggles will be more frequent and intense, and the outcome a continuing vista of repetitive struggle over the same issues—work and wages.

Ken Knight

Planning in Russia (1966)

From the December 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Planning is in great fashion at the moment. In France planning is state policy and here in Britain the National Plan is still awaiting the starter’s gun. According to the Labour Government once the economy is correctly set it will improve in every aspect. Time will show.

The Russians like to think that the popularity of planning throughout the world is due to the success in the growth of their own economy, although Professor W. W. Rostow has provided evidence that economies expand, in the period when capital formation is difficult, at about the same rate whether they are planned or not. It would seem that if planning in Russia was successful there would not be any need to change its basic character. Yet what do we find? Without doubt a decline in centralised control!

In The Plan and Initiative by S. Pervushin it is pointed out that planning takes place in capitalist economies. Each organisation plans its own expansion in the light of the market conditions, and the state controls different parts of the economy through its expenditures and in raising income to meet them. According to Pervushin, the actual implementation of a national economic plan requires a “unity of purpose. In other words, all society, or the majority of it, must strive to one and the same goal . . . This can only be achieved by the socialisation of the means of production.” These conditions, he asserts, exist in Russia. Further, in bourgeois capitalist countries planning must fail because “the mistakes made by one economic unit spread like a chain reaction to many others, and in the end often cause disruption of the whole economy.”

But what has been happening in Russia? According to Pervushin, despite a definite correlation between the different branches of the economy, a correlation which is established beforehand and strictly observed, errors arose due to wrong planning, short-comings in the functioning of various organisations or industries, or, finally, unfavourable natural conditions.

Kantorovich, in his book The Best Use Of Economic Resources, was much more explicit. He writes of “substantial shortcomings,” “considerable losses,” “idleness of labour and equipment,” “rush work” and the “greater use of manual methods and consequent lowering of labour productivity.”

Yefim Manevich, in Voprosi Ekonomiki (Economic Problems) in 1965, reported the “accumulation of a considerable labour surplus” in Moscow, Leningrad and Odessa which was extending into rural areas. At this time, summer 1965, the Communist youth paper, Komsomolskaya Pravda, was suggesting the break-up of the system of collective and state farms into smaller units farmed by groups of half-a-dozen peasants and their families, with a minimum of state interference, who would keep the profits from the sale of their cash crops. Whilst the argument against collective and state farms was their unwieldy size and inefficiency, family farming would help to solve the problem of rural unemployment.

Meanwhile, in Russian industry the Liberman thesis was gaining ground. Liberman, a Kharkov economist, argued that the economy cannot function effectively without the profit motive. The introduction of the “Liberman system” means that factory direction in parts of the consumer goods sector of the economy will have much greater freedom to plan output and fix prices according to market conditions. Management will also have greater autonomy in the raising of capital for improving or reconstructing their factories. They will plan separately as in the western economies, and, according to Pervushin’s quotation above, will fail for their errors will react on each other.

Actually there is little new in this situation, for it is largely a case of Russians recognising what before was the unspeakable. In Russia at the moment it is not profit that is new, but a decline in state control. The planners have failed.

In backward emergent capitalist countries state control is inevitable when only the state can raise capital in large lumps and co-ordinate economic activity to promote future expansion. Once development takes place, and capital is easier to obtain, pressures arise to break down the centralised control. This is what is happening in Russia. Industrialists are seeking freedom from political control.

So as Russia retreats from control, the western powers increase the amount of it. It would appear that for advanced capitalist communities some state control is necessary today. But whether control of the economy is being relaxed or tightened, in neither case is it Socialism.

Ken Knight

News From Mid Herts (1964)

Party News from the December 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much activity has taken place during the last year in Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage and Hatfield. The Group reports that the number of members has increased over this period. Seventeen discussion meetings have been held, most of them being held at Welwyn Garden City Community Centre. Fortnightly outdoor meetings were held at Stevenage Town Centre.

Canvassing of the Socialist Standard in the three areas has been regularly carried out and sales have risen from 2½ to 10 dozen per month. The Standard is regularly available in the public libraries at Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City.

The above is a short report of the activities of this Group who would welcome sympathisers and members in the district to help carry on the good propaganda work they are doing. K. Knight is the secretary — full address under “Groups” in this issue.

New towns for old (1963)

From the August 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Contrary to common thought the creation of New Towns after the last war was not a new thing. Over the last 200 years many towns have been constructed for non-economic and non-geographic reasons and their development has been planned. Examples of these are Washington and Canberra, and more recently New Delhi. In this category of political capitals with planned development Brasilia is the most recent example.

In Britain, prior to the war, garden cities had been built at Letchworth and Welwyn. Even earlier John Laird had begun Birkenhead as a new town and Stephenson had built a New Town at Ashford.

After World War II a number of countries, including Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia, constructed new towns to house workers for specific industries.

In the U.K. the aim of the New Town Act of 1946 was to attract industry and population away from areas of congestion. These new towns were to be modelled on the Garden Cities of Letchworth and Welwyn, and were to provide gracious, healthy living conditions.

The basic pattern has been the “neighbourhood" system. This provides for a city centre with satellite neighbourhood centres catering for immediate needs and community recreation. By 1960 there were fifteen such towns in various stages of development.

It was thought that the major problem would be to align housing construction, industrial expansion and essential services. In fact, the first problem to arise was that of school places and accommodation, followed by the lack of facilities for adolescent recreation. These problems were obviously related to the age structure of the new communities. Older people do not easily cut their ties with an area and move, consequently New Towns tend to have populations of young people with dependent families.

Another complaint has been that most New Towns are difficult to distinguish one from the other, in general being monotonously alike in appearance, with the streets too wide and the houses remote. They are thus neither urban or rural, and as most dwellers in new towns came from urban areas with many close neighbours they have found this low-density living plan unneighbourly.

Further, coming from different areas to the New Town the citizens take time to make friends. This, coupled with the fact that their previous neighbourhood is seldom all that far away, enabling them to keep up old friendships, has retarded the growth of community spirit.

It was intended that these communities would cater for all the needs of the community—work, shelter and leisure. New Towns in the London area have numbers of commuters using train and car to take them to town. They have a tendency to be dormitory towns, with people working in London gaining their recreation there before returning late in the evening. The isolation of the wives, lack of recreation for the adolescents, long tiring journeys to and from town, have developed what has become known as New Town Blues.

It is apparent that the planners of New Towns did not see far enough ahead. The Guardian recently reported Mr. Henry Wells, the former chairman of the Hemel Hempstead Development Corporation, as being of the opinion that if they had known the motor-car age was upon them, they would have produced “a very different sort of town." He said that Hemel Hempstead was "in the light of current thought, an old town."

Workers in New Towns have no more security than workers elsewhere. The job is not theirs, it is their employers! They have experienced short time, redundancy, unemployment, as workers at Hatfield. Stevenage and Peterlee can testify.

The blame, as always, has been put on the Government. They lacked foresight, they did not institute research into the needs of New Town communities, they withheld capital which would have created diversity, they did not bring about conditions which would have attracted community leaders from the professional strata to live in New Towns. In one sense it is true that the Government can be blamed — for like all reformist governments it claims to have solutions for the various ills of capitalism. But as the Socialist knows, no one can control capitalism in the interests of the working class. The new way of living in New Towns has not been achieved and workers live under the same economic and social pressure of capitalism, as workers elsewhere. The problem of a new way of life is not soluble under capitalism. In this sense the blame is not with the government, but with workers who support Conservative, Labour and all reformist parties.

Capitalism would like workers to be housed efficiently and cheaply. This would raise their productive capacity and improve their physical and mental health. But capital must be invested where the return is greatest, and workers' wages do not allow them to pay for efficient, gracious housing.

If workers really want "New Towns" and a new “way of living " the only way is by the establishment of Socialism. Then and only then will they be able to construct dwellings to suit their requirements.

Ken Knight

What's happening in East Germany (1964)

From the November 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The information contained in this article is taken from the Democratic German Report (DGR) which is published and printed in East Germany. Its general theme is anti Bonn Government, but in most issues there is an article on some aspect of life in East Germany. Recent articles have dealt with Agriculture, Gambling, Women, Religion and Education.

If East Germany were a Socialist Society as claimed one would expect the economic and social conditions in East Germany to differ from those in Britain. However, a perusal of the articles in the DGR show that the aims of their society, the problems and the suggested solutions are the same as in Britain.

I. Agriculture (Quotes from D.G.R., Vol. XIII No. 6. 20/3/64.)
Having split the land into small units after the war to hand to the peasants they are now .

  “having a big drive to get all farmers , to join co-operatives” and “the final aim is to transform them into enterprises run like industrial enterprises; ”
  “the choice of specialisation will depend on the region, the type of soil or grazing land, and on the traditional farming carried out in a particular part of the country."

Further,

   “Labour productivity must be vastly increased through rationalisation and mechanisation of farm work.”
    “Investments will have to be channelled into the most important projects.”

Note that this is the pattern of agricultural development in the “Western World.” Farmers in the U.K. and U.S.A. specialise; they attempt to raise the productivity of labour (i.e., raise the value of the output of the labourer proportionately more than any percentage increase in wages); they are mechanising and enlarging their holdings.

Why do they do this? Capitalism has only one God—profit, and the aim in farming, as in any other enterprise, is to increase the opportunities for maximising profit. It is no different in East Germany. Commenting on the larger cooperatives the D.G.R. states they

  “now had their own machinery and were trying out new farming methods on their larger fields; their bigger herds of livestock were better housed, could be looked after with proportionately less labour power and were more profitable.” (Our italics.)

In this “desirable Socialist” society there is a “steady drain of young people away from the land and into better paid, more comfortable jobs in industry.”

Who paid them so badly in farming? The state farms? The Cooperative Farmers? Or the 50 per cent. of farmers who are not in cooperatives? In the U.K. we all witness the drain away from the land. In the USA the farm population is falling by nearly a million people every year, It seems that in East Germany, the UK and the USA, workers have the same need—“better paid, more comfortable jobs,” and these are not to be found easily on the land.

The subsidisation of farming in the UK has long been a cause of argument between the reformist political parties. Not for, or against, but how much and in what manner. The Presidential Election in the USA was in part fought over the farm programmes of the major political parties, and as in the past subsidies will be one of the central themes. But in East Germany, of course; “Walter Ulbricht, Chairman of the German Democratic Republic State Council gave some examples of how subsidising would work in the future”;

It is well said that one can know a leopard by its spots. The spots of East German farming—Profit, lowly paid labour, productivity not production, subsidies—place it fair and square with its capitalist counterparts in the U.K. and the U.S.A.

II. Gambling. (Quotes from D.G.R., Vol. XIII, No. 9 1/5/64.)

The article in the D.G.R. was in response to a letter from a Miss M.B. of Birmingham, who asked: “Are there any football pools, betting or gambling in the German Democratic Republic(G.D.R.)?"

The following quotes state briefly the situation;

   “There is quite a lot of betting and gambling in the D.G.R., but no overall figures are available on the sums spent on these pastimes. You can lose your money on the horses at two race courses near Berlin, but the most popular forms of betting are football pools, similar to those in Britain, and various forms of “Lotto” in which you pick your numbers which you hope may come up in a weekly draw. In addition, there is the old fashioned lottery in which you just buy a ticket and hope for the best.”
  “All these various forms of taking a chance are nationally owned or municipally owned and nobody makes a fortune out of betting with the exception of a very few winners who may get pay outs ranging up to about 500,000 marks (about £45,000).”
   “What happens to the winnings? They are not subject to income or/and property tax so long as they remain in the bank and are not re-invested, and they accumulate the usual 3 per cent, interest paid on bank savings."
   “Some (winners) say they must go home and think. . . .”
  “Others say they want to buy a car or a house first. Most winners take out the odd thousands and deposit larger sums. Older people sometimes decide to settle sums on their children or open savings accounts for their grandchildren, and many give quite large sums to various good causes, including the Society for the Protection of Animals.”
 “People very seldom seem to give up their jobs on the spur of the moment and go on the spree, although some cases have come to light. . . .”

These quotes (emphasis ours) are of interest. Much of them could apply with equal validity to Britain.

It is evident that despite the claim that gambling is a “pastime,” many gamblers in East Germany, as in Britain, “hope for the best.” Why? Because “they want to buy a car or a house,” “settle sums on their children,” “go on the spree.” As in Britain they seek release from the struggle within society, the need to seek “better paid, more comfortable jobs". Gambling is widespread in East Germany for the same reason as it is in Britain—it may be a short cut to greater social and economic security.

Note that in Britain also, winnings are not subject to income or property tax, and here the only tax free investment that you can make is the first £15 in the Post Office Savings Bank, where the interest is 2½ per cent., not 3 per cent. as in East Germany.

The most significant thing, however, is that some people in East Germany own more property than others, and there are ways in which this property can be passed on to their heirs. Property owners can invest, and not only in savings accounts. The interest on these investments can be met only out of the unpaid labour time of the workers. Workers are exploited in East Germany just as in Britain, or if we believe their propaganda that all their citizens are workers, some are obviously more “worker” than others!

Gambling occurs in East Germany because workers there, as in Britain, are looking for something more in life, and have the desire to change their social and economic situation. They can do the same thing with their winnings as here, including investing them and thereby exploiting the working class and perhaps sopping their consciences by making a donation to a “good cause.”

Only Socialism will change this. In a Socialist society people will be engaged in useful, fruitful pursuits. The property basis of capitalist society will be gone. There will be no need to gamble, nor will be so monotonous that it will require something like gambling to give it a kick.

The "spots" of East German society look even more like those in Britain. There is only one reason—it suffers from the same disease—capitalism!

Ken Knight

Work under Socialism (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

However man organises society, be it chattel slavery, feudalism, capitalism or Socialism, work is necessary to provide his basic requirements of food, shelter and clothing. How he produces and distributes his requirements determines that society’s attitude to work.

For example the ancient Greeks considered that mechanical work, which was mainly performed by slave labour, made man unfit for the practice of higher, more civilised cultural activities.

Early Protestantism justified and made pre-eminent the conduct and feeling about work necessary for modern capitalist society. Luther thought that work was “the base and key to life".

As capitalism has developed it has been realised that constant work does not maintain the efficiency of the worker— ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'—and so concepts of leisure and recreation have in recent years been much discussed. The use of leisure under capitalism must make the worker fit for the continuation of toil, and so there have been recurring complaints against leisure activities which are considered frivolous or degrading.

It should be noted that leisure in the re-creational sense expends energy, and in that sense is work. The opposite to work, idleness, could not be continued for long for it becomes insufferably boring. Work is necessary to meet mankind’s basic requirements. Also it is necessary to maintain the full health of man’s body, physically and mentally.

One of the objections to Socialism is often framed in terms of man's laziness. Given the opportunity to have his basic needs met, it is argued that man would be lazy or idle.

It should be realised that man must exercise his body, or make it work, in order that various organs and parts—muscle, brain, heart, continue to function efficiently.

Man is essentially a social being, not merely because he enjoys the companionship of his fellows, but out of sheer necessity. This social bond shows at times of great disasters. Without society there could be no man. The reason mankind has gained the control over nature that we know at present is due to his developing social organisation. The various problems throughout his evolution have been met by a changing society. Capitalist society throws up problems which are not soluble in its own terms. Those regarding work are principally: no work unless you can find an employer, alienation from the means of production and the product of labour, debasement of quality, trivialised craftsmanship, and specialisation which results in the worker being an extension of the machine. These are some of the conditions of work that Socialism will remove.

Socialism will be a democratic, classless society. All mankind will stand in the same relationship to the means of production. Production will be organised to meet the needs of society, and science will be used to remove work that the community finds distasteful. All labour will be useful. That is, it will be concerned with the production and distribution of goods and services. Commodity production with its requirement of numerous commercial workers, adding nothing useful to meet mankind’s needs, will be no more. Leisure will be idleness or recreation as the individual desires. There will not be any pressure to conform to any given pattern of work and recreation. Men who are working in their own interests do not have to be driven, coaxed, or cajoled. Work under Socialism will be inspired by the greatest of all incentives— the knowledge that the function required of workers will enable each and every human being to have “according to his needs”.

In Capitalist society life is compartmentalised into Infancy, Training, Work and Retirement. Under Socialism people will endeavour to work their bodies to maintain their maximum efficiency in order to gain the greatest enjoyment from life. When young much of the work process will be educational, but the learning process will not cease at any given age. All people will have the opportunity to further their knowledge, ability and interests whatever their age. There will be no such thing as compulsory retirement.

As people get older they will desire to play a greater and eventually a smaller part in society. This will be demonstrated by greater and later a smaller participation in the productive process.

Work will be a pleasurable activity of free men and women, taken up consciously by them and continued as long as the effort is rewarding. There will be no time wasting as today, for time wasting is a reflection of the fact that there is no satisfaction in the work being done. Under Socialism when work becomes distasteful the worker will seek activities more in line with his need and ability.

Production under Socialism will design and produce goods to meet the needs of man in the best way possible. When the products of labour are the best possible, when production is organised to meet the needs of mankind, when man can demonstrate his interest in constructive work, when the alienating conditions of work experienced under Capitalism are gone—then the social constructiveness of work will have removed the cause of much mental ill-health and work neurosis experienced under Capitalism.

Man will then be free to pursue recreational games and pastimes. The do-it-yourself leisure activities of today—man’s limited opportunity to express himself through work and take pride in his achievement—will be part of the production of goods and services that society will require. This means that man will bring the standards of craftsmanship to production, which can be contrasted with today’s cheap shoddy goods with built-in obsolescence designed to meet the requirements of the market.

The historian and his observations today can tell us much, with considerable detail, about the conditions of work under earlier societies and present day capitalism. We cannot be as specific with regard to work under Socialism, for the problem when looking into the future is that we do not know the scientific and technological tools, instruments and machines that will be available. The means of production will obviously strongly influence the method of organisation. Nevertheless knowing the social conditions it can be said that work will be necessary, that man will gain pleasure from creative work, that the free time he will enjoy will enable him to widen and deepen his interests—all in the knowledge that by co-operative efforts the welfare of all mankind will be furthered.

Man, a social being, will recognise that his first vital need is work.

Ken Knight

Student Unrest (1969)

From the January 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

An LSE student comments on recent unrest there

In America, France, Czechoslovakia, Japan — practically wherever you care to look in the world you can find evidence of student unrest.

The universal nature of student complaint is not surprising in view of the increasingly rapid development of international capitalism which confronts students all over the world with basically the same problems.

But it is not only the student who recognises the situation. As Sir Eric Ashby has said:

The paradigm for a graduate 40 years ago was the conventional man, ready to take responsibility for preserving a set of values which he felt no need to question, deferring to his elders because they were older, not because they were wiser; obedient to principles, constitutions, traditions. That sort of young man cannot cope with the flux of the modem world. The contemporary paradigm is a man educated for insecurity, who can innovate, improvise, solve problems with no precedent. [1]     

This is the core of the student problem. The education system does not provide an adequate preparation for life in the late twentieth century. Students, having no power to change the situation, agitate for representation on various committee and boards to participate in the organisation of education.

Into this pool of unrest others delve, using the dissatisfaction within the colleges to promote causes other than internal re-organisation. The recent developments at the London School of Economics illustrate this point.

General dissatisfaction at the LSE led to the appointment of a Committee on the Machinery of Government of the School in March 1967. In July 1967 five students joined the Committee. No action resulted from the two reports which emanated and in consequence student unrest and agitation continued, to obtain greater student participation in the government of the LSE. Now any group within the school seeking support has only to tie its action with the fight for internal democracy to obtain considerable backing.

The occupation of the LSE over the week end of 24-27 October aimed to support the pro-NLF march and demonstration of 27 October by providing opportunity for discussion and as a first aid base. The student organisers were under some pressure to connect occupation with Vietnam. Their answer fully substantiates the argument above about how to win support.

  If the Director's position is accepted, free speech, free assembly, and staff-student control of their community go right out of the window. We cannot accept this.
 A few days ago the student left was accused of being unable to make the connection between Vietnam and the occupation. By now, it is clear to all that the Director has drawn the connection for us. [2]

In fact the conflict in Vietnam is between rival capitalist groups for control of an area which is strategically important and of potentially economic significance as a source of production and a market for commodities. Not one drop of working class blood should be shed for either side.

The conflict in the colleges and universities is a totally different situation. Forty years ago the graduate was largely recruited from the capitalist class and could easily accept the situation outlined by Sir Eric Ashby. To-day in Britain the majority of graduates are working class. For many students, of all shades of political opinion, education is totally unrelated to their needs. The student left, for example, complains of the limitation of discussion within the classroom and lecture hall of the major issues of the day. [3] It recognises that the governors of the colleges are people with industrial, commercial and political interest in maintaining society as it is. [2] It shouts for student and workers control. [4] The occupation is seen in the light of a factory take-over. It merely needs time to gain strength and such take-overs will cease to be temporary and become permanent.

History has shown us the fallacy of this argument and action. In the political sense the police are the muscles of the government, When workers heads are cracked by truncheons it is the echo of their vote for the continuation of capitalism. Any occupation of college or factory will be permitted grudgingly as long as it is not destructive or restrictive of other capitalist activities. If removal of the occupiers becomes necessary to the capitalist class, and dividing the workers by offers such as differential wage awards is not possible, then workers, including students, will be ejected by force. The muscle men, that is the police and if necessary the armed forces, will physically evict occupiers on government orders.

The majority of students fail to recognise that the class division of society is reflected in the class organisation of education. It cannot be otherwise in capitalist society. No society educates for its own destruction. Capitalist education can only aim to promote its own development—to produce managers, scientists, technologists, skilled and unskilled workers who are complacent and pliable. Capitalist education cannot be critical of the wage-labour and capital relationship. It must concern itself with the preservation of private property and the promotion of commodity production, the basis of capitalist society.

If students want full and free participation in education it can only be obtained in one way: by removing the class basis of society and establishing Socialism. But they must recognise that Socialism cannot be established piecemeal by isolated attacks, which never succeed, on aspects of capitalism; or by occupying colleges and factories. Demonstrations against war or for lower rents or the occupation of buildings, do not advance the spread of socialist knowledge one iota. In fact they confuse the issue by suggesting that there are solutions within capitalism to its own endemic diseases. War, Want, and Insecurity in all their facets.

Ken Knight

 

Notes

[1] L.S.E. Magazine No. 35, June 1968, quoting The Illustrated London News 16.3.68.

[2] L.S.E. Ad-Hoc Occupation Committee leaflet: OCCUPATION: THE BROADER ISSUES 25.10.68.

[3] L.S.E. Ad-Hoc Committee for Occupation leaflet: THE OCCUPATION - WHY? about 23 or 24.10.68.

[4] L.S.E. Socialist Society leaflet: WHERE NOW FOR THE STUDENT MOVEMENT? about 28 or 29.10.68.

A Chinese Bolshevik (1968)

Book Review from the May 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Li Ta-Chao and the origins of Chinese Marxism by Maurice Meisner (OUP. 40s.)

The dust cover of this work claims importance for Li Ta-Chao “as a Chinese interpreter of Marxist theory”. A co-founder of the Chinese Communist Party and a principal leader until his arrest and execution in 1927, it is claimed he was the first to “adapt Marxism to the Chinese historical environment".

This is a scholarly work, of great interest to Socialists, in which three points are apparent. First, that the author’s understanding of Marxism is better than was Li Ta-Chao’s. Second, that the author considers present day China to be communist by Marxian standards. And third, an admirable development of the life and thought of Li Ta-Chao which demonstrates quite conclusively that he never understood or accepted the three basic tenets of Marxism—the Materialist Conception of History, the Theory of the Class Struggle, and the Labour Theory of Value.

Apparently Li “expressed ‘great regret’ that Marxism had been erected on so shaky a foundation as the Labour Theory of Value”. “In Li Ta-Chao’s hands” says Meisner “the theory of the class struggle tended to break away almost completely from its socio-economic moorings and to become almost wholly centred upon the element of consciousness”. In fact Li developed the class struggle into the concept of the “proletarian nation” to fit with his lifelong patriotic sentiments, a far cry from Marx’s “the workers have no country”. Li’s views of history were so un-Marxian as not to consider that only at certain crucial times social and political conditions make revolution possible. To the contrary, he held that conscious human action could shape historical reality in a series of equally significant “nows”. This belief leads him to the point where he could clear by bold leaps, eventually through peasant uprisings, the obstacles offered by successive phases of China’s development, to the point where Socialism would be achieved without passing through a capitalist phase.

It might appear that this work is in the general run of biographies of Leninist leaders. Whilst this is true with regard to the vaccillations of Li Ta-Chao’s life and thought it nevertheless has certain redeeming features, not the least of which are the explanation of the vaccillations, and the reasons, so much in the ‘communist’ mould, for the adulteration of Marxist theories. Further, there are one or two admirable precis of Marx’s position, and the explanation of these vaccillations, and nature of the Materialist Conception of History.

However, this work does raise an important question—the definition of a Marxist. Meisner intimates the answer when referring to Lenin’s concepts of party organisation and the principle of ‘democratic centralism’ as having “no organic relationship to the Marxist tradition and could exist quite independently of Marxist premises". Li Ta-Chao, like other Leninist leaders, acted and thought in line with non-Marxist premises, as conditions in Russia and China substantiate. A better title might therefore have been: Li Ta-Chao and the origins of Chinese Bolshevism— and may we hope a future title from Meisner’s pen may be: Ch’en Tu-hsui (Li's rival for the leadership of Chinese CP), a Chinese Menshevik.

Ken Knight